You Brought Me Here (The Best Day), Jongyu, PG
Title: You Brought Me Here (The Best Day)
Pairing: Onew/Jonghyun, siblings!Key/Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG
Summary: After years of hiding his memories in an old shoebox, Jinki has finally decided to share them with his boys.
AN: This was completely inspired by this site. I liked the idea originally, but I'm not quite sure how it turned out. Something feels off about it. :/ Originally it was also written in present tense so if you spot some tense issues, that's probably why. :P
I turned ninety-eight that day.
I turned ninety-eight and all three of my adopted sons came to visit, gave me hugs, gave me kisses on the cheeks, wished me a happy birthday, gave me their gifts; gave me their love.
But every year I wondered where you were.
Every night I dreamed of balloons and photos. And when I woke up, I wondered why you left me.
“Hey, Dad, where do you keep all your photos?” That was my youngest, Taemin. Even he was starting to look older. He was only - what? - seventy-something? (“I’m sixty-five, Dad, you knew that.” “Oh, that’s right.”)
“The best ones are under my bed,” I told him. He smiled and got up from his seat. As he walked away, I swore he turned back into his sixteen year old self and skipped down the hall to my room. But I blinked once and he was an adult growing tired under his aching bones and wrinkled skin. Gone was the innocent little boy who literally danced his way through high school. Gone was my little boy; the last one you and I adopted together.
“Dad, are you alright?” my eldest, Kibum, asked. I was knocked out of my thoughts as soon as he spoke. If Taemin was sixty-five, Kibum was probably sixty-six or sixty-seven. What month was it again? Oh yeah, it was December. My birthday is in December. Kibum was born in September. So if Taemin was sixty-five, Kibum was sixty-seven.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assured him. He gave me that same look he always gave me when he was about eighteen or nineteen. The look that was accusing and caring at the same time. Somehow, he always seemed to know when something was up, even if nothing was actually wrong. It made giving him surprises very difficult. You were really the only one who could ever put anything past him. Granted, he wasn’t as smart as he grew up to be last time you put something past him.
“What is that kid doing?” Minho - my middle son - wondered aloud as he thought of Taemin. Sixty-seven. His birthday was a few days earlier. He got up from his seat to go looking for his younger brother when Taemin suddenly came back with a shoebox.
“Sorry that took a little longer than expected,” he apologized as he took his seat again. “I forget that I’m not as young as I used to be. My back doesn’t like to bend anymore.” I looked at his smile and thought it wasn’t as young as it used to be either. I also thought it was a great shame that all his talent for dancing had been taken away with his years.
My attention returned to the box as Taemin lifted the lid off to reveal a bunch of old photos. “Those aren’t in any particular order, by the way. Sometimes I just kind of throw them around as I look at them.”
“It’s nice to know you ‘throw’ your memories around,” Kibum commented jokingly. I couldn’t help but laugh. I always thought his personality was wonderful even though he could be a little prickly at times. He was always able to make me laugh.
Taemin passed around a separate, small stack to Kibum, Minho, and me to look through. We all sat silently for a minute, just smiling at the old photos in our hands, remembering how we all used to be. Taemin broke the silence first, smiling down at a picture of himself from when he was probably five or six. In the picture, he was crouched down in a giant pile of leaves, a timeless smile plastered on his face.
“Even after all these years, I still love to play in the leaves.”
“I know you do,” Minho commented with a soft smile. “Every time we go for walks together during the fall, you walk in zigzags to step on crunchy leaves.” Taemin smiled goofily as if he were five again. “And I’m sure that if your back wasn’t giving you problems, you would be bent over in a pile very similar to the one in the picture.”
Taemin didn’t deny it.
“Hey, do you guys remember the old tin boat we rented that one year?” Kibum asked from the table where he and I were both sitting. He set a photo down on the table of all of us piled into the little motor boat. We had gotten someone to take a picture of us from the dock.
“You mean the one we had to buy because someone put a hole in it?” Minho asked, eyeing Taemin accusingly.
“Did you really expect a kid of eight years of age to have any idea how to steer a motor boat?” Taemin asked in his defense.
“Whose idea was that anyway?” Kibum wondered with a laugh. But the room fell silent at that question, and I don’t need to ask to know whose idea it was.
“Do you want to call him Dad #1 or Dad #2?” I asked. “He’s in a few of these pictures.”
“What would you call him if you were us?” Minho asked when no one was able to decide.
I didn’t answer right away, but then I blinked and turned my eyes towards all three of them. “If I were you, I don’t know how well I would remember him.”
“I remember him,” Kibum piped up. “Quite well actually.”
“I remember him, too,” Minho commented. “But after all these years, it’s kind of fuzzy.”
“I’m pretty sure I remember him, too,” Taemin said hesitantly. “I mean, I remember the boat, but it’s so hard to tell if everything else I remember is actually memory or if I made things up from pictures I’ve seen. I’ve always had a terrible memory anyway.”
“We know, Taemin. You lose everything,” Minho pointed out, laughing.
“I do not lose everything,” Taemin said defensively. “I just forget where I put things.”
“That’s the point,” Kibum laughs.
“All you need to know about him,” I interjected, still stuck on the pervious conversation, “is that he loved you more than his music.” And I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as I thought of him.
“Dad, don’t cry, please,” Kibum begged as he came around the table and crouched down in front of me. “Let’s stop talking about it, alright? I don’t like to see you like this. Besides, it’s your birthday. You shouldn’t be crying on your birthday.”
“No, I need this. I need to tell you about him,” I said firmly as I rubbed the excess moisture from my eyes. “I can’t continue pretending he never existed when I still wish he were here.”
“We can wait, Dad,” Minho said from his chair, looking as concerned as Kibum looked. “We’ve waited this long, haven’t we?”
“Any longer and it may be too late to tell you anything.”
“Kibum, look at this one,” Taemin said, getting Kibum’s attention away from their father and onto a picture from when he was a tiny little boy. In the picture, little Kibum was holding a leash and an almost equally little dog was at the very end, walking beside him. Kibum marveled at how tiny he once was. Even after all the pictures, he still found it hard to believe he was ever that tiny.
“Do you remember Roo?” I asked Kibum.
He just smiled and nodded. “I loved that dog. I even loved walking the dog back then.” His smile faltered a bit at his next thought. “Now walking the dog feels like a chore.”
“Minho,” I called, getting his attention, “do you remember these?” I handed him two photos with a small smile. He took one look at the photos and his expression changed to a look of horror. He then placed them under his butt so no one else could get at them.
“What did you just give him, Dad?” Taemin asked curiously. I was starting to think that time really hadn’t done all that much to change my little Taemin. He was still as energetic and curious as he was in my old, fading memory.
“Don’t tell him, Dad, please,” Minho begged. But I just couldn’t resist.
“I just showed him the picture of him with his broken arm and the picture we took when he dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.” Kibum and Taemin both burst into laughter as Minho blushed a bright red color. Minho was thirteen when he broke his arm after falling out of a tree. He was fifteen when he lost a bet and was forced to wear the Dorothy costume. Kibum had always blamed that event for Minho’s excessive will to win at everything.
“It’s alright,” Taemin said comfortingly as he patted Minho’s shoulder. “You looked good in the blue dress!” Minho swiped at Taemin with his hand but missed when Taemin somehow manages to duck out of the way.
“Alright, break it up,” Kibum said loudly. He was back in his seat by this point and staring at both of his younger brothers disapprovingly. He acted like their mother when they were kids, too. Some things really did never change.
“Hey, do you guys remember dressing like this specifically to sit on those old stairs?” I asked, tearing their attention away from each other. Only Kibum and Minho were in this picture, but it made Taemin smile at the memories as well. They were in colorful boots and giant sunglasses as well as colorful little shirts. They were about eleven or twelve and they were sitting on the grey concrete stairs that served as our porch.
“I remember giving you many successful fashion shows,” Kibum noted. “I used to be ‘the fashion designer, Key’, and I was a master of my craft to you guys.” He smiled at the mere memory of his nickname that has long been out of use.
Minho looked fondly at the picture as well. Those were probably the only times he ever enjoyed being told what to wear. It was actually fun. He looked at the picture again and a thought seemed to cross his mind. “Wait a minute. You painted those steps, right?” he asked me.
I smiled sadly before answering. “I painted them blue after Taemin left. I felt like I almost had to.”
“Why?” Key asked.
“Because they just weren’t as colorful without you three,” I answered. “After you three left to make your own ways in the world, I felt lonely.”
My eyes fell on each one of my sons. Minho looks contemplative. Kibum was wearing his own sorry expression. But when my eyes fell on Taemin, the man was holding a photo and was looking at it with great confusion.
“How come I don’t remember this?” he said so quietly it was almost a whisper.
“What is it?” I asked as I reached for the picture. I pried it out of his willing hands gently and turn it around so I can see it. I barely resisted the urge to burst into tears.
“This was right after he was buried,” I muttered. The picture was of a gravestone at the very edge of a large graveyard. All three of my boys were standing behind it with smiles on their faces. They were so small.
“Dad, what was his name?” Taemin asked. I looked up at him and see a breaking heart in his eyes. I don’t think he could remember much. “I can’t even see his face anymore. I feel terrible.”
“It’s alright, Taemin, it’s not your fault,” Key said, getting up from his seat again to comfort his youngest brother.
“Jonghyun,” I said.
“What?” Taemin asked, looking away from his older brother.
“His name was Jonghyun,” I clarified, a sad smile playing on my lips as I stared at the photo I had taken from Taemin. I placed it down and flipped through the photos in my stack once more before placing two down on the table for them to see. “And teaching you all to swim was his first priority.” The first picture was of Kibum and Minho in a small inflatable pool in the middle of the backyard. I questioned you on how an inflatable pool was going to teach our sons how to swim when they could barely lie down in it and be covered in water. You assured me it was how you learned to swim, and yet, when we arrived at the beach during that summer, our boys still had no idea how to swim.
You took a different approach with Taemin.
We took him straight to the beach and plunked him down in the water, and before we knew it, he was swimming around like a pro. The second picture was taken a few months after he learned to swim. You were putting him in a tiny inflatable boat in our real pool so he could float around for a bit.
Taemin seemed to like it when he was younger. But as the boys grew older, the pool seemed to become a wasted investment when no one used it and all it was good for was wasting water and collecting water bugs when someone forgot to cover it.
“Here’s another one of him,” Minho commented as he handed over the picture. You were putting Kibum into our car for the first time. It was the day we brought him home. At the time, we didn’t think we were ever going to be back, but we went and adopted Minho only a few months later. A third child took a lot longer to decide on, but a little more than a year later, we went back and got Taemin.
“Found another one!” Kibum called excitedly. He was probably thrilled with the subject of you because he probably couldn’t remember ever talking about you as much as this. I had kept those pictures from them all those years because I was afraid my own memories would crop up and hurt my heart even more than it already was. I was right, but this was something that needed to happen. All that my boys knew about you was what little they could remember. That wasn’t fair.
And as they brought me picture after picture of you - you and I, you and them, you and them and me - I felt my heart breaking even more.
I stare down at the picture in my hands. It is not of you, but it is of someone else I love just as much. He was so little when the photo was taken.
“Minho, why didn’t you face the camera?” I asked him. The room went quiet and the pictures of you that they wanted stories attached to were forgotten. “I want to see your cute little face again.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” He dropped the photo he had picked out of you into his lap and looked for another. He pulled one up and smiled. “There I am.” He turned it around and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was Minho in an oversized striped shirt and blue shorts. He was flexing his non-existent little muscles, and a huge, childish grin was painted on his face.
“It is you.” Then I looked up at him again. “It’s still you.”
“Are you sure that’s me,” he asked as he flexed his tired muscles. “Where did all my super powers go?” he asks with a wistful look. Then he pulled out another one and handed it to me. He was shooting some balls at the basketball hoop that hung over our driveway. “I drained threes all day.”
“Yes, you did,” I muttered. “Sometimes it was hard to get you to stop just to eat.”
“At least I was at the front of the house most of the time,” Minho commented as he held a certain photo in his hand. He cast a smirk in Kibum’s direction. “Unlike a certain elder brother of mine who kept disappearing on his bike every day.”
And suddenly, I laughed so loud I scared myself. “Oh, how true!” I exclaimed. “I used to think he was so tired of living with us that he decided to run away. Kibum, you stayed out way too late on that old bike and it scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry, Dad,” he said with a slightly embarrassed smile as Minho handed him the picture. Kibum was just a little kid sitting atop his new bike. “It was my first bike. I loved that thing.” Then he laughed a little to himself. “The one I got when I was older went a little faster.” He was referring to the motorcycle that he had until about the age of thirty. Then he got a car like most people did.
Then Minho stumbled upon a photo of himself and Kibum. It was of one of the few times they weren’t fighting when they were younger. They were sitting in the same recliner, Kibum sitting in Minho’s lap because he was smaller. I managed to catch it on film. Minho showed it to Kibum and smiled.
“Sorry I was such an ass when we were younger,” he apologized. “But you have to admit, it made moments like these worth it.”
“Just shut up and maybe they were worth it,” Kibum growled. But he tacked on a smile at the end.
The rest of the day was spent asking where certain articles of clothing were (“Where is that Mickey Mouse hat now?” “I don’t know. It kind of disappeared after the picture was taken.” “Why in the world did I wear bear slippers?” “Because you were bear-y cool.” “Not funny, Dad.” You were the only one who used to laugh at my lame jokes), and wondering why certain pieces of the pictures were no longer standing. (“That swing was awesome! Why did they take it down?” “I heard it got too rusty to be safe anymore.”)
When we got to the bottom of the old shoebox, there was an old VHS tape and a photo hidden underneath it. Taemin took out the tape and looked it over for a title, but there was nothing written on it. “What’s this, Dad?” he asked.
I just eye the tape. I would never forget that tape. If I tried for a million years, I would never be able to forget the precious memories that that tape held.
“Pop it in the player,” I told Taemin. So he got up from his seat and approached the small television that sat on the counter next to the table. He popped the tape in the player while I reached for the final picture in the box. I flipped it over, knowing already what picture it was.
You and I had our backs faced to the camera. We were both in suits and we walked hand in hand down a long path, tree branches arching over our heads.
It was the day we promised to spend our lives together.
It was the day of our wedding.
“That was the best day.”
And then the video in the VCR started to play. Everyone is so engrossed that I was almost scared to breathe.
The first few cuts were of you and I just walking down some street I can’t remember the name of. We were in our late teens. I was going to turn twenty in a matter of months. You were not far behind. The day that video was recorded, you said you had found us a fun modeling job. It was just for fun, you said. We didn’t really need the money at the time. Our parents were paying our way through college and we both had jobs.
It was just for fun. Just for fun.
It was a playful kind of thing. They gave me a bike to ride down the road and casual clothing. Later on in the shoot, they attached colorful balloons to the rear wheel of the bike. As I rode it, Jonghyun ran after me, laughing the whole way. The video cuts to us just smiling, laughing, and playing around. Then it cuts to us on a stage.
The song we were singing is one I would always remember.
You can’t, you can’t
Don’t leave like this
Please just one more time
One more time
Hold me in your arms again
The next time I close my eyes to meet you
Hold me as I stay still in that spot
By the time I found myself in tears, the song was finally over and the video cut again to something else. Then the best moment of my life was being played on the little screen.
”Jinki, I love you and I want to be with you forever,” you said as you faced a nineteen year old me. My face looked so taken aback by the sudden confession, but I remember knowing what came next and what you were going to ask. Then you got down on one knee and took my hand in yours. ”Jinki, will you marry me?” you asked. I remember not being able to breathe, and that’s exactly how I looked on the video; breathless. And the moment I got a single ounce of air back into my lungs, I used it to give you the answer you were hoping for.
“Yes.”
The video cut out again. The next thing I saw were three very short clips of baby boys. The screen went black and nothing else played.
Taemin was first to speak. “Wow, Dad, you both sang beautifully.” Minho about smacked him over the head.
“Is that all you can say?” he questioned.
“I sang that song every night after he was gone,” I admitted. “I whispered the lyrics into his pillow and sang them as often as I could, but it was a song we sang together. It was not the same with only half of the notes. But I tried anyway. And it ruined my voice after years of trying. I just wish you all knew him better.”
“I think…” Minho began. “I think I speak for all three of us when I say, we know him enough to believe that he loved us more than we could ever imagine.”
“That’s all I could ever hope for,” I said with a teary smile. A moment later, a big yawn forced its way out of my mouth. My boys looked at me with understanding.
“We should probably leave you to rest,” Kibum said, standing from his seat. “It’s getting really late.” Minho and Taemin nodded in agreement as they got up from their chairs as well. “We’ll see you soon, okay, Dad?” he said as he leaned down to give me a firm hug. I nodded, but something in me was thinking that I was never going to see my sons again. The thought made me tighten my arms around my eldest momentarily, as if out of fear. When Taemin and Minho gave me their hugs, I did the same thing to them.
“Love you, Dad,” they all said as they waved goodbye to me.
A tear fell down my face once more as I waved back to them. “I love you, too, boys.” They would always be my baby boys. I realized that that day. No matter how much they change as the years went by, they would always be the same boys they were when they were five.
When the door was shut behind them, I went back to the VCR and rewound the tape inside. I sat back in my seat and took our wedding photo in my hands again. I must have watched that video twenty times before I start to feel myself finally giving in to sleep. I looked at our picture.
“That was the best day. That was the best day. That was the best day.”
It was a chant to calm myself. And as I watched your smiling face on that video for the twenty-fifth time that day, I couldn’t help but wonder where I would be if I had not met you. I would not have had my boys. I would not have had that shoebox of memories. I would not have had everything that gave my life spark. I would probably have been a lonely, sad, old man. And I was, but I was still loved.
My chant changes.
“September 23rd, December 9th, July 18th…April 8th. September 23rd, December 9th, July 18th, April 8th.”
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
You brought me to where I am today.
With that thought and the television screen only playing black and white scribbles, I finally fell asleep. I whispered lyrics and birthdates in my sleep until I started to dream. You were there. You took my hand and led me away.
“Our boys will come,” you said, “someday.” But for that moment, it was time for only me. And as you smiled at me, I realized we are both young and back at the age we were when we first fell in love. I knew you were taking me away to somewhere wonderful. Away to a better place.
Away to a place we could sing again.
-----
AN2: Hope this wasn't too terrible. Thanks for reading.
Pairing: Onew/Jonghyun, siblings!Key/Minho/Taemin
Rating: PG
Summary: After years of hiding his memories in an old shoebox, Jinki has finally decided to share them with his boys.
AN: This was completely inspired by this site. I liked the idea originally, but I'm not quite sure how it turned out. Something feels off about it. :/ Originally it was also written in present tense so if you spot some tense issues, that's probably why. :P
I turned ninety-eight that day.
I turned ninety-eight and all three of my adopted sons came to visit, gave me hugs, gave me kisses on the cheeks, wished me a happy birthday, gave me their gifts; gave me their love.
But every year I wondered where you were.
Every night I dreamed of balloons and photos. And when I woke up, I wondered why you left me.
“Hey, Dad, where do you keep all your photos?” That was my youngest, Taemin. Even he was starting to look older. He was only - what? - seventy-something? (“I’m sixty-five, Dad, you knew that.” “Oh, that’s right.”)
“The best ones are under my bed,” I told him. He smiled and got up from his seat. As he walked away, I swore he turned back into his sixteen year old self and skipped down the hall to my room. But I blinked once and he was an adult growing tired under his aching bones and wrinkled skin. Gone was the innocent little boy who literally danced his way through high school. Gone was my little boy; the last one you and I adopted together.
“Dad, are you alright?” my eldest, Kibum, asked. I was knocked out of my thoughts as soon as he spoke. If Taemin was sixty-five, Kibum was probably sixty-six or sixty-seven. What month was it again? Oh yeah, it was December. My birthday is in December. Kibum was born in September. So if Taemin was sixty-five, Kibum was sixty-seven.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assured him. He gave me that same look he always gave me when he was about eighteen or nineteen. The look that was accusing and caring at the same time. Somehow, he always seemed to know when something was up, even if nothing was actually wrong. It made giving him surprises very difficult. You were really the only one who could ever put anything past him. Granted, he wasn’t as smart as he grew up to be last time you put something past him.
“What is that kid doing?” Minho - my middle son - wondered aloud as he thought of Taemin. Sixty-seven. His birthday was a few days earlier. He got up from his seat to go looking for his younger brother when Taemin suddenly came back with a shoebox.
“Sorry that took a little longer than expected,” he apologized as he took his seat again. “I forget that I’m not as young as I used to be. My back doesn’t like to bend anymore.” I looked at his smile and thought it wasn’t as young as it used to be either. I also thought it was a great shame that all his talent for dancing had been taken away with his years.
My attention returned to the box as Taemin lifted the lid off to reveal a bunch of old photos. “Those aren’t in any particular order, by the way. Sometimes I just kind of throw them around as I look at them.”
“It’s nice to know you ‘throw’ your memories around,” Kibum commented jokingly. I couldn’t help but laugh. I always thought his personality was wonderful even though he could be a little prickly at times. He was always able to make me laugh.
Taemin passed around a separate, small stack to Kibum, Minho, and me to look through. We all sat silently for a minute, just smiling at the old photos in our hands, remembering how we all used to be. Taemin broke the silence first, smiling down at a picture of himself from when he was probably five or six. In the picture, he was crouched down in a giant pile of leaves, a timeless smile plastered on his face.
“Even after all these years, I still love to play in the leaves.”
“I know you do,” Minho commented with a soft smile. “Every time we go for walks together during the fall, you walk in zigzags to step on crunchy leaves.” Taemin smiled goofily as if he were five again. “And I’m sure that if your back wasn’t giving you problems, you would be bent over in a pile very similar to the one in the picture.”
Taemin didn’t deny it.
“Hey, do you guys remember the old tin boat we rented that one year?” Kibum asked from the table where he and I were both sitting. He set a photo down on the table of all of us piled into the little motor boat. We had gotten someone to take a picture of us from the dock.
“You mean the one we had to buy because someone put a hole in it?” Minho asked, eyeing Taemin accusingly.
“Did you really expect a kid of eight years of age to have any idea how to steer a motor boat?” Taemin asked in his defense.
“Whose idea was that anyway?” Kibum wondered with a laugh. But the room fell silent at that question, and I don’t need to ask to know whose idea it was.
“Do you want to call him Dad #1 or Dad #2?” I asked. “He’s in a few of these pictures.”
“What would you call him if you were us?” Minho asked when no one was able to decide.
I didn’t answer right away, but then I blinked and turned my eyes towards all three of them. “If I were you, I don’t know how well I would remember him.”
“I remember him,” Kibum piped up. “Quite well actually.”
“I remember him, too,” Minho commented. “But after all these years, it’s kind of fuzzy.”
“I’m pretty sure I remember him, too,” Taemin said hesitantly. “I mean, I remember the boat, but it’s so hard to tell if everything else I remember is actually memory or if I made things up from pictures I’ve seen. I’ve always had a terrible memory anyway.”
“We know, Taemin. You lose everything,” Minho pointed out, laughing.
“I do not lose everything,” Taemin said defensively. “I just forget where I put things.”
“That’s the point,” Kibum laughs.
“All you need to know about him,” I interjected, still stuck on the pervious conversation, “is that he loved you more than his music.” And I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as I thought of him.
“Dad, don’t cry, please,” Kibum begged as he came around the table and crouched down in front of me. “Let’s stop talking about it, alright? I don’t like to see you like this. Besides, it’s your birthday. You shouldn’t be crying on your birthday.”
“No, I need this. I need to tell you about him,” I said firmly as I rubbed the excess moisture from my eyes. “I can’t continue pretending he never existed when I still wish he were here.”
“We can wait, Dad,” Minho said from his chair, looking as concerned as Kibum looked. “We’ve waited this long, haven’t we?”
“Any longer and it may be too late to tell you anything.”
“Kibum, look at this one,” Taemin said, getting Kibum’s attention away from their father and onto a picture from when he was a tiny little boy. In the picture, little Kibum was holding a leash and an almost equally little dog was at the very end, walking beside him. Kibum marveled at how tiny he once was. Even after all the pictures, he still found it hard to believe he was ever that tiny.
“Do you remember Roo?” I asked Kibum.
He just smiled and nodded. “I loved that dog. I even loved walking the dog back then.” His smile faltered a bit at his next thought. “Now walking the dog feels like a chore.”
“Minho,” I called, getting his attention, “do you remember these?” I handed him two photos with a small smile. He took one look at the photos and his expression changed to a look of horror. He then placed them under his butt so no one else could get at them.
“What did you just give him, Dad?” Taemin asked curiously. I was starting to think that time really hadn’t done all that much to change my little Taemin. He was still as energetic and curious as he was in my old, fading memory.
“Don’t tell him, Dad, please,” Minho begged. But I just couldn’t resist.
“I just showed him the picture of him with his broken arm and the picture we took when he dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.” Kibum and Taemin both burst into laughter as Minho blushed a bright red color. Minho was thirteen when he broke his arm after falling out of a tree. He was fifteen when he lost a bet and was forced to wear the Dorothy costume. Kibum had always blamed that event for Minho’s excessive will to win at everything.
“It’s alright,” Taemin said comfortingly as he patted Minho’s shoulder. “You looked good in the blue dress!” Minho swiped at Taemin with his hand but missed when Taemin somehow manages to duck out of the way.
“Alright, break it up,” Kibum said loudly. He was back in his seat by this point and staring at both of his younger brothers disapprovingly. He acted like their mother when they were kids, too. Some things really did never change.
“Hey, do you guys remember dressing like this specifically to sit on those old stairs?” I asked, tearing their attention away from each other. Only Kibum and Minho were in this picture, but it made Taemin smile at the memories as well. They were in colorful boots and giant sunglasses as well as colorful little shirts. They were about eleven or twelve and they were sitting on the grey concrete stairs that served as our porch.
“I remember giving you many successful fashion shows,” Kibum noted. “I used to be ‘the fashion designer, Key’, and I was a master of my craft to you guys.” He smiled at the mere memory of his nickname that has long been out of use.
Minho looked fondly at the picture as well. Those were probably the only times he ever enjoyed being told what to wear. It was actually fun. He looked at the picture again and a thought seemed to cross his mind. “Wait a minute. You painted those steps, right?” he asked me.
I smiled sadly before answering. “I painted them blue after Taemin left. I felt like I almost had to.”
“Why?” Key asked.
“Because they just weren’t as colorful without you three,” I answered. “After you three left to make your own ways in the world, I felt lonely.”
My eyes fell on each one of my sons. Minho looks contemplative. Kibum was wearing his own sorry expression. But when my eyes fell on Taemin, the man was holding a photo and was looking at it with great confusion.
“How come I don’t remember this?” he said so quietly it was almost a whisper.
“What is it?” I asked as I reached for the picture. I pried it out of his willing hands gently and turn it around so I can see it. I barely resisted the urge to burst into tears.
“This was right after he was buried,” I muttered. The picture was of a gravestone at the very edge of a large graveyard. All three of my boys were standing behind it with smiles on their faces. They were so small.
“Dad, what was his name?” Taemin asked. I looked up at him and see a breaking heart in his eyes. I don’t think he could remember much. “I can’t even see his face anymore. I feel terrible.”
“It’s alright, Taemin, it’s not your fault,” Key said, getting up from his seat again to comfort his youngest brother.
“Jonghyun,” I said.
“What?” Taemin asked, looking away from his older brother.
“His name was Jonghyun,” I clarified, a sad smile playing on my lips as I stared at the photo I had taken from Taemin. I placed it down and flipped through the photos in my stack once more before placing two down on the table for them to see. “And teaching you all to swim was his first priority.” The first picture was of Kibum and Minho in a small inflatable pool in the middle of the backyard. I questioned you on how an inflatable pool was going to teach our sons how to swim when they could barely lie down in it and be covered in water. You assured me it was how you learned to swim, and yet, when we arrived at the beach during that summer, our boys still had no idea how to swim.
You took a different approach with Taemin.
We took him straight to the beach and plunked him down in the water, and before we knew it, he was swimming around like a pro. The second picture was taken a few months after he learned to swim. You were putting him in a tiny inflatable boat in our real pool so he could float around for a bit.
Taemin seemed to like it when he was younger. But as the boys grew older, the pool seemed to become a wasted investment when no one used it and all it was good for was wasting water and collecting water bugs when someone forgot to cover it.
“Here’s another one of him,” Minho commented as he handed over the picture. You were putting Kibum into our car for the first time. It was the day we brought him home. At the time, we didn’t think we were ever going to be back, but we went and adopted Minho only a few months later. A third child took a lot longer to decide on, but a little more than a year later, we went back and got Taemin.
“Found another one!” Kibum called excitedly. He was probably thrilled with the subject of you because he probably couldn’t remember ever talking about you as much as this. I had kept those pictures from them all those years because I was afraid my own memories would crop up and hurt my heart even more than it already was. I was right, but this was something that needed to happen. All that my boys knew about you was what little they could remember. That wasn’t fair.
And as they brought me picture after picture of you - you and I, you and them, you and them and me - I felt my heart breaking even more.
I stare down at the picture in my hands. It is not of you, but it is of someone else I love just as much. He was so little when the photo was taken.
“Minho, why didn’t you face the camera?” I asked him. The room went quiet and the pictures of you that they wanted stories attached to were forgotten. “I want to see your cute little face again.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” He dropped the photo he had picked out of you into his lap and looked for another. He pulled one up and smiled. “There I am.” He turned it around and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was Minho in an oversized striped shirt and blue shorts. He was flexing his non-existent little muscles, and a huge, childish grin was painted on his face.
“It is you.” Then I looked up at him again. “It’s still you.”
“Are you sure that’s me,” he asked as he flexed his tired muscles. “Where did all my super powers go?” he asks with a wistful look. Then he pulled out another one and handed it to me. He was shooting some balls at the basketball hoop that hung over our driveway. “I drained threes all day.”
“Yes, you did,” I muttered. “Sometimes it was hard to get you to stop just to eat.”
“At least I was at the front of the house most of the time,” Minho commented as he held a certain photo in his hand. He cast a smirk in Kibum’s direction. “Unlike a certain elder brother of mine who kept disappearing on his bike every day.”
And suddenly, I laughed so loud I scared myself. “Oh, how true!” I exclaimed. “I used to think he was so tired of living with us that he decided to run away. Kibum, you stayed out way too late on that old bike and it scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry, Dad,” he said with a slightly embarrassed smile as Minho handed him the picture. Kibum was just a little kid sitting atop his new bike. “It was my first bike. I loved that thing.” Then he laughed a little to himself. “The one I got when I was older went a little faster.” He was referring to the motorcycle that he had until about the age of thirty. Then he got a car like most people did.
Then Minho stumbled upon a photo of himself and Kibum. It was of one of the few times they weren’t fighting when they were younger. They were sitting in the same recliner, Kibum sitting in Minho’s lap because he was smaller. I managed to catch it on film. Minho showed it to Kibum and smiled.
“Sorry I was such an ass when we were younger,” he apologized. “But you have to admit, it made moments like these worth it.”
“Just shut up and maybe they were worth it,” Kibum growled. But he tacked on a smile at the end.
The rest of the day was spent asking where certain articles of clothing were (“Where is that Mickey Mouse hat now?” “I don’t know. It kind of disappeared after the picture was taken.” “Why in the world did I wear bear slippers?” “Because you were bear-y cool.” “Not funny, Dad.” You were the only one who used to laugh at my lame jokes), and wondering why certain pieces of the pictures were no longer standing. (“That swing was awesome! Why did they take it down?” “I heard it got too rusty to be safe anymore.”)
When we got to the bottom of the old shoebox, there was an old VHS tape and a photo hidden underneath it. Taemin took out the tape and looked it over for a title, but there was nothing written on it. “What’s this, Dad?” he asked.
I just eye the tape. I would never forget that tape. If I tried for a million years, I would never be able to forget the precious memories that that tape held.
“Pop it in the player,” I told Taemin. So he got up from his seat and approached the small television that sat on the counter next to the table. He popped the tape in the player while I reached for the final picture in the box. I flipped it over, knowing already what picture it was.
You and I had our backs faced to the camera. We were both in suits and we walked hand in hand down a long path, tree branches arching over our heads.
It was the day we promised to spend our lives together.
It was the day of our wedding.
“That was the best day.”
And then the video in the VCR started to play. Everyone is so engrossed that I was almost scared to breathe.
The first few cuts were of you and I just walking down some street I can’t remember the name of. We were in our late teens. I was going to turn twenty in a matter of months. You were not far behind. The day that video was recorded, you said you had found us a fun modeling job. It was just for fun, you said. We didn’t really need the money at the time. Our parents were paying our way through college and we both had jobs.
It was just for fun. Just for fun.
It was a playful kind of thing. They gave me a bike to ride down the road and casual clothing. Later on in the shoot, they attached colorful balloons to the rear wheel of the bike. As I rode it, Jonghyun ran after me, laughing the whole way. The video cuts to us just smiling, laughing, and playing around. Then it cuts to us on a stage.
The song we were singing is one I would always remember.
You can’t, you can’t
Don’t leave like this
Please just one more time
One more time
Hold me in your arms again
The next time I close my eyes to meet you
Hold me as I stay still in that spot
By the time I found myself in tears, the song was finally over and the video cut again to something else. Then the best moment of my life was being played on the little screen.
”Jinki, I love you and I want to be with you forever,” you said as you faced a nineteen year old me. My face looked so taken aback by the sudden confession, but I remember knowing what came next and what you were going to ask. Then you got down on one knee and took my hand in yours. ”Jinki, will you marry me?” you asked. I remember not being able to breathe, and that’s exactly how I looked on the video; breathless. And the moment I got a single ounce of air back into my lungs, I used it to give you the answer you were hoping for.
“Yes.”
The video cut out again. The next thing I saw were three very short clips of baby boys. The screen went black and nothing else played.
Taemin was first to speak. “Wow, Dad, you both sang beautifully.” Minho about smacked him over the head.
“Is that all you can say?” he questioned.
“I sang that song every night after he was gone,” I admitted. “I whispered the lyrics into his pillow and sang them as often as I could, but it was a song we sang together. It was not the same with only half of the notes. But I tried anyway. And it ruined my voice after years of trying. I just wish you all knew him better.”
“I think…” Minho began. “I think I speak for all three of us when I say, we know him enough to believe that he loved us more than we could ever imagine.”
“That’s all I could ever hope for,” I said with a teary smile. A moment later, a big yawn forced its way out of my mouth. My boys looked at me with understanding.
“We should probably leave you to rest,” Kibum said, standing from his seat. “It’s getting really late.” Minho and Taemin nodded in agreement as they got up from their chairs as well. “We’ll see you soon, okay, Dad?” he said as he leaned down to give me a firm hug. I nodded, but something in me was thinking that I was never going to see my sons again. The thought made me tighten my arms around my eldest momentarily, as if out of fear. When Taemin and Minho gave me their hugs, I did the same thing to them.
“Love you, Dad,” they all said as they waved goodbye to me.
A tear fell down my face once more as I waved back to them. “I love you, too, boys.” They would always be my baby boys. I realized that that day. No matter how much they change as the years went by, they would always be the same boys they were when they were five.
When the door was shut behind them, I went back to the VCR and rewound the tape inside. I sat back in my seat and took our wedding photo in my hands again. I must have watched that video twenty times before I start to feel myself finally giving in to sleep. I looked at our picture.
“That was the best day. That was the best day. That was the best day.”
It was a chant to calm myself. And as I watched your smiling face on that video for the twenty-fifth time that day, I couldn’t help but wonder where I would be if I had not met you. I would not have had my boys. I would not have had that shoebox of memories. I would not have had everything that gave my life spark. I would probably have been a lonely, sad, old man. And I was, but I was still loved.
My chant changes.
“September 23rd, December 9th, July 18th…April 8th. September 23rd, December 9th, July 18th, April 8th.”
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
You brought me to where I am today.
With that thought and the television screen only playing black and white scribbles, I finally fell asleep. I whispered lyrics and birthdates in my sleep until I started to dream. You were there. You took my hand and led me away.
“Our boys will come,” you said, “someday.” But for that moment, it was time for only me. And as you smiled at me, I realized we are both young and back at the age we were when we first fell in love. I knew you were taking me away to somewhere wonderful. Away to a better place.
Away to a place we could sing again.
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AN2: Hope this wasn't too terrible. Thanks for reading.