Wu Fei's body laid on the ground. Ambulance. Sirens. People gathering. Caution tapes. Red staining the white clothes.
In front of the tall building, laid his twisted limbs. The thin dark hair, the crack at the top of the skull, the blood gushing from the body.
The seagulls sang. They swooped past his shadow and devoured it until nothing was left. One. Two. Three. They continued swallowing his remains.
I stood there.
I don't know what I was thinking at the time.
I don't know.
The fearful burden that had been weighing upon me continued piling on.
In spite of this weakness, I wasn't conscious of fatigue, and the abscess that was forming in my heart ruptured within, coursing throughout every inch of my veins and bones until I could no longer breathe.
I couldn't swallow despite the narrowing of my dried throat. I felt his blood on me even though I was standing three meters away.
His sticky blood soaking my hands. A sort of blankness took possession of me, and at that moment, I forgot what I was. Where I was. Who I was.
I wasn't crying. I felt like I had lost the ability to do so because it was so sudden.
It was that inexplicable emotion of emptiness that you were not even sure what to feel, that all you could do was enter into a void, where there was no entrance, no exit, no light. And just simply blank out. I just stared at that disfigured body, and... and what? I don't remember what I was thinking at that time. It was just a state of blankness.
Those last words he said to me continued ringing in my head. It was my fault. It was my fault? Yes...
"He jumped off the building."
"Isn't that a student?"
"He's even wearing his school uniform."
He wore his school uniform. What was he trying to say? What was he trying to tell people that he couldn't say when he was breathing?
There was more to it than what he spouted at me. I knew what he said was true, and that I would never be able to understand him, but... But I could have tried... I could have listened...
Was that not enough...?
No... the more I tried, the more I brought harm to him. Every time I tried to talk to him, the more he despised me.
I wonder what he thought of when he stood on that building. When he took that final step off. When the birds flew above him. When the sunset shone above him. When he stood alone, lost in thought, and there was nothing existing in his world besides himself. Did he finally feel free from his mother? From everyone? From me?
From the top of that building where no one was glaring at him, where he couldn't hear anything at all, where he finally felt his lungs accept the oxygen around him, where he finally took just one breath.
Perhaps he hesitated to step one foot out, or maybe he was smiling. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know anything at all. It was as he said: I wouldn't know anything. I couldn't see the world from his eyes no matter how hard I tried, because it was impossible.
When we returned to school. He was no longer there.
There were flowers on his desk. Flowers. Fucking flowers! Are you kidding me? After writing those curses and harmful words on his desk and chair, now they put fucking flowers?
There were even flowers on his locker. This must be some fucking joke, right? Even though I knew I shouldn't blame others, I didn't think my mind was in the right state then.
"I can't believe he would do that."
"He's only sixteen."
The moment I walked into the classroom, everyone had guilt-ridden faces, while some looked indifferent.
No, they didn't look guilty.
They had the face that expressed how they weren't at fault, so they shouldn't be blamed.
Especially He Rong.
He couldn't even look back at the table. He didn't want to have anything to do with it. Because he knew he was the one who posted all those photos and messages. And now he was afraid. He was scared people would find out and blame him.
I didn't say anything. Still, I didn't say anything. What good would it do? When Wu Fei hated me to such an extent, he would hate seeing me worry about him. My ego? To feed my ego?
What bullshit.
No one wanted to at least admit their mistakes. They could pit everyone against him, and drive someone to their death, but they were all afraid of having the exact same treatment.
Fucking hell.
Maybe I was just so mad that my thoughts might have seemed illogical.
"Did he really need to kill himself? Isn't that just overreacting? It wasn't even that bad."
I don't remember who said that, but I walked up to them. I kicked his table over. Everything on and within the table spilled. The table in our school was quite fragile. They were fairly old. So the leg of it chipped a bit. The teacher was yelling at me. Zhang Yongyin was pulling me back. I don't know.
The next thing I knew, that student was on the ground, bleeding.
Just seeing that blood strung my heart. I think I punched him too hard. I don't know. The boy was shrieking in agony. It was such an unnatural scream. I don't know how long I punched him or trampled on him, but everyone was scattering away in terror.
I ran home that day to our mother's home, since it was the closest.
I couldn't sit in that classroom.
I couldn't sit in that classroom with the lilies right in front of my face.
I couldn't sit in that classroom and look at that empty seat that everyone once avoided, all presented before me.
Yes, I was a coward.
I couldn't sit in my seat, knowing that I was so oblivious to his struggles.
I was suspended.
It was my fault. I should have done something that day. Why did I stay quiet?
Would he have felt better if I left? There was no point in pondering these solutions and outcomes because it was already too late.
The moment I ran back to our mother's home, I heard a loud thud in a room. I regretted going to our mother's house because all the possessions of these suffocating family members laid everywhere. But I simply needed a place to rest. To sleep. It didn't matter where, but I needed a place to fall into complete rest.
The thud in the room caught my attention, and I headed to the room. I peaked in the gaps of the door since I was sure there would be no one home.
My heart stopped. I shuddered in horror, gazing at the scene before me in this sickening fear.
Our mother hung from the ceiling.
Her feet swayed left and right slowly; the rope wrapped perfectly around her neck.
She wore a sleeveless short dress, revealing everything. Every purple and yellow imprint on her skin. To think this world would let me rest. How stupid of me to believe this.
Maybe a part of the reason I couldn't put in the effort anymore was because I was afraid. I was afraid that what I had done to Wu Fei, I would do to someone else without me even knowing.
Even to this day, I don't know if our mother decided to end her life because of something I had done too.