Forward Motion - Kaisoo Oneshot (part 1)
Title: Forward Motoin
Pairing: Kai/Kyungsoo, Sehun/Kai
Rating: R
Summary: Some things just aren't an accident.
Forward Motion
Jongin has always been one of those people that tells other people not to linger on the past, to move forward into the future. Forget what was. Skip over what is. Only think about what will be. But when his best friend, who he had probably been in love with for three years, dies in a car crash on his eighteenth birthday, Jongin forgets what he always tells everyone else.
“They said it was an accident, Jongin. Just an accident.”
Yes.
That’s always what they say.
But Jongin thinks, no he knows, otherwise. Not everything is an accident. Not everything always needs to be. Accidents are just excuses for an unacceptable truth. Like when he was seven and accidentally stole a pen from the gift store. It just fell into his pocket I suppose.
“Accident.” The word even feels wrong coming out of his mouth.
“Yes, Jongin, accident.” Needless to say, Jongin finds his new therapist to be completely useless. Repeatedly telling him that what happened to Sehun was an accident doesn’t help Jongin believe otherwise. Sehun didn’t believe in accidents either. He believed in calculated actions. Deep, detailed, well thought out plans. That’s why they initially became friends. Not fate. Not coincidence. Plans. They decided they were going to speak to one another. They decided when, how, where, why.
“Right.”
The therapist takes notes of how Jongin sits there, stiffly twiddling his fingers together, linking and unlinking each digit. Curling and uncurling. A dance of tan, slender, fingers. Of flesh and well chewed nails. Jongin keeps his eyes focused on them.
“Some things just happen, Jongin.”
His eyes flutter upwards, annoyed. Not everything “just happens”, not these things. “And that makes it an accident?”
“Yes.”
No.
He returns to watching his fingers. Ten more minutes to endure and then he’ll be free. His mother will pick him up. She’ll ask him how it was, though she knows that these little meetings are strictly confidential. She’ll ask him if he wants to go out with friends tonight, or what he wants for dinner, or if he wants to go see a movie with her.
He will not answer any of her questions.
They will ride home in silence and then he will slink off to his room, sink into his bed, and replay everything that he can remember about Sehun over and over in his head until he falls asleep. He’ll wake the next day, hungry but not caring, shower, get ready for school and ride on the bus for hours until they kick him off. Then he’ll go for a walk, maybe sit on a swing, maybe eat a popsicle, and then go home. Delete the messages about his absence from school before his mother gets back from work. Pretend to do homework for a little while, which mainly consists of him drawing doodles all over his schoolbooks. Annotations, he says when his mother asks. Get ready. Go to therapy. Go back home. Repeat.
“Are you listening to me, Jongin?” That has to be at least the twenty-fifth time his therapist has ended a sentence with a frustrated sounding “Jongin”.
“What?”
“I said it’s time for you to go now.”
Thank god.
Jongin nods. Head stiff. Fingers still scrunching themselves into a tangled mess. Tension. This place makes him tense. This is where you come to have your brain analyzed. Your life picked apart, chewed, and spat back at you. They call it healing. Jongin calls it torture. He much prefers the moments when he can lock himself up in his room and remember Sehun and all the moments they had together and let himself fall asleep with tears streaming out of his eyes. He’d rather cry than talk.
“See you tomorrow,” the therapist says with cheer that Jongin finds positively fake.
“Tomorrow,” he nods again. Another session of “it was an accident”. Another session of silence.
When outside of the tiny room encased in the building in which his brain is to be healed, Jongin slinks down into a bench. It’s raining out but it’s warm. Late spring rain. Early summer heat. Every part of him is getting soaked in the downpour but he doesn’t care. There’s not much he cares about anymore. He sits there staring at the cars that drive by, carelessly splashing water on any of the pedestrians that walk too close to the edge. If he were Normal Jongin he’d probably laugh. Sehun would probably be here laughing with him too. But it’s been duly noted that he hasn’t been Normal Jongin for a while, perhaps even before Sehun was gone. Death was just a catalyst.
There’s a buzz in his pocket. A text from his mother.
Stuck at work still. Please take bus. Order pizza if you would like to. <3
Jongin will always be annoyed by the tiny little hearts his mom puts at the end of each text. He’s annoyed because he knows he will never be able to return them to her. Respect for his mother is one thing but loving her is different. She is family, yes, and so he respects her, but he does not quite love her. They aren’t close enough for that. Her little hearts and “I love you”s are empty words to him.
“Jongin?”
It’s the first time today that he’s heard his name being called out of shock as opposed to annoyance. He looks up from his phone, which he hadn’t realized he’d been staring at for so long after reading the text, to see one of his old friends, Kyungsoo, standing in front of him. Despite the giant, purple, polka dotted umbrella that he’s holding, he looks like someone’s thrown a bucket of water at his face. Grey, unflattering sneakers soaked to the core and old blue jeans with a continuously rising water line. He hasn’t seen Kyungsoo in almost a year, since before he went off to college to do something with his life. If he were Normal Jongin he would care. Questions would be asked. How’s college? Did you pick a major yet? Any wild parties?
“Hi.” He shoves his phone back into his pocket and goes back to fiddling with his fingers like he did in the therapist’s office. Eyes locked on the twining, bending, and molding of his hands.
“Mind if I sit?” Kyungsoo knows he doesn’t really need to ask but it’s become a habit of his since he started college and had been forced to sit next to so many strangers. God forbid he should sit down in an unwelcomed seat even if it’s next to someone that he used to know.
“Go ahead.”
Kyungsoo drops himself down onto the bench as if his body is giving out. Old age hitting early. Sometimes he feels as though he has no cartilage left in his knees. He closes his purple umbrella, aware of how useless it’s been, and drops it on the ground next to his soggy shoes. When it collides with the ground it smatters his shoes with droplets of muddy water. He doesn’t care. He hates these shoes anyways. They’re old. Worn down. Thin soled. Ugly. But he can’t afford new ones right now.
“I heard about Sehun,” he says after a few minutes. Neither of them feel particularly inclined to talk right now but Kyungsoo figures he should be polite to his once friend.
“They say it was an accident.”
“They always say that.”
A tiny spark of hope ignites in Jongin. He’s not alone, maybe. “Are you suggesting that it wasn’t?” he questions probingly.
“I think that both you and I know better,” is all he says.
Yes, Jongin wants to shout. Oh god does he know. He knows so very well that he’s sick with knowing. But he doesn’t say a word because he’s used to not talking now. He’s used to keeping it in. Holding his breath. Letting everyone else come up with the reasons for Sehun’s accident. No one will really care what he has to say anyways. It’s a month or two too late for telling the truth. A truth that people probably won’t believe in the first place.
Jongin looks up from his fingers and over at Kyungsoo. Perhaps he will care. Perhaps not. He watches Kyungsoo as he stares at his waterlogged shoes. Rainwater flattens his usually bouncy hair to his forehead and drips down his cheeks and nose. Every few seconds he blinks to try to stop the water from running into his eyes. A long time ago, Normal Jongin had once thought that Kyungsoo was cute, but not as cute as Sehun.
A few more minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence pass while Jongin watches Kyungsoo. It’s not entirely awkward for them to be quiet. They could speak if they wanted to. They’ve always had things they could talk about, probably always will. But what do you say when you both suspect that your friend’s death wasn’t just an accident? What do you say when so much time has passed without a word between the two of you for no reason except that geography separated you for a while? The earth draws you apart, but technology keeps you in contact if you want it to.
The bus arrives, easing into that awkward space where you can’t quite park a car but it isn’t quite a driving lane. Water splashes up onto the curb and thickly coats Kyungsoo’s shoes. If this keeps up, maybe they will go from grey to black. In continued silence, they push themselves up from bench and step into the bus dripping just as much water onto the floor as the clouds above them. The bus driver grumbles something about having to mop the inside of this damn bus. Normal Jongin would have chuckled. Sehun would have mercilessly shaken his body like a soggy dog, spraying droplets every which way as he strode down the aisle.
“You forgot your umbrella,” Jongin says after following Kyungsoo to the back of the bus and sitting down next to him. Kyungsoo leans over and whams his head against the fogging window. The humidity has followed them into the bus. Even as the rain falls, it rises again in misty puffs off of the street. Rain will not cool down the earth today.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay. You can have mine.” Jongin pulls a plain, black, umbrella out from his backpack. Not exactly purple and full of polka dots but it will have to suffice. It’s the nicest gesture he’s made all week.
“Thanks.” Kyungsoo reaches over to take it from Jongin’s grasp, fingers almost curling over his. He watches their fingers wrapped tightly around the black fabric of the umbrella. Feels the shared weight of it in their hands. There’s something solid in this gesture, something trusting. Jongin lets go.
“When did you find out?” he asks suddenly after a few minutes. The bus lurches to a stop. More people on. More people off. Endless waves of people in an endless sea of people. Minus Sehun. He’s become the sand that the water rolls on. Dust and memories of something that was once something else. A person, now just a crumbled shell.
“About a week after I got back from school, my mother told me at my grandmother’s funeral. She said she had something to show me. Took me to his grave,” Kyungsoo swallows awkwardly and turns to face the window. “So much dead grass. But I suppose that’s what you get when there’s a drought.” Today is not one of those days that seems to fit into the waterless agenda the weather patterns seems to have, but one day of rain is not enough to quench the thirst of a fields that have gone months without it. There was hardly even any snow during the winter.
Jongin wants to say he’s sorry about Kyungsoo’s grandmother, but he knows those are just more empty words. He discovered that when it was all he heard for the first few weeks after Sehun passed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry about your friend. I’m sorry about your loss. At first he felt angry to hear it so often but then what else do could they say? Words of comfort often fall short when they are needed the most.
His phone buzzes again.
Going to have to stay very late, maybe all night. Just leave me the receipt if you order food. Sorry. Love you. <3
Tonight, Jongin doesn’t want to be left alone.
“Want to come over?”
“Tonight? Don’t you have school tomorrow or something?” He glances at his watch. It’s nearly 7:30. Jongin gives him this look that says he’s sort of given up on things like school right now. He just needs to graduate and then he’s done. Just two more weeks.
Once upon a time, Kyungsoo didn’t care how late it was or to what horrible hour in the a.m. he stayed up to. Once upon a time, Kyungsoo’s life wasn’t running on such a strict time crunch. But Kyungsoo doesn’t live in fairytales and once upon a time is simply just that. Once upon a time. The past. Bitterness sets his jaw in a tight lock. He misses that once upon a time. Now he works all the time, struggling to earn enough money to help his family and himself get by. There’s no work tomorrow though and his parents are out tonight anyways. He’d be going home to nothing just like Jongin. Work or not, Kyungsoo is often times alone.
“I’ll feed you pizza,” he prompts.
“Okay,” Kyungsoo lets his jaw loose and smiles weakly. An almost inaudible growl whirls around in his stomach. Pizza sounds fucking fantastic right about now actually. Especially when all you’ve eaten is a piece of toast and some peanut butter.
“We’ll order pepperoni,” Jongin smiles slightly in return. “I know you like that.” He wants to add that Sehun always hated pepperoni. That every time they ordered pizza they always fought over toppings. Jongin wanted green peppers and onions, Kyungsoo wanted pepperoni, and Sehun wanted sausage. Sehun always won. As revenge, Jongin would pick off the flecks of suspicious looking meat and flick them at Sehun’s face. Kyungsoo even came up with a point system depending on how accurate Jongin’s aim was. He wonders if Kyungsoo remembers that too. By the way his fingers are curling into a tight fist, yanking on the thin denim of his jeans, Jongin thinks he does.
“I’d like that.”
The remainder of the bus ride is silent. Kyungsoo stares out the window, his breathe adding to the layer of steamy condensation on the inside of the bus as the air conditioning tries to compensate for the heat. Jongin returns to fiddling with his fingers, but this time he doesn’t stare at them. Instead, he watches Kyungsoo. The way his forehead creases in thought. How he’s almost pressing his nose up against the window. He looks at Kyungsoo and he tries to remember what it was like to be his friend. What it was like for all three of them to have been friends.
Freshman year, Kyungsoo had been Sehun and Jongin’s peer mentor. They weren’t technically supposed to be friends (something about needing to define a line between friendship and someone to help you survive your first year of high school) but they became friends anyways. It was their mutual dislike for cotton candy and theme parks that initially drew them together. Bonding over bashing the sweet, sticky treat that kids loved shoving down their throats. None of them were particularly fond of children either. Little kids made their lives awkward. Not once had they ever looked at a child and thought “oh, how cute” it was more of “oh, gross, keep it away from me before I file for a restraining order”.
Three years of a really good friendship for three little outcasts. The summer before Kyungsoo left “to make something out of his life”, Sehun would say, the two of them had gotten into an argument. Jongin never quite knew what on earth it was they had fought over, but he hardly saw Kyungsoo that summer. Didn’t even get to say goodbye in person. Just a short phone call. I’ll miss you. Have fun at college. Don’t fail. Goodbye. Sehun made sure to occupy Jongin all summer so that he could hardly have a chance to see Kyungsoo, plus he was working and taking summer classes. Busy, busy, busy. So busy he forgot to figure out why he’d just lost his longtime friend.
“Um, don’t we need to get off now? Unless you’ve moved since we last saw each other.” Kyungsoo turns to glance at Jongin, almost whacking him in the face. He hadn’t realized how Jongin had unconsciously been leaning into him, finding comfort in the pressure of their bodies squished together during the ride.
“Oh, yeah.” Jongin pulls back, embarrassed, and quickly stands up and walks to the closest door on the bus. It’s one of those stupid doors where you have to put your hand on it when the light turns green, otherwise it won’t open. Every time he takes the bus there’s at least one person that starts yelling at the bus driver to open the door because they’re too stupid to figure out that you’re supposed to wait for the light and then stick your hand out. Some people even try pushing on it before the bus even stops.
A man appearing to be in his late thirties falls victim to the trick of the bus door. Unamused, Jongin pushes passed him, presses his palm up against the door in the correct spot, and steps off the bus back into the rain. Into the steam, air that’s thick and heavy with moisture.
Gawkily, Kyungsoo clambers off the bus behind him, bumping into the man with the groceries and nearly falling into a giant puddle that’s turned grey and shiny with gasoline and god knows what else. The man loses his loaf of bread to the suspicious water. Kyungsoo apologizes profusely but there’s really nothing that can be done to save it. It’s become a sponge full of grit and car waste. Kyungsoo ends up almost ten dollars in the hole because the guy’s so pissed off he just about throws a punch at him (thank god his arms are too busy holding the groceries). That’s some fucking expensive bread, though. Better be the best damn bread in the whole world because that was all the cash Kyungsoo had left for the week and it’s only Tuesday.
“Oh it is,” the asshole assures Jongin who had been brave enough to pitch a fit, asking the very question that had been plaguing Kyungsoo’s mind. Asshole claims that it’s from some fancy ass bakery. It has whole roasted garlic cloves in it and rosemary. Jongin doesn’t think that’s worth ten bucks but he’s not about to get his jaw slammed for saying that. He’d really like to ask why he bought the fucking bread in the first place if it was so expensive but he restrains himself knowing that if the guy drops any more groceries both Kyungsoo and himself will be indebted to that bastard. Most likely they will also end up with a fair smattering of bruises.
“Let’s go, Kyungsoo,” Jongin murmurs and tugs on Kyungsoo’s wrist. The black umbrella dangles around Kyungsoo’s wrist and Jongin laces their fingers together and pulls him along. His hands are surprisingly cold. Not exactly how Jongin remembers them from a year ago. The warmth is gone, replaced with a cold sweat. Uncomfortably cold like the temperature of his hands is a sign of a deeper change within him. A dark, sickening twist in the previously happy spiral of his life.
Silence resumes between them. All there is to hear is the sloshing of their feet in the puddles, the splattering of the rain on the ground, an occasional car, and the soft hum of their breath. Jongin keeps his fingers laced around Kyungsoo’s. Neither of them bothers to suggest using the umbrella. There’s no point in it. Both of them are soaked to the bone, plus the cool drops of water feel good on their heated skin. The rain makes the uncomfortable coldness of Kyungsoo’s hands more bearable, the secret less heavy.
The two of them stop in front of a house on the corner of the block. It’s an odd house with pink stucco walls, a grey roof, and a blue fence. Too bright against the darkness of the sky. In the front yard a few flowers droop from the heat and the force of the rain. The grass is a burnt yellow as if it long gave up growing. An orange tomcat sits in one of the windowsills watching them, meowing as if the two of them can hear it through the pane of glass. A woman appears in the window, eyes somber and ringed with darkness as if all attempts at sleeping have evaded her for several weeks. She scratches the meowing cat’s head softly and rubs her fingers under its chin, feeling the deep vibrations as he purrs. Her eyes snap upwards and she frowns. Recognition dawns on her face and it crumples into a distorted expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile. She closes the curtains and turns away not wanting to see them.
This was Sehun’s house. A place Jongin had once known better than his own home but it seems foreign now. Memories of good times frosted over with thick layers of a grimy present.
“Let’s go, Jongin. There’s nothing to see here.” This time it’s Kyungsoo’s turn to tug on the younger man’s arm and pull him forward and away from what used to be and no longer is.
“Mmm,” Jongin agrees and allows himself to be pulled down the next few blocks. Left, right, straight. Home. He doesn’t pay attention to how many turns they make or how many blocks they walk, he just looks down at his wrist and fingers, watching the way Kyungsoo’s fingers look wrapped around his. Feeling the tug on his limbs. Sehun was the last person to hold Jongin’s hand.
Kyungsoo untangles his fingers from Jongin’s grip and somehow he finds himself missing the awkward cold grasp. “Um, keys?”
“Oh.”
Jongin looks up at the front door of his house. It doesn’t look as happy as Sehun’s house. Grey and dirty like Kyungsoo’s shoes. The side paneling is weathered and in need of repair in places. Paint is starting to peal off in places and the front porch is sagging. Grass the same dead yellow as Sehun’s front yard, but they didn’t even attempt flowers this year. No point. The only happy focal point of the whole place is the lavender colored door in front of them. Painting it purple had been Kyungsoo’s suggestion since purple is his favorite color and the door had been in need of repainting. Jongin frowns when he notices that the purple paint is pealing off as well. Each part of his house is in a different state of dilapidation.
“We should repaint it,” he says to no one in particular and reaches into his pocket for his set of keys but they aren’t there.
“Repaint what?” Kyungsoo eyes the entire house suspiciously.
“The door.”
“But it’s-” he falters as he runs his hand down the length of the door, tearing off strips of lavender as his fingers brush against it. They settle on the ground in a wet heap.
“In need of new paint,” Jongin finishes, squishing the stripped paint beneath his shoes before walking off to look for the spare key, rummaging around in the dirt for the rock that hides it. Somehow he manages to find a little bit of humor in how every part of his life could do with a good repainting right now. Stripped bare and then coated in shiny new skin. Something to rip out the ugly thoughts and replace them with happy ones.
An almost smile ghosts across his lips as he finally digs the key out from under one of the rocks but then he stops when he remembers how Sehun always knew where to find the spare key when Jongin didn’t. Apparently he recognized something special about the shape or color or whatever bullshit he had rattled off to Jongin as an excuse. He knows, however, that Sehun probably knew it so well because of the numerous times he had used the key to sneak into Jongin’s house in the middle of the night. April Fools is always the worst when your best friend knows how to sneak into your house without being caught.
“You forgot again,” Kyungsoo chuckles, eyes watching Jongin as he stands up with hands covered in dirt and a key locked between his fingers. “I thought, you know, since you lived here all your life, you’d finally remember where you kept your spare key.”
“Shut up,” Jongin frowns and nudges Kyungsoo in the stomach with his elbow, then pushes the key into the lock, turns it, and lets them into the house. Jongin tries to soak in the moment of almost happiness but somehow it feels like just another memory. And perhaps it is, or simply a similar present. Conversations like these used to happen all the time before Kyungsoo was gone. Back when they were a trio of fools. Jongin the Forgetful. Kyungsoo the Wise. Sehun the Reckless.
“Always clueless.” Kyungsoo pokes Jongin in the back as he follows him into the house causing the younger one to yelp in surprise.
All of this messing around almost makes him feel like Normal Jongin until Kyungsoo picks up a picture frame with an image of Sehun and Jongin with Sehun’s hand wrapped around Jongin’s wrist, clutching to him like his life depended on it. Not a day will go by without Jongin blaming Sehun for his obsession with people’s hands, particularly their fingers. He had always liked the feel of Sehun’s skin wrapped so perfectly around his wrist. Soft and warm like how Kyungsoo’s hands used to be. Jongin had taken up the habit of observing people’s fingers, comparing their warmth and the feel of their skin to Sehun’s. Sometimes he’d even stare at his own hands wondering if Sehun liked them too.
Jongin snaps the picture frame out of Kyungsoo’s hands and curls his fingers around it tightly. He’d thought he’d gotten rid of all the photos that had once been on display of Sehun and him, but every day he came home to find that his mother had put one or two of them back out again. Even though he’s stuck in the past, he can’t stand seeing pictures. A flimsy memory is somehow more comforting than concrete proof that Sehun ever existed. It’s less painful.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just thought I put this away,” Jongin smiles sheepishly. “Um, I guess you can, uh, get a towel and dry off if you want. I’ll go order us some food. You remember where the towels are, right?”
“Yes,” Kyungsoo says carefully and watches Jongin slip into the kitchen before he can even ask if he would like a towel too since he’s clearly leaving a puddle in his wake. Being damp only feels okay when you have no choice. Inside of Jongin’s house it feels wrong so he makes a point of grabbing two extra large towels out of the closet in the hallways next to the restroom. He does his best to towel himself dry, which doesn’t really work when what he needs is more of a change of clothes, and idly wonders if maybe it would be okay to ask Jongin if he could borrow a shirt and some pants. While clinging to his towel, he stares at the walls as if somehow they will provide him with an answer for his current predicament.
Despite its drab exterior, the majority of Jongin’s house is very bright. Lots of yellows, oranges, and creamy whites. Due to another one of Kyungsoo’s brilliant paint jobs, Jongin’s room is also a lovely shade of purple. He and Sehun had battled it out with a few severe rounds of rock paper scissors to determine the paint color. Kyungsoo Purple or Sehun Blue. Jongin Red was ruled out for what he thought was an absurd reason. His mother was convinced it would look like walking into a room of blood. He’d tried to argue that he was aiming for a sort of orangey-red, not straight up blood, but she was skeptical nonetheless. Sehun, of course, rolled his eyes at everything during the entire conversation. He was all for blood red due to his love for horror films.
In the kitchen, true to his word, Jongin orders an extra thin crust pizza with cheese and pepperoni. He’d almost ordered sausage out of habit. There’d been a slight hesitation on the phone, a soft s slowly turning into a sharp p followed by a pregnant pause while his brainpower suddenly slowed down to a crawl. The guy on the other end of the line surely thought he was stupid for taking so long to spit out such a simple order.
Pizza is something he hasn’t ordered or even eaten since Sehun died. He feels stupid and guilty after he hangs up the phone and very much wants to slam his head against the fridge, which he does without much satisfaction. All it leaves him with is a dull headache. Not all head injuries erase embarrassing and unbearable moments. Stronger blows are necessary, but Jongin doesn’t truly want to brainwash himself. It’s his memories of Sehun that keep him in any sort of forward motion right now, even if the movement is faint and slow.
Kyungsoo, unfortunately, happened to walk into the room just in time to witness the head slamming. “Are you okay?”
An embarrassed blush colors Jongin’s cheeks. “Ugh yeah. Just ordered the pizza. Should be here in about forty-five minutes. Need something?”
“Do you mind if I borrow some of your clothes?” he asks and passes Jongin the other towel.
“Go ahead,” he mumbles into the towels as he scrunches it over his face and sopping wet hair. It wouldn’t be the first time Kyungsoo has had to borrow some of his clothes. Many a times, Sehun had accidentally spilled a drink or thrown a water balloon at them during the summer months of their friendship. Kyungsoo wearing Jongin’s clothes was just as common as Sehun wearing Jongin’s clothes, which was also quite frequent considering the number of times Kyungsoo and Jongin then sought out revenge for every dirty act that Sehun had committed against them.
“Kay.” Kyungsoo disappears down the hallway and up the stairs and into Jongin’s room. He’s not surprised to find it nearly stripped bare of all the old pictures he used to have of the three of them. Schoolbooks haphazardly tossed across the floor, some half open revealing the doodle covered pages. Waste basket overflowing with crumpled papers. The floor is ridiculously messy but the walls are empty. No poster or photos to be seen anywhere. All evidence of who Jongin is or was has been removed or is reduced to scraps.
Part Two
Pairing: Kai/Kyungsoo, Sehun/Kai
Rating: R
Summary: Some things just aren't an accident.
Forward Motion
Jongin has always been one of those people that tells other people not to linger on the past, to move forward into the future. Forget what was. Skip over what is. Only think about what will be. But when his best friend, who he had probably been in love with for three years, dies in a car crash on his eighteenth birthday, Jongin forgets what he always tells everyone else.
“They said it was an accident, Jongin. Just an accident.”
Yes.
That’s always what they say.
But Jongin thinks, no he knows, otherwise. Not everything is an accident. Not everything always needs to be. Accidents are just excuses for an unacceptable truth. Like when he was seven and accidentally stole a pen from the gift store. It just fell into his pocket I suppose.
“Accident.” The word even feels wrong coming out of his mouth.
“Yes, Jongin, accident.” Needless to say, Jongin finds his new therapist to be completely useless. Repeatedly telling him that what happened to Sehun was an accident doesn’t help Jongin believe otherwise. Sehun didn’t believe in accidents either. He believed in calculated actions. Deep, detailed, well thought out plans. That’s why they initially became friends. Not fate. Not coincidence. Plans. They decided they were going to speak to one another. They decided when, how, where, why.
“Right.”
The therapist takes notes of how Jongin sits there, stiffly twiddling his fingers together, linking and unlinking each digit. Curling and uncurling. A dance of tan, slender, fingers. Of flesh and well chewed nails. Jongin keeps his eyes focused on them.
“Some things just happen, Jongin.”
His eyes flutter upwards, annoyed. Not everything “just happens”, not these things. “And that makes it an accident?”
“Yes.”
No.
He returns to watching his fingers. Ten more minutes to endure and then he’ll be free. His mother will pick him up. She’ll ask him how it was, though she knows that these little meetings are strictly confidential. She’ll ask him if he wants to go out with friends tonight, or what he wants for dinner, or if he wants to go see a movie with her.
He will not answer any of her questions.
They will ride home in silence and then he will slink off to his room, sink into his bed, and replay everything that he can remember about Sehun over and over in his head until he falls asleep. He’ll wake the next day, hungry but not caring, shower, get ready for school and ride on the bus for hours until they kick him off. Then he’ll go for a walk, maybe sit on a swing, maybe eat a popsicle, and then go home. Delete the messages about his absence from school before his mother gets back from work. Pretend to do homework for a little while, which mainly consists of him drawing doodles all over his schoolbooks. Annotations, he says when his mother asks. Get ready. Go to therapy. Go back home. Repeat.
“Are you listening to me, Jongin?” That has to be at least the twenty-fifth time his therapist has ended a sentence with a frustrated sounding “Jongin”.
“What?”
“I said it’s time for you to go now.”
Thank god.
Jongin nods. Head stiff. Fingers still scrunching themselves into a tangled mess. Tension. This place makes him tense. This is where you come to have your brain analyzed. Your life picked apart, chewed, and spat back at you. They call it healing. Jongin calls it torture. He much prefers the moments when he can lock himself up in his room and remember Sehun and all the moments they had together and let himself fall asleep with tears streaming out of his eyes. He’d rather cry than talk.
“See you tomorrow,” the therapist says with cheer that Jongin finds positively fake.
“Tomorrow,” he nods again. Another session of “it was an accident”. Another session of silence.
When outside of the tiny room encased in the building in which his brain is to be healed, Jongin slinks down into a bench. It’s raining out but it’s warm. Late spring rain. Early summer heat. Every part of him is getting soaked in the downpour but he doesn’t care. There’s not much he cares about anymore. He sits there staring at the cars that drive by, carelessly splashing water on any of the pedestrians that walk too close to the edge. If he were Normal Jongin he’d probably laugh. Sehun would probably be here laughing with him too. But it’s been duly noted that he hasn’t been Normal Jongin for a while, perhaps even before Sehun was gone. Death was just a catalyst.
There’s a buzz in his pocket. A text from his mother.
Stuck at work still. Please take bus. Order pizza if you would like to. <3
Jongin will always be annoyed by the tiny little hearts his mom puts at the end of each text. He’s annoyed because he knows he will never be able to return them to her. Respect for his mother is one thing but loving her is different. She is family, yes, and so he respects her, but he does not quite love her. They aren’t close enough for that. Her little hearts and “I love you”s are empty words to him.
“Jongin?”
It’s the first time today that he’s heard his name being called out of shock as opposed to annoyance. He looks up from his phone, which he hadn’t realized he’d been staring at for so long after reading the text, to see one of his old friends, Kyungsoo, standing in front of him. Despite the giant, purple, polka dotted umbrella that he’s holding, he looks like someone’s thrown a bucket of water at his face. Grey, unflattering sneakers soaked to the core and old blue jeans with a continuously rising water line. He hasn’t seen Kyungsoo in almost a year, since before he went off to college to do something with his life. If he were Normal Jongin he would care. Questions would be asked. How’s college? Did you pick a major yet? Any wild parties?
“Hi.” He shoves his phone back into his pocket and goes back to fiddling with his fingers like he did in the therapist’s office. Eyes locked on the twining, bending, and molding of his hands.
“Mind if I sit?” Kyungsoo knows he doesn’t really need to ask but it’s become a habit of his since he started college and had been forced to sit next to so many strangers. God forbid he should sit down in an unwelcomed seat even if it’s next to someone that he used to know.
“Go ahead.”
Kyungsoo drops himself down onto the bench as if his body is giving out. Old age hitting early. Sometimes he feels as though he has no cartilage left in his knees. He closes his purple umbrella, aware of how useless it’s been, and drops it on the ground next to his soggy shoes. When it collides with the ground it smatters his shoes with droplets of muddy water. He doesn’t care. He hates these shoes anyways. They’re old. Worn down. Thin soled. Ugly. But he can’t afford new ones right now.
“I heard about Sehun,” he says after a few minutes. Neither of them feel particularly inclined to talk right now but Kyungsoo figures he should be polite to his once friend.
“They say it was an accident.”
“They always say that.”
A tiny spark of hope ignites in Jongin. He’s not alone, maybe. “Are you suggesting that it wasn’t?” he questions probingly.
“I think that both you and I know better,” is all he says.
Yes, Jongin wants to shout. Oh god does he know. He knows so very well that he’s sick with knowing. But he doesn’t say a word because he’s used to not talking now. He’s used to keeping it in. Holding his breath. Letting everyone else come up with the reasons for Sehun’s accident. No one will really care what he has to say anyways. It’s a month or two too late for telling the truth. A truth that people probably won’t believe in the first place.
Jongin looks up from his fingers and over at Kyungsoo. Perhaps he will care. Perhaps not. He watches Kyungsoo as he stares at his waterlogged shoes. Rainwater flattens his usually bouncy hair to his forehead and drips down his cheeks and nose. Every few seconds he blinks to try to stop the water from running into his eyes. A long time ago, Normal Jongin had once thought that Kyungsoo was cute, but not as cute as Sehun.
A few more minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence pass while Jongin watches Kyungsoo. It’s not entirely awkward for them to be quiet. They could speak if they wanted to. They’ve always had things they could talk about, probably always will. But what do you say when you both suspect that your friend’s death wasn’t just an accident? What do you say when so much time has passed without a word between the two of you for no reason except that geography separated you for a while? The earth draws you apart, but technology keeps you in contact if you want it to.
The bus arrives, easing into that awkward space where you can’t quite park a car but it isn’t quite a driving lane. Water splashes up onto the curb and thickly coats Kyungsoo’s shoes. If this keeps up, maybe they will go from grey to black. In continued silence, they push themselves up from bench and step into the bus dripping just as much water onto the floor as the clouds above them. The bus driver grumbles something about having to mop the inside of this damn bus. Normal Jongin would have chuckled. Sehun would have mercilessly shaken his body like a soggy dog, spraying droplets every which way as he strode down the aisle.
“You forgot your umbrella,” Jongin says after following Kyungsoo to the back of the bus and sitting down next to him. Kyungsoo leans over and whams his head against the fogging window. The humidity has followed them into the bus. Even as the rain falls, it rises again in misty puffs off of the street. Rain will not cool down the earth today.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay. You can have mine.” Jongin pulls a plain, black, umbrella out from his backpack. Not exactly purple and full of polka dots but it will have to suffice. It’s the nicest gesture he’s made all week.
“Thanks.” Kyungsoo reaches over to take it from Jongin’s grasp, fingers almost curling over his. He watches their fingers wrapped tightly around the black fabric of the umbrella. Feels the shared weight of it in their hands. There’s something solid in this gesture, something trusting. Jongin lets go.
“When did you find out?” he asks suddenly after a few minutes. The bus lurches to a stop. More people on. More people off. Endless waves of people in an endless sea of people. Minus Sehun. He’s become the sand that the water rolls on. Dust and memories of something that was once something else. A person, now just a crumbled shell.
“About a week after I got back from school, my mother told me at my grandmother’s funeral. She said she had something to show me. Took me to his grave,” Kyungsoo swallows awkwardly and turns to face the window. “So much dead grass. But I suppose that’s what you get when there’s a drought.” Today is not one of those days that seems to fit into the waterless agenda the weather patterns seems to have, but one day of rain is not enough to quench the thirst of a fields that have gone months without it. There was hardly even any snow during the winter.
Jongin wants to say he’s sorry about Kyungsoo’s grandmother, but he knows those are just more empty words. He discovered that when it was all he heard for the first few weeks after Sehun passed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry about your friend. I’m sorry about your loss. At first he felt angry to hear it so often but then what else do could they say? Words of comfort often fall short when they are needed the most.
His phone buzzes again.
Going to have to stay very late, maybe all night. Just leave me the receipt if you order food. Sorry. Love you. <3
Tonight, Jongin doesn’t want to be left alone.
“Want to come over?”
“Tonight? Don’t you have school tomorrow or something?” He glances at his watch. It’s nearly 7:30. Jongin gives him this look that says he’s sort of given up on things like school right now. He just needs to graduate and then he’s done. Just two more weeks.
Once upon a time, Kyungsoo didn’t care how late it was or to what horrible hour in the a.m. he stayed up to. Once upon a time, Kyungsoo’s life wasn’t running on such a strict time crunch. But Kyungsoo doesn’t live in fairytales and once upon a time is simply just that. Once upon a time. The past. Bitterness sets his jaw in a tight lock. He misses that once upon a time. Now he works all the time, struggling to earn enough money to help his family and himself get by. There’s no work tomorrow though and his parents are out tonight anyways. He’d be going home to nothing just like Jongin. Work or not, Kyungsoo is often times alone.
“I’ll feed you pizza,” he prompts.
“Okay,” Kyungsoo lets his jaw loose and smiles weakly. An almost inaudible growl whirls around in his stomach. Pizza sounds fucking fantastic right about now actually. Especially when all you’ve eaten is a piece of toast and some peanut butter.
“We’ll order pepperoni,” Jongin smiles slightly in return. “I know you like that.” He wants to add that Sehun always hated pepperoni. That every time they ordered pizza they always fought over toppings. Jongin wanted green peppers and onions, Kyungsoo wanted pepperoni, and Sehun wanted sausage. Sehun always won. As revenge, Jongin would pick off the flecks of suspicious looking meat and flick them at Sehun’s face. Kyungsoo even came up with a point system depending on how accurate Jongin’s aim was. He wonders if Kyungsoo remembers that too. By the way his fingers are curling into a tight fist, yanking on the thin denim of his jeans, Jongin thinks he does.
“I’d like that.”
The remainder of the bus ride is silent. Kyungsoo stares out the window, his breathe adding to the layer of steamy condensation on the inside of the bus as the air conditioning tries to compensate for the heat. Jongin returns to fiddling with his fingers, but this time he doesn’t stare at them. Instead, he watches Kyungsoo. The way his forehead creases in thought. How he’s almost pressing his nose up against the window. He looks at Kyungsoo and he tries to remember what it was like to be his friend. What it was like for all three of them to have been friends.
Freshman year, Kyungsoo had been Sehun and Jongin’s peer mentor. They weren’t technically supposed to be friends (something about needing to define a line between friendship and someone to help you survive your first year of high school) but they became friends anyways. It was their mutual dislike for cotton candy and theme parks that initially drew them together. Bonding over bashing the sweet, sticky treat that kids loved shoving down their throats. None of them were particularly fond of children either. Little kids made their lives awkward. Not once had they ever looked at a child and thought “oh, how cute” it was more of “oh, gross, keep it away from me before I file for a restraining order”.
Three years of a really good friendship for three little outcasts. The summer before Kyungsoo left “to make something out of his life”, Sehun would say, the two of them had gotten into an argument. Jongin never quite knew what on earth it was they had fought over, but he hardly saw Kyungsoo that summer. Didn’t even get to say goodbye in person. Just a short phone call. I’ll miss you. Have fun at college. Don’t fail. Goodbye. Sehun made sure to occupy Jongin all summer so that he could hardly have a chance to see Kyungsoo, plus he was working and taking summer classes. Busy, busy, busy. So busy he forgot to figure out why he’d just lost his longtime friend.
“Um, don’t we need to get off now? Unless you’ve moved since we last saw each other.” Kyungsoo turns to glance at Jongin, almost whacking him in the face. He hadn’t realized how Jongin had unconsciously been leaning into him, finding comfort in the pressure of their bodies squished together during the ride.
“Oh, yeah.” Jongin pulls back, embarrassed, and quickly stands up and walks to the closest door on the bus. It’s one of those stupid doors where you have to put your hand on it when the light turns green, otherwise it won’t open. Every time he takes the bus there’s at least one person that starts yelling at the bus driver to open the door because they’re too stupid to figure out that you’re supposed to wait for the light and then stick your hand out. Some people even try pushing on it before the bus even stops.
A man appearing to be in his late thirties falls victim to the trick of the bus door. Unamused, Jongin pushes passed him, presses his palm up against the door in the correct spot, and steps off the bus back into the rain. Into the steam, air that’s thick and heavy with moisture.
Gawkily, Kyungsoo clambers off the bus behind him, bumping into the man with the groceries and nearly falling into a giant puddle that’s turned grey and shiny with gasoline and god knows what else. The man loses his loaf of bread to the suspicious water. Kyungsoo apologizes profusely but there’s really nothing that can be done to save it. It’s become a sponge full of grit and car waste. Kyungsoo ends up almost ten dollars in the hole because the guy’s so pissed off he just about throws a punch at him (thank god his arms are too busy holding the groceries). That’s some fucking expensive bread, though. Better be the best damn bread in the whole world because that was all the cash Kyungsoo had left for the week and it’s only Tuesday.
“Oh it is,” the asshole assures Jongin who had been brave enough to pitch a fit, asking the very question that had been plaguing Kyungsoo’s mind. Asshole claims that it’s from some fancy ass bakery. It has whole roasted garlic cloves in it and rosemary. Jongin doesn’t think that’s worth ten bucks but he’s not about to get his jaw slammed for saying that. He’d really like to ask why he bought the fucking bread in the first place if it was so expensive but he restrains himself knowing that if the guy drops any more groceries both Kyungsoo and himself will be indebted to that bastard. Most likely they will also end up with a fair smattering of bruises.
“Let’s go, Kyungsoo,” Jongin murmurs and tugs on Kyungsoo’s wrist. The black umbrella dangles around Kyungsoo’s wrist and Jongin laces their fingers together and pulls him along. His hands are surprisingly cold. Not exactly how Jongin remembers them from a year ago. The warmth is gone, replaced with a cold sweat. Uncomfortably cold like the temperature of his hands is a sign of a deeper change within him. A dark, sickening twist in the previously happy spiral of his life.
Silence resumes between them. All there is to hear is the sloshing of their feet in the puddles, the splattering of the rain on the ground, an occasional car, and the soft hum of their breath. Jongin keeps his fingers laced around Kyungsoo’s. Neither of them bothers to suggest using the umbrella. There’s no point in it. Both of them are soaked to the bone, plus the cool drops of water feel good on their heated skin. The rain makes the uncomfortable coldness of Kyungsoo’s hands more bearable, the secret less heavy.
The two of them stop in front of a house on the corner of the block. It’s an odd house with pink stucco walls, a grey roof, and a blue fence. Too bright against the darkness of the sky. In the front yard a few flowers droop from the heat and the force of the rain. The grass is a burnt yellow as if it long gave up growing. An orange tomcat sits in one of the windowsills watching them, meowing as if the two of them can hear it through the pane of glass. A woman appears in the window, eyes somber and ringed with darkness as if all attempts at sleeping have evaded her for several weeks. She scratches the meowing cat’s head softly and rubs her fingers under its chin, feeling the deep vibrations as he purrs. Her eyes snap upwards and she frowns. Recognition dawns on her face and it crumples into a distorted expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile. She closes the curtains and turns away not wanting to see them.
This was Sehun’s house. A place Jongin had once known better than his own home but it seems foreign now. Memories of good times frosted over with thick layers of a grimy present.
“Let’s go, Jongin. There’s nothing to see here.” This time it’s Kyungsoo’s turn to tug on the younger man’s arm and pull him forward and away from what used to be and no longer is.
“Mmm,” Jongin agrees and allows himself to be pulled down the next few blocks. Left, right, straight. Home. He doesn’t pay attention to how many turns they make or how many blocks they walk, he just looks down at his wrist and fingers, watching the way Kyungsoo’s fingers look wrapped around his. Feeling the tug on his limbs. Sehun was the last person to hold Jongin’s hand.
Kyungsoo untangles his fingers from Jongin’s grip and somehow he finds himself missing the awkward cold grasp. “Um, keys?”
“Oh.”
Jongin looks up at the front door of his house. It doesn’t look as happy as Sehun’s house. Grey and dirty like Kyungsoo’s shoes. The side paneling is weathered and in need of repair in places. Paint is starting to peal off in places and the front porch is sagging. Grass the same dead yellow as Sehun’s front yard, but they didn’t even attempt flowers this year. No point. The only happy focal point of the whole place is the lavender colored door in front of them. Painting it purple had been Kyungsoo’s suggestion since purple is his favorite color and the door had been in need of repainting. Jongin frowns when he notices that the purple paint is pealing off as well. Each part of his house is in a different state of dilapidation.
“We should repaint it,” he says to no one in particular and reaches into his pocket for his set of keys but they aren’t there.
“Repaint what?” Kyungsoo eyes the entire house suspiciously.
“The door.”
“But it’s-” he falters as he runs his hand down the length of the door, tearing off strips of lavender as his fingers brush against it. They settle on the ground in a wet heap.
“In need of new paint,” Jongin finishes, squishing the stripped paint beneath his shoes before walking off to look for the spare key, rummaging around in the dirt for the rock that hides it. Somehow he manages to find a little bit of humor in how every part of his life could do with a good repainting right now. Stripped bare and then coated in shiny new skin. Something to rip out the ugly thoughts and replace them with happy ones.
An almost smile ghosts across his lips as he finally digs the key out from under one of the rocks but then he stops when he remembers how Sehun always knew where to find the spare key when Jongin didn’t. Apparently he recognized something special about the shape or color or whatever bullshit he had rattled off to Jongin as an excuse. He knows, however, that Sehun probably knew it so well because of the numerous times he had used the key to sneak into Jongin’s house in the middle of the night. April Fools is always the worst when your best friend knows how to sneak into your house without being caught.
“You forgot again,” Kyungsoo chuckles, eyes watching Jongin as he stands up with hands covered in dirt and a key locked between his fingers. “I thought, you know, since you lived here all your life, you’d finally remember where you kept your spare key.”
“Shut up,” Jongin frowns and nudges Kyungsoo in the stomach with his elbow, then pushes the key into the lock, turns it, and lets them into the house. Jongin tries to soak in the moment of almost happiness but somehow it feels like just another memory. And perhaps it is, or simply a similar present. Conversations like these used to happen all the time before Kyungsoo was gone. Back when they were a trio of fools. Jongin the Forgetful. Kyungsoo the Wise. Sehun the Reckless.
“Always clueless.” Kyungsoo pokes Jongin in the back as he follows him into the house causing the younger one to yelp in surprise.
All of this messing around almost makes him feel like Normal Jongin until Kyungsoo picks up a picture frame with an image of Sehun and Jongin with Sehun’s hand wrapped around Jongin’s wrist, clutching to him like his life depended on it. Not a day will go by without Jongin blaming Sehun for his obsession with people’s hands, particularly their fingers. He had always liked the feel of Sehun’s skin wrapped so perfectly around his wrist. Soft and warm like how Kyungsoo’s hands used to be. Jongin had taken up the habit of observing people’s fingers, comparing their warmth and the feel of their skin to Sehun’s. Sometimes he’d even stare at his own hands wondering if Sehun liked them too.
Jongin snaps the picture frame out of Kyungsoo’s hands and curls his fingers around it tightly. He’d thought he’d gotten rid of all the photos that had once been on display of Sehun and him, but every day he came home to find that his mother had put one or two of them back out again. Even though he’s stuck in the past, he can’t stand seeing pictures. A flimsy memory is somehow more comforting than concrete proof that Sehun ever existed. It’s less painful.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just thought I put this away,” Jongin smiles sheepishly. “Um, I guess you can, uh, get a towel and dry off if you want. I’ll go order us some food. You remember where the towels are, right?”
“Yes,” Kyungsoo says carefully and watches Jongin slip into the kitchen before he can even ask if he would like a towel too since he’s clearly leaving a puddle in his wake. Being damp only feels okay when you have no choice. Inside of Jongin’s house it feels wrong so he makes a point of grabbing two extra large towels out of the closet in the hallways next to the restroom. He does his best to towel himself dry, which doesn’t really work when what he needs is more of a change of clothes, and idly wonders if maybe it would be okay to ask Jongin if he could borrow a shirt and some pants. While clinging to his towel, he stares at the walls as if somehow they will provide him with an answer for his current predicament.
Despite its drab exterior, the majority of Jongin’s house is very bright. Lots of yellows, oranges, and creamy whites. Due to another one of Kyungsoo’s brilliant paint jobs, Jongin’s room is also a lovely shade of purple. He and Sehun had battled it out with a few severe rounds of rock paper scissors to determine the paint color. Kyungsoo Purple or Sehun Blue. Jongin Red was ruled out for what he thought was an absurd reason. His mother was convinced it would look like walking into a room of blood. He’d tried to argue that he was aiming for a sort of orangey-red, not straight up blood, but she was skeptical nonetheless. Sehun, of course, rolled his eyes at everything during the entire conversation. He was all for blood red due to his love for horror films.
In the kitchen, true to his word, Jongin orders an extra thin crust pizza with cheese and pepperoni. He’d almost ordered sausage out of habit. There’d been a slight hesitation on the phone, a soft s slowly turning into a sharp p followed by a pregnant pause while his brainpower suddenly slowed down to a crawl. The guy on the other end of the line surely thought he was stupid for taking so long to spit out such a simple order.
Pizza is something he hasn’t ordered or even eaten since Sehun died. He feels stupid and guilty after he hangs up the phone and very much wants to slam his head against the fridge, which he does without much satisfaction. All it leaves him with is a dull headache. Not all head injuries erase embarrassing and unbearable moments. Stronger blows are necessary, but Jongin doesn’t truly want to brainwash himself. It’s his memories of Sehun that keep him in any sort of forward motion right now, even if the movement is faint and slow.
Kyungsoo, unfortunately, happened to walk into the room just in time to witness the head slamming. “Are you okay?”
An embarrassed blush colors Jongin’s cheeks. “Ugh yeah. Just ordered the pizza. Should be here in about forty-five minutes. Need something?”
“Do you mind if I borrow some of your clothes?” he asks and passes Jongin the other towel.
“Go ahead,” he mumbles into the towels as he scrunches it over his face and sopping wet hair. It wouldn’t be the first time Kyungsoo has had to borrow some of his clothes. Many a times, Sehun had accidentally spilled a drink or thrown a water balloon at them during the summer months of their friendship. Kyungsoo wearing Jongin’s clothes was just as common as Sehun wearing Jongin’s clothes, which was also quite frequent considering the number of times Kyungsoo and Jongin then sought out revenge for every dirty act that Sehun had committed against them.
“Kay.” Kyungsoo disappears down the hallway and up the stairs and into Jongin’s room. He’s not surprised to find it nearly stripped bare of all the old pictures he used to have of the three of them. Schoolbooks haphazardly tossed across the floor, some half open revealing the doodle covered pages. Waste basket overflowing with crumpled papers. The floor is ridiculously messy but the walls are empty. No poster or photos to be seen anywhere. All evidence of who Jongin is or was has been removed or is reduced to scraps.
Part Two