"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

-T.S. Eliot

As the sun continues to shine, illuminating every crevice and every crack, Seolhyun’s mind ticks and tocks like a grandfather clock awaiting noon. With a freshly printed newspaper in her hand and a steaming mug of hot coffee beckoning her name, she lazes on the couch somewhat leisurely even though her stiff back begs to differ. It is only nine o’clock and her pupils have become sharp and anxious as she flickers them back and forth between the television and the telephone.

She waits in complete silence as her thoughts cloud her already nauseous mind. But she has done this before, and experience reminds her that the aromatic beverage waiting for her will not be able to sustain its temperature and flavour if she plans on pursuing her fleeting thoughts. She nods to nobody in particular and retrieves the bitter drink that anticipates its own death.

If she were to count using her fingers, the mere tips of her existence, she would not have an appropriate number. It had been days, nearly an entire month, since he had been out completing his “tasks”. The vexing subject never left her without a stinging reminder of her loneliness.

Raising the mug of caffeinated goodness to her lips she takes a cautious sip and proceeds to toss the newspaper onto the desolate countertop and slump into a bar stool.

“Local Hero Stops Bank Robbery”, reads the laconic title. Seolhyun frowns knowingly.

Deciding that another dose of the stimulating drink is needed to read the pressing article on the front page she takes an even larger gulp, letting the heat burn her tongue to keep her distress at bay. But the pain is nothing in comparison to what she feels every night.

As she leans on the sticks she calls her arms, her eyes scan the page with curiosity that is overpowered by discomfort.

“Local hero, self named “Lay”, has done it once again by halting a bank robbery downtown saving more than twenty civilians last night. This robbery has been the fourth attempt this week by the well known robbers and arsonists of the city who are still out to claim ownership over the city’s riches.”

She inadvertently causes her frown to deepen and skim reads until she finds his name again.

“The local hero Lay has been causing quite a stir lately having saved many civilians from tragic occurrences. This successful rescue mission marks his twenty third accomplishment so far. Rumours have been circulating about an official inauguration into the police force as well as a special event with the mayor himself. It is safe to say that this city’s Spiderman will achieve great things.”

At the mention of his name matched with one of a famous fictional superhero she releases a sardonic cackle that echoes wickedly in their empty apartment. Her scornful laughter is similar to that of a witch, but in her own mind, she is anything but the villain.

The chuckling begins to ebb away until her voice completely disappears. Like Ariel relinquishing her speech to Ursula, she has lost the ability to speak. The sore itch in pleads for nourishment, for the refreshing drink in her hand. But for some reason, this time her hand says no and refuses to comfort her aching throat because the raw pain needs to bring her back to her senses.

She plops the mug back onto the countertop, letting it click as the glass complains upon impact with the granite. A forceful hand shoves the newspaper into the merciless bin where all the others lay. They call to her, asking for forgiveness like the way he did on earlier nights when he was actually home for dinner. But her hearing is impaired to liars and no longer weak to false promises.

She walks back to the reclining couch and returns to the former position she had adopted before she decided to indulge herself in the invigorating coffee. However this time, there is no freshly printed newspaper in her hand, nothing beckons her name and her mind begins to tick and tock like a stopwatch.

“When will he be home?” she says hoarsely, almost soundlessly but not quite. Her voice, fragile like her worn heart, had reached its capacity, but still endured the torture and retained some of its former self. For the last time in her life, she would speak to him.

Even if that meant her heart would never heal and her words would be silent.

…

Two minutes before midnight and her tormented body curls into a tiny ball made of diamonds. She does not want to break in front of him, cannot allow herself to break in front of him. Not now, and not after what he did to her. The invisible protective shell of precious jewels she wears eases her mind slightly, for only another diamond can cleanly cut it. And she’s more than certain that he would be ill prepared for what was to come.

She lies on the pristine couch opposite the front door in complete silence and ensuing darkness. Even though the curtains are drawn and the moon glows vibrantly with its children, the atmosphere is drab. Seolhyun lurks in the obscurity.

She keeps her dark eyes trained on the door; beady and alert. Whatever ounce of sympathy and gentleness she had previously is no longer present. She had given up her innocence and loving nature a long time ago.

The ticking and tocking in her head is that of a cuckoo clock; the pesky little bird preparing to spring out and announce the death of an old day and the birth of a new. Waiting with these thoughts in her mind made the bird eager to jump out and end her anticipation. However, only he could do that. Every time he turned the key in the lock.

 A hint of bright light flickers in the corner of her peripheral vision. She turns her head to meet something she had forgotten existed. Resting inconspicuously on the minuscule corner table in the most overlooked area of their apartment was a photograph. Wrapped in a frame of intricate silver birds that glint with the reflection of the moonlight, the plain weathered photograph was a sight for sore eyes.

It depicts a couple, no older than nineteen intertwined in an enthralling embrace. The boy’s eyes are joyous crescents and his dimples are visible as he grins at the camera with an I-know-something-you-don’t look while he holds on to the girl as if she is his lifeline. The girl in the picture does not look at the camera. She is completely oblivious that a picture is being taken, that she is one of the muses and that she will be framed and set in the corner of her future home. She does not know any of this because she is looking at him.

The girl in the picture does not smile, and now Seolhyun understands why. She does not smile because it is a measly gesture that will never reveal her genuine feelings for the boy who has his arms wrapped around her. It is because the girl in the photograph, with the raven flowing hair and curious glint in her eyes, is falling in love with the boy she is with. And that blissful feeling of blossoming love consumes her whole so that he is the only thing present.

A whimper catches in Seolhyun’s throat. The reminiscent feeling of loving him and being loved by him was a wonderful dream. When they were naïve teenagers who loved on a whim, before reality hit them like a train, before he tried to become a better person and she lost herself to her own solitude.

A small spurt of water threatens to cascade down her untouched cheek but she shrugs it away as if it were a fly. She fears she is turning cold for not having the courage to cry anymore but reassures herself that it is a sign of her strength for not wasting tears on him when he isn’t even around.

The sound of gears being shifted and knobs being shimmied awake her from the trance. Her intrepid gaze falls back on the front door as she watches the door handle slowly rotate. It takes seconds, milliseconds even, to open a door. Yet, when he does it, it feels like years.

Finally the door creaks open, groaning as it usually does whenever it refuses to be opened, and then his figure appears. Lanky and proper, he is covered by a trench coat which he casually shrugs off onto the floor and allows himself a large yawn.

He does not see her yet but she sees him. His sudden appearance causes her senses to sharpen and her will to intensify. She wonders when the last time was that they actually spoke to each other face to face. She cannot even remember when she last saw his face even though they had been living under the same roof for a long time.

As he inches his hand towards the light switch her cracked voice halts him.

“Hello Yixing.” Her words sound broken but they still hold the desired effect.

In response, Lay’s body tenses as he slowly turns towards her with a sheepish look plastered on his face. As an apology is ready to roll off of his tongue she rises from the couch and stops him once again.

“We need to talk,” she says briskly, similar to the way a balloon would immediately pop when in contact with a dangerously sharp knife.

Without even waiting for a reply or sign of acknowledgment she strides past him and out the door. Lay tilts his head in a confused fashion before hurriedly following her as she makes a decisive left turn and ambles up the monochrome staircase.

As she guides him up the flights towards the final destination she cannot help but be astounded by her sudden strength. The cowardly girl who tarried in the apartment for endless days had not made an appearance. She was no longer Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince Charming to awaken her from a dreamless slumber. No, she could already do that herself. This time, Sleeping Beauty had a score to settle and a plethora of hurt emotions to shed.

Upon reaching the final hindrance she squeezes her small frame through the neglected door and saunters out onto the balcony of the apartment building. As her toes crunch against the miscellaneous pebbles that have been scattered on the ground to make the rooftop more appealing she almost smiles. The slight twinges of pain that poke her feet feel like kisses to her cheeks.

They are warm, they are welcome, and they are soon long forgotten.

She stops near the edge where the city lights soar high above to the land of the unknown and where the edge of the building visually meets the concrete of the pavement below. An irritable thought flickers through her mind as she notes his approaching footsteps. They walk without harmony or rhythm.

“Seolhyun, what’s going on?” he coos, almost oblivious to the situation at hand.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she replies harshly, the bitter twang in her voice being the only thing keeping her steady. “But … try to.” She still retains her cold exterior but she sounds as if she is pleading. And she is.

He swallows as the discomfort begins to build in his throat. He gives her a simple nod even though she cannot see it. She is too enraptured in the wonders of the industrialised world to even take a peek at him.

“Can you imagine what it must be like to be Spiderman?” she says with a faux playful tone. He swallows again as he notices she has read the article. “He shoots the bad guys, is loved by the people of the city, gets the girl. He has all this fame, fortune, power. He’s idolised like a god by the lowly people he rescues.” At this sentiment she chuckles cruelly to herself but Lay does not understand what is so humorous. “But, and there is always a but, there was a price to pay. What happened to Mary Jane? His friend, his lover. She was constantly kept waiting at the sidelines and she stayed there. Yes, she had her own life to live, but when Peter Parker’s was far too big that she couldn’t even step outside without hearing about him everywhere, she resorted to solitude.”

She feels like howling to the moon. She wishes to turn into anything but herself; a werewolf, a vampire, anything. She cannot bear to be the monster that she is transforming into with every word that slips out of ; with each emotion that unveils the truth.

“Solitude leads a person down frightening roads,” she says devoid of life.

He tenses at her remark and cannot seem to comprehend what she is saying. “But, Seolhyun, their relationship works out in the end. What are you talking about?”

His ignorant response unintentionally ignites a burning flame of hatred within her. It was that he couldn’t understand at all that really made her want to scream. “Are you mocking me?” She is hauntingly close to her breaking point.

“No.”

She whips around at the word and stares at him with a menacing gaze. This is the first time in days that she is able to see his face with clarity. Illuminated by the moonlight he is just like the boy in the photograph but he is missing the gaze that holds a secret. She remembers the boy with the dimples and adorable eyes and begins to feel lost.

“Stop doing this to me!” She crows with fragments of desolation visible in her tone.

“Doing what?” He asks, his own voice rising as well. “Being a role model? Helping other people?”

She feels herself shaking with rage like an earthquake that has the ability to destroy millions. “YES!”

He snorts in contempt. “I thought you understood what I was doing. You said you did. I’m doing a good thing out there.”

“Don’t you dare make me sound like the bad guy Zhang Yixing!”

“But you don’t see it,” he yells as his fury matches her own. “You’re being selfish!”

This is the point where she lets her armour disintegrate. The protective diamond shield had been shattered with one word.

Selfish.

That’s what she was. She was selfish because she missed him and wanted him all to herself. She had never looked at herself negatively before. She never considered herself pompous or arrogant or shallow. But being called selfish by a man who had once called her selfless was a diamond bullet to the heart.

For the first time in a month, she weeps freely.

“Can’t I be selfish? For just once in my life, can’t I be selfish?” She questions quietly as her voice carries notes that echo of lonely nights asleep in their king sized bed and old post-it notes with written pinky promises of coming home earlier.

He stays silent as the regretful tears tarnish her porcelain face. He never wanted to see her cry.

“Is it selfish to want my fiancée to just come home on time?” As she says this she holds up her left hand that is shaking violently as her entire being is rattled with grief. The sterling silver band that cradles her finger is enough to make his eyes dart away with guilt. “Is it selfish to want him to hold me again? Is it selfish to want to not have to keep watching the TV and the phone constantly out of fear that he could have been hurt?” Her breath hitches in . “Is it selfish to want to smile again?”

Her tears are flowing freely now. Like the raging rapids of the Han River, a tsunami wiping out the lives many people had taken years to meticulously build; she was destructive and uncontrollable. The slivers of water falling from her lifeless orbs wreak havoc amongst her cheeks. She is suddenly tired and weary. Where is her surprising strength?

“Seolhyun-”

“But the hero forgets these things sometimes. What it truly means to be forgotten,” she interjects simply. And on cue, she steps up onto the ledge and glances down below at the barren street that mirrors her heart.

“Hey.” He reaches for her arms out of habit and concern but a spiteful slap lands on his face. The burning sensation of being touched by her is something he had never forgotten. And this one brutal touch was enough to trigger something within him.

“I used to love you. I gave you my heart, and I thought you knew what to do with it. I blindly followed you into this life that I don’t want and I can’t control.” Trails of anguish run amuck on her once beautiful complexion. “But you’ve done something to me. I’m broken. The girl that you knew five years ago, she’s lost. And, I’m starting to wonder if she still exists.”

Her left foot meagrely hovers over a streetlight down below. She is prepared. Her mind ticks and tocks like a timer. It is the final countdown on the time bomb she calls her life.

But something is wrong.

The ticking and tocking is near its end but she cannot bear to bring her feet to walk over to the other side. Even though her mind convinces her she is ready to cross the boundaries between life and death her feet disagree with her. They deny her that privilege; it is just another selfish deed.

His hands slowly grasp her waist firmly. The girl he holds in his hands cannot be taken by Death. The Grim Reaper would have to wait.

“I just wanted you to save me,” she mutters under her breath. Her words are as light as the wind and they’re carried off with the night air. But not before he catches them.

Reluctantly, she steps down. Her feet make contact with the stones that prick her toes and she admits defeat. His hands are still on her waist and they gently reach up to the soft expanse of her war torn face.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

His fingers are warm on her face. They send mini electric shocks throughout her body. Now she remembers why she waited for him. It was because she desired to live with this feeling of contentment, of love, of company. And she was willing to stay patient for a long time.

Soundlessly, her glacial fingers remove his hands. And she walks away. Like Rapunzel returning to her tower of detachment, Cinderella retreating to a past she never chose, like a shell being swept up by the currents and brought back to the ocean where nothing waits for it.

…

It is three minutes to two.

She has almost finished packing. The various clothes and knick knacks she owns are strewn across the floor as she attempts to stuff everything into her medium sized suitcase. She questions why she had not done this trivial duty earlier if she had anticipated what was coming. But no matter, she still does what she must.

Shoving anything that appears slightly feminine onto the growing pile that looks like the aftermath of a hurricane she allows herself a second to think of where he is and why he hasn’t arrived yet. But to dwell on the impossible is something that she is too good at, so good at that she now knows when to give up.

With a sigh she scurries to the bathroom to find her toiletries. The tiles are unsurprisingly cold to her bare feet. With the bathroom too foreign and too dangerous to navigate in pure darkness she flips the light switch on.

She gasps.

Standing in front of her is an unruly girl covered in chaos. Her eyes are burned with charcoal black rings alluding to lack of sleep, her lips are cracked like the desert floor, her hair is a bird’s nest, and her entire body is sickly pale and thin. She stifles a scream as she scrutinises the monster that has graced her presence.

“Who are you?” She shrieks raising her hand to the cool surface to immediately jerk it back. She had touched the consequence of his heroics and her patience. And it burned like acid.

Sliding a trembling finger across the top of her shirt she stares at the unsightly bones that protrude her skin. It makes her sick.

A clump of cotton balls blocks her oesophagus as she tries to digest who she sees. No, it is what she sees.

Seolhyun’s mind ticks and tocks unlike any clock in existence. It is just a combination of infuriating ticks and tocks that torture her each time. The agonising rhythm violently consumes her.

She has gone through the physical metamorphosis. She is finally the monster she had feared.

Inside and out.

…

The moon hangs low as it casts its sympathy for the girl who lay tangled underneath the bed sheets. The room is empty and neglected of life. Just a single room filled with a king sized bed and a suitcase ready for departure. She lies on her side, lips pursed and eyes shut as she attempts to erase the living nightmare she had seen an hour ago. But like all memories, treasured and feared, the nightmare still lingers in her mind keeping every sense tense and awake.

The symphony of rusted metal against rusted metal followed eagerly by a creaking noise resounds as the door allows one more person into the melancholic room. He is tired and torn just like her, but he has not reached the point of defeat.

The thick sound of padding feet on the carpet forces her to keep her eyes squeezed close but she does not move. She waits and anticipates.

With ginger movements he peels the edge of the blanket up slightly and falls into the comforting embrace of the bed. Tenderly, his right arm crosses over to encircle her small figure and rest with calloused hand on top of calloused hand. Her heart begins to beat notably faster for the first time in what feels like eternity.

He does not say anything. Mainly because the last few words he had spoken to her were malicious whippings onto her already scarred back. Every word only concurred with the notion that he was an enemy. And that was not who he wanted to be to her.

So, in the place of his meaningless apology he places a tender kiss on the back of her fragile head. It speaks of a true apology in comparison to the string of words that begin with “I’m sorry” and end with “forgive me.” He his nose against the back of her head hoping that she’ll accept. Her eyes pop open but she remains as still as a statue.

His steady hand envelopes her weak one and emits warmth into her palm. He inextricably nestles in closer to her and submits to the allurement of sleep.

The moonlight that streams in slowly fades, reminding her that soon the sun will return and the cycle will persist. But she does not contemplate this fact. She is listening, for the ticks and tocks that have reverberated within her mentality for the duration of the tumultuous month she had lived through.

 But there is something else.

Inhale, exhale. His breathing beside her is placid and constant. The intake of oxygen and the surrender of carbon dioxide. His stable breaths find their way to her ear, this time, murmuring no words at all. And this is how she prefers it.

Her hand that is captured within his gives it a small squeeze and gradually she is lulled into the dreamland.

And this is the first time she does not toss and turn in her slumber. The first time she does not feel like an insomniac imposter. The first time she is not a princess or fictional character. The first time she resembles someone with their sanity still intact.

And, it is the first time that she does not sleep in an empty bed.

The End(?)

A/N: And it is done ~ First time writing in present tense so it was slightly challenging but it helped me build up my mental thesaurus. Thanks for reading and I'd love it if you guys commented. If you have any questions comment below and I shall answer ~ Everything, and when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING, was done on purpose. And to cut down my sob story to just six words; long day, long week, long life. Thank you for your support and thanks for reading and I don't know what else to say now. OKAY BYE ^^