PERFECTION. Define this certain word, and try to print an image into my mind. You can't, right? Of course, you can't. Perfection, can't be defined. It is a construct we, human beings, have build ourselves to describe something without any flaws. But what even is that? When you ask me, I would reply "Comics",the colorful world and all the captivating energy they are beholding– For me they are perfect in every possible way, but I bet it's not what you imagine under perfection.
Perfection can't be defined. Every eye has its own way of perfection and that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Every body feels differently and every eye observes colors in their very own way.
Your blue is not my blue and your fear, isn't mine.
We, every single one of us, are perfect. Maybe not in the eyes of other people, but we should be perfect in our own eyes. We should look into the mirror and actually like what we see, we should be able to look through our appearance to the deepest of our souls and be satisfied with what we find there. The real us. – The one who's behind all the facades and lies.
Am I satisfied with myself? I don't even know to be honest, I tend to run away from that question, trying to be someone else. I rather run away from myself than dealing with myself, I rather imagine being someone more interesting and brave than someone who's surrounded by hate and pain. Hate and pain that's all my life is resolving around.
It almost feels like I'm caught in a spiral of insanity, every single day plays in the same black and white routine until I can finally turn off everything. — Until I can get lost in my very own world full of colors and sensations.
Maybe I'm made to be a dreamer, maybe I'm just not made for the real life.
And again, my eyes are glued on the piece of paper in front of me, the pen clenched around my finger tightly, dancing on the sheet and kissing acute lines on it. Voices are echoing in my ears but I'm blending them out as good as possible, concentrating my entire being on only the paper. When I draw I see so much more than just lines.I see a whole world in those lines. The colors and shapes forming to a new, unexplored world, and I'm its creator. -- It's my world, in which I have the control, the one who sets the rules and paints it with colors.
I'm the one who has the power over all the happenings there, and I love this short, certain moment of power. In reality I'm powerless, but there I can smell the addicting scent of power. Even if it's only for a short time.
"Jeno!" The pen loosens around my finger, touching the wooden table and pulling my back to reality in just a second. My eyes find their way to the blackboard, my teacher's voice echoing in my ears. And there goes the power. "Would you come to the front and calculate this please?" Come to the front. I gulp, sweat forming on my forehead and hands as my eyes dance over the task on the board. It's an easy tree chart, something which I could do in just seconds, but all the judging stares increase the anxiety in my body. "Jeno?"
The world freezes, a thousand of thoughts storming through my mind. You just have to go to the front for a few seconds. Just don't look at them, Jeno. You can do it. And with that I slowly rise up, my eyes fixated on the naked ground as my feet are kissing it. Keep walking. One foot after another touches the ground, but suddenly I'm stuck. The soles of my shoes are glued on the same spot, my feet moving like they're on a treadmill. One step after another, and I'm still stuck on the same stop, falling back with every step I make forward.
What is happening? Everything around me is pitch black, no dazzle of light hitting my features nor any cold breeze kissing my skin. Stuck in darkness. Everywhere I look I see darkness, it's covering me like a second skin and suddenly, my legs are noodles, my head a throbbing explosion and my breath hard as a stone. Anxiety is covering every single part of my body as I try to catch my breath, inhaling and exhaling sharply, in order to provide my lungs with oxygen without any success.
Anxiety is stronger than I am. It has taken control over me, possessing me like an evil demon and pushing me even deeper into the hole of seclusion.
And then a memory flashes before my very eyes. There was this one time,this one time when I had exactly felt like this before.
It had occurred in my very first week of freshman year. During that time I was filled with so much energy, in the hope that maybe high school could be better than middle school, but man, I was wrong.
I was just showering the shampoo from my hair after swimming lesson,the cold water kissing my skin and providing me with goosebumps. I closed my eyes, totally enjoying the coldness running down the skin of my face and continuing its way down to my neck, my stomach, further down to my legs until it kissed the floor, soaking the white tiles with its wetness.
The door suddenly fell into his locks. A horrendous silence was floating the air, covering the oxygen and stiffening every vein in my body. No water touched the tiles anymore and no voices found their way to my sensitive ears, it was quiet, way too quiet. I ran a hand through my hair, my body shaking under the coldness which was hugging my bare body, painting me with coolness. Where's everyone?
And then it hit me. Lee Dong Hyuck. I had to see it coming somehow, but I didn't so there was I. Not even a towel covering my body and coldness increasing with every passing second. I hugged my own upperbody with my hands, moving to the corner where I had left my towel before wrapping it around my chest in order to avoid supercooling.
It was just the first week of high school and I had already been locked in the boys shower-room, my exhausted body sitting on the ground, hugging the thin, navy towel as my skin was painted in goosebumps. My heart was almost thumping out of my chest, but I didn't lose hope. Even if the entire situation scared the shit out of me, I kept holding on, trying to be as strong as possible. Someone will find me. They have to.
And they did, exactly 3 hours later when my I was already deep asleep, my head touching the cold tiles and my body filled with coldness.
Those memories are like little pieces of a puzzle, some I still know clearly but others seem to be faded somewhere deepest of my mind, disappeared forever. I can still smell this strong, vanilla-like smell, which entered my nostrils when someone had carried my away, a deep voice floating my ears. I had assumed it was my dad, this vanilla-like smell was way too familiar, but I could have been wrong.Maybe it was someone else, someone I didn't even know.
But at one point I didn't care. All I wanted was to escape the endurable coldness covering my entire body and the suffocating feeling sucking all the oxygen out of my system. – All I wanted was to escape all of this and take a deep breath again.
And that's exactly what's going on in my system at the very moment, the anxiety is rising and reaching his climax when a voice hits my eyes once more, breaking the silence like shattered glass. "Jeno? Can you hear me? Jeno?!" A hand grabs my shoulder, discomfort immediately overcoming me as I'm pulled back into reality from the darkness, right into a nightmare.
"Jeno?" My teacher is in front of me, my body stumbled on the ground as my eyes are glued on the dirt of the floor. Too many eyes are fixated on me. Way too many. Too many for comfort.
"Julie, you have the responsibility until I bring Jeno to the nurse room," my teacher says, her voice echoing in my ears but not really reaching my mind. "Jeno? I won't touch you but you have to help me, okay? Stand up please." Stand up. But how if I can't even feel my limbs? "Come on, I'll help you, okay?" Her voice is gentle and calming, but I can't stand up or advert my eyes from the floor.
The darkness is starting to approach me once again, increasing with every passing second. And then everything is black, all the voices die and the suffocation takes control of my lungs. Darkness, it has arrived once more.
"Jeno?" A gentle voice makes its way into my ears, tickling my eardrums and echoing in them in a loop as my eyes are closed tightly. My body is floating, heaviness faded into the thinness of the air as I open my stone-like eyes, trying to adjust to the dim light of the room. "He's awake. What a relief." Awake? My sight gets better after a moment, my eyes looking straight to my teacher's navy eyes before drifting through the room. Nurse room? "Has that happened more often recently?"
I look up to the naked ceiling, deciding not to answer. It wouldn't change a single thing anyway. "Okay..Just rest for now, okay? I'll call your parents and tell them-" My hand touches my teacher's arm, fear suddenly overcoming me. No, please. I don't want them to see my like this. My teacher's eyes grow wider, her gaze drilling through my eyes into the deepest of my soul. "You don't want me to call your parents?" I nod, letting go off her arm as I avert my eyes again. "Okay, I won't call them but you need to rest for now."
Okay.
✧ ✧ ✧
Voices drown my ears, my head touching the cold glass of the bus' window as my eyes are closed due to exhaustion. I spent my entire day in the nurse room, but I still feel like shit? Inhale, exhale oxygen penetrates my lungs and lungs and leads me into a state of chaos. All I want is to be in peace once again, I want to run from everyone and hid in a deep hole where no one can find me.
No one.
I take another deep breath, the muscles tense, just as I'm caught lost in my thoughts once again. What exactly happened today? I was gone, gone for longer than usual. Longer than I was used to, and this certain fact manages to shower me with a fear I've never felt before.
And somehow I can still find the chaos.
It's still hunting me to the deepest of my bones. It'll hunt me forever.
It'll.. I open my eyes, the oxygen suddenly stuck in my lungs as I try to take a deep breath. What is wrong with you. Just breathe. It's not that hard
Come on inhale-
And then, suddenly, a melody enters my ears, distracting me from the spiral of insanity I'm experiencing in this very moment. It's pulling me back into reality in just a millisecond. This melody. Where is it coming from?
I glance to my right side, right into the face of this new student with this wide, radiant pure smile, and I immediately think it's probably the realest thing my eyes have ever witnessed. "I love this song. It calms me down whenever I feel bad.. I thought you may need it as well." His smile gets even wider as he lets go of the earphone which is stuck in my ears. "It's okay. You don't have to talk, just listen. Close your eyes and listen to the lyrics, okay?"
And I don't know why, but I do exactly as told, closing my heavy eyelids while the lyrics swims in my sensitive eardrums.
There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I always know?
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down
I gulp, the lyrics drowning my ears by now as I open my eyes again, drifting them back to the boy whose eyes are also closed by now, his head touching the seats back. I don't know if it's the effect of this song, but somehow he seems to be so colorful. He seems to be a colorful point surrounded with black and white.
This boy next to me seems like something special, no, someone special. What are you?
And somehow I can't stop staring at him as the song goes on. I observe his long eyelashes and his flawless skin while the time flies by, the time flies while I have finally found peace. I'm in peace at this very moment.
— And even if it only holds on for a few minutes.
It's enough for me.
Then as I'm still busy with my thoughts the boy opens his eyelids once again, glancing at me as I try to avoid eye contact. "You can listen to this with me whenever you feel bad, okay?" I gulp, his calming voice penetrating my mind, but instead of giving a reaction I stay mute, looking out of the window.
"Oh and by the way. You've been in this nurse room the whole day so you have to be hungry, right?" Again, I don't react but listen. Listen how he unpacks something out of his backpack before something touches my lap. I blink for a few times before observing the chocolate bread in my lap.
"I have to get out at the next stop, so I'm leaving now, but please eat this right away and stay healthy, okay?" I blink, my widely opened eyes pinned on the boy's breathtaking smile, which seems to be blinding my soul. Something in my stomach suddenly feels weird, my body shaking as my eyes are glued on his face. Why can't I stop staring and why is he so bright.
So colorful.
"I-I'm going now. We'll see each other tomorrow." The smile fades from the boy's lips for a moment of silence as he bites his lips, his phone clenched in his hands tightly.
"Oh.. And my name's Jaemin. Na Jaemin." The words slip out of his mouth with a light smile on his face and I can feel how goosebumps start to cover my body. Jaemin.
Na Jaemin
I watch how the boy then stands up from the seat beside me, leaving me behind with a strange sensation in my stomach and a heap of crowded thoughts.
I normally hate sweets. The explosion of sugar touching one's cavern and covering their tongue with a rush of sweetness, may be pleasing for others, but instead of please I can feel nothing but disgust. But, somehow, the chocolate melts on my tongue, fills me with a heap of heat and covers me with comfort. Maybe I like sweets more than I thought. I stare at the chocolate bread clenched in my hand, recalling what had happened today.
My lips turn to a thin line as I shake my head. He's probably pitying me. That's the only reason why people act nicely in my presence. I lean my head against the hard headboard of the bed,closing my eyes tightly. What a day. It wasn't perfect,no,but it was different and that's enough for me.
What is perfection anyway, right?
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When we already talk about perfection I'd like to say a few things. I'm this kind of person who tries to reach "perfection" in everything I do. But of course, I don't reach this goal and get more insecure with every failure.
I haven't written a long time, maybe it's been a year? But I feel like I have to do better with every single chapter and it's so frustrating. I feel like I have to please people and make them like what I write, but I want to stop thinking like this. I want to stop looking at the amount of comments and be happy with what I wrote even if it gets less feedback.
I just don't know how and where to start. Can someone give me a good advice concerning this matter?
But anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. I love you all ❤️