Act 12, Scene 1

The temple at Pagyesa is exactly as he remembers it – silent, ancient and tranquil. Jonghyun was the one who first brought him here, despite the fact that he was an atheist; one of the many contradictions that made up the man boy, really that he loved.

Kibum drags his heavy feet and throbbing head up the steps, passing by the main hall in favour of the gardens in the back. It is summer and there should be tourists here, but for some reason he is alone. He finds the old Oriental arbor tree that they used to sit under whenever Jonghyun was feeling overwhelmed and collapses under it.

It has been a long time since he felt the other’s loss so keenly.

“Remember me?” he asks the tree. “I don’t think you’d recognise me anymore. I don’t think you’d love me anymore, if you saw who I am.”

He’s drunk and rambling and he knows it, but Kibum needs to talk to someone and this damn tree is the only thing around here who knows him from before.

“So I’ve come to say goodbye. So long, and thanks for all the fish,” he laughs, because Jonghyun never understood his pop culture references. “Pabo, talking to a tree.”

Act 12, Scene 2

Drinking and driving is not a good choice. Crying and driving is not a good choice.

Kibum drinks and weeps and drives his car into a tree.

What poetic justice, he thinks, before closing his eyes. At least Taemin will live now.

Act 12, Scene 3

His head is ringing. There is an uncomfortable pressure on his chest and he’s warm and sticky everywhere.

Still alive, then?

The ringing gets louder, and finally he makes out that there is a voice speaking to him. There is a branch pushing through the driver’s side window, and it digs into his side. On the passenger side some person is knocking the window and tugging futilely at the door, which is irreparably dented.

Slowly, he realises that he recognises that haircut. And the t-shirt, which he chose.

Taemin.

The windshield is a spiderweb bent inwards, held together only because of the shatterproof tempering. As he watches, Taemin moves from the passenger side window to climb onto the bonnet of the car. When Taemin meets his eyes, he can see shock in the younger’s face.

And then he blacks out again.

Act 12, Scene 4

The car is totalled, that much he can tell. He doesn’t care about the car. Jonghyun’s eyes are panicked, and Kibum takes a while to make out what he is saying.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he cries, over and over. “I…how am I going to…Kibum.”

And he can see from where he’s sitting how Jonghyun’s legs are trapped between the dash and crushed door. His blue jeans are drenched in blood and there is a shard of bone poking out at his ankle. It makes Kibum sick, but he cannot throw up. He cannot move. He looks down to see that the dashboard in front of him has been crushed inwards, and his body is trapped underneath it.

“Jjongie,” he says.

“Key?” Jonghyun’s voice cracks a bit, and he coughs. Blood trickles down his lips. As Kibum watches helplessly, Jonghyun leans on the steering wheel, and turns to face him. His eyes are dull.

“Jjong,” he sobs, “Yah, you stupid dinosaur. Pabo-ji.”

Jonghyun blinks once, twice.

“Yeobo.”

But he’s gone, and Kibum is alone in a wreck of a car with the shards of his hopes and dreams scattered across him and the dead body that was once the love of his life. 

Act 12, Scene 5

“KEY!”

Taemin’s desperate scream drags him back to reality. He’s slumped forward in his seat, held in place only by the seatbelt. There is broken glass everywhere. He looks up to see that Taemin leaning through the windscreen, which he must have smashed, to speak to him.

“Key-hyung,” he says. “Are you alright?”

Kibum feels a laugh bubble up in him. He’s so far from alright that he doesn’t even know what alright looks like. “It should have been me,” he croaks, tasting blood on his lips.

“Hyung, what are you-”

“It should have been me!” he yells. “I held his hand, I distracted him from driving, I made us run away, it was all me! I should have died, not him.”

Taemin looks scared. Kibum is tired, bone tired, so he slumps onto the steering wheel like Jonghyun did three years ago. “Leave, Taemin. My back is turned. Run away.”

A shadow falls over him. Taemin has climbed into the car, and his long hair tickles the side of Kibum’s face as his hands fumble with the seatbelt.

“No, you had to live. You had to live because if it had been anybody else, they would have shot me on my doorstep and I would never have lived the best week of my life.” He manages to free the latch, and moves the belt away from Kibum’s body; it becomes a little easier to breathe. “You had to live because nobody else would have promised to take some stupid kid to Dadohaehaesang, and you haven’t yet, so you cannot...cannot-” 

“Tae,” Kibum says, because Taemin is now running his hands over Kibum’s side like he knows how to look for damage kindness hurts, because he doesn’t deserve any, and because there some truth in what he said. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Taemin wraps his arms under Kibum’s and loops them around him, so that they are almost chest to chest, and begins to pull him out of the car. It won’t work, Kibum knows, because he’s taller and heavier than Taemin, so he helps by bracing his knees against the dash for leverage. Shards of glass rain down around them as they worm through the broken windscreen; Kibum still doesn’t really want to be rescued, but Taemin’s will is a force he has no strength to resist.

Then they’re both on the ground by the side of the road and Kibum can finally breathe. From here, he can see the car; can see the way it is wrapped around the tree trunk like a lover. He’s sticky everywhere, his skin stained with blood, sweat and tears. The setting sun colours the sky purple, Taemin’s hand is fisted in his shirt, and, somewhere in the back of his mind, Kibum thinks it is a scene worth painting.