he felt heartbreak for the first time at 15, but of course, he was too young to fully understand it.
at the time, it felt like his ribs were being broken one by one, splintering and puncturing his internal organs, which would lead to his inevitable death. his head was spinning on an axis which he hadn't even known existed, his thoughts a muddled mess of self-deprecation and confusion, no sense present whatsoever.
in short, it felt like his world had collapsed, and he was slowly collapsing with it.
with age, however, heartbreak brought on a different set of feelings; fresh emotions and blindingly adverse side-effects.
the confusion had soon been replaced with acceptance, but not of a positive mindset. never positive. instead, sanghyuk accepted that once again, he wasn't set out for happiness. he wasn't put on this plain to be content and have someone to stand by his side through thick and thin, and really, he was fine with it. it was the norm — despite others reassuring him that he wasn't the bad guy, that he had no reason to act okay if he didn't feel it — and it felt... easy. much more so than if he were to let his resolve crumble and admit that actually, yeah, he was fucking hurting. he'd never let himself get so honest.
unfortunately, the self deprecation never left. if anything, it grew and it grew, until it had manifested itself into this malevolent storm cloud which seemed ready to burst at any given moment. the moment never seemed to be at the appropriate time, unfairly, but that was also normal for sanghyuk.
if his self-deprecation was a person, sanghyuk imagines it would look a lot like this: a woman in her late twenties, face vacant and skin fair; nails a shade of coral as they grip tight to the arm of the chair she refuses to move from, and lips a patent shade of red. a perfect contradiction and an eerie sight to see. similarly to him, he believes, when his mind is a mass of knots but his exterior is smooth and sleek.
it is funny, though, how little he feels when heartbreak comes, nowadays. a far cry from the gut-wrenching pangs of his youth, sanghyuk wishes he could only have an ounce of that instead of the nothing he has now. it's literal and metaphorical emptiness. it encompasses him, body and soul, and he really wouldn't be too surprised if one of these days he just disappeared into the ether from the increasing feeling of depletion in his emotions and void in the core of his stomach.
sometimes he thinks he's nauseous, other times underfed. but then food is merely a distraction, a place-holder for something more, and sanghyuk decides it's not worth it. food is a waste of time and money, anyway.
there's a permanent something in his throat — not quite a lump, but similar — and it makes swallowing even an nth of saliva painful. it's a cold feeling, a numbness with discomfort, and it feels dry, from the very back of his throat down to the centre of his chest. it feels sore and swollen and if he stopped breathing, he wouldn't be surprised. (or, really, all too bothered.)
his body isn't always working in sync with his brain, either. sometimes, he zones out and hears everything that his mind wants to remind him of but can't because he's stubborn and angry and so fucking sick of being told things, only for them to turn out causing him more harm than good and... sanghyuk is tired. he's tired, and he's run down, and he wants it to stop. wants his body to feel a rush of energy again, a rush of anything other than heat and anxiety; wants his feet to feel light against the cold linoleum of his kitchen floor; wants his hands to not feel like they weigh ten times more than his entire body. wants.
but, he can't.
he can't, and he won't. because wanting something means to have feelings, and to have feelings means that he can't move on and accept that he's a broken person who might need fixing. fixing takes time, and sanghyuk truthfully feels like he's running out of it. his mental strength has such a tight band holding it together, and it's going to snap soon. every single heartbreak is another stretch, another tear in the already damaged rubber.
when it snaps, sanghyuk is going to let it.
