The importance never lies on why something happens but rather how one chooses or trains oneself to understand the situation. This, I believe, is how I've kept myself sane for the past seven years. Psychiatrists can call it whatever they would like, but I am not crazy. I am not trapped in the arms of depression because for some reason, I have the power to share someone’s last moments with them, despite the fact that I may not be physically next to them. 

I have not lived their whole lives with them, true, but no one can understand how much one hurts before they decide to take their lives. I do. Though I may never be able to tell that person that, really, I do understand, I feel as if they can hear me—they are not alone. At least I hope this to be true. Why else would I have this... skill to connect to an individual, only to part ways once they cease to exist in the physical world. 

I woke up at 5 am that morning and though school did not start until 8:30, I had to note the changes that were happening. Preparations took longer now. My parents were no longer my teachers, and I presumed that unlike them, the ones that I will have to get used to would not be as lenient with the dress code. I tucked the crisply ironed shirt into my uniform pants. It crinkled the bottom slightly but I supposed if I stayed composed for the rest of the day, it wouldn’t hurt if I was slightly untidy. This was soon to be something that I would get used to, and once the unfamiliar environment becomes less exciting, I would let down my guard and revert to the more messy self that I am. 

I knocked on Jimin’s door, and as expected, he was not ready to go. It was his dad that had opened the door. It took a couple of minutes of mundane conversation with his parents before I could squeeze myself past them and into their son’s room. “Jimin-ahhhhhhhhhh” I ran from the door and jumped up in the air and landed half on top of Jimin and the other half on the bed. There was an hour to go before the school gates would close and he was not up yet. Jimin was usually an early riser, but after the text conversations from the night before, I had concluded that the boy had more than one can of beer before he made it to his bed. I had to try my best not to make so much noise while laughing when I read the text messages claiming that ‘No longer can he keep this in, and it’s been so long since he has known. He was just not a sandwich kind of guy; he was more into hot dogs.’ And others that said, ‘Despite how much hard work he had put in to getting his chocolate abs, he was just too in love with cheese. He was being a bad bad boy and I being his bff-and a whole bunch of other letters that no one really knows the meaning of- I should tooooooottally punish him.’ It took a lot of pulling and tugging but nevertheless, we had manage to get ourselves inside the school gates just seconds before it closed. It wouldn’t have taken that long if it had not been  for Jimin's whining the whole way about how his head hurt too much to function so early in the morning.  

“So I had a dream last night.” I said as we made our way into the building. I didn’t have to explain myself any further for him to understand what I had meant. Jimin’s eyes quickly trailed to meet mine, seemingly not as interested in his headache anymore. This, had always been Jimin’s weakness. It’s every little boy’s dream to be a super hero when they grow up, but when they get to a certain age they just have to deal with the fact that they don't have the proclaimed 'super powers' to be able to save a person from imminent death. It was just… not possible. I felt a hand grip my arm and tug me into a small storage room (which I could only be glad that the room contained paper and books rather than cleaning supplies). 

“So what happened? What did you see?”  

“There were pain killers, and the person wrote I quit on the paper. I think it was June 30th or maybe July… I don’t remember.” Jimin’s eyes sparkled with determination, as if this time he was sure that we could save the person who was walking into their own end. It could have been anyone, and I am still waiting for the day that Jimin realizes that it was clearly impossible for us to save anyone. He was about to say something but stopped, his eyes was fixed, along with mine, on the door knob as we heard it being twisted open. 

“What are you guys doing here?” It was Jungkook who opened the door to interrupt the secret meeting between Jimin and I, “One of the teachers saw you two walking in, and she told me to ask you guys what you’re doing.” Jungkook’s eyes drifted from Jimin and then to me. A few moments of silence that seemed to last longer than it should have passed before any of us said or did anything. “Were you guys…” The boy didn’t dare continue on that sentence but it seemed that Jimin understood what was being implied faster than I as he was quick to deny the query. 

“No! No… we weren’t doing anything like that. Right?” Jimin looked at me as a cue to defend his statement and I nodded. 

 “We were just... I was going to tell someone that he really likes something that was going to embarrass him, as revenge for getting me in trouble with my parents yesterday, but he pulled me in before that.” I lied through my teeth, but the slight quiver in my voice did not seem to be missed by the boy. I had considered myself to be a good liar but somehow this was different; it had taken far too long to come up with a lie. Jungkook chuckled and I wondered for an idle moment if he had bought the story. 

“Who does he like?” I watched as Jungkoook’s lips tugged up into a bigger smile and I wrapped an arm around the boy to pull him closer murmuring an ‘I’ll tell you in a while’ before pulling him out of the storage room. We walked outside leaving Jimin behind, but he had soon caught up by the time we had stepped into class. The young teacher that had made her way into our class was clearly new to her profession. There was a freshness in the way that she handled her students that even I, as one that had experience of being in school for a day, could tell after comparing her to a couple of other teachers we had met. After introductions, we got side tracked with discussions instead of course material which we were supposed to have been covering. 

It was not that I was particularly fond of wasting class time, but that the conversation was one that was intriguing. It jumped from politics to social changes and then rights of minority until we reached a subject that seemed to scandalize most of the class. uality. It was always a hushed subject in school. While some were sceptical of believing that such a thing was possible, others were first in line to deny that it was innate and could be changed. I glanced at Jimin, whose eyes shifted from student to student but soon met with mine. It seemed that he knew what I wanted to say, as he smiled, and mouthed an “its okay” in my direction. 

I couldn’t help but glance at my neighbour, Jungkook, once in a while as the conversation continued. For someone who was always the first to raise his hand in class, it seemed unusual that he had not contributed any of his opinions since the start of the class. I studied his expression in the quick glances that I got of him, but it did not seem as if he was displeased with the idea nor the opposite. It seemed almost as if he was just listening to the words, hearing the opinion of his peers though it had done nothing to evoke emotion within him. I couldn’t understand the reason for his silence, but for some reason the lack of knowledge bothered me to bits. 

This was the day that I learned that with the right attitude anyone could be heard. The young teacher, who was supposed to be an amateur in the field, had brought curiosity to the minds of teenagers about a subject that was very often brushed off and pushed to the corner in our town. Jimin and I were part of the 75% that had decided to stay back during lunch hour only to debate the idea of different ual identities. Also, by pure coincidence, Jung Jungkook was one of them. I can assure anyone that may doubt that I had stayed there only because I wanted to know what the boy had to say about it, is completely and utterly wrong. Plus it was only a quarter of the students that left the class room; that would make his chances of leaving merely one in four. It was pure coincidence that both of us decided to stay.  

Though if that had been the reason for me staying in class, it would have turned out to be unfruitful as even after 50 minutes of the break, the boy still had not uttered a word. 

A coffee grinder powders a couple of high dose painkiller tablets and soon two shaky hands pick up the blender to put the contents of it into a glass half-filled with milk, following that was the chocolate syrup. It was not a hard task. He just has to drink it. 

The boy glances at the calendar. 30th June, 2014. The words ‘I Quit’ in his own handwriting had been carelessly and angrily scribbled across the paper. Everything was falling apart, and he’s unsure if he can face what is to come. The boy reaches over to the glass. He downed the drink in one shot before placing it on the table again. Taehyung-ah… Taehyung-ah 

“Taehyung-ah...Taehyung-ah you need to get up, it's time to go home.” I felt myself being shaken as someone tried to get my attention, what was happening this early in the morning? I pushed myself up to sit up straight, to find that I was still in the classroom. Yawning, I looked at the boy that had waked me up, slightly puzzled about what had just happened in the dream. There was something different about it this time, I heard my name being called but it felt so… “You fell asleep during the diagnostic quiz… The teacher said not to wake you since you were done anyway.” His words interrupted my train of thought but I quickly fixed my hair with a quick nod. 

"I’m sorry… I just rested my head but ended up, well, yeah..” I gave the boy a sheepish smile, only then noticing the empty class room, “Everyone’s gone?” Though the word everyone was what came out, I was mostly just wondering where Jimin was, but Jungook seemed to have read my mind. 

“Yeah, people are usually ready to walk out five minutes before the bell rings. Oh and there was an announcement about a dance club. So Jimin went for that, he said he’ll talk to you later.” 

We had walked out of the building, making small talk until we had to part ways. After that, the walk home was silent, not unusual for a Tuesday evening. The silence brought on thoughts that had bothered me, about the dream. There was something off about it. It continued to bother me throughout the night, something that had never happened to me before in the past seven years. 

It was 2am when I woke up after dozing off for a couple of minutes. It took a little fumbling before I could find my phone and without much thought, I was punching a couple of digits in before pressing it against my ear to hear the familiar dial tone. 

“Pick up. Pick up. Pick-” 

“…Taehyung, what the hell?” A groggy voice said from the other end. 

“Can I come over? I need to tell you something.”