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Love is that sweet poison that kills you slowly.
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Areum

“Yeah, eomma, I’ll take care. It’s just one night anyway,” I loosely hug my mother and pull away, looking at her with a small, weary smile.

“Okay,” she smiles, nodding her head lightly.

Tonight, I’m sleeping over at Min-Ji’s house because it’s been really long since we had a sleepover, and I also need a break from just staring at my phone all day. We were expecting Hye-Soo as well to join us, but she’s not keeping well. So it’s just the two of us, and I’m hoping that spending time with her would help me not to think about why Jungkook has gone totally silent, keeping his distance, and avoiding me.

Climbing out of the car, I wave goodbye to my mother and head over to Min-Ji’s home while my mother waits for me to get inside the house and drives away afterwards.

Min-Ji’s older sister Ha-Eun was the one that opened the door for me. I’ve never actually met her because she grew up with her aunt who lives abroad, and then was away at college. She rarely even came home for summers, but now that she has graduated, she’s staying here for a month until she moves back out again.

“Hi, Areum. I’ve heard about you sometimes from Min-Ji. I’m Ha-Eun, and it’s nice to meet you,” she extends her hand to me, and I smile at her, returning her gesture with a light handshake.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Ha-Eun. I’ve heard about you as well, from Min-Ji,” I say, my voice soft and quiet.

“She’s in her room. I was making dinner, so I’ll get back to it,” Ha-Eun says, smiling as she points with her thumb towards the kitchen. She then turns around and heads to the kitchen while I stand there staring at her, a little mystified by her appearance.

She has short hair with a wolf cut that’s dyed blonde at the ends, and the roots are pitch black, probably growing out in her natural hair color. There are tattoos on her fingers, and one that’s peeking from behind her ear on the side of her neck, and there’s a large tattoo on the back of her right calf muscle as well. The short pleated plaid skirt that she’s wearing reveals the ends of a rather large rose vine tattoo that’s climbing up the side of her right thigh.

I wonder if her parents are okay with her having so many tattoos. Mine wouldn’t be too pleased, for sure. I quickly climb up the stairs and head straight to Min-Ji’s room that’s on my right. The door is partly open, and I push it open fully to land myself into her room.

“Hi, Areum,” Min-Ji waves at me, her eyes leaving the screen of her laptop to take a quick glance at me through the top of her glasses.

She’s sitting with her legs stretched out on the bed and intently reading something on her laptop while I close the door behind me and hop into bed beside her.

“What are you watching?” I ask her, pulling a pillow to my lap and getting comfortable beside her.

“Nothing interesting,” she closes the Netflix window and moves her laptop aside, taking off her glasses thereafter and placing them next to the laptop on her nightstand.

“I met Ha-Eun downstairs,” I say, the adjectives that I wanted to use for her almost slipping past my lips, but thankfully I stopped at that.

“Oh, yeah. What did she say?” Min-Ji asks, unfazed.

They really don’t have a great sister bonding, especially after Ha-Eun traveled out of the country for her education while they both were still very young. Min-Ji pretty much spent and still spends all her time by herself or with her friends because her parents are busy people, too, who toil day and night and take up a lot of business travels. Before Ha-Eun returned home, Min-Ji almost always stayed with her caretaker who took great care of her.

“Nothing much, she just introduced herself. She doesn’t seem so bad,” I shrug a little, making her roll her eyes distastefully.

“Forget about her. Have you eaten dinner?” Min-Ji scrambles around in the drawer of her study table and pulls out some cash which she then stuffs into her small bag.

“I did. And you?”

“Not yet. I’m going out to have something. Do you want to come along?” She asks me as she wears a coat and hooks her hair out of it.

“Ha-Eun is cooking dinner.” My words are lost on Min-Ji, making me sigh.

“Will you be long? If not I’ll just be here. I’m a little tired,” I say, already feeling quite exhausted for no reason.

“I’ll be back soon. Just stay here, okay?” She asks, and I nod an ‘okay’, watching her dash out of the room, and then I hear her jogging down the stairs and finally the sound of the front door opening and closing tells me that she has left the house.

I slide down and lay my head on the pillow, feeling bored and tired, my thoughts drifting back to Jungkook once again. I’m clueless why he has shut himself off like this, and it’s disturbing that we can’t even go to school and meet each other these days. He hasn’t been making any attempts to return my texts and calls, and that’s frustrating.

Bumping into Namjoon was of no use. I believe he did not keep his word. I’m not in touch with any of his other friends as well, and I have no idea how to find out what’s going on. Is he doing this on purpose?

I could go over to his house once again and find it out myself, but I don’t want to seem so desperate. Most importantly, I don’t want him to think that it’s okay to close off and expect me to go after him and fix things.

My thoughts aren’t entirely aligning well, and I shuffle around restlessly to my side when I notice Ha-Eun walking past Min-Ji’s room to hers, softly whistling a tune to herself. The door to Min-Ji’s room is ajar, and Ha-Eun doesn’t bother to spare a glance inside, but I’m also feeling too lazy to climb out of bed and close the door for the sake of privacy.

So I just lay there staring at the doorway for a few minutes, and then Ha-Eun suddenly appears there once again. She stands there for a few seconds and then she enters the room. Ha-Eun has changed out of her plaid skirt and turtleneck sweater into a really short pair of shorts and a spaghetti-strap tank top that is anything but modest. Even though the heating system is doing its job fairly well, I would freeze to death if I wore something like that.

The pair of shorts barely covers anything, and a large part of her rose vine tattoo is clearly visible. It has blood-red colored roses that are in sharp contrast to her milky skin. The tattoo spreads and disappears under the hem of her shorts, which means that it probably spans over her hip as well. I’m definitely intrigued by it, and by her presence itself, in general.

I watch as Ha-Eun drags a chair and sits down on it, facing the bed. The overhead lighting directly highlights her abundant chest. She has no bra on, which is evident by her stiff nipples that poke out through the thin fabric. It is most definitely because of the weather, and I begin wondering how she’s able to withstand the cold with such scanty clothes.

I absolutely do not intend to look at her like that, but my eyes keep going back to her chest as I sit up on the bed, too, cross-legged. With a faint smirk, Ha-Eun then silently pulls out something that’s tucked into the waistband of her shorts. It looks like a futuristic pen of sorts, but when she clicks a button on it a few times rapidly, one end of the pen lights up.

To further add to my shaken up state, the older girl brings the pen to her mouth and takes a light puff. She takes a deep breath with her mouth closed, and after a few seconds, she opens her mouth to let out plumes of dense white smoke that fill the air around her.

It looks like she’s smoking, but I’m not sure because it doesn’t smell like a cigarette. My jaw drops to the floor, and I blink in shock, completely clueless about what she’s doing, except for a faint feeling that it isn’t something her parents would approve of.

“You haven’t seen someone vaping before, have you?” She asks me, noticing how blindsided I look.

I feel my head moving side to side in a soft “no”, rendered utterly speechless. Her question kind of answers my earlier question. She vapes to keep herself warm. I have heard about vapes, but this is the first time I’m seeing someone vaping in front of me.

“Do you want to try?” She tilts the device towards me, and I stick my hands out in defense, vigorously shaking my head.

“No, no. That’s okay,” I refuse her offer, and she withdraws her hand, chuckling softly to herself.

“Relax, it isn’t poison or something, and there’s no harm in just trying it once. I wouldn’t force you though,” she shrugs, taking another puff and repeating the same actions to let out another white train of smoke that swirls around her face.

The room soon fills with a light scent that seems like a mix of peaches and raspberries, but with a slight medicinal undertone that I find unfamiliar and a little repulsive even.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” She asks me bluntly, crossing her legs over one another and leaning back in the chair.

“I do,” I answer her feebly.

“That’s so cool. You seem like the soft kind,” she laughs, “but it’s always the soft ones that are naughty,” her words flow without any hesitation.

I sit there, trying to process the situation and get accustomed to the strange mix of smells, which isn’t quite repulsive to me now as it was when it first hit my senses.

“I had one, too,” Ha-Eun says after blowing out another puff of smoke.

“Huh?” I raise my eyebrows at her, cluelessly, still finding it a little hard not to stare at her thigh tattoo or at her chest, where her nipples seem a little settled now.

“A boyfriend,” she clarifies, catching my eye when I look up at her. “You’re interested in this tattoo?” She quickly unwraps her legs and leans forward a little, flashing her deep cleavage.

“Yeah, kind of,” I answer, scratching the back of my ear and giving her a sheepish smile.

Laughing softly, Ha-Eun rises from her seat and pulls down the waistband of her shorts on one side. My breath almost stops, and I feel my heart leaping within my chest for a second, but she does not take it off fully. Thankfully. She lowers it just enough to give me a clear view of the large patch of roses spreading on the side of her hip and ascending further up.

My eyes travel up the side of her body, and she pulls her shorts back in place before she lifts her top up on one side, all the way up to the bottom of her breasts, revealing the terminal part of the grand tattoo that finally culminates in a small tangle of tendrils just below her right breast. The artistic detailing is brilliant, and the tattoo itself looks breathtakingly beautiful. I look up at her in awe once I’m done taking in the entire tattoo in all its glory.

“It’s so beautiful. Such a masterpiece actually,” my words of appreciation make a proud smile form on her lips, and she sits back down to take another puff from her vaping device.

“Thank you, I got it done some nine months ago. My ex-boyfriend did it for me,” she informs me, her legs crossing over once again.

I only nod lightly in response, lowering my gaze to my entwined fingers that are resting on the top of my lap. Tattoos, vape, tattoo artist boyfriend—she definitely isn’t the kind that fits this family. But I find her a little mysterious and her attitude a little attractive. And I also feel relieved it was just the tattoos she found me staring at. I have no doubts that she would have discarded her top if she had noticed me glimpsing at her chest.

“Tell me about your boyfriend. What is he like? How long have you been dating?” She pops some questions at me in her slightly scratchy but sweet voice.

I wasn’t prepared to face these questions, but I’m excited to answer them mainly because Min-Ji hardly ever shows interest when I want to talk about Jungkook. I mean, she wasn’t even thrilled to know I had my first kiss with him, and even now all she has are accusations against him. But it’s exciting to have someone who wants to know about him and us, even though I’m still lost and internally moping about his silent treatment recently.

And I also feel strangely comfortable in Ha-Eun’s company despite this being our first meeting. Bonding over a discussion about boyfriends sounds good.

“We’ve been seeing each other for about a couple of months now. I’ve had a crush on him for a few years, and it was the same with him. He’s really nice, heads the basketball team at school, and he looks stunning, too,” I find myself blushing a little when I talk about Jungkook.

“Ahh, the perfect high school hottie,” she winks at me, making me giggle lightly. “Nice. You guys hang out often?” Ha-Eun finally sets the pen aside and relaxes in the chair.

“Not much. He’s a little busy these days. We haven’t been talking much,” my words pour out on their own accord, sounding sad.

“Why? Is he avoiding you or something? Did you talk to him about it?” She sounds invested, and it motivates me to keep talking to her.

She said she already had a boyfriend, so she’d probably know how things work in a relationship, and a little advice from her would help me figure things out. Maybe.

“I don’t really know. It’s a little weird. We don’t go to school anymore, he had his practical exams earlier, and he hasn’t even been returning my texts and calls these days,” I look down at my lap before looking back up at her.

“Areum, this could only mean one out of two things. He’s either cheating on you, or he’s extremely stressed out and needs some help,” Ha-Eun locks eyes with me as she puts forth her theory, sounding entirely sure of herself.

Knowing Jungkook and how he usually keeps his distance from girls, I don’t think he would be the kind to cheat on me. But I think he might need some help with something, if what Ha-Eun theorizes is right. That thought did cross my mind a few times.

“What kind of help? He isn’t even willing to talk,” I sound a little desperate.

“Meet him and talk to him then. Make him comfortable enough to talk. The physical route never fails,” she winks again, smirking a little maliciously.

“What does that mean?” I ask, my eyebrows pinching together.

Ha-Eun exhales sharply.

“Look, guys get stressed out too often, and they may not talk about it very comfortably. Especially when he heads the school team, I’m sure there’s a lot of attention he draws, and there must also be a lot of pressure on him to perform. Guys have a hell of a lot problems, too, just like us. They overthink, get exhausted and feel depleted. But the thing is, they can let out a lot of stress through sex,” she explains, gesticulating as she speaks.

My eyes widen in shock upon hearing what she just said a little shamelessly.

“Are you telling me to have sex with him?” I whisper that part, my eyes flitting to the doorway and back to Ha-Eun, feeling guilty out of the blue even when I’ve done nothing wrong.

“Why not?” She shrugs nonchalantly. “He is your boyfriend and you both are adults now.”

I only stare at her, bewildered.

“Your parents are divorced, aren’t they?” Ha-Eun asks something I never expected her to ask me, and I only nod a little in response, lowering my head in embarrassment.

“I know, Areum. I’ve heard my parents discuss it once very recently. Look, I don’t want to sound offensive, but I think your mother didn’t really know the trick. Keep this boy if you feel he’s worth it, but try first,” she talks in riddles, but implicitly hinting that having sex is the key to sustaining a relationship.

She then picks up my phone and places a call to her phone, returning my phone to its place thereafter.

“You can talk to me anytime.” Ha-Eun offers with a friendly smile, and, after throwing light on something I had never once thought about in all these years, she quietly leaves the room, making sure to collect her vaping device from the table on her way out.

My thoughts are completely messed up, and I sit there in a state of shock, trying to derive the meaning behind her words.

Would Jungkook really want that from me?

I don’t know, but maybe Ha-Eun is right. Maybe my mother never knew how to handle my father. And maybe Maya knew the secret. That also explains why he always appears so happy around her, yet I don’t have a single memory of him appearing so happy around my mother. Not even once.

It makes me cringe to think about my parents’ sex life, but if what Ha-Eun said is true, then I do not ever want that to happen in my life. I do not want to be like my mother, and I wouldn’t want to lose the boy in my life like that.

Is this even right? Why am I being led by the words of someone I just met?

Maybe it’s because she has shown me familiar things from a side I’ve never seen before, and it appears so real and convincing that I can’t help but believe she is telling the truth.

My mind feels completely turbulent with a plethora of erratic thoughts scattered around, and the entire purpose of sleeping over at Min-Ji’s home to forget about my sad dating life, that was just starting to sprout, is defeated. But the fog has lifted upon something that was troubling me, and there’s just one thing that I’m determined about—I will meet Jungkook and talk to him. I was not too keen on doing that earlier, but I also do not want to put things to rest like that.

And most importantly, I do not want to be labeled as the girl who did not know the trick. Irrespective of how I do it, I will still sort this out.

Published on : 01/04/2025