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“I’ve always been waiting.”

It was a Tuesday night, somewhere in May.

She remembered how the breeze was really crisp that night and how the smell of her neighbour’s freshly cut lawn tingled the insides of her nose. She also clearly remembered her parents’ voices booming through the walls of the house and her brother’s voice crashing head on with theirs.

That was the night her brother ran away from home.

She remembered how much she had cried, begging him not to go and how she was clawing so desperately at his shirt to hold him back. With a mere swing of his arm, she had gone stumbling back, falling onto the hard, cold ground. No matter how much she screamed out for him, he didn’t even look back once.

 “I’ve spent so long waiting for him that ten years passed by right before my eyes.”

Sometimes, she’d find herself dreaming of him and calling out for him to come back. She wanted him to come back and take this weight off her shoulders for so long. The weight of having to make up for two children. Especially when the one who both parents centered their lives around was the one who ran away, leaving the one who was ignored for half her life to take his place.

She was tired.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

She wondered to herself if he stayed, would her life be any different? Surely everything is his fault. From the moment she was born, they never even looked her way. All they did was pour all their hopes into the older one, praising him, encouraging him, patting him on the back. They never even saw her.

Now, even after he’s gone, even after ten years their son had run away from home – from them – nothing had changed.

They still didn’t see her at all.

 “I want to actually ‘live’.”

Honestly, she did try. She did try to make the best of it. She was willing to do anything if they would just accept her. To anyone else, they might’ve been a happy family but she knew that it was far from the truth.

All that she was, was a replacement for her runaway brother. The food she ate, the water she drank, the things she used – they were all meant for him. Nothing in that house hers to begin with. It was all his.

She had even asked herself this question countless of times; was this life she was living even hers to begin with?

What was the purpose of her actions? Just exactly who was she doing everything for?

Is this even what people call living?

“There’ll come a time when a robot will just break down and stop working.”

Throwing her pencil down to the table and abandoning her maths exercises, Haneul exited the library right on the bell. Picking up her pace, she went from a power walk to a dash, then from a dash to a bolt. She zoomed down the hallway, the people around her becoming nothing but blurs of faces as she flew passed all of them. Her mind was drunk on the idea of just getting out.

She didn’t care if a teacher was already screaming out her name and tailing her as she made her way out of the school building.

She was going to get out.

“…Now’s the time.”

“I’ve always been waiting.”

It had been a month.

He had already been living with them for a month. He’d see their faces looking at him with contempt in their eyes so many times that he’d begun to notice so many more things whenever he was around them; like how his mother’s forehead would slightly crease, quickly glancing at him as he walked passed or how fast his step father would fall silent when he was in the room.

Another person he hated seeing in that house was the little kid. Their child. His half-brother. The little boy happily playing with his large range of toys would never imagine how much hate was stored up for him. He hated seeing the boy, playing around without a care in the world, with parents who were always so gentle and kind – unlike his.

“I’ve already wasted half my life, desperately waiting for the end to come.”

Nothing really mattered to him.

Not that woman who he called mother. Not that man who lived under the same roof as he did. And definitely not that kid who had everything he didn’t manage to have.

He remembered the first time he came home with bruises on his face, his mother had walked right passed him without saying a word. That was the first time. Soon, things like that happened twice, then four times, five, then they began to happen more than he could count.

At first, it was just a test. He just wanted to see how she’d react. Afterwards, it became an addiction.

He began to spend all his days picking worthless fights with anyone, anywhere and sometimes even get beaten up senseless. He’d laugh at himself afterwards. Didn’t he get beaten enough back then? Why was that little, weak, defenceless boy from back then, who was always so afraid of his own drunken father’s wrath, now finding more ways to get the lights knocked out of him?

Stupid, he had thought. Clearly, he was just plain stupid.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

Fighting and getting beaten up all day didn’t seem to make his days pass as fast as he wanted it to. The hours he spent at home, in that suffocating house, just seemed to drag on for longer than he had hoped it would.

He had nothing to look forward to in this lifetime and he had nothing to look back on. Not even one single worthwhile memory that could’ve changed his mind.

The fact was right in front of him and was as clear as light. He had simply nothing at all.

And honestly, he was just hoping for it all to end.

“I don’t actually want to ‘live’ anymore.”

He really had no purpose in life. He just wanted the end to hurry up and come. Waiting took a long time but the truth was, he was too scared it end it himself so the only thing he could’ve done possibly done, was wait.

He was tired of all the tears – her tears – but more than anything, he was tired of life in general.

“There’ll come a time when a machine will get overheated from working too much and then, it’ll eventually self-destruct.”

Jongin stared out into the distance at the city lights staining the empty sea of blackness. The night wind was caught in his hair as it swept passed, kissing him on the cheek. This was the only place he could breathe. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to die here.

He grabbed onto the railing and hooked a leg over, then the other. He maintained his balance and sat up straight on the railing, his legs dangling over the bridge. He looked down. It was too dark to see the bottom, or anything in fact. On second thought, maybe he wouldn’t die from this height.

Maybe after he’s dead, he could finally see that guy again, the one who left this world so unexpectedly. 

Heaving a sigh, he loosened his grip on the railing.

Although he knew that he desperately wanted everything to end, he also knew that somewhere deep in the corner of his mind, he was hoping for someone to run up to him and stop him.

No matter how many times he denied it, he knew that he was just dying to be saved.

“Stop!”

“…When will that time come?”