Sometimes, Taeyeon thinks that number of people who’ve called her unapproachable have increased alarming.

Devoid of emotion, empty shell, sad pathetic fool. She hears it all the time. What else can she say to counter it? It’s all true anyway. She can’t even be bothered to deny it anymore. She’s hollow, empty indeed.

She can’t even lie to herself or anyone else anymore, it’s become a fact.

Living seems so meaningless. She’s not suicidal or depressed. Life just became bland. Grey. It doesn’t engage her, excite her. Her blood no longer rushes at the prospect of a new day.

There was no point in feeling. Feelings only complicated things. Made things worse. Feelings were for people who were ready to start their day, with things to look forward too. Those that have a spring in their step, with love in their hearts.

Taeyeon was convinced that she’s been stripped off that privilege.

Feelings weren’t for people like her.

 She’d get up. 3 hours of sleep? No biggie. All that matters was that she got through the day. Award shows to attend, performances, fan meets, commercials to film, variety shows to host? She’ll get it done, with minimal rest, if possible.

That’s what her company loves about her. Her efficiency. Her innate ability to get something done.

Efficiency was for people like her, settling things one step at a time. Keeping her eyes trained on her target then pulling the trigger, bull’s-eye. Nailing it. Repeat. Fully immersing herself in whatever she was doing, after all, keeping herself distracted was necessary.  If her mind wandered… It was never good when it wandered.

She doesn’t know why she does it to herself – go over things that she can’t do anything about, analyzing them repeatedly, it’s like a compulsion.

She doesn’t have many friends. Baekhyun – He’s been nice to her. Too nice. Too obligatory. But he made Taeyeon feel safe. He loved her, she knew that. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. It was a feeling that she’d numbed herself against feeling. Whenever he showered her with smiles and tiny anecdotes of his day, she felt compelled to do the same. When he broke down and cried, Taeyeon stayed with him through it all.

She didn’t love him, but she wished she did.

It was an empty feeling in her heart. Whenever she looked at Baekhyun, she tried, she really did. She tried to focus on his eyes, but she always saw a different pair staring back.

He confessed. Taeyeon said yes.

She was confounded. She didn’t understand why he would bother with someone like her. There were many unsaid things between them. Like Taeyeon’s incapability to love. But he was willing to take care of her.

 He would love enough for the both of them.

When she broke the news slowly to her members, they were surprised, shocked even, at the revelation. They were happy too. Who knew that Taeyeon was capable of trusting another with her heart? One of them had joked. She smiled coyly and threw her head back in laughter. Too bad none of them knew that it was crushed to minuscule pieces, blown away like dust by the wind.

She gave them her signature laugh. If only they knew she was trying not to choke up the love that she’d buried in the grave of her heart. If only they knew, it wouldn’t have seemed so funny anymore.

She was empty. 

The human heart, arguably the most important muscle in the human body, responsible for keeping one alive, seemed missing in Taeyeon. No wonder she feels dead as .

Sometimes, she places her hand over her chest, feeling the contractions, reminding her that her heart was indeed beating. But it felt strangely forced, mechanical.

She couldn’t love. She could be a companion to him, but she couldn’t love him. Couldn’t give him her heart, there was nothing to give in the first place.

She should’ve chased him away. But she’s human, we’re selfish like that. Taeyeon isn’t an exception. Who doesn’t enjoy receiving attention? Who doesn’t wish to be object of one’s affection? Aren’t these the things that we crave the most, and Taeyeon wasn’t any different. After draining every drop of herself into giving, it was a nice change to receive, for once.

The thing about emptiness is that it’s consistent. It settles at the pit of your stomach and it’ll make damn sure that it’s the only thing you’ll ever feel.  Sometimes, little things triggered her memory, memories that filled the void within her for brief moments.

Those memories evoked something within her, caused something to stir and rise, remembering the little details caused lifted Taeyeon beyond the grayness of her soul; she’d start to see a saturation of colors, see them a little brighter than before.

But it was temporary and she’d snap back to reality, the truth steamrolling through her that the past had ing past and she that she was now a ghost of the person that she used to be. That everything is just so ing different. Coming down from that high was the worst. It’s painful. And memories that used to be so blissful, now felt akin to swallowing hydrochloric acid

How odd it is to be haunted by your memories. How odd indeed. Haunted by the ghosts in her heart, haunted by the hallucinations of her. She missed her. Craved her touch. Yearned for everything about her.

Only ever in dreams, only in her worst nightmares and her sweetest dreams, only when she feels like she’s soaring past the Himalayas or when she feels like she’s drowning in the vast Atlantic, only then is she ever graced by her damned presence. Sometimes, Taeyeon has no recollection, sometimes she’s able to make out tiny bits of pieces of her dreams. Telling her exactly what she needs to tell her, exactly what she should have said. But now…it’s all too late.

Taeyeon was drunk, intoxicated by her absence. She never had hangovers until Jessica left. They say love is a drug, she didn’t know she was addicted until she was forced to quit.

The last time she felt alive, was when Jessica was right by her side.

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