I dont usually do this but  song recommendation:   SHINee, In My Room. 

                                                                                                                                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S7dHGGNQYU

 

 

---

 

S I X T E E N

 

 

 

Flipping through each page of his one and only book, Jinki idly crinkles his nose.

They reek of mould. He remembers when he was three or so his mother had found the book lying on the pavement near where her work at the time took place. It has been with him ever since.

Jinki had reluctantly watched her leave a few hours ago after she declined his offer to join her with her errands. Mumbling something of the lines of how it was going to rain and Jinki being sick is just an extra worry for her.

He had pouted and she had laughed, telling him he’s too old for that now, Jinki had handed her the umbrella just in case, it does rain. He makes a mental note to let her say her “I told you so,” as soon as she gets back.

A lazy sigh escapes his lips as he watches drops of rain spit against his window.

Jinki falls to his stomach once more, on the floor, with his small book next to him.

Jinki comes to the slow realisation that his room has shrunk—or, in much less paradoxical terms, the fact that he had grown a lot.

 

 

He had grown.

 

 

Putting the nostalgia past him, Jinki focuses back into his book, sitting next to him, waiting to be opened.

Although he had read these words over five hundred times during his childhood, Jinki thinks, although he knows each word off by heart, sometimes, Jinki thinks as he picks it up, it’s the only comfort he has.

 

 

                                                                                                   ♦

 

Little boy all alone, you are.

In a small world, but with people so far.

Do you feel misery linger under your eyes at night?

Do you wake up again, finding your face dry and filled with fright?

What will you do now?

With no one around.

Are you worried tomorrow will be far?

Seeing yourself now, do you doubt who you really are?

“You are going to be bound”,

Everyone says one day,

To someone you don’t know,

Isn’t it wrong to give your heart away?

But what happens when someone you thought you hate, turns out true?

Do you look away; do you look down at your shoes?

Little boy alone, no you are not.

That someone is right there,

Maybe you could learn to —

 

 

“Love them a lot.” Jinki concludes at the last page.

It’s a load of bull and Jinki knows it.

Main City productions.

The last stamp reads and Jinki cringes a little as he gets up. No matter when this was printed, Jinki thinks as he takes a seat on his (now very comfortable looking) bed, he doubts they know anything of what they are talking about.

Suddenly the rain slows to a rhythmic, calming slap against his window.

 

 

His pillows are quite soft.

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

 

Loud.

Something is very loud.

Jinki’s eyes immediately snap open as the bangs continue to sound throughout the house.

Who is knocking on the door so hard?

Jinki stumbles out of bed while he scratches his eyes. Bare feet drag themselves across the peeling floorboards despite Jinki trying to fight his fatigue. His throat is dry and his tongue is parched, disabling him, momentarily, of producing proper words.

“I-I’m com—ma—“

He tries the bare words of welcome but fails as he reaches the front door. He twists the knob, slightly angled to the left, because experience told him it would make an unpleasant noise if not.

“Finally you’re he—“Jinki stops as soon as his eyes land on an unfamiliar figure before him. A vigilant, thin looking blonde male stands stiffly as he slightly twirls his black umbrella, just as a young child would. As the stranger’s eyes level with his own, Jinki is able to take in the sight of faintly fine lined red eyes. A thin frame with one arm that shoot straight down and the other clutched to the end of the umbrella. Pale complexion almost that of a ghost's and somewhat feminine features with bones prominent from underneath dark attire that, oddly, suits him.

 

“Umh, Lee Jinki?”

 

Jinki nods to the question because he cannot find himself giving a proper reply.

What is going on?

The stranger shifts uncomfortably under Jinki’s gaze. For a good five minutes it was only the soothing sound of the light rain tapping against the man’s umbrella. Finally, he clears his throat and gives a half hearted smile.

“Jinki, It’s your mother, she—“

 

 

 

–

 

 

 

Jinki has never been in a car before.

 

 

He would've been fascinated by that fact if not for all the worries in his head. It wasn’t one of those fancy ones he'd seen in Tussen back in his childhood, but it was pretty close.

Jinki brought his hand to his left cheek. Is he really awake? Is this really happening?

Jinki remembers how not so long ago he had the stranger by his collar, feeding him with all the questions he couldn't answer himself. Where was she? Who found her? How? How?

The very person seated right next to him right now had said, I don't know, I don't know.

It's quiet except for the slow buzz of the car and the soft hums from the driver.

It's not the best time to ask any questions, but Jinki is too determined and too selfish to care.

“So who are you exactly?”

It's awhile before any of them say anything else. The stranger slowly brings his gaze to Jinki and stops for a moment.

“Right now? No one important.”

Jinki shifts his eyes down to his lap. It's only now that the emotions start hitting him slowly, one by one. It's only now he fully realises that his mother is in a hospital. When all Jinki's life he didn't even know there was a ing hospital here in the first place.

“I – I can't pay.” He says thickly. Finger nails digging into his pants. Jinki is dry of a response from the other, but that doesn't stop him. The questions fall from his mouth as free as the rain falls from the sky.

 

 

“So are you from Main City?”

Jinki had finally mustered enough courage to ask the stranger the very question he had been pondering about ever since the other was at his door step.

“You could, You could say that.”

He lies and Jinki realises as he quickly glances at the stranger's hands and back at his own again.

“No you are not, you are bound.”

 

       2021 in that unexplainable crimson shade.

 

 

The stranger's eyes widen as he slowly looks at his exposed wrist and then at Jinki again. “Look,” He starts, “I am not a Citizen but I work under it so you could say that, but this is not about me or who I am. This is about you. Your mother is lying at her death bed in a hospital funded by MC – oh excuse me, the only hospital funded by Main-City. My guess is, judging by her state is that she was too weak to walk and carry such a bulk load of food by herself. They said she was found lying still on the road near a black market in extreme outskirts. She also probably had connections with Citizens because the name that she was registered under didn't have a number stamped next to it or an exact location. There was only a small note that said that you...”

He pauses to lift one of his terribly thin fingers at Jinki before continuing, “...needed to be there to see her.”

Jinki falls deaf to the last two words that the stranger says, instead he focuses on the pangs of guilt he feels thudding against his ear drums.

This is all his - “...Fault.”

Jinki tunes in again, only to find the stranger irritated at the lack of attention Jinki is giving him. “Hello?” He says, “I said, if you're thinking that this is your fault, don't. It's not.”

Jinki wants to smile and thank the stranger for his kind phrase, but the other has already looked away and Jinki's lips start quivering as if they'd break.

 

 

 

–

 

 

 

“Mama,”

Jinki chokes. The stranger is in the room with them but Jinki can't see him.

Tubes run from one side of his mother to the other. “The lack of oxygen in her is dangerously low, and it also seems that she had caught minor levels of pneumonia.”

“You – You are going to be fine.” Jinki slurs in a way he has never done before. “They can save you.”

They really could, if they ing cared.

 

 

So-Ra knows better than to trust her son's words of denial, she nods slightly anyway.

She reaches for his hand and instantly their hands are clasped together.

“Jin – n” The failure in trying to pronounce her son's name reduces him into soft sobs. “Sin – ng “

Jinki shakes his head as hard as he can. He chews at his bottom lips in attempt at trying to stop the tears. “I – can't,” He manages.

A stranger moves next to her son and hits him hard across the face. The sudden sounds of screaming only result in So-Ra grasping onto her son harder. She can't hear what is being said.

“Don't you understand idiot? This might be her last wish!”

“I can't,I can't,” Jinki's body racks out sobs as small but strong hands shake him into reality.

“You can! You can, do it! Has she ever let you down? I don't think so!”

The unfamiliar voice argues and Jinki reluctantly starts the beat of a song he doesn't know completely but has heard before.

 

 

“Jamdeulji anhneun bame nuneul gama
Geunyeoreul tteoollinda
Amugeotdo mollatdeon naega neomu miwoseo
Bureul kigo bangeul dulleobonda...”

 

 

 

Jinki stops abruptly and collapses onto the side of the bed, “I – I can't.”

“Keep going,” The stranger urges shaking himself.

Jinki gets up, takes one last look at his mothers pale face, and finds his voice one more time.

“Cause you were my sun, the moon
Nae jeonbuyeotdeon neo nae bange itneun...”

Suddenly, the grip on Jinki's fingers releases the same time he finishes his line. The other moves from the corner of the room back to a distance behind Jinki. “Look, I'm so -”

“Get 2001 in the room! Get 1991 out of the bed,” Three,maybe four – Jinki can't tell – voices scream odd things as they burst through the door. “Son, move please.” Someone says to Jinki, it all but sounds like foreign to him.

“No,” He whispers, barely existent. “N – No!” He says louder.

No body, is there listening to him. Someone is clutching to his shoulders as they clear the bed, taking his mothers body into a separate bed that a nurse wheeled in.

 

 

“Where are you taking – what. Don't! Don't!” He shrieks, but everyone moves on with their work, as if he’s not there, screaming at them. “Selfish bastards you all are! Stop this! You can save her! Please don't...” His voice dies in the haze of the room.

“Take 1991 out please, now.”

“Where to Sir?”

“The burning chamber, you already know that."

"But..she's might still be alive," Someone whispers as Jinki's eyes widen.

"I'm sorry, 2001 is waiting."

Everything slows down as the stranger pulls him away. Tears stream down his face, mouth wide, and shouting at everyone who isn't listening.

“It's So-Ra, not 1991! It's So-Ra!” He chants as his voice breaks.

“...It's So-Ra...”

 

So ra.

 

 

--

 

 

He doesn't want to sit here.This chair is not comfortable.

He doesn't want to see this sickening face.

The blonde in front of him offers him some sort of smile, Jinki doesn't buy it.

“Look Jinki,” He says softly, “I work here, this happens every day a – “

“So you're a sick one too huh?” Jinki laughs with absolutely no amusement. Tear stains still evident in his face.

The stranger puts on a more serious face as he continues, “Listen to me. I don't usually do this, so shut the up and listen.”

Jinki instantly fall silent. “Your mother is gone now and you're still only sixteen. Two more years till you move in with your bound -”

“Why how old are you?” Jinki cuts in cautiously.

“I am eighteen.” He says, but waves his hand in the air, dismissively. “That’s not the point. Listen, I work at a bar also, a bartender, it's a bar near Tussen, it pays well and all. I could put in a good word for you, because kid, you can sing, you could really get a job there.”

This is unbelievable, Jinki shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows. Did he not just see that it was the Main Citizens themselves who refused to save his mother?! “It's too close to Main City and MC is the last place I want to be in. Those little - “

“Oh okay, what other ing plan do you have?”

“Tell me.”

Jinki falls silent once more.

“Yeah, I didn't think so. Do you want to eat something at nights, huh? Do you want to be able to live? You need an income. You can come for an orientation tomorrow, meet here.” Jinki is somehow thankful and intimidated by this person at the same time. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything.

 

The stranger stands up to leave, but not before he gives Jinki one last glace, “Do you need a ride home kid?

 

 

 

 

"My name is Kibum by the way. Kim Kibum, 2021.” 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

[Author's Note]

So, i wrote this chapter twice because the first time it was deleted and i nearly cried tears of my own despair. 

Shows how much i love you guys right?

And new Subs, hello!~  ^-^ welcome.

Yes, yes, Kibum here is older than Jinki here :) Just to twist things up.

After this Chapter the delayed Jongyu will start :D I am so sorry for the character death *eek. dont kill me plz.