Chapter 22:

I should’ve said something. I should’ve told Jongin what I was thinking, what had just crossed my mind. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to explain to him that I was the child of two people who’d ruined his life.

I suddenly felt like my existence was a lie. Or some sort of other lie. Or another. Or another.

“Kyungsoo, what’s wrong?” Jongin was staring at me.

“Nothing,” I immediately responded, too quickly, too unyielding.

“Kyungsoo-“

“It’s nothing!” I ended up shouting and pressing my palm into my forehead, squeezing the folds of my skin too tightly.

Jongin said nothing, watching me.

“I’ll tell you later, it’s just-“

Click.

The front door swung open.

“Father, I ha-“ Park Jungwoo stopped midsentence. “What is he doing here?”

Suddenly things got rather complicated.

The three of us turned to face Park’s son.

Jungwoo’s hair was disheveled, his uniform wrinkled and unkempt, no hint of remorse in his irises.

Silence ensued as he and Jongin locked eyes, an unfriendly staring contest beginning.

“It’s all your fault,” Jungwoo broke the silence with his slithering tone.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jongin hissed. “You on the other hand ended someone’s life. Let that sink in.”

“It’s not my ING FAULT!” Jungwoo raged and cried in frustration. “You ruined MINE. YOUR ING MOM, YOUR-“

“My parents’ marriage was ruined too!” Jongin fought back. “What you did after that was sick and ing twisted and unnecessary!”

“You don’t know what it feels like! To be alone!”

“What? So you go off ending innocent lives! How effective!”

“Ren had if coming! I didn’t do !”

“Enough!” I bellowed.

Both boys were now in each other’s faces, gripping their shirt collars.

“I hate you,” Jungwoo uttered under his breath with such sincerity, such certainty.

Jongin’s eyes were fixated on him.

“Don’t worry. I hate you too.”

I breathed heavily, caught between my own worry and self-guilt. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain this to Jongin. My mind was reeling. I was confident he wouldn’t hold it against me for eternity but it would certainly change things forever in a kind of unspoken way.

“You bullied my only best friend into his own suicide because of something that I didn’t even do.”

“So what if I did?” Jungwoo spat. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. We’re both left in our own miseries and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Me?” Jongin said, sitting back on his heels away from his adversary. “No not me, but maybe the police.”

He held up his cellphone from out of his pocket and numbers flashed on the screen, changing every second, and that’s when I realized, Jongin was recording.

The sudden tension in the room was almost too obvious.

Jongin made a step towards the door, along with me, and the sad thing is that Jungwoo’s father did nothing to protest.

“You’re filthy,” Jungwoo whispered.

“Coming from you, that’s pretty hypocritical,” Jongin observed. “And ironic, and frustrating, and wrong, and inaccurate.”

Jungwoo stood there in his anger, displacement, and confusion, while Jongin slipped his hand into mine and quickly led me out the door.

Amongst the chaos in my muddled brain, I managed a brief look back at Mr. Park and he gave me a quick nod of approval, confirmation.

He was going to let us sell out his son.

I flung myself into the seat of the car and Jongin started the engine quickly and we backed out. Not long after though, a revving engine and shouting was heard behind us.

Jungwoo followed behind in his father’s car, accelerating too fast.

“Jongin,” I moaned, worriedly, suppressing a cough in order to gasp for more air as we sped up.

“I know!” He barked, tossing his cell phone for me to hold.

“Do we call the police?” I asked.

“I’d rather not have another car involved in this,” Jongin answered. “And I’m getting you to the hospital before anything.”

I was close to arguing but another coughing fit pushed my priorities straight. The difficulty of breathing was escalating much too fast.

Jongin took a harsh turn as if to try and lose Jungwoo, flinging me into the door of the car. It did nothing though because Jungwoo was hot on our tail. From the way he was driving, I judged the car was a manual, which put us at a disadvantage unfortunately.

“What can he do though?” I wondered. “Chasing us isn’t going to help him.”

Jongin remained quiet and focused on the road, swerving around another corner and thus, throwing me to the side again.

“Sorry,” he grunted. “I never should have involved you in this. I don’t even know what’s driving me to do this. Justice perhaps? No that’s not it.”

He looked confused beyond reason and I didn’t doubt him. I was just as puzzled.

“Jongin, I need to tell-“

A sudden jolt that shocked through my body stopped me midsentence.

Jungwoo rammed against the car again, sending me forward and pitching my body into the dashboard.

“Jesus Christ, what the is he doing?!” Jongin shouted.

I clutched my chest in protest of the pain.

Jongin picked up the speed again but Jungwoo matched it, his car racing alongside of us now.

I was panicked, but not as panicked as I should have been.

I closed my eyes and thought of the times that Jongin and I had together, melted memories that made me feel better, created a situation better than the bitter one we’d found ourselves in. No amount of nostalgia, though, would help me breathe better.

The lights of the city passed by so fast they were in blurred straight lines, or maybe my vision was just a bit too fuzzy. Or I was just delirious.

Jungwoo rammed against us again, almost causing Jongin to allow the car to spin out of control.

It made my head spin and my vision go hazy once more and I tried to focus on something but everything around me was moving too fast, too out of control.

“Hurts,” was all I managed to say.

The speed of the car was becoming too much for my dysfunctional, sick body.

Jongin briefly glanced towards me.

“I know, Kyung, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “This is all my fault. I know it is. Okay? Don’t worry. I’ll get you to the hospital. This is my fault.”

“No,” I uttered, shaking my head.

Jongin didn’t argue but I sensed his defiance.

The screeching of metal against metal was heard again and I was to Jongin’s side. Jungwoo’s driving was relentless, too relentless.

As we started to pass over a bridge, I regretted decisions that led to this point. After I saw Jongin’s mother, I should’ve held back. I should’ve stopped and gone back to the hospital like I was told.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I quietly muttered.

Jongin cast a worried glance towards me, a glance that lasted a little too long, stretched an elongated second too far, too distracted, too worried, and too late.

Jungwoo managed another rambunctious hit towards our car, so hard, so rough and with Jongin distracted for the slightest millisecond, sent us with the wheels of the car screeching, spinning and spinning and over the edge.

Even though I was in the car, I felt the world snatched from under our feet and the rough grasp of gravity snaking its fingers around us and dragging us downward, snapping us away like a slingshot.

In the few brief seconds that Jongin and I were airborne we managed to find each other’s eyes and lock gazes. He looked fearful and I knew that I did too; I hardly realized that I was beginning to cry.

And then the impact hit so hard that it felt like we smacked against concrete. My lungs couldn’t refill themselves with air and my back instantly hit the seat too hard and a wave of pain erupted. My head was flung against the seat back.

I desperately gasped for a breath that I knew I couldn’t take.

And meanwhile the car started to sink.

“Jongin!” I managed in a panicked breath.

The car filled with water fast, faster than I could’ve imagined.

And it was cold, like ice and snow and anything that lacked heat put together.

But I was so scared and fearful and terrified that I couldn’t think about anything. My lungs felt like they were shriveling and my brain was shrinking with every waking second.

As the car had its last seconds above the surface of the water, Jongin looked at me. And then we went under.

Both of us trembled in the cold, darkness of the rivers water. The blackness was almost as equally terrifying as the cold.

I was becoming so delirious that I hardly knew what was going on but I felt Jongin heaving at my body as he yanked me towards his body. Then pounding, his fists pounded on the windows. The door refused to open.

My body began to shake and convulse and my vision got more and more spotty.

With a sudden , I felt more water rush in and Jongin tugged me out of the car. We were surrounded by blackness, or so I thought because I could hardly form coherent thoughts.

It was, however, obvious that Jongin was struggling to pull me upwards and I was on such a verge of unhappiness and struggling and complete and utter defeat that I almost pushed away from him in an effort to sacrifice myself and save him.

But then I thought about it as best I could. Words didn’t really form in my mind, more so pictures. I pictured Jongin alone without me, blaming himself for eternity. I thought about how much we needed each other, the hugs we shared, the kiss, the way he looked at me when he thought that I wasn’t watching.

And then Chanyeol and Baekhyun, both friends of mine, so easily affected by death and so caring and intimate and perfect and how they would blame themselves also. Plaguing such beautiful, free minds was a crime.

Through my delusional state and dizziness and utter hopelessness, I clung to Jongin.

He gripped tighter, attempting to kick to the surface.

But then suddenly, we were there.

Both of us gasped for breath desperately.

But no matter how much I tried, air seemed to neglect my lungs and I couldn’t breathe.

I wasn’t sure if Jongin noticed or not but he proceeded to drag me to the surface, continuing to gasp for air while I also tried, yet couldn’t ever fill my lungs.

We were greeted by a series of flashing lights and a small crowd of people that may or may not have been growing. Through fuzzy vision, I could slightly assess the damage that had been done. The bridge was mostly closed off for part of the side had been torn off. Other cars seemed to have crashed; other people seemed to have been hurt.

“S-Someone!” Jongin was crying. “H-He needs help.”

Jongin had me by the arm as we were approached by other people. His lips were pure blue and he was chattering, his breath visible in the cool air.

A man with a uniform suddenly had my shoulder and then my arm.

“He h-has pneumonia,” I heard Jongin explain, though I could no longer see him.

My weight was lifted from me and I was pretty sure that I was lying on a stretcher, though my vision was becoming more and more black so I wasn’t quite positive about my surroundings anymore.

I wasn’t sure if I was scared now or relieved, more confused than anything, amazed that Jongin and I had made it, but some other fear accompanied the thought.

My eyes rolled back, my lids fluttered, for a few moments I recalled calling for Jongin as they put me in the ambulance, then blackness ensued.

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A/N: OTLOTLOTLOTL. I swear you can all kill me. JK. Don’t do that. So I was on spring break, away from my laptop but all excited to update when I got back. So I got back on Friday and was all like hanging with my friend thinking I was going to update the next day. I wake up at seven in the morning with stomach flu. GUYS IT WAS SO BAD I PUKED LIKE EIGHT TIMES. EIGHT. AND MY BEST FRIEND STAYED AND NURSED ME ALL DAY. AND THEN I HAD A FEVER OF 101.5 and oh god it was awful. But then I woke up today and I felt so much better so I updated. Ugh. I can’t even begin to describe how sick I was yesterday. ANYWAY. Sorry this is short but yeah my motivation was kind of down and this was supposed to happen next chapter but I decided it needed to happen NOW.