[Oneshot] Mirage
Mirage
Written by: Fiery Von Bielefield
KyuSung | romance | PG-13
Disclaimer: I own what I own, and the boys belong to each other
Note: this is written for KyuSung Festival, prompt number 7
Xeno - the smallest measurable unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers or a flirtatious glance, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd coincidence of moments that are fleeting and random but still contain powerful emotional nutrients that can alleviate the symptoms of feeling alone.
*************
Where am I?
That was your first thought when you opened your eyes to a world of green and pink. Everything was still blurry until your pupils got used to the light and focused. You realized you were lying under the shade of a large old sakura tree. Sunlight sneak through gaps between the leaves and created strange patterns on the ground and, surprisingly, on your body. The grass on which you were lying felt so soft that you didn’t mind staying here for a while longer. Somewhere, a young bird was chriping to its parents’ song. Slowly, you tilted your head, still lying, to observe your surrounding. Your eyes caught sight of trees, trees, and more trees. A wood, maybe. There was a small pond in the distance and a vast clearing filled with yellow chest-high grass.
How did I get here?
As soon as the words appeared in your head, you came to realize that you couldn’t remember anything. Squeezing your eyes shut, you tried to concentrate. However, you knew nothing. There was no images, no sound, no flash of emotion. The only thing that welcomed you was darkness. It was as if you had no past before this, like you hadn’t even existed at all.
“Who are you?”
Strange, that was the exact same question you were about to ask yourself.
Your eyes opened again and you saw a kid standing a few feet away. His black hair was messy from the wind, but you doubted it would be any different in its normal stage. His eyes were slightly smaller than you had expected, and they were a dark shade of grey. The kid was chubby, quite the short type in height. He was around your age perhaps. At that thought, you had to stop and wonder, how old were you anyway? The other kid still stood there watching you, his hands were holding something delicately that you couldn’t quite make out with your position on the ground.
“His name is Ddangkkoma, he’s a turtle,” the other talked in the same flat tone you heard ealier as he caught you staring. He leaned down to give you a better view of the animal in his hands. You nodded and slowly sat up.
“You are sitting at my favorite spot, you know,” the kid tilted his head to stare at you curiously. His voice carried no grudge, but small and normal, like stating a simple fact.
You shrugged, and as if to answer an internal question on whether you could talk, you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and sat down beside you, his gaze never left your face.
“Where do you live?” he asked, absentmindedly stroking the turtle’s head.
“I don’t know,” came your plain reply.
The other kid looked at you incredulously. He tilted his head to the side again and you thought he looked really weird doing that.
“What is your name, then?” he spoke.
“I don’t know either,” you said. Your eyes were just as puzzled as his.
His eyes opened wide in surprise, “How can you not know your own name?”
You considered him for a minute, then decided that it wouldn’t harm to tell him. “I don’t remember anything before I woke up here.”
The inquisitive glint in his eyes disappeared. Instead, it was replaced by understanding and something else you couldn’t decipher. Pity, most likely. He lapsed into a moment of deep thinking and you were left to deal with your own contemplation. However, the awkward silence ended as quickly as it had started when you felt a tug at your sleeve.
“Let’s call you Kyuhyun then. My mom was about to name my brother like that when he was born. She said it’s a good name,” the kid beamed.
Kyuhyun.
It was a good name, he said. You pondered.
You tried out the name on your tongue. It sounded nice, and you decided that you like it.
“Hey Kyuhyun!”
Instinctively, you looked up and saw that the other had stood up and was stretching his arm in front of you. His eyes were twinkling and a beautiful smile on his lips.
“My name is Jongwoon. Let’s be friend.”
A rustle of leaves, and then all around him, sakura petals were falling. The wind played with the petals as it let them dance gracefully, somehow entraping the two boys in a serene picture of nature. Jongwoon’s smile was radiant and you couldn’t decide which was more beautiful, the rain of pink petals or him.
You just knew, right then, that taking his hand would be the right thing to do. And you did.
*************
Your life has always been full of questions, the unanswered ones.
You didn’t know where you had come from. You didn’t have any relative. You had no clue how you came around. Heck, you didn’t even remember your own name. And everyday, the questions just kept adding up. Like why couldn’t other people touch you while you certainly could to them? Why didn’t anyone talk to you when you were vividly standing in front of them? Why couldn’t they sense you at all? Sometimes you even wondered if you existed.
But all those thought vanished whenever you were with Jongwoon. He accepted you into his life without second thought. He befriended you. He let you live with him, eat with him, and practically do everything with him. On spring days, you two would walk to the sakura tree together, hand in hand. He would talk and you would listen, sometimes it was the other way around and you loved the way he smiled gently as you spoke. Under the blazing summer sun, he would force you to help him bathe Ddangkoma; then somehow the both of you would fall into the water instead. You would get out soaked while laughing at each other idiotically. In the autumn, you would challenge him to catch fish with his bare hands. He would never back down, you knew it. That was why you did eventhough you knew he couldn’t catch them since his hands were too small. And when winter rolled on, he would stay to keep you warm. You would happily tuck him under the blanket and watch his chest rise and fall in his deep slumber.
You didn’t have a care about the world as long as Jongwoon was with you.
And then she came.
It wasn’t a grand appearance, nor was it significant. You didn’t even realize that the girl, Minji, was slowly making her way into Jongwoon’s life. She started as his tutoree, then they started going out, and half of your world stopped the day Jongwoon told you that she had agreed to be his girlfriend.
Didn’t you see it coming? Of course you did. You just couldn’t believe it was so soon. You haven’t prepared for this. You haven’t thought of a day when Jongwoon was being with someone else that wasn’t you. You haven’t known what to do at all. Therefore, you just kept smiling despite the turmoil in your heart and told him that you were happy for him.
You felt happy for him, didn’t you? If that was really happiness, why did your smile seem so fake when you see them together? If you truly thought that was good, why was there this nagging bitterness everytime you sat at your favorite sakura tree alone? If it was the best thing you could ask for, why did you keep wishing you had told him sooner that you loved him?
*************
Jongwoon has slowly started to forget about you.
You only clicked your tongue in acknowledgement. It was expected, after all. He’s grown up, and the childhood pretense game was so far away. He had duty to fulfill now, he had troubles to deal with, he had his family and a girlfriend to care for. Eventhough there were still hobbies that he couldn’t really get rid of, like his strange fondness for turtles, you knew your position better than to take too much hope.
So you retreated back to what you were, what you were supposed to be. It has been obvious all along, you were just too stubborn to admit it. But you accepted it now.
You were just an imagination from his head.
He had been lonely and needed a friend. Therefore, you were born and you had done your purpose.
It was time to go, to leave his life.
*************
You have been searching, so long, for someone that needed you, someone who could understand you, someone who could touch you.
You spent your days and nights wandering through the streets of Seoul. The city shouldn’t have been that big, yet you found unfamiliar scenes everyday. It lifted your spirit to explore new places; but in a way, it made you realize that this world was so vast, and you weren’t even a part of it.
You loved subway the most. Because it was always full of people and you could disappear among the crowd. It was not like you were visible anyway.
You just wanted to belong. And there was once you thought you have found it. You were on the subway, walking along the way without touching people until you found a place to stand. Watching others doing different things, you were surprised to see a pair of eyes staring at you. It was an elegant boy with soft brown hair sitting on the bench. In an instant, your gaze met his, and it was like magic, because time has stopped, for you. You knew he could see you.
A small call, “Ryeowook”, and the spell was broken when the boy looked at a petite girl next to him. They talked for a while and when he turned back, he had to blink several times to make sure that you were gone.
At that moment, you knew that your last chance has just slipped away, because you hadn’t moved at all.
*************
You were once again strolling on unfamiliar sidewalk on a cold winter night. The chilly wind played with tiny snowflakes falling from the sky, blowing them off in different directions. Your feet didn’t leave footsteps on the snow-paved path, and the crispness of the night has started to leave no effect on you.
You were about to turn the corner when you caught sight of him.
Jongwoon was still the same man you had remembered. His black hair slightly tousled by the wind, his eyes twinkled with merriment and a beautiful smile painted his lips when he called, “Minji!”
You looked ahead and saw the girl, woman, who was across the street, waving to Jongwoon. Jongwoon started to walk on the zebra-crossing.
A flash of light, and everything suddenly blurred. The dark night was suddenly so bright and all you saw was Jongwoon. He had stepped down the street too soon and a car hit him, unable to stop at such speed. You couldn’t even feel your legs move when he was sent flying and fell down on the pavement like a rag doll. You ran to him, but the girl had beaten you to it, she was standing closer after all.
You watched helplessly as she shouted desperately for help, tears flowing endlessly from her eyes when she held him in her small embrace. You were frozen in place as blood flow out from tiny cuts that seemed to be all over his body.
You just stood there watching for minutes, or was it hours? You didn’t know. Slowly, the dread faded away and there came comprehension. At last, you understood the final purpose you had in this world.
You took a few steps closer and the woman looked up, her eyes stared right at you. She blinked, and recognisation appeared in those brown orbs. You knew, he must have told her about you a few times. The fact warmed your heart a little.
Gradually, you bent down in front of Minji and Jongwoon’s body in her arms, her gaze never left your face. Slowly, you nodded and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, you didn’t dare look because the anguish in the depth of her eyes was so painfully similar to the agony in your heart. She leaned down to give him one last kiss.
“So, is this it?” A voice spoke behind you, and you turned around to see Jongwoon stand there, as beautiful as he has ever been in your memories. You stood up and walked over to him with a gentle smile.
“Yes, this is it,” you replied.
He looked back at Minji longingly before turning back to you. “I just want her to be happy,” he said sadly.
“I’m sure she will be happy,” you assured him.
He looked at you for the longest time before whispering, “You know, I don’t want to make you unhappy, either.”
You stared at him, noticing how long it had been since you last saw each other. Finally, you mumbled a reply, “I know.”
“Shall we go now?” You asked, your left hand stretched out in front of Jongwoon, waiting for him.
He took one last glance at everything, and then, heaving a deep sigh, he took your hand. Right when your fingers tightened around his and he squeezed back, the world felt right once more.
“Let’s go, Kyuhyun!” He said, and you both took off.
Towards eternity.
.owari.