It’s strange how people often think pain has to be loud.

Screams. Blood. Cracks in the air.

But sometimes, pain is just a quiet decision made on a rooftop, barefoot and trembling. A decision with no witnesses.

That morning, the sky was the color of wet metal. I remember the wind licking my skin, and for a moment I imagined it was someone’s arms—wrapping around me, asking me not to go.

But no one came.

No one called out my name.

Not once.

I didn’t leave a note. I wasn’t trying to be poetic. I wasn’t searching for glory.

I just didn’t want to be here anymore.

They say your whole life flashes before your eyes before you die.

But for me, it wasn’t my life—it was just a hallway. That one hallway in the hostel where everything had started. Where someone whispered my name like it was dirt. Where laughter became sharp as knives. Where a boy I thought I could trust turned into someone I couldn’t even look at.

I wasn’t haunted by memories.

I was haunted by silence.

And I jumped.

**

I didn’t die.

Of course I didn’t.

Death isn’t a gift you get just because you’re ready.

It has its own rules. Its own cruel preferences.

Maybe I wasn’t broken enough yet. Maybe there was still something I hadn’t done.

Instead of fading into a soft, eternal black, I opened my eyes in a hospital bed.

My leg was in a cast. My ribs ached like they were made of glass. A dull beep echoed beside me, not unlike a slow heartbeat that refused to give up.

I blinked.

And cried.

Not because I was alive.

But because I failed even at dying.

**

When my father came to get me, he looked like a man picking up groceries. No questions. No panic. Just a slight wrinkle of worry in his brow.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“I slipped on the stairs.”

A pause. A nod. That was all.

He didn’t know what had really happened.

He didn’t know that I kissed a boy.

That I kissed him because I felt something human in a world that had turned cold.

That I paid for that kiss with bruises and burns and words that still echo in my skull.

He didn’t know that his son had been made a symbol of disgust.

That my body had been thrown around like trash by the same hands I once high-fived in the hostel corridors.

He never knew.

He never asked.

And I never told him.

Maybe he didn’t want to know.

Or maybe he loved me in the kind of way that looks only at what’s easy to love.

**

At home, I became an expert at hiding.

I hid the burns beneath long sleeves.

I hid my limp with practiced steps.

I hid the tremble in my voice by speaking less and less.

The thing is—when you're hurt in ways people can’t see, they assume you’re fine. They tell you to rest. To recover. To “move on.”

But how do you move on when your shadow still whispers your name in a way that makes you flinch?

The truth?

I wasn’t healing.

I was just rotting in prettier lighting.

**

Weeks passed. My leg healed faster than my soul. I walked, I smiled, I said “thank you” when people brought fruit to the house.

I was their perfect boy again.

Quiet. Clean. Not dead.

And that was enough for them.

Then the school called. They said I could return. The term had begun again.

My father packed my bag like it was a summer picnic. He placed a fresh pair of shoes, tucked in money I’d never spend, and gave me that same advice parents always do—“Focus on your studies.”

He didn't know that I had no plans to return to that place.

He didn’t see that the boy he once dropped at the hostel was no longer here.

**

I left early. He waved goodbye.

I never looked back.

Instead of taking the school bus, I took a train to Bangkok.

Alone. Unseen. Unafraid.

It wasn’t bravery. It was surrender.

I didn’t want revenge.

I wanted distance.

I wanted silence—but the good kind. The kind you can sip with morning tea. The kind that doesn’t scream.

I found it in the chaos of Bangkok.

**

For days, I lived on benches, tucked myself into corners of railway platforms, listened to the city like it was a lullaby and a warning. Bangkok didn’t care who I was. It didn’t ask for my history. That made it beautiful.

I shaved my head.

I plucked my brows.

I threw away everything that even slightly smelled like my old self.

And just like that—I disappeared.

The person I had been?

Buried. Unnamed.

The person I became?

Rin.

Simple. Neutral. Just a syllable that didn’t carry pain.

I looked in the mirror of a public restroom, half-starved and wearing someone else’s hoodie, and whispered, “Rin.”

It felt like pressing restart.

Like breathing for the first time.

**

Rin worked in stalls. He wiped tables. Carried crates. Collected plates others left dirty.

He didn’t speak unless spoken to. He learned fast. He didn’t flinch when touched.

He didn’t remember how to laugh.

But for the first time, he felt safe.

Not happy.

Not healed.

Just safe.

That was enough.

The man at the noodle shop liked him. He didn’t ask questions. Just paid cash and offered leftovers at night.

And when Rin went home—to a half-broken room he rented by the hour—he would lie on the floor, stare at the cracks in the ceiling, and imagine they were stars.

**

Sometimes, I tried to remember who I used to be.

But it hurt.

It hurt like touching something scalding but not knowing why.

I started writing my new name on scraps. Rin. Rin. Rin.

Each letter a stitch.

Each loop a promise.

You are not him anymore.

You are not the boy who broke on impact.

But the past doesn’t let go easily.

Sometimes I woke up thinking I heard someone call me—by the name I buried.

And on nights when rain crashed against the tin roof, I’d curl up with both hands around my chest, praying the thunder wouldn’t wake the ghosts inside me.

**

People think starting over is like flipping a coin.

But it’s more like building a boat out of driftwood.

You use what’s left of you, hoping it floats.

I didn’t want much. Just to exist quietly.

Maybe open a stall someday. Sell tea.

Watch the world go by without having to explain myself.

But even that… might be too much to ask.

Because I know—

One day, someone will find me.

He’ll walk in with eyes like knives and a smile that knows too much.

He’ll call me by a name I haven’t heard in months.

A name I thought I buried beneath train stations and borrowed shirts.

He’ll say it gently. Like slicing silk.

“Rrrrr.”

But not today.

Today, I’m still Rin.

Still breathing.

Still hiding.

And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe this isn’t the end.

Maybe it’s just the breath before the scream.

Or the light before the storm.

Or maybe…

the part of the story where I learn who I really am.

~shivirstoriesep5

(THE DISCOVERY OF THE LIGHT)