CHAPTER SIXTEEN
( Where The Moon Goes )

SOMETIMES CHA JAEHWA feels like a lonesome planet, distanced from the others by the sheen of chaos that perpetuates her interior and crumbles her into a small sphere of cold weather and bleeding thumbs.

She feels as though the closeness and the warmth that surround her slowly ebbs away, stolen by the insatiable hole in her heart. All that remains of her is perhaps empty bones and a need to take in the world as she once knew it, for her touch to linger on remembrances of remnants she can no longer recall.

Yeon Si-eun is not one of those remnants, yet still, his mix of smooth and rough edges feels so nostalgic, as though Jaehwa has known his touch from the moment she knew what warmth was.

His fingers curl around her own, and even through the thick barrage of rain permeating her fragile skin, breaking through that barrier of glass that she has always hidden behind, Cha Jaehwa can feel the scorch of his fingertips and the lingering of his beating heart.

"There's a store over there! Hurry!" Jaehwa points with her free hand, tugging the boy in her grip forward.

Together, they stumble into the brightly lit building, shaking water from their eyes and hair like wet dogs. Jaehwa clings to her thin clothes with a shiver, the beginnings of regret creeping up her damp flesh.

"Are you cold?" Si-eun asks, and his warmth is gone from her fingers, eyes scanning hers for any sign of discomfort.

Jaehwa wets her drying lips and nods slightly. "A bit. I didn't think it was gonna rain so I wore light clothes."

The boy frowns, the glow from the overhead lights reflecting a myriad of stars in his big, sad eyes. Jaehwa musters up a tepid smile, hiding the tremors of her shoulders beneath the stretch of her lips.

"It's fine. Let's just get an umbrella and go." She urges the teen.

Si-eun, so meek when it comes to his words, only nods and does as he's told. He wants to ask more, know more, but he stays silent, pushing away the image of Jaehwa's purpling lips and paling cheeks.

( He has done it all this time — Doing it again shouldn't be any different ).

Dim music flows through the room, an upbeat song that gets blurred in Jaehwa's need for warmth. Si-eun quickly locates the umbrella stand and plucks a sizable one from the rack, and they head over to the register.

Yeon Si-eun pauses at an aisle for a second too long, igniting a curiosity in Jaehwa that she has to peek over his shoulder to see what is so interesting. A short-haired girl with bangs and purple highlights spits a tube of lipstick into her purse, humming along to the music. Jaehwa looks at her in surprise when she directs her gaze towards them.

She takes a second to inspect them, before her eyes seemingly recognize the boy Jaehwa stands beside, and she waves awkwardly. Jaehwa turns to stare at Si-eun in disbelief.

"You know her?" She whispers when the boy tugs her away from the scene, looking disgruntled beneath his indifferent expression.

"Not really." He hums as he places the umbrella on the table.

"13 dollars." The cashier chirps, and Si-eun hands her the money.

A blur of grey streaks towards them, and before Jaehwa can blink, the same girl from earlier is latched onto Si-eun, wearing a smile.

The boy goes rigid, sneaking a look at Jaehwa, who raises a brow in confusion. He opens his mouth, but the words are stuck in his throat.

"Are you done paying?" She asks sweetly. "I couldn't find what I wanted."

"Your payment is done." The cashier hands Si-eun the umbrella.

"I'm hungry, let's go." The girl pesters, not before turning to the cashier with a, "Thank you!"

The three walk out the door, Jaehwa lagging behind as the other girl drags Si-eun outside. He glances back at her, perhaps a cry for help, but says nothing.

Once the door is shut, the boy shrugs her grip off of him.

"Let's go." He motions to Jaehwa, ignoring the girl's protests of the heavy rain.

"What about the girl?" Jaehwa asks, motioning towards her. "She doesn't have an umbrella."

"That's her problem." He shrugs, opening the umbrella and pulling it over their heads.

"Wait up!" A voice calls, and Jaehwa looks up at Si-eun with a small smile.

"Well, I guess she's going to make it our problem now too."

"Hurry and get under," Jaehwa lifts a hand towards the girl, who squeezes beside her in an attempt to not get soaked.

"I'm Young-yi. Are you his girlfriend?" The girl barrages Jaehwa with information too quickly to process, and she is left sputtering her response.

"We're friends." She replies simply. "I'm Jaehwa."

"Great. Do you like teokkbokki?" Young-yi presses.

"No." Si-eun answers for her, picking up his pace.

"You can start liking it today. I know a good restaurant. Let's go!"

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YOUNG-YI IS A tempest of mellifluous laughter and strelitzias, full of secrets yet all the same an open world of crinkling eyes and childlike humor. She arrives with nothing more than her wide eyes, and leaves with a wave of her thin fingers, gently sweeping the air with her presence that lingers like a warm summer's day after her disappearance.

Cha Jaehwa envies the ability to be able to breathe so freely in a world that pressures even the air in her lungs to sink into a meaningless nothing amongst the blur of passersby.

( Young-yi is like a free spirit, a bird with wings long enough to soar. Jaehwa is stuck in a cage, eyes sewn shut and feathers too crumpled to even imagine the thrill of the wind against them ).

The skin of Jaehwa's body has finally grown dry, clothes crinkling and no longer sticking to her flesh the way the water had caused it to. Yeon Si-eun peers at the girl as she watches the empty road.

Gusts of dull wind make way for the parting of Jaehwa's hair, and Si-eun spots the zigzag of her stitches embedded into the skin of her neck. He wants to feel the grooves beneath his fingers, assess if the girl that stands before him is truly there, if not just to confirm that he is not living in a fantasy.

( That he knows Cha Jaehwa, whatever version of herself she might be, and that when he wakes up, he will continue to know her ).

Even if he was living a fantasy, for once in his pathetic life — One built on the construct of rules and principles that he has adhered to for the sake of being the perfect son — Yeon Si-eun doesn't want to wake up.

"Where do you two know each other from?" Cha Jaehwa's breathy voice pulls Si-eun back to the rain-soaked street, away from thoughts of cloud-covered memories and futures, and back to Jaehwa and her limpid gaze.

Yeon Si-eun doesn't understand — How could she be anything other than Spring, a wavering season where cold and warmth clash into a cacophony of beauty? Cha Jaehwa is the epitome of floral wreaths and blooming buds, she is rebirth and death all in one, and nobody could ever feel what she exudes as much as Yeon Si-eun does.

"We had a run-in with her friends." Si-eun builds up his wall of lies. He does not want to bring another soul into the hell he's been thrown into, especially not Jaehwa.

The girl hums. His grip on the umbrella tightens. Si-eun wishes the rain would pour down at this very moment, and give him a chance to feel what it means to have another purpose other than to be a slave to education.

He wants to live. And perhaps, Cha Jaehwa has been the only person who has made him feel alive.

"Okay." She says softly.

Their footsteps stop in a mess of mud and prints against the cold apartment complex floors, and Yeon Si-eun, whose neck has grown sore from staring at the floor for so many years, struggles to keep his gaze interlocked with Jaehwa's.

"Thanks for walking me home." Jaehwa murmurs, the sound of her voice thick against her throat, as though she had forgotten how to use it.

"Mm." Si-eun nods, a pitiful excuse for 'It was no problem'.

Jaehwa breathes out a small smile. "You're finally acting like yourself."

The boy raises a brow. Jaehwa shakes her head.

"It's nothing. Goodnight, Si-eun-ah." The girl laughs quietly, the sound echoing softly against the empty hallway.

"Goodnight," Si-eun murmurs. "Jaehwa."

A thought occurs to Yeon Si-eun as he watches Cha Jaehwa disappear behind the thick metal door to her apartment. If anything, he has been acting so unlike himself.

But for some reason, he thinks that maybe this is who he could've been all along.

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JAEHWA FLOPS ONTO her bed, a flurry of sun-dried clothing and rain-scented hair. She feels fatigue crawling down her back and shoulders, pulling her skin and gnawing at her bones.

On her desk sits a mosaic of unfinished artworks, each imperfect to the point of being discarded in a pile to the left of her workspace. No matter how hard she tries, Cha Jaehwa cannot draw herself.

( There is something so undone on the lines of her face that to her, they are unrecognizable ).

With a sigh, she shuts the door to her room and discards her clothes for those that provide warmth. Taking a seat against the hard wooden chair, once used for rigorous study sessions, Jaehwa places a piece of paper in the center and picks up a pencil.

If she cannot draw herself, she will draw those she has become familiar with. Cha Jaehwa draws her father, who with calloused fingers held her hand as they walked out of the hospital that boiling August day, not caring that the child he once knew was no more.

She draws her mother, who smoothes her hair and presses kisses to her scar, the woman who assures her that Jaehwa will always be her daughter.

She draws Ahn Suho, whose face is engraved into the corneas of her eyes, into the skin of her body like the kiss of a warm Summer day. The boy who has known her for eternities of mismatched smiles and loose teeth, growing pains and bloody knees.

Cha Jaehwa traces the lines of Yeon Si-eun's face, which is made of orange and yellow hues, not at all a blue boy. The personification of Autumn, a sweet season where the world is cleansed to grow anew. The boy who smells of petrichor and ocean-scented soap, whose fingers are warm, and who doesn't know how beautiful his smile is.

And Jaehwa finally understands that she has known what love was all along. She has received, and she has given, and she was perhaps never broken to begin with.

( She was only bent, blind to what her heart knew all this time ).

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‎ ✧ AUTHOR'S NOTE !

this would def make a banger final chapter ngl... kidding guys this is literally barely ep 3 😰 had motivation and rlly wanted to update for u lovelies so here u go!

i love si-eun so so much so here's a cute (and super short) chapter dedicated to him bc he's such a pining lover boy and i actually need him and jaehwa to get together immediately !

also love young-yi she's js a ball of energy and i physically can't hate her so there was no way i was gonna make jaehwa jealous bc i want them to b friends (the thought did occur to me tho but i decided to be nice 😇)

still in the healing era ... it'll prob end next chap tho !

next ch is when the bully convinces sieun & the crew to go see that psycho dude so idk if imma skip all that and have a hospital scene where jaehwa finds out what happened or if she's somehow magically gonna be there too (prob the first one bc im lazy and i wanna avoid plot holes) butttt we'll see when i start writing it !!!

chap is dedicated to all of u that are still here and also to gay ppl bc it's ur month hooray !! i love u all smmmmm xxxxx !!!

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