SAFETY ZONE - DMTN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQK4-mP1mTE

If there is one thing that Kim Jongin had learned throughout his life, it is to make a decision and not look back on it. He may not have lived a long life, but considering the twenty odd years that he had been living on Earth, he had faced more tragedies than most people his age normally faced in a lifetime. He used to think he was unlucky, just a kid stuck with bad luck after being dumped at an orphanage without knowing what a parent’s love and warmth felt like. But as he grew up, Jongin realized that the term unlucky was a remarkably huge understatement in his world.

Albeit the good years back at the orphanage, where things were light, breezy and carefree, the freedom that he had felt as a kid during then deteriorated quickly after he was adopted. Once he was adopted into his permanent home, by the ‘Kim’ family, every table had turned full corner on him and things went dark and bleak during his teenage years. He used to think that being adopted meant that the universe was giving him a second chance at life, love and happiness with a real family. But sadly, he was more wrong than he had ever been in his life. He had thought that after being adopted, his only reason for ever visiting the orphanage was for seeing Hari, but as time wore on, he came to miss the orphanage more than he had ever imagined.

Being adopted by a wealthy family was not at all as he had pictured it to be. In fact, just weeks of being taken in by the Kim family, he had felt a strong loss of independence and sadness that hit him all at once.

On the outside exterior, Jongin was forced to play a game of charades to keep up his new spot in the Kim family. They paraded him around as they would a charity case, keeping hold of him like a child and spoke of him like he did not understand a thing they were saying. In the eyes of these elites, adopting an orphan serves no more of a purpose than any another winning trophy onto their mantles. Except that Jongin wasn’t a trophy—he was just another piece of scrap that they had added into their recycling bin.

Sad as it was to be placed in the pathetic position, Jongin had no choice but to oblige to his parents every rule. It wasn’t so bad, really, considering that he was able to land a position in his father’s company. The only thing he was really losing by being in this company was his dignity, which he was already beating himself up for. There was nothing worse than having people talk down to you like you are retarded, but whether or not Jongin liked it or not, he could not say a damn thing back. If he wanted to survive, and keep Hari alive, he had to keep on working.

Out of everyone he knew, he had loved Hari the most. Although it wasn’t the same kind of love she wanted, he still had an unwavering amount of love and care towards her the way an older brother would care for his baby sibling. In a way, Hari was akin to a baby sibling. Jongin had spent so many years watching over her that he couldn’t imagine himself losing her, because if he did, that would be the last thread of family he had left.

Even when his family changed his name, turned him to Kai, and made him move far away, the only person he had kept in firm contact was Shin Hari. He couldn’t, didn’t, want a life without her, which is why he had bought a small, cozy one bedroom home on the outskirts of town, in the quiet, rural areas for Hari to live in. A drive to her house would take only ten minutes, and the closer she was to him, the more at peace he felt.

Jongin could still remember the day as if it was just yesterday, which is strange, because nowadays his memory was becoming more and more fuzzy with each passing day. Yet, as time would have it, this memory of Hari seemed to have ingrained itself in his memory box for the years to come.

It was one of those nights after a long tennis session, when his driver was taking Jongin home. It had been a torturous day, filled with school work, physical unrest and social meetings that Jongin had no care for. Aside from the hunger growing in his belly, going home was the only thing on his mind. Hayoung had asked him to go hang out with a couple of friends, but with all the outside activities that he had been doing these past few weeks, Jongin thought it was best that he went home and rest. It was hard trying to juggle social life, school life and relationship life all at once. During this time, he wasn’t in relationship with Hayoung, but the two of them had acknowledged their feelings towards each other. At the time, the mutual understanding of their feelings seemed enough to keep Jongin happy.

As his mind idled away after the text from Hayoung, he did a double check on whether or not Hari had messaged him yet. She had told him that she was heading home, back to the orphanage because the kids wanted her help. On this cold, wintry night however, no text had come from her. Jongin couldn’t help but feel the bubble of unease fizzing in his gut as he glanced out the window, staring out at the passing scenery. Many people out on the streets were bundled up, wearing mostly scarves and face masks to keep their faces from being frozen. The heaviness in his chest had told him that something must be wrong, but the other part of him was saying that he was just being a paranoid parent.

Hari is a big girl, Jongin had said to himself. If something was wrong, she would text me right? She wouldn’t just up and go somewhere without letting me know…

Despite him trying to ease off the concern he had for Hari by distracting himself with a match he had the following Saturday, it didn’t seem like the worry was planning to go away. With a defeated sigh, he decided to give her a call. It was kind of a rule they had, to only call when things were completely necessary. After the fourth ring, Jongin slammed his phone shut and clenched his teeth in agitation. Thinking back to Hari this morning at school, it didn’t seem like anything was out of the norm.

Hari had been her normal self, bubbly, not so much as chatty but she was talking a great deal about travelling and a book she was reading called, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.

Wait a minute, Jongin halted on his thoughts. He shut his eyes, trying to recall the memory of their conversation.

---

You held your thick stack of books to your chest and leaned your back against a locker. Staring amiably at Kai, who was trying to find a book he misplaced in there.

“You think that the power of fate can be left in the hands of a person, or do you think it is willed by nature, Jongin?” You asked him, curious to hear his answer. Usually Jongin was the person you had gone to whenever you were going through a confusing, obstacle in your life and needed guidance to put you on the right path. He didn’t always have an answer to them, but at least he had a reply.

Kai, who had been trying hard to find the book he lost, poked his head out. With an arched eyebrow, he cleared his throat, hinting that you shouldn’t be calling him Jongin anymore. When you caught sight of that, you rolled your eyes dramatically. God, this was the umpteenth time he had done that!

“I’m asking you a serious question, and here you are, worried that someone would find out about your name. Since when have you become such a pretentious nit-pick?”

At the mention of the word, nit-pick, Kai cracked a tiny smile. He never thought of himself as one, but seeing as you were right, he couldn’t help but entertain the thought of it. “I don’t know, Hari. Fate is a funny thing that we humans encounter. I can’t say that is something we can control, though… to control fate is a lot like having the power to control the future.”

“Unless you are a psychic, right? Pyschics get to control their futures,” said Hari.

Kai finally found the physics book, hidden underneath all the other books that he had piled up on it. He yanked it out and stood up, his knees cracking all the while as he straightened out his legs. Shutting his locker and placing the book on top of your other books, he shrugged, “I don’t even think Pyschics know their own future. Something tells me that they can read into ours, but can’t meddle with theirs.”

“Well that’s a bummer,” frowned Hari, her expression deflated from early on.   

“Why do you ask, anyway?” wondered Kai, it’s not often that Hari was curious about the strings of fate.

“I was up late reading into Picture of Dorian Gray, and a quote seized my interest entirely. ‘Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows…’  A quote said by the Painter Basil after his encounter with Dorian Gray. I just found it rather crazy that one can become so deranged with such thoughts after meeting someone like Dorian, even if they hadn’t known each other for long, how could one person bring forth such big winds of emotions to someone they didn’t know?” explained Hari.

The two had been walking rather slowly, as Kai listened carefully to what Hari had to say. When she finished, he let his mind sink the words she had spoken down. “Well you are an artist just as well as Basil is, aren’t you Hari? Shouldn’t