Alive but Shattered | All of us are dead

: ̗̀➛ Chapter 30

Special Trigger Warning: Physical Abuse and more.

***

Hee-seul was an outcast.

Whenever she attended school when she was elementary, no one would like to talk to her. It's as if they're all already grouped with their friends and it's hard to find place that she'll feel welcome.

No one wants to be her friend because she's competitive, the top rank on the whole population in her elementary. No one wants to be her friends because they were intimidated at her-- someone that ie often seen with her nose buried in her academic book or someone who joins multiple competitions and strives to win the gold. She has no friends because she's considered as the perfect little princess.

She was called a robot often because her work is always perfect, oblivious to the fact that she'll receive a punishment if it didn't fit her step mother's standard. She could still remember the feeling of the whip licking her back, slashing the thin clothe as well as her skin, the scent of iron permeating all throughout the room as her muffled cries reverberates within the walls of her step mother's home office whenever she fails to get the perfect mark. No body's perfect but perfection was instilled in her through the agonizing pain that licks her skin everything the whip makes contact to her body.

She was miserable and she can't even ask for anyone's help because they are too afraid to meddle with the black-hearted woman. She tried telling the teachers, even begged them but they shrug her off with fear evident on their eyes. She tried telling the cops but they told her mother so she was punished again for speaking nonsense after that.

At that point, the root of Hee-seul's hatred to the whole world deeply penetrates her heart, clutching deep within her like a tree with its roots tightly attached to the ground. On her young age, she fully accepted that life would never be better for her-- that destiny or any gods and goddesses in this lifetime must've hated her so much for giving her a shitty life. Did she do something malevolent on her past life to live like this?

That was until Third Grade when her dark life was illuminated by light. It was like a hand-held flashlight being shone in a massive ballroom, a streak of light at the middle of the darkness. Jang Wu-jin, the boy who initiated a conversation with her because he lost his pencil and he wanted to borrow one came to her life and suddenly becomes bearable. They were seatmates and it was the best time of her whole life.

She also met his older sister, Jang Ha-ri where she learned and got inspired to try archery (which she found that she doesn't have a talent to but it pretty average as what was stated by the Archer herself). The Jang Family is like an oasis in a never-ending desert, a fresh breath of air in her otherwise polluted life. They spark the hope that died down inside of her heart, they introduces her to what it felt like to be love the same way she loves them. They opened her eyes to the world where glitters and soft filters are everywhere. They showed her what a real childhood is.

That is until they entered middle school, Wu-jin starts to became distant while Ha-ri became busy with her school and trainings. Puberty starts and Wu-jin begun to hang out with boys her age while she was left alone with no one but them. To make things worse, she found out why she feels this strange feeling whenever Wu-jin's near, why she felt giddy at the mere thought of the guy and why suddenly see him in another light. For the first time in her life, she had a crush and it happened to be her best friend.

As they get older, the feelings also grew with her until she realizes that it wasn't even a puppy crush anymore. It wasn't love yet but she knows it wasn't a crush anymore. The fast beating of her heart everytime she thinks of his smile, the butterflies that flutters in her stomach whenever she sees him, and the odd pain whenever he ditches their traditional friday hang-out because he's with his friends. Hee-seul didn't push herself, knowing that she has no rights to control his life so she accepts it whole-heartedly.