Jackson wakes up that morning to an envelope hitting his face and a dog scratching his leg.

“What.”

He squints at the bright light coming in through the blinds before smacking the offending rectangle of paper off to the side.

“Jackson! Don’t go back to sleep. I need you to drop this off at the bank before you go in for your shift this afternoon. Don’t forget unless you want to be out on your with the landlord hounding you for a paycheck.”

“What.” Jackson thinks he hears Jinyoung’s voice say some more words ranging from “careful” to “I’m late” to “you’re dead to me” but he opts to rather ignore his roommate’s ritual morning mumbo jumbo in favor of turning over and falling back asleep, this time very much without the sun shining in his eyes. Heating bill be damned, Jackson does not appreciate Jinyoung ruining his beauty sleep by yanking open the blinds every day at eight in the morning.

“I said don’t sleep!”

“Okay mom,” he mumbles to the sound of the front door slamming shut.

—

Jackson forces himself out of bed after a few moments of tossing and turning. Jinyoung always knew what kinds of smells to cook up in the morning and how to open doors in just the way that would scratch on the back of Jackson’s half-conscious mind until he dragged his out of bed. This hadn’t been what Jackson had been expected when first signing the lease with Jinyoung.

This and the mess of our living room, Jackson thinks as he picks his way between piles of clutter and makes his way to the awaiting omelet in the kitchen. At least there’s one good side to this arrangement, Jackson concludes as he munches through breakfast while scrolling down his newsfeed. Its an average start to an average morning before he’s off to his afternoon shift at work. He picks up the envelope Jinyoung had dropped on him and decides that thirty minutes before work should do the trick, checking the time as he starts getting dressed.

Jackson checks the time on his phone once more as he leaves the house, checking the lock once, then twice because sometimes their neighbor gets confused and likes to barge in. He sees that he has plenty of extra time and decides that today is a good day, a leisurely day. He walks out the door with a smile reaching his eyes and a whistle on his lips, waving at the guard at the front as he passes.

Jackson is enticed by the sweet aroma of lattes and espresso coming for the little cafe around the corner and stops in for a green tea latte, dropping a tip for the barista because if his day is going this great, then so should everybody else’s.

Once he reaches the bank, the shining sun and chirping birds have made it so that he feels like he’s practically floating at this point. The heavens truly appear to be blessing him today, because he bumps into a man at the door with a smile that could outshine the sun.

“Oh, sorry!” the stranger giggles, pulling back from the door as Jackson reaches forward.

“Oh no, after you,” Jackson gestures, and hey, it’s the gentlemanly thing to do! Although if somebody asked, he wouldn’t be able to truthfully say that he hadn’t used the opportunity to check out that fine as it walked by him.

As they get into line, Jackson is so dazed by the smell of actual sunflowers and daisies emanating off of this angel in front of him that he ends up bumping into his backside. The stranger turns around with a surprised expression on his face, and Jackson opens his mouth to apologize when the moment explodes.

He hears it behind him in slow motion, the tinkling of the bells above the doorway emphasized by the shattering of the glass windows. Logically, Jackson knows it isn’t possible, but he’s sure he can hear each individual crackle and snap match the reflection in the stranger’s eyes as they widen in shock and fear.

And then snap, life is back on normal speed, people are screaming everywhere and Jackson does the only thing he can think of to do. He drops Jinyoung’s envelope and grabs the man’s hand in front of him, drags it behind him as he leaps behind a booth and crouches, panting heavily. There’s panicked shouting and scrambling everywhere, and for some reason, the sprinklers have gone off so now they’re wet. Jackson, with water dripping down his hair and face, mouths, “Are you okay?” and when the stranger nods, still with those wide and solemn eyes staring at him, Jackson finds a sliver of a smile within him. “Hi, Okay. I’m Jackson.”

The stranger opens his mouth wide, and even though Jackson has never heard his laugh, and maybe never will, he can imagine how loud and carefree it would be. Jackson imagines it bouncing around a classroom full of little kids as the man reads a fairytale to his students, or outside, laughing and rolling off the picnic blanket and into the grass, or in a movie theatre on an awkward first date while everybody else in the theatre shoots death glares while Jackson can’t help but laugh along, or in a car on a long road trip to the beach as kids in the backseat whine, “Are we there yet?”

But instead, in this heavy moment, he gets to hear a strangled breath before the man shakes his head gently, fondly, even, following up with a smile and a whisper of, “It’s actually Youngjae.”

As Jackson turns his head to the side and sees thick black boots stomp over Jinyoung’s check, a small part of his brain tells him that later, Jinyoung will be so upset with him for letting this happen, although he’s not sure whether this is the fallen envelope, or the hiding behind the desk about to die, or not getting this strange man’s number and letting Jinyoung be their best man in the future and adopting the cutest little babies who will grow up knowing that their father was an angel and naming Jinyoung godfather and sending their children on little playdates and crying together as a family as they watch their babies go off to college and, and, and… And instead making Jinyoung be a primary mourner at a funeral, or whatever.

But he decides that, in the end, it doesn’t matter, as he tilts his head back against the wooden panel and looks up into the barrel of a gun, smiling, as he whispers, “Okay, Actually-Youngjae.”

—

Later, when the police arrive just a few minutes too late, they’ll discover two bodies sitting side by side with their fingers interlocked. They might scratch their heads for a minute, but in the end, they shrug and mark their files, No Known Relation.

heh... sorry about that fellas, just doin' what the prompt asked. debating writing an alternate ending ... let me know lol

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