Lee Hi - Breathe

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"Dahye, where are you? Mrs. Jung said she hasn't seen you enter your house yet. It's getting late..."

 

Dahye sighed as she ended the call with another comforting lie. Her mother had been constantly leaving her missed calls for more than 37 times, she had no choice to pick it up before her mother makes a last minute decision to come fly over to Korea and that's the last thing Dahye wanted right now.

Checking her phone one last time before she set it on mute mode and shoved the phone back into her pocket. She just wanted to be alone without a single soul trying to bother her right now. After the sudden news, she had a lot of things messing her head, more problems just decided to pile up.

She was sitting in the bus, observing the view on the streets, cars moving so fast and people walking back and forth. Everyone seemed to be living a good life except her, at least that's what her mind wanted her to think at this moment.

The bus finally made a stop at her destination, Dahye picked up her school bag and left. Taking a deep breath of the cold night from the street of her neighborhood. Her feet felt heavy as she struggled to walk towards the direction of her house.

As she walked down the street that was lined up with stores which were already closed except for the convenience store that opened 24 hours.

The wind suddenly blew on her making the hairclip that was dangling at the tip of her hair because her mind was too occupied to bother about it, flew off and fell to the ground as she passed by the convenience store.

"Excuse me! You dropped something!"

Even the voice calling out to her couldn't help snap out of her train of thoughts. The words kept ringing in her head as if it was a song on repeat, a song she wished she never listened to but end up couldn't get it out of her head.

"Your life is numbered"

Dahye held tightly on to the plastic bag that contained her medicines close to her chest, her steps felt heavy but she had to keep walking, home was just a few steps away. Her eyes wandered nowhere but the way back home.

She knew the news would happen but it still effected her harshly, she had hopes it would go the other way around. Why was the world being so cruel to her? What horrible sin had she done to be punished this terribly?

The building she entered made her a bit more relief since she was almost home. She just needed to be home right now, locked away from the cruel world and mourn in her comfort area.

Her index finger pressed on the number 8 as soon she entered the elevator. The door closed and she watched as the number on the screen increased, she couldn't help but thought of how those numbers were going backwards for her.

The door opened and she walked two paths and stopped right at the door of her apartment room.

Right when she entered her apartment and shut the door, everything had just break through and tears ran out of her eyes. The voice of sobbing echoed as she cried her heart out to the fullest because nothing pained the most than what was hurting her brain and effecting her whole life and soul.

Slowly the cries disappeared and her eyes felt exhausted but tears didn't fail to crawl out through her slumber state.

Why? Why was it happening to her? Out of all the people in the world, why did she had to go through it? Why her?

 

 

 

"If you multiply this with X, you won't get the solution of the answer so instead, substitute it with..." Not a single word was absorbing into her head, maybe something was bothering her brain.

Dahye chuckled sadly at the thought, of course it would have affected her IQ as well. 

You're stupid now Dahye. Gripping on to the pen in her hand as the thought screamed in her head, she was so close to breaking down again but not here.

Not now.

Not again.

Not today.

 

 

Lunch was just the same. All she could do was stare at her food as her chopsticks fondled on the kimchi along with her rice.

"Dahye... Dahye!"

Finally for how long she could remember, Dahye breathed in oxygen as she snapped out of her thoughts for a moment and her head shot up whilst her eyes looking back at another pair of eyes that were looking at her with a frown, "Yeah?"

The frown grew more, "You weren't listening at all and you haven't even touch ur food. Is something wrong?"

Dahye shook her head, "No, ofcourse not."

Yeri, the girl looking at her now squinted her eyes. Not buying the lie at all, "Dahye..."

Dahye knew she was caught right handed, it was as if she was a culprit stuck in a court that she knew she would lose. 

"What else could it be?"

"Is it about your mom again? Is she bothering you about your grades?"

Yet, the culprit had a sneaky escape.

Dahye shrugged, going back to focusing on her food as she finally took a bite of the rice that was getting cold.

"You know, I don't get why your mom complains about your grades all the time. You're ranked fifth place in our- no, not class. In our school. Your one of the top five students in our school. Plus, that's not anywhere close to bad." Nayeon jumped into the conversation as well.

"I agree! Dahye increases her ranking almost every semester. There's not once she fell back to a lower ranking, soon as you know it she would be on the first place." Sana voiced out as she took out a packet of one piece of cookie and handed it towards Dahye, "Here, Dahye! Take one, I made it for Jinyoung and his team. They have a friendly match today and I made these as a good luck charm. You need it as well."

Not wanting to make her state any more obvious, she took the cookie from Sana letting out a small smile, "Thanks, Sana!"

Sana being one who couldn't really catch any suspicious or none ordinary situations, only smiled brighter and beamed, "You're welcome!"

Yeri noticing the atmosphere around Dahye decided to give words that she thought could cheer her up, "Don't worry too much about it, one day your mom will realize how well you're doing with your grades. For now, just don't give up."

Dahye nodded and she gave her another small smile before avoding anymore eyes and focused on her food.

Even comforts didn't help heal the ache in her heart. Would it be more different if she told them the truth?

No, she can't. She won't tell anyone about it. Nobody can know about what she's going through right now. Not yet.

 

 

There was nothing more to expect with Mrs. Min's classes, she wasn't honestly teaching them anything new. Another work of essay would be given every week and she expected them to pass up their work before the weekends. Cruel, you might say that but nobody actually bothered to follow her rules anyways.

"According to the last test, most of you have problems with using the correct verbs and nouns. A lot of you have been using short forms and let me ask you, is a smiley face a hangul word?" Mrs Min explained, eyeing every each of the students especially one student at the back who lowered her head.

"Miss Yerin, do you have anything to say?" Her words coming out almost as sarcasm.

The guilty girl gulped nervously before shaking her head in denial, "No..."

Giving her one last glare before Mrs. Min crossed her arms and faced the rest of her students, "Very well, then. We shall continue with our class."

Dahye wasn't paying any attention to her words. She let her hands doodle freely on an empty page of her notebook.

"Oh! Before I forget- Jung Dahye!"

Snapping out of her train of thoughts, Dahye's head tilted upwards whilst closing her notebook- afraid that she was caught for not paying attention in her class, "Y-Yes?"

"Well done with your essay! I must say, you're one of the students that has been improving a lot in every test. Keep on doing the good work." Mrs. Min congratulated her as she turned from the blackboard to face Dahye with an encourging smile.

Dahye returned a small smile- anyone would have thought she was just being shy but if they had looked closely, they could see the tiredness behind the smile, "Thank you, Mrs. Min!"

Mrs. Min nodded and averted her look to the back of the class, her smile washed away and her eyes turning sharp as earlier, "Learn from that Miss Yerin." Her last words had the whole class giggling.

Class begin as usual again. 

Dahye sighed, opening the notebook to the same page and let her hands doodle freely again.

"Since I know how much all of you love writing essays." The sarcasm was truly vivid that the whole class let out small groans.

Homeworks had Dahye stressful a lot since the start. People think she had it easy because of the none stop compliments she gets from the teachers.

Some of them even asked her for help and some even took advantage. It always made her wondered- does the word effort only existed for her?

"But- I will give you a long term deadline. The final day you have to pass up this essay is by the end of next month. I want you to think deeply and put your whole heart out on this essay."

It woud be a lie if she said she wasn't tired of always trying her best to put in her every effort in everything. It wasn't the people around her that she wanted to impress but that one person who she had always felt distant with.

But, will she ever?

Her mind used to tell her to never give up, there's always new hope. Positivity trying to kick in every time but this time her mind told her differently.

From what happened yesterday, new hopes didn't seem to exist anymore. Well, she wouldn't have to think about anything that stresses her anymore or try to impress anyone, it would be peaceful once she took her last breath.

The thought had her hand go wild on the paper as the pencil lid slowly turned shorter.

"The topic for this essay is, 'What If Your Life Was Numbered?'"

Dahye's hand stopped, putting down her pencil. Her eyes still staring at the page that was doodled everywhere. What a relatable topic to her life...

"I want you to put your thoughts and feelings into writing this. Tell me what would you do?"

Nothing. What was there to even do?

"How would you feel?"

Dahye's eyes were staring at that one line on the edge of the page; I'm scared.

"What would you want for the last time?"

What would she want?

"A wish..."

She had no idea.

"A desire..."

All her mind did was count the days that she still had left.

"There must be something you want in your life."

One girl sitting next to the window raised her hand. "Yes, Park Sooyoung?"

"A boyfriend!"

The whole class squealed in excitement to her answer.

Mrs. Min chuckled, "Well done, Park Sooyoung! But, let's use a different term. Love."

Love...

"Love can be in anyway you want it to be. May it be a family kind of love, friendship love or what all of you look forward to, a romantic kind of love which I bet most of you wish to have."

In Dahye's life the word love is very foreign. Either she had forgotten how it felt to be loved and to love someone or she just never did.

"I believe all of you can write well on this and I'm expecting the work to be in my hands right before next month ends. Agree?"

The whole class agreed in sync.

"Alright, then! Let's put that aside, I'll be showing you the common mistakes that you had done in your test and tell you how to use it correctly."

Dahye's mind ran off again as her thoughts were filled with the work that Mrs. Min wanted.

If your life was numbered, would you want to spent the whole time with love till the very end?

 

 

"If it was me, I would want to enjoy the last moment of my life with my loved one."

Dahye listened as Yeri went on talking about the topic of Mrs Min's work. Yeri was leaning on the locker next to her's, waiting for Dahye to finish packing her stuffs.

"With your family?" Dahye asked.

"Well, that's for sure. My mom will definitely stick around me all the time-" Yeri halted on her words as she noticed Dahye's look to turn a little down.

She knew that Dahye had problems with her mom a lot, now she wished she didn't brought that up.

Yeri cleared , "The kind of love I'm talking about is a lover."

"Seems like your on the same boat as Joy then." Joy was the nickname for the girl, Park Sooyoung. Everyone calls her that, probably because of her personality.

A gasp escaped out of Yeri's lips, "Of course! Everyone wants the same thing. A boyfriend sounds fun. Don't you ever want one?"

Dahye chuckled sarcastically, closing her locker as she gave her attention on Yeri, "Sounds like a nuisance."

"Oh come on! Don't you ever dream of being in love and to be loved by someone? People whose life is short on the line are usually lonely. They need someone by their side who would care and love them, to make them happy before their life ends."

Dahye couldn't help but felt a thorn stabbed her on the heart at the word 'lonely'. Was she lonely?

"Right." Was all she responded before starting to walk with Yeri following next to her.

"Besides, everyone deserves to be loved. They have to at least get a little taste of it to enjoy a bit of life. If I knew my life was numbered, I would wanna enjoy my life till it last. I wouldn't want to torture myself by thinking about how I'm dying all the time, I would go out and enjoy like going to the arcades or something and it would be perfect if I had that someone who woud make my life even more special and enjoyable. That way, at least I had a good beautiful life before the numbers of my life comes to an end."

Dahye's steps became slow as those words somehow taught her mind a bit of a lesson."But... why love?"

"Because love is the best cure. My dad always told me that, love can cure anything. Even if you're in so much pain, living a lonely life or going through so much hardships but love will always be the best cure for all of that- for anything."

Every word Yeri said really blew Dahye's mind.

Maybe this was the reason Yeri was the closest one to her. The girl just knew how to amaze her with words and blow her mind away without even knowing the situation or what problem was actually going on.

"To be honest, I agree with my dad. Don't you?"

Dahye snapped out of her thoughts and gave a short nod, "Yeah..."

Can love really cure anything?

 

 

Once she had parted ways with Yeri at the street since their house were in different directions.

Dahye decided to go to the Han River to clear her mind for awhile since she felt like that's what she needed.

The light breeze swayed hair away from her face, she was welcomed with a beautiful scenery of Han River right infront of her. What was there left to do now, her days are numbered so it would be better to enjoy her life to the fullest until it ends.

She had thought of it after the class she had earlier.

She wants to find love. She wants to follow everything Yeri had said.

To not let the thoughts of her numbered life get in the way of her to enjoy her life till the very end. She had never felt love in her life before, never did she ever allowed herself to love anyone.

It's finally time for her to do so, she wants to encounter someone who would change her life and show her the things she never knew about life.

Feeling a little bump down to her feet, Dahye looked down at the ball that had came rolling to her. She stared at it until she heard footsteps came running towards her direction. 

Dahye looked up to see the owner of the ball that had interrupted her moments of thoughts.

A normal boy in his school uniform, his nametag by his chest pocket; Jeon Jung-Kook, covered in sweats and panting really hard- seems like he ran all the way here.

She watched as the boy tried to catch his breath before looking at her and staring right into her eyes.

Dahye only looked back into his eyes, wondering what he was thinking because he seemed to be in deep thoughts while looking at her right at the eyes.

She waited for him to say something until soon later he finally decided to speak.

"Your eyes are really pretty."

 

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I apologize for the errors!!