❝ 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘺, 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺? ❞
Where Han Yeonha wants to mind her own business while playing the role of the quiet second lead but the other characters can't help but want to meddle with the story.
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Taek didn't come to school the next day.
He was inconsolable, Bom told Kyung as they sat side by side at Yeonha's secret place. The two didn't have a lot to say for a very long time.
The place...it felt oddly empty. Yeonha didn't need to come here on Stage to escape anymore. She had accepted who she was. She had jammed her purple lighter in one of the cracks of the steps as a way of saying goodbye. And as a result, the Writer had stopped taking care of this tiny corner of the school. The flowers were dead (Kyung wondered if it meant something). So were the ivy hanging from the shade. There were dried leaves everywhere. The garden was colder and more quiet than before.
It felt like the end was near.
"I have a morbid question." Kyung said.
Bom glanced at him, "I'm good with morbid stuff."
"What does death feel like?"
She didn't even take a moment to think about it. "It depends on who you ask." She casually said, "Physically, for me, it was being burnt at the stake. For Jung, it was a thousand lashes. And for Yeonha, it was slowly bleeding to death. But," She fiddled with her fingers, "Jung died when the Stages began to spiral out of control and he began to feel helpless. Yeonha died when she became aware. And...I guess parts of me have been dying for a really long time."
Bom had forgone her glasses. She had told him that she didn't need them anymore. After yesterday's fiasco, her eyesight had been restored. Kyung realized how old her eyes looked.
"Why did you distance yourself from that class rep of yours?" He asked, "I watched her follow you around. I think she liked you."
"She did. Nari told me so many times but..." She chuckled as she began to recount, "I've existed for such a long time, Kyung-ah, that I began to forget the stories I've been a part of after my fifth. Sometimes I feel that we've been passed around in the hands of different Writers because it feels impossible, going on for pages and pages — novels and epics and sequel after sequel that never seemed to end.
"Somewhere in the middle, when I was a background character, I thought 'Oh, maybe I can finally lead my own life'." Bom's expression grew wistful, "I had a family I built all on my own. I don't know how it worked but we stayed together till the end of that world. I never found them again and it...broke me. It felt as if grief followed me everywhere I appeared. Then Jung came and then Yeonha," She forced a smile, "It took a long time for me to get attached to them, considering how Yeonha kept rebooting in every new story.
"But I promised to myself," Bom took a moment to gather herself to speak in a steady voice, "I promised that I won't get close to anyone who wasn't them. No more families. No more lovers...no more children."
Kyung sunk into himself. It struck him that while Bom had taken the time to get to know him, he didn't know her at all. This revelation had rendered him speechless. Children, he thought, she had children. Just how long has she been around?
