rating: PG

genre: mild angst ..? I at categorizing so /shot

word count: approx. 1,500+

“What is something you're afraid of?”

I let the question linger in the air for a moment. The interviewer stares at me, attentive, as the gears in my brain try processing an answer. What am I afraid of? A lot of things, I suppose. There is the obvious: heights, spiders – death. Or even dislike. Everyone is afraid of being disliked.

But all of those things don't seem as weighty as the not-so-obvious.

A brief image of her slips into my mind, blurry and hazy, like a fragment of a dream. I swallow a lump in my throat as the vision leaves me as soon as it comes. I should be used to this; her face haunts me every minute of every day. But with every occurrence, it's like I lose a small part of her until she's whittled down to a far off memory. I can't remember her exactly the way she was. Or the way we were.

But that doesn't matter now. I don't have any reason to be afraid of her. Do I?

I ponder about it some more. The very thought of her makes me feel anxious, apprehensive – afraid. I can feel sweat form on my palms as my heart shakes erratically. I rub my hands against the fabric of my jeans, trying my best to appear nonchalant. This is an interview. My interview. What happens here can either make me or break me.

It probably won't break me as much as she did, though.

I form my words slowly. Deliberately. “I'm afraid of being vulnerable.”

The interviewer writes my answer down in shorthand. “Would you care to elaborate?”

I close my eyes, drawing flashbacks from that time. The time I felt so helpless, so lost and unsure. The time I let everything slip through my fingers like smoke from a dying fire, my attempts at preservation pathetic and futile. The warmth turned into cold, and all of a sudden, I was left alone in the dark. I didn't just feel helpless – I was helpless. There was literally nothing I could do; and the idea of that happening again unsettles me.

I try to come up with something interesting, but vague enough so people won't read too much into it.

“No one likes to be vulnerable. I can't imagine anyone who could think otherwise,” I start in a matter-of-fact tone. “I guess you could label it as a trust issue, but to me, it feels so much deeper than that. In order to know someone, you have to let them know you. Your likes, your dislikes, your fears, your aspirations – nothing is exclusive. You stock up so much trust in that person, so much care, and then you get attached.”

“That doesn't seem like something people would typically be afraid of,” the interviewer comments.

“As it should be,” I say, then pausing. A beat of silence later, I continue. “Developing a relationship with someone can be a beautiful thing – it is a beautiful thing. But...”

“But?”

I look at the interviewer, my expression bittersweet as I regain my voice. “It isn't so beautiful when that person is suddenly not the same person you spent so much time getting to know.”

“So it is a trust issue, then?”

I force a laugh, feigning warmth and geniality. “I suppose it is.”

The interviewer writes everything down, a small wrinkle cutting in between her eyebrows. Then she looks at me again, another question forming on her lips.

“What is something you love?”

Another easy question. At least, it should be. There are plenty of things that I love – dance, music, and dance again – but even so, the only answer that I cling to is her. She isn't something, I tell myself, she is a someone.

But that someone was something extremely important to me.

I loved her.

And I love her still.

Even though she's completely lost to me.

However true this is, I can't use it as an answer. That would be stupid and irrevocably reckless. The truth screams inside of me, constricting my heart and stifling my breathing, but I stuff it deep into the recesses of my mind, silencing it with distance and a lie.

“I love dancing,” I answer with a lopsided grin. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“I'm not looking for the obvious,” the interviewer says to me, her voice light despite her clear intentions. She wants me to say something different – all in the name of a juicy scoop. Though I mask it well, I can't help but feel disgusted by it. Ugly truths are never appealing. No matter whose truths they are, they're still ugly.

I raise an eyebrow and ask her, “What are you looking for, then?”

The interviewer clears . “I'd prefer it if I were the only one asking the questions here,” she replies.

“Right. Sorry.” I secretly hold no genuine remorse.

Despite her dissatisfaction with my answer, she writes it down anyway. Her handwriting scrawls across the notebook on her lap like a wave of letters tumbling on the shore. I can't imagine that it's legible. After drawing in a deep breath, then exhaling, the interviewer looks at me with a toothy smile.

“Last question,” she beams. Thank God. “What is something you have lost?”

My body stiffens for a moment, sudden fear gripping me like a vise. Then I relax a little, my heart roaring with unexplainable anger. This question is ridiculous. Who on earth wants to know about something I lost? What was the point in even discussing it if it isn't even there anymore?

But she is there.

She always has been.

A shaky breath comes out of my mouth. I lean back against my chair, hoping to calm myself. This is an interview, I remind myself. Watch what you say. Watch what you do.

Reasonable thinking escapes me for a brief moment. Suddenly all my thoughts are of her, who she was before, who she turned into after, how I lost who she was in exchange for someone completely different.

They changed her. They molded her into something else. The girl I loved was trained – beaten out – until she could no longer sustain herself. Now all that's left of her is an empty shell that only resembles her; and I feel like the only one who knows it isn't real. Her smiles are all insincere. Her laughs sound mechanic, forced. Her kisses feel – felt, lifeless; no flame, no spark, nothing.

She isn't the girl I knew. Not the girl that I remember.

But in a way, I think she's still there. As a memory or hidden in that shell, I'm not sure, but I see her occasionally, living and breathing, but not really mine – and it frightens me. It frightens me how someone so cold, so uncaring, could be in the exact likeness of the person I loved, who was the exact opposite. She used to be warm. She used to be happy. She used to love me the way I love her. But now, she doesn't – and she acts as if she never did.

It is then that I realize that it isn't being disliked that everyone is afraid of. It is indifference. Indifference is the opposite of love and hate combined. When you love or hate something, that usually means you acknowledge it as something significant enough to have its own place in your life. To have your own opinion on it, whichever kind of opinion it is, means you care enough about it to give it a few of your thoughts. I gave her all of my thoughts, all of my attention, all of my care – I gave her all of me, but I still lost her.

I don't even know what hurts more: the fact that she's gone forever, or the idea that I wasn't enough for her to stay. It all fell apart in an instant, the shattered memories of us stabbing my heart and twisting themselves deeper inside. I don't feel as much pain over it now, but the wound is taking forever to heal. All I have left is a memory, and it weighs like a thousand tons on my heart. The truth continues to thrash around inside me, begging to escape, but I know it would be pointless.

The question still echoes in my head.

What is something you have lost?

Then the answer tumbles out of my mouth too quickly for me to process it.

“Everything,” I hear myself choke out. “I've lost everything.”

The interviewer stares at me again. Her eyes are wide and is unhinged slightly, almost as if she was about to say something but thought better of it and chose not to say anything at all. She lowers her head and tucks her pen inside the spiral of her notebook. She doesn't write down my answer, and I'm about to ask why until she holds out her hand in front of me, a sympathetic smile on her face. I shake it, feeling her squeeze my hand in hers in what I can only assume is out of comfort.

The truth is calm now. It is no longer screaming to be heard because now, at least one other person knows. Better yet, she's deciding to keep it a secret. The disgust I felt towards her before has now changed into hidden gratitude.

“It was nice interviewing you, Kai,” she says.

“It was my pleasure.”

author's note: This was drawn from the prompt I picked out today, a quote by H. Jackson Brown Jr. “Everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.” Pretty deep quote, if you ask me. This is my first time tackling first-person POV in a loooong time. I feel like I was partially influenced to write it this way because I've been reading Insurgent for five days straight LOL. It has its own advantages and disadvantages, but I prefer writing in third-person.

The basic idea of this drabble is Kai and Krystal used to be together; but over time, the idol life wore Krystal down and changed her for the worst. Now they aren't together, and Kai is still reeling from the whole experience because he misses her - the old her. I'm familiar with this kind of feeling. It , and the only thing you can do is move forward even though you don't want to because if you don't move forward, you risk being stuck forever.

But I digress. I hope you guys enjoyed it, even though it was kind of sad xD See you all again at the next update! - Ella