I LOVE YOU SO
Chapter Thirty-three
❛ A wounded butterfly. ❜
cw: butterflies & blood
THERE ARE ABOUT 24,000 species of butterflies in the world. That's thousands of beauteous creatures in the shape of a small insect with iridescent wings, many have different patterned wings, shapes with different dips and colours. They're evolved from moths- such little yet charming critters.
But the string of life they hold onto, is immediately severed within a span of a week. We can only presume that they lived an adventurous and alluring short life as they slip away into the world of the dead; a tear fell free from Hwang Aera's forlorn eyes.
As she journeyed through the murky waters, a certain insect caught her almond coloured eyes. A lone butterfly. She recalled, instantly, the solitary butterfly that managed to enter the blank, vast, white room the players were once gathered in. Aera remembered the oceanic blue butterfly, how it fluttered joyously by the company of her and her friends . . . and how it was torn into shambles, abruptly, after the Tug-of-War game.
Where are you going? Hwang Aera asked mindlessly, her eyes dulled from the many possibilities that imprinted themselves within her already corrupted mind. The wandering butterfly did not seem like the previous butterfly she saw before, in fact, it daffodil yellow wings, with sparkles of silver, glinting from the sunlight that stretched into the tunnel.
"You're trying to find them, aren't you?" With a hushed voice, Aera's softened, yet slightly broken tone droned into the wide sewers, her eyes following the butterfly that fluttered deeper and deeper into the endless tunnel. It flapped its tired wings a little harder, as if it were trying to communicate to her, a replacement for inclining the head.
The exhausted woman didn't answer any further, but instead, felt as though someone drained out the contents of her heart into the muddy waters, and only left the skeletal frame within her hollow chest. Hwang Aera could only keep her gaze, on the lonely butterfly, for she felt almost connected to the young creature.
The butterfly didn't give up, despite knowing the chances of its beloved one being dead was sky high. More trickles of tears scorched Aera's cheeks.
A foul stench touched upon her senses as her ankles drove deeper into the thick swampy waters, before her eyes landed on the widowed butterfly, the first thing that caught her eye . . . well . . . it was the amount of faeces that swam within the bottom of the tunnel. Aera knew what she was getting into, but it was the only way, without potentially landing within the clutches of jeopardy.
Darkened shadows enveloped her body, making it more arduous and arduous to trek through the sewers without losing faith in herself. But as Aera wrapped her fingers tighter around the pocket knife she had equipped earlier, all senses of doubt burst into blazes, and confidence was restored within her veins.
Just like the butterfly, she wasn't going to turn back, there was no excuse to, she needed to get back into the facility. Back into the reckless storm. The storm was only going to crackle harsher the more she stayed in there. The only way to lessen the force of a rough storm, is to experience the entirety of it, and know its weakness points- then eventually put it out. That's exactly what Hwang Aera had been doing all along, but she needed to complete the final step . . .
And that was to make the storm disappear.
A light.
The squelching under Hwang Aera's feet was pulled to a halt as her eyes were met with a large outlet on the ceiling of the sewers. She blinked hastily, trying to clear her clouded vision that was formed from her steamy tears. Lowering her eyes onto the pocketknife that was sitting heavily within her left palm, a cold shiver arose from the bottom of her spine to her skull. Why did everything feel heavier at that moment? The surface of her skin grew paler, her breathing hasty as each breath she drew began to grow shakier and shakier . . . and shakier.
"Kang Sae-byeok," the harsh sounding name sounded soft on the tip of Aera's tongue, her voice fragile as she stared at the vent that lead to an unknown room of the facility. She felt an urge to get up there speedily, to see Sae-byeok's familiar face again, for . . . she felt herself feeling fearful over forgetting the raven haired girl.
"Please don't tell me this is you, please, please," shaking the pocket-knife within her hand once again, Aera nodded to herself, before standing on the tips of her toes and reached for cover of the vent.
The tip of the glimmering blade touched upon a screw, it was slightly blunt, perhaps from being overused when being within Jun-ho's hands. Jun-ho. All Hwang Aera could really do at that moment was hope; Aera was sure that hope was growing tired over the many times she held on to it. She hoped that her brother was somewhere safe, that he managed to escape quietly without anyone chasing after him- Aera had no time to be agitated with him at that moment.
On to the fourth screw. As her wrist turned clockwise, to the motion the screw unwinded, a strange liquid travelled down her arms. Retreating tinily, her lips parted into a muffled gasp as she realised that the watery substance was indeed water, but it was mixed with a scarlet colour. It was blood.
"No," shaking her head profusely, Aera clasped onto the screw that was hanging half-way and yanked it off, it clanged by her feet. Snapping the cover off the vent, she winced as it made a deafening sound of metal hitting against stone. "No, no, no-" Her crimson stained hands scrambled for the edge of the flooring above.
Grimacing, her eyes shut tightly, making the sides of her eyes wrinkle due to effort, the soles of her shoes grew slippery, due to the diluted blood on the walls. "Come on," Aera pushed herself onwards, despite feeling the stitching on her side split open minimally, creating a numbing amount of stinging to occur. She could also feel the freshly healed cut on her leg, begin to bruise as she let her legs climb up the wall.
Her fingertips found a cold surface, a tiled surface. One that was similar to the toilets' flooring, as she recalled the events she had created with Mi-nyeo and Sae-byeok during the early days of staying within the facility.
Slapping her palms deeper onto the flooring above her, she let a booming grunt fly out of her lips as she stretched her already benumbed leg upwards. The whole process was indeed not graceful, but apart from trying to build a ladder out of sticks from the trees outside, Aera could only get through the vent by climbing with her limbs.
Hoisting herself on to the top, she found herself sitting within a puddle of a thicker, a more gruesome, ruddy substance. "Blood . . ." The small droplets and puddles of maroon, fresh blood sat beneath her fingertips and seeped into the cracks of the tiled floor. Hwang Aera felt her inhales and exhales grow unsteady, her lungs almost gave way.
With frantic widened eyes, she let her palms stretch out in front of her, they quivered uncontrollably, as she let her horror take a toll on her. Slacking her jaw open widely, her slightly cracked, pink lips, that were in need of some care, opened and let out an agonised gasp. A series of shocked tears fell from Aera's enlarged eyes, they were expanded to an extent, that it hurt to blink-
"What . . ." The quiet words tumbled from Aera's trembling lips. By her bloodied, black boots, was a jagged shard of glass. Droplets of water painted it, but also a vermillion colour stained it wholly- Hwang Aera could only stay paralysed to the spot, as her desolated pupils drifted, dazed onto the hoarsely breathing figure next to her.
There she was, under the pale, blinding lights. Kang Sae-byeok.
The two did not exchange a word for two whole minutes. They only took in the remainders of their divine features that were fouled by the hands of cruelty. None of them had expected their hopeful pleads to be answered, for their soulful eyes to meet once again.
Only the lulling sounds of the running tap could be heard, apart from their pulsating hearts that were drumming wildly as they were finally being reunited after a cruel time. The longer Hwang Aera rested her eyes on the the towering, raven haired girl before her, the more it felt as if everything around them was dulled into a hum.
Her fragile cocoa eyes took in the ghostly glimmer upon Sae-byeok's skin, as if she were drenched by a fountain of death.
"Sae," Aera's breaths sounded as though she were hiking on a mountain, the sight before her was as if a strong wrench was removing every string attached to her heart.
At every dampening tear that slid messily down her cheeks, a laboured weep plummeted from her mouth. Steadying herself with her onto her heavy feet, her knees almost buckled from exertion, and her lack of focus on her actions. The entirety of Hwang Aera's concentration was focused on the feeble girl in front of her, and her wound.
Splosh.
Another drop of crimson splattered onto the puddles of water below their feet. Hwang Aera's eyes fell on to the source, of where the half of a bucket load of blood was oozing from. "No," half-whispering to herself at first, more warm tears began to fill themselves up within Aera's darkened eyes, ones that seemed to have a growing void within them.
There was a craggy, deepened and heavy cut on Kang Sae-byeok's abdomen, one that most definitely punctured her internal organs. There was nothing, but her weakened palm that supported it, the blood trickled down her palm, like small tributaries on the surface of her skin. The tall girl swayed on both her feet, she was struggling profusely to keep the blood within her. Sae-byeok would've straightened her spine, rolled her shoulders back to make herself appear healthy, to appear okay, but she couldn't do that without cringing, without feeling as though her insides were being torn apart by a chainsaw.
There was no way of fooling Hwang Aera into thinking she was fine, that she was okay.
Kang Sae-byeok looked like a wounded butterfly in need a new pair of wings to fly away, to a safe haven.
When the younger girl reached out her incarnadined hands forwards, the older girl withdrew. Sae-byeok shook her head in a fatigued manner, her own misty tears hazed her vision, but it was too arduous to force her voice out of her throat, to say something.
"You're," sniffling repeatedly, Hwang Aera stepped closer, "you're bleeding." Even though the back of her sleeve was dampened with God knows what, Aera wiped furiously at her eyes and began pressing her already carmine coloured palms, with force, but not so much to create more damage, onto the open wound on Sae-byeok's abdomen.
Sae-byeok flinched, the contact from Aera's hands burned her skin more than the shard of glass did. She sucked in a sharp breath and tried retreating further away- only for her cold back to fall against the harsh surface of the wall gingerly. Another intense inhale was drawn.
"How . . ." Sae-byeok managed to utter a breathy word; all her buzzing mind was clustered with was . . . Hwang Aera. The surface of her throat felt scratchy, even though she hydrated herself a little earlier, the turmoil had caused all of her senses to feel sedated- there was no way, no way that Aera survived.
It couldn't be her. This couldn't be real.
Sae-byeok had seen her limp figure fall down on to the ground, right after the deafening gunshot. Her childhood friend, lifeless, on the ground. She even felt every fibre of her shatter and dissipate into a cavernous void. It wasn't painful, no. But it was benumbing. She had felt the numbness that overshadowed her every being. Every part of her felt benumbed. Kang Sae-byeok knew what she saw, and what she felt.
It couldn't . . . it really couldn't be.
Aera's lungs felt as though her lungs could break down at any second, from the amount of alarmed inhales and exhales she was taking. Her breaths were uncontrollable, as was the ruby-red blood that gushed out of Sae-byeok's abdomen. With her shoulders aquiver, all Aera could see was a sea of violent red.
"No, no, no," repeating her protests over and over, Aera tried to apply more pressure onto the abhorrent injury with only the surface of her palms, only for the warm blood to gush down the other side of her wavering hands. Frenzied, her blurry eyes flickered over at the damned shard of glass, before focusing them on her hands once more, "you shouldn't have . . . you shouldn't have taken it out-"
"But . . . I saw . . ." Sae-byeok began. That you died, she wanted to say. However just like every part of her limbs, her tongue was struck frozen, in a paralytic state.
Aera couldn't focus on Sae-byeok's voice. "No, no, no." The blood just wouldn't stop.
An unsturdy exhale left Sae-byeok's sore lips, the warmth of her breath fanned across Aera's forehead, making the shorter strands of her damp her to fly gently. The taller raven haired girl caught a faint whiff of the salty ocean from Aera's soaked dark hair, and for a moment, Sae-byeok thought of Jeju Island, and how wonderful it would be to swim around within the sea, with Hwang Aera smiling softly by her side. The dampness of Aera's hair made her tresses appear as sombre as the dingy nights in Seoul. Just like the nights where they used to fall asleep on a picnic mat, in the park, under a starry sky.
Sae-byeok held on to an acute breath, as she felt Aera crush her abdomen to try and keep the blood from pouring out of her any further. A strong tug could be felt on both sides of her cherry coloured lips; a frown displayed on Sae-byeok's face. Her drained eyes landed on the deepened, shadowed lines under Hwang Aera's crestfallen eyes. The gloomy bags that were engraved under her once, bright eyes, only brought a heavy ounce of despondency to wash over Sae-byeok's heart.
She was desperate to erase the distressed emotions that tarnished Hwang Aera's pretty eyes. Sae-byeok despised seeing others waste their emotions on her- she most definitely despised seeing Aera grow lost to melancholy over her deathly wound.
"Hwang Aera-ah."
Aera pulled her woeful eyes away from her vermillion stained palms and the merciless wound . . . and on to a pair of soulful eyes. The nickname almost sounded foreign. She'd only heard it come out of Sae-byeok's fair lips about once, and that was when Aera gifted her the bicycle, when Sae-byeok was beyond ecstatic to have made such a fond memory with Aera. But the moment they were in right now, it was the complete opposite.
It wasn't a tender memory, but pure horror. One could never imagine such a thing to happen to their loved ones, it was hell.
There was a permanent look of fatigue upon Sae-byeok's angelical features, Aera noticed this as her teary eyes finally trailed onto her high-cheek boned face. It was hardly possible to count the tiny freckles that slumbered along the surface of Sae-byeok's pale cheeks. They were accompanied with speckles of blood, and it seemed that even the effort of washing it away with water was not enough, as tears created pathways down Sae-byeok's face.
"Sae," shaking her head tinily, making her tears fall in different directions, Aera's tiny voice broke a little as she murmured her apologies, "I'm sorry," the tears pooled up in her eyes again, "I'm sorry- I'm so sorry-" She wanted to say more, to tell Sae-byeok for the amount of pain and conflict she caused upon the older girl.
Hwang Aera was sorry for being ignorant during her last few days in Seoul before she left for New York.
Hwang Aera was sorry for cutting off all ties between the two of them the moment her plane landed in New York.
Hwang Aera was sorry for not checking up on Kang Sae-byeok, and didn't ask her how she was doing, for not knowing how much she was struggling financially.
Hwang Aera was sorry she left Kang Sae-byeok alone to complete the the stepping glass game.
If Hwang Aera had never taken all of these journeys in her life, they wouldn't be in this situation. Death wouldn't be toying with their lives; Death wouldn't be juggling their lives between his phantasmal hands.
But none of that mattered. It never did- not anymore, anyways. Instead of shaking Aera's shoulders with a cruel voice and telling her about the hatred she had towards her infuriating actions; the corners of her cherry tinted lips wobbled into a weak smile. Like the wings of an injured rare butterfly, it was a harrowing sight to see, but it was almost enlightening, as if the smile was trying to say: let go, let go of the past.
"Let's go home," was all that Kang Sae-byeok answered.
Home.
Warmth- The first feeling that reaches the heart when you hear the word. The word feels soft against the tongue, mellow against your ear drums. You'd want to share this feeling with your loved ones, the ones you hold dearly and the ones you'd like to cherish every last moment with.
Home. A place where you can settle into and let your heart rest; where everything feels safe. The one place where you are not alone. A destination where you can be free and still feel loved.
"What? . . ."
Sae-byeok's eyelids dared to droop down, to shut her midnight coloured pupils away from the world for a temporary amount of time, but, she fought against them, wanting to face the person her heart swelled the most over.
Mastering an inclination of her head, she bit the inside of her cheek, just so that Aera didn't see any sign of her breaking down inside. Sae-byeok wanted to keep the unsteady smile that painted her ruby lips, even if it only caused the both of them to weep even more. "Home," in a stronger tone, one that was still breathless, Sae-byeok continued, "you promised- no," she shook her head again, letting a few drenched strands of her fringe to fall in front of her forehead, "we both promised."
"The promise . . ."
"-To get out of this hellhole together, remember?"
Sae-byeok still remembered the promise. Of course she did. It was all that the raven haired girl held onto, like she did with the locket that hung around her neck from all those years ago.
A waterfall amount of relief rushed over Sae-byeok's soul as she felt Aera's wrists relax against her abdomen, a tiny chuckle escaped from her parted lips, it tormented her to do so, but the warmth that distributed across her chest, caused her to feel gleeful, and it showed upon her face.
Lifting her heavy carmine coloured hands upwards, she fondly dragged the side of her nail under both Aera's delicate eyes. The blood from her skin mixed with Aera's fresh tears, and as her hands trembled tinily, Sae-byeok tried her best to wipe the tears away. A softer grin replaced the forced smile from before, it was more genuine, more pure-
Hwang Aera had rarely seen this emotion being owned by Kang Sae-byeok. She appeared vulnerable, not at all hard-shelled like she was before. Sure Aera had seen Sae-byeok's true self during their days in Seoul together- but the fragility of Sae-byeok's state yanked at every single heartstring that Aera had.
"I remember," very clearly in fact, Aera finally replied.
Sae-byeok's hands never left Aera's saltwater smelling cheeks, they acted like pillows on both sides of Aera's face. They were somehow warm, yet cosily cold, it was comforting, as Aera had a sudden spark that birthed within her mind. Hastily gripping at both sides of her shoulders, Aera tore away at the fabric of her button up shirt, a sudden chill prickled at her skin as her arms were left bare. But she didn't take note of the cold feeling, for all her attention was focused on, was wrapping the broken sleeves around Sae-byeok's abdomen, acting as a makeshift gauze in order to block her broken arteries and to stop them from pouring any more blood.
"So you're not half an idiot then," in a hushed manner, Sae-byeok's raspy voice echoed into Aera's ears, making them tingle, her cheeks pinched pink.
"Says the one who's more than half an idiot. How the fuck did you get a glass shard inside of you?-"
"-Aera?" Sae-byeok hastily interrupted once again. The small bright mood they had brought between themselves, faded into a quiet setting again, their spirits sombre again.
"Hm?"
"Promise me once more thing."
Hwang Aera froze. "Promise you what?"
"That you'll never leave again?" Sae-byeok flickered her tired eyes back and forth between Aera's own enlarging pupils, that now held a different expression: love. "We've had so many chances. I don't care how many of my chances you throw into a wildfire- But . . . I'm willing to give you another chance. Do you . . . do you promise?"
A dozen seconds flittered past, time truly spoke for all, for anything.
"We can talk about this when we get back to Seoul. When we have a bath, fall to sleep on call with each other. When we watch the early sunrise together with a glass of mojitos in our hands and snack on my neighbourhood's cherries. When we ride our bikes along the busy streets- Only after we get home, okay?" Aera concluded as she tied the knot of the make-shift gauze, a double knot, so that when they journeyed down the sewers, it wouldn't come undone so easily.
The faint frown lines that were impermanently etched upon Sae-byeok's face, began to relax. "Just like what we promised."
"Yes . . . just like what we promised to do," clasping her hands around Sae-byeok's wrists, Aera swayed her fingers gently against the surface of her skin, in a more comforting manner, ". . . but first we have to get out of here . . ." When Sae-byeok didn't immediately respond, she prodded once more, but with a softer tone, "okay?"
"And, we'll go back home?"
"Yes, our home," Hwang Aera answered.
━━━
COLD. EVERYTHING WAS cold.
As if being confined within a tank full of deceit and lies, the ocean waters scorched at Hwang Jun-ho's skin. His mind was dark. A blank slate of- darkness. He didn't bother to resurface from the agonising sea, he just let his body be consumed by the furiously calm tides.
His eardrums felt as though they had walked through a pit full of scorching fire. The mass of swarming thoughts that stirred inside of his head, wrenched at every fibre of his being. That gunshot. That very gun. It all belonged too-
No.
Hwang Jun-ho refused to come to a conclusion. Nothing made sense. In fact, it did, but Jun-ho couldn't bring his every being and every segment of his soul to believe the austere truth. Despite going against the idea of taking another breath of oxygen for the time being, his body emerged from the depths of the endless ocean. Beads of ruddy cardinal oozed from the hole in his shoulder, contaminating the sea of blue around him.
Overlapping the pounding voices inside of his skull, was an explosive like ringing within the deeper abyss of his brain. The fall from the overhanging cliff surely cracked some of his bones in half, which explained why his entire body felt like a living corpse. He didn't know how long he'd been submerged within the ocean, but it wasn't too long. For as he scrubbed at his face to remove any trace of seaweed and salt water, as his heavy, reddened eyes forced themselves open, a white vehicle caught his attention.
The speedboat-
Scrambling through the tough sea, one that made Hwang Jun-ho more fearful than the pink guards that were armed with large machinery, every muscle on Jun-ho's body was scorching from the deepened wound in his shoulder.
That troubling day, Hwang Jun-ho had lost a brother, he in fact, he had lost him a long time ago, and he'd only just realised that when The Front Man tore his dark mask away from his grey and unfamiliar face.
The man was not the brother Hwang Jun-ho looked up to since birth.
For the entirety of his life, his mother compared him to Hwang In-ho, and Hwang Jun-ho didn't mind, he believed that she was right. That the first born son of the Hwang family, was glorious, a bold and intelligent young man- and Hwang Jun-ho looked up to him for that.
Hwang Jun-ho agreed with his mother; he believed that his older brother was all he wanted to be like for the entirety of his life.
He was wrong. So wrong.
"Hyung . . ." More droplets of sanguine red blood gushed from the gunshot wound on his arm, the engine roared gently as Jun-ho raced back to the island he left from. With his opposite hand, he brought his fist up and jammed it into the dashboard-
Over and over and over and over-
Meandering cracks began to form against the surface of the polished wood. Splinters of knife like wood, dug into his paled knuckles, causing them to glow with oozing red blood. "Fuck," spitting out a disgruntled yell, Hwang Jun-ho murmured over and over, "why did it have to be . . ." His voice trailed away. You of all people . . . why? "Fuck."
Distant sounds of firing guns could be heard behind him, but with the lighting rate of the speedboat, Jun-ho managed to get back to the part of the island he last saw . . .
His sister.
Hwang Jun-ho still had his sister. Throughout all the memories he shared with his older sibling, he also shared them with Hwang Aera, making them bittersweet. At every baseball match he had, even though he practically forced her to be there, his sister was there. At his graduation ceremony, his mother had to sell fried chicken at the rundown local restaurant downtown, In-ho claimed he needed to help his mother with some paper work at home. But, his sister was there.
Hwang Aera was his sister, family. He wasn't planning on leaving her there. Like they agreed only just a few days before, they ended up in the place alive; they were to leave the hellish place alive as well.
Clang- A single metal hatch clanged onto the surface of the speedboat. Tearing his weary eyes away from the eerily divine scenery before him, away from the healthy trees that dotted along the rocky mountains, they travelled onto the hatch that swam gently across the greenish marine blue waves. Attached to one of the bars was a thin chain . . .
With his left raw and pink hand reaching down towards it to retrieve it, he dragged his index finger along the chain and examined it by letting it hang from his fore finger. A heart locket was hanging from it, it clearly belonged to- "Hwang Aera-" Snapping his neck upwards, to peer into the hole within the side of the mountain, he found the sewers that contained some murky water.
Every inch of his throat throbbed, but the feeling didn't cross his mind, he didn't take notice of how his vocal chords were being torn apart as he roared out for his sister. "HWANG AERA," he knew that this would attract the pink dressed imbeciles, but it would could also reach to the whereabouts Aera was. Jun-ho's cracking voice echoed around the hollow walls.
Two dark figures.
A tall one was hunched over another's shoulders. For a brief moment, Hwang Jun-ho paused, his palm gripping tightly onto the silver chain within his benumbed hands, his eyes focusing hard on the two souls that tried to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.
━━━
THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY one hundred and fifty to two hundred dandelion seeds per flower. The tiny fluffy seeds are destined to fulfil ones wishes, their microscopic bodies are meant to fly away along the sweet summery breeze once you place your hopes upon it and blow it away.
Whenever the river in the park got too chilly, young Aera and Sae-byeok would stroll merrily around the green fields.
Hwang Aera preferred hiking over the beach, and that opinion stayed like that for a while, until they found Jeju Island in the brochures Sae-byeok found at the train station. Kang Sae-byeok had yearned to visit such a heavenly place like Jeju Island for an extensive amount of time, her heart lurched out of its cage from pulsating hardly at the topic of it. She loved the beach. But after hanging out with Hwang Aera, she grew to be used to walking a lot, well, sort of.
Every time young Aera guided Sae-byeok along the placid pathways of the park, with a pale sapphire coloured sky painted above them, they'd sometimes find random patches of unripened strawberries growing within the cracks of the stone timed path. Covered by tiny thorn bushes and pretty, dainty daisies, were dandelions.
"My Omma always said that these make your wishes come true," the young Hwang girl had stated, "want to test it out?"
Young Sae-byeok scrunched up her nose, "surely you don't believe in that myth. How can a weed make something come true, I mean, how do wishes work anyways, nothing works unless you actually do something to make it come true."
The shorter girl blinked several times, before her petite bubblegum pink lips stretched into an amused smile, her eyes twinkling and her cheeks softening into a pastel red, "God Sae . . . if anyone else heard that, they'd think you're pretty sad," reaching over and ripping out a lonely dandelion from its roots, she waved the feathery plant in front of Sae-byeok's puzzled face. "Go on, wish for something, so I can say 'I told you so' in the future."
A lengthy exhale fell out of young Sae-byeok's cherry coloured lips, pursing them tightly together, she raised her eyebrows whilst shrugging at Aera, as if to say 'satisfied?' Aera only nodded hastily at Sae-byeok, her yellow converses drummed against the stone pathway as she jumped on both her feet, making some seeds from the dandelion to fly away already. "It's going to all blow away soon, hurry up and make a wish!" Aera asked once more, her soft cocoa eyes glistening under the scintillating sun.
Puckering her lips blowing delicately, well, only slightly harshly, Sae-byeok blew at the dandelion. The tiny seeds drifted away and into the breeze that came in from the west, their minute bodies flying towards different directions, and eventually on to a spot to bloom into another dandelion.
"So what did you wish for?"
"I thought you knew this the best Aera. You can't tell people your wishes or they won't come true."
If Kang Sae-byeok could wish on a dandelion during the moments they were trekking through the sewers, it'd be: to live. I want to live. Was all that Sae-byeol chanted within the crevices of her mind. The will to live had never been so strong, so vivid. Sae-byeok's string of life was thinning by the second, both ends were pulled taught, and she was trying to hold on to the string, so it wouldn't snap.
The taller raven haired girl could feel the makeshift gauze unravel at each step she took, her head lulled to the side, her neck grew weaker, as if her skull was too heavy to hold up. Fatigue dared to close her seraphic dark eyes, and as she drifted them to the side to catch a glimpse of the girl carrying most of her weight, she felt her vision mist up with several tears.
If it weren't for Aera, God knows what Kang Sae-byeok would be enduring within those moments. Life had tormented the Kang girl enough: stripped her innocence away from her, set fire to her happiness, and tore her family away from her very hands. But even so, as the pair journeyed through an unpleasant place, to get to the exit, Sae-byeok felt at peace.
She was where she wanted to be the most, and that was with Hwang Aera. The girl she grew up with.
"I wished for you to be happy, by the way," the croaky words left Sae-byeok's small, plump, cerise coloured lips, making them barely a whisper.
"Hm?" Hwang Aera couldn't hear properly, she couldn't focus on most of the things that Sae-byeok said, not when her mind was already occupied with thoughts on how to get the hell out of the sewers and away from the island. "Are you okay? Has the bandage come off? Does it hurt?"
Yes. It hurts, like hell. "No," Sae-byeok let out a soft, yet weak chuckle, her celestial eyes blinked slowly, as if she were about to fall into a deep slumber, "no . . . it doesn't."
They had stopped short, between the darkness and the light that came from the end of the lengthy tunnel. A precarious exhale fell from Sae-byeok's lips. She trapped her bottom lip harshly under her top teeth, leaving some sore marks along the surface of it from the sharpness of her teeth, when she felt Aera unravel the gauze delicately and re-tied it.
With her bruised hands, Aera tightened the thin bandage, it was littered with splotches of faded blood and a mucky dark substance from the sewers, surely infecting some parts of Sae-byeok's wound, but it was the best they could do to keep her from bleeding out even further. It was doing half its job, because pools of crimson still spilled from the wound.
Hwang Aera got ready to move onwards, as she tenderly wrapped Sae-byeok's sensitive arm around her shoulders for support.
But Sae-byeok didn't budge, in fact, she let her black boots sink into the mud ever so slightly. Her dainty eyes lingered around Aera's neck, an unknown emotion filled the dark blankness that filled her pupils, as her intense eyes did not meet with a familiar necklace.
Sae-byeok began undoing the clasp on her own locket. It was arduous. For the slimy, muddy water on her fingers, made it harder for Sae-byeok to remove the necklace from her neck. After several tries, the chain fell in two, thus Sae-byeok succeeded in taking the locket off.
Bling. The heart shaped locket glistened against the slowly dimming light from outside, a sign that it was nearly sunset, as the sky put on a colour show. A tranquil smile settled upon Sae-byeok's warm lips, as she watched the pendant sway to and fro as she held it at arms length.
"Are you ready?" Aera had turned around with a troubled gaze.
The outline around Hwang Aera seemed to blur into two, no, three, as the seconds went by, Sae-byeok teetered on her feet, and at that point, the bottom half of her torso seemed to grow paralysed.
"SAE," an alarming yell tumbled from the Hwang girl's lips as her arms caught the upper half of Sae-byeok's torso. They were in an uncomfortable angle. Aera held onto Sae-byeok's shoulders tightly, but they grew heavier and heavier, and eventually, Aera had to crouch on to the ground, so that Sae-byeok could rest her back onto her lap and her head could lie safely on the surface of her forearms. "We've only got a little bit left- till we reach the other part of the island, we can't stay here-"
Going against her body's protests, Sae-byeok managed to shake her head tinily. "Let's stay like this for a bit," she had to blink her doe, pink eyes gently, to let the tears, that built up within her eyes, to trail down her lightly freckled cheeks. There were smears of muddy grey across some patches of her skin, and the tips of Sae-byeok's eyelashes were fractionally splattered with dots of blood. They made her appear ghostly as they contrasted heavily against her paled skin.
"We can't-"
Sae-byeok had no time to listen to Aera's rational thoughts; she only braved a grin. A soft grin that illuminated her greyish expression, the tears that welled up in her eyes made them look like they were sparkling at Aera's red rimmed eyes and agonised expression. "It's okay that I told you my wish now, right? . . ." Her voice began to fade, it no longer bounced off the walls of the sewers, but was at a volume that only Aera could hear, "I mean . . . you went to New York, you looked so happy when I saw you for the first time again."
Aera had stopped trying to get Sae-byeok to stand up again, instead, she felt as though a hundred beauteous flowers had planted themselves within her heart. The words that spewed from Kang Sae-byeok's mouth had silenced Aera, her soul felt heavy, yet she wanted to chuckle at the words at the same time, and to say that either way, you're not meant to tell others about your wish, fulfilled or not.
But the atmosphere wasn't right.
It felt like a goodbye.
Hwang Aera felt cold fingers tickle the back of her neck delicately, "what are you doing," an anguished tone left the girl's aching lips, that were filled with hundreds of tiny cuts. Click. She heard the clasp from the necklace close together, "this . . . this is yours," Aera knew this as when she opened the heart shaped pendant, it revealed the initials: S-B & A. Hers was the other way around. "Why- why . . . why are you-"
"Hwang Aera," Sae-byeok did resemble a wounded butterfly, like a butterfly that sat on a pretty flower to nurse itself back to health. "Promise me two things, get my brother out of that shelter for me . . . and keep being happy, okay? . . . It's all I- It's all I ever wished for . . . every single time."
The butterfly stopped fluttering its wings, and, it seemed that it had no chances of flying for a very long time.
Hwang Aera's muffled cries resounded around the hollow tunnel.
( 6518 words )
DEAR ALL,
I won't make this author note long because I'll make one later as a separate chapter- but I can't believe that it's done.
WITH LOVE, SYLVIA