The clacking sound of an opened door filled the emptiness inside the room. The clicking sound of a lamp switch was heard as Jesse walked into his room. It was 3 AM. Jesse just got back home and leaned his body on his comfy bed. He was exhausted as he clocked on at 6 a.m. Thankfully, he starts at 4 p.m., so he can properly rest before entering today’s site.
Buzz… buzz…
His plan crumbled when he received phone calls from unknown numbers. He ignored it once, twice, but then he decided to take that call since it was coming persistently.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Lewis?”
“Yeah, that’s me,”
Receiving a call from a hospital in the middle of the night and being told that his adorable sister had a terrible accident is never on his bingo card. All the peace of mind he had suddenly scattered, and he instantly jumped off the bed. The drowsiness he had was gone. All he cares about right now is how to get to the hospital in a blink.
The last train was dropped. The taxi was unseen. Jesse does not have enough patience and time to stay and look around. He decided to run to the hospital while catching a cab on the way there.
The atmosphere of a midnight hospital was different than the day. The day gives hope, and the night serves silence. The serenity was so loud that Jesse barely could stand on his own feet. He just wants to see his sister right away and get his own peace, as he finds everything is all right.
“Jesse-kun!”
A man is sitting outside the operation room. He was stitched on his forehead with a swollen wound and rashes all over his body. As he found Jesse coming near him, he promptly jumped off his seat and drew nearer him.
“Where’s she?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! I don’t—”
“Tell me what happened!”
Jesse almost lost himself, as he found no one but his sister’s boyfriend. The boyfriend can barely pull himself together as well, but Jesse deserves an explanation. He lost for words. All he could do was hint at a light on the operation room’s door that hadn’t turned off since an hour ago.
Nobody is in a stable state of mind at the current time. Jesse can’t even get his ass down to relax and wait but keeps questioning every single person who went back and forth to the operation room. The doctors are fighting with time, and they have no time to respond to Jesse’s question. The uncertainty gave Jesse such horrible anxiety that he started to pray to God and call his sister’s name, Charlotte, endlessly.
“Jesse, I won’t be home on Friday night. So help yourself out with the food and everything because I’m not coming back,”
“Is that a proper way to ask my permission ?”
“Do I need your permission? I’m already 19,”
“Of course, you still live in my house. As long as you live here, you need my permission,”
“Tsk,–Oniichan, can I go with my boyfriend on Friday night?”
“Where to?”
“Is that your business?”
“You said you’re not coming home, so I need to know where you're going,”
“I don’t know yet. A place full of stars?”
The last conversation he had with Charlotte gave him goosebumps. He didn’t know that it was the last conversation he had with her before he clocked on very early. He didn’t know that she wouldn’t come back home forever and go to a place that she mentioned was full of stars.
Jesse knew Charlotte liked a beautiful place. She likes night views, night drives, sunsets, the breeze, the sound of the ocean, and the dim light room in the middle of heavy rain. A night drive is not something she did for the first time with her boyfriend. Since Jesse also knew the guy best, he didn’t have any suspicion that it would all go wrong.
Jesse remembered every detail and every scent she had, and he started to blame himself for not being able to recognize that. Tears didn’t stop flowing down his reddened cheeks. His body heated, trying to process reality and convince himself that it was all just a nightmare after a long, tiring day.
The sound of the light turning off distracted their attention. As the doctor comes out with a gloomy face, Jesse and Charlotte’s boyfriend stand up.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lewis,”
One sentence from the doctor made Jesse lose himself. As if the monster inside his body had awakened, Jesse gripped the guy’s collar and attacked him blindly.
“What the fuck have you done?! Give me back my sister!!!”
Jesse’s scream was heartbreaking. He kept asking the guy to return his sister to his side, but both of them couldn’t get her back.
“She doesn’t deserve to die! You’re the one driving! You’re the one who is supposed to die! Give her back to me!”
“Mr. Lewis!!!”
It took several nurses to stop Jesse from attacking Charlotte’s boyfriend heedlessly. His excessive energy, which comes from his grief and anger, makes his power unbearable. He seemed like he could finish the guy if no one held him back.
“You bastard! Do not come near me! Do not come near my family, and do not come to her funeral!”
Nobody has ever seen Jesse’s outrage. The man knew that he would definitely be the scariest man ever if he let out his fury. age. A smile is always on his lips, and his whine is one of the cutest things he has as his charm.
No one expected that he literally meant it.
“Get lost! The next time I see you, I’ll kill you!”
Charlotte’s goodbye is such a sudden one. No one is prepared for that. Her death is a big shock for her boyfriend. Not to mention that he can’t say the last goodbye at her funeral. But he understood if Jesse acted like that. No one is more hurt than her family, and he’d forever blame himself.
“Fuck!!!”
Jesse cursed himself. He recalled how he teased her to ask for his permission as long as she lived with him. It just popped into his mind, and he had no idea that it might be a clue that could save her. Jesse didn’t come home that night. He waited at the hospital until he could see his sister and ignored all the work calls, which made everyone anxious.
“Jesse, I’m sorry for your loss." Taiga tapped Jesse’s shoulder. The man is staring empty at anywhere but Charlotte’s coffin. “My dad says his deep condolences as well. He says sorry he can’t come to Charlotte’s funeral,”
"Whatever you need, you can count on me, okay?" Shintaro added. "On us,"
Everything that people say to him is like a passing wind. Nothing comes through his head. The lining-up of acquaintances that come to say their condolences feels distressing. Jesse can’t help himself to not look at the clock, wondering when this will end. He wants to lock himself away from the world. He didn’t want to see anyone who reminded him of her. But he also doesn’t want to forget his sister’s presence in his life.
Holding Charlotte’s photo while seeing her coffin buried was so painful that he couldn’t collect himself together. The smile vanished from his face, and the lights in his eyes were completely dark. Jesse’s spirit of life was buried along with Charlotte’s body.
“Jesse, I brought you some food,” Hokuto put out his groceries and set them in a bowl. “I brought you your favorite food. Baked rice with extra cheese on top,”
“......,”
Jesse remained silent. He already lost his appetite from the day he said goodbye to his sister. He has no hope to continue to live. Putting Charlotte’s boyfriend in jail won’t even bring her back. There’s no point in defending her death. Nothing would come as justice. No one can even trade Charlotte's death. Jesse barely eats or even takes a shower. All he did was curl up on his bed, staring empty beside his window, and cry at the time when Charlotte usually came home.
Opened bottles of alcohol kept him alive. Jesse could laugh for a while, cry for a while, or bang things for a while. But as he dozed off and opened his eyes the next morning, the emptiness returned. The kind and lovely man that everybody knows has turned into a hopeless beast.
“Jesse, you have to eat,” Hokuto drew nearer to the bigger man who was standing beside his window, staring empty at the ground, looking for someone who would never come home. “I wish I could stay with you any longer. But I should enter the site in 2 hours. Kochi will be here in 30,”
Jesse’s close friends tend to visit him and take turns taking care of him. The loss of Jesse’s life spirit concerns his friends, as they all asked him to take some temporary leave from the industry until he could get a grip on himself. So many jobs were postponed due to his condition. The choice is rather letting him do the job and crash everything, or taking him back even though they have to deeply apologize and lose everything. Whichever is which, the risks are too high, but they prioritize Jesse the most since the man could possibly do anything because he has nothing to lose anymore.
Jesse’s surroundings already imagined the worst, and they were afraid of letting Jesse be by himself. The stress was felt in the bones because everyone was always on alert as if Jesse’s aggressiveness could come without a warning. When he was not in a good mood, his friends tended to find glass shards and broken furniture welcoming them. When he was out of his energy, he could cry all night and shriek when there was a phone call in the middle of the night.
The gentle touch he gave to everything has now become the opposite. It’s all broken, and it'll never be the same.
“Jesse, do you think your sister wants to see you live like this?”
It’s just one mere day where Jesse had no progress in moving on and Juri’s words dumbfounded him. Never had he thought that Charlotte would watch him from the other world and feel miserable for him.
“If life gets hard, you can run away anytime. But remember, God won’t test you more than you can bear,”
Juri was right. Forgetting Charlotte is impossible for now and forever. Just because Charlotte is not here anymore, she’s still watching from the other side. Jesse might not be able to protect her anymore, but making her proud has always been his dream.
One month passed, and Jesse gradually decided to greet the world. It took a horde of effort to take him back to the world, and one simple thing could still crash him to pieces.
“Jesse, do you think you’re capable of attending next week’s runaway?”
“You think I can’t do it?”
Every word can become offensive as his state of mind is currently living on its natural negative side. It’s like a gamble. They didn’t know which card they were taking. They thought they were asking, but Jesse thought he was doubted. They thought they could give him space, but he took that as there’s no way to keep living. As his ambition lighted out, his spotlight was taken.
There’s still a big hole in his heart, and he’s not done processing it. He would never heal, and he would never become the old him. Jesse’s loud laugh was never heard anymore. Everyone is desperately trying to make the man smile again, and not poking their nose at him.
One smile doesn’t mean he is healed. It could lead him to blow or even shatter him more.
Jesse’s first runaway after going back to the industry is an enormous high-end brand. The designer was known for their spectacular designs, and not all people can afford them. Jesse took this opportunity as a chance to get back with the help of everyone’s push. But his first runaway is also a moment he will remember forever.
“Crap! One model for this week’s runaway was caught for having a stash!” Jesse’s manager swore between his work. “The one who will be paired with you was signed off from the show,”
“So the runaway was canceled?”
“Of course not! They prepared the alternative model,” he laughed scornfully. “But you’re not gonna like this,”
“What do you mean?”
The manager hesitated to tell him, but Jesse was staring at him, waiting for the answer. “It’s your sister’s ex–”
Time stopped for a while when Jesse found out who he was going to face. His blood boiled and his breath went heavier. The picture of what happened that night was still crystal clear in his mind. Although he could finally spend the night without tears, facing Charlotte’s boyfriend is another story.
“The next time I saw you, I’d kill you! ”
The cry he roared that night still meant the same to him. He has no intention to make peace with a man who gave him this endless nightmare.
“If you wanna sign out, now is the time,” Jesse’s manager knew what happened. He wasn’t there that night, but he witnessed how Jesse was chaotic the next day, screaming for his sister’s ex-name, his sister’s death, and the story from the other side. “I can cover you up with medical conditions,”
Jesse’s scream of howling Charlotte’s name endlessly echoed in everyone’s mind. Everyone’s having their eyes closed after hearing Jesse’s cry every day. Not only Jesse, it caused everyone so much trauma that they didn’t want to witness the next chapter of it.
“It’s okay,”
The green room suddenly turned into an echoing room, like there was no one inside. His manager asked if he misheard something, and Jesse took a deep breath before repeating his answer. “It’s okay. Besides, the show must go on, right?”
A sigh of relief was released. Finally, Jesse could overcome his endless nightmare. He can’t put his personal feelings into this. It’s one big job he can’t lose just because of his tragedy. Everyone hesitated at first, but since Jesse was the one saying that, the manager could just follow the flow.
The big day is getting nearer. It’s only two days until Jesse’s first big runaway after his loss. Everyone was gathered to rehearse until it was all set. The modeling site is different than what he used to have. The green room was built like a booth, and everybody could hear each other chat. They don’t have a separate green room just because he’s a multitalented artist, and the same goes for the actors involved as well. They gathered in one big, partitioned room where they did fittings and makeup.
Jesse looked at himself in the mirror, fixing his bangs and training his facial expression. The dark circle under his eyes was concealed, and his pale lips were colored by lip balm. Beside him, his manager was arranging his upcoming work, and Jesse could just hum as a response. Nobody knows if he really accepts it or not. No one can even read his mind anymore since everyone is always used to being on alert around him.
Clack!
The atmosphere became deadly frightening as someone awaited entered the room. The surrounding area becomes silent, even though people are talking from anywhere. Jesse was deafened by other sounds. But he can hear precisely Charlotte’s ex’s footsteps, his trembling voice, and his heavy breath while facing him.
At the time Jesse was facing the man, Jesse’s manager just realized that they were not supposed to meet each other. He felt he was such a fool that he handled it right away after Jesse said it was okay, thinking that Jesse had moved on and it was not a big deal anymore. Jesse didn’t say a thing, but everyone could see his sight switched like he had arisen from the hell pit. But there’s no way of turning back.
“....I,-I look forward to working with you today,” Charlotte's ex's fear was skeletons.
Jesse stabbed him with a death glare and turned the green room into an icy execution room. He leaned his ass to his makeup table, banged it with a fist, and put a deep sigh to control the monster inside him.
“...... yoroshiku onegaishimasu,” Jesse whispered with the deepest tone he got. Piercing his palm with fingernails from his clenched trembling hands.
It is still not okay for him. He’s still grieving, and he will never be healed. Especially if he has to be with Charlotte’s murderer, seeing him living freely in front of his eyes.
୧⍤⃝💐ʚɞ♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧The Biggest Grief (END).