A/N: title reads as "Wasuranaide" in Japanese, which means "don't forget me"

The package arrives early in the morning.

It’s not very big; Jinki can hold it with both his palms up side-by-side. He picks it up from the steps leading into their front door. The newspaper is crumpled by dew and the brown courier bag feels moist on his fingertips. He frowns at the wild lettering on its front because they weren’t expecting any packages. He hadn’t ordered anything online recently, and when his wife did she’d tell him before clicking the proceed to purchase button.

He looks for a return address but there’s nothing.

“What is it, sweetie?” Junghee wraps her arms around his midriff and nuzzles his hair from the back. He cranes his neck around and offers her a kiss before shaking his head and waddling them back indoors.

“I don’t know…” he clicks the door shut and she slides off him, stealing the newspaper to saunter off to the bathroom. Jinki carelessly flings the package to a side table and goes the kitchen for his morning fix. He has to be at work earlier than usual today since its exam week soon and some of his students are still straggling behind with the concepts they covered this term. The principal has ordered him to tutor them as overtime and he has to obey.

Obey or forget that promotion.

As he sips from his cup with his hip against the counter the skillet sizzles with butter. He breaks an egg onto it and messily throws on two slices of bread besides. There is something familiar... in the sureness of the on that address, something oddly nostalgic in the shade of its ink. Jinki narrows his eyes as he tries to recall where he’s seen those sharp giyeoks and perfect pieups.

She frees up the bathroom and walks to him with still-wet hair and the towel wrapped around herself. “Wanna join me?” she asks, kissing the side of his neck before stuffing a piece of omelet into . He shakes his head and flips the second one on the pan. “We haven’t had breakfast together in weeks…” she whines. “I can’t feel full if I don’t see your face!”

He chuckles and pecks her cheek before heading for a bath. “I’ll have dinner with you tonight. Promise.”

Fifteen minutes later on his way out of the house Jinki briefly stops at the side table where the courier still sits and waits for him to pick it back up. He does so and waves it up and down as if weighing it, trying to judge what its contents might be. It feels like a thick book—that’s his best guess. But they don’t have that sort of “intellectual” friend circle in this neighbourhood so who would send him anything?

He debates with himself for a few seconds before stuffing the parcel in his work bag and rushing out.

“So I expect all these exercises on electromagnetism done by Friday, alright?” he nods to his class and they groan in loud unison. “Don’t sulk, Physics isn’t that difficult. You just need to focus on the basic concepts and the rest comes to you,” he advises to just more scoffing and yeah right-ing. “Come on. You guys opted for this subject voluntarily. It shouldn’t feel like a burden. Act like college students for once…”

When no one looks at him with the required remorse Jinki shakes his head and gives up, opting to clean the chalkboard instead. He listens to the students shuffle out noisily behind him until one calls for him in a timid voice.

“S-seonsaengnim…” the girl shifts from foot to foot, fiddling with the strap of her bag. She doesn’t look like a regular face from his lectures this year. He raises his eyebrows at her to prod her on. “I—” she shakes her head a little. “I don’t understand the difference between resistors and capacitors. I mean… the whole parallel perpendicular stuff just… I can’t solve any of that. Please help, seongsaengnim….!” She begs pitiably.

And something suddenly clicks inside Jinki’s head so that he forgets to nod to her.

“Hey, Head Boy,” Kibum turned in his seat so they were face to face. “You’re smart right? Teach me this ; I’m no good at it. I can’t make head or tail of these resistors and capacitors. What the hell are they supposed to be anyway?! Why the hell are they placed perpendicular to each other in a circuit?!”

Jinki tutted at him and the way he’d written down his notes in an illegible scrawl. “I have a name, you know?”

Kibum craned to look at him, the closeness smelling of sweat and lunchbox plastic. “Oh yeah? I just see Head Boy on your badge though.” There were crumbs stuck around his mouth from their earlier snack in the canteen. Jinki felt the itch to reach out and wipe them off with his fingers, maybe lean in and press his lips to the dimple in the boy’s cheek too.

“And I just see Prefect on yours, so should I call you that from now on?” he teased back instead. When the dimple deepened though, he had to look away in case his blush got caught. He flipped through his books and cleared his throat, trying to appear busy.

“Jinki ssi!” Kibum yelled to get is attention back, reaching out and rocking his shoulder in that very irritating way. “Jinki ssi!”

“Jinki ssi…” the girl bites her lips unsurely. “Sh-should I come back later…?”

“A-ah,” he shakes his head free of unnecessary thoughts. The title of her textbook looks blurry and obscured from behind his glasses. He takes them off and wipes the lenses on his tie. “No, no. Please,” he motions for her to sit at his table. His glance cursorily strays in the direction of where he crammed that parcel into his bag. And he suddenly wants to rip it out and see what it contains. He can't bear to wait.

“Tell me what I can help with.”

Dear diary,

Jinki reads the violently scratched out words and can’t help the smile that fights its way to his face. Back in their days together at school there were instances he remembers when Kibum scratched out entire notebooks on a whim. He'd be holding his pen like a dagger and scoring against the paper until it tore. Crazy bastard.

He smooths a thumb along the gash of ink before reading on.

I don’t want to start like that I’m not some loser I mean that sounds so ty and childish I’m not desperate to pour my heart out of my sleeve like I can’t continue on that vane

but I don’t know how else to start this

Jinki can clearly imagine a Kibum writing this eight years ago--fidgeting with himself at his desk, the study light on his table illuminating this thrashed and dog-eared diary when it was still pristine. He can imagine a Kibum having an internal fight with himself about how to go on. He fills with a fondness he hasn't felt in years.

It’s supposed to be therapeutic is what this one girl said to her friend in class. I heard them talk at the gates after school when I walked past them. I wasn’t listening in or anything but you know how I like picking random things up when I hear someone else talk just to see if something sticks out at me. Well yeah this stuck out.

"keep a diary to keep yourself in check"

as if I need to keep myself in ing check I'm not on a ing diet damnit what is that supposed to mean

I don’t even know anymore what the hell am I writing what the is all this why am I even doing this like some ing sissy who's trying to “get in touch with his emotional side” this is absolute bull and I should just stop

but I need to write it down

I hate everything. I hate our teachers even the ones who are nice to me I hate the entire student body even if they voted for me during the council elections I hate the principal too she thinks she’s all that but she’s just a ing benchwarmer I could do her job better

Jinki frowns at the words and flips the page over. Then his frown only deepens.

but I like him a lot

I don’t even know when it happened but it did and now when I sit next to him in class I feel like I’m suffocating because he’s so close that I can just reach out and touch him but I don’t cause I’m not allowed and it’s like bouncing off the walls of the room you know like one of those crazy balls you get free with cereal

the thing is

I dream about him

about ing him against the classroom blackboard

that’s so hot

Jinki balks at the words. He considers slamming the book shut and throwing it in the dustbin, the brown envelope it came in to follow. But he’s also ersly curious now. Because he wants to know why this was sent to him of all people. Kibum was a popular guy in class, always the center of attention even outside his usual gang of troublemakers. All the boys in class wanted to be in Kim Kibum’s good books. And all the girls would throw him licentious looks when they saw him after school.

Why the hell would a guy like that want to reach out to someone he barely ever talked to unless it was something to do with academics…?

today I told him I forgot my English textbook

he said we can share his and then he was so near I could smell him I wanted to all over his neck and taste that smell on my tongue I’m

Jinki shudders at the memory of roll call. Where Kim Kibum came exactly eight names after Lee Jinki and their desks were right next to one another in the arrangement. He gulps to the recollection of times when Kibum would make it so that their thighs were pressed together as if glued. Their pens would run at the same speed on their notebooks and their breathing would be oddly in sync. Like some sort of magic trick.

“…” he says to dawning realization.

Junghee’s in a bad mood when he makes it back home.

“What the hell?” she points at the wall clock. He holds up his hands between them to pacify her, but it doesn’t work. He fails to see that it never does. “I made you your favorite! Just like your mom makes it too! Hell, I called her up and asked for exact directions! Can you imagine how much she yelled at me through the entire twenty nine minutes and fourteen seconds?!” she pouts.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” he tries to reach out and pull her to himself but she swats him away. “I know, I know, I’m super late but you know it’s almost exams week.” He makes a face he hopes is cute enough to melt her heart and she responds with a reluctant scoff. He turns her face to his and kisses her gently. “I need to help those idiots pass or I won’t get to keep this job too long...” he whispers his excuse.

She mumbles something incoherent while playing with the buttons of his shirt. It’s a sure sign that he’s forgiven so he simply lifts her up and tackles her to the couch. She squeals in astonishment. “J-Jin…! Pu-put me down what’re you doing y-you weird—! You’re being weird again, Jin!” she kicks her legs at him and he chuckles as he drops her on the cushions before smoothly landing on her and cuddling up.

“Wake me up in half an hour, would you?” he speaks at her neck.

“Ugh… at least change out of your work clothes,” she disapproves but then adoringly runs her fingers through his hair. He hums and closes his eyes, pressing his face against her s and inhaling her slightly soapy slightly floral scent. Everything lies forgotten in that moment and all he wants to do is sleep as Junghee softly sings him a lullaby.

I want to take him while everyone watches and I want him to scream at me to go harder

Jinki jolts up from the sofa, feeling the folds of the upholstery imprinted on his cheek. He rubs his eyes free of slumber, sitting up and stretching tiredly. In his hazy state he looks for the glow-in-the-dark arms of their clock and groans when he finds he’s overslept past his self-enforced half hour mark. He rolls his head around at the dark living room for a sign of where Junghee went instead of waking him up like he’d requested.

She’s nowhere in sight.

It’s something weird the way his mind immediately reels him back to the diary in his work bag. Goes as far as telling him right now is a great time to return to reading it, were he so inclined. He scrubs the heel of his palm against his scalp feeling an unusually strong headache catch up with him. “Damnit…” he curses before pushing off to the kitchen for a drink.

He’d perfunctorily flipped through the rest of the diary back in the staffroom, finding almost half of it empty towards the end. He doesn’t know for sure what the rest of the contents are like but… He wipes sweat off his eyebrows and leans his back on the refrigerator. When the heat doesn’t go down after an entire glass of icy water he irately loosens his tie and whips it off, throwing it away without a care for the scolding he'll get from his wife.

It lands on the floor without a sound.

well

his eyes are the color of amber and I never knew. You know what amber is right? The beautiful orange yellow tree goo hardens into. You know the stuff those archeologists use to compare oxygen levels and whatever. It’s really old, and it shines like the sunset. Jinki taught me about that in the first place. He showed me pictures in this fatass book history he once brought to

what the am I writing

he looked at me all seriously and scolded me about not showing up for prefect duty after last period. I acted like I didn’t care about any of that and I don’t. But the way he looked at me I wanted to pull him in and look straight back into his eyes till I fell in and drowned oh Hades they’re so ing perfect I could stare at them all day

hnd he has this nose

I had to stop myself from pulling my hair out at the sight of that nose I mean I used to laugh at losers with parrot noses cause dude what the hell is that but when I see him looking away from me I want to force his eyes back on me but I also want to keep staring at the hook of his nose or the way when he has a cold and he sniffs his Adam’s apple moves just like when he drinks water and it drips down his throat

I want him so much

I can’t wash that feeling off of me. I’ve dunked myself in the bathtub a couple of times this week hoping I’ll come out clean of that thought but it hasn’t worked of course what the was I even thinking

I want to touch him and I want him to love it so much he’ll ask for it all the time all day everyday even when we don’t meet in school I want to make him beg for it I want him to make me beg for it I want him so much it’s really putting a knife through my brain I can’t think straight with him sitting next to me now I really can’t I keep feeling the need to talk to him and move my chair next to him and let our knees bump sometimes

Jinki huffs at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, imagining all of Kibum’s words coming to life and strangling him like a noose. Sweat rolls along the lines of his chest and stomach muscles. His shirt is off and soon his pants will follow but he's burning up. The water he splashes on his face or wipes along the back of his neck does not help in the least.

He slumps forward, elbows leaning on the sink. The lack of wind this deep in the house is stifling. He flicks open the ventilator louvers and puts his face close to the gaps in the slats of glass.

something is so ing wrong with me

“Something’s ing wrong with me, too,” he says to the diary mocking him from the sink.

Jinki knows he’s supposed to feel flattered.

Because Kibum thinks he is the sun. That he is everything good and pure and beautiful with the world. With his world. Kibum thinks Jinki is an angel who accidentally tripped off his cloud and landed amongst broken and useless, ugly human beings. Human beings like Kibum who can do nothing but stare from a distance, too afraid to approach lest they be spurned as unworthy.

Kibum thinks they were made for each other, born to fit against one another like two fragments of one whole that have come together by chance. Two incomplete fragments that keep coming together every time their eyes meet. And he thinks they could only get closer if Kibum had his way with Jinki. If he were allowed just a little touch, or just a single kiss.

He sits and flips through the pages in that old and yellowing diary where Kibum’s markers blot out uncouth and cheap phrases that look as if they’ve been spat out on the reams. He says the perfect words. He smiles like the sunrise. He could be my everything. Jinki knows he should feel flattered at all the words but… But they look like insults. They look disgusting. They look revolting.

He tilts his head at the well-thumbed papers. The corners are darkened through overuse the cardboard backing is bent and creased from repeated opening and shutting, maybe even flinging around in annoyance. Jinki can see Kibum now, in his mind’s eye, raging inwardly about his own feelings and how they cripple him. He can picture the guy flopping around like a fish out of water, incapable of breathing through his powerlessness. The vision leaves a sickening taste in his mouth.

“I don’t care,” he chants, holding his head in his hands. “I don’t care I don’t care I don’t—”

“Baby?” Junghee sleepily walks downstairs from their room, her hair and robe undone. “Come back to bed. Aren’t you done working yet?” Jinki jumps up at the sight and pounces on her, kissing her deeply and pushing her against the balusters with desperation. If the segue is odd she doesn’t say anything about it, simply lets him hold her the way he wants.  

But no matter how many times Jinki makes love to Junghee in one night, no matter how bottomless the pit he digs for himself gets… he will now never stop hearing Kibum breathe down his neck. The gravelly voice, the untidy writings, the lifelike apparitions will haunt his brain in continuous circles no matter where he is. And he has no one to blame but himself for following his curiosity and reading any of it.

when I call his name he turns around and looks at me like I’m the only other person in the universe

and I want to believe him

Jinki doesn’t feel flattered. He feels trapped.

Exam week has come and gone. Employee evaluation results have sealed and emailed to the university review board. Summer vacation is around the corner and lectures have gotten shorter because more than half the students are already gone. Jinki could care less about whether his class passes or not. He doesn’t give a damn if he lands the promotion as head of department or not. He doesn’t care that Junghee thinks she’s pregnant or that Lee eomoni wants them to move closer to her and the rest of the family. Jinki doesn’t care about anything at all.

Because he can’t find Kibum.

There are thirty eight Kim Kibums with registered phone numbers in the city. And none of them were Jinki. He knows because he’s gone through the entire list and called all his remaining contacts from when they went to school. And no one can tell him anything. He’s driven past the other’s old house. He’s been to their school and checked the alumnus database. He’s spoken to the entire student council body from their graduating class but it’s as if Kibum has disappeared off the face of the planet.

“Jin, is everything OK at work?” Junghee asks him one afternoon, massaging his shoulders as he’s flicking through the channels on TV. “You look really stressed these last couple of days. Why don’t you take some time off…? We’ll go away on a trip somewhere.”

“Hmm,” is all he can manage, leaning into her touch and still wondering why the package ended up on their doorstep… and in that thought he wonders if the courier company can help him track down the sender. He taps his thumb on the remote as he considers this option. “Yeah… maybe we can go on a long drive soon. That’ll be fun.”

He can’t give up the search. He really cannot. He needs to know the meaning behind that parcel.

Later, when it grows dark he tosses and turns in bed as his gloom starts to swallow him whole. Junghee pats his chest in time with his heartbeat and it should lull him into a deep and peaceful sleep, just like always. But it doesn’t. Her soft kisses and kind words have no effect on him whatsoever; no matter how he pries his obstinate body open for her. He wonders if he’s stopped feeling, stopped being, stopped living in some poisoned, misplaced way.