Fairest of Them All; Kai/Sulli (2/2)
Not a day goes by where Choi Jinri feels happy with herself.
-
Jongin is with them the next lunch break, concern for Jinri’s prior behavior overriding the need to play soccer with Luhan. He’s fresh out of a Moral Ethics class and his brain is active with all these theories and stories and he starts by announcing, “My teacher is the spawn of Satan.”
Soojung and Jinri gives one glance to Jongin and then turn back to each other to continue their conversation. Jongin is flatly ignored- and he can’t have that, now can he? “No, I’m serious, I’m a pretty good judge of character, you know.”
Jinri decides to amuse Jongin and play along with his statement. “A good judge of character? You?”
“The best,” he smirks. It takes all that Soojung is to not throw a piece of kimchi at Jongin’s overconfident face.
“Really? And what would you say about me?” Jinri asks out of pure curiosity. She wants to know what he thinks about her, even if she normally doesn’t find herself caring about what other’s think. But Jongin has become important to her and that means that his opinion is important as well.
There is a teasing, playful grin that settles on Jongin’s lips, but his words are laced with sincerity. “I think you’re beautiful.”
Soojung lets out a little squeal and Jinri ends up covering her face with her hands.
His words shake Jinri more than she would like to admit.
-
Jinri walks to the bathroom during the period after lunch, when everyone should be in class.
-
It’s rare when Jinri decides to stay back a little while to finish one of her sketches, but when it happens, Soojung and Jongin usually wait outside the school gate for her; it has become a tradition of sorts to always walk home together. Jongin and Soojung wait in peaceful silence under a rather aesthetically pleasing tree for close to five minutes before Soojung voices what has been on her mind all this while. “You like her.” She says the statement, short and sweet, with the teasing implication hanging heavily in the air.
If Jongin had been drinking anything, he would have surely spit it out in an over dramatic fashion- but because he’s not, he merely chuckles nervously. “What are you talking about, I don’t like anyone.”
Soojung just laughs, patronizing as she taps Jongin’s cheek playfully. “You’ve liked Jinri since day one.”
“No?” He sounds even more unsure the second time he denies it.
Soojung nods, as if she accepts his reasoning, but her words say the exact opposite. “Tell me, Jongin. Have you ever sat next to me for anything?”
He opens his mouth to respond, to argue with her, but- no, no he hasn’t. “And tell me something else, Jongin. Have you ever tried to go out of your way to make anyone else smile- and have you ever sincerely called someone else beautiful in the way that you call Jinri beautiful?”
Jongin, to his own credit, doesn’t keel over and die from embarrassment. He just feels all the blood rush to his face and has to bury his face into his hands so that he’s not looking at Soojung.
Soojung continues, undeterred. “Because if you do, then I guess we have a problem here.”
He can barely keep staring at her, not even bothering to keep up any form of denial; not when Soojung is so sure that she knows. And she does, indeed, know.
“But we don’t have a problem, now do we?”
He feels small, like a child, when he looks into Soojung’s knowing eyes.
-
Jongin feels for Jinri something that he doesn’t feel for anyone else in this world.
He feels something inexplicable when he sees her smile, when she beams at him, when she quietly but honestly sasses him, when she concentrates on her work quietly, when she- when she does anything, really.
And when he ends up telling Soojung all of this, Soojung only lets out a content sigh and pats herself on the back.
From the moment Jongin asked her about Jinri, she knew something was there.
-
When Jinri eventually walks out to meet up with Jongin and Jinri, she doesn’t ask why Jongin is so red in the face and why Soojung is grinning from ear to ear.
-
Something that has bothered Jongin in the past suddenly seems to resurface when he’s walking along the halls and he sees a very familiar trio of girls. He turns on his heels and stops Soojung short. “Okay seriously- what is the deal with Jinri and that group of art girls?”
Soojung blinks in surprise. “You still haven’t asked?” They’ve gotten close, knowing each other for several months now. She figured he had already asked.
“Never got around to it,” Jongin shrugs. “And they don’t bother Jinri anymore, so I just forgot until now.”
Soojung purses her lips and figures that it wouldn’t hurt to tell Jongin. They’re close enough so that it doesn’t matter anymore- back then, she hadn’t known that Jongin would become a such fixture to them both, but now that he has, it seems useless to withhold information. “Well, back in middle school, Jinri won a contest.”
“Because Jinri is awesome,” Jongin supplies.
“Yes, because she is awesome,” Soojung agrees.”And there was contest money involved and a scholarship to some fancy pants place, but-”
“But she turned it down?” That’s Jongin’s educated guess, seeing as how he still goes to school with Jinri.
“Yeah, and the people that bullied her didn’t like that,” Soojung scoffs. “Jinri turned it down because she said someone needs this more than her, that someone else will appreciate it more, and that she’s okay with going to school in the area.”
He sees her act as one of selflessness, of sincerity. The story warms Jongin to the core, makes him unconsciously smile when he thinks about her kind heart.
“The perks of being in an art high school,” Jongin hums.
-
Jongin brings up the bullying topic with Jinri a little later. Soojung is off on her own, wooing some upperclassman named Lee Taemin. Jinri high-fived her for good luck beforehand. “You’re much stronger than people give you credit for.” Jongin says this, solemn and sincere; Jinri can’t help but blink in surprise because-
“Where is this coming from?”
He ignores her question in favor of asking another. “Didn’t any of the bullying get to you?”
Oh. So that is what this is about.
“I said it last time, but they never knew how to make it hurt,” is Jinri’s simple answer.
Jinri knows this because of experience.
She knows what it takes to make it hurt.
-
“You’ll never have someone love you if you look like this.”
She knows.
She hears it loud and clear, each and every single day.
-
When Jinri looks at Jongin, she feels something stirring in the depths of her heart, something that she thinks she shouldn’t be feeling.
And when Jinri looks at that smile he always gives her, she feels warmth.
-
Jongin has asked Jinri out.
But no one should get excited, because he asked Soojung to come as well. Soojung is exceptionally disappointed with this.
But his reason behind this is that he needs to go take pictures at the nearby lake and it’s funner to go with more people.
And it’s all fun and games until Jongin tries to feed the ducks.
They’re flapping around, waddling, and rushing towards the resident bread crumb holder.
Calm and cool Jinri is suddenly shrieking, nonchalance nowhere to be found.
Jinri is afraid of ducks.
And that is the cutest fucking thing to Jongin.
In seeing her fear, Jinri seems more tangible as a person, more real.
More lovable.
-
After the whole duck fiasco, in which Jongin had heroically tried to save Jinri from the ducks (“You summoned them in the first place!”), they decide to rest at Soojung’s house.
Soojung is currently holding a mirror to her face, taking out stray duck feathers. “The one that jumped you had talent,” Jongin quips.
“Shut up.”
Jinri is sulking because she had been scared out of her mind only twenty minutes ago.
But Soojung and Jongin can’t have that.
Within minutes, Jongin and Soojung are joking around, playfully holding a mirror up to Jinri’s face.
“Mirror mirror on the- damn it, Soojung, the mirror has to be on the wall.” Jongin complains while Soojung rolls her eyes, shaking the mirror that is in front of Jinri’s face.
“Shut up and say the stupid line.”
Jongin sticks his tongue out in a show of maturity but complies.“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all~?’
“Why, is it Jung Soojung?” Soojung acts, tone raised, high and playful.
Jongin puts on a face of disapproval and scoffs in mock disgust. “Dear lord, no.”
Soojung only hits him once before they continue.
“Wasn’t it- who was it again- Snow White?” Jongin pretends to tap his chin, lost in thought.
Soojung makes a ridiculously offended expression and says, “Of course not!”
Jongin, at this point, is pretending to look positively stumped. “Then who?”
“It’s Choi Jinri!” Jongin and Soojung both let out a little cheer and Soojung even waves the mirror in front of Jinri’s face for a little bit.
Jinri wants to cry.
-
Jinri leaves for home a little while after that, feigning sickness.
Choi Jinri, fairest of them all?
She picks at her thigh fat and pokes at her protruding tummy- and even takes it one step further in paining her by walking towards the mirror.
She chances one look at her reflection and scoffs at the sight of her rounded face and imperfect facial features.
Jinri cries to herself as she spends an hour in a her locked bathroom, music drowning out any and all other noise.
-
Jinri contemplates what it would be like to not be overrun by the voices in her head, the harsh side of her conscience that only exists to bring her down.
She wonders what it would be like to wake up one day and have the self-confidence to honestly believe she’s at least half as beautiful as what Jongin and Soojung say..
She contemplates and wonders and thinks and it keeps her up at night, wishing that tomorrow, she might be better to herself.
But it’s harder than it seems, to find the type of self-confidence that has already been so cruelly taken away from her.
Because no matter how hard she wishes, when she wakes up the next day and looks in the mirror, she still sees the same old fat, ugly, and useless Choi Jinri.
“You’re never going to find someone to love you if you look like that.
In the end, all she can do is laugh at her nonsense and wishful thinking.
-
“Draw yourself.” It’s her newest assignment in her drawing class, and the hardest thing she has ever done.
Draw herself?
She can’t possibly do that; she can’t be forced to draw her own imperfections, to ruin her canvas with her own reflection.
She can’t and she won’t.
Not even her canvas deserves that.
-
Jinri turns in a blank canvas.
-
Jongin end up finding out about the self-portrait assignment and asks to see Jinri’s project. She shows him what she turned it. “But you’re more than a blank canvas,” Jongin says, concerned at the lack of self in Jinri’s self- portrait.
Jinri grimaces but tries to pass the whole thing off as a joke. “But doesn’t it kind of look like me?”
“Are you sleeping right now? Or are you under a spell? Because you’re more than nothing.”
“It looks like me!” Jinri huffs; it looks better than what she looks like, in her opinion.
“Do I need to give you a kiss to wake you up?” Jongin teases, tone playful and airy, making a clear reference to the Snow White fairytale.
He doesn’t mean it-
But Jinri half wishes that he did.
-
Jinri becomes more to him than someone who he thought would be his muse. They've long moved passed that part; it is not as important as it had been a couple months ago.
Because Jinri has become a genuine person to him, a friend, someone who he wants to keep in his life.
And while she does inspire him very much like a muse does, she is just so much more that he can't find it in himself to call her just a muse.
It doesn't take long for Jongin to realize that he has fallen in a way that calls for never getting back up.
-
Jongin invites them both out to dinner with a couple other classmates, with Soojung immediately agreeing and Jinri trying to get out of it in every way possible.
In the end, Jongin refuses to take no for an answer.
They have dinner.
After they're done with dinner, Jinri starts looking a little pale; she’s sweating in no time, fidgeting in her seat.
She slips away quietly, not saying a word.
Both Jongin and Soojung notice.
-
Jongin makes her feel weak; so, so weak. Weak to her knees, weak to her heart, weak to the very core of her soul.
And she is, quite honestly, completely horrified.
Jongin is breaking down her walls faster than she can build them up and he is forcing his way into her heart- very much like how he had forced himself into her life- and everything is scaring her.
It is a new experience, knowing that someone wants to get to know her, wants to be friends with her, wants to find out who Choi Jinri really is.
It is, simply put, terrifying- because he’s not like Soojung, in that Soojung and Jinri have grown up together.
She’s not used to people seeing past her facade, wanting to get to know her for who she really is. She doesn’t know if she can handle letting Jongin know who she really is. That is why it is terrifying.
But it might not be the most terrifying part, because perhaps the most terrifying thought of all to Jinri is-
Jinri finds herself wanting to let Jongin in.
-
Soojung is sleeping over at Jinri’s house, having a much needed sleeopver in the name of girl-talk. In between watching dramas and eating a lot of popcorn, Jinri ends up asking, “What do you think about Jongin?”
Soojung can’t fight her smile- she thinks it’s rather adorable that Jinri has brought up Jongin. “He’s alright.”
“That’s it?” Jinri’s tone is accusatory, one that says that can’t be it.
“Well, what do you think about him then?” asks Soojung. They’re having a girl talk over Jongin. This is simply adorable.
“He’s weird,” is Jinri’s flat answer.
“Why is that?”
“He makes me feel tingly and warm,” Jinri admits. “And weak.” Definitely weak.
Soojung cackles at her, making Jinri blink in surprise. She didn't say anything weird, did she? "Stop building on an idea that you're weak because you need him." Okay, maybe she did. "It's called love." Soojung may have called it infatuation beforehand, but their relationship is progressing and Soojung sees the beginning signs of something much deeper than simple liking.
"Love?" Jinri repeats. She goes wide-eyed and slack jawed. It is something she has only thought about in passing about Jongin, but now that Soojung has said it aloud, it makes everything feel much more real.
"Love, Jinri," Soojung says, all-knowing smile on her face. "Love."
-
Jinri wakes up early, having had a horrible time sleeping. She slept fitfully, thinking about Soojung’s words, thoughts mostl going back to Jongin and- she couldn’t be in love with Jongin.
Soojung is still sleeping when Jinri pads into her kitchen; it’s early enough for her parents to still be home. Jinri walks over to the counter and holds a muffin.
Her mother walks in, ready to start the day. "Oh sweetie," her mom coos at her, looking as flawless as usual. "You shouldn't eat that."
Her father comes in, camera in hand, as he swoops in and places a kiss on his wife's cheek. "Hello there, love. Good morning, Jinri."
Jinri can’t help but ask, now that her sleep has been ruined because of the topic. "Dad, how did you know that you loved Mom?"
"Why- one look and I just fell in love." They both share a rather mushy smile which has Jinri feeling something akin to jealousy. She would love to have someone look at her the way her father looks at her mother.
Her father notices what she's holding in her hand and gives the same look of disapproval that his wife had. "Jinri, you're not going to eat that, are you?"
Jinri smiles sadly, shaking her head. "Of course not."
"You shouldn't even be holding it," he sighs. He scurries around, getting ready to go to work. "Take better care of yourself, you're never going to find someone to love you if you look like that."
Jinri ends up throwing the muffin away.
It lands in the garbage- the place where Jinri figures she also belongs.
-
Jinri doesn't deserve Jongin.
Jongin, who has a positive outlook on life, a beautiful smile, and a wonderful personality- "Jongin deserves much better than me- he can get anyone in the world. So why would he settle for me?" Why would he love me?
Jinri can only scoff at herself and try to make the pain in her heart hurt a little less.
-
Jinri goes to school as usual with Soojung, but spends the rest of that night in her locked bedroom.
-
Jongin feels rather philosophical and deep, laying on the ground and pondering the world. In reality, he’s laying in Jinri’s backyard, with Soojung painting Jinri’s decorative garden in the distance. Jinri is sitting next to him quietly.“Tell me one thing about yourself that you normally don’t tell other people.”
“Why?”
“I just want to know more about you.”
Jinri purses her lips. “You tell me something first.” Jongin’s not surprised that she has said this.
Jongin thinks quietly, wondering what to say. “I used to have panic attacks when I was young.” Jongin remembers that unforgettable sense of panic, of being in a spinning room, of not being able to breathe. “They weren’t fun.”
“That sounds pretty private,” Jinri frowns. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because I trust you.”
-
Jinri ends up telling him that she hates looking at herself in the mirror.
It is a secret that only Soojung had known beforehand.
But she returns the trust that Jongin has given her.
-
“Why would you hate looking at yourself in the mirror?” Jinri only half-regrets telling Jongin, now that the boy won’t drop the topic. “You don’t think you’re pretty?”
“Nope,” is her answer. Short and sweet.
Jongin is completely confused.
Jinri is the epitome of ideal korean beauty, with her symmetrical face and unforgettable facial features.
But her physical appearance is not the most beautiful thing about her; it's nowhere near close to what Jongin believes is the most beautiful.
He sees beauty in the kindness of her smile, in the gentleness that is her heart. He honestly cannot believe it. “Why not?”
Jinri opens her mouth to speak, to let her guard down to Jongin once more, but scars run deep- and she finds that she can’t, not entirely. Jinri settles for half of the truth instead. “According to my photographer dad, I don’t have the look to being pretty.” With the look being thin, flawless, and self-confident. Jinri mentally adds.
"That’s stupid,” Jongin blurts without thinking.
Jinri only shrugs. “That’s my dad for you.”
“Your dad is stupid,” Jongin blurts once more without thinking.
Jinri stares at Jongin for a moment, stare absolutely blank, before she laughs.
Jinri laughs, loud and open, for the first time in a long time because of someone not Soojung.
Jongin feels such a rush of pride and warmth that he ends up laughing with her.
-
Soojung finishes her painting and wants in on the joke when she sees them laughing without her.
When Jongin tells her what Jinri has told her, she wants to cry.
Jongin doesn’t know how much it means for Jinri to tell him that.
-
Soojung manages to hold in her tears, but she asks Jongin point blank, “Why do you think I paint Jinri?”
Jinri squeaks, while Jongin looks at Soojung curiously.
“She hates looking at herself- but she can never hate one of my paintings.” Soojung says this with a cheeky smile and Jongin thinks that Soojung is the best friend in the world.
Jinri just blushes.
-
Jongin brings up what Jinri considers a random topic when he’s fiddling with his camera; she’s busy drawing. “Can I meet your parents?”
“No,” is Jinri’s first reaction. Reject first and then ask questions later. She puts down her pencil and sketchpad. “Why?”
Jongin is still fiddling with his camera, refusing to look Jinri in the eye. “I want to tell them they were wrong about not having a beautiful daughter.” But even though he’s not looking at her, the claim is said with a bold confidence that makes all the little butterflies in Jinri’s stomach come to life.
Okay, Jinri tells herself. She might be in love with Jongin.
-
Jongin already knows that he is.
-
Jinri's eyes sing and dance with words and feelings that she will only ever feel for Kim Jongin.
-
For Jongin, Jinri spends more time than ever in a locked bathroom.
-
Jinri has taken to extra time in a locked bathroom, but someone walks in on her one day, with Jinri hunched over a toilet.
Jinri realizes that she wasn't careful enough, that she has now been caught. She vaguely thinks that she locked the door, but maybe she hadn’t?
She hears a tiny little horrified squeak of shock- and Jinri belatedly realizes that it is Soojung who has found her.
-
The implication of what Jinri had been doing is clearly there, with the knowledge now fully out in the open. Because what else would she be doing in a bathroom alone, when everyone else is supposed to be in class, right after lunch?
Everything clicks for Soojung in the moment; how little Jinri eats, how she always disappears after a meal, how she hates looking at herself.
“Bulimia?” she whispers, more for her than for Jinri. Jinri’s bulimic. Has been, for god knows how long.
"Soojung, don't tell anyone. Please, you can't tell anyone. Don’t tell my parents." This is her dirty little secret- and she wants to keep it that way. So she begs and she pleads and Soojung is crying. Her best friend is confused and scared and Jinri feels so guilty for making Soojung cry like this- but all she can say is, "Please don't tell anyone, please." With a gasp, she adds on to her plea. “Don’t tell Jongin, please.” She repeats it, like a mantra, with hysteria building up in her throat, making the plea turn into a desperate shriek. “Don’t tell Jongin.”
And all Soojung does is let more tears fall, saying nothing. She promises nothing.
Her silence is weighted and heavy, a silence that shakes the core of Jinri's soul.
Because now Jinri is scared- her secret is out, and she is terrified out of her mind.
-
Soojung can’t say that she has never had her speculations about Jinri, about why she hates looking at herself so much. She knew she hated looking at her reflection, but to know that she throws up after each meal to make herself skinner when she is perfectly fine and beautiful-
To know that Jinri has withheld this information from her best friend is what hurts the most, what stings her best friend pride.
It doesn’t make the knowledge any easier to handle.
-
Jongin finds Jinri shaking and in tears, sitting outside in the courtyard. He had gone out looking for her when she didn’t come back to class; Soojung didn’t either.
"Jinri, why are you crying?” He’s immediately alarmed and rushing over to her, throwing an arm over her slight frame. I'm here, Jinri. Don’t cry, I'm right here." He thinks about what would make her outright sob like this, but can’t think of anything.
The initial horror has faded and now reality is setting in, with both the repercussions of what has happened and her actions coming into light. “Soojung- Soojung is going to hate me.”
“Why would she hate you?” Jongin’s rightfully confused; Soojung is her best friend. Why would she hate her?
“Because I lied to her, because I’m stupid, and ugly and-”
“Shut up,” Jongin responds, tone flat and irritated. "Don't ever feel like you're less than what you are.” Jinri is beautiful.
“I’m horrible, I’m the worst person.” Jinri babbles on, unable to stop. “Soojung hates me, she should hate me.”
"Why are you being so hard on yourself right now?” Jongin asks, frustrated. His tone is angry but his eyes are kind and he just wants to know what the hell is going on.
Jinri looks into Jongin’s eyes and sees so much affection for her that she just breaks; she’s been emotionally compromised, has been since she was thirteen. And that type of break has been overdue for a long time. So she babbles and explains, tells Jongin how ugly she is, how Soojung will hate her- but doesn’t tell him what Soojung has seen.
Jongin takes to her explanation the best he can, but a frown is obviously on his face. "Every single mean thing those stupid voices in your head have told you? Either throw them away or change them and make them like you instead."
"I can't just throw them away.” She would if she could, but she can’t.
"Fine, then make them like you instead.” Jongin is defiant, willing Jinri to listen to his words. “Make them like you how much I like you- and then you'll really see how beautiful you are."
Jinri scoffs, finding no comfort in Jongin’s words. “That’s the problem, Jongin- I’m not beautiful in the slightest.”
“Being beautiful isn’t about having a pretty face- even if you do one. Being beautiful is about having a pretty heart, a pretty mind, and a pretty, pretty soul.” Jongin’s never tried so hard to convince someone before that what he is saying is truth.
Jinri wonders if Jongin would still think she’s beautiful if he knew what she does to herself.
-
“So,” Jongin breaks the awkward tension as casually as he can. “Jinri thinks you hate her.” But maybe Jongin could use a couple lessons in actually sounding casual.
Soojung glares at him, willing him away with the fierceness of his stare.
It doesn’t work, so Soojung talks instead.
“Jinri has a little secret, one that she thinks no one will ever know about. She thinks that no one will ever try to look past the surface and that hurts me.” Soojung feels angry and bitter, heart hurting with a strong sense of betrayal.
“She thinks of herself as a pretty little painting- a portrait, if you will. She always tells me that you never really know what’s going on in a painting, especially when a picture is taken at surface value and judged at a glance. I’m a painter, you know." Jongin is very much aware. "Imagine how much it hurts hearing that all the time.”
Jinri’s words from their first meeting ring in Jongin’s head and he starts to feel slightly sick.
“Imagine how much it hurts for my best friend to not trust me, to always tell me that I’ll never be able to see her.”
Soojung hasn’t promised silence, and when she tells Jongin what Jinri does to herself- because if anyone can make a difference to Jinri, it’s Jongin.
So she tells him everything, all her theories, her speculations, what she has seen- what her parents both do.
When she tells him, his blood runs cold.
-
A confrontation is obvious.
Jongin waits in front of her house until she lets him in and starts talking the moment she closes her front door.
"Please stop hurting yourself." Jongin is pleading with her, sincerely asking her to do this one thing for him.
In that moment, Jinri knows that Jongin knows. She swallows thickly, but can’t find it in herself to be mad at Soojung. She promised her nothing, probably only told Jongin because she cares. The problem is that Jinri doesn't know how to stop- doesn't even know if she wants to stop.
“I can’t,” she mumbles.
Jongin paces around before pointing to the closest mirror, trying to make her see what she sees. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
“Jongin-”
“Look at the mirror.”
And Jinri looks. “I see an ugly little girl who is never going to find someone who loves her." She says what she has known as truth all this while, the truth that is marred and bent and so, so fickle.
“Want to know what I see? I see a beautiful young girl who is lost and filled with preconceived notions of beauty- notions that do not and never will make sense.” She tears, trying to make herself believe what he’s saying, but it’s hard.
“And Soojung will never hate you,” Jongin says, voice soft but filled with so much anger.
Jinri cries.
-
Jinri ends up going to Soojung’s house, at her own insistence. She left to go to Soojung a little after Jongin left her house.
She walks in with the key that Soojung had given her with trust- trust that she has misplaced, but she is trying to fix that now.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Jinri says this as she tries to hold back her own tears, immediately finding Soojung and moving to hug her. She has never been much of a crier, but seeing the betrayed face on Soojung's face- that has her emotional walls breaking down around her as she tries to make things right. "I didn't want you to know how ugly I was, I didn't want you to think that I'm a horrible person or anything." She's babbling excuses, all things that she sees as the truth. "I didn't want you to be ashamed of me, but Soojung, I-"
Soojung cuts her off, lip trembling as she tries not to cry. "I've always seen you for what you are- and you are nothing short of beautiful."
-
Jinri allows Soojung to drag her to the doctor's where they tell her that the damage she has done to her body is bad, but mendable.
But it shouldn't be too much of a problem if she starts taking care of herself now.
-
So they take care of her to the best of their abilities and remind her every single day that she’s beautiful and precious.
-
They think she's on the mend.
Even Jinri thinks she is.
-
Jongin and Soojung will soon learn that optimism, when it comes crashing down, hurts like nothing else in this world.
-
One moment, they’re just talking, walking home. The next, Jinri’s eyes flutter to a close and she drops forward.
Jinri hits the floor and Jongin is there in an instant. “I thought she was getting better, what's happening?"
"Electrolyte deficiency,” Soojung mumbles. “It happens when you’ve been bulimic for a while.” Because yes, Soojung has read up on it. For Jinri. "It can make you faint."
With an alarmed sense of panic, checks for breathing and- “She’s not breathing.”
Soojung recognizes the signs, vaguely recalls the random articles she has read in passing. And now she is terrified. Because she knows. “She’s going into cardiac arrest,” Soojung cries out, feeling tears prick in the corner of her eyes. She drops to the floor, getting ready to help in the only way she thinks will work.
He takes a step back to give Soojung room; Jongin takes out his phone with trembling fingers, instinctively calling the emergency number. With quick, shortened, and panicked breaths, he manages to tell the operator where they are and that, “Jinri needs help, she needs help, she’s not breathing, please come quickly.”
Soojung tries to compress Jinri’s chest, pushing down and trying to help in any way possible. She’s trying to save her, trying to keep her life. Because Soojung is aware of the dangers of Jinri not getting help in time. She knows and she refuses to let those dangers come alive.
She knows Jinri can’t fight for her life right now, but that’s fine. If Jinri can’t Soojung will- through panic and tears and “Choi Jinri, you can’t. Don’t do this to me, don’t leave me.”
Jongin feels a bubbling sense of hysteria and the whole area is suddenly spinning. “Jinri,” he mumbles. He’s gulping down air is fast as he can, but it does nothing to calm his nerves. Instead, it seems to have the opposite effect and the room is still spinning around him, even as he focuses on Jinri’s writhing figure. He’s crawling, padding towards her, but by now, he can’t breathe properly and the hysteria is still so there and-
-
“You had a panic attack,” the nurse tells him. Jongin blinks at her when he comes to. At least they made it to the hospital, if the settings are anything to go by.
"I haven't had one since I was a child," he ends up telling the nurse. “When my mom died,” he adds. It’s like an omen, that he’s had one now. "They're not fun."
-
All Jinri can really remember thinking is, “please, not like this, just not like this,”- but even so, it has happened.
Her mind is trapped in itself and she finds that there is no way out.
-
They’re in the waiting room. Soojung looks haggard and Jongin almost looks worse.
"We're sorry, but there is nothing more I can do." It is a horrible opening statement, but this doctor isn’t much for pleasantries and sugar coating.
Jongin automatically assumes the worst. "What do you mean there is nothing more you can do?" He feels like the room is closing in on him, like he is being suffocated. “You’re a doctor, you’re supposed to be able to save her.” Jinri can’t be gone. She can’t.
Soojung starts shaking from besides him- and honestly, he understands.
"Given the nature of her," The doctor pauses, as if he remembers that he must at least try and sound sympathetic. "Condition, going through cardiac arrest wasn't exactly unexpected." Soojung “But it’s a good thing you two acted when you did- she could have died without the resuscitation. We’re trying to stabilize her condition as much as possible, but we can’t do much now that she has slipped into a coma."
A coma. A fucking coma.
But it’s okay because being in a coma still means that Jinri is alive- and that she has a chance.
“So she’s alive?” Soojung breathes out a shaky sigh of relief, looking happier than she had mere moments ago. She wipes the stray tears in her eyes and asks, “When can we see her?”
“Unfortunately, not right now.” It doesn’t sound very unfortunate, from his tone. Jongin hates this man. The doctor looks at his clipboard with a grim frown. He needs to finish this talk immediately. "I am going to be honest with you both. I know you might not appreciate it now, but it’s always better to know the truth. Realistically, her chance of survival is really low." He gives them a pitying look, one that is obviously comes off as half-assed sympathy. “Don’t be surprised if your friend doesn’t make it.”
-
Jongin has to bodily hold Soojung down after the doctor says cold words of astute truth- Soojung is angry, livid even. Because how dare he assume that Jinri is not going to make it, that she is going to be taken from them. How fucking dare he.
There’s a snarl that escapes from Soojung’s throat and that’s the only warning that both Jongin and the doctor get before she lunges, heated by the uncaring words from the person who is supposed to save her best friend.
Jongin stops her, picks her up right out of the air, and struggles with her; she fights against his hold as the doctor walks away like he had not been almost attacked. Like nothing had happened.
And Jongin lets him walk away because angry as he also is, he is not going to get kicked out of this hospital for attacking a doctor.
Not when Jinri still needs him.
-
The pain that he feels when he looks at Jinri laying motionless on a hospital bed is nothing like what he has felt before; it is a telling feeling, one that is shouting at him. "When you wake up, I'm going to tell you that I love you.” It’s a promise, one that Jongin intends to keep.
-
Days go by with no change.
-
It’s like Jinri can hear what’s around her, but not really.
She can hear bits and parts and she thinks she hears Soojung singing to her and Jongin telling her stories.
Jinri feels happy with that.
-
But even if she’s happy, it is hard to keep trying, to keep fighting.
-
Her parents visit her sparsely, she thinks. But she hears them loud and clear when they do.
“Ugly until the end,” she hears her dad mumble. She hears the click of a camera and then nothing else.
No one, not even her nurse, notices the stray tear that falls.
-
It’s lonely, being left alone and only having your own thoughts as company.
And not for the first time, Jinri wonders what it would be like for all the pain to go away. For all the thoughts to cease, to never feel ugly and useless again.
And as she wonders, she doesn’t necessarily realize it, but Jinri does one specific thing.
Jinri stops fighting it.
-
Her heartbeat is erratic and the monitor starts going crazy. Jongin and Soojung fight past an array of nurses to get to Jinri; they’ve left the hospital very little in the time that Jinri has been admitted. It has been a week, and this is the first change since then.
“She’s convulsing,” someone shouts. Jongin thinks it’s a nurse.
He grabs onto her hand like that will give her a lifeline. “Please, Jinri. Please.” He feels it in his core, that something tragic is about to happen, that something is going to break him. “You have to stay with us, you have to stay with me.”
He has never begged so hard for anything, has never needed to, and will never need to again. But in this instance, everything that he is goes into asking her to stay with him, for a chance at a life together.
“You’re beautiful and I love you and I want to spend more time with you.”
He begs for more time, just a little longer. He begs for her to be able to come out of this, for him to be able to see those bright, bright eyes again, for Choi Jinri to live.
He hasn’t known her for long, but she has come to mean so much. Regardless, time matters little when it comes to matters of the heart, and his heart is saying that he wants nothing more than for her to open her beautiful eyes and give him that gentle smile.
“I love you, please, you’re beautiful, let me tell you that you’re beautiful, Jinri.”
That is all he wants, all that he is pleading for. Because he wants more time with her, so badly craves for it.
But time is not what they have.
Her hand drops from his and the flatlined beeping is the loudest thing that Jongin hears in his life.
-
Jongin wakes up to muffled noises and conversations; he doesn’t even remember going to sleep in the first place.
“You fainted,” Soojung tells him.
“Oh,” he mutters. And then he realizes why he fainted in the first place and he shoots up, erratic. “jinri? What about Jinri? Did I dream that?” He’s staring at Soojung, already back on the border of hysteria. “Please tell me I dreamt that.”
“That was not a dream.” Soojung’s face is hard, set in stone as she tries not to break- but he can see that it is a battle she is quickly losing. “It was not a dream,” she repeats. But now it’s more for herself than for Jongin, more as a way to let it sink in, to make herself believe it.
-
Jongin doesn’t know what to do, only lets his heart hurt in the way that tells him that his heart is crying.
So Jongin follows his heart.
He cries.
-
Jongin finally meets her parents; they both look too stoic for two people who have just lost their baby girl.
He can’t help but blurt the question, with emotions running high and word filter already long gone. Jongin looks up at Jinri's parents, eyes red-rimmed and tear streaks apparent. There are no tears to be found on their faces. “Do you even care that your daughter died?”
“Silly girl,” Jongin hears her father mutter. “Who dies of bulimia?”
All Jongin feels in that instance is anger. “Choi Jinri was a beautiful person. It is a shame that you made her believe otherwise.”
-
He doesn’t get to say one last goodbye, doesn’t get to have at least one ounce of closure, doesn’t even get to see her one last time.
He gets nothing.
Nothing.
-
Jongin never gets to tell Jinri he loves her.
-
Soojung goes home that night, eyes tired from crying but soul still hysterically wailing and lamenting for the love that she had just lost.
Because Soojung sincerely loved Jinri in the way that only a best friend can sincerely love you.
And with that love, Soojung will always bear the weight of knowing her best friend has died for reasons of the mind, for fallacies that only negative thoughts and ridiculous expectations could bring. Soojung will always have pain in her heart for the beautiful soul that was Choi Jinri.
She lost not only a friend, but also a sister that night. She lost someone who she would give the world, who she cherished more than anyone else in this world.
She only wished that Jinri could have shared everything with her, that she could have helped her more.
A piece of her heart will always belong to Choi Jinri; it is a piece that will forever know love for the best friend who undeservingly had her life taken away.
-
Jung Soojung will always remember Choi Jinri.
-
He walks into his home, feeling drained and emotionally depleted.
Jongin walks quietly to his room and his attention is easily captured by the reflective glass that’s attached to his door. “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” he asks, tone bitter and quiet.
There is no answer and he certainly wasn’t expecting one.
He sits in silence, unable to do anything but stare at his own reflection.
The anger builds slowly, looking at the piece of glass like it has personally wronged him- though, in a way, he guesses that it has. Because the mirror is the one who has betrayed Jinri, and that is a direct betrayal to Jongin.
He can’t stand the silence when the answer to his question is right on the tip of his tongue; it always has been, since the day he met her.
It’s a harsh whisper, one filled with so much truth and anger and hurt. “Choi Jinri.”
Her name echoes, loud and clear in the silence.
“Choi Jinri.”
Silence is all that he hears in return, with no Jinri to teasingly slap at him, with no Jinri he gets to see blush, with no Jinri and her amazing smile. There’s just silence.
It’s practically deafening.
-
Jongin has realized just how precious life is, how easy it is for someone to be there one moment, and then gone the next- never to be heard again. Never to be seen again. Never to live again.
And in realizing that, he has also become well acquainted with regret, with not getting to do or say the things that needed to be said or to do the things he so desperately wishes he could do now.
So he continues on with his life, living life to the fullest. He does so, mostly out of fear.
Of having the same thing happen to him once more; he has enough regret to last him a whole lifetime- and someone else's, as well.
It’s hard, on most days. And excruciatingly numb on the days where it’s not. But he keeps at it and moves on, the remembrance of Jinri’s beautiful smile giving him enough strength to move through the days.
Because he thinks about what would happen if their positions were switched, if he were to die. Jongin is empathetic, always has been. It comes with being a good judge of character; so when he thinks about how Jinri would react, how heartbreaking it would be to see her cry like how he had over their mutual loss- with her life and the love of his life-
He thinks about how he would never want to put anyone through the pain that comes with death, the pain that Jinri has unknowingly inflicted on him.
And so Jongin lives on. In body and in mind, but not quite in soul. His emotional scars never fully heal.
Because Jinri has taken a piece of him, a piece of his heart, that he will never- and can never- get back.
-
Kim Jongin will always love Choi Jinri.
-
A fairy tale is, by definition, something that denotes of magical, idealized happiness. It is a story of bliss, of happily ever after’s.
There are many different kinds, spanning from the many people that want them.
Not every girl wishes for a fairy tale, but in this case- Choi Jinri definitely did.
She had wished to live out a normal life, to be able to grow old and healthy with loved ones, to eventually be able to conquer her own demons.
She wished for a life where Jung Soojung would always be her best friend.
She even wished for a life with Jongin, in the long run. To be able to say that she loves him, to get married one day, to have the whole cliche love story.
-
Choi Jinri never got that fairytale.
-end.
A/N: with this, i have killed off two of my top female biases in two separate fics. if i can kill of jungli, i can kill off anyone.
thanks for reading! ;)
-
Jongin is with them the next lunch break, concern for Jinri’s prior behavior overriding the need to play soccer with Luhan. He’s fresh out of a Moral Ethics class and his brain is active with all these theories and stories and he starts by announcing, “My teacher is the spawn of Satan.”
Soojung and Jinri gives one glance to Jongin and then turn back to each other to continue their conversation. Jongin is flatly ignored- and he can’t have that, now can he? “No, I’m serious, I’m a pretty good judge of character, you know.”
Jinri decides to amuse Jongin and play along with his statement. “A good judge of character? You?”
“The best,” he smirks. It takes all that Soojung is to not throw a piece of kimchi at Jongin’s overconfident face.
“Really? And what would you say about me?” Jinri asks out of pure curiosity. She wants to know what he thinks about her, even if she normally doesn’t find herself caring about what other’s think. But Jongin has become important to her and that means that his opinion is important as well.
There is a teasing, playful grin that settles on Jongin’s lips, but his words are laced with sincerity. “I think you’re beautiful.”
Soojung lets out a little squeal and Jinri ends up covering her face with her hands.
His words shake Jinri more than she would like to admit.
-
Jinri walks to the bathroom during the period after lunch, when everyone should be in class.
-
It’s rare when Jinri decides to stay back a little while to finish one of her sketches, but when it happens, Soojung and Jongin usually wait outside the school gate for her; it has become a tradition of sorts to always walk home together. Jongin and Soojung wait in peaceful silence under a rather aesthetically pleasing tree for close to five minutes before Soojung voices what has been on her mind all this while. “You like her.” She says the statement, short and sweet, with the teasing implication hanging heavily in the air.
If Jongin had been drinking anything, he would have surely spit it out in an over dramatic fashion- but because he’s not, he merely chuckles nervously. “What are you talking about, I don’t like anyone.”
Soojung just laughs, patronizing as she taps Jongin’s cheek playfully. “You’ve liked Jinri since day one.”
“No?” He sounds even more unsure the second time he denies it.
Soojung nods, as if she accepts his reasoning, but her words say the exact opposite. “Tell me, Jongin. Have you ever sat next to me for anything?”
He opens his mouth to respond, to argue with her, but- no, no he hasn’t. “And tell me something else, Jongin. Have you ever tried to go out of your way to make anyone else smile- and have you ever sincerely called someone else beautiful in the way that you call Jinri beautiful?”
Jongin, to his own credit, doesn’t keel over and die from embarrassment. He just feels all the blood rush to his face and has to bury his face into his hands so that he’s not looking at Soojung.
Soojung continues, undeterred. “Because if you do, then I guess we have a problem here.”
He can barely keep staring at her, not even bothering to keep up any form of denial; not when Soojung is so sure that she knows. And she does, indeed, know.
“But we don’t have a problem, now do we?”
He feels small, like a child, when he looks into Soojung’s knowing eyes.
-
Jongin feels for Jinri something that he doesn’t feel for anyone else in this world.
He feels something inexplicable when he sees her smile, when she beams at him, when she quietly but honestly sasses him, when she concentrates on her work quietly, when she- when she does anything, really.
And when he ends up telling Soojung all of this, Soojung only lets out a content sigh and pats herself on the back.
From the moment Jongin asked her about Jinri, she knew something was there.
-
When Jinri eventually walks out to meet up with Jongin and Jinri, she doesn’t ask why Jongin is so red in the face and why Soojung is grinning from ear to ear.
-
Something that has bothered Jongin in the past suddenly seems to resurface when he’s walking along the halls and he sees a very familiar trio of girls. He turns on his heels and stops Soojung short. “Okay seriously- what is the deal with Jinri and that group of art girls?”
Soojung blinks in surprise. “You still haven’t asked?” They’ve gotten close, knowing each other for several months now. She figured he had already asked.
“Never got around to it,” Jongin shrugs. “And they don’t bother Jinri anymore, so I just forgot until now.”
Soojung purses her lips and figures that it wouldn’t hurt to tell Jongin. They’re close enough so that it doesn’t matter anymore- back then, she hadn’t known that Jongin would become a such fixture to them both, but now that he has, it seems useless to withhold information. “Well, back in middle school, Jinri won a contest.”
“Because Jinri is awesome,” Jongin supplies.
“Yes, because she is awesome,” Soojung agrees.”And there was contest money involved and a scholarship to some fancy pants place, but-”
“But she turned it down?” That’s Jongin’s educated guess, seeing as how he still goes to school with Jinri.
“Yeah, and the people that bullied her didn’t like that,” Soojung scoffs. “Jinri turned it down because she said someone needs this more than her, that someone else will appreciate it more, and that she’s okay with going to school in the area.”
He sees her act as one of selflessness, of sincerity. The story warms Jongin to the core, makes him unconsciously smile when he thinks about her kind heart.
“The perks of being in an art high school,” Jongin hums.
-
Jongin brings up the bullying topic with Jinri a little later. Soojung is off on her own, wooing some upperclassman named Lee Taemin. Jinri high-fived her for good luck beforehand. “You’re much stronger than people give you credit for.” Jongin says this, solemn and sincere; Jinri can’t help but blink in surprise because-
“Where is this coming from?”
He ignores her question in favor of asking another. “Didn’t any of the bullying get to you?”
Oh. So that is what this is about.
“I said it last time, but they never knew how to make it hurt,” is Jinri’s simple answer.
Jinri knows this because of experience.
She knows what it takes to make it hurt.
-
“You’ll never have someone love you if you look like this.”
She knows.
She hears it loud and clear, each and every single day.
-
When Jinri looks at Jongin, she feels something stirring in the depths of her heart, something that she thinks she shouldn’t be feeling.
And when Jinri looks at that smile he always gives her, she feels warmth.
-
Jongin has asked Jinri out.
But no one should get excited, because he asked Soojung to come as well. Soojung is exceptionally disappointed with this.
But his reason behind this is that he needs to go take pictures at the nearby lake and it’s funner to go with more people.
And it’s all fun and games until Jongin tries to feed the ducks.
They’re flapping around, waddling, and rushing towards the resident bread crumb holder.
Calm and cool Jinri is suddenly shrieking, nonchalance nowhere to be found.
Jinri is afraid of ducks.
And that is the cutest fucking thing to Jongin.
In seeing her fear, Jinri seems more tangible as a person, more real.
More lovable.
-
After the whole duck fiasco, in which Jongin had heroically tried to save Jinri from the ducks (“You summoned them in the first place!”), they decide to rest at Soojung’s house.
Soojung is currently holding a mirror to her face, taking out stray duck feathers. “The one that jumped you had talent,” Jongin quips.
“Shut up.”
Jinri is sulking because she had been scared out of her mind only twenty minutes ago.
But Soojung and Jongin can’t have that.
Within minutes, Jongin and Soojung are joking around, playfully holding a mirror up to Jinri’s face.
“Mirror mirror on the- damn it, Soojung, the mirror has to be on the wall.” Jongin complains while Soojung rolls her eyes, shaking the mirror that is in front of Jinri’s face.
“Shut up and say the stupid line.”
Jongin sticks his tongue out in a show of maturity but complies.“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all~?’
“Why, is it Jung Soojung?” Soojung acts, tone raised, high and playful.
Jongin puts on a face of disapproval and scoffs in mock disgust. “Dear lord, no.”
Soojung only hits him once before they continue.
“Wasn’t it- who was it again- Snow White?” Jongin pretends to tap his chin, lost in thought.
Soojung makes a ridiculously offended expression and says, “Of course not!”
Jongin, at this point, is pretending to look positively stumped. “Then who?”
“It’s Choi Jinri!” Jongin and Soojung both let out a little cheer and Soojung even waves the mirror in front of Jinri’s face for a little bit.
Jinri wants to cry.
-
Jinri leaves for home a little while after that, feigning sickness.
Choi Jinri, fairest of them all?
She picks at her thigh fat and pokes at her protruding tummy- and even takes it one step further in paining her by walking towards the mirror.
She chances one look at her reflection and scoffs at the sight of her rounded face and imperfect facial features.
Jinri cries to herself as she spends an hour in a her locked bathroom, music drowning out any and all other noise.
-
Jinri contemplates what it would be like to not be overrun by the voices in her head, the harsh side of her conscience that only exists to bring her down.
She wonders what it would be like to wake up one day and have the self-confidence to honestly believe she’s at least half as beautiful as what Jongin and Soojung say..
She contemplates and wonders and thinks and it keeps her up at night, wishing that tomorrow, she might be better to herself.
But it’s harder than it seems, to find the type of self-confidence that has already been so cruelly taken away from her.
Because no matter how hard she wishes, when she wakes up the next day and looks in the mirror, she still sees the same old fat, ugly, and useless Choi Jinri.
“You’re never going to find someone to love you if you look like that.
In the end, all she can do is laugh at her nonsense and wishful thinking.
-
“Draw yourself.” It’s her newest assignment in her drawing class, and the hardest thing she has ever done.
Draw herself?
She can’t possibly do that; she can’t be forced to draw her own imperfections, to ruin her canvas with her own reflection.
She can’t and she won’t.
Not even her canvas deserves that.
-
Jinri turns in a blank canvas.
-
Jongin end up finding out about the self-portrait assignment and asks to see Jinri’s project. She shows him what she turned it. “But you’re more than a blank canvas,” Jongin says, concerned at the lack of self in Jinri’s self- portrait.
Jinri grimaces but tries to pass the whole thing off as a joke. “But doesn’t it kind of look like me?”
“Are you sleeping right now? Or are you under a spell? Because you’re more than nothing.”
“It looks like me!” Jinri huffs; it looks better than what she looks like, in her opinion.
“Do I need to give you a kiss to wake you up?” Jongin teases, tone playful and airy, making a clear reference to the Snow White fairytale.
He doesn’t mean it-
But Jinri half wishes that he did.
-
Jinri becomes more to him than someone who he thought would be his muse. They've long moved passed that part; it is not as important as it had been a couple months ago.
Because Jinri has become a genuine person to him, a friend, someone who he wants to keep in his life.
And while she does inspire him very much like a muse does, she is just so much more that he can't find it in himself to call her just a muse.
It doesn't take long for Jongin to realize that he has fallen in a way that calls for never getting back up.
-
Jongin invites them both out to dinner with a couple other classmates, with Soojung immediately agreeing and Jinri trying to get out of it in every way possible.
In the end, Jongin refuses to take no for an answer.
They have dinner.
After they're done with dinner, Jinri starts looking a little pale; she’s sweating in no time, fidgeting in her seat.
She slips away quietly, not saying a word.
Both Jongin and Soojung notice.
-
Jongin makes her feel weak; so, so weak. Weak to her knees, weak to her heart, weak to the very core of her soul.
And she is, quite honestly, completely horrified.
Jongin is breaking down her walls faster than she can build them up and he is forcing his way into her heart- very much like how he had forced himself into her life- and everything is scaring her.
It is a new experience, knowing that someone wants to get to know her, wants to be friends with her, wants to find out who Choi Jinri really is.
It is, simply put, terrifying- because he’s not like Soojung, in that Soojung and Jinri have grown up together.
She’s not used to people seeing past her facade, wanting to get to know her for who she really is. She doesn’t know if she can handle letting Jongin know who she really is. That is why it is terrifying.
But it might not be the most terrifying part, because perhaps the most terrifying thought of all to Jinri is-
Jinri finds herself wanting to let Jongin in.
-
Soojung is sleeping over at Jinri’s house, having a much needed sleeopver in the name of girl-talk. In between watching dramas and eating a lot of popcorn, Jinri ends up asking, “What do you think about Jongin?”
Soojung can’t fight her smile- she thinks it’s rather adorable that Jinri has brought up Jongin. “He’s alright.”
“That’s it?” Jinri’s tone is accusatory, one that says that can’t be it.
“Well, what do you think about him then?” asks Soojung. They’re having a girl talk over Jongin. This is simply adorable.
“He’s weird,” is Jinri’s flat answer.
“Why is that?”
“He makes me feel tingly and warm,” Jinri admits. “And weak.” Definitely weak.
Soojung cackles at her, making Jinri blink in surprise. She didn't say anything weird, did she? "Stop building on an idea that you're weak because you need him." Okay, maybe she did. "It's called love." Soojung may have called it infatuation beforehand, but their relationship is progressing and Soojung sees the beginning signs of something much deeper than simple liking.
"Love?" Jinri repeats. She goes wide-eyed and slack jawed. It is something she has only thought about in passing about Jongin, but now that Soojung has said it aloud, it makes everything feel much more real.
"Love, Jinri," Soojung says, all-knowing smile on her face. "Love."
-
Jinri wakes up early, having had a horrible time sleeping. She slept fitfully, thinking about Soojung’s words, thoughts mostl going back to Jongin and- she couldn’t be in love with Jongin.
Soojung is still sleeping when Jinri pads into her kitchen; it’s early enough for her parents to still be home. Jinri walks over to the counter and holds a muffin.
Her mother walks in, ready to start the day. "Oh sweetie," her mom coos at her, looking as flawless as usual. "You shouldn't eat that."
Her father comes in, camera in hand, as he swoops in and places a kiss on his wife's cheek. "Hello there, love. Good morning, Jinri."
Jinri can’t help but ask, now that her sleep has been ruined because of the topic. "Dad, how did you know that you loved Mom?"
"Why- one look and I just fell in love." They both share a rather mushy smile which has Jinri feeling something akin to jealousy. She would love to have someone look at her the way her father looks at her mother.
Her father notices what she's holding in her hand and gives the same look of disapproval that his wife had. "Jinri, you're not going to eat that, are you?"
Jinri smiles sadly, shaking her head. "Of course not."
"You shouldn't even be holding it," he sighs. He scurries around, getting ready to go to work. "Take better care of yourself, you're never going to find someone to love you if you look like that."
Jinri ends up throwing the muffin away.
It lands in the garbage- the place where Jinri figures she also belongs.
-
Jinri doesn't deserve Jongin.
Jongin, who has a positive outlook on life, a beautiful smile, and a wonderful personality- "Jongin deserves much better than me- he can get anyone in the world. So why would he settle for me?" Why would he love me?
Jinri can only scoff at herself and try to make the pain in her heart hurt a little less.
-
Jinri goes to school as usual with Soojung, but spends the rest of that night in her locked bedroom.
-
Jongin feels rather philosophical and deep, laying on the ground and pondering the world. In reality, he’s laying in Jinri’s backyard, with Soojung painting Jinri’s decorative garden in the distance. Jinri is sitting next to him quietly.“Tell me one thing about yourself that you normally don’t tell other people.”
“Why?”
“I just want to know more about you.”
Jinri purses her lips. “You tell me something first.” Jongin’s not surprised that she has said this.
Jongin thinks quietly, wondering what to say. “I used to have panic attacks when I was young.” Jongin remembers that unforgettable sense of panic, of being in a spinning room, of not being able to breathe. “They weren’t fun.”
“That sounds pretty private,” Jinri frowns. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because I trust you.”
-
Jinri ends up telling him that she hates looking at herself in the mirror.
It is a secret that only Soojung had known beforehand.
But she returns the trust that Jongin has given her.
-
“Why would you hate looking at yourself in the mirror?” Jinri only half-regrets telling Jongin, now that the boy won’t drop the topic. “You don’t think you’re pretty?”
“Nope,” is her answer. Short and sweet.
Jongin is completely confused.
Jinri is the epitome of ideal korean beauty, with her symmetrical face and unforgettable facial features.
But her physical appearance is not the most beautiful thing about her; it's nowhere near close to what Jongin believes is the most beautiful.
He sees beauty in the kindness of her smile, in the gentleness that is her heart. He honestly cannot believe it. “Why not?”
Jinri opens her mouth to speak, to let her guard down to Jongin once more, but scars run deep- and she finds that she can’t, not entirely. Jinri settles for half of the truth instead. “According to my photographer dad, I don’t have the look to being pretty.” With the look being thin, flawless, and self-confident. Jinri mentally adds.
"That’s stupid,” Jongin blurts without thinking.
Jinri only shrugs. “That’s my dad for you.”
“Your dad is stupid,” Jongin blurts once more without thinking.
Jinri stares at Jongin for a moment, stare absolutely blank, before she laughs.
Jinri laughs, loud and open, for the first time in a long time because of someone not Soojung.
Jongin feels such a rush of pride and warmth that he ends up laughing with her.
-
Soojung finishes her painting and wants in on the joke when she sees them laughing without her.
When Jongin tells her what Jinri has told her, she wants to cry.
Jongin doesn’t know how much it means for Jinri to tell him that.
-
Soojung manages to hold in her tears, but she asks Jongin point blank, “Why do you think I paint Jinri?”
Jinri squeaks, while Jongin looks at Soojung curiously.
“She hates looking at herself- but she can never hate one of my paintings.” Soojung says this with a cheeky smile and Jongin thinks that Soojung is the best friend in the world.
Jinri just blushes.
-
Jongin brings up what Jinri considers a random topic when he’s fiddling with his camera; she’s busy drawing. “Can I meet your parents?”
“No,” is Jinri’s first reaction. Reject first and then ask questions later. She puts down her pencil and sketchpad. “Why?”
Jongin is still fiddling with his camera, refusing to look Jinri in the eye. “I want to tell them they were wrong about not having a beautiful daughter.” But even though he’s not looking at her, the claim is said with a bold confidence that makes all the little butterflies in Jinri’s stomach come to life.
Okay, Jinri tells herself. She might be in love with Jongin.
-
Jongin already knows that he is.
-
Jinri's eyes sing and dance with words and feelings that she will only ever feel for Kim Jongin.
-
For Jongin, Jinri spends more time than ever in a locked bathroom.
-
Jinri has taken to extra time in a locked bathroom, but someone walks in on her one day, with Jinri hunched over a toilet.
Jinri realizes that she wasn't careful enough, that she has now been caught. She vaguely thinks that she locked the door, but maybe she hadn’t?
She hears a tiny little horrified squeak of shock- and Jinri belatedly realizes that it is Soojung who has found her.
-
The implication of what Jinri had been doing is clearly there, with the knowledge now fully out in the open. Because what else would she be doing in a bathroom alone, when everyone else is supposed to be in class, right after lunch?
Everything clicks for Soojung in the moment; how little Jinri eats, how she always disappears after a meal, how she hates looking at herself.
“Bulimia?” she whispers, more for her than for Jinri. Jinri’s bulimic. Has been, for god knows how long.
"Soojung, don't tell anyone. Please, you can't tell anyone. Don’t tell my parents." This is her dirty little secret- and she wants to keep it that way. So she begs and she pleads and Soojung is crying. Her best friend is confused and scared and Jinri feels so guilty for making Soojung cry like this- but all she can say is, "Please don't tell anyone, please." With a gasp, she adds on to her plea. “Don’t tell Jongin, please.” She repeats it, like a mantra, with hysteria building up in her throat, making the plea turn into a desperate shriek. “Don’t tell Jongin.”
And all Soojung does is let more tears fall, saying nothing. She promises nothing.
Her silence is weighted and heavy, a silence that shakes the core of Jinri's soul.
Because now Jinri is scared- her secret is out, and she is terrified out of her mind.
-
Soojung can’t say that she has never had her speculations about Jinri, about why she hates looking at herself so much. She knew she hated looking at her reflection, but to know that she throws up after each meal to make herself skinner when she is perfectly fine and beautiful-
To know that Jinri has withheld this information from her best friend is what hurts the most, what stings her best friend pride.
It doesn’t make the knowledge any easier to handle.
-
Jongin finds Jinri shaking and in tears, sitting outside in the courtyard. He had gone out looking for her when she didn’t come back to class; Soojung didn’t either.
"Jinri, why are you crying?” He’s immediately alarmed and rushing over to her, throwing an arm over her slight frame. I'm here, Jinri. Don’t cry, I'm right here." He thinks about what would make her outright sob like this, but can’t think of anything.
The initial horror has faded and now reality is setting in, with both the repercussions of what has happened and her actions coming into light. “Soojung- Soojung is going to hate me.”
“Why would she hate you?” Jongin’s rightfully confused; Soojung is her best friend. Why would she hate her?
“Because I lied to her, because I’m stupid, and ugly and-”
“Shut up,” Jongin responds, tone flat and irritated. "Don't ever feel like you're less than what you are.” Jinri is beautiful.
“I’m horrible, I’m the worst person.” Jinri babbles on, unable to stop. “Soojung hates me, she should hate me.”
"Why are you being so hard on yourself right now?” Jongin asks, frustrated. His tone is angry but his eyes are kind and he just wants to know what the hell is going on.
Jinri looks into Jongin’s eyes and sees so much affection for her that she just breaks; she’s been emotionally compromised, has been since she was thirteen. And that type of break has been overdue for a long time. So she babbles and explains, tells Jongin how ugly she is, how Soojung will hate her- but doesn’t tell him what Soojung has seen.
Jongin takes to her explanation the best he can, but a frown is obviously on his face. "Every single mean thing those stupid voices in your head have told you? Either throw them away or change them and make them like you instead."
"I can't just throw them away.” She would if she could, but she can’t.
"Fine, then make them like you instead.” Jongin is defiant, willing Jinri to listen to his words. “Make them like you how much I like you- and then you'll really see how beautiful you are."
Jinri scoffs, finding no comfort in Jongin’s words. “That’s the problem, Jongin- I’m not beautiful in the slightest.”
“Being beautiful isn’t about having a pretty face- even if you do one. Being beautiful is about having a pretty heart, a pretty mind, and a pretty, pretty soul.” Jongin’s never tried so hard to convince someone before that what he is saying is truth.
Jinri wonders if Jongin would still think she’s beautiful if he knew what she does to herself.
-
“So,” Jongin breaks the awkward tension as casually as he can. “Jinri thinks you hate her.” But maybe Jongin could use a couple lessons in actually sounding casual.
Soojung glares at him, willing him away with the fierceness of his stare.
It doesn’t work, so Soojung talks instead.
“Jinri has a little secret, one that she thinks no one will ever know about. She thinks that no one will ever try to look past the surface and that hurts me.” Soojung feels angry and bitter, heart hurting with a strong sense of betrayal.
“She thinks of herself as a pretty little painting- a portrait, if you will. She always tells me that you never really know what’s going on in a painting, especially when a picture is taken at surface value and judged at a glance. I’m a painter, you know." Jongin is very much aware. "Imagine how much it hurts hearing that all the time.”
Jinri’s words from their first meeting ring in Jongin’s head and he starts to feel slightly sick.
“Imagine how much it hurts for my best friend to not trust me, to always tell me that I’ll never be able to see her.”
Soojung hasn’t promised silence, and when she tells Jongin what Jinri does to herself- because if anyone can make a difference to Jinri, it’s Jongin.
So she tells him everything, all her theories, her speculations, what she has seen- what her parents both do.
When she tells him, his blood runs cold.
-
A confrontation is obvious.
Jongin waits in front of her house until she lets him in and starts talking the moment she closes her front door.
"Please stop hurting yourself." Jongin is pleading with her, sincerely asking her to do this one thing for him.
In that moment, Jinri knows that Jongin knows. She swallows thickly, but can’t find it in herself to be mad at Soojung. She promised her nothing, probably only told Jongin because she cares. The problem is that Jinri doesn't know how to stop- doesn't even know if she wants to stop.
“I can’t,” she mumbles.
Jongin paces around before pointing to the closest mirror, trying to make her see what she sees. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
“Jongin-”
“Look at the mirror.”
And Jinri looks. “I see an ugly little girl who is never going to find someone who loves her." She says what she has known as truth all this while, the truth that is marred and bent and so, so fickle.
“Want to know what I see? I see a beautiful young girl who is lost and filled with preconceived notions of beauty- notions that do not and never will make sense.” She tears, trying to make herself believe what he’s saying, but it’s hard.
“And Soojung will never hate you,” Jongin says, voice soft but filled with so much anger.
Jinri cries.
-
Jinri ends up going to Soojung’s house, at her own insistence. She left to go to Soojung a little after Jongin left her house.
She walks in with the key that Soojung had given her with trust- trust that she has misplaced, but she is trying to fix that now.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Jinri says this as she tries to hold back her own tears, immediately finding Soojung and moving to hug her. She has never been much of a crier, but seeing the betrayed face on Soojung's face- that has her emotional walls breaking down around her as she tries to make things right. "I didn't want you to know how ugly I was, I didn't want you to think that I'm a horrible person or anything." She's babbling excuses, all things that she sees as the truth. "I didn't want you to be ashamed of me, but Soojung, I-"
Soojung cuts her off, lip trembling as she tries not to cry. "I've always seen you for what you are- and you are nothing short of beautiful."
-
Jinri allows Soojung to drag her to the doctor's where they tell her that the damage she has done to her body is bad, but mendable.
But it shouldn't be too much of a problem if she starts taking care of herself now.
-
So they take care of her to the best of their abilities and remind her every single day that she’s beautiful and precious.
-
They think she's on the mend.
Even Jinri thinks she is.
-
Jongin and Soojung will soon learn that optimism, when it comes crashing down, hurts like nothing else in this world.
-
One moment, they’re just talking, walking home. The next, Jinri’s eyes flutter to a close and she drops forward.
Jinri hits the floor and Jongin is there in an instant. “I thought she was getting better, what's happening?"
"Electrolyte deficiency,” Soojung mumbles. “It happens when you’ve been bulimic for a while.” Because yes, Soojung has read up on it. For Jinri. "It can make you faint."
With an alarmed sense of panic, checks for breathing and- “She’s not breathing.”
Soojung recognizes the signs, vaguely recalls the random articles she has read in passing. And now she is terrified. Because she knows. “She’s going into cardiac arrest,” Soojung cries out, feeling tears prick in the corner of her eyes. She drops to the floor, getting ready to help in the only way she thinks will work.
He takes a step back to give Soojung room; Jongin takes out his phone with trembling fingers, instinctively calling the emergency number. With quick, shortened, and panicked breaths, he manages to tell the operator where they are and that, “Jinri needs help, she needs help, she’s not breathing, please come quickly.”
Soojung tries to compress Jinri’s chest, pushing down and trying to help in any way possible. She’s trying to save her, trying to keep her life. Because Soojung is aware of the dangers of Jinri not getting help in time. She knows and she refuses to let those dangers come alive.
She knows Jinri can’t fight for her life right now, but that’s fine. If Jinri can’t Soojung will- through panic and tears and “Choi Jinri, you can’t. Don’t do this to me, don’t leave me.”
Jongin feels a bubbling sense of hysteria and the whole area is suddenly spinning. “Jinri,” he mumbles. He’s gulping down air is fast as he can, but it does nothing to calm his nerves. Instead, it seems to have the opposite effect and the room is still spinning around him, even as he focuses on Jinri’s writhing figure. He’s crawling, padding towards her, but by now, he can’t breathe properly and the hysteria is still so there and-
-
“You had a panic attack,” the nurse tells him. Jongin blinks at her when he comes to. At least they made it to the hospital, if the settings are anything to go by.
"I haven't had one since I was a child," he ends up telling the nurse. “When my mom died,” he adds. It’s like an omen, that he’s had one now. "They're not fun."
-
All Jinri can really remember thinking is, “please, not like this, just not like this,”- but even so, it has happened.
Her mind is trapped in itself and she finds that there is no way out.
-
They’re in the waiting room. Soojung looks haggard and Jongin almost looks worse.
"We're sorry, but there is nothing more I can do." It is a horrible opening statement, but this doctor isn’t much for pleasantries and sugar coating.
Jongin automatically assumes the worst. "What do you mean there is nothing more you can do?" He feels like the room is closing in on him, like he is being suffocated. “You’re a doctor, you’re supposed to be able to save her.” Jinri can’t be gone. She can’t.
Soojung starts shaking from besides him- and honestly, he understands.
"Given the nature of her," The doctor pauses, as if he remembers that he must at least try and sound sympathetic. "Condition, going through cardiac arrest wasn't exactly unexpected." Soojung “But it’s a good thing you two acted when you did- she could have died without the resuscitation. We’re trying to stabilize her condition as much as possible, but we can’t do much now that she has slipped into a coma."
A coma. A fucking coma.
But it’s okay because being in a coma still means that Jinri is alive- and that she has a chance.
“So she’s alive?” Soojung breathes out a shaky sigh of relief, looking happier than she had mere moments ago. She wipes the stray tears in her eyes and asks, “When can we see her?”
“Unfortunately, not right now.” It doesn’t sound very unfortunate, from his tone. Jongin hates this man. The doctor looks at his clipboard with a grim frown. He needs to finish this talk immediately. "I am going to be honest with you both. I know you might not appreciate it now, but it’s always better to know the truth. Realistically, her chance of survival is really low." He gives them a pitying look, one that is obviously comes off as half-assed sympathy. “Don’t be surprised if your friend doesn’t make it.”
-
Jongin has to bodily hold Soojung down after the doctor says cold words of astute truth- Soojung is angry, livid even. Because how dare he assume that Jinri is not going to make it, that she is going to be taken from them. How fucking dare he.
There’s a snarl that escapes from Soojung’s throat and that’s the only warning that both Jongin and the doctor get before she lunges, heated by the uncaring words from the person who is supposed to save her best friend.
Jongin stops her, picks her up right out of the air, and struggles with her; she fights against his hold as the doctor walks away like he had not been almost attacked. Like nothing had happened.
And Jongin lets him walk away because angry as he also is, he is not going to get kicked out of this hospital for attacking a doctor.
Not when Jinri still needs him.
-
The pain that he feels when he looks at Jinri laying motionless on a hospital bed is nothing like what he has felt before; it is a telling feeling, one that is shouting at him. "When you wake up, I'm going to tell you that I love you.” It’s a promise, one that Jongin intends to keep.
-
Days go by with no change.
-
It’s like Jinri can hear what’s around her, but not really.
She can hear bits and parts and she thinks she hears Soojung singing to her and Jongin telling her stories.
Jinri feels happy with that.
-
But even if she’s happy, it is hard to keep trying, to keep fighting.
-
Her parents visit her sparsely, she thinks. But she hears them loud and clear when they do.
“Ugly until the end,” she hears her dad mumble. She hears the click of a camera and then nothing else.
No one, not even her nurse, notices the stray tear that falls.
-
It’s lonely, being left alone and only having your own thoughts as company.
And not for the first time, Jinri wonders what it would be like for all the pain to go away. For all the thoughts to cease, to never feel ugly and useless again.
And as she wonders, she doesn’t necessarily realize it, but Jinri does one specific thing.
Jinri stops fighting it.
-
Her heartbeat is erratic and the monitor starts going crazy. Jongin and Soojung fight past an array of nurses to get to Jinri; they’ve left the hospital very little in the time that Jinri has been admitted. It has been a week, and this is the first change since then.
“She’s convulsing,” someone shouts. Jongin thinks it’s a nurse.
He grabs onto her hand like that will give her a lifeline. “Please, Jinri. Please.” He feels it in his core, that something tragic is about to happen, that something is going to break him. “You have to stay with us, you have to stay with me.”
He has never begged so hard for anything, has never needed to, and will never need to again. But in this instance, everything that he is goes into asking her to stay with him, for a chance at a life together.
“You’re beautiful and I love you and I want to spend more time with you.”
He begs for more time, just a little longer. He begs for her to be able to come out of this, for him to be able to see those bright, bright eyes again, for Choi Jinri to live.
He hasn’t known her for long, but she has come to mean so much. Regardless, time matters little when it comes to matters of the heart, and his heart is saying that he wants nothing more than for her to open her beautiful eyes and give him that gentle smile.
“I love you, please, you’re beautiful, let me tell you that you’re beautiful, Jinri.”
That is all he wants, all that he is pleading for. Because he wants more time with her, so badly craves for it.
But time is not what they have.
Her hand drops from his and the flatlined beeping is the loudest thing that Jongin hears in his life.
-
Jongin wakes up to muffled noises and conversations; he doesn’t even remember going to sleep in the first place.
“You fainted,” Soojung tells him.
“Oh,” he mutters. And then he realizes why he fainted in the first place and he shoots up, erratic. “jinri? What about Jinri? Did I dream that?” He’s staring at Soojung, already back on the border of hysteria. “Please tell me I dreamt that.”
“That was not a dream.” Soojung’s face is hard, set in stone as she tries not to break- but he can see that it is a battle she is quickly losing. “It was not a dream,” she repeats. But now it’s more for herself than for Jongin, more as a way to let it sink in, to make herself believe it.
-
Jongin doesn’t know what to do, only lets his heart hurt in the way that tells him that his heart is crying.
So Jongin follows his heart.
He cries.
-
Jongin finally meets her parents; they both look too stoic for two people who have just lost their baby girl.
He can’t help but blurt the question, with emotions running high and word filter already long gone. Jongin looks up at Jinri's parents, eyes red-rimmed and tear streaks apparent. There are no tears to be found on their faces. “Do you even care that your daughter died?”
“Silly girl,” Jongin hears her father mutter. “Who dies of bulimia?”
All Jongin feels in that instance is anger. “Choi Jinri was a beautiful person. It is a shame that you made her believe otherwise.”
-
He doesn’t get to say one last goodbye, doesn’t get to have at least one ounce of closure, doesn’t even get to see her one last time.
He gets nothing.
Nothing.
-
Jongin never gets to tell Jinri he loves her.
-
Soojung goes home that night, eyes tired from crying but soul still hysterically wailing and lamenting for the love that she had just lost.
Because Soojung sincerely loved Jinri in the way that only a best friend can sincerely love you.
And with that love, Soojung will always bear the weight of knowing her best friend has died for reasons of the mind, for fallacies that only negative thoughts and ridiculous expectations could bring. Soojung will always have pain in her heart for the beautiful soul that was Choi Jinri.
She lost not only a friend, but also a sister that night. She lost someone who she would give the world, who she cherished more than anyone else in this world.
She only wished that Jinri could have shared everything with her, that she could have helped her more.
A piece of her heart will always belong to Choi Jinri; it is a piece that will forever know love for the best friend who undeservingly had her life taken away.
-
Jung Soojung will always remember Choi Jinri.
-
He walks into his home, feeling drained and emotionally depleted.
Jongin walks quietly to his room and his attention is easily captured by the reflective glass that’s attached to his door. “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” he asks, tone bitter and quiet.
There is no answer and he certainly wasn’t expecting one.
He sits in silence, unable to do anything but stare at his own reflection.
The anger builds slowly, looking at the piece of glass like it has personally wronged him- though, in a way, he guesses that it has. Because the mirror is the one who has betrayed Jinri, and that is a direct betrayal to Jongin.
He can’t stand the silence when the answer to his question is right on the tip of his tongue; it always has been, since the day he met her.
It’s a harsh whisper, one filled with so much truth and anger and hurt. “Choi Jinri.”
Her name echoes, loud and clear in the silence.
“Choi Jinri.”
Silence is all that he hears in return, with no Jinri to teasingly slap at him, with no Jinri he gets to see blush, with no Jinri and her amazing smile. There’s just silence.
It’s practically deafening.
-
Jongin has realized just how precious life is, how easy it is for someone to be there one moment, and then gone the next- never to be heard again. Never to be seen again. Never to live again.
And in realizing that, he has also become well acquainted with regret, with not getting to do or say the things that needed to be said or to do the things he so desperately wishes he could do now.
So he continues on with his life, living life to the fullest. He does so, mostly out of fear.
Of having the same thing happen to him once more; he has enough regret to last him a whole lifetime- and someone else's, as well.
It’s hard, on most days. And excruciatingly numb on the days where it’s not. But he keeps at it and moves on, the remembrance of Jinri’s beautiful smile giving him enough strength to move through the days.
Because he thinks about what would happen if their positions were switched, if he were to die. Jongin is empathetic, always has been. It comes with being a good judge of character; so when he thinks about how Jinri would react, how heartbreaking it would be to see her cry like how he had over their mutual loss- with her life and the love of his life-
He thinks about how he would never want to put anyone through the pain that comes with death, the pain that Jinri has unknowingly inflicted on him.
And so Jongin lives on. In body and in mind, but not quite in soul. His emotional scars never fully heal.
Because Jinri has taken a piece of him, a piece of his heart, that he will never- and can never- get back.
-
Kim Jongin will always love Choi Jinri.
-
A fairy tale is, by definition, something that denotes of magical, idealized happiness. It is a story of bliss, of happily ever after’s.
There are many different kinds, spanning from the many people that want them.
Not every girl wishes for a fairy tale, but in this case- Choi Jinri definitely did.
She had wished to live out a normal life, to be able to grow old and healthy with loved ones, to eventually be able to conquer her own demons.
She wished for a life where Jung Soojung would always be her best friend.
She even wished for a life with Jongin, in the long run. To be able to say that she loves him, to get married one day, to have the whole cliche love story.
-
Choi Jinri never got that fairytale.
-end.
A/N: with this, i have killed off two of my top female biases in two separate fics. if i can kill of jungli, i can kill off anyone.
thanks for reading! ;)