Deal with Him | Lee Heeseung

8-Soul's immortality

Beautiful chapter, if you ask me. My second favourite. Buckle up, dears.

-Andrea

The soul—Evelyn used to think of it as the very first compass of our decisions, but she now refrains herself from searching for directions with its help. It may be a compass, but it is a broken one. North is not north, is entitled ‘disaster no. 1’ and south is not south, yet rather ‘disaster no. 2’. If you listen to your soul and bring it near enough to the equator of impulsivity, it dies.

The soul is not immortal. Suffering will kill it. And if it goes to hell or heaven or whatever else thing we imagine after life may bring us to, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter for it will still be dead.
Sometimes, as much as we think we prepare it for pain, we do not. Not a heart can be ready for hurt, betrayal or estrangement. And this Evelyn knew by heart.

The soul is such a traitor, really…but you should listen to it, and listen carefully.

Listen to it, visualize through it, protect it; all different pieces of advice, all from different worlds and different knowledge.

Her mom used to tell her, ‘You ought to protect your soul from evils. God is your savior, don’t be foolish.’ But she no longer knows what foolish may mean and no longer guides herself by entities, or by soul or by nothing.

The very singularity of her own is what she wakes up to every morning. And it’s been so long since she has done so, that trusting on another’s guidance or simple small intrusion seems impossible to handle.

The cold grows, the ice thickens, the questions and fear progress. Not even the warmth of him at night or the heat of tea steams break the ice inside her. She fears it may be thinner now but she knows is nearly impossible to break. She’d frozen it that way.

Frozen.
Hell, it’s freezing.

The back of her neck it’s menacingly cold. She turns her head over her shoulder, slowly, like a villain, and touches the back of her neck, half protected by a thick and fluffy black scarf and half dripping with nearly melted snow.

“You--“she screams at Heeseung. Her sentence is fragmented by another snow ball thrown her way that she manages to dodge just in time.

She lifts her head and narrows her eyes at him before picking up a snow ball of herself. The shake of head and her furious face don’t stop her from hitting the boy right in the forehead.

That must have took him by surprise and yet a gradual grin and laugh stole his expression as he molded another frozen weapon in his hand and prepared himself to attack again.

“I just escaped my cold. How ignorant are you?” she yelled from their four-feet-apart distance. Although she said that, her gloved hands still reach for snow and still shape it into a sphere.

The next snow ball flew just above her head as Heeseung yelled back, “I’ll nurse you again just to see you like this.”

There was no time for reply, the snow was flying from left to right and right to left with so much precision that any passer-by would think that was no normal snow fight, it must’ve been a life war.

Not one of them wanted to give up. How stubborn she was and how amused he was still growing. Had she been truly scared of catching another cold, he couldn’t tell for her blows were either filled with vengeance for her neck or with the wish to continue this small fight towards him.

After more snow was thrown and more insidious cold was entering their bones, it was clear they ought to call it a draw—they were soaked, freezing and defeated. The market trip they should’ve taken was clearly out of question now.