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It was a Wednesday when Jaehyun lost Doyoung.
The biting chill of winter had kicked in so he and Doyoung had decided to stay inside and study. He had spent all of Tuesday complaining to him about his finals, he had two back-to-back finals on Wednesday.
Doyoung had clicked his tongue at him and told him to go to sleep earlier tonight then and that he would see him after. He kissed Jaehyun slowly and wished him a good night.
Jaehyun watched him walk away, into the orange and red hues of the sunset. The sunset was gorgeous but he only saw Doyoung. The way his black hair had bounced when he walked and the way he would skip every few steps to avoid the cracks. He was always superstitious. He looked back at him one final time before having to turn the corner. He half-smiled at Jaehyun, his lips chapped and his cheeks dusted red from the cold. Doyoung was stunning in every way possible, Jaehyun would have burned this image of him in his head if he had known.
That was the last time he would ever see Doyoung again.
Wednesday came and Jaehyun had rushed to get ready and out the door. In his rush, he misses the fact that there are no new messages, no good morning text that Doyoung would send.
It was only after he had walked out of his last final that he noticed something wrong. His beat-up sneakers hit the floor, making a ridiculously loud sound as he makes his way down the steps of his lecture hall.
Turning on his phone, it lit up. Ten missed calls from Taeyong and two messages from Johnny and one from Doyoung
His stomach tightens in fear. A thousand daggers dig into his gut as his thumb brushes across the messages. He doesn’t notice the way he’s already shaking.
Come home now.
Jaehyun it’s Doyoung.
And then from Doyoung.
I’m sorry. I love you.
The world dropped from his feet.
He doesn’t remember the way he ran and stumbled into his car or the way he sped to Doyoung’s place instead of Johnny and his apartment. The way he didn’t even turn off his headlights as he fell from the driver's seat onto the asphalt trying to get out.
What he does remember is the way the red and blue lights blinded him. The sight of an ambulance and Taeyong shaking and dripping tears as Johnny stood next to him, motionless. Stoic. In shock.
The weight of Taeyong’s round eyes and then the feeling of him collapsing into him. The sobbing. Johnny just staring at them.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” the sobs claw their way out of Taeyong’s chest as he grips on to Jaehyun for dear life.
Jaehyun doesn’t register his own tears or the way his voice is raw when he asks desperately, “ what happened?”
He knows already of course. Far away and out of body, he sees the scene, it’s distant and the only thing he can truly hear is Doyoung’s voice.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Where is he?
The text replies in his mind, it adds his voice to it, I’m sorry . I love you.
I’m sorry.
It warbles and distorts into Taeyong’s voice then back into Doyoungs.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So sorry. I’m so sorry.
It repeats and distorts even when the officer comes over to them. The officer voice adds to the mix as he says “ I’m sorry, Son”
Sorry. Sorry. I’m so sorry. Sorry, Son. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.
---
The days seem to come and go, everything that happens after is just a murmur. Shock . Is what the doctor tells him. He’s in shock and that it can be a natural part of the grieving process. Grief. It feels too little of a word to encapsulate what he’s going through and somehow it's all he can use. He feels everything. He feels nothing. No one reaches out, Jaehyun turns his phone off anyways.
Everyone is unsure what to say. What do you say? He manages. He gets up every day. He goes to school and sits in the back of the lecture hall, he ignores the pity and doesn’t bother with extensions with his papers, he knows that it wouldn’t make a difference anyways.
He passes by the time and suddenly Jaehyun is at the funeral, everyone is dressed in black, Doyoung’s mom grips his hand during the service. Her nails bite into the meat of his palm.
There is something that stirs in him. An anger that simmers on low heat. It’s disgusting watching all these people cry and fake sympathy. They didn’t know Doyoung.
They didn’t know what Doyoung liked and what he didn’t. They had no idea that his favorite color was blue, not the kinda blue that everyone liked but a soft blue like the sky on a clear day. That Doyoung would hum tunes when he did anything. That he was selfless to default, that Doyoung hated when people felt sorry for him. That he constantly avoided talking about his feelings. What do they know?
Do they know that if Doyoung was here, he would hate everything about it? That he would despise the way the flowers were put together? That he would think that having roses would be tacky and unoriginal? He would think that everyone was being dramatic.
But he’s not here. The voice in Jaehyun’s head whispers. It’s ugly and nasty and it turns the anger into boiling rage.
He declined to speak because he didn't know what he would say. How could he describe the love they had? How could he describe Doyoung when he had spent the entire time he was alive trying to? Yet, he can’t seem to shake the regret that fills him.
Doyoung’s aunt gets up to the podium and Jaehyun fights the urge to roll his eyes. His tongue pushes against his cheek. Doyoung hated his aunt.
She was stuck in her ways and nothing Doyoung did was ever enough for her. Snide remarks and hidden tuts were always aimed at him. Yet here she is,
Praising Doyoung to high heaven, saying how much she loved him. Jaehyun’s stomach rolls in disgust.
What’s the point of this? To gather up a room of people that never told Doyoung they loved him enough, why tell him after it’s too late? There’s no point in this. It’s an act. He drones out the rest of the speeches, hearing the same reused stories and the same crocodile tears.
It’s an open casket, he doesn’t realize this until he sees Taeil walking up to the casket, his fist clenched tight and his back coat-hanger straight. Johnny is holding Taeyongs hand firmly in his. They cling to each other like a lifeline.
Doyoung’s mom nudges Jaehyun as she finally lets go of his hand, leaving half-crescent indents in her awake. She looks at the casket and then Jaehyun, head tilting in a silent question. A rush of fondness makes Jaehyun even more ill, for a brief moment he is reminded of all the times Doyoung did that. It takes a moment to realize that she was asking if he wanted to go up to the casket. To say goodbye.
He feels himself freeze, his soul leaves his body as he shakes his head. No. He can’t, it’s not his Doyoung. His Doyoung has pink cheeks and a red nose from the cold. His Doyoung is in his memories, stark against the red and orange hues of the sunset. He’s alive in his head.
Jaehyun’s face must betray his thoughts because Doyoung’s mom nods in understanding, her watery eyes full of fraught sadness, she wipes them and turns away from him. Walking past the line and straight to the casket.
Jaehyun sits alone.
—
After the funeral, he finds himself at the lake. He’s pulled off his tie and plopped down in the dirt, uncaring about the suit that will be stained after he gets up.
The trees are dull and barren, all the leaves have fallen off. The lake itself seems grey and unmoving. It's frozen over. It’s as if the lake is mourning along with him.
Jaehyun doesn’t know how long he sits at the water edge, time is meaningless. He doesn’t even jump when he feels a hand land on his shoulder.
It’s Taeil, Jaehyun moves his eyes to take in his appearance. He lost his suit jacket and his hair is sticking up, he smiles at Jaehyun but it’s small and exhausted. Sad.
“I thought I would find you here,” Taeil says softly, sitting next to him and letting their knees touch.
Jaehyun shrugs back as a reply. Letting his shoulders rise and fall.
Taeil turns his head and looks around the lake and the trees that surround it. He hums, “haven’t been here in a while”
A while is an understatement, they had come here all the time as kids. When they were bored and could ride their bikes anywhere. Back when their world was infinitely smaller.
They would make up stories about the lake. Fighting the monsters that lived in the trees and saving the lake mermaids. Once they got older, they had used it as a drinking spot. Trying to live up to the rebellious teens they claimed to be. Then one day they just stopped coming. One by one they had stopped coming. Leaving it behind. Growing up.
All except Doyoung and him. They had their first kiss here, hidden behind the trees while the summer cicadas sang at them. Making excuses to be the last ones at group hangouts just so they could be alone together. There was no point where they had stopped but rather the lake had transitioned from the group spot to their spot.
He shrugs again at Taeil, his voice gruff from the lack of use, “speak for yourself”.
“I didn’t realize that you guys never stopped coming here” Taeil speaks again, his tone is soft yet there is something in it that sends a wave of irritation up his spine.
Jaehyun shrugs again, “I guess we never grew up” he laughs but it's hoarse and there’s no humor in it.
Maybe that’s the problem. They didn’t grow up. The thought hits him that Doyoung will never grow up. He won’t see his twenty-first birthday. The image of Doyoung with fine grey hair and smile lines slips through his fingers.
“You know, in the Middle Ages, they said that if you remembered the dead, they could sense it,” Taeil says suddenly, not looking at Jaehyun. His eyes stare at nothing off into the lake.
Jaehyun doesn’t respond. Taeil continues anyways, “Nobody ever really dies”.
The deep hot red feeling comes back, the prickling of his skin, he wants to scream. If he isn’t really gone then where is he?
Where is Doyoung? He isn’t here. His apartment is inboxes. Everything is packed away and he’s gone. Every scrap of him was taken away from Jaehyun.
All that is left is memories.
That is all he has left, moments of time that are lost forever, fragments of smells and places. The phantom warmth and laughter echo through Jaehyun's brain, taunting him in the way that it’s only ever going to be fragments, never a whole piece of the picture. It will never be whole again.
When he tells Taeil this, Taeil doesn’t respond for a while. The silence settles over them like a blanket on a hot summer night. Suffocating. Taeil grips him on the shoulder and then gets up, dusts his dress pants off.
“People stay with you as long as you remember them”
Taeil says, breaking the silence and when Jaehyun doesn’t respond, he simply sighs and leaves him alone with his thoughts.
The fear grips him that one day those fragments will fade away too. That it’ll be like Doyoung never existed.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there, just staring into the lake. Thinking about Doyoung.
Doyoung loved swimming, even when the water was cold and freezing he would still try to go in.
Taeyong would pick on him, would laugh and laugh, and claim Doyoung is trying to have his main character moment.
Jaehyun would watch from his place in the sand and Doyoung would just stick his tongue out at Taeyong.
He would look at Jaehyun and just simply hold out his hand. Of course, Jaehyun would follow. He always does.
——
“You're the sun, Jaehyunie,” Doyoung whispers into the dark night, “but I am not the moon”.
He smiles at Jaehyun but it’s broken and his eyes are wet from tears that refuse to fall. Jaehyun only feels confused.
Jaehyun tilt’s his head, “what do you mean? Of course, you are!” He whispers back afraid of breaking the peace that surrounds them in a bubble.
He presses his palm softly to Doyoung’s cheek and Doyoung leans into it. His cheek is warm, the blood rushing beneath the skin, a reminder that Doyoung was alive and here with him.
“You shine so brightly, you light up my darkest nights Doyoung, you will always be my moon,” Jaehyun says, almost desperately. He runs his palm up Doyoung cheeks, letting his thumb run over the shell of his ear.
Doyoung looks like he wants to argue but he simply nods and lets himself fall into Jaehyun. Falling apart and then back together again.
His eyes meet Jaehyun’s and then close, peppering feather-light kisses over Jaehyun’s face. His lips ghost over his forehead, eyelids, cheeks, over the bridge of his nose, before pressing flower petal light against his own lips.
He whispers against Jaehyun's lips, “My love, you shine and I can not follow.”
Jaehyun wakes up with tears on the pillowcase. It’s another dream and another night without him. The sun rises eventually but Jaehyun stays in bed.
He stares out the window, watching the sunrise and set, watching the trees die and come back to life, watching the raindrops on the asphalt and the blinding sun drying it up again.
The weeks pass but yet to him, everything stays the same. Like waves of the ocean that won’t stop coming.
Maybe that’s why he feels like his own ghost sometimes. He haunts his own apartment.
Eventually, he stops going to school. Taeyong comes by once a week to clean and make sure that he hasn’t done anything “drastic”.
Usually, Taeyong will just vent to Jaehyun about everything and anything. It’s a welcomed escape from the thoughts that Jaehyun can’t and won’t stop.
But sometimes Taeyong will just come by, move the trash that seems to pile up beside him in bed, lift the covers and just wrap himself around Jaehyun.
Sometimes they talk and sometimes they let the silence settle around them.
Until one day it changes, Johnny is with him.
The mood shifts immediately into something dark and heady.
Johnny's face is sour and serious. His presence is suffocating but Jaehyun feels nothing.
“Get up.” Johnny starts, Jaehyun doesn’t. He can’t.
“When was the last time you’ve even been outside?” He tries again but to Jaehyun, it’s like he’s rocks at the bottom of the ocean.
He takes two steps over and he’s ripping the blankets off Jaehyun, “Get up. Now.”
Jaehyun doesn’t even bother, there’s no point. How could Johnny ever understand?
“Do you think this is what he wanted?” Johnny lashes out, the words venomous.
It has him standing up, facing Johnny. He ignores the spots that come from the dizziness.
“Don’t act like you ever cared about him,” Jaehyun is spitting back out at him.
Then like a rubber band snapping, Taeyong gasps in shock.
Jaehyun’s cheek is stinging and he’s sure if he looked in the mirror it would be red. There is rage in Johnny's eyes but Jaehyun sees through it, there’s sorrow.
“How dare you say I don’t care, his voice is a quiet thing, it’s shaking with the unsaid grief.
“How can I not? you haven’t even cried once, you’ve done nothing but work and push us away!” Jaehyun all but cries out, he can’t stop himself from shaking.
Johnny shakes his head and the tears slip out like they're running away, “I can’t stop, if then it’s like he’s really gone. I didn’t mean to push you away but I can’t— his voice breaks away.
Taeyong’s voice rings out, “He was my best friend too, you’know”
He stands in the corner, wringing his hands like he didn’t mean for that to come out.
He was my best friend too. It hurts worse than the slap, Jaehyun thinks. How stupid and selfish could he be. They had loved Doyoung too, Taeyong and Doyoung had been brothers in everything but blood. Johnny more often than not was the rock in all of their lives yet, Doyoung was the one that was there when the weight was too heavy for Johnny to carry alone.
Taeyong steps between them for the first time, and he reaches out for both of them, crushing them in a hug. They crash into the floor in a pile of sobs.
—-
Taeil offers him a position at his bakery. He takes it.
He ends up enjoying it more than he should. He meets new people and the people who wander into the bakery are often nicer than the regular customer. It makes him wonder if it’s just a stroke of luck or if Taeil just radiates the kind of good energy that people are attracted to.
Somehow he’s one of the oldest workers there beside Taeil and it makes him happy in a strange way. He had always wanted to be a big brother.
It’s easier to breathe when he’s working. The smell of fresh bread and the warmth from the ever-going oven takes his mind off almost everything. Nothing in his personal life matters when he’s kneading dough, listening to Jeno try and to get the new hire to come out of his shell, Or when Mark talks his ear off when he’s in the break room during his lunch— break room, meaning the single Wooden table with chairs that is in the back room.
Here, Jaehyun sees Taeil laugh and smile, he sees him in his element. Here, Jaehyun is useful.
And Sometimes the feeling will even follow him all the way outside of work. The feeling will linger when Jaehyun comes home to his empty apartment and he’ll remember on these days to water his plants and wash his face.
On these days, Jaehyun gets into bed and the feeling will still be there. He looks at the picture that sits on his nightstand and smiles, letting the warmth lull him to sleep.
Sometimes the feeling will even be there when he wakes up but sometimes it doesn’t.
Today, Jaehyun wakes up and everything feels grey.
On days like these, where he forces himself to shower, to clean up the take-out boxes that litter the kitchen from the night before, and go on a walk before work. It's thoughtless and mundane. He goes through the motions like he’s stuck on autopilot
He often feels like he’s living someone else’s life. It’s like he’s seeing everything out of his body. Sometimes he feels guilty about it deep down. He doesn’t know why he does, the guilt is immense and large and weighs him down.
He’s living someone’s life. That's the only explanation for it. Jaehyun, a fresh college dropout and working to make ends meet at Taeils bakery. This is not his life. Because he’s supposed to be working on his degree so Doyoung and he could move out of this shitty city together. The time snuck up on him, on days like this he feels like he’s still there with him, his fingers itching to type Doyoung’s name into his keypad and call him.
But he isn’t there anymore and there is no one to call.
The thought has his eyes stringing and his throat is dry. Shaking hands reach for his beaten water bottle. The blue paint is chipping off of it, showcasing the grey cool metal that lays underneath it. The cold water slides down all the way down his esophagus into his stomach, he winces from the feeling.
Driving down the coast, the wind is freezing cold and it hits his face like a thousand pinpricks and his heart is beating so loud that he can hear it in his ears but it doesn’t matter because he feels free.
He looks at the passenger seat and Doyoung is laughing so loud that it’s mixing with his heartbeat. Sometimes he wonders if Doyoung’s laughter is his lifeline.
Doyoung looks at him, his eyes are bright and wide and his smile is blinding, they’ve been screaming the top ten from 2000’s all the way up, the tip of his nose is pink from the cold and Jaehyun has to resist the temptation to lean over and kiss the bridge.
Instead, Jaehyun focuses on the road, it’s pitch black and the streets are empty, the mist makes it peaceful despite them screaming their lungs out.
Doyoung grabs his hand that’s not on the wheel. A strange feeling washes over him. Sadness, bliss, catharsis.
Later on, that night when they’re cuddling next to each other in bed with heaps of blankets because the cold has seeped into their bones, Doyoung sighs, “I can’t wait for more nights like this”.
It occurs to Jaehyun then, that the feeling he feels is pure loneliness.
It eats him up daily and spits him out. The waves coming over him and drowning him, again and again, and again.
The feeling of shame and regret, the fact that in his mind’s eyes, Doyoung’s face is starting to distort, the details that were once sharp are starting to fade out of his memory, making everything blurry. Like a watercolor that’s been washed away.
Jaehyun is torn between trying to live his life and wanting to drag out the mourning, to relish in it every day until he doesn’t miss him anymore.
It doesn’t work and some part of him doesn’t want it to.
——
It is the first of spring when he meets him. Jaehyun has a set routine that he likes to keep.
He wakes up and waters his plants (Taeyong has him on a watering schedule). He grabs the Carmel-colored jacket from his closet and makes toast and then an extra piece if only so one of the boys at the bakery has something to eat.
The boy comes in every Saturday, sitting at one of the corner tables and will flash Jaehyun a smile that is awkward and has too many teeth yet it’s still boyish that it’s endearing.
The boy is blonde, Jaemin and Jeno call him blondie when Mark isn’t around to chastise them (Taeil on the other hand thinks it’s hilarious). He has a cute nose and his eyes are bright and big. Jaehyun can’t help but think that he’s charming.
He doesn’t start trying to talk to Jaehyun until a couple of weeks in.
Jaehyun is finally on the register when blondie comes in one Saturday morning.
He orders three muffins and a loaf of bread.
“Name?” Jaehyun asks, he can’t help but wonder if his actual name will suit him better than blondie.
“What?” The boy looks up, his cheeks flush, and a few strands of blonde fall into his face.
There’s a moment of silence that sits between them and Jaehyun finds his own cheeks hot when he realizes his mistake, “your name for the order! Uh sorry about that”.
Blondie laughs and it sounds like wind chimes on a spring day, “Jungwoo”.
Jaehyun blinks. Once. Twice. Three times. Until blo-Jungwoo is smiling shyly again yet this time there’s a slight smirk.
“Um, how much?”
Shaking his head, Jaehyun spits out the total. Jungwoo laughs again but not unkindly.
They talk for a few more minutes until Jisung is sliding his order over to him and then running back into the kitchen.
After that, it’s like Jungwoo is always coming in when Jaehyun is at the register.
He learns so much about Jungwoo and he finds himself wanting more. It stirs something in him.
He learns that Jungwoo orders the same thing every time, three muffins for him, his sister, and his mom. The fresh loaf is for his grandpa that he tries to see once a week.
Jungwoo loves to read, he loves Earnest Hemingway and Russian classics, he doesn’t even judge Jaehyun when he just blinks slowly at him in confusion.
He can’t mask his surprise when he also learns that Jungwoo is also in his final year of studying engineering.
“You’re very confusing, you know,” Jaehyun says one day, looking up at him while wiping down the counters, “like how does nothing about you fit yet it all makes sense?”
To Jungwoo’s credit, he just laughs and shrugs at him, “what about you huh?” He narrows his eyes at Jaehyun conspiratorially before he continues, “Mr. Beef cake that works at the cutest bakery I’ve ever seen.”
Jaehyun feels his face light up on fire and he’s ducking away, the compliment settles in his chest and then squeezes.
He finds himself clearing his throat and shrugging back.
“I like cute things?” It was meant to be a statement but it comes out like a question and it makes him want to die.
Jungwoo is leaning against the counter now, his eyes sharp now, “oh do you?”
Jaehyun in a burst of confidence leans towards him, “yes in fact I do”.
Jaemin is one that breaks the tension between them when he’s sliding the order across the counter and then not so secretly winking at Jaehyun and then leaving.
Jungwoo smiles and grabs one of the pens that they keep by the register, scribbling something on one of the nearby napkins before he’s sliding it to Jaehyun and walking out of the store with muffins in hand.
The writing is prettier than he would think Jungwoo’s handwriting would be, the loopy letters spelling out date? :) With a number attached.
His heart jumps and his stomach tightens because. Oh.
Oh.
He clutches the napkin unable to think. His head feels like he was dunked underwater. Was he ready? Why did it feel so wrong?
“You should do it” Taeil’s voice rings out from behind.
Jaehyun jumps, turning around to face him.
“Jesus! Don’t do that!” He exclaims at Taeil, grabbing his chest and subtly trying to put the napkin in his apron pocket.
Taeil raises his eyebrow at him, eyes pointing at the napkin, “You should do it”
“But-“ he starts out, “But nothing, he would want you to try you know?” Taeil cuts him off.
He sighs in defeat, clutching the napkin in between his fingers ignoring the jab at his heart before he finally nods.
He should try.
Taeil nods at him firmly, shooing him so he could take his ten-minute break.
Later that night after his shift, he does ask Jungwoo on a date, fingers dancing nervously over the keyboard.
They text all night and Jaehyun feels nervous and giddy, he shoves away the guilt that seems to be nipping at his ankles.
Finally, they do have their date. They end up walking around a museum.
Jungwoo explains everything to him and Jaehyun finds himself staring at Jungwoo more than the art.
It’s nice and different.
They end up with a magnet from the gift shop that Jungwoo insisted on buying for him, swearing that on the next date, Jaehyun could buy one for him.
It ends with Jaehyun coming back to his apartment with Jungwoo right behind him.
He silently thanks Taeyong for nagging him to clean up the apartment before he left.
His palms are sweating and he doesn’t know why. His nerves alight like a blaze that tingles all down his arms.
Jungwoo wiggles the magnet asking if he can do the honors of putting it on the fridge. He nods before excusing himself to the restroom, allowing himself a minute to panic in peace.
When he comes back, He smiles at Jungwoo and Jungwoo is smiling back.
“You need more decorations in here, all you have is pictures!” He laughs at Jaehyun.
Jaehyun shrugs and Jungwoo speaks again, “who is that in all your pictures by the way?”
He freezes, “what picture?”
Jungwoo is looking at him strangely. “The picture in the kitchen? On the fridge?”
Some part of him shuts down. He knows exactly what picture it is. He feels his eyes squeeze shut.
It’s of Doyoung and him when they graduated high school. Their cheeks squished together, smiling so hard that it hurt. The sun had already set by the time they had taken it so there was only a purplish hue lighting their faces.
Oh god. Doyoung.
Jaehyun couldn’t do this. It felt wrong like he was disrespecting Doyoung. It was wrong but when he opened his eyes, they met Jungwoo’s.
His eyes were shining in concern and worry, “Jaehyun?” He speaks again but it’s soft and he’s reaching out his hand to capture Jaehyuns. Solid and steady.
He finds himself, reliving and retelling it all to him. He can’t stop himself from spewing the words out, choking out on the clunky hard truths, the ones that keep him up at night. Jungwoo doesn’t speak until he’s finished.
Sorry,” Jaehyun whispers, “I’m just- I’m just tired.”
“The grief is gonna drown me”.
“No,” Jungwoo says softly. He’s quiet for a moment before he opens his mouth to speak and then closes it again.
His eyes are understanding and gentle, he gathers his thoughts until he finally speaks again, “I’ve never lost anyone like that and… I can’t imagine what it’s like but, it can’t be all pain right?
“Because… because isn't that just it? We never get enough time with anyone. Maybe you don’t have to move on from it but maybe you can move around it.” He continues and Jaehyun stares at him, feeling understood.
Jaehyun is reaching out and grabbing his hand, “I’m sorry for dumping this on you”
He shakes his head, “No don’t be, I was the one who asked”, Jungwoo laughs.
“I really do like you but-“ Jaehyun starts but Jungwoo smiles gently, interrupting him, “I know”
He walks Jungwoo back to his car and once they reach it.
Jungwoo is patting his face, “call me later, eventually?”
He finds himself nodding and Jungwoo shoots him another small smile before he leaves.
Left alone with his thoughts, Jaehyun doesn’t know why he spilled his guts to him. Doesn’t know why he told him the things that he couldn’t even tell Taeyong.
The fears that grip, the thought that deep down, some part of him is scared that the grief has swallowed too much of him up. That the abyss didn’t take over. It had always been just festering.
The heavyweight of his grief turned comforting, the loneliness fading away for moments at a time because Jaehyun loved, had been loved back.
That all the pieces of his life that Doyoung had fit into still mattered. That all the laughter and warmth and space that had existed, still existed as if it hadn’t been ripped from them along with him.
He thinks about all the changes that happened in his life that had aged him, that he had gathered a few more smile lines along his eyes. That on some days he could trick the world and himself that he wasn’t stuck in the past, that he wasn’t yearning and reliving out memories that have smudges on the edges.
How desperately he wanted to fast forward the tapes of his own life but yet he rewinds it, again and again. That he replays his footsteps of his life in hopes of understanding why .
Jaehyun is torn between trying to live his life and wanting to drag out the mourning, to relish in it every day until He doesn’t miss him anymore.
But no matter what happens he’ll always miss him.
And maybe that’s okay.
—-
“Taeyong wants to see a medium”, Johnny spits the word medium out with venom, he says it like it's a dirty word.
“Okay and?” Jaehyun’s own voice is dry and hoarse. He can’t see the problem here, “Taeyong apologizes to the plants he steps on and your bedroom is a fortified rock collection”
The line is quiet for a while, Jaehyun considers just hanging up on him. He used to do it all the time, no care in the world but it’s rare that he gets to talk to Johnny anymore. So he waits until Johnny lets out a sigh that Jaehyun can hear.
“He wants to talk to,” Johnny cuts himself off, his voice is deep and low as he seems to force himself to say the next words, “well, Doyoung”
“It just seems insensitive and wrong somehow,” He starts again, this time the words are self-assured and he gets that edge back in his voice.
To their surprise, Jaehyun laughs. There is no malice or sadness behind it. It’s a proper laugh.
“Yeah Doyoung never believed in any of that,” he says, smiling as the fond amusement bubbles up in his gut.
Johnny hums in agreement now, “I know! That’s why I hate the idea!” Jaehyun can’t see him but he pictures the nose scrunch that went along with it.
“Even if that stuff did exist then Doyoung would use his last chance to mess with Taeyong and get even with him” Jaehyun laughs out loud, deep and full.
He briefly imagines Doyoung spelling Fuck you, Taeyong out on the ouija board and when he tells Johnny this, a deep rumble of laughter erupts from the other side of the phone.
Belatedly in the back of his mind, Jaehyun realizes that he has missed Johnny's laughter.
After the conversation seems to flow between hours. Johnny relays the woes of corporate life and how Taeyong comes home every day with an air plant that they don’t have room for. Jungwoo’s name slips out and Johnny just hums, listening intently the whole time.
Jaehyun sighs out, “Maybe I’m just bad at healing, It feels like I’ve sleepwalking through the last couple years of my life.”
“Oh, Jaehyunie, ” Johnny says his name so tenderly, “you aren’t bad at healing, what happened isn’t something that you can just move on from. You don’t have to move on from him, just because you will always love him doesn’t mean that you don’t have more room in your heart,” Johnny sighs out fondly before continuing it with, “just think about it?”
The conversation leaves him feeling light and airy even after they hang up the phone.
He reaches for his car keys and drives until he finds himself at a door. His fist hovers above the door and he knocks, gently.
From the other side of the door, Jungwoo's smile blinds him.
——
Jaehyun returns to the lake. Recalling what Taeil said that day, he sits on the ground and remembers . He closes his eyes and tries to remember all of Doyoung. The slope of his nose, the way the corners of his mouth turned up when he was happy. The way he would blink too fast sometimes like his body couldn’t catch up to his brain. The way he loved the amber skies and the way he would step a little harder in the fall to hear the leaves crunch underneath his boots.
And just like that, Doyoung is alive. His laughter echoes in Jaehyun’s ears. “ This is so stupid ”
Doyoung would poke at him, probably. Nag him to go inside before he catches a cold. He wants to open his eyes and look at him but Jaehyun knows better.
If what Taeil said was true, he can only hope his soul reaches across the cosmos to reach Doyoungs. As he reaches for any trace of his scent, of his laughter.
For a moment, Jaehyun can pretend he’s unscathed enough to believe that there is more after this. That he gets an afterlife.
That in the universe, Doyoung can hear him, feel him reach out every time he gets lost in nostalgia, when he traces the lines of pavement, stopping at the cracks.
Maybe Doyoung can reach back, entwine their souls once again.
The wind stops and Jaehyun opens his eyes. The leaves fall once again. One leaf falls right into his lap.
You are so remembered down here. He wants to tell him, reach out of the abyss of his own soul and touch Doyoungs warmth one more time.
The tears prickle in his eyes, you are so loved.
And in that moonlight, he swears that Doyoung reaches back, the chill down his spine.
He opens his eyes and he’s not there. He’s alone.
Jaehyun knows better, but somehow Doyoung is still around. The way the leaves fall every October that passes by and one always lands in Jaehyun’s hair.
He’s there in the way that Jaehyun eats with his left hand now instead of his right. Every fall comes and goes and somehow he’s fond of the tree’s changing and the autumn chill because he is reminded of Doyoung’s Carmel coat and the way his black boots would knock against his sneakers at the bus stop where they huddled for warmth.
He’s there in the way that every time December rears its head, Taeyong cries at the drop of a hat and Johnny goes pensive in quiet moments, lost to another moment in time. Taeil leaves out white chocolate at the bakery that goes untouched and Jaehyun finds himself back at the lake.
“You are so loved.”
Jaehyun whispers desperately, the lake was somewhere he could always find him. When the world got too much for Doyoung, he would flee and only let Jaehyun come get him. Even in the bad there this was always a moment of peace for him.
“I know.”
Doyoung had whispered back, the tears shining on his face, illuminated by the moon. His hand had found Jaehyuns. Most of the time it was never enough but this time it was. They had gone home that day, huddled together, the cold didn’t matter. They had each other.
Jaehyun stands up. He dusts himself off, One leaf falls gently and lands in his hair. He lets himself smile, plucks the leaf out, and puts it in his pocket.
When he walks home alone, his sneakers crunch all the leaves in his path.