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YEONJUNG WAS AFRAID of many things. She couldn't help it; it was simply how her brain worked. It told her to jump at the sight of spiders and sudden physical contact; it made her shiver when she saw tight spaces and bodies of water with no visible bottom—some things that didn't even make sense. She always looked herself in the mirror and told herself, "This is the day. The day where I'm not afraid and I'm brave and I stand up for myself." Yet that day never arrived.
Instead she buried herself in her music and homework and prayed that if she focused enough on them, she would eventually just melt into them and wouldn't have to deal with the real world. She hated the real world. It was cruel, unforgiving, and took brutally real. It didn't care about you or what you wanted, it just cared about turning again and again. It cared not about individuals, but itself. It didn't give a fuck about you. It didn't give a fuck if you were hurting, or felt like you were dying because that pain in your head just won't stop and you can't make it stop and eventually it's just constantly there, like a ticking time bomb. You grow used to it, but it's still like a tumor: growing every once in a while when it feels like it, and positively ruining everything you tried so hard to do.
And it still doesn't care. And that makes you wonder, will it ever? Will it ever stick its head out of its ass and give a shit about you for two seconds?
