Betray Me

"Thank you," Soobin utters, reaching a hand out for Ara's shoulder. With his gentle touch, he raises her head and pulls her in, enveloping her in a hug. Soobin buries his head in the crook of her neck. "I'll go out with you," he confesses.

Mari chokes up. Ara wraps her arms around his waist affectionately, tilting her head against his chest. From the corner of her eyes, she stares at Mari who she knows, is watching.

She smirks. A horrid, dastardly smirk.

Mari's heart drops. I can't believe… she could betray me this way.

Lowering her head, she bites back tears and tightens her grip around the straps of her bag, a hot—almost burning—tear dripping off her eye.

Sniffling, she runs, anywhere and everywhere, just a place far from school. Ara pulls away from Soobin, reaching a hand up to his face affectionately. He nuzzles it. "I can't believe you'd do something like… write a story for me. I'll take care of you," he smiles softly.

"Take care of my heart," Ara responds, a sly lilt to her voice.

Unlike Ara, who has a smooth night counting stars with her new lover, Mari feels as if her entire universe is crumbling.

It's difficult to explain why it's so hard to breathe, why it feels as if she's left with nothing more than a depleting pocket of oxygen.

One slip-up, and she might die. It hurts, definitely, to know Soobin would be happier in the arms of someone that isn't her. Something, many things, Mari won't be able to recover from is Ara.

There's no feasible explanation she can scavenge for herself—she's been trying, for hours and hours as she stares blankly at her ceiling at night.

Mari recalls the scene again, feeling the same gust of wind she did then and the same sensations—a flurry of them. She coughs harshly, pushing herself up weakly as she grapples onto her chest.

"Why would she betray me? I should have… I should have expected it. I'm so naive, I'm so naive," she yells, leaning forward onto her knees. "I can't believe it turned out like this," she sobs, throat hoarse from crying.

Nothing, she realises, would ever be an explanation good enough to make amends—be a good enough apology for herself, at that. She'll try, and maybe a part of her will always continue to try to find an ounce of forgiveness.

Next to her, her phone vibrates against the bedside table. She whuffles, rubbing her bleary eyes. She never leaves her phone next to herself when she sleeps. If she had to say, Mari wouldn't be able to list anything that happened after she got home.

Maybe a little on how she stormed up the stairs and slammed the door, went straight to bed. Nothing after that. It'd be best if the confession, that moment, was a horrible fever dream.

When she wakes up, she'll still have her chance, her friendship, a version of herself that isn't so badly damaged.

'My beloved,' Mari reads a post on Instagram of Ara and Soobin. They have their fingers curved to form a heart when put together. Ah. They look like a perfect couple.

Mari feels another tear slip off her swollen eyes. Rubbing them forcefully away, she opens her messenger, hoping to send a text to Ara.

Nothing important—or she thinks, it's not something she's thinking about. Her vision's mostly blurry, making it harder to see in the dark than it already is.

"Why did you… do that today?" Mari reads under her breath. Her shaky fingers hover above the keyboard before dipping. She stiffens at the sight of Ara coming online.

For a second, she types something and Mari holds her breath, praying for a response. Something to tell her that she's dreaming, that it isn't all real. Ara blocks her.

Mari blinks. Frantic, she slams her fingers against the screen, tapping everywhere and swiping here, there and in every known direction. The screen goes dark.

Mari lets out a laugh of disbelief. "She… blocked me." Scowling, she tightens her grip around her phone, enough force in her hands to crush it.

Frustrated, she flicks her phone away on the bed, flipping over onto her stomach. Pressing the pillow against her face, she screams. As loud as her lungs can manage, till her face is the brightest shade of red. Betrayal is too bitter to digest.

It's something Mari is left to think about for the rest of the night as she lies awake, the next morning too when she wakes up late to the alarm and has to scurry to school, falling apart at the seams.

Ignoring her grumbling stomach, she skips breakfast against her mother's cries from the kitchen, forgetting to grab her lunch in the process.

Dark-circles are evident against her pale skin, ruining her usual beauty. Mari slows her pace as she strolls into class, fingernails digging into her palms at the sight of Ara.

To her surprise, Ara is sobbing by her seat, surrounded by a crowd of classmates who try fervently to console her.

"She—She—I thought she would be happy for me but she only asked me why I confessed to him. And then, she cursed me in my relationship and told me she hoped we wouldn't last for a long time—" Ara wails, trembling.

"The only reason I said the story was hers was because I wanted to give a little more credit, since she's always busy with games during lessons and people would wonder what she's so caught up with all the time—"

"Oi, Ara, what happened to you?" Mari dashes forward out of instinct, pushing the other girls away. She presses an arm on Ara's shoulder, urging her to turn.

Ara meets her eye, hands still completely covering her mouth but her eyes showing no emotion. She was crying, wailing like her world has ended but now—there's not a single ounce of emotion.

"Huh?" Mari stumbles, taken aback by Ara's expression.

"How could you talk to her after what you did to her?!" one of the girls yells at Mari. "You have no shame. How could you do all that to Ara after all she did for you?! Girls like you don't deserve any love at all," she hisses crudely.

"What a sly bitch! I can't believe you would do something like that to Ara!"

"You should never be allowed to come near her again!"

Mari's lips part in shock. "What did I do…?" she mutters, earning snorts of contempt and groans of disapproval from the girls.

Mari feels vulnerable, like she's a little thing being towered over by menacing predators, claws brandished out to her. She backs away, hand clutched onto her blazer.

No one seems to take sympathy from her. Nobody seems to care. She shoots a piercing stare at Ara who only looks away pitifully.

Mari's arms fall to her side. "I didn't do anything…"

Nobody believes her. Nobody cares.

From the front of the classroom, Mari hears the clicking of heels and the daunting whispers stop. Silently, the girls separate and return to their desks, some patting Ara and offering words of comfort before they leave.

Others do their part by shooting nasty, venomous glares at Mari. On her way back to her seat, one of the classmates sticks their leg out from their table, tripping Mari in the process.

Not having seen it, she falls, landing on her knees. She lets out a groan, turning her head back to see an unremorseful grin plastered on the face of her assailant.

Nobody cares.