Winter, 2013

The scent of smoke filled the air as Oh Sehun lit the cigarette in between his pale fingers. He was, frankly to say, a complete mess. His pink hair was fading back into its original tone; reverting back to match the color of his eyes. It was early in Sunday morning yet he was already glued to the couch of La Soiree Cafe - physically and mentally. Due to the overwhelming tasks at work, he had been experiencing a lack of sleep. Not only did he have huge eye bags beneath his long, straight eyes, but sorrow also filled his blank eyes that were staring vacuously at the floor. Lifeless; from the outside he seemed lifeless.

His fingers slowly made their way to press the unlighted edge of the rolled tobacco in his lips. Upon the touch, he felt a sudden sensation; a quick excitement. The scent crawled up to his nose, giving him a tiny, flinching tickle. He missed it. He missed the feeling of contaminating himself with something he found rather worthy. Smoking, to him, was just another way to respect life. Once he had thought: with the mouth he was given, lungs he was granted, why not try to challenge their limits?

He quit, though, when he was twenty three. He managed to endure at least two years of living without smoking. Back in the old days, he was so completely fond of cigarettes that he could actually finish up to twenty fags in a twenty-four hours period. When he found his lips dry or when he felt bitterness on his tongue, he would imbibe one or two tobaccos and find himself running out of breath upon climbing the school's staircases afterward. His lungs could not resist the amount of smoke that cluttered in every tract, but that never stopped him from challenging the organ. His friends and relatives always told him that he's killing himself by incessantly smoking; but killing - to him, was not the right word. He was well-aware that his loved ones were concerned about the Bronchitis that inflamed his entire self. He knew he had problems with his lungs, but he also knew that they would merely get weaker if they were left untouched. Poking them with a slight amount of pain would give them more strength to survive. He believed that it wouldn't kill him in an instant.

Thus, smoking to him became a medical treatment. Ever since he was diagnosed, the rate of desire to smoke went over the board. Whenever he felt breathless, he would rather inhale the smoke of a lit cigarette nstead of taking a shot of bronchodilator. That way, he could know his extremity. He could mark his limit, thus going overboard won't fear him anymore. He came up with the conclusion that if he did not die  by smoking while running out of breath, he would not die in any other way.

At the heat that climbed up to his fingers, Sehun came back from his immersing thoughts. He took a glance at the lighted cigarette before pushing it onto his mouth. Under the rolling paper, a thousand particles of smoke made their way inside Sehun's mouth in a split second. He smiled at the ecstatic feeling that he had missed. Holding back for two years was not easy to attain and now that he finally managed to feel what he needed to feel, he felt genuinely felicitous; although at the same time, he found himself in guilt.

Spring, 2012

"L-l-l-eave!"

Her voice broke into the scattered air that was contaminated by the legion amount of smoke, surprising the two young men who were unceasingly aspirating cigarettes in the dining room. They saw a girl with long, dark hair standing in the stairway of the house, tightly shuttering her ears with both of her arms. She inhaled a short breath before repeating the same action rapidly; over and over again. Inhaled. Exhaled .Inhaled. Exhaled. Her breath sounded rushed and broken. In her thoughts, there were images of heaven and hell, ones that she had never seen before. Although she had never been into the two places, she still feared death. She still feared running out of breath. She had thought that life was a definite nothingness, but she would rather choose to live than to experience death. She had heard a lot about death. She knew from what she had heard that death comes when people stop breathing. Now that she found herself difficult to breathe, she thought she was dying. She feared death. She feared having herself breathless. She feared losing the nothingness of life.

But she could not cope up with the pain. She felt her lungs numb. Her legs felt so weak that she unknowingly fell on her knees. With the little amount of clean air that she managed to filter for her lungs, she endued another shaky yet hysteric shout.

 "Leave! Please!” her voice, again, broke into the garbled, impure air. She managed to stand up only to waver back and forth in panic. In between her steps, she tried to whisper herself to breathe. ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.’ All she could try was to breathe, although breathing, at the moment, hurt her more than anything else that had.

The twenty three year old Kim Jongin whose dark brown hair touched his eyes, instantly extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray before he threw himself towards Soojung. He clenched his teeth as he flung his arm around his cousin's sparse waist. He silently cursed at himself for being eminently reckless. He knew Soojung was home, yet he still heedlessly smoked, causing Soojung to run out of control.

At Jongin’s sudden touch, Soojung flinched. Breathing was already difficult to her, Jongin was making it a lot harder. She wanted to get away; she wanted to release herself from him. She needed to breathe. With Jongin in her back, she still tried to walk back and forth. ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe’. She could only think of breathing.

"Calm down, Jung Soojung," Jongin tried to whisper onto her ears. The fact that Soojung was trying to free herself from him caused Jongin to endow his entire strength in embracing her. He clutched his arm even more firmly that it hurt her, but he had no other choice. Soojung was completely disturbed and demented. She screamed for help repeatedly; her voice cracked yet still hysteric.

"P-please! Help! Br-breathe! Can't breathe! Can't breathe!" her eyes were widely opened, surrounded by a clear look of fear.

Soojung disliked the place that she was currently in. She disliked the scent; the air. She disliked the way it hurt her nose when she breathed. She disliked the dizziness that she had upon taking a quick, short breath. She disliked breathing abruptly because it was a torment to her. She mostly disliked the stranger who was inconsiderately smoking in her house with Jongin.

She disliked everything at the moment; she even disliked herself for disliking too many things. She learned that when you dislike nothing, you would stay in peace. Now that she disliked everything, she blamed herself for the worst.

Minutes passed yet she still hadn't stopped moving. Jongin hadn't stopped trying to calm her down either. Soojung was in rage. She only wanted to breathe; why did it hurt? Why did breathing - the only thing that she thought she had mastered - had to anguish her with pain?

She tried to gather her thoughts, although gathering what came up to her mind was a lot harder than blinking an eye. 'Breathe, breathe, breathe'. Over and over she forced herself to breathe. In his arm, Jongin noticed that Soojung’s heartbeat had gone over the normal rate. He rested his chin in Soojung's shoulder, trying eminently hard to stop her from moving. His voice lingered, reaching Soojung's ear, causing the girl to slow the pace of her movement as the words cluttered her mind.

"You'll be able to breathe upstairs, Soojung," Jongin had said. "Go inside your room and breathe as much as you want, okay?"

Soojung hesitated, but then she completely stopped moving. She looked over Jongin who had plastered a soothing smile on his face.  While trying to filter some fresh, clean oxygen - without moving her eyes from her cousin - Soojung looked over the dusty air and pointed it with her pale and thin finger.

"S-s-moke..." she murmured with an absence of sound that Jongin could barely hear it. It took a while before Jongin was certain that Soojung had become more tranquil. He finally released his grip from Soojung's waist and threw her another comforting smile.

"Smoke, yes. Upstairs got no smoke." He took Soojung by her shoulder and guided her to the stairs before letting the fragile looking girl to run towards the second floor. She had repeatedly mumbled "smoke" and the mutterings grew higher in volume as she reached her room, where she finally breathed in peace without any sort of pain killing herself.

Downstairs, Jongin heaved a big sigh. He glanced over his friend Sehun who was silently watching all along; completely taken aback by the hysterical scene. His jaw dropped in disbelief while he dimmed the half-done cigarette in his fingers.

"What ... was that?" he longed for an answer. Although Soojung had lived in Jongin's house for years, it was Sehun's first time meeting her. Wonders filled his mind as he tried to connect the pieces of puzzle together . Was she deranged? Unhinged? Was she an idiot? Mentally ill? He had thought every possibility that could probably deviate with the truth.

Jongin stared at the younger guy in chafe, throwing curses at him for only turning the cigarette off after Soojung went upstairs and for insisting that they could carelessly smoke in the house with a reason of your-parents-are-still-out-of-town. He was about to blame Sehun for all the mess that they had caused to Soojung, but he realized it was solely his fault.

He was completely aware that there were some things he could and could not do when Soojung's around. Smoking and leaving her behind were ones he could not - he should not, unless he wanted Soojung to be out of control and eventually hurt herself. He was well-aware of the fact, yet he still smoked when she was only one floor away.

Jongin threw himself on the couch, ignoring Sehun and his countless questions.  He had disintegrated all his energy in order to sedate Soojung; he did not want to spend more to explain to Sehun that his cousin was suffering from a severe autistic disorder.

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