~A Few Months Later~

Sunhi’s POV

            I guess you could say that I’ve figured out the majority of problems that had thrown me off just a few months ago.

            Everybody had assumed I’d just become very sick for two weeks before coming back to school. They noticed that I didn’t smile at all anymore when I returned, but didn’t question it. Everything went back to its normal flow of things, with everyone trying to get a smile out of me every once in a while.

            Mitsuki had figured out what happened and somehow, I started to trust her more, talking more often to her about what happened to me from just a bit before I moved until after I tried to kill myself again. She was blunt, telling me that it was stupid to do something like that. But she offered me a shoulder to lean on. She’d basically… taken Kai’s place in my life, listening to me, talking everything through with me. Yet, she understood me so much better than Kai. I guess you could say it was for the better. I’m not sure if it was. But maybe that’s just the perspective of things.

            Slowly, I got out of my rut of depression. Mitsuki, as well as all of my other friends, pulled me out of the deep ocean and revived me. Mitsuki told me that I’d always have to fight the urge to cut. But she also said that it gets easier. And that kept me going.

            I may have cut a few times after my suicide attempt, but after a while, it all stopped. It didn’t feel as necessary. Of course, nobody else knew about my depression, though I think some of the girls might have discovered it along the way. But it never threw them off. They never stopped staying by my side. And I realized that there are people in this world who care for me.

            For some reason, though… something stopped me from achieving a normal level of happiness. You know, the normal amount of happiness you should feel, if you weren’t depression driven, or even if you’d once been and recovered. There was still a side of me that strived to come out and overcome the bits of happiness I got along the way of slowly recovering. It wanted me to go back to cutting and becoming depressed. It wanted to push me back under the waves.

            Maybe it was because I hadn’t spoken to Kai since that day in the hospital. He would give small glances to me, but there was never a smile anymore. There was no happy glint in his eyes. I never heard his voice again unless he was talking in class or to someone else. I couldn’t stop feeling guilty over pushing him away. He used to be close to me. Now, he’s miles and miles away, and I can’t even imagine how to get closer to him again.

            There was a part of me that said I had completely fallen for him. But there was another that said it was nothing but a stupid infatuation that would go away with time. I didn’t know which to believe. And that didn’t help me at all in trying to talk to him again.

            So those are two problems I never solved. I could never fix my mistakes with Kai. I never managed to at all. And I never managed to figure out whether I had fallen in love with him or not.

            Thinking that this would help, when Sehun confessed to me a month before graduation, and asked for me to be his girlfriend, I accepted. I thought that, perhaps he would help me straighten out my feelings for Kai. He would make me forget about my mixed feelings for Kai. And perhaps, I would grow to like Sehun back. I didn’t know whether it was the right decision or not, but I accepted.

            And in the course of confusing things, new relationships popped up everywhere. During the weeks I was absent, Victoria had finally given in to Tao and went on a date with him. By the time I got back, Victoria fell for Tao easily and the two started a relationship that Luna dubbed as the cutest thing she’d ever seen.

            Around the time when I started smiling just a bit again, Sulli managed to confess to Luhan, surprising everyone. We all assumed that Luhan would confess first. Luhan was stunned but, right after her confession, he asked her to be his girlfriend. The two of them never stopped blushing around each other, and it’s almost as if nothing has changed between them except for the knowledge of each others’ feelings. All of EXO continuously teased Luhan, and the girls took the job of teasing Sulli.

            Just the other day, Mitsuki had come running towards me and replayed what she called “the best moment of her life” to me. She’d been on her way to the music room when she heard Kris rapping in the room right next door. When she walked in, Kris dropped his mic and the room rang with that awful sound that sent them both cringing to the corners of the room. He apologized and picked up the microphone, placing it carefully on his music stand. They’d awkwardly stood in front of each other until they spoke at the same time, Kris telling her to speak first. Mitsuki asked whom he wrote the rap for, because she’d heard a few lines of it already. He blushed and muttered something quietly that she couldn’t hear at all. After a few minutes of refusing, he blurted out her name and she blushed even harder than he did.

            Of course, it was too soon for them to even get into a relationship, for they’d only known each other for a few months. But everyone suspected they would get into one eventually, so there was no worry for the two of them.

            The whole while, Amber, Suho, and a few others would come and talk about Kai with me. He didn’t speak a lot any more, and his old self was only seen in his dancing. It was as if his happiness transferred to me. It wasn’t something I wanted. Not at all. And I wish I could fix it. But I didn’t know how to. I don’t know how to. He wasn’t depressed. That’s at least what Mitsuki told me when I asked her about it. She would probably be a better judge of it, so I believed her. She said he would be in a slump for a while. I knew I couldn’t leave him like that when he’d helped me. But like I said… I had no idea what to do.

            Sehun often tried to keep my mind off of Kai, striving for my attention. I appealed to him, just because I also wanted to keep my mind off of Kai. It was why I accepted his confession and request to be his girlfriend. To… forget why Kai troubled my thoughts so often.

            “Sunhi! You’re gonna be late if you don’t get down here now!” shouted Amber. She was walking with me to school for our graduation.

            “Coming!” I glanced myself in the mirror and tried not to frown. It was our last day, with everyone together. My last day seeing Kai before going off to college. And my heart ached at that thought.

            My hair finally grew out to a somewhat normal length, but I had to cut a few inches off to even everything out as a final result. Brushing my hair from my face, it only reminded me of Kai, his hand brushing away stray strands.

            I shook my head to clear my thoughts and ran downstairs, almost slamming into Amber as she was coming up, probably to drag me out of my room.

            “Oh, you two look so nice! I’m going to have to take so many pictures today!” said my mom, swinging the strap of her camera over her shoulder. “You guys hurry and go! I’ll see you at the graduation.” She hugged both of us and sent us out the door and into the warm, early summer weather.

            “Can’t believe we’re graduating… We’re hanging out over the summer!” said Amber, tilting her head back to bask in the sunlight. Her spontaneous declarations always seemed very humorous.

            I nodded in reply. “Of course… Are you looking forward to going to college?”

            “I guess… It helps that a bunch of the group are going to the same place as me. It’ll be kinda like high school. What about you? You and Sehun are going together right?”

            “Yeah…” We were going to the same college, but I was majoring in visual arts while he was majoring in dance. “It will be nice.”

            A small frown appeared on her face. “What about Kai?”

            “What about him…?”

            “You won’t miss him?”

            I struggled to keep a smile on my face. “I’ll miss everyone.”

            Amber sighed but smiled. “Right.”

            The rest of the walk was quiet until we met Mitsuki on our way. She always managed to lift the mood of things. And it was nice to feel a bit happy today.

            “I have a feeling there’s gonna be a ton of water works! Hope they have umbrellas…” she teased, laughing afterwards.

            And it was true. There would be a lot of crying. I wouldn’t be surprised.

            High school was ending… And we were leaving behind a lot of memories.

            Like Amber said, a bunch of the group was attending the same college as her. Luna, Suho, Kris, Mitsuki, Baekhyun, Xiumin, Sulli, Chen, D.O., and Kai. Luhan, Victoria, and Tao were going back to China for college, with Luhan promising Sulli that he would visit her often, and vice versa. Chanyeol, Krystal, and Lay were going to the same college, while Sehun and I were heading off to another college.

            We were pretty split up, but I knew that everyone would try to stay in contact. It would work out well because of our strong bonds to each other. But it would still be different. Everything would be slightly different. We couldn’t change that, but we could sure try to figure out a way around it.

. . .

            After everyone tossed our caps up, we cried. Almost everyone cried. If you look at the graduation pictures that parents took, almost every person was crying, tears streaming down their smiling faces.

            All of the guys from EXO crowded around us seven girls and we took a huge picture, with all of the parents quickly snapping shots before we got too impatient and walked off. The parents were crying as well, hugging their children tight, sad that they would be leaving home for college soon.

            “My little Sunhi’s grown up so much. I remember your first day of pre-school like it was yesterday! You were crying a lot,” said my mom, tearing up. “But now look at you. I’m so proud of you!” She hugged me tight again.

            I wasn’t crying, but I felt as if I might soon. “Thanks mom…” When I pulled away, I looked around and saw that all of my friends were busy with their parents. “Can I go and look around the school one more time?”

            My mom nodded. “Of course! Would you like me to wait and drive you home?”

            I shook my head. “I’ll walk home. Thanks.”

            “Alright. Stay safe.”

            I nodded once before she let go of my shoulders and walked off to talk to some of the other parents. Before any of the others noticed, I slipped out of the crowd, and headed towards the main building.

            There were so many memories here… I couldn’t bear to let them all go. It felt too difficult. Despite the short amount of time I was here, it felt like I had been attending this school for ages.

            I walked into my homeroom class and sat down in my usual spot, remembering the first day of school when Sehun and Kai came to talk to me. Kai left an awful impression. But that only made me smile. And thus remember all those times he passed notes to me, talked to me until the teacher yelled at him, every smile he ever sent me. Quickly, I stood up and walked out. Every memory in there… only the ones with Kai stood out.

            I tried to focus on other memories, like of the first time I met Sulli. Walking out to the tree and sitting down, I remembered how awkward it was at first. But regardless, she stuck by my side. And introduced me to Krystal, Victoria, Amber, and Luna. From there, things seemed to progress well. Disregarding that bump in the road a few months ago… everything went uphill when I met them all.

            After sitting for a few minutes, I stood up, walking back into the building. I passed by my locker and remembered the time Kai slammed into me in the hallways. That’s what started our friendship… Our growing relationship. I never would have imagined that we’d become good friends. And then, I never imagined that we would separate like we have.

            An awful feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach and I pushed passed my locker, trying to shake it away, but my legs only carried to the last place I could’ve possibly wanted to go: the dance studio.

            Just the sight of it made me want to cry. I stopped right outside of the door, too afraid to walk in. A rush of memories came towards me, like a tidal wave, and nearly drowned me.

            “Guess you had the same idea as me…”

            I turned around and nearly stumbled back. Kai was walking towards me, still in his graduation gown, but ped so his suit was visible.

            “K-Kai.”

            He walked forward till he stood next to me, staring at the door of the dance studio. “Let’s go in for a minute,” he muttered, heading in.

            I hesitated. This was the first time he’s spoken to me in months. And it was here at the dance studio… where everything began. Perhaps… just going in once won’t hurt me. So that we can maybe end things where it all started. Make a clean finish. Yet, the thought only made my heart ache.

            By the time I was inside, he’d taken off his gown and tie, walking towards the stereo and plugging in his phone.

            I slumped down against the wall, sitting where I’d always sat. Kai’s eyes didn’t even flicker to me, but the music started and he walked to the center of the dance studio. There was no usual warm up. There was only the abrupt starting of his dancing. And immediately, I was brought back into the memories we made over the past year. The first day we met. The first time I found the dance studio. The many times I returned. When he found out about my secret. When we started talking more often. The notes that we passed to each other. Everything… And I could feel tears start to drip slowly from the corners of my eyes. They continued falling, though at a slow pace, and I didn’t do anything to stop them.

            Minutes passed, and he stopped dancing all too soon. He grabbed his phone and picked up his discarded gown and tie. Walking towards me, he hesitantly and slowly knelt down, bringing a hand forward to brush away my tears.

            His eyes were a whirlpool of emotions that flickered in and out too quickly for me to see. But he made eye contact with me, and I was finally able to look into those dark, brown eyes one more time.

            I could barely breathe, with the distance between us physically, and gradually growing smaller. He leaned forward and his lips met mine for a few seconds. There was a spark that I had never felt with Sehun. The kiss was short, but the spark was there. Perhaps even to Kai. But he pulled away quickly.

            “Sorry, Sunhi.”

            Before I could react or snap out of my small reverie, he walked out. And I was left with the same, upsetting feeling in the pit of my stomach, tears falling down from my eyes even faster.

. . .

            When I look back to the beginning of the year, it was probably one of the darkest times of my life, as well as my sudden meltdown in the middle of the year. But there were glimpses of light throughout the way. And those glimpses turned into flashes. Those flashes eventually turned into blasts. And those blasts lasted and survived.

            Perhaps the brightest light was Kai. He… He was the one responsible for my uphill progress. The one who started it all.

            And not only him, but also everyone else helped. They contributed. Never in my life did I think there were people like them out there, who would care for me as they did. I was proven wrong.

            Maybe I’ve lost my brightest light, my brightest light that was always there for me. He’s gone from my life now. But the impact he left will never disappear.

            I have some regrets, but I was bound to. My life has improved drastically, albeit imperfect. But life is never perfect.

            Once, I was a girl who wanted death. I’m still struggling now, but I know that the girl I was just a few months ago no longer exists as prominently.

            In my world that is almost filled with light now, there’s one dimmer spot where Kai once was. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fill it again with the beautiful, pure brightness that was once there. Maybe Sehun can help to brighten the dimness a bit. But deep in my heart, I know it won’t be the same.

~The End~

And this is the conclusion to "The Girl Who Wants Death".

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