Heal me // A Jikook Trilogy //

《90》The Start Of An Empire

Uhh, surprise, another POV again (Spoiler: there will be only one more... who might it be...)

Lian POV 

Fake it till you make it.
That was my mantra for the past two weeks.
No, scratch that.
It had been my mantra ever since I stepped foot into those damned docks. 

And I did fake it.
I faked it real, real good.
And there would not come a time, where the memories of what went down in that month wouldn't haunt me.
Fake it till you make it...

I had been so confident as I walked out of that prison, having gloated over my imprisoned father, knowing Suho would take me...
I remembered thinking I was a raven and they should fear me.
That I would be their greatest nightmare. 

I was.
I won.
I beat them in the end.
I was crowned Queen of the Underworld.
I held all the power now. 

And yet, they had won too.
Because the girl that walked in wasn't the same that had walked out.
So many moments had changed me in this past year.
From the moment I jumped off that cliff, I had fallen.
Fallen and fallen.
Plunged into the darkness that had now become a part of me. 

I had felt it become a part of me when I watched the life drain from my brothers eyes.
Take root as I ripped the necklace off my mothers neck and sent my father to prison for life.
And I finally found a home in it during that month at the docks. 

I had made the darkness my home. 

I sat straight in my chair.
Regal and tall.
Barely moving, my make up heavy and intimidating, my dress made of black satin, smooth and flawless. 

A lie.
Fake.
I was jagged on the inside.
Twisted and broken, the shards of my soul sharp and gleaming. 

The members had tried to ask me about it once.
Only once, while we sat around a campfire at the camp, beers and cigarettes and a joint going around. 
Jin had asked quietly what it had been like with X-Exo.
Out of concern.
Of sympathy.
Of the desire to help me heal...
I remembered the way Tae tensed next to me.
He hadn't dared asked, though I could tell it had been on his mind all the time. 

The question had awoken the darkness.
Made it screech and yell and rise to the surface. 

All of them- all had blanched as they saw what shone out of my eyes as I merely whispered: "Don't ever ask me that again."

They hadn't.
No one mentioned it again.
Nor did they ask how I got the scars now decorating my back. 

They still hurt when I moved.
Not yet fully healed and I knew they would never stop hurting.
Never stop being a reminder of that time.

But my tattoo was still there. 
And the sentence underneath the black wings on my back could not have been better chosen: 
My back hurts in order to let my wings sprout.

And hurt me they did. 
For hours. 
Days. 
It felt like years. 

But perhaps they only let it go because there were more important matters. 
Like planning Hwasa's funeral. 

I flinched in my seat, hoping no one noticed, but even thinking her name... it made me feel as though I couldn't breath... the walls closing in around me.
Hwasa... the way she had taken one look at me in this very apartment I now sat and seen the person I could be beneath.
I wondered if she had foreseen how dark and twisted I would become.