As the droplets smashed against the thin glass, he turned to face the woman, still looking at the park through the broken glass.
His head turned back to the table, the phone still in his left hand.
He glanced at the brown cup.
Hot steam above the brim shimmered, fading into the air, its scent reaching him.
His other hand left his pocket, extending where the warm steam guided. Warmth enveloped his entire hand. Fingers stretched as the cup almost made contact with his skin. The hot plastic almost felt on his cold hand.
As he formed a semi-circle with his fingers, his tendons tensed, and a bead of blood welled up on the top, dribbling down until the white table absorbed it.
He stopped and drew back his hand, holding it in front of his eyes.
Three fresh claw marks were deeply carved into him. His pale skin was tainted with red. The pain was dull, yet stinging. It felt as though something was burning.
He remembered when the hot coffee was poured on him, but that was nothing like what he just felt. The nails that sliced his skin open weren't that sensation either. There was something else there.
The woman kept staring out the window, where the park was located.
People ran as the rain fell. Some stayed, undeterred. Some lay there, shutting their eyes. Eventually, the scene before her became a photograph. Everything died down. The park was still, inhabited only by people who no longer moved. Only the rain still moved.
The person on the other side of the window who sat across from her dozed off. His head didn't move, only staring at his scars with his dropped eyes.
As his consciousness faded, he unintentionally loosened the muscles that held his arm in place, slamming it onto the table with a loud thud that echoed through the entire room.
In an instant, the woman directed her attention to where the noise came from as a wave of shock rushed through her body. Eyes darted where the three deep marks painted the pallor of his skin with vibrant red lines.
She swallowed loudly.
Now that she had the time to think and reflect on her actions, she saw it.
She glanced at her nails: her pink polish reddened the further she got from the base. There was even a drop of blood, just between her flesh and fingernail.
Her eyes widened.
Did… Did I do this? Her eyes communicated.
Half of her body disappeared behind the desk as she bent her hips down. Her hand met the floor, trying to find something she dropped minutes before.
Tapping the floor beneath, she finally touched it.
Cold. Reflexively, her fingers pulled back.
She picked it up and closed her fist as she came back above the desk.
Her hand opened.
In her palm, a small ice cube. Melting. Without a second thought, her hand moved towards his hand with delicacy, lightly placing the ice on his wound.
He chuckled.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" she soothed, her hand rubbing the ice on his skin. "But you must endure. It's only painful because it's healing."
"I was fine before you put that there." Tears struggled to escape as he clenched his teeth.
While pressing the ice to his hand, her eyes pierced his, attempting to make him say something she wanted him to without her needing to open her mouth.
It was futile.
The person before her had no intention of saying anything. He only kept his head low as he tried to endure the physical pain.
But he couldn't.
The stillness in his eyes wavered, eyelids no longer covering half of his eyes.
Even if he was somewhat of an expert at keeping things under control, there was a limit to how much he could bear. If he suffered an injury that demanded him to react, his inner coolness would start to boil in response.
After seeing that he won't fulfill her needs for communication, she narrowed her eyes, furrowing her brows.
"Why do you think I didn't see it?" she asked, her voice heavy.
"?"
The question was so sudden, he could only mumble in response.
She placed her hand on the other side of his and held his wounded arm from both sides.
"Why do you think I don't care? That I… can't feel this?"
Her hand pressed against his skin, squeezing it from behind.
Her eyes narrowed further. She pinched him.
"I care!" she squealed. "I see when you hurt! I see when you struggle to breathe! I-I break to see you like that!"
She quietened, her voice weak.
"…So why? …Why can't you say anything…?" Tears began to well up.
The person across watched her as something started to surface. That sensation, why was it distant yet so familiar?
He put the phone down.
"I don't understand why care for any of that. I'm just a stranger. Nothing more," he said, unarticulated.
She paused. Then glanced at the window, the park reflecting in her eyes.
"You're right…" She let his hand go.
"I don't know you. I don't know anything about you."
Tears started to pour down her face as the dam inside her broke.
He pulled his hand away.
"Why care about someone like me then?" His voice raised half a notch. "If I'm nothing to you, why haven't you left?"
The control he had before was gone, replaced by something more raw.
Her tears poured with no end.
She narrowed her eyes, almost closing them.
"D-don't say you…you don't matter. I care about you. So please…"
"Please, what?" He looked straight into her eye. "What do you want from me? To lie? And act like how I always did throughout my whole life? That's what you want?"
"N-no—"
"Then what!" he shouted. "What the actual hell you want me to do! Tell me!"
She couldn't answer.
The silence returned, engulfing the atmosphere with its suffocating presence. As seconds passed, his eyes returned to his half-lidded state.
"Look where we are," he said, his voice calming down. "Is this what you wanted? This… tension? This environment?"
He paused, then said.
"No. I doubt you ever wanted this."
She couldn't say anything. She just sat in her chair, unable to move a muscle.
His head turned, glancing at the cracked window.
"And now, you are here, spending the last of your time with a person like this," he said in a bitter tone.
Her hand twitched. She raised her head slowly, as though time didn't move.
Her jaw trembled, uttering the words, "Please… don't call yourself that way ever again."
He turned his head back from the window, frowning.
"You're not my mother," he said, his voice deep. "I can refer to myself however I want."
She clenched her fist, slamming it down.
Thud.
For three seconds, the words caught in her throat. Her eyebrows furrowed, narrowing her eyes.
She opened her mouth.
"I won't allow it! You might think it's okay, but…I won't let you do this to yourself. Not when I'm here to see it."
He stared at her with a blank expression.
"You really are just like her," he said, exhaling.
Putting his hands on the table, he shifted his weight onto them and stood up.
"W-where are you going?"
He looked down at her.
"Away," he said, turning his back.
In an instant, she stood up. The sound of the chair grazing against the floor filled the room. And before he knew it, his hand was already captured by her grip, pulling him back.
He stopped.
His neck turned, glancing back.
"You know I'm capable of harming you," he said, his voice low.
"I don't care!" she shot back. "I can't let you leave like this."
He sighed, facing her with his full body.
"We already went over this. Or do you want the same thing to happen again?"
A cold ripple ran from her tailbone to the nape of her neck.
The words struggled to manifest in her throat, she said:
"I…I-I don't."
He continued. "Then you should know what you're doing will only repeat history," he warned her.
His hand shook, and he turned to face the door.
He started walking away, though, before he could move, she wrapped her arms around him, swallowing him in her grasp.
He stopped again.
This time around, he didn't sigh, only turning back with some veins poking his neck.
The corner of his mouth dipped lower; he stared at her.
"You know, I'm starting to get annoyed by this," he said, clenching both his fists.
She let his hand go.
"I… I just don't want this to be over."
"Over?" he said, almost cutting her off. "Whatever you think we had, it was never here."
He turned away. But before he had his back on her, she stopped him. Her hands didn't move. This time, the thing that made him stop was her words.
"Didn't you have fun?"
As the words grazed his ears, he stopped in his tracks.
Without turning back, he looked down, watching the white floor beneath his blue shoes.
He wanted to answer right away. He wanted to deny any feelings reaching him. However, the words refused to come up.
The tightness in his chest intensified.
For five seconds, nothing other than his feet touching the floor grounded him to reality. Coming back up, his head no longer gazed at the floor. The door was blurring before his eyes. Still looking at the other side, his lips parted.
"I don't know."
A gasp escaped her.
She didn't understand. How could he not know something like that? And before she could've asked what he meant by it, he turned around, his back facing the door.
"I don't know if I had fun or not."
"…?"
She let out a quiet, high-pitched sound.
He continued. "What does having fun even mean? Can a person feel that when there's nothing to justify such feelings to exist? Why would they? I just don't understand. I… what's fun in life? Or am I just that cynical? Am I that far from humanity? I can't even understand something so simple?"
"H-hold on. What are you—"
While he went on, the woman tried to say something, but he cut her off as though she wasn't even there.
"Was I ever happy?"
Pondering that question for a couple of seconds, his arm quivered, then he answered:
"Wish I could say no, but I'd be lying if I said that. There was a point in my life when those feelings could reach me. But… why? Was I deceiving myself?"
He stopped, looking straight into her eye.
"But I know one thing for certain." Pausing briefly, he said. "I don't care to be happy. My priority for a long time has been somewhere else. People chasing it throughout their whole life—I could never understand that."
The entire room was engulfed in silence.
No matter how hard she tried, there were no words that could've described how she felt. She stood there like a statue. Her hand hung next to her with her head low.
"Wh-why?" she began, trying her hardest to put her emotions into words. "Why did you say all this to me?"
Seconds passed; he blinked, eyes covered by darkness, then opened them.
"Wasn't this what you wanted? To know me?"
Before she said anything, silence filled the space between them.
Lips parting, she mumbled something out.
"I…"
She didn't know what to say. There were just so many things in her head she couldn't understand about him. Even as she tried her best, her sentences got more and more fragmented, as though she had forgotten how to communicate.
Seeing how the woman before him didn't say anything, he said, "Now you know you never wanted this."
He could barely even finish when the woman shouted.
"No, no, I do! I want to know more… about you!"
Looking down, he raised his arm as he stared at the three deep red marks on his hand.
He shifted his attention back to her.
"Trust me, you have no idea what you're asking for. Just forget this ever happened before somethin—"
She cut him off.
"I don't care about being hurt!" Her voice swept across the cafe. "I want to know more. I want to understand…you. Even if it costs me, I…"
She stopped, then said, "I want to know who you really are."
No matter what he did, he couldn't brush her off.
What was so special about him? He was just a random person stumbling into a cafe. Someone who had forgotten his wallet and ended up being helped out by a barista. He didn't do anything. It was all hers. And yet, she was there trying to understand a bland person like him?
He shoved both of his hands into his pockets and gazed at her with his empty eyes.
"I don't get you," he said. "Why the hell you want to know me?"
She raised her eyebrows, eyes glistening.
"It's because… because…" Her voice wavered. "We don't have much left. If-If I don't do this now…there, there won't be another time…"
As he heard her speaking about the end, something snapped inside him.
He looked deep into her hazel-green eyes and said:
"So now you care about the end, right?" A glimmer of anger surfaced from his throat as he raised his voice.
"What about the times you could've thought about it?" Veins bulged on his neck.
"Why haven't you done it then!?" he yelled, his voice unlike anything before.
"Why are you thinking about the end now when—"
"Because I was scared!" she shouted, shattering the ice in her hand. Her voice cut through the entire space. "I was scared, okay. This is what you wanted to hear? I was scared…to think what would happen. That something like this could happen…I was scared…"
He glanced at the cup next to his hand.
Some coffee spilled, painting the table darker. The content inside no longer reached the brim as it used to, though the steam above it was still visible. He walked to the table, almost touching the edge.
His lips parted.
"I should've asked for an iced coffee." His mouth curled down.
She looked at him with tearful eyes.
"What did you say?"
"All of this wouldn't have happened if I weren't such an idiot." He slammed his hand on the table, creating a loud thud.
Shock reflected in her eyes as her mouth opened.
"What are you—"
"It's my fault that I let you break," he said, his voice bitter. "You only came here because I burned myself. If it wasn't for that, you wouldn't have come here to offer me ice. You wouldn't have gone through all this pain because of me. It was all my fault. I shouldn't have come here. I should've just died alone in my—"
His voice cut short.
Smack!
His cheeks pushed inward, swiftly turning away from the table.
Her hand extended towards him. Palm spread as it impacted his face, leaving a red mark behind.
"Shut up!" she shouted, her voice ripping through the air. "If you say another word, I'll beat you until you can't speak!"
He placed his right hand on his cheek.
Head fixated on the floor. His hair fell into one of his eyes, covering half of his face.
"I had these thoughts way before I met you. Even after you do that, nothing will change." He slammed down on the chair as his body collapsed, holding his head low.
Her eyebrows raised.
Eyes narrowed, tears almost covered them. The edges of her mouth twitched as she stood before him, her stature covering his height. She crouched down, slightly bending her hips. Her body leaned forward as she extended her hand against his face.
He was prepared to get smacked for the second time. Not as much as a hand was lifted.
However, even after a few seconds, nothing came.
Instead, her hand brushed aside his hair, hooking it behind his ear. When she did that, though, she gasped.
"What's this on your forehead?" she asked, flabbergasted.
He didn't answer.
"This cut, when-when did you get it?" Her hands lightly touched the side of his forehead.
At first glance, some might have had the impression that the origin of that scar might have tied back to the bucket incident occurring some minutes ago. However, that cut was deep, deeper than what a dull bucket could ever cause.
No blood. Only a big cut on the right side of his forehead.
He took a deep breath.
"I must have hit it when I tried to leave," he said, eyes still fixated on the floor.
The woman grabbed his chin, lifting his head. Closing the distance between his and her lips.
A kiss. Though not romantic.
Slight red lip mark remained on his forehead. The burning hotness on his skin was engraved in his soul.
He jumped up.
Hand on his forehead, brushing the mark off until there was none.
"Wh–what are you doing!?" she shouted in exasperation, furrowing her brows.
He stayed silent.
Only his hands took the action his mouth couldn't. Hands raised, putting them before his chest as he pushed the woman away. She fell on the ground. And with a pained expression, he turned to the table, grabbing the cup.
Walking to the door, he stopped.
I…
Just before he got outside, he looked back, watching the woman lying on the floor struggling to sit up. He held the cup in his hands, the warmth of the steam entering his nostrils. Slurp. As it reached the inner part of his mouth, his tongue couldn't pick up the taste. Just the bitterness.
I knew it… I…
He grabbed the phone from the table, opened the door, and left, leaving the woman on the floor.
Outside, he put the cup in his right hand and checked the timer.
00:26:07