Everyone says that beauty is subjective, that it is in the eye of the beholder but as much as that is true; it is also true to say that society sculpts us into thinking a certain way is beautiful. That a certain way, is the right way and that if you look or do any different that you’re wrong. There are, of course, benefits to this as it makes it taboo to do certain things and what is wrong and right is drilled into us from an early age so that in later life we have a better chance of surviving. Then, when you delve deeper than that, the set up falls apart. People feel forced to change… to conform and when they can’t fit to these impossible “needs” it destroys them. Not always, of course, there are those who are comfortable as they are, safe in their odd unconventional skin but that was not to be your story, yet.

All your life you’d looked in the mirror and hated what you saw to the point where you now had to either remove the mirrors in your apartment, or cover them with a towel or piece of material. Beforehand you would diet and exercise it an attempt to form your body in such a way that you thought was desirable to those around you but what you sought was not just recognition from others, but from yourself. The inability to impress yourself in how you looked gnawed at every fibre of your being until what you felt inside was nothing but void. You had hit rock bottom and crashed right through it to see the seedy underbelly.

Your limbs constantly felt heavy and sore, not wanting to move as your blood-shot eyes pricked and yearned to be shut; sleep was your only escape. When you were asleep all the pain disappeared and you no longer had to think, worry or stress out. Thinking being such a plain, simple word and yet what it represented was what in the end had destroyed you. With an ironic smirk, you knew that you were not living… you were merely existing.

You tilted your face upward, relishing in the brittle cold breeze that blasted through Seoul, and took one of those breaths deeply; inhaling the freshness of the park. Eyes closed of course, zoning out from the real world not wanting to witness the expressions of passer’s by as they looked upon a young woman who looked far beyond her years. Baggy eyes, a frown upon the forehead and lips that had not smiled since… well you couldn’t remember. You slept, instead of remembering.

Peeling your eyes open, you looked straight ahead to only be metres away from a man who had also halted in the middle of the path. Instead of his eyes being closed they appeared to be staring right into you, seeing your soul, the parts even you dared not search for. Your dry lips parted, cracked and uncared for, but words would not come out and you started shaking.

“I was wondering, why did you… stop in the middle of the path?” and the words finally arrived, seemingly floating in the air, but they had not come from your mouth. The words ringed with the voice of a man, and you blinked blankly at the person in front of you.

“I… was breathing,” you spoke honestly, not really feeling the need to make up excuses but it elicited an infectious sound from the man’s chest, the sound of laughter as he nodded.

“Fair enough,” he paused to soak in a bit of the cool air, “I like to come here and… breathe too.”

What then fell was silence, you didn’t know what to say in response, there really wasn’t anything to say in response in all honesty but neither did you feel it appropriate to just leave.

“How about we breathe together? I’d say it’s marginally better than breathing separately, don’t you think?”

Still as silent as death you began to consider this man, the problem with him was that whilst you had forgotten how to interact socially… this man didn’t seem to abide by even those set rules. If he didn’t follow the social code, and you didn’t even understand it… what point was there in worrying about how he might act? When one doesn’t act as people would expect, they should… as an assumption, accept an unconventional response. In conclusion you saw it fit to simply nod and softly murmur an agreement; it was only breathing after all.