T/W: suicidal thoughts (just in case any of you didn’t read the description, this is a story about mc having clinical depression and the first 20+ chapters are just about him having suicidal thought, self-harm and attempting to suicide)
It doesn’t matter, you can die later.
Shen Tingmian turned the pen in his hand and thought calmly.
He started to lose his mind, and again began to have unrealistic fantasies, maybe he could pierce his throat with this pen and spurt blood to death.
Reason always came as promised, it was the little tail of a fragment of life: no, he didn’t have that precise strength.
He didn’t have the blessing to wait for an accident. Since it didn’t happen yesterday, it wouldn’t happen today too. He still had to rely on himself.
Teacher Chen walked around him; the class period was about to end. There was a vague restlessness around her. When she walked back, several students in the front row seized the opportunity to start whispering, and then they laughed happily.
A large piece of twilight outside the window fell on the new leaves. The wind was light and bright. In the ups and downs of his breath, Shen Tingmian couldn’t distinguish the false from the real.
“Turn one page back.”
Shen Tingmian sat loosely, resting his upper body, freed his hand and turned the pages of the book.
After school, when the people were almost gone, there would be a large area of empty area on the campus. At that time, he would go to the top floor and jump. He would not hit anyone, nor would he kill a flower.
The open space below was really perfect. The trees were far away. The soft ground had just been built into a hard concrete floor. There was no parking place. There was nothing that could be used as a buffer.
God bless, he would definitely die.
From Shen Tingmian’s eyes, death was nothing.
In the first few attempts, he kept dealing with himself, but now, he had no fear, no expectation, neither happy nor sad. He didn’t mind the ugly death, and he had long since struggled from the timid and fearful of hypocrisy. He would no longer compromise with love and cowardice this time. He knew very well that every hair stuck in his skin was clamoring for him to die.
Teacher Chen was a freshly graduated university student with a clear voice. She was not confident, so she was disturbed by the students’ restlessness near the end of period, which made her voice tremble.
She was reading a text. Shen Tingmian listened intently, and occasionally wandered to think about death.
His hands were also trembling with the frequency of the teacher’s voice trembling. For this reason, he habitually pressed his hands in his arms. This posture was ugly, like an old man, but he didn’t mind. He was thinking of death peacefully and intently.
People who were about to die were always extra tolerant.
In the past he tried to chop off these two hands, now he was dying, and he was determined to reconcile with them.
The deskmate, Zhao Chen, woke up and mumbled: “The period will be over soon, right?”
“En,” Shen Tingmian answered, smiling at him, “You can really sleep.”
“I was awakened by you,” Zhao Chen listened to the restlessness in class, and there seemed to be a vibration from the corridor, “Fuck, the upstairs is over.”
In order to hide the shaking hands, Shen Tingmian shook his legs.
He stopped focusing to class, and with nostalgia, he smiled and asked Zhao Chen: “Where are you going?”
“Go to the Internet cafe with Kai Zi and the others, ba.” Zhao Chen blinked quickly, then rubbed his eyes, “Are you not coming?”
“I have to do my homework for a while. Go ahead.”
“I knew it!”
Shen Tingmian looked at Zhao Chen; he had already begun to pack his school bag, and he seemed not to care.
The bell rang after class, and Zhao Chen rushed out like flying.
Go, little boy.[1]
[1]: literally little boy/little youth
Shen Tingmian stretched his legs and looked at the school uniforms surging at the door of the class. The blur turned into a black and white film shaking in his eyes, again and again
He began to write tomorrow’s homework, with a rare heart.
The last student on duty said to him: “Shen Tingmian, you remember to lock the door.”
This should be the last word he heard during his lifetime.
He still failed to finish all of his homework, only finished his Chinese homework. Even before death, the attention would not return to the level of a normal person. He thought for a while before writing the words “Mr. Chen, you are great” on the homework book, and then thought after writing that this might cause psychological pressure on Mr. Chen, so he taped off the line again
You’re dying, do you still bring your school bag?
You don’t need to bring it, just staying here is a bit disgusting.
He still took everything, carrying his schoolbag, as if going home.
With a hand in his pocket, he habitually pinches the worn-out rubber, rubbing the vain romance.
He locked the door in the dim corridor.
Turning around, Shen Tingmian smelled a smoke.
Classmate Li Muze looked at him from the window, smoking.
Li Muze was tall and thin, wearing a black sweater standing against the wall at the end of the corridor. He smoked a few cigarettes, and his eyes were red. It could be seen that he was still a novice smoker, coughing while smoking. Nevertheless, he smoked vigorously, as if there was no reason to stop.
His face looked awfully bad, showing a distressed expression at this time.
Shen Tingmian saw his unhappiness at a glance, and asked, “What’s the matter, not leaving yet.”
Li Muze’s throat was dumb, he was not very happy. He slowly raised his eyebrows and spit out strange words: “You didn’t leave.”
He pinched the cigarette and threw it into the trash can in front of the men’s room. He strode two or three steps to go home with Shen Tingmian.
Before Shen Tingmian spoke, he spoke fiercely: “Annoying.”
Shen Tingmian walked behind him slowly, and then asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Disgusting”
The setting sun leaped on his pale face.
“What is disgusting?”
“Me, I’m sick.”
“What happened to you?”
Li Muze didn’t leave, and he stopped walking completely. There was an orange trash can at the corner of the stairs, and he gave the trash can a kick.
Then he said his great troubles: “I like boys.”
Shen Tingmian’s heart rose.
The corners of his mouth were wrinkled, and a shallow, trance-like smile was smudged. This smile was refreshing, and it was especially sticky in summer.
Li Muze seemed to understand this as a sarcasm, his eyes were straight, as if he would rush to fight at any time.
Shen Tingmian was not afraid of being beaten. He quickly stopped his smile and explained piously:
“It’s nothing, it’s not disgusting, don’t be upset about this kind of thing.”
Li Muze didn’t relax because of this sentence. He leaned his head back against the wall, and looked at Shen Tingmian with his eyes down and with undisguised and hostile contempt.
Shen Tingmian stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder, and said sincerely: “You live for yourself, don’t care what others say, don’t care what your parents say, you just hold your heart. When you grow up, who can control you?”
Li Muze gradually softened. He retracted his chin, a little surprised in his eyes: “Don’t you feel disgusting?”
“Not disgusting.” Shen Tingmian raised his hand, swearing to increase credibility.
He hesitated, because he was really going to fall to pieces and would die, but he really didn’t feel sick.
Fortunately, Li Muze’s face changed and he knocked his hand off: “Crazy.”
So far, the two classmates hadn’t said a few words, but Shen Tingmian knew why Li Muze would tell him this. People were like this, the less you knew, the more they told you.
It was just that he didn’t know what Li Muze was thinking, his eyes flickered, and the frequency of blinking revealed his hesitation.
Then he lit another cigarette, a small spark illuminating half of his face.
Yes. Shen Tingmian stared at him and thought.
This was the last person he saw in his life, how lucky Li Muze was.
Li Muze was flawless. There were only few boys who were better-looking than him in the whole small town. He had good grades, good family background, good personality, physical education, active and healthy.
He should be able to live to be a hundred years old.
I hope he can be with the boy he likes and be bathed in love and tenderness every day.
Shen Tingmian talked to him, still persuading him: “You don’t have to think too much, you are free to like who you like, you have to…”
“Hit me.”
Shen Tingmian did not know why.
Li Muze looked very irritable. He took the cigarette out, strode over, tightly squeezed his hand, smashed his fist into his chest.
“If you feel sick, hit me.”
He pressed there heavily, puffing, and Shen Tingmian felt his hand hurt by Li Muze’s heartbeat.
“I said I don’t hate…”
“No kidding,” he stared at Shen Tingmian, “I like you.”
“What?”
His lips moved, like a singing fish.
“Shen Tingmian, I’m very selfish, I like you, I want you to like me too.”
Li Muze said “you” very hard.
His hands were so hot.
Shen Tingmian was about to be scalded, melted into a thin soul, and died in Li Muze’s body.
This is terrible.
In an instant, the rippling, light and fluttering sense of detachment disappeared, and the familiar sense of collapse was poured into his body from beginning to end without warning, like a bone-through cold water.
All hell breaks loose.
All hell breaks loose.