Final Destination
Title: Final Destination
Pairing: JaeChun/JaeMin (friendship)
Rating: Pg-13
Genre: Romance, Mystery, Horror
Length: Oneshot
Summary: Against his better judgment, Changmin picks up a mysterious hitchhiker on the side of the road and gets much more than what he bargained for.
A/N: Late Birthday fic for the wonderful pikasu . Sorry I couldn't get this out on the actual day, bb ;; But I guess this way we can just spread your birthday celebration out for days XD
Changmin hated the drive from Gongju to Seoul. It was long, boring, and because Changmin was too cheap to splurge on hotels, usually happened late at night after business meetings. His eyelids already felt heavy after long hours of listening to done dry marketing plans, and the flat and barren road from the small southern city to Seoul just caused him to become even more drowsy.
He was lucky that day. His meeting had ended early, so he was on the road by 5pm. However, it was winter and the days were shorter so Changmin knew that it would get dark soon. He just hoped he was on the main roads by the time the sun set. The small country roads in the area weren't lit and it was always a problem driving in the dark. After all, it was never pleasant to have to brake suddenly after a cow appeared in your headlight...
Changmin had been on his second cup of coffee, still in the country, when he spotted someone walking calmly on the side of the road. It wasn't unusual to see the random farmer or women heading back home from a day working in the fields, however there was something about this person that seemed out of place.
Slowing down his car a fraction, Changmin leaned over to get a better look at the figure, only to realize it was a young male. A young male that wasn't wearing shoes or a coat despite the fact it was below freezing outside. In fact Changmin saw as he got closer, besides the white dress shirt and pleated pants the other wore, the only other thing the boy had on him was a single candle that he was using to light his way.
Being the rational, want-to-live-past-the-age-of-thity sort, Changmin had never thought to pick up a hitchhiker before. He had heard the horror stories involved with letting shady people in your car-especially in the country were people had an affinity of carrying sharp objects like hoes or scythes with them.
However he wasn't heartless enough to leave a kid out in the cold. And plus, the boy's dress shirt fit tight on him and there no bulges in his pant pockets; so unless he was carrying a hidden weapon in that candle of his, there didn't seem to be a reason for Changmin to worry about his safety.
Slowing his car to a near standstill, Changmin lowered his window-shivering at the chill that seeped into his car. How could this kid stand it?
“Hey!”
The boy looked up and Changmin was taken aback by the delicate features the other male possessed. Pale skin, wide eyes, lips full and chapped and red.
“Um...where are you headed to?”
The boy cocked his head to the side for a few seconds before responding in a soft voice that seemed a bit too low and hoarse to belong to him. “Seoul.”
Changmin gaped. Seoul? This kid was planning on walking all the way to Seoul with no shoes and nothing but a candle?
“It's going to get dark soon!” Changmin said. The boy looked at him, confused.
“It's okay, sir! I have a candle to help me see.”
“But still, it'll be too cold and you'll freeze to death. Come on in. I'm going to Seoul anyways so I can give you a ride.”
The boy was silent for a few more seconds before smiling widely. Changmin felt his heart seize a little. “That would be really nice of you.”
The boy walked over to the car. The headlights illuminated his form and for the first Changmin got a proper look at him. He was fairly tall with silky black hair that reached his shoulders. With his delicate, pretty face he might have been considered beautiful, but he was a bit too thin and his gait was marred by a limp in his right leg.
The boy opened the passenger door and slid into the car. He still clutched the candle close to him, guarding the flame against the air coming from the heaters.
“Uh so....I'm Changmin” the business man said as he started the car again and proceeded at a slower speed. The sun was already setting and it bathed the street and the sky in a sickly pink color; edges of black slowly spreading and engulfing the weak light.
“I'm Kim Jaejoong,” the boy replied. He looked out the window, bringing his hand to touch the glass-his eyes wide in wonder. Changmin wondered if this was the first time the boy had been in a car before.
“So...”
“...I'm seventeen years old, I'm from Gongju, and I am going to Seoul to meet my friend” Jaejoong continued, placing the candle between his thighs as hands running in wonder over the leather car seats as he recited the words with practiced precision. A wide smile tugged at his lips.
Changmin couldn't help but grin. “Did your parents tell you to say that to anyone you met?”
Jaejoong looked out the window, smile immediately disappearing. “I don't live with my parents”
Changmin didn't ask and the boy didn't speak on the subject anymore. An awkward silence filled the car and the businessman decided to ease tensions a little by playing whatever CD he had tossed in before he had left.
He almost groaned in mortification when the high pitched voices of A-Pink filled the car. Changmin had a soft spot for the girl group because he thought they looked cute in the white dresses on the CD cover, but he certainly did not want anyone else to know the fact that he listened to bubblegum pop songs.
Jaejoong, however, didn't seem to mind at all. He yelped when he heard the speakers come to life and, seconds later, had his head glued to the spot where the music was coming from.
“What is this?” he asked, voice laced with wonder.
“A...stereo system...?” Changmin answered, not really knowing what the boy was talking about.
“Your car...it's singing to you! It...has a really beautiful voice.” he added while blushing a little.
Changmin didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the boy's innocence. Instead he settled on asking him a question. “Have you ever been in a car before Jaejoong?”
“Oh no!” the young boy said, eyes growing larger. “We can't afford anything like that. Only people from the city can have things like that.”
Changmin's eyebrows furrowed. He knew for a fact that there were many families in Gongju that had cars. But then again Jaejoong had been walking outside without a coat or shoes in the middle of winter and he had a strange way of speaking, so the businessman figured that he was probably from some poor village on the outskirts of the larger town.
“I heard Seoul is really pretty,” Jaejoong continued, babbling now that he knew Changmin didn't mind talking to him “The people there are really pretty as well. You're from there, right? You look like them and your hair is such a nice color! We don't have people with colored hair in Gongju. We're only born with black hair there. Your hair reminds me of a puppy that Yoochun brought home once. It's fur was brown too.”
A slight blush decorated Changmin's cheeks as he listened to the boy's words; almost in wonder at what he was hearing. Though he had only known the boy for barely twenty minutes, Changmin couldn't help but feel a bit protective of Jaejoong. At 17, the boy was ten years younger and a whole world more innocent than the jaded businessman.
“You don't have cows in Seoul do you?” Jaejoong continued “I knew a person who was from there and he said that there were huuuuge buildings that were big enough to hold a whole city of cows and horses....”
Changmin grinned and kept driving. This trip would be far from boring.
~~~***~~~
By the time it was ten, Changmin had already hit the main road where everything was lit and there were exists with restaurants every twenty seconds.
The businessman, guided by his grumbling stomach, decided to stop at a sandwich place and grab a late dinner. Jaejoong said he didn't want anything but followed the man into the little shop nonetheless-sitting at a tall stool at the counter, holding the candle in his lap as his bare feet swung; not long enough to reach the ground.
When Changmin came to the counter, holding his sandwiches, Jaejoong greeted him with such a bright smile that for a faint second the businessmen thought he wouldn't mind being greeted with such a sight everyday of his life.
“So” Changmin asked between bites of turkey and cheddar, “are you meeting family in Seoul?”
“No,” Jaejoong said, fingering the candle in his hand. “I don't have family. Yoochun told me to meet him there.”
Changmin nodded. He didn't really know who Yoochun was, though the boy had talked nonstop about him for the past four hours. It seemed as though Jaejoong lived with him and it was obvious that the boy cared about him, but beyond that, Changmin was clueless.
“What is Yoochun doing in Seoul?”
Jaejoong was silent, biting his bottom lip. Changmin waited for him to speak.
Wind from outside blasted against the windows of the small shop and Jaejoong watched the random bits of napkins or cigarette butts fly past the glass pane.
“I....last spring I got really sick and I haven't gotten much better,” Jaejoong said after a while, “our local doctor said that I got a bad spirit feeding off of me, which is why they made my leg the way it is” he explained, pointing to his lame leg.
Changmin felt his breath hitch. Jaejoong was sick? How sick? He hoped that the boy hadn't just listened to some sort of village shaman and had actually been to a hospital. He was about to drop his dinner and bring Jaejoong to a clinic himself before the boy continued on.
“Yoochun didn't think it was true, though, so he got a fancy big city doctor to come to Gongju to look at me. The doctor said that I needed to go to the city for treatment and that I also needed some medicine that was only found in Busan. Yoochun left on the train to go to Busan and told me to meet him at exactly 6am on December 22nd when his train gets back to Seoul”
Changmin looked at his watch. It was only 10:15pm and December 22nd was the next day. They would definitely get back to Seoul in time for Jaejoong to meet up with Yoochun.
“I'm glad Yoochun takes care of you,” Changmin said.
Jaejoong flashed him a sad smile and looked at his candle again, watching how the fire licked the sides of the wax but never melted it.
“He's the only one who does...”
~~~***~~~
The next couple of hours in the car were quiet ones. Changmin had switched the A-Pink album with one of old, sad love ballads and the songs seemed to silence Jaejoong's active tongue. Instead the boy just morosely looked at his candle or out the windows, eyes shining with something that Changmin couldn't quite place.
“I was fourteen when my parents kicked me out of my house” Jaejoong finally said after nearly two and a half hours of pure silence.
Changmin's eyebrows quirked up. He imagined how much smaller and more vulnerable Jaejoong would have been three years ago. How alone he must have been. How afraid. The businessman felt a sudden rush of anger directed at Kim Jaejoong's parents.
“Why did they kick you out?”
“Because of Yoochun”
Changmin risked looking over, confusion written on every part of his face. “Yoochun? What was wrong with Yoochun?”
“I fell in love with him” Jaejoong whispered, looking at his lap.
Oh Changmin thought, everything fitting into place. It was very common for people in small Korean villages to be homophobic and it didn't surprise Changmin at all that parents would disown their child for being gay. Such things happened all the time even in big cities like Seoul.
“Where did you live then?” the businessman asked. He hoped that the boy hadn't been homeless. No one deserved that fate at the age of fourteen, least of all Jaejoong.
“Yoochun took me in,” Jaejoong answered with a small smile, “he's two years older and already had a job at a stall in the village market. I started working too so that I could help him out but I had to stop last year after my leg went bad...”
Changmin nodded his head. “So Yoochun is your lover?”
“Does that bother you?” Jaejoong asked. “I wanted to tell you since you were being so nice to me. I know that most people don't like it so....”
“I don't mind,” Changmin said. And he didn't.
Jaejoong's face lit up. “So what Yoochun told me is true then? He said that there were people in Seoul who were actually okay with....people like us. Told me that once I get better we could live there together.”
Changmin grinned. “Do you want to live in the big city?”
Jaejoong nodded enthusiastically. “I never liked Gongju much and I think my parents might be happier if I left. Plus, it would be nice to make a new start.”
“Tell me about him. Yoochun” Changmin asked. It was nice to hear Jaejoong's voice again after the hours of silence. For some reason the low, cool tone calmed the businessman. Plus, Changmin was curious to hear all about the person who had managed to capture the heart of the boy that he had grown so attached to in the past seven hours.
“He's my best friend.” Jaejoong said, eyes shining bright. “I knew him my whole life. My parents have eight other kids and didn't pay me much attention. The neighbors also didn't like me because they said I looked too girly and was too clumsy to handle farm equipment well. Yoochun...he was the only person who ever cared for me”
Jaejoong looked at the candle in his hands once more.
“He gave me this, actually. A year after I got kicked out of my house. I was afraid to go around by myself at night because of all the stories about evil spirits, so he gave this to and told me to use it. Said that one day he'd get enough money to buy me one of those fancy gas lamps instead. He always worked so hard so that we could stay together. We've....we've never been apart before.”
Changmin smiled. Even though he was an old, crotchety businessman even he wasn't immune to the powers of a good love story. It was obvious to see the love Jaejoong had for the other boy, it was shining on his face and in his words, and Changmin was happy that the boy had someone to care for him.
“You're lucky to have him.” Changmin said after a while “It's rare to find someone who will love and care for you so well.”
Jaejoong just nodded his head.
“I am lucky” he said, flame from the candle licking a finger that had strayed too close to its bright ember “I'm lucky he's by my side....and I will never let him go.”
~~~***~~~
It was close to 5am when the two men finally reached Seoul. Though it was so late, the streets were still bright with lights and full of people-mostly drunken businessmen stumbling home after spending the night with alcohol bottles and eager women.
“Where did Yoochun ask you to meet him? I'll take you there” Changmin said as he pulled into the familiar streets. He didn't mind staying out a bit later. There was only a cold, empty apartment awaiting him. Plus he was curious to meet Yoochun.
“Sinchon Railway Station” Jaejoong answered. Changmin snapped his head over in confusion.
“The Railway Station? But no trains come there anymore. Are you sure it's not Sinchon subway station?”
Jaejoong furrowed his brow. “Yoochun said the Railway station. He wouldn't mess up about something like that”
“Well the railway station is right next to the subway station,” Changmin said with a shrug, “maybe he wanted you to wait there because there wouldn't be a crowd?”
Jaejoong smiled and nodded his head. “That is probably it. I'm not really used to crowds of people. And it's a bit hard for me to walk among them because of my leg”
Changmin drove his car to the station. Over the years the place had become a sort of historic landmark, open during the day to tourists to come over and see the oldest railway station in Seoul. However it was too early now for any visitors or staff to be there, so the two men found themselves with a very empty station as they got out and walked about.
“Are you sure you're not cold?” Changmin asked, eying Jaejoong's dress shirt and bare feet as the younger boy walked over and looked at an old signboard that was used to tell arrivals and departures. It was even colder in Seoul than it was in Gongju and since Jaejoong was already sick Changmin couldn't help but worry over him.
“I'm fine,” Jaejoong said, wiggling his toes against the cold cement.
Changmin groaned. “Yoochun is going to kill me when he gets here for letting you be like this when it's so cold out”
“There is nothing written on this,” Jaejoong said, pointing to the sign board. Changmin looked over.
“I don't think this station is in operation anymore, Jaejoong. The only railway station open is Seoul central.”
Jaejoong frowned. “That subway station you talked about....is there a train from Busan on there?”
“Not a direct one, but you can transfer on and come through the Sinchon station” Changmin said. Jaejoong was starting to look distressed and the businessman wanted desperately to calm him down. He looked at his watch. It was 5:45
“Yoochun should be getting here in another fifteen minutes, Jaejoong. There is nothing to worry about.”
Jaejoong nodded, but his eyes were starting to fill with unshed tears. “I....he has to come. I can't live without him, Changmin”
Changmin didn't know what came over him, but he walked over and immediately pulled the smaller boy into a tight hug. It was then that he noticed how cold and how incredibly frail Jaejoong was under his clothes-his rib bones poking Changmin through the thin shirt.
Jaejoong hugged him back-two boney arms coming around and squeezing the businessman tight.
“He'll come, Jaejoong. He'll come and you'll get your treatment and live here. And of course you will have to come visit me every weekend.”
Jajoong giggled into Changmin's jacked, nodding his head. “Okay”
The two of them waited a bit longer, Jaejoong rocking on the balls of his feet as he looked at the empty track. Changmin knew that he had helped quell the younger boy's fears, but that didn't mean he had made them disappear completely. Jaejoong wouldn't feel truly at ease until Yoochun was back with him.
The clock outside the station chimed 6 times and the young boy looked around with wide eyes.
“Maybe Yoochun is outside and doesn't know where we are,” Changmin volunteered. “You stay here and I'll go see if I can find anyone. It's too cold for you to leave, so just stay indoors until I get back.”
Jaejoong nodded his head and the older male left, walking out the front of the station and looking out. There were the usual stream of commuters going into the subway station-tired, hungover, blurry-but there was no one at all that was coming to the area where the railway station was perched.
Maybe Yoochun-sshi's train is late? he wondered From what Jaejoong has told me about him, the two of them were inseparable. He wouldn't just leave him alone like this
After waiting for a while there was still no sign of Yoochun and the chilly wind was cutting straight trough Changmin's jacket and into his bones. He decided to head back in and just wait with Jaejoong there until Yoochun came.
Shivering, he made his way back into the station, glancing at the clock. 6:10am. He had been standing outside in the freezing cold for ten minutes. Changmin walked over to where he had left Jaejoong only to find the boy gone.
A sense of panic immediately settled in the pit of the businessman's stomach as he ran around, searching for where the boy could be.
“Jaejoong!” he yelled, over and over as he walked through every part of the building. Sinchon Railways Station was a rather small place and there wasn't many places that Jaejoong could be. It only took Changmin fifteen minutes to check the whole station and there was no sign of the boy anywhere-not even any footprints on the dusty floors.
Did he go to the subway station to look for Yoochun himself? Changmin wondered. He felt almost sick at the thought of such a young, innocent boy lost in Seoul by himself.
The businessman was about to run to the subway when an employee strolled in; a tour guide whose job it was to know everything about the station and relay it to all the visitors that came over.
The man seemed surprised to see Changmin in the station and before he had a chance to ask the man what the hell he was doing trespassing so early in the morning, the businessman pounced on him.
“Have you seen a boy around here?” he asked “He's seventeen years old with long black hair. He's dressed simply...has no shoes....”
The tour guide looked incredibly confused. “No, I haven't”
“Are you sure?” Changmin demanded.
“I think I would remember if I saw a kid walking barefoot in this weather” the other man said. “Is he missing? What's his name and some details about him? We can report him to the police and they can help us find him”
Changmin talked fast. Saying anything everything that came to his head. “His name is Kim Jaejoong. He's from Gongju and this is his first time in Seoul. He came to meet his friend Park Yoochun who is coming in on a train from Busan. Yoochun told him to wait here. I went out of the station for about ten minutes and when I came back he was gone”
The tour guide stood still in his tracks, his look of confusion changing into one of shock and possibly...fear?
“Did you say Park Yoochun? And a train from Busan?”
“Yes,” Changmin said frantically. “Do you know anything about it?”
“I know of a Park Yoochun,” the man said slowly. “Sinchon station...it had a train to Busan. Only one line though, it was kind of an experimental thing. There were only fifteen passengers on it. But...it crashed. All the passengers were killed. Including Park Yoochun.”
Changmin felt faint at the man's words. “What.....crashed?” The train had crashed? Yoochun was dead?
“Oh no. What is Jaejoong going to do?” the businessman muttered. Jaejoong depended fully on Yoochun. He couldn't live without the other man. What was he going to say to him when he found him?There is no way he would be able to tell Jaejoong that the only person he had left in the world was gone.
“I..I need to find Jaejoong.” Changmin mumbled to himself as he started to walk away.
“Wait!” the tour guide called out. Changmin turned around and saw the man staring at him, fisting the bottom of his winter coat.
“What is it?”
The tour guide sighed. “That train...the one that had Park Yoochun in it. It crashed in 1920. Exactly on this day”
The air was knocked out of Changmin's chest. “W...what?”
The tour guide looked away. “Park Yoochun actually a pretty popular character in the station's history. He had been on the train in order to go to Busan to get medicines for his dying friend Kim Jaejoong. But the train crashed before he was able to come back. Kim Jaejoong came here to meet him on the 22nd. There were many stories about him because he was apparently a very beautiful young boy. And he had walked all the way to the station from the Gongju....”
“And?”
“...Kim Jaejoong passed away on that day. In this station. The shock was too much for him to take when he was already so sick. I....wait. Come here”
The tour guide led Changmin to the little room on the side where they kept exhibitions of the famous history of the station. And there, on one of the walls, was the story of Park Yoochun and Kim Jaejoong. There was a picture of Yoochun getting on the train. The man had a strange haircut and a boyish face. He was handsome in a gentle, beautiful way and Changmin thought that he would have fit Jaejoong perfectly.
Underneath that picture, there was another one that took the businessman's breath away. There-captured in grainy film-was a picture of Jaejoong. Dressed in a white dress shirt, barefoot, a candle lighting the forlorn expression on his face.
“The station master took that picture while Kim Jaejoong was waiting for the train to come in” the tour guide explained to Changmin.
The businessman brought his hand up and traced Jaejoong's sad face. “But.....”
“There have been rumors of Kim Jaejoong's ghost coming back here every year but I never thought they were true before!! Not until...”
A ghost Changmin thought. Jaejoong was a ghost. The ghost of a beautiful, innocent, gentle boy who died in 1920 and walked every year to a train station in Seoul in order to meet a lover who would never come.
As he continued to stare at the photograph Changmin felt a little part of him, the space in his heart that Jaejoong had managed to wiggle into over the past ten hours with his smiles and ramblings; he felt that little part of him break.
~~~***~~~
1 Year Later
Changmin drove slowly on the familiar road, humming to himself as music blasted from his stereo. It was another long drive that lay ahead of him.
As he passed the country road he spotted a familiar figure walking on the side of the street-dragging bare feet on the ground with every limping step.
Grinning to himself, Changmin went over and rolled down the window. “Hey there kid, need a ride?”
Jaejoong's head whipped around and he frowned. “Are...are you sure you can take me?”
“Of course,” the businessman said, motioning to his passenger door. “Come on in”
Jaejoong quickly came into the car and flashed Changmin his normal, bright smile. “Thanks a lot mister!”
“No problem. My name is Changmin, by the way. I'm headed to Seoul”
Jaejoong's eyes widened. “Oh me too! I'm going there to meet my friend”
And like that the two men started once again on the long journey back to the big city. Changmin had decided that since Yoochun wasn't able to go and meet Jaejoong, he would instead. Every year he would drive the boy to the station, comfort him as he waited for the train that would never come, and then bid him goodbye as the clock struck 6. He would do it for no other reason but to let the boy know, even for just 10 hours, that he was not so alone in the world.
Changmin had let the boy into his heart after all and he couldn't just abandon him like that. Not when in reality he was the only person Jaejoong had left.
Though, in the back of his mind, Changmin did hope that his efforts would pay off.
...That maybe maybe after 90 years of walking barefoot to and from an empty railway station, this little bit of company would finally bring Jaejoong some peace....
A/N: I've always wanted to try to write a ghost story-though this one was rather un-frightening. Anyways, hope this was enjoyable^^
Pairing: JaeChun/JaeMin (friendship)
Rating: Pg-13
Genre: Romance, Mystery, Horror
Length: Oneshot
Summary: Against his better judgment, Changmin picks up a mysterious hitchhiker on the side of the road and gets much more than what he bargained for.
A/N: Late Birthday fic for the wonderful pikasu . Sorry I couldn't get this out on the actual day, bb ;; But I guess this way we can just spread your birthday celebration out for days XD
Changmin hated the drive from Gongju to Seoul. It was long, boring, and because Changmin was too cheap to splurge on hotels, usually happened late at night after business meetings. His eyelids already felt heavy after long hours of listening to done dry marketing plans, and the flat and barren road from the small southern city to Seoul just caused him to become even more drowsy.
He was lucky that day. His meeting had ended early, so he was on the road by 5pm. However, it was winter and the days were shorter so Changmin knew that it would get dark soon. He just hoped he was on the main roads by the time the sun set. The small country roads in the area weren't lit and it was always a problem driving in the dark. After all, it was never pleasant to have to brake suddenly after a cow appeared in your headlight...
Changmin had been on his second cup of coffee, still in the country, when he spotted someone walking calmly on the side of the road. It wasn't unusual to see the random farmer or women heading back home from a day working in the fields, however there was something about this person that seemed out of place.
Slowing down his car a fraction, Changmin leaned over to get a better look at the figure, only to realize it was a young male. A young male that wasn't wearing shoes or a coat despite the fact it was below freezing outside. In fact Changmin saw as he got closer, besides the white dress shirt and pleated pants the other wore, the only other thing the boy had on him was a single candle that he was using to light his way.
Being the rational, want-to-live-past-the-age-of-thity sort, Changmin had never thought to pick up a hitchhiker before. He had heard the horror stories involved with letting shady people in your car-especially in the country were people had an affinity of carrying sharp objects like hoes or scythes with them.
However he wasn't heartless enough to leave a kid out in the cold. And plus, the boy's dress shirt fit tight on him and there no bulges in his pant pockets; so unless he was carrying a hidden weapon in that candle of his, there didn't seem to be a reason for Changmin to worry about his safety.
Slowing his car to a near standstill, Changmin lowered his window-shivering at the chill that seeped into his car. How could this kid stand it?
“Hey!”
The boy looked up and Changmin was taken aback by the delicate features the other male possessed. Pale skin, wide eyes, lips full and chapped and red.
“Um...where are you headed to?”
The boy cocked his head to the side for a few seconds before responding in a soft voice that seemed a bit too low and hoarse to belong to him. “Seoul.”
Changmin gaped. Seoul? This kid was planning on walking all the way to Seoul with no shoes and nothing but a candle?
“It's going to get dark soon!” Changmin said. The boy looked at him, confused.
“It's okay, sir! I have a candle to help me see.”
“But still, it'll be too cold and you'll freeze to death. Come on in. I'm going to Seoul anyways so I can give you a ride.”
The boy was silent for a few more seconds before smiling widely. Changmin felt his heart seize a little. “That would be really nice of you.”
The boy walked over to the car. The headlights illuminated his form and for the first Changmin got a proper look at him. He was fairly tall with silky black hair that reached his shoulders. With his delicate, pretty face he might have been considered beautiful, but he was a bit too thin and his gait was marred by a limp in his right leg.
The boy opened the passenger door and slid into the car. He still clutched the candle close to him, guarding the flame against the air coming from the heaters.
“Uh so....I'm Changmin” the business man said as he started the car again and proceeded at a slower speed. The sun was already setting and it bathed the street and the sky in a sickly pink color; edges of black slowly spreading and engulfing the weak light.
“I'm Kim Jaejoong,” the boy replied. He looked out the window, bringing his hand to touch the glass-his eyes wide in wonder. Changmin wondered if this was the first time the boy had been in a car before.
“So...”
“...I'm seventeen years old, I'm from Gongju, and I am going to Seoul to meet my friend” Jaejoong continued, placing the candle between his thighs as hands running in wonder over the leather car seats as he recited the words with practiced precision. A wide smile tugged at his lips.
Changmin couldn't help but grin. “Did your parents tell you to say that to anyone you met?”
Jaejoong looked out the window, smile immediately disappearing. “I don't live with my parents”
Changmin didn't ask and the boy didn't speak on the subject anymore. An awkward silence filled the car and the businessman decided to ease tensions a little by playing whatever CD he had tossed in before he had left.
He almost groaned in mortification when the high pitched voices of A-Pink filled the car. Changmin had a soft spot for the girl group because he thought they looked cute in the white dresses on the CD cover, but he certainly did not want anyone else to know the fact that he listened to bubblegum pop songs.
Jaejoong, however, didn't seem to mind at all. He yelped when he heard the speakers come to life and, seconds later, had his head glued to the spot where the music was coming from.
“What is this?” he asked, voice laced with wonder.
“A...stereo system...?” Changmin answered, not really knowing what the boy was talking about.
“Your car...it's singing to you! It...has a really beautiful voice.” he added while blushing a little.
Changmin didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the boy's innocence. Instead he settled on asking him a question. “Have you ever been in a car before Jaejoong?”
“Oh no!” the young boy said, eyes growing larger. “We can't afford anything like that. Only people from the city can have things like that.”
Changmin's eyebrows furrowed. He knew for a fact that there were many families in Gongju that had cars. But then again Jaejoong had been walking outside without a coat or shoes in the middle of winter and he had a strange way of speaking, so the businessman figured that he was probably from some poor village on the outskirts of the larger town.
“I heard Seoul is really pretty,” Jaejoong continued, babbling now that he knew Changmin didn't mind talking to him “The people there are really pretty as well. You're from there, right? You look like them and your hair is such a nice color! We don't have people with colored hair in Gongju. We're only born with black hair there. Your hair reminds me of a puppy that Yoochun brought home once. It's fur was brown too.”
A slight blush decorated Changmin's cheeks as he listened to the boy's words; almost in wonder at what he was hearing. Though he had only known the boy for barely twenty minutes, Changmin couldn't help but feel a bit protective of Jaejoong. At 17, the boy was ten years younger and a whole world more innocent than the jaded businessman.
“You don't have cows in Seoul do you?” Jaejoong continued “I knew a person who was from there and he said that there were huuuuge buildings that were big enough to hold a whole city of cows and horses....”
Changmin grinned and kept driving. This trip would be far from boring.
~~~***~~~
By the time it was ten, Changmin had already hit the main road where everything was lit and there were exists with restaurants every twenty seconds.
The businessman, guided by his grumbling stomach, decided to stop at a sandwich place and grab a late dinner. Jaejoong said he didn't want anything but followed the man into the little shop nonetheless-sitting at a tall stool at the counter, holding the candle in his lap as his bare feet swung; not long enough to reach the ground.
When Changmin came to the counter, holding his sandwiches, Jaejoong greeted him with such a bright smile that for a faint second the businessmen thought he wouldn't mind being greeted with such a sight everyday of his life.
“So” Changmin asked between bites of turkey and cheddar, “are you meeting family in Seoul?”
“No,” Jaejoong said, fingering the candle in his hand. “I don't have family. Yoochun told me to meet him there.”
Changmin nodded. He didn't really know who Yoochun was, though the boy had talked nonstop about him for the past four hours. It seemed as though Jaejoong lived with him and it was obvious that the boy cared about him, but beyond that, Changmin was clueless.
“What is Yoochun doing in Seoul?”
Jaejoong was silent, biting his bottom lip. Changmin waited for him to speak.
Wind from outside blasted against the windows of the small shop and Jaejoong watched the random bits of napkins or cigarette butts fly past the glass pane.
“I....last spring I got really sick and I haven't gotten much better,” Jaejoong said after a while, “our local doctor said that I got a bad spirit feeding off of me, which is why they made my leg the way it is” he explained, pointing to his lame leg.
Changmin felt his breath hitch. Jaejoong was sick? How sick? He hoped that the boy hadn't just listened to some sort of village shaman and had actually been to a hospital. He was about to drop his dinner and bring Jaejoong to a clinic himself before the boy continued on.
“Yoochun didn't think it was true, though, so he got a fancy big city doctor to come to Gongju to look at me. The doctor said that I needed to go to the city for treatment and that I also needed some medicine that was only found in Busan. Yoochun left on the train to go to Busan and told me to meet him at exactly 6am on December 22nd when his train gets back to Seoul”
Changmin looked at his watch. It was only 10:15pm and December 22nd was the next day. They would definitely get back to Seoul in time for Jaejoong to meet up with Yoochun.
“I'm glad Yoochun takes care of you,” Changmin said.
Jaejoong flashed him a sad smile and looked at his candle again, watching how the fire licked the sides of the wax but never melted it.
“He's the only one who does...”
~~~***~~~
The next couple of hours in the car were quiet ones. Changmin had switched the A-Pink album with one of old, sad love ballads and the songs seemed to silence Jaejoong's active tongue. Instead the boy just morosely looked at his candle or out the windows, eyes shining with something that Changmin couldn't quite place.
“I was fourteen when my parents kicked me out of my house” Jaejoong finally said after nearly two and a half hours of pure silence.
Changmin's eyebrows quirked up. He imagined how much smaller and more vulnerable Jaejoong would have been three years ago. How alone he must have been. How afraid. The businessman felt a sudden rush of anger directed at Kim Jaejoong's parents.
“Why did they kick you out?”
“Because of Yoochun”
Changmin risked looking over, confusion written on every part of his face. “Yoochun? What was wrong with Yoochun?”
“I fell in love with him” Jaejoong whispered, looking at his lap.
Oh Changmin thought, everything fitting into place. It was very common for people in small Korean villages to be homophobic and it didn't surprise Changmin at all that parents would disown their child for being gay. Such things happened all the time even in big cities like Seoul.
“Where did you live then?” the businessman asked. He hoped that the boy hadn't been homeless. No one deserved that fate at the age of fourteen, least of all Jaejoong.
“Yoochun took me in,” Jaejoong answered with a small smile, “he's two years older and already had a job at a stall in the village market. I started working too so that I could help him out but I had to stop last year after my leg went bad...”
Changmin nodded his head. “So Yoochun is your lover?”
“Does that bother you?” Jaejoong asked. “I wanted to tell you since you were being so nice to me. I know that most people don't like it so....”
“I don't mind,” Changmin said. And he didn't.
Jaejoong's face lit up. “So what Yoochun told me is true then? He said that there were people in Seoul who were actually okay with....people like us. Told me that once I get better we could live there together.”
Changmin grinned. “Do you want to live in the big city?”
Jaejoong nodded enthusiastically. “I never liked Gongju much and I think my parents might be happier if I left. Plus, it would be nice to make a new start.”
“Tell me about him. Yoochun” Changmin asked. It was nice to hear Jaejoong's voice again after the hours of silence. For some reason the low, cool tone calmed the businessman. Plus, Changmin was curious to hear all about the person who had managed to capture the heart of the boy that he had grown so attached to in the past seven hours.
“He's my best friend.” Jaejoong said, eyes shining bright. “I knew him my whole life. My parents have eight other kids and didn't pay me much attention. The neighbors also didn't like me because they said I looked too girly and was too clumsy to handle farm equipment well. Yoochun...he was the only person who ever cared for me”
Jaejoong looked at the candle in his hands once more.
“He gave me this, actually. A year after I got kicked out of my house. I was afraid to go around by myself at night because of all the stories about evil spirits, so he gave this to and told me to use it. Said that one day he'd get enough money to buy me one of those fancy gas lamps instead. He always worked so hard so that we could stay together. We've....we've never been apart before.”
Changmin smiled. Even though he was an old, crotchety businessman even he wasn't immune to the powers of a good love story. It was obvious to see the love Jaejoong had for the other boy, it was shining on his face and in his words, and Changmin was happy that the boy had someone to care for him.
“You're lucky to have him.” Changmin said after a while “It's rare to find someone who will love and care for you so well.”
Jaejoong just nodded his head.
“I am lucky” he said, flame from the candle licking a finger that had strayed too close to its bright ember “I'm lucky he's by my side....and I will never let him go.”
~~~***~~~
It was close to 5am when the two men finally reached Seoul. Though it was so late, the streets were still bright with lights and full of people-mostly drunken businessmen stumbling home after spending the night with alcohol bottles and eager women.
“Where did Yoochun ask you to meet him? I'll take you there” Changmin said as he pulled into the familiar streets. He didn't mind staying out a bit later. There was only a cold, empty apartment awaiting him. Plus he was curious to meet Yoochun.
“Sinchon Railway Station” Jaejoong answered. Changmin snapped his head over in confusion.
“The Railway Station? But no trains come there anymore. Are you sure it's not Sinchon subway station?”
Jaejoong furrowed his brow. “Yoochun said the Railway station. He wouldn't mess up about something like that”
“Well the railway station is right next to the subway station,” Changmin said with a shrug, “maybe he wanted you to wait there because there wouldn't be a crowd?”
Jaejoong smiled and nodded his head. “That is probably it. I'm not really used to crowds of people. And it's a bit hard for me to walk among them because of my leg”
Changmin drove his car to the station. Over the years the place had become a sort of historic landmark, open during the day to tourists to come over and see the oldest railway station in Seoul. However it was too early now for any visitors or staff to be there, so the two men found themselves with a very empty station as they got out and walked about.
“Are you sure you're not cold?” Changmin asked, eying Jaejoong's dress shirt and bare feet as the younger boy walked over and looked at an old signboard that was used to tell arrivals and departures. It was even colder in Seoul than it was in Gongju and since Jaejoong was already sick Changmin couldn't help but worry over him.
“I'm fine,” Jaejoong said, wiggling his toes against the cold cement.
Changmin groaned. “Yoochun is going to kill me when he gets here for letting you be like this when it's so cold out”
“There is nothing written on this,” Jaejoong said, pointing to the sign board. Changmin looked over.
“I don't think this station is in operation anymore, Jaejoong. The only railway station open is Seoul central.”
Jaejoong frowned. “That subway station you talked about....is there a train from Busan on there?”
“Not a direct one, but you can transfer on and come through the Sinchon station” Changmin said. Jaejoong was starting to look distressed and the businessman wanted desperately to calm him down. He looked at his watch. It was 5:45
“Yoochun should be getting here in another fifteen minutes, Jaejoong. There is nothing to worry about.”
Jaejoong nodded, but his eyes were starting to fill with unshed tears. “I....he has to come. I can't live without him, Changmin”
Changmin didn't know what came over him, but he walked over and immediately pulled the smaller boy into a tight hug. It was then that he noticed how cold and how incredibly frail Jaejoong was under his clothes-his rib bones poking Changmin through the thin shirt.
Jaejoong hugged him back-two boney arms coming around and squeezing the businessman tight.
“He'll come, Jaejoong. He'll come and you'll get your treatment and live here. And of course you will have to come visit me every weekend.”
Jajoong giggled into Changmin's jacked, nodding his head. “Okay”
The two of them waited a bit longer, Jaejoong rocking on the balls of his feet as he looked at the empty track. Changmin knew that he had helped quell the younger boy's fears, but that didn't mean he had made them disappear completely. Jaejoong wouldn't feel truly at ease until Yoochun was back with him.
The clock outside the station chimed 6 times and the young boy looked around with wide eyes.
“Maybe Yoochun is outside and doesn't know where we are,” Changmin volunteered. “You stay here and I'll go see if I can find anyone. It's too cold for you to leave, so just stay indoors until I get back.”
Jaejoong nodded his head and the older male left, walking out the front of the station and looking out. There were the usual stream of commuters going into the subway station-tired, hungover, blurry-but there was no one at all that was coming to the area where the railway station was perched.
Maybe Yoochun-sshi's train is late? he wondered From what Jaejoong has told me about him, the two of them were inseparable. He wouldn't just leave him alone like this
After waiting for a while there was still no sign of Yoochun and the chilly wind was cutting straight trough Changmin's jacket and into his bones. He decided to head back in and just wait with Jaejoong there until Yoochun came.
Shivering, he made his way back into the station, glancing at the clock. 6:10am. He had been standing outside in the freezing cold for ten minutes. Changmin walked over to where he had left Jaejoong only to find the boy gone.
A sense of panic immediately settled in the pit of the businessman's stomach as he ran around, searching for where the boy could be.
“Jaejoong!” he yelled, over and over as he walked through every part of the building. Sinchon Railways Station was a rather small place and there wasn't many places that Jaejoong could be. It only took Changmin fifteen minutes to check the whole station and there was no sign of the boy anywhere-not even any footprints on the dusty floors.
Did he go to the subway station to look for Yoochun himself? Changmin wondered. He felt almost sick at the thought of such a young, innocent boy lost in Seoul by himself.
The businessman was about to run to the subway when an employee strolled in; a tour guide whose job it was to know everything about the station and relay it to all the visitors that came over.
The man seemed surprised to see Changmin in the station and before he had a chance to ask the man what the hell he was doing trespassing so early in the morning, the businessman pounced on him.
“Have you seen a boy around here?” he asked “He's seventeen years old with long black hair. He's dressed simply...has no shoes....”
The tour guide looked incredibly confused. “No, I haven't”
“Are you sure?” Changmin demanded.
“I think I would remember if I saw a kid walking barefoot in this weather” the other man said. “Is he missing? What's his name and some details about him? We can report him to the police and they can help us find him”
Changmin talked fast. Saying anything everything that came to his head. “His name is Kim Jaejoong. He's from Gongju and this is his first time in Seoul. He came to meet his friend Park Yoochun who is coming in on a train from Busan. Yoochun told him to wait here. I went out of the station for about ten minutes and when I came back he was gone”
The tour guide stood still in his tracks, his look of confusion changing into one of shock and possibly...fear?
“Did you say Park Yoochun? And a train from Busan?”
“Yes,” Changmin said frantically. “Do you know anything about it?”
“I know of a Park Yoochun,” the man said slowly. “Sinchon station...it had a train to Busan. Only one line though, it was kind of an experimental thing. There were only fifteen passengers on it. But...it crashed. All the passengers were killed. Including Park Yoochun.”
Changmin felt faint at the man's words. “What.....crashed?” The train had crashed? Yoochun was dead?
“Oh no. What is Jaejoong going to do?” the businessman muttered. Jaejoong depended fully on Yoochun. He couldn't live without the other man. What was he going to say to him when he found him?There is no way he would be able to tell Jaejoong that the only person he had left in the world was gone.
“I..I need to find Jaejoong.” Changmin mumbled to himself as he started to walk away.
“Wait!” the tour guide called out. Changmin turned around and saw the man staring at him, fisting the bottom of his winter coat.
“What is it?”
The tour guide sighed. “That train...the one that had Park Yoochun in it. It crashed in 1920. Exactly on this day”
The air was knocked out of Changmin's chest. “W...what?”
The tour guide looked away. “Park Yoochun actually a pretty popular character in the station's history. He had been on the train in order to go to Busan to get medicines for his dying friend Kim Jaejoong. But the train crashed before he was able to come back. Kim Jaejoong came here to meet him on the 22nd. There were many stories about him because he was apparently a very beautiful young boy. And he had walked all the way to the station from the Gongju....”
“And?”
“...Kim Jaejoong passed away on that day. In this station. The shock was too much for him to take when he was already so sick. I....wait. Come here”
The tour guide led Changmin to the little room on the side where they kept exhibitions of the famous history of the station. And there, on one of the walls, was the story of Park Yoochun and Kim Jaejoong. There was a picture of Yoochun getting on the train. The man had a strange haircut and a boyish face. He was handsome in a gentle, beautiful way and Changmin thought that he would have fit Jaejoong perfectly.
Underneath that picture, there was another one that took the businessman's breath away. There-captured in grainy film-was a picture of Jaejoong. Dressed in a white dress shirt, barefoot, a candle lighting the forlorn expression on his face.
“The station master took that picture while Kim Jaejoong was waiting for the train to come in” the tour guide explained to Changmin.
The businessman brought his hand up and traced Jaejoong's sad face. “But.....”
“There have been rumors of Kim Jaejoong's ghost coming back here every year but I never thought they were true before!! Not until...”
A ghost Changmin thought. Jaejoong was a ghost. The ghost of a beautiful, innocent, gentle boy who died in 1920 and walked every year to a train station in Seoul in order to meet a lover who would never come.
As he continued to stare at the photograph Changmin felt a little part of him, the space in his heart that Jaejoong had managed to wiggle into over the past ten hours with his smiles and ramblings; he felt that little part of him break.
~~~***~~~
1 Year Later
Changmin drove slowly on the familiar road, humming to himself as music blasted from his stereo. It was another long drive that lay ahead of him.
As he passed the country road he spotted a familiar figure walking on the side of the street-dragging bare feet on the ground with every limping step.
Grinning to himself, Changmin went over and rolled down the window. “Hey there kid, need a ride?”
Jaejoong's head whipped around and he frowned. “Are...are you sure you can take me?”
“Of course,” the businessman said, motioning to his passenger door. “Come on in”
Jaejoong quickly came into the car and flashed Changmin his normal, bright smile. “Thanks a lot mister!”
“No problem. My name is Changmin, by the way. I'm headed to Seoul”
Jaejoong's eyes widened. “Oh me too! I'm going there to meet my friend”
And like that the two men started once again on the long journey back to the big city. Changmin had decided that since Yoochun wasn't able to go and meet Jaejoong, he would instead. Every year he would drive the boy to the station, comfort him as he waited for the train that would never come, and then bid him goodbye as the clock struck 6. He would do it for no other reason but to let the boy know, even for just 10 hours, that he was not so alone in the world.
Changmin had let the boy into his heart after all and he couldn't just abandon him like that. Not when in reality he was the only person Jaejoong had left.
Though, in the back of his mind, Changmin did hope that his efforts would pay off.
...That maybe maybe after 90 years of walking barefoot to and from an empty railway station, this little bit of company would finally bring Jaejoong some peace....
A/N: I've always wanted to try to write a ghost story-though this one was rather un-frightening. Anyways, hope this was enjoyable^^