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CHAPTER TWENTY THREE ( Fake Plastic Trees )
TWO CHAIRS EMPTY, party streamers falling delicately onto the tiled floor, Ahn Suho blows out the candles to his birthday cake and wishes for an explanation for the desolate feeling thundering in his chest.
Jaehwa claps softly, the only presence that remains in the room apart from Suho's, but her eyes are filled with an emotion he cannot register as 'glee'. They dance against the spot where both Young-yi and Si-eun once stood, as though replaying the moment they walked out of the doors, both with questions left unanswered and guilt sifting in their stomachs.
His lips part softly, but then close upon the expression that flashes through Jaehwa's face.
( It's that same look. The one he gives her when she doesn't want to remember, or when she simply cannot recall those dear memories that once entwined their souls ).
"I'll take you back home." He murmurs instead when the cake has been cut up into pieces and Jaehwa's sits practically untouched, the fork neatly poking above the frosting.
The clock ticks dully in Suho's pocket, and he anxiously checks the time once more before deciding that Si-eun and Young-ti won't be coming back.
Jaehwa gives him a look; He knows it well, that furrow to her brow and that sag of her lower lip when she's focusing so hard on keeping herself together. Suho turns around, and he grows even more confused.
( By making Jaehwa the outsider to a world of violence, wanting to be her shield even though he was old and rusty, did he unknowingly push her into ruin instead? )
"Okay." She says quietly. Her jaws are wired shut, held together by the lack of memories that bind her to a past she has yet to experience. Suho is her only link to her true self, and she is adamant about not letting him out of her grasp.
Together, they exit the party room with their boxes of uneaten food, grown cold from the time spent waiting on a return that they would never get. Suho's bike waits for him in the parking lot, and Jaehwa gazes down at the scratched helmet that hangs against the handlebars.
She stands there for a moment in the silence, her lips pressed into a thin line. Suho hauls all the leftover food into his delivery bin and shuts the lid, only to find Jaehwa still standing in the same spot.
He doesn't say anything; Words fail him, like they always seem to when it comes to offering comfort. A fighter needs only his fists.
( Ahn Suho now has neither ).
A tumult of emotions clouds his throat, and he clears it as he grabs the helmet, taking the familiar coolness in. He slips the helmet onto Jaehwa's face, and she finally looks up at him.
