"What happens when people open their hearts?"...
"They get better." 
— Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)

for mercy(again), my other half who reads me like a book 

yoona have big hopes in life. too big for her own good.

yoona expects a lot from people. too much for herself.

but she deserves it. she knows that. people expects a lot from her.

and she doesn't mind, really. it's just her way of life.

through angry tears and tired soul, she makes her way through life, and copes up with people's progresses, where she is shrinking and drowning herself in her own seemingly eternal sadness. in other stories, there will come a day, when one will come to your life and pick the shards of your broken life, and mend it back together. that never came across yoona's mind, unfortunately.

yoona's trust in people is as small as her hope in humanity; she barely has any for them. for yoona, she's not a-no, she's not the heroine of her own story.

well, that is, until she meets him, again.

the term him, almost irritates her whenever she hears it. it reminds her of a so-called boy, with broad dreams and boisterous actions. it unlatches all the locks of boxes with memories beneath, letting it roam in her mind as voices and images begin to take shapes. everything sounds like canaries singing in the distant. everything.

it reminds her of the days, when she owned the expression of a wendy and the curiosity of an alice. her eyes were full of adventure, ready to unveil the secrets of their beloved neighborhood, whose crooks and nooks were glad to be found out.

yes, her and kim jongin.

kim jongin was a boy, so bright that his existence outshine the sun itself. just kidding. but, despite his raven skin, he still shone out other kids as being the one who disruptsed the neighborhood's serenity, in warm summer afternoons.

the elders disliked him for creating so much noises from his tree house, where he and his friends did some kind of rituals for recruiting members of his little group of friends.

and there were a lot of screamings; shrieks of horror and disgust.

yoona, at that time, was a girl who read books of colourful worlds and happy fairytales. march hare was her favourite character in alice in wonderland, and she disliked alice for leaving wonderland. because, everybody wants to live in wonderland, she thought.

her mind wander more than her feet did, because she doubted that her small feet could take her to places she had in mind. 

it was all second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning, when the mad triplets of the neighborhood came across the corner of her house, and jongin ripped her grasp from her very book of peter pan. 

"what are you doing, huh? reading this dumb book all by yourself? so pathetic." mocked jongin, as he kept the book to himself. the timid lads behind him only stared with blank, drowsy eyes. the boy yawned, the girl stretched his arms exhaustedly.

yoona was nine and brave; she knew what she was facing. a reckless boy who bothered other people.

"give me the book!" her fingers were wrapped in a fist by her sides, angered by the latter. she was already out there, witnessing the events beifg unfolded by her eyes in neverland, where the lost boys tried to shoot poor wendy, mistaking her for a bird. and this boy, with ashen face and disheveled hair, forcefully brought her back here, to the old porch of her home.

"why aren't you playing with other kids? don't you feel lonely?"jongin questioned, taking a seat on the steps of her porch beside her.  

he had passed her house a lot, and he had seen her, noticed her. she would sit here in the steps, all afternoon, shoulders hunched with skinny wrists reaching out to flip the pages carefully, her bright curious eyes scanning through the pages. jongin could never see her face clearly. because, most of the time, it was covered with her big colourful books and tresses of her long black hair.

she didn't wear dresses or skirts like most girls around the neighborhood, and she didn't go out a lot. her skin was pale, and she was skeletal as a kid.  

jongin had one reason why he bothered yoona that day: because she looked so much fun by sitting, reading all by herself.

"why do you care? you don't know me." her answer was brusque and cold, and she reached her hand to snatch the book back, but jongin hid it behind his back. she fumed, hugging her knees close as she began to rock back and forth, her thumb.

"just leave her alone, jongin. she's going to cry." soojung went to him and patted his shoulder, attempting to take the book back; another failed attempt.

jongin peered over his eyes, seeing her all closed up and shut down to herself. "come on, don't cry for the smallest things. i will give it back if you tell me-"

"-us, jongin! all of us!" snapped sehun as he joined the three of them, eyes shone with curiosity.

"-yes, us about this book."

teary eyed yoona tapped her palms to her eyes, attempting to push the tears back in. she held her palm out, and the book fell to her hand. "watch it! this book is worth a million stars in the sky" she snarled at the rough way jongin treated the book, hugging it close to her, afraid that they might take it again.

"okay, okay. hurry up and start the story-"

"-wait, i have a questions. why do you want to know? you are all too busy with your summer games, and pulling pranks on other kids-"

"-ssht! you have a mouthful of questions, don't you? just start the story!" soojung butted in as she scooted closer to yoona, shoulders touching, eyes smiling expectantly. 

yoona had a bundle of questions in her mind that day. she was sure, that they belonged to two different worlds.

they all belonged to fleeting child's reality, where kids kicked the leafs away off their paths, and hang out all day on summer afternoons, scheming devious yet harmless plans on solemn-faced adults. for her, their realities stayed and left, all evanescent. hers, on the other hand, stayed forever untouched by the world.

"okay, okay." she flipped the book open and felt the soft papers through her fingers, where magic and fantasy had been poured into words.

"all children, except one, grow up-"

and that was when everything truly began.

yoona changed jongin, soojung and sehun for the better, yet she never realized. day by day, the tell-tales became more animated and vivid in her eyes, in their eyes as well. they began to see the world through her eyes.

yoona joined their adventures since that day. she lived the stories that she longed to have, and those days were her best bird days; her truest bird days.

and they all fell for her, even though they fell, in different ways and places.

going back to the present, high school was bearable for yoona, until the mad triplets  back for her. gawd, they transferred into her school, and into her class specifically. yes, she is happy, because they make the world seems better than the usual, with their bright, cackling laughters and cheesy jokes. but, the attention she receives for that, is pure cruelty. like red-eyed baboons, staring from the darkness with hunger-more like envy though.

yoona was-is a story teller, their story teller, but never is she the people's person.

"your stories are always amazing, yoona." crooned krystal, lying on yoona's lap, whilst jongin and sehun are fussing beside her about a picture of a hot girl they found on the internet.

the four of them are far, far away from the city. in a meadow, honestly. a meadow of bright, green grass that tastes crisp in their tongue. krystal was always the one who clung to yoona when the stories were told. she reminded her of alice, all about question marks and comas.

all about soojung, it is all about the endlessness, the infinite. soojung is an unending tides of affection, engulfing her in excessive skinships and playful kisses. yoona never minds, they are friends, what's so wrong about it?

"anyway, i dyed my hair as you can see. does it look pretty?" soojung peers up from her eyelashes, looking up to her who stares upon the sky.

"it does. but i prefer your old brown hair more, it suits you best" she smiles down to her, twirling a strand of yellow tresses between her fingers. she rolls over closer to yoona's stomach, covering her flustered face.

"-where did you get pictures like this huh?! you are amazing man, amazing!" gawks jongin, slapping him on the back. hard. nope.

sehun cringes, rubbing his back whilst he leans to yoona. "it hurts, jongin! you and your hormones! don't think of jerking into those pictures while i'm around!" sehun reaches out to smack his head, but jongin dodges it swiftly, eyes still on sehun's cellphone.

"pst. such obscenity. revolting!" yoona pokes sehun on his sides and he bolts away from her. jongin is still silent, eyes focused on the phone, fingers scrolling up and down through the screen. krystal cackles, chasing sehun around the meadow with fingers ready to poke on him.

yoona cross her legs and turns to him, hands propped, gazing at him to bother jongin. 

"oi, kim jongin. snap out of it. girls on the internet aren't safe, you know. and does no good to you." yoona pokes him with a stick.

"this is bigger than that, yoona. i'm checking sehun's chat history-" with that yoona scrambles up to shout, but to be silenced with jongin's palm in . "-don't tell him, you ! he will be mad about it!"

"he should be, i would be mad if someone sneaks up on me like that, too. give it to me, jongin. it's for your goodness also." yoona holds out her palm, waiting as she taps her foot. she doesn't like it when he's being like this, all nosy and stuff. 

"i heard sehun has a girlfriend. i just want to know who she is, that's all. he kept denying it, but the tone of his voice just said it all-"

"jongin." jongin freezes at that tone, and he hands it back to her, a frown etched to his face. he hates it when she used that tone of hers. she reminds him of his mother who gets angry over the smallest of things.

"-i'm just dissapointed that he didn't tell me. all this time, i see him as my best friend, and it would hurt if he doesn't feel the same."

yoona smiles that smile. that smile of hers, that assures you everything's gonna be alright, that she will be there for him until he can say the word 'i'm okay' without hesitance. "he will tell you when the time is right jongin." she rakes her fingers through his black disheveled hair, and messes with it.

sometimes, she thinks she is in love with him, but perhaps that's just because she knows him all too well; his flaws and his imperfections. she tends to fall in love with people, through their habits and words. she falls in love with the fondness, the comfort.

for her, love is all the same. she sees it all equally.

jongin lets out a sigh. jongin is like any other human being, no matter how many people give him comfort, he would never be sure. jongin, sometimes, is being too hard on himself, when life gets frustrating. and he lets it get to him; he never shields himself even if the sky is raining thorns.

"yoona?"

"hm?"

he waited all this time to ask this. soojung had rejected the idea violently when he told them, and sehun just gazed at him with fury in his eyes. but, jongin is himself for his blatant nature, and for his lack of attention on how a human's heart actually works.

"how was life, before we came?"

for once, she doesn't smile. "truthfully, it was bad. before you all came, for the second time. i could never understand them, and they are too....loud. they have loud hearts made of plastic, because i think they don't have feelings, souls. they break things and people, and they leave other people to fix the mess they have caused. too many people claim themselves to be saviours, when they can't even save themselves. but as time goes by, life doesn't sound too bad on my ears anymore." she close her eyes for a moment, wishing this moment to last forever.

jongin grins. "for a moment, i thought you were going to cry. don't hold back. tough girls do cry."

and she bursts into bubbles of sobs and hiccups, with jongin pulling her close and begin to rub her shoulders. sehun comes rushing to them, with soojung following behind, and they huddle closer to her, throwing worried eyes to each other.

"sit d-down y-you guys. i'm-i'm fine. i j-just felt em-emotional for a mo-moment, that's all." through tear-stained face, she pulls herself together.

sehun's not sure. but he still tries anyway. "you're okay, yoona. and if you're not, you'll be okay. perhaps today, or tomorrow but for sure, that day'll come"

by the end of day, we are together and we'll be alright.