trigger warning: graphic references to physical abuse of a minor.

Jaebum starts awake to the sound of thunder.

His head is pounding when he gets up, the back of his neck prickling, and he fumbles with the blankets before getting out of bed, completely disoriented. What time is it now? He almost trips on the fabric as he stands, flinching at the second crack of thunder, sharper this time.

He flicks on the light, heart rate suddenly speeding up, stepping out into the living room. There’s food, getting cold, now, on the table, probably left by Jinyoung in case someone got hungry, and the living room light suddenly seems dim and harsh in the stark emptiness of the place, now.

Something’s wrong. He’s blinking in the fuzzy light of the room, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, muscles taut with tension despite the fact that he’s standing in his own house, his own living room. 

Another rolling crackle of thunder prompts him to go check on Yugyeom, to make sure the boy is alright, though he never really did have a problem with storms. It was always Jinyoung who hated the loud crashes of sound and bright flashes of light that plagued them during the rain.

Before he can, however, a flash of lightning illuminates something that’d previously been shrouded in semi-darkness on the coffee table- it’s a book, Jaebum realises, a small, dark one that looks strangely familiar. And while he’s used to Jinyoung leaving books lying all over the house, sometimes, this one’s unlabelled, worn around the edges, and there’s something about the purposeful way it’s been left on the table, neatly aligned to the centre, not haphazardly thrown, like Jinyoung would’ve left it.

Jaebum draws closer, breath hitching in his chest when he finally recognises it- it’s Yugyeom’s planner.

It’s unsettling, almost, how a little black book like that manages to throw Jaebum off so badly. What’s it doing here? He hadn’t seen the boy’s shoes outside their apartment on the way in. He’d left today, like he was supposed to.

Gyeommie’s being awfully quiet, even more than usual. Jaebum takes a step away from the coffee table to check the boy’s room, when a particularly sharp clap of thunder makes him jump, sending shockwaves through the compact living room and chills down his spine. Involuntarily, he glances back, unnerved, and feels something in his stomach twist violently.

There’s a post-it stuck to the cover of the book now. One that hadn’t been there before. Or had it? Had he just completely missed it in his anxiety to check on Yugyeom?

For Dad.

It’s amazing, how two simple words can set Jaebum on edge like this. He sends his gaze spinning across the room, confirming that no one is, indeed, in the room with him, but as he takes a step towards the coffee table, he can’t help but feel like someone’s watching.

Slowly taking a seat on the couch, he picks the book up hesitantly. The pictures in it make it thicker than it actually should be, little jagged edges of glossy film poking out every which way. For some reason, he feels the compelling urge to just open it, though he knows he has no right to pry in the first place. “For Dad”. This is for Yugyeom’s father, not him.

One page won’t hurt. Just to make sure this is his.

Bracing himself, Jaebum flips the cover, fingers inexplicably trembling and jittery, as if in fear of what to come. But it doesn’t make sense- this is a teenage boy’s journal, what’s there to be afraid of?

He lets out a slight breath at the sight of the first page, even smiling, a little- there are two pictures, here, printed in the same odd sort of film, sturdy but worn with age. The first one is of Yugyeom and another boy, whom Jaebum supposes must be his boyfriend, because Yugyeom’s arms are wrapped around him, eyes fixed upon him with a tremulous, quiet sort of adoration, while the other boy’s smiling at the camera, probably the one taking the photo. He looks sort of familiar, Jaebum realises, after a while- it’s something to do with the cheeks-…

It’s then he sees the second picture, and his heart seems to drop right into his stomach, then.

It’s them. The three of them, when Gyeommie had been seated on Jaebum’s lap and reaching to get a toy truck from the table, Jaebum half-asleep in front of the television, while Jinyoung smiled, telling them excitedly to look at the camera as he snapped the photo- Jaebum, Jinyoung, Gyeommie, written on the side of the film. Why the hell would Yugyeom have their photo?

But Jaebum knows for a fact they’d only taken this photo a few days ago- the exact day before Yugyeom showed up at the bench under the streetlight that night, to be precise. But this photo’s already worn with age, yellowed around the edges in a way that they can only achieve after being tucked in an album for years- how, when he hasn’t even developed this photo?

Then Jaebum notices the markings in untidy scrawl on the side, and he squints, shifting the planner so he can look at it in the light. With an arrow pointing to the first picture, there’s an annotation of now, and pointing to the second picture, an annotation of then.

Something horrible and cold sinks into Jaebum then, as he flips the page to look at the date printed on the top left of the book.

2027, January 1^st.

Yugyeom-…Yugyeom’s from the future.

cont. from prev pages- so bam says I shouldn’t write things down on paper and leave them all over the place, so he gave me this planner. In case I forget my reality, he said, like I did the first few times I travelled, I need to write everything down so I don’t risk coming back one day and completely forgetting who I am.

so, at the risk of sounding stupid, uh, my name is im yugyeom. I’m seventeen turning eighteen this year, I go to se-jong science high school, I live at the guro district, apartment block 20 #4-23. the year is 2027.

Jaebum feels his throat go dry at the second realisation.

Yugyeom is his son.

those are the normal bits. yeah. the reason why I’m writing this at all is because, well, I can time travel. I don’t know how it started either- yerin’s always said I spend a lot more time stuck in the past than I do in the present, anyway. short term, I just rewind to go back to a few minutes or seconds ago, but when it comes to years, days, weeks, I travel through pictures- as long as I have a picture of that time, I can go back to it- think like, video game checkpoints. I mess whatever I need to mess up in the past, and when I come back, voila, my reality has changed.

so im yugyeom, if you’re reading this now, don’t get distracted by the prospect of winning the lottery- trust me, I tried, it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. just remember the one thing you’re doing all this for.

Jaebum flips the page, looking at the lone picture, followed by the newspaper clipping occupying the page space, and in that moment his heart feels like it’s stopped.

It’s him, in a stiff, high-collared white shirt and black pants, hands on little Yugyeom’s shoulders, similarly dressed. And beside them, sitting on a table and surrounded by tea lights, is a lone picture of Jinyoung, smiling, in a dark frame, wreathed in white roses.

He goes to the newspaper headline next, and it’s all he needs to confirm and suspicion that’s hovering, with increasing dread, in his chest.

DRUNK DRIVING ACCIDENT, TRAGEDY: 2 FATALITIES

No. This is wrong. This is fake, edited, this is some sick joke.

papa died in a car crash when I was six, according to jackson samcheon. they say no one expected it- it was just bad luck, because it was raining and the driver was drunk and mounted the kerb. the driver died too, and I used to think that was better, so dad wouldn’t have anyone to be angry at. apparently papa was coming back from getting the car from the garage, and the other car hit him from the driver’s side. Dad wasn’t the one who told me that- I found it out from Junho-samcheon. dad hates talking about papa.

Jaebum’s hands are cold and shaking when he flips the page, to more scrawls, littered with pictures here and there.

I don’t remember much from then- dad got rid of a lot of papa’s things and old photos. dad seemed okay at first- he didn’t want to talk at all. I guess he was hurting a lot- maybe I left him alone after that because I thought he wanted to be alone, I don’t remember anything from back then. and I guess that’s what they thought too. they thought he was okay after a couple years, so they didn’t ask him about papa or how he was doing anymore.

maybe I should’ve told them he wasn’t.

it’s my fault he gets angry and upset, I guess. that’s why I need to fix it.

There’s a single thread of logic holding Jaebum’s entire sanity together, now, convincing him that none of this is true, that Jinyoung’s safe on his way home, Gyeommie’s sleeping in his room, and that this is all just a disgusting prank. He pushes onwards simply because he wants to disprove it, because he wants to find something that’ll tell him all this isn’t real.

The next few pages are filled with similar accounts, little snatches of life here and there, illuminated by gloomy photos and bits of paper. Jaebum’s hastily pressing a photo down to try to get a better look at it in the bad lighting when something sounds off near him, and he almost drops the book in shock.

He whirls around in the semi-dark living room, eyes wild. No one’s there.

Something occurs to him, then, at the thought of the strange film and its unique material, and the fact that it came from a time almost ten years in the future, and he lifts the book, touching the picture again- the noise dims, and the scenery changes, and suddenly Jaebum’s sitting in the same living room, except the lights are brighter, and it’s quieter, without the sounds of rain.

Yugyeom hides in a corner of his room, playing with the old camera Daddy had left lying around when moving out all of Papa’s things, eyes dull with exhaustion and tears and confusion, in clothes that are growing too small and running out too fast. He doesn’t dare to tell Daddy, though, because he might start shouting again.

Daddy’s sitting at the table, settling the papers that started piling up after Papa died- Mark samcheon offered to help, but Daddy said he didn’t want to trouble them. He’s drinking something Yugyeom’s never saw before when Papa was alive- he’s been drinking a lot of that lately. Yugyeom took it to try it once, but Daddy hit him across the face till his nose bled.

Daddy’s never hit Yugyeom like that before.

He said sorry, but Yugyeom still cried.

Jaebum wrenches his hand from the photo, breaths shaking in his chest, willing himself to believe everything he just saw wasn’t true, there’s an explanation for this, none of this will ever happen or come true-…

He flips the page hastily, and touches another picture- it’s one of a noticeably older Yugyeom, this time, at the park behind Mark and Jackson’s apartment, quietly eating a sandwich at the corner of a picnic mat, while Bambam poses cheerfully for the camera- Mark or Jackson must’ve brought them out and taken the picture then.

Yugyeom’s ten, now, and he’s memorised a route to Bambam’s house on his bicycle. Dad bought that for his ninth birthday- maybe he wants Yugyeom out of the house as much as Yugyeom does.

It’s confusing- some days Dad buys Yugyeom toys and chocolate milk and bicycles, some days Dad shouts a lot and slams doors and doesn’t come home. Yugyeom doesn’t know how to tell one from the other, so he hides in his room a lot, and stays far, far away from Dad, whether he’s at school, or at Bambam’s house.

Dad gets angrier because of that sometimes. Yugyeom doesn’t know what to do.

Mark and Jackson gave him lunch today and brought him to the park to play- they let him spend as much time over at their house as he wants. Bambam even says they wanted to move closer one time, but Dad blew up when they brought it up. Dad hates it when other people ask questions about how he’s doing, or try to find out why he’s upset, because he says they never do it with good intentions. He says it’s not their business, and they shouldn’t act like they care.

Maybe he’s never known what it feels like to watch someone you love hurt like he does. Maybe if he did, he wouldn’t get so angry at everyone anymore.

Jaebum feels like he can’t breathe when he finishes that one. It’s all starting to make horrible, disgusting sense.

Amongst the everyday, normal photos that follow are bleaker ones scattered between them. One is of Yugyeom’s room, and Jaebum just manages to glimpse the living room outside through the door, left ajar- everything seems old, broken, in disarray, nothing like the way he would’ve left things if he’d been in his right mind, and beside the picture is a flyer opening for work positions at a café.

Jaebum lost his job today. Yugyeom has no idea if he’ll be able to get another one, or if he’ll even try. There are bills, school fees, that need to be paid, even with the financial assistance they’re receiving, and Yugyeom doesn’t want to ask Mark and Jackson for money again.

If only Jaebum would stop drinking- they might have enough money to cover their living expenses, then. But he just starts shouting whenever Yugyeom tries to talk.

Yugyeom vows that he’s going to leave this wretched house once he gets to go to college sometimes, going to leave Jaebum and every other bit of this life behind him and move on. But then he thinks of Bambam, of Mark and Jackson, of his father, and he burns those promises like the little round marks on his skin where dying cigarettes have been pressed in.

Jaebum’s hands are shaking so hard now he can barely turn the pages. Another picture, not much further on, is of broken glass and bloody gauze on the floor of a room Jaebum just barely recognises from his numerous visits to Mark and Jackson’s place- Bambam’s room. When Jaebum touches this picture, reluctantly, he hears voices, now.

“How is it?” Yugyeom’s hunched over, cross-legged on the floor, shirt balled in his hands, and Bambam doesn’t say a word, at first. He’s picking glass out of a messy gash on Yugyeom’s back under a torchlight, dropping little shards into a bowl of water, already faintly pink with blood.

“Gyeom,” Bambam eventually says steadily. “I think you should report-…”

“Don’t say it,” Yugyeom grits out.

“Then how about you actually do something about it?” Bambam lets out a frustrated sigh, dabbing fruitlessly at the blood with an alcohol swab. “He’s hurting you now, this isn’t like before.”

“What if they charge him? Want to lock him up?” Yugyeom turns back, unable to do so fully without hissing in pain. “Would you put your dad in jail, Bam?”

“I would get help,” Bambam says firmly. “C’mon, Gyeom, before things get worse.”

“He’s already worse,” Yugyeom mumbles. “Bam-…I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t get out of the house, he hasn’t been eating…it’s like he’s waiting to die.”

Horrible realisation sinks in when the scene dissolves- those wounds he’d seen on Yugyeom’s back that night, then…

I did that echoes in Jaebum’s head long after he’s flipped the page- he’s just skimming through the pictures he sees now, all documenting the steady deterioration of Yugyeom’s life, waiting for the nightmare to end. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for- like he’s feeling for a full stop, some form of catharsis to the living hell that’s playing out here. He’s almost at the end of the book now, and while he’s desperate for it to end, he’s terrified at the thought what he’ll find.

Then he stops, at a page free of pictures and scrawls, furnished only with a single newspaper clipping, smudged and crumpled, like someone had crushed it into a ball, before flattening every crease, slowly and thoroughly, and attaching it here.

41-YEAR-OLD MAN COMMITS SUICIDE; SON ORPHANED ONCE MORE

There’s no accompanying annotation, no picture, no trace of anything on that page. Just nothing.

He flips the page, completely numb inside, before coming to what reminds him of a flowerbed of photos, a gradual letdown from a tragedy.

I did all this.

There’s no anger, no sadness, no pain, now, just shame, burning him up from the inside out, crushing and dreary, like he’s locked into it, now. That’s it, he thinks. That’s the end of the story. Yugyeom’s just come back for understanding of some sort, or even for revenge, or-…

But Jaebum doesn’t realise he’s touching one of the pictures on the book, until the scene dissolves again, sinking him into the same living room, except more people are in here now, moving out boxes of things from his and Jinyoung’s room, talking in murmurs and whispers.

“Hey,” Yugyeom looks up, and Bambam settles down beside him, outside Jaebum’s old room. They budge over to make way as Jackson takes another box of things out, setting them beside the door. Bambam’s got something in his hands- a faded teal and white album covered in yellowing plastic. “Look what I found.”

Yugyeom accepts the album quietly, sending Bambam a tired, questioning sort of look, and being met with a hopeful, reassuring expression. He puts down the CD jacket of old Blu-rays and indie films he’d previously been holding, before opening the album Bambam gave him, and stilling.

“Guess he didn’t throw all of them out, right?” Bambam’s watching Yugyeom carefully, knees gathered to his chest, eyes flicking once to the album of childhood photos, noting the way Yugyeom’s staring at the one of the two men, one carrying a little smiling boy on his lap, a toy truck in his hands, the other reaching up to take the photo. “I uhm, I found these loose in his stuff, and sort of, well, compiled them in this album.”

“He kept these?” Yugyeom’s flipping the page, fingers tracing another photo, this one of that same little boy pressing cookie cutters into dough, while a man he barely recognises laughs, eyes crinkling into pretty crescents, as he lays the dough shapes onto a metal tray.

“You know, I feel-…” Bambam’s biting his lip, voice hopeful, still looking at Yugyeom anxiously. “I feel like my dad was right. Your dad really did love you.”

Yugyeom scoffs, pushing the album off his lap, so it lands on the floor with a thud, but his voice trembles. “Yeah right. Then maybe you could tell me why he stopped.”

“Maybe he didn’t,” the older boy prods, unfazed, sitting closer, taking his hand, their fingers naturally together. “Maybe he just forgot how to.”

Yugyeom doesn’t say anything for a while there, but he picks up the album again, frown softening, like he’s deep in thought.

…-or he’s here to change it.

The thought makes Jaebum tense, suddenly alert, the echoes of a nightmare coming to haunt him again.

So it never happened.

He flips the page quickly, almost dropping the book in his haste- there are entire pages here now, ripped out from their books and taped here. It takes him a while, but he understands what they’re about.

They’re passages on time travel. Different paragraphs of information from different books, all saying the same thing.

In between pages, Yugyeom’s scribbled something in the margins- “changing the circumstances doesn’t work. tried hiding their keys so papa wouldn’t be able to leave the house, tried sending a reminder from junho-samcheon’s phone to papa to remind him to pick it up earlier in the day. some things just don’t change here, like papa’s death.

something’s preventing his death in this timeline from changing- but it makes sense. if the location where the apple seed is to be planted must be changed, the location of the apple tree that grows later cannot remain the same.

what’s the apple tree preventing the planting of the seed elsewhere, now?”

Jaebum’s head is spinning from the analogies and the technical terms, and he realizes, with a pang, that Jinyoung would’ve loved to talk about something like this with Yugyeom. They would’ve had so much in common. He thinks back, here, to that day on the bus, the conversation they’d had, the praises Jinyoung had sung about how intelligent and perceptive he’d been. If only-…if only they’d had a little more time together-…

If only Jinyoung knew the second son he wanted so badly was actually theirs.

He ends up skipping most of the passages, all with indecipherable scribbles in the white spaces between, theories and analogies and odd, circular diagrams, naturally drawn, however, to the passage at the end, with a big star drawn in red ink next to it.

“…the grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel which results in an inconsistency through changing the past. Despite the name, it does not exclusively regard the impossibility of one's own birth. Rather, it regards any action that eliminates the cause or means of traveling back in time.”

The grandfather paradox…it sounds familiar, despite Jaebum’s general illiteracy in this field. Probably something Jinyoung had mentioned in passing, or something he’d read before. Then he realizes- the passage here is from the book Yugyeom was carrying that day, on the bus back from the garage.

Beside it, a piece of string is taped there, two black dots inked in with marker, and the two dots brought together so they form a loop, like in a roller coaster.

The first dot is labelled then, and the other labelled now. Over them, a crude scissors has been drawn from the second dot over the first dot, like it’s about to cut the string away.

There’s a highlighted passage under it.

“An equivalent paradox is known (in philosophy) as autoinfanticide, going back in time and killing oneself as a baby.”

Sudden, horrible realization sinks low in his gut for the second time that night.

“…a number of hypotheses have been postulated to avoid the paradox, such as the idea that the past is unchangeable, so the grandfather must have already survived the attempted killing (as stated earlier); or the time traveller creates—or joins—an alternate timeline or parallel universe in which the traveller was never born.”

There’s a final sentence written under it, but the ink here is fresh, script messy like it’d just been written hastily.

To Dad- if you ever read this, I get it now. I understand, and I’m sorry for not doing anything earlier.

You put so much into forgetting your father that it was the only way you could cope with Papa dying too, by pretending he never existed. I guess we just spent all those years assuming there was no value in remembering things that don’t exist tangibly anymore. We forgot Papa, and now I realise that’s worse than being sad over the fact that he’s gone.

So what you said this morning surprised me- you said that it was okay to want to remember sometimes.

You’re right, there are no good and bad people, only good and bad things and the people they happen through. I guess I didn’t know how to deal with the bad that happened through you, so I didn’t want to deal with you at all. Like Bam says- without Papa around, I guess we just forgot how to love each other.

But as things are now, I can’t fix it. There’s a reason why you and Papa are never alive, no matter how much I try to change in the past to prevent it. There’s a fixed variable that never changes no matter how much I alter, a product of your deaths that guarantees they existed in the first place.

Me.

Because I am the living proof that my parents died in this timeline.

I am the apple tree that prevents the sower from changing where he plants the seed.  

To make sure Dad and Papa never die, I can’t just change everything that happened after the night Papa died.

I have to erase it.  

Jaebum doesn’t even bother finishing the last sentence before throwing down the book, eyes wild, heart thundering in his chest, racing over to Yugyeom’s room, fist tightening around the doorknob and throwing the door open.

*

Two boys are walking in the rain.

The teenager’s holding the little boy’s hand, his other hand shielding his face from the rain. The boy’s jumping in puddles, laughing at the strange sensation of walking in the rain like this, clothes drenched and sticking to his skin.

A passer-by stops them in concern, offering his umbrella. “For the little boy, at least,” he says, shivering, himself, in the cold, but the teenager politely refuses, thanking him.

“We’re almost home,” he explains with a gentle smile.

The boy’s teeth are starting to chatter when they walk a few more streets on, and the teen notices, before wrapping his windbreaker around him, pulling the hood over his head. “We’re almost there,” he encourages, taking his hand to continue on their journey.

There’s hardly anyone on the streets now, at this hour and in the rain, and they have a clear route all the way down.

“You’re not scared?” the older boy asks, as the younger one braves through the rain. 

“I was,” the boy admits, only after a pause, like he’s confessing to having taken an extra cookie when he shouldn’t have.

“It might-…” the teen hesitates. “Even if it might be painful?”

The boy considers his words with a thoughtful frown, lips pursed in a pout.

“If we do this, Papa and Daddy will be safe, right? Safe from all the things you showed me last night?”

There’s a long pause after this, as a gust of wind blows by, making them both shiver.

“Yeah,” Yugyeom smiles down eventually, and Gyeommie beams back.

“Then it’s okay!” he skips jauntily for a few more steps, before sneezing.

“Yeah?” Yugyeom pulls the windbreaker a little tighter around him, before looking up again, smiling slightly. There’s the sound of a car screeching in the distance, pulling around the corner, a scene he’s seen so many times he could probably calculate the speed of the car by now, see the look on the driver’s face, see the unnatural angle that it curves before mounting the kerb. “I think so too.”

They’re almost at the corner of the street, now, and another car’s approaching, just half a minute away, engine humming smoothly, almost inaudibly, over the sound of the rain.

“Hyung,” Gyeommie tugs at the hand he’s holding, looking up, as they walk into the middle of the now deserted road. “You said we’d get to see Papa one last time, right?”

“Yeah, we will,” Yugyeom turns them both, pointing at the pair of lights winking at them, coming closer, blocking out the glare of the other set of headlights, fast approaching, wrapping an arm around the boy, like he’s muffling the screech of tyres against wet asphalt. “Make sure you look out for Papa, okay?”

There’s an unmistakeable crunch of metal on pavement, then, the sound of a bumper hitting cement at maximum speed, the flash of a bright set of lights, and Yugyeom flinches, but keeps his focus straight ahead on the second car, now slowing to a stop uncertainly a couple of metres away from them, keeps his eyes on the familiar face behind the wheel, expression contorted with confusion.

“Make sure you don’t look anywhere else, okay?” Yugyeom’s breath hitches as he forces himself not to move- the headlights coming from the side cast their shadows in long, ghastly streaks across the dark road, and music’s playing from inside, loud enough for them to hear. There’s a final, deafening screech as the car skids, but the little boy, obedient as ever, doesn’t look.

Instead, he raises a hand, beaming at Jinyoung through the windscreen, and waves goodbye.

*

Jaebum stares at the empty room, both Yugyeom’s bed and the futon neatly made, light on, like the boy could come running out from behind at any moment, giggling and running over to latch onto Jaebum’s leg.

He turns around, breath tearing itself through his airways, thoughts buzzing like wildfire through his mind, before realising that the wretched book’s no longer on the floor. Instead, it’s been replaced on the table, in its original, neat position.

Jaebum rushes over, grabbing it, like it could be an instruction manual to tell him how to stop all this before it happens, before he can never do anything about it again. Then he notices that the post-it’s changed- now it says For Yugyeom.

Regardless, Jaebum flips it open, searching for something he might’ve missed, something that’ll tell him what to change, but notices something off about the photos near the front.

They’ve been taped over with new ones. New ones he hadn’t seen before.

It’s a picture of a beer minifridge at the supermarket, the same one he’d pointed out to Yugyeom that day. It’s been pasted over the first picture Jaebum had touched. Underneath, carefully written, is a little annotation, saying Dad never used to drink when Papa was alive.

Something clenching in his gut, he flips through the rest of the book. Some remain the same, but some have, like this one, had other pictures pasted over them, like Yugyeom’s rewriting his history.

Changing it. Like it never happened.

Over the picnic picture Jaebum had touched next is a candid shot of all of them, Mark, Jackson and Bambam included, laughing and talking, when they’d come over on Sunday. Under it again is written Dad used to let them come over to hang out.

The third one, Jaebum doesn’t recognise, because it’s been taken in the dim glow of a nightlight in Yugyeom’s room, of the light pouring in through a crack at the door- Yugyeom had taken it on Sunday night, Jaebum realises, when they thought he’d been asleep.

I promised Dad I’d take care of him when I was little.

And finally, over the picture of the gauze and broken glass, a picture of Jaebum himself, walking away, taken this very morning after their conversation at the bench under the streetlight.

Dad said he was proud of me.

He realises his phone’s ringing, then, and fumbles, fingers shaking so badly he can barely press the receive button, before raising it to his ear.

“Hyung!” it’s Jinyoung, voice punctured by hiccups and sobs, into the speaker, rain crackling against the pavement like a live wire in the background.

“Jinyoung, are you okay?” Jaebum asks urgently, book momentarily forgotten. “Where are you?”

“Hyung, they- I don’t get it, why-…”

“Who’s “they”, Jinyoung,” Jaebum presses, though the sickening sensation of dread in his stomach tells him he already knows.

“Yugyeom, both of them, they were standing in the middle of the road, I don’t even know why,” Jinyoung sounds frustrated, grieved, pained, all at once, breath hitching in his chest through his tears. “A car-…it came out of nowhere, and hit them, hyung-…there’s blood everywhere, the ambulance just drove off, I don’t know what to do-…”

Jaebum can’t speak, entire body frozen- he realises he’s reached the page where the newspaper clipping of his suicide’s supposed to be, but the clipping’s gone, ripped out from the book, just the little edge where it’d been taped in remaining. Instead, something’s been written in its place.

I’m glad I got to spend these last four days with my family. Even if I don’t know where I’ll be after this, at least they’ll be alive, and they’ll be happy. And that's enough for me.

My name is Im Yugyeom. My Dad is Im Jaebum, and my Papa is Park Jinyoung.

I’m happy I didn’t move on from them.

“NO!” Jaebum flings the book across the room like it’s poison before he knows what he’s doing, and it hits the wall, photos spilling out and scattering on the floor. They’re turning white, Jaebum realises, with sick jolt of grief and fear- each piece of film is being returned to its original, clean, white state, like they’re files being wiped clean from a disk, memories being erased. “No, no, Gyeommie, please, there’s another way, we can fix this-…”

“Hyung, he-…” Jinyoung’s voices buzzes desperately from the phone again, loud enough to reach Jaebum. “He called me Papa. Yugyeom called me Papa. I don’t understand, what’s he trying to say, is he-…?”

A newspaper clipping’s come fluttering down to Jaebum’s feet, a mess of fuzzy grey and black ink, until the words finally solidify into a proper sentence. It’s the one of Jinyoung’s accident, and Jaebum’s chest seems to constrict painfully.

The headline’s changed, now, too.

Just like it never happened.

DRUNK DRIVING ACCIDENT, RELIEF: NONE DEAD

a/n: written in one sitting, whilst listening to this and this. again, thank you all for your support ^.^ i wouldn't have made it this far without you all \o/