220km/sec - 0 + [masterpost]
220km/sec
jongin/jinyoung/sehun/jaebum ft jackson
pg-15, 1253w
trigger warning: character death
a/n: inspired by bts' i need u/prologue/run trilogy and i would like to thank kirakirashahida for being my director and promoter and biggest supporter and holding me back when i wanted to make things really dramatic thank you shida <3
consider that
you can see
less than 1% of the
electromagnetic spectrum
and hear
less than 1% of the
acoustic spectrum.
as you read this, you are traveling at
220 km/sec
across the galaxy.
90% of the cells in your body carry their own
microbial DNA and are not
“you.”
the atoms in your body are
99.9999999999999999% empty space
and none of them are the ones you were born with,
but they all
originated in the
belly of a star.
- sergio toporek
_______________________
CHAPTERS
1 | 2 | 3
_______________________
The headlights of a lone car stretched over the ceiling, filtered through the slatted blinds. Five floors down and two blocks away, a midnight black cat crossed the street and paused in the middle, its whiskers twitching. It blinked, once, twice then continued on its way and disappeared back into the safety of the night. There were no other sounds in the street. A streetlamp flickered suddenly, distorting the darkness, then went out entirely.
Two blocks back and five floors back up, Sehun lifted the end ball of his Newton’s cradle and released it. It struck the second with a clack that seemed to reverberate around the silent room, and the last ball lifted and fell back. Another headlight stretched over the ceiling, throwing its yellow glow over him for a second before sliding away. Sehun kept watching the little silver balls on his desk sideways, his cheek pressed to his arm. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. He lifted a finger and stopped the first ball before it could fall back, and glanced at the clock. One minute, just like he’d calculated.
His phone lit up, and he stared at the caller ID for a microsecond before picking up. Thought processes flow fast in real time, and in that microsecond he managed three thoughts: Why is he calling me? Shouldn’t he be asleep? and There’s no way I’m going out at this hour.
“Hello?” he said carefully into the speaker. Damn, I shouldn’t have picked up so fast, now he’ll know that I’m awake, he cursed inwardly. He tried for a fake yawn, and ended up yawning for real. “What’s up?”
“What’re you still doing up?” Jackson’s voice rang clear down the line. If Sehun closed his eyes he might be able to imagine that Jackson was in the room with him. But then he remembered that if Jackson was in the room with him there would probably be silver balls all over the floor and no more Newton’s cradle, so he stopped imagining it.
“Could ask you the same thing,” he retorted. No point in trying to hide it. Jackson always knew everything.
Jackson laughed. “Hey, do me a favour, asshole,” he drawled. Sehun thought his laugh sounded a little off, but that might have been the connection. “Keep fighting, okay? I know this sounds fucking weird, but you can do it. You just gotta believe in yourself.”
Sehun lifted his head off the desk, his eyebrows furrowed. “What?” he asked, and a nervous, breathless laugh forced its way out of this throat. Old habits die hard, and Sehun had never tried to kill his in the first place.
“Yeah, you know, you never say much but you’re always watching, and you know everyone else as well as I do,” Jackson said nonchalantly, and Sehun imagined him shrugging and grinning. “Maybe you can be a little asshole sometimes, but when it comes down to it you’re my man, y’know?”
“Are you drunk?” Sehun rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Typical Jackson talk. He’d had this kind of call before, where Jackson rings up randomly in the middle of the night and tells whoever was on the receiving end that they’re a real bro, and could they come down to the local police station and bail him out? Sehun went the first time, and got Jongin to go the second. “Wait, no, did you get arrested again?”
This time Jackson’s laugh sounded a little more genuine. “Nah, just thinking about things.”
“Oh.” Sehun dropped his head back down on the desk. Another typical Jackson trait, having random moments of feeling at odd hours of the night (or morning). Or so Jinyoung told him. This was Sehun’s first time getting one of these calls.
There was silence on the other side of the line, and he took the opportunity to try and rest his phone on his ear. It lasted for a few seconds, and he heard Jackson start with a “Hey Sehun, I’m -,” before he shifted and it toppled off him and onto the floor with a clatter. He snatched it up, but Jackson was already done talking.
“Did you say something?”
“Did you drop your phone on the floor?”
“No,” Sehun muttered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Okay.” Sehun felt something uneasy beginning to well up inside his gut, like he had eaten some bad kimchi and was feeling the effects now. There was something wholly unnatural about this conversation, but maybe it was because he’d never had the opportunity to talk like this to Jackson before. Maybe he just wasn’t used to it. “Where are you?” he tried.
A pause. “I’m at home.” And then Jackson exploded into a guffaw again, and Sehun held the phone away from his ear slightly. “Or I will be soon. Don’t worry man, I’m not in the lockup. I won’t be there anymore. Promise.”
Sehun didn’t believe him, but decided not to say anything. Jackson was always the first to jump headlong into things without much thought, but he’d realized a while back that they were okay with being dumb enough to keep following him. “Okay… well… I’m going now,” he glanced up at the clock. “Got church in the morning.”
“Don’t fucking act like you actually go to church Oh Sehun, you use that line every Saturday night. I bet you just stay home with your left hand all day,” Jackson cursed, and Sehun grinned to himself. The uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach vanished, and he felt like he could breathe a little easier. Everything was normal. Yes, everything was very much normal.
“Whatever,” he yawned. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” said Jackson. “Take care. See ya on the other side.”
“The other side?”
“Go to sleep, Sehun.”
And he was gone. Sehun stared dumbly at the phone in his hand like they did in movies when the protagonist was waiting for that life altering phone call or for the phone to magically talk back, but it didn’t ring again nor sprout a mouth from the transmitter. He tossed the phone on to his bed and decided not to dwell too much on Jackson Wang and his weird-ass mood swings.
Sehun lifted the first two balls on the cradle with one finger and let go.
Five floors down and two blocks away, the black cat from before suddenly leapt from the bushes that surrounded an ordinary looking block of flats with a yowl of distress at the sudden loud thud in the silent night. In the same building, 10 floors up, a man in a suit and holding a briefcase in one hand opened the front door of his tiny home and paused in the doorway while he took off his shoes. He listened intently for a while, but after hearing nothing else he entered the flat and closed the door behind him. Back on the ground, the cat sniffed at the dark pool beginning to creep across the concrete and flicked its tail with displeasure before it turned and fled down the street.
Clack.
The two spheres hit the remaining three. The last silver ball dislodged itself from its wire perch and tumbled out of sight under his bed, and Sehun realized that something was very, very wrong. He scrabbled amongst the bedsheets for his phone and hit dial with shaky fingers, but Jackson didn’t pick up. He hit redial six times in the next two minutes. Jackson never picked up.
_______________________
Jackson was always the first to jump.
jongin/jinyoung/sehun/jaebum ft jackson
pg-15, 1253w
trigger warning: character death
a/n: inspired by bts' i need u/prologue/run trilogy and i would like to thank kirakirashahida for being my director and promoter and biggest supporter and holding me back when i wanted to make things really dramatic thank you shida <3
consider that
you can see
less than 1% of the
electromagnetic spectrum
and hear
less than 1% of the
acoustic spectrum.
as you read this, you are traveling at
220 km/sec
across the galaxy.
90% of the cells in your body carry their own
microbial DNA and are not
“you.”
the atoms in your body are
99.9999999999999999% empty space
and none of them are the ones you were born with,
but they all
originated in the
belly of a star.
- sergio toporek
_______________________
CHAPTERS
1 | 2 | 3
_______________________
The headlights of a lone car stretched over the ceiling, filtered through the slatted blinds. Five floors down and two blocks away, a midnight black cat crossed the street and paused in the middle, its whiskers twitching. It blinked, once, twice then continued on its way and disappeared back into the safety of the night. There were no other sounds in the street. A streetlamp flickered suddenly, distorting the darkness, then went out entirely.
Two blocks back and five floors back up, Sehun lifted the end ball of his Newton’s cradle and released it. It struck the second with a clack that seemed to reverberate around the silent room, and the last ball lifted and fell back. Another headlight stretched over the ceiling, throwing its yellow glow over him for a second before sliding away. Sehun kept watching the little silver balls on his desk sideways, his cheek pressed to his arm. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. He lifted a finger and stopped the first ball before it could fall back, and glanced at the clock. One minute, just like he’d calculated.
His phone lit up, and he stared at the caller ID for a microsecond before picking up. Thought processes flow fast in real time, and in that microsecond he managed three thoughts: Why is he calling me? Shouldn’t he be asleep? and There’s no way I’m going out at this hour.
“Hello?” he said carefully into the speaker. Damn, I shouldn’t have picked up so fast, now he’ll know that I’m awake, he cursed inwardly. He tried for a fake yawn, and ended up yawning for real. “What’s up?”
“What’re you still doing up?” Jackson’s voice rang clear down the line. If Sehun closed his eyes he might be able to imagine that Jackson was in the room with him. But then he remembered that if Jackson was in the room with him there would probably be silver balls all over the floor and no more Newton’s cradle, so he stopped imagining it.
“Could ask you the same thing,” he retorted. No point in trying to hide it. Jackson always knew everything.
Jackson laughed. “Hey, do me a favour, asshole,” he drawled. Sehun thought his laugh sounded a little off, but that might have been the connection. “Keep fighting, okay? I know this sounds fucking weird, but you can do it. You just gotta believe in yourself.”
Sehun lifted his head off the desk, his eyebrows furrowed. “What?” he asked, and a nervous, breathless laugh forced its way out of this throat. Old habits die hard, and Sehun had never tried to kill his in the first place.
“Yeah, you know, you never say much but you’re always watching, and you know everyone else as well as I do,” Jackson said nonchalantly, and Sehun imagined him shrugging and grinning. “Maybe you can be a little asshole sometimes, but when it comes down to it you’re my man, y’know?”
“Are you drunk?” Sehun rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Typical Jackson talk. He’d had this kind of call before, where Jackson rings up randomly in the middle of the night and tells whoever was on the receiving end that they’re a real bro, and could they come down to the local police station and bail him out? Sehun went the first time, and got Jongin to go the second. “Wait, no, did you get arrested again?”
This time Jackson’s laugh sounded a little more genuine. “Nah, just thinking about things.”
“Oh.” Sehun dropped his head back down on the desk. Another typical Jackson trait, having random moments of feeling at odd hours of the night (or morning). Or so Jinyoung told him. This was Sehun’s first time getting one of these calls.
There was silence on the other side of the line, and he took the opportunity to try and rest his phone on his ear. It lasted for a few seconds, and he heard Jackson start with a “Hey Sehun, I’m -,” before he shifted and it toppled off him and onto the floor with a clatter. He snatched it up, but Jackson was already done talking.
“Did you say something?”
“Did you drop your phone on the floor?”
“No,” Sehun muttered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Okay.” Sehun felt something uneasy beginning to well up inside his gut, like he had eaten some bad kimchi and was feeling the effects now. There was something wholly unnatural about this conversation, but maybe it was because he’d never had the opportunity to talk like this to Jackson before. Maybe he just wasn’t used to it. “Where are you?” he tried.
A pause. “I’m at home.” And then Jackson exploded into a guffaw again, and Sehun held the phone away from his ear slightly. “Or I will be soon. Don’t worry man, I’m not in the lockup. I won’t be there anymore. Promise.”
Sehun didn’t believe him, but decided not to say anything. Jackson was always the first to jump headlong into things without much thought, but he’d realized a while back that they were okay with being dumb enough to keep following him. “Okay… well… I’m going now,” he glanced up at the clock. “Got church in the morning.”
“Don’t fucking act like you actually go to church Oh Sehun, you use that line every Saturday night. I bet you just stay home with your left hand all day,” Jackson cursed, and Sehun grinned to himself. The uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach vanished, and he felt like he could breathe a little easier. Everything was normal. Yes, everything was very much normal.
“Whatever,” he yawned. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” said Jackson. “Take care. See ya on the other side.”
“The other side?”
“Go to sleep, Sehun.”
And he was gone. Sehun stared dumbly at the phone in his hand like they did in movies when the protagonist was waiting for that life altering phone call or for the phone to magically talk back, but it didn’t ring again nor sprout a mouth from the transmitter. He tossed the phone on to his bed and decided not to dwell too much on Jackson Wang and his weird-ass mood swings.
Sehun lifted the first two balls on the cradle with one finger and let go.
Five floors down and two blocks away, the black cat from before suddenly leapt from the bushes that surrounded an ordinary looking block of flats with a yowl of distress at the sudden loud thud in the silent night. In the same building, 10 floors up, a man in a suit and holding a briefcase in one hand opened the front door of his tiny home and paused in the doorway while he took off his shoes. He listened intently for a while, but after hearing nothing else he entered the flat and closed the door behind him. Back on the ground, the cat sniffed at the dark pool beginning to creep across the concrete and flicked its tail with displeasure before it turned and fled down the street.
Clack.
The two spheres hit the remaining three. The last silver ball dislodged itself from its wire perch and tumbled out of sight under his bed, and Sehun realized that something was very, very wrong. He scrabbled amongst the bedsheets for his phone and hit dial with shaky fingers, but Jackson didn’t pick up. He hit redial six times in the next two minutes. Jackson never picked up.
_______________________
Jackson was always the first to jump.