"I have a key to suicide; the death formula."
***
BOOK ONE OF DEATH SERIES
In which, an unfamiliar boy attempts to guide Kang Soa out of depression and from her intentions to commit suicide only by a formula.
A mysterious boy,
A depressed girl,
And...
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The entire city reverberated with a boisterous thundering and clangoring noise as the clouds complained and the sky wept unbound waters as lightning struck with each clamorous sound like loud obnoxious wailing.
I hate every season.
Settled onto the soft cushion of my chair primly, my head facing the stormy weather outside the closed glass window, I gazed at nothing in particular as I sighed from within, consequently, the pain from my bruised cheeks began to surface up again and I grimaced involuntarily, unknowingly, leading me to wince in agony as I lightly palmed my fingers across it, feeling the swollen and engorged skin.
What had happened was: I had discovered myself on the bleach wafting bed of the school infirmary surrounded by antiseptic bottles and generic or medicinal smell that blocked my olfactory nerves-after I had fainted due to lack of oxygen before-and all of it if not had overwhelmed me, I was certainly perplexed upon my arrival at the infirmary for I knew it as a fact that Hyunwoo was incorrigible and would not have had that guilty conscience that would have made him deposit me here at the care of a doctor as he was practically immune to human emotions.
This made me wonder who the anonymous helper could have been since I didn't have any acquaintances although I had a staunch friend, Ari, my only correspondent to whom I was never shy of alluding any confidential matters.
Hot tears welled up in my eyes, eventually falling across my cheeks and up to my chin. I wiped them away with the back of my shirt sleeve, but they persisted in flowing continuously, bringing the nostalgic memories back to mind and mindlessly I stood up and walked over to my nightstand, where I pushed open a drawer.
Right before my eyes were the letters we wrote to one another when we were separated like a child from a mother's bosom, laid peacefully, much like Ari's body in the grave.
With shaking hands and quivering lips, I picked up the letters with me and went back to sit on my chair near the window. I shuffled through them.
It had been a long time.
Ari had passed away six years ago in a car accident when she was coming back to Seoul with her family. The life that I cherished died in that impossibly fortuitous accident when I found their cold body lying on the road.
That was the day when everything in my life altered and all went upside down. That was the day when God perhaps wondered that I had too much happiness at fourteen years of age and that I should taste the bitter soup of sorrow too.
A drop of tear fell onto the top letter. My eyes flickered to the date written in one corner.
23 April 2014.
Brushing it tidy, I opened the letter to reveal a pale yellow parchment on which someone had written with their shabby handwriting, in black ink, darker than my hair. My eyes caressed the strokes of the pen made so many years ago, observing the personality behind the strong lines and heavy punctuation marks. My lips stretched, looking at the spider scrawl handwriting and spelling that impressed no one in particular.
In the letter, Ari babbled about her arrival back home with splendid gifts that she bought for me and how we were soon about to go to a picnic together unmindful and unaware of the traumatic future in her life.
Tears didn't stop, they fell like an unbound cascade of suffering and heartache. Somewhere, somehow the wound in me had begun to fester again. The remorse that had once lingered as a shadow began to resurface, spreading its wings wide to capture me.
If only I could save her.
"Soa!" I heard the slurry voice of my mother followed by her draggy footsteps.
She was drunk again.
Sighing I looked out of the window, the dusky night before me as I got up from my seat, wiping my tears I placed the letters back in the drawer securely before sauntering out of my room into the living room from where the raucous voice boomed.
"Mother," The moment my eyes laid on her, my heart clenched as though someone was squeezing it with determination.
Drenched from head to toe as her clothes were completely soaked with rainwater, she looked like a woman who had refused life. Her eyes had a strange sunken look, staring with hollow emotions and were threaded with scarlet so densely that they appeared reddish pink. Her cheeks glowed under her wrinkled skin as she clumsily strolled inside. Each step that collided with the floor, left a trail of water behind and the squeaking noise of her wet shoes accompanied the wailing of the clouds outside.
"Mom, you're drunk again."
"So what? So what if I'm drunk?" she spat, abhorrently. "Why did he have to leave you behind just to nag at me? Why couldn't you go with him?"
"I'm helping you."
"Lies!" she growled, knocking out the flowerpot positioned on the side table, "you are a burden he left me with. You are useless to me! Your father was a stupid coward to-"
"Mum-!"
"What?" she shoved me aside, landing me straight on the floor.
That's it.
Without another thought, I stormed out of the house, caring less about the weather or my mother as determination settled inside me.
