27. BRAVE (EUN-SEO)

First and (probably only) short chapter

It’s when Kyungsoo steps in through the car door this night, crying so harshly it looks almost painful, that Eun-Seo thinks to herself enough is enough.

Her hands clench tightly to the steering wheel before her, body turned rigid and eyes fixated intently to her little brother, but Kyungsoo doesn’t look up. Even just looking at him, she can tell he’s been crying. His face is dotted with dusty patches of red, cheeks shining with white light from within the car, and he looks like he might, at any random moment, burst into another wave of tears.

Eun-Seo is done.

She is done with seeing her little brother, her little brother in so much pain. Kyungsoo, of anyone she knows, is the most undeserving of such sorrow - even now, Eun-Seo hates how hard it is for her to remember the last time she’s seen a real, genuine smile stretching across the boy’s face.

She takes a deep calming breath, tries to tone down her anger, thinking of Kyungsoo’s words from before: “I don’t want you to never be okay with him.”

Okay, little bro. She thinks. So, let me try something else instead.

“I’ll be right back.” She says, though she’s sure in that moment that it’s to deft ears, Kyungsoo closed off and curled into himself upon the car’s passenger side door.

She steps out of the car, taking effort to close the door more gently, and peers in the direction Kyungsoo and his friend had been. The figure she’d seen upon arriving has moved, but she need only walk a few steps forward before spotting his retreating back several paces ahead. The boy has his shoulders hunched, feet dragging slowly across the path, and it doesn’t take her long to catch up to him. She fast-walks until she is close enough to be heard by him, gaze intent on his back.

“Wait.” She says, loud enough that the boy halts immediately in his tracks, and turns to face her. She tries not to startle at the clear, unapologetic tears filling the boy’s eyes, but she can’t help but to, and some of the instant anger she’d felt from seeing Kyungsoo’s tear-stained face is dispelled.

“Jongin, right?” Eun-Seo says, the wind rushing up around them.

It seems as if Jongin recognises her, for he wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and hurriedly bows a full ninety-degrees, a display Eun-Seo waves off with a short flick of her hand. He raises himself unsurely back until he is upright, his gaze lost and eyes soft and shining with those same unshed tears. The image makes Eun-Seo’s heart twist in sympathy - he’s really just a kid, just like Kyungsoo. He doesn’t look like he’d ever hurt even a fly, at least not on purpose. It suddenly makes abundant sense to her as to why her brother had been so severe in his protection of this boy, had wanted so desperately to protect Eun-Seo’s opinion of him.

“Listen,” Eun-Seo starts, tone softer than before, and as neutral as she can muster in the circumstances. “I don’t really know you, but... I know my brother,” Eun-Seo says. “And right now, he isn’t okay.”

At these words, Jongin, before her, seems to shrink into himself, and guilt splatters across his face like he’s just been shot with it; Eun-Seo theorises from his expression that the pain may even match that of what an actual gunshot would cause alone. It’s oddly jarring - to witness such an open, untainted show of pain laid out on display for her. It’s only in this that Eun-Seo recognises how very vulnerable this Jongin person truly is in this moment, so very exhausted and worn down that even his most basic of defence mechanisms fails to work before her, someone who is ultimately a stranger.

“And you clearly aren’t either.” Eun-Seo speaks the thought aloud, sees no point keeping it to herself when the truth is so blatant, and, though Jongin stays silent at the accusation, his eyes flicker and dart like he’s searching for an escape around them, and it is more than telling.

Eun-Seo doesn’t give him the chance to think and ponder over a way out- she doesn’t even dare, the situation too important, too volatile to simply leave be. Instead, she thinks of the way Kyungsoo’s face had looked as he’d entered her car - hopeless and broken - and how Jongin may just be the only person in the world right now who can help fix it.

A long, jagged sort of breath escapes her, loud enough for Jongin to realise she’s still speaking. “I don’t-“ she begins, halts, retries- “I don’t know what happened between you two in detail, Kyungsoo wouldn’t really tell me...” She explains a little hurriedly, scared that Jongin may turn around and walk away before she can finish speaking. “But...” Jongin continues to stare, and she takes her chance whilst it’s here-

“if there’s a way to fix it. Any way at all... then, Please.” The final word comes out as soft and hushed, like any louder and it might genuinely fall to pieces, and Eun-Seo fixes Jongin with a look he mirrors - sincere and morose, something heavy passing between them. “At least try.” She asks, tone as sincere as she can muster.

She honestly doesn’t know if what she’s doing, the words she’s speaking, are getting through to him; Jongin’s face, though openly pained, is still impossible to read. But Eun-Seo can’t stand it- can’t stand feeling so powerless, so helpless, a bystander just watching for each time Kyungsoo is hurt. Even if she might be saying all the wrong things, pointlessly, she’s done with saying nothing at all.

Jongin doesn’t plainly react to her words, though Eun-Seo feels as if his eyes, even from this distance, have gone somewhere far, far away. She can’t know what he could possibly be thinking - she really doesn’t know the boy well enough - but that change, though minute, seems substantial.

Not expecting a response and also, too, not wanting to force one, Eun-Seo turns, about to walk away, but one more thought strikes her before she can.

“Oh, and Jongin...”

She twists back around, and Jongin is stood in the same position, silent and patient as he waits for Eun-Seo to speak. Even in the circumstances, even just having seen Kyungsoo in such a terrible state, she can’t hate this boy; if he’s is in the same situation as Kyungsoo, facing the same difficulties, she refuses to add to the pain he is to receive in his life for something no one should ever be hurt for.

So, in the end-

“Be brave for him.” She speaks the words gently, though her eyes fix to Jongin’s and her features are potent with resolve. “I don’t know anyone else in the world who deserves that more.”

A/N:

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year guys. This is only a short chapter, but is a very important scene - I'd actually written most of it a long while ago, and I hope it shines some light on the Jongin situation.

Also, I know this is an EXO fic but, if you haven’t done so already, listen to GOT7 Miracle, it helped me write a lot of Chapter 28 (which shall hopefully be here soon)

Please leave comments below <3 Hope you enjoyed!