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Dealing with the death of a loved one isn't an easy task.
Of course, that includes the spiraling depression that just naturally comes with it.
Usually people would understand if it's a family member or relative. They'd understand less if it's something deemed “less important” like a pet. But at the end of the day, the loss of a loved one, no matter how “important” they are, is a wound that's hard to heal, much less accept the scar that would forever be there.
Just... waking up one day and seeing that they're no longer there, to be with you, stick by your side... It's painful. It's a dull ache that gets worse the more you think about them, and then when you'd try to avoid any thought that makes you remember them, they just keep lingering at the back of your mind.
A best friend carefully treads the line between “important” and “not so much”, but the fact would still be just as hard to accept.
Some people cry and grieve their death, then move on just as quickly. Others act like they don't care, but they still cry in secret. Rarely does it happen that somebody's death is just so... unimportant that no one cries for them, or the world just moves on like nothing happened.
The keyword: rarely.
Padparadscha dying was already a hard enough fact for Rutile to accept. It's a bitter pill that's especially hard to swallow, much less digest it.
But the thing that takes the cake about their death is the fact that nobody around them seems to care that they're dead.
Padparadscha's parents looked miserable for a few days, then they moved on like nothing had ever happened. The redhead's classmates and “friends” who attended their funeral are just the same. Everyone just doesn't seem to care enough.
And Rutile hates the fact that the world seems to function just perfectly well without Padparadscha.
Even at school, it's as if the redhead was never there.
But it doesn't matter anyways. Because Padparadscha would always be alive in Rutile's heart. It's been months. Years maybe, and Rutile still couldn't come to terms with the redhead's death.
All they ever have to do is to close their eyes and imagine Padparadscha's voice next to them, and the redhead would be alive again.
Rutile would be wrong when they think the world just seems to move on perfectly well without Padparadscha, and Yellow is the living proof of that.
How did things turn out this way? How had Yellow messed up this badly? Why did Padparadscha had to go ahead and do that?
Why had they listened to Yellow, that day?
“You're pathetic,“ they had spat out, and Padparadscha doesn't comment. They never did. Just listened to Yellow, until the blond was done with whatever rant they had and they'd calmed down enough.
“You make me sick,” Yellow added, as if there wasn't enough fuel to the fire. Padparadscha still listened quietly, eyes boring into Yellow's.
“Rutile and I would be just fine without you!” And that was the final straw. By this point, the fire would be big enough to light a house on fire.
To think that Yellow had said all that for a stupid, dumb misunderstanding that a bunch of kids had.
They could've phrased it a little less harsher.
But Padparadscha also could've not taken their words so literally.
If everyone deals with Padparadscha's suicide a different way--Rutile's being completely locking themself in the comfort of their room and refusing to go outside, not even to school--then Yellow's would be to visit Padparadscha's grave every chance they get.
They'd kneel down, bringing new flowers with them everyday.
And everyday, they'd have the very same monologue that's been playing in their head like a broken record in front of Padparadscha's grave, muttering and mumbling barely audible “sorry”'s even though Padparadscha would never hear them.
They never leave the graveyard without swollen eyes and a scar that keeps having new cuts and jabs to it, almost always completely healing by the end of the day and they've told themself to move on and let go, it's been 4 years, let it go, but it also always gets a new wound over it, completely halting the healing process once again.
Just like how it has been for the past 4 years. Every. Single. Day.
Yellow is surprised they haven't gone insane.
Yellow would've been surprised if Padparadscha came back from the dead and told them that their words had absolutely nothing with the final decision they'd made that day.
In fact, it was Yellow's words that made it easier for Padparadscha to pass.
Rutile and Yellow would be just fine without them.
It's a reassuring thought and it gives Padparadscha comfort, that maybe, just maybe--their two closest somebodies wouldn't care so much if they were gone.
Maybe they wouldn't turn out to be emotional wrecks when they find out Padparadscha died. And on their own will.
Padparadscha would be wrong if they could just see the aftermath of their decision that day.
But finally having to let go. Finally having to just stop thinking about their burden. Finally being able to let loose and forget about the pain. About the scars. About the bruises on their skin. About the tremendous pain welling up inside them.
They knew exactly what they were doing when they stepped on that chair. They weren't even sad to know that things would end this way. Not even a note for their loved ones, if Rutile and Yellow even count as such.
In fact, they were happy. Relieved.
To know that when they would be gone, their two precious somebodies wouldn't really care. Yellow even said so! Them and Rutile would be just fine without Padparadscha.
And so the redhead accepts that fact with arms wide open, like a hug.
So then, why?
Why was their vision so cloudy and blurry when they can feel the rope around their neck?
Why did they struggle to take off the suffocating rope around them?
Why did they cry and mutter Rutile and Yellow's name before everything went to black?
And why...
were they crying, and the last thing they saw wasn't really pitch black--but the sight of their two precious somebodies, smiling warmly at them.
Maybe they'd made a horrible decision. A bad one. They were just in the spur of the moment.
They'd realized that a bit too late.
And they were wrong.
Horribly, horribly wrong.