Chapter 20

Creases, lines, and affiliations of a face were so familiar yet vacant in her expression that they caused me to consider every essence of her appearance. I gazed towards her, looking through the frame encompassing her body but still heavily fixed with her features. Something so simple, yet elegant in a Jongin-sort-of-way, plagued her body, like a ripple of disapproving waves, not meant to be but physically there.

I tilted my head in such a way that allowed me to fully take in her appearance without staring with a crossed or judgmental approach.

“Jongin,” the words sounded foreign on her desolate lips.

She allowed her baby pink, satin dress to slump over her hips, the thin straps careless and limp against tan, golden skin, resembling Jongin’s tone. Her hair, though disheveled but gorgeous, flowed with majestic volume and modeled a dark, chocolaty color filled with deep tenors. 

“Mom,” Jongin’s strange, even voice cut my thinking to a straight line as I reminded myself of our purpose, the reason we inconveniently appeared like traveling ghosts right in front the door of his mother.

“I guess you found me,” she slowly replied, obviously choosing her words articulately, as if trying to deceive us, with elegance and poise, in an apologetic manner.

But there was no apology in her words.

“For the record,” Jongin surprised me with his perfectly constructed response. “This is the first time I ever considered looking for you.”

It affected me lethargically as I realized that Jongin felt a trembling anger in his heart but ignored it and responded with such wit and calm tones that filled his answers with a cold, detached expression that he certainly did not feel.

I noticed this Jongin was the one that I knew first, the false one.

I said nothing.

Mrs. Kim flicked her eyes across the distance between Jongin and me, taking an elongated second before letting them fall upon my figure. It took courage meet her gaze but even more to keep holding hands with Jongin while her eyes flashed to our entwined fingers.

I didn’t break eye contact even though her pupils remained transfixed on other things for a few more seconds before returning them to glance at Jongin and me.

“Come on,” she finally whispered, like a giving up motion or even a cry for help.

She fully opened the door and I found myself hit with a painful feeling, like she just exposed a sweeping, tearful, and terrible amount of possibilities that would haunt me.

Jongin’s mother lived in an eloquent apartment, not quite antique but catching a sort of style that resembled romance allocated with bitter revenge, compiled into a liquid filled feeling that leaked through the bones of artificial souls. I felt enraged and complimented at the same time because Jongin’s personality seemed to be dripping off the walls, forcing my heart to be consumed by bittersweet feelings.

“I would tell you to sit,” Jongin’s mother began decisively, walking into her living room which was compromised of a brown leather couch, a matching coffee table, and an assortment of other furniture that flattered the main piece. “However, I don’t think you’re very comfortable right now. And you’re going to ignore anything I say.”

I awkwardly stood next to Jongin, who remained still and frozen, taking in his surroundings while judging his mother in a very obvious manner.

“I don’t think you quite understand,” Jongin uttered lowly. “Why the did you leave? Is there any other question you think I’d be most curious to know?”

She already sat, relaxed into the couch, a glass of wine from the coffee table poised between her cautious fingertips, an unreadable expression written all over, shown not only through body language.

“So, the truth is what you seek?” She asked, uncertain as if she knew that something else was embedded in Jongin’s words, as if she knew of the real reason we were here.

“Was dad not enough?” Jongin interrogated with lids of eyes unperturbed. “Or did you find someone else?”

“Is that what you think?” She questioned, fully understanding Jongin’s implication, sharp with her wit and quick to respond, allowing a hint of resentment mixed with disappointment to come through in her voice in order to delude Jongin’s anger.

“I find it absolutely amusing,” Jongin continued. “That you left your son in his most vulnerable time of his life.”

The woman’s eyebrow twitched at the word vulnerable and I noticed, carefully trying to decipher any possible hidden meaning that most likely wasn’t even there at all. I realized by now that hidden meanings were hopeful but considerably powerless, because even if there was a secret admiration, a discrete sympathetic notion, it would never show to be more than a clue. Because then it would fade.

“My only true friend committed suicide,” Jongin went on, his voice clenching with a sharp catch and intake of breath. “And you ing left.”

The two broken people stared at each other with foreign, empty but emotionally compromised eyes, both trying to find something that wasn’t there in each other.

I’d never seen such an intense stare between a mother and a son and I realized that all the unspoken words between these two, all of the lost time, tense moments and horrible dialogue ever exchanged, broke them down so deeply and irreversibly.

Jongin would never be the same.

“You are much better without me,” Jongin’s mother finally answered.

“You wouldn’t know,” Jongin hissed back at her with a firmer force.

I tightened my grip on his hand, signaling him to calm down because I felt the trembling in his body stimulate and grow until it reached up into his shaking voice, compelling but not necessary.

“Oh but I do,” she wisely remarked. “I know very well. I don’t want to plague you with any more of my mistakes. Living with the grief of a lost mother is far better than what you would have to go through if you were with me.”

Jongin’s chest contracted, rejecting the idea. I’d memorized this rare reaction he had. I didn’t blame him for being so affected. He’d gone through his last few years as if every day he had to pass through the halls of hell and this meaningful but helpless conversation made everything worse.

“Why would you say that?” He answered, broken and unkempt and figuratively speaking, shattered beyond the point of emotional and mental repair.

All I wanted to do was to hug him, tell him everything was going to be okay, and we were going to go home and watch Pororo under the dim light of my room, kissing and cuddling until we didn’t have to think anymore, but I knew that reality was fading to an impossible distance, farther and farther the more we stayed here.

She chose to ignore him, pushing her head forcedly to watch the scarlet colored wall while taking a sip of wine. The motion was filled with piety and the ignorance of a child, refusing to accept punishment because they didn’t deserve it, but were getting scolded for completing a noble act.

“I was stupid to do it,” she finally uttered, eyes shut with regret, clearly shown in the features of her face, frightening me slightly because it resembled Jongin so much I was nearly tricked into thinking their bodies had been swapped. “But I did anyway.”

“Did what?” Jongin muttered back, interest peaked but fear laced through his face without careful consideration.

“Your teacher,” she remarked. “We- we had an affair. It’d only been going on for a few weeks but-“ she paused, surprised that neither of us had interrupted her with gasping or flaring emotions but instead in return, stared at her with blank, unimpressed expressions that urged her on.

“That poor kid … that poor kid saw. He knew it was going on. I was so scared because I knew he was close friends with you and I was frightened that he would tell your father. I told your teacher because I thought he should know but I didn’t know he would allow such bad behavior!”

I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to solve the meaning behind ‘bad behavior’.

“I didn’t know he was going to let the other students beat him up! I couldn’t live with myself! I thought there was no way that my son would ever forgive me for letting the suicide of his friend happen and also the fact I had an affair with his teacher. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t face your father either. I was trapped and did the only thing I could. If you guys knew the truth then you would have excommunicated me anyway and I couldn’t deal with that.”

I studied Jongin’s face, scanning for a change of façade. It was very faint but noticeable and I knew he was upset because his mouth compressed itself into a thinner line than usual.

“Were you there?” Jongin’s trembling and quivering, far from solid voice echoed out, a throaty itch attached to it. “When I hurt those kids?”

His mother stared at him, processing his words as if pretending to contemplate an answer she already previously decided. It was hard for me to tell whether she was being cautious or just happened to be picking words that wouldn’t harm Jongin.

“No,” she answered. “I was not. I didn’t know you did anything until I was gone actually.”

Jongin’s chin suddenly tipped upwards and he watched the ceiling with an intent gaze of considerable thought.

“That quickly,” he whispered back. “You left that quickly.”

I was especially surprised that he hadn’t immediately demanded about the affair or the relationship that she had with his father. He didn’t question even the fact that it was her fault that everything got out of hand. She-

Left quickly.

“Jongin, I love you,” she responded carefully. “Whether you believe it or not. But growing up with me after that would have been a bad choice. Just trust me, okay? Besides, it was better for me to leave your teacher alone anyway.”

“Why?” Jongin remarked more steadily this time.

She in a breath, glancing down at her shoulder as if it was far more interesting than any of our faces, suggesting the complications of her next response to the both of us.

“He had a son.”

“Was it a young child?” I asked this immediately, realizing suddenly that it was the first thing I’d said yet and felt abruptly awkward.

She turned her attention towards me.

“Jongin, you haven’t introduced me to your friend-“

“Boyfriend, mom,” Jongin instantaneously corrected. “But that’s not the answer to his question.”

“No,” his mother replied, still looking at me. “He was your age, in your class I think.”

“Do you remember his name?” Jongin wondered, trying to mask his ebbing curiosity, though it was incredibly obvious to me, considering I’d never experienced such emotion in his words just flowing through a daily conversation. Typically that was reserved for me, and only me.

“Park Jungwoo.”

Jongin and I simultaneously shot glances at each other, horrified looks painted on our faces like hipster, abstract art.

“Oh god,” I managed to utter, feeling a sudden wave of nausea collapse over my body or maybe it was the fact that I had pneumonia. Either way, sweat caused my wispy bangs to stick onto my forehead relentlessly.

“Mom,” Jongin said with difficulty. “You- You’ve been a great help, but we need to-“

He paused, unsure if it was proper to continue. It seemed like he wasn’t content with a status with her. Did she care what he needed to do? Did he have the responsibility to tell her where he was going or was she completely out of his life?

“Go,” I finished, unable to watch him struggle for words like a child first learning to speak. Guilt evidently rose to my cheeks but I didn’t back down. “Ma’am, we must go.”

The glance that Jongin casted in my direction scared me at first but I soon realized it was grateful look so I smiled slightly to myself, feeling the sickness in my body tremble again.

And I tried to ignore it. Oh, I did.

“Come on,” Jongin quickly gripped my arm and we harshly strutted to the door.

It was only when we were outside, with the door slammed shut and his mother left behind in the dust, that I realized Jongin was crying. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, peaking over the bones in his face, spilling onto his chin and splashing in front of him.

I whispered his name.

Words that I don’t remember were exchanged between us in betwixt a tight embrace that I scarcely recalled starting. Either he collapsed on top of me into a pile of remorse, grief, and utter realization of what he missed in his life, or I casually reached up to him and grabbed him down to me.

“I can’t believe…” Jongin was trying to speak and I wanted to quickly hush him but I didn’t have the heart to tell him to be quiet.

“It’s okay,” I eventually started. “You’re set free now, from the fearful aspect of something that you don’t know. But you know now.”

“How could I….” he trailed again.

I literally felt his body give in, suddenly acquiring the complex measurement of a dead weight. There was something about lifelessness that calculated to a different feeling than just simply carrying something.

And this was so much worse because I felt the transition, the brief, bitter and complicated, completely devastating moment when Jongin felt like the world was suddenly out to get him, and all I wanted to do was be the one who promised him the monsters under his bed weren’t real.

Because this was becoming a scary reality.

I’d never felt such weight before, such heaviness in my heart, an experience that weighed the both of us down, like rocks in our pockets but while of having the immensity of a rock, they were as heavy as boulders.

Such pain was indescribable and difficult to put into words. But it was something like an immeasurable bulk that stuck to you like an incurable, irremovable tumor.

And infection.

And we were just spreading the disease.

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A/N: Agh! Sorry…er adifjspodfmnpom I updated late again. I’d like to say I had absolutely no time but I guess I had more time than usual this past month but STILL I got to relax more than usual. So…sorry for this depressing chapter? But on the bright side I FIGURED OUT WHAT IMMA DO EXACTLY FOR PLOT. Oh you think this is bad IS GONNA GET DRAMATIC. Ahaha…so comment? :D I luuuurv youuuu.