Part 16 ⧫ Penitence

pen·i·tence

/ˈpenitəns/

noun

The action of feeling or showing sorrow and regret for having done wrong; repentance.

_______

“I think that being fearless has nothing to do with not being scared of anything. Fearless isn’t walking into the unknown and not being scared and being proud of that -- it’s having the courage to walk into the unknown, the courage to continue walking and conquer that fear. Fearless is having the ability to see when it’s right to let fear guide you, because sometimes fear is that instinct to keep us alive. It’s knowing when or when not to walk into the unknown. Being fearless is controlling your fears and not letting them control you-- that’s fearless.”

I lay awake on the bed, unable to fall asleep. Today was supposed to be uneventful and like every single day; school, dropping homework off at the hospital for Baekhyun, then doing my own homework. Following that was dinner, then bedtime. It was like every other day -- or it was supposed to be.

For some reason, I couldn’t get his words out of mind however much I tried. There was something about what he said -- something deeper about those words that made it impossible for me to forget. Even now, when I normally should’ve fallen asleep, I was still thinking about it. It depended on how fearless was defined.

The typically dictionary definition was simple. Lacking fear. If one were to take apart the word, it was also self explanatory. Fear. Less. Without fear. But the way Baekhyun deciphered the word made me wonder if being fearless wasn’t just it’s dictionary definition. As if it wasn’t actually impossible, unachievable.

After all these years, I had finally accepted the fact that fearless was a childhood dream that I had to learn to let go. A childhood dream that just brought up bad memories and blinded me from reality. But… now that there was a new way to look at it, it made me second-guess my once-determined attitude to drop it.

I thought about Baekhyun’s explanation. Fearless -- the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be something else: courage. Courage, fearlessness -- I was pretty sure I didn’t have either, anyways.

The night light in the corner of my room illuminated the darkness with a eerie white light that made all the shadows seem longer. The ceiling was streaked with a mixture of shadows and light, giving it a spectral glow that made me want to bury my head under the covers and stay there until light from the sun reached through the curtain-covered windows.

I wasn’t sure how long I was awake for, but it felt like forever, being unable to sleep. I was tired, yes, but I wasn’t sure that all the thoughts in mind were going to let me even sleep a wink. After tossing and turning for at least ten minutes, pillow on the floor and tangled in my blankets to the point I wasn’t sure if I could even untangle myself, I finally gave up on sleep. It was a desolate feeling; alone in a room, too dark to see anything properly yet light enough to make out faint outlines. The helplessness to not even be able to fall asleep was really getting to me at this point.

Rolling over the best I could (my blankets made mobility pretty much impossible), I snatched my phone off the nightstand and turned it on.

The intense glare of the phone screen was momentarily blinding. Squinting, I turned the brightness down to the lowest; though even then, it was hard to open my eyes completely. When I had finally adjusted to the light, the thought of sleep made me feel even more hopeless. 2: 54 AM, the clock read. Groaning, I dropped the phone and rolled over again. I’m going to be a zombie tomorrow morning. Look and feel like one.

There wasn’t much I could do at the moment, thinking of it. All my homework lay finished and stacked neatly on my desk, waiting to be brought to school tomorrow morning. The books I had borrowed from the library (I had found out going to the library on Sunday was actually a rather good idea; there were shelves and shelves of books that I found myself obsessed with) were also done, and I had no intentions of rereading them. The only thing I could really do was lie on my bed.

Snatching up my phone again, I idly opened random apps and closed them. Maybe I could tire myself to sleep, involuntarily.

2: 58 AM, the clock told me.

2: 58. I wasn’t even sure how I remembered so vividly, but that was the exact time Baekhyun had texted me in the middle of the night last time, when he had requested I meet up with him. It scared me partly how clearly I remembered this, and on the other hand, it suddenly reminded me of Baekhyun. If I phoned him, would he be awake like last time or would I just succeed in waking him up from well-deserved rest?

I shoved the blankets (which promptly joined my pillow on the ground) off me and sat with my back to the wall, which was cool to the touch. I glared at the screen and tried to think rationally what to do -- something I seemed to be quite unable to do the past couple weeks -- or maybe, months.

Maybe if I could talk to someone, I reasoned with myself, I would fall asleep quicker. But then there was the question who. Who was up at three in the morning, in all of my contacts? Jihyun would be my ideal choice, but she normally slept so soundly that nothing could wake her up until morning. Even if she did pick up, she'd probably yell at me for waking her up and then hang up. Jihyun, I tried to think again, but my brain was already jumping to another option.

Before I knew what I was doing, the ‘contacts’ app was open and my index finger was hovering what seemed to be a millimeter over the call symbol under Baekhyun’s contact. I hesitated for a moment, and before I could lose all my courage, hit the button.

Hearing the dial tone continue to drone on, my hopelessness continued to build. Really, what was I thinking; disturbing someone else’s sleep because I couldn’t? After hearing it continue on for at least five times, I lifted the phone away from my ear and proceeded to press the disconnect button.

00:02, it read.

It took me a couple moments to realize that that was because Baekhyun had picked up that it was showing the time the call had been connected for. Hurriedly, I pressed it to my ear. “Baekhyun?” I half whispered half shouted, afraid that I’d wake up my grandma and that he wouldn’t hear me at the same time. There was silence for a little while on the other end before he finally replied.

“Hm?” his voice was a hum from the other side, slightly static, and very quiet, if not a little bit rough from sleep. Did I wake him? “Iseul, why are you calling me at three in the morning?”

“Uh…” This is what I hadn’t prepared myself for. I had been pretty sure he wouldn’t even pick up when I called him; in fact, it had been a pure of-the-moment thing that I had even pressed the call button. I had even been about to disconnect before he picked up -- this was pretty much a huge mistake on my part. I wanted to apologize for calling him, because hell, it was the middle of the night -- but the only words that came out were, “What are you doing awake at three in the morning?”

“Touche,” he snorted, sounding rather amused; at least he wasn’t mad. “But you were the one who called me.”

“You were the one who picked up,” I retorted sharply before I could stop myself. “Also, I could’ve been sleepwalking. Sleep-dialing. Sleep-phoning.”

I could hear quiet laughter on the other end. Hopefully, Baekhyun hadn’t been asleep -- because if he had, I was going to feel guilty for a rather long time for waking him up. He already had problems with sleeping properly -- now that I thought about it, this was really unfair for him. On the other hand, I was glad he picked up, even if we were going to end up bickering the whole time. That was better than lying on the bed lonelily with nothing but the rather-creepy ceiling to stare at.

“I’m glad I’m the first person you sleep-dialed, then.”

I could feel my cheeks heat up at that, even if he hadn’t meant anything special. “You were just first on my recent list. Besides, I wasn’t sleep-dialling. I-” I what? And he is first on my recent list and I don’t think that’s a really good thing either. “I justkindawantedtophoneyouokay?”

Baekhyun didn’t seem to have a reply for that, because he remained silent for a whole couple seconds.

“You go first,” he finally managed. “And I’ll tell you why I’m up.”

“No, you first,” I countered, mouth-to-brain filter in desperate need of fixing, apparently.

“You.”

“You.”

I was pretty sure that Baekhyun and I were completely capable of going on forever until one of our phones ran out of battery, so with a lot of effort, I put