Guide You Home *part three*
Pairing: DaeLo
Rated: PG13
Length: 5.1K
part two
SONG
When the weather turned colder and the days grew shorter the chaos Junhong constantly found him surrounded by started to subside. He barely saw Jongup outside of school and when he did it was just for quick meals at the café halfway between their houses. Jongup had to babysit more often since his mother had taken on extra shifts to help pay for Christmas and Junhong could count on one hand the number of times they talked on the phone in the two months leading up to the holiday.
Even Yongguk grew more at ease, but Junhong figured it was only because Jongup was no longer a constant fixture at their home. His smile as he greeted Junhong after school was brighter and the tightness he had been carrying in his shoulders had mostly gone away. When he asked Junhong how school was and if he needed help with his homework it was always accompanied by a pizza or a rented movie or sometimes even a shared set of headphones, their feet tapping in rhythm to the beat under the table.
“You been okay lately?” Yongguk’s eyes were on Junhong’s long-sleeved shirt because even the stifling high heat their mother insisted on inside the home wasn’t enough to make him risk a t-shirt. “Everything okay with…” He waved his hand towards Junhong’s body.
He didn’t want to worry his brother but no, he was never okay when it came to that. “There are a few new ones since you asked last week but not many.”
The slow and cautious answer wasn’t enough to satisfy Yongguk. He narrowed his eyes and motioned for Junhong to lift his sleeves up.
“Don’t make me. There’s one deep one okay? I don’t want you to see it.” The long jagged line going from the inside of his elbow and wrapping around his arm in circles was still dark red and angry. Junhong had felt like his arm was going to be ripped away when the pain had started two nights before. It had kept him awake and shivering all night in worry for the boy who would need bandages and someone to help clean the wounds but in all reality was probably all alone and terrified just like he was.
“Let me look. You promised to show me all big new ones.” Yongguk pushed Junhong’s hand down and lifted the sleeve himself, breath catching in his throat when he finally revealed the messy scar. “What is that?”
Junhong shrugged, his eyes trying to focus on anything other than the wound. He had seen enough of it and whenever he thought about it the skin still throbbed and ached. “It felt like a skinny rope. Maybe a wire? I don’t know, I don’t know why anyone would use anything like that on someone else, I just-“ He wished Yongguk hadn’t of asked him to his room to “talk” tonight. He should have known it wasn’t going to be about what music he was listening to lately or what he had made on his math test that morning. “I don’t know.”
“And you still don’t think he’s doing this to himself? I don’t want to make you feel worse but have you ever thought that maybe your soulmate is just insane? Just completely and utterly out of his head?”
He never used to. His whole life he had been firm in his belief that there was no way his mate could do this knowing somewhere out there was another boy who would feel every ounce of pain. But lately he just wasn’t so sure. Nothing made sense to him in the world of soulmates and he was old enough now to not assume anything. The universe loved to break your assumptions apart with hidden secrets and dark closets that shielded them until the time was right. This should have been the one safe constant in his life and instead he felt all alone with only the episodes of pain every few days to keep him company.
“I think I would go crazy myself if I thought about that too much. Do you think I’ll ever find him?”
Yongguk smiled faintly at the whispered question. “I don’t doubt it for a second. Someone’s got to pull him out of whatever dark place he’s in. Maybe that was why you were made for him.”
Junhong stood up to leave, it was late and he wanted to be alone now, but stopped halfway to the door to turn back to his brother with hesitation. “If you want me to find him and save him then why are you so against soulmates? Why do you want to take it away from us?”
His brother’s eyes flickered towards the flyer thumbtacked to his bulletin board advertising the next protest. ‘SOULMATES = ABOMINATIONS’ it read in large block letters. ‘TAKE A STAND AND CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY’. The date was the next night and Junhong had been wanting to ask Yongguk all week if he was going to attend.
“Because sometimes the destiny you’re given isn’t what you really need. Or deserve. Shouldn’t you have a chance to change it?”
“But they want to hurt us.” Junhong’s voice wobbled. He hated it when he got upset trying to talk about soulmates with his brother. Yongguk just didn’t understand. If he knew how important they were he wouldn’t be so against them. “If you cared about me you won’t go.”
Yongguk’s expression said exactly how childish he thought his younger brother was being. “And if you cared about me you wouldn’t ask me not to do something just because you didn’t like it.” He stood up, the conversation over. “I’m going with Himchan tomorrow night to the rally. There are rumors going around that something big will be going on, but I don’t think it will get that crazy. We’ll probably just argue like we always do at the meetings.”
His head snapped, shock covering his face. “Like you always do? You’ve gone to them before?” Before Yongguk could answer, Junhong staggered back, disgust filling his heart. “Don’t. I don’t even want to hear it. Don’t talk to me.”
The door to his bedroom slammed shut and locked with a satisfying click. So much for their nightly brotherly bonding.
--
Junhong stayed away from Yongguk as much as possible the next day. No matter how many times his brother knocked on his door he only pulled the covers up over his head and blocked out the sound. So when Jongup asked if he wanted to come over and watch movies together he jumped at the chance and escaped when Yongguk was in his bedroom on the phone to Himchan.
“You look angry.” Jongup could always tell when something was wrong with him but he had kept silent the entire afternoon, letting Junhong work through it on his own. It was almost nine and they had barely said five words to each other. “You haven’t stopped frowning ever since you got here.”
“Mad.” Junhong replied simply. “Just mad.”
Jongup nodded but kept darting his eyes over to keep an eye on him while they watched the same princess movie Jongup’s sister had forced them to put in.
“You’re not going to stop staring at me are you.”
“Probably not. You’re too adorable not to look at.” His best friend answered teasingly. “Want to go to my room? I promise to agree with whatever side you’re on if that helps?”
It did actually. He knew Jongup understood the importance of soulmates to him. They had talked about it so much that he felt Jongup was in tune with how much they meant.
Before they had even made it halfway to Jongup’s room Junhong’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He saw his mom’s number on the caller ID and debated for half a second on not answering but thought better of it.
“I told you when I left that I was spend-“
“Have you talked to your brother?”
He paused at the question. Surely his mother didn’t know they were fighting. “Not since last night. Why?”
She covered the phone and murmured something. Junhong could hear his dad’s voice rumbling beside her. “We’ve been calling him for five hours. Himchan’s mother just called and said she can’t get ahold of Himchan either.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. His brother was really going to get it now.
“I’ve been at Jongup’s this whole time. He hasn’t called me.”
Jongup perked up at the mention of his name. “Who hasn’t called? Is it Yongguk? What happened?”
He pushed the smaller boy away so that he could hear his mother. “Have you talked to the rest of his friends?”
“He doesn’t have any other friends besides you and Himchan.” She told him impatiently. “Do you know where he would go? Did he mention anything about going out with Himchan tonight?” The hesitation gave her the answer she was looking for. “Tell me right now where he is. Right now, Junhong.”
Jongup was still poking him frantically. “What’s wrong with Yongguk? What’s happening?”
“A rally.” He finally answered. “There was a flyer about it in his room and he said he was going to go.”
Next to him Jongup had gone still, his eyes wide and mouth dropped open. “He actually went?”
“A rally?” She sounded confused. “But… A rally rally? Yongguk wouldn’t…”
“He doesn’t talk about it around you because he knows you’ll yell at him.” Junhong figured that if the cat was out of the bag then he might as well go all in with the news. “Yongguk wants to stop soulmates. He always has.”
--
The trip back home took less time than the one he had made to Jongup’s house alone that morning. This time they took a cab together because Junhong’s mother ordered them to grab one and she would pay when they got there. Jongup was silent on the entire way, his face a carefully guarded mask that Junhong didn’t like to look at for very long.
“He’s going to be in so much trouble.” Junhong muttered as their mother stalked angrily out of the house to pay the cab driver.
“Yes. He is.” Jongup agreed, not even telling Junhong’s parents hello as he headed straight for the living room couch.
His father patted his shoulder as he walked past. “We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”
It almost made him laugh to think about Yongguk coming home. His parents had always treated the soulmate bond as akin to God-like and Yongguk pretty much just spit in their whole belief system.
“Man, I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out mom and dad know about the anti-soulmate thing.” He snorted as he shut the door behind him and threw his coat over the computer chair. “He’ll be grounded for like a y-“
Jongup put a hand up to shush him. He pointed to the TV where their parents had turned on the evening news.
“Chaos all around us as the unexpected protest of the Baekje Memorial Hospital has turned ugly.” The camera panned around the reporter showing the destruction happening behind her. The protestors were turning the first floor of the hospital into their own personal stomping grounds. Windows were being smashed and angry chanting was heard as dozens of bodies pushed their way into the building.
His parents came back into the room and Junhong heard his mother gasp behind her hand as a fire started in one of the parked ambulances.
“Yongguk wouldn’t do this.” She tried to sound reassuring but it wasn’t fooling anyone. “I know he wouldn’t.”
“Then where is he?” Jongup didn’t seem to notice his disrespectful tone to Junhong’s mother. His eyes were narrowed and jaw was tensed tightly. The sound of a car alarm going off in the background of the protest made him jump in his seat. “I can’t watch this.” He muttered and shook his head, leaving them to go to Junhong’s room by himself.
The phone in his mother’s hand trembled as she dialed his brother’s cell phone again. “I’ve called him a hundred times. What is he doing? Do you think he’s there right now?”
After another fifteen minutes of watching the live breaking news and enduring three phone calls from family members who wanted to know how he was feeling since the anti-soulmate protests were getting so violent near him, Junhong had finally had enough.
“I’m going to see where Jongup went.”
His parents didn’t even notice he had left, their attention glued to what was happening only thirty minutes away from their house.
“I can’t believe Yongguk would attack the hospital.” He leaned against his door, his heart racing at the thought that his brother would do something so horrible. “He said someone had mentioned it but he didn’t think it would go that f-“
“I know how to find your brother.” Jongup sat rigidly on Junhong’s bed and stared into the open backpack on his lap.
“You what?”
Jongup reached into the backpack before finally looking up and locking eyes with his best friend. “I can bring him home. But you have to promise you won’t get mad at me.”
Junhong was half filled with worry about his brother (why wasn’t he answering his phone, had he been arrested?) and half consumed with confusion over what Jongup was saying to him. “I still don’t underst-“
The pocket knife that Jongup’s dad had given him the last Christmas they spent together was clenched tightly in his fist when it emerged from his bag. “Promise me?”
He couldn’t answer, too intent on the serious way Jongup was looking at him with sad eyes that looked so much more pained than he had ever seen them before. Eyes that looked like they had kept so many secrets locked up and were now terrified to let one free.
“Please Junhong.”
The cracked sound of his best friend’s voice was what snapped Junhong back to his senses.
“Of course I promise.”
Jongup closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shakily circled his palm around the open blade and squeezed.
--
The clock on the wall said seven but the batteries hadn’t been changed in three years so it wasn’t dependable anymore. It was dark outside the tiny window in the small bedroom he called home. Inky blackness that spilled across the sliver of floor and tried to creep inside of him. The only thing that kept it from consuming him whole was the flashlight he had found in the attic the last time he had hid up there.
Shouts and loud bangs from downstairs was the music he was expected to fall asleep to and oddly enough it actually helped. It was when the silence became as thick as the darkness that he knew to worry. That was when the nights would turn on him.
The company he kept was torn blankets and silver scars, wounds he could trace back for years. From the newest one, barely visible fingertips laced around his shoulder that were still tender from that evening, to the very first, a thin line just below his wrist that still sometimes burned hot inside of him.
When the shouts grew louder and his eyes grew heavier he gave up trying to stay awake and gave in to the darkness, crawling out from under the park bench his mother had dragged home for him years ago when they had moved to this new house. It was hard and uncomfortable and sometimes he woke up with a sore neck that never completely went away no matter how many times he dreamed of gentle fingers rubbing his pain away.
For Jung Daehyun, this was home.
---
“No, no you’re not.“ Junhong’s throat was so tight and he shook his head in denial. “Jonguppie, you can’t-“
The sound of Junhong’s phone ringing inside his pocket made Jongup smile faintly and carefully unfold his hands from around the blade. Blood dripped from his torn skin but he kept his gaze locked onto Junhong’s. “You should probably answer that.”
He fumbled with the small phone until he remembered how to answer. “H-Hello?”
“Is he okay?” Yongguk’s voice was loud and frantic in his ear. “What happened?”
Jongup suddenly appeared next to him and Junhong realized he had been frozen while Yongguk shouted hysterically into his ear. He took the phone away from Junhong and lifted it to his own ear. “I’m fine.” His soft voice made Yongguk inhale jaggedly and Junhong could hear every deep breath his brother took over the phone in the quiet room. “It’s time to come home Yongguk.” When he hung up he turned towards Junhong with trepidation. “Surprise?”
“Oh my god.” His whole life they had lied to him, he had been so stupid to assume he knew what was happening. “How long?” Jongup’s brows pulled together in confusion at the question. “How long have you known?”
“A long time.” Jongup sighed and slumped back onto the bed, patting beside him for Junhong to join. “He’s not doing all of this because of you, Junhong. I’m sorry I let you think that, but I couldn’t tell you the truth. It’s been a secret for so long now that I never knew how to just come out and say it. But the reason he’s trying to put a stop to soulmates has nothing to do with you. It’s because of me.” Jongup swallowed hard and hastily slid the uninjured palm over his eyes. “Yongguk hates me that much.”
Junhong didn’t think it was even physically possible to hate your soulmate. That went against everything they stood for. Your other half was designed to complete you, to be exactly what you needed in life. If he hated him Yongguk wouldn’t have sounded so terrified.
“You and Yongguk are…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence because the idea was so preposterous. In no universe would he put his sweet and gentle best friend with his rough and abrasive older brother.
“Soulmates.” Jongup answered for him. “We’re soulmates, Junhong. Just like you.”
There were so many questions and so many things he wanted to know but the torrent of emotions and confusion he was drowning in were crowding his brain too full to even speak.
“I was on my way home from school when I ran into some boy that was bigger than me.” Jongup let the words pour out of him because he could see Junhong was still in too much shock to voice his thoughts. “He thought I stepped on his feet on purpose and shoved me down. He raised his fist up and I knew I was dead.” His eyes were staring at the picture of Yongguk on Junhong’s bulletin board and he could tell Jongup was seeing that moment exactly as if he was still there. “But then someone jumped in between us and took the punch for me. I felt it, I felt the crack of my jaw and I knew it wasn’t right, it shouldn’t have hurt me when I was lying on the ground and wasn’t even being touched. My parents hadn’t been soulmates but they had told me what it was like to have one.”
Junhong remembered Yongguk coming home once ages ago with a fat lip and a busted jaw but he had claimed it was from an accident at school. The memory was so old he couldn’t even recall what Yongguk’s mood had been like at the time. Was this the exact moment his personality changed to what he was now? Had his brother’s entire life changed that day and no one in their family had even noticed?
“After he scared the kid away he turned back to me and we both realized it at the same time.” Jongup continued. He blinked and his brows furrowed tightly together. “I didn’t… I didn’t handle it very well. But it doesn’t change the facts. Yongguk is my soulmate.”
They could hear the door slam shut below and Junhong’s parent’s angry voices both started rising at the same time. Threats of grounding and no cell phones and not being allowed out of the bedroom were thrown around as Yongguk stayed quiet from where the two boys sat huddled together upstairs.
When Yongguk’s heavy feet finally started to make their way up the steps Jongup closed his eyes and his entire body went rigid next to Junhong’s. Instead of stopping at his own door Yongguk continued on down the hallway towards Junhong’s room, the door opening without him even knocking first.
Yongguk looked as tired as Jongup did and Junhong wondered if they had always looked at each other so regretfully without him noticing.
He stepped determinedly towards Jongup, grabbing his wrist so that he could uncurl his fingers. “You could have cut your whole hand off you idiot.” His words were angry but his tone was exhausted. Junhong was filled with guilt for being so angry at his brother for all of the horrible things he had said about Jongup over the years. He must have been drowning in pain and Junhong was too blind to ask why. “Hold on.”
Leaving the room he headed towards the bathroom and came back a few moments later with a handful of medical supplies. Silently he covered the wound with medicine then encircled it with a bandage, cutting the end off to tuck under the back.
Junhong could see the thick sliced scar down Yongguk’s own palm as he worked but the idea was still too foreign to comprehend. “You two want to tell me what’s going on now?”
“Shut up Junhong.” Yongguk stared stormily at Jongup as he backed up to the corner of the room. He had made sure he was okay and now the fury at what had happened was starting to build in his expression. “How could you be so stupid? Do you even know how I felt when all of a sudden my hand feels like it was being sliced right off?”
“Probably the same way I feel every time you stab safety pins into your legs when you know I’m upstairs with your brother.” Jongup retorted angrily. “Or when you fuck Himchan.”
Yongguk’s head jerked back in shock. For so many years Jongup had taken his verbal abuse in silence and had never defended himself. The always bright and cheerful face that Jongup forced on no matter what was happening around him was murderous as he glared across the room.
“You did what to Himchan?” Forget the soulmate thing, that was a lot more believable than his brother sleeping with Kim Himchan. That boy was too loud and he laughed like a hyena over the stupidest things. And most importantly, he was everything Yongguk should have hated in a boyfriend if his soulmate was the quiet and soft-spoken Jongup.
“What do you care who I sleep with?” His brother’s voice wavered but he quickly covered it up with a sneer. “Maybe you’re just jealous because no one looks twice at pathetic little Moon Jongup.”
Jongup didn’t flinch, the insults were something he heard all the time. This was nothing new. “I don’t want anyone to look twice at me so that doesn’t bother me at all. But at least I don’t purposely hurt my soulmate just because I’m angry. I don’t make love to someone else knowing he can feel every single miserable second. You went straight home and slept with him after the movies just because he flirted with me.” This time his pride did look close to cracking by the memories of all the nights he had spent alone but knowing Yongguk was being touched so intimately by someone else. “At least I’m not cruel.”
“Not cruel?” Yongguk’s jaw clenched and he had to close his eyes so that he could swallow his rage down. “Coming into my house and sleeping fifteen feet away from me isn’t cruel? Seeing my own brother’s eyes light up every time you call him isn’t cruel? So many years of having to stay silent every time I see you? Telling me you don’t want to be my soulmate and to stay away from you? That’s not cruel?” When he opened his eyes they were wet and he had to blink furiously to stop the tears from escaping. “Because I think you’re the worst kind of monster.”
“The only reason you say these things is because you’re angry at me and I’m sorry, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry before you believe me?”
Yongguk crossed his arms and glared at the smaller boy, his face composed again into a furious mask. “How many times are you going to say it before you realize I don’t give a shit what you try to do now? It’s too late.”
“You wanted a soulmate, Yongguk. You were so happy that day that you cried, and I ruined it, I screwed it all up. I get that. I’ve had to live with knowing how much you hate me every single day. But when are you going to stop being mad at me?” Jongup stood tall but his bottom lip quivered as he pleaded with Yongguk to listen to him. “I was eight.” He croaked, taking a tiny step towards the still frozen boy. “I was eight years old and I didn’t know what being gay even meant and you were so excited and I just… It scared me. I was too young!”
“Wait, eight? You’ve known you two were soulmates since we were eight?”
“You never tried to make things right. Not once.” Yongguk recovered some of his earlier bravado and shrugged off the vulnerability that had started to loosen his shoulders. “Every time I tried to get you to talk to me you ran away.”
“Maybe because you’re a jerk to him all the time.” Junhong put in helpfully.
Jongup took another step forward, now close enough that he could reach out and touch Yongguk if he dared. But he didn’t. “I was eight, Yongguk.” He repeated. “And I did reach out but I was too embarrassed to say it. Why do you think I found out who your brother was and became his friend? Who do you think gave Lee Mihyung that black eye after he tripped you in gym? Why do you think the cooks give you an extra cup of fruit at lunch? Do you really expect me to just blurt out that I told them you were too shy to admit you had low blood sugar?”
Junhong raised an eyebrow and frowned. “Should I be offended that our friendship is a lie?”
“I don’t have low blood sugar.” Yongguk was still stick straight but his voice had softened and the steely eyes that Jongup was used to were now hesitant and hopeful. He looked like a man whose heart had been broken and was trying his hardest to put it back together. “Why did you tell them that?”
“Because you love fruit. You eat like a million apples a week and you rush down to lunch to be the first in line when pineapple’s on the menu.” Jongup stretched a hand towards him but thought better of it and retracted immediately. “And shut up, Junhong. You know I love you.”
Yongguk’s growl was low as he gazed possessively at an equally coiled Jongup. “Are you still here for a reason, Junhong?”
He could see the way the two were poised and ready to strike at each other and wanted to be as far away as possible when that happened so even though curiosity was eating him alive he stumbled as fast as possible towards his bedroom door. Some things were better off not knowing.
--
It was a Saturday and Saturday’s were his favorite nights of the week. No one but him was home and he could walk freely through the rooms without jumping at every single sound or hurriedly running to the windows when doors slammed outside. He was alone and free.
If the satellite was hooked up he could watch TV but they hadn’t paid that bill the month before so it didn’t work anymore.
The cell phone his mother had bought him for his sixteenth birthday was still in pieces on the floor behind the couch. It wasn’t like having a cell phone did him any good, but at least he had games to play on it.
Even the few books he had collected over the years weren’t enough to amuse him tonight. Something in his chest was fluttery and worried. The anxiousness had slowly built over the evening to full blown panic until he had ran for his bedroom and dove under the blanket covering his bench until his chest slowly started to untighten and he could breathe normally again.
He rubbed against the scar under his wrist as it burned hot inside of him. When he was alone he felt at ease and the calmness would spread through his body like a heavy warmth. Sometimes he could swear he felt a gentle wave stroking across his scar and it was the last push he needed to morph into full-blown euphoria.
So many things in the world frightened him. His stepfather. The darkness. People seeing him for what he really was.
But when he was alone?
When his skin grew taut with goose bumps and his eyes closed as invisible hands traced down every single scar and never faltered over the ruined and marred lines?
Those were the only times he finally felt worthy of something great.
--
Junhong’s fingertip slid across the now fading thumbprints over his shoulders as he stared at himself in his mirror. All alone and in his room with the door securely locked was when he felt safe enough to take off his clothes and see how ravaged his body had become over the years. He didn’t mind it though, he never had. It brought him closer to the one he was supposed to save. They were his own personal map to his soulmate.
He could feel him right now. Could close his eyes and pretend they were together as another touch followed his own like an echo. They were together in his soul even if he couldn’t reach out and pull him closer just yet.
The boxers he had kept on as he viewed his scars were slowly pushed to the floor but he had to quickly grab onto his closet’s doorknob because his mate was now tired of following along behind. He had jumped ahead of him and didn’t even seem to care that Junhong had wanted to be in the lead this time.
His strangled laugh against his wrist when he leaned against the mirror made his scar throb. The warmth from his breath sailed through the thin skin and it turned red and angry again in response.
“I’ll bring you home.” He muttered, just before his eyes started to roll upwards and he was forced to clench his tongue between his teeth so the two boys still fighting next door wouldn’t hear him through the thin walls. “I promise.”
part four
Rated: PG13
Length: 5.1K
part two
SONG
When the weather turned colder and the days grew shorter the chaos Junhong constantly found him surrounded by started to subside. He barely saw Jongup outside of school and when he did it was just for quick meals at the café halfway between their houses. Jongup had to babysit more often since his mother had taken on extra shifts to help pay for Christmas and Junhong could count on one hand the number of times they talked on the phone in the two months leading up to the holiday.
Even Yongguk grew more at ease, but Junhong figured it was only because Jongup was no longer a constant fixture at their home. His smile as he greeted Junhong after school was brighter and the tightness he had been carrying in his shoulders had mostly gone away. When he asked Junhong how school was and if he needed help with his homework it was always accompanied by a pizza or a rented movie or sometimes even a shared set of headphones, their feet tapping in rhythm to the beat under the table.
“You been okay lately?” Yongguk’s eyes were on Junhong’s long-sleeved shirt because even the stifling high heat their mother insisted on inside the home wasn’t enough to make him risk a t-shirt. “Everything okay with…” He waved his hand towards Junhong’s body.
He didn’t want to worry his brother but no, he was never okay when it came to that. “There are a few new ones since you asked last week but not many.”
The slow and cautious answer wasn’t enough to satisfy Yongguk. He narrowed his eyes and motioned for Junhong to lift his sleeves up.
“Don’t make me. There’s one deep one okay? I don’t want you to see it.” The long jagged line going from the inside of his elbow and wrapping around his arm in circles was still dark red and angry. Junhong had felt like his arm was going to be ripped away when the pain had started two nights before. It had kept him awake and shivering all night in worry for the boy who would need bandages and someone to help clean the wounds but in all reality was probably all alone and terrified just like he was.
“Let me look. You promised to show me all big new ones.” Yongguk pushed Junhong’s hand down and lifted the sleeve himself, breath catching in his throat when he finally revealed the messy scar. “What is that?”
Junhong shrugged, his eyes trying to focus on anything other than the wound. He had seen enough of it and whenever he thought about it the skin still throbbed and ached. “It felt like a skinny rope. Maybe a wire? I don’t know, I don’t know why anyone would use anything like that on someone else, I just-“ He wished Yongguk hadn’t of asked him to his room to “talk” tonight. He should have known it wasn’t going to be about what music he was listening to lately or what he had made on his math test that morning. “I don’t know.”
“And you still don’t think he’s doing this to himself? I don’t want to make you feel worse but have you ever thought that maybe your soulmate is just insane? Just completely and utterly out of his head?”
He never used to. His whole life he had been firm in his belief that there was no way his mate could do this knowing somewhere out there was another boy who would feel every ounce of pain. But lately he just wasn’t so sure. Nothing made sense to him in the world of soulmates and he was old enough now to not assume anything. The universe loved to break your assumptions apart with hidden secrets and dark closets that shielded them until the time was right. This should have been the one safe constant in his life and instead he felt all alone with only the episodes of pain every few days to keep him company.
“I think I would go crazy myself if I thought about that too much. Do you think I’ll ever find him?”
Yongguk smiled faintly at the whispered question. “I don’t doubt it for a second. Someone’s got to pull him out of whatever dark place he’s in. Maybe that was why you were made for him.”
Junhong stood up to leave, it was late and he wanted to be alone now, but stopped halfway to the door to turn back to his brother with hesitation. “If you want me to find him and save him then why are you so against soulmates? Why do you want to take it away from us?”
His brother’s eyes flickered towards the flyer thumbtacked to his bulletin board advertising the next protest. ‘SOULMATES = ABOMINATIONS’ it read in large block letters. ‘TAKE A STAND AND CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY’. The date was the next night and Junhong had been wanting to ask Yongguk all week if he was going to attend.
“Because sometimes the destiny you’re given isn’t what you really need. Or deserve. Shouldn’t you have a chance to change it?”
“But they want to hurt us.” Junhong’s voice wobbled. He hated it when he got upset trying to talk about soulmates with his brother. Yongguk just didn’t understand. If he knew how important they were he wouldn’t be so against them. “If you cared about me you won’t go.”
Yongguk’s expression said exactly how childish he thought his younger brother was being. “And if you cared about me you wouldn’t ask me not to do something just because you didn’t like it.” He stood up, the conversation over. “I’m going with Himchan tomorrow night to the rally. There are rumors going around that something big will be going on, but I don’t think it will get that crazy. We’ll probably just argue like we always do at the meetings.”
His head snapped, shock covering his face. “Like you always do? You’ve gone to them before?” Before Yongguk could answer, Junhong staggered back, disgust filling his heart. “Don’t. I don’t even want to hear it. Don’t talk to me.”
The door to his bedroom slammed shut and locked with a satisfying click. So much for their nightly brotherly bonding.
--
Junhong stayed away from Yongguk as much as possible the next day. No matter how many times his brother knocked on his door he only pulled the covers up over his head and blocked out the sound. So when Jongup asked if he wanted to come over and watch movies together he jumped at the chance and escaped when Yongguk was in his bedroom on the phone to Himchan.
“You look angry.” Jongup could always tell when something was wrong with him but he had kept silent the entire afternoon, letting Junhong work through it on his own. It was almost nine and they had barely said five words to each other. “You haven’t stopped frowning ever since you got here.”
“Mad.” Junhong replied simply. “Just mad.”
Jongup nodded but kept darting his eyes over to keep an eye on him while they watched the same princess movie Jongup’s sister had forced them to put in.
“You’re not going to stop staring at me are you.”
“Probably not. You’re too adorable not to look at.” His best friend answered teasingly. “Want to go to my room? I promise to agree with whatever side you’re on if that helps?”
It did actually. He knew Jongup understood the importance of soulmates to him. They had talked about it so much that he felt Jongup was in tune with how much they meant.
Before they had even made it halfway to Jongup’s room Junhong’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He saw his mom’s number on the caller ID and debated for half a second on not answering but thought better of it.
“I told you when I left that I was spend-“
“Have you talked to your brother?”
He paused at the question. Surely his mother didn’t know they were fighting. “Not since last night. Why?”
She covered the phone and murmured something. Junhong could hear his dad’s voice rumbling beside her. “We’ve been calling him for five hours. Himchan’s mother just called and said she can’t get ahold of Himchan either.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. His brother was really going to get it now.
“I’ve been at Jongup’s this whole time. He hasn’t called me.”
Jongup perked up at the mention of his name. “Who hasn’t called? Is it Yongguk? What happened?”
He pushed the smaller boy away so that he could hear his mother. “Have you talked to the rest of his friends?”
“He doesn’t have any other friends besides you and Himchan.” She told him impatiently. “Do you know where he would go? Did he mention anything about going out with Himchan tonight?” The hesitation gave her the answer she was looking for. “Tell me right now where he is. Right now, Junhong.”
Jongup was still poking him frantically. “What’s wrong with Yongguk? What’s happening?”
“A rally.” He finally answered. “There was a flyer about it in his room and he said he was going to go.”
Next to him Jongup had gone still, his eyes wide and mouth dropped open. “He actually went?”
“A rally?” She sounded confused. “But… A rally rally? Yongguk wouldn’t…”
“He doesn’t talk about it around you because he knows you’ll yell at him.” Junhong figured that if the cat was out of the bag then he might as well go all in with the news. “Yongguk wants to stop soulmates. He always has.”
--
The trip back home took less time than the one he had made to Jongup’s house alone that morning. This time they took a cab together because Junhong’s mother ordered them to grab one and she would pay when they got there. Jongup was silent on the entire way, his face a carefully guarded mask that Junhong didn’t like to look at for very long.
“He’s going to be in so much trouble.” Junhong muttered as their mother stalked angrily out of the house to pay the cab driver.
“Yes. He is.” Jongup agreed, not even telling Junhong’s parents hello as he headed straight for the living room couch.
His father patted his shoulder as he walked past. “We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”
It almost made him laugh to think about Yongguk coming home. His parents had always treated the soulmate bond as akin to God-like and Yongguk pretty much just spit in their whole belief system.
“Man, I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out mom and dad know about the anti-soulmate thing.” He snorted as he shut the door behind him and threw his coat over the computer chair. “He’ll be grounded for like a y-“
Jongup put a hand up to shush him. He pointed to the TV where their parents had turned on the evening news.
“Chaos all around us as the unexpected protest of the Baekje Memorial Hospital has turned ugly.” The camera panned around the reporter showing the destruction happening behind her. The protestors were turning the first floor of the hospital into their own personal stomping grounds. Windows were being smashed and angry chanting was heard as dozens of bodies pushed their way into the building.
His parents came back into the room and Junhong heard his mother gasp behind her hand as a fire started in one of the parked ambulances.
“Yongguk wouldn’t do this.” She tried to sound reassuring but it wasn’t fooling anyone. “I know he wouldn’t.”
“Then where is he?” Jongup didn’t seem to notice his disrespectful tone to Junhong’s mother. His eyes were narrowed and jaw was tensed tightly. The sound of a car alarm going off in the background of the protest made him jump in his seat. “I can’t watch this.” He muttered and shook his head, leaving them to go to Junhong’s room by himself.
The phone in his mother’s hand trembled as she dialed his brother’s cell phone again. “I’ve called him a hundred times. What is he doing? Do you think he’s there right now?”
After another fifteen minutes of watching the live breaking news and enduring three phone calls from family members who wanted to know how he was feeling since the anti-soulmate protests were getting so violent near him, Junhong had finally had enough.
“I’m going to see where Jongup went.”
His parents didn’t even notice he had left, their attention glued to what was happening only thirty minutes away from their house.
“I can’t believe Yongguk would attack the hospital.” He leaned against his door, his heart racing at the thought that his brother would do something so horrible. “He said someone had mentioned it but he didn’t think it would go that f-“
“I know how to find your brother.” Jongup sat rigidly on Junhong’s bed and stared into the open backpack on his lap.
“You what?”
Jongup reached into the backpack before finally looking up and locking eyes with his best friend. “I can bring him home. But you have to promise you won’t get mad at me.”
Junhong was half filled with worry about his brother (why wasn’t he answering his phone, had he been arrested?) and half consumed with confusion over what Jongup was saying to him. “I still don’t underst-“
The pocket knife that Jongup’s dad had given him the last Christmas they spent together was clenched tightly in his fist when it emerged from his bag. “Promise me?”
He couldn’t answer, too intent on the serious way Jongup was looking at him with sad eyes that looked so much more pained than he had ever seen them before. Eyes that looked like they had kept so many secrets locked up and were now terrified to let one free.
“Please Junhong.”
The cracked sound of his best friend’s voice was what snapped Junhong back to his senses.
“Of course I promise.”
Jongup closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shakily circled his palm around the open blade and squeezed.
--
The clock on the wall said seven but the batteries hadn’t been changed in three years so it wasn’t dependable anymore. It was dark outside the tiny window in the small bedroom he called home. Inky blackness that spilled across the sliver of floor and tried to creep inside of him. The only thing that kept it from consuming him whole was the flashlight he had found in the attic the last time he had hid up there.
Shouts and loud bangs from downstairs was the music he was expected to fall asleep to and oddly enough it actually helped. It was when the silence became as thick as the darkness that he knew to worry. That was when the nights would turn on him.
The company he kept was torn blankets and silver scars, wounds he could trace back for years. From the newest one, barely visible fingertips laced around his shoulder that were still tender from that evening, to the very first, a thin line just below his wrist that still sometimes burned hot inside of him.
When the shouts grew louder and his eyes grew heavier he gave up trying to stay awake and gave in to the darkness, crawling out from under the park bench his mother had dragged home for him years ago when they had moved to this new house. It was hard and uncomfortable and sometimes he woke up with a sore neck that never completely went away no matter how many times he dreamed of gentle fingers rubbing his pain away.
For Jung Daehyun, this was home.
---
“No, no you’re not.“ Junhong’s throat was so tight and he shook his head in denial. “Jonguppie, you can’t-“
The sound of Junhong’s phone ringing inside his pocket made Jongup smile faintly and carefully unfold his hands from around the blade. Blood dripped from his torn skin but he kept his gaze locked onto Junhong’s. “You should probably answer that.”
He fumbled with the small phone until he remembered how to answer. “H-Hello?”
“Is he okay?” Yongguk’s voice was loud and frantic in his ear. “What happened?”
Jongup suddenly appeared next to him and Junhong realized he had been frozen while Yongguk shouted hysterically into his ear. He took the phone away from Junhong and lifted it to his own ear. “I’m fine.” His soft voice made Yongguk inhale jaggedly and Junhong could hear every deep breath his brother took over the phone in the quiet room. “It’s time to come home Yongguk.” When he hung up he turned towards Junhong with trepidation. “Surprise?”
“Oh my god.” His whole life they had lied to him, he had been so stupid to assume he knew what was happening. “How long?” Jongup’s brows pulled together in confusion at the question. “How long have you known?”
“A long time.” Jongup sighed and slumped back onto the bed, patting beside him for Junhong to join. “He’s not doing all of this because of you, Junhong. I’m sorry I let you think that, but I couldn’t tell you the truth. It’s been a secret for so long now that I never knew how to just come out and say it. But the reason he’s trying to put a stop to soulmates has nothing to do with you. It’s because of me.” Jongup swallowed hard and hastily slid the uninjured palm over his eyes. “Yongguk hates me that much.”
Junhong didn’t think it was even physically possible to hate your soulmate. That went against everything they stood for. Your other half was designed to complete you, to be exactly what you needed in life. If he hated him Yongguk wouldn’t have sounded so terrified.
“You and Yongguk are…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence because the idea was so preposterous. In no universe would he put his sweet and gentle best friend with his rough and abrasive older brother.
“Soulmates.” Jongup answered for him. “We’re soulmates, Junhong. Just like you.”
There were so many questions and so many things he wanted to know but the torrent of emotions and confusion he was drowning in were crowding his brain too full to even speak.
“I was on my way home from school when I ran into some boy that was bigger than me.” Jongup let the words pour out of him because he could see Junhong was still in too much shock to voice his thoughts. “He thought I stepped on his feet on purpose and shoved me down. He raised his fist up and I knew I was dead.” His eyes were staring at the picture of Yongguk on Junhong’s bulletin board and he could tell Jongup was seeing that moment exactly as if he was still there. “But then someone jumped in between us and took the punch for me. I felt it, I felt the crack of my jaw and I knew it wasn’t right, it shouldn’t have hurt me when I was lying on the ground and wasn’t even being touched. My parents hadn’t been soulmates but they had told me what it was like to have one.”
Junhong remembered Yongguk coming home once ages ago with a fat lip and a busted jaw but he had claimed it was from an accident at school. The memory was so old he couldn’t even recall what Yongguk’s mood had been like at the time. Was this the exact moment his personality changed to what he was now? Had his brother’s entire life changed that day and no one in their family had even noticed?
“After he scared the kid away he turned back to me and we both realized it at the same time.” Jongup continued. He blinked and his brows furrowed tightly together. “I didn’t… I didn’t handle it very well. But it doesn’t change the facts. Yongguk is my soulmate.”
They could hear the door slam shut below and Junhong’s parent’s angry voices both started rising at the same time. Threats of grounding and no cell phones and not being allowed out of the bedroom were thrown around as Yongguk stayed quiet from where the two boys sat huddled together upstairs.
When Yongguk’s heavy feet finally started to make their way up the steps Jongup closed his eyes and his entire body went rigid next to Junhong’s. Instead of stopping at his own door Yongguk continued on down the hallway towards Junhong’s room, the door opening without him even knocking first.
Yongguk looked as tired as Jongup did and Junhong wondered if they had always looked at each other so regretfully without him noticing.
He stepped determinedly towards Jongup, grabbing his wrist so that he could uncurl his fingers. “You could have cut your whole hand off you idiot.” His words were angry but his tone was exhausted. Junhong was filled with guilt for being so angry at his brother for all of the horrible things he had said about Jongup over the years. He must have been drowning in pain and Junhong was too blind to ask why. “Hold on.”
Leaving the room he headed towards the bathroom and came back a few moments later with a handful of medical supplies. Silently he covered the wound with medicine then encircled it with a bandage, cutting the end off to tuck under the back.
Junhong could see the thick sliced scar down Yongguk’s own palm as he worked but the idea was still too foreign to comprehend. “You two want to tell me what’s going on now?”
“Shut up Junhong.” Yongguk stared stormily at Jongup as he backed up to the corner of the room. He had made sure he was okay and now the fury at what had happened was starting to build in his expression. “How could you be so stupid? Do you even know how I felt when all of a sudden my hand feels like it was being sliced right off?”
“Probably the same way I feel every time you stab safety pins into your legs when you know I’m upstairs with your brother.” Jongup retorted angrily. “Or when you fuck Himchan.”
Yongguk’s head jerked back in shock. For so many years Jongup had taken his verbal abuse in silence and had never defended himself. The always bright and cheerful face that Jongup forced on no matter what was happening around him was murderous as he glared across the room.
“You did what to Himchan?” Forget the soulmate thing, that was a lot more believable than his brother sleeping with Kim Himchan. That boy was too loud and he laughed like a hyena over the stupidest things. And most importantly, he was everything Yongguk should have hated in a boyfriend if his soulmate was the quiet and soft-spoken Jongup.
“What do you care who I sleep with?” His brother’s voice wavered but he quickly covered it up with a sneer. “Maybe you’re just jealous because no one looks twice at pathetic little Moon Jongup.”
Jongup didn’t flinch, the insults were something he heard all the time. This was nothing new. “I don’t want anyone to look twice at me so that doesn’t bother me at all. But at least I don’t purposely hurt my soulmate just because I’m angry. I don’t make love to someone else knowing he can feel every single miserable second. You went straight home and slept with him after the movies just because he flirted with me.” This time his pride did look close to cracking by the memories of all the nights he had spent alone but knowing Yongguk was being touched so intimately by someone else. “At least I’m not cruel.”
“Not cruel?” Yongguk’s jaw clenched and he had to close his eyes so that he could swallow his rage down. “Coming into my house and sleeping fifteen feet away from me isn’t cruel? Seeing my own brother’s eyes light up every time you call him isn’t cruel? So many years of having to stay silent every time I see you? Telling me you don’t want to be my soulmate and to stay away from you? That’s not cruel?” When he opened his eyes they were wet and he had to blink furiously to stop the tears from escaping. “Because I think you’re the worst kind of monster.”
“The only reason you say these things is because you’re angry at me and I’m sorry, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry before you believe me?”
Yongguk crossed his arms and glared at the smaller boy, his face composed again into a furious mask. “How many times are you going to say it before you realize I don’t give a shit what you try to do now? It’s too late.”
“You wanted a soulmate, Yongguk. You were so happy that day that you cried, and I ruined it, I screwed it all up. I get that. I’ve had to live with knowing how much you hate me every single day. But when are you going to stop being mad at me?” Jongup stood tall but his bottom lip quivered as he pleaded with Yongguk to listen to him. “I was eight.” He croaked, taking a tiny step towards the still frozen boy. “I was eight years old and I didn’t know what being gay even meant and you were so excited and I just… It scared me. I was too young!”
“Wait, eight? You’ve known you two were soulmates since we were eight?”
“You never tried to make things right. Not once.” Yongguk recovered some of his earlier bravado and shrugged off the vulnerability that had started to loosen his shoulders. “Every time I tried to get you to talk to me you ran away.”
“Maybe because you’re a jerk to him all the time.” Junhong put in helpfully.
Jongup took another step forward, now close enough that he could reach out and touch Yongguk if he dared. But he didn’t. “I was eight, Yongguk.” He repeated. “And I did reach out but I was too embarrassed to say it. Why do you think I found out who your brother was and became his friend? Who do you think gave Lee Mihyung that black eye after he tripped you in gym? Why do you think the cooks give you an extra cup of fruit at lunch? Do you really expect me to just blurt out that I told them you were too shy to admit you had low blood sugar?”
Junhong raised an eyebrow and frowned. “Should I be offended that our friendship is a lie?”
“I don’t have low blood sugar.” Yongguk was still stick straight but his voice had softened and the steely eyes that Jongup was used to were now hesitant and hopeful. He looked like a man whose heart had been broken and was trying his hardest to put it back together. “Why did you tell them that?”
“Because you love fruit. You eat like a million apples a week and you rush down to lunch to be the first in line when pineapple’s on the menu.” Jongup stretched a hand towards him but thought better of it and retracted immediately. “And shut up, Junhong. You know I love you.”
Yongguk’s growl was low as he gazed possessively at an equally coiled Jongup. “Are you still here for a reason, Junhong?”
He could see the way the two were poised and ready to strike at each other and wanted to be as far away as possible when that happened so even though curiosity was eating him alive he stumbled as fast as possible towards his bedroom door. Some things were better off not knowing.
--
It was a Saturday and Saturday’s were his favorite nights of the week. No one but him was home and he could walk freely through the rooms without jumping at every single sound or hurriedly running to the windows when doors slammed outside. He was alone and free.
If the satellite was hooked up he could watch TV but they hadn’t paid that bill the month before so it didn’t work anymore.
The cell phone his mother had bought him for his sixteenth birthday was still in pieces on the floor behind the couch. It wasn’t like having a cell phone did him any good, but at least he had games to play on it.
Even the few books he had collected over the years weren’t enough to amuse him tonight. Something in his chest was fluttery and worried. The anxiousness had slowly built over the evening to full blown panic until he had ran for his bedroom and dove under the blanket covering his bench until his chest slowly started to untighten and he could breathe normally again.
He rubbed against the scar under his wrist as it burned hot inside of him. When he was alone he felt at ease and the calmness would spread through his body like a heavy warmth. Sometimes he could swear he felt a gentle wave stroking across his scar and it was the last push he needed to morph into full-blown euphoria.
So many things in the world frightened him. His stepfather. The darkness. People seeing him for what he really was.
But when he was alone?
When his skin grew taut with goose bumps and his eyes closed as invisible hands traced down every single scar and never faltered over the ruined and marred lines?
Those were the only times he finally felt worthy of something great.
--
Junhong’s fingertip slid across the now fading thumbprints over his shoulders as he stared at himself in his mirror. All alone and in his room with the door securely locked was when he felt safe enough to take off his clothes and see how ravaged his body had become over the years. He didn’t mind it though, he never had. It brought him closer to the one he was supposed to save. They were his own personal map to his soulmate.
He could feel him right now. Could close his eyes and pretend they were together as another touch followed his own like an echo. They were together in his soul even if he couldn’t reach out and pull him closer just yet.
The boxers he had kept on as he viewed his scars were slowly pushed to the floor but he had to quickly grab onto his closet’s doorknob because his mate was now tired of following along behind. He had jumped ahead of him and didn’t even seem to care that Junhong had wanted to be in the lead this time.
His strangled laugh against his wrist when he leaned against the mirror made his scar throb. The warmth from his breath sailed through the thin skin and it turned red and angry again in response.
“I’ll bring you home.” He muttered, just before his eyes started to roll upwards and he was forced to clench his tongue between his teeth so the two boys still fighting next door wouldn’t hear him through the thin walls. “I promise.”
part four