“Losing like you is like somebody just turned all the lights off."

- Lights Off,  Jay Sean

            If someone were to walk into the Park’s home completely unannounced, it would feel eerily like a silent house. Not a soul breathed downstairs let alone moved. The furniture, walls were submerged in the total darkness of the evening. Though young, it was threatening. Suffocating, dark clouds had flooded the sky, burning out every star that should be shining. A full moon had been cheated of its place, choked by stiflingly thick clouds until it was murdered in a burnt-out death. A ghost could have floated through the shadowy downstairs of the two-story house and the brushing of its invisible cloak could have disturbed the silence. Creeping up the stairwell, a sigh of relief could break the silence of the upstairs hallway at the sight of a light. The door to the bedroom at the far end of the hallway was open ajar, teasing a ray of much needed light. A few careful steps toward it, and silence seemed to melt with the darkness. Maybe it was a sort of wailing noise, a noise mysterious enough to subliminally tug at the heartstrings. A few more curious steps closer, and the mysterious noise clarified into unmistakable sobbing. And if a brave hand pushed open the door, the lone light would reveal the unmistakable figure of a girl in a striped sweatshirt lying in a broken heap among purple sheets, releasing the most heartbreaking of cries.

            Dark hair cascaded carelessly over wrinkled bed sheets, sheets that were being squeezed between two balled-up fists. As weak as the muscles in the arms connected to those fists felt, they were still being squeezed until flesh turned bone-white. The lilac color of the sheets, such an endearing and delicate color, was turning a deep shade of purple as tears stained to them. Those fists were being held close to a face, a pretty face that had tragically been stricken with tears. The face featured trembling lips, a painfully red nose, and bloodshot eyes. It was the same face that had once been held with tender, loving hands. Tears dropped from beautifully dark, fanned-out eyelashes of almond-shaped eyes. Every now and then, those eyes would open and stare up at ceiling before dropping closed as another sob escaped quivering lips They were the same lips that had once been lovingly, tenderly kissed. A body trembled beneath the lilac sheets, a limp body that housed lungs desperately sobbing for air and a heart fighting to beat. It was the same body that had once been lovingly, tenderly held close. A male’s gray striped hoodie looked comfortably too big for the seemingly lifeless, female body it covered. The hoodie could have only belonged to Choi Jonghyun, and the trembling lips, teary eyes and broken heart could have only belonged to Park Min Neul.

            Another desperate sob escaped Min Neul’s lips. Her lungs hurt from gasping from air, but she felt like a pair of relentless hands was restricting the air. Those hands obviously didn’t want her to live, and for a moment she wondered why on earth she was even fighting them. She had lost the one person that she valued more than her own life and loved with more than all her heart. There wasn’t really a point in living at all, but unfortunately, her body was too weak to pick itself up and end her life herself.  She would have to let her limp body do it on it’s own. If she didn’t suffocate to death, perhaps the sharp pieces of her shattered heart would make her bleed to death. Maybe her mind would drain itself from replaying the horrific breakup over and over again and she would die from exhaustion. Either way, Min Neul decided she was doomed to die helplessly with no one but her broken heart.

            Her older sister was, well, obviously away at college. Both of her parents were out for the night, and when they would return was a mystery to Min Neul. Perhaps before the left they had told her a certain time to except their arrival, but the exact digits had been lost in the mess off a breakup she and Jonghyun had just had. It had felt like Jonghyun had ruthlessly dropped a bomb on her when she hadn’t expected it. Their relationship had been stronger than ever. Every time she reached out to him, he had always been there with a smile and a tender touch. But now, when Min Neul reached out for him, Jonghyun wouldn’t be there to run up to her and greet her with open arms. She had never felt so helpless in her entire life.

            Min Neul released her grip on her sheets, which she had been squeezing tightly in her fists. She wrapped her arms around herself her trembling body and buried her tear-soaked face deep against her mattress. With she sleeves of Jonghyun’s hoodie covering her arms, she could always imagine Jonghyun’s arms around her whenever she did that. But the cruel, bitter reality was that those arms didn’t belong to Jonghyun, and they never again would. Suddenly the beloved hoodie was beginning to feel like an unforgiving straightjacket as she slowly lost her mind. She shivered in her straightjacket at Jonghyun’s absence. Min Neul wasn’t used to this empty feeling both around her and inside her; if Jonghyun had to walk out of her life, he could have at least left her heart behind.

            How could Jonghyun have mistaken her so badly? Didn’t he know how much he meant to Min Neul? She had been adamant to never let a day go by without telling him how much she loved him. How could he think she would do something as heartless as cheat on him? He was everything she had ever wanted of and more. It was a dream come true that Changjo knew she existed alone fell in love with her. Min Neul had always considered herself the luckiest girl in the world to own Changjo’s heart, and she couldn’t bear the pain of having it ripped right out of her careful, tender hands that now longed to touch him again. She never loved Hyowon. She never even dreamed of cheating on Jonghyun with Hyowon either. Every heartbreaking sob that Min Neul exhaled made her hate Hyowon even more for coming between her and Jonghyun, but not any more than she hated herself for failing to love Jonghyun as much as he deserved.

            Without Jonghyun, Min Neul felt like her world was spiraling down an endless tunnel. She felt helpless against a force that was much greater than she was. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do that would make Jonghyun come back to her and she knew it. Her chest throbbed with every word she tortured herself into believing she could have said to make him stay. Her mind was so busy spinning with the realization that Jonghyun was gone that she hardly noticed the faint tapping of raindrops against her window.

            As if Min Neul didn’t have enough tears to cry on her own, the sky decided to join her in her misery. The sound of the raindrops grew louder and louder, all-too appropriate background music to her deadly depression. Min Neul choked back a sob as she sat up straighter, peering out the window through her blurry eyes. Her vision never completely cleared, but she could see well enough to watch what seemed like hundreds of angry raindrops slam themselves against the window, desperate to be let inside and safe from the impending storm. Min Neul felt her heart drop even lower; she hated everything about rain. Rain meant storms, and storms were Min Neul’s worst fear. Though she believed with all the pieces of her shattered heart that nothing could compare to losing Jonghyun, the thought of a storm was still enough to bring freshly stinging tears to her eyes.

            Her entire body ached, but that didn’t stop Min Neul from crawling to the foot of her bed and snatching her phone in her shaky hands. She folded her throbbing self into a tight ball at the top of her bed, pulled Jonghyun’s hoodie tighter against her body, and watched through her tears as she typed Jonghyun’s number into her phone. She couldn’t bear to think of being home alone while it poured, but if she could at least hear the sound of Jonghyun’s voice then maybe she could make it through.

            There was so much Min Neul wanted to say to Jonghyun. As she waiting impatiently with wide eyes fixed on the dreary rain outside, she tried to frantically come up with the right words to make Jonghyun listen to her. Just hearing a generic greeting from him would be enough to pull her through. Anything to change the nasty last words he had spat to her. Maybe enough time had gone by and reason had finally settled in where his anger had been. His phone continued to ring, and Min Neul’s mind continued to race. Her concentration shattered when she watched the sky outside light up with a defined strike of lightning. She hadn’t wanted to, but Min Neul began to sub uncontrollably as she was directed to Jonghyun’s voicemail. Of course he hadn’t responded when she needed him the most.

            “Jonghyun,” Min Neul gasped into her phone. “Jonghyun, I need you to answer me, please answer me, there’s a s-storm outs-side and I need to h-hear your voice, okay? I can’t ing do this anymore, okay, I can’t lose you, I can’t, I need you to listen to me and give me a chance…” Min Neul squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lip, and hung up. One flash of lightning later, she began dialing his number again.

            “Baby, please answer me,” Min Neul begged helplessly. “You know I would n-never ch-cheat on you, okay? Please just l-listen to me.” She wiped her wet face clear of tears but another painful sob brought them right back. “I love you, Jonghyun, I love you…”

            She hung up once more, just before the wind began to audibly pick up outside. Narrowing her bloodshot eyes, Min Neul dialed his number once again. And again after that. She must have called him six or seven desperate times before the merciless ringing was finally replaced with Jonghyun’s voice. Unfortunately for Min Neul, his soft, velvety voice didn’t greet her in a gushing apology like she had desperately hoped.

            “Stop ing calling me,” he barked into the phone. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to listen to you. I don’t ing love you and I never did. Enjoy the storm, .”

            The line went dead before so much as a sob could even escape Min Neul’s trembling lips. Though she was in a state of sheer terror and dejection, Min Neul gripped the phone in a clenched fist. The screen was still lit up, tauntingly flashing a smiling picture of Jonghyun as she sweetly kissed his cheek with blissfully closed eyes. She had been in love. Her heart had been in one whole piece, beating rapidly at every one of Jonghyun’s touches, every one of Jonghyun’s kisses. That same heart had been gripped by Jonghyun’s ruthless hands and torn right up, carelessly tossed aside to writhe in the agony of separation. Jonghyun had said it himself he didn’t love Min Neul anymore. And that pain was powerful enough alone to make Min Neul’s palms clench as she raised her hand.

            With an agonizing scream supported by all the fury in Min Neul’s body, she drew back the arm that gripped her phone before sending it slicing like a razor through the air, stopped only my the panel of glass that made up the window across her bed. With the force the simple phone had met the glass, the already scratched screen completely shattered, dulling the smiling picture of a heavenly content couple to bleak, unforgiving black. The useless black rectangle fell to the ground among the shattered pieces of glass, leaving on the panel of glass a cracked, spider web-like fissure in the very center just as  deafening clap of thunder roared through the sky. Min Neul stared in wide-eyed terror at the broken glass and useless cellphone on the ground below as well as the spiral, bullet-like crack in her bedroom window. She choked on her tears and agonizing disbelief at her strength, which was the physical result of the pain, ire, and misery ripping through her body. Her bloodshot, weary eyes filled with tears once more as the watched raindrops violently pelt against the spiral fissure. It was like a bullet had come sailing into the room through the window, directed straight at her heart. But when Min Neul’s hand flew to her chest and dejectedly realized she was still living, she collapsed in a heap of helpless misery and wished her life away.

            Her eyelids were squeezed shut, but every so often they would creak open to squeeze out fresh tears from her nearly endless supply. She shook in fear at every single blinding strike of lightning and horrific boom of thunder. At one particularly earth-shattered explosion of thunder from the sky, all the lights in the house began to flicker. Terrorized, Min Neul straightened up, blinking in horror as the light around her blinked away. Darkness completely submerged her, engulfing her in the unknown terror or an endless shadow. A blood-curling scream tore from her lips, barely audible over the rage of the thunder. In total darkness, with only the blinding, bright brightness of lightning to illuminate the eerily lonesome house, Min Neul collapsed back down on the bed, praying that God would take her away.

            had locked up, lethally restricting Min Neul from breathing, and her heaving chest had caved in. There was a tangible pain searing in Min Neul’s chest, right where her heart was. At the cruel realization that Jonghyun truly did not want her, and their relationship really was over, left Min Neul bitterly paralyzed. She stopped contemplating if one could actually die from a broken heart and gave into the realization that if she laid there on her bed, sobbing herself sick as her entire body ached and trembled beneath a certain boy’s clothing, the life would actually begin to slip from her. She could only hope that her passing wasn’t so cruelly dragged out, and that with just a treacherous clap of thunder her breath would be stolen and her tired heart would simply give up.

            As it was, it was nearly too battered to even beat. Min Neul felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat to her entire body, but her heart in particular. It felt like it was trekking on, beating just rapidly enough to keep her awake. Awake, but maybe not conscious. Min Neul’s mind was a whirlpool of emotions flooded by an overwhelming wave of the most painful depression. As far as she was concerned, life was over. What good was being a trainee and becoming an idol if she didn’t have the one person who made it all possible in her life? He couldn’t just leave her with such a change in her life approaching. She knew from the start there was no way she could make it through trainee life and the stress of being an idol without someone strong and loving to keep her up every time she felt like falling down.

            Jonghyun had been more than her boyfriend; he had been her stability. He had been her sanity. And since his crude departure, Min Neul’s life was left in crumbling shambles swept in a whirlwind of insanity that was, slowly but surely, killing her all thorough the treacherous night.