Today was a pretty bad day. I was just not in the mood, and I felt upset about everything around me. Maybe because I was in my period, but I just felt like it wasn’t just that. I’ve never gotten into this serious mood swings on my period. It was actually pretty calm than anyone I know.

 Until afternoon, on break time, we gathered together like we always did. Hana, Mari, and me were going to the cafeteria. The room was packed (as usual) and we had to line up for a bit of time to get our food.

The menu was okay—no, it was better than the other days; chicken, rice, and toppoki as the side dish. It was delicious. I actually enjoyed eating them—better yet, I finished all of it. My tray was near to clean. And when we finished our lunch, we always killed time with some girl’s chitchat. It was fun and I laughed a lot.

Hana was telling us a funny story and Mari’s replies made me completely almost rolled on the floor. That was until my ears suddenly focused on the girls behind our table, talking about calories.

“Yeah,” A girl answered. “Chicken and rice will make our tummy get fatter. Obviously.”

“The calories are too high,” Another girl whined. “That’s why I decided to not taking the foods today. I don’t want to be fat.”

“Seriously,” The two girls started to high-five each other. “We made a great decision.”

My stomach started to turn upside down.

That was the first wave.

The second and final wave got me when I got home. As usual, I went to my bedroom. I was planning to do a marathon of TV series but my foot went stone in front of my big mirror. I used it to get ready to school, but I obviously didn’t need it anymore.

I bit my lips, scared that the scenarios that I had been playing throughout the day came to reality. Then, I closed my eyes. You are beautiful, you are beautiful, you are beautiful. I chanted the spell that had successfully kept me going for the past years.

But seemed like it didn’t work.

The weird feelings never went away. It stayed there, and it made me miserable. I had to close my eyes and jumped to the bed. I opened my laptop quickly before putting the new episode of The Flash on.

It started smoothly for the first five minutes before the loading circle came back to live and spun endlessly. I groaned in frustration, pushing my laptop off the bed. The laptop made a crashing sound before everything sounded pathetically quiet. The only one in the house was me—the one and only. The rest was playing around with s that I shouldn’t have bother. I’d rather clueless than having my self-esteem lesser than it already was.

Out of the blue, the picture of Sehun slipped on my mind. It played like an old film—it was more like a montage of him taken from the invisible angle that he won’t even bother to notice. A specific picture of him in his batman hoodie that he had gotten a long time a go but originally was too big to him so he still could wear it these days.

It was exactly five weeks ago where nothing haven’t gotten chaotic and out of boundary. It was still a peaceful life where I just played with my friends. We were laughing at the market near our school. That was when I saw Sehun, coming down from the bus and walked on the opposite of the road. He looked like he was in rush and I could see that he haven’t change his school uniform (just like me) and he just covered it with his hoodie.

The blows of the wind disheveled his hair. The wind seemed to like his uncut hair because it kept his hair everywhere. He even looked annoyed and decided to put his hoodie on to prevent the wind.

It seemed nothing but ordinary. But I was blown away—like the wind—by the things he do. It made me remember of what things we used to do. He always made me contemplate the choices I had made. Everything felt like impromptu and repulsive when I looked at his sharp jaw line.

How I wish…

What if

Ifs and scenarios that I should’ve done to get everything at the palm of my hands was spinning in my head, making my instant noodle looked so disgusting. Then I just looked at the noodles that still left uneaten on the cup. Just how strong Sehun is to control my appetite?

The answer: Stronger than I think.

“I miss,” The words suddenly slipped on my tongue. You.

I miss you, Sehun. I repeated in my mind, chanting it. Asking him to come back, telling him that I wasn’t mad at him—I was just mad at myself. But then I stayed quiet on my mind, asking questions full of whys.

Why did he ask for my blessing?

But the question that keeps linger in my mind is does he want the freedom to love somebody?

Or greater yet,

Is this the time to let him go?

If it is, then I would. Whatever the reason is, I will give up on him—I will try. I wasn’t confident of letting go of Sehun because he has been in my very special place on my heart. He has been living there, sitting there and made me a mess but I love it. I never hated it. It felt beautiful.

I stared blankly at the door of my room, the wall started to spin and shake. The rest of the room followed not long after the walls. I felt miserable and my stomach started to spin as well, threatening me to blurt out everything that I had eaten.

Instinctively I got on my feet, running to the nearest bathroom. I kneeled on the floor towards the toilet, pushing out the food that I had eaten to it. I fell quiet for a second, thinking for a way out and panicking for the food that I had waste. I could feel the floor on my knees turned colder and my cold hands falling down to my side as soon as I flushed in.

My biggest fear: relapse.

I have come clean on Anorexia for two years.

As much as I have tough life, I’ve never wanted to end my life. I just want to be pretty. Isn’t that enough?

I wanted to live prettily. To be remembered.

It sounded fun.

Look at Sehun. He looked like he’s having so much fun being the eligible bachelor on the neighborhood. He always smiled, showing his best appearance on everybody—having friends on his rough time and to be open.

I had Hana. But I can’t talk my difficulties on anyone else—including Hana. I couldn’t. I just thought that it was my privacy and my flaw. I shouldn’t just talk about the relapse to anyone.

But I wouldn’t tell her that I still struggling to it. I just wasn’t that open.

I snapped my head when I heard a faint voice on the floor below her. I put my hands on the floor, putting strength on it so I could stand on my feet. I walked slowly, descending the stairs to the first floor.

However, the voice still resonated on the walls. I just realized that there were two different voices, one was deep and one was feminine. I cringed so hard when the voice turned into a moan. It was very unpleasing to hear for a high school student.

“Dad?” I stared at two people, body on body. They were locking lips passionately on the couch that my late grandma bought for my parent’s wedding anniversary. It looked like an ordinary brown couch, but it was deeper.

At least for me

A woman who was on top of my dad snapped her head and stared at me, panicking. Her red lipstick smeared all over her face. Her eyes were wide and her irises were exploring her eyes fast.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“Oh, Jisoo.” Dad pushed the girl slowly and sat. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“I am home, dad.” My eyes stung. “I’ve always been home.”

“I didn’t know.” He repeated, trying to dominate me.

“If you are two-timing Mom,” I started. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to not hook up with your younger girlfriend in the house that we live in? I thought you were smarter.”

And I took off.

I just couldn’t handle the bull that was going on in the house. It was just not in the right amount. I felt like we were drifting apart day by day, and ‘till this day we ended up don’t care about what others were feeling. We were becoming selfish day by day. And I didn’t like it.

I was running with my socks because I didn’t even bother to put a shoe on. I was walking around the neighborhood with head hung low, eyes red from crying, and a runny nose. I was pissed and angry all at the same time. It was the worst feeling after being left alone by Oh Sehun.

It hurt, but it wasn’t surprising because I somehow predict that he would have another girlfriend because we just weren’t a family anymore. I just knew. I anticipated it—not in an excited way.

Then I stopped at the park, sitting down on the swing.

“Where’s your shoes?” A voice came.

I looked up and found Sehun, grinning with a black plastic bag slipped in his tall fingers. He looked happy and confused. Then I guessed he realized about the dry tears on my cheek, red nose, and swollen eyes. He carefully looked at me, trying to find a way to fix me.

“Can you sit?” I pointed at the empty swing next to me. “Accompany me?”

“Sure,” He sat and pulled a Popsicle from his black plastic bag, only to give it to me.

I was disoriented for a second.

“You will get happier when I give you sweet things.” He smiled.

“Thanks,” I gave him a light laugh before taking the Popsicle, breaking it into two and sipped it. “I have a rough day.”

“I can see that.”

And we stayed silent. But it wasn’t an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry.” He said again.

“For everything?”

“For everything,” He confirmed. “I’ve been very mean to you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I guess, I just didn’t know how to respon things back then. I’ve never seen you as a love interest potential—I just saw you like the bestest friend I could ever asked.”

I laughed.

“But seriously, I’m an evil to ever did that and apparently I am,” He laughed it off. “But I’m sincerely sorry for what I’ve done and it’s a ty move to ask you for a blessing, really. I’m truly sorry.” Then he held my hand.

I forgot how to breathe.

“Friends like old times?”

“Friends like old times.” I assured.

We spent the time looking at each other’s eyes, realizing that we were each other’s best friend and we’ve never really moved on from that. I could see his eyes twinkled the exact same way when they used to look at me as I talked about barbies and I smiled because how great the day was.

I’ve finally found the person who I searched for a long time.