amidst a nightmare, towards the shining stars | yeonbin

[3]

Heeseung, Soobin, 1095 Days in Hell Part 1

The thought of Heeseung filled Soobin with miserable disgust, knowing that the only classmate that had been kind enough to help him out was just a two-faced bastard.

It hadn't always been this way; There had been times when Soobin had felt immense gratitude for Heeseung's presence, whether it be protecting him from the class bullies or simply just being there for him.

However, there had been a short period of time after Soobin had transferred to this new school where he and Heeseung had just been regular friends, rather than bullied and protector.

Shortly after his transfer to this school, Heeseung had approached him with kind intentions to become friends since Soobin was new.

Soobin had been thankful for his help, and for a short while, Soobin thought that he could have a normal, peaceful, fun, high school life with his new friends. Far away from the bullies and horrific happenings at his old high school.

Oh, how wrong he was to be making such assumptions.

Those preemptive thoughts of peace were soon shattered when the very people he had escaped from transferred to his new high school.

Cha Minjae had transferred to his new school in Seoul.

Soobin had thought it was bad enough that this was also Chaewon's high school, but this was another kind of horrible.

The rich, obnoxious, bully that he had run away from had chased him all the way to the ends of the Earth. If the ends of the Earth were Seoul, that is.

Soobin's life was a bullet train headed for a crash after Minjae transferred. After Minjae transferred, Heeseung was elected class president.

Soobin once again thought that he would be saved, that Heeseung wouldn't let Minjae bother him. Soobin was depressingly proved wrong, over and over again.

"Hey freak, guess who's here again? It's your best friend," Minjae cackled and gave him a light shove, as if they really were friends.

The other students in the class looked at them confused. One of them looked at Soobin questioningly. "You know Cha Minjae?"

Soobin violently shook his head. Soobin's denial of knowing him was all in good fun for Minjae, though.

It was okay.

Soobin could manage.

He had himself, and at the time, he had Heeseung.

He wouldn't go back to being the bullied boy he was in his first year of high school.

It didn't matter that his parents were divorced and his step-family despised him, it didn't matter that his only friend Heeseung was about to rat out his secrets to Minjae, it didn't matter that all he did everyday was wander around the city wishing somebody would comfort him.

Soobin was strong, and he was going to make it through.

So as his traitor friend #1, Kim Chaewon, stood in front of him, he just sighed and stared out the window, ignoring her.

Chaewon, on the other hand, didn't look like she was interested in leaving without talking to him.

"Soobin, please hear me out. Just this once, just for 5 minutes," she pleaded with him, hands locked together and shaking, as if she would simply die if Soobin didn't speak with her.

He, however, had no interest in speaking with her. "Go away, Chaewon. Whatever it is that you have to say, I don't want nor need to hear it."

He finally looked over at her face, turning away from the window and kicking back his chair as he stood up. "If you won't stop bothering me, I'll just leave. Class is over, anyway."

Soobin opened the classroom door, only to be greeted with the face he least wanted to see. He promptly slammed the door in his face.

Heeseung pulled on the locked door handle, smacking the door desperately. "Open the door, Soobin. I know you and Chaewon are in there, please open it, I have something to say to you as well."

Soobin let Heeseung keep banging the door, knowing as soon as some popular whoever walked by, he would stop and leave.

Chaewon stared at him with sad eyes, pools full of regret. Soobin scoffed, "What are you looking at me like that for? You know what he did, and most of all you know what you did. I have no reason to talk to either of you."

Chaewon quietly sat herself down in one of the empty seats and sighed. "I know, I know. You have no reason to talk to either of us. Not after we let all those things happen. But can't you just hear Heeseung out at least? He really does care about you, it's not just because he's class president or he pities you."

That led to another loud scoff on Soobin's part. "Hear him out? Hear him out for what? Actually, you know what? Maybe I will see him. To tell what he did. I was so happy after I came here, you know? I.." Soobin trailed off.

What could he say?

Chaewon just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Soobin didn't.

He just closed his eyes and let the tears fall from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. Sometimes it was easy for him to pretend that he was okay. That he was alright with being treated lower than the dog shit on the sidewalk, that he was okay with being treated as some ugly alien creature.

Soobin wished he'd never found out that Heeseung had blabbed to Minjae. He wished he'd never become aware of what others thought of him now, the jokes they made about him, the nasty things that people could say.

Would other people still laugh? Yeah, they would. But to Soobin, that was better.

Not knowing was better. He could have enjoyed his life and nobody could have told him otherwise. He would have rather lived a life worth living than being self aware of the horrors going on around him. He'd never feel lonely or ostracized. He'd never feel like he didn't belong to society. And most of all? He'd never feel like he didn't belong to humanity.

Soobin wondered how people, people his age, could be so cruel that they could drive somebody to think they didn't belong to the human race. What had Soobin even done to them?

At his old school, he had tried his best to just be a bystander, to not be involved when others were bullied. The eyes full of pure terror of those being dragged away by Minjae and his goons haunted him to this day.

The eyes that were trying to shout out, to scream for help, to anybody, just anybody, that was willing to hear it. The pits of fear that screamed out to the heavens for help, begging for mercy, knowing that none would come. What occurred in their minds the moment they thought that somebody should be treated as subhuman?

He hadn't meant to "disrespect" Minjae that one time. He didn't mean to tell Heeseung that his parents were divorced and he rarely went home. But there would always be those moments when insults were thrown and fists met his skin that he would feel like the lowest of low. What had he done to deserve this misery?

Those moments where it felt like the time space continuum had stopped just for Soobin, just for him to scream in agony and desperately search his mind for a reason, knowing all too well that there was none.

Some days, the anguish of it all hit a little too hard for him to bear. Walking into the cold and dark boys bathroom at 7 pm, lights flickering on slowly, heavy footsteps that sound all too loud on the tile floor.

When he looked at himself in the school bathroom mirror, late after school and everybody had left already, the face he saw staring back at himself was not one that recognized.

The eyes that stared back, the flesh on the body that mirrored back, Soobin felt like he was looking at a grotesque corpse.

He would slowly put his hand up to the mirror, watching the hand in the mirror move up with him.

He doesn't know if the scream he heard was his.

As Soobin reminisced on his own past, Heeseung had finally broken the door down, staring as the door fell off its hinges with a thud onto the classroom floor.

Chaewon gawked at him as he stood there sheepishly. "What are you going to do about that? Everybody's going to notice that a whole ass door is missing," she muttered as Heeseung stepped over the door and walked over to her and Soobin.

Heeseung shrugged, "They won't let me get in trouble for it, I'll take care of it later." Chaewon just rolled her eyes in response.

The look on her face dropped into another sad frown as they both gazed at Soobin, who was still refusing to look at either of them, eyes closed and facing the window.


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