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EPILOGUE
3RD PERSON POV
People are not always good for each other. The thing about true heartbreak is that it always comes from those who mean something to you. You learn pain from a sister, suffering from a lover, betrayal from a friend.
Evil is real and it is out there, but Kim Chito was always more worried about the one inside her.
She spent years locked in a white room, a delusional psychopath who never felt any real emotions, a depressed sociopath that hurt people without remorse, a shy narcissist that always put herself first. Then came him. Where others saw a plethora of possible diagnoses and a dotted line for writing prescription pills, he saw just a broken human that desperately needed his help.
He thought that it might be good for Chito to escape in a daydream, so he gave her books. He didn't think how compelled by the wrong brain, even fantasy and imagination can become harmful. Once Chito found a way to escape into her head and out of this flawed world, she refused to come back.
It was a fun game, living every possible life except her own. Parts of her real self kept getting lost in different imagined worlds, but she filled the emptiness with emotions, hopes and dreams that she learned from written characters. Sometimes good, usually evil. She never knew which one it was or really understood the difference.
It's not easy to be strong all the time, but Chito never learned how to be weak. She wouldn't have survived if she was weak. That was why she never fully grasped or allowed herself to feel emotions like remorse, empathy and trust.
Chito stepped on her IV rack and used it to skate down the sunlit hallway of the mental hospital, a temporary prison that later became her permanent home. Most patients were floating around on medication-made clouds, but she didn't mind the haziness. The world finally slowed down enough for her to enjoy it, from the bitter taste of their hospital's vending machine coffee, to the beats of one cleaner's favorite rap music.
Hyuk was standing on the balcony with the other night shift nurses and smoking his last cigarette before going home. He was always crumbling under the weight of his insomnia but he looked a little better on early spring mornings like this one, when his curls were full of fallen cherry blossoms and his eyes shined in the light of dawn.
Most of the patients didn't like Hyuk but he somehow became friends with Chito. She wasn't bothered by his straightforward and pessimistic attitude and he tolerated her even on the days when he couldn't drag her past the line between reality and whatever world she got lost in.
Psychiatrist Yoon Hansol, who was known among the patients as Hei, also liked sitting out in the sunlight, especially on cold mornings like that one. His personality was comparable to a collection of lost puzzle pieces, all from different pictures and without any connection to each other. Chito believed that he was secretly a high functioning mental patient, an actor, an impostor, who somehow fooled others into thinking that he was normal, but she didn't mind. He was trying to teach her how to act as well.
The psychiatrist was Chito's lifeline. Whenever all the stars went out on the sky and her world got swallowed by darkness, he found a way to bring her back to the light. He was the only one that dared to try and mend her open wounds, her splintered bones, her spilled guts. He understood why reality sometimes hit her like a comet and made it impossible to breathe without escaping back into a different, nicer, safer world.
'' I'm okay, '' Hei said when she joined him on the bench outside of the hospital. Another thing that Chito liked about him was how he seemed to understand everything without her having to say a single word.
'' You don't look okay. '' Little by little, Chito was beginning to understand him too. He wanted to be alone, but he didn't want to be lonely.
'' I'm okay, '' he repeated, took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. '' Don't worry about me, Chito. I'm just tired. How are you doing though? Your sister Mina is coming to visit you tomorrow. Are you excited? It's been almost a year since you've last seen her. ''
Everyone wanted to believe that their loved ones were unconditionally good. But nothing in this world ever was. Chito tried not to resent her big sister, even if the girl refused to believe that their father was a monster who hurt innocent kids, including her. When she was at her lowest point, Mina turned her back to her and she had to fight the darkness alone.
Years later, a detective by the name Ri Hyunbin investigated Chito's case and proved that her past murders were done in self-defense, but her relationship with her sister was still in shambles.
'' What did you tell her? I don't want her to expect too much from me when she's gonna get the bare minimum. ''
'' I told her that you're trying. ''
'' Is that enough? '' Chito warily asked and glanced at the psychiatrist. She hoped that it was, because the simple act of trying, was the toughest and most exhausting thing that she had ever done.
Hei nodded in approval. '' It's enough. ''
Chito was still unsure, but her heavy medications were making it difficult to hang on a thought for too long and her head was overflowing of words from the latest book that Hei gave her. There was this character - Navi - who was everything that Chito used to be.
'' Doctor, can you talk to me about true love? I read about it in the last book that you gave me, but I'm not sure if I understood it properly. Why did the detective woman let herself fall in love with the criminal, when she knew that they probably won't get a happy ending? ''
" A heart is a very foolish, stubborn and impulsive organ. You don't always agree with it, but you can't fight what it wants, " Hei explained and patted the girl's head. '' I'm beginning to think that maybe reading is not the best thing for you. ''
'' Books are proof that magic exists! '' Chito clenched her fingers into fists and looked at the psychiatrist. '' Every moment, every emotion, every person, every object can become a window into a world that's far brighter than ours and it's the duty of those who can, to travel into that world, capture some of its light, turn it into words and bring it back to us. ''
Hei's eyes slowly grew wide with surprise. He felt bad for the girl that spent most of her life in a psychiatric hospital. He knew that Chito was ruined beyond repair, unfit for society, that her brain was wired a lot differently from his, but it was still hard to imagine how she had always been here. He lived his life without much thought and let the years pass him by and now, it was too late to turn back time - for the both of them - but something about her rare sincere smiles made him want to try.
His voice was quiet when he asked: '' Chito, do you ever wish that you could see the world beyond these walls? ''
'' This is a very small world, '' she reluctantly agreed and looked around. Then she gazed into his eyes again and shrugged. '' But it's not the size of the world that matters. What matters are the people in it. ''
Out of nowhere, the psychiatrist wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in a hug.
Sometimes, a broken person can find true love and understanding only in another equally broken person.
Chito's world was dark, disorienting, surreal. Everything meant nothing and nothing meant everything. But in a dark galaxy, full of aimless comets and lost planets, a dead sun was slowly starting to come back to life.
