First Week

You still feel so ashamed, flustered cheeks and dancing eyes unable to hold his gaze, so up about it - how pissed you were back then, when you were found and how Jinwoo had to witness you in that state -, so embarrassed and mortified about what had happened that day, but Jinwoo has stayed with you until you were discharged the next day and you were able to see him asleep, his head bouncing with every little move he made, sitting as if nothing in one of those discomforting plastic chairs, his eyes closed but you could feel them staring at your soul, as if knowing all your secrets, putting together the remaining pieces of who you were long time ago – that person with dreams and expectations that you cannot longer remember and that it’s maybe just a product of your imagination.

He is beautiful in all the ways that you are not – you are ruined and cursed, bloodshot eyes and swollen skin that was once tanned and fit, but that now is more like yellowish and ill; you don’t know if you are looking your down now or you can do it better, if you are able to sink into this pool of disgrace and humiliate yourself even further or you have finally hit the rock bottom and you will be able to be redeemed by Jinwoo’s lips, a touch that lingers over your mind as much as how much you need to drink your sorrow and fears, to overlay with alcohol all the wrong you have done, to cope with the lasting dusty bits of something that reminds of a life –, but it’s ok, you tell yourself that night, covering with blankets the shame you felt deep inside, glancing at him as if he was the most alluring thing you have ever seen – and he was, he is, like an ancient idol you should worship. Jinwoo breathed the same air as you, sharing the same room and he was there, right next to you, his hand a blink away to yours and you have never felt that undeserved before, scared to push him away, to break him the same way you have broken yourself under the pressure of all your regrets and guilty. That was the moment, the instant when you reached your lowest point, when you promised to the sky and the stars that you would do it – but you are so blur, so ruined; your mind so filled with the leftovers of never-ending hangovers and you can’t think straight (not that you have ever been able to), your mind has never been that clear and your thoughts are always messed up since that day until the end of your life (and you wishe for it only, for this useless life of reckless agony to be over).

You have had a stomach pumping and I.V kept you from dehydration but nothing could keep the fears away but Jinwoo – his presence was so much needed, kind of magic; his glances were like sips of things you are forbidden to take, his eyes the pool where you want to sink into, feeling warm for a totally different reason. You have apologized to him so many times already and he has accepted them all humbly, telling you not to worry, that he has seen worse - and you wondered how.
You have left the hospital the next day and swear to never drink again – and his name was mustered under your promise as if a guarantee, as if it only could make you stop, rub away all your thoughts about getting waste, about how much you need a rest, a break from this reality where you are not pressed next to him - and you think about it way too much and it agitates your scratched heart.

“You are strong and determinate, Song Minho,” he says, gently, legs crossed under his desk, back at the first square after your debacle, after the first and last temptation you hope you will have to face. You feel like a total dumb, a loser in front of him - and in general, too -, someone with no willpower left to deal with, but he trusts you, you see it in the way he looks intently at you, in how he smiles, proudly, so sure about you – as if he knows you better, but this is not the case, you would have never forgotten a face like his, not even under the influence of all the alcohol in the world.

You open to him like flowers in spring, blooming under the shine that comes from his own glee and he listens all attentive to everything you have to say, to every layer you discover to him, revealing you, the , vulnerable Minho that lays underneath all the pretense, all the façade – under the alcohol addiction and the scary reality and all the problems you subdued and you have to admit then that, yes, you do have a problem and that you need help.

You blossom gracefully, uncoiling all the troubles and the tears, ripping your chest and leaving it exposed for him only to see - and he stares at it, analyzing it all.
You tell him all the answers he is looking for and shut up all the truths you want to yell at him – that he is your savior, that for him you’ll endure it, that he is the light that guides you; that you want to be better so he will see you the way you want to be seen by him only – but you bite your lips and keep them dying, distressingly, dolefully, under the weight of your tongue, drowning it with the remaining taste of the alcohol you last have a week ago – and it hurts so greatly, all your body craving for it, your skin burns and you ache, crawling on the floor to reach that spot you know that contains what you need, the only way you know how to bear with your life, the beverage that will make all the phantoms away; but now you have him and things are still so very hard but you believe that, in the end, you’ll overcome it.

Or you’d try, you are so scrawny and pathetic most of the time – even while sober –; you are not one who can carry a promise to last, not one like that, but he gleams when you explain it’s been three years since you drank in order to forget and to be forgiven and that, since then, this has been your only way to deal with what pains your heart, stabbing across your veins until there is no more blood to gush out– and you are so thankful when he doesn’t ask what is the grudge you are holding on so tight, the weight on your shoulder that never leaves your side – because you are not ready to confess the sin you have committed, how depraved you can be, wicked and pricked and dying on the streets.

You tilt your eyes all around the room, sweeping it as if scanning, trying to find something that will talk to you about him – because it’s unfair how much he knows you and how little you have in return –; there is a picture, his diplomas – and there are plenty hanging on the walls, standing proud and pleased, the proof that you are in great hands (but you already know it, your heart has told you that; to rely on him), - there are framed photos of hairless cats been petted by his smooth, pretty hands, fingers adorned with slim, silver rings that you count and adds to ten; a lonely beach under a cloudy, stormy sky that resembles the state of your mind, some other drawings related to his study field, but nothing that talks about him personally and you swirls onto him, falling for what remains still a mystery; but you will break all the barriers, consume all the space that separate you from him like a flame under water, until he will open up to you as you are doing with him, until he reliance on you, for him to tell you some other truth that sounds delicate only because the words are coming from his heart shaped lips tinted in peach.

“I have a problem with drinks” you confess, admitting the load that has chained you to your current addiction; you feel like a child on church and Jinwoo’s smile feels like a pagan prayer that makes your core trembles in excitement, your eyes all on him, glossy with unexpected tears from what you just said, and he looks flustered but satisfied with your first step. The sunlight comes in like rain, caressing your skin and, this time, the warm that wraps you is delicate, intimate, settling on your eyes and the shine just as much as Jinwoo's, painting the office with colors you can name from a past you cannot recall, the stained window covered in snow and iridescent rainbows of sparks - and it's beautiful.

“This is the start; admitting that you have an addiction. Now, from here we will move on” and you hope that this path will bring you closer to him, to allow you to break all his walls and reserves, to hear his voice saying your name in your bed – and it’s so nice to be able to dream again, to have something to look forward to, something that will pop-up on your memory and make you cringe in joy.

It’s been a week and you haven’t had a single drop yet; your body is aching for it, longing for a sip of alcohol, but you have resisted, restraining it from handing the bottles that are still hiding at home. Your head storms and it is a pain that makes you feel sick, hell must be way nicer, you believe laying in bed with the lights off and silence engulfs you like a lover, but it doesn’t sedate the torment of thoughts that battle inside your mind, each of them screaming at you, forcing you to be awake when the only thing you want is to lay down and sleep for a year – to dream about him and to wait until next appointment; his face, but, doesn’t surface on your nights nor on your days and you miss him nearly as much as you miss the booze and the burning taste drowning your tongue.

It’s hot even when the snow comes in puffs of white throw the opened window on your bedroom, the wind blowing the sweat that sticks over your skin, salty and cold; it makes you shiver and your stomach growls like a beaten beast missing the drug you have inured it with – and you notice with a mocking horror that it’s this time of the day, when you use to come back from a job you despite to suffocate all your grieve and concerns, swallowing them hard with a glass of beer filled to the rim and that you will drink in one gulp, quaffing some more until the storm has subdued and you can breathe in in a daze, the whole world buzzing and you are too dizzy to care, too inebriated to see.

It must be night but you know better, your hands can recall the exact hour and you count on them until you remember it’s only past 10.

It’s all dark and your fingers are moving on their own, your head goes blank and you stare at the thick blackness of an empty space as if staring up at the night sky – a lonely room with no stars to shine – and you lose all control, your limbs working by reflex, moving the way you used to do, by heart, lurking inside empty cabinets and cupboards, your members grazing the outward, searching for the good nectar that will stop all your problems.

They latch onto the neck of a bottle as if life depended on it – and you know they are right, you can’t live this way, with all the difficulties and glitches and sins coming back to you as if a song in repeat, thundering like sparkling clouds and tears fall like drops of dew at dawn down your cheeks, rivers that turn into a pool on your feet.

You have no choice, you are laced with it; you are trapped facing the soju, cursed, shunned, the translucent liquid smirking at you, it distinguishes your weakness; how low you can go, stepping onto yourself and falling down, again and again, smugly, complacent, knowingly - and it's disturbing how such a thing can affect you so badly. You are at ease; the right coldness settling over your palm and disseminating directly to your brain where it roots like a tree, branches growing up intertwined with what you are going to do, encouragingly, leaves waving as if cheering you up and you feel animated, giggling at it all adoringly, stupidly, sturdy holding it, forgetting about promises and Kim Jinwoo’s disappointed face.

It’s heavy, it’s a burden, but you are stronger when you are craving for something, when your stomach growls in distaste because it remembers how good it makes you feel, high and almighty and full of something you can’t put into words, indescribable for once.
Even before your lips grasp the glass you can feel it dawdling, spilling down your throat, ashes that will ignite the great fire that are these unconsciousness hours, the blessing of nothingness, a glimpse of heave, of paradise, where all is good again and you are happy, your heart pounding and your veins poisoned, refilled with alcohol instead of burning red, but what should that matter when you can feel alive after all these days?

Your tongue is nearly nibbling it, the chill of the bottle reaching your lips when you hear his voice, the evolving sound of him saying your name. And the flask falls from your hands, free, scattering crystal and soju all over the place – and the smell of it, wasted on the ground, smashes onto you, too, like a hammer straight to your skull.

Letting your hand touches it as a punishment and there it is; a thread of soreness that slides over your wrist and arm and that you , nipping the injury with your tongue, trying to delete the reminiscence of liquor with the taste of your blood; there is red painting the bits you are forgetting, dropping from your skin, from the place that has been bitten.
It hurts but the idea of giving up hurts more and you feel so disappointed, so frustrated; the shock and the chaos under your feet has opened your eyes and instead of a glass you hold a pencil tight, as if could change your fate, your fingers gliding over white paper, shaking and afraid, but it feels ok as it hasn’t been for so many years.

It has been so long, but you turn the music on, turn it loud enough to opaque your mind, to shut up all the darned screams and yells, the light bathing them and, in color, they aren’t so terrible.
Tonight you’ll draw him from dawn to morning and your eyelids will be raw, wild open, working until it's all over and you don't recall ways to draft him better - but you are aware that you once were talented.

The sketch doesn’t look like him but it’s something. It gives you a piece to hold onto, something to exchange your old habits that are so hard to kill; it’s messy still and your brain is spinning, all your skin on fire, trembling, pale and weak and you want to cuddle in bed and never wake up, but your draw is looking at you and you have managed, with your shaking hands and elapsed abilities, to bring them into life and you can feel it stares at you vividly.

You sigh at it, covering yourself with the blanket. It’s nice to be so tired, it’s nice to have your arms under cramps and twinges, all your bones tore in a beautiful way and you lay there, strewn, spirals of exhaustion electrifying your spine. It’s nice that, for once, you are able to rest all day long, remembering the way you fell asleep.

It’s not only because of Kim Jinwoo, you think a week later, sitting in the swivel chair, eyes over your desk, focused, sorely looking at the portrait you are working on, the music banging, reverberating inside your soul, covering with unknown meanings the pieces of need you still feel, but it’s easier to be sober even if it feels alien and wrong. For the first time in forever, you feel good about something – and this something is what you are drawing now perfect curbed lips and the exact shape of gleaming eyes that send sparkles and that tickles your heart.

You get rid of all the bottles the morning after; the ones that still loiter on the press and besides the corner, they have been stored there for when you relapse. You pile them all and empty them, drowning the content down the sink – and the view was so horrid, you barely contained the urge to into the small trickle, swallowing it raw and honest. But you didn’t and Jinwoo will be so happy about it next time and his smile was the strength you lacked, the one that allowed you to do what needed to be done; the purge against what is killing you.

It feels good, satisfying, to see them outside, oblivious of their destiny, looking as they are; empty bottles on the street. You nod at the sight, at the cats gathering around them, paws knocking them down and it's cute and funny how the glass roll, tumbling and one of the cats jumps over them and you draw it, the scene in front of your eyes, the music healing your bones and the house is now tidied; open windows to freshen the air and all have been put back together: is like having your life under control again– but a voice whispers to you that it is only an illusion, that even if you take a step in the right direction you will fall back, that there is no way out of it; you are captured by the darkness and the nightmares will come to play tonight.

But you remember his name and dream about Jinwoo for the first time since meeting him. And even if you are ed up you believe that you will be able to be alright - at least you are seeing the good side of things, smiling again.