nineteen: about a breakup

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The thing is, breakups shouldn't hurt as much as this

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

The thing is, breakups shouldn't hurt as much as this.

They should feel like broken glass and too much whisky. They should feel like bombs, blowing up lives without a care in the world. They should feel like nails on violin strings, raw and discordant, lemon juice squeezed over open wounds. They should feel impossible and terrible and heartbreaking.

But not like this. Not like how Jeong-Soon feels now, his heart long ripped out and shredded to pieces. The melancholy rhythm of his soul screams, a dolente cacophony in his chest. It strains at its ivory cage and claws for salvation, searching, searching, searching, and he wants it all to just stop---because there's a billion ways he could feel, but not like this. Never like this.

In the emptiness of the street outside the house of the boy he always thought he'd spend forever with, Jeong-Soon is a moth, hitting himself against the same streetlight over and over again, burning and flailing and dying---once, twice, a thousand times. Thud, thud, thud. Moth against the lamp, boy against the street. Burning out, bleeding in.

Every crack on the pavement suddenly seems too large, as if it'll swallow him any moment. Jeong-Soon wishes they would---so he wouldn't have to feel like this, because it's ten on a Saturday morning and he feels like shit and his boyfriend's just dumped him over therapy and he's so sad he could die and oh God, it's raining.

The rain splatters his teary face and plasters his hair to his equally-teary forehead, and Jeong-Soon wants to punch the sky. So he does, because it doesn't make him feel better, but it does distract him from the triste beat of his torn-up paper heart, even if only for a second.

Because no matter what, all the sky punching in the world can't change the fact that Jeong-Soon has just been threatened, dumped, and kicked out by Gregory Gan.

Okay. It's just a rough patch. All couples go through rough patches. It doesn't matter that he tried to kill me. Just a rough patch.

The rain generously dusts itself over Jeong-Soon's lashes, making him blink furiously and swipe at the offending liquid. He's shaking. Shaking and trembling from head to toe, because no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise, it isn't just a rough patch, and it does matter that Gregory tried to kill him, especially in response to a suggestion for therapy.

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