You've been raised to be resilient and unbreakable your whole life, but when the neighborhood stray kitten loses its life in an accident, your walls crumble and you fall apart.
Trigger warning: Verbal and physical child abuse, animal death, brief mention of animal abuse, PTSD episode, and a dead parent joke.
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Stoicism wasn't something you learned overnight. It was something that grew deep inside of you over time. Every hardship, you met it with a blank face. You took it in a determined stride and kept your dignity intact.
Growing up with your family was rough. Learning that crying was a weakness instead of a way to get out pent up feelings had done massive amounts of damage. You never let yourself cry. It was the one thing you were always proud of yourself for.
You didn't cry, you didn't break, and you stood tall. You were unreadable when it came to your emotions. You could get told awful news and it didn't bother you. You taught yourself how to stand with your back straightened and your chin up.
You taught yourself how to let the current of words flow through you. You never took words to heart or maybe you did. Perhaps you did and you let your heart soak up the words, but you never let yourself grieve.
To be strong was to be brave and to be brave was perfection. Life was often filled with the echoes of family members and their threats. "You wanna cry? I'll give you something to cry about." It was usually met by some type of physical punishment.
It's funny how things from childhood fade, but sometimes the past voices never do. Elementary school friendships can become blurry, but the angry words of your father thrown at your face on a random Sunday stick to you like glue.
It's hard to experience sympathy for those who didn't grow up the same way. Sometimes it's hard to see eye-to-eye with the rest of the world. Sure you grew up difficult and in a mess of a household, but you didn't cry like a lot of people did. Your habits were set in stone.
You folded to your father's wishes. Even as an adult, you didn't cry. When you broke apart on the inside and crumbled, you didn't mourn. You buried the grief, along with more dejection, deep in the depths of your heart.
Your heart was like Pandora's box. Who knew what awaited for the person that opened it. You didn't think too much about it. Eventually, those inner demons would fade away and you'd busy yourself with other things.
Bury yourself in mountains of work or go out to exercise. Sprint on a treadmill until your calves are on fire or lift weights until your muscles scream. It always managed to do the trick.
In fact, it worked a little too well. In a matter of months, you whipped yourself into the best shape of your life. The gym was where you met your boyfriend. You had never met anyone quite like Changbin before.
Changbin didn't run away from his emotions. He allowed himself to feel what he felt and he allowed himself to sit in them and experience them. Similar to you, sometimes he let them fuel him at the gym.
He did a lot more than that though. Sometimes he placed them into his music or threw them into dancing. You admired him for that. There was so much to Seo Changbin that you didn't quite understand.
It's not like you didn't sympathize with him, you did. All the times he came home upset or something happened and he got sad, you couldn't understand why he allowed himself to cry.
If your father would have raised Changbin, his tears would have been beaten out of him. How many times would he have been spanked with a wooden board until his tears dried? How many belt whips would it have taken before his body felt numb?
"No child of mine will grow up to be a sissy."
You didn't know how to comfort someone crying. You were raised as an only child, so you didn't have a choice amongst your childhood grief. Not even your mother was there to coddle you and wipe away the remainders of tears from your cheeks.
Every time Changbin cried, you stood beside him awkwardly patting his shoulder. It wasn't something someone had taught you. You always dealt with your emotions by yourself. It was so unfamiliar and foreign; the warmth of Changbin's salty tears on your chest.
When he grabbed you and cried into your chest, you let him. All you could do was wrap your arms around him and let him grieve. You never got to experience how he comforted you because you never cried around him.
You laughed and you smiled. You openly experienced your happiness, but you locked your sadness away. Every time he poked around asking about it, you changed the topic. It was something you didn't like to talk about; the only topic you flat out refused to discuss.
However, lately things had been shifting in your life. It started with your co-worker being fired from their job. You were close to them, so it was difficult to come to work without their upbeat attitude.
The wave of destruction continued with another friend of yours. After a freak accident while out on a hike, they were killed. It crushed your heart, but you continued to stay strong. You had to be, it's what your father told you and it's what your mother agreed upon.
Your heartstrings were stretching thin. How much could they stretch before they broke and your heart shattered in your chest? How much more grief could you swallow before your glass lungs cracked?
It all came to a stand still in the middle of the week. You had just returned home from the pet store with two small glass dishes and a collar. One bowl was for water and the other was for kitten food. After doing hours of research, you decided to somewhat adopt the newest neighborhood stranger.
A tiny gray kitten had been abandoned by someone. As much as you wanted to bring it inside, you couldn't, not with Changbin's cat allergies. His company needed him to be in tip-top shape for rapping and singing. A kitten in the house would destroy that and make him miserable.
You opted to take care of the kitten outside on your own terms. You played with it, you pet it, and you fed and watered it. After you messed with him, you changed your clothes, dropped them into a separate hamper to wash them without Changbin's clothes, and you took a shower. When he kept coming back to your backyard, you decided to claim him as your own.
The sky blue collar was going to go great with his fur coat. You even got a tag with your phone number on it in case someone wanted to know more about him. You had even picked out a name for him.
You were so excited to share your purchases with Changbin. He was so happy to have the kitten, even if he couldn't interact with him. A few nights ago, he opened up the back door and watched you play with the cat through the screen door.
You were grinning and laughing while you teased the cat with a stick. The small kitten kept batting his tiny paws and trying to catch it. Right when he was about to, you jerked the stick just out of reach.
Behind you, Changbin's affectionate laugh filled the air. It delighted you for nearly an hour. The two of you were smitten with the kitten. It had been the highlight of every evening for the past two weeks.
It all came to a tragic end as you stopped your car a few feet before your driveway. The tiny gray kitten you opened your heart to sat in the middle of the road unmoving. You parked your car and got out as fast as you could, but it was too late. Someone had run over the kitten and drove away.
You stared at the dead kitten in shock. The stars had fallen from the sky. The sun wasn't shining anymore, despite its rays piercing the sky from above your head. You sucked in a defeated breath and trudged back to your car with your head down.
Cats used to be the thing your father couldn't stand. He hated animals with a burning passion. He was stronger than them and he used that to his advantage. The last pet you had as a kid, your mother got rid of because she found your father kicking it around the house.
You pulled into the driveway, but you didn't get out. Tears burned in your eyes and you blinked rapidly. The smell of the cigarettes that your father used invaded your nose. Your fingers curled into your palms.
His voice began to echo in your head. You could still feel the stings from where items bit into your skin. The nip of a cold belt buckle in the middle of your spine. The lash of an angry board on the back of your thighs.
Your head curled into the steering wheel. Your brain was remembering everything. Your hands shielded your head, but that didn't stop the flashbacks. It didn't stop fight or flight from activating and it didn't stop the feeling of failure weighing heavily on you as tears crept into your eyes.
Everything was slipping through your fingers and falling out of control. The metal rails of strength that you cemented inside of yourself were rumbling. The kitten was the spark that lit the fuse inside of you.
You could feel the catastrophe igniting every bone. Your brain screamed at you. All you remember was plugging your ears and letting out your own scream as your father's voice echoed in your head.
The past constricted around you like a snake. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't do anything, but scream and hope it went away.
The next thing you knew, your car door was being ripped open. The sudden force shifted your arm that was against the driver's side window. You jerked your hands from your ears and swung frantically trying to keep the person away.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Changbin cried out. He stepped back and jerked his hands away with wide eyes. "What's going on?"
"Changbin?" You choked out.
"I'm right here. What's wrong, baby? Are you okay?"
He must not have seen the kitten yet. The dead kitten. The memory of its small body sprawled out limp on the pavement caused tears to build up again. Did it die instantly? Was the grim reaper merciful when it came to the innocent and defenseless creatures?
A choked out sob fell from your lips. Changbin watched you with worry. The two of you dated for months and not once had he seen you cry, let alone break down like this.
"Oh, what happened? What happened, baby? Talk to me." He leaned back towards the car and gently placed a hand on your thigh.
"Don't fucking touch me!" You snapped as you shoved his hand away.
He jerked it back instantly with a hurt look. The moment you saw it, you couldn't stop the tears from dripping down your cheeks. "I-I'm sorry, just don't hurt me. Please, I'm sorry, I'll stop crying."
Frantically, you pawed at your own tears. It felt like someone took a baseball bat to his heart. That was the worst thing you could have said. Your actions afterwards caused his heart to physically ache.
He didn't know for sure, but he always had a feeling that you might have gone through some type of abuse as a kid. There were certain ways you reacted to things. You turned your face away at harrowing news and refused to let it bother you. You stiffened when he held his arms out for a hug. You flinched at loud noises and nobody he knew acted like that unless they experienced some sort of trauma.
"Can I touch you? I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to comfort you."
You sniffled and shrugged. You weren't sure what you wanted when you were like this. It was still unfamiliar and made you feel uneasy.
"Can I hug you?"
You responded with a nod and Changbin tugged you into his arms gently. In your neighborhood, it was a miracle that everyone else was inside. Surely, someone would have come to investigate if they saw you like this.
"What's wrong?" He reached up and carefully wiped away your tears with the warmth of his thumb.
"T-The kitten," you got out, "s-someone h-hit-" You couldn't finish your sentence. The words became too choked up in your throat.
Changbin's face fell. You didn't have to finish the sentence, he already understood what you meant. "I'm so sorry."
"And my friend, they're dead. M-My other friend, they're not-" Tears blurred your vision, but Changbin kept dabbing at them with his hands.
"I know, I know. Life can be hard sometimes, right? You're really going through hell right now. I can't fix it entirely, but I can be here for you. I'll be here as long as you want me to be."
"You're not mad at me for crying?"
"I could never be mad at you for crying! I always cry! I'm one of the biggest cry babies out there. There's nothing wrong with crying and being vulnerable."
"My dad said it makes you weak."
"Well, no offense, but he sounds like a dick. Crying is so brave and it makes you so strong." He wiped away a few more tears. "I bet you feel so much better now that you cried, right?"
You nodded.
"See? There's nothing wrong with crying every now and then. The best people cry sometimes."
"Like you?"
"Well, I was going to say like Felix. He's sensitive and he cries a lot, but I love him. You're allowed to be sensitive too. It doesn't change my love for you."
"I don't know how I feel about crying." Another sniffle fell from you. Shockingly, you really did feel better. All those pent up emotions trapped inside you had finally been released.
"When was the last time you cried?"
All you could do was shrug your shoulders. Changbin reached over, kissed your forehead, and pulled away. "It's probably been years," you finally admitted. "My dad used to beat me for crying."
"Is it wrong to beat him up for beating you?"
"He's dead now, so unless you have plans to beat up a canister of ashes."
A half snort and half laugh spurted from his mouth. He quickly shoved a hand over his face. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that."
"It's alright, he was an asshole anyway."
Changbin let out a sigh and nodded. His hand found yours and he squeezed it. "Really though, it's shitty you had to go through that. I'm sorry life has been such an asshole to you lately too."
"I'm sure I'll get over it, but it hurts."
"Yes, but there's nothing wrong with grieving." He swiped a thumb beneath your eyes to gather the last tears. "There's nothing wrong with experiencing this sadness for a while. You can mourn the things you once had."
"Thank you," you finally got out.
"For what?"
"Not beating me until I can't sit on my ass for crying."
"Hey, I would never do that! The only thing you're going to get from me is waddling because we fu-"
"Changbin!" You cut him off while laughing.
He grinned at the sight of your eyes scrunching up. The corners of your mouth went up into a smile. He let out one of his own laughs. You shook your head and playfully rolled your eyes.
When the laughing died down, the two of you were left in silence again. You dropped your gaze down and spoke up. "I really am going to miss that kitten though. I didn't know him for long, but I loved him. I love cats."
Changbin paused for a moment before his face lit up. "I have a great idea. Let me just text Lee Know real quick." He jerked out his phone and began to frantically text.
"Lee Know?"
"Yeah, you know, my band member."
"I know that, but why?"
"He has three cats. You can go hang out with him and play with his cats. Trust me, he won't mind."
"I don't want to invade his space."
"He loves to talk about them like they're his kids. This will give him a chance to brag about them. Plus, they stay at his parents house, so you'll be able to meet his parents too."
"Okay, but what about you?"
"I'll come with you."
"You're allergic to cats," you pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but it's Soonie, Doongie, and Dori. They're practically celebrities. One minor allergic reaction is worth it to pet them. Plus, Lee Know's mom makes really good food."
"I still don't think it's a good id-"
"Start the car, baby! Minho said we could come over!" He gleefully giggled as he rushed to the other side of the car and climbed in. "I'll give you the directions! Let's go!" His loud voice raised the energy in the car. He rushed to buckle his seat belt.
You hesitated until he urgently insisted you to go again. You sighed, but did what you were told. Changbin pulled out his phone and began texting again while he bounced up and down.
The studio wasn't that far away. He'd have Chan and a few of the other guys come bury the kitten with stuff from the garage. Later, he could help you set up a memorial for the tiny kitten who left a big imprint on your heart. For now, he was just happy to see you smile at his infectious energy.