WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH
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He rode the bus alone, he slept alone, he ate alone, he went home alone. Alone. That was a word Kibum was uncomfortably familiar with. He was alone for most of his life, and it was more unpleasant than anything he’d ever experienced. He hated being alone.

But he bore it in silence, as most people who are lonely do. He went to work, pushed paper around on his desk, and then came home to an empty apartment. He wasn’t even allowed to have a cat, because his apartment superintendent hated animals.

It could be worse. He could be suicidal and have people suddenly start caring. Because people only cared when you did something stupid. Or when you were interesting. And Kibum was anything but.

He kicked off his shoes in the hallway and shuffled into his apartment tiredly. He had actually been kind of grateful when his boss Minho had come to him during lunch and asked him (apologetically) to work late, since he had a wedding to attend later that day. It gave him something to focus on rather than coming home to his empty apartment, and having tasteless food for dinner before taking a few sleeping pills and going to bed.

He still did those things, but at least it was a little bit later.

Kibum had no real friends to speak of (he’d always been kind of an outsider, someone who was constantly forced to look inside at other people making friends and having good lives). Occasionally, though, to unwind he went out drinking. He never got drunker than he could handle, because he still had to get himself home, after all. If anything, Kibum was a responsible person.

Tonight, though, he felt a restlessness inside. A restlessness of his soul, it seemed. It was disconcerting, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. So he drank. And drank. He was drunker that night than he had been since he started drinking. And it was quite a few years ago, now.

Giggling (at what, he didn't remember) and stumbling, Kibum bumped into someone on his way to the bar for another drink. Due to his already highly inebriated state, he went sprawling. He groaned, feeling that there would be a bruise on his back where he crashed into the edge of a table on his way down. His vision was swimming when he opened his eyes, but he could make out a concerned face above his. He struggled to stay awake, feeling instinctually that it was a very bad idea to fall asleep.

    “Hey… hey… HEY. Are you okay?” he heard someone ask. Kibum smiled sleepily.

    “I think sso. I’m jussst kinda tirrred,” his words slurred a little. The face above him looked even more alarmed, but he fell asleep before he could hear anything else.

When he woke up, he was in a hospital bed. He was wearing a patient gown, and his clothes were already in a patient belonging’s bags. This was, hands down, the most irresponsible thing he’d ever done. He sat up and checked his arms for IVs before he swung his legs over the bed, feeling achy all over. He stood up and was getting dressed to leave when he heard a light knock on the door.

The man stood by the door nervously, and Kibum was genuinely interested in why he was there.

    “Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” his voice was politely fake. The other guy obviously knew this, because he looked slightly affronted.

    “I’m the guy who brought you in. Don’t you remember?” Kibum shook his head slowly, wincing as his headache pounded in time with each shake.

    “All I remember is getting so drunk I passed out. I’m sorry for all the trouble,” and he genuinely was sorry. Kibum had noticed that it was already quite late in the day, and most likely this man’s boss would be furious with him.

    “It’s okay, I called out of work today. I didn’t feel right leaving you at the hospital by yourself, and I didn't see any contact numbers with your insurance info. So I stayed with you,” Kibum’s heart jumped a little at those words, and he forcibly reminded himself that stupid love-at-first-sight clichés don’t happen in real life. His heart dropped, and that was better.

    “You really shouldn’t have. I would have been fine on my own,” he assured the man. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to taking care of himself anyway.

    “I still did. Oh, and.. I um, took the liberty of calling you in sick,” the man was blushing heavily at his words, and Kibum was creeped out that the man knew who he was. “I found a company business card in your wallet when I was getting out your insurance stuff, so I figured I’d call in and tell them that you were in the hospital,” Kibum still didn’t feel any less creeped out, but he relaxed a little. “I’m Jinki, by the way. Lee Jinki.”

    “Kim Kibum,” he replied. Before he had a chance to say thank you to Jinki, the doctor came in the room to check on him.

    “Ahh, Mr. Kim, you’re already awake. When this man here brought you in, we were afraid you might have a concussion. But fortunately, that wasn’t the case. You passed out from the alcohol you consumed and were moderately dehydrated. We kept you overnight to replenish your fluids. You’re free to go,” the doctor bowed and disappeared to check on other patients.

Kibum gathered his things and left, paying no more attention to Jinki. It wasn’t until he realized that Jinki was still walking beside him that he looked over.

    “Is there a particular reason you’re following me?” he asked with an eyebrow raised. Jinki shrugged.

    “I have to take the bus too,” he offered as an explanation and let it rest at that. Kibum thought that would be the end of their conversation but he was wrong. “So… might I ask why you got that drunk? Most people only get that plastered if they want to forget something.” Kibum clasped his hands together. He didn’t feel like sharing his life story with another person, so he wouldn’t.

    “I don’t feel like talking about it,” he answered stiffly, and out of the corner of his eye caught Jinki holding his hands up.

    “Just asking,” he smiled in a friendly, supposed-to-be-disarming manner, but Kibum ignored it in favor of continuing onward. Was he really so bad at a lot of human interaction that he preferred solitude? Yes. Yes he was. It was a disheartening thing to realize. “Why don’t we get together again?” Kibum turned to look at Jinki with surprise clear on his face.

    “…Sure,” he said in what he hoped wasn’t too eager a tone. Jinki smiled brightly.

    “How about we go for coffee tomorrow?” Kibum shrugged.

    “Sounds good to me,” he didn’t talk to Jinki at all after that, fearing he would seem too creepy if he acted as excited as he felt.

All the next day, he couldn’t focus on his work, which caused his boss to send him a few concerned glances. But he brushed them aside in favor of daydreaming what it would be like to talk to Jinki properly. Yesterday, he’d still been in a sort of daze. Now, his head was completely clear and he wouldn’t have quite as much trouble conversing. He hoped.

He went over conversation lines in his head multiple times before entering the café, and cursed when they flew the coop as soon as he saw Jinki. Jinki was dressed casually, while he’d come straight there in his work clothes. He fidgeted with his tie, trying to seem more comfortable than he actually was. Jinki laughed.

    “I don’t bite, you know,” he winked. “Unless you want me to.” Kibum couldn’t help the blush that spread across his cheeks, but he still had nothing to say. He was feeling shy.

They decided in the end to go to a restaurant, and they made small talk (to Kibum’s amazement, Jinki completely ignored his awkwardness) all throughout dinner. And then Jinki asked a question that floored Kibum with its bluntness.

    “Are you gay?” Jinki asked bluntly. “Because I get that feeling.” After several minutes of stuttering and trying to explain, Kibum sighed and nodded his head. It wasn't something he liked to admit outright, but a blunt question deserved a blunt answer, he supposed. “Okay. That’s cool. I am too. I guess gaydar does exist after all, huh?” Kibum had to laugh at Jinki’s abrupt way of questioning him. If he didn’t laugh, he would be upset, and there was no need for that.

They went their separate ways, and Kibum couldn’t help feeling a little saddened at their parting. It had only been a couple of days since he'd met Jinki, and felt a sense of loss? That wasn’t a good sign. Too much attachment to someone only hurt in the end. He’d learned that the hard way at an early age.

Despite reminding himself of this, his and Jinki’s friendship grew and grew. Kibum could genuinely say that he had a friend. It was a foreign feeling, but it was most certainly welcome. It made his drab apartment seem that much brighter when Jinki was there hanging out. He smiled a lot more often, and smiled to himself a lot at work. Minho had noticed and about it sometimes. He always blushed and ducked his head, busying himself with his work.

    “Kibum, have you gone and gotten yourself a girlfriend?~”  Minho asked in a singsong tone one day and Kibum froze. In that single moment a terrible understanding had come over him. He didn’t just like Jinki as a friend. He liked Jinki as more, and that was a disaster waiting to happen. He knew it would happen and hadn’t put a stop to it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Minho’s grin faltered when he saw Kibum looking extremely upset. “Hey. I was just kidding.”

Kibum unfroze and shook his head. He offered a watery smile at best.

    “No. It’s okay,” he put as much reassurance and sincerity as he could in his voice. But Minho wasn’t having any of it.

    “It’s obviously not. I’m sorry, Kibum. I didn’t know it was such a sensitive topic,” Minho apologized, and Kibum felt himself choking up. He fought against the tears.

    “It’s not supposed to be,” he managed before the first tear fell. “I don’t feel like talking.” He said before Minho had a chance to ask. Minho nodded sympathetically, and Kibum felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment. What grown man cried in front of his boss? About something insignificant, nonetheless.

    “It’s okay, Kibum. It’s okay to be human. I was starting to wonder if maybe you were a robot, the way you were so emotionless,” Kibum choked out a laugh at Minho’s bad joke.

    “Thanks,” he said with his voice still full of tears. Minho waved a hand.

    “Any time,” he looked down seriously. “I mean that, Kibum. If you ever need to talk, my office is always open.” Kibum hated that his brain was telling him that Minho was lying. He nodded, knowing he would never take Minho up on the offer.

    “Okay,” he looked down at his work, hoping that Minho would take the hint and leave. He did, but reluctantly.

Kibum made up his mind to keep on being Jinki’s friend, even though it meant being put through more heartache. Just as he was heading out of the office to meet up with Jinki, though, he received a text telling him that Jinki couldn’t make it. He tried to ignore the bitter disappointment and the ‘I told you so’ repeating itself in his head.

Even though Kibum stayed by Jinki’s side as a friend, faithfully, they met less and less frequently. Eventually, they stopped meeting altogether. Kibum fell back into his familiar (and totally unwanted) pattern of being alone and silent. He started to wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be better to just swallow a handful of his sleeping pills and lay down on his back in the living room. That way, even if he did start puking them up he would be too far from the bathroom to do anything, and he'd choke and die anyway.

These thoughts got more and more serious, but Kibum couldn’t feel anything but apathy. He felt.. resigned to his fate. He was ready to die. Anything was better than this.. stagnation of life.

The day before he planned to take his life, he got a text from Jinki out of the blue. After weeks and weeks (months, really) of no communication at all, Jinki wanted to hang out? Kibum felt like snorting in disgust. All the same, out of curiosity, he cleaned up and left his apartment to go to the restaurant they had their first night out at.

He spotted Jinki immediately, and felt his heart stop when he saw Jinki sitting next to another man and holding hands. His heart closed and folded on itself. Just another reason to add to the list of ‘Reasons why Kim Kibum Should Kill Himself’. He relaxed his face into an expressionless mask and walked over.

    “Hello,” he said politely, and smiled slightly. Fakely. “I assume this is who you're dating now, Jinki?” Jinki was frowning, remembering the politeness from when they first met. When they’d been strangers. But surely by now Kibum felt comfortable with him? Why was he acting this way now?

    “Yeah,” he answered warily. “This is Jonghyun. Jonghyun, meet my best friend Kibum.” Kibum’s heart ripped in half when ‘best friend’ came out of Jinki’s mouth, but all he did was smile that fake slight smile of his.

    “Pleased to meet you,” Jonghyun’s eyes turned into cresents, and Kibum could see why Jinki had fallen for Jonghyun. He resembled a puppy that you wanted to snuggle up to all the time. Kibum tended to think of himself as a fish. Unattractive and something you wanted as far away from you as possible.

    “Same to you,” Kibum was being even more fakely polite than he would be normally, and Jinki’s frown deepened. He wondered what was wrong.

    “Jinki doesn’t mention you much,” a knife in Kibum’s heart “How did you guys meet?” Kibum’s smile turned into a small frown.

    “I bumped into him and passed out due to drunkenness,” he was being a lot more blunt than he would be normally. This was dangerous. He could let something slip accidentally.

    “Oh, so you’re a party-er? I never would have guessed,” the longer Kibum sat there, the more suffocated he felt. He couldn’t stand all this idle chatter. He pretended to feel his phone vibrate in his pocket, and pretended to read a text message from his boss. His eyes widened in fake surprise.

    “I’m sorry, I apologize for being so rude but I really have to go,” he didn’t give Jinki or Jonghyun a chance to say goodbye before he was hightailing it out of the restaurant, arranging his features like he was in a hurry. He kind of was, actually. He was in a hurry to die. But something closed around his wrist and yanked him back.

    “Kibum, what was with all that bull back there?” Jinki looked angry, and Kibum could feel nothing at all.

    “Nothing, Jinki. I just.. needed to get to the office for something. My boss sent me a text saying I needed to get there as soon as possible,” Kibum lied smoothly. He smiled genuinely. “It was good seeing you again, though.” Jinki’s face relaxed at the show of genuine-ness, though he still felt that something was off.

    “Fine. Alright, I’ll buy it this time. Have fun ‘working late’,” Jinki hugged Kibum. “And don’t work too hard, okay?” Kibum smiled, thinking of the bottle of sleeping pills on the counter at home. waiting until tomorrow. He’d take them today.

    “I won’t,” he promised and walked until he couldn’t see Jinki anymore. Then he headed back to his apartment. People came and went in life. He was simply going to be another one leaving.

It was a misfortune that Minho came to check on Kibum. He’d gotten increasingly concerned for Kibum’s health over the past several weeks, after noticing Kibum's dramatic weight loss and the extremely dark circles under his eyes. He had gotten Kibum’s address from the company records and now he stood nervously, knocking on the front door of Kibum’s apartment.

    “Kibum?” there was no noise at all coming from inside, and Minho felt something like dread settle in his stomach unpleasantly. In a panic, he kicked in the door. He stared in horror at Kibum’s body on the living room floor. There was a white grainy substance around his mouth, and his body was unnaturally pale and still. In that moment, Minho was sure he had never seen such an awful sight in his entire life. He fumbled for his cell phone, and quickly called for an ambulance, even though he knew it was already too late.

At the funeral, he saw a man standing all the way in the back of the crowd, crying silent tears. He was alone, and he was clutching a piece of paper tightly. There was something kind of pitiful about it. Minho made his way to the back and came to stand by the man. Because no one should have to bear that burden. No one should have to be lonely. Especially on an occasion such as this.

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I was in a very bad mood. This kind of ran away with me. I'm not sorry. XD At least it's good angst.

I hope you enjoyed reading it.

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Til next time. ^o~