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ktaebwi · 6 years ago

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Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa The Notes (Her, Tear, Answer) - Full Translation

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T/N: - The below translation is for Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa The Notes, a fictional work, part of BU (BTS Universe) published by Bighit Entertainment and comes with the physical copies of albums in ‘LOVE YOURSELF’ series. - The full translation has been rearranged into chronological order.

Hoseok 23 July YEAR 10

It was after counting to four that I heard the laughing sound like an auditory hallucination. The next moment, a younger version of me passed by, holding someone’s hand. I quickly turned around to look but there were only my classmates staring at me. “Hoseok-ah.” The teacher called my name. And then I realized where I was. I was in class, in the middle of counting the fruits in the textbook. Five, six. I went back to counting but the higher it went, the more my voice shook and my hands started sweating. That memory of mine kept rising up.

I don’t remember my mom’s face from that day. I only remember she gave me a chocolate bar while I was at the amusement park. “Hoseok-ah. Count to ten and open your eyes.” I counted and when I opened my eyes, mom was no longer there. I waited and waited but she never came back. Counting to eight was the last. I only needed to count one more but my voice just wouldn’t come out. My ears rang and my surrounding became blurred. The teacher gestured me to continue. Friends stared at me. I couldn’t remember my mom’s face. It felt like if I count just one more time, she would never go look for me.

I collapsed on the floor.

Taehyung 29 December YEAR 10

I took off my shoes, tossed my bad and entered the room. Dad was really in there. I didn’t think about how long it had been, or where he just came back from. I simply just ran into his embrace. I have no memory of what happened next. Was it the alcohol smell that came first, was it the curses, or was it the slap. I had no idea what was happening. There was the alcohol smell and there was the ragged, foul breath. His eyes were bloodshot, beard grown coarsely. He slapped me in the cheek with his big hand. He slapped me in the cheek and asked what I was looking at. And then he lifted me into the air. His eyes were terrifying, but I was too scared to cry. It wasn’t dad. No, it was him. But it wasn’t. My feet were trembling in the air. The next moment, my head crashed against the wall, body slumping down to the floor. It felt like my head was bursting. My vision went in and out and soon darkened. The only thing left in my head was the sound of dad panting.

Jimin 6 April YEAR 11

I went out to the front gate of the flower arboretum alone. The weather was dull and chilly but I was in a good mood. It was picnic day but both mom and dad were busy. I was sullen at first, but after getting complimented at the flower drawing contest and hearing my friends’ moms saying “Jimin’s all grown up”, I felt like I was quite cool.

“Jimin, wait here. I’ll come quick.” The teacher told me after the picnic’s over and we were about to leave the flower arboretum, but I didn’t wait. I was confident I could go by myself. I clutched the straps of my backpack in both hands and walked with slow and stately steps. Sensing everyone staring at me, I straightened up my shoulders more. It was long after the rain had started. All my friends and their moms left, no one was there to look at me and my legs hurt. I covered my head with the backpack and squatted down under the tree. The rain slowly began to pour down harder and there was no one passing by. I eventually started to run in the rain. No house or shop was in sight. I reached the back gate of the flower arboretum. The side door was opened and inside was seemingly a warehouse.

Yoongi 19 September YEAR 16

The flames blazed with a scarlet red. Until this morning, the house I lived in was devoured by the fire. People who recognized me approached me and shouted something. Neighbors scurried over. They said the fire truck couldn’t enter because they couldn’t secure an entrance. I stood still.

It was at the end of the summer, autumn was starting. The sky was blue and the air was dry. I didn’t know anything, not what I was supposed to think, not what I was supposed to feel, not what I was supposed to do. And then I thought “Oh, mom.” The next moment, the house collapsed with a thud. The house that had been devoured by the fire, no, now it had become the fire itself, along with the roof, the pillars, the walls, the room I lived in, they collapsed down like a sand castle. I watched them absent-mindedly.

Someone pushed me aside. The said the fire truck came. Someone else grabbed me and asked. They looked me in the eyes and shouted something, but I heard nothing.

“Who’s inside?” I blankly looked at them. “Is your mom inside?” They grabbed my shoulder and shook. Unknowingly, I answered. “No. No one’s inside.” “What are you talking about?” The auntie next door said. “What about your mom? Where’s your mom?” “There’s no one there.” I had no idea what I was saying. Someone pushed and walked past me.

Seokjin 2 March YEAR 19

There was a damp smell in the principal's office where dad led me into. Ten days after returning from the US, I was told yesterday that due to difference in school system, I would be held back a year. "Please look after him." Dad put his hands onto my shoulder and I unknowingly flinched. "School is a dangerous place. There have to be regulations". The principal looked straight at me. The wrinkled skin around his cheeks and mouth quivered whenever he talked and inside his tanned lips was a whole dark red. "Doesn't Seokjin here think so?" I hesitated at the sudden question and dad immediately squeezed my shoulder harder. His grip was so strong that it made my neck muscles throbbed. "I believe he will do well." The principal continued to look me into the eye and dad's grip slowly getting stronger and stronger. I clenched my fists at the bone-breaking pain. My body was shaking and breaking out in a cold sweat. "You have to tell me. Seokjin needs to become a good student." The principal looked at me with a smileless face. "I understood." I narrowly squeezed out an answer and for one moment the pain was gone. There was the sound of dad and the principal laughing. I couldn't lift my head up. I looked down the dad's brown shoes and the principal's black ones. I didn't know where the light was coming from, but they were glinting. I was scared of that glint.

Jungkook 28 May YEAR 19

“What’s your dream?” At my words, the hyungs turned around. “I need to fill in the career survey., so,” I equivocated. “Well,” Seokjin-hyung said, “I don’t think I have any dream. If there’s anything I wish for, maybe to become a good person?” He slurred at the end as if embarrassed. Yoongi-hyung, who was sprawling on the piano stool, then replied impassively. “It’s okay to have no dream. I don’t have such thing as dreams. I’m just gonna become anyone.” Everyone bursted into laughter at his typical answer.

“I’m gonna be a superhero. I’ll save the world from the villains.” Taehyung-hyung quickly climbed up the chair posing with his arm raised as Hoseok-hyung scolded him, “You’re gonna get hurt from messing around, get down now.” Then he added. “I want to find my mom and live happily. My dream is to be happier.” He cracked a happy-looking smile. “Does that mean you’re miserable now?” Jimin-hyung asked. “Does it?” Hoseok-hyung made a funny face, seemingly contemplating about it. He asked back Jimin-hyung. “What’s your dream?” “Me” Jimin-hyung blinked like he’s taken aback. “When I was in kindergarten I wanted to become the President, but afterwards, I’m not so sure what I want to become anymore,” he replied.

Only Namjoon-hyung was left now. Seemingly noticed everyone’s stare, he shrugged and said. “I wanted to give you some nice words, but I don’t really have any dream. I just want my part-time hourly pay to rise.” I nodded and looked down at the school newsletter. The job section of the newsletter was divided into two blanks, one for student and one for parents. What do I want to be? I couldn’t think of anything to write there.

Yoongi 12 June YEAR 19

I skipped school and went out, but the truth is I had nowhere to go. It was hot, I had no money, nothing to do. It was Namjoon who suggested going to the sea. The kids seemed excited but I didn’t really feel like going, nor did I hate going. “Do you have any money?” At my words, Namjoon made everyone empty their pockets. Some coins and a few notes. “Then we can’t go”. It was probably Taehyung who said “We could walk”. Namjoon made a face like he’s telling him to think about it and everyone chattered away, laughing and pretending to roll around on the road while walking. I wasn’t in the mood to respond so I just lagged behind. The sun was scorching. It was the middle of the day, not even the trees on the sides could cast any shade and on the road with no sidewalk, cars were passing, leaving clouds of dust behind.

“Let’s go there”. This time, it was Taehyung too. Or was it Hoseok? I wasn’t interested so I didn’t take a good look, but it was one of those two. I had my head lowered, strolling while kicking at the ground, but lifted my head up as I bumped into someone and nearly fell. Jimin was standing nailed to the spot. His face was shaking like he saw something very scary. “Are you okay?” I asked but it seemed like he couldn’t hear me. Where Jimin was staring at stood a “flower arboretum�� sign.

“I don’t want to walk.” I heard Jungkook. Sweat was dripping down Jimin’s face. His face was pale like he was about to drop down. What was that? I felt weird. “Park Jimin.” I asked but he didn’t react. I looked up at the sign again.

“It’s so hot. Why would we go to an arboretum? Let’s go to the sea.” I said dully. I didn’t know what kind of place that flower arboretum was, but it felt like we must not go there. I didn’t know why but Jimin looked strange. “We have no money.” Hoseok answered me. “Then let’s walk.” Taehyung added in. “If we just walk to the train station, we’ll make it some way or another.” Namjoon spoke up. “Then we’ll have to skip dinner instead.” Jungkook and Taehyung whined and Seokjin-hyung laughed. After everyone began to head towards the train station, Jimin started moving again. He looked like a small kid walking with his head lowered, shoulders hunching. I looked up at the sign again. Flower arboretum, the five letters were slowing getting further and further away.

Seokjin 25 June YEAR 19

Someone had brought a flower pot and placed it on the window of the storage classroom. Who would most likely bring a flower pot among the other guys? I took out my phone. The classroom was dim and dark from the lack of electricity, green grass a stark contrast amid the weak rays of sunlight streaming through the dirty windows. The photo I took with my phone didn’t come out well. It wasn’t just because of the phone. I always think about this but photos cannot encapsulate entirely what the human eyes capture.

As I approached, a letter “H” showed itself under the pot. I picked it up. “Hoseok’s flower pot”, it said. I let out a giggle. If any of the boys was to bring a flower pot, it could only be Hoseok. I put down the pot so that the letters were entirely covered, even the “H”, and looked around. The window frames were covered in doodles, which I had never noticed until now. Not just the window frames but also the walls, the ceiling, there were doodles everywhere. “Pass or die”. Names of crushes. Dates, and countless of names that had now become illegible.

Perhaps this classroom wasn’t originally a storage. Students would go to school, take classes and leave the classroom empty in the afternoon. And it would stay empty throughout summer vacation until school starts and the students burst into the classroom noisily. Were there students like us, late for class and get punished and skip school? Were there endless tests and homeworks, teachers who ruthlessly inflict violence on students? And were there people like me? One who told the principal on friends.

I wondered if my father’s name was among here too. This was also his old school. My father was someone who believes attending the same high school and college for generations was bringing dignity to the family’s tradition. As I scanned through the names, I discovered his. It was among few other names, in the middle of the left wall. Under it was written a sentence. “Everything started here.”

Jimin 30 August YEAR 19

While Hoseokie-hyung was on the phone, I played around, kicking the ground coated with his shadow. He chuckled and made a face that said “Park Jimin has grown so much.” It took two hours to walk from school to home. Less than 30 minutes by bus and can even be shortened to 20 if I take the main road. But he always insisted on taking the path that has us go through a winding alley, passing a low hill and crossing the footbridge. After getting discharged from the hospital, I transferred to another school last year. The school was far from my house and there was no one I knew. I thought it was okay. I thought it wasn’t any big deal, after all, I had already changed school several times and who knows when I would be hospitalized again.

But then I got to know him. It was not long after the new semester started. He casually approached me and walked with me for two hours. Not until much later did I find out our houses weren’t in the same direction. I couldn’t ask him why. I hoped for the shadow that walks by my side, the two hours walking together under the sun, to last longer even just a day.

He was still on the phone, I kicked his shadow again and ran away. He ended the call and started chasing me. The ice cream melt under the sun and the sound of cicadas tingled in my ears. Suddenly, I was scared. How many of these days are left now?

Taehyung 20 March YEAR 20

I ran on the hallway and slid to a stop. Namjoonie-hyung was standing in front of ‘our classroom’. Our classroom. No one knew this but I called the place ‘our classroom’. The classroom of me, the hyungs and Jungkook, of the seven of us. I held my breath and came closer. I wanted to surprise him.

“Headmaster!” After five steps, I heard an urgent voice past the slightly opened classroom’s window. It sounded like Seokjin-hyung. I stop on my tracks. Is Seokjin-hyung talking to the headmaster? At our classroom? Why? I heard my and Yoongi-hyung’s names and Namjoon-hyung gasped like he was surprised. Seokjin-hyung jerked the door open, having seemingly sensed that sound. He was holding a phone in his hand. He looked evidently surprised and taken aback. I couldn’t see Namjoon-hyung’s face. I hid and watched them. Seokjin-hyung opened his mouth as if to explain himself but Namjoon-hyung raised a hand and said. “It’s okay.” Seokjin-hyung looked confused. “There must be a reason why you did that.” He said and passed by Seokjin-hyung to come into the classroom. I couldn’t believe in my ears. Seokjin-hyung told the headmaster what Yoongi-hyung and I did the past few days. He told everything, how we skipped school, jumped over the fences and fought with the kids. But Namjoon-hyung said it was okay.

“What are you doing here?” I turned around out of surprise, it was Hoseok-hyung and Jimin. Hoseok-hyung pretended he was even more surprised and draped an arm over my shoulder. Before I knew it, he was already dragging me into the classroom. Namjoon-hyung and Seokjin-hyung turned around as they were talking. Seokjin-hyung hurriedly stood up, said he had urgent business and left. I studied Namjoon-hyung’s face. He watched Seokjin-hyung leaving from the back and smiled at everyone like nothing happened. That moment, this thought hit me. There must be a reason why Namjoon-hyung acted like that. He knew much more than me, much smarter and more mature than me. And after all, this was our classroom. I entered the classroom flashing a smile, the smile that everyone teased me calling it a rectangle smile. I decided I would never tell anyone that I overheard that conversation.

Namjoon 15 May YEAR 20

I walked across the storage classroom, which had become a hideout for us who had nowhere to go, and set upright a few chairs. I picked up the desk that had fallen down and wiped the dust with my palm. The fact that it’s the last time always make people sentimental. This will be the last day I come to school. We have decided to move two weeks ago. Who knows, maybe I would never be able to return here. Maybe I would never be able to meet the hyungs and dongsaengs again.

I folded the paper in half, put it down on the desk and picked up the pencil, but I didn’t know what to say, only time passing by. As I was scribbling down some useless words, the pencil lead broke with a snap. “You must live on.” The lead broke and before I knew it, I was scribbling down on the paper, smudged with what looked like fragments. In between the black lead power and the scribble scattered messy stories, stories of poverty, parents, dongsaeng, my move.

I crumpled the piece of paper, put it in my pocket and stood up. A cloud of dust rose as I pushed the desk. I was about to turn around and leave, but went to breathe onto the window and left three words. No farewell would be enough, no words needed to be said to convey all and everything. See you again. Rather than a promise, it was a wish.

Jungkook 25 June YEAR 20

I stroked the piano keys, smearing my hands with dust. I put some force into the tips of my fingers and the sound that came out was nothing like what he had played before. It’s been 10 days since he last went to school. I heard he was expelled today. Neither Namjoonie-hyung nor Hoseokie-hyung told me anything, and I couldn’t ask them, as if I was scared of something. That day two weeks ago when the teacher opened the door and entered our hideout place, there were only him and me here. It was parents visiting day. I didn’t want to be in the classroom so I blindly headed to the hideout. He didn’t even look back, he just kept playing the piano and I moved two desks together, lying on top and closed my eyes pretending to sleep. He and the piano seemed different but at the same time they were also one, so much that I couldn’t even think of separating them. Somehow listening to him playing the piano made me want to cry.

Feeling my tears about to fall, I rolled over, but then the door was slammed open and the piano sound cut off. I was slapped in the cheek, staggering backwards and ended up falling down. I curled up to endure the abuse, but then the voice suddenly stopped. Looking up, he was pushing the teacher’s shoulder and standing in front of me. Over his shoulder was the teacher’s stunned face.

I pressed the piano keys. I tried to mimic the song he used to play. Did he really quit school? Will he never come back? He said a few hits, a few kicks was just common to him. If I hadn’t been there, would he not stand up to the teacher? If I hadn’t been there, would he still be playing the piano here?

Yoongi 25 June YEAR 20

All of a sudden, I opened the door, went to the desk and took out a bag from the bottom drawer. I flipped the bag and shaked it, and a piano key fell out with a thud. I threw the half-burned key into the trash can and lay down on bed. My seething heart did not cool down, breathing a mess and fingers stained with soot. There was one time I came back to the house, now a ruin because of the fire, after the funeral ended. I entered my mother's room and saw the piano burned to the point of unrecognizable. I sank down next to it. As the afternoon light pierced through the window and died down, I just sat there. A few keys were rolling around amid the last rays of light. I wondered what sound they would make when I pressed down. I wondered how much mother's fingers had touched them. I took one of them, put into my pocket and left the room. 4 years has passed since then. Our house was quiet. So quiet that I was going crazy. After 10 o'clock, my father would go to bed and everything must be done with bated breath afterwards. That was the rule of this house. It was hard for me to endure that silence. It was not easy to match the time and follow the rule, the formality either. But what I couldn't endure even more was that, despite of it, I still continue to live in this house. Taking the pocket money my father gives, eating with my father, listening to his scoldings. Even though I talked back to him, went astray and caused trouble, I didn't have to courage to leave him, leave this house and be alone, to really put that freedom into action and not just pure words. All of a sudden, I sat up from the bed. I took out the key from the trash can under the desk. I opened the window, letting the air of the night harshly rush in. Everything happened today flooded in as it they were carried by the wind, slapping at my face. I threw the key into the air as hard as I could. It had been ten days since I last went to school. I heard they expelled me. Who knows, maybe now I would be kicked out of this house even if I don't want to. I listened carefully but still couldn't make out the sound of the key falling to the ground. No matter how much I wondered about, I will never be able to know what sound that key made. No matter how much time passes, that key will never be able to make any sound again. I will never play the piano again.

Seokjin 17 July YEAR 20

Outside the school entrance, the sound of crickets prickled in my ears. The school yard was crowded with kids laughing, joking around, racing with each other. It was the start of the summer holiday, everyone was excited. I lowered my head and walked through them. I just wanted to leave the school quickly.

“Hyung.” I lifted my head up out of surprise as someone’s silhouette popped out. It was Hoseok and Jimin. They were smiling brightly, looking at me with eyes beaming with mischief, just like usual. “It’s summer holiday today, are you just going to leave like that?” Hoseok pulled my arm and said. I just replied “Yeah yeah”, uttered some more meaningless words and then turned away. What happened that day was just an accident. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t think Jungkook and Yoongi would be in the storage classroom at that time. The headmaster suspected I was covering for them. He said he could tell my father that I wasn’t a well-behaved student. I had to say something. I told him about the hideout because I thought it would be empty at the time. But it ultimately led to Yoongi getting expelled. No one knew I was involved.

“Have a good vacation, hyung! I’ll contact you later.” Hoseok stealthily dropped his hold and greeted me more cheerfully on purpose, as if he read something from my face. I gave him no response this time too. There was nothing I could say. Walking out of the school gate, I thought of the day I first went here. I was late and we were punished together. It was why we could laugh. Those moments were ruined by me.

Hoseok 15 September YEAR 20

Jimin’s mother walked across the emergency room. She checked the name on the headboard and the IV bottle, then took out the grass leaf on Jimin’s shoulder. I felt like I should tell her why Jimin was rushed to the emergency room, how he had a seizure at the bus stop, so I hesitantly approached her. Only then did Jimin’s mother spot me, she looked at me for a while as if to figure something out. I didn’t know what to do, so I hung back. Jimin’s mother only said thank you and turned away.

The next time Jimin’s mother turned to me again was when the doctor and the nurses started to move the bed and I followed them. Jimin’s mother said thank you again and pushed my shoulder. More correctly, she slightly put her hand on my shoulder and took it off. But suddenly, an invisible line was drawn between me and Jimin’s mother. It was a clear and solid line. Cold and firm. It was a line that I eventually couldn’t cross through. I had lived at the orphanage for more than 10 years. I could tell it through with my body, my eyes, with the air. In an unguarded moment, I stepped back and fell to the floor. Jimin’s mother stared down at me with a blank look. She was a petite and beautiful woman, but her shadow was big and chilly. That shadow casted on me falling down to the floor of the emergency room. When I looked up, Jimin’s bed had already gone out of the emergency room, no longer seen. Since that day, Jimin didn’t go to school anymore.

Jimin 28 September YEAR 20

I stopped counting how many days I had been in the hospital. It’s something people do when they want to leave or when they have the hope of leaving. Looking at the trees and the grass outside the windows, people’s outfits, seems like it hadn’t been that much time. One month at most. Sometimes I saw school uniforms as well, but now even that didn’t really stir up any special feeling. Everything only felt so dull and hazy, maybe because of the medicine. But today was a special day. A day that must be written down on the diary if I had one. But I didn’t keep any diary and I didn’t want to cause trouble while writing such thing. Today I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor’s eyes and pretended I was depressed. I said, “I don’t remember anything.”

Jungkook 30 September YEAR 20

“Jeon Jungkook. You’re coming there recently too, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer, just standing there looking at the tips of my sneakers. He hit my head with the roll book for not answering. Still, I made no move to talk, The classroom where I was together with the hyungs. Ever since the day I followed them and discovered that classroom, there was not a single day I didn’t come there. They probably didn’t know this too. Sometimes they didn’t show up there, busy meeting friends or working part-time. Sometimes I didn’t see Yoongi-hyung or Seokjin-hyung for days. But not for me. I went there every single day. There were days no one else would come. But it was okay. If that place still exists, the hyungs would come today, tomorrow, or the following day, so it was okay.

“You learned only bad things from hanging out with those kids.” One more hit. I glared up at him. Another hit. I thought of when Yoongi-hyung was hit. I clenched my teeth and endured. I didn’t want to lie that I didn’t come to the classroom.

I once again stood in front of that classroom. It felt like if I open the door, the hyungs would be there. They would be playing games and turn around to ask me why I was so late. Seokjin-hyung and Namjoon-hyung would read books, Taehyungie-hyung would play games, Yoongi-hyung would play the piano and Hoseok-hyung and Jimin-hyung would be dancing.

But when I opened the door, there was only Hoseok-hyung. He was packing our stuff left in the classroom. I just stood there grabbing the doorknob. He approached and draped an arm over my shoulder. Then he pulled me outside. “Let’s go now.” The classroom door closed behind me. And then I realized. Those days are gone and would never come back.

Hoseok 25 February YEAR 21

I danced without taking my eyes off my reflection in the mirror. The me in there soared up without touching the ground, free from all the gazes and standards of the world. Nothing mattered to me but moving my body to the music, putting my whole heart into my body.

I first danced when I was about twelve. Maybe it was around the time of the talent show in a field trip. I followed my friends and stood on the stage. Among what happened that day, I could still remember the applause and the cheer. And the feeling of being myself for the first time. At that time, I was only thinking of moving my body to the music and having fun. It was ecstasy, and it was not until much later did I learn that that ecstasy didn’t come from the applause, it came from somewhere inside me.

The me outside the mirror is hung up by many things. I can’t lift my feet off the ground for more than a few seconds, I smile even when I hate it and smile when I’m sad too.. I take medicines I don’t need yet still collapse anywhere. So I try not to take my eyes off myself in the mirror when I dance. The moment I can truly become myself. The moment I can throw away all the weight and fly. The moment that makes me believe I can become happy. I keep my eyes on that moment.

Namjoon 17 December YEAR 21

People waiting for the first bus rubbed their hands together at the cold wind. I clutched the straps of my bag tightly and looked down to the ground. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. A country village only two buses stops at a day. The first was approaching from afar.

I followed after people and got on the bus. I didn’t look back. When we’re desperate for something, when we has grabbed hold of it and now the only thing left to do is escaping, there’s one condition. To not look back. The moment we look back, all our efforts will go up in smoke. Looking back is doubting, is lingering attachment and fear. Only after we’re over it can we truly escape.

The bus departed. I had no plan. I wasn’t desperate for anything, not did I grab hold of it and was escaping. It was more like an impromptu getaway. A getaway from my mother’s tired face, my sibling who’s feeling lost, my father’s illness. A getaway from my household situation that’s getting more stressful over time, from my family who insist on sacrifice and peace, from myself who pretended like I knew nothing and resigned, striving to adapt myself, and most of all, from poverty.

If you ask if poverty is a crime, anyone would say it’s not. But is it really not? Poverty eats away so many things. It makes what we used to treasure become nothing. It makes us give up what we could not. It makes us doubt, fear and resign.

Just few hours later, this bus will stop at a familiar stop. One year ago, I didn’t leave any goodbye when I left this place. And now I’m coming back there without any omen or notice. My friends’ faces came up in my mind. I cut contact with all of them. How have they been doing? Will they welcome me? Will we be able to gather and laugh like we used to? Outside, the landscape was rendered invisible by the frosty windows. I slowly moved my fingers above it.

“You must live on.”

Hoseok 2 March YEAR 22

I liked being among people. AFter leaving the orphanage to live on my own, I started working part-time at a fast food restaurant, a job that required facing many people, smiling and being cheerful all the time. I liked it. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to smile at and be cheerful about in my life. It was evident I met more bad people than good ones. Perhaps that was why I liked that job even more. Beaming at them and responding with a loud voice, even if forcefully, I felt like I really felt that way. My mood’s lifted up as I laughed aloud and I became a kind person as I treated people with kindness. There were days so tough that by the time I finished cleaning the restaurant and headed back home, even taking a step felt gruelling already. Still, it was a little easier to make it through with my friends around than now.

Sometimes, I looked at the customers filling the restaurant and thought about my friends. Seokjin-hyung, who transferred school and left without a word; Namjoon, who just disappeared one morning; Yoongi-hyung, who went out of contact after getting expelled; Taehyung, who no one knew where and what kind of trouble he would get into; and Jimin, who I last saw at the ER and never came back to school again. I saw Jungkook coming home from school in his uniform several times through the windows not long ago, but somehow he didn’t stop by the restaurant. I wondered if those times had gone now.

At the sound of a customer coming in, I chirped a loud welcome. And I flashed a big, healthy smile, looking back at the door.

Taehyung 29 March YEAR 22

THe gas station owner spit at the ground and left. I lay there, curled up on the ground. I was graffitiing on the wall behind the gas station when the owner caught me. He beat me after asking what the hell I was doing at someone else’s wall. I rolled over on the ground. Getting beaten was something far too familiar to me but at the same time, something I could never get used to. It was not long ago when I started graffitiing. I tried spraying on the wall with a spray can someone left behind. It was yellow, I think. I just sprayed mindlessly and looked up, at the vivid yellow paint on the gray wall, then picked up another spray. For a while, I just sprayed, clueless of whatever was going on my mind. I only stopped after all the spray cans had run out. I threw the cans away and stepped back, out of breath as if I just sprinted with all my might.

I had no idea what the colors on the wall represented, clueless of what I was doing or why I was doing it. But one thing I could figure out was that it was my feelings. I had sprayed my feelings out onto the wall. At first I thought it was hideous, dirty, even. Foolish, useless, pathetic. I didn’t like it at all. I rubbed the wet paint with my palms, wanting to erase everything away. The paint didn’t go away, instead smudged into another color and mangled into a different shape. I flopped back down against the wall. It wasn’t a matter of whether I liked it or not, nor whether it was pretty or not. It’s just, it was me.

I pushed myself up as a cough came out. Blood splattered on my palm, probably from the new cut inside my mouth. And then, I saw someone’s hand picking up the spray can. My gaze followed the hand until it met a face. It was Namjoon-hyung. I chuckled. So I was seeing things. He gave me his hand. I just looked up at him. He pulled my and and helped me up. His hand was warm.

Yoongi 7 April YEAR 22

I stopped walking at the clumsy piano sound. At the empty construction site in the middle of the night, there was only the crackling sound from a fire someone had lit in the drum can. I could tell it was the song I used to play, but I didn’t really have any thought. My drunken footsteps wobbled. I closed my eyes and walked even more mindlessly. Heat from the fire became stronger and the piano sound, the air of the night, even my intoxication fade away.

At the sudden horn, I opened my eyes, narrowly escaping a passing car. Amid the glare of the headlight, the wind from cars passing by and the chaos of my intoxication, I staggered helplessly. A driver was spitting out curses. I stopped, about to curse back when I realized, I could no longer hear the piano sound. Amid the sound of the blazing fire, the sound of the wind, the noise left behind by cars, there was no way the piano sound could be heard. Seems like it stopped. Why did it stop? Was someone playing the piano?

With a snap, sparks of the fire in the drum can surged towards the darkness. I stared vacantly at it for a while. My face flushed from the heat. That was when I heard the sound of someone slamming down the piano keys with fist. Instinctively, I turned around. In a second, my blood was running wild, breath growing ragged. My childhood nightmare. It was like the sound I heard at that place.

The next moment, I was running. My body turned around on itself not on my own will, running towards the music shop. Somehow it felt like this had repeatedly happened countless of times. Like I was forgetting something really urgent.

The music shop with broken windows. Someone was sitting in front of the piano. It had been years but I still could recognize him at once. He was crying. I clenched my fists. I didn’t want to get involved with someone else’s life. Didn’t want to comfort someone else’s loneliness. Didn’t want to become a meaningful person to someone else. I didn’t have the confidence that I would be able to protect that person. Didn’t have the confidence to be with them till the end. I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want to get hurt.

I slowly moved my steps. I was about to turn around and leave, but unknowingly, I came closer. And pointed out to him the wrong note. Jungkook lifted his head and looked up at me. “Hyung.” It was the first time we met after I dropped out of school.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

When I opened my eyes, it was the 11th of April again. Sunlight was streaming in through the open curtains. I pushed myself up as my eyes closed from the dizziness. My surroundings transformed into crimson afterimages and I thought of Taehyung, standing alone on the observation deck by the sea. It was the 22th of May. It was the past and the future, an occurrence that had happened and could happen in the future. It was the moment I thought everything was resolved.

I caught the sight of Taehyung climbing up the observation deck when the sun was starting to set. The sky was still blue but a dark red hue had begun to spread. I turned around and saw Taehyung climbing up the observation deck. Taehyung reached the top and lowered his gaze at us for a moment. And then he jumped. He leaped down like he was a bird, like he was carrying wings. For a moment, I thought he stopped in mid-air, until it felt like the mirror broke, curtains drawn open and the cold wind surged in.

When I opened my eyes, it was today, the 1tth of April.

Jungkook 11 April YEAR 22

At last, my wish was granted. I purposely bumped into the thugs on the street and was beaten as much as I wanted to be. I kept smiling as I was beaten, and so they beat me up more, calling me crazy. I leaned against the shutter door and looked up at the sky. It was already night. There was nothing in the pitch black sky. A single clump of grass stood not far away. It was lying flat from the wind. It was just like me. I forced myself to laugh to stop the tears from falling.

Under my closed eyes, I saw my stepfather clearing his throat. My half-brother was chuckling. My stepfather’s relatives were either looking somewhere else or talking about useless stuff. They acted like I wasn’t there, like my existence was nothing. In front of them, my mother was flustered. She pushed herself from the floor, making a cloud of dust rise in the process and coughed. It hurt, like someone was cutting into the pit of my stomach with a knife. I climbed up to the rooftop of the construction site. The city at night was stretching with frightful colors. I climbed on top of the banister, spreading my arms out and walked. For a moment, my legs wobbled and I almost lost balance. Just one more step and I would die, I thought. But if I die, everything would be over. No one would be sad if I disappear.

Jungkook 11 April YEAR 22

I walked on the railing on the rooftop of a building that had been left in its construction-halted state. I stuck out my foot as the darkness crept up from my toes. Beneath the railing, the night city spread out in a chaotic mess. Neon signs, car horns, acrid clouds of dust swirling in the dark. For a second, I swayed from the dizziness. I spread my arms wide to regain balance. And I thought. Just one stop. One step and all of this would be over. I leaned towards the dark a little. The darkness that began from the tip of my feet soon spread like it was going to devour my entire body. I closed my eyes and the chaotic city, the noise, the fear, all went away. I held my breath and slowly, I leaned over. No thought crossed my head. Nobody came to my mind. There was nothing I wanted to leave behind, nothing I would remember. This was just the way it ended.

It was then, the moment my phone rang. I came to myself like I just woke up from a distant dream. All the numbed senses returned in an instant. I took out my phone. It was Yoongi-hyung.

Yoongi 11 April YEAR 22

I walked, noticing Jungkook who was following from a distance behind. Containers popped up one after another along the stretch of railway. “It’s the fourth to last container.” Hoseok added. “I planned to meet up with Namjoon and Taehyung, you should come too.” I said okay, but truthfully I had no intention of going. I loathed getting entangled with people and Hoseok knew that too. He probably wouldn’t have thought I would show up for real.

I flung open the door to Hoseok’s surprised face. He spotted Jungkook and came closer with his signature exaggerated face of mixed emotions. I walked past them, heading inside the container. “It’s been awhile.” I heard an embarrassed Jungkook scuffling with Hoseok who was trying to hug him.

Soon, Namjoon entered, taking Taehyung along. Taehyung’s T-shirt was ripped on one side. Asked what happened, Namjoon pretended to smack Taehyung and said, “Dude’s doing graffiti and got caught by the cops. Had to get him out so I was late”. Taehyung pretended to be sorry exaggeratedly and went on and one about how his shirt got ripped from running away from the cops.

I sat in the corner and watched them. Namjoon was giving Taehyung another shirt to change into. Hoseok was taking out some hamburgers and drinks. Somewhere between them, Jungkook stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

Looking back, it was also the same back in high school. Somewhere inside our hideout classroom, Namjoon would try to reason with Taehyung only to get teased back, Hoseok would bustle in and out while Jungkook, unsure of where his place was, paced around.

How long had it been since we gathered like this? I couldn’t remember. How had it been for Seokjin-hyung and Jimin? These thoughts were not like me at all. I had never been to this place before but strangely, I felt at peace.

Namjoon 11 April YEAR 22

I was groping around some T-shirts when Taehyung reached out from behind and grabbed one. It was a T-shirt with the same printed quote as the one I was wearing. Taehyung laughed sheepishly, taking off his torn shirt. Under the dim light hanging on the trailer box, for a second, I saw his bruised back. Hoseok looked at me in shock. Taehyung looked at himself in the mirror wearing my T-shirt. And he laughed.

“Dude’s doing some graffiti or something, got caught by the cops while running around. Had to get him out so I was late.” I pretended to smack Taehyung and Taehyung in turn made an exaggerated expression of fake apology. Yoongi-hyung, who was sitting at the corner of the trailer, slowly approached and tapped Taehyung’s shoulder.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

I came to the sea alone. Inside the viewfinder, the sea was wide open and blue as ever. Even the sunlight dispersing on the water, the wind blowing through the pine forest, they were still the same. The only thing changed was that I was alone. One press of the shutter button and the scenery in front of my eyes flashed, for a moment, that day 2 years and 10 months ago appeared and quickly vanished again. That day we were sitting together in front of this day. Tired, empty-handed, hopeless, but we were together. I turned my car around and stepped on the accelerator. I drove through the tunnel, passing the rest stop. Somewhere near the school where we used to go to, I opened the car window. It was a night in spring. The air was warm and cherry blossoms were fluttering about on the trees ranging along the school walls. I left the school, crossed through the crossroad and made a few turns. Not far away, I could see the lights from the gas station where Namjoon works at.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

The car screeched to a narrow halt. I was too deep in thoughts to notice the traffic lights changed. Students wearing familiar uniforms crossed the road and stared at me through the windshield. Some people were even pointing at me. I tried to laugh and bow.

I knew what I had to do. But it wasn’t like I was not scared. Will I be able to end all of these miseries and pain? Does these repeated failures mean I can never succeed? Does it mean I should give up? Is happiness only false hope to us? Thousands of thoughts flashed through my head.

In no time, I reached the gas station intersection and saw Namjoon pumping fuel some distance away. I took a deep breath in and exhaled. Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, I recalled their faces one by one. I changed lanes and drove into the gas station. I couldn’t give up. Even if there is only 1% chance of success, I will never give up. Past the windshield, I saw Namjoon walking towards me.

Namjoon 11 April YEAR 22

I finished with the refuelling and turned around. Something brushed past my face and fell down to the ground. Unconsciously, I stepped back and looked down to find a crumpled note at my feet. I instinctively bent down and reached out a hand. A spill of rowdy laughter came from people in the car. I momentarily paused. Seokjin-hyung must be watching from distance away. I couldn’t look up. What should you do when you meet eyes with people who ride in expensive cars and go around looking down and make fun of others? You stand up. You stand up if their actions are wrongful. It’s not a matter of courage, self-esteem or equality. It’s a matter of fact.

But this was a gas station and I was a part-time attendant. If a customer throws trash, I have to clean it up; if a customer throws curses, I have to hear it; if a customer throws money, I have to pick it up. My body trembled from the humiliation. I clenched my fists tight, nails digging into my palms.

That moment, someone’s hand picked up the note and handed it to me. The people in the car muttered and left the gas station, having seemingly lost interest. Even after they had left, I still couldn’t look up. I didn’t have the guts to look into Seokjin-hyung’s eyes. It wasn’t like he didn’t know about my cowardice, my poverty, my circumstance, but I didn’t want to show him this unconcealedly. He stood at the end of my sight unmoving. He didn’t approach, didn’t talk to me either.

Namjoon 28 April YEAR 22

I had noticed something was going on with Taehyung a long time ago. He acted like nothing happened on the outside but his momentary actions, his face, the way he talked was painted with the anxiety of not knowing what to do. He was in and out of police station, wounds visible on his body. And he had nightmares.

I didn’t ask what happened or urge him to talk about it to me, because I was waiting for Taehyung to tell me himself and on the other hand, I doubted I had any right to hear such distress. I pretended to be the older one, to be an adult, but in truth I couldn’t be by their side during their hard times. Everyone praised highly of how mature I was yet I wasn’t a real adult. I only hesitated, unable to look at the reality in front of my eyes.

“Yoongi-hyung was dead.” Taehyung had another nightmare today. I shook him by the shoulders and he jolted awake, then sat there vacantly for a while. He didn’t even think of wiping the tears in his eyes and just muttered incoherently. He said that Yoongi was dead, Jungkook had an accident and he got into a fight, that he kept having such dream and it was so vivid he felt like that dream was real and we were now inside a dream. “Hyung, don’t go anywhere.” His voice trembled with uneasiness.

Yoongi 2 May YEAR 22

The sheet caught on fire and blazed up instantly. Amid the unbearable heat, everything that was once humble lost their presence. I could no longer feel the sour, moldy smell, the unidentifiable dampness and the dank light. Instead, what remained was the pain. The physical pain that was the heat. The tips of my fingers and my skin felt like they would be blistered and melt down from the overwhelming heat. For the first time, my father’s expressionless face and the sound of the music dissipated.

My father and I were different in many ways. He couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand him. Would I be able to persuade him if I had tried? Perhaps no. The only thing I could do was to hide, rebel, to run away. Sometimes the thought that it wasn’t my father that I was getting away from crossed my mind. And then came the precipitous fear. What am I running away from? How can I escape from myself? Everything felt impossible.

I faintly registered the sound of someone calling my name, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t breathe, whether from the heat or the pain I didn’t know. There was no strength to move left in me but still, I could make it out. It was Jungkook. He must be so mad at me. Probably would grieve for me too. I just wanted to sit down. I wanted to end all the smoke and heat, pain and fear here. Jungkook was shouting something again but I still couldn’t place it. My vision faltered and I lifted my eyes up for the last time. There they were, the last things I saw on this world. The dirty, isolated room, the glowing hot flame, flickering heat, and Jungkook’s face.

Jungkook 2 May YEAR 22

I looked up only to see myself standing in front of Namjoon-hyung’s container. I opened the door and entered. I gathered the scattering clothes, draped around myself and curled up. It was chilly. My whole body was shaking and I felt like crying, but no tear came out.

When I opened the door and came in, Yoongi-hyung was standing on the bed. Flames were bursting from the bed sheet. That moment, an uncontrollable rage and sense of fear coiled around me, I wasn’t good with words. I wasn’t good with expressing my emotions to persuade someone either. Tears welled up and I coughed and the words just kept getting stuck in my throat unable to come out. The only thing I could utter as I flung myself into the fire was ‘We all promised to go to the sea together.’

“What happened? Did you have a nightmare?” I opened my eyes at someone shaking my shoulders. It was Namjoon-hyung. Somehow I felt safe. He felt my forehead and said I had a fever. Maybe I really did. My mouth felt like it was on fire but my body felt uncontrollably cold. My head was throbbing and my throat hurt. I took the pills he bought me. “Sleep. Let’s talk later.” I nodded, and said. “Can I ever become an adult like you?” Namjoon-hyung turned and looked at me.

Hoseok 12 May YEAR 22

I opened the fire exit doors and ran down the stairs. My heart was pounding so fast it felt like it’s going to burst any moment. There was no doubt the fact that passed by me at the hospital corridor was my mom. The moment I turned around to look, the elevator door slid open and people stampeded out. Frantically, I pushed my way through the crowd and saw her walking into the fire exit in the distance. I ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time from the restlessness. I went down several floors without resting.

“Mom!” She halted. I took another step forward. She turned around. I stepped down some more stairs. Her face started to come into my sight. It was that moment. My heel slipped on the stair edge and my body tilted forward. I squeezed my eye shut expecting a face plant. Someone grabbed my arm and I narrowly regained my balance. I looked back, Jimin was standing there with a shocked face. I didn’t get the chance to thank him and turned around again.

There was a woman. She looked surprised. Next to her was a young boy who was blinking his big eyes at me. She wasn’t my mother. I stared at the woman’s face and stood still on the stairs wordlessly.

I couldn’t recall what I said to get out of there. I didn’t ask Jimin how he showed up there too. My mind was too tangled to ponder over and care about the details. That woman was not my mother. Perhaps I had known the truth from the beginning. It had been more than ten years since the day I was left alone at the amusement park. She must have grown older and different from my memory of her. Even if we meet I wouldn’t be able to recognize her. No, I didn’t even remember her face now.

I looked back. Jimin was following me wordlessly. Jimin told me that after parting ways at the emergency room when we were high schoolers, he had spent his whole time at this hospital. I recalled his uncertain face when I asked if he wanted to leave. Perhaps Jimin was like me too, both prisoners of the memories that had been entrapping us, unable to send it away or capture it and just stay imprisoned. I took a step towards Jimin.

“Jimin. Let’s get out of here.”

Jimin 15 May YEAR 22

When I opened my eyes, Hoseok-hyung was standing there. Under the familiar ceiling, in the familiar darkness, he was looking down at me. Surprised, I pushed myself up but he put an index finger to my lips. It was quiet, like everyone else had gone to sleep. He immediately passed me a shirt and pointed his chin to outside the hospital room.

“We all came.” Namjoon-hyung was keeping watch and Yoongi-hyung was stalling by sticking to the nurse, he said. Jungkook and Taehyung would join later in the elevator. At first I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He reached out his hand to a bewildered me.

The day I leave the hospital. I used to dream about it. I wanted to leave the hospital and meet up with friends, laughing and chatting with each other like we used to before, but now, I’m not so sure anymore. Is leaving here a good thing? My parents who hid me here and treat me like I’m invisible. People who whisper that I have mental illness. Who knows, maybe Hoseok-hyung thinks so too. Maybe deep inside he could be thinking of me as a weird kid and find it uncomfortable to spend time with me.

“Quick. We don’t have time.” The clock’s ticking sounded strangely fast, perhaps because of his urge. Thump. Thump. Sound of footsteps rand like an auditory hallucination and slowly, it approached the room. He and I stared at the door at the same time and back at each other. His arm was still extended before me.

Jimin 16 May YEAR 22

Hoseok-hyung’s house was located on very high ground. A long walk up from the main road, through winding narrow alleys to the last house and its rooftop, was his house. We entered the house, a single room being its entire composition, as he boasted about how this was the top floor of the city and every place we grew up in was now under our feet. True to his words, I could see a lot from the rooftop. A train station not far away, containers lining up along the railway. One of them was where Namjoon-hyung was living in. A diverting of the eyes and there was the school where we went to together. I looked for the school, then looked up at the other side of the city. Along the mountain foot lay a big apartment complex. That was my – no, my parents’ – house. I ran away from the hospital without a word. They must have contacted my parents and were already searching for me by now. I still hadn’t got the courage to face my parents. I left the hospital but I couldn’t come home. It didn’t mean I want to go back to the hospital. Yet, I had nowhere to go and no money to use. Seeing me standing hesitantly, he told me to follow him and led the way. And here we were, at his house.

I looked up at the apartment complex again. Someday I would have to go there, to meet my parents and let them know I would never go back to the hospital again. I took a deep breath. It felt like just the mere thought of it could trigger a seizure in me. Truthfully, even I couldn’t believe I would be able to endure it somewhere else other than the hospital. And intolerable fear struck me.

Jimin 19 May YEAR 22

At the end, I had to go to the flower arboretum. It’s time to stop lying I didn’t remember what happened there. Time to stop living in hiding at the hospital, stop having a seizure. In order to do so, I needed to go there. And so I searched days for this bus stop. But I couldn’t get on the shuttle bus to the flower arboretum.

Yoongi-hyung plopped down next to me after I had missed the third bus. I asked what he was doing here and he said he was simply bored and had nothing to do. He asked why I was sitting here. I lowered my head and kicked at the ground with the tips of my shoes. I thought about why I was sitting here. It was because I had no courage. I want to pretend that I was okay now, that I knew what I was talking about and I could easily overcome it but the truth is, I was scared. Scared of what I would face, whether or not I would be able to bear it and the chance of me having a seizure again.

Yoongi-hyung looked relaxed. He slumped down like had nothing to rush off for and said the weather’s nice along with some other nonsense stuff. Hearing him,I realized the weather was indeed nice. I was too nervous to look around me. The sky was blue and occasionally there would be a warm breeze blowing. Not far away, the shuttle bus to the flower arboretum was arriving. The bus stopped and the doors were opened. The driver looked at me. On a spur of the moment, I asked him.

“Hyung. Will you come with me?”

Taehyung 20 May YEAR 22

I looked down to my hands. They were smudged with blood. Suddenly, I lost all strength in my legs. I was about to flop down when someone hugged me from behind. The sun was beaming its weak rays through the window. My sister was crying and Hoseok-hyung was silently standing there without a word. The dirty furniture and blankets were littered around, just like usual. No one was left where my father was standing. I couldn’t recall when he left the room.

The uncontrollable rage and sorrow that was boiling inside me the moment I came at my father still remained the same. I couldn’t tell what held me back when I was about to stab my father. I couldn’t tell how to calm this insanity-bordering mind of mine. I didn’t want to kill my father, I wanted to die. If I could, I would gladly die now. No tears came out. I wanted to cry, to scream, to stomp on and destroy and break everything, to be broken, but I couldn’t do anything.

“Hyung. I’m sorry. I’m okay. Go.” My voice came out dry, a stark contrast to my mind that was bordering insanity. It didn’t sound like my voice. I send off him, who didn’t seem like he was leaving anytime soon, and looked down to my palm. Blood was seeping through the white bandage. Instead of stabbing my father, I hit the floor with the bottle. It shattered and gashed my palm. I closed my eyes and felt the world spinning around. What should I think? What should I do? How should I live? When my senses returned, I was looking down at Namjoon-hyung’s numbers. Even after things came to this, no, as things came to this, I was even more desperate for his presence. I wanted to tell him. Hyung. I almost killed my father, my father who gave birth to me, my father who beat me to a pulp every single day. I really almost killed him. No, the truth is I already did. I killed him thousands of times. I killed him so many times even I couldn’t count. I want to kill him. I want to die. What should I do now? I don’t know anymore. Hyung, I just want to see you.

Hoseok 20 May YEAR 22

I took Taehyung out of the police station with me. “Thank you for your hard work.” I bowed and shouted loudly, but I didn’t feel so. Taehyung’s house was not far from the police station. If he had lived somewhere far away, would he not need to go in and out of the police station this often? Why did Taehyung’s parents choose a place this close to the police station? The world was so unfair to this kind, soft-hearted kid. I draped an arm around Taehyung’s shoulder, pretended like nothing happened and asked, “Are you hungry?” Taehyung shook his head. “Did the policemen buy you food?” I asked again but Taehyung gave no answer.

We walked in the sun. Cold winds were blowing inside my heart. If this is how I’m feeling, what about Taehyung? How torn and broken must he have felt? Was there even any piece of his heart left? How much pain there was inside him? I couldn’t look at him in the face with those thoughts in mind, so I looked up to the sky instead. An airplane was flying past the dim sunlight. The first time I saw the wounds on Taehyung’s back, it was when we met at Namjoon’s container hideout. Seeing Taehyung laugh so innocently over getting a T-shirt, no one could say anything, but inside a piece of our hearts was broken.

I didn’t have any parent. I had no memory of my dad and memories of my mom were only until I was 7 years old. When it came to wounds about family and childhood, I was never jealous with anyone. People say we must overcome wounds, we must embrace and grow used to them. We must reconcile and forgive in order to live. I couldn’t, not because I didn’t know nor I hated and refused to. Some things just can’t be accomplished through efforts. No one taught us the way. The world gave us new wounds before its knives grew blunt. I know there’s no one without wounds in this world. But why must the wounds be this deep? For what reason do we need them? Why must this happen?

“Hyung, I’m okay. I can go by myself.” Taehyung told me at the crossroad. “I know, kid.” I paid no attention to his words and led the way. “I’m really okay. Look. It’s nothing.” Taehyung smiled. I didn’t answer him. There was no way he was okay. He was far from okay, but if i admit this fact I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I was avoiding it. It had become a habit of mine. Taehyung pull up the hood of his hoodie and started following me. “You’re really not hungry?” I asked Taehyung at the hallway to his house. Taehyung just smiled foolishly and nodded. I watched him walking away from the back and turned around. The hallway he walked on and the path I took on the way back were desolate. The kid and I, we were both alone. I was about to look back when suddenly, my phone rang.

Taehyung 22 May YEAR 22

I was walking through the pine forest when I saw him taking the call, lagging behind. It happened a lot lately. He would make the call somewhere far away so others wouldn’t be able to listen. I purposely slowed down my pace and hid myself towards the sea. He didn’t see my and walked straight past. “He’s only a year younger than me.. I don’t care. It’s not something I can take responsibility for anyway. Please take care of it yourself.”

Something cold ran down my spine. Like the whole world had just collapsed, like I was floating in the middle of the deep sea alone. I was scared, terrified. I was miserable and pathetic. I was angry. Angry and couldn’t stand it. I wanted to do something bad, anything. I was always scared. Dad’s blood was flowing inside me. Who knows, maybe I inherited his violence gene. It felt like from inside the shield I had wrapped up so tightly, something was piercing through to come out.

Namjoon 22 May YEAR 22

“We’re just one year apart. No, someone said so. I’m older than him. I know. But he’s not a kid anymore. I’m just saying it’s time for him to do by himself. I got it. I said I got it. No, I’m not angry. Sorry.”

I ended the call and looked down to the ground. The warm sea breeze was sweeping through the pine forest. I felt so suffocated inside, like my heart would explode any second. On the ground mixed with half sand and half ground, the ants were lining up to go somewhere. If someone who’s greater than me in any aspect, physically or symbolically, look, would they see where I am going, know why I am going and how I will end up?

It’s not like I don’t love my parents, nor am I not worried for my sibling. If I can I want to look away, but I’m just me, so clearly that won’t happen. If it happens, what would all these struggles, anger, frustration and this desire to escape mean?

Some distance away, I saw someone from the back, standing nailed to the spot just like I was. It was Jungkook. Jungkook once told me this. “I want to become an adult like you.” I could tell him then. Tell him that I’m not a good adult like he thought, that no, I’m not even an adult. I felt like it would be too cruel to tell him so. I couldn’t tell a young kid couldn’t get the faith, the care and love he deserved that growing older, growing taller and living longer doesn’t make you an adult. I hoped for Jungkook’s future to be kinder to him than mine did, but I couldn’t promise that I would be there to help him. I approached and draped an arm around his shoulder. Jungkook looked up at me.

Taehyung 22 May YEAR 22

“Hyung, that’s all? Isn’t there anything else you’re hiding from us?” Everyone immediately fell into silence, every gaze directed at me. I stared straight at Seokjin-hyung. He stared back at me, his eyes tinged with weariness, discomfort and something akin to pity. The moment I tried to press him again, someone grabbed my arm and stopped me. I didn’t look back but I could know. It was Namjoon-hyung.

“What does this have to do with you? You’re not even my real brother.” I could feel he was looking at me. I shook his hand off without turning around. I was well aware too, that I was getting mad at Namjoon-hyung for no reason. I was repeating what he said on the phone to someone else to let him know that I was angry with him right now, that I was really upset. There was nothing wrong in his words. I was only a year younger than him. I wasn’t his real brother. I needed to take care of my own problem. But still, I was upset, even angrier at the fact that there was nothing to refute. I had hoped he could understand how I felt.

“Taehyung, I’m sorry. Let’s stop here.” It was Seokjin-hyung who spoke up. Calling my name, apologizing, both were Seokjin-hyung. Namjoon-hyung didn’t say anything. “Stop what? Tell everything while we’re at it. Hyung, you’re hiding something from us.”

“Let’s go outside and talk.” Namjoon-hyung said, grabbing my arm again. I shook him off one more time but he applied more force and tried to pull me outside. I held on. “Let me go. What right do you have to stop me? What do you even know? You know nothing. You think you’re some great guy?” It was then. He let go of me and I staggered from the rebound. No it wasn’t from the rebound. The moment he let go of my arm, it felt like a link was severed, everything that held me up cracking, splitting, crumbling to pieces. Perhaps I had hoped he wouldn’t let go of me until the end, that he would get mad at me and drag me outside. Perhaps I had hoped, wished he would scold me more, like one would to their real brother, to someone so close and important that they just couldn’t afford to back down.

But he let go of me. I laughed out loud. “What’s so great about being together? What are we even to each other? We’re all alone in the end.” That moment, Seokjin-hyung hit me.

Jungkook 22 May YEAR 22

I thought I was floating in the air but in no time, it turned into the hard ground. For a while, I couldn’t feel anything. My body only felt so heavy that I couldn’t even lift my eyelids. I couldn’t even gulp or breathe. My consciousness faded as my surroundings slowly grew faint.

And then, my whole body jolted in fits as if I was startled by something. In the midst of the pain and thirst which I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, I unknowingly opened my eyes. Through my vision, strained like it was covered by sand, I saw something shimmering. I thought it was a fire, but it wasn’t. It was bright, grand and hazy. It wasn’t moving, just floating on the air. I watched it for a while and slowly, it took a shape. It was the moon.

I didn’t know if it was because I was twisting my neck or not, but the world was upside down. In that world, the moon was hanging upside down. I coughed to catch my breath, but I couldn’t move. After that, I felt a chill. I was scared. I moved my lips but no word came out. My eyes weren’t closed, yet there was only darkness in front of me. As my consciousness faded away, someone spoke up.

“To live would be more painful than to die, do you still want to live then?”

Hoseok 31 May YEAR 22

Breath suddenly stifled, I avoided the gazes as an instinct. My breath was shaking after dancing for a while, but it wasn’t the cause. I was struck with a thought of how she looked like my mother. No, it wasn’t a thought, wasn’t a recognition, nor was it something I could explain or describe. I couldn’t look straight at the face of the friend whom I had known for more than ten years. We learned dancing together, failed together, fell into despair and cheered up together. We lay down on the floor covered in sweat, throwing towels and joking around. As if touched by a sensation I had never felt before, I scrambled to my feet. As soon as I turned around the corner, I leaned against the wall and stood there. I tried to calm down my unsettled breathe, but there came a sound saying “Where are you going, Hoseok-ah?” A voice, maybe it was a voice. A voice calling “Hoseok-ah.” A voice that I can’t even recall well now, that goes back to when I was seven years old.

Yoongi 8 June YEAR 22

I took off my T-shirt. The me inside the mirror was nothing like me at all. The T-shirt with 'DREAM' written on it wasn't my type in any way. I hated the color red, the word "dream", and even the way it clung tightly onto my body. Annoyed, I took out the cigarette and looked for my lighter. There was nothing in my jeans pocket, so I looked through the bag and realized. It was taken away. It was taken from my hands just like that. I was left with the lollipop and this T-shirt. I ruffled my hair and stood up, but then heard a sound signaling a message came. The moment I saw the name with three words on the phone screen, everything around me suddenly lit up and my heart dropped with a thud. I read the message and snapped my cigarette into two. The next moment, I was smiling in the mirror. Wearing a tight red shirt with 'DREAM' on it, I was smiling like an idiot.

Seokjin 13 June YEAR 22

After returning from that sea, we were all alone.

Like it was all set, we didn’t contact each other. We only assumed the existence of each other from the graffiti on the streets, the gas station lighting brightly, the piano sound from the old building. Every time like that, the afterimage of that night came back to haunt me like a phantom. Taehyung’s pupils that blazed with fire, all the eyes that looked at me as if hearing an unbelievable story, Namjoon’s hands that stopped Taehyung, and me who couldn’t endure and threw my fists towards Taehyung.

After Taehyung ran away, we couldn’t find him, no one stayed at the seaside dorm after returning. The broken glass cup, the bloodstain that was starting to get clotted, the crumbled snack pieces, they only reminded us of what happened few hours ago. A photo fell down then. It was the photo we took at the sea, smiling together.

I passed by the gas station today. One day we will meet again. One day we will smile together like we did in that photo. One day I will gather the courage to face myself. But now, it is not the time yet. The humid wind blew today, just like that day. And the next moment, my phone rang like a warning. The photo hanging on the mirror of my room was shaking. Hoseok’s name appeared on the screen.

“Hyung, Jungkook got into an accident that night.”

Yoongi 15 June YEAR 22

I couldn’t perceive anything but the music blasting inside my head. How much I have drunk, where I am, what I was doing. I didn’t want to know, nor did I feel them to be of any importance. When I stumbled outside, the night had already come. I just let my feet take me. Pedestrians, stalls, walls, I just bumped against anywhere. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to forget everything.

Jimin’s voice still rang vividly in my mind. “Hyung. Jungkook—” Next thing I remember, I was running up the hospital stairs like crazy. The hallways in the hospital were strangely dark and long. Passing by were people wearing patient’s clothes. My heart was pounding. Their faces were ghastly pale. They showed no expression, like they were all dead. Inside my head, the sound of my breathing was banging loudly.

Past the slightly opened door of the room lay Jungkook. Unknowingly, I turned my head. I couldn’t look at him. At that moment, the piano sound, the flame, the sound of the building collapsing suddenly came to my ears. I covered my head and flopped down. It said “It’s all because of you.” It said “If only you didn’t exist.” It was my mom’s voice, no, it was my voice, no, it was someone’s voice. Those words tormented me for god knows how long. I wanted to believe that it’s not true. But Jungkook was lying there. Jungkook was lying there in the hall, with people whose faces were pale as dead passing by. I just couldn’t come in. I couldn’t confirm. And so I stood up, legs wobbling. As I came back out, my tears fell. Funny. I didn’t remember what was the last time I cried.

I turned around at someone grabbing my arm when I was about to cross the road. Who was it? No, it didn’t matter. Anyone was the same. Don’t come near me. Go. Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to get hurt. So please, just don’t come near me

Taehyung 25 June YEAR 22

I slowed down on purpose and listened carefully to the small sound of someone running behind me. Today was the third time we ran into each other at the convenience store. If there was any difference, it’s that she ran away as soon as she saw me. She strolled around the empty lot behind the convenience store and hid away right after I showed up. She thought she were hiding well, but their shadow was stretching out to the front of the empty lot. I giggled. I walked away pretending I didn’t see anything, and she began to follow me.

I entered a narrow alley. This was the only place in this neighborhood where the street lamps weren’t broken. The alley ran long with the street lamp standing somewhere halfway. When the source of the light is ahead, the shadow stretches behind. So right now my shadow would cast behind me. Maybe it would even reach the feet of the person who had been following me with bated breath. I soon reached the street lamp and my shadow immediately hid under my feet. I began to speed up my pace. Leaving the lamp behind, now my shadow started to cast in front of me. Soon enough, another shadow that wasn’t mine appeared on the dusty cement road. As I stopped, she stopped and stood there as well. Two shadows of different heights standing still side by side.

I spoke. “I’m gonna wait until you come here.” The shadow jumped as if surprised, and held its breath like it wasn’t there. “I can see you.” I pointed at the shadow. Soon. the sound of footsteps began to approach me, stamping on purpose. I laughed.

Namjoon 30 June YEAR 22

With somewhat a weird feeling, I looked at my hands pressing the open button as if it had a will of its own. There were moments like this. Moments that even though it was clearly the first time, I feel like it had repeatedly happened countless of times. Right before the elevator door closed, it opened again and people crowded in. I spotted someone with hair tied up by a yellow rubber band. It wasn’t because I know that person would be here that I pressed the open button, but I felt like that person would definitely be here. I slowly stepped further to the back. I lifted my head up as my back pressing against the cold elevator wall, the yellow rubber band coming into my view.

A person’s back speaks up many thing. Among them, I can only understand a few. Some I can vaguely guess and some are ultimately left ungrasped. I was suddenly struck with the thought that you can only say you know a person when you are able to read everything from their back. If so, maybe there would also be someone who can read me from my back. As I looked up, our eyes met in the mirror. For a second, I avoided the gaze. When I looked up, there was only my face in the mirror. My back was no longer seen.

Jimin 3 July YEAR 22

I eventually lay down on the floor. After turning off the music, everything around me became quiet, nothing heard save for the sound of my breathing and the thundering of my heart. I pulled out my phone and played the choreography video I learned by day. His movements in the videos were smooth and accurate. I knew it was the result of countless hours, sweat and practice, and it was greed to someone who didn’t have much like me. But understanding and desiring were different, so I often sighed. I stood up all of a sudden again. I could mimic his turns but my steps were still messed up. I kept making mistakes at the part where we changed position and match the formation. We decided to match it tomorrow, but until then, I wanted to do it properly, one way or another. Rather than a joking “Pretty good” compliment, I wanted to be acknowledged as a real and equal partner like when I danced with him.

Jimin 4 July YEAR 22

When my senses returned, I was already washing my arm so hard that my skin was threatening to come off. My hands were shaking, breathe coming up and down. Blood was streaming down my arm. In the mirror, I saw my bloodshot eyes. Fragments of what happened earlier came back to me.

Suddenly, I lost focus. I was dancing together with a noona from the dance club when our moves got tangled and we bumped into each other. I tumbled down the rough floor and my arm started bleeding. That moment, I thought back of what happened at the flower arboretum. I thought I was over it but I wasn’t. I had to run away. I had to wash. I had to turn away. The me in the mirror was still that same 8-year-old kid stomping in the rain to run away. And then suddenly I remember. She also fell down with me.

No one was in the practice room. Past the slightly opened door, the rain was beating hard. I saw Hoseokie-hyung running not far away. He was soaked in the rain. I took the umbrella and dashed out. I ran. Eventually, I halted.

There was nothing I could do. All I could was to fall down and make her hurt, tremble at my own injury and leave her there only to belatedly run and stop halfway. I turned around and walked. Rain splattered on my sneakers with each step. The cars’ headlights flashed by. I wasn’t okay. No, I was. It didn’t hurt. This wound was nothing. I was really okay.

Hoseok 4 July YEAR 22

I went out to the hallway while waiting for first aid. The hospital hallway was crowded with people walking around even at this time of the night. Water was dripping down from my hair drenched by the rain and sweat. As I shook my hair, her bag fell down. All kinds of miscellaneous stuff spilled out. Coins were rolling, ball pens and towels everywhere. Among them, there was an airplane E-ticket. I picked it up and briefly looked through it.

Then, the doctor called me. It was just a mild concussion, there was nothing big to worry about, the doctor said. A moment later, she came out. “Are you okay?” She said she had a little headache and was about to take her bag back from me. Then she saw the E-ticket sticking out and looked at me. I shifted the bag to the other shoulder, pretending like nothing happened and rushed her to go. When we got to the entrance, it was raining. We stood side by side in front of the door.

“Hoseok-ah”. She called. She looked like she had something to say. “Wait a moment. I’ll go buy an umbrella.” I mindlessly ran in the rain. There was a convenience store not far away. I knew she auditioned for a dance team overseas not long ago. Seeing she already got the airplane ticket, seems like she passed. I didn’t want to hear what she said. I didn’t have the confidence to congratulate her.

Namjoon 13 July YEAR 22

I rested my head against the window. From the library to the gas station, the same commute everyday. Outside the windows passed the sickeningly familiar landscapes. Will I ever escape these landscapes? I felt that it was impossible to predict what would come tomorrow, what I could hope for.

A girl sat few seats in front of me, hair tied back with a yellow rubber band. She raised her shoulders up as if heaving a sigh and sat down. And then she rested her head against the window. We have been studying at the same library and taking the bus at the same station for more than a month. We never talked but we saw the same landscapes, lived the same time and heaved the same sigh. The hair tie was still in the pocket of my pants.

The girl always got off three stops ahead of me. Every time I saw her getting off, I wondered if she would go to to hand out the flyers again. What did she have to go through? What did she have to endure? How much of the hopelessness that is tomorrow would never come, that is there was already no such thing as tomorrow from the start did she feel? I thought.

The girl’s stop was approaching. Someone pressed the stop button and shortly after, passengers stood up from their seats. But the girl wasn’t among them. She stood still in her seat with head resting against the window. Seems like she was sleeping. Should I go and wake her up? I debated for a moment. The bus reached the stop. The girl still remained the same. People got off. The door closed and the bus left.

The girl didn’t wake up once while the bus passed three stops. As I walked to the door, I debated with myself once again. Obviously if I get off, no one would pay attention to the girl. By the time she wakes up, the bus would be far away from where she was supposed to get off. Who knows how more tiring her day would get because of it.

I got off the bus and started walking to the gas station. The bus soon departed and I didn’t look back. I left the hair tie on her bag but that was it. It wasn’t the start nor was it the end. There was nothing from the beginning so there was no reason for anything to happen. So it was nothing at all, I thought.

Jungkook 16 July YEAR 22

I stood by the window, plugged in my earphones and slowly sang along to the song. It has already been a week. Now I could sing along without looking at the lyrics. I took out one earphone and practiced with my voice. She said she liked it because the lyrics were beautiful, but the lyrics were embarrassing, so I just scratched my head. The sunlight of July was streaming through the big window frame. The green leaves were fluttering and shining, probably because of the wind, and the touch that the sunlight left on my face felt different each time. I closed my eyes. I looked at the yellow, red and blue tingeing behind my closed eyes. I don’t know if it was because of the lyrics or because of the sun, but something was rising from inside my heart, tingling and burning.

Taehyung 17 July YEAR 22

My sides felt like they were being torn apart. Sweat was dripping down me. The railway, the vacant lot behind the convenience store, under the overpass, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I even ran to the bus stop but she was nowhere to be seen. People waiting for their buses gave me an odd look. What happened? We didn’t promise to meet but it was weird. She always popped up out of nowhere and followed me around. She wouldn’t give up even if I told her she’s annoying. But everywhere we went together, I couldn’t find her.

I stopped on my tracks in front of a familiar wall. It was a graffiti we drew together, her first ever graffiti. A giant “X” was drawn on top of it. It was her. I didn’t see it in person but I knew it. Why? I had no answer for that. Instead, the afterimages stacked up above the wall.

Her smile flashing at me when I knocked my head while lying on the railway. Her hands helping me up when I fell while helping her run away. Her face burning with anger when I stole the bread. Her gloomy look when we passed the photo studio where a family portrait was hung at the front. Her gaze unconsciously following the passing students. I told her when we were spraying on this wall together. “If you have any trouble, don’t suffer alone, tell me.” The X symbol was drawn on top of all those memories, like it was saying everything was fake. Like it was saying they were all a lie. I unknowingly clenched my fists. Why? I had no answer. I turned around and walked. Both I and she, we were once again alone.

Namjoon 20 July YEAR 22

I leafed through the advertisement pages of the magazine and looked up. It had been a different face sitting at the window seat of the table on the other side for days. A similar thick book, a similar big backpack, a similar white paper cup, but it wasn’t her. I lowered my gaze at the magazine again. I had been reading the same page for an hour. The repeating thoughts kept me from focusing on the words. Why am I sitting here? I couldn’t think of an answer. In the middle of people who were all indulging in something, I was just here idly flipping through the magazine. The rush to start doing something, anything, struck me. I just couldn’t stay like this.

I returned the magazine and went to stand among the bookshelves. Rows of bookshelves that were taller than my height, filled with books stacked in lins. Wind was blowing through the open windows, sending the dust and the smell of books into the air. It reminded me of high school, when I used to spend time at the hideout classroom with my friends. The books I read then had this smell too. I wonder if the me of the present has grown up any more from those days. I couldn’t say yes immediately. Who knows, maybe everything about me had stopped at those days. I walked to the bookshelf on the other side and picked up a book I used to study then. I needed to start again, one by one, everything starting from the things I had given up then.

Jungkook 26 July YEAR 22

I secretly picked some flowers from the hospital’s garden. I lowered my head from the laughter bubbling up my throat. The sun was beaming dazzlingly in a midsummer day. I knocked the door, no answer. I knocked again and pushed the door open. Somehow, the room felt chilly. No one was inside. Only silent darkness resided here.

I turned around and left the room. I rolled my wheelchair down the hallway feeling tired and frustrated, and that’s when I met her. I came to a sudden halt at something showing up and there stood a girl, hair tied into a ponytail. There was a bench somewhere outside the hospital. I remembered sitting on that bench and drawing while listening to music with her. We even shared strawberry milk on the roof. My hands were still clutching the wild flowers but I had no one to give it to anymore.

Jungkook 26 July YEAR 22

I turned around to find the hospital already far away. The bench where I left the wildflowers on, the window where we looked at the river together, were out of sight. Looking back, she had given me a break to breathe in my suffocating days at the hospital. We would sit on the bench chatting the late afternoon away and the sun would already have set before we even realized. I talked about hanging out at the hideout, the trip to the sea and even the time I walked to the train station. She told me about every inch of the hospital, about the window from which we could see the river and the stairs that was the secret path to the rooftop. There was nothing about the hospital that she didn’t know.

Her room was empty. I asked the nurses but couldn’t figure out anything, whether she was discharged or moved to another hospital I didn’t know. Somehow, I felt empty. I turned around and started walking again. I could see the school from afar. Thinking of it, most of the stories I shared with her were what I experienced with the hyungs. Most of the stuff I said started with “the hyungs”. To me who was always alone, they became my friends, my family, my teachers. Every story of mine was in their story and I only existed in my relationship with them.

But at some point, this thought started to wander in my mind. Maybe one day they would no longer be by my side. Maybe one day I would come to look for them only to find no one there and no one would tell me why. Maybe something far worse could happen.

I thought of that night. The day the big moon was hanging in the night sky, the world flipping upside down, headlights piercing into the inverted vision, read light from the tail lamps and the strangely familiar sound of the engine. I didn’t want to make a pointless speculation but that moment. it kept coming into my head, over and over again.

Jimin 28 July YEAR 22

I stayed behind at the practice room again today. It was past midnight already, the buses had stopped running. The truth is I waited for the buses to stop running so I could have the practice room for myself. Practicing together made me see only my flaws and it was nerve-wrecking, scary, even. Yet, I still wanted to nail it no matter what, which was why I stayed behind by myself every night.

With each passing day, my fear dissipated, strangely enough, only the fact that dancing is so much fun remains. For a long time, I had lived thinking that the small, weak, sluggish image I shaped in my mind was the real me. Dancing got me thinking of constantly of my body weight, my arms length, the speed I could exert and the strength I could possess. When I danced, I was not small and weak. My dance skill improved as much as I had practiced. Even moved that I used to be scared of at first linked up in the end after numerous repetitions. I was growing. A little bit at a time but still, growing. I also found out that I was quite a talkative person, as when I danced it felt like all the things I couldn’t say and didn’t say just poured out. As I started dancing, for the first time ever, I had grown to like myself.

Yoongi 29 July YEAR 22

How is it that only after the person who would perform with you as you play the guitar had gone do that melody keep coming to your mind? I lay on the sofa, looking at the piano placed over there. One time, after getting expelled from school, I threw away the key from my mother’s piano. A half-burned piano key, the only thing I brought from our house that was destroyed in the fire, thrown out of the apartment window. I thought that was the end. I chanted to myself, determining to never touch the piano again.

It was the next dawn. I jumped down the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. I thought I was only asleep for a moment, but the sun was already rising. What happened last night suddenly came rushing into my mind. There was nothing in the flower bed beneath the window. The guard told me the garbage truck left not long ago. Just like that, I lost the key from my mother’s piano.

Since that day, I had given up music countless of times. I don’t do it anymore. I won’t go back to it again. Music is nothing to me. But even in the moment of running away from it, I knew, that eventually, I would start making music again just like that time I tripped and jumped down the stairs. Music was like that to me. In music, I felt the pain but I also felt the freedom. I was addled but at the same time, clear. Fear and confidence, hope and despair, it seemed like I was living in all those conflicting emotions.

I suddenly wanted to play the piano. I wanted to meet myself there, a self that pretends to be strong but is actually timid and cowardly. I wanted to swear, to taunt, to hurt, hit, destroy, to hold myself and cry. And I wanted to stop running away. I wanted to complete the melodies I wrote with the guitar and piano. Perhaps I really could this time.

Seokjin 3 August YEAR 22

I opened the door to the storage classroom and entered. In the unchilly air of a summer night, the smell of mold and dust blended together. For a moment, several scenes crossed my mind. The shining shoes of the headmaster, the face Namjoon had standing outside the door, the day I avoided Hoseok and went back alone. Suddenly, I felt a pain inside my head and felt a chill. Those complex feelings, anger, fear, whatever you call it, flooded in like a pain. All the signals I felt with my body and my heart were clear. I had to get out of here.

Taehyung grabbed my arm as if he saw the look on my face. “Hyung, try a little bit more. Remember the memories here.” I shook off Taehyung’s hands and turned around. We had been walking around in the heat for hours. We were exhausted. The other guys looked at me like they didn’t know what to say. Memories, memories that Taehyung talked about were just meaningless stories to me. Stories about that thing I did, that thing that happened to me, that something that we did together. It could be the case. It was the case. But memories are not understanding or comprehension. Experience is not something you hear and figure out. It’s something that has to root deeply in your heart, your mind, your soul. But all the memories I had there were but bad things. Things that made me suffer and made me run away.

A fight happened when I decided to go back and Taehyung tried to stop me. But we were all exhausted. The way we hit, dodged and stopped happened with a sense of slowness and heaviness like we were in a dense, hot liquid. In a flash, Taehyung’s legs got tangled with mine. I was wondering if my shoulders hit against the wall when the next moment, I lost my balance and stumbled.

I didn’t know what happened at first. The thick dust made me unable to open my eyes and breathe. I had a fit of coughing. “Are you okay?” After hearing someone ask, I realized I fell on the ground. I pushed myself up and saw what I thought was the wall had collapsed. Beyond the wall was a huge space. No one moved for a moment. “Oh my god, but we had been here for so long!” Someone said. No one could imagine such space existed on the other side of the wall. But what is that? The dust settled and a cabinet standing in the middle of the empty space came into our sight.

Namjoon opened the cabinet’s door. I took a step closer. Inside was a notebook. Namjoon picked up the notebook and turned over the first page. For a moment, I held my breath. On the first page of the seemingly old notebook was an unexpected name. It was my father’s name. Namjoon was about to turn over another page when I snatched it out of his hands. Namjoon looked at me surprised but I didn’t mind. I flipped through the pages. The old notebook passed through my fingers like it was about to crumble.

It was a diary handwritten by my father about what he and his friends experienced together in high school. It didn’t tell the story of every day. Some were every month and there were even illegible pages coated with something akin to blood. But still, I could know. That my father and I went through the same thing, that he made mistakes just like me and that he ran and ran again to make up for it.

My father’s notebook was a record of failure. In the end, he gave up and failed. He forgot, turned away and avoided. He let his friends down. The diary’s last page was smeared with but black ink. The ink stained the blank page after it, after it, until the very last page. That stain was an eloquent evidence of my father’s failure.

I lost track of how much time passed by. Looking at the wind blowing through the window that had started to feel cooler, it musts be the darkest time of the day, before the sun rises. The other guys including Namjoon were sitting on the floor sleeping. I lifted my head up and looked at the wall. I once saw my father’s name written somewhere here. Under it was a sentence. Everything started here.

It was when I was about to close the notebook that I felt something at the top of my fingers. On top of the ink stains, blurry letters came into my sight. I felt the murky air outside the window. Seems like the sun would soon rise. But the night hadn’t ended yet. It was neither night nor dawn. In the stains black like darkness entwined with the hazy light, between lines and lines, were faint letters.

The notebook held more memories than it recorded. What my father decided to forget, what my father decided not to remember was left as it is on the letters, between the margins and the space. The color had faded but the many times my father went through, his fear, his despair and frail hope that he would never overcome it were swirling under my fingers like letter punches, left marks as they are once pressed. The distorted map to my father’s soul was left as it is.

After closing the notebook, my tears fell down. I sat still for a while. When I turned around, the guys were still sleeping. I looked at each of them. Who knows, maybe we had to come back here. This was where everything of us happened. We learned of the meaning of being together and the joy of laughing together. My first wrongdoing, my first mistake that I had never been able to admit myself was left like an open wound.

The thought that none of these was a coincidence crossed my mind. In the end, I had to come here. Only then would I be able to find the meaning of the pain and anxiety I faced because of the mistakes and wrongdoings I made and for the first time, take the first step towards finding the map of my soul.

Taehyung 11 August YEAR 22

I was about to turn my steps when I discovered small letters underneath the “X” letter, a short sentence scratched into the wall. “It’s not your fault.” It was her. I didn’t see it in person or knew her handwriting, but I could tell. It was like her last greeting, saying the reason she left wasn’t because of me, that what happened to me wasn’t because I’m a bad person. It was like she was telling me not to blame myself, not to be distressed about it and to have courage.

Next thing I knew, I was already in front of my house. There came my sister’s scream beyond the door. I slammed it open and came in to a familiar scene in front of my eyes. I blocked my father, grabbing his arm as I looked at him in the eyes. He seemed taken aback at first but soon he threw a punch at me. I was knocked out over and over again. My sister’s crying rang louder. My chin hurt and the inside of my mouth reeked of a rusty iron smell. I still didn’t give up. I clung tight onto my father as he shouted with rage and his blows rained on my back and shoulders, but the more he went the tighter I clung onto him.

It wasn’t like I didn’t feel the pain or didn’t feel scared. But the moment I let go, that daily life would repeat itself again. I wanted it to be different. I wanted to change it.

I don’t want to. I’m not like my father. I will protect my own family.

Hoseok 13 August YEAR 22

Jimin and she were standing in the middle of the practice room. The five seconds of silence it took getting into prep position and waiting felt like eternity. Music blasted from the speaker as they started with the first move. It was the choreography I had been practicing with her until recently. I sat on the floor, watching them.

When I was told I would not be able to dance for a while due to my ankle, it was tough, to be honest. Having to see someone else dance and not me was frustrating. But as I helped Jimin practicing and watched him grow, I realized that not getting to dance myself isn’t a big problem, that as long as I continue to dance in one way or another, I can be happy.

When I practiced with Jimin, I couldn’t let even a small mistake slide. Sometimes, when Jimin subtly misses the timing or dances smaller than expected, I would pause the music and check every move. But now, sitting on the practice room floor, some sort of audience seats, and focusing on him, Jimin’s dance looked different, something bigger than just single moves. What I thought to be nothing but mistakes when we practiced together felt different, trivial mistakes and rawness becoming his unique aura. Jimin had his own timing and expression, albeit clearly different from mine. Jimin was shining in his own way, his dances were speaking to the heart.

The music ended, so did Jimin’s dance. His face was glowing with joy and excitement. Next to him stood she. Soon, she would be leaving for overseas. Our eyes suddenly met. I raised a thumb at her, to which she gave a wide smile. She bore no resemblance to my mother. Strange. Why did I think they looked alike when I can’t even remember my mother’s face? I felt a pang of pain somewhere in my heart, a sore sensation from the yet to recover ankle.

Seokjin 15 August YEAR 22

It was after getting out of a jammed crossing and starting to speed up when I came to a sudden stop, unknowingly. The car behind beeped their horn and passed by, someone was hurling curses, but amid the noise of the city, I didn’t hear anything. There was a small flower shop at the corner of the alley on the left. I didn’t stop abruptly because I saw the shop. It was more like I discovered the shop after stopping my car.

When the owner - who was organizing papers at the side of the shop currently under interior construction - approached me, I had no expectation. I had already gone around several places but even the florists had no idea about the existence of the flower. They only showed me flowers with a similar color. But I wasn’t looking for something with a similar color. The flower had to be real. After I told the owner the flower’s name, he looked at me for a while. Then he said even though the shop hadn’t been officially opened yet, he could deliver the flower to me, and asked me. “Why does it have to be that flower?”

As I turned the handle and got back to the road, I started to think. The reason why it had to be that flower. There was only one reason. Because I want to make her happy. Because I want to make that her laugh. Because I want to show them the me that she likes. Because I want to become a good person.

Seokjin 30 August YEAR 22

Can anyone remember the moment love starts? Can anyone foresee the moment love ends? What meaning lies behind the incapability of humanity to perceive those moments? And for what reason was I given the power to undo all of them?

The car came to a sudden stop, the headlight flashed, the car crashed, she was thrown upward , she fell. In the midst of all those chaotic moments, I just stood defenselessly. I heard no sound, felt no sense. It was summer but the wind felt chilly. Something rolled down along the road, making sound on its way. And then there was the smell of flower. It was when reality hit me. The Smeraldo bouquet fell out of my hand. The girl was in the middle of the road some distance away. Blood was seeping through her hair. Dark crimson blood, flowing down along the road. I thought. If only I could turn back time.

Seokjin 30 August YEAR 22

She seemed flustered seeing the diary that she thought to have been lost. Her favorite movie, places she wanted to go, her favorite flower, the future she has been dreaming of, all showed up with every turn of the page. They were also what I did for her. I couldn’t utter out an apology. The diary lay between us like a traffic light in the crossroad.

I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her smile. I wanted to be a good person. I thought it would be possible if I follow what the diary said, but no. The more I try to become someone else, the more afraid I get. Would she find out my true self? Would she be disappointed and leave me? I had been frantically concealing myself and turning away from myself, but like how you can’t put a period to a sentence without subject, I lost my true self, unable to move forward any further and just wandering around in circles.

Now, I know. That my imperfections, my mistakes, my failures are also a part of me. That the only way I can take the next step forward is to be honest to myself. I stood up. She didn’t stop me.

I made my way out to the street and took off my hat. I swept my hair back, times of endeavoring to become someone else trickling through my fingers. I turned around, meeting the eyes of my own reflection in the window. Pale face, colorless lips, scrawny shoulders. I looked utterly shabby. I let out a laugh. The me in the window laughed along.

#bts #bangtan #hyyh the notes #i thought it was 17k turns out it's 19.2k words lol #translation #trans:misc #sorry for the long wait and sorry again bc i said i'd post in 1 hour #but i kept editing and reuploading the files and so it took 3 hrs...

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mf-despair-queen · 8 years ago

Text

Crawling Chaos - Part Three - Void Stiles

Author: @mf-despair-queen

Characters: Void Stiles/Reader

Word Count: 5,827

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Oral (female receiving), Masturbation, Shower Sex, Pool Sex

Notes: The much requested third and FINAL part of Crawling Chaos. I really hope you guys like this, and please don’t kill me for the end. I have no idea how you guys will take the end of this. Literally, I owe m life to @minhosmeanhoe because she was super encouraging while I wrote this and helped me work out some kinks in the plot. She is a godsend and I love her to death.

Part 1 Part 2

You stared out the window, sensing the strain that existed in the town. Someone was dead, you could smell the torment even from where you stood. The house you resided in was abandoned long ago, and resided on the edge of Beacon Hills. But, it did come equipped with a pool!

Yes, Beacon Hills. You weren’t sure what kept drawing you back. Maybe it was the Nemeton’s power, even though you were not willed to do anything within the town. You were just here, waiting for something to happen, feeling the madness that certain people had.

You purposefully chose this abandoned house to avoid Void. The last two encounters were great, but you needed to keep your distance. You were never meant to encounter him in the first place. Now, it was like you were drawn to him. You craved his touch.

You bit your lip, closing the curtains and turning away from the window. “I don’t care about Void. He’s just another creature in this universe. I have a purpose, and that is to cause chaos. He just wants to feed off that. We don’t mix.” You looked in the mirror, growling when you saw Void looking back at you. You walked over to the mirror, looking at it closely. “I don’t want anything to do with you! I know how you are, and if you know I’m here, you will try to get even. I won’t have it!” You punched the window, watching it shatter, Void disappearing and being replaced with your own broken image. You sunk to the floor, holding your wounded hand carefully. “I want nothing to do with you…right?”

You sighed, heading into the bathroom. You picked the glass shards from your knuckle, standing up to turn on the shower. You were grateful for the nice shower this place had, allowing you to relax from the thoughts that plagued your mind. You hated the feelings you were harboring. You hated being drawn to his dark presence.

You stripped free of the bloody clothes you were clad in, remembering the countless men that killed each other around you in a small town outside of San Francisco. You remembered the way their blood spewed everywhere, caking your skin, hair and clothes in their blood. You ran off before anyone could find you alive amongst the dead bodies, fleeing back to Beacon Hills without a second thought. You dropped the ruined fabric in a heap in the corner, stepping into the warm water of the shower. Your eyes slid closed, feeling your body relax with the heat.

Your mind wandered back to the dark smirk plastered on the face of Void. You could perfectly picture his smug face, practically hearing him say that you would pay for what you did last time. Part of you feared what he was capable of. Part of you wasn’t worried, knowing you could probably outsmart the twisted fox. Part of you wanted him to find you, and show you the true meaning of chaos.

You ran a hand through your wet hair, wiping the water from your face. Your eyes cracked open, meeting the familiar whiskey brown eyes you saw in all of your thoughts staring back at you. You blinked, thinking you were hallucinating, the chocolate haired man smirking at you, eying your body. He never vanished from your sight, only seeming to get more clear.

“Holy shit!” you screamed, grabbing the curtain of the shower and holding it against your body. Void laughed, one foot propped up on the side of the tub. “You scared the shit out of me! How the hell did you get in? More so, how did you even find me?!”

Void leaned closer, ignoring the fact that the water was splashing his face and hair, dripping down his neck. The shoulders on his gray shirt was wet, but he didn’t seem to care. “Oh, kitten. You know I can sense when you are here. Last time, you got lucky I hadn’t sensed you because you had barely arrived. But this time,” his hand found its way to your cheek, rubbing it softly, “you’ve been hiding out here for two days. I sensed you the moment you stayed in this house that first night. You have a distinctive aura, kitten. Remember, I feed off chaos, and you are pure chaos. It was only a matter of time before I found you again.”

You growled, pushing his hand away. “So what, Voidy? I was just passing through, but wanted to see what all the commotion was about. What was tonight all about, anyway?”

Void chuckled darkly, staring at you. “One of them is dead. Sure, she killed an oni, but I damaged that stupid McCall pack. We’re one step closer to seeing them dead.”

You nodded, knowing he was not lying about the events of the night. “You aren’t worried they are going to retaliate?”

He leaned back against the shower wall. “Kitten, I can guarantee they will. That’s when we strike.”

You huffed, dropping the curtain and turning away from him to resume your shower. “There is no ‘we’, Void. I told you before and I will tell you again. I was just passing through. I have no qualm with this town right now. I am not to spread chaos here. That is obviously your job.” You got no answer, no rebuttal in any way. “See. You know I’m right.”

You felt a pinch in your neck, your hand shooting up to the spot. You turned quickly, seeing Void holding a needle in his hand, a grin plastered to his lips. “This won’t keep you down for long, but long enough for me to get even for your last visit, kitten.”

Your legs wobbled, your body becoming rigid. “Kanima venom?” You questioned, grabbing at the curtain to try and remain upright. Void nodded, catching you before you collapsed completely. He laid you on the floor of the tub, hovering over you.

“You’re always so smart, kitten. I swiped it from the druid emissary the McCall pack has on their side when they split me from my host body and took their banshee. Now poor Stiles is dying, their little huntress is dead, they are broken, and I have my girl back. I think everything is going to be just grand, don’t you agree?”

You bit your lip, wishing you could beat his face in at that very second. “I am not your girl, Nogitsune. I am a powerful Nyarlathotep. You have no power over me.”

He chuckled, standing up to strip the wet shirt over his head. He held that taunting look in his dark eyes, looking over at you with a smirk. “Well, kitten, I think for once in your life, you are wrong. Right now, you are mine. And I will get you back for what you did.” You watched him remove the handheld shower head, changing the setting to a more powerful flow. You now slightly regretted finding a house with the fancy shower.

He kneeled next to the tub, spreading your legs apart, lifting one to rest on the side of the tub. You stuck your tongue out at him, hearing him chuckle. “You’re an ass, Void. I’m just an innocent little girl. Why do you gotta be so mean?” He watching you with an amused face, seeing you huffing at him. “Man, why didn’t I think of this? It’s brilliant.”

Void leaned over you, his lips nearly brushing yours. “Kitten, I have to have a one up on you sometimes. I’m not as dumb as you might think I am.” His fingers trailed down your body, circling your belly button. “Once I am done with this and that venom wears off, you will be begging for my cock to be inside of you. Because deep down, I know you can’t get enough of me, kitten. That’s why you keep crawling back to me.”

You couldn’t deny his claims to be true. There was a part of you that wanted to be with him, to be pleased by him. But you refused to admit it to him. He didn’t need the ego boost.

Void felt the water, making sure it was still a suitable temperature. “Have you ever used one of these to masturbate, kitten? I’ve heard that it’s a very useful thing to females. Because it’s as simple as,” he held the shower head between your legs, the water rushing to hit your aching pussy and swollen clit, “this.”

A moan fell from your lips, your body wishing it could shift at the feeling of the water on your nethers. Your muscles ached, wanting to move. But you were forced to remain still, a knot forming rapidly in your abdomen.

Void moved the shower head along your folds, letting the water cascade over every inch of you. He watched your face twist in pleasure, your moans loud from the start. He enjoyed watching you helplessly cry out as he worked you off, unable to do anything back to him like you wanted to.

The fingers on his free hand trailed down your body, circling your nipples, groping your breasts in his palms. You mewled at the feelings, feeling electricity course through your body when he tweaked your nipples between his fingers, tugging the buds harshly.

“Void, you don’t have to be so mean to the tits. What did they ever do to you?” You quipped, cracking an eye at him. He chuckled, continuing his path downwards.

“They existed. They decided they wanted to be perky, and perfect. You have the best tits, kitten. Especially when they bounce in front of my eyes.” You didn’t fight back the blush, Void’s eyes catching the pink hue that dusted your cheeks. “Awe. Is someone a little flustered?”

He heard you mumble incoherent curses under your breath, knowing he caught you in the act. He tore his gaze from your face, focusing on his free hand and your pussy. His fingers swiped at your clit, focusing the shower head on your pussy. You let out a squeal, his fingers rubbing vigorously at the sensitive bud. The water pulsed against your pussy, washing away any fluids that escaped.

He didn’t waste time, traveling further down until he was at your pussy, using two fingers to spread your entrance, the water directly hitting the sensitive nerves of your aching core. You screamed loudly, your eyes slipping closed at the intense feeling you had flowing through your veins. Void grinned at your noises.

“You like that, kitten? You going to cum for me?”

You bit your lip, the knot growing weaker with each passing second. His eyes locked on yours, waiting for an answer. “Fuck you, you jerk. I’m still mad at you for outsmarting me on this.”

He laughed, moving the shower head to your clit, two fingers sliding into you. “After this, kitten. Cum first, then I will fuck you till you cum again.” His fingers thrust into you quickly, brushing your sensitive walls with each movement. The water pounded on your clit, driving your insides mad. Your face contorted into one of pure ecstasy, the knot unraveling before you knew what hit you. Your body was shaking involuntarily, even under the effects of the kanima venom, your pussy walls tightening around his fingers. Your juices gushed out, coating his fingers in the sticky liquid he loved so much. He quickly dropped the showerhead to the side, face down, so he could savor the taste of the fluids he had collected. You watched him lick his fingers clean, savoring every drop he had.

He stood up from the tub, fixing the shower head in place. The water sprayed directly on your face, making you sputter. “Void! Stop that before I strangle you!”

He laughed, adjusting you so the water wasn’t hitting your face, stepping back to rid himself of the wet khakis and boxers he wore. You focused on trying to move, your fingers twitching just a bit. The feeling was returning to your body, slowly turning to see Void tossing his clothes into a pile. He turned back to you, seeing you staring at him.

“Oh. Getting your feeling back already? Sooner than I had hoped. I was hoping for some more fun.” He knelt by the tub again, his hand cupping your cheeks. He licked his lips, staring deep into your eyes. “But I’m not through with you yet, kitten. You see, I have this…insatiable desire for me. Every time you’ve left me, you’ve left me wanting more. So now, I’m getting what I want.”

Your hand shot up, surprising him that you could move. You grabbed the back of his head, pulling him down to kiss you. His eyes widened briefly, stunned by the sudden action. He was sure you would try to strangle him after he paralyzed you the way he did, but instead he found your soft, plump lips attached to his own in a sensual kiss.

You sat up slowly, your body slightly shaking from the after effects of your orgasm and the kanima venom in your system. You pulled him close, your lips pressing frantically to his in multiple kisses. He groaned, helping you stand, his lips never parting from yours. His head was tilted to the side, his tongue slipping past your lips to tangle with yours. Your hands rested on his shoulder, nails digging into his skin.

He stepped into the shower with you, closing the curtain behind him. The water washed over you both, messy kisses still shared between you. His hands were on your waist, pressing hard into your skin. He pulled away from the kiss, trailing kisses down your jawline to your neck, placing a hard bite to the sensitive skin of your neck. You yelped in surprise, your nails raking down harshly on his back, drawing the tiniest bit of blood.

“Again with the biting, Voidy?” You grumbled, resting your head on his chest. He grinned against your shoulder, lapping at the bite mark he left on your skin. The feeling of his tongue made you hot, already beginning to ache for him again. You gnawed at your bottom lip, attempting to resist the need to cave in to his wishes.

His hands grabbed your breasts, his head dipping down to suck your nipples. You mewled in delight, your back pressing against the wet marble of the shower wall. Void attacked your breasts with his lips, leaving red marks everywhere he went. His tongue flicked at your nipples, pressing them in with the tip of his tongue and tugging at them with his teeth. Your fingers laced in his wet hair, tugging him closer to your chest.

“I hate you. I hate you so much,” you mumbled breathlessly. Void laughed, his hot breath hitting your naked breast. A shiver ran down your spine, straight to your core, which throbbed and begged for attention. Your teeth dug into your bottom lip, drawing blood. You hated yourself for this feeling, and what you had to do to satisfy it. “Please, Void. I need you to fuck me.”

He pulled away from your chest, moving up to look at you in the face. “Did I just hear that right? Did my little kitten just ask for me?”

You grumbled, turning away from him stubbornly. “Nevermind. I take it back. You heard nothing.”

He pressed his lips to yours, the metallic taste of your blood on his tongue. You relaxed into the kiss, ignoring the nagging in your mind that you were becoming weak around him. You wanted him. Hell, you were sure you needed him at this point.

He lifted your leg, his arm placed under your knee. His hand pressed against the wall to keep him upright, your leg dangling from his muscular limb. He used his other hand to align his cock to your entrance, rubbing it against your folds until you were whining for him. He leaned forward, his hips jerking into yours as his cock slid inside of you, bottoming out in one quick thrust. You clawed at his shoulders, a wave of pleasure surging through you.

He pounded into you quickly, giving you little chance to adjust to his size. Your head fell back against the wall, fighting the moans that you wanted to let out and the screams that were caught in your throat. His hips rapidly snapped against yours, shoving you against the wall roughly. His free hand held your waist steady, bruises forming from how hard he was holding you. His cock thrust upwards, the angle nothing you had ever felt before.

The only sounds in the bathroom was the running water, the slapping wet skin of your hips against each other when he pounded you hard and fast, and your loud moans of desire. Void watched you closely, his eyes focused on your face. He memorized your features, noticing the way your eyes slipped closed at the massive amounts of pleasure you felt and the way your mouth would part whenever you moaned his name, the tiniest hint of a smile on the corner of your perfectly plump lips. He wasn’t sure why, but he found it attractive. He knew he was drawn to you, but this was beyond his comprehension.

He looked at your face once more, leaning forward to press his lips to yours. His hips slowed, giving you deep, sensual thrusts, his cock rubbing every inch of your pussy walls teasingly. You moaned into his kisses, his lips finding yours in multiple, sloppy kisses. His lips would envelop yours, tangling his tongue with yours openly.

You jerked your hips into his, feeling his pulsing cock twitch into your walls, pressing against your g-spot when it did. Your head buried in his neck, biting at it while he resumed his rough thrusts. His chest pressed against yours, his hand pressing against the small of your back to pull you close to him. You felt every part of him against you, your body becoming weak at his touch.

You couldn’t hold on any longer. His motions drove you insane, the coil that had formed inside of you unraveling for the second time that night. You shuttered against him, your toes curling into the water at the bottom of the tub and the steamy air around you. Your back arched off the wall, pressing into him. Your walls closed around him, hugging him tighter than you ever had before. He panted, his hips jerking sporadically until he came, his seed spewing deep into the reaches of your pussy. He gently moved inside of you, riding out your combined orgasms.

He let your leg down, holding you up so you wouldn’t fall on your wobbly legs. He turned off the water, his arm wrapping around your waist to carry you from the tub. You were weak, unable to fight him off as he carried you to the bed, dropping you on it callously. You bounced lightly, the springs in the old mattress squeaking under your weight. Water seeped into the sheets, your body sticking to them.

Your eyes closed, ready to fall asleep. You were already worn out from the night, and you didn’t think you had another orgasm in you.

He thought otherwise.

Void tugged on your legs, your back sticking to the sheets and pulling them along with you. He nestled between your legs, his fingers slipping inside your pussy. You moaned weakly at his touch.

“Really, Void? You’re ready for another round already? Why do you have to have such high stamina? Can’t you let a girl catch her breath?” You questioned, forcing your eyes open to look up at him. He smirked at you, turning his gaze down to your pussy, slowly pumping his fingers into you and using his thumb to rub your clit. You were a shaking mess, your body nearly shutting down from all the stimulation.

“Only the best to please my favorite kitten.”

He pulled out abruptly, pulling you up by the arms. He held you close, placing a kiss to your forehead. Your eyebrows furrowed, confused by the slightly romantic action. In all the times you had gotten together, he never displayed affection like this. It was always pure lust with him, pounding you into oblivion until you were a writhing, moaning mess. Even when you tied him up, he knew how to please you. Kisses were always messy, no feeling behind them.

You were confused.

He turned you around, holding your hips steady and pushing against your back until you leaned forward, hands pressed to the bed. You wobbled against the bed, your legs ready to collapse under you. He noticed your weakened state, tapping your ass. “Get on the bed, kitten. On your knees.”

You sighed, crawling sluggishly onto the bed, resting on your elbows and knees. He ran a hand over your ass, feeling the smooth skin under his fingers. “Totemo utsukushi…” He mumbled under her breath.

So beautiful…

You grabbed the sheets in your hands, your knuckles turning white from the tight grip. Why? Why was he acting this way? Wasn’t it enough that he got his revenge? He made you masturbate in the shower. He fucked you in the shower. He was about to fuck you from behind. What more did he want from you?

A loud smack echoed throughout the room, a stinging sensation erupting in your rear. You bit your tongue to fight the yelp of surprise. He pouted, massaging the place he smacked. “No response? You’re being stubborn today. I want to hear you purr for me, kitten. Make those sounds I love so much.”

Love…

Your mind was blank, trying to understand that word. A feeling you knew nothing about. How could you? You were the embodiment of chaos. You weren’t meant to have feelings.

You broke from those thoughts when you felt his cock slide inside your pussy. His hands pressed against your hips, tugging you back until your ass was against his stomach, feeling every line from his abs and every breath he took. He was buried to the hilt, his cock resting against your g-spot. He stilled inside of you, his cock fidgeting against your walls.

“Come on, Voidy. If you’re going to fuck me, then fuck me. What are you waiting for?” You sneered, Void picking up on your taunting tone. He smiled slightly, pulling out slowly so he could plunge back in effortlessly. You mewled at the sensation, arousal already building in your body. He was angle perfectly, his cock pressing up into you. Every thrust was deep, tapping your cervix with the tip.

Void panted, his hands resting on your back, focusing on giving you the most powerful thrusts he could. Sweat dripped down his brow, exerting himself completely. You were tight around him, his mind focusing on not losing control too soon. He wanted to make sure you were pleased, and he couldn’t be quick at the trigger if he wanted to do that.

“Totemo taitodesu…” He mumbled, his nails digging into your back.

So tight…

You giggled, tugging at the sheets. He slowed down, looking down at you. You glanced over your shoulder at him, laughing harder. “You mumble in japanese a lot when you’re horny.”

He grumbled, a low groan coming from deep in his throat. “Well, excuse me kitten. Do you have a problem with that?”

You smiled, turning away from him. A faint blush was on your cheeks, but you hid it away in the sheets. “No. I just think it’s kind of cute…”

Void stopped moving completely, shocked by your words. He wasn’t sure what to think about your words, trying to decipher the true meaning behind them. You began to panic, fearing you had said something wrong. Maybe you shouldn’t have said something like that.

He leaned forward, tugging on your hair until you were looking back at him. It wasn’t forceful enough to hurt, but dominating enough to know that he was in control. “You’re pretty cute yourself, kitten. Now, purr for me, ok?”

You nodded, feeling him continue his powerful motions. You mewled for him, but you weren’t focused on his actions. You were stuck on his words. They were stuck in your head, telling you that you needed to confront him on this matter.

It wasn’t long before your body tore you from your thoughts. Void jostled your hips back into him, meeting him in perfect rhythm. His balls slapped against your pussy lips every time he jerked forward, pulling you back against him. You moaned his name loudly, your body shaking uncontrollably. “Come on, kitten. Cum for me. Watashi no tame no ken.”

You unraveled, collapsing on the bed as your orgasm rocked your body, Void leaning forward to stay inside of you. Your fluids splattered against your walls around him, coating his cock and soaking into his skin. You were convulsing on the bed under him, screaming his name endlessly. Your walls clenched him closely, hugging his cock when he came. His thrusts got slower, riding out your high, feeling your tight walls milking him of the seed that spilled deep inside of you, mixing with your own fluids.

He pulled out as you relaxed, walking away to grab a tissue to clean his cock. You rolled onto your back, staring at the ceiling, deep in thought.

“Void.” He turned to you from inside the bathroom, eyeing your unmoving form. “I want you to leave. And never come back.”

His forehead wrinkled, his brow knit together. He walked over to you, leaning over you. “What the fuck are you talking about, kitten?”

You pushed him away, sitting up carefully. “I...I can’t do this anymore. I don’t understand you.” His look was still one of pure confusion, your eyes locking with his. “Your actions tonight...they were different. They were not the same as every time before.”

“I’m not understanding, kitten. Just spit it out!”

You growled, standing up and backing him into a wall. “You! I don’t understand these feelings for you!” He stared at you, watching you silently. “I’m fascinated by you. I’m drawn to you. You make me feel something I haven’t felt in my lifetime. A feeling I’m pretty sure that neither of us are supposed to feel! We are beings of chaos. We aren’t supposed to be...attracted to someone else the way I am with you.”

He stayed silent, hearing you sigh angrily. You turned on your heel, running out of the house into the backyard. The warm air hit you, making you uncomfortable. You were already heated from your time with Void, and you needed a way to cool down quickly. You spotted the pool, instantly jumping in head first.

You stayed under for a second, thanking the cool water around you. You kicked off the bottom of the pool, breaking the surface and gasping for air. Void stood at the edge of the pool, watching you push your hair back. His lips were in a tight line, saying nothing.

“I thought I told you to leave!” You growled, swimming to the other side of the pool away from him. He sighed, diving into the water. He quickly caught up with you, trapping you against the pool wall. You pounded on his chest weakly, knowing it had no effect on him. “I don’t want you here. I can’t think properly when you’re around.”

His hands locked around your wrists, holding them against him. “Stop fighting for one second and listen to me.” You sniffled slightly, locking eyes with him. “I can’t say what I feel for you, little Nyarlathotep. I told you early. You are...alluring, enticing. There is something about you that I can’t get enough of. I am drawn to you, just as you are drawn to me. I don’t know if it is love. I just know that I need to be around you. There is something about you that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.”

You huffed, leaning against him. “I was never supposed to meet you, but I did. I figured ‘oh why not. He’s hot.’ So I let you fuck me. When I left, I couldn’t help but feel...unsatisfied. I needed to come back.” You looked up at him, his dark eyes focused on you. “Why am I drawn to you?”

“I don’t know, kitten,” he mumbled. “Maybe we’re just two fucked up chaotic beings that are supposed to spread madness together.”

You sighed, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Then come with me. You can do way better things outside of Beacon Hills. Just think about it! You and me, traveling the world for centuries, feeding the world with chaos. Just what you always wanted, right? We could do it together. It’s perfect for both of us, Void!”

He stayed silent, leaning forward to press his lips to yours. A spark ran through your body, your eyes sliding closed, holding him closer to your body. Your legs wrapped around his waist, his body pressing you against the side of the pool.

The kisses were soft, slow and sensual, his lips wrapping around yours completely every time he leaned forward. You pulled him close, your fingers tangled in his wet locks. This interaction was different than the lust from the past, but you enjoyed the feeling. You were still confused, but in this current moment, you just needed him.

You felt him press against your core, your hand dipping down to align him to your entrance. He didn’t argue, shifting his hips so he could slide inside. The feeling of him inside of you never ceased to amaze you. He filled you completely, driving you wild from the moment he first touched you.

He rolled his hips into yours, making you moan into the kiss. His pace was steady, thrusting into you. His cock rubbed yours walls, the friction against your sensitive walls making you crazy. The tip of his cock prodded at your g-spot.

You broke the kiss, burying your head into his shoulder. You kissed at his skin softly, hearing him moan into your ear. You clung to his tightly, kissing your way up to his ear. “Void, go faster. Please,” you whispered, hearing him grunt.

His hands grabbed onto the edge of the pool, his hips moving faster against yours. Your legs tightened around him, moving your hips to match his thrusts. You mewled into his ear, his forehead pressing against yours. He panted, his breath hitting your lips, making you whine. He chuckled softly, pressing his lips to yours in a chaste kiss.

“Kitten, cum with me,” He said, his voice almost nonexistent. You nodded, grabbing one of his hands from the pool edge. You brought it down, intentionally skimming his fingers over your breasts, passing them over your nipples and down until they rested at your clit. He got the gist of your motion, rubbing the sensitive nub with his fingers. Your hand reached down, grabbing his balls and fondling them gently.

Your moans mixed together, Void rolling his hips into yours quickly. His movements were growing sloppy, feeling your walls clinging to his cock. You leaned towards him, his head dipping down to meet yours in a quick kiss, your bodies colliding in one final thrust, simultaneous orgasms rocking your bodies. His seed erupted inside of you, combining with yous, painting your walls with a mixture of the juices. You mumbled his name, Void resting his head against your shoulder, riding out your orgasms.

You clung to him weakly, your eyes closed. He held you close, working his way towards the steps of the pool, carrying you into the house, still buried deep inside of you. He didn’t keep track of the event to follow. You know he set you down to dry you off before tucking you into the bed and curling up beside you. His arm wrapped around your waist, kissing your temple.

“You’re staying?”

He nodded, pulling you close. “Yes, kitten. I’m right here.”

You smiled, losing consciousness quickly. “Good. Does that mean you’ll leave with me tomorrow?”

He stayed silent, watching you fall asleep before you could ask again.

Your eyes fluttered open, the sun hitting them through the broken blinds. You rolled over in the bed, feeling the empty spot beside you. You sighed.

“Should have known he would leave. Guess I’m on my own again. I was stupid to think we could do this together.” You buried your head into the pillow, tugging the blanket around you tightly. You were annoyed, mad at yourself for half hoping he would actually leave Beacon Hills with you.

You sat up, patting your cheeks. “No more sad. He’s just some stupid fox.” You pictured his face for a second, sighing. “A really handsome fox. That understands the true meaning of chaos.”

You noticed the neatly folded clothes sitting on a chair on the side of the room, a piece of paper sitting on top of them. You picked up the paper opening it slowly. Your fingers tremble, reading the words that were neatly written inside.

私はすぐに帰ります。それから私たちは混乱を広げます。

Watashi wa sugu ni kaerimasu. Sorekara watashitachiha konran o hirogemasu.

I will return soon. Then we will spread chaos together.

You smiled at the note, putting on the clothes he left you, and pocketing the small paper in the shorts. You walked over to the window, staring out at the small town of Beacon Hills. “Wreak havoc, my precious Nogitsune. Show them what chaos is all about.”

Time seemed to go by quickly, and by the time night had fallen, you knew something was wrong. You grabbed your stuff, rushing out the door, leaving the door swinging open indifferently.

You found yourself atop the roof of the high school, watching the McCall pack mourn their lost friends. The curly-haired wolf was holding a box, the Nemeton’s power giving it a distinct aura to you. A boy was holding a strawberry blonde, and you assumed this was the host body that Void had used. He looked the same, but you knew, deep inside, it wasn’t him. Your eyes locked on the wooden box, knowing that was where he was. You looked up at the sky, a smile on your lips.

“Don’t worry, Void. I will find a way to release you again. And one day, we will spread chaos throughout the entire world. Just you wait, Voidy. You can’t get rid of me that easily. You may be a thousand years old, but I have existed a lot longer. I’m not going anywhere.” You looked back down at the pack, turning on your heel to walk away. Your hand stuffed in your pocket, holding the note he left you in your hand. “I am the Crawling Chaos, and nothing will stop me from releasing chaos on this world.”

“And nothing will stop me from being with you when I do.”

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