Reset
When I wrote this one shot, I did it listening to Reset by Tiger JK ft Jinsil. As you read I highly suggest you look it up so that you can get the full experience of what I was trying to go for.
You didn’t want to go to a new school.
You didn’t want to change everything just because she was gone. You didn’t want to forget all about her, but you didn’t have a say in it.
Your sister killed herself.
She was only 17 and she decided that life just wasn’t worth it anymore.
She had been depressed for a while. You all knew it. You didn’t know why. You don’t think she did either. Your parents sent her to the hospital a few times after she had attempted it before. She seemed to be doing better this time.
She went out with her friends, she was smiling more, eating more, starting to put on weight. She even started seeing someone. You all thought this was it. This was when she was going to turn her life around.
But when you came home last month, you found her in the bathtub. You remembered it all. You walked in and yelled for her but you couldn’t find her anywhere. You went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and then you felt water dripping on my hand. You looked up and there was a dark spot in the ceiling, with water dripping from it.
You could feel your heart sink as you looked up at it. Everything stilled. The air seemed to thicken as you tried to breathe. All the noise seemed to drain out of the world, leaving a thick silence that seemed to hum throughout your entire body.
The glass dropped from your hand, shattering against the tile on the kitchen floor. You ran up the stairs, time seeming to slow with every step you took.
‘No, this isn’t real,’ you thought. ‘It can’t be. She wouldn’t. Not now.’
You remembered throwing the door open, but everything seems to happen in slow motion when you bring it back to your memory. The door opening, the brief view of the water on the floor before your eyes flick up to see her in the bathtub. The bright red of the blood against the white porcelain of the tub.
You dropped to your knees as the door slammed against the wall, the force of the hit making it swing closed again. You put your hand out to stop the door from closing and looked at her. Your beautiful sister, as white as the tub. You knew as soon as you saw her it was too late to do anything. You could feel the hot tears start running down your face, one by one.
You remembered screaming. You screamed at the top of my lungs, and you couldn’t seem to stop. It felt like your entire body was shattering, like everything was collapsing on top of you and you couldn’t breathe.
The older woman from next door happened to be out in her garden and heard the screams. She ran over and came upstairs. Her hand flew to her mouth as she saw what you had seen. She reached down and wrapped her arms around you, lifting you up and pulling you away from the bathroom.
When you think about this its in slow motion too. Her arms wrapping around you, trying to lift you. You fought her. You screamed at her to let you go but she wouldn’t. You cried into her shoulder as she rubbed your back.
She left you when you had calmed down enough for her to call the police and your parents. She was crying herself as she told them what happened.
You remembered your mother running into the house and up to the bathroom, completely ignoring your shivering body on the couch. You remembered hearing her own screams as the coroner was loading my sister on his gurney. You remembered your father hugging her and crying with her while she lost her mind.
You remembered the funeral a week later. You remembered how beautiful she looked in her casket. Everyone talked about how sweet and kind she was. They all said they couldn’t believe she would do this to herself. As if you did. You tried. You didn’t think anyone could remember that though.
Your mother said she couldn’t live in that house anymore. She couldn’t take a shower without collapsing. So they decided you had to move.
You had gotten skinny from lack of appetite. Your bones were sticking out more than they had been. Your eyes had deep dark circles under them. Every time you closed your eyes all you could see was the red of the blood on her white skin. You hadn’t slept in weeks.
But your parents were so engrossed with their own grief that they didn’t notice. And you were too far gone to care anymore.
You put on your uniform that morning and looked at yourself briefly in the mirror. You had her long black hair, and her deep brown eyes. You were shorter than she was, she got the height from your father’s side while you took after your shorter mother. Other than that you had looked like you could have been twins.
You wanted to smash the mirror. You hated seeing her every time you saw yourself. You were no longer (Y/N), you were (YS/N). You think that was why your mother couldn’t look at you without breaking out in tears.
The uniform hung on you, having dropped so much weight since it was ordered. You didn’t bother putting on makeup. You weren’t planning on making an impression. You just wanted to get through the day so you could come home.
It was hard going to a new school without her. You felt like you were betraying her almost, like you were doing what they were, replacing her. You refused to let that happen.
You went to the office and met your teacher. He brought you to the classroom and introduced you as the new transfer student. You could hear everyone whispering as they took in how you looked. You heard the word suicide float around and figured they had done their research.
You introduced yourself and took your seat, immediately pulling out your earbuds and plugging in your music. You pulled out the textbook and started writing down the notes, not bothering to try and talk to any of your neighbors.
Come lunch time everyone went to the cafeteria and you followed. You sat at a table on your own, your music playing, and pushed around the food in front of you. You still couldn’t eat anything. You pushed the tray away and pulled out a book to read while you waited to go back to class.
You saw someone sit across from you over the top of your book. Your eyes flicked up and the first thing you saw was bright red. If your skin could have gotten any paler it did, and you dropped my book. You could feel yourself shaking as the world started to go black. But then you were suddenly grounded as someone grabbed your hand.
Your eyes slowly shifted down to the larger hand holding mine. “Hey,” you heard a deep voice from somewhere far away. “Breathe (Y/N). It’s okay.” You registered what the voice was saying and took in a sharp inhale. The trembling slowly started to fade as the hand squeezed yours.
Your eyes traveled back up as you took in his face. A bright rectangle smile on his face as he tilted his head slightly, taking you in. Your eyes flicked up to his hair and realized that that was where the bright red was from.
You tried to gain control over your breathing while he just sat there smiling at you.
“Hi, I’m Tae,” he said when he saw you calming down. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he chuckled.
His voice sounded like velvet. You mentally shook yourself. 'Stop that (Y/N). You can’t think of anyone that way anymore,’ you scolded yourself. She was dead. You didn’t deserve to be happy when she wasn’t there anymore.
You nodded your head at him and looked back down at your book. He tilted his head again waiting for you to acknowledge him. When you didn’t he waved his hand in front of your eyes.
You let out a sigh and looked up at him again, raising an eyebrow.
“I introduced myself, you should too,” he said, showing off that smile again. You could almost feel yourself wanting to smile, but before anything could happen my eyes flicked up to his red hair and your eyes started to burn with unshed tears.
“I’m (Y/N),” you whispered softly before picking up your book again.
He let out a soft sigh as he figured you didn’t want to talk. He started eating his food for a few minutes before he looked back up, noticing that you weren’t eating.
“Aren’t you gonna eat that?” he pointed at the food on your tray. You shook your head.
“I’m not hungry,” you said and kept reading. You could feel his eyes on you and you looked up, locking eyes with him. He was taking you in, and you could see the worry in his eyes. You didn’t understand why though. He didn’t even know you.
“Are you sure aren’t? I mean, I know it’s not really my place, but you look like you need it,” he said softly, looking at my wrists that were mostly bone. You glared at him lightly.
“I’m fine,” you told him. He shrugged and went back to eating. The bell rang for class and you packed up and left, leaving him at the table as he called after you.
You heard him running to catch up to you. He grabbed your wrist, making you turn to look at him.
“Do you wanna hang out after class? I could show you the town?” he asked, giving you that rectangle smile of his yet again. 'Does this kid ever stop smiling?’ you thought to yourself.
You shrugged and put in your earbuds as you kept walking to class. He caught up to you again and walked in front of you, walking backwards as he tried to get your attention again. You sighed and pulled out an earbud frustratedly.
“Why are you so interested in me exactly?” you snapped at him, the glare you had given him earlier deepening as you stared at him.
He just smiled at you again. ‘I really want to smack that stupid smile off his face’ you thought to yourself. He took a step closer.
“Because I know what you’re going through, and I know how hard it can be,” he said simply, before spinning on his heel and heading down the hallway.
You stood there stunned. You couldn’t move as you felt everything spinning around you. How on earth could he know what it was you were going through? You shook your head and headed down the hall towards your class.
You walked in and stopped in the doorway as you saw the bright red of his hair in the back corner of the room. ‘How had I not noticed him before?’ you thought to yourself, walking towards your desk, head down. You took your seat and you didn’t look up the rest of the class.
When the final bell rang for everyone to go home you started packing up when you felt eyes on you. You let out a sigh and looked up, and sure enough, there was Tae.
“You ready to go?” he said, shifting his bag onto his shoulder. You raised an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t remember saying I was going anywhere with you,” you snapped at him again, giving him a slightly wounded look as you shoved yourself out of your seat. You turned and started heading out of the classroom, but he ran in front of you, blocking the doorway.
“Move,” you tell him, looking at the ground, not wanting to look at him because you knew you would cave and go wherever he took you. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to go. You did. You wanted to connect to someone again. You had felt so lonely ever since she left. But you didn’t feel like you deserved to be happy.
You had let her down. You hadn’t been there when she needed you. Maybe if you hadn’t stopped to talk to your friends at your locker that day you could have gotten home in time. Maybe if you hadn’t forgotten your textbook in class. Maybe if you had walked just a little faster instead of taking your time. All the maybes were constantly running through your mind.
Everyone says that there wasn’t anything any one could have done. That it was just a problem within herself. But she was your sister. The two of you had been so close when you were younger, and while she had drifted away, you had felt as though you were still close. You didn’t know why she didn’t confide in you. Why she didn’t tell you what was going through her head. You didn’t know why she felt like she had to go through this alone.
“I’m not moving until you agree to come out with me. Come on, just for an hour or so. I’ll buy you ice cream,” he said, breaking your thoughts. You looked up at him, the anger gone, leaving only self-loathing.
“Why?” you asked him. “And I want an actual answer this time. If I like it I’ll go,” you told him, crossing your arms across your chest.
His smile broke, and he looked at you seriously. He let out a sigh and shoved his hand through his hair. “I lost my best friend to suicide,” he said.
You could hear the pain in his voice. You could feel the tears rising again, but you swallowed them down. You weren’t about to break down in front of a stranger, no matter how much you wanted to with him.
“It happened last year. I still don’t know why he did it. He had felt pressured from his parents to do good in school, and it was putting serious stress on him and making him depressed. But he had gone to a therapist and was put on medication. He seemed fine after that, but I guess not,” he told you, his voice breaking here and there as he told you his story. “He had been collecting the pills instead of taking them. I didn’t know until it was too late.”
You nodded at him as he finished his story. “I’m sorry,” you told him sincerely. Maybe he did know what you were going through, but that doesn’t mean you deserved to let it all out to him.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” you started but he shook his head. “You’re coming out with me because I know exactly what you’re thinking right now and it’s not true.”
You looked up at him, anger visible on your face. “And what exactly am I thinking then Tae,” you snapped at him again, practically yelling at this point.
He sighed and pulled you into a hug. You froze as his arm wrapped around your shoulder. “It’s not your fault (Y/N). You couldn’t do anything. And I know you’re hearing it from everyone, and you don’t want to believe it. I know you keep thinking, what if, because I did too. I still do. But there really wasn’t anything you could have done.”
And with that you broke. Hearing that from someone who did know exactly what was happening to you was what you needed. You grabbed onto his shirt and clung to him, the sobs wracking your body as you let out all the grief you had been holding onto.
He just stood there holding you, patting your back as you let it all out. When you had started calming down he pulled back. “Ready for ice cream?” he asked you, flashing you that rectangle smile again.
You nodded and wiped at your face. His smile seemed to get brighter as he turned to leave the classroom. You reached out and grabbed his hand, making him turn to look at you this time. “Tae,” you started. “Hm?” he replied, looking down at you confused.
“Thank you,” you told him softly. He simply nodded and turned, heading down the hallway, knowing this time you would follow him.
You paused for a moment, looking at his back as he started walking, your eyes traveling up to his bright red hair. All you needed was someone to hold out their hand. Maybe he could be that someone.
This was by far the hardest piece I have written. It made me so emotional, and I actually cried while writing it. But I really feel like it was quite well done. I hope you guys enjoy!