#☄. *. ⋆ joomi

[bexiaoli]

🎶

"medicate, meditate, swear your soul to jesus / throw a punch, fall in love, give yourself a reason" call your mom - noah kahan ft. lizzy alpine

tw: mentions of physical abuse

he hadn't left his bed in a week, seven days straight of staring blankly at the photo on the wall across from where the frame sat in his room.

seven days ago, he had been fine. jindallae was over, they were laughing, joking. he didn't mean to push xiaoli, didn't know that his reaction to even the mere suggestion of revisiting creating music would be so strong and immediate. it was difficult to recall the exact events that occurred but xiaoli remembered the way the anger had built up so quickly, how he was fine one second and on the floor sobbing the next. there was no comforting him in the moment as he screamed for his friend, one of his closest friends, to get out, to go far away from him.

it wasn't the first time he'd reacted like this. the last year had been littered with these breakdowns, though they didn't last this long. usually it was a few hours of anger and crying, the flashbacks would generally be what started them, triggered by...honestly xiaoli didn't always know. but once they started, they'd wax and wane, rapidly cycle through so many moments. one moment he was a small child and he could hear his father screaming, the swing of his fist winding before he was older, and in an office of a ceo with a hand around his throat. how long they would last was hard to say because the next thing xiaoli always remembered was a sensation of waking up. the blackouts sometimes were the most jarring. everything felt so blurry sometimes, and other times he didn't feel like his body was his own. the figure pulling itself off the floor was indeed him, looked exactly like him, but something felt so off as he seemed to be watching a dream of himself.

those were always only a few hours, but seven days later here he was.

there were brief moments of clarity. he swore he tried to take a shower the day. how long it last he wasn't sure, but there was a blurry memory of dropping one of the bottles and coming back to a semblance of reality when the water was freezing cold.

"what is wrong with me?" it'd been the main thought that plagued him when xiaoli felt somewhat in control again. what the fuck was wrong with him and why couldn't he fix it. sleep couldn't even get him away from it all. god, he hadn't slept much either in seven days. his body felt exhausted. it wasn't like he slept much anyway, but he didn't like he'd slept much at all lately. it was his fault those things had happened, right? this whole thing was his fault.

for the first time in what felt like forever, xiaoli didn't feel like he was being pulled back under. the constant feeling of being out a sea drowning with heavy waves and no one to help him before he was underwater again. he was more aware of his breathing than usual, and the pounding in his head, the dryness in his mouth and throat. it was bright out, and he could read the clock that told him it was before noon still.

he needed a reason to pull it together.

it took a few minutes but xiaoli forced his limbs to move from the bed, tried to focus on the feeling of the plush rug under his feet and the fact that everything felt more in tact than it had. water....yeah, water was a good start. slowly he trudged himself from his cave to the kitchen, finding a glass and filling it to the brim before gulping the contents down. after the glass was set aside, his eyes landed on his phone. he was shocked it had battery still. it'd been a while, at least he thought it had been, since he was on.

one glance at the screen showed a lot of things. there were lots of random notifications from instagram or apps promoting a deal, and he ignored those. his eyes landed on the texts, the missed calls from a lot of people. his boss was too nice. xiaoli had never called off work and the old man seemed shocked when he did for multiple days. tomorrow...he swore he was scheduled tomorrow. maybe it was time to drag himself back in. the voicemail from the man was kind. even if he didn't make it in tomorrow, somehow he'd still have a job.

there was many notifications from friends. some were random questions that never got answered, and those he talked to more frequently seemed to grow worried as he failed to respond, let alone read them. admittedly, xiaoli did stare at one of the threads of messages, attempting to motivate himself to respond, let someone know he was alive. it was jindallae's. most of the messages had seemed to come from him. he was worried and angry. something in his brain seemed to work enough to think about how jindallae had seem him in that state. xiaoli had thought about his friend a lot when he was coherent.

this seemed like a good first reason to try again to function. his friend was worried. xiaoli's fingers were slow to type out a message. it was simple. i'm alive. he'd have to offer more soon, but for now, it was something.