Kyung-soo never wore belts, even at the age of 16. He hated the feel of the leather, the sound it made as it brushed against his pants and through the belt loops, the feeling of constriction it presented.
Jimin wore a belt. Jimin was the kid in class who would always pick up your pencil if you dropped it and say "God bless you" if you sneezed. He was the kid who always had an extra pen for you to borrow.
Jimin was perfect.
Kyung-soo was not.
He wanted to be, though. Every day, he'd stand in front of the mirror in his room. He'd stare at the belts. He'd imagine putting one of them on.
But if he got as far as reaching out a hand, the hand would start shaking. He could never bring himself to touch the leather. But he knew what it felt like. He didn't want to.
***
What was it that bothered him so much about Park Jimin? He just couldn't put a finger on it. Or at east, not on one thing.
Maybe it was the belt that bothered him, that Jimin could wear one when he couldn't. Maybe it was Jimin's smile. That Jimin was able to smile. Because Kyung-soo knew without a doubt that Jimin could smile because he didn't know what it meant to frown, that he didn't have a reason to frown, that he had never had to force his smile because someone else was forcing him to. That bothered Kyung-soo. It also bothered him, the ease at which Jimin went through life. Jimin never hit any obstacles. He came to school with a lunch packed by his mom, his talked politely with his classmates even though they didn't do anything for him, and then he went back home to his perfect family and his perfect house and his perfect-
Kyung-soo hated perfect. He hated it because he had to try so hard to fake it when it came naturally to Jimin.
Kyung-soo came to realize that Jimin was his opposite. Where Jimin was light, Kyung-soo was dark. Where Jimin was kind, Kyung-soo knew nothing of kindness. Where Jimin was happy, Kyung-soo was suffering.
It made Kyung-soo think. If Jimin was his opposite...If Jimin was happy when Kyung-soo was suffering...
If Kyung-soo made Jimin suffer, would he be happy?
***
You're ugly. You're ugly. You're ugly-
"You're ugly."
-Kyung-soo.
Jimin looked up, his eyes widening in surprise. "Kyung-soo?"
"You're ugly," Kyung-soo said, the words from his memories, from his nightmares, entering into the physical realm.
Jimin didn't know what to say.
"Isn't he ugly?" Kyung-soo asked, turning slightly to see his classmates watching them.
"Yeah," said a squat boy in the back with a face that looked like it had been shoved on a stove and systemically flattened while burning. "Jimin's so ugly."
A few more kids spoke up, clustering around Kyung-soo.
What is this feeling, this warmth?
Kyung-soo looked around him at the kids who were looking up to him, waiting for him to lead them. Friends, he supposed. Something he'd never really had.
He liked the feeling, the feeling of people noticing him, of people wanting to be him, just like they'd all wanted to be Park fricking Jimin.
Kyung-soo watched it all happen slowly. Watched Jimin's friends become his friends. Watched Jimin's popularity become his popularity.
Watched Jimin's happiness become his happiness.
***
The theft continued. The more Kyung-soo teased Jimin, the more he stole from Jimin.
Jimin's smile. Gone.
Jimin's sociability. Gone.
Jimin's voice. Gone.
Kyung-soo's smile, his sociability, his voice - they all appeared like magic. He could smile, he could make friends, he could speak up in class and have people actually listen to him. He was being noticed. He was important.
He was special.
Kyung-soo had always wanted to feel special.
Not like how the belt made him feel.
Which made Kyung-soo wonder if the magic worked in reverse.
If he made Jimin feel pain, would his pain go away?
***
Kyung-soo kept trying, but it seemed as though the magic was finite, because no matter how much he hurt Jimin, when he went back to his house, the pain was waiting for him there, too.
But it's okay, I guess, Kyung-soo reasoned. The pain seemed dull compared to before, when he'd been alone and silent and unnoticed. Now he had friends. Now he was popular. Now he was special. So the pain didn't seem as bad.
Kyung-soo watched as, while he transformed into someone everyone wanted to be, Jimin transformed into someone no one wanted to be. He no longer sat up straight at his desk. Instead, he sat slightly hunched, as though he were waiting for something unpleasant. His hair was brushed into his eyes so he didn't have to make eye contact with anyone. His lips stayed flat without a smile to pull them up. His voice got quiet and unsure, not that he talked often at all.
The worse Jimin appeared, the better Kyung-soo felt, because he believed in the magic.
Until there came a point where Jimin didn't get any worse. Something changed, something subtle yet dramatic.
Jimin gave up.
But if he doesn't get worse, how can I get better? Kyung-soo thought.
If he has nothing left to take, what else can I steal?
But Kyung-soo couldn't stop.
If I break Park Jimin, will I be made whole?
***
"Why?" Jimin asked. His eyes no longer looked dead like they had before. "Why me?" He hesitated, shook his head. "Why you?"
That was the first time anyone had bothered to ask Kyung-soo that. He felt somewhat surprised, both that Jimin was asking and that the question hadn't come up earlier.
Kyung-soo opened his mouth, ready to say something, anything that would destroy Jimin, because he knew from just looking in Jimin's eyes that the magic was fading. Jimin wasn't broken; he was being fixed.
So what does that make me?
Kyung-soo felt a flash of anger. He's going to steal it all back from me, everything that I worked so hard to create, to take...
The anger fled. But it was all his anyway.
Kyung-soo looked down. He didn't want to see Jimin's eyes, the reminder that everything was going to shatter. All of his friends, his popularity, his being special.
I've never been special before, was something he'd once thought.
And now, I'll never be special again.
"It's like they say. If someone tells you something enough, you start to believe it." He looked up at Jimin. He wondered if Jimin could understand his pain after everything he'd put Jimin through.
Does he understand me?
And more shocking.
Why do I want him to?
"And then eventually, you start to make others believe it, too." Kyung-soo's words felt flat to his own ears. How was he supposed to explain how or why he'd stolen everything from Jimin?
And why did it seem like Jimin didn't particularly care about getting it back?
Jimin met his eyes. "Well, I'm..." Jimin took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I'm not ugly. And I'm not fat. And I'm a little bit short. But even if all of those things were true..." He opened his eyes, and Kyung-soo wanted to look away, but he forced himself to meet his eye contact. "It wouldn't matter. It doesn't change who I am. And..." Jimin bit his lip. "They aren't true for you, either, Kyung-soo." Jimin paused as though he were going to go on, but he didn't.
Kyung-soo wondered what he'd been about to say.
I hate you.
You ruined my life.
Why are you even alive?
All things he'd heard before, just from different lips.
But Jimin surprised him by turning around. "We're done here," he told his friends, and they followed him out the door.
Kyung-soo was left alone.
No friends. No popularity. No sense of being even remotely special or loved.
But then he wasn't alone anymore because he heard Jimin's words. "I don't know who told you those things or if they're still telling you those things, but you can't let yourself believe it. Or even if you do, you just need someone else to be there to tell you the truth."
Footsteps, fast, running away, away from him.
Kyung-soo sighed. He took his index finger and wrote his name on the desk.
KYUNG-SOO.
But it felt like a lie.
"It's too late," he said, to himself, to nobody. "Nobody can tell me the truth because nobody knows the truth. Not even me."
But maybe, he thought. Maybe someone will tell me. Or maybe I just have to learn to doubt the lies.
The lies, the lies his step-father had told him, forced into his head, forced into his heart. The lies he had forced into Jimin.
But if Jimin had found a way out, maybe he could, too.
Kyung-soo looked up at the ceiling of the classroom, and he saw stars.
here you all go, as requested
a chapter from kyung-soo's point of view
i know a lot of you hate him
(same goes for most of my other antagonists, such as ha ra)
but please remember that he's human too
and maybe try to understand him just a little
ps- i'll be offline for the majority of this weekend, so apologies in advance if i don't respond to everything in a timely function
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro