Chapter 21

Jongin rested his hands gently on the steering wheel of the unmoving car, calmed down from his previous high that left him obviously light headed and possibly dizzy. His eyes retained the redness of preceding tears but still held a serious expression, the type of look you’d catch a typical eighties druggie sporting.

“Park Jungwoo,” I started, shifting my gaze towards him.

This time I met his eyes.

Before he could answer, I sniffled for a few intervals, feeling my throat catch and the shortness of breath take over once more.

“He was that kid right,” I continued. “The one who harassed me.”

Jongin attempted to avoid my eyes by glancing away quickly and then looking towards the ground.

“Jongin, I saw it in your yearbook,” I informed the teenager. “Your dad gave it to me.”

My palms weren’t necessarily sweaty, but they felt uncomfortable, stuffed between my two thighs, a type of consulting tactic I used whenever nervous.

Jongin, with his unrelenting Kyungsoo-sixth-sense reached for my hands, snatching them and holding them just take make me more comfortable. I already felt calm, but this relaxed me.

“Yes,” he responded finally. “That is him.” He paused. “You know, I always considered him to be a teacher’s pet but never, ever would have figured out he was the teacher’s son.”

“Well,” I trailed for a few seconds. “What do we do now?”

Jongin in a breath, padding his fingers over the steering wheel carefully as if such a gesture required more decisiveness.

“I’m not too keen on visiting Park Jungwoo,” he admitted, staring forward. “However, his father, my teacher, is not a great idea either. Out of the two though, I would pick the teacher.”

“Are you sure?” I wondered. “Don’t you think it’ll be awkward and triggering?”

Genuinely I was concerned not only for him but for me, being the third person in the situation.

“I wouldn’t really fancy seeing you and Jungwoo in the same room together,” Jongin clarified. “The idea definitely does not appeal to me.”

It didn’t take me long to figure out that my benefits, in his head, were outweighing his own in importance and I thought about arguing but already knew that his decision was made and trying to twist it would only result in a delay in time that I couldn’t afford.

“Okay,” I easily agreed.

“But then you have to go back,” Jongin urged. “Kyungsoo, this is really serious and it could affect your life terribly if we make the wrong decision.”

“It’s my decision,” I immediately corrected him. “Jongin, whatever happens to me is my fault entirely, not yours. So get it out of your head.”

Jongin’s head shot over to look at me, his hands still poised over the steering wheel.

“Kyung,” his voice was much softer. “If something happens to you I will never forgive myself.”

I closed my eyes, trying to in this moment, grasp for something that possibly wasn’t even there. I knew that the way I felt was an irreplaceable, uncalled for feeling. Jongin and I possessed a relationship I didn’t think I could possibly dream of.

As of the beginning of the year, I convinced myself that being with other people wasn’t a necessity, that Chanyeol and Baekhyun, only a few close friends, were good enough. And then Jongin appeared. The more I thought about it the more worried I got.

I became accustomed to life with Jongin, life with someone who understood me more than I could possibly understand myself or life with someone who genuinely cared about me as much as I cared for them. Suddenly taking that away scared me the most.

“Yes,” I agreed, hardly realizing that agreeing wasn’t the best response. “But if something happens to you I’ll never forgive myself.”

Jongin appeared as if he was about to argue so I cut him off.

“We’re in this together Jong,” I spoke. “I don’t care what happens to me. I’ll feel worse if I’m safe in a hospital while you’re out here trying to pick up the pieces of your most haunted past!”

Jongin’s fingers remained propped on the steering wheel. He looked like he was trying to be contemplative but I knew he wanted me with him.

“Okay, Kyung. You can come with but the 24 hour deal is still on.”

Darkness grew between shades in the sky by the time we reached the streets of Seoul later that day, the sun fighting to stay up but hardly visible to our eyes.

I positioned the stolen phonebook on my elbow while Jongin peered over my shoulder and gazed at the names as I flipped pages, like he was going to find what he was looking for even though we weren’t nearly close to the letter yet.

“Park Hyunwoo,” Jongin narrated. “Seems right. He still lives in the Gangnam district.”

To be honest, I felt concerned about Jongin meeting with his former teacher. I mean, he did punch him. That wasn’t a lie or contorted truth. Jongin really did punch him, his own teacher. Not saying that he didn’t deserve it but I didn’t think the two of them being together was the best idea.

I spouted out the address the Jongin, who was as calm us ever until the words actually reached his ears the second time.

“That’s-“ he stopped.

“What?” I wondered, unsure if I was supposed to be concerned.

“That’s… a block away from my old house.”

Words didn’t really enter my mouth the way I thought they would. The inflection that his voice held left me speechless, so unsure how to respond. I was accustomed to always knowing what to say in situations or at least figuring something out. But I sat in the car seat with my jaw slightly ajar and my eyes watered.

The way that Jongin said it added such a broken sadness to words that shouldn’t have been lathered with such remorse.

“I…” I trailed, still shell shocked.

“It’s fine,” Jongin answered, staring off in the distance before pulling out of a parking space. “Let’s just go. I want to get you back to the hospital as soon as possible.”

A sulking feeling of something unfinished hung in the air the passed between breaths we exhaled but neither of us said anything else.

It was pitch black and around eight pm when we arrived in the neighborhood in Gangnam. The darkness caused me to feel a little nervous and uneasy. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

“What if they’re both there?” I wondered as Jongin drove.

“Jungwoo might be at his mom’s house,” Jongin reasoned. “But I don’t really know.”

I sighed rolling back in my seat and glancing out the window, watching houses of beauty and modern design pass us in a motioned blur.

I said nothing until the car unexpectedly stopped, causing me to shift my gaze to Jongin whose eyes were fixated on something out the window.

“Jong-“

“That’s my old house…before we moved.”

The gorgeous structure layered into the silhouette of the city was so beautiful and majestic that it was frightening.

Silence slipped between us, folding like clockwork as seconds passed and neither of us spoke. There was a sort of beauty about this, though pain clearly filled the foundations of the feeling. Such a momentous, imposing scene built off of something terrible.

“Let’s go,” Jongin sighed. “Better not waste time.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?” I wondered. “Please do not punch him again.” I attempted to add a little humor, elbowing him in the ribcage, receiving only a half-hearted response.

After I pressed my shaking finger to the door, coughing a few times and feeling slightly dizzy, we waited. Seconds led to a minute and soon enough the darkness of the house convinced us that no one was home.

However, we turned to face brightness blinding our faces; a car heaved itself into the driveway, striking light concealing the figure driving from our eyes.

The sense of awkwardness from being at someone’s door just as they arrived home soon faded because he clambered out of his car in a hurry.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait young men. I forgot some papers for a very important business meeting and-“

The young man with hair that partly shaded his face stopped abruptly, facing Jongin.

The tension between the two was difficult to describe at the least. I could barely breath because of how thick the air seemed, almost suffocating, something I’d never experienced.

“K-Kim Jongin,” he stammered, but not out of fright or terror, just sheer surprise.

“Park Seonsangaengnim,” Jongin whispered, his face unreadable in the absence of light.

The two stared a little longer.

“What are you doing here?”

“I know.”

Jongin’s reply was short, to the point, vague. Yet, the more cut it was, the deeper the impact because the teacher stared at him with complexity.

Mr. Park refrained from responded. He pulled out his cell phone, punching numbers almost in a daze, and brought the object to his ears, studying the ground like it was an art.

“Yes, director, you will have to start without me. I cannot attend.”

Before the shouting at the other end could reach a the phone was snapped shut.

“Would you like to come inside?” The teacher asked with a sigh, drawn out as if this were something expected.

“Is your son home?” Jongin wondered as he fiddled with keys to unlock the front door of his home.

He flipped on the light switch, revealing pearly marble that stretched across the entire foyer, greeting mahogany stairs towards the end, which contrasted with such whiteness.

“To be honest, I don’t know where he goes these days,” Mr. Park admitted. “But I’m too much of a coward to do anything about it.”

For hardly knowing him and having such a bad past relationship with Jongin, Mr. Park seemed to be relatively open and informal, more so than I would’ve expected judging by his expensive suit and extravagant home.

He took us to the kitchen where chairs were pulled out and there was a cup of walnuts for eating on the table, which he motioned towards, a signal for Jongin and me to eat.

I gazed hungrily and decided that it might break the tension to take some, in addition to the fact that I was starving.

“The affair with my mom,” Jongin bluntly stated.

Mr. Park precariously chewed a nut in his bottom teeth, as if he anticipated this.

“Are you going to vie for some sort of revenge or healing because-“

“What happened, Park Saengnim?”

Tired eyes of the enemy weren’t supposed to look so dilapidated, unfortunate, and completely finished, but Mr. Park held an expression that challenged stereotypes.

The grudge that I felt in my heart towards him, for screwing up Jongin, was slowly seeping away because I knew he did not do these things on purpose. There was a feeling about him that I couldn’t shake, a feeling of guilt, regret, remorse beyond comprehension.

“No one told me,” he began. “That you had a father. I suppose it was in our school records, but I thought your mother was single because she approached me. My wife and I were already planning divorce so I thought nothing was wrong. Well with her it wasn’t. But my son got the complete, wrong idea.”

An uncomfortable feeling rippled about my skin, causing shivers and uncertain glances towards Jongin, who returned the gazes.

“My son was badly affected. He thought that the affair caused by Jongin’s mom was the reason that my wife and I were getting divorced, which, in contrast, had already been decided long before except we were waiting until Jungwoo reached ninth grade to make it final.”

A drawn out silence stretched for a half a minute before Jongin spoke.

“So, essentially, Jungwoo hates me because my mom, in his mind, broke up your divorce,” he concluded with an uneasy tone.

“But there are more misunderstandings than that,” Mr. Park continued. “Your friend Ren-“

“What.”

The coldness in Jongin’s voice was not only unique to him but to everything else. It was so heartless with such an underlying anger; I nearly thought misty vapor and antagonistic ice leaked through his skin as he spoke.

“He saw…” Park paused, as if anticipating the regret he would later feel after speaking the words that would come. “He saw your mother and me.”

Jongin’s expression remained constant now, in contrast to its previous distorted façade.

“Jungwoo knew that you two were close so he gathered his friends to gang up on him. I should’ve stopped them, but the only thing I could think about was my reputation being ruined if Ren ever spoke up.”

The teacher drew a shaky, lamentable breath.

“One of the biggest mistakes of my life… not doing anything. A thousand times over I would take it back if could just materialize in that moment; a thousand times over I would rather have my reputation tarnished through an affair rather than witnessing the beating of a fourteen year old boy and not doing anything.”

“So this entire thing was just built off of misinterpretations,” I determined.

“The outcome would have been different,” Park continued. “If the couple that visited that day hadn’t fled. They were supposed to be witnesses in possible court but they just disappeared, vanished out of the country. Rumors were that the principal paid them in order to preserve the reputation of the school. My son and his friends were let off the hook because no one knew that they started the fight, even though Jongin finished it. And the pieces of the misfortunes of that day were left untouched.”

Jongin sighed.

“I got community service and Ren died,” he mumbled. “Such unfairness, such an imbalance, so undeserved yet it happened all the same.”

“He killed himself Jongin,” I urged. “I’m not saying he wasn’t misfortunate, but anyone who commits suicide is literally digging their own grave.”

“But he was so close to being better!” Jongin spat, standing up as a lone tear travelled down his cheek. “He was so close to being normal. No one bullied him after we became friends until that day. He was beat up because of me. Because Jungwoo hated me. This is my fault.”

He was shaking and trembling, sweat dripping, uncannily spouting out his words like they were a desperate prayer, but no desire for forgiveness was found between the syllables.

“Hatred for oneself is a powerful thing,” Park spoke, experience laced through his voice. “And you cannot let it take you because you’ll never go back. That hate will grow more and more passionate until you don’t even know what you hate, but the empty feeling in your gut urges it onward.”

I was focused on all the dialogue around me yet in my brain, something else churned. Jongin’s father also mentioned something about a couple fleeing from the scene.

“Was this around springtime?” I wondered.

“Almost there, like February,” Jongin answered.

A coldness reached my heart, something I didn’t want to escape.

“They were visiting the school?” I suddenly wondered.

“The couple?”

“Yes, them.”

“Well, yeah,” Park agreed.

“In Gangnam,” I continued. “During the spring of 2010. And then they fled somewhere? Somewhere far.”

“Yeah, why?”

I said nothing. The pure depth of my heart suddenly felt tainted. Even with such little evidence part of me just knew. The cold feeling inside of me told me so.

And suddenly my sickness that required hospitalized treatment wasn't worrying me so much.

Those witnesses. They were my parents.

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A/N: EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED ES. PLANNED THIS FROM THE BEGINNING. Aha I’m such a terrible updater. Once upon a time when I first started Fanfiction I literally updated every single day, like what? Aha don’t worry though I always update eventually and always finish my stories. And over 400 subs? O.o WATERYOUGUYSDOINGTOME. Like no hahahhaa okay. What uuup new peeps btw thanks for subbing:D. Okay. Gotta go. Study and eat and…ugh. See ya, hope you enjoyed.