It was a very basic concept really. Everyone is united because they all equally dislike one person. They bond over the hatred over someone, sharing gossips and working together to make sure that person never sees the light of day. Productivity increases and all is good, results are shown and everyone is happy.

Except for one.

But think about it, it’s like the train dilemma. Would you rather sacrifice one person to save an entire train of humans or to let the train filled with innocent lives fall off a cliff because of one person? Naturally, your answer would be to sacrifice the one person. After all, compared to hundreds of lives, losing one is the best possibility.

Changing that scenario, what if that one person was someone of importance? What if that one person is Oprah Winfrey for example. What would your choice be? Save an important figure or save hundreds of innocent yet very average humans? What if the people on the train were criminals instead?

Well, not like it matters now because, in most of our daily lives, we would not face the dilemma of pulling a trigger and deciding the lives of many.

Which is why when Yoongi was the one who was left behind, he had no will to fight.

The world would tell him to fight against these oppressors and all the human rights thing would occur. They would tell him to stand up for himself and proof them all wrong for picking on him and what not. He’ll become successful and something something believe in yourself, something something love yourself or whatever.

Yoongi has thought about doing the whole stand-up-for-himself thing but honestly, the world works the way it works. There would never be world peace no matter how much people want it to happen. The very fact that people say, “faith in humanity is restored” just because someone picked up litter says a lot on its own.

If Yoongi was not the one who was being oppressed, someone else would take his place. As Yoongi looked around the office, he could see a quiet girl, round glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose. He was almost certain if he were to protect himself, she would be the next one. She was the new recruit apparently, joined the company about a month ago and adjusted well in the company.

Whereas Yoongi had joined the company for about two years. His resignation letter always sat inside the folder named “others” that was displayed on his desktop. He wrote it just a month into work but he never printed it and submitted the document. He left it there, mocking his cowardly actions.

“It’s not about protecting other people from being bullied. You’re just afraid of being jobless where not just this company will look down on you, but basically the whole of society.”

Yoongi gave the document the kind of voice you hear from Disney villains and it fit for some reason.

“Hypocrite.”

Yoongi had too many voices for his own good but it seemed like his brain loved to talk to him. More specifically insult his entire being but hey, at least it talks to him.

The phone lights up in the middle of work. Yoongi looked over and saw it was from Namjoon.

Namjoon

Sorry for whatever I am about to say.

Oh, looks like it was lunchtime.

Namjoon

Hey sorry again… Hopefully, you’ll get that promotion so we can be friends.

Yoongi never really took it against Namjoon. He honestly appreciated Namjoon for always apologising for discriminating him at work. The perfect world would be where Namjoon would fight for him and then they both do the friends forever thing and quit this ty company before opening a café that would become successful the end.

Yoongi had accepted reality ever since he was a scrawny boy of age 7. He was always being picked on by the bigger guys and he would live in fear as he went to school. Wishing that his belongings would be thrown into the water fountain instead of being peed on in the boys’ washroom.

Middle school life was much better. He was just treated as the quiet one at the corner who never bothered anyone and would follow whatever the class wanted to do. No one cared about him but no one did any harm to him and Yoongi was grateful.

He could live three years in peace.

High school was weird. He was half bullied but half popular and he had no idea what high school life really was. He did not hate it as much as elementary school but he did not like it as much as middle school. It was like that in between of thankfulness and pain. Maybe the word dread would fit the situation better.

Puberty did him well, and Yoongi, even with his low self-esteem would admit that it really did him well. He managed to make friends and had people to sit with at lunch. But often he would receive dirty glares and unhappy glances from his other classmates. It was rather unpleasant but definitely something he would rather bear than whatever he experienced.

The glares turned into whispers and it bothered Yoongi a lot.

Which should not have, really. Compared to all the physical pain he went through and the humiliation of walking home drenched in his classmates’ waste would top the passive-aggressive treatment he was getting. It really puzzled Yoongi why he would go home to cry on his bed because of whispers and the snickers.

Maybe it was a new form of oppression because Yoongi was always the one. Even though Yoongi never went home with bruises and cuts, he could feel his heart bleeding.

Namjoon was a new species. Yoongi had friends who would play basketball together with and eat at lunch but they never shared anything above the surface level and Yoongi assumed it was because it was just for company sake. For popularity among the girls perhaps, because he knew that even though he had people around him, he was still the one.

Namjoon was this guy who was trying to keep up with society but with morals. Like a fragment of his heart was labelled guilt and Namjoon would do everything to lessen it. Namjoon would throw insults and laugh at Yoongi even though they were in the same level of workers but would pull Yoongi aside to apologise for being a horrible human being.

Yoongi ended up giving Namjoon his number because, after two weeks of randomly being pulled to a corner just to be apologised to, he decided to tell Namjoon to “just text him an apology, don’t worry about it”. It was a half joke in Yoongi’s head, but he what he did not expect was Namjoon to really text him an apology and an encouraging message that always ended with “Good night! And sorry☹”

University was a blur to Yoongi. Everyone had their heads buried in books and there was no time for the social hierarchy that was evident everywhere else. Yoongi studied his off to graduate. It was a miracle he was even accepted to a local university nearby and he was fixated on graduating even if it was not with the best grades.

He did decently but took a gap year because whenever he stared at his resume, he would cry. He never understood why he would uncontrollably sob whenever he thought about going to work. Whenever he was about to click on the send button, his arm would automatically pull back and tears would fall like the floor was urgently calling for them. It was that bad.

Yoongi would exercise and stare at trees in the park to pass the boring days. Sometimes he would write poems on the side to throw all his anguish into a piece of paper. Google told him that he might be having signs of depression but everyone was different and no online quiz could diagnose him so Yoongi went to see a psychiatrist.

“Have you ever had passing thoughts of wanting to die.”

"No ing like all the time." Was Yoongi's immediate reply.

It was one of the questions that the psychiatrist asked and Yoongi genuinely thought it was perfectly normal to always be thinking of ways to kill himself or ways his life could possibly end. When Yoongi answered that he had always been thinking that way for the longest time the psychiatrist’s face was priceless.

Needless to say, Yoongi was on medication. But he stopped after a while because it was simply suppressing his mood, it was not really helping.

Music was the way to go. It was one of the most cliché solutions Yoongi could ever think of but it was really through music he got back on his own feet. Every day he would listen to different types of music and enjoy riding the lyrics like it was his own. Nothing really did trigger for him to be fully better, even now he was probably not completely normal again but at least he stopped crying when trying to send his resume and would not feel like curling up into a ball when he thought about working.

A sneaky tap on his computer brought Yoongi’s attention to the clock above.

Oh, looks like it was the end of the day.

Yoongi