[Fic] Choices (formerly Silver Thread) (5/?)
Title: Choices
Pairings: Yunho/Jaejoong/fic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: character death (later), teenage pregnancy, mild language
Genre: friendship, drama
Summary: This is a story about a suicidal moron and a moronic martyr...
Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2 ; Chapter 3 ; Chapter 4 ; Chapter 5 ; Chapter 6 ; Chapter 7 ;
Break
***
I stumbled on the pavement, making my drunken path back to my apartment. I thought being stoned drunk was supposed to help. Didn’t they say alcohol would make you forget? The only thing it gave me is an excuse to cause a scene at the bar and scream profanities at every person I meet at the streets.
I thought it would numb the pain, but no. It was still as raw as it had been yesterday. Razor-sharp. Throbbing. Never-ending. Screaming. Choking.
A miscalculated step sent me stumbling face first to the cement, followed by the bottle of cheap beer that I flew off my hand. The bottle shattered into pieces in front of me, its contents instantly spilling out in a splash and glass shards whipping through the air.
A particularly large shard came flying rapidly towards me. I froze, for a moment so sure that the shard would stab me right in the eye and through my brain. It narrowly missed my face.
I laughed, hysteria taking over. I pushed myself up into a sitting position, and grabbed the large shard, ignoring the way it cut my palm. It glinted in the moonlight, almost invitingly, I might add. Images of how it would be perfect for cutting or stabbing raced in my mind. Or maybe I could use it to claw off my chest. Anything to make the pain go away.
Before I could even act on it, a very familiar face approached-the permanent malicious smile on his face ever present. Through my alcohol-loaded mind, I vaguely registered different hands grabbing me and making me stand up.
“Well, lookie here. Pretty boy alone and drunk. Where’d your boyfriend go? Dumped you for a prettier fag?” Junghoon sneered. I struggled against the thugs holding me in place, but they only held tighter, intent on bruising my limbs.
Junghoon’s laugh was nasty, and so was his face when he closed in on mine.
“It’ll be less painful if you don’t struggle,” he spoke slowly, as if talking to a three-year-old. His smile was mocking and spiteful in an almost possessed glee.
Against rational thinking, I spat on his face.
It wasn’t the best decision I have ever made in my life. I blame it on the alcohol still circulating in my system.
Junghoon’s face twisted into an ugly, angry sneer. If I wasn’t so stoned out of my mind, I would have laughed. Or maybe run away like hell.
Like vultures spying on a corpse, Junghoon angrily swooped down on me, followed by his lackeys. Amidst the nerve-wracking pain that followed- the seemingly never-ending series of punches and kicks to my body, oxygen never reaching my lungs, and my skull mercilessly pounded on, the gut-wrenching pain - not one thought entered my mind.
Blank. I was blissfully, marvelously blank. Sweet, painful relief…
“Leave him alone, you bastards!”
The pain came back in an instant.
“Oh, look. Pretty boy’s boyfriend came to play!”
They turned to Yunho. It wasn’t like those dramas where the hero comes to the rescue and beats up the bad guys, no. Yunho put up a decent fight, but one against three is doomed to failure. Soon he was pretty much like me.
Junghyoon was vicious, but he wasn’t relentless. The beating was hell, but it didn’t last forever. He and his two minions grew tired in treating us like punching bags, and then went away.
It wasn’t a novel experience - being beaten half to death. I’ve lived with it daily for many years. What was new, though, was the blankness that followed. I lied on the pavement, bleeding, and empty.
“Jae…” came the voice from beside me. “Are you okay?”
And the emptiness flew away, replaced by seething and anger.
I stood up, relishing the pain that bloomed from my protesting limbs and body, and started to walk away, not giving him a second glance. I hate him. I hate him so much that I’d rather kiss Junghoon and die than have that traitor talk to me.
A hand clamped to my shoulder firmly. “Wait.”
I abruptly turned around and I slapped his hand away hard, incensed. “Get your hands off me, you traitor!”
He looked at me, startled, as if I just hit him with a metal tube on the head. He reluctantly took his hand back to his side. There were new more bruises blooming over the bruises and cuts I’ve inflicted on him the past day. He looked unrecognizable. I remained unsympathetic.
“I’m sorry,” he said after regaining his composure and combing his badly bruised face into blankness. “I know it will never be enough, but for what it is worth, I’m sorry.”
I gritted my teeth. “I will never, ever forgive you.”
“…I know…” he replied, his morose expression only making me growl. “But you have to know… Yunhei loves you.”
“Right… Am I supposed to melt, now?”
“She really loves you. She’s been miserable… If you can see her… maybe visit her-”
I let out a sharp laugh. The nerve of this guy! “Now you have the gall… you have no right… after what you did…”
“It’s not for me!” he hurriedly said. “For her! She loves you! You can-can hate me all you want, I know I deserve it, but please just… She’s hurting and I-”
“You expect me to take her back? Is that it?” I cut him off mid sentence. “After all that happened? Well, Jung, I have no desire for soiled goods,” I spat, and I could see the warning glint in his eyes. I continued anyway. “She has nothing I can get now.”
He clenched his fist, extremely offended by my words but looked unsure whether to hit me or not. Taking a deep breath, he said with a hit of coldness in his voice- the same tone he used to use when someone insults me in front of him: “Sorry or not, I will still hit you. Watch your words.”
I scorned his defense as I look into his eyes challengingly. There, I see it. A small glint in his eyes that told me all there is to know. I laughed without humor at the realization. “You love her.”
“I don- It… It doesn’t matter.” His torn look says it all. He loves her.
I don’t believe it… “How long?”
His jaw clenched and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I have no right. Just… please. See her.”
“HOW LONG!?” I yelled.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied with forced calm.
“IT MATTERS TO ME!” I screamed, very much irked with his calmness. “How long have you been deceiving me, huh? How long have you been tricking me into thinking you were my friend!? All those times you told me to pursue her, all those times you told me to love her, all those times I told you everything I felt! And now you steal her from me! WERE YOU JUST LAUGHING BEHIND MY BACK!?”
“I never deceived you!” he yelled back desperately as his calmness broke.
“Then what do you call what you fucking did!?”
“What would you have done if I told you!? Huh? If I told you I loved Yunhei, too, you would have hated me!”
“So you just chose to steal her this way and get rid of me!”
I dashed towards him and pulled my fist back. The punch I gave him came out of nowhere. So did the kick that followed. He doubled up from in pain, and suddenly the intense anger came back and I found myself doing a repeat of yesterday.
“Why? How could you do this to me? I thought you were my brother! I trusted you, and you betrayed me!”
I kick to the stomach drops him down to the ground to his knees. “I n-never meant to…” he wheezed out, his head lowered, hands holding his abdomen in pain. “W-what should I do? What more should I do to tell you I’m sorry? Do I need to beg on my knees? Do I need to eat dirt!?”
“If I ask you to stop loving Yunhei, would you do it? Hm? If I ask you to take the damn child and disappear from the world, will you do it? What if I ask that you just die? Will you kill yourself?”
He laughed bitterly. “Dig my own grave, then?”
“Bullshit, Jung. There is nothing you could do that will make me forgive you. Even if you get onto your knees and lick my shoes clean, you will remain a traitor to my eyes.”
I walked away, trying very hard to forget the image of my best fr- the person I hate the most begging.
***
I stood before the mirror, staring at my pale complexion in contrast to the bright red liquid spilling out from my wrist.
I stared with morbid fascination at the blood. I didn't know when I started cutting myself. Was it right after I had known that Yunho and Yunhei betrayed me? Was it the moment I discovered that bodily injuries offer temporary relief from agony? Or was it after some time, a few months maybe, when I cut all my ties from both of them? I didn't know, and frankly I didn't care. I actually wish I’ve done this sooner instead of taking the coward’s way of jumping off a building. If I had taken to cutting, I would never have met the traitors. I would have been happily miserable all by myself, maybe even dead. Wishful thinking… Better to be dead than feel like being torn apart from inside.
Months have passed and I have not heard of any news from Yunho nor Yunhei, except for the fact that Yunhei's parents did kick her out, and that Yunho got emancipated and lost the support of the Youth Center he was living in, which basically meant he also got kicked out. Last I’ve heard, they dropped out of school and started living together. Yunho started working full-time.
That night was the last time I’ve ever talked to them. The day before that was the last time I’ve ever seen Yunhei. I could feel Yunho’s eyes on me whenever we pass by each other by chance. I ignore him every time. And I curse myself for feeling absolutely miserable.
To make things fantastically worse, I was Junghoon’s favorite punching bag again.
…And this time, no one is coming to protect me.
I laughed bitterly. I'm back to where I was before I met him. He has Yunhei to protect now, and Yunhei has him to depend on.
I'm left alone. Always alone. Absolutely fucking alone.
I looked at the mirror. The reflection stared back at me, its eyes accusing.
“What the hell are you looking at!?” I snarled.
It didn’t answer. It just looked at me, expression twisted into an ugly sneer.
“Stop staring at me!” I yelled as I hit the figure. The mirror broke into pieces. My fist was bleeding, imbedded with glass.
The broken figure at the broken mirror still stared back, judging and holding me at disdain.
“Damn you.”
My eyes started burning, and no matter how much I try to refuse to acknowledge them, I always end up giving in to tears. Chest unbearably heavy, throat clogging, sharp breaths coming out in pained pants… I started crying, bawling, wailing like there’s no tomorrow. But this time, Yunho won’t be coming. This time, Yunho won’t sit beside me throughout the whole night and listen to my complaints. This time, Yunho won’t be there to try to snap me out of my misery.
This time, Yunhei won’t be coming to comfort me. This time, Yunhei won’t be here to make me smile, to make me happy with just a simple smile. This time, Yunhei won’t be here to take my hand and tell me everything’s going to be alright.
I wish they didn’t tell me. I wish they deceived me for a little while longer.
No, I wish them gone. I want them gone.
And there it is again, the heavy feeling making way for burning hatred and anger.
I hate them both for betraying me. I hate them both for having the power to hurt me like this. I hate it that I hate them yet I need them by my side to survive.
This terrible, awful feeling, like I'm being crushed under a truck, suffocating me and making want to implode... It just won't go away.
I let my arm bleed-blood from my cut wrist mixing with the blood from my fist- willing the pain in my chest to manifest itself physically. It was no use. I was still alone. Still fucking alone, and still living in a constant haze of pain. Its roots deeply imbedded there, its arms engulfing my whole being.
It's impossible to escape.
***
Soft knocks resounded through my door. I ignored it, feeling too weak and tired to even move a finger. Self-mutilation did have its disadvantages. But the knocking got louder and louder. Each loud knock pounded through my head like a hammer on a hot nail. When I couldn't take the pain anymore, I got up from the cold damp floor, grabbed a bandage and carelessly taped it over my bleeding wrist, and then moved towards the door and opened it.
It was him.
"What are you doing here?" I sneered, my voice sharp and icy even to my own two ears. I leaned on the doorway and started picking my nail, not even bothering to look at him, clearly showing that I have no interest whatsoever in what he has to say. I could hear him breathing heavily, as if he had just run a thousand miles.
"Jaejoong... I... I-"
"If you're here to say sorry again, then forget it," I snapped. "Go home, go away, go die, I don't care. Just don't show your face to me. You make me sick," I barked, anger and hate unmistakably evident in my voice. It has been months, but I still haven't forgiven him. I still haven't forgiven myself so I still can not forgive him. And I don't think I ever will.
I attempted to shut the door in his face, but he blocked it with his hand. My door slammed on his hand with unmistakable force. I'm sure it hurt like hell even though his expression did not visibly change. But instead of feeling sorry, I grew even angrier. I threw open the door full force, ready to throw him a punch on the face.
But as soon as I looked at his face, just a momentarily glance at his face, my fist stopped mid-way.
With my hate momentarily forgotten, confusion took over as I took a good look at the person in front of me, the person I once called my best friend. He stood there, bracing himself for the impact of my fist. Unusually pale-faced and shivering, thinly wrapped with just a layer of an old jacket in the bitter cold of the night, fog coming out of every breath he takes… He didn’t look the same as I last saw him. When the expected impact didn't come, he breathed out and stared at me, the expression on his face unreadable.
Fear. Pain. Confusion… Emotions that I never thought would ever reflect his face now seemed to radiate from his whole being. It was like he was afraid, as if he was in unimaginable pain... lost, confused, without knowing what to do next.
"Please, Jaejoong... Hear me out, just this once... I don't know what to do...” his voice trembling, desperate and on the verge of crying instantly shot alarm bells in my head. “I-I don’t… what… I… You're the only one I can talk to now... Please..."
Yunho, my best friend, my only friend, the strongest and proudest person I have ever met who never showed any sign weakness in the past, the person I hate the most, started crying. Right in front of me, crying.
"I'm dying..."
My hands fell to my sides.
"I'm dying," he cried. "Help me…"
***
Forgiveness. Forgiving is the most important factor of friendship. Without it, a bond between two people is brittle, and completely useless.
I haven’t been forgiving that time, wasn’t I? And I refused to even hear your explanation. I completely shunned you away from my life, only concerned about licking my own wounds, not even noticing your bigger ones.
I'm sorry, Yunho. If only I knew that you were suffering then, if only I knew I wasn't the only one in pain, I wouldn't have been the selfish, arrogant, self-centered monster that I've been. My anger rooted from fear, you see. Fear that you would have to leave me. Fear that Yunhei would leave me. Fear that I would be alone again, miserable and pathetic, so being the fool I was, did it all on my own in some twisted sense of independence. That was why I was so angry, Yunho. I was so angry because I was so scared of being alone.
I'm sorry I didn't notice your pain.
AN: You all know by now that I enjoy comments and/or criticisms. You're even welcome to flame. I have a fire extinguisher. Now where did I put it...
AN2: For some reason, I feel like I went all over the place in this chapter. And I hate angst. What the heck was I thinking, writing one?
Sorry for the delay *bows*