Suicide Lists [3]
Title: The Suicide Lists [Part 3]
Author: xsilentserenity
Pairing(s): friendship!Eunhae, written in Donghae’s POV
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Drama
Warnings: centers around the idea of suicide, self-harm
Disclaimer: Such a pity.
Summary: When the nothing that is left is too much; when the only option left is to die, to disappear, to have never even existed, maybe all it takes to hold on are the smallest, most trivial things.
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<< Part 2 | Part 4 >>
I don’t exactly know what pushed me over the edge, but look: here I am now. The cars to my right blur past me as I the wind screams past my ears with quiet whispers. My feet tap along the sidewalk as I meander along the cement, no really caring about where I end up. It’s not like anyone would care if I disappeared. A chuckle escapes my lips, and I let out a humorless bark of laughter. There really isn’t anything left for me. Even my one-on-one football tourney ended up with failure, and it doesn’t seem like I can maintain a proper friendship either. It’s been two months since I met Hyukjae, and he is my only friend, but even then, most of our conversations are one-sided; I don’t really contribute.
But still, even with his gummy smile and crinkling eyes and seemingly sincere expression, I still don’t feel as if I can trust him. No one can be trusted-I’ve long given up on the power of trust. It only brings hope and faith, which are useless emotions that stand for only one thing: to be crushed. I’m so tired of being betrayed, being mocked, being called a disgrace… but then again, that’s all I am. I probably should be continuously made fun of, screamed at, put down; I’m sure I deserve it all-I probably did something that made the whole world hate me. There’s nothing left anymore. I just want to get away.
I turn my head up to the sky and watch the clouds float by in silence, a few white puffs swimming through the sky. I don’t watch where I’m going, walking aimlessly on the sidewalk. I can hear the cars speed by in the back of my head, but I’m not listening to them, just heard. I don’t look, but only see, and as the air envelops me and breezes past me, I touch, but don’t feel. It’s like I’m unreal, watching myself go through the motions-like a morose movie in black and white and silence.
I end up on the mainstreet, watching the clock’s hands on the side of a building tick by. I don’t move as I follow the second hand with my eyes, and it’s like I’m frozen in time while watching the world bustle about its business around me. When the chime of 3 o’clock sounds, I blink out of my daydreaming-like state. A sigh automatically escapes my lips and I turn around, heading back down the still busy street and towards my house-not a home-that was about a five minute walk from where I stood
When I arrived, there was no one in the house, and only silence replied to my soft call of “I’m home…” But there aren’t any complaints from me: I’d rather be alone right now than with anyone else; the presence of anyone at all just makes me realize over and over how insignificant to this world I really am. I’m just a depressed boy living in a big world where my existence doesn’t really affect anyone at all. I climb the stairs to my room, ignoring Bada, who still waits outside without a sound; I guess she doesn’t know I’m back yet.
My room is just how I left it, and my sheets are still messily scattered on my bed and floor, and a few clothes are strewn across the rug. I crawl into my bed after closing the curtains over the window, and I snuggle into the comforter, reveling in my own body warmth when I don’t’ have anyone else’s to share.
Sometime along the way of my thoughts, the sun changes position, and a thin ray of light slips between the gaps in my curtains, making a flash of reflected light shine. Curious, I reach for the glinting metal, and I remember what it is when my fingers close around the handle: it’s a small pocket knife I always keep handy in my room; somehow, it’s made its way to my bed, vaguely hiding under the folds of my sheets. The steely edge reflects the sunlight, but as I gaze at it, some clouds must have covered the sun again, because the single ray of light disappears and my room is once again submerged in a dull kind of darkness.
My mind isn’t thinking as I glance between the sharp edge and my hand, pale in contrast to the black handle I’m holding. It’s all very sudden-and impulse, a whim-but then I’m staring at my wrist while I draw a line of red along its length.
For that moment, that period of time, I was nothing, but I was something… something indescribable, unexplainable. I laughed in utter giddiness, a foolish notion, but I was floating, high off the group and above where I usually stood. It was a feeling of euphoria, filled with burning pain that felt so… good. I nearly moan as I come down from that immense feeling, and I bite back a smile as I jerk my hand, cool steel glinting against the dusky light of the room in such a maliciously friendly way. I gasped as it touched my skin before my bloodstream was once again filled with a bleeding, scarring, terrible pain that made me grin and cry at the same time. I let out a breathy sigh when the pain left me, the ringing in my head sparking a humming buzz that ran through my entire body, bleeding out with the red mess staining the broken skin on my arm, covered in a new set of four gills that grinned at me next to faded, healed, but unforgotten old friends that still whispered reminders of my past in my ears-this isn’t the first time.
I hear a voice through the ringing in my head-a “Hey, Donghae.” from a familiar voice. I ignore him, not looking up from the slits lining my forearm. I clench my teeth and flex my arm involuntarily, watching as new spurts of maroon appear. I grin sadistically, masochistically, not thinking. “Donghae!” I barely hear his voice exclaim in shocked horror. I hear the glass panel of the window bang all the way open, but his last syllable of “…hae!” is still echoing wildly through m years. With my eyes cast downwards and my mind shutting down in over-drive, I glance at the knife held by my trembling hand. I smile as I bring the edge onto my skin and hold it there, applying pressure slightly. When my skin breaks, I gasp, and a few small beads of blood appear on the thin line. A small trickle forms as I push down harder, stronger, until I’m nothing but weaker.
My senses don’t work as lights begin fading before my very eyes, like it really is a black and white cinema, and I’m the star, watching myself fall. I relish in the feeling, the adrenaline that makes me feel alive, when oh so truly, I’m already dead; I’m nothing. I would be better for everyone if I just died now, erased myself from existence-I’m the star of a vanishing act that wont’ bring me back. My arm and hand move on their own and before I can comprehend my actions with my sluggish, drowsy brain, there’s another wound on my forearm, another line of blood, another pained cry that escapes from my lips, as red as my gilled arms from my gnawing teeth.
There’s another bang and my head jolts; white lights burst like fireworks in front of my eyes, and colors are swirling into vague, margining , warped spirals-I can’t see! I don’t care. My black is slammed into the wall behind me and my body jerks from the impact. Angry, calloused hands shake me by the shoulders, bringing me forward before slamming me back into the white wall. My eyes share blankly ahead, never looking, never even seeing, and I carry the blank expression of a disinterest as my body is shaken like a rag doll. (I’m nothing but an empty shell, right?)
“Fuck,” I hear someone curse and an anguished sigh is let out into the silence. My body stills as the enraged hands still and I slump forwards, too weak in physical and mental will power to support myself. “Fuck this shit,” Hyukjae curses, anger still palpable in his voice. He takes a few breaths to calm himself, but I can barely make out how his eyes rake my arms, taking in the glorious tracks of blood. “You bloody bastard!” Hyukjae growls, infuriated. He grabs me by the collar, pulling me forward until I’m mere inches from my nose touching his. Furious tears sparkle in Hyukjae’s eyes as he clenches his teeth. “Don’t fucking do this to me! Don’t fuck around with your life!” he screams. He buries his head in the crook of my shoulder and takes multiple, deep breaths.
My fuzzy mind can’t comprehend why Hyukjae would be so worked up by this process of self-mutilation-it’s not like I was a novice at this shit. No one cares if I die, right? The blood smeared on my wrist is only my way of killing myself completely, inside, outside, however I want. I just want to escape.
Again, when Hyukjae lets go of me, I slump over, and I can heard my weak pulse pounding in my head as a blinding headache starts appearing. An involuntary groan slips out from between my lips, but it sounds like a pathetic whimper, even to me. Hyukjae returns just as quickly as he left, but now he’s carrying a box; I recognize it was the first aid Kid I keep under my bathroom sink. He props it open ad shuffles through the contents quickly, like he’s in a rush. Blood continues to leave my body through the numerous cuts; my eyelids grow heavier until it’s a task just to blink, and I feel like sleeping and… never waking.
“Don’t you dare pass out on me, Donghae,” Hyukjae growls, still angry, but his worlds hardly affect me. They barely made it past the ringing my ears. My eyes continue to slip closed, as I will myself to fall into a deep slumber. I’m lulled to sleep by the haunting voices in my head. Darkness flicks in front of the disorienting color in front of my eyes. My vision flashes on and off, but it’s a sudden blinding pain that finally pushes me past the brink of unconsciousness as Hyukjae swipes my forearm with a rag soaked in antiseptic alcohol peroxide. It’s like a knife is dragging through my arm vertically, cutting through all my horizontally placed cuts. I heard myself let out of scream of pure pain, but then everything shuts down. Darkness wins and the last thing I hear is, “Donghae!” and it’s not angry; it’s concerned.
When I wake up next, the room is dark, and I’m disoriented. My head throbs at my temples, and my body feels heavy, like I’m held down by an invisible force, but I know it’s only the consequence of my actions. My left forearm is bandaged heavily and wrapped in gauze, but under the layers, my skin aches, itches, and feels painfully uncomfortable. I spot Hyukjae sitting at the foot of my bed, and I squirm a little, calling a timid, whispered “Hyukjae?” into the broken air. My voice isn’t raspy or hoarse, and that leaves me wondering how long I was unconscious, but before I can open my mouth again, Hyukjae turns to face me, but instead of worry like I thought I heard, all I see is fury and rage; he glares at me with such intensity that I feel a simple shiver crawl down my spine.
“You…,” Hyukjae growls, and he rises from his sitting position and stalks towards me. A noise of fearful acknowledgement slips through my parched lips, and I push myself into a sitting position; the movement sends my sight and heard into frenzy and my headache intensifies until I stop moving. Hyukjae watches me with something like predatory eyes, like he’s wondering whether I’m worth his wrath through narrowed eyelids. “What the hell, Donghae?’ Hyukjae’s voice is barely over a whisper, but I can hear the anger lacing it. “What the fuck do you think you were doing?” He grabs my shoulder and not so gently sets me into a full sitting position, resting against the headboard of my bed. “You…,” he whispers next to my ear, and then Hyukjae steps back and looks at me with curious eyes, like he’s trying to figure me out, but it’s one of those meaningless curiosities, when you already know the answer but keep asking because you don’t want the truth to be true. “Just sit there,” Hyukjae commands.
With an extravagant sigh, he turns to my desk, shuffling through its contents until he finds what he’s looking for; when he pulls the chair back, and takes a seat, and hunches over my desk with the fruit of his search, I can only watch his back. I can’t see what he found in my drawers, and all I can see in the dull atmosphere is the rising and falling of Hyukjae’s back as he breathes deeply. The only sounds are of breathing and a pen scrawling quickly across a piece of paper, so I guess that’s what Hyukjae’s doing: he writing something, but I don’t know what.
I continue staring at Hyukjae’s back, but my mind keeps flitting back to before I passed out, before Hyukjae had seen me while sneaking over like he usually did, through my window. I remember the feeling of raw adrenaline, the pain, the feeling of helplessness disappearing when I realized that I could help myself: I could die. I tear my eyes away from Hyukjae’s back and turn to the corner where I was sitting before. A towel is covering the carpet where I was, but where the corner is folded up, a stain of red peeks out. The folded corner covers the blade of the knife. The uncovered wall has a few running, no dried, drops of blood. That, in that corner is me. It could have been all of me. It should have been all of me… but it’s not.
I turn back to Hyukjae. He’s still writing, but as I watch, eh finishes and puts the pen down. He folds up whatever he had written, and sits back into the chair, leaning back. When Hyukjae speaks, he doesn’t turn to look at me. I guess he’s still angry, but then again, I still don’t understand why he was infuriated in the first place. Why would he even care?
“Donghae…,” he begins, but I don’t reply. I don’t even make a noise of acknowledgement, but Hyukjae knows I’m listening, so he continues. “I’m leaving now, Donghae,” he pauses again, but I don’t make any indication to show that I’m listening; Hyukjae keeps speaking anyways. “I want you to read this. Don’t fuck around with your life like an idiot.” He finally rises from his seat and turns to me, but he ducks his eyes, not wanting to make eye contact. “Goodbye, Donghae,” Hyukjae says quietly, almost to himself, and he drops the folded paper on my lap and leaves without a backwards glance.
He’s gone, and while I stare at the unmoving note on my lap, I know he’s let the silence speak for itself. My head is still pounding when I reach down with my right hand. My arm still itches when I unpick the folds and flatten the paper onto my thigh. The bandages still pinch my skin and cuts as I scan over it, analyzing every word and trying to make sense of it all. My mind is still reeling from overload when I throw the paper to the side, letting it land on the carpeted ground without a sound. I slide down in my bed, under the sheets, and pull the comforter over my head, blocking out what little light was still infiltrating my room.
I’ll sleep on it, but I already know that there’s nothing to sleep on, nothing to think about. Hyukjae’s note holds too much meaning; I’m not ready. But then again, I’ll never be ready, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t understand… because I do. I do understand.
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A/N: So, I totally usually don’t do this, but in the comments, pick out your favorite part(s) of this part and tell me what they are! I’m just asking because I have a few sentences or phrases in this chapter that I’m totally biased towards. >.>
Also, for the readers of Lovelessly Loved, here’s the post where I address the topic of Chapter 5’s update. This is also for the lovelies who read my heavy angst and like it! This post: [HERE].
That’s basically it. This was Part 3, folks! There’s one more part and then The Suicide Lists is complete!