Warning: There are mentions of certain psychological conditions and DID symptoms (E.g depression, etc) in this chapter, as well as some minor descriptions of bullying. Please don't read this chapter/skip these parts if you're uncomfortable. 

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Byulyi wakes up to an alarm blaring right next to her ear. Swearing, she sits up, but a colossal pain shoots through her head, so intense that her breath gives out and she flops lifelessly back onto the sofa. She makes a wild grab for her very offensive phone and slams a palm on the screen, shutting that Gods damn seven am alarm up.

Gods above, I'm hungover as hell.

Byulyi's never gotten to the point where she's so drunk she'd fail every breathalyser test in existence, fall over multiple times on the two foot distance to the sofa, and also pass out immediately. But here she is, regretting every second of her foolish drinking the night before, amd nursing one hell of a hangover.

She can see the bottle of white wine still on the table where she left it the night before, four-fifths of the contents drained. is parched, her limbs feel heavy, and all in all she just feels like .

Way to go getting drunk on a Sunday night, idiot. And you know your alcohol tolerance is lower than your grades in elementary school. Byulyi closes her eyes against another tide of pain and lets her stale breath hiss from between her teeth. It tastes absolutely morbid. She remembers vaguely what happened last night - painting, drinking, and having rather interesting thoughts.

And by interesting, of course, Byulyi means horrifying.

Gods, did I really consider that? That I'd…I'd be so non-professional as to not try to give Solar a proper treatment? That I'd let my patient just wither while I…oh, Gods no. I would never do that while sober. I should never get drunk again, who knows what kind of I'll spew next time?

She winces, her head pounding, as she tries to sit up slowly. Bile rises in but she forces it down again, her hands gripping the soft edge of the sofa. She needs to get up, get to some aspirin or something,

So she counts to five, stopping at three to curse in a very descriptive manner, before standing up. Her legs wobble and her head feels like it's been smacked around by a baseball bat, but otherwise, she's pretty good to go. She shuffles past her coffee table in her zombie-like state, stepping on pieces of torn paper, her hand on her wall to steady her.

She finds her aspirin in her medicine cupboard and pops one, filling a glass with water from her dispenser. She swallows the pill with a gulp of water and leans against the counter, massaging her throbbing temples.

I have to go to work later. , , . I seriously shouldn't have drunk last night.

She sets about - albeit very sluggishly - making her coffee. The smell of brewing coffee and the promise of caffeine perks her up a little, and she grabs two bananas from the bunch of fruits on her counter. (She isn't a health nut. She just likes fruits.)

As she waits for the coffee to finish brewing she sits and eats a banana, resting her head on her palm. She chews at an abysmally slow rate, wincing with pain every few seconds. Then the timer on her coffee machine bleeps like a saving grace.

Coffee coffee coffee, she thinks, stumbling over to her machine and pressing the button on the side. Hot, steamy dark liquid hits the bottom of the clean mug she placed underneath the spout, and the smell makes her eyes open wider already. Once the last drop falls, she picks up the mug, blows across the surface and takes a cautious sip.

She's so hungover that she honestly isn't even sure if she can function properly right now, and she isn't sure how she's going to work later on. She's a psychologist. She needs to be sober.

Maybe I'll have sobered up by the time I see my first patient. If not, I'm really going to be screwed. Byulyi peels her second banana and takes a miniscule bite, chewing with her front teeth. A low rumbling sound rises from . Stupid me, why did I have to drink so much wine last night?

She remembers more vividly what happened now. She drunk-painted Yongsun, ripped her painting into pieces, and had a very unsavoury chain of thoughts that she's kind of worried about now. She'd nearly given up on treating Solar just so that she could be - with what? With Yongsun? Now that she thinks back on it, she snorts. She'd never think of anything like that while sober. Yongsun is nothing but bad news, and Byulyi knows that.

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“Kim Ddongsun!” The tall boy yells, a hand grabbing Yongsun by the back of her white school blouse, yanking her back with a strength Yongsun has, unfortunately, become very well acquainted with. The momentum causes Yongsun to slam into the brick wall and tears to spring up in her eyes.

“Crying again, little birdy?” One of the tall boy's stupid goons leers at her, and she shrinks back against the wall.

The tall boy sticks out a big hand imperiously, looking at Yongsun from down his ugly nose. His mop of curly dark brown hair throws specks of sunlight into her eyes. She flinches. She knew she shouldn't have tried to use the shortcut to the cafeteria again. But the tall boy hadn't bothered her this week, so she thought she'd get away with it again.

“Money,” The tall boy says.

“C-Chando, I-”

“Your money,” The tall boys repeats, more insistently. His eyes glitter malevolently.

Yongsun fights to force the tears down as she sticks a hand down her pocket and pulls out a few rumpled notes and some coins, piling them onto Chando’s meaty hand.

The greedy bastard counts the notes immediately, looking slightly displeased when he finds out that he'd only managed to earn five thousand won from this. He stuffs the money into his own pocket anyway and smiles when he sees Yongsun's kiddish eyes following the movement, wide and sparkling with unshed tears.

“Was the money special to you, little Ddongsun?” Chando sneers.

“I-I was supposed to buy some s-sn-snacks with it. My mom g-gave it-” Yongsun chokes back a sob, and Chando’s eyes take on a mocking look.

“Oh, little Ddongsunnie’s mummy gave it to her, eh? Well, guess who cares?”

He gives his goons a look, and the two smaller boys converge on her, kicking, raining blow after blow upon soft flesh. Yongsun shields her face with her hands, biting her tongue to stop herself from screaming from the pain.

Make it stop-

Make it stop, please-

She jerks awake with a gasping breath, hands gripping the bunched-up sheets. She closes her eyes again, letting the pounding in her head dissipate. Her teary eyes adjust once more to her warm lamp light, the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on her ceiling. Despite the air conditioning, her hairline is dotted with small droplets of sweat.

She steadies her breathing, staring at the blinking : on her digital clock, before pulling her knees up to her chest. She wraps her arms around her shins and uses one hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.

Gods, I thought that I'd stop having this nightmare. It's been over fifteen years, how long more do I have to relive that part of my life? She rests her forehead on her knees. I don't want to keep remembering that feeling. Not when I want to move forward.

But she remembers, so vividly that a tremor runs through her body. The feeling of sneaker soles ramming into her already bruised sides, of clumsy hands laying stinging slaps upon her already reddened skin. Then there'd always been the prompt and illegal confiscation of her money before the actual beating. Even at a young age, she'd grown to realise that no matter what you do, people will always find a way to be a to you. And this is one of her favourite mantras.

She pulls the sheets up to her chin, leaning her head against her hard wooden headboard. The digital clock reads 2:19. So she'd been asleep for merely an two hours before being awoken by her nightmare.

I'd better go back to sleep. This is one of the nights where I finish my work early and I can sleep at twelve. It's better for me to get as much sleep as I can while I can, I suppose.

She dabs at the sweat on her forehead, closing her eyes. The orange glow of her lamp permeates very faintly through her eyelids, and she tilts her head up so that the light isn't directly at eye level. She'd forgotten to turn the light off since she just fell asleep so quickly, but she's glad that she'd left it on. Better to see her room than scare herself less in the dark. She'd had enough of that in her childhood.

Her tongue passes over her dry lips, cold from the air conditioning. The nightmare is still fresh in her mind - so fresh that she can almost feel the sting of the slaps on her skin, and the even deeper ache when they hit healing bruises. She blanches.

Stop thinking about it. It won't do you any good.

So she checks the corners of her eyes for residual tears, then gets up and turns the lamp off. The room is plunged into darkness, and she stands gripping the tabletop, temporarily unable to see anything as her eyes adjust to the lack of light.

Once she can see the outline of her bed, she feels her way over to it and swings herself onto it. She pulls at the sheets and slides beneath them, feeling the warm depression where she'd been lying previously. She fits herself back into that crevice, the warmth from her body and the sheets making her instantly feel more sleepy.

Sleep, sleep. You need it.

She turns over and closes her eyes. As is the wish of the universe, whenever she wants to sleep, her mind does this wonderful thing where it begins to worry or think about every single thing it can conjure up. And now it decides on Chando and his two faithful lapdogs - both of whom she doesn't know the names of.

Oh, curse those stupid imbeciles. If I met any of them now I'd bash their Gods damn skulls in, pulverise them and spread them on the road for cars to run over. I hope those sons of es are rotting in the deepest depths of Tartarus right now. And she would have indulged in more vulgar oaths had she been less tired and less determined to fall asleep.

Another slap resounds in her head and she flinches, curling up into a ball on her bed. Yongsun. Kim Yongsun. Gods, how she despises that name so much. Her real name. The name tied to that part of her life.

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