"The day seems to last forever
As if it read my heart
With passing time, will it fade?

Except for your empty space
Everything is the same"

- To You It's Separation, For Me It's Waiting, Jaejoong

Wounds; there are many wounds of multiple origins. He did not know where they started and he does not know when they will end. They were scabs. It was what they were but it was not what he desired. He wished. He wished too hard and suddenly, he just knew. It was blood. It is blood. That is what he wants and that is what he craves for. He knows he cannot do it now. He observes the rules strictly in camp. He will not defy them, but he knows it and he acknowledges that it is just a matter in time. It will not happen today but it will happen again. He knows it as certain as he knows the existence of the sun. It will happen. And when it does, he will finally be free again.

He can hear them from the other side. The thin walls in the bunk echo their words and he hears them talking. The words are repeated. They are speaking the same conversation they did yesterday. He laughs, bitterly and loudly. They think him blind to their words. They think him ignorant but he is not. He knows it. Perhaps, he knows it even better than them. It is an uncomfortable habit. It is an addiction. They can put it in as many fanciful words as they wish to but it does not change the fact that they do not understand. Yet, it does not stop them. It never stops them. They continue talking about it, dissecting it into many pieces while providing biased evidence to support the arguments they have. They repeat, as do him. Two cycles each day, unchanging even in his time. It makes it so hilarious that he cannot stop laughing. They are the same. They are all the same but they do not see it. How quaint! Just look at how quaint they are being! These old-fashioned bigots never do quite understand, do they? They think they know him because they see him every day. They think they are knowledgeable and wise but when reality hits, they know nothing.

He does not exist.

He feels the words rolling off his tongue as he repeats them in his head. He does not even exist and they do not know it. They claim to be studying him, but what can they be studying if they do not know that he is a being that has no tangibility and no real identity? He lets loose the whooping laughter inside him. He cannot help himself. He has nothing at all, nothing with him that he owns. There is nothing that can be studied, nothing except the splendid performance of the self that he is currently performing.

The laughter dies out quickly and the silence wins over. He knows. He is not stupid. Of course, he knows the truth is better. He is simply in denial. These feelings, they weigh him down so much that he needs the habit to take them all away, even if the habit is deemed wrong in others’ eyes. He tried. Do not get the wrong idea about him. He really did try to live without it. He wanted to escape it desperately, running every day, one foot before the other without really knowing where it was that he was running to. He just kept running, kept praying each day for it to go away, but it did not, and all his efforts ended up in naught. Nothing would work. He finally realised. Nothing ever did. Deep into the throes of his despair he remained, drowning in the feelings of inadequacy until this habit found him, took him into her loving arms and embraced him and all his sorrows at once. That is why he welcomes it. This is why he welcomes them. The scars, they decorate his body. They celebrate his victory over death. They are the proof of his bravery, for he did not choose to die when he could have easily done so but decide to preserve his life through these unorthodoxy methods instead.

He cares not what others say. His addiction is not for attention’s sake. No. It is for him. It is to prove that he exists. He is not anybody. He is him and ‘him’ is he. He simply is.

“Stop, you’ve got to stop, please.”

He hears, yet he does not hear. The words seem foreign to him. Once comprehensible, they now were incredibly vague and far away. Where is he? Is he still in his bunk sitting on his bed? Are his feet still firmly planted on the ground? He tries to wiggle his toes but he cannot feel them from here. He supposes they must be there; either that or they have rotten off his foot. Or feet, how can one ever be sure?

Oh. He exhales a breath of air. He gets it now. He is gone! Like the dandelion carried by the wind, he has dispersed into the thin air, with bits and pieces flying all over until there is nothing left in the air but him. He is everywhere. He sees the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal in India, and the Grand Canyon in all its glory. He is there now, sitting over the edge of the cliff as he contemplates the drop below. His eyes are glazed over as he listens to the abyss beneath his gaze calling out to him.

He opens his eyes. The stupid birds will not stop chirping. They continue chirping over the din and it is starting to annoy him. No matter how incredibly dark and noisy the abyss is, it pales in comparison to the horrible tunes the birds are singing. Where do the birds come from any way? He glares at the trees beyond the distance. The birds are disrupting the silence and they are ruining every moment of tranquillity he has. Who do they think they are?

He looks down at the abyss and thinks of the birds. No, there is no hesitation. Lifting up his foot, he takes his final plunge,

And he wakes to darkness.

There is nothing. Disappointment fills his heart. He expects to feel pain. He expects to get burned by the raging fires they speak of, but nothing greets him here, nothing but infinite darkness. There is not even a speck of light, not even a speck of dust. There is not even a speck of him! He is just here with no one to talk to and nothing to see. He is just here! Here in this darkness alone…

“I’m here.”

The voice! He hears a voice! He spins his head around. Is there someone here in the darkness? Is there someone with him? He struggles to see. He turns left, turns right, but there is nothing that he sees. It is still darkness all the same. Where is the voice coming from?

“Come back.”

He blinks.

Yunho stares at him with tears shimmering in his eyes and immediately, he knows why. He must have disappeared on him again. He looks down then, unable to bear the look in Yunho’s eyes, all the words in his throat dying without a whisper.

“You’re not back in the bunk,” Yunho speaks after a few minutes of him blinking his eyes in the silence, “You’re not without me.”

He nods at Yunho’s voice, nods his head so hard that his neck almost snaps into half. Logically speaking, he knows it. He knows he knows it, and to his credit, most of him is aware that Yunho is here. There are just some broken parts of him that keep insisting that Yunho is not and it gets really difficult to fight them sometimes. They become too noisy and they drown out the voices of the rest, like the stupid birds that will not stop singing to him even till now.

“Jaejoong ah…”

He hears Yunho speak again and something in his voice makes him look up at him.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Yunho proclaims with barely a voice.

His eyes widen. No. No.

Fa-la-la, the birds continue singing, Fa-la-la-la.

“I really can’t watch you do this to yourself, Jaejoongie, and I really don’t know what I can do to help you,”

He does not speak. He cannot speak. His lips are glued. What is he supposed to speak? Yunho is leaving him. What is there left for him to say?

“I’m sorry…”

He barely hears Yunho anymore.

The birds drown everything out with their singing.

Fa-la-la-la. Fa-la-la-la.

He feels his lips mouthing along.

Fa-la-la-la. He sings. Fa-la-la-la. Fa-la-la-la.

“Help…” he hears Yunho’s voice filtering through the loud melodies in his head…

Fa-la-la-la~

 “…you need help, Jaejoongie, help that I cannot give to you.”

Fa-la-

“Jaejoongie…”

He hears Yunho clearly and the birds abruptly stop singing in his head. His head hurts so badly but he is distracted by the sudden weight he feels in his palms. Some thing was being placed in his hands. No, he scolds himself; Yunho has placed something in his hands. His eyes drifted to his palms and when he sees the object, he blinks for a second before the tears start falling from his eyes.

“I won’t leave you,” Yunho promises as he wipes away the tears that are still pouring down his face, “I won’t ever leave you boo, but you got to promise me that you will get help for this.”

He nods again. This time, he does it gently like a feather floating in the wind. The waterworks has not ceased but he feels way lighter than before. Now, he thinks, he knows the reason why the birds stop singing. He sees it before him and he thinks he finally understands it.

“Promise me?” Yunho asks as he pulls him into his arms, sliding the ring onto his finger, “Promise me you’ll seek help for this?”

Jaejoong buries his head into Yunho’s chest.

“Mm,” he nods again as he wraps his arms around his other half, the diamond on his finger glistening in the sunlight,

“I promise.”