(What’s on your mind?)

I hope he doesn’t think I’m weird.

(Enter) (Click)

::::

Howon wakes up the next day only to find himself, again waking up at his desk, with the light of his computer dims and the plug switched on. A few crumpled papers are messily placed on the desk, including the mug with his left over coffee. He doesn’t remember what time or when exactly had he fallen asleep that night, but when he wakes up this morning, he sees that it’s already almost eight in the morning.

The morning feels chilly, which probably explains the blanket that he remembers wrapping it around himself that night, because of the shivering cold, of early winter night. He stretches a little before he rises up, only to slowly approach the window across him. Howon looks through the curtain, and catches a trace of a few snowflakes falling, and some lingering footsteps on the crushed snows on streets. A tiny smile graces his lips.

“Hello winter,” He whispers to himself.

Once he reaches the kitchen, he notices a sticky, yellow note is pasted on the door of the small fridge he has in the kitchen. In a little daze, he reaches his hand for it and plucks the note off the fridge.

“Breakfast is ready. I hope you don’t mind pancakes,”

Howon doesn’t recognize the scribbled handwriting, but quickly assumes that it is written by his new housemate, Bomi. He flashes a smile upon reading it, but the smile quickly goes astray when he recalls the slit she has on her wrist. The slit feels recent to him, he assumes from the redness of the horizontal line on her wrist. A few scars running up and down her wrist too, and he wonders, if she has done that to herself almost too frequently.

There’s something about Bomi that intrigues a tinge of his curiosity, and he wonders, where has she’s gone to, at this rather early in the morning. He feels the stillness of the apartment, and silently hopes that she would wear thick clothes with appropriate pants and doesn’t forget to bring her jacket outside to warm her up.

Because it’s winter, and it is anything but freezing outside.

::::

“Sungyeol,” Howon called out his colleague at the bookshop he works, as both of them are busy arranging the newly arrived book stocks in the bookshelfs, of where the new items supposed to be placed at. It is an afternoon, and Howon decides to take up the afternoon shift, after learning that his lecture today has been cancelled.

“What do you think about cutting your own wrists?” Howon murmurs in a low tone to him, albeit his hands are still quick to arrange the books.

The question catches Sungyeol off-guard, as it puts him to an abrupt halt. He puts down his pile of books in his hands on top of the shelf, hands rested on the wooden surface of it, as he stares at him with a confused look.

“Why’d you ask? You’re not thinking of doing stupid things, are you?”

Howon chuckles, and shakes his head instantly, “No, I’m not and I won’t,” He crouches down and takes another pile of books from the box, before returning, “It’s just for a college work, you know, those research,”

“Good thing,” Sungyeol replies, with a sigh of relief. He picks up the books, and resumes with his work, “Well, if you ask me, I think it’s the dumbest way of committing suicide,”

He glances at Sungyeol for his remark; his forehead slightly creases, as he yearns for further explanations.

“Why try to kill yourself in the slowest, and most painful kind of way, when you can jump off a high building or jumping in front of a moving train, or perhaps try catching grenades, and poof, you’ll die instantly as you wish,”

Howon nods a little, agrees with his clever words, while resuming to neatly arranging some more books according to its assigned labels. “Good point,” He remarks.

“I couldn’t really understand people who wish to kill themselves, but I do remember talking to a friend before, and he said that he cuts himself to relieve his stress,”

“To relieve stress?”

“Yeap— in other words, they think it’s easier for them to hurt themselves than to hurt the ones they loved,” Sungyeol pinpoints the reason, “But if you ask me— hurting your own self is a selfish excuse of trying to put the blame to others,"

He adds in, "The saddest thing about it though, is that you'll end up hurting the ones who loved you, instead,”

That puts Howon to a pause for a while, as he tries to assemble his thoughts, when a particular question runs through his mind, “What happened to your friend then?”

There’s this sudeen, short silence between them, and hesitation in Sungyeol’s faltering tone. He puts the last book in the book shelf, and throws his empty gazes outside of the bookshop. Howon pursues his eyes trails, but could only see dead trees along the lonesome streets outside.

“He died last winter,”

::::

Howon comes back to his apartment later that night, only to find her pair of leather winter shoes, placed neatly near the door steps. His lips somehow stretches into a smile, and thinks to himself, at least she has safely arrived home.

Bomi was there, sitting down on the sofa in the living room, with her long hair tumbling down over her shoulders. He notices a square shaped box of jigsaw puzzle which lies on the floor, next to the foot of the table, as a number of scattered pieces of puzzle rests on top of the table. She seems rather absorbed in her little world, as she tries to match the missing puzzles to its fit places.

Howon clears his throat and manages an awkward, “Hey,”

“Oh, you’re back,” She whispers, as she flashes him a smile, before returning her attention back towards the puzzle she has on the table. There’s a vacant spot beside her on the sofa, and for a reason he doesn’t exactly know, he approaches her with both of his hands shoved in his pockets, and calmly takes a seat beside her.

Howon has this urge to ask about her whereabouts for the entire day, and to ask if she's doing alright (considering the scars he finds on her wrist). But he shrugs the thoughts to himself, and reaches his hand out for a piece of the scattered jigsaw puzzles, instead.

“So, you like puzzles?” He strikes a conversation, as he joins in to match the missing puzzles together.

She nods, and smiles a little, “It’s a good way to distract me,”

He doesn’t quite understand what she means, but chooses to study her face quietly, until somehow their eyes happen to meet each other in a blink and he abruptly shifts his gaze elsewhere. He picks another piece of the puzzle, and matches it to the ones that she has been diligently working on, on the top, left corner of the puzzle’s frame. When the tips of their fingers brush a little, strangely he feels butterflies.  

“I’ve never completed one,” She mutters, fixing her gaze towards him, and then lowers it to the tilted floor. “I’ve always given up halfway through it, like it's almost a ritual to me,”

A trail of disappointment seems to appear over her expression, and Howon tries his hardest to read her between the lines, but unfortunately, he finds none.

“Umm— well I’ve never really completed one too,” He replies, hoping that, that would make her feel somehow better.

He sees her smiles afterwards, and he thinks the way she crinkles her nose is cute.

“Howon?”

“Yes?”

“I hope I’ll complete it this time,”

There’s a hopeful tone in her voice, and this time, his lips naturally curves into a smile, “Let’s complete this together, Bomi.”

::::

(What’s on your mind?)

Sometimes, all we need is a friend.

(Enter) (Click)

She stares at her trembled hands; her palms become sweaty, and she could feel cold sweat streaming down her forehead. She reaches for the penknife hidden beneath her pillow, and breathes hard. All it takes is a single cut. A single, deep cut. 

“Don’t do this, don’t do this,” She cries out silently, and slowly drops the penknife.

Tonight, she finds the courage. Tonight, she cries herself to sleep.