I hate me for not being able to stay away from angst.

i hate MEH!

For a whole moment, Mina’s face turned extremely pale, as if all sorts of colors suddenly vapored from her organs. It wasn’t even because of fear, merely because of disappointment, and anger as well, anger at the fact he was telling her of her mother’s whereabouts.

Why should she care her mother was in the hospital? She could rot there and she wouldn’t even blink. Mina was sure of that, her father was sure of that too, so why the heck was he telling her this? Didn’t she tell him not to contact her so long as that woman is still living with him? Why couldn’t he listen, for God’s sake!

“You okay?” Kyungsoo, who had been watching her ever since her phone was ringing with constant messages; conversationally mumbled through a bite of food. Mina didn’t reply, busy fuming. “Your face suddenly became pale. You’re not going to cry on me.. are you?”

Kyungsoo, who wasn’t as sharp as Kai or Suho surprisingly, could notice the sudden drop of her body temperature; the huge withdrawal she was facing, and it only meant she was facing it hard.

“No, Kyungsoo,” she tried not to grit her teeth while answering him, but failed miserably. “I’m not going to cry. I’m just, I think I’ll leave.”

She really did stand up to leave, contemplating whether she should take parts of the food she brought for herself or not, and then thinking Kyungsoo could eat it himself. Werewolves have large appetites anyway. She turned around in her place like a rapid predator, searching for any belonging of hers to take along, meanwhile; Kyungsoo was staring at her silently, slight judgement in his eyes. After a while, he finally opened his mouth.

“Are you really doing this right now?”

“What am I doing?” She answered right away, busily, and she didn’t even spare him a glance. Kyungsoo held an annoyed scowl at bay. Seeing his annoyance might trigger more of her anger, and she’d explode at him. He didn’t want to hear her screeching voice, thank you so much.

“Pushing me away?”

She paused at his words, turning around to face him with a frown. Kyungsoo noticed the slight tremble to her hands, the meek furrow of her eyebrows she constantly tried to smooth away only to fall back into her face, and the small curl of a snarl in her lips. She was like a volcano that is waiting for a nudge of sorts to explode entirely and melt everything in its way. It was terrifying in a sense.

“I’m not pushing you away,” she sighed in resolute, dropping her hands at her side and closing her eyes, slowly, and then opening them back. “I’m really not; I’m just, surprised.”

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows, his round eyes falling over the phone she was clutching tightly in her left hand, her knuckles paling into white splotches at the sheer force of her curling fingers around the device, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Give me your phone.”

She did, give him her phone, and she watched him with pounding heartbeats as he fiddled with her password; peering down at her text messages with curiosity he tried to mask with nonchalance. She wanted to sit down, for her legs were shaking, but she knew if she sat down, she’d probably not have any strength to stand back up; and she didn’t feel as cheerful and joyful as before to stay in the boxing ring. It was awful as it was, and she didn’t want her already spilled mood to overflow more. She just wanted to go home.

After Kyungsoo was done snooping through her phone, he gave her phone back, a small glitter of worry seeping over the brown of his eyes. Thankfully, he didn’t bother with hiding this emotion of his, and his worry was extremely appreciated.

“Are you going to call him?”

She merely nodded, gulping the saliva that gathered around forcefully, blinking her eyes. Kyungsoo watched her.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“Kyungsoo,” She released a small, withered smile, the corner of her lips easing tenderly. “I’m not sad, I can handle this.”

“No,” Kyungsoo shook his head in agreement, taking another careless bite of his food. “You’re not, but you’re angry.”

He was right. She wasn’t sad or vulnerable, she was just incredibly angry, and she didn’t want to let her anger spill over. She was overflowing, overwhelmed with the a vulgar bile of bitter anger, burning within her body with hot, flames; and she knew she was close to explode. But did she want to? It was probably healthy to do so, let it all out; however, the boxing ring was not a great place to do it, and her way of letting it out wasn’t the right one either.

She needed to be calm and rational. Nothing good ever came from burning flames, they gave out pure destruction, nothing more.

“You’re going to say something stupid again,” Kyungsoo mumbled, and she rolled her eyes. “And you’ll regret it.”

“I regret it only at the beginning.” She replied back, narrowing her eyes at him with stubborn intensity. “He needs to hear it; and I’d rather he hears it from me, his daughter.”

“I can’t stop you.” He stated, shrugging one of his shoulders carelessly. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he just knew her single determination to do whatever it was on her head, and despite acting like a child most of the times, she was wise when she wanted to be. Besides, it wasn’t like he could stop her (or want to stop her, to be honest) she was a grown up, and she didn’t need people making her own decisions for her. The only thing he could do was wait for her to do her deed and stay by her side. Simple.

“You can’t.” She nodded her head in agreement. “Can I leave now?”

“Sure, leave.”

She turned around and, with a wince; she left.

-

Mina didn’t touch her cell phone for an entire hour.

She kept watching it without an ounce of feelings in her eyes as it laid over the sheets of her bed sadly, begging for attention. A big part of her refused to acknowledge her father’s text message, refusing to call him because she couldn’t care less; but a small part, a tiny, gullible one, wanted to hear her father’s voice. It wanted to know of his whereabouts, if he was okay or not. She missed him, and it wasn’t like she was avoiding him or anything, she just wished he would make good decisions like how she did, or she believed she did.

But he was her Dad, and she loved him. She didn’t hate him, she could never. He was practically the only family member left for her, and she vowed to protect him till the end. That was why she wasn’t talking to him to begin with, because she wanted him to make a decision, a decision that could ultimately save his life, a decision he begged her before not to let him do.

Eventually, her conscience won (the part that kept telling her how lonely her father must feel and how she must make him feel like she was still on his side) and she found herself calling him. The call kept ringing for a long time, till she thought he wouldn’t pick up. She was ready to disconnect, but he caught the call before she could. Instantly, she talked.

“Hi, it’s me.”

He didn’t reply, and she didn’t push him to. She could hear the faint sound of his breathing; steady, composed, calm, and tender. A strong wave of nostalgia hit her, right away, and she suppressed a sob by placing her hand over .

“I know it’s you,” came his voice, after a few seconds of unbearable silence. His voice was just like how she remembered, low-pitched, protective, and extremely vulnerable, like a helpless prey. Tears ran down her cheeks, yet she didn’t sob, or cry, or show him she was affected, she talked back as if water wasn’t falling out of her body, dripping down her chin. It was pathetic, how she wasn’t even sad while crying, just, very angry.

“Are you.. in the hospital? With.. her?”

“You know I’m,” Her Dad rumbled back weakly, and she wondered if he was frowning. “I can’t leave her alone.”

“Bull Dad,” She mumbled back in the same weakness he was harboring in his voice, her reply in default mode, as it was the same response she gave to him for two years now. “You can always leave her alone. You just chose not to.”

“Mina—“

“I wish this time she ing dies!” She snapped, the bubbling anger she was trying not to rupture exiting her body in a shake of her limbs. She held the phone tightly, her knuckles going white.

“Mina, please,” Her father begged, sound so incredibly weak and pathetic that all her anger vanished, just like that. The grip she had around the phone loosened too. “I don’t want to fight.”

“.. I hate that you’re doing this,” She paused to gulp, hoping her father didn’t hear. “Dad, I hate it.”

“I don’t understand why, Mina,” His voice was filled with truth, truly incapable of understanding why she was doing what she was doing. Mina’s rage resurfaced again. “She’s your mother.”

“She gave birth to me, sure, but she’s not my mother, she’s also not who you think she is.”

“Mina..”

“No, Dad,” Mina shook her head vigorously, her free hand wiping her tears away. “I don’t know for how long you’ll deceive yourself, I’m sick of it. Must you always stay by her side? Does she even deserve it?”

“Mina, please,” Once again, his voice came out faded, fainter than usual, fickle. “I beg of you, don’t do this now. Please, I’m already over my head with her accident; I don’t need this scolding right now.”

Mina, with a startle, realized her father was crying himself, weeping, his voice constantly muffled by what she assumed was his hand, placed over his mouth. Her heart gave out a weak lurch of pain, reacting to the pure sadness in her father’s tone, and she found herself stretching her curled legs forward, leaning her head backwards over the bed, closing her eyes in despair. Her father was probably one of the strongest people she had ever known, and she wasn’t saying this because he was her father; it was simply because of his incredible ability to forget and forgive, his massive will to smile when everything kept pushing his lips downwards. To hear him crying brokenly, with teals of crystal water drops down his possibly hallowed cheeks made her heart break.

“.. Please stop crying, she’s not worth your precious tears.”

“I can’t,” His reply came instantly; and she forced her brewing rage down again. For Dad, for Dad, remain calm. She kept telling herself. “You know I can’t stop them. I love her.”

“She’s poisonous, Dad,” she tried to say softly, like she was cradling a child and trying to persuade them. “She’s draining you. For how long will you remain shedding tears over her? For how long will you be dragged to the hospital because of her weakness? For how long can you stand being degraded, huh, Dad? For how long?”

“She has no one, Mina, she has only me. Even you let go of her hand.”

Mina’s heartbeats stopped moving inside her chest all together at his words, and her supple eyes rounded. What did he say?

“Mina?”

She heard him call her from the other side, but all she heard was the accusative tone of his voice telling her she was the one letting go of her mother’s hand over and over again. Did her father really believe that? Is that what he thought she did when she decided enough was enough and left? Is that what he thought?

“When will you start to understand that I didn’t let go of her hand? She cut off my wrists, Dad.” Mina mumbled while blinking her eyes. There were no tears in her eyes, which was good, because that woman deserved none of them.

“Mina—“

“And she cut off yours too,” She interrupted his exclaims of blinded worship. “Why are you still holding on? Through the pain? Through the tears? Through the blood? Is she really worth it?”

“She is, She is,” He was quick to answer, believing with everything that he owns that she, that woman that hurt him, was worth it. How toxic can their relationship be? Mina wondered. When will her father have enough of swallowing venom down his body? When will it be enough for him? “She is sick, Mina, she’s tired and exhausted and she needs all of us together. She doesn’t understand what she do, she doesn’t believe in what she says; she’s just really, really sick, baby.”

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” she apologized, meaning every single word. “I’m so sorry I can’t believe in those words anymore.”

She hung up the phone right over his protests, having enough of this repetitive conversation. She lowered the phone down and sent him the same text she had been sending him the past few months.

‘Don’t contact me until that woman is gone from your life.’

-

Mina didn’t want to exclude her father from her life, she really didn’t, but was there any other option? Her father was blinded by the beams of darkness that woman constantly sent his way, thinking they were beam of light or his salvation. Mina had had enough of those false hopes and decided to cut that awful woman from her life and leave, was it wrong of her to do so? Why did her father think she had let go of that woman’s hands when that woman cut their fingers away?

Was it really her fault?

No, she didn’t believe it was, and she refused to let herself be self wronged for something she didn’t have a sliver of reasons to do. She was a victim, he was too, so why couldn’t he see? Was her clutches, that snake woman, so tightly secured to the point he couldn’t see them wrapped around his neck?

Mina was doing it again, she was doing it once again, drowning herself in this matter. She swore not to think about that toxic environment again. She had released herself from the darkness, and thinking about it again would only drown her back in. She shook her head, hoping to shake the thoughts off; and took the disposed phone away in her hands again. She searched for her contacts and called the boy her heart recently started to sing to. His answer was instant.

“You dare call me when you refused to come see me in my uni? You heartless, heartless . Oh, Mina, I’ll enjoy hurting you when I’m with you, you just wait!”

His cheerfully annoying voice was enough distraction to bring her roaring beats into ease, and she laid down on her bed sideways, phone on her free ear; and listened. She needed not anything else beside listening to his voice, and everything fell into its rightful place. It was magical how okay everything became because of his voice, just because of his voice.

“Um, Mina? Where are you? I can hear your breathing.” Jongdae asked with a weirded out tone, and Mina could easily visualize what he was doing. Probably scowling at nothing and flickering his eyes sideways, suppressing his annoyance. She smiled at herself. He was such a .

“.. I’m a heartless ?” She replied, and then ended up wincing. Her voice came out weak and a bit breathless. Jongdae must’ve noticed. Fortunately, though, the phone was snatched out of Jongdae’s hands, and came the sound of Baekhyun’s happy screeches.

“What? You’re talking to Mina? Give me the phone, give me the phone!”

She blinked, now suddenly wide awake. The dim lighting of her room became brighter, as if someone directed a light bulb in her eyes, and she squinted, gushes of warmth attacking her heart, just by hearing Baekhyun’s voice.

“Hi! Mina, I’m Baekhyun, sorry for snatching the phone from Jongdae’s hand, but he has been hogging you since forever!”

“Oh,” She cleared , lying her head back on her pillow. When did she rise? “Baek, you are with Jongdae now?”

“Duh, Sweetheart, he and I go to the same university. Of course I’m with him!”

“Hmm.”

“Baby?” Baekhyun’s cheery voice dimmed, and his normal low pitch returned to his voice. Mina’s heart skipped a beat. “Are you okay?”

Of course he’d notice. Mina cursed. She wasn’t okay, she was distracted; but it didn’t mean she wasn’t getting there. She just needed to hear their voices so her right track could fall back into its rightful order. Did he