Near to Heart

“Don’t you go anywhere,” Jinsoul growls from the dinner table, her voice dragging with built-up fatigue. Her words clamp weights onto your legs, grounding you to a halt as you start walking away from the sink. “Go…I’m just—you’re saying that like I’m going out or something,” you force a chuckle in reply, fidgeting awkwardly with your hands. “I’m just going to the bedr—”

“Come here. Sit,” Jinsoul taps on the chair nearest to her; a rather unusual spot at the dinner table since you usually sit opposite each other. You stand frozen like a meerkat for a few before she sighs and reiterates curtly, “Honey. Get over here. Sit down.”

Her brevity suggests no room for whimsy, so you swallow a lump in your throat and comply, walking towards the chair with your head held low. “So…what—what’s this about, honey?” 

Jinsoul scrutinises you for several moments before breathing another sigh and asking, “What’s been happening to you lately?”

Your eye twitches. “W–What do you mean? Like, with what?”

“With you, honey. Talk to me. What is it?”

You clear your throat a bit loudly, rummaging your mind for a lighthearted out. “With me? Like, what part? My dashing looks? My peak bod—”

“Don’t! Beat around the—honey, please. Do I really need to say it myself?” Her volume control begins to wane, her jaws so tight they might leave stretch marks on her face. 

“Honey, I dont—urgh. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here,” you rasp, suddenly aware of how hoarse your voice is. Jinsoul lets out a huff, pushing away her mostly finished dinner. “Alright. I’ll spell it out for you then. Something is up with you. Has been for the past week.” Her voice quavers just a bit, hinting at a deluge of emotions being dammed. 

Your lips are struggling to motion a reply despite your brain going into overdrive for one. “I don’t—not sure…what?”

Jinsoul takes a big swig of her glass of water and sets it down a bit hard, the noise making you flinch. “See? You even jump from just that alone. What happened to you, honey? Tell me!”

“There’s no—nothing happened. Don’t worry about it,” you retort, your voice dragging on your throat like sandpaper. “Is that so? Look at me, honey. Look at me in the eyes,” she asks firmly. Try as you might, your eyeballs refuse to obey, darting everywhere else around her instead. That’s if they’re not trying to just black out or come up with strange shapes in your peripheral vision.

“You can’t do it, can you?” Jinsoul whispers, pulling her hair back with both hands. She clears her throat, both fists clenching on the table. “You’ve been coming home later and later, you haven’t been eating well, you—”

“I haven’t been eating? Honey, I’ve finished every plate—” “Don’t interrupt me!” She shouts into your face; only the fourth time she’s done so in the three years you’ve been together and the first in five months of marriage. “You wanted me to lay it out for you, so listen to me when I am!” One of her fists rises into the air, seemingly about to slam back down on the table.

“You thought I didn’t notice?” she begins again, gradually sounding less stable. “Every night this past week you eat like…like something’s chasing you. And in the morning—” Her face scrunches and she clenches her raised fist even harder, to the extent of shaking. You want to comment on it, but she bars that off before you can try. “—in the morning you vomit most of it back up! I could hear it, you know.”

 Your lips stammer for defense, cold sweat beading on your palms. “Well, I…maybe my–my stomach just…happened to be upset, all those nights. You never know with the body, right?”

“And what do you think’s causing it to be?” she snarls, her breath becoming laboured. “You haven’t been sleeping well, either! I can see it in your face, I hear it in your voice—I feel it in everything you do!”

The room’s atmosphere tightens into a viscous coil, a searing heat radiating from Jinsoul’s person. The already dim lights appear to darken even further, cutting off the rest of the world and leaving a deafening silent cocoon around the two of you.

“W–Well…that’s—I…uhm, there’s…it—there’s stuff happening at–at work. You know, overtime, and—I haven’t been drinking out or…or hanging around with other women or anything,” is the best you could meekly scrounge together, and even you can hear how pathetic it sounds.

 Jinsoul’s eyes widen to a deathly glare, sucking in through her teeth. “You think…that’s what I care about right now?” Her voice is downright menacing, offended. “About your work buddies, and–and OTHER WOMEN?!” She actually slams her fist on the table now, eliciting a small yelp from you. “You think I give a flying fuck about those things?! More than…more than—”

Her breath catches in her throat, one hand flying to clutch her chest as her face grimaces in pain. Alarm bells are set off in your head, instinctively leaping to your feet and rushing to her side. “Jinsoul, honey. Breathe…slow in, slow out. You taken your meds yet? You haven’t, have you? Let me—”

Jinsoul’s eyes reopen to shoot a glare at you, swatting away your arms with a grunt. “Don’t you dare…you’re not getting out of this like that. It’s not—” She winces and groans again, but recovers before your bumbling steps can find a gap to exploit. “This damn heart hasn’t stopped me for thirty years, it won’t now!”

You cringe and whine at her morbid persistence. “Honey, don’t say that! This is serious! You’ve gotta—”

“So am I! So am I…” Her eyes begin to glisten; whether from the pain, the seething emotions or both, you’re unsure. What you are sure of is that there is absolutely no escaping this now, facing it is your only option. “So please, honey. Talk to me, tell me what it is, hm?” Jinsoul pleads, a few beads rolling down her cheeks. 

Her soft, warm hand reaches out to your cold, stiff one, keeping just enough pressure to hold you in place. “Remember what I told you? About the thing I hate to hear the most?” You peer down at your hands, your eyes starting to heat up and water as well. “I…the—yes. I remember.”