The Man with Black Tears
The Man with Black Tears
Jongwoon cried in the corner of the room, trying to hide the fact that it hurt when he heard people’s whispering about his eyes. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t change the way he was born.
He hated crying. He hated the substance that would flow out of his eyes. The bags under them were already dark, but what was more intriguing, was the color of his tears. His tears were black, so whenever he cried, it would look like smudged mascara. Mascara he wasn’t wearing.
He felt cursed. The tears made him feel cursed. It was really cunning of his mother to pass the curse of her family to him. There wasn’t a thing he could do though. He could only accept the curse and live. Sadly, people noticed the mystery of his eyes. Doctors were intrigued and offered to use him for an experiment, while circus people wanted to use him for entertainment.
He ran away. He really tried, but failed miserably. The circus people approached him first and locked him up in a cage. He was a freak. A freak everybody loved to torture. They called him a freak. And he believed them. Nobody had ever shown him love since he was born so he didn’t know the feeling. He was Jongwoon, ‘the freak who sheds black tears.’
The show ended. The curtains were closed and so was the cage. But he could still hear the mocks and insults of his so called “fans”. It was an easy job; He only had to sit in his chair and cry. He wasn’t allowed to wipe them away or else he would be beaten to a pulp by his master.
He cried. He always cried at the end of each show. The thought of committing suicide wandered through his mind all the time, but he was never given the chance to actually do so. Simply because there was nothing he could use. His room was empty and so was his life— empty and insulting.
Nobody loved him. Even the other acts in the circus made fun of him. He cried day and night without a pause. One fateful day, his tears refused to flow. They tried to literally beat him to tears, but to no avail. Having no use of him anymore, they decided to throw him away.
He was left in a dark alley, waiting for death to take him. And he prayed it would. He couldn‘t take the pain anymore. He just couldn‘t. He wanted everything to end sooner. He was hurt—broken yet no tears came out of his eyes. He grew up with sadness. It was the only emotion he knew, because sadness was all he ever felt. He was done. Finally, the cursed tears left him.
He opened his eyes, only to be blinded by a bright light. He wondered what it was. It was the first time for him to see such a thing. Before it was a deep blue fabric hanging lifelessly on the side. He looked around the area and saw that he was in a room. For the first time in years, he slept on a bed.
He panicked a little but kept a stoic face when the door opened. A man revealed himself and upon seeing that he was awake, the man smiled. Jongwoon didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to. He forgot how to speak after all those years of crying.
“Hey. My name is Kyuhyun and uhm… you’re in my room. Uhm… what else to say?” Kyuhyun mumbled. “Oh! Your wounds are all taken care of and you must be hungry because you’ve been out for three days.”
Kyuhyun slowly walked towards him and placed a tray of food on Jongwoon’s lap. The latter stared at the food as if it was something alien. He was never given food this much before. Honestly, he was never served food before in a clean plate.
“Go on and eat. Don’t worry, I didn’t poison it.” Kyuhyun joked with a chuckle.
The day passed by without a word from Jongwoon. It didn’t matter to Kyuhyun, because the only thing he wanted was for the man to be at least responsive and move around. At least he was living now, unlike before.
Days turned weeks into weeks and weeks turned into months, yet Jongwoon hadn’t shed a single tear. But that fateful day—the day he saw Kyuhyun hugging a girl clenched his heart and the next thing he knew, he was crying. Kyuhyun saw it, he knew the man saw it and the only way to avoid going back to that dreadful place was to run away again.
He was weak and he knew that. He was weak because he couldn’t outrun Kyuhyun. He was weak because he fell for Kyuhyun. He was weak. Just weak.
He didn’t run that far but everyone was already giving him stares and horrified faces. His tears were back. The black tears were back, which meant he was also going back to that place. He kept running and running till someone covered his eyes and turned him around. The person kept whispering comforting things into his ears, wich was proven to be helpful.
Not a moment too soon, he was in Kyuhyun’s apartment. The man wiped away his tears and this kindness was so new to him that it made him cry even more. Because of this, Kyuhyun hugged him in an attempt to calm him down but Jongwoon couldn’t—not when the feeling was that overwhelming. Kyuhyun’s white shirt was now stained with black but he couldn’t hold back the tears. An he couldn't hold back the words that flowed out of his mouth.
“I love you.”
The words were whispered so softly that other people might not hear but Kyuhyun did and it made him smile. He hugged Jongwoon tighter and whispered the three words back to him.
The man with black tears. The man who knew no emotion aside from sadness and hurt finally learned what happiness was. And he learned what love was.
The shortest story I've ever written. It was hard for me to write it below 1k and I failed. It exceeded.
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