Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Six

The next few days after the news was out were torture for me. Not only was I a mess, but everyone else was in a crazed frenzy of emotions. No one spoke to me, afraid that I would snap under pressure. No one would bother to ask if I was okay; they all knew that I wasn't. I had just lost one of my closest friends. Everyone practically treated me as they had Kyuhyun when Sungmin died. I was hazardous to be around... But I was never truly there.

I heard everyone speaking. I heard all the hushed words about my sanity. I heard it all. But I didn't care. I dwelled in the past, back when everyone was happy and everyone was alive. I was always blankly staring into the nothingness around me, my mind shifting through my memories without hesitation. Everyone was cautious around me, even Hyukjae, as if one wrong move could set me off... as if I was a ticking bomb.

In a sense, I was. It would be just a matter of time before I was gone... Just like the others.

"You don't need others to make up who you truly are inside. They hinder you from revealing your true self, and if you let them decide who you are, you aren't going anywhere in life," Sungmin had once told us that we needed no one but ourselves-- maybe even one other person. After that, things got messy.

Not in my case. Before I had become so distant from everyone else, I was asked to make a speech at his funeral. I accepted it, wondering afterwards what I was thinking. I sat in front of a blank piece of paper for hours, debating on what to write, and came up with nothing. So, in theory, I decided to wing it.

I stood in front of the open casket dressed in my best suit, refusing to turn and look at my best friend's dead body. Fiddling mindlessly with the cuff of my sleeve, I waited anxiously for those around to quiet down. Hyukjae sat in the front of the small crowd, his eyes focused on my quivering body. He knew what I was going through -- to an extent.

"Kyuhyun was... He was a lot to different people. To me, he was a friend that understood everything I was going through. He was the only one who I could really connect with, and now that he's gone, I feel an emptiness inside of me," The words flowed easily, and tears blurred my vision now just as they had done time and time before. "He was special to me. He kept everyone happy, and he wasn't like anyone else I had met before. In a sense, he reminded me of... Me. Rejected. Torn apart. Put back together. Perfected. Broken. Lost."

I paused, my emotions going wild inside of me, and with a deep breath I continued on. "He was closest with me, but before Sungmin had died, that was who he was close with. It was always Sungmin, all the time. They loved each other... They truly, truly loved each other. And now that they're both gone..."

I broke off, my voice cracking as tears slid down my cheeks. "They can be perfect together. Forever."

And I was gone. My mental stability collapsed, and I turned and looked at his dead body, finally excepting the fact that Kyuhyun was actually dead. His milk-white, smooth skin was perfect, every bone in his body well defined underneath that beautiful skin. I envied him. As I stood there, I felt cool, long fingers wrap themselves around my arm and try to pull me away. But I didn't move; I let my tears fall onto his body, staring at the gentle smile that touched his forever at rest face.

And then I bolted. I ran and I ran, and not once did I look back. Not when Hyukjae called out my name desperately. Not when I realized I had nowhere to go.

I just ran.