I'm back,
this was an accidental hiatus 🤡
in today's author note, you help me wipe that clown paint off my face 🤝

°•○》
"The stronger ones practice their strength by taking responsibility. I want to be strong for you, let me be strong for you. Be the passenger to my driver's seat, be the treat to my struggles. And most of all, I want you to be my truth and reason."
《○•°

June

It's about the time I forget about everything, all the lies, all the truths I need to face, and all the memories of Dohwan, my friend, my assaulter. Because remembering any of them means letting Jooeun come back to life.

Jooeun is the one with the ugly past, June isn't. June lives with two amazing brothers, a best friend, and a career. Jooeun has none of that. So when I open my eyes and my left hand feels cold and heavy, I wish Jooeun isn't there. But wishing she isn't there made me realize I was the one running away from her to keep being this version of myself, she wasn't the one hiding things from me. I was the one blocking her out.

This duality was very thinly separated by a line that's now too blurry, as blurry as how I refer to two girls who only sound different because I pronounce the syllables of the other one's name separately. As blurry as the difference between protecting someone and lying to them, or how blurry everyone around me made it.

A lie is a lie, I feel my heart break and my closed eyes twitch as I pick up where I left off for Jooeun to come out. When Jin put his lips in front of mine.

Why am I unable to move? I always turned away when Jin tried to proceed with his feeling... and mine, in a sense. But I can't move, only he is moving, and he's moving closer too quickly.

His lips brush mine, then hold, and I start to move again, but it doesn't feel like I'm the one bringing my hand up to the side of his neck, and resting the other against the side of his face. It doesn't feel like I'm the one kissing his plump lips back and deepening the kiss. His breaths catch onto one another, mine too. My thumbs rub his earlobe to calm him down, but I forget to breathe myself.

When his arms snake around my waist, his hands rub my back and pull me closer, pushing myself against his own, holding me impossibly close with very strong arms. And I'm lost, all I can think of are the arms I couldn't escape, and the darkness replays itself. I wish to disappear.

And so I do, June and I leave. Because what she refuses to handle, I can't handle.
I faint.

Something trails out of my eyes across my temples and into my hairline, something liquid and warm. Was that how it is? Jooeun comes out at times like these? Times I'm too cowardly to face, times she ends up running away too?

"...if you would've just let him talk to her! Have a trail as he agreed to, they would've both put this behind them."

"No! I don't want her to have anything to do with him anymore, it's over. And he doesn't have the right to put this behind him." Seungho is arguing with Changwook.

I didn't know Dohwan reached out to me after that night. Jin never spoke about him either. I made that conclusion that he thinks we are even now, he took something from me and I took something from him. Someone comes in and my heart falls to the pits of helľ when I hear a third voice.

"Hello,"

"Dohwan?"

"Why is he here?"

The less aggressive reply was from Changwook who sounded rather confused than shocked, Seungho sounded like he'd been trying to avoid this happening for too long. For which I don't know the reason. "I... a number called me saying Jooeun is here. I want to talk to her."

I can hear shuffling of people, heavy steps and aggressive gripping. "Seungho calm down and let him be," Changwook speaks.

"The only thing you'll ever do is leave before she as much as catches a glimpse of you. Stay away from my sister." Seungho sounds scariest right now, I have never heard him sound this angry before.

"She doesn't need you to protect her anymore. She can take care of this herself, leaving her in the dark won't help her wounds heal--"

Seungho punches Dohwan, "who are you to tell me how to treat my sister?"

"Back off!" Changwook breaks them apart again and I decide it's too loud for me to continue to fake sleep so I sit up and clear my throat. Keep me in the dark? What has been going on?

》》》

When I got up, all eyes turned to me and Seungho ran over, "June? How are you feeling?"

I only look into his worried eyes, a little red, like he had been trying to keep them open for too long. How are you feeling? A voice inside me asks him, but I can swear it felt like it's not me, it felt like it came from somewhere else... but within me.

I look away from him to Changwook who had Dohwan still held behind him from when he was trying to break him out of Seungho's grip. Changwook looked disheveled too, he didn't look any better. His tie was loosely hanging around his neck and his hair was unkempt. Dohwan had a coat over sweatpants and a shirt, so he rushed over too. He's worried about me? Who called him?

As if the picture needed to paint itself complete, with one last element, the door slammed open by a Jin panting and out of breath. His eyes made their way to me, and he didn't notice Dohwan standing to his side because he rushed to me immediately. "June are you okay? I'm so sorry I'm late."

His hand was shaking, clammy against my wrist and his other hand was brushing my hair down against my head, "I'm so sorry. I should've been careful."

This man's eyes were perfectly swollen in a way that made them look heart-wrenching rather than pathetic, and so was his apology. It hurt. I'm making everyone around me tread on eggshells. I'm sick of this, I want to stop this. I want to understand myself.

I look away from Jin's regretful eyes, and meet Dohwan's focused and sharp ones, observing every detail of my behavior, and very neutrally taking in Jin's distraught behavior with his eyes hooded, like he's watching something a little too familiar to him. Like this scene is the end of a loop that's about to repeat itself.

What is he seeing? And just like that, we, Jooeun and I, have decided that Dohwan is where we should start. Dohwan is the first chapter of understanding what is actually happening to us.

I move my hand from under Jin's and hold his between mine, "it's not your fault, I promise. Let's talk later, now I want you to take my brothers and leave for a moment."

"Leave you alone? In this state--"

"I need to talk to him, please." I look back at Dohwan who is patiently waiting, and expecting. And for a split second, before Jin turns to look at who I'm referring to, I am certain I see his head nod in relief.

《《《

I'm back, this was an accidental hiatus 🤡
actually thought finishing this book will be a piece of cake.
Oh no, oh no no no.
(this chapter is too dramatic, i only realized after i added the media oop-- but on we go)
Somewhere along the way, all the wires got tangled up in one ugly knot that didn't make sense at all. So I waited to untie it, i finally did!
Despite a bunch of so many things happening the past few months, I'm very happy to return and say this: it had been resolved. The knot is taken care of and we're now all ready to... fall.
Really fast, but the fall must make sense, and today, I made it to be so.
So prepare.

15th of May, 2021.
shocking, ik. i have a research due today, haven't even finished my outline. i'm may or maybe not be in deep deep shît :)
eid mubarak, anyway.