He pounded hard against the hot wood, holding himself up with a hand on the doorframe. He felt that if he let go, his legs would give way and he wouldn’t be able to stand, not by himself.

By the fifth and increasingly desperate knock, his sense of hope began to deteriorate until the lights in the house; which was strange, because the lights were never on. But the thought was pushed aside when the door finally swung open, and staring back at him were Jongin’s pair of sleepy eyes.

“… Yixing?” The doctor held a look of surprise when he recognized who it was. He instinctively caught the other male when he wavered and began to drag him inside. “I swear you’re in a worse condition every time you swing by here… Come on, don’t faint on me.”

“You look pretty bad yourself,” Yixing manages to breathe out as he was put on the sofa. He waits as Jongin jogs out of the room and returns with a glass of water. “Thank you…”

“What happened?” Jongin sits in front of him on the floor, the usual concern swimming in his eyes. “Did you find him?”

The hesitation in Yixing was evident, and Jongin was upset to see it. “… I did…” He said slowly.

“But?”

“But… It wasn’t him.” His lip started to quiver and he felt tears again, rushing to fall. “… He— Myungsoo is a siren, Jongin, and I— I-It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Myungsoo. I can’t be with him. I can’t be with something like that... So I left. I just ran.”

There’s silence that stretches over them, but Jongin soon breaks it with a sigh. “… I knew it,” he says, and his next few words don’t ease Yixing’s confusion. “I knew this was going to happen. Yixing… Have you ever considered the fact that maybe…? That maybe we—you and I— are parallels?”

“… What do you mean?”

“Maybe we’re parallels. Maybe I’m you in this world, and you’re me in your world. We’re different people, but maybe we have the same souls. I mean, we’re similar, right?” The doctor laughs, but in a painful, suffocating way that had his chest wrenching. “We’re practically each other’s reflection. Maybe we are parallels. Maybe… Just maybe, we’re not meant to be with either Kyungsoo or Myungsoo.”

Yixing stares at him in disbelief. “What happened?” He asks, mimicking Jongin’s earlier interrogation.

Jongin lets out another laugh, this one disdainful. “… I found mine too; Kyungsoo. But like you, I can’t be with him. Like how you and I are parallels, they are parallels too. You’re not meant to be with Myungsoo, and I can’t be with Kyungsoo. I-I can’t be with h-him… B-Because he’s dead. Kyungsoo is dead Yixing, and he was already dead to begin with! I c-couldn’t do a single f-ing thing—”

The slider gets up from his seat to wrap his arms around the sobbing Jongin, giving him silent comfort.

“… Th-They found him first. The townspeople found Kyungsoo first. When I got there, i-it was too l-late. He was hanging upside down in the middle of the p-park, wooden stake in his chest. They were laughing at his corpse. They killed him, and laughed about it. But I… I didn’t do anything. Like you, I just left. I walked away from Kyungsoo.”

Yixing hated this. If they really were parallels— if they really were of the same soul, then they were meant to share the same damn emotions that will drive them to their end. They were so similar that they inevitably had to share the same dark fate, and Yixing hated that.

“… Yixing,” Jongin uttered between tears. “Please… Help me put Kyungsoo to rest. He needs it, and it’s the only way I’ll b-be able to move on.”

So when the clock struck midnight, the two walked steadily into town while being aware of anyone who could be watching them. The streets were empty and lights were out in the houses. Jongin led the way to a small park, which consisted of several trees and a field of grass, dimly illuminated by some streetlights. Right in the middle of said field was Kyungsoo, hanging notoriously from a branch.

It was a hard sight to see; the vampire was bruised and battered, his previously white skin stained with purple. The blood from his chest wound had dried, but the stake remained deep in his body. And finally, his entire body was tied up with constricting rope which was decorated with small cloves of garlic. Yixing couldn’t imagine what Jongin had felt seeing this.

“Here,” the boy gives him a small knife. “Can you cut him down? I’ll hold him.”

“Alright.” Yixing carefully strode towards the corpse, minding the smell as he sawed the piece of rope connecting Kyungsoo to the branch. It snaps after several tries, and Kyungsoo falls right into Jongin’s awaiting arms.

Jongin gently lowers him onto the ground and gets rid of the rest of the rope. "Kyungsoo," he breathes, running fingers through the vampire's hair. "Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo... I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you…” He leans down and plants a kiss on his cold, dry lips. “… I’m sorry, Kyungsoo…”

Afterwards, they take Kyungsoo back to the house (with Jongin going out of his way to carry the vampire there by himself) and they dig out a plot of dirt in the backyard. They put Kyungsoo in his coffin and bury him before morning arrives. When the job’s done, Yixing notices that the boy seems lighter, more tranquil now.

But he’s still shocked when Jongin cuts his wrist with the knife he used earlier. “What are you doing?!” He asks in a panic, but the doctor just smiles.

“I’m marking his grave,” he says, letting his blood drop onto the dirt. “I wouldn’t want to forget where he is. And he’s probably hungry by now, anyway…”

Yixing pauses, and comes to an understanding; Jongin has moved on.

“You know,” Jongin stands in front of the grave while spinning the knife in his hand. “I’ve been thinking.”

The slider stands next to him, watching the sun rising in the distance. “About what?”

“I’ve been thinking about alternate universes; ever since you came by, actually. What if I had done something differently? Would it change the future? What if there are parallel universes where I did or didn’t do something, and the result is different than… This?” He gestures to the grave. “What if there’s world where we exist, but in a different way than we do now? Maybe there is. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where Kyungsoo is alive. Yixing, maybe there’s one where you can be with your Myungsoo. Maybe, just maybe… But it’s not this one. It’s not this world, it’s not us, and that’s a reality I have to accept.”

He and Jongin were similar, yes, inevitably doomed to share the same fate. But at the end of the day they were two different people, bound to react differently to different things. Even if they had the same end, Jongin would be able to move on while Yixing could not.

Jongin turns around to meet nothing but dirt. “Yixing? Where did you go?”

--

"Daddy?”

Myungsoo pulls his eyes open and rolls over to face their bedroom door. Their little son is standing there, teddy bear held tightly in his arms. “What is it, honey?” He sleepily asks, sitting up on the mattress. “How come you’re not in bed?”

“I saw something outside,” the kid responds, pouting. “I think it’s a monster.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Myungsoo chuckles softly. “But to make sure, I’ll make Xing daddy check. Xing, wake up.” He pushes the that’s lying next to him, causing his husband to fall off the bed.

“I’m up,” Yixing mumbles blearily and struggles to stand. “Am I going monster-hunting again?”

“Yup,” Myungsoo gets up as well. “You go check it out. I’ll put this rascal to sleep.” He scoops up their son and strides out of the room.

Yixing slowly makes his way downstairs, turning the lights on in the kitchen so that he doesn’t bump into anything in his sleepy daze. He opens the backdoor, briefly scanning the yard before confirming that as usual, there were no monsters out there.

But as soon as he was about to close the door and go back to sleep, he spots movement in the darkness.

“Xing?” Myungsoo pokes his head out of the door. “Everything alright out there?”

Yixing appears from behind a tree. “Yeah, it’s just a racoon.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, it’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay, be careful.”

“Hey, Myungsoo?”

Myungsoo pauses and pokes his head back out the door. “Hm?”

“Do you know what a siren is?”

He stares at his husband for a moment, unable to read his blank face. “Um… It’s that loud thing on police cars, right? Why?”

Yixing just smiles. “No, nothing. I’ll be right up. I love you.”

The other male rolls his eyes but laughs a little. “Love you too, Xing.”

He waits until Myungsoo goes back inside and knows for sure that he’s in the bedroom. He bends down to pick up the shovel he dropped and steps behind the tree again, staring down at the body by his feet.

Yixing checks Yixing’s neck, confirming that there was no pulse; that he was dead. He pulls out a small bottle and begins to pour gasoline over the body. “… Sorry, Yixing.” His eyes are cold, voice absolutely flat. “I know you’re the one who belongs in this world, not me. But I can’t lose Myungsoo.”

He lights a match and drops it.

“Not anymore.”

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