Death Formula | KTH ✓

14. And the I Love You's

Standing at the front door of my house with my wobbly legs, I was sweating profusely. My hands were quivering in an odd rhythm as worry danced across my face.

"It's gonna be fine," Taehyung whispered, squeezing my hand slightly to assure me.

"No. She'll hit me." I whimpered, slightly etching closer to the man who was once a stranger to me but now a great friend of mine.

"She won't." Was his reply. "Are you going to knock now or...?"

"But-"

Taehyung sighed, shaking his head. "Look, nothing's gonna happen. Just go inside and talk to her." I reluctantly nodded. My eyebrows creasing in undeniable worry as I held up my hand and knocked on the door none to fiercely.

After a couple of moments, Taehyung demanded. "Knock sharply. I bet she didn't hear it."

This time when I knocked sharply, the door opened ajar. Did she not lock the door? Dismissing the thought away, I strolled inside as Taehyung meandered behind me.

Coming home after a long absence, I thought things would've changed but everything thing was the same. The still air inside was indicating that my world had halted when the rhythmic breathing of mine abruptly ceased. I had entered in my cocoon. The cocoon that I had decided to break days ago and now it was my chance to become stronger amid the black.

Let come what may, I was ready to face.

As I strolled inside the house that I once called my very home, I heeded a low grunt coming from the bedroom as my head instinctively snapped towards that direction, my eyebrows going up before meeting in between to form a crease as I wrinkled them. With my barefoot that left the rarest of sound on the wooden flooring in the mournfully quiet room, I scurried my way and grabbed the metallic silver handle of the door before creaking it open and walking inside.

There she was.

Slumped onto the floor like a lifeless leaf at the period of its senescence, amidst of several alcohol bottles that were scattered around her figure, she laid there muttering a few incoherent words as she swayed between consciousness and unconsciousness.

I saw her one hand gripping the bottle as her eyes swivelled towards the back of her head in a distressing sense of a headache. She tilted her head towards the edge of the couch as she took a long swig of the dark substance that affected her. I hated this vulnerable state of hers. It would always remind me how utterly wasted she was.

After dad passed away, her aggrievance and mourning were inestimable as she couldn't move on from the fact that dad was gone. Months later, things began to burden her frail shoulders. She couldn't raise me alone and the source of occupancy would always change from one thing to another. In short, she was tired and stressed and that led her towards the way to addiction.

Her acrimony aggravated indiscernibly as everyday she began asperse dad with her foul words, claiming him to be a womaniser and alcoholic though deep down like I knew, she knew it too that it wasn't the truth. Her aspersing dad was only her way to vent out her temper and complain that he left us at a time when we needed him. He left mum to take care of me alone. He left us but that didn't give her the right to talk ill of him after all, he was my father.

The father who despite his flaws gave me the utmost amount of love and happiness.

"Mother," I said.

Her heavy eyes darted towards me as she spat. Her breath was the underlying cause of the smell of alcohol that entered my nostrils, and her mouth was sore from the amount of alcohol that she poured down her throat. "Why are you here? I thought you left me!"

I felt all the air from my lungs escaping as the words left a deep pang in my heart. No matter what, she was my mother. My only parent. She was never like this before, she was the most loving mother I could ever ask for. I would still remember that her apron was a staple of my childhood. Whenever I used to think of the aromas of her fresh baking come flooding into my brain, my heart would leap and there was that moment of serenity. I would see her in that apron, arms wide, a hug just a few steps away.

I had such a beautiful family until dad passed away.

"I would never leave you, mother," I replied.

She did nobbut stared at me in silence. I could see the pain in those eyes for I knew it had sat there for her lifetime, trapped in the confusion and helplessness we all carry. I could see love too, the love she would have given were it not for the scars.

My eyes were being pricked with a needle, I thought as I cried silent tears that I didn't know I had welled up in the first place. Indecisively, I approached her. I removed my hands that were curled around the hem of my top and brought them to wrap around my mother as I bent down at her level. Surprisingly, she didn't pull back instead she leaned further in to rest her head on my shoulder.

"Mum, I love you," I whispered softly, stroking her hair as I sobbed silently.

Then I heard the bottle in her hand landing on the floor with a clamorous sound. My world came crashing down when I noticed her hands fallen limply at her sides. The unnerving feeling of losing her too coiled up in my chest like a determined serpent but I would never let that happen.