Love is ing useless, Joohyun thinks as she forlornly to her mother. She swears she will never fall in love, she really does. She does not need to love in order to live. That is stupid. Depending solely on someone when you are capable of doing things on your own for your own self instead of having to wonder about how your other half would think or be affected by your decisions. Maybe that is why her mother is suffering now. Maybe that is Joohyun is not capable of comforting her because she has been broken for a long time – it started when her father had an affair, ending with her own suicide.

Yonghwa whistles to get Joohyun’s attention; she rolls her eyes at him as she flings a paper ball at him when he refuses to give her some of his baked lasagne. He continues wolfing it down while Joohyun’s stomach starts to rumble. She crouches beside her bed, wishing her bag has legs because there is no way she is walking five feet away to get her damn bag for a packet of M&M. It is not worth it. She looks over at Yonghwa – okay, perhaps it is. She whines and she flop her body on the carpeted floor, making grabby hand motions towards her bag making Yonghwa step over to grab the bag for her.

Yonghwa is not like other guys who think that her refusal to date them as an act of she needs more persuading. No means no, there is no other answer but no. He understands her completely, knowing the feeling of having a cheating, lying backstabbing person as their parent. Then again, his mother cheated with her father.

Till death do us part?

No.

Till cheating makes our children reconsider the way the see things.  

Joohyun coughs in her hand, making her classmates look back at her as they rush to finish shading their options. She did not know any of the answers. It seems like the paper is written in Greek instead of Korean. Equations swim freely in her mind, making her forget it is a Korean History paper instead of ing Calculus.

“Five more minutes.”

She stands up, ripping the entire paper as everyone else stares in disbelief. “I’m done.” She says, grabbing her bag, kicking her table down and then she leaves, not planning to come back.

Yonghwa shakes his head in disapproval when Joohyun tells him what she did earlier on. He spent his two hours sleeping instead of doing the paper like the rest of their classmates. Before, they were exceptional students, the cream of the pie.

What happened?

Life happened.

“You aren’t any better.” She reminds him, knocking his book off the table.

She misses her father, not that she would admit it aloud when she very well knows how Yonghwa feels regarding the matter. Like him, she is not quite ready to accept the fact her father spent her university fees on drinks with Yonghwa’s mother for the past five years. She is not ready to face him, let alone forgive him.

Some days she feels numb, like everything is voided of her. She never feels whole – there is always the feeling of something is lacking in her body. However, some days are better than others. Days where she feels numb add to the pressure of her not being there for her mother when she needs Joohyun more than ever as she can never live up to her expectations of a perfect child like her older sister is doing exceptionally well.

Red is the color of passion. It runs deep beneath our veins, making sure we are alive and breathing. Humans bleed to know they are alive, and Joohyun is sure she is alive. Her blood paints her room walls crimson while Yonghwa stares at her, applauding her every move, every slash she makes because he did the same a year ago.