embittered anatomies, our tears pleading (bleeding) solipsism

Daehyun/Youngjae, Daehyun POV, fem!Youngjae

Today, as I kick off my dress shoes by the door mat and my weary soul is left tangled in my shoelaces, I step into the house to see you defeated on the couch. Our son is still in school, his innocuous babbles cementing the crevices in the wall, and I make a note to whitewash the peeling pillars in hopes of refurnishing a dreary habitat into a decent home.

I wonder if he knows how miserable we are to reside under a roof of demolished aspirations and overly hopeful sweet nothings I promised you at the altar, gossip of a shotgun marriage haunting your veil of shame. I wonder if he knows he is the cause of our misery as I dreamt of being a world-class musician while you bled art from your fingernails perpetually clumped with paint. I wonder if I can ever rid the vast shadow clawing onto his stature as the sun sets and he barrels into my arms merrily, because when he is in my arms, all I see is the reflection of my suppressed, embittered despondency extended in our combined silhouettes.

I know you think the same way; I see the tattered, blank canvases in the bin but pretend to not know of your inner turmoil and demons demanding you suffocate your flesh and blood. We crafted our son out of panicky hands (I dropped my phone; you dropped your pregnancy test) and weightless promises that everything would be okay. We were not ready to give so much of ourselves as there was little to us, so much space to be fulfilled, yet we mistakenly bit off more than we could chew and left ourselves decapitated. I cannot see anymore, dear. I cannot breathe, I cannot hear, I cannot scream. Are we not dead yet?

"Shoes." You do not spare me a glance. I return back outside to put the offensive articles onto the rack along with my four year old's squeaky sandals. To my son, I am sorry. I am sorry you grew up in a place so depressing and hopeless. I am sorry I tried to strangle you on your first birthday and you looked at me with those innocent, loving eyes. I am sorry I equate you to divine punishment for my careless ways; I am sorry you could have been the precious first-born of a stable family, be fed tenderly and be spoilt by exhilarated grandparents but you came to this wretched household; I am sorry you keep gazing at me so hopefully while your classmates' fathers piggyback your peers but I loosely hold your wrist and walk you to the accursed apartment.

"How was your day?" Formalities. You lay motionlessly and I remember our wedding day where you cried tears of sorrow. I bellowed at you to hold it together because I saw you as the reflection of the internal wreck I was and it frightened me to death to see how I was. My fingers shook as I grabbed your face roughly and I did not know how long it took for our cacophony of wails and shrieks to subside. My palms were stained with your wet mascara and you once told me in our younger, better days that make-up made you feel like a clown. I gruffly wiped them onto the edge of the first churcg bench and I stood staring at the streak for a long, long time. We crossed the line. The line I stood behind as I waited for the train to take me to places: the studio, the casino, your apartment.

"Good." We lie easily. I told you when we first met that truth did not matter. It was foolish to uphold it as a virtue when it was so meaningless and brought about so much unhappiness. You told me you played pretend for four years as your elderly neighbour's long dead daughter till she passed on peacefully as you did not want her to spend her last years in grief. That was when I fell for you. And perhaps, because we were both so mangled, we fell too deep onto the tracks and could not crawl out of the abyss we dug for ourselves. I cradled you as the train smashed into us and I stupidly swore everything would be alright.

"How about you?" This is how we live. We put up an act because if we fall apart at the reality, we cannot put each other's pieces together when we are already broken. So I hide at the pub and you hide in the bathroom as we glue ourselves messily back together, screw our heads back on the wrong way and carelessly leave fragments in the form of tears buried within the bar counter and the toilet sink.

"Good too." I stare at you for a while, transfixed in my slouched pose of burdens trampling down mercilessly. You finally veer your head towards me and we spend a minute lost in each other's miserable, miserable eyes. I remember why I loved you so helplessly and your dark eye circles and withered, trembling lips convey nothing.

"School's about to be dismissed," you speak quietly and we continue looking, looking hard because we have avoided each other's faces for the past century. I want to fall on my knees, like the day I proposed to you, and beg for forgiveness for setting ablaze a star that shot down and died amidst the filthy mud for a flower to sprout.

My hands are clammy and nervous akin to their pitiful forms when I dropped our rings. It feels like the first time I asked you out on a date, heart trapped in my throat and inducing scathing bile.

"Shall we go together?" I nearly mumble out the words, anxiety scratching into laborious skin. You stare at me. With these words, though I have barely managed to put together my torso, I reach out with blind hands to piece together the smithereens of your eyes.

Drawn out breaths. Slow, fatigued blinks. Hope scattered in the debris that we, just maybe, can fix.

"Okay."