The Letters He Never Sent || Minsung

45

January 5th, 2014.
———

"He's awake!" A voice screams next to me. People rush into the room, and many more voices are heard.

I can feel my body come back to life, and the oxygen mask on my mouth helps my breaths steady. My eyes flutter open, and my vision is blurry.

"Stay with me kid, just relax." The voice says again.

I take a few more breaths, and close my eyes again— just living. My ears are clogged I'm guessing, because all I can hear is ringing. I don't have any of my senses, but I know I'm alive. That's all I can take, before I pass out again.

When I awake, it's a little different this time. My eyes flutter open, and I'm no longer wearing an oxygen mask. Taking a look around, I start to come back to consciousness.

My eyes meet another women's, one who I can't recognize at first. But when she gets closer, I recognize her as my mother.

I look away from her, and down to my body. I'm strapped to a bed, with just a hospital gown. But when I look around the room, it doesn't look like a normal hospital room.

I turn my eyes back to my mother, who has a solemn look on her face.

I try to speak, but nothing comes out. It's like my throat is clogged, or my vocal cords were removed. My brain also isn't working properly, i have a massive headache and cannot remember a single thing. All I know, is this is my mother, and I am not in a hospital.

My mother moves her hand to a table beside me, and picks up a glass. "Open, drink." She says like I'm a dog.

I do as she says however, and the cold liquid runs down my throat. Its refreshing, like I was just brought back to life. My throat finally feels like it's real again.

"Where—" My words come out like a whisper, like the speaker is withering away. "Where am i?" I try and speak clearer this time, but there isn't much of a difference.

"Do you know what you did?" She asks.

I blink slowly, and furrow my brows at her answer to my question— if it even counts as one. "No.. Now where am I?"

She crosses her arms. "You're in a mental hospital."

Slowly the realization of what she just said hits me, and I furrow my brows. "Why— Why am I here?"

She tilts her head. "Because you tried to kill yourself, Jisung."

"W—what?" I ask.

When I stare at her and her empty expression, I start to get a huge headache. With that headache, more things start to come back to me. The night, the pain, the blood, and the boy.

I squeeze my eyes, trying to stop the images flashing in my mind. It's no use. Everything starts to come back to me, and suddenly I'm sitting on the cold bathroom floor again.

—

"This is supposed to go slow, but be over quickly. But for that to happen, you have to cooperate." The older man says to me, then turns to my mother. "Both of you."

"I've said everything truthfully, he's the one who's lying." She says.

"I'm not lying, mother." I stay calm. "I've told you nothing but the truth, and that's what you want to hear— right?"

"You're lying." She raises her voice. "You haven't spoken a truth this whole hour. You know you haven't always been like this, it's only because of that boy."

"People cannot effect your mental health this bad—" the man says.

"It's not because of him. He's the only one who ever made the thoughts stop, if I might add." I interrupt.

"That is not true." She slams her hand down on the chair. "He's got you hypnotized into thinking you love him, and now he's doing the same to me. I brought you here so you could get better, and realize that isn't the truth."

"It's only been a week." The therapist says. "He can't be cured that fast, he may not ever be cured in the way you want anyways. These things take time, and he isn't well. You have to understand this isn't something you can switch on and off, Mrs. Han."

"Then why did he suddenly change?" She says. "He was never like this. He was always happy and interesting, What happened to my him? Where's my happy boy?" She looks at me.

"That boy died years ago." I say to her. "Way before you even noticed."

She looks at me with widened eyes, and takes a deep breath in. She picks up her purse, and stands up from her chair. She walks over to the door, with her heals clicking as she walks.

She opens the door, then looks back to the doctor. "I want him locked up until he realizes." She says.

And with that, she leaves the room.

Never to be seen again.

I spend the next eight years locked up in those brick walls. I went to hours of therapy, and took bottles upon bottles of pills. My mom was never convinced I was cured, because I didn't lie to please her.

The therapists eventually gave up, then pill dosage became smaller portions. I was now just living there. I wasn't changing any more, because I have been cared for enough. Every time they tried to tell her I could he released, she wouldn't let them however.

That was my life, until I brought the courts into it. After winning a case, and sending her to prison for keeping me like a prisoner— I was free. And what was the first thing I decided to do when I was free?

Go back home and find him.

I needed to find him again. He was all I had, and all
I had thought about for the past eight years while I was locked away. I had to find him and tell him everything, but it was a bit harder.

Because there was one problem, he thought I was dead.

So the only way I could make my presence known again, was to send a part of the past back to him.