Stages
"What exactly would I change if I wanted revenge, was consumed by hatred or went insane with rage?"
-Takigawa Yoshino, The Blast of Tempest

As each year goes by, more and more responsibilities come along with it. As someone ages, the weight of the world also increases. Whether it be the stress of one's education, social life, family life, or personal life- it all adds up to the unhappiness of a human being.

It is believed that once you find that special someone, that one person who can help carry the weight, everything gets better. Well, he'd be damned if he ever did. It wasn't that he didn't have the support he needed because he knew better than anyone else that there were people standing by his side all the time. Yet, he still wished for things to change. Although now, he could only wonder why those things did change.

As the years passed by, he simply learned to adapt to the changes. This doesn't mean he went well along with it, but he didn't question it. He stopped questioning things. There was no point in asking why one thing happened, and why the outcome of it was another. He learned to move on, but that didn't mean he learned to accept. He never could. He never will.

When something drastic happens to a person, they often go through what Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first proposed in 1969, as The Five Stages of Grief. It is something universal. It is something that everyone goes through. The outcome depends on the own individual. Everything depends on their own view of things.

Sure, he went through the stage of denial. He also went through the stage of isolation. He thought that by separating himself from the people around him, he would be able to clear his thoughts. Seeing how things are the way they are now, that was the wrong choice. He never learned to accept it. He went through the stage of anger, in which every little aspect of life pushed him to the brink of insanity. A simple phone call from a caring friend, a knock on the door from a concerned relative, or even the sound of a bird chirping in the early morning- it made him see red.

He knew he should have sought for help sooner. There were so many people by his side to do so, but during his first two stages, he was able to push them all away in a blind stupor. He believed he didn't need help. If he was going to get through it, he would get through it alone. Once again, that was the wrong choice.

If only he had done something different before, if only he didn't do that, if only he had, would things even change?

He was vulnerable. He lost his control, and was desperately trying to seek it out again. Now, due to this vulnerability, he was left to wallow in his own self-pity. The weight of depression was suffocating, and what made it worse, was that he believed he was all alone to fend against this cruel, cruel world.

For the longest time, he couldn't find the willpower to push himself out of the confinement of his bed. Once he got past that, he was able to get up and wander his room, but he never left it. People who never understood, thought he was doing so to gain the pity of others. That was when he laughed. He laughed at those people. He pitied those people who never knew how extreme a case of depression could be.

Did they know how hard it was to get up in the morning? Of course they didn't because otherwise they would have understood. Those people never did, and they never will.

He stopped taking the pills. He wanted to get himself away from it. He wanted to get back on his feet without the help of medications. The pills helped, but it was no doubt he was losing more of himself with every dose. Depression wasn't something that only pills could fix. He needed other means of help. That was when he went to seek out the aid of people. The people who had been there since the beginning, but also the ones who he had idiotically pushed away in his stages of rage and isolation.

With the help he got from them, he was able to get himself out more. He stopped locking himself out of the world, and instead, welcomed the people who wanted to stay in his life. He never did much once he got outside because he found no point. There was no goal for him, and he couldn't clear his mind enough to set one for himself. He found himself wandering a lot, still trapped in the past. His thoughts would wander, and that was when he began to scare himself.

He wanted to learn to let go. He wanted to accept. He didn't know how.

The only escape he found now was sitting at his desk, his laptop in front of him. The light radiating from the screen was uncomfortable against the darkness of the room, and yet, he couldn't turn away. This was his only way of voicing out the thoughts that he was consumed by each day.

He was able to think things over in a more logical sense, and although slowly, it was a gradual change he was willing to embrace.

Inho had suggested it to him. He called bull the first time he heard it because he thought the idea was absolutely ridiculous. It was stupid, he claimed. He didn't think this would ever help because he didn't think he would ever heal. Now, he found himself doing this stupid thing he once rejected. He could care less whether or not people listened. He held the power of the words he typed away at on the keyboard.

Through writing, he was able to take his first baby steps to acceptance. The last stage he wanted so desperately to have the blessing of.

They may just be pixelated thoughts that he has now put onto the internet but the only thing that mattered is the fact that they are significant to him. The importance he found in writing his thoughts was tremendous, and at times, he wanted to run over to Inho and give him a big hug.

He was thankful for the help.

He should have never pushed it away in the first place.

As predicted, he was lost wandering the streets in his own thoughts. His phone, tucked inside the pocket of his jacket, had gone off plenty of times within the past hour. In annoyance and after reaching his tolerable limit, he had turned off his phone a few minutes ago.

He had places he was supposed to be at, and people he was supposed to meet. That didn't mean he was going to do so.

He wanted a few more days off on his own before he went back to work. He wanted to be able to walk the streets aimlessly with no care in the world. He definitely didn't need the stress of his new work life right now. As if his social life wasn't hard enough. On the bright side though, he was done his education. He no longer had to worry about that.

Now, work- that was something he wasn't unfamiliar with. He definitely worked during his times of education. Whether it was in an act of rebellion or to prove his own independence, none of that mattered any longer. This is where those past experiences actually mattered. The time when he had to put the things he learned and apply it to the real life.

He was glad, in a sense, that he was able to choose a career in which it was something that he was interested in. He was always interested in the aspects of business- there was no doubt about that. However, he was never interested in the business that was now placed in front of him. It wasn't even a choice he could choose between because it was a decision already made.
 

He had originally wanted to move away. He wanted to move away from this place. He wanted to move away from everything and everyone. This had been during his first stages of rage and anger. After he had gotten over it, he realized how important the people around him were. He had decided to stay.

So why was his father trying to push him away at a time like this? Even if he wasn't pushing him away, why not let him decide on his own future? Why lay out an undesirable future for the person you hold so dear, and call as your own son?

The entertainment business- that was what the crooked man laid out for him. Just because he had been working in it for so long, he automatically assumed this would be the best for his own son. Now, was it really? It was never something he was interested in.

He liked the aspect of running a business. Perhaps, opening up a fast food chain, or a store, or anything other than this would have sufficed.

Why did he have the misfortune of watching teenagers who cast themselves away for fame? He knew oh-so-well that some of them were naturally talented but to watch the ones try so hard to shape themselves into something they weren't was horrifying. Or watching the ones who had trained even before he put his hands into this business, and then to get dropped years after? How utterly and horribly heartbreaking.

Even through the loud volume of his music, his ears picked up the young laughter of youth. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he jerked his head up at the sounds, and he let out a soft sigh at the sight in front of him.

It was a group of four boys, with their arms around another one's shoulder, laughing without a care in the world. Or so that was what it seemed to the people who passed by. He knew better than that. He had a feeling he knew who and what they had just been doing. There was little logic behind the fact as to why they were sweating out in this cold weather if they were to say they had just come out for a walk. Unless they had just run a few blocks.

The towering building they had just come out of was one that he had seen countless times. One that he had been in more so than he would have liked. He looked up at the brightly-lit windows and he squinted his eyes to see the poster that had been newly glued onto the front face of the structure. It was an advertisement for their company, one that would attract both the young target audience of males of females. On the poster in popping eye-catching font, it would catch the attention of any teen wanting to be something more. Any teen who wanted to be recognized when they walked the streets during the day, one that wanted to be greeted at airports and sent fan letters.

He turned his head back to the boys who had now walked even further away, their figures hardly distinguishable in the dim moonlight. They were, no doubt, new candidates for the company to reel in their net profit. With their young and handsome faces, they were money-makers in terms of looks. All they had to do now was train their skills, or hopefully create some, to complete the package. Then, they would just have to sit and wait for the fateful day in which they got the call to say there were going to debut.

If he were to compare, it was like building the perfect army. To shape and form a soldier, don't they go through countless months- or even years- to learn the basics of everything? Once they get past the initial training, they would learn more towards the direction in which they wanted to head into.

Was it not similar to that of creating a soldier?

He reached back into his pocket and held the power button to turn it back on, and after a few seconds, it began to vibrate non-stop with the new notifications. His eyes dimmed at the thought of returning home, but casting away his thoughts away momentarily, he his heels and headed home.

He hoped with all his heart that he would not see those boys on the news any time soon.

They looked too young to be pulled into an industry like this. Too young.

There was no doubt he felt refreshed after taking a shower. His stiff shoulders had relieved themselves, even if a tad bit, after the constant downpour of hot water and steam. His mind felt cleared up.

He ruffled through his hair with the white towel he picked up from the fresh laundry. He shuddered the moment he stepped out of the bathroom because that was when he felt the cool breeze of the empty air. He walked over to his closet for an article of clothing to save him from catching a cold. Rummaging through the same repetition of colours, he settled on a light grey shirt to match his grey drawstring sweatpants.

He threw the towel he had in his hand moments ago onto the backrest of his computer chair. He settled himself onto the leather and leaned his head against the towel to let out a comforted sigh. He rotated his stiff neck in a half-circle before turning his head to look at his clock on the wall. Even under the minimal illumination of the moonlight, he was able to make out the position of the hour hand.

It was a little past midnight, which meant that it was the perfect time to start.

He his laptop, and the screen flashed with light, indicating it had came to life. He opened up web browser and navigated to his personal blog. He didn't even bother to glance at the number of page views he had gained since a week ago because the numbers never once mattered to him. They never did and they never would.

He had his own reasons for writing, and his reason was to escape. He knew he would return back to reality once he was done with each new post, but what did that matter if he could recreate the past he wanted to forget? It was ironic, really. If it was something he wanted to forget, then why write about it where it would be forever saved on the worldwide web?

The reason was simple. He never really wanted to forget. If he wanted to forget the bad times, then how could he keep the good times as memories? Both the good and bad complimented each other. It's what makes the equilibrium in a person's mind. If one only remembers the good, what would they ever learn if something in their bad memory were to occur in the present day?

He couldn't lie to himself. He knew that the bad times were going to haunt him if he continued to write about them. Yet, there was no point in pretending to hide them away and never speak of them because that wouldn't mean that they were gone. It would mean he's still trapped in his stage of denial. He wanted to get past that and into the stage of acceptance. He knew that by writing, he could learn to accept.

It was because as he writes, he learns. He is able to see the things he might not have noticed in the first place, in which at the time he would have been blinded by emotions. Now, after everything, he is able to reread it through, and figure out why it had happened.

He wrote about everything. He wrote from the very start. His feelings that were never truly expressed in person, he was able to voice it out online.

This was the story he had kept to himself for so long. 

✍  a u t h o r 's   n o t e

Thank you guys for the support! It took a while to write this because I wanted to convey something through this chapter.

Thank you for your patience! I really hope you guys liked the chapter. Look forward to the next one!

I'll be sure to update Next Stop: Insanity soon too! So if you guys are here from my other story, look forward to it!

See you ♡