AUTHORS NOTE: THIS FANFICTION CONTAINS SUICIDAL THEMES. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE OR SENSITIVE WHEN READING ABOUT IT THEN I ADVISE YOU DON'T READ THIS.

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In a seaside town, in an area which hosts a busy high street is an alleyway. Bricked walls enclose it and shadows claim the ground before it finally opens out into a yard. Most people walk straight on by it, eager to snatch clothes from rails and clamouring to hand over coins for materialistic items. Yes, for the vast majority of time it exists ignored, playing host to precious little footsteps and precious less attention.

A man works inside. A man less known that the alleyway and less known than the dark that lives there. He works in a shop hidden from the world and he works alone in loneliness. However, one day that changes, and that is the day two opposites meet.

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Minseok was bored. He came to work every day, worked his hours, and then some, and left; carefully locking up with the same damn rusted keys and then doing it all again, save for two days a week.

Blowing glass was fun, sure. Seeing those shapes erupt with such a simple breath, twisting fingers to make swans, dogs, ballerinas appear in liquid sand as hot as fire like burning gold was nothing short of wondrous to him, and he always had a soft love in his heart whenever he did it. But lately his love hadn’t been selling. His debt was piling and his apartment had a lot less stuff than he wanted, hell, even than he needed.

The rusted doors to the studio banged shut under his palm, and he shivered as brown flecks glided down to the inside of his jacket. Like a second skin he could feel the shop start to envelope him and he hated it. Being coated in failure- living in failure- he’d endured everything.

‘I’ve had enough.’

Every other time before he’d stopped himself- thought about the future, who he’d leave behind, how selfish it would be to end it all. This was the night he was going to be as ing selfish as he wanted to be. He’d lived his life not being a burden and ended up chasing a passion only to see it literally blow up in his face. He had little else other than a microwave and a bed. His parents had gradually decreased the contact they had with him, favouring other more successful offspring and his family had effectively disowned him.

A couple of years back he had had an apprentice- ‘Luhan was his name, wasn’t it?’

 Smart bastard had got out fast- leaving him after a couple of weeks with a fleeting smile and a large shadow to fill beside his furnace. Somehow Minseok found his heart couldn’t forget the company of someone beside him to share a smile as he threaded colour through glass. He felt so crushingly alone.

His feet had started walking, powered by a lonely, regretful and angry heart. He drew up the small collar of his leather jacket against the wind, feeling the pulses of the overalls underneath the thick material clutter together in the wind against his skin. His hair stiffly stood against the wind- red, orange and flashing yellow. He was becoming the molten flames he worked with.

Jongdae was lost. No idea where the hell he was.

‘Dammit. How does this always happen?’

He was picking his way through the endless lanes, happened across a sliver of tarmac in the moonlight and decided to take his chances and go with it.

Facing a bend in the road he went with his gut and stuck to the left. He was rewarded with yet another menacing path and sighed.

A faint hum came to his ears and they pricked up in anticipation. His eyes watered in the rough winds that swept through the trees and cruelly snapped at him. He’d never much liked autumn and had often found that the season returned the favour. He kept up a fast pace he started running on his toes as he moved faster and faster.

The erratic humming grew clearer and clearer and he was rewarded by a dual carriageway visible from behind a fence, complete with a footbridge to make his way across.

‘Jackpot!’

He wandered along the fence, trying to make out its shape in the moonlight and wincing as his knees clipped some nettles, stinging him straight through the flimsy material of his charcoal skinny jeans. He figured there’d was a reason why they’d been cheap.

He found the entrance to the footbridge and eagerly made his way up, nearly tripping over a step and cursing.

He made the rest of the way up until he was at the top of the bridge, high enough that the wind howled and tried to scream its way into his bones. Reminding himself that he lacked a fear of heights- although he was always unsure- he examined his feet. For some reason seeing the occasional car slip below them didn’t really help. He looked out across the dual carriageway, hosting a few stragglers or businessmen in their cars, eager to make their way home, and he looked at the lights. Honeyed light poured down and pooled at their bases, allowing the tinned vehicles to slip through the night unharmed, passing between each island in the dark.

He’d always had a weird fascination with things like that.

Turning his head to see what lay in the other direction Jongdae caught a glimpse of a rather tall figure. It was about two feet too tall.

‘Huh that’s weird why’s he-‘

Jongdae’s brain processed just why the figure was standing and his blood froze.

Stood on the handrail, the figure had hair that seemed like a flame caught in time, and when the wind shook it it seemed to resent the movement imposed upon it. His arms hung loosely by his sides but there was real power in them, and the same power was evident in his small thighs and defiantly spread feet. The wind knocked into him repeatedly, making his oversized and faintly blue clothes slip from behind a dark jacket to reveal his slender frame. Despite the onslaught of wind he stood firm.

His eyes were shining like embers, closely examining the road far, far below, before they closed and Jongdae had just enough time to scream out-

“Don’t do it!!!”

Minseok’s feet had wandered him over to the bridge. He found it kind of funny that this was the way he was going to go.

He’d never thought he was suicidal before- he’d just really thought about how to do it.

He thought about the train tracks he had discovered one day when he accidently left too much time to get to work ( of course he wasn’t working at the shop at the time) and he had found a wasteland complete with a railway entirely by accident.

 He was surprised to see the speed of the trains and, even then, his brain thought what it would be like to be decapitated there.

‘ Would you slice the torso or head in half? Would he be electrocuted beforehand? Was he tall enough to fit across both tracks?’

These thoughts spun themselves through his brain shortly before a train shot past. Mesmerised, he let his eyes fall out of focus and let the carriages blur together in one rush of movement that ended all too soon with a breeze that snapped his eyes back into function.

He’d walked to work slowly after that.

Minseok had frequented the bridge a long time ago and thought that even then he could throw himself from it to die.

He’d never seen it in the dark and for some reason wanted to so he’d decided to come up to the overpass late at night. He had liked what he saw and thought if he was going to finally end it all he might as well do it in a place where other people were less likely to get hurt and that he actually liked.

He made his way up the steps with his mind adrift and felt the cold mid-autumn wind start to bite into his cheeks, trying to rip the warmth out and toss it into the currents that tore down the carriageway.

He noticed the bridge had been refurbished. It for some reason seemed mildly funny and brought a ghost of a smile to cracked lips. Black railings now lined the ramps and new surface made it easier for his shoes to grip. He thought that it was a nice touch.

He’d got to the top of his side of steps, just where a support seemed to fall from the bridge into the ground, and he stood experiencing the thrill of it all. His heart was beating and he could feel proper air make its way into his lungs.

 ‘For the first time in ing weeks proper air.’

Somehow it felt cleaner and lighter than the smoke tainted crap his lungs hauled in every day. He spread his arms wide like they do in films and felt free, felt sparks gather at his fingertips and blood rush through his muscles as he expanded himself to as far as he could go; finally breaking from a slouch that had gathered in his bones over the years from bitter disappointment and hollowed expectations.

Sauntering over to the railings that were over chest height he lined himself up with the middle of the second carriageway, making sure the grassy verge was to his left and that he would stand where he imagined himself doing so all the way back at the shop.

‘God this is exhilarating, now, isn’t it?’

He hauled himself up onto the railing, noting how thick it was at the top, giving his shoes lots of purchase so he would quite literally have to step off to fall.

He thought it was hysterically funny that he was in the darkness between two of the lights and let out a laugh that was whipped away by the wind.

‘Even now I’m in shadow… ‘

The beginnings of the city centre were visible to his back: tower blocks and buildings throwing light up to the occasional passing cloud, only visible by its ghostly appearance due to the moon and peculiar orange colour from the light pollution of thousands of street lamps. But the direction he was facing was home to the beginnings of motorways and the collective shadow of the forest oppressively seemed to judge him from afar.

He let all of his sorrow and anger start to build up as the wind ruthlessly tore at him, trying to cut him down. He tensed his shoulders and muscles and let years and years of stress coil him like a spring. He thought nothing but let his heart do the feeling.

As he closed his eyes and let relief wash over him like the cold ocean in the heat of summer, let everything fade and collapse and moved forward so much so that he could already feel the falling and it felt sad but good but-

“Don’t do it!!!”

A scream rang out, bouncing along the trees and piercingly shrill in the calm night.