When Jongin was a child, maybe five or six, he chased a dog onto the highway. He hadn’t meant to hurt it. He was so small; he didn’t know highways could be dangerous. As the dog reached the road, a transport happened to be rumbling past. Jongin didn’t have enough time to scream. He’s tried to block out the sights and sounds of that day, but what he still remembers is trying to desperately cover his ears in hopes he’ll drown out the whimpers of the Labrador, but unable to look away from the scene in front of him. It took a long time before he wanted to play outside again, and he never learned how to drive. Every time he sees a highway, his heart beats hard in his chest as a reminder. Still, no matter how terrible that feeling had been, it was nothing compared to seeing Do Kyungsoo’s face in the obituary of the newspaper.

He nearly dropped his coffee, but instead slowly set it down, his fingers shaking. The picture was blurry and small – it would have been hard to tell his features apart, had he not been the one who took the picture. It was August, four years ago. They were out drinking. He was wearing a grey sweater. Jongin blinks at the unexpected memory. The paragraph under the picture explained that a car had killed him along with his little brother, that Thursday morning.

“Can you believe Heirs is already over?” his friend asks from behind the newspaper. Ignoring him, Jongin reaches out and slowly takes it from his hand to get a better look. Kyungsoo was cremated, the ashes scattered in the sea, like he had wanted. He looks back up at the picture, runs a slim finger against the surface. He tries to remember how his skin felt.  

He feels his throat swell up. He knows he’d only look stupid, crying in Starbucks. He swallows and glances up at his friend, giving him a weak smile. “Heirs? Right. Krystal was really cute.”

“What is it?” Chanyeol asks, concerned etched across his features. Leave it to someone as transparent as him to be so attentive when it came to other people. “Is it someone you know?”

Jongin folds the newspaper in half with a shrug and tosses it onto the table. “An old acquaintance, I guess. We weren’t that close.”

 

 

When he gets home to a call from his college friend, he considers hanging up. But Joonmyeon is crying on the other end, and it’s a rare occasion that he does. He’s usually so calm and collected. Jongin sighs and sits on his bed. “Are you okay?”

“No, no of course not. Jongin, do you know already? Did you see it in the papers? He’s gone. He’s just…”

He wants to hang up when he feels his eyes stinging. “I know.”

“You guys roomed together, first year of college, didn’t you? I know you didn’t know him that well, I’m sorry for calling you, but you’re the only one who really knew him other than me. Didn’t talk to a lot of people. The service is going so be small. God, Jongin, I…” Jongin doesn’t interrupt him when he becomes too incoherent to speak. He can understand. Although Jongin severed contact with Kyungsoo, he knew they had been best friends even up until his death.

Eventually, Joonmyeon hangs up on Jongin. When he closes his phone and sets it on the desk, it finally hits him. He spends the next hour unable to breathe properly.

 

 

He stops crying when he sees the outline of a boy sitting in his chair by the window. He jumps up in bed and nearly knocks his lamp over on his desk.

“K-Kyungsoo?” he shouts. He watched the panicked boy looking at everything in the room but Jongin, himself. He doesn’t receive an answer. After almost a minute, he realizes that Kyungsoo doesn’t seem to know Jongin is there at all.

He jerks around, watching something move. Jongin? Kyungsoo asks, but no sound comes out. Jongin’s brow furrows in confusion. No sound. He springs up and seems distressed, wringing his hands. He starts to yell his name over and over. He knows he’s saying more, but he can’t lip-read well. Kyungsoo stops and stands at his bedroom door, his eyes watering. He slams his fist on the door and sobs. Kyungsoo sinks to the ground and continues to cry, his forehead resting against the door.

“Why are you here?” Jongin asks incredulously, watching the boy sob into his fists.

 

 

His gawking eventually turns to watching. He doesn’t feel threatened. Kyungsoo was never violent when he knew him, so he wouldn’t be in the after life (was that where he was, the afterlife?).  

He tries hard to listen to Kyungsoo. He moves from the door to the window, from the window to the desk chair. He cries at times. He sometimes looks like he’s singing. But no matter how close he gets to him, he can’t hear a sound, and he can’t feel a breath coming from him. It’s almost as if someone muted him.   

As Kyungsoo comes to lie down next to him on the bed, Jongin’s mouth goes dry when he finally recognizes the grey sweater he’s wearing. His shock turns to shame.

Four years ago, their group had gone drinking. It was harmless enough. The only thing that had changed was the wary glances each friend seemed to be giving Kyungsoo. There had been rumors going around recently about Kyungsoo’s uality; someone had seen him with another guy in the library one night (which was baseless, since Kyungsoo rarely left the house, besides going to college). Jongin knew people were avoiding him; it was precisely the reason he’d forced him out of the house that night. He was sure a little interaction would give him a little more confidence. 

It was a mistake. Jongin had drunk more than he intended, and Kyungsoo had to call a cab back to their apartment. The next thing he knew, they were inside the apartment, and he was pressing Kyungsoo against the wall and kissing him lazily, laughing at how red his cheeks got. So you really are gay, huh? Do you have a crush on me? He’d asked, grinning down at him. He couldn’t exactly remember what happened afterwards, or how he got Kyungsoo into his room. He thought (at the time) that he could have said no if he really didn’t want to. But in the morning, he saw the bruises liter the sleeping boy’s back, ribs, hips and the nape of his neck, and the shame that followed seeing the way he shifted away from him as soon as he woke up. He knew it had been a mistake.

Afterwards, not one word was exchanged between the two. Kyungsoo moved out within a couple days, and they didn’t have a lot of classes together. Any interaction was forced by their friends (who really didn’t understand why they stopped talking). In the end, they graduated without really saying anything of importance to each other.

Kyungsoo moves from his bed to sit on Jongin’s desk chair. Jongin watches him talk for a while, his face twisting into a frown. He repeats something over and over again as he wipes at his eyes with the sleeves of his sweater. It looks something like “I’m sorry.”

A few minutes later, he looks up and stares at the door. His eyes widen, and his mouth starts moving too quickly for Jongin to make out anything says. Not knowing what to do, Jongin stands up and walks in front of the panicked boy. “Are you all right? Kyungsoo?” he asks uncertainly. “Kyungsoo?”

Suddenly, the boy stops speaking. He says something and then laughs, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He looks up at Jongin, and although he knows he can’t see him, he knows the question Kyungsoo silently asks was for him.

And in what seems like seconds, the image in front of Jongin begins to disappear, slowly fading into thin air.  

“No,” he breathes, and reaches towards Kyungsoo’s face, trying in vain to somehow hold Kyungsoo back. Inevitably, he slips through his fingers, leaving Jongin with an empty room and blurry eyes.

“What is going on?” Kyungsoo asks in the softest tone, his voice breaking.

“A-are you still here? Kyungsoo?” Jongin asks as Kyungsoo’s voice echoes off his walls. Then it hits him.

Kyungsoo’s spirit is gone. Where did it go? He won’t know. But he knows that the doe-eyed boy in his room for the past couple hours was only an afterimage. If you took a look up at the night sky, what you see has already past. The stars have come and gone. It takes time for light to travel, which is why there’s a time lapse between the two locations. Jongin figures souls are the same. Maybe thoughts travel slower than souls.

He listens to Kyungsoo’s panicked breathing filling his ears. “Jongin! Jongin, you have to help me. I don’t know what happened. I can’t find them. Where is my family? I’m so confused, we were just in the car, I—“ his breathing hitches. Stops. “Jongin, listen to me. Listen to me, dammit. I’m talking to you. God, just say something, say one thing!” Jongin backs towards his bed and lets himself fall back to sit on the sheets as Kyungsoo starts to cry, nearly hyperventilating as he repeats Jongin’s name over and over. Useless, he thinks, I’m useless. All this time I was sitting here staring at him, wondering what he was talking about. He feels his hands starting to shake.

“Wait, Jongin, don’t go, please…” Jongin glances to the clock on his stand. It’s currently 8:45pm. They were probably out of sync a full 12 hours. If his theory is correct, Thursday morning, he was running out the door to his 9am – 12pm lecture. He didn’t come home until 2pm.

Jongin doesn’t leave his room once that day, for fear of missing something important. He listens to Kyungsoo start to cry every so often, then stop. Around lunch time, he starts to sing, just like he thought he had. His voice is strong and full, and he keeps singing even as his voice cracks when he gets too upset. Jongin didn’t know he sang. In fact, he realizes; he never really knew much about the frail boy.

 

 

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. The soft voice had lulled him to sleep. The next thing he hears is Kyungsoo’s sigh of relief. “Thank god you’re back. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to. I thought you saw me and ran away. I wouldn’t have blamed you! Ghosts are scary. But I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Jongin sits up in bed and listens when he hears Kyungsoo cross the room to his desk chair. “I know you can’t hear me. I don’t know why. We’re probably in two different dimensions. Like a one-way mirror. I can see you. You can’t see me. I don’t mean that in a creepy way though, haha…” Jongin scoffs, despite his heart nearly beating out of his chest. He’s still as dorky as ever.

“Really, I… I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t mean to intrude. It’s only been a few hours but I’m so lonely… I don’t want to leave you. I’m scared of what’s out there. I’m sorry; I don’t mean to bother you. Just let me stay…” Jongin’s fists tighten against the sheets. He glances at the clock. It’s 2am. It was around here that Joonmyeon called.

Kyungsoo stays silent. After a few minutes, he laughs and whispers, “It’s weird. Hearing about your own death.” Jongin’s cheeks begin to heat up as Kyungsoo stops laughing, and his voice seems to move towards the bed. “Jongin, don’t cry. It’s okay. I didn’t feel anything at all. I must have died on the spot. Don’t cry, please. I’m…” He can’t speak anymore because he’s sniffling.

God, he was there, he thinks, covering his mouth. It was both embarrassing and reassuring, so Jongin feels a little relieved that Kyungsoo knows he meant something to him. He really did.

After an hour or so, Kyungsoo speaks again, this time by the desk chair. “I told my family that if I ever died, I wanted to be cremated. I wanted my ashes to be scattered in the sea. That way I could see the world, in a way. Stupid, huh?” Jongin smiles, remembering the obituary. It was a good thing his family listened to him. “I was always an agnostic atheist before this. I guess this changes things.

“I’m sorry for haunting you. Maybe we all stay here for a reason. I think they’ll let me pass on once I’ve resolved something. Not that I know who ‘they’ is. This is new to me,” he rambled, laughing nervously. After a few minutes of silence, he says in a stronger voice, “If I’m here for any reason at all, it’s probably that night, during our first year of college.” Jongin stiffens and tucks his knees to his chest. “Maybe I want to apologize. After all, you had to room with me. Everyone knew I was gay. I knew you knew, too. How could you not…

“Maybe I just wanted to see you again. Can you hear me Jongin? Well, I guess not. Since you can’t, I might as well tell you.” Jongin stops breathing. “I could have said no. I could have pushed you away, hit you, something, but I—I didn’t. I felt so ashamed that morning. How could I take advantage of you like that? I know you’re a nice guy, and you were just a bit curious and you were really drunk, but I persuaded you into something you probably wouldn’t have done sober. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just loved you so much, I couldn’t—I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He continues to cry and apologize over and over again.

Did he hear that right? Love? Jongin stares at the desk chair in wonder. It seemed like such a strange idea. Kyungsoo loved him. It’s why he didn’t say no. The reason they haven’t talked all this time wasn’t shame. It was fear.

He wraps his arms around himself to try to hold himself together. He can hardly breathe now, and he can’t even see the pattern on his bedding anymore.  

 

 

Suddenly, Kyungsoo stops crying and gasps. “Jongin? Jongin, can you see me? God, you can, I know it! Don’t go, come back, please…” Jongin remembers calling Kyungsoo’s name. He hears a laugh and a sniffle. “Thank god. You remembered. My name, I mean. Can you say it again, one more time?”

Jongin leans his head against the wall behind him as he struggles to accept the silence.He knows he's gone.

All the mistakes Jongin had made, all the chances he’d let pass without so much of a glance, all the times he said the wrong things at the wrong times, never been there at the right ones. But he knew he got it right when the next word out of his mouth was what should have mattered the most.

 

“Kyungsoo.” 

 

He hopes it reaches him wherever he is.