stitch my blues with your heartstrings
wonwoo/seulgi | 4412w, r-13
Breathing heavily with palms exhaustedly running across languid strands of black falling above his eyes, he sighs, trying to shake away the tremors inside of his quaking heart.
He almost lost her. Again, he almost lost her. The smell of death and faint trails of lives whose candles lit dimly, sterile syringes and blades, white tile floors and broken white hallways, scalpels, tight lipped nurses, somber doctors, disinfectant and bandages made to cure the hurt; he's already used to the sight of this all.
He takes off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm, then let his glasses hang from his fingers between him, another palm covering his eyes. "I almost lost Seulgi again," sweeping his palm off his face again, he repeats this word lowly to himself. "I almost lost her," that realization drops his heart to the ground, heart squeezed and he feels the edges of his heart torn again, even after Seulgi had stitched it up by breathing life into him these past few weeks, breathing his worries off with her promises.
I'm fine, I promise I won't do it again. Look, I crossed my fingers over my heart for you. Yes, I'm okay.
I'm okay, Wonwoo. I'm fine, you can go to work now, yes I'll take my pills, 2 times a day, I know, I remember. No, don't call Jisoo, he'll bring Seungwan also. Don't call any of your friends okay, I won't get lonely. I'm fine. I'm getting better, please believe in me.
Okay don't hug me too long, you won't be able to let go and you will make excuses to stay home. I'm fine, I will call you and yes, you know that I'll watch some movies if I'm not sleeping. Now, you need to go to work, get back home safely okay? I love you, please remember that.
I love you, please remember that.
Her last words. That almost become her last words. If that day his office hadn't let him go early because a huge fire sparked in the kitchen, he would have missed her.
"Mr. Jeon, my suggestion is that you assign Ms. Kang into a psychiatrist. This is the third time you've brought her here for the same problem. She lost a lot amount of blood; we almost lost her back then. We also discovered several blade marks on her back and her shoulders. Ms. Kang seems to be getting worse than her previous condition."
That's what the doctor said, and after that, he's allowed to enter the room.
There she is, Seulgi with bandages wrapped around her wrist up to her arm and as he slowly takes a seat beside her, he watches her closed lids and her sleeping soundly. His fingers lightly trace the place where her skin was stitched back, and he feels shaken again remembering something that happened two hours ago.
"Seulgi, I'm home!" He had shouted for her attention after opening their apartment. "I bought your favourite pancake here. Where are you?" He peeked into the living room to see that she wasn't there.
At that moment, his heart began to palpitate in panick. Walking into his bedroom, he flung it open to see the bed unruffled and Seulgi was nowhere in the study table or sofa.
"No," he had uttered in an instant horror, and he bolted to the bathroom, seeing it half opened.
He pushed it to see her wrist hanging limply from the tub, her body floating over the overflowing water. Her wrist with opened scars as bubbles of red liquid trailed down her wrist to the floor and everything smelled like blood it blocked his senses but the fact Seulgi deepened the blades down her skin than before made things hurt even more. He felt like breaking apart but instead he swiftly swoop her out of the water and brought his head to her chest, slow beats drumming to his ears and called 911 as he attempted to stop the blood with anything, hands clasped over her body, he felt like forcing her out of her breathless sleep.
Pushing messy strands out of her face, Seulgi stirs in her sleep. He waits for her to wake up.
When she does, she pushes out brave eyelashes and eyelids off her eyes slowly, eyes adjusting to the brightly lit fluorescent bulb in the room.
"Where-ah, here again," she mumbles lifelessly, eyes staring above the lights, void and endless.
"It wasn't deep enough," he pretends he doesn't hear the crestfallen tone in her voice.
"You promised me, Seulgi. You promised me you won't relapse again," he doesn't know where to hold her know, as it seems that every part of her is bleeding and wounded. "You promised me."
"Have you-have you actually meant any of your words?"
"Do you actually care about me? Were those all lies? Do you know how worried I was? What if I hadn't come home early? You would-" he turns away, gulping that dreaded sentence, he loathes saying that it, fearful that it'll become true when it's being said with his voice. He doesn't want it to become the truth someday.
"-I would have been dead by now," she turns to him, eyes so, so dark he can't recognize her.
"You told me you only need the pills right? You don't want to talk to those doctors right? Because they won't understand?" he holds on her elbow now, not caring how she flinches under him for he is hurting also, making her look and stare at him, wanting her to pay attention to his words, wanting her to realise that he understands.
She nods defeatedly, shoulders slumped and eyes fall down to her lap.
"Then please try, Seulgi. Please, if not for me, then for yourself and for Soo-" he halts his words as she tenses up beneath his touch. Soojung will always have a special part in her heart, more so than everyone else. She had left them too soon for everybody's sake.
Another sigh and he leans down to brush his lips to the crown of her head, closing his eyes. "Just rest okay? I'll be here."
He half-retreats back to his seat when Seulgi's words stop him midway.
"Why can't you just let me go? You can just leave me. There are a lot more girls who approach you and they are way smarter, prettier and function even more properly than I am-" her words are mocking, bitter and hateful for herself, blistered hands clutching and ripping threads off the white sheets. Her eyes cruelly bore at him and all he feels is that he feels so painfully sad for her. She brings her fingers to her hair, clutching and holding into it tightly, knees folded in. "I'm so tired, can you just let me go? I can't do this anymore. I can't be pulled back to life over and over again."
He feels so angry and exasperated all of the sudden. A staggering breath billows out of his lips, one so desperate and hopeful he wants to rip himself apart and let her see how broken she has made him.
"I'm too selfish to let you go," he utters coldly and ruthlessly and eyes begging for her to come back home and don't do this to me, how could you do this to me, i gave you my world how could you, "And don't you know, how many times you've ripped my heart by doing this?" Seulgi doesn't dare to look at him in the eyes then he nears dangerously close to her.
He brings his hands to her face, holding it and turning her to him to look at him and see how selfish she is to do this all without caring him. Tears well up on her eyes. She probably sees how pathetic and worn out he looks. "While you're busy throwing your life out of the window, you never realise how you're throwing mine also."
They go home in silence after that, after Seulgi bit and gnawed and chewed her underlip hearing his words until it bleeded again and with a wave of his lips brushing hers and another sigh, the scars were mended as Seulgi shuddered while he held her face in his palms then they slid down from her neck to her shoulders, her eyes opened, then slowly giving up like her knees were knocked off from consciousness. Wonwoo knocked off her consciousness, sweeping her off her bruised legs and spilled a constellation of lost stars over her head.
Seulgi tasted like iron mixed with invented demons and dark, black thoughts missing death like a lost lover in his lips. As he drives them home, he gives a side-glance to Seulgi in her loose white shirt reaching past her elbow, and her jeans.
He recalls their violent and ardent days of love, spilling affection and kisses so mercilessly, him pulling her by the waistband of her loose jeans out of the blue just to knock her knees weak and her biting him by the ears, by the shoulders and by the neck, whispering, "You're mine, Jeon Wonwoo is mine. No one is able to take you away from me," and it never failed to make his heart raced so fast then swerved and broke its speed into a crash as he'd pull her by the neck from behind him and literally smashed his lips into hers. "You're not getting away from me, either. Never," in giggles and stumbles around their room (they have stayed together since their college days) then his hands would travel to places, forbidden places where her skin looked out of focus and his hand would sneak up to that place, where all hell would break loose for the both of them or for their case, they will be thrown into a euphoric state in heaven.
The place where skins clashed so fervently it needed to be blurred, like those scenes in movies where your parents would cover your eyes from it when you were thirteen and too young to see the exposure of skin and imagine how it feels to have someone pressed to your body, stark naked skin to skin, hands to hands, lips to lips, limbs tangled into each other with no shame.
As time goes by, they had grown out their reckless phase and shrugged thorns and and fortresses from their shoulders, letting themselves show the fragile and subtle sides they always hid in the past, for they didn't love each other wisely and thought that all things between them was gonna end soon. All they thought was that, until they stripped each other off fabrics until nothing could be taken off, they began to delve deeper beneath what their hands could never reach.
Way beyond what fingers could touch and kiss, way beyond what the sky could never tell even when their eyes are everywhere.
Æ
Wonwoo slips into their bed silently, but he knows that Seulgi is awake as she shifts under the white sheet.
He moves closer until he is only a second away from her ears.
"Seulgi," his deep voice reverberates to her skin softly, her ears, her neck and every of her being that is in the process to shut down. "I want to ask you something."
She doesn't budge.
Burying his face to her hair, hand encircles around her waist while pulling her closer, he whispers drowsily. "I know you're not sleeping."
A sigh comes out of her body, then she sits up facing him instead. Pushing himself off the bed to face her, his fingers hook to her collar to reveal a stitched scar by her left shoulder.
"Wonwoo, what are you do-"
"Why?" She looks away and billows out a pained sigh. "I didn't ask you earlier because I didn't want you to avoid me. Now I'm asking you, why?"
"Did you do this also when I am not around? Marking skin with blades?"
"I felt so numb, Wonwoo. I-Soojung-I just can't," he was going to confront her for the other ones on her back, but decide to let it go. He senses her looking through her eyelashes silently.
Crossed knees and fingers folded in front of him, he keeps his attention on her. "Talk to me about Soojung. Anything, since when you're friends with her and etcetera. You escaped to your silence all this time. It's time for you to share about her, Seulgi."
"If you don't want to talk to a psychiatrist, at least talk to me," she fidgets with their white coverlet of a blanket, biting and gnawing on her lips again.
"I'm seriously gonna kiss you again if you keep doing that-" he abruptly switches to his playful side and hovers over her, hands trapping her by the side with a mischievieous smirk laces across his lips and his eyes clouded, missing their ardent days of love.
Seulgi shrinks and furrows her eyebrows, palms covering her lips. "You're crazy," muffled sounds come out of her instead.
"What?"
She lets her hands fall. He sneaks in the chance before she utters any complaint, just a mere peck in the lips then retracting his head to inches before her face with that lazy and drowsy smile of his as if he just woke up and Seulgi only raising her eyebrows to him. It doesn't matter to him.
"Now, speak to me," fingers playing and interlacing around her wrists, he beams with a supportive smile.
"You're too playful sometimes for me. Way too playful in the wrong time," she mutters under her breath, scrutinising his face with squinted eyes.
"I'm just trying to let you loose, so you won't get nervous."
She exhales a heavy breath.
"I used to not be as crazy as when you met me in college. You did realize I was quite a nut head right?" She asks, eyebrows arching in question.
"Aren't we both crazy back then? We almost didn't graduate because of too much ditching and mak-"
"Okay, let's cut that part out," a rush of heat dashes to her neck and Wonwoo laughs, nose crinkling and half of his eyes clipped shut.
"Not funny."
"Back to you, my lady."
She gulps down the bitter taste of Soojung's death. "I was quite a shy kid back in high school. Like a wallflower I guess. But I was happy, content. Just normal. Sometimes, I miss those days when silence loomed over me. It used to be so calming, so soothing. Then Soojung came with her loud laughters and boom box energy. She picked me to be her friend. I never really know what she saw in me. I was boring-"
"You're not boring-" his eyebrows knock to each other.
She ignores him, shaking her head. He won't stop denying her flaws if she fights him. "Soojung changed me drastically. I went and walked to all places in her way, in such boldness and rudeness it felt so exhilarating. Then, in twelfth grade, Soojung told me she loved me," this word is muttered softly as if meant so he won't hear it, but he still does.
"She even made it very specific," she begins to choke, hands gripping and scrunching their bedsheets. "-that she loved me in ways she wanted to hold my hand, interlaced and never letting me go. She wanted me for herself only and to never look at anyone else. Her confession was so stupid and corny, she was letting herself out of the open. So rash, what if it wasn't me? What if it was some babblemouth who spilled it to the whole school?"
"Then?"
"She told me that even though she knew that I had some feelings for you."
"Wait, we were in the s-"
She looks away, a streak of hurt visible on her face. "Yeah, you probably wouldn't notice. You always hung out in the big crowd, with Mingyu and everybody else. I stayed with Soojung jumping from one place to another. Girls in my class talked a lot about you. Approaching you was out of the option since well, you were dating that girl, oh, Nayoung? Yeah. So pretty, she was so pretty, why did you break up with her anyway?" she blanked out her emotions, droning on without emotions. His hand reaches out for hers, only to see that she hid them. It's a sign that it's something he'll never understand.
He sighs. "Don't ask, Seulgi. I hate you asking about my past girlfriends like this."
Her eyes fleet away from him, gazing to the vacant wall behind. "I told Soojung that I liked you and I couldn't accept her. She left me angrily, but the next day she pretended like nothing ever happened at all. Jeez, she must be so embarrassed. She was blushing so hard," comes out chuckles bubbling out of her lips, but her eyes are not smiling.
"Then college came, and somehow she got Mingyu wrapped around her fingers tightly and he didn't struggle out of her grip. So obvious, he listened to every words that she said. Then, I met you," he can feel himself smiling as she said this.
"Don't be too happy. I already got over my feelings for you around that time," she smirks and chortles when his smile falls. "It was pretty foolish of me to like someone whom I didn't know personally. So, it was a pretty ephemeral feeling."
"You never get afraid of hurting me, don't you?"
"No, Jeon Wonwoo is as strong as the Wall of China," she pulls on his arm and pecks his cheek with a teasing smile. With their face this close, her hand still grabbing his arm, palm on their crumpled sheet, him leaning close to her face, her other hand relaxes his eyebrows.
One eyebrow done. "Of course I do. You're as soft as a fluff ball of cotton."
Another is finished, and her eyes fall to his. "It's your karma for being such a heartbreaker in the past," she whispers close to his lips, breathing cool mint breath of strawberry toothpaste and his eyes trail down to her lips, quick to catch it again and a coy smile sneaks up halfway. But Seulgi is fast enough to back away, leaving him kissing the air and breathing heavily.
"Stop teasing me like that, Seulgi-"
"It's my payback for you," she sticks out her tongue playfully, eyes squeezed shut and right there, she looks like the sun nudging him with her soft beams.
Silence seeps into her as fast as how sunlight passes by. "Then even when she was dating Mingyu, she always stayed by my side. She was always so mysterious even when I knew her for so long. Even when I always kept my eyes on her, I could never describe her existence. Soojung was just so enigmatic and....yeah, Soojung. There are no words that can describe her, just Soojung. "
She heaves another full and heavy breathing out of her system, exhaling sadness and blues off her body. "I know I was selfish all this time, wanting to kill myself because Soojung is not h-" he can see her body starting to shake, even when she is supposed to be rooted to his heart.
"Soojung is no longer here," she finally lets out that word she can never utter in front of him. Her eyes are looking down to her palms. Then her eyes meet his again, heartbreakingly lost.
"Wonwoo, Soojung is no longer here," her eyes are wide opened but dead and dark, tears threatening to fall and let her feelings truly spill out of her body after locking it for so long she felt the need to destroy herself.
He wants to say no and deny her, and assure her that Soojung still lives and she and Mingyu are going to get married next week and Seulgi will be the most beautiful bridesmaid there. Seulgi will get the flowers because Soojung will intentionally throw it at her for she loves her so damn much, and it will be the sign for him to ask her hand in marriage.
He really, really wishes to tell her all these beautiful lies. But Wonwoo soon lets the truth sinks that this will mean him losing his chances on catching her alive, this will mean more moments of Seulgi realizing that Soojung is dead and never coming back and will remain as the remnants of a car accident by a drunken driver, her soul evaporating into smoke and blazing fire of almosts. Realizing that and let those suicidal thoughts seep into her brain and poison it while he is not around to save her.
He slips strands of her hair behind her ears, careful to not let her tears stain her brown tresses, eyes tenderly looking at her. He painfully closes his eyes as he pulls her by the nape of her neck to his chest. Tilting his head and whispering to her ears, he holds out his palms in case her heart shatters so he will be able to mend it back again. "Soojung is gone, Seulgi. She's gone, you have to let her go. It's time, she doesn't want to see you like this."
His arms are wrapped around her and he is prepared of the waterhouse that breaks right in front of him now. He lets her tears stain his t-shirt, snots whatever it is, and even as she bursts out like this, she is still holding herself back. She is holding her wail back, her cries for her dead bestfriend.
"Soojung, Soojung, Soojung-"
"It's okay, it's okay. She is in a better place, it's okay. Soojung is in a better place and she's smiling down at you, she's smiling down at everyone of us-"
"I miss you, I miss you already Soojung-"
"Yes, I miss her too. She was the one who introduced me to you remember? She talked about you a lot to me, how great and amazing you were and how you were still single because people were stupid and too blind to see it," his hand ruffling her hair with his legs circled around her body to close any spare spaces is heaven. For the both of them, when they find themselves in their raw forms without unbreakable walls and doors.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Wonwoo. I'm sorry that I gave you so much troubles these past few months. I was being such a huge burden for you, you care so much about everything of me and I can't even think of your feelings whenever I graze those blades across my wrists. I'm so sorry I don't deserve you at all, you're too good for me," she was pulling out herself from his embrace but he pushes her back in.
"No, no you're enough for me and you deserve me, you deserve all of me and I will forgive you as long as you won't do it again," she wipes her tears away and back out and this time he lets her take her time to compose herself to face him.
"I want you to promise me for real. No more lies, this is your own life at stake, Seulgi. You can't treat it so rashly as if it doesn't matter. Your life matters to me, to your parents, to your brother, to your friends, to those who love you. Imagine how painful it is if we were to lose you. Do you want us to feel the same kind of pain you are feeling right now?"
Red nose and red eyes, she shakes her head, lips no longer trembling. "No."
"If you can't promise me, then promise yourself."
After that, they slip right into their covers and she falls asleep after staring and gazing back at him without saying anything, letting silence becoming their second languange and just soak themselves in it. Soak themselves inside the silence that lulls them into sleep. Wonwoo falls asleep a bit later, making sure that she really has fallen into her dreams, deep and swallowing all of her, protecting her from her nightmares. He can always feel her when she has one of those. She would begin to mumble incoherent words and have cold sweats breaking out of her skin.
But this time she isn't, and her arms are wrapped around his chest, pulling him close and doesn't seem to let go any sooner.
This is the ending, how Wonwoo cut one of his heartstrings and insert it to a transparent needle to stitch that big wound of blues inside of her heart. It's not done smoothly, of course, having the need to have himself bleed along the way.
But it's all worth it, to have her heart whole again so it will be enough to love him and everyone around her and more importantly, herself.