Chapter Text
We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least.
— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
19.7.1 // 06:04 AM
What Jaehyun liked most about Monday mornings, despite it being Monday, was that Taeyong was always still there when he woke up. The older usually went to work a few hours before Jaehyun’s designated wake-up time, so this was a treat. He would be leaning against the headboard, one leg down to the floor, glasses sliding down his nose, with his messy dark hair damp from the shower.
Jaehyun felt a little overindulged sometimes, when Taeyong noticed him waking up and immediately put his book away, clearly waiting for Jaehyun to be conscious enough so he could kiss him and maybe get him to kiss him back.
“Fuck, it’s Monday,” was usually Jaehyun’s first greeting, and today was not much different. He hated Monday. Who didn’t, really.
Taeyong laughed, as he used his fingers to brush the hair off Jaehyun’s face. He smelled like Jaehyun’s herbal shampoo, and it was a tenderly familiar smell, more than enough to make Jaehyun’s day start a little bit better.
“Don’t whine, I’m right here,” he said. He leaned in closer, and just when Jaehyun lifted his face up, thinking Taeyong was going in for a kiss, he pulled right back.
Jaehyun frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Taeyong asked with a playful smile when Jaehyun just grumbled unclearly and buried his face back in the pillows. “Not up for a good day?”
“I thought you were going to kiss me,” he wailed, voice muffled.
“I’ll consider that after you’ve brushed your teeth,” Taeyong said, and he patted Jaehyun’s head before leaving. Jaehyun felt the mattress shift as Taeyong’s weight was gone. “I made you toasts, come downstairs.”
“I don’t like toasts.”
“You like it when it’s my toasts, shut up.”
Jaehyun groaned, because honestly he liked everything when it came to Taeyong, and pushed himself up on his elbows. He saw Taeyong checking himself out in Jaehyun’s bathroom before catching Jaehyun’s eyes through the mirror, and the older smiled. Jaehyun actually caught him doing this a few times throughout the day, whether it was at home or at work. One of the cute things he did seemingly needlessly.
“I don’t know why you still do that, you already know how good you look,” Jaehyun commented, and Taeyong just shook his head and chortled. “Did any of your patients try to flirt with you again yesterday?”
“Jaehyun, all of my patients are sedated. They don’t exactly flirt when they’re like that.”
Jaehyun rolled off the bed and went to brush his teeth.
19.7.1 // 06:17 AM
Jaehyun remembered what day it was halfway through chewing Taeyong’s toast. The way he did it was pretty theatrical, too – he stopped chewing and almost choked and all that good stuff.
“Wait,” Jaehyun said, after he’d gotten the piece of bread stuck in his throat to go down. He stared blankly at Taeyong, who was drinking coffee in his favorite mug (“CUTE ENOUGH TO STOP YOUR HEART AND SKILLED ENOUGH TO RESTART IT”) on his favorite place near the kitchen sink, reading the folded newspapers placed on the counter as he drank. “Wait, Taeyong.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, not glancing up from the newspaper. “My work isn’t until 8, so I think we can relax for a little bit.”
“No, Taeyong,” Jaehyun persisted. “Today is the first of July.”
“So?” Taeyong said, but Jaehyun knew it was more of an instinctive response because Taeyong soon seemed to get what Jaehyun was trying to say. He turned to look at Jaehyun now, wide-eyed.
“It’s your birthday,” Jaehyun declared.
“It’s my birthday,” Taeyong repeated, amazed.
“You totally forgot, didn’t you?”
Taeyong put down his mug, still staring at Jaehyun. “I swear June just started like, last week. How did it go to July this fast?”
“Obviously your sense of time is dwindling again, you workaholic,” Jaehyun said, and he broke off into a grin. “Wonderful, you have kept yourself fed well enough for twenty four years. That’s got to be an achievement.”
“I’ve survived on two hours of sleep every day for twenty four years straight, you can bet that’s a damn achievement right there.”
“You’re the worst doctor there ever is,” Jaehyun announced, and Taeyong laughed out loud, peeling himself off the counter he was leaning against and went to the table. “But I still love you so much.”
“Obviously,” Taeyong responded, and this time when he leaned in to kiss Jaehyun, he didn’t pull away. Jaehyun smelled his shampoo again on Taeyong, and then he noticed that Taeyong was wearing his shirt, one that he hadn’t worn for a long time and had become Taeyong’s go-to shirt of sort whenever he was staying over.
And god, he even tasted like Jaehyun’s toothpaste.
19.7.1 // 08:14 AM
As soon as Taeyong was off to work, Jaehyun whipped out his phone and called Johnny. As usual, the older answered in the first two rings, even though he should be at work right now. He guessed that maybe high school teachers could take a break in between classes to answer calls, too. Or maybe Johnny just didn’t take his job seriously.
“What bakery makes the best cake around here?” Jaehyun immediately sputtered, as soon as the older picked up the phone. Johnny didn’t even ask what Jaehyun was on about.
“Chill down, hotshot, Taeyong doesn’t even like cake. Don’t you know that?”
Jaehyun blinked owlishly. “But we bought him cake last year.”
“Yeah, and we ended up finishing it,” Johnny continued on, not even losing one single beat. “Try something different this time. Let’s just make him a full-scale surprise party. The adult version, though.”
“What, you gonna take him to a strippers club or something?” Jaehyun snorted at the thought of Taeyong, that obstructive, no-nonsense Taeyong, getting lost in a dark clubroom full of half-naked people, but then he shuddered. He didn’t want that, not really.
“Dude,” Johnny said, and he sounded so done with Jaehyun then that he wondered why Johnny didn’t just end the call and cut Jaehyun out of his life forever. “I mean with alcohol and stuff. That kind of adult. Maybe. And food. Strippers club didn’t even cross my mind, mind you.”
“But it’s… I feel like it’s still lacking without any cake,” Jaehyun said sadly, and he actually pouted, even if Johnny wouldn’t be able to see it.
Johnny heaved a long, loud sigh. “Fine. Go with Sicheng and find us some cakes.”
“Some cakes?”
“Okay, not some. I meant just one. We barely finished last year’s tart.”
Jaehyun brightened. “Okay!”
“God, you’re such a kid,” Johnny said, and even if he sounded tired, he sounded fond, too, somewhat. He wouldn’t admit it though, just like how Jaehyun wouldn’t admit how grateful he was of Johnny Seo’s whole existence. “Can’t believe you’re graduating this year. You’re like, five.”
“I’m like, twenty-two,” Jaehyun huffed, equally as sarcastic in response, and he ended the call before Johnny could think of another good comeback. He ran through his contacts to find Sicheng’s name, praying silently that he wasn’t busy with Yuta at the moment.
(Even if he was, Jaehyun knew Sicheng would choose him over Yuta anytime.)
19.7.1 // 11:17 AM
“Does he like chocolate?” Sicheng asked, bending his long legs to take a closer look to the sweets in the display cases. “I mean, chocolate’s the basic of the basics. What kind of people don’t like chocolate?”
“I don’t think he hates it,” Jaehyun said, shrugging, and like Sicheng, leaned in to check out the cakes. They both probably looked like lost overgrown kids out of their parents’ supervision. Choosing what sweets to buy was usually so fun, especially with Sicheng – it was just that last year the one who bought Taeyong’s cake was Johnny, and not Jaehyun. Five months and Jaehyun had never felt the need to ask Taeyong what flavor he liked, until now. “I think…”
Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun when the older took much longer to elaborate than expected. “Jae,” he said, in a critical tone. “You don’t know, don’t you?”
Jaehyun pursed his lips, but his silence seemed enough for Sicheng, because the latter sighed and straightened himself, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Eh,” Sicheng finally said, shrugging. “I also still don’t know what kind of sweets Yuta likes, and it’s been over two years now.”
Jaehyun stared. “I don’t think you care what Yuta likes.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“Also, I don’t think Yuta even eats sweets.”
Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun dead in the eye, and said with an alarmingly empty expression, “He eats me, though?”
Jaehyun wondered why he still bothered with Sicheng.
19.7.1 // 11:43 AM
Twenty minutes later, after some more arguments with Sicheng over which color icing would look best on a snow cake (“Pink is such a good color.” “Fuck you, Sicheng, this isn’t a wedding cake.” “Just propose tonight then, it’s two birds with one stone.” “No!”), they both came out from the bakery, glad to be back under the sun. Sicheng was carrying the cake box as a child would carry a porcelain doll, and Jaehyun felt like he didn’t want to take that off him just yet.
“You wanna hang at my place?” Jaehyun asked. “I’ll probably be busy searching for a place to throw the party tonight. Your input might help. Great emphasize on might.”
Sicheng shrugged. “Sure.”
“You don’t have plans with your kinky boyfriend today?”
“Said kinky boyfriend is out of town,” Sicheng said, a little dolefully. Jaehyun turned to get a look at his best friend’s face, and Sicheng was staring back at him. “With Hansol,” he then added, when Jaehyun just raised an eyebrow.
“On what occasion?”
“Work, apparently.”
“You sure he’s not doing things behind your back?” Jaehyun asked, a little more carefully, but Sicheng didn’t seem to notice. “Dude, he’s going out of town for work with an ex.”
Sicheng snorted. “Better stays an ex or else he’s dead.”
19.7.1 // 12:19 PM
“Are you sure you’re really not gonna propose?” Sicheng asked from the stairs, body leaning over the rail a little bit too dangerously. Jaehyun wondered if he had always been a lowkey adrenaline junkie or he’d recently developed dangerous habits because of Yuta’s whole shenanigans.
“Not today,” Jaehyun replied, putting the cake back in the fridge. He hoped Taeyong would go home to his own house today, and not his, or else he’d have to move the cake away. Problem was, he didn’t know where to move it to. “I’m a college student. We are college students, Sicheng.”
“So you’re gonna wait until you graduate, then?”
“Probably. I don’t think about it much.”
“Why not?”
Jaehyun turned to look at Sicheng, who had now come down from the rail and seated himself down on the bottom step. He looked at Jaehyun with a curious face, and Jaehyun lost the desire to snap at him.
“Why don’t you?” Jaehyun asked instead.
Sicheng narrowed his eyes. “Yuta should be the one proposing, not me. Like hell I’m gonna get down on my knee and beg him to marry me. That’s his job. I have my pride.”
Jaehyun snorted, but also felt a great surge of affection for Sicheng rushing in. This was why they were friends. This was why they were still friends. “And what if he doesn’t,” he said.
“Then we’ll stay boyfriends forever, I guess,” Sicheng said simply.
19.7.1 // 12:53 PM
Sicheng stayed for lunch because he had no one to cook for him back home. Jaehyun didn’t mind, since he didn’t trust Sicheng’s cooking skills that much and would rather have him around than facing the prospect of Sicheng burning down Yuta’s kitchen in an attempt to survive.
(“But to be fair,” Sicheng said, “He totally deserves having his kitchen burned down.”
“I second that, and I’d pay to see that happen, but I’d rather you not.”)
It was almost one when Taeyong called him. Sicheng handed the phone from the dining table to Jaehyun’s gloved hand, which was speckled with flour and salt.
“Hey,” Jaehyun said, as soon as he saw Taeyong’s name on his screen and took the call. He wondered why Taeyong called at this hour. He never did that, usually. “What’s wrong?”
“Why, can’t I call my boyfriend on my lunch break?” Taeyong teased, and Jaehyun rolled his eye, which was useless since Taeyong wouldn’t be able to see him anyway. “Miss you already, dimples.”
“Miss you more, hyung.”
Taeyong made a loud, mocking gasp. “Hyung? Hyung, really? After all these years?”
“Well, what can I do? You hate cringey pet names as much as I do, cinnamon roll.”
Sicheng made a gagging sound from the table, but Jaehyun shushed him. He placed the phone on the table again and took off his plastic gloves, before walking out from the kitchen.
“Who was that?” Taeyong asked, when Jaehyun was out of Sicheng’s hearing range (he thought). “Did you bring another man home while I’m not around, dimples?”
“No, that was Sicheng, oh my god,” Jaehyun said dryly. “Yuta hyung is out of town, so he’s a lost child now. Can we adopt him?”
“I heard that, Jung.”
“Aw, shit,” Jaehyun said, laughing guilelessly, and walked further away from the kitchen and toward the front door. Unless Sicheng had superhuman hearings, he shouldn’t be able to hear Jaehyun from the porch, at least. “Okay, but seriously though, what’s up?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to call,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun heard the elevator dinged from the other end of the line. Taeyong was probably getting down to the ground floor. “Just met an old high school friend, actually.”
Jaehyun hummed. “Did you?”
“Yeah. He went for a check-up and we met in the waiting room. It’s nothing important, but it made me think a lot.”
“About what?”
“About high school,” Taeyong said smoothly, easily, and Jaehyun questioned himself if he had been planning to talk about this for a long time, just hadn’t the chance to. Yet. “About us.”
“What about us?”
Now Jaehyun could hear the faint voices of pedestrians and some cars rushing through the traffic. Taeyong must already be in the lobby.
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with us,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun felt the lump that was going up in his throat fading. “I just… I just never got the chance to apologize for what I did back then.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong back then,” Jaehyun said, confused.
“I think I did,” Taeyong insisted. “Youngho said I thought you hated me. I think he got it all mixed up – I thought you thought I hated you.”
Jaehyun blinked. “What? But did you?”
Taeyong let out a half-choking, half-laughing sort of a sound. “Jaehyun, how could someone like me hate someone like you? No, I didn’t, idiot. Never did, never have done, and probably won’t ever do.”
“Oh. Then what’s the deal?”
“The reason why… why I appeared standoffish,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun winced when he heard it, because standoffish was the word he used to describe Taeyong a lot back in high school whenever he and Johnny was discussing their relationship, “Is because I didn’t want to weird you out. I didn’t want to weird people out in general, but especially you. That was why.”
Jaehyun was so speechless, he forgot how to breathe. Then he suffocated, and coughed out his lungs. Taeyong whined immediately.
“You’re overreacting again,” he accused, and Jaehyun, still coughing, tried to deny this.
“No, I swear I’m not! I just choked.”
“On what, the fucking air?”
“Well yeah, but—“
“Jaehyun,” Taeyong interrupted. “I wasn’t always this way, okay? I was much more difficult back then. High school was hard. Don’t hold a grudge over who I was when I was in that hell of a place. I’m a grown man now.”
“Aw,” Jaehyun said, and he smiled, wider than he wanted, wider than he planned. “Awww, sure you are, you’re twenty-four.”
Taeyong sighed loudly, ignoring Jaehyun’s teasing. “We should’ve talked back then. I was stupid. I mean, I saw you hanging with Youngho a lot, so I should’ve concluded that you’re a lost cause, too. There was literally no reason for me to be that way.”
“I’m a lost cause—“ Jaehyun stopped himself, preferring not to finish that. “Okay. Seriously. Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop thinking about the past. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re here right now, aren’t we? I love you and you love me. The fact that you were pointlessly insecure and I was a ridiculous coward doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You were what?”
“I was a ridiculous coward,” Jaehyun said. “Hey, I said that didn’t matter, didn’t I? Just go eat your damn lunch and come home soon.”
Taeyong laughed out loud. “Okay. See you later?”
“See you later.”
Jaehyun stayed, waiting for Taeyong to end the call, but he didn’t. There was a full second before Taeyong spoke again.
“No I love yous?”
“You should be the one saying that to me first since you’re older. And since it’s your birthday.”
“That argument doesn’t even make sense, Jaehyun.“
“I love you.”
Taeyong paused. Jaehyun wondered if he was mirroring this dumb, lovesick smile he was doing himself out there. He wondered if Taeyong was still feeling the butterflies, now not tickling the inside of his stomach, but filling his chest with comforting liquid just like warm honey.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” he finally said, and Jaehyun didn’t miss the honesty, the genuine affection dripping in every word, in his voice. Satisfied, he ended the call.
At least Jaehyun got to say he loved him for the last time.
19.7.1 // 13:29 PM
Jaehyun received another call almost halfway past one. This time it was from Taeil – which was weird, because usually Taeil never called him first and if he did, he’d be more likely to use Johnny’s or Taeyong’s phone.
“Who is it?” Jaehyun yelled at Sicheng, who was still sitting on standby next to the dining table. “If it’s Doyoungie just ignore it, he’s been trying to get me to come to one of his stupid workshops—“
“It’s from someone named Taeil hyung,” Sicheng said, and Jaehyun’s gloved hands nearly slipped from their place on the stove. “I think it’s important.”
“How do you know what’s important and what’s not,” Jaehyun commented, but he still took the phone anyway. He was damn popular today, that was for sure.
“Hey, hyung,” he was just saying, but Taeil’s breathless voice cut him off immediately.
“Jaehyun!” Taeil said – yelled, really, and he also never yelled, so that was really new. “Jaehyun, where are you?”
“Me?” Jaehyun asked, confused by Taeil’s abrupt yelling. “I’m home, with Sicheng. Hyung, what’s wrong? Why do you sound so—“
“Jaehyun, I don’t know how to say this but—I think you need to keep calm first but—please come here. To the hospital. As fast as you can. Please. It’s Taeyong.”
At the mention of Taeyong’s name, Jaehyun felt his heart sinking inside of his chest, and his phone nearly slipped away from his fingers. He’d unconsciously connected Taeil’s – his usually calm and collected hyung – panicked voice, the mention of hospital, and Taeyong’s name. Apparently his phone did slip from his hands, because Sicheng, thanks to his great reflex, was suddenly off the chair and he caught it by an inch from being smashed against the floor with a shout. Now visibly upset, he put it back in Jaehyun’s hands, keeping it there with his own.
Taeil continued, in a shriller voice. “There was an accident…”
Jaehyun didn’t stay to let Taeil finish.
19.7.1 // 13:32 PM
Sicheng insisted they should take the train, even when Jaehyun wanted to run to the hospital. He had to hold Jaehyun by the chest to stop him from just dashing away right off the porch.
“That’s fucking crazy, man, it’s three miles away,” Sicheng tried to reason, fingernails digging into Jaehyun’s skin even from the fabric of his shirt. He was sweating just as much as Jaehyun was. “Or at least a taxi. Let’s use a taxi.”
“Tell the driver to floor it!” Jaehyun shouted, when Sicheng managed to get them a taxi from the busy street. He was still yelling when Sicheng pushed him in the car. “Make it in five! Please!”
“You know that’s impossible,” Sicheng said. “It’ll take ten at least. Sit down, Jaehyun! We’re not gonna get anywhere if you won’t stop flailing!”
19.7.1 // 13:39 PM
Jaehyun’s knee wouldn’t stop shaking. His palm was wet with sweat. The traffic jam was insane, and he was so close to exploding, just like a nuclear bomb. Sicheng had his hand on his shoulders, and Jaehyun didn’t shrug him away, but it wasn’t helping.
Jaehyun counted to ten, and then he said, “Fuck it,” and stormed out of the car.
He could faintly hear Sicheng shouting out his name in despair behind him, but Jaehyun didn’t care. He didn’t spare a glance. He just ran.
19.7.1 // 13:43 PM
Jaehyun felt like he could no longer taste air, respiratory sistem no longer giving it access to keep him alive when he stumbled around almost blindly. He could barely care, too. The only reason he wasn’t dead out of suffocation yet was because Taeyong was probably in a much worse condition than he was.
He spotted Taeil standing near the receptionist desk, hands clasped together as his eyes darted around. He looked beyond nervous, and it made Jaehyun’s mood plunge even further down.
He didn’t even feel his feet moving until he nearly crashed against the shorter guy and grabbed his shoulder. “Hyung,” Jaehyun breathed, his voice totally not his, but again, he didn’t care. “How is he? Where is he?”
“Jaehyun!” Taeil exclaimed in surprise. “You’re already here—oh god, what happened to your face?”
(Jaehyun might or might have not rammed his own face against the glass door earlier in his hurry. He now had a split lip. Worth it.)
“That barely matters, hyung! Tell me where he is!” Jaehyun demanded, and Taeil grimaced in pain when Jaehyun shook him too hard, and he’d probably have to apologize for it later (or else Johnny woud deck him right on the face, too). “Hyung, I can’t do this, where is he? It wasn’t bad, wasn’t it? Everything’s gonna be okay, right?”
Taeil’s pained face was everything that despair needed to break Jaehyun from the inside out.
“It was bad,” Taeil explained, in a very small voice that Jaehyun’s ringing ears had a hard time catching. “It was so bad, he’s losing so much blood.”
Jaehyun could faint right there from the dizziness he felt in his head, the heaviness in his chest, and the trembling of his feet. He could lose balance right there and just forget so much bad things were happening, even though it was supposed to be such a great day, it was Taeyong’s birthday for god’s sake – but Jaehyun didn’t.
“Hyung,” he simply said, and Taeil pointed toward the hallway, to the emergency room. “Hyung, come with me.”
Taeil did, and that was the best decision Jaehyun made for the whole day.
19.7.1 // 13:44 PM
A heartbeat flatlined.
19.7.1 // 13:45 PM
Jaehyun nearly kicked the door off its hinge entering. The room was much like a murder scene – there was some blood on the floor, and the bed where Taeyong was on was also red. Taeyong’s torso was covered in so many white things that Jaehyun’s hazy sight couldn’t make out what they were, but on those white things were still some blotches of dark red, blooming like spider lilies, ridding Jaehyun of his already diminishing hope.
There were people in white crowding around the bed, talking in quick, frightened voices among themselves with words Jaehyun couldn’t really catch, and the room smelled so strongly of medicine and blood that it nearly made him throw up. But he didn’t, because Taeyong was there, his eyes closed, his face garlanded with more red and purple and black, and that he wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, and Jaehyun felt Taeil’s thin frame against his back, like a weak anchor, like a dwindling lifeline.
His eyes caught the ECG machine on a nearby table – the line was flat. As flat as Jaehyun’s own mind, as flat as his own faith, as flat as his whole being.
Ah, Jaehyun thought. Ah, shit.
One of the doctors turned to look at him and said, “Sir, you can’t be here—“
“No, wait,” Jaehyun said, and he abruptly laughed, he laughed at the absurdity of it all, he laughed so, so loud that it sent a shiver down his body, because Taeyong couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t die, it was his birthday and the universe should never let someone die on their birthday ever. It was a day dedicated to celebrate the birth of someone, what the fuck was the world doing, taking the person right back out? It all didn’t add up, really. “No, no, no, this isn’t real.”
“Jaehyun, let’s get out,” Taeil pleaded. His arms around Jaehyun’s chest felt strangely sturdy, strong enough to drag him back. Jaehyun blinked, and the bluriness in his vision cleared, just for it to come back again. Something was wet on the back of his shirt, and Jaehyun insentiently pondered, oh, is that Taeil hyung’s tears? “Let’s get out and call Johnny, he’ll know what to do in this situation.“
“This isn’t real!” Jaehyun screamed, when Taeil dragged him out of the ER. “This isn’t real, he can’t die! He can’t die, hyung, it’s his birthday!”
“Jaehyun,” Taeil said again, holding Jaehyun tighter. “Jaehyun, Jaehyun, Jaehyun. Don’t break, please, don’t break now, I won’t be able to fix you.”
“I don’t want to be fixed! I don’t need to!” Jaehyun yelled, and he wanted to shrug off Taeil, get him off his back, and storm right back in. “I want the universe to fix him! Bring him back! This is fucking unfair, bring him back or I swear I’ll burn the whole world down!”
“Jaehyun,” Taeil besought again, and Jaehyun could feel the strength in the older’s arms falling, as if it was his own. Or maybe it was, because Jaehyun didn’t remember how, but he just ended up on the floor. His legs had given out, his body surrendering while his mind was still thrashing for justice in reality, and Taeil was holding him up with what little power he had left. “You can’t burn the whole world down. You’ll burn us, too. You’ll burn yourself.”
And maybe Jaehyun still didn’t care, still didn’t want to yield, and still wanted to yell it out until the universe yield to him instead. He wished to die, too, wished to chase after Taeyong, didn’t even care if it meant crossing worlds, he’d do it, run until he could grasp Taeyong by the hand and pull him back, or maybe if he couldn’t, he’d just follow him. To the end of the world, whichever world was it. Jaehyun was all set and unprepared at the same time.
Maybe he did feel all that, but Taeil’s voice made him weak, made him lose all those, because at that moment Jaehyun realized: if he didn’t let Taeil soothe him down, who would? There was no one else left in the world that cared for him the way Taeyong did, and now that he was gone, Jaehyun was lost, too. Taeil went looking for him, going all the way out of his comfort zone with a flashlight to find Jaehyun amidst the dark woodland that was Jaehyun’s own self-denial, because he felt like it was his responsibility to do so, because he felt like that was what Taeyong would want him to do, anyway.
So Jaehyun gave in, let Taeil find him, and wept in his embrace. He wept in Taeil’s arms as his whole word came crushing down all around him, creating a vast ocean of sorrow and desolation that would soon become his prison.
20.10.8 // 05:21 AM
Jaehyun doesn’t know why, but this morning he wakes up with tears on his cheeks.
He wakes up and feels the wetness of his pillow against his ear, then struggles to prop himself up, and wipes something warm on his face. A few drips down to his mouth, and he tastes the foreign yet familiar saltiness. Foreign, because Jaehyun hasn’t cried in almost a year, and familiar, because the last time he did, he’d swallowed so many of his own tears that it felt like he was drowning in seawater. Jaehyun still stares under the dim light of his bedlamp, the wet fingertips glimmering slightly.
He doesn’t even remember what he was dreaming about, but he could guess.
He stays like that. He switches the pillow upside down and rests his head on the dry side, but he stays there, just thinking about his feelings, about the things that have happened to him, about whether or not he deserved losing so much, because if he’s really, really being honest, Jaehyun deserves at least Taeyong’s healing presence after all those disparaging loneliness he’d felt in his younger years. He deserves at least that.
If the law of the universe was really just in its might, Taeyong shouldn’t have died then, and Jaehyun shouldn’t have felt so much pain right after. If the law of the universe was really just in its decision, why the hell wouldn’t life let the both of them live in peace?
Jaehyun stays on the bed until much, much later, until he’s tired of thinking again, until the recurring thoughts become dull and wearing.
20.10.8 // 05:34 AM
Jaehyun finally gets up, and immediately catches sight of the book.
It’s still resting on top of his bedside table, cover facing the ceilings. Jaehyun remembers skimming through it last night, not ingesting anything, just tracing his hand over Taeyong’s handwritings, feeling a strange sense of connection as his fingers went over Taeyong’s name on the first page and the notes he left on the margin of the rest.
Taeyong had a peculiar style of writing. He would often wrote in what Doyoung would call “half-assed cursive”, but Jaehyun thinks it’s cute. Taeyong’s handwritings are direct and messy and all over the place (well, he was a doctor, that’s kinda a given), but the words he wrote spilled right out of his mind, vocally unsaid thoughts because he didn’t say everything he went over, what he believed, what he assumed, what he wanted to tell, but didn’t, or couldn’t; the words he kept safely inside of his own mind, behind bars, anaesthetized, but never completely dead, never going away. Jaehyun adores these, adores the small moments when he could peek into what few things left of Taeyong’s observance.
He didn’t just leave notes on the margin. Sometimes he would underline a few words, or maybe sentences, with a fading red marker that he must’ve had to shake a few times just so the ink would come out. Jaehyun fawns over these things he underlined, eats up every word and sentence and lines, every drip of contemplations that Taeyong had left behind.
It wasn’t strange that Taeyong would love a book about grieving so much, too. Jaehyun guesses that those things he emphasized so strongly on were the things he found relatable, the things he was so painfully familiar with. “Grieving isn’t just about death,” Taeil once said, in one of their sessions, if Jaehyun remembers correctly, “It’s about losing someone in general. It’s better to lose someone to death than to lose them to life.”
Maybe that was why Taeyong liked this book so much, because he grieved for the people he’d lost to life, the people he’d left and the people who left him. He grieved for the people he once loved, just like Jaehyun did.
And now Jaehyun grieves for him.
20.10.8 // 05:39 AM
Jaehyun didn’t notice it the night before, but when his hands slip and the book falls on his chest, a piece of paper slides out from the pages. He catches it by instinct before it flies down to the floor, the paper a bit creased. He brings it closer to his face so he can read it better.
It’s Taeyong’s handwriting, too, but it isn’t comments or notes this time. It’s a series of words that Jaehyun doesn’t know Taeyong liked, but obviously did, because the paper is there between his fingers as a proof.
Death has no power / to keep apart / a love forged so deeply / in a person’s heart.
Jaehyun suddenly chokes, because he could hear it in Taeyong’s voice, he could hear every word spoken in Taeyong’s voice, even if it’s not possible. He could feel the smoothness of his voice washing over his skin, his tired eyes, his trembling lips. He could feel it – these words are talking to him, crushing him to pieces and patching him back right after.
Death creates a veil / and shields us from view / but death can do nothing / to disconnect me from you.
And Jaehyun remembers what – who – his dreams were about.
He remembers and it leaks right out from his eyes, from his lungs to the roof of his mouth, from every pore of skin, from every bits and pieces of his body and heart and slumbering feelings; they spill right out, all of them, all of them, in a deliberate, crushing pace, choking him further, cutting him off from reality, and he sinks deeper, deeper until he feels his back hitting rock bottom.
TL, 2016, 5:02 AM
20.10.8 // 07:13 AM
Mark greets him when he shows up for work. The younger has just arrived as well, from the look of it – he’s fixing the hem of his lab coat when Jaehyun comes in, and he’s still in his sneakers.
“Hi, hyung,” Mark says, and Jaehyun tries not to make it too obvious that he’s just bawled his eyes out two hours ago. Mark thinks Jaehyun’s coping well, so he doesn’t need that thought to change. Worse yet, Mark could tell Taeil. “We’re still eating lunch later, right?”
“What?” Jaehyun asks, and his mind goes blank for a moment there, because has he made plans with Mark lately? His mistake, because that means he’s dropping the already-dwindling control over his facial expression, and Mark is staring right at him, so. Yeah. There goes.
Jaehyun watches as Mark’s face falters, and curses inwardly.
“Hyung,” Mark says again, now in a feebler voice. “Are you okay?”
Jaehyun reminds himself of how sensitive Mark is when it comes to his (dis)ability to comfort people in need, so he forces himself to smile and waves him off.
“What are you talking about?” Jaehyun asks, and he tries to make his voice sounds lighter, like nothing is bothering him at all, like nothing is sitting on the bottom of his stomach and trying to claw its way out and tear his heart out in the process. “I’m fine. And yeah, let’s eat later, kid.”
“Are you sure?” Mark asks again, when Jaehyun pushes past him to get to his locker. “You look like…”
“Look like what, Mark?” Jaehyun snaps, and he stops dead in his track, not even reaching his locker but Mark’s hesitancy is getting to him so much. “Say it.”
Mark obviously thinks that he’s overstepped Jaehyun’s boundaries, because he hunched his shoulders together and dig his nails into his palm. Jaehyun expects him to back down immediately, to just say “sorry, it’s nothing” and run away, but it doesn’t happen. Mark stands still, and though he looks like he’d rather die than to be there, he catches Jaehyun’s eye like a true champion, and Jaehyun’s heart flutters, because wow, Mark Lee.
“You look like you’ve just cried,” Mark says at last, and Jaehyun exhales. “And I was wondering… I’ve been wondering if you’ve never really recovered at all, hyung, and you were just so good at keeping things inside, and I want to stop turning a blind eye to that.”
There is a heavy silence right after.
Impressive, he thinks. Mark Lee just outdid himself after years of keeping away from confrontations, meanwhile Jaehyun can’t even think about Taeyong’s death that happened well over a year ago without feeling extreme swell of suicidal inclinations. Truly impressive.
“Mark,” Jaehyun says at last, after he gets over his own surprise, and Mark flinches, clearly expecting Jaehyun to yell at him again. “Mark, you know what? You’re absolutely right.”
“W-what?”
“You’re right,” Jaehyun says, and he drops his bag to the floor and drops himself to one of the benches. “You’re right. I’ve never really recovered, and I’m good at hiding things, and you’re right for pointing that out.”
Mark lets out a breathy laugh. “You’re not mad at me?”
“No,” Jaehyun says, and he rubs his eyes, thinking that maybe he has to wash his face again so others won’t be picking up hints, too. “Really, Mark. I’m not mad at you. Come sit here and let’s talk. And maybe pick a place to eat for later.”
Mark obliges immediately, face lighting up when Jaehyun places an arm around his shoulder as soon as he sits down.
“Just don’t tell Taeil hyung about this,” Jaehyun says. “He thought I was getting better. I am getting better. I am, I swear. It’s just… earlier this morning I, uh, lost control.”
Mark nods eagerly. “Okay,” he says. “My lips are sealed. You lost control this morning, but Taeil hyung won’t know about it at all.”
“I’m okay, though. Things are getting better.”
“Really?” Mark asks, and he tilts his head to look at Jaehyun’s face – probably checking if Jaehyun is lying or not. Insolent kid. “You know, hyung, you don’t have to spell it out. I mean, if you wanted to talk, you would’ve told Taeil hyung already, anyway. I just want to know if you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, generally,” Jaehyun says, frowning and fixes his gaze on a creasing on Mark’s sleeve. He abstractedly evens it while Mark watches. “I’m okay now. I wouldn’t go to work if I wasn’t okay.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Mark responds, nodding once again. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this to you, hyung, especially because I’m no doctor or therapist or anyone smart enough to know about these kind of things—“
Jaehyun sighs. “Just spit it out, dumbass.”
“You will get another chance,” Mark says, in a slightly dreamy tone that Jaehyun doesn’t hear him use often. “You will get another chance on another day. I mean, the book Hyuck is reading doesn’t specify what kind of chance, but I think that saying is appropriate for this situation.”
Jaehyun latches on two things concurrently, which are: a) Mark is actually giving him an advice, and b) the word ‘book’ and ‘Hyuck’ together out from his lips. Jaehyun chooses to settle his response on the second, of course.
“’The book Hyuck is reading’?” Jaehyun repeats, grinning from ear to ear, and Mark visibly flushes red. “Is there something else about Hyuck that I need to know, Mark?”
“So obviously not,” Mark denies right away, shrugging Jaehyun’s arm off his shoulders in the process of standing up. Jaehyun still looks at him with raised brows. “We just—we just kinda become friends, that’s it.”
“Kinda?” Jaehyun says, raising his eyebrows even higher. “That sounds vague…ly interesting. I’d like to heasr more about that.”
Mark fidgets from the spot he stood, before he just gives up and dashes away. “My shift is starting soon, see you at lunch!”
It probably doesn’t even cross Mark’s mind that Jaehyun could just easily bring this up again later, at lunch, but whatever.
20.10.8 // 07:21 AM
Jaehyun is putting on his uniform when the weight of Mark’s words truly hits him.
“You will get another chance on another day.”
He stops buttoning up his shirt, stares at the small mirror glued on the back of his locker door, at his own reflection staring back at him with a disordered face. He blinks, and his reflection blinks, too, and Jaehyun suddenly thinks, oh.
He does get another chance. He literally does.
The answer has always been there all along.
20.10.8 // 19:27 PM
As soon as Jaehyun comes home, he sits down on his bed with a pen in one hand and Taeyong’s book in another. His phone is standing by silently on the pillow as Jaehyun scribbles down on a new piece of paper:
2018: Taeyong lends me a book? – 2020: the book is still with me.
That could mean a lot of thing. Jaehyun doesn’t like reading, and it hasn’t changed much, really, but the fact that he’s holding on Taeyong’s book right now when he is very sure he has never seen Taeyong actually lending it to him is true, hefty, and outright. It could mean a lot of things, but it could also mean that Taeyong lent the book to another him from another timeline, and that somehow revises things in his current one.
If such a simple deed could do this much, then what if, what if Jaehyun tries to make a bigger change? Saving a lost life, for example. A lost life that never deserves to be lost in the first place.
Taeyong’s death: July 1, 2019, 13:44
The other Jaehyun still has over a year to Taeyong’s designated death. If Jaehyun could remind him, somehow, warn him about the upcoming disaster, he could stop Taeyong from dying in the first place. Assuming he believes him, though. Assuming past Jaehyun would be able to trust his future self enough. If he doesn’t, then things end right there. But if he does…
Jaehyun looks at his phone, which screen is dark and quiet. He wants nothing more than just to see it light up with his own name, because he now sees it as a new ray of hope, a dangling key to keep himself from drowning over and over again.
18.3.22 // 13:42 PM
Jaehyun got out from the classroom on an alleged “bathroom break”, but he just went to the emptiest hallway he could find and waited for the next call. He waited, and waited, and checked his watch, and waited, until the second ticked by and become minutes.
The hour came and go, but his phone didn’t make the call.
18.3.23 // 13:42 PM
The alarm in his phone went off at 13:40, and Jaehyun was already ready to go out of the café and to the street, or maybe once again to the bathroom. He held his breath when the time was looming, but watched blankly as the minute hit 44, and yet he was still on Instagram.
His phone didn’t make the call today, either.
18.3.24 // 13:42 PM
Not today.
18.3.27 // 13:42 PM
Also not today.
18.4.2 // 13:42 PM
Still not another call.
18.4.10 // 13:42 PM
18.4.27 // 13:42 PM
Jaehyun tried to call Future Jaehyun’s number, but the call button wouldn’t work. Which was fucking unreasonable, since it used to work by itself without him having to tap it furiously just like he just did now.
18.5.4 // 13:42 PM
18.6.29 // 13:42 PM
Jaehyun was breathless, but he still could taste Taeyong on his tongue and the bottom of his lips whenever he breathed. He touched his own face while he stared at the mirror, feeling the heat washing off slowly, and wondered if the other him felt like his heart was so close to exploding too, just like this, when he first kissed Taeyong, in his own timeline.
Like the day before and the day before yesterday and the days before that yesterday, too, today there was no call made.
18.7.22 // 13:42 PM
18.8.13 // 13:42 PM
18.9.25 // 13:42 PM
Jaehyun didn’t forget the occurrence, but he gradually forgot the thoughts and feelings it used to give him.
18.10.13 // 13:42 PM
18.11.18 // 13:42 PM
Taeyong graduated today – he looked really good in black – and Jaehyun counted his success: he brought him flowers, only made him sneeze once, made him laugh twice with his not-so-good puns, and kissed him underneath the tree on the field where the first Jaehyun asked the first Taeyong out.
(He didn’t know that, of course, but the tree felt like a good place to kiss Taeyong under.)
18.12.23 // 13:42 PM
19.01.13 // 13:42 PM
19.02.14 // 13:42 PM
Jaehyun used to hate Valentine’s Day, but maybe not so much anymore now that he knew he would get something – someone, really – that wasn’t chocolate on his birthday.
19.03.8 // 13:42 PM
19.04.13 // 13:42 PM
19.05.27 // 13:42 PM
19.06.21 // 13:42 PM
19.06.29 // 13:42 PM
19.06.30 // 13:42 PM
19.7.1 // 06:04 AM
Jaehyun woke up with Taeyong cuddling up to him for warmth, black strands of hair tickling his cheek when he opened his eyes. The older was already awake, too, looking down at their intertwined hands on his hips, as if in awe. It was a bit weird, seeing Taeyong with messy hair and sleep pasted on his lashes, because usually he always woke up early and took a shower before coming back to the bed with Jaehyun.
Then Jaehyun realized what day it was.
“Fuck, it’s Monday,” he said, and Taeyong was shocked out of his musing, laughing softly after he caught Jaehyun’s gaze. He pressed his forehead against Jaehyun’s and smiled.
“Don’t whine, I’m right here,” he said, caressing Jaehyun’s cheek, and Jaehyun felt so, so infatuated, so damn smitten that he could just die like this and he wouldn’t even mind. Then he leaned in, as if to kiss him, and Jaehyun closed his eyes again, but when he didn’t feel Taeyong’s lips he quickly opened his eyes and saw Taeyong sporting a small, knowing smile, obviously pulling back while Jaehyun was closing his eyes.
He frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Taeyong asked gently. He didn’t sound teasing at all, but Jaehyun knew he was. He definitely was. “Not up for a good day?”
Jaehyun scowled. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”
“I’ll consider that after you’ve brushed your teeth,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun buried his face in the pillow with muffled groan. “After we both wash our teeth, actually. Come down, I’ll make you toasts.”
“I don’t like toasts.”
“You like it when it’s my toasts, shut up.”
The mattress dipped as Taeyong untangled himself from Jaehyun, and for a moment there, Jaehyun’s chest hurt, irrationally so, abruptly so, when Taeyong left the bed. It hurt the same way it hurt when Jaehyun visited his mother’s grave, hurt the same way it hurt when he flipped over pages of his yearbook and saw pictures of him with old friends that he didn’t talk to anymore.
The pain came suddenly and left without a warning, too. Jaehyun propped himself up to breathe, and when he saw Taeyong staring at him, with so much love soaking out from his obsidian eyes like cascade, with so much fondness tinted on his divine face, it went away, and he dissolved.
It was almost ridiculous, the way Jaehyun was so infatuated with him, and the fact that Taeyong was just equally as infatuated as he was.
“I love you,” Jaehyun said, out of nowhere, and Taeyong’s lips split into a wide, teethy grin. Jaehyun half-expected him to tease again, make fun of his sudden, seemingly random confession, but he didn’t. Instead he brushed his hair out of his face and said to him:
“I love you, too.”
19.7.1 // 06:17 AM
Jaehyun remembered what day it was when he looked over at the desk calendar he bought from Doyoung’s store while brushing his teeth, and saw that Doyoung had circled the date neatly with an obnoxious purple marker, with a small heart over the number.
Taeyongie’s, it read, and Jaehyun cursed himself for ever forgetting it in the first place.
He practically ran down the stairs, a bit of toothpaste still specked on his chin, and nearly crashed against Taeyong, who went out of the kitchen with a fork in hand and was standing in the hallway, probably trying to find out why Jaehyun was making such a ruckus. Jaehyun’s bare feet skidded into a stop before he could actually sent himself (and Taeyong) against the nearest wall, and he grabbed Taeyong’s hands with his damp ones, and yelled, “What day do you think today is?”
Taeyong jerked back, dazed. “Uh, Monday?”
“Taeyong, it’s the first of July.”
He blinked. “So?”
“You stupid, it’s your birthday!”
It was as if Jaehyun could see the gears working inside of Taeyong’s head clicking together, and he gasped. “It’s my birthday,” he echoed, in an amazed tone, and then he laughed out loud, and Jaehyun did, too.
“You totally forgot, didn’t you?” Jaehyun asked, a moment later, after Taeyong was done laughing.
“I swear June just started like, last week. How did it go to July this fast?”
“Obviously your sense of time is dwindling again, you workaholic,” Jaehyun said, and he grinned. “Wonderful, you have kept yourself fed well enough for twenty four years. That’s got to be an achievement.”
“I’ve survived on two hours of sleep every day for twenty four years straight, you can bet that’s a damn achievement right there.”
Taeyong wiped the toothpaste off Jaehyun’s chin and smiled.
“You’re the worst doctor there ever is,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong laughed again, unoffended. “But I still love you so much.”
This time, when Jaehyun dipped his face to kiss Taeyong, he could actually feel the older’s lips against his own. Nobody pulled back this time because the both of them had already brushed their teeth (though Taeyong had kissed him countless of times when they woke up too, not including the, uh, less than appropriate morning activities they had sometimes, so his argument earlier was so invalid). He could actually feel Taeyong kissing him back in the usual gentleness, the usual carefulness (it would usually take a while to make Taeyong be less careful with his mouth) and tasted his own toothpaste on Taeyong’s tongue.
So why did the pain come back into his chest, raking unseen nails down his lungs and make his feet tremble with unfamiliar sorrow?
19.7.1 // 08:14 AM
As soon as Taeyong left for work – his lips a little bit redder than usual, Jaehyun didn’t know how would his coworkers respond to that, but he could barely care – he whipped out his phone and went to call Johnny.
As usual, the older answered in the first two rings, even though he should be at work right now. He guessed that maybe high school teachers could take a break in between classes to answer calls, too.
“What bakery makes the best cake around here?” Jaehyun immediately sputtered, as soon as Johnny picked up the phone. Johnny didn’t even ask what Jaehyun was on about.
“Chill down, hotshot, Taeyong doesn’t even like cake. Don’t you know that?”
Jaehyun blinked owlishly. “But we bought him cake last year.”
“Yeah, and we ended up finishing it,” Johnny continued on, not even losing one single beat. “Try something different this time. Let’s just make him a full-scale surprise party. The adult version, though.”
“What, you gonna take him to a strippers club or something?” Jaehyun snorted at the thought of Taeyong, that obstructive, sensible Taeyong, getting lost in a dark clubroom full of half-naked people, but then he shuddered. He didn’t want that, not really.
“Dude,” Johnny said, and he sounded so done with Jaehyun then that he wondered why Johnny didn’t just end the call. “I mean with alcohol and stuff. That kind of adult. Maybe. And food. Strippers club didn’t even cross my mind, mind you.”
“But it’s… I feel like it’s still lacking without any cake,” Jaehyun said sadly.
Johnny heaved a long, loud sigh. “Fine. Go with Sicheng and find us some cakes.”
“Some cakes?”
“Okay, not some. I meant just one. We barely finished last year’s tart.”
Jaehyun brightened. “Okay!”
“God, you’re such a kid,” Johnny said, and even if he sounded tired, he sounded fond, too. He wouldn’t admit it, just like how Jaehyun wouldn’t admit how grateful he was of Johnny Seo’s whole existence. “Can’t believe you’re graduating this year. You’re like, five.”
“I’m like, twenty-two,” Jaehyun huffed, equally as sarcastic in response, and he ended the call before Johnny could think of another good comeback. He ran through his contacts to find Sicheng’s name, praying silently that he wasn’t busy with Yuta at the moment.
(Even if he was, Jaehyun knew Sicheng would choose him over Yuta anytime.)
Yet when his finger stopped on Sicheng’s number, he didn’t call the guy immediately. There was another feeling of distress inside of him. This time it wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable, just like a phlegm that wouldn’t come out and was instead stuck in his throat. Jaehyun actually grabbed his neck and tried to cough, but nothing came out. It was a feeling, not something physical, which made it even more perplexing.
In a very strange sense, Jaehyun had a nauseating sensation that he’d done this before, that he’d gone out for birthday cake with Sicheng somewhere else, somewhen else. But it didn’t make sense, because last year he didn’t buy cake with Sicheng, and not even the year before that, and so on. Sicheng didn’t like cake that much, anyway – he ate slices sometimes, yes, but he was more into ice cream than anything. So Jaehyun definitely didn’t go out for cakes with him, and he was sure he didn’t go with any of his other friends, either.
So what was it?
19.7.1 // 11:17 AM
“Does he like chocolate?” Sicheng asked, bending his long legs to take a closer look to the sweets in the display cases. “I mean, chocolate’s the basic of the basics. What kind of people don’t like chocolate?”
It took Jaehyun a few seconds to register what Sicheng was saying, and more seconds to think of an answer. He still thought of the strange sensations he’d felt earlier at home – it was so confounding that he still mulled over it even now.
“I don’t think he hates it,” he finally said, shrugging, and like Sicheng, leaned in to check out the cakes. They both probably looked like lost overgrown kids out of their parents’ supervision. “I think he likes…”
Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun when the older took much longer to elaborate than expected. “Jae,” he said, in a critical tone. “You don’t know, don’t you?”
Jaehyun pursed his lips, but his silence seemed enough for Sicheng, because the latter sighed and straightened himself, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Eh,” Sicheng finally said, shrugging. “I also still don’t know what kind of sweets Yuta likes, and it’s been over two years now.”
Jaehyun stared. “I don’t think you care what Yuta likes.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“Also, I don’t think Yuta even eats sweets.”
Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun dead in the eye, and said with an alarmingly empty expression, “He eats me though?”
There it was again, another feeling that he’d heard Sicheng said this (adversity) once before, in this exact bakery, in this exact spot, in the same exact pose, in the exact same tone, but it couldn’t be, because this was the first time they visited this bakery.
Also, Jaehyun wondered why he still bothered with Sicheng.
19.7.1 // 11:43 AM
Twenty minutes later, after some more arguments with Sicheng over which color icing would look best on a snow cake (“Pink is such a good color.” “Fuck you, Sicheng, this isn’t a wedding cake.” “Just propose tonight then, it’s two birds with one stone.” “No!”), they both came out from the bakery, glad to be back under the sun. Sicheng was carrying the cake box as a child would carry a porcelain doll, and Jaehyun felt like he didn’t want to take that off him just yet.
“You wanna hang at my place?” Jaehyun asked. “I’ll probably be busy searching for a place to throw the party tonight. Your input might help. Great emphasize on might.”
Sicheng shrugged. “Sure.”
“You don’t have plans with your kinky boyfriend today?”
“Said kinky boyfriend is out of town,” Sicheng said, a little dolefully. Jaehyun turned to get a look at his best friend’s face, and Sicheng was staring back at him with a distracted face.
Then Jaehyun, out of nowhere, asked, “Uh, with Hansol?”
He didn’t know why he’d said that. He hadn’t even thought of Hansol this year, or even heard Sicheng or Yuta mention him lately, but suddenly it was just there in his brain: Yuta is going out of town with Hansol. For work. Hansol is Yuta’s fucking ex how is Sicheng dealing with this oh my god—
Sicheng looked surprised. “Well, yeah. How did you know that?”
Jaehyun didn’t know what to answer, so he looked around, searching for something else to distract himself with. “Oh, uh, I don’t—a guess?”
His friend didn’t really look assured, but shrugged it off.
“Dude,” Jaehyun said again, when Sicheng didn’t say anything else. “You sure he’s not doing things behind your back? Hansol is his ex, man, how are you okay with that?”
Sicheng just scoffed. “Better stays an ex or else he’s dead.”
19.7.1 // 12:19 PM
“Are you sure you’re really not gonna propose?” Sicheng asked from the stairs, body leaning over the rail a little bit too dangerously. Jaehyun wondered if he had always been a lowkey adrenaline junkie or he’d recently developed dangerous habits because of Yuta’s whole shenanigans.
(Shenanigans that included going out with an ex he was head over heels for like, two years before he met Sicheng in college, by the way. Yuta was a fucking snake and Jaehyun couldn’t decide whether to shake some common sense into Sicheng’s dumb ass or just went straight to beat some into Yuta instead.)
“Not today,” Jaehyun replied, putting the cake back in the fridge. He hoped Taeyong would go home to his own house today, and not his, or else he’d have to move the cake away. Problem was, he didn’t know where to move it to. He only had one fridge. “I’m a college student. We are college students, Sicheng.”
“So you’re gonna wait until you graduate, then?”
“Probably. I don’t think about it much.”
“Why not?”
Jaehyun turned to look at Sicheng, who had now come down from the rail and seated himself down on the bottom step. He looked at Jaehyun with a curious face, and Jaehyun lost the desire to snap at him.
“Why don’t you?” Jaehyun asked instead.
Sicheng narrowed his eyes. “Yuta should be the one proposing, not me. Like hell I’m gonna get down on my knee and beg him to marry me. That’s his job. I have my pride.”
Jaehyun snorted, but also felt a great surge of affection for Sicheng rushing in. This was why they were friends. This was why they were still friends. This was also probably why Sicheng stuck with Yuta even though the older totally didn’t deserve him.
“And what if he doesn’t,” he said.
“Then we’ll stay boyfriends forever, I guess,” Sicheng said simply.
Jaehyun would so love to talk about this; he would so love to sit Sicheng down and pry it out of him about what was really going on with him and Yuta, but he didn’t. Sicheng never liked like conflicts; he responded well to the conflicts Yuta caused him, but he didn’t like them. And if he didn’t like conflicts, he sure as hell wouldn’t like being confronted.
So Jaehyun uttered a soft “okay” and let it end there.
19.7.1 // 12:42 PM
Sicheng stayed for lunch because he had no one to cook for him back home. Jaehyun didn’t mind, since he didn’t trust Sicheng’s cooking skills that much and would rather have him around than facing the prospect of Sicheng burning down Yuta’s kitchen in an attempt to survive.
(“But to be fair,” Sicheng said, “He totally deserves having his kitchen burned down.”
“I second that, and I’d pay to see that happen, but I’d rather you not.”)
Jaehyun was standing by the sink when he felt it again – another weird, heavy feeling in his chest, like someone else was there. He stopped washing and glanced back at Sicheng, who was busy playing something on his phone. There were just the two of them, and Jaehyun turned off the faucet to lean against the counter, taking a deep breath.
He didn’t know why, or what was happening, but this was too much weird things in one day. Too much peculiarity to ignore. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what it was. Also, it was either something was wrong, or something would go wrong. Jaehyun didn’t like either one of those choices.
“Hey, Sicheng,” he called out, but he forgot what he was about to say, because at that time his eyes landed on his phone and the screen lit up with a name he hadn’t seen for such a long time: 2020 Moi.
His mind went blank.
And Jaehyun thought, oh yeah, that existed, and then he fucking lunged for the phone.
He didn’t have to be that hasty, really, and he only noticed this after he almost broke his nose nearly missing the edge of the dining table by an inch. Sicheng looked up and said something in Chinese – probably a swearword – and Jaehyun slid to the floor with his phone in his hand, staring at the name frantically, almost violently, even, his heart thrashing around so hard that he thought Sicheng would be able to hear it from his place at the other side of the table.
Why now? Why now? Why now? After all these time, why now?
“Jaehyun!” Sicheng called out, standing up and looked over the table. “You okay?”
“No,” Jaehyun answered. “I, uh, it’s an important phone call, I have to go—“
And with that, he shuffled up and stumbled away from the kitchen, Sicheng’s worried exclaims trailing after him helplessly.
(And even if he was beyond angry that it had been months – a year even – since the last phone call happened, he would be lying if he wasn’t so thrilled about hearing his own voice again.)
20.10.8 // 23:55 PM
Jaehyun falls asleep reading a lot more often nowadays.
When he wakes up, Taeyong’s book is crushed underneath his body, the paper he wrote on earlier wedged somewhere between the pages. The pen must’ve rolled away somewhere but he didn’t care. Jaehyun wakes up wide-eyed, as if someone has just dumped a whole bucket of cold water onto him. He wakes up alert and tense for a reason he doesn’t know yet, and something unknown yet electrifying is rushing in his veins, lighting up speckles of prickly sensations all over his skin.
Weird.
He scrambles off his bed to check the clock, and heaves a relieved sigh when he sees that there’s still five minutes or so left until midnight.
He leans back to the headboard and reaches for his phone, folds his legs and puts it on top of his knees, and waits. He gets impatient after awhile and takes his phone in his hand again, and then put it down, only to pick it up again later.
When the hour hits, Jaehyun holds his breath. Taeyong, he thinks. I’m gonna talk about Taeyong, nothing else.
But the call doesn’t happen.
Nobody’s calling him.
20.10.9 // 00:01 AM
A minute passes him by and Jaehyun’s spirit falls. He unlocks his phone to check if he has no signal (does that even matter, what the fuck) but when he’s about to open the call log, his phone vibrates and opens up 2018 Jaehyun’s contact. All by itself. Jaehyun definitely isn’t touching anything yet, and his phone is acting up on its own.
Okay, he thinks again. This isn’t creepy at all.
He has a lot of questions, frankly speaking, but he figures since there’s no one there to answer it for him, it’s useless to question things anyway. So Jaehyun does what he has to do: he presses the call button, a bit hesitantly, and it works, and he’s calling his other self for the first time after always receiving the call all these times. He doesn’t know what to feel about it, truly.
The call extends for longer than a few seconds, and Jaehyun almost loses hope, but then a familiar voice greets him – rather than a voice, it’s a shout, really. His shout.
“Where the hell has you been, piece of—“
Jaehyun jerks the phone away from him, frowning. Jesus, he’s really loud. When the shouting has subsided, Jaehyun brings the phone closer to him again.
“Hey,” he says dryly. “Nice joke, by the way. We talked yesterday. Is this your idea of a prank? Is this how you have fun?”
There’s a pause, in which Jaehyun can hear his other self gasping softly, as if offended.
“Yesterday?” he repeats, and Jaehyun has to give some more distance between him and his phone once more. “Yesterday, you said? Dude, last time we talked was last fucking year!”
Jaehyun snorts. “Funny enough. Now can we get serious? I have to tell you about something, it’s really important—“
“Hey,” the other Jaehyun says, voice calmer this time. “I’m serious.”
“What?”
“I’m serious. It’s been a year, Jaehyun.”
“What?” Jaehyun echoes, and he stares at his own hands, at the dull, trembling fingers, as his mind tried its best to work, to connect things scattered by the wind of time and comprehension. “What even—what does that even mean?”
“Exactly why it means,” his other self says tiredly, and Jaehyun imagines himself sitting down out of exhaustion, or maybe even sliding down the wall. “I thought… I thought this thing was done for sure. I thought it happened, and then ended, just like that. It’s been a year since I last called you.”
Jaehyun is thunderstruck. He’s so thunderstruck that he doesn’t even realize that he’s now standing up, staring straight at the wall for no apparent reason. His whole body feels numb, and he has nothing to hold on to. A wonder he hasn’t tripped over the sheets yet.
“It’s been a year?” he repeats, and he automatically looks at the paper he’s written on earlier, still lodged in Taeyong’s book. “So… it’s 2019?”
“Yeah. What year is it over there?”
Jaehyun swallows. “It’s… it’s still 2020. And last time we talked was… yesterday. For me. Why has it been a year for you?”
“Whoa, seriously?” the other Jaehyun says. He sounds just as bewildered as current Jaehyun is, reasonably. “This shit is weird, man, I wouldn’t question things if I were you. For now, I’m just glad we’re back here. Freaky as this is, it’s a reassurance having you around.”
Jaehyun comes back from reality enough to scoff at that. “Really now,” he says sarcastically. “What are you up to?”
“Now? Cooking lunch for Sicheng,” the other Jaehyun simply replies. “Yuta’s out with Hansol—I know right, what an asshole—but you probably went over this already once. Oh, and also, it’s Taeyong’s birthday. And uh, I’m dating him now, sort of.”
There’s so many things happening at the same time that Jaehyun should’ve been disoriented. There’s just so many things happening that Jaehyun should’ve lost his balance and actually trip, but he doesn’t, because the moment he heard Taeyong’s name, and that it was his birthday, and that 2018 Jaehyun (well, now 2019) was already dating Taeyong, he knows what day it was on the other timeline, what would happen and what wouldn’t. He knows it all to well, and all confusions and queries and astonishments be damned, because he has to make this through – it’s his last another chance. It’s the last another chance he’ll ever get, and he knows this.
“Listen,” he says, and he tries to pour in his whole seriousness in it, because if he can’t make him believe in himself, it’s all over. “Listen, Jaehyun, I need you to really listen. As soon as this call ends, find Taeyong. Please.”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t ask questions, just do it. Please, or else you’ll regret it.”
Jaehyun certainly doesn’t expect this to be easy, but he hopes at least the other Jaehyun won’t make it too hard for him. Both of his time and patience are limited.
“What do you mean?” he asks again. “Taeyong’s working right now, I can’t disturb him. Also, I can’t leave Sicheng unattended—“
It’s as if someone has snipped the thinning line that is Jaehyun’s patience.
“Well, you better!” he snaps, nearly hitting the wall with his knuckles as he goes off. “Do you want him dead? You don’t, don’t you? I know you don’t, so you better haul ass and find him right now, Jaehyun Jung!”
Jaehyun doesn’t have time to think if it was wrong of him to say that, if it could be disastrous if he said things a bit too overtly like that. He just wants his other self to get up, get out, find Taeyong, hurl him to the nearest saferoom, and stays there until the day ends, because he’s sure fate is still a sick motherfucker who wants to tear Jaehyun apart by tearing Taeyong away for no real reason. Fate is eerie and cruel just like that, and Jaehyun hates it to the bones of its imbalanced, haphazard cognizance, wants to tear the flesh of its deceitful hope-giving and dream-inducing tendencies to pieces. If today Jaehyun can’t beat fate, then he might as well die trying.
(No, seriously. He’s ready to die today.)
And then, he can feel it, hope rising in his chest – hope given by himself, not by fate – when he hears his past self says, in a much more firmer voice, “You serious right now?”
He nods, and then feels stupid because the other Jaehyun won’t be able to see him. “Dead serious. Find him, Jaehyun. Keep him with you. Bring him back to me. Please. Please.”
A pause. A thick, unsettling pause, like a fog draped a dead city, sending icy breezes that travel down rigid spines.
“So the lover you lost,” the other Jaehyun finally utters again, after keeping quiet for awhile, no doubt trying to understand the whole situation. “The one you’re grieving over all this time. It was Taeyong. It is Taeyong. He’s gone. He’s already gone in your year.”
“Yeah,” he says, and his name is stuck in his throat, but he tries to choke it out. “I lost Taeyong. There was a car accident and it was so bad and it was his birthday too and I need you to believe me now because—“
“Say no more,” the other Jaehyun interrupts him, and Jaehyun could cry at the way he’s said it, the faith and concern stained so clearly in his voice. “I’ll find him.”
Jaehyun doesn’t like showing weakness to others, but he’s been keeping things to himself for far too long and he’s so close to breaking and sinking, and the only thing keeping him afloat is his own trust. His own trust in himself. He trusts himself, that’s literally it, and he finds himself pleading, in a very thin, fragile voice that he wouldn’t use in front of anyone else but himself, “Save me.”
He still goes under, but it’s warm and he can actually breathe in the obscure water when his voice says back to him, “I’ll save you.”
19.7.1 // 12:49 PM
“I have to go,” Jaehyun declared, as soon as he went back in from the porch, grabbing a jacket from its hanging place behind the door as he did so. “Sicheng, you’re not that hungry yet, right? Can you wait until I get back?”
Sicheng stood up when he saw Jaehyun stumbling around with one shoe, trying to fight his foot in to the other one. “I’ll go with you,” he offered, but Jaehyun frowned at him and shook his head. Sicheng’s voice faltered. “Why?”
“It’s nothing serious,” was the only excuse Jaehyun could think of, even if it was such a big fat lie because it was something serious. Too serious for Jaehyun’s taste. “Stay home.”
Sicheng scowled. “Don’t be like Yuta,” he suddenly said, and Jaehyun lifted his face when he heard the way Sicheng said it. It wasn’t a common tone he’d use – it was dejected and angry and hysterical at the same time, and Jaehyun could feel his head starting to spin even harder. “I’m not a child. Don’t tell me to stay home, or to calm down, or to—“
“Fine,” Jaehyun interrupted him, not wanting to see another unexpected breakdown since he was distraught enough as he was. He really could use some Advils right now, and also, can his friends stop opening up about their problems in the worst of times? “Fine, you can come with me. Also, does Yuta tell you those things? Because I’ll fight him, I really will.”
Sicheng’s smile was small, but a smile nevertheless.
“Not necessarily,” he replied vaguely, and Jaehyun wanted him to elaborate more on that answer, but remembered that he didn’t have the time. So he let Sicheng trail after him out of the house.
19.7.1 // 12:53 PM
While Sicheng walked down the street to get them a taxi, Taeyong called him. Jaehyun, who had been fidgeting ever since they left the house, nearly dropped his phone (again) when Taeyong’s name popped up on the screen. The guy never really called around this hour. Relieved that Taeyong was still alive, at least, he answered it tensely.
“Hey,” Jaehyun said immediately, maybe a little to hastily. He hoped Taeyong wouldn’t notice. It would be hard to explain his nerviness. “What’s wrong?”
“Why, can’t I call my boyfriend on my lunch break?” Taeyong teased. “Miss you already, dimples.”
On normal occasion, Jaehyun would’ve responded back with an equally tacky pet name, or maybe coo at Taeyong in an equally innocent tone. But this wasn’t a normal occasion. If Future Jaehyun was saying the truth – he had no reason to lie in the first place – Taeyong was intended to die today. By some cruel fate or chance or whatever the hell was it that dealt with life and death, Taeyong was intended to die today, and Jaehyun was intended to suffer a pain so great it traversed timelines.
Maybe that’s why it started in the first place, Jaehyun thought. For this day. For me to do this.
And Jaehyun wouldn’t be Jaehyun if he backed down from a promise. He’d disappointed himself so many times before, but not this time. He wouldn’t fail this time.
He was so lost in his short reverie that he forgot Taeyong was calling him.
“Hey,” Taeyong said again, and Jaehyun startled. “Why are you so quiet? Did I say something wrong? Was that too cringey?”
Jaehyun stuttered on his own words, something he hadn’t done since Taeyong first called him cute a year ago in college. “Uh, I don’t—I’m not really—no, I’m fine.”
“You sure?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun could imagine his face contorting in concern. “You sound really upset. Something’s wrong.”
Jaehyun couldn’t deal with this, so he chose to deflect. “Where are you now?”
“Me? I’m still at the hospital,” Taeyong answered. “I’m gonna go down to get Taeil, and then we’re going to eat out. Why do you ask?”
“Don’t,” Jaehyun said, and he was breathless when he said it, all of the sudden. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay in the hospital.” Or you’ll die, he wanted to add, but of course he couldn’t. Of course.
Taeyong let out a short laugh. “You want me to eat my scalpel for lunch? I’m dying right now, Jaehyun, you know I didn’t eat anything this morning. I have surgery in two hours, what if I pass out then?”
Jaehyun wished Taeyong hadn’t used the word dying, because it made the churn in his stomach worsen. He could’ve puked if Sicheng didn’t come back at that time, waving his hand and yelling, “I got us a taxi, come here!”
“Is that Sicheng’s voice?” Taeyong inquired, when Jaehyun still didn’t answer. “You’re cheating on me on my birthday, honey pig? That’s harsh.”
“Not funny,” Jaehyun mumbled. “But I’m serious. Can you at least… stay wherever you are until I get there? Please.”
Taeyong sighed. “Something’s definitely wrong. You’re acting weird. Spill the bean, you’re worrying me.”
“I swear nothing is wrong!” Jaehyun said, a little to firmly. He got into the taxi and gestured for Sicheng to get in quickly, the younger nearly tripped on his laces as he did. “But for my sake, please. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in five minutes, I swear.”
“You know that’s impossible,” was Sicheng’s honestly unneeded input. “It’ll take ten, at least. But it’s better than taking the train.”
“Fine, I’ll be there in ten,” Jaehyun said through gritted teeth. “Can’t you at least wait ten minutes, hyung? Please.”
“Hyung?” Taeyong repeated, and for a second there Jaehyun thought he could hear the amusement in Taeyong’s voice. “It’s been years and you only called me hyung now?”
“Please?” Jaehyun had been saying please so many times now he’d lost count.
“Just come here, Jaehyun,” Taeyong said in the end. “I, uh, also have something to tell you. About high school. I actually called you to talk about that, but since you’re coming here anyway, I guess we’ll just talk later.”
“Okay,” Jaehyun said, and he let himself take a deep breath, relieving some of his anxiety. “Just promise me you’ll stay at the hospital until I arrive, okay?”
“Sure.”
19.7.1 // 13:08 PM
Sicheng wasn’t lying: it did take at least ten minutes to get to the hospital. At least, because neither of them remembered that it was rush hour, and rush hour meant traffic jams, and traffic jams meant Jaehyun’s shaking knees wouldn’t stop shaking anytime soon. It must’ve been fifteen minutes, at best, but it felt like an hour. Or two. Or three. Jaehyun was so nervous it made him lose his sense of time-telling. Taeyong did promise him to stay wherever he was and waited for him, but Taeyong was, well, Taeyong, and he probably underestimated Jaehyun’s concern, and if your future self told you “hey dude, our boyfriend’s gonna die today, can you save him so neither of us won’t drown in devastation and regret later” who wouldn’t panic, honestly.
“Sicheng, I’m gonna run,” he finally declared, when the taxi slowed down to a stop on yet another traffic light. “I’m gonna run. You stay here—” Jaehyun stopped himself mid-sentence, reminding himself that Sicheng nearly lost his shit when he told him things earlier, so he corrected himself. “I’ll see you in the hospital later.”
“What?” Sicheng demanded, and when Jaehyun didn’t answer and instead went for the door, he grabbed his wrist in a vice grip. “Dude! What the fuck?”
“I’m saving someone’s life here!” Jaehyun yelled, and tugged his hand away from Sicheng. “I’m saving my boyfriend’s life, if anything!”
Sicheng stared at Jaehyun in shock. “What are you on?” he asked finally, after a few seconds of heated stare-off.
“Myself,” Jaehyun said, and he went out of the car, Sicheng’s stifled responses trailing after him, a few Chinese swearwords mixed in helplessly.
19.7.1 // 13:14 PM
Jaehyun ran like his life depended on it.
(And since his life was Taeyong, his life indeed depended on it.)
He made his way through throngs of people on their lunch breaks, shoving past a few of them on the sidewalk and barely remembered to look around before crossing the street. It was reasonably hard to run when he was like that: exceptionally restless, mind muddled with thousands of unwanted images of Taeyong and blood and smoke, and with a heart that didn’t seem like it would want to slow down anytime soon.
He could already see the tip of the hospital building just around the corner, and even if he wanted, he didn’t stop to catch his breath. He could do that later, when Taeyong was already in front of him, away from the street, far from the cars rushing past in high speed. He could take a rest when Taeyong was absolutely safe and Jaehyun could attest that safety.
In his hurry, Jaehyun slipped on the marble tiles and rammed his face on the edge of the glass door. He cursed, tasting blood in his mouth, and a few people stopped in their tracks, some coming closer to ask him a lot of are you okays but Jaehyun just stood up (without even wiping the blood off his face) and looked around for Taeyong. He knew he must’ve looked really crazy (and frankly dangerous) then, but who the fuck cares, seriously.
The first thing he thought when he didn’t see him was, shit, where did he go?
And then he spotted Taeil and Taeyong coming out of the elevator, and his heart stopped thrashing around like a fish out of water. He mumbled a couple of apologies to the people surrounding him, and moved past them to get to Taeyong.
The moment Taeyong saw him, he broke off into a wide grin. But then he noticed the blood on Jaehyun’s face and that grin faltered. He opened his mouth to say something, but Jaehyun didn’t listen. He didn’t even stop to think or explain himself; instead he flung himself at Taeyong, crushing him in a desperately powerful bear hug, and buried his face in his shoulders, even if that meant smearing blood all over his white coat.
“Jaehyun!” Taeyong exclaimed, his hands light but sure on Jaehyun’s back. “You’re bleeding. What the hell happened to you? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Jaehyun choked out. “Just don’t. Let me buy your lunch for you. You stay here.”
Taeyong stayed silent. Jaehyun knew he was exchanging worried glances with Taeil behind his back, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t letting go soon.
“Jaehyun,” Taeyong finally spoke again, tapping Jaehyun’s back. “Jaehyun, I don’t know why you’re acting like this, but for now, all three of us should go eat and talk, okay?”
Jaehyun sniffed. He didn’t cry, but he felt like he was close to.
Then a drop of saltiness dripped down to his split lip. Okay. Scratch that, maybe he was crying.
“Are you crying?” Taeyong demanded, making it worse.
“No!” Jaehyun replied, blinking the tears away and he pulled back from Taeyong, before wiping his mouth and the dry blood pasted on his lips. “I’m fine. Just… just don’t go anywhere without me, okay? Promise me that.”
Taeyong looked like he’d do anything just to have Jaehyun talk to him about what was actually happening. “I promise,” he stated, later on. He placed his hand on Jaehyun’s cheek and wiped a splotch of soot on his chin. “I promise I’m not going anywhere without you, you weirdo. Let’s all go eat together now.”
Jaehyun could only nod, because if he talked, he felt like he’d cry again. Taeyong looked up to him, and now there wasn’t just love in his eyes, but also worry, and wonders, and questions, and more love.
“Oh,” Jaehyun suddenly said, remembering something. “Sicheng’s coming, too. I left him in the taxi earlier, but I said I’d see him here.”
Taeyong pursed his lips. “What do you mean you left him in the taxi? Did you jump out in the middle of the street or something?”
Jaehyun purposefully avoided Taeyong’s eyes, and the older hit him on the chest.
“You could’ve hurt yourself!” Taeyong exclaimed. “I can’t believe you did that—also poor Sicheng, what if he gets lost now?”
“That’s impossible, he’s in a taxi,” Jaehyun responded weakly. “The taxi is going here, to the hospital, he’s not gonna get lost. Unless the driver is a kidnapper. Then it’s all over.”
Taeyong’s eyes widened in more shock. “Do you think this is some kind of joke?”
Taeil, who kept quiet all this time while Taeyong was busy reprimanding Jaehyun, stepped in between them. “Gentlemen,” he said nattily, “We should just go out and eat now. We can just eat in that vegan restaurant next door, if you don’t want to go too far from the hospital.”
“I don’t like that place,” Taeyong stated, still frowning. “But fine.”
“Sorry,” Jaehyun sheepishly said. “We can go somewhere else. I can just text Sicheng, you know. Tell him to wait.”
“It’s okay, Jaehyun,” Taeil said, before Taeyong could respond. “We can wait for him there. The taxi will undoubtedly pass by the place, so we’ll be able to get Sicheng.”
Since he had no other alternatives, he nodded to Taeil’s suggestion. Taeyong scoffed, took off his coat, and went away with a grumble. Taeil just watched on with a soft smile on his face, before shaking his head.
“He’s not seriously mad,” he said. “He’s just worried. He’s worried about you a lot. You should hear him when he told me you were acting weird. He made it sound like you were dying or something.”
“Really?” Jaehyun raised an eyebrow. “That’s… cute.”
“Yeah.”
Jaehyun looked up at the receptionist desk, and thought, I did it, for now. And also: I should work here. That way he’d be able to spend every lunch break with Taeyong, keep an eye on him at all times, and things would never turn out the way it did in Future Jaehyun’s timeline.
He waited for the relief to come, wash him off his worries, but it didn’t.
19.7.1 // 13:21 PM
Apparently life favored Sicheng enough that day, because he walked right in before the three of them went out.
“Jaehyun!” he yelled, when he saw Jaehyun standing near the potted plant with his hands in his pockets, waiting for Taeyong to clean his coat of Jaehyun’s blood. “You’ve lost your damn mind, have you? You owe me money for the cab, by the way, you ass.”
Jaehyun was so happy he could kiss Sicheng right there, but he didn’t. Instead he let Sicheng shove him in annoyance, curse at him a few more times, before promising him that he’d treat him to food. Sicheng was still grumbling, but he was less iritated, and by the time Taeyong was done (“I could get in trouble for that.” “But you get blood on you all the time, what’s the deal?” “The coat ain’t mine, dimples.”) they were all ready to grab food.
“Since Sicheng is here, this means we don’t have to go to that vegan restaurant, right?” Taeyong said, when all four of them walked out of the glass door. “I mean, I don’t hate the salad there as much as I hate Doyoungie, but—“
“I’ll tell him you said that,” Taeil said lightly. “But yeah, we can go anywhere you want now. It’s your birthday, Surgeon Lee.”
“And you,” Taeyong continued, poking a finger on Jaehyun’s chest. “You owe us—all three of us—an explanation.”
Jaehyun’s smile wavered when the other two pair of eyes look at him, too. “Uh…”
Well, there was another problem. Jaehyun certainly didn’t know how to explain things. He didn’t know how to explain himself acting up without mentioning Taeyong’s supposed death and a future counterpart. He definitely didn’t. Well, he could, but he wouldn’t.
Also, there was still this niggling feeling in his stomach, like a persistent queasiness that made every one of his steps heavy – almost like a bad premonition. Jaehyun saved Taeyong, for now, yes, but it all felt too easy, too simple. Jaehyun had never seen any protagonist in any movie ever saving their lover this smoothly. More often than not, another problem would arise, another obstacle, and he’d be forced to suffer first. If there was one thing Jaehyun was sure about life, or fate, or the law of the universe, it was that it wasn’t this lenient.
Jaehyun tried not to dwell on that. He didn’t want to.
“I kinda want to eat rice,” Taeyong later announced, but Jaehyun was barely listening to him. He was walking on the outer side of the sidewalk, Sicheng next to him.
“Eat rice, then,” Taeil replied. “Should we go to that place you like so much—what’s the name? The one which serves really good bulgogi.”
“Deal,” Taeyong agreed immediately, pointing finger guns at Taeil. “Let’s go.”
Jaehyun opened his mouth to say something, probably to argue that Taeyong didn’t even like bulgogi, either, but then he looked up, and the queasiness in his stomach was amplified by a tenfold when he saw that a car was closing in on them fast, the sound of tires skidding against the road was earsplitting, metal body spinning uncontrollably, there was a lot of screaming and cautioning cries—
It happened so fast. Too fast.
It was so foolish of him, but the only thought he had was Taeyong, and he pushed the older out of the way, even if it meant he was rushing straight to the face of total agony and tears.
19.7.1 // 13:25 PM
The worst injury Jaehyun had ever gotten was back in fifth grade, when he fell face-first onto the floor of the basketball court, hand folded underneath his body with a loud, horrifying crack. He wore cast for almost a month. He fractured both ankles in eighth and ninth grade, too, but definitely, unquestionably none of these injuries could compare to the fucking torture he was going through right now.
The first was on his leg – left or right, he couldn’t tell anymore. Not that it mattered. It was a searing hot pain, so hot and painful that he felt detached from the world, like someone cut off his soul and separated it from his body, but not his senses, just to make him suffer. And he did suffer; he didn’t know if he screamed or not, probably in too much to even whimper, but he couldn’t feel anything but pain, pain, and more pain. He sensed something harsh and hard on his back, so the impact probably sent him away against the nearest wall, and he was now sliding down to the ground.
The next was his upper body, which started throbbing so excruciatingly like Jaehyun had suddenly grown another heart from his stomach or something. If his hands weren’t so numb he would’ve tried to touch it, but even if he didn’t, he could kind of guess that there was so much liquid – blood, maybe – flowing out from there, somewhere on his skin, he must’ve cut himself, also probably.
Also, his head had felt like it was about to burst, so there was that, too. Another one to add on his already-peaking list of suffering.
He didn’t know why he didn’t just lose consciousness – at least he’d be able to forgo the pain for awhile if it was like that. There were more shoutings now, and it smelled like smoke and blood and gasoline, and Jaehyun pondered why were his senses still so accurate when he was half-dead on the street like this. He’d never actually been hit by a car before, nor did he have friends who had, but he was sure when your body was scattered beyond all imaginations, your senses shouldn’t have worked this well.
And then there was Taeyong.
Of course there was Taeyong.
Above all things, above all the hurt and the swirling thoughts of I’m dying oh my god and the sweltering heat around him, there was Taeyong’s voice. There was Taeyong’s voice, crawling closer and closer, from a faraway place, from a fading distance, to somewhere else next to him.
There were Taeyong’s voice and his name.
That was all Jaehyun could make out, because his mind was swimming back and forth between consciousness, the pain was growing much more intensely, and he couldn’t breathe. Then there was something hotter on his cheeks, hotter than the current heat and the numbing ache, hotter than his roiling insides, something that was suspiciously shaped like a hand. Two hands. On his face.
Taeyong’s hands.
“Can you hear me?” Taeyong yelled, presumably at his face, and Jaehyun so wanted to open his eyes and told him a weak “yeah”, but he couldn’t. “Oh, oh, Jaehyun, there’s so much blood, I need something to stop it—Taeil! Taeil!“ Taeyong’s panicked voice receded, and Jaehyun felt like he was smiling, but he couldn’t be. He was dying. He couldn’t be smiling.
(Taeyong told him later that he was, indeed, smiling, and it was the creepiest thing the older had ever seen in his whole two years of messing with people’s innards.)
At the back of his dazed mind, Jaehyun applauded his unnervingly good luck. He got hit by a car, probably broke his leg (if not worse), probably was on the process of bleeding to death, but Taeyong was there with him, alive, and he was a doctor, he knew what to do, and he could save Jaehyun’s life, and the hospital was only a few minutes away.
The relief he was waiting for finally came now, gracing him with its cooling touch, its soothing hands, smooth fingers carressing Jaehyun’s burning eyelids, and he puffed out a choked laugh. This was the next obstacle. This was what he really needed to do. He did it for real now. He saved himself – in both times.
Taeyong’s hands never left his face even once all this while, and Jaehyun thought, can I black out now? It’s getting unbearable. Strange enough, his body complied to his wish, and he sunk into nothingness.
20.10.9 // 00:32 AM
Jaehyun has been waiting impatiently in his room the whole time. He goes from his chair to his bed, then to his chair again, and then to the bathroom to wash his face, and then back again. He sure as hell can’t sleep – not when he’s literally trying to save Taeyong. He tries his best to keep the what ifs away in a secluded spot on the back of his brain, because honestly it’ll just drag him down further if he starts thinking now. He doesn’t need more rocks in his clothes to drown him, thank you very much, he sinks just fine.
It’s half an hour after that, he thinks, when things get interesting.
And by interesting, he really means appallingly painful.
Jaehyun ends up laying back down on his bed and reading Taeyong’s book while he waits. Waits for what, he also doesn’t know. The call? Probably will happen next midnight, if it still happens at all. Jaehyun is pretty sure the only reason it happened in the first place is just so it could lead them both to this day. Maybe this is some kind of a fucked up apology from the world for taking Taeyong away. Or maybe the grim reaper is just playing games with him, he doesn’t know.
He’s flipping through the pages absentmindedly when his head starts to get dizzy, and it’s not the normal kind of dizzy that he gets whenever he’s arguing with Mark over TV channels or some other stupid stuff. It’s the kind of the dizzy that is maddening and blinding, and it all happens so abruptly and quickly, too, that the next thing he knows, he’s already on the floor with no memory of how he got there.
(He probably just rolled off his bed, but still.)
The dizziness is just the prelude, apparently, because from there on it kind of snowballs to ruin. Jaehyun feels an unfamiliar pain all over his body, like he’s being crushed in between boulders, or really gravelly walls, or both at the same time. It’s not a nice feeling. Jaehyun groans and rolls around, trying to move the pain away to no avail. Then his leg starts to hurt, and then his chest, and then his stomach, and then even though he knows for a fact he doesn’t have any kind of life-threatening diseases whatsoever, he coughs up blood.
At that point, Jaehyun wonders if he should start freaking out.
19.7.1 // 13:44 PM
The first thing he saw was blinding white lights, blurring out his vision, disorienting his still-weak concentration. For a moment there Jaehyun forgot where he was, or what had happened to him. He forgot everything.
Then he saw Taeyong, standing over him, wiping his face with something that stung, and it all came back to him like a movie reel. His first thought after that was: Wow, I’ve never seen a doctor cry at work before.
He voiced out his opinion, but Taeyong didn’t answer. He didn’t even bother wiping the tracks of tears on his face; he just dabbed on Jaehyun’s face a little harder, bottom lip caught between teeth. Jaehyun had a feeling he’d looked like that for awhile now, and even though it made him feel guilty, he was also quite entertained.
Taeyong still didn’t make any sound.
“Are you mad?” Jaehyun asked, in a dry, broken voice that must’ve been caused by the ungodly amounts of injuries he had to be sustaining. “Because I saved your life?”
(Jaehyun should probably think before he talked, because it sounded like he was asking for a fight if it was like this.)
“In exchange of almost losing your own?” Taeyong shot back. His voice was unexpectedly quiet, but Jaehyun knew it was the calm before storm. Shit just hadn’t hit the fan yet. “I’m not mad, dimples. I’m just reasonably, tremendously livid.”
“Taeyong,” Jaehyun said, when Taeyong finally stopped disinfecting his face and pulled the nearest chair to sit down next to him. “Taeyong,” he said again, when Taeyong still refused to speak. “I didn’t just save your life.”
“Yeah?” Taeyong asked, leaning back on his chair and took off his gloves. “Whose life else that you saved, huh?”
“My own,” Jaehyun responded simply, and he smiled, just because he felt like it.
Taeyong just stared at him in silence, with heavy-lidded, tired eyes. Jaehyun wondered just how did he manage to stop Jaehyun’s bleeding all while crying his eyes out like that. He turned to search in those dark gems of his, to see if he could still see Taeyong’s oceanlike love flowing from them, but his vision was still so unfocused that he couldn’t really do much. So he ended up staring at Taeyong back.
“Is this one of your stupid pick-up lines again?” Taeyong asked, moments later, when he was getting tired of the staring competition. “You’re saying that I’m your life or something?”
“No and yes. No because this isn’t a pick-up line, yes because you are my life.”
Taeyong scrunched his nose, and he made sure Jaehyun catch that. “If you died,” he began, and it was on this point onward that Jaehyun knew he was gonna burst, “I’d kill you.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Jaehyun commented, and he winced, because he felt the soreness in his leg when he tried to move. Taeyong was immediately standing again, looking at him with worry. It was as if every one of Jaehyun’s wince would pull him right up, even if he was sleeping. “Ah, shit, this hurts. How bad is it?”
“Crushed tibia,” Taeyong told him. “Compromised patella.”
“Please speak Korean, Doctor.”
Taeyong pursed his lips. “Your leg is fucked,” he said, and Jaehyun grimaced again, but he guessed that, anyway. He wanted to say “I’ve had worse” to soothe Taeyong, but he hadn’t, so. “Also you cut your abdomen pretty deep. You almost bled to death.”
“Did I, really?” Jaehyun murmured. Okay, maybe he did have a good luck, but that didn’t mean his life was guaranteed. Taeyong ignored him, anyway.
“I had to stitch it up quickly,” Taeyong continued on, his voice much softer now. “So it wasn’t… it isn’t the best. It’s messy, more like. I should’ve let one of the nurses do it, but I… couldn’t.”
“You sewed me up while crying?” Jaehyun asked, almost in disbelief. “That’s magic.”
“The only thing magical here is how you almost died and yet you’re still an insufferable, mouthy dumbass when you wake up,” Taeyong countered, and he looked like he’d smack Jaehyun across the face if he wasn’t so beaten up already. “I’m a doctor. I have to remain calm in any situation. I mean I’ve never patched up my half-dead stupid boyfriend before, so I don’t really know, but I think I did well.”
“Yeah, well, I’m alive, so you did well,” Jaehyun concluded. He tried to move his hand, which felt really heavy, but he managed anyway. Taeyong immediately grabbed him by the wrist.
“What are you trying to pull now?” he inquired in a warning tone.
“Your hand,” Jaehyun replied. “I’m trying to pull your hand. In mine.”
Taeyong snorted, but he let Jaehyun interlace their fingers together. Most of the tears had faded from his face by now, and his hand felt really warm and comfortable and fit perfectly against Jaehyun’s.
“I’m not gonna let you off easy for this,” he reminded Jaehyun, when they just stayed like that for minutes, connected by the hands (probably just because Taeyong was still too afraid to kiss his bruised mouth). “It’ll take so much for me to forgive you.”
“Better you mad than you dead,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong squeezed his hand a little too strongly.
“You also owe me an explanation,” he later said again. “And Taeil and Sicheng, too. You owed them explanation, apology, and in Sicheng’s case, a good lunch.”
Jaehyun groaned. “Oh, yeah.”
“You know what I said before? About if you had died, I’d kill you?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun reluctantly nodded. “I stand to correct: I’ll still do that. Once you recover, I’m gonna ruin you, Jaehyun Jung. I’m gonna make you suffer for making me suffer.”
Jaehyun burst out laughing. “Oh dear,” he muttered. “I can’t wait.”
At least even if Taeyong planned to make him suffer later, it would just mean that he was alive, and that he was breathing, and that he was safe.
(Also, Taeyong had already ruined him so much by now, what was he even talking about?)
20.10.9 // 06:39 AM
The pain must’ve knocked him out, because the next time he opens his eyes, it’s already bright outside.
Jaehyun is still on the floor, laying on his back, staring at the ceilings. His eyes are wide, unfocused, and he tries to move, to see if any part of his limbs is hurting. Not necessarily, but his body still feels heavy. And sore. He’s been sleeping on the floor, so that’s’a given, he guesses.
He props himself up on one elbow and looks around. Nothing in his room has seemed to change. Everything is just as he left it last night: the blankets are still drooped over the headboard, there were papers under his bed, and his bedroom door was wide open because he hadn’t bothered to close it last night. He gets up, balances himself on wobbly legs, and walks to the bathroom.
When Jaehyun bends down over the sink to brush his teeth, he feels something prickly on his chest. It’s not prickly enough to be painful, but definitely uncomfortable. So Jaehyun puts down his toothbrush and lifts up his shirt, wondering if some kind of weird bug has snuck into his clothes and bit him while he was out cold last night, but instead he finds a long sewn scar over his abdomen.
To say he’s shocked is an understatement.
A very great understatement.
(He might or might have not spend a full minute screaming. Might.)
He would’ve been less shaken if it was a scratch, at least, but that scar is huge. It’s crossing over from a point on his hipbone to the center of his chest, like someone drew a line over his skin shakily with a Sharpie, but change the Sharpie to a scalpel knife maybe. It’s dark brown in color, so it’s not new new, but definitely not an old scar. When Jaehyun went to work yesterday, the scar definitely wasn’t there. Actually, in all his life, in all the times he’s taken a shower and seen himself naked, Jaehyun has never seen that scar. It was never there.
He reluctantly traced at the scar, and wondered if he’d hit himself against the edge of the bed last night. Even if he did – he wasn’t sure in the first place, so he probably didn’t – that still didn’t explain the stitch marks. It didn’t hurt when he pressed on it, but it was prickly against his skin.
So he did the next reasonable thing: he took a selfie and sent it to Johnny.
YoooNOhs: Camera_177278.jpg
YoooNOhs: can you tell me how tf did I get this?
Johnnny answered not even a minute later.
Yonghoe: oh ew, it’s like 4 in the morning wtf
YoooNOhs: bitch… it’s 6
Yonghoe: i was exaggerating, jung.
Yonghoe: anyway that is disgusting, i know you’re like, super proud of your freaky rescue mission last year but I Did Not Need to See That
YoooNOhs: what rescue mission?
YoooNOhs: also answer my question
Yonghoe: didn’t u get that from that suicidal car crash thing on ty’s birthday in ‘19
Jaehyun puts down his phone and rubs his eyes. He really needs to think, because whatever Johnny is talking about, he knows none of it. For all he knows, he’s apparently gone all JRPG on Taeyong’s birthday last year.
And usually when Jaehyun thinks, he remembers, too.
There’s really nothing specific coming up in his mind when he tries to think about what might be happening, but he feels like he’s missing out on something. Like he’s a puzzle set, and there is one piece that is stuck somewhere else he isn’t aware of. It’s not a hurtful feeling per se, but it messes him up a bit. He stands up from the edge of the bathtub he’s been sitting on and paces around, phone forgotten near the soap place.
Then as if he’s struck by a lightning bolt, he stops in his track and looks at his phone.
Car crash. Taeyong’s birthday. 2019.
Why is he so stupid?
He grabs his phone with so much speed that he almost crashes against the bathtub. With shaky hands, he opens his call log and sees that in the list, there’s no one. No Taeil. No Johnny. No Mark. No Sicheng, no Yuta, no Hansol. No Taeyong. And most certainly no Jaehyun.
It’s as if someone has wiped clean his call log or something.
Though his call log might’ve been cleared, he still has his friends’ contacts, and as he scrolls down the list he picks to call Taeil instead of Johnny or Mark, because he’s 1) older, 2) arguably the less nosy out of all his friends, and 3) sensible.
Taeil doesn’t answer the first time, but he answers when Jaehyun tries to call him the second time. He sounds like he’s barely awake when he talks.
“Hey,” he mutters tiredly. “What’s wrong, Jaehyun? It’s my day off today.”
“Oh, uh,” Jaehyun says, stumbling with his words. “Sorry, hyung. I didn’t mean to wake you up—but, but—by chance, do you know where Taeyong is? Like, is he okay? Is he fine?”
Taeil pauses, and in every second of silence that passes by, Jaehyun’s heart is pounding even harder, even harsher against his ribcages.
“Taeyong?” Taeil finally says. “What are you talking about?”
20.10.9 // 06:44 AM
Jaehyun steps carefully into the living room, which is still dark. The curtains over the windows are still shut, and since the TV is off, too, there’s almost no illumination, except for maybe a bit from the kitchen lights. He doesn’t even know he’s holding his breath until he almost suffocates himself looking at the lump of blankets on the couch.
He lowers himself to his knees, crawling closer to the couch, his voice stuck in his throat. There’s another person sleeping there, and it’s not Sicheng because Sicheng is out on a vacation with Yuta, and it’s not Mark because Mark has morning shifts, and it’s definitely not Taeil or Johnny or anyone else but—
Jaehyun breathes, and he smells his own shampoo, and something else remotely familiar, like cold medicines. The scent of a hospital surgery room.
He reaches out a hand to the blankets, and slowly uncovers it, peeling it away gently. There, on the couch, curling up like a sleeping cat, is Taeyong.
Taeyong Lee, in the flesh, with his soft black hair that Jaehyun hasn’t run his fingers through, heavy eyelids that Jaehyun hasn’t touched, shapely lips that Jaehyun hasn’t tasted – all in such a long time.
Oh, Jaehyun thinks. Oh, oh, oh.
Jaehyun’s mouth is dry and he can’t speak. But there, right in front of his eyes, is Taeyong, asleep but very much alive, sickly pale but breathing evenly. He’s still clad in his working shirt and jeans, but he’s there, he’s right there, within Jaehyun’s reach, and not six feet underneath him.
Taeil’s voice is back on his mind again.
“What are you talking about?”
Jaehyun wondered if he’d said something wrong, but then:
“Isn’t he with you?”
And Jaehyun loses it. He throws himself at Taeyong, gliding his arms under his body and crushes him with all his might, pressing kisses all over Taeyong’s skin that he can reach. He vaguely registers Taeyong’s shocked cries, but he doesn’t fucking care – not when burning tears are spilling out of his eyes, not when he’s busy chanting neurotically Taeyong’s name like a mantra. His heart seems to inflate so much that it’s close to bursting, and he’s having a little trouble breathing, and he wonders if he’s going to die from joy (he’ll be the first case ever to that).
“Jaehyun!” Taeyong cried out, reaching out his hand to grab the back of Jaehyun’s shirt – which would work if Jaehyun actually wears a shirt. When his hand slaps uselessly against Jaehyun’s nape, Taeyong exclaims, “What the hell, why are you naked? And are you crying?”
“Why are you here?” Jaehyun demands, still kissing every bits of Taeyong’s face like there’s not going to be another day tomorrow. Knowing Taeyong’s bad luck, there might not be. Jaehyun’s totally gonna kiss him until he can’t feel his mouth.
“What do you mean why, I told you I’m coming over yesterday,” Taeyong said, and with one surprising strength, he pushed Jaehyun off him, and the younger rolled off to the floor. “What is wrong with you, seriously?”
Jaehyun gets back up, his hands on Taeyong’s face, pinching and pulling on his cheeks. It’s real. He’s real. Taeyong’s skin is as smooth as ever, and he feels a little bit warm, like he’s having a fever or something. But he’s real. He’s not a ghost. Jaehyun can touch him.
“If you’re here, why didn’t you sleep with me upstairs?” Jaehyun demands, kissing Taeyong’s mouth in between words. “Why are you sleeping heeeeeere.”
“I’m sick,” Taeyong said, and even though he sounded annoyed and overall overwhelmed by Jaehyun’s sudden brimming affection, he kissed Jaehyun back every time. “Don’t want you to get sick, too.”
“But—“ Jaehyun breathed out a laugh. “But you’re here!”
“You’re such a weirdo,” Taeyong said, but he wipes the tears off Jaehyun’s face gently. “Like, I swear, every time you talk, you make less sense.”
“I don’t care, you’re here,” Jaehyun says, and he means it, he doesn’t care about anything anymore. Jaehyun used to scoff at those lame ass love quotes, things like “you’re my world” and “I can’t ever live without you”, but he is now forced to eat his own words, and he decides that they taste pretty good. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much, I’m never gonna let you go, I’ll keep you here forever.”
Taeyong waits him to stop spouting nonsense (to him, anyway), all the while caressing the back of his head like Jaehyun is a crying puppy (he kinda is). Then, when Jaehyun is tired of speaking and just buries his face in the crook of Taeyong’s neck, breathing in his warm scent, he finally says, “Done?”
“Haven’t even scratched the surface,” Jaehyun mutters, but he hugs Taeyong tighter, and the older laughs.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Taeyong asks. “Is that why you’re acting like this now?”
“No,” Jaehyun replies, but then, “Well, yeah, kinda.”
“Okay,” Taeyong says, and he inhales a deep breath. “First of all, I love you, too. Second of all, you’re too old for this. Third, I love you.”
Jaehyun tightens his hold and screws his eyes shut, letting himself shed one more tear, just one more tear, before he forces himself to pull away and looks at Taeyong in the eye. He opens his mouth, but he’s out of words – he can’t define the disorienting feelings of delight inside of his heart of seeing Taeyong staring back at him, and he finally sees again the love that is evermore fluctuating like ocean waves in his eyes.
“What?” Taeyong says. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
Johnny was right. The first call might not have been once in a lifetime thing, but the events it altered, the people it brought back, and the connection it created, mended, and revived – it was once in a lifetime. He’s still staring at Taeyong, still marveling at every part of him that is very much alive and his.
The universe is still so fucked up, and fate is still cruel, and Jaehyun still wants to kick their asses if he ever has the chance to.
Just not now, not when Taeyong is here, not when Jaehyun has died once to get him here, not when he’s no longer in danger of drowning.
“You owe me an explanation,” Taeyong says, patting Jaehyun’s cheek to get his attention back to him.
And maybe Jaehyun does, and maybe Taeyong deserves even more than an explanation, but he kisses Taeyong instead because… well, just because.