Feeling his lungs being filled up to the extent of not breathing was what made Jongin feel somewhat alive again. Taking his sweet time on heavy drags of the cigarette stick and tasting the pungent reality on the tip of his tongue afterwards was what he experienced every hour during his brief coffee break. Though, every time he felt reality start to rush back in, plummeting everything he’s ever worked hard for, Jongin would once again reach into his left pocket searching for the Marlboro box.

Jongin was just done with these pointless years of his life. Drags of cigarettes made up of addictive nicotine and shots of non-stop tequila was his motive in reducing his life into a few years. Or if he was lucky, tomorrow maybe.

 

He just wants to kick life straight in the balls and forcefully spin the second hand back to where he was finally content. From the upbeat music of the wooden walls and Jongin’s formed figure reflecting off the mirror in front, to the blithe person next to him.

It was his mistake for taking him to dinner.

    His fault for drinking one too many beer bottles.

His fault for losing grip on the steering wheel when streams of blinding white light were filling his vision.

 

Losing Sehun made his loosened grip on reality, finally let go.

-

Rustling noises from a piece of ripped paper scrambled out on the cracked concrete was the only noise emitting in the street. Jongin liked the quiet.

Holding up an empty bottle of Casa Dragones, where he had swiftfully stole off the shelf from the nearby liquor store, Jongin stumbles through the narrow road.

He was getting drowsy from all the tripping over his own two feet and barges into the nearest door.

-

A quick slap comes on his right cheek, waking him up from his sleep.

“Yah! Get the hell off me!”

Jongin doesn’t want to open his eyes because that takes effort. Instead, he rolls off the person and goes into a curled up position on the floor.

The person huffs and lightly kicks Jongin on the side.

“You’re in a ing convenience store to buy things, not in your house where you can sleep on the damn floor. Get up before my boss strolls in and tazers you.”

Jongin stays put and tries to get into a comfortable position but he’s already fully awake and sober and the bright florescent lights aren’t ing helping.

He sits up on the floor and groans, head pounding.

“Holy can you get me some aspirin or something?”

The soft classical background music starts to pound his ear drums for some reason and he wants to pause the god awful melody.

“Well hello to you too.”

Jongin scrunches his face up in reply and looks up slowly, trying to stop the room from spinning a thousand times and is struggling to read the person’s name tag.

“Tryungdoo? What kind of name is that-”

“It’s Kyungsoo you head,” he replies while throwing a water bottle at his face along with a bottle of pills, worsening Jongin’s splitting headache.

“And when you’re done lying in your puddle of throw up, I suggest you pay for both of those before I call the cops.”

-

Jongin thinks he should quit drinking his way into death. But at the same time, he thinks it’s a step closer to where Sehun is.

Somewhere and somehow, he’s back in the same small convenience store and he blames his guilty conscience.

The bell chimes a soft jingle as he enters and he goes straight to the front counter. However, Jongin doesn’t see anybody behind the register.

“Hello?” Jongin figures that Kyungsoo may be taking a break and should just come back later.

A figure comes forward, coming from the back room looking drowsy.

“Sorry I’m- Oh. It’s you. . Jongin, right?”

He nods in agreement. Awkward silence permeates the store, with only the humming of the old, nearly broken down fridge can be heard between the two of them.

“So . . do you need anything? Water? More pills?”

And Jongin blanks. He doesn’t even know why he even came here in the first place. The first thing he sees is a pack of cigarettes behind the man and decides to make up an excuse.

“A pack of Marlboro please.”

“You know, my uncle died two and a half years ago because of lung cancer from all the cigarettes.”

Jongin constantly hears the same old sob story. But for some reason Kyungsoo’s voice became raw with emotion and he doesn’t look at him in the eye.

“Yeah.”

He feels the heated gaze while counting the dollar bills in his torn leather wallet. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

“Just.”

Jongin hears a deep sigh.

“Please don’t make the same mistake.”

Mistakes are what people in this world do unintentionally. Kim Jongin is the opposite; he wants to leave with the slow breaths of death seeping out his lungs.

“I’ll try to stop.”

He lies.

-

Jongin thinks that ashtrays are stupid miniature holders that represent the memories that are supposed to be forgotten.

He never purchases one.

Instead he throws the burnt out sticks in a Hefty plastic five pound holder he calls: The Trashbin. In that way, he doesn’t need to be reminded of everything he thought about. Although sometimes the cigarette is still scorching with memories that want to come back and rebels by burning an unsightly, uneven hole through the plastic. Leaving a few ashes on the bottom.

-

Months zoomed through over their heads without a trace of Jongin. Not even for a pack of cigarettes. Kyungsoo does want to admit that he does want to see the lean taller male again, pouring the spicy scent meddled with a hint of his daily dose of Marlboro. Something was very interesting about him that caught his attention and Kyungsoo didn’t know what it was. In his head, Kyungsoo thought of Jongin as an a thousand piece puzzle that people tried to solve one day and gave up the next. But unlike most people, Kyungsoo wanted to actually solve it.

The heavy drinking, the handful amount of smoking, the- wait.

Kyungsoo recalls the faint mumbling of a name that Jongin said when he stormed in and fell on him.

Sehun?

He shook his head with complete disagreement of the mere thought.

It couldn’t be his friend.

-

It was Friday; movie night.

The sound of things falling and colliding on top of each other bounced off the walls and salty  tears soaked through the cracks of the wooden floor. Days where they would have their regular movie nights at exactly 12:00 A.M. was filled with laughter because they didn’t believe in sad movies. Well, according to Sehun that is.

Jongin stands up at looks at all the DVDs sprawled out all on the floor and picks up one with a smiley face drawn in the corner. He then desperately slips the DVD into the player and turns the volume up high as it can go because he wants to drown out everything and just laugh again.

 

It’s 1:39 A.M. and through a window on a second floor apartment, flashes of light from a television is shown outside.

In the middle of watching The Hangover, Jongin starts to feel drowsy and hears Sehun chuckling. Even though they’ve seen this movie for almost the tenth time, the other still manages to laugh to all the jokes until his sides hurt. He knows this is the part where they find Doug on the rooftop- all burnt from the sun- but  Jongin just can’t keep his eyes open and lays his head snugly on Sehun’s shoulder.Clapping his hands and laughing at the same time, he comes to an immediate halt, feeling something on his left shoulder.

The bright light from the TV shining down on his face, making it seem nearly as flawless, was not on purpose.
 

Jongin’s perfect angle from looking down wasn’t on purpose either.

However, leaning down inch by inch and capturing his lips was what he wanted to do.