( REST IN PEACE, DO KYUNGSOO. )
It takes about thirty minutes before Kyungsoo is yelled out of his parents’ home. “Don’t you dare bring shame to our family! Your brother is getting married soon and we do not need your threats!” His mother calls after him. His hands are shaking, but he can’t cry. He splurges on a taxi ride home. Who cares about money anymore at that hour of his life? Is this how Cinderella felt when she ran away from the ball? How have seventy years passed since the Disney Cinderella film has been released anyway? Time has no grasp on film, it seems. Kyungsoo has no grasp on time, or life for that matter. Everything slips from his fingers like sand. Nothing remains.
Film has always been a distraction from the inevitability that was to occur. No matter how many bad days Kyungsoo has been through, grasping at a DVD or Blu-ray and seeing the images appear on his screen have always been a consolation for the pain he had to suffer through life. But how many films can one watch before the exhaustion of a screen burning your retinas settles in? Twenty-seven years, it appears. Kyungsoo is exhausted. He feels the separation between reality and the one behind his TV screen frustrating. Multiple times he has fantasised about climbing through the screen and disappearing into a world not of his own. Freedom. From pain, from suffering, from endless exhaustion.
When he steps out of the taxi, his life switches. How many times has he tried to cry out and yell for help. Be it his therapist, his parents, his brother, whoever knows of how suicidal he is, whenever he cries out it feels like a hand is waving him off. A child dismissed. As if he had threatened them with his own life to get what he wants. But his desires lie in death, and no one understands how he feels. He feels tired. So tired. Anxious, angry and antagonised by having to stay alive despite not wanting to be. The door shuts behind him and a long process starts.
Erasing yourself from someone’s life is near impossible. The next best thing is almost erased. Traces of himself will remain. Memories. Items he has forgotten here and there. But all of his possessions are sold, given away or thrown away. The last time he kisses Sharpe, Pentecost and Elisa on the head is when he drops them off at The Director’s Cut’s audio technician. The only one he can trust to not know about his depression and at the same time be sure he will treat his cats right. It’s the most painful farewell. It’s the only farewell. Leaving Jianyu’s home bare of his own presence and history. Like he was never there to begin with.
His old home is where he finds his last stage. The only thing he faces is a painting, a gift. He downs a bottle of soju, and then another. The painting reminds him of times he was happy. Silence fills the room but his eardrums are filled with the gates of death opening for him. He doesn’t know whether there is a heaven and hell. He doesn’t know what lies on the other side of death. All he knows is that it will make him happy. Only when the alcohol has buzzed his system enough so he won’t throw up, does he down the bottle of pills. He looks at the painting and sheds a tear, but a smile forms on his face. He was happy in this life. As short lived as it was happy. And that’s all he’s ever wanted. A taste of happiness.
When his body is shocking and shutting down, he feels pain and relief all the same. The happiness he felt during his life time he feels again. Relief. His spirit is going to be free, finally. Everyone he cares for... ‘I’ll see you on the other side.’ It’s a thought that forms before his heart finally comes to rest.
“I’ll see you on the other side.”