APRICITY | SKZ

17 - Summertime Madness pt.1 | S.CB

Today shall be marked as the day I lost everything.
The destruction around me swallowed me and put me in a place of darkness as my eyes wandered around.

The pungent smell of burning corpses and soot in the flames, the immense heat licking at exposed stripes of my skin. I couldn't even mind the harsh scraping when I fell to my knees. The pain of tearing skin and exposed flesh was nothing in comparison to the sight in my arms as I weaky sobbed into her chest.

It was the day I lost everything because I was consumed by the dire need for revenge, to give back my peers what they had given me. The pain, the suffering, the madness.

I knew it wasn't worth it all anymore when I pulled away, the pale, ashen skin and dull eyes looking at me, taunting me for what I had done.
I lost everything and it was my fault.

She always told me to stop, to seek another route. But my thirst for blood was unquenchable, or so I always believed.

Death would've been nothing more but a reward for me. But if there was one thing I wasn't worthy of, then it was that. I didn't deserve kindness like that.

So I let it happen.
I let it happen when the hero hit me with full force, sending my flying figure away from her corpse.

I screamed, I begged and I cried as her body left my sight.

"No, please!"

I reached out with both my hands for her, but I couldn't grasp nothing but mere air as I was removed from the memory that she was.

I was tired of being a villain.
My days of work and dedication have ended.

That was when I met you.
Your unrelenting, hateful eyes as you stared at me like the monster I was.

There wasn't a nametag to tell me what your acquaintances called you, so I figured you must have been new. New to this environment, still so innocent. Where my body had been tainted already, yours was still clean.

The bars seperating us did nothing to shield me from your harsh and resentful behaviour. Every word that left your mouth in the form of an insult, every glance that harboured nothing but utter disgust, it all slithered right through the gates of the heavy metal bars and landed a punch in my gut.

"Criminal scum." I once heard you say below you breath when I accidentally met your eyes. It was an accident, I never intendet to, but it still ended up happening.

I spent not most, but all of my days in silence, for I had no one to talk to anymore. There was no point anyway. My only purpose in this world, from now on, was to be made fun of for my failure. The villain who never succeeded, whose days of terror have ended. Locked behind the bars for good.

I never minded, I was too tired of being evil anyways. So I let it happen when other prisoners beat me up or crowded me, when they humiliated me and used me. I let it all happen and saw it as my punishment, it was what I truly deserved.

But then, one initally unimportant day, as they were pushing me against the wall, your voice suddenly boomed through the room like a lion's in it's territory.

"Stop that!"

I watched, breath hitching and sliding down weakly as you pushed away the culprits and forced them back to their cells. The ferocity in your eyes was unmatched, like something I had never seen before.

What intrigued me the most, though, was the fact that your hatred and hostility weren't directed towards me. Even if it was very faint, like a slip of silver in a big, grey pattern, I saw your eyes soften when you looked at me.

How could you look at me when before all of this, I had been the epitome of evil.

"Stand up."
You ordered firmly, but your voice wasn't harsh.

"Go back into your cell."
You didn't shove me, but silently trailed after me.

You touched something within me I thought I lost a long time ago. On the day I killed my only sister left, the person who was keeping me sane. After all these months, buried deep within the rusty walls of this prison, I felt something move.

For the first time after long, I believed I had a heart that was pumping my body with something foreign.

Surely, maybe I still deserved something good, if you, the person who always seemed to loathe me the most of all of them, could show me kindness. I knew you loathed me the most out of all of them, because you were too disgusted to ever touch me. I knew you loathed me the most, because you showed me in a way that actually impacted me.

"Clean up."
Your voice shook me from my train of thought and I watched as you dropped something through the bars. The sound of rustling paper and carton intrigued me enough the reach forward and, with much awe, grab the medical supplies to treat minor wounds.

I thanked you.
I thanked you and watched something akin to surprise wash over your face, for I had never spoken to you before. In fact, it was the first time I've spoken ever since my imprisonment, so the words did come out rather roughly.

"Don't thank me."
You hissed.
"I have better things to do than look after you. Stay out of trouble and let me fulfill my duty in peace."

I nodded silently, working on my wounds and sighing at the pain. I was used to worse, I did suffer worse during my times when I was still freely thriving as a villain after all. But I still appreciated the little, single painkiller that accompanied the other materials.

I swallowed it, leaning back and letting it do its thing.
A slow exhale escaped my lips, because for the first time since I've opened my eyes to the world, I wasn't in physical pain.

Through the darkness of the night, I stayed awake and peered out of bars to keep me entertained. This feeling was foreign and I wanted to consciously bask in it for as long as possible.

It was around the time you would take your last lap, your last trip infront of my cell, before you went home and into the safe confines of your own bed.

When you passed, I immediately noticed the brief reflection of light on your chest, a shimmering light blue. What caught my attention were the black, bold letters on the badge that was newly adorned on your chest.

It was the day I finally found out what your name was, Seo Changbin.

_ _ _
tbc

23.09.2024; 1147 words