I hate the word 'why'. I hate the word more than I hate myself.

'Why' is the only thing holding me back from the answers which I need so so so desperately, yet I stil build myself upon it every single lonely day. 'Why' is the word that starts all of my questions; 'why' is the reason for all of my pain. All I can ever ask now is 'why'. As I stare at the torn leather couch beneath my bare, calloused feet, I start to use that stupid word again and let stupid questions pop into my stupid head one by one until there's a spiral of words spinning violently around my stupid head, whirling so fast that I can almost feel their insanity, feel the questions fighting, wanting, dying to be answered. Silently, mentally, soothingly, I comfort the questions despite the pain and tell them that I want the 'why's' to be answered almost as bad as they do. I've talked to my questions before; they're the only thing that keeps me company nowadays.

God, what have I done to myself? 

Out of my tornado of questions, the words "Why is the clock's hands spinning so fast?" pop up first. For the first time in a long time, I answer one - time no longer cares about me and has decided that it no longer needs to waste its precious hours, minutes, seconds on a girl who is simply frozen in time.

Next.

Another chain of words begin to form and pulls itself away from my self-made vortex, spelling out "Why is this place so filthy?" which makes me raise an eyebrow at the words. I let out a silent laugh; I've been so caught up in my own thoughts today that I haven't even noticed the things surrounding me. Sighing, I push the curtain of blond hair away from my face and lift my brown eyes up to stare at my tiny apartment of three years.

I know I haven't taken care of my home very well for the past year. It barely resembles the space that I bought three years ago. Although the walls are still their bright white, they no longer shine like they used to and no longer bathe the vicinity in light. Rather the opposite, actually. Shifting my eyes to the left, I skim over a month's worth of dirty blankets, half empty beer bottles, and broken picture frames to settle on the wooden door, the exit to my madness. I haven't opened that door in three years. I haven't seen the outside world in three years; the bright green of leaves, the feel of a summer breeze on my cheeks, the soft pitter patter of raindrops have all left my memory and all I'm left with is the oh so familiar red of pain. I'm left numb only with the sensation of my shallow breaths, entering and exiting my mouth.

I really don't remember anything anymore.

Closing my eyes, I decide to quiet my tornado of questions, words, and pain. Two questions are enough to tire me out and I lean back on my ratty leather couch, ready to sink into its cushion to take yet another nap; I've lost count of how many I've already had throughout the day. Besides, my blank memory won't be able to answer the rest of my questions. Questions like "Why aren't you getting up?", "Why can't I remember anything?", and "Why do I talk to myself?" whirl down the drain until I can only feel emptiness again. 

I pretend that I never asked the last two.

As I start to drift into my dreams, I begin to remember. My brain already is reeling from the pain of asking too many questions that draw up too many blanks and the only way to get rid of the pain is to try to remember. I always try to fish out a sliver of a memory from my mind, but it's nearly impossible. I must've trained myself to forget all the good and bad things before the accident because, once again, I come up short. Every time I come up short, all I can ever pull out of my black hole is pain, light, and two brown eyes.

The only thing worse than forgetting is remembering. Which is why I'm afraid of remembering the past. Of course I want to know why I can no longer move breathe live like I used to before the accident, but if the past is what led me to my downfall, then what good is it to try to bring up memories of it? Why is it that those two chocolate brown eyes haunt my dreams every night? Why do those eyes seem so familiar, yet the meaning is somewhere out of my grasp? Why does my heart ache whenever I see the pair hover before my eyelids? Why do I feel so alone?

Why do I still try to remember everyday, even when it hurts?

Why do I still try to forget everyday, even when it hurts? 

Ugh. That stupid word again.

¿

My loneliness always eats away at my memories, but it fails to eat away at my appetite. And so, I awake to the sound of my growling stomach.

The muscles in my body groan as I struggle to lift one foot up off the couch and it hits the floor with an explosion of pins and needles crawling up my leg. Like an old computer, I wince as everything in my body is kicked into gear and reboots at the speed of each one of my steps. Gradually, one limb after the other, I find myself standing, my back aching and my stomach still growling. I'm in pain, but I'm ignoring the fact that this is the least amount of pain I've felt all day. 

I find that I'm too preoccupied in my own thoughts to even control my body anymore, so I let my body take me where it wants to go. In my stomach's case, it tells my feet to pad towards the kitchen and tells my eyes to stare straight ahead, do not pay attention to the dust mites tickling the tip of the nose. My body ignores the cobwebs collecting in the corner of the pantry and the black, flimsy garbage bag already filled to the brim with empty ramen packets and a year's worth of beer cans. My body ignores the cold feeling at the edge of my fingertips and wraps them around the handle of the refrigerator, using every fiber in my being to pull it open.

My body doesn't ignore the lack of food laying on the shelves, however. My stomach growls in protest.

By my stomach's command, fifteen and a half steps later, I'm standing in front of the unopened wooden door. I stop my fingers from opening it.

'Why is it that I haven't opened up this door in so long?' a vague question asks me, appearing from the depths of my mind.

It takes me a while to answer this. 

Outside of this wooden door, there is a world that I haven't seen in three years. I know that it's waiting and I know that I want to see everything that's changed while I've been gone. I want to know if they ever reopened my favorite pizza place downtown. I want to know if there are any new gardens planted on the windowsills of my neighbors, or if I even have any neighbors. Did they move away? Is anyone visiting their relatives? Do they still hope that I'm alive? Do they know that I'm still here? Is anybody still there?

But I know better.

Nothing nobody no one is waiting for me outside of that wooden door. The world that I have not seen in three years has passed me by just like my memories. It changed, yes, but has tossed me aside like garbage; like I'm garbage. My neighbors are probably wondering what's on the news lately or the latest happening in pop culture; maybe they think that nobody lives here anymore. Everyone is already done waiting for me. Why would anyone want to remember a girl who has already forgotten?

Like the fool I am, though, my body still makes me put my shoes on and step outside.

I blink as my eyes adjust to this unfamiliar territory which pales in comparison to the brown couch I sat on for the last three years. The sky is a deep blue tinged with grey and plays as the perfect backdrop against the dark green of the trees below my apartment balcony. The warm yet crisp breeze strikes me across my cheek as if it is punishing me for even thinking I could enjoy its presence again, which I don't blame. The sound of local traffic and cars slowly moving alert me from my right and when I turn in that direction, green, red, and yellow lights dot the horizon. As I breathe in the scent of rain drops and pine needles, I bask in this euphoria and I fill my brain up with all of these newfound sensations and memories. I still grimace, though. This want for memories, memories, and more memories is selfish of me. My mind thinks it's unnecessary to want something that I don't even deserve and I shrink back from the new world in response. As my back touches my apartment door, suddenly, my boring, wooden door that has been opened after three years looks so tempting. I realize with itching fingers and a beating heart that I could - and can - turn that doorknob again and retreat back into my solitude and its darkness again. It would be so... easy.

My body betrays me again, however, and forces my feet to walk towards what I have always feared the most - what is outside my own limits.

¿

I haven't been to a convenience store in three years.

It seems so ridiculous as I repeat this statement over and over in my mind. For most people, this is just a normal routine. To go out and buy a few packs of ramen is second nature for people who live outside of my apartment. But, for the abnormal me, it's so unusual to me that the customers at the register stare when I wince at the bright fluorescent lights shining above me. I'm almost frightened by the ungodly amount of normalcy surrounding me.

My growling stomach reminds me what I've come here for. Absentmindedly, my feet wander towards the ramen aisle and I find something strangely satisfying seeing how every ramen cup is lined up perfectly and paired with other cups that look identical to it and how it creates square after square of stacked ramen cups. I take in the perfection, the neatness of it all. I know it sounds so weird in my head, but I guess I just can't get used to it when I've just been living within a mess ever since the accident. I've been anything but perfect for the last three years.

As I pick up a flaming red ramen cup - it's the spiciest, but it's the only one that catches my eye - and slap it down in front of the register along with whatever money I find stuffed in my pocket, I can't seem to shake off the feeling of someone staring at me. If there's one thing that I hate about the people who live outside my apartment is that they judge whenever they want to. It scares me, how easily they can enter your brain with just a glare. The eyes follow me as I fill up my ramen cup with hot water; they pierce my skull and follow every single one of my body movements as I sit down on a stool with a ripped foam seat and stir the steaming noodles with my chopsticks.

With each passing second, I can't stop an image of two brown eyes forming in my mind, those haunting brown eyes following looking staring from afar and I hate hate hate it. My eyes dart around wildly trying to find the culprit; I can feel myself slowly going insane again. The sense of normalcy I once had is quickly stripped away and I whip around in my seat, silently begging the pair of brown eyes to stop looking me stop judging me stop stop stop please I beg you stop it now --

Then, suddenly, I find the eyes and it all

stops.

For a few moments, I just search the eyes that have silently looked at me from afar. The resemblance to the eyes that haunt me from within my thoughts is so similar, too similar. The way it searches my face, the look in its eyes, even where the flecks of gold are placed - they are almost identical. I connect the eyes to the face, piecing the puzzle of this person together until I'm left with one body and one name.

I widen my eyes, but the name doesn't leave my head.

The name is:

Lee Taemin.