chapter twenty three: xxiii. christmas celebration pt. 2

My short hair was drenched in sweat. After the whole war of everyone fighting each other (which had been good exercise), I had been sweaty. But after doing all of our old songs while rocking it out, jumping up and down and screaming some of the lyrics, my energy had almost been completely drained. It was lucky that I was wearing a black shirt, because it was stuck to my back with sweat. What was this, in the middle of winter?

“I nominate Kyungsoo and Jooeun to sing the song they composed for that project at the beginning of the year,” Jongdae spoke up.

“Wow, and you didn’t send it to me and ask me for advice like you did every other time?” Yoongi asked. “Offended.”

“Oh, that’s because I forgot you existed for the first half of first term,” I said happily.

“You little sh*t,” said Yoongi, but a smile was on his face. “The only reason I tolerate you is because you’re Namjoon’s sister, you know?”

“Love you too, oppa,” I responded, rolling my eyes. “And yeah, I’ll be your sister in law so you have to treat me good anyway!”

Yoongi sighed, putting his face in his hands. “I have so much I want to say to you right now, but I’m holding back.”

“ANYWAY,” Jongdae intervened, rolling his eyes, “Jjoo, go to the stage! You too, Kyungsoo.”

I got up reluctantly and made my way over to the acoustic guitar. Kyungsoo took his place by the keyboard. “When you’re ready,” I whispered, placing the pick in between my lips and sitting down in a chair with the acoustic guitar in my lap.

He started singing, his voice a little shaky from nervousness at first, but quickly stabilizing.

“I didn’t know that the journey to my dreams would be this hard,

Every step I took was like stepping in glass shards,

Stretching my hand towards the dreams that I dreamed and urged for,

But the obstacles on the way just kept asking for more.”

We had decided to stay with no lyrics for the pre-chorus. I finger picked the guitar with the piano, making the crescendo clear. Then, we faded for a second, in which I got the pick which had been in between my lips. Then I started strumming with the pick, and we began the chorus and its harmony.

“Didn’t know the journey for my dreams would lead me to you,

When I was blinded by darkness you pulled me into the light,

Picking the glass shards out my feet, and together we flew,

Didn’t know that love could even reach such a height,

You helped me forward when I didn’t know what to do,

Helped me reach my dreams, and when I did, what a sight.”

His piano playing faded and then I started finger picking the guitar once more for my verse. I put the pick in between my knees-I had no time. Then I started to sing.

“I lost my dreams and hopes and didn’t know where to go,

I was frozen in time that was going much too slow,

My heart begged to find the dreams and hopes that I’d lost,

But I knew that if I found them there’d be too big a cost.”

We did the pre-chorus again, and then I got my pick and we did the chorus one more time. Then, we played the pre-chorus again-we had decided to use the same tune with a different harmony to make it sound slightly different as the bridge.

“The stars didn’t foretell,” I started.

“My dream would be like hell,” he sang. The melody for the pre-chorus had been: the main melody, then an echo, so we had decided to incorporate that into our lyrics as well.

“But nor did they see,”

“The coincidence of you meeting me,”

“And now I’ve realized,”

“That it wasn’t coincidence,”

“But fate,” we sang together, me harmonizing with him, as we went a note higher, higher, higher… we held the last note long, along with the bang of his chord and my strum.

He released his foot from the pedal, releasing the note, and I muted my guitar.

We sang the chorus one more time, before repeating the last line without any instrumental.

My boys started clapping first, wooting and cheering. And though they would never admit it, Yoongi and Namjoon both had proud grins on their faces as they clapped. Jungkook grinned at me, and Taehyung clapped.

“Okay, so can I sing one more song before we all go to sleep?” I requested, looking at the clock that read two o’clock.

“Sure, why not?” Taehyung smiled at me.

“My number eighteen, guys.” I grinned.

(A/N: When someone refers to their number eighteen, it means their favourite song or their song that they like to sing at karaoke rooms the most. Of course, eighteen is also the way people refer to a common Korean swear word that has a very similar sound, eighteen being ssip pal, and the swear word being ssi bal.)

I took my place in front of the keyboard, adjusting the mic to fit me. Yoongi took his place by the drums, Namjoon took his place by the bass, and Taehyung took his place by the electric guitar. Jungkook took the other keyboard, setting it to Synth 4.

I nodded to them, and Jungkook started playing the beginning.

“I feel for you

but when did you

believe you were alone.

You say that spiders crawled inside

and made themselves a home

where light once was.”

Yoongi started kicking the bass drum.

“Petrified of who you are

and who you have become.

You will hide from everyone

denying you need someone

to exterminate your bones,” I sang, looking from Sukjin to Kyungsoo, a pained expression on my face.

“Friend, please

remove your hands

from over your eyes

for me.

I know you want to leave but

friend, please

don't take your life away

from me.”

The drums stopped abruptly, before continuing with Taehyung playing the electric guitar with Namjoon supporting him with the bass for the instrumental. Then, when the second verse started, I started playing the keyboard (set at Grand Piano) along with the drums.

“Living like a ghost

you walk by

everyone you know.

You say that you're fine

but you have lost your

sway and glow.

So I'll stop by to let you know.”

Jungkook started harmonizing with me.

“Friend, please

remove your hands

from over your eyes

for me.

I know you want to leave but

friend, please

don't take your life away

from me.”

Taehyung replaced Jungkook, singing the background vocals, and it was only Yoongi with the drums.

“Would you let me know your plans tonight?

'Cause I just wont let go 'til we both see the light.

And I have nothing else to say,

But I will listen to you all day.

Yes I will.” We were all playing for the instrumental until it died down to just me playing the keyboard, no more background vocals or harmonizing.

“Friend, please

remove your hands

from over your eyes

for me.

I know you want to leave but

friend, please

don't take your life away

from me.” I whispered the last line, a huge lump in my throat.

This was a song that I had relied on for a long time… from my dad to Becca to Sukjin… and now, to Kyungsoo. A lot of Twenty One Pilots had helped me in that sense. They had been the band that I had aspired to be like, even before everything with my dad had happened.

And although I knew that Kyungsoo couldn’t understand all of the lyrics, I also knew that he felt my intent and understood what was most important.

I swallowed the lump in my throat down, and in my tears, smiling at him. “Time to sleep?”

My boys were all glancing at Kyungsoo, but he was looking straight at me and didn’t notice. Tao had tears in his eyes, as did Jongin. Those who knew my father personally all had a misty look in their eyes, my brother particularly. He was obviously holding back tears as I walked over to him and squeezed his hand tightly, my own eyes flooding with tears once again. “There’s a line I once read, in a book called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. It goes like this, ‘I know in my head that she has gone, but I still keep looking. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It’s like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with you forget it’s there and you keep falling in. After a while, it’s still there, but you learn to walk round it.’”

“I’m sorry, Joo… I’m your oppa, yet you are always stronger than me, always protecting and always comforting me. I’m your oppa, yet you are always the one taking care of umma and me, when I’m the firstborn and it is naturally my responsibility.”

“But you are braver than anyone I know, oppa, and that makes everything okay.”

“But I’m not brave!” Namjoon whispered.

“‘Courage was not always a matter of yes and no,’” I quoted The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.

“‘How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be. The distinction was important,’” he quoted back at me.

“‘Maybe he was already gone.’”

Namjoon’s face broke when I whispered this.

“‘Nobody’s fault. Everybody’s,’” he replied, body shaking.

No one watching us could understand the interaction that was happening between the two of us—our father had fought in the Vietnam War. He’d strongly recommended The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien to us, when asked by my brother on how we could understand him and what he had gone through.

And it was only now that we realized. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they called it. He had had it, we all knew it. He had hid it well, but he still flinched when there was a loud banging noise, and he still ran to the person when they screamed. He still reached for the nonexistent gun, and he rarely slept. He still wept secretly on his friends’ gil’s.

A lot of people had ended up killing themselves years after a war they had fought in. They never ended up forgetting.

Our father had had PTSD, yet… why had we never considered that the reason of his death… had been…

The look of horror and apprehension were on both his and my faces.

“‘They all carried ghosts.’” I fell to my knees, burying my face in my hands.

“We’re such idiots,” he sobbed. “How did we not see this? We’re such idiots. Such idiots, such idiots. We’re such idiots.” Yoongi stepped in front of him, so that my brother was banging his head against his chest.

I looked up to see my brother with anguish written all over his face, horror in my eyes as tears dripped my face unknowingly. Kyungsoo was by my side immediately, an arm around my shoulder. The others surrounded me, mumbling questions and comforting things that went deaf by my ears.

The Vietnam War had been so long ago… we had just thought that he’d gotten over it. How could we have ignored such an important and obvious thing? We hadn’t paid attention to him at all!

I let out a pained sob, clutching my hair. “No! No! No!” I sobbed.

It was completely different knowing why he had killed himself. Completely different.

“What’s the point of having a 148 IQ if I can’t even see this? I’m such an idiot,” he wept.

Yoongi pulled him into a hug, and Namjoon stopped all attempts of hurting himself and instead went limp in his embrace, tears flowing freely down his cheeks with no expression on his face.

“Appa…” Namjoon whispered, no emotion left in his eyes.

“Ugh,” I sobbed, letting go of my hair to bang my fists against the floor.

Hands came to stop me, grabbing my wrists. I looked that person in the face with a pained expression on my own, to see that it was Chanyeol. I sobbed, trying to get my fists free and giving up, pounding on his chest instead. Kyungsoo pulled me to face him, a heartbroken expression on his face. The pain in his face was so raw that it started a whole new set of sobs, and with that I felt the energy drain from me as I slumped into Kyungsoo’s embrace, crying.

“Appa,” I wept. “Appa…”

He my hair as he soothed me, mumbling calming words into my ear.

By the time my tears slowed, I realized that Yoongi had already taken my brother to his floor, but that everyone else was still there, watching me anxiously. Even Hoseok.

“You okay?” Kyungsoo whispered.

I shook my head. I stumbled to my feet. He followed suit, putting an arm around me. “Let’s get you to bed. I think you should probably sleep.”

I nodded numbly, and Jungkook led the way to the room that I usually stayed in. Everyone else awkwardly trailed behind.

“Eun… I’m going to head home. I’m sorry for everything that I did to you. You didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry for being such a douchebag. And um… I hope that we can become friends again… eventually. As selfish as it is to say that,” said Hoseok, right before I entered my room.

He looked unsure, and worried, and then I remembered the Hoseok who had been my friend, before we had dated. Always happy, always cheering me up. Always cheering everyone else up. Annoying at times, but always there for you.

I gave a single nod, and he turned to leave.

“Junmyeon, I have a spare bed, if you want to room with me for today,” Sukjin suggested.

Junmyeon glanced at me, before wrapping me in a hug and walking to Sukjin’s side. There were no words necessary.

Good night’s were said, and eventually, it was only Jungkook, Kyungsoo and I standing in the hallway. Kyungsoo was looking at me in worry, and Jungkook had a look of understanding on his face. Yoongi and he had probably already figured out what had happened on their own. They’d known that my father had fought in the Vietnam War, and they too had read the book we had been quoting. For them, it was a high school project. Those two understood my brother and I better than anyone else.

I tugged on Kyungsoo’s sleeve, wordlessly asking him to go into my room with me. Jungkook gave a slight nod to me, smiling slightly, before going into the last available room. I pulled Kyungsoo into my room, closing the door behind us.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you, but can I just… sleep beside you for tonight?” I asked, the first words coming out of my mouth since I had stopped crying. “I… need the human contact.”

I heard his intake of breath, before seeing his head bob up and down. “Of course, Jooeun. Anything for you.”

We pushed the two twin sized beds together so that they were side by side, before settling into them. I pulled the blanket over me, sliding across the bed so that I was closer to him. My body facing his, I put my arms around him, burying my face into his neck. He automatically put his arms around my waist, shifting me closer to him, our legs tangling in the process.

He pulled my blanket so that it covered him as well.

“Sleep well,” he whispered into my ear.

A/N: Haha can you tell that Kyungsoo is my bias? Anyway this was kind of a bomb loool hope you enjoyed this chapter :) (to get y'all into the Christmas mood a bit)

~Jinny out