Luna ran and ran, through crowded streets, busking intersections, and through busy roads until she reached Han Bridge.
She collapsed against the railing, breathing heavily and clenched her hands harshly until her nails drew blood.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, her mind especially.
Countless memories conjured in her head and she wished she could swat them all away like flies.
She tried to convince herself that maybe Haemin wouldnt be part of the 99% who didnt believe her.
Maybe he would be that wonderful 1%.
Like Jade.
Jade.
Luna opened her eyes and she saw Jade falling down, towards the river with her hands reached out to Luna, grasping for dear life.
"Jade!" Luna screeched,
She climbed across the railing to grab her but a pair of hands came from her sides and pulled her back, and the person and her both fell to the ground.
"What the hell kid?! Are you trying to kill yourself or something?!" The man shouted.
Luna frantically tried to free herself to get back to the railing, "But my friend!" She cried.
"There's no one there!" He shouted.
And as if his angry scolding broke her out of her trance, Luna came back to her senses and stilled.
She looked at the man and saw that he was a police officer.
She looked towards the railing to recall what had just happened and what she had just done.
She silently answered herself.
I tried to save Jade.
☾
Once again.
Behind bars.
Luna thought monotonously as she sat in a cell at the Police Station while the officer phoned her Uncle.
Because apparently if you try to kill yourself alone, people will try to hide it and erase it from their timelines but if you do it in public, suddenly its a civil offense. As if the environment will be polluted by the immoral act.
And Luna wasn't even trying to kill herself! It was simply a temporary lack-of-common-sensical moment.
Much to her own surprise she wasnt bothered much by the fact that she was imprisoned yet again.
To her horror, she was rather comfortable confined than she was out there.
Out there, she was constantly worrying over keeping her past untangled from her present and now that she was in jail she didnt know whether to laugh or cry over the irony of it.
Luna pulled out her mp3 from her pocket and put it on.
She took in air and turned it on.
Summer by Calvin Harris started playing and she smiled in relief, the mp3 still worked after all and this song was one of her favourites.
She lied down on the bench like seat with her eyes closed.
She tried to rid her mind of pestering memories by clenching her hand but much to her annoyance, both her palms were covered in bandages.
When the irritating policeman had seen her bloody hands, he had rushed her to the hospital before he could throw her in the cell.
Luna turned the volume all the way up so she could go somewhere else.
She tried to pay attention to Harris's addicting synth hook.
But how did Haemin know?
The protrusion of thought didn't surprise her - it was the question she was avoiding because she couldnt answer it - but it still irked her.
No matter how she looked at it, she just couldnt figure out how Haemin could've possibly known.
Frustrated that the music wasnt working like it was supposed to, she pulled out the earphones roughly and sighed.
She casually turned her head to the side and saw Jihoon standing there, silently gripping the steel bars.
Luna sat up.
"Are you okay?" He asked sadly, looking like he was on the verge of tears.
She gave him the brightest smile she could muster, the last thing she needed was to hurt the only family she had right now, "Ofcourse."
She looked towards the officer's desk where she saw the policeman from earlier talking to a man who had his back to her.
Uncle Changmin.
He looked tired and dejected as the officer explained with big hand movements, how Luna was at the bridge trying to kill herself, and Luna face palmed herself.
Just how on Earth was she going to explain this one? Because last she checked, she wasnt really good at convincing others of her innocence.
☾
"What's that?" Luna asked Jade about the symbol she was drawing on her forearm with a sharpie.
Jade was always doing that, everyday she made multiple tattoos on any un-inked skin she could find.
Luna was sure that when Jade was released the first thing she was going to do would either be getting a tattoo herself or becoming a tattoo artist. And she was hella good at it too.
"It's Spongebob's pineapple house from Spongebob Squarepants. They were my brother's favorite." She replied, smiling fondly.
Luna silently watched as she smoothely glided the marker across her olive skin. A stray curl fell in front of Jade's eye and Luna hurriedly tucked it back behind her ear so that it wouldn't disturb her.
"How old was your brother?" She asked still entranced by her talent.
"He will be ten in a week."
"Will he come visit?"
"I told Mom not to bring him, this is no place for a kid. He doesn't even know Im in here, he thinks I went away to boarding school."
Luna smiled, " Oh so these motherly instincts of yours came from caring for your brother and aren't just for me."
Jade chuckled, "Yeah, you remind me of him a lot. He also has big blue eyes like yours."
A few seconds of silence passed and Luna finally mustered up the courage to ask the question she had been meaning to ask since the first time they had met, "Jade?"
"Hmm?" She replied, half immersed in the drawing.
"How did you end up in here? I mean what are the charges against you?"
"Assault, murder."
Luna swallowed, "Well.. are they correct?"
Jade looked up.
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Murder someone."
Jade smiled, "You know you're the first person who has asked me that and didnt just assume the convictions were true."
Luna smiled back, "Well I thought I'd return the favor."
Jade put down the sharpie and lied back on the pillow, "The thing is that my family isn't really that rich. My Dad is just a co-owner of a pawn shop. My Mom has a heart condition so she couldnt work and stayed home to take care of my brother.
I worked at the mechanic shop and managed to earn money for my own school tuition but we didnt have enough to send my brother to school too so my Dad started some small illegal side bussinesses and after that he changed, a lot,
Always drinking, cursing and getting into fights.
But the money still wasnt enough because these businesses have a lot of give and take so one day he asked the other owner of the pawn shop to loan him some money but he refused.
I was at the shop that day and saw how Dad got angry because they had known each other a long time and he wasnt willing to help my Dad out just this once.
So, dad took a pair of pliers and jammed them into his chest.
He died on the spot ofcourse but weirdly enough kid, I could've cared less about that guy because at that moment all I could think about was that if my Dad went to jail over this, who was going to take care of my brother and Mom?"
Luna suck in a breath, "So, you.."
"Yep, I took the blame. I took the pliers in my hand and pushed my Dad out of the shop so that he would call the cops because the quicker it would be, the lesser time Id have to rethink it and back out."
"I wish I could help you." Luna muttered.
Jade smiled sadly, "Oh kid, you cant even help yourself."
Luna pouted her lower lip, "Yeah.."
"Here's what we're going to do." Jade sat up.
"Neither of us can help each other out there, and no one else will either. So lets just come to terms with being here and together we should try to make it less miserable for the both of us."
Luna nodded eagerly, "We'll be like a team, and we'll always have each other's backs."
"As long as both of us are here, we dont ever have to be lonely!"
Both of them excitedly went on and on.
"Regardless of any other human being on the planet, we'll always have the best interest for each other."
"We'll be like Christina and Meredith from Grey's Anatomy!" Jade said.
"Or Cher and Dionne from Clueless!" Luna added.
Jade laughed, " Or we could be like Max and Caroline from Two Broke Girls!"