Chapter 3

LEVI’S POV

“Where’s Adalee?” Caius asked.

I hemmed and hawed because of his sudden question. 

“W-why?” I asked as I packed my things up. The day just ended again. Time to go home from school.

“I’m just asking, but why are you stuttering?” he asked in a teasing tone as he tried to look at my face.

“W-why?” I snorted. “She went home already, I g-guess? Darn it! W-who knows? Why are you asking me? I don’t know!”

I raised my voice as I immediately marched outside the room and left him still arranging his belongings. That gossip monger!

“Hey! Oh, seriously! Please wait!” he yelled, but I didn’t bother myself to wait for him. 

“Why? Am I not allowed to ask you anymore? I’m just curious! Why did you helped her? Hey, Levi!” he dragged on, but I just ignored him.

Adalee was keep popping on my mind. Her face, her lips... she lost her smile and it was bothering me.

“I wonder where did she go? Or is she okay?” I whispered to myself as I made my way down the school hallways.

“Levi!” Caius called after he fell behind me.

“What?” I replied without giving him a look.

“Let’s stop by to the computer shop. What do you think?”

“No.”

“Wae?” Why? 

My eyebrows met because of his childish tone. I turned my head to him, and I saw his face twisted while he was thumping his feet on the ground.

“What’s with you? Stomping your feet like a five-year-old kid? It’s past 8 in the evening and I’m tired! Let’s go home,” I said and before I could be able to step forward, I heard him thumped his feet hard.

“Come on, Levi!”

“Stop! No. Let’s call it a day, huh?”

“Andwae!” No way! he protested.

I face-palmed.

“How about a drink together?” he suggested, eyes sparkling.

“Caius!” I raised my voice, showing him that I would disfavor.

“Jebal!” Please!

And there he continued to stomp his feet which made me roll my eyes.

“Why so stubborn?” I carped as my lips twitched in annoyance. “You shameless guy! Stop it! You and your tantrums!”

“Come on!” he said, walked towards me, then dragged me outside the school. In the end, he made me come with him at a bar. Oh, people!

How could I resist this annoying, childish human being anyway?

The place were hundreds of conversations told in loud voices. All of them was competing with the rock music that dominated the atmosphere. The crowd at the bar was young, mostly students from the University. 

We made our way through the warm bodies to order a drink—the dark local beer—the main reason why we’re here. We stayed at the bar counter after taking our drinks.

“Oh my! Look at that chic,” Caius bursted out as we sat in front of the bar counter.

“Chicken? What?” I said and made a face.

“Tss,” he snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re so killjoy!"

I turned to the woman on the next table and said, “34-30-35, 33% belly fat.”

Caius almost choked himself with the fried chicken we ordered.

Fried chicken at a bar? Yes.

“W-what?” he asked as he turned his head to where I was looking.

“36-28-30, 30% belly fat,” I uttered while looking at the girl sitting on the couch. 

“30-26-33, 27% belly fat,” I added as I looked to the office girl who had just entered the place.

“Dang! How did you know their measurements?” he asked so amazed.

Instead of giving him an answer, I sipped my beer.

“Now, tell me who’s your chicken. The one with lots of belly fat, the one with big butt, or the flat chested?”

“Hey! Have some manners! Be nice!” he shouted, then bent over me. He placed his fingers on my eyes as if he was checking something on it. 

He said, “Do you have any gadget in your eyes? Or something like eye sensor? Do you—”

“Do you want me to kick your ass? Crazy!” I snorted as I hit his forehead. I just saw him pouted while he rubbed his forehead.

As time passed, I just only drank a glass of beer while Caius almost in his second bottle.

“Want to dance with me, Levi?” he asked with his snickering face, swirling his drink inside the glass he’s holding.

I put my glass on the table after drinking the last shot. “Want me to kill you? This is not even a club for you to dance,” I snorted.

“How barbaric!” he said and drank his glass of beer straight. “I just want to have fun!”

I shook my head. 

“Go, have fun!” I said. This idiot was such a mess! 

He smiled at me like a mad man.

“H-hey! Be careful!” I shouted at him as I saw his drink dripped from his mouth. 

“I’m fine. Why don’t you just get another drink?”

“No, I’m done. I don’t want to get drunk,” I refused. “You’ll be in a complete mess if I let myself get drunk, too. No one will look for you,” I added.

“Oh! Oh, really! You’re making me cringe!”

He brushed his arms, face twisted, and seemed disgusted.

I automatically massaged both of my temples.

“Idiot!” I said and hit him. “Just be thankful, you brat!”

He chuckled, then told me, “Gomawo.” Thanks.

I rolled my eyes and looked away.

“I just don’t want to damage my Frontal Lobes with alcohol,” I said.

“Frontal Lobes, my foot,” he said, forehead creased. “What’s that, love?” 

He’s really annoying!

“It’s responsible for cognition, thought, judgment, and memory. Alcohol can impair nearly one of these functions,” I explained. “The hippocampus forms and stores memory.”

“Ah.” He nodded his head. “You won’t lose your brainy brain,” he giggled, then sipped his drink. “You know what? Maybe I should really get drunk.”

“That’s enough!” I nagged and tried to grab his glass, but he pushed me away.

“Wae?” Why? he pouted. “I want my brain get damaged to forget about everything permanently!”

I sighed and stared at him for awhile. What’s with him now? 

I crossed my arms and kept quiet. For a moment, I glanced at the place—still in mess.

“It’s been a year,” he suddenly mumbled.

I turned my head to him again and caught him looking at his phone... seemed like there would be a serious conversation that would going to happen.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Do you still remember the first time you saw me get drunk?”

“Yes,” I said and nodded. “Why did you suddenly asked about it?”

“It’s been a year,” he repeated.

“So?”

He smiled. His eyes were half closed and looked drunk already.

“It’s when I moved to our dorm, but I was drunk, messed up, and I just wanted to kill myself that time,” he said as he grabbed not just the glass, but also the bottle of beer on his other hand.

I kept nodding as I remembered what he was saying. 

“I remember that. You keep on saying, ‘I’m tired. I want to die. I want to hang myself to death. I want to jump off of this building. I want to poison myself. I want to cut my wrist’ and the like.You’re really messed up that time,” I said straightforwardly.

“Yeah right?” He sniffed.

I stared at him and waited for him to talk again.

“Levi...” he mumbled as he slumped to the floor.

“Hey, Caius! Get up!” I yelled, but he just shook his head.

“Naege wae? Jinjja!” Why to me? Seriously! he whined. “I’m really mad! Really really mad!”

“What's wrong?” I asked as I just let him remained on the floor.

He again sipped his drink, hoping that the answers were at the bottom of the glass, then the bottom of the bottle, then the bottom of the next bottle and then the next. 

It’s his third bottle to be exact. 

“You said that I couldn’t die. You told me I couldn’t hang myself because there’s no rope inside the dorm. You told me I couldn't jump off of the building because I was drunk and tired, that I couldn’t walk enough to reach the rooftop. You told me that there’s no poison inside the cabinet. Out of stock, my foot!” He laughed. 

“You told me that I couldn’t cut my wrist because the knives in the kitchen were rusty and blunted,” he added.

I guess drunk talk wasn’t nonsense at all. The truth would come out naturally from your mouth as the tongue was freed up to say what exactly what was in a person’s heart.

“Well—” he cut me off.

“Did you know what’s my reason?”

I shook my head and said, “No. You never told me.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” he whined like he was blaming me for not knowing his reasons. But I kept myself silent.

He didn’t say a word for a while. He just tightened the grip of the beer’s bottle as he heaved a sigh. 

“My reason a year ago is still my reason today. I want to forget about everything,” he whispered as his voice broke.

“Caius?”

“This,” he said and gave me his phone. 

“I miss her so much.” I noticed his eyes sparked when light hit it. Tears from his eyes started to came out.

“Who is she?” I asked after I saw a photo of a woman on his phone’s screen.

“A y-year a-ago,” he said, then wiped his tears, “there was an unexpected gift I’d received after my Senior High School graduation. S-she didn’t show up at my g-graduation ceremony, so I came home immediately after the event,” he continued. 

He tried to stand up just to fall back down on the floor in an unbalanced attempt to sit back on the stool.

I inched towards him and helped him get back to his seat. 

“Is this your mother?” I asked. He just nodded as an answer.

“I c-called her when I got home, but I got no response. When I came to her room, my w-world... my world c-crashed under my feet. I saw her... there’s a rope a-around her neck. She hanged herself to... to d-death. No letter, no goodbyes. She left me... she left me without saying goodbye.”

I hugged him before he could be able to throw the bottle he was holding. He bursted out in tears as I gently tapped his shoulder.

"I was d-desperate that time. I badly wanted to t-talk to her, but I couldn’t find a way, not until I learned about lucid dreaming,” he said. 

“It’s my last resort, I g-guess? I practiced it almost everyday and luckily, I saw her again,” he continued. 

I didn’t dare to say a word. I just listened to him.

“The place was pretty creepy, but I knew it was our house. She t-told me that I don’t have anything to worry about... that she’s fine.”

“How irony, right? She said she was okay, but then, she ended up killing herself.”

Words couldn’t form from my mouth, but I could feel his pain, his agony... he was still tormented by it after all. Nothing could take away the pain of loss. It’s a torture for those who was left behind.

“I lied when I told you I experienced lucid dreaming just once,” he barely chuckled.

“I did it over and over because my m-mom didn’t want to tell me why she killed herself. He kept on nagging at me to wash the dishes instead... instead of some conversation with sense.”

He was breathing heavily and in a sobbing voice. I could smell the harsh scent of the alcohol from him as he tightened his hug on me.

“She didn’t want to make you worry,” I whispered while I tapped his back. Gently, I reached for the bottle of beer and the glass away from him.

“Is t-that s-so?”

“Of course,” I replied. “Wash the dishes always and don’t worry that much. Stop crying and let’s go home already, okay?”

“I h-hate washing t-the d-dishes, Levi!” he protested.

He was the Caius I used to know who hated washing the dishes.

“ know right,” I replied as I grabbed both of our school bags, then paid our drinks.

“I’m really mad!” he uttered, sniffed and wiped his nose.

“I know. I know. Let’s go.”

I slid his phone inside his bag right after I saw that it was past 10 in the evening.

“I can’t walk properly, right? What happened, Levi? Did I d-damaged my b-brain already?” he asked as I helped him walked outside the bar.

He was struggling from walking so I had to help him. His white uniform was stained already, his hair was greasy, and his actions were slow and clumsy.

“Let me see,” I uttered. “Difficulty in walking, blurred vision, red cheeks, impaired memory... yes, I guess.”

“Jinjjayo?” Really? he asked and looked at me. He suddenly caressed my face with his both hands.

“Neomu kyeopta!” So cute! he yelled as he pinched my cheeks.

“Hey!” I shouted and removed his hands away from my face. “Are you insane?”

“Mianhae,” Sorry, he barely whispered before he totally passed out.

“Ugh!” 

I had nothing to do, but to carry him on my back. After all, he was like a younger brother to me, so I had to take care of him.

I left the place and started to walk back to the dorm. It was just a walking distance anyway.

Of all the emotions a person could feel, loneliness was probably the hardest to one to be healed.

When you recover, what will you do?

When you recover, will you still be you?

Please remember, there's hope that awaits you.

Will you be stronger, will you be new,

When you recover from what you've been through?