Ghosts in the Graveyard
Title: Ghosts in the Graveyard
Author: familylights
Pairing: Jiho/Yukwon
Rating/Warnings: PG13
Word count: ~2250
Summary: Yukwon finds out that the graveyard isn't empty
a/n: this is terrible
“Jaehyo, come watch. They’re having a funeral today,” Jiho says, sitting down next to a particularly large headstone, a pretty red slab of marble engraved with the name Pyo Jihoon.
“Why should I watch,” Jaehyo grumbles, looking down. He’s younger than Jiho, who’s been dead for maybe fifty years now. His time is almost up
“Because they’re interesting,” Jiho says back. He finds something poetic in the loss of composure and the uniform of black. In the beads around the priest's wrist and in the way no one wipes their tears, even as they drip past chins.
“They’re burying a woman,” Taeil observes. He’s not as old as Jiho, or even Jaehyo. His head fits nicely under Jiho’s arm when they stargaze and people watch and wait for something to happen. “And I think that’s her son.” Taeil points to a small boy, maybe seven or eight. He stands alone, in his suit of black, face oddly composed. Jiho finds himself entranced.
“Where’s his father?” Jiho asks, craning his neck to see if he can spot a man sobbing especially hard on this gray day, but none of them seem right. It’s not like it matters to the ghosts anyways, but how come the father isn’t standing next to his own son?
“I’d say he either walked out or is dead as well.”
Jiho’s eyes roam over the faces of the women, the med, the priest. But they always come back to rest on the boy. He’s a cute kid, long eyes like a kitten’s and full bottom lip and the round cheeks of childhood .But his eyes are so emotionless that it gives Jiho the theoretical chills.
But Jiho turns away from him in the end.
*****
Jiho survives another year.
It’s midsummer now, and everyone perks up at the sound of the rusty cemetery gates opening.
Jiho watches as a boy walks through the gates, a rose in his hand. It’s the only real splash of color in this whole place, all dim grays and dying grass. Jiho recognizes him right away.
It’s the boy, from the funeral last year. The one that caught his interest and held it. He’s a bit taller now, Jiho notices. His cheeks have lost their slight roundness and they’re even a bit sunken, caving in to the sadness.
Jiho watches him head towards his mother’s grave. The woman never rose. Jiho knows because he paid special attention to her, even though Taeil shot him weird looks out of the corner of his eye and Jaehyo tugged at his shoulder the whole time, bored.
The boy sits next to the headstone and carefully lays the rose down like it might break if he drops it from too high up. “Hi mom,” he says softly, and Jiho unconsciously moves closer to listen in. People don’t usually do this. People don’t usually come back for the dead. People didn’t do it for him, or Jaehyo, or Taeil.
“Did you miss me?” the boy continues, pulling at the grass next to his knees. “I miss you. I don’t like the foster home.”
Jiho frowns. He watches the tears fall slow and quiet down his cheeks and he watches the grass snap and break beneath fingertips.
It’s only an hour before the boy leaves, standing up slowly and waving goodbye with a tired turn of the wrist. The funeral gates close behind him with a rusty creak and from the back end of the cemetery Jiho can just barely see him ride away on a silver bike that looks too small. He tries not to hope the boy will show up again, but how can he not?
*****
The ghost ends up watching him grow.
Year after year, he comes to visit his dead mother with a single red rose in his hands. Sometimes his fingers drip red with blood, pricked by thorns but he doesn’t nurse the wounds.
Over time Jiho learns and picks up on the little things. The kid’s name is Yukwon. He dances and doesn’t do well in school, Once, he brought along his friend, his only friend, he’d stated and Minhyuk had frowned at that, slapping at Yukwon’s shoulder. The two seemed close and Jiho was jealous. Taeil had nudged him with his elbow then, at the sight of Jiho’s furrowing brow. “Don’t get too attached,” he whispers in Jiho’s ear, a soft reminder that the line between living and undead should stay defined.
“I’m just bored,” is Jiho’s excuse, although he’s sure that Taeil can see the lie clear in his eyes because Yukwon is more than just an escape from boredom, he’s something that dominates Jiho’s mind one hundred percent of the time.
Today, when the gates squeal open Yukwon walks in alone, red rose in hand. He sets the rose down in front of the headstone, right where he usually puts it and Jiho decides that today is the day. He’s going to ignore Taeil’s warnings and reminders and he’s going to talk the person that’s been dominating his brain for the past decade.
He waits until Yukwon’s done and looks like he’s about to leave before stepping out from behind the gravestone he’s hiding behind. Yukwon catches sight of him and starts, hand lifting to his heart as he stares at Jiho, eyes wide. “What the hell?”
Jiho puts his hands out in front of him, the universal gesture for calm-down-i’m-not-going-to-eat-you and says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Were you listening to me? Are you some kind of creep?”
Jiho just stares at him. “No? I’m sorry, I was just -” and then he pauses because he doesn’t know what to say.
“Well, then what do you want? Why did you just come out of nowhere?”
“Because I’m a ghost-” Jiho blurts out and pauses again. How is he supposed to explain this?
Yukwon stares at him for a moment, with the eyes of a boy that’s seen a lot of bad things but has never shed a tear and then he turns on his heel and makes a beeline for the gates. Jiho chases after him, pleading. “Wait, wait, I’m really- please let me explain.”
The boy whips around and glares at him. “Explain what? How you were sitting out of my sight the entire time, listening to everything I said? What is wrong with you? And then your excuse is that you’re a ghost?” He makes as if to turn away but Jiho darts forward and grabs for his wrist, forgetting who and what he is before falling right through Yukwon’s body.
“Holy fuck,” Yukwon hisses and jumps away. The look on his face is one of utter disbelief. “Fuck.”
Jiho straightens, feeling for all the world an insensitive idiot and mumbles an apology.
“What the hell are you?”
“I told you, I’m a ghost. Of this cemetery.”
Yukwon eyes him suspiciously. “Have you been watching me every year?”
Yes. “No.”
“How come I can see you? Are there other ghosts, too?”
“I don’t know, and yes, there are.”
Sudden hope flares in his eyes. It looks unnatural, but it doesn’t look bad, either. “Is my mom- the person I was talking to earlier- is she-” Jiho shakes his head and the hope deflates.
“I’m sorry,” Jiho says. And he tries to sound sincere about it but Yukwon doesn’t seem to be listening. “Listen…” he begins, and tries not to flinch when he sees that Yukwon’s glaring again. “I really am sorry that she didn’t come back like I did, but you know- it’s really lonely here, and I-”
“Are you asking to be friends with me?”
“Can you stop cutting me off?”
Yukwon pauses. “Fine.”
“Fine, you’ll stop cutting me off or fine, you’ll be friends-”
“Both.”
“But you just cut me off.”
Yuwkon shoots him a look that says don’t push it and Jiho stops, because after the scary look comes a shy smile and this is a place where the sun never shines but Jiho thinks that that smile - even if it’s small - is bright enough. “Look,” Yukwon begins. “I have to go now, but if you want. . .I can come back next week.”
Jiho smiles. “That’d be nice.” And after a blank beat he adds, “My name’s Jiho.”
“Yukwon,” the boy says, and Jiho resists the urge to say I know.
They part ways then and Jiho feels like he’s finally accomplished something. And he can’t bring himself to feel guilty when Taeil shoots him a pointed look.
*****
The week passes by too slow and Jiho loses track of time because the graveyard clock stops working and no one pays enough attention to this place - not even the dozing guard at the gates - to notice it.
The clock says eleven when Yukwon comes. He has two roses in hand instead of one and Jiho tries not to smile too wide.
“You didn’t have to get me a flower.”
Yukwon shrugs.
They talk about nothing, about everything. When they run out of things to say, Jiho’s happy just sitting with the boy until the clock says three and Yukwon promptly freaks out.
“Oh my god,” he says, jumping up. “I need to go. I need to leave. They’ll be so mad.”
Jiho folllows him to the gates and waves goodbye as the boy rushes out, hurriedly unlocking his bike and pedaling away.
*****
Yukwon doesn’t come back for a whole month. By then, the rose on his grave is dry and brown and shrunken but Jiho still smiles at it.
Today they talk about Jiho.
“I was into art,” Jiho says. “It was really the only thing I was good for.”
Yukwon smiles. It’s kind of beautiful. “My mother was an artist.”
“She must have painted you a lot.”
Shaking his head, Yukwon says, “She didn’t paint me that often. She always talked about how it was hard to capture me, how it was hard to make the painting look as good as the real thing but I think she just didn’t like painting me.”
Jiho laughs. “No, I think she was telling the truth,” he says, before he can stop himself. And the short silence that follows is kind of sweet.
*****
Over time the two of them become close friends. Yukwon never brings Minhyuk in with him, even though he talks about him every now and then. When Jiho asks about it Yukwon just shrugs it off and says he wants to keep Jiho to himself.
*****
Over time they fall in love. It’s sweet and a bit too syrupy but Yukwon likes it and Jiho likes whatever Yukwon likes. And even though they’ve never shared a kiss they’ve shared secrets and laughter and time. Yukwon comes to the graveyard every other day and purposely goes home late, even though he suffers through lectures and stays up later than usual to do his homework. He doesn’t think too hard about the fact that he loves someone that’s already dead, but to be honest he takes comfort in it because he knows that Jiho will never leave him, because Jiho can’t leave him, because the worst has already happened.
*****
It’s been a week since Yukwon has visited the cemetery.
Jiho’s worried out of his mind but he doesn’t say anything because he knows that Yukwon is very much alive, he doesn’t belong in this bed of dead.
Today the gates open and Jiho hears it all the way across the cemetery, because he’s been listening for it. Expects to see Yukwon walking in, two roses in hand, but instead it’s a family clad in black. A man, a woman, and a few children. None of them are crying.
Tilting his head, Jiho moves closer.
“A funeral?” Taeil asks, joining Jiho. He and Jaehyo had both gotten used to Yukwon’s come and go, and they’ve gotten used to ignoring the two boys when they were together.
The man is carrying an urn. Ashes. Jiho nods. “it’s a small one.”
“No one’s crying,” Taeli observes.
The priest is too far away, Jiho can’t hear much of what he’s saying, but the bits that he does catch on the wind make him wish he’d disappeared a long time ago, long before he’d ever had the chance to fall in love. The phrases aren’t that hard to piece together.
“Yukwon,” Jiho breathes and sinks to his knees. From what he could hear, Yukwon had gotten hit by a car while he was riding his bike to the cemetery.
Taeil looks over at him. “I’m sorry Jiho.” But because of the look in his eyes, Jiho can’t tell if Taeil blames him or not. Either way, it doesn’t matter; Jiho blames himself enough for the both of them.
*****
Jiho disappears that year. The same quiet end that all ghosts meet, when they finally get away from the place in between, slipping off to a heaven that may or may not exist. Pushing Taeli and Jaehyo away, all Jiho really wanted to do was wallow in his sadness until his time came.
So that’s what he did, and when he finally disappeared it was like letting loose a breath that his lungs have held for too long. Jiho could finally get some rest.
Yukwon’s ghost rose the same year Jiho’s died. Taeli and Jaehyo just delivered the news and stayed away, leaving Yukwon to weep over love that could have been and goodbyes that were never said.
Author: familylights
Pairing: Jiho/Yukwon
Rating/Warnings: PG13
Word count: ~2250
Summary: Yukwon finds out that the graveyard isn't empty
a/n: this is terrible
“Jaehyo, come watch. They’re having a funeral today,” Jiho says, sitting down next to a particularly large headstone, a pretty red slab of marble engraved with the name Pyo Jihoon.
“Why should I watch,” Jaehyo grumbles, looking down. He’s younger than Jiho, who’s been dead for maybe fifty years now. His time is almost up
“Because they’re interesting,” Jiho says back. He finds something poetic in the loss of composure and the uniform of black. In the beads around the priest's wrist and in the way no one wipes their tears, even as they drip past chins.
“They’re burying a woman,” Taeil observes. He’s not as old as Jiho, or even Jaehyo. His head fits nicely under Jiho’s arm when they stargaze and people watch and wait for something to happen. “And I think that’s her son.” Taeil points to a small boy, maybe seven or eight. He stands alone, in his suit of black, face oddly composed. Jiho finds himself entranced.
“Where’s his father?” Jiho asks, craning his neck to see if he can spot a man sobbing especially hard on this gray day, but none of them seem right. It’s not like it matters to the ghosts anyways, but how come the father isn’t standing next to his own son?
“I’d say he either walked out or is dead as well.”
Jiho’s eyes roam over the faces of the women, the med, the priest. But they always come back to rest on the boy. He’s a cute kid, long eyes like a kitten’s and full bottom lip and the round cheeks of childhood .But his eyes are so emotionless that it gives Jiho the theoretical chills.
But Jiho turns away from him in the end.
*****
Jiho survives another year.
It’s midsummer now, and everyone perks up at the sound of the rusty cemetery gates opening.
Jiho watches as a boy walks through the gates, a rose in his hand. It’s the only real splash of color in this whole place, all dim grays and dying grass. Jiho recognizes him right away.
It’s the boy, from the funeral last year. The one that caught his interest and held it. He’s a bit taller now, Jiho notices. His cheeks have lost their slight roundness and they’re even a bit sunken, caving in to the sadness.
Jiho watches him head towards his mother’s grave. The woman never rose. Jiho knows because he paid special attention to her, even though Taeil shot him weird looks out of the corner of his eye and Jaehyo tugged at his shoulder the whole time, bored.
The boy sits next to the headstone and carefully lays the rose down like it might break if he drops it from too high up. “Hi mom,” he says softly, and Jiho unconsciously moves closer to listen in. People don’t usually do this. People don’t usually come back for the dead. People didn’t do it for him, or Jaehyo, or Taeil.
“Did you miss me?” the boy continues, pulling at the grass next to his knees. “I miss you. I don’t like the foster home.”
Jiho frowns. He watches the tears fall slow and quiet down his cheeks and he watches the grass snap and break beneath fingertips.
It’s only an hour before the boy leaves, standing up slowly and waving goodbye with a tired turn of the wrist. The funeral gates close behind him with a rusty creak and from the back end of the cemetery Jiho can just barely see him ride away on a silver bike that looks too small. He tries not to hope the boy will show up again, but how can he not?
*****
The ghost ends up watching him grow.
Year after year, he comes to visit his dead mother with a single red rose in his hands. Sometimes his fingers drip red with blood, pricked by thorns but he doesn’t nurse the wounds.
Over time Jiho learns and picks up on the little things. The kid’s name is Yukwon. He dances and doesn’t do well in school, Once, he brought along his friend, his only friend, he’d stated and Minhyuk had frowned at that, slapping at Yukwon’s shoulder. The two seemed close and Jiho was jealous. Taeil had nudged him with his elbow then, at the sight of Jiho’s furrowing brow. “Don’t get too attached,” he whispers in Jiho’s ear, a soft reminder that the line between living and undead should stay defined.
“I’m just bored,” is Jiho’s excuse, although he’s sure that Taeil can see the lie clear in his eyes because Yukwon is more than just an escape from boredom, he’s something that dominates Jiho’s mind one hundred percent of the time.
Today, when the gates squeal open Yukwon walks in alone, red rose in hand. He sets the rose down in front of the headstone, right where he usually puts it and Jiho decides that today is the day. He’s going to ignore Taeil’s warnings and reminders and he’s going to talk the person that’s been dominating his brain for the past decade.
He waits until Yukwon’s done and looks like he’s about to leave before stepping out from behind the gravestone he’s hiding behind. Yukwon catches sight of him and starts, hand lifting to his heart as he stares at Jiho, eyes wide. “What the hell?”
Jiho puts his hands out in front of him, the universal gesture for calm-down-i’m-not-going-to-eat-you and says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Were you listening to me? Are you some kind of creep?”
Jiho just stares at him. “No? I’m sorry, I was just -” and then he pauses because he doesn’t know what to say.
“Well, then what do you want? Why did you just come out of nowhere?”
“Because I’m a ghost-” Jiho blurts out and pauses again. How is he supposed to explain this?
Yukwon stares at him for a moment, with the eyes of a boy that’s seen a lot of bad things but has never shed a tear and then he turns on his heel and makes a beeline for the gates. Jiho chases after him, pleading. “Wait, wait, I’m really- please let me explain.”
The boy whips around and glares at him. “Explain what? How you were sitting out of my sight the entire time, listening to everything I said? What is wrong with you? And then your excuse is that you’re a ghost?” He makes as if to turn away but Jiho darts forward and grabs for his wrist, forgetting who and what he is before falling right through Yukwon’s body.
“Holy fuck,” Yukwon hisses and jumps away. The look on his face is one of utter disbelief. “Fuck.”
Jiho straightens, feeling for all the world an insensitive idiot and mumbles an apology.
“What the hell are you?”
“I told you, I’m a ghost. Of this cemetery.”
Yukwon eyes him suspiciously. “Have you been watching me every year?”
Yes. “No.”
“How come I can see you? Are there other ghosts, too?”
“I don’t know, and yes, there are.”
Sudden hope flares in his eyes. It looks unnatural, but it doesn’t look bad, either. “Is my mom- the person I was talking to earlier- is she-” Jiho shakes his head and the hope deflates.
“I’m sorry,” Jiho says. And he tries to sound sincere about it but Yukwon doesn’t seem to be listening. “Listen…” he begins, and tries not to flinch when he sees that Yukwon’s glaring again. “I really am sorry that she didn’t come back like I did, but you know- it’s really lonely here, and I-”
“Are you asking to be friends with me?”
“Can you stop cutting me off?”
Yukwon pauses. “Fine.”
“Fine, you’ll stop cutting me off or fine, you’ll be friends-”
“Both.”
“But you just cut me off.”
Yuwkon shoots him a look that says don’t push it and Jiho stops, because after the scary look comes a shy smile and this is a place where the sun never shines but Jiho thinks that that smile - even if it’s small - is bright enough. “Look,” Yukwon begins. “I have to go now, but if you want. . .I can come back next week.”
Jiho smiles. “That’d be nice.” And after a blank beat he adds, “My name’s Jiho.”
“Yukwon,” the boy says, and Jiho resists the urge to say I know.
They part ways then and Jiho feels like he’s finally accomplished something. And he can’t bring himself to feel guilty when Taeil shoots him a pointed look.
*****
The week passes by too slow and Jiho loses track of time because the graveyard clock stops working and no one pays enough attention to this place - not even the dozing guard at the gates - to notice it.
The clock says eleven when Yukwon comes. He has two roses in hand instead of one and Jiho tries not to smile too wide.
“You didn’t have to get me a flower.”
Yukwon shrugs.
They talk about nothing, about everything. When they run out of things to say, Jiho’s happy just sitting with the boy until the clock says three and Yukwon promptly freaks out.
“Oh my god,” he says, jumping up. “I need to go. I need to leave. They’ll be so mad.”
Jiho folllows him to the gates and waves goodbye as the boy rushes out, hurriedly unlocking his bike and pedaling away.
*****
Yukwon doesn’t come back for a whole month. By then, the rose on his grave is dry and brown and shrunken but Jiho still smiles at it.
Today they talk about Jiho.
“I was into art,” Jiho says. “It was really the only thing I was good for.”
Yukwon smiles. It’s kind of beautiful. “My mother was an artist.”
“She must have painted you a lot.”
Shaking his head, Yukwon says, “She didn’t paint me that often. She always talked about how it was hard to capture me, how it was hard to make the painting look as good as the real thing but I think she just didn’t like painting me.”
Jiho laughs. “No, I think she was telling the truth,” he says, before he can stop himself. And the short silence that follows is kind of sweet.
*****
Over time the two of them become close friends. Yukwon never brings Minhyuk in with him, even though he talks about him every now and then. When Jiho asks about it Yukwon just shrugs it off and says he wants to keep Jiho to himself.
*****
Over time they fall in love. It’s sweet and a bit too syrupy but Yukwon likes it and Jiho likes whatever Yukwon likes. And even though they’ve never shared a kiss they’ve shared secrets and laughter and time. Yukwon comes to the graveyard every other day and purposely goes home late, even though he suffers through lectures and stays up later than usual to do his homework. He doesn’t think too hard about the fact that he loves someone that’s already dead, but to be honest he takes comfort in it because he knows that Jiho will never leave him, because Jiho can’t leave him, because the worst has already happened.
*****
It’s been a week since Yukwon has visited the cemetery.
Jiho’s worried out of his mind but he doesn’t say anything because he knows that Yukwon is very much alive, he doesn’t belong in this bed of dead.
Today the gates open and Jiho hears it all the way across the cemetery, because he’s been listening for it. Expects to see Yukwon walking in, two roses in hand, but instead it’s a family clad in black. A man, a woman, and a few children. None of them are crying.
Tilting his head, Jiho moves closer.
“A funeral?” Taeil asks, joining Jiho. He and Jaehyo had both gotten used to Yukwon’s come and go, and they’ve gotten used to ignoring the two boys when they were together.
The man is carrying an urn. Ashes. Jiho nods. “it’s a small one.”
“No one’s crying,” Taeli observes.
The priest is too far away, Jiho can’t hear much of what he’s saying, but the bits that he does catch on the wind make him wish he’d disappeared a long time ago, long before he’d ever had the chance to fall in love. The phrases aren’t that hard to piece together.
“Yukwon,” Jiho breathes and sinks to his knees. From what he could hear, Yukwon had gotten hit by a car while he was riding his bike to the cemetery.
Taeil looks over at him. “I’m sorry Jiho.” But because of the look in his eyes, Jiho can’t tell if Taeil blames him or not. Either way, it doesn’t matter; Jiho blames himself enough for the both of them.
*****
Jiho disappears that year. The same quiet end that all ghosts meet, when they finally get away from the place in between, slipping off to a heaven that may or may not exist. Pushing Taeli and Jaehyo away, all Jiho really wanted to do was wallow in his sadness until his time came.
So that’s what he did, and when he finally disappeared it was like letting loose a breath that his lungs have held for too long. Jiho could finally get some rest.
Yukwon’s ghost rose the same year Jiho’s died. Taeli and Jaehyo just delivered the news and stayed away, leaving Yukwon to weep over love that could have been and goodbyes that were never said.