First week of September brings strangely warm autumn breeze, rustling leaves on the trees and bringing them down to litter every inch of the ground. Kyungsoo steps out from his black Chevrolet and walks slowly, glancing sideways every now and then on his trot from the parking lot to his faculty building to register the changes in the campus. This is the first time he sets foot in Chung-Ang University in 2 years, but nothing’s really different except for some re-planted trees on the side road near the entrance. He had taken a 2-year break at the end of his 3^rd year to enlist in the military, and now he’s back as a final year student with both sturdier mind and body – or so it seems, the result of his couple years of dutiful service in Gangnam Police Station.

“Kyungsoo!”, a familiar, cheerful voice calls out to him, and he already knows who the owner of the voice is even before his head is squished between two giant arms. Kyungsoo shakes his head vigorously to shoo those arms away, and finally Chanyeol’s wide smile emerges into view.

“Why haven’t you graduated yet?” Kyungsoo hisses jokingly.

“You know, my friend,” Chanyeol puts one arm on his shoulder and grins. “I like to take everything slowly. Enjoy life while you can, Mr. Stiff.”

Chanyeol left for the military a year earlier than Kyungsoo to avoid a personal, sensitive conflict with his ex-best friend Baekhyun and came back to university last year. Chanyeol still lingering in campus now has violated Kyungsoo’s standard 4-year period to finish college studies.

More than a few girls’ heads snap to look at them as they pass by, for both of them are striking enough to easily pass as nationwide dancing and singing idols with a huge fan base.

Chanyeol with his soft, tousled brown hair, perfect white teeth that always are always caged in either a big smile or a grin, and his broad, monstrously tall figure emphasized by the burgundy ped bomber jacket he frequently wears.

Kyungsoo is an entirely different definition of beauty : wide, almost perfectly oval eyes with the white of his eyes so white and the black so black. Soft, plump lips the color of the faintest pink, and thick, bushy eyebrows all adorning the young-looking face under his neatly cut jet-black hair. Kyungsoo’s face is a curious thing, really. His features allow him to look childish and solemn at the same time, but beautiful either way.

“Where is your first class?” asks Kyungsoo as they are entering the Administrative and Public Relations building.

“Third floor. You?”

Kyungsoo scratches his head. “I forget where room 9286 is.”

“It’s right beside the vending machine on the first floor, old man,” Chanyeol points to the right corner of the hallway. “It’s only been 2 years. You sure you don’t have Alzheimer?”

Kyungsoo kicks his shin and Chanyeol’s loud laugh can still be heard as they separate ways.

Kyungsoo enters his classroom and immediately picks the second topmost seat at the left corner of the enclosed space. Lectures can be boring, and this is the best spot to doze off without the professor noticing when his speech becomes too verbose and dragged out to bear. Kyungsoo glances at his watch : 9:55 A.M, five minutes before the lesson starts yet the class is still halfway full. Kyungsoo scans at his classmates’ faces but finds none familiar. Apparently all his friends are either still in the army or have already graduated. All but Chanyeol, of course.

 He takes out a pen from his brown leather backpack and rummages inside it in search of his glasses. He curses under his breath when he finds nothing but a notebook, a wallet, and a car key there. I left it in the car, he thinks. His vision isn’t as excellent as it used to be, and it’s impossible for him to make out whatever’s scribbled on the black board from this distance. To fetch the glasses from his car is  a long walk, and he will not make it on time. Kyungsoo sighs and drags himself half-heartedly to an empty seat at the front row, too close to the lecturer’s table to his liking, but he decides it’s not that bad to be a little more motivated on his first day back.

 

 

There’s something unsettling about the girl sitting beside Kyungsoo. The way she only gives him a curt nod when he greets her with a polite smile, the way she keeps pulling the fabric of her oversized hoodie to cover her palms entirely, the way she stares blankly when the professor comes and starts the lesson, the way she pats the circles under her eyes repeatedly and taps her fingers on either her thighs or the cover of her notebook whenever she decides to quit the blank staring. Kyungsoo steals more glances at her than he first intended, registering her sharp facial features and pale skin to his brain.

The girl gets up quickly as soon as the class ends and turns her head slightly to look at Kyungsoo, the boy she knows was scanning her with the corner of his eyes the whole lecture but didn’t want her to notice. Their eyes meet : big, curious pools of black were staring right into hers, the owner of them dressed in all black except for the white brand logo on his trainers. She decides to believe that he thinks she’s a weirdo before tearing her gaze and walks out of the room.

-

Lunch the next day is delicious, especially for one coming from a lunch coupon. Chanyeol enjoys his lunch ferociously beside Kyungsoo, his loud slurping and chewing drowned in the buzz of their faculty’s busy cafeteria. Kyungsoo is sipping on his canned soda when a group of people in front of him finish their meal and get up from their seats, allowing him the view of a few tables across from his where the girl he locked eyes with in yesterday’s class sits staring at her food. Kyungsoo has learned her name, Son Eun Gi, the result of him peeking at the cover of her notebook. Chanyeol notices the direction of his gaze.

“I know her,” he claims after totally swallowing his spoonful of rice. “Not ‘know’ as in ‘know’, but she and I shared one or two classes last semester. Son Gi? Seul Gi? Kwon Gi? Or something.”

“It’s Eun Gi, I believe,” Kyungsoo replies. “You sure you don’t have Alzheimer?”

Chanyeol holds his laughter for a few seconds then lets it out after the food he was chewing has left his mouth down to his stomach, “Yeah, I agree she’s cute.”

Kyungsoo snaps his eyes and glares at him.

“What? Isn’t that why you can’t quit staring at her?  I know the military was dry as , man, no girls whatsoever. But you’ve been back for what, two days? Slow down. There are a lot of other prettier girls. Even those idols in Performing Arts will go head over heels for us.” Chanyeol has always been proud of the way he looks, and no one blames him for it, for he really is handsome, especially for one whose life is nowhere related to entertainment industry. He grins, but Kyungsoo only clicks his tongue, making Chanyeol retreat a couple inches back. Kyungsoo is almost a head shorter than him, but he sometimes fears what the smaller boy might do if his rage is triggered.

“There’s something weird about her, Soo. She’s a loner. I don’t recall she has any friends in here. Go find other girls that don’t look so grim,” Chanyeol defends himself.

“Exactly,” Kyungsoo sighes. “I sat beside her yesterday, and she couldn’t sit still. She looked anxious and itching to leave her seat, as if someone would jump under the desk and strangle her.”

Chanyeol shakes his head as he gets up to order something to drink, “Just one more reason to stay away from her.”

Kyungsoo glances upward after Chanyeol leaves, the girl still visible to him, and she still hasn’t touched her meal. Kyungsoo isn’t that big for a final-year college boy, only one or two inches over 170 centimeters, yet the girl is still a lot smaller than him. She plays with her chopsticks with her skinny hands a few more times before using them to put some rice, kimchi, and fried tempura into . Kyungsoo keeps staring. She chews painfully slowly, eyes focusing at her water bottle, as if contemplating whether it’s a good idea to let the food invade her belly. The act of chewing and swallowing emphasizes the collar bones against the pale skin under the drapes of her long-sleeved shirt. She lets out a series of soft coughs after swallowing that particular bite and grabs her water before hastening out of the cafeteria, leaving her barely touched lunch tray behind. Kyungsoo still hasn’t torn his gaze away.

-

Eun Gi lays on her back on the only couch in her apartment, peeking lazily at the windows showcasing an orange twilight from her half-closed eyelids. She just gets back from making sure that her door is securely locked. It takes her four checks before she decides she’s too tired to do it anymore and convinces herself that she is safe, secure, protected in the walls of her dwelling place. She nudges at her nonexistent belly fat with her frail fingers, humming incoherent songs to keep the dark whispers at the back of her mind away. She hugs herself and is somehow satisfied upon feeling the bones on her elbows. She smiles and takes a deep breath, running her fingers on her sides to count her protruding ribs. Her eyes snap open as her singing grows weaker and the voices at the back of her minds grow stronger. The nightmare starts again. The nightmare that plays over and over and over again even with her eyes wide open, sometimes too vividly, invisible hands pulling her too strongly into the disastrous dream until she can’t tell which one is real and which one isn’t. Eun Gi hugs her knees and starts to scream.

-

Kyungsoo has only been playing his guitar for a few minutes when his phone rings loudly, interrupting the melody of his self-composed song. It’s his sister. Kyungsoo picks up and listens as she cries, incoherent words escape her lips in the effort to fight back the tears. Kyungsoo listens as she cries, all the I’m sorry I left by myself and I’m sorry I couldn’t take you and I’m sorry I can’t protect you raging at the back of his throat, but all he can bring to the tip of his tongue is a croaky “I’m sorry”.

Kyungsoo listens as she cries, a poor high-schooler soul trapped in a hell called home. Then the crying turns to rage as her sister accuses him, her oppa, of not loving her enough to let her live with him, of not loving her enough to free her from this hell, and soon Kyungsoo also feels fury at those who make her beloved sister feel like she’s living in an inescapable hell. Then her rage turns into soft, tearful babbling to convince her brother to come back home, all the Please don’t let me be alone and I can’t take this anymore, even the childish I will give you my cake if you come home.

“I’m sorry.”

He feels horrible. He’s never felt not horrible after the day he left home. His mouth feels bitter. Guilt, sadness, and exasperation stab his chest. Kyungsoo listens as her sister cries, imagining her body shake violently as she chokes on her tears of frustration, her hair plastered to her head, slick with sweat. Kyungsoo listens as she cries, his own eyes sting, all words of comfort for her sister are lost to him, until the series of shouting in her sister’s end grow louder and more intense. Kyungsoo listens as she cries, until a faint scream from several floors above his apartment steals his attention.

-

After a few weeks, Kyungsoo learns that she and the girl he locked eyes with on his first day share 4 same classes : Consumer Psychology, Project Management, Communication Ethics, and Business Administration. He never sits beside her anymore, but that gives him a lot of time to study her : how she always wears long-sleeved hoodie or sweater or jumper no matter the weather, how she pursed her thin lips and stares at her feet every time someone’s looking at her, how she spaces out too frequently, how she taps her fingers on the side of her seat with a little too much power that makes her fingertips red, and how he barely spots her in the cafeteria every lunch break. Kyungsoo realizes that what he does seems creepy now, with him knowing the details of her habits without having traded any words with her. Kyungsoo finds it peculiar himself, how he never succeeds at tearing his gaze away once he sets eyes at her. There’s just something really bizarre with this girl, whose name he believes is Eun Gi, that makes him think she shows too little and conceals too much, so much her inside might burst. There’s something about the lack of light in her eyes and the lack of her sociability that makes him think that something has made her feel as horrible as he has been since he ran away from home, if not more.

This class, Emerging Technologies, consists of a noisy buzz of cheerful chatting, Chanyeol’s voice somewhere between them, and no Son Eun Gi. Kyungsoo finds it a lot easier to focus on the lecture without a peculiar girl to stare at – or so he thought. Chanyeol won’t stop budging him, disturbing him with hushed whispers of gossips he perfectly knows Kyungsoo doesn’t care about.

“You’ve been weird lately,” Chanyeol states when the class ends.

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows.

“I know you’ve never been the type to talk much, man. But you’ve been too quiet since the beginning of this semester. Heck, awfully quiet. Tell me, do you even have friends who are not Park Chanyeol in this campus? You’re slowly turning to be the girl you so frequently stares at. That loner, Son Gi? Seul Gi? Kwon Gi? What was her name again?”

“It’s Eun Gi, idiot,” Kyungsoo finishes packing his backpack. “Plus, Jongdae and Baekhyun still haven’t graduated, thank you very much. Even though they’re not in our major, they’re technically still my friends. Let’s go have lunch. I’m starving.”

Chanyeol flinches at the sound of Baekhyun’s name and follows Kyungsoo to the cafeteria.

“You can tell me, you know, whatever problems you’re having,” Chanyeol puts one palm on Kyungsoo’s right shoulder.

The smaller boy smirks, “How dramatic. I appreciate your concern, but unfortunately, the only problem now is my rumbling stomach.”

As they walk to trade their lunch coupon, Kyungsoo wonders if the girl he locked eyes with on his first day, the girl whose name he believes is Eun Gi, has anyone – friends, family, to share whatever problems she’s having with.

-

Fate is a course in someone’s life, something inescapable and beyond control. Fate sounds like a huge twist, each turn determining someone’s destiny. Yet Kyungsoo thinks it is fate that he and the girl who sat beside him on his first day are brought together by some random grouping for some project in Business Administration. It is such a trivial thing, Kyungsoo thinks, but he still believes fate brings them together to get to know each other better, to finally be able to comprehend decent conversations beyond all the secret stares and intense long-distance gazes. Never before has he thought he could be this cliché.

“I’m Kyungsoo,” he offers a handshake, his plump heart-shaped lips curving up in a picture perfect smile.

“Eun Gi,” she shakes Kyungsoo’s hand with one of her palms, while the other busy pulling the sleeves of her turtleneck sweater to make sure her wrist remain invisible.

Kyungsoo notices how hard she tries to keep her hands from shaking, a drop of nervous sweat running down her forehead, a few millimeters from her crescent eyes. Yet he can’t stop himself from smiling after officially confirming his knowledge about the girl’s name.

-

The project goes unexpectedly well, with them meeting up in Chung-Ang library or some nearby coffee shop. Their meetings consist mainly of discussions and the sound of typewriters as they hover above each other’s laptop, with Kyungsoo torn between wanting  for the project to be over soon in one side and the desire to drag out the project completion as a reason to meet Eun Gi more often in the other side.

Kyungsoo noticed the tension in her body the first time they met up, her fists clenching and unclenching nervously, her eyes refused to look at his. After some time, Kyungsoo is happy to hear the lack of tremble in her voice as she speaks to him, he’s delighted when her hands don’t shake as much as they used to, and he’s pleased as her courage finally allows her to look him in the eyes when he directs his words at her, for finally he can scan her face and be contented by the sight of soft strands of dark brown hair topping a pair of crescent-shaped eyes, delicate cheekbones, and cute, small mouth automatically resting in a natural pout. He frowns when he sees the dark circles under her eyes.

Eun Gi is perplexed at how easily she lets her guard down for this guy ; the boy she locked eyes with on the first day of the semester, the boy who stares at her quizzically every so often, the boy with wide, almost perfectly oval eyes with the white of his eyes so white and the black so black. She marvels at the way her hands don’t shake as much, the way her voice doesn’t tremble as much at the presence of this boy with the plump lips and bushy eyebrows and jet-black hair nestled above his childish yet serious-looking face. She wonders why she can meet his eyes easily, exploring the stars in them, still visible even under the intimidating daylight. Everything about her is so grey and dull, while everything about him is so dazzling – the immense light shining through his black pupils, the pearly white teeth under those heart-shaped lips, all enhanced  by the blackness of his sweatshirt and complemented by his fresh-from-the-army tanned skin. They talk little about anything outside their project, but Eun Gi knows Kyungsoo was just discharged from the military by overhearing girls’ ecstatic conversation in class, for she’s not the only one who finds the boy beautiful.

They talk little about anything outside their project, more over about each other’s lives, until the day the project is finally completed and Kyungsoo offers to drive Eun Gi home. The girl refuses; the whispers inside her head forbid her from trusting people too easily.

“It’s 1 A.M in the morning and there’s no way I’m going to let a girl walk home alone in this hour,” he argues.

His voice sounds like a cup of hot chocolate in a drizzling rain, the low timbre sweet and calm and comforting. Eun Gi thinks the better of it and lets him win the argument without any further objection.

“Do you sleep well these days?” Kyungsoo asks with his right hand on the steering wheel.

“Mmf. Not bad,” she answers, itching to ask why cares on the first place, but decides it’s too rude to be spoken aloud.  

Kyungsoo is contemplating whether to tell her what Chanyeol told him a couple weeks back, the You can tell me whatever problems you’re having but decides they’re not close enough for him to offer unwanted comfort.

Kyungsoo is more than shocked when Eun Gi tells him to drop her in a building none other than his apartment building.

“I live here, too. On the 4^th floor,” He claims.

Eun Gi feels a wave of panic and terror as she hears this. All these years of locking herself, all these years and efforts to make her apartment a safe, secure, protective haven no one knows about have gone in vain. Now she really regrets having let him drive her home. She mumbles a quiet word of thanks and steps out of the black Chevrolet as soon as Kyungsoo finishes parking. She shuffles to the elevator as quickly as possible before Kyungsoo has the chance to ask what floor she’s living in.

Kyungsoo follows suit, but he’s a few seconds too late and the elevator door shuts tight before his eyes. The elevator gives Eun Gi away, though. Kyungsoo stares as its monitor lights up with a soft ding! and the number 7 remains static.

-

Chanyeol wasn’t joking when he said even idols would fall for his charms. Their class finished early today, and he’s off to a lunch date in some fancy restaurant with a pretty rookie idol , a sophomore from Performing Arts.

“I hope this one won’t dump you!” Kyungsoo shouts jokingly as Chanyeol breaks into a half jog in the parking lot.

The weather is gloomy, the wind strong and fat drops of rain attack his car tirelessly. Kyungsoo pulls his car over at a small grocery store a few hundred meters from his apartment and buys himself a packet of spaghetti, a carton of eggs, a pack of instant coffee, some onions and a pack of frozen kimchi. He’s a decent cook, and he can turn those spaghetti, onions, and kimchi into a few servings of kimchi spaghetti, a strange fusion of Italian and Korean cuisine that somehow became his signature dish. He already imagines the spicy, slick noodles in his mouth, but the situation in his kitchen immediately lets him down. He runs out of gas. No restaurant will want to deliver at this weather, and he’s too occupied by the image of self-constructed kimchi spaghetti recipe on his mind to order anything else. So Kyungsoo puts on his jacket and heads out to the 7^th floor of the building.

-

Eun Gi almost stumbles at the sight of Kyungsoo perching in front of her apartment door, some ingredients for a planned cuisine packed neatly in a paper bag resting on the floor of his side. He offers her a warm smile as she approaches, his eyes disappearing into curved lines despite how big they normally look. She doesn’t return the smile.

Kyungsoo picks the paper bag up as he stands, watching Eun Gi shake her umbrella vigorously in an effort to drain any remaining water. Her drenched clothes are proof that the umbrella serves no purpose against the raging wind and angry rain outside.

“You’re totally soaked.” Kyungsoo says more to himself rather than the freezing girl in front of him.

“You’re a good observer, aren’t you?”

“Well, good news is, I’m gonna cook you something warm.”

Silence.

“I never let anyone inside my apartment.” Eun Gi’s voice is solid without its usual shaky croaks when she speaks almost an eternity later.

Kyungsoo pouts. “I’m starving and my stove’s not functioning, and I remember you being friendlier than this.”

Eun Gi shakes her head slowly. “How do you find out where I live?” she groans without really expecting an answer because both of them already know what Kyungsoo will say.

He raises one eyebrow.

“I never let anyone inside my apartment.” She repeats.

“I’m so hungry, I could eat the soles of my shoes now. And I know you are, too. Let me use your kitchen, and I will feed both of us with my exceptional cooking. What’s the harm? Is your family inside?” Kyungsoo almost pleads now.

“I live alone.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo says before absentmindedly adding a second later, “Me too.”

He means nothing by that, but it makes both of them blush. Eun Gi looks away to her side while Kyungsoo looks down, noticing that her palms are resting at the side of her body, still without any hint of their usual trembling. It was a few seconds too long before Eun Gi finally gives in. Something tickles at the back of her mind, something that enables her to look him in the eyes and somehow convinces her that he wasn’t lying when said he meant her no harm.

“You can use my kitchen,” she says nervously, calculating her words as she unlocks her apartment door. “It’s just for today, I mean, not that you are unwelcome, but a girl and a boy alone— I mean, people will talk, but— anyways, I’m not hungry.”

Kyungsoo breaks into a sheepish smile that won’t come off no matter how hard he purses his lips together. Eun Gi disappears into the bathroom to resurface fifteen minutes later, just when Kyungsoo’s spaghetti is cooked al dente. The smell of her freshly-washed hair blends with inviting aroma of the onions Kyungsoo’s sautéing.  It’s curious, she thinks. How can I not be afraid of him at all?

“Lunch will be ready in 10 minutes,” Kyungsoo announces.

“I told you, I’m not hungry.”

But somehow, Kyungsoo succeeds in making her eat. Eun Gi isn’t sure how, but the way Kyungsoo persuades her isn’t the way mothers plead their toddlers to eat while chasing them down some park. The way Kyungsoo persuades her involves a hint of cockiness about how he made up the recipe himself, a dish called kimchi spaghetti that sounds and looks equally weird, but tastes good anyway. The way Kyungsoo persuades her doesn’t even sound like persuasion at all, more like yearning for her to admit the greatness of his cooking skills, but it does the job.

Kyungsoo watches her playing with her chopsticks for the first five minutes, staring at her food in such a way that makes him think if how the dish is presented really is as unappetizing as Jongdae once claimed. Kyungsoo starts eating when she does, his eyes peeking every now and then in between his own slurping and chewing. Eun Gi eats for an awfully long time, hesitating to swallow each bite.

Kyungsoo has had his suspicions, and those suspicions were confirmed when he opened her refrigerator to find nothing but three lemons. Those suspicions were confirmed when he found her cabinet empty except for a few packs of pills. Those suspicions were confirmed when he picked up her kitchen utensils and found them clearly unused, plates and pans and spoons dusty, but not the knife. So he stays for a couple more hours after their meal, using “too full to move” as a reason. He lingers in her apartment a bit longer than he planned to make sure she doesn’t purge what has entered her stomach, and she’s grateful for his presence although the thought is never spoken aloud. Before he leaves he finally says what he’s been wanting to tell her since the moment he sat beside her on that first day of the semester.

“You know, you can tell me whatever problems you’re having.”

Eun Gi blinks. Never before has someone told her something so comforting.

“Let’s just say I have things I really hate about myself,” she smiles sadly.

And her door is closed before Kyungsoo’s eyes.

-

The weeks after that are a blur of shy chuckles and pursed smiles over a shared textbook in the front row of every class they share together. Kyungsoo builds up an image of a forgetful boy in Eun Gi’s mind. He always seems to forget something – textbooks, glasses, pens – anything he can muster as a reason to sit beside her.

“Why do you always sit in the front?” Kyungsoo asks when the professor isn’t looking.

“To avoid people,” replies Eun Gi without taking her eyes from her textbook they share.

It only makes sense, as the front row always has too many empty seats compared with the back ones.

Kyungsoo ushers her to the cafeteria as soon as lunch break starts and has her sit across from him all the time so that he can watch her slow eating session. Eun Gi only eats at the boy’s presence, the genuine worry coming from his eyes enables her to fight the imaginary vision of fat and calories swarming around her food.

Kyungsoo’s sudden visit to her apartment becomes more frequent, each time carrying a paper bag filled with vegetables or tofu or eggs or anything the small grocery store a few hundred meters from their apartment has to offer. Eun Gi only eats what the boy feeds her, fighting the urge to vomit all the fat and carbs and calories from her system after he leaves.

Kyungsoo’s sudden visit to her apartment becomes more frequent, but for the first time in years, she feels no fear over someone knowing her dwelling place. Sometimes he drives her to her psychiatrist appointments, but the enclosed space of Kyungsoo’s car doesn’t suffocate her anymore. The sharing sessions with her psychiatrist don’t offer as much comfort as Kyungsoo’s presence does, though.

-

The first weight gain is unbelievably difficult. It’s only a couple pounds, but it’s more than enough to wreck Eun Gi’s minds. She is horrified by the number her scale tells her. She strips in front of her mirror and nudges each and every rib she has impatiently. She pinches her arm really hard, so hard the said body part turns purple, as if it could make the nonexistent layer of fat hanging there crumble away. She stares at herself for hours, pulling her own hair and slapping her own face every now and then. She lies on the floor and curls into a ball, rolling right and left as the coldness seeps through her body. She cries unstoppably, as if the tears could wash away the disgust she has for herself.

You’re a pig.

You’re disgusting. Fat and ugly and disgusting.

Why does someone like you deserve to live anyway?

She rushes frantically to her kitchen and crashes every kind of pill she can find into : antidepressant, sleeping pills, laxatives, tranquilizers – any kind of medication either her psychiatrist or her eating disorder prescribes. Everything around her is twisting as her head spins and her vision goes in and out of focus. She starts hallucinating : a fat man with the face of the devil barges in her apartment and laughs obnoxiously loudly at her, the whispers on the back of her head take form of dark shadows surrounding her completely. She hugs her knees tightly to protect herself from the crumbling world around her as endless trickles of cold sweat run across her body. She can feel invisible hands pulling at her hair, while other invisible hands try to shove her to the bottomless hole that surfaces on her carpet. Everything feels so real, so physically real that she actually writhes in pain. She wants to scream, but the shadows steal the oxygen from her lungs, leaving her with powerless whimpers. The panic attack starts again. This one lasts for 34 minutes.

-

That night Kyungsoo comes over and cooks her bokkeumbap with a fluffy omelette on the side. She says nothing when Kyungsoo places a spoon and a pair of chopsticks in front of her.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asks softly before starting at his share of food, already noticing her unusual quietness the minute she opened the door for him.

Eun Gi says nothing. She looks at her food with jaws tightly clenched in such distaste.

“You need to eat.” He walks to her end of dining table and puts his hands on her shoulders.

Kyungsoo feels a pang of worry when he realizes that her body is shaking uncontrollably, her hands gripping at the edge of her table so tightly that her knuckles go white. What happens after that is too fast, Kyungsoo barely registers it.

He hears the sound of shattered plates and sees grains of rice scatter the floor. He senses the abrupt friction of Eun Gi’s chair as she gets up to throw up at the sink. He feels the stickiness of tears when he cups her cheeks with both his hands,  noticing the sink is empty despite the horrible vomiting sound Eun Gi has let out. What’s there to vomit when she hasn’t eaten anything at all?

He shakes her as she wildly, blindly tries to push him away with whatever strength is left in her weak body. Kyungsoo hugs her tightly, guiding her out of the kitchen. He never lets go of the hug as he half drags, half lifts her to reach her violet couch, the only couch she has in the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo whispers, a sharp pang on his chest. It pains him so to see her like this ; she is so vulnerable, her body fragile under the tightness of Kyungsoo’s curled hands. He rocks her body gently, never letting go of the embrace for fear that she will shatter and disappear if he does so.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong,” Kyungsoo rests his chin on top of her head as he feels continuous drops of salty tears running down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Eun Gi. Let me help you.”

Kyungsoo’s words of apology are muffled by Eun Gi’s endless whimpering, her head on his chest. One of her hands is tightly clutching the fabric of his jacket, the other curls in a fist and pounds on him with a strength that doesn’t quite match her small, frail frame. Her sleeves are pulled up involuntarily, showing the deep cuts carved on the wrist beneath. Kyungsoo closes his eyes.