Silence ○ Lee Haechan

○ 25

Calm again
I feel warm again, I'm reborn again
I am warm inside, for a little while
I am fine...

An exhaled sigh of relief dispels from Mari's lips as she fell backwards onto her bed, arms and legs sprawled out beside her as her eyes close shut.

Her bed encasing her softly as the ache in her body from her six hour shift was catching up to her. Her back sore from her stacking the shelves and her thighs aching from the constant squatting- she hated delivery days.

"Hey Google," she spoke out into the air, waiting for a few seconds before speaking to her Google home that sat on her beside table, "play me a song."

Her breathing was shallow as she used her feet to pull off her socks, the quite atmosphere soon was filled with the lulling sound of 'all I want' by Kodaline.

As the song announced its arrival into the room by falling into Mari's ears, her eyes dropped open at the familiarity of the song.

"All I want is nothing more, to hear you knocking at my door," she whispered out as her eyes bored into the ceiling stoic. Her heart pulling into a tight squeeze with her eyes following suit.

Her lips stopped from singing the lyrics before the chorus started as she lifted her body off of her bed and paused the song.

Her arms falling to rest on her knees as she blankly looked at the floor, a familiar feeling of quite literally nothingness rested upon her figure. She pondered briefly as to why she felt like this, an empty feeling plaguing her mind and soul as she dissociated from the world around her and let her mind wonder.

The song she had grown used to filtered into her mind and she could hear the lyrics despite the lack of verbal song.

How could one simple song affect someone so much, lyrics she used to sing vibrantly to now a melancholy tune pulling at the strings of her heart.

The only feeling she could remotely feel in that one second was the tug and squeeze of the muscles in her heart, a wave of cortisol flushing her chest and spreading its tormenting liquid deeply in her sternum.

Luckily the sound of a brazen knock on her bedroom door tore her mind away from almost discovering the thumping of her heart that was more recognisable than usual.

"Sweetheart?" the deep voice oscillated around making her look up to see her father pushing up his glasses as he made his way into her room.

"So I was thinking," he came and sat on the bed beside her, "movie night tonight with you and Minsu" he said rather excitedly, nudging her in the side with a wide smile "y'know like the good ol' days."

An inquisitive raise of her eyebrow leads her father to continue on, all the while her mind thinks back as to what the 'good ol' days' would consist of. 

Happy family dinners, movie nights with popcorn, fights, laughter, unheard silent tears and blasted music expelled through ageing earphones- yeah they really were the good ol' days.

But she couldn't think of the past without thinking about her friends, there weren't a lot, it consisted of two people, one being non other than Lee Donghyuck.

The good ol' days, wasn't that a song sung by Macklemore? Lyrics talking about dreaming about growing up but missing the past once you've arrived at the destination. Maybe she should have listened to the lyrics more close to heart, after all they warned her of the consequences for wishing to pass by time.

Time is a fucked social construct anyway that has everyone wrapped around it's finger, mob mentality on a world wide scale. Perhaps if the construct of time wasn't so imbedded into the minds of simpletons, the events from a few years ago would feel as if they happened yesterday, or even a week ago, a few years in the future at most.

But time reminds us of the years of trauma and unresolved internal issues that we've been pushing aside, placing a number on how long we've been ignoring the issues for.

It reminds us of assignments and dentist appointments, your work schedule or the sport you signed yourself up to play weekly. Time was both a burden and a blessing, signalling how long you and your partner have been together for, or more morbidly, the death of a family member or friend.

"So what do you think?" Her fathers voice made her look towards him.

"Where's Chohee?" She asked, not wanting to deal with the psychotic women who believe she's actually hers and Minsu's mother.

Her mother was in Jeju, or Busan or... quite frankly she didn't know where her mother was other than she has a new job that makes her travel a lot.

Her father sighed, looking incredulously at his offspring with a raise brow,
"Mari", the man asked rather inquisitively. He wasn't blinded by the knowledge of his daughters deep despise of the women he married.

She was younger than her mother, more cocky, uptight- but she made her father happy, much to her dismay.

"What?" She asked feigning offence and her father raised his brow higher.
"It's a genuine question."

Her father dropped his head with a sigh, "she's out with her friends," at his words of the other females lack of presence in the household made the girls lips pulled up into a smile.

"Great! Then I'd love to watch a movie," she spoke happy at the thought of not dealing with the women with a habit of privacy intrusion.

The girl got up from her seat on her bed, about to walk off her her father lightly grabbed her wrist to stop her.
"Mari, I know you aren't particularly fond of Chohee-"

"That's an understatement," she mumbled under her breath but her father heard and responded with a sigh and a tug of her wrist to make her face him.

"But she's your stepmum, it'd be nice for you to bond with her a little."

"I really don't find that necessary-"

"Mari," her dads voice fell sterner as he stood up to look down at his daughter.

Mari avoided eye contact with her dad as he gazed at her under scrutiny. She could hear one last sigh fall from his lips as he began to speak again, this time with a softer tone.

"At least be nice to her, she's going through a lot right now with taking on two children who aren't hers, that's a big role to step up to. It's not easy taking care of kids that aren't your own. Just promise me you'll be nice," her father laid a loving parental hand on the girls cheek making her look up- eyes still staring away from his as she bites at her cheek.

There was a lingering silence before she nodded her head slowly, "fine."
She supposed she could be nice. Another person to add onto her "be civil to the people you hate" list, surely it can't be that hard. She'll just ignore her like she does with Donghyuck when they don't need to speak to each other.

Besides, she's been wearing a fake smile for most her life, this should be easy.

"That's my good girl, now common, let's go watch that movie," her father said walking off to go retrieve her brother and letting the girl linger behind for a minute.

Perhaps this father- child bonding time will prove as a useful distraction from the rest of the world.

From her troubles at school and with her peers to the witch of a women who intruded in on her life when she was at her worst.

A little distraction couldn't be too bad, a temporary fix pushing the underlying problems behind a dark wall to forget about.

With her own sigh leaving her this time, the exhale being her motive to forget, the girl began to follow after her father with a bright smile. She missed these moments with them.

Family night, oh how she hadn't had one of those in a while- a good two years to be exact.

She hopes it's just as exciting as it was when she was fifteen, filled with laughter and love and a whole heap of chocolate and ice cream.