--~~--

18

Jongin reached the meadow that contained the the waterfall, and threw his backpack down. He was breathing sharp and uneven, seemingly unable to expand his lungs because of the lump that sat in his chest.

He was just outside of the forest, and he was too nervous to venture any further.  

Too afraid of what he’d find— or wouldn’t find—waiting for him in the clearing.  

Another fall, winter, and spring had passed, another round of seasons spent drowning in his thoughts and insecurities regarding Kyungsoo.    

Jongin put his hands on his hips and begin to pace, stopping every once in a while to thread his fingers through his overgrown hair.  He needed to gather his emotions and figure out how he wanted to approach this situation.  If Kyungsoo were there, waiting for him, should Jongin bring up what had happened in the clearing last summer?  Maybe he should just pretend it had never happened, that’s likely what Kyungsoo would do…

…but then, this was his last summer, and he really felt like they needed to talk about it.  He wanted  to talk about it.  

Jongin released a heavy sigh and hung his head.  He’d had all winter long to think about this and he still couldn’t figure out how he wanted to react.  

A gentle breeze brushed past, and Jongin found himself relaxing just a bit, mesmerized by the soft movements of the grass and the flowers.  He crouched down, reached out to caress the soft petals of an amaryllis, so bright and red amongst the other plants.  There was a small cluster of them concentrated in this particular spot, and Jongin cleared his mind and took a moment to simply enjoy the sight of them.   

Some of the emotions that had been warring within him quieted down.  The flowers brushed against his skin in a tickling dance, and he felt a blooming sense of hope expand within him.  

He stood from his place, and turned his gaze toward the treeline.  He would walk to the clearing, and he would talk to Kyungsoo.

About everything.

He situated his backpack on his shoulders, and strode toward the forest. 

—~~—

When he stepped into the clearing, he was unsurprised to find it empty and silent.  Unsurprised, but still let down.  Some of the anticipation in his system began to drain.    

The door to the cabin was slightly ajar, and as Jongin moved closer, he could tell that it had probably been that way for a while now.  There was leaf litter piled up on the floor, cobwebs hanging in the corners, a couple of animal prints outlined in mud.  

Kyungsoo hadn’t been here in months.

He huffed out a breath and stepped back into the sunlit clearing, heading toward his usual spot on the boulder. 

Time to wait.  

Again.

He’d done it before, he could do it one more time.

Of course… of all the times he’d waited, Kyungsoo had maybe shown up once.  Jongin sat down slowly and shook his head, trying to get rid of the negative thoughts creeping inward.

But it was hard.

The sun was hot and heavy against his skin, the boulder hard and uncomfortable beneath him.  It took only ten minutes of sitting there for a familiar anger to begin to build within Jongin.  It built, and built, and built.  That same expanding anger that had been growing within him for the last few months he’d been away.  

A drop of sweat ran down the back of his neck, and the forest remained silent.

No sign of Kyungsoo to be found.

All at once, Jongin’s anger crested.  

It was so unfair for Kyungsoo to be the one who decided how this strange relationship worked.  He was there when he wanted to be, and gone when it suddenly suited him best.  Friendly, open, and revealing, and then cold, quiet, and distant.  Kyungsoo was just as mercurial as the changing weather.  

And Jongin, stupid Jongin, he was so obsessed, so enamored, that he couldn’t stay away, even when it was obvious that Kyungsoo wanted nothing to do with him.

And why did Kyungsoo want nothing to do with him? Well, that was something Jongin still couldn’t figure out.  He assumed that it very much had something to do with that particular moment on the forest floor last summer.  The one where Kyungsoo had saved his life and pulled him so close.  The one where Jongin was so sure — for a split second — that the older male was going to press their lips together.

The one where Kyungsoo must have realized how badly Jongin wanted him… and then immediately pushed him away.

Jongin had thought about that moment over and over again, analyzed it from every angle, tried to figure out what had exactly gone wrong…

And the only conclusion he could come to was that Kyungsoo knew.  Kyungsoo knew exactly how Jongin felt, and did not, in any way, feel the same. 

It hurt.  

And Jongin was tired of hurting.

Thoughts of Kyungsoo used to be fun and bright, make his heart speed with excitement.  But now he just got a sick ball of anxious guilt in his stomach.  That same feeling he got when he knew he’d done something wrong and he was just waiting for the eventual punishment.

But with Kyungsoo he could never figure out what he’d done wrong.  The feeling was always there, but Jongin could never understand why he deserved it.

Jongin realized now that he had to let this go.

He had to let Kyungsoo go.  

He would make this the last time he hiked into the forest, the last time he sat on this ing stupid rock waiting for someone who didn’t even care enough to tell him to Stop. Coming. Back. 

This would be the last time he waited for Kyungsoo, and then Jongin would leave for good, forget he’d ever even gone to summer camp and met a boy in the woods.

But he had something he needed to say first.  Words he needed to put into the air.

Jongin stood from his spot, breathing hard.  He slung his backpack down and made a decision.  If Kyungsoo wasn’t going to come to him, then he would go to Kyungsoo.

He reached for the closest branch, his grip tight and determined.  He swung upwards with ease, his body moving with the grace of a person who was utterly confident in their ability to climb.  He’d kept that promise to himself from last summer, had settled into his growing limbs and began to workout at the local gym.  He was older and stronger this year, and he would make it up to that treehouse on his own.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Jongin’s head whipped around, eyes searching for Kyungsoo’s location.  He spotted the older male’s figure a few branches above him, carefully camouflaged, carefully folded in that same posture that he had held the first time Jongin had ever seen him.  One leg propped up, the other dangling below.  An air of cool nonchalance.  

Jongin swallowed and held onto that anger that was still flaring in his chest.  He stood on his branch, and braced his hand on the tree trunk, drawing strength from its solid form.  He stared up at Kyungsoo with determination. 

“We need to talk.”

Kyungsoo didn’t move.  Jongin kept speaking.  

“I have something to tell you.”

The leaves shivered as the older male dropped down several branches, his eyes dark and hooded.  

“So speak.”

Jongin inhaled, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out where to start.  He actually had so much he wanted to say.  “I’m going to college next week.  It’ll be far away from here.  On the coast.”  He fleetingly wondered if Kyungsoo even knew what ‘college’ was.  “Which means I won’t be coming back here anymore.”

Jongin held still, half-hoping for a reaction, but there was nothing.  No gasp of surprise, no words of congratulations or half-hearted sadness at his impending departure.  

Nothing.  Jongin frowned, his heart pounding in his chest as his next words built in his throat.  He couldn’t hold them back any longer.  “You must know how I feel about you, right?”

Kyungsoo stared back, eyes so dark and unfathomable in the shadows of the thick leaves.  Jongin studied him, looking deep, hoping to see even the slightest hint that the male returned his affections.    

But there was nothing. 

Nothing.

He knows how you feel.  He’s always known.

Jongin nodded slowly in sudden understanding, his eyes still fastened to Kyungsoo’s.  “I’m not him, am I?  I’m not him, so I’ll never be good enough.”

Jongin stood then, turning his head away from the the other male, and blinking rapidly.  “I’m an idiot.  I’m always an idiot,” he mumbled as he swung down from his branch.  He landed on the boulder in a clumsy crouch, in too much of a hurry to care that one of his knees had scraped and was bleeding.  Jongin snatched his backpack up and started toward the path that would lead him back to camp, his steps quick and gaze focused.

As he reached the path, a bright red amaryllis caught his sight, and he slowed to a stop.  He stood there for a moment, his anger still hot in his veins, remembering his determination from earlier.

He and Kyungsoo would talk.

Jongin threw his backpack off right there and ran back to the boulder, climbing to stand on top of it and glare up at Kyungsoo.

“Why won’t you tell me who you really are?”

“You wouldn’t believe me, even if I tried.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, I think I can handle the truth!”

“No.  I don’t think you could.”

The calm disdain in Kyungsoo’s voice only served to flare Jongin’s anger to greater heights.

“You know, sometimes I just think you’re a figment of my imagination.  It’s like I’ve actually gone crazy.  That—that I’m hiking out into the middle of nowhere and just sitting on a rock and talking to myself.”  Jongin exhaled heavily, his breath catching on a bitter laugh.  He ran a hand through his sweaty bangs and turned in a circle.  “Are you real?  Did I just create you because I’m so lonely?  Because I’m a loser and can’t connect with anyone but a fake person I created?”  

At this point he had tears pricking his eyes.  His chest was wide open and bleeding with all of his pent up emotions and feelings, and still… Kyungsoo didn’t move.  His expression didn’t change, his dark eyes piercing and cold.  

Jongin inhaled deeply, all of that hurt and helplessness seeming to snag and catch on the fractured pieces inside of him.  “ you.”  His voice was shaking, his hands were shaking, he was about to collapse in on himself, and Kyungsoo obviously just didn’t care.    

“And what if I told you you were right?” 

Jongin narrowed his eyes, watching as Kyungsoo began to move, standing from his perch and pacing toward the end of the branch, the part that was thin and weak.  

“What if I told you that you are the only human in this world that can see me and that I only exist in this space right here?”  

The branch groaned and made a loud snapping sound as Kyungsoo stood at the most fragile point.  The branch broke, dangling sadly, and in the same moment it drooped, Kyungsoo’s hand shot out, palm up.  And Jongin watched in complete silence as several branches curled toward Kyungsoo, moving quickly and of their own volition.  Kyungsoo grabbed onto them and allowed them to twine around his forearms and lower him down, down, down to where Jongin stood.  

“What if I told you that I wasn’t human?  That I possessed the ability to control the forest at my will?  To move the earth as if it were alive?”  Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, stalking closer to Jongin and Jongin held his breath, tilting back as the older male drew right up into his face.  “Would you believe me?”

Jongin’s heart kicked in his chest.  He didn’t know what to believe anymore.  But in that moment, he got the very distinct feeling that Kyungsoo was speaking the truth.  He could see that ancient wildness in Kyungsoo’s irises, reflecting dark and dangerous.

And Jongin realized that somehow, in his mind, Kyungsoo had always just been a part of the forest.  He was in a category of his own, some kind of… Other.  

“And you’re right,”  Kyungsoo continued, his hand snaking out grip the back of Jongin’s neck.  Jongin jerked, flinching at the touch.  Kyungsoo only pulled him closer.  Close enough to brace their foreheads together so Jongin had no choice but to stare straight at the older male.  “You’re not him, and you never will be.”

Jongin closed his eyes and let the words wash over him.  Words he’d repeated to himself constantly. They still hurt ten thousand times more coming from Kyugnsoo’s mouth.

“He was killed by a human,”  Kyungsoo continued.  “A selfish, dirty, disgusting human that wanted more land and refused to negotiate.  She murdered him right in front of me.”

Jongin’s entire body was shaking now, tears squeezing out from the edge of his closed eyelids.  Everything just hurt.  

“He looked just like you.  Same color eyes, same color hair, same build and stature.  Even your voice sounds just like his.”

Kyungsoo’s grip was harsh now, nails digging into Jongin’s neck.  Jongin clenched his teeth and didn’t say a word.

“He was a Spirit of the Wilds, just like me, and we wanted nothing more than to live in peace, but you humans…you only know how to steal and destroy.” 

“It wasn’t me,” Jongin said weakly, not sure if he was reminding Kyungsoo or reassuring himself.  “I would never—“

“No,”  Kyungsoo interrupted.  “But it will be.  You’ll turn out just like the rest of them.”

Kyungsoo let him go, and Jongin felt his knees buckle.  He hit the hard surface of the boulder, and grimaced in pain.  He opened his eyes and stared downward, vaguely registering that both of his kneecaps were bloody now.  Little red smears.  So red.  Like the petals of an amaryllis.

Jongin sat like that for a very long time, tears still streaking down his cheeks, mind numb and thoughts scattered.  He didn’t know if Kyungsoo was still standing there, and he didn’t care. 

Eventually he found enough strength within himself to get down from the boulder and trudge through the clearing to his backpack.  He reached into the front pocket, rummaging around until his hand found the glossy surface of a photograph.  He pulled it out and stared at it for half a second, before walking slowly back toward the boulder.  

Jongin placed the photo on the boulder with the utmost care, and then he turned and started his last trek through the forest.

Back toward camp.

Back toward the humans.

Back to the place he belonged.       

—~~—

A/N:  :( :( :(  Poor Jongin.  

Comments give me life!  Thanks to everyone who left a comment last chapter!  I'm still on track for that Christmas deadline.  Yay!

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