â with @msufridayâ
             tw: drug usage/drug abuse
  Noah doesnât really consider himself to be a bad guy. Heâs had a bad upbringing, bad experiences, and made bad choices from time to time â but does that necessarily make someone bad themselves? He didnât think so. He was rather convinced that this life chose him, and not the other way around. Perhaps thatâs why he didnât think too much into it when he had emotionally injured Friday many moons ago. It resulted in their breakup during freshman year, sure, but he honestly didnât think it was going anywhere, anyway. It was inevitable that it would happen, Noah believed, because thatâs how his life always ended up. With someone getting hurt, with emotions being damaged.
  It took them a while, and several apologies from Noah later (because heâs not a bad guy, he knew he was in the wrong), to finally be on slightly friendly terms again. The tension was still there for what he did and how she felt, but he was grateful that they could at least breathe clear air together. Noah didnât care if people hated him or not, either due to first impressions or certain happenstances, but he was trying to get his life back together; and if righting his wrongs is a step in the right direction, then so be it.
  Too bad Noah seldom followed his own words, own thoughts. Maybe if he did, things would be the other way around.
  Noah tried his best to stay clear of the deep end. He really did. Yet, with the pressures of academia,  conflicting drama regarding his own relationships, and the downright fact that he was never fully recovered, it wasnât long before he looked to find solace in harder substances other than weed. He missed the comforting numbness that narcotics brought, the excitement of knowing he was putting something illegal into his veins. Noah regretted the absence of what he truly depended on â drugs that had been there for him longer than people.
  Noah was on his third-and-a-half line of cocaine tonight before he started feeling euphoric and leaned against the wall in his room, sliding down to the floor with his head inclined. He drifted off. Once he drifted back to what he assumed was reality, he was still seated on the floor but in a different environment. He blinked and looked around slowly, wincing at the pain in his chest. Where was he? When did he lose a shoe? How long has he been here, sweating like it was July?
  âAh, fuckâŠâ Noah croaked, unintentionally bumping his head against the wall. He was still feeling a little high butâ fuck, he was hot. He could gather that he was in a hallway, at least. Across the hall, the number â415â could be made out and a small spark in his brain remembered, hey⊠thatâs Fridayâs room.
  He swallowed dryly and looked down both ends of the hallway, preparing himself if anyone was walking down the corridor. Noah could probably make it back to his room, but the tightness in his chest and fast patter of his heart was too great. Maybe heâs having an anxiety attack, maybe he actually overdosed and it was finally catching up with him.
  Rubbing the corner of his eyes with his thumb and index finger, Noah called outââFriday?ââprobably a bit too loud but enough for her to possibly hear him, trying his best to keep his voice down. âAre you in there? Can you hear me? Come out here for a second, babe.â He called out again, voice raspy and not really sure what words were coming out of his mouth.
THERE IS FIRE AND THERE IS NOAH REED. there is the first prickle of love and there is the ebbing ember of what used to be. there is the optimism defined (she, wide eyed and hopeful, clings onto the remnants of their relationship and lets the folly of would-be love keep her strung along for weeks on end) and there is the broken man (he, pupils blown and bleak, takes the plunge into open arms and folds his angst into something minuscule, uncharacteristic on a hopeful whim that her would-be love will keep him afloat)
there is love and there is he who scorns love. who spits on the concept and spends minute by minute, week by week, body by body, tearing down brick upon brick the foundation she had set for themâtill his fingers bleed raw.
there is friday kang and there is noah reed.Â
                               two names never to be spoken in conjunction again.
but fate, or rather, life, has always been funny like that. it didnât matter that he had apologized, that she had accepted, that sheâd bury days of paranoia and ache on end deep within pandoraâs box. relationships donât just end. just like that. you can never be rid of someone just like that. or, more frankly put, you canât un-love someone. you canât un-care. you donât detach just like that. or you canât. or you wonât.Â
if you ask her, she isnât sure which it is.Â
but itâsâcomplicatedâmore convoluted than a âsimple breakupâ. beyond a boy and a girl, the summer they spent in love and the weeks after falling out of it. beyond whatâs loved and lost. beyond all of thatâlies a tired concept, baneful and unpleasant. itâs attachment. itâs dependence. itâs noah reed, destruction prone and in constant atrophy. itâs friday kang, heart full and with goodness weary. itâs his knock at her door and itâs her hand forever extended for himâno longer out of love.
                                                   then? what is it?    Â
if you have to name it, itâs pity. itâs guilt. itâs purple and yellow and green mixed with red. it is a fading hickey contorted into a stubborn bruise. itâs all that and more, but it didnât matter. it never mattered. her heartache never mattered. his wandering eyes and hands never mattered. nothing mattered in face of the bigger problem between them. friday shouldâve been smarterâshouldâve known what the needle marks lining the innermost of his elbow meantâshouldâve stopped while she was ahead.
yet, she didnât. thatâs the funny thing. you watch tv dramas and movies and you think that could never be you. you could never be that stupid. but you are. you are. of course you areâyouâre your motherâs daughter, arenât you?
so sheâs here. noahâs here so of course sheâs here. he made it easy, that wayâby showing up at her door.
ânoah.â her eyes rove over his frame, takes note of the slouched shoulders and occasional quiver and wonders to herself what it is this time. what he took this time. but sheâs afraid to ask. afraid to know. âwhatâs wrong?â thereâs always something wrong. else he wouldnât here. else they wouldnât remain connected like this still.
but friday is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. at least, for now. the geumseong senior reaches out instinctively, acting on muscle memory with the way her fingers lace with his, and her free hand lifts to grip onto his shoulder, nudging gently to straighten him just enough to see his eyes. though even then, pupils blown and unfocusedâas if he canât even see herâitâs hard to gauge where heâs at. if heâs even here anymore. that possibility alone, frightens her.
                               ânoah?âÂ
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