#🌊🌊🌊 just bringing back the night she realized it

[the-thieves-gambit]

@clubsmarties

I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you.

Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

[365partygirl305]

Chapter II: Who Was That Girl? Into Deep

Warnings: angst, mention of near death incident, mention of drugs, repetition of past trauma/near death incident, and nightmare

A/n: The following content may be unsuitable for younger readers. Reader’s discretion is strongly advised.

Matty’s pov

I could have sworn someone rescued me. That girl. Her beautiful voice. That familiar melody. Her touch was so soft.

My mates and I are on the couch again in the aftermath of my near death. I am so fucked for this.

“Mate, you could have died. We’ve been worried about you,” George begins. “And you’re telling us some saint saved you?”

“Yes,” I reply. “A girl saved me. I can’t describe how beautiful her voice is, her touch, that melody. I can’t get it out of my head even if I try.”

“Are you in your delulu era?”

“I’m not delusional!”

My frustration grows more like a balloon that is about to burst. I swear she’s real. I just need to find her.

“Are you seriously going to that beach again?” Adam asks We don’t want you to get hurt or killed.”

“I’m serious. I need to see her again.”

“Jesus Christ, mate. You do realize that you’re gonna repeat that again.” Ross noted, his tone annoyed at this point.

I’ve had enough. “So what if it repeats? Will it stop me from finding her? This is nothing like my heroin addiction! It’s a girl I keep seeing in my dreams for fuck’s sake! It’s been haunting me for days!”

The silence rings so loud in my ears. Everyone is stunned. Why did I bring up my heroin addiction and my cocaine addiction I had back then? Have I gone mad?

Ashamed of myself, I bolt out the door, ignoring the pleas and apologetic demands.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

The sand in my hand falls in a neat pile as if it is an hourglass. The shores of the sea is where I calm down. The melody in my head plays again. I feel like I’m haunted by some ghost or something. My mind is plagued of her. She’s everywhere I go. Her eyes, her soft skin, her voice echoing in my ear.

I walk to the water, trying to see if she’s there. The haunting sounds push me further. The water rises up to my chest at this point. If I go under again, will she be there? Will it all stop? Will I end the madness for good? Will the world be better off without me?

I take a deep breath and go under. Her voice still echoes, the melody staying in my mind. Curious, I swim farther and farther into the blue. Deeper and deeper I go, the water temperature starts dropping. It is so cold, yet peaceful, but I am running out of air. So I swim up to the surface.

I break the waves with a huge gasp. Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe. You have all the time in the world to search for her. She’s still out there. So, I take another chest full of air and dive again.

Adrenaline rushes through my body as I swim deeper to the bottom, seeing if there is any sign of her. Nothing. Only the haunting sounds of her voice in my head. Are my mates right? Am I delusional? No! I’m not giving up on this yet!

Deeper and deeper I swim, ignoring the fire in my body, my mind counting the seconds of breath holding while at the same time I feel the fire again. My lungs burn once more to the point of resurface.

I float to breathe a moment. Relax, I think. Relax. You’re okay. You’ll find her. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere. That saint who saved you from your doom. One deep breath more and I’m back searching.

The ambience of the ocean calms me down a bit despite the loud sound of her voice. My head feels dizzy, but my gut says I must continue my search. The longer I hold my breath, the longer I can last underwater. I continue to swim further, ignoring the familiar flame in my body and the burning of my lungs.

I find myself in a similar spot where my car was. Where she found me. The past replaced what was in my mind and it is the night I almost died. Fear of death and almost about to die, I swim up to the surface, my hand reaching out to the light. Everything turns black for a split second before a pair of hands hoist me up to the surface. Was that her?

I look under face down. It is her. She’s wearing a dress that shimmers in the sunlight beneath the waves. She must be the one. She must be. I am then betrayed by claws instead and was pulled under.

“What have we here?” A voice says in a menacing tone. My body is still shaking from the grip.

“A human I see. Looking for someone who saved you? She’s not here. She’s away. Sure, she can be the one who saved you-“ I am slammed to the bottom again. “But she’s not going back. Long gone. Give up. Accept your fate.”

I want to speak, but only bubbles fly out my mouth as I accidentally breathe the saltwater. I want to go home. My mates need me now. They’re not ready to lose me. I get myself free from the invisible grasp and swim higher. Once again, my body stop working. I smile. The world fades to black…

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

I gasp for air, not realizing I was dreaming again. The girl was there. But something is forcing her back. What was it?

I have no time for analyzing. I try to take deep breaths, just like how my therapist taught me. But the panic stays. The same dream has been haunting me for days. The water felt like it’s human. Being slammed into the bottom. I look at the time.

1:02.

“Fuck me,” I whisper to myself.

“What has gotten into you, mate?” George grumbles after I began the call. I had already drank 5 bottles of wine at this point.

“I see her in my dreams. The death of my girlfriend is so bad,” I’m rambling again about what’s going on in my mind right now. “That girl I saw. The one who saved me. I see her everywhere.”

“Hey, relax. I see you’re not delusional now.”

“I still miss Amia.”

“I miss her too. She was a good one.”

I start shaking again, tears streaming down my face. The pain of losing her in the car accident has been haunting me. So is the mystery girl.

“It’s gonna be alright,” George coos on the other end. “Y’know, we’re all here for you. I know you’re grieving harder than ever. We got you.”

“I’m sorry I blew up at you guys. I’ve been an absolute mess since the incident and Amia’s death.”

“It’s alright, mate. Do you want me to keep you company for the night?”

Through recovering sniffles, I say, “I would love that. I love you, man.”

“I love you too, mate.”

[yuseonghqs]

🌊 GREETINGS FROM YUSEONG BAY !

JUST LANDED: OLSEN, SVEERE. / / FROM: NEATHERLANDS. / / AGE: 26.

–––– ( FOLLOW ? ) / / ( READ MORE ? ) / / ( MAILBOX ? )

TW BRIEF MENTIONS OF ABUSE

in 2005, there are three central facts that make up sverre olsen’s universe:

1. his favorite color is red.

well, mom says that he likes red anyway, so it makes sense for him to like red—too young to argue on it, too old to fully align himself with it, he wears his firetruck red 75% off parka with something that could almost be pride if he weren’t so embarrassed.

he’s not embarrassed because it’s red.

he’s embarrassed because the sleeves are too long, the shoulders are too boxy, and if he dares to zip it up, it swallows him completely. seven years old and he already doesn’t like how he looks; he’s got mom’s influence to thank for that, but when he tries to tell her he doesn’t like it, she tells him he will. she also says something about how clearance items can’t be returned anyway, and he’ll get used to it after wearing it a few times. he’ll have to, because he’ll be wearing it next year, too. says she bought it big so he’d have space to grow, but he’d keep growing whether he had the space or not, so he knows that what she means is ‘it’s cheaper this way’.

sometimes he hates his mom for being cheap, but he loves her, too, so he wears the jacket.

2. manners are more valuable than morals.

so when he’s begging for scraps, he should never forget to say please.

dad always gives him the same talk before sending him in to pizza paladino at 9:50pm more nights than he cares to count: smile (but if that doesn’t work, cry), say please, say thank you, say my mom is sick, say my dad is working late, say yes, my mom is home and so is my older brother (never tell them you don’t have a brother), ask if they have anything left and if they say that they don’t, ask if they’re sure. 

the speech always ends with “i’ll be waiting behind the building” and it takes sverre longer than he should to realize why they can never go in together, just like he can never figure out why they won’t just eat the food out of their pantry.

still, he does what dad tells him to and it usually works. no one wants to see a kid go hungry, so the teenagers and almost-adults send him out with a stale pizza on some nights, bags of breadsticks soggy with grease on others.

3. some people never should’ve had kids.

he hears pizza paladino’s manager (a man with frown lines deeper than dad’s) say that one night, right as he’s pushing the glass doors open at 9:50pm. he’s too young to be completely aware of himself, let alone of the stigma constantly attached to poor people, so he doesn’t really know that it’s about him until the girl with the glasses dismisses her manager.

she smiles at sverre in a way that’s almost apologetic. almost. instead, it’s tired, but he doesn’t understand that either, so he smiles back.

“my mom—” he starts, well-rehearsed. but then she interrupts him to ask if his mom is still sick, if she’s doing any better at all, and that’s not part of the script, so he stumbles.

“well. i don’t… know. i’m not sure. she’s just… sick.”

he stands there, stiff and awkward. he looks at the manager, sees him looking out the glass doors at something further back. he doesn’t think about what it is until his hands are full of greasy paper bags and he’s on his way. dad isn’t out back this time. no—today he’s standing right outside, smoking one of his lucky strikes.

the last thing that he hears before the door shuts behind him is this: “what a fucking loser.” he’s never sure whether it was about himself or his father.

/

age brings on awareness, and awareness alters the things that sverre knows to be true. by 2012, his universe looks like this:

1. his favorite color is beige.

sure, it’s beige, but it’s only beige because that’s the color of his grandma—of the porridge that she makes him in the morning after he’s spent a night at her house (“at a friend’s,” he tells his parents, and grandma always keeps his secret), of her favorite sweater, of the duvet on her guest bed.

the thing about grandma is that she’s honest. she wants to know why sverre comes over so often, and sverre tells her like it is: he used to sorta have friends, but they always wanted to go out and do things, and he never had the money to participate so they stopped inviting him. “it’s fine, anyway,” he tells her (with bloodshot eyes, with chapped lips), he just doesn’t want mom and dad to know. if they knew, they’d feel guilty, and they shouldn’t feel guilty.

grandma says that they should.

she says that the statements ‘i’m doing my best for my child’ and ‘it’s still not enough’ can coexist, and when she says it, he believes it.

he doesn’t want to hate his parents, but sometimes he does. other times, he dreams of making things better for them.

2. manners are more valuable than morals.

so when the man of the house raises his fist to his son, he’d better apologize.

it’s just that times are hard for everybody and sverre likes to talk too much. he takes up too much space, he asks for too much, he eats too much, he costs too much—worse still, he’s in the age of attitude and when dad says ‘i’m trying’, sverre asks if he’s sure.

everything changes in a half-minute: it starts with dad at the stove and sverre standing in the doorframe, watching him. it ends with his nose bleeding and dad’s hands balled into fists at his sides.

later that day, dad cries and no one’s there to calm him other than sverre, so he tries his best with what he has which isn’t much when it comes down to it. had he been coddled more as a kid, maybe he’d go for a hug, but as it stands, the most that he can come up with is a hand on dad’s back.

he says he’s sorry, he says that hurting sverre is the last thing he’d ever want to do and that he doesn’t know what got into him. he’s just been stressed lately. tired, too. everything’s just so much.

sverre repeats it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay and unknowingly sets the tone for the rest of his adolescence.

3. some people never should’ve had kids.

that’s what the school counselor tells him the one time that he stops by her office, both prefaced and followed by apologies.

he can’t say that he blames her—what else is there to say after a kid who’s only just introduced himself to you tells you that he’s tired (not physically, but mentally) and not sure how to fix it? that his dad hit him a couple days ago, but it was just a one-off thing and he knows he deserved it anyway? that he’s lonely? that school’s such a fucking drag, and no matter how hard he tries his grades don’t get any better, so he’s not sure what he’s going to do from here?

right. most adults would look him in the eyes and apologize first, then blame the parents. but sverre’s always loved his parents, mostly.

so he tells her that it’s not their fault either. asks her what the point of talking is if she doesn’t know what to say.

on his way out, he grumbles something about missing his lunch period for this load of bullshit.

/

the universe, circa 2016:

1. his favorite color is black.

well, not really, but doesn’t every angsty teenager go through this phase? black eyeliner, black nails, black lungs if those warnings that his mom gives him every time she catches him smoking one of dad’s lucky strikes are true—eighteen is gruesome and his fashion is the worst part.

he dyes his hair black with a cheap box-dye kit. he says it’s because he figured it would look cool, but it goes without saying that he does it for the attention that a stained bathtub is sure to bring.

he expects dad to be the angry one, but mom’s the one who speaks up. she doesn’t mention the bathtub, just his hair. she hasn’t touched him in god knows how long, but she touches him now, cold fingers pushing through his fried curls.

“why would you do this, sverre? you’re such a handsome blond.”

dad says that the black looks good.

both reactions make him feel unusually loved.

2. morals are more valuable than manners.

in other words, mom and dad were wrong all along.

it doesn’t matter how many times he says please, thank you, yes ma'am or no sir, there’s not a single university in europe worth mentioning that’ll take him in without money or extracurriculars. fuck the gpa; it’s nothing without decor.

“i told you you should’ve played soccer,” dad says, and something about it makes sverre want to hit him—but that wouldn’t be moral or polite.

3. some people never should’ve had kids.

this time, it’s a conclusion that sverre comes to all on his own. not out of contempt for his parents, but guilt. it’s just the way things go: when a kid’s brought up in a family that can hardly afford them, aren’t they bound to imagine a world without themselves in it?

he sees his dad without reasons to drink on the weekends, his mom without reasons to work so many hours that she hardly sees her family:

in this world, dad would be a professional soccer player (maybe retired by now, but with enough money to live comfortably) and mom would be a doctor, still working hard but with more to show for it. a stronger sense of accomplishment.

sverre olsen comes into the picture and the perfect world fades—he cries too loud, he grows too fast, he wants too much. there’s no time for either parent to go to school and hobbies are cast by the wayside.

if he were his father, he wouldn’t like himself much, either.

/

2021:

1. his favorite color is blue.

and this time he means it.

blue for all the girls who told him how handsome he would be if only he had blue eyes (and how many hours he spent staring into the sun, promising them his eyes could look blue if the lighting was right), blue for the lake where so many of his summer days were spent tossing crackers to ducks and sticking his feet into the pond despite signs saying not to get too close, blue for his father’s beat-up car that he always promised to pass down to sverre (and then totaled before he ever could), blue for the logo of jeju national university—

a school he spent a semester abroad at halfway through his undergrad studies, and one that starts to look a little bit like paradise as he’s applying for the gks grad scholarship with the help of his academic advisor. he looks better on paper than in practice, so he thinks his odds are good.

2. morals and manners are equally important.

because leaving his parents feels like the morally correct thing to do.

he’s not home much anymore, anyway. only on the weekends, but they can tell that his dedication is dwindling and they’re not paying his tuition just for him to tap out so close to the end, so sometimes they talk and sometimes he listens.

dad says that they ought to kick him out, encourage him to learn to live independently. mom says that he’s still so young and he’s still in school for now. dad says that won’t last forever.

he can’t blame them, anyway—he’s never fully applied himself anywhere, ambition dying with those long-lost pizza paladino pleas and he’s genetically predestined to fall through on each and every one of his promises, but that’s just the thing. it runs in the family. he knows that they look down on him, and sometimes he wonders if they know that he looks down on them, too: a cracked mirror, i hate what we are.

it’s a sunday when he tells them that he’s going to south korea.

3. some people never should’ve had kids.

because as much as they hate to admit it, mister and misses olsen’s lives are exponentially better without a child eating all of their food and taking all of their money.

sverre knows this because he sees their posts on facebook. they’ve been dining at restaurants more often, going on dates. dad seems happier and mom swears that his anger’s gone dormant, so sverre must’ve been the source after all. (she doesn’t say that part, but he knows).

and korea’s really not what he’d remembered it as being, but he doesn’t have the heart to admit that he wants to go home because what the hell would that make him look like? nothing good, he’s sure. 

he stays, and he does what he knows best: makes the most of what he has and hates his parents only a little bit for not giving him more.