PAPER HEARTS

15

It takes nine months to bring a life into this realm. Nine months of curiosity, nine months of cheer, nine months of tension, and a brew of love through the anticipation. In those nine months, the mother wore a smile to hide the weight she's never been used to carrying, the father emphasizes restraint over his needs as a human. In those nine months, all I felt was love. It took nine months for me to take my first glance at the world around me.

It takes nine months to make a life.

And in nine minutes, I end mine.

The first time I felt insecure, was when my older sister called me into her room in a panic-stricken voice. She was eighteen at the time, I was twelve.

Yoora is her name. Yoon Yoora. Although tied together by the surname, I wouldn't say that I made the best out of what should've been our relationship as sisters.

Yoora was a cheerleader at the time - a straight-A student with the prettiest curve of her lips and the loveliest dazzle in her eyes when she smiled. She was, in a way, my role model.

Growing up, I've always wanted to be like her. I've always wanted the slim, hour-glass figure, the pretty, pretty stitch of her double eyelids, the slender tapering of her legs. She was perfect. Yoora is just about the prettiest girl I've met in all my life, as a child.

At the time, I'd had my reasons for being envious of her glamour. She shone like the shiniest diamonds sprinkled across the velvety sky, and I was the heavy cloud that brought storms. Yoora was a valedictorian, I struggled through my lessons. She studied in New York, went to the creamiest of her choice of universities and graduated with sparkles.

I lived.

My parents loved all three of their daughters to bits, but I think they were more careful with the nineteen years of nurturing that went into Yoora.

She used to call for me to bring a measuring tape and wrap it around her tiny waist. At the time, as an innocent child, I only liked looking at the numbers on the tape. I never understood the meaning behind the calculations she made while measuring herself.

Yoora would sit beside me, watch tv shows with me, talk to me and take care of me as a sister should. But that lasted until I turned fourteen. Until she got herself a boyfriend, and until she starting going even harder on her restrictions when it came to food.

She lived in the room above mine in our apartment. I would hear the thumps of her feet against the ceiling as she exercised with the jump rope.

I would hear her cry, I would hear her clean.

Oddly enough, my respect for her never shrank. I loved her to pieces, I wanted to be like her. And so I started doing whatever she did to be the brightest star in the empty galaxy.

It was my fifteenth birthday. The last one I'd be celebrating at home, with my family. My eldest sister had moved into her own apartment a couple of blocks away and Yoora was waiting to board the plane to Indonesia in a week's time. for some reason, she was sad as I sat beside her through the congratulatory song.

Then she said something to me. Something I haven't brought myself to forget,

"Oh, look! your thighs are bigger than mine!"

Clearly, she meant no harm; she only joked about how cute of a dumpling I looked like as I sat there in my new clothes with a few crumbs of cake outlining the cupid's bow of my lips. Yoora was only making sure that she was still slim - it wasn't like she wanted me to feel belittled about my appearance.

But for some reason, my fifteen-year-old self couldn't see through her way of cracking jokes. My feelings froze for a minute as my dad chided her not to say things like that, but my mind raged with a sickening urge to prove her wrong.