Pucker Up, Buttercup | Jaeyong

w o u n d s

Jaehyun insisted on walking me home this afternoon. After all, he would not do anything horrible to me on the journey back - even if he knew where I lived. He already knows actually. I guess you could say, I trust him a little. Well, there was one thing I was not keen on; Jaehyun was still just as disgruntled as he was earlier in the day, so it seems, the transfer student knocked him out of his conventional playful spirit.

It felt like Jaehyun's 'happy' ghost had been unpleasantly sucked out of his shell with a vacuum.

I am lost in my thoughts when he says; "—me?"

My eyes bounce up from the floor and stare directly at the man walking ahead of me, lost and confused. His hands were buried deep into the pockets of his worn-down uniform trousers, his feet kicking loose gravel across the pavement sluggishly, voice humming a pleasant tune of his concentration - which eventually ceased into a lull. "When are you going to communicate? You can't stay silent forever." He turns around, walking backwards.

He's reckless and stupid doing that - walking backwards! The silly man might whack his head against a pole or he might stumble into another person. If he gets a concussion, who will be the one to help? I can't, all I would do is panic. I am useless!

And I can't just talk. It's complicated.

"Taeyong, wanna—"

Just when all seemed well, Jaehyun's five-second smile was stolen from him, "Holy crap! Froggy has a boyfriend!" It was as if his day could not get any worse. Firstly, it was tarnished by my poor eruption of petty yet dramatic anxiety. Secondly, he had been in a disagreement with another student over feminism - something he feels strongly about. Lastly, this. His school friends. "I never thought this day would come!" The main voice seemed to be coming from a student named Donghae, one of the eldest in the school, head of the school council - he gets away with everything by bending the rules to his advantage. Of course, it is simply a perk of being so manipulative and cunning.

Jaehyun's expression was almost indescribable, but all I can say is that I could relate to that vulnerable tone sitting underneath the surface and crevices of his face, you can see it resting deep in the sockets of his eyes. Really, only someone who has experienced that feeling can identify it - and I am aware of this. I understand this and it is bringing me to feel incredibly sensitive. I don't want to say that it is triggering me but it somehow is deep down, everything is so immediate and raw that I cannot even handle what I am beginning to feel like. My mind has been hit by a freight train of various sentiments, memories and open wounds, just from that one expression that I can read on Jaehyun's face. It's speaking a language that I speak.

I stumble backwards, my hand tightening around the strap of my bag slung around my shoulder until my knuckles turn yellow and white and until my nails are biting into my skin.

It's fight or flight. But... The emotion that I can see on Jaehyun is knowing that there can't even be an in-between, there is merely only emptiness that drains the void until your mind is numb and you become more like an object. As depressive as that explanation sounds, that is what it feels like. There is a term for what I am trying to describe here... I think I almost am forgetting it. Dissociation? No? Yes?

But, I have experienced this.

I know this,

I know that look on his face,

I have worn it too.

I want this to end already.

It makes me want to scream, just watching the same old thing unfold with Jaehyun. It makes me... Angry... Frustrated.