Mystical Blue | KTH

Y/N POV

When I found out I ran the to the bathroom the moment I returned home, almost sprinting up the stairs so anyone else who was home wouldn’t see me, not having the time to consider kicking my wet heels off. I dropped everything I was holding onto the grey carpet of my room carelessly and lunged for my bathroom, storming in with the sound of my 3-inch heels clapping against the tiles. With shaking hands I locked the door and after taking a slow step backwards I slumped to the ground, making my dress ride up and make my underwear wet from the remnants of the shower I took before I went out. I brought my knees to my chest, circling my arms around myself as tight as I could. Suddenly my knees were wet and my body started to shake with sobs. The heels were very much in the way of me reaching a comfortable position but I didn’t care. My wet hair and soaked skin was causing me to shiver but I didn’t care. Maybe if I treated myself badly whatever was inside of me would die and go away. Maybe if I’d never gone out then whatever it was would’ve never come to life.

I lost track of how long I stayed in this position but my tears didn’t seize, nor did the depressing cloud haunting over my head clear. I sniffed deeply as if I was hoping to inhale some sort of force to help me stand up. I unfolded myself slowly, pushing myself up with my knuckles. I turned around slowly to my left and took a look at my new self. She had damp hair, all mottled together from running home in the pouring rain. Her makeup was stained around her eyes in dark black circles. Her eyes were red, puffy and swollen with hot tears trailing down to her cleavage. Her skin was dotted in goose bumps, also from running home in the cold rain.

It was then that I screamed into the mirror, wrecking my throat in a wrenching, scratchy pain. The tears poured down at full force. I collapsed to the ground again, tangling myself into the same huddled position I was just in and reminded myself out loud how utterly fucked I was. I wanted someone holding me tight behind me. To console me, to cradle me like a baby and tell me that everything was going to be alright. All I could do in that moment was listen to my own whimpers and sobs. I held my wet, shaking hands out in front of me, tracing my eye-line along all the wrinkles and veins. I hated my hands. Or more specifically, the blood pumping through them. I remember clenching my fists together so tightly that my fingernails dug into my skin and started to bleed. My blood looked like anyone else’s – red and smooth – but what was in it made me not normal.

I was trapped by this secret that I could tell absolutely no one. From that point onward I had these chains weighing me to the ground, tightening at my wrists every time I wanted to break free.

I was 14, nearly 15, back then. A lot has happened in the past year and half. People came, ruined my life and blackmailed me into leaving.

This new school was the start of the new me. I cut my hair to my shoulders and dyed it light purple. I deleted any forms of contact with the people who destroyed my life. Which I find ironic, regarding what happened in the first few months after I restarted my life. Because of them I was somewhere where I felt safe. Because of them I had found a secure circle of people who could protect me. And because of them I found him.

His hair was the first thing I noticed about him. Electric blue locks cascading from his head like waves, decorated with small green tufts. When the lights from the window he sat next to in class shined on it it glistened like a tropical ocean. It made him look almost unreal, like a mystical creature bathing in the most perfect sunlight. Even when he let my hands writhe through it and beads of sweat caused little clumps of his hair to stick to his forehead it glowed. He glowed. When he later told me why he dyed it that colour, he said that he wanted to be different, to stand out and that he simply liked blue. I replied saying that he looked amazing with it and he responded with a small but bright smile with no verbal response. After a few moments of awkward silence he finally spoke, saying that when he came home with his hair that colour his parents were infuriated and spent the rest of the evening yelling and swearing at him, even more than when he got his lip pierced.

The little joy behind his smile at my compliment made me wonder what else they yell at him for.

The metal ring that pierced and curled over his bottom lip added a contrast to his otherwise sweet and kind appearance. As he doodled he would stick his tongue out slightly and play with it in a childish way. I would find myself leaning over to try and see what he had inked onto his paper or scratched into the desk, wanting to know what was going through his mind when tectonic plates and algebra bored him too. His chocolate brown eyes were always wide with curiosity at literally everything else. I caught him repeatedly gazing out of the window no matter the weather. He listened to the patter on the window when it was raining and admiring the colourful beauty of leaves and flowers when it was sunny. He seemed to be captivated by thunderstorms and ever so relaxed by snow.

The only thing that bothered me about him was that he always looked nervous, so on edge. Every time I looked at him his eyes seemed to glow and his lips looked so soft but every facial feature he had was drooped slightly which made him looked sad. Whenever he did flash a smile at someone – usually when the eight of us were all together – it was short and sweet. That was because of the security we had when it was just us each other. Whenever the eight of us were together it was like there was a protective dome surrounding us. We were allowed to be ourselves, not an ounce of fear in us. We were protected and all thoughts of what could happen to us escaped our minds.

Initially he was like a piece of art, so well sculptured and so mysterious. He let me explore him, study his edges, own him. He let me close to him.

The connection I felt towards him was the one that made me know that we were similar. But it was more than that. I found myself wanting to be like him, wanting to be close to him and wanting to mean more to him that the others.

That was until he let me in.

4th September 7:01am

I munched down on another dry, bland mouthful of cereal, almost gagging at the oats that had wedged themselves into my gums, some news story about some supermarket going into liquidation droning on in the background. The hoodie I had thrown on over my swampy school jumper wasn’t ironed and the draw strings were frayed halfway up. I was hunched over the kitchen island, staring at the new flowers my mother bought. I had no idea what they were called but they consisted of only one, long, white petal with light green fading the bottom. It other words: way too happy for the first day of school. Taking another swig of orange juice eased a fruity sweetness into my mouth, lifting my mood for about two seconds before the depressing oaty taste came back. I didn’t really want to eat anything in the first place. I was far too nervous. All traces of optimism had disintegrated and any thought of any school reminded me of last year and all those people who ruined my life last year. In the weeks leading up to this day, part of me, let’s say around 15%, had a glimmer of hope that I would make new friends and everything would be fine and that I’d be skipping off into the sunset with my new best friends for life by Friday. However, the other 85% of me wanted to throw up. The subconscious part of my mind knew that all schools were the same and that I’d be treated no differently. This was a huge contrast to now, when every cell in my being had adrenaline being pumped around it and I wanted to vomit all over the kitchen island.

‘First day at a new school!’ I head drifts up to the annoying, high pitched, positive squawk entering the kitchen. My mother had her doctors uniform on minus the shoes, causing sweating squeaks from her bare feet to make their mark across the white tiles. I ignored her, rolling my eyes and dipping my spoon into yet another slow mouthful of food, ‘Why are you wearing that?’ The annoying, high pitched squawk was now angry and frustrated. Her eyes were pointed at my hoodie. I looked to my shoulder, then at her, shrugging them carelessly. I put the spoon into my mouth, wincing at the grain I was being forced to eat for survival.

‘I asked you a question!’ she says again, the pace and clipped diction of her voice making her snap like an angry puppy.

‘I’m in my final year, no one really cares about uniform at this point,’ I mutter, not making eye contact.

‘But you want to make a good impression.’ I take a deep swallow of my cereal.

‘Yes, and that involves not looking like a stuck up nerd on your first day,’ I reply, using my spoon as a pointer to help educate my point.

’I mean to the teachers,′ my mother replies in a slow and mocking tone.

‘I didn’t move schools to get better teachers.’

A short silence. My mother then turns around and open the fridge, reaching for some juice.

I win.

I told her I left my old school because I simply wasn’t getting along with anyone anymore. Which seems to be a semi-truth she still believes. It’s true that I wasn’t getting along with anyone anymore. It’s also true that it’s because the initiating event happened at Jung Minhee’s party a while ago. What isn’t true it that the initiating event was her having a go at me for not drinking too much and calling me a wuss.

The awkward silence from my comeback only ends because of the news pulsing a new story at me, grasping my attention.

‘A new law has been introduced which means that any found children after running away from home will have a blood test to check for any powers. It’s after new research done by scientist Yun Kwang-Hyok found that the rising number of young people running away in Korea has correlated with the new laws restricting power-holders’ rights. He carried out a pilot study using his own blood test discovery, finding that around 70% of people under the age of 18 running away from home over the past 5 years had powers. Our correspondent has more on this story.′

I chew down on my cereal more vigorously, trying to stop myself from imagining what happened to those kids.

And by that I mean how they were executed. Murdered.

All I want to do this clutch the remote less than a metre away from me and switch it off but that would be too obvious. Instead I have to listen to the correspondent talk about and support this man’s research. The unfortunate thing is that this opinion is shared by most of the people in the country.

That power-holders are an extremely dangerous threat and should be eliminated.

I try to find something to distract myself; clenching my fists together normally works but I’ve been trying to stop deepening the scars there so I’ve had to find something else. Chewing the inside of my mouth works because then they turn into ulcers and that’s something else I can use to distract me. I take a chunk of my left cheek between my teeth and chew down. I then bite down on smaller pinches of flesh and that’s what hurts. That’s what distracts me. Do I enjoy doing it? No. It is the better option than looking in anyway suspicious? Yes. I continue to do this and I start to block out what the reporter is saying. Praying that my mother doesn’t speak helps to distract me too. I feel fully exposed when she makes any sort of comment. Like I have nowhere to hide. Because I have two options when she does talk:

1. I say nothing. Looks extremely suspicious.

2. Say something in agreement with her. I don’t look suspicious, but the panging guilt afterwards stays with me.

3. Work out a way to follow on with the conversation without outwardly expressing opinion. But every time something puts her in the situation to say something I continue to pray that no a word escapes her mouth

’Bloody rascals. Those urchins deserved it.′

There it is. Brilliant.

I try to hide myself physically wincing. The same exposed feeling returns and my brain tries to rattle for something to say.

‘How many kids did they find?’

I hold my breath, internally begging for her to follow through and believe me.

‘God knows. If they found more at least it means they’re getting rid of more.’

I relax my lungs, thanking any higher powers that she agreed with me. At this point I can usually stop. I have said something, used my trilling social skills to not look suspicious and no police are coming for me. But there is a major flaw in her argument. It’s a flaw that even someone in agreement with her sick beliefs could notice, so saying something wouldn’t be a risk. Knowing that my mother never responds when she knows she’s wrong, I speak.

‘Then how do you know how many more there are?’

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