A/N: !! content imminent!! 

~*~

Moonlight pours in beautiful cascades from the crack in the blowing curtains, wind, cold, caressing but mostly, lingering like the darkness of my past. I am neither awake nor asleep, caught in limbo of the two, but perhaps a little more closer to the grips of reality than I think I really am. It’s been like this for a while now, a goddamn long while, but I’ve built up something of a tolerance to it. I guess…I can say that I’m used to a lot of things. One thing I know, more certain than anything, more certain than the scars that mar my skin in discolouring shades, is that I’m always alone. Always. But, that is beside the point. The point is… at present… something of an overplayed record…

I can’t sleep.

I can’t, but it’s not like I’m not tired. Oh, I’m so very fatigued. My limbs, my muscles, my mind they still ache not only from today’s exertions, but it’s like my body is weary of existing itself. It should be the one thing, if anything, that I am accustomed to – and the irony is… that I’m not. I think life has a tendency of dealing me the useless cards, as if someone, or something, instantaneously conjured such a notion into my existence; as if some deity had said to another one day, ‘Hey, Look at Kim Taeyeon. She’s not born yet. So let’s put her in that ty family, the one where the couple barely acknowledge each other. Yes that’s right, the more damaged the better! And what about this? Why don’t we let her get when she’s all alone? You know… just for funsies,’

But then again. I don’t know why I try to feel. No matter how many therapists have tried to ‘help’ me, I’m a lost cause.

‘Too emotionless,’

‘Apathy is her most astonishing ability,’

‘Have you formed … any attachments at all?’

“No. I’m not brave, not powerful, not wiser for any of it… or any of that. I’m just … me.”

Scrawled, peeled and the label slammed across my forehead: “Narcissist, borderline psychopath,”

… Be warned, Keep out of reach of Children!! …

So I learned. Therapists aren’t really there to help. They’re there for the money. And the money that funds my therapy? Charity from my loyal clients. I accept it because they’re the closest I have to family: Hyoyeon, the university professor; Soonkyu ‘Sunny’, the newscaster; and Joohyun ‘Seohyun’, the artist. I accept it because they pleaded for me to. Oh, they’d pleaded so desperately, so emotionally, if I could have but a mere ounce of such humanity, maybe I wouldn’t be the way I am. However, the wall to my ineptitude to feel is tickled by one thing, one thing that offers me hope in that, perhaps, one day, I’ll be a human being. Maybe even normal. This hope? I suppose… its small… I don’t want to disappoint them.

And, like every other night, I attempt to attain what resemblance of sleep I can, and tentatively avoid the dance to the fiddler’s tune of my deepest, inner demons. I turn again, and again, twisting to various positions but it doesn’t help – it never helps, so I’m not sure why I even try anymore. But, I only know one thing that does.

No, not tonight. I’m not going to draw tonight.

Through the musky dim darkness of my humble flat, I discern shapes, figures and faces, too, but I’m wise enough to know it’s a figment of my imagination. And so I reach out, hands, fingers outstretched, blindly clawing in the darkness for the switch. And it comes on, a single flicker before artificiality bathes the entirety of the makeshift studio. White, bleached, much too intense for my eyes, but at least … at the very least…I can see.

There, my fingers close upon the handle, and my feet move on their accord. Suddenly it’s daylight striking my eyes, sharp. But it’s not daylight, my apartment is on the higher levels, what … I should have been with... is pitch-black darkness. For the briefest of moments, I see nothing, hear nothing but the piercing shrill of my own imagination. It fades, steadily, evanesces like memories, but some, some haunting memories still linger – will always linger.

 “Taeyeon?”

I blink, lift my fingers, splayed out, against the light, against the murky fogs. My eyes settle upon her, aesthetics, most pleasing, familiar but no warmth of overwhelming love, no revitalising spray of endearment. I still… don’t know what it’s like to feel. But… I know, that niggle of gold that sparks, small, minute in the bearing, consuming, cavern of shadows. I recognise it like a distant candle-light, and perhaps a little like the happiness I’ve falsified so many times, only this time, genuine.

“…Hyo?” I blink away the last vestiges of electric imprints, the static that impedes my vision. And, warmer this time around. “Hyo.”

“I was just about to knock…” She murmurs, voice a low hum, as, with light fingers, she brushes away the blonde strands that streak across her gentle complexion.

Kim Hyoyeon, the one who taught me to write, read, the one who taught me civility; and, by extension, a load of things in life. Books, books, ah books, I’d devoured them as soon as I ‘knew’ I could read; thousands upon thousands, I think that’s the first time I’d discovered the strange little human phenomenon: gratitude.

 She doesn’t speak, and I hadn’t felt the need to do so; thus the silence blossoms, a deadly flower but with little intention to poison or maim.

“Come in,” I finally say, reluctant because my spontaneous moonlight walk had been torn from my grasp. Alas, I suppose I can reschedule. Though I doubt it. My decisions in life are all based on impulse. I slide to the side of the door, to the creaking hinge that begs for oiling, but I’m too forgetful for that. It’s not like it bothers me anyhow.

“Are you free tonight?” She says, slipping off her coat and passing it to me. Made of black leather, smooth to the touch of my tainted fingers, but I feel no envy as I hang the expensive outer-garment upon the hook. I always expect some sort of ignition of feeling… it doesn’t come. Whilst I claim I’m indifferent, apathetic, I am not a stranger to the more negative of the emotional spectrum. I reiterate, someone up there hates me, I swear it.

“I…” I trail off, thinking of earlier, the several casual clients who I’d accepted upon a whim…

…The middle-aged balding, greying haired man with the gold band upon his left ring finger, drooling as he ineptly into me. It took a record couple of minutes before he came, grunting my falsified name upon his lips. And I pretended, for him. I pretended that I loved him more than his unfaithful wife did. He was a loyal customer, after all.

 (Oh, and I’m more than a e, you see, I give a better experience. I don’t just lie there and take it (although some require me to do that), I give a more… personal effect.)

... And, the woman who’d violently ground herself on my face seemed to have forgotten I needed to breathe, she made my lungs scream for air, but it’s nothing I can’t take; nothing’s as violent as my first. She did the same hip-rocking, hedonistic-fuelled riding until she came over me; my mouth, my chin, covered in her release. Whilst she was caught in the clutches of lust, she was loud, whining, whimpering… when she was done, she became mute, quiet, merely collapsed on the space beside me. I placed kisses upon her skin, told her she was beautiful, over and over until she drifted into sleep. Proceeding that, I lay awake, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling of textured white, waiting for the time until she awoke again. When she left, she promised, “I’ll visit again,”. I only nodded, pressed my lips to hers.

They always came back. All of my clients because I had something in common. We’re lonely; but myself less so than them.

“Tae?”

“Sorry, Hyo,” I am quick to respond. Nothing good ever came from lethargy.

“Well?” She repeats, again, brow raised. My eyes flit to the elevated hand, a wad of won notes – she wants a night of company. And that’s what I sell. That’s what differs from me and my competitors, this is the reason I can flourish so well in such a tight business. I not only sell my body, I sell my soul. Perhaps this is why I can’t feel. Ah, but I ponder so much upon a thing so menial – thoughts are doltish things. I must digress.

“Of course, Princess,” I say, easily slipping into the persona she favours. The one I reserve for my most ‘treasured’ of customers. It doesn’t take me long to edge up to her, press one hand against the small of her back, and whisper, heavily, huskily, (but ever so falsely) into her receptive ears, “I have all the time in the world for you,”

And she falls once more, again, into my touches. I direct us into my bedroom, place her like royalty upon my bed. And ease her out of her clothes, throw them strategically in a pile she’d locate easily, later. I place kisses across the expanse of her neck, watch the steady cadence of her heart under the translucent layer of her skin, leave bruises that I know will fade by tomorrow – her eyes ask, and my body (or rather, I) delivers. I wind her lovely hair into my fingers, admire their silkiness, so unblemished. And drift down when she urges me down, I lap at her arousal, as if she’s the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. But, she’s not the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted, though, she’s certainly sapid to my tongue.

She moans, trembles, not-so-patiently awaiting, as I slowly, precisely push my tongue in and out of her heat, draw it up to the that’s just beginning to colour. She’s close, and I recognise every symptom. Feel her thighs tense beside my head, see her well-formed chest, sprinkled with speckles of perspiration, eye her pert s rise and fall with the anticipation. So I know only to cease, for milliseconds; let her drift away from the cliff that she hangs so precariously close to. Deny her, for a moment, wait for her to beg. She likes that. I slow my tongue, so it merely delivers light, gentle touches, it keeps her there, at the height, the very edging peak of ing; but it’s too slow for her to gain what she wants – just as I’d planned.

“P-please.” One word is enough.

So I smile. Perhaps out of habit, because no emotion connects the smile to … me.

“Come for me,” I murmur, knowing she’d hear me, somewhere in her world of concupiscence. “Come for me, Princess,”

So I begin again, and she does as I say. So obedient. But, really, I’m the obedient one. Her lithe body quivering under my touch, as I persist, tongue flicking every soft cranny, every crevice of her, until I’m sure, more than sure, that I’ve drawn every drop of her release into my mouth.

When I’m done, I rise from between her legs, allow her to taste herself on my tongue as I kiss her, not frenziedly, not out of passion, always out of what she wants. Paced, and easy. Because, with practice, anything becomes easy. She sighs, exhales softly and drifts into sleep. I pull the covers over her form, daren’t touch her (there isn't any desire to), and put the payment, the wad of cash, into the first drawer – I plan to put that into my account later, when the sun is highest in the Seoul summer sky.

From where I spied the moon’s essence earlier, the first trickles of daylight melt into a greater torrent of brightness, pure, simple and free. But as my actions are not one of the day walkers, I don’t feel home in its warmth. I merely know that it’s a ‘could have’ rather than an ‘is’. I sigh, turn my gaze to the unconscious Hyoyeon who’s still caught in the mist of dream. I didn’t get much sleep last night, either; too bad I can’t stop working.

It’s as they say, ‘There’s no rest for the wicked’.

And, so, I wait.

I wait until the ten o’clock sun starts to burn through the crack in my curtains, and Hyoyeon begins to be roused from sleep. To occupy my time, I’d sketched, transferred her sleeping beauty to a single sheet of paper. I brush my fingertips against it now, the grey curves and lines, the drawing that’s a likeness of her.

“Taeyeon?” The woman questions, greets, sleep still entwined into her groggy voice, and squinting eyes. “…What time is it?” She covers her eyes, closing them as she drapes her forearm across her face.

I stare, for a mere one moment, and then drift my eyes to the clock. Two past Ten. “Ten,” I answer, quietly. Impatience curdling inwards, despite my best intentions to conceal it – the next client would be arriving soon.

“Ugh,” The blonde speaks, stretching out, cat-like, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “I’m not holding you back from anything am I?”

I give no answer, silent.

“ Tae,” Hyoyeon blames it on me. Of course, it’s always my fault. “You should have told me…”

I shrug. Really, I’m partially indifferent but I like to have a relatively consistent source of income.

“Ten minutes,” Hyoyeon promises, as she clambers off my bed, it creaking under her modest weight. And I watch as she wanders to the pile, slipping on her , clasp her bra, and shove her pieces of clothing on. “Thanks … for the night,”

“Thanks for your custom,” I semi-whisper, clearing my throat as she pulls me into a hug, I hear her breathing me in. Breathing in the little fragment of my soul into her nostrils, until it becomes her, and no longer me.

“See you…” She says before leaving, faltering as she attempt to calculate the correct time, “…soon,”

“Yes,” I agree, giving her a wink that I feel no spirit for, I grin at her, all the same, “See you, Hyo,”

She really did leave in ten minutes. Just in time. The knock on my door signals my next client, and I open the door, smile brightly, as if I’d been anticipating him.

“Hi Jaejoong, I missed you, it’s been a while since you’ve come,”

He smiles, and I usher him in. Pressing my fingertips at his shoulder blade, light, gentle, provocative.
 

~*~

[Seo:

Meet me at the coffee place at the corner of yours? In an hour? ~~~

Sent:  18:05]

I read it. And I obey. Shower, dress and makeup in an all-time record: Forty-five minutes on the dot.

The café, itself, isn’t busy nor dead-silent. At a comfortable medium, and there, Joohyun sits, at the window side table. One leg folded over the other. She looks elegant, a business-woman, like she’s the CEO of a company. Even her hairstyle, short, cropped at the shoulders, professionally dyed, reeks of efficiency.

But, on the contrary, she’s an artist….Like me.

“Unnie,” She breathes, pulls me into her vaguely, distantly, comforting arms, places gentle kisses on either side of my cheeks. I stand, almost awkwardly as she does this, “How are you?”

In some ways, she’s as damaged as me.

“I’m--,” I start to say soft, too soft, so I clear my throat, and start again; return the kisses, but my heart’s not that in it today, “I’m fine, yourself?”

Joohyun spoke of her past once. A single candid session. Her life bared out to me, to analyse, compare and evaluate. Molested by her grandfather at the sweet age of sixteen, when she told her father about it she was disowned from the family – none of them believed the tales of a young immature girl over the wise kindly elder who showered gifts upon his dearest grandchildren. She grew up on the streets, like me, but, unlike me, strangers took pity on her. Such… adorableness could not be overlooked. Shining glossy eyes, so pitiful, so sorrowful; she got lucky, an amiable couple, unable to have their own children, took her in. Claimed her as their own. So very lucky.

“Well,” She answers, and then she cuts in before I can, “—okay, I guess.” She nods, bites her tongue until the image – whatever image it is – flickers away. “Business is … good.”

“Good.” I reply, just as mechanical. And I take a seat. She’s already got my order at the table, vanilla latte, soy milk, no sugar. And hers? A simple tea, no milk, no sugar.

What we lack in conversation is made up for in the easy synchronisation of our bodies. Even, I, the apathetic queen of Seoul’s infamous business, can see that. There’s a definite connection, but I daren’t alter what we are into further—though I can see from the way, even now, Joohyun’s gentle eyes gaze at me, lovingly, fondly, such kindness in those brown eyes, that she’s not at all aversive to such a notion.

“…and… y-your business?” She inquires, daintily, so very delicately about a topic so crude.

“Well,” I say, thinking back to Jaejoong. Neither grimace nor smile, I gaze back as if it’s a menial recollection for what I had for breakfast this morning – I had hot, spurts of white viscous so profuse in amount that it was spilling, dripping down my chin. “Business fairs well,” I spare her the details; she’s so innocent when we’re out of the bedroom.

Joohyun smiles, somewhat reluctantly because she knows exactly what I mean. She averts her eyes, bites her lower lip, concentrating, “… good.”

“It’s been a while.” I change the topic, when I see her crawl back into herself. It’s cute, in some respects; rather, I merely observe what is supposed to be cute. “Found a girlfriend, yet? … ” I ask, then realise I don’t know her uality, add in a tentative, “…or boyfriend?”

“No!” She’s quick, and I realise I’ve hit a nerve as she both physical and in spirit, withdraws from the conversation. Artists are touchy souls, easy to offend, easy to damage. I think that’s why they’re so good at what they do.

Our time together passes on, silent, taking small sips in turn, until the froth of my drink reaches the bottom. I rise, smile, incline my head. “Well, Seo,” I use her favourite nickname, and she brightens, not a lot, but it’s enough. It ensures me that she’ll be back sometime, “I’d best be off,”

“Okay,” She, too, gets up. Pulls me into another hug, leaves the softest of kisses upon my cheek, and is about to press one to my lips; but she stops herself, hesitating as if she’s wondering ‘Should I? … Shouldn’t I?’

So, I decide for her. Brush my own against hers, always gentle because she’s like a delicate flower, to be cherished and treated with respectful diligence; I do it, despite the influx of shocked stares, the gasps of disproval, murmurs that such abominations shouldn’t exist. What do I care? I’m the spited, hated, ‘e’ of the human race.

“Goodbye, Seo,” I murmur, as I break apart our lips, leaving a final peck on her forehead. And I’m leaving, stringing my bag along with me, ignoring the stares, some of recognition, some of anew disgust… for a brief moment I feel pain, sharp, pin-prick, but it’s gone when the murky cloud arrives again.

“Oh,” She says, suddenly, out of the blue. Just as I’m leaving, so I turn back, always attentive. Her small hands pass me a business card, I don’t read it, simply turn to her, questioningly.

“A new therapist, my therapist,” She says with a nod. “She’s good, and I’ve paid for a couple of sessions for her, with you. Just phone that number,” She flips the card over in my hand, gestures to the number, “She’ll even drive to yours,”

I gaze at her, not speaking, a slow frown beginning to tremble, forming, like the cracks of an earthquake, “Therapy doesn’t work, not for me,” I say, almost coldly, almost swearing illogical abuse at her but manage to catch myself at the last moment. That was close.

“She’s nothing like that crap that Hyo and Sunny found,” And then she gives me a look, one of hers that I don’t see often. ‘Oh, but you do.’ It says, ‘You need a therapist more than anyone I know, more than myself.’

To please her, I nod, grudgingly. Avert my eyes into submission, because ‘I am a submissive little ’, “Fine,”

Her smile is instantaneous. “I’ll be checking on you~”

“I know,” I laugh, a little too dry, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “See you, Seohyun. Take care of yourself,”

~*~

Night falls, and the eventide petals spring open, casting shadows upon Seoul once more. Joohyun’s been persistent, texting me every hour with something like an ‘Have you phoned the therapist yet?’, I’d reply the same thing each time. ‘No, I’m busy, sorry’.

At present, I have no other excuse to give, and I, finally, tap in the digits of the printed number. I wait, hear the tone dialling…dialling… too long…and I’m about to give up (too easily), when the phone picks up. Ugh.

“Im Yoona speaking,” A woman on the phone answers. I can tell by her voice that she’s amiable. But not certain if she’s cordial by nature or due to her profession.

“… You’re the therapist?” I say – I was never good at phone calls, usually it was simple, the same:

 ‘Hey. Tonight?’

‘Yep, tonight.’

‘Great. See you’.

‘Right. Bye,’

“…ah… you’re a client? I didn’t think I had any appointments today, unless you’re ---,”

“Kim Taeyeon,” We both say, simultaneously. I then cough, out of false embarrassment or real I’m not sure, and she laughs, facile, blissful. Like she’s got no worries in the world. To me, she doesn’t, they’re irrelevant. Silly little anxieties of a perfect doted child.

“Well,” The stranger says, “If you want, I can drive to your place, now?”

“I---,” I balk, not because I have any of my own clients waiting, but because the prospect of telling my life story (because that’s what happens… doesn’t it?) to a stranger is too surreal for me. But then, I remember, that I’ve never told any of my previous therapists everything. If they knew, it would drive them insane. If they knew, they would brand me more than a lunatic.

The woman laughs, it travels down the phone; she laughs too much, is too happy and I can tell it is so, even now. For some reason, I start to feel the singular sting of annoyance. What gave someone the implicit right to be so happy?

“We can just start, here. Miss Seo has paid for everything, in advance. But, you can consider this session a trial, for the both of us. Everything spoken will be confidential, I can assure you, Miss Kim,”

She sounds adept, now, proficient, like a doctor. Like those dreaded doctor visits I needed every month or so because of this damned occupation I chose – wait, life chose.

I sigh. “Fine.”

“Where do you want to start?”

“Well, I don’t know, genius,” I mutter, kicking the floor with my toe, “You’re the therapist,”

Yoona laughs at that. And I find myself a seat, gaze out of the window onto the winding roads, the lights and the busy hordes of night goers on the streets below, hear the sounds, traffic lights, chatter merged into a glorious mess of audible noise, ah, city life.

“Well,” She finally says, capturing my attentions again, “Let’s begin from your earliest memory, Taeyeon-ssi,”

And, so, I speak. I avoid all those dark parts of my story. Speak about my deceased parents, my cold, hostile father, my mother and her drug addiction. That, alone, lasts for an hour. And, through the totality, Yoona remains silent, only offering small pieces of acknowledgement. At times, when I feel as if I’ve spoken for too long, and I think she’s not there anymore, I pause for a moment, just to hear, just to wait, for the sound of her slow breathing, slightly muffled down the phone line. ‘She’s still there.’ I think ‘And I’d thought she’d give up, like the others, like they always do.’

I stop at the deaths, she doesn’t need to hear that; I don’t want her to know neither. But, oh, she knows I’m reluctant about something; I can feel her curiosity, but I don’t care to sate it.

“You did well, Taeyeon-ssi,” She hums, praising me as if I’m some infant seeking for attention, seeking for acceptance. But, I could do without the scrutiny; I could do way better.

I don’t answer, substitute it by making a noise with my throat, so that she’s aware I heard.

“Miss Kim,” She says, brightly, affably, “If you desire, let’s continue these sessions?”

I know Joohyun would want me to, so I nod, at that concurrent moment, I remember she, Yoona, wouldn’t be able to see it, “Fine.”

“Text me your address, Miss Kim,” She continues, “When are you free, when is suitable for you?”

I glance over at my diary, the pages lying open, scribbles sullying the print underneath. “In two days’ time, evening,”

“Lucky coincidence,” I can hear Yoona’s smile in her voice. It grates against me. There’s nothing to smile about that. “See you then, Taeyeon-ssi,”

“’Kay,” I answer, and hang up. Enter in my address details, send it, and subside to my bed. Depleted, apprehensive, and mildly infuriated from the exasperating, wearying, and biased conversation.

~*~

The hours blur and pass too quickly.

But then again, my sense of time is so askew. I don’t even know what is night or day any longer. Driven by the lingering necessity to generate money.

“Thanks for your time, Tae.” Soonkyu says, streaming her firm presses into my bare sides, her silky soft s feel vaguely warm against my back, her chin, another heated presence, atop my shoulder and – the same one’s I’d kissed, the same ones that had whispered and sweet nothings, bare moments before – parallel to my ear; I can hear her breathing, mellow and clement.

I shake my head, feel the stray hairs tickle my neck, my skin. I don’t move an inch more.

“The bonus,” I can detect her grin in her tone, I don’t need to see it; I’ve known her long enough, a couple years of our reproachful predicaments, to tell everything from the steady inflections of her voice.

“Liked it?” I ask.

Soonkyu actually gasps when I draw out a matte pink , her eyes filled with lasciviousness, so hedonistic, so heady and full.  I always drew this ‘type’ out for emergencies, for surprises, I hadn’t tried it on Miss Lee yet. She looked… excited, eager even.

I made sure it’s worth her while. Until she’s squirming underneath my hands, until I’ve stolen every drop of her energy, inhaled every breath, and assimilate what I can of her soul. I can smell the metallic taste of her emotions, sorrow, and happiness in her motions. Things I have only read, listened to melodic songs about.

“You surprised me,” Soonkyu takes a deviation from my root of subject.

And that’s the funny thing, the difference between my male and female customers. The majority of the girls were always afraid to vocalise what’s just occurred, speak in poetic prettiness, unlike most men, who were open, easy, with what they wanted. Either way, it didn’t matter. has long lost any possibility of any degree of effect upon me; no fear, no anticipation, nothing but the fundamental knowledge that I’m an expert in it. I guess that’s what comes from engaging in it as a career. Ha. Career.

“Good,” I say, brush the surface of my thumb over her hand, it’s soft, and well moisturised. Soonkyu’s the closest I have to a girlfriend, barring gentle Joohyun.

She places a solicitous kiss at the spot between where my earlobe is, and where my neck begins. It’s sweet, gentle, the kind of softness I recognise in verbatim, vaguely, distantly, in a story one of the (whom I used to work with) told me about. I turn, place my fingers at the side of her jaw, gaze into her eyes, and hold her puppy-eyed stare before I kiss her deeply, kissing her as fervently as I can, but there’s no fireworks, no lightning, no emotion. I want to feel love for her. This girl, or Seo, or Hyo. But I don’t. I literally can’t.

Thus, in the most conjectural sense, I wonder vaguely why. But it’s a question I’ve been eluded by for a long time. Why could I, so easily, let my parents die, without the spilling of tears. Why I couldn’t experience this so-called obsession, this infatuation? Like everyone else?

“I love you,” She exhales into my ear.

“I love you, too,” I push a smile, but I think she knows it’s not real. At the very least, she knows I care sufficiently about her to pretend it.

That’s enough… isn’t it?

The doorbell rings. Neither of us are dressed.

“I’ll get it,” I exhale, stepping away from the bed, leaving Soonkyu, beautiful Soonkyu, in the room, alone.

Stalking to the door, I open it in one swift motion. Widely, not even bothering to conceal my ‘dignity’. There, sporting a semi-formal flowing lime-green chiffon dress – wait no, Joohyun would say ‘sap green’— cinched at the waist, sporting an outer garment of a tan trench coat. She looks exactly like one of those despicable girls I see in those dramas nowadays. Affluent, trendy, smart, it riles me up, and I care little for how puerile, how antagonistic it is.

A flicker of consternation electrifies her features, she’s patently perplexed. Human society – or rather social protocol – dictates that all should be clothed. I’m not. But, hey, my house, my rules.

“Yes?” I demand, staring daggers at the woman who’s the least perturbed at my unreasonable, illogical but ­oh-so-addictive fury. “Unless you’re a client, I suggest you leave.”

Now, I can sense the judgement, the tremor that percolates her, ‘Oh, my, I just inadvertently wandered into the den of a ! What to do? What to do?’

The woman bites her lower lip, she’s another type who’s supposed to look ‘cute’. The way her doe-eyes widen at my state of undress, the way they avert, slam down tightly; lines, youthful lines, rippling out sideways as she clenches those same eyes shut. Hide away from the terror that is Taeyeon!

I realise I’ve been carried away by the torrent of my thoughts, and the stranger woman had said something.

“Hi,” Her first word.

I instantly recognise it. The same goddamned voice. “Yoona.”

“Ah,” Her lips – they’re coloured with a fuscia pink lip gloss – they twist into an upward crescent. And it pains me to say, to confess, that she looks pretty when she smiles like that. “I was beginning to think I’d gotten the wrong person there. Nice to meet you ---.” She falters, “… in real life..?”

“I’m a modern-day courtesan, in case you didn’t know.” I say, out of nowhere, out of the ing black depths I pull out such an introduction. Or perhaps it’s to address my ness… ah… I maunder.

Again, cue the flicker of thought. It’s neither negative nor positive, perhaps the slightest slash of curiousness lingers in her brown gaze.

“Openness is a good attribute, erases many impediments of conversation, Taeyeon-ssi,” The smile deepens, pleasant to view, but I know, just know, soon enough, she’s going to aggravate me. Her mere voice, her blinding positivity managed that in the phone call prior. “May I come in, Miss Kim?” She questions, eyes wandering behind me, hopefully even.

What’s so hopeful about my ty- abode?

I step away, granting her permission, regardless.

“Thank you,” She says, sidesteps past me, the air that sits, tranquil around me is disturbed by her faint scent of saccharine roses with an undertone of vanilla? Chocolate? Or is it sugar? It’s sweet anyhow.

And there, Soonkyu stands, inquisitively as if to greet us as an in-living housemaid. But she’s more than that; more than me.

“Oh,” Yoona mumbles, she’d staggered into her own nonplus. “Nudists?” She whispers, even quieter.

“Jesus ing Christ,” I near shout. Bemused at her sheer innocence. Is this woman even an adult let alone a therapist? She should know what this implies, not ing nudists!

Whilst dear Soonkyu gives me a look half of delight, half of pity. I can already see the clockworks in her mind winding, ticking, ersity dancing in fluttering ribbons of black and red, cackling in hysteria -- she’s the epitome of the devil’s advocate, sometimes. Already, she’s sidling closer to the therapist. Winding contaminating fingers through Yoona’s delicate threads of silky hair, smelling them. Yoona merely dwindles into herself, cowering, unlike those raucous social workers who’d plague me like pests.

“Sunny,” I throw her a warning glare, but she’s too enraptured into her world of play to hear nor see me.

“So pretty,” Soonkyu murmurs, brings her fingers below Yoona’s chin, jerks it forcefully upward so that Yoona’s eyes meet with hers, but unwaveringly, at her. “Ever been with a woman before…? Would you want to?”

Yoona opens , but no words slip out, so I slip between them, “Sunny. Enough.”

Soonkyu gives me the look of a wounded deer, and I shake my head, knowing it’s falsified. Sure enough, she exchanges it for a smirk….ah…I’m always right. An appreciative flicker spills over Yoona’s innocent features, but I didn’t really do it for her. I’m not sure why I did.

“I’ll leave in a bit, Tae,” Soonkyu says, bringing me in, fingers at the nape of my neck, for a kiss.

I return it without a thought, “Sure,”

Yoona stands, shifting on the spot, fiddling with her dress, her phone and her hair, whilst the two of us dress. And, eventually, Soonkyu departs, blonde hair bouncing as she traipses the hallway. Happy little . She’s a good sort of happy, a balance of morbidity and sardonic jokes. Not like that .

“I’m all yours,” I say, turning as I click the door shut. An inadvertent sigh freeing in a slow hiss from my lips.

 “Where would you like to sit?” She asks, and I gesture towards a table, the only one I have, piled with books, pencils and various miscellaneous objects. There are three chairs there, one of them broke during a client meeting. And yes, I mean in that manner.

“Let’s begin with introductions again?”

I shrug, as if I am one of those adolescents in those American movies, “Kim Taeyeon, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I couldn’t suppress the grey of sarcasm to mar the otherwise convivial words.

“Im Yoona, at your service,” She extends a hand, so western. I accept it, shake it, whether its firm however, is a whole different story. She delves into her bag, pulls out a pad of paper, a ballpoint pen and extends it to me. I raise a brow, incredulous.

“Would you care to write something?”

“...like what?”

“A memory. Something happy,” She smiles when she says that word. ‘Happy’; annoying how she can smile so genuinely over something so menial.

“I have no happy memories,” I say, cross right leg over the other, turning my eyes to the window.

“But you do,” She insists, leaning forward on her chair, nails digging deep indents into the armrests, “Everyone has happy memories, look deeper,”

So, I try. Withdrawing to venture into the realms I resent so much. But I merely dip my toes in, I despise stepping too far into those murky depths; my memories are a dark, dark place.

“Nope,” I shrug, clearly not trying hard enough, “Nothing.”

Yoona frowns, disbelief in surreal paint slapping across her delicate features. I raise both brows, for a moment, give her a look that says ‘What are you gonna try now, ?’.

But she doesn’t speak, merely nods in thought. “Then… write down any memory. The first time you rode a bike, the first meal you learnt to cook…?” She offers.

“I don’t know how to ride a bike, and all I can cook… is rice.” I reply, cold, stubborn. I know I can cook more than that, but I want to prove a point.

Yoona, finally, sighs, bringing her delicate osseous wrists upwards, fingers combing through her flowing hair. “Then just describe something. If not, just… sit. We have the entire forty-five minutes.” She clearly means otherwise.

It’s my turn to sigh, but I oblige. I don’t know what the point of this godforsaken exercise is, I feel like a child, patronised, silently ridiculed for my lack of ability. Yoona’s offering the pad and pen again, so I take it, bring the end to my chin, tapping the pen at my lip in thought, retrospection. Finally, something, a memory almost, a problem definitely, bubbles to the surface and I write.

‘I don’t know what it’s wrong with me. But there’s something..’

When I pass it to Yoona, and she reads the words, I search for the minute changes in her features. I anticipate denial, amusement, even pity. There are none. No flicker of anything. Finally, she smiles, peels away the paper from the pad and whispers a soft “Thank you, Miss Kim,” and folds it away into her bag.

I want to ask her ‘what are you going to do with that?’ but I don’t because it’d satisfy her. I’ve pleased her enough today. After all, even someone like me can get fatigued of such a notion after a while.

“If you have anything more to write, please do,” She says, returning the pad to me.

I have plenty of things to say, but I don’t. Not to her. “I will if there are any,” I counter, despite already knowing I’d contribute no more.

Silence falls, heavy, but strangely comforting. Because all we do is merely sit, breathe, gaze out of the window from time to time. And it’s not long before the forty-five minutes are up. Yoona has a gentle smile the entire time. Like she has all the time in the world. And when she, too, departs, I grace her with an actual verbalised ‘goodbye’.

I’m not that impolite, for a .

~*~