GET FREE [jaeyong]

[11]

A/N - this chapter is wayyy too poetic lmao wtf is with my traditional style of writing ;-; anyway, I'm sorry about that and I hope it's not too annoying <3 I dunno what I was on while writing this LOL

[ELEVEN]

"I look in the mirror and I hate my reflection. Watch hands move on the clock 'til my head spin. Now all I can do is pick apart my imperfections. Don't give me fate love, just give me fake love."

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

THESE few days were hard.

Taeyong had a difficult time adjusting to his normal routine, but his family pretended as if nothing was different. It made it slightly easier, yes, but the package of guilt and trauma of the past repeatedly tormented him: it was a faint whisper in the back of his mind, and he tried all he could to block it out and forget—

forget, that seemed to be what everyone else was doing.

He dipped back into what he was used to after a day or two from the hospital, like reading and watching movies on Netflix about fake lives that he wished more than ever he could be living at the moment. His parents occasionally checked up on him when he was in his room for 'too long' (although he always spent extensive amounts of time in his room).

Taeyong tried to spend more time with them, but he couldn't get himself to come out of the house. The Lees assumed he wasn't ready yet, but he knew he would have to be when school rolled around. That would be the real challenge.

That's probably why nobody was intent on talking about difficult stuff like mental health right now. The fragility was so annoying, but his mother seemed to find it fit to ignore it all and pretend that everything was fine, assuming that would make it easier on everyone.

Taeyong felt like he was boxed in again; he was locked up and back to being whatever the hell he was before, but the difference was that he couldn't accept the feelings this time. He had to find a way to push them out because the grief that was now tagged along with them was so evident, he couldn't allow himself to admit that he didn't feel any better. That would be a disappointment. And he'd feel so, so bad.

But things don't, and can't, change overnight.

Since the act of suicide was muffled out by literally everyone, Taeyong felt like he needed to pretend to be alright. Because he'd be a horrible person to make things any more difficult for his family.

It was ironic, how the person in despair was the one who smiled for everyone else.

There was this insufferable weight, and this time it wasn't just on this shoulders; it was tied to his wrists, neck, ankles, and heart, and kept tugging, awfully and relentlessly, right back down to these murky depths of dread and longing. He was drowning, but he couldn't just 'drown'. He had to do whatever it was to stay alive, even if he didn't want to.

The feeling was so heavy.  There seemed to be no way to cope, nothing helped, and it hurt.

He didn't know how to deal with this. But he just did, like everyone else that was put in similar situations. It was rocky, uneven ground that he was trampling on, that would for sure eventually lead to something lower instead of higher, and changing the path he was already on in actuality was impossible.

The suicide was just a dip in the road. Then a ladder was forcibly shoved in his face, but he didn't have the strength to climb it.

Maybe digging another hole would be easier.