Chapter Text
January 18th 2024
“My entire life has gone to shit. My grades are in hell so the only thing I hear from anyone anymore is some bullshit about how I need to study more, but when exactly do they expect me to study?
Even when I worked 2 jobs, I still had to pick between having food for the week and paying my bills.
I know I could just live with my parents but everytime i see them all they seem to care about are the unfaded scars on my arms.
They keep trying to convince me to talk to someone, but therapy isn't exactly cheap,and I'm content with our one-sided conversations.
Honestly I still don't know why I even bother texting your stupid number everyday. it's not like I'll get a reply, but I know you'd throw a fit if you found out that I didn't keep you updated. I miss you Suho”
Sieun found himself sitting stiff in his bed staring at his phone, fixated on the last line of his message,"I miss you” , three words that Sieun felt in his bones.
No matter how much he tried to push it down, he missed Suho.
Sieun missed his voice, and the way it sounded when he said his name.
He missed the conversations they'd have together over lunch.
Sieun craved the warmth of suhos touch, and yearned to walk by his side. And the constant guilt of being responsible for everything that's happened, made those 3 words feel as sharp as the blades Sieun took to his own skin.
After what felt like an eternity of contemplating his choice of words, sieun decided to cut his message short by deleting those three heavy words.
Even after five months of sending Suho his solemn soliloquies, Sieun still found himself hesitating, hovering his thumb above the send button.
With shaking hands Sieuns finger had lowered, and just like every day, he watched his message get marked ‘delivered’.
Sieun sat still on his bed,fixated on his screen. watching, waiting.
For what? He's not really sure himself.
He knows Suho won't magically recover in a day. Even if he did, Sieun knows deep down, Suho won't care about how he's been.
Trying not to get wrapped back up in his negativity, Sieun sets his phone down and rolls over to his side so he can attempt to doze off.
For Sieun, trying to fall asleep is a personal purgatory.
It isn't that Sieuns not tired. He is. But
Every time his eyes close all he can think about is how Suho has known nothing but sleep for the past five months.
It eats away at him bit by bit.
Motion sick from tossing and turning, Sieun sits up in his bed. His hair cemented to his forehead by sweat, his throat dry from dehydration.
He reaches for his phone to check the time. More specifically, how much more time he had before he had to start getting ready for school.
It had been 3 hours since Sieun last messaged Suho.
3 hours since he had once again denied Suho of the truth.
As if failing to protect him wasn't awful enough, Sieun doesn't even have the dignity to tell Suho how badly he really, truly does miss him.
3 more hours pass and suddenly the sunlight starts to peek through Sieuns windows as a gentle reminder that he needs to get dressed and ready for school.
Sieun isn't exactly fond of school but today his demeanor is easy going, because today he gets to stay with Suho.
Four of seven days of Sieuns week are spent in a dim lit hospital room watching over his resting friend. The only reason Sieun isn't there more often is because Halmeoni insists on not letting Sieun give up his education to sit at her grandson's bedside.
Barely managing to pull himself out of bed, Sieun trudges over to his closet where he picks out some clothes that have little to no variety from the ones he wore the days before.
He had half a mind to eat something for breakfast, which he doesn't usually indulge in, due to the fact that he can rarely keep anything down.
He didn't mind when he found that the last of the bread he had in his cupboard was moldy.
“I wasn't hungry anyway" he thought to himself.
Once he had thrown the bread out, there was nothing more for him to do to delay his journey to school, so he slid on his shoes, slung his bag over his shoulder and dragged himself out the door.
The sun in his eyes and the bugs swarming around his feet seriously made Sieun doubt that anyone could actually like walking to and from school. But then again, Suho loved it, so for that
reason Sieun tried his best to to pretend like he didn't mind, even if that means getting the cuffs of his jeans dirty from walking through the rain soaked grass.
“Eunjang High School” the bold red letters on the front of the building looked almost like a warning.
it had an odd energy that radiated off of it at all times, maybe it's from the dull atmosphere his classmates create. Or maybe it's just because the trees in the surrounding area prevent any kind of sunlight from illuminating the building.
Walking into his classroom was an immediate migraine.
Not long after entering the room the screech of a degrading voice that stung sieuns ears.
“Look who it is. thought you'd be too embarrassed about flunking our last exam to show up”
The voice belonged to his incel classmate, Choi Hyoman, who had nothing better to do than constantly harass Sieun.
Sieun already has to hear about how ‘concerned’ his teachers are about his declining grades so he certainly doesn't need shit from Hyo-man. Not like Hyomans grades are much better than his anyways.
Sieun rarely responds to Hyoman, seeing as the illiterate fool is incapable of letting him have the last word.
With that in mind Sieun ignored him like always, not even looking at him as he walked to his desk.
As Sieun was reaching to pull out his chair, Hyoman had apparently come up with yet another nasty remark to bark at Sieun and opened his greasy lips once more.
“Or maybe you were to busy sucking your dead boyfriends limp dick”
Sieun froze where he was.His hand unmoved from where he had grabbed his chair.
That bitch.
That fucking bitch.
How dare he bring up Suho.
It echoes through sieuns ears a million times before his body starts moving on its own. Suddenly both hands were now on the back of his chair. With heavy arms Sieun raised the chair
off the floor. And just like that, the seat was no longer in his hands, but across the room in front of Hyoman.
Before even giving Hyo-man the chance to react, Sieun had followed the chair's path to the other side of the room.
Unable to fully comprehend what he was doing, Sieun grabbed a hold of his target's shirt, tossing him to the side with ungodly force.
The sounds coming from Sieun could probably be heard from down that hall.
With each collision his fist made with Hyo-man's face, his voice would amplify itself. But through thick heavy layers of desperation and anger in his voice, his words became slurred and unintelligible.
But Siuen knew exactly what he was saying. Even if the words sounded mushed together he tried his hardest to make his points
“Fuck you bastard”
“Hes not fucking dead”
“Hes not”
“He wouldn't leave me like that”
Soon Sieuns stern, intense tone turned into cries. As if the words he was saying weren't really meant to scold Hyoman, but an attempt to make himself believe that what he's saying is true.
Pretty soon the whole class plus some stragglers from the hall were surrounding the two boys.
Sieun could hear people begging him to stop, some were calling for help, others just stood there recording.
He didn't care, how dare Hyoman bring up Suho like that.
“Ill fucking kill you, then i wont have to deal with seeing your shit face. I'll kill you”
Once Sieun noticed Hyoman lost all will to try and fight back he ripped a pair of scissors off of a nearby table.
He raised them in the air, right over the beaten boy's face, with full intention to make them collide with Hyo-man, but everything came to a stand still when Hyoman gathered up the strength to plead with Sieun one more time.
“Wait, wait, please”
“ Don't cross the line”
Don't cross the line?
Don't cross the line.
The scissors hit the floor next to Sieuns knees with a loud clang.
Everything around him became quiet.
The only sound that managed to burst through the silence was not really a sound but an echo of a distant memory.
Sieun began to feel the stinging of his cracked knuckles, almost like a painful reminder of the promise he made to Suho, to not get into any fights.
to not cross the line.