Good Girl

Chapter 8

The while tiles of the bathroom glittered, but not in their normal pearlescent fashion. Instead, small rainbows populated the grout in between the tiles, pretty from afar, but if you were to walk into the bathroom with bare feet, the ivory tikes would be dyed red, like a suicidal pride parade. Dustpan in hand, I slowly positioned myself to where the most bits of broken glass seemed to be. Checking that I'm in the right place, I glance up at Yoonbum, who despite his preference for white bandages over proper shoes, is wearing heavy-duty rubber rain boots. They look identical to the ones that construction workers wear, the ones that rip up the sidewalk for months to fix a pipe that could comfortably fit a family of fully grown anacondas. I'd wonder where Sangwoo got them, or how he found ones that actually fit Yoonbum, but I know better than to ask. Especially because there's far more important shit to worry about.

On one hand, he has a broom, the plastic handle sits the top of the same shade of sapphire as the dustpan, which is almost as tall as him. He swept bits of the broken mirror into the dustpan, the shards twinking and clinking together as they were joined by random pieces of bleached hair, crumpled up foil lids from toothpaste samples, and dust bunnies that grew underneath the sink. Once he nodded, I lifted up the pan and dumped the contents into a massive black garbage bag, large enough that both Yoonbum and I could fit in there. The bag seemed to be swallowing him already, it was hung off the side of the counter so I could reach it, but from my downward angle, it was more like a carnivorous raisin, ready to eat everything it could to grow into a final boss.

"Do you think that's it?" Yoonbum wondered, his small voice squeaking a bit, almost like a spooked mouse.

I surveyed the area, my cloud-like hair taking its time to follow my head. "Yep, don't see anymore," I confirmed, before lying down on my stomach, finally giving in to the screaming demands of my knees. However, as he tied up the garbage bag, Yoonbum's eyes widened at me, and he gasped a bit. Well, he didn't exactly gasp, he more inhaled air through his nose quickly, in a way only someone who had prevented from expressing their opinions for years could.

"What's up?" I inquired, pushing myself to my elbows, making sure not to move my bandaged legs, or to accidentally pull the skirt of my dress up. It was the same one Sangwoo had put me in before, and now that I had apparently been wearing it for an entire month, I not only hated it because it was too feminine and from him, but because it smelled like dust and the orange fungus that grew on the floor of the basement. Thanks to shock and a constant string of panic attacks, my sense of time has been completely shot, the only reason I know the date now is because of Yoonbum.

He gulped, gently placing the bag outside of the door, along with the frame of what used to be the mirror above the sink. "Is it really ok to lay like that?" He mumbled, looking at his feet and fidgeting with his own fingers.Heavily sighing, I gently flip over, careful not to slam my lower legs on the floor, and use the towel hanging on the wall to pull myself up into a sitting position. I cannot fucking lay on my back anymore, I'll go crazy. Even with the bright lights, I would only think of the basement and everything that's happened to me. Sure, it's been an entire month, which is crazy in itself, but honestly, it feels like a lifetime since I was walking down the street, eyeing the neighborhood Starbucks as American music blasted in my ears. Hell, I can barely remember what it was called. Or why it mattered so much to me, besides English practice. All that matters now is surviving to the next day. And seeing as Yoonbum is kind of the reason I even have the privilege to be out of that hell hole, sitting in the bathroom and having something I can actually do, I figure it can't hurt to listen to him. And I know that he's not trying to control me or anything, he just cares more than I do.

And let me clarify, Sangwoo is 100% the reason I'm actually here, he's the one that put this parasite in me, he's the reason that the white stick next to the toilet has a stupid pink plus sign on it, and it was his fist that smashed the mirror because of said stupid pink plus sign. But it was Yoonbum that tipped me off to the fact that I needed the stick in the first place.