LEVELS part2
PART ONE
Jinki looked at him blearily. “You look like a person now. There’s more colour to you.”
He supposed that was about as much sense he’d get out of him this early in the morning, so he breathed in deep, the scent of books, dust that was hard to get when cleaning and green tea filling his nose. He couldn’t remember a scent ever being this beautiful. The green tea, the honey of Jinki’s shampoo, Jinki himself - he loved all of it.
Excitedly, he pointed at the notebook, motioning for Jinki to give it to him. When he did, he immediately started pointing. ‘J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’, he pointed out, looking up at Jinki’s confused expression to make sure he’d gotten it and then pointing at himself. ‘I-A-M-J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’.
Like bells.
-
Encouraged by this huge step forward, Jonghyun wanted to read more books, because they were fascinating and their stories might still be of help. Having a name felt like a huge improvement for his soul, like an injection of sunrays into a dark dreary space. It felt easier to live, to put it simple.
Another thing he wanted to explore was if he really couldn’t touch things. It seemed weird to him, still not being able to interact with things. Not being able to turn the page of a book by himself was still quite honestly a pain, and he wanted to be able to do it. He really liked Jinki, but somehow he wanted to prove his immense success, show Jinki he wasn’t just there loitering around worthlessly.
So he began to experiment with his energy. Trying to will the page to flip with his hands. Obviously it didn’t work out as planned and he managed to look quite stupid while doing it too. He didn’t have a breakthrough until after a few days of trying, when he saw Jinki drop a pencil out of the corner of his eye. Almost without his interference his energy surged forward, and he caught the item in his hand.
It was the most beautiful thing ever, and he wanted to cry and smile at the same time. Jinki looked worried though when he discovered it, as Jonghyun had used all that energy, all the colour had left him too. He didn’t want Jonghyun to push himself too hard.
After that time, and when he’d regained his energy, Jonghyun started being able to turn the page by himself, which meant more time for Jinki to read his own books and made Jonghyun able to pick more freely. Both approved of this change.
-
A few days after becoming able to turn the page, he could even get a new book for himself. It shocked him so bad that Jinki thought he was in pain when he discovered Jonghyun on the floor, staring at the book in his hands.
Soon he could do it with one hand.
-
He was roaming the shopping mall the bookstore was located in, nothing quite catching his attention. The bookstore had been crowded, and he didn’t want to spook anyone out by sitting there taking space, seemingly invisible, a ghost flipping the pages of an old book about bloody wars.
There were three floors, largely known, polished and trendy, shops as well as independent, rebellious ones. Cafés, a Starbucks, a couple of internet cafés where nerds would sit endlessly and fangirls stalk their idols, a dry-cleaning business. The sun shined down through the roof that was entirely made of glass with intersecting lines of metal making it stable, light reflecting off of the glass sculpture hanging from it.
On the third floor there was a music shop, instruments lined up on display. There was that feeling again. Without hesitating, he reached out and… yes!
The music flowed freely, but it didn’t sound right. It was good, but it wasn’t perfect. He was Kim Jonghyun, top notch talent and he refused to settle for anything but perfect. Anything less than perfect simply wasn’t expected from him. Sighing, he scribbled down a chord change, and gripped the guitar more firmly. This time he was going to turn it in on time. Nothing, not even God himself could stop him. The night was still young.
Hesitatingly he reached out to pluck a string, but when it made a sound (an out of tune A) it scared him so bad he ran away from there.
Later that night, As Jinki had laid out a blank paper and a pencil on his side of the dinner table, he scribbled it down, using whatever energy he could muster up.
Kim Jonghyun, composition student (?).
-
The next time it happened to him, he was browsing titles, and came by a selection of books by Shakespeare. Romeo & Juliet stood out to him instantly, and he remembered the night that seemed like an eternity ago in Jinki’s apartment when the Shakespeare books had sparked something in him. As he slowly stroked the back of the book, he remembered what he was looking for.
It had taken him forever (or maybe no time at all, after all when inspiration finally came, time vanished) to write that song after he’d finished reading Romeo & Juliet just minutes before. It’d been a stupid school assignment, but he knew a chance when he saw one, the best way to make ______ like him, finally. He’d sing it in front of the entire school if he had to.
“You’re such an idiot.” his best friend had told him fondly the next morning, Jonghyun being so exhausted that the bags under his eyes seemed dark purple.
The note he made that night said ‘Kim Jonghyun, Idiot’ and he smiled at it. Jinki’s dinner was particularly special that night, the spices making Jonghyun dizzy in a quite nice way.
Before he forgot, he noted down ‘Kim Jonghyun, likes Cinnamon’.
-
As the pieces started falling into place he became a little scared of the heaviness of it all. His notes filled an entire two pages now. Most of it didn’t make a lot of sense, or was particularly important for that matter, but details mattered too, he assumed. As it was, it came over him too suddenly now, not when he wanted it, and it scared him. It was brutal, almost forcing itself onto him.
So he clung to Jinki, and his simple way of living. Watching subtitled DVDs of nerdy sci-fi shows or historical dramas with Jinki was simple, and didn’t need a lot of energy like remembering did. He kept getting urges to reach out and touch him, even though he’d proven to himself time and time again that he couldn’t. Recently it seemed like Jinki actually liked having him around instead of accepting it. Jonghyun liked it. A lot.
One evening when Jinki was out, having forgotten to buy something for dinner and forgetting to tell Jonghyun (he’d had to call his own house phone and explain it on the answering machine after already having rushed out), Jonghyun laid down on Jinki’s bed. It smelled so much like Jinki that he felt like he was intruding on someone else, like he was being swallowed up by Jinki’s space. It was crazy, but then he too was. It was dark by now, and he noticed a faint light in the ceiling.
He tried to focus on it, and discovered that it was plastic glow in the dark stars. It made him smile and feel safe. Like the stars watched over him.
-
One day as he sat in the store, sometime after discovering that he quite liked to sing and that his voice was good at it too, if unpractised since he rarely even talked, Jinki jerked, and stared at him in disbelief. Jonghyun felt that he was being watched and looked up, crooking his eyebrow.
“Did you hear that?” Jinki asked, looking straight at him. Jonghyun shook his head and continued singing. “It’s you! You’re the one making that sound!” Jinki looked ecstatic and his voice was a bit louder than normal. Jonghyun stared at him, confused. Jinki turned a little pink when their eyes met. “I could hear a little of it in my head, you were singing…?”
Another step forward.
-
It annoyed him to no end that so many memories seemed to involve his as of now faceless best friend. He could feel that this guy had played a big role in his life; there was that stirring, not in his stomach but in his chest. In his heart. It made him frustrated, made the sound of his voice in Jinki’s head cold and angry. Desperate and searching.
-
He could remember the sunlight. Jonghyun had been in first grade, still proudly going to school every day. There’d been a playground not far from his house, surrounded by old trees, wise with centuries of standing there. In summer, they shielded from sun, in winter from wind.
He could remember a girl there; she’d been prettier than any other girl and intimidating at the same time. He could remember the dolls they’d play with, him watching them from over where he was playing with his own set of friends. Except this girl wasn’t a girl.
They’d argued about him not being a girl. Made up the very next day, when Jonghyun had found he really didn’t care. Jonghyun had been teary, and the other boy rolling his eyes. The boy had called him dino like a dinosaur and said he hoped Jonghyun liked dolls.
Jonghyun couldn’t remember his name and it made him seethe with anger.
-
He was up on the roof again, climbing around and feeling exceptionally down beneath the ground. It had been an argument and it had been really stupid, he didn’t even want to think about it. It was already stored in the garbage room at the back of his brain, ready to be buried underneath happier things. For now it just made him want to punch and scream. He kicked at a chimney outlet. Fuck everything.
Such a stupid thing to argue about, space. They’d both been riled up by whatever could be bothering someone, little thing like Jonghyun’s own frustration over his inabilities and Jinki battling his own loneliness and his feelings of being entirely pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Jonghyun stayed up there until he was sure he could go back down without wanting to punch things and by that time he wasn’t sure Jinki even wanted to have him around. As he slowly climbed down from the roof and went down the stairs past the now familiar ugly cracks in the paint, the unpleasant smell, he tried to make the thoughts stop.
He realized he was scared as he finally stood in front of the door. He could walk right through if he wanted, but that’d be rude, especially at a time like this. Instead he knocked and waited.
When Jinki opened, Jonghyun could swear there were faint red lines around them. Jonghyun showed his open palms as a gesture of surrender, and Jinki made a gesture for him to step inside.
When the door was closed and they sat by the kitchen table, Jinki spoke up. “I’m sorry I got upset. I guess I’m not… I mean, I guess we weren’t made to live like this.” He looked infinitely sad, like years of grief had been added to his face. Jonghyun would cry too, if he only could, he thought, biting his lip hard. He made a gesture towards the notebook, and then waved it off, instantly changing his mood.
Instead he nailed his gaze to Jinki’s. Staring straight into his eyes, even smaller and puffier right now, and spoke. “I’m sorry.”
Jinki smiled. He’d heard it loud and clear in his head, definite words and not the melody of a voice anymore.
They wouldn’t know, but in that moment they both burned to touch the other and turn the frowns into smiles. “I’m going insane”, they both thought.
-
“Just tell me already.” Jonghyun had said, sinking down onto the couch next to his best friend of such a long time. “It must have been urgent for you to call me like that and demand that I’ll be over within the second.”
He had wanted to talk, nervous and shaky, face pale and lack of sleep very evident. Jonghyun had gotten there as quick as he could, actually supposed to be grounded for not having done his homework.
There’d been some awkwardness, and then he’d forced it out of him. “I’m gay”
Jonghyun had wondered if that was the entire thing, and his friend had hit him on the arm, gay but quite evidently not girly. Jonghyun had found that he didn’t mind. The relief had been so huge in those eyes that he had never regretted approving of it even once.
-
One day Jonghyun read a book about a woman who lost her family in a car accident and it made him feel so sick Jinki came rushing over to his side because he hadn’t even noticed that he’d started sobbing.
-
It wasn’t that far a jump for him to realize that he might have some sort of crush on Jinki. It was the details about him, really, the way he smiled of course, but also the smell of his apartment, that honey shampoo he liked to use, the spices he used for dinner, the voice he used when he spoke to someone important on the phone. The way he treated all his books.
The way he had a certain gleam in his eyes as he told Jonghyun something exciting or read out loud from his book. The way he sang under his breath when he thought Jonghyun couldn’t hear. Jonghyun wanted to discover all of his little quirks.
In his memories though, there’d been only women. Perhaps he’d never liked a man before.
Did he like Jinki nonetheless? It seemed that way.
-
He remembered bruises along his knuckles and his best friend sobbing in his arms. He remembers not once regretting throwing those punches, or the intent he had with them. No one would hurt his friend like that. And the reason for which they had done it, that he was gay, made him even sicker.
-
The thoughts were twisting, spinning, overwhelming. It was like a dream, but awake because he couldn’t sleep. It clouded his vision and made colours look on edge. There was a scent of summer, dream intertwining with reality, it smelled like sunflowers and lilies and grass.
He remembered them at a table, he was going to graduate soon. They were in a cafeteria. “I want you to move in with me.” he’d said, and the boy had looked at him, feline eyes. Smiled. Jonghyun had persuaded him, he didn’t want life without his best friend.
His nickname had been edgy too, the dino and the… The cat. The Key to everything.
“Key!” he gasped, breaking through back to reality. Jinki looked over. “What?”
Jonghyun laughed, sounding entirely out of his mind. “He’s the key to everything, don’t you get it!? He’s the Key!”
Jinki looked more worried and twitchy than ever and managed to drop his pencil and his book. “Jonghyun, you’re not making any sense, I” he said, and Jonghyun cut him off.
“Listen, his nickname is Key. I called him that forever. My best friend, Jinki! I remember him, everything about him, his real name is Kim Kibum! Well, not everything but I remember!”
Jinki’s smile was like sunshine through black clouds and Jonghyun would have stared at it forever if his mind hadn’t been occupied. This meant everything now.
-
“Home is where the heart is and I never want to leave”
Sometimes Jonghyun thought he could see something similar to his own budding feelings in Jinki’s eyes. But it was gone before he’d be able to tell.
-
Jonghyun was chasing Jinki through the apartment, phonebook in hand, one name circled in red. A certain Kim Kibum at a certain address, with a certain phone number. Jonghyun felt that it was right, now he just needed Jinki to go talk to Key for him. He was certain Key held all the answers.
He’d asked, and begged, and persuaded. Jinki refused, increasingly awkward.
“You know I can’t do well with people!” he said, voice pained, trying to shrug Jonghyun’s words off. “And I’m a ghost!” Jonghyun retorted. “Listen, Jinki. You’re the only one who can do this. I can’t, look at me! I’m a ghost! I’m invisible!”
Jonghyun lowered his voice. “You’re the only one who can help me, Jinki. My only hope. Please.”
Jinki looked torn for a moment, before sighing, a wrinkle of worry appearing. “Fine.”
-
Key sat in the ugly, old couch with yellow and brown stripes. He hated that couch like the pest but Jonghyun had adored it and done everything in his power to keep him from throwing it out the window, quite literally. The couch had grown on him since and now it worked like an old friend for Key, making him feel safe and comforted, though he would never admit that out loud. Roo lay in his lap, sleeping cutely and snoring slightly. Key ran his fingers affectionately through the little dog’s black and brown fur. The presences of another living being made him feel less alone. He hated when the quietness took over his surrounding, having no one to listen to his rants, to bicker with or simply having someone speak with. The talk-show on TV was not nearly enough, with its perfect idols and overbearing MCs talking about irrelevant things.
The sound of the shrill doorbell echoed through the apartment, disturbing his minds ramblings and waking Roo from her sleep. The sound echoed once more urging him to hurry. Roo jumped down from his lap and ran ahead as Key slowly discarded the blanket and followed the happily barking fur-ball. He stopped in front of the hall-mirror to check his appearance; there was no way he was going to look less than perfect while opening the door. When some strands of hair were put back in place and his graphic T-shirt didn’t have a trace of any unwanted wrinkles did Key deem himself respectable enough. He picked up Roo from the floor where she waited impatiently for something to happen. Key didn’t know who he had expected waiting outside but it was definitely not what actually met him. A man, maybe a little older than himself, greeted him, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Umm, are you Kim Key?” a soft, soothing voice asks Key hesitantly. Key froze momentarily, who was this man and why the heck did he call him Key? That was a name only for his closest friends to use and not some stranger knocking on his door. The idea of the stranger being a stalker ran through his head for a second and he made an attempt to close the door.
“Wait! Don’t, I’m sorry for disturbing, but I need to speak to you about Jonghyun…” the potential stalker exclaimed hurriedly. Key halted in the middle of his movement and stared at the stranger. Either he really was a stalker, an extremely creepy one at that, or he might have something actually important to say. Key decided to take a risk and cautiously opened the door, taking a better look at the man. He wore light-brown slacks and the checkered dresshirt he wore were tucked inside his pants. The untouched, black hair fell in his small but strangely kind eyes covered by thick glasses estimated to be from the early eighties. Every pore in Keys body screamed in frustration about the violation of every fashion rule or dress code known to man that stood in his doorframe taking of his worn out sneakers. Key came to the conclusion that this man must be blind; there was no way someone would wear those colors, and was that polka-dotted socks he glimpsed?
“I’m sorry for intruding. I- I’m Lee Jinki.” The fashion murderer apparently named Jinki bowed a good 90 degrees a few times before Key almost angrily asked him to stop. Then he was reduced to simply stuttering and fiddling with his fingers. This Jinki-person couldn’t possibly be dangerous. Key decided against his better judgment to invite him inside and guided him to sit on the leather armchair that Key himself had bought in protest against Jonghyun’s couch. He himself took refuge in the piece of furniture he hated the most hugging Roo close to his chest in an attempt to shield him from the stranger. He made sure his insecurities weren’t apparent for his guest and studied this Lee Jinki with practiced confidence. Making sure he squirmed under his gaze.
“So what did you want to tell me, Lee Jinki?” as intimidating as he was capable of, and for Key that was enough to make his enemies crumble after seconds. This guy wasn’t an exception.
“You really are Kim Key right?” Key noticed how he hesitantly looked up to his left again and again as if he was reassured something was there and he had a silent conversation with whatever it was.
“Yeah, I am. What do you want?”
“Well, I -I don’t really know how to explain this but…” He hesitated again. Key was starting to get sick of waiting for him to get to the point. “Well, Jonghyun- he- well, he wants to know.” Jinki didn’t meet his eye and a tiny streak of pink colored his cheeks.
“Jonghyun wants what?” Key answered disbelievingly.
“He asked me to find you to answer his questions he wants to know who he was, before and what happened for him to become like… that.” He repeated, a little less anxiety in his voice this time.
“You sound as if you met him recently, what are you trying to get at?” Key bit back, his voice hard and cold like ice.
“Umm, technically I speak with him... everyday but not really in his, you know, living human form.” Jinki seemed like he tried his best to convey his message. But Key was still confused and started to get angry at this mans bullshit.
“You see, a couple of weeks ago he came to me, more like followed me and after he started to get stronger and more visible we could communicate and…”
“Wait a moment; you make absolutely no sense at all.”
“Sorry.” He bowed once more only resulting in him hitting his head on his knees as he still sat down. “I mean he came to me as something not really part of this world, just a white haze at first but grew stronger with time until I could see him clearly. He had no idea who he was, just fragments of memories and then he remembered you name and we figured you had some answers. Jonghyun begged me to contact you and…”
“Okay, now it’s official! You aren’t a stalker, you’re a psychopath!” Key interrupted. “Get out! I don’t want you here, you freak!”
It didn’t take many minutes for Key to chase a scared Jinki out through the door. Throwing out the disgusting sneakers after him, he slammed the door in Jinki’s face.
-
“But why would he refuse to listen to us?” The concept seemed weird to Jonghyun, alien. In his mind Key liked him as much as Jonghyun himself liked Key.
Jinki shrugged, and plopped down on the couch. “He seemed pretty weird to me. The entire apartment was spotless and I could swear it smelled like chemicals and flowers. Who takes cleaning that seriously?”
They watched Jurassic Park, but neither of them had their attention entirely on the TV, to busy in their own minds, too busy with other things. They’d have to try again.
-
Jinki was there again, waiting patiently for Key to answer the door. This time Key didn’t even let him inside, he just let the door be slightly opened as he made sure he was still safe inside with the latch in its place. But it was in Key’s nature to be curious and he had to admit that he liked listening to this potential psychopath’s voice. Jinki made no attempt to get inside; he just sat outside and talked through the small opening.
“Jonghyun told me about you, at least about everything he remembers. I found it funny how dumb he was, actually mistaking you for a girl the first time you met.” Jinki chuckled lowly and Key felt a chill run along his spine. That was information this person shouldn’t know. All kinds of rational explanations ran through Key’s brain but not one of them did he deem probable.
He slammed the door shut in the face of Lee Jinki or whatever it had said on the card he'd been given the other day.
-
Having noted down the adress from the note Jinki had put up on the refridgerator, Jonghyun had taken to visiting Key by himself.
He was definitely back to his old apartment again, Jonghyun recognized everything. Key hadn’t even thrown out the old couch he hated more than unruly hair, cheap makeup and Jonghyun’s voice cracking on early mornings while singing in the shower. Key even looked like he had gotten over his past grudge and had now permanently abandoned his usual seat in his beloved armchair, opting for the less comfortable piece of color vomit.
Since his and Jinki’s visit, which was considered a failure by Jinki, he had been there everyday while Jinki had been at work. It had kind of been a shock - or maybe a harsh awakening fit better - that his best friend couldn’t see him. Not even feel his presence, though Jonghyun had become so much clearer and even able to speak freely with Jinki in the last couple of weeks. Instead he was back to follow his friend around, looking after him while being able to do nothing.
Jonghyun didn’t dislike it per say, but it wasn’t comfortable either. At least Roo wanted him there.
-
There was something there. Roo jumped around happily in a specific spot, her eyes fixed to a single spot of thin air. Key felt uncomfortable with the dog’s weird behaviour. She behaved like she used to do around her original owner; the owner who Key believed had taught the dog how to pull of the most irresistible face ever. It was unnerving.
For a second Jinki’s words echoed in his head. No. It was simply not possible for something like that to happen, so Key chooses to simply shrug off Roo’s strange actions and take it as a new weird antic.
-
Even after Key had seen him for the first time, and Jonghyun had taken to spending a lot of his time in Key’s… Their apartment he couldn’t let go of Jinki. Key eyed him from over by the display table where he was folding animal print t-shirts in various colours. “You look worried” he said after carefully making sure they were alone. “I’m thinking” Jonghyun replied absently, running his fingers over soft fabric. “Stop it, you’re messing it up!” Key berated, swatting at his face. It wasn’t like he’d be able to hit him anyway.
“Don’t lie, you’d love having to spend the night here with your beloved clothes.”
Key stared at him, eyes narrowing. “No, because I have classes tomorrow. You’re making me lose sleep. And I, unlike you, still need it.” Jonghyun simply grinned.
“No but really. You look like someone kicked you. What’s up?” Key asked, this time staring right at him.
Jonghyun froze. How could he really put it into words? He thought about it, the months of frustration, tension. How there would be something stabbing his heart and pulling at it when Jinki smiled. The good kind of pain. How he wanted to reach out and grasp something, even his arm, the clothes on his body. His fingers curled in on themselves.
“I think I love him, Key.”
It was Key’s turn go stiff. “Jinki? Really?” Jonghyun nodded.
Key looked at him, uncharacteristically concerned and soft. “Are you sure, Jjong? It might just be some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome, I don’t know.”
Jonghyun thought about it. “No, definitely not like that, it’s more like I want him to love me and I’m scared that he won’t because I’m like… This,” he made a gesture towards himself, everything, his entire illogical existence.
Key stared at him, as he tried to keep the tears in. It was so unfair. “Screw all of this,” he said firmly. “Come on, Jonghyun, we have to go home.”
He followed Key, because Key made sense when everything else did not.
-
There needed to be songs written about the way Jinki accidentally knocked things over, or tripped over Roo who seemed to have infinite patience for his dorky ways. But there also needed to be entire symphonies about his smile and teeth, his hands, his butt in those pants Key forced him to wear because Key simply liked torturing him, the way his hair shined when the sun was out, thing like that.
It hurt in him, the amount of love he carried around in his heart that he couldn’t express.
He thought about spending every night of the rest of his life sleeping under the glow of those plastic stars and with Jinki’s arm around his body and a fire was lit in him. He wanted that.
-
As the weeks passed by, Key became greedy. Even if he could talk to Jonghyun by now he felt far from how he had before this entire mess had happened. He wanted his Jjong back, he wanted to beat the living daylights out of him for leaving him and his family like that. The thought was always circulating his mind and finally it slipped past his plump lips and the air carried the words to Jonghyun’s ears. “I miss you, why won’t you come back?”
The words hit Jonghyun hard, Key never begged and this was as close to begging the diva would ever get. He knew he felt the same deep down, in a dark and dusty corner of his heart but he was scared. Scared of going back and what that would bring. But if it was for Key maybe he could try?
As soon as that thought was formed he felt how the familiar white void approached him once more. He saw it in the corner of his eye creeping closer slowly, seemingly innocent. Jonghyun felt how he got weaker by the second, fear seeping through his veins and he did the only thing that he could think of, he ran. Ran away from the haunting whiteness trying to force him to be at its mercy.
-
Once again he’d run off to sit on top of a skyscraper. The calm he felt up there was suddenly the feeling he sought. The wind tried to hurtle him straight off, but it couldn’t hurt him unless he wanted it to. His stomach and heart were heavy and he wanted none of this, it was all too little and all too much. The sun stood high above him, and Jonghyun felt like Jinki might as well be the sun. You could see it, you could feel it affecting you, but reaching it was impossible and meant death. Calmly, he let the sun hammer down on him as it pleased.
The answers he searched weren’t with Key. So where were they? He wanted out.
-
The very air between him and Jinki was awkward as they took a walk through busy streets. They were talking, updating eachother on the most recent happenings in their respective lives. They talked about how he’d tried, really tried for Key but how it hadn’t worked. Key had looked very subdued after that but hadn’t mentioned it again.
Also it was more like Jonghyun was talking, and Jinki listened, since they were in public. Jonghyun loved spending time with Jinki though, no matter how awkward or stale the atmosphere was between them. It had just stuck with him, Jinki being there for him, and the love he felt had grown there and established with time.
Every detail, he went over thrice, every time they met. Jinki and his intoxicating presence fed that slowly burning fire within Jonghyun.
After a while, they found a relatively empty park. They sat down on a bench, and Jonghyun tried to sneak closer to Jinki, but Jinki saw interpreted it wrong and moved away. Or was it intentionally?
“Are you happy, Jonghyun?” Jinki asked him, looking straight into his eyes. Jonghyun could feel his heart stuttering and didn’t trust himself to reply verbally. Instead he simply shrugged, turning his head away and focusing his eyes on a couple of kids over by the fountain, playing with a dog. They were throwing a blue ball to it and the dog caught it in midair every time, to the delight of the children. He like liked seeing them play.
“I was thinking,” Jinki started and then stopped himself midsentence. Jonghyun looked at him, expectant. It was evident that it was something he’d wanted to say for a while. “It’s quite lonely without you, you know. In my apartment, I mean.”
Jinki looked nervous. “You could move back with me, if you… If you wanted.”
The world stopped turning, and Jonghyun could feel his heart speeding up. At that moment, it was everything he wanted.
Apparently he too had frozen though, because when he got back from soaring in the skies, Jinki had stood and walked off, thinking he’d been rejected. Jonghyun shot to his feet and ran after him. He couldn’t let him go, not now.
When he finally caught up to him, Jinki was on his way to cross the road, not seeing that the lights were red.
The similarities to his own accident almost made him smile before it really dawned on him. Jinki could die! He could lose him forever. Then what? There’d be nothing more for him. Kim Jonghyun would be finished. “Jinki! Watch out!” he yelled, just as the car came speeding.
Time slowed, everything happened in slow motion as if it wanted to force every horrifying detail onto him. The fear in Jinki’s eyes as he saw the approaching black blur, the rapidly approaching death. The end of it. Jonghyun couldn’t take standing there and watch fate tear them apart.
Acting instinctively, Jonghyun threw himself forward, grabbed Jinki’s arm and pulled him out of the way. A millisecond more and it’d been too late.
Jonghyun’s sight was filled with mist and shards of colours, wretched reality, as other people ran straight through him where he was floating. They didn’t matter, nothing mattered, he’d saved Jinki from suffering his own fate or worse. Jonghyun had reached out and grabbed Jinki and saved him. Nothing else really mattered.
-
Hours later, he was still exhausted, but upright. Key had forced him down on the couch when he’d returned, looking sick with worry, obviously having known that he was returning eventually. It mattered little to him how he’d gotten home, very little mattered at all after Jinki had been driven off to the hospital to be checked over for injury.
People had kept telling Jinki he had a guardian angel, that someone special up there had wanted him to live that day, and it had made Jonghyun smile through the pain.
Someone special, huh.
When Jinki got to the apartment, Jonghyun felt instantly better, stealing energy from Jinki’s hyperactivity and feeling encouraged by his presence. “What happened to you, Jonghyun?” he said when his adrenaline had been drained, sinking down onto the couch next to Jonghyun and hiding his face in his hands.
Jinki couldn’t look at him right now. He’d be dead if it wasn’t for Jonghyun, he knew that. Key pressed a cup of tea into his hands, and he mumbled a thanks as Key sat down in an armchair, quietly observing them. Knowing that the man in the corner of the couch, so spent from it still, saved his life was everything, but to what cost had it happened? He had faded, drained of colours into some subdued ghostly being. His outlines were faded, moving, as if they couldn’t decide whether to exist or disappear.
“Jonghyun, I don’t know how to tell you, but… I love you.” he said. He had to force the words - no matter how true they were - because he’d simply never had to say them before this day in his life. Jinki dared to sneak a look at Jonghyun. His eyes were wide open. He was smiling and it was beautiful. Encouraged, he continued.
“I want to spend forever with you if I can, but I can’t do that if you’re gone. So… Please don’t make me worry like this again. Please.”
A lot of things were passing through his mind as Jonghyun strengthened in the words he had wanted to hear for months. It’d been everything he’d needed, every bit of safety he’d craved. He studied their faces, and they were perfect. He missed his family, he wanted to see them again.
Then the key to salvation appeared before him, clear as day and not in the least painful.
“I’m not afraid of what awaits me” he said to Death, and felt it come. This time it wasn’t threatening. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears, the sound of a breeze could be heard, and this time, it felt like dreams. Dreams and clouds. Silk and sugar. If it was his time, then so be it. And he submitted to death with a smile.
-
They couldn’t stop him from fading, already far too gone.
The silence ate at them both. Did he really?
Was he dead?
They were frozen in place, until a phone rang. Key picked it up.
On the other end, Jonghyun’s mom was in tears and ecstatic at the same time.
~
FIN
A/N: Dear god I hate this fic and never want to see it again brb remixing it forever ):
Jinki looked at him blearily. “You look like a person now. There’s more colour to you.”
He supposed that was about as much sense he’d get out of him this early in the morning, so he breathed in deep, the scent of books, dust that was hard to get when cleaning and green tea filling his nose. He couldn’t remember a scent ever being this beautiful. The green tea, the honey of Jinki’s shampoo, Jinki himself - he loved all of it.
Excitedly, he pointed at the notebook, motioning for Jinki to give it to him. When he did, he immediately started pointing. ‘J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’, he pointed out, looking up at Jinki’s confused expression to make sure he’d gotten it and then pointing at himself. ‘I-A-M-J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’.
Like bells.
-
Encouraged by this huge step forward, Jonghyun wanted to read more books, because they were fascinating and their stories might still be of help. Having a name felt like a huge improvement for his soul, like an injection of sunrays into a dark dreary space. It felt easier to live, to put it simple.
Another thing he wanted to explore was if he really couldn’t touch things. It seemed weird to him, still not being able to interact with things. Not being able to turn the page of a book by himself was still quite honestly a pain, and he wanted to be able to do it. He really liked Jinki, but somehow he wanted to prove his immense success, show Jinki he wasn’t just there loitering around worthlessly.
So he began to experiment with his energy. Trying to will the page to flip with his hands. Obviously it didn’t work out as planned and he managed to look quite stupid while doing it too. He didn’t have a breakthrough until after a few days of trying, when he saw Jinki drop a pencil out of the corner of his eye. Almost without his interference his energy surged forward, and he caught the item in his hand.
It was the most beautiful thing ever, and he wanted to cry and smile at the same time. Jinki looked worried though when he discovered it, as Jonghyun had used all that energy, all the colour had left him too. He didn’t want Jonghyun to push himself too hard.
After that time, and when he’d regained his energy, Jonghyun started being able to turn the page by himself, which meant more time for Jinki to read his own books and made Jonghyun able to pick more freely. Both approved of this change.
-
A few days after becoming able to turn the page, he could even get a new book for himself. It shocked him so bad that Jinki thought he was in pain when he discovered Jonghyun on the floor, staring at the book in his hands.
Soon he could do it with one hand.
-
He was roaming the shopping mall the bookstore was located in, nothing quite catching his attention. The bookstore had been crowded, and he didn’t want to spook anyone out by sitting there taking space, seemingly invisible, a ghost flipping the pages of an old book about bloody wars.
There were three floors, largely known, polished and trendy, shops as well as independent, rebellious ones. Cafés, a Starbucks, a couple of internet cafés where nerds would sit endlessly and fangirls stalk their idols, a dry-cleaning business. The sun shined down through the roof that was entirely made of glass with intersecting lines of metal making it stable, light reflecting off of the glass sculpture hanging from it.
On the third floor there was a music shop, instruments lined up on display. There was that feeling again. Without hesitating, he reached out and… yes!
The music flowed freely, but it didn’t sound right. It was good, but it wasn’t perfect. He was Kim Jonghyun, top notch talent and he refused to settle for anything but perfect. Anything less than perfect simply wasn’t expected from him. Sighing, he scribbled down a chord change, and gripped the guitar more firmly. This time he was going to turn it in on time. Nothing, not even God himself could stop him. The night was still young.
Hesitatingly he reached out to pluck a string, but when it made a sound (an out of tune A) it scared him so bad he ran away from there.
Later that night, As Jinki had laid out a blank paper and a pencil on his side of the dinner table, he scribbled it down, using whatever energy he could muster up.
Kim Jonghyun, composition student (?).
-
The next time it happened to him, he was browsing titles, and came by a selection of books by Shakespeare. Romeo & Juliet stood out to him instantly, and he remembered the night that seemed like an eternity ago in Jinki’s apartment when the Shakespeare books had sparked something in him. As he slowly stroked the back of the book, he remembered what he was looking for.
It had taken him forever (or maybe no time at all, after all when inspiration finally came, time vanished) to write that song after he’d finished reading Romeo & Juliet just minutes before. It’d been a stupid school assignment, but he knew a chance when he saw one, the best way to make ______ like him, finally. He’d sing it in front of the entire school if he had to.
“You’re such an idiot.” his best friend had told him fondly the next morning, Jonghyun being so exhausted that the bags under his eyes seemed dark purple.
The note he made that night said ‘Kim Jonghyun, Idiot’ and he smiled at it. Jinki’s dinner was particularly special that night, the spices making Jonghyun dizzy in a quite nice way.
Before he forgot, he noted down ‘Kim Jonghyun, likes Cinnamon’.
-
As the pieces started falling into place he became a little scared of the heaviness of it all. His notes filled an entire two pages now. Most of it didn’t make a lot of sense, or was particularly important for that matter, but details mattered too, he assumed. As it was, it came over him too suddenly now, not when he wanted it, and it scared him. It was brutal, almost forcing itself onto him.
So he clung to Jinki, and his simple way of living. Watching subtitled DVDs of nerdy sci-fi shows or historical dramas with Jinki was simple, and didn’t need a lot of energy like remembering did. He kept getting urges to reach out and touch him, even though he’d proven to himself time and time again that he couldn’t. Recently it seemed like Jinki actually liked having him around instead of accepting it. Jonghyun liked it. A lot.
One evening when Jinki was out, having forgotten to buy something for dinner and forgetting to tell Jonghyun (he’d had to call his own house phone and explain it on the answering machine after already having rushed out), Jonghyun laid down on Jinki’s bed. It smelled so much like Jinki that he felt like he was intruding on someone else, like he was being swallowed up by Jinki’s space. It was crazy, but then he too was. It was dark by now, and he noticed a faint light in the ceiling.
He tried to focus on it, and discovered that it was plastic glow in the dark stars. It made him smile and feel safe. Like the stars watched over him.
-
One day as he sat in the store, sometime after discovering that he quite liked to sing and that his voice was good at it too, if unpractised since he rarely even talked, Jinki jerked, and stared at him in disbelief. Jonghyun felt that he was being watched and looked up, crooking his eyebrow.
“Did you hear that?” Jinki asked, looking straight at him. Jonghyun shook his head and continued singing. “It’s you! You’re the one making that sound!” Jinki looked ecstatic and his voice was a bit louder than normal. Jonghyun stared at him, confused. Jinki turned a little pink when their eyes met. “I could hear a little of it in my head, you were singing…?”
Another step forward.
-
It annoyed him to no end that so many memories seemed to involve his as of now faceless best friend. He could feel that this guy had played a big role in his life; there was that stirring, not in his stomach but in his chest. In his heart. It made him frustrated, made the sound of his voice in Jinki’s head cold and angry. Desperate and searching.
-
He could remember the sunlight. Jonghyun had been in first grade, still proudly going to school every day. There’d been a playground not far from his house, surrounded by old trees, wise with centuries of standing there. In summer, they shielded from sun, in winter from wind.
He could remember a girl there; she’d been prettier than any other girl and intimidating at the same time. He could remember the dolls they’d play with, him watching them from over where he was playing with his own set of friends. Except this girl wasn’t a girl.
They’d argued about him not being a girl. Made up the very next day, when Jonghyun had found he really didn’t care. Jonghyun had been teary, and the other boy rolling his eyes. The boy had called him dino like a dinosaur and said he hoped Jonghyun liked dolls.
Jonghyun couldn’t remember his name and it made him seethe with anger.
-
He was up on the roof again, climbing around and feeling exceptionally down beneath the ground. It had been an argument and it had been really stupid, he didn’t even want to think about it. It was already stored in the garbage room at the back of his brain, ready to be buried underneath happier things. For now it just made him want to punch and scream. He kicked at a chimney outlet. Fuck everything.
Such a stupid thing to argue about, space. They’d both been riled up by whatever could be bothering someone, little thing like Jonghyun’s own frustration over his inabilities and Jinki battling his own loneliness and his feelings of being entirely pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Jonghyun stayed up there until he was sure he could go back down without wanting to punch things and by that time he wasn’t sure Jinki even wanted to have him around. As he slowly climbed down from the roof and went down the stairs past the now familiar ugly cracks in the paint, the unpleasant smell, he tried to make the thoughts stop.
He realized he was scared as he finally stood in front of the door. He could walk right through if he wanted, but that’d be rude, especially at a time like this. Instead he knocked and waited.
When Jinki opened, Jonghyun could swear there were faint red lines around them. Jonghyun showed his open palms as a gesture of surrender, and Jinki made a gesture for him to step inside.
When the door was closed and they sat by the kitchen table, Jinki spoke up. “I’m sorry I got upset. I guess I’m not… I mean, I guess we weren’t made to live like this.” He looked infinitely sad, like years of grief had been added to his face. Jonghyun would cry too, if he only could, he thought, biting his lip hard. He made a gesture towards the notebook, and then waved it off, instantly changing his mood.
Instead he nailed his gaze to Jinki’s. Staring straight into his eyes, even smaller and puffier right now, and spoke. “I’m sorry.”
Jinki smiled. He’d heard it loud and clear in his head, definite words and not the melody of a voice anymore.
They wouldn’t know, but in that moment they both burned to touch the other and turn the frowns into smiles. “I’m going insane”, they both thought.
-
“Just tell me already.” Jonghyun had said, sinking down onto the couch next to his best friend of such a long time. “It must have been urgent for you to call me like that and demand that I’ll be over within the second.”
He had wanted to talk, nervous and shaky, face pale and lack of sleep very evident. Jonghyun had gotten there as quick as he could, actually supposed to be grounded for not having done his homework.
There’d been some awkwardness, and then he’d forced it out of him. “I’m gay”
Jonghyun had wondered if that was the entire thing, and his friend had hit him on the arm, gay but quite evidently not girly. Jonghyun had found that he didn’t mind. The relief had been so huge in those eyes that he had never regretted approving of it even once.
-
One day Jonghyun read a book about a woman who lost her family in a car accident and it made him feel so sick Jinki came rushing over to his side because he hadn’t even noticed that he’d started sobbing.
-
It wasn’t that far a jump for him to realize that he might have some sort of crush on Jinki. It was the details about him, really, the way he smiled of course, but also the smell of his apartment, that honey shampoo he liked to use, the spices he used for dinner, the voice he used when he spoke to someone important on the phone. The way he treated all his books.
The way he had a certain gleam in his eyes as he told Jonghyun something exciting or read out loud from his book. The way he sang under his breath when he thought Jonghyun couldn’t hear. Jonghyun wanted to discover all of his little quirks.
In his memories though, there’d been only women. Perhaps he’d never liked a man before.
Did he like Jinki nonetheless? It seemed that way.
-
He remembered bruises along his knuckles and his best friend sobbing in his arms. He remembers not once regretting throwing those punches, or the intent he had with them. No one would hurt his friend like that. And the reason for which they had done it, that he was gay, made him even sicker.
-
The thoughts were twisting, spinning, overwhelming. It was like a dream, but awake because he couldn’t sleep. It clouded his vision and made colours look on edge. There was a scent of summer, dream intertwining with reality, it smelled like sunflowers and lilies and grass.
He remembered them at a table, he was going to graduate soon. They were in a cafeteria. “I want you to move in with me.” he’d said, and the boy had looked at him, feline eyes. Smiled. Jonghyun had persuaded him, he didn’t want life without his best friend.
His nickname had been edgy too, the dino and the… The cat. The Key to everything.
“Key!” he gasped, breaking through back to reality. Jinki looked over. “What?”
Jonghyun laughed, sounding entirely out of his mind. “He’s the key to everything, don’t you get it!? He’s the Key!”
Jinki looked more worried and twitchy than ever and managed to drop his pencil and his book. “Jonghyun, you’re not making any sense, I” he said, and Jonghyun cut him off.
“Listen, his nickname is Key. I called him that forever. My best friend, Jinki! I remember him, everything about him, his real name is Kim Kibum! Well, not everything but I remember!”
Jinki’s smile was like sunshine through black clouds and Jonghyun would have stared at it forever if his mind hadn’t been occupied. This meant everything now.
-
“Home is where the heart is and I never want to leave”
Sometimes Jonghyun thought he could see something similar to his own budding feelings in Jinki’s eyes. But it was gone before he’d be able to tell.
-
Jonghyun was chasing Jinki through the apartment, phonebook in hand, one name circled in red. A certain Kim Kibum at a certain address, with a certain phone number. Jonghyun felt that it was right, now he just needed Jinki to go talk to Key for him. He was certain Key held all the answers.
He’d asked, and begged, and persuaded. Jinki refused, increasingly awkward.
“You know I can’t do well with people!” he said, voice pained, trying to shrug Jonghyun’s words off. “And I’m a ghost!” Jonghyun retorted. “Listen, Jinki. You’re the only one who can do this. I can’t, look at me! I’m a ghost! I’m invisible!”
Jonghyun lowered his voice. “You’re the only one who can help me, Jinki. My only hope. Please.”
Jinki looked torn for a moment, before sighing, a wrinkle of worry appearing. “Fine.”
-
Key sat in the ugly, old couch with yellow and brown stripes. He hated that couch like the pest but Jonghyun had adored it and done everything in his power to keep him from throwing it out the window, quite literally. The couch had grown on him since and now it worked like an old friend for Key, making him feel safe and comforted, though he would never admit that out loud. Roo lay in his lap, sleeping cutely and snoring slightly. Key ran his fingers affectionately through the little dog’s black and brown fur. The presences of another living being made him feel less alone. He hated when the quietness took over his surrounding, having no one to listen to his rants, to bicker with or simply having someone speak with. The talk-show on TV was not nearly enough, with its perfect idols and overbearing MCs talking about irrelevant things.
The sound of the shrill doorbell echoed through the apartment, disturbing his minds ramblings and waking Roo from her sleep. The sound echoed once more urging him to hurry. Roo jumped down from his lap and ran ahead as Key slowly discarded the blanket and followed the happily barking fur-ball. He stopped in front of the hall-mirror to check his appearance; there was no way he was going to look less than perfect while opening the door. When some strands of hair were put back in place and his graphic T-shirt didn’t have a trace of any unwanted wrinkles did Key deem himself respectable enough. He picked up Roo from the floor where she waited impatiently for something to happen. Key didn’t know who he had expected waiting outside but it was definitely not what actually met him. A man, maybe a little older than himself, greeted him, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Umm, are you Kim Key?” a soft, soothing voice asks Key hesitantly. Key froze momentarily, who was this man and why the heck did he call him Key? That was a name only for his closest friends to use and not some stranger knocking on his door. The idea of the stranger being a stalker ran through his head for a second and he made an attempt to close the door.
“Wait! Don’t, I’m sorry for disturbing, but I need to speak to you about Jonghyun…” the potential stalker exclaimed hurriedly. Key halted in the middle of his movement and stared at the stranger. Either he really was a stalker, an extremely creepy one at that, or he might have something actually important to say. Key decided to take a risk and cautiously opened the door, taking a better look at the man. He wore light-brown slacks and the checkered dresshirt he wore were tucked inside his pants. The untouched, black hair fell in his small but strangely kind eyes covered by thick glasses estimated to be from the early eighties. Every pore in Keys body screamed in frustration about the violation of every fashion rule or dress code known to man that stood in his doorframe taking of his worn out sneakers. Key came to the conclusion that this man must be blind; there was no way someone would wear those colors, and was that polka-dotted socks he glimpsed?
“I’m sorry for intruding. I- I’m Lee Jinki.” The fashion murderer apparently named Jinki bowed a good 90 degrees a few times before Key almost angrily asked him to stop. Then he was reduced to simply stuttering and fiddling with his fingers. This Jinki-person couldn’t possibly be dangerous. Key decided against his better judgment to invite him inside and guided him to sit on the leather armchair that Key himself had bought in protest against Jonghyun’s couch. He himself took refuge in the piece of furniture he hated the most hugging Roo close to his chest in an attempt to shield him from the stranger. He made sure his insecurities weren’t apparent for his guest and studied this Lee Jinki with practiced confidence. Making sure he squirmed under his gaze.
“So what did you want to tell me, Lee Jinki?” as intimidating as he was capable of, and for Key that was enough to make his enemies crumble after seconds. This guy wasn’t an exception.
“You really are Kim Key right?” Key noticed how he hesitantly looked up to his left again and again as if he was reassured something was there and he had a silent conversation with whatever it was.
“Yeah, I am. What do you want?”
“Well, I -I don’t really know how to explain this but…” He hesitated again. Key was starting to get sick of waiting for him to get to the point. “Well, Jonghyun- he- well, he wants to know.” Jinki didn’t meet his eye and a tiny streak of pink colored his cheeks.
“Jonghyun wants what?” Key answered disbelievingly.
“He asked me to find you to answer his questions he wants to know who he was, before and what happened for him to become like… that.” He repeated, a little less anxiety in his voice this time.
“You sound as if you met him recently, what are you trying to get at?” Key bit back, his voice hard and cold like ice.
“Umm, technically I speak with him... everyday but not really in his, you know, living human form.” Jinki seemed like he tried his best to convey his message. But Key was still confused and started to get angry at this mans bullshit.
“You see, a couple of weeks ago he came to me, more like followed me and after he started to get stronger and more visible we could communicate and…”
“Wait a moment; you make absolutely no sense at all.”
“Sorry.” He bowed once more only resulting in him hitting his head on his knees as he still sat down. “I mean he came to me as something not really part of this world, just a white haze at first but grew stronger with time until I could see him clearly. He had no idea who he was, just fragments of memories and then he remembered you name and we figured you had some answers. Jonghyun begged me to contact you and…”
“Okay, now it’s official! You aren’t a stalker, you’re a psychopath!” Key interrupted. “Get out! I don’t want you here, you freak!”
It didn’t take many minutes for Key to chase a scared Jinki out through the door. Throwing out the disgusting sneakers after him, he slammed the door in Jinki’s face.
-
“But why would he refuse to listen to us?” The concept seemed weird to Jonghyun, alien. In his mind Key liked him as much as Jonghyun himself liked Key.
Jinki shrugged, and plopped down on the couch. “He seemed pretty weird to me. The entire apartment was spotless and I could swear it smelled like chemicals and flowers. Who takes cleaning that seriously?”
They watched Jurassic Park, but neither of them had their attention entirely on the TV, to busy in their own minds, too busy with other things. They’d have to try again.
-
Jinki was there again, waiting patiently for Key to answer the door. This time Key didn’t even let him inside, he just let the door be slightly opened as he made sure he was still safe inside with the latch in its place. But it was in Key’s nature to be curious and he had to admit that he liked listening to this potential psychopath’s voice. Jinki made no attempt to get inside; he just sat outside and talked through the small opening.
“Jonghyun told me about you, at least about everything he remembers. I found it funny how dumb he was, actually mistaking you for a girl the first time you met.” Jinki chuckled lowly and Key felt a chill run along his spine. That was information this person shouldn’t know. All kinds of rational explanations ran through Key’s brain but not one of them did he deem probable.
He slammed the door shut in the face of Lee Jinki or whatever it had said on the card he'd been given the other day.
-
Having noted down the adress from the note Jinki had put up on the refridgerator, Jonghyun had taken to visiting Key by himself.
He was definitely back to his old apartment again, Jonghyun recognized everything. Key hadn’t even thrown out the old couch he hated more than unruly hair, cheap makeup and Jonghyun’s voice cracking on early mornings while singing in the shower. Key even looked like he had gotten over his past grudge and had now permanently abandoned his usual seat in his beloved armchair, opting for the less comfortable piece of color vomit.
Since his and Jinki’s visit, which was considered a failure by Jinki, he had been there everyday while Jinki had been at work. It had kind of been a shock - or maybe a harsh awakening fit better - that his best friend couldn’t see him. Not even feel his presence, though Jonghyun had become so much clearer and even able to speak freely with Jinki in the last couple of weeks. Instead he was back to follow his friend around, looking after him while being able to do nothing.
Jonghyun didn’t dislike it per say, but it wasn’t comfortable either. At least Roo wanted him there.
-
There was something there. Roo jumped around happily in a specific spot, her eyes fixed to a single spot of thin air. Key felt uncomfortable with the dog’s weird behaviour. She behaved like she used to do around her original owner; the owner who Key believed had taught the dog how to pull of the most irresistible face ever. It was unnerving.
For a second Jinki’s words echoed in his head. No. It was simply not possible for something like that to happen, so Key chooses to simply shrug off Roo’s strange actions and take it as a new weird antic.
-
Even after Key had seen him for the first time, and Jonghyun had taken to spending a lot of his time in Key’s… Their apartment he couldn’t let go of Jinki. Key eyed him from over by the display table where he was folding animal print t-shirts in various colours. “You look worried” he said after carefully making sure they were alone. “I’m thinking” Jonghyun replied absently, running his fingers over soft fabric. “Stop it, you’re messing it up!” Key berated, swatting at his face. It wasn’t like he’d be able to hit him anyway.
“Don’t lie, you’d love having to spend the night here with your beloved clothes.”
Key stared at him, eyes narrowing. “No, because I have classes tomorrow. You’re making me lose sleep. And I, unlike you, still need it.” Jonghyun simply grinned.
“No but really. You look like someone kicked you. What’s up?” Key asked, this time staring right at him.
Jonghyun froze. How could he really put it into words? He thought about it, the months of frustration, tension. How there would be something stabbing his heart and pulling at it when Jinki smiled. The good kind of pain. How he wanted to reach out and grasp something, even his arm, the clothes on his body. His fingers curled in on themselves.
“I think I love him, Key.”
It was Key’s turn go stiff. “Jinki? Really?” Jonghyun nodded.
Key looked at him, uncharacteristically concerned and soft. “Are you sure, Jjong? It might just be some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome, I don’t know.”
Jonghyun thought about it. “No, definitely not like that, it’s more like I want him to love me and I’m scared that he won’t because I’m like… This,” he made a gesture towards himself, everything, his entire illogical existence.
Key stared at him, as he tried to keep the tears in. It was so unfair. “Screw all of this,” he said firmly. “Come on, Jonghyun, we have to go home.”
He followed Key, because Key made sense when everything else did not.
-
There needed to be songs written about the way Jinki accidentally knocked things over, or tripped over Roo who seemed to have infinite patience for his dorky ways. But there also needed to be entire symphonies about his smile and teeth, his hands, his butt in those pants Key forced him to wear because Key simply liked torturing him, the way his hair shined when the sun was out, thing like that.
It hurt in him, the amount of love he carried around in his heart that he couldn’t express.
He thought about spending every night of the rest of his life sleeping under the glow of those plastic stars and with Jinki’s arm around his body and a fire was lit in him. He wanted that.
-
As the weeks passed by, Key became greedy. Even if he could talk to Jonghyun by now he felt far from how he had before this entire mess had happened. He wanted his Jjong back, he wanted to beat the living daylights out of him for leaving him and his family like that. The thought was always circulating his mind and finally it slipped past his plump lips and the air carried the words to Jonghyun’s ears. “I miss you, why won’t you come back?”
The words hit Jonghyun hard, Key never begged and this was as close to begging the diva would ever get. He knew he felt the same deep down, in a dark and dusty corner of his heart but he was scared. Scared of going back and what that would bring. But if it was for Key maybe he could try?
As soon as that thought was formed he felt how the familiar white void approached him once more. He saw it in the corner of his eye creeping closer slowly, seemingly innocent. Jonghyun felt how he got weaker by the second, fear seeping through his veins and he did the only thing that he could think of, he ran. Ran away from the haunting whiteness trying to force him to be at its mercy.
-
Once again he’d run off to sit on top of a skyscraper. The calm he felt up there was suddenly the feeling he sought. The wind tried to hurtle him straight off, but it couldn’t hurt him unless he wanted it to. His stomach and heart were heavy and he wanted none of this, it was all too little and all too much. The sun stood high above him, and Jonghyun felt like Jinki might as well be the sun. You could see it, you could feel it affecting you, but reaching it was impossible and meant death. Calmly, he let the sun hammer down on him as it pleased.
The answers he searched weren’t with Key. So where were they? He wanted out.
-
The very air between him and Jinki was awkward as they took a walk through busy streets. They were talking, updating eachother on the most recent happenings in their respective lives. They talked about how he’d tried, really tried for Key but how it hadn’t worked. Key had looked very subdued after that but hadn’t mentioned it again.
Also it was more like Jonghyun was talking, and Jinki listened, since they were in public. Jonghyun loved spending time with Jinki though, no matter how awkward or stale the atmosphere was between them. It had just stuck with him, Jinki being there for him, and the love he felt had grown there and established with time.
Every detail, he went over thrice, every time they met. Jinki and his intoxicating presence fed that slowly burning fire within Jonghyun.
After a while, they found a relatively empty park. They sat down on a bench, and Jonghyun tried to sneak closer to Jinki, but Jinki saw interpreted it wrong and moved away. Or was it intentionally?
“Are you happy, Jonghyun?” Jinki asked him, looking straight into his eyes. Jonghyun could feel his heart stuttering and didn’t trust himself to reply verbally. Instead he simply shrugged, turning his head away and focusing his eyes on a couple of kids over by the fountain, playing with a dog. They were throwing a blue ball to it and the dog caught it in midair every time, to the delight of the children. He like liked seeing them play.
“I was thinking,” Jinki started and then stopped himself midsentence. Jonghyun looked at him, expectant. It was evident that it was something he’d wanted to say for a while. “It’s quite lonely without you, you know. In my apartment, I mean.”
Jinki looked nervous. “You could move back with me, if you… If you wanted.”
The world stopped turning, and Jonghyun could feel his heart speeding up. At that moment, it was everything he wanted.
Apparently he too had frozen though, because when he got back from soaring in the skies, Jinki had stood and walked off, thinking he’d been rejected. Jonghyun shot to his feet and ran after him. He couldn’t let him go, not now.
When he finally caught up to him, Jinki was on his way to cross the road, not seeing that the lights were red.
The similarities to his own accident almost made him smile before it really dawned on him. Jinki could die! He could lose him forever. Then what? There’d be nothing more for him. Kim Jonghyun would be finished. “Jinki! Watch out!” he yelled, just as the car came speeding.
Time slowed, everything happened in slow motion as if it wanted to force every horrifying detail onto him. The fear in Jinki’s eyes as he saw the approaching black blur, the rapidly approaching death. The end of it. Jonghyun couldn’t take standing there and watch fate tear them apart.
Acting instinctively, Jonghyun threw himself forward, grabbed Jinki’s arm and pulled him out of the way. A millisecond more and it’d been too late.
Jonghyun’s sight was filled with mist and shards of colours, wretched reality, as other people ran straight through him where he was floating. They didn’t matter, nothing mattered, he’d saved Jinki from suffering his own fate or worse. Jonghyun had reached out and grabbed Jinki and saved him. Nothing else really mattered.
-
Hours later, he was still exhausted, but upright. Key had forced him down on the couch when he’d returned, looking sick with worry, obviously having known that he was returning eventually. It mattered little to him how he’d gotten home, very little mattered at all after Jinki had been driven off to the hospital to be checked over for injury.
People had kept telling Jinki he had a guardian angel, that someone special up there had wanted him to live that day, and it had made Jonghyun smile through the pain.
Someone special, huh.
When Jinki got to the apartment, Jonghyun felt instantly better, stealing energy from Jinki’s hyperactivity and feeling encouraged by his presence. “What happened to you, Jonghyun?” he said when his adrenaline had been drained, sinking down onto the couch next to Jonghyun and hiding his face in his hands.
Jinki couldn’t look at him right now. He’d be dead if it wasn’t for Jonghyun, he knew that. Key pressed a cup of tea into his hands, and he mumbled a thanks as Key sat down in an armchair, quietly observing them. Knowing that the man in the corner of the couch, so spent from it still, saved his life was everything, but to what cost had it happened? He had faded, drained of colours into some subdued ghostly being. His outlines were faded, moving, as if they couldn’t decide whether to exist or disappear.
“Jonghyun, I don’t know how to tell you, but… I love you.” he said. He had to force the words - no matter how true they were - because he’d simply never had to say them before this day in his life. Jinki dared to sneak a look at Jonghyun. His eyes were wide open. He was smiling and it was beautiful. Encouraged, he continued.
“I want to spend forever with you if I can, but I can’t do that if you’re gone. So… Please don’t make me worry like this again. Please.”
A lot of things were passing through his mind as Jonghyun strengthened in the words he had wanted to hear for months. It’d been everything he’d needed, every bit of safety he’d craved. He studied their faces, and they were perfect. He missed his family, he wanted to see them again.
Then the key to salvation appeared before him, clear as day and not in the least painful.
“I’m not afraid of what awaits me” he said to Death, and felt it come. This time it wasn’t threatening. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears, the sound of a breeze could be heard, and this time, it felt like dreams. Dreams and clouds. Silk and sugar. If it was his time, then so be it. And he submitted to death with a smile.
-
They couldn’t stop him from fading, already far too gone.
The silence ate at them both. Did he really?
Was he dead?
They were frozen in place, until a phone rang. Key picked it up.
On the other end, Jonghyun’s mom was in tears and ecstatic at the same time.
~
FIN
A/N: Dear god I hate this fic and never want to see it again brb remixing it forever ):