in a dead language - vmon

vi.

The first time you tell me survival exhausts you, I wish I could hug you through the payphone you're calling me from. Instead, I say, "just come over and we'll figure it out."

"It's the middle of the night, what will your mum say? She already hates me."

"She'll hate me more if she knew I let you and your sister spend the night on the streets," I say. "Come on, don't let me come and get you myself."

I hear a ruffle, and I can picture you standing there in a glass booth, clutching the phone hard with one hand and pulling at the cord in your other, your lower lip worried between your teeth and your vigilant eyes following your little sister as she skilfully kicks an empty water bottle around the pavement, turning it between her feet and ankles like it has a life of its own.

She doesn't want to be a rockstar anymore. She was born to play football.

"Okay. Just tonight. We'll leave tomorrow and I'll figure it out. He's not usually like this. Not this bad."

"You can stay as long as you need," I say. "My mum won't mind. We have more than enough space at home."

"Just tonight, Namjoon."

"Be here in ten minutes or I'll sneak out to get you."

"Thank you," you say, but your voice is muffled. The call ends and I start a fifteen-minute countdown.

(You arrive in ten, face and neck flushed red and chest heaving with breathlessness. You're grinning; the adrenaline still kicking in, your sister gleefully bragging about how fast she's getting.

Half an hour later, you're in pyjamas and you're relaxed, standing at my bedroom door, cradling a cup of tea in your palms.

An hour later, you're sleeping on an extra mattress on my bedroom floor. You're wearing a necklace of bruises, and I wonder if you ran here because you were desperate for a place where you can be safe or if you just wanted to hide the bruises behind an adrenaline-induced blood rush.)

—