Thank you for all your lovely comments! Here's another chapter for you guys.

6.

Jonghyun had a knack for finding things. Or rather, he had the ability to do so. Locating lost items were his specialty.

In this world of quirky magic and bizarre wonders, people were born gifted with special abilities. Magical powers, you could call them. The range of the abilities present was non-exhaustive, and every few years, a new ability would pop up. While some resembled those seen in Marvel comics, there were many others that were considerably less impressive and understandably underwhelming (that’s in comparison with the powers that wand-waving or ring-brandishing boys had).

And in this world of Jonghyun’s, the odds of a person landing himself a strange and less-than-useful ability were higher than that of an earth-shaking, sky-tearing power. But the Fates favoured him in that life and Jonghyun got himself a strange yet useful ability. His intuitive senses for finding items missing were unnaturally well-honed. Well, they would be. It was his ability after all.

And Jonghyun’s ability made him extremely popular, especially so with the scattered-minded and spaced-out. They viewed him as a godsend and exploited him as much as legally possible. Jonghyun received at least 15 requests daily—and that’s on a good day.

“Hey, what’s your ability?” the boy assigned to the seat behind him asked, face on elbows, as he curiously leaned forward, “I am G.O.”

“I can find things,” Jonghyun said, shrugging his shoulders the way he only could. He did it in such a manner that managed to lay claims to both false modesty and humble bragging in equal parts, “And I am Jonghyun.”

“Oh, that’s cool, Jonghyun,” G.O.’s eyes widened appreciatively, “Maybe you can help me find the water bottle I lost during orientation just now.”

“Maybe, if we have time later,” Jonghyun replied, tone noncommittal, “What’s your ability anyway?”

“I can make the skies thunder.”

“Oh.”

The Bureau of Statistics had informed Jonghyun that 85% of the population was born with ‘abilities that would matter little in the grand scheme of things’, 10% ‘abilities that would be of aid when going about’ and 5% ‘abilities that would go against the very fabric of nature’. But Jonghyun had always wondered if the government’s data was wrong or it just so happened that his life was an anomaly, because the people surrounding him all seemed to belong to the 5%.

Myungsoo had telekinesis. Junho had levitation. And now, the kid beside him had thunder. Maybe there were fewer reasons for him to be as proud of his ability as he previously thought there were.

-

Jonghyun had a kind heart and couldn’t find it in himself to reject anyone, especially so when people sent him pleading looks and appealed to his better nature (his childhood friend, Junho, had practically honed his pitiful expression into an art. Thank god he moved away). Jonghyun found himself running all over the place every day, hunting for lost wallets and other miscellaneous items in the most unlikely of places. Perhaps Fates didn’t like him that much after all.

When Jonghyun’s younger brother grew up and proved himself to be one of the strangest and most careless people in the world, Jonghyun’s doubts were assuaged.

The Fates didn’t dislike him, they must have hated him.

Jonghyun sighed as the magazine he was reading suddenly floated out of his grasp. There were no sudden drafts of air and there was definitely no one who appeared to be holding onto it. The magazine seemed to have floated into thin air out of its own volition.

Jonghyun came to a conclusion quickly enough. Myungsoo must be the one doing it.

He turned around and scanned the room for any sign of the young boy and spotted him soon enough. The boy was behind the wall, hiding. Sorta. The ears of his fluffy rabbit slippers were peeking out.

“Myungsoo, what do you want?” Jonghyun asked tiredly. He had just spent a whole day out searching for missing stereo sets and his legs were aching as a result. He really didn’t feel like being bothered that night. Just a night alone with his magazine and him—was that too much to ask for?

(The stereo set was eventually located on the face of Mt. Vesuvius, tucked just behind a clump of unnaturally thick shrubbery. The shrubs were thorny and hardy, proving their resilience to foraging animals as well as to trespassing humans. When Jonghyun and his friends finally managed to lug the stereo set out of the tangled mass of spiteful thorns and unyielding vines, their pants were torn and their legs understandably scratched.

 Jonghyun never got round to asking how did the stereo set got there in the first place. He figured there were some things better left unknown.)

“I lost my bottlecap. The one with an orange frogcat on it.” Myungsoo replied, stepping into Jonghyun’s room. He sat down on the floor and pulled a pillow off the bed into his lap.

“Oh, poor thing,” Jonghyun said in a deadpan voice as he snatched the magazine out of the air, “I hope it found a good place for itself in heaven.”

Myungsoo’s brows furrowed, and the magazine in Jonghyun’s hands tugged insistently. Jonghyun refused to let go and strengthened his grip on the pages. Physical strength versus telekinesis—the match of the century. Nervermind the fact that Myungsoo was a pretty strong telekinetic and Jonghyun was worn out from the day’s activities.

The tug of war went on for a minute or two before the sound of paper tearing could be heard.

Jonghyun yelped and immediately let go. The magazine flew out of his hands, across the room, before suspending itself just out of Jonghyun’s reach. Jonghyun was appalled. He paid $27.90 for that magazine. It was imported.

Myungsoo snuggled into the pillow, a barely perceptible smile on his face.

“That cost me $27.90!”Jonghyun was outraged, “And you tore it!”

“Fustchcall had been with me for 4 years, 2 months and 11 days,” Myungsoo hugged the pillow tighter, “And you won’t help me find him.” His tone was petulant.

“Who cares about Fuseball, I couldn’t—“Jonghyun started, “Wait, what? Fuseball?”

“My bottlecap with an orange frogcat on it. He’s striped green on a white background,” Myungsoo mumbled, “And he’s not Fuseball, but Fustchcall.”

“What?”

“I lost my bottlecap.”

“No, wait. I’m still not over Fusecall yet.”

“Fustchcall. He’s Fustchcall.”

“Who’s named Fudchcall?”

“My green and white bottlecap with an orange frogcat on it.”

A significant pause. Jonghyun took in a deep breath to steady himself before bursting incredulously, “You named a bottlecap?”

“He’s more than a bottlecap. He’s Fustchcall.” Myungsoo glared daggers at Jonghyun.

“You named a bottlecap? You named a bottlecap?” Jonghyun’s voice rose in volume as he stared at Myungsoo, flabbergasted, “What sort of name is Fuchball anyway?”

At this point, the two other pillows on the bed, together with the one in Myungsoo’s lap, floated into the air and surrounded Jonghyun threateningly. The three pillows encircled Jonghyun’s head, their blue pillowcases flapping in the still air. Jonghyun could spy Myungsoo’s angry eyes fixed on him.

“Are you threatening me right now? Because pillows aren’t exactly threaten—“ Jonghyun’s words were cut short as the three pillows suddenly launched at him, hitting him squarely in the face, chest and legs. Ouch.

Jonghyun spent a futile moment trying to fight off the terrifying attack of the fluffy trio that seemed hell-bent on thumping him solidly. But it was really hard to win against pillows, especially his own pillows. He couldn’t exactly tear his pillows apart, could he?

After a period of arms and legs wildly striking out and hitting empty air, Jonghyun waved his hands in the air, “Alright, I give, I give! I surrender! I am raising the white flag now.”

The pillows stopped in their attacks and fell from the air. One of the pillows returned to Myungsoo’s embrace. Throughout the whole scuffle, Myungsoo never so much as moved an arm. Telekinesis was really perfect for a lazy little brat like him.

“Ok, what do you want?” Jonghyun sighed, running a hand through his messed-up hair.

“I want your help.”

“To find Fuseball?”

“Futschcall,” Myungsoo said, “Yea.”

“It’s very important to you?”

“Yes.”

“So much so that you will force your only brother to wander down some dank, dark alleyway at 11 at night?”

“Yes.” There wasn’t any hesitation.

(The Fates must have really hated him, giving him a brother like that.)

Jonghyun felt his resistance crumbling. He looked out of the window, making out the vague outline of Mount Vesuvius against the dim moonlight. The moon wasn’t even shining that brightly that night.

Oh well, at least it wasn’t raining.

Jonghyun let out a heavy sigh, “Ok, let’s go then.”

They later found the bottlecap under the infirmary bed’s mattress in school. It was 1am by then.

And somehow, a hand span away from Fooshball laid a student councillor’s badge. Jonghyun wondered who it belonged to.

(“Why is Fooshball under the mattress?” Jonghyun quirked an eyebrow.

“Because I lost it here.” Myungsoo replied.

“And why did you lose it here?”

“I had a headache yesterday.”

“Headache?”

“Headache.”

“Myungsoo, I’ve been your brother for 17 years. Don’t lie.”

“… I was tired.”

“Don’t ever skip lessons again. I’ll tell mum the next time round.”)

-

Jonghyun met Jinki a few days later. He turned in the badge to the Students Affair Centre and thought that would be the end of the whole episode. But it turned out that Jinki was a really earnest student in that life and that the staff in the SAC recognised him. They told Jinki Jonghyun’s name, who promptly went in search of the ‘nice, hardworking, young man who is amazing at finding things’.

That was how Jonghyun found himself staring at a guy with a beaming smile as his mouth moved methodically to chew the spoonful of rice, meat and egg he shoved in earlier. His friends were all around him, elbowing each other and making jokes that would have turned any listeners’ ears red. It was not exactly the most dignified of meetings. But Jonghyun took what he could get.

“You’re Jonghyun, right?” the boy smiled. He was dressed prim and proper—shirt and trousers free of crumples, a tie neatly holding the collars together and white socks that could be visibly seen. The boy was obviously a councillor, and a councillor who took things seriously, unlike the other bums who joked through the monthly meetings and spent 10 days painting a single banner—9 days bantering with female councillors, and 1 day rushing out the banner. This guy probably wrote reports for the supervising teachers to review and had them finished a week before the deadline.

“Yes?” the words were muffled, as Jonghyun tried to swallow the food without chewing. It didn’t work. Jonghyun silently gagged.

“Oh, you aren’t?” the boy’s face fell, oblivious to Jonghyun’s suffering. He started to apologise, “I am so sorry—“

“No, no,” Jonghyun waved his hands violently before him, “I mean ‘Yes, I am Jonghyun’ and ‘What do you want?’” In his anxiety to reassure the councillor, Jonghyun spat out a few grains of rice. Jonghyun flushed red.

“Oh,” the boy smiled as he brushed the rice off his tie as inconspicuously as possible, “I want to thank you for returning the badge to me. It’s really nice of you.”

Jonghyun didn’t answer immediately as he worked his mouth vigorously before swallowing the half-chewed food down his throat. He coughed a few times, causing G.O. to give him a few absent-minded pats on his back, all the while lecturing Cheondong on the awesome camera-shooting, directing and scripting in ‘A Queen and her whip’. Jonghyun wished G.O. would shut up. Couldn’t he see that a councillor was nearby, and could hear everything he said?

“Erm, you are welcome. It wasn’t anything much though.”

“Still, I am really grateful to you. It was the forty-fifth badge I lost,” the councillor nervously laughed, “My mum was about to throw a screaming fit if I haven’t found it today.”

“Oh. Well, you are welcome.” Another careless one, Jonghyun thought. Why did he seem to be surrounded by so many thoughtless people?

“Thank you. You really helped me out,” the boy flashed Jonghyun a brilliant smile, before looking uncertainly at G.O. and Cheondong (they were talking about pigeons now), “Well, I guess I will leave now. Bye!”

The boy turned around and strode off towards the queues in the canteen. Jonghyun watched him move away, as the tingling feeling he had grew stronger and stronger. He always had that feeling whenever he found something lost. Jonghyun had always labelled it as half adrenaline rush, half sense of accomplishment and a thousandth his abilities coming into play.

“Hey, if you need any help finding things in the future, call me!”

The boy in question turned around and beamed brightly, “Thank you! You are a really nice person.”

The tingling feeling refused to go away. Jonghyun later found out the boy was named Jinki.

-

It turned out that Jinki took Jonghyun’s offer pretty seriously. After that fateful meeting in the canteen (that had Jonghyun burning in shame), Jonghyun found himself meeting up with Jinki regularly—at least once per week. As it happened, they were not in the same year, but Jinki would always manage to catch Jonghyun in the hallways, in between the periods, as he asked for help, all the while being armed with an apologetic smile. Jonghyun thought Jinki looked absolutely adorable when he did that, and that was why Jonghyun never once rejected Jinki’s requests. Jonghyun and Jinki soon became close friends.

Jonghyun grew twice as busy as before.

(When Jinki sought Jonghyun’s help for the tenth time in a week, Jonghyun decided that Jinki must have really hated being a councillor. Eight out of ten times, what Jinki lost were his badges.)

-

In time, they graduated.

Jinki graduated first, sent off with bouquets of flowers, blushing confessions and hearty pats to the back. When Jonghyun witnessed the stack of scented letters lying innocuously in Jinki’s locker on graduation day (he had somehow coincidentally met Jinki on the subway), he finally realised how popular Jinki was.

It wasn’t as if Jonghyun ever thought Jinki was unpopular—councillors were voted in by the student population after all— but Jonghyun found it hard to marry the idea of clumsy, careless Jinki with Jinki, the brilliant, charming and witty that always seemed to prevail in girls’ mind. Sure, Jinki was smart and attractive, Jonghyun conceded, but he wasn’t the perfect white knight they fantasised him to be. Jinki’s personality wasn’t that shallow, neither was he a 2D character existing for girls to fawn over. He was more than that. He was 3D and imperfect.

Jinki was intelligent, but he was also careless. That’s why he dropped from L3 to L1 within the first paragraph of his economics paper, and lost 10 marks. He slid down from first to second in the school.

(Jinki misread ‘depreciation of the currency’ as ‘devaluation of the currency’. Apparently, it made a hell lot of difference, not that Jonghyun would know. He took literature, spending half his time foaming at the Shakespearian clichés that seemed to stalk him in every text he read.

Jonghyun wished he had taken economics instead. He could have more reasons to study with Jinki then.)

Jinki was charming. He had the easy graces that some people just seemed to be naturally born with and the gentle laughter that always inspired others to open up to him. But Jinki was also clumsy. In class, Jinki could be debating the apparent ramifications of affirmative policies, peppering his sentences with profound words and political jargon. But the next moment, when class was over and the students had dispersed, Jinki would have his knees on the floor, crawling about the lecture theatre, peeking beneath the seats.

And no, Jinki wasn’t a ert (the lecture theatre was already empty, remember?). He was simply hunting for his favourite pen he lost for the fourteenth time and still counting.

(When Jinki finally figured he couldn’t find it on his own, he would always go searching in the hallways, looking for Jonghyun. And Jonghyun would give a long-suffering sigh that was half exasperation and half amusement as he followed Jinki into the lecture theatre.

How many times must Jinki lose that pen before he’s satisfied?)

But whatever he might be, Jinki definitely wasn’t funny. Anyone who knew Jinki close enough would sooner or later be subject to one of those horrendous jokes, and Jonghyun wasn’t exempt either.

“That’s Myungsoo, my younger brother,” Jonghyun waved his hand vaguely in the direction of a boy who was stretched out on a couch, a pen and paper in hand. The boy in question looked up, nodded to Jinki before going back to his paper. So much for being welcoming.

Today was the first time Jonghyun brought Jinki to his house. He had just been over to Jinki’s apartment last week and felt he should probably return the favour, resulting in the current situation. His parents were blessedly at work, although the same certainly couldn’t be said for his brother who was, at that moment, monopolising the couch. Where were the kid’s manners?

“And this is our living room, and the kitchen is just over there,” Jonghyun continued, deciding to ignore Myungsoo’s lack of social graces, “Do you want a drink or anything?”

“It’s ok,” Jinki smiled awkwardly as he looked about for a place to sit, “I am not thirsty.”

“Coffee? Fresca? Plain water?” Jonghyun said while shooting Myungsoo a pointed glare to get him to scoot over, “I am not going to stop asking till you decide on one.”

“Plain water then,” Jinki replied, sitting gingerly on the corner of the couch Myungsoo vacated grudgingly, “Thanks, Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun trooped into the kitchen, taking out a glass from the cabinet before pouring in water from the kettle. He was returning from the kitchen when Myungsoo suddenly spoke up.

“My teacher wants me to hand in this personal particulars form tomorrow. What should I put for ‘future career’?”

“Comedian,” Jonghyun replied, not missing a single beat, “A grumpy comedian whose anti-thesis is a grasshopper.” Jonghyun returned the kettle back to its place on the stove, before grabbing the cup of water and walking into the living room.

At the response, Myungsoo glared belligerently at Jonghyun who didn’t so much as cast a look at him. The cushions on the couch started to float. Uh-oh. Jonghyun hurriedly put the glass of water on the coffee table as he prepared himself for Battle of Fluff and Everything Nice, Part II.

“A misguided anti-hero whose best friend is a necromancer addicted to apples,” a voice interrupted suddenly, “You should carry a notebook around with you too.”

Jonghyun froze. Myungsoo blinked. They both turned to look at Jinki, expressions uncomprehending. The cushions dropped onto the floor.

“What?” they asked in conjunction.

“Nothing? It was a joke,” Jinki grinned weakly, “Guess it wasn’t that funny.”

-

Jonghyun graduated next. While he might not be a councillor, nor did he have the image of the Prince Charming girls enshrined in their minds, Jonghyun received a pretty good send-off too. There were less love letters lying in ambush in his locker (he still received a respectable number though), but the amount of chocolates and well-wishes he got more than made up for it. And if there’s one thing Jonghyun had better than Jinki, it was that he received gifts from all sorts of people—from the cleaner he had helped to the staff in the SAC who always plagued him with requests to search for the latest missing items reported.

With tearful hugs and painful slaps on the back from Cheondong and G.O. (respectively), Jonghyun was ready to say goodbye to high school. He was just about to step out of the gates, into the nasty, scary world, otherwise known as society, lying before him, when Jonghyun felt a tingling feeling. Jonghyun paused and looked around. Had he found something he lost?

A huffing and puffing Jinki soon ran into his vision. Jonghyun stopped short. He should have known. Jinki had always managed to give Jonghyun the tingling feeling just by being near him. Jonghyun had lived the year before the last as a mass of tingling nerves. At that time, Jonghyun was slightly confused. He intially thought his ability was going haywire and had even went for a few check-ups and spoke to several specialists about the issue. But in the year in which Jinki graduated, Jonghyun had realised just how much of a role Jinki played in his life and finally understood the reasons behind all the tingles. The doctors were never able to figure out what's wrong with his abilities, because they weren’t a result of his abilities, but were something else instead—half adrenaline rush, half anticipation and maybe a thousandth of love.

Jonghyun was slowly coming into terms with it—the idea of being in love with a man who was his friend. But he would be the first to admit that while he was being more and more aware of his one-sided love (definitely not a crush or mere infatuation), he had no idea what to do with it. He couldn't possibly just go up to Jinki one fine day and spill out all his feelings and expect Jinki to simply accept that. That would just creep Jinki out, and probably frighten him off too. After all, to know that a close friend of yours had been harbouring secret amorous feelings for you was pretty runaway-worthy.

“What are you doing here?” Jonghyun stared, his face carefully blank as he tried to reign in the raging emotions within him. Jinki had stopped right before him.

Jinki held up one hand weakly, indicating for Jonghyun to wait as he tried to catch his breath. He looked as if he had just ran a thousand miles without stopping. Jinki pressed his other hand to his chest, breathing loudly. Jonghyun couldn’t help but to follow the rhythmic movement of the healthily tanned hand held against the shirt slightly translucent with perspiration. Up and down, up and down.

“I …I wanted to be here to see you graduate,” Jinki said, still slightly out of breath.

Jonghyun tore his eyes away from Jinki’s chest, “What?”

“I said I wanted to see you graduate,” Jinki repeated, face flushed from the heat of rapidly pumping blood in his body.

“And I said ‘What? Why would you want to do that? ‘”

“Because you were here last year, when I graduated. And because I promised you.”

“You did?”

“You don’t remember?” a barely perceptible tinge of disappointment crept into Jinki’s voice. Jonghyun would have never noticed it had he not been listening closely.

“Erm… well, not really. But I will take your word for it,” Jonghyun’s heart thumped loudly in his chest as his brain did it best to compose his face into an outer veneer of calm, while his mouth went on auto-pilot, speaking lies as smoothly as a twenty years old Cadillac, “Thanks for coming by anyway. Erm… I appreciate it. I guess.”

The unexpected situation was causing Jonghyun to act strangely. His mind wasn’t functioning properly, and his words came out all wrong. He was more than happy when Jinki bothered to come over to see him graduate, he was delighted when Jinki mentioned the promise (that Jonghyun had always remembered, but somehow managed to say he didn’t just a moment ago) and he was overjoyed at the fact that Jinki was here because of him, and only him—he came, all sweaty and panting, and it was all for Jonghyun’s sake. Not for any of those junior councillors or petite girls who made lunches for him in the past.

Maybe that’s why Jonghyun wasn’t thinking straight; wasn’t speaking straight. He was too happy. The combined effects of graduating from high school, receiving chocolates from women (the staff in the SAC were fantastic at making desserts) and manly promises of eternal friendship between Cheongdong, G.O. and him had been enough to make Jonghyun feel high on air. When Jinki came around and said he remembered the promise, Jonghyun’s happiness capacity must have been exceeded. The happiness metre must have shot right through the glass limits to reach the sky. And somehow, some of the happiness that had overflowed must have accidentally ended up in the anxiety area, causing Jonhyun to lie when he hadn’t need to; causing Jonghyun to lie in a painfully obvious manner.

It was clear Jinki saw through him—the look he was giving Jonghyun spoke volumes.

“Are you alright?” Jinki asked, eyeing him concernedly, “You aren’t sick, are you?” Trust Jinki to interpret lies as a side effect of illnesses.

“Yes, I—No, I—“Jonghyun broke off mid-sentence, pausing to give himself time to construct a sentence properly, “I mean, ‘Yes, I am not sick.’”

“Thank goodness,” Jinki beamed brightly, the look of concern in his eyes briefly replaced by relief before it got swept off by a tidal current of excitement. “Well then, let’s go!”

Jinki latched his hand onto Jonghyun’s wrist and started pulling at him. The vague tingling sense Jonghyun had amplified tenfold. Jonghyun could have sworn he could see happiness tumbling out of its tank, into the neighbouring anxiety pit. His stomach began performing acrobatics.

But Jonghyun didn’t shake off Jinki’s hand and obediently followed him down the road. He did his best to manfully ignore his uncooperative stomach, electrocuted nerves and an inchoate sense of déjà vu. Why did Jonghyun have the feeling something similar had happened before?

-

That was the beginning of an end.

An hour and a half later, after a bus ride, a turn up the wrong path and forty-five minutes of non-stop climbing up steep flights of stairs cut into the rocky face of Mt. Vesuvius, Jinki finally stopped. They stood on a small viewing platform watching the sun paint the skies a warm reddish-glow and a romantic violet hue before eventually letting the moon take over to colour the heavens midnight-blue, highlighted with liquid silver.

They watched the sun set, all the while hands tightly intertwined. Jonghyun’s hand moulded perfectly into Jinki’s, and the tingling feeling he had evolved into a full out battle drum, thumping louder and louder with every passing second.

It was then, Jinki confessed to Jonghyun. The skies were dark and the moon was full, and Jonghyun stood before the man who had raised a riot in his heart, listening to promises of adoration, love and eternity flowing out of his mouth like a clear mountain spring on a sweet summer day. Jonghyun wished the moment would stop and freeze, so that he could bottle up this miracle that was happening to him. Jonghyun wished really hard, even though there weren’t any stars in the sky.

But Jonghyun had clearly forgotten one important fact—the Fates hated him.

-

The next moment, the ground was shaking and the skies were roaring bloody vengeance. The mouth of Mt. Vesuvius let out columns after columns of dust and smoke, of pumice and ash. It smelled of death and despair, and hinted of molten fires and burning rocks.

Jonghyun could still remember the startled look on Jinki’s face as they felt the beginning of trembles underneath them. He could still remember how it morphed into a picture of horror as the air grew heated and dusty around them. He could still remember the feel of Jinki’s hand clenching tightly around his as they ran down the steps—a mess of tangled fear and newly-found love.

They ran and they ran, feet tumbling down the steps as the sounds of an awakening city drifted into their ears. Sirens were ringing and children were screaming. The sounds of an exodus floated into their ears.

And then they stopped.

Superheated rock and gases were flowing down the sides of the mountain faster than their legs could carry them. And before they knew it, they were enveloped in a furnace of destruction. Jonghyun clutched desperately at Jinki’s hand, his face contorted by a thousand different emotions. He stared deeply into JInki’s eyes and the last thing he heard—before the roaring of Vesuvius drowned out everything else—was Jinki’s voice.

It was thick with regret and laced with faint self-loathing. It was poignant and despairing. It was heartfelt and heart-breaking.

“I am sorry.” It was three simple words, yet it carried so many different meanings within it.

I am sorry I brought you here. I am sorry I didn’t confess earlier. I am sorry I am not a pyromaster and couldn’t protect you. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

And when Jonghyun opened his mouth— to respond, to forgive, to love— he realised all he could let out was a strangled scream.

-

That was how Jonghyun’s sixth life ended. He was so close to getting his hands on the rumoured happy ending, but it slipped past his fingers once again—torn away cruelly by circumstances that wouldn’t let them be.

This chapter ran away from me. And when I say 'ran away from me', I mean it in a bad way, because that simply means I have lost all control over the whole plotline and unintended, unplanned scenarios keep popping up left and right.

Jinki wasn't supposed to have confessed during graduation (oh my god, how cliche can I get?), Vesuvius wasn't supposed to have erupted that early and somewhere in between, I was supposed to insert some fluffly, little scene revealing Jinki's ability as he flirts with Jonghyun. But it never came to be... Oh yea, and the lame trolling scene involving Kim Myungsoo, aka L, of Infinite and Park Myungsoo, aka PMS, of Infinity Challenge wasn't supposed to be there. Sigh.

Oh well, at least I've managed to insert some obscure reference to G.O.'s pigeon folder and I guess that's something in itself. (MBLAQ's sesame player, anyone?)