[fic] As in a shadow I held
Title: As in a shadow I held
Length: 1,792 words
Pairing: Kim Jongin, Oh Sehun
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine except for the plot and the writing.
Summary: Jongin's father is a lawyer and his mother is a normal housewife. They live a normal boring life as a normal family with a normal house with normal white picket fences and a normal dog. Jongin wonders why he is the only one who feels so different.
**Sort of a sequel to For she walks along the sea-coast. Please read that one first for better understanding of this story. (I have to bold the part because people kept reading them in backwards order *____*).
Jongin's father is a lawyer and his mother is a normal housewife. They live a normal boring life as a normal family with a normal house with normal white picket fences and a normal dog. Jongin wonders why he is the only one who feels so different.
You are always safe in the shadow, Jongin tells Sehun one morning when they both decide to skip school. Spring arrives late this year, bringing with her the sweet lingering scent of lives in bloom, but it tastes sour in Jongin's mouth. Spring is never his favorite season. Sehun doesn't like spring either. Spring makes Jongin seems a little more distant than he already is.
The shadow? Sehun asks and Jongin nods softly, eyes looking at nothing in particular, looking at something far far away.
The shadow. Jongin says, so resolutely, like it means everything. And perhaps it is. If Sehun could only crack that silly algorithm of everything that had made up Jongin and just understands. But Sehun doesn't like the shadows; they linger in the scary places and scary places mean troubles and he doesn't want to cause troubles because troubles will get his father mad. Sehun hates it when his father is mad.
The shadow saved me when I was too young to know better, Jongin says. The shadow saved me when no one else had even tried. And Sehun finally understands.
At the age of four, Jongin was spirited away by a tengu, or so he says. There was a news about the missing boy showing up in the morning paper consecutively for about four days that made Sehun's mother look worriedly at him all the time and refuse to let him go outside at all. But it suddenly went away after that, like it never happened. Only recently that Sehun found out that said boy was Jongin. Sehun can't even imagine what a tengu should look like because he has never seen one. But Jongin says they are frightening. Sehun has also never seen Jongin looks so scared in his entire life either.
It had big, big, eyes, and big, big, claws. Jongin says as he seems to be shrinking, appearing smaller, like lost little child. It was very strong.
The faded yellow paper in the city library's archive said the boy disappeared sometime between the fourth and the fifth period from the local nursery on a normal Tuesday. The police and a bunch of volunteers went out searching for him for hours on end, but no one found anything, let alone a trace. It was like the boy had just vanished into thin air.
I couldn't fight it off. Jongin continues, eye down-cast. Resentful. Ashamed. Sehun wants to put a hand on Jongin's shoulder but he's afraid it will get shrugged off. Jongin always gets more closed off when he was talking about his past, and Sehun's not handling rejection well these days either, especially from Jongin. So he lets his hand drop and keeps on searching for Jongin's ghost of a smile.
*
Sehun skips the second period on Wednesday, not only because it is Math, but also to prowl through the history section of the deserted dusty library's book shelves. In the Japanese mythology text book, hidden behind stacks of Indian mythology and an old hard-cover of Roman wars, Sehun finds a chapter dedicated to tengu. The text swims in and out of his focus, being that it is littered with an army of hanja and the weird constant references to the previous chapters; Sehun kind of gives up on trying to decipher the riddle and starts focusing on the illustration instead.
They look frightening. These tengu. With red face and long nose and yellow big eyes and dirty earth-colored feathers. Sehun now understands why Jongin is scared. Sehun starts to become scared himself.
I read that it likes to abduct young boys and priests, he tells Jongin that afternoon when he is accompanying Jongin home. Sehun likes to climb on top of the low wall of the park and walks along the narrow brick path with his arms spread wide and his eyes closed. Jongin is there to make sure he doesn't fall down and breaks his neck, or so he hopes. The book also said that it always returned the boys.
But it hung the priests, Jongin says, Yeah, I know. I also read that book, hand shooting out to catch Sehun's waist just before his side can make contact with the hard pavement. The world spins out of focus for one breath, and then Sehun is back on his own two feet, before Jongin lets go completely of his hold. Sehun is no longer skittish but Jongin is never the one to linger on touch anyway.
Jongin lives in a normal house in a normal neighborhood on a normal street behind a normal community center. He has a normal-sized garden, with the normal pink geraniums and the normal blue hydrangeas and the normal white roses. Jongin wonders why he seems to be the only one who feels out of place in his own home.
Even Sehun fits right in with the upholstery: all pale hair and pale limbs and pale pale face. The same fade out color as his faded white walls and his faded white furniture and his faded white parquet. Sehun looks right at home amidst Jongin's sun-kissed pillows and pale blue sheet.
If it comes to your home, Jongin speaks softly, fingers tracing the outline of Sehun's new purple bruise on his shoulder. If it ever comes to you, it will probably let you go. Jongin whispers while mapping the cigarette burn on Sehun's thigh. But it will probably keep your father though. His breath fans Sehun's eyelashes. It probably hangs him with all those priests.
Sehun tightens his hold on Jongin and lets himself drown.
*
Phone call has never been Jongin's forth. Words always fail him when he needs them the most, but somehow Sehun has always been an overly perceptive and exceptional listener.
I'm glad it let you go. Sehun's muffled voice travels through the phone's speaker, words rolling off his tongue in a lazy manner. Sunday morning is when everything seems to slow down, seems to align itself back in the loose manner. Jongin feels normal on most Sunday mornings.
The line goes silent for about three minutes, but when Jongin answers, Sehun is always there. It didn't. Jongin breathes out slowly, It didn't let me go. And Sehun's perplexity is palpable through their the phone line.
Then how-
The shadow saved me, Jongin interrupts. The shadow came and took me away and it was scary at first but then it wasn't. Jongin lays the side of his face on his desk and starts scratching a random figure on the wooden surface with a small kitchen knife. And then I was safe.
The carved out figure looks like Sehun, but with hands and feet tied under the sea. Jongin thinks Sehun's stick figure is smiling. But then he's not sure whether Sehun's real smile will look anything like the stiff stretch of lips he often gives when he attempts to copy a smile. He frowns, and the shadow grows thicker at the corner of his vision.
You will be safe, too. Jongin breathes out softly. You will be safe under the sea. And then he slowly lets out, and you will be safe in the shadow, and through the phone, he hears a voice of a man yelling and something being smashed following with a loud yelp and then a drawn out whimper.
Jongin looks at the corner of his bedroom and the shadow looks back at him with eyes like moth, its claws look like those of the tengu, but this time Jongin is not afraid. This time he is enraged. He is furious.
*
You are always safe in the shadow, Jongin says, and the old lady selling patbingsoo next to the city hall looks at their uniform suspiciously but serves them ice anyway. It's only ten in the morning and no school lets out its students before the last period in the afternoon. But they skip school often enough to develop a thick skin from all the accusation.
Sehun licks at the cold spoon gingerly, lip busted, and asks, the shadow? and Jongin nods before shoveling ice into his own mouth, sweats rolling down his temple, dampening his uniform collar and making his bangs stick to his face.
Sehun read in the faded yellow paper from the city library's archive that the police found Jongin three days later, lying behind the bush in the public park, unconscious. They raided the kidnapper's house the day before but they found his body hung to the ceiling fan in the living room, long dead even before they got there, no sign of Jongin in sight. No one understaood why Jongin appeared later in the park.
Dad didn't even want to save me, says Jongin, wiping away his sweat with the back of his hand. He could. But he wouldn't. He shrugs half-heartedly. I found out later he didn't want to negotiate with a crook.
Sehun also read in the newspaper that the kidnapper was a criminal prosecuted by Jongin's father before being sent to prison for things he claimed to never commit. He spent years trying to get an appeal and when he did, when he finally out of the prison, he came right at Jongin's family. No one knew why he killed himself though. Sehun suspects Jongin might know, but he isn't going to ask.
You are always safe in the shadow. Jongin breathes out softly, with the shadow looming above and behind him, slowly carding its scrawny fingers through his hair. In the shadow, you can be anything, and then it whispers, you can be as strong, whispering so softly, or you can be as weak.
I don't want to be weak. Jongin breathes out and Sehun suddenly hears the sound of his mother beckoning him from the sea. I can't be weak again.
So Sehun says, You won't be weak when I need you to do it, right?
And Jongin looks right at him. His eyes that seem to always be so dark sparkle and he smiles, I won't be weak when you need me to, Sehun-ah. He lifts his fingers and touches the corner of Sehun's lip, right where his father slapped him yesterday.
We can only save ourselves, Jongin murmurs, so I will be strong for the both of us.
And the shadow buzzes contentedly. Sehun goes back to gingerly eating his shaved ice, and when Jongin glances at the shadow sideway, he finally finally feels right at his own home. Satisfied. Quiet. Quenched.
Normal.
Started: 130530
Finished: 130813
It finally turns into a verse ;_______; The next installment is going to be creepy because I'd like creep Sehun out.
Length: 1,792 words
Pairing: Kim Jongin, Oh Sehun
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine except for the plot and the writing.
Summary: Jongin's father is a lawyer and his mother is a normal housewife. They live a normal boring life as a normal family with a normal house with normal white picket fences and a normal dog. Jongin wonders why he is the only one who feels so different.
**Sort of a sequel to For she walks along the sea-coast. Please read that one first for better understanding of this story. (I have to bold the part because people kept reading them in backwards order *____*).
Jongin's father is a lawyer and his mother is a normal housewife. They live a normal boring life as a normal family with a normal house with normal white picket fences and a normal dog. Jongin wonders why he is the only one who feels so different.
You are always safe in the shadow, Jongin tells Sehun one morning when they both decide to skip school. Spring arrives late this year, bringing with her the sweet lingering scent of lives in bloom, but it tastes sour in Jongin's mouth. Spring is never his favorite season. Sehun doesn't like spring either. Spring makes Jongin seems a little more distant than he already is.
The shadow? Sehun asks and Jongin nods softly, eyes looking at nothing in particular, looking at something far far away.
The shadow. Jongin says, so resolutely, like it means everything. And perhaps it is. If Sehun could only crack that silly algorithm of everything that had made up Jongin and just understands. But Sehun doesn't like the shadows; they linger in the scary places and scary places mean troubles and he doesn't want to cause troubles because troubles will get his father mad. Sehun hates it when his father is mad.
The shadow saved me when I was too young to know better, Jongin says. The shadow saved me when no one else had even tried. And Sehun finally understands.
At the age of four, Jongin was spirited away by a tengu, or so he says. There was a news about the missing boy showing up in the morning paper consecutively for about four days that made Sehun's mother look worriedly at him all the time and refuse to let him go outside at all. But it suddenly went away after that, like it never happened. Only recently that Sehun found out that said boy was Jongin. Sehun can't even imagine what a tengu should look like because he has never seen one. But Jongin says they are frightening. Sehun has also never seen Jongin looks so scared in his entire life either.
It had big, big, eyes, and big, big, claws. Jongin says as he seems to be shrinking, appearing smaller, like lost little child. It was very strong.
The faded yellow paper in the city library's archive said the boy disappeared sometime between the fourth and the fifth period from the local nursery on a normal Tuesday. The police and a bunch of volunteers went out searching for him for hours on end, but no one found anything, let alone a trace. It was like the boy had just vanished into thin air.
I couldn't fight it off. Jongin continues, eye down-cast. Resentful. Ashamed. Sehun wants to put a hand on Jongin's shoulder but he's afraid it will get shrugged off. Jongin always gets more closed off when he was talking about his past, and Sehun's not handling rejection well these days either, especially from Jongin. So he lets his hand drop and keeps on searching for Jongin's ghost of a smile.
*
Sehun skips the second period on Wednesday, not only because it is Math, but also to prowl through the history section of the deserted dusty library's book shelves. In the Japanese mythology text book, hidden behind stacks of Indian mythology and an old hard-cover of Roman wars, Sehun finds a chapter dedicated to tengu. The text swims in and out of his focus, being that it is littered with an army of hanja and the weird constant references to the previous chapters; Sehun kind of gives up on trying to decipher the riddle and starts focusing on the illustration instead.
They look frightening. These tengu. With red face and long nose and yellow big eyes and dirty earth-colored feathers. Sehun now understands why Jongin is scared. Sehun starts to become scared himself.
I read that it likes to abduct young boys and priests, he tells Jongin that afternoon when he is accompanying Jongin home. Sehun likes to climb on top of the low wall of the park and walks along the narrow brick path with his arms spread wide and his eyes closed. Jongin is there to make sure he doesn't fall down and breaks his neck, or so he hopes. The book also said that it always returned the boys.
But it hung the priests, Jongin says, Yeah, I know. I also read that book, hand shooting out to catch Sehun's waist just before his side can make contact with the hard pavement. The world spins out of focus for one breath, and then Sehun is back on his own two feet, before Jongin lets go completely of his hold. Sehun is no longer skittish but Jongin is never the one to linger on touch anyway.
Jongin lives in a normal house in a normal neighborhood on a normal street behind a normal community center. He has a normal-sized garden, with the normal pink geraniums and the normal blue hydrangeas and the normal white roses. Jongin wonders why he seems to be the only one who feels out of place in his own home.
Even Sehun fits right in with the upholstery: all pale hair and pale limbs and pale pale face. The same fade out color as his faded white walls and his faded white furniture and his faded white parquet. Sehun looks right at home amidst Jongin's sun-kissed pillows and pale blue sheet.
If it comes to your home, Jongin speaks softly, fingers tracing the outline of Sehun's new purple bruise on his shoulder. If it ever comes to you, it will probably let you go. Jongin whispers while mapping the cigarette burn on Sehun's thigh. But it will probably keep your father though. His breath fans Sehun's eyelashes. It probably hangs him with all those priests.
Sehun tightens his hold on Jongin and lets himself drown.
*
Phone call has never been Jongin's forth. Words always fail him when he needs them the most, but somehow Sehun has always been an overly perceptive and exceptional listener.
I'm glad it let you go. Sehun's muffled voice travels through the phone's speaker, words rolling off his tongue in a lazy manner. Sunday morning is when everything seems to slow down, seems to align itself back in the loose manner. Jongin feels normal on most Sunday mornings.
The line goes silent for about three minutes, but when Jongin answers, Sehun is always there. It didn't. Jongin breathes out slowly, It didn't let me go. And Sehun's perplexity is palpable through their the phone line.
Then how-
The shadow saved me, Jongin interrupts. The shadow came and took me away and it was scary at first but then it wasn't. Jongin lays the side of his face on his desk and starts scratching a random figure on the wooden surface with a small kitchen knife. And then I was safe.
The carved out figure looks like Sehun, but with hands and feet tied under the sea. Jongin thinks Sehun's stick figure is smiling. But then he's not sure whether Sehun's real smile will look anything like the stiff stretch of lips he often gives when he attempts to copy a smile. He frowns, and the shadow grows thicker at the corner of his vision.
You will be safe, too. Jongin breathes out softly. You will be safe under the sea. And then he slowly lets out, and you will be safe in the shadow, and through the phone, he hears a voice of a man yelling and something being smashed following with a loud yelp and then a drawn out whimper.
Jongin looks at the corner of his bedroom and the shadow looks back at him with eyes like moth, its claws look like those of the tengu, but this time Jongin is not afraid. This time he is enraged. He is furious.
*
You are always safe in the shadow, Jongin says, and the old lady selling patbingsoo next to the city hall looks at their uniform suspiciously but serves them ice anyway. It's only ten in the morning and no school lets out its students before the last period in the afternoon. But they skip school often enough to develop a thick skin from all the accusation.
Sehun licks at the cold spoon gingerly, lip busted, and asks, the shadow? and Jongin nods before shoveling ice into his own mouth, sweats rolling down his temple, dampening his uniform collar and making his bangs stick to his face.
Sehun read in the faded yellow paper from the city library's archive that the police found Jongin three days later, lying behind the bush in the public park, unconscious. They raided the kidnapper's house the day before but they found his body hung to the ceiling fan in the living room, long dead even before they got there, no sign of Jongin in sight. No one understaood why Jongin appeared later in the park.
Dad didn't even want to save me, says Jongin, wiping away his sweat with the back of his hand. He could. But he wouldn't. He shrugs half-heartedly. I found out later he didn't want to negotiate with a crook.
Sehun also read in the newspaper that the kidnapper was a criminal prosecuted by Jongin's father before being sent to prison for things he claimed to never commit. He spent years trying to get an appeal and when he did, when he finally out of the prison, he came right at Jongin's family. No one knew why he killed himself though. Sehun suspects Jongin might know, but he isn't going to ask.
You are always safe in the shadow. Jongin breathes out softly, with the shadow looming above and behind him, slowly carding its scrawny fingers through his hair. In the shadow, you can be anything, and then it whispers, you can be as strong, whispering so softly, or you can be as weak.
I don't want to be weak. Jongin breathes out and Sehun suddenly hears the sound of his mother beckoning him from the sea. I can't be weak again.
So Sehun says, You won't be weak when I need you to do it, right?
And Jongin looks right at him. His eyes that seem to always be so dark sparkle and he smiles, I won't be weak when you need me to, Sehun-ah. He lifts his fingers and touches the corner of Sehun's lip, right where his father slapped him yesterday.
We can only save ourselves, Jongin murmurs, so I will be strong for the both of us.
And the shadow buzzes contentedly. Sehun goes back to gingerly eating his shaved ice, and when Jongin glances at the shadow sideway, he finally finally feels right at his own home. Satisfied. Quiet. Quenched.
Normal.
Started: 130530
Finished: 130813
It finally turns into a verse ;_______; The next installment is going to be creepy because I'd like creep Sehun out.