Two months ago.

Jongin’s mind had repeatedly command himself to stop all the tears, but it was useless. His hands consecutively wiped his cheeks while still gripping on his car’s steering wheel. He hated everything. He hated how ing exaggerating the mother nature was for the rain pouring down heavily outside his car that night as if trying to mock him to the fullest. He hated how darn easy it was for him to had his heart shattered. He hated how all the happy memories they made now had been converted into nothing but gruesome nightmares.

Sehun’s voice was still clear and sharp to Jongin’s hearing. It was not the entire conversation he had with Jongin, but all of the sentences could be downed into one conclusion. 

“I’m sorry, Jongin. It is now over between us”.

That tormenting sentence pierced through Jongin’s heart again and again, and there was no enough effort that could make it vanished from his mind. Stop it, please, make it stop.

It didn’t work. 

Sehun called him around 8 PM, saying that he needed to say something to Jongin. Grabbing his coat, car keys, and phone, Jongin dashed into his car and drove to Sehun’s apartment. He found himself catching his breath. His mind was occupied with the best and worst possible thing Sehun wanted to tell. 

But the conversation between them was fulfilling the worst possible scenario Jongin had made up earlier in his mind.

“Jongin, we have promised to tell everything to each other, right?”. Sehun was sitting on the couch with Jongin beside him.

“What is this about?”, Jongin said, with his heart throbbing loudly below his chest. “You make me frightened, Sehun”.

Sehun let a deep sigh before look at Jongin in his eyes.

“Jongin, let’s break up”.

And the sky crashed down to the top of Jongin’s head right after Sehun said those deadly words.

“B-but why? What happened? What did I do wrong?”, Jongin was stuttering with a trembling voice. 

“It is not you”, Sehun grabbed Jongin’s hand and intertwined his fingers with Jongin’s. “It is me. I don’t feel the spark between us anymore. Believe me, I had been trying to make myself feel the same way as I do when we first met, but I just...can’t...”.  

Jongin always knew that sooner or later, his relationship would end with Sehun as long as they still live in this country, where the freedom of their uality wasn’t included as something to celebrate. And to cherish every little thing with Sehun, he always did. 

But he never expected it to happen this fast. They just celebrated their first anniversary last month. 

Jongin kept staring at the man in front of him. He knew too damn well about every line and curve Sehun had on his face. He had also seen and memorized that face in measureless forms. Happy. Angry. Devastated. Hungry. Playful. 

And that night, Jongin deciphered a condensed disenchantment along with sadness on his boyfriend’s face.

“Sehun, I promise, I promise I will do anything to make it up. Whatever you told me to do. But don’t leave me. Please Sehun, I beg you”. Jongin scooted closer to Sehun, his eyes were already blurry from the piled-up tears.

“Jongin, you’ll find someone better than me—“.

“I don’t want someone else! I don’t want them! I just want you!”, he shouted on top of his lungs as it will convince Sehun to do otherwise. The first tear fell from his eyes.

“My decision is final”. Sehun took his hand off from Jongin’s hand, and lift it to the man’s head. He patted Jongin’s straight black hair softly while mumbling ‘sorry’ softly a few times more. 

Jongin, with his face already messed up with unstoppable tears, threw himself into Sehun. He hugged Sehun so tight like it was the last chance. “Sehun, please don’t do this to me. Please...p-please...”. 

“It won’t work for us anymore, Jongin”. 

As it was not dejected enough for Jongin, Sehun pushed him apart to break their hug. 

More shouting and more attempts of insisting their relationship later, Jongin went out from his now ex-boyfriend’s apartment, dropping piece by piece of his heart as he walked. Both of his hands were trembling while carrying a box that Sehun had prepared before. It was filled with things and gifts Jongin gave to him during their relationship. The fact that everything in the box was arranged neatly gave Jongin the idea that Sehun had planned this breakup for a long time, which did not help him at all. 

He ran over all the red light. The road beneath his car’s wheels was slippery from the rain. Jongin had almost lost his control and slipped a few times. But he even stepped on the gas pedal tighter until the numbers on the speedometer shot off sharply. 60, 70, 80, 90....he was not bothering to care about anything other than his broken heart.

And that was his biggest mistake.

The last thing he remembered was a bright, flashing light with long sounds of the horn before another car crashed into his car from his left side. A deafening crashing sounds of metal and glass came in less than one second after. 

When Jongin woke up, repulsive, strong smell of chemicals and all-white walls greeted his senses.

To make it worse, his left leg was hung high up in a plaster cast and thick bandages.

Jongin pushed his lungs and vocal cords to let the loudest scream he ever had in his life. Doctor, nurses, and his parents sprinted into his room while trying all they could to hold Jongin’s limbs into his bed. He vaguely heard the weep of his mom, recurring calm down spoken by doctor and nurses, and the heavy sighs of his dad. Even with the wounds all over his body, the pressurized grip on his arms and shoulders, and his broken left leg—nothing can beat the pain that he felt in his heart.

Jongin’s world had ended since that day.

~***~

Seulgi had been working inside her college’s library since 9 AM this morning. The fact that it was Saturday didn’t affect her and another student who came here. The library was still as full as it was during the weekdays. She was busy connecting ideas she got from journals, scientific articles, and books that could support her argument into a well-built research background. 

But when her stomach grumbled, Seulgi took her fingers off from the keyboard and averted her gaze into the bottom right of her laptop’s screen.

, it’s 2 PM already? 

She completed the sentence that she previously worked on before pressing on CTRL and S. Even if she still had some ideas that hadn’t been poured into words, Seulgi knew that she wouldn’t reach her highest productivity when she was too hungry. 

To the library cafeteria she was heading after putting her laptop on sleep mode. Seulgi sat on the seat beside the wall after she buys a roll of kimbap, a tuna sandwich, and a bottle of water. 

After taking her phone from her jeans’ pocket, Vault’s notification was the first thing Seulgi tapped on. There were a few messages from the users she messaged last night, including user 1rhapsody4. 

“I’m so sorry to hear that”, Seulgi saw what she typed last night before she drifted off to sleep. “What kind of things happened with your body, exactly? Is it really hindering your ability to dance?”. 

I got into car accident two months ago.

My left leg was fractured badly. Doctors used to consider an option to amputate it. But after another surgery, they decided not to.

They said even after physiotherapy, my left leg will never be as strong as it used to be. It will always be fragile ever since. I can’t even walk without using my crutch for now.

So, yeah. I’m doomed

“That was awful”, Seulgi mumbled to herself. It was so disheartening to hear—let alone to experience it directly. Not only have to gone through the painful physical condition, but to know that you never can do the things you love the most anymore is tremendous torture to one’s mind.  

“You must have felt so sorrowful that you consider being dead over alive”. Seulgi typed a reply with her left hand, while her right hand was taking another piece of kimbap to . “But do you know what is the most crucial thing that will speed up your recovery?”.

What’s that?

A strong will to recover.

~***~

The kind of optimism user 100dollar throws at Jongin, in contrary, stirred an uncomfortable rage beneath his chest. It was the type of optimism he always sees coming from these so-called-motivators who only know yelling as a method to speak. It was so ing . And impractical.

Ha, ha. Funny. You got a great sense of humor there.

Notice that I said ‘strong will’, not ‘strong hope’.

Hope is empty, hollow, and foolish. Like a bedtime story for kids. Yet, strong will is empowering. It will spur you to go beyond your limit.

Think about the things you can do when you recover. And think about the things you can’t do if you don’t.

Are you willing to let go of dancing forever because you don’t want to build a strong will?

Remember that remorse will last for decades, and even for a lifetime.

What user 100dollar just said has him taken aback. 

How does this person know what he wa