EN | Chilumi Week 2022

𝟸. ✧ To have a heart to shatter

Prompt: Jealousy [~1600 words]

Since the events in the Golden House, I thought we were getting closer.

Was I the only one to feel that way?

Those laughs, those smiles, those touches of the hand, had I imagined them?

Why was I seeing you, arms linked with him now, as if you were infatuated with him? I thought I had improved, enough to be on your level, away from all the darkness I was willingly bathing in. I thought I had made progress, that I had become a better person, and that was because of you. You had a power over me, you were able to take me where I never thought I would. So why was I seeing you walking away, your figure getting smaller and smaller, without you ever looking back, to the past, to me?

You'd put your arm under his, you'd put your hand on his when he drank his usual tea, you'd smile broadly when he forgot to bring his moras. I could see it. All your attention was focused on him, just him, and only him.

Those sweet words he must whisper in your ear when he leaned over to you, that hand he placed without hesitation on your lower back when he accompanied you into town, those smiles he flashed at you at the slightest opportunity; why did they hurt me so much?

I didn't have a heart until I met you. You rebuilt it, brick by brick, so that I could have feelings again. But what use was it to me now that you refused to be by my side? You gave me back this feeling that was love, that I intended for you. You gave me back the feeling that was fear, that I felt as I thought of you going farther away from me. You gave me back the feeling that was jealousy, towards this man I considered a friend. And after filling that heart once again, you left me. What was I supposed to do now?

Seeing you sitting at this table with him while listening to Yun Jin's famous opera only made my heart crumble. He, who was only focused on you, annexing his whole environment, and you, who were holding his hand while turning your attention to the singer; you looked so happy at that moment.

I, who was near the stairs, ready to turn away from this spectacle that was piercing my heart with thousands of poisoned needles, couldn't however resolve to simply leave. Your enchanting aura still haunted me as the blue of my eyes detailed every single strand of your hair twirling in the soft early evening breeze, and the reflection of the fading sun on your delicate complexion.

I wanted to reach out and knock over the table with the drink on it, to vent my anger and fear that kept sticking to my skin and casting my shadow. I couldn't stand my pathetic state, but I just couldn't change it.

I just wanted to know why this sudden change in behavior. What did he have that I didn't? Was it his millennia of knowledge? Was it his love for contracts? Was it his austere taste in clothing, or his constant poverty?

No matter how many times I asked myself these questions, I could never come up with a decent answer that made sense.

So when Yun Jin's opera ended, and everyone present began to get up and go about their business, my body moved by itself, guided by this perpetual search for an answer.