Invasion

Chapter 2: Consequences

Tuesday

    Sunrise was a golden glow on damp sidewalks and the sides of buildings, a pretty picture that I couldn't appreciate. I was leaning weakly against the stone wall that surrounded the Golden Mountain Academy campus, breathing in short gasps, fighting off dizziness. I swallowed convulsively, pushing down a wave of nausea. Kim NamJoon hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that he'd taken too much of my blood. I was a fucking mess. I probably should have been in a hospital getting a blood transfusion.
    I dug around in the plastic bag that I was carrying and pulled out a triangle kimbap, fumbling to open it with shaky fingers. I'd splurged at the local convenience store, buying more ramen, three triangle kimbaps, a handful of beef sticks and a sugar-rich soda. But the walk to the store and back was taking its toll. The school gates were still half a block away and I'd have to make my way all the way back to the boys dorm once I was on campus.
    I sank down onto the sidewalk in defeat, curling my body into the smallest ball possible, trying to disappear into the wall as I took a bite of the kimbap. Tears were slowly seeping from my eyes, sobs crowding my throat as I focused on chewing the food in my mouth, swallowing it down, getting it into my system so that my body could replenish the blood that I had lost. I was too weak to hold back the tears, too ill to cope. The barricades that I had built to protect myself, to keep my emotions hidden and contained had been obliterated.
    My bowels rolled and rumbled and I couldn't stop a helpless mewl from escaping my lips. 'Not now. Not here," I thought. I'd had the runs for half the night, only doing a little research and learning that I should have somehow cleaned NamJoon's jizz out of my ass when it was too late. Now I was too far from a bathroom, too weak to run to the nearest school building and the businesses across the street weren't open this early in the morning.
    I pushed the rest of the triangle kimbap back into the bag and forced myself to my feet, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, praying that I wouldn't shit my pants. A few cars drove past and I turned my head away, hoping they weren't looking at me, that they couldn't see there was something terribly with me. I brushed my sleeve over my face, swiping at the tears that wouldn't stop, scrubbing at the tracks they'd left on my cheeks. Walk and breathe, walk and breathe, hold everything in, the tears and the shit and the memories that attacked over and over and over again. Hold it all in and get through to the next moment and then the next.

    I made it, not to a building and a bathroom, but to a bush on the school's front lawn. Hiding in the shadows between it and the tall stone wall, I released the contents of my colon. Disgusted, humiliated, sick and so, so weak, my stomach turned and I gagged as diarrhea splattered to the ground between my feet. I fought back against the urge to vomit even as my body spasmed with illness. I couldn't lose the few bites of food that I'd just put into my stomach. Food was always precious to me, but now it was essential. I wouldn't get better if I started throwing up. I'd get worse, I'd end up having to go to the doctor and get an I.V. or something. I couldn't afford that.
    When my ass was finished spilling my guts out onto the ground, I had no choice but to pull my pants up without wiping away any of the mess, feeling my underwear cling to the damp filth. I picked up the bag of food that I'd dropped several feet away and continued on the long trek back to my dorm room. I'd have to take another shower and do more laundry. I'd have to take more of the diarrhea medication that I'd bought and first taken at the convenience store and hope that it worked this time.
    After everything, I needed to get back into bed and try to rest. I hadn't been able to sleep during the night, plagued by memories of what Kim NamJoon had done to me, the mortifying things that I'd said and done to him. Beyond the horror and embarrassment of what had happened, I was having an existential crisis. It felt as if NamJoon had ripped away "me" and left something in my place that I didn't even recognize.

    I'd been struggling with myself for a few years. Trying to figure out who I was, to know myself. My parents said that it was a typical teenage problem and that maybe I'd find myself in Seoul. As if my problem was no big deal, just the usual thing that other people my age went through, something to be brushed aside and ignored in favor of studying, always studying. As if I would find the answer to all of my inner turmoil on a street in Seoul somewhere. My identity perhaps accidentally dropped there when I was visiting as a child and waiting to be picked up again whenever I happened to pass by.
    Was my sense of self so weak that it was easy to push it all aside? Everything that I had been working to piece together - my values, my beliefs, my self preservation instincts - had completely disappeared and I'd done things that I would have never imagined possible. I'd always thought that I was strong, determined, made tough by having to fight so hard for the things that I'd wanted. I'd thought that I could take on any challenge and maybe not win, but at least leave a dent in it. It was crushing to realize that I was so very weak, so easy to manipulate, so easy to control.
    I couldn't comprehend my own actions, the feelings and thoughts that I'd experienced. I'd never even been attracted to a guy, never imagined dating one or having a sexual relationship. I'd never really even paid attention to girls. I'd always been focused on music, rap and my schoolwork, taking care of business, not playing around.
    Had NamJoon found something inside of me that I hadn't realized was there? Or had he forced something into me that didn't belong? I couldn't find the answers to those questions and it hurt. Not knowing myself was painful and frightening. If I didn't know myself, then I couldn't trust myself. If I couldn't trust myself, then I couldn't trust in anything at all. I'd felt it for so long, the pain and the fear of now knowing who I was, but it was so much worse now. Deeper and more terrifying.
    NamJoon had broken me wide open, pillaged me mentally and physically, and literally left me lying on the floor. The world had never seemed particularly safe to me. I'd always known there were dangers, stressors, bad luck and tragedy lying in wait, but this? There were people - monsters, really - out there who could bring me to my knees with a blink of an eye, who could destroy me with the flick of a finger. And there was no one to notice, no one to care.