[CONTENTID2] Chasing the Impossible [/CONTENTID2][CONTENTID1]Not important.

That phrase had been haunting his day and nights. Every hour of the goddamn day he would be reminded of the mere combination of those two words that made him hate them so much. Two words, talked by the wrong person, at the wrong timing, for the wrong situation. Everything kept pointing at how wrong this was and Luhan felt like he wanted something to lash out on, maybe bite on cold hard metal just to bring himself back to reality.

The first crack was when he grabbed the razor, the second when he slid it against his skin, the third when he watched the blood poor in small drops, falling from his sickly white skin—he hadn’t been under the sun for so long. There was satisfaction in the pain, but it was too little and he needed more, and the fourth crack was when the knuckles of his hand collided with the white wall. The fifth was when his bloodied hand punched the wall, blood falling in forms of droplets at the sudden movements.

The blood slid, the knuckles turned red, the pain was too much on both hands, and the white wall had traces of scarlet. But Luhan kept punching the wall and when his limps hurt too much to hit the concrete, Luhan took a step away.

Only then did he notice the tears pouring from his eyes, sliding down his face just like the blood kept sliding down his wrist, the inside of his hand and till the end of his fingers just to fall off from the tips. There was more satisfaction in this; the mental pain turned into physical, some sort of self-defense to keep his sanity intact.

Maybe he hadn’t been of the strongest out there. In fact, he wasn’t. He appeared tough, strong, confident. But, in reality, he was just a lost puppy in a desert trying to find its way back home. And he was lost. He was so lost that he could see the horizon like a never-ending sea, questions about where he was supposed to go and where he should go popped up but there was literally nothing to answer them. Because Luhan was too weak to decide for himself and he was too much of a fool to guide his own feet to safety.

He was in need of someone who could help him out. And who was better than his old dear friends, who had managed to help him through years and years already?

That Friday he had hopped on a train, putting on his earplugs and listening to music as the scenery flashed by him at high speed—that weekend would be spent at his hometown. It hadn’t taken much convincing for Luhan’s father to agree on a sleepover because the man had missed his son and Luhan was quickly in the first train to his home right after school ended for the day. He’d even downloaded a couple episodes of a random drama just for the sake of watching something—which he ended up not doing because he fell asleep after nights of uneasy sleep.

When he woke up, it was hours later and he was already nearing the station. He wondered if it was the apartment that he could not get a good night’s sleep because, weirdly enough, he had missed such deep slumber. Even if he had fallen asleep sitting in an uncomfortable chair and his neck was sore, it was still the best nap he’d had for a good while now.

The walk to his former house was not long and Luhan would have paid a visit to his best friend’s house, that was on his way there, if it wasn’t for the time being past ten in the night. However, as soon as he was at his house and after having greeted his father, talked about his news to him and got caught up in his father’s, he shut himself in his old room and picked up his phone. That night he sent out messages to all of his friends, asking for help which came as subtly as ever and just in a form of I’m back, let’s go out tomorrow.

The reply was fast; Welcome back! I know where we can go.

**

There was something in the scent of cigarette and the taste of alcohol that had made Luhan’s decisions a little bit edgy, risky even. But, because of those two same things, he couldn’t refuse the pure want for self-destruction, the need of self-punishment. He knew he deserved it for aiming too high in expectations only to bury himself face-first into the dirt.

Somehow, he had also lost track of his best friends when he wandered off and although he should be kind of worried, he couldn’t think of anything else but the slick tongue in his mouth.

There was this warmth that made Luhan’s body react funnily and his eyes had shut close and although he should be wondering how his non-existent flirting skills had actually affected the young woman, his mind was far away from that. Maybe she had just pitied him as he staggered his way towards her, whispering some slurred and a bit hyped words because next thing he knew, she’d pulled him by his hand away from the small yard in the fronts of the forest’s trees and guided him to the nearest small restroom.

Frankly, Luhan had followed, a bit shaken by the turn of events because goddamn it, this was not what he originally had in mind. While his heart kept screaming to go, to leave, that doing something further than placing a kiss on an unknown woman’s lips was already considered cheating, his brain only reminded him that there was no one he could cheat on in the first place. Before he could even wish to do that, he had not to be not important to that person he loved.

And Luhan let the woman guide him into the women’s restroom. In mere seconds the door was closed and their lips collided into heated kisses and, honestly, Luhan could feel himself become desperate. His hands clung on the woman’s sides, his body pushing into hers and as the heat of her body traveled to him, he could feel need pilling in him.

The need to forget.

The woman, her name something along the lines of Yejin, if tipsy Luhan remembered correctly enough, pushed him against the wall of the spacy restroom, the bricks aching against his back from the force. He couldn’t care less about where they were; a public restroom in a forest’s opening with hundreds of people celebrating a festival beyond its door. He forced the music away and the happy screams of outside, his senses taking in Yejin as if it was the only way he could hold onto his sanity for just a little longer. It probably was the only way.

However, his confident image broke down when he felt hands sliding down his chest, fingers reaching the waistband of his jeans and he froze. His hands grabbed on the woman’s, eyes opening and widening as he looked at her in shock. This was getting out of his control and he was starting to panic just the tiniest in his head.

“I-I’m…” His voice trailed off and the older woman glanced at him in question. The embarrassment was too much, much more than Luhan expected it to be after that amount of alcohol. “I haven’t… I’m a—“ He couldn’t say it, he shut his mouth closed and stared at her, wondering if it would be of an appropriate time to slip out of the restroom and join his friends who were who knows where.

The woman, though, smiled a little mischievously. “That’s okay,” She cooed, her voice low and inviting. Her hand slowly slid out of his grip and was placed back on his waistband. “I can always teach you, don’t be afraid,” Her fingers pulled on his belt, slowly undoing it and Luhan felt his heart pump faster because, honestly, he expected her to laugh in his face. He had been acting like a dog in heat and she was still willing to keep him legit in her book.

“It’ll be fun.”

It wasn’t.

At every touch Luhan’s nerves would tense and images would flick behind his closed eyelids, flashing brightly in contrast with the pure black and he felt almost sick from the dizziness. So, he kept his eyes open when he could; that way postponing the appearance of those images, the images of a round face with a gummy smile and big beautiful eyes. But when the brunette did not appear in front of his eyes, a voice kept whispering into his ears about how wrong this was, to use someone just because you suffered mentally due to someone else. It was sick and Luhan knew it, but he couldn’t reject yet another chance of moving past Minseok. Maybe, when this would be over, Luhan would think back and feel more regret in doing this than loving someone like Minseok.

The caresses were soft and gentle and Luhan kept shaking his head once in a while when unwanted images would pop up. And as much of a he was, he knew what he was supposed to do, and he couldn’t. His eyes were unfocused and his body did not react well and it was him who gave up in the end, tears pooling in his eyes when he felt more like garbage. His chance was lost and he was left humiliated in front of the elder woman who let go of him and pulled her own clothes over her body. There was some accusation, some awkwardness, a little bit of regret, and much of guilt over them in the spacy restroom and Luhan had to build his lost dignity from scratch just to apologize to the woman for making things turn out like this.

“Don’t worry, it happens,” the woman waved his apology away and Luhan felt more hurt. Honestly, he would prefer it if she just accepted it and did not answer at all. “How old are you anyway?”

Luhan bit on his bottom lip, talking with a slightly muffled voice, “Sixteen.”

Yejin shot him a wide-eyed look. “That’s much younger than I expected, even with a face like yours,” Luhan tried to smile it off, he couldn’t. It probably turned out into a grimace because the woman’s eyes looked away in sudden shame. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it the bad way.”

In Luhan’s opinion, there was no bad and good way in what she said, he wasn’t this shaken by that to begin with. At the moment, he just wanted to take a shovel and dig his own grave just to see whether that would help him forget. Most likely not. He’d be left to think of Minseok every time he closed his eyes and if he fell dead, he’s be lost in an illusion of the brunette for eternity, until his soul wore off because of the passing centuries. He’d think of him till the end of time, every second, minute, till the world came to a stop.

Only then did it hit him that to forget, he had to do something more than this. He had to destroy his insides before he could make himself fade. He had to kill himself inside out so that he would be able to at least glimpse at the calmness and peace he was frantically aiming for.

That was the reason he was found over the toilet bowl throwing everything out the next days. He had taken a break from eating, he hadn’t put anything but water and maybe a bit orange juice the past few days, and he’d also force himself to vomit every night. Tears would stream his face the night but the break of the new day would find him sipping a can of beer and smoking cigarettes, one after the other. He was fuming like a chimney and his clothes stank of the smoke so much that he wondered if his classmates would suffocate because of him in the short future.

But, he wouldn’t even try to deny it, there was something so, so satisfying in destroying his body and soul. There was something that made him calmer, content even, when his body would feel too heavy and his breath would hitch at just a couple meters walked and how his stomach ate away its walls in hunger. After the third day, the hunger stopped.

The second weekend Luhan visited his father, he was met with a side of him which was so lethargic that he had no want to even greet his father. He had just nodded at him, hearing him go on and on about how he was happy to have his son back again and how he missed him and his mother. He hadn’t even reacted when his father placed a hand on his back, patting him and telling him how one had heard from someone who had seen him and that woman, Yejin, leave together towards the restrooms during that festival. Luhan spared no emotion whatsoever about the matter, he just stared ahead, the feeling of embarrassment raising under his skin when his father exclaimed something about his little son not being that little anymore. Luhan was listening, but chose not to reply. Actually, he didn’t want to, he felt too tired.

That was what he had been feeling for so long; tired. Tired of chasing after Minseok, tired of fighting with his mother, tired of living in a city he hated, tired of being away from the most important people in his life. He was just tired of everything, he was just tired of living. Breathing alone took so much energy from him and he wondered how good it’d feel when he wouldn’t have to do that anymore.

How would that kitchen knife feel propped in his guts?

Luhan’s wet eyes stared at the knife as if it was the first time he’d seen something like this, as if he was a baby not allowed to touch something like that in case he hurt himself. It was something fascinating about the thin tip and the side that could cut through food. There was something that made it look so peaceful, as if it was the ticket to the heaven he was searching so desperately for—not the heaven most people wished to end up in when dead, it was his own heaven that would take away worries and both mental and physical pain, one that would let him close his eyes and welcome a peaceful sleep without being reminded of everything that was going wrong in his life.

The knife felt heavy in his hand, the weak grip on it allowed it to tilt slightly with the tip pointing the floor. It fit his ho