between lifetimes

The physical distance between them is a centimetre thick; it’s still the largest gulf known to mankind—the undeniable rift between realms, the sort of distance that can only be traversed on a mental level, the feeling of fingertips kissing each other through the icy panel of a mirror minus the warmth or intimacy of human contact.

Jongin knows that kind of distance all too well.

---

‘I love you,’ he tells her every day, like a hymn—a mantra—a chant—whatever you will. She needs to know, he needs her to know. It’s one of the few things that bridge the gap, that make it the slightest degree less painful. Her lips move like his, in the exact same motions but sounds never pour from , almost like a door that hangs ajar revealing the pitch-black of nightmares behind it. Sometimes he wants her to speak—to respond—he doesn’t compliment her for nothing after all.

He gets nothing in return.

---

She’s not ungrateful, he’d never call her that; she’s called Krystal and she’s quiet in that refined way that he associates with girls in designer heels with oversized Gucci bags. Jongin wants to know more than that—though how he even knows as much as he does about her is a mystery—but she’s lost to the world of sound and he’ll never hear her voice.

He assumes it’s sweet, like mango on his tongue on a hot summer’s day.

---

Jongin spends days in the space between his bed and the full-length mirror that covers the exterior of his closet, admiring the image of perfection that is Krystal who never wavers from her choreographed position behind the silver coating. Whatever he does, she does; how doting, how loving.  It’s only sleepless nights later when his exhausted eyes demand rest that he grants them mercy—

and when his eyes flutter open momentarily, it’s not her petite, radiant face that gleams back at him in the moonlight but—

oh god, it’s the face of a brute; something so horrendously masculine and beastly, with a jawline that’s been sharpened with a chisel and five-o’-clock stubble and ruffled hair.

It’s not the pristine Krystal he knows.

Sleep claims his consciousness again.

---

His dreams are laden with images he tries to forget when sunlight stings at his eyelids.

Muscle and facial hair and sweat

It doesn’t feel right.

---

It’s his stomach’s demands for breakfast that wrench him away from the mirror.

He returns after a meagre bowl of cereal.

She’s gone—disappeared further into the distance—and his hand won’t reach far enough for him to ask her to return.

---

‘Krystal, come back,’ it’s a desperate request not different from the way children sink to their knees and grovel as a last resort; he doesn’t know what he could have done—he’s always been so careful and he always complimented her—but she’s vanished and he wishes he could at least feel thin wisps of her between his fingers.

If only to have something left to cling to.

‘I love you,’ he promises blankly, if by some miracle she can hear him. It may as well have been made to the ceiling. She doesn’t hear him.

It’s all he’s ever done and it’s all he has left to do.

---

He only ever sees her in the mirror—because they’re more than just oceans apart, they’re entire worlds apart; the mirror must be their meeting place he reasons. She’s there faithfully whenever he arrives, smiling that beaming smile without fail and he’s only ever wished to feel the tenderness of her skin under his fingers—if only to know she’s real.

What if you never see her now his mind prods. The fear that envelopes him turns his blood frigid and solid in his veins. His chest feels numb and hollow, like his heart’s been carved out—

it might as well have been; he feels like it has been.

He’s lost a part of himself.

---

There’s something about Krystal that’s private—something about her that he has to keep all to himself; a precious little secret or maybe a dirty little one, but a secret all the same if he doesn’t want to be judged or ridiculed. There’s a part of him that’s so ashamed of her that it burns his insides as if a match has been lit under his skin.  She’s a lovely girl—fresh like the spring air and the fragrance of lilies—but he just can’t.

He doesn’t know why it has to be like that.

But he does know the torment he’ll endure if people know of her.

‘I love you anyway,’ he assures her even though the mirror is blank.

He’ll say it as many times as he needs to if it will bring her back.

---

That masculine face is all he ever sees beaming back at him and it’s like icicles penetrating him mind —it’s not real, he promises himself as sobs choke him, that beast isn’t Krystal. That image in the mirror is some figment of his imagination, dug out from some musty recess of his mind and displayed in front of him because he’s stressed.

‘You’re not Krystal,’ he accuses the face that nauseates him—the disgustingly dark face with short hair and a thick jaw.

---

Five days.

Jongin feels suffocated in her absence, like a fish floundering madly in air. His fingers dig through drawers and socks and clothes in a frantic scramble for something he knows will bring her back. He waits and waits and waits for that touch of synthetic that kisses his fingers—that one thing that will fix everything.

It’s euphoria when he finds it.

He tugs it out and flings it on his head, his hands rushing to smooth it out and pat it around his face. It falls low—well past his neck, down to near his elbows. Ebony tresses, as fake as they might be, are good enough. He looks in the mirror, complete with a wig—

She’s back.

He sees her in the mirror again, joyful and pretty and if only his hands could reach past the barrier and embrace her. If only she were more than the girl in the mirror.

If only.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he breathes.

‘And I, you,’ she mouths back, soundlessly as usual.

Jongin feels whole.