One Death, Three Views

[Dyu]
I’m sorry, Lelin.

I didn’t think I would die. I just wanted to stop hurting for a little while. Now I can’t even wipe away your tears as you cling to my lifeless body and try to get me to breathe again. All I can do is stand here and watch. And you don’t even know I’m here. You can’t tell that I’m hugging you from behind or that this was all an accident. The chair slipped, Lelin. That’s why I’m dead, even though I only wanted to make myself pass out for a little bit.

“I found your pills, Dyu. Thought you told me that you flushed them all. Babe, the last thing I want is to come home from work and find you dead from taking too many. I don’t care what else you take, but stop mixing painkillers and alcohol.”

You were mad at me last night and you had every reason to be, but that’s not what caused anything. Don’t think that; please don’t feel like you had anything to do with this. I wish I could make your fingers stop trembling so that you could call the police and they could take my body away. Then you’ll only have to look at me one more time.

I’m sorry! I wish I could take the rope marks off my neck, put the color back in my skin, and hold you. I was all you had and now I fucked up and I’m gone. You’re alone again because of me. I’m so fucking sorry, Baby. Can you hear me? I’m screaming it, but you’re just sitting there, barely breathing because Kerry walked in and called the police when you couldn’t. Now he’s trying to hold you, but you won’t even let him touch you. Lelin, I’m touching you. Can you feel me? I have my arms around your shoulders, the way you always liked it.

You slapped me hard enough to bring tears to my eyes and I looked down for a moment, swallowing the lump in my throat before I dared meet your gaze. “You can’t understand what goes on inside my head when I’m all alone, Lee. It’s a scary place and I just need to make it all go away so I’m not sitting and crying all day. I don’t mean to make you worry.”

“Then start talking to me for a change and maybe I’ll understand. I love you and nothing you say could scare me away! Will you ever get that through your thick skull, Dyu-ku, or am I going to have to leave you to make you understand just how much you hurt me every time you take one of those?”

All I whispered was, “yes,” but you stormed out before I could tell you what part I was answering.

Don’t tell them that it looks like suicide. You know how much that’s going to kill my family and it’s never going to leave your mind. I’m sorry! I know nobody can see me or hear me, but when I knock over the ornamental daggers on the wall, everyone jumps.

It hurts me more than you can guess, love. Everything I was scared of inside my head is still here and it’s louder than it used to be because you’re not here to keep me safe. But how were you supposed to be able to save me from myself?

You’re trying to set the daggers back up when I hold you again and wish harder than ever before that you could just feel what I felt when I realized I was going to die. Lelin, you were the last person I thought of and the only person I’m thinking about right now. My parents will hurt, but they’re stable. Without me, I don’t think you will be.

I’m sorry! Can you hear me screaming that apology? I wish you could. Maybe you would stop crying if you heard me.

[Lelin]
Dyu! Why are you hanging from the bedroom doorway and why is there a chair in my way? Please, still be alive after I take you down and get you on the bed. You’re cold and kinda stiff, oh gods you’ve been like this for a while then and there’s no fucking chance of you coming back. I’m still going to try, though. I have to try. You can’t be dead, Dyu-ku Koichi Hitori.

It’s weird to be hugging a corpse, but I can’t think of anything else to do. Can’t even grab the phone, I just keep crying and crying. This is my fault. I never should have gotten mad at you last night or walked out like that. You’d still be able to hold me and make me stop crying if I hadn’t been such an asshole to you. I’m sorry for pushing you over the edge, Dyu, I really am.

Babe, why didn’t you leave me a note or anything to explain yourself? I feel like I’ve just been ripped apart because you’re gone. Kerry was right; you were the prettiest guy either of us ever met, even prettier than he is, and you hurt me worse than anyone else ever could. Let this all be a dream, make me wake up to have you sitting in bed next to me, writing in that notebook or smoking. I don’t want to be alone again, especially not like this.

My hands are shaking as I play with your crazy, nearly waist-length, three-colored hair – black roots, bright blue tips, and bleach blond everywhere else. I don’t want to move or stop touching your body. I love you, Dyu. I wanted to stop being scared of you dying by accident and now you go and die on purpose. Fuck, now Kerry’s here because he was going to help me work on my vows today. I hope he has the decency to call the police or something before he starts in on the “I told you so” routine.

Don’t want him to touch me. Just wanna keep pretending that the weird sensation I’m feeling is your arms around my shoulders, like you’d always sit next to me and do. I didn’t even cry this much when I heard about my dad being missing in action and presumed dead. Dyu, you know I hate crying when there’s nobody I trust to hold me. Kerry would try to offer a “sympathetic” back rub or something equally wrong for the moment. Don’t know what his deal is, but he never liked you.

Gods, I don’t want to tell the police that it looks to me like you killed yourself. I know they’ll still have to cut you open to learn just how you died and what you were on at the time and I can’t picture that without shaking even more. I’m gonna let one of them tell your parents, babe, because I sure as hell won’t be able to.

Why did the daggers I got you for Christmas just fall off the wall? That’s something you always made happen when you got mad and pounded a fist near them. But you’re gone, so you obviously didn’t make that happen. I can’t stop sobbing and shaking as I try to put them back up. End up dropping them when chills run down my spine, something whispers in my ear and a weird feeling comes over me. Dyu, are you still here in the room? That felt like it was you holding me and sounded like it was you whispering an apology. No, ghosts don’t exist, so it couldn’t have been you. Even though you made that crazy vow to haunt me if you ever died, it was just the pot talking.

When people die, there is nothing that can live on and “haunt” others. Right?

[Kerry]
Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me one bit. I should be sad that my best friend’s fiancé is dead, but I just want to laugh at him for being stupid enough to love the wrong person in the first place. He should care about me; not any of the crazy fucks he seems to end up involved with.

So I’ll be the one to call the cops because he’s too busy crying and actually hugging Dyu’s body. Lelin is hugging a fucking corpse. That’s not gonna bring him back, you know. The rope’s still in the doorway, so I know how he must’ve done it. Hanging instead of an overdose? Not what I would have expected. Oh well, he’s still dead and that means I’ve got a chance to comfort the guy I’ve loved for years.

He won’t let me touch him despite the fact that he’s mumbling Dyu’s name, crying to the point of hyperventilating, and shaking hard. I don’t know why he never lets me touch him when he cries, but he was more than happy to let any of his boyfriends do it.

Yep, tell the police it looks like suicide. What else would it be when you find someone hanging from a doorway with a chair knocked over nearby? Come on, Lee, just let me hold you and tell you that this is a tragedy. It’s really not one to me, but I know what I’m supposed to say to you at a moment like this one. Never should have told them about each other.

Every time I try to touch him, he pushes me away and only cries more. I want Lee to stop being sad and realize that I’ve always been here for him and I always will be, no matter how much I fucking hate all of the people he gets himself involved with. I love a man that seems to think his lot in life is to keep being hurt and never does a damn thing to change it. I’m a fucking idiot.

The daggers make me jump when they fall off the wall and a chill runs down my spine. I’m not so stupid that I don’t know what it always took to make that happen. And I believe in ghosts, unlike Lelin. Guess that means Dyu’s here. If you can hear my thoughts, bastard, I’m glad you’re dead. I’m glad I have another chance to get Lee with me because you did what I always figured you’d do. He’ll probably start hating you for leaving him like everyone in his life other than me. When he does, I bet he’ll start loving me like he should have all along.