He didn't want to wake up. He was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. He woke up into a nightmare. That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as he sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.
He is the guy who is lost in space, the guy who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday he will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of his smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. He is the guy you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, he wants to assure you, he will no longer be there. He will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, he felt himself becoming more and more invisible.
He was barely paying attention to the tub brimming with water, his eyes lost, like he always was. The more the water submerged him, the freer of his feelings he felt. Freedom, he thinks as he keeps sinking.
The water slopping across the bedroom carpets alarmed her, anxious, she tracked the water to the bathroom. Jiggling the handle, she finds it locked, "Jimin-ah!" she yells out into the void. "Jimin if you don't reply to me in the next minute then so help me, I will open the door with the spare key!" Nervousness building up, she searched for their spare key.
"Jimin call out now or I'm coming in!" she yelled one last time before jamming the keys into the lock and twisting it.
"Jimin?!" she yelled but the boy barely reacted to her bombardment and continued staring into the cold water. His face looked small despite his well built body, ghostly pale face while his lips looked blue in the light. His teeth chattering was the only sound heard besides his faint slow breaths. Her heart broke at the sight, his vulnerable state stabbed away at her heart relentlessly.
In the urge to rush towards him, she slightly looses her balance but regains her posture and makes her way toward the tap. Grabbing the towel, "Get out of the water, now!" she orders. He doesn't move, barely moving a muscle. Is he even aware of my presence? She thinks, scared on his behalf.
"JIMIN!" She yells and yanks at his arm, but in vain. It sloshed back into the cold water, wetting her clothes in the process. Kneeling down beside the tub, she stares at him.
"What's wrong with you?" she whispers, scared and upset. He finally looks up at her, slowly sweeping his gaze across her face, he raises his hand to trace her cheeks, "You came." He says giving her a small smile.
She felt cold everywhere his fingers traced, gulping she says, "Of course I did you pabo!"
"I thought you too would leave... like they did." He had the dazed look on his as if reliving a past memory, his eyes glazed over and his hand fell to his side.
"What? Like who? Wae? Why are you doing this?" she asks wiping her hot tears and sinking beside the tub and wetting her dry clothes. He smiles and stares at the photo in his hand. "I just want to be happy again." In all her time of knowing him, she had never seen him like so. Sure, he had his days of being depressed, then again we all do, but this was new. The photo he held had him and six other people.
She missed the cheerful bubbly Jimin, it was then that she promised to have him back to his self at any cost, if being happy means reuniting with these six people then so be it. I'll get him back, she promises to herself and pulls the photo out of his hand. Out stretching him her hand, "Come out, please." He takes it and sloshes out the tub, and hugs her.
His cold body absorbing her heat as the two embraced. The best and most beautiful feelings were those not seen, but rather felt, with the pounding heart.
While he heads to his room to change clothes, she fetches his mobile and breezes through the contact list. She doesn't know what she was searching for until she found a, "Alien Tae" in the list. She knew deep within, that this was it. Exhaling her breath, she presses the green call button.
