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I am empty. Another day of college, another day of sitting in my room alone without doing anything. Wonwoo has given up trying to coax me out of bed, and I lay there, staring up at the ceiling and questioning every single bad decision I’ve ever made in my entire life time . My first kiss was terrible, and I regret it. I thought I liked girls back then, and she tried to push more onto me then I could handle. I remember throwing up behind a bush afterwards. Does she laugh at that today? Does she regret it too?
No one liked me, did I ever do something wrong? Was I too weird, too smart, was I scary? Did I intimidate people? Was I never good enough?
My head is pounding and I don’t want to think, I want to sleep but I can’t do that either. I’ve tried to check my phone but I can’t focus on anything, nothing is interesting to me anymore. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even gotten out of bed. Wonwoo knocks on the door again, he got back from class and I respond only with a groan. He leaves again. Check my phone. Can’t focus so I don’t, I roll over to my other side, and I start crying for no god damned reason. Repressed memories surfaced. When I rested my hand on this guys knee and he avoided me for the next two years we were in high school together. When my mom told me that my potential was wasting away, and I suppose she’s right. I get a text and I don’t bother to read it. I fade in and out. I don’t sleep, but I hardly stay awake.
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I get out of bed after a couple days. I eat an entire bag of pizza rolls by myself, and I halfway wash my face. I hate my mother, if I was raised differently would I feel like shit less often? Wonwoo reminds me that I should go to classes, and I find myself not caring as much as I should.
The text I got was from Seungkwan, asking me if I wanted to get together that night. I would’ve declined anyway, but I‘m guilty about it. I make an excuse about falling asleep, and forgetting to reply. He doesn’t push, no one does anymore, and I wish I could figure out if I’m either happy or sad about it. He cares. I know he does. Nothing works anymore. I don’t remember what it’s like to not feel like this. Is it me? Did I do something wrong and the universe decided to punish me for it? Why me of all people?
Is there nothing I can do to fix it?
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I take a walk. Not because Wonwoo made me, but I was suffocating. The air seemed to thick, and opening the window wasn’t doing anything anymore. It’s perfect weather and I should be happy about that, but I hardly force a smile. People wave as they walk by and I wave back out of instinct and it feels like the oddest thing in the world. I’m not used to being around anyone besides Wonwoo. I go back to the dorm later that night after walking around for hours and I have a blister on the back of my left ankle.
I don’t get out of bed until two pm the next day. I make it to a class, but I can hardly pay attention, so it wasn’t worth it. My professor looks at me in something akin to worry and hands me a pamphlet after class about depression. I read it, and set it on my desk when I get home. I refrain from calling a hotline. That would make everyone worry more. I have depression, don’t I?
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I go to bed at seven one night and I wake up at five am. I leave the dorm and I walk and I walk, and I buy a coffee that I only end up taking a sip of before I trip and drop it on the ground. I fell and scratched up my face, and right underneath my eye is raw. It looks like when I fell off my bike as a kid and skinned my knees. It wont heal for weeks I’m sure. Wonwoo gets home from work and puts Neosporin on, warning me to be more careful. He holds my hand for a bit while I rest my head on his shoulder and cry, exhausted. Always exhausted.
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I make it a goal to get through all my classes the next day. I get comments on my face, asked what happened and it makes me overwhelmed, but I continue on. I get to all my classes, I’m able to focus for the most part. I avoid a panic attack, and I call it a success for myself. I get home and Wonwoo helps me study, explains the basics to me and I do the rest myself. I submit homework for the first time in forever. My professors smile at me and thank me for making it to class, and some people look surprised. They thought I dropped out. A few thought I was dead. I’m not. I would’ve thought I was dead too.
Wonwoo cuts my hair later that night. Not too much, he knows that I like it longer. For the first time in a few weeks I shower, the soap runs into my eyes but it doesn’t matter. The hair is off the back of my neck and it feels nice being clean. I make my bed when I get out, and I lay down on my bed and watch and episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine, and I find myself able to laugh. I sleep well, and I’m able to make it to classes that day too. Seungkwan gives me a multivitamin to take, and I do, hoping to kick my immune system back into shape. Life exists, I find myself wanting it to get better.
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I’m crying, again. Another call, another fight, another time I have to hang up before I scream my throat raw. Actually, I don’t hang up, Wonwoo does for me, barging into the room and grabbing the phone from my hands, silencing the person on the other end . They try and call back, but Wonwoo blocks the number and tells me to get my shoes on, we’re going for a drive.
He asks me how he can help and I tell him I have no idea, he’s asking if he should call a doctor and I say I don’t know. I’m crying again.
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It’s one am. Again. For the fifth night in a row. Reality has shifted, and I wonder what I ever did to have to live my life like this. I can’t fall asleep, I can’t stay asleep, I’ve tried Benadryl but that doesn’t seem to work. Nothing seems to work. My face still hurts like hell, and I keep picking at the scabs on accident.
It’s now I come to the realization that I used to talk to much and I didn’t know how to stop. Did people get annoyed? Was I too much? Do I talk to little now? Why can’t I fix it all?
I hear Wonwoo crying. He’s trying to be quiet, I can’t tell if he knows I can hear him, but he hung up his call with Junhui only minutes before. Are they okay? Are any of us okay? Did I do something wrong? Is he crying because of me? Did I not do enough?
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I make myself get up and shower, and I don’t like it. I make myself a coffee, I put it in an old mug, ( I need a new one ) and I take a walk, and I hate the world. And then I’m tapped on the shoulder.
If he were the subject of a poem, he would be described with eyes full of wanderlust and a think mop of rich chocolate brown hair . He was the sun that would pierce through clouds.
“This is going to sound weird, but may I take your photograph? It’s for a class I’m taking.”
It sticks. Him, he sticks. I nod, and he tells me to look straight through the camera lens, not at it. I don’t know how it turns out, but he bows and heads on his way. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. Part of me wishes I would.
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I drink water, lots of it. Too much? I’m not sure, but I drink it anyways. I make it a priority and I eat one full meal, and I can‘t seem to get the sunshine stranger off my mind. I focus on those things too much. I haven’t seen him around campus, and I’ve asked Seungkwan and he has no clue who I’m talking about.
I’m sure he’s not from here. No one like that would be from here.
He’s a different kind of person.
I wash my sheets and make my bed. I take out around five bags of trash, I turn in an assignment and and Wonwoo looks to me in pride. I tell him about the sunshine stranger and he tells me he‘ll keep an eye out, ask Junhui. I ask how they’re doing, and he brushes me off, so I let it drop this time. He‘ll tell me when he’s ready.
He makes me bacon and eggs, and we sit and talk about how I’ve been feeling.
He says to keep doing what I’m doing, it will all come in time, and it’s better to do something poorly than not at all. And I want to try.
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Art Exhibit. Wonwoo marks it on the calendar for a week from now, and asks me if I want to go with him. I tell him I’ll see how I’m feeling and he understands, like always. I don’t know what stroke of luck brought me the angel that is Jeon Wonwoo, but I am in no way complaining.
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I start washing my face more often, I’m tired of my skin being so oily, and I do something about it. I take a ten minute nap, and I go to bed at ten instead of twelve, and I wake up at seven. I watch the sun rise, and I make pancakes. Wonwoo looks like shit when he wakes up, and he leaves to what I assume is Junhui’s place. And he comes back looking a bit brighter, and like that a week comes and goes, and I feel better. I go with Wonwoo to the art exhibit.
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“You said art exhibit. Not photography exhibit.”
“I thought it was an art exhibit! That’s what Soonyoung told me!”
I roll my eyes, we’re already on the other schools campus and there’s really no going back now. We’re dressed on the more formal side, Wonwoo let me wear one of his suits. He opens the door for me and we’re greeted with a room full of people. My heart rate spikes but I take deep breaths and Wonwoo squeezes my hand in reassurance. Some photos have ribbons attached, I’m sure it was some sort of contest, and I take time to read the poems accompanying each photograph .
There are some talking about love and desire, others talking about anger, anxiety, grief . Embarrassment. Rejection. Happiness.
Wonwoo tugs my sleeve and points to a photo at the back of the room, and pulls me toward it. It’s a close up shot, crisp and sharp, in full color instead of black and white, showcasing the raw patch underneath their eye.Their eyes seem lifeless, and I wonder how much it takes for someone to lose part of themselves like that . I read the poem.
he enters
and I start getting a lot less sleep
short, simple, and I can see why Wonwoo was draw to it. I look back to the photograph and Wonwoo stares at me in confusion.
“Minghao,” he said slowly , “that’s you.”
“No-“ I look closer. It can’t be me. And then I’m tapped on the shoulder.
“Do you like it?”
It is me. It has to be.
I stutter, my mind blanking, and Wonwoo fills the empty space.
“You’re the sunshine stranger. Minghao’s been talking about you.”
I nod. Sunshine stranger smiles. His tongue sticks out from his teeth a bit and his eyes crinkle.
His phone number replaces my mothers the next week. The name ‘Channie’ looking better then hers ever did.
He takes me out for a smoothie and he takes my photo without me looking, then laughs for a solid twenty seconds while I try and take the camera from his hand to see it .
The photo of me gets first place, and he wins a hundred dollars. He buys me a jacket, leather and heavy and he says when he saw it in the shop he thought of me on a motorbike and couldn’t pass the photoshoot up .
I’m empty and Wonwoo let’s him into our apartment and he cleans, and makes Wonwoo and I dinner. He brings it to me in bed and tells me that the emptiness will pass, picking up the trash in the room and he gets me to stand up long enough to make my bed . He gives me a hug, and then gives me space.
The next day he brings me tea and helps me with my homework, saying he skipped class but for me it was worth it.
The next week he’s busy on his own campus, and I’m feeling a little less empty, so I ask around to see where his next class is and I greet him with coffee, and he gives me a hug .
Wonwoo doesn’t cry at night as much anymore, and I spot him around campus with his arm slung around someone new.
Chan tutors me on days he doesn’t have class, helping ease my anxiety about assignments and essays I have to turn in.
I end up going between his campus and mine more than I’d like to admit, hanging out at his dorm. He has five roommates are more than happy to meet me, but I forget almost half their names within the first ten minutes .
Wonwoo introduces me to Mingyu, the guy I saw him walking around campus with. That night I learn Mingyu is an amazing cook and Wonwoo is a lot happier when he has someone to emotionally support him .
Seungkwan takes me to a party, where I meet his boyfriend for the first time.
My mother calls from a different number under the guise of just checking in and I block that number too. And Wonwoo lets me cry into his shoulder, because no matter how happy you can feel you can never really forget.
Chan and I FaceTime because classes and homework and lectures have consumed our lives and it’s 12 am and he looks tired with his glasses close to falling off his nose and his hair mused from running his hand through it so many times, but he still manages to smile at my poor excuse for jokes and he tells me he’s glad to have me in his life .
Chan witnesses one of my panic attacks, and he sits next to me and sings softly as I shake. And when it stops he gets me water and wipes my tears and puts me to sleep. When I wake up he’s still there, reading one of the many self help books Wonwoo had bought me over the years.
I see Chan get angry when he can’t get over his professor purposely failing him and three other students, and he tells me how he wants his parents to be proud of him, and he wants to feel good enough for once .
Mingyu asks me about Wonwoo and if there’s anything he could do better for him, because for once in his life he really wants to try, and I ask him to keep doing what he’s doing.
Chan and I drive around for hours, and at a red light right before he drops me off at my dorm he kisses me on the cheek and doesn’t look at me for the rest of the drive, but I can see him blushing in the fading light the sunset gives .
He leaves a voicemail for me later that night, at around 3 am, telling me in a drunken slur that when he first met me all he wanted to do was bring back the light in my eyes, and give me all that I didn’t have in life, and he knew he was young and stupid but he knew his own feelings . And he was sorry if he made me uncomfortable. And he understood if I never wanted to see him again.
And the next morning I convince Seungkwan to drive me to his campus, and when who I think is Mingi opens the door I ask him to ask Chan if he would be willing to see me . And five minutes later Chan comes out looking like a mess and when he shuts the door behind him I pull him toward me and kiss him on the lips . There are no fireworks, no electricity crackling down my spine, but instead a soothing and warm comfort coming over me and he pulls back in shock after a moment, and I tell him thank you .
We talk it all out over coffee a week later when we’re both free and he tells me in confidence that before me there was something missing . And when we kiss this time he cradles my face and his thumb swipes over the light scarring from where I fell.
Wonwoo asks over a dinner of pizza rolls a few days later if Chan and I are dating and I tell him almost.
And I’m empty, and Chan comes over and crawls into bed next to me because he had a shit day and he needed someone and we lay there for hours . And he cries, and I play with his hair and it turns out that you don’t feel so empty when there’s someone so full of emotion by your side .
And Wonwoo checks in every so often and Mingyu comes over and he checks in too, and they bring us water and tell us to take care of ourselves while they’re gone .
Chan kisses me, and I kiss Chan, and he starts greeting me with a hug.
I introduce Chan to Seungkwan and Hansol, and they get along like they were made to be friends.
Three weeks later Chan asks what we are and I tell him we’re whatever he wants us to be. And he says he wants to call me his boyfriend, and I say I want to call him my boyfriend, and we come to that mutual agreement, and he kisses me on the neck softly .
And he still taps me on the shoulder whenever he wants something. And he’s the subject of my poems, with his mop of hair that’s now golden blonde, his eyes full of wanderlust, and his sunshine self . And he still asks to take photos of me.
You don’t have to be happy all the time to be happy.
And I still get empty. And he’s still there.
And life has more meaning.
he entered
and sleep came a lot more easily that night.