the devil skates on thin ice ∙ myg ✓

11 ↝ the offer

Emptiness. That is all you can feel. A harrowing openness within your chest that no amount of binge-watching Naruto, nor indulging in comfort food, can fill.

It has been a week since Yoongi took to you like a spoon at a watermelon. With nothing more than his bloodied fist and his selective words, he carved into your innards with no particular method; scraped you clean of your sweetness until nothing but your bitter crust remained. And while you were the one who initially cocked the rifle and aimed it as his chest on his doorstep, he was the one who snatched it from your fumbling fingers, turned it on your heart, and fired the killing blow.

The worst part is that everyone knows. They know Yoongi's fist is the one that made Yugyeom's cheek swell and colour like a bruised banana skin. They know it was because of the photo—because of you—that Yoongi made a balancing act out of his captaincy and his position on the team as a whole.

And for what? You know Yoongi pleaded that it was for your own protection. But what right does he have to your defence when he reels you in with the bait of his fond words and melancholic eyes, just to press his mouth to that of another girl? He claims he desires your signature on this contract of forgiving him—of being something him again. But was there something that you missed in the fine-print about polyamory? Or is he simply bending the rules as he pleases because he believes that this is just another thing that you owe him? This is your burden to bear for making the keys to all of the locks surrounding his exoneration too difficult to find?

If there were no blade currently driven through your heart, you would laugh at how ridiculous the oblivious fool looks, grovelling at your feet with his mouthful of apologies when the forgiveness he desires will not come in the shape of words. Those keys are not in the hands of begging at every chance he gets. No, instead, they are a jacket on your shoulders when the icy evening swipes at your bones; a hand on your elbow to guide you away from the eyes of judgement.

The thing is, preaching apologies becomes like the repetitive tick of a clock after so long. It dissolves into purposeless background noise. The faith of them wanes with every new confession. Yoongi may plate the phrase I'm sorry in gold when it comes to hearing it from you, but when is he going to realise—after five years of spouting such an expression of regret—that, to you, actions are worth diamonds and clemency? That words said more than once reduce their worth, like a coin losing its shine with every new touch?

After that teeth-baring performance last Monday, you have no hope for that cognisance being any time soon.

Thus, it is with your own acceptance of Yoongi remaining to be tangled in the roots of his foolery that you, after your week of lamenting, decide to ignore your gaping interior and move on. You have done it once before with fine finesse, and you can do it again. Besides, you have more urgent matters to tend to than tracing the heart-shaped hole in your chest, wondering why the universe devised such a tragedy to occur all those years ago in the first place.

You are still going to use it as an excuse to mow your way through the two Snickers you purchased on your way to the stadium, though.

Candy bars in hand, you enter the arena 10 minutes early for your scheduled training session. The cool air immediately hunts beneath your parka for flesh to tickle, and you head down to the front row seating with the vibrations of Halo by Beyonce tingling the soles of your feet. Skating the circumference of the rink in a cool-down is Park Sojin, your Olympic silver medal senior. She gives you an exhausted thumbs-up when she passes by you dumping your belongings on a plastic seat, and you send her a half-hearted wave in return. As you plonk down on the chair next to your mess, you see Sojin's coach, Lee Hyori, fiddling through her phone on the opposite side of the rink. But by the time that you are fishing your skates out of your bag and you have taken a decent chomp from your chocolate bar, the music has been switched off and the pair are in the process of departing.