Ring ring! Chen Aiyu jolted up at the sound of the doorbell. She placed the wine she was pouring down on the kitchen table and walked towards the door. Looking through the peephole, she saw her neighbour.
Aiyu opened the door, "Chanming, what's up?" "Oh, nothing. I just wanted to check up on you and see if you reached home safely." Chanming replied. Behind Aiyu, he saw the glass of wine on her kitchen table. He nervously bit his lip. "Anything else?" She asked, getting ready to close the door. He nodded, remembering something. "Message me by 10 tonight, alright? We can discuss your job choices. You love lawyering, don't you? No worries, we'll get you a job." Chanming said with a reassuring smile. "Yes, I will. I won't forget. By 10 tonight, yes." Aiyu responded, returning the smile. Chanming left, trusting that the task of sending that message wouldn't be forgotten.
The only thought she had on her mind was the wine as she closed the door. Her sleek fingers wrapped around the neck of the wine bottle, an intrusive urge to smash it with her fists and slash her wrists unable to be dismissed from her mind. She brought the wine bottle and her glass of wine to the balcony, grabbing a blanket with her as she moved along. She placed the wine bottle and wine glass onto the wooden table by the fold-up wooden beach chair and draped the blanket over her shoulders.
Aiyu poured the wine into the wine glass till around the three-quarter mark. With the wine glass in hand, she walked over to the railing of the balcony. She thought about many things as she stared at the stars scattered throughout the night sky. Somehow, none of the millions of neurones in her mind could think of anything happy. The stars that stared right back at her seemed to say that she looked like she would give up anytime soon. Her grip on the bottleneck tightened subconsciously.
Saying that Aiyu was a beauty was an understatement. A simple yet rare smile from her could leave you starstruck. These past few years, she only smiled occasionally. It was only revealed to those close to her.
Her life was nothing short of bullies from junior high school to college. Aiyu was often placed in a situation were her friendliness would be wrongly assumed to be romantic interest, so whoever it is she was talking to would eventually develop feelings for her. If they had a significant other, they would become upset with them and put the blame on Aiyu. If they were single, they would falsely spread the rumour that she had purposely seduced them for the sake of breaking their heart.
Because of this, Aiyu was ostracised and ignored a lot in school, albeit for her beauty.
Chanming's daily checkups grounded from this. Aiyu graduated from university just 3 days ago. Sounds great, doesn't it? But while her family was on their way to her graduation ceremony, they got into a severe accident. All of her family died. ALL of them. When she heard this, she knew it was true but she couldn't believe it.
Every time she thought about when she received the news, she would remember how she felt, right from before she heard it to right after. Everything still felt so vivid, as if she was stuck in that moment. Suddenly, she hated every single memory she had of them. All she wanted to do was throw them out of the window and never remember them again. Their faces haunted her, an ineffable pain that made her cry like crazy. Tears that never flowed no matter how much she was bullied before suddenly became uncontrollable when she thought about them. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt so f*cking much.
The accident was obviously instigated, and Aiyu knew who. There was a guy who she had rejected in university after he had confessed publicly. He had threatened that if she didn't accept his feelings, he'd have all her family dead. His words echoed in her mind for weeks on end, but as time went by, she had forgotten about it. Now, the regret eats her up inside. The frustration that she felt killed her every night. Four people's bloods, all on her hands.
Her hands. She looked at them. The blood red wine's pigment seemed to stain them. Every single inch of her hand was doused in a disgusting shade of crimson red. It made her want to puke. A siren in the distance shook her out of her entrancement.
After her little recollection, she swallowed the last of her wine before placing the glass on the metal table. Clink! The edge of her mouth tilted upwards slightly. She enjoyed it, the sound of the wine glass against the metal of the table. It felt cold and unattached, like how she felt towards everything since her family died. Before then, she was content with her life, even through the bullying. Never did she ever think that she had the strength to continue on, and it seemed like this was where it ended.
Aiyu's hair was up in a messy bun, strings of her obsidian black hair covered her face. The night wind blew, but she did not shiver. Her hand rested on the table, but her weight was on her feet. The smile on her face that formed from the clink remained, but her mind was long gone.
When she was 15, she bought herself a penknife from a shop near her house for self defence. She kept it hidden behind a book on her bookshelf after she moved to live alone for university. Her actions were sloppy as she stumbled into her living room, where the wind no longer hit her. Flinging the books off of the bookshelf and onto the wooden floor, she froze, seeing the penknife within so close of her reach.
She stood there for 5 minutes. Then 10. Then 15. God knows how long had passed before her arm finally moved. She grabbed it with the little strength she had left and made her way to the toilet sink.
Aiyu kept mum, standing in front of the sink as she sunk the sharp edge of the penknife into her left wrist. She only saw red for the next few minutes, and after that she saw black.