oo1

Scars.

Never ending slashes on her arms, legs and heart. Most of them had paled and dissipated with time, but the ones in her heart would never disappear. The girl was both mentally and physically tired, but mostly lonely.

Even with people surrounding her or trying to enter her life, it's as if they weren't there. Like she was living in a dark empty void with nothing but darkness.

She had tried to end her life many times, but at every single try, it seemed like someone knew. As if that person was keeping tabs on her and saved her each time to make her continue the life she hated so much. Was that even possible? Utterly ridiculous if anybody heard her side of the story. But her soul... Her soul had died a long time ago.

The girl walked on the empty sidewalks of the night. To walk during daylight felt... odd. With her hands in her leather jacket she kept her eyes fixed on a point as she trailed her legs slowly.

A couple her age strolled the opposite way from her and their laugh got cut as they noticed her. They suddenly stared at her like she had something on her face.

But she did.

An old cut had scarred from one of her attempts to kill herself and had destroyed or tainted her princess-like features, some said. It started near her right ear and ended near the corner of her lips. Even after 5 years the scar was less, but still visible and it didn't seem like it would fade anytime soon.

"Oh my gosh. Did you see the gash on her face? It looks hideous." The girl whispered to the boy and he shushed her before leaving. She ignored the strangers remark and continued her silent route to her apartment.

After 25 minutes, she halted in front of an old looking building with apartments that seemed like they were going to fall at any moment. The outside walls were dirtied with spots of dried dirt and stains resulting from the mossy wood. The windows that were once clear, looked hazy. The front door had no handle and so anybody could get in.

With a sigh, she lightly kicked the door and went up the stairs until she reached the 7th floor. Fishing her hands in her pocket, she fiddled with the key and tried to turn the knob.

"Damn it," she cussed under her breath. Her door was jammed for weeks and the stupid janitor hadn't repaired it yet. Heck, she hadn't seen the man since last year.

The girl grabbed the bridge of her nose and let her back slid down the surface of her door. She took her jacket off and threw it on the opposite wall which landed in a soft thud. She blew a raspberry and grabbed her jacket again. Without hesitating, she went down the stairs and exited the building. 

As it was a sunday, she headed off to the underground bar she always went to, thinking there would be less drunk assed man there. But it was still a bar.

"Hey Red wassup." A boy called her out. Since nobody knew her real name, they all just called her Red because of the faint but distinguishable red color in her eyes. He nodded at her with a small smirk as she walked pass him. She nodded back unnafected, and he made way for her to get inside. She inwardly groaned when she saw boys and man oggling her even though there were girls wearing clothes that couldn't even cover half their skin for that matter.

Wasn't the gash on her face enough to repel those dogs? Clearly not. A girl was still a girl to their eyes.

For her, all men were pathetic. They act all tough, like they can manipulate whatever they want. When really, the only thing that could make them weak were girls. Making her way to the bar stools, she rolled her eyes hearing them say things about her. Hello, she was still there.

"Idiots..." she mumbled and plopped on one of the chairs.

The bartender smiled and chuckled, "ty day huh."

With a sarcastic smile she replied, "Yup, pretty much."

The boy nodded in comprehension, "Well sweetheart everyone goes through ty stuff sometimes." He looked at her with eyes that portayed something dark even though he had a smile that contradicted himself. Red sighed and he asked a rhetorical question, "The usual I guess?" His eyes became playful again and she forced a small smirk.

How could people be sad and in pain then completely hide their real emotions with a simple smile? It felt unreal and completely fake to her. If you felt sad, you stayed sad. If you were happy, you stayed happy. That's how it was supposed to be. And since she couldn't do any of those, she tried to stay indifferent. It was less complicated for her.

After two hours she started feeling a bit tired, probably because of all the alcohol inside her system. She drank her last glass in one shot and thanked the bartender before leaving her chair. In a few more steps she was already outside breathing the air. Only now she noticed how stuffy she felt inside the bar.

"Red! Wanna take a puff?" A guy said as some of his boys roared and laughed in the silent night. The girl blinked at them and left without saying a word. "Aw come on Red! You know you want to!" One slurred and quickly forgot her after taking another puff.

Continuing her walk, she halted in front of a park. Her eyes wandered from the slide to the swings and she felt her chest suddenly tighten. With a frown, she unconsciously stepped closer to the swings. Her right hand reached out to touch the rusty old chain and after a few moments she grasped it. Red sat on the swing and looked down at her feet when a sad smile came upon her face.

Then she gazed up at the sky, seeing a star shine brighter than the others and softly spoke up, "Eunah... I hope you are doing well. Are you still watching over me? You shouldn't. There's no need to waste your time and energy on me. I'm a broken soul and nobody can fix that. I want to be with you so much, but every-" her voice cracked.

She took a deep breath before continuing, "Every time I try, someone knows. That person keeps me from being with you. I may sound crazy but it's true. Do you believe me Hyemi? I'm talking as if there was some guardian angel watching over me. It's insane."

Red shook her head in disbelief while closing her eyes. Her hands untangled themselves from the chains as she reached for her back pocket. Her lifeless eyes stared at the item in her fingers and she clenched her jaw.

"It's time," she said to herself and frowned.

Red got up on her feet and glanced around to be sure there would be no one to save her again. She took one last deep breath and prepared to shoot the bullet through her head for the last time. A sudden death without the need to go through any pain whatsoever.

'Finally', she thought.

Red closed her eyes and could almost hear the click- "STOP!" a voice made her snap back from her almost death trance.

Because of the sudden shock that went through her, the finger that was still on the trigger pulled and BANG. Red was now fully alarmed because the ringing of the weapon was extremely eerie and felt like her ear was about to fall off. She quickly looked around to see if she harmed anybody besides herself and she wished it was the opposite.

"Hooooly !" the person growled loudly in much frustration and annoyment. "You just had to pull that damn trigger?"

Red blinked at the boy holding both his ears with his hands. She guessed he was trying to block the noise from her gun when she had suddenly pulled it.

When she realized that stranger had ruined her opportunity to die she gasped and stomped her way to him, "Why did you disturb me you idiot!" and jabbed a finger on his chest at each word.

The boy looked at her in disbelief and scoffed at how absurd she was, "Excuse me? I saved your life and you call me an idiot?" He gave her a look which screamed 'find the error'.

A feeling of pure hatred was building itself at the pit of her stomach. She tightened her hands as her body started to shake. From frustration? Pain? Desperation? Or agony? All of the above.

She said with a low voice that could scare anybody who knew about her 'temper', "Didn't you maybe consider the fact that I may have wanted to die?" Her eye twitched and she saw a flicker of confusion in the boy's eyes. She smirked with no emotion whatsoever at his idiotic mind.

He frowned and whispered with a soft voice, "What?"

Red didn't feel like replying him anymore.

Then an awkward silence had filled the chilly air. She blinked and finally took the time to actually look at his face.

Pretty boy.

That was the first thing that popped up into mind as she analyzed his face. Ah... A pretty boy. The kind of boys she hated so much. Their looks always deceived and that wouldn't change.

The stranger was wearing dark denim jeans with a thin lined navy blue and red sweater. He was tall, not gigantic but taller than her. He had dark brown hair that looked soft and fluffly like the wind had naturally coiffed it. Under his chestnut eyes were little puffy eyebags which made him look tired but not in the exhausted type though, it made him look more human she thought. His lips were plump and looked soft to touch. Too soft even.

And since it was dark, she couldn't see his skin much, but he somewhat looked like he was naturally tanned. Huh. When she finally snapped out of her thoughts she remembered something that had long been nagging her. "Are you the mysterious savior?"

The dark skinned boy scoffed then let out a short laugh, "What? Mysterious savior?" He shook his head like he didn't understand her. "What are you talking about?" A crease formed between his brows and he looked at her like she was insane.

Red clicked her tongue, "So that's how it is huh? Trying to deny that you've been the one saving me all this time. Sure." She sarcastically nodded her hea and looked away.

The boy exhaled from his nose, completely irritated, "Okay. Look," he paused and thought for a moment to find the right words, "I don't know what is going on here, but I only saved you because when someone see's a person with a gun pointing at their head, wouldn't the right thing to do is to stop him or her?" He raised his brows, waiting for her answer. Since she didn't utter a word, he continued.

"And this is the first time that I've saved you-" he stopped and looked down with a frown and up to her again, "Wait... How many times have you tried to kill yourself"? He said as his voice changed to a gentle one and made Red felt like punching him for feeling the least pity for her. She didn't need pity. And especially not from someone like him.

She sent him a glare, "None of your business."

But then she exhaled loudly, "But if you're that curious, I've lost count." Confused at her own words, why did she even tell him in the first place?

She clenched her jaw and abruptly turned her back to him, "I can't say thank you for saving-"

"But you just did," he cut her off mid sentence and even without seeing his face, she knew he was smirking which made her tighten her fists.

"-me. But please do not disturb someone who wants to end their own life. You don't know what people go through to even want to die. So don't go around and ruin everything." She started out confident but ended in a whisper.

There was a long pause and Red didn't understand why she didn't just leave instead of waiting for him to say something.

"Kai."

"What?" She slowly turned around with a confused expression on her face and Kai smiled to himself. She could actually look cute even with that sharp tongue of hers.

"The name is Kai," he forced a smile and extended his hand for her to take it. She stared at his hand like it was the strangest thing in the world, to which Kai coughed and put back in his pocket.

Then she bowed, much to his surprise, "Thank you Kai-ssi, but this is where we depart and never meet each other again."

And quickly, she walked away from him, ignoring his "Yah! You didn't even tell me your name!"

When she was finally out of his sight, she heard a loud voice echo, "Aye... That rude girl!"

"Tch. Idiot," she rolled her eyes and started walking back to her oh-so-beautiful apartment with another failure to add in her personal journal.

The next few days, Red didn't have the urge to leave everything behind. Everything as in her life.

Maybe it was because of all the constant failures she had so far. How hard was it to die? So many people died everyday. Why not her?

Currently, the weather was dark and gull. The sky was filled with grey clouds which threatened to rumble and let the rain drop. She smiled and closed her eyes in comfort. The sky seemed to be the one to understand her the most.

Then a drop of water fell on her forehead which made her scrunch up her nose. She sighed and entered an old bookstore that hid beetween 2 large walls that had recently been built.

Nobody could find that place unless they were extremely observant.

The bell rang loudly inside the vacant shop, "Hell- Oh Saera!" the owner beamed at her.

Saera was her real name, but she hated it. Why? She couldn't exactly pinpoint why, but whenever she heard it, she felt... Empty.

She politely bowed to the woman, "Hello Mrs. Choi."

"What a pleasant surprise! I thought you were gone since you usually come by every week. Did something happen?" The concern in the old woman's voice made Saera feel unpleasant.

"No." Saera walked around and touched some books, "Just didn't feel well."

"Are you-" Mrs. Choi paused and sighed, "Don't tell me-" Saera looked at her and she knew the woman understood. The girl walked over the aisle of books that no one seemed to approach and heard the woman shuffle behind her.

"Saera-ah,"

"Please, don't. Don't call me that." Red hissed, "I don't want to hear that filthy name anymore." It reminded her that she was once related, or under captivity as she prefered to say, to those bastards.

The woman sighed, "I know, I know. But family is still family Saera. That won't change, you know that right?" This made Red turn around abruptly.

"Is it really? Does family try to kill the kid they adopted and use them for their own benefit? I don't think so. Plus their blood doesn't run in my veins, so I could care less about them right now." Red had clenched her fists tight and when she realized she was clutching at her jacket, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe normally, letting go of her jacket. When she finally calmed down, she quietly apologized, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."

The old woman smiled back, "No, no... It's okay. I said inappropriate things first. I'm the one who is sorry Saera." 

Red let out a forced cough when it became silent. She then asked, "Can I stay tonight?" 

The woman's sad frown broke into a genuine smile, "Why of course you can! The bed has been empty for a while. And you know that someone's been asking about you a lot lately."

Red rolled her eyes. Luhan. This random pretty boy who kept coming to the book place. It didn't even seem to be his style of 'hangout' as he was a 'flower' boy and the fact that he suddenly appeared out of nowhere was just ridiculous. The old woman kept telling her to let him talk to her as he was always trying to catch her attention. But Red could care less about boys at the moment. And more specifically, boys like him.

"I don't know him and I have absolutely no interest in meeting him."

"Oh, but he's such a nice boy. When you didn't come for weeks, he would help me with the stocks!"

Red snorted, "That's just how boys do things. Act like they're all manly and nice when deep down it's their way of getting women to do things for them."

The woman shook her head, "Oh dear, it is not because your father-"

"He is not my father." He never has been.

"-was awful to you that most boys are like him. When there is bad, there is good. You must not mix between the two." And with that last sentence, the woman made her way up the stairs and into her house. "Oh! And don't forget to-"

"-close the shop! I know already!" Red loudly stated. She heard a soft laugh and inwardly smiled at the sound of it. The bell rang and Red snapped her head towards the door. She didn't bother to welcome the customer and went to get the boxes filled with books to place, when a voice spoke up.

"Why thank you for asking me how I am doing on this fine day-"

"Oh, shut it will ya?"