Chapter Text
For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?
— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
20.10.5 // 23:34 PM
Jaehyun lays awake, eyes on the ceiling, hands behind his head.
It’s been awhile now – it’s gotten so late, and he didn’t use to be such an insomniac. Nights were a blessing, a break from his daily obligations, a piece of space where he can be completely at ease within his zone of anodyne. Sometimes, also a piece of space where he can have Taeyong all to himself, free of his friends’ teasings, free of other people’s stares, free of his own longing.
Though no, not anymore. Taeyong doesn’t visit anymore.
Jaehyun rolls to his side, heaving a slow, long sigh. Ignoring the definite hollowness inside of his chest, in which Taeyong’s love should be overflowing like a waterfall, he tries to close his eyes. He always tries. He’s tried a lot of things, not just ignoring his own pain like it doesn’t even exist – he tried acknowledging it, but it ached even more. He tried controlling it, only to fail and have it pour out miserably from every pore of his skin.
He’s still hurt. He’s still grieving. Worst yet, he’s still in love.
It’s been a year already. He really should get over it.
20.10.5 // 23:47 PM
If he does fall asleep, it’s always short and restless; he’ll wake up soon after a few minutes, ears ringing as if someone’s blaring an alarm right inside of his head, heart beating so hard inside of his chest that it’s painful. He wishes the ringing and the beating can drown the thoughts out, as loud as they are, but they don’t. The thoughts are always, always louder.
He doesn’t cry anymore, not really; he stopped doing so a few months after Taeyong’s departure. He’s never been that much of a crier, anyway. Taeyong was always the frailer one when it comes to emotional outbursts, the softhearted scrawny man. But the thing about the tears that aren’t coming is that they end up residing inside of him, pooling icily, like a slumbering open-ended beast, breathing agitation and unwanted memories and regret all over again into him. If not a beast, then it’s cold hard chains against his ankles and wrists, tying him down to his own emotions, unrelenting and impossible to break out of.
Though it’s not like Jaehyun’s trying to break out of it.
He doesn’t cry, but he does regret. He doesn’t cry, but he does curse. He curses a lot of people. His friends. Taeyong himself. God. Everything, everyone that he could think of – he blames them all. But mostly himself, because even if it had nothing to do with him ever, he was supposed to be there, he was supposed to be fucking there.
He didn’t even make it to the hospital in time.
What a fucking joke his life is. He escaped loneliness only to have it knock on his door again sooner than expected – like a long lost friend.
20.10.5 // 23:58 PM
Earlier that day, Johnny came for a visit, and he said this while Jaehyun busied himself in the kitchen making him coffee: “Jaehyun, it’s been a year. I think you can start learning how to let go.”
(Johnny has been his closest friend since his high school era, probably. He’s Taeyong’s age, an upperclassman, but he has always been so friendly, so full of life that Jaehyun couldn’t just ignore his presence. He used to be suspicious of Johnny – with that kind of foreign handsomeness, wouldn’t Taeyong easily fall for him? – but Johnny made it obvious from the get-go that he and Taeyong were no more than friends of the same class.
“We’re not even that close,” he said back then, laughing with an arm around Jaehyun’s shoulder. They were two years apart, and Johnny’s a tall piece of shit, but Jaehyun’s height could hold its own, too. Taeyong said they looked like they were of the same age. Doyoung said if he didn’t know Jaehyun had the hots for Taeyong, he would’ve thought he was gay for Johnny.)
Jaehyun’s grip on the spoon tightened, but that was it. He kind of wanted to turn and fling it and Johnny, but he didn’t, because frankly he knew Johnny had a point.
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Jaehyun said, trying to make it sound casual, but Johnny could never be deceived. Not when they’ve been friends for years.
When Jaehyun put the mug of coffee in front of him, Johnny exhaled. “I know you haven’t slept well since last year. Maybe you should try to… forget.”
If I could I would, Jaehyun thought. Seriously, if he could, he definitely would. Forget all about Taeyong, about his kisses, about his hugs, about his touches, about Jaehyun’s fucking incapability to protect him. Forget all about Jaehyun’s mistakes that cost Taeyong his happiness, his tears, and later his life, too. Forget all about escaping loneliness because apparently Jaehyun’s soulmate wasn’t Taeyong, it was his own isolation.
“Do you think,” Jaehyun begins, after fiddling with the tablecloth after awhile, pausing to let his mind think of something that wouldn’t hurt Johnny, “I haven’t even tried?”
“I didn’t say that,” Johnny said. “Eh, well, I kinda did, I’m sorry. I’m not belittling your pain for losing so much, I just don’t want you to drown in it. We don’t want you to drown in it.”
“Who told you to come here?” Jaehyun asked, smiling a bit.
“Ah, I’m sure you can guess it,” Johnny said, visibly relieved that Jaehyun still remembered basic happy reactions such as smiling.
“Either Taeil or Ten, I bet.”
Johnny hummed. “Doyoung, actually. But whoever told me to check up on you, it doesn’t change the fact that we are all worried about you.”
Jaehyun pinched on the bridge of his nose, feeling a bit of weight washing off his shoulders with every word spilling out of Johnny’s mouth. It didn’t erase all of his grief, but made them fade a little, gave Jaehyun a little bit of hope – but that was it.
“Thanks,” he said then, genuinely thankful, and also regretful because he knew Johnny’s sort-of advice wouldn’t help much. “But I’m doing fine.”
Which was so obviously a lie, a great fucking lie, since now Jaehyun’s laying on his mattress alone, desolate and sequestered by his nightly thoughts, experiencing the one thing Johnny and his friends specifically don’t want him to feel: drowning in his own pain. Four hundred days and more of this goddamned routine, he supposes he should really be getting over it. Yet time guilt-trips him and reminiscences betray him even more, and really, he doesn’t want to escape in the first place.
As Jaehyun tries to fall back asleep for the nth time that night, his phone rings from its place on top of the bedside table.
18.3.15 // 13:42 PM
“Have you seen Johnny?” Taeil asked, sliding down on a seat across of Jaehyun in the small booth of the campus café. “He was supposed to meet me here at 1 PM straight.”
Jaehyun raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell me anything about it.”
The older let out a tired sigh, brushing his hair back from his face and turned to stir his coffee instead. Jaehyun waited for him to say something else, but Taeil never did. He rarely showed irritation – just general exhaustion of everything done wrong in his life. He grinned.
“Don’t worry, hyung. I’m sure he’ll get over here soon,” Jaehyun assured Taeil – or at least tried to, because Jaehyun had no fucking idea where Johnny was and also if he would even show up, considering that he was notorious for forgetting a lot of things.
(Like Jaehyun’s birthday last month, for example. He swore even if he said he’d forgiven him, he would strike back at any given chances.)
“Also,” Jaehyun added, when Taeil still didn’t respond. “You know he’s always game when it comes to you.”
Taeil hummed. “I certainly hope so, Jaehyun.”
“You know what, let me just call him for you.”
“Thanks.”
Jaehyun nodded and fished out his phone from his bag, searching for Johnny’s number on his log. The guy was probably just on an errand and completely forgot about his promise with Taeil – though that shouldn’t be possible since he liked Taeil so much Jaehyun could tell him to cut his fingers off one by one to spell Taeil’s name and he would do it, all the way down to the toes.
He clicked on a number and pressed call, eyes glancing on his watch as he did.
It was now 13:44 – Johnny was 44 minutes late.
The calling extended for longer than a couple of seconds – which was also unusual since Johnny usually answered on the first two rings. Jaehyun was just about to hang up and try again when the call suddenly connected, and he immediately shot, “Hey, your boyfriend’s here waiting for your sorry ass, where the hell are you?”
But the voice that greeted him back wasn’t Johnny’s – it was another man’s voice, deeper and a bit coarse on the edge, as if he hadn’t talked for a long time.
“What?”
Jaehyun frowned. “Hello, who’s this? Where’s Johnny?”
(Why did the voice sound so familiar? Jaehyun was pretty sure he didn’t know this guy. Nobody he knew sounded like that.)
“Johnny?” the man on the phone said, sounding like he was equally as bewildered as Jaehyun was. “He came here this afternoon, but he’s not here anymore. Wait, who are you? And why would you call someone this late at night?”
“Ni – night?” Jaehyun repeated, turning on his seat to see out of the window. It was a fucking bright Friday out there, sunlights on every corner of street. “What do you mean night? It’s like, 2 in the afternoon.”
“What do you mean?” he said. There was a sound as if he was ruffling through the sheets of a bed or something. “It’s midnight here, you’re joking. You’re in Korea, right?”
At this point Taeil was completely focusing on Jaehyun, growing visibly concerned with every confusion Jaehyun encountered with his mysterious phone call. Jaehyun too was also getting worried, and irritated, and also afraid that something might’ve happened on Johnny. Forgetful as he was, Jaehyun would hate it if a serial killer got him.
“Who are you? Where’s Johnny?”
“No, who are you? And why the hell are you looking for Johnny?”
“You know Johnny? Are you his friend?”
“He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend, smartass,” the man said, now heated. “Forget it, this is stupid. Your prank call is stupid. You should look for better things to do.”
Jaehyun felt heat rising up on the back of his neck – a familiar sign of irritation – and he yelled, “This isn’t a prank ca—“ but the connection already ended before he could curse back at the guy.
Jaehyun nearly smashed his phone on the table, but seeing that Taeil was still there across of him, he didn’t.
“What was that?” Taeil asked as he watched Jaehyun’s frown deepened. “Did something happen to Johnny?”
“No, I think I got the wrong number,” Jaehyun said, and just to be sure, he checked on the call log and wondered if the number on the top of the list was really Johnny’s. Probably not – but if so, then whose was it? Jaehyun wasn’t the type of person to just walk up to a stranger and ask for their number – moreover actually getting it. Did he save the number from somewhere else? A flyer? An ad? It didn’t seem like something that he’d do, but the number was still etched on his screen, a cold hard fact. “I didn’t recognize the voice. It’s no one I know.”
“Really? Why do you have his number in your phone, then?”
“I don’t know, probably saved it from somewhere and forgot,” Jaehyun said, shrugging it off even though it weighed down on the back of his mind. He’d think about it later; he didn’t want to worry Taeil more than he had to. “I’ll just text Ten. Maybe Johnny’s with him.”
“No need, he’s probably busy with something. He’ll come around eventually.”
18.3.15 // 13:51 PM
As if Taeil’s word was magic, the café door clinked open and a whole lanky mess with the name of Johnny Seo walked in, brown hair wind-swiped and messy. He immediately caught the sight of Taeil – obviously ignoring Jaehyun – and grinned apologetically.
“So sorry!” he exclaimed as he walked over, slipping down next to Jaehyun and reasonably pushing him closer to the wall. Jaehyun grunted, but didn’t say anything. “Had an emergency editing session, gotta make the final paper perfect.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Taeil said softly, and Jaehyun couldn’t decide whether he wanted to puke or fuss looking at his two friends, staring into each other’s eyes with gazes so full of love that it was sickening. “You should’ve texted, though. Jaehyun tried to call you earlier but it seemed like he got the wrong number.”
“Ah, about that, actually… I ran out of battery on the third period. Sorry, man,” he said, turning to Jaehyun now. “I would’ve texted either of you if I could.”
“’S fine. It’s just that I tried to call you, but got connected to this freak instead,” Jaehyun said, dismissing Johnny’s apology.
“What freak?”
“Well, for one, he asked me why I was bothering him at midnight, while you can see—“ Jaehyun made an exaggerated gesture to the window, “—it’s fucking raining sunbeams out there.”
“You know sick people tend to do that, right?” Taeil chimed in. “He might be sick. A sick person wouldn’t be able to tell time properly, especially if they’ve downed medicines and been asleep for hours—“
“I don’t think he’s sick, hyung,” Jaehyun cut him off. “He sounded sober… but also strange. Like he was lifeless or something.”
“You know you can’t just profile a person just based on a thirty-seconds call,” Taeil reminded him, shifting his cup from one hand to another.
“Also he knows Johnny,” Jaehyun added, nodding at Johnny, who had been listening for awhile now, silent and thinking. “Did one of your friend’s boyfriend die lately or something?”
“No…” Johnny said, words dragging out slowly as he thought. “No, I’m sure I would’ve known if someone died in this campus. Especially if it’s my friend’s boyfriend.”
“Ah,” Jaehyun groaned, scratching his hair harshly. “You know what, maybe he really was a freak. I won’t waste my time mulling over this shit. It was a wrong number, that’s it.”
“Just delete the number and call me properly next time, idiot,” Johnny said, shoving Jaehyun with his shoulder playfully. “Don’t worry about it. This is probably one in a lifetime thing.”
(It wasn’t.)
18.3.15 // 14:11 PM
“More importantly,” Johnny continued, after he up and went to the counter to order more coffees (one for Taeil and one from himself because Jaehyun didn’t drink hot coffee at 2 fucking PM, unlike anomalies like Taeil and Johnny apparently), “I met Taeyong in the library!”
“Oh, he came back already?” Taeil asked, his face lighting up as he accepted the coffee from Johnny’s hand. “I have to see him later, see if he’s been eating well all alone in California.”
“Like you’re one to talk,” Johnny said, pressing a palm on Taeil’s arm. “You weren’t eating properly when you were in Tokyo, either.”
“But Yuta was there to remind me to actually eat,” Taeil said. “I ate at least twice a day. You know how Taeyong is, he could go on a full day without eating when he’s busy. Two when he’s super busy.”
“A wonder he hasn’t died out of hunger yet.”
“He’s going to be a doctor and he can’t even take care of himself.”
Jaehyun stirred his iced tea on the table, glancing over at Johnny, and then to Taeil, then to Johnny again. “Taeyong… as in your old classmate Taeyong?”
“Yup.”
“He goes to this uni?” Jaehyun was surprised. “How come I didn’t know about this?”
“He got into this medical exchange program in Cali last year,” Johnny explained. “Said he wanted to try neurology, see if he’d like it – and boom, dude’s got the stuff under him in one try. Amazingly irritating, he is.”
“Well, he is talented,” Taeil said genuinely. “Just need to love himself more.”
“Didn’t you talk to him?” Johnny asked Jaehyun. “Back in high school, I mean.”
“Yeah, I did,” Jaehyun said, frowning again now. He barely remembered – Taeyong was one person in Johnny’s circle of friends that Jaehyun didn’t try to befriend simply because he looked so standoffish. He didn’t look evil, but he always looked distant, and that was enough reason for Jaehyun to keep his distance. Also, he was seriously so fucking pretty it’s intimidating.
(“Is he even human,” Jaehyun remembered asking Johnny this, back in high school, when they were both in the cafeteria and Johnny had just offered Taeyong to eat with them, but the boy refused politely because he had works to do in the library.
“Ha ha,” Johnny said, mockingly laughing at Jaehyun’s evident attraction. No, not attraction – just strong curiousity. “After awhile you’ll get used to it.”
Jaehyun never did, but it could be just because Taeyong graduated before he could.)
“You should see him too, then,” Johnny continued on. “He still remembers you, you know. Probably because he thinks you hated him or something.”
Jaehyun bit down a little too hard on the straw and his teeth gnashed against his tongue – the sudden pain made him choke on his tea, spewing some out to the table. Johnny shrieked in disgust.
“He thinks I what?”
18.3.17 // 10:14 AM
Jaehyun didn’t know what to do now that he was here.
Here, as in, here in the campus library, where Lee Taeyong was supposed to be. The guy that thought Jaehyun hated him because Jaehyun never made an attempt to talk to him first. A guy who thought a goddamn underclassman despised him and was seriously dismayed because of it because apparently, Jaehyun had always glared at him for no obvious reason.
The reason was actually pretty obvious from Jaehyun’s standing.
“Well maybe if he wasn’t so intimidating…” Jaehyun said heatedly, back at the café when Taeil had deliberately wiped the tea and spit on the table with a paper towel, while Johnny just wrinkled his nose. “But what the hell, I didn’t hate him!”
“And since when do intimidating people intimidate you?” Johnny said, pointing out a fact. Jaehyun’s head hung low because he was right. “You were never the type to just back down from an unapproachable person, and Taeyong’s the least unfriendly person out there, trust me.”
“He doesn’t look unapproachable at all,” Taeil commented. “At least now. I didn’t know how he was back then.”
“I didn’t hate him,” Jaehyun said again.
“We know,” Johnny and Taeil claimed at the same time, exasperated.
“But he doesn’t,” Johnny added. “What, would you like to clear things up? He’ll be your senior soon, you know.”
Which was the reason why Jaehyun was standing here, his hands shoved inside of his pockets, shoulders hunched and mouth scowling. He was here for Taeyong, to apologize for the things he never did and felt simply because it wouldn’t settle right if he just let it be.
(And also he was curious of how attractive Taeyong would be now.)
The library was nearly empty at this time of the day, with most people being in class or off goofing in other areas in the campus ground. Only a few people loitered around the bookshelves, and Jaehyun heaved a sigh before he started going through the shelves himself, looking if Taeyong was anywhere in between.
He spotted a familiar-looking scrawny man on the hindmost aisle, holding a thick book under one arm and another between his knees. He was reaching toward the highest panel – Jaehyun noticed that his fingernails were long but well-shaped, like crescent moons – tiptoeing on his feet. As if it was a bodily reflex, Jaehyun stalked closer and reached out a hand to help him take the book he wanted.
“Thank you,” the man breathed, and when he turned to look at him, Jaehyun’s heart almost stopped dead in its track. He kind of knew who this man was from the beginning – if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t even help him – but it still hit him like a solid hard hammer to see Taeyong’s face up close; the prettiness of lashes and pale skin and shapely lips and angular lines. He hadn’t seen him in two or three years at most probably, but the effect of Taeyong’s face had never changed; it still knocked the breath out of his lungs and filled his mind with vacuity dotted with astonishment. It was hard to not get smitten right there and then.
Jaehyun stuttered on his own words. “Er, um, hey.”
Taeyong’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as he looked up to Jaehyun’s eyes, then to his whole face, and to his oustretched hand, holding Taeyong’s book between the fingers. “Oh, Jaehyun.”
So he did remember his name.
“I am,” Jaehyun said. Then he cleared his throat. “Um, I am Jaehyun, I mean.”
A pair of straight brows shot to the strands between Taeyong’s fringes. “I know,” Taeyong said, reasonably, as he took the books from under his arm and his knees. “Jung Jaehyun, Johnny’s first-year friend.”
“Well, I’m no longer a first-year but,” Jaehyun said, “I am Johnny’s friend.”
“What brought you here at this hour?” Taeyong asked again, now turning around to walk to the reading area. Jaehyun had no choice but to follow quietly, though his mind is in a raging storm of what he should say as an excuse of why he was there, with Taeyong, at this unlikely hour to go to the library.
His mind suddenly hooked on the odd phone call from yesterday afternoon, for whatever reason. He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend, he’d said. Odd as it was, the guy sounded like he wasn’t lying, at least. He did sound distressed. Even if Jaehyun couldn’t believe the whole ordeal, he’d still believe that the guy was actually devastated over something.
“I wanted to borrow some, um, self-care books,” Jaehyun quickly lied. “Or self-heal books. To overcome grief or something like that.”
Taeyong put down his books on the smooth glassy table before looking at Jaehyun again. Even if Jaehyun had already seen and felt the effects of his near-perfect face, it still struck him like a lightning bolt when Taeyong looked at him like this every time.
“What kind of grieving?” Taeyong then asked, his tone careful, and Jaehyun didn’t miss the concern in his voice, too. Damn, just how good was he? “Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s not for me,” Jaehyun hurriedly said again, waving his hand anxiously. “It’s for a friend. Yep. My friend. He’s just lost a lover, I heard.”
Taeyong hummed in understanding. “That’s really too bad for him. If you want that kind of books, you should try searching in Section 8, over there—“ Taeyong stopped to point at a direction behind Jaehyun, his finger barely missing Jaehyun’s shoulders, “—since they store most personal health books over there. It’s mostly physical health like dieting and so, but there are some about mental health care if you look hard enough.”
Jaehyun was impressed. “Do you memorize the place of every book in this library?”
“I just happened to borrow the same kind of books you’re looking for last year,” Taeyong said, shrugging. For a second there, Jaehyun thought that the corners of his mouth were curving up, as if he was holding back a smile, but then it disappeared. “For my paper, you know. I’ve scavenged through almost all aisles in this library for my paper.”
(Last year would be around when Jaehyun first enrolled in the campus. It might explain why he’d never known Taeyong was even here since the guy spent so much of his time in the library researching stuff for his work.)
“So you do memorize everything.”
“Just a little bit. Also, my friend’s the librarian.”
Taeyong jabbed his thumb at the administrative desk up front, where a couple of people were working; one was a guy around Jaehyun’s age, with soft-colored reddish hair, while the other is a girl that Jaehyun has probably encountered a few times at the cafeteria, maybe one of the girls that hung with Sooyoung and the others.
“The guy or the girl?” Jaehyun asked, even though the question wasn’t important at all, he just felt like asking it, grabbing for something that might let him talk to Taeyong a little bit longer.
“The guy. That’s Doyoungie,” Taeyong explained. “He didn’t go to the same school as we did, so you probably don’t know him. I do know the girl, though. I think she’s called Wendy.”
Taeyong used this chance after he spoke to slide down on the chair, while Jaehyun was still standing and staring at the desk. Then, seeing that Taeyong had begun to open up his books, Jaehyun decided that maybe he had to live up to his excuse and turned to get himself a few self-care books from Section 8.
Jaehyun’s mind was blank the whole time he rummaged through the bookshelves, searching for a book he didn’t even want.
18.3.17 // 10:47 AM
“So how do you borrow these things?”
Taeyong looked up from his own book, gaze immediately latching on to Jaehyun’s, then to a couple of books he had in his hands. Jaehyun tried to pretend he wasn’t completely troubled by it – by Taeyong’s straightforward attention. Now that he thought about it, the guy didn’t look at all aloof. Just… kind of lonely.
“Have you never borrowed something at the library before?” Taeyong asked judiciously.
“I have… I have never,” Jaehyun admitted, a little sheepishly. It was true; he’d never once stepped foot in this library, nor the one in his school back then.
Taeyong finally smiled, and Jaehyun felt something inside of him liquesced, like snow on the very first day of spring. He didn’t know what kind of feeling that was. Relief? Contentment? Awe?
“You’re not missing a lot,” Taeyong simply said. “Just walk up to the desk and say you’re borrowing those. They’ll probably need your student card if you’re a first-timer.”
“Oh,” Jaehyun said in a small voice. “I might… I might have left my student card at home.”
Taeyong paused, a hand in the middle of flipping a page. Then he shrugged. “Oh well. Just walk up there and tell Doyoung I’m the one borrowing.”
“What?”
“Just tell Doyoung I’m the one borrowing.“
“No, what I mean is… would that really be okay?” Jaehyun asked, concerned now. Taeyong was seriously too good to be true, too kind and considerate even to a sort-of stranger he thought had hated him. Not to mention that these books weren’t even that important in the first place. “I could just—“
“It’s okay, Jaehyun,” Taeyong insisted. “I don’t mind.”
But Jaehyun did mind. Muttering an unclear apology to Taeyong as he went, he borrowed the books. Doyoung didn’t even bat an eyelash when Jaehyun said Taeyong’s name, just writing down the book numbers then immediately giving them back to Jaehyun. Wow, Jaehyun thought, he must be a serious regular.
“Thanks,” he said to Taeyong, when he came back to the table where Taeyong was. “You don’t have to do this, but thanks.”
“No problem,” Taeyong said, and he smiled again, sending Jaehyun’s inside into more disarray. “I hope your friend will get better soon. It’s really hard to overcome grief.”
As Jaehyun descended the library stairs outside, heading toward his class, he remembered that he’d completely forgotten to apologize for making Taeyong think he hated him.
20.10.6 // 00:07 AM
“What the hell?”
Jaehyun nearly throws his phone to the nearest flat surface – which would either be his wall or his floor, but he doesn’t (and figures his future self will thank him for that decision). Instead, he grips on it and stares so hard at the screen until his eyes hurt, at the private number that had just called him.
Jaehyun had never been pranked call by anyone before, but he never thought it’d be that bad. It had only been thirty seconds at most, but why did it wake him up like a bucketful of ice water was dumped onto him? Not to mention the absurdity of the call is biting down on his consciousness, like a really bad joke.
“Hello, who’s this? Where’s Johnny?”
Jaehyun frowns, looking back at the private number on the top of his call log, as if he looked at it long enough the number would suddenly spout a name or something. The caller seemed to know Johnny, and just how many Johnnys are there in this whole country?
He wonders if it was just one of his friends attempting to cheer him up (by pissing him off this late at night), but he didn’t recognize the voice as theirs. Sounded familiar, but definitely wasn’t his friends’.
Whose was it, then?
“What do you mean night? It’s like, 2 in the afternoon.”
That, too. What was he talking about? Jaehyun had to actually get up and check out of the window to see if he was the one going crazy, but he wasn’t – at least not now. The sky is jet black outside, not even an ounce of stars, and the streetlights are dimming down into a complete darkness. What kind of afternoon did he mean, seriously? Jaehyun saw none.
“Who are you? Where’s Johnny?”
How dare he asked who Jaehyun was when he was the one calling him first!
“No, who are you? And why the hell are you looking for Johnny?” Jaehyun nearly shouted to the phone, pulling it away from his ear. Is he a serial killer, Jaehyun thought, is this seriously a prank call? Is Johnny okay?
“You know Johnny? Are you his friend?”
“He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend, smartass!” Jaehyun had yelled, extremely maddened that he’d lost control of his thoughts. Then he stopped himself, stunned by the words that had just tumbled out of his mouth.
If he wasn’t so weirded out by the whole situation, he wouldn’t have said that much. It was never his thing to let out his feelings like that. Feelings are made to be stored away in a locked safe inside of your heart, never to be exposed, never to be recognized, unless you want them torn apart and dilapidated. Yet he just did that – to a complete stranger, no less. If this guy was one of his friends, he’d be in deep shit tomorrow. They’d definitely come to his doorstep and start yelling at him.
Heaving a deep sigh, Jaehyun finally said, “Forget it, this is stupid. Your prank call is stupid. You should look for better things to do.”
And before he could change his mind and get even more confused and irritated, he ended the call, a bit too forcefully that his thumb nearly slipped down the screen and twisted itself.
So now Jaehyun is laying back down on his bed, one leg down to the floor. He’s still looking at the screen of his phone, and even though he isn’t as annoyed as he was before, it’s still not settling right down in his stomach, like a bad premonition. Seriously, if it was truly a prank call, they could’ve done it in broad daylight, at least. Jaehyun would never expect his first time receiving a prank call would be like this, when he is at his most vulnerable and broken, prone to every slumbering agony that Taeyong’s departure might have implanted in him.
Jaehyun closes his eyes, still thinking about the call. The whole stupid, absurd call.
(At least it helped him take his mind off Taeyong for awhile.)
Then suddenly, he opens his eyes again. His mind has hooked on a memory, so old that he must’ve forgotten it, stored so deep that if the call hadn’t happened, it probably would never resurface again.
Didn’t he receive the same kind of call in the past?
20.10.6 // 08:32 AM
“Prank call?” Johnny repeats, stabbing the pancake on his plate a little absentmindedly.
Jaehyun shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah, at midnight, no less. You didn’t do that, did you? I’ll kill you.”
They are now sitting on the outdoor area of Johnny’s favorite breakfast place, after Jaehyun called him in the morning and told him he wanted to go out for some fresh air. On normal occasion, Jaehyun wouldn’t even consider going out on a busy Monday morning, but just for today, he feels like seeing another living person outside of his home might do him some good. He also has some things to discuss with Johnny, so there’s that.
(Johnny nearly cried when he heard that Jaehyun was finally going out again – aside from for work – after months. He yelled to the phone, “Fina-fucking-lly!” and Jaehyun had to end the call before the taller man started crying for real. He didn’t need to hear that.)
“You’re joking. I was fucki—I mean, I was with Taeil at midnight,” Johnny corrects himself, clearing his throat, while Jaehyun just scrunches his nose. Honestly, Johnny could try doing a better job keeping his nightly activities with Taeil a secret. “Why would I prank call you anyway, huh?”
“I don’t know, to piss me off?” Jaehyun suggests.
“Dude,” Johnny says as he stops eating and points his fork at Jaehyun’s face. He looks really offended that Jaehyun even considered him one of the suspects of his earlier midnight occurrence. “That’s the last thing I want to do to you these days. I want to make you happy, not make you suffer more.”
“Yeah, no need to rub it in,” Jaehyun says, stirring his coffee even though it’s already mixed so well. “It didn’t sound like any of you guys anyway. I was just asking.”
“But he was looking for me?” Johnny asks.
“Yep.”
“That’s really weird.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No, I mean,” Johnny says. “It’s so abnormally weird. Doesn’t make sense at all. Why would a friend of mine call you, of all people? I never made it my habit to give out your number to other people. I never made it my habit go give out anyone’s number, actually.”
“Tell me about it.”
Johnny hums, before once again fixing his focus on his food. Jaehyun, feeling hungry after not eating properly for the last few weeks, steals Johnny’s fork from his hand and cuts a piece of pancake for himself. Johnny lets him do it without complaining. He’s probably noticed that Jaehyun hasn’t been too immersed in eating well nowadays.
“You know,” Johnny suddenly says. “Didn’t something like this happen before?”
Jaehyun whips his head up. “You think so, too?”
Johnny nods, rubbing his fingers together idly. “Yeah. I feel like I’ve seen you complain like this before.”
“How long ago was that, you think?” Jaehyun asks, leaning forward to Johnny, eager for information. He doesn’t know why, but it just feels important to try and know more about that old, fuzzy piece of memory. Like they might be connected or something.
“I don’t know, I don’t have the greatest memory,” Johnny says. “I think Taeil was there too, though.”
“So it was probably when we were in college, then?”
“Maybe. I told you I can’t remember well. It’s really hazy.”
“Ah,” Jaehyun says, exhaling loudly, leaning back to his chair away from Johnny. “You’re so dependable, Johnny Seo.”
Johnny makes a gesture as if he’s going to chuck the fork at Jaehyun. “You’re lucky I love you, Jung, or else I’ll really make you suffer.”
20.10.6 // 12:23 PM
Jaehyun ends up spending half of the day in Johnny’s flat, falling asleep against Taeil’s thin frame on the couch as they watch re-runs of various variety shows while Johnny was off working. It’s weird, he thinks, when he wakes up hours later, that he can finally sleep more than just ten minutes for a change.
Maybe it’s the body warmth he’s missing, since he was so used to sleeping and waking with Taeyong’s arms around him; Taeil’s hand on the top of his head feels a bit different, just warmer and lighter. But it does help him feel a little better, a little comforted, more than the amount of comfort he lets himself feel after Taeyong is gone.
In short, it’s a break from his own self-punishment.
“You can spend a night here if you want,” Taeil offers, when Jaehyun says this out loud.
(For some reason, he always feels like talking to Taeil about his true feelings is much more easier than talking to Johnny. Probably because Taeil studied psychology in college and is an operational therapist at a nearby clinic. At least he makes Jaehyun’s sort-of theraphy sessions free of charge.)
“Nah, I love my bed,” Jaehyun says, even though both of them know the reason why he never spends the night at their place is because he doesn’t want to get in the couple’s way. “I also don’t want to hear you guys fucking through the walls—“
“We can make you hot food here,” Taeil insists, cutting Jaehyun off cleanly without hesitation, as if he never talked in the first place. “Actual hot food. How long has it been since you last cooked?”
“I cooked hot food last week.”
Taeil sighs. “Hot food that isn’t ramen, Jaehyun.”
He winces. “Well…”
“If it’s clothes you worry about, you can always borrow Johnny’s,” Taeil says again, before Jaehyun can voice out what’s on his mind. It’s not necessarily the clothes that bothers him – but more of him being a burden, and also a thought that he doesn’t deserve this much comfort. Not when he’s killed Taeyong by negligence.
“I don’t know, Taeil,” Jaehyun says, in a shriller voice. “I just… you know.”
“I’m a psychotherapist, Jaehyun, not a mind reader,” Taeil reminds him gently. “Unless you really tell me what you think, I can’t guess you.”
“But I thought you can read people?”
Taeil grins. “A bit, but it’s better when people are being honest with you. I don’t really like to speculate things about my clients. I could always be wrong, you know.”
“So I’m a client?”
“You’re my client and my friend,” Taeil declares, flicking Jaehyun’s forehead with his fingers. There’s a soft affection contained in the gesture, passing through Jaehyun’s skin like electricity. “If you want to tell me things while that blabbermouth Johnny isn’t around, now is the perfect time.”
Taeil lets Jaehyun consider his suggestion for a few minutes, the younger contemplating about the consequences of both keeping things to himself and letting Taeil peek a bit inside. It’s so tempting just let things out, to tell Taeil about the sleepless, restless nights he’s been through; the sad dreams; the amassing regret that’s gradually poisoning his life, but Jaehyun is just so, so afraid that he doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve Taeil’s sympathy, doesn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy, really. He doesn’t deserve anything good at all.
“Jaehyun,” Taeil says, when he thinks that maybe Jaehyun’s silence is getting a little bit too long. “Whatever’s going on in there, I’m telling you that the most important thing is you need to stop blaming yourself first.”
Jaehyun pauses. Taeil’s words sink right in, like bitter medicine, and Jaehyun hates medicine.
“I thought you don’t like to speculate.”
“I’m not speculating, I’m stating the facts,” Taeil swiftly says. “I’ve handled my fair share of grieving people at work, Jaehyun. I can at least recognize the basic symptoms. I can at least recognize the common mental reactions.”
“Well, okay then,” Jaehyun says, inadvertently crossing his arms on top of his stomach. For now he just wants to steer the conversation somewhere else, away from the self-blaming part, because now that Jaehyun has thought about it, it’s exactly what he’s doing. Taeil doesn’t need to get the confirmation he wants and dreads. “List down the symptoms, I’ll check it if it’s true.”
Taeil laughs, seemingly oblivious of Jaehyun’s plot, and puts his hand on Jaehyun’s forehead, fingers weaving between his hair. His palm is also drier than Taeyong’s, or at least the bits and pieces of Taeyong’s touch that he still remembers. Jaehyun doesn’t know if he should shift away. He wants to, so much, to distance himself from Taeil’s kindness that he doesn’t deserve, but he doesn’t want to offend him.
“So the physical symptoms of grief on adults usually include exhaustion,” he says. “The awful kind of exhaustion, by the way. Restlessness. A lot of headaches.”
“Check. Check. Check.”
“Loss of appetite,” Taeil tries again. “Anxiety attack. Having troubles sleeping.”
“Check. Not really. Super check.”
“Do you know that lack of sleeping and eating properly could make your anxiety worse?” Taeil asks him, and Jaehyun shrugs. “Well, now you know. Do something about it.”
“Are these symptoms supposed to scare me or what?” Jaehyun asks, looking up at Taeil, whose gaze is on the TV but Jaehyun knows his mind is somewhere far away.
“I doubt it scares you, but it scares me,” Taeil tells him. “I’ve seen the effects grieving can inflict on different clients. Some of them get through it. Some of them get over it. But those who don’t… they’re not really hale and hearty now.”
“Do you think I can seriously be… be hale and hearty again after Taeyong—after he isn’t around anymore?” Jaehyun shoots out, carelessly smacking his own head against Taeil’s rib in the process of getting up. The both of them groan in unison.
(“Shit, sorry!”
“You have a hard head.” There’s a pause as Taeil rubs the spot where Jaehyun’s head has bumped against.)
“Is that really what you’re thinking?” he then asks. “That’s your most honest feeling? That you won’t ever be okay again after you lost him?”
Jaehyun looks straight up to the ceiling, wondering if really should deny it (which is arguably harder now) or just continue on now that he’s let it out already (which is even harder). When he doesn’t reply for another long time, Taeil sighs.
“Or do you not want to be okay?” Taeil continues, his tone extremely careful and controlled. If Jaehyun wants to retreat, physically getting away from Taeil, he can’t, because Taeil’s hand on his head seems to work as an anchor (or a shackle, or whatever) that’s keeping him drawn and pressed against him. What the hell kind of therapist uses gentle forcefulness to force a confession out of his client’s mouth? Just Taeil. “Do you actually enjoy drowning in your regret? Because you think you deserve it?”
“Deserve what?” Jaehyun accidentally asks, even though he’s made a resolve not to give in and keep his mouth shut in front of Taeil. Well, that resolve has just went to dust. For the second time in a long time, Jaehyun has let his emotions got the better of him.
“Deserve happiness,” Taeil says. “Deserve forgiveness. Deserve anything that’s good.”
“I don’t…” Jaehyun says, voice dry. “I don’t think that.”
Which is an obvious lie, because that’s what he thinks about all the time – that he’s undeserving of everything good that Taeil has spoken of.
“Nobody’s telling you it’s gonna be easy,” he says. Now he’s frowning, fingers hardening on Jaehyun’s skin. “I just want you try. Maybe open up a bit. To me. To anyone else that you want, if you still don’t want me. If you’re not gonna do it for yourself, at least do it for us.”
Jaehyun chews down on his bottom lip, biting back a smile. “Who are you that I should do so much for you?”
(But of course he doesn’t mean that. He’d do anything for Taeyong, but Taeil and Johnny were always a close second on the I’ll Give Up All My Life For You list.)
Taeil pulls his hand back and makes a motion as if he’s about to flick Jaehyun’s eyeball off. “We’re your friends, ass,” he says, though he’s smiling, too. “You’re lucky Johnny isn’t around to hear that.”
Taeil doesn’t make clear of the fact that Jaehyun was not denying his claim of not wanting to open up just yet.
20.10.6 // 14:52 PM
“On a completely different note,” Jaehyun says, when they’re both in the kitchen, Taeil standing by the stove to watch over the boiling soup, while Jaehyun is sitting down backwards on the dining chair, “Have someone ever prank called you before?”
It takes a moment for Taeil to respond. “Prank calling is still a thing?”
He’s got a point.
“True,” Jaehyun agrees, silently commending Taeil for his quick follow-up despite his dawdling tendencies at many important times. “But yeah, to some people who have a lot of free time, why not?”
“Why yes?” Taeil shoots again, turning to look at Jaehyun with a ladle in hand, dripping broth from the smoking tip. “You know, I can never get the excuse ‘having too much free time’ down to a science…”
“You’re thinking too far of it,” Jaehyun quickly says, waving his hand. “What I mean is, I think someone prank called me yesterday.”
“Did they really?” Taeil says, turning once again to face the stove. “Did you find out who it was?”
“No, not yet,” Jaehyun says. “I just… I thought it was one of you guys attempting to piss me off, but it didn’t sound like anyone I know.”
“So it was a complete stranger, then.”
“I… I think so,” Jaehyun says, more slowly now. He tries to think back to it, to the voice he’s heard at midnight yesterday. It feels wrong to just say that it was a stranger who called him, since his voice sounded so oddly familiar, but it definitely wasn’t his friends, so it has to be a stranger.
Who else could it be, really? It has to be someone he doesn’t know, even if it raises more questions about the incident itself, and adds a whole new level of creepiness to it.
Taeil, being Taeil, of course catches on to Jaehyun’s hesitancy. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“No, just… Johnny said something like this also happened in the past,” Jaehyun says. He’s feeling slightly dizzy now, and shifts in his seat to rest his head down on his arms. “Do you remember something like that? If it’s you, you should have better memories than Johnny, at least.”
“Let me think about it,” Taeil says. “How far back was this, can you give me a keyword?”
“Two to three years at most,” Jaehyun replies. “When we were still in college, I think. I can’t remember all that well, too, so.”
“Hmm,” Taeil hums. “Hmm, I think something like that did happen.”
“Really?” Jaehyun looks up so fast he nearly twists his neck.
“Yeah,” Taeil says, glancing at Jaehyun over his shoulders. “But you didn’t receive it. You did it, I think.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean you were the one who prank called someone,” Taeil easily says. “I think you just called the wrong number, and the person answering was weird. That’s it.”
“Weird?” Jaehyun repeats, rubbing his neck as he thinks. He still can’t remember how the whole thing went; little details are shifting in and out of actuality on the bottom of his mind, as if they don’t want to come up. “Weird like what?”
Taeil hums again, stretching his fingers on the hold of the ladle as he tries to remember more. “I don’t really remember,” he finally says. “The memory is fuzzy, but what I do remember is you were trying to call Johnny for me.”
Jaehyun’s gaze drops from Taeil’s back to the floor. “Johnny?”
“Yeah.”
That reminds him of the conversation he had with the tall guy earlier this morning. “I feel like I’ve seen you complain like this before,” Johnny had said. And also, other than that, “Why would a friend of mine call you, of all people?”
“He was looking for Johnny, too,” Jaehyun suddenly says. “The man on the phone. He was looking for Johnny.”
“Did he?” Taeil asks. “That’s weird coincidence. Did you ask Johnny if one of his friends might’ve called you by accident?”
“No. Yes. I mean I asked, but it wasn’t one of his friends,” Jaehyun says. “Wouldn’t it be weird if someone that he knows but I don’t start calling me, though? It all doesn’t make sense.”
“The whole concept of prank calling someone at ungodly hour doesn’t make sense,” is Taeil’s final comment, which Jaehyun approves in silence.
20.10.6 // 16:32 PM
Though Taeil keeps on insisting that Jaehyun should spend the night at their place, he finally manages to slip away from the older’s gripping proposition. He does make Jaehyun bring home some of the meat-and-potatoes stew he’d cooked with their green Tupperware (Taeil is an avid collector, and Johnny often becomes the witness/victim of experiencing Taeil’s rare berserk mode firsthand when he loses one) though, and Jaehyun comes home with a two-days worth of home-cooked dinner.
“Make sure you heat it up properly before you eat,” Taeil reminds him, standing near the door frame as Jaehyun bends down to fix his shoelaces in the hallway. “You can always come back here to restock your food – or I’ll just send some to you via Johnny.”
“Your man has already worked hard enough as it is,” Jaehyun says with a short laugh. “And he’s not my babysitter. I’ll be fine on my own.”
That’s another lie, one that he’s spouted so many times over the past few months that it should’ve become the truth by now. Jaehyun won’t be fine on his own, but at least he won’t die. (But won’t he, really? Has anyone ever died out of loneliness? Out of grief? Jaehyun won’t be the first, and also not the last.)
Taeil’s expression also says it so clearly: I doubt that, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Probably out of pity. Instead, he smiles and waves at Jaehyun like Jaehyun is really as fine as he looks on the outside, and not a broken human being inside.
“I’ll call you later,” he promises, and Jaehyun nods, grateful.
Jaehyun descends the metal steps with Taeil’s well-veiled concerned gaze still on his back, not burning but just poking quietly on him.
The residual sense of heartening security he’s gotten from Taeil’s presence moments earlier gradually diminishes as he enters the subway and sits down on one of the empty seats. He considers the hassle of pulling out his earphones from his jacket and untangling it, see if he can drown out his thoughts (recently updated by Taeil’s uninvited talk-to-me-please-about-your-depression session) but decides against it in the end. Instead, he leans his head back against the window and closes his eyes, hugging the Tupperware containing Taeil’s stew in front of his chest, hoping the still-there heat can at least help warm up the coldness in his heavy chest.
20.10.6 // 18:03 PM
Jaehyun takes off his shoes and thinks about the amount of lies he has gushed today. It’s too much to count, too much that he’s gotten so ridiculously used to it, so he doesn’t bother – just letting the uncountable amount settles down, as a noteworthy reminder of how much worse his life has turned out to be.
20.10.6 // 21:19 PM
Jaehyun usually washes the dish immediately after he eats (a habit he’s picked up from Taeyong), but this one night he doesn’t. He lets the dirty bowl he used sits on the sink and decides he will deal it with it tomorrow, before he goes for his morning shift.
Taeil remembered his promise to call Jaehyun around dinnertime. He asked Jaehyun how the stew was, and did he drink a lot of water, or if he still had food in his fridge. Jaehyun told him that the stew was great, he drunk a lot of water, and he had vegetables that Doyoung bought in his fridge, though he didn’t mention to Taeil that they have been sitting there for the past couple of months and Jaehyun has never touched them even once.
“You’re going straight to bed?” Taeil asked, when Jaehyun turned on the faucet after eating and picked his brush up. His toothpaste stock was declining – he had to remind himself to pick up some on his way back from work tomorrow.
“I have morning shift,” Jaeyun said. “Can’t stay up for too long.”
“That’s an achievement considering you usually only go to sleep way past midnight,” Taeil commented lightly.
Talking about midnight, Jaehyun thinks later on, after Taeil has said his goodbye and he’s moved to the bed, insentiently flattening the creased edges of his sheets with his palm as he does. The prank call he’d received yesterday happened at midnight. Will there be another call tonight or was that really a one-time thing?
Jaehyun hopes the latter.
(No, of course not.)
20.10.6 // 23:56 PM
Jaehyun didn’t plan to, but he wakes himself up four minutes before midnight.
Or maybe it was his body that wakes him, for whatever reason, since he has no idea why he’s suddenly up, staring at the ceilings again after sinking in a dreamless yet agitated sleep. He has to take a few short seconds trying to register the things surrounding him, wondering if he’s woolgathering or if he’s awake for real. It’s getting harder to differentiate between realities nowadays.
Then his phone vibrates from its place on the bedside table, and Jaehyun groans.
“Oh, fuck,” he whines. “Seriously?”
He considers leaving it be, but it doesn’t feel right to him. So he reaches out a tired hand to pluck his phone and checks who’s calling him this late at night – and surer than ever, it’s yesterday’s private number again. His prank caller is back for more, apparently.
“I need you to stop calling me,” Jaehyun immediately says, after he receives the call and putting it on speaker for good measure (who knows, he might need to yell again). “I told you to look for better things to do. This isn’t funny.”
“What? This isn’t – it’s you again?”
“What?” Jaehyun frowns, narrowing eyes to stare at the screen, as if he can suddenly see the other guy if he stares hard and long enough. It’s still a normal call, not a video call. “Don’t talk like I was the one calling you at random hours. It’s been you since yesterday. You started this.”
The guy on the other end of the line seems to fumble with his words a bit before he replies, “Do you think I want this? I wasn’t even trying to call you!”
“Then why are you talking to me right now?” Jaehyun demands, scratching his head so violently that his nails drag over his scalp painfully. “It’s still mid-fucking-night over here, kid. At least if you want to prank call someone, get the time right.”
Another fumbling with words. “I… I’m not prank calling you, I swear. Also, it’s still midnight at your place? What the hell?”
“What now?” Jaehyun tiredly asks. “Let me guess. It’s raining sunbeams over there.”
Raining sunbeams, he’s just said. What kind of phrase is that, even? Jaehyun has no idea from where he pulled it out from, seemingly just saying it out of the blue, but he’s sure he’s never said it before in his life. Yet the words feel familiar on his tongue, like tasting back an outdated fruit candy from your childhood that you haven’t eaten in years.
Raining sunbeams. Raining sunbeams… Has he really never said that before? It’s a really specific phrase, it shouldn’t be hard to remember.
“Raining sunbeams,” the guy repeats. Unless Jaehyun is very mistaken, the phrase also sounds familiar to him. “I – yeah, it’s still 2 in the afternoon. Listen, I know this is weird, but I swear to whatever god that exists out there I’m not messing with you. My phone just connects every call I make to you. It’s freaky. It’s fucking creepy, but I swear I’m not doing this on purpose. You gotta believe me.”
Jaehyun exhales, rolling back to his stomach and puts the phone on his pillow. For some unknown reasons, even if he shouldn’t believe this unidentified guy so easily, even if these stupid midnight (prank?) calls are annoying, he strangely does. His mind is slowly functioning back after his restive slumber a few minutes ago, trying so hard to connect one piece of occurrence to another – but between those linking works, he feels like there’s a space for some trust, some reliance, even if it’s such a small space. Even if it seems impossible.
(The guy on the phone always sounds genuine, anyway; he doesn’t seem like he’s staging all this just to get on Jaehyun’s nerve. At least if it was him, he wouldn’t give out this much effort to get on someone’s nerve. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe Jaehyun just wants to be less angry and get more distraction at night.)
“Eh, and my phone just strangely receives your freak call everytime at midnight,” Jaehyun finally says, after some more thinking. “Fine, I get it.”
“You get it?” the guy asks, now sounding hopeful. “Do you believe me?”
“I... kinda do, but that still doesn’t mean this whole thing makes sense,” Jaehyun says. “If anything, it makes this worse. I mean, I’m losing sleep over this shit, I have to know why it happens. Have you checked if it’s your network or something?”
“I haven’t, but I’m pretty sure whatever the hell is happening has nothing to do with my phone network,” he says. “Can network error do this? I don’t think so. The timing’s too specific since yesterday. No slip could be that particular.”
“So what’s your theory then? A glitch in your phone?” Jaehyun says wearily. “I doubt it. Even if there was something wrong with your phone, why would it connect you to me, of all people? We probably live in different states, too, looking at our differing time.”
Wait, if we really live in different states, Jaehyun suddenly thinks, disconcerted, why is there so much time difference? They’re both talking fluent Korean – it’s impossible for them to be in the same country with over six hours of difference, unless the other person is a Korean student studying overseas. It’s possible, but the chance is just so low, too low for Jaehyun to consider seriously. He quietly pushes this thought to the back of his mind when the other guy starts talking again.
“What if it’s a glitch in your phone?”
“I am the one receiving your call, there’s no way in hell it’s my phone.”
“Oh, you’re right.”
There’s a pause between them for awhile. Jaehyun uses the silence to think about where has he heard this voice before. He really does sound familiar, too familiar, but not one of his friends.
“Sorry,” the guy later says, when Jaehyun is busy with his own thoughts.
“For what?” Jaehyun asks, but not unkindly.
“For this. For making you lose sleep. Isn’t it midnight over there? If I could, I wouldn’t even try to call you, you know. I can’t even end this call. Look – well, you can’t, but – right now I’m pressing the end call button repeatedly and it doesn’t work.”
Another pause filled with confusion. Jaehyun feels another series of strange yet familiar warmth inside of his chest – pooling like a rippling pond. Really, the feelings are so earnestly conversant that it hurts. Also, this stranger is apologizing to him for the things he doesn’t do on purpose. If Jaehyun wasn’t impressed by that, he would be a heartless, mannerless guy.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Jaehyun replies, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “I was really pissed at first, but if you’re really saying the truth, then it’s not your fault.”
“If you could actually receive the call at, say, 9 PM, I would feel less bad about it,” he says, and Jaehyun unconsciously smiles (even though he doesn’t realize this until later). “So sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Jaehyun tells him again. “I don’t sleep well these days anyway.”
There’s another pause, and then the guy seems to once again fumble with his words. He’s hesitating, but finally he asks, “Is it… is it because you’re still grieving?”
Ah, yeah. There was that thing Jaehyun said yesterday when he was too annoyed and sleep deprived to think clearly. He’s completely forgotten.
“Oh,” Jaehyun says. He wonders if he should play dumb, if he should act like he’s never blurted that shit out, or if he should just be honest for once. “Oh, well, um…”
Fuck it. He’s tired of lying.
“I guess,” he says. “It’s not easy.”
He’s tired of hiding.
“It’s a really messed up feeling, so,” Jaehyun says, before clearing his throat for a bit. “I suggest you try your best to show your affection to the people around you. Since they could be gone at any moment, you know.”
“That sucks,” the guy finally says, after keeping quiet while Jaehyun talked. “That really sucks. I don’t know what kind of person are you, but I’m sure you don’t deserve that.”
It’s strange. It’s really strange that Jaehyun can talk about this, about his struggles, though vague but still honest, without feeling like he has to reel back in before he lets out too much. It’s really strange that he’s not seeing the limit of how far he can go with his honesty. But what’s really, really strange is that Jaehyun doesn’t feel like he’s undeserving of this familiar stranger’s comfort.
Jaehyun chews on his lip.
You don’t deserve that, he’d said, and maybe he’s right. Jaehyun doesn’t deserve comfort for losing Taeyong, but maybe he doesn’t deserve losing him in the first place.
“Yeah, I—“ Jaehyun begins, but before he could say anything else, the call abruptly ends.
21.10.7 // 02:10 AM
Jaehyun dreams of his reflection in the mirror talking back to him, echoing the words you don’t deserve that over and over again.
20.10.7 // 06:18 AM
Jaehyun wakes up again in the morning, feeling strangely refreshed. He doesn’t feel that much weight on his shoulders as he washes his face and puts on his uniform, which is a foreign feeling, but not unwelcomed overall.
He later realizes that he’s slept for four hours straight without waking up, and wonders if it’s got something to do with his midnight sort-of prank caller.
20.10.7 // 11:43 AM
“Get off, kid,” Jaehyun says, as soon he enters the photocopy room. Mark Lee is leaning against the machine, reviewing pages of clipped paper, his glasses sliding down his nose while he reads. He’s got one hand inside of his lab coat, lips pursed in deep thought, and nobody would know from the very first glance that he’s barely past twenty.
“Hi, hyung!” Mark exclaims, looking up with a grin plastered on his face.
It’s been almost three years and Mark still has that uncomplicated excitement painted across of his face whenever he spots Jaehyun. The grown-up façade fades, and he turns right back into a child. Jaehyun smiles back at him, pushing the boy out of the way and shucks in his own papers, before turning on the machine.
The great thing about Mark is, Jaehyun doesn’t have to pretend to be alright in front of him; the younger’s presence seems to have a naturally soothing effect, a welcomed variance in Jaehyun’s otherwise gloomy days. Mark knows about Taeyong, of course – who doesn’t – but he seems to think that Jaehyun’s faring well, or at least in the process of recovery, so he always acts like nothing has ever happened. It has its own advantages on both of them. Mark is spared from the prospect of thinking about sympathetic words and actually saying them out loud (he’s admitted in his early years that he’s good at neither) and Jaeyun is saved from the usual and frankly tiresome worried looks thrown his way. Mark is one of the reasons Jaehyun is always looking forward to morning shifts lately, even though night shifts allow him more time and privacy to brood.
“How’ve you been?” Mark asks gleefully, putting his chin on Jaehyun’s shoulder as he copies his monthly medical reports. Truly a child. Papers are sliding out cleanly and Jaehyun plucks them away, before setting in more papers. “Haven’t seen you in forever,” Mark adds again.
“That’s because they always put me on night shifts,” Jaehyun says. “That’s what you’ll get after a year of working here. Lucky you, newbie.”
“Looking forward to it,” Mark says, getting himself off Jaehyun like a peeling Band-Aid, or a snake changing skin. “As long as I don’t start seeing ghosts.”
“Ah, you won’t just see them, you’ll befriend them.”
(It’s a goddamn hospital, what does he expect? From many night shifts Jaehyun’s endured during his last one and a half year working here, he has at least seen blurs of dark shadows passing the empty hallway from his peripheral vision a couple times per hour. He’s grown used to it – people die everyday in the hospital, anyway. At least he isn’t in charge of the morgue.)
Mark shudders. “Don’t give them ideas, please.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Jaehyun asks, shoving Mark again, now toward the door. “It’s barely lunch break, who are you running away from?”
Jaehyun doesn’t really put thoughts to what he’s saying, but he seems to have hit the mark there (pun fully intended). Mark stutters on his own words and almost drops his clipped paper. “I’m not running away from anyone,” he then declares, but not before he nearly bit down on his own tongue. A 21-year-old aspiring chemist, running away from a coworker at work, and nearly bit off his own tongue due to nervousness of getting caught – really, no one else but Mark Lee can do it.
“Yeah?” Jaehyun says, grinning and looking back at him. Cute, really. “Not even from, what’s his name? Donghyuck something?”
“He has nothing to do with me being here, obviously,” Mark quickly defends himself, fingers folding the corners of his paper until they crease. The way he says it just assure Jaehyun that it’s exactly why he’s here way before lunch.
“Okay then,” Jaehyun says, after his papers are done copying and he jams them all back in the folder. He makes way past Mark, and stops at the door to say at him, “Let me drop by the blood lab real quick and see what this Donghyuck really looks like. I want to see the guy who gets the great Mark Lee all worked up like this.”
“Don’t you dare!” Mark yelps, scrambling after Jaehyun out of the photocopy room while the older just laughs and runs, already out of reach due to his head start.
(He didn’t mean that, of course, but now he really wants to see Donghyuck.)
20.10.7 // 12:57 PM
Jaehyun really wants to see Mark again at lunch, already craving the younger’s comforting company, maybe take him out for food and take a peek of this Donghyuck person that he’s so afraid of, but the boy’s so busy running blood tests that Jaehyun doesn’t want to disturb him. Maybe he’ll buy him Burger King and leave it on his desk for later or something, since a busy Mark means a postponed eating schedule.
He’s similar to Taeyong that way.
Jaehyun takes a walk to the nearest mall – only a block away – and bought some food for Mark, before going back to the hospital and leave it in his open backpack in the locker room. While he’s closing the door, Jaehyun notices that the locker next to Mark’s belongs to someone named Lee Donghyuck, and Jaehyun smiles.
20.10.7 // 14:17 PM
He finishes his shift at a quarter past two, and changes out of his uniform without thinking about anything else. Mark hasn’t finished his work yet, so Jaehyun goes straight home.
While he’s waiting for the train, earphones plugged in his ears blasting loud pop music he doesn’t even like, he looks down and opens the call log for no reason. The private number is still on top of his list, taunting him. Out of curiosity, Jaehyun tries to press on it, but nothing happens. He presses again, but his finger only thuds harmlessly against the call button.
Last night’s call lasted around 5 minutes at most, he thinks. Is there a time limit to this thing?
He can’t call the private number right now, but he can edit it, apparently. For a minute, Jaehyun just stands there, lost in thought, his thumb hovering over his keyboard. He doesn’t know what to name his midnight caller – which reminds him, maybe he has to ask for his name later. Before he can decide for a stupid temporary name, just so he can refer to him as something other than “midnight sort-of prank caller”, the train arrives and he has to shove his phone back in his pocket.
In the middle of his ride home, he blankly sets an alarm for 11:55 PM.
20.10.7 // 20:49 PM
Mark texts him later at night: Thanks for the food, hyung! – with a little heart sign after the exclamation mark (again, pun fully intended).
20.10.7 // 23:52 PM
Jaehyun wakes himself up again before midnight, now three minutes before his designated alarm time. Jaehyun wonders why did he even bother to set it when his body seems to correspond so well to the midnight peculiarity and has developed a built-in alarm or something.
It has only been three days, Jaehyun thinks, looking at his phone, which is now laying atop of his pillow silently. I’m getting used to this way too quick. The only reasonable explanation to this is just that everything in his life has just been going so badly that he’s desperately grasping for anything, everything distractive, no matter how impossible or freaky it is.
The moment it vibrates, Jaehyun has already had it inside of his grip.
“Who were you trying to call again at this time?” Jaehyun asks, dropping himself back toward the bed and shifts around to get to the coolest surface of the sheets. He’s putting the call on speaker again, even though he might not need to yell again.
“Uh,” the guy says. “Here’s another odd thing for you: I wasn’t trying to call anyone. My phone just called you on its own. Call me crazy or anything – call us crazy – but it just happened, right in front of my fucking eyes.”
Jaehyun pauses, looking straight at the opposite wall. His mind seems to be working so slow, like a machine that hasn’t been oiled for a long time. He doesn’t know why he’s so dumbfounded by this since the whole event in itself is already so overwhelming.
“If I could believe you the first time, I guess I can believe you this time, too,” Jaehyun finally says. He clears his throat. “What time is it over there?”
“Still 2 in the afternoon. Well, to be precise it’s 13:44 PM. It’s always 13:44 PM.”
“Eh, that’s really weird. Let’s think about this.”
“Sure.”
“So the last two afternoons, at 13:44, you were trying to call a friend,” Jaehyun begins. “And got connected to me instead.”
“Right.”
“And also now, on the current 13:44, you weren’t trying to call anyone but your phone did anyway and again, you ended up calling me.”
“Couldn’t have said it better.”
“This whole thing is so unbelievable,” Jaehyun says, rolling onto his back and sets his gaze to the ceiling. He reaches out a hand – of course he can’t reach the ceiling – but feeling the weight of his own flesh helps him understand that the whole thing is indeed weird, but very much real. “If it’s a glitch, what the hell kind of glitch is this?”
“I don’t know,” the guy says, and Jaehyun imagines that he’s shrugging now, though he doesn’t even know what the other person looks like. “The timing seems a bit off to me, though. Like there’s something distinct in it, but I don’t know what it is. I mean, it’s so specific. 13:44 on the dot, every day.”
“Oh yeah, now that you mentioned it,” Jaehyun says. “It is specific. Here, too. It’s always midnight, never later, never earlier.”
“Right? Do you get what I’m saying?” There’s a short, nervous laugh shared between them and Jaehyun suddenly remembers that he hasn’t asked the guy his name just yet.
“By the way, I tried calling you this afternoon but I couldn’t,” Jaehyun tells him. “The call button just wouldn’t work. Weird, right? But I can edit your contact information, so tell me your name.”
“Why were you trying to call me, anyway?” the guy asked. “Is there something wrong? D’you need me for something, maybe?”
“Nothing of sort, I was just curious.”
“Ah. It’s Jaehyun, by the way.”
“Okay, Jae—what?”
“It’s Jaehyun.”
A long, heavy silence ensues.
Jaehyun – the Jaehyun that receives freak phone calls at midnight – just stays still, frozen in time, from every strand of hair to his fingertips to his toes. His skin is cold, so cold and arctic, but his chest is hot like forest fire. He stares at his phone now, at the 3 minutes something ongoing call from this… this mysterious guy… who is also, coincidentally, named Jaehyun.
“J-Jaehyun, you said?” Jaehyun has never stuttered all his life, but maybe just this once he could break out of his streak. “Jaehyun?”
“Yeah, it’s Jaehyun,” the other Jaehyun says, seemingly confused that this Jaehyun sounds so disconcerted by the revelation. “Jung Jaehyun.”
And oh, how quick Jaehyun flips over himself off the bed just then and stands right straight, all traces of sleep vanishing in an instant. Still holding the phone in his now-trembling hand, he turns and looks at his fading reflection in the bathroom sink mirror. His face is pale, like a ghost, or maybe a corpse, and he wonders if the person at the other end of the line looks exactly just like this, only brighter and unaware of this atrocity. Yet.
Then he remembers yesterday’s dream: you don’t deserve that. His own reflection, his own face, speaking with his own mouth and in his own voice. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve—
His stomach churns. No, no, no. There’s a limit of how much tolerance he can emit to deal with exceptionally unbelievable things, something bordering on fantasy like this. There can’t be this much strange things happening at once – it could seriously mess him up, and he’s messed up enough as he is now. He doesn’t need this… this new jarring addition that maybe – he’s not gonna say it, he’s fucking not.
It’s all got to be coincidence. It’s all got to be fucking coincidence.
“Where do you live? What’s your job?” Jaehyun’s questions are fired quick and firm like bullets. “How old are you?”
“Whoa, slow down,” the other Jaehyun says. He sounds so stunned that Jaehyun has suddenly turned from a lighthearted guy to a really panicky worrywart. Well, he has a reason to. “What’s wrong with you? I live in Korea. I have no fixed job yet since I’m a college student, but I’m currently considering taking part-time jobs. I’m twenty one years old.”
“I—I,” Jaehyun says, and he’s at loss at word, mouth arid, mind slowing down into a stop. “What do you study?”
“Nursery,” the other Jaehyun replies. “It’s Surgical Nursing to be exact but—“
“Oh, Jesus,” Jaehyun says, closing his eyes. “Oh, no. You don’t happen to know people named Johnny Seo and Moon Taeil and Mark Lee, don’t you?”
“I… How do you know my friends?”
Ah, Jaehyun thinks, heart sinking down lower inside of his chest. Ah, this can’t be happening. I can’t be talking to myself. I can’t.
But it’s really, really happening and Jaehyun can’t run away from it no matter how much he wants to, because his feet are glued so firmly on the floor and his hand to his phone. If things are really happening, his other self is standing on the opposite end of the line.
“Jaehyun,” Jaehyun says, after he’s collected back his scattered composure, and damn does it feel weird that he’s calling out his own name in this tone that he uses whenever he’s comforting a patient’s family member in the ICU. “Jaehyun, what… what year is it?”
“Year?” the other Jaehyun says, pausing for awhile. “It’s 2018, isn’t it?”
Jaehyun’s eyes flick to the date on top of his phone screen. Well, he’s fucked – the whole ordeal is real. The whole fucking ordeal is very much real.
“You sure…” Jaehyun says, slowly and carefully, his own heart beating hard inside of his ribcages. “You sure it’s 2018? Not another year?”
“No, it’s 2018. I’m sure. I just enrolled here,” the other Jaehyun states, his tone firm. “Why are you so agitated all of the sudden? And how do you know my friends?”
“Ah, God,” Jaehyun says. He can marvel about his stupid, stupid luck later – the luck that’s attracted this unlikely, impossible anomaly which doesn’t even make sense in the slightest – but right now he has to break this down to his younger self, to his fledgling counterpart. “Ah, this is unbelievable. So fucking unbelievable.”
“What is?” he demands impatiently. “Our time’s almost up, man, unless you start spilling up quickly—“
“Hey, Jaehyun,” Jaehyun says, heaving a deep breath as he does so. “Strange, I think you’ve been talking to yourself this whole time.”