What's left of you | Minsung ✔️

11.5

* This is a scrapped chapter from the previous version, that I like too much to discard entirely. The POV shifts and gives extra knowledge that the main characters don't have. 

* Enjoy anyways ^^ 

* 1689 words

11.5

Back outside, Rambo-cop eyed his partner with an incredulous look. "You see, this is exactly why no one likes you. I couldn't care less about you being an ass to me in private, but this is work, for heaven's sake! Those are teenagers, show some empathy."

Notepad-cop scoffed, finding his partner's speech less-than-rousing. "If that boy can't handle any feedback, why should I-"

"Shut up! One more comment about anything unrelated to our investigation, and I'll have you written up. Consider this as your only warning." He snatched the notepad from the other's hand, flipping through the pages. "We have to be careful, keep our eyes peeled. Now let's try to get something out of the camp's staff."

After ten years of being in active duty, Rambo-cop had developed a sixth sense when it came to gathering information. This boy, Han Jisung, knew something. He had that certain micro-expression of a brainwave when something that had been buried deep suddenly resurfaced. Han Jisung knew something, but he himself didn't know that he knew.

At least not yet.

｡⋆｡˚ ʚɞ ˚｡⋆｡

Hands were clenched into fists. Knuckles, sharp as razors, dug into her hips; a desperate attempt to suppress the scream that was bubbling in her throat.

They know, they know, they know.

Uncontrolled thoughts were bouncing off the walls of her brain, threatening to break the bone, squeeze through the cracks, and whiz outside with the sole purpose of giving away where she was hiding.

Sumi was pacing around her small bedroom, her feet leaving imprints in the carpeted floor. Her fingernails dug deep into the skin, they drew blood, leaving crescent shaped wounds behind.

The room was filled with hazy white wisps of cigarette smoke, lazily drifting from side to side, catching glittering lint in the early sunlight. They swirled apart when Pyong Sumi stumbled towards her desk, taking a deep drag from the half-burned cigarette, her hands were shaking, unable to keep them still. Her lungs spasmed.

Lately, she hasn't been feeling like herself. How such a small, insignificant, mistake could derail her life- one moment she was fine, and the next she wasn't. You're a disappointment, the voice inside her head scolded. Like shock frosted daggers that scraped against her eardrums, then pierced the tender tissue, sending high-pitched screeches through her skull – and Sumi slumped to the floor. She pulled her knees tightly to her chest, and sobbed like a nine-year-old girl.

Useless!
Fat!
Shame for the family!
You can't live on 'dreams'!

Sumi pressed her hands over her ears, desperately trying to block out the noise. The noise, the endless noise. The piercing cold tone of her mother's voice, the very last thing she heard before she hopped onto the train. Only the sound and the throbbing ache in her ears that came with it.

The train headed for Chuncheon. Towards her dream job. Teaching and guiding young people, who were on the brink of descending into the criminal underworld. Guiding them from darkness to light.

Sumi's life hasn't been a rose petal covered path, it's been tiring, frustrating, and so lonely. But acting the part of a trustworthy and stable adult – surely Sumi had it in her. Sumi was empathetic. Sumi was self-reflective. Sumi wanted to do better.