A/n: It’s in first person.

Warnings: Mentions of Character Death [[suicide, depression]]

I knew him.

Short. Brown hair.

But did I know him? Probably not.

He was that one kid that rarely showed up at the lounge meetings. He was always seen taking food to his room and then never seen again for the rest of the day. Quiet. Reserved. He had roommates. I think. I don’t know if he talked to them either.

The news was delivered through email. Words. Lines. Sentences. Paragraphs.

I don’t know if anyone else cried.

We sat in the lounge the evening after in silence. No one had words to say. No one knew him much beyond the occasional “hi” as they passed him in the halls. Short. Brown hair. Soft voice.

I like to say I knew him. I could tell him by his voice as he sang in the shower. His muddy shoes were obviously pointed out from the end of the hall.

He wasn’t someone people paid much attention to. I don’t know if he really had any friends.

In the lounge, we were supposed to talk about him. Talk about school. Encouragement. Community. How to stay away from suicide. How not to follow the road he did.

But no one had anything to say.

I’m not sure why, but when I returned to my room, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling for minutes in silence. It took a while for Jongdae to sit on the side of my bed and poke at my leg too.

Crazy, huh?

What?

He’s actually gone.

They weren’t tears, I protested when Jongdae quietly asked.

He was gone, but to everyone else, it felt the same.

It wasn’t the same to me though.

I had wanted to talk to him. Last week, I wanted to talk to him. To ask for his number. To send him a text to hang out some day or sit around and drink coffee. I wanted to make him feel more at home. Wanted to tell him that school will be alright. That his future will be alright. That we could be alright.

But he was gone now.

And I didn’t know him.

And he didn’t know me.

But they found a letter in his room. One crumbled like trash, the words worn with time.

Addressed to me.

Park Chanyeol - I want to know you better.

There were scribbles on the letter. Words crossed out as though he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to.

So…

My name is Chanyeol. Park is my surname, but I think it’s too common. I’m a second year, just like he was. Same dorm. Hall. Just a few doors down. Hair color, black. I like basketball and punk rock sometimes, though I think I like the sound of his voice singing anything to be honest. Favorite thing to do is hang out with friends in the lobby of building 7 or build some stuff with the Mech E kids in the Quad. I’m not scared of heights, but I’ll refuse to take a plane anywhere anyways. I like chocolate chip cookies the most, and I think physics is my least favorite subject. That’s okay. I wanted to be an artist anyway.

I read about your death through just some words on a screen. But I know you couldn’t have been that one dimensional.

Byun Baekhyun, I hope you’re reading this somewhere too.

This is me.

You know me now too.

I wish you wouldn’t have acted like a stranger.

We could have been friends.

I could have stopped you.

********

A/n: I’m sorry.

A lot of stuff has been happening this week and this is the only way to get my feelings out I think. I’m just feeling a lot of awful things and I don’t want to pretend it’s okay anymore. I don’t want to romanticize it, and I don’t want to pretend they’re not there, I just… so I wrote it.

Please excuse me.