your loss, not mine | Sooshu

I can't live with myself.

Soojin

22 September 2016

2.38 am

Her mind is filled with thoughts of Shuhua.

She's remembering every whisper, every word that her lips had uttered, and Soojin's head slams against a fistful of self-hatred. Her tongue burning at the thought of the other girl's lips, stomach drowning in its own burning pit.

She remembers the way how Shuhua would let her hands roam at the expanse of her ribcage, how she would put her ears to Soojin's chest to hear every breath she was taking.

She remembers the way Shuhua's face fell when she couldn't hear anything.

She remembers thinking it was her own fault that she pushed the girl away.

She remembers questioning herself for hating the other girl for leaving, when all she did was stop her from staying.

2.45 am

She's choking from her own breath, unsurprised that she would die from her own preservation. She thought that if she let herself fall without Shuhua, she could survive. But in the end, she only let herself suffer.

She remembers the Sunday mornings with cups of hot tea. The early mornings they shared the bathtub. The quiet nights they shared the story of a book they've finished.

She remembers the reason why she woke up early in the morning, to see the smile adorning Shuhua's face like sunbeams. She remembers thinking that Shuhua was made of too much sunshine, and she had to cover herself to resist the light.

2.59 am

Soojin remembers how Shuhua had mended her heart with her slender fingers, ignoring every explosion and every indifference that she had given her. Shuhua's insistence on fixing her, that Soojin sometimes almost couln't breathe.

How Soojin wanted to set herself free from her utter destruction, too stupid to realize that Shuhua was her satisfaction.

She remembers Shuhua realizing too late that Soojin wasn't a broken bird, but a ticking bomb.

3.00 am

Soojin realizes too late that Shuhua was already gone.

The demons are inside Soojin's mind now, they know how much she misses her. So they understand where she's been. The pulse of her veins throbbing at her wrists.

Maybe that's why she feels desperate to feel something, anything.

The silence lingers on to her like a second skin, stinging her like burning ice. Cold. Heartless. She stares at her hands, feeling nothing, and thinking nothing.

Except for the wave of all the old feelings she's been trying to drown. It's been days, the same emotions following her: Tasteless and insipid, almost as if it was mocking her. Making her feel more lost and alone, but she swallows it down. It's easy to get used to something when it happens everyday.

It's easy to get tired of something when it happens everyday.

6.38 am

There's something melancholic waking up to an empty room, Soojin knows, because when her eyes flutter open, all she could see is a ghost.

She isn't sure what time it is, because the sunlight could never really seep in through the windows. Her eyes are trying to follow the small stream of light. While ignoring the burn of the empty space beside her.

Sadness and anxiety are no strangers to her. They've introduced themselves in her life without invitation, and have burrowed themselves deep within her.