Work Text:
sound of the aluminium bottle cap getting kicked.
sound of the rain, teardrops that join their clan in the absorbing journey of the han river and some that find another home, landing on the screen to blur the photos of two that seungjun keep swiping.
teardrops of the sky. teardrops of the dead. teardrops of the unsaids.
he wipes the water, zooming into the smile that sparkles next to his, a glimpse of their joyous days.
or at least that's what seungjun considers it.
too tragic of life to be constructed like this.
overall, lifetime works odd. humanity works odd. memories work odd. but what works even more odd is that we're always sharing our lives with all the other people on this planet and at the same time, we just never do. we are breathing the same air, but at the same time, that's something inconceivable.
it's all about different lifetimes that somehow collide. different species that get chained to another, all of these as a ludicrous strategy to avoid the terrifically described feeling of loneliness.
is it really that awful to start with?
a picture of changyun smiling. one could admire its vibes, adoring how delightful of him that is, how pleased seungjun is to have him at that moment. but they never comprehend, will never comprehend, how the same glistening smile was able to effortlessly ruin the upcoming days of his youth. to ruin him.
he looks up.
it's his first time to not see any of those luxurious cars that pass him by on his lonely walks way back home.
looking down at the screen again, the force of the rain scarcely feels real anymore. all the notes that the waterdrops play him to point of soaking are gradually hissed. suffocated.
the fences are impressively high, just enough for the worthless twinkling slogans to reach the eye level of his lowered head.
ridiculous. from the beginning.
“for your kids”
seungjun frowns an eyebrow at the first slogan he bumps into.
"huh, what kids?"
it seemed weird to him, ironic to see so many ridiculous sentences on a bridge. after all, bridges are assumed to connect the traces of the lively roads of seoul, to make life easier. until they are kind of retired. or they still do make things easier. by simply providing a painless death. what you could call a merciful way to end life.
seungjun drops his head down again.
another kick to the bottle cap. he whispers something and draws his phone closer to his face, barely peeking at the sideways as he searches through his gallery.
the next sign is too bold to ignore.
“tomorrow, the sun will rise”
he swipes the selfie of himself, coming across a picture of his boyfriend sitting across the table, holding a chopstick full of black bean noodles.
smiling.
another swipe, the next picture belongs to the same place. no chapstick this time, only him, his chin resting on the palms of his hand, analyzing the red tulips on another table of their favorite restaurant.
and another one, an up-close blurry portrait that he has probably captured by shoving his camera into poor changyun's face, making him smile silly enough to let seungjun save his favorite eye smile and spend his tomorrows staring at.
still smiling at the picture, he recites the slogan on his own, “tomorrow, the sun will rise..” he looks up, kicking the slogan, abusing the poor panel to get the aggression out of his chest. “are you sure about that? 'cause my sun hasn't risen in so long.”
he exhales, slides his phone back into his pocket, digging deeper to find the almost empty pack of cigarettes. the lighter isn't out of reach, laying at the exact right pocket of his jacket. it's a new one since the one received from his grandfather was recently thrown into the same river.
it was changyun who did it.
“cut it off, jun. this is gonna fucking kill you.”
seungjun chuckles at the ridiculous memory, the cigarette between his lips dampened by the intense breathy laughter he lets out.
a click of fire.
“ah, my dearest changyun,”
he mumbles, covering the flame to keep it away from the troublesome flood, successfully lighting his cigarette.
“what is dead may never die.”
“let's walk together.”
he laughs, the uncomfortable smell of smoke bitterly lingers, “the only one welcoming me by a walk is satan leading the way to hell.”
he gets rid of the cigarette, ponders the upcoming consequence before stepping over the fence, looking down at the gloomy stream of water.
suddenly, it doesn't look high.
not higher than the clouds he had his head on, pitifully looking down at every decision he made.
it's not high.
can't surpass the self expectations he set back then, which he still carries around every downfall to.
it's not scary.
not scarier than the deathful thoughts, ultimately catching up on him with every soothing breeze of the sunrises that he stays up all night to witness. ones that take up a small chair to the balcony and sit next to seungjun through every moment of reappearance of the sun.
it's not scary.
never scarier than the image of a pair of teary eyes that continuously camp on his mind with no intentions to leave. sitting in front of him in the café he once loved the most.
“patience is the key, but do you ever feel so sick of waiting? as if someone takes their sharpest metal key and stabs it into your smooth abandonment, waits, watches as you patiently die on your own, bleeding every cell out, draining into the unknown. do you know what i’m talking about, lee seungjun? that's how i’m feeling right now.”
seungjun's pupils jog around to distract him from the feelings, eyes eventually caught on a floating yellow dressed doll in the water. for a moment, he aspires to exhange places with the plushie, wishes to belong, even if it's only to a lethal water.
a wish that sounds absurd coming from one that has been in that place before. that spoiled doll who foremostly lived under the shadow of extensive attention. all good before the pest of departition attacks the deepest roots of him.
it won't hurt.
it won't hurt more than the words he's heard from across the tables, cutting sharp right into his raw flesh.
it won't hurt.
won't hurt more than the words his father spat into his face on the day of his graduation, the flowers he threw back onto seungjun's chest.
it won't hurt.
It's only water.
it won't hurt.
it hurts.
how comes the water hurts the most, internally tearing you apart as it deliberately fills your lungs.
water, the symbol of grace, the absolute representation of life.
how marvelous it is, what a magnificent paradox it is to have your life taken away by water. to have your life taken by life.
a murder.
the water, too, perches on your chest, choking you with its bare hands on your neck. rotting into your lungs until you die. until you perish.
his phone rings. it's different from the regular ringtone, signaling him of identity of the phoner beforehand. a tone he has not heard in three months, that has kept him up all night in the fear of missing the unthinkable chance of riceving.
he doubtfully looks down, the doll is now out of sight.
did it drown?
will he drown?
the weather feels bizarrely colder, freezing his brain at the spot. maybe it's just the infinite iceage in his heart, purposefully assembled, spreading like an infection, stiffening his entire body as he desired.
seungjun's rough hands reach for his phone, still looking down the dim trotting water below his feet.
his feet.
his shoes.
the brown ones he stole from changyun.
he remembers buying them. he remembers being dragged out of the restaurant with a mouthful of chicken, getting forced to walk to the other side of the mall with him.
the landlord of his memories speaks up.
“hello?”
just the anticipated frightened tone from a call at 2am of a drizzling night. it's cold, the soothing sensation that the voice from the other line hints at. it's frozen, approximating the disaster in his heart. no wonder they have always been speeched on how similar ther feel sometimes, how analogous they behave. seungjun wishes he could chuckle, but it's too cold for that, too.
nonsense. the described warmth of devotion was nonsense to him.
“seungjun?”
silence. muted sobs by the back of his own hand.
the call of his name rings in his ears, flying him back to when they first met at the high school hallways. when he first called his name.
“are you okay?”
fate. seungjun never digested how glorious the concept of fate seemed. he held a huge grudge against it and eventually shut his boyfriend down with a joke everytime it was picked as the random topic changyun would teasingly come up on their morning walks. still, he had to admit, this couldn't be a coincidence.
seungjun facepalms himself, sceond thinking his plans, as if the image of the mourning changyun grabs him by the shoulders and helps him step back, sliding down the cold painted iron fences. the lighted slogan shines above his head.
“go and see the one you miss”
chokes. he breaks into a sob, wrecking all the silence down. far from his presence, in between the blurred nights of the freeway, he can see a couple of people run to him.
“are you– crying?” changyun worries, “i–i called your mom, she said you're not home.. hey, you're not planning to do anything stupid, right?”
the other also sounds like on the very edge of breaking down. seungjun chuckles, has once again failed.
a failure way different from what happened to him during high school. different from the papers his teachers pitifully threw at his face, always telling him that he could do better if he tried. he did try. harder than what people assumed, and always heard the same shit. that's what made it worse, even his hardest efforts wouldn't touch the highs of satisfaction.
back then, changyun was there to protect him and nailed what he was trying to do, coming up with rational conclusions to tame seungjun's flaming ego.
but right now, at this time, that wouldn't work.
you know these very special moments where you feel like running out of breath? like running out of words, running out of time, running out of memory films to spend the rest of your life wasting?
to seungjun, it is one of them.
he thinks of an apology.
nothing.
“changyun,”
seungjun breaks down, taps on his chest on loop. he wishes the rain could carry him away, could wash him clean from the troublesome lump of all words he had swallowed down in his chest.
he wishes the rain would carry him into the river. since the image of someone is strong enough to keep his feet back from trying his best to fly. exactly how he yearned for, dying, away from the people he pretended to love the most.
no one can ever love another with a heavy burden of self-hate on their shoulders. ever.
surprisingly, there is still one person that seems to care.
“i literally can't believe you..” there is a change in changyun's tone, seungjun can even hear the unpleasant sound his front door closing behind him. the crooked hinges he was always warned him to lubricate.
seungjun's vision starts to blur, too dazed and soaked to give blinking a try. he sniffs, unable to tell if it's from all the crying or the feeling sickness tickling him, “is that so?”
“fuck,” changyun yells at him, “stop crying, i'm already coming to pick you up.”
seungjun laughs, sensing how his fuel empties by every word he talks, “a little bit too late, i would say.”
“shut the fuck up,” changyun turns on his car, another thing he eavesdrops. seungjun could easily portrait how he panics to do the bare minimum, too weak to even regret. “where are you?”
the remaining energy in seungjun only allows a hum.
“mapo.”