EIGHTEEN

                                    

                                          
"but it's a lot, all the shine of half a decade fading
the whole facade seemed to fall apart it's complicated"
♛
"You mean to tell me you spent the entire day ignoring me to go hang out with some Princess?" his words disappeared into a visible breath, the cloud of it mixing with the January night. He'd spent the day at his mother's. Jisung always visited on the weekends, expecting to join a sleepy girlfriend in bed once he got home. Yet, as the moon shined and the blue eyed girl hadn't gotten back to his texts, he knew she'd be at one place, despite the frost biting at her cheeks. Baek Seorin was the only person crazy enough to visit the river in the middle of winter. 
"I'm sorry, I just knew you'd freak out." she crossed her arms. She was bundled up in the same clothes she'd went out in, hair still dirtied from her earlier activities. Jisung lowered his eyes at her, clutching the railing that was turning warm at his touch. "I don't care if I would've gotten mad. You lied to me, Seorin." he scoffed. "You said it was going to be you, Hyerin, and Minseo— you even got my twin sister to lie to me." his eyebrows drew down. Seorin's expression mirrored his, cheeks growing red like his irises. 
"This is exactly what I didn't want to happen. What do you have against Meilin anyways?" she snapped.
"It's not about Princess Meilin, it's about you being too naive, Seorin." he threw his head back in exasperation. Her lips parted to talk, but she instead stared at him in shock. "You have to understand that she was our enemy. You're trusting someone who shares the same blood as a queen who has assassinated more people than her fingers could count." Words spilled out of his mouth, the color around his pupils turning somewhere between a crimson and violet. "We're running an entire republic together, I can't have you eating salads and going shopping with a foreign leader that we can't trust." his teeth were grinding against each other. 
"We're running this Republic? Last time I checked, everything has to go your way, or else you'll throw a fit." she shot back. "You barely acknowledge Mark and I at these stupid meetings. You only listen to Jaemin because he agrees with you. Hell, the only reason he agrees with you is because he's scared of you, Jisung." Seorin stood her ground. The world around her drowned out into black and white, only seeing red when she stared at the taller one's features.
"Why am I becoming scared of you too?" she choked out.
All of a sudden, her eyes fell into a deep plum shade, looking up with her lip quivering. Now, Jisung was the one who looked at her in awe. "Don't do this to me, Baek." he let out a deep breath, raising a hand to his raven locks. Their glowers were only a shadow casted above their troubled expressions. "I'm scared, Jisung. I didn't prepare for this position the way you did. I'm trying my best to do what I think is right and all you do is fight with me! I already feel incompetent, you never helped with that." her throat was hoarse. Her voice rang in the dead of night and so did Jisung's silence. 
"And you wonder why it's so hard for me to be honest with you nowadays." she held back the force that was threatening to spill out of her eyelids. Their chests grew with the same weight, knees shaking and not at the cold. Jisung concealed the frown that was tugging at the ends of his lips, staring down at her in the half lit moon. He was always the one to start the conversations between them two, even if it was an argument. His fiery breath was nowhere to be seen. All he could see was his world shattering before him, darkening orbs that filled with salty tears.
"What are we supposed to do if we both know it's not working?" Seorin didn't have the strength to look him in the eyes. The question was hushed— desperate. After all, Jisung always had the answers. She was just hoping it was something she wanted to hear. Yet, as his chest burned and his throat grew dry, he knew what he had to do. His demons clutched his heartstrings, but when he looked at them, he was looking into a black mirror.