lost and found 1/2

[drawingintheair]

lost and found
eunhyuk/jessica
pg-13
au
11,200 words
jessica is a little lost, eunhyuk can't seem to find himself, and happiness seems to be hiding at the ends of the earth.



lost and found

They meet because of China. Well not really. It’s more because of Donghae than China, and they already know each other but their conversations have never stretched over the span of three minutes, until China.

The prelude is something like this:

Eunhyuk isn’t mad when Donghae springs it on him because yeah, Donghae is kind of a flake, always has been always will be, but he means well and his smile is impossibly huge when he says he finally got it and that this is what he’s always wanted. I know it’s kind of sudden, but you get it, right Hyuk? And Eunhyuk does. Donghae is leaving him hanging and Eunhyuk has no idea how he’s supposed to come up with the other half of rent until he finds a new roommate but he smiles complacently, pleasing.

“Did he already leave?” (Hi, I’m Jessica.)

Eunhyuk looks up from his cup of tea and nods. (Hi. I’m Eunhyuk.)

Jessica sighs, smiles with half her mouth, and runs a hand through her damp hair. This is the part where Eunhyuk shifts uncomfortably and has absolutely no idea what to do. Donghae isn’t the type to dump his shit on someone else's doorstep, but he is the kind to act and not think later, but simply, not think at all.

She smiles fully now, polite and stiff upon realizing, she’s not supposed to be here anymore. “I hope you don’t mind I used your shower. I just.” She laughs nervously and shrugs not meeting his eyes but Eunhyuk feels the ice in her gaze anyways.

He sighs and goes to pour another cup of tea but she stops him with a shake of her head. “Thanks,” she says with a shaker of her head. “But I should really go.”

She slips into her jacket hanging off the coat rack between Eunhyuk’s rain coat and a jacket Donghae left behind. She doesn’t slam the door, doesn’t drag her feet down the stairs.

Eunhyuk pours the tea anyways, drinks it himself in one go. It burns the roof of his mouth, stinging his tongue. A minute passes and he pours another and repeats the process until the pot is cold.

*

Eunhyuk likes clubs, the contrast of bright lights and smoldering darkness, a different world at the turn of each corner. He loves the music, loud, deafening his ears until all he hears is a loud buzz.

This is where they meet a second time. Except not exactly, because they don’t see each other until they’re outside with Eunhyuk bumming for a light and Jessica trying to catch a taxi.

“I’m sure you know you’re cutting your life span in half but, here.”

Eunhyuk raises his eyebrows in surprise. Both at the chances of running into Jessica and at her hand, matchbox wrapped in its fingers. He shrugs mentally and takes it, swipes the match against the side of the box until the flame flickers to life.

“Thanks,” he breathes after taking a drag. “It’s kind of hard to quit once you pick it up.” It’s the one indulgence he allows himself. The one thing he doesn’t think up and down and over until he’s dizzy turned sideways and convinced himself not to.

“Addictions. They tend to that,” she says but Eunhyuk doesn’t hear the edge of sarcasm that should be there.

But then again, Eunhyuk thinks as he inhales long and deeply dragged out, it’s true so maybe there shouldn’t be.

*

The pause goes along these lines:

Life doesn’t end because someone leaves. It goes on; the pages on the calendar keep flipping forward, never stopping because they can’t. Instead, they go faster, faster, so fast at some point they all sort of morph into one.

It takes Jessica less than a week to convince herself she’s over it. She forces herself to clean all the clutter in her life. The unused cookbooks taking up place in the cupboards. The clothes that no longer fit her but she refused to give up because of the scent lingering on the sleeves, the words tucked in the wrinkles. Year old datebooks and the overflowing garbage in the bathroom get tossed to.

When she’s done, she opens every single window in her apartment. Airs out any dust, any memory, clinging lonely and desperate to the window panes.

She goes back. To her job. To her friends. To her late night movie marathons accompanied by three boxes of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. To her life how it was before, and Jessica thinks herself better for it.

*

“Are you stalking me?”

“I work here.”

“Oh. Okay, then. I’ll have the special of the day. Hold the mayo.”

The pub restaurant is hardly the place Eunhyuk imagined himself working at post college. It’s one of his three jobs because as much as he’s passionate about what he does, freelance photography hardly pays the bills. Not yet at least.

“I thought you worked for a magazine or something?” Jessica asks. The place is nearly empty so she’s sitting at the bar. Eunhyuk is the only waiter working at the moment. They know each other. It makes sense to make small talk.

“Sometimes,” Eunhyuk answers, vague, so Jessica contents herself with her sandwich and lemonade.

Someone comes in, asks where the bathroom is, and leaves when the sound of a flush is still loud in the air.

“The food here sucks,” Eunhyuk says randomly, abrupt at the same time he starts wiping the spotless counter with a cloth.

Jessica finishes off her sandwich and makes a face. “Yeah. It does.”

She asks for the pie anyways and doesn’t leave a tip. Eunhyuk, because this is the cherry on the symbolic pie, laughs so hard he almost knocks over a stack of freshly washed plates.

*

When he goes out to clubs, Eunhyuk usually takes pictures or dances. Tries to catch the lights flickering on flashes of skin or moves his body so it twists itself in every possibly way until he’s so drained he can barely drag himself home.

Today, he sits outside on the bus stop. The last time a bus stopped by to pick anyone up was years ago.

He strikes the match and watches the flame dance in the night air for a few seconds; waits till it almost goes out to bring it to the cigarette in his mouth.

“I hate clubs.”

“So why do you come?” Eunhyuk asks his words muffled by the cigarette in the corner of this mouth. He wonders why someone would do something they don’t want to or don’t enjoy even though he’s had to do both quite often in the past. Still does, if he’s honest.

Jessica shrugs. She puts the box of matches in her purse next to the sewing kit and the pepper spray. I like to be prepared is what she’d said when Eunhyuk had taken a glance at the contents of her purse when she’d offered him the light.

“It’s where I met him. I guess I thought it meant something. You were there. That night, right?”

“Mhmm,” Eunhyuk acknowledges. Clubbing was one of the few things he and Donghae did together, conflicting schedules never really allowed them to be more than roommates. Eunhyuk guesses they could have been friends if things were different. They’d met her the same night. Eunhyuk had gone home with one of her friends. Donghae had brought Jessica back to their place.

“I think I could’ve loved him,” Jessica admits after a while. Her eyes are lost somewhere on the other side of the street. Eunhyuk watches her profile, the straight angle of her nose, and thinks her gaze is probably miles away. The other side of the world, maybe.

“Stupid, huh?”

Eunhyuk’s never been good at comforting, doesn’t lend a shoulder for someone’s tears and rarely asks for one in return. He hates tear stains ruining his shirt almost as much as he hates being a burden.

He doesn’t expect Jessica to light up the cigarette he passes her, so his nose twitches in surprise when a cloud of smoke joins his own.

*

The food sucks, but Jessica keeps coming back for lunch. Two or three times a week, she sits at the bar and orders the daily special. It kind of does and doesn’t bother Eunhyuk. He’s not obliged to but he feels like he’s expected to talk to her but she doesn’t really strike up conversation so he doesn’t stress on it.

Except by the third week he has to ask. “I thought we’d agreed the food here sucks.”

“It does,” Jessica agrees, again. She’s got an overflowing folder spread next to her plate, spicy curry with noodles, she looks over between spoonfuls. “It’s not so bad once you get used to it. Though you might want to tell your cook to cut back on the spices. My tongue is on fire.”

She downs the glass of milk Eunhyuk slides over to her in quick successive gulps, uses her hand to wipe away any stray drops from her chin. Jessica smiles, clearly embarrassed, clearly trying not to show it. Eunhyuk acts like he doesn’t notice, like he’s not silently laughing at her.

*

The thing is, Jessica isn’t over it. So she’s stupidly clinging to something that doesn’t exist anymore. Something that never really existed if she’s honest with herself.

“It’s like you’re my link,” Jessica tells Eunhyuk. It’s four o’clock on a Saturday and she isn’t drunk because Jessica never gets drunk except when she does. Now, is not one of those times despite the two beers on a nearly empty stomach. The sweet and sour beef was inedible today; Jessica swears some of the meat was raw.

Eunhyuk doesn’t really understand what she means. The hands on the clock turn until his shift is over and she’s still here so he tosses his apron aside, grabs his jacket and says, “Come on.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere the food doesn’t suck.”

Jessica wolfs down her bowl in minutes, making a bit of a mess. She stops mid slurp when Eunhyuk just stares at her, thinks about apologizing or blushing maybe because her manners have flown out the window and finds, she just doesn’t care. Picking up the bowl, Jessica sips the leftover broth, surprised, and feeling a little bit better, when Eunhyuk shrugs and does the same.

*

“I kind of hate my life right now,” Eunhyuk blurts out as they sit on the bus stop outside the club. Jessica arches her brows in surprise.

He breathes in, inhales smoke and the city stench and some really strong cologne. Letting it all go slowly, he savors the burn and tilts his head upwards watching his puff of smoke trail over his head. His eyes are swallowed by stars and miles and miles of a world he’ll never know. “No. That’s kind of exaggerating. It’s more like I’m stuck.”

Eunhyuk knows Jessica is listening but it’s kind of like he’s talking to the wind. Words dragging out and being carried by its current.

“Like you want to move but you can’t actually make yourself do it?”

Jessica’s not looking at him either. Eunhyuk wonders if she’s also talking to the wind.

“Yeah. Kind of like that.”

This time, Jessica turns to look at him. A beat or two pass in which she just stares, kind of like this is her first time actually looking at him. Maybe it is.

“Maybe it’s time to do something about that.”

*

“Eunhyuk?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Jessica.”

Pulling the phone away from his ear, Eunhyuk stares at the caller id in bewilderment then asks, “How did you get my number?”

“Uhmm. Donghae, remember? He used to live there.” Eunhyuk can hear the eye roll in her sigh over the line.

“Right. So what’s up?”

“I think I might have a job for you.”

*

The image is blurry, sun splayed over the crowd in swirls and foot prints. Eunhyuk blinks once, twice, his eyelash fluttering against the viewfinder.

“Why are you doing this for me again? Have you even seen my stuff?”

Jessica looks up from her organizer. Her hair is tied in a messy bun, she swats at her bangs to keep them out of her face. “Some of it. And that’s why I said might. Think of it as a trail run.”

“I didn’t know you were a writer,” Eunhyuk says after the lens is focused, blurry images taking sharp, clear form.

“It’s weird. Knowing someone but not really knowing them,” Jessica muses. She thinks about all the people who are in her life but not really a part of it. Her boss. The boy who brings her coffee in the mornings. Her next door neighbor with the African cockatoo for a pet and the balcony full of orchids. The man who runs the magazine rack two blocks from her cardio class. Her boyfriend’s roommate. Now ex-boyfriend. Now friend. Maybe.

“I guess,” Eunhyuk says. He adjusts the camera’s strap around his neck. “Okay, so why are all these people here?”

“They’re protesting against the G-20 summit. I’m writing an expose on pacific manifestations by civilians. Well, depending on how pacific they stay.” She winces when she notices a couple cop cars, their lights unnecessarily blinking in the daylight. “I might have to start rethinking that tag line sooner than I thought.”

The camera clicks bringing Jessica’s eyes on Eunhyuk, back into focus.

“Should I just start?”

Jessica nods, never having been preoccupied by the visual part of her articles. She’s always let her words create the pictures; felt them enough to let those who weren’t there to feel like they were. It’s different, working with someone who will provide those visuals for her making her words almost, not needed.

The shutter goes off, a loud snap over the all the noise. Jessica hears it like the collision of a fist against a concrete wall, over and over again until knuckles turn into wet sand, blood hardening into rocks dusting the sea shore and there is a faint trail of smoke getting swept up by the wind.

*

They sit outside the pub during Eunhyuk’s lunch break. Jessica’s off for the day and they eat the daily special, oil runs along the greasy container and stains her favorite pair of jeans.

“Great. Just great,” she sighs and rubs at the wet patch with a napkin. Jessica glares at the food. If it were good it might actually make it worth it. It tastes like eating butter straight from the container. “This is what my life has amounted to. One big stain.”

Eunhyuk says nothing, disappears for a while then comes back with a bottle of club soda and asking Jessica to take her pants off.

Normally, Jessica would be outraged, appalled, speed dialing her best friend Tiffany or whipping out the pepper spray. Today, she shrugs, goes to the bathroom and changes into the pair of work pants Eunhyuk hands her.

Sitting on the bench in polyester pants, Jessica stares at her chipped nails and split ends.

“We’re pathetic aren’t we?”

Instead of taking offence, Eunhyuk takes out his cigarette pack. “Life’s pretty pathetic sometimes,” he says as he brings the stick to his lips.

Jessica grabs her matches and lights one. The flame doesn’t flicker and she holds it while Eunhyuk dips his head so it lights the end of his cigarette. He inhales once, takes out another cigarette, lights it, and brings it to her lips. It burns Jessica’s throat, makes her nose itch, but she doesn’t cough until her lungs hurt. Just breathes and breathes so smoke is all she feels and everything numbs in place.

*

Eunhyuk has never been one to have much luck. It’s not like his whole life is a big shit fest. Nothing particularly bad has happened to him, but he has the tendency for things to just not go his way.

It starts with college. Photography major. His parents had strongly advised against it. Go for something practical, Eunhyuk, they’d said. Photography is just a passion, it won’t put food on the table. They were right. Eunhyuk hadn’t been able to admit it; he’d taken up two jobs to support himself, just until things picked up. It’s been four years since college. Things stubbornly remain stuck to the ground.

It gets worse with China. No matter how many signs he puts, newspaper advertisements he runs, how he tries to spread the word via social newt work site, no one seems to be looking for a place in the area. He can’t pay the rent on his own.

The eviction notice shows up a day after Jessica sends him the copy of the magazine article. There is no longer any satisfaction in seeing his name printed neatly beneath hers.

*

“Get up.”

Eunhyuk curses at the flood of light hitting him in the face. He turns around, twisting the blankets further around him.

“Fuck!” he yells when cold water slaps him like a spasm. Eyes open, he glares at Jessica then realizes it is Jessica standing there in his bedroom and stares at her like she’s a vision. A really scary vision holding a bottle of water ready to drown him at any moment.

“What are you doing here? How’d you even get in?”

Jessica shrugs. “I still have the key. I forgot to give it back.”

“Ughh. I need to change my locks.”

“Don’t see much point to it when you won’t be living here for long.”

The truth is like a stab to the reality he’s been ignoring, drowning himself in his bed sheets and dreams he almost, almost, convinced himself were real.

“Sorry. That was insensitive.”

Eunhyuk sits up, pulls at his shirt sticking sloppily to his skin. “Again. What are you doing here?”

Jessica sets the bottle down, her fingers lingering on the wooden night stand. “You haven’t been showing up at the bar all week. Your manager said you were sick. Which you’re obviously not so get out of bed and cut it with the pity party.” She goes for the bottle again but Eunhyuk is already out of bed and slamming the bathroom door closed.

The pan sizzles with something slightly burning. There is more light than Eunhyuk thinks is really necessary. But there is tea brewing and the smell of coffee fills the air. Eunhyuk feels human again.

“Why are you doing all this?” Eunhyuk asks over black edged eggs and fresh baked bread Jessica obviously bought on her way over. The wrapping gives it away. That and the almost burnt eggs.

Eunhyuk is getting a little tired of always asking why but he’s clearly missed something along the way.

“Because. You let me use your shower.” Jessica sips her coffee, drags her fork in her egg yolk. “We’re friends,” she settles for finally. It sounds like a question.

Eunhyuk understands he’s not supposed to answer.

*

You think we should try going in this time?

Jessica shakes her head. No I don’t think we should but you should go in if you want.

Eunhyuk finds that he doesn’t, not really, so he lights another cigarette and gives into the burn.

*

There may be rats or something equally furry possibly not as disgusting in the air vents. It’s closer to the bar which is a plus but puts him five minutes at a disadvantage for his other job spinning records and mixing playlists for a trendy restaurant in the center of the city. Sometimes, Eunhyuk thinks life is telling him to get a permanent job in the food service industry. The electricity doesn’t always work and sometimes, there is no hot water.

Jessica listens to all this with a mix of sympathy and compassion, the quirk of an eyebrow and a tweak of the corner of her mouth. The music is damagingly loud, Jessica feels the beats vibrating and pounding beneath her skin.

“You know what I think?” she asks interrupting Eunhyuk in mid rant about all he’s been eating lately are pop-tarts and instant ramen. “I think we have to stop wanting things to change. People can’t just let someone or something stand in their way or rule their life. If we want something, we have to get it ourselves.”

Eunhyuk doesn’t say anything for a while and Jessica wonders if she’s been too blunt.

“What do you want?”

“What?” Jessica asks, caught off guard by words after a long dry silence.

Eunhyuk takes out a smoke but doesn’t light it. He rolls it between his palms, elbows sticky on the counter. “In life. More than anything. What. Do. You. Want.”

Jessica watches his movements, catches glimpses of white every few rolls and finds she’s not sure what that is.

*

The heartfelt ballad goes something like this:

Eunhyuk is fifteen when he has his first taste of rejection. He auditions on a whim, pushed into it by an overzealously encouraging friend. They tell him his dance is impressive but his face needs work. A nose job and double eyelid surgery should fix that, come back then.

Eunhyuk goes home that day, stares at his reflection until his eyes hurt from trying not to blink. From that moment on, Eunhyuk focuses on capturing other people’s beauty in place of obsessing or trying to control his own.

He grows into his nose. His eyes always catch people’s attention. Overall, he’s pretty satisfied with how he looks.

But sometimes, in the morning when he brushes his teeth or shaves away last night’s stubble, Eunhyuk stares and stares and wonders what would have happened if he’d caved.

Eunhyuk feels the weight of the camera in his hands, hears the click of the flash, looks at the image he has frozen in time, and is okay with the fact that he didn’t.

*

Jessica replays the conversation she’s just had in her mind. Words, facial expressions, annoyed sighs and everything.

Her boss had looked at her like she was insane but it’s okay because he looks at everyone that way. Always muttering about today’s youth and their new age ideals and how everything was better in the olden days which is ridiculous because he’s only about fifteen years older than Jessica which makes the olden days the eighties and, come on.

Her heels make a constant clack-clack on pavement; she’s not careful enough and almost trips when she tries to avoid knocking into someone. She stops. Breathes. In. Out. In. Keeps going and going until she sees the familiar sign, and unfortunately, smells familiar smells.

Eunhyuk is already placing a plate in front of her by the time she’s taken her coat off. By the time she’s taking a bite, he is back to drying a glass.

Jessica takes a second bite, it’s not so bad today, some sort of meat roll thing, and says, “I’m going on a trip.”

Eunhyuk pauses, gives her that look Jessica guesses means ‘and you expect me to do what with this?’ “Congratulations?”

“Congratulations yourself. You are coming with me.”

Jessica has the satisfaction of seeing something that isn’t careful nonchalance across Eunhyuk’s face and she tries to not laugh when the glass almost slips from his grasp to shatter into a thousand worthless pieces on the floor.

*

“Okay. Let me get this straight,” Eunhyuk starts except there’s nothing to straighten out because Jessica was quite clear.

He lights a cigarette, his hands feeling heavy with emptiness. More than taking pleasure or relief in the drag he takes it’s a mechanism to give himself something to do.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking,” Eunhyuk chides, unconcerned with the impatient look on Jessica’s face or the role of her eyes.

“What’s to think about? I’m giving you the perfect opportunity you obviously haven’t found on your own.”

Jessica is unfazed by the puff of smoke Eunhyuk releases a little too close to her face.

“Look,” she says as sharp as the set of her shoulders and the tension in her jaw. “I’m offering you the break you need. It’s not pity or anything. You’d be using me as much as I’d be using you. Completely mutual. Two people helping each other out.”

Eunhyuk crosses his legs, taps his foot against the ground, once, twice. Jessica, having had quite enough, clamps a hand on his knee on the third.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life waiting tables while your camera collects dust and thinking of all the memories it could have captured but never did?”

A pause passes, maybe minutes, hours, days even, and she lets go. She stands up and walks away, her heels clicking against the pavement resounding long after she’s gone.

*

The interlude sounds like this:

Eunhyuk walks and walks. He gets in the car without a care in the world, completely confident in what he’s about to do. Jessica smiles, starts the engine and it’s all smooth sailing from there.

Actually. No. Really, it goes more like this:

The weight of his backpack pulls him down, an extra push towards earth along with gravity. People walk in every direction possible: past him, with him, against him, nowhere near him. Eunhyuk has half a mind to turn back. Tie an apron around his waist or deal with the grueling task of getting someone to look at his portfolio and tell him thanks but no thanks, you’re not what we’re looking for, maybe next time. He’s never been a thrill seeker or the type to jump in blind with bound feet because this is life and it is meant to be lived and you only get one and you never, ever, want to regret because you were too scared.

Midday light glares off the glass windows on hundreds of sky scrapers. They look like sparks or beams of light. Something poetic sounding. Eunhyuk’s never been too good with words.

He stops, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and pulls out his camera. People toss him dirty glares and scowls but the lens is in front of his eye so Eunhyuk doesn’t notice. He waits for the right moment, counts in his head. Wait. Wait. Wait for it. Click.

Pulling away, Eunhyuk looks at the image displayed, at the glare of the light looking like sparks of life.

Eunhyuk puts his camera back in its case and walks.

*

Jessica’s car makes this weird grumbling sound whenever she shifts gears.

Eunhyuk should have known. He sized the thing up the second he saw it parked in front of her apartment building.

‘It’s a little messy,’ had been the understatement of the century. Eunhyuk swears he saw something move in the back seat. Suspicion proven when something -Jessica’s neighbor’s ferret- had scurried out of the back and into the building. After emptying out her car of her junk because he was not driving around the country in a trash can-here Jessica had scoffed and told Eunhyuk not so be such a priss- they were off.

Off, meaning moving about a foot until the car had shut off because, oops, I forgot to gas it up.

Eunhyuk takes these all as signs. Maybe he should have turned around after all.

“Hey, will you relax? I thought you were twenty five not fifty eight.”

“Well excuse me for not wanting to willingly walk to my death. What is this car, from the forties?”

“It belonged to my aunt in the sixties. Mint condition. Or something like that.” Jessica fiddles with the radio until she finds something good. “She was a revolutionary. My aunt was part of the women’s movement. This car has seen a lot.” She veers off into the next lane for a second then swiftly aligns again. Clearing her throat, she chuckles at Eunhyuk’s white knuckles on the door handle. “Relax, grandpa. I’ll get you there in one piece.”

Eunhyuk won’t take her word for it but he doesn’t ask her to turn the car around.

*

There is no exact plan. No thoroughly or obsessively thought out itinerary to follow. That’s the whole point of this; Jessica had said when she’d first explained it to Eunhyuk outside the restaurant. Jessica does, however, have a list of cities, towns, places to stop at which are subject to change.

For the first two weeks, they drive all day, sometimes all night, and sleep in cheap priced hotel rooms or quaint inns or B&B’s.

“What made you become a writer?” Eunhyuk asks at some point. He’s driving and splitting his attention between the road and the packet of beef jerky in the cup holder.

Jessica downs a swig of the peppermint flavored tea they’d gotten at the gas station, thinking. Why. She can’t pinpoint the exact moment she decided to start writing, no life altering epiphany like a bolt from the sky thrust a pen and notepad in her hands.

“I guess I like the idea of letting people see certain events through someone’s eyes. A different point of view from their own.” There’s more to it, but she can’t seem to put it into words. Something she’s usually good at. She takes another sip of her drink and shoots the question back at Eunhyuk.

“Honestly, it’s kind of a long story.”

Jessica quirks an eyebrow. “We’ve got time.”

When he finishes, Eunhyuk laughs nervous and forced. “I guess it wasn’t that long after all. But basically yeah. I like the fact that pictures freeze moments. And they’re there. Forever. And putting them with a written story or just a set of words makes you feel like you were actually there. Like you’re a part of it.”

Jessica thinks of something to say. Something like he made the right decision or. Something. She doesn’t. She guesses Eunhyuk must know that anyway. Jessica turns in her seat a little and says, “Do you realize this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had?”

Eunhyuk tenses his shoulders, neck craning left and right fighting the dull pain from driving too long. “Yeah,” is all he says grabbing some beef jerky and passing the bag to Jessica.

“I’ll take over the wheel next stop,” Jessica promises and taking some, tastes the strong taste of processed beef and the fact that someone understands.

ii