Word Count: 1373

Reading Time: 3-5 mins.

I know they hate me. 
I know it all too well.
But of course I do; they make it obvious. 

They'll walk a little faster when I pass through a hallway in between classes, like they can't wait to get away from me; their voices, usually so boisterous and loud, will be oddly hushed, speech falling to whispers the moment I step around the corner. 
I feel like Moses parting the red sea of school uniforms, they give me that wide a berth.
They stare at me as I walk and hide their mouths with their hands like they think that'll stop me from hearing what they say about me.

When I'm not sitting behind a music stand, all I can hear is "Yoongi! Yoongi! Yoongi did this! He's so that! Did you hear he this? My gosh, did he really, well the other week he that!" and it is driving me ing insane.

Whose fault is it that I'm treated like this? That I'm regarded as a power-hungry beast, incapable of trust or love? I keep trying to make myself think it isn't Min Yoongi who's caused this, but I know what I've done. 
I've bitten and stung with my too-sharp tongue; I've poisoned the minds of the innocent with words of failure and disgust; I've pushed and shoved, kicked and stepped on the heads even of my own so-called friends. 

So maybe they're right.
Maybe I have strayed far from the path of the innocent, maybe I am headed straight for the pit of punishment for what I've done to get to first chair.

The people I've broken and manipulated and pushed down to claw my way to the top of the totem pole, what do I deserve of them? Whatever it is, it's certainly not respect. Not forgiveness.

And what did I do it all for?

It's not my dream. It's not what I thought it would be, not what I hoped it would be, not what my parents told me it would be.

I think I'm good with the violin, and I think I have the skills befitting one of my position. 
But with all the cheating and all the lying I've done getting here, I have no idea whether my status has anything at all to do with my ability as an actual musician. For all I know, it doesn't have jack to do with anything other than my being more ruthless than the rest, a step ahead all the time and always willing to do something extra to secure my place.

My parents had me apply to the school as soon as they could get their hands on the information they needed. Exam dates were circled and bolded in fat red marker on a calendar, which was then hung directly in front of my face when I sat at the table every morning and night to eat. 
In preparing for the entrance exams, I practiced doubly hard, triply hard, and I knew in my heart that I wanted this, too.

Because, who would miss a chance to be a student in the greatest musical institution this century had to offer our generation? A chance to be one of those select few, maybe even the best of those select few, and to shine for all the world to see? There was no way I'd pass up an opportunity like that, so I grasped it with both trembling hands and let myself be swept off my feet. I got started developing a reputation amongst the teachers and up to them as soon as I started my first semester, and I managed to convince myself in my mind that I wanted this, too.

I watched myself get pushed higher and higher through the ranks, parting crowds as the solitary name of Min Yoongi shot from near bottom up to the very top.
But because of me, because of me and my actions, no one else ever got a chance. No one else could be the favourite, no one else could earn even a fraction of all the recognition I got.

Every kid at the school had gone in with the same naïve dreams I had had, but none of them could beat my self-made high platform.
Anytime someone got too close, I slashed their climbing rope and watched them fall, even had the nerve to watch how long it took for them to crash and burn completely.

But when I watched my 'last enemy' fall, when I betrayed my only friend and the only person who hadn't thought I was a monster, something in my subconscious stabbed me in the gut. The guilt, the shame, was pouring in on me through the wound instead of my blood gushing out.
I had just betrayed my friend, the only one I'd ever truly loved, used him as a vehicle of my success.

My "success". 

It doesn't feel like success when you want to curl up into a ball and cry at your own heartlessness.

I've spent what now seems like a lifetime pushing to the top, egged on by parents who didn't ever really want the best for me, wholeheartedly ignoring the agonizing screams as I shoved one student after another down into the abyss. I've ruined myself.

So I'm at the top now. 
So what? 

It's not all fun and games. It's not any fun and games. I don't spend my free time as first chair chilling with a glass of wine in my hand as I look out over the kingdom that I rule. 

If I really think back, the only reason I did it all was because that was just what was expected of me. I was expected to be the best at everything I did, to be the most successful little child of two successful lawyers ever to walk the earth.
I did it because I thought I had to, because I thought that my position defined my self-worth.

Not because it was my passion.
Not because it was my dream.
Not because it was what I wanted to do with my life.

I live comfortably, I guess, if you don't count the billions of holes being bored into my back by judging eyes, but I don't have any goals in life. 
I don't have any big dreams.

Everyone else is vying for my spot, a position that they believe I haven't earned.
Even when they break free of the mosh pit of "noobs," there's a Round 2. And 3. And 4. You can't ever beat all the competition, for the sole reason that everyone else is trying the same thing, hoping against hope that they will be the one to succeed, to rise unquestionably above the rest.
There's pressure at the top, because everyone wants exactly what I already have.

But all I want to do is tell them that they're all being stupid, yell at them to avert themselves from my doomed path before it's too late. I want to scream at them all at the top of my lungs that it isn't what they think it is, it isn't what they think they want, not by a long shot.
I want them to know that it isn't worth their troubles, it isn't worth their effort, it isn't worth anything.

Because I know that the name, the title they want to stamp onto their own foreheads with pride, will scathe their skin, burn it with the acid fire of remorse and pain. I know that they'll suffer as I have, and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

I know that every other person who wants this spot from me is just like me, doing it all for someone other than themselves.

What is life if your sole goal has nothing to do with what you really want?
And what if there isn't anything you really want?

They do hate me, every single one of these kids, and I certainly can't blame them for feeling that way. Not even for a second.

But do I really deserve to be stared at like this every day? Do I deserve to be Devil Min, portrayed as the vicious creature that I desperately hope I'm not?

Heaven knows.