iv.
Ever seen a life get taken before your eyes?
I've seen it happen plenty of times.
It never loses that freaky effect, a ghosting over your skin as that person leaves for a better or worse life. There's like this moment where you feel like they might choke you, because they envy the fact that you can still breathe, that you can still feel, and that you're still warm and living. Sometimes you swear you can feel their hands approach, because if they can't live, then by all means, you shouldn't either.
Admittedly, I've taken heaps of lives, to defend myself or another. You pull a gun on me, I will knife the shit out of your chest until your heart can no longer function. You drag your own knife down my friend's chest and stomach, I will kick you in the side of the head until I hear a delicious snap and until you stop moving. Until I can see that regret floating out of your cold, seemingly lidless eyes.
Despite all that, there's like a little tingling rush through my veins whenever I deliver the final blow. Like a moment of I survived, you were too weak, I am too powerful, because there could've been a moment where I was the one on the ground with no life lingering. Those breaths that come after… they're really valuable.
But the breaths that leave you… are timed.
You're on the ground, bleeding. There's shallow exhales, but otherwise there's utter stillness. The beast across from our bodies does not move, an arm does not fall – the scarabs no longer dance in aimless strings and formations. Even the flickering flames feel far away, soundless in their sways. It's almost like my feet are stuck to the ground with some type of super glue, because I'm itching to approach you, but no muscle in my body other than my heart and lungs are functioning efficiently.
You. There. Dying. Because I was too fuckin' slow to strike the beast back.
There's a vague smile on your face as your head starts to turn to one side, and in the back of my head I'm fighting off the reality before me, because this is a death I don't want to see, let alone for it to happen. I can't, I just can't…
So I address you, "Sa Bum Nim?"
Nothing leaves except for a soft sound and some rustling – your head hitting the ground, your body's relaxed within the confinements of your dobok, and there's that ghostly feeling again, sweeping up my arms and my body until the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Salt dances around the rims of my eyes, and the back of my head's shouting for you to get back in your damn body, or to have some tea, or to smack me up the back of the head; anything but this acceptance, this one, simple, undeniable acceptance…
There's no… hands, though. Nothing around my throat. No suffocating feeling, none of that shit.
Somehow the ground's a lot closer to me, and its cold below my knees. Spit's mingled with tears when I address you again with a shout. My hands are on the ground now too, and they're pressing so hard into it that I'm sure there'll be imprints there when I dare to raise my body again.
Didn't want to lose you…
I'm… sorry… for my weakness.
I'm so sorry for my weakness.