Lypophrenia《Yizhan version》

Chapter 2

9 years ago . . .

When I closed my eyes, I could still feel the soft blows of the wind brushing past my face when I stood there high above on the building.

I was more than ready to jump, yet something in the words and tone the boy in the shadow used to scream at me made me change my mind.

The boy stood out from the crowd for multiple reasons; number one was because he was totally dressed in black in warm summer weather like today. And two was because he somehow ended up making me stop what I had been planning all those weeks.

I had waited for weeks to think this plan over and over again; I was so sure I had nothing to live for, nothing to go on for. I wanted to give up because how would it be, to just for once close my eyes and fall into the pitch darkness, only the silence and I.

So the moment I stood there in the building, I had no regrets nor remorse; maybe I was born to die after all.

But it was as if the boy shook me awake from a deep slumber of darkness like he was the light that led me away from my demons as if he was a guardian angel. And maybe the boy was, but after all that had happened, I didn't believe in demons or angels anymore, but perhaps if he was earlier, I would have believed it . . .

When I finally came down off the ten metres high building, my legs were shaking, and I was quivering with fear at the thought of what would be happening next.

Everywhere I heard people talking, gossiping and screaming, my mind became clouded of all the voices. I almost couldn't withstand the mess I made, so tears started to form in the back of my eyes.

A soft yet warm touch, a gentle hand intertwining with mine, and my heart skipped a beat.

I looked up, and his dark eyes caught mine; it was the boy who made me stand here, alive, breathing and surviving . . .

His deep eyes could be compared to the darkness of the universe, carrying thousands of small shining stars inside them. And when he smiled softly at me, I felt my stomach coiling up some strange feeling that I couldn't describe.

The boy's skin looked so elegant and delicate as a porcelain doll. So perfect and so different from me.

"You will be ok." His gentle voice made me startled but also made the realization dawn upon me that I had been staring at him, for God may know how long it had been. So I quickly lowered my head while biting my lip in shame, and I felt all the blood rushing to my cheeks.

A finger slowly lifted up my chin, and once again, I was staring into those deep pools of twilight caught between his eyes. The time around us faded, and everyone else dissolved with it; it was only he and I.

His lips curved upwards towards the sun, and a smile was visible on his lips when his hand that was still intertwined with mine slowly dragged me away from the crowded people. To my surprise, no one noticed us.

We walked in silence next to each other, and everything that happened felt like a daze of a long dream, an unexplainable dream.

After a long-distance of walking in which our hands were unconsciously still intertwined. It turned out that the boy brought me to the nearby beach where I loved to come on late summer evenings when my mom was still alive. But the last time I came here was already two years ago, and the last time I came here, she was still alive.

A small tear trickled its way down my eyes when I saw the abandoned beach; usually, many people would come here in this warm weather. But because of a dead body, which had been found a few days ago, no one went to this beach for the last few weeks.

"Do you trust me?" I looked at him, right into his endless deep eyes, and somehow my heart answered for my head with just a tiny nod.

I watched him take off his shoes and socks, and he moved his other hand in a way that he was telling me to do the same, so I followed his instructions. When I finally did the same, he began to sprint towards the sea at some speed I almost couldn't catch up with. And besides the fact, his hands hadn't letten go of mine since he intertwined it; I too started to run after him.

My legs were doing the work without my own awareness.

I had always loved the beach.

The feeling of sand stinging softly like tiny needles under my feet whenever I walked.

The soft breezes of cold air against my face and, above all, the cold touch of water tickling my feet.

We kept running and running without an end in sight; even when the water reached our waist, he kept going, and so thus I followed him, trusting him blindly.

When the water finally started to reach higher and higher, I began to panic. I wanted to fight against the water, yet I didn't want to let go of the warmth the other boy his hand gave me. I felt my chest tighten and the water by the second crawling higher.

I was about to open my mouth to scream a plea when the other boy slowly walked back; he was slightly taller than me, so the water didn't reach his chest as high as it did to me. Slowly, step by step, the water went down.

The moment my feet didn't touch the water anymore, my legs gave up. I fell to the ground with fresh tears streaming down my cheeks, and my tears ran like an uncontrollable waterfall.

"Like you just experienced, you fought against the water that was trying to drown you, which indicates that you don't truly want to die. It's your anxiety that tries to trick your mind but believes me, you're being loved, and just like you experienced yourself, you don't truly want to die, yet." I looked up at the other boy whose clothes were just as soaked as mine, and I stared at him in disbelief.

"I know you must be mad, and I am sorry, but it was one of the easiest ways to show you the truth you tried to avoid. So just like I had said, give me five days to prove myself; I know this was exaggerated, but-" I cut him off.

"You're crazy . . ." He only smiled at me while sitting down next to me, placing his head softly on my shoulder, and I listened to his soft yet unstable breathing that someway calmed me down.

"So . . . Does that mean I get to know your name too?" He muttered the words under his breath, and his words got carried away with the breeze of wind that made me shiver.

"Zhan, Xiao Zhan."

And just like that, I somehow could feel him smile.

"Yibo, Wang Yibo, I mean that's my full name." He chuckled lightly while my head started to feel heavy and clouded. Truth be told, it wouldn't matter if he told me his name or not; after all, I would forget it tomorrow anyway. Even if he wanted to be around me tomorrow, someday he would get tired from it just like everyone else did . . .

I'm sorry for forgetting . . .

Word count: 1293 words