something bad's about to happen to me, i don't know what but i feel it coming / dark red

Jennie holds a pile of return-to-sender mail with a sigh. Her mom must have given her the wrong address again. Another accident that didn’t seem like much of an accident.

She hasn’t seen her mother in a while, and almost isn’t sure if she even remembers her face. She could see pictures of her on Instagram if she cared to look, but she really doesn’t. At this point she’d get too angry seeing that woman living her life to the fullest while her daughter sat at home trying to hold it all together.

Setting the mail on the table, she takes a sip of soju. The taste is bitter, but somehow sweet. In a moment of recognition, she wipes and screws the cap back onto the green bottle.

Jennie lets her head fall onto the table, a memory from her childhood swirling to the surface of her mind with the slight warmth of the alcohol.

She remembers the nights when she would crawl into her parent’s bed, her mother’s breath a fragrant mixture of liquors. During those nights her mom would wipe away her tears and cradle her in her arms. It used to feel like a warm memory, until her mother’s words started to haunt her.

“If you cry then your daddy will never come back.”

Jennie always wondered why her mother had told her that. Maybe she wouldn’t have if she knew that one day he really wouldn’t come back.

(Or maybe she always knew.)

With or without those words, Jennie inevitably blamed herself. She absently swirls her finger around the edge of the shot glass.

In a sense, Jennie has become understanding of her parents. Why stick around at home when there is more to be seen in the world? Better sights to be seen, better food to be eaten, better people to ?

Jennie can’t blame them anymore, not when their decisions make more sense in her mind as time goes by. She doesn’t know what kind of mother she’ll be. Maybe she’ll be exactly like her own.

Which is exactly why she knows it’s better if she doesn’t become one at all.

. . .

“You’re here.”

Minho greets her with a small smile. She doesn’t ask why he’s in bed in the middle of the day.  

She came to him because she didn’t know who else to go to. These days, there isn’t anyone in her life she trusts more than Minho. Probably because he’s the only one who will always have it worse than her whenever she comes to him with her problems.

“Where’s your roommate?” She asks, eyes sweeping over the suspiciously empty side of the room.

“Ah.” Minho pauses, as if gathering his words. “He died.”

The tears begin slowly, before unleashing like a flood. Minho watches her, his forehead creased in worry. Silently, he moves from the center of the bed and pats his hand on the open space.

She crawls into the bed without speaking, resting her head on his shoulder. A violent wave of sobs jo