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He isn’t quite sure when he started regularly visiting the cliff on his own. It simply happened. Ayan was the one to show him the place, both of them paying their respect to teacher Dika.
It changed for Akk, after a while. The cliff turned into a place for him to think. Pleasant thoughts always evaded him. The quiet helped him allow the attack of his own brain, as he adamantly believed he deserved. His thoughts wandered, like leaves against the wind, being taken far away from home.
Ayan, as always, was a sweetheart about it. Akk may have tried to cover everything by claiming he went studying, or out with friends, but the state he returned home in was indication enough. Yet Ayan never prodded. He simply accommodated Akk’s every need as soon as he stepped in through the door.
There’s something about trauma, about mental illness that nothing can’t prepare you for. Your own mind becomes a loud, hostile room you cannot escape. Sure, you can fill your days and always be listening to something, you can pretend not to listen yet the moment life quiets down, there’s no place to hide.
Akk loathes it. Despises his own mind with burning passion. Ayan has managed to convince him he has been through a lot, though that doesn’t excuse anything. The voices in his head are proving to be louder than Ayan’s, louder than his friends’. They usually sound like teacher Chadok, sometimes they take on his own voice.
Akk has been given plenty of advice for this. Suddenly, everyone sees themselves as experts on this matter. Sure, theoretically, he knows how to handle this. Knows he should talk to someone, anyone. He adheres to none of that advice. Perhaps out of anger, spite, resignation, who knows?
He doesn’t know when he started moving closer to the cliff. He sits a bit closer to the edge every time he visits the place. Did his teacher do this as well, he wonders. Did Dika use to sit where he is now, did he have the same thoughts? The closer he gets, the more Akk feels he can breathe. Almost as if the air tastes better. A call from the other side one could say, a simple flirt with death.
Mortality was never a concept he considered. Especially his own. He was alive because he had things to do. He had to be a good student, then a good perfect, make his school, his parents, his boyfriend proud. He can’t find that motivation anymore. Everything he had worked for crashed around him. His very existence became of so miniscule importance that he barely recognizes himself.
It scares him. Not the idea of death, of a freedom like no other, but the emptiness. That hollow feeling in his chest that seems to fill with heaviness day by day. It terrifies him because it’s not him. He moves through his days, laughs with his friends, kisses Ayan, assures his parents he is doing well, feeling as if he is not in control of his own body.
Ayan knows, and perhaps that is the worst of all. Their mornings together have become clouded, a heaviness has settled between them, or at least it seems that way to Akk. They still talk, Ayan still smiles at him like he hung the stars for him, his smile as radiant as the sun. It’s not enough anymore. The hollowness in him is greedy, an insatiable creature that craves to take everything away from him.
He used to be determined not to let it. He isn’t as sure anymore.
When the day comes, it’s spring. The world around him seems to come alive, how ironic. The air close to the edge feels clearer than ever, the birdsong around him an inappropriate requiem.
If you were to ask him, Akk wouldn’t be able to say how it happens. His limbs have a mind of their own, as if they finally grew tired of his indecision and took matters into their own hands.
Step, step. He thinks back to his parents, how they will hurt, they’ll cry, but ultimately they’ll have one less mouth to feed, one less person to worry about. He thinks of his friends, how they might leave his usual seat empty for a while, how someone else will eventually come along to fill it.
Step, step. One foot in front of the other. He thinks of Ayan. Of shining eyes and bright smiles, kisses behind the school, linked hands even in their sleep. Thinks of tears shed, promises he won’t fulfill, and mornings on a boat under the sun, where they felt unstoppable, like nothing could ever deny them their future. Forever seems like such a feeble word now, tastes like mockery on his tongue, a bitter taste he can’t forget.
Ayan will find someone else. Someone who gives smiles more willingly, who can devote their all to him without the issues, the baggage Akk carries with him and dumps between them. Akk is sure he’ll find them. People tend to gravitate towards Ayan, he possesses a charm many could only dream of, including Akk. Akk might have had the title, but Ayan was the truly perfect one.
How long till they find him, he wonders, and who will it be. Akk hopes it’s no one he knows. He would hate to do that to them.
Step, step. The sky has taken on the most beautiful colours. Oranges and pinks paint across scattered clouds, everything around him taking on a golden hue. What a beautiful time to go.
He continues on, there’s nothing stopping him. No shoulder to cry on, just him, the sky, and the air around him. So he moves forward.
His life isn’t flashing before his eyes, but the smiles and faces of the ones he loves do. Perhaps that’s better. He smiles himself and finds it genuine for the first time in a while. The gravel digs at the soles of his feet. For once, the hollowness seems to subside, likely having accomplished its purpose. Akk feels alive , and it’s an incredible feeling. Freeing, euphoric, a great thing to feel as your last. He shuts his eyes, taking a big breath
Step, step, fall.
The sky is orange, and pink, and purple. The air really is much clearer here.