onsica; to another seashore
to another seashore
onsica
nc-17 for heavy themes
word count: 2,376
inspired by this, which was inspired by this
I feel certain I’m going mad again. I hear voices. I begin to hear voices and I can’t concentrate. So I’m doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. I don’t think two people could have been happier... until this horrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you. Lee Jinki, I love you.
Onew played with the frayed edges of the paper gently. He’s read this particular letter millions of times, keeping it in one of the drawers in the nightstand next to his bed. Onew insisted on keeping the small slip of paper- a reminder of what used to be and how far they had come.
He laid down on the bed, refolding the letter from Jung Jessica and tucking it into his palm as he stared up at the ceiling. He smiled, remembering the first time he saw her.
~
“Onew!” Jonghyun called, running after him. “Hey! Slow down! I can’t run as fast as you, my legs aren’t as long!”
The eldest of the two laughed, looking behind his shoulder as he slowed to a stop to give the other a chance to catch up. Kim Jonghyun, Onew’s best friend from birth, finally caught up and doubled over with hands on his knees. “Thanks,” he wheezed. There were hanging out at the beach near their house.
“Oh. My. God.” Onew muttered, blindly reaching his way over to the shorter of the two’s shoulder and shook him furiously. “Jjong... Jjong look.”
Jonghyun eagerly followed his gaze, jaw dropping open. “Who is that?” He questioned, trying to catch his breath.
Across the sand was an absolutely stunning girl that looked about their age, fifteen, sitting under a pink umbrella as she read a book. The sun seemed to make her blonde hair shine even brighter, her eyes sparkling as they carefully scanned the pages, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip. She was perfect.
“I don’t know, let me go find out,” Onew hurried over in a trance, stopping before the angel as he took a deep breath, glancing back at his friend who was watching nervously from afar.
“He-hello, my name is Lee Jinki, but everyone calls me Onew” he stuttered, taken aback by how much more beautiful she was in such close proximity. And when she looked up, a small smile playing at her lips, Onew knew he had already fallen for her.
“Hi, I’m Jung Jessica.”
~
Flash forward a few months, after summer has ended. Their time was no longer spent at the beach, the three of them overcome with laughter and millions inside jokes. Onew finds to his delight, that girl from the beach is actually in his class, except she had changed quite a bit. Over the two weeks apart, she had changed. She was perpetually frowning, her eyes no longer seemed to glow.
“Hey, “ he greets, taking the seat next to her. “What happened?”
She spares him a glance, and he can see just how upset she is. She’s on the verge of tears, shaking her head, her curls bouncing with each moment. He decides to drop it until he walks her home later.
“My mom’s dead, s-some-something went wrong in the surgery. It wasn’t supposed to happen, Onew. It wasn’t. Pe-people like her aren’t supposed to die so y-young and I never got to say goodbye. She l-left me all alone...Those st-stupid doctors-” she sobs, throwing herself at the boy. Onew gasps at the news, holding her close.
(That was when his heart broke for the first time)
“It’s going to be alright, Sica. I’m here, you aren’t alone anymore.”
~
A year later, their friendship has grew, but so has her bad condition
“Jessica! Onew’s here for you!” Her younger sister, Krystal, calls up the stairs. Jessica checks her hair and makeup again in the mirror, hurrying down the steps as she grabs her bag. Jonghyun’s visiting his family in Daegu so they’re all alone this time.
“I’m getting kind of hungry, do you think we can stop to eat?” Onew asks, already walking in the direction of the closest restaurant. Jessica slides into the seat across from him, ordering a salad- something that isn’t the usual.
“A salad?” he questions, nibbling on his food that was just brought in front of him. “Since when do you even eat salad?”
“Since I need to lose a few pounds.”
Onew throws his head up, giving her an incredulous look. “You don’t need to diet, you’re the perfect weight.”
“It’s my body, Onew. And my face is too fat, plus my stomach isn’t as flat as it used to be. It’s just temporary, I can stop whenever I wan’t”
Turns out, she couldn’t.
(“you’ve taken the diet too far, you have got to let it slip”
But she’s not eating again,
she’s not eating again,
she’s not eating again )
~
Years later, Onew is still by her side. Jonghyun gave up on her a while ago and has new friends now, but that’s okay. All Jinki ever wanted was right in front of him. Onew is still watching as the girl’s body slowly gets worse and worse, however he didn’t realize the full extent of it until he grabbed her wrist to drag her to class with him.
He stopped short, looking down at his hand around her wrist: complete bone. The boy looked back up at her face, her eyes glued to the ground. As the wind blew, her shirt was pulled taught to her skin, her ribs sticking out painfully.
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, horrified.
“Um.. a few days ago. There was this dress I really want to get-”
“Jessica, this is bad. Really bad. Come with me, we’re getting something to eat right now.”
She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but was too weak. “There’s nothing wrong with me, I can’t eat anything, that will ruin everything I’ve worked for!” she shouted at him, getting desperate.
“Sica, listen to yourself! This isn’t healthy. Eat something for me, please.”
She sighs but eats, forcing herself to swallow the food that makes her grimace not for herself, but for the caramel- haired boy next to her.
“Promise me you won’t do this anymore,”
“I promise”
(She was always far too pretty
for me to believe in a single word she said,
believe a word she said. )
~
Onew finds out Jessica has been popping pills a month later. She tells him at the beach when she’s feeling guilty.
“Whenever I feel shitty I take a few pills,” she pulls out a bottle. “And then I feel better,” she smiles, and his heart broke for the second time.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Not long, a few weeks,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“Seeing you like this hurts me, Sica. How can I make you better? How can I fix you?” he mutters, throwing an arm around her.
You shouldn’t have to, Jessica thinks. All I’m doing is hold you down
“Just leave me, right here on this beach. Let the waves pull me to another sea’s shore. This hurts to much and I don’t know what to do anymore.”
(This thing hurts like hell,
but what did you expect? )
~
As the years go on and the voices in Jessica’s head get crueler and crueler, she starts to agree with them; she doesn’t deserve Onew, everything would be better if she was just gone. She does know what she’s going to do after all.
She starts blowing him off, not talking to him as much so that when she’s gone it won’t hurt him. He doesn’t deserve having to take care of her, such a burden to his life. He deserves a beautiful, normal girl to love him as much as he loves Jessica. She loves him too, but not nearly enough, and don’t they say that if you love something you should let it go?
Onew’s hurt but unwavering in his care. He vowed all those years ago that he’d help her, that he wouldn’t leave her alone because if he wasn’t there for her who would be?
Whenever he isn’t working at the hospital, he’s spending time with her.
So when he hasn’t heard from Jessica in weeks and she shows up at his doorstep, he encircles her in a tight embrace, pecking the top of her head.
“Onew, I just came to thank you. You know, for being there for me.” she mutters, looking at the ground as he releases her.
“Of course,” he breathes, watching her start to walk away after placing a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“You deserve to be happy” she says cryptically before disappearing.
Onew gets called back to the hospital an hour later, Jessica’s tried to commit suicide but failed. He arrives breathlessly, having run the whole way. He hurries to her bedside, tears falling down his face as he cries, hard, questioning why she’s scaring him like that, grabbing her hand.
“Get out,” Jessica tells him, pulling her hand from his grasp, and this time shatters his heart (her heart shatters with his, but she knows it’s the only way) “You’re the reason why I jumped. Get out of my life.”
She’s told him to leave her alone before, but he’d never let it get to him. He hadn’t left her, not once.
But this time, he does.
~
A month later, Jessica’s sitting on the pier at the beach- no their beach. She clutches the note she’s wrote for him in her hand, playing with the edges of it. The blonde hopes that he’ll get the note, that whoever finds her will give it to him.
She’s not crying like she thought she would. There is a numb feeling, now that her only reason for leaving is actually gone. She’s been trying to keep going for his sake ever since her mother died but she just can’t do it anymore. Jessica’s fallen way off the deep end, and whatever was left of her shattered like a dropped glass. That’s what she was; a glass. She was fragile and insecure and could be broken easily. Now there was no one left to pick up the pieces.
She tucks the letter in her pocket and stands up, climbing over the rail as she looks down at the churning water, dark and mysterious. Jessica is hoping and praying that this is it, this is the last time she’ll have to breathe and deal with the pain and the voices will actually shut up for once.
And she jumps.
Onew is walking along the beach, his feet in the water. He misses her like hell, and he decides that he’ll go to her house to check up on her. The doctor starts walking up to the pier, getting ready to leave, before something catches his eye. No, not something, more like someone.
He sees her jump and throws his shoes down, diving in to the stormy waters as he swims as fast as he can, desperate to get there in time. Something tells him its his Jessica, and that just makes him go faster.
(And all you can hear is the sound of your own heart
And all you can feel is your lungs flood and the blood course)
In the water, as she’s being thrashed side to side by the rough current- she’s relieved as she thinks, wow, this time really will work.
But then she sees colors and memories; memories of Jinki laughing and caring and hugging her and memories of them together and when he called her to say goodnight every day. And then she realized, maybe she wasn’t ready to go quite yet.
Too late for that now is the last thing she thinks before a bright light consumes her.
~
“Oh, you’re awake,” a familiar voice sounds as he’s checking the clip board at the end of the bed.
“Jinki? What happened?” the girl asked, blinking to get used to the bright lights of the hospital room.
“You don’t remember? You fell off the pier during that storm a few days ago. Boy, was I worried. I dove in right after you, got there just in time. Thank God, I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost you,” he smiles, a Jinki kind of smile, and Jessica smiles too. Same old Onew. Jessica decides she’ll give up on pushing him away, because he’s chosen her every time she’s tried.
“I’m sorry I worried you.”
“It’s alright, you won’t do that to me again, right? You’ve got to be more careful. How is my princess feeling today?” he changes the subject, taking the seat next to her bed. She hums in response, closing her eyes as he brushes a strand of hair away from her face.
“Jessica,” he whispers and she opens her eyes again.
“How about you and I get away from here? Go see another shore? I have the opportunity to transfer hospitals and we can start anew. Get a house near the beach but not too far from the hospital. New places, new people, time to heal. How would you like that?”
“I’d love that,” she whispers, grabbing his hand and interlacing their fingers. The girl asks herself why she didn’t give up on fighting his love years ago because this just feels so right.
“There’s a catch though,” Onew warns, a mischievous look on his face.
“What is it?”
“You have to marry me.”
~
“Hey babe?” Jessica calls, leaning against the door frame. “Can we go take a walk by the beach?”
He grins, putting the letter back into it’s drawer. He had kept it since the paramedics found it in her pocket a year ago, after he’d saved her.
“Sure, let’s go,” he agrees, his hand finding its purchase on her hip as the couple make their way to the sea.
Maybe all Jessica needed was Jinki all along.
If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you.