I'm going to built a sandcastle with a strong foundation. I'm gonna build one that stands and lasts. At least that's what she tells herself all the time, but deep down she knows that sandcastles never do. 

At the tender age of five, she used to cry when the waves came crashing and swallowed up the castles she had built and it was not because of the fact that it was gone but that her trust had been shattered, because despite knowing that there would come a time her castle would crumble no matter how tightly she had packed the sand, it held the blind faith of a young girl that perhaps, just perhaps this time they would stand firm against the elements and be brave for once. 

But once again, that strong belief she held in an inanimate object was crushed once again. Time and time again Soojung thinks to herself why does she keep trying to build sandcastles when all they do time and time again is to chip further into her faith. Disappointment after disappointment is what she is faced with. relentless they are. She sits and thinks why like the same blind faith she has in these sandcastles, she has in humans. Despite the hurt caused by others she still continues to trust in them. Why does she still think that they will change and that they treat her genuinely? Hell even Jinri her supposed "best friend" bolted after she learnt of the presence of such a thing called social castes in the school and that soojung happened to end up at the bottom of this marvelous hierachy. Best friends forever you say.

She scoffs at that very notion of such a thought.

Maybe that was finally the last straw for soojung. The straw that broke the camel's back. Finally the cracks in her faith began to show like how when one accidentally steps on thin ice. One can say that maybe to begin with her trust in the good of the human species was not even that strong to begin with.

But soojung begs to differ.

13 years spent with that one person she grew up with from the time they were still in their diapers to the first changes in the female anatomy she bets that a friendship that long ought to have lasted. Then again, if something that had been present for so long can even be snatched away, she doesn't know what else can honestly stick around and last a few months let alone a lifetime. She's not being cynical, she's a realist. One that has been shaped by the world and her surroundings and the changes are definitely inevitable. 

So as soojung stands and lets the sea breeze blow against her face and whips her hair roughly against her face she makes the connection. That as different humans were from sandcastles since one was living while the other was obviously non-living, they shared such an uncanny resemblance that they were almost the same. 

Both things would never ever last. It was just a matter of time before they disappeared right in front of your very eyes. While the sand only takes the wind and waves to carry it away or crush it down, human relationships only needed a certain wind or wave in another form called rumors to be destroyed. She could trust no one and no one but herself. It was just her against the cruel place called the world, it had always been like this and always would be this way. There was no one left for her in this place and when she had worn her heart on her sleeve, it had been severely ripped and ravaged. 

Never again would she be that fool she was 3 years ago where the whole world mocked her for her naivety. Yes, she was the joke and it took her 2 years to finally come to that realization. That young girl decided that from then on she would lock up this weak muscle of hers called the heart and throw away the key to it into the endless pit of blue.