[Fic] Heart, Mind and Soul [2/?]
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Part I
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He remembers a woman’s hand holding his when he was really young. There would be different women (someone once told him he had eight sisters, not that he remembers them anymore) but he would always know which hand belonged to his mother. That dear, sweet mother of his who shared his gift.
Jaejoong imagines that she called him by some endearment because she hardly ever said his name. Even though he couldn’t remember her face, he remembers her voice.
Remember, the landscape is each person’s sacred place, she reprimanded him once. He had peeked into the landscape of one of his sisters’ and she didn’t like it. It’s one of the most intimate things you can see. The moment you see their landscape, you can understand that person.
But Jaejoong would never see his own landscape. It was the trade off to having this gift.
People have told him he was beautiful in the landscape, but he’s never really seen himself before. Jaejoong has walked in front of mirrors in other’s landscapes but there was never a reflection.
His heart and mind would never show because he needed to perceive the other’s landscapes, and he would never see the form of his soul.
That was the price to his gift and honestly, it doesn’t bother him. Jaejoong knows he’s a monster. Maybe in an effective disguise, but a monster nonetheless.
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Jaejoong opened his eyes and watched as a desert stretched ahead of him. In the very distance, a city rose above the sand dunes. On the opposite side, only one building stood tall and unyielding. If he squinted, he could make out the shape of a large clock tower.
The sun was hot and sweltering (passionate and maybe even obsessively protective). There was no dark spot in the bright blue sky (not one regret, not one worry, not at all normal). It was though the man’s heart was scrubbed clean of negativity and there were only certain ways for humans to achieve such purity.
One was insanity. Funny that, huh?
He saw no one approaching him so Jaejoong sighed and set off. He walked toward the city and as he got closer, he saw a person, no, he saw many people. The closer he got, the more detail he saw from the people. Like ants, these people walked to and fro as though their crumbling city wasn’t surrounded by sand.
A crumbling city full of people (society, broken trust, loves the ordinary life) made Jaejoong abruptly stop. He swore and began in the opposite direction toward the clock tower this time.
Jaejoong tried not to invade other people’s landscapes as a youth so he’s only seen such a scene once before. A building full of people going about their own business while their building balanced precariously on a steep cliff.
(That person had been a terrorist bomber. It had been an accident that their hands touched. And a day later, Jaejoong watched that building fall, tipping over from the weight of bomb explosions as though it fell of a steep cliff.
His mother had reassured him, usually it meant society and a love for society…
But even so, that building haunts him even to this day. So full of just ordinary people who had just-)
“What are you doing here?” a voice asked. Jaejoong spun around and saw a young girl, probably no older than ten, staring at him with brown eyes. “The city’s that way.”
She hadn’t been there before and the city was still some distance away. There was no way she could have gotten there in the time he turned around. She was a fragment of this person’s mind.
“I’m looking for someone,” Jaejoong said with a smile. “I’m Hero. What’s your name?”
The girl looked at him with a skeptical eye but replied nonetheless, “Jung Jihye.”
“Do you think you can help me?” Jaejoong asked, bending down to her height.
“…that’s not your name,” she suddenly declared. The bright blue sky suddenly became stormy and dark clouds magically appeared. “Hero can’t be your name.”
And the desert and distant city melted to white. The young girl looked him in the eye and screamed, “Who are you!”
“I-I…” Jaejoong began but it was too late. The landscape disappeared and so did the little girl.
Everything went black.
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“Jaejoong? Kim Jaejoong!” a deep voice called, shaking his shoulders.
Jaejoong could barely register the movement, but one thing was clear: he had been rejected. This person’s mind rejected him.
“Should I go get Changmin?” a higher voice asked.
“I’m not sure,” the deeper voice continued. The person’s hand still shaking his shoulders. “He just started seizing up and…”
“I’ll go get Changmin,” the higher voice said.
Jaejoong grabbed the hand on his shoulder and the room melted to white.
“No,” he heard his own voice say and the deeper voice gasp.
Jaejoong opened his eyes and looked at the room decorated with pictures and music sheets. The corner of the room had a piano and the same side held a shelf of CDs.
“…Kim…Jaejoong?” the deeper voice asked. It only took a moment before Jaejoong saw a name scrawled on a messily shuffled composition.
“Park Yoochun,” Jaejoong read and he felt the other still. The clouds outside turned a shade darker and the first signs of raindrops fell on the glass panel. Feeling the first signs of rejection, Jaejoong quickly let himself be the one to let go. Getting rejected once already felt awful.
The room melted away and Jaejoong looked up.
The guard with dark glasses stared back. Their hands no longer touching. The other guard seemed startled.
“Yoochun?” the other guard asked fearfully.
“…he’s okay,” the guard, Park Yoochun, said.
Jaejoong wasn’t sure he was, but he agreed with a nod of thanks.
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He scribbled out what he saw to Changmin on a notebook. Apparently the man wanted to keep track of what Jaejoong saw and wanted the older man to explain everything.
“You met Jihye?” Changmin asked after reading Jaejoong’s slapdash report.
Jaejoong nodded.
“…why couldn’t you tell her your name?”
Names link the soul to the heart, never give your name unless you’re willing to give up your heart, his mother had once said and to this day, he’s kept that piece of advice close to him.
Jaejoong merely shrugged in response to Changmin’s question. There was no use for the younger man to know.
Changmin sighed and returned the notebook.
“When can you attempt again?”
Jaejoong looked down at the empty pages and the pencil in his hand.
Right now.
Changmin nodded and they returned to the room. The guards were still at the door and the bed was still surrounded by curtains. The hand was still lying outside the curtains.
Jaejoong took the unmoving hand and the room melted away once again.
He opened them and a desert-no, an ocean spread out ahead of him.
What the hell?
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Mother, can a person’s landscape change?
Well, it depends on the person really. But if it happens, I say let go and run away. Far far away.
Why?
…sometimes it’s better not to know Jaejoong. Maybe when you get older, I’ll explain.
But his mother died three days later. That was the last time he saw her.
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A/N: Second chappie! : ) Enjoy~