It’d been a long day. Like every other day.

She stepped into her apartment at exactly eight p.m. Everyday. Without fail. It never ended.

Today, it would end.

 

“Time is of the essence. Everyone has twenty-four hours a day. It only matters how you choose to use it.” The mantra every self-respecting, determined high school student lived by. Maybe not every. Most.

Soojung never tired of working until her last year of high school. It was okay to work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… every day.  She managed her time wisely, so to speak. It mattered not what she was doing, as long as she was doing it. Going through the motions. That was all that mattered.

 

Going through the motions. She wished she could go back to her adolescence and do that without questioning anything.

She wished she could go through the motions for one more day.

But she’d promised herself.

She’d postponed it for much too long. If you say “tomorrow”, tomorrow you will say the same. Again and again. It had to start somewhere.

She was starting here today. And today, she was also ending it.

 

The last year of high school, Soojung met Jongin. He was tall, handsome, attractive, and the high school heartthrob. They’d known of the other’s existence for as long as they could remember and never spoken a word to each other. But as life would have it, time finally brought them together.

They met over a project, like every other cliché high school project. He was really interesting, in her opinion. Not in the romantic way, but just an interesting guy. Time did that to people.

He spoke four different languages. He could greet her in English, compliment her in Chinese, joke with her in Spanish, and say goodbye at the end of the class period in French. In the eyes of any other girl, that would have been “boyfriend material”.

Soojung thought it was fascinating.

 

Very few things fascinated her anymore. Looking at the clock ticking at the wall, it was half past eight already and she’d been standing there for thirty minutes now. She had better hurry.

He’d be home soon.

And then she’d lose her resolve, say “tomorrow”, and go through the motions for another day.

 

She didn’t really expect them to keep in touch after high school. They were two very different people, with very different friends and very different dreams.

In fact, she almost forgot him.

Almost.

 Undergraduate school passed with a dull complacency that was almost unsettling. Soojung was sure that if she’d paid any attention or even tried a little harder, she’d have felt her subconscious warning her, urging her to reconsider what she was doing.

But she went through the motions day after day.

As planned. Never faltering. Constant.

It was a complete surprise when she met him again.

Kim Jongin was the only variable she hadn’t calculated in her life. 

 

She turned the knob and pushed open the door. She was greeted by a familiar sight.

Shining lights, flashing mirror. And the large pearly white tub that stood across the room from her.

She stepped inside and looked at the clock.

Twenty-five more minutes before it was too late.

She closed the door and locked it.

 

As usual, Soojung was the last doctor left in her office. It was seven thirty, where everyone was out eating dinner and drinking after work. Not Soojung.

She couldn’t afford straying.

Her office was relatively bare compared to the other doctors. Really, it was almost unnerving how empty it was. There were only two things that distinguished it from an unoccupied office space.

A picture of her and her fiancée.

And the clock that hung on the wall.

Tick tock.

 

She stripped slowly, trying to calm her breath. Was she really going to do it today?

As long as he didn’t come home early, she’d be fine.

Then again, he was unpredictable.

An unpredictable variable.

 

She nearly went catatonic the first time her patient’s vitals disappeared.

In retrospect, this career was a terrible one to plan for.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. She should’ve been a computer analyst or something. Then there would be no unknowns. Everything could be controlled.

She cursed herself for taking that class senior year.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Soojung thought maybe that’s when she started losing it.

 

Carefully, very carefully, she turned the knob in the bathtub and watched as water slowly filled it up. It looked so warm and comforting, like a welcome embrace. It had waited for her long enough.

Now, she was ready to reciprocate its hug.

 

She really wasn’t too phased when Jongin sat down in front of her one day and tearfully confessed he’d been cheating on her.

She wasn’t stupid.

She sure as hell wasn’t blind.

He said he wished he could turn back the time and never make such a mistake.

Impossible.

He asked for her forgiveness.

Sure.

 

Slowly, she reached into the topmost drawer under the sink and pulled out a familiar sight.

To her, at the moment, it was the most precious thing in the world.

The labelling on the side was immaculately printed.

“Kim Jongin. Thioridazine pills for schizophrenia. Take one a day until otherwise specified.”

They swore she was the crazy one.

Oh no. He was.

 

Any semblance of trust they had was long gone. Her mind registered him as the face that took her to the white room in the same place that she used to work. She wasn’t working there anymore. She didn’t really know why. She saw a man in a white coat every time she went back. It looked strangely like the one she used to wear at work. Why didn’t she get to wear it again?...

Why…

 

She slipped into the welcoming embrace of water with a sigh, balancing herself with one hand and the other raised above water level, keeping her precious pills dry.

She was finally doing it.

No more hesitation. No more “tomorrow”. No more motions. Just one.

Gulp. Wince.

She could feel the lumps traveling down .

She leaned back.

They wouldn’t kill her. She was a doctor. She wasn’t stupid. She knew.

But coupled with her three-quarters filled bathtub?

No more. Time was ticking tocking. She didn’t have to worry about time anymore. She was glad it was running out.

Tick tock.

 

When he got home, he knew something was off.

When he heard the silence, he knew.

He glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty. A little late today.

He stepped out of his shoes, into the hallway.

He walked down to the end and tried the door.

Locked.

“Soojung!”

Silence.

After five minutes, he managed to ram the door open.

The lights were bright. He stepped on her discarded shirt.

He nearly threw up at the sight of her floating in the water.

…

He watched as the police cleaned up the scene.

The body was moved.

The evidence was collected.

The water was drained.

He glanced at the open bottle, empty now. Sitting uselessly on the sink.

The labelling on the side was immaculately printed.

“Kim Soojung. Thioridazine pills for schizophrenia. Take one a day until otherwise specified.”

They swore she was the crazy one.

She was.

Tick, tock.

He looked up at the clock, tick tocking away. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong at all.

Tick, tock. 

 

 

 

 

A/N: Links to other stories: Beautiful (ft. Kaistal), Rush (ft. Sehun)