two.

mỏng manh như một quả bom.

▬

Your uniform pants pool awkwardly against your ankles. You had the decision to pick how to style your uniform to a certain extent― you feel all irritated at the fact you can't afford to get a fitted uniform because you'll grow too big for it, wiry skin stretching over spindly bone, reaching towards infinity―

So, you're already on a short fuse before the day starts. Your teeth gnaw against each other and you think the world is creasing like worn fabric around you, anger burns in your stomach like a fever. Your patience thins along your ribs where the uniform shirt chaff's. You designed your uniform to be as comfortable sitting down as possible, considering you're going to be doing that most of the day. You're kind of glad you decided to take to running to school in the morning, or just walking. Though, you should probably get an umbrella at some point, considering you didn't have one when you first got here and that was a nightmare. 

A job, too, maybe. Cut off the maybe, your parents can't afford to send you anything, you're going to make ends meet like a ragged marathon runner: just barely. 

You are a cardboard person. You'll run yourself to nothing in no time at all.

"Stupid food bills," you murmur to yourself, "whatever, no lunch today and tomorrow and then I can get an umbrella."

_

You step onto school grounds and sneak past the fanfare of girls fawning over hot guys. You don't even bother turning back, because it doesn't matter. Slipping through the corridors to find your classroom is a nightmare in and of itself. You pace aimlessly from door to door until you find a girl with glasses and long hair carrying a computer and a book on python coding. A sigh of relief floods out of you, you hurry up to her. 

(She's like you, you think, the wrong color for this country.)

"Uh, hey!" You shout, and she flinches at the noise before she turns to you, "Do you know where the computer and programing room is?"

Her eyes are nearly black, like charcoal, "Uh, yeah, I'm headed there now, jus-jus-st, uhm, follow me."

"Thanks." You say. Voice soft.

"No problem, it's-s-s room four s-s-se-seven." You wonder if she ever gives up on speaking some words like you do. If her tongue gets all jumbled up around syllables. "You're new here, right? What's-s-s your name?"

"Oh it's—" you say your name and she says it back, it's not perfect, but it's close enough. "—what's your name?"

"Aah, S-sa-saeng Ary—" she says, her accent is off, like the man who runs the deli two blocks from your house. Like your bác trai, the war hero, from America, like your parents, like you, "—pleasure to meet you."

And nothing at all. You're born for this. Empty rooms and empty glances, eye's peeled back to mock the sunlight, you are made for loneliness; built to fit so small into a corner that nobody will ever notice you, teeth sharp enough to cut through bone, but your tongue swells in your mouth like an anchor. You would collapse in on yourself like a rotten fruit but—

Nothing, you suppose. You are a cardboard cutout, a stick figure drawing.

The classroom is empty from where you are. You wonder if they're all made of four people hunched to work. Your má says honey you are going to be amazing, and you think of crammed rooms and heavy breath, florescent lights burning into your eyes from a computer ten-centimeters from your face. You think má, I want to be better than that. Except, not really.

Except― you are made for nothing. Loneliness in your head like a dream you can't wake up from. Your ba says that only cowards start fights and you think he might be right, so you don't break the computer in front of you, even when you want to crack your fist into the glass and watch the blood well over your cut up knuckles. You hold in your rage like a secret kept to fester. Wood left to rot. You cut yourself into manageable portions. You can break down later but—

If someone cracked you open, you think, you'd bleed out bright green; envy crashing in waves around you. You are the most jealous person you know. It's suffocating. Your má would say that it's the route of your temper, except she doesn't talk about it at all. Like your knuckles aren't scarred over from fistfight after fistfight. Breaking teeth upon impact. 

You don't regret it.

"Huỳnh," your teacher calls, but he says it like Hyun— it's wrong, the spelling is off in Korean, a direct translation fucks up the phonetics— and you walk into class completely, "introduce yourself to your classmates."

You bow, the room is dark, screen light so bright it makes your eyes burn, you say your name to the class, tongue moving around the letters the way they're supposed to, Hwin, "—and I want to program computers."

The teacher looks past you, assigns you a seat light behind some tall boy in the middle. Not taller than you, though, with your gangly limbs stretching and stretching and stretching.

You feel a million eyes on you, you, you— you are the center, you want to carve open the earth and bury yourself under it.

(..They're staring, but they're probably just spaced out from the screen. They're staring, but it's probably because you're new.

"I want to learn to program computers." You hear someone whisper back. Your accent, so insignificant compared to your ba and má, sounds so heavy on her tongue, like it swallowed up the words. You smile, and you don't clench your fist. Only cowards start fights, you keep it like a saying, close to your chest, only cowards start fights.

Again, you cannot fool yourself.)

"Do you have something to say?" You ask, the hiss in the back of your throat stays there, instead you smile. All teeth. "I know that I am new, but you don't have to be afraid to say anything to my face."

"Oh-oh, it's," she tumbles over her words, "nothing."

"Are you sure?" You ask, politely, voice lilted prettily. "Are you sure you don't have anything to say?"

"Uhm, n-no." She looks down.

"Good," you say, voice unassuming but eyes sharp, the second tongue in your mouth cursing, "you shouldn't mock people it's rude."

"Uh, what?" Her eyes tumble over you. 

You smile, and walk to your seat. Your mouth stays shut and you type so much your fingers starts cramping. You save the program and copy it on another tab and put it to use. With a heartfelt gaze, you watch as the cursor does exactly what you told it to, drew the south Korean flag. Checkmate. You've never been artistic, but your a said that you could never, so—

So―

Again, you cannot fool yourself. The anger bubbles right under the surface, bloated like a beached whale. You're a second year in the COMPUTERS DEPARTMENT of JAEWON-HIGH. You breathe in. Stomach curdling in the sun. Gunpowder viens crushed under the influence of alcohol and teenage pheromones, you huff out a lung, running. Chasing your past like a dog to a bell, Pavlov has you in a chokehold and you think—

You are fragile, ready to blow at the moments notice, the second a spark might appear and you keep it bubbling under your skin like a wound. You are rotting away in your own body. 

Click your tongue on the roof of your mouth and wait for the lunch bell to stop ringing, you take out an orange and waste the hour away. "Hm," you whisper, "the teacher posted the assignments to I guess I'll just get ahead." 

"Hey!" Some kids voice startles you— you flinch so hard an orange wedge flies from your hand to the floor, "It's lunchtime and teach said I'd be alone in here."

You turn. It really is just some kid, purple hair and eyes like dirt, he's grinning though, ear to ear. 

"Yo, dude, get out."

"I'm doing my assignments, sha." You murmur, your focus is hazy like unrefined tea. "Test code, test code.. error, error, error.. damn where did he get this? Some idiot on the street? Error error error."

"Shut up if you're going to be here anyway." He hisses. You think to yourself only cowards start fights. "I have better things to do."

You blink, "Hey, you're a first year, right?"

"Yeah, why?" He hisses, like this is a great dishonor on him.

You point you the second line of code on his computer, "That command doesn't work. You're going to have to backspace it and stick a semicolon at the end. Then bracket your code in."

"Haa? How did you even see that?"

You blink at him, then you grin at him, so wide you're sure that it might just split your face clean in half. Teeth glinting crooked in the light. "I used to break into school networks when I was younger to bring up my classmates grades. It was good money."

Even though luck ran out, even when everyone turned on you, called you a cheater and that what kind of scum could raise such a horrible― and it gets bloody from there.

"That's kind of a good idea," he says, "oh yeah, call me Kouji."

You think this might be a bit backwards, "You already know my name."

"Yeah." He says back.

Again, you cannot fool yourself, again―

You tell him, "Arrogance is an ugly color on everybody." Because he needs to hear it.

You are no musician, but the crescendo rises in your chest like vomit. You want to spill your soul out from your mouth and watch it rot the floor all up. Blinking becomes a chore when you're like this, you remind yourself to breath. Your ribs scrape against your clothes because they don't fit, too big, you're all gamey and concave; skin dipping into the place where bone is, you―

You are fragile. Like a bomb.

(Breathe in, out, you remind yourself.)

You know better then to let yourself explode, then to let the sparked gasoline spread outside of your skin like a wildfire. Envy is an ugly color on you but you wear it so well. Something is wrong with you, you think. Something is broken under your sore ribcage and sunken eyes.

"Hey, Kouji?" You taste his name, like sandpaper, your mouth can barely fit two tongues, another accent gone wrong is pushing it, "Wanna know how to create hyper-destructive malware?"

You think you are made to self-destruct, it's only fair to teach it, but Kouji looks at you like he's reassessing. Like he was looking at you through warped glass, and suddenly― suddenly you are open, glass heart shattered on the ground, data scribbled nice and neat. You think, fuck fuck fuck fuck―

"How," he starts, like his tongue is heavy in his mouth, sandpaper, "do you know how to do that?"

You scramble your eyes to focus on your computer, "Uh, I don't. I didn't― I learnt it online."

"You―"

How to get out, how to get out? You could run, but he'd catch up. You should immobilize him, how, how how? Maybe you could crack his head on the table, trip him up, kick his knees so hard they cave in, what to do, what, what, what? Slam his arms against the floor so hard they shatter, but then you'll be expelled even if you get away—

"— you're kinda cool."

He says your name like it's familiar, grasps around the edges like your parents do. Your mind gets hazy, for a moment. Threadbare, like it's missing something, falling apart. The loose ends fray apart leaving you in tatters, you cannot see where you end and the tapestry of your life begins. When you come back to yourself, he's waving his hand in front of your face, pouting. 

"Nē—where'd you go?"

"I'm here," you say, it cracks in your mouth, "I'm here, sorry about that. I'm a little spacey."

Kouji grins, teeth so white they blind you for half-a-second. You wonder if he knows Kim Gimyeong— he has that same look in his eyes. It's hungry. You think that kids like that are always hungry because they have enough and they want more, not you. You bubble with the kind of want that devours you instead of the outside world. Stays so far under your skin it's loathing and it stays building up until you tip over like a lopsided Jenga tower. All that spill out is acid and all that remains is a cracked mirror and a hollow reflection, the husk of a person in front of you like a corn shell. 

You crack open like glass on the floor.

"Sorry."

"Hn, don't worry, oh—" he coughs, "don't go away giving things for free, it's bad business."

It's your turn to smile, teeth wracked against each other like uneven puzzle pieces. "But I knew that you already knew, no way you don't, Kouji-ya."

"We aren't friends," he says, smile still sitting politely on his face, "don't think we are."

"Oh," you say, "okay, no problem, Kouji-ya, I guess I'll be doing my work. Have fun with your—" you look at the code, the order of alignment, "—tracking. Hope you're being compensated."

You cut yourself open to let the hope bleed out and you leave that corpse right there where it's standing. Your trust is easily gained once and once only, after which it never resurfaces. It stays drowned, maybe you should be more careful about giving out your trust to being with; it's what got you here to begging with. For a moment you curse your parents out, for teaching you kindness on impact. You crush your smile to fine powder and focus your life into the screen of your school-issued-crappy computer. 

This school is just like the last one. You cut yourself off, again. 

(Again, you are a powder keg set to explode, you feel the heat burn under your skin.)

The world collapses around you into blocky pictures, watercolors. You think you parents have always been like that. Watercolor paper crumpling with too much pressure. Your má is faded and worn, she is bitted fingernails and clammy hands, like a well loved sweater; your ba is calloused hands and concave back, eye bags so dark it looks like he got into a fight, something left out too long in the sun, shriveled. You are distorted, like some kid was told to draw a person and you were stretched with too long, too skinny arms and legs, stick figure body draw with patchy crayon. 

This world is cruel enough to make a perfect balance between starved and hungry, and girls need to be wanting and boys need to be hungry for something more and you—

You are uneven teeth and crooked fingers, reaching out to the hand that beats you like it's some sort of savior. You gun for a finish line and you sprint with toothpick legs, you are a cardboard cutout of a person and you see through cold, cold eyes. Breath so ragged you cold fold into yourself like a lawn chair. 

Again, you are always, always, the last decision. Last choice. Anxiety sits with you like a roommate you can't evict. Forever conjoined, a parasite under your skin. You can feel your brain twitch sporadically behind your right eye.

Problem kid, always starting messes what are we going to do? You hear your parents hushed talk when they think you're sleeping and it gurgles in your chest so pungently you could throw up. What are we going to do?

You breathe in. Close your eyes, let everything sink into you like a tattoo; curling on your flesh like a memory. You cut off the surplus and breathe out. The world cuts into bright, waxy colors as it always has been, your eyes are open. You focus in. Set your eyes to watch the monitor. Poor people don't have the option to break down, so you'll save it for later. 

The world is more solid now— you get back to work.

_

He hums into the phone, the cold office air sets her straight and her ears perk up. There's nobody with him except for her and Gun, but she knows he doesn't care, "Yes, cut to the point."

There's a flickering of static, it licks up and down the walls. Her head hurts when she's like this, sleep evades her and she cannot switch it back. The paranoia curls at her like a well-loved friend, says her name earnestly behind her ears.

"Interesting, name?"

There's a laugh on the other end, loud and sharp, like it's uncaring. She watches with sharp eyes, calmly. This is important, these kinds of things always are. She doesn't lick her lips, doesn't so much as breathe too hard, it'll mess with the cutting atmosphere that's settled around her neck like an iron necklace. Gun doesn't seem to care, though. He lays back, lax in the way he always is, shoulders heavy, arms and legs tense. 

She can't tell a single thing that he's thinking  behind his sunglasses. He's like that annoying ass in the vocal&dance department. At least he has the decency to take off the glasses when he fights. 

Her father hangs up the phone. 

"Soo-jung," he looks at her, he shoulders resist tensing further than they already are, "there's someone in your school I need you to befriend. Bring them to me on the immediate. I expect them to be here before next month."

"Of course, father." She says, no hesitation. This is a well rehearsed routine, "Who is it?"

Something unruly cuts through his calm facade, she can't put a name to it, but it sets her on edge. More than he usually does. Maybe it's the cold— she think's maybe like that she can convince herself. It's the cold that has her so tense. She focuses, rubber band snapped back.

"Huỳnh." He says, but it doesn't quite fit in his mouth. "Second year in the technology department." 

Soo-jung doesn't retaliate, she knows better.  Still the rebellion curls in her stomach like an illness. 

She leaves the building and her anxiety in the same step, stiff shoulders loosening. Gun tilts his head so she knows he's looking at her— he smirks. 

"Y'know," he says airily, "you're pathetic. Like a dog."

She doesn't say anything back, just keeps walking.