seung park / six. fin

You think that the one thing people have the most trouble understanding is that rage is a quiet thing. It burns inside of you all the damned time, eats away at your veins, wraps around your bones until they feel like wood chips rubbing together under your skin.

They don't understand that you feel it when you least expect it.

"Morning, Seung," your mother says to you, same as she does nearly every day.

Your answers vary sometimes, but they all hold the same emotion.

"God is dead," you chose today, looking around the kitchen for the things that you need for the day. You do it every day, pretend at this life of chaos that everyone knows isn't real. Daeshim looks at you over the kitchen table, and you wonder for the thousandth time how a mirror image can be so different.

"Some coffee?"

"Fuck you," and then you smile that shit-eating grin and grab your book bag from the bench by the front door, dig your canines into the apple you grab out of the bowl.

"See you after school."

"Not if I can help it," you reply.

And that's the thing; you could always help it. You could always find something to do, something to get up to, something that you shouldn't be doing. So how was it that no one ever knew you?

You walk through the front door of school every morning, homework undone, and today is no different. Yet somehow, you know all of the answers, just as you always do. If your teacher decided to give a pop quiz, you could get a hundred percent with the blink of your eye. You would stare at your nails during class, pretend to find something interesting in the beds there, or better yet, skip altogether and find a tree to read your newest book under, but the second your teacher tried to cold call you then you would quip back with the exact right answer and they wouldn't be able to say shit about it.

It makes them love you almost as much as they hate you.

And you lean into it.

Your entire life, you just lean into it. Let people say whatever the fuck they want about you, think what they want about you. They're going to try and think something about you no matter what you do, no matter who you really are, so.

Why should you care?

You shouldn't.

So you don't.

When you walk into English class in the morning, Mrs. Hammond has scrawled across the board the word hamartia. Her handwriting is big and bold, the word in all capital letters, and you take your seat in the middle of the classroom.

"Morning class," she said, quieting everyone down. "Who can tell me the meaning of hamartia?"

You look the same as ever, a boy thrown together in a state of casual disarray, usually chaotic enough to almost distract people from your face. Almost. Your canvas sneakers have holes in them, and the laces are terribly torn, but you refuse to replace them despite the way Mother looks like she might have a coronary every time she lays eyes on them. Your tie is loose, and your slim charcoal pants are creased from sitting on your floor overnight. Through the fabric of your white button-down, the shape of your lean, spare frame is obvious; your cuffs are undone, your hair is a curated disaster with strands pointing in every damned direction, and you slung your blazer over the back of your chair as if it wouldn't cost some kids an arm and a leg. Your jaw is strong enough, hidden behind a day or two or maybe three of refusing to shave.

You look the same.

And yet, the pretty new girl raised her hand, so for once, you do something different.

"Reina, yes, go ahead," Mrs. Hammond says, and you call out instead.

"Fatal flaw."

You smirk, know that Mrs. Hammond is going to scold you, but that doesn't stop you.

You know what Reina thinking just from the way she turns in her chair. She narrows her eyes at you, but you just lean back in your chair, start rolling up your shirtsleeves.

"Thank you for that robust definition, Seung," Mrs. Hammond says, her own eyes narrowed as well. "But I believe I called on our new student. Reina, would you care to expand upon Seung's answer?"

Her eyes stayed on me, and it was like I was in her head.

He's beautiful, you're pretty sure. He's smiling at me.

"It's a tragic flaw, more accurately," she says, tilting her chin up like that's supposed to intimidate. "It'll be a hero's ruin."

That's how it usually went. You get bored; you do what you want; you take what you want. No regard for anyone else, no regard for anything in the world except for yourself. You think, that if you were in exactly the right place at the right time and in the right mood, you might slit someone's throat just because you were bored. Hell, you might even go out set on the idea.

You would do it for Daeshim.

Anyone touches him, they die.

No matter what people say about you, no matter what they think: that's the be-all-end-all of your entire life. You are two sides of a coin, inverted images of each other, and you would do anything in the world to make sure that he succeeds. You want him to have the entire world, want him to see and understand everything that he wants to. People want to say that you're a whore, that you'll bed any girl that you think twice about; they want to say that you're the life of the party; that you've never shown up to a single one of their parties for more than ten minutes; that you're a dick or that you're secretly the kindest person that's ever walked the planet. They want to say whatever the fuck they want, and you're going to let them, because you're not the one that matters.

You never have been.

After class, the girl drops her book, and you quote a line from memory handing it back to her.

"In minutes, I became more of myself. Which is to say the monstrous part of me got so large, so familiar, I could want it," you say, run your hand over the black and white cover. You hand it back to her, making sure your fingers touch for a half-breath. "I could kiss it."