WARNING: SELF-HARM
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I thought it would help.

The blade in my trembling hands, that is. When I made the first cut, all I felt was pain. The second cut was pain. The third was full of shame, and the fourth was when my heart finally stopped racing and the numbness set in. But it was temporary. The sense of calming numbness disappeared after only a few minutes, and my chest started hurting once more.

I wiped the blood off my cuts before I pulled my pants up and walked out of the bathroom. I was all the way down the hall when I felt blood start seeping through my pajamas. Thankfully, no one was awake to see, and I ran back into the bathroom to check. I cursed quietly when I realized that the blood was very, very visible against the light grey pajama bottoms.

I slept in my boxers for the rest of the night, and when I got up the next morning, I was grateful to my roommates when no one asked why I'd done laundry so late at night.


I felt like crying when I came home after work the next day and found the rest of the guys sitting there enjoying themselves. No one heard me come in. They didn't even look up when I passed them at the table, though I heard a couple of them say "Hey, Jinki".

I went to my room, and even though I felt like my heart was being squeezed, I didn't cry. I felt like cutting, but I resisted the urge. I instead rubbed my hands harshly against my old cuts, evoking a sense of calm. It lasted only for a few seconds this time, then I returned to a sense of pain. I tried so hard to distract myself with movies, games, books.. Anything.

I didn't tell anyone about how I was feeling. It seemed stupid, after all. Just because someone doesn't invite you to join their game doesn't mean they don't care, but that's how I felt. It made me feel worthless.

What was worse.. I felt all these things from a distance. The pain in my chest was a physical ache where my heart was, but it was like I felt it through some kind of barrier of apathy. The pain wasn't sharp, but dull. Like a butterknife through the ribs.

And the one person who made that distance of feeling go away.. I avoided like the plague. The sight of Minho brought about an instant, sharp pain, and as long as he was in my line of vision, I felt all the agony I didn't normally allow myself to feel. Every single thing I felt or thought while in sight of him was pain.

How could someone who didn't seem to care about me ever love me the way I wished he would? How could someone who claimed to be a friend of mine simply stop talking to me like I didn't exist? I didn't understand. My hands rubbed against my thighs furiously when I felt the anxiety building up inside me, and the stinging distracted me from my thoughts. I sighed with relief.

Later that night the physical pain in my chest, combined with the anxiety that felt like a hand always rested on my shoulders, made the urge to cut feel irresistable.

I made 2 more cuts, one on each thigh. The blood ran a little quicker this time, because I didn't feel a sense of relief. It raised my anxiety, and I started hyperventilating. I wondered why I was so weak, why I had to be so worthless to resort to hurting myself.

Nothing seemed to work, to rid myself of these feelings and thoughts. I whimpered quietly, secure in the knowledge that no one could hear me above the bathroom fan. I had remembered to wear black pants, thankfully, so the blood couldn't be seen.

I thought about telling someone, the next day. But it seemed pointless. Why tell someone about your problems when they don't really care? Why care when your problems are stupid, and trivial? Why even care about your problems yourself? They're not worth caring about, after all.

No one commented on the dark circles under my eyes. No one commented on my dimmed smile. No one commented on how much I seemed to be sleeping lately. And it was because no one cared.

All I felt was apathy. The physical pain was still present, but it wasn't very strong. I shrugged it off and continued with my day. Just like I did every day after.

Cutting hadn't helped at all. I read all these stories about how people feel a sense of relief after they've cut, but that never worked for me. I felt worse. All I felt after cutting was rising anxiety and more pain that I needed to get rid of.

But now, I can't stop myself. I'm chasing a relief I know I'll never feel, and yet I can't bring myself to care anymore. The inside of me feels hollow. ...Well, that's not true. The inside of me is full of scars and cracked, scabbed over feelings.

Sometimes, the inside of a person is damaged worse than the outside could ever appear. Just think about that the next time you see a person on the street and look at their lifeless eyes. Their dimmed smile. And wonder what sort of wars waged had damaged them so badly.

You'd be surprised.
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Well, I hope you all enjoyed my newest oneshot since forever.

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Til next time, loves. ^o~