Kyungsoo had always been a very lethargic person.

When he hadn't school, he would laze around in bed and pray his mother didn't remember he was at home. When he actually had something to do, he would only do the strict minimum, always complaining about how that thing – whatever it was – was a waste of his sleeping time. Nothing had ever been able to trigger his interest nor had anything ever been able to bring a – sincere – smile to his face, nor tears to his eyes.

As long as he could remember, he had always lived in his own little word where positive – or any strong – emotions had never been able to enter. He didn't know what joy and excitement felt like nor what kind of pain a deep sorrow was able to cause. He felt like an outsider in his own life. He had the impression he was watching, from someone else's eyes, the life he was supposed to lead with the people he was supposed to love – or despise.

He wasn't an insensitive person though, even though he was unable to understand feelings to their fullest, he knew when to show compassion to someone, when to comfort them or to feign ignorance. He knew how to act with the people around him and in the society he was born into. He knew it all and he played his role smoothly.

The problem was exactly that though, it was all just a never ending play.

Deep inside, he felt nothing apart from an impression of detachment in regards of everything and everyone. He didn't hate or despise people, but he didn't appreciate or love them either – not even family.

He himself didn't know why he was like this, his life was pretty normal. He had had no traumatic experience, and had no physical complex. He wasn't bullied and nothing that could have made him this way had ever happened. Instead, he had loving parents and older sister, supportive friends – whom he was unable to tell how he had been able to get close to – and normal grades at school.

He just didn't feel compelled to impress anyone, or to work hard to accomplish goals people expected him to have, and most of the time he kept quiet, only watching through his lifeless eyes, as the world kept spinning without his help.

Sometimes, as he watched his friends laughing and playing around, going to parties, dating, playing a sport or simply mastering some passions such as singing and dancing, and found himself bored out of his mind, completely uninterested in any other thing than sleeping, he would wonder why he was even alive.

He asked himself that every night as he went to sleep and every time people asked him what he wanted to be later.

He wondered why he was granted such a good life when more worthy people weren't. Why was he born if he hadn't a purpose to keep on holding to, through his life.

To be honest, these questions haunted him all the time, but he had never expected to find an answer to them because his lethargy always got the best of him, and he constantly questioned why he had to waste his energy for such useless worries.

Of course, having friends and a family like his, he had been compelled to try doing things other than just staying in his room. They had made him try out many things: sports, arts, poetry, drama, none had worked. Not even music, singing – which he did quite well – had sparkled his interest and soon, all of them slowly gave up.

As time passed, his friends quitted inviting him to parties, and rarely called him to hang out. They all knew that most of the time the answer would be no – if there was an answer at all – and in the rare times Kyungsoo did agree on hanging out with them, they did their best to entertain the always-bored-looking teen.

And their persistence in being by his side never failed to surprise Kyungsoo and bring to him that faint warmness he wasn't able to explain, the more trivial and transient it was. It amazed him that none of his friends had ever given up on him completely. It was the contrary even, their group only seemed to grow larger with time and he was stunned at how all these people seemed to care a lot about him.

He was conscious he had to do something to thank their support, though he just didn't have the energy to, the desire to put efforts on anything; not even uttering out a simple thank you, because these words seemed pointless to him – just like everything else.

That's why he had made up his mind a long time ago to just stick to the “right-things-to-do” list he had built up over the years, so that no one would bother him into doing something extraordinary.

He would live his life as anyone did.

He would find a work, maybe find someone to marry – just for the sake of keeping his façade –, have children – maybe – and hope his days were counted so that he wouldn't have to pretend to be normal longer. Actually, he hoped his days would come to an end even before he would have to start doing something more than just going to school.

However, he didn't find the energy to fix that matter by himself, because even the idea of suicide was boring and unworthy his efforts.

That was the Do Kyungsoo people failed to notice. A Kyungsoo tired, hopeless, depressed and frustrated with himself. He had never hoped for his life to change, for some kind of light to gleam at the end of this dark tunnel he was walking in.

That is... until his path crossed hers.

In that life, where he had never been able to grasp the meaning of feeling, Kyungsoo found himself lost and terrified as his stone-like heart seemed to beat for the first time since his birth.

Words like beautiful or ugly had never been a part of his vocabulary. He had never understood why people found it necessary to label things or others with these adjectives. For him it was of no use seeing as how everyone liked to claim the equality of the human kind. And he had always wondered why they all insisted in separating people based on completely subjective standards of beauty.

He had never bothered to make the comparison himself, but in that moment, he had found the necessity to.

Somehow, he understood.

Somewhere in the darkest corners of his mind, synonyms of these words seems to battle against each other as he fought to define that being his had laid his eyes on.

She was far from ugly but she wasn't beautiful. She was beyond it, she was stunning, mesmerizing, dazzling, wonderful, flawless. He had found himself shying out, voice hesitant and hoarse. Eyes unable to meet hers as Taemin introduce them to his cousin.

Even her name was perfect. Lee Jieun. Ji Eun.

And despite the cold and distant feeling he knew he gave out, she had smiled at him and sat by his side the whole time, trying to include him in a conversation he wasn't interested in.

The night following that, he had been unable to sleep well. Her face being the only thing in his mind and her name on his lips.

For days after their first meeting, Kyungsoo tried to understand what was happening to him. He tried to understand why it was happening. He felt overwhelmed by whatever had been triggered inside of him.

It was as if Jieun's arrival had caused some kind of tsunami of unknown emotions in his heart, and she didn't even seem to notice it. 

He had the impression he could go crazy.

She was everywhere. During classes, during lunch, after school at the café they used to go to before going home. She seemed to have become an official member of their large group of friends. And, the first person to have ever made Kyungsoo to actually want to be there.

He didn't know why, when or how it had happened, he just wanted to.

Perhaps it was the way she looked at him, or the way she called his name. Maybe it was how she smiled at him and how her eyes transformed into crescents, twinkling with an innocence he had never seen before. Or it was probably the sound of her voice, that soothing melody that seem to bring peace to the world as well as it caused a chaos in his heart and mind. A chaos he found himself drawn to.

It was probably just her being herself.

But one thing was for sure: she cared. When he would just sit there and observe his friends being the teens they were, Jieun would nudge him and smile. She would – try to – start a conversation with him, try to make him respond somehow to the environment surrounding them. When he would keep his blank face, she would poke at his cheeks and call him cute names.

It hadn't worked at first, but the second time, he had felt himself give her a small smile. A small true smile. And each time they met, during hours after parting with her, he would still feel his racing heart and that fluttering in his stomach with the only memory of her. It was the first time he was feeling like this and he wondered if he wasn't getting sick but he soon, understood he only felt this when with Jieun and even though at first he didn't like it, he couldn't keep his distances with her.

Kyungsoo was – again – unable to tell how, but he found himself getting closer and closer to her. She spoke to him so friendly, not different from the others honestly, but still different in a way he just couldn't define.

Weeks passed with Kyungsoo being drawn to her a little more each day, with him slowly starting to ignore - and get used to - the physical manifestations of the feelings she provoked him, telling himself it was probably normal. He was, in reality, grateful she had been able to make him actually feel something other than emptiness. It was weird, sometimes uncomfortable, be he has started to appreciate it.

If there was something good that had ever happened in his life, it was Jieun.

The strangest thing though, was how his family and other friends were reacting about it. All of them seemed utterly surprised by his changes and couldn't help but steal amused and sometimes weird glances at him when he started speaking or when he smiled. They would ask him if he was okay when he spaced out or when he would blush while talking to Jieun on the phone.

However the first person to actually react about it was his older sister.

Kyungsoo had never been able to create a special bond with anyone, but his sister was some kind of exception. Miyoung would always take his side when his mother would scold him for not doing anything and she was the only one who didn't try to make him change his habits, thus Kyungsoo having always been closer to her than anybody else. It was more than normal then, that she was beyond freaked out with her brother's sudden change of attitude.

She had stormed inside his bedroom one night and proceeded on interrogating him. She had questioned his unusual behaviour, pushing him to think about his real reasons for having changed like this.

“Come on Kyungie, trust me.” she had said. “Tell me what is happening.”

It had taken only that for Kyungsoo to find himself telling his sister about how he felt. About the strange butterflies in his stomach, about his dry mouth and racing heart. About how alive he felt when around that girl he barely knew.

Though now, that he thought about it, he maybe shouldn't have spilled his heart out to Miyoung that easily. He found himself in front of Jieun's house and his sister cheering on him from her car parked on the pavement.

“Confess to her.” Miyoung had said back in his room. “I'm sure she likes you back.”

Kyungsoo had speared his sister a doubtful glance, asking her how she could be sure and the elder had replied that “a girl knows”.

“Besides,” she had kept on. “She wouldn't give you that much attention if she didn't feel anything for you.”

Kyungsoo would have questioned his sister more, asked her about the - high - possibility of Jieun only seeing him as a special friend, but she had forced him inside her car before he could say anything else, telling him how happy she was he was finally living, and demanding Jieun's address.

“You have to confess now,” she had assured him when he had asked why she wanted to know. “before you lose confidence.”

The teen had made sure to inform her that he couldn't lose what he didn't have, but Miyoung had just brushed his words off. She had stopped by a convenience store and bought a set of heart shaped chocolates – Kyungsoo ignored the existence of – and given him the pink package, saying that it wasn't Valentine's day but that he could still act like it.

He swallowed in dry, the unknown feelings squeezing themselves in the constricted space of his agitated heart. He blinked several times and considered going back to the car and admitting defeat. But knowing his sister, she would have forced him to walk up to the door again.

He was feeling uncomfortable to the point he had the impression he would start hyperventilating at any moment or worse: faint right then and there.

It was so strange and so good at the same time, he didn't know how to qualify his thoughts on it.

“Kyungsoo!” he heard his sister yell. “Go on!”

He took in a deep breath, maybe his sister was right: he had to do it now even though he hadn't prepared anything. He would  have to trust his instincts for once. It was time for him to do and experience new things, he decided. He would start with this.

Raising his hand, he pressed the door bell with a trembling finger, subconsciously praying no one was at home. Of course, his subconscious hopes were scattered when the door opened revealing a beaming Jieun.

“Oh, Hi Kyungsoo,” she had said. “what are you doing here?”

Finding himself there, confronted to the only person having ever awakened feelings in him, he became speechless. What was he to say anyway? “I like you”? What could be lamer than that?

“Kyungsoo?” Jieun called, frowning. “Are you okay?”

He gulped before shoving the chocolates into her hands, muttering a shy “it's for you” without looking into her eyes.

Jieun gaped at him shocked for a second before staring at the pretty package in her hands.

“What is-”

She was cut off as Kyungsoo advanced, taking one of her hands in his and holding it tight, still unable to look into her eyes. He didn't know what he was doing, but he knew he had to do something. He had to tell her.

“I've been trapped with myself for so long,” he said, finding it hard to breath. “I thought I'd never be free... But then you came... you opened my cage, you encouraged me to get out and I didn't cower from you...”

“Kyungsoo...”

“You were- No. You are, the only one to make me feel like this.” he went on, ignoring her. “To make me feel... alive.”

“Kyungsoo...” Jieun repeated, more pointedly.

But he wouldn't hear.

“Jieun I-”

He breathed in, mind racing to find the right words.

"There's something...” he said, voice trembling. “something about you that... that I can't explain.”

Almost choking he gathered his courage to meet her – shocked – gaze.

“Something that is mesmerizing.” he told her. “Something that tugs... that tugs on my heartstrings."

He stopped for a second, scanning her eyes, these beautiful dark-brown orbs that were staring back at him and questioning his doings.

“Kyungsoo... what are trying to say?” she dared to ask.

“I- I like you, Jieun.” he said. “I never felt it before...but I know I like you...more than a friend...”

Mere seconds passed. Maybe even a minute or two, but for Kyungsoo eternity felt shorter than the lapse of time in which he was confronted to her silence.

Something... something different from the feelings he had experienced until there, slowly creeping up his throat. Something he couldn't define, yet knew was far from positive.

“I'm sorry.” the words uttered by Jieun were like a bucket of freezing water thrown on fire. “I don't- Kyungsoo, you're my friend... I-”

He didn't need anything else. He wasn't stupid. He knew it couldn't end well when it started like this. He felt in his throat a lump, and what he could describe as he heart sinking to his stomach, it's racing pace slowing down.

“Kyungsoo, come in.” she said, pulling her hand out of his grasp before taking a step back and opening the door wider. “Let's talk okay? I'm sure you're confused... I like you too, but not-”

Kyungsoo didn't let her finish her sentence. He shook his head numbly, muttering small apologies and telling her to forget what just happened. He slowly cowered, his only desire being to run away as far as he could from there. He wanted to hide, to put his armour back and disappear.

Now he knew what he was feeling. It was disappointment, sadness... the usual and commonly known heartbreak.

After he had descended the steps to her door, he turned his back and ran to his sister's car, ignoring Jieun's calls for him. Once inside the vehicle, he also ignored his Miyoung's questions and told her to simply drive home.

Blank mask back on his face, and eyes stinging.

He didn't say a word to his sister and went straight to his bedroom, where, once he found himself hidden within the comfortable and secure loneliness of his room, salty drops started spilling from his eyes.

And, as he cried for what felt like the first time, choking on his sobs and undesired emotions invading his once untouched heart and mind, tagging his once blank walls, freshly painted pink, with ugly black shapes; he begged, to whatever or whoever with the power to fulfil his wish, not to feel any more.

If that was what feeling consisted in, he rather live with no emotion at all or die right then and there.

Initial cards: 

Phrase: "There's something about you that I can't explain. Something that is mesmerizing. Something that tugs on my heartstrings."

Ending: No one ends up together.

Table 10 (chosen) cards:

genre: angst

phrase: "trust me"

prompt: "When I met you, flowers started growing in the darkest corners of my mind." - Unknown

A/N: I'm sorry, this is so lame T_T Let's see where it gets me... I hope you enjoyed.