[warning] swear words 

     There were times where your parents would hold you by the shoulders, look at you straight in the eye, and say, “Always follow your dreams.” You would go on believing them, thinking that yes, they support my dream. Perhaps your childish dream then was to become a superhero, but it didn’t matter, because they supported your dream. You grow up believing so, your dreams morphing from a superhero to the president to a doctor, then say, to a composer. It’s not until later, and this may take a few years, that you realize your parents disapprove of your dream. It’s the dream they told you to follow, but they don’t like your dream. Their disappointment hits you, and it throws you into a state of confusion. Then, you’re suddenly taking the classes that you loathe with all your heart, and you’re drowning in a sea of subjects that you really couldn’t care less in this world. Soon, you realize it. Those words, the words that they repeated over and over when you were a child, they were disguised by a thin veil of lies. They didn’t say your dreams. They said my dreams. Always follow my dreams.

     Apartment number 366 was just another crappy room on the third floor of a run-down apartment building. There was nothing special about it, and the person using it certainly wasn’t special either. Inside, it was formatted like every other room in the building. A small, dirty kitchen laid to the left of the entrance, and then further ahead was the less-than-adequate ‘living room’. There was a balcony attached to the building, but it was falling apart. One, cramped bedroom with a mold-infested bathroom was located to the right of the living room. Sometimes, if a person was lucky, rays of the sun would peek through the glass doors of the balcony. However, it was most likely they had to depend on the unreliable electricity the building provided. It was a complete living hell, but it was perfect.

      Kim Jongin lived in apartment number 366.

Before, when he actually cared, he tried to fix up the place as best he could. He cleaned the bathroom, covered holes with pictures, and painted his bedroom with music notes (he was only renting, but the owner didn’t mind). The balcony used to be full of plants that he dutifully watered, and he even bought himself a small table and chair to sit outside. Every day, he cooked a meal--given, a simple one-- for himself. It wasn’t ideal, but he had been content with it.

     That was when he actually cared. That was before his decisions came to bite him in the .

      Now, the apartment was back to its original state. The mold grew back in the bathroom. The paint from the bedroom was almost scratched off. A cockroach scurried across the kitchen floor. On both hands, a person could count the amount of months the kitchen has been untouched. In the living room, trash littered throughout the small space, attracting ants and other unknown insects. The mess in the living room would make anyone deem the tenant crazy. But then again, he didn’t care. These days, throwing anything away in the trash was pointless. There were candy wrappers, ramen cups, pencils, and socks, but music sheets enveloped the floor. Crumpled balls of sheets had been thrown carelessly in the apartment; some full of notes, some half-way done, and some even blank. They were failed pieces of art: rejected and feared before they could even escape the peeling walls. It made the inside of the apartment heavy with invisible fog, monochrome with hinted splashes of colors. The colors were fading, though, and so was Kim Jongin.

      The twenty-three-year-old man stood off to the side, facing a dusty desk he thoughtlessly shoved to a wall. His tall frame was slouched, his fingers busy with something, while one hand occasionally took the lit cigarette out from his mouth. Blond hair peaked out from a black, tilted beanie. A deep, purple turtleneck hugged his body enough to show how skinny the young adult was for his age. Some worn jeans clung to his legs, ripped and torn at places that were not on purpose. The dim light that attempted to light up the room didn’t exactly hit his form, so he sunk in with the shadows. Cool colors buried warm, and the fog deepened. Jongin was a stranger, a shadow, in his own home.

     “Ow! .” Jongin dropped whatever he was holding and brought his index finger to his lips. The cigarette dropped, and he was quick to put it out with his shoe.“Paper cut,” he mumbled. He wiped the blood onto his pants, grimacing, before resuming to his previous task. Sounds of scribbles on a piece of paper were crisp in the silent air. It took another minute of tranquilizing silence until Jongin finally straightened from his painful position, grasping the piece of paper with him. “Done.”

      His scrawl of words weren’t legible to anybody but him. But it wasn't their problem, because the list was for him. Jongin stared at the piece of paper in darkness, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “What do I do, now?” he murmured. “They never told me what to do with it.”

      They, as in neighbors. The people who lived close to him were wanna-be psychologists. This morning, they had spookily knocked on his door and told him the world would be brighter if he wrote a list of good things about himself. A little curious and ready to call them out on their bull, he did. Given, it was midnight, but he did.

I can write some ty music

My hair looks less stupid with this beanie

I own twenty-two pencils

I almost had a non-ty life

Almost

     He was almost proud of his list. Should he burn it? Maybe crumple it and have it join his collection? He looked at the old clock across the room, letting his eyes adjust to read the tiny hands. Oh. It was twelve-eleven. That was nice. It’d be twelve-twelve in a minute. He needed to get going.

     Deciding randomly, Jongin walked to his bathroom, crumpled the paper, and flushed it down the toilet. He didn’t really care if it clogged; didn’t really care that his hard work on that list was gone. He tried, and it didn’t work. World gets brighter his . The only change the list did was make the mist shielding his eyes shift; darker; deeper; heavier. It comforted him more. He wanted it darker. He wanted it heavier. He wanted to feel the weight on his shoulders drag him with every step he took.

     The wind outside whistled and howled. Unconsciously, he grabbed his jacket and shoved his arms through the sleeves. He pulled his turtleneck all the way up, then zipped the sweater in preparation. Maybe he should bring his gloves. Starting to reach for it, Jongin paused halfway, blinking, then let out a dry, humorless laugh. His actions were pointless.

     Did it really matter if he was cold?

     Adjusting his beanie and struggling to put on his dirty shoes, he turned halfway to survey the room that had been his home for two years. All his failed creations were going to be left behind and on display. He should be feeling sentimental. He tried to be sentimental. But his attempts were to no avail. Useless emotiosn were dried out from him. Should he leave a note? The neighbor next to him suffered from insomnia, so she talked to Jongin often, the only one awake at ungodly hours. Maybe he should leave one, to tell her where he’d gone.

     Jongin shook his head and turned around.

     No, notes were for the cowards.

     It was impossible to be quiet when walking through the halls of the building because each step would actually result in a creak. Jongin was pretty sure he woke up most of his neighbors, but none of them bothered to complain, so he kept walking as if the floor didn’t scream every time he put his weight on it. It was a pretty crappy place to live (it’s not as if he didn’t realize it before, but it really just hit him now). The extremely low rent partially made up for it, but everybody knew these apartments were for people who had nothing going for their lives. There was also the fact that most of these people (if not everyone) had salaries that would make a middle-class citizen cry. Jongin accepted a while ago he was part of these people.

      When he reached the elevator, his hand was steady when he pushed the button. There was only one, because the people who built it didn’t put in two buttons to distinguish whether the elevator was going up or down. It was kind of a hope-the-elevator-was-going-your-way thing. This elevator was the sole reason why the other tenants spoke to each other (to tell the waiting person which direction the elevator was going). Otherwise, unless it was mutual--which was rarely--relationships weren’t made.

      Jongin inhaled deeply and leaned against the wall with closed eyes, his pack of cigarettes in his pockets. He slowly exhaled, feeling each breath of toxic waste dispel from his body. Then he inhaled them, again, and the cycle repeated. Jongin hated the cycles in his life. There were people with blissful cycles incorporated into their lives, from brushing their teeth to grabbing a coffee to working in a place they liked. His cycles were tiresome. They were dull, agonizing, and painful.

     But Jongin guessed he had nobody but himself to blame.

     He took out his cigarette pack, deciding another smoke wouldn’t hurt. The elevator moved at a snail’s pace, anyway, so it would take a while before it arrived to his floor, especially if it was coming up from the first. Huh. How long would it take for the elevator to make it to his destination? Jongin wondered just how long he would have to stand inside the death trap, unnervingly calm as he would wait for the last ding. His thoughts aside, his fingers brushed against empty space inside the cigarette box. Surprised, his gaze shot down to it.

     One, single cigarette stood to the very right of the box. It was his last one.

     That was ironic.

     “Kyungsoo, you didn’t show up last night. Your behavior as of late is unacceptable. I expect better results by the end of--”

     Do Kyungsoo softly pressed his thumb onto the cancel button. The voice message cut off, leaving the air heavy with disappointment and the echoes of a man’s deep voice. None of the lights were on, and besides the subtle light from the moon (one of the advantages of living on the top floor), there was total darkness in the typical-looking apartment. It was the usual layout: the expected, stuffy bathroom in the tiny bedroom and insignificant, ugly kitchen. In addition, it was nowhere near clean nor decent. In fact, the apartment’s condition seemed to be worse than from its starting point.

     If anyone knew Kyungsoo from the past, they’d claim he was an extremely neat person who would stress over a miniscule stain in his house. If anyone knew Kyungsoo now, they’d laugh at that notion. Stains of coffee or other suspicious liquids splattered the carpet, walls, and couch, and it didn’t look as if there had been any attempt to clean them up. A low table was flipped over for no apparent reason, and the stacks of paper that were on the table scattered across the floor. Folders of more papers had been thrown in every which way in the small living room; some of the papers were stamped months ago. Most of the piles of dirty clothing flowed from the bedroom, but the others didn’t seem to have ever made it to the bedroom. Only one lamp worked in the entire apartment, because the other two had smashed lightbulbs (broken in anger). Faintly, a person could hear a coffee machine steadily dripping coffee, even though it was late in the night (or early in the morning).

     But Kyungsoo didn’t see the point of making coffee now.

     He didn’t see a point in anything.

      The twenty-four year old man still had his thumb pressed delicately on the cancel button of his home phone. There was only one desk standing in the living room, and a home phone and some junk piled on top of it. Kyungsoo’s other hand hung limply by his side, his fingers wiggling and curling endlessly, restless. Every once in a while, his fingernails would dig painfully into his palm. He didn’t know whether or not to relish in the pain. The young man was medium-sized, small compared to the people he worked with, but even outside his work, he was invisible to the crowd. He already had narrow shoulders and a less-than-average build for a man, but the way he stood, slumped, his weight pulled down harshly by gravity; the way his dark eyes shone with nothing but a reflection, lacking the ability to match with his choked words and disgusting laughs; and the way his eyes failed to comprehend the images before him, covered by a fog that deafened and blinded his surroundings, made him more vulnerable. Smaller. Lifeless.  

     Even though the voicemail had already stopped, the man’s voice didn't disappear from Kyungsoo’s mind. It lingered and took over his subconscious. Suddenly, the hand that hung limply by his side shot up and clawed at his chest. A fistful of his black long-sleeve shirt filled his clenched hand. Your behavior as of late is unacceptable . . . as of late is unacceptable . . . unacceptable . . . I expect . . . expect. Squeezing his eyes shut, Kyungsoo took his thumb off the cancel button and swung his arm, knocking the home phone off the desk. It clashed with the wall and bounced to the floor. The neighbors could probably hear the crash through the thin walls, but it didn’t matter to Kyungsoo. He wanted that voicemail to burn.

     Finally resting both hands on the desk, his flat eyes glanced over to the half-broken clock. The LED lights displayed 12:09. That meant the streets would be almost empty. The city wasn’t like Seoul, where it would be busiest at night. Instead, he lived on the outskirts of Seoul, where people actually knew when to sleep. He needed to leave now, go before the streets became busy again. Kyungsoo briskly turned around, not bothering to attempt a sentimental survey of his crappy apartment that had made him unhappy from day one.

     Though did it really count as unhappy when happiness was never really a checkbox to fill in his life?

      He easily slipped into his worn shoes, but almost stumbled when he reached for a piece of paper left on the counter, which he shoved into his jeans. A mirror that hung next to the door was smashed, and he made the mistake of looking into it. God, he hated this mirror. Because it was shattered, the image reflected displayed distorted versions of him. It wasn’t too different from the reality. Kyungsoo pressed his lips together and looked away.

     It was really time to go.

      One of the things Kyungsoo used to absolutely loathe about the building was its elevator. Because he was on the top floor, he usually had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for it to reach his level. Now, he didn’t care as much. He didn’t come to like the building, but he no longer had the energy to exert an emotion like hate. It wasn’t within his ability anymore.

     Tonight, luck seemed to be on his side (it was almost mocking him). The elevator came to his floor within two minutes. It rang softly, and the doors sluggishly pulled open. With a small exhale, Kyungsoo looked into the small space, studying it with his naturally wide eyes and scrutinizing every inch of it. Then, he entered, his footsteps heavy.

      “No one should be waiting for the elevator,” he murmured quietly to himself as he pushed the lobby button. The doors crawled towards each other and closed with a thud. It took some time before he actually started to descend. Feeling and hearing the hum of the elevator, Kyungsoo closed his eyes and let his body sag against the elevator’s wall. The hand in his jean pocket clutched his paper, wrinkling it. Briefly, he let only the buzz of the machine wash over him, and it temporarily buried his thoughts. He exclusively felt the heavy weight of his body, the vibrations of the elevator. Kyungsoo inhaled through his nose, then exhaled slowly through his mouth. A phantom mist that lingered at the edges of his vision was fed through his solitude and started to close in, embracing his body gently with a touch so soft, so assuring, his body surrendered to it. Once again, he inhaled. Then exhaled.

     The soft ring of the elevator made his eyes open abruptly. For a moment, he allowed himself to feel shocked. The screen only showed the third floor, which meant a person was actually waiting for the elevator at this time of night. He stayed still as the doors trudged open, and a tall man appeared before him. The man, too, showed mild surprise.

    The man was skinny. He was tall, way taller than Kyungsoo, but he was skinnier and frailer. Distasteful dyed hair poked out from a black beanie that only seemed to enhance the person’s murky eyes. It's so blonde, he found himself thinking. Kyungsoo had the urge to pull the beanie down so he wouldn’t have to glance at the bright hair. A turtleneck awkwardly hugged his unhealthy body, but it was still loose on the shoulders. Restless fingers tapped at ripped jeans while the young adult’s weight shifted from side to side.

     When the silence stretched long enough between them, Kyungsoo made eye-contact and said softly, “The elevator is going down, if you’re planning to head up.”

      The man smiled. “I’m headed up, but I might as well take a detour.” Kyungsoo looked away, uncomfortable and startled.

     This man’s smile reminded him too much of his own.

This will be a two-shot! Please tell me of typos, if it's awkward to read, and comments are appreciated! Thank you!