[exo] memento mori (1/1)
Memento Mori (1/1)
Jongin/Kyungsoo
10,494 words
It should have been just an ordinary evening for Kyungsoo - that was until he witnessed a car accident and noticed a man emerge from the ruins. “My name is Kai,” he said, “and I am here to take souls.”
Written for the 2013 sncj_bigbang here. Beta'd by the awesome jongina, who I will always be grateful for. See end notes for the accompanying art work (spoiler).
memento mori
It should have been just an ordinary Monday evening for Kyungsoo as he walked the few blocks down the street from the small family-owned café he works in - that was until he witnessed a truck lose control and collide with a car.
It all happened too fast: the truck was running above the speed limit, the ground was wet from the slight drizzle, the light turned red, and he saw the driver try the brakes that didn’t seem to work when they were supposed to.
The collision was inevitable; the car in front of him went up in flames almost instantly.
Kyungsoo was rooted to the ground surrounded by panic. Some were on their phones reporting the incident and calling for an ambulance, others had fire extinguishers in their hands that they took out of the buildings. Kyungsoo just stood there, anxiety seeping through his veins. The scene felt familiar.
Then he noticed him, a man clad in black walking calmly and purposefully amidst the screaming mass of people. There was something magnetic about him, with the way the shadows seemed to bend around the edges of his silhouette as if they were a part of him.
Then Kyungsoo’s breath hitched. He looked as the the man entered the flames and came out just as fast, holding on to a boy that looked like he was about five, shirt dirty and hair mussed up. It took a moment before Kyungsoo realized who - what he was.
“Wait!” Kyungsoo shouted before he could stop himself, arm half raised. Surprise colored the man’s features before he schooled his expression into nonchalance.
“You can see me?” the man asked.
Kyungsoo nodded and noticed that the man hadn’t let go of the child’s wrist. “Don’t take him,” he said, fear clutching at his heart.
The man only shook his head. “This soul doesn’t have a vessel to return to,” he gestured at the burning vehicle. He looked stoic, but the way his eyes softened at the end of his sentence made Kyungsoo think that he might be a little sad.
He gave a small bow directed at Kyungsoo and said, “I’ll be back.” The next time he took a step, the shadows swallowed him whole, taking the boy with him.
---
He did come back after a while, and took the boy’s parents and the truck driver in three separate trips. He explained to him later that each soul must be lead to his or her final judgment individually. No shortcuts, no group batches.
Kyungsoo stayed and watched the scene unfold in front of him: the firemen finally extinguished the fire and evacuated the bodies covered in dark cloth, overlapped with the Man in Black fleeting back and forth.
When the Man in Black came back after his last trip, he looked exhausted but offered Kyungsoo a smile. “My name is Kai,” he said, “and I am here to take souls.” He looked at Kyungsoo curiously and asked, “So what’s your story?”
Kyungsoo frowned. “What makes you think I have a story?”
“Because not everyone can see grim reapers,” Kai replied. “There’s only a few instances when that happens.” He traced the scar on Kyungsoo’s forehead and the skin warmed up under his touch. “And one of them is if a person has managed to escape death.”
---
It was almost nine months ago when it happened.
Kyungsoo couldn’t remember the details of the accident. He couldn’t even remember what his life was prior to it. The car crash took with it the twenty-four years of his past life and ate up two months of his current life spent in a hospital followed by a rehabilitation center in an attempt to regain control of his limbs and piece his life together. Losing his previous life wasn’t his main problem when he couldn’t even master the finer movements of his body. Memories, he thought, didn’t hold that much significance when he didn’t even know what he had lost.
He spent the first month and a half out of the center in his parents’ house reliving his childhood in pictures, videos, and his mother’s homemade meals. The only pain that came was the healing of his fractured bones and broken skin, and a slight ache in his chest when he looked at his parents. The memories came back in baby steps appearing in dreams, in waking moments, in his father’s laugh. The time he spent there was familiar and comforting and filled with security. He moved out after he felt like his growth had stopped, that he had gotten the most that he could. Time was always running out for him.
After that, he went back to his apartment in the heart of Seoul that his friends had maintained. When he got there, it was Chanyeol that opened the door and greeted him with an excessive smile, Baekhyun not too far behind. His friendship with the two was rocky at first, but rebuilt in time as they swapped photos and stories over food and games.
He found out that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were master storytellers, winding stories from the past and making animated retellings of their adventures in high school and college. Kyungsoo collected the stories and tucked them in his heart, going over them again at the end of each day trying to find the Kyungsoo from before and integrating it into the Kyungsoo of the present.
We’ll take it slow, they had promised him as they planned to re-introduce Kyungsoo’s other friends back into his life one by one.
Some of the memories came back to him after a while, little pieces fleeting by like passages of a dream but felt too real for him. But even with those recollections slowly dripping in, he still felt like there was a huge chunk ripped and missing, a void that couldn’t be filled. There were times when he saw how Chanyeol and Baekhyun would look at each other, soft and fond, and he would feel his chest tighten. He never asked them what that slight twinge could mean, but he always wondered what could have been the cause of it. It couldn’t be sadness because Kyungsoo thought, what was there to be sad about when you couldn’t even remember?
Five and a half months after he left the facility, he picked up his work again as a baker in a family-owned café.
Three months later, he met Kai.
---
Kyungsoo didn’t know what came over him when he asked Kai if he wanted to get some coffee. What was surprising was that Kai even agreed to it.
“Aren’t you busy with your job?” Kyungsoo broke the silence hanging above them. He ended up bringing Kai back to his apartment after he realized it was a pretty stupid idea to bring a grim reaper to a coffee shop. What would others think when they see Kyungsoo talking to a hovering cup?
Kai gave him a wane smile. “Sometimes,” he said as he looked at the cup in front of him. “I think I’m done for tonight though.”
Kyungsoo wanted to ask more. Wanted to ask how it feels to ferry the souls of the dead. Wanted to ask if he was there to witness an accident that happened nine months ago. But he just let his eyes drift to the cup in front of Kai, coffee going cold and untouched.
---
When Kyungsoo woke up the next day, it was by the glaring light from the open windows. His body felt awkwardly mechanical, his mind a heavy lead inside his head. His physical therapist used to tell him to always exercise in the morning to help his body adjust the same way his psychologist told him to meditate and reconnect with himself at the beginning and end of each day. He found out yoga was the answer to both.
It was a Monday morning, the only day off that he has in a week. By his third yoga position, he was lucid enough to remember what happened last night.
He remembered Kai and the grin on his face, slightly mocking, as he had asked, “What do you want to know?”
Just like that, it was like a dam had been lifted. He had asked several questions: “What happens in the afterlife?” and “Were you there to take me during my accident?” and “How does one escape death?” but Kai gave no enlightening replies.
The first one was confidential, something that only the dead could see for themselves. For the second one Kai just shook his head and told him that it was his first time seeing Kyungsoo.
As for the last, Kai had said, “Someone who has a strong will to live usually can escape. Either that or…” but Kai never managed to end that sentence. He had given an excuse to Kyungsoo as he looked out the window and said, “A soul is calling me.”
When Kyungsoo woke up, his memories were jumbled and disoriented. He wondered if he had gone crazy, if that thin line of sanity finally snapped inside his head, but when he looked at the kitchen table there was a cup filled with stale coffee.
---
He went back to work on Tuesday and came back to an empty apartment that night. The cups they used previously were still unwashed in the sink, filled with dirty, stagnant water, and he let out a deep exhale.
When he came back home on Wednesday, he cleaned up the place, did his laundry and washed the dishes. He let the cups dry on a piece of paper towel by the side of the table; watched as the water droplets sink into the fiber of the paper.
It was Thursday, after coming back from a dinner with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, that he noticed the aroma of dark beans when he stepped inside his apartment. The coffee by his small living room table was fresh, steam still rising from the stillness of its surface.
There was a guest sitting by the couch.
---
“Hey,” Kai greeted him with a wave of his hand.
“What-“ Kyungsoo began.
“-am I doing here?” Kai finished. He had that lazy smile again on his face. It looked unnatural, like he was trying to cover something up. Then the smile faltered a bit as he said, “I just thought I’d visit.” He gave a small shrug. “It gets pretty boring in the In Between.”
“Ahh,” Kyungsoo smiled against his cup. “And the coffee?”
“I thought I’d pay you back for the last time I was here.” Kai raked a hand through his hair. “Did I make it right?”
“It’s fine.” Kyungsoo took another sip. The coffee was bittersweet against his tongue, and hot. “Thank you.”
When Kyungsoo asked him if he wanted to try some of their leftover dinner - “It’s clean,” Kyungsoo said, flustered - Kai agreed readily.
Back then, he didn’t know that it would be the beginning of everything.
---
Kyungsoo had thought of various ways to tell his friends about his new “acquaintance,” but he couldn’t find the proper diversion to ease the information to them. There had been a handful of occasions that he could have brought it up, but he always missed his chance or the timing wasn’t right.
In the end, he didn’t mention Kai to the other two. It was enough that he was considered the resident amnesiac of the group. Adding supernaturalist to that tag wasn’t in his list of priorities.
---
“So what’s your job like?” Kyungsoo asked out of nowhere. Kai was lying in a separate couch, remote on one hand and a popcorn cup on the other. For a grim reaper who was surrounded by death, he was highly fascinated about human life.
“It’s exactly what the job description says it is,” Kai said in between chews. “I take the dead souls to the afterlife.”
Kyungsoo shifted on his seat. The TV was on a melodramatic drama where the main character was on his deathbed and talking to the father that never cared about him. “But don’t you feel sad when you take them away?”
Kai turned the TV to a different channel. It was some kind of educational children’s show. “That’s why we’re not allowed to feel,” Kai said when the commercials started.
“Not allowed,” Kyungsoo echoed. “But can you?”
Kai kept his eyes glued to the TV screen. The commercial break was over and the show continued. The lesson in this episode was about family and respect, and the cartoon characters were doing a funny skit. In the end, Kai gave no reply, just let the question hang in the air.
---
“You know, your apartment wasn’t this creepy before,” Chanyeol said as he toed off his shoes.
“We never had any problems when we were house sitting it,” Baekhyun agreed. He gave a wary glance as they passed the kitchen before settling in the living room.
Kyungsoo couldn’t blame them. There had been several times that Kai played a prank when Chanyeol and Baekhyun visited: noises coming from the kitchen, a pillow falling off the couch, the lights going off in the bathroom. He had learned that normal people couldn’t see or hear Kai, but Kai could hold on to material objects to make them seem like they were floating.
Kyungsoo would usually give an insufferable sigh and would discreetly pinch Kai on the arm, and Kai would ask defensively, “What?” before laughing, the sound unheard of by the two but sounding like bells in Kyungsoo’s ears.
---
Kyungsoo stopped by at the bookstore after work because Kai had been bugging him about this book that he recently read, quoting and re-quoting phrases until Kyungsoo’s ears fell off.
It was about human nature and Kai had said that it was “deep and philosophical,” which basically translated to boring in Kyungsoo’s dictionary. Since when did grim reapers hang out in the library anyway?
“Just because I’m technically dead doesn’t mean that I’m also illiterate,” Kai had retorted. He had always been curious about humans, Kyungsoo observed. He rounded on a corner of a tall bookshelf when he suddenly bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo said automatically and bowed his head a bit.
“It’s okay,” the man replied. “It was my fault, too. I wasn’t looking.”
When Kyungsoo looked up, the guy was giving him a bright smile. The kind that won elections and made girls swoon. It was a nice smile with his pearly whites shining brightly at Kyungsoo. Somewhat familiar.
Then the man turned and went off his way, but not before he said, “See you around!”
---
It was quarter to seven when he arrived back at his apartment. He was supposed to be having dinner with Chanyeol and Baekhyun at seven with an old friend, but he lost track of time in the bookstore.
Baekhyun had said that he was “a sunbae in high school” while Chanyeol had said that he had been his “#1 crush” and proceeded to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. The thought made Kyungsoo glance at the mirror. He looked acceptable. At least there weren’t any stray flecks of flour on his shirt.
It was freezing when he stepped out. Winter in Seoul had always been harsh even when it was already winding down to spring. His body remembered that much. He re-wrapped the scarf around his neck and started his walk to the restaurant. He was running a little bit late, and when he entered the door he easily spotted Chanyeol’s head above the seated patrons even without the help of Chanyeol’s flailing limbs.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo greeted them and slid on the chair beside Baekhyun. The seat across from him was empty.
“If you’re wondering where he is, he’s in the bathroom.” Baekhyun grinned at him.
“I wasn’t -” Kyungsoo began until he saw a familiar face walking up to them.
“Hi Kyungsoo,” the stranger said, smiling, and extended his hand out for Kyungsoo.
“You’re the guy from the bookstore,” Kyungsoo blurted out. He recovered pretty quickly when he noticed the other’s hand and took it in a friendly handshake.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Sorry if I pretended I didn’t know you. These guys,” he gestured at Chanyeol and Baekhyun, “didn’t want me to meet you until now.” He gave Kyungsoo a sheepish smile.
“We were giving him some time off,” Baekhyun explained. “Didn’t want him to be bombarded all at once.”
The guy waved Baekhyun off and said, “I’m Kim Junmyeon.”
“Junmyeon-hyung,” Kyungsoo tried the name. It didn’t ring any particular bells inside his head, but it did give him a sense of reassurance. Was he really attracted to this guy before? He looked at Chanyeol and Baekhyun and saw the two leaning over the table sharing a menu and felt a throb somewhere in his chest.
“So what have they been telling you about me?” Junmyeon asked as they slid into their seats.
“Nothing much.” Kyungsoo tried to shrug nonchalantly, but he could feel the slight burn on his cheeks as he remembered what the guys mentioned about Junmyeon.
“We told him a little about the past,” Chanyeol smiled against his glass of water and decided to be dumb. “You know, back in high school.”
Kyungsoo had to control himself from not smacking his face. He wondered how he would survive this night with his dignity intact, but Junmyeon just laughed and gave him a light pat on his shoulder.
---
“Hey,” Kai greeted him as he entered the apartment. He was watching a cooking show attentively, eyes glued on the screen. “How was your date?”
“It wasn’t a date,” Kyungsoo sighed. Although it might as well have been, he thought to himself. Especially with the way Chanyeol and Baekhyun were pushing him and Junmyeon together.
He remembered how, in an act of boldness and slight tipsiness, he had asked Junmyeon why they didn’t end up together. Junmyeon had looked surprised before his face softened to a dull smile.
“I guess we just didn’t work out.”
When Junmyeon had said that, Kyungsoo saw how his face blurred a bit and turned into a vision of Junmyeon back in his youth, back when they were still in high school. But when he had blinked, the moment was gone.
---
“Cook for me,” Kai said when he popped in his apartment, a billow of dispersing smoke coming along with him. There was always smoke wherever he comes and goes, Kyungsoo had observed, a constant reminder of who he really was. Darkness always enveloped Kai a little, like a glove that molded itself around him.
“You can’t even taste it,” Kyungsoo sighed. Kyungsoo had learned a long time ago that grim reapers lacked the sense of taste the same way that they couldn’t feel hunger. It was the reason why Kai never drank his coffee when they first met. What he did have was the sense of touch, feeling things through texture and temperature.
“Thanks for stating the obvious, Sherlock.” Kai sat himself on the kitchen counter while Kyungsoo rummaged through his fridge. He was running low on some items.
“Anyway,” Kai continued, “I was thinking that if I eat enough then maybe I can acquire the taste.”
Kyungsoo looked at him skeptically. “I don’t think that’s how it works...”
“Come on,” Kai urged him. “It will be fun. You cook and I’ll be your little assistant like in those cooking shows.”
“You really should stop watching too much TV,” Kyungsoo said, but he was already getting ingredients off the fridge. “So what do you want for dinner?”
Kai smiled at him, bright like the sun, and for once Kyungsoo forgot about the darkness.
---
There was a tradition that he had made with Chanyeol and Baekhyun: every Saturday night the two would come over and watch a movie at Kyungsoo’s apartment. The two would pick out a movie on the way there and Kyungsoo would prepare their food.
Kai would sometimes sit in, too, when he wasn’t busy. He would lie on the floor nearest Kyungsoo and sometimes, Kyungsoo would tangle his fingers on Kai’s hair or let Kai take his hand off and squeeze their hands together.
---
When Baekhyun had told him that they were going out to meet some of their old friends, Kai had announced (at least to Kyungsoo) that he was coming with them.
“Why are you here again?” Kyungsoo whispered to Kai as they were entering the restaurant. It was too bad that grim reapers weren’t telepathic as well because that would have made Kyungsoo’s life a lot easier. But he was getting better at this whole subtle conversations thing. He felt like a spy.
“Because it’s boring back in the apartment,” Kai said, grinning. “And I want to meet your friends.”
The friends that they were referring to turned out to be two tall and handsome guys. They had been the foreign exchange students from China during their university days that had settled down between Qingdao and Seoul for work after graduation. They were a part of the close circle of friends that Kyungsoo had back in college or at least that was what Baekhyun told him. Kyungsoo didn’t know what kind of association he would have had with the two.
“Kyungsoo!” The younger looking one shouted and enveloped him in a hug. His name was Zitao, and he had the body of a God: solid, lean and tight. Kyungsoo felt a bit self-conscious and inadequate beside him. When he looked up at Zitao’s face, the sharp angles of his features had softened up into a wide smile and made him look young.
“Hey now,” the taller one tugged at Zitao’s collar, “don’t scare him off.”
“It’s just that,” Zitao let go of Kyungsoo and smiled at the guy - Yifan, that was his name, “I missed him.”
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said and bowed at them. He still didn’t know how to introduce (reintroduce?) himself. “I’m Kyungsoo.”
“We know.” Yifan gave him a disarmingly genuine smile. Kyungsoo felt himself let go a little. And then, somewhere to his right, Kai said, “They’re totally fucking.”
Kyungsoo felt himself flush, the red creeping up to his cheeks and ears. “Shut up,” he hissed at Kai and covered it up with a cough.
“Are you okay?” Yifan asked, concern written all over his face.
“I-” Kyungsoo stuttered. No one should be this ridiculously good-looking, he thought. He saw Zitao at the corner of his eyes grinning at him like he knew and felt his cheeks heat up even more. He focused on Yifan’s eyebrows instead, two strong bushes of hair crawling like caterpillars on his face, and felt the blush slowly go away.
‘Dear God,’ Kyungsoo prayed silently and looked at the ceiling, ‘please let the rest of this night go smoothly.’
---
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU,” were the first words out of Kyungsoo’s mouth once they were alone in the park. Kai was having a fit on the grassy area, body shaking with uncontrollable laughter and limbs flailing everywhere.
“Yah,” Kyungsoo kicked him on the ribs. “You made me look like I was crazy.”
Kai stopped laughing and rolled over to his side. “I was trying to loosen you up. You were lucky that I even graced you with my witty commentaries.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” Kyungsoo groaned and covered his face.
“You were totally crushing on that Yifan guy,” Kai gave his unsolicited observation.
“I wasn’t!” Kyungsoo exclaimed defensively except he could already feel the rush of blood to his cheeks.
Kai wasn’t looking at him. He was too busy pulling out the grass with his bare hands, the green chlorophyll staining his palms. “What’s so great about him anyway?” Then he looked up at Kyungsoo and made a pose, one leg propped over the other and his signature grin on his face. “I look better than him!”
“Sure,” Kyungsoo laughed. “Except you’re a little bit vertically challenged.”
“Yah!” Kai stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. “You don’t have the right to say that when you’re shorter than I am.” Kai looked at him, eyes hooded, and waited for his comeback.
It was one of the first few nights of spring. The weather was still slightly chilly and damp, and the air was tinted with the smell of flowers. When Kyungsoo looked at Kai, the light from the lamppost outlining his silhouette, Kyungsoo couldn’t make any words come out of his mouth.
---
Kai often visited him at night when the pull of the shadows was stronger. They would lie together on the bed, legs tangled with the bed sheets, hands sometimes clasped together.
The first time was unintentional. Kyungsoo was already asleep when Kai visited and when he woke up in the middle of the night, there was a lump beside him. He just stared at Kai, silent and thoughtful, before pulling the blanket back to cover them.
Grim reapers didn’t need sleep just as much as they didn’t feel hunger, but Kai told Kyungsoo before that he’d always wondered how it feels to eat, to drink, to sleep. He thought that maybe this was one of Kai’s social experiments.
Then it happened again and again until it became a habit and Kyungsoo never mentioned anything about it.
---
“Do you have wings?” Kyungsoo asked Kai one night. They were lying on the bed, Kai facing away from him as he drifted a finger on the sharp curve of Kai’s shoulder blade.
“I’m not an angel,” Kai laughed and turned over to catch his hand. “And that tickles.”
Kyungsoo furrowed his brows at him, expression that of slight disappointment. “I’ve always thought grim reapers were the angels of death.”
“We aren’t angels of death. Grim reapers aren’t made from nothing, but changed from one form to another,” Kai said. He stared at the ceiling and added, “I was a human once.”
Kyungsoo looked at him in surprise, eyebrows disappearing under his bangs. “You were?”
“Grim reapers were humans that are given a second chance to walk on Earth with a hidden purpose and the duty to ferry the souls to the other realm,” Kai explained as he traced the lines on Kyungsoo’s palm, running a finger over the intersecting marks.
“Well that’s a lot of responsibility,” Kyungsoo said, distracted. “So what’s your purpose?”
“Did you miss the word hidden?” Kai smirked and tickled Kyungsoo’s palm in fast, light strokes. Kyungsoo laughed and tried to wriggle his hand free from Kai’s grasp, but the other’s grip was firm.
“We don’t know until we’ve accomplished it. But I’ve made it my own purpose to find out who I was in my human life.”
“And how would you even do that?” Kyungsoo gasped, trying to catch his breath from laughing too hard.
“Remember what I told you before? About humans seeing grim reapers because of certain conditions? Your circumstance is only one of two.” Kai regarded him thoughtfully. “The other one is if the human had known the grim reaper during his human life.”
“So you’re trying to find out your past life.” Kyungsoo observed him. Kai gave a small hum, thumb drawing small circles on the back of Kyungsoo’s hand. Kyungsoo didn’t know why Kai was even trying. What was there to miss for something you’ve already forgotten?
“What happens once you fulfill your purpose?” Kyungsoo wondered out loud. There was a small pause before Kai answered and dropped his hand on the bed.
“Then it’s game over.”
---
Kyungsoo felt like being adventurous and that somehow translated to grocery shopping at a different part of town. The supermarket here was bigger than the one near his apartment and offered a lot more variety. There were ten different kinds of milk just in one aisle alone: soy, coconut, almond, lactose-free, low fat, non-fat, 1% fat, and the list went on.
He was in the middle of crossing an aisle intersection, pushing his loaded cart, when he heard someone call out his name.
“Kyungsoo?”
He turned around and saw a guy with soft, rounded cheeks looking at him inquiringly.
“Uhhh,” Kyungsoo began awkwardly. “Sorry, but do we know each other before? I mean you prob-“
“It’s okay,” the man smiled at him. “You don’t have to explain. I know about the accident. Chanyeol told me.” He offered his hand. “I’m Minseok by the way. We know each other back in university and hung out in the same group.”
“And I’m Kyungsoo,” Kyungsoo shook his hand and laughed. “But you already know that.”
“It’s good to see you again,” Minseok said. “Are you…okay now?”
“Better than before,” Kyungsoo replied. There was something unnerving with the way Minseok was staring at him, as if he was probing for an answer that Kyungsoo didn’t know.
“I see.” Minseok reverted his gaze to the rows of food then looked back at him with an easy smile. “Anyway, I have to go back to work since I’m only on my break. I’m really glad that you’re doing well, and maybe Chanyeol can hook us up with the rest of the guys one of these days?”
“I’d love that,” Kyungsoo said. “I’m actually starting to get to know my old friends again. I can call Chanyeol up later and maybe we can eat out the next time we’re all free?”
“Sure,” Minseok said. “Here, let me give you my number.”
After they’ve exchanged numbers and parted their ways, Kyungsoo looked at Minseok’s retreating back and felt soothing warmth at the thought of having friends.
---
“Hey,” Kyungsoo answered after Chanyeol picked up the phone, “guess who I met today.”
“Who?”
“Minseok,” Kyungsoo replied as he started arranging his groceries.
“That’s Minseok-hyung for you,” Chanyeol said.
“Huh?” Kyungsoo asked. “I thought we were the same age.”
“He’s older than us by a few years. He’s a 90-er. Don’t get fooled by his baby face.” Kyungsoo could almost hear the grin in Chanyeol’s voice.
“And I was talking to him so impolitely,” Kyungsoo muttered.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chanyeol said. “He doesn’t get offended with that kind of stuff. Anyway, did he say anything else?” There was a hint of something in Chanyeol’s voice - was that worry?
“What do you mean by anything else?” Kyungsoo changed the phone over to his other ear as he grabbed some utensils from the drawer.
“Nothing,” Chanyeol replied quickly. “Anyway, I gotta go. I promised Baekhyun that I’ll run some errands for him.”
“Okay,” Kyungsoo said. “We’re still on for the movie this Friday night, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol replied. “See you then!”
“Mmm,” Kyungsoo murmured, already too distracted with sorting out his pantry. “Bye.”
---
It was a lazy Monday morning and Kyungsoo was enjoying his day off when Kai jumped on his bed.
“Wakey, wakey,” Kai singsonged and started tickling Kyungsoo’s waist.
“Shoo!” Kyungsoo hit him with the pillow. “Go awaaaay.”
Kai caught the pillow. “Not until I eat breakfast.”
“Go make yourself some,” Kyungsoo groaned to his bed sheets.
“But I wanna try something new that I saw on TV. If I do it myself then I might burn the place down and I don’t think your landlord would like that.”
“I’m really going throw that TV out the window one of these days,” Kyungsoo mumbled, but he was already getting out of the bed.
“Aww,” Kai cooed at him. “Don’t be so grumpy in the morning or else the food will turn out bad.”
The breakfast that Kai wanted to try turned out to be some savory crepes. When Kyungsoo walked into the kitchen, the ingredients were already prepared on the table - all Kyungsoo had to do was chop them up and cook them.
It was an easy recipe and Kai helped him by battering the crepe base and they soon fell into their regular rhythm of cooking together. Kyungsoo found himself smiling.
“So?” Kyungsoo asked as Kai took the first bite. “How is it?”
“Hmm…” Kai took his time chewing and made a serious face. “It has a pretty well rounded flavor. A little bit salty, a little bit sweet. I can taste some bitterness in here though.”
“Yah!” Kyungsoo retorted and raised his arm to smack Kai, but Kai caught him.
“I’m just kidding,” Kai grinned, his hand around Kyungsoo’s wrist. “It’s actually really sweet.”
Grim reapers still couldn’t taste anything, but Kai had decided that whenever he would taste Kyungsoo’s cooking, he would describe the taste based on how Kyungsoo was feeling while preparing the dishes.
Kyungsoo didn’t know why Kai would do that, but he did and it became a ritual of sorts, and Kyungsoo found himself getting buried deeper.
---
The next person on their list of friends was a guy named Kim Jongdae.
When Kyungsoo met him, Jongdae surprised him by tackling him into a hug.
“You guys told me he would be different,” Jongdae said in the direction of Chanyeol and Baekhyun - Kyungsoo couldn’t see because Jongdae still had him in a headlock. “But he’s exactly the same!”
“Geez, calm down,” Baekhyun said, trying to free Kyungsoo.
“You’re gonna scare him off,” Chanyeol agreed.
Kyungsoo started laughing and poked Jongdae’s ribs until the other released him.
“How’d you know I was ticklish?” Jongdae asked, protecting his sides.
Kyungsoo shrugged and smiled. “Lucky guess.”
“Anyway,” Jongdae said, “where are the others?”
“Let’s see. Yifan and Zitao are on a business trip, Junmyeon’s a workaholic and Minseok’s down with the flu.” Chanyeol counted them off with his fingers.
“How about Yixing and Luhan and Sehun?” Jongdae asked as they started taking their seats around the table.
Kyungsoo saw Chanyeol glance at Jongdae briefly before he said, “Still out on their China trip.”
“Man, that’s a long time,” Jongdae said. “Are they ever gonna come back?”
“I don’t know.” Chanyeol’s right eye twitched a bit as he shrugged.
“Anyway,” Baekhyun interrupted them and clapped his hands. “I’m hungry so let’s just order now.”
Sehun.
Kyungsoo knew that name, but he forgot to bring him up again when the trio drew him in to their stories.
---
It was after their dinner when Kyungsoo brought up Sehun. Kyungsoo finally remembered who Sehun was - not pre-accident Sehun, but post. He remembered the cotton candy pink haired boy who visited him once after he had woken up. He had puffy eyes and stood at the foot of his bed looking as if he had cried all night. He couldn’t forget that expression on him: wretched and torn. He had pretended to be asleep when the boy came, and wondered if they had been close to warrant that kind of reaction.
Chanyeol explained in low tones that Sehun was out on an extended retreat in China with two of their Chinese friends.
“Why?” Kyungsoo asked. A shadow passed over Chanyeol’s face as he looked at Baekhyun, but it was gone in a blink. “Because,” Chanyeol said, suddenly sounding tired, “he’s trying to put himself back together. He’s going through a lot right now.”
Kyungsoo observed the two of them, eyes fleeting between Chanyeol and Baekhyun. He wanted to ask more like, “What happened?” or “Is he okay?” but the atmosphere was suffocating him. He wasn’t used to this - this kind of somber, this blanket of sadness draped around them. It reminded him too much of the time he woke up, blank and empty as a shell.
So he never asked anything more. Maybe one day, he thought, he could extend a hand out to Sehun and the boy would tell him his story. Maybe.
---
It was pretty late at night. Kyungsoo and Kai had just finished marathoning the Iron Man trilogy and Kai was sitting on the floor, his head resting on Kyungsoo’s knee.
“I wish I was Iron Man,” Kai murmured.
“So you can save the world as an egomaniac genius billionaire?” Kyungsoo grinned and ruffled Kai’s hair.
He heard Kai sigh and then - “At least that’s better than taking souls to the afterlife.”
Oh, Kyungsoo thought, hand falling to his side. He hadn’t thought of it that way.
He felt Kai shuffle and plant himself beside Kyungsoo on the couch, head leaning on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. It was the universal sign for sadness.
“At least you’re here,” Kai said, looking at his hands. “Somehow, you make me feel a little bit more human.”
Kyungsoo reached out and took Kai’s hand on his own. He wanted to say something, but he felt the shift in Kai before the other one even stood up.
“I have to go,” Kai said, the shadows already gathering around him. He gave Kyungsoo a smile before the shadows swallowed him. When Kyungsoo blinked, Kai was already gone.
---
“WAKE UP,” Chanyeol’s voice boomed over from the phone. Kyungsoo sat up on his bed and looked at the clock. It read seven ten in the morning.
“Why are you calling me at this hour on my only day off?” Kyungsoo grumbled. He could hear the busy chatter in the background on Chanyeol’s end; it seemed like Chanyeol wasn’t at work either.
“Where are you?” he asked suspiciously.
“We’ve got some surprise guests that just arrived,” Chanyeol said. He could feel the excitement in Chanyeol’s voice, the way his deep rumble ended up in a slightly higher pitch at the end. “Get ready! We’ll be there to pick you up in an hour!”
---
The mystery guests turned out to be the trio that just came back from China.
When he had piled into the big van that was parked in front of his apartment complex, he was surprised to see a lot of the familiar faces that he had met over the course of the past few months.
Junmyeon was behind the wheels with Jongdae on the front passenger seat. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were on the first row with an empty space beside them for Kyungsoo, while the second row had Zitao curled comfortably beside Yifan.
The last row had two strangers and one familiar face. He recognized one as Sehun even though his hair wasn’t pink anymore but a dark brown. The other two beside him were sporting similar shades of dirty blonde hair and grins on their faces.
The shorter one with the slightly rounder and younger looking face had a creepier smile though. The kind where as his smile grew wider, the more his chin disappeared to his neck. The other one had the gentle smile of Buddha, but cuter. Buddha didn’t have a dimple on his cheek.
“How long have you been planning this?” Kyungsoo asked, grinning, as he took his seat beside Baekhyun.
“Ever since we found out their flight.” Chanyeol thumbed at the three at the back. “Surprised?”
Kyungsoo laughed. “Very.”
---
Buddha-guy was Yixing, a sunbae from their university days, and the guy next to him was Lu Han. Lu Han was apparently the second oldest in their group even with his beguilingly boyish looking face. It seemed like a trend in their circle that the older they get, the younger they look. Minseok was the prime example. But where Minseok was quiet and acted like his age, Lu Han was a whole different story.
Lu Han milked their laughter through his stories, re-enacting their adventures and misadventures in China and sometimes dragging Yixing along to perform with him. Kyungsoo noticed that Sehun would sometimes add in a piece to their stories, but kept mostly to himself, staring out the window.
When they arrived at the barbecue restaurant, Kyungsoo waited for Sehun to step out of the van.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo nudged him at the arm and offered a smile.
Sehun looked up at him in surprise. “Do you…”
“No,” Kyungsoo smiled apologetically, understanding what Sehun was about to ask. “But I guess I kind of remember you?” He shrugged, embarrassed. “I saw you at the hospital once before.”
To Kyungsoo’s shock, Sehun enveloped him in a hug and gave him an endearing smile when he pulled away.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were recovering,” Sehun said, equal parts shy and sad.
“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo replied and petted Sehun’s head. The movement seemed automatic, like an implicit memory. “The guys told me you were going through something personal.”
“Yeah.” Sehun’s face shuttered off for a bit before it smoothed back to normal. “But I’ll get over it.”
He squeezed Sehun’s hand and hoped that was enough to give him the message.
I’m right here.
---
When Kyungsoo got back to his apartment, the sun had already sunk over the horizon. The party continued from the Korean barbecue to a café followed by a long noraebang session. They had a lot of catching up to do, a year’s worth of moments and experiences to share and dig into.
The light was on in the living room and Kyungsoo found Kai channel surfing.
“Hey,” Kai turned around and rested his chin on top of the couch. “How was the party?”
“It was great!” Kyungsoo toed off his shoes and padded over to Kai. “How did you know I came from a party?”
“I saw you get out of that huge van just now with a lot of your friends waving at you,” Kai replied. “More than half of them looked drunk.”
Kyungsoo laughed and settled on the couch. “Here, let me show you some pics,” Kyungsoo said as he curled up beside Kai, tucking his legs under his body. He took out his phone and started flipping through the gallery and told Kai the stories behind each of them.
Kyungsoo stopped talking after he noticed that Kai hadn’t said anything for the last five photos. When Kyungsoo glanced at him, he saw Kai staring.
“What?” Kyungsoo asked, suddenly self-conscious. “Is there something on my face?”
“No,” Kai said carefully. “Just. I don’t know.” Kai sighed. “I’m jealous of your friends.”
Kyungsoo looked at him, puzzled. “Why?”
“Because they can make you this happy,” Kai replied. “And I wish I can make you this happy, too.” Kai lowered his eyes at his hands resting on the space between them. Kyungsoo noticed that they were shaking.
“Kai…” Kyungsoo began. “You make me happy. Just in your own ways.”
“I bet I could do a better job at it if I was human,” Kai muttered, wringing his hands together.
Kyungsoo took Kai’s hands to his own and untangled his fingers so that they lay flat against his. “Don’t do this to yourself,” Kyungsoo said softly, voice going down a notch. “Don’t chase for something that you can’t have. It will only hurt you.”
Kai twisted away from him. “I just want to,” Kai tried, “I just want to be with you.”
“You don’t have to be human to be with me,” Kyungsoo whispered. He took Kai’s hand again and gripped it firmly. “You just have to be yourself.”
“You deserve someone better.”
Kyungsoo could feel it, the implications of what Kai said hanging in the space between them. Kyungsoo didn’t know if he was ready for this - whatever this was. He was always the kind of person who thought things thoroughly before jumping in. But, now that he was looking at Kai, back turned against him and shoulders slumped miserably, there was something inside him that wanted to reach out.
It was always there, somewhere in Kyungsoo’s subconscious, spreading through him slowly, seeping in his veins, filling his cavities, and numbing the ache in his chest.
“It’s up to me to decide if I deserve someone better,” Kyungsoo said, finally. “And who I want is you.”
Kai faced him then and exhaled. He traced Kyungsoo’s face with his index finger starting from the slant of his brow down the bridge of his nose and stopped at the curved line of his lips.
“I’m scared now to know about my past because I don’t want anything to change between us. I know I’m not supposed to feel anything, but being with you…” Kai trailed off as he leaned towards Kyungsoo, his breath ghosting over Kyungsoo’s lips.
“…Being with you is like living.”
---
When Kyungsoo woke up the next day, Kai was spooning him, his nose nestled on the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck and their legs tangled together. The clock read that it was a little past nine in the morning and he had a guest to entertain at eleven.
He tried to get Kai’s arm off his waist, but the other’s grip was stubborn.
“Yah,” Kyungsoo poked at Kai’s rib. “I know you’re awake. Don’t fake that with me. Yah!”
Kai groaned and nuzzled his nose on the small tuft of hair at the base of Kyungsoo’s nape.
“Shhh,” Kai muttered. “Isn’t this what they do on TV the morning after?”
Kyungsoo wanted to smack him, but Kai held him firmly and started leaving feathery kisses on his neck.
“Kai…” Kyungsoo whispered, trying hard not to give in. “Sehun’s coming over soon. I have to prepare something.”
“Who cares,” Kai murmured, his breath leaving goosebumps on Kyungsoo’s skin.
“I care,” Kyungsoo replied. He’d learned a long time ago that if he wanted to win against Kai, he had to be strong against his advances. “Come on, you can help me cook something. You can even pick your favorite food.”
“But you’re my favorite food,” Kai replied and nipped at Kyungsoo’s ear.
Kyungsoo had to hold back his moan, face blushing furiously.
“KAI,” Kyungsoo said and firmly held Kai’s arms away from him and stood up. “I’m going to go. With or without you.”
Kai groaned and rolled off the bed, muttering something about brats cockblocking him.
---
It was almost eleven when the doorbell rang. Kyungsoo came over to the door, but not before leaving specific instructions to Kai to not pull any ghost pranks while Sehun’s visiting.
(“Don’t hold any objects to make it seem like they’re floating. Don’t turn the lights on and off. And don’t play with the TV!”)
Kai agreed readily, humming as he watched the food on the oven.
“Hey!” Kyungsoo greeted Sehun. “Come in.”
“I brought a cake for dessert,” Sehun said grinning and holding up a box. In the background, Kyungsoo heard the oven’s timer go off and Kai’s footsteps getting nearer.
“The food’s ready,” Kai said somewhere behind him.
Kyungsoo glanced at the kitchen out of instinct and heard something drop on the floor. It was the box of cake. When he looked up at Sehun, the boy was trembling and staring at the space behind him.
“Jongin…” Sehun whispered, hand reaching out.
---
“I swear, I saw him,” Sehun said through his tears. Kyungsoo had managed to calm him down after he broke down crying when he stepped into Kyungsoo’s apartment. Kyungsoo assumed he saw Kai, but that didn’t explain anything. The other one was gone no matter how much Kyungsoo searched his apartment.
“I’m not going crazy,” Sehun murmured over the cup of tea he was holding. His hands were shaking. “I’m not. I really did see him.”
“Shhh,” Kyungsoo said soothingly, hand tracing patterns on Sehun’s back. “I believe you.”
The next question was something that Kyungsoo was both interested in and afraid of.
“Who’s Jongin?”
Sehun looked at him miserably and twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers.
“Jongin was my childhood bestfriend,” Sehun began, face contorting grimly. “We met in kindergarten and had been inseparable since. We went to the same school from kindergarten to college and even joined the same clubs. He was like a brother to me - or more like a twin.”
“He passed away more than a year ago,” Sehun said, eyes misting over with fresh tears. “It was a car accident. A drunk driver hit his car in the highway. He died on the spot, but the passenger managed to survive but lost all of his memories.”
Kyungsoo stopped breathing when Sehun looked at him, the story clear in his eyes.
“I guess it’s understandable why he’d be here of all places,” Sehun continued. “He loved you the most after all, hyung.”
---
After everything - Sehun telling him the truth, calling up Chanyeol and having a shouting match and winning it, but only to feel defeated - Kyungsoo ended up curling on his couch and cried himself to sleep.
He was woken up a few hours later by the loud banging on the door.
“KYUNGSOO,” Chanyeol hollered and pounded on the door. “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. OPEN UP.”
Kyungsoo turned his body away from the noise and curled on a fetal position. He just wanted to sleep everything away.
“YOU CAN’T HIDE THERE FOREVER,” Chanyeol continued. “YOU HAVE TO-“
“Stop making a scene!” Kyungsoo heard Baekhyun hiss at Chanyeol. “You’re just pushing him away with the way you’re acting.”
He heard some shuffling and low voices talking.
“Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun knocked on the front door. “I know you’re angry right now, and I don’t blame you. I would be angry too if my friends hid that from me. But -“ he heard Baekhyun sigh, “we did that because we only had the best intentions for you. We wanted you to move on first before we told you about him.”
A pause then Chanyeol said, “We weren’t trying to erase him completely from you even though it might seem that way. We just wanted to tell you about him when you were ready.”
Kyungsoo heard a loud thud by the front door followed by three knocks.
“We’re leaving now,” Baekhyun said. “There’s a box here that has everything that you’ll need to find out about him. If you need someone to talk to, we’re just a call and a five minutes drive away.”
Footsteps walking away then-
“We’re sorry,” Chanyeol said. “Especially me. It was my idea.”
A sigh.
“You’re right, you know? That I always have the dumbest ideas. I fucked up big this time. I’m really sorry Kyungsoo…”
Kyungsoo didn’t get up from where he was lying. He waited for five minutes, eight, twenty before he hauled himself out of the sofa and padded to the front door. When he opened it, a large brown cardboard box met him. It was sealed and on the top, written in Chanyeol’s chicken scratch, was a note:
To Kyungsoo. This is the last piece of the puzzle.
---
When Kyungsoo opened the box, the topmost item was a picture frame. It was of him and a boy in their high school uniforms looking young and alive. He traced the boy’s face, the shape of his head down to the bow of his lips. He looked so much like Kai.
He dug more into the box and found movie tickets with doodles at the back. Old notebooks filled with exchanges. A string of polaroid photos. A black snapback that looked similar to the one Kyungsoo had bought Kai just a few months ago. Photo albums filled with their photos from their high school days up to post-university. Souvenirs from places they’ve visited together. Hand written letters filled with sweet words and funny stickers. Books that had notes scribbled for Kyungsoo on the inner cover - most of which Kyungsoo had read in the course of the past months because Kai had mentioned them to him. A cellphone with a cracked screen gloved in a personalized case with their picture on it.
There was so much in here - so much of who Kyungsoo was that it made his friends’ betrayal burn even hotter. They had cleaned up his apartment while he was gone and took everything that had anything to do with this man. He could feel his eyes prickling again.
He plugged the cellphone to its charger and opened it. The light on the screen was faulty, and the glow was jagged from the broken screen. He went to the inbox and saw several old messages and clicked on the first one.
The message read: I’m on my way! Be there in 10 mins. I think we’ll still be able to catch the last showing for Iron Man 3 if we just grab dinner on the go. Or u just wanna share a bucket of popcorn? I love you.
The date stamp was from more than a year ago on the day of his accident. The sender was Kim Jongin.
---
Kyungsoo had called in sick from work for an indefinite period of time and stayed in his apartment.
He waited for Kai each day, but Kai never came back. It had been four days since he disappeared - since the day Sehun saw him - and he had never contacted Kyungsoo at least once. Kyungsoo felt like his feet was tied to a heavy rock sinking down to the bottom of the ocean while his neck was wrapped in ropes hanging off a cliff, his body tearing apart in agony. So he slept instead.
When he dreamt, it was of forgotten times - the memories he had of Jongin slowly coming back to him bit by bit. Conversations over coffee, movie date nights, traveling around the globe, cooking together, Jongin reading him book passages to make him fall asleep…
He always woke up crying.
Little scenes that seemed insignificant back then came rushing back to him with clarity. The way Junmyeon looked at him when he said that they wouldn’t have worked out anyway. The dull ache in his chest whenever he looked at any of the couples in their group. How everyone tiptoed on the topic of relationships whenever he was around. Sehun’s misery the first time he saw him in the hospital. Everything finally made sense now.
At one point Kyungsoo screamed out of frustration. He wanted to see Kai again, tell him that he knows Kai’s past now, that this is what Kai’s been looking for - what they’ve both been looking for - but no matter how much he yelled out his name, nothing came out of the shadows.
---
When Kyungsoo woke up, it was dusk. He opened his phone after days of being shut off and saw more than fifty missed calls and even more text messages. He sighed and forced himself to get out of the bed, eye lids feeling like sandpaper against his eyes.
He looked around the living room. The TV had been off for days now and the coffee table was starting to gather dust. There was nothing left here.
It took him a moment before he summoned whatever energy was left in him and dialed a familiar number and listened. On the second ring, Chanyeol picked up.
“Let’s talk.”
---
Kyungsoo left to go to Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s apartment on the other side of town. When he got there, the two wore solemn expressions that didn’t quite fit with their personalities.
Baekhyun was the first to get up from where he was sitting, arms encircling Kyungsoo and whispered sorry’s in his ear. He was crying. Warm, fat drops of tears falling on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. How could Kyungsoo even resist Baekhyun when he’s like this? So he ended up embracing Baekhyun back as they both sat on the floor, silent with their tears.
Chanyeol watched them from afar, conflicting emotions passing through his face before he gave in and joined them. Kyungsoo felt the warmth spread through him as Chanyeol enveloped the two of them in a big hug, sobbing.
“It feels good,” Baekhyun said after a while, “to finally be able to talk about Jongin to you.”
So they started telling him about the boy in the pictures.
His name was Kim Jongin, and Kyungsoo was sixteen when they met each other.
It was during a leadership camp of all the class representatives. Jongin was a freshman back then, and Kyungsoo was a a sunbae who happened to be crushing on their high school president. The two got paired up for the Test of Courage and somehow got lost in the woods with their luck. It was during that time that Jongin fell for Kyungsoo, as the other boy admitted later, but it wasn’t the same for Kyungsoo.
It took Jongin more than three months to make Kyungsoo finally look at him, and another six for him to fall in love. By Kyungsoo’s graduation, they were already a couple and spent the next four to five years of their university lives together.
They promised that they were going to be together until they were one hundred years old, mapping out the rest of their lives around each other, but the one hundredth and first day came sooner than they expected.
When Kyungsoo went back to his apartment at half past midnight, exhausted and drained, the TV was on in the living room.
---
“Kai?” Kyungsoo asked as he slowly made his way to the couch. It felt like one wrong move and the other would disappear again. Kai’s back was to him, but the sharp line of his shoulder was undeniable. Kyungsoo could already feel his throat closing up.
“Where have you been?” Kyungsoo said, trying to steady his voice. “Why won’t you answer me?”
Kai turned the TV off and faced him.
“I’m not Kai,” he said, a soft, sad smile gracing his face. “Who would have known that the secret to my past had been with me all along?”
“Jongin,” Kyungsoo sobbed. “You’re Kim Jongin.”
“I am.”
---
Jongin explained to him that he had left after he saw the recognition in Sehun’s face.
“Why did you leave?” Kyungsoo asked.
“I was afraid that Sehun knew me from my previous life, and I didn’t want that to upset whatever we have between us.” Jongin gave him a wry smile. “But curiosity won out so I followed Sehun back to his apartment. While I was snooping around, I saw several photos of myself. One picture in particular caught my attention. It was a group picture of twelve boys.”
He paused and stared at Kyungsoo.
“And I was hugging you.”
Kyungsoo felt his eyes sting, but Jongin just continued, pacing back and forth.
“It took me days to piece everything together because I had to keep resting in between. No one told me that recollecting my old life would feel like drilling a hole inside my head.” Jongin laughed, hollow and dry.
“But I had to keep going. I wanted to know why you were there. So I visited my old schools, visited my parents and saw them living happily and looked at your - our friends in a different light. By the fifth day, I already got whatever I could get from them.”
He stopped pacing and sat on the space beside Kyungsoo, taking Kyungsoo’s small hands into his own.
“And the only one left was you.”
---
They spent the whole night and the day after together, retracing their past lives and filling out the gaps in their memories.
They went back to their old routine almost seamlessly. Kyungsoo cooked their meals while Jongin read passages off his favorite books. They watched several old movies until the night got deeper and the hum of exhaustion wash into them.
It was during The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while Jim Carrey’s character’s memories were being erased, that Jongin said, “I’ll wait for you in the afterlife.”
“Don’t say that!” Kyungsoo shrieked, suddenly awake. He covered Jongin’s mouth with his hand, and Jongin laughed as he struggled to free himself.
“I’ll wait for you in the afterlife,” Jongin repeated. “So we could be reborn in our next life.”
“Do you even believe that we’ll be reborn?” Kyungsoo asked.
“If it means that I’ll get to spend another lifetime with you, then yes.”
“And you think we’ll still be together?” Kyungsoo whispered, arms wrapping around Jongin’s waist.
“Of course,” Jongin replied confidently. “I’ll find you just as you found me during that rainy night and we’ll be together.”
“Okay,” Kyungsoo murmured sleepily. “I’d love that.”
---
Kyungsoo stirred up sometime past three in the morning. It was cold, and the space next to his was empty. The window curtains were wide open and he could barely see Jongin’s silhouette sitting on the windowpane.
“Jongin…” Kyungsoo whispered.
On Jongin’s back, white, immaculate wings had grown overnight, arching over his shoulders and dipping down to the ground. He looked beautiful.
“Jongin-ah…” Kyungsoo repeated. He reached out and touched the wing lightly. It fluttered briefly before Jongin faced him, the edges of his face blurring.
“You’re up.” Jongin smiled at him, but he looked distant.
“I thought you don’t have wings,” Kyungsoo said, fear lacing his voice.
Jongin just smiled. Somewhere in Kyungsoo’s chest, a force was pressing on him.
“Promise me this,” Jongin said and took Kyungsoo’s face between his hands, “that you’ll live out the rest of your life and be happy.”
“Shhh,” Kyungsoo replied, finger touching Jongin’s lips. “Don’t say that. It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”
“Kyungsoo,” Jongin said faintly, “they’re calling me.” His feathers have started falling to the floor looking like snow.
“Don’t go,” Kyungsoo said, choking on his words. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Do you know what my secret mission was?” Jongin’s voice broke, hand curling on Kyungsoo’s nape. “I finally realized it when I was looking at my past. It was to help put you back together.”
“You’ve already done so much,” Kyungsoo sobbed. Jongin kissed his eyes and traced the tear tracks with his lips.
“That’s why you have to promise me that you’ll continue on with your life,” Jongin insisted, his tears falling down on Kyungsoo’s face. “Even without me.”
“I can’t,” Kyungsoo choked.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Jongin murmured. “They knew that if I was the one in your position, I wouldn’t be strong enough. But you, you’ve always been so spirited and strong willed. They knew you would survive this.”
“No,” Kyungsoo shook his head and exhaled harshly. “I don’t think I can do this. Not without you.”
“You can,” Jongin said softly. “I know you can. You've done it before.”
“I-”
“Don’t let me be the reason for you to stop living,” Jongin said, their foreheads touching. He looked firmly at Kyungsoo, his gaze strong even as he was slowly waning.
“Okay,” Kyungsoo replied, sobbing. “Okay.”
Jongin kissed him then, open mouthed and feverish and all consuming. It felt like something inside Kyungsoo was trying to break free, coming up his throat, swift and harsh, and choking him.
“I love you,” Jongin whispered and left a kiss on Kyungsoo’s ear, his hair and up his forehead. “I’ve always loved you.”
“I love you, too.”
Live.
Kyungsoo’s breath hitched.
When Kyungsoo opened his eyes, the feathers scattered around him looked beautiful as they caught the gleam of the moonlight.
---
It was the middle of spring when Kyungsoo came to visit.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said softly. “Sorry if I only got here now. How are you doing?”
The trees were in full bloom around the area and, as he knelt down on the grass and laid the flowers on the cement, he brushed the dirt off the engraved characters.
Kim Jongin
January 14, 1994 - April 8, 2017
(fin.)
ART WORK FOR MEMENTO MORI BY SHIXUNA: 1 + 2
Notes: This story took me quite a while to write so I was actually really relieved that I somewhat finished it in time for submission! I had to take out a lot of the developing background story (like a flashback scene on what happened during the accident) and why only Sehun and Kyungsoo could see Kai (answer: only those who were the closest to the grim reaper in his past life could see him) because that would have made more loose ends that I didn't have the time to close and finish. T___T Maybe one day I'll expand on this story. Thank you to the mods of sncj_bigbang for organizing this event, and thank YOU for reading this. Special thanks to Elaine my super awesome beta for tolerating all my nagging and fixing my mistakes. ♥! AND MOST OF ALL, TO SHIXUNA FOR THOSE BEAUTIFUL FANARTS. I literally squealed in my twitter out of happiness when I first saw it. ♥! And now we're twitter friends, haha. (Because I'm a creep.) Really, thank you! T___T!
Jongin/Kyungsoo
10,494 words
It should have been just an ordinary evening for Kyungsoo - that was until he witnessed a car accident and noticed a man emerge from the ruins. “My name is Kai,” he said, “and I am here to take souls.”
Written for the 2013 sncj_bigbang here. Beta'd by the awesome jongina, who I will always be grateful for. See end notes for the accompanying art work (spoiler).
memento mori
It should have been just an ordinary Monday evening for Kyungsoo as he walked the few blocks down the street from the small family-owned café he works in - that was until he witnessed a truck lose control and collide with a car.
It all happened too fast: the truck was running above the speed limit, the ground was wet from the slight drizzle, the light turned red, and he saw the driver try the brakes that didn’t seem to work when they were supposed to.
The collision was inevitable; the car in front of him went up in flames almost instantly.
Kyungsoo was rooted to the ground surrounded by panic. Some were on their phones reporting the incident and calling for an ambulance, others had fire extinguishers in their hands that they took out of the buildings. Kyungsoo just stood there, anxiety seeping through his veins. The scene felt familiar.
Then he noticed him, a man clad in black walking calmly and purposefully amidst the screaming mass of people. There was something magnetic about him, with the way the shadows seemed to bend around the edges of his silhouette as if they were a part of him.
Then Kyungsoo’s breath hitched. He looked as the the man entered the flames and came out just as fast, holding on to a boy that looked like he was about five, shirt dirty and hair mussed up. It took a moment before Kyungsoo realized who - what he was.
“Wait!” Kyungsoo shouted before he could stop himself, arm half raised. Surprise colored the man’s features before he schooled his expression into nonchalance.
“You can see me?” the man asked.
Kyungsoo nodded and noticed that the man hadn’t let go of the child’s wrist. “Don’t take him,” he said, fear clutching at his heart.
The man only shook his head. “This soul doesn’t have a vessel to return to,” he gestured at the burning vehicle. He looked stoic, but the way his eyes softened at the end of his sentence made Kyungsoo think that he might be a little sad.
He gave a small bow directed at Kyungsoo and said, “I’ll be back.” The next time he took a step, the shadows swallowed him whole, taking the boy with him.
---
He did come back after a while, and took the boy’s parents and the truck driver in three separate trips. He explained to him later that each soul must be lead to his or her final judgment individually. No shortcuts, no group batches.
Kyungsoo stayed and watched the scene unfold in front of him: the firemen finally extinguished the fire and evacuated the bodies covered in dark cloth, overlapped with the Man in Black fleeting back and forth.
When the Man in Black came back after his last trip, he looked exhausted but offered Kyungsoo a smile. “My name is Kai,” he said, “and I am here to take souls.” He looked at Kyungsoo curiously and asked, “So what’s your story?”
Kyungsoo frowned. “What makes you think I have a story?”
“Because not everyone can see grim reapers,” Kai replied. “There’s only a few instances when that happens.” He traced the scar on Kyungsoo’s forehead and the skin warmed up under his touch. “And one of them is if a person has managed to escape death.”
---
It was almost nine months ago when it happened.
Kyungsoo couldn’t remember the details of the accident. He couldn’t even remember what his life was prior to it. The car crash took with it the twenty-four years of his past life and ate up two months of his current life spent in a hospital followed by a rehabilitation center in an attempt to regain control of his limbs and piece his life together. Losing his previous life wasn’t his main problem when he couldn’t even master the finer movements of his body. Memories, he thought, didn’t hold that much significance when he didn’t even know what he had lost.
He spent the first month and a half out of the center in his parents’ house reliving his childhood in pictures, videos, and his mother’s homemade meals. The only pain that came was the healing of his fractured bones and broken skin, and a slight ache in his chest when he looked at his parents. The memories came back in baby steps appearing in dreams, in waking moments, in his father’s laugh. The time he spent there was familiar and comforting and filled with security. He moved out after he felt like his growth had stopped, that he had gotten the most that he could. Time was always running out for him.
After that, he went back to his apartment in the heart of Seoul that his friends had maintained. When he got there, it was Chanyeol that opened the door and greeted him with an excessive smile, Baekhyun not too far behind. His friendship with the two was rocky at first, but rebuilt in time as they swapped photos and stories over food and games.
He found out that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were master storytellers, winding stories from the past and making animated retellings of their adventures in high school and college. Kyungsoo collected the stories and tucked them in his heart, going over them again at the end of each day trying to find the Kyungsoo from before and integrating it into the Kyungsoo of the present.
We’ll take it slow, they had promised him as they planned to re-introduce Kyungsoo’s other friends back into his life one by one.
Some of the memories came back to him after a while, little pieces fleeting by like passages of a dream but felt too real for him. But even with those recollections slowly dripping in, he still felt like there was a huge chunk ripped and missing, a void that couldn’t be filled. There were times when he saw how Chanyeol and Baekhyun would look at each other, soft and fond, and he would feel his chest tighten. He never asked them what that slight twinge could mean, but he always wondered what could have been the cause of it. It couldn’t be sadness because Kyungsoo thought, what was there to be sad about when you couldn’t even remember?
Five and a half months after he left the facility, he picked up his work again as a baker in a family-owned café.
Three months later, he met Kai.
---
Kyungsoo didn’t know what came over him when he asked Kai if he wanted to get some coffee. What was surprising was that Kai even agreed to it.
“Aren’t you busy with your job?” Kyungsoo broke the silence hanging above them. He ended up bringing Kai back to his apartment after he realized it was a pretty stupid idea to bring a grim reaper to a coffee shop. What would others think when they see Kyungsoo talking to a hovering cup?
Kai gave him a wane smile. “Sometimes,” he said as he looked at the cup in front of him. “I think I’m done for tonight though.”
Kyungsoo wanted to ask more. Wanted to ask how it feels to ferry the souls of the dead. Wanted to ask if he was there to witness an accident that happened nine months ago. But he just let his eyes drift to the cup in front of Kai, coffee going cold and untouched.
---
When Kyungsoo woke up the next day, it was by the glaring light from the open windows. His body felt awkwardly mechanical, his mind a heavy lead inside his head. His physical therapist used to tell him to always exercise in the morning to help his body adjust the same way his psychologist told him to meditate and reconnect with himself at the beginning and end of each day. He found out yoga was the answer to both.
It was a Monday morning, the only day off that he has in a week. By his third yoga position, he was lucid enough to remember what happened last night.
He remembered Kai and the grin on his face, slightly mocking, as he had asked, “What do you want to know?”
Just like that, it was like a dam had been lifted. He had asked several questions: “What happens in the afterlife?” and “Were you there to take me during my accident?” and “How does one escape death?” but Kai gave no enlightening replies.
The first one was confidential, something that only the dead could see for themselves. For the second one Kai just shook his head and told him that it was his first time seeing Kyungsoo.
As for the last, Kai had said, “Someone who has a strong will to live usually can escape. Either that or…” but Kai never managed to end that sentence. He had given an excuse to Kyungsoo as he looked out the window and said, “A soul is calling me.”
When Kyungsoo woke up, his memories were jumbled and disoriented. He wondered if he had gone crazy, if that thin line of sanity finally snapped inside his head, but when he looked at the kitchen table there was a cup filled with stale coffee.
---
He went back to work on Tuesday and came back to an empty apartment that night. The cups they used previously were still unwashed in the sink, filled with dirty, stagnant water, and he let out a deep exhale.
When he came back home on Wednesday, he cleaned up the place, did his laundry and washed the dishes. He let the cups dry on a piece of paper towel by the side of the table; watched as the water droplets sink into the fiber of the paper.
It was Thursday, after coming back from a dinner with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, that he noticed the aroma of dark beans when he stepped inside his apartment. The coffee by his small living room table was fresh, steam still rising from the stillness of its surface.
There was a guest sitting by the couch.
---
“Hey,” Kai greeted him with a wave of his hand.
“What-“ Kyungsoo began.
“-am I doing here?” Kai finished. He had that lazy smile again on his face. It looked unnatural, like he was trying to cover something up. Then the smile faltered a bit as he said, “I just thought I’d visit.” He gave a small shrug. “It gets pretty boring in the In Between.”
“Ahh,” Kyungsoo smiled against his cup. “And the coffee?”
“I thought I’d pay you back for the last time I was here.” Kai raked a hand through his hair. “Did I make it right?”
“It’s fine.” Kyungsoo took another sip. The coffee was bittersweet against his tongue, and hot. “Thank you.”
When Kyungsoo asked him if he wanted to try some of their leftover dinner - “It’s clean,” Kyungsoo said, flustered - Kai agreed readily.
Back then, he didn’t know that it would be the beginning of everything.
---
Kyungsoo had thought of various ways to tell his friends about his new “acquaintance,” but he couldn’t find the proper diversion to ease the information to them. There had been a handful of occasions that he could have brought it up, but he always missed his chance or the timing wasn’t right.
In the end, he didn’t mention Kai to the other two. It was enough that he was considered the resident amnesiac of the group. Adding supernaturalist to that tag wasn’t in his list of priorities.
---
“So what’s your job like?” Kyungsoo asked out of nowhere. Kai was lying in a separate couch, remote on one hand and a popcorn cup on the other. For a grim reaper who was surrounded by death, he was highly fascinated about human life.
“It’s exactly what the job description says it is,” Kai said in between chews. “I take the dead souls to the afterlife.”
Kyungsoo shifted on his seat. The TV was on a melodramatic drama where the main character was on his deathbed and talking to the father that never cared about him. “But don’t you feel sad when you take them away?”
Kai turned the TV to a different channel. It was some kind of educational children’s show. “That’s why we’re not allowed to feel,” Kai said when the commercials started.
“Not allowed,” Kyungsoo echoed. “But can you?”
Kai kept his eyes glued to the TV screen. The commercial break was over and the show continued. The lesson in this episode was about family and respect, and the cartoon characters were doing a funny skit. In the end, Kai gave no reply, just let the question hang in the air.
---
“You know, your apartment wasn’t this creepy before,” Chanyeol said as he toed off his shoes.
“We never had any problems when we were house sitting it,” Baekhyun agreed. He gave a wary glance as they passed the kitchen before settling in the living room.
Kyungsoo couldn’t blame them. There had been several times that Kai played a prank when Chanyeol and Baekhyun visited: noises coming from the kitchen, a pillow falling off the couch, the lights going off in the bathroom. He had learned that normal people couldn’t see or hear Kai, but Kai could hold on to material objects to make them seem like they were floating.
Kyungsoo would usually give an insufferable sigh and would discreetly pinch Kai on the arm, and Kai would ask defensively, “What?” before laughing, the sound unheard of by the two but sounding like bells in Kyungsoo’s ears.
---
Kyungsoo stopped by at the bookstore after work because Kai had been bugging him about this book that he recently read, quoting and re-quoting phrases until Kyungsoo’s ears fell off.
It was about human nature and Kai had said that it was “deep and philosophical,” which basically translated to boring in Kyungsoo’s dictionary. Since when did grim reapers hang out in the library anyway?
“Just because I’m technically dead doesn’t mean that I’m also illiterate,” Kai had retorted. He had always been curious about humans, Kyungsoo observed. He rounded on a corner of a tall bookshelf when he suddenly bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo said automatically and bowed his head a bit.
“It’s okay,” the man replied. “It was my fault, too. I wasn’t looking.”
When Kyungsoo looked up, the guy was giving him a bright smile. The kind that won elections and made girls swoon. It was a nice smile with his pearly whites shining brightly at Kyungsoo. Somewhat familiar.
Then the man turned and went off his way, but not before he said, “See you around!”
---
It was quarter to seven when he arrived back at his apartment. He was supposed to be having dinner with Chanyeol and Baekhyun at seven with an old friend, but he lost track of time in the bookstore.
Baekhyun had said that he was “a sunbae in high school” while Chanyeol had said that he had been his “#1 crush” and proceeded to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. The thought made Kyungsoo glance at the mirror. He looked acceptable. At least there weren’t any stray flecks of flour on his shirt.
It was freezing when he stepped out. Winter in Seoul had always been harsh even when it was already winding down to spring. His body remembered that much. He re-wrapped the scarf around his neck and started his walk to the restaurant. He was running a little bit late, and when he entered the door he easily spotted Chanyeol’s head above the seated patrons even without the help of Chanyeol’s flailing limbs.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo greeted them and slid on the chair beside Baekhyun. The seat across from him was empty.
“If you’re wondering where he is, he’s in the bathroom.” Baekhyun grinned at him.
“I wasn’t -” Kyungsoo began until he saw a familiar face walking up to them.
“Hi Kyungsoo,” the stranger said, smiling, and extended his hand out for Kyungsoo.
“You’re the guy from the bookstore,” Kyungsoo blurted out. He recovered pretty quickly when he noticed the other’s hand and took it in a friendly handshake.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Sorry if I pretended I didn’t know you. These guys,” he gestured at Chanyeol and Baekhyun, “didn’t want me to meet you until now.” He gave Kyungsoo a sheepish smile.
“We were giving him some time off,” Baekhyun explained. “Didn’t want him to be bombarded all at once.”
The guy waved Baekhyun off and said, “I’m Kim Junmyeon.”
“Junmyeon-hyung,” Kyungsoo tried the name. It didn’t ring any particular bells inside his head, but it did give him a sense of reassurance. Was he really attracted to this guy before? He looked at Chanyeol and Baekhyun and saw the two leaning over the table sharing a menu and felt a throb somewhere in his chest.
“So what have they been telling you about me?” Junmyeon asked as they slid into their seats.
“Nothing much.” Kyungsoo tried to shrug nonchalantly, but he could feel the slight burn on his cheeks as he remembered what the guys mentioned about Junmyeon.
“We told him a little about the past,” Chanyeol smiled against his glass of water and decided to be dumb. “You know, back in high school.”
Kyungsoo had to control himself from not smacking his face. He wondered how he would survive this night with his dignity intact, but Junmyeon just laughed and gave him a light pat on his shoulder.
---
“Hey,” Kai greeted him as he entered the apartment. He was watching a cooking show attentively, eyes glued on the screen. “How was your date?”
“It wasn’t a date,” Kyungsoo sighed. Although it might as well have been, he thought to himself. Especially with the way Chanyeol and Baekhyun were pushing him and Junmyeon together.
He remembered how, in an act of boldness and slight tipsiness, he had asked Junmyeon why they didn’t end up together. Junmyeon had looked surprised before his face softened to a dull smile.
“I guess we just didn’t work out.”
When Junmyeon had said that, Kyungsoo saw how his face blurred a bit and turned into a vision of Junmyeon back in his youth, back when they were still in high school. But when he had blinked, the moment was gone.
---
“Cook for me,” Kai said when he popped in his apartment, a billow of dispersing smoke coming along with him. There was always smoke wherever he comes and goes, Kyungsoo had observed, a constant reminder of who he really was. Darkness always enveloped Kai a little, like a glove that molded itself around him.
“You can’t even taste it,” Kyungsoo sighed. Kyungsoo had learned a long time ago that grim reapers lacked the sense of taste the same way that they couldn’t feel hunger. It was the reason why Kai never drank his coffee when they first met. What he did have was the sense of touch, feeling things through texture and temperature.
“Thanks for stating the obvious, Sherlock.” Kai sat himself on the kitchen counter while Kyungsoo rummaged through his fridge. He was running low on some items.
“Anyway,” Kai continued, “I was thinking that if I eat enough then maybe I can acquire the taste.”
Kyungsoo looked at him skeptically. “I don’t think that’s how it works...”
“Come on,” Kai urged him. “It will be fun. You cook and I’ll be your little assistant like in those cooking shows.”
“You really should stop watching too much TV,” Kyungsoo said, but he was already getting ingredients off the fridge. “So what do you want for dinner?”
Kai smiled at him, bright like the sun, and for once Kyungsoo forgot about the darkness.
---
There was a tradition that he had made with Chanyeol and Baekhyun: every Saturday night the two would come over and watch a movie at Kyungsoo’s apartment. The two would pick out a movie on the way there and Kyungsoo would prepare their food.
Kai would sometimes sit in, too, when he wasn’t busy. He would lie on the floor nearest Kyungsoo and sometimes, Kyungsoo would tangle his fingers on Kai’s hair or let Kai take his hand off and squeeze their hands together.
---
When Baekhyun had told him that they were going out to meet some of their old friends, Kai had announced (at least to Kyungsoo) that he was coming with them.
“Why are you here again?” Kyungsoo whispered to Kai as they were entering the restaurant. It was too bad that grim reapers weren’t telepathic as well because that would have made Kyungsoo’s life a lot easier. But he was getting better at this whole subtle conversations thing. He felt like a spy.
“Because it’s boring back in the apartment,” Kai said, grinning. “And I want to meet your friends.”
The friends that they were referring to turned out to be two tall and handsome guys. They had been the foreign exchange students from China during their university days that had settled down between Qingdao and Seoul for work after graduation. They were a part of the close circle of friends that Kyungsoo had back in college or at least that was what Baekhyun told him. Kyungsoo didn’t know what kind of association he would have had with the two.
“Kyungsoo!” The younger looking one shouted and enveloped him in a hug. His name was Zitao, and he had the body of a God: solid, lean and tight. Kyungsoo felt a bit self-conscious and inadequate beside him. When he looked up at Zitao’s face, the sharp angles of his features had softened up into a wide smile and made him look young.
“Hey now,” the taller one tugged at Zitao’s collar, “don’t scare him off.”
“It’s just that,” Zitao let go of Kyungsoo and smiled at the guy - Yifan, that was his name, “I missed him.”
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said and bowed at them. He still didn’t know how to introduce (reintroduce?) himself. “I’m Kyungsoo.”
“We know.” Yifan gave him a disarmingly genuine smile. Kyungsoo felt himself let go a little. And then, somewhere to his right, Kai said, “They’re totally fucking.”
Kyungsoo felt himself flush, the red creeping up to his cheeks and ears. “Shut up,” he hissed at Kai and covered it up with a cough.
“Are you okay?” Yifan asked, concern written all over his face.
“I-” Kyungsoo stuttered. No one should be this ridiculously good-looking, he thought. He saw Zitao at the corner of his eyes grinning at him like he knew and felt his cheeks heat up even more. He focused on Yifan’s eyebrows instead, two strong bushes of hair crawling like caterpillars on his face, and felt the blush slowly go away.
‘Dear God,’ Kyungsoo prayed silently and looked at the ceiling, ‘please let the rest of this night go smoothly.’
---
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU,” were the first words out of Kyungsoo’s mouth once they were alone in the park. Kai was having a fit on the grassy area, body shaking with uncontrollable laughter and limbs flailing everywhere.
“Yah,” Kyungsoo kicked him on the ribs. “You made me look like I was crazy.”
Kai stopped laughing and rolled over to his side. “I was trying to loosen you up. You were lucky that I even graced you with my witty commentaries.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” Kyungsoo groaned and covered his face.
“You were totally crushing on that Yifan guy,” Kai gave his unsolicited observation.
“I wasn’t!” Kyungsoo exclaimed defensively except he could already feel the rush of blood to his cheeks.
Kai wasn’t looking at him. He was too busy pulling out the grass with his bare hands, the green chlorophyll staining his palms. “What’s so great about him anyway?” Then he looked up at Kyungsoo and made a pose, one leg propped over the other and his signature grin on his face. “I look better than him!”
“Sure,” Kyungsoo laughed. “Except you’re a little bit vertically challenged.”
“Yah!” Kai stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. “You don’t have the right to say that when you’re shorter than I am.” Kai looked at him, eyes hooded, and waited for his comeback.
It was one of the first few nights of spring. The weather was still slightly chilly and damp, and the air was tinted with the smell of flowers. When Kyungsoo looked at Kai, the light from the lamppost outlining his silhouette, Kyungsoo couldn’t make any words come out of his mouth.
---
Kai often visited him at night when the pull of the shadows was stronger. They would lie together on the bed, legs tangled with the bed sheets, hands sometimes clasped together.
The first time was unintentional. Kyungsoo was already asleep when Kai visited and when he woke up in the middle of the night, there was a lump beside him. He just stared at Kai, silent and thoughtful, before pulling the blanket back to cover them.
Grim reapers didn’t need sleep just as much as they didn’t feel hunger, but Kai told Kyungsoo before that he’d always wondered how it feels to eat, to drink, to sleep. He thought that maybe this was one of Kai’s social experiments.
Then it happened again and again until it became a habit and Kyungsoo never mentioned anything about it.
---
“Do you have wings?” Kyungsoo asked Kai one night. They were lying on the bed, Kai facing away from him as he drifted a finger on the sharp curve of Kai’s shoulder blade.
“I’m not an angel,” Kai laughed and turned over to catch his hand. “And that tickles.”
Kyungsoo furrowed his brows at him, expression that of slight disappointment. “I’ve always thought grim reapers were the angels of death.”
“We aren’t angels of death. Grim reapers aren’t made from nothing, but changed from one form to another,” Kai said. He stared at the ceiling and added, “I was a human once.”
Kyungsoo looked at him in surprise, eyebrows disappearing under his bangs. “You were?”
“Grim reapers were humans that are given a second chance to walk on Earth with a hidden purpose and the duty to ferry the souls to the other realm,” Kai explained as he traced the lines on Kyungsoo’s palm, running a finger over the intersecting marks.
“Well that’s a lot of responsibility,” Kyungsoo said, distracted. “So what’s your purpose?”
“Did you miss the word hidden?” Kai smirked and tickled Kyungsoo’s palm in fast, light strokes. Kyungsoo laughed and tried to wriggle his hand free from Kai’s grasp, but the other’s grip was firm.
“We don’t know until we’ve accomplished it. But I’ve made it my own purpose to find out who I was in my human life.”
“And how would you even do that?” Kyungsoo gasped, trying to catch his breath from laughing too hard.
“Remember what I told you before? About humans seeing grim reapers because of certain conditions? Your circumstance is only one of two.” Kai regarded him thoughtfully. “The other one is if the human had known the grim reaper during his human life.”
“So you’re trying to find out your past life.” Kyungsoo observed him. Kai gave a small hum, thumb drawing small circles on the back of Kyungsoo’s hand. Kyungsoo didn’t know why Kai was even trying. What was there to miss for something you’ve already forgotten?
“What happens once you fulfill your purpose?” Kyungsoo wondered out loud. There was a small pause before Kai answered and dropped his hand on the bed.
“Then it’s game over.”
---
Kyungsoo felt like being adventurous and that somehow translated to grocery shopping at a different part of town. The supermarket here was bigger than the one near his apartment and offered a lot more variety. There were ten different kinds of milk just in one aisle alone: soy, coconut, almond, lactose-free, low fat, non-fat, 1% fat, and the list went on.
He was in the middle of crossing an aisle intersection, pushing his loaded cart, when he heard someone call out his name.
“Kyungsoo?”
He turned around and saw a guy with soft, rounded cheeks looking at him inquiringly.
“Uhhh,” Kyungsoo began awkwardly. “Sorry, but do we know each other before? I mean you prob-“
“It’s okay,” the man smiled at him. “You don’t have to explain. I know about the accident. Chanyeol told me.” He offered his hand. “I’m Minseok by the way. We know each other back in university and hung out in the same group.”
“And I’m Kyungsoo,” Kyungsoo shook his hand and laughed. “But you already know that.”
“It’s good to see you again,” Minseok said. “Are you…okay now?”
“Better than before,” Kyungsoo replied. There was something unnerving with the way Minseok was staring at him, as if he was probing for an answer that Kyungsoo didn’t know.
“I see.” Minseok reverted his gaze to the rows of food then looked back at him with an easy smile. “Anyway, I have to go back to work since I’m only on my break. I’m really glad that you’re doing well, and maybe Chanyeol can hook us up with the rest of the guys one of these days?”
“I’d love that,” Kyungsoo said. “I’m actually starting to get to know my old friends again. I can call Chanyeol up later and maybe we can eat out the next time we’re all free?”
“Sure,” Minseok said. “Here, let me give you my number.”
After they’ve exchanged numbers and parted their ways, Kyungsoo looked at Minseok’s retreating back and felt soothing warmth at the thought of having friends.
---
“Hey,” Kyungsoo answered after Chanyeol picked up the phone, “guess who I met today.”
“Who?”
“Minseok,” Kyungsoo replied as he started arranging his groceries.
“That’s Minseok-hyung for you,” Chanyeol said.
“Huh?” Kyungsoo asked. “I thought we were the same age.”
“He’s older than us by a few years. He’s a 90-er. Don’t get fooled by his baby face.” Kyungsoo could almost hear the grin in Chanyeol’s voice.
“And I was talking to him so impolitely,” Kyungsoo muttered.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chanyeol said. “He doesn’t get offended with that kind of stuff. Anyway, did he say anything else?” There was a hint of something in Chanyeol’s voice - was that worry?
“What do you mean by anything else?” Kyungsoo changed the phone over to his other ear as he grabbed some utensils from the drawer.
“Nothing,” Chanyeol replied quickly. “Anyway, I gotta go. I promised Baekhyun that I’ll run some errands for him.”
“Okay,” Kyungsoo said. “We’re still on for the movie this Friday night, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol replied. “See you then!”
“Mmm,” Kyungsoo murmured, already too distracted with sorting out his pantry. “Bye.”
---
It was a lazy Monday morning and Kyungsoo was enjoying his day off when Kai jumped on his bed.
“Wakey, wakey,” Kai singsonged and started tickling Kyungsoo’s waist.
“Shoo!” Kyungsoo hit him with the pillow. “Go awaaaay.”
Kai caught the pillow. “Not until I eat breakfast.”
“Go make yourself some,” Kyungsoo groaned to his bed sheets.
“But I wanna try something new that I saw on TV. If I do it myself then I might burn the place down and I don’t think your landlord would like that.”
“I’m really going throw that TV out the window one of these days,” Kyungsoo mumbled, but he was already getting out of the bed.
“Aww,” Kai cooed at him. “Don’t be so grumpy in the morning or else the food will turn out bad.”
The breakfast that Kai wanted to try turned out to be some savory crepes. When Kyungsoo walked into the kitchen, the ingredients were already prepared on the table - all Kyungsoo had to do was chop them up and cook them.
It was an easy recipe and Kai helped him by battering the crepe base and they soon fell into their regular rhythm of cooking together. Kyungsoo found himself smiling.
“So?” Kyungsoo asked as Kai took the first bite. “How is it?”
“Hmm…” Kai took his time chewing and made a serious face. “It has a pretty well rounded flavor. A little bit salty, a little bit sweet. I can taste some bitterness in here though.”
“Yah!” Kyungsoo retorted and raised his arm to smack Kai, but Kai caught him.
“I’m just kidding,” Kai grinned, his hand around Kyungsoo’s wrist. “It’s actually really sweet.”
Grim reapers still couldn’t taste anything, but Kai had decided that whenever he would taste Kyungsoo’s cooking, he would describe the taste based on how Kyungsoo was feeling while preparing the dishes.
Kyungsoo didn’t know why Kai would do that, but he did and it became a ritual of sorts, and Kyungsoo found himself getting buried deeper.
---
The next person on their list of friends was a guy named Kim Jongdae.
When Kyungsoo met him, Jongdae surprised him by tackling him into a hug.
“You guys told me he would be different,” Jongdae said in the direction of Chanyeol and Baekhyun - Kyungsoo couldn’t see because Jongdae still had him in a headlock. “But he’s exactly the same!”
“Geez, calm down,” Baekhyun said, trying to free Kyungsoo.
“You’re gonna scare him off,” Chanyeol agreed.
Kyungsoo started laughing and poked Jongdae’s ribs until the other released him.
“How’d you know I was ticklish?” Jongdae asked, protecting his sides.
Kyungsoo shrugged and smiled. “Lucky guess.”
“Anyway,” Jongdae said, “where are the others?”
“Let’s see. Yifan and Zitao are on a business trip, Junmyeon’s a workaholic and Minseok’s down with the flu.” Chanyeol counted them off with his fingers.
“How about Yixing and Luhan and Sehun?” Jongdae asked as they started taking their seats around the table.
Kyungsoo saw Chanyeol glance at Jongdae briefly before he said, “Still out on their China trip.”
“Man, that’s a long time,” Jongdae said. “Are they ever gonna come back?”
“I don’t know.” Chanyeol’s right eye twitched a bit as he shrugged.
“Anyway,” Baekhyun interrupted them and clapped his hands. “I’m hungry so let’s just order now.”
Sehun.
Kyungsoo knew that name, but he forgot to bring him up again when the trio drew him in to their stories.
---
It was after their dinner when Kyungsoo brought up Sehun. Kyungsoo finally remembered who Sehun was - not pre-accident Sehun, but post. He remembered the cotton candy pink haired boy who visited him once after he had woken up. He had puffy eyes and stood at the foot of his bed looking as if he had cried all night. He couldn’t forget that expression on him: wretched and torn. He had pretended to be asleep when the boy came, and wondered if they had been close to warrant that kind of reaction.
Chanyeol explained in low tones that Sehun was out on an extended retreat in China with two of their Chinese friends.
“Why?” Kyungsoo asked. A shadow passed over Chanyeol’s face as he looked at Baekhyun, but it was gone in a blink. “Because,” Chanyeol said, suddenly sounding tired, “he’s trying to put himself back together. He’s going through a lot right now.”
Kyungsoo observed the two of them, eyes fleeting between Chanyeol and Baekhyun. He wanted to ask more like, “What happened?” or “Is he okay?” but the atmosphere was suffocating him. He wasn’t used to this - this kind of somber, this blanket of sadness draped around them. It reminded him too much of the time he woke up, blank and empty as a shell.
So he never asked anything more. Maybe one day, he thought, he could extend a hand out to Sehun and the boy would tell him his story. Maybe.
---
It was pretty late at night. Kyungsoo and Kai had just finished marathoning the Iron Man trilogy and Kai was sitting on the floor, his head resting on Kyungsoo’s knee.
“I wish I was Iron Man,” Kai murmured.
“So you can save the world as an egomaniac genius billionaire?” Kyungsoo grinned and ruffled Kai’s hair.
He heard Kai sigh and then - “At least that’s better than taking souls to the afterlife.”
Oh, Kyungsoo thought, hand falling to his side. He hadn’t thought of it that way.
He felt Kai shuffle and plant himself beside Kyungsoo on the couch, head leaning on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. It was the universal sign for sadness.
“At least you’re here,” Kai said, looking at his hands. “Somehow, you make me feel a little bit more human.”
Kyungsoo reached out and took Kai’s hand on his own. He wanted to say something, but he felt the shift in Kai before the other one even stood up.
“I have to go,” Kai said, the shadows already gathering around him. He gave Kyungsoo a smile before the shadows swallowed him. When Kyungsoo blinked, Kai was already gone.
---
“WAKE UP,” Chanyeol’s voice boomed over from the phone. Kyungsoo sat up on his bed and looked at the clock. It read seven ten in the morning.
“Why are you calling me at this hour on my only day off?” Kyungsoo grumbled. He could hear the busy chatter in the background on Chanyeol’s end; it seemed like Chanyeol wasn’t at work either.
“Where are you?” he asked suspiciously.
“We’ve got some surprise guests that just arrived,” Chanyeol said. He could feel the excitement in Chanyeol’s voice, the way his deep rumble ended up in a slightly higher pitch at the end. “Get ready! We’ll be there to pick you up in an hour!”
---
The mystery guests turned out to be the trio that just came back from China.
When he had piled into the big van that was parked in front of his apartment complex, he was surprised to see a lot of the familiar faces that he had met over the course of the past few months.
Junmyeon was behind the wheels with Jongdae on the front passenger seat. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were on the first row with an empty space beside them for Kyungsoo, while the second row had Zitao curled comfortably beside Yifan.
The last row had two strangers and one familiar face. He recognized one as Sehun even though his hair wasn’t pink anymore but a dark brown. The other two beside him were sporting similar shades of dirty blonde hair and grins on their faces.
The shorter one with the slightly rounder and younger looking face had a creepier smile though. The kind where as his smile grew wider, the more his chin disappeared to his neck. The other one had the gentle smile of Buddha, but cuter. Buddha didn’t have a dimple on his cheek.
“How long have you been planning this?” Kyungsoo asked, grinning, as he took his seat beside Baekhyun.
“Ever since we found out their flight.” Chanyeol thumbed at the three at the back. “Surprised?”
Kyungsoo laughed. “Very.”
---
Buddha-guy was Yixing, a sunbae from their university days, and the guy next to him was Lu Han. Lu Han was apparently the second oldest in their group even with his beguilingly boyish looking face. It seemed like a trend in their circle that the older they get, the younger they look. Minseok was the prime example. But where Minseok was quiet and acted like his age, Lu Han was a whole different story.
Lu Han milked their laughter through his stories, re-enacting their adventures and misadventures in China and sometimes dragging Yixing along to perform with him. Kyungsoo noticed that Sehun would sometimes add in a piece to their stories, but kept mostly to himself, staring out the window.
When they arrived at the barbecue restaurant, Kyungsoo waited for Sehun to step out of the van.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo nudged him at the arm and offered a smile.
Sehun looked up at him in surprise. “Do you…”
“No,” Kyungsoo smiled apologetically, understanding what Sehun was about to ask. “But I guess I kind of remember you?” He shrugged, embarrassed. “I saw you at the hospital once before.”
To Kyungsoo’s shock, Sehun enveloped him in a hug and gave him an endearing smile when he pulled away.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were recovering,” Sehun said, equal parts shy and sad.
“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo replied and petted Sehun’s head. The movement seemed automatic, like an implicit memory. “The guys told me you were going through something personal.”
“Yeah.” Sehun’s face shuttered off for a bit before it smoothed back to normal. “But I’ll get over it.”
He squeezed Sehun’s hand and hoped that was enough to give him the message.
I’m right here.
---
When Kyungsoo got back to his apartment, the sun had already sunk over the horizon. The party continued from the Korean barbecue to a café followed by a long noraebang session. They had a lot of catching up to do, a year’s worth of moments and experiences to share and dig into.
The light was on in the living room and Kyungsoo found Kai channel surfing.
“Hey,” Kai turned around and rested his chin on top of the couch. “How was the party?”
“It was great!” Kyungsoo toed off his shoes and padded over to Kai. “How did you know I came from a party?”
“I saw you get out of that huge van just now with a lot of your friends waving at you,” Kai replied. “More than half of them looked drunk.”
Kyungsoo laughed and settled on the couch. “Here, let me show you some pics,” Kyungsoo said as he curled up beside Kai, tucking his legs under his body. He took out his phone and started flipping through the gallery and told Kai the stories behind each of them.
Kyungsoo stopped talking after he noticed that Kai hadn’t said anything for the last five photos. When Kyungsoo glanced at him, he saw Kai staring.
“What?” Kyungsoo asked, suddenly self-conscious. “Is there something on my face?”
“No,” Kai said carefully. “Just. I don’t know.” Kai sighed. “I’m jealous of your friends.”
Kyungsoo looked at him, puzzled. “Why?”
“Because they can make you this happy,” Kai replied. “And I wish I can make you this happy, too.” Kai lowered his eyes at his hands resting on the space between them. Kyungsoo noticed that they were shaking.
“Kai…” Kyungsoo began. “You make me happy. Just in your own ways.”
“I bet I could do a better job at it if I was human,” Kai muttered, wringing his hands together.
Kyungsoo took Kai’s hands to his own and untangled his fingers so that they lay flat against his. “Don’t do this to yourself,” Kyungsoo said softly, voice going down a notch. “Don’t chase for something that you can’t have. It will only hurt you.”
Kai twisted away from him. “I just want to,” Kai tried, “I just want to be with you.”
“You don’t have to be human to be with me,” Kyungsoo whispered. He took Kai’s hand again and gripped it firmly. “You just have to be yourself.”
“You deserve someone better.”
Kyungsoo could feel it, the implications of what Kai said hanging in the space between them. Kyungsoo didn’t know if he was ready for this - whatever this was. He was always the kind of person who thought things thoroughly before jumping in. But, now that he was looking at Kai, back turned against him and shoulders slumped miserably, there was something inside him that wanted to reach out.
It was always there, somewhere in Kyungsoo’s subconscious, spreading through him slowly, seeping in his veins, filling his cavities, and numbing the ache in his chest.
“It’s up to me to decide if I deserve someone better,” Kyungsoo said, finally. “And who I want is you.”
Kai faced him then and exhaled. He traced Kyungsoo’s face with his index finger starting from the slant of his brow down the bridge of his nose and stopped at the curved line of his lips.
“I’m scared now to know about my past because I don’t want anything to change between us. I know I’m not supposed to feel anything, but being with you…” Kai trailed off as he leaned towards Kyungsoo, his breath ghosting over Kyungsoo’s lips.
“…Being with you is like living.”
---
When Kyungsoo woke up the next day, Kai was spooning him, his nose nestled on the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck and their legs tangled together. The clock read that it was a little past nine in the morning and he had a guest to entertain at eleven.
He tried to get Kai’s arm off his waist, but the other’s grip was stubborn.
“Yah,” Kyungsoo poked at Kai’s rib. “I know you’re awake. Don’t fake that with me. Yah!”
Kai groaned and nuzzled his nose on the small tuft of hair at the base of Kyungsoo’s nape.
“Shhh,” Kai muttered. “Isn’t this what they do on TV the morning after?”
Kyungsoo wanted to smack him, but Kai held him firmly and started leaving feathery kisses on his neck.
“Kai…” Kyungsoo whispered, trying hard not to give in. “Sehun’s coming over soon. I have to prepare something.”
“Who cares,” Kai murmured, his breath leaving goosebumps on Kyungsoo’s skin.
“I care,” Kyungsoo replied. He’d learned a long time ago that if he wanted to win against Kai, he had to be strong against his advances. “Come on, you can help me cook something. You can even pick your favorite food.”
“But you’re my favorite food,” Kai replied and nipped at Kyungsoo’s ear.
Kyungsoo had to hold back his moan, face blushing furiously.
“KAI,” Kyungsoo said and firmly held Kai’s arms away from him and stood up. “I’m going to go. With or without you.”
Kai groaned and rolled off the bed, muttering something about brats cockblocking him.
---
It was almost eleven when the doorbell rang. Kyungsoo came over to the door, but not before leaving specific instructions to Kai to not pull any ghost pranks while Sehun’s visiting.
(“Don’t hold any objects to make it seem like they’re floating. Don’t turn the lights on and off. And don’t play with the TV!”)
Kai agreed readily, humming as he watched the food on the oven.
“Hey!” Kyungsoo greeted Sehun. “Come in.”
“I brought a cake for dessert,” Sehun said grinning and holding up a box. In the background, Kyungsoo heard the oven’s timer go off and Kai’s footsteps getting nearer.
“The food’s ready,” Kai said somewhere behind him.
Kyungsoo glanced at the kitchen out of instinct and heard something drop on the floor. It was the box of cake. When he looked up at Sehun, the boy was trembling and staring at the space behind him.
“Jongin…” Sehun whispered, hand reaching out.
---
“I swear, I saw him,” Sehun said through his tears. Kyungsoo had managed to calm him down after he broke down crying when he stepped into Kyungsoo’s apartment. Kyungsoo assumed he saw Kai, but that didn’t explain anything. The other one was gone no matter how much Kyungsoo searched his apartment.
“I’m not going crazy,” Sehun murmured over the cup of tea he was holding. His hands were shaking. “I’m not. I really did see him.”
“Shhh,” Kyungsoo said soothingly, hand tracing patterns on Sehun’s back. “I believe you.”
The next question was something that Kyungsoo was both interested in and afraid of.
“Who’s Jongin?”
Sehun looked at him miserably and twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers.
“Jongin was my childhood bestfriend,” Sehun began, face contorting grimly. “We met in kindergarten and had been inseparable since. We went to the same school from kindergarten to college and even joined the same clubs. He was like a brother to me - or more like a twin.”
“He passed away more than a year ago,” Sehun said, eyes misting over with fresh tears. “It was a car accident. A drunk driver hit his car in the highway. He died on the spot, but the passenger managed to survive but lost all of his memories.”
Kyungsoo stopped breathing when Sehun looked at him, the story clear in his eyes.
“I guess it’s understandable why he’d be here of all places,” Sehun continued. “He loved you the most after all, hyung.”
---
After everything - Sehun telling him the truth, calling up Chanyeol and having a shouting match and winning it, but only to feel defeated - Kyungsoo ended up curling on his couch and cried himself to sleep.
He was woken up a few hours later by the loud banging on the door.
“KYUNGSOO,” Chanyeol hollered and pounded on the door. “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. OPEN UP.”
Kyungsoo turned his body away from the noise and curled on a fetal position. He just wanted to sleep everything away.
“YOU CAN’T HIDE THERE FOREVER,” Chanyeol continued. “YOU HAVE TO-“
“Stop making a scene!” Kyungsoo heard Baekhyun hiss at Chanyeol. “You’re just pushing him away with the way you’re acting.”
He heard some shuffling and low voices talking.
“Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun knocked on the front door. “I know you’re angry right now, and I don’t blame you. I would be angry too if my friends hid that from me. But -“ he heard Baekhyun sigh, “we did that because we only had the best intentions for you. We wanted you to move on first before we told you about him.”
A pause then Chanyeol said, “We weren’t trying to erase him completely from you even though it might seem that way. We just wanted to tell you about him when you were ready.”
Kyungsoo heard a loud thud by the front door followed by three knocks.
“We’re leaving now,” Baekhyun said. “There’s a box here that has everything that you’ll need to find out about him. If you need someone to talk to, we’re just a call and a five minutes drive away.”
Footsteps walking away then-
“We’re sorry,” Chanyeol said. “Especially me. It was my idea.”
A sigh.
“You’re right, you know? That I always have the dumbest ideas. I fucked up big this time. I’m really sorry Kyungsoo…”
Kyungsoo didn’t get up from where he was lying. He waited for five minutes, eight, twenty before he hauled himself out of the sofa and padded to the front door. When he opened it, a large brown cardboard box met him. It was sealed and on the top, written in Chanyeol’s chicken scratch, was a note:
To Kyungsoo. This is the last piece of the puzzle.
---
When Kyungsoo opened the box, the topmost item was a picture frame. It was of him and a boy in their high school uniforms looking young and alive. He traced the boy’s face, the shape of his head down to the bow of his lips. He looked so much like Kai.
He dug more into the box and found movie tickets with doodles at the back. Old notebooks filled with exchanges. A string of polaroid photos. A black snapback that looked similar to the one Kyungsoo had bought Kai just a few months ago. Photo albums filled with their photos from their high school days up to post-university. Souvenirs from places they’ve visited together. Hand written letters filled with sweet words and funny stickers. Books that had notes scribbled for Kyungsoo on the inner cover - most of which Kyungsoo had read in the course of the past months because Kai had mentioned them to him. A cellphone with a cracked screen gloved in a personalized case with their picture on it.
There was so much in here - so much of who Kyungsoo was that it made his friends’ betrayal burn even hotter. They had cleaned up his apartment while he was gone and took everything that had anything to do with this man. He could feel his eyes prickling again.
He plugged the cellphone to its charger and opened it. The light on the screen was faulty, and the glow was jagged from the broken screen. He went to the inbox and saw several old messages and clicked on the first one.
The message read: I’m on my way! Be there in 10 mins. I think we’ll still be able to catch the last showing for Iron Man 3 if we just grab dinner on the go. Or u just wanna share a bucket of popcorn? I love you.
The date stamp was from more than a year ago on the day of his accident. The sender was Kim Jongin.
---
Kyungsoo had called in sick from work for an indefinite period of time and stayed in his apartment.
He waited for Kai each day, but Kai never came back. It had been four days since he disappeared - since the day Sehun saw him - and he had never contacted Kyungsoo at least once. Kyungsoo felt like his feet was tied to a heavy rock sinking down to the bottom of the ocean while his neck was wrapped in ropes hanging off a cliff, his body tearing apart in agony. So he slept instead.
When he dreamt, it was of forgotten times - the memories he had of Jongin slowly coming back to him bit by bit. Conversations over coffee, movie date nights, traveling around the globe, cooking together, Jongin reading him book passages to make him fall asleep…
He always woke up crying.
Little scenes that seemed insignificant back then came rushing back to him with clarity. The way Junmyeon looked at him when he said that they wouldn’t have worked out anyway. The dull ache in his chest whenever he looked at any of the couples in their group. How everyone tiptoed on the topic of relationships whenever he was around. Sehun’s misery the first time he saw him in the hospital. Everything finally made sense now.
At one point Kyungsoo screamed out of frustration. He wanted to see Kai again, tell him that he knows Kai’s past now, that this is what Kai’s been looking for - what they’ve both been looking for - but no matter how much he yelled out his name, nothing came out of the shadows.
---
When Kyungsoo woke up, it was dusk. He opened his phone after days of being shut off and saw more than fifty missed calls and even more text messages. He sighed and forced himself to get out of the bed, eye lids feeling like sandpaper against his eyes.
He looked around the living room. The TV had been off for days now and the coffee table was starting to gather dust. There was nothing left here.
It took him a moment before he summoned whatever energy was left in him and dialed a familiar number and listened. On the second ring, Chanyeol picked up.
“Let’s talk.”
---
Kyungsoo left to go to Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s apartment on the other side of town. When he got there, the two wore solemn expressions that didn’t quite fit with their personalities.
Baekhyun was the first to get up from where he was sitting, arms encircling Kyungsoo and whispered sorry’s in his ear. He was crying. Warm, fat drops of tears falling on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. How could Kyungsoo even resist Baekhyun when he’s like this? So he ended up embracing Baekhyun back as they both sat on the floor, silent with their tears.
Chanyeol watched them from afar, conflicting emotions passing through his face before he gave in and joined them. Kyungsoo felt the warmth spread through him as Chanyeol enveloped the two of them in a big hug, sobbing.
“It feels good,” Baekhyun said after a while, “to finally be able to talk about Jongin to you.”
So they started telling him about the boy in the pictures.
His name was Kim Jongin, and Kyungsoo was sixteen when they met each other.
It was during a leadership camp of all the class representatives. Jongin was a freshman back then, and Kyungsoo was a a sunbae who happened to be crushing on their high school president. The two got paired up for the Test of Courage and somehow got lost in the woods with their luck. It was during that time that Jongin fell for Kyungsoo, as the other boy admitted later, but it wasn’t the same for Kyungsoo.
It took Jongin more than three months to make Kyungsoo finally look at him, and another six for him to fall in love. By Kyungsoo’s graduation, they were already a couple and spent the next four to five years of their university lives together.
They promised that they were going to be together until they were one hundred years old, mapping out the rest of their lives around each other, but the one hundredth and first day came sooner than they expected.
When Kyungsoo went back to his apartment at half past midnight, exhausted and drained, the TV was on in the living room.
---
“Kai?” Kyungsoo asked as he slowly made his way to the couch. It felt like one wrong move and the other would disappear again. Kai’s back was to him, but the sharp line of his shoulder was undeniable. Kyungsoo could already feel his throat closing up.
“Where have you been?” Kyungsoo said, trying to steady his voice. “Why won’t you answer me?”
Kai turned the TV off and faced him.
“I’m not Kai,” he said, a soft, sad smile gracing his face. “Who would have known that the secret to my past had been with me all along?”
“Jongin,” Kyungsoo sobbed. “You’re Kim Jongin.”
“I am.”
---
Jongin explained to him that he had left after he saw the recognition in Sehun’s face.
“Why did you leave?” Kyungsoo asked.
“I was afraid that Sehun knew me from my previous life, and I didn’t want that to upset whatever we have between us.” Jongin gave him a wry smile. “But curiosity won out so I followed Sehun back to his apartment. While I was snooping around, I saw several photos of myself. One picture in particular caught my attention. It was a group picture of twelve boys.”
He paused and stared at Kyungsoo.
“And I was hugging you.”
Kyungsoo felt his eyes sting, but Jongin just continued, pacing back and forth.
“It took me days to piece everything together because I had to keep resting in between. No one told me that recollecting my old life would feel like drilling a hole inside my head.” Jongin laughed, hollow and dry.
“But I had to keep going. I wanted to know why you were there. So I visited my old schools, visited my parents and saw them living happily and looked at your - our friends in a different light. By the fifth day, I already got whatever I could get from them.”
He stopped pacing and sat on the space beside Kyungsoo, taking Kyungsoo’s small hands into his own.
“And the only one left was you.”
---
They spent the whole night and the day after together, retracing their past lives and filling out the gaps in their memories.
They went back to their old routine almost seamlessly. Kyungsoo cooked their meals while Jongin read passages off his favorite books. They watched several old movies until the night got deeper and the hum of exhaustion wash into them.
It was during The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while Jim Carrey’s character’s memories were being erased, that Jongin said, “I’ll wait for you in the afterlife.”
“Don’t say that!” Kyungsoo shrieked, suddenly awake. He covered Jongin’s mouth with his hand, and Jongin laughed as he struggled to free himself.
“I’ll wait for you in the afterlife,” Jongin repeated. “So we could be reborn in our next life.”
“Do you even believe that we’ll be reborn?” Kyungsoo asked.
“If it means that I’ll get to spend another lifetime with you, then yes.”
“And you think we’ll still be together?” Kyungsoo whispered, arms wrapping around Jongin’s waist.
“Of course,” Jongin replied confidently. “I’ll find you just as you found me during that rainy night and we’ll be together.”
“Okay,” Kyungsoo murmured sleepily. “I’d love that.”
---
Kyungsoo stirred up sometime past three in the morning. It was cold, and the space next to his was empty. The window curtains were wide open and he could barely see Jongin’s silhouette sitting on the windowpane.
“Jongin…” Kyungsoo whispered.
On Jongin’s back, white, immaculate wings had grown overnight, arching over his shoulders and dipping down to the ground. He looked beautiful.
“Jongin-ah…” Kyungsoo repeated. He reached out and touched the wing lightly. It fluttered briefly before Jongin faced him, the edges of his face blurring.
“You’re up.” Jongin smiled at him, but he looked distant.
“I thought you don’t have wings,” Kyungsoo said, fear lacing his voice.
Jongin just smiled. Somewhere in Kyungsoo’s chest, a force was pressing on him.
“Promise me this,” Jongin said and took Kyungsoo’s face between his hands, “that you’ll live out the rest of your life and be happy.”
“Shhh,” Kyungsoo replied, finger touching Jongin’s lips. “Don’t say that. It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”
“Kyungsoo,” Jongin said faintly, “they’re calling me.” His feathers have started falling to the floor looking like snow.
“Don’t go,” Kyungsoo said, choking on his words. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Do you know what my secret mission was?” Jongin’s voice broke, hand curling on Kyungsoo’s nape. “I finally realized it when I was looking at my past. It was to help put you back together.”
“You’ve already done so much,” Kyungsoo sobbed. Jongin kissed his eyes and traced the tear tracks with his lips.
“That’s why you have to promise me that you’ll continue on with your life,” Jongin insisted, his tears falling down on Kyungsoo’s face. “Even without me.”
“I can’t,” Kyungsoo choked.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Jongin murmured. “They knew that if I was the one in your position, I wouldn’t be strong enough. But you, you’ve always been so spirited and strong willed. They knew you would survive this.”
“No,” Kyungsoo shook his head and exhaled harshly. “I don’t think I can do this. Not without you.”
“You can,” Jongin said softly. “I know you can. You've done it before.”
“I-”
“Don’t let me be the reason for you to stop living,” Jongin said, their foreheads touching. He looked firmly at Kyungsoo, his gaze strong even as he was slowly waning.
“Okay,” Kyungsoo replied, sobbing. “Okay.”
Jongin kissed him then, open mouthed and feverish and all consuming. It felt like something inside Kyungsoo was trying to break free, coming up his throat, swift and harsh, and choking him.
“I love you,” Jongin whispered and left a kiss on Kyungsoo’s ear, his hair and up his forehead. “I’ve always loved you.”
“I love you, too.”
Live.
Kyungsoo’s breath hitched.
When Kyungsoo opened his eyes, the feathers scattered around him looked beautiful as they caught the gleam of the moonlight.
---
It was the middle of spring when Kyungsoo came to visit.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said softly. “Sorry if I only got here now. How are you doing?”
The trees were in full bloom around the area and, as he knelt down on the grass and laid the flowers on the cement, he brushed the dirt off the engraved characters.
Kim Jongin
January 14, 1994 - April 8, 2017
(fin.)
ART WORK FOR MEMENTO MORI BY SHIXUNA: 1 + 2
Notes: This story took me quite a while to write so I was actually really relieved that I somewhat finished it in time for submission! I had to take out a lot of the developing background story (like a flashback scene on what happened during the accident) and why only Sehun and Kyungsoo could see Kai (answer: only those who were the closest to the grim reaper in his past life could see him) because that would have made more loose ends that I didn't have the time to close and finish. T___T Maybe one day I'll expand on this story. Thank you to the mods of sncj_bigbang for organizing this event, and thank YOU for reading this. Special thanks to Elaine my super awesome beta for tolerating all my nagging and fixing my mistakes. ♥! AND MOST OF ALL, TO SHIXUNA FOR THOSE BEAUTIFUL FANARTS. I literally squealed in my twitter out of happiness when I first saw it. ♥! And now we're twitter friends, haha. (Because I'm a creep.) Really, thank you! T___T!