Speaking the Window's Pain

Hyun was right; it is hard.

She can’t look at her mother without being physically uncomfortable. She talks to Kyungsoo on the phone more often because she needs someone by her metaphorical side. 

Summer is here but it doesn't feel fresh or happy. Everything is stuffy and tight, hot. It’s painfully ironic.

Hyun is outside with her toes snug in the grass of their backyard when she gets a text from Chanyeol. 

From: Chanyeol, 1.23 pm

Would you like to go somewhere?

Hyun stares at the message glowing brightly on her phone’s screen. She analyzes it in an attempt to make sense of it. She rearranges the letters to check if they create some secret code, tries saying them backward, and even holds the screen up to the sun to reveal any extra letters. Nothing comes up. She’s just gotten settled in her spring/summer routine: gaming, attempting to do something productive, end up sitting at her easel for two hours staring at a blank canvas, praying for a miracle, one not coming, sleeping, sort of. 

And now this is happening.

Hyun hasn’t seen Chanyeol’s face in months. They barely talk anymore. Chanyeol is busy and Hyun understands that. He’s a culinary student working part-time as a tutor who doesn’t get enough sleep. Hyun gets it. What they had wasn't a real thing. She'd cry-scream in her sleep and he'd pat her on the back. It was false intimacy, and she needs to get over it. Sure, she’d be uncomfortably sad for a while, splash some grey splotches on paper and call it grieving. But that’s nobody's business other than her own. 

Of course, Hyun texts back ‘sure’ and waits for her demise. 

She showers and throws on some shorts, matching it with a short-sleeve graphic tee of a splattered tomato. She pulls her tight curls into a bun. She then goes downstairs to wait in front of the television looking like something other than death. Maybe this is what having a social life is like. Getting up and sleeping at normal hours. Showering every morning with a very real possibility of going somewhere further than her mailbox.

“Are you going somewhere?” She hears the footsteps coming down the stairs before she hears the voice, lilting and careful. She turns when her mother is on the final step, coming to stand beside the couch. Hyun nods. She’s hurting again.

“I don’t actually know where I’m going?” Hyun confesses truthfully. Her mother’s brows crease and she her head a little, confused. 

“Someone is coming to pick me up,” she elaborates.

“A friend?” 

Hyun should be offended by the way she sounds so taken back. It’s valid shock, she supposes. 

“Who happens to be a boy.” She nods.

“A boyfriend?” her mother questions. It’s Hyun’s turn to look confused. She nods again, a little slower, and her eyes dart quickly to the ground before they go back up.

“Not really," Hyun says.

“Have fun then.” 

“Okay.” Another nod. God, this is awkward.

Her mother goes into the kitchen after that. Nothing much has happened in the last couple of weeks. Hyun is over her anger. She is over her confusion as well. In general, she’s just over it. There is weird energy floating through the house. Whenever she and her mother cross paths the edges of their force fields have a very negative reaction and they end up repelling each other. Hyun fakes indifference while her mother looks genuinely hurt. And because Hyun isn’t a robot, she feels bad. But not bad enough to run and jump into her arms like a three-year-old with her face shoved against a portal that never worked in her favor. 

Twenty minutes later, a car pulls up in her driveway. Hyun can see through the big, square window behind the television, blinds undrawn. She considers waiting for Chanyeol to knock on the front door. She decides against it, though, because it would mean a bit of explaining, and awkward confrontations. 

Hyun pats her pants pocket for the familiar lump of her phone, and grabs a jacket out off the coat rack, flipping it over her shoulder. She opens the front door and steps out into the warm sunshine. The sky is blue. There’s a warm breeze blowing across her cheeks. Anyone with a heart and soul can’t be upset on a day like today. What makes it even better is that Chanyeol is here in the flesh. Hyun walks up to the car. She opens the door and gets in.

“Hi.” Hyun smiles at Chanyeol. She’s swooning again, dammit. If Hyun thought Chanyeol looked good in sweaters it was obviously because she’d never seen him in a short-sleeve, plaid button-up over a white tank top. All Hyun sees is red and muscle and, wow, he looks good in anything. Blue jeans, vans, and a red snapback complete his whole ‘disgustingly drop-dead gorgeous’ look. That’s not fair at all. 

Chanyeol doesn’t say anything for a little, just stares at Hyun until she has the overwhelming desire to curl up in a ball and disappear. His eyes are just as brown and just as warm as Hyun remembered them being. 

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

Don’t blush. Don’t die. Don’t look stupid.

“Stop.” Hyun shivers, like she's trying to shimmy the ooey-gooey emotions away.

"Stop what?" Chanyeol laughs.

"Stop treating me like your girlfriend." Hyun sighs. "It's confusing."

"Wait." Chanyeol looks directly at her, and Hyun in a tortured breath. "You wouldn't want to be my girlfriend?"

Looking away quickly while trying to hide her red cheeks, Hyun says, "I didn't say that."

“I missed you.” Chanyeol smiles.

“I missed you, too.” Hyun turns to look at him again.

“Is it cool if we go back to my house?” Chanyeol asks. "I was thinking of going to the movies because I haven't been in months. Then Hani heard where I was going and said if I didn't bring my really cool artist friend who also likes the Whoremongers around, she was going to cut ties. And since pays a portion of the rent, and I guess is my friend or something, that would kinda . Do you mind?"

“No,” Hyun says. She hopes she doesn't regret it later.

Chanyeol’s house is an hour drive away from Hyun’s house, maybe forty-five minutes without traffic. The seclusion is bittersweet; on the one hand, she’s strangely thrilled that they have this privacy, and on the other, she feels a little anxious because that doesn’t leave her much room for escape. 

She hasn’t decided what she favors yet. 

ᴅ ᴇ ғ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ  ʀ ᴇ ᴊ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ s

Maybe Hyun had expected Chanyeol to dwell way up in the mountains, deep in this cave with trickling waterfalls and smooth rocks to dry out his one good pair of jeans. Maybe she’d wanted to brave through billowing, black fog to get to the other side and in an awed breath at the majesty of a floating palace in an inky galaxy, crowded on all sides by a star-breathing kappa. Maybe, just maybe, did Hyun want to slice her expectant palms on green vines as she fought her way to the molding wood of a lopsided, rickety house far down at the base of a weeded valley.  

Now, faced with reality, Hyun exhales a breath in relief and bats away her previous thoughts. She doesn't know what to make of the details, but she knows it's a craftsman house. Something like triangular brackets and wide eaves, according to HGTV. It has a sage green, overlapping brick exterior with creme columns supporting the eaves over the wrap-around porch. The lawn is well-manicured with groups of multi-colored hydrangeas sprinkled throughout. It smells like freshly cut grass. 

"Pretty cool, right?" Chanyeol laughs. Hyun turns around to nod vigorously at him. "The inside's even cooler. And I can see Kuhn practically hanging out of his bedroom window. We should go in and say hi."

Too caught up in her awe, Hyun almost forgets to be nervous. She can't evade it for much longer, though. Soon they're inside and as pretty as the combination of forest green and smooth, wood finishing is, she bites back the familiar bitter flavor on her tongue and reminds herself that too much eye contact is just as strange as too little.  

Plotted in random places in the living room are Chanyeol's friends.

Just coming out of the kitchen is a man just a tad on the short side. He’s slender with bleach-blond fringe and a long, handsome face.

The young man lounging on the couch with his phone is a little thicker and stockier than the last. He has brown, fluffy fringe that comes just short of his dark eyebrows and his wide smile looks like an infectious one. His tan skin brings out the hazel of his eyes.

Coming down the staircase off the kitchen is a young man who has raven hair styled in a voluminous upward coif. He’s the skinniest; not even his baggy jeans can hide his impossibly thin legs and his jaw is sharp like a bucket of knives. There’s a mischievous glint to his dark eyes and a playful wink buried in them. 

A young woman maybe a little taller than Hyun is standing off to the side plucking darts off of a board in the adjoining den. Her black hair is swirled up in a bun. Sun-kissed skin offsets her ruby red lips, and her green eyes are rounded with a complimentary pinch at the ends. Leave it to Chanyeol to have gorgeous friends as well. Birds of a feather truly do flock together. This fact doesn’t help to quell the bubbling anxiety. Hyun tries to make herself as small as possible beside him. 

“This is Hani, Mark, Kuhn, and Jackson.” Chanyeol motions to each one respectively. Bun Girl is Hani, Bleached Fringe is Mark, Baby Face is Kuhn, and Hazel Tan is Jackson. 

“Nice to meet you all,” Hyun says. Her palms are already damp. What if they hate her?

“Can we see your art?” Kuhn asks with excitement in his voice when he's finished with the stairs. Hyun is so taken aback that she forgets to stutter.

“My art?”

“Yeah,” Mark cuts in. “Chanyeol told us that you make sick art. Are you more of a sketch artist or do you like to paint?”

Hyun smiles. “A little bit of both. But, I do find myself painting more nowadays. Watercolor is my favorite. I dabble in acrylic as well. It hasn’t really stuck with me yet, though. Too thick.”

“Sweet.” Mark grins. “I’m a watercolor person myself as well.”

"We should go to the movies tomorrow," Hani says. "Exams are over and I might get a decent amount of sleep tonight without having to fine dine on sleeping pills to overpower the caffeine in my system."

"Movies and arcade!" Jackson says. "We gotta."

Chanyeol looks down at Hyun with a sheepish grin. "Movies?"

"Movies." Hyun nods with a smile.

"Cool. Gimme some." Mark sticks out his fist with a grin, and Hyun doesn't leave him hanging.

"Let me show you the upstairs," Chanyeol says. Hyun spares a quick, apparently unnoticed glance, in the direction of a room wedged in the corner between the kitchen and den, shaded by a curtain of ruby spinel. She nods, and they go upstairs. It's all wooden floors, even the bedrooms. Chanyeol's room is minimalistic grey and white. His bed is a king with a white comforter. He has a matching dresser, closet door, and there's a flat-screen on the wall. 

And above all, everything is clean. Hyun feared that beneath all of that obvious perfection Chanyeol was secretly a hoarder, or a cat lady--uh, cat man. The first fear is debunked immediately. And she completely forgets about the other when a pretty cat comes stalking sleepily in from the hallway. Her snout, ears, tail, and paws are dark brown while the rest of her body is ashy white. She blinks up at Hyun with crystal blue eyes and releases a quiet meow. 

“She’s so cute,” Hyun says fondly, bending down to rub behind the cat’s ears.

“Her name is Nora,” Chanyeol says.

“You’re just a princess, aren’t you?” she coos. Nora just stares. 

“She’s a rescue,” Chanyeol says. Hyun pets Nora absentmindedly while be how tragically perfect Chanyeol is. First, he tutors kids. Although he does get paid for it, it still takes a certain type of person to deal with hormonally imbalanced, moody teenagers like herself several days a week. Second, he has a rescue cat. The next thing that comes out of his mouth will be that he financially sponsors a child in Uganda. She wouldn’t put it past him.

“You want to meet Bo?” Chanyeol asks. Hyun stops petting Nora and looks up at Chanyeol like he’s sprouting a third ear right before her eyes. 

“Uh, Bo,” Chanyeol says, a little defensively, obviously confused by Hyun’s expression. “My ferret, Bo.”

Hyun laughs all by herself, suspicions dispensed of. “Sure. Okay.”

Apparently, Hyun has never seen a ferret before. For some reason she imagined it looking like a small dog. It really looks like a cylinder of white fur and small, beady eyes. Hyun holds in a laugh as Chanyeol picks up the small, wriggling creature like it’s gold.

“You like animals?” Hyun asks, moving closer to pat Bo on the top of his scraggly head.

“I love animals.” Chanyeol smiles over at Hyun before returning his attention back to Bo with a big grin. “I have a collie named Hodge, a maltese named Wally, and a parakeet, Scamp. They’re back at my parents’ house because I didn't want it to get too full in here. Also, even though my mom didn't want to even pet them at first, she tried to fight me when I was moving out because I thought about taking all of them.”

Hyun laughs. “You both really like animals then.”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says and looks at Hyun. “I moved here when I was ten. My accent was so heavy the other kids could barely understand me. I'm from the countryside. Our dialect is so strong it sounds like we're speaking a whole other language to city people. They called me a "stinky chink". I'm Korean, too. Wrong racial slur. It’s hard trying to explain that to a group of 4th graders, you know?”

“Punks.” Hyun’s chest pinches empathetically.

Chanyeol nods and takes a very sad, shallow breath. “My parents hated to see me come home crying. So they got me Hodge. She's a good girl. My grandparents hated all animals who couldn't make them money. So I couldn't have any pets back home.”

“Did she help?” Hyun asks.

“She did.” Chanyeol runs his hands through Bo’s fur. “She really did. People can be really cruel. Not animals, though. Animals work off a system of respect. I respected her and she respected me. I loved her and I think she loved me back. I finally had a friend. It was nice.”

Chanyeol stands there, petting Bo and looking off to the side a little. Hyun recognizes the look. She feels the feeling. It’s a mix of loneliness and awareness. Confusion, as well. She doesn’t know what to do. His shoulders are slumping a little and he’s swaying kind of.

“Are you okay?” Dumb question.

“Yeah.” Chanyeol nods slowly, eyes locked on blank space for several seconds more before swinging over to Hyun. He grins a little. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

Hyun doesn’t know when the progression happened, what she missed. It sounds like an off-handed question when it really wouldn’t be out of context. He seems sure enough of himself though. He isn’t an emotional whirlwind like Hyun is.

“Sure. Okay.”

So they curl up on Chanyeol's bed and watch a movie. One movie turns into two. Two naturally runs into three. The sky outside of the window to the right is tinted indigo. The clouds are slowly huddling in a dark cluster. Hyun lays her head on Chanyeol’s chest more and closes her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through .

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“It’s almost eleven,” he says. “Should I take you home?”

“Can I sleep here?” Hyun opens her eyes and looks up at Chanyeol. He’s looking down at her with a sweet smile. 

“I don't mind. Will your dad let you?” he asks.

“Probably not.” Hyun shrugs. “I can just call Mina to cover.”

“I didn’t know you were such a little rebel,” Chanyeol says, smirking.

“What can I say? I live life on the wild side.”

That earns her a laugh.

Hyun takes a hot shower and changes into some shorts and a t-shirt she borrows from Hani. She climbs in next to Chanyeol's sleeping form and tries to peel the comforter back without shuffling him too much. It turns out to be in vain when he opens his eyes slowly, taking a moment to stare blankly before putting up his arms with a sedated smile. Hyun scoots up closer to the pillows and snuggles up close to him. Chanyeol curls one arm around Hyun’s head, playing with her curls, and rests the other on her waist. She still doesn't know what this is. What they are. She just enjoys it for what it is at the moment. It doesn’t take long to fall asleep.

It storms in the middle of the night. Hyun knows because her eyes blink open in the semi-darkness and a forgotten dread washes over her aching body once again. Chanyeol is sleeping heavily, oblivious.

Hyun doesn’t fear the dark. Just what lurks in it. 

Abandonment lurks in the dark, and oblivion. It was dark that night and it has been since a few months ago. It’s a strange occurrence, the changing of a human heart. Something that it obsessed over could just as easily be buried under new experiences and sensations, only resurfacing once it has been rid of its meaning. No longer relevant. The dark is no longer relevant. Chanyeol is in the dark, and he’s not scary. The opposite, really. Hyun is in the dark as well. 

The metaphysical beings of darkness and relevance are concepts spawned by the subconscious under distress. When there is no more fear to amplify the illusions that are as real as she wants them to be, the only things left are an empty room and haggard breathing and herself being her own worst enemy. 

That empty room is where the ghost of Hyun’s mother is scratching at the walls and howling like the apparition she will never again be. That room is where her anxiety expands like gas and chokes the paint off the walls. That room is where her skin puffs up in a rainbow of colors and bleeds off of her bones, one aching layer at a time, exposing her as the creature she really is: human.

That room is darkness and relevance and it as powerful as she imagines it to be. 

Maybe one day she’ll be more powerful. 

One part of Hyun misses the solace dissociation brought. In those moments when she was staring out of a portal to another universe, her mind was at a stale peace. She could feel her soul rumbling around her crowded body like laundry in a washing machine, strangely stagnant, and yet, fulfilling at the same time. That was her normal, and although she wasn’t proud of it, she learned to grow with it and it somehow adhered to her person, like an extra finger she was disgusted with but never had the heart to hack off.

Another part of Hyun feels empty in some way. Her fingers gravitate to the draft. Her body yearns to feel the painful kiss of cold against it. She does her best to convince herself that this is what she deserves. 

It storms and a sliver of Hyun’s sanity is still intact. Bless.

It storms and Hyun doesn’t mind. Chanyeol is here and Hyun doesn’t mind. Her mom never hated her and Hyun doesn’t mind. The shivers aren’t coming, probably never will again. 

It’s a funny thing, how the human heart decides in a single moment what it likes and doesn’t like. In this moment, Hyun likes how Chanyeol holds her as if the world isn’t spinning outside and they are the only two beings in the universe, everything else irrelevant. 

Human hearts are funky little things. They do what they want to do regardless of the consequences. 

Part of the reason Hyun and Mina are friends is because they were the only two sitting on the edge of the sandbox in first grade. Hyun, because she hadn’t attempted to interact, preferring to keep in her own space, and Mina, because the other kids thought her wooden figurines were weird. She needed to have the ones with Barbie’s face on them.

So Mina essentially said ‘ off’ in kid terms. Something like ‘i don’t want to play with you, either. your face is stupid’ and she stomped over to where Hyun was drawing with her new friend, Stickie, named so because it was, indeed, a stick. 

Hyun, being ever timid and careful, tried to reject the girl’s friendship. But Mina wouldn't stop and Hyun was never outspoken enough so they ended up sticking together. Hyun thinks about all of these things to keep her thoughts from wandering over to the window. Chanyeol is her anchor to reality and the sheets are an extra layer of protection. The rain is a blanket of fear that cries down the windows. It beats on the pain, begging for her to come join it. She clings harder to Chanyeol, buries her nose in his shirt, and blocks it all out.