Intro: Blue
I don’t remember if I really did anything else that morning, the day I tried to kill myself.
The last thing I saw was a guy with bright blue hair strolling down the other side of the bridge before my car made a huge swerve towards the bridge and my vision was flooded with even more blue.
My eyes closed shut from the sting of cold water entering my eyes and clogging my nostrils, my head throbbing with pain from hitting my head on the dashboard from the fall.
Cerulean blue water, the same color of the boy’s hair, had already made its way inside my car and filled it up efficiently.
Blue.
The last thing I’ll ever see is miles and miles of vast blue water outside my car window.
Ice-cold water saturated my lungs and blocks any more air from entering, causing me to choke with my open mouth. Guess that’s what I get for being dumb enough to try screaming underwater.
I pressed my lips together and held my breath, my head throbbing with pain. This is it, this is the end of everything. This was what I wanted, this is what I asked for.
So then... why do I feel so helpless?
No, a part me scolded. This is what they want. This is what I deserve. This is what you want. There’s no turning back now.
I stretched out my hand to what was hopefully the open window- the source of all the vast, inpouring water. I stretch out more but then I immediately pulled back, my body beginning to curl and becoming paralyzed under the oppressive frigid-ness.
But then I suddenly felt a warm sensation run through my fingers in the water. I managed to open my eyes just so I could see the tiniest crack of where I was and if I was any closer to death.
The calming and dark hues of blue were quickly met with streaks of dark crimson.
My blood?
Blood.
Jeongin with blood trickling down his broken nose.
“Jeongin!” A garbled cry pried itself out of my mouth, causing me to choke on more water.
One by one, each of my senses began to dissipate into the blood-infused water, leaving me with the strange mixture of fear and desolation that’d taken over my body for quite some time now.
I’d been planning this for some time now, I’ve even thought of what I’d be thinking while I was doing and what I’d be saying before doing it. But nothing that I was thinking of before really compared to what it actually feels like.
So with my limbs caving in on themselves, my senses out of touch, and my heart ready to drop down to the pit of my stomach, I took one last blink and let the darkness take over my vision.
My hands find their way to the seatbelt button and I gingerly press down on it. I feel another dull pain in my head from hitting the ceiling and then finally nothing at all.
But it turned out that hell didn’t want me either.
§§§
I wake in a hospital bed with thin sheets clinging to my cold skin, a throbbing headache momentarily tampering with my pain tolerance and my conscience.
Next to me is a girl sitting on a little stool next to my bed. She holds my hand gently in hers and draws little circles on my skin with the pad of her thumb.
I can make out the dark, silky locks that frame her small, oval-shaped face perfectly and fall gracefully down her shoulders in smooth waves. Black, round glasses frames accentuate her eyes, which I couldn’t quite see through my blurry vision.
You’re...
No, that’s not her, stop it. Don’t be stupid, that’s someone else. Even if it was her she wouldn’t visit you, so don’t even bother-
But wouldn’t it be just lovely if reality could be exactly the way we want it to be?
“Nara...?” My hand finds its way to her cheek and lightly caresses her soft and warm skin with her thumb. But when my vision returns to equilibrium and my mind becomes collected again, I know for sure that it’s not her and that I’d just embarrassed myself in front of a complete stranger. Probably the only stranger that was ever going to be nice to me too, just to add a little something.
“Um...” She presses her lip together tightly and pulls my hand away from her face, placing it gently on top of my chest. “I’m sorry, I’m not-”
“No, it’s fine, my mistake. I knew you weren’t her but I called you that anyways.” I say bitterly, feeling a pang of sadness add to the weight of my chest.
“Is Nara your friend? Your sister, perhaps?” She asks me.
I scoff and turned my head the other way. “She’s definitely not my sister, let alone a friend.”
“Oh, then-”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“But you-” I cut her off with a glare. “Right, sorry.”
I sigh and click my tongue, looking out the window behind her. “How long have I been here?”
“A few days. Doctors asked me to check up on you every now and then.”
I nod, an unspoken and unanswered question burning the tip of my tongue.
“Did... did anyone come and try to visit me?” I asked her.
“Um...”
Please, I pleaded mentally. I just want to know if anyone cared about me enough to come to visit me, despite the sin I had committed. I just want to know if people actually heard about me or at lease pitied me. I just want to know if anyone even knows who I am.
I just want to see if people even care about me.
“I’m sorry, only two people have so far.” She answers.
Oh.
Wow, that’s even more than I’d thought.
“Who?”
“Um, well, me.” She says shyly, fumbling with her fingers on her lap.
Oh.
“What about my father?” I ask, my voice raspy and high pitched.
“I’m sorry, we called him the day you came in but he told me that his wife was in labor and he couldn’t make it.” She whispers, her arms wrapping around herself anxiously as if she’s at fault.
He could have at least come to try and kill me for what I did.
“They’re in another hospital right now waiting for the doctors to release her and their newborn daughter.”
Their daughter. He’d finally gotten the perfect daughter that he always wanted.
“Then the other person who came?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“I’m not sure if you know him well, it was a young man with blue hair who was at the bridge where it happened and witnessed the accident. He brought you here and even offered to pay for the hospital bill. You’re very lucky, any second later and you would’ve drowned completely.”
Someone cared about you. Someone actually didn’t want you to die. Someone had actually noticed you.
“Why would he do that?” A small lump forms in the back of my throat, my hand gripping on the metal rail of the bed. Anger boils in the pit of my stomach and begins to course through my veins.
“You tried to drive a car into a bridge, anyone would’ve-”
“Why didn’t he walk away?” I ask meekly.
“Miss, you tried to kill yourself, he-”
“Why didn’t he walk away?!” I say again, only louder.
“He did the right thing, any second longer and you would’ve-” She tries to explain, but her explanation only falls on deaf ears. I swat away the hand that tries to reach my shoulder.
“He shouldn’t have helped me.”
“What are you talking about-”
“Why didn’t he just leave me there?” I nearly yell at her.
Why didn’t he just let me die?
“I’m sorry?” She asks me. Why am I taking all of this out on her?
“Why couldn’t he just let me die?” I ask, but it only comes out as a mere whisper.
She opens her mouth as if to answer my question but then stops immediately. We stay silent for a while, unsure of what to say to each other.
It’s not until a few minutes later when another young girl- probably another nurse- walks in. “Jisoo-Unnie, our shift is over. We have to leave for the train station now if we want to get to Seoul on time.”
“Ah, right. Just a minute, Jennie-ah.” Jisoo assures Jennie up. The other girl, Jennie, waits patiently by the door.
She sighs and gets up to leave. “You’re an enigma, Miss Yang.” She says, but she sounds more disappointed rather than curious. “I hope you get better.”
I press my lips together into a tight frown and look back up at the ceiling.
“By the way, the guy with blue hair visited you yesterday. He left you something before he left. It’s on the nightstand.” She tells me before leaving. “You should get some more rest before you leave.”
When the two are outs of earshot I take the opportunity to try to get up in a sitting position and look at the nightstand. Placed perfectly in the center of the wooden nightstand is a small clear vase filled with bright blue hydrangeas soaked in water.
I reach over to grab the envelope next to the vase and open it. There’s a pretty white card with a watercolor painting of bright blue flowers on the front. I look at the other side of the card to see a handwritten message in pure black ink.
To Yang Soojung:
“Your life is not a film. Please don’t end it.”
- MYG
“Please don’t end it....” I echo his words, holding the little notecard close to my chest.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
It’s been four years, and yet not one person has ever said that to me again ever since.
