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[Hi, all. I know it's a little unfair not to put the trigger warnings earlier since some of you have already grown fond of this story - which I sincerely thank you for. From now on there will be some triggering topics here and there so please keep safe while reading.]

Kim Yerim turns up the volume of the music on her phone and presses the headphones closer to her ears. She tries to relax as she settles onto her bed more comfortably, the duvet long kicked off the bed due to the persisting heat. Baby Metal plays loudly and angrily but Yerim thinks that he can still hear her parents downstairs. They’re not even raising their voices but they’ve had this discussion more than once in the last couple of weeks, so although the girl cannot physically hear them, their routinely spoken words still won’t leave her mind.

Father has been so cold to mother lately. Yerim wonders if they eventually get divorced, like Donghyuk’s parents did. Whether she will stay here or will have to move elsewhere. Maybe she’ll get to stay in this house. Or maybe they’ll move to a penthouse closer to her school.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter at all. There is only one year left and then Yerim will move to Seoul for university – or if she’s lucky, maybe even to England or America, like her mother has always wanted her to since she became jealous of her friend and her children attending a law school in Boston. Yerim doesn’t care for English, business or anything like that but she’s not a bad student and focusing on something one has no interest is a small price to pay for a chance to be away from all this and possibly to never come back.

Maybe her parents are just waiting for her to leave the house before they split up. Her mother will probably want to keep the appearances going for as long as possible.

Yerim sighs, suddenly noticing that her music stopped. She has an incoming call. It’s Donghyuk, no surprise there. None of her other school mates call her, or even text that often.

‘Are you back from the hole yet?’ The boy asks and she hums lowly to confirm. She can hear him take a drag out of his cigarette and there is a background noise of a passing car honking, too. He must be outside.

They do a lot of extra courses together but not on Saturday. Donghyuk’s father wants him to be a doctor so he sends him to all the advanced science classes while Yerim’s mother doesn’t care about anything else other than Maths and languages, especially English. They all feel so overwhelming anyway. Yerim always leaves the classes devoid of energy and motivation. The helplessness continues well into the night when she finally retires for the evening. She then trashes and turns in her bed until the morning when she has to rinse and repeat.

Perhaps that’s the reason her friend calls them the hole. There is just no way to crawl back out.

‘Are you going to that thing tonight?’ He asks again and Yerim sits back, stretching her neck. It craks from lying still for too long.

‘Aren’t you?’ Yerim has heard that the first family of Busan are the guests of honour.

‘Nah, I’m skipping.’ He doesn’t seem too fazed and Yerim only sighs, but is not particularly taken aback by the non-compromising position. Donghyuk is the black sheep of the family, the youngest of four siblings who can never measure up to the achievements of his brothers and sister no matter how much he’d try. The eldest, Dara, is a lawyer with two kids of her own but at least she’s kind and occasionally helps her youngest brother. The second, Taeil, married the only daughter of the vice minister of culture in the current government while the third, Taeyong, is a general kiss-arse who gets off on other people’s attention. According to Donghyuk, anyway, but Yerim is inclined to agree because she remains mostly ignored by him when she visits his house.

So no, Donghyuk’s attitude is not surprising by any means but Yerim knows he’s going to get hell for that later anyway.

‘Can I go with you?’ She says instead, knowing that there is no way to talk him out of it.

‘You sure? Your mother won’t be pleased,’ Donghyuk observes, exhaling loudly again and Yerim can almost smell the menthol cigarettes he normally uses. It makes her crave one as well. She doesn’t yet smoke that much but even she recognises that she’s becoming a regular. The other day her mother almost caught the scent on her, but the kind ajumma who works in their house quickly took the cashmere jumper away for a wash.

‘I’m sure. Where are you now?’ Yerim stands up, putting him on speaker and changing from her uniform into a T-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. She picks her phone back up, simultaneously pocketing her debit card.

‘Look outside.’ When she leans out of the small balcony attached to her room and looks to the right, she can vaguely see the silhouette of the boy standing by the back fence of the garden.

‘I’ll be out in a few,’ she says and hangs up. She should have known he didn’t call just because. He always makes it seem like it’s all the same to him, whether he has company or not but then he’s there, ready to pick up her. Perhaps she shouldn’t follow him blindly so much considering her own feelings but the idea of cutting out the only person who’s never let her down is terrifying. Being friend-zoned is nothing in comparison.

Yerim sighs again. Her parents are still downstairs so it won’t be difficult to sneak out, jump off the balcony and then over the fence but she knows there will be cold war in the house once she’s returned. Her mother wanted to show her off in the new dress she’s ordered from Italy, preferably hanging off Donghyuk’s arm like both their parents always imagine she eventually will for life.

Yerim shrugs to herself as she leans in closer to the door to assess the situation on the corridor. If he’s not going, there’s probably even less reason for her to. Nobody wants her there to converse or express her opinions on the rotten education system of which she is one of many victims. She’d be there exclusively to show off as part of the perfect family.

With that unpleasant thought, her heart hardens and she throws a few small gadgets she never parts with into her sack with renewed strength. She drops the backpack over the railing and then carefully steps over, looking down. It’s only some three metres, maybe even not. It’s not the first time doing such an escapade, after all. She always chooses the back of the house because unlike the front, it only has one camera. By the time they spot her on the monitor, she is too far to bother chasing down.

The jump is not entirely painless on the legs but she shakes the trembling off and proceeds across the lawn until Donghyuk lends her a hand and she crosses over to the dimly lit street.

‘You alright?’ He asks, taking the bag from her and swinging it over his own shoulder. She nods. They walk away in fast step and only then does she realise that she still has her soft sponge flip flops on but it doesn’t really matter. They’re not going to hike or do anything strenuous.

Jangsan station is about seven minutes away from the house. They like to go to Kijang beach sometimes but it’s too close to home and Subyeon Park is a much better option right now, even if it’s more than ten stops away. They don’t talk much as they follow the known route to exit seven and then scan their cards to get inside. It’s the first stop of line two so the train is already there, relatively empty for a late Saturday afternoon.

‘Switch off your phone,’ Donghyuk recommends and Yerim concedes, dismantling her personal device for good measure. After the first failed attempt to install a tracking software on her cell, her parents never did it again – since Donghyuk’s friend in Itaewon hacked it within minutes and all that. But still, one can never be too cautious when they want to disappear for a while.

‘I wonder what kind of excuse our parents will give for us tonight,’ Yerim muses when they finally emerge from the train and start walking through the street market full of evening snacks on their way to their hangout spot.

The boy shrugs. He truly looks like he couldn’t care less.

‘We’re probably on some extracurricular study session because we’re such excellent students. Believe me, my father will have no trouble spinning the narrative to his advantage. With or without me, the election campaign will go on.’

‘Hey, wait. I want hoeori kamja. Let’s get some drinks, too.’ They trot over to the food stand with twister potatoes which are Yerim’s absolute favourite and probably one of the few pleasures in life her mother has not yet discovered and for whatever reason took away.

They forgo the benches and sit down on the grass closer to the edge of the small hill leading down to the ocean. For a while, they eat in silence.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ the boy says in an uncharacteristically focused for him voice. Yerim stops looking on the horizon and turns to him. ‘I’ve decided not to do suneung this year.’

Yerim’s snack almost falls out of her hands into the tall grass beneath her but she catches it in time. She blinks before snickering.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Or maybe never,’ he adds quietly. Yerim wants to laugh, except that Donghyuk isn’t turning this sudden declaration into a joke and she’s becoming progressively confused.

‘What are you talking about?’ She frowns. ‘Of course you have to take it. How else will you enter university?’

‘I don’t want to go to university, Rim-ah. I don’t think it’s for me.’ Yerim stares at him like he’s grown a second head.

‘Your parents won’t let you just not go. Not study for finals.’ She grows exasperated but there is a panicked note to her tone because she has noticed his seriousness. ‘We’ve been doing this for years, what do a few more months really matter? It’s our only ticket to freedom, you know that.’

‘What freedom? It’s no freedom. Just more circus. More showing off. More pretences. Look at my older siblings. I’ll be damned if I live like them.’ Donghyuk never shouts but he’s now visibly angry. The build-up of the rage in him is rapid but seems to come from a place very familiar. Yerim has a similar place of her own. It is deep inside her mind where she buries all the helplessness and anguish she has no way to deal with otherwise. Her own limits are barely keeping it all in place so she should perhaps not be surprised by Donghyuk’s outburst.

‘So… What do you want to do?’ The girl asks, unsure.

‘I’ll leave the country right after my eighteenth birthday,’ he says with conviction and Yerim’s jaw goes slack at the outrageous plan.

‘What?! And you’ll go where? Your father will cut off your cash flow before you even make it to the airport.’

‘I have some savings so it doesn’t matter that much. I’ll go to Thailand first, then travel across the Southern territories. I’ll find some seasonal job. Later on, if I find something I really want to do, I’ll finish my education. I want to live my life, Rim-ah. I want to see things, experience them. Not just be stuck behind the desk for the rest of my life.’

Yerim doesn’t realise that by the time his little speech is over, she’s started sobbing. She angrily wipes her tears with her wrists, breathing shallowly. Is she going to have an anxiety attack? Did she bring her medicine?

‘You can’t do this to me,’ she chokes out, balling her palms into small fists. ‘You can’t ing leave me here alone. You can’t do this to me,’ she repeats. You can’t let me down like that. I’m so close to getting out of this hell.

‘I wasn’t planning to. That’s the thing. Yerim, let’s go together,’ he pleads but for some reason, the request hits her even harder. Her eyes bulge as she regards him in utter disbelief.

‘Don’t even joke about it…’ She mutters weekly, shaking her head. ‘Give me a smoke, quick.’

The boy obliges, lighting the stick up for her. Having taken a short drag out of it himself, he hands it back.

‘It’s not a joke. Think about it. Nobody in that house cares about you anyway. Nobody there would miss you. You’re only visible to them if they can use you somehow. But I care about you, I want you. You and I can only count on each other.’

Yerim’s hands tremble as she continues smoking away her panic attack. What about school? What about her life here, no matter how suffocating it feels..? And she’s just found her half-sister… She briefly wonders if at this point Son Seungwan would even stop to think about Yerim’s disappearance or whether she would shrug it off as one less nuisance to deal with.  

‘I’m so tired of this, Yerim,’ Donghyuk says again, staring into the distance. ‘If we leave, we can go anywhere, do anything. It’s not that hard to find a job here and there. You can start drawing again, maybe you can eventually go to art school if you want to. Nobody to tell us what to do, we just go where we want to, do what we feel like.’

‘B-But we cannot just not do the exams…’ She uselessly insists again, trying to even wrap her head around the idea. Donghyuk, as always, has already made up his mind and nothing Yerim says will possibly be able to convince him otherwise.

‘Of course we can, it’s our lives we’re talking about. Do you want to spend yours in this ing golden cage or out there, actually getting a real taste of it?’ He grabs her hand, intertwining their fingers and Yerim freezes because that’s never happened before. ‘Just think about it, please. Come with me.’

Yerim shakes her head, not to disagree but simply to try and make sense of the surreal conversation that has just taken place. It’s not helping.

She needs another cigarette.

‘Do you want to have anything to drink? They’re waiting for us with lunch so it’s probably better to not eat too much now.’

The drive to Changwon is actually not that long at all. Jongdae and Seulgi could have easily made it without any stop on the way but they still chose to – or more like Jongdae decided to take a turn once he’d spotted a big resting area for cars. He parks away from the main door to the building full of small restaurants, snacks and toilets.

‘I think I’ll go to the toilet,’ Seulgi finally replies, her voice hoarse. It’s not that she’d be able to swallow anything in her state. Mostly, she just needs to be by herself for a moment. She quickly gets out and shuts the door close, not sparing Jongdae another glance as she walks towards the building.

He’d probably ask whether she’ll be fine alone. She understands his care but she bitterly recons that it’s the last thing she needs right now. She’s always been independent – even when they first started their relationship, she firmly established her boundaries. She didn’t really believe that they’d last long, not at the beginning. Yet here they are, two years later.

Seulgi finally reaches the ladies’ room, passing two women as they exit the place. It’s eerily empty, probably because it’s still quite early in the morning. She splashes cold water onto her own face, wiping the droplets away and looking in the mirror. The person staring back at her looks unnaturally tired and sober. For a moment, Seulgi doesn’t know what to do with her own image. She doesn’t recognise herself.

How scary it is. To have people who care for you and whom you care for in return. Jongdae, Seungwan, Sooyoung… And they are only the beginning of a long list. There’s Seulgi’s parents – she’s an only child. How will she tell them..? How will she bear to..?

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She needs to go back or her boyfriend will come looking for her. She doesn’t want to cause a scene. There was enough of that already the night before.

She notices Jongdae once she walks out through the main door. Still seating behind the wheel, his hands are perched on it and his head is lowered. He’s numbly staring into the same blind spot and Seulgi can tell that he has spaced out. Maybe he’s praying? He’s not very religious but it happens. Many people turn to god when they feel hopeless.

She exhales one more time, quickening her step. Jongdae blinks when she finally gets back in and smiles at her wearily.

‘I was about to send a rescue brigade,’ he attempts a joke but Seulgi cannot even muster a shadow of a smile today. ‘Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink? I can go grab a bottle of water or something. We didn’t even have the time to stock up before we set off.’

‘I’m alright.’ She rejects the offer, looking away to the field right behind them.

‘Anyway, it’s just half an hour more. You know my mum, she always cooks so much. I wonder if Jongdeok hyung will be there for lunch-’

‘Jongdae, I beg you. Please, stop,’ Seulgi interrupts the man before she can clamp the feelings back inside. It’s not that she particularly wants to hurt him but this has been going on since last night and she just… She just cannot anymore. She just can’t. One more word and she’ll start screaming.

‘Stop what?’ He finally asks quietly, looking at Seulgi intensely.

‘This. Whatever you’re doing. You don’t have to. I heard you cry last night, you know. You don’t have to pretend in front of me because that just makes everything so much worse. I don’t need you to because it won’t change the truth.’

She cannot stand the pity, not from her closest ones.

Jongdae sighs deeply, weighing his words. Eventually, he reaches for Seulgi’s left hand, squeezing it tightly.

‘I’m not pretending. Of course I’m scared, Seul, that’s why I cried. First you avoided me for two days and then you told me something that will inevitably alter both of our lives. It’s overwhelming.’ He purses his lips for a second. ‘But I’m not pretending. Right now there’s only one thing that scares me more than what’s ahead and that’s that I will lose you. And because it’s such a paralysing fear, I’m determined to keep going. Sure, you know I’m a cry baby, so maybe I’ll have to let it out every once in a while in the darkness of the night.’ This time his humour evokes a small, albeit a fleeting smile on the woman’s lips. ‘But I refuse to let this deter us in any way. I want us to lead our lives the way we always have. I don’t want to waste time on worrying when we can use it to laugh instead.’

Seulgi’s lips tremble at the words. She blinks away the tears.

‘It’s not going to be the same, Jongdae. No matter what you do. It’s not something that you can just forget,’ she whispers.

‘Nothing is certain yet, it’s just a diagnosis. You need more tests. And even then… Nobody said it’s the end. People recover from it all the time.’

When Seulgi doesn’t say anything to that, he squeezes her hand one more time and puts his own back on the steering wheel, finally starting the car.

‘You know what? My parents can wait a bit. I’ll take you to a place first, alright? It’s my favourite place in the whole of Changwon but there’s never been enough time so I couldn’t show you. Let’s go to Suchi.’

Seulgi frowns but only sighs, once again leaving the choice to him.

They arrive soon after – or maybe it’s just Seulgi who swears that she closed her eyes for just a second but the mild swaying of the car lulled her into a nap out of exhaustion.

Suchi is a beach – an ugly one if Seulgi were to be honest. It’s full of shipyards and buildings. It’s more of a passage consisting of many rocky cliffs. Jongdae drives off the main road and goes further through the dry mud until they stop a few feet away from the edge of the hill. It’s understandably empty.

‘This is your favourite place, Kim?’ Seulgi cannot help but give her boyfriend a side eye, momentarily forgetting their predicament. Jongdae grins.

‘It’s perfect. It’s good to bring friends over when you need a place for a barbeque and alcohol, but it is hidden enough so that you can just get away from everything when you need to. Or, you know, make out with girls,’ he adds as an afterthought, laughing to himself.

‘Are you telling me that you’ve brought me here to make out? Or to show me where you made out with your ex-girlfriends in the past? Because I’m tempted to hit you regardless.’

‘I brought you here to see that smile,’ he says. The grin is gone but there is warmth in his eyes instead.

Seulgi’s lips are indeed stretched in a smile – a small, weak one, but still a smile. A genuinely amused one.

They stand together for a moment, simply looking into the horizon ahead of them, before Jongdae approaches the woman slowly and they intertwine their fingers.

‘Tell me, Seul. Tell me everything. Anything you want to. Just let it all out so it can stay here. I did all the talking last night but I have yet to hear from you. Just… anything is fine.’

There is a longer pause, a hesitant one. Seulgi’s smile is long gone and she herself – lost in thought.

‘I don’t want to tell you,’ Seulgi eventually replies in a bare, vulnerable whisper. She’s still staring ahead but she’s not really seeing the landscape anymore. ‘If I tell you, it’ll mean it’s real. It’ll mean that I have to deal with it.’

‘I’ve never seen you run from a fight before,’ Jongdae replies with conviction without missing a beat, now looking at her seriously.

She takes a deep breath, braving herself to share before the courage leaves her.

‘I’m scared it’ll hurt a lot,’ she recounts slowly. Her eyes are vacant. ‘I know I’m selfish but that’s the first thing I can think of.’

‘It’s not selfish at all.’

‘I’m scared that my friends will turn away from me once I’m no longer fun to be around. That you’ll become progressively more and more tired of me. That maybe I’ll have to leave my parents behind all by themselves-’ She lets out a pained sob, contracted to the point when she can no longer speak.

Seulgi’s never been the touchy type but once they find themselves in each other’s arms, she realises with a start that it’s the first time for her to feel closeness since anyone has learnt the truth. She had not planned on telling anyone – especially Jongdae – so soon. She had thought that she needed time to sort out her own feelings so the night before was just one big passive-aggressive exchange between them. Yet suddenly, she regrets not having told Jongdae sooner. She should have told him on Thursday morning the moment she received that unexpected call to return to the hospital on such short notice. She shouldn’t have suffered alone for two days on her own accord.

‘They… They said it’s malicious. Advanced stage two, something like that. Maybe already expanding beyond the brain. They said a lot of things, I can’t quite remember. I couldn’t process anything once that word had been said…’ She struggles to form coherent sentences now.

‘My father will know what to do,’ Jongdae reassures, taking a deep breath to calm his voice. ‘He’ll consult the best people right away, I’m sure.’

Just when the man thinks nothing more will follow, Seulgi disentangles herself from the embrace and turns away.

‘But why..? Why?’ Her voice turns higher in what sounds like a mixture of anger and dread. She picks up a rock at her feet, throwing it into the sea. Anything to relief the stress. ‘I exercise. I eat healthily.’ Even more angrily, she picks up another one, throwing it with all her might but her aim is weak – there are tears in her eyes, blurring the vision. ‘My family history is clean. I haven’t got as much as a flu in the last three years. So why..?’

She scoots down, hugging herself. Jongdae can only join her on the ground.

‘Why now? There’s still so much to live for, so much to do. I’m not ready to leave yet. I can’t leave.’

‘And we’re not ready to let you go, Seul,’ Jongdae replies quietly, sliding as close as he can but still giving the woman her space. After a longer while, in a typical for himself fashion he adds, ‘You’re not leaving me unless it’s for Jung Haein, in which case I understand and support you.’

Unexpectedly, the flat joke causes Seulgi to shortly burst out laughing. The laughter is born out of tension and mental burden she’s carrying, and Seulgi continues sobbing through it. But she still  feels the warm presence and that’s what matters right now.

‘I have to tell my parents… I have to tell Seungwan.’ She looks at him, for a brief moment uncertainly creeping into her self-esteem again. She holds out her hand and they lock fingers again.

‘I’ll be there if you want me to,’ he reassures, nodding.

‘It’s going to be hard, Jongdae,’ she says again, still trembling despite the heat.

‘Are you implying that I should let you go? Please, a four like me, letting go of a ten like you?’ She smiles sadly at the familiar humorous remark that she herself has used against the man so many times before.

But despite the temporary uplifting mood, Seulgi feels her own heart freeze with each passing second, like she is only now truly becoming aware of the whole situation. She feels paralysed with fear. It’s always a little like a ticking bomb, they said.

She’s a ticking bomb now.

A/N: Thank you for the comments and upvotes as always. Happy Interntional Women's Day and all the best.

*Title: SuRie - Storm