#tw: suicide jokes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zeeamoe · 28 days ago

Text

The Boy That Sits Alone In The Front Row Always Wears A Black Sweater

part 6 of this post click here for the previous part warning(s): su*cidal jokes

Ding, ding, ding!

After completing one round, the screen displayed both of our scores.

My final score was [S].

And his was [D].

“Yeahahah!” I cheered, swinging both my thumbs down at him. “Suck it!”

Right beside me, he sat on top of the glowing arrows, one hand hanging onto the handle bars, and the rest of his limbs sprawled on the floor. His face was blushing red and extremely pale at the same time, as if he was about to throw up. He was catching his breath like he had just run a marathon for days.

He looked straight at me. It was probably meant to be a glare, but he was even too tired to make an angry expression.

I reached into my pocket to grab the arcade card and jokingly asked.

“Wanna have one more round?”

All I could hear in response was heavy breathing.

He managed to utter one word.

“......no.”

“Pfft.”

It took him 10 minutes just to regain enough energy to stand up.

My initial plan was to play in the arcade a bit longer, but seeing his condition like that, it was impossible to even suggest another game. Maybe we should have saved that game for last.

I walked him back into the apartment. The moment we got there, he slumped into the floor, not bothering to walk a few more steps to reach the sofa.

But he was slumped right in front of the door, blocking my way. I nudged his side lightly with my foot. And he just groaned and said something with annoyance.

“Don't ever… ask me to play that again.”

I rolled my eyes and walked over him.

“Dramatic *ss.”

As I was walking away, he mumbled something else.

“I’d rather just die.”

I froze for a second.

Then, I turned around and lightly kicked his foot.

“Ugh.”

“Don’t joke like that,” I said sharply, but I immediately changed the subject, “I’m cooking. How about chicken noodle soup? I think there is some noodle left. Any other ingredient requests?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, his words rang in my head again.

‘I’d rather just die.’

It was probably a joke. It was probably just a joke. He was most likely joking. And it was just because he hated being tired, so that was why he made that joke.

But hearing that joke from someone like him didn’t feel right at all, that’s why I scolded him. But what right do I have? Should I have just laughed it off or made another sarcastic remark as I usually do?

I peeked over my shoulder slightly. He was still slumped on the floor.

Did I make him uncomfortable? Or did he notice that I might know something?

But then he spoke up unenthusiastically.

“...Anything’s fine.”

It was about chicken noodle soup ingredients.

“Carrots and mushrooms it is, then! Hmm, what else do we have… Huh. I’m pretty sure I stocked your fridge like last week. Why is it still so full? Don’t you ever eat anything from here?”

I rambled as I rummaged through his fridge.

The apartment was filled with sounds from the kitchen as I prepared ingredients and utensils, instead of the faint background music that normally comes from the games in his phone.

“Oh, I guess you’re almost out of cooking oil. Remind me to get some.”

I heard an incomprehensible reply from the floor. It was a good enough response.

Tak, tak, tak.

The sound of the knife hitting the cutting board.

Blub, blub, blub.

The sound of the soup boiling in the pot.

It was probably the first time I cooked in his place where there was no background music. I wasn’t sure if it was peaceful or incomplete.

I grabbed two bowls and poured two portions of chicken noodle soup before setting them on the table. Steam rose from both bowls.

Waiting for it to cool down, I cleaned the kitchen a bit. Placing everything I used in the sink.

I approached the pathetic skunk near the front door of the apartment. He was lying on his side with his face down on the floor, his fluffy black sweater making him look like a black lump.

I used my foot again to push him so that he was lying on his back now.

“The soup’s ready.”

He made a face like he just woke up, squinting.

“Yes, mom.”

“You know what? I should act like your mom. Tomorrow I’m forcing you to go outside, get some exercise in the sunlight.”

“No.”

He finally got up and dragged himself to sit at the table.

We started to eat in silence… except that it wasn’t completely silent because I could hear him aggressively slurping his soup.

Slurp, slurp-

He never seemed to be hungry, but whenever food was in front of him he would gulp it down as if he never had any decent food before. Then again, this was the most vigorous I’ve seen him eating.

“Yo, slow down! No one’s taking your food. And there’s more in the pot.”

He looked up from his bowl. This time he was properly glaring at me. I guess his facial muscles returned.

“By the way, you would have won that round by far if it weren’t for your weakass stamina.”

He nodded as he stuffed noodles into his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in the arcade again. We should go again next time!... Hey, don’t make that face! It’s not like I’m making you play ‘Jump It’ again, I mean, there are other games to play. Or you know what? I could try one of your games, any multiplayer ones?”

He stopped chewing and looked at me with a scoff.

“Why do you suddenly want to play games?”

“Am I not allowed to?”

“Mmm, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Who cares? I want to play!”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes, then continued to eat. At least pick one of those gestures, you big drama queen.

But he didn’t really refuse or stop me from doing it, so just a few days later, it became part of our routine. We would play some games to cool down after working on the project.

To be completely honest, he was right about how games didn’t suit me. I wasn’t the type of person who enjoyed playing video games, and I suck at it too. But I thought, if he had someone else to play along with him, it might change something.

It didn’t matter if my existence was nothing but a nuisance to him. I would rather see him get annoyed, mad, or blow up in some way than just… have nothing in there.

In fact, I got carried away because I was so bad at games, that I just started to mess things up. Even on games where we were supposed to work together.

One of the games is one where we had to manage some kind of restaurant. We have our little characters going around, cooking…

“Here, you pass over the pan…”

“Ohh, whoops!”

“Mm, alright, just pay attention to the oven.”

“Ack! Ackkk! Hey, hey? How do you turn it… Oops, oh no!… it, uh… it got burned.”

His reaction was just a big dramatic sigh.

“Just bake a new one.”

“Kay, kay!”

And not just that one game. It was all kinds of games.

There was that one shooting game…

“Remember, the foot signal can tell you where your enemies are.”

“Got it.”

Click, click, click.

“Ooh, hey! look what I found.”

“Someone’s behind you.”

“Argh, wait, wait. Oh no!”

Boom!

The screen turned gray with a big caption that says, [You Died!].

I turned to look at him innocently.

“I died! hehe.”

“Yeah, not surprised…”

Or even when we played games against each other, I knew I couldn’t come close to beat him, so I purposefully did terribly. I had hoped it might make him laugh or something.

“Hey, stop blocking my turn every round! Ack! Dude, why am I frozen? Oh, that’s the penalty… well whatever, I still have my fortune.”

“Don’t put it all in one place, you’ll regret it.”

A few turns later, he did something that stole all my hard-earned fortune in the game.

“What the hell? It reduces to zero? Zero?! How is that possible? You didn’t even bet for half the amount!”

“That’s just what happens when you hoard it all in one place.”

He didn’t even sound amused or anything. It was just a plain reply… Am I just boring in games? Not even annoying enough to get on his nerves?

On the other hand, playing all these games had more of an effect on me. Everytime I play a game with him, I get even more agitated.

No. It’s not because I’m so bad at the games that it becomes frustrating, or that I hate playing games.

It was because he kept making disturbing comments or jokes every once in a while.

At first, it was subtle.

In one of the shooting games, an NPC exploded for being a little too close to a box filled with bombs. It was a game with ridiculously bad graphics which made it look funny instead of horrifying. And when it happened, I laughed, and he said something…

“Haha! What a way to go.”

It wasn’t a laugh.

It sounded snarky. As if he had some underlying jealousy within that sentence.

At that time I just laughed it off nervously.

And it kept happening. I was starting to think that it might have been his way of joking that I just didn’t understand. That he had been like that even before he was all… depressed, and said those things without any meaning behind it. But it was uncomfortable to listen to.

When we played the cooking game…

“Leave all the tasks with timers to me, you can just do the chopping.”

“Alright! …Ack, where’s the knife? Oh, wait, found it! Okay, where’s the chopping board? Chopy, chopy, chopy~”

“Careful not to cut yourself.”

“Yep, yep!”

“If it were me, I’d cut myself. Haha!”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that one. And the game started right after, so he immediately distracted me by giving orders.

As we played more games each day, I noticed that his jokes got bolder and bolder, as if he was trying to make it obvious.

The worst part? I didn’t know what I had to do.

How did he expect me to react? Did he want me to address it? Did he want me to laugh at those jokes?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

One time, I tried to bring it up in a casual way when he made another one of those jokes.

We were playing a game where we had to sort out trash and garbage for a city or something.

I wasn’t sure how he found all of these games. It had terrible graphics and it wasn’t even a fun game. He was the kind of person who would try any kind of game without thinking too much.

Anyway, when we were sorting out some particularly disgusting looking garbage, I was rambling on my own.

“Eughh… ew… eww… ughhh! Disgusting.”

And after sorting out the trash, we would put them into some kind of disposal site and the trash could either burn or tossed somewhere comically far.

I would say things offhandedly…

“Bye trash! You disgusting piece of sh*t! The city’s better off without you!”

He replied to what I said after staying quiet for most of the game.

“Like me.”

Since it was just at the time that round was over, I turned to look at him.

I fully expected to see him make some kind of expression full of loneliness. Or a face that would make you feel sorry for him. I don’t know! Any kind of expression that fits his words.

But, he just looked as he always does.

And that was even more unacceptable for me.

I asked him, “Dude, is there something you want to talk about?”

He didn’t reply, instead he kept tapping on his phone.

“Next round,” he declared, completely ignoring me.

A full shut down.

And that wasn’t the only time.

Whenever I tried to bring it up, he would change the topic abruptly, fully avoiding it. He did it very obviously, which made me even more confused.

I didn’t know if he made those comments so that I would care, or that he just wanted to say them and hoped I would ignore it. Why would he say all of that, but then completely dismiss it as soon as I showed any kind of worry towards him?

On the day of the project deadline, I went to his place just to do a final review and some finishing touches.

He was also done with his own project.

And he was skimming through my project one last time as per my request.

After reading, he nodded firmly.

“Yeah, it’s all good, just submit it.”

There were still a few minutes left, so I made use of all the time left to proofread everything again.

“Ssst, okay, okay. Oh my god. No typos… no typos… the format’s all good, font size, spacing, err, umm… okay word count… This is so nerve racking, I mean, if I don’t get an A after all this, oof…”

I heard him chuckle at what I said.

“Well, if I did all that and not get an A, I’d k*ll myself.”

He said it in a quiet tone, and I was so focused on checking my work, that I only laughed awkwardly.

It wasn’t until I finally submitted the project that I managed to process what he actually said.

I turned to look at him.

Having submitted his own work way earlier than I did, he was already lying down on his sofa and playing a game on his phone. No particular expression on his face.

I scratched my head.

“Hey, uhh, do you have any plans after the finals?”

Our finals were about to start in three days and it’ll last for a week, and then we would have a break about almost a month long. I had guessed that he wouldn’t be going home to his parents during that time.

His answer was just as expected.

“Nope, I’ll just be here.”

I nodded slowly.

There are people who set boundaries and build walls to keep others away. Most of the time, you can see those walls, and the right thing to do is to respect those walls and let them be. Some might have doors on those walls, made of iron and tightly shut. When you’ve gained enough trust, the door will open on its own.

But, this guy right here, his walls have no doors, and although these walls may protect him from the outside world, he was eating himself away without anyone noticing anything.

That is when you have to break down those walls whether they like it or not.

I was never the type to break walls down. I was more of an annoying knocker until they had no choice but to install a door to either let me in or kick me out themselves.

So, I didn’t know if I should bring it up, and I did it the only way I could.

“Ah really? You really have nothing to do? At All? Then, come with me to go to this therapy center! I got these vouchers from one of my highschool friends who is studying psychology. We can get free first sessions!”

By covering it up as something not that serious.

His reply was neat and short.

“No.”

“Awww? Please? It’ll be hilarious! Maybe we could make up something about ourselves and see how long it’ll take for them to notice. We should come up with a fake identity or something! Well, actually, I wanted to go there to consult a real problem, ahem, my struggles with studies, but we can just make up everything else! Like going through a horrible breakup or something.”

“Go by yourself.”

“Noooo, going by myself makes me feel uneasy, you know? Like, going to a therapy center on my own feels weird! Just come with me for the first session. I’m asking you because all of my friends are going on vacation, bootcamps, self-discovery programs or whatever, yada, yada, yada,”

“I don’t care, I’m not going.”

“Come on, just one session,” I said as I wiggled my index finger right in front of his face, obstructing his view from his game.

He pushed my finger aside.

“No.”

This time, I waved right in front of his phone screen.

“One session!”

He rolled away so that he was facing the backside of the sofa.

“No.”

“Geez, just one session! And it’s free! It’s nearby, so we don’t have to walk too far.”

Since I couldn’t reach his phone, I crouched down near the sofa, staring directly at his back that was covered in the soft fabric of his black sweater.

I reached out my hand, and poked his spine.

He flinched, and immediately sat up, “Stop!”

I giggled and was reaching to poke again, but he stood up and started to walk away backwards from the sofa.

“Look. No matter how annoying you’re going to be, I’m not going. I don’t care how desperate you need someone to go with you, I’m not talking to a stranger about myself or whatever bullcrap you want to make up about. Just stop.”

I blinked.

He said all that without even sounding annoyed, just tired.

Whenever I asked anyone to hangout only to get rejected without a good reason, I would usually respect their decisions despite feeling a little… sad? Lonely? I’m not sure myself. I Just know that I don’t handle rejections well.

My instincts were telling me to stop, because at that point, it was obvious that he wanted me to drop it and give up. However, my gut was telling me to keep pestering him. Because it was obvious that he needed this.

But another feeling won over. A feeling that I didn’t want him to hate me for forcing him to do this.

“Okay,” I said.

There’s always next time, right? I’ll try harder next time. I’ll deal with this step by step… slowly.

#writing #original story #writers on tumblr #original character #slow burn #creative writing #writeblr #first draft #story writing #writing wip #writing dump #tw: suicide jokes #tw: suicidal jokes

5 notes · View notes