CHAPTER FOURTEEN
( Wounds Don't Heal, They Scar )

FOR ONCE IN a long, muddled, and forgotten lifetime, Cha Jaehwa finds happiness when she stares into Ahn Suho's eyes. They suffocate her with warmth she had long forgotten the touch of, gently caressing her skin as though she is porcelain and fragile.

It feels like nothing has ever changed — There is no void in the pit of Jaehwa's stomach, and her smile is finally strong enough to shine through the bleak canvas of her saddened face.

Cha Jaehwa feels whole again.

( Suho is an infinite void of sunlight and a heart well-kept, and he swallows any doubts she has with one gaze of his bottomless eyes ).

When she arrives back home a windswept mess of stained cheeks and shivering shoulders, there is no one to greet her at the door.

But there is someone who bids her goodnight and makes her feel as though she can bear the lonely cradle of sleep if it means waking up with her chest full to the brim of this sweet feeling.

( Cha Jaehwa has never known warmth, because she does not know even the skin on her face or the bruises on her knees ).

Jaehwa falls asleep, and that night she dreams of memories she doesn't have.

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COME MORNING, BOTH Cha Si-woo and Moon Boram sit languidly at the kitchen table when Jaehwa wakes up, the very picture of domesticity in a broken home without a daughter.

She stares at them for a moment and drinks in their return with weary eyes.

"Mind if I join?" The amnesiac asks with a small smile. It is her first time voluntarily joining them for breakfast without being asked, and even the words that leave her lips seem so insurmountable that she wishes to swallow them all over again.

Moon Boram's lips twitch into the beginnings of a smile, and she conceals it beneath her steaming coffee mug. The presence of their daughter warms the cold house, and her artwork is displayed along the fridge in a timeline — A testimony of a youth Jaehwa seeks to remember.

"Of course, Jaehwa." Boram tests the name on her tongue, and the child she has molded into a replica of both herself and Cha Si-woo takes a seat across from her.

When her mother says her name, Jaehwa feels the silky threads of warmth that ease down her throat like warm tea. This feels sweet. This feels like Home.

"Are you hungry?" Cha Si-woo asks as he lays a gentle hand on the crook of Jaehwa's shoulder, and the weight is no longer overbearing. Rather, she has missed this. She has missed them.

Jaehwa glances up at the man. His features are warm, albeit sharp around the corners, but he is smiling and he loves her. She can see the reflection of her own expression faintly swimming in the creases of his aging face.

She nods. The room seems to finally ease into the comfort that so marks the conjunction of a loving home, and Jaehwa settles into her seat as though she has always known it is where she belongs.

"I made rolled omelets," Si-woo said proudly. "They're your —"

"My favorite!" Jaehwa chimes in excitedly, before she can even realize what she is saying.

The words leave her lips like a summer's child basking in the warm sunshine, and they ease on the tip of her tongue like honey to the mouth that is so used to the saltiness of a doomed life.

"— Favorite." Her father finishes his sentence seconds later, and Jaehwa's eyes widen.

"I remember." A breathless sort of whisper leaves her lips, until they twist upwards into a creasing smile that eases on her frowning face in a burst of sundew.

She is bombarded with warmth, and through the arms of her father's crushing embrace and the soak of her mother's tears on her clothes, Cha Jaehwa finally feels as though maybe she was meant to be here all along.

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AHN SUHO BRINGS along another addition to Cha Jaehwa's life beside Yeon Si-eun, whose name and smile she has long grown accustomed to — He brings along Oh Beomseok, and Beomseok cannot be anything more than trouble.

He is meek and mild, but his eyes are harrowing in a way that Jaehwa does not like. They are so devoid of anything other than a hunger to be everything to everybody else.

It hurts Jaehwa's chest, to pity such a poor child, broken by his own father's hand and forced to bear the pain of being a child only by law.

The signs are so painfully there, from the winces beneath his pale skin, shrouded in an all too big sweater and thick circular glasses. He is just another lost child amongst hordes of mindless men.

Ahn Suho offers her a reassuring smile as he pushes her forward, closer to the noise, and to the uneasy smile of Oh Beomseok.

"I'm Cha Jaehwa," She tells the boy her name, and he hums in acknowledgment. There is something that stirs underneath his thick voice, an innate need to impress those he hardly knows.

( The need to be, when all Oh Beomseok had ever been was a meaningless blade of grass in a world full of flowers ).

"Join us," Suho drags her along anyway, and Jaehwa lets herself be whisked away. The afternoon is still bright, and the sun has yet to fall into its slumber. Boram had allowed her this one moment to herself, and Jaehwa wishes to enjoy it.

Si-eun takes her other side with a brisk pace, glancing at her every few seconds. There is a vibrant sheen to his eyes, and they look particularly beautiful beneath the fullness of the sun.

Jaehwa feels the need to capture the sight on a canvas with a fervor that had never before seeped through her chest.

"I finally did it." She whispers softly, and lets the wind carry her words to kiss Si-eun's face softly, pulling along the edges of his lips.

( Si-eun is too sweet to be called anything else, and Jaehwa has never known such a soul to hide behind itself the way his does ).

He doesn't say anything — Doesn't need to. The sun that shimmers through his irises is response enough for Jaehwa.

The four are a group of jagged puzzle pieces, each too odd to fit into the regularity of a world that condemns them, yet they seem to mold well with each other.

Jaehwa ignores the glances between the three boys, and she ignores the bruises and cuts hidden beneath their jackets, because if she pretends, they aren't really there, and she isn't the only one being left in the dark.

( It's okay, she tells herself. It's nothing ).

She sews herself back together with her own stitches and scars, but they never really seem to heal. Jaehwa feels happy, surrounded by a thing she never believed herself to be worthy of — Friends — But the biting and tearing sensation of wrong sifts in her stomach like a tsunami of emotions and turmoil.

Cha Jaehwa settles herself in the seat, and looks between the three boys.

Ahn Suho; The sun, as bright as he is blinding, forever one pace ahead of Jaehwa. Slowly, she comes to the realization that she doesn't mind being burned if it means feeling his warmth.

Yeon Si-eun; The moth, creature of hidden beauty that is nothing more than a substitute for the butterfly, who has now put away her wings and driven herself back into her cocoon, trying to emerge once more the beautiful color she once was.

Oh Beomseok; The mime, boy of silence and hurt, unable to share his scars with the world because no world is willing to kiss them and tell him he'll be okay.

Cha Jaehwa hates that she can only empathize with everyone who is not her. She hates being the odd one out, and she hates that the more she grows, the smaller she feels.

Jaehwa takes a sip of her drink, flashes Ahn Suho a small smile, and sinks back into her seat. She wishes things had been different. That she was different.

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‎ ✧ AUTHOR'S NOTE !

is this what you'd call a mental relapse ?? idk but jaehwa's def going thru it

anyways hi guys im back 😇 super duper short chapter buttt im finally going canon yeahhhh !!!! after 13 chapters i finally remembered that im supposed to be following an actual plot and not my own thing LMAOOOO

still need some more development on jaehwa's ever changing personality + more closure on her and suho's kinda iffy friendship bc they obv have things to talk about !! but i thought id leave my babies alone for now bc they've suffered enough

forced myself to get off my ass and write because i wanted to upload a chap i js couldn't get the right words out so don't mind the weird shifts in writing bc at some point idk what im even talking ab 😓

next ch more canon so prob more of the trio + jaehwa and i'm lowk thinking of elaborating more on bum bc he has such a good backstory and i think it would b a waste to js make him a straight up bad person !! we'll see

this chap is dedicated to all u readers that bore w my slow and irregular updates ,, love yall w my whole heart 🙏🤗

if u guys have any suggestions for next chapter lmk PLEASEE bc i actually have no idea what im doing 😊 also opinions and so on would be appreciated xx

other than that pls lmk if there are any mistakes in the spelling or anything so i can fix it !

also don't b afraid to vote or comment, i will probably (very likely) reply!!!! and if you don't understand something, plsplspls lmk!! i want yall to fully understand what's going on

happy reads!

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─── ANNIE