Chapter Text
Sleep didn’t come easy for Liu.
Sleep would find him before he knew he had closed his eyes, or he’d lay there awake and stare at the alarm clock across the room. A trick their mom came up with to get him to wake up earlier and out of bed faster. It worked, but boy did he hate it. Its LEDs made the room too bright, the darkness more apparent, and his imagination run wild as his mind filled in the silence with so much noise, he was sure he was hallucinating voices. He knew they were hallucinations. Compared to the other voice in his head.
He thought that childish voice in his mind was the real him in some way, the hidden part that acted all on its own. It said things, did things, and enjoyed life in a way he wasn’t sure how. When that voice was the only one there in his mind, that was all he was. All he’d ever be. And it usually felt good. He didn’t care about what happened back then. He didn’t care about how he had been treated before. He could always mess around and be free of all those fears he had right now.
The ones of the bathroom. The ones of wetting the bed. The ones of seeing demons in his dreams, of being possessed, of being abducted or murdered. Nothing let him sleep until his mind shut off on its own accord. He was stuck with blankets that made him sweat underneath them and cold without them. In danger if he shifted them off himself, in disgust if he stayed inside of them. He could ignore all he wanted, the smell of his own body odor starting to turn stale on sheets that he should have washed himself, but didn’t.
That was the bad thing about the childish voice in his mind. The childish feeling he had. The one that haunted his waking existence. He couldn’t do a damn thing for himself. Liu couldn’t wash his own laundry, organize his bag, or get his homework done on time if his mind was like that, sounded like that. He could make friends easily. He could talk to anyone he wanted and feel no regret, no pain, no shame, and ignore everything around him. And he didn’t even have to be present. He just had to make sure he got to school on time. And then, his mind could turn itself off, he could tune out everything, and his body moved all on its own.
He kept dreaming of it, the days that went by where he had fun. They were blurry, but glowing. They were sweet, and bitter. He did terrible things, said weird, embarrassing, uncomfortable things no one wanted to hear from him. But if he were honest, if he did make himself present, they’d hate him. He knows it. He knows it because they never liked when that part of his day, the one where he didn’t care about anything and wasn’t even alive for it, said something about what he was thinking. He can’t control it. And the moment he hears his thoughts suddenly vocalized in his body, when he wasn’t looking or in control, he would force himself angrily back into place and correct it. The damage was done, but temporarily smoothed over.
Why couldn’t he just be himself? Was that even himself? What was he like before that? Before the moment he suddenly turned into a different person? Was he wearing a mask? Was he pretending to be another person? He didn’t mean to, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stop existing now, altogether, right here? Why did he have to do these stupid things repetitively, walk in circles, and confuse his thoughts for reality? All of it is a construct anyway, a simulation right?
This body doesn’t stop sweating but he’s freezing. Did he ever learn to take a shower? Didn’t he take one yesterday? Today is… Thursday right? But if he thinks about it, it isn’t Thursday. He was home all day yesterday. He wasn’t sick, there was no holiday. What the fuck?
That ceiling with its bumps and grooves have eyes in them. He imagines them. They aren’t hallucinations, he knows that much. In the grooves and bumps, he can make out shapes. Like the forest, a mountain, faces, waves. The low light in the bedroom, the dry air with dust lingering around and threatening to give him an allergy should he shift and breathe the wrong way, the way the shirt dug into his neck, grasping it. He could almost see himself hanging from the rafter. Maybe he did. But he knows that’s not it, he’s stuck in this body, living this life for some reason.
Parents that hate him for not getting it right the first time but then laugh at him the moment he tries so hard to get it right before that can happen. Parents who blame him for the stupid shit Jeff does, always comparing them and making Jeff hate him. Parents who hate any moment Liu can feel the smile on his own face because something else is inconveniencing them. God, what the fuck was he doing wrong that he was born into this world to two people who didn’t want him in the first place and then went ahead and made the same damn mistake?
Fingers were gripping the sheets and there was a burning in his eyes, he would claw them out if he didn’t know any better. He wanted to scratch every inch of dried skin on his face. He wanted every pore and orifice on his body to expunge itself and leave him clean of this rotting and greasy hell that was called here. In bed. Pretending to sleep. All because he didn’t want to sit there and listen to another one of his deranged mom’s life lessons or his dad’s bellyaching about money, work, and whatever else he liked to make excuses for. God fucking dammit, and then the shit about Jeff.
They were so fucking useless. Jeff didn’t deserve all this shit either, they get mad at him for being angry. He has every fucking right to be angry. Those dumbasses never listened to him when he told them some kid was pulling his hair. Of course he fucking smashed the bitch’s head in, he solved it when they wouldn’t. They didn’t want to bother with a real fucking hair cut and wanted to shave him bald like a fucking war criminal. And then they get mad at Liu for defending his brother when they were the ones telling him to look out for him. Do they even know what Jeff is like? What Liu was like? Is all they fucking see in Liu an idiot making jokes and completely ignorant to their shit?
I liked when I was little. I liked having them tuck me in sometimes, and getting them to read to me. Why couldn’t they do that now? Liu didn’t know what to do about it. He felt like a fucking child. A damn six year old. Why was he missing a time where they didn’t have to care about who he was, only what he meant? Where he was no one at all? I’m thirsty. He probably needed a sip of water. But god, he didn’t want to get up, go downstairs, and walk in on those incompetent assholes arguing about how they spend money, money that they waste anyway on lottery tickets, cigarettes, and either splurging on clothes and food like they didn’t have any at all, or on people they didn’t even know and just “lending” to someone. So dry. My tummy aches. Liu was too tired to fight it anymore and he let himself go.
He was walking to the bathroom with a head swimming in nothings. Nothings. He hated that fucking bathroom with that buzzing fan. He hated that going to the kitchen caused the floor to creak beneath him. He hated the plastic bottle of water because he never knew if he was ever going to finish it or if it was going to be misplaced. This body couldn’t get any heavier.
A glint in the kitchen window caught him and he was stuck staring at the person he was living as. The idea of himself. The concept of what he is supposed to look like. Was he ugly? Was he good looking? Did he look more like his mom or dad? Whose eyes were staring back at him? Were they always so dead? Or sharp? Or dark? Weren’t his eyes wider? Brighter? Almost smug? Who the hell was he? Was he the kid that everyone thought was hilarious at school? Or the responsible teenager for his little brother? Who the hell was he when he’s alone?
I need to sleep, I wanna get first dibs before Jeff on the poptarts. The image of breakfast comes to mind. A clear and bright kitchen and his brother's face.
Maybe he was right. There’s nothing he could do. Liu doesn’t need to be anyone. A person. He just has to move on, and pretend to be himself. Whoever he is. Whatever he wants. His body and mind seem to know it all for him anyway. He’s overthinking it. His life can’t be that bad. He isn’t in the military, he isn’t getting beaten every day, and even if he did struggle sometimes, nothing is that bad. It’s not bad enough. He’s not suffering. I mean, dad and mom got back together after all, so she forgives him. I forgive them. And we weren’t taken away. And they didn’t die, and that man is gone. So what if that stupid creep was watching me shower? All he did was watch.
Liu wished he could vomit, but nothing came. He stood there staring at his own damn feet, paralyzed and not knowing where he was or how he’d gotten there. The kitchen was some other reality. His mind flashing images and moments, words and phrases, and facts that weren’t real, or maybe they were. Or maybe they weren’t. Nothing happened in there, he knows it. It wasn’t bad enough. He doesn’t remember anything anyway, so it can’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt. I’m overreacting. He didn’t do that to Jeff.
God, could Liu even ask? Was he allowed to ask? …He tried once, didn't he? Jeff didn’t seem to get it at least? Where was Jeff at the time anyway? Was Liu alone? Why? Who cares? Jeff’s cool, he beats up anyone who makes him uncomfortable, he beat me up before, he’s a little snitch too. I wouldn’t ever let that happen to him. The moment I know, I’m coming for him. Right. He’s a snitch, Liu knows that.
Liu could see his socks. Since when did he wear socks to bed? Whatever. He was still in the kitchen, still facing the window where a dim light from over the sink illuminated his face. The same one that didn’t set right with him. It wasn’t that bad or anything. But what was wrong with him? Forget it. Nothing is wrong with him. Life is good. He needs sleep, that’s all. And he will. He turned and made his way through the quiet of the house, the way a cart does in a haunted house ride, quiet shuffling, slowly floating through the halls, expecting someone to tell him off, asking him accusingly why he was awake, blame it on watching TV, blame it on having food before bed, blame it on not exercising his energy out, blame everything about him. Or blame his little brother.
Liu pulled the knob of his door, turning it, holding it until it shut, and only letting the latch set once he knew it wouldn’t make so much as a click. And on light feet, settled into bed and wishing the creaks of the springs didn’t exist at all.
Goodnight. Liu stared at the wall with his arm under his pillow. Soon he couldn’t tell the difference between his eyes being shut and the emptiness of the night.