TRUE ME ✦ 1 ⊹ ࣪ ˖
Character moodboard ✦ next part
✧ pairing : Seo-jun x reader
✧ warning(s) : bullying, violence, smoking, insecurities, swearing
✧ summary : Sometimes, being yourself is hard. So hard and painful, that you'll beg and do anything just to be normal and fit in properly. Even if that means losing your true self in the process. Despite this facade, someone who truly cares about you would try anything to show you how worthy you are without any acting and pretending. Will fate bring you this person to save you or will you have to put on a show indefinitely ?
✧ words : 1.4k
✧ a/n : I’m back!! You could say I got productive during summer break.. New chapters are coming very soon on Tumblr ! They’re already published on Wattpad though so don’t hesitate to check it out💞💞(link in character moodboard)
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You lie on your bed, the lamplight sitting solemnly at the centre of your nightstand casts golden rays over your bare shoulders, harmonising with the ones coming from your windows. Summer will soon end, you turn around, now fully facing the sun as to enjoy every last bit of it like it would be the last time you'll see it. It may as well be.
Next year you'll change school, you'll change city, you'll change everything about yourself all hopefully for the best. The last few months were arduous but you sincerely, and desperately, aspire that a radical change of scenery will soon ease the pain. This hurtful feeling that has been continuously eating you alive and tugging at your heart, consuming every last part of your brain, forging it as a dark prison only you could have access to for you own pitiful misery, you'll escape it once and for all.
It's true, since your childhood, others always made sure to make you aware that you were.. Different. For instance, you never really enjoyed following trends such as buying the latest makeup brand dupe or the newest lululemon top. It's not that you didn't like to dress up, not at all, in fact you love it. But the way you are doing it, isn't exactly conventionally appropriate.
While you were surrounded by attractive girls wearing light-coloured clothes and bright makeup, you were the strict polar opposite. Baggy clothing, dark and smudged makeup, purposely messy hair, you weren't exactly a demure beauty icon like modern society would like you to be. And as they like to remind you, you were filthy petrol in a sea of pure refreshing water, always visually polluting your surroundings despite you. You'll forever remain as an outcast.
You never really saw any inconvenience to it until high school. Stares became more apparent and whispers more frequent as you quietly made your way throughout the corridors that soon became way too tight and way too long for your own comfort. Although your school experience wasn't particularly pleasant, it didn't touch you nearly as much since you didn't have to face it upfront. They could talk behind your back but they'll never mock you right in your face. Or so you thought.
Right, no one was invincible. Not even you the cold hearted, cold blooded, insensible, maybe even sociopathic as some liked to call you, school loner from the back of the class. You weren't one looking for dramas, partially because you were invisible, such are the pros all while being cons of having no friends.
Except, maybe, when you have this bad habit of smoking behind the school building. This bloody dependence will really kill you one day but not for the most obvious reason. Near the trash dump was the meeting spot of all smokers. It was a dark place, with a cold, humid atmosphere that assaults you with every drag smokers take in hope to forget that their addiction had made them miserably isolated from the rest of the school.
You often bumped into other nicotine addicts just like you, mostly delinquents. You weren't particularly close with them, not wanting to mingle with offensive brutes like them. Even if sometimes, you were feeling generous enough to exchange a cig, a lighter or some last minutes studies for the upcoming test with them.
The tranquility of your school experience was due solely to the invisibility created by your silence. Yet one day, you were foolish enough to believe that nothing could ever happen to you. The day you defied that idea was the day you began to slowly die. Right, as your bullies liked to remind you, that only your taste for meddling into what doesn't concern you has caused the horrid situation that you found yourself in. Ultimately, you too has become a part of the persecuted outcasts.
You anxiously brush the small round-shaped scar situated on your clavicle, a permanent reminder of how you've suffered by their hands.
Hence your sudden need for a radical change of scenery. Whether it was your school, your behavior, or even your clothing style, you wanted a complete transformation to start anew, and preferably by giving a good first impression. To ensure that, you traded your former black and overall dark clothes for lighter ones. Your smudged makeup became clean, clear and smooth. As for the way you act, you opt in favour of a more cheerful version of yourself, which isn't too far from reality really. It's just that before, you didn't have the heart to act nice to certain people who judge exclusively on looks.
Nothing too crazy, you still wish to remain yourself and not lose who you truly are in the process of fitting in. You're just becoming a better version of yourself, you always repeated this same sentence in your head. As for convincing yourself, it's as if you knew that in reality, the two aren't compatible.
Even if you're having a complete makeover some things are left unchanged. Like your love for music and this feeling which resonates within you whenever your slender fingers scratch your guitar. Or even long night talks shared with your older sister, between a pot of hot boiling ramen and a pack of cigs, she is the one who initiated you to smoking. You try to soothe your nerves by telling yourself that you'll always have those at the end of the day no matter what happens.
You finally stand up from your resting place and grab your cigarettes in resignation, hurriedly heading towards your small garden, it wasn't much but it was enough for your family.
You tried to fix this bad habit of yours during your restyling process, but it soon caught up with you before you knew it, especially around this unsure time period. Tomorrow will be the beginning of the new school year and after drastically changing everything about and around you, you can't help but have worrisome doubts consuming your thoughts. What if nothing changes and you'll forever stay an outcast ? What if they immediately see throughout your facade ? What if.. So many questions that are left to be answered until the big day arrives.
You angrily exhale the grey smoke from your lungs, stressing so much wasn't something you planned. Suddenly, you hear the backdoor opening and in a panic, try your best to hide your dubious belongings. "What ? Don't tell me you're smoking at this hour. Wow, you really aren't scared of anything my dear Y/n." You hear the sly grin behind your sister's tone. "Ah seriously, you startled me.." You abruptly toss back your pack on the outdoor table, exasperated though relieved. "Care to share one ?" She sits on the chair next to yours, already taking one out of the package anyways.
You look away silently as you hear the crisp and all too familiar sound of a lighter flickering. "What's gotten into you ? You seem tense." She starts, worry apparent in your older sister's eyes as she looks at you. "'Don't know.." You answer absently. "Is it because of the new school year ? I told you you were going to be fine countless time, yet you can help but worry right ?" You nod upon her comment. "Y/n, no matter what people think of you, you should live for yourself. And if it doesn't go like you expected, it won't be the death of you, I promise." She smirks, empathising with your concerns. But is it truly not ? If it wasn't, why would you have tried so hard to change every aspect of your life ?
She crushes her cigarette end in the ashtray. "Don't forget to clean everything up afterwards." She reminds you with a last puff of smoke. You turn your head to follow her departure "Mh.".
You went to bed with numerous questions racing in your clouded mind. You tossed and turned, so much that you gave up at last and took a sleeping pill. You can't afford to have a spot appearing from nowhere or an inflamed skin on what could be the biggest day of your life. So, to avoid that, sleep is indispensable.
You ultimately drifted off to sleep, lulled by the hopes and expectations you have for this school year. In fact, the sole idea of living a normal teenage school life was enough to ease the anxiety weighing on your mind, rather naively you might even admit. Soon, you'll live a new life.
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