16. YOU WILL NOT BE MY VICTOR.

Emotional rollercoaster coming up: please fasten your seatbelt. (Because I do Sumin Uncle puns) 

It's one of those rare nights tonight: blue moon, falling star, four-leaf-clover-luck and a big half of a wish bone snapped off clean between your fingers.

Alternatively, both of Kyungsoo's parents being home.

Even more noteworthy, both of Kyungsoo's parents sat down at the dining table to eat, a full-family check in what feels like years. 

Kyungsoo's forgotten how he carries himself before them - such a simple thing over-complicated in his mind, in the dense, still atmosphere of a family dinner. All that's occurred conversationally between them is the mundane, ‘can you pass the gravy?’ and ‘another potato?’ before silence falls once more.

It's so irrationally stifling. Kyungsoo can't remember a past dinner being this uncomfortable, this awkward and dragging. He can tell too that Eun-Seo feels similarly, her lips pressed into a thin line and movements slow and steady like she's having to think about even the smallest of motions, to keep her habits in check.

When did things get like this? Kyungsoo wonders not for the first time, fork tracing slow patterns into his mushy mashed potatoes, but pinpointing a date of change is near impossible. It wasn't a sudden one-hundred and eighty degree turn - there had been no D-Day. Instead, it had been a gradual, almost imperceptible process, like a slow fall or a fast century. The markers of what was normal had blurred so much so that things were already far too foregone when Kyungsoo had first noticed the difference.

"Oh!" his mother suddenly pipes up, promise dripping in her tone like honeydew and sugarcane. It's the first attempt at a conversation start since the plates had been laid, even if she directs all her enthusiasm towards Mr Do alone when she says, "you'll never guess what Ae Ra told me today!"

Ae Ra is one of Kyungsoo's mother's best friends - though friend seems inappropriate a word. Gossip-source is far more fitting, in Kyungsoo's mind. The lady, in any case, had been dirtily patronising when she'd first met Kyungsoo, coddling him and treating him like he was years younger. She is utterly insufferable, and Kyungsoo tenses at the thought of where this conversation could possibly be going.

"What, dear?" her husband answers drily, ever-reluctant to drag out voluntary verbal exchange. Kyungsoo swirls a bit of mash onto his fork; his sister, from his peripheral vision, stills her own cutlery, watching the movement like she can see something more in it. 

And maybe she had been right, maybe Kyungsoo had subconsciously known what would happen next because-

"You know the Kim's - not the old old couple, the one's with the really nice lawn? - yeah, yes, well their son is gay."

Kyungsoo's hand slips at the word, slamming down with a fierce, prevailing ring. His fork clatters against his plate in a brash, deafening burst of noise, mash strewn over his meat and veg and upon the tablecloth. His eyes widen, a large lump forming in his throat. His sister's hands stay very, very stock still.

He's known he is gay for a while, but for all the times Kyungsoo has ever tried to gauge his parents' opinion about the matter in the past couple of years, he's never been able to hold a conversation long enough. There's always been a phone call there, a meet-up here - their busy lives forcing Kyungsoo's mouth shut. Because of this, he's never been able to figure it out - what they feel, how they'd react if- when Kyungsoo decides to tell them.

The conversation proposed now then is one that had been breached too suddenly to comprehend, and Kyungsoo is completely frozen by the topic.

The chances… he thinks, but he knows there is no connection; his parents don’t care enough to figure out he is gay like Eun-seo somehow managed.

He lowers his gaze, hands falling to his lap to hide the way they shake, and he only braves a quick glance up at Eun-Seo - the worry in her eyes, the thinness to her lips - before his father goes on.

"Really?" He enunciates, mouth ticking up in the corner, a low rumble sounding in his throat. "'How interesting."

"I do know," Mrs Do shrills, popping a sprout between her lips. "To think, she's always shown herself to be so infuriatingly perfect, and all along she's been hiding something like this? The nerve." She enunciates, dragging the word out ostentatiously.

Kyungsoo honestly doesn't know what he'd been expecting. He doesn't think he's even really considered how his parents would react, if he ever did come out to them. They're not traditional, he already knows that, and they don't seem to want to see him unhappy-

Stacking the facts up really, Kyungsoo thinks, deep down, that he'd always reckoned they'd be okay with it, with him. There had been no signs of anything different being true.

So- this. This. 

Kyungsoo can't wrap his head around what he's hearing; this has never been a thing he has ever even thought to spend time worrying over. His mouth is suddenly too dry, his lips chapped and- and trembling. He's trembling. He can see it, as he stares at his hands, and the way they blur skin tones against his grey joggings. 

All along she's been hiding something like this? The words repeat in his head, a mantra in his mother's voice, reverberating over and over again. Something like this, he thinks. Something like me. A tarnish, an imperfection on a clean slate.

A hand suddenly falls to his knees, gentle fingers drawing his eyes up, and he only realises that they've turned a little wet when he looks up at Eun-Seo and she's fuzzy at the edges. 

Eun-Seo doesn't say anything, she's too clever for something like that, but she presses down, providing a physical comfort, and her eyes shine, even as her own lips tremble in what must be anger.

"You never can tell those types apart in a crowd," Mr Do says, distaste hanging heavy in his tone. "Gay?" He repeats, as if he can't quite believe such a concept, the word sounding so poisonous and rotten on his tongue that Kyungsoo picks up his fork again to keep on eating, has to busy himself with something, anything, to distract himself from the conversation that is tearing him apart. 

"Can we talk about something else?" Eun-Seo pipes up, squeezing once more. It's the first contribution she's made - not even a pass the gravy? by her, her stubbornness forcing her to stand and walk around to reach it without assistance. Both of their parent’s latch onto her words like it’s a godsend, falling silent as per her instruction, no conversation restarting, and Kyungsoo is both amused at and thankful for the power she has over them. 

They eat as a family in silence after that, only the clatter of cutlery against crockery and porcelain breaking the stillness. It's such a familiar situation, family dinners, but it feels so new and alien. Kyungsoo remembers how the setting used to be, how they used to be: easy exchange of words and laughter - smiles and day stories, jokes and natural, effortless teasing. A proper family: that's what they used to be. 

But now, today, all there is between them is forced - a bare minimum that stems from hundreds and hundreds of unsaid words. It's a setting that Kyungsoo is used to, yet he knows that an outside spectator would look on at this dynamic and think 'oh, well, what's wrong there then?'

I don’t know either of you anymore, Kyungsoo thinks, glancing up at both of his parents.

And it's with these thoughts circulating in his mind, with his guard down and his being relaxed, in the open to beat down, that his father speaks-

"I always knew something was wrong with that man."

Which is the last straw.

Kyungsoo rises in a rush, sudden and powerful, his whole being shaking like autumnal leaves in equinox. Mind reeling, irrepressible thoughts flooding his system, Kyungsoo edges away from the table, eyes glued to his half-eaten plate of food and to Eun-seo's restless, restless hands. 

"Sorry I- I suddenly don't feel that well," he lies quickly, rubbing a hand against his stomach in a feeble, shaky show of discomfort. "May I be excused?" He asks with trembling lips, but he leaves before he receives an answer, eyes drawn to the ground as he rushes to his room without looking back. 

He closes the door firmly shut behind him, pretending not to hear the clattering of plates that is Eun-seo stampeding away from the family that always does something wrong, but never seems to realise what it is. He knows Eun-seo won't come to him yet, and that she'll realise he wants to be left alone, but he still hears how she lingers at his door after she's made herself upstairs, warring with her wants and her logic, her sisterly protectiveness and her reasoning, before finally moving away. 

It's as soon as he hears her bedroom door shut behind her, that Kyungsoo finally lets himself cry, a rush of silent tears broken by rhythmic, overpowering hiccups, streaming steadily down his cheeks.  

He's not felt like this in a while - not felt so personally at war with himself and the array of emotions that cripple him to the ground, crouched and leant against the door. A low, frustrated sound escapes his mouth, nails digging into his clothed knees in a cusped grip for grounding. 

He's never needed to clear his thoughts as strongly as he does now, never needed to expend this much sullen, negative energy at any one moment in his life. 

In a desperate bid for an answer, Kyungsoo looks around his room, wide eyes darting to every nook and crevice - blind, blind snatches for a solution. Tears still streaming down his face and gulps of air routine and frequent, Kyungsoo crawls towards his set of drawers and starts tugging open and tipping the contents of each in turn - a dragging, deafening thud against his carpeted floor. Once he's done with that, he stumbles to his desk, throwing folders and books to the ground in negative seconds, uncaring, for once, of the way they crease and scatter. It's not enough, not even close, and a moment later he's flinging open his cupboards and ripping clothes from hangers - anything to calm his thoughts, to use up this static energy and simmer down his warring head before it bubbles over.

Another short, aggravated wail passes through his lips, loud and unrestrained, and he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. It's only a partial second, only a momentary image, but he sees the way he looks all the same - the disarrayed tousle of his hair; his fierce, darkened eyes, stout with maddened emotion. He turns away quickly, lids slamming shut as if to erase the image of himself that he'd just captured. Before he can dwell, he shoves himself back against the door like a barrier, the thud loud enough to make him tense, awaiting footsteps or a call of his name.

But no one comes, and he needs a distraction, needs something to feast on and get lost in. His eyes, like they've been told to, peel open, staring, still wet, at the chaos he has created. Turning his head, he scours through the mess, searching for something, anything, which can make him feel better, and that’s when his eyes catch on a glint of metallic, shining grey on the ground by his bed, and his heartbeat accelerates like he's been shocked.

A shaver. 

He'd forgotten he had it, a gag gift from his sister to bare-faced brother one birthday, and it captures his attention like he's been put under an enchantment- no, no. Not the shaver exactly, but the blade. The blade makes him look twice. The blade that is embedded into the mechanism, and that now stares at Kyungsoo in a way that it never has before.

Stares at Kyungsoo like a taunt- an invitation, a grin personified in a sharp sheen or reflecting white. 

Kyungsoo really doesn't know how his heart hasn't given out by now from how fiercely it is thundering in his chest. He can't discern, either, whether it's from fear or exhilaration - the way he is feeling right now. In any case, Kyungsoo is entranced by the silver of the blade, and the prospect of a distraction laid out before his eyes. It suddenly feels like time has frozen, like motion has been oppressed as he stares unblinkingly at a solution he's never before considered.

There have been many times, in Kyungsoo's life, where he has been desperate for a way to forget the world around him, and focus his thoughts on something less painful. In these times, he has gone to Eun-seo, the only person who can grant him such singular joys in even the toughest of moments, and who always knows the right things to say. In other times, he has expended his energy through expression - music, writing - losing himself in surrealism and abstract palettes of creation as if to remind himself that negativity can always be dispelled in the form of art.

There has never really been a time, however, where he has ever pre-emptively considered combatting pain with pain, and forgetting in a different, rarer way. It has never been a possibility for him, never even been something he's played with in a fleeting moment of weakness. But today, after hearing his parents' words, and understanding how flawed he truly is in their minds-

He has never needed to step out of his head with such desperation as he does right now. 

So, before he can psyche himself out, he reaches forward, over the pile of bric-a-brac he's created to mirror the mess in his mind, moves a few things aside, and plucks the shaver between his thumb and forefinger. He reels back once he has it, pressing further back against the wall like before and trying to ignore how weighted the gift feels, how wrong and unfitting. 

Drowning out the voice inside him that yells for him to stop - that screams at him to not taint an object which had before represented such a happy memory, to not twist a present into something it was never intended to be - he slips off the plastic casing, and throws it aside in a sharp, unceremonious action. With hands still shaking, and tears paused to clump at his lashes; with wet streaks still visible over his cheeks, and cold stickiness running down his neck - Kyungsoo stares at the blade from up close, eyes huge and unblinking, heartbeat sporadic and pounding harshly in his ears.

It looks so sharp - glinting and smiling up at him like a call for usage. Kyungsoo let's himself, for a short moment, imagine what it would be like - to mar his skin with stains of liquid red, to feel a new kind of pain, a wanted-pain, overtake his system. It would be so easy too - the blade would cut so finely, would sink into skin without resistance or difficulty. He would barely have to use force, barely have to try at all.

Everything would just be so, inexplicably, easy.

He stares intently at the simple, artless token in his hand. On another day, it would be just that; an everyday item for an everyday use - no foreboding, hidden purpose beneath the core. But as he looks now, it suddenly feels far more sinister, far more vicious. It's like he's only just come to the realisation that it is a weapon, just as much as it is a shaver.

Was the leader ever so unassuming?

His hand slams forcefully down against the wall behind him, and a resounding sequence of shatters follow. Turning slightly, he stares, intent, at the pieces of plastic littered over his carpet, the remnants of the shaver scattered in a snapshot image of disarray. 

Click. Kyungsoo thinks. Who knew destruction could look so elegant?

His gaze lands on the single shot of silver then, the single screw still embedded into the blade but free of the plastic, and the sharpness is no longer a spectacle, no longer art behind glass, but it is a tangible, possible thing, so close and conclusive, so terribly capable of causing pain.

He's shaking - he can feel it. His body is doing so many things, so many things to try to slow him down. But his hand eventually does close around the blade, and it makes him release a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding in this whole time, a sinewy lungful of air seeping into his system and pushing away the light-headed haze which had begun to take over. 

His eyes are probably as wide as they've ever been right now, focused and scrutinising, locked to the weapon resting unassumingly in the palm of his hand. 

If he were a child with abundant innocence and the purest of thoughts, nothing like this could ever be considered. It wouldn't ever be an answer. 

But it is one for many, and for people like him who are weighed down by the world. Such a simple, uniting concept - pain as a distraction, as a comfort and as a marked story against your skin. And why- when did people start to think of such an act as implicating?

Why can't he do the same this once?

Kyungsoo swallows, lips dry and chapped even if his face and neck are wet with tears. In one unsteady, jagged motion, he tugs up the sleeve of his shirt and reveals a clean slate of smooth, untouched, pale skin - a new palette for expression. 

Curiosity drives him forward more than any other force. He raises the blade, shaky, shaky, shaky, and presses it against his skin - still not piercing -, the outline of his veins faint but visible for the blood which pumps harshly through them. 

It's so easy, he reminds himself, an exclamation in his head. It was nothing hard, nothing that required thought. 

So why are you shaking? He thinks. 

Which he has been since the blade had first caught his eye - a hard, unstoppable tremor which sings through his system and blurs the metal in his hand, and it's so close, he's so close to a solution, but something is keeping him immobile. Before he can stop them, fast, infuriated tears pour in a rush from his eyes, his face scrunching up uncontrollably. A string of sobs spew between his lips, loud, unrestrained bursts of sound, and he pushes the blade down to his skin, a single bulb of red manifesting from the snowy sheet of white, a jolting sting running up his arm, and there’s something so dreadfully good about feeling the hurt that it scares him, that is terrifies him-

And he hears his sister's voice, a sudden memory of words he hadn't realised he remembered, filling his thoughts and making him still.

"Kyungsoo," his sister had said to him once. "Pain cannot fight pain. And, if it ever could, there's always an alternative which is better."

Tears streak even faster down his cheeks now, the words reverberating through his mind as his source of pain hovers just over his wrist, and he abruptly recalls what had happened to make her say that. He'd just gotten home from school, and it had been a particularly bad day, his face bruised enough for Eun-seo to be able to see out in the open. Before she had been able to stop him, Kyungsoo had slammed the bathroom door shut behind him, and caught a glimpse of his reflection. A rush of emotion had plagued him at that moment, his thoughts spiralling with so many things. With no warning for what he had been about to do, he had punched his fist into the bathroom mirror, as if a whole other being had grasped control over his arm. There was a short, sensational moment to relish in the temporary pain it could grant, and then that was overridden by a sharp, irrefutable panic once he'd seen what he could do when his mind wasn't focused on stopping it. Eun-seo had been so horribly shaken that day, quiet and sombre, a dark cloud over her head, and he had been too scared of himself to bring her any calm. 

I can't do this to her, Kyungsoo thinks, gaze blurring with how fast the tears are coming. I can't do it.

He stares and stares, endlessly transfixed by that beautiful orb of red.

You will not be my victor.

With Eun-seo in his mind, Kyungsoo throws the blade across the room, far and out of reach, a sharp, pained whimper escaping his throat as his thoughts, incessant, start to attack him once more. 

His eyes dart like the first time, this sweep a last snatch for sanity, and it's with harsh whispers in his head and doubts creeping into his system that he finally falls upon his song book. 

And he forgets that he hasn't written in years, forgets the fear that grips him when he usually looks upon the tattered seam and mismatched pages, forgets it all as he reaches forwards and turns to the first crisp page, a view he had forgotten he'd loved, and breathes in the air he so desperately needs.

1- 2 seconds to find a pen, and then he's lost in lyrics.

He writes three songs that night. They're rough, imperfect compositions, a shot after years of silence, but he's a lot calmer when he finally puts the pen down. It's only now that he feels the whispering ache in his fingers, the tension in the palm of his hands. That's satisfying too - that feeling. Expressing so hard and so thoroughly, artfully, that time isn't even considered, and pain an unnoticed minority sensation. 

With his head cleared, Kyungsoo rises from his bed (which he'd clambered onto somewhere between song two and song three) and stretches his sore limbs, the click of his bones loud and satisfying. 

It's the first chance he's taken to look about himself in what must be hours, and the bedlam of his room startles him as if he wasn't the one who made it like that in the first place.

Avoiding the urge within him to clean, his eyes trail to the floor at his feet, and he scoops up the forgotten blade from beneath his desk chair, closing it into his fist. Heart pounding in his ears, he ventures from the room, quiet and light-footed when he sees how dark the night sky is through his bedroom blinds. 

It must be past midnight, he realises, a belated, shocking thing. He shakes the thought away and raps twice on the door he has stopped before, knowing from the glimmer of light beneath that his sister will still be awake.

Sure enough, Eun-seo opens up, eyes penetrative and heavy as they fall over Kyungsoo's form. Before Kyungsoo can utter even a single word, Eun-seo tugs him inside, closing the door gently behind them, and breathes a long, dragging sigh when silence falls.

"I'm sorry," she says eventually, gaze fixated on the dry tear marks marring his cheeks, the dishevelled mess of hair on his head and (he suspects) darkness beneath his eyes.

"Don't be stupid. How is any of this your fault?" He asks, her pearl-wet eyes stunning him into stillness.

"I'm supposed to look after you. I'm you're older sister." She looks tortured.

"Yes." Kyungsoo says eventually. "And they're supposed to love me unconditionally," he snaps, but he can feel his expression crumble immediately after the words escape, and his gaze draws to the ground. When his sister opens to respond to whatever it is that his face is telling her, he doesn't let her. 

"Can you keep this away from me?" he interrupts instead, and before Eun-seo has the chance to ask for clarification he stretches out his arm, unfurls his closed hand in a slow, purposeful motion, and tries to breathe.

The effect is instantaneous. Eun-seo's eyes snap open, alert and surprised, and in a blink her expression twists into one of despair, eyes filling so fast it's painful to even look at, to even glimpse over for the shortest of seconds.

"K-Kyungsoo-" she starts, stutters, garbled plea for an explanation, but Kyungsoo can't handle that.

"I didn't do anything," he says, and he hates the way he has to tug his sleeves up to reveal a clean set of wrists, hates having had been in a position where that might not have been the case. He only remembers about the single drop, however, when Eun-seo grabs at his wrist, and he sees the dried red against his skin.

"I- I stopped," he corrects, avoiding her eyes. "Just... keep it away from me, please."

Not waiting for a response, he takes a hold of his sister's frozen hand, turning it out and flat and placing the blade there, pretending not to see the way Eun-seo shivers when it touches her.

"I'm going to go on a walk," Kyungsoo announces, turning on his heel to leave. Eun-seo doesn't say a word in response, a statue fixed in place, and it makes Kyungsoo hesitate. His eyes fall to his hand which is poised on the door handle, at the veins which protrude with how fiercely he is pressing down on it.

"I'm-I'm sorry," he chokes out after a moment, tears budding in his eyes as he thinks of before, of that terrible, terrible moment of weakness. "I'm really sorry."

She doesn't answer him, in the end.

Kyungsoo loves the night air; it works like a detox to his system. To walk under a dark sky, whispers of wind against his skin and the noise around him lessening to a dim, grants a singular sense of calm that no other experience can. It makes everything so simple. Suddenly, the world is just something to marvel, somewhere to live, with no other complications weighing him down.

It's at this time that the neighbourhood is usually asleep; still and untouched, like a painting to capture night time's serenity. Something about the dark shield of the sky, the twinkling lights of the stars and the small bunches of grey cloud, screams at the world to switch itself off. 

Kyungsoo prefers walking his neighbourhood like this; no school kids to move and avoid, no elders out, hiding behind picket fences to spy on those around him-

Or, at least, that's what it's usually like.

Today though, tonight, something is different when Kyungsoo is about to walk past a particular house, and that something comes in the form of a warm loft light and a lady sobbing into her hands. 

Kyungsoo wouldn't have been able to guess she had been sobbing if he couldn't see; the stranger is making no sound, no crack of her voice or audible sniff of her nose, and that's one of the most heart-breaking concepts ever - that she has silenced herself if only to be less of a nuisance. Her shoulders routinely buck up and down with the tears she's holding back, feet turning in as she cries and arms hugging over her knees as she tries to catch her breath. 

Kyungsoo knows that he should walk away. It's a courtesy he would want someone to grant him too, if a stranger saw him weak like this. Even if it hurts to ignore, and it's not something he wants, he knows how hard it is to handle such untimely confrontation from all the occasions where he'd ever got the same treatment at school - from the teachers, on the odd, blue moon occasion. 

Except something about this particular image makes his steps falter almost immediately, the pang in his chest too great to ignore, too important.

Why-why is this different? He wonders.

The answer comes the second he draws his eyes away to sweep across the lawn before him; even in darkness, quaint as it may be, it is groomed to perfection. 

His gaze veers back to the lady, and his gut coils unpleasantly when he makes the connection.

This is Mrs Kim, he realises.

In all the years that Kyungsoo has known Mrs Kim, she has always been an immaculate picture of composure - not a hair out of place, a smudge to her mascara or a stain to her clothes. Kyungsoo has suspected the family has wealth behind them, but their home is humble and un-foreboding. It's something which Kyungsoo has always respected, and has always left a good impression, even if he has never properly conversed with either of the Kim's since the day his family moved in.

And why is that? He asks himself now, regret building in his chest. Why have I never sparked a conversation with these people?

Before he can even begin to stop himself, Kyungsoo knocks against the waist-high gate before him, a prominent sound in the stillness of night, and Mrs Kim's head darts up. 

Kyungsoo has seen many terrible things: a plethora, across years and years of his life. He has seen teachers giving the clever students preferential treatment, and the kids who try hard without success crying behind flights of stairs during break and lunch. He has seen the leader spewing insults at the weaker beings, and watched their faces crumple like his no longer does, watched a piece of them break in a horribly open, exposed manner. He has seen himself, bruised and beaten, wincing as he applies a coverage cream over his bruises and holding tears in like they're of limited supply, staying strong in private and falling weak in public.

He has seen, many, many terrible things, now he has begun to list them.

But nothing can surpass how terrible the image before him is right now - the image of a woman, who has always been strong, looking so terribly in need of strength: frail and breakable; mascara lines down her cheeks; nose red with more than the cold night air; desolate, terrifying emptiness to her eyes. It's nothing Kyungsoo has ever before seen on an adult face, and it's something he never wants to see on another person ever again. 

She composes herself quickly; her lips stop trembling, her gaze falls slightly lower, hiding, making herself small, and she makes to wipe her tears, but Kyungsoo stops her.

"Wait, Mrs Kim," he calls, tugging a pack of tissues from his coat pocket, not seeing how she stares, unsurely, up at him. He holds out the packet, eyes wide and earnest when they meet hers once more.

"Please take one," he insists. He knows he can just as easily open up the gate to hand it to her himself, but he isn't foolish; this is Mrs Kim's private place, and he doesn't want to breach that barrier. 

She hesitates for a long while - so long, in fact, that Kyungsoo's arm starts to ache in protest of being held so high. He doesn't drop it though, only keeps the tissues offered, until she finally rises to her feet (barefoot, Kyungsoo realised belatedly) and plucks a tissue from the packet. 

Before he can comment about her lack of footwear, his attention is drawn to the way she furiously wipes against her face, sharp, patterned movements to clean the remnants of pain away, and it's so unexpectedly forceful that Kyungsoo almost reaches a hand out to halt her.

When she's done, she starts to turn away again, making to go back in, but something about the exchange feels horribly incomplete, and it only takes a moment to realise what's missing.

"Mrs Kim," Kyungsoo says again, soft and whispered but loud enough to make her halt without turning around, her back facing him.

For a moment he tries to figure out what to say, tries to plan the words in his mind like a valedictorian's speech, but, in the end, they come out in a spontaneous, honest rush. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, knowing that the wind will carry his words. "I'm sorry that the world is not understanding. And I'm sorry that people are cruel." My mother, he thinks, but he doesn't say that aloud.

"I wish that things were different," he says instead, and he's never felt more seriously about that than he does now: not when he was being insulted; not when he was being punched; not even when he was lying in tatters on a hospital bed. "I really, sincerely do."

It's so silent for such a while after this; so absent of sound. Kyungsoo wonders if she has even heard his words, wonders if she will move from the spot where she is rooted.

He doesn't know how long it takes, but he does know that it startles him when she finally does turn around.

In that moment, Kyungsoo had never seen Mrs Kim looking so old, so unpolished and human, but the smile she gives him just then, with the wrinkles lines and wise, irreplaceable age to her eyes, is something so beautiful that Kyungsoo is sure he will never forget it.

"Thank you," she breathes as the only thing, and the sincerity breaks Kyungsoo's heart.

You shouldn't have to thank me for this, he thinks. 

Kyungsoo ends up standing outside her gate for a long, long time after she has already stepped back inside, weighted by thoughts of a world that feels so far out of reach, but that he has never wished so fiercely to be nearer. 

A/N

Ngl it actually broke my heart writing the shaver scene. I knew that this chapter would happen, but it still hurt to write it omg

I hope that I did this justice. I knew that I’d play with ideas of self-harm in this fic, and I just really hope I could portray everything I wanted to portray.

Please comment opinions below x