depression

afterthought

this is an expansion of a dream i had

I forget why I'm here, but here I am, sitting on the ground. There are several people scattered in the room around me. The walls are either mirrors, or double-sided glass - it seems that everything that happens in here is being monitored, observed, analyzed. The ceiling hangs dangerously low, yet doesn't feel threatening or suffocating. The wood floor seems to expand indefinitely in all directions, but that may be because the walls are mirrors. A sense of stagnancy looms in the air, and I feel an extreme nothingness.

Someone catches my eye. Peering curiously, I lean forward but am unable to confirm my suspicion at the angle I'm sitting at.

"Is that you? Are you . . . Jonghyun?"

He looks at me and I'm certain.

"Yes." He nods at me, almost expressionless, but a hint of joy radiates from him.

As I begin to tremble, he notices and extends his arms, into which I collapse with tears silently streaming down my face. 

"I miss you," I whisper.

He leans his chin over my shoulder, closes his eyes, and presses his lips together. We stay like this for a moment, and his calmness somehow transcends into my own. I pull away slightly, with my arm still draped around his side and my head gently resting on his shoulder. My tears dry. We say nothing for another moment. His body stiffens, and I lift my head and look over in anticipation. He opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything for a while, as if he's searching for the right words.

"Did I not deserve happiness?" he says simply.

I reach over and gently guide his head into my shoulder as he quietly sobbed. He loosely wraps his arms around me and I hold him tightly as he shakes.

"I'm so sorry that we didn't notice. It must have been so much worse for you than it is for any of us now."

As we weep in each other's arms, I feel more and more distanced, and he fades from existence, disappearing right out of my arms. With a tear-stained face, I look around, and I am on the other side of the room. As it turns out, I was watching a video online somewhere, and none of that experience had actually taken place, it seems. But when I watch the video again, I can hear the words we utter quietly in the background, and his sobs remained in the audio, just hushed.

It did happen. His pain had been there in all that we had seen, but he masked it for us.