Min-ji’s laughter eventually dies down into quiet, sporadic snorts, leaving us to the ambient noise of the wind brushing through the trees. The afternoon light slowly bleeds out of the sky, bruising into a deep violet before finally surrendering to pitch black. We don't say a word, just lying there on the cold dirt, side by side, lighting a second stick, then a third.
The only source of light down here is the faint, rhythmic glowing of cigarettes between our lips. Above us, the stars start to punch their way through the dark canopy of the spot we claimed.
I take a slow drag, letting the smoke fill my lungs, holding it there until my chest aches just to feel something ground me.
Looking up at that sprawling, quiet expanse, my mind inevitably starts digging up shit I usually try to keep buried. Just pressure, I had told Min-ji. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.
I remember the absolute disgust I used to harbor for people who reeked of ash and liquor. The pathetic reliance on a chemical crutch just to get through the day. I vividly remember standing in front of my dad, looking him dead in the eye, and swearing up and down that I would never touch this shit. I promised him I was better than that. That I would never let vices drag me down into the dirt.
He’s been dead for two years now.
I exhale, watching a thick, gray cloud drift up toward the stars before the wind violently tears it apart into nothing. My fingers smell like cheap tobacco, my lungs are coated in tar, and I'm lying in the dirt hiding from a campus I'm supposed to be leading. The "good boy" aesthetic Min-ji talked about is just a hollow, exhausting shell.
what a fucking joke, I think to myself, staring blankly at the night sky. I made a sacred promise to a now dead man, only to end up turning into the exact kind of person I used to despise.
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