Torn

A few weeks later, and I have a rough and second rough draft completed for my article. Along with artistic shots of Daehyun’s instrument stuffed garage, Daehyun’s grandfather’s music shop and of the guys posing in front of a Seoul skyline near sunset provided by Youngjae, I have half of the final article completed. Ms. Gong has gone through a full 180 degree on me, and is super excited I’ve taken up the gossip of the six guys forming a band, but she thinks I’m writing about their talent show preparations, not their story as a band in secret. It all works out, she’s off my back, she’s not supervising me, and no one knows or will expect the content of the article besides Mitsuki and the gang.

I’m oddly content, at this stage between friends into best friends with B.A.P, and we often hang out in Daehyun’s garage, emptying out his junk food cupboard without a protest from Mrs. Jung unlike her excessively whiny son, and spend some afternoons watching movies in Himchan’s basement (chick-flicks for Himchan, war movies for Yongguk, dance movies for Jongup).

These past few weeks have been quite peaceful and I enjoy having people to get by with during the school year; its ending is nearing which means the talent show is also nearing, and the release of the last newspaper of the year, and also all our finals on top of it all.

But right now, we’re in that catch-your-breath time period right before exams and then the fun end of the year traditions waiting straight ahead, and we’re all pretty chill.

I haven’t talked to Daehyun too much, with us and the gang hanging out so much, we rarely have time to be by ourselves (not that we would do anything together, all we seem to do alone is argue, and then Daehyun will say sometime slightly romantic, but it only infuriates me, makes me feel like he’s trying to condescend me, and then he will show a small amount of concern mixed with something else I can’t name in his eyes, and then drop it just as quickly as it had appeared, like I just can’t get him. And that only confuses me and frustrates me more).

Sometimes, between the scenes where the girl protagonist misunderstands her shady boyfriend’s actions (as Himchan had predicted from his pink bean-bag chair, stuffing his mouth with popcorn), I catch myself staring at Daehyun’s cheek for moments too long, his dark eyes focused on Himchan’s T.V., the vibrant light of the T.V. shining on his face in the dark room. Other times, I can feel his dark, dark eyes on me, waiting for me to catch their gaze, to give him a sign that I am willing to get him, to get us. But I can never bring myself to do so, I don’t even know if I want to be his girlfriend, if I want to be in anything other than this calm, friendly haze.

It actually kind of frightens me, that he might like me; see me differently and wanting to understand me.

Us, we wouldn’t be easy like Mitsuki and Zelo, there’s a thick tension, of wanting something so bad, and we’d crash like that, we crash like that already.

♡ ♡ ♡

It’s study hall day, and the gang usually has different study times, Mitsuki and Zelo finished early to head to Orchestra practice (prepping for a big show they’re going to have) but they were being extra giggly and cuddly as they headed off, leaving me with suspicious-narrowing of eyes to their extra slow steps (despite my heart warming up to their cute height difference), so we’ll see how productive that practice will be. Youngjae tutors in one of the underclassmen classrooms and Jongup skipped our note exchanging routine in the back of the library for either soccer practice or messing around with a basketball at the park with his boys.

Himchan and Yongguk however, completed their study hall hours early in the morning, and were now out on a date at the local coffee shop, Yongguk swears it’s not a date but couldn’t resist Himchan’s huge eyes to treat him to his favorite Americano he’d been craving all day. Yongguk is such a softie it’s achingly sweet, mostly because he’s so gentle with Himchan above everyone else, and in a more special way than how all of us give into Himchan’s charm. He’s always faking disdain and grumpiness “I’m only taking you to shut you up.” He’d defended himself, but then totally freaked out when Himchan nearly tripped over his own shoelace, and scolded him hell for his unawareness of the world around him. Himchan only inserted soft series of yes’ and stared up intently at Yongguk’s political-speech face with a small smile on his lips before they’d strolled out of the library having bid me goodbye.

I try to look over my lab notes, but some are just too bright with highlighter and others so dull and cramped together in my smudgy pencil handwriting, so I drop the headache inducing studying (after about like 5 minutes) and shut and stuff my Lab spiral back into my backpack. I lean back against the isolated bookshelf located at this quiet corner of the library, my usual spot, as I pull out my Journalism notebook, I store my ideas in here, as well as the notes for my article, so the journal is bugling with multiple sticky notes and keepsakes stuffed inside, almost like a diary, more recently, including a few pictures of the guys, doing silly faces, one of Himchan looking like the only decent one, another of Himchan being the only derp face, I laugh, reckoning all the struggle to achieve these pictures, how Mitsuki was shaking the camera too much from laughing.

Then, stuffed between the pages towards the back, is Jin’s letter.

She left it behind for me before she took her life, in her artistic handwriting, she ended it with something she always used to say, “Don’t cry over me. I’ve cried enough for myself, for what they did to me.” I could never help her, seeing her hurled up on our bathroom floor, so our parents wouldn’t know, crying silently to herself, at the fresh bruises, the newer insults, the intensity of her classmates’ hatred that she couldn’t understand. She was so above all of them, artistically and mentally, that they had to beat her down to her death. I could never help her, there wasn’t a thing I could do, and she would give me a weak smile, and say that she would take care of it, that this would all pass, and she wouldn’t allow me to attempt anything.

When she’d smile upon blasting her Black Veil Brides through her beat up headphones, I almost believed her; that she would be okay.

That we would make it.

I can feel my eyes burn, and I blink intensively to dry them up.

♡ ♡ ♡

Saturday.

Mom paused purposefully from cutting the cabbage for kimchi, Dad would come back tomorrow from a business trip, so I thought maybe she was just missing him and his morning newspaper readings to her.

She wouldn’t resume to her rhythmic cabbage chopping for seconds too long so I turned from my cream cheese bagel to look up at her.

“It will be her two year anniversary, on Monday.” Mom had said in a quiet, tiny, voice. Like if she said anything too loud, she would break. And her eyes were already swelling up. She knows how I don’t like us crying. How Jin wouldn’t.

I pull out from my chair and hug her, rubbing circles on her back to sooth her. And Jin would have told her a joke to cheer her up, a cheesy one; one only Moms would laugh at. But it would always work.

It calms her down for most of the day, but I could hear her crying from my spot on the stairs later that night, in the living room, clueless to my presence. You had to really tune in to hear her, the hum of our A.C. barely drowning her hard, silent sobs. The lump in my throat only became harder to swallow down. I pulled my knees closer to my chest, and wished Jin would have been here to cheer us up.

♡ ♡ ♡

I run my hand over the envelope’s soft blue cover, not allowing myself to read over it in my current condition. Instead, I pull out my article notes, and the second draft, to distract myself from Jin’s letter. After a short while, I sigh, realized I’d just been staring at my handwriting for show, and not really reading what it says, so I stack the article pages together, placing Jin’s letter between the opened notebook and stack of miscellaneous papers on top.

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I stalk out of the library for some fresh, free-book-imprisoned air until I find myself at the foot of the set of stairs Daehyun and Yuri had been making out under those weeks ago. I plop down a few steps up, rereading meaningless article notes in my lap, forgetting about Jin’s letter briefly and the fact that Daehyun had said he’d been wanting to kiss me instead under these stairs.

I recite one particularly news reporter-witty phrase that I’m proud of, when speak of the devil.

Daehyun gives me an awkward glance, maybe a little hopeful and takes his chance at getting some alone time with me when he stands right in front of me.

“What are you up to, Limmy?” He asks oh-so-casually, like he isn’t desperate for answers. To which questions, I wouldn’t know.

“Revising your five minutes of fame.” I answer dryly, focusing back on the introduction paragraph I know by heart.

Daehyun scoffs, a little playfully. “I’m on another level of fame, Lim. People can’t think about me for five minutes, more like five hours, at night.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively when I look up to give him a look of disgust.

“I’ll make sure every paragraph you’re in will highlight how much of a conceded popular cliché you are.”

“You’re kidding. You love me, why would you do that?”

I feel a nerve twitch at the word love but I keep my cool. “Did I stutter?”

Daehyun smiles broadly. “Hey, Lim, where’s my lunch?” He pauses. “Oh, wait, you’re wearing it.” He smirks so smugly that I want to laugh at his content The Breakfast Club reference more than roll my eyes, which I actually do.

“That’s only hot when 1980’s Judd Nelson says it.” I make a stab for his ego.

He mocks hurt with his big eyes. That didn’t work.

“So hey,” He edges over. “Why are you grumpier than usual today?”

“Hm?” I respond. When am I ever grumpy? “I’m just being usual me.”

“No, but,” He pauses and looks into my eyes. I know my face is warming up real bad. His eyes are really captivating, always so dark. “Or is that sadness I see in your eyes. Hm, Limmy? What’s up?”

If his tone of voice wasn’t always so joking by default, I would have probably told him about Jin’s letter, and about her impact on my life, and probably my whole life story after that, those dark eyes pulling me into opening up; into saying anything and everything.

Instead I go easy on him. “C’mere,” I motion to the spot beside me, I don’t even have to look up, to know his eyes lit up. “I’ll let you look over the outline for your star-breaking article.”

He scrambles beside me, snatching the old paper from my hands, reading then ooh-ing and ah-ing. “An entertainment company might actually pick us up. If your writing skills are as any good as your note short-hands.”

I blush, snatching the paper from him, as rudely as he had done earlier. “Glad to know I’m getting some credit over here.” I trail off.

He lets that hang in there for a second, leaning back as I watch the veins on his arms emphasize. “We’ll always credit you, if we make it big.” Suddenly, his tone is serious. And so soft, like he might break into a song. And I get lost in it.

“You have so much faith in them,” I tell him. “But you never show it.”

He falls silent.

“You never show your true feelings.” I think back to the act he has to put up for Yuri, for his fanclub members, for Mitsuki, for even Zelo, his own band-blood, for the school, all the way to the likes of gossip-swallowing adults, like Ms. Gong. Then I think back to Mrs. Jung’s warm features, and wonder what she would tell him if she knew how he’s being drowned by the status quo of our school, of this society. Then, I feel bad for all the harsh things I say to him, even worse for how he swallows them all down through playful smiles and flirty remarks.

“Yeah? Well, you’re one to talk.” I freeze up on my spot. His tone is bitter, like he wants that thing again, for me to get him.

I can’t even stop myself, I miss biting my tongue when I blurt it out like an idiot: “There you go again, bringing people down with you.”

Hurt flashes through his eyes. Real, sincere, emotion. And I instantly regret it.

“No, that’s not-“ I stutter. Close my eyes before I continue to blurt out worse . And it happens: “That’s not what I wanted to say…you know how it is…sputtering bull you don’t really mean.”

I mumble ‘sorry’ too late; what I should have said instead of all the rubbish-as Mitsuki would say-coming from my mouth.

“No, I don’t ‘know how it is’, Lim.” Daehyun glowers. “You just don’t get it! No matter what I do.”

“Get what?” I raise my voice. “What are you talking about? You don’t do anything for me!”

And I know it’s a lie. He has done something, he’s shared this feeling with me. We can’t put a name to it: but it’s there. It’s ours. And I’m so stupid I can’t admit it out loud. And Daehyun is getting tired.

His eyes harden. His eyebrows narrowed. “You don’t get this!” He exclaims, motioning between us, standing up next to me. “You avoid me every time I try to get us going somewhere. Somewhere we both want to be in.”

“How can you be so sure, Daehyun?” I plead, and I don’t know why, because I could be putting a name to the feeling we share, but I’m throwing up bull on him. And I don’t know why! What is wrong with me? “I’ll write this article and then you will make it somewhere big, and we will never see each other again. What makes you think I’d want to start a relationship with you so late on time?” I ramble, the Journalism notebook still in my hands, Jin’s letter tucked in there, and I don’t remember it.

I don’t remember it, when Daehyun snatches the small stack of fragile papers on the top, Jin’s letter somewhere between them, and rips the thin papers out of frustration and anger, and something I’ve never seen in him when he snaps, “Why do you always think so negatively?”

And then I realize, there, shocked that he’d ripped up all my documentations, as he tears them up a second time, with tears almost in his eyes, those bold, brown eyes, that he’d ripped Jin’s letter with him, a second and a third time again, the blue envelope falls to pieces with the rest of the mess he’d made of papers on the steps below us.

My eyes burn, scoffing at his ridiculous attitude before I remember Jin’s words, find the courage to slap him out of his anger, flat on his cheek, and scramble to gather the papers on the ground. The sound of my hand to his cheek rings in our ears, and he’s so shocked from it all, he barely misses my arm before I run down the stairs, away from him, Jin’s torn up letter in my shaky hands; torn up like my heart, and torn up like I never wanted Jin to be.   

▲ ✉ ▲

main image credit: himdaes @ via tumblr

Author's Note: uhm..../hides/ i'm embarrassed of this!! slightly! i'm not good with angst, can't u guys tell? lol. when author E and I were discussing the limhyun fight scene, i imagined it super angsty and well, this is the result :p lol i tried. hopefully my over dramatic-ness wasn't a turn off... i'm so low on sleep rn, there are probably tons of mistakes i didn't catch, so i will edit them in the morning maybe? yup. bUT ZOMG WE GOT AN UPVOTEEE!! & a new sub!! thank you sweet person of all good things ;u; we appreciate more!! as always!! i understand if u didn't enjoy this i might retype it later maybe idk im so confuzzled with this. maybe i'll yolo it idk. we'll see :/ hehe!! love, -L