Most of the time he was okay. During the daytime Sungyeol would live his life or spend it daydreaming. He was always okay until he was at home. Because that was when he didn’t have an immediate objective. He was always okay until he didn’t have anything to keep him busy and distracted.

     And so Sungyeol would lie at home in his bed for hours doing nothing, not moving at all. Sometimes it wasn’t too bad. He would fall asleep and wake up some time later only to continue lying there and eventually fall asleep again. Other times he would just lie there, wide awake and in silence.

     On free days, he more often than not did not get up at all. Sungyeol would spend the whole day lying in bed, dozing in and out of consciousness, still in his pajamas. And he would forget all about eating until his stomach started to ache, yet even then he made no move to get up. The evenings after he got home from school were no different. Sungyeol would walk into his house, go up to his room, and then immediately lie down. Mostly he would fall asleep right after that. He wouldn’t wake up until long after dinner had ended.

     At first, his father would come upstairs to wake him up. And when it became a common occurrence, the awakenings started including yelling and anger. But after some time, they stopped completely. No one would come to wake him up. So when Sungyeol eventually woke up on his own, and after lying in bed much longer than intended, he would drag himself from his sheets and head downstairs. By that time, the whole house would be dark and silent. Occasionally, that night’s dinner would be left out, waiting for him to eat it. But most of the time it’d be long put away. That was okay. Because Sungyeol didn’t want the food that much anyway.

     He felt there was no real reason he should be feeling this way. Nothing was all that bad. Not perfect, sure. But not bad. Maybe it was because of the way he felt like his friends didn’t really want to be his friend. Or the way he could see in people’s eyes that they did not want him around and did not want to have to talk to him. And it wasn’t the kind of thing that might have just been in his head, either. It was so blatantly obvious. And honestly, how could knowing that not hurt?

     It was common for everyone to joke about wanting to die. To be run over or to fall off a cliff. Or even murdered in their sleep. And Sungyeol would join in on their jokes. Yet unbeknownst to them, he meant every single word he said. He begged for it to end. For it to stop. He prayed he could just fall asleep and not wake up. Or to just simply turn the world off.

     But he had things he needed to do. All the school assignments he had to complete and turn in. All the plans for the future he had to make. And he would brush the thoughts aside because he has stuff he needs to do. A life he needs to live. And he can’t possible end everything when there’s unfinished tasks still on his plate. And then for the time being the thoughts would pass.

     However, eventually they’d appear again. And while he tries to brush them away by reminding himself of everything on his plate, he would realize something. Sungyeol would remember that all those little things wouldn’t matter if he was dead. Why was he worrying about not turning in a project if he died? Was he afraid he would get a lower grade for it being late? If he killed himself, nothing would matter anymore. Not any of it.

     So Sungyeol had a million different ideas swirling in his head on how he could do it. And some of them were just too easy. The most appealing being walking right downstairs into the bathroom, reaching for the sleeping pills, and then consuming the whole bottle. He could do it. He could do it at that very moment. Afterwards all he had to do was lie down in his bed and fall asleep. It wouldn’t be much different from his daily routine.

     But that would first of all mean getting past step one: getting out of bed and walking downstairs. And that alone was a step he could not complete. So he doesn’t.