(for sooperdyo) in between time
❊ for: sooperdyo
❊ title: in between time
❊ pairings: kai/d.o
❊ rating: pg13
❊ warnings: suicide attempts/dark themes, dark humor
❊ word count: 3,900
❊ summary: Jongin falls in love in between jumping through time and finding a cure for the boy who brought life back into him.
❊ a/n: Ahh man this is actually pretty different from what I usually write ^^;; Nevertheless, I hope you like it! (I'm sorry if it sucks asdfghjkl) Thank you to M and N for helping me with this, and E for the last minute sprinting!
When Jongin was eight, he almost got hit by a car. He can still see it clearly, as it was the only memory of his childhood that wasn't blurred by time and confusion. The car came straight for him, not slowing down, not stopping. Maybe the driver couldn't see him. Whatever the case, the next thing he saw was the car driving right past him, as he watched from a safe distance away on the sidewalk.
He walked forward once it passed, following the painted lines again, but this time the walking signal was green, and he was safe. There was a weird feeling in his mind, like he had been in this exact situation and position before, but he didn't pay attention to it. His teacher would know what it was. His teacher knew everything.
When Jongin was eight, he lived without a care in the world past what was for dinner and how much homework he got from school. When Jongin was eight, life was much simpler.
The cost of being able to manipulate time and space was not being able to stay in one place for very long. Jongin traveled around the world, teleporting and time traveling. He visited the same places over and over again, feeling the same haunting deja-vu as every other time. He didn't age as fast as other people, but his life was a blur of the same events from different places in the world and he stopped pay attention to current events long ago. Humans were stupid and petty and ignorant, and that had never changed as long as he'd been alive.
But perhaps the most startling yet subtle change was when he started to differentiate between himself and humans, as if he wasn't one, wasn't born one. Jongin made a fair argument (after all, not just anybody can travel through time) but the biggest difference was how Jongin doesn't feel anything anymore. When he was young, the world was full of beauty and wonder, but now it was all the same, no matter where he went.
The real price of being able to do what Jongin could do was losing his passion and excitement and humanity.
Jongin was a being, not a human, not a monster. He just existed, despite how much he wanted to feel some spark of life again. The cost of having these powers was not a cost that he wanted to pay.
Jongin lost track of how old he was. He lost track of what year it was, what time it was, the new inventions, what has or hasn't happened.
He had gotten reckless, too, not caring where he was or what he did. He just wandered through life and let his feet walk where they wanted to.
He rarely slept, never ate, and speaking was something he only did to ward away prying eyes and curious conversations. It was a lonely life, but it made no difference when one minute he was in a hovercraft and the next flip phones hadn't been invented yet.
Jongin blinked into existence on the roof of a twelve story apartment complex. He had stayed there before with a roommate whom he never saw, but the bills were paid through mutual effort and there was never any conflict, so Jongin didn't complain. He stepped onto the ledge, kneeling down to sit down on it.
If he jumped, he wouldn't die. No one had ever tried to kill him, before, or at least not seriously, so he wasn't sure if he was immortal or not, just that he didn't age and couldn't kill himself.
The only thing he noticed on the way down was that there was no thrill in falling from heights anymore, no fear in seeing the ground rushing towards him, the only feeling in the pain that wracked through his body until he passed out.
There was only one situation in which he felt, and that was when he was about to die.
The hospital Jongin woke up in this time was the same as the last time he had jumped from that building. Maybe he was in the same time period. He didn't really know anymore.
Jongin traced the IV drip to where it was stuck in his wrist. He didn't need it, but it seemed to be a necessary thing for when he tried to die. It wasn't very pleasant, but it seemed to appease the doctors, so he put up with it.
He found out that his arm was broken when he tried to sit up, and failed. Sighing, he raised his arm, staring at the cast binding it. Raising his other arm, which was injury-free for the most part, he used his broken arm to take out the IV, letting it drop onto the bed as he sat up and turned to the side.
Quietly, he crossed the room in a few long strides and pulled the door open, looking out into the hallway to check for people watching. There was no one, only an endless stretch of white walls and doors, so he stepped out, going right until he reaches the elevators. He waited patiently for the elevator to arrive at his level, stepping in through the doors as they opened, and pressed the button for the top floor.
The exit to the roof was unlocked. Jongin had visited there before, in the past. High places called to him, promising a view of the sky, seemingly endless and vast in its openness. For those precious moments, he could pretend that he wasn't real, that nothing was real. There were no worries weighing his mind down, he could disappear from the world for hours at a time.
The clouds painted white patches against the blue sky, occasionally casting shadows over Jongin as they passed in front of the sun. He lowered himself to the ground, careful of his arm, and closed his eyes. A lot of his time was passed in sleep, and it was more pleasant to do so basking in the warm sunlight of the day than in the cold and sterile room of the hospital. Maybe he'd wake up in time to go back to his room before anyone discovered he was missing.
Or maybe not, since by the time he woke up it was dark around him. He opened his eyes slowly, already feeling the chill of the night through his thin hospital-issued clothing. There was the feeling of deja-vu that was now a familiar companion to Jongin's waking hours, this time reminiscent of only a few hours earlier when he pushed himself up with his uninjured arm, and he blinked, letting his body adjust to the sudden change in orientation.
Lazily, he crossed the roof, re-entering the building effortlessly. Perhaps the high brass thought that there was no reason to lock the door to the roof, figuring that no one could really enter or exit the premises from there. Whatever it was, Jongin wasn't too concerned. It worked out for him, in the end.
He walks through empty halls until he reaches his floor, the elevator doors opening to reveal a nurse waiting to get in. Nodding to her, he passed by and turned down the hall. After a nap, he wouldn't have to sleep for a few more hours, even though it was now actually time for him to sleep. Hm. Oh well.
The first thing he did after opening the door to his room - aside from wondering why it was so dark - was turn on the lights. He then realized the answer to his question once the person sitting on the bed was illuminated, body turned towards Jongin curiously, eyes blinking to adjust to the sudden brightness.
"Sorry," Jongin said, voice a hoarse whisper from not having spoken in who knows how long. He almost continued, but thought better of it.
"It's alright," the boy replied. His voice, on the other hand, was perfect. He was used to talking, Jongin realized with amazement. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd actually talked to a human.
"I must have mixed up our rooms." Jongin backed into a closed door, making a grin appear on the stranger's face. It was beautiful, to Jongin. He found himself smiling in response. (It was strange, but not entirely unpleasant.) "I think I'm on the floor below you."
"That would make sense. You don't look terminally ill." A laugh came from the other boy, light, and not fitting for the dark humor.
Jongin didn't know how to respond. What was one supposed to say to that? His communication skills were rusty, unsurprisingly. "I just have a broken arm."
“I can see that.” The boy nodded, putting on a serious face, at Jongin’s arm, where it was binded in his cast. “How’d it break?”
Should I tell him? Jongin hesitated, the silence that hung between them slowly started to become suffocating. “I… fell.”
He nodded. "People tend to do that. I hope it's not too serious."
Jongin shook his head. "I'll be out soon. What about you?" The moment the words left his mouth, Jongin cringed. Terminally ill. It wasn't the best question that had ever come out of Jongin's mouth.
"No one knows." A ghost of a smile flitted across the stranger's face, but it was sad. "They just tell me my health is deteriorating and that they don't think I'll live much longer."
Jongin looked around for an escape. What did people used to reply to statements like that? "I'm sorry?"
"Please don't be. I've heard that phrase enough to attack the next person who says it. Present company excluded, of course." And he was laughing again. It amazed Jongin, how someone could show such joy even when they were labelled 'dying'. Had humans always been this amazing?
The boy, who had soon introduced himself as "Kyungsoo," stayed in Jongin's mind hours later, as he laid in his hospital bed staring up at the ceiling to the sound of birds chirping and the city waking up.
The loud honk of a car horn caught his attention and he listened closely, musing - in wonder, once he realized his newfound interest - about what time period it was. If they didn't know what sickness Kyungsoo had was now, maybe they would in the future. Maybe Kyungsoo wouldn't have to die, if Jongin could find a way to save him.
An odd, unfamiliar feeling raced through his body. It burned, made him want to get up and run a mile. Jongin thought for a bit. Was it adrenaline? Maybe passion? Did passion have a feeling? Whatever it was, it was foreign, but Jongin rather liked the feeling. It was better than feeling nothing, and more pleasant than pain. He would have to thank Kyungsoo for it, later.
Jongin left immediately after being discharged. He wandered around the streets, seeing many things for the first time, but looking only for a newspaper stand. Eventually, he found one sitting at the corner of a busy intersection, and almost ran to pick one up. He had no money to buy it, so instead he just searched for the date, spotting it in the top right corner, and set the paper back down, smiling sheepishly to the glaring man behind the stand.
Walking away, Jongin burned the date into his head. He would return here, after finding Kyungsoo's cure. Happy, he walked back in the direction of the hospital. Should he try to get himself run over so they would take him back in? No, they would probably let him in if he just entered.
A pleasant smile on his face, Jongin strolled along, thinking of things to say when he saw Kyungsoo again.
"Kyungsoo," he tried out. "Do Kyungsoo. Hello. How are you? Are you feeling better?"
"You tell me." Kyungsoo's voice was raspy, completely different from how it was the day before. A slight cold, he had said in response to Jongin's dumbfounded silence (he had forgotten how vulnerable humans were to death and sickness), made worse by his long term illness.
"Sorry," he quickly continued. "I'm just tired from people coming in and out all day. I think they're convinced I'm going to die today."
This alarmed Jongin. Doctors and even nurses should know what they were doing, and this was cause to fear. He didn't want Kyungsoo to die, despite only meeting him the day before. He had so much to thank Kyungsoo for, and so many things he had wanted to do and he needed time to let everything settle in and be real. Kyungsoo couldn't die.
Kyungsoo opened his mouth to talk again, after seeing the look on Jongin's face, but Jongin interrupted, "Don't talk. You need to get better soon."
"Alright," Kyungsoo responded in a whisper, with a smile. "Thank you for worrying about me."
"Sleep."
Jongin woke up in a large loft, an entire wall open to the baby blue sky, looking down onto a busy street, surrounded by skyscrapers rising higher than the room he was in. The walls that surrounded him were smooth chrome and the furniture was sleek and sophisticated. He must be in the future.
And he was, according to the large glass clock on one wall. Fifty years since he'd met Kyungsoo, give or take a few months. Alright.
Then it occurred to him, and with a muffled groan, Jongin turned to bury his face in his arm. How would he find a cure for an unknown disease?
Jongin sighed and pushed himself up, reluctantly. Maybe there were records of Kyungsoo in a database somewhere, and by now they would have found others with the disease, and it would be cured already, and Kyungsoo would be so happy to hear the news. Jongin almost forgot that it wasn't a human thing to be able to travel through time. Kyungsoo had been so welcoming to Jongin at first, but how much would that matter once he found out about Jongin's... powers, if they could be called that. Was it too unnatural to be able to defy the laws of space and time? Maybe Kyungsoo was a science fiction geek, and would welcome the idea.
There were so many maybes. But Jongin pushed that out of his mind. Kyungsoo's life came before any fear of being pushed away.
The time period he had landed in wasn't so unfamiliar to Jongin. He was pretty sure he had been there before, or some time close. The technology was easy to navigate, regardless, and Jongin
didn't have much trouble pulling up a map of the city.
There was a library close to his current location, according to the computer, and when he clicked on the icon a little pop-up offered to call a taxi for him. This was almost too easy.
Before long, Jongin found himself standing before a large, brick building, people trickling both in and out of the double doors in the front. He blends in quietly with the line going up the stairs, looking around in awe. Even if he'd been in this time before, he hadn't truly appreciated it. Humans were fascinating, creating new and innovative technology every year.
When he stepped through the doors, he found a new appreciation for air conditioning as well. He didn't realize how hot it had been outside, or how disconnected he had been from his own feelings before, living as if it were normal to not remember how you lived your days at all, only that you lived. It wasn't normal to live every day feeling nothing. A dry smile made its way onto his face at that thought. He really did have a lot to thank Kyungsoo for. Hopefully, he could do it by finding a cure to save his life.
There was no Do Kyungsoo anywhere. Not on the computers, not in any medical books, not even in family trees or on the web, at least not the Do Kyungsoo he was looking for. There was no mention of an unknown disease anywhere, and for a second the thought that maybe Kyungsoo had been lying to him and was really in the hospital for a minor injury crossed his mind. He shoved it away. Kyungsoo wouldn't lie to him.
Jongin would find a cure for Kyungsoo if that was the last thing he ever did, no matter how long it took him. And for the first time, Jongin was grateful for his ability to travel through time, that it gave him this opportunity, no matter how he got it in the first place.
It takes Jongin days of searching, of reading, of going forward in time and back in time, to give up. It had been weeks since he had last seen Kyungsoo, and even though this was for the other's good, Jongin missed him. He missed having company and missed talking to someone, even from the little interaction that had occurred between them. Jongin hadn't realized how much he missed human interaction after spending his days wandering through time.
He remembered when he was eight, how he was happy and young and innocent. How he had loved going to school every day. He wondered, now, how his teacher was doing. Maybe she had already passed away, though he didn't really know how long it had been. Jongin had been popular, or as popular as an eight year old can get, anyway; he had had lots of friends from being a talkative little kid, though he didn't remember any of them.
For a moment, the passion to find a cure had gone out of Jongin. He wanted to go back to the ease of not caring about anyone or anything. It was a lot easier and less stressful and less painful.
But he cared too much about Kyungsoo, now, to disappear without a trace. He owed it to him to do this.
"Didn't you just leave?" The words were harsh, but Jongin would see the amusement in Kyungsoo's eyes. "Did you forget something?"
Jongin tried to think. What had he said before he left? "I just wanted to thank you."
"For what?" Kyungsoo's head tilted to the side.
"You didn't throw anything at me when I walked into your room the first day," Jongin said, and Kyungsoo's laugh was nice to hear, even though it was hoarse because of his cold.
Kyungsoo broke out into a cough, but held up a hand to stop Jongin from moving. "I'm fine, don't worry."
"Do you want anything? Water? Blankets? I can ask a nurse for something."
"I'm fine," Kyungsoo insisted.
Nodding, Jongin conceded. "I'll be back tomorrow, then."
Kyungsoo grinned. "I'll be looking forward to it."
Jongin left the room quickly, going up to the roof to be by himself. If there was no known cure for Kyungsoo, then Jongin would find one. It wouldn't be that hard for him. He could go to college, go to med school, save up however much money he needed.
He could make friends with other people, people whom he trusted, and they could help him. If Kyungsoo wasn't a bad person, there had to be other good humans out there. And he'd make his own family tree, consisting of only he himself, but with different names, so he could access his bank account no matter the time period. He would do this, and visit Kyungsoo at the same time. The latter would never have to know, until Jongin showed up triumphantly with his cure.
It took Jongin years longer than a normal human to go through med school and graduate with enough knowledge and experience to start his work in the field. His highest level of education was elementary school, a fact he slowly started to become ashamed of after meeting other human beings at different levels of school. It was also a fact he worked to change, attending high school regularly (and going back in time to take any missed classes, if he suddenly woke up ten years ahead, which he had a tendency to do).
He entered the hospital Kyungsoo had stayed at, working as a doctor, until he was granted permission to view past files. Kyungsoo's was the strangest he had ever seen, since there was so little information about his disease. The stats were all of his stay in the hospital, and it was noted that he never left. Jongin felt sick looking at that - knowing that he died in the hospital. He would change that. He would be a savior to Kyungsoo, and to all the sick.
Failure. Another trial, another failure. Jongin wanted to punch a wall until his fists bled. He wouldn't, though. He had gained enough self control to at least stop that urge. What he couldn't stop was the urge to break down. How long would it take to find a cure, while his friend was dying right in front of his eyes?
Kyungsoo passed away while holding onto Jongin's hand. His family, who had met Jongin earlier, walking in on a conversation between their son and his new friend, were on the other side of the bed. Jongin, emotionless, leaned down to kiss Kyungsoo one last time, his lips brushing against Kyungsoo's forehead.
He turned around and left the room quickly, making his way up to the roof, a now familiar place to him. He didn't know how to feel, but the emptiness inside his body disgusted him. Weren't you supposed to feel sad when someone you loved passed away? Instead, he only felt hollow. Worthless. He had worked so hard to find a cure, only to suffer from his failure, and make Kyungsoo suffer too.
Oh, how much the latter had suffered, his last days filled with endless pain, and nothing Jongin did or brought or made making it better. How many pills Jongin had brought, giving Kyungsoo false hope and letting him down again and again, so much so that he no longer said they would cure him. Instead, they were vitamins, candy, pills from the doctor. And Kyungsoo had trusted him. He hadn't reeled in horror when Jongin told him everything about himself, only nodded in silent conviction that Jongin would cure him. Oh, how much he had believed in Jongin.
Jongin couldn't do anything for him. He sunk to the floor, on the rooftop, dry sobs fading into dull blackness as he fell asleep.
He had lived so long disregarding the laws of space and time that now, space and time decided to disregard him as well. The laws that limited mankind were nothing to Jongin, and so Jongin became nothing to the world.
He stepped off the elevator at the wrong floor, his face smiling as a nicety to the passing nurse, and walked down the hall. It was not his room that he stopped in front of, but it was his destination anyway. It was dark when he opened the door, but the flick of the light switch illuminated the boy sitting up on his hospital bed.
Jongin made sure that, when the boy turned to face him, his face would be a mask of innocence and confusion. He had come to bid Kyungsoo one last goodbye, before his body was rejected from this world for the final time. Maybe they’d see each other in the afterlife.
❊ title: in between time
❊ pairings: kai/d.o
❊ rating: pg13
❊ warnings: suicide attempts/dark themes, dark humor
❊ word count: 3,900
❊ summary: Jongin falls in love in between jumping through time and finding a cure for the boy who brought life back into him.
❊ a/n: Ahh man this is actually pretty different from what I usually write ^^;; Nevertheless, I hope you like it! (I'm sorry if it sucks asdfghjkl) Thank you to M and N for helping me with this, and E for the last minute sprinting!
When Jongin was eight, he almost got hit by a car. He can still see it clearly, as it was the only memory of his childhood that wasn't blurred by time and confusion. The car came straight for him, not slowing down, not stopping. Maybe the driver couldn't see him. Whatever the case, the next thing he saw was the car driving right past him, as he watched from a safe distance away on the sidewalk.
He walked forward once it passed, following the painted lines again, but this time the walking signal was green, and he was safe. There was a weird feeling in his mind, like he had been in this exact situation and position before, but he didn't pay attention to it. His teacher would know what it was. His teacher knew everything.
When Jongin was eight, he lived without a care in the world past what was for dinner and how much homework he got from school. When Jongin was eight, life was much simpler.
The cost of being able to manipulate time and space was not being able to stay in one place for very long. Jongin traveled around the world, teleporting and time traveling. He visited the same places over and over again, feeling the same haunting deja-vu as every other time. He didn't age as fast as other people, but his life was a blur of the same events from different places in the world and he stopped pay attention to current events long ago. Humans were stupid and petty and ignorant, and that had never changed as long as he'd been alive.
But perhaps the most startling yet subtle change was when he started to differentiate between himself and humans, as if he wasn't one, wasn't born one. Jongin made a fair argument (after all, not just anybody can travel through time) but the biggest difference was how Jongin doesn't feel anything anymore. When he was young, the world was full of beauty and wonder, but now it was all the same, no matter where he went.
The real price of being able to do what Jongin could do was losing his passion and excitement and humanity.
Jongin was a being, not a human, not a monster. He just existed, despite how much he wanted to feel some spark of life again. The cost of having these powers was not a cost that he wanted to pay.
Jongin lost track of how old he was. He lost track of what year it was, what time it was, the new inventions, what has or hasn't happened.
He had gotten reckless, too, not caring where he was or what he did. He just wandered through life and let his feet walk where they wanted to.
He rarely slept, never ate, and speaking was something he only did to ward away prying eyes and curious conversations. It was a lonely life, but it made no difference when one minute he was in a hovercraft and the next flip phones hadn't been invented yet.
Jongin blinked into existence on the roof of a twelve story apartment complex. He had stayed there before with a roommate whom he never saw, but the bills were paid through mutual effort and there was never any conflict, so Jongin didn't complain. He stepped onto the ledge, kneeling down to sit down on it.
If he jumped, he wouldn't die. No one had ever tried to kill him, before, or at least not seriously, so he wasn't sure if he was immortal or not, just that he didn't age and couldn't kill himself.
The only thing he noticed on the way down was that there was no thrill in falling from heights anymore, no fear in seeing the ground rushing towards him, the only feeling in the pain that wracked through his body until he passed out.
There was only one situation in which he felt, and that was when he was about to die.
The hospital Jongin woke up in this time was the same as the last time he had jumped from that building. Maybe he was in the same time period. He didn't really know anymore.
Jongin traced the IV drip to where it was stuck in his wrist. He didn't need it, but it seemed to be a necessary thing for when he tried to die. It wasn't very pleasant, but it seemed to appease the doctors, so he put up with it.
He found out that his arm was broken when he tried to sit up, and failed. Sighing, he raised his arm, staring at the cast binding it. Raising his other arm, which was injury-free for the most part, he used his broken arm to take out the IV, letting it drop onto the bed as he sat up and turned to the side.
Quietly, he crossed the room in a few long strides and pulled the door open, looking out into the hallway to check for people watching. There was no one, only an endless stretch of white walls and doors, so he stepped out, going right until he reaches the elevators. He waited patiently for the elevator to arrive at his level, stepping in through the doors as they opened, and pressed the button for the top floor.
The exit to the roof was unlocked. Jongin had visited there before, in the past. High places called to him, promising a view of the sky, seemingly endless and vast in its openness. For those precious moments, he could pretend that he wasn't real, that nothing was real. There were no worries weighing his mind down, he could disappear from the world for hours at a time.
The clouds painted white patches against the blue sky, occasionally casting shadows over Jongin as they passed in front of the sun. He lowered himself to the ground, careful of his arm, and closed his eyes. A lot of his time was passed in sleep, and it was more pleasant to do so basking in the warm sunlight of the day than in the cold and sterile room of the hospital. Maybe he'd wake up in time to go back to his room before anyone discovered he was missing.
Or maybe not, since by the time he woke up it was dark around him. He opened his eyes slowly, already feeling the chill of the night through his thin hospital-issued clothing. There was the feeling of deja-vu that was now a familiar companion to Jongin's waking hours, this time reminiscent of only a few hours earlier when he pushed himself up with his uninjured arm, and he blinked, letting his body adjust to the sudden change in orientation.
Lazily, he crossed the roof, re-entering the building effortlessly. Perhaps the high brass thought that there was no reason to lock the door to the roof, figuring that no one could really enter or exit the premises from there. Whatever it was, Jongin wasn't too concerned. It worked out for him, in the end.
He walks through empty halls until he reaches his floor, the elevator doors opening to reveal a nurse waiting to get in. Nodding to her, he passed by and turned down the hall. After a nap, he wouldn't have to sleep for a few more hours, even though it was now actually time for him to sleep. Hm. Oh well.
The first thing he did after opening the door to his room - aside from wondering why it was so dark - was turn on the lights. He then realized the answer to his question once the person sitting on the bed was illuminated, body turned towards Jongin curiously, eyes blinking to adjust to the sudden brightness.
"Sorry," Jongin said, voice a hoarse whisper from not having spoken in who knows how long. He almost continued, but thought better of it.
"It's alright," the boy replied. His voice, on the other hand, was perfect. He was used to talking, Jongin realized with amazement. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd actually talked to a human.
"I must have mixed up our rooms." Jongin backed into a closed door, making a grin appear on the stranger's face. It was beautiful, to Jongin. He found himself smiling in response. (It was strange, but not entirely unpleasant.) "I think I'm on the floor below you."
"That would make sense. You don't look terminally ill." A laugh came from the other boy, light, and not fitting for the dark humor.
Jongin didn't know how to respond. What was one supposed to say to that? His communication skills were rusty, unsurprisingly. "I just have a broken arm."
“I can see that.” The boy nodded, putting on a serious face, at Jongin’s arm, where it was binded in his cast. “How’d it break?”
Should I tell him? Jongin hesitated, the silence that hung between them slowly started to become suffocating. “I… fell.”
He nodded. "People tend to do that. I hope it's not too serious."
Jongin shook his head. "I'll be out soon. What about you?" The moment the words left his mouth, Jongin cringed. Terminally ill. It wasn't the best question that had ever come out of Jongin's mouth.
"No one knows." A ghost of a smile flitted across the stranger's face, but it was sad. "They just tell me my health is deteriorating and that they don't think I'll live much longer."
Jongin looked around for an escape. What did people used to reply to statements like that? "I'm sorry?"
"Please don't be. I've heard that phrase enough to attack the next person who says it. Present company excluded, of course." And he was laughing again. It amazed Jongin, how someone could show such joy even when they were labelled 'dying'. Had humans always been this amazing?
The boy, who had soon introduced himself as "Kyungsoo," stayed in Jongin's mind hours later, as he laid in his hospital bed staring up at the ceiling to the sound of birds chirping and the city waking up.
The loud honk of a car horn caught his attention and he listened closely, musing - in wonder, once he realized his newfound interest - about what time period it was. If they didn't know what sickness Kyungsoo had was now, maybe they would in the future. Maybe Kyungsoo wouldn't have to die, if Jongin could find a way to save him.
An odd, unfamiliar feeling raced through his body. It burned, made him want to get up and run a mile. Jongin thought for a bit. Was it adrenaline? Maybe passion? Did passion have a feeling? Whatever it was, it was foreign, but Jongin rather liked the feeling. It was better than feeling nothing, and more pleasant than pain. He would have to thank Kyungsoo for it, later.
Jongin left immediately after being discharged. He wandered around the streets, seeing many things for the first time, but looking only for a newspaper stand. Eventually, he found one sitting at the corner of a busy intersection, and almost ran to pick one up. He had no money to buy it, so instead he just searched for the date, spotting it in the top right corner, and set the paper back down, smiling sheepishly to the glaring man behind the stand.
Walking away, Jongin burned the date into his head. He would return here, after finding Kyungsoo's cure. Happy, he walked back in the direction of the hospital. Should he try to get himself run over so they would take him back in? No, they would probably let him in if he just entered.
A pleasant smile on his face, Jongin strolled along, thinking of things to say when he saw Kyungsoo again.
"Kyungsoo," he tried out. "Do Kyungsoo. Hello. How are you? Are you feeling better?"
"You tell me." Kyungsoo's voice was raspy, completely different from how it was the day before. A slight cold, he had said in response to Jongin's dumbfounded silence (he had forgotten how vulnerable humans were to death and sickness), made worse by his long term illness.
"Sorry," he quickly continued. "I'm just tired from people coming in and out all day. I think they're convinced I'm going to die today."
This alarmed Jongin. Doctors and even nurses should know what they were doing, and this was cause to fear. He didn't want Kyungsoo to die, despite only meeting him the day before. He had so much to thank Kyungsoo for, and so many things he had wanted to do and he needed time to let everything settle in and be real. Kyungsoo couldn't die.
Kyungsoo opened his mouth to talk again, after seeing the look on Jongin's face, but Jongin interrupted, "Don't talk. You need to get better soon."
"Alright," Kyungsoo responded in a whisper, with a smile. "Thank you for worrying about me."
"Sleep."
Jongin woke up in a large loft, an entire wall open to the baby blue sky, looking down onto a busy street, surrounded by skyscrapers rising higher than the room he was in. The walls that surrounded him were smooth chrome and the furniture was sleek and sophisticated. He must be in the future.
And he was, according to the large glass clock on one wall. Fifty years since he'd met Kyungsoo, give or take a few months. Alright.
Then it occurred to him, and with a muffled groan, Jongin turned to bury his face in his arm. How would he find a cure for an unknown disease?
Jongin sighed and pushed himself up, reluctantly. Maybe there were records of Kyungsoo in a database somewhere, and by now they would have found others with the disease, and it would be cured already, and Kyungsoo would be so happy to hear the news. Jongin almost forgot that it wasn't a human thing to be able to travel through time. Kyungsoo had been so welcoming to Jongin at first, but how much would that matter once he found out about Jongin's... powers, if they could be called that. Was it too unnatural to be able to defy the laws of space and time? Maybe Kyungsoo was a science fiction geek, and would welcome the idea.
There were so many maybes. But Jongin pushed that out of his mind. Kyungsoo's life came before any fear of being pushed away.
The time period he had landed in wasn't so unfamiliar to Jongin. He was pretty sure he had been there before, or some time close. The technology was easy to navigate, regardless, and Jongin
didn't have much trouble pulling up a map of the city.
There was a library close to his current location, according to the computer, and when he clicked on the icon a little pop-up offered to call a taxi for him. This was almost too easy.
Before long, Jongin found himself standing before a large, brick building, people trickling both in and out of the double doors in the front. He blends in quietly with the line going up the stairs, looking around in awe. Even if he'd been in this time before, he hadn't truly appreciated it. Humans were fascinating, creating new and innovative technology every year.
When he stepped through the doors, he found a new appreciation for air conditioning as well. He didn't realize how hot it had been outside, or how disconnected he had been from his own feelings before, living as if it were normal to not remember how you lived your days at all, only that you lived. It wasn't normal to live every day feeling nothing. A dry smile made its way onto his face at that thought. He really did have a lot to thank Kyungsoo for. Hopefully, he could do it by finding a cure to save his life.
There was no Do Kyungsoo anywhere. Not on the computers, not in any medical books, not even in family trees or on the web, at least not the Do Kyungsoo he was looking for. There was no mention of an unknown disease anywhere, and for a second the thought that maybe Kyungsoo had been lying to him and was really in the hospital for a minor injury crossed his mind. He shoved it away. Kyungsoo wouldn't lie to him.
Jongin would find a cure for Kyungsoo if that was the last thing he ever did, no matter how long it took him. And for the first time, Jongin was grateful for his ability to travel through time, that it gave him this opportunity, no matter how he got it in the first place.
It takes Jongin days of searching, of reading, of going forward in time and back in time, to give up. It had been weeks since he had last seen Kyungsoo, and even though this was for the other's good, Jongin missed him. He missed having company and missed talking to someone, even from the little interaction that had occurred between them. Jongin hadn't realized how much he missed human interaction after spending his days wandering through time.
He remembered when he was eight, how he was happy and young and innocent. How he had loved going to school every day. He wondered, now, how his teacher was doing. Maybe she had already passed away, though he didn't really know how long it had been. Jongin had been popular, or as popular as an eight year old can get, anyway; he had had lots of friends from being a talkative little kid, though he didn't remember any of them.
For a moment, the passion to find a cure had gone out of Jongin. He wanted to go back to the ease of not caring about anyone or anything. It was a lot easier and less stressful and less painful.
But he cared too much about Kyungsoo, now, to disappear without a trace. He owed it to him to do this.
"Didn't you just leave?" The words were harsh, but Jongin would see the amusement in Kyungsoo's eyes. "Did you forget something?"
Jongin tried to think. What had he said before he left? "I just wanted to thank you."
"For what?" Kyungsoo's head tilted to the side.
"You didn't throw anything at me when I walked into your room the first day," Jongin said, and Kyungsoo's laugh was nice to hear, even though it was hoarse because of his cold.
Kyungsoo broke out into a cough, but held up a hand to stop Jongin from moving. "I'm fine, don't worry."
"Do you want anything? Water? Blankets? I can ask a nurse for something."
"I'm fine," Kyungsoo insisted.
Nodding, Jongin conceded. "I'll be back tomorrow, then."
Kyungsoo grinned. "I'll be looking forward to it."
Jongin left the room quickly, going up to the roof to be by himself. If there was no known cure for Kyungsoo, then Jongin would find one. It wouldn't be that hard for him. He could go to college, go to med school, save up however much money he needed.
He could make friends with other people, people whom he trusted, and they could help him. If Kyungsoo wasn't a bad person, there had to be other good humans out there. And he'd make his own family tree, consisting of only he himself, but with different names, so he could access his bank account no matter the time period. He would do this, and visit Kyungsoo at the same time. The latter would never have to know, until Jongin showed up triumphantly with his cure.
It took Jongin years longer than a normal human to go through med school and graduate with enough knowledge and experience to start his work in the field. His highest level of education was elementary school, a fact he slowly started to become ashamed of after meeting other human beings at different levels of school. It was also a fact he worked to change, attending high school regularly (and going back in time to take any missed classes, if he suddenly woke up ten years ahead, which he had a tendency to do).
He entered the hospital Kyungsoo had stayed at, working as a doctor, until he was granted permission to view past files. Kyungsoo's was the strangest he had ever seen, since there was so little information about his disease. The stats were all of his stay in the hospital, and it was noted that he never left. Jongin felt sick looking at that - knowing that he died in the hospital. He would change that. He would be a savior to Kyungsoo, and to all the sick.
Failure. Another trial, another failure. Jongin wanted to punch a wall until his fists bled. He wouldn't, though. He had gained enough self control to at least stop that urge. What he couldn't stop was the urge to break down. How long would it take to find a cure, while his friend was dying right in front of his eyes?
Kyungsoo passed away while holding onto Jongin's hand. His family, who had met Jongin earlier, walking in on a conversation between their son and his new friend, were on the other side of the bed. Jongin, emotionless, leaned down to kiss Kyungsoo one last time, his lips brushing against Kyungsoo's forehead.
He turned around and left the room quickly, making his way up to the roof, a now familiar place to him. He didn't know how to feel, but the emptiness inside his body disgusted him. Weren't you supposed to feel sad when someone you loved passed away? Instead, he only felt hollow. Worthless. He had worked so hard to find a cure, only to suffer from his failure, and make Kyungsoo suffer too.
Oh, how much the latter had suffered, his last days filled with endless pain, and nothing Jongin did or brought or made making it better. How many pills Jongin had brought, giving Kyungsoo false hope and letting him down again and again, so much so that he no longer said they would cure him. Instead, they were vitamins, candy, pills from the doctor. And Kyungsoo had trusted him. He hadn't reeled in horror when Jongin told him everything about himself, only nodded in silent conviction that Jongin would cure him. Oh, how much he had believed in Jongin.
Jongin couldn't do anything for him. He sunk to the floor, on the rooftop, dry sobs fading into dull blackness as he fell asleep.
He had lived so long disregarding the laws of space and time that now, space and time decided to disregard him as well. The laws that limited mankind were nothing to Jongin, and so Jongin became nothing to the world.
He stepped off the elevator at the wrong floor, his face smiling as a nicety to the passing nurse, and walked down the hall. It was not his room that he stopped in front of, but it was his destination anyway. It was dark when he opened the door, but the flick of the light switch illuminated the boy sitting up on his hospital bed.
Jongin made sure that, when the boy turned to face him, his face would be a mask of innocence and confusion. He had come to bid Kyungsoo one last goodbye, before his body was rejected from this world for the final time. Maybe they’d see each other in the afterlife.