Nadir ◈ Seungjin

Final ◈ The Meridian

"S-so... Umm... That's, kind of, what happened to me?"

The clock in the corner of the living room ticked gently. A timid sound. Not proud enough to speak louder than it's faint whisper.

He peeled his eyes off the seconds he watched pass by in the quiet of his earbuds, memorizing the time until it internalized and engraved the afternoon on his mind as nothing more than a note. With a heavy sigh deflating his shoulders, he returning the tired stare to the overbearing illuminance of the laptop screen on the desk in front of him. Stilled hands frozen in place in his lap as he fiddled with their salvaging presence. Bit by bit, the rapid tapping of nail to nail spreading numbers, letters, words, their distinction blurring together with his gaze, on the video call consuming the strain of the blue light. The strain on his mind too. How even though he wished to sleep against the cool surface of the desk, he ultimately knew talking to that woman would be better for him than simply falling asleep again.

In the subtle lighting of that apartment, a still met his eardrums. Unbreakable, save for the counting clock hoisted on the wall and the clicking of his fingertips against his keyboard. Unbreakable, save for the few blares of shrill car horns from the streets outside of the apartment's unspeckled windows barricading them from the night. Unbreakable, save for the hum of the ceiling fan's rotary above their heads sweeping the room clean of any of the summer heat that may linger from the boiling days. Underneath the fleeting sounds that dances around the flat's encasing walls. The rest remained still. Unbothered in the artificial lights casting down. The perfect diarama of what a house could be. The perfect model of what a home should be.

He preferred it that way.

He preferred the silence and few noises, though he loved to be graced with the loud voices who frequently opted to come raid his pantry while they visited his partner. He preferred the gentle sounds which floated in from the world outside, reminding him in it's timid ways he was miraculously alive. He preferred the focus the undisturbed apartment yielded to him, it's simple intricacies allowing him to listen for the few sounds which grounded him down from the occasional migraine in his mind, nothing like how their pain used to be. He preferred the keyboard in front of him, and the new handgun disengaged on the desk beside his hand, recently cleaned out as it's magazine sat unloaded beside it. Most of all, he preferred the lights on.

A voice from the earbuds cut in as the image on that screen shifted; A woman, older than him by nearly two decades in the wrinkled lines adorning the cracks of her eyes and the slice of that sympathetic smile he had become accustomed to seeing from her, the neatly combed hair dropped down to the professional blouse and the clipboard he saw her set down. Chan's psychiatrist. Well, his psychiatrist, a wonderful person who he often told his farthest worries to, smallest details in his life about breaking down when he realized he had to run the dishwasher twice after a hard day, to the greatest secrets kept bared openly on his throat. A patient lady, but a brutally honest one who didn't bother to hide the reality of his situation. Such as now as she finished off, "That's what happened to you, yes. Seungmin, we've talked about this."

"Fuck, I know. Never mind. I take back what I said, I'm not overreacting," Seungmin hummed back to her words, their intentions slowly dissolving in his mind as he set his chin to the pedestal support of a propped palm. Lifting him back from the depths of his sleepiness while he scanned his eyes over the laptop keyboard, chasing the backlight lettering for comfort while he spelled out, "Honestly, I don't remember much from those months. It all felt like a blur. I felt out of myself most of the time and there's gaps my mind keeps blocking out. I mean, I know they happened and I know I did those things. But, I can't... It's hard to recall them. I don't remember that night at all. I know I killed him, Naberius, I know I did. But I can't remember any of it."