Chapter 5

The alarm goes off 2 hours later waking him up. He sits up slowly. “What a bad dream.” He gets up still very sleepy since he didn’t sleep well last night. He walks into the living room. He sees the folded up paper. He unfolds it and stares at it. “Well, I don’t have to work today, so I’ll focus on Kibum for today.”

He walked back to his room after eating breakfast. He got out his keepsake box. He spread out the contents all over his bed. He then dug in his closet to find Kibum’s CD’s. He reached up on the top shelf and got the box of CD’s out and placed them on the floor. He randomly picked one out and stuck it in the CD player and turned up the volume. He sat there for a moment. Took a deep breath and got up and sat on his bed to view his items.

He looked though the pictures.  He smiled at the photo of them at the amusement park. “Oh god you were so scared of that roller coaster, do you remember?”He laughed. “ah, but such a good day. Oh here is a good one, when we 1^st moved in here. We were so pissed off and yet so happy. Your parents are jerks, I swear. Sorry I know you told me not to say that. But at the moment I don’t care. I should go over there and slap your dad across the face for tearing up your card that was on the flowers I left you. That would shock him wouldn’t?  Well at least he didn’t trash the flowers this time.” 

He picked up the good luck key.  He couldn’t remember the 1^st part of the memory. He remembered Kibum said it was good luck. But why was it good luck? Where did Kibum get the key?

He picked up the key he found the other day. His eyes went wide, his mouth fell open. They looked the same. He dropped the keys.  “Oh . No, that isn’t possible!” He jumped off the bed, backing up til his back hit the chest of drawers. Heart pounding rapidly and panting, he stared at the keys from a far on the mattress. Then he remembered something.

He had a flash back to when they 1st started dating, they were sitting in the park.

“Since we are friends and together now. I want you to have my lucky key.”

“No, you keep it if it brings you good luck.”

“I have something else that watches over me, plus you’re my good luck. I know you’ll stick with me to the end. Please you have to take it or I will be offended.” Kibum pouted playfully.

Taemin took the key. It had ‘Ki’ written at the top inside of a heart.  “Thank you. I’ll keep it forever.” Taemin smiled.

“You want to know something?”

“Sure?”

“Did you know in English key is spelled K E Y, and sounds just like Ki. Isn’t that funny? And Ki is written on this KEY.”

“Key, Ki, Key, Ki”. Taemin repeated to himself. That is funny. KeyBum. Half your name is key. I get it that’s funny.

“Yes see I taught you an English word.  It’s not funny it’s clever; a friend taught me some English. …I’ll be the key to your future. I’ll stick with you forever like this good luck key. Ki is the Key to happiness.” He laughed. “Best friends forever?”

“Yes best friends forever” Taemin nodded and smiled.

“Good then it starts now, I have many things planned for our summer.”

The memory faded to black…

Taemin blinked his eyes and walked back over to the bed cautiously; he was holding his breath as he walked closer. He sat on the bed and held up the keys.

“Is this the sign? The key really was a sign that you’re watching over me? That you are with me? Or are you trying to tell me something else? Are there other signs? Ah Kibum if you really can hear me, I am not sure I am ready to find what you want me to find. This is freaking me out.  But I will try more later. I have to take this all in.” He picked up a picture of Kibum dressed like a fox at a club they snuck into, when they were 15, when they 1st started dating.

“Wait, I think I got something. You said in my dream that I am ready. So this key means this is the first clue or one of many? A change is coming or something. Or it is already on its way.” He thought about what Kibum said again.

“Good then it starts now, I have many things planned for our summer”

Taemin scrunched up his face and pondered. “Did he say your or our. Kibum died in the summer and I met Kibum in the summer. His favorite time is summer time. He died on the date we met? I never noticed that before. I got the 1^st key a few weeks after we got together in the summer, it is summer time now and I find a new key.” … he thought and put some pieces together. 

He figured it out “Hold on. You’re telling me you already started leaving me signs? I was already in the adventure since I was little? Is this right? So, finding the key means it starts now.  I really am on the right track? So you DID always know you were going to get sick? You COULD see things all along.  Ok so I was right in my dream, but why did you show me the angels? .. Oh, you are not an angel at all, you could only see them. I wish you told me a head of time you were going to get sick and die.” He pouted.

He felt clam by now, but he was left with some confusion. He still didn’t know how to find the other signs. He kept looking at the pictures. The song changed it was Kibum’s favorite song.  He would play it all the time, sometimes all day until Taemin couldn’t take it anymore. Hearing this song made Taemin start laughing all of a sudden.   “You made me pick this CD on purpose Kibum.”  And he felt a change come over him. He felt happy, but another change of emotions started as well. He frowned, guilt started setting in, his eyes began to puddle, but right as he wanted to beat himself up about being happy, his cheek felt warm and it distracted him.

 Kibum’s spirit was lying next to Taemin. He was watching him “shhh don’t cry, don’t get sad, it’s ok, you’re allowed to be happy and dance…..” Kibum’s soul longed for Taemin to be happy; he placed his hand on Taemin’s cheek as he continued to talk to him, trying to will Taemin to be strong.

Taemin touched the warm spot on his cheek and when he did, he thought he heard Kibum’s voice in his head, “..be happy honey. Live your life. Will you dance for  me again, just like old times?”

He smiled, and wiped a tear away. “I love you Kibum!” Taemin felt the need to try and dance. He got up and started dancing. He didn’t even think about his body movements, he just felt the beat and danced. Soon he was singing and dancing, it was like it use to feel. He even picked up the photo of them at the club again and danced with it in his hand. Kibum’s soul was sitting on the bed watching, Kibum smiled as Taemin moved around the room. When it came to the chorus Taemin sang to the picture. He felt overwhelming happiness. When the song ended he plopped down on the bed, trying to catch his breath form all the dancing. When he stopped panting he ran to the kitchen table and took the paper. He added Dance to it and scratched out angels.

1. Look for signs of something. (What am I looking for?)

Angels? Happiness?

2. How to be happy. (and not feel guilty)

Dance.  A friend? – Jinki?  Dance.

3. Try and remember every conversation EVER with Kibum.

Things I’ve found.:

A matching Key.

“I will get back into dance like I promised you before you went to heaven. I feel better. Thank you.”

 He continued to dance and sing as he looked through his box. He was in such in a good mood he cleaned the rest of his room, and the rest of the house. He noticed he had let things get out of hand. He never fixed that table leg, so he fixed it. He vacuumed the floor, washed the windows, and got rid of that stupid cobweb in the top corner in his dining room. As Taemin cleaned things up, reality hit him; Taemin was unaware that his depression made him extremely untidy. He never had the motivation to lift a finger. It made him sad all over again. He just didn’t care about cleaning when there was no one that would come home to a clean house. Depression from Kibum’s passing affected him worse than he had thought. He looked around at everything. His house was more than just a little untidy; it was a disaster zone, as he looked around the house. He noticed a glass on the old stereo speaker, it was Kibum’s glass, and it had been left there since the day they went to the hospital but Kibum never came back home.

He walked over to the glass and picked it up. He saw a ring of dust around where it had been all these years. Taemin broke down and started sobbing, clutching the glass to his chest. Kibum sat on the couch watching Taemin work through his agony.

 He wasn’t lazy for the last 2 years; he was hurting so much he couldn’t do the simplest things like clean his house or smile. He just realized just now that his house had become a time capsule, his brain never let him see it before. As he broke down and sobbed, he looked away from the glass, viewing his time capsule of a house, his gaze lingering on many objects as memories played that were connected to each item. Taemin didn’t know that what he was doing was helping, although painful, he was working through his grief, and it was working. He had to face this. He returned his eyes to the glass; he held it tight for a while as he thought. He knew he had to fix this. After the dream he had and the progress of his room and dancing, he had hope now, thanks to Kibum, he felt he had to be strong for Kibum, but still not realizing he had to be strong for himself. So he snapped out of it for Kibum and wiped his tears. He tried to fill his head with happy memories of Kibum, to help himself get started, once he got one he pushed forward and willed himself to go on."For Kibum”

At first it was hard as he forced himself to continue cleaning his tomb like house. He was still crying at 1st, but as time went on it got easier and soon he was functioning much better. Taemin didn’t realize it was like Kibum had said in his dream. “You will come up to your next steps in time, and soon you won’t be able to notice you are walking all on your own without thinking. And that strength becomes a part of you and then you’ll be back to your old self.” He spent all day listening to Kibum’s CD’s and cleaning, and actually smiling and randomly danced as he mopped the kitchen floor. It was a small victory in his process in getting better.

He was spinning around with the mop when he saw his phone light up out of the corner of his eye. He raced to it, and picked it up.

“Hold on let me turn off my music….”

Jinki waited and heard the phone rubbing up against his cheek as he fumbled to run down his hallway to turn off the CD player.

“Hello Jinki”

“You sound like you’re in a good mood.”

“Today did end up better than I thought it would. I feel….I feel almost normal.”

“What you didn’t feel normal?”

“Something like that. So tell me about your day.”

The rest of the night went pretty well. They talked for about an hour and half. Taemin talked about working at the café. How he, even though he is a waiter, he sometimes makes some cakes and pies. Jinki talked about a movie he saw last weekend, and a book he had read. Nothing of Kibum was mentioned, he didn’t even think of him. He was fully in the moment. 

He was able to fall asleep that night without any guilt for making a new friend, or dancing.

 But the key wasn’t last of the signs. It was more than just ‘try and be in a good mood’. For Taemin to truly be happy and find what his heart was beating for, would take longer than that. He was already given another sign he just didn’t see it yet.

Author’s note:  I’ll give you the name of taekey’s song at the end of the chapter 7. 

Leave me comments please, your thoughts?? Any theories of what’s to come??