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It was the fifth of September, a day Kai remembered and will forever remember.
Leaves were starting to fall off the trees and onto the ground, painting the outside in beautiful red and orange hues. It was a Sunday, so Kai was off from school. He wasn’t too happy about it though, because he had lots of errands to run that day. His phone buzzed, his alarm blaring loudly – he's such a heavy sleeper sometimes – as he sits up with a lousy yawn. He blindly feels around for his phone before shutting it off and he eventually gets up from his bed, rubbing his eyes.
“Ugh… Blehh…” He sticks his tongue out as he gazes at himself in the mirror, scratching his stomach lazily. He picks at his hair, humming as he examines the greasy brown strands. “Needa shower…” He adds with a grumble as he slips off his sleep shirt, throwing it into the laundry basket in the corner of the room.
So he showers, singing quietly to himself as he does so. It's a little after ten thirty when he comes out of the shower, and as he's drying his hair he absently thinks about what he needs to buy from the store. Carrots, baby potatoes, fennel, box tissues, and he adds shampoo to the list as he tosses the empty bottle into the trash.
He turns on his Spotify and begins to get dressed, deciding on something simple: a white shirt with a beige argyle vest over it and some jeans. He slips on all of his rings, subconsciously counting them, and he cusses quietly when one of them gets caught on his skin.
Carrying his phone over to the kitchen, Kai makes breakfast – some cinnamony cereal and green tea to wake him up – at the same time as he makes a list on his phone for his shopping. Carrots, baby potatoes, fennel, box tissues, shampoo, was there anything else he needed? Oh yeah, kitchen towels and bread. He shuts his phone off and finishes his breakfast after a few minutes. He puts the bowl and spoon – the mug wasn't dishwasher safe – into the dishwasher and sets it on a quick cycle. He was planning to make the shopping trip short.
He double checks the list as he puts on some sneakers, nearly tripping over his own feet as he chose to do so standing up for whatever reason. He connects his AirPods to his phone and yelps as the audio blares in his ears. He swiftly lowers the volume with frantic fingers, and then slides his phone into his jean pocket. He puts on a matching coat and grabs a random tote bag from his wardrobe before stepping out of his apartment – but not before realising he'd forgotten his keys and backtracking to lock his front door.
His key fob fails three times, as it always does, but it eventually works and he exits the building as he begins to make his way to the bus stop. Some asshole splashes him with their car, driving over a water-filled pothole in the road. “Hey! Jerk!” Kai exclaims as he winces away from the water, grimacing as it seeps into his jeans. The bus eventually arrives and he boards it, paying for a simple ticket and sitting near the back. Naturally, he takes out his phone and starts to doomscroll on various social media platforms, like Insta and TikTok, short videos appearing and disappearing right before him as the world passes him by outside the bus's windows. A few minutes into the ride, and he gets a text.
BESTIE!!🩷
heyheyy!! we still on for tmr?
Hiiiii !!
u mean the cafe righf
?
yah
jus wanna make sure!!
cuz u said u had plans or whatever lol
im just going to the store rn actually
so i wont have to do it tmr so we can go out!!
would 4 be fhke??
fine
omg i cannot type
this bus is so SHAKY
OK !!!1!!1
4 IS GREAT I CAN DO TJAY
lmao thats why i dont do buses
dont even ok i dont have my license ˃̣̣̣̣︿˂̣̣̣̣
ALSO COOL
uhhhh do u want me to buy u smth btw??
from the store
UHM?? idk actually
NAH IM FINE
tyyy tho ꉂꉂ(ᵔᗜᵔ◍)
I'LL SEE U AFTER SCHOOL TMR THEN
YEAH YEAH!!
TTYL (≧∇≦)/
With a huff, Kai leans back in his seat and looks out the window, humming along to the music as a song by TV Girl starts to play. “Hey, hey… Wanna talk about sex but ‘cha not allowed…” Not soon after he started to mumble the lyrics, the bus came to a halt and he realised that this was his stop. He hopped off of the bus and started to walk the rest of the way to the store with a renewed pep in his step.
It was still quite early, so there weren't many shoppers around. He almost bumped into this elderly lady a few times, swearing to himself that she was doing it on purpose, but he made sure to apologise each time anyway. He used the self checkouts – last time he came here this early, the cashier nearly gave him a heart attack with their glare – so as to avoid talking to cranky people who do not want to be working this early. He was a bit bummed though, because they didn't have the shampoo he usually uses, so he had to settle on a different, more expensive one.
When he walks out, he almost trips over a dog that had scurried past him and he fumbles with his groceries and phone. He sighs, but he doesn't have time to think because he sees the bus coming from afar and breaks out into a run for the stop. He, thankfully, reaches it in time and boards it. As he sits down, he double checks that he has everything. Carrots, baby potatoes, fennel, box tissues, different shampoo, kitchen towels and sourdough bread. Perfect, he didn't forget anything. The ride was uneventful, besides a few offhanded comments he overheard from the middle-aged women conversing next to him, so he simply turned up the volume of his Spotify. He notes that it's some kind of remix, but doesn't check his phone for the title or artist.
Getting off the bus, Kai's key fob only fails twice as opposed to its usual three times and he climbs the stairs to his floor, too zoned out to think about taking the elevator. Once he arrives home, he plops his groceries on the table and stretches while yawning. That had tired him out more than he expected. He plucked out his AirPods – his ears were ringing – and disconnected them, playing his Spotify on speaker as he went to his room to change into comfier clothes. He slipped into some sweatpants and a thick jumper, messing around and making silly sounds with his mouth in tune with the music. He folds the clothes he was wearing earlier and puts them back into his wardrobe.
He realises that his carpet is quite filthy, seriously there's crumbs and bits of dirt everywhere, so he starts vacuuming. Already sidetracked, he decides that he may as well vacuum the rest of the apartment, so he does. He discovers grime in areas previously thought impossible and gags, eventually though, he puts the vacuum back into the corner of his room and contemplates dusting. He makes the decision to do it later, after dinner maybe, along with the laundry.
Another yawn, he walks back into the kitchen and starts sorting his – almost forgotten – groceries. This goes here and that goes there, simple routine, he isn't even really focused on it yet he remembers everything in pieces. Move to the fridge once, pause to turn around and then go back, move to the living room and then back to the fridge again, then the countertop. His phone pings as he grabs the shampoo bottle, the volume momentarily lowering and he quirks his head in the direction of the device. “Hmm? Mm… Wait a sec.” He shrugs his shoulders and swiftly leaves the room for a moment to place the shampoo onto the shower rack, and once he comes back, he grabs his phone and leans against the counter. He unlocks it and lowers the volume again as he pulls down his notifications.
2 new message(s) from BESTIE!!🩷
For some reason, he could feel his heart starting to race as he stared at the notification. He also quickly realised that two hours had somehow managed to go by and cursed at himself for being so time blind. His mind brings him back to the messages though, and he gets that weird sinking feeling in his gut as his finger hovers over her contact. Why is he hesitating all of a sudden? He isn't too sure, but everything in his body was suddenly tense and, despite his poker face, a weird sensation of fear washed over him. After what felt like hours but was realistically only a minute, he bites the bullet and opens up the text messages. Immediately, he is hit with a wall of text but he barely reads any of it – because he sees it. He sees that one word.
Accident.
And nothing feels real for a moment, as though the entire world was on pause. The birds outside of his window were chirping but he heard none of it, it felt like his ears were ringing again. He could feel his heart beating in his throat, in his head, and he couldn't move a muscle. He was stuck in place, hands holding onto his phone which had shut off, and his eyes were glued to the screen. Even though there was nothing there, he felt like he could see it staring back at him. Weakly, with wobbly fingers – they were numb, he couldn't feel them at all – he turned the screen back on and opened it. Every second was an eternity, he begged and prayed that he had seen wrong. Then he read the entire paragraph.
hi, you were listed as “bestie (kai)” in my sister's phone so I'm assuming you were her best friend. this is her sister.
there's really no easy way to say this. my sister got into an accident earlier and she passed away only an hour ago. i understand that this is something incredibly heavy to hear but i wanted to give everyone close to her closure as soon as possible. i've read back on your messages with her and i can see that she really liked hanging out with you. i don't know how close you two were but the photos i've seen, i can tell that you were a great friend to her. if there is anything me or my family can do to help you grieve, please contact me in person. i'm going to be staying at our parent's house, you can visit us at any time.
Kai dropped his phone with a loud clatter and collapsed to his knees, leaning forward and heaving as he could barely breathe. His entire body was running hot yet he felt so cold at the same time, and he was shivering so damn much he could barely hold himself up. He forced himself to blink manually, his eyes stinging and his vision wavering – growing bleary and then sharp, too sharp. Was he still breathing? He choked and gasped as he started to cough. His limbs were all pins and needles and he hunched over further, bringing a shaky hand to his mouth as he was making weird, incomprehensible noises with each wheeze. His head felt like it was imploding.
… What's going on? Why did that happen? That text must've been some sick prank, he mumbled in his brain. There's no way something like that just happened out of nowhere.
But that's exactly what it was, wasn't it? An accident, a car crash from what it sounds like. That sort of thing… You can never anticipate it. You can try and try, every day to avoid it, but all it takes is one mistake.
But she wouldn't have made that mistake. Not her, ever. She was responsible and she always did everything just like you're supposed to, she always went by the book. She didn't do anything wrong.
She didn't… Do anything.
Kai was crying, he realised. There were tears streaming down his face and into his open mouth, dripping onto the floorboards with soft plops. His eyes hurt so badly and all he wanted to do was close them, but they were wide open. His cries were horrendous; disgusting, bubbling hiccups and high-pitched weeping like a banshee. He looked pathetic.
He imagines it, then, and he wants to scream. He imagines her body, mangled and unhuman-like. Maybe her head was cracked open and her brains were pouring out along with her eyes, maybe her torso got split in half and all her innards were visible like a sponge cake, maybe her bones were all poking out in awkward directions that shouldn't have been possible. He heaves and wheezes again, and his hands fly back up to his mouth as his stomach starts to convulse.
Completely unable to move or comprehend anything that was happening outside of his own head, Kai pukes into his own hands. It drips through the cracks in his fingers onto his lap and he gags again as it comes through his nose. It burns, he can't breathe and his hands curl into fists as his body grows weaker and weaker and he falls forward. He coughs – his stomach churned, feeling as though it was folding in on itself – and doesn't stop himself from puking again, all the discoloured chunks shooting out from his mouth.
He can't feel his hands yet he knows they're shaking. The back of his throat feels like it's on fire and, as he swallows thickly, he feels like gagging again – the taste completely vile. He feels wrong all over, nothing feels like it's his own. Would anything feel like anything if you're–
How selfish, his own mind hisses at him, she's dead and all you can do is think about yourself. He chokes on a sob and cries, “no no no… I'm… nghh… I-I… I'm not…!” but it's no use. His thoughts only become louder and his head starts to hurt, like it's about to burst. It's not fair, he didn't do anything. He didn't deserve this. He didn't do anything. So, stop it – stop this sick joke and show him she's alright already. His hands, somewhere in the back of his mind he remembers he has them, scramble for his phone as he weeps. She isn't dead, so stop acting like it. She's fine, probably just waiting at home for her favourite TV show to come on, or painting her nails in her room as she hums a random song, or even making that smoothie bowl she said she wanted to try.
He hovers over her contact, but he doesn't press it. He can't, if he does, all he’ll see is that message.
And that just couldn’t be true.
It was the nineteenth of September, a random day that didn't matter and wasn't worth remembering.
It has been two weeks since… Since what? He can't really remember right now, and he doesn't try to. His room is dark, damp with the recent heatwave that had hit, but he doesn't open any windows or turn on the AC. The curtains are also drawn, they've been like that for days. He doesn't have the strength to look outside for some reason, and the light scares him. Kai sits in bed, unmoving, for the third hour now. He woke up around two in the afternoon, and he's been stiffly sitting since, yet time feels like it hasn't moved at all. His thumbs have been mindlessly twiddling, he slowly realises, and it feels like they're buzzing inside.
… Was he supposed to do something?
All he can think about is…
No. No, no. No no nonononono–
A shrieky cackle bubbles out of his throat and his head, which had already been hanging, lowered further as he brought the heels of his palms into his eyes. He pushes and presses into his sockets, as though trying to physically dispel the thought. Colourful shapes had started to form in the darkness of his own eyes and he laughs again. “No no… nononono…” Like a mantra, he keeps mumbling. It doesn't even feel like a real word anymore, but he keeps pleading. To who, he didn't know, he just wanted it all to stop.
Stop thinking it, if you think it then it'll be true.
She'll really be–
Kai practically jumps out of his bed, heaving. He trips up over the piles of dirty clothes that had built up on his floor and nearly falls over, crashing into the nightstand and letting out a screechy yelp. He hiccups and, with a hand cupping his mouth, he stumbles into the bathroom and drops to the floor as he clutches onto the toilet bowl. Was he trying to ground himself? It doesn't matter, it dosnnt mttar, it dsdof't msgdtfhr
He throws up, and it's the same as before. An ache, deep in his stomach, starts yearning and crying for something. Anything, give me anything, but Kai refuses. He doesn't feel up to it, and he hasn't felt up to it for a while now.
It reeks – that rank, acidic smell – and he yanks the flush lever down, holding onto it longer than necessary as he listens to the rushing water. He feels a little better, he thinks, now that his stomach is even more empty. He doesn't stand up though, because his legs won't move. He finds it funny, really, because how many times has he run away from this now? Enough for his legs to not work anymore? Enough for his legs to not listen to him anymore? Enough that he was starving and could barely keep his eyes open.
… … … An apple.
He remembers his fruit bowl, the one that sits in the middle of his dining hall table. He had apples and bananas and oranges, all sorts of fruits in there. He should eat one of the apples. However, despite those hunger pains, his body disagrees and he starts to shake.
If he wants to eat, he has to leave his room. He has to go outside of his room, and into the rest of his apartment. The apartment that hasn't been cleaned, or lived in, for days. His heart starts to beat faster. It's dirty, filthy, dirty, and there's definitely insects everywhere. Crawling around, searching, diving into the ground with their hundreds and hundreds of legs and eyes. They'll climb into his mouth and then, they'll start to chew their way out like maogttgs.
Magstts.
Matgtos.
Maggots?
Kai doesn't realise he's screaming until his throat begins to rasp and scratch, and he hugs himself to stop the phantom pain. He can feel them already, moving on top of him, digging deep inside of his body – like a corpse – and wriggling. He imagines it, right there as he’s making pathetic sounds; her body covered in hundreds of maggots, climbing in and out of all the holes that they would have made. Her rotting body would be the perfect feed for them, her fair skin would've been a delicate appetizer while her entrails would make the entire swarm writhe with glee.
“Stop it! Stop it stOP IT STOP IT!” Kai cries hysterically, his fingernails depressing his forearms with crescent indents. He doesn't notice he's pierced his skin until his arms are covered in red, and he only panics further then. “A- AhhHH! Leave me ALONE! I– I didn't…! Hahh…!” He can't look at it, his arms are burning but he can't look at it. It just hurts.
Kai didn't eat anything.
It was the first of August, a Monday, but it didn't feel like anything special. He barely even remembers it as he's sure he just stayed in bed all day.
Kai's fans were starting to get worried, despite his tendency for frequent hiatuses, he's never just up and disappeared like this before. Usually, he announces it or gives some type of update, but this radio silence was starting to make his phone blow up more than before. He read through it all but, like a coward, he didn't reply to any of it. He just watched as messages upon posts upon videos started to pop up everywhere. ‘Where's Kai Monteago?’ The media cried, unknowing that it was out of something as stupid as this.
He felt pathetic, curled up on his bed and clinging onto his phone as everyone poured their hearts out to him with ‘my condolences!’ and ‘omg i hope he's alright’ on every platform. It made Kai feel better, in a twisted way, like he wasn't alone in this.
But he was alone. It's not like anyone actually knew what had happened, everyone probably just assumed he became busy with school or something. It was August after all. His stomach dropped as reality started to creep in again. He was missing school, so much of it, and no one was there to drag him out of bed because–
Kai threw his phone with a nonsensical shout, cursing to himself as he drove his fist repeatedly into his pillow, hiding his face away. He heard the phone crack but he didn't care. He continued to squirm on his bed, like a child throwing a tantrum, as the thoughts of attending school again flooded his brain.
Sitting alone, learning alone, eating alone, doing everything alone. Once again, alone. That's all he was, every single day for the past however many months, just Kai Monteago by his lonesome.
Five minutes passed. “...hic…” He started crying and sat up, trudging over to the dormant mobile. He picked up his phone with another hiccup, tears streaming down his face as he stared at the cracked screen, regret flooded his system. He choked on a cry.
Why? Why is he so stupid? Why can't he just be an adult? He's so immature, and dense, and nothing he does makes any difference nor changes anything. He's just a dumb idiot who ignores the bigger picture and then cries himself to sleep at night like a loser.
It's quiet for what felt like hours.
Kai's phone lights up and more notifications are coming on through from his fans, a quiet ‘hah’ crawls out of his throat. He presses onto it and watches as more posts asking about his whereabouts pop up, like they're his friends.
‘Friends’?
Right, friends.
They're his friends, aren't they?
It was the tenth of August, a Wednesday. His apartment was filthy. He'd been holed up in his room for a long time now, only stepping out when he absolutely needed to eat but even that was rare. He didn't know when his feelings changed, but the scorching pain had numbed to a background buzz. It was there, barely out of sight, but whenever he'd try to do just about anything, it would grab his heart and squeeze it until it bled. It was why Kai was sitting frozen on his kitchen floor.
He'd opened his bedroom door this morning with no particular intentions, only the thought that he needed to occupy his hands or he'd do something stupid running through his mind. He had moved to his kitchen and grabbed a mop, tending to the monotonous task of cleaning the tiled floor. Kai wasn't even fully there – his mind elsewhere – but something snapped in the back of his mind and suddenly he couldn't focus.
You can't do it, you can't clean this entire apartment by yourself. You can't even feed yourself, what makes you think you can do something as huge as this? Look at you, you reek. You haven't showered in weeks, you're fucking disgusting. Don't you feel like a sorry piece of shit, you useless freak?
And then another thought,
You can't even get over her.
Get over her? Kai dropped the mop as he sank to his knees, not even making a sound as he got lost inside of his own head. Like she was something that needed to be forgotten, pushed aside. He wanted to get angry again, but he didn't even have the strength for it anymore. Not even to cry or laugh or do anything, all but sit there in silence.
It felt weird. This feeling.
Why did he need to fight his own brain? Were they not on the same side? They're both trapped in the same body, but sometimes, it didn't feel that way. It was so… Bizzare. If Kai didn't know any better… If Kai didn't know any better…
… Well, does he? Know better, that is. He's been stuck in this fucked up routine for ages ow, so what does he know? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He can't brush his teeth without wanting to rip all of them out. He can't brush his hair without feeling insane every time the strands graze his face. He can't dress himself without feeling an impending sense of doom. He can't do anything.
Why did he think he could do this?
Kai's head raised subconsciously as he heard a nearby buzz, directing his gaze to the top of the kitchen counter. It was his phone, the one he cracked in a fit of childish anger, and it was vibrating. He'd kept it on silent for months now, but he must've accidentally turned it back on somehow. He stared at the counter for a few minutes, hearing the notifications go off, before finally rising to his feet with a stumble. His legs felt numb, but he still managed to walk over and pick up his phone.
Kai scoffed. His fans had started tagging him on Twitter about some weird article he'd been featured in. He quietly mused about the fact he never consented to this, but it's the internet and he doesn't feel particularly pressed about it. He reads the headline.
…
The world is annoying, Kai concludes and throws his phone back down onto the counter. They should just mind their own fucking business. He marched back over to his room and slammed the door as he slid down it. He never cleaned the kitchen floor.
It was the middle of February, Kai had lost track of the days by this point. He never got a new calendar and he wasn't exactly enthused by the idea of leaving his home. He's managed so far by ordering groceries to his apartment, he's not about to break this streak now because of some dumb calendar.
However, there was a new development. He'd cleaned some parts of his apartment. Like the kitchen and living room, he'd mopped and swept the floors and even dusted the whole place. It felt… Good, like he had some semblance of control back in his life. He can't lie, it was difficult having to throw out so much garbage – the deprecating thoughts didn't make it any easier – but he'd managed to throw all the trash out in the span of a week. He was actually kind of proud of himself, but because of that, Kai was in a bit of a dilemma.
He always liked to treat himself to something whenever he had accomplished something in the past, and despite this being a rather embarrassing thing to celebrate, he wanted to do it. Celebrate. The problem was that he didn't know how. He didn't want any food, like snacks or drinks, and he didn't want any clothes or anything like that either. So then, what could he do?
Kai had been mulling it over the whole day and, it was when he'd left his room somewhere around the afternoon, as he poured himself some coffee, it hit him. Immediately, his body filled with a sense of loathing but he tried to swallow it down.
Hair dye.
What if he dyed his hair?
It was a nice enough reward, right? He could choose a nice natural colour, like blonde, or maybe something more exotic, like blood-orange. He almost laughed at the thought, but it died down as he had an epiphany of sorts.
Pink. Yes, he'd do pink. It'd match hers.
Kai smiled.
And, watching from somewhere, she smiled back.