Way Back Home

Stigma

Deeper, deeper.
The wound just gets deeper.

Yoongi lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression.

A year. Exactly one year.

That's how long he'd been here. How long he's slept in this bed. How long he's stared at that stupid white ceiling.

The feeling in his chest was one that had hung over him for exactly three hundred and sixty five days. It didn't burn. It didn't sting. It didn't ache. It didn't do anything. His heart didn't feel anything, it just felt just empty. It was as if someone had shoved their fist through his chest and yanked his heart out, leaving nothing but a gaping black hole, and a whole lot of nothing.

And the feeling wouldn't go away. Not when his grandmother would take him to the zoo. Or when they made dinner and ate together. Not when he sat amongst the multicolored flowers in the backyard. Not even when Chaerin came over every day to bug him.

She'd been doing that a lot. A whole year, actually. Every day she would skip over to Grandma Min's house and chat politely for a few minutes with his aging grandmother before springing up the steps to his bedroom or out to the backyard to look for Yoongi. Every day she did this without fail.

Yoongi couldn't understand why. He'd shown her one moment of something that resembled kindness and she never left. No matter how cold he was to her or how many times he refused to play or even speak, she would still come back the next day, smiling like it was her job. It didn't make sense to him. She didn't make sense to him.

And yet—he would never admit it out loud—but he kind of liked that she kept coming back. She made the black nothingness just a little bit brighter with her smile. But despite Chaerin's persistent presence in his life, he could still feel the hole in his chest growing bigger, deeper.

What had started out as a small tear in his childhood had grown into an abyss. He shouldn't feel this way. He should be happy. He shouldn't feel this nothingness that engulfed him.

And yet he did.

As he lay on his bed, staring up at that stupid white ceiling, he let his mind wander. When would they call? He had no way of knowing. His parents' calls were few and far between. He knew why. And he knew that they just didn't have the time to call him every day, there were bigger issues at stake. But he was still naïve enough to hope.

It was useless to hope, he knew that, but he still found himself wishing that the phone would ring.

Drawing in a breath, Yoongi presses his balled up fists to his eyes. Not because he felt he would cry—he knew he wouldn't—but because he needed to feel something, anything.

He pushed himself off the bed and stood beside it for a moment, letting the dizziness and black spots in his vision fade away. The glowing numbers on his alarm clock told him it was early afternoon. Chaerin hadn't come over yet. Yoongi sighed and went downstairs, out of sheer boredom more than anything else.

His bare feet slapped down lightly at the bottom of the steps. The house was quiet. His grandmother wasn't here. Usually he would have heard her humming gently as she baked or read or watered the plants outside. But there was nothing. The house felt so much bigger when he stood in it alone. But Yoongi supposed he would have to get used to standing alone.

A year in that house and it still felt foreign to him. The paintings and pictures on the walls looked old and faded but the furniture was bright and well kept. The wooden cabinets and bookshelves shined like new but there were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. The sitting room was kept neat and tidy but the kitchen was lived-in. And just like his parents home, there was the faintest trace of cherry blossoms floating through every room.

Yoongi's bare feet carried him past the steps and into the sitting room, where his grandmother would occasionally entertain guests—usually Chaerin's grandmother.

The couched were a light color, like coffee that had too much milk poured into it. And the chairs were made of a dark wood that held maroon cushions. Books and trinkets lined the walls. Little figurines and aging photos sat on every shelf. The Eiffel Tower. Pyramids. Russian nesting dolls. They were all trinkets his grandmother had picked up in her younger days. And like any grandmother, she displayed them with pride, and told Yoongi over and over the same stories behind each and every one of them.

His pale fingers skimmed over the little figurines and slightly dusty books, circling around the room until they landed on a slab of worn brown wood. He curiously explored the smooth surface beneath his fingertips; the figurines sat forgotten. A short bench was pushed beneath the old wooden thing, he pulled it out of its hiding spot and sat down. His hands skimmed the surface of the object until they landed on a latch. Carefully, Yoongi lifted the cover off the instrument, revealing the neat rows of white and black keys.

Taking one small finger, Yoongi stroked a single key. A quiet sound rang out from the instrument. He pressed a finger down on another key. Another low sound chimed through the house. He pressed the two keys down at the same time. A screech filled the air. It sounded awful. But it intrigued him.

Yoongi went down the line, stroking every key. The right side where he'd started was so lovely. Bright and cheerful, the sounds those keys let out were like Chaerin's happy smile. As his fingers worked their way further down the line the notes grew deeper. They were not light but they were not heavy sounds. They were balanced. But as his small fingers landed on the keys further left, the instrument let out gloomy, wailing tones. They filled the house with a deep, heavy ringing until Yoongi finally pressed down the very last white key in the line.

A quiet, haunting sound escaped the piano, ringing in his ears and hovering heavy in the air around him. It sounded how he felt.

Hollow.

Authors Note:
This chapter came so easily to me and yet it was one of the most difficult things I've ever had the write. To anyone who's ever felt dark, broken, or hollow, I am deeply and truly sorry. Please remember that you are cared for and you are loved.
–A