Wednesday was the last day of school term. I had written my messages on my cards that I wanted to give to my friends, I was still feeling like not only emotionally but physically as well. I had woke up feeling ill. It’s only now that I know it was due to my period. Still, I tried to attempt to get up that morning and be the best student I could be (not that I would have much of a choice whether I could stay at home) and sauntered out of my house wrapped up in my new burgundy coat I wanted to show off. I barely lasted 10 minutes when I called my dad to as permission to come back home.

I had to notify the school of my absence requested by father, which I did carry out. After that I immediately retreated to the comforts of my bed in the room and played on my phone, eventually going on YouTube much to my minds protest. You wouldn’t guess what I saw. No other than Jonghyun’s dino smiling face, where his eyes crinkled, his brown hair covering his forehead mounted on a bouquet of flowers and encased in a glass wooden photo frame. It was the beginning of Jonghyun’s public funeral. I really hate this about myself. I expose myself to these things, knowing that it is going to practically trample over my non-existent soul. Of course, I was prepared for the public funeral that was going to follow soon after- we unfortunately experienced that in 2014- but I wasn’t prepared of how soon it would be. It was organized so quickly that it took me off guard. It was another slap of reality to my face. It was like the world was mocking me saying “This isn’t a nightmare, idiot,”. I remember glancing over the title which was in Hangul and recognizing different groups. But I also remember thinking how stupid that was. Because it’s totally important which groups and individuals attended Jonghyun’s funeral. No matter how much I want to understand why that was done, I still can’t comprehend it. I’m struggling to believe that fans of certain groups would honestly be thinking ‘I want to see my bias cry over this tragedy, let me click this one’.

I stared at Jonghyun’s face in the thumbnail until my phone turned off. My phone has 10 minutes of inactivity timer until it turns off. Then, it seemed so quick but now, I realize how creepy it ing was if anyone decided to walk into my room. But I didn’t bother to turn my phone back on because I decided that I couldn’t face the video. Somehow I managed to pull myself to sleep.

I woke up sometime later feeling tired, but then again that was nothing out of the ordinary for me. My mind felt like it was having an out of body experience that at the time I sort of half expected myself to wake up from the dream (like inception) and it would be a cruel way of mind teaching me a life lesson to not take people in the world for granted. Or that Jonghyun would suddenly wake up wherever he was at the time and it would be some sort of miracle that workers in the hospital had gotten it wrong. He hadn’t really died and they thought he did. This kept playing through my mind like a mantra to the point that I think I convinced myself. But yet, I glanced at my phone and refused to turn it on. I suspect deep down, I knew that there are no way all my crazed theories and endings were true. I was scared that I would completely break down; the fake shell kept creating to shield myself from the reality would crumble way. So I found myself falling asleep as quickly as I awoke.

2 o’clock is when I finally woke back up and was scrolling through my phone, stupidly going back to YouTube, the cause of my grief. There was another video which has a thumbnail of Eunhyuk of Super Junior crying. I this was the one and only time I became angry with Jonghyun. Wondering, how could he do this? Couldn’t he not see that he was loved? How much he impacted everyone and how much of a whole he had left, which would never heal. I was being selfish then and judging him in that moment out of anger that he left us like this. I grew frustrated and decided that I was going to watch the public funeral and be done with it but something new appeared which shocked me slightly and pulled me out of my selfish state. An English translation of Jonghyun’s suicide letter. I then had a little mental argument with myself wondering why he would do such a thing, when all I had to was click the video and find out why. I guess I was trying to delay the time. So I did.

Let’s just say reading his letter was shockingly too close for comfort. Thoughts that would cross my mind every day, that I had trouble conveying to others without being reduced to a sobbing mess was printed in black and white on his letter. I just remember reading his letter and just nodding. There are many things that stuck with me from that letter. He talked about trying to pull his thoughts together and I agree. It’s like your memories, who you are as person is like icy cold water, and you’re trying to cup yours hands and contain it. For some, they can contain it but eventually It spills out but for others, it just helplessly runs through the grasps of the fingers.

Another thing that stuck out to me then and now was when he asked who was responsible for him. Him. What he says is true. No matter how many people show you support, you are responsible for yourself. In the beginning of your life, it’s you and at the end, it’s you alone. Only you can pull yourself out. But how do you pull yourself out when you’ve tried different ways for it to end up in failure each time? That you’ll never quite get there, that you’ll never quite achieve that of happiness. It becomes debilitating and at some point, you give up trying. But then again, I’m the most unmotivated you’ll ever meet and I’m probably just being pessimistic.

Now that I think about it, maybe I’m going about it all wrong. Instead of striving for happiness, strive for peace. There’s no guarantee that those pestering negative thoughts will completely vanish if you even manage to pull yourself out of that seemingly bottomless pit. I think instead of trying to achieve a state of happiness, aim for a state of peace with the inner turmoil because I think there’s a difference. I always wonder if Jonghyun had aimed for happiness, for things to go back the way it was or if he had hoped for peace with himself before he decided to take his life. These are things that we’ll never know.

Anyways, I then watched the public funeral of all the idols coming in and paying their respects but I don’t remember much of my reaction to the idols. It was unimportant to me as Jonghyun’s suicide letter constantly played through my mind. Occasionally, I wonder how long he planned this, how long ago was it when he made up his mind but I take that thought out of my head. I’m scared to know how long it possibly could have been.