Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE ( Exit Music, For A Film )
CHA JAEHWA, DESPITE having known Ahn Suho the longest, does not get to be the bearer of bad news.
She is no anchor, no solace for a fragmented heart, no shoulder to cry on. She is not the first to know, nor is she the second.
Among those who knew Ahn Suho, Cha Jaehwa is the last to find him in that hospital bed.
She is the last to trace the wires of his undoing with her fragile fingers, gingerly, as though every line was a piece of Suho's torn strings. She is the last to bring flowers to his bedside, the last to brush strands of his hair away from his cemented eyes. Cha Jaehwa is the last person to hold Ahn Suho amidst his slumber, chained to the hospital walls like a prisoner.
She is the last; And yet, she is the first to break. Young-yi's anguish is silent. She weeps softly, burying her face in her hands, hiding herself away to avoid being perceived and pitied. Her grief is tangible, subdued only barely by Jaehwa's presence. Young-yi doesn't have to say anything through her tears for Jaehwa to understand the linings of her torment fester beyond the cold interior of the hospital room.
Yeon Si-eun is the anchor. His bitten lip quivers and bleeds when faced with the once-grand Ahn Suho, but he turns away and recollects himself. He tucks away his lament in the folds of his bleary eyes, but holds steadfast to the strap of his backpack as though it'll do him any good. Jaehwa's presence means nothing at that moment, and so she shifts away from him, a growing rift against the waves he emits.
Jaehwa, for all the lack of memories and all the grey and coffee-stained film stuck in the projector of her brain, is inexplicably devastated.
( What gives her the right? )
Her voice marrs the hallways of the hospital, guttural and agonizing, like a wounded animal begging to be put out of its misery. It echoes and fades into the cold tile floors before she can even step into the room, too afraid to see what lay beyond.
Every inch of space surrounding her reeks of an ill-fated home. A place where Cha Jaehwa seemingly gained a second life, and the very same place she would lose it.
Ahn Suho is untainted. If she steps in, she knows she will ruin him all over again. She will seep into the jagged lines of his knee and dig the shattered pieces deeper. She will claw open his appendages and sleep inside the cavity of his heart. Her soul will mingle against his, and they will only become a disgustingly disfigured thing amidst the beauty of their separation.
She is a pollutant, excavating the healthy soil of Ahn Suho's slumbering body.
Cha Jaehwa cannot hold Ahn Suho by the frayed strands of his strings. They are too thin to salvage. Jaehwa is too weak to hold on.
