Genre: Angst, friendship, deaths (as in they're already dead)

Rated: G-ish

Word Count: 1.5k words

Pairing: Kaisoo, Sekai

Requested by: N/a

Short Description: Jongin's been stuck playing limbo for the longest time, but meeting Kyungsoo and Sehun makes him realize that he can't keep playing forever.

Jongin's been stuck here a while. Stuck in this weird realm in between reality and fiction, playing a stupid game of limbo with thousands of other people. And the lower the stick gets, the closer a person is to vanishing from this realm, but for Jongin, the stick hasn't lowered for what feels like ages now.

He thinks it's ironic how being dead makes him feel more unique than he did during his time among the living. In fact, he's so special that he's one of the longest inhabitants of this realm--right up there with a woman who got hacked to death by a spoon.

Regrets, guilt, sadness...those three emotions are what keep you stuck in this place. And Jongin can't help but feel all of those and more (it's just a part of his personality).

So as more acquaintances accept their deaths and tear up or smile as they vanish--he waits in the long line of limbo-ers with his shoulders slumping more and more. But, just like in once-life, people appear out of thin air all the time just as often as people vanish. Newly deceased people who can't let their once-reality go for whichever reasons.

He's made only one close friend over his two years and counting here--a guy named Kyungsoo who died around his age. Whenever Jongin felt down (as he tended to feel all the time), Kyungsoo would always manage to cheer him up for an outstanding amount of time. With stories of his past life, funny things his living friends did, and just by being there in front of him in the line.

But, three-hundred and fifty-four days ago, the limbo stick lowered to the ground for Kyungsoo. Jongin's (and a bunch of new people's) eyes widened at the sight and Kyungsoo just stared agape at the stick and didn't move.

Usually what Jongin dubs as 'the lightness' happens instantly after the stick lowers, but for some reason when one of Kyungsoo's other friends, Baekhyun, went out of line to clap Kyungsoo on his back and congratulate him--the stick started raising a bit.

Without Kyungsoo vanishing away.

Jongin's stomach then dropped when Kyungsoo abruptly clutched his own stomach and dropped to the floor. Trying to stay in limbo tends to do that to a person and Jongin's seen it happen too many times now. But for once he actually had someone he cared about in this stupid place.

So, he dropped to the non-descript ground without a thought and cradled his crying friend's head into his hand. Baekhyun started to kneel down too but immediately got yanked up by a 'Permanent' and guided back to his place in the line. ((The line doesn't even have an order--it's just whoever wants to go first, but the Permanents (people who've been here for centuries) are always such sticklers for order.))

Kyungsoo looked up into Jongin's eyes, letting out shaky breaths and blinking rapidly as tears kept falling from his eyes. Jongin couldn't help but cry himself when he saw Kyungsoo scrunch up his face and start to make these awful gagging sounds.

When a person vanishes, it's always peaceful and quick, they say. When a person tries not to vanish though, they experience what happened to cause them to come to this place. In Kyungsoo's case, he gulped down mud while caught in a landslide and died from blunt-force trauma.

Kyungsoo shot out his hands then, most likely struggling against once-real mud, and Jongin just cried while most of their fellow limbo-ers either watched on with bored faces or chatted with each other about this and that. Then, the stick lowered to the ground again with a loud slap and Kyungsoo stilled in