part 1

“I bring you up in my mind like this

I remember even the long moments again today

If only I can see your back for just one moment”

As a young kid and teenager, Kim Jonghyun had always thought of love as something beautiful, something wonderful. Even though it drove some people insane, even though they committed horrible things in the name of love and despite the fact that it was the one emotion that could really destroy someone completely.

Jonghyun had still found love beautiful despite those dark aspects of it, because he’d figured that to everything good there must be something bad, and love was no exception.

He’d described love as volatile, destructive, ruthless, unfair, wonderful, elevating and incredible, all of the positive and negative words together in one big, fat sentence to describe the emotion called love. The emotion that Jonghyun had revered and favored above all other emotions.

But he’d been young back then. Young and inexperienced, naïve to believe that life and love worked out the way it did in the movies. That he’d find some nice girl to settle down with, have two point five kids and a white picket fence around his cupcake villa. Maybe a dog too, if his wife or kids weren’t allergic.

So when Reality had caught up with him, and – in order to bring him down to earth and make those illusions of a cookie-cutter life disappear – it gave him a big, fat slap in the face named Kim Kibum.

And poor little Jonghyun had been completely unable to prevent his own downfall.

 “I can’t say anything else other than ‘I want to die’

I can’t take on a life without you

I only wait for you to return

Now you are not here

But please, I miss you so much

I love you”

Jonghyun still remembered the first time that him and Kibum – or Key, as he had always preferred to be called – had met. It had been in high school, and the two of them had just started their freshman year; two nervy teenage boys with uniforms a size or two too big for them so that they could ‘grow into them’, as their mothers had said, and backpacks filled to the brim with stuff they were supposed to use during the lessons.

The way the older students had seemed to stare at the newcomers as if they were chunks of barbecue walking around, begging to get eaten, had been nothing short of terrifying. Jonghyun could still recall the way that the young him – who’d always been the short kid and therefore knew by instinct how much he’d get picked on because of that by the other students – had, in a poor attempt to cheer himself up, compared himself to a melting popsicle with the way he’d been cold sweating.

It was when he’d finally come to the conclusion that he couldn’t take the stares any longer that he realized that he was going to puke because his stomach was backflipping like crazy and oh god where is a bucket when you needed it, that he suddenly felt a hand close around his own. Confused, Jonghyun had immediately forgotten all about his need to throw up his breakfast in favor of focusing on the person that had decided that holding hands with a soon-to-be barfing kid was totally smart.

He’d been met by the sight of a short kid – though not as short as Jonghyun – with black, ruffled hair and wide eyes that had been staring at him witch a mixture of disgust and fascination.

“Are you going to puke?”

Jonghyun had only blinked slowly in response before ignoring the question to look at their joined hands. He’d blinked again, even slower, his brain not really catching up with the situation because it had kind of shut down the second Jonghyun had thought ‘puke’ and still hadn’t quite restarted itself completely again.

“Well, are you?”

Beep beep, systems back online.

“Yes,” Jonghyun had replied honestly, because his mother had always been very thorough with his upbringing and every time he lied she took one won from his piggy bank, so he hadn’t wanted to risk anything by telling this boy ‘what, puke? Pfft, no’. His demon spawn of a mother had ears and eyes everywhere, ready to catch him off guard and steal his hard earned money at all times.

Jonghyun had honestly believed that back then.

“That’s disgusting,” Key had answered, and Jonghyun had nodded, because yes, it was, and even more so since there wasn’t any toilet in the near vicinity where he could empty his bawls. Which meant that it had to be on the floor. Right there, in the middle of the gymnasium, where the principal had just held his speech and the rest of the student body had been assembled.

“I don’t think you should do that,” Key had continued after a beat, eyeing the people around them with pursed lips and a thoughtful expressopn. “Everyone’s here, so if you do, everyone’ll know. You’ll totally get bullied, and everyone will call you ‘barf boy’ forever.”

“You’re right,” Jonghyun had replied. They’d shared another moment of contemplative silence where Key had stared at Jonghyun’s face and Jonghyun had, in turn, stared at their hands. It was kind of weird, because they were both dudes, and the Jonghyun back then hadn’t wanted to hold hands with a dude, he’d wanted to hold hands with a girl. “… Why are you holding my hand?”

“I’m giving you emotional support,” Key had answered without a beat, a small smile accompanying his words. “Is it working?”

Jonghyun had smiled back when he, after doing a quick search for any emotions or urges even remotely resembling puking, had realized that he’d felt a lot better compared to how bad he’d felt only a couple of minutes ago.

“Yeah, it is.”

: : : : : :

And then, after the X-factor that was Key had forced his way into the life of Jonghyun by grabbing his hand on that day, everything had changed.

Suddenly, the taunts and jeers from the other guys about his height didn’t matter to Jonghyun, because Key had told him that Jonghyun was so good-looking that he didn’t really need to be tall and that those guys were only jealous. Suddenly, Jonghyun had something else to do with his time besides lazing around alone in his room every day. Suddenly, Jonghyun had a best friend, a best friend that could whoop his any day, any time on Smash Bros, a best friend that could cheer him up whenever a girl he’d been dating broke up with him, whenever his parents fought and hit the metaphorical fan.

Key had been the best goddamned best friend in the entire world, and nothing would ever change that fact.

But naturally, something had to come along and that up, because life had never been meant to be an easy ride for Kim Jonghyun and he really shouldn’t have believed otherwise.

 “I’m a fool; I can’t let you go

I run out of breath

Crazily, I try to push you out all night, but still–”

Lee Jinki didn’t walk so much as stumble his way into their lives. It had been hilarious; right in the middle of the cafeteria Jinki had stumbled on his feet or something – Jonghyun had never been told exactly what it was and he’d never asked – and then kind of planted his face in the food on his tray.

Like seriously, who even does that in real life? That only happened in really bad comedies.

Jinki had always been clumsy and unlucky like that.

Jonghyun had been laughing his face off, because if that wasn’t the most comical thing he’d ever seen, as had the rest of the cafeteria. Nothing beats laughing at another person’s misery, after all.

Key, however, had given Jonghyun a disapproving look (which Jonghyun had ignored), and in an impressive display of human benevolence he’d gotten up from his chair to go and help the fallen boy off of the floor and to their table. After the brief customary introductions had been made (Jonghyun had still been laughing, so when it had been his turn to introduce himself he’d only managed to get out a garbled “Jonghnnnn”), Key had been hurrying off to get Jinki new food.

At first, an uncomfortable silence had settled between the two boys when Jonghyun had finally managed to stop laughing, and both of them had tried to come up with something to break the ice with. In the end it had been Jonghyun who’d broken the akward silence by snorting good-naturedly and kind of just blurting out “How did you even make that happen, dude?”, and just like that, the awkwardness dissipated.

And after that, his and Key’s duo became a trio with Jinki as the new addition, and the three were as thick as thieves.

: : : : : :

Thinking back on it, Jonghyun can’t help but notice the similarities between his first meeting with Key and his first meeting with Jinki; both of them were abrupt and unexpected, like a striking lightning from a completely blue sky, and both of them had had huge impacts on Jonghyun’s life.

Positive, of course, because the years those years were the happiest years of Jonghyun’s life. He’ll never forget the summer nights they’ve spent talking and staying up all night, all of the secrets that they’ve shared, the moments where they’ve just cried and been comforted by each other, the days that they just spent laughing because they had so much fun in each other’s company.

But also negative, and to be honest, all of those years they spent in happiness… they’re almost not enough to compensate for the pure, raw and unadulterated misery that has become Jonghyun’s everyday life.

Because that’s what it has all come to in the end, Jonghyun thinks as he stares at the open coffin in front of him with the very stiff, very cold person lying inside of it, his eyes unblinking and dull. Misery and pain.

Key looks so beautiful. So very, very beautiful (and the casket he’s lying in looks so wrong), and his expression is one of peacefulness and serenity.

But the way his torso is sagging like it’s hollow underneath the black suit he’s wearing is not going unnoticed by Jonghyun, and with the dull pain of agony beating its steady rhythm against his ribs with every beat his heart hammers away Jonghyun’s brain calmly reasons that even though the people who dressed Key up and made him look like if he is simply sleeping are very, very professional and good, some things can’t be covered up with cosmetics. Especially not when a person’s gotten their stomach and ribs crushed in the car accident that killed them. There is not a single thing that can cover such an injury and make it look as if it hasn’t occurred.

Jonghyun doesn’t cry when they close the casket, hiding Key from the people attending the funeral’s eyes. Doesn’t cry when Key’s favorite song echoes in the halls of the church as they play it in the speakers one last time. Doesn’t cry when they lower the black, polished coffin into the ground. Doesn’t cry when they refill the deep hole.

Because he can’t.

Nothing of it all feels real.

“I can’t say anything else other than ‘I want to die’

I can’t take on a life without you

I only wait for you to return

Now you are not here

But please, I miss you so much”

Jonghyun had always only looked at Key with the eyes of a best friend, a brother, and had never really considered looking at Key with anything else but that platonic love.

It had never occurred to him, simply enough.

It was when he accidentally walked in on Key and Jinki kissing that that ‘brotherly, platonic love’ or whatever got ed up, and Jonghyun practically tore up the door in his hurry to leave Key’s room and the two people who were lying on the bed entangled in each other’s’ arms. He’d flown down the stairs of the Kim household, had forgotten to call goodbye to Key’s mother who’d let him in there in the first place when he’d told her that he’d had a surprise present for Key (that pair of shoes that Key’d always wanted but never had been able to afford).

Jonghyun had panicked, and when Jonghyun panicked he either vomited – like he’d almost done the first day he and Key had met – or ran away. His legs had obviously chosen the latter ‘option’ (he had never run so fast in his entire life), if you could even call it that, for him, and he didn’t stop running until he slammed the door shut to his own room.

That’s when he began to hyperventilate, ignoring the buzzing of the cellphone (it’d been weird if Key and Jinki hadn’t noticed his frantic escape, after all), as he just stood there, leaning against his door with his mind replaying the… the goddamn kissing scene over and over again.

Back then, Jonghyun had had no idea why his reaction had been that violent or why he’d felt as if someone had poured a bucket filled with ice-cold water over his head while simultaneously twisting a knife through his heart, only that it ing hurt like a goddamned , and that he didn’t like it one bit.

Now, however, he knows better.

And he so desperately wishes that he’d never seen them kissing back on that day so many years ago.

: : : : : :

It had taken Jonghyun a while before he had managed to calm himself down and get that stabbed-cold feeling out of his chest, but when he had, he’d picked up his cellphone to finally answer Key’s call (Jonghyun had had twenty three missed calls and five unread text messages by then).

Key had been trying to sound calm and collected, as if it all was no big deal and that nothing of greater importance had occurred, but Jonghyun had known him long enough by then to notice the way his voice trembled. Key had never been a very good actor, because despite his very best efforts his body always betrayed him and revealed whatever it was that Key was trying not to say, and Jonghyun had been an expert on reading his best friend.

The stabbing pain had come back with a vengeance the moment he’d heard Key’s and Jinki’s voices in the phone speaker, and if Jonghyun had only disconnected the call right there, right then, his life would probably have ended up very differently from how it was right now.

But he hadn’t. He’d agreed to meet Key and Jinki at the old playground in five minutes, and he’d agreed to listen to whatever it was that they wanted to tell him.

And that was how he’d sealed his own fate.

End of part 1.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

originally, this was supposed to be a one shot, but it ended up being 18 pages and when I tried to upload them in one chapter it didn't work, so I had to split it. So this is "part 1" of the oneshot called "Love" :) I'll be uploading the next part shortly!

I wanted to try writing this in a different way, kind of a more "storyteller" way instead of my usual way of writing, and I hope I succeeded and didn't disappoint you! :) 

The song excerpts are from Heo Gak's "I can only say I want to die".

Like it? Hate it? Please comment and tell me your thoughts! :)

Hugs, Elysionista :) <3

21/7 2013