Better Every Day - A Jonathan Davis Fanfiction

Chapter 1- Distant

It was 3 am. Just like every other night, I couldn't sleep. I was just staring at my ceiling thinking about my life, wondering about stupid things like where we go when we die. I hated these thoughts, but I couldn't stop thinking them. Things like this would always pop into my head and stop me from sleeping. Eventually, just like most other nights, I thought 'screw this'. I got out of bed, threw on a hoodie and some headphones, and stepped out into the cold of the night. I liked to walk around when I knew nobody else was up. I liked that I was a single consciousness in a town of sleeping bodies, aside from the one guy I often saw out here. For whatever reason, it gave me comfort.

I was listening to Metallica and swinging on my so-called 'midnight swing'. It was my spot for whenever I couldn't sleep. In the house closest to my midnight swing, there lived a guy who would sometimes be out walking late, too. He sometimes had people over and they would drink beer on the steps outside the house. Whenever I saw them, I would wonder what it would be like to have friends like that. I had friends, but none I would regularly see, or count on. Often, when myself and the strange man would pass in the night, we would exchange knowing looks and continue on our paths. I felt as if this stranger and I understood each other more than anybody had understood me in my entire life, without even talking to him. I didn't even really know what he looked like. All I could tell about him was that he wore Adidas tracksuit sets and had long dreadlocks.

At some point in the night, I had returned home and begun cooking breakfast. I absentmindedly poured coffee into my cup and milk into my cereal. After sitting down to eat, I realised I had poured them the wrong way around. I now had warm, coffee-soaked cereal and a cup of milk. Unable to care, I ate parts of the warm cereal which made me gag and poured the cup of milk down the drain.

Today, I had a family get-together, and then I was going to a friend's house. Family get-togethers were always unbelievably shit. My parents did not agree with my choice of style, music, career or attitude. Why? Because they did not bother to understand a single one of them. My negative attitude surfaced from a lifetime of crappy people treating me like a freak, my family teasing me for being myself, my friends constantly doing things without me and not having a single person to talk to about it. My high-school music teacher was always there for me, and although I had graduated from high school 2 years ago, we would still catch up for coffee regularly. He had become something of a mentor to me, but he had died in a freak accident earlier this year. The only other person I knew I could count on was my older brother, but he was studying overseas.

The family gathering was just as expected: horrific. My mother had complained to the entire family about how I looked and my 'negative attitude'. I was wearing a pair of black cargo pants and a cropped hoodie with chains attached, which showed a slit of my small stomach. I didn't each much because I found it difficult to care about something such as food when my life was such a mess. I didn't really talk to anybody in the family and I left earlier than everyone else. It put me in a terrible mood which I knew I would have to try to hide at Victoria's house. I only had one clear thought in my mind: alcohol.

I arrived at my friend Victoria's house to find there were a lot more people than expected.

"Hey uhh, Vic? Why are there so many people?" I asked my closest friend (who I wasn't very close to anymore)

"Just because you and I don't see each other much anymore doesn't mean I don't know when you're going back into your little antisocial depression moods again. You need this. Trust me." Victoria said. She had always been a caring friend, but she was one of those people who would ditch you for a hot guy whenever there was one around, which is why I never counted on her.

"Thanks, Vic," I said with a small smile.

Then, I made my way to where the beer was. After grabbing a can, I wedged myself between two people to sit on a barstool. The people around me were drunk, and I was aggressively sober so I skulled my beer. I hated being sober when everyone else was drunk. I grabbed another beer from the fridge, but this time, when I went back to my seat, I saw a guy in a group who was wearing a blue Adidas tracksuit set, and he had long brown dreads. It was him. I felt a slight panic in my chest as we made eye contact, so I sat on the bar stool with my back to him. I didn't know why I was nervous, as usually I would struggle to make myself care about things like this. I began skulling my second beer, but halfway through I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a blue tracksuit walking into the kitchen. Panic rising in my throat again and my hands tingling, I wanted to escape, but something made me stay. I had my first good look at him. He had a very attractive face, brown eyes and symmetrical features. He had eyebrow piercings and his dreadlocks suited him perfectly. I had to stop myself staring at him, so I went to get another drink. As I closed the fridge door, one of his friends yelled "LET'S DO SHOTSSS!!" and everybody cheered. The attractive stranger handed me one, but as he looked up at my face he froze. He hadn't let go of the shot glass even though it was in my hand, and it was getting awkward.

"Uhh, sorry." He said, finally letting go. He turned back to his friends, but I kept noticing him glancing at me. I took the shot and got handed another, so I took it. The guy just wouldn't stop looking over at me. I was almost drunk now, so I was getting confident.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" I asked as he got closer.

"Oh, I um, I recognise you." He said hesitantly. He seemed pretty sober.

"Oh yeah?"

"You're the one who's always out at odd hours of the night. Right?" He looked into my eyes for the first time, and they were the kind you never wanted to stop looking into.

I nodded. "Let's get drunk," I said. I didn't want him to ask why I was always out late. He laughed, which revealed that his teeth were kind of messed up, but for some reason it suited him.

"You don't even want to know my name?" He asked

"Nope."

"I think you're already drunk."

"Yep."

As we talked, I found myself intrigued by him. And this was odd only in the fact that lately, I'm never intrigued. I still didn't know his name, but we went and sat on the nearby couch and talked for the rest of the night about everything and nothing at the same time. I usually don't like talking to people, but something was different about him. I found out that he was in a band called KoRn and that they had an album out, and they were working on their second. His bandmates were the group he was with earlier, and the ones that kept making funny faces at him as he talked to me. We finally exchanged names; his name was Jonathan Davis. At the end of the night, after hours of talking, the thought crept back in: getting close to people has only ever brought me one thing: disappointment. I couldn't let it happen again. It didn't matter if I liked him, all people are the same.

"I'm sorry, I have to go," I said, suddenly feeling distant again.

"Wait, do you want to like, hang out some time?" He asked

"Yeah maybe. I'm sorry, I really have to go." He seemed kind of sad, but I left without another word.

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Thanks for reading! I know this is a little bit of a slow start but it definitely gets better from here. Let me know what you think! :)