Before My Eyes || PCY

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Memories, Past, Alive

The sunlight rays hit his eyes making him open them. He groans in annoyance. Why didn't he close the curtains before sleeping? Looking at the alarm clock on the bedside table, he sees that it is a little late.

1:47 P.M.

He isn't surprised to wake up at such an hour. He remembers sleeping when the sun was about to rise; he was crying all night. It wasn't only Ha Ru's death. It was because of everything going on in his life.

He remembered everytime he pictured Ha Ru and talked to her even though she wasn't there. He remembered everytime his friends or sister had to take him to her grave so that he remembers her death. Every time he wondered why people at the mall gave him weird looks as if he was crazy whenever he went out with Ha Ru in public and talked to her.

He remembers now. All those memories came back, but instead of Ha Ru, he sees the empty space he was talking to. He doesn't hear her voice anymore. All he remembers is him talking and laughing by himself.

They say when you start forgetting a person, the first thing you forget is their voice. Chanyeol, however, finds this fact false, because everytime he pictured her talking to him, his mind could make up her voice exactly as it was.

Maybe it hadn't been so long for him to start forgetting her.

Lazily getting up from bed, he makes his way to the bathroom.

Pale face and puffy red eyes staring back at him in the mirror. Shaking arms holding him up as he leans on the sink. Wobbly legs barely holding him up. Chapped lips parted even though nothing came out of them but long deep sighs. Faint horizontal marks on both his wrists and inner arms. When did he become so weak?

As far as he remembers, he was strong, both physically and mentally. Then it clicks in his mind.

Right.

It all happened when he started skipping meals. When he started going out less, so the sun never really met his skin. When he stopped going out for morning runs or doing any activity that included moving. When her smell wasn't there to comfort him anymore so he replaced it with the smell of blood.

All of this happened to him just because he lost his girlfriend? His parents' death didn't affect him that much. But why did her death do? Was she closer to him than his parents? Did he love her more than he loved his parents?

No.

Not true.

He was the same before. He was this weak and this vulnerable before. It was around middle school when his parents died in a car crash. He was this miserable. But then he met her, and his monochrome life started having colours. She made him see those colours. His sister was busy, working all day and all night so she couldn't fill their parents' place no matter how hard she tried.

Did Ha Ru fill that place for him? She loved him so he loved her. She cared for him so he cared for her. She trusted him so he trusted her. She was always there for him so he was always there for her.

But he was the one who killed her first before she did.

He killed her in that car crash and since they shared everything, they had to share death too. But death comes in different ways. She died and left this world. He died, but why didn't he leave yet?

Everytime he looks in the mirror, he wonders if he really is alive. Those eyes, that once shined with amusement, are now dull and lifeless. This face, that beamed and made the world brighter for some people, is now so pale that he almost looks like a corpse.

This heart, that once beated for her, is now beating to stay alive.