One
When Two Poles Meet
"—Did you really have to tag along your mistress?! And to her own graduation, really?! Jinwoo, for God's sake!"
Those were the last words she heard before she went out the house.
She knew some marriages were bound to fail. She knew her father had a mistress. She used to believe that her parents are real couples, that they were made for each other. She used to believe her parents genuinely loved each other. She used to belong in the warmth of a happy family.
She kicked open the gates and went out, not even bothering to close it. Hayi is tired of crying, but her tears were uncontrollable. If her parents had really cared for her, they wouldn't be shouting and fighting and calling each other names like that. If they had really cared for her, they would not be fighting where Hayi can hear everything they've been saying shouting.
It was a summer noon, and the weather was humid. The convenience store at the end of the street was empty. The street's silent, as if everything else already ran away. She wished she could do that. Walking away from bane things; walking away from toxicity is the nicest thing one can do for themselves.
She wanted to go somewhere. She wanted to be somewhere far away. She didn't want to be at home at a house were silence was nonexistent. She didn't want to hear her parents endlessly, day by day, hour by hour, shouting and fighting.
"I want to go home."
"I want to be happy."
She wanted to be somewhere else silent. She wanted to be somewhere silent where all she can hear is her own heart thumping, the rushing of her blood through her veins. She wanted to be alone in her peaceful thoughts. She wanted silence, but her thoughts, above anything else, gives her the fiendish, the noisiest voices. Her thoughts, her mind, everything was discordant.
"Hanbin, you er. How many bottles have you tipped already?" Bobby took the half-empty bottle from the wasted boy's hand and set it on the table. Hanbin was uncontrollable. He spat on his friend's pants, how dare he take the drink from him.
"You disgusting , get your pieces together, man." Bobby grabbed a tissue from the box on the table, throwing it across, landing on the younger's face. "You're ing drunk already, it's not nice."
"What's so nice about the world, anyway." Hanbin crumpled the tissue, "I am not drunk. I am perfectly sane. How can she leave a perfectly sane man, like me. Like me, Bobby, like me?" Hanbin looked like a kid whose lollipop was stolen from him, thousand times worse than that. Jennie wasn't a lollipop. Jennie is not a lollipop.
"Nah, man. You are drunk. You're getting ed up and drunk just for a girl? Get up and get home, your mom's been calling me since the minute you stepped foot on this place." Bobby tried to grab Hanbin by the collar of his shirt, his speaking sent splashes of saliva across Hanbin's face.
The pub was dark and humid. A band was playing at the platform, and guests were enjoying their time. People were singing along and clapping their hands through You Shine.
"Man, you don't understand," Shrugging himself from Bobby's grasp, Hanbin reached for the beer bottle his friend took from him. "That's the thing, you know. She's not just a girl. She's not just a girl, at least to me. She meant much more than that. She's never been just a girl to me."
Bobby sighed and scratched the back of his head. There's no way he can get Hanbin to go home if he's really this obdurate. Hanbin looked at his friend, "Bob, sure you won't understand, since you're a grasshopper who jumps from one girl to another."
"If you aren't drunk, I would have punched you straight in the face. Right now."
"Then throw me a punch. I'm not drunk. Little bit tipsy," Hanbin pointed at Bobby's face with a middle finger, "You look way more drunk, you ugly ."
The bus stop was empty, no one else was there. Hayi did not know which bus she got on, where it's going nor where she was going. Why was she in the bus stop, of all places?
I just want to run away from all those mess. I've lived for 21 years, I've never felt this stuffed. There was never a time I felt like I'm carrying the whole world by my shoulders. I just wanted to run away from all those mess.
She wasn't lost, but really lost at the same time. She's right here, but everything felt blank. At the bus stop, for what?
Eight weeks ago, she'd share jokes with his dad and cook with her mom. Eight weeks before, she'd be in her room with Soohyun and Hanna. Several days after, everything made a turn.
She was so happy walking down the road. There was a manhole called life which leads to a pit calles sadness, she fell in. Few days after, she's still finding her way out.
She took the bus, tapped the card and sat at the back. She figured she'd get off with the very last person inside the bus. She didn't care if she'll end up in Busan. Busan sounds nice, far away from the noisy Seoul.
She brushed her hair out of her eyes and watched her breath form a cloud on the glass window. The world looks fine, everyone looks fine. I wonder how some people can be such good pretenders.
more by raelio
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