Archive of Our Own

-~BOK-SU~-

NEW EMAIL RECEIVED: 5 days ago.

>To: [email protected]

<From:  [email protected]

\\Subject: mandatory one-year check-up.

 

//

Hello, little shit. 

 

Unfortunately for us, your mother was kind, and I do not want to go against her word, even after passing. 

 

So, I am participating in the yearly mandatory email with you, demon. Consider it an honour that I am speaking to you, considering my place in the world in contrast to your own. 

 

As usual, I am alive and well. Sane is another basket, but that wasn’t in the requirements. So suck it. 

 

Cullenery School is well. Though I am dropping out, to pursue my dreams of being a chef and owning a restaurant. Got straight As on my final, better than you could ever do. Moron.

 

My personal life is mainly none of your business. 

 

I cut my hair, I suppose. It was impractical, long, and my new Boss said I must cut it. Moved out of college. Shame I won’t be dorming with that nice roommate I told you about last year, but alas, life goes on.

 

As far as you're concerned, I am safe and happy since I moved out. If it’s one thing we can agree on, Father can go die in a ditch. I'd give you my address, in case you ever need help when you're moving out in two years, but I know better than to let you come to my abode of free will. 

 

Please do not associate yourself with me any more than you need to, as I don't want ‘has a depressed sibling’ to be on my resume for future culinary jobs.

 

Have a horrible one, 

 

Your (older) brother, Vincent Charbonneau.

 

\\

 

SENT EMAIL: 5 days ago.

>To: [email protected] 

<From: [email protected]

\Subject: why do emails even have subjects to begin with smh

//

Heyyyyy zesty lemon boiii

Straight As r prolly the most straight thing abt u

Glad to see ur still a bore, I'm not missing out much. You DO realise that just bcuz its an email you dont gotta write like ur writing a formal letter for the queen, right? Ohhhh right, I forgot ur just always boring, hehe.

Yes, rip to ma mum. 

She was a real one, to get us still writing to each other after all this time.

Also, don’t you go ‘oh I'm so much better than you’ bc at least I didn’t eat worms. 

Shame with that roommate. Sure u miss him. We all know whats going on there, VinVin.

Its chill, Vincey, we accept you out of the closet. That dude is NOT ‘just a friend’.

Medical school is a bitch. It's just essay upon essay upon research upon essay.

Where's the BLOOD? The STAKES? THE DRAMA!? We haven't even got to operate yet, dude! Gahh, my hands hurt from writing too many essays. 

Bet ur daintly little cooking hands would never have to feel that pain. Lucky fuck.

Bet Cullenary school sucks ass without taste, suckaaaaaaaaaa

My personal life is also nunya, tho I suppose mum DID like us sharing SOME things, so this is what ur getting:

• Getting a new roommate l8r 2day. Lyk how she is next yr ig

• Can I buy all ur old horror movies off you?

• Would you sell them for free? Its incredibly fun to see ppls faces when they come back to Hannibal the cannibal lol. 

Some additional things I'm sure ur getting

• Boy lips.

Also, ur sooooo boring for not giving the address! Come onnnn ZestFest! Live a little dangerous! Cake knives aren't even THAT sharp, trust.

ANYWAY, now that our yearly socialising has been done, wishing gl w ur school! (and bl in ur romance XD)

Also, we’re only half-siblings, and u being older just means u die first anyway, so idk if thats a flex.

Wishing ur zesty dreams to come true (and for u to owe me 50 bucks),

Bok-su Go.

(HEY, THAT RHYMED!)

\\

NEW EMAIL RECEIVED: 1 day(s) ago.

>To: [email protected]

<From:  [email protected]

\\Subject: really, bok su?

 

//

 

Good to see you're still insufferable. 

 

Good to see your pathetic life still gets you nowhere. 

 

Hope mothers frowning upon you from heaven. 

 

Yours with brotherly love, 

 

Vincent Charbonneau.

 

Bok-su sighed, staring at the email for a little too long. There was something inside her that missed this, this…connection. It wasn’t much. She never had much, though perhaps that was all a lie. She had so much and never enough, and she had kept striving for more and more until it landed her…here. 

In this weird, fucked up limbo state of existing.

Not exactly thriving, but managing enough.

Not exactly living, but surviving. 

Not really happy, but okay enough to smile and say she was doing fine, okay enough to convince herself that she was fine. 

Convincing really didn’t change the truth, though. 

The truth looked at her as ugly as her half-brother's messages, always so plain and dead. She always prided herself on being better than he, smarter, more popular, faster, funnier. It went past sibling rivalry and had contorted into more of an inner battle, one that she insisted to herself that she had to win. She had to stay on top before she lost everything, because she knew full well that she wouldn’t be able to be like…that forever. 

She knew she wouldn't be living for much longer. 

The knowledge had always been there, twisting and settling in her stomach, turning over and over until the lost sleep and half-finished meals finally caught up to her, and until all she could feel was acceptance. 

The Charbonneau family was dead. 

Not in the literal sense, of course (at least not yet). They were still alive, thriving so much more than Bok-su had ever. But inside, they were dead. 

Deader than her own family, which she barely got to know. Deader than the rat that she had killed last week, the one that she hadn't even noticed despite it stinking up her dorm and shitting on her shit. 

Her childhood looked like dead photographs and blank graves of people she had never met. Her father, gone, before she learnt to say ‘dad’. Panicked at the sight of her, panicked at the responsibilities of a child, panicked at the consequences of his own actions. Her true brother, whom she only remembered as holding her while Mum and Dad fought, squeezing her hand and saying it would be okay. 

It hadn’t been ok. He had left with Dad, just another lost name, another person on the fridge smiling with a younger version of her that she didn’t even know. 

Mum ran away, so far, and Bok-su’s second year of existing was just planes and bills and words that she shouldn’t have heard at such a young age. Plane schedules, bank accounts, Uber drivers, and pedophiles. How to tell a creep from a safe helper, how to sing yourself to sleep when the concrete was too cold and the blankets too worn in. 

Always wanting more, wanting a better life. Greedy, some would say, but it was all she had ever known.

Then they had got a better life, although it never really felt like it. All of a sudden, they got money and respect and education, and all of a sudden, Bok-su actually had a future. 

Yet the people who had everything, the people who gave her everything, were zombies. Walking dead, five-year-old Bok-su had called the Charbonneaus. Dead inside and out, with pale skin and dark hair, with sleep deprivation and high standards and impossible expectations. 

Still, they gave her life, and Mum had seemed happy with Mr Charbonneau. 

So she played nice, though she was beginning to hate how dead they all were. 

Vince, and her, the only alive ones in the house, Vince, who used to make her laugh. Who would eat worms and whose favourite food was lemons, whom she had unknowingly called ‘zesty lemon boy’ when she was 10, not understanding the meaning, and had watched Vince's face twist into strangled embarrassment. 

And then, because she really couldn’t have nice things, Vince had to die as well. 

Her mum had died on the outside, and alone in the house with 14-year-old Bok-su, who was always absent, hanging with friends, drinking away the grief behind closed doors, and his father, Vince, had died, and Vincent was born, the strict, harsh, cold, and calculating man that he was now. 

Bok-su didn’t understand. She still doesn’t, and she doesn’t want to. All she remembered was the day that Vincent stopped teasing her, stopped laughing at and with her, and started locking himself in his room for days on end, studying culinary arts and probably history or some other boring ahh subject while he was at it. She remembered thinking it was just a trauma response, that it would go away in due time, only for months to turn into years and years into decades, and for Bok-su to realise that she was never getting Vince back. 

And she remembered vowing, then and there, that if she died like he did, then she wouldn’t pussy out and may as well die for realsies. 

She vowed that she would remain happy and sarcastic, that she would remain funnier than him, smarter then Vincents grief ridden self, more popular. 

Then Vincent got smarter. 

Then Vincent got friends, while Bok-su couldn’t even make a single one in her new school. 

But she was still alive. That's what she told herself: that their massive gap in knowledge didn’t matter, because at least she was living. 

Until, little by little, she realised she wasn’t.

It didn’t happen quickly. It wasn’t overnight, nor was it triggered by anything other than the immense pressure to get into medical school, the stress of life, and the pressure ‘Father’ put on her. 

But there was a day when she had woken up and realised that she was dead, and that she couldn’t remember how it happened. That she had lost her vow and the one thing she had on her half-brother. 

That she wasn’t enough anymore.

She had become the thing she had hated for so long: cold, analytical, dead inside.

But her grades had improved. 

Her teachers began praising her instead of chastising her.

She had lost friends, stayed in her room for days on end, yet her ‘father’ had smiled at her for the first time over the phone. 

Funny how you only got praised once they had killed you inside. 

Dark eyes glanced at the clock beside her, the one flashing the time like it was a deadline. That was all that life had become for her—a deadline. 

Wake by seven, eat by eight, study till twelve, tests due by three. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. 

She couldn’t even remember why she wanted this life. To be a doctor.

Most people chased this job because of a passion for saving other people's lives, and most people cared because they cared about others. 

Bok-su didn’t give a shit about other people's lives. She lacked empathy, and she wouldn’t apologise for it. 

She knew she was broken. Everyone who knew her personally knew she was dead. 

A bleak, distant part of her recognised it as depression. Mere observations at this point. 

She didn’t care for others. Didn’t care for anyone. Anything. 

Hell, the only reason she hadn’t dropped out yet was because she had nothing else to do. She had no reason to leave. Nowhere to go, because she certainly didn’t want to go back to her ‘father’, and Vincent wouldn’t trust her.

For good reason—she had always been slightly demonic. 

Mischievousness had morphed into some dull form of false sociopathy, to the point where she simply couldn’t be bothered to care for other people the way she once did. 

What a funny state to exist in. 

Maybe she wanted to become a doctor because it would cancel all that out. Because she felt like she was buried too far down to be dug up, and because she felt like maybe the only way to redeem herself would be to save lives. 

Not for the lives saved. 

She really didn't care about faceless hurting people, who were lucky to be hurting physically so they could receive help, because too many people died of suicide and never even received recognition. 

Hah, no. It was still about her ego, her desire to prove to herself—because most everyone else had already left—that she wasn’t inherently evil just because of the family her mum married her into.

How selfish.

Her clock still ticked by, her reflection caught in the now blacked-out screen in front of her. She scowled at it. 

Bok-su had always hated the way she looked. Hated the way her eyes these days are always tired, the way her hair is never brushed because it's a struggle to wash. Hated the way she looked so damn much like her half family, despite not even being related, because it acted like a constant reminder. That she had grown into the shoes she despises so much, that she had taken the food from the hand that fed her and fed it back. 

Her eyes slipped shut, so tired, always so tired. She wished she had the energy of the friends she once possessed. But it was getting tiring acting like she was alive, acting like she hadn’t been murdered by the grasp of life. Maybe just a quick nap. 

Maybe that was just what she told herself; she wasn’t sure.

All she knew was that her eyes kept falling closed, and that she didn’t have it in her to stay awake and stare at old emails for much longer. 

That she didn’t have shit due, that it was technically the holidays for fucks sake, that she was still stuck in her dorm trying to do work that wasn’t even necessary, because it gave her a purpose. 

Because without it, she might just collapse and die due to boredom. 

Her corpse would just rot with fast food, late nights, and horror films. Truly pathetic. 

So, her purpose was still purposeless other than to keep her alive on the outside, though she could feel the late nights catch up to her as her eyes attempted to shut again. 

Maybe…a little nap wouldn’t hurt. Just for a while...

-~DA-JEONG~-

Da-jeong was looking forward to uni, bleakly. Honestly, it felt more like a necessary step in her plan than an actual event. It was always just an essential item in the fast-paced life she led, another thing she needed to accomplish. 

Accomplish was a funny word to describe school, but it was one that felt right. She had always accomplished her environment, little by little building herself up to the top. Top of the class in primary school, top of the ladder in the netball rally, top of the science contests in her senior years. 

Her mother said it was about control, said she was being weird, said she needed therapy. 

Stupid Mother. As if she knew anything about Da-jeong's life. She couldn’t appreciate the ways she had climbed the social ladder, the way she knew everything about everyone, the way she could get what she wanted when she wanted. 

But hey! She was getting ahead of herself. She could focus on that later. Somewhere more private, where she could write her notes without people calling her weird or obsessive. 

It still felt…very big. University. It hadn’t felt this big when she was planning, when she had it written down and drawn out in her notebooks.

But when she stopped looking at uni as a step and started realising that it was a very real, four-year journey, it suddenly felt very large indeed. Felt too big for a single line in her diary, and it felt way too real for the idealist version she had taught herself to believe. Mother told her to take it one step at a time, when she expressed nerves, but that was plain bullshit. 

Mother didn’t understand her. How much she needed direction, a plan. She was starting over alone, and she needed to start writing immediately—when she was alone, of course—because otherwise it would get too much. She needed to jot down who everyone was, who was popular, and who would ruin her reputation; she needed to memorise who the cute boy was that everyone wanted, which teacher gave out homework, and which professor gave out chocolate. She needed to plan everything. 

But she couldn’t, not now, because then it would be obsessive. Crazy.

She was sick of it, being judged for wanting to feel on top of her life. She wanted to be organised, she planned everything, she needed to feel in control, or else she got lost. 

It was the only way she knew how to be happy.

That’s what she was meant to be, right? Happy? That was good?

Then why did everyone call her weird for it? Why couldn’t she just live?

God, life had a way of killing people like that. Telling them that they weren’t enough for the way they were, as if everyone just had to fit into these made-up roles that people in charge created. The idea that you could only be happy if the people who mattered were happy for you. 

Her friends giggled around her, all going to different colleges. They didn’t want to be doctors, like her, and didn’t want to save lives in the same way. The most amazing, thrilling profession. To know that you could be the reason that a mother doesn’t lose her son, to feel that it’s you, the reason that people would smile. 

Da-jeong would do anything for that feeling.

It was the reason for her carefully planned-out notes that fourteen-year-old her had written when life got tough. Keep surviving, don’t let the bullies get to you. If you don’t give in, this is where you will be in ten years. You will get into this medical school. You will become a surgeon. 

You will do anything to be there.

If only that fourteen-year-old could see her now! Walking down the hall to her new medical school, a gaggle of pretty friends tailing behind, a big, proud smile on her face. It wasn’t just performing either, as she saw so many others around her do. It was real, because at the end of the day, this was her dream, and she would do anything for it. And she had done everything for it, and it got her exactly where she deserved to be. 

She had done this. Got there. 

She earned all this. 

And maybe that was the most exhilarating thing about it entirely. 

One of her friends, Lina, laughed beside her, her long blonde hair flowing as she spoke. “Hehe—yes! I’m just so happy for you!” 

Da-jeong smiled back, somewhat relieved that her friends were dropping her off. The stress of having to start over with social life, was poisonous, but she knew she could. It wouldn’t be a challenge, per se, but more of another inconvenience. Another thing she would need to accomplish again. 

It would be worth it, though.

You’d do anything to get this job. 

“Aw, thanks, I’m happy for me as well!” She smiled, half in sync with the conversation, half counting the room numbers as they passed. 

Lina grinned. “You deserve this, girl!”

It made her feel warm inside. Because, yes. She did deserve it. She deserved whatever she got, whatever praise her new friends that she hadn’t made yet would give to her. 

She worked, and she received. 

Take that, Mother. Take that, ‘don't work yourself so much, you’ll burn out’. Take that, ‘Are you sure you don't need help, Da-jeong?’ Why couldn’t people see that this obsessive planning was her happy! That it made her okay, that it wasn't the problem?

“Thanks, Li,” She smiled, eyes flicking up to catch the dorm number behind her. “Oh! Is this the one?”

Lina turned, looking from the paper in her hand to the number. “Number 54, uh-huh!” She turned to the others, lingering near, but in their own conversations. “Welp, I’d better get going. I guess this is what I get for getting my license early, hey?” She laughed at her own joke, Da-jeong giving her what sounded like a sympathy laugh, but was really more of a ‘I’m so nervous I don't know what to do’ laugh. 

The blonde flicked her hair, waving to Da-jeong. “I gotta drive these bozo’s to their schools, and then get to art class because gah! I'm gonna be late!” She spoke quickly, rushed, and clearly under time pressure. Da-jeong didn’t blame her; she couldn’t imagine the stress of being the group's personal Uber driver while trying to pursue her career. 

“Kay, see ya later?”

“Course, bestie!” One last smile, and she was gone, always moving so fast. Rallying up the girls like their own personal mum. That thought made Da-jeong laugh a little, before she turned to the door, so tall and weirdly intimidating that it made her gulp. She could hear her friends' laughter echoing through the hall, a constant reminder of the life she was leaving school. 

Not the time to be a pessimist, though! She had a roommate to meet! Oh, how she hoped that she would be nice! Or popular! Or pretty! Now that would be nice. Plastering a smile on her face, she reached out and knocked, the sound so definite and sharp in the now quiet hall that it made her wince.

She stood in the hallway for a second or two before she realised that no one was coming. Most girls would have just called out a quick ‘one sec’ or ‘I’m getting changed, wait a moment’. Gee, even a ‘Let yourself in’ would have been something (though the concept of barging into people's homes uninvited because they said ‘let yourself in’ has always weirded Da-jeong out. Like—what if she were a serial killer or something? A burglar? How horrid!) But no, she got nothing. 

Nothing either meant one of two things: One, that her roommate was out, maybe shopping with the girls, maybe she had gone home for the holidays. Or two, that she was asleep. Which, considering it was 3:30 pm and sunny and bright outside, Da-jeong seriously doubted. After another round of knocking and another round of awkward silence from the other end, she grit her teeth and took out her keys, figuring that her roommate must be out. 

“Hi—” She began, ready to greet whoever was at the door, ready to maybe-apoligise for waking her up, ready to meet her companion and medical partner for the next four and a half years—

And…oh. 

Oh…

Oh no..

Her room was—no. Their room was a mess. Maybe ‘mess’ was underselling it. Maybe ‘maybe’ was underselling just how much ‘mess’ was underselling the absolute dump that it was. But it wasn’t the standard ‘my roommate is a bad party animal who leaves pizza boxes on the floor’ mess, nor the ‘shit, sorry, I was in the middle of packing when I got called by my boyfriend to hang, I’ll clean it up later mess’. Heck, it wasn’t a normal mess by anyone's means. 

See, it wasn’t just messy. It wasn’t just depression. It was… an organised mess. Strategic incompetence. 

Everything around what Da-jeong considered to be the ‘working area’ of the room was organised. Not just ‘oh my mum made me do this’ organised either, but organised with the aura that someone had very purposefully done it. Every pen was lined up, every textbook and murder mystery novel was lined up with perfect precision. The cords were detangled and laid out in straight lines on the floor. The carpet was white and furnished, the notebooks and sticky notes lined up as Da-jeong herself would do it, although her roommate had certainly used…a more monotone palette than she would prefer. But the whites were a good contrast to the reds and blacks, and the horror movie merch hanging on the wall really sold the vibe.

Lina would approve.

Honestly, Da-jeong could almost appreciate it. Could almost look at it and go, yeah, this belongs to a person who knows themself and isn’t scared of it. Although a roommate like that definitely would hinder her upcoming reputation. But hey! So long as they remained on good terms, then it should be fine. Plus, an outcast roommate meant sympathy points and rumour spreading is easy, so she should be fine. 

Is what she would have thought, if it weren’t for the entire other side of the room. Clothes were thrown everywhere like her whole room was a trash bag. The bed, which donned double-sided red and black donar covers, was messy and unkempt, the walk-in wardrobe looking like a clothes monster threw up there. It was like she could draw a perfect line separating the desk from the rest of the room, and the difference would be night and day. 

Grimacing in disgust at her new roommate, whom she had just lost all respect for as she realised she would have to rely on sympathy points, her brown eyes traced up to the desk. Eyebrows raised as she saw her roommate. 

Thick hair draped over her hands as she napped on her elbows, computer screen long timed out and ghost pale skin looking—quite frankly—dead. She looked like the exact kind of person to have a room like this, the kind of person Da-jeong would call a ‘fixer-upper’ and Lina would call ‘cute! Like a little goth bat!’ and Da-jeong would roll her eyes. Except this wasn’t just a random girl at her school, or just a girl that Lina had tried—unsuccessfully—to ‘discreetly’ flirt with. 

This was her roommate. 

Who would she be living with for the next four years.

She clutched her planning diary to her chest. 

One helluva ‘fixer-upper’ indeed.

She hard-blinked before speaking up. “Hi! Uh—Wakey wakey!” 

-~BOK-SU~-

Bok-su didn’t like to judge people based on first impressions. Mainly because she knew just how ruining it could be to decide everything about a person before you had even talked to them. 

But the girl who had just walked into her room, the girl who was currently trying to actively recover from clearly full-blown gawking at her, was making it hard to keep this rule. She scowled through half-lidded eyes, her head slow and clouded from sleep. Her roommate was looking at her like she was some kinda vampire, which, to be honest, could be further from the truth, though that was unrelated. Plus, there was something…different in her eyes. 

Not disappointment. Bok-su had been living with disappointment her whole life; it didn’t really affect her much anymore. Had been getting glares behind her back and whispers from across the room, had been judged at first sight for as long as she could remember. It had stopped bothering her somewhere along the line; she had stopped caring about other people’s judgment and opinions. 

But the girl, the girl with perfect skin and long, pretty hair that would make boys swoon, the girl in a baby pink crop and a denim mini skirt who looked like she would have more friends than Bok-su had enemies, was looking down at her with pity. 

Not just pity, but looking down at her like she was some five-year-old throwing a tantrum. The kind of look that spoke, that said ‘where did things go wrong’ and ’what happened to you’. Disgust, judgement and pity, and Bok-su already hated her. 

She had already accepted that she was different. She could handle being disgusting. She could understand that she was a little off. But to look at her with pity, like some sick baby who couldn’t fend for herself, made her scowl for reasons she didn’t really understand.

And then just like that, gone. 

A single second. 

A single second was all the time that it took for The Roommate to go from looking at her as one would look at a grotty, depressed lion in a zoo, to smiling a grin that was so plastic it may as well be producing carbon dioxide. She smiled, but her eyes didn’t squint, and there were no ‘smile lines’, none of the signs Bok-su had taught herself to recognise in real smiles. 

She glared. “Whatcha want?”

Some distant part of her heard her own voice talking to the roommate and winced, because really, the girl didn’t do shit to her. She had walked in, reacted in a normal, human way to a depressed teen rotting in her own room, and then at least made an effort to be nice. But friends couldn’t be won with carefully timed pity smiles, and Bok-su knew in an instant that most anything that came out of her mouth would be fake. 

So, somehow, she couldn’t find it in herself to try to be nice. 

Because let's be real. Bok-su was a bitch, but at least she knew that she was a bitch. She didn’t bother hiding behind cultivated smiles, and she didn’t feel the need to change to be happy. 

That being said, she was far from ‘happy’, though she highly doubted a gurgle of dolled-up followers would solve that.

The girl stared back at her, seemingly lost in her own thoughts and her own mask, so Bok-su decided to make it easy for her. “Fuck you want, Da-jeong?” She spoke starkly, as she always did, wiping sleep from her eyes. 

Da-jeong’s smile slipped for a millisecond, into some form of accusation. “Uh—How did you know my name?”

The raven-haired rolled her eyes. “You have a key chain with your name on it, dummy. Don't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”

Her smile dropped. “Ah, of course.” She walked in stiff, dropping her bag by Bok-su’s bed. “And your name? I don't believe you have a walking name tag key chain, hehe!” She giggled to herself, covering her mouth with a hand ‘politely’. Bok-su thought it would have been more interesting at this point if she had given in to the poison in her millisecond micro reactions and just tackled her already. 

“Haha.” She laughed dryly, closing her Gmail. “It’s Bok-su.”

Da-jeong halted. “Bok-su?”

Bok-su rolled her eyes. “Glad to know your ears work.”

The brunette shook her head. “No, no, as in like 'Bok-su'? Translating into…”

The ravenette grinned. “Revenge?”

Da-jeong nodded slowly, brows knitting together. “Indeed. Who—why—would your parents name you after such a horrid thing?”

Bok-su only shrugged, leaning back further into her chair.

“Dunno. Guess I grew into it though.”

Da-jeong frowned. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Bok-su didn't even look up from her screen.

“You know. Referring to the nine dead bodies I have stored in the closet.”

Da-jeong went completely still.

“…WHAT?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault Brandon was a whore.”

The brunette blinked once.

Then twice.

“Hey! Language!—ALSO WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NINE BODIES?”

Bok-su finally looked over, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

“Heh. Don’t come at me for using words in my own room, dimwit.”

“Ok, yeah, but the bodies? Also, it’s my room now too, Bok-soup.”

Bok-su stared at her for a second.

And suddenly burst out laughing.

“Hehe, you can stop freaking out. That was a joke. Obviously—wait, did you actually BELIEVE ME?!”

Da-jeong huffed. “HEY! In my defence, you LOOK like the kind of person to…you know…”

Bok-su smirked.

“Kill ain't a slur, Jeong-y. Though I am offended to think that you’d—”

“Oh, come on, be so for real, you look like a serial killer.”

Ugh. The way she said it so matter-of-factly, like she wasn’t insulting her.

“And you look like a bitch.”

“LANGUAGE!”

Bok-su snorted.

“Yes, Mother.”

Da-jeong groaned dramatically, like the sook she was.

“I have known you for approximately four minutes.”

“And?”

“Why can’t you be less difficult?”

Bok-su stopped for a second. She hated the word difficult. The one that meant being a nuisance, weird, unnecessary. 

‘Sir, why is VinVin in trouble?’

Cold eyes. Always cold. Always dead.

“Vincent needs to learn to stop being so difficult.”

“Why is he being difficult?”

“I don't know, but he can’t keep eating words, for fucks sake!”

…

“Mum, why does Sir hate me?”

Sympathy and pity. Mother always pitied her. She used to like it. 

“He—Why do you call your father ‘Sir’? Come on, Bok-su. He’s your father, like it or not.’

“Why does he hate me?”

“He’s…you are a little difficult for him, my daughter…”

Always too much. Don’t speak. Don’t be too loud. Don’t be difficult. 

Kill yourself inside for our respect. 

If you live, then you're a nuisance. 

But she knew that Da-jeong would win if she let her bother her, so she just smiled.

“Keeps the roommate dynamic interesting.”

Da-jeong groaned. “Ugh—roommate dynamics are never interesting.”

“I mean, there is one exception,” Bok-su smirked, leaning back on her chair. She could practically hear Da-jeong’s whiny voice telling her she was going to crack her head open, like every teacher ever. 

“What?” The brunette smiled, apparently having given up on keeping up the poker face. Good.

“You know…” She trailed off, meeting the others' eyes and smirking. Something of recognition flashed into the brunette’s eyes as both exclaimed—

 “Oh my god, there were roommates!”

…

A second of silence followed. Da-jeong looked genuinely happy for a second, which Bok-su noted looked objectively better than her ‘trying not to be disgusted with a pained smile’ smile. Then she realised that she couldn’t possibly agree with the weird goth girl called Revenge, flaring her nose in disgust. 

“Lesbian.” 

…

Bok-su dead panned. Glaring daggers, the kind dipped in poison evil enough to make the brunette look scared. “What, you gotta problem with it?”

She stammered. “Wha—No! No, of course not— wait, you are a lesbian?”

Bok-su groaned. “Ughhh, of course she’s a homophobe. Well fuck my life, Jesus Christ—” she glared at her now nemesis. “Make yourself at home, bitch. But no touching my posters, my bed, or my desk, kapish? Don’t wanna get the dreaded rainbow disease on your white bag”

The other girl looked back, somewhat stunned. “Hey! I'm not homophob—”

“—Sure, pretty pretty plastic!” Bok-su snapped, grabbing her bag and storming out the door. “See ya in as much time as I can, Jeong-y.”

“Wha—”

“Byeeee~”

Fucking asshole…

Bok-su sighed as she exited her dorm. Great. Just fucking amazing. As if it wasn’t hard enough surviving uni as it was, she now had to deal with some fake-ass roommate who looked at her like a dying skunk. How amazing. At least she had the library, and one more week of time before the term started. Better make it count. 

She somewhat stormed out of the dorm building, past giggling girls with pretty hair and long lashes who would laugh at her behind her back, with her head down. Don’t make eye contact. Eye contact led to conversation, and she really didn’t want to put up with that. 

The library was quiet, just as she liked it. Row upon row of bookshelves with so many topics that it made her smile. She opened her laptop on a sofa seat, absent-mindedly reading an article on correct diagnosis. Something she had studied before, but a senior had warned her of it being a bitch next year, so it was never too late to start.

Bok-su sighed at the woman in the video. She looked familiar, in that uncomfortable way, with features similar to that shit bag, Da-jeong. A weird, gnawing feeling itched from her stomach, making her grimace. 

Because, really, she knew what was happening. Knew that Da-jeong wasn’t the one being annoying. Knew that she had never given her roommate time to explain her comment, recognised that her tone never felt offensive. 

But it was just easier to bury herself in her studies, to try and forget about all the ways she was dead and not enough. 

Regret was a weird feeling. One that she hadn’t felt in too long. Corpses didn’t feel remorse. Bodied didn’t get weighed down by guilt. 

So maybe she was really studying to avoid thinking about the actual question haunting her, that being simply: why did she suddenly feel so conflicted about her actions? Why was she trying to justify herself, even now, when in the past she never really cared about how she offended people?

And why did she suddenly care this much? Why did she feel so alive, even if it was just out of spite, when she had been convinced that her corpse was already rotted?

Why, when she met Da-jeong?!

-~DA-JEONG~-

Da-jeong had never been actively avoided before. It was something that she prided herself on. A fact that she held close to her heart when she rarely heard that people were talking about her behind her back. If she was a ‘player’, then at least people still approached her. If she was ‘fake’, then at least no one seemed to mind when she gave out homework answers and the like.

And of course, not everyone liked her. She was pretty sure it was impossible to be liked by everyone. But no one hated her, or hated her enough to avoid her or ghost her. 

She was now actively watching that reality that had held true for so long get crushed by her new roommate. 

She had known from first sight that Bok-su would be…difficult. She wasn’t like anyone that she had ever tried to befriend before, more like those people who she would try to ignore, with dark eye bags and a monotone voice. But the teasing had some…personality about it, and Da-jeong thought she could work on it. 

Little by little, pushing them together until the ravenette accepted her. 

And then they had fought, and she had misunderstood, because it seemed like she was always misunderstanding things, and she had said something and it had come out wrong and now...well…

And now, despite being literal roommates, it had been weeks, and they had shared approximately three phrases. A ‘good morning’ occasionally, a ‘where's the bathroom?’ here and there, a ‘Your friend is here to see you,’ but not much else. Bok-su had kept her head down and kept to herself, all while silently driving Da-jeong crazy. 

She didn’t understand. She had mucked up, sure, but most people only held a grudge for one week max, especially when forced to interact with said person a lot. And it wasn’t like she had been excessively rude either, not really. She had tried to make conversation and gotten turned down. She had tried to apologise, and the other would pretend to be listening to a podcast. 

At first, it had been…fine. Not ideal, but fine, so long as befriending Bok-su wasn’t the end-all, be-all in life. Which it wasn’t—until Lina had questioned Bok-su why she was avoiding Da-jeong, and the dark-haired had replied with “She was being a homophobic bastard, that's why.” Someone had overheard and told someone else who had told someone else, and suddenly the entire school was convinced she was homophobic.

And suddenly, that plan which had looked so easily feasible in her notebook was getting all over the place, and she didn’t know what to do.

It wasn't just embarrassing.

It was inefficient.

She had spent years learning how people worked. Smile here, compliment there, remember birthdays, remember favourite colours, laugh at the right jokes. Socialising wasn't luck; it was a skill, and she was good at it. Or at least she had been.

So why wasn't it working?

She replayed that first conversation for what had to be the hundredth time, picking apart every sentence, every pause, every expression. Somewhere, there had to be a mistake she could correct. There always was.

Because if there wasn't...

If this couldn't be fixed...

Then maybe Mother had been right.

Right about her being weird, about the fact that she couldn’t do this forever. 

But she wasn’t. Da-jeong was right. She was always right. 

She just needed a way to fix this. 

She smiled. A plan, if you will.

Plans were good. Plans didn’t fail her. Plans were predictable, and she could do with predictability right now. 

Her notebook was out before she knew it. Lines upon lines of careful planning, lines of documentation and consideration, of learning and adapting. Mother said that this carefully formulated way of living wasn’t living, and sister said that she was basically dead. 

She was alive, though. 

It was just easier to live when things were predictable, easier to continue her goal of becoming a doctor when things made sense. 

She pulled out a pen, a standard, black one. Part of her wanted to write in peachy pink gel ink, but future her would regret that decision, so she stuck with legible stuff. Lying on her side of the room, on her pale orange doona cover and kicking her legs up behind her, Da-jeong began to write in cool, consistent lines. 

At age 7, she had taught herself how to write so it looked like a font, cursive enough to appear fancy but block enough to still be legible. She had hated it, at the time, but she knew it would pay off in the long run. 

A seven-year-old her sometimes seemed to have a better grip on life then seven teen year old her, at times like these.

The date came first, then a quick title of “getting Bok-su back”. Sounded cringy, sure, but she was the only one to ever read these notes, so that was fine. Lina got nosy sometimes, so she wrote plainer, less ‘obsessive’ notes in a cover-up for truth or dares and the like, to play it on the safe side. 

Better her friend know she knew that Joseph had died hair, than the fact that he washed it off in the bathrooms every day because of his strict slash abusive father. 

Brown eyes caught on the lines. Just…looking. It felt kind of embarrassing to be so stuck in writing, especially when it was one of her hobbies. But the lines stayed blank as her mind, blank as Bok-su’s face after she accused Da-jeong of being homophobic. 

Wait. 

That was it, wasn’t it? The root? The reason she hated Da-jeong so much?

Cause and effect. 

She smiled. 

Cause and effect was predictable. Good. Preventable and fixable.

So if she could clear that up, then…

The brunette smiled, bringing up her computer. 

Maybe this plan isn’t so bad after all.

NEW EMAIL SENT: 1 min(s) ago.

>To: [email protected]

<From: <[email protected]

\Subject: Past argument.

 

//

 

Dear roommate Bok-su,

 

It has come to my attention that we did not start out on the right foot. That you may have the wrong idea about me, my intentions, and my life, an assumption made from a few bad choices on my part. 

 

I would like to clear things up between us. 

 

I sincerely apologise for seemingly acting ‘fake’. 

 

I promise that I am, in fact, a real and willing friend who would really appreciate the opportunity to grow as people together. Some feedback on why I appeared ‘fake’ would be greatly appreciated, as I do not want to appear that way for you or any of my future friends. 

 

I was simply startled by your living state, and did not mean it as a personal offence. I don’t like mess, and have since cleaned up your side of the room, careful not to touch the places you said not to go near. 

 

I apologise for offending you with my comments on your appearance, and apologise deeply for comments on your sexuality. I promise I do not mean to come across as homophobic. It took me by surprise, the way we both recognised the ‘omg they were roommates’ trope, and I commented on how the times I've seen it, it's mainly lesbian or homosexual relationships. Personally, I am more of a fan of sapphic, so that's what I mentioned, hoping we may have something in common. 

 

I'm afraid you misunderstood, thinking I was accusing you of being a lesbian, which I wasn’t, and is why I sounded shocked, asking, ‘Wait, you are a lesbian?’ I’m sorry for sounding homophobic; that wasn’t my intention.

 

TL;DR, I messed up (not to say that you're innocent) and would like to start over. After all, if we’re going to be living the next four years of our lives in the same room, I would like to at least be friendly with each other, if not friends.

 

Yours sincerely, 

 

Da-jeong.

 

---

NEW EMAIL RECEIVED: >1 min(s) ago.

>To: <[email protected]

<From:  [email protected]

\Subject: wtf

//

How tf did you get my email address

Stalker. 

Also. how dare u make it this hard to stay mad.

Uh

Ig its chill

Ur starting to sound like my ‘brother’ sending massive essays as emails lol.

And ig that's fine. Kinda on edge abt the whole ‘lesbian’ thing, ‘s why i lashed out.

Friends is a stretch. But I can manage friendly, I suppose

And yea. Gl > bl, tho my bro would say otherwise lol

PS: asking for tips on how to fake smile better wasn’t smooth. Real smiling is natural.

PPS: How tf did u get my email.

-revenge.

NEW EMAIL RECEIVED: >1 min(s) ago.

\To: [email protected]

\From:  <[email protected]

\Subject: Many Thanks.

 

Hello, Revenge.

 

Girl, how am I the stalker if your user is legit ‘im in ur walls hehe’ ?!

 

...

 

Thank you so much for the forgiveness. I hope this is the start of a budding friendship. 

 

I’m going to see Lina at the figure skating show tonight, but I'll see you around?

 

PS: I saw your email address because you had it open while I was around. 

 

Additionally, emails pressure me into writing like this, I think. My number’s ******* which may be easier to communicate.

 

Yours Relived,

 

Da-jeong.

-~BOK-SU~-

Things in uni weirdly looked up once she and Da-jeong had made up. 

Maybe it was just easier to go about your day, not actively avoiding your roommate. 

Maybe that was just what she wanted to believe. 

Maybe the company was just…nice. 

Maybe she was starting to believe that Da-jeong was just nice. 

She wasn’t just the cliché popular mean girl that she had seemed like when they first met. Well, she kinda was, but…there was definitely something underneath it all. 

She asked questions about how she was acting, as if she didn’t understand how to infer.

She made comments on things that Bok-su wouldn’t have noticed, like how June from the year above bribed her professors, and how Winnie from the year below threw away his cigarettes when his friends didn’t notice. She made Bok-su notice things about herself that she wouldn’t, like the way she apparently ‘selectively cleaned’, and how she only made breakfast on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Mondays.

She had, in fact, cleaned up Bok-su’s mess, much to the ravenette's annoyance. She had unknowingly disorganised half the stuff in her room, mixing up her true crime novels and her how-to-write books with her uni textbooks. Mr Harvey hadn’t been too happy when she had handed in a book on how to write injuries, blood and gore instead of her surgery textbook, claiming that she was sick, making a joke like this. 

It was odd. 

Bok-su wouldn’t normally care. She would normally roll her eyes, maybe smile at the irony, and move on with her day. Maybe send Da-jeong a good ‘fuck you’ for the road, but nothing too serious or personal. 

Keep living the life she wasn’t living. 

Or was she?

Because, for whatever reason, for the first time in Yeats, she had felt something. Not that it was a pleasant emotion. Anger at Da-jeong, who claimed to be her friend, for fucking up her orders. But also a sick, twisted need for vengeance, to get her back. 

Maybe she was living up to her name after all. 

Mother, who had named her ‘revenge’ to spite her father. Revenge for his actions, revenge for not using protection. Haha. What a funny name, dear Mother. 

Maybe instead of frowning upon her from heaven, Mother was really smirking up from hell. 

Maybe wanting to get back at Da-jeong so bad was the first sign that something in her was incredibly, fundamentally wrong. 

The second sign would be how much she had laughed—fucking laughed, though a real smile hadn’t even touched her lips in so long—when Da-jeong had a meltdown from Bok-su re-arranging all her schedules. 

There was something about her roommate that was so unmistakably alive it made Bok-su jealous. Something about her made it look so easy to live so surely it made her want to live again. 

Not just to spite her brother.

Spitting Vincent was always fun, but for the first time in forever, she wanted to be living again. 

Of course, school wanted her to die again, as always, and burnout came fast when you worked twice as hard as needed or called for. 

But she enjoyed the rush of being on top of school as she enjoyed the rush of a good thriller movie. Or the look on Da-jeong’s face when Pennywise started ‘randomly’ playing at 3 am. April Fool's Day was going to be gold when it came up. 

They still didn’t talk that much, though Bok-su was emotionally aware enough to recognise that it wasn’t a Da-jeong thing, or a them thing, but rather a Bok-su-didn’t-like-socialising-all-that-much thing, and more times than not, she would rather stick to herself. 

She had started to almost trust Da-jeong as well. Not too much. Not really. But trust her more than she had trusted anyone since Vince died, so it was impressive of the brunette nonetheless. See, the more she spent time with her, the more Bok-su realised that Da-jeong wasn't just a puppet. 

The populars didn’t normally obsess over plans or schedules, and they didn’t usually have a diary under the bed with information about everyone. She could make a good detective, but Bok-su knew just how set on becoming a doctor she was. It was a little worrying, if you thought about the fact that one thing could happen and she would prolly give up on life, but you know.

Each to their own.

Lina was coming over today. Bok-su knew because Da-jeong had written it on her schedule whiteboard in big purple ink. She wasn’t aware that Bok-su had swapped her whiteboard markers for permanent ones. 

Heh. 

That would be funny, when she realised she wouldn’t be able to rub it off.

Lina was nice.

Too nice.

She was one of the rare people Bok-su found herself getting along with, despite everything. She had long bleached hair, pretty freckles, and majored in art, though she somehow still managed to keep up with every conversation around her.

More importantly, she smiled properly.

Not the kind that stretched across your mouth because you thought it should. The kind that reached her eyes first, crinkling the corners before the rest of her face caught up. Bok-su had spent years memorising fake smiles, categorising them into neat little boxes she'd never admit existed. Lina didn't fit any of them.

It irritated her.

Not because Lina was doing anything wrong, but because she made sincerity look effortless.

Which, naturally, meant Bok-su's favourite hobby had become making her laugh so hard she snorted.

She'd only succeeded twice.

Today, she was aiming for three.

Lina was running late. Lina never ran late. Maybe that was the third sign that something was off. 

But Da-jeong arrived on time, and said that she didn’t know where Lina was, that maybe they could try and play 20 questions to pass the time?

Bok-su said that the game took too long, so Da-jeong suggested 5 questions instead. Raise the stakes.

It wasn’t a horrible idea.

Until she remembered how her roommate planned almost everything, how she had notes about Bok-su herself, how she probably knew that Bok-su would be down. She would probably be doing it for the plan. 

But her roommate made her feel somewhat alive, so it was easy to pretend that it didn’t bother her and continue with life. 

She made it ‘6 questions’ just to mess with Da-jeong’s undiagnosed OCD that she was sure existed.

“Ok—Question one!” Da-jeong smiled. 

Really smiled. 

But it felt different from how Lina smiled. It felt somehow…more real. Real enough for Bok-su to forget about the obsessive planning, the fakeness. Real enough to make her freeze, and her heart do freaky flips, weirdly high on life. 

Only for a second, before she stopped herself, thinking what the fuck was happening, and moved on. “Hit me.”

“Why do you want to be a doctor?” Of course, she would ask bullshit like that. 

“I dunno. Saving lives is cool, I guess.”

Because she felt like she was dying, and because maybe if she stopped others from dying, then she would save herself too. Because it was what her ‘father’ wanted her to be. Because she didn’t know what to do for herself. 

Because it felt easy enough. Scripted. A life that could make people smile at her, even if she was a party pooper.

“Question 2:” Bok-su started, leaning back on her bed. They had pushed their beds to one side of the room at some point, to save space, and so they could sit on their own sides and face the TV as if it were a really long couch. “Who's your ex?”

She said nothing about her ex in her book, besides stating they existed. Which only made Bok-su more curious. 

Da-jeong spluttered. Good. “Ah—What?”

“Your ex. Name names. I won't tell~” She smirked, checking black painted nails. 

Da-jeong Her cheeks tinted red with embarrassment. “Ugh—Fine. If you must know, her name was Abby. OK. You happy?” 

Bok-su cackled. “I FUCKIN KNEW YOU WERE GA—”

She was promptly shut up by a hand over her mouth. “Quiet, asshole. I’m not gay, I'm bi. And Lina was the only one to know…Ugh, now I'm going to have to explain to her how the fuck you know…fuuuuuck—"

“HAHHAHAH.”

“Psychopath.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“I am not a psychopath.”

“Mhm.”

“I just like organisation.”

“And I just like murder documentaries. See? Everyone's got hobbies.”

Da-jeong sighed dramatically.

“I regret suggesting this game.”

“You're smiling.”

“I am not.”

“You literally are.”

“I am tolerating you.”

“Close enough.”

Bok-su snorted.

“Next question!”

“Right! Uhm…” Da-jeong skimmed down the list. “What's your family like?”

Bok-su rolled her eyes.

“Real family or fake family?”

Da-jeong blinked.

“...Is your real family dead?”

“Heh.” Bok-su shrugged. “Both are, in my opinion, but my real family's DEAD dead, so.”

The brunette hesitated.

“...Fake family then.”

“Right.” Bok-su rested her chin on her hand. “Got my 'father'. Asshole. Overprotective, possessive, controlling. Classic daddy issues, dude. My brother, Vincey von Vincent ZestFest. Or Mr Charbonneau, as he goes by now—”

Da-jeong’s eyes went wide.

“WAIT—YOUR BROTHER'S CHEF CHARBONNEAU?!”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“OH MY GOD!”

“...What?”

“HE WAS FEATURED ON MY FAVOURITE TV SHOW!” She giggled. Cutely. Bok-su tried to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat at Da-jeong’s cute, very much real, laughter. “Why's he kinda fine though—”

“GIRL.” Bok-su pointed accusingly. “Do not swoon over my brother, pleaseee. Besides, dude is as dead as a piece of wood. Trust me. I lived with him.”

Da-jeong hid a grin behind her sleeve.

“I refuse to believe someone that attractive has no personality.”

“Oh, he has personality.”

“Really?”

“It's just all concentrated into being insufferable. Plus, if he isn’t gay, then I owe him fifty bucks, and because he hasn’t cashed in yet…”

Da-jeong laughed.

Bok-su smiled. It felt good to be ‘funny’ again. She hadn’t been funny since she had died. It felt good to make people laugh again. “Question four. How 'bout your family?”

“Hm?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh. Pretty chill. Mother's...a lot though, and my sisters are twins.”

“Oh.”

“So... they're chaotic.”

“Thought you liked organisation.”

“I do.”

“So the universe gave you twins.”

“Exactly.”

Bok-su laughed.

“Cruel.”

Da-jeong smiled despite herself, looking back at the list.

“Question five: would you teleport into your favourite movie or TV series—”

“YES.”

“You never let me finish.”

“Fine. Finish.”

“Would you get teleported into your favourite movie or TV series, or get cursed with forever bad luck?”

“Series, definitely. [Horror movie] sounds WAY better than bad luck.”

“YOU'D LEGIT DIE?”

“So?”

Da-jeong stared.

“So?!”

Bok-su shrugged like it was obvious.

“I'm already dead.”

Silence.

“…What?”

Bok-su blinked.

“…Never mind.”

The room went strangely quiet.

For just a second, Da-jeong wondered if she'd heard that right.

For just a second, Bok-su looked like she'd realised she'd said too much.

Neither of them mentioned it.

Instead, Bok-su cleared her throat and forced the mood back up.

“LAST QUESTION OF THE NIGHT!”

Da-jeong saluted dramatically.

“Try me.”

Bok-su looked her dead in the eyes.

“What would you sacrifice for your career?”

The joking vanished from Da-jeong’s face.

She answered without thinking.

“Everything.”

…

Bok-su held her gaze a moment longer than comfortable.

Then she smiled.

“…Yeah.”

They fell asleep side by side that night.

Lina never ended up coming.

Bok-su was kind of glad that she didn't.

For the first time in so long,

She felt truly alive.

But Lina would never be late. 

She would never miss a hangout. 

Da-jeong would know this. Da-jeong would know Lina by the back of her hand now, from the way she analysed things. 

Bok-su knew something must have happened. Knew that Da-jeong must know that as well. 

…

She was the one analysing, for once, the expression on her friend's face when they got the call the next day. The call that said Lina had ended up in the ER.

-~DA-JEONG~-

There was a part of her that knew things couldn’t possibly last for long. 

Part of her that knew that maybe she was the dead one this whole time, no matter what Bok-su said. 

Because, staring down at her best friend's body, she felt no panic. And Da-jeong knew panic. She knew it like the back of her palm. 

She knew that Bok-su, despite barely even talking to Lina, was more panicked than she was. Could feel her flitting around the room, desperate to save her friend. 

It was cruel, she thought, to put her in this position. Cruel of her professors. She knew she was qualified. Knew that she could do it. 

But to have Da-jeong be the one to either save Lina’s life…

…or take it…

…it was cruel. 

She had fallen down the stairs. A badly. Would’ve been rushed to the hospital, but it was too crowded, the wait time too long. Sides, they had an on-campus, sort of practice hospital. It would be more practical. 

Da-jeong could finish her exam while she was at it. 

Win-win. 

Or it was supposed to be.

She hated it. It was against her timetable. Wasn’t in the syllabus, and all the work that she put in would go to waste. 

And it was her own. Fucking. Friend. 

The blood was on her hands. 

It was too late.

Lina should survive, though. 

Should. 

"B-bok-su…I—”

“What?"

 “I-I didn’t mean to—I think  I messed up—”

She wasn’t meant to mess up. She wasn’t meant to make mistakes. She was going to lose everything.

"WHAT!? WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Blood, so much blood. She had slipped. A simple mistake. She couldn’t account for mistakes. 

Not for her career.

Not for Lina.

I DIDN'T MEAN TO—PLEASE—HELP!”

Tears fell down her cheeks. Fat, messy, disastrous tears that could infect her, make it worse. 

Her friend was going to die. It was her fault. 

Her mother would be right. 

Her career was over.

 "...oh no..." 

Bok-su took the tools. A true friend, despite it all.

“BOK-SU WHAT—WHAT DO I DO?" 

As if she hadn’t already ruined it enough. As if it wasn’t all her fault. 

She couldn’t get rejected. 

She needed to pass this exam.

"No—nononononon, please—Lina!" 

Bok-su was crying.

Bok-su never cried. 

She was alive. 

Da-jeong didn’t cry about Lina. She cried about her career. 

Who was the dead one?

 "I DIDN'T MEAN TO—"

 "I know you didn't mean to, dummy—it's Lina, why would you? Just—UGH gimme tha—" 

She worked fast. Blood, all over her pale skin. More than on Da-jeong’s. 

Enough blood.

"Girls? What happened...LINA?!" 

"..."

Her plan. 

Her job. 

Her career. 

All of it,

gone.

 "..." 

Enough blood.

Enough blood was on Bok-su’s hands.

"OH GOD, IS LINA STILL BREATHING? OH GOD—HOW DID THIS—" 

She couldn’t lose everything. 

She couldn’t. She had planned too long. 

Worked too hard. 

Done too much. 

Bok-su wouldn’t mind. 

She had joked about doing worse.

Da-jeong didn’t want to.

That made her weak.

Everything was going to be for nothing.

She would do anything to be a doctor. 

Anything.

"It was her." 

Bok-su glared at her. 

She deserved to be glared at.

She didn’t regret it.

"What?"

 "It—she did it"

The blood was on her hands.

Da-jeong had worked too hard for a stupid mistake to end it all.

"WHAT!"

Oh, she was mad.

"WHAT NO! I'M INNOCENT! I WOULD NEVER! I KNEW LINA I WOULD NEV— IT WAS HER!"

 "..."

They were closing in on Bok-su. The professors. Surgeons. Kicking her out. She screamed. 

Da-jeong would keep everything. 

But she would lose the thing that made her feel like everything was fine. 

It was a trade she always knew she would be willing to make. 

So why did she feel so…dead?

 "Wh—please, no, please, I NEED this I—Da-jeong, why would you..." 

Her voice echoed.

"Ha-ahh, I am going to make you pay—"

Further away.

 "I am going to make you atone..

"SOMEONE, HELP! I DON'T THINK LINA IS BREATHING—"

Chaos.

 "I trusted you. Bok su, how could you?" 

Her voice felt alien. Her tone was accusing. She wasn’t speaking actively. Her brain and body ran on autopilot. It was too chaotic to think. She could only do.

She would do anything.

"BULLSHIT, YOU LYING FUCKING MONSTER! I WILL MAKE YOU ATONE!"

But in this cruel world,

You get what you give.

She never really thought it would be over just like that.

She never really forgot Bok-su, despite not seeing her since. 

She had never missed someone so much before. 

Found herself just...staring at her new roommate. Pretty. Popular. What she had wanted when she first moved in. 

Fake. 

Horrid. 

Not really. But different to Bok-su. 

She never knew regret to be so strong. She had everything she wanted. 

a job, 

a future, 

yet she never went a night without Bok-su's screams, and never a day without missing finding her stupid pranks. 

She was dead. 

The way her friend had claimed to be. 

She missed everything about her. 

Regret ate her up only after it was too late. Much, much too late, and she spent many a night just sitting in the dark, crying, make-up running down her face.

Until she didn't. 

Until she met the love of her life.

It was weird. He made her feel the same way as she did with Bok-su. 

Maybe if she had recognised that the way she had felt around her friend wasn't really normal, she wouldn't have betrayed her. 

Never mind that though. It was much too late. 

For the first time since her old roommate, life started feeling ok. 

it was her wedding, 

she was happy, 

she had almost forgotten,

she was almost alive again. 

but of course, life couldn't even grant her that.

"Ha-AHA-haaHAHhhA—Do you—do you atone now, DEAR FRIEND, DA-JEONG?! DO YOU FUCKING ATONE!" 

She hadn’t seen so much blood since she was seventeen.

"What?" 

A body. Her love. Dead.

"YOU DID THIS!"

Bok-su. Pointing at her.

 "I didn't—”

"The blood is on your hands, Da-jeong, just like it was on mine" 

It was. She was bloody. Bok-su was clean. It was a perfect plan. 

It was karma.

"I couldn't—"

 "You're holding the murder weapon, dumbass. Myeong-hoon cheated, and you got jealous. I always knew you loved passionately, but I'd never think it would go this far, Da-jeong!!"

She was crying. Bok-su was crying. So many tears and so much blood.

 "And what does that make YOU?" 

Myeong-hoon was dead. Myeong-hoon had died. Bok-su had killed Myeong-hoon.

"Me? I'm just the helpless witness who saw EVERYTHING!"

It was a mirror image.

"I would never." 

"You—HAhhahahaa YOU WOULD NEVER?! I KNOW THAT! YOU WERE NEVER GUTSY ENOUGH TO DO SHIT!" 

Asshole.

"What does—"

 "NOnonono, listen here, Da-jeong! Hah—you would never kill someone, and I WOULD NEVER LET LINA DIE! I WOULD NEVER LOSE A PATIENT! 

It was an accident.

"They're not going to believe you! You're lying—you—"

She laughed. She never used to laugh like that.

Like the only thing keeping her alive was spite.

"And you’re HONEST?! Be so for real, Da-jeong. YOU were NEVER HONEST. And yes, they will believe me, trust. After all, the blood, the fingerprints—it all points to you.

This is what her plan got her.

"You fucking psychopath—why?"

 "WHY- HAHAHAAHHH WHY?! You ruined my life. You ruined everything. And now?! Hah—they're going to hate you, just like they hated me!”

The doors opened. Someone rushed in.

“So tell me, Da-jeong Choi”

 "SOMEONE KILLED MYEONG-HOON! EVERYONE, COME QUICK! 

So you finally lived up to your name, Bok-su.

"Do you atone?"

Does this make you feel alive?

I never claimed to be alive.

Does making me pay make you any less dead?

Did killing me after bringing me alive make YOU feel alive, per se?

IS MY DEATH WHAT MAKES YOU ALIVE?

Is MY death what MADE your life?

I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR THIS JOB. THAT'S DEVOTION!

That's an obsession. That's sociopathology.

And you?

I gave you a taste of your own medicine. You're a doctor; you should know.

You did anything to make me pay for it.

I did what you did to me.

I still regret it, you know. More than you ever would. But if I were cursed to die, like my family…

Then I’m not going out without a fight. 

So.

DO YOU ATONE?