Chaerin stares at the ocean, her eyes unblinking.

If things come full circle, it is here and now, she thinks.

This is where her sister’s body was found, pulled from the water, blue, her eyes red and open and lifeless.

And years ago, in this same beach-

“Chaerin, wait for me!!”

Giggles.

“Catch me if you can, Dara.”

A laugh, young and careless and echoing through the wind.

“Got you!”

A child and her sister. The beach and the sun, and innocence and-

The death of such a thing as innocence.

If things come full circle, Chaerin thinks, it’s here. And it’s now.

She breathes and even the air is salty.

The quiet suspends the moment, brings fake peace.

She breathes and even the air is bitter.

Her blond hair is now a whirlwind around her face, her hands clench a letter.

She opens it, reads it again, though she knows every word by heart.

“To Chaerin,

I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know.

I love him but he won’t have him, his mother opposes us. I carry his child and they want me to abort and I think I’m being followed, and I am scared.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, Chaerin.

We promised each other we’ll find happiness, and I failed. I think. But this is my wish for you: Don’t fail too. Find your happiness, Chaerinnie.

 Let go of the hate.

Whatever happens, chose the right path.

PS: I love you forever.”

Chose the right path.

Dara meant happiness.

Chaerin chooses revenge.

***

She spots her target.

Choi Seunghyun, heir of the Choi Enterprise.

He majors in Business and Economics and so, she does as well. She went to great lengths to transfer from the Busan University of Foreign Studies, where she followed her dream to become a translator, to the Chung-Ang University (CAU). She had to use connections, her inheritance money and her forged identity to make it happen.

Her schedule is the exact copy of his, she made sure of that.

They’re in their Finance class, and the professor has yet to come. She makes her way towards Seughyun.

He’s sitting in the front row, looking pristine and proper and well groomed.

He has that air about him. That superiority glow most rich people detain.

He lifts his head and their eyes lock.

 He smiles, inviting. She smiles back, fake.

“Chaerin” he says and beckons her to approach.

She does.

“Oppa!!” she says, voice chipper.

He saved her the seat beside him, and Chaerin almost wants to laugh at how ridiculously easy it had been to lure him in.

Two months ago, she was a stranger to him.

Today, she is his official girlfriend.

She is beautiful and smart and sarcastic, and Seughyun hadn’t stood a chance.

He doesn’t know she’s broken, and he seems like the kind of person vain enough to think he’d be the one to fix her if he knew…She’ll break him before he tries.

Next to her, Seughyun snorts.

“Look at that clown” he says.

She turns, spots a face she’s seen before, under a map of hair that, just last week, was a dark blue.

Now, it’s dyed a vibrant red.

“Kwon Jiyong” he’d presented himself that first day in the library, a huge smile on his face.

She hadn’t given him an ounce of attention, too preoccupied then by getting close to her target.

“I like you”, he had said, startling her, because who does that? Who says “hi, nice to meet you. I like you…”

Kwon Jiyong, that’s who. He hadn’t even seemed embarrassed as she had looked down on him.

“Not a big fan of talking, huh?” he’d just said. “ That‘s okay, I’m a big talker. I can talk for two.”

That’s when she had left.

***

She keeps close to Seughyun.

She pouts and smiles and uses aegyo.

And when she’s not with him, she follows him around, knows his every move, where he is, where he’s supposed to be.

She doesn’t have a plan of attack.

She’s a little girl, lost.

But she’s thinking, planning.

She’s a young woman, vengeful.

And Seughyun will pay.

She’s a sister, grieving.

***

Sometimes, just sometimes, Chaerin thinks that-

Dara was so vibrant with life (vibrant is the word, with life yes, she emanated life from every pore, she breathed life, gave people the desire to live with her young careless smile, was Chaerin’s reason of life at any rate), that sometimes, just sometimes, in her more delusional moments when she’s almost awake but still asleep, she thinks that-

-that death stuck so closely to Dara because it was jealous of the life in her. Maybe even fell in love with her, wanted to shred that innocence apart, to steer the life away.

Sometimes, Chaerin thinks that. And sometimes, she snorts at how utterly stupid she can be.

Sometimes, she cries herself to sleep.

***

Jiyong is like that too. Alive and vibrant with life.

Chaerin would like to warn him.

***

Seunghyun isn’t even the pretentious she thought he was.

Rich, yes. Stuck up, sure.

 But, surprisingly, nice.

And when he smiles, his cheeks reveal dimples.

And when he jokes, he is lame and awkward and funny.

And when he talks, his voice is deep and manly and unlike any other voice she ever heard before.

Chaerin can see the appeal. She can see the boy that charmed her sister, the man that made her fall in love.

She can see the monster that drove her to her early death.

***

“Why is your smile sad?” Jiyong asks.

“It’s not,” she says.

His eyes are a curious brown, his voice a soothing sound.

Seughyun’s voice is deeper, nicer, but-

-Seughyun’s voice is a hated sound. She dreams of it, some nights, screaming hoarse. Those nights, she wakes up satisfied.

“It is”, Jiyong says simply.

When Jiyong smiles, even his eyes smile. Chaerin suspects that’s how he knows the difference.

“Why is your smile fake?” he asks, voice gentler, eyes gentler.

“It’s not.” She says.

He shrugs.

“Liar, liar.”

She huffs, stands up to leave the library.

“Wait.”

His hand on her wrist and the touch is irritating.

“Let go”, she says, glaring at him.

His hand loosens, enough that she could shake it off easily.

She doesn’t.

And he doesn’t let go.

Her heart doesn’t betray her, never. Its beats are regular, and Jiyong won’t sense a thing from the hold he has on her wrist.

Her heart doesn’t betray her, but she’s sure her eyes do when they widen in surprise, as Jiyong’s thumb moves fleetingly on the back of her hand.

“I’d very much like to see you smile, someday” he says.

And it doesn’t matter that she smiles every day, because she knows exactly what he means.

***

Sometimes, she feels like he sees her.

***

The first time Seughyun kisses her, it takes her by surprise-

These same lips kissed Dara’s lips, and.

Dara’s lips were blue when they took her body out of water, and.

Somehow, maybe, in some messed way only her sick mind can manage to conjure, it’s like she’s kissing Dara’s lips, and.

It makes her sick to the stomach, even though he’s a good kisser, and his lips are so soft, and,

-she kisses back.

***

The first time Jiyong kisses her, it takes him by surprise, because he was aiming for her cheek, lands on instead when she turns her face just so.

She kisses back.

***

The day Seughyun introduces her to his mother, she wears her best face, puts on her best smile.

“This is Chaerin”, he tells her.

And Chaerin bows her head in respect.

The woman is old and bitter and powerful. Her carefully painted eyebrows lift in disdain even as she says: “What a lovely young woman you are…Chaerin.”

smiles barely, her every gesture filled with contempt, her gaze judgmental.

‘You are beneath us’ she tells Chaerin with her eyes, and Chaerin imagines her sister in front of this very same woman, facing this very same expression.

She won’t forgive her, she thinks, and says: “Thank you”, with a cute smile.

***

The investigation revealed:

Dara committed suicide.

***

The Choi family deals in underground, Chaerin suspects.

Lee hye, Seughyun’s mother, doesn’t trust her.

But Seughyun does.

He takes her with him when he visits the enterprise.

He invites her over to study together.

He takes her on his yacht and shows her his cars.

And Chaerin watches, plots and gathers evidence.

The Choi family deals in underground, Chaerin knows…

All she has to do is prove it.

***

Jiyong is an artist at heart.

“My responsible side is what makes me study here”, he tells her.

His talks, often, make no sense at all.

“My romantic side likes this, right here, the light of the sun on your hair”, he says.

She laughs because he’s ridiculous, kisses him because she’s ridiculous.

She chose revenge over happiness, and Jiyong is a bad bad influence.

He makes her doubt.

***

“What’s the password?” she asks.

She has Seughyun’s laptop on her knees, and can’t access some files.

“Why?” he asks offhandedly from his spot on the bed. “The article is in an open file.”

 “What are you hiding from me?” she asks, “Yah!! Do you have another girlfriend? Is that it? This is a file with all of your pictures with her, right?”

He chuckles.

“As if I could. Or would. You’re already a handful”.

And he laughs at his own joke.

Chaerin pouts at him.

“You don’t trust me?” she asks, voice a whisper.

And Seughyun, bless his soul, shakes his head frantically.

“Of course I do”, he says. “Here.”

And taps the password.

“See?” he tells her. “Just business related stuff.”

He exits the file.

“I see”, Chaerin says, smiling wide.

***

“I love you”, Seughyun says.

***

She doesn’t tell Jiyong anything.

Not about Dara.

Not about Seughyun.

She doesn’t tell him anything, yet he doesn’t seem to need her to explain.

His eyes bore into her, the curve of his mouth a peaceful thing.

“Fight your demons” he tells her in a whisper, his arms around her.” Don’t let them win.”

She doesn’t tell him they already won.

But then again, she doesn’t need to, because his smile is sad-sad-sad when he hugs her close, closer.

***

The data she gathers from that one file is everything she needed, and more.

Certificates, contracts, names and contacts.

Even videos.

Close, she thinks with a sick sense of trepidation, getting closer.

And feels revived in her determination when she finds a signed contract where it says Dr. Shim Sang-duk , and 5000000 won and-

- abortion.                                                                                                    

***

“This evidence is not enough”, officer Hyunk Suk tells her. “The Chois are a very powerful family…it’ll take more than this to bring them down.”

***

 “I love you too”, she tells Seughyun.

His dimples show and his smile is blinding and-

She really thinks she hates him.

***

Jiyong changes his hair, every now and then.

“I can’t make up my mind, you see.” He tells her. “I think this orange color suits me.”

He smiles, and his gums show.

Chaerin treads her hand in his soft hair.

“I think it suits you, too.”

***

“Hey Chaerin…”

Seughyun’s voice is quiet, a little different from the booming sound she’s used to.

“hmm?”

Silence, then:

“What did you say your sister’s name was?”

It takes her but a heartbeat, and a gasp, and an eternity, to choke out:” I’m an only child, oppa...I told you that.”

She looks at him, and realizes that-

He knows.

His frown is sad and serious.

“You’re playing with fire”, he tells her.”Disappear.”

***

Chaerin stares at the ocean, her eyes unblinking.

If things come full circle, Chaerin thinks, it’s here. And it’s now.

“So that’s your special place, huh”, Jiyong says.

His hair is black, soft curls playing in the breeze.

“We have to stop seeing each other”, she says.

He chuckles, a sad distant sound.

“Is that why you brought me here?” he asks.

She shrugs.

He is a hindrance, she can’t be with him anymore.

She’d been a fool to hope, an idiot to dream.

Her choice was made, she shouldn’t have doubted.

She turns her back to him, walks a few steps.

“Wait” he says.

Don’t, she thinks.

But he does. He says:

“I love you.”

She doesn’t answer.

***

When they were kids, they- Chaerin and Dara, Dara and Chaerin- used to play Pretend.

They would pretend they were pirates, princesses, birds…they could be anything.

Chaerin still plays, sometimes.

She pretends she’s dead.

A false child hanging on to her false dream.

A false dead in her false tomb.

Somehow, it isn’t the same if she plays alone.

***

“Kwon Jiyong, a twenty three years old student in the Chung-Ang University, was found murdered in his dorm room, this very morning. The authorities assure us that the culprits will be turned into custody. The investigation is still-“

All she can think about is how she never even answered, never even said anything as he stood there, at the edge of the ocean, with his beautiful hair, and beautiful heart, and earnest eyes, saying “I love you”, and she never even said I love you too.

And the funny thing is, she does.

She does.

God, she does.

***

Such is the state of things.

Some words need not be outspoken.

Some feelings need not be explained.

Some losses need not be grieved.

There’s a girl. And there’s a void.

And there’s longing, anchored within.

Saudade is one word for it, the Portuguese attempt to describe it.

That term has no direct translation in English.

-End-.

AN:  Here are my cards:

genre: tragedy ---(initial card)

genre: College AU

Prompt1: “The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity—it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.” - Life of Pi ---(initial card)

Phrase: “Fight your demons. Don’t let them win.”

Prompt2: “ The Portuguese call it Saudade: a longing for something so indefinite as to be indefinable. Love affairs, miseries of life, the way things were, people already dead, those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land –all things born of the soul that can only be felt.” –Anthony De Sa, Barnacle Love.