one

There was a loud sound that echoed throughout the city, spreading its news that it was time. Time for work.

But life still refused to be shown. The city was still sound asleep and whined at the bell to stop ringing. The city still lay dead in their bed; a dark city that always appeared gloomy and dead.

Jimin opened his eyes, rubbing them heavily to take the sleep out of them. Even this simple task felt difficult because of the drowsiness from the drunken sleeping state. His eyes still stung from last night. He buried his face in his pillow, his mouth let out a chain of sobs. A forlorn sigh escapes the boy's lips.

Another day of fighting to stay alive. Another day of fighting to stay sad.

Jimin always thought that he was better than everyone in the city when it came to battling with his mind. He always found the reasons as to why he was sad, frustrated or upset. Unlike the others who say that they don't even know why they're miserable.

But judging by the scars on his wrist and thighs, it turned out to be the complete opposite; knowing the reason why you're sad is way worse.

Jimin's limbs tingled with numbness from hours of immobility. He wiggled his toes, trying to regain the feeling in them. The touch of his feet made him feel like a doll, rather than a human being.

Suddenly his mother enters the room, looking as pale and thin as ever. Her cheeks were hollow and well-shaped, her lips chapped and eyes sunken. Jimin didn't recognize her anymore. She became worse and worse as he grew up. Well, her mother had all sorts of perfect reasons to despise him so he didn't really hate her for it.

Instead, he hated himself for existing.

"Get up and go to work." She said in a shrill voice as she opened the curtains but it made no difference in the lighting of Jimin's room. She walked away without sparing another glance at her son.

The parted curtains allowed Jimin to view the most sickening scenery. The grey clouds were so heavy and gloomy like everyone else in this forsaken city. It rained almost every day. Jimin had marked on his calendar the days when it had not rained. Only one or two boxes that were filled with a check mark; three on special occasions.

As if on cue, lightning colors the sky with unorganized and unpredictable paths. Jimin had always thought that it was also related to how lost everyone's soul is. How no one had a sense of direction and no matter how hard they tried to find a way, it always ended up in vain.

Jimin felt tired. Despite just waking up from his long sleep, he felt extremely tired. It felt like a burdened task to get up in the morning.

He wondered how the people in the happy realm might start their day. It must be filled with singing and smiles; colors and beauty. All of the wonderful things Jimin never got to experience and never would either.

The happy realm is a long way from their own. And even if he reached it, the barrier between the two was impossible to break through.

With another dreaded sigh escaping, Jimin got up to his feet. His body swayed and his vision spun. The image of the room flitting around like a pestering fly. He felt bile rise up his throat; his stomach constricting. His fingers started to twitch, palms suddenly overwhelmed with an itch and Jimin fought the urge to scratch them raw.

Instead, he pulled his hoodie tighter around his lean body and moved to wear the only pair of white shoes he had.

It seemed that with each passing hour, the force of gravity got stronger. It got harder to move. And harder to breathe. And harder to see.

Jimin pulled the sleeves of his loose shirt further down his arms before walking out of the house. Not even noticing that he was wearing the same set of clothes that he wore yesterday.

He walked with his head down and legs sluggishly moving towards the familiar path that he - and every other person - followed every day. The dirt under his white shoes was soft with rainwater mushing and crunching under the weight of his feet. The air outside was always heavy and tense. As if you could almost feel the agony inside every other person who was forced to do the same thing as you.

Jimin entered the farm silently but with a noisy look on his face. He sees his father plowing the soil in the field as usual. His bearded face laden with sorrow and stress, just like everyone else. It twisted a rope of guilt whenever Jimin saw his empty face. His father had gotten worse since his separation with Jimin's mother. As a son, he felt obligated to do something. But he couldn't. Jimin couldn't do anything.

So instead, Jimin wondered how many more days it would take before he lost him completely. Lose him because his father would turn mad with despair and sorrow of lost love that he never had.

Not that he already wasn't lost.

But he thought it would have been better for the both of them if his father would just end his misery and Jimin won't get to see his miserable and sorrowful face, and he wouldn't get to feel guilt blanket him again.

He spent the rest of his time like a soulless machine that worked on commands of higher authorities.

•••

Another dreaded day and everything was still the same.

Jimin lift his eyelids to see his plain room and knew that he was still trapped in this twisted nightmare that people called 'reality'.

The clouds layered the empty sky, a gray sheet spread throughout the dull city. Jimin often heard stories of a creature called 'birds'. He heard of how small or big they would be and how magnificently they would soar through the sky; and how they would chirp madly and about the variety of colors they had on them.

Jimin even heard of the Sun. It was a supposedly big ball that hung in the sky, and how it would glare dangerously and make you sweat. And how it would sink down and sleep behind the mountains and come back up when it's morning.

In the dark realm, where Jimin lived, he found no difference between day and night. Only the fact that you work during daytime and sleep at night.

Jimin heard soft sounds on his window and before he even took a step out of his bed, it started to rain harshly down at the city. He sighed; it was not a day that he could mark on his calendar as a 'no-rain' day.

Jimin looked out of the window, his eyes wildly scanned the sky to see if the myth was true.

The rainbow myth. It was said that after rain, there are a series of colors that would go down the sky. It was also said that a pot of gold exists at the end of each of the ends of the rainbow.

Myths and stories of the other realm had always been a favorite of Jimin. Jimin had always wanted to cross the border between the two realms when he saw 'colors'.

In his third grade, Jimin's school had taken a trip to the museum of his monocolored city. There, Jimin saw a thing called 'glitter', which had different 'colors'.

Jimin was mesmerized by its beauty. How wonderful the different shadings could be was something he had never imagined. On spot, he decided that his favorite color was 'blue and yellow'.

He thought that they really went together. Jimin's first thought on seeing the color yellow was happiness. Something he had always yearned to experience. And the blue color made him think of the sky for an unknown reason; something out of his reach.

Jimin looked down at the floor, knowing he couldn't see them more often. He always envied the people on the other side, they had no idea how lucky they were to experience the best of life.

While Jimin, along with everyone else in the city, had to go to work and come back home. Eat, cry, sleep. Repeat.

Tomorrow is always a rerun of yesterday.

And how much the boy wished he could do something different but that's just how the world was supposedly made. He couldn't do anything out of the ordinary. He couldn't be someone different. He was the same as everyone else in the city. Pathetic.

People say that the "superiors" were the one to blame for the separation of the two major emotions. People say that "they" have had enough of witnessing suffering throughout the world and it opened their eyes to a new vision. A vision of a safe haven only filled with happiness and joy. Nothing but smiles and friendliness in each and everyone. Of course, that vision was too good to be achieved without a great price. These "superiors" were determined and found a way to bring their vision to life. A huge sacrifice that no one in the happy realm is aware of. The existence of Jimin's realm.

That's all Jimin has known for the past fifteen years of his life. Only few ever talked. He got most of his knowledge from books kept in the city's library.
Unfortunately, due to the scarce amount of information available about the other realm, only a small handful of books were written about it. So what Jimin knows is very limited. Nevertheless, reading about the happy realm helps Jimin momentarily forget about life's bitterness. It sparks a small flicker of something unexplainable inside his empty heart.

As the large drops of rain splattered loudly against the window, Jimin watched them slowly travel down the clear glass. One of his favorite hobbies is to watch the rain. It gives a sense of tranquility to the boy. It's almost comparable to that hollow yet fulfilling feeling after crying for hours, pouring out all the emotions bubbling between your lungs.

"Did you eat yesterday?" His mom suddenly appears in the doorway.

Jimin shook his head in response to the question. He got no response back but his mother stayed still, as if waiting for something else.

"Isn't it my day-off?" He asked as he slowly sat up. Everyone in the city was allowed one day off from work. They were allowed to do whatever they want on that day, which was mostly just staying in bed or aimlessly walking down the woods.

"Your father is outside." His mother said softly, almost whispering. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked down, suggesting she might have seen her ex-husband's miserable face when he got here.

Jimin understood. He wanted to give her a hug. To do an action of comfort but he just couldn't. He couldn't do it. So instead, Jimin stood up, a painful throbbing spreads all over his body making his knees buckle for a split second. He overworked himself again yesterday.

"Go back to bed." Jimin said, a hint of coldness lacing his raspy voice. He often tried to avoid interactions like this one because of how much they hurt. There's so much Jimin wanted to tell and ask his mother but he couldn't. There's so much he cannot do because of this sick way of living that he was stuck with.

The door was already ajar when Jimin reached the front door. The sound of someone's teeth chattering was audible as Jimin crept closer. His numb calloused hand gripped the doorknob and pulled the door open slowly. He saw the sight of his father dripping wet as he shivered on their porch.

"Jimin." His father wobbled as he tried to walk closer towards his son, his dark eyes sunken with the lack of sleep and excessive intake of alcohol. Jimin could smell the stench from where he stood. "Jimin, it's been so long since we talked."

His father steps closer, droplets of water hung from the egdes of his hair, his soaked coat was now of darker shade and was dripping wet. He was shaking uncontrollably. Jimin feared that he would collapse before he could say what he wanted to.

"Jimin, my son." His father took his hand and wrapped his own rough ones over it. Jimin felt the bump of an object hidden between their palms, so he raises his eyebrows in question. "This is my gift for you." His father said solemnly.

"It's a farewell gift, isn't it?" Jimin forced the words out of his mouth. The force of the words backfired and he felt a heavy lump shoot down his throat and straight to the pit of his belly. This was it. The day he loses him.

Jimin's father avoids his eyes and instead sets his eyes far beyond the horizon that's blurred by the hazy fog around them because of the continuous rain. "It's too much, Jimin." He says merely above a whisper, still avoiding his son's eyes. "I want to keep living for you." His voice starts to waver, trembling like his shivering body. "You're the only reason I can't pull the trigger once it's against my head.

"When I lost your mother—" Mr. Park's voice wobbles, in the verge of tears. "I didn't think I could get more depressed." The first tear rolls down his cheek and Jimin just stares at him. "But I did and it feels so horrible. I wanted to die on that very day. You saw it, Jimin-ah. You walked in my room and saw me wrapping the rope around my neck. I...I felt terrible." More tears flooded down his face. "You stared at me with a blank face just like what you're doing now. Your eyes were so dull and it made me feel so guilty. I wanted to punish myself. I deserved to rot in hell but I didn't want to leave you either."

Jimin meets his father's eyes with a boring gaze. He felt empty. So so empty. He should be crying along with his father but he just felt this numb ache in his chest. He supposes he has anticipated this moment all too much.

"I came here to ask for your consent." His father finally drops the bomb and looks at him straight in the eye. "I want you to give me peace, Jimin-ah."

"Dad..."

"It's so nice to hear your voice." His father sobs. The man finally lets go of Jimin's hand and gives a firm nod. "I leave you that necklace. I have faith you'll find someone who will make your life less miserable and you'll give that to them."

The necklace glitters in his palm as Jimin observes it carefully. There's an ebony jewel placed as the necklace's pendant, its cord a metallic material slick with something shiny. It must be a relic from the other realm that has lost its color from how long it has stayed in this dark realm.

"So how do you want to meet peace, father?" He asks carefully, emotionless eyes fixed on his father's.

"I want to make this quick so you won't have to see me suffer any longer." His dad pulls out a raven gun from his pocket and Jimin feels the air stop in his lungs. He never expected for his father to want his consent. "I know you've been waiting for this day to come."
Every word that comes out of his father's mouth drags his heart to the bottom. "So, let's make this quick."

Jimin nods once before walking past the weeping old man in front of him. There's a loud ringing in his ears, his palms starting to itch again. Each footstep felt heavier than the last as they both walked side by side towards the woods under the violent rain. The weight of the gun feels heavy in Jimin's hand. No one ever looked forward to killing his own father but if it meant that the old man will no longer have to suffer then he won't hesitate to pull the trigger.

His father is still crying silently. Big fat tears streaming down his face. He has started wheezing once they stepped out in the rain and he definitely looks paler and worse now compared to when they were still in the porch of the house.

They came to a stop in front of a large mahogany tree. The tree is older than Jimin himself. It's a crooked tree but Jimin appreciates its rugged branches spreading out and reaching up to the sky. It's an ugly kind of beauty.

Moments passed and neither moved an inch. It's just the wind blowing gently to rustle the leaves and the noisy rainfall soaking up the soil where they stand. They didn't dare look at each other. Jimin is scratching his palm on the other hand where he's not holding the gun, he starts to feel the sting when he starts to break the skin but he can't stop.

Suddenly, his father lets out a sigh which successfully gets his attention. He looks up and sees his father's back faced to him.

"I love you, Jimin-ah and please tell your mother I still love her."

Those were his father's last words before he pulled the trigger.

~~~




yo this was really
heavy to write

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