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It is difficult to be alone.
It is so, so difficult.
When you are so used to company, so used to the warmth of being surrounded by other people: the kind of warmth impossible to replicate in a cold bed in an empty apartment, you are unaccustomed to being on your own.
So when Woojin suddenly found himself alone… Oh God, he really didn’t know what to do.
He wasn’t used to the quiet. How could something intangible be so suffocating? Something as small and insignificant as silence was suddenly smothering him, holding a pillow down over his head every night until he stopped moving.
It choked him. He was so used to noise, to the constant thrum of people, the boisterous cacophony of family: the sound of being alive. Thrown into a deathly silent world, he was drowning. Sinking beneath a completely still sea, thrashing in stagnant water only to fall deeper and deeper, silence pressing into him on all sides.
A small apartment didn’t feel quite right; it was supposed to be bigger and full of people. The dinner table was supposed to sit more than two chairs, the couch was supposed to house more than three people at most, and why was there only one bedroom? He kept forgetting that no one else lived there, and when he turned the corner expecting to see someone on the other side, he was always met with the disappointment of an empty room.
It never really felt like home.
Being alone never really felt like home.
But had Woojin ever really felt at home?
He had made that decision to go. He had chosen to leave that home behind, if it had really been a home in the first place. Even if it had been, it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t home anymore.
Woojin had always longed for a place to call home; for a place to go when it rained, or when everything became too much. Wasn’t there a place like that out there for him? There must be, right?
Only, if there was, why hadn’t he found it yet?
He had been so convinced that he had found it. That place, those people, they had felt like home. They had meant everything to him, and more. Woojin’s world had revolved around them, and he had orbited around them like stars. He was so, so proud of them, every day he had woken up and stared at them, and his heart had welled up. He watched them begin to grow, and he had watched them flower.
Woojin, well, he didn’t grow. He didn’t flower.
They had found home, but it wasn’t with him. Those beautiful flowers had grown taller and taller, their leaves stretched out towards the brilliant glow of the sun. And Woojin had stared up at them from the shade.
He had faded into the background quickly, a dim little light against the wall. He would catch his reflection in the practise room mirror, and he looked right through himself.
It had been difficult to swallow. It was hard to accept it all. His love didn’t waver, no. It burned strong inside his heart, yet it blistered horribly against his skin and burnt the hollow bones of his ribcage. Instead of waking up and staring lovingly at their backs, he only caught glimpses of their faces through his screen. They weren’t home. And he was far, far away.
But just as he had grown used to the quiet, just as he had gotten used to being alone, everything turned on its head.
Someone online had said something, and like a shipwreck, his life had crashed to a halt. He had been drowning in silence before, but now hands had grabbed him and yanked him, sputtering, to the surface. All eyes were on him. All weapons were trained on his head.
Those hands had ripped down the tapestry of his life. They tore him open and shredded him like paper. His name was dragged through the mud, and he chased after it, frantically wading through the marshes trying to get it back.
He hadn’t done anything, of course he hadn’t. He hadn’t even been to the bar, he didn’t even know the people claiming he’d done those horrible things. He was thrown for a loop, and instead of sinking low into the silent sea, he was being pinned down, writhing, on the surface like a shark fished up onto a ship. An innocent creature wrangled up from the bottom of the dark ocean, helplessly thrashing around and trying to free himself, only to be feared and named a monster.
His own apartment wasn’t so quiet anymore. There was no more silence. The persistent ringing of his phone never abated; the piercing dial started to frequent his nightmares. When he silenced it, he heard the phantom sound of it in his ears like the shrieking of unsettled ghosts, the screams of a furious crowd.
Woojin wasn’t so alone anymore. His skin prickled like he was being watched, another constant. He was ill-fitting in his own body and found himself shifting uncomfortably with an inability to sit still. He thrummed with restlessness, ceaseless nerves, and a tangible fear like a sour taste at the back of his throat, a lingering cold air in his sinuses.
No one was there, but his curtains were always shut. That world outside, the cruel world in his phone, they had him in a death vice. They gripped him in their possession, and it was strangling him. He hated being alone, but this kind of company wasn’t what he wanted. He feared peering out of his window in case anyone was out there, down on the pavement waiting for the moment his face appeared behind the glass like a frightened zoo animal. He was in a cage. He didn’t know if he was going to make it out.
Why had everyone been so inclined to believe it all? To believe that he would do something like that? Woojin did not think he was cruel, he hadn’t thought he was violent. Did everyone else think so? Is that what people thought of him?
Like a shark is seen as a dangerous creature with a one-track mind for blood, did the world see Woojin as a heartless monster?
He didn’t want to world to see him at all. He wanted to hide somewhere and never come out. He wanted to be alone now. He wanted the silence, because that was infinitely better than this, anything was better than this.
He wanted to make himself scarce, he wanted to disappear. He wanted the world to forget about him, forget he existed. He wanted to vanish, find a dark, quiet place to curl up where no one could see him, where no one could find him. A hiding place, a hidden shelter where everyone would just leave him alone and shut up and stop talking and stop looking at him, please could they just stop looking at him-
His phone started vibrating again. Another call. Another number to block. Another person who thought he was disgusting, vile, aggressive. Another person who looked at him and saw a monster. He wished they looked through him instead like they had used to. Not seeing him at all was better than seeing him like this.
Woojin didn’t have a hiding place. Woojin did not have a shelter. He didn’t have a place to hide, a place to disappear to. All those eyes were still on him. All of those hateful, terrifying eyes, and they all looked straight at him.
Woojin did not have a home.
That place wasn’t home, and neither was this one. He had gone from being invisible to being a targeted shot. Their stares pierced through his windows, shattered them, straight through the thick curtains he had drawn tight. They cracked the walls, seeped in through the ceiling, and crept in through the floorboards. They stayed printed on his skin, lingering on his body like flies, and they crawled all over him. Waiting for him to say something, to respond, to make a move.
They didn’t care if he cleared his name. They only waited to see if he’d mess up. They wanted to see the monster try and dig a way out of the grave he was already one foot inside of. It humoured them, he was entertainment to them, another mangled circus act that they watched with bated breath to see if he’d fall.
Woojin didn’t think he’d ever find a home. He didn’t think he would ever feel at home, have a place to call his. He lived in fear. Each night he begged for it all to stop, for him to wake up the next morning to quiet, to wake up and have the eyes be gone, to not wake up at all. He wanted those hands to release him so he could return to the still, silent drift of the deep sea. It wasn’t home either, but he didn’t want to be scared anymore. He didn’t want to be paranoid, he didn’t want to be seen.
Would he make it out of this? Was there an end to it all? Would they be able to find proof to clear his name, to abate the outraged cries? Would Woojin be okay again? He wanted the warmth of company; he had wanted people again. But not like this. Never like this.
It was difficult to be alone. But now, Woojin wanted nothing more than to be alone