An Awfully Big Adventure - Oneshot
Title: An Awfully Big Adventure
Chapters: Oneshot
Pairings: Kai/Luhan
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fluff, romance, slight angst
Warnings: initial depressive/suicidal/existential thoughts
Summary: Kai is beyond tired and wishes everything would just end, but there’s this bundle of joy he comes across in Disneyland in the form of ‘Peter Pan’, who just won’t leave him alone until he smiles again.
a/n: requested by an anon on tumblr <3
It’s 9pm on a Tuesday, mid-July, and Disneyland is looking pretty deserted. The kids don’t usually stick around that late, or if they do, they’re all lined up to watch the parade on the Main Street, with Mickey and Donald and the whole gang, listening to their recorded songs and watching them wave just like they're paid to do.
Jongin isn't there, though. He's managed to climb up on top of the Disneyland Fire Station, the red brick building, and is now staring at the ground below him, which is bare of people and commotion.
He's tried. Not the usual kind of ‘I’ve had a long, tedious day and I really want to sleep’ tired, but more of the ‘where is my life going, I kind of want to call it quits’ tired. The tired that peels from his hunched body and seeps out of his pores like an invisible poison because he is full to the brim and paints the perfect picture of misery. Just tired. Tired from slaving away at his corporate job only to come home to a nagging girlfriend, then taking to the drinks to dull the ache that settles in his chest late at night when he realizes how futile everything is. There is a continuous pattern to his life that’s driving him insane, because he just can’t break out of it. Wake up, go to work, come home, occasionally fuck his girlfriend, drink, then pass out. Rinse and repeat, with no end in sight. The mere thought of his own life makes him nauseous. What’s the point?
Humans do what they do to maintain a certain state, and that’s the gist of it, of life; to find the state you feel you should be in and try to stay there. Since humans live in an environment as well as within a physical body that is unwarranted and is in flux, they adapt to it, more or less, trying to get by every day quietly. One moment they might crave sugar, next crave salt to maintain a balance or maintain a state of being. Humans are fickle and so is life.
There are people who try to give life meaning or push the idea of a greater purpose though, but Jongin thinks all of that is bullshit. Exactly the same way he thinks art is bullshit. There is no objective purpose for art, yet many people find subjective reasons for it because they are bored or wish the world was a little more mystical and colourful than the sack of shit they’re stuck with. A ‘purpose’.
But purposes are lies that everyone tells themselves to feel better, and sooner or later that becomes apparent. Just like it has to Jongin. Purposes are an illogical desire to have some exterior, supernatural justification for existence. Except there is no justification for existence. If this senseless, gigantic, immensely complicated universe exists for its own sake and for no other reason, why should they be any different?
There’s no running from it though. Everyone can try to hide the ugly, grey film of dullness that wraps around them all, but in the end, all anyone has ever lived for is the opportunity to die. All your achievements in life disappear when you seize to exist. All your dreams, your passions, your creations. It becomes nothingness, and you join the nothingness with it. Jongin isn’t a man of many creations or accomplishments, but that’s because he’s realistic. He knows there’s no point to any of it; he’s seen past the sham that is society and sees it for what it really is: some pathetic attempt at creating rhyme or reason to the otherwise random and bleak universe that they’ve been born into.
Jongin sighs. He just wants to stop the endless cycle of misery. So that's kind of why he's there, standing on top of the fire station. He figures Disneyland is the best way to go, because it's supposed to be the happiest place on earth, and he wants to jump from the Fire Station and become one with the ground below; be immortalized in this happy place. He's already leaning over the edge, his feet dangling over the railing. He could make the pain stop by just succumbing to an instance of vertigo.
He tests out the feeling of gravity, letting go of the railing a couple of times and leaning over, but he's still standing there. Will there be pain? Probably. But what did he expect? Or maybe he'll disappear before he gets to even feel anything. That would be ideal.
"Why the long face?" Someone suddenly asks -more like yells- breaking Jongin out of his reverie, and he looks down to the ground below to find a mop of ginger hair and green clothes that match a meticulously placed feather-struck hat. The boy has his hands on his hips, and looks a cross between worried and amused, small brown eyes twinkling even in the darkening air.
Peter Pan. Of course. That’s just what he needs right now, some fucking phony Disney character breathing down his neck and playing pretend.
"I don't have time for this," Jongin groans loudly to him, planting his face in his hands. He just wants to brood there alone. He doesn't feel like being entertained by one of the actors; they're paid to talk to the kids, not bother the depressed adults.
"We have all the time in the world here!" Peter Pan shouts from below, grinning broadly. "Hook's crocodile with the alarm clock in it isn't here anyways, so I don't think time even exists right now!"
Jongin laughs. How can this guy still be in character when someone is about to jump and commit suicide from a building right above him? Maybe he doesn't realize that Jongin wants to jump. Well he wanted to jump before; he's not so sure now. He doesn't want any eyewitnesses, and he wants his last moments to be peaceful and quiet...not this.
"If you give me your name, I'll let you into my secret hideout!" Peter Pan shouts again and Jongin rolls his eyes this time. Why isn't Peter Pan in the parade like everyone else anyways? What's he doing here? And how did he find him?
"Where's your secret hangout?" Jongin asks flatly, and wonders if Peter Pan heard him at all, but the boy must have super hearing, because he sticks his finger up and shakes it from side to side.
"It wouldn't be a secret anymore if I told you, now would it?" Jongin laughs to himself. If anything, the guy is a really good actor. He'll give him that. "So, your name is...?"
Jongin hesitates for a few seconds before he decides that he doesn't really have anything to lose, and mutters, "Jongin."
"Jongin, huh?" Peter Pan muses, crossing his arms. "Well, Jongin, the faster you get down from that roof, the faster you and I can get to my secret place."
"Why would I want to go to your secret place?" Jongin asks, and is ready to strangle this actor, because honestly, all he wants is peace and quiet, and the freedom to jump, but right now he has to pretend to be a kid talking to his favourite character.
"The question is: why wouldn't you?" Peter Pan corrects him. "You should always ask 'why not' instead of 'why', otherwise the world would get really dull."
Jongin thinks on that for a second. Maybe Peter Pan knows what Jongin is up to, and is trying to lure him away only to call the police and ambulance and get him put in a straitjacket so that he can't hurt himself, or maybe he's just so in character that he can't stop thinking like a boy who never grew up. Jongin can't decide which one it is. Either way, it's too late to attempt what he wanted now, so he sighs heavily and walks back to where he got up, dropping down from the roof and to a window ledge, then sort of scaling his way further down, until he swings off a balcony and lands on the ground. The Peter Pan has walked up to him now, and looks very impressed.
"With acrobatic skills like that I might have to make you one of the Lost Boys," he says with a nod of his head, and then reaches for Jongin's hand to pull him with him.
"What if I don't want to join the Lost Boys?" Jongin challenges, letting Peter Pan pull him away to where he assumes is his secret place.
"Nonsense, everyone wants to be a Lost Boy. Even Jasmine asked if she could be one last week, but she's a girl so that wouldn't work out, obviously."
Jongin just stays quiet, watching the excited Peter Pan lead him on past stalls and paths and a few people. He hasn't been to Disneyland that many times, but the few he has, he doesn't remember a Disney character ever wanting to talk to him. And now he's being lead into a maze of some kind -Alice's Maze, was it?- by Peter Pan himself, who wants to make him join the Lost Boys.
"Well, here we are." Peter Pan turns around and faces him, still all smiley and excited and nothing close to what Jongin is feeling. They're in the very centre of the maze, and Jongin wonders why he took him there, of all places, but his question is answered soon enough.
"This is the best spot in all of Disneyland," Peter Pan says, but his voice is a bit lower now, a bit breathier and soft, as if he's just caught up with the fact that he's walked really far really fast. "You're lost in here, like, really lost, and the good thing is that you don't have to find your way out until you want to. So essentially, I suppose you're a Lost Boy right now. You don't have to be found either. Not until you're ready."
"What the fuck is the point in that?" Jongin asks, sitting down on a small ledge by one of the plants. It's hard and hurts his ass, but he's honestly too tired to stand. Peter Pan sits down next to him.
"I don't know what a 'fuck' is," he says with a scrunching of his nose, "But there is no point in this, and that's the point."
Jongin groans, leaning his head back. "What?"
"There doesn't have to be a point to everything. But right now you're sitting next to me in the middle of a maze, and nobody in the world knows where we are. Isn't that kind of exciting?"
Jongin shrugs, leaning back into the large bush behind him. He's probably ruining it, but he doesn't care. "I suppose..."
Jongin sits there for a few minutes, glancing over the Peter Pan's features and trying to figure out exactly what his wig is made out of. He has a really nice costume. It looks so authentic, even his shoes and his tights, and Jongin wonders what he's like when he's not playing Peter Pan. Maybe now that they're away from the public he can get to know the real person behind the character.
"What's your name?" He asks, eyeing the boy curiously.
"Peter Pan," Peter Pan answers, and Jongin rolls his eyes.
"No, your real name. Your name outside of Disneyland."
The Peter Pan hesitates for a second, staring into Jongin's eyes, and Jongin thinks he's really going to tell him now. He's definitely going to tell him. He looks like he has a change of character; a change in persona, but instead, the boy laughs heartily and says with a crystal clear voice, "That is my real name! I'm Peter Pan of Neverland!"
Jongin has to settle for the fact that he'll never get to know this person out of character. He's pretty sure the characters can get fired for breaking character anyways, so maybe it's rude to push him, but he was just curious. It isn't like just any person could have coaxed him into walking away from ending his own life. He was set on it. So set on it. But yet here he is, in a...maze.
“Oh no, I forgot about Tinkerbell,” the Peter Pan says suddenly, and shoots up from his seat, looking distressed. “I have to go find her. You stay here until you want to leave, alright? Don’t leave until you actually want to go back. Promise me that.”
Jongin stares at him, long and hard, but figures he doesn’t have anything to lose as he says, “Alright, I promise.”
After Peter Pan leaves, he stays there for another half hour, staring into the hedges in front of him without moving. He doesn’t think about much, he just stares until he starts getting cold, and the suddenly he has the urge to go home again, to get into his warm bed next to his warm girlfriend, or maybe have a warm meal from the Drive-Thru at McDonald’s. So he does all three.
*
When he comes back to Disneyland a second time he heads straight to a bridge, the one overhead of concrete where people walk under him. He stands by the railing, looking out over everything below, and wishes it didn't look ugly to him, but it does. Everything looks like shit still. He can't even remember the last time he looked at the world and saw something beautiful. Somewhere along the way everything just started being sour and annoying and so fucking bleak, and he thinks his world must be pretty damn miserable if he can come to Disneyland yet again and want to puke at everything he sees. He's ready to jump for a second time when a warm and rather small hand touches his shoulder.
“Jongin, that’s not how you walk over a bridge,” says a soft voice in his ear, breath hitting his sensitive skin, and he turns around to see Peter Pan there, the same one as last time, grinning at his ‘stupidity’.
“Now’s not the time,” he mumbles, turning back to look at the people below. Can’t this actor understand that he’s about to jump? He’s literally about to end his life, to get crushed on the concrete below, and the character is still playing with him. “I want to jump,” he adds even more quietly, but he’s sure the Peter Pan heard him.
“You can’t fly without fairy dust,” the Peter Pan says, tugging at his arm. “I haven’t given you any fairy dust, dummy,” he chuckles, and Jongin turns angry, because he wants the actor to quit it, but when he turns around, ready to fling the Peter Pan down below instead, he sees his smiling face and suddenly the anger dissipates. The boy has a beautiful smile. He looks so happy and bursting with joy, and somehow it rubs off on him, ever so slightly, because Jongin loses the urge to jump. He wants to see that smile a little longer. Just a little.
He lets Peter Pan pull him away from the edge of the bridge. “That’s a good boy,” the Peter Pan says, and it sounds slightly odd for something Peter Pan would say, but before he can say anything to question it, Peter Pan drags him along down to the ground again, and in the blink of an eye they’re back on Main Street, heading into one of the shops. He watches Peter Pan search the shop for something, until he find a small vial labelled ‘Fairy Dust’, and Jongin can see it’s just glitter in there, but Peter Pan takes it anyways, and then pulls Jongin back outside.
They’re near the river when the Peter Pan opens the vial and flings some glitter in Jongin’s face, laughing at his shocked expression, and then he pours some over himself as well, and in just a few seconds they’ve turned into something akin to strippers or Barbies of whatever the hell else is made up of this much glitter. There’s no reason as to why the Peter Pan would do that, and it’ll be a mess to get out of his hair, but Jongin has never done something so spontaneous in his life.
He grabs the vial from Peter Pan and holds him still, pouring the whole rest of the glitter out on his head. The Peter Pan laughs and says, “Hey!”, and then he shakes his head in Jongin’s direction, making millions of little glitter specs fly around in the air, some of them hitting Jongin, but most of them falling to the ground. It looks like there’s just been a Gay Pride Parade there, and Jongin laughs to himself, chucking the empty vial away.
“So we can fly now, huh?” he asks, lifting his arms and checking the damage. They’re at least thirty percent covered in glitter. He could probably fly to the moon with that.
“Yes,” Peter Pan says. “But we’re not flying off bridges. We’re flying with something better.” Jongin has no idea what he means by that, but let’s him lead him away anyways.
They end up going to Peter Pan’s Flight, the ride that has a million kids waiting in line, but somehow Jongin doesn’t mind standing there. Loads of kids come up to the Peter Pan and talk to him, and Jongin watches the interactions with intrigue. He must be so used to this. People who work in Disneyland definitely have to be good with children and have a lot of patience, and Jongin’s seen all of that in this Peter Pan so far. He’s talkative and bubbly, and friendly to just about everyone, and it’s only when they’re up next that the Peter Pan dismisses the kids and sits into the small cart with Jongin, looking excited.
“Ready?” He asks, and Jongin nods automatically. What’s the worst that can happen on this ride? Maybe he should just amuse the Peter Pan. He’s probably had a boring day at work as well. He supposes they can help each other out.
The ride starts, and Jongin can see the Darling children’s bedroom, and it reminds him of when he watched the movie as a kid, so excited about all the fantasy and magic. He always wanted to fly like them, but even with make believe glitter all over him, he can’t fly. It feels like it, though. The cart is going fast, pulling him through Neverland at last, and there are the lagoons and the pirate ship, and he sees Captain Hook there with his sword, being scared by the crocodile under him in the water. The music playing on the ride is soothing too. It’s the exact soundtrack from Peter Pan, the melodies he’s so used to, and he forgets he’s on a mechanical ride with an actor next to him until the ride ends and a man tells them to get off.
He’s kind of dazed, and let’s Peter Pan pull him off the ride, like he’s pulled him everywhere else, and they walk away from the ride and to a slightly more secluded area, where the Peter Pan asks, “Wasn’t that great?” and jumps around in circles, some leftover glitter spraying off him. Jongin nods and watches him with a smile, feeling an overwhelming urge to do exactly what he’s doing, but he settles for just watching him. There’s something special about the way this boy -or man, maybe- behaves and speaks. It doesn’t even feel like acting. He looks so genuinely amused and excited by everything around him, and Jongin can’t help but feel like he could watch him at it forever. He could literally just sit there and watch this boy’s antics and interactions with others.
He suddenly wishes he worked there too so that he could play along. Pretend he’s in Neverland and go on dumb, pointless adventures, which have nothing to do with real life. But after spending the whole day in the park with the Peter Pan, talking to him -even though his answers were full of riddles and usually frustrating- and running around with him like he’s some sort of lunatic (everyone who saw him probably thought so), he remembers that he has to return home and go to sleep because he has work early tomorrow morning.
“I’ll be here tomorrow too,” Peter Pan says to him with a wink before he leaves, and Jongin lies in bed next to his girlfriend that night, seeing a few leftover patches of glitter on himself that he hadn’t been able to wash off.
He smiles.
*
Jongin comes back to Disneyland every day that week, and somehow always manages to find the Peter Pan he likes so much every single time, like he’s just there to be with Jongin and make him happy. It almost feels better than when he first started dating his girlfriend, when they were newly in love and still went on dates and kissed each other goodbye and good morning.
"Why can't you just tell me your name?" He asks on a Monday, sitting next to Peter Pan on a bench. They’ve been eating ice cream and smearing it all over each other for the past hour, debating whether or not Tinkerbell is in love with Peter Pan or just a close friend. Jongin claims she is, and that she’s ridden with jealousy, while the Peter Pan claims there is no romantic love in Neverland, because that stuff is for grownups.
"It's Peter Pan,” the Peter Pan answers again, and Jongin sighs, kicking the Peter Pan’s leg.
"No, I mean your real name. I love your character and all, but I want to get to know the real you."
"That is my real name!” he exclaims, as if offended. “You can ask Ariel. She’ll tell you."
Jongin gives him an exasperated look, and fights the urge to strangle him. He doesn’t want to make the Peter Pan shy away from him in any case. He just wants to keep him around. Jongin hasn’t had even the slightest urge to disappear from the planet over the past week and some days, and it’s a new but strikingly relieving feeling. Actually, the fact that he’s feeling anything at all is incredible. The apathy has been replaced by something...something less apathetic. He’s not just existing for no reason anymore, he’s kind of existing because the next day might bring something exciting. And it might bring Peter Pan, who is anything but boring.
After sitting there for a while more, the Peter Pan suddenly turns and looks at him with a serious expression, and Jongin doesn’t know what to expect. The Peter Pan is rarely serious, mostly joking around and making everything very light-hearted, but he seems to be genuine and concerned when he asks Jongin, “Why are you sad?” in the most innocent way one can ask such a question.
Jongin is taken aback by the sudden questions. Peter Pan provided him with an escape from his troubles and sadness for some time, and facing it now, was...well, he doesn’t know what to say, first of all. Why is he sad? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know why he can’t just be happy and excited like everyone else. He doesn’t know why he’s the odd one out, the depressed freak who doesn’t have enough balls to keep on living. He doesn’t know when his sadness started defining him.
“I...I don’t know,” he ends up saying. The air around him feels cold, and everything is silent. Before he knows it, wet tears spill down his face and his shoulders start shaking. A gentle arm wraps around him, and he turns around and cries into Peter Pan’s chest for a little while. The actor doesn’t move either. He just sits there and holds him, and Jongin is grateful. He’s so grateful and so sad and happy at the same time that he feels like his heart will burst if he kept sitting there any longer.
When he’s done crying, they walk to the river together, and Jongin feels really tired, but it’s a good tired this time. He feels like something has been lifted off his chest, something really heavy and menacing and unnecessary, and now he’s just kind of floating. He’s floating so much that he grabs the Peter Pan by his neck while they’re walking and plants a long, needy kiss onto his surprised lips. He’s scared he’s ruined everything by doing something so stupid, by crossing the line like that, but Peter Pan’s eyes flutter closed eventually, and they just stand there in the silence and darkening sky for a while, lips pressed together and the world forgotten.
*
Jongin stops taking his antidepressant pills two weeks later, because he doesn't need them anymore. He doesn’t really hate himself or the world like he used to, and there's a little glimmer of light in his life again.
He finds out that the Peter Pan’s name is Luhan and he’s a senior in college, but he’s on his summer vacation now so he’s been working many hours to pay rent. Jongin spends almost every day of the summer with him, ignoring his girlfriend’s angry calls because the outside world can wait for a little while longer. He quits his job too. He quits his job to become a freelance artist, and he quite likes painting, so he doesn’t dread going to work anymore. To his surprise, some people actually want to buy his paintings too, and he doesn’t become homeless like he’d thought he would.
But Luhan is the best part of it all. Jongin get his number one day and saves it in case he ever stops coming to Disneyland to visit him, even though he doesn’t think that will ever happen, at least not anytime soon. Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth. Especially when his Peter Pan is there to greet him. And they play, like he used to play when he was six years old. It’s liberating.
He figures that life doesn’t really need to have a specific purpose or reason to it if he can simply keep on living like this, exactly how his life is right now. Where he actually wants to wake up every morning just to see what the day will bring. And his damn mouth just won’t stop smiling.
Chapters: Oneshot
Pairings: Kai/Luhan
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fluff, romance, slight angst
Warnings: initial depressive/suicidal/existential thoughts
Summary: Kai is beyond tired and wishes everything would just end, but there’s this bundle of joy he comes across in Disneyland in the form of ‘Peter Pan’, who just won’t leave him alone until he smiles again.
a/n: requested by an anon on tumblr <3
It’s 9pm on a Tuesday, mid-July, and Disneyland is looking pretty deserted. The kids don’t usually stick around that late, or if they do, they’re all lined up to watch the parade on the Main Street, with Mickey and Donald and the whole gang, listening to their recorded songs and watching them wave just like they're paid to do.
Jongin isn't there, though. He's managed to climb up on top of the Disneyland Fire Station, the red brick building, and is now staring at the ground below him, which is bare of people and commotion.
He's tried. Not the usual kind of ‘I’ve had a long, tedious day and I really want to sleep’ tired, but more of the ‘where is my life going, I kind of want to call it quits’ tired. The tired that peels from his hunched body and seeps out of his pores like an invisible poison because he is full to the brim and paints the perfect picture of misery. Just tired. Tired from slaving away at his corporate job only to come home to a nagging girlfriend, then taking to the drinks to dull the ache that settles in his chest late at night when he realizes how futile everything is. There is a continuous pattern to his life that’s driving him insane, because he just can’t break out of it. Wake up, go to work, come home, occasionally fuck his girlfriend, drink, then pass out. Rinse and repeat, with no end in sight. The mere thought of his own life makes him nauseous. What’s the point?
Humans do what they do to maintain a certain state, and that’s the gist of it, of life; to find the state you feel you should be in and try to stay there. Since humans live in an environment as well as within a physical body that is unwarranted and is in flux, they adapt to it, more or less, trying to get by every day quietly. One moment they might crave sugar, next crave salt to maintain a balance or maintain a state of being. Humans are fickle and so is life.
There are people who try to give life meaning or push the idea of a greater purpose though, but Jongin thinks all of that is bullshit. Exactly the same way he thinks art is bullshit. There is no objective purpose for art, yet many people find subjective reasons for it because they are bored or wish the world was a little more mystical and colourful than the sack of shit they’re stuck with. A ‘purpose’.
But purposes are lies that everyone tells themselves to feel better, and sooner or later that becomes apparent. Just like it has to Jongin. Purposes are an illogical desire to have some exterior, supernatural justification for existence. Except there is no justification for existence. If this senseless, gigantic, immensely complicated universe exists for its own sake and for no other reason, why should they be any different?
There’s no running from it though. Everyone can try to hide the ugly, grey film of dullness that wraps around them all, but in the end, all anyone has ever lived for is the opportunity to die. All your achievements in life disappear when you seize to exist. All your dreams, your passions, your creations. It becomes nothingness, and you join the nothingness with it. Jongin isn’t a man of many creations or accomplishments, but that’s because he’s realistic. He knows there’s no point to any of it; he’s seen past the sham that is society and sees it for what it really is: some pathetic attempt at creating rhyme or reason to the otherwise random and bleak universe that they’ve been born into.
Jongin sighs. He just wants to stop the endless cycle of misery. So that's kind of why he's there, standing on top of the fire station. He figures Disneyland is the best way to go, because it's supposed to be the happiest place on earth, and he wants to jump from the Fire Station and become one with the ground below; be immortalized in this happy place. He's already leaning over the edge, his feet dangling over the railing. He could make the pain stop by just succumbing to an instance of vertigo.
He tests out the feeling of gravity, letting go of the railing a couple of times and leaning over, but he's still standing there. Will there be pain? Probably. But what did he expect? Or maybe he'll disappear before he gets to even feel anything. That would be ideal.
"Why the long face?" Someone suddenly asks -more like yells- breaking Jongin out of his reverie, and he looks down to the ground below to find a mop of ginger hair and green clothes that match a meticulously placed feather-struck hat. The boy has his hands on his hips, and looks a cross between worried and amused, small brown eyes twinkling even in the darkening air.
Peter Pan. Of course. That’s just what he needs right now, some fucking phony Disney character breathing down his neck and playing pretend.
"I don't have time for this," Jongin groans loudly to him, planting his face in his hands. He just wants to brood there alone. He doesn't feel like being entertained by one of the actors; they're paid to talk to the kids, not bother the depressed adults.
"We have all the time in the world here!" Peter Pan shouts from below, grinning broadly. "Hook's crocodile with the alarm clock in it isn't here anyways, so I don't think time even exists right now!"
Jongin laughs. How can this guy still be in character when someone is about to jump and commit suicide from a building right above him? Maybe he doesn't realize that Jongin wants to jump. Well he wanted to jump before; he's not so sure now. He doesn't want any eyewitnesses, and he wants his last moments to be peaceful and quiet...not this.
"If you give me your name, I'll let you into my secret hideout!" Peter Pan shouts again and Jongin rolls his eyes this time. Why isn't Peter Pan in the parade like everyone else anyways? What's he doing here? And how did he find him?
"Where's your secret hangout?" Jongin asks flatly, and wonders if Peter Pan heard him at all, but the boy must have super hearing, because he sticks his finger up and shakes it from side to side.
"It wouldn't be a secret anymore if I told you, now would it?" Jongin laughs to himself. If anything, the guy is a really good actor. He'll give him that. "So, your name is...?"
Jongin hesitates for a few seconds before he decides that he doesn't really have anything to lose, and mutters, "Jongin."
"Jongin, huh?" Peter Pan muses, crossing his arms. "Well, Jongin, the faster you get down from that roof, the faster you and I can get to my secret place."
"Why would I want to go to your secret place?" Jongin asks, and is ready to strangle this actor, because honestly, all he wants is peace and quiet, and the freedom to jump, but right now he has to pretend to be a kid talking to his favourite character.
"The question is: why wouldn't you?" Peter Pan corrects him. "You should always ask 'why not' instead of 'why', otherwise the world would get really dull."
Jongin thinks on that for a second. Maybe Peter Pan knows what Jongin is up to, and is trying to lure him away only to call the police and ambulance and get him put in a straitjacket so that he can't hurt himself, or maybe he's just so in character that he can't stop thinking like a boy who never grew up. Jongin can't decide which one it is. Either way, it's too late to attempt what he wanted now, so he sighs heavily and walks back to where he got up, dropping down from the roof and to a window ledge, then sort of scaling his way further down, until he swings off a balcony and lands on the ground. The Peter Pan has walked up to him now, and looks very impressed.
"With acrobatic skills like that I might have to make you one of the Lost Boys," he says with a nod of his head, and then reaches for Jongin's hand to pull him with him.
"What if I don't want to join the Lost Boys?" Jongin challenges, letting Peter Pan pull him away to where he assumes is his secret place.
"Nonsense, everyone wants to be a Lost Boy. Even Jasmine asked if she could be one last week, but she's a girl so that wouldn't work out, obviously."
Jongin just stays quiet, watching the excited Peter Pan lead him on past stalls and paths and a few people. He hasn't been to Disneyland that many times, but the few he has, he doesn't remember a Disney character ever wanting to talk to him. And now he's being lead into a maze of some kind -Alice's Maze, was it?- by Peter Pan himself, who wants to make him join the Lost Boys.
"Well, here we are." Peter Pan turns around and faces him, still all smiley and excited and nothing close to what Jongin is feeling. They're in the very centre of the maze, and Jongin wonders why he took him there, of all places, but his question is answered soon enough.
"This is the best spot in all of Disneyland," Peter Pan says, but his voice is a bit lower now, a bit breathier and soft, as if he's just caught up with the fact that he's walked really far really fast. "You're lost in here, like, really lost, and the good thing is that you don't have to find your way out until you want to. So essentially, I suppose you're a Lost Boy right now. You don't have to be found either. Not until you're ready."
"What the fuck is the point in that?" Jongin asks, sitting down on a small ledge by one of the plants. It's hard and hurts his ass, but he's honestly too tired to stand. Peter Pan sits down next to him.
"I don't know what a 'fuck' is," he says with a scrunching of his nose, "But there is no point in this, and that's the point."
Jongin groans, leaning his head back. "What?"
"There doesn't have to be a point to everything. But right now you're sitting next to me in the middle of a maze, and nobody in the world knows where we are. Isn't that kind of exciting?"
Jongin shrugs, leaning back into the large bush behind him. He's probably ruining it, but he doesn't care. "I suppose..."
Jongin sits there for a few minutes, glancing over the Peter Pan's features and trying to figure out exactly what his wig is made out of. He has a really nice costume. It looks so authentic, even his shoes and his tights, and Jongin wonders what he's like when he's not playing Peter Pan. Maybe now that they're away from the public he can get to know the real person behind the character.
"What's your name?" He asks, eyeing the boy curiously.
"Peter Pan," Peter Pan answers, and Jongin rolls his eyes.
"No, your real name. Your name outside of Disneyland."
The Peter Pan hesitates for a second, staring into Jongin's eyes, and Jongin thinks he's really going to tell him now. He's definitely going to tell him. He looks like he has a change of character; a change in persona, but instead, the boy laughs heartily and says with a crystal clear voice, "That is my real name! I'm Peter Pan of Neverland!"
Jongin has to settle for the fact that he'll never get to know this person out of character. He's pretty sure the characters can get fired for breaking character anyways, so maybe it's rude to push him, but he was just curious. It isn't like just any person could have coaxed him into walking away from ending his own life. He was set on it. So set on it. But yet here he is, in a...maze.
“Oh no, I forgot about Tinkerbell,” the Peter Pan says suddenly, and shoots up from his seat, looking distressed. “I have to go find her. You stay here until you want to leave, alright? Don’t leave until you actually want to go back. Promise me that.”
Jongin stares at him, long and hard, but figures he doesn’t have anything to lose as he says, “Alright, I promise.”
After Peter Pan leaves, he stays there for another half hour, staring into the hedges in front of him without moving. He doesn’t think about much, he just stares until he starts getting cold, and the suddenly he has the urge to go home again, to get into his warm bed next to his warm girlfriend, or maybe have a warm meal from the Drive-Thru at McDonald’s. So he does all three.
*
When he comes back to Disneyland a second time he heads straight to a bridge, the one overhead of concrete where people walk under him. He stands by the railing, looking out over everything below, and wishes it didn't look ugly to him, but it does. Everything looks like shit still. He can't even remember the last time he looked at the world and saw something beautiful. Somewhere along the way everything just started being sour and annoying and so fucking bleak, and he thinks his world must be pretty damn miserable if he can come to Disneyland yet again and want to puke at everything he sees. He's ready to jump for a second time when a warm and rather small hand touches his shoulder.
“Jongin, that’s not how you walk over a bridge,” says a soft voice in his ear, breath hitting his sensitive skin, and he turns around to see Peter Pan there, the same one as last time, grinning at his ‘stupidity’.
“Now’s not the time,” he mumbles, turning back to look at the people below. Can’t this actor understand that he’s about to jump? He’s literally about to end his life, to get crushed on the concrete below, and the character is still playing with him. “I want to jump,” he adds even more quietly, but he’s sure the Peter Pan heard him.
“You can’t fly without fairy dust,” the Peter Pan says, tugging at his arm. “I haven’t given you any fairy dust, dummy,” he chuckles, and Jongin turns angry, because he wants the actor to quit it, but when he turns around, ready to fling the Peter Pan down below instead, he sees his smiling face and suddenly the anger dissipates. The boy has a beautiful smile. He looks so happy and bursting with joy, and somehow it rubs off on him, ever so slightly, because Jongin loses the urge to jump. He wants to see that smile a little longer. Just a little.
He lets Peter Pan pull him away from the edge of the bridge. “That’s a good boy,” the Peter Pan says, and it sounds slightly odd for something Peter Pan would say, but before he can say anything to question it, Peter Pan drags him along down to the ground again, and in the blink of an eye they’re back on Main Street, heading into one of the shops. He watches Peter Pan search the shop for something, until he find a small vial labelled ‘Fairy Dust’, and Jongin can see it’s just glitter in there, but Peter Pan takes it anyways, and then pulls Jongin back outside.
They’re near the river when the Peter Pan opens the vial and flings some glitter in Jongin’s face, laughing at his shocked expression, and then he pours some over himself as well, and in just a few seconds they’ve turned into something akin to strippers or Barbies of whatever the hell else is made up of this much glitter. There’s no reason as to why the Peter Pan would do that, and it’ll be a mess to get out of his hair, but Jongin has never done something so spontaneous in his life.
He grabs the vial from Peter Pan and holds him still, pouring the whole rest of the glitter out on his head. The Peter Pan laughs and says, “Hey!”, and then he shakes his head in Jongin’s direction, making millions of little glitter specs fly around in the air, some of them hitting Jongin, but most of them falling to the ground. It looks like there’s just been a Gay Pride Parade there, and Jongin laughs to himself, chucking the empty vial away.
“So we can fly now, huh?” he asks, lifting his arms and checking the damage. They’re at least thirty percent covered in glitter. He could probably fly to the moon with that.
“Yes,” Peter Pan says. “But we’re not flying off bridges. We’re flying with something better.” Jongin has no idea what he means by that, but let’s him lead him away anyways.
They end up going to Peter Pan’s Flight, the ride that has a million kids waiting in line, but somehow Jongin doesn’t mind standing there. Loads of kids come up to the Peter Pan and talk to him, and Jongin watches the interactions with intrigue. He must be so used to this. People who work in Disneyland definitely have to be good with children and have a lot of patience, and Jongin’s seen all of that in this Peter Pan so far. He’s talkative and bubbly, and friendly to just about everyone, and it’s only when they’re up next that the Peter Pan dismisses the kids and sits into the small cart with Jongin, looking excited.
“Ready?” He asks, and Jongin nods automatically. What’s the worst that can happen on this ride? Maybe he should just amuse the Peter Pan. He’s probably had a boring day at work as well. He supposes they can help each other out.
The ride starts, and Jongin can see the Darling children’s bedroom, and it reminds him of when he watched the movie as a kid, so excited about all the fantasy and magic. He always wanted to fly like them, but even with make believe glitter all over him, he can’t fly. It feels like it, though. The cart is going fast, pulling him through Neverland at last, and there are the lagoons and the pirate ship, and he sees Captain Hook there with his sword, being scared by the crocodile under him in the water. The music playing on the ride is soothing too. It’s the exact soundtrack from Peter Pan, the melodies he’s so used to, and he forgets he’s on a mechanical ride with an actor next to him until the ride ends and a man tells them to get off.
He’s kind of dazed, and let’s Peter Pan pull him off the ride, like he’s pulled him everywhere else, and they walk away from the ride and to a slightly more secluded area, where the Peter Pan asks, “Wasn’t that great?” and jumps around in circles, some leftover glitter spraying off him. Jongin nods and watches him with a smile, feeling an overwhelming urge to do exactly what he’s doing, but he settles for just watching him. There’s something special about the way this boy -or man, maybe- behaves and speaks. It doesn’t even feel like acting. He looks so genuinely amused and excited by everything around him, and Jongin can’t help but feel like he could watch him at it forever. He could literally just sit there and watch this boy’s antics and interactions with others.
He suddenly wishes he worked there too so that he could play along. Pretend he’s in Neverland and go on dumb, pointless adventures, which have nothing to do with real life. But after spending the whole day in the park with the Peter Pan, talking to him -even though his answers were full of riddles and usually frustrating- and running around with him like he’s some sort of lunatic (everyone who saw him probably thought so), he remembers that he has to return home and go to sleep because he has work early tomorrow morning.
“I’ll be here tomorrow too,” Peter Pan says to him with a wink before he leaves, and Jongin lies in bed next to his girlfriend that night, seeing a few leftover patches of glitter on himself that he hadn’t been able to wash off.
He smiles.
*
Jongin comes back to Disneyland every day that week, and somehow always manages to find the Peter Pan he likes so much every single time, like he’s just there to be with Jongin and make him happy. It almost feels better than when he first started dating his girlfriend, when they were newly in love and still went on dates and kissed each other goodbye and good morning.
"Why can't you just tell me your name?" He asks on a Monday, sitting next to Peter Pan on a bench. They’ve been eating ice cream and smearing it all over each other for the past hour, debating whether or not Tinkerbell is in love with Peter Pan or just a close friend. Jongin claims she is, and that she’s ridden with jealousy, while the Peter Pan claims there is no romantic love in Neverland, because that stuff is for grownups.
"It's Peter Pan,” the Peter Pan answers again, and Jongin sighs, kicking the Peter Pan’s leg.
"No, I mean your real name. I love your character and all, but I want to get to know the real you."
"That is my real name!” he exclaims, as if offended. “You can ask Ariel. She’ll tell you."
Jongin gives him an exasperated look, and fights the urge to strangle him. He doesn’t want to make the Peter Pan shy away from him in any case. He just wants to keep him around. Jongin hasn’t had even the slightest urge to disappear from the planet over the past week and some days, and it’s a new but strikingly relieving feeling. Actually, the fact that he’s feeling anything at all is incredible. The apathy has been replaced by something...something less apathetic. He’s not just existing for no reason anymore, he’s kind of existing because the next day might bring something exciting. And it might bring Peter Pan, who is anything but boring.
After sitting there for a while more, the Peter Pan suddenly turns and looks at him with a serious expression, and Jongin doesn’t know what to expect. The Peter Pan is rarely serious, mostly joking around and making everything very light-hearted, but he seems to be genuine and concerned when he asks Jongin, “Why are you sad?” in the most innocent way one can ask such a question.
Jongin is taken aback by the sudden questions. Peter Pan provided him with an escape from his troubles and sadness for some time, and facing it now, was...well, he doesn’t know what to say, first of all. Why is he sad? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know why he can’t just be happy and excited like everyone else. He doesn’t know why he’s the odd one out, the depressed freak who doesn’t have enough balls to keep on living. He doesn’t know when his sadness started defining him.
“I...I don’t know,” he ends up saying. The air around him feels cold, and everything is silent. Before he knows it, wet tears spill down his face and his shoulders start shaking. A gentle arm wraps around him, and he turns around and cries into Peter Pan’s chest for a little while. The actor doesn’t move either. He just sits there and holds him, and Jongin is grateful. He’s so grateful and so sad and happy at the same time that he feels like his heart will burst if he kept sitting there any longer.
When he’s done crying, they walk to the river together, and Jongin feels really tired, but it’s a good tired this time. He feels like something has been lifted off his chest, something really heavy and menacing and unnecessary, and now he’s just kind of floating. He’s floating so much that he grabs the Peter Pan by his neck while they’re walking and plants a long, needy kiss onto his surprised lips. He’s scared he’s ruined everything by doing something so stupid, by crossing the line like that, but Peter Pan’s eyes flutter closed eventually, and they just stand there in the silence and darkening sky for a while, lips pressed together and the world forgotten.
*
Jongin stops taking his antidepressant pills two weeks later, because he doesn't need them anymore. He doesn’t really hate himself or the world like he used to, and there's a little glimmer of light in his life again.
He finds out that the Peter Pan’s name is Luhan and he’s a senior in college, but he’s on his summer vacation now so he’s been working many hours to pay rent. Jongin spends almost every day of the summer with him, ignoring his girlfriend’s angry calls because the outside world can wait for a little while longer. He quits his job too. He quits his job to become a freelance artist, and he quite likes painting, so he doesn’t dread going to work anymore. To his surprise, some people actually want to buy his paintings too, and he doesn’t become homeless like he’d thought he would.
But Luhan is the best part of it all. Jongin get his number one day and saves it in case he ever stops coming to Disneyland to visit him, even though he doesn’t think that will ever happen, at least not anytime soon. Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth. Especially when his Peter Pan is there to greet him. And they play, like he used to play when he was six years old. It’s liberating.
He figures that life doesn’t really need to have a specific purpose or reason to it if he can simply keep on living like this, exactly how his life is right now. Where he actually wants to wake up every morning just to see what the day will bring. And his damn mouth just won’t stop smiling.