Undoing

Within the midst of a lone, near misty night. One where the bellowing winds slows its pace to a gentle breeze. The roaring streets of people into their lives. Like a cog in a machine. A life one could call monotonous. Repetitive.

It was the vibrant streets of Akihabara—pulsating with neon lights that painted the sky with its blurred signs and advertisements vying for attention on the colossal screens adorning towering buildings.

Whether the screams of a shonen protagonist ringing out as the title of a popular game known as "Ryliaz of Dawn" popped right after, or the sizzling sound of oil as a succulent chicken sandwich slid into view while an emblematic fast-food joint claimed its momentary fame—

It didn't matter. It all painted the same thing.

It was a loud, crowded city filled with people. Within it however, laid the brink of a new beginning for a man named "Touya Tachibana". One that began like a sorrowful elegy that drifted into the call of the void—into the great unknowns from atop a tall building, high up in the air.

It was there that I stared below me. The light that seeped from the gentle mist of the cold weather blanketing the city. Or the people walking by into their lives as my footsteps clanked on the steel beneath my feet. I couldn't help but notice how chillingly cold it was here compared to down there.

And in contradictory fashion, I felt more alone despite feeling less empty. It was a loneliness that only continued to shroud my mind, one I could never escape.

So why did I even decide to come up here to just stare down? It felt pointless.

Then again... everything did.

Was it just me trying to find a way to contemplate it? To find solace in it? It always led to the same thing.

The immense pain ached at my heart—Why was it me? Why was the world so cruel? And to think that the sorrow I felt… isn't even the worst one could feel… that there were others that went through harsher, worse.

Were we only here to suffer? To exist simply to keep on moving as part of the cog? What was the point of existing if all it did was hurt?

I was trapped in this hellhole—losing precious years worth of my own life, entangled in the cradles of my own parents' mistakes—drifting off through life like a fool. Stupid. And I've made my mistakes too. Ones I'll always hate myself for.

I hurt so many people with the way I acted as all of my self-loathing consumed me. I was so distraught that all I did was treat the people that cared for me like shit. Insults dripped from my lips; I pushed them away with callous indifference from my envy and resentment. Telling them "I hate you" or "I never cared about you", and more.

That was wrong. That's unforgivable...

And when I finally realized it. The person I've become—

No. I always knew.

I hated myself everytime I fell back into that part of me. Every single time I became an asshole. I desperately tried my best to stray away—to stop myself.

And yet, I failed.

So many times. I want to change, and yet subconsciously, I looped back to the same thing like it was some kind of cursed habit. And even then, I never really had many friends… and the ones I did—It was my fault, I pushed them away. I hurt them. I don't want to be like my parents. I don't want to be cruel. To be cold.

...

Maybe I deserved this? Maybe I deserved to suffer?

And even if I didn't or deserved to continue on, what good would that do? I can't even get an adequate job. Even when I put my hardest, all I did was fail. And when I finally found one, in my excitement, I got myself in a mess of my own. A contract that forced me to work there for 5 years. A so-called black company, exploiting me at each turn.

If only I knew that, huh? I hate it.

Is it so wrong to just desire something and not lose it? Why do I even exist in the first place? To mesh myself into being a damn cog?

In the end, I just got so tired. Tired of living. Of holding up a lie. Holding on to to a false hope that life could get better when it never could. That a light stands at the end of every dark tunnel. It's pitch black. It always will be.

"Work hard and you'll reap the benefits once it's sowed" is what I always hear.

"It's bullshit..."

I had to whisper out bitterly at the thought of it as I stared into the depths of the streets beneath me.

Continuously. I've tried. And tried. And tried—Maybe I just gave up too easily? Maybe that's the reason. The cause. But I've tried so much, and yet some guy could get more just because they're better than me. I can barely pay rent or my own taxes, even food becomes a problem.

It made me realize how much I missed it—of the past, of how simple it was.

There was even a time where a night like this, showered by the dim light of the full moon, was fun. It was a simpler time… happier. Shrouded in ignorance and innocence, that even the worst of things just seemed less as bad as it did now.

Just thinking about back then is both fun… and cringe worthy in every way—to the point it hurts.

What was wrong with me then?

I asked some of the weirdest things and they just gave me weird looks, or that time I profusely apologized when I bumped into a statue, thinking it was a person. Or that other time I got two popsicles for simply doing well at school—

It really hurts... doesn't it?

Thinking about the past, how much like how I yearn for it to turn back and rewind. To the missing pieces of that youth of mine—the happiness I used to have.

But it's too late now. I am a 19, almost 20, year old adult. That's a few years past the missing childhood that I can never fully experience. Of a life where I should have drowned myself in ignorance and accept the hardships of life slowly through time, rather than be thrown into it immediately.

"Guess that's it huh? I'll be free from this chain of doubt. I'll just pull the trigger… like they told me to."

I mumbled out once more as I ruffled my messy, weird ashy hair as my soulless silver eyes turned to the full moon above. Its glean running across my retinas as the gentle breeze pushed aside some of that hair of mine. I've decided on this. They can have the note in my room once I'm a corpse.

I just want to die.

And with that, I closed my eyes as feet dangled outside the safety of protruding steel, taking that step as I pushed my body over the edge.

An action that can't be undone.

I opened my eyes once more as I stared at the ground so far beneath inch closer and closer. The mist-covered streets lined with the lights of cars and the sounds of bustling people resounded in my ears as nothing but white noise, blurring into the loud whizzing sound of my body, with the wind hitting continuously as I kept on falling—speeding towards the pavement.

But as it got closer, my heart skipped before violently beating once more—beating so rapidly it hurt. I was scared. After everything I…

I don't want to die.

But it was already done. Made. Yet I… I struggled—flailing around in the air.

I didn't want to die!

A flurry of regret and dread continued to plunder my mind. How could I get myself out of this? Why did I do this? I screamed, shouted and yelled. As if my mind was on a swivel, spinning rapidly as I fall.

Was it truly regret? Or was it just the self-preservation of my body? It did feel like the right choice... so then why am I regretting it? But before I could ask anymore. A loud splat yelled out.

There was nothing. Nothing in my mind. My body hit the pavement beneath, splattering as my organs bursted with my ribs and bones cracking and mangling itself on impact before sinking down to the ground, pulled by the force of gravity—like a tomato thrown at a flat surface—it was a fast end as my splattered corpse shed blood around me.

By the time it happened, I had already fallen into an abyss. I couldn't feel anything after a surge of unbearable pain as my eyelids shut—my body left drifting across a sea of darkness. A dark void that spanned for as far as my eye could see. Then eventually… what little bit of consciousness I had as my life flashed before me... ended.

It was... just a little nap... right?

Even in my denials, or those I had, I still asked for it.

"Goodnight."