Three
Limbo
The Past:
“So, did you ever try to escape from Limbo?” Jongin asked.
Kyungsoo looked up at him, frowning. They sat on a large, colorless rock overlooking a black sea that frothed with white-tipped waves as something – not entirely unlike wind – whipped their hair across their faces. The sky above them was the same endless red as always, roiling like the sea in front of them with an abundance of shadowy clouds, and all-in-all the scenery of Limbo looked the same as it always did, with Jongin and Kyungsoo acting as the only change in color as far as the eye could see.
“Yes.” Kyungsoo said after a pause, “But nothing worked.”
“How come I can traverse back and forth so freely, then?”
“Like I said before, you must be more powerful than me.”
Jongin averted his eyes, not liking the hopelessness he saw in Kyungsoo’s. “When did you give up trying to escape?”
“About a year ago.” Kyungsoo said. “I’m not sure why, really. I just woke up one day and realized that I’d gotten used to it here. Not to mention, I’m sure everyone will have forgotten me even if I did get back.”
“Well, I won’t forget you.” Jongin said stubbornly. “I’ll set you free of this place no matter what, and then you – you can live with me, if you’d like.” When he didn’t get an answer he raised his head, surprised to see Kyungsoo staring at him with tears in his eyes. Frantic, he struggled to find something to say. “I’m – I’m sorry, uh, did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean to.”
Kyungsoo shook his head, “No, no, you didn’t say anything wrong. It’s just –” he trailed off, wiping away his tears. “I – I’d love to live with you, Jongin. Thank you.”
Jongin felt something warm and pleasant seeping into his chest. “It’s no big deal, really. You just said that everyone else you knew probably wouldn’t remember you anymore, right? But, I mean, would they really have forgotten you after only three years?”
Kyungsoo laughed, though it was devoid of humor. “Jongin, you don’t understand. Three years is what it feels like to me, but time in Limbo doesn’t pass the way time does in the real world. For all I know, it could’ve been fifty years that I’ve been in here and I’d have no idea.” He sighed, “If you remember, I told you when we first met that nothing exists here, and time is not exempt from that rule.”
The Present:
“Jongin?”
The sound of someone knocking on his bedroom door reached his ears and he groaned, rolling onto his stomach and putting his pillow over his head.
“Jongin, get up!” His father’s voice told him through the door fo his bedroom, “Today is your first day back at school!”
School, right. The last place I want to be.
“I’m not going.” He grumbled.
Silence, and then, “Well, if that’s how you’re going to be, we’ll take you back to the psychiatrist instead.”
At that something in Jongin snapped. “I’m not insane!” He screamed. A pounding that had started in his head traveled to his chest and down through his legs, beating to the tempo of the anger pulsing through his veins. He ran his fingers through his unruly hair, trying to temper the shaking in his hands as he got out of bed, hissing when his feet met the cold hardwood of his floor.
“Honey, we’re not saying you are,” his mother spoke next, her voice that tone that told him she did not believe a word she said, as if she was telling a kindergartener that children were delivered by birds that dropped them down chimneys. “We just think your grasp on reality is a little loose.”
“You know, that’s like the word-for-word definition of insane, mother.”
“Son,” his father demanded, “You will open this door right now or I will kick it down.”
Jongin felt his hands clench into fists at his side, his vision going red as rebellion entered the mix of anger and betrayal that was slowly bringing his blood to a boil. “Go ahead and try, then.” He spat, glancing at the open window by his bed. Should he try to run? There was no way in hell he was going back to school so he could be ridiculed and told that he belonged in an insane asylum, and he wasn’t going to go back to the psychiatrist either just so he could be told that he was wrong and that Kyungsoo wasn’t real, that Limbo wasn’t real, that none of it was real, because they were wrong.
And so, wishing harder than he’d ever wished before, Jongin squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated. “Take me back, take me back, take me back, take me away from here,” he chanted to himself, a mantra to block out the sound of his parents pounding on his bedroom door as he wished for Limbo and the red sky and the absence of time and Kyungsoo – all he wanted was Kyungsoo.
Then suddenly, all was quiet.
And when Jongin opened his eyes again, Limbo stretched out in front of him.
“Jongin?”
Spinning around, Jongin grinned as he saw Kyungsoo standing there, his eyes wide. “Kyungsoo,” he murmured, his shoulders relaxing.
“What are you doing here so early?” The elder man wondered, looking bewildered.
Jongin hesitated in his answer and glanced up at the red sky above him, a sense of understanding flooding through his being as he realized that he couldn’t sense his home; he couldn’t envision it or pull himself back as he’d been able to do before. It was as if his grip on the string that had held him tethered to his world – the one he’d been born in, the one he’d grown up and lived in, the one he’d made friends and thrived in – had been cut, leaving him stranded there just as Kyungsoo was.
But, oddly enough, he didn’t mind.
“I’m here to stay,” he said finally, “Forever.”
For a moment Kyungsoo looked sad, and then he slowly opened his arms, inviting Jongin in, and he acquiesced without an ounce of hesitation, throwing himself into the elder’s arms and kissing him soundly on the lips. There was a moment in which Kyungsoo froze in shock and his eyes grew wide, and then they were fluttering shut and he was kissing back with just as much fervor, content in the knowledge that he would never be alone ever again.
Limbo was their home now.
It's whatever makes you see
Makes you believe.
And forget about the premonition you need to conceive.
The images they sell are Illusion and Dream;
In other words, dishonesty.
A/N: The end! I hope you liked it, despite how short and weird this little fic was.
Also, I leave the ending open to your imagination. Looking past what you wanted, do you think Jongin was really insane,
or was he right about Limbo?
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