𝐋𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚 𝐌𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐡𝐲𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬 ʰʸᵘᶰᶜʰᵃᶰ

❀

6 days after the accident

San had called me. I promised to study with him, and since we wanted to spend more time with each other anyway we met up that evening. 

We studied a bit together, I explained math and English vocabulary to him. Later we ordered pizza and watched a movie. When it was past midnight I decided to go home. Home to Hyunjin. This day with San was the first time since the accident that I spent time with another person. It was really nice, and hearing about his life was great. But still it didn't help me to clear my mind of Hyunjin. I kept thinking about him. Every second of my time my mind was filled with the thought of how he was doing. If he would wake up soon. What if he didn't wake up? And, and, and ...

I also kept thinking about the birds and all the questions I had. Many questions. I wanted to know more. The longer I stayed in Hyunjin's house, the more I wanted to know. It was like a vicious cycle. I had to wait and the time I had to wait, I spent visualizing Hyunjin's life. This raised more questions, but I still had to wait. Horrible.

8 days after the accident

It was the first time I went back to college. San told me that he didn't see me there anymore and wondered why. I also got several calls and Minho spoke to my answering machine about 100 times. It wasn't that they forced or asked me to come back to college. They worried. No wonder. I didn't contact them just once during the 8 days and the day I spent with San was basically a secret because none of my friends really knew San.

When I stood at my locker in the morning, I probably looked a lot worse than I thought. Changbin, for example, was terrified of me. At first he didn't even know I was in front of him. He thought I was a dead body or a new one, who's having bad depressions or something like that.

Well, new one? - No. Bad depressions? - Maybe, I wasn't too sure about it.

"Look who's here. Who brought you back to life, huh?"

Felix appeared a few seconds after Changbin. And again the smaller of the two was startled and turned around, to look for the other.

"How could you leave me alone for a week?" Felix went half a circle around Changbin and stood in front of me with fiery eyes. He was angry, clearly. "No call. No message. Not a single little sign of life! How could you?! I thought you killed yourself or something! And you weren't at home either!"

I put my hands on his shoulders, which he immediately pushed back down from there. Still, I didn't give up and put them up again, held on to his shirt and looked him in the eye.

"Felix ... I would never think of killing myself. Especially without telling you beforehand. And even if, I wouldn't kill myself. I would leave you alone, and who should feed you then, huh? Who would be there for you, listening to your worries and curing your...", I leaned a little to the left to get a look at Changbin, who looked back at me in confusion. "love sickness."

This time he hit me by my side. Felix punched his hand against my hip and I gasped, letting go of him. The punch was hard and hurt. A lot. So that was full intention and not just to tease me.

"You are such a bastard, do you know that!? You say you would never do that without telling me! But still you didn't call! Nor text!" His voice grew louder and slowly I realized that Felix must have really suffered from my absence.

"But I'm here, Felix. I'm alive-"

"Shut up", he said, surprisingly calm all of a sudden.

Felix gave me a degrading look, turned to Changbin, whom he pushed with his shoulder as he walked down the hall and disappeared. My best friend had never behaved like this before. Really never, and I was surprised that the last week seemingly had affected him a lot. Still, I didn't understand why he was so mad. Something must have happened. Normally Felix didn't get angry because of other difficulties. Above all, he would have always talked to me about problems instead of just walking away like that. We were friends since we could think. We spent so much more time together than with anyone else and talked to each other about almost everything.

"So... you're back?", Changbin said. He watched Felix until he disappeared behind a corner and turned back to me, his eyes big and confused.

"Possibly."

"Possibly?" He crossed his arms in front of him. His eyes went from confused to disappointed. "Just possibly? You may not have noticed but you went missing."

"He's exaggerating." Maybe that was mean to say, but all my friends knew me enough to know, that I would never kill myself or just disappear forever. I couldn't do that to them. To no one.

"Exaggerating, Chan? He was worried, that's all. He's not exaggerating."

"But look at him." I put a few book in my locker and closed it, louder than intended, then turned to Changbin. "He told me to shut up and just left without another word. I don't know this side of Felix."

Changbin looked at me, a small sigh leaving his lips. His eyes went down to the floor between us. "Even though it's just been a week, it felt like more than that, Felix is not wrong", he said, his voice quiet and filled with disappointment and sadness. "A lot happened this week Chan. Felix could have used your support. But you weren't there..."

The bell rang, interrupting our conversation.

"So what? What happened?"

"Are you seriously only reading the news for Hyunjin's name? For fucks sake, Chan! He is not the only important person in your life!"