When Painting Sakuras
It was a light beige card and he strained his eyes to read what was written under the dim streetlight.
'Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.'
pairing: Tao/Kris
rating: PG13
genre: gore / high school au
length: oneshot (2.9K)
warning(s) - highlight to view: death, blood
author's note: inspired by this image
Monday morning introduced Tao to the painting. It had appeared incomplete, only several petal-like jabs on the window. He thought it looked pretty with the sunlight reflecting off the glass, the pink presenting a lustre in them.
"Hello, I'm Tao," has been repeated for at least 5 times in several different classes, addressed to people he doesn't know and probably never will: the guy in the front succumbing to sleep or the girl in the very middle of the class reapplying makeup that looks like it’s been her 25th time doing so.
Only one person caught his eye and he noticed the boy would only ever be present during the fifth period. Biology, was it? Even in that, he seemed disconnected, looking at a distant point between the window and the blackboard.
Being a new student coming at the end of the first term, Tao was forced to sit way across the room and act like he didn't have an immense fascination in the boy with broken eyebrows. Some 2 days passed by and Tao could not help but search for a 'Yifan', or at least that's what's scraped onto the his desk.
"Who's Yifan?" would be an immediate reaction to Tao's inquiry.
Biology period on Friday morning proved Tao's theory wrong when Yifan didn't attend the class. Not that it probably hadn't happen before, of course. A curious Tao could be found at 3:34PM, roaming school grounds that was almost vacant except for some overtime teachers or lost little sparrows heating themselves on the steaming chimneys.
“Hey, new kid,” a deep voice echoed from behind Tao.
He turned around to find Yifan sitting cross-legged on the ground with a cigarette in hand and smoke running off his lips. He had to squint against the sunlight to look up to Tao. He then went on to push himself up, brushing his pants off and putting out the cigarette butt under his sole.
“Can you not stare?” he asked.
“Uh, sorry,” Tao mumbled, instantly looking away.
“It’s not easy being the new kid, is it?”
“How come you didn’t attend Biology?” Tao replied instead.
“I was busy, I guess.”
“You can do that...? I mean... Ditching classes ‘cause you were busy?”
“You should befriend someone more motivated, then,” Yifan chuckled.
Eventually, he became Tao’s only friend; sitting together at lunch and covering up his cigs, he learnt Yifan’s in a church group and thus renamed Kris. The more he knew about the middle school dropout, the more Tao knew less, if that even made any sense.
“Hi!” an unnecessarily excited Junmyeon jumped onto Tao, or his 'new Chinese friend', as he's introduced to the whole school.
Apparently, everybody seemed to admire the guy and they praised Tao for even talking a word to Junmyeon: the rich-as-hell hot rod with a resume application just for potential girlfriends.
Tao smiled back.
“Wanna get some cotton candy?” he stated.
Tao reckoned due to his large amounts of money that it was normal of Junmyeon to order everyone around. He also found it a bit weird of him to want a 'commoners' tongue pleaser if he could afford luxurious German made lollipops.
“Sure, at Hongdae?”
“No, silly,” Junmyeon crunched up his face. “My house, of course!”
He also thought he made out Junmyeon say, “Psht, why would I go to Hongdae?” under his breath.
15 minutes and a game of Figure-Out-How-Big-Junmyeon’s-House-Is later, Tao is handed a pastel pink perfect swirl in a gold paper cone. He looked at Junmyeon all weird.
“What?” he protested against Tao’s expression with blue fluff covering half his face. “I have chefs, yknow.”
Tao couldn’t comprehend which was of greater shock to him: Junmyeon owning chefs, plural, or him making his chefs prepare cones of cotton candy. He was too baffled to notice Junmyeon walking off.
“Y'know the other Chinese guy you’ve been hanging around with?” Junmyeon questioned as soon as they’ve both plopped onto the softest sofa Tao’s ever sat his butt on.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“He’s a bit of a weirdo, I think,” he eyed Tao’s countenance before going on. “I mean, nobody's even heard his voice or something.”
Tao assured Junmyeon that Yifan’s quite cool if you get to know him.
“I’m not talking bad about him or anything but I’m just saying. What was his name even?”
“Yifan,” Tao beamed. “Wu Yifan.”
“Oh, cool! Anyway, suit yourself. Stay with ‘Yifan’ if you want to but just be careful ‘cause no one actually knows him,” he made air quotes with his fingers to emphasize Yifan’s name.
Grabbing the remote and stashing his feet on the expensive looking coffee table, Junmyeon changed the topic a tad too casually to "Who do you know of in the Korean media industry?" as Tao sat uncomfortably with his mind on what the latter had just said.
What was his name even?
Just be careful.
As Yifan made his way to his seat in the classroom, Tao saw him in a different point of view. Junmyeon's doubtful words had finally gotten the best of him.
Well, this is a first.. Why is he here at 8 in the morning? There’s no Biology period today? What guy in a church group has scars on his cheek? What innocent guy has tattoos? They’re 17, for God’s sake. He's not even legal yet. Those tattoos must have been illegally done.. Right?
Tao’s thrown off his thought train as he took note of a hazy image of Yifan grinning: a first he’s seen aside from a laugh or two as a result of Tao’s stupid jokes during lunch breaks. He returned the grin and as Yifan turned to face the homeroom teach, Tao thought he saw a smear of red on the boy’s dirty blond hair.
“Why’s your hair wet?” he tried to nonchalantly pose out the issue during recess.
“Oh, washed it in the second period. Got some paint on it in the morning,” Yifan replied indifferently.
Tao briefly asked, “You paint?” in order to keep the conversation casual.
Yifan looked like he fell for it and commenced speaking of his past experiences with oil paint and stuff. Tao wasn’t really listening, scanning the cafeteria for a boy that always appeared wearing a different pair of Lanvins every day.
“So I took 2 hours in the shower to get the paint off m-“
“Hey, have you seen Junmyeon?” Tao cut him mid-sentence.
Yifan raised his right eyebrow up.
“The rich kid,” Tao added.
“Oh, him,” Yifan shook his head slightly. “No, I haven’t.”
Wailing loud enough to penetrate Junmyeon’s soundproof doors greeted Tao after school as he trotted up the boy’s castle steps. He arrived to see Mrs. Kim kneeling on the tiles by Mr. Kim’s side, who, too, looked plenty upset. Mrs. Kim’s eyes widened as she saw Tao through her drenched eyelashes.
“Tao! Tao, tell me you’ve seen my boy!” she cried with her hands grabbing Tao’s sleeve down.
“I came thinking he’d be here, Mrs. Kim,” he anxiously uttered with Mr. Kim’s worrisome gaze down on him.
“May we inquire who you are, young man?” the police officer inquired as he pulled out a pocket notebook.
“I’m Huang Zitao, a close friend of Kim Junmyeon’s.”
“Ah, so you’re the new transfer student,” the police officer said to himself as a mental memo. “When was the last time you were with Junmyeon?”
“Last night, around 9:30 in the evening. We parted ways after having dinner and playing video games in his Presidential Suite over at Mr. Kim’s hotel,” Tao blabbed, giving as much information possible since the man would ask for them anyway. “Was I the last to see him?”
“So far, yes,” the officer affirmed grimly.
He felt himself back away as the fact registered in his head.
I was the last one? Where could Junmyeon be? He was fine last night. He was right here, with me.
School approached gently the next day; it was a quiet, almost surreal approach to a Tao who’s drowning in his contemplation. His usually heavy backpack seemed to forgo gravity and floated on his right shoulder. He had an unwelcomed flashback of himself last night still in school uniform at 11PM, rummaging the dark empty streets for mute responses to his shouts for Junmyeon.
Yifan frowned when Tao flinched at the boy’s hand on his shoulder. “Something wrong?”
“No.. N-nothing,” Tao stammered.
“If you say so..”
He noticed Yifan walking away by the guy’s shoes pacing out of his view of the floor, and instantly felt cold to the bones. Perhaps he’d always felt warm when Yifan’s around.
“Hey, want some of my rice?” he offered Tao at lunch. “I know you want it. You always do.”
“No.”
Yifan sighed and set his metal cutlery onto the metal table top, adding a loud, ringing clang to the already chaotic canteen.
“Look, if something’s upsetting you, you could always tell me,” it was the first time Tao’s heard him with such a kind tone. Yifan often brushed off his words with tenacity and edge.
“Junmyeon’s missing.”
“Junmyeon? The rich kid?” Yifan questioned.
“Yeah,” Tao rolled his eyes. “The rich kid.”
“H-how? When?”
“2 nights ago. He just never came home,” Tao mumbled.
“Wher-“
“You know what?” Tao countered. “You don’t care anyway!”
He realised his tone was a bit too unpleasant when Yifan scrutinised everyone around with a shocked look on his face.
“Fine, you say I don’t care, right?” Yifan argued as he steered his legs off the cafeteria bench. “Then I won’t.”
He was left behind to watch Yifan walk away. Soon enough, Tao had to deal with 2 barely eaten meals and a whole horde of curious eyes.
He came up to Yifan the next day with an apologetic façade.
“Listen, I’m.. sorry for yesterday,” Tao kept his attention on ruffling his hair to avoid eye contact. “I was just taken aback with the whole missing Junmyeon thing.”
Yifan cracked a smile, “Whatever. Oh yeah, I was just about to give this to you.” He had a white A6 size envelope out.
Tao sensibly took hold of the parchment and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, walking alongside Yifan and acknowledging once again the presence of the reassuring warmth. As soon as the last bell rang, Yifan called for a "Last one’s paying!" to the arcade nearby. They were still wheezing as they both have their shares of ddeokbokki at a nearby stall on Tao’s pocket money.
They both lost to Dance Revolution but Yifan got a 99% on the Karaoke Master (mostly due to his strategy of unintelligible screaming into the microphone). Tao, on the other hand, nailed every zombie down until Yifan made the mistake of accidentally shooting him down. A cup of hot cocoa concluded their night followed by sad goodbyes, both regretful that the fun day had to end so soon.
The moment Yifan went out of sight, Tao reached for the envelope. It was a light beige card and he strained his eyes to read what was written under the dim streetlight.
Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.
His interest tugged at his feet, which eventually broke into a run. Curiosity killed the cat, after all. The school looked like a freak haunt house at 8PM but the guard was drooling all over his desk. Climbing over the fence stealthily, he then ran again towards the school’s abandoned building.
They no longer use the third building, strategically positioned behind the 2 current buildings so nobody actually sees what goes on in there. The stupid school also had no money to hire demolishers, disregarding ignorantly all the horror stories that sometimes resulted to crying students gathered up in teacher’s lounges.
Room 3-5 was on the second floor, the furthest down the hallway and the faint moonlight was of no help at all with the whole situation. Tao cautiously trudged through the door. He wasn't expecting anything particularly special, when a giant beautifully detailed sakura tree painting seared into his head.
He stepped closer and studied all the red, drenched hand marks used to create the breathtaking final piece. He pondered for a whole minute on how and how long it took Yifan to make this. Tao often saw art enthusiasts trace the canvas with their own fingers, possibly to caress great works in their own hands.
Tao placed his hand on the window surface only to have them grow clammy. He saw that the paint hasn’t completely dried down, since it stained his fingers and palm with red.
It smells weird, he thought to himself.
Tao skimmed the room for a rag to wipe the paint off and discerned a tall, singular cabinet at the corner of the room. He almost passed right by it as it was concealed by darkness and obscurity. He tugged on the rusted handle and felt a sudden weight on his lap as he broke into the cabinet.
Tao loudly gasped at what he saw.
A grisly, blood-splattered Junmyeon had his forehead against Tao’s legs, lips cut and blue. He didn’t want to admit it but the boy’s back of neck was the probable cause of death, an area so heavily darkened with maroon in contrast to Junmyeon’s white button down.
Tao slipped Junmyeon’s arms over his neck and yanked the lifeless boy up onto his back.
And he ran.
As fast as he could with an extra 65 kilogram load on his back.
He had to pound into the booth door to wake the guardsman, leaning Junmyeon against a wall (therefore tainting it) and sprinting to the landline for 119. The ahjussi had been shouting that he demand to know what had happened, as he deemed Tao as the assailant.
“Where did you find Mr. Junmyeon?” the same police officer from the last juncture interrogated.
“In the cupboard to the utmost left facing the sakura tree, room 3-5,” Tao murmured, his speech barely audible.
“3-5? Isn’t that the abandoned building?”
“Yes, sir,” he mechanically muttered in reply.
Yifan never surfaced since the arcade night and it took Tao a while to register that the sakura tree wasn’t materialised from mere acrylic paint but from Junmyeon’s blood. A lot of Junmyeon's blood.
The Kim household took Tao in as a thank you, and partly since they had no one else to put on the throne once they’re gone.
Junmyeon was the only child, you see; that left Mrs. Kim slightly insane for a straight month and Mr. Kim, severe headaches from sleepless nights.
Nobody knew of Yifan, thus the police didn't even consider him as a suspect. It was as if he never really existed in the first place.
Rumors of the rich kid dead spread through the whole vicinity, bringing both good and bad to the Kim household name. Tao would sometimes overhear kids at school talking of ‘Junmyeon and his mystery killer’. Hell, it had even gone on tabloids. But from time to time, some flowers and candles would be found by the main gate to their mansion.
If only he lived to see Tao make a home out of their house. It was their house, no longer only Junmyeon’s. Occasionally, he would let himself into the gone boy’s room and sit by the bed or scroll through Junmyeon’s pictures. At times, it would only be a leisure walk by the door, just so Tao wouldn’t forget how he smelled like.
Living in the same house only made Tao miss him more. He would imagine Junmyeon sleepily trudge down the staircase with his hair sticking out in all directions. Every so often, he could swear Junmyeon sits at the garden patio, sunbathing.
Tao regretted the fact that the last time he saw him, he only ended it with a simple "Bye." If he knew that was his last time seeing him, he'd never have let him go.
The chefs would accidentally cook salmon mignon every once in a while, it used to be his favourite dish.
The cleaners would accidentally come into his room and find it untouched, thus confusing themselves for only a second before looking down to their shoes and staying quiet for the whole remainder of the day.
Mrs. Kim would accidentally talk out loud as if Junmyeon was around and following numerous tries of calling his name to no reply, she would look around and try not to cry when the truth hits.
The guardsman had dropped his job that very day and was replaced by an always smiling, younger man. He looks clueless as he greets the better looking female teachers and Tao thought the man had a lot to learn about this place.
He didn’t know one person could make so many desolate.
Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.
Tao would look up to the window everyday as he staggered lifelessly past the school gate. The painting now bore no similarities to a sakura tree, the crimson blood was now running down the window due to the heat and the rotting of the blood. His hand marks are still as clear as ever from even hundreds of meters away, or maybe it was just Tao's memory that enhanced the image of it.
Eventhough a yellow police line ran along the painting, Yifan was right. It does look its best in the morning sun.
author's note no.2: so i read this thing on tumblr and i'm neither one of them.. i'm sorry to myself for the writer's block
'Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.'
pairing: Tao/Kris
rating: PG13
genre: gore / high school au
length: oneshot (2.9K)
warning(s) - highlight to view: death, blood
author's note: inspired by this image
Monday morning introduced Tao to the painting. It had appeared incomplete, only several petal-like jabs on the window. He thought it looked pretty with the sunlight reflecting off the glass, the pink presenting a lustre in them.
"Hello, I'm Tao," has been repeated for at least 5 times in several different classes, addressed to people he doesn't know and probably never will: the guy in the front succumbing to sleep or the girl in the very middle of the class reapplying makeup that looks like it’s been her 25th time doing so.
Only one person caught his eye and he noticed the boy would only ever be present during the fifth period. Biology, was it? Even in that, he seemed disconnected, looking at a distant point between the window and the blackboard.
Being a new student coming at the end of the first term, Tao was forced to sit way across the room and act like he didn't have an immense fascination in the boy with broken eyebrows. Some 2 days passed by and Tao could not help but search for a 'Yifan', or at least that's what's scraped onto the his desk.
"Who's Yifan?" would be an immediate reaction to Tao's inquiry.
Biology period on Friday morning proved Tao's theory wrong when Yifan didn't attend the class. Not that it probably hadn't happen before, of course. A curious Tao could be found at 3:34PM, roaming school grounds that was almost vacant except for some overtime teachers or lost little sparrows heating themselves on the steaming chimneys.
“Hey, new kid,” a deep voice echoed from behind Tao.
He turned around to find Yifan sitting cross-legged on the ground with a cigarette in hand and smoke running off his lips. He had to squint against the sunlight to look up to Tao. He then went on to push himself up, brushing his pants off and putting out the cigarette butt under his sole.
“Can you not stare?” he asked.
“Uh, sorry,” Tao mumbled, instantly looking away.
“It’s not easy being the new kid, is it?”
“How come you didn’t attend Biology?” Tao replied instead.
“I was busy, I guess.”
“You can do that...? I mean... Ditching classes ‘cause you were busy?”
“You should befriend someone more motivated, then,” Yifan chuckled.
Eventually, he became Tao’s only friend; sitting together at lunch and covering up his cigs, he learnt Yifan’s in a church group and thus renamed Kris. The more he knew about the middle school dropout, the more Tao knew less, if that even made any sense.
“Hi!” an unnecessarily excited Junmyeon jumped onto Tao, or his 'new Chinese friend', as he's introduced to the whole school.
Apparently, everybody seemed to admire the guy and they praised Tao for even talking a word to Junmyeon: the rich-as-hell hot rod with a resume application just for potential girlfriends.
Tao smiled back.
“Wanna get some cotton candy?” he stated.
Tao reckoned due to his large amounts of money that it was normal of Junmyeon to order everyone around. He also found it a bit weird of him to want a 'commoners' tongue pleaser if he could afford luxurious German made lollipops.
“Sure, at Hongdae?”
“No, silly,” Junmyeon crunched up his face. “My house, of course!”
He also thought he made out Junmyeon say, “Psht, why would I go to Hongdae?” under his breath.
15 minutes and a game of Figure-Out-How-Big-Junmyeon’s-House-Is later, Tao is handed a pastel pink perfect swirl in a gold paper cone. He looked at Junmyeon all weird.
“What?” he protested against Tao’s expression with blue fluff covering half his face. “I have chefs, yknow.”
Tao couldn’t comprehend which was of greater shock to him: Junmyeon owning chefs, plural, or him making his chefs prepare cones of cotton candy. He was too baffled to notice Junmyeon walking off.
“Y'know the other Chinese guy you’ve been hanging around with?” Junmyeon questioned as soon as they’ve both plopped onto the softest sofa Tao’s ever sat his butt on.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“He’s a bit of a weirdo, I think,” he eyed Tao’s countenance before going on. “I mean, nobody's even heard his voice or something.”
Tao assured Junmyeon that Yifan’s quite cool if you get to know him.
“I’m not talking bad about him or anything but I’m just saying. What was his name even?”
“Yifan,” Tao beamed. “Wu Yifan.”
“Oh, cool! Anyway, suit yourself. Stay with ‘Yifan’ if you want to but just be careful ‘cause no one actually knows him,” he made air quotes with his fingers to emphasize Yifan’s name.
Grabbing the remote and stashing his feet on the expensive looking coffee table, Junmyeon changed the topic a tad too casually to "Who do you know of in the Korean media industry?" as Tao sat uncomfortably with his mind on what the latter had just said.
What was his name even?
Just be careful.
As Yifan made his way to his seat in the classroom, Tao saw him in a different point of view. Junmyeon's doubtful words had finally gotten the best of him.
Well, this is a first.. Why is he here at 8 in the morning? There’s no Biology period today? What guy in a church group has scars on his cheek? What innocent guy has tattoos? They’re 17, for God’s sake. He's not even legal yet. Those tattoos must have been illegally done.. Right?
Tao’s thrown off his thought train as he took note of a hazy image of Yifan grinning: a first he’s seen aside from a laugh or two as a result of Tao’s stupid jokes during lunch breaks. He returned the grin and as Yifan turned to face the homeroom teach, Tao thought he saw a smear of red on the boy’s dirty blond hair.
“Why’s your hair wet?” he tried to nonchalantly pose out the issue during recess.
“Oh, washed it in the second period. Got some paint on it in the morning,” Yifan replied indifferently.
Tao briefly asked, “You paint?” in order to keep the conversation casual.
Yifan looked like he fell for it and commenced speaking of his past experiences with oil paint and stuff. Tao wasn’t really listening, scanning the cafeteria for a boy that always appeared wearing a different pair of Lanvins every day.
“So I took 2 hours in the shower to get the paint off m-“
“Hey, have you seen Junmyeon?” Tao cut him mid-sentence.
Yifan raised his right eyebrow up.
“The rich kid,” Tao added.
“Oh, him,” Yifan shook his head slightly. “No, I haven’t.”
Wailing loud enough to penetrate Junmyeon’s soundproof doors greeted Tao after school as he trotted up the boy’s castle steps. He arrived to see Mrs. Kim kneeling on the tiles by Mr. Kim’s side, who, too, looked plenty upset. Mrs. Kim’s eyes widened as she saw Tao through her drenched eyelashes.
“Tao! Tao, tell me you’ve seen my boy!” she cried with her hands grabbing Tao’s sleeve down.
“I came thinking he’d be here, Mrs. Kim,” he anxiously uttered with Mr. Kim’s worrisome gaze down on him.
“May we inquire who you are, young man?” the police officer inquired as he pulled out a pocket notebook.
“I’m Huang Zitao, a close friend of Kim Junmyeon’s.”
“Ah, so you’re the new transfer student,” the police officer said to himself as a mental memo. “When was the last time you were with Junmyeon?”
“Last night, around 9:30 in the evening. We parted ways after having dinner and playing video games in his Presidential Suite over at Mr. Kim’s hotel,” Tao blabbed, giving as much information possible since the man would ask for them anyway. “Was I the last to see him?”
“So far, yes,” the officer affirmed grimly.
He felt himself back away as the fact registered in his head.
I was the last one? Where could Junmyeon be? He was fine last night. He was right here, with me.
School approached gently the next day; it was a quiet, almost surreal approach to a Tao who’s drowning in his contemplation. His usually heavy backpack seemed to forgo gravity and floated on his right shoulder. He had an unwelcomed flashback of himself last night still in school uniform at 11PM, rummaging the dark empty streets for mute responses to his shouts for Junmyeon.
Yifan frowned when Tao flinched at the boy’s hand on his shoulder. “Something wrong?”
“No.. N-nothing,” Tao stammered.
“If you say so..”
He noticed Yifan walking away by the guy’s shoes pacing out of his view of the floor, and instantly felt cold to the bones. Perhaps he’d always felt warm when Yifan’s around.
“Hey, want some of my rice?” he offered Tao at lunch. “I know you want it. You always do.”
“No.”
Yifan sighed and set his metal cutlery onto the metal table top, adding a loud, ringing clang to the already chaotic canteen.
“Look, if something’s upsetting you, you could always tell me,” it was the first time Tao’s heard him with such a kind tone. Yifan often brushed off his words with tenacity and edge.
“Junmyeon’s missing.”
“Junmyeon? The rich kid?” Yifan questioned.
“Yeah,” Tao rolled his eyes. “The rich kid.”
“H-how? When?”
“2 nights ago. He just never came home,” Tao mumbled.
“Wher-“
“You know what?” Tao countered. “You don’t care anyway!”
He realised his tone was a bit too unpleasant when Yifan scrutinised everyone around with a shocked look on his face.
“Fine, you say I don’t care, right?” Yifan argued as he steered his legs off the cafeteria bench. “Then I won’t.”
He was left behind to watch Yifan walk away. Soon enough, Tao had to deal with 2 barely eaten meals and a whole horde of curious eyes.
He came up to Yifan the next day with an apologetic façade.
“Listen, I’m.. sorry for yesterday,” Tao kept his attention on ruffling his hair to avoid eye contact. “I was just taken aback with the whole missing Junmyeon thing.”
Yifan cracked a smile, “Whatever. Oh yeah, I was just about to give this to you.” He had a white A6 size envelope out.
Tao sensibly took hold of the parchment and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, walking alongside Yifan and acknowledging once again the presence of the reassuring warmth. As soon as the last bell rang, Yifan called for a "Last one’s paying!" to the arcade nearby. They were still wheezing as they both have their shares of ddeokbokki at a nearby stall on Tao’s pocket money.
They both lost to Dance Revolution but Yifan got a 99% on the Karaoke Master (mostly due to his strategy of unintelligible screaming into the microphone). Tao, on the other hand, nailed every zombie down until Yifan made the mistake of accidentally shooting him down. A cup of hot cocoa concluded their night followed by sad goodbyes, both regretful that the fun day had to end so soon.
The moment Yifan went out of sight, Tao reached for the envelope. It was a light beige card and he strained his eyes to read what was written under the dim streetlight.
Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.
His interest tugged at his feet, which eventually broke into a run. Curiosity killed the cat, after all. The school looked like a freak haunt house at 8PM but the guard was drooling all over his desk. Climbing over the fence stealthily, he then ran again towards the school’s abandoned building.
They no longer use the third building, strategically positioned behind the 2 current buildings so nobody actually sees what goes on in there. The stupid school also had no money to hire demolishers, disregarding ignorantly all the horror stories that sometimes resulted to crying students gathered up in teacher’s lounges.
Room 3-5 was on the second floor, the furthest down the hallway and the faint moonlight was of no help at all with the whole situation. Tao cautiously trudged through the door. He wasn't expecting anything particularly special, when a giant beautifully detailed sakura tree painting seared into his head.
He stepped closer and studied all the red, drenched hand marks used to create the breathtaking final piece. He pondered for a whole minute on how and how long it took Yifan to make this. Tao often saw art enthusiasts trace the canvas with their own fingers, possibly to caress great works in their own hands.
Tao placed his hand on the window surface only to have them grow clammy. He saw that the paint hasn’t completely dried down, since it stained his fingers and palm with red.
It smells weird, he thought to himself.
Tao skimmed the room for a rag to wipe the paint off and discerned a tall, singular cabinet at the corner of the room. He almost passed right by it as it was concealed by darkness and obscurity. He tugged on the rusted handle and felt a sudden weight on his lap as he broke into the cabinet.
Tao loudly gasped at what he saw.
A grisly, blood-splattered Junmyeon had his forehead against Tao’s legs, lips cut and blue. He didn’t want to admit it but the boy’s back of neck was the probable cause of death, an area so heavily darkened with maroon in contrast to Junmyeon’s white button down.
Tao slipped Junmyeon’s arms over his neck and yanked the lifeless boy up onto his back.
And he ran.
As fast as he could with an extra 65 kilogram load on his back.
He had to pound into the booth door to wake the guardsman, leaning Junmyeon against a wall (therefore tainting it) and sprinting to the landline for 119. The ahjussi had been shouting that he demand to know what had happened, as he deemed Tao as the assailant.
“Where did you find Mr. Junmyeon?” the same police officer from the last juncture interrogated.
“In the cupboard to the utmost left facing the sakura tree, room 3-5,” Tao murmured, his speech barely audible.
“3-5? Isn’t that the abandoned building?”
“Yes, sir,” he mechanically muttered in reply.
Yifan never surfaced since the arcade night and it took Tao a while to register that the sakura tree wasn’t materialised from mere acrylic paint but from Junmyeon’s blood. A lot of Junmyeon's blood.
The Kim household took Tao in as a thank you, and partly since they had no one else to put on the throne once they’re gone.
Junmyeon was the only child, you see; that left Mrs. Kim slightly insane for a straight month and Mr. Kim, severe headaches from sleepless nights.
Nobody knew of Yifan, thus the police didn't even consider him as a suspect. It was as if he never really existed in the first place.
Rumors of the rich kid dead spread through the whole vicinity, bringing both good and bad to the Kim household name. Tao would sometimes overhear kids at school talking of ‘Junmyeon and his mystery killer’. Hell, it had even gone on tabloids. But from time to time, some flowers and candles would be found by the main gate to their mansion.
If only he lived to see Tao make a home out of their house. It was their house, no longer only Junmyeon’s. Occasionally, he would let himself into the gone boy’s room and sit by the bed or scroll through Junmyeon’s pictures. At times, it would only be a leisure walk by the door, just so Tao wouldn’t forget how he smelled like.
Living in the same house only made Tao miss him more. He would imagine Junmyeon sleepily trudge down the staircase with his hair sticking out in all directions. Every so often, he could swear Junmyeon sits at the garden patio, sunbathing.
Tao regretted the fact that the last time he saw him, he only ended it with a simple "Bye." If he knew that was his last time seeing him, he'd never have let him go.
The chefs would accidentally cook salmon mignon every once in a while, it used to be his favourite dish.
The cleaners would accidentally come into his room and find it untouched, thus confusing themselves for only a second before looking down to their shoes and staying quiet for the whole remainder of the day.
Mrs. Kim would accidentally talk out loud as if Junmyeon was around and following numerous tries of calling his name to no reply, she would look around and try not to cry when the truth hits.
The guardsman had dropped his job that very day and was replaced by an always smiling, younger man. He looks clueless as he greets the better looking female teachers and Tao thought the man had a lot to learn about this place.
He didn’t know one person could make so many desolate.
Room 3-5. It looks best in the morning sun.
Tao would look up to the window everyday as he staggered lifelessly past the school gate. The painting now bore no similarities to a sakura tree, the crimson blood was now running down the window due to the heat and the rotting of the blood. His hand marks are still as clear as ever from even hundreds of meters away, or maybe it was just Tao's memory that enhanced the image of it.
Eventhough a yellow police line ran along the painting, Yifan was right. It does look its best in the morning sun.
author's note no.2: so i read this thing on tumblr and i'm neither one of them.. i'm sorry to myself for the writer's block