“Kyuhyun, wake up…” I hear someone whispering in my ear, interrupting the dream I was having after listening to my sister’s pleas.

I open my eyes in a heartbeat, remembering that my bedroom's door was locked from the inside, so no one could have entered.

I turn my head to the left and in front of me there’s Jongwoon's face, smiling and all.

“Hi, Kyu.”

“… ‘Hi, Kyu'?! Are you kidding me?” I stand up from the bed without looking in his direction.

He’s not real, he’s inside my head. Otherwise, how could he enter this room?

“C'mon Kyu, you know I’m always serious.”

“You were always serious. You… You are dead and this is just an illusion, a product of my sick mind.”

“I’m real. I’m here, safe and sound. You are the one who is hallucinating other things”, he affirms.

“What?”

“Excuse me?”

“What am I hallucinating?”

“You awake, your family, your friends… my death.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m awake

Why is Jongwoon here? Despite all that happened, the meds I take, why do I still see him? What does he want from me?

“And I am sure I’m alive, how’s that?” He raises an eyebrow with arrogant defiance.

This is not him. He would not talk to me in that way; he did not do it when he would get annoyed with my jokes.

I go to the bathroom and take the bottle of my medication, I swallow the pill keeping my eyes on that… ghost.

“You really believe what they said to you? Kyuhyun, why would I lie to you? Why should I wish seeing you go crazy and isolate yourself from the world?”

“I don’t know, you tell me”, I answer going back to my bad and lying down under the sheets. “You’re just an illusion, you don’t exist anymore. If you are here so I can ask for forgiveness… I know I’ve wronged you and when I can, I’ll come to your grave to ask to forgive me. But now, leave me alone; you’ve already ruined my life.” I close my eyes, fervently hoping that he does not insist and that he leaves.

“You and me are real. But who has told you that the others are real? You didn’t kill me because there wasn’t an accident. I don’t know what they’ve told you, but nothing of all this is false. Or better still, just one thing it is. People around you”, Jongwoon murmurs a few feets from me, probably heading to the door.

“Oh, and one last thing. Check your phone; I’m still there”, and having said that, I hear the door shut and I know for sure I am alone.

“C’mon Kyuhyun, open the door!” Heechul yells from the corridor.

It has been two weeks since I have isolated myself in my room. My sister, after the day she cried, did not show up anymore, and the same goes for my mother or my father for that matters. My friends kept trying contacting me on my phone but after I found out that Jongwoon’s texts are still there, I turned it off.

My friend was right: he is still here. Or at least his phone. I cannot think of someone so evil to send me texts from his phone just to make me go crazy… Or am I wrong?

My doubts have doubled. Am I really crazy? My loved ones love me how much they say to do? Jongwoon is… is dead or alive?

No matter how much I try to understand anything, I can not get it. That is why I am taking meds.

This is why yesterday night I decided to go back to school, maybe going back to my daily life will do me good.

“If you don’t open the door… I’ll bring it down!”

I shake my head and I check myself on the mirror one last time. I have lost too much weight and my clothes are saggy, I have dark circles under my eyes. Moreover, my skin is pale. Great. I am coming back to school looking like a combination between a hungry zombie and a hungry vampire.

I sigh and in the same exact moment Heechul is threatening me to call Youngwoon to bring down my door, I open it and exit my bedroom.

Eunhyuk and Donghae are with him and I think they have stayed silent just to not anger me. The three of them are looking at me wide eyed, as if they were seeing a ghost.

Well, not that is far from reality…

“Kyu, we…” Eunhyuk murmurs scratching his head embarrassed.

“I thought you came to take me to school. Let’s go?” I interrupt him while I head to the stairs.

I hear them following my steps, whispering and staring at my back, annoying me.

“Have you stopped watching me?” I turn around glaring at them.

“Yes!” Donghae shouts out scared, raising his hands in front of him.

Without further ado, we start walking again with my friends trying to include me in their talk, without managing it.

I have to find someone that can explain to me what is happening. I am living a split life: on one hand, the one in which I take meds and my family helps me, on the other hand, the one in which I see Jongwoon’s texts and thinks he is alive. Either way I am a madman and I cannot understand anything without some help.

The problem is that I do not know who to ask for help. My family and my friends could be up to something behind my back, does wanting for me to think I am crazy. I cannot trust in Jongwoon because I do not know if he is alive or dead.

I should find someone unrelated to the matter, but not entirely. The person needs to be aware of my past and my present just thanks to third parties.

When I manage to find someone to whom I could make some questions, I feel a hand lay on my shoulder and bring me back down to earth.

I turn around and face Eunhyuk’s and Donghae’s worried faces; Heechul is not around.

“Is everything okay, Kyu?” Donghae asks hesitantly.

“Sure.”

“Oh… Okay. We arrived at school. Heechul already left for his university.”

“Good”, I reply before passing the school’s gate.

I feel stares on me from all the people around me without trying to go unnoticed. I do not care; stare as much as they want, eventually I will be the one staring at them like they are some freaks.

Nobody tries to stop me nor to talk to me and that is good. I am not here to make some friends, to reply some questions which their real answers I do not know. I came to school to finish my studies, go to university and become someone famous and important and they will wish to be friends with me.

Noone will ever have the pleasure and the honor to know the Cho Kyuhyun of the years before Jongwoon’s supposedly death. That one is dead. Of him there are nothing but ashes.

“Hyung, I need Minha’s contact”, I state to Heechul over the phone.

“Hello you too… Why do you need it?” He asks and I can sense the curiosity in his tone, mixed with worry too. I roll my eyes and count to ten before answering rudely.

“I need to talk to her. I have to do a poll to some girls and I could start with her”, I lie, knowing really well that he could just ask Donghae and Eunhyuk if it is true, but I do not care.

“Um, a poll…”

“If you don’t want to help, it’s okay; I’ll wait for her in front of her university”, I say, knowing that he does not want me around that place because I could remember unpleasing memories, like Jongwoon.

“All right! I’ll text it to you… Just, don’t question her if no one’s ar…”

I hang up. No one can tell me what to do or not to do; I am in charge of my own life, the others are just minor characters. No one excluded.

Lost in my thoughts, I struggle to notice the bip from my phone, notifying me an unread text, but the vibration awakens me. I open the message and save Minha’s phone number, asking her if we could meet up.

She answers me right away with a dry “Blue Cafè 10 minutes” and I start preparing a speech, keeping in mind what I want to know.

It will be hard talking to her, given the fact that I sensed she hates me for what has happened, giving me the certainty that everything is just all my fault. I sigh and start heading to the cafè, hoping for a calm talk without she blaming me.

I enter the cafè, looking around to see if she has arrived. I smile when I find Minha sitting at a table in a corner of the room, hidden from the other clients thanks to a plant. I approach her and sat in front of her, noticing her wary look, almost worried.

“Hi”, I say kindly. I have to try to don’t make her hate me more than she already does.

“…” She brings a hand to her face to move her fringe behind her ear and her lips. “Hi”, she whispers.

I thought worst from our encounter. Not a chair in my face, but neither her being so… submissive.

I try to open my mouth, but I am interrupted by the waiter that places in front of us two strawberry’s milkshakes and two donuts. I lift an eyebrow.

“I ordered while I waited for you”, she states biting the pastry.

I bit my lips before saying that both the milkshake and the donut are of my favourite taste and I start imitating her. Maybe we will be relaxed to talk. Or she will be in a good mood.

I am finishing the last bit of my milkshake when she starts cleaning her lips before staring at me.

“You’re here to talk, right?” She brakes the silence, watching every gesture of mine, every reaction.

“Yes”, I simply answer placing the glass on the table.

“Why me?”

I expected this question. Why choose a person that I barely know when I could simply talk to someone else? It is illogic.

“Because I’m sure you’ll say the truth. You don’t have a reason to lie to me: if it’s an unwanted and ugly truth, I’ll hurt and you’ll rejoice of it, don’t you?”

“You think I’m insensitive?”

“After our previous encounters, yes.”

“Mine is anger because you’re alive and him not, because you don’t remember anything while we have to live with this situation from that day”, she states tightening the grip in her hands placed on the table.

“…” I look at her, trying to catch any sign of resistance, but the only thing I see is regret. “Tell me everything from the beginning”, I ask her, preparing myself for the worst scenario that, of this I am sure, will happen just because of me.

She looks at me before nodding. “That day it was snowing…”

Flashback

I was looking around me, searching of any sign that could prove that Jongwoon had passed in front of my house.

That morning, before it began to snow so profusely, he had texted me saying he had a present for his little boy and that he wanted to give it to him that same day. I have tried to discourage him, saying him that there would be a storm and that it would be better if he stayed home. Obviously, he didn’t listen to me.

In the evening, almost at seven, he texted me, saying that he would go out at that hour to go to Kyuhyun’s house because the latter had insisted of having his gift right then and him, kind as always, had assured him of his presence.

Worried, I tried to call him many times, but he never answered, so I decided to go out; to go to Kyuhyun’s house, he had to pass in front of my house. When I noticed that half an hour had passed and that I didn’t see anyone, I head to the younger’s home, praying that he would be there, safe and sound.

When I reached the turn, I found a scene that I didn’t want to see anytime soon. Sitting on the ground, with Yesung’s body lying on his legs, there was Kyuhyun, screaming with his head watching the sky and his tears streaming down his face.

I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the blood pooling at their feet gave me an idea of what he could possibly be screaming. I slowly approached them, without averting my eyes from Jongwoon’s lifeless body.

When I reached Kyuhyun, I knelt down and took Jongwoon’s hand, feeling how cold it was. Something snapped inside of me, blurring my mind. I turned to the brown-haired boy and started yelling at him, blaming everything on him, saying that it was his fault if he was dead.

I should have stopped when I saw that Kyuhyun didn’t react, but my anger was stronger than my conscience and the feeling of loss had crashed my heart like anything else.

My screams, stronger than Kyuhyun’s wailing, attracted the attention of the people inside the nearest house and they called an ambulance as soon as they saw three figures on the ground.

Someone took me and put some distance between Kyuhyun and me, but I didn’t stopped yelling at him.

End of flashback

Minha wipes the tears that streamed down without her even noticing while I stand unfazed.

It was really me who killed Jongwoon. I was not the driver of the car that hit him fully, but if I had not asked him to give me my gift, he would not have died.

My stomach churns and I place my hands on my head, tightening the grip on my hair while I bit my tongue so I stop from screaming, so I do not crumble again.

Minha cannot stop fidgeting on her seat and takes my hands on her, placing them down on the table.

“I… You didn’t cause the accident. Who was driving probably lost the control of the car and…”, she stutters trying to calm me down.

“And Jongwoon was where he shouldn’t have been at the worst time”, I finish for her. I chuckle and I look her in the eyes. “Weird. You are comforting me, when a while ago you were blaming me of everything.”

I notice her restraining herself from saying something and that is enough to make me understand that neither she believes at her own words. For Minha, I will always be the one who took Jongwoon away from her.

“Before I leave… You have to answer to some questions”, I order her serious, giving a about the staff that is looking at us with curiosity.

Without waiting for an answer, I start speaking.

“Is it true that I want to a doctor who prescribed me some meds?”

“I’m sure you take them… But I’m not sure if they are prescribed…”

I interrupt her. “Who said not to tell me anything so I could figure it out alone?”

“Your parents warned us that it was bet…”

Again, I do not let her complete her sentence.

“If Jongwoon is really… dead, why I keep receiving texts from him and seeing him?”

She widens her eyes and mouth, probably blaming herself for the loss of my mental health. She starts crying and I do nothing to calm her down; I cannot do it to myself, so doing it to someone else is out of question.

I thought talking with Minha would help me to understand everything, to choose which one of my two roads take, but now…

I grit my teeth, frustrated, and I vent out all the hurt I feel, starting crying without restrain. My parents, those who should love me, those who should think about my wellbeing, are the same ones that lead me here. They are giving me meds that who knows who gave me permission to take. They forbid my friends to tell me the truth, making me believe that Jongwoon was still here with me. It is their fault if I think I can see my friend anywhere and read texts from him when they do not even exist. I am crazy and the fault is just mine and no one else.

There is just one thing that bugs me. I do remember to have wished for Jongwoon to come to my house that day, but I do not remember sending him a text.

Hello there!!! I’m REAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLY sorry if I disappeared like that, leaving you hanging for a continuation for a year. My bad!

Life has been tough and I’ve started working so I don’t have much free time, or at least not like before.

Anyway… WHO’S SAYING THE TRUTH?!? But more importantly… Who’s on Kyuhyun’s side? Truthfully, in all this chaos, the only one who might have told the truth is Jongwoon but, keeping in mind what Minha said, he REALLY is dead. Things are like that or she lied?