𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐨 || 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐬𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐰𝐚.

ii.

i hate you, i hate you, i hate you,
but i was just kidding myself

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

"hwa, when are you going to stop this?!" she cried to him one night. it was supposed to be their one year anniversary of being together and she had hoped that he would be at least sober enough to spend the night out with her. the past few months had been a roller coaster ride for her.

he was nothing but the sweetest when they first got together. but eight months into their relationship, he started frequently getting drunk and turning to drugs. she didn't know what happened to him but she knew this wasn't the guy she had fallen in love with a year ago.

"what are you talking about, babe?" he slurred, eyes droopy. she scoffed in disbelief, already feeling tears prick her eyes. "this! you promised me you wouldn't come to our date tonight drunk or high!" she screams in the middle of the sidewalk, a few passersby glancing over for a split second.

"babe, stop screaming you're attracting unnecessary attention." he grabs her wrist, trying to get her to continue to walk. he staggers a few meters ahead with her wrist in hand, before she roughly shakes her hand out of his grasp.

"you're the one doing that! you can't even walk properly because you're too high to do that! we were kicked out of the restaurant a while ago because of you! you were making a scene and now you tell me i'm the one attracting attention?!" she cried out in frustration.

"tonight was supposed to be a special night! i had a great night planned because you didn't bother to do the planning. the least you could've done was show up sober. and you couldn't even do that." she chucked bitterly, blinking away angry tears.

"i'm going home. don't follow me. talk to me only when you're back in your right state of mind." she stated before turning around and walking away from him. he was left stunned and in shock, in the middle of the sidewalk with a few people watching him in pity.

-

"i don't know what happened to him, yunho. he's changed so much, i don't even know if the seonghwa i fell for is still in there somewhere. i don't know how much longer i can take this." she rants to her friend—who happens to also be seonghwa's best friend—that night.

she couldn't take it anymore. she's kept her feelings to herself ever since he changed for the worst and it was time she let it out to someone who knew seonghwa as much as she does.

"i'm tired of seeing him drunk every time i see him! i want the old seonghwa back, is that too much to ask?" she breaks down and yunho feels his heart clench at the sounds of her cry at the end of the line.

he, too, had noticed the change in his best friend and it was nothing other than heart breaking. he knew something was up but he didn't really know what exactly it was. all seonghwa had told him was "everything's just stressful right now." and that was the last he'd seen the older not intoxicated or stoned.

"hey, hey, calm down. i'm pretty sure hwa has a reason behind this. before this, he wasn't really the type to turn to drugs and alcohol as a mode of stress relief so what if he's dealing with something really big right now?" he spoke into the phone softly, listening out for signs of her calming down.

"but we're the closest people he has! if he's dealing with something right now, why can't he just tell us? we'd for sure be able to help him! do we not matter to him anymore?" she whispered the last part, voice breaking as more tears trickled down her face. "i hate him, yunho. i hate him so much. i hate him for not knowing how much he's hurting me."

but she couldn't hate him. no matter how much he messed up, she couldn't find herself actually hating him. she wanted to hate him so it would take away the pain he's causing her but nothing could help. she loved him too much and no amount of pain he causes her would ever change that. that's just how she was. and she hated it.

"and i hate myself for still loving him when he probably doesn't even love me anymore."

and once again that night, she breaks out into sobs. "hey, don't say that. i'm sure he still loves you. we'll just wait for him to find time to tell us everything, yeah? for now, we'll just leave him be. give him all the time in the world that he needs."

but seonghwa didn't have that much time.

and she, too, didn't want to wait anymore. she was already in the process of letting him go. the million times she'd tried to snap him out of it only falling on deaf ears. if he was going to waste away his life like that, then she was done trying.

she was done trying to get him to stop his nonsense and destroying his own body. if he didn't care that his actions were hurting the people around him, she was really done trying.