reverberations [quinary]
[BEFORE] [MASTERLIST]
- QUINARY
Jiho bursts into the apartment, not bothering to take off his shoes. His heartbeat is thumping erratically in his chest and his throat burns with the effort of five flights of stairs.
“Hyung!” he yells, voice cracking with puberty, but he doesn’t have the capacity to be embarrassed, right now. “Hyung! Are you home?” he yells louder, running through the entryway and into the small living room. It’s empty, his brother’s university textbooks piled in a neat stack on the low table like he’s preparing to sit down and do his homework, but his brother nowhere in sight.
Jiho’s heart hitches in his chest. He runs through the rest of the apartment, calling for his brother, but every room is empty.
Without grabbing his bag, he runs out the door and slams it hastily behind him. He flies down the stairs of the apartment building and out onto the street. It’s emptier than it normally would be at this time, the streets sparse with taxi cars and the buses that usually run on the main road in front of their house.
The lack of busy noise strikes Jiho as eerie, and the hair on his arms starts to rise and the cold air seems like a knife in his chest. He jogs down a side street, cutting through the tightly-packed apartment buildings and low, old-style houses. Fear simmers low in his stomach, like a warning.
“Don’t be stupid,” he mutters to himself as he crosses another large road, the sidewalks less tightly packed with people than they normally are. “I’m just imagining things. He’s fine, of course,” he ducks down an alleyway that connects to the road in front of the provincial office building. “Those guys were just spreading rumors.”
But his conviction fades abruptly when he comes out onto the road and sees the small plaza in front of the provincial office building packed with people. Not just people- students. University students. There have to be more than a thousand of them, and they’re holding up signs and yelling and there are soldiers in front of the building, forming a blockade that Jiho can just barely make out through the crowd. Soldiers ring the edges of the plaza as well, at attention and fully armed.
“No,” Jiho says quietly, in disbelief. He can’t believe the guys in his class were telling the truth. That has to be a first.
He starts towards the crowd, searching desperately over the tops of people’s heads for his brother’s face. He’s tall- he should be easy to see, but there’s so many people that Jiho can barely push into the crowd without meeting resistance.
“Hyung!” he yells once, then again, and some of the people next to him look over briefly, but none of them are Jiho’s brother. The crowd is too loud for anyone but those immediately next to him to hear him.
He tries to shove forward, but he’s jostled back. Fear makes his throat tight. People are throwing things at the soldiers, stones probably, and Jiho knows his brother is stupid sometimes, but he’s safe, right? “Hyung!” he tries once more, and this time someone from behind him grabs him around the middle.
They’re bigger than he is, older, probably his brother’s age, and they hoist him up without much effort. Jiho tries to kick them, because they’re dragging him from the protestors and away from where his brother probably is. His captor grunts when one of the kicks connects with his leg, but he just tightens his hold around Jiho’s middle and continues out to where the crowd has thinned at the edge of the plaza.
When he drops Jiho down to his feet, Jiho immediately tries to run back in, but the man grabs his arms. “Hey, stop,” he says, and when Jiho finally looks at him, he recognizes the face, if only vaguely. “I know you,” the man says, and it’s Jaehyo, taller than him, but young. Barely university age. Jiho recognizes him from the times his brother has come home late from university, weak-kneed from makkeolli and skin smelling like cheap cigarettes. His friends crowd the dark entryway to their apartment building, laughing and drunk themselves, faces flickering in the shadows of faraway street lamp as they hand Jiho’s brother over. They’re always gone before Jiho can ask for any of their names, their features swallowed in the night.
Jaehyo is strong, despite the thinness of his fingers. He grips Jiho’s arms, as if Jiho is drunk and needs help getting home, and Jiho feels his stomach drop at the sense of control in the touch. “Your brother doesn’t want you here right now. It’s not safe.” He starts to turn Jiho around, as if to send him home, but Jiho struggles free of his grip.
“No!” he turns around and glares at Jaehyo, his heart hammering in his chest. Panic twists his voice. “My brother is in there! I need to go back-”
He tries to dash past, into the crowd again, but Jaehyo jumps in front of him, grabs him. His hair flurries around his face, crowding in his dark eyes. Concern is clear on his face, and it stops Jiho. “Hey, yeah, I know, I know- but don’t- don’t worry. He doesn’t want you here, okay?” He puts a hand around Jiho’s arm and starts walking him backwards. “He really doesn’t- it’s too dangerous-“
“No, I-“ but then there are screams, real screams, not the loud, somewhat measured chanting of the protestors, but a scream from the edge of the plaza that raises the hair on the back of Jiho’s neck. They freeze. Jiho and Jaehyo both look over to see a clump of soldiers around a man on the ground, surging inwards with sickening intent. Moments later, the soldiers are surrounded by a rush of protestors and disappear from sight.
Jaehyo’s hand tightens around his arm and Jiho can’t even protest as Jaehyo drags him backwards. His eyes track over the growing knot of people, soldiers rushing to support their comrades and protestors pushing in. The tack of the crowd changes in tune, anger clear in their voices, though there are too many to parse out exactly what’s happening.
“We need to get out of here,” Jaehyo mutters, and swings Jiho around and starts running with him against the pull of the crowd. The air quickens with a dangerous kind of tension, as in the moments before an explosion. Passerby are starting to look around and move closer in curiosity, and the soldiers that had been scattered lazily around the plaza are starting to come to attention.
Jaehyo pulls him down the main road and then turns into the crisscross of alleyways. It’s quieter here, the screams of the crowd fading into the general clamor of the city, but still Jaehyo doesn’t let go of him.
Jiho’s mind spins and he allows Jaehyo to pull him along. He wants to go back but fear blanks out his mind and keeps him going forward in Jaehyo’s grip. They’re almost to his neighborhood by the time Jiho manages to shake himself free.
“What’s going on?” he manages. He tries to keep his voice steady. All he can see is that man on the floor, surrounded by soldier’s legs. A sickening sense of unease washes over him. They’re far from the square, but he swears he can still hear echoes of the chants, the screams. “Where’s my brother?”
Jaehyo’s lips are pressed tightly together, like he’s afraid but trying to hide it. “He’s fine.”
“How do you know?” Jiho tries to pull himself away from Jaehyo’s hands but the unsteadiness in his chest spreads out into his knees and makes his voice shake. Somehow it’s even worse without Jaehyo’s hold. He doesn’t even know why it makes such a difference. He barely knows Jaehyo, but he’s something known in a sea of chaotic thoughts. “Did you see him? Do you know where he is?”
Jaehyo reaches out for him but must read the denial on Jiho’s face, and stops before he can grab him. Awkwardness bows his back slightly, but he stuffs his hands into his pockets and attempts to feign confidence. “He’s there, in the crowd. But he’s fine!” he reassures quickly, when he sees Jiho’s face fall. “You know your brother… he’s smart enough not to do anything crazy. He’ll be fine.”
And this time, Jaehyo’s words aren’t exactly a lie. Jiho looks at the earnest press of Jaehyo’s eyes, follows the slope of his somewhat severe cheek, and then down to the hard-packed dirt of the street. All he can feel are his harsh breaths in, out, in, out again, quickly, against his will; the way the breaths make his heart beat thunder under his ribs like it needs to escape. It’s all too fast. He knows he’s afraid, and suddenly he feels lost in it, alone. An inexplicable and incomprehensible fear blackens his mind like a certainty. Hyung won’t come home.
It seems ironclad, that idea, and it stops Jiho’s breath. Everything else stops as well. He can’t deal with that possibility and the fear it creates. His vision blackens at the edges, pulling in tightly until the packed dirt of the road is subsumed under the panic.
Visions cloud his mind of the crowd growing, surging with perpetual energy that notches up quicker every second that passes. And the soldiers swarming around the edge of the crowd, pressing in with their guns in hand, the threat there, always there, until the energy of the crowd breaks out and swarms outward; and there, in the centre, is Jiho’s brother, passion making his voice louder and his height, his exceptional height that Jiho doesn’t think he’ll ever reach, making his face visible over the other dark heads. It’s his height and his deep voice and the anger that can so easily mar his face that draws the soldiers towards his brother, and they charge at each other, heedless, reckless, and Jiho wants to scream out for him, but-
Someone lightly shakes his shoulder. He looks up and he recognizes Jaehyo’s face through the panic, and for a moment his features slide and shift, pliable as wet sand, as if moved by a deft hand. He looks older, lines drawn around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes; and then he’s young and full-cheeked, beautiful as a woman, face radiating full moon light. Again, Jiho knows him, beyond this moment, beyond the short years he’s lived.
There’s a measure of comfort in his touch, as though he’s done it before, and Jiho can’t help but trust it. He wants to fall into Jaehyo’s arms, wants something to soothe the fear that’s locked an iron rod in his spine, but he’s stuck, tongue pinioned to his palate.
Jaehyo is saying something as he pulls Jiho along, some small words of comfort that Jiho can’t even hear. It doesn’t take them long to cut across the city streets to Jiho’s small apartment building. They’re up the stairs and to the front door of the family flat before Jiho can calm down enough to speak.
Jaehyo pulls the keys to the door from Jiho’s pocket and bundles him inside. Knees weak, Jiho leans up against the wall as Jaehyo slides Jiho’s school loafers off. His long fingers dig into Jiho’s ankles, and the touch helps drag Jiho back into his body.
Jiho looks down at him, eyesight wobbling a little. Jaehyo’s eyelashes fan darkly across his cheek. Jiho wants to reach out and touch the soft slope of his skin, wants to slide his fingers into the thick shock of hair swept away from Jaehyo’s temple. The urge is familiar and foreign, seeming to come from a memory that isn’t entirely his. Jaehyo looks up. Embarrassed to be caught staring, even when Jaehyo smiles in reassurance, Jiho looks away. His heart pounds, though no longer entirely with anxiety.
He doesn’t understand.
“Are you okay?” Jaehyo asks, voice soft, standing and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
Jiho feels tiny and embarrassed next to him. Part of him wants to pull away, but he shakes his head. He wants Jaehyo close for as long as he can keep him.
“Okay, okay,” Jaehyo murmurs, and pulls him into the apartment and around to the small, Western-style couch. He makes Jiho sit and carefully lowers himself down next to him. A tense moment passes, and he suddenly stands himself, looking awkward. He folds his hands into each other, as if searching for something to hold onto. “Do… d’you want some tea? Water?”
Jiho looks up at him and really all he wants is for Jaehyo to sit back down with him, keep his arm around Jiho’s shoulders. It’s a long time until his mom gets back from her job, and he doesn’t know how long it’ll be until his brother gets back- if at all, but he shuts that thought right up- and he doesn’t want to be alone.
But it looks as though Jaehyo is getting ready to leave, so Jiho shakes his head again. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them in lieu of someone else.
“Well, I’ll just- go,” Jaehyo says, shifting from side to side, before he makes to leave. He pauses once, “It’ll be okay.” Jiho bites the inside of his lip to keep silent. Whatever calm he had before is being overtaken by icy dread but he can’t make himself speak.
He hears Jaehyo’s footsteps trail to the door, and buries his face into his knees. In the enclosed space of his body, his heartbeat throbs, too quickly to be normal. Thoughts flood his mind in an uncontrollable rush and he’s overtaken by images of his dead brother, of the screams of the crowd and the far-off shots of the military-grade ammunition.
He can’t fill his lungs, it’s not possible. Anxiety is going to kill him.
A hand on the top of his head startles him, and he looks up to see Jaehyo leaning over the back of the couch, looking concerned. “Do you want me to stay?” he asks, soft, but he doesn’t seem to wait for Jiho to nod before he’s rounding the couch and sitting next to him. He’s careless and the sides of their bodies crush together, the warmth of his body almost making Jiho cry with some primeval form of relief. Just his presence is enough to silence some of the doubts spinning through Jiho’s mind.
Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s buried his face into Jaehyo’s chest and wrapped his arms tightly around his skinny chest. Sobs pull at his throat but he swallows them down, embarrassed, and his throat aches with them. Jaehyo curls his body around Jiho’s, cautious at first, and then, as if anticipating Jiho’s need, just enveloping him completely.
Jaehyo’s chin presses at the crown of Jiho’s head and his warm, soft breaths flare across the soft skin of his neck. His heartbeat flutters quickly for a moment against Jiho’s ear and then resumes its constant, soothing cadence. He’s murmuring something, quietly, words that Jiho can’t parse out and doesn’t need to, since he knows they will only be for comfort. And Jiho is already calming down in Jaehyo’s arms, his fears not dissipating but becoming less vocal.
Against his will, tears prick at his eyes and dampen the front of Jaehyo’s shirt. Heat flares over Jiho’s cheeks and he wants to pull away, but Jaehyo doesn’t seem to mind the tears at all.
His hands slide over Jiho’s back in widening circles. The touch lulls Jiho until his skin is thrumming with just his heartbeat and the warmth of Jaehyo’s embrace has made him sleepy.
He doesn’t know when it happens, but he falls asleep there, in Jaehyo’s arms.
-
Hours later, he wakes to the soft light of the restaurant opposite’s neon sign flaring though the living room window. Jaehyo is gone, the weight and warmth of his body replaced by a pillow under Jiho’s head and a blanket spread over his legs.
Jiho panics, shooting up and kicking off the blanket. A cry escapes his mouth before he knows what he’s saying, before he realizes he doesn’t remember his brother’s friend’s name. There’s nothing for him to call.
In the silence, the world blanketed by the half-light, his stomach drops, as if he’s lost something vitally important.
Wait-
“Hey,” a deep, familiar voice makes him spin around. His heart leaps to his throat even before his eyes can parse out the figure standing at the back of the couch, one hand reaching out for Jiho’s shoulder.
“Hyung!” Jiho yells, voice catching on that unexpected block in his throat, that loss of memory choking him up. He vaults over the back of the couch and careens into his brother’s arms. Relief glosses over that slight, inarticulated ache in his chest.
His brother crushes him within his arms, hands sliding over Jiho’s back like a balm. It’s nothing like Jaehyo’s touch, nothing in the rough cut of his hyung’s hands like Jaehyo’s fine, tapering fingers. But the comfort it elicits is heavier, mixing with the relief that his brother is there, alive.
“I’m okay,” his brother murmurs, pressing his cheek to the top of Jiho’s head. “I came back.”
-
Jiho falls asleep next to his brother that night, curled up together on the bed that they share. He’s too tired and relieved to ask of that half-remembered friend, and the heaviness of his sleep buries his questions too far for him to reach the next morning.
As the months pass, the memory of Jaehyo’s face dissipates like a paper submerged under running water, at first just smudging at the fine lines of his jaw and ear, and then lifting out the darkness of his eyes and the fall of his hair. Soon, Jiho barely remembers the few hours they spent together, or the worry that was soothed by that odd, alien sense of intimately knowing someone he had never met before.
It’s a year later when his brother confesses that the reason he returned early from the protest was one of his friends coming and pulling him from the crowd.
“It’s terrible, though,” his brother murmurs, dropping his head against the apartment window. University textbooks are upended around his feet and the beginning of a paper scrawl across a notebook page. Jiho looks up from where he’s scratching out a math problem. His brother’s face is half-shaded in darkness spread by an early summer sun barely set. Unease pools heavy in Jiho’s stomach.
“He died- I lost him in the crowd when he came to get me, and then I was out of the crowd and he wasn’t- he got pulled back in. They started shooting after I left- and-and I didn’t even know. Youngsung only told me today.” Violet shadows bleed across his troubled expression, before his brother covers the lit side of his face with a hand. Empathy is a hot twist of pain in Jiho’s chest, so close to a knife.
The realization that it must have been Jaehyo elicits only a slight twinge of remembrance. “I’m sorry,” is all Jiho can come up with, before he rises and slips his arms around his brother’s broad, shaking shoulders.
After Jiho crawls into bed that night, he lies there and tries to recapture the image of that lost face. But in the dark, with ordinary worries and everyday issues to focus on, he can’t concentrate enough. Sleep pulls heavily at him, dragging him away from his thoughts and the vague outline of Jaehyo’s features. The only real thing that lingers is a sense of having known someone, before they, too, disappeared like so many friends and acquaintances.
When Jiho wakes in the morning, it’s to a slight ache in his chest, though he doesn’t remember why.
-ONE
Maybe they’ve missed each other too many times and that slight red cord that stretches out, twists between them, is beginning to fray with all the moments they’ve lost, all the life that they’ve lived apart.
Maybe there are only so many chances, and they’ve used up every single one.
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