The soft scratch of the dull pencil on paper disturbed the silence as Jongin wrote a few words of remembrance.

The interviewer watched Jongin with scrutinizing eyes, trying to figure out the man that sat across from him - leaned back in his chair, right hand's pointer finger skimming the rim of the tea cup. He debated how he should answer, how he should break it to the man that even though the days move on and pain can be instilled in every single moment of it, the pain will fade and he'll move on.

He stayed silent for a good few moments, Jongin looking like he was thinking... he had time.. they were in no hurry.

“How about you tell me a bit about them... There’s no use treading over thoughts you've been tripping over for the past-”

“Three years.” Jongin cut him off, eyes raising to the interviewers equally warm ones, but all Jongin saw was a hollow vessel before him. He saw nothing grabbing onto his own sorrow, saw nothing giving not one about why he was here - all he saw was a meaningless void supposedly reaching out when he knew nothing of the situation or Jongin, what was actually at stake.

Sitting up in his seat, Jongin leaned his elbows onto the table and let his head hang before he looked up from beneath his lashes and flicked a stray blueberry from the plate of fruit that was just taken away by the nurse. “He used to come home every day with a cup of coffee for me... Pumpkin when fall reached, gingerbread during the winter... Iced Americano in the spring and summer-” his head leaned to one side as his eyes closed, trying to recall every moment he could... But all he could bare to speak was that little anecdote, nothing special - nothing that sounded like it had any relevance, any importance, any /substance/.

In his mind however, he remembered the turn of the knob he would wait for every day at 3:15. He himself would be in the kitchen, getting out the groceries that he had just bought an hour earlier from the list Kyungsoo would text him every morning. When the knob would turn he would lift his head and raise his brows and ask "Hyung?" as if surprised, but always knew that Kyungsoo would step through the foye moments later.

And there he would be, wearing his black cardigan and pastel yellow t-shirt underneath, comfortable fitting jeans and an MCM backpack that he bought for 30000 won at a side shop in Myeong-dong. His right hand would drop his keys at the side table next to the door, he would kick his converses off and then reveal his left arm that would be holding a tray of Starbucks. A smile would be already on his lips as he made a, “Wahh! Jonginnie, you already got everything?” And would raise one of his brows before he headed over.

Jongin would raise his own brows before finding that comfortable smile set on his lips, stare at his hand of coffee and nod, put down the new pack of gochujang and walk around the counter to take it off his hands. “Mmm. Everything was in the process of setting up. Kimchi Spaghetti tonight?” He just guessed from the spaghetti he made him buy.

Taking the tray from his hands, he would lean over like a lover would, and peck the lips that waited, already puckered and ready. Half of his mind payed attention to the coffee, while the other rested on the softness of Kyungsoo’s lips against his own in the quick kiss before he would pull away and Kyungsoo would nod. “Mmm” he would hum in a yes and then say directly after, “Your favourite, pumpkin spice.”

In the willed moment of silence Jongin’s eyes glazed over and the interviewer just watched, hurt swimming in his own eyes. Pressing his lips together though, the interviewer reached a hand out of assistance, lending his care and placed it on top of Jongin’s while whispering “Which one was your favourite...?” Meaning coffee. It was almost as if he was speaking to a child. You ask simple questions, questions of worry, questions that would attempt to induce no pain.

Jongin’s eyes turned up towards the interviewer, though at his hand they closed, taking in that comfort, tears threatening to come but they never did.

Leaning up, he took his hand back and placed it in his lap, his eyes looking down before a ghost of a smile skidded across his lips before they were gone in an instant. “Pumpkin spice” he whispered softly, meeting the interviewer's eyes once more.

The simple motion, the simple gaze into the interviewers wide and oblivious eyes induced pain...