Limbo

Chapter 6: The Roommate

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That day, Jongdae’s classes ran later than Baekhyun’s, so when the art student finally returned to the dorm, his roommate was already there, sitting on the couch and apparently waiting for him. Having spent most of his time around Baekhyun, Jongdae knew that something interesting happened that day the moment Baekhyun opened his mouth.

“’Dae, you’re not going to believe what happened during class today…”

Jongdae listened to Baekhyun blabber as he dropped his things off in his rooms. Apparently, the film for one of the cameras that the students were using had started burning, causing the camera to smoke. The issue had been taken care of easily, although the camera apparently needed replacing.

“And the professor is pretty upset with the student for leaving her camera in the sun,” Baekhyun sighed as Jongdae came back to the living room and began digging through the fridge for a quick snack.

“At least it’s not your camera,” Jongdae pointed out, setting the jar of kimchi on the kitchen counter.

“Oh, yeah,” Baekhyun murmured. Suddenly, he straightened up and looked at Jongdae. “By the way, what’s with all those drawings of that one guy on your laptop?”

Jongdae paused and turned around to face Baekhyun. “What guy?” the art student asked, genuinely confused by the sudden question. Then, he remembered all those digital sketches he had done of Junmyeon the night before. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Baekhyun shifted around on the couch until he could face Jongdae comfortably. “Who is he?”

“It’s Junmyeon.” Jongdae felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment, even though Baekhyun knew Jongdae sometimes liked to draw people he was familiar with.

“Junmyeon?” Baekhyun repeated incredulously, “You two have become friends?”

“Well, no, but he’s gotten friendlier since our first meeting, and I really wanted to draw him.”

A moment of silence ensued where Baekhyun didn’t say anything and Jongdae was too embarrassed to look at his roommate. The art student could feel Baekhyun’s eyes boring into the back of his head, but he busied himself with preparing food so he wouldn’t have to turn around and look at his best friend.

“Is it a good idea to be…seeing Junmyeon?”

Jongdae whipped around in surprise and met Baekhyun’s serious gaze. “What do you mean?”

Baekhyun hesitated, looking as though he was trying to formulate the right words. “It…doesn’t this seem strange to you? Seeing a dead man when you sleep? I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t exactly choose to dream of Junmyeon,” Jongdae pointed out, “Besides, he doesn’t seem like he will try to hurt me.”

Baekhyun looked like he wanted to say something else but kept his mouth shut and lowered his gaze, seemingly losing himself to his own thoughts.

Jongdae shut the refrigerator door. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he insisted, “But I’ll be careful when I’m in Limbo.”

The film student nodded, although he still looked unsure of Jongdae’s decision. “Well, as long as you don’t let it interfere with your schoolwork. How is your graduation project coming along?”

“I still have nothing,” Jongdae confessed, feeling frustrated as he thought of the large, empty canvas that he had gotten for his graduation project months ago.

Baekhyun opened his mouth again, but Jongdae knew what his best friend was going to say and interrupted the film student before he could get any words out. “I won’t let Junmyeon distract me from the project. I promise!”

Satisfied with Jongdae’s answer, Baekhyun dropped the subject and immediately picked up another one. “Where did you go during lunch? Poor Jonginnie had to be a third wheel for me and Yeol.”

Jongdae laughed as he imagined Jongin wearing a kicked-puppy look as he ate his own lunch while Baekhyun and Chanyeol fed each other. “I’ll text Jongin later. After I eat.”

“Right. So where did you go off to? You only told me you were going to draw.”

“Oh, I went to the courtyard at the south side of campus,” Jongdae explained as he chewed on some kimchi.

“There’s a courtyard there?” Baekhyun asked in surprise, and honestly, Jongdae couldn’t blame him. There were parts of campus that one person might never need to go to in their entire time as a student, and the southern courtyard was actually close to the engineering department of the school. Jongdae only knew about it because he stumbled upon it while taking a walk a few months ago. As far as he knew, art students rarely wandered there.

“Yeah, it’s a quiet place, so I like drawing there.”

Baekhyun made an ‘ah’ sound and nodded his head. “Did you manage to get some drawing done then?”

“I drew a portrait,” Jongdae offered, “It’s messy as hell, but I would consider it complete.”

“A portrait? Of me?” Baekhyun struck an extravagant pose on the edge of the couch, making a show of looking pretty for some invisible camera, until he lost his balance and tumbled off the furniture. Jongdae roared in laughter and choked on his mouthful of food, which sent Baekhyun into a bout of raucous chortling.

When the two finally calmed down, both of them had tears in their eyes and were breathing heavily. Jongdae remained hunched over at the kitchen table while Baekhyun was sprawled out on the floor like a starfish. Jongdae’s throat burned from the kimchi, so he eagerly drank the cup of water that he had managed to get while in his coughing fit.

“But seriously though, who did you draw?” Baekhyun asked again once he had recovered his breath.

Jongdae hesitated, not wanting to hear another lecture from Baekhyun, but in the end, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to lie to his best friend. “I searched up Junmyeon on the Internet and drew him.”

He waited with bated breath but was caught off guard when Baekhyun merely hummed and asked, “What did you find out about him?”

Jongdae forgot to answer for a moment, too surprised to formulate an answer, but he jolted out of his stupor when Baekhyun turned to give him a questioning glance.

“Well, there was nothing extraordinary. He was just a music student from a wealthy family who wanted to write songs,” Jongdae explained.

“Did you find out if he was homoual?”

Jongdae almost choked on his food for the second time, not expecting Baekhyun to dive right into the personal questions.

“What, you’re not curious?” The film student defended himself as he sat up and leaned against the couch.

“Why are you curious?” Jongdae retorted, voice rising in pitch with every word.

“He was found with another man. Don’t you think it’s a possibility that the man was an abusive boyfriend or something?” Baekhyun matched Jongdae’s embarrassment, raising his voice as he spoke.

“Even if he was, it’s none of our business!” Jongdae shrieked. Then, he realized that the people next door could probably hear them and quickly lowered his voice. “Whatever his uality is, that’s for Junmyeon to say. If he never wants to tell me, then fine, but I don’t want to snoop too much.”

“Alright.” Baekhyun willingly backed off. “Come to think of it, why do you dream of Limbo anyway? Why don’t I have dreams of a gray forest almost every night?”

Jongdae felt like he had been punched in the stomach as he remembered what Junmyeon told him. About to die or suicidal. The art student picked at his food, appetite gone, while Baekhyun rambled about something to the side.

“Did Junmyeon ever tell you anything about Limbo?” Baekhyun asked, bringing Jongdae out of his thoughts.

“Um, he told me that this Kyungsoo person figured some stuff out about Limbo, and–”

“That name sounds familiar,” Baekhyun interrupted, tapping at his chin thoughtfully.

“Who? Kyungsoo?”

“Yeah. I think I saw that name on the Internet or something. I don’t remember details, but my brain thinks ‘murder’ whenever I hear that name.” Baekhyun pulled out his phone and began tapping away at the screen. “I’ll look him up. What else did Junmyeon say?”

“He said that there are many souls in Limbo, but each soul is kept in their own space, so one soul could go forever without seeing anyone else, apparently.”

The film student looked extremely confused by Jongdae’s explanation. “Wait…can you explain that again using basic Korean?”

Jongdae didn’t say anything, trying to figure out how to describe the structure of Limbo to Baekhyun. “There are several smaller spaces inside a large space. The big space is Limbo. The smaller spaces are the dimensions of each soul, and they never cross into one another,” he repeated what Junmyeon told him and looked at Baekhyun expectantly, hoping that the film student understood.

Baekhyun’s lower lip jutted out in a pout as he tried to wrap his head around the explanation. “I think I get it?” he said unsurely. Then, he looked down at his phone and tapped on the screen again before getting to his feet and moving to stand beside Jongdae. “I think I found something about Kyungsoo.”

Jongdae leaned over and looked at the list of articles. “Try the first one.” He pointed at the link titled ‘Do Family Heir Found Dead in Home.’ Baekhyun pressed on the link with his thumb, and when a drop-down menu appeared, he tapped the ‘Open in new tab’ option.

As the article finished loading, Baekhyun cleared his throat and read it out loud. “’On September 17^th, 1970, the body of Do Kyungsoo was discovered in the living room of his home. Upon arrival, the police found the glass table broken, and the victim had been stabbed in the heart by one of the shards from his shattered table.’” Baekhyun made a face. “Sounds like a murder to me, ‘Dae.”

“What else does it say?” Jongdae craned his neck, trying to scan the words as Baekhyun scrolled through the article.

“Uh,” Baekhyun drew out the syllable as he searched for something interesting. “Oh, here. ‘Not long after the discovery of Mr. Do, the police found another body not far from Mr. Do’s residency. The second victim was identified to be Oh Sehun…’” The film student’s voice trailed off slightly before it returned to an audible volume. “It says that the police think Sehun is the killer, but Kyungsoo fought back and wounded him enough for him to die after leaving the house.”

“Hm,” Jongdae hummed, “I wonder if this Oh Sehun is in Limbo.”

Baekhyun looked at him with an open mouth and raised eyebrow. “You want to meet a murderer?”

“I didn’t say that!” Jongdae cried in defense, “I’m just curious about whether or not he ended up in Limbo like Junmyeon and Kyungsoo did!”

“But if you could meet him, would you?” Baekhyun turned back to his phone, swiping upwards with his thumb as he continued to scroll through the article.

“I–”

“Look, Sehun doesn’t even need his hands; he could kill you with his stare.” Baekhyun shoved his phone under Jongdae’s nose, and the art student was greeted by a picture of an expressionless man with a piercing gaze.

Impatiently, Jongdae pushed Baekhyun’s phone away. “I’m not eager to die, Baek. Like I said, I was just curious!”

Baekhyun grinned as he stowed his phone away, and Jongdae realized that his best friend had only been playing around again. An agitated whine escaped Jongdae’s mouth as he glared at Baekhyun, who merely pocketed his phone and sauntered away.

“Oh, ‘Dae, I just had a thought.” Baekhyun crawled back onto the couch, settling down on the more comfortable surface. “What if all this stuff about Limbo is from some kind of mental abnormality?”

Jongdae wrinkled his nose. “What do you mean?”

“You know how there are people out there who have their senses linked and stuff? Maybe you’re kind of like that.”

“But…” Jongdae frowned, trying to remember whether synesthesia was mental or physical. Or was it something else entirely?

“It could be because of a mental illness that hasn’t been officially discovered yet,” Baekhyun continued on, unaware of Jongdae’s plight.

Jongdae really didn’t want it to be because of a mental illness. South Korea had never been the country with the best treatment for mental disorders and diseases, and Jongdae knew that he would probably get no help and would most likely be ridiculed for being mentally ill.

After the two of them retreated to their own rooms for the night, Jongdae sat at his laptop and opened up a search engine. Apprehensively, he typed in ‘Limbo’ and hit enter, watching as the laptop laid out a page of results across the screen.

There was nothing new from the last time he looked Limbo up, so Jongdae went to edit his search. He added ‘mental illness’ to the search box and pressed the search button again. Results that weren’t present before showed up, but none of them were very comforting for the art student.

In the end, he clicked on one titled “Are you Living in Limbo?” and started reading quickly, eyes darting across each line as he desperately sought the answer that would comfort him or doom him.

He wasn’t sure what to feel when he realized the article contained absolutely no useful information whatsoever. There were paragraphs talking about living in the moment, but nothing about dreams and gray worlds, so Jongdae closed the article and looked for a new one.

To his dismay, the next article talked about how living in Limbo would result in depression, although it didn’t mention whether Limbo was caused by a mental illness. Tired and frustrated, Jongdae shut down his laptop and slipped into bed, but his thoughts continued to race as he stared at the dark ceiling.

Maybe it was the exhaustion, but before he fell asleep, Jongdae thought that perhaps Limbo could be a result of a mental illness, one that made his brain conjure up Limbo. Perhaps Limbo was actually a figment of Jongdae’s imagination, one that took place in his sleep. Maybe Baekhyun was right, and that this was the result of an unrecorded mental illness. Junmyeon and the gray world may not even be real.

However, Jongdae thought Junmyeon looked very real when he opened his eyes and found himself in Limbo once more.

A/N: Jongdae's starting to doubt his sanity now mostly thanks to Baekhyun's prompting, although Baekhyun doesn't seem to be aware of his influence on Jongdae...and how will Junmyeon react if Jongdae thinks Limbo isn't real? Well, I would like to hear what you guys think first ;)

'Til next chapter!