Chaeyoung’s food remained untouched, something very unusual. She didn’t feel like she could swallow any.

Every little thing Jimin had told her filled her mind.

Her failures were healthy in her head.

Images of Jimin’s flesh cut open floated around in a sea of guilt within her.

Her eyes glanced at Jimin’s forearm on the table covered with the sleeve of his shirt. Underneath the garment, there was a large scar. The skin had smoothed and the color had paled. But there was still a mark.

Chaeyoung still failed.

She failed to make the mark vanish. She failed herself and her brother. Jimin had comforted her, telling her that she was doing better than he had expected. It was supposed to make her feel better, but it didn’t. She was a disappointment. She felt so horrible. Nothing seemed to work out. Her failures kept piling up and it was only making her despise herself even more. She was becoming more and more humiliated with herself. She was starting to believe that she really was hopeless.

Everyone was silent, but everyone else except her was filling up their empty stomachs. Quietly, they consumed the food in front of them. Neither her father nor her mother opened up their mouths to speak, to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about to her. The longer she had to wait for them to break the news to her, the heavier her heart felt. It was making her nervous, making her slightly hopeful that they changed their minds.

“I have something important to tell,” her father finally began after his food finished.

Chaeyoung’s expression hardened even before her father announced the main thing. Even after knowing what he was going to say, Chaeyoung couldn’t help the unsettling feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.

“You no longer have to attend practices,” her father said calmly, almost without any emotion. Her stomach still dropped, nevertheless. Perhaps, she hoped for a little difference for too much.

Her mother looked up from her plate. Chaeyoung felt her mother’s eyes on her, like she was waiting for any reaction at all. Chaeyoung’s frown deepened, eyes fixed onto her father who, in return, looked at her with no expression displayed.

“Why?” Chaeyoung croaked despite knowing what the answer would be.

“It’s useless to keep going when you are not even trying to improve yourself,” the man said. “You can take that off,” he pointed to the pendant she was wearing.

Her hand went up to touch it. Her hand balled around it protectively. “No, Father. Please.”

He shook his head gently. “I have lost count on the number of chances I’ve given you that you waste away just like that.”

“But I –”

“Father,” Jimin interrupted. “She’s getting a lot better. I swear.”

“Stop defending your sister, Jimin,” the old man said, his voice dropped low, his face darkened. “Do you think with this unimproved skill of hers she’d be able to help you?”

Jimin let out a loud sigh and Chaeyoung chewed her lip. Her brother never really went against their father except when he was really angered. Even so, Jimin tried to reason without raising his voice, although, he’d pulled up his sleeve quite harshly.

“I stabbed myself here,” Jimin said, pointing at the scar and Chaeyoung felt too embarrassed to look at the mark that she had failed to erase away. “She managed to close it up with success and look, the scar looks barely there. Most importantly, I don’t feel the pain any longer.”

Her father scoffed, shaking his head at it and she felt Jimin fuming beside her. She carefully tugged his sleeve, shook her head at him but it took the shake of her mother’s head to stop him. Jimin stood up from his seat, the chair screeched on the floor and he left to go to his room.

“Take the pendant off now, so I can return it to your Master,” her father told her with a strict tone.

Reluctantly, Chaeyoung handed the pendant to her father and he wordlessly took it from her before he left.

She sat by the window in her room, feeling unbelievably suffocated that she took her cloak and went out to head off to that one place that she knew would give her some peace, away from the eyes, ears and mouths of people.

She spent hours lying down near the pond of the Defense Sector deep in the woods, clearing out her mind until she heard the sounds of someone approaching. From far, the sound made her heart race that her eyes shot open. But the closer the sound got the calmer Chaeyoung felt that her eyes began to flutter close again because for some reason, she recognized who it was.

Somehow, she always knew how he felt about her, though, she didn’t exactly know how she knew. Maybe it was the feeling.

Besides, he didn’t seem to have any intention in hiding it after all, but at the same time, he wasn’t really forcing it out. Every hint he let out was subtle, but it was all enough to make her truly understand that it was genuine. When he really said what was written in his heart, for a second, all her problems melted away, all her worries faded and her heart was at ease.