Although I felt like absolute , I was reminded once again that life does go on. The next day was Tuesday and there was still school to get over and done with. As previously mentioned, I had a half day so at least I would be able to go home early. I was also scheduled to have no lessons that day either until after lunch so I was free to sit in the computer room all day and mope to myself in the corner with whatever book I chose to have in my hand thinking about how my life was. Well, that was the plan anyways. I bought 2 manga books along with two other books with me because there was no ing way I was doing any studying. I didn’t have the energy to go to school yet alone to memorise chunks of information. I was hoping to have a solemn exit from my house until my dad decided that he wanted to shout at me for something irrelevant. Usually, I wouldn’t have felt anything but annoyance that he was delaying my time but I just felt like crying. I blamed that on period symptoms and feeling emotional over the tragedy that took place last night. So instead of leaving the house solemnly as planned, I ended up leaving the house with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t help but think,

‘What a great way to start the ing morning,’. Then thinking if Jonghyun felt like this in his final days.

I remember entering my form room and feeling so out of place. People were laughing away, chatting without a care. It was then I wondered if this is how Jonghyun had felt amongst his colleagues. As I sat down near my classmates that I usually sat with in form, I felt myself putting on an act automatically. I felt like I couldn’t bring down their mood with my bad news. Once again, like some ing itch I was reminded of Jonghyun, wondering if this how he felt like amongst everyone. Then I looked around and wondered how many people felt like that at this moment in this room. Are they truly happy?

The classmate I sat with made a comment about suicide. Usually I would have laughed because its school don’t we all want to go to sleep forever? But I just found myself feeling bitter. How had it taken such an incident to make me sensitive to the word? It was also then that I actually realized how much we talk about suicide as if talking about the weather. I just kept feeling bitter the entire time, constantly reminded of what happened. Will I forever remain that way? My close friend is like that. She doesn’t joke about suicide like that and strongly dislikes it if people do. And at that point and even now, I couldn’t agree with her even more. Here they were, joking about suicide whilst someone who I admired and loved had met such a fate with it yesterday. It ing to be in that classroom.

During the day, I just sat with a little KPop squad, chilling in the computer room. But everything still felt foreign, even with them there. Most of people in the Kpop squad preferred the new generation and had never looked at the old generation, so many of them couldn’t understand the feeling or feel the full effect of the loss of Jonghyun. My friend even admitted that it didn’t affect her as much. I actually felt anger towards her for a second. But logic caught up and my anger diminished as quickly as it came. How could I be mad at her? Be mad because she didn’t feel sad enough? At least I hadn’t completely lost my mind and I could still think logically. However, later on, after they left, I met up with a girl who listened to old generation groups and had pretty much had the same reaction as me.

Over the 1 hour, we watched videos about Jonghyun and funny moments with Shinee. And during that time I didn’t feel foreign. I actually left the room laughing my head off with her talking about the SNL episodes with Jonghyun in them and him pretending to be angry on Weekly Idol. It was like she had rewired me to think differently. To watch what made me happy, what caused me to fall for his charms in the first place because that was Kim Jonghyun. Though that was sort lived because my other friends who weren’t even that interested was talking about him. It was towards lunch time were my mind was conflicting with itself and trying to decided the best way it would be for me to grieve. I knew I should celebrate his life but I just felt like I wasn’t celebrating his life. It just felt like I was denying that he had died by distracting myself with funny videos at that time.

I actually did leave at 12.30 but decided to stop by at the cards shop. I remembered reading a comment somewhere that although we couldn’t do something to prevent this incident from happening directly, we could begin to help and appreciate others in our lives that we could directly affect such as family and friends.

My mind immediately went towards my best friends who are all suffering from some form of mental illness. We are about to go off to university in 9 months so the stress is levels are peaking. So at that point, I decided to dedicate my time to writing the true heartfelt notes about my feelings and how much they mean to me because I don’t think I show it in the best way possible.

As I made my way home on the public bus, I let my mind wonder to my late uncle who had died 4 years ago in early November. My mother always used to say that my uncle had this charming nature about him; he was naturally funny, very kind and loving to all of us and was the glue that held my large family together. He never had shown pain and like a naïve I didn’t think he could ever experience negative emotions and things in his life.

But then he lost his battle to cancer. Even though I was preparing myself for the worst possible outcome, I don’t think I properly prepared myself for how quickly he deteriorated. He was this strong person that you would have never thought this would have happened to him. But that’s the thing. You never think it would happen to them, and then it does. He had been battling cancer for 2 years. This fact that I just happened to overhear is probably what threw me off about his death and I hadn’t really come to terms with it until 6 months later. I remember this death throwing me off that I had really truly accepted until 6 months later. I just couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Jonghyun and my uncle.

After the death of my uncle, I had promised myself to prepare for the worst of everything and to not grow too attached because I didn’t want to hurt like that again. But I am human; of course I’ll grow attached to someone. But I felt like history repeated itself because I broke my own promise to myself, took everything for granted because why wouldn’t he be there? Then it’s like history repeated itself and he isn’t there. Sometimes it’s event like this where I scold myself for being ignorant and selfish. I should just accept the fact that something don’t go as planned for everyone. But I just don’t want to deal with that kind of emptiness and pain again from the loss of a person that I care about so much. Then I wonder at these times, when did I become such an angsty character from some book?

I don’t know if I am glad or saddened that I didn’t allow myself to fall in deep with Shinee like I have with BTS and Super Junior. I guess I’m glad I didn’t in a selfish kind of way. The pain is absolutely horrid and I don’t even consider myself a Shawol. I can’t believe to even fantom the grief of what Shawol’s are going through.