Mirror

L i e

|| e d i t e d ||

"I can't be free from this lie. Give me back my smile . . . It continues even when I run away. I am caught in a lie" ~ Jimin (BTS), Lie

거짓말

L i e

~ Jae-hyun ~

I WAKE UP MILDLY WARM.

The sensation borderlines being uncomfortable, but I soak in as much of the heat as I can get. I curl further in on myself in an attempt to trap some of that warmth, burying my face deep into my comforter, blatantly ignoring how the fabric makes it slightly harder to breathe and how the movement sends a throbbing ache spreading like wildfire along my forearm.

I can remember being bitterly cold. Seoul's cruel winter chill having made a home in my bones, painting my lips blue and my eyes over with unconsciousness. But the memory is a twisted one. Dark and scattered, it's missing bits and pieces, and with me being marginally toasty now, how can it be real?

"Hyung?" my brother mumbles from behind me. My body stiffens, and not only in surprise at him being so close. If he's this close, in my bunk and not his own, something must have happened. What's worse is that his voice carries a slight rasp and a kind of careful anxiety that leaves me with the impression that he's tiptoeing around me again.

A tilted image of grey rain blanketing a street - my street - flashes across the black behind my eyelids and with it, the memory of near hypothermia. Maybe what I remember - slipping out of the apartment and into a violent downpour, soaking up the icy water and temperature like a sponge before collapsing (I think?) - actually happened?

I roll over as best as I can in the confined space. The movement results in my elbow landing a blow to Ji-han's wrist and me clipping my chin on my own loose fist. It sets pain flaring up my still-injured arm and palm, but none of that matters upon seeing the traces of exhaustion on my brother's face.

Heavy lavender smudges decorate the skin beneath his tired eyes like half moons cradling twin cut outs of the night sky, and his expression is an ever changing combination of overwhelming concern and defeat. His hair is a bird's nest of black, his inky locks tangled together in more ways than I would have thought were possible, and the corners of his mouth are weighed down into a weary frown. Without even having to guess, I know that I am the one responsible for him looking like this.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, unconsciously rubbing one eye with his hand. My stomach drops, the urge to throw up suddenly very apparent. He shouldn't be apologizing to me, he doesn't have anything to be sorry for. I am the chore, the burden, and the one to blame for all of this. I should be the one to apologise.

My teeth sink mercilessly into the flesh of the inside of my cheek and I pull his hand away. The gesture is nothing in comparison to everything he does for me, but I know that I will never be able to fill up the ever growing gap between us. He keeps throwing off the balance, and as it is, there is nothing I could ever do for him that will make things equal between us.

"Don't be," I whisper, my voice barely audible over the sound of our breathing. There is more, so much more that I want to say but the words . . . There are too many, each and every one of them only adding to the mess within my head, and none of them could ever express how sorry I am that he has to be the one to deal with me.

"No," he retorts firmly. He shakes his head frantically and props himself up on his elbow, his full lips pursed. "No, I have to be, Hyung. It's my fault you went out there in the first place."