Hardship…

Hardships are life, something life serves us all in all phases. Hardship is that thing which toys with our peace of mind, joy and happiness. Hardship is what makes us lie in the bed, covering our mouth with the pillow just not to make noise from the tears we shed.

Hardship is when it is hard! When we just want it all to be over, want it all to end! It’s funny when even before we go out from one, another occurs to knock us down again.

This might not be an easy time. There's rivers to cross and hills to climb and sometimes landslides or floods to obstacle it harder. Sometimes people die but many a times, it creates a new land form.

Some days we might fall apart and some nights might feel cold and dark but there's always light somewhere. A potted plant in nebula, looks for the only sight of rays.

When nobody wins and everybody is afraid of losing, and the hard roads are the ones worth choosing, choose it. It might be hard. It might be forlorn. But it is still worth the tears we spill.

Some day we'll look back and smile and know it was worth every mile. My walk of three years with Y/n, Addelyn, Yeonjun, Soobin and Heeseung Hyung has been worth all the sorrows of my past.

It don't matter to me, wherever we are is where I wanna be. For once in our life, I want to tesser but that isn't life, is it?

My desperate heart was yearning to make a success in my gloomy life but my brain had already learned to enjoy everything I was doing.

A few times it felt like the final calculation wasn't reachable and then another part said it was. I was waiting for Y/n to come as my eyes trailed the other three in the room.

Addelyn was trying to lose her every thought and concentrate on forming the merkaba in her mind and Yeonjun was helping her forget how worried she's for the publishing of her thesis. Alas! Soobin couldn't make it here today.

"Sunoo-ah!" I locomoted my feet towards the door of our attic laboratory as my brain received signals of Y/n's voice.

"Noona?" I called out.

"Can you help me get up?" She requested.

"Sure!" Grabbing a strong grip on her wrist, I pulled her and she jumped to support. She was heavier than she had been when we had first met and I was happy to know that she was taking care of herself.

"Thanks!" She dusted her clothes and that enchanting smile on her lips bloomed like the first flower of spring and gratifies the first leaf that fell in the dry autumn.

The day started off like any other,
Had I known I'd be tranquilized,
Had I known I'd be sent to somewhere,
I don't know,
I'd have stopped the thing.
But they say,
"Whatever happens, is for good."
We'll honestly, that's so true.

Never had I ever in my wildest dreams,
Thought of meeting you,
And getting mesmerized by those hazel eyes;
Never had I ever in my wildest dreams,
Thought of meeting you
And be blessed admist
Sorrow and cries.

Just know, even when the world
Ends and the clock stops ticking,
I'd be with you;
In pain, in happiness.
No matter the weather that day,
Or night,
You shall always see me around.
I'll be yours and you'll be mine.

"Ouch!" My eyes were stuck on her, in her hazel orbs that held an enchanted galaxy but my trance broke when she winced in pain as she tried to move her feet.

"Sorry, it's not that grave." She pushed a smile on her lips even though I could understand how grave her pain was. They say, men are hard to understand. I believe, women are harder. Scientifically, their body is harder to understand and psychologically, their mind is a maze of mirrors.

"How did you hurt your foot?" I picked her up like I pick her up in my fantasized wedding and walked to the other room in the attic.

"Whatchu doing?" Her giggles and complaints against my actions felt like the sunshine to my cloudy sky.

"I'm taking you to the other room to interrogate you about the new mess you made. Addie noona and Yeonjun hyung are trying the merkaba medication and form the portal. You got a little late, the calculation without even the formula being used gives the result as 1."

"Really? You finally solved the end of it after so many months?" She was excited and stumped her foot on the floor, making her moan in pain.

"What happened to your feet?" I asked again and forced her down on the seat.

"I was trying to run out and come, and hit the shelf. The books fell on my poor foot. The glass sheath also shattered." I sighed to her revelation, knowing that, that shelf was ought to break one day due to the number of times she collides with it.

"You'll never learn." I breathed in.

"Guess so. Anyways, tell me how did you find the last answer? Does that mean the solution has ended?" She launched her million questions at me.

"Technically it means the solution is in our hands but I haven't understood how to open the portal. I had discovered the solution long back, maybe just a month after Hyung helped. But in between, over these few months, I only tried opening the portal." I confessed.

"How will you know how to open it?" She asked.

"I don't know. He said he'll give you something that'll help us." I replied.

"Me?"

"Earlier today your brother and I met at our lunch break. I discussed it with him and he said he'd give you something. Hasn't he given you anything? Or is he not home yet?"

"Nah... I mean he's home but I actually umm..." Her cold hands and pale face with sweat bead building on her forehead made me realised she was hesitant to tell me about something she has recently done. Guess that shelf broke for nothing.

"Did you fight with him?" I asked. Her eyes changed to gaze down at my feet and her head swayed from left to right, denying my assumption.

I tilted my head to understand her better but felt copious warm droplets wetting my socks.

"Noona?" I whispered lowly and she looked up, with her swollen red eyes. She had been holding her tears for long and now that I asked her about Heeseung, she couldn't hold them back.

Heeseung will never hurt her. He can never do a single thing that would hurt her. And I've never seen Heeseung misbehave with her. Then why does mentioning him brings tears in her eyes?

Did something happen to Heeseung? If it did, she wouldn't be here, would she?

"Noona... It's okay, you can tell me. Maybe... Maybe, I can help." Wrapping my arms around her, I sat next to her. She rested her head on my chest and I could feel the skin above my heart getting moist by her lachrymose irises.

"Sunoo..." She spoke between her sobs and hiccups.

"Noona, calm down. Heeseung hyung can't hurt you. Did something happen to him?"

"No... Nothing... Nothing happened to him, but a lot to me. You know right, I am almost illegitimate? I don't... I don't know my father. He does. And... And I found out that my brother hid several letters from me. Dad sent those to him, calling me names and stuff. But..." I was about to console her again but she stopped me midway.

"But that's not what is scarring me right now. The letters did not just call me names but threatened Heeseung's life. I... I'm scared for him because the last letter that I saw was..."

"Fear is a weak words. Fear is basically a baseline word that just breeds courage. The power is not to overcome it but learn to understand it deeply and intimately. A person can never be fearless as long as they live a life in the society. Society is made up on fear. Some people intentionally fear things. Some people intentionally creat fear. I am not fearless. I am just someone who understands their fear more than their fear does. Which is why, I try to avoid everything I do not wish to happen."

Y/n's fear for her brother was legitimate. I have always seen Y/n as the strongest person I've ever known. But Heeseung hyung's old dialogues about life and fright reminded me of how Y/n isn't afraid for herself, but her brother's feelings. And Heeseung is only afraid of Y/n's feelings.

"Was?" I asked.

"Yesterday." She replied monotonously. It was as if she knew what that meant. As if it was a proof that something was still beyond our imagination.

What is science infront of diplomacy? Heeseung hyung had played some game all this while that just protected a person he believes to be his child. But Y/n had discovered something that shouldn't have been. And I feel like Heeseung knows all that's beyond our imagination.

"Maybe... Maybe he still contacts him?" Although knowing that my verdict had as fine as 0.001% and yet I said that.

"He does." Her tears had dried off and those irises were staring straight at me like a tiger staring at its prey. Her voice quietly mumbled things that shocked me. How does her brother still talk to a man who left them on the street?

"Sunoo-ah, he does. He still maintains contact with a fucktard old man. And I am not afraid for anything that will happen to me in order to fuck my brother's whole life. You know what I want?" Her concentrated look changed to a fierce glare of sparks and I was afraid to hear her further decisions.

How funny women are, aren't they? They can be calm like the Pacific and gleefully shine like the gumusservi on it and yet again fume like the raptured lava of a volcano. How they can be so peaceful to lie next to while they sing you to a hypnagogic state and yet shriek the declaration of a war.

How just like a piano, she produces melodies of love and life and yet again blow a strident cacophony. She can be an irenic boketto and instantly be your monacopsis.

Y/n has been my refuge but her rage about everything that was supposed to take place, created a sensation of extreme fear in me, which I can understand but never overcome. She was an ustulation, a searing burn in my mind and my frozen soul liked the fear it developed.

I tried to remain silent and let her speak on her but the heat developing in her body radiated the energy to mine.

"You know what I want?" She repeated again. I was afraid to utter a single word. And how do I even say that to her?

"What?" With high cautions, I mustered up my courage and confidence to form a sentence but that never escaped my lips, and I ended up only uttering one question.

"I want to know what he knows. I... I want to know what was that such thing... Which his crush knew and he did, what our mother's raper wants from him. I want to know everything that has ever happened to him." I stared into her eyes. I know the feeling of being touched wrongly, of being molested. Because once upon a time, I was molested by every woman I met.

"You should." I hissed under my breath.

"But! But... He won't tell me a goddamn thing. So..."

"So?"

"So... There's only one person who can get it out of his lips." She forced an intimidating smirk.

"Who?"

"You."

_____________________________

Hey Rosairises!
I think you realise that our story is almost at its climax and I can't wait to reach that.
I can promise you part climax in just two more chapters.
Maybe, I'll finish the book with 50 chapters.

And we had Sunoo's POV after a long time.
I don't know how many more POVs Sunoo will narrate but we can expect two more.

Also, I need a hug.
I am dealing with some hate. But that doesn't hurt me. The coldness emitted hurts me.