The silence was heavy and stifling and your mind followed the sound it made as it bounced around the walls. It was only periodically interrupted by the continuous drops of water from the faucet of the bathtub. Jiho had promised to get that fixed. He had promised a lot of things.

Your head rolled from resting on your shoulder to leaning on the wall behind you and you could hear the swoosh of water spilling over the edge. Your lips trembled from the cold and you lifted your laden eyelids enough to see in front of you. The tub was filled to the edge and the tips of your fingers had pruned over. The blue hue of the light made the skin on your legs and arms look gray and dead. You shivered again and began to wonder how long you had been in the bathtub. You had completely lost track of time. It felt like you had just gotten in and at the same time been there for years. There was a strange weight to your body and mind and everything was foggy and slow. It was a peculiar exhaustion that rested on your bones and the inside of your eyelids. You felt the need to shake it off, but no motivation to even blink. Eventually gravity did the job for you and your eyes closed once again.

The incessant ringing of your cellphone downstairs was enough to finally break you from whatever trance had taken over you. You stared at the ceiling for a few moments before hoisting yourself into a sitting position. More water spilled onto the floor, soaking your bathmat and the clothes you had haphazardly thrown around. Something in the way the clothes soaked up the water and seemed to deflate further onto ground made something in you snap. You didn’t know exactly what it was, but it gave you the strength to stand up and out of the bath. You’d had enough.

Your legs were weak as they tried to balance your weight, but you trudged through, out of the restroom and into your bedroom. A few rays of sunlight sneaked in through your window and you watched the little dust fairies dance in front of you until you caught sight of the vanity mirror. There was a girl staring back at you. Dull skin taught over protruding ribs, weak wrists and knobby knees. Her face was gaunt and haggard. Her eyes were rimmed with purples that told of sleepless nights and stressful days and by her temple lay an even more daunting bruise from her fall up the stairs. She was what had become of you. Of the you who had promised to never let herself hurt this way. Of the you who had promised to let your love for yourself be first. Of the you who had promised to be strong and smart when it came to the dangers of love. She stood there, with betrayed eyes and trembling lips reminding you that in the end, Zico wasn’t the only one who had broken promises.

***

You twirled the long chord of the old home phone you had bought at a thrift store months ago and plugged in just moments ago. You laid on the couch, head on the armrest and your legs crossed, one foot swinging lazily to the beat of an old jazz song you had put on. After taking a deep breath, you grabbed your cellphone and looked up Kyung’s number. You felt silly- looking up a number on a modern cellphone only to type it into a rotary telephone, but “annoyingly poetic and cliché”, as zico liked to call it, part of you felt a need to use that old phone. To tie everything from your past relationship to old things. You needed to separate yourself from it, from him, even in the smallest of ways if you were going to make it. You shifted to face the back of the couch after dialing the number and closed your eyes.

You heard the phone being picked up on the other line and smiled a little. You missed Kyung.

“Hey,” you said, voice a little rough from misuse, “it’s me.”

There was an intake of breath and then a pause before you heard slightly frantic rustling and then Kyung’s surprised, slightly worried voice asking if it was really you.

You laughed a little and snuggled deeper into the couch. “You’re the one that called me twice, but you’re the surprised one?”

Again, there was a pause, but then you heard Kyung’s ever infectious laugh and you felt a slight pressure lifting from you. “Sorry, you wouldn’t answer and then your name didn’t pop up on my phone. Where are you calling from, anyway?”

“Old Red, remember? From that cute little antique store? I forgot I still had this thing, and, I don’t know, I guess I felt like using it. But what’s up? Sorry I didn’t answer earlier. I wasn’t by my phone.”

It felt good, to talk to someone. You wondered for a moment how long it had been since you actually talked to anyone. Like actually using your voice and not just reassuring them that you were alive via text.  

“How could I forget that old thing. You made us go to how many stinky old stores looking for it? Man, pinterest and girls are a dangerous thing.”

You laughed along with him and felt yourself breathing a little better. It felt nice. Even if it brought back memories of him too, it was getting easier to only focus on the things that made you happy. It was slow, but it was progress. And you’d take it.

“Why are you acting like I forced you to go, you little baby. You were the one that decided to tag along because you didn’t want to be left alone in the studio, remember? You’re such a needy drama queen, Kyung. You need attention twenty-four seven, I swear.”

You heard him huff and smiled even wider. “I do remember! I can’t help it if I get lonely sometimes, ok? You guys always go on your dates and leave me to eat ramen all by my-”

He came to an abrupt stop when he noticed what he had said and you could tell from the silence that followed that he was trying to find a way to take it back. Before you could tell him that it was ok, there was rustling on the other end again and you heard a loud thump that you presumed was his phone falling.

“Kyung? Are you ok?” You sat up on the couch and fixed the old t-shirt you had on that went down to your thighs. There were more sounds and then finally Kyung’s voice came back.

“Sorry, I dropped my phone. You know me, always being so clumsy and messing up the good things in my life for dumb reasons.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, not understanding what that had to do with anything. “What,” you asked, a bit perplexed.

“Oh, sorry. Just talking to myself.” You could tell he was lying, but your cellphone vibrated, signaling a call.

“That’s ok, I’m used to you being so weird.” You ignored the outraged gasp and continued. “But I’m assuming you called about coming over to get his things? The place is a bit messy, but his things are all where they should be. Feel free to come get them whenever.”

There was a weird sensation in your stomach at mentioning his things. Like you were finally solidifying him leaving.

“Oh, yeah, almost forgot about that.” His voice was low and you could tell he must have been put to the task by Jiho. Kyung would have rather stayed away from it, but he was a great guy and an even better friend. “Are you going to be ok? I mean  you sound good, but you can’t be any much better than- nevermind. I mean, how are you?”

You wanted to ask what he was going to say. To see if he really was implying that Jiho wasn’t handling things well, but at the same time you didn’t want to ask. In case, you were wrong and he didn’t mean to make it sound like Jiho was also suffering. You were doing ok right now, but you were still not strong enough to have that realization shoved in your face just yet.

“I’m-”

“Yeah?” He prodded.

“I’m ok. I’m doing ok now.”

There was a sigh and then another pause in which you could hear a door closing.

“That’s good. That’s really good to hear. The whole situation is just,” he seemed to be debating whether to go on or not and then seemed to go with the latter. “I’m really glad to hear that. I missed you and your annoying self, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve missed you too.”

Your eyes seemed to tear up on their own and before he could notice the waver in your voice you bid your farewell with a promise to greet him with a smile when he came over later. Besides him, you had been closest to Kyung. He was a mixture of a wise older brother, an annoying younger brother and a great friend all together. It was sad that, that great relationship you had with him also had to be compromised because of the break up. Everything was so unfair.

Before you could continue reminiscing about you and Kyung, your phone vibrated again. You swiped your phone screen and prepared yourself for the lecture that was coming.

You gently picked up the last of the remaining glass shard on your living room floor and tied the bag. Lifting if away from you, you walked over to your kitchen and threw it away in the trash can. You had begun a frenzied cleaning adventure right after the earful Yongguk had given you about giving him gray hairs and being a decent human being who answered their damn phone to let people know they were ok. The apartment had been trashed not only from the bout of anger that had happened hours ago, but also stuffy and dusty from days of not tidying up or opening a single window. Now though, it finally looked decent. More so than decent. It was clean and smelled fresh and it was like a representation of how you were feeling at the moment. It was like a switch had been turned back on and you finally had energy. You finally felt alive again. It was ironic, you thought. That you would be getting your spirits back again the day they were taking away all of Jiho’s belongings.

You were washing your hands in the kitchen sink when the doorbell rang. You cursed to yourself when you looked down and noticed you were still in that raggedy old t-shirt and debated going to change, but you were comfy and it was only Kyung and Yongguk. Besides, you loved this shirt. It was his. And as anti-progressive as that was for you, they were about to take everything else of his from you. You had the right to at least keep this one thing.

Drying your hands on the bottom of the shirt, you went to open the door. The doorbell had been obnoxiously ringing this whole time and you could only picture Kyung pressing the doorbell with a huge grin and Yongguk with a pained look on his face. Smiling you called out that you’d be there soon, to calm their horses, and the ringing finally stopped.

You opened the door expecting your two closest friends, but was only met with an empty hallway. Perplexed, you looked around, but saw no one.

“Kyung? Yongguk?”

You stepped out a bit and almost tripped over a box lying on your doormat. Bending down you reached for the box and stood up. There was only your name written in messy handwriting on top the medium sized box. Overwhelmed with curiosity, you ripped the tape away and looked inside. Your heart raced at what was inside. There was a foul smell coming from a smaller package inside, but what caught your eyes were the pictures.

They were of you.

Some of them were from you at school, some of them were from you at your favorite coffee place a street from your place, some of them were of you and Jiho riding in the same car, or on dates. But at the very bottom of the pile was one of you in your apartment wearing a worn out thigh length t-shirt cleaning your apartment. It must have been taken less than half an hour ago through your large windows in the living room.

Shock overtook you and you dropped the box, causing the smaller package inside to open as well. Two dead rats popped out and you were consumed with the need to vomit. You were crying at this point and your legs didn’t seem to know what to do, but you knew you weren’t going back into your apartment, afraid whoever was stalking you could still see you. Not even closing the door behind you, you ran. You seemed to fly down the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator and before you knew it, you were outside. You were still feeling sick, but your mind was disconnected from your body. You didn’t even feel the cold pricking at your skin, your breath coming out in white puffs around you. You ignored the looks people gave you and only focused on getting away from the complex building. You raised your hand to try and hail a cab when you heard your name being yelled out. Panic rose in your throat as you looked ahead of you, but relief quickly overtook that feeling when you saw Kyung on the other side of the street. A worried look on his face as he sped up his walking towards you. You began running towards him, the need to feel safe by him overwhelming you. You saw his eyes widen and him shake his head but your legs kept running. You were almost halfway across the street when you saw the car coming towards you. You could hear Kyung screaming your name and could see him trying to reach you from the corner of your eye, but he was still too far away. You knew you should have kept moving. Your brain knew. But your body wasn’t listening. You were trapped and all you could do was look on as the car came closer and closer.

You thought of Jiho as you closed your eyes.