Work Text:
She stands on the cold tile floor, her feet wet from spilled water. As she lowers her head to study the color of the tiles, loud laughter from nearby makes her snap her gaze upward.
Her gait is unsteady as she moves toward the sound. Other people’s happiness has become something that frightens her, yet at the same time awakens a deep curiosity.
(If Ivan were still alive, he would say this is the fate of those left with nothing. Pain tastes like an apple cursed by the devil.)
Mizi knows that what is happening to her is a cruel joke of the universe. And yet, even cruelty sometimes hides touches to the heart, softer than feathers.
Her body feels heavy with guilt gnawing at her from within, but she forces herself to keep moving. The closer the tinkling of girlish laughter comes, the more her skin seems to burn. But she likes it—she likes this pleasure of a sick, painful kind.
Mizi stands at the entrance to a place she knows well. In front of her, she sees a sink and a fogged mirror above an old, peeling cabinet, the dirty turquoise of a familiar wall. But what truly draws her attention are two girls sitting in a spacious white bathtub.
These two exist in their own world—a world that blooms in the pastel shades of clematis petals, yet withers at their very tips. Mizi knows this well, because one of these girls is herself.
More precisely, the version of herself that existed before.
Her past self is a bright color, streaked here and there with black specks—marks that existed even despite the happiness Sua had cultivated within her.
It is strange to see herself; it feels as though an eternity has passed since she last looked at her reflection in the mirror. The only thing she knows is that her appearance is horrifying.
Long, silky pink hair, honey-colored eyes, and soft skin without a single flaw are now things she regards with detached blankness.
Slowly, Mizi shifts her gaze to the person sitting opposite her former self.
Sua.
She barely whispers her name, spelling it out letter by letter. Each letter at first tastes sour to her, tainted by memories of the desperation with which Sua had painted her own death. Then the name takes on the sweetness of intoxicating beverages. Mizi drinks it in until the chaos in her head no longer lets her forget the situation they are in.
Lost in her thoughts, she misses the moment when the bathroom falls silent, the only sound being droplets of water slipping from her younger self’s wet hair and dissolving into the azure.
Mizi shifts her tired gaze to Sua. Her eyes are rimmed with thick black ink, and her face is a perfect example of a monochromatic painting, marred only by the blue sorrow resting on her lips.
Seconds pass, then minutes, and it feels as though even hours go by before Sua finally rises from the now-cold water, which drips down her body with the saltiness of shed tears. Mizi forces herself to bite her tongue, trying to dull the urge to reach out to Sua, to wrap her arms around naked body, to drink in the moisture from her skin and run her fingertips through her wet hair.
A small, weary smile appears on Sua’s face as she wraps herself in a white bath towel and steps out of the bathtub. That smile is like a final message from someone freezing in merciless cold, when moving one’s muscles becomes unbearably difficult, when every part of the body is numb and frost seems to be forming from within.
Mizi can no longer bear to look at the reason her heart is giving out, and her gaze snaps back to herself. Revulsion spreads through her chest as she studies the healthy flush on the cheeks of her other self. She cannot endure the vitality of her body and soul.
The whirl of her thoughts distracts her enough that she fails to notice Sua quietly saying goodbye and leaving the room, her presence lingering as condensation on the walls. The scene burns itself into her retinas, eating away at her until everything fades into an almost bleached yellow.
If Till saw her now, he would think she had simply gone blind to everything.
The thought of Till settles like a stone in her stomach. Mizi hastily shakes her head, trying to drive away any memories that might drag her into oppressive thoughts.
When Sua’s footsteps fade completely, she dares to step forward. The younger Mizi does not react to her approach, too consumed by the storm raging within her.
Water beneath her feet splashes softly, making her flinch inwardly from the cold. Yet even this is secondary, paling beside the pain clinging to her lungs like burrs.
Finally reaching the bathtub and stopping before it, Mizi studies her young face one last time.
It is flawlessly tended. The skin is stretched tightly over bone, so much so that she longs to trace it with her fingers, to be sure it is not artificial.
Her younger self seems unaware of anything around her, for even the unfamiliar figure looming above fails to pull her from the depths she has sunk into.
Mizi feels that the longer she looks at this naïve girl, the more her heart begins to decay from disgust. She cannot allow that to happen, because a life filled with suffering is only possible while the organ that drives blood through the bodу remains intact.
Taking one last look at her focused self, Mizi turns to face the nearby mirror. She stares indifferently at her reflection. Although years had passed since she last examined herself closely, Mizi knew well that nothing in her frightening appearance had changed. The burns covering her body were rough craters on the once-pristine surface of her skin. The only thing that truly caught her attention was how surprisingly wet her hair was.
Mizi was used to her hair being dry straw, covered in ash and smelling of smoke. Now, drops of water dripped from the tousled, tangled mass on her head, as if, having absorbed all the sadness of the room, they could no longer carry someone else’s pain and so fell sadly to the floor.
A few seconds spent staring at herself in the mirror calmed her burning hatred for the girl sitting in the bathtub, who was everything Mizi was no longer.
The dampness of her hair soon began to annoy her, so Mizi reached for the hair dryer by the sink on the old cabinet.
As she took it, she almost dropped it, the crash finally pulling her other self out of trance. Mizi vaguely noticed her flinch at the sound, realizing that she was not alone.
“I’m sorry!” cries her younger self, turning her head sharply and splashing some water from the bathtub. “I didn’t notice you were here!”
The lamp above them suddenly flickers, casting everything around them in an even dimmer blue. Mizi decides to refrain from responding to the alarming words for now, choosing instead to rake her long, unkempt nails across the hair dryer. Her hair hides her entire face, giving her a few more seconds to consider how to interact with the one who bore her name and still possessed her untouched beauty.
“I won’t stay for long,” the younger Mizi adds hastily, clutching the edge of the bathtub with her fingers. The tension is evident in the worried frown on her forehead. She opens her mouth to continue her apology and begins to rise from the water to leave quickly. Her confusion continues to steal the color from her irises, her lips reddened from constant nervous biting, and the pads of her fingers wrinkled from being in the water too long.
But her haste was not received positively. Unexpectedly, from the pressure of another’s hand on her shoulder, she lost her balance and fell to the bottom of the bathtub, splashing even more water over the sides.
"Don't," Mizi whispers, her words cutting through the air like invisible blades.
Her younger self turns her head toward the voice again, but quickly looks away. Her eyes stare blankly at the ripples in the water, which reflect her frightened face.
Turning her gaze away from her younger self, Mizi presses the button on the hair dryer handle, turning it on. The loud noise pierces her ears, but it cannot compare to the deafening explosions that occurred on the day Mizi stopped believing in God. The memories that flood back make it almost physically painful to think, so she focuses as much as possible on what is happening now. This is easier than usual because the gaze of her other self is incredibly irritating.
When she finally turns her head, she meets young eyes full of, surprisingly, sincerity and trust. A tense smile graces her pale face.
However, everything changes in an instant when her younger version realizes who is looking at her.
Instantly, everything around them freezes.
Mizi sees her other self trying to open her mouth, but she doesn’t have time to speak even a word.
The light begins to flicker faster, and the walls’ blue deepens, reflecting the doom.
A smile blooms on her face as she throws the running hair dryer into the bathtub.