DANGER // YOONMIN

12

"so what are we talking about today?" i questioned as we gently swung in the breeze, with kids chaotically running across the field.

"Taehyung."

you looked up at the sky, blinking your eyes rapidly, as you stopped swinging.

"Taehyung, was interesting.

he always had something to say,

he always had the funniest ideas,

and for that I did love him.

but not in the way he wanted.

it took him two years to fall in love with me.

I was sixteen when I first met him, he had this wild red hair, and that's what made me go up and introduce myself to him.

we were inseparable, and I believe that maybe for a moment he made me feel sane.

now this story, it's a sad one.

he found me at the playground,

that was the first time I had ever gone there to watch the kids.

he said he thought it was creepy, the way my eyes would just flick back and forth between children.

and you know what I said?

'you don't understand'

and I truly don't think he would have, but he insisted upon me telling him why I would do it, much like you do.

he told me I was going to turn into a pedophile, and although he was joking,

his words sent a sharp pain through my chest because I wondered if there was this hidden part of me that had the capability of becoming something so despicable.

it haunted me for a while, that maybe there was a shred of truth in what he said.

everyday he would apologize for saying that because I guess he noticed a change in my demeanor,

that's when I went through the phase of not talking.

I had driven him off by not talking, and he tried, oh he tried so hard to get me to talk, smile, anything.

but I was so stubborn,

and then one day I just went back to normal,

that was the day he decided to not come back, so I went to his house and I told him everything about me, why I am how I am.

and he stayed with me another year, but I fear he may have fallen in love with me out of pity, for the boy who just wasn't quite right in the head.

so I just got up and left, I left the town, for a few weeks before my parents had found me and decided they needed to do something about their little strange son."

i looked at you quizzically, because no matter how hard I tried to wrap my brain around it, I didn't see where this was going.

I couldn't see how this would remotely relate to any of the lies that you had told me in the short amount of time I had known you.

"I guess that's why I lie,

for the time that I wouldn't talk,

I took being able to express myself for granted, I thought it would be so easy without talking, but it isn't.

but when I started talking again,

I couldn't help myself from lying, it felt so good, and the reactions people would have, well, they were interesting to me.

and I guess this all correlates to my love for playing games with people, because when you lie, you can get anyone to do anything for you."

i rested my head on the chain of the swing as I thought about what you had said, it all was starting to make sense, but I could tell that there were going to be many more visits to the playground while watching children, and listening to what seemed to more like your story than lies that you had told me.