#*too late

HUEVEMBER 2022 - Day 15 ft. Exodus

kim kangjoo, 49.  that's what catches his attention at the school; he knows before he really knows that it's a last minute plan and a sudden death of heart attack and he thinks that he should feel sorry, thinks that he should feel sad because people feel sad when their parents die, but he doesn't.  it makes him fall flat and become 2d, like he isn't really there in the first place because the thing -- the person -- that helped to birth him ( in that world ) was gone, the person that threw him to the wolves is gone, the person he called appa is g o n e .  

but he's not the person that helped to bring him into the world, so that's a saving grace.  maybe it's because byungjoo knows this that he doesn't feel sad.  not really.

... that is.  until he loses her.

a blocker.

the sudden loss of sound that he shouldn't hear, the loss of a presence he shouldn't feel.

stumbling out to the city streets of busan ( so strange, so strange ) with only the music of the city talking back at him.  this isn't real.  this is very surreal.  byungjoo feels a little sick.

the thing that makes this so much worse is the loss of the voice in his ear; the soothing sound of the keyboard clicking when it writes his life in backspaces and sentences and letters and lines, the way her voice sounds in his ear when she talks to him late at night inside her head --.  it leaves his hands shaking and his smile broken, eyes more distant than they are when he's stuck in white voids and distant worlds.  he tries to smile.  this is a celebration, of life, of death, of his father; mourning.  but all he can think about is her, and where is she, and what is she doing without him.

people bump into him.  he jumps.  byungjoo doesn't know their story, doesn't know their face; doesn't really know if they're from that world or not and the whirling of the world around him is a little too much for his sorry brain to handle and more than anything, more than his father, more than life he wants her back.  

he sinks to his knees as the night falls, presses hands to his head and tries to call back the noise, call back the voice, call for help, call for anything.  " .. ash ... "