VII. from Taeyeon's perspective

She wakes up to the convulsing pain on her midsection where a fist shaped bruise has started to bloom. She rolls her shirt up – knuckles shaped dark purple, stark against her pale expense of skin. It is painful, but she’s used to pain. Pain makes her, forces her to grow up – it molds her into the woman she is now.

(The bleeding cuts on her legs are more painful anyway.)

Taeyeon rubs a tired hand over her eyes, trying to erase away the trace of sleep from her lidded eyes though she doesn’t want to wake up. She dreamt of colorful flowers and a pair of gloved hands – dainty and elegant fingers with painted nails, and she was happy for having that dream.

She’s heard the sayings – you dream of your soulmate’s vision. So she wonders how her soulmate looks like. With those pretty fingers, her soulmate must be a female. A beautiful one, with equally beautiful smile and all of those. Taeyeon loves her imagination, it is what keeps her grounded.

She feels sorry for her soulmate sometimes. She thinks of her, pondering about the dream her soulmates have at nights – could she be seeing guns, weapons; the face of her enemies or her crews (scratch family); the blur of buildings as she runs from the police or the dirty interior of the sewage. None of them are pretty but she hopes her soulmate could figure who she is and where she is now – a little too hopeful but she’s optimistic.

(Not exactly that optimistic.)

Sometimes she regrets for ever having chosen this path of career. If she – if she – didn’t choose this whole fiasco and turned her back against her family, would she meet her soulmate? Would they live happily ever after, just like fairy tale once told her?

Then she realizes it is a little too late to regret and tries to turn the table. She already knows her death sentence – only the time remains hidden.

She continues to dream of beautiful tulips and smiley customers. Sometimes she dreams of a cup of warm chocolate and a cute Chihuahua dog.

One unsettling night, she dreams of a man – a really handsome one; tall, regal and warm chocolate eyes. The man inches closer to her – to her soulmate – and she wakes up, heart beating tattoo on her chest and stomach tied into a knot of uneasiness. The dream is soon forgotten as she tries to slip away from the police just like she always does.

In the end, she had 2 bullets inside her – 1 in her lungs, 1 in her abdomen. She lies in her pool of blood, every breath screams ‘death’ and she smiles. She thinks of telling the police of her soulmate, passing a message to her that she’s sorry for the dreams she’s been having and for her not to worry because the dreams would soon end.

She means to force the police to tell her soulmate that she loves her, a complete stranger, forced to be attached to by the law of nature. But love is unconditional. Or so she believes.

She doesn’t have the chance – her last breath slips past her lips before she could utter a word.

(And she wonders who was the man she was seeing on her dream – on her soulmate’s vision.)