The first person to whom he says the words I love you dies within a fortnight.

It happened so suddenly, like a brief flash of lightning striking an unsuspecting tree; her body is dragged across rough pavements until her form is mangled and disfigured and beyond recognition.

She couldn't be saved.

Jongin's eyes had widened in pain and fear when he'd heard the news and he couldn’t understand, and all he knew was that he was cold, and she was gone.

He grasped his father's hand tightly, a lone tear runs down the planes of his cheek, and he whispered,

Goodbye mother.

He was 4.






"I love you." He told his father one unsuspecting morning over his bowl of cereal soggy with warm milk, bright sunlight filtering through the large glass windows of their home.

His father had laughed, ruffling his hair as he replied,   "I love you too, son."

He died in his sleep three days later.

"His passing was painless." The doctors told him, the rest of their subpar explanations passing over the top of his head, too scientific and too callously worded for his young mind to grasp.

The doctors watched him as he trudged numbly on the hospital floors, dragging his feet not unlike a dying man until he collapsed on a chair, sobbing uncontrollably.

His aunt held him to her bosom, arms tight around him as she whispered,

"It's okay Jongin, it's okay. I'm here, we're here."

He was 8.







Jongin grows up a reclusive child, personality defined by the absence of a mother's love and the emptiness of a father's guiding warmth.  He is a small specter watching his surroundings carefully with disguised detachment masked by small smiles and stilted words. Jongin is quiet, guarded, an adolescent in the body of a young boy, expectant of the moments when the people around him would fade into the wind.

Like ashes.

(or maybe like his mother's unrecognizable body lying on her own pool of blood on the pavement, or his father's cold hand, grimace frozen on his face.)

His aunt would watch him with an unreadable look on her face, a sound like anguish escaping as she whispers, arms tight around his small figure.

"Too young, too young."

He sits in the cradle of her arms without saying a word.







Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat and an agonized scream stuck to his lips, mind burned afresh with discordant dreams. 

He'd claw his way out of nightmares with hands grasping at empty air, feet kicking with the effort to escape, repeating his parents' name like a mantra. His tears escape the boundaries of his eyes, the saline fluid steadily flowing even as he presses his hands over his eyes, bidding them to stop.

His aunt would stumble into his room, shaking him out of Gehenna with trembling arms and a shaky voice. 

"Mama," Jongin would cry out, voice stifled with sobs. 

She'd cry with him, his companion on the deluge of misery, even as she was trying to stop his bay of tears. His uncle would touch the crown of Jongin's hair, hand on his wife's shoulder in an attempt at reassurance.

"Stop crying, Jongin." He'd admonished, sitting on the edge of his bed and urging him to wipe his tears. "You are a boy. Boys do not cry."

His aunt would smile a watery smile at him, kissing his cheek. "We are here, Jongin. We're here."






His aunt wouldn't let him forget her presence, the perpetual brightness of a clouded sky, and over time, he doesn't.

She holds him in her arms, her affection curling around him, curbing the waves of depression from settling over his face.

When she coaxes a laugh from him, own eyes crinkling at the corners in laughter, he smiles.

So maybe it is not the same, and maybe Jongin is too jaded by his own loss and misery, and he might never be able to forget his suffering, but maybe, it is enough. Maybe it's a start.


 

"Jongin, wake up!" his aunt calls from the kitchen, waking him from sleep.

He lies on the bed hanging between the dregs of sleep and wakefulness, listening to the sounds of the birds chirping outside his window. He rolls on the bed, groaning fitfully as he tries to block the sunlight hitting his face, but it's futile. 

"Jongin!"

He groans, sitting up and stretching, hearing the sounds of his bones snapping into position with satisfaction. He walks with eyes closed, body attuned with the directions to the kitchen almost without conscious thought.

When Jongin enters, the smell of freshly cooked pancakes and toast with melted cheese assaults his nose; briefly he inhales and smiles.

"Happy 12th Birthday, Jongin!" his relatives scream into his ears, cacophony snapping Jongin into alertness, and he opens his eyes.

His uncle, aunt and cousins gather around him, bearing plates of food, smiles wide and bright. 

His uncle laughs, belly moving with the shaking of his shoulders as he grabbed Jongin's head in a headlock.

"Happy birthday kid!"

"Uncle!" Jongin glares at him momentarily before collapsing in laughter.

His aunt smiles affectionately from the side, one hand bearing a cake looking velvety and delicious, making Jongin's mouth water, the other smoothing down the strands held aloft by their roughhousing.

"I hope you're happy here with us, Jongin." she says, lighting the candle on the cake with a flourish. He nods, hugging her on the waist.

As he leans down to smother the flame on his single lit candle, a smile lights up his face with the realization that he truly is--

Happy.






Oftentimes his aunt would sit at the edge of his bed, combing the unruly strands of his hair as he settles down to sleep, warm and comfortable under his covers.

Oftentimes he lets her, closes his eyes as the comforting ministrations lull him to sleep, eyes and limbs heavy with the edges of sleep creeping over his vision.

"I love you, Jongin." his aunt whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead, touch light and affectionate on his cheeks. 

He smiles lazily, drowsily, his mouth opening of its own accord.

"I love you too mama," he whispers, voice fading away as Morpheus claims him with open arms.




His aunt is a creature of habit. 

She works an 8-5 job; by the time Jongin wakes up, breakfast would already be on the table, a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a newspaper in their designated place in front of his uncle. She'd come to work to settle accounts and clear tax returns, and by afternoon she'd come home to a family waiting for her with laughter and open arms.

One day, she kisses Jongin on the cheek, looking at him with eyes wide and unsuspecting.

"I'll be home soon." she assures him. "I'll be back before you know it!"

Jongin just nods, a feeling like dread coursing through his veins, telling him to keep her from leaving, but she shrugs his hands away, laughing slightly.

"Mama---"

His aunt waves goodbye, and she goes.

So Jongin waits, small body huddled in bundles of clothing to keep the cold from brushing against his skin.

She never comes home.






There's no funeral.

His uncle refuses to acknowledge that she is gone, preferring to sit and wait for her return. 

He sits unmoving on his place on the porch, overlooking the intersection of the streets where she was bound to appear in the afternoons. His uncle is sculpturesque, a picture of desolation, figure suddenly smaller in the red hues of the sunset.

"She'll come, she'll come." his uncle repeats in consternation, like her absence is an impossible idea to grasp. 

Jongin feels the tears sting his eyes.

He thinks this is how loss might feel like; the dying breath of the sun as it dips behind the waves, the tightening of his uncle's hand until the blue veins protrude, nightmarish and ugly as he otherwise remains unresponsive, unable to accept the stark truth floating in the recesses of his mind;

She is gone, and she's never coming back.






Jongin reads the epithet on his parents' gravestones silently, settling on the space between their graves.

He places the bouquet of flowers between them, and lights the candles he'd brought with him. He watches the flames flicker in the wind in silence, almost afraid to speak.

All those years, and yet loss was once again a forefront in his mind.

"Mama is gone." he whispers, picking at the grass underneath his feet. "I'm sorry."

I killed her, just like I killed you.

He hasn't cried for his aunt, not even when the time for waiting has grown to the point of desperation, a fool's hope; not even when her loss had solidified in his mind.

He feels the torrent of tears coming now as he remembers.

"I'm sorry, mother, father." he whispers haltingly, tears steadily flowing even as he angrily brushes them away. 

It is all his fault, why things were happening like this. He destroyed his aunt's family  like he had fragmented his own. He is the unwilling murderer in a tragic play; he is the unfortunate subject of Fate's dark game.

Jongin is a mockery of Midas; the deliverer of a poisonous love; he is the boy whose touch is reminiscent of hell's dark fires. 

Jongin is the boy whose love was the prelude to misery.

And as he tried to rein in his tears, he whispers the words curling in his mind.

"I'm cursed.”

No one answers him, but he feels it settle into his stomach, heavy and insidious.

It feels like truth.






He comes back to a house unkempt and squalid, the musty air hovering heavily as it circulated in the confines of the house, unable to escape. Used plates were placed haphazardly on the kitchen sink; food was congealing on the table. The flowers in their respective vases were wilted, drooping down in death; the water in their vases was a murky brown, smelling like filth.

The place reeks of neglect.

Slowly Jongin opens the windows, breathing a sigh of relief as the malodorous air slowly drifted outside; he carefully arranges the draperies, letting the last bit of sunlight stream through, marginally lifting the almost solemn condition of the house.

There is nothing but stillness, and Jongin hears the beating of his heart loudly in his ears.

He steps softly, looking for signs of life in the otherwise empty house, until he spots his uncle on the porch once again, looking like he never left.

"Uncle." Jongin whispers, but the man neither turns nor acknowledges the moniker.

His uncle watches the streets with a fierce determination in his eyes, an expression Jongin was beginning to fear, and yet anguish couldn't be masked from his face. There were bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep; his face was already becoming pallid, and his melancholic disposition was disfiguring the lines of laughter in his face, making him look older than he really was; no longer the man, but merely the husk of himself.

"Uncle." Jongin tries again, standing close to him in attempt to get him to come inside. "Uncle, it is getting cold, get inside please."

The man doesn't budge, and Jongin feels his eyes start to tear again in frustration and pity and misery.

Jongin leaves his uncle's side without saying another word, disappearing into the confines of the house.







The silence is oppressive over the clinking of loud china.

Jongin gulps down his drink in false cheeriness, pasting a smile he knows is untrue on his face. 

His cousins' expressions are stony, countenance unapproachable even as they continue to eat. Jongin refuses to look directly in their eyes; even in his peripheral vision their gazes are accusing, mouths pressed thinly together.

He can't blame them for their animosity. He is the driving wedge to their own Garden of Eden, the snake who offered knowledge to an unsuspecting Eve; and the tumultuous waves of anguish stemming from a deep seated loss had brought on the furor of his relatives' unspoken words and the inevitable consequences of the loss of the family's foundations.

He trembles under their scrutiny.

Jongin clears his throat in an attempt to diffuse the hostility.

"Where's uncle?" he tries.

His question remains unanswered, hanging awkwardly over his head until it fades in the terse silence.

Jongin drops the smile from his face and sighs, looking down at his plate. Slowly he begins picking at his food gloomily, willing the food he ingested to stay down in his stomach even as it curdles inside him in his unease.

He drags his food around his plate, staring at the bits and pieces of his meal as it gets strewn in different directions as a result of his manhandling.

He snaps his head up when he hears the sudden scraping of a chair as it gets pulled back. His cousins get up one by one, throwing their used tissues on their plate and leaving without so much as another word. He remains quiet until their clamor ends, head down in a perfect picture of meekness and humility.

Jongin waits until their footsteps fade into silence before pushing his plate away and pressing his face unto the table tiredly, willing everything to just stop. However, the echoes of his cousins' tirade from the other corners of the house reach him, their angry voices rising in volume even as they cause discord among themselves with their arguments.

"----your fault! If you just listened to me--"

"don't blame me---"

"---could have sent him away--"

"We wouldn't be in this mess!"

"---told you he was trouble---"

"I didn't think--"

"It's because you never think! He's a demon child!"

"---wouldn't be in this mess--"

"----MOM WOULDN'T HAVE DIED IF NOT FOR HIM!"

Rapidly he pulls his head up, wincing as his stomach starts protesting again, accompanied by the dull throbbing signaling an incoming headache.

The pain intensifies in the few minutes Jongin takes to breathe.

He bends over in agony, closing his eyes as his vision starts flickering at the edges, but it proves futile. Regrets start coalescing in his mouth.

Jongin starts feeling the acrid taste of his bile rising at the back of his throat.

He dry heaves, pushing his chair away suddenly in a heroic effort to get to the sink but he stumbles over the leg of a wayward chair and he collapses to his knees, retching the little contents of his stomach, marring the kitchen's marble floors.

He coughs violently, tears escaping from the corners of his eyes, snot running down his nose. Jongin whimpers pitifully, his lips. The smell of his spew assaults his nose, and with a groan he vomits again, throwing up even the water in his stomach until he feels it gnawing with emptiness.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing his vomit on his face. 

Jongin doesn't care anymore; there's no need to keep up appearances. There was only him, bearing the burden of guilt on his small shoulders, a miserable form sitting on the cold, hard floor.

He starts shaking convulsively, crying silently beside the evidence of his own distress. With a grunt of pain, Jongin pushes himself up from the floor, gingerly putting off weight from his injured foot as he limps to the bathroom.

The harsh lights of the bathroom make him look ghostly, sick. His dark skin could not hide the deep circles under his eyes, and his eyes are swollen, red rimmed from his crying. His lips were chapped, and he runs his tongue along them, tasting the residue of his vomit with a cringe. Quickly he splashes water in his face, rubbing vigorously until his face is red and shiny.

It would have to do.

He walks slowly, chances a look at the porch. He sees his uncle's silhouette still sitting, waiting for his aunt, and the image shatters his heart, stringing tears from his eyes.

"Uncle." Jongin whispers, arms around himself to curb the cold. He inches closer, collapses on his knees on his uncle's side, fingers gripping the fabric of his clothing, a valiant attempt to squeeze reason into his being.

"Uncle please, come back. I need you. I love you." he pleads in a voice not above a whisper, still scarily loud in the silence of the night.

His uncle is as unresponsive as ever, fingers locked on his knees. His breathing is shallow, eyes now fathomless pools of bleakness. 

And it was scaring Jongin, the way his uncle's eyes reflected that of a man haunted by his own self-inflicted torment.

He sees a lone tear run down his uncle's cheek, the latter's face still impassive, and it's the last straw.

Jongin clambers to his feet and runs to the safety of his room, burrowing under the warmth of the covers and shaking with the weight of his profound decision---

He cannot stay.




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