“Hey look, face actually came to school today.”

“Why the hell does she even come to school, no one likes her?”

“She’s seriously worthless. I bet you fifty bucks she won’t go anywhere in life.”

“Got twenty on that.”

“I think a mop fell on her head this morning… Pfft, no, that’s her hair.”

I kept my head down, staring at the tiles of the floor as I made my way to my locker. Attempting yet failing to ignore the whispers surrounding me, I quickened my pace, hurrying to my locker where I practically shoved my head in once I opened it. Though it may seem stupid, hiding behind my locker door and having my head inside it is so much better than having people know I’m here. I pulled some books out of my locker and put them in my backpack and left for my class as quickly as possible. I rushed into my homeroom and plopped down into my seat, immediately dropping my head on the desk and covering it with my arms.

The bell rang and students filed in. From the corner of my eye I saw people shooting me looks of disgust, whispering things to others. I knew they’re talking about me. Again.

The day dragged on, nothing happening out of the usual. I sat outside in the garden during lunch, a couple deserting the area when they saw me walk into the garden. I leaned against the tree, not touching my food, just staring at the clouds. The clouds that skimmed the sky, hovering around, floating freely as they only fret of which way to fly to, the clouds that I wished I could fall from.

I went to the bathroom and entered the Heal Stall. The Heal Stall is the stall in the bathroom where all the girls write down whatever the hell they want to get off their chests, therefore ‘healing’ their frustrations. It’s kind of like a confession wall, a place where you just write down something you need to say that you don’t necessarily want to say out loud. Whoever came up with that name is… weird.

I skimmed the wall, looking for anything new. Just the same as always.

I wish I had bigger s.

Kai…. Looking ing gorgeous as always.

I’m 87% sure that I’m not going to end  up going to a good college.

I have no tampons. .

Eun Sun needs to go kill herself. Put a tally here if you agree.

I felt my heart sink when I read the last one. That was new. I tried looking away before my eyes caught glimpse of the dozens of tallies underneath that sentence. But It was too late. I did the math in my head, seeing this many columns and this many rows…

34 tallies.

34 people agreed that I should go kill myself.

I shoved myself against the bathroom stall door, freed from the indirect threat, and looked in the mirror of the bathroom. I saw nothing but a student. She looked timid, diffident, frightened. How she always looked. But today she was worse. Today she found out 34 people wanted her to kill herself.

I walked out of the bathroom and ended up off campus, exploring the streets. I reached the main road and looked down, not seeing any cars coming. I could walk home, it’s not too far from here. It’s much better than staying here and facing the resurrected devils.

I crossed the street and heard a beep. My head jerked to the left and I saw a car coming towards me, no intentions of slowing down visible. My heart punched at my chest, trying to escape. My eyes widened, the size of the moon, as I faced the thing that could save me from everything, bring me to the person I needed the most right now. It could take me to a place that could potentially be happier than where I was right now... Right?

Right?

I didn’t have time to decide as my body was shoved away. The breath knocked out of me at the sudden force, I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping they would not run over my body. But I felt no weight roll over me. Just the slight pull of the wind. I peeked through one eye and looked at the sky above me, the clouds rolling around. My chest was rising slowly, though my heart was beating faster than the speed of light. My mind was busy with dozens of thoughts, though one particular question didn’t stop hurrying across my mind.

Why don’t I feel any pain?

I tried sitting up, though something was holding me down. I looked at my right arm and saw a hand gripping it, a hand that came from a boy who was lying next to me. His eyes, somewhat hidden by his fringe, were shut tight and his mouth was slightly open. His chest was barely rising and other than that, there was no movement. Did he… Did he push me away from the car?

Slowly removing his fingers from my arm, I loosened his hand and stood up, brushing off my shirt. All thoughts about what I almost did to myself were pushed aside as I stared at this boy who didn’t seem to be responding to my consistent tapping of his shoulder. He was wearing my school uniform, but I didn’t recognize him from any of my classes.

Sigh. I couldn’t leave him here. I couldn’t hide him behind a bush.

I had to carry him.

I picked him up, bridal style, and yes, I was that strong. Having a brother who’s just a year younger than me and didn’t seem to like leaving my room unless I carried him out had always been helpful for my arm strength.

I carried him down the street, slightly heaving. I consistently did little jumps to keep from dropping him, and thankfully it took only about five minutes to get to the school, and I almost yelled in victory as I pushed through the nurse’s door and practically threw him onto the bed.

“What happened to him?” The nurse asked me, feeling his forehead.

Well, he pushed me away from a car that I was going to let myself get hit by and in result he kind of fell over and passed out.

Good thing I was good at lying.

“He tripped on a curb and fell, and I think he passed out,” I tried sounding worried. She nodded sympathetically and I did a small cheer in my head at my successful lie.

“Alright, well, you can go miss. Thanks for bringing him here.”

I nodded and left the room, turning my head as I opened the door to sneak a peek at the boy who saved my life.

I couldn’t help but return to the nurse’s room after school ended. I should have gone home, but there was something about that room that made me feel like there’s a magnet inside, trying to drag me away from wherever I wanted to go. And I couldn’t ignore the magnet. I knocked on the door and opened it slightly, hoping he was still asleep. Just to my luck, he was awake, sitting cross legged on the bed, holding an ice pack to his head. His eyes were on his lap but he looked up when I opened the door. He didn’t seem to know who I was. He probably thought I was here for the nurse.

“Uh… Hi,” I shot him a small smile.

“Hello.” He waved, returning the smile. The way he was staring at me said he was thinking Who the hell are you?
“I-I brought you here,” I said. Why was I stuttering?

His eyebrows shot up. “You tried killing yourself.”

Ah, so we get straight to the point, ay?

I opened my mouth to say something but shut it, giving up. I didn’t have anything to say. Lying would fly right past him, I could tell already.

The corners of his lips turned up. “I’m hoping that wasn’t your actual intention. Right?”

I didn’t respond.

He sighs. “Okay. Well, I’m Baekhyun.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

“I’m Eun Sun.”

I don’t think I realized at that moment that that was the day I had met my angel.

Baekhyun ended up living in the house right across from mine. We walked to school every single day together, waiting after school for each other to head to our respective homes. His little brother happened to be a friend of my brother, so he’d bring his brother to our house where our brothers would play video games while Baekhyun and I would study together. We had a majority of our classes together, and passed notes frequently throughout the class, frequently earning glares of disapproval from teachers which we’d just laugh off once they’d look away.. He quickly became my best friend, the person I’d run to if anything bad ever happened to me. Which happened a lot more than expected.

There were days where I’d run to his house and appear at the door crying, or text him during class to meet me in the garden. I’d bawl, him just patting my back or hugging me tightly as we’d sit against a tree, me mumbling incoherent nonsense about why I hated my life. The reasons mostly consisted of the words… The words that consistently peeled away my layers of sanity, digging towards the core where I would lose myself one day. I always wondered when that day would come. Though I found out sooner or later.

He never questioned what I almost let happen to myself other than that one time in the nurse’s room. I honestly didn’t ever go a day with him where I didn’t think about it, just due to the fact that I wouldn’t know him today if it weren’t for that moment. But I guess he decided that he should change that.

We were walking through a park on our way home from school. The park wasn’t the quickest way but on days where our teacher’s let us out early, we would stroll through the park to waste some time. It was pretty windy so I was continually tucking my hair behind my ears every ten seconds, the wind just fighting back by whipping it back into my face.

“Stupid hair…” I muttered, looking in my backpack for a bobby pin to no avail.

Baekhyun chuckled, watching as I aggressively shoved my hair behind my ear. Like always, the wind pulled it back into my face.

“OH MY GOD, BAEKHYUN PLEASE TELL THE WIND GODS TO STOP THIS” I sighed, giving up, letting my hair fly everywhere. Baekhyun shook his head, laughing at me.

“Here,” He shuffled through his backpack, pulling out a hair tie and handing it to me. I accepted it, raising an eyebrow.

“Have you been wearing pig tails to bed or something? Why do you have hair ties?” I pulled my hair back into a neat pony tail, happy that my hair was out of my face.

“You leave those everywhere in my house. I could line the Cheongdam Bridge with every hair tie I’ve found of yours.”

We walked in silence for a while. Not complete silence though – The nature around us was an orchestra of sounds. The birds were chirping melodies that swung above our heads, the wind whistling through my ears. Every leaf we stepped on crunched like the first bite of an apple, the distant sounds of laughing toddlers bringing back memories of me being here when I was little. Our conversational silence was broken by Baekhyun clearing his throat.

“Hey… can I ask you something?” He asked.

“Yeah?”

“Why- Why did you let the car almost hit you?” Baekhyun looked at me, his eyes pouring into mine.

I had been expecting this for so long. I just thought he’d ask it so much sooner. But I was glad he asked it when he did. If he had asked earlier in our friendship, I would have assumed he wanted to be my friend solely to find out why I did what I did.

I sighed. “When I… When I would cry to you… did you understand anything I’d ever say? Tell me the truth.”

“Honestly… no.” I smirked. That’s what I thought.

“Okay, well… Did you have any idea why I’d cry?”

Baekhyun pursed his lips and shook his head.

“Okay… well… can we sit?” We sat on a bench in the park, couples walking by us. The wind had calmed down a little, thankfully, but the air seemed stiffer than before. As if it would have held me back if I tried running. Baekhyun and I met each other’s gazes and I took in a deep breath.

“I-I’ve never had many friends. I’ve been kind of a loner for a majority of my life, just because I don’t have much in common with anyone. And it doesn’t help that… that a rumor started spreading around three years ago.” Baekhyun’s eyes haven’t left mine.

“I used to have a best friend, a girl named Min Sun. Min Sun and I met in kindergarten, I swear we were best friends from the second we met. We had the same backpack on the first day of school and accidentally took each other’s home, thinking it was ours. The next day we had to switch back and we bonded over our love for Totoro, who was all over our backpacks. Anyways, Min Sun and I did everything together from then on. We had so many classes with each other over the years so we always talked, her family was like my family and mine was hers. We were known by everyone as the best friends. If we weren’t together, people would ask where the other was. We were inseparable.” I trailed off, deep in memories that I had been shoving away for almost three years. Now I was up to my eyes in memories, seeing us running through the mall, doing homework together, accidentally knocking over a mannequin in a store. Then, they day came back. I could almost feel the rain pounding down on me, my screams echoing through the street.

“One day, I was walking to her house when I saw her through her window. Her room was at the front of the house so you could see the street from her window. It was pouring and I was only wearing a hoodie. I was practically hopping up and down just to stay warm. The thing is that I could barely see her, because she was pacing around her room, moving away from the window and back over and over again.” Oh god, the memories… I gulped, glancing at Baekhyun. His attention was all on me, his eyes somewhat alert.

“I- I saw a thing in her hand, and I… I had a feeling that it was a knife but I kept telling myself that it wasn’t. I didn’t think she had a purpose to be holding a knife, so why would it have been a knife? But what else would she have stabbed herself with…and I think the worst part is that she didn’t fall to the ground, but she fell onto her window seat and her window was open, so I could see her so clearly, the huge growing red spot on her stomach, and her head was just leaning awkwardly to the side… and I knew she was dead, but I tried forcing myself to believe that she wasn’t. But I started screaming anyways, and I don’t think anyone in the world didn’t hear me, because I started losing my voice. I ran across the street and opened the front door which she always left unlocked when she was expecting me to come around.  I ran in her room and she was still there, the blood completely soaking herself…”

I sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill out of my eyes. Baekhyun put his hand on my shoulder and I tried smiling but I shakily breathed in, feeling a tear trickle down my cheek.

“She- She left a note that said that she had reasons to kill herself, that she knew I’d be coming to her house soon so she knew I’d see the note. She told me she knew I’d be fine when she’d leave, but I never was. I remember I kept yelling at her ‘Why did you leave me,’ even though she never responded. Well, obviously. She killed herself. She couldn’t respond. This was all unbelievably traumatizing, but for some reason, they started rumors. They said… they said that I killed her. Everyone knew I was the first person who saw her when she killed herself, and so they assumed I killed her out of jealousy. They said that us having the same last part of our names made me think I had to be the better “sun” of the two of us. I don’t see how that even makes sense or matters. Min Sun was definitely pretty than I was, and way smarter but that’s no reason to kill someone, let alone your best friend… But for some reason, everyone believed the lies.”

Baekhyun wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing heavily. I didn’t feel my tears though I knew they’re falling freely, carelessly soaking my face and shirt. I didn’t want to remember any more of this, but I felt the need to finish my story. I couldn’t just run away and cry in alone. Bringing back the memories meant that I had to fully face them. I couldn’t wimp out and leave them dangling, half in the presence of my mind and half away where I never want to see the memories again.

“No one talked to me, at all. They thought if they became my friend, I’d kill them at one point or another out of jealousy. And I didn’t try explaining my side, though I did at the beginning. It wasn’t worth it, fighting for the truth when so many people were siding with the lies. But the part that I don’t understand is that everyone-  they- everyone started hating my guts. They made fun of me, and insulted me, and told me to go die… there’s this stall in the girl’s bathroom, and you write down confessions and things you want to say on it. This one thing, it said I should go die, and… and put a mark if you agree.” I close my eyes, feeling the dread wash through my body. “There were 34 marks. I saw that the day that you saved me. I just came out of the bathroom after seeing it, and I thought the car would help fix everything. I wouldn’t be made fun of, bullied, and I could be with Min Sun after so long. But you saved me. If I’m honest, I felt like that was a blessing and a curse at the same time. You extended the bullying, but you also extended my life. I still don’t know whether to be mad at you or not. I’ve ignored that though, since they still make fun of me. They act like I’m a piece of , like I’m worthless. And now I agree with them.”

I took a deep breath and sighed. Lifting my head off of Baekhyun’s shoulder, I looked at him and noticed the worry in his eyes.

“I… I think I was a little happy when I saw that the car was about to hit me. I felt like it would have made everything easier. I don’t think my life is worth it.” I’ve felt like Atlas for the past three years, having the biggest weight on my shoulders. Baekhyun had stepped in though and helped remove the pain of the weight. It was the best feeling ever, being able to relax, give my side of the story for once.

Baekhyun pulled me up off the bench and into his embrace, squeezing the living hell out of me. Kind of literally. I felt safe whenever he would hug me, knowing that someone agreed with me and understood me. Knowing someone would be by my side for once.

“Please don’t think like that, Eun Sun. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and you shouldn’t ever think that you’re less than amazing.”

My heart melted a little when he said that, mostly due to the fact that it was the first compliment I’d received in three years.

Baekhyun and I got closer because of that. He knew to be by my side more than ever and glared at those who even thought of bullying me. The insulting subsided sufficiently compared to what used to happen but they took advantage of any second I was alone. They wrote all over the Heal Stall, insults towards me covering the entire door and left wall. I was tripped consistently in class, and if I was alone in the halls, they made sure to part like the Red Sea to avoid me.

Baekhyun called me over the weekend in the fall and told me to meet him at his house for a movie. It didn’t take me that long since his house was right across from mine and I rang the doorbell when I got there, shoving my cold hands in my pockets. No one answered, so I knocked. No one answered again, and I hesitantly tried the door which surprisingly was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

“Baekhyun?” I called to no response. I walked through the hall and knocked on his door. “Baekhyun?” I opened the door when no one responded and almost collapsed when I saw what I saw.

It seemed like this time around, I had no screams to use, since all I did was gape at what I was looking at. My eyes fell on the note that laid on his stomach, the piece of paper soaked with red in the corners where it was touching the mark. I placed the knife that kept it from falling off his stomach onto his desk and read the letter with shaking hands, my breath uneven.

Eun Sun,

I know that you’ll be mad at me for leaving you. I didn’t want to have to leave like this. Though I couldn’t think of a better way that would hurt you less. I know that your friend Min Sun did this to you too, but I feel as though you might think of this as déjà vu rather than a new experience. Please understand when I tell you that I had a purpose to do this. There are better things waiting on the other side for me, things that will help with what I’ve been coping with for a while. I haven’t been completely honest with you, since I never told you that I’ve been coping with depression for the last four years. Remember the day we met? I was ditching school to go to the train station. You know why I went to the train station? I was going to throw myself in front of the next train. But you were a distraction, I saved you, then you saved me when I passed out, and I thought you were my guardian angel or something. You helped me see happiness in life, but recently I’ve been upset. I kept thinking about the story of your friend who killed herself. I realized she had a reason, a good one, and that I think I understood why she did it. She didn’t see a reason to live anymore. And I don’t either. So, I’m sorry, Eun Min. I really am. You’ve been the greatest friend I could ever have. Goodbye, and please, take care of yourself.

~Byun Baekhyun

What's my reason, Baekhyun?

I clutched my stomach, the warm liquid staining my shirt, my breath heavy as I lost control of my movements. The words were dancing across the page. I fell to my knees, clutching the paper, the knife falling out of my grasp to the ground. My eyes darted down towards my stomach, widening after seeing the puncture I had inflicted half way through reading the letter.

“Why did you leave me…” I whispered, dropping down the floor. Darkness dragged over me, the pain lifting off my shoulders.

I felt free.

I felt weightless.

I am at peace.