Mellifluous | JJK

Chapter 2

BREAK

The viridescent leaves smeared into the blurry world that was suffocating me, stealing the breath from my lungs, pounding into my chest leaving invisible bruises in its wake. A familiar dull ache in my throat arose as I tilted my head back to keep the tears from staining my face. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to take a step, then another, and another, until all that was left was pounding of my feet against the pale pavement, my eyes drifted shut as the world around me crashed into oblivion.

I've never quite learned how to cry with grace, with a delicate frown and pearl-like tears falling from large, luminous eyes. When I cry it's more like someone smashing a tomato, red, gross, and very messy.

I bit my bottom lip to suppress the explosive sobs overtaking my body.

Then I had a moment of epiphany.

To hell with it, I don't have to suppress anything, I deserve to be able to cry, I'm the one who's hurt, I'm the one who's the one being betrayed. Why should I have to be strong? I don't need to be pretty, I don't need a comforting shoulder, I don't need anyone.

Brick by brick my walls tumbled down, the drizzle in my eyes turning into the swirls of black and gray of hurricanes. Sobs shattered me with the force of a bullet, breaking through my muscles, guts, and bones. I sank into the ground my fingers pressing into the rough ground, my head dropping into the grimy cement, feeling my heart getting yanked out then sucked back in with the force of a black hole. Over and over. In and out. I was hollow, empty, just a mass of blood and skin taking up space.

Still, no matter how many times I said I didn't need anyone, I know I'm not telling the truth. I wanted someone to reach my hollowness, someone to comfort me. I thought I hit the jackpot and found two wondrous people to stick with me, through the pain and hurt, not abandon me or betray me.

I was wrong.

I think that's the worst part. I gave all myself to them, all my hurt, all my laughter, all my love. Now I have nothing, just a black vacancy.

When the tears slowed and my hiccups died down, I realized how pathetic I was being. I was slumped in an empty alleyway between 7-eleven and a Korean barbecue restaurant, crying my eyes out because my two only "friends" betrayed me. Big shit, the two people I trusted most in the world hurt me, there will always be more people. I have my whole life ahead of me, I have my scholarship to Seoul Institute of Performing Arts next year. I'll write an amazing play and forget all about it. You know what, this is great material to work with, everything will be fine.

I swiped at the tears with the back of my hand, as a dark chuckle tore through me. I wondered how long it would take to forget this time, a month, a year, hell a decade. I stood up, stumbling a bit from the loss of water that came with my ugly crying session.

My eyes fluttered shut against the spinning world. The scene of Haneul and Soo ji flashed through my mind's eye, arms interlocked, giggling, leaving me. My eyes snap open and I walked out the alleyway, ignoring the gray spots dotting my vision. My eyes caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked awful.

My amber eyes were red and puffy, like I opened my eyes in thick smoke, the rest of my face looked like a giant pink marshmallow. The only part of me that still looked intact was my the two sleek, jet black braids hanging at my waist. I remember Haneul saying that his ideal type was girls with long hair, so every night I would run coconut oil through my hair until it grew down to my hips. It took me two years to grow it out this long, I wasted two years to appease a man who didn't give a shit about me.

Yanking the ties out of my hair and shaking my braids out. I stared at the waterfall of dark tresses framing my face. I dealt with the hours it took to wait for my hair to dry, for me to brush my hair to glossy perfection, the constant weight of it pulling on my scalp.