God, she was pathetic. It was so unlike her to be acting this way. It had been weeks and yet she couldn’t keep herself from checking her phone. A text. A missed call. She got her hopes up each time the stupid thing vibrated or a soft tone sang out. But she’d given up on reaching out quite a while ago. Maybe he’d realize his mistake and come back?
Then again, maybe this was all for the best. She’d never been completely honest with him, anyway. There were things she’d done that she wasn’t proud of, things she’d done out of jealousy and spite. She might have continued doing those things had it not been for Suoh’s presence. When she had him, she didn’t feel the need to compete for someone else’s attention. She didn’t care if no one else was looking at her. All that mattered was him. She’d grown soft, hadn’t she? It was undeniable at this point. He’d given her something she’d never known, and it had filled that ugly void inside of her that had left her full of hatred. But now he was gone and it was like she was falling to pieces. The only thing that kept her from killing right now was hope. Hope that maybe one day he’d catch her walking the long route to classes, passing by his work, and he’d walk out to stop her,
It all felt futile. The amber liquor in her small glass went down as easy as water- she didn’t taste the bitterness, didn’t feel the burn. If someone passed her something to drink, she took it without question. This party was fine, maybe it would have seemed better if she’d been in a better mood, but everything felt pale for now. Boring and dull. She had plenty of people to talk to, men to flirt with if she wanted, but her mind came back to Suoh. If he was here with her…
She blinked twice when she first saw him across the room. There was no way he was real, right? She wasn’t drunk out of her mind, but she must have been drunk enough that she was mistaking someone else for him? That had never happened before, and the fact that it might be happening now was worrying. Had she really grown that attached? Seriously, she was a pathetic mess.
She turned away, focused on a conversation with her friend for a bit. The next time she saw that guy, he wouldn’t look so much like Suoh. She was just being stupid. And yet when she noticed him for the second time, the male a bit closer, a bit clearer, there was no denying that it was him. Right there. In the same room. Had she been sober, she might have ignored him out of pride or anger. Drunk Hyemi, however, had other plans. She needed to talk to him, to ask him what was going on. And if it went poorly, then so be it. At least she’d have some closure.
It was only a few minutes later, while she was going through a hundred different ways to strike up conversation with him, that she watched him walk out towards the beer garden. Now was her chance, away from prying eyes and loud music, to talk to him. Or yell at him. Or whatever she was about to do.
She followed him out, wine glass in hand, fingers trembling. She would just ask him, plainly, why he’d been avoiding her. That sounded like a good idea. No need for arguments or tears or any of that bullshit. She was 19 years old, an adult, she could handle this.
Except when she finally caught up to him, his back still turned to her as if he hadn’t yet noticed her presence, every word she’d wanted to say to him was gone. All she could manage was his name. It came out as hardly more than a breath at first, probably too quiet for him to hear, but she summoned enough sense to repeat his name a bit louder, to try to grab his attention. What was she doing? She should have just left this alone. He clearly didn’t want to see her. But she was a woman possessed by her emotions, if just for now, and she wanted answers.
God how he hated this. Clubs had only ever been fun in his younger years and even then they hadn’t been as fun as the nights he’d gone out with Hyemi. There he was hoping to forget and yet even the smell of cigarette smoke and stale booze reminded him of those nights they had visited the clubs. Maybe he would be able to drink enough that it would numb each and every one of his senses or maybe he would drink too much that his heart would overrule his head and have him making a call he would be embarrassed about for days to come.
With a heavy sigh he raised his glass to his lips and as the whiskey poured down his throat he couldn’t even find it in himself to care about that burn. Never before did he drink to get drunk having always chosen social drinking but now he had to drink to forget.
With his thoughts filled he hadn’t even caught the first mention of his name because of course the last thing he would have expected was to bump into her but at the second Hyemi had his attention. “Oh god...” The words were whispered out so quietly that there was no way he could have heard him as he turned to look at the woman but what did he say? He had been avoiding her for weeks to keep her safe and now he knew that she would want answers that he just couldn’t give. There was just no way that she could accept him for all that he was and all that he had done. A killer without control and one who lacked remorse for so many murders. If she knew the truth than she would be afraid of him and that was even worse than her hating him.