The Suicide Lists [1]
Title: The Suicide Lists [Part 1]
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
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.
Note: The Super Junior metaphor of a broken girl’s story.
-----
I’m bubbly, of course. At school, I’m happy, constantly smiling. I grin cheekily and burst out into a fit of laughter at even the smallest instigation. A smile is always gracing my face; it’s permanent, like a carving etched onto the face of a rock wall, which will stand until time brings the wind that will slowly weather the grooves away.
Those around me are used to it. If my smile is not present, worried expressions appear and they ask me in their concerned voices. I just return my smile to my face, hoping it will convince them that all is right, that nothing is wrong. With a few more fleeting glances, they’ll ascertain that I am, in fact, feeling regular, and daily business with continue. Every time I allow my smile to slip from my lips; every time they ask me if something is bothering me, I try hard to contain the laughing scoff that threatens to sound. It’s unbelievable, really. How much is bothering me, that is. If only they knew.
School, mostly, is never fun. I understand the point of the hours spend studying, but I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why our superiors force us to learn subjects we place absolutely no interest in. Any science, at all, gains no interest from me. I’m good at it, sure, but that doesn’t mean I like the subject at all. History and Geography are the same way. There’s nothing more boring than constantly copying down notes from lectures that I barely paid attention to in the first place.
The only subjects are tend to like, on good days, are Math, Literature and Language Arts, and English, my foreign language. Math is a decent subject. It’s like another language, but with numbers and logic, which has always flowed easily for me. I don’t even have to try, and somehow, it’s pleasantly easing and calming. Literature and Language Arts is spent doing either one of two things: reading and analyzing old works of literature, and then writing our own works. It’s ultimately my favorite subject of the entire school day.
Writing has always been my hobby, my passion. It’s a way for me to escape the fact, to write my own fiction, and to fly away to another reality; I can pretend like I’m the characters I create, make them go through unimaginable pain or allow them to have the best moments of their lives. I can absorb myself in their personalities until there’s nothing left of me, myself, and I slowly adapt and change to become them, to become their creator, a mix of their entities within. I study psychology, I study the human mind; I obsess over making it perfect, making them perfect, when I couldn’t have the same. When I write, sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll actually smile.
The last period of the day, before I return home, if I can really still call that building that, is physical sports. I’m just waiting for the football unit. Football, if anything, is almost as important as writing, and sometimes, it is just as. There’s something exhilarating about being able to concentrate solely on one, single object and feel the wind gusting past your face and through your hair as you push yourself further, further, faster, harder, until you overcome the multiple defenders and obstacles and reach the goal at the end, which has always been looming at the end of the field, beckoning to you with its netting and frame, where it stands tall, lording over the player who guards it ever so carefully. It’s the feeling of excitement that comes with the adrenaline rush that keeps me coming back for more, for that feeling of my cleats hitting the dirt and grass before pushing off again, taking another step forward. It’s my drug, and I’m addicted.
After school ends, I make my way to the bus line, where I board my bus in silence. Not even the bus driver notices my presence as I make my way to the front seat; it’s less noisy in the front. My neighborhood is one of the few that has the bus service, even though our school has such a wide range of subdivisions, but I’m grateful that I at least don’t have to walk the entire distance. Sometimes, though, as I give it an afterthought, sometimes I wish it took longer.
I don’t know the person who reluctantly takes the seat next to me, and neither of us turns to make any conversation with each other. He turns towards the aisle in the middle and starts of a conversation with his friends while I lean my head on the glass window and stare outside quietly. My head and body bob with the large jerks that the bus makes, but I keep my eyes trained outside and try to ignore my surroundings. The trees blur together until they are nothing but green streaks outside the glass, and the multicolored cars, few because of the midday time, drive past at high speeds, making their colors merge together. Why do our eyes do that to us? Why do they blur together reality and what’s really there to make everything a foggy picture? Why do they not work well enough for us to be able to see the dark colored birds on the trees, which disappear into the lines of green? Why? And I wonder, because that’s all I can do; there are no answers and even if there are, there is nobody to discover them.
I know I’m supposed to be bubbly even now, but no one is paying any attention to me, so I take a break from my normal façade of bubbly ditziness and relax into my own thoughts. Sometimes, my mind is refuge for me, where I can comfort and console my broken soul, and other days, it acts as the worst hell, throwing daggers at the soft spots only I know I have until I’m bleeding my tears out and shattering myself some more.
When I arrive at my bus stop, I depart from the vehicle. No one yells “Bye, Donghae!” from the back of the bus, like I hear some of the students do when their friends are leaving. I suppose no one really cares, is all. I doubt they even know my name, let alone know me at all.
I unlock the door to my house slowly, wondering if my mother is home. Sometimes she will be, other times, she’s not. When I walk inside and slip off my shoes, shoving them to the corner, I call out over my shoulder. All I hear in response is my voice flooding the air. Sighing slightly and relaxing my poise, I walk to the computer room, where my laptop is set up, plugged into the wall where it was charging. I drop my backpack onto the chair beside it and sink into the spinning office chair in front of my desk. I sigh and close my eyes, laying my head on the pillow my folded arms create on the surface of the table.
I don't exactly remember when my eyes drooped shut from the mental stress and fatigue, but when I wake up, the first thing I do is look at the clock. I beg any higher beings that may or may not exist to not let it be past 4:00. My heart nearly stops when I see the time: it’s 4:17. Shit. I jump out of the chair and run towards the kitchen, where my mother is mixing her coffee.
“Umma,” I cry. “My lesson!” My eyes are wide in terror; my heart is pounding furiously inside the confines of my rib cage.
She looks up calmly. “I saw you sleeping and I cancelled it. Don’t worry, we can make it up some other time.”
I stare at her disbelievingly. “No, Umma! My coach is leaving town tomorrow! Today was my last practice until the tournament. I still had to learn the last technique he wanted to show me.”
She looks at me sadly, apologetically, but all I see in the dark browns are sympathetic, almost pitying glances. It makes me so mad. I don’t need her sympathy. I don’t need her pity. I clench and unclench my hands into fists by my side. “You’ll just have to play without doing that.”
“Umma,” my voice conveys the seriousness of the situation. “I need to know that technique. My opponent in the first round is the vice-captain of the region’s best last year. I’ll stand no chance.”
She purses her lips, as if she’s actually giving my statement some though, but I know it’s out of annoyance. It always is. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but what can we do now?” She raises her eyebrow in question.
“It’s only been half an hour! I can still go late!” I plead, but I already know it’s in vain. Why would my mother reschedule for something she doesn’t even want me to pursue?
She shakes her head, and what little hope I retained is crushed. My heart sinks to the bottom of the pit in my stomach, and it feels as if there’s a hurricane raging from the dark cloud above my head; my shoulders suddenly feel as if they are baring a ton. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t.”
“Umma!” I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off with a single glare. Her piercing gaze can cut through any resolve I have left to fight, be it a mother’s gift or the simple fact that I am so scared of her. So scared.
I can’t help but notice her use of the word “sweetie” again and again. Why won’t she stop? Why doesn’t she notice that I hate it? But most of all, how could she call me such an endearing term when just moments ago, we were at each other’s throat, or still are? Doesn’t she understand that she can’t make everything better with just a simple hug? I sigh in my mind, but frown externally before turning and returning to the computer room. I can’t stand it when she pretends as if there’s nothing wrong between us. I just can’t, because there, so obviously, is.
After about fifteen minutes of working on my homework diligently, my chat box opens on my laptop screen. I glance up and recognize the username; it’s Sungmin-hyung, and he needs help with the math homework. I sigh. Figures… no one needs me for anything but school work help. I guess that’s all I am to them: just a nerdy boy who’s willing to help them every day, even forsaking his own homework in order to help, just so he could continue with the closest thing he would get to even a semblance of a friendship. I give a wry smile at my thoughts.
If I didn’t know this reality is real, that it’s my life, I would have believed that everything is a lie, and that I’m living in a dream or a storybook fiction, where everything is made up and exaggerated. Sometimes I wish it was, and that I would someday wake up or stop reading, but then I realize that no matter how much I pinch myself, cut myself, slit myself, leaving crimson gills on my wrists, it’s never going to change.
That night, after I crawl up to my bedroom, the other safe sanctuary I have in this house, other than the computer room, I ease under the sheets, pulling them up until the comforter is tucked near my chin. I snuggle into the warmth it provides, even though it’s only the beginning of October. I’ve been feeling colder lately, so I’m taking greater measures to ensure my warmth. Maybe it has something to do with the empty space in front of me where the people who love me and whom I love should be. I don’t have anyone, anyone at all. There’s no one who cares enough to notice me, to notice what’s happening to me, and to understand it. There’s no one who is able to understand me, and to understand what I want, what I need. For me, there’s no one. I’m alone, so lonely.
I shut my eyes before the tears even threaten to fall. My brunette hair, which is just long enough to reach my neck, tickles my skin, making it itchy, but I ignore the uncomfortable feeling, not wanting to move and relinquish the heat my boy warmth, insulated by the comforter, has provided me thus far.
I find it sad that I didn’t kiss my mother goodnight. I don’t remember if I even said goodnight, or received one in return. A lone tear slips out from the corner of one closed eye. Why can’t anyone notice me for once? Why can’t they see me for who I am? Why won’t they?
And it’s with that thought that I slip under the hood of slumber for the night.
-----
A/N: This is a new short series that I'm currently working on. I know, I know. I promised Lovelessly Loved and StRoM updates, didn't I? Don't worry, you'll get them soon! Lovelessly Loved Chapter 3A is halfway finished already.
In any case, I hope this topic doesn't make any of you too uncomfortable, and you'll continue to read it as I update. The updates should be soon in the coming; I have a lot of inspiration for this one. Thank you! :)
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
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.
Note: The Super Junior metaphor of a broken girl’s story.
-----
I’m bubbly, of course. At school, I’m happy, constantly smiling. I grin cheekily and burst out into a fit of laughter at even the smallest instigation. A smile is always gracing my face; it’s permanent, like a carving etched onto the face of a rock wall, which will stand until time brings the wind that will slowly weather the grooves away.
Those around me are used to it. If my smile is not present, worried expressions appear and they ask me in their concerned voices. I just return my smile to my face, hoping it will convince them that all is right, that nothing is wrong. With a few more fleeting glances, they’ll ascertain that I am, in fact, feeling regular, and daily business with continue. Every time I allow my smile to slip from my lips; every time they ask me if something is bothering me, I try hard to contain the laughing scoff that threatens to sound. It’s unbelievable, really. How much is bothering me, that is. If only they knew.
School, mostly, is never fun. I understand the point of the hours spend studying, but I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why our superiors force us to learn subjects we place absolutely no interest in. Any science, at all, gains no interest from me. I’m good at it, sure, but that doesn’t mean I like the subject at all. History and Geography are the same way. There’s nothing more boring than constantly copying down notes from lectures that I barely paid attention to in the first place.
The only subjects are tend to like, on good days, are Math, Literature and Language Arts, and English, my foreign language. Math is a decent subject. It’s like another language, but with numbers and logic, which has always flowed easily for me. I don’t even have to try, and somehow, it’s pleasantly easing and calming. Literature and Language Arts is spent doing either one of two things: reading and analyzing old works of literature, and then writing our own works. It’s ultimately my favorite subject of the entire school day.
Writing has always been my hobby, my passion. It’s a way for me to escape the fact, to write my own fiction, and to fly away to another reality; I can pretend like I’m the characters I create, make them go through unimaginable pain or allow them to have the best moments of their lives. I can absorb myself in their personalities until there’s nothing left of me, myself, and I slowly adapt and change to become them, to become their creator, a mix of their entities within. I study psychology, I study the human mind; I obsess over making it perfect, making them perfect, when I couldn’t have the same. When I write, sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll actually smile.
The last period of the day, before I return home, if I can really still call that building that, is physical sports. I’m just waiting for the football unit. Football, if anything, is almost as important as writing, and sometimes, it is just as. There’s something exhilarating about being able to concentrate solely on one, single object and feel the wind gusting past your face and through your hair as you push yourself further, further, faster, harder, until you overcome the multiple defenders and obstacles and reach the goal at the end, which has always been looming at the end of the field, beckoning to you with its netting and frame, where it stands tall, lording over the player who guards it ever so carefully. It’s the feeling of excitement that comes with the adrenaline rush that keeps me coming back for more, for that feeling of my cleats hitting the dirt and grass before pushing off again, taking another step forward. It’s my drug, and I’m addicted.
After school ends, I make my way to the bus line, where I board my bus in silence. Not even the bus driver notices my presence as I make my way to the front seat; it’s less noisy in the front. My neighborhood is one of the few that has the bus service, even though our school has such a wide range of subdivisions, but I’m grateful that I at least don’t have to walk the entire distance. Sometimes, though, as I give it an afterthought, sometimes I wish it took longer.
I don’t know the person who reluctantly takes the seat next to me, and neither of us turns to make any conversation with each other. He turns towards the aisle in the middle and starts of a conversation with his friends while I lean my head on the glass window and stare outside quietly. My head and body bob with the large jerks that the bus makes, but I keep my eyes trained outside and try to ignore my surroundings. The trees blur together until they are nothing but green streaks outside the glass, and the multicolored cars, few because of the midday time, drive past at high speeds, making their colors merge together. Why do our eyes do that to us? Why do they blur together reality and what’s really there to make everything a foggy picture? Why do they not work well enough for us to be able to see the dark colored birds on the trees, which disappear into the lines of green? Why? And I wonder, because that’s all I can do; there are no answers and even if there are, there is nobody to discover them.
I know I’m supposed to be bubbly even now, but no one is paying any attention to me, so I take a break from my normal façade of bubbly ditziness and relax into my own thoughts. Sometimes, my mind is refuge for me, where I can comfort and console my broken soul, and other days, it acts as the worst hell, throwing daggers at the soft spots only I know I have until I’m bleeding my tears out and shattering myself some more.
When I arrive at my bus stop, I depart from the vehicle. No one yells “Bye, Donghae!” from the back of the bus, like I hear some of the students do when their friends are leaving. I suppose no one really cares, is all. I doubt they even know my name, let alone know me at all.
I unlock the door to my house slowly, wondering if my mother is home. Sometimes she will be, other times, she’s not. When I walk inside and slip off my shoes, shoving them to the corner, I call out over my shoulder. All I hear in response is my voice flooding the air. Sighing slightly and relaxing my poise, I walk to the computer room, where my laptop is set up, plugged into the wall where it was charging. I drop my backpack onto the chair beside it and sink into the spinning office chair in front of my desk. I sigh and close my eyes, laying my head on the pillow my folded arms create on the surface of the table.
I don't exactly remember when my eyes drooped shut from the mental stress and fatigue, but when I wake up, the first thing I do is look at the clock. I beg any higher beings that may or may not exist to not let it be past 4:00. My heart nearly stops when I see the time: it’s 4:17. Shit. I jump out of the chair and run towards the kitchen, where my mother is mixing her coffee.
“Umma,” I cry. “My lesson!” My eyes are wide in terror; my heart is pounding furiously inside the confines of my rib cage.
She looks up calmly. “I saw you sleeping and I cancelled it. Don’t worry, we can make it up some other time.”
I stare at her disbelievingly. “No, Umma! My coach is leaving town tomorrow! Today was my last practice until the tournament. I still had to learn the last technique he wanted to show me.”
She looks at me sadly, apologetically, but all I see in the dark browns are sympathetic, almost pitying glances. It makes me so mad. I don’t need her sympathy. I don’t need her pity. I clench and unclench my hands into fists by my side. “You’ll just have to play without doing that.”
“Umma,” my voice conveys the seriousness of the situation. “I need to know that technique. My opponent in the first round is the vice-captain of the region’s best last year. I’ll stand no chance.”
She purses her lips, as if she’s actually giving my statement some though, but I know it’s out of annoyance. It always is. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but what can we do now?” She raises her eyebrow in question.
“It’s only been half an hour! I can still go late!” I plead, but I already know it’s in vain. Why would my mother reschedule for something she doesn’t even want me to pursue?
She shakes her head, and what little hope I retained is crushed. My heart sinks to the bottom of the pit in my stomach, and it feels as if there’s a hurricane raging from the dark cloud above my head; my shoulders suddenly feel as if they are baring a ton. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t.”
“Umma!” I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off with a single glare. Her piercing gaze can cut through any resolve I have left to fight, be it a mother’s gift or the simple fact that I am so scared of her. So scared.
I can’t help but notice her use of the word “sweetie” again and again. Why won’t she stop? Why doesn’t she notice that I hate it? But most of all, how could she call me such an endearing term when just moments ago, we were at each other’s throat, or still are? Doesn’t she understand that she can’t make everything better with just a simple hug? I sigh in my mind, but frown externally before turning and returning to the computer room. I can’t stand it when she pretends as if there’s nothing wrong between us. I just can’t, because there, so obviously, is.
After about fifteen minutes of working on my homework diligently, my chat box opens on my laptop screen. I glance up and recognize the username; it’s Sungmin-hyung, and he needs help with the math homework. I sigh. Figures… no one needs me for anything but school work help. I guess that’s all I am to them: just a nerdy boy who’s willing to help them every day, even forsaking his own homework in order to help, just so he could continue with the closest thing he would get to even a semblance of a friendship. I give a wry smile at my thoughts.
If I didn’t know this reality is real, that it’s my life, I would have believed that everything is a lie, and that I’m living in a dream or a storybook fiction, where everything is made up and exaggerated. Sometimes I wish it was, and that I would someday wake up or stop reading, but then I realize that no matter how much I pinch myself, cut myself, slit myself, leaving crimson gills on my wrists, it’s never going to change.
That night, after I crawl up to my bedroom, the other safe sanctuary I have in this house, other than the computer room, I ease under the sheets, pulling them up until the comforter is tucked near my chin. I snuggle into the warmth it provides, even though it’s only the beginning of October. I’ve been feeling colder lately, so I’m taking greater measures to ensure my warmth. Maybe it has something to do with the empty space in front of me where the people who love me and whom I love should be. I don’t have anyone, anyone at all. There’s no one who cares enough to notice me, to notice what’s happening to me, and to understand it. There’s no one who is able to understand me, and to understand what I want, what I need. For me, there’s no one. I’m alone, so lonely.
I shut my eyes before the tears even threaten to fall. My brunette hair, which is just long enough to reach my neck, tickles my skin, making it itchy, but I ignore the uncomfortable feeling, not wanting to move and relinquish the heat my boy warmth, insulated by the comforter, has provided me thus far.
I find it sad that I didn’t kiss my mother goodnight. I don’t remember if I even said goodnight, or received one in return. A lone tear slips out from the corner of one closed eye. Why can’t anyone notice me for once? Why can’t they see me for who I am? Why won’t they?
And it’s with that thought that I slip under the hood of slumber for the night.
-----
A/N: This is a new short series that I'm currently working on. I know, I know. I promised Lovelessly Loved and StRoM updates, didn't I? Don't worry, you'll get them soon! Lovelessly Loved Chapter 3A is halfway finished already.
In any case, I hope this topic doesn't make any of you too uncomfortable, and you'll continue to read it as I update. The updates should be soon in the coming; I have a lot of inspiration for this one. Thank you! :)