Mirror

L o s t

|| e d i t e d ||

"I am so confused. Don't you leave me alone. I still want to believe even though it's unbelievable. To lose your path is the way to find that path" ~ BTS, Lost

잃어버린

L o s t

~ Jae-hyun ~

NO ONE IN SEOUL IS EVER ALONE.

There are too many people, the city too full. The streets are always bustling, constant waves of bodies surging between the lines of businesses and high rise apartments. Not to mention the undying flow of traffic. As I stand at the crossing - the place where some of the most important moments in my life seem to occur - I find this to be painfully true.

I feel alone. Half of me - the only half that really matters - has chosen to walk away, and without that half, I watch in silence as the world slowly drains away before me.

However, despite the prevailing hollowness settling within me and around my shoulder like a too-heavy cloak, I'm not alone. I can't be. Not here. Voices stab at my brain, obnoxiously loud and spewing awful, awful things, and the aggressive beeping of car horns followed by the hasty squeal of tires on tarmac blares all around me, the typical city life suddenly overbearing. Colour, light, and noise are either deafening or entirely faded from existence. I can't make sense of them. I can't make sense of anything.

The red, yellow, and green of traffic lights, the gentle golden glow of street lamps, the rich mahogany of a woman's hair, and the bland grey of Seoul's urban landscape all drip from their places like wet paint. I watch them effortlessly flood the gutter, seeping away down a storm drain next to my feet. They lap hungrily at the kerb, splattering my unshod feet with splotches of vibrant colour. I blink once, twice, three times, and the crossing has returned to normal. Seoul's man-made rainbow intact and visible in the blinking of the city lights.

What is even real anymore?

I turn to the shadowy figure at my side. Composed of a head of short, black hair cut close to the scalp, the mandatory bulky uniform of the South Korean military, and a familiar, tight lipped smile, the image of the man comes to me in flashes in the dark. He is Ji-han, back from realising that enlisting was a mistake. But at the same time, he's not. The real Ji-han would never regret a decision he chose to make for himself, regardless of the consequences.

"Ji," I murmur, reaching for his hand. It's cold and limp, entirely unresponsive when I thread my fingers through the gaps between his own. Like holding the hand of a corpse, there is no warmth or familiarity. In fact, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because he can't really be here, can he?

Although, I'm sure he was the one to dress my fresh wounds after my latest daze. I regained consciousness on the shower floor this time, a shard of reflective glass from when I broke the mirror slicing into the palm of my hand and absolutely no memory of how I got there. I can't have been out long because the water beating down on me was searing hot, stinging worse than having a hundred needles forced into my fresh, crimson weeping cut. Having only occurred earlier this evening, the evidence remains in the form of an off-white bandage wrapped tightly around my hand - a bandage that I'm sure Ji-han put there.

"Did you do this?" I hold my injured hand up a little for him to see. In the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the corners of his mouth stretching upwards into an unpleasant smirk. It looks out of place on his features, but with everything he's been forced to endure over the years because of me, the broken cruelty in his expression is no surprise to me.

Of course, I did. Who else is going to do it for you?

My teeth clamp down on the flesh of the inside of my cheek and I squeeze my eyes shut. My shoulders slump forward even more than they already do naturally, and suddenly the pain from the gash on my palm is humming beneath my skin everywhere.

Though it should be, it's not his words that I hate. It's the truth behind them. They hurt because I know that real or not, he is right. Without Ji-han, who else is going to bandage my wounds and keep the world's colours from leeching away?

Who else will keep reality from abandoning me completely?

The body by my side vanishes. I can see him shatter into a thousand pieces, reflecting a little of the crossing and it's swarm of stragglers - some of whom are wanderers like me. Lost to the night and Seoul's liveliness that remains after dark - in scattered fragments. I know the hand I was holding is no longer there, but it doesn't feel any different to before. It's as though my brother was never there at all. Maybe he wasn't. I don't know. I can't know. But with the question of him being a hallucination or not, I have my answer to the previous one.

No one else will keep reality from abandoning me.

Absolutely no one.