"You rotten pig! You don't move a finger to help pay any bills and mooch off me. All you do is whine about your unfortunate life and do nothing to make it better! And still, you have the audacity to ask me to pay for your hair color expenditure?! Work a little someday, will you!!"
"Yah! Yah! Yah! Who are you cursing at?! I'm your husband, respect me before I get mad and do something you will regret! You don't want me mad, you whore!"
"Earn my respect, you living trash!"
I unlocked the wood carved door of our ancestral home with as much stealth as I could and tiptoed my way inside.
"I'm home," I whispered to no one in particular as I heard a vase being smashed to ground and someone throwing a water bottle across the rooms of the hallway. I took off my shoes and sneaked them inside the shoe-cabinet, slowly tiptoeing my way inside.
Thank Lord the woodboard flooring was recently refurbished and didn't jump to stereotypically creak underneath my feet to call upon doom.
My parents were fighting as usual and it didn't concern me anyways. I had mastered my escape route years ago and I would have made it out alive from the battle field— if not for my mother's scarily accurate hearing ability.
I was halfway through the staircase when, "You!" My mother shouted out loud and my heart dipped a tad. The sinking feeling consumed my entire being. Here we go again.
"Have some respect and greet your parents when you're home, Kang Hyejin!" Though being born and raised in Korea, her accent and dialect were absolutely perfect to the T. To the point where every word from her mouth sounded thick and sharp.
Respect. Big word.
I sighed vehemently, gripping my backpack tighter as I turned back to smile at her. A big stretch of my lips in faux representation of optimism.
"Good evening mother," I chirped and she pressed her lips in a thin line, beady brown eyes scrutinizing me suspiciously. She was short, both my parents were, but held herself with a might that demanded attention. She was a woman of many judgements, few expressions and loads of questions.
"Why are you late?" She questioned, eyebrows furrowing at my presence. She stepped up the stairs and stopped midway in front of me. Her athletic figure was accentuated with biceps as she crossed her arms against her chest and stared up at me. "You look eerily different... Did you do something with your face?"
Though I had the benefit of height, being on a stair-step over hers, her eyebrows smushed together as she studied my soul with her cat-like gaze through her slanting eyes.
"No mother, I was just helping the art club with preparation for the freshman event," I lied promptly, smiling at her. I'm sure she could feel my hot breath on her face, but it didn't matter when in pursuit of truth.
Certainly, she did not look convinced.
"You look too clean for that," Voiced my wannabe lawyer of a father. Curling his finger through the lush curls of his almost balding hair, he leaned against the wall at the end of the staircase and pointed out his observation, "Your clothes look as good as new." His words were laced with a heavy Daegu accent.
"We have aprons for that dad, and soap," I replied with raising my clean hands in my mother's face while resisting an eye roll on the way.
"Well, you go around doing free labour without receiving anything in return. Nothing you do has any sort of monetary gains. Get me some money home, then maybe this charity would be worth it," Mother huffed out, rubbing her thumb and forefinger against the fabric of my dungaree.
We as humans are a curious race, constantly striving to create things to advance our standards of living — wanting an easier footing at life.
One could call it greedy, but we would beg to differ. We veil it under pretty terms like progression, advancement and improvement.
Our moral compasses are constantly being deflected with mountains of selfishness and we forget about simple things like togetherness.
Charity.
Helpfulness.
Love.
"I'll start earning the day you let me leave here and live," I replied, clipped with my words and fingers involuntarily cracking against the side of my thighs.
"Yah! Kang Hyejin! How dare you talk about leaving us?! You are our only daughter and sole breadwinner! You are our responsibility and we are yours! Who are we supposed to count on if you're gone! Huh?!" Father snapped at me before I could turn and leave.
"Yeah!" Mother joined in, pulling father up beside her. "How can you be so ungrateful after we gave birth to you and raised you?! You dare talk about leaving us?! Apologize this instant, you disappointment!"
And there is was. The core of all my insecurities shouting at me with flared nostrils and a red face. She heaved in deep breaths as father held her from her waist and rubbed a soothing caress on her back. To calm her raging temper and apparent betrayal.
Hypocrites. They all were.
"Yeah maybe if I wasn't born, the world would have been a better place for you," I replied through gritted teeth, jaw clenched and fingers bending against my thighs.
I wanted them to crack but they wouldn't budge.
"Shut up you fucking—" Father started, but I zoned him out. Stomping upstairs, I could feel mother stopping father from charging right at me.
He was growling, muttering good for nothing curses at me while trying to manipulate the situation to his benefit.
"She's a whore of a daughter. Absolute good for nothing. You come down with me honey, and drink some water. Come down, I'm here for you," He whispered in her ears and all I could do was stab my finger nails in my palms and feel the pain override the emotion of misery that was consuming my whole being. Each step was one I took towards my awaited doom
Walking inside my room, I shoved my bag on the bed and tried to control my breathing.
"Good for nothing."
The birds were chirping merrily outside the window and the sheer thought of their glee made my blood boil. Warmth rushed through the entirety of my body and I couldn't feel the pain from my palms anymore. I opened and closed my fists to stab my nails further in my palms, deeper, harder, but I felt nothing. It was numb.
Adrenaline had consumed me.
"Disappointment."
"Whore."
"Trash."
Cars honked on the road outside, drivers hurling curses at each other while trying to make way. My hands flung to my ears, the voices were too loud. They needed to stop. My feet gave up on me. I fell on the flooring and curled myself in a foetal position, trying to pull at my hair to distract myself from the things around me. Noises. Too many of them. Distractions. Too less of them.
It's almost as if I could hear everything.
"Never done any good."
"Such a liability."
"What an expense."
I couldn't feel the air around me anymore. Oxygen. It was gone again. I gasped for it but my throat rivalled a sandpaper. I sucked in broken breaths but my nose felt hot and dry. Crusty. Burning. I pinched it, rubbed it, pulled it, trying to produce any sort of moisture. My mouth went equally dry. Tongue limp to words.
"We're always here for you."
Hypocrites.
"Worthless."
I scratched my head, wanting to stop my mind from thinking. My heart, it felt heavy, dipping lower and lower until it was one with my gut. Disgusting. My sides, they hurt, as if the ribs were closing in the cavity.
I wanted to snap my fingers, wanted to concentrate on the calmness of the sound of bones cracking. But they were limp.
STOP.
"We do so much for you."
"We care for you, we know the best. Listen to mum and dad Hyejin."
I could hear it. The tapping of a bird's beak against the window of my room. It was the pigeon I fed on afternoons. Adora. It was kind and cute. Loving and silent. But the tapping wasn't. It felt like it was digging a hole in my head. The beak piercing my ear drums that I was so desperately trying to block shut. I bled so that the words could seep through.
"Dreams don't earn you money, child. Study science. Be a doctor."
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Honk. Honk. Honk.
Words. Words. Words.
It was all incessant and it wouldn't stop.
SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
'When the time stops,
I hear a voice.
It's calling,
But I'm stalling,
It's calming,
But I'm chaos.
The only way to live,
Is to leave,
This flow of time.'
The song rang through my head like an ocean wave lurching up to kill a bonfire. Water against fire, the cackling of steam, a new air. I could breathe again.
I gasped, greedily sucking in air as I sprawled myself on the hardwood floor.
It was all silent, too silent, and it felt nice. My brain was too buzzed to concentrate on anything but my own peace of mind.
"I see you met the prophet. He likes you a lot," Came his voice. The voice I hear when time stops. I stopped time again. Halle—fucking—lujah.
I met the prophet? When? He is supposed to be a child. I didn't meet a child— or maybe I did. The Dorian sibling. He couldn't be— could he? That makes no sense.
But at this point. Why was I even trying to make sense?
"Yeah? He didn't check before marking me as his mate? That's lazy work, I wouldn't trust the man to be prophet," I replied in a hazy tone.
"Your disrespect towards his greatness astounds me, little bird. For what it is, you should be grateful of his blessings."
Grateful.
Disrespect.
I scoffed.
"I didn't ask him to fucking bless me, so he can shove his dick down his throat for all I care. I can't believe I'm talking to a hallucination about possible otherworld creatures. Good Lord I'm going mad!"
I all but cried out loud, turning to look at the glass reflecting the dusk through the window. Adora, my almost pigeon pet, stiffly sat perched on the window pane, stuck in time.
"Rude. Crude. Impolite. Unworthy. I cannot fathom the thought of working with you, let alone for you. This is a disgrace on the 13 billion years of my existence."
He replied with a scoff and my eye twitched. That's an uncanny number.
"Judgemental. Impatient. Snappy. Pissy. You've lived way too long, I think it's time to call it quits. Do you happen to have any retirement policies?" I questioned bluntly, eyeing the book wedged under the broken leg of my rickety study table. It was on the edge of tipping down, so I pushed it back in place and stood up.
"I exist with time and I shall cease when it ceases be. Until then, I serve the realm through eternity."
"Aren't you tired?" I questioned curiously, emptying my bag to take out my books and notepads.
"Concerning. Why do you care?"
I picked up a yellow notepad and scribbled the words I keep hearing everytime time stops.
"Aren't you another one of my problems dumped by the prophet? Guessed it would be nice to start somewhere."
I scratched a few words here and there and replaced 'calling' with 'stalling'.
"I'm fast, I'm precious and I rule dimensions. I don't regret, tire out or feel sad. I am the fuel you people waste to feel these emotions."
"You also happen to be a narcissist, I see," I pointed out, wanting to turn back and face the strange entity but I couldn't.
"I happen to have a good sense of self worth, thank you. I don't care how your numbingly narrow mind defines it as."
"What happens if I serve the prophet? Do I do it out of duty as being his," I air quoted, "'mate'? Or will you give me a legitimate reason?"
I made a flow chart of names. Hale, Aedion, Elvi, Nova and what was the name of the child again—?
"Consider it your duty towards the saviour of realms. The fate of the future is in your hands. Only you can raise it."
"Sounds pretentious, I'm a nobody," I whispered out, scratching my head to remember if Aedion or Hale somehow slipped the name.
"That, indeed, is magnificently true. But it does not makes your insignificance any less insignificant. Maybe the fates will realign a meeting and realize the mess that was created— and I shall leave no stone unturned while proving this blunder right. But, until then, help the human raise the prophet."
Ahren. Yes.
I scribbled down the name in bold letters.
Hale. Aedion. Elvi. Nova. Ahren. Mr. Time.
I circled the names of Elvi and Nova with my highlighter.
They know something about this mess and they are hiding it. What is it that they know and why are they hiding it? How did they come across the prophet and how much do they know about me?
I scribbled an arrow over Hale's name and made a note around it. Why did the prophet end up with him? Does he know something about the child and it's origins? Why was he trying to attack it? How do I get across his hatred towards me?
"You're awfully silent. I'm not used to us being civil," He spoke, his voice suddenly sounding distant, as if he was moving around.
"You've known me for a few hours, so drop that plate of judgement that you're piling the food of my bad traits on."
"I believe in first impressions. They're lasting."
"Oh! Of course, you're good old stereotypical Mr. Time."
"Ah-Ha! Here comes the snark! You aren't the shy little bird that you pretend to be."
His voice was closer now, sounding somewhere within hand's reach. I scoffed at his remark, though questioned curiously, "Why do you call me Little bird? It's cringey and old."
"I am old."
"Okay grandpa, should I speak in a formal tone now?"
"Your heart, when you accidentally stopped time in the auditorium, it was pitter-pattering like that of an overworked bird. The frantic frenzy you were in, drove you heart crazy and it thumped in the most mesmerizing sounds of all time. I was intrigued to say the least."
Twirling the pencil around my hand, I shoved it behind my ear and leaned back in my reclining chair.
"You know what, I'm not even surprised to know that you're a sadist who simps for damsels in distress. I'm sure causing anxiety is your forte and you get off seeing people hyperventilating and being late."
I couldn't face him, so I raised my finger and flipped him off.
And I wouldn't have been surprised if I got another snappy remark in old Latin English or some broken form of its mixture with our modern language. I would not have been surprised if he cursed me on spot and made me writhe in pain and pass out like I did this morning.
But I was absolutely taken aback when I heard him chuckle. A husky, breathy chuckle like someone was rubbing velvet against silk. Like the bees were secreting nectar from a flower. Like the sun was blending into the horizon. Like a star was bursting into nothingness from the sheer surprise of it.
It sounded so unique, so simple yet so magnificent.
'When the time stops, I hear a voice. It's calling but I'm stalling, it's calming but I'm chaos, and the only way to live is to leave this flow of time.'
The melody, it echoed through my head like a warning bell lulling me into a sleep with its sombre beauty but also simultaneously pulling me out of a reverie from it abruptness.
Adora's beak pecked against the glass door of my window, knocking for attention.
The birds were chirping again, flying in V formations across the sky.
The traffic was moving again, cars honking and drivers trying to overcome road rage.
My darned chair bent backwards in a sway and I tumbled to the hardwood floor with my jaw hitting the pencil that I had shoved behind my ear.
"Holy fuck," I winced, eyes tearing up in pain as I saw Adora flutter away in shock. I was sprawled on the flooring again, back where I started when time stopped.
And in that moment, I realized how much I hated ticking time.
I fed Adora her feed, completed some homework that Elvi had oh-so-kindly managed to text me, and went down stairs to eat dinner because my parents wouldn't obnoxiously stop shouting about how I was being ungrateful over food when people were dying of starvation in different parts of the world.
I tucked the scribble pad safely inside my desk drawer and headed to bed in a swift motion. Today was hasty, nasty and chaotic and half of my consciousness wanted it to be a dream whereas the other half was beyond excited for tomorrow was going to be an adventure. I would be spying Hale Dorian, High School's Mr. Popularity and his apparent baby brother who happened to be the saviour of realms.
If any of that bull crap made sense and today was not a fever dream, then tomorrow would be a good day.
Or so I thought.
Until I woke up with a girl in my bed who had bunny ears and a furry tail, pressing her generous breasts in mine and dry humping my thigh.
"Mistress, will you marry me after you fuck me?"
This isn't what I signed up for.