stars and whispers // minsung

Chapter Twenty

Chan sighed and looked at Seungmin, who was writing in his diary.

“Hey…” he muttered.

The boy looked up briefly and then kept writing, humming as a reply.

“Is everything alright?” The older one asked, kind of embarrassed.

Seungmin looked at his roommate. “Mm… Yeah. Why?” he asked back, confused.

Bang Chan looked away and was starting to get a little bit red. “I-I don’t know… Maybe I’m saying bullshit but I feel like lately we don’t talk that much anymore. I’ve been feeling you kind of distant with me.”

Seungmin’s frown felt like a punch on the face for Chan.

“What is that face supposed to mean?” he asked.

Seungmin shook his head. “I mean, yeah… We’re cool.” he said before continuing writing in his journal.

‘That’s it?’ Chan thought, crossing his arms in annoyance.

After a few seconds of thinking he cracked his neck a little bit annoyed.

“So, what are you writing about?” he asked, trying to sound like always.

“Nothing…”

“‘Nothing’? So, you’re telling me that you spend HOURS of your day writing ‘nothing’?”

Seungmin looked up again, noticing that his attitude was different. “I just write about my day. My days and my thoughts during it,"he explained in a calm voice.

Chan nodded and looked away.

That same night, he got an impulse of looking into Seungmin’s diary, just wanting to know if he was mad at him or not.

Dear did he know that he was going to regret reading those paragraphs from years ago...

Dear Diary

Some days ago, Jisung attempted suicide.

I’m still very shocked so I may not be able to talk about everything today.

But I do want to talk about it with details and all, I’ll probably need it for my therapist.

On October first, we wanted to have a pajama party at my house.

Our goal was to light up Jisung a little bit because some days ago he was being really quiet and looked sad even if he didn’t want to talk to us about it.

He was being really distant with us so it made us worried.

When we talked to him about the pajama party, he didn’t want to.

So we insisted.

Felix and I insisted on him for literal days and eventually, he ended up giving in.

But only with one condition, the pajama party was going to be at his house.

We noticed that there was something weird in that, since we’d only been in his house seven times because he doesn’t really like it when we’re with his parents.

Still, we agreed.

On October fourth, we were all at his house.

Oh, I can’t even tell you how it hurt to look at him like that.

Jisung didn’t even talk to us.

He was so quiet, so silent, so still on his bed, not even looking at us.

It still hurts to remember the image of him looking at his blank wall.

We tried so hard to cheer him up, we did everything we could and still…

Nothing.

On October five, we had school.

Waking up, Jisung was suddenly all bright and loud again.

It felt so good to feel him like that, you don’t know how many times we kissed him and hugged him like if we were babies or something.

He had woken up late so we were kind of late for school.

Getting out of his house, he suddenly flinched and laughed, telling us that he had forgotten something inside.

We sighed but still told him that we were going to wait for him.

But he told us that it was not necessary, that we could get going and he’ll catch up.

He hugged us tightly and also kissed us on the cheek before entering back into the house.

How I fucking regret having let him in into the house again.

How I fucking regret that we actually listened to him and went to school before him.

Regrets.

Jisung’s letter talked about regrets as well.

Fifteen minutes later, we had arrived at the school but of course, we were wondering what Jisung was doing, was he alright?

So Felix and I sneaked out of the school and went running to his house.

Hannie lives in an enormous mansion so we took our time trying to convince the guard to let us in and walking the stairs up to his room.

His room has always been empty and with a miss of colors but that day was different.

It was more than colors, a whole soul was missing and we couldn’t understand why our hearts were
rushing so hard; maybe we did expect it after all.

The bathroom door was closed but the lights were on.

We were both scared for the same reason but we couldn’t dare to say it.

With shaky hands, I opened the bathroom’s door, quietly calling his name.

When I entered the bathroom…

Fucking christ, I can’t even write it.
My hands are shaking, let me take a break.

Jisung was lying in the bathtub that was filled with water.

Red water.

My first reaction was to gasp and cover Felix’s eyes, but he had already seen it.

I didn’t have time to cry, I rushed over to my best friend and an unknown strength appeared in my arms to lift him outside of the bathtub.

Felix was really shocked, still, just looking at us with his eyes wide open.

I tried calling Han a hundred times and nothing.

I didn’t even know if he was alive.

I was yelling, in a situation of desperation I tried calling Felix so that he would call 911.

But he was shocked, really shocked.

I had to do it myself, explain it as I could with shaky fingers and a shaky voice.

My white uniform was now a piece of cloth filled with bloody water.

I can’t keep explaining so I’ll do it another day, I’m sorry.

Here’s Jisung’s letter that I found when 911 arrived, it was on my bed.

-

Chan dropped the diary back on the desk, looking at it like it was cursed.

He felt so confused, worried and sorry at the same time.

‘Fuck, Chris, what did you do know?’