A/N: Err... violence warning!  

I’ve rarely entered Soonkyu’s kitchen, the majority of the time, she takes me into her bedroom, she pays me, I her, and I leave. Today, however, is a simple meeting. I forget that I’ve slightly altered my job description, sometimes; that I get the benefits of clients wining and dining me, too. At present, therefore, Soonkyu is cooking; slicing onions with the ability of a seasoned housewife. She’s good, so good that eloquence ing seeps from her skill.

“Did you give me the gifts, Sunny?” I question, as I shift upon the stool at the island counter. “Bags of groceries, perhaps?”

“No.” Soonkyu replies, instant and almost offended, “I buy you pretty gifts.”

She does, though. I have to agree, as I think back to several fine silver-chained necklaces, the crystal chandelier that looks awkward and misplaced hanging from my ceiling, the china tea set that I’ve already broken a few teacups from… oops.

“Unless,” Soonkyu pauses, turns her head over her shoulder, flashing me the most delicate of smiles, “You want me to buy you groceries from now on?”

“Nah,” I shake my head, reflecting her expression just as easily.

The noises of chopping ensues once more. And a comfortable silence burns heatedly, controlled between us.

“What are you cooking?” I say, eventually. 

“You’ll see,” Soonkyu replies, a grin in her voice.

She cooked a simple Korean dish; some rolled egg omelette. It’s good… and eggy. Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, because I do. I swear I do.

~*~

The next few days simmer, and pass like they always do. Like it will do when I’m dead, and gone. When the world no longer knows of the chaotic mess that’s me. I service clients like quotidian routine; gain two, lose one. Net gain: one. Yay me (!). The onslaught of insomnia plagues me like it always does. The claws of a past I can’t run from continues to taint me. So it’s not much more different from usual.

But, I complain… too much, too much.

“Did you hear me?”

“Uh?”

“Want to come to another tutorial tomorrow?” Joohyun says, sipping on her tea once more.

“Yes.” My answer is instant, whenever Seo offers me such things, I don’t refuse them. It’s an opportunity I learned not to pass up. Her pearls of wisdom, usually, truly are pearls.

“You know, Hyo-unnie says that the rose tea is good for you,” Joohyun hums, “I don’t mind too much, I like the taste of rose,”

“Right,” I smile, purposefully. She gets hurt when I don’t act as friendly as she does; at least, she did in the past. Then I recall… Hyo-unnie? How odd. Those two hadn’t exactly harmonised during the beginning, when I first introduced them those couple of months ago, perhaps …their discordant dispute was erased…and upon that note, they became friends? “You guys are getting along well?”

“Oh yes,” Joohyun grins, bright, and there’s something I see flicker across her countenance, simultaneously more gentle and more dark than I’ve ever witnessed before. It’s an emotion I recognise from observation, only.

Oh yes?

But … I have to leave, because I’m racing for time.

In a sense, we all are. Hurrying to complete the chores, hurrying to service the growing list of clients, just hurrying for something. Seo hastens through life to find love, Sunny wants love too, and Hyo yearns for a life-time companion. I guess… love? Why is everything revolved around love? Love is so… fickle. From what I hear from the , as soon as they fall for that ‘special someone’, everything becomes a whole lot more complex. Hearts are broken, tears are spilt. It’s considerably easier to forget about such foolish notions.

… And, me? I’m just hurrying to find reason to live. Because dying … seems almost like more than a romanticised reprieve now.

And so, the day ends with as it had begun with ; the rest of the day onward, none of my loyal clients meet me, but a few of the ‘occasional’ ones did. Every day is the same, a few cases of lying on my back and being mindlessly ed, strewn in with the occasional oral and the sporadic ‘dates’. It feels… as if I’m losing myself, more and more. Like I no longer have a control of who I am, what I am, and why I do the things I do. But then, sometimes, I just have to ponder… did I really have a self in the beginning?

Howbeit, I think it’s just become habit from all these years of repetition. After all, repetition desensitizes the brain, if enough live grotesque tortures of an infant’s parents are shown to these said infants, the brain will develop a method of subsisting, eventually. I think that’s what happened. I think that’s the same principle to which I can look back at the things I’ve done during the day and say, “I ed this, that and the other. That’s it. That’s my day for ya.” ----

---- I deviate too much. Fixate too much upon an existence intended as an obligation for others. I guess what that client had said earlier is true…

“You think too much, for a simple .”

~*~

In Joohyun’s studio, the air is saturated with the scent of paint, coffee, and the essence of her clients who visit her on a daily basis. It’s a tutorial day, and Hyoyeon’s here for this one, too, although I suspect she’s been attending more than this one with me. She says Joohyun’s a great teacher. And I can only agree; I had first-hand experience.

“Yah... I don’t suppose either of you have randomly left me a bag, or bags, of groceries the other day?”

Joohyun, behind the easel, raises a brow, and Hyoyeon, with her lithe arms wrapped around Joohyun’s neck, sniggers. Simultaneously, they chorus, “Why would I do that?”

They’re so unnaturally in synch it’s almost creepy; almost induces horripilation of the terror origination to prickle my skin. I don’t, however, because they’re the dearest I have. And I shouldn’t forget it – even if there are occasional lapses in cognition.

I press my lips together, swallowing a remark. I can’t let my sharp tongue hamper my relationship, “Someone left a couple at my front door.”

“Oh,” Joohyun laughs, leans into her canvas, adding a dab more paint of an already flawless landscape. Whilst, Hyoyeon resumes resting her chin atop Joohyun’s shoulder. I suspected that they’ve been getting more than a lot closer recently, and I can sense something toxic tingeing at the back of my throat on something that I should merely allow as a ‘professional’ conception, only.

Forcing myself to preoccupy myself with my own painting, a random portrait of mother – don’t ask me why, it was a spur of the moment decision. Although… she doesn’t look quite right, and I can’t tell why.

“You know… that portrait of that woman.” Joohyun says, suddenly, as if she instantaneously, materialised behind me. “…looks a bit like Yoona.”

“Yoona?” I echo, bewildered. How?

“The therapist.”

“I know.” I know who you mean, too well.

I take a second glance, and it’s like a fog lifting. Anger surfaces, like lava, dissolving to touch, and I can’t take it. Aggression is my only outlet. With the metal mixing paddle in my hand, and utilising the pointed end, I puncture the canvas pulling harshly so that the material rips. But, it’s not enough, so I seize for the scalpel, and Hyoyeon’s there, holding me back.  But I’m thrashing, writhing, uncontrollable: a beast, demon incarnate.

I feel yielding flesh connect with the end of the knife. It’s horrific; I’ve never felt such a sensation before. I hear a cry. And the scalpel clashes to the tile flooring. I hear another cry, my own?, swirling into the mix of havoc.

It’s sticky. Watery.

“What the hell Taeyeon?” Joohyun’s yelling. She’s in tears.

But all I see is red, blood. All I see are phantoms.

“Sorry,” I whisper, disappearing too far into myself, into slithery arms that pull me in and overtake me. “Sorry…”

I fall onto my backside, hug my knees to my chest as I push away from the terrors, the horrors that await my lapse in judgement.

“I’m sorry…”

From here ensues the flashing red, blue lights. The rushing to the accident and emergency. The scorching tyres and the frantic Joohyun aligned with the calm paramedics, and, me, the catastrophe. All the while, I can’t stop saying “Sorry, Hyo.”

I feel terrible.

I feel…

So, this is what it feels to be …Terrible?

“I’m sorry Hyo.”

But ‘sorry’ doesn’t make things better. ‘Sorry’ is just a word. ‘Sorry’ isn’t enough.

~*~

“Oh… and Hyoyeon-unnie’s okay,” Joohyun says to me, clasping her bra behind her, “… it was just a simple non-limb-threatening wound to the arm. The doctor’s say that there’s just plenty of blood flow there, and that’s why there was so much…”

“I see.” I say, as I pull up the elasticated band of my , and throw my hair off my shoulders. “Did…” I hesitate, “Did… you tell her that I’m sorry?”

Joohyun smiles, sighing softly, kindly – she’s, really, too kind for a piece of like me, “She knows. You said it so many times… Anyway, she said to tell you that she’s not mad,”

I don’t answer to that, since I have nothing more to say. I’ve never really understood the concepts of small-talk in continuing a conversation. The seconds tick, preceding her inevitable speaking. Argh, I’m so… incapable.

“I didn’t realise you hated Yoona so much. I thought she was genuinely good.”

I scoff. “She’s an annoying woman.”

“In what way?”

Thinking for a moment I meet her eyes with my own, resolute, “She probes too deeply. Tries to find everything out about me.”

“But, Taeyeon-unnie...” Joohyun raises a brow, scratches at the lateral of her neck, “Isn’t that what therapists need to do? Isn’t that how they help?” 

She leaves the room, mumbling something about getting something to eat because she’s ‘simply starved’ and I end up wallowing on the soiled bed, in the depths of a certain reality.

Is that why I hate her? But then… I’d despised her from the get-go…

So how does that fit?

~*~

Another bag of groceries hung on my door handle:

‘Miho,

Smile. For there are many reasons to smile.

:)’

I do the same thing as with the preceding; take the items in, organise them and return to my schedule.

The little messages upon these messages manages to, really, make me smile. I think it’s the first time I’ve found anything cute. no. That’s not cute.

...what the was I just thinking?

~*~

“Welcome~ I’ll be with you in a moment,” Yoona says without lifting her eyes from the laptop she’s tapping furiously on. “Please take a seat,” She gestures towards the one before her desk; she continues typing.

Yoona’s office is situated in the complex of skyscrapers, the rooms adjacent to this one dictating names of the therapists that I cannot recall even though I saw them not moments ago. The décor is clean, simple, feminine and similar to a doctor’s office with the shelves of reference books, a poster of the human body situated closer to the bookshelf than the open window. A gentle light streams in through the flittering curtains settling upon the straight line of Yoona’s nose, bounces off the dewy finish of her skin, and I can hear the noises of traffic, even from this high above.

When she finishes signing a few more documents; both her eyes and her voice are warm as she greets me in a more personal level, “Hello Miss Kim~ I wasn’t expecting you to come this early,”

“I wasn’t intending to,” I lie; but, for some reason, today, I just felt like going to this damn therapy session on time– probably because I’m curious about this so-called ‘office’, “I was merely passing by, and had nothing else to do.”

Yoona’s eyes twinkle upon hearing that, like a potent shot of swarvroski crystals; it’s similar to the kind of amiable attitude doctor’s use sometimes for the more shy patients. But I’m not shy; I’m far too noisy to be so reserved.

“That’s good you decided to drop by, then,” She says. “It’s most fortunate that you have arrived earlier. The session can extend for a little longer, since….” She taps a few keys on the keyboard, “… it appears one of my clients have cancelled on me,”

I bite back a nasty remark, something about how her client is probably better off without the forty-five minute does of annoyance; and merely dip my head into a faint acknowledgement. Not yet.

“How’s your journal?” She questions, rising from her seat, and leaning her backside against the edge of the mahogany desk. She looks friendly. And I don’t like the slow rumble of something that rouses from her posture. Confident- .

“Fine,” I say; and, for once, it’s the truth.

“Good,” She leaves it at that; as she promised before.

This time, the session is no different than the first. She makes me write things, every thought that manifests in my head, memories that I can’t really remember. But she makes me write them anyway.

‘People like to annoy me.’

“Have you ever had any issues with anger, Taeyeon?”

“No.”

Hyoyeon.

“Are you sure?”

Scalpel…

Stop, thinking, about, that.

I slam my fist against my thigh, hard and it hurts, pain rippling across my flesh; it’ll be tender to touch later, “For god’s ing sake. What do you think?”

“My point exactly.” Yoona looks refreshing…no, annoying with her exultation. What is it? A ing revelation? Dumb . “We need to find those stimulants to your anger.”

“You.” I say, quick, easy. This would surely burn. “You, annoy, the , out of me. More than anyone I know, more than anyone I’ve ever had to tolerate. And trust me I’ve had to tolerate many people in the business.”

Yoona, however, despite my intention, looks quite unfazed. “…That’ll pass.”

She’s so confident, so confident that I falter in my words. “How do you know that?”

“Because you’re that type of person,”

“What person?”

“You’re like an armadillo. Hard angry shell on the outside, to protect the gentle, delicate you on the inside,”

“You are stupid.” I smile sardonically, purse my lips, “Metaphors are stupid.”

“Sometimes metaphors are good to enlighten people into making them see the truths, because the reality is just a little harder to face,”

“You speak a lot of bull for someone your age, you know that?” I stare at her; how old is she anyway? She looks definitely younger. I don’t ask, however. Because that implies personal interest. That suggests the elemental curiosity, and I don’t have enough for her. Seo’s wrong, I’m not interested in her.

I’m not.

“I’m a therapist,” She answers simply.

I have no answer to that. Is that what therapists think?

“I don’t want to talk anymore,”

“That’s fine. Feel free to speak whenever you want.” Yoona says, reaching behind her to tap on the computer keyboard. Thus, the air fills with the mellifluous notes of classical music.

I don’t speak, but I sit, and I gaze. Occasionally my eyes turn to her, to the soft upturn of her lips, the large framed eyes accentuated with dark rims of jet black eyeliner, the light dusting of scintillating sparkles – silver – beneath her eyes. Yeah, she’s quite pretty, for an annoying person.

And the session ends upon the last arpeggio.

~*~

Today’s too sunny, too torrid, too stifling and it’s so humid I can’t breathe. Summer has really blown up, blue skies and children freely released from school. I, on the other hand, remain chained to the fate set in a medium tougher than any material known to man.

“Guess what?” Joohyun says, the next time we meet.

I raise my lethargic eyes, still in a torpid state, I’d never been too good at tolerating heat. “Huh?”

“Guess,” Joohyun smiles. She looks like a child. So happy. Happier than I’d ever seen her before. “Please, unnie?”

“… Gee,” I murmur, blinking feels like an energy-waster despite how little movement it requires. “I don’t know…”

“Hyoyeon and I are together!”

I blink. “What?”

Joohyun opens to reiterate but I cut in. “Really?”

She grins, “Yes~”

“Oh.”

For some reason, my world suddenly feels empty. I feel the nostalgic sense of jealousy, the prickling of rejection the sensation that I must have done something wrong because she no longer likes me. All of this, I know, is irrational cognitions, but it’s difficult once the ball is, theoretically, set running, it’s a difficult up-hill climb back. But, whilst others get their boulders at the very top of their hills, gets their’s to balance, precise and unmoving, mine always rolls back down like I’m a goddamn contemporary version of condemned Sisyphus.

One step forward, two steps back. Always a billion-ing-steps back.

Or maybe it’s just an illusion, and I’ve never moved forward in the first place.

“Congratulations,” I force a smile. I should be happy. I didn’t love Joohyun in the way she wanted, so she found her solace in Hyoyeon. The universe doesn’t revolve around me. I know that. I know that too well. “Congratulations.” I echo again. Congratulations and goodbye, I guess? People always leave me. People always leave me.

~*~

Today, Soonkyu’s blocked off all of my time. Not that I’m complaining at any rate – Soonkyu’s wonderful company. She’s always been easy companion for me.

“Hyo and Seo are together now.” I say to Soonkyu as I accept the payment, place it upon the table.

“Oh really?” Soonkyu smiles, “That’s lovely to know.”

“I know, right?” I don’t sound truthful, but it’s fine. I guess.

For the first time in a long time, the silence that descends is almost awkward, tinges with the taste of sour and putrid milk. I don’t like the way things are starting to crumble. I don’t like change, either. Even if change is for the ‘better’, is it for the better?

“Can you teach me to cook after?”

After we ?

Soonkyu smiles, brightly, so cheerful. “Yeah, no problem,”

So I inhale her perfume into my lungs, breathe everything in as I give my all to make someone else feel alive.

. . .

“So I add this?” Lifting the rectangular tin of bright yellow – sesame oil.

Soonkyu looks over from the frying pan, an assortment of vegetables of different colours distributed so that it’s almost concealing all of the non-stick covering. “Yep~”

“Thanks for bothering to teach me,” I wrap my arms around Soonkyu’s waist, lean upon her shoulder. I don’t care that I’m impeding her from the task at hand, I really need some physical comfort; although I don’t know why.

Soonkyu doesn’t mind, anyway.

~*~

The next appointment with Doctor Im. I don’t know how many it’s been now, but it always seems as if we – I, argue. She always listens, patient, and then offers a solution or resolution for my ways.

“So… about your … career choice… “ Yoona says, after we cycle through the ‘how’s the journal’, and the ‘how are you?’s.

I’m always irritable around her, today more so than usual.

“Once a , always a , right?” I snarl, eyes wide, lips curling inward. I know I look horrific, I probably resemble some rabid dog, gnashing, biting at the hand that feeds. But I’m angry. I’m black, grey and purple. I want to punch, and kick and I want to hurt. I want to scream abuse, words that tear the heart, and a residual aim bubbles forth: I need to break her.

However, Yoona’s calm, resting her chin on the edges of her knuckles, as attentive as ever. She raises her brows, ever so slightly, and speaks, calm and as measured as she always does. “Well…Is that your opinion?”

It stops me in my rampaging tracks – she always has the ability to make me think. And so, I do.

“I…” I stumble for words. I hate that she can reduce me to this ridiculous infant-adult with a few words, “I g-guess so.”

“Exactly.” She says almost triumphantly, “Therefore, you have the ability to change it.”

I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t. “I don’t. There’s no way for me to do anything else but this.”

“Don’t be stubborn,”

“I’m not. People don’t hire . People don’t want to talk to an ex-. ‘People’ judge you for your mistakes, for your history and everything they can see. My fate has been sealed the moment I was born into my family, and fired irreversible that night I----,” I halt, memories of him flashing in horrific, jarring images at the peripherals, realising, with a feeling of dread, that I’d almost spilt my most abhorred secret. ing , how pathetic… My mind swallows me up, Man-sik’s intent face as he drove himself deeper into me. The pain…

“There are certain people who take on ‘’, as you say. All they need is a little persuasion. You can’t be so pessimistic all of the time.”

“I have a right to.”

“And you have a right to live happy, to not be haunted by your past.” Yoona finishes. “What’s making you think you can’t? What happened before?”

“Don’t you think that’s enough of trying to learn about me?” I snap, I feel the venom seeping into my voice. Yoona’s not a client, I reason, she’s nothing to me. And I mean nothing to her. So I don’t need to hold back. I don’t need to suppress the fury, the hatred, and the disgusting, nebulous tendrils of despise within my heart. “I’m doing this … for Joohyun. I am done telling you about myself. You’re just some pathetic stranger, too nosy, too intrusive. A nuisance. So … you.”

Yoona looks at me, unblinkingly, I almost hear her thinking. I’d pushed so many of my previous therapists to this point, I anticipate hers.

“Stop putting up this shield of yours, Miss Kim,” She utters, “Don’t think so badly of me. Don’t doubt other people so easily. But, most of all,” She stands up, presses her cool fingers to my burning cheeks, “Don’t doubt yourself. You’re a good person despite your issues with anger. I know you are a good person, so don’t you forget it.”

For some reason, something chilly, something slightly salted like fresh ocean air overwhelms me. And I find myself leaning into her touch, against her receptive fingers that actuate some sort of coolness into my flesh.

Seconds later, I realise what I’m doing, so I snap to attention, and slam the door on the way out.

“See you next time,” Yoona calls, somewhere in the trails of fire I’ve left her in.

I don’t answer.

~*~

‘Miho,

“To attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.”

:)’

The bag is filled with gifts, gifts that I must give to others. So I do, as the stranger not-so-subtly asks. I go to Seo and Hyo, and leave the gift of the marinated beef. I wander back, to the brothel I once, in a life time ago, worked, locate the room Jessica works in. I can see her, seated on a faux-velvet seat, in front of a vanity mirror; but she doesn’t see me. I leave the second gift there. The gift card, loaded with my own money for the American diner she loved – and I’m sure she still loves.

And finally, when there’s no other gift in my bag, I find Yoona’s place. I leave her a silver necklace, a dragon, but no name inscribed upon its wing. I leave it, in a velvet box secured with navy ribbon, hanging upon Yoona’s office door handle.

But … I’m not sure why I did those things.

And I now feel idiotic for doing so.

~*~

 [ Mr Park:

Free tonight?

Sent:  09:50]

I am… but I choose to tell him I’m full up for the rest of the week. He offers to pay more, to cancel on the others, but I say no, again. I remember a time when I had to say ‘yes’ to every client I could get. I was still in that habit, that time ago…. I don’t know what changed. It’s certainly not that . No.

I swear.

“You’ve become more real these days,” Hyoyeon says, when I’m no longer too mortified to face her. We’re sitting in our favourite haunt, the little café. I don’t know when, but somewhere, along the way, we all just progressed into something further than the business relationship we were all in. We meaning me … and the girls. I think… I think we’re friends now.

“Really?” I think for a moment, touch fingertip to the condensation of the glass that, an hour ago, held my milky iced latte. Have I? “What does that even mean, anyways, Hyo?”

“Like…” Hyoyeon thinks for a moment, fiddles with the matching heart necklace she and Joohyun has. “You’ve been a lot more human. You used to be a lot like a robot, so mechanical, so cold.”

I know I’m derisively scorning but I can’t help it, I can’t hold it back. I can already feel myself b, my heart… is too dark to be capable of emotion, it has always been like that, so why does Hyo’s opinion affect me so much? “What does that imply?”

“… Could it be…” Hyoyeon begins.

“Say her name and I will cut you.” The threat is immediate, no indication how or when it bubbled forth. I’m left stumbling after a stupid mistake. An even stupider mistake since this is the touchiest of issues between Hyo and me.

“Im Yoona.” Hyoyeon finishes, regardless, eyes holding a residual glare, one that beckons with a ‘come on, are you really going to do that again?’

I lean forward, bristling, biting hard on my inner cheeks. So hard I can taste the distinct sapour of blood, of metal and iron. I want to act upon this impulse. I want to wreak havoc because, after all, I’m just a mere beast, am I not?

“Come on,” Hyoyeon’s egging me on, but the encouragement puts a huge damper on my hatred. It’s not Hyoyeon that I despise. It’s Yoona.

“No.” I sigh, resort to pressing my forehead against the table, blocking out the majority presence of light from my little make-shift cocoon. “I don’t know what’s going on with me. I can’t stop thinking about that .”

“I would say something, and offer you an answer, Tae,” The woman says, and I feel her twirling tendrils of my hair in her fingers. I like it when she does that; but I never did before. “…This is just…something you’ve got to figure out. If I keep trying to help you, you might resent me for it.”

That perplexes me, but I trust her words. Nod obstinately and close my eyes. “I’ll try and figure it out myself… like you said.”

“Good,” Hyo says, and I hear a gentle smile in her voice. “Anyway, Seo’s going to meet me at the park. I’ll talk to you soon.”

She leaves a kiss in my hair, and disappears without another word. “Bye.” I say, but it’s out of her earshot. I’m sure she knows, anyway.

~*~

I still don’t find the solution to my little issue. Joohyun’s no help and Soonkyu laughs at my inability to comprehend.

“Oh, you’re so cute,” They exclaim – and that’s all they give me, thus, Seo and Hyo disappear, fingers laced, happy smiles. I’ve managed to accept that they’re together. Managed to overcome the little triple-powered green pill called envy, jealousy and denial-of-anyone’s-joy.

The meetings with Yoona fare relatively well, my contempt in the forty-five minutes no longer drag, but I don’t speak so much either. I’m not sure if my disposition has really, per Hyo’s words, been altered. Or if I’ve just become even more detached from life.

Yoona’s happy though.

“You’ve really brightened up these days, Miss Kim,” Yoona says, bringing me an iced-ginger tea in a disposable plastic cup.

Everyone keeps saying that…

“Thanks,” I accept the gift.

I don’t mind… so much the small talk; I just dislike it when she starts to dig into something that’s a covered grave. I’m still forevermore anguished by a ghost of the past. When she disturbs the resting place, the spirit is agitated further, too. It doesn’t want to leave, and I don’t know how to make it do so.

“And how’s the journal?”

Per contra, I don’t say ‘fine’ this time, “It’s filling up.”

“Great to know.” Yoona writes something down – the first time I’ve seen her pick up a pen. She places the pen back down, parallel to the paper, and interlaces her fingers. “So, how’s life?”

“Fine.”

“Nothing new?”

“I’m a . All we do is be ed, and others.”

“That’s not changed at all? You haven’t tried to change anything?”

“Do you think it’s that easy to?” I question, turning the subject to her. But I had. I’d started a chain of reactions to which I cannot predict the end to.

“Nothing’s easy. But almost everything is achievable if the drive is there.”

“Then, this is one of those acceptances.”

Yoona doesn’t sigh, she’s as patient and as willing as ever. “I think we might need to alter your attitude first. To live life fully, we must all accept the pains of our past, however big, or small. To erase their impact upon ourselves today, is the only method – is the secret to happiness.”

“Right.”

And she knows, when I start to answer with single words, is when I ‘need time to assimilate her words’. Or … rather, what I think, is that I’m tired of hearing her bull.

That’s more feasible, yes.

~*~

I’ve began to accept those little messages as a customary occurrence.

Aloe Vera juice, soup, a small bag of tea leaves and bread:

‘Miho,

You’re a precious person.

Don’t forget!

:)’

“Hah.” I privately belittle the note, sipping on a cup of freshly brewed barley tea, but for some reason, something in me stirs from the note. I shouldn’t, though, so I dismiss it as easily as I dismiss the lewd acts I commit in my work-life.

~*~

Three knocks on Yoona’s door.

“Come in!” Her voice sounds.

I do as she says, my hand to the cool brass handle. Open the door and fresh air caresses my cheeks like a long-lost friend. She’s sitting there, all fashionably-dressed and smiley. “Ah hello Taeyeon-ssi!”

So… loud. I spot the necklace resting, nestled, between her collar bones. It’s pretty against her milky skin. I proffer an awkward smile, inane. “Hi.” God it feels so ing maladroit. What the is wrong with me?

“How’s the journal?”

“Good.”

“Do you listen to music, Taeyeon-ssi?”

Huh. What the is she on about this time?

“Yes, who doesn’t?”

“What genre?”

“Anything worth listening to.”

“C’mon that’s not properly listening to music.”

“Fine.” I mutter, bring an eyebrow upwards, letting her know just how incredulous I am. Yeah, I know, I’m so hard core. “What do you propose, Miss Im?”

“Living life to the fullest is feeling everything down to your very bones.” Yoona’s eyes light up, resplendent full of vitality, bursting with the sparkles of a trillion reflected stars upon a dark ocean plain. “Let’s dance.”

“What.” Oh god.

“Dance!” Yoona grins, reaches to tap a button and some sort of jazzy-type music ensues. She starts doing this strange snapping hand motion thing, prancing around like some lunatic.

I’m not kidding; I do not jest, the desire and compulsion to hide behind my hands… is so efficacious right now. my life; in what fresh hell did I get into? Suddenly, her cold fingers touch the over-heated flesh of my wrist, she’s pulling me into her arms, spins me around and my hands are in hers.  One-two-three and four. Together, back, diagonal and together; forward, diagonal, together. I’m so ing glad I know the steps of the waltz. I can’t believe me, Kim Taeyeon, is dancing.

For some reason, I start to dissolve into a full-out laugh. A slow bubble at first, incessant, irksome, and then it just froths out with the kind of regurgitation-esque style that grosses me out …My laughter… sounds so… forced.

I dance, we dance. And it’s the first time I’ve laughed so much in my life.

That -- that girl.

She sure knows how to have fun.

Ha. I thought I’d die before I hear myself confess such a thing. Funny how life has an ironic tendency to surprise us. Miss Im-ing-Yoona. Just who are you exactly? I thought I had you figured out.

~*~

A/N2: .... meh. Tis all.