To Kiss An Idol

138 The Positive Reinforcement

Kyung-Soo narrated everything to Nivritti. Everything that he knew about Young-Chul’s condition and everything that doctors told him. He was on the verge of telling him the diagnosis when Nivritti blurted out, “he is depressed.”

“How… how did you know?” asked Kyung-Soo, shocked.

She kept staring at Young-Chul’s peaceful face. She sighed and replied, “I very well know every symptom you just described.”

“Right! Sorry. If all this is triggering bad memories, you can leave,” offered Kyung-Soo.

“No, I am fine,” she smiled at him. “What did the doctor suggest?”

“For now, all the rest in the world for him. They need to treat his physical symptoms first and then they will shift to the real cause,” sighed Kyung-Soo.

Nivritti looked at Young-Chul and her mind wandered back to when she was admitted to the psychiatric ward. When doctors and nurses would sit around her trying to take care of her, asking her questions but she would never reply. She lost the power of speech after that night.

For weeks she never spoke a single word. All she wanted to do was sleep. Sleep without eating, sleep without drinking, sleep without talking to anyone. She wanted to be left alone to ponder upon her mistakes. But her family, her doctors, her nurses, they never left her alone.

She wanted to scream, shout, cry, wail, but she could do nothing of that sort. She was an emotionless dead body. She remembered how she used to feel empty every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

.....

She would receive messages from her friends asking about her whereabouts. Her boss send her a message thanking her for the good job she did and how they were sorry to lose such a good employee. She would read the messages, turn to the other side, and ignore every positive word.

But her doctors never wavered. Her parents never wavered. Her sister never wavered. They would keep talking to her, scolding her, showering her with love, just so she would talk one day. Doctors made a point that whenever her family would come to visit, they would shower her with physical love.

Every time her family would visit, they would hug her, kiss her, and tell her about their daily routine, trying to make her laugh. With medicine, with words of encouragement from her doctors, with great care from her nurses, with shower of love from her family, she finally started talking. Her black, sad heart slowly became white. With the passage of time, it was turning pink. Still, she had a long way to change the colour completely to red.

Without thinking twice, she moved her chair near Young-Chul’s bed and slid her palms into his, and squeezed his hands tightly.

“What… what are you doing?” asked Kyung-Soo confused.

Nivritti kept staring at Young-Chul and a drop of tear fell from her eyes. “People who suffer from depression need love, care, they need someone to talk to them. The best way to show your love is physical love. A sweet handshake, a tender hug, a kiss on the forehead, all these things go a long way.”

“I should tell you Young hates physical touch. He loves his personal space,” informed Kyung-Soo.

“It does not matter. He needs assurance that he is loved. No matter what, he is loved,” replied Nivritti sweetly.

She wrapped Young-Chul’s hand in both her hands and looked at him. “MY! I don’t know if you can hear me. But I am angry with you. I message you and you didn’t reply to me. Do you have any idea how worried I was? I was the one who sent you home alone, I am sorry,” apologised Nivritti.

“Ritti!” whispered Kyung-Soo. “It’s not your fault.”

“I think a little bit is my fault. I talked about mental health and all, and he must have realised that something was wrong with him. That pushed him over the wall and landed him in the hospital,” replied Nivritti.

“What nonsense?” shouted Kyung-Soo.

“Shhh…” shushed Nivritti. “He is sleeping. In this condition, all you want to do is sleep, but sleep too is elusive because you will keep thinking about one and only one thing that bothers you. It’s a good thing that he is sedated. He will get the necessary rest he needed,” she sniffled.

She turned to look back at Young-Chul and started talking to him, “MY! You won’t believe but trust me I know what you are going through. And rest assured I will always be there if you need someone to talk to. No matter what you want to talk about, you can tell me. I will keep it a secret. I know you feel that everything is lost, you won’t feel good about yourself, but that is not true. You are the best, most loved, most talented person I have ever met. The songs you produce, the way you sing, and the way you play guitar and piano, it’s mesmerising. No one is better than you at producing songs, that’s why the whole music industry wants to work with you.”

Kyung-Soo silently kept hearing her every word. He smiled when he realised what Nivritti was doing. She was giving positive reinforcement to Young-Chul. No matter if he could not hear any of it, she was trying. Her own experience and years of therapy told her what to do.

She scoffed, smiled, and continued, “don’t take this in any other way, I may sound like a crazy fan, but you are handsome too. Ahh… how can someone be so talented and good-looking, that is crazy. God is so partial. He gave every talent, every skill he can think about to you and left us with nothing. That is so bad. If I meet God, I will surely complain about this. How can you make you, you and not spent any time on me? Now as we are friends, can you please take my side? We both can fight with God together.”

Kyung-Soo too scoffed at her tease. She wanted to make Young-Chul smile with her funny monologue. Alas! Young-Chul was sleeping.

Nivritti caressed Young-Chul’s hand and continued, “I know this is hard. You don’t want to talk about this with anyone. But let me tell you, there are things that you cannot fight alone. You need a village for that. And you have six beautiful friends who care for you immensely and a big company that loves you. Even if physical touch is not your language, please let them help you.

“Otherwise, what will your fans say? That we didn’t take good care of you. Is that what you want, people to look down upon us? Oh my! That is your plan. You want everyone to despise us and only love you so that you can become the ruler of the world. Nice plan! But you won’t succeed. We will drown you in love and care, then your fans will love us too. Your plan will fail. We will make sure of that, right NK?”

“Right,” smiled Kyung-Soo.

“From now on, no one will leave you alone, no matter how much you beg. I will keep calling you and pestering you every day. Well, until the day you get bored of me and change your phone number. I will drag you to drink coffee with me, watch movies… oh no, no movies. What if someone recognises you? Your fans will kill me thinking that you are dating me. No, no, no movies. We will do things that do not require going in public,” Nivritti kept rambling on.

Kyung-Soo kept scoffing and smiling and laughing and smirking at her comments.

“MY! Just gather the courage and try to talk about what is bothering you. We will be here to hear everything without any judgement, I promise. You have to promise that you will take care of yourself. No matter how down you feel, angry you feel, frustrated, irritated, sad, or disappointed you feel, just talk to us, please. Just be patient, this gloominess, that you are feeling will subside, I promise. And next time you leave me hanging and do not reply to my message, I will hit you on your head. Do you understand?” she scolded Young-Chul. She then looked at Kyung-Soo and snapped, “that goes for you too.”

“Sorry! It was something I could not tell you on the phone,” replied Kyung-Soo.

“Hmm…” she glared at Kyung-Soo with squinted eyes. “And that stupid JJ too.”

“Sorry, again!” Kyung-Soo lowered his head with shame.

“Anything would have done. A single word saying that you will tell me face to face. Do you have any idea how worried I was? I could not concentrate on my work the whole day. On top of that, I had to give a presentation before our CEO. How stressful my day was, thanks to you,” she stuck her tongue out at Kyung-Soo.

Kyung-Soo who was supposed to feel sad after getting a scolding ended up laughing at her.

“I am leaving,” she said angrily. “Take good care of him.” She stood up and started moving away from Young-Chul when she was abruptly stopped. A loud gasp escaped her mouth. Both Kyung-Soo and Nivritti turned to look at her hand. Young-Chul was still sleeping but he held her hand tightly, not letting her leave.