I don’t remember how I got back in my dorm room. I probably walked through the rain once again because my clothes were hanging heavily drenched on my body when I stepped inside the room.

I didn’t cry when the familiar darkness embraced me. I didn’t throw a tantrum or break anything in hopes of relieving the pain that was digging holes inside of me. I just sat down on the floor and stared into nothingness, my head blank and my heart torn.

“Come out,” I said, eons later, when darkness had tightened its grip on my soul. “I know you’re there, so stop hiding,” I stared ahead blindly as she materialized herself in front of me. “Tell me it’s not true what Jongin told me,” I then demanded, forcing my eyes to focus on her ghostly appearance. “Tell me he’s wrong. Tell me that this is not the reason you cannot cross over. Tell me something that would make me believe in you, God damn it!”

But her silence was an answer too. And so, the ruins I managed to raise of from the world I knew crumbled to nothingness.

Everything was too much for my instable mind. Her betrayal felt like hot iron inside my head, while my heart was in too much pain to feel again the sting. And I wished to die. To just die of a broken heart and leave everything behind. I cowardly wished I could find deafness in death…

“If you liked him so much… why didn’t you just tell me? I would have given up on him in your favour,” I thought out loud. “All the happiness in my life and all of my freedom – I’ve got them all thanks to you, because you came into my life and named me ‘friend’. I got to live thanks to you. I would have given up on him, Chaelin,” I looked at her only to see my pain reflected in her eyes. “I would have given my life for you. I really though we were friends.”

‘Seon Yul, I…’

“Friends don’t steal one from another, Lee Chaelin,” it came out tougher than intended. “Friends don’t lie one to another while pretending everything’s fine. Friends don’t wear masks and pull strings one behind the other’s back. Friends are loyal. I’ve been nothing but loyal to you, Chaelin. I gave you everything. Everything you wanted, from money, cars, branded clothes, an apartment, my friendship, my adoration, all of my love – I gave them all to you whom I thought of as family. And yet you do this to me. Tell me something, Chaelin,” I paused for a second to stop my voice from shaking, “for this past year, how did you feel when I was telling you that Jongin is not good enough for you? How did you feel when you saw anger in my eyes at the sight of him? How did you feel when you went to his house and he looked at you with pity? Did it feel good? Or did it feel like someone was ripping your heart from your chest while you were still alive?”

‘I hated you, Seon Yul,’ she then spoke calmly. ‘I hated you all this time with your constant success and the way you spent all of your money on my whims and still pretended to be alright. I hated you for always being a step ahead of me, for being so simply in love with life that you thought my misery was happiness. All the money you sent me, all the branded things you bought me and all the parties you saw me attend did nothing but increase my hate towards you as your gifts kept my brother alive. I sold them all, Seon Yul. And you didn’t even bother to check the brand tag on the last dress you sent me,’ her lips twirled weirdly, ‘I sold it off and brought a cheap copy of it. And you didn’t even notice.  And Jongin was the only one I really wanted for myself. But you were so perfectly in love with him and all his poverty that you didn’t see my pain, the way I was making excuses not to meet when you were together with him, the way I looked for comfort in every bar I found open on the avenue. I knew that if I were to say the word, you wou