Make Your Choice
Make Your Choice"It doesn't have to be this way," she calls out to him, trying to get his attention, "Yonghwa, please."
He does not remember her name, Jihyun? Yoojin? He could not remember when he gave her his exact location even after the girl arrived twenty minutes later with a warm latte in her hand before putting it in front of him, watching he chuckled lightly, nodding as an acknowledgment of her presence. When did things started to go awry? He used to be so well, so good at controlling the things happening in his life. Instead, he is sitting on top of the rooftop of his apartment watching smoke flutter out of the opening of the takeaway with a pink scarf keeping his hands from freezing.
"What," he starts saying, "what do you do when you don't complete the person that completes you?"
She does not answer. He thinks she might have left, giving up completely on him, well, they are nothing but strangers, anyways. Then he hears her shuffling closer to him, clacking heels against the cement. "I'm not sure what I'd do, to be honest. I'm no counselor, Mr. Jung, that's your name, isn't it?"
He nods. "Call me Yonghwa, please."
"I'm Joohyun." Okay, he is wrong regarding her name. "However, I used to love someone.You know those fairytale stories they used to tell little kids?" She pauses, taking a glance at him. "I used to believe that. I used to think a prince would come sweeping my feet off before we run off to happiness. My dad, he was an abuser. None of us were safe. My mother went away, in another man's arms, my eldest sister committed suicide the night she left," she makes a a sliding motion around her own neck, letting out an awkward laugh.
"I'm sorry."
She shakes her head weakly. "It's not your fault. Anyways, I met this guy at school. This is going to sound real cliche but we fell in love at first sight. Okay, maybe it was only on my side, but it felt real, really promising. I told him about the abuse that happens at home, a little after a year of dating him, I figured I could trust him. I was wrong." Yonghwa tries to look straight, shifting his eyes ever now and then over to the owner of the scarf. "He me that night. I remember every little detail, from his scent to the look in his eyes when he saw the scars of my father's doing. You might think it would slow him down, no, he went ballistic."
Maybe Yonghwa should have never keyed in the number. What he is doing is just taking his misery and rubbing it in someone else's who had suffered more than him.
"That's life, isn't it?" She says after a few minutes of silence.
"What do you mean?" He asks, rubbing his thumb against the soft material.
"'The good die young' ever heard of that? I don't believe in either heaven or hell, but I believe good people are taken away from this cruel world because god wants only the best for them. Every one is a good person, I mean, you can be the toughest prisoner on earth with thousands of tattoos, but there is at least one person that is able to make him break down in tears. It's just a matter of whether did you hurt others while you were hurting. And, people make fun of suicidal people, but they fail to realise just like other patients in the last stage of cancer, we are all fighters. We choose the way of life we want to lead, even if sometimes we are born in the wrong place, at the wrong time."
"What are you trying to say? I don't get you."
She gets up, patting her legs. "I'm saying you have two choices. Either end your life by jumping down twenty floors or go back to my place for a proper dinner by yours truly. What's your choice?"
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