Straykids OS (Book)

hiding behind a smile

Ship: Hyunjin (ft. Seungmin)
Triggers/Warnings: selfharm, depression, mean voice

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It started at the age of twelve. At the age of twelve, a boy named Hwang Hyunjin started hurting himself. It was as if he was free when he hurt himself with the razor blade for the first time. He hid it for moments when he would need it again, which he hoped he wouldn't, because he didn't even know why he started doing it in the first place. However, this hope died after he reached for the blade again and hurt himself again. The wounds were not deep, no, they were ones that you wont notice immediately, so it was easier for him to hide them. But it didn't get better after that. The bullying that he had to endure since elementary school and that didn't stop at the next school made it worse and he reached for the blade almost every day.

The wounds got deeper, he wore hoodies or just jackets when he had a shirt on. It was horrible. And then, when he thought he was finally going to get clean, this horrible voice appeared and from then on it was over for him. The voice in his head insulted him, which his family always did too. He already felt uncomfortable in his body and this made it even worse. So bad that he started having suicidal thoughts. Over and over, all sorts of suicide plans flashed through his head, plans that he never implemented. Plans that scared him, but also the thoughts themselves. Nobody knew about everything that flashed through his head, he withdrew, hardly spoke and when asked if everything was fine, he always answered yes. For a year, for a year, everything went well, his parents didn't notice anything, his siblings even less. But on that one day, on that one day, it came to light. His mom saw it and confronted him in front of the rest of the family.

He cried because that wasn't the way to deal with something like that. It wasn't the gentle way to talk about it, it was harsh, almost as if she was angry. Hyunjin understood that she was just worried, he understood it without a doubt, but after the way they talked, he wasn't so sure if that was really the worry or something else. And after that conversation, after that conversation, they acted as if nothing had happened. Hyunjin managed to be clean for three months before it all started again. He hid it as best he could until he reached a point where he told hi mom. When she woke him up for school, he gave her a piece of paper on which he wrote down what was wrong, he mentioned the suicidal thoughts, and that same day he was referred to a clinic. It was only when he was there that he realized that if he had just kept quiet, he would never have ended up there.

This clinic felt like a real prison, he felt uncomfortable there and so he started lying. He lied to the doctors and therapists and that's how he managed to get released on the third day. His parents picked him up and the three of them drove home, they talked and cooked until his siblings came home and pulled him into a tight hug. It felt to him like they were finally a family, but that was to change again the next day and the only thing he did was smile about it. Why should they ever keep a promise they made? And even after that he managed to stay clean for a long time, on his first day of school after he came back, he was immediately hugged by some classmates and from then on he made his first friends.

He was friends with the two of them for the rest of the years at the school, but it didn't make things any better for him. At the age of 16 he had to go to another school because his plan after school didn't work out because of Corona, it was just pure chaos but he went to this school for two and a half years until he was forced to leave. And that was exactly the year his depression went downhill again. Of course he was with psychologists and all that before, but he had the feeling that nobody understood him, except for this one. But he only had this one for half a year because she went somewhere else. She diagnosed him with second degree depression and an eating disorder. And after she left, he didn't want to see a single therapist anymore. However, he found a best friend, the two were friends for four years, four years in which Hyunjin suffered more than he felt good, four years in which he wasted a lot of energy just on the meetings, until he ended it.

He relapsed as if it was a piece of paper that he cut, he no longer felt bad or guilty about it, but he also lacked the feeling of 'living'. Then he met a boy on social media, his name is Seungmin, Hyunjin felt comfortable with this boy at the age of 19, he found this boy and felt accepted from the start. For some reason, he told Seungmin things about himself that hardly anyone knew, without him having to ask. Seungmin didn't understand how people could destroy another person like that, people who are your family, who are supposed to be your friends. He was shocked by everything Hyunjin wrote to him, that he wrote that for years he simply hid everything behind a smile that he no longer has, that it looks forced and fake.

A smile that people once found beautiful. He wrote that he can no longer smile without thinking to himself, 'How can other people still react to this smile when it's nothing more than fake and forced?' He wrote over and over again that he was fine, even though Seungmin knew the opposite. For some reason, Hyunjin couldn't accept help from others, he lied to everyone around him and because everyone believed him, he didn't stop and now lied even to the people who wanted to help him, who really meant what they said.

By now his parents weren't really interested anymore... wait... his dad hadn't been interested in him for a few years anyway and his mom... she... she tries... she really does but too much has happened that it just bounces off him. She acts like she's interested but actually she doesn't care any more than most people do. Because they don't understand it anyway and she's told him that many times. But no one of them tried to understand it anyway. And Hyunjin can live with that, really, he's used to so many things that he considers normal, but over and over he realizes how abnormal it actually is.

No one will know something is wrong as long as he laughs, smiles and talks, talks like everything is okay, even when his head is in chaos and there is that voice that left him in peace for six years. No one will notice as long as he just pretends. It's always been that way. He's always been good at suffering in silence, like telling someone something is wrong. He knows that if others could see what he sees, hear what he always needs to hear, and think what's going through his head, he would be alone. He was 100% sure of that. And that's why he prefers to remain silent rather than talk. Laughs and smiles rather than cry. Lies because it's easier than explaining when things are sometimes unexplainable.

the end.

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Soo uhm first of all, welcome back to our daily Chapter in this One shot book!

I hope y'all are doing good!

Um.. i'm not sure if i should say something abiut it or jus let you ask questions.. or if i at least should say that i will write another Seungjin Chapter tomorrow because this is crap even tho its something real... m not sure rn..

Anywaaaays...

Bye bye.

Tayla♡