There was a stain next to Jonghyun’s name. Key’s hands must have been shaking, causing the pen to slip to the side as he wrote. I gulped. It was really true. I closed to journal and held it against my chest as I walked to the room next to mine.

This had been Jonghyun’s room. Kim Jonghyun’s. Now I had the whole name. The room of the now dead Kim Jonghyun.

I sat down in the middle of the room and took the polaroid picture out of my pocket to look at it. Suddenly I felt angry - really angry to the world that it could destroy someone’s happiness like that. I felt betrayed, like my faith for something beautiful had been taken. I thought about Jonghyun’s words, about how anything golden can’t last.

24.3.

I should probably write about this… Or should? Do I want to? I don’t know. I think I do. It’s not like I can talk about this to anyone. It’s been a month… A month has passed… In my mind, it might have happened yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, I don’t really know. I don’t feel any different than I did a month ago, or a week ago or what I felt yesterday. I’m just going to write about it and see what happens.

So just as I had closed the door on my way to school, my mom called me from the hospital, since she works there. She told me there had been a car accident and that hyung was there and asked me if I wanted to come.

His parents were already there. His mother was crying and his father was comforting her. Neither of us acted like we knew each other. We didn’t even greet each other this time. No need to anymore. I saw the door next to them and I knew he would be there, so I just stopped there, standing on the hallway, until my mom spotted me.

I think I was crying then. They were more like hysterical tears of shock than of any actual feeling of loss. My mom led me to sit down, and after a while, she asked if I wanted to see him. I really didn’t have to think about it. I wanted to keep my happier memories. The sight I would see scared me. I would much rather remember him as I remember him now. So I shook my head.

I left. For some reason I went to school. I wasn’t really even late. I don’t know why I went. I can’t even remember when I have last taken a day off, so I’m sure I could have stayed home for one day. But then again, I had even less of an idea what to do if I went home. At least this was some sort of routine to follow.

My mom actually told me not to go to school the next day, and I spent a couple of days home after that. I can’t remember them too well. I just remember I cried a lot. I think I should have gone to school. Just hanging around the house all by myself only to leads me crying. It just doesn’t stop. I try to do things but I just keep crying.

His handwriting became messier towards the end of the page, and since it suddenly stopped and he hadn’t even put his signature there I assumed he hadn’t been able to write anymore. I took a moment for myself. I wasn’t really the crying type. I had only been in one funeral, of my grandfather's, and I didn't even cry there. But now I had to wipe a single tear that was falling on my cheek. I wasn’t really sure why these two had such an effect on me.

I suddenly started thinking. If Jonghyun had died last February and he had been on his last year, that makes him two years older than me. So he is – was – eighteen, and so Key is right now seventeen. Key is right now seventeen. Key is right now. Key exists somewhere right now. My heartbeat quickened a little.

My mother called me worriedly as she heard I had left my room. I realized I hadn’t really eaten anything since yesterday, and I quickly threw the journal back to my room and went downstairs. I let my mother pamper me as much as she wanted. I ate everything she offered to me and took a long shower as she suggested, just to avoid reading the journal. I wasn’t ready yet. I did all my homework carefully, plus some extra, because I had neglected it so much. And as it was already eleven, I went to my bed and opened the journal again.

2.4.

I can’t believe he’s gone. Just simply like that. It makes me wonder which part of him is gone. His body is in a graveyard, I still call him by his name and I still have all of my memories of him, so which part of him is gone? In a way he isn’t. His essence has changed its form to a different one. One I can’t reach.

For the first time I realize how I don’t have anything of him beside my memories, and I’m scared of losing them. I just can’t stop thinking about him for even a second because I’m afraid something would slip from my mind and I wouldn't be able to get it back. Without my memories, it wouldn't really matter whether he ever really was here in the first place.

Even though I have written down some things, I feel like I have left out so much. Some touches I never thought were so important, or some of his habits, like his way his eyebrows moved when he talked, or the way he smelled. It’s impossible to describe them here. If I close my eyes and try really hard, I can clearly remember his scent, but I know that the memory is fading, and that it won’t stay in my mind forever.

Key

Different things remind me of him. Like in school someone, when I saw someone hold a pen in his left hand, I was suddenly reminded of hyung. Things that I haven’t paid much attention to before but I still know rise to the surface now. It’s almost a burden that I still want to carry because I don’t have anything else.

I went to the building today. I just mostly cried there. Although I don’t know what else I thought would happen.

Key

I feel like… I almost wrote my time has run out, but that's not right. My time hasn’t come to its end, it is just gone. I always thought time enables existence, but now? I feel like I exist in the time of others. I know I’m here, but am I really? What is a day? An hour? A minute? I don’t know.

My body works as it always does. I get up in the morning, eat and go to school, so I think I exist, but am I really there? Like really? Am I ever aware of the moment? I feel like my now is same as yesterday or the week before that.

Time keeps going forward but I don’t. Am I then part of it? Like I was floating in the river and all the leaves and stuff are moving with it, but I’m stuck to the edge, am I then part of the river or the edge? Or if I was a clock without hands. Can a clock be a clock without its hands? Can something that can’t fulfill its purpose be what it is supposed to be? I feel like I’m not working for my purpose.

I can’t bring myself to unload the backpack. Most of the clothes are still there since I don’t really do any activities besides school, so I don’t need them. I think my mom has noticed it, but she doesn’t say anything. I think she knows. Maybe she has known something all along but hasn’t just said anything.

One day I thought I would go to Seoul anyway, but what the heck I would do there alone?

I noticed how he stopped writing dates and signatures. I tried to gulp down the clog in my throat. The handwriting wasn’t so neat anymore. These were more like messy notes he wrote down now and then, like he had just wanted to release some of his thoughts or feelings when they became too much. I just kept reading.

I don’t know how to go on. Everything seems so pointless. I just cry if I don’t occupy myself with something, and let face it, I cry most of the time if I’m alone anyway. Yesterday I started crying on my way home. It was embarrassing. I ran home because I was afraid someone would notice.

I just really want him back. I need him back. This feels wrong. Too wrong. I need him back.

They moved out today. I felt like such stalker as I sat behind a corner, spying on them. I just didn’t want his parents to see me. I recognized the furniture from his room. I wonder what they did to his clothes and other stuff. I wondered about their sadness. How do they feel about it? I won’t say they are less sad than I am, but I don’t think our sadness is of the same kind. They can talk about it with each other, they have the right to be sad, when I just have to keep hiding everything.

The house is for sale. I broke in there last night. It still smelled like him. I just lay in his room on the floor and somehow I didn’t cry. We haven’t even spent so much time there, but enough for the place to feel familiar.

I feel so… alone. I think that’s the word. I know that I’m not really alone, or maybe it just my own fault and I decline to let anyone get near me but it just… I don’t think anyone else could fill up the empty space that makes me feel like this. I don’t want to anyone to fill it. It’s my space for him, and him alone. I gave my life to him and now he’s gone.

I would do anything to see him again. Anything. Please just give me something and I will do it.

I’m sitting here right now. I can still smell him here, or then it’s just my imagination. I feel a little better here. I don’t know what to do when someo

My breathing stopped as I came to the end. I turned the page, but the rest of the notebook was empty. He had been writing here - in the room next to me, and not too long ago. If the house was already for sale it, had been in the summer. I sighed and turned off the light, holding the journal against my chest. Someone had come and he had had to leave. And he must have left the journal there by accident. It felt a little cruel. Everything that had happened felt so unfair, somehow. This shouldn’t happen to anyone.

A small crack that I almost ignored caught my ears. I would have let it go, but I heard another one, a louder one, from the room next to mine. There it was again. It wasn’t just the old building cracking on its own. It was clearly caused by a human.

I quickly got up and stormed to the room. I almost crashed on someone. He was of the same height as me, with shorter hair. I couldn’t really see because it was so dark. Our eyes had barely met when he was already running past me downstairs. Without a second thought I ran after him. He didn’t close the door as he ran through it, and I followed him.

He was running fast, much faster than me. I didn’t have my shoes on, and the cold ground didn’t make my chase any easier. He turned around the corner, and I couldn’t see him anymore, so I stopped. I stared at the empty street, panting. This time I was sure it was Key.

Next morning I put the journal in my pack. I was afraid someone would steal it when I was gone. In the hallways I tried to look for someone who looked like the person I had seen in the dark, or the person in the picture of them, but it was too hard. I haven’t seen him properly, and people here just really looked like each other too much.

I lazily walked home that day. As I opened the door, I immediately saw a paper on the floor. I took it in my hand and turned it around.

Give it back.

I recognized the hand writing. I held my backpack a little tighter.

I didn’t know how he knew I had it. Maybe it was just obvious because he knew I had moved here. But I didn’t want to give it back. It was mine, my way to escape the world. I knew it belonged to someone else. It wasn’t mine to keep. I should have been thankful that I had had a chance to read it. I should have felt guilty too, but I didn’t.

“I’m going out,” I said to my mother, who looked a little surprised and worried. I guess I normally didn’t go out that much after school.

“Don’t stay for too long,” she called out after me.

I just simply knew where to find him. I checked that the drawings were all there as I ran to the bridge and over it. The sun was going down. I was a little worried that wouldn’t find the building anymore but I did, quicker than last time.

He was there already.

He was standing by the window, already looking at me like he had known when I would come. Maybe he had heard me. I recognized him from the picture, he had the same cheekbones and the same eyes, but there was nothing left of the happiness that was captured in the picture. Underneath his eyes were dark circles, he looked much thinner, his hair had got longer. He stared at me straight into my eyes coldly, he looked altogether forbidding, like how you get when the whole world has mistreated you.

He didn’t have our school uniform, just normal clothes. His jacket was open and I could see the key-necklace hanging around his neck. I felt like I was seeing a living ghost. His eyes glanced at my hand that held the journal. He reached his hand out and opened the palm, waiting for me to give it back to him. I obeyed him like I had been bewitched. I gulped and took a careful step closer to him, and gave him the journal. I wanted to say something to him. Maybe tell him I was sorry, or just say hi, but my mouth stayed shut.

I saw a tiniest smile rippling on his lips as he looked at it, before walking past me without looking back. I just stood there looking after him. I don’t know how long I kept standing there until I walked back home.

Next morning our teacher was a little late. For the first time he didn’t smile as he talked. His words kept echoing in my head. I looked at the class, but none of them seemed really impressed, some of the girls looked just a little shocked, most of them were surprised. I don’t think any of our class knew him that well. I didn’t need to ask about the name either. I was just sure it was him. For a second I had to close my eyes. I was really happy that I had given the journal back to him, that I had met him, that I had read it all. My hand went to my pocket and held the polaroid picture there.

“One of our students, Kim Kibum, has passed away this morning.”

So it's done.

I only find out now that the deadline has change to 25th and i considered making this a little longer but i think it's fine as it is. I could have squeezed 2min there a little more but oh well. It's so long already... 

I hope it's not too sad! It was sad to write :/ And i hope it fits to the promp well. 

Did you like it? What was your favorite part? What wasn't so good? Please let me know what you think!<3

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Thanks for reading<3