Minho’s POV

“NO!” I shouted but Jonghyun was too caught up in the moment to hear me.

I fished out my phone in a hurry and sped dialled a number. This is it. This is exactly the scenario I had hoped for. Just please don’t let me be too late.

I walked quietly up to Jonghyun; my eyes calculated his body language and my mind predicted his next move. When I was two feet away from him, I stopped and stared hard at his hunched back as he sat there at the edge of the balcony’s railing with his legs dangling over the edge barefoot. I was coming up with the right way to announce my presence without shocking him.

“Jonghyun,” I made my voice sound calm and smooth.

He slightly jolted and turned his upper body to get a look at me for the short span of one second before turning towards the front again but the one brief glance at his face was enough to break my heart to a million pieces if I was convinced I had one.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he said in a small voice.

I was still staring into his back like it could give me some sort of hint as to why he would wish to jump and how I can stop him from doing so. “Why is that?”

Jonghyun’s shoulders drooped lower after he let out a long sigh. “Because you aren’t supposed to watch how I’m going to die.”

So he’s not going to try to lie to me and say that he was just taking a breath of fresh air. He must be serious about the suicide thought. It could either be that or he knew I would be able to see through his bluff but I wasn’t going to play into his hands and act out the crying panicky drama to make him feel like suicide was the right thing to do.

“You’re dying?” I asked with only a small hint of curiosity like it was a random junk statement.

He sighed even more. “You’re only egging on my desire, Minho.”

Exactly what I wanted to do. “Good grief, hyung. What do you expect me to say? That I can’t lose a friend like you because you are the one person in this world that I truly cared for? Or should I say that you are the one and only person that I would call family in this life? Or that Onew would blame himself for not being able to talk you out of it. Then, he would go into depression the way you did and maybe, he might consider suicide too so you might as well tell the people up there to reserve a place for him. And there’s also your parents. Who’s going to take over their company when they’re too old to think and how are they going to face the fact that you died before they were able to show you anything parental. And then there’s Key. She hardly has any friends besides the two of us and Se Kyung. Are you really going to minus the figure and make her think that she really has a taboo that prevents her from having more than three friends? Besides, I think she kind of like you so there is a possibility that she might end up like Onew since her mentality is actually pretty weak. And lastly there’s Kibum.” I stopped for a while to notice how his shoulders froze in place. “There’s Kibum who would hate you for not appreciating your life when there’s all of us here watching your back and giving you a push to move forward. He would hate you for not honouring your promise of forgetting about him and have a happy live.” 

There. I have said enough. I have said all the things that he already knew might happen if he did jump but he wanted to hear it from me, anyway. He wanted to know that what he thought was true and that he wasn’t being delusional about the love and care he thought he had received from each and every one of us but I can guarantee you that all he heard was the last two sentences about Kibum. Nothing else had mattered more than Kibum did in his life. Nothing else will ever matter more than Kibum did even in his afterlife and so he and I both know that I have said the one thing that would affect him more than any of the long rubbish that I had spouted. That was the only reason why I could confess that he was the sole person (besides Kibum, anyway) that was worth my brain cells.

Jonghyun did not say anything as he gazed up at the inky black sky. He was thinking about what I said regarding him forgetting Kibum and starting afresh and the reality was he knew that deep down; it was what he wanted to do as well. He wanted to be able to move on and be happy. He wanted to show Kibum that he can live without him in his life. He had to prove to himself that he was not desperate for the boy, that he could laugh and cry without him by his side. But he can’t, in the end. He just couldn’t.

In the end, he had fallen too deep to climb back out.

All I needed to do now was to wait for my words to take effect as they sink profoundly into his heart and mind. I waited as he stalled the silence. I waited as the rigid wind blew cold against our skin. The night chill penetrated all the way into our bones making us shiver once or twice and still, none of us moved. Neither one of us broke the long silence. The only sound that could be heard was the whistling wind and the occasional honk of a vehicle way down below.

It was roughly five minutes later that Jonghyun’s shoulders started quivering and it wasn’t long before they began shaking uncontrollably. That was when I knew that the critical moment had passed and Jonghyun had decided against suicide. I walked backwards to lean against a wall and breathed a somewhat sigh of relief. I wiped the back of my forearm across my jaw to catch the dripping sweat. I didn’t notice that I was sweating bullets standing out in the cold wind until just now.

“Why, Minho? Why did he have to leave like that? Why did you have to tell me? Why?” he tried to maintain a steady voice but failed to do so as his voice came out in mangled broken sobs.

Here comes the next hurdle: satisfying his grief stricken questions. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to spout another lie or should I stick to the truth and admit my wrongdoing? But I have never been wrong in my seventeen years of life and so I have never had to apologize or compensate for what I have done. Therefore, if I were to do it to Jonghyun of all people, I see it as an embarrassment and a humiliation.  But then again, his question raised a few others in me. For example, like Onew had pointed out, why did I have to say it so tactlessly to him? Why did I have to choose to break them down this way? Why can’t my ‘so-called’ superior brain device a much more pain free method? The fault lies with me and me alone, doesn’t it? I was the one to put all of them in such a difficult position, wasn’t I? It was me who lead Jonghyun to think about suicide, right?

I closed my eyes and pinched at my temple in defeat. “Hyung, here’s the truth. About Kibum -,” I started.

“JONGHYUUUUUUNNNNN!!!” screamed a sudden panicked high pitched voice from inside the room.

There was a blur of movement as someone ran past me and Jonghyun turned around in shock to see who had called his name so desperately. We had on identical confused expressions as we asked a telepathic “who the hell?” to each other in our head. Neither of us could get enough time to digest the situation when the blurred figure ran up to Jonghyun, grabbed at his arm without so much as a warning and forcefully pulled at it making him fall from the railings to the safe solid ground of the balcony with a surprised yelp before engulfing him in a hug. It was only when the sudden intruder had calmed down and stopped moving that I could see who it is. Lucky for all of us that I left the front door open. And looks like Taemin had done yet another good job.

I chuckled silently as I thought, “thank you for the chaotic interruption and for saving my life on time”.

Jonghyun’s POV

What the hell?

I couldn’t comprehend the situation even when everything had halted into place and I was suddenly in a girl’s embrace.

“K-Key?” I stammered.

“YOU’RE SUCH AN IDIOT!” her scream was muffled into Kibum’s sweater as she held on to my sleeves. “WHY DID YOU WANT TO DIE, HUH? WHY?”

Then, it hit me. Someone had told her about my suicide attempt and I have a very clear idea who it might be. I narrowed my eyes at the accused person and he met my glare with raised eyebrows as in to say “did I do anything wrong?”

I turned back to Key and sighed as I awkwardly patted her back. “Um…but I’m here now, aren’t I?” I gave her a weak smile when she lifted her head to look at me. “I’m alive,” I muttered softly.

She sniffed and I had to tell myself off when my brain thought the way she scrunched up her nose was really cute. “But you were planning to die, weren’t you?” Her voice broke in several places when she said it and somehow, my heart broke along with it.

I guided her head back to my chest and wrapped my arms fully around her. “No, I wasn’t. I was just playing a prank on Minho,” I said as I glared at Minho, expecting him to support my lie but he only gave me a mocked confused look.

He had better be sleeping in full body armour tonight.

“You’re lying. Minho was really panicking when he told me to come on the phone,” she sniffled.

“He was?” I wanted so much to laugh when I tried to imagine a panicking Minho. It’s not that I was being ungrateful or anything. I just don’t think that the word panicking and Minho go well together but I was feeling considerably warmer now.

“I was not,” Minho said indignantly. “And he’s right. He was just joking. He was too bored living under the rock all these times that he used a childish prank to seek attention.”

I glared at him again and he conveyed a silent “an eye for an eye” shrug.

She pushed away from my chest to look at Minho and his usually stony expressionless face softened by ten folds. “Bu-but you were so on edge on the phone and Jonghyun was sitting on the railing when I got here.”

“Well, blame him for dragging the game until right before you burst into the room.”

She turned back to look up at me. “Really? You weren’t trying to die? It was just a joke?”

I pulled her back into my embrace, wondering why she felt so right in my arms like she fitted perfectly against my frame. “Of course not. I love myself too much to wanna die so young. All the girls out there would be heartbroken and I know you’ll be my one of them, girlfriend,” I said the last word teasingly.

Key pushed away from me and stood up abruptly. “Wh-what girlfriend? Who’s your girlfriend?”

I had to press my lips together to stop myself from laughing at her red cheeks. She’s really so cute when she blush. “You are,” I grinned at her as I stood up too. “Key is my girlfriend~,” I started singing repeatedly as I danced in a circle around her.

“Yah, Kim Jonghyun!” she screamed at me. “I hate you!”

That made me double over with laughter and I saw Minho shook his head as he chuckled along with me. I don’t know why I was being playful all of a sudden. Maybe it was because the depressed moment had passed for the time being or maybe it could be Key. I don’t know why I always had to smile and be happy whenever I was around her. She was like my laughing drug that could relieve my Kibum pain for as long as I was in her presence.

“But I like your sweater,” she frowned at it.

“My sweater?” I was taken aback at the sudden change of topic and looked down to see that she was referring to Kibum’s sweater. The atmosphere went cold and awkward and Minho silently anticipated my response.

Kibum’s POV

“But I like your sweater.” I don’t know why I was captivated by the sweater the moment I realised what he was wearing. The sweater somehow felt familiar to me like I had seen it somewhere before this and earlier, when Jonghyun had comforted me with a hug, there was this complete feeling inside me like we were two pieces of a puzzle finally joined together. But that couldn’t be possible, right? I hardly know him and he especially don’t know anything about me. We hardly have any interactions besides the few times he would come to the café. So why do I feel so attached to him?  Why do I feel this weird tingling sensation in the pits of my stomach?

“My sweater?”. Jonghyun’s eyes widened and he looked at what I was talking about.

There was a steely silence after I mentioned it though I can’t comprehend the reason for the abrupt muteness but then, it went by like it had never been there at all and Jonghyun suddenly removed his sweater.

I squealed and turned around, covering my eyes as though I had witnessed a stripper although he was wearing another shirt beneath it.

I heard a chuckle from behind me before something soft but heavy landed on my head. I moved the fingers covering my eyes to see what looked like long sleeves dangling over my vision.

“You can have it if you like it so much but you had better take care of it. This sweater means more to me than the world does,” he sounded somewhat serious when he said it.

I removed the sweater from my head. “Eew. Why does it smell so bad?” I pinched the bridge of my nose in disgust.

“What do you mean it smells bad? It smells awesome because it’s my smell,” he retorted.

I stuck out my tongue. “Blek. Don’t you ever wash this?”

Did his expression darkened for a brief second or was it my imagination?

“Oh, just shut up and put it on,” Jonghyun snapped as he snatched the sweater from my grasp and forcefully pulled it through my arms. It was a fight like no other but he won in the end. I can’t believe he was so strong.

“Hey, you actually look nice in it,” he smiled when he had taken a step back to look at it.

“Really?” I turned my head left and right to admire it.

“What do you think, Minho?” I asked.

Minho’s face was expressionless when he said, “It was made for you.”

There was a peculiar feeling when I looked at it being on my body. There really was this unexplainable familiarity about this piece of clothing when Jonghyun was wearing it but now that it was on me, the feeling was stronger than before and there was this nagging thought at the back of my head thinking “could this have a connection to my forgotten past?”

Taemin’s POV

I ruffled up my hair angrily and groaned in frustration. What in the world is he trying to do? Why can’t I figure out what his true motives are? Why am I so useless at a time like this?

“What are you planning, Choi Minho?” I shouted at myself through the wall mirror in my dance studio.

One minute, he was urging me to get Key umma away from Kim Jonghyun and the next; he called him back saying that the person was attempting suicide. I snorted. As if he would do such a stupid thing. He valued himself too much to want to hurt his good-for-nothing body. It was a lucky thing that Key umma had brought home all his girl clothes and accessories since it was the weekend and she had the day off tomorrow. I was almost on my knees when I told him to change into those clothes before running off to Kim Jonghyun’s place giving him the excuse that he would freak if he saw him as a guy and that might give him more the reason to jump off thinking that he had another person who had betrayed his trust. I don’t think it made any sense but I got him to change in the end and that was all that mattered.

I walked up to the mirror and leaned my head on it. It was his fault that Key umma broke up with him in the first place. It was all his fault for hurting Key umma and making him regret to ever fall in love with him. Every drop of tear he shed was all for that worthless person. Every anguish and despair was all in the name of Kim Jonghyun. Everything was his doing including Key umma’s memory loss.

He would have been so much better off without Kim Jonghyun.

author's note:

another improvement in Jongkey bond! ^^

do you still hate minho? hehe~

and last but not least, comments pls~

P.S. it's been exactly 2 months since i join AFF!!!

kolmilyo : lol~ to that extend?

xEndlessLoveToSHINee : thanks for saying that!!! you make me feel so much better about myself! ^^