Errors

()()()()

He sits there staring at his laptop’s screen, the feeling of disbelief washes over him before he’s slammed mixed emotions that almost choke him. The tears are unable to fall and he’s at a loss of what to do, he stares down at his lap and balls his hands into fists as this feeling of nothingness settles.

A knock on his door comes, but the sound is distant and Jongin isn’t if it’s just a fragment of his imagination. The knock comes again, his throat tightens now and he struggles to speak, unable to tell whoever is behind the door to leave him alone.

His mother enters his room silently, Jongin turns away from her. Her quiet question as to why he’s upset goes unanswered and Jongin does what he does best when he’s distressed beyond comprehension– he starts to bawl, chest immediately heaving and his body trembling so hard he fails to give his mother an answer. She comes towards him, pulls him away from his desk– his legs wobbly and practically useless– and helps him over to his bed.

She sits down beside him and just holds him and Jongin lets himself be held because it’s exactly what he needs– and the silence she warms with calms him, even though he’s now blabbing nonsense as he buries his face in her chest, unable to tell if he’s even making any sense.

“Some people are just luckier than others.” His mother finally speaks and Jongin’s heart breaks because that isn’t something he wants to hear.

He sobs until he tires himself out and he knows for a fact he’s not only crying because Chanyeol was just so different from the person he has been loving for years– he cries for everything that has gone wrong in the last few months and spills the tears he didn’t dare to earlier.

There’s no point in holding anything bottled up inside him, it’s never worth it and he only realizes it when the tears don’t seem to stop and the heaviness in his chest never lifts. He’s crumbling and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to pick himself up again.

It feels as though his whole world has ended and he feels stupid for feeling like that. It’s not the end of the world, he tries to tell himself, but he doesn’t believe it because it’s coming from himself and not from the voice he longs to hear.

He’s completely drained, red-faced and his hurt is so apparent that when he looks up at his mother– he sees how his pain overwhelms her and the tears in her eyes.

But she smiles ever so slightly down at him and holds him even tighter, “You’re seventeen– just a little boy,” She mutters, “This will pass, I promise.” Jongin refuses to believe her and closes his eyes because he feels like his world has just been snatched cold-bloodedly from under him, and he’s falling in a bottomless pit of overwhelming regret, “Park Chanyeol is foolish–”

“He’s not,” Jongin defends quietly and he’s aware his mother will take his side over Chanyeol, no matter what he says to try and change her mind. He’s to blame for Chanyeol getting fed up with him– he can’t seem to control his emotions anymore, for someone who made a huge decision like that and went through with it without so much as a whisper, he’s awfully whiny these days.

And he tries to understand Chanyeol, he tries his darndest and it doesn’t work and all he’s left with is emptiness because how do they move past this? Are they still together? Do he try to contact Chanyeol first? Does he apologise? If so, for what? – Everything?

()()()()

First week rolls around too quickly, Chanyeol doesn’t contact him and he just lets it be. He walks around with a hole the size of a small planet in his heart, and spends most of his time on school work because thinking about Chanyeol is painful, thinking about Chanyeol makes him restless.

He catches himself thinking about how Chanyeol’s patience with him has been almost non-existent, how Chanyeol has obviously be growing more distant, and he hates himself for thinking the abortion wouldn’t change anything.

He hates himself for being so foolish as to ask Chanyeol for something impossible. Asking Chanyeol to never change was stupid because he himself has changed.

Kim Jongin is seventeen with the brains of a gullible five year old. He has been nothing, but a burden, and it’s unfair– he shouldn’t be this mad at Chanyeol, he doesn’t deserve to be angry because he can’t expect Chanyeol to be his anchor. He has no right to be upset. Chanyeol can’t stop his own emotions just for him and Jongin doesn’t want to put shackles around his ankle to keep him.

He’s not doing himself or anyone else any good by being depressed– his counsellor tells him to take however long he needs to be upset about the abortion because it’s something that isn’t easy to deal with. Nobody likes to talk about abortion, and Jongin himself can barely utter the word around the presence of his parents because then he’s filled with great shame for reasons he still doesn’t understand.

Abortion is something he wanted, why does he feel so conflicted when it’s already too late to take it back? He’s not even sure he’d take it back if given the chance. A baby is something he doesn’t want, not right now.

His mother offers to drive him over to Chanyeol’s dorm– he declines. He knows she wants to get the chance to rip Chanyeol a new one– his father was angry when his mother explained everything to him and Jongdae looked more upset than angry.

With his family so angry about Chanyeol– being around him doesn’t seem like a good thing, even though Jongin just so badly wants to be comforted by Chanyeol because it’s just so hard not talking to him and the fact that they haven’t seen each other psychically since he left for his dorm– after staying with him post-operation– makes everything different and just so much worse after the quarrel on Skype.

A week without Chanyeol, without listening to him talk mindlessly about nothing or text nonsense is a bit maddening. It’s even worse when Jongin sees him online on Skype and never attempting to call or message him– it works both ways, Jongin knows, but he doesn’t make the effort to contact him because an angry Chanyeol is best left alone to sort it all out.

This is different, but Jongin shuts down all rational thoughts.

()()()()

He doesn’t think about breaking up with Chanyeol, doesn’t bother to even entertain the thought until Jongdae mentions it when they are home alone one night. He spends the night tossing and turning in bed, his brain humouring the idea and the sadness overwhelms him afterwards.

How does he fix this? Does he even want to fix their relationship or just let it die? Chanyeol is the only person he confines– or did – apart from his family. Losing Chanyeol will destroy him, but maybe it’ll be for the better because they haven’t even been acting like their together anymore.

The absence of communication isn’t helping. Jongin knows his own unwillingness to pick up his phone and just call Chanyeol will be their downfall.

()()()()

He finds a missed call on from Chanyeol on his phone when he wakes. He ponders on the idea of calling back, but he shoves the phone deep in his backpack and makes his way to school with his shoulders hunched and feet heavy.

He has an exam to think about.

()()()()

He’s out walking Monggu, it has been a while since he gave his puppy attention. He lets it walk on its on for a bit as he walks down the streets of their neighbourhood before he picks up the puppy and aimlessly walks around.

It’s the weekend, there isn’t much he does during the weekends. He spend most of them with Chanyeol, lazing around and just being himself until Sunday evening rolls around and he’d have to go take the train back home.

Those days are long gone. Days when he could freely breathe around Chanyeol, around his family with just being so ing guilty all the time.

The feeling is awful, but it doesn’t stop him from walking to the station with Monggu resting comfortably in his arms. Jongin humours the thought of hopping on the train and let it take him to Chanyeol.

The next train is in fifteen minutes. All he has to do is wait for it. The wallet in his pocket is heavy and begging to be pulled out for him to buy a ticket, and so is his phone in his parka jacket.

He holds Monggu tighter, the puppy whines and Jongin presses his lips against its fur, smiling at how content it makes him feel.

He sits on one of the few benches around the station, a steps away from the railways. He puts Monggu to the ground and keeps a hold on the leash as the puppy walks around, over and between his feet.

He pulls out his phone and starts fumbling with it for a few moments. He stops on Chanyeol’s name, fights with himself before he presses the screen and places the call over his ear. When the first ring comes, his stomach is twisting and his hands are trembling and he half hopes it goes to voicemail before he can hang up and never try it again.

“Hello?” Chanyeol picks up, he sounds distracted and Jongin can hear the noise in the background. He swallows because it’s obvious Chanyeol picked up without bothering to look at the caller’s number.

“Chan–Chanyeol,” And it’s then Jongin really hates himself because he stutters and whatever ideas he planned to say just vanish.

“Jongin?” Chanyeol questions, he sounds taken aback before he says again, “Jongin, hey,” He pauses and sighs out gently. The next words he says have Jongin feeling his heart drop. “Listen, I gotta talk to you about something,” Chanyeol states flatly and Jongin swallows. “Where are you right now? I’m on the train there– I ‘m arriving in five minutes.”

()()()()

sighsigh