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"Think about it," the counselor says, as though bestowing some great wisdom. "Life is a really beautiful thing."
Jongwoo thinks about it, but concludes differently. In the abstract, to live is to be humiliated. To shit yourself upon entry and exit, to fail in order to scrape by, and to develop a sex that is viscous and grotty. What would an alien race think of us? Animals without self-awareness, in spite of how we bark, and snap, and struggle to tame each other. Almost everything we condemn in other species, we practice covertly ourselves. Murder, filth, ignorance and folly are more human than bestial, and surely, just as wilful dogs are euthanised, we would be wiped out for a 'greater good'.
Jongwoo has never thought his life is beautiful, which he interprets to mean 'good', and he has never looked to another and for that reason coveted theirs. In moments of weakness he has envied the handsome, the wealthy, the snobbishly comfortable and the successful, but for all that they have, he knows they also fall short of a beautiful life. He figures it's impossible, a pipe dream that's all smoke. If you are happy, there's somebody else suffering. If you come out victorious, you have created a loser. If you recognise beauty, it's only because you have seen worse.
(He thinks of a dentist with the face of an angel and hands of a pianist, educated and charming and clever, whose smile, whose pleasure, denotes everything but 'good'.)
There is no beautiful life in a world made of people. There are only lavish lifestyles for some and placated circumstances for others, because we do not exist in exclusivity.
You hurt inadvertently or hurt with intent, or you take the blows and fester with them. And sometimes, if you're like Jongwoo, you attempt all three and rot.
Grand statements like 'life is beautiful' make his gorge rise— only the stupid or selfish could imagine such a thing. Looking at his third counselor, Jongwoo thinks several very rude things, and wonders how those with no self-awareness are granted authority over those who have too much. 'You're sad because you think too much; angry because you remember too often,' was last week's verdict, and now he's being told to put his energy into a lie both banal and baseless, as though not wanting to live is a sort of laziness, or ignorance to beauty, or proxy state of thought. As though memory is the absence of rationality, not its very architect.
Is being human, being well, the consequence of adopting a single, better state of thought? Jongwoo is reminded of bleeding without a plaster, instead damming it under sticky tape. There the blood takes on a gelatinous and glossy appearance, congealing against the film, and you can pretend there isn't a wound beneath it. Any pain, a mirage.
But even still, when the tape is peeled away, the skin will open again and gush all the more. Jongwoo supposes there can be no immaculate injury, no haemorrhage without cause. A moist indent in the desert is a waterhole, and wet grooves in your skin are scars. There's no poetry in genuine pain.
While it's not particularly beautiful to bleed, it's natural. The counselor's suggestion, by contrast, is supernatural— a legend told to children or overawed religion for adults.
He feels, not for the first time, that he is being spoken down to in the candle-stink room, and turns his attention to the posters on the walls. They offer nothing of substance, just motivational quotes and lukewarm pictures of the rising sun. One plaque reads: CHOOSE HAPPINESS. It inspires a sudden defiance in Jongwoo and he resolves to abort their sessions, paying minimal attention until the hour is up.
He suffers through this final hour. The candles are lavender-scented— he'd know, he was half-gagged with flowers in hospital— and the room is both stuffy and cold. The smell condenses to the point he can taste it: less floral, more mildewed; less waxen, more sweaty. Jongwoo regrets bringing neither a mask nor a jacket, and glances at the goosebumps on his arms. Nowhere is warm after Seoul. After Eden, where he burned alive.
* * * * * * * * * *
'Choose happiness, my arse,' he thinks, handing the con artist the last wad of cash he'll squeeze out of him. Or, more precisely, out of his mother, who pays for their sessions. Jongwoo lets her. It's how she tries to compensate for a lifetime of neglect, followed by several weeks of trauma, followed by a year-and-a-half of limbo. Now she'll have to find a new form of penance.
Penance, Jongwoo muses, and wonders not for the first time if he should feel guilty for the things he's done. The counselor's verdict was just more drivel about forgiving himself, although the doctors from his time inpatient also claimed it wasn't his fault. People act so preoccupied with defending the victim. At least, to his face— Jongwoo has heard their whispers and knows very well how 'penitent' they think he should be.
In his opinion, it's pathetic. If they consider him so despicable, so feral, then they should have slapped some cuffs on him while they had the chance. He didn't ask to be pardoned. Like an animal raised in captivity and freed by a philanthrope, he doesn't know these jungles, this world without bars or safety nets.
There is no one in Jongwoo's life he can trust. No one he can confide in.
Not anymore.
When notifying the bastard that their sessions are terminated, Jongwoo closes the e-mail solemnly, thanking the counselor for their time together and wishing him 'a beautiful life'.
He hopes the compassion makes him sick.
* * * * * * * * * *
A better depressive than Jongwoo would organise to see another therapist, but instead he synergises medication with soju and sinks into bed mid-afternoon.
Dopily, he even texts his mother, an action that has been deferred ever since his counselor encouraged doing so. The man's advice always had a dissuasive effect on Jongwoo— like he needed another reason to avoid his mother.
Her last message is over a month old. 'What are you doing these days?' she sent. Casual from another, cutting from family. Jongwoo can't remember his answer but he's sure it wasn't very impressive, maybe 'not much', without expounding, or 'I'm busy', without evidence. And when he wakes up nauseous the next morning to 'has therapy helped?', Jongwoo fidgets, frowns, and ultimately lies, ignoring whatever she responds with. He opens the blinds, migrates from bed to the couch, and calls it progress.
Truth be told, nothing helps, and these days he's not even sure there's anything to help. He brought this up to the counselor about a month ago, mumbling about a tiredness that didn't ease with sleep and a hunger not fed with food. Jongwoo hadn't felt human for some time. But the counselor insisted to the contrary, promising he could be fixed, that if he continued to do his listicle homework ('ten things that make me happy'; 'five future events I'm looking forward to'; 'three people I'm grateful for') and coughed up half-a-grand a month, then Jongwoo would be okay again.
But what the fuck does 'okay' mean? Is Jongwoo supposed to return to how he was before, indulgent of others and suffocating under their expectations? While people consider him surly now, it's a freedom he couldn't afford in the past. He likes his anger. It grounds him, gives him a sense of justice— of victimhood, sometimes, when all he can think about is blood on his hands and a neck in his grip. Jongwoo didn't kill, he exterminated, but that's not for anybody to know but himself.
Anybody alive, that is.
Regardless, how can someone be arrogant enough to assume they have the power to take his trauma away, to mend him of his own history? The suggestion of 'forgetting' makes his blood boil. Eden is a part of him, a pulsating, externally-planted organ, too deep to extract. If the counselor had dared to approach with forceps and a scalpel, he could expect to lose both instruments and offending hands.
Something has been dug away and replaced inside Jongwoo. If they want to take Eden from him, they'll be left with an empty sack of skin.
Naturally, he fights tooth and nail to defend what little he has left.
A snarling maw, too-wide eyes, heaving chest. Doctors, family, and authorities alike have described how he looks during 'episodes'. When they call him inhuman, they mean less than human, and when they say fierce, they mean free.
It's not the sort of independence that does anyone else any good, but that's the nature of privilege. At another's expense, you hold onto something you didn't ask for in the first place but would kill to maintain. Jongwoo is so aware these days. Of his surroundings, of people, of agendas. He is cynical and hard— but better a misanthrope than a scapegoat, an asshole than a victim.
Beneath all his anger is hatred, made dangerous by the absence of a target.
He can't allow himself to choose a target.
So, safe in the knowledge he will never see the counselor again, Jongwoo indulges his hangover, reclining and closing his eyes. He fantasises about stabbing the man in the chest, over and over, and asking whether he's grateful for it.
(It's a learning curve. It's a teaching moment. It's character-building, a test of strength, evidence that you can be ruined and remain upright. See? You're still breathing. Aren't you grateful?
There's a great gaping hole in your chest and you're still breathing.)
It's anger that ultimately soothes Jongwoo to sleep. He kicks a bottle off the couch, twists his leg into one of four blankets. The cushion under his head reeks of booze-breath and body odor, familiar enough to shrug off. He's so tired, always tired, but with sated anger comes relief: a quiet promise that 'you can rest now'.
* * * * * * * * * *
Jongwoo spends 73 hours, prone and disoriented, melting through that couch. Rationally, he knows he must have gotten up at some point, seeing as he's neither pissed himself nor become dehydrated— but he can't recall moving, or much at all, really.
The chord between his mind and limbs has been cut. When he aches for a meal, his legs won't stand. When he means to reach for his phone, a meter away on the coffee table, he finds his arms pinned to his sides and back anchored to the couch.
Later he learns it's generally not recommended to go on a bender while heavily medicated, but for now he lies in a bottle-blanket fortress, remembering how it felt when the landlady spiked his drink.
The memory of Eden saves him. He realises through the visual-mist, the sloshing of his brain, the thrumming in his ears, that something he ate or drank has impaired his ability to think. And while it's not easy to move, he forces himself to, stumbling from the damned couch and grasping at his phone.
It's dead.
Jongwoo swears, but the word gets mangled in his mouth, a retching 'fyuh' more than anything intelligible. His eyes float toward his bedroom, the door of which has been closed. Except, he never closes the bedroom door. Not in his apartment. (Not where he pretends it's safe.)
He takes a deep, acrid breath, and tries to stand. Then vomits. Food he can't recall eating, as well as fluid in a color he doesn't recognise— all of it surges out of him like something caustic, burning his throat and steaming unpleasantly in his blankets. He wouldn't be surprised if it gnaws through the couch.
Rubbing a sleeve against his mouth, Jongwoo re-stabilises himself. He uses the couch's arm as leverage and manages to take three steps forward, grabbing the countertop next. His vision swims each time he takes too deep a breath, and his hands tremble, unreliable, on every surface he grips for support. There are a few close calls. As he nears his bedroom, he has to press against the walls, and slides down without purchase until his elbow cracks over a doorknob. He braces himself there, arm throbbing.
Jongwoo lingers a moment, blinking heavily. And then he throws himself forward, latching onto his bedroom door and yanking it open.
He topples inside. The blinds are spread as he left them, and the barest trace of sunset lights the room. Nothing appears amiss. On his hands and knees, Jongwoo approaches the bedside table where his charger is plugged in and ready. A sigh of relief escapes him once his phone begins to glow.
Awkwardly, he tries to clamber onto the bed while the device switches on. It's a full-body effort, requiring the use of his chin, elbows, hips, and knees in order to reach the top.
Jongwoo actually laughs when he makes it up, the sound gargling in his throat. The mattress is a million times more comfortable than the couch, and he decides to throw the thing out, get an armchair or beanbag instead. Exhausted, he collapses back, but rather than landing against a soft pillow his head strikes metal. Hard.
It makes a clanging sound he's unable to hear. His ears ring, and ring, and ring. He's deaf to his own groans.
Blearily, Jongwoo touches the back of his head. There's something wet and sticky building in his hair. He swallows, and tastes acid.
Propping himself up by the forearms, he tries to ignore the way his hands have begun to quiver as he lifts the pillow, revealing...
The fucking plaque, from his counselor's office.
'CHOOSE HAPPINESS'.
A split-second passes before he notices the red mark against his white sheets. There, sitting in its own gore, is a freshly-plied tooth. The roots are gummy and wet. Its shape, tear-like. An adult canine.
Jongwoo can guess whose.
This time, he doesn't stop laughing.