[Jinki / Jonghyun] Let it Be
Rating: R
Warning: mentions of physical abuse. Also, I am not a professional therapist, so please regard this as fiction only.
Genre: soulmate au
Length: ~7300
“And… what do you do for a living?”
The man continued to grin like his life depended on it. Jinki supposed it was a charming expression when its owner wasn’t in a cast that kept his arm stretched out to his side. Like an inordinately large bird caught mid-flap.
When he got no response, he pursed his lips and sat back in his chair. “OK,” he decided. “What would you like to talk about?”
More grinning. More silence. More ogling at the bookshelves and framed certificates. A scratch of the cheek, but nothing beyond that.
This wasn’t going to be easy. But it never was, if Jinki were honest with himself. When a patient was too heavily medicated for their pain, they could barely pay attention to their surroundings, much less interact. All the information Jinki had gleaned so far was from the man’s medical file, handed to him by the nurse who accompanied the patient. Kim Jonghyun, it said, was thirty years of age and living with his partner who he had a physical altercation with three weeks ago-an altercation so violent it ended with him in the hospital.
“Well, if you don’t feel like talking, that’s fine,” Jinki decided, folding his arms across his chest. “Is there anything else you’d like to do instead?” He waited knowing he wasn’t going to receive any kind of acknowledgement. When a minute of expected silence passed between them, he nodded his understanding. “OK. That’s fine,” he said, then searched through his drawers to bring out a small basket of stress balls. He offered it with a nod of encouragement. “Go on. For the good hand. It’s actually a great way to exercise when you’re recovering.”
A slip in the grin, a tentative look between basket and back. A small shake of the head, easily missed if Jinki had blinked.
He nodded again as he withdrew his offer. “OK, then. We can spend your sixty minutes just… sitting here and doing nothing? How does that sound?” he suggested in a friendly tone.
A few blinks that looked like guilt.
“Jonghyun ssi,” Jinki raised his palms between them in a placating gesture. “We are all here to help you. If that help is sitting here and doing nothing, I’m more than happy to give that to you. But,” he conditioned. “In my experience, talking about it is always a little bit better.”
Silence continued its reign between them while one waited patiently and the other shifted in his seat like it’d suddenly grown painful spikes. A small hint of fatigue stole onto the man’s face now, like sitting here was taking a toll on his existence. Like it demanded far too much of his strength.
Jinki glanced at the time for a moment. Forty-eight minutes to go. He smiled again with reassurance. “Actually. Maybe we should cut this session short. The weather’s nice today, isn’t it?” he motioned to the window behind his seat. “I’m sure you’re wanting to sit in the sun instead of this stuffy office?” he gestured to the door. “Please. One of the nurses will help you.”
The guy hobbled to the door like he couldn’t wait to get away. But he did turn and give one last look; a look somewhere between a grimace and that same empty-eyed grin. And then he was gone.
“Broken rib,” Gwiboon pointed at the x-rays and shrugged. “Dislocated shoulder. Lesions… when they brought him in last month, I thought this guy went through a shredder,” she snorted without humor. “We patched him up but he’s got a long way to go-as you’ve seen,” she motioned to Jinki.
He hummed. When Jonghyun hadn’t shown up for their appointment that day, he decided to speak with his doctor. Just so he could build some context to work with. “How long was he with this guy, did you say?” he asked.
Gwiboon shrugged again. “Police records said four years. Yeah,” she agreed when she saw the shock on Jinki’s face. “He was really convinced this… asshole was the one. Same story as always.”
He touched his forehead, horrified. “That’s… that’s terrible.”
“Mm hmm,” Gwiboon showed him other charts with bloodwork. “He’s healing really fast, but I’m not sure he’s all there. Something like this… it always makes them lose some parts of themselves, you know?”
“What, the matching symbols thing again?” he raised his eyebrows.
“As usual,” she sighed.
He shook his head in exasperation. “Unbelievable.” He’d seen these kinds of cases before: people who clearly didn’t belong together but had tried to nonetheless. People who weren’t soulmates but had pretended they were, because it was easier than searching for their other half. It was easier than giving up the search. He’d seen people who’d tried to force two mismatched pieces of a puzzle together, only for it all to end in unnecessary violence and pain.
Gwiboon went around her table and slumped into her chair. She looked as exhausted as Jinki felt.
“Did you…?” he tried after a few minutes of silence. “Have you seen what he had? The symbol on his hands?” he asked.
She made an incredulous face at him. “Of course not! That’s so personal!” she chided. “Come on, man. That’s not something we should be fixing.”
He nodded, apologizing repeatedly. “You’re right. I’m just-it’s stupid how common this stuff is. People are… just settling for the wrong choices. Even when they can see those choices are hurting them. I mean, four years is such a long time to take this sort of… abuse. Without wondering: am I really supposed to be living like this? Is this what my life is going to be from now on?”
Gwiboon shook her head at him. “You should be the last person I have to say this to-” she began. “But some people just… accept that’s as good as it gets for them,” she explained. “Some people accept what little they can find. Even if it’s hurting them, even if it’s clearly not good for them. Even then, they live with what they have. It’s a self-worth thing,” she added. “You have to pull him out of that kind of thinking, there’s only so much I can heal with bandages.”
Jinki wondered about that for a while as he read through Jonghyun’s charts. Broken-spirited, it translated to. Brokenhearted. He pondered on that for a long while that day, trying to think of a way to move forward.
On his subway ride home that night, he thought back to the man’s demeanor, to his strange out-of-place grin. Four years, he shook his head with disbelief. Four years was an excruciatingly long time, maybe Dr. Kim was right: the man had lost something along the way. Maybe it’d be something hard to retrieve. Maybe it wouldn’t make its absence known immediately, maybe it would take another four years to discover the place it had once resided in.
Jinki hung off the safety straps as the train wound through a tunnel, and wondered where he could start.
The answer to that made itself known two weeks later, when Jonghyun decided to attend his therapy session of his own accord. He opened the door carefully, peeked in like a timid and lost puppy. And when the nurse opened the door wider for him, he stood in place with some indecision.
Jinki smiled at the man, doing nothing to hurry him along. He didn’t say a word, wanting to leave all the talking to the other.
Curious eyes roved over the room again, this time with more cognizance than Jinki had realized the man’s gaze could hold. There were no drugs in these eyes, he noted. This was as conscious a patient as he could expect. He followed with his own interest.
The cast on Jonghyun’s arm was still in place, but somehow looked less awkward than before. The vest attached to the cast was covered by a woolen sweater-white, with a small dot of spilled food. He wasn’t grinning, he wasn’t afraid this time, but he appeared to stall at the most insignificant of details-a joint in the wall linings, a tiny dent on the corner of a shelf, a frame hung not quite straight. He neither made a move to correct the aberrations, nor shared his thoughts. He simply watched, simply blinked for several moments and moved on to the next irregularity.
When he finally took a seat, Jinki leaned back in his own. Again, he waited.
Maybe Jonghyun wanted to wait too, the idea occurred when he maintained his quietness. This time, there was nothing in his expressions to say he was disturbed, nothing to reveal that he was troubled. There was nothing that pointed to him needing help, much less wanting it.
If this was a competition over who could last the longest with nothing but tranquility around them, Jinki was willing to play. If this was indecision on where to begin, Jinki was willing to wait. If this was no more than stubborn silence, Jinki was willing to allow that too. This treatment couldn’t begin until Jonghyun willed it to.
The second hand continued to glide along its path while they watched each other.
From his place, Jinki discovered several tattoos on his patient. They weren’t large, which told him they weren’t meant to be on display. Even so, he could tell they had a meaning to them, each one of them. He noticed the man’s hair was mostly dark with some stray shocks of auburn hidden in the mass, like they’d been deliberately combed over to hide the color. A pair of simple black ear studs, and several piercing holes that currently sat empty. Maybe stowed away for when he was ready to leave, maybe lost on the way to the hospital. Jonghyun didn’t seem to be the kind of man who wanted to make a statement with his presence-at least, not a loud or blunt one. There were several latencies in him. Several portions of him were implicit, detected only in hints, when he moved a specific way or turned his head to face a specific direction.
Jinki read him, read his peace, and found a heavy turbulence under the still water.
When the man’s hazel eyes traveled to Jinki’s notepad, they betrayed some curiosity in them. But it was never given a voice. Nothing was ever spoken between them. Jonghyun utilized every single second of their sixty minutes together as he liked, as he wanted to.
Jinki smiled when his patient stopped at the door and turned, but he respected the sanctity of that silence, too. He never breached it.
Another week went by and Jonghyun returned, no longer limping or sporting bruises on himself. Save for his broken shoulder, he looked healthy enough to walk out of the hospital whenever he liked.
That was, until he opened his mouth to speak.
“Why do I have to keep coming here?” he asked. His voice was low, but it had a lightness to it. Like he’d been crying just before he’d been brought here, or yelling at the top of his lungs until someone had restrained him and forced him to this wing of the building, to the psychiatrists.
The query wasn’t entirely unexpected. His wounds were healing, his bandages were coming off one by one. It could well be that in Jonghyun’s eyes, there was nothing else that needed to be fixed.
Jinki took a long, calm breath in before replying. “Dr. Kim Gwiboon,” he nodded. “She… suggested you’d like to talk to someone-you know, the kind doctor who’s been looking after you all this time,” he reminded, gesturing to the chair across from him.
“Does she think there’s something wrong with me?” Jonghyun remained standing in his place, but there was uncertainty in his speech. “With-with my head?”
“Do you think there’s something wrong with you?” Jinki tilted his head curiously. He didn’t wait for a reply and continued. “You seem fine,” he observed. “But if you want to stay a while, maybe we can have a chat?”
Jonghyun blinked. “A chat,” he mumbled. “What about?”
“Hmm,” Jinki crossed his arms thoughtfully. “Anything you like, really,” he shrugged. “This can just be a friendly conversation, if that’s all you want.”
“No,” Jonghyun refused. “No, not a friendly conversation. You want to talk about just one thing… all of you want to talk about just one thing,” he spat and touched his forehead in distress.
“And what would that be?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Jonghyun warned.
“I’m sorry,” Jinki continued patiently. “But I really don’t know. Do you-maybe want to tell me what this one thing is? So I can avoid bringing it up?”
“I’m not a child you can trick into-”
“I-” Jinki shook his head. “I don’t think you’re a child, Jonghyun ssi. Far from it. I think you are an intelligent adult man, who is more than capable of taking care of himself. Now,” he paused and put his notepad away. “We’ve done our duty of physically rehabilitating you. What you’d like to do from this point onward is entirely your choice.”
There was a clear struggle in Jonghyun’s face. He wanted to stay, he wanted to talk. But he also didn’t want that-because of what it signified, because of what it would mean if he asked for help, verbalized it. This was a war between his ego and his rationality.
It took him a good fifteen minutes of shifting on his feet, pacing around the space, making it halfway to the door of the office, before he relented and finally. Finally took a seat.
He looked at Jinki with apprehension. “You… really mean it? We can talk about anything?”
Jinki gave him an amicable smile. “Of course.”
“I… I don’t know where to begin,” Jonghyun admitted with a shake of the head.
They’d decided to move outside on Jinki’s suggestion. There were no other patients about, but the sun was bright and the wind was quiet. The sprinklers had passed over the grass some time ago, and the scent of wet mud hung around them. They walked along a paved path for a while before taking a seat on a bench.
“Tell me about yourself,” Jinki prompted. “About your family life.”
The patient blinked, looking around them, seeming clueless. “I… I have a mother. And a noona. I-I like to think I’m close to them.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Jinki interrupted. “Do you sometimes get the feeling that you aren’t close to them?”
Jonghyun sighed. “No, I-I don’t mean that…” he shook his head, played with loose strings on the hem of his hospital-issued shirt. The motion flashed a glimpse of the dark symbols on his fingertips, but Jinki decided not to pay attention to them.
“I mean… I want to believe that the amount of love I have for them is the amount of love they have for me.”
Jinki simply nodded, continuing to listen.
“I… I used to go to an art school, as a child. It-I remember liking it. I remember liking what they taught there. It felt like a place where I could fit in. But… but I had to leave it for normal school. Because of difficulties,” Jonghyun explained.
“You mean financially,” Jinki asked for clarification and received a nod. “Was it because of something in particular?”
“My father,” Jonghyun replied. “He left us.”
Jinki made a mental note to come back to that, but stayed quiet for the time-being.
“So… after that. I just went through school like everyone else, went through the classes they taught. Tried to keep my head down and study. Tried to be. A good kid and. And I guess… I guess that’s all.”
“OK,” Jinki shifted to face the other. “What was your experience at normal school like, in comparison to your art school days?”
“It…” Jonghyun paused to think about it for a while. “It wasn’t-I suppose it also has to do with growing up and mood swings and all that. But I didn’t feel like I belonged, not as much as I used to,” he nodded. “I… maybe that was because I no longer had the friends I used to have. Maybe it was because nothing was interesting to me. Maybe-I don’t know,” he shook his head again. “I didn’t like it. So I dropped out.”
“How old were you when you decided to drop out?” Jinki inquired.
“Sometime… in the middle of first year. Vocational school.”
“So tell me what your interests were at this time,” Jinki cued. “Because it sounds like the school was doing a poor job identifying what you wanted to learn. So what was it that you wanted to pursue by dropping out?”
Jonghyun looked embarrassed for a moment, but it wasn’t an uneasy embarrassment. There was a hint of pride in his expression, like he didn’t regret this part of his past. “I used to be in a band,” he revealed. “I… I played bass guitar. Some friends and I would get together and. And I was a big fan of Seo Taiji,” he smiled a little at that.
Jinki smiled with him. “Tell me more about that time,” he encouraged.
“There-” Jonghyun frowned with some confusion. “There isn’t much to tell, really.”
“Are you sure?” Jinki asked.
“Well… yes?”
“Because when you talked about you being in a band, when you talked about the music you liked,” he noted. “Your face… I don’t even know what that was-but your face lit up. It was like a light went on inside you and you found. Some kind of happiness. That’s what it looked like from the outside,” he related. “Is that what it felt like?”
Jonghyun worried his lip. “I… yes,” he ventured, then grew more confident. “Yeah. I think those years, quitting school and making music with my friends. My mother hated that, and. And she thought I had no future, that I was throwing everything away but. That was the best time of my life. I think I was the happiest in those years.”
“I completely agree,” Jinki reinforced. “Just watching you talk about those memories is enough to tell me that.” He shifted in his seat. “So you wanted to go on and be a professional musician?”
Jonghyun started to nod, but stopped. “I… no, I think I just wanted to keep making music. I didn’t-it never occurred to me that it could be something to do. For a living. We just. Hung out, all us friends. We spent time together. We enjoyed what we did. And then we went home.”
Jinki listened patiently. “Do you still meet up with your friends? For these jam sessions?”
“No…” Jonghyun sighed. “No. They-all the others found jobs. Some of them went back to school. Some of them… just moved on. And I was left,” he shrugged. “I guess I was just. Left behind.”
“OK, let’s look at that for a moment. How did you feel about that?” Jinki inquired.
“How… how do you mean?”
“So you said-” Jinki gestured. “Music gave you happiness. Or, making music gave you happiness. When your friends stopped hanging out with you, you could still make music on your own, couldn’t you?” he pointed out. “You could play your guitar and sing by yourself, you could still do that, even without them.”
“Ye-yeah… I guess,” Jonghyun shrugged.
“So why is it that you sound so… I don’t know, do I sense disappointment when you talk about your friends going their separate ways?” Jinki prodded. “Why do you sound like that? Why is it that it affected you so much, when you could still make music on your own? When you could still be happy on your own?”
“Well…” Jonghyun looked like the answer was obvious to anyone and he didn’t need to spell it out. “Because they left.”
“So what?”
“They left me.”
Jinki smiled. “So how did you feel about that?”
“I…” Jonghyun looked down at his lap. “I don’t know. I felt… betrayed?”
“Absolutely,” Jinki agreed. “You felt betrayed. I think that you’d finally found your place again, you’d finally found somewhere you could fit into again. You’d finally found a way to be happy, and share that happiness. And now that was gone. And that made you feel betrayed. Because it wasn’t just about making music, it was about-” he motioned for the other to go on.
“About… about hanging out, I guess,” Jonghyun looked up at the doctor and tried. There was a sadness in his voice. ‘It was about being together. All of us.”
Jinki leaned back and smiled. “Let’s take a few minutes here,” he encouraged.
“Is something making you nervous?” Jinki asked before they started their second session, only a few days later.
Jonghyun hadn’t had much else to share on the park bench. He’d related other stories from his past and talked about times when he’d felt let down or when he’d found some semblance of hope for a future. He’d opened up, not by much, but still. It was something, and Jinki was grateful to have that something to work with.
When they’d ended the session, he requested they meet again before the full week was up. It was an indicator that he’d been comfortable sharing his thoughts with someone else, that he wanted someone to listen to what he had to say. But when Jonghyun had shown up, he’d idled around the room for a while before asking for a glass of water.
“Do-do you think I’m a burden?” he asked out of the blue, having gulped down three whole glasses one after the other. Some of the water had spilled onto his clothes in the rush and his breath raced a little when he dabbed at it. He didn’t seem like he wanted to be there, in those short moments. He didn’t seem sure about this.
“What do you mean by a burden?” Jinki asked back.
“I…” Jonghyun struggled. “I don’t want to keep coming back if I’m. If this is a hassle to you.”
Jinki took a deep breath. “Why do you feel the need to leave a good impression on me?” he inquired, but didn’t wait for a response. “I think you should sit down and catch your breath first,” he offered.
The other did as he was told, but kept his silence. He looked around the room, glancing once or twice at the doctor, but never long enough to hold the man’s gaze. When he reached for a fourth glass, he was stopped.
“You don’t need to be nervous about anything,” Jinki assured. “Like I said, we’re just having a conversation.”
He still looked unsettled, and Jinki didn’t try anything further to convince him. He decided once again to bide his time and let Jonghyun take the lead.
“I… I don’t feel good,” he began after some time, then added in clarification. “About myself.”
“Can you explain that to me?” Jinki requested. “What does that mean. What specifically do you not feel good about?”
“I don’t know-” Jonghyun hesitated. “I… when I see the people around me. My friends. My noona. They’re happy. They seem to be doing well for themselves. But. But here I am,” he motioned to the room. “In a hospital.”
Jinki considered him for a minute. “You say that like it’s your fault you’re in a hospital.”
“Well, yeah-”
“Lets,” Jinki motioned for the other to stop. “Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it later. Talk to me about… give me some more examples why you feel like you’re not doing well but others are.”
“I… they have good jobs. They’re making money. They have great relationships. They’re,” he nodded. “They’re living good lives. They’re living happy lives.”
Jinki nodded. “Are you saying that you’re unhappy?” he asked.
“I…” Jonghyun sighed. “I guess it should’ve been obvious to me that I wouldn’t be as happy as them. I don’t have a GED, I didn’t go to college, I don’t have a stable job. I’m-yeah,” he slumped back in his chair. “I’m not as good as them.”
“Do you think you hold yourself to an unrealistic standard?” Jinki asked him after a while.
“No,” the answer was immediate. “No, society has standards that we all need to meet. To survive. And if we can’t, then. It’s our fault,” Jonghyun nodded. “The people I know meet that standard-I don’t. Because I didn’t live the way I should have. So… yeah.” He scratched his head. “I don’t feel good about myself.”
“How do you think other people feel about you?” Jinki tried. “Your friends and noona and all those people who you say are doing well for themselves. How do they see you?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Do you think they like you?”
Jonghyun ran his good hand over a thigh as if wiping the sweat off of it. He huffed out a slow exhale. “I… I think some people like me.” He shifted in his seat like it was sharp and uncomfortable again. “I try to be good, I try to be. Polite. I try to be a decent human being. I mean, I can’t give to charities but I try to volunteer for things when I can. So. I think people like me.”
“You think people like you,’ Jinki repeated. “Has anyone ever said as much to you?”
“I… not in so many words, but the way they behave around me,” he nodded. “I think they like me.”
“OK,” Jinki accepted. “So let me summarize what I’ve heard you say so far,” he began. “You’re an intelligent man who can draw rational conclusions from his observations. You can clearly provide reasons for the statements you make. You’ve said that the people in your life like you because of their behavior towards you, you’ve said your friends and your noona are good to you,” he listed. “Is that correct so far?”
“Y-yeah…”
“But then you say you’re not as good as them,” Jinki pointed out. “You say these people like you despite the fact that they-as you put it-meet society’s standards, while you don’t. What does that tell you?”
Jonghyun blinked at him for a while, unable to give any form of response.
“Does it maybe say to you that these people don’t care about society’s standards, or-let me put it this way,” Jinki held his palms up between them. “Do you think that the people who like you, do so despite the fact that you aren’t doing as well as them and despite you not meeting society’s standards?”
“I… I don’t know if I could go as far as saying that-”
“Why not?”
“I mean,” Jonghyun began, but didn’t have an argument to back himself. He fumbled for more words but nothing came to him as a solid justification.
“You aren’t holding them to gunpoint to like you,” Jinki offered. “And they’re not obligated to like you. So why do you think they like you?” he continued on that line of questioning. “Why do you think these people, who are doing better than you, still like you? Why do they keep hanging out with you, why are they still close to you, despite their lives being so perfect and happy, as you put it?”
“M-maybe…” Jonghyun murmured, his voice shaky. “Maybe they just…”
“Don’t you think there must be something special about you?!” Jinki proposed loudly. “Don’t you think that-these people who are leading happy and wonderful lives, and living to a much higher standard than you. Don’t you think that, instead of being content among themselves, they like you. So they must be drawn to you because there is something brilliant and wonderful inside you that attracts them to you?”
“N-no…” Jonghyun sniffled, wiping under his nose. “No, I don’t think there’s anything I have to offer-”
“Don’t you think that’s possible?” Jinki spoke over him. “Because that’s what I’m hearing. That despite not meeting this so-called standard, you must have something absolutely exceptional within you, that everyone can see, but for some reason-” he held his hands up in question. “And I really don’t know what this reason is. You can’t see that in yourself.”
The other shook his head as his eyes watered. “No…”
“Let’s pause here for a bit,” Jinki spoke in a softer tone, backing off. “How are you feeling?”
But Jonghyun couldn’t answer. All he could manage was a broken sob.
When Jinki arrived at the ward, Jonghyun’s vest was gone and the shoulder cast was being taken off.
Gwiboon stood grinning at the man, looking more pleased with herself than with his recovery. “There you go!” she exclaimed. “How do you feel?” she asked, checking his elbow. There was a diamond tattooed on the outside of his newly exposed wrist, and Jinki caught a dog on the side of his ribcage when the man pulled his hospital clothes back on.
“Any discomfort?”
Jonghyun slowly moved his arm pack and forth. “It feels a little… different,” he murmured, nodding. “But it doesn’t hurt.”
“I’ll give you some exercises you can do. No arm-wrestling for a while though!” Gwiboon joked and they chuckled. “Right, I’ll leave you to rest. We can talk about physiotherapy later tonight. Hmm?” she nodded and patted Jinki’s shoulder as she left.
“You must feel freer now?” Jinki asked their patient. “I remember when I’d had a fracture as a kid. Don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my life,” he chuckled.
Jonghyun smiled. “You’ve both been so kind to me,” he said to his lap, fumbling with his hands. “I can’t thank you both enough.”
“It’s our job,” Jinki easily replied and shrugged the issue aside. Instead, he motioned at the other’s palms with a nudge of his chin. “You’re quite the tattoo enthusiast?” he asked of the symbols on Jonghyun’s fingertips, knowing full well that’s not what they were, but unable to bring himself to be brazen about it.
“Ah… no,” ten fingers were spread out for him to study, the thumbs marked with identical circles and the rest with varying sizes of crescents. Phases of the moon, the cypher that Jonghyun would’ve used to search for his soulmate.
“It’s my mark,” he needlessly clarified.
Jinki kept his own clammy palms hidden in the pockets of his white coat. There was an odd intimacy in sharing one’s symbol. It was a private thing, something not so carelessly flashed to strangers. One would need to have a lot of confidence, or simply be past caring, to be so open and ready to share them as Jonghyun was in that instant.
“He… he had stars,” the murmur came, a thumb rubbing against a wrist. “On the backs of his hands. He had stars. And I thought-how perfect. We must really be made for each other,” he looked away at that. “I really believed it, right until the end. Maybe… maybe some of me still does.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Jinki stopped him, then gave the man’s ankle a squeeze. “Right now, focus on getting better. Dr. Kim was showing me x-rays of your ribs. It’s looking very good,” he gave an encouraging smile. “And your noona was here too, wasn’t she? I could tell she was related to you, you have the same eyes,” he chuckled.
Jonghyun grinned. “She brought me side dishes she made herself. Hospital food isn’t so bad but… sometimes I really miss eomma’s cooking.”
“You’ll be eating her cooking in no time,” Jinki promised and waved. “I’ll see you around.”
He went back to his office, but he couldn’t concentrate on work. All he could think of was ten moons, held only a few inches from his face and radiating a warmth unrivaled by even a bonfire.
“I want to talk about something you mentioned last time we met,” Jinki started their third session.
The heat had been raised, the blinds drawn. The windows were thick triple-glazed panes but even then the sound of rain pattering against them carried in. Jonghyun looked more relaxed and more at ease than he had ever seemed in their time working together. Perhaps the cast coming off had made more than a physical difference. Perhaps the man was simply settling into these sessions as if they were a welcome routine.
“I want to talk about fault,” Jinki continued. “You implied that your landing in the hospital was somehow your fault. And I really want to understand the logic behind this thinking because-” he shook his head. ‘You are a healthy person. You didn’t starve yourself, you didn’t overwork, you didn’t strain yourself in any way. This wasn’t you drunk driving and then having an accident. Right?”
Jonghyun nodded slowly. “R-right. But-”
“But you still blame yourself, I know. I know you’re going to come up with evidence to support your theory-” Jinki interrupted him. “I know because like I said, you’re a very intelligent person. And the smarter you are, the easier it gets to beat yourself up. I know this, because I’ve seen this before. Lots and lots of times. So,” he clapped his hands together. “Let’s do something else. Lets look at where this blame is coming from, because I think that would be more helpful,” he suggested. “Is that alright with you?”
“Yes…” Jonghyun hesitated, then said with some more certainly. “Yes. I think you’re right”
“OK, great,” Jinki said. “So. Let’s go back to-” he flipped through his notes. “Let’s go back to what you were saying the other day about how your father left your family and then years later your friends did-something similar, they left you behind, and you felt betrayed.” He looked up at his patient. “Do you think betrayal is common in relationships?”
“I… I’m not sure about betrayal,” Jonghyun replied.
“OK, what about getting hurt?”
He nodded at that. “Yeah, I think people get hurt in relationships.”
“Can you give me an example, a general situation in a relationship where someone gets hurt?” Jinki asked. “Just off the top of your head.”
“I would say… I would say cheating on someone,” he answered. “Yeah, cheating. Or lying about something. Or being-not being a good person.”
“OK, stop there,” Jinki held up a finger. “What do you mean by not being a good person? What does that mean?”
“A… I guess a criminal?” Jonghyun replied. “Someone… someone with bad intentions?”
“Yeah,” Jinki nodded. “Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Someone with bad intentions, someone who isn’t a good person. If you get into a relationship with someone like that, it can hurt you. Right?”
“Yeah,” Jonghyun accepted.
“Do you think you have bad intentions in your relationships, Jonghyun ssi?” Jinki countered.
“I don’t-I don’t think so?”
“You don’t think so or you know so?” Jinki cornered. “Because there’s a big difference between: I don’t think I have bad intentions and I know I don’t have bad intentions, right?” he raised his eyebrows.
“Right.”
“So which is it?”
Jonghyun sighed. “I… I try to be a good person. I try to be-I try not to do things that would hurt someone.”
“So someone who tries to be good,” Jinki put his hands side by side. “And someone with bad intentions. Do you think they are characteristics of the same person?”
Jonghyun opened his mouth to make a rationalization, to debate over the subject, but then shook his head.
“No, you’re absolutely right there, they are not the same person.” Jinki smiled at the other. “So is it safe to say then, that Jonghyun ssi, you are someone who doesn’t try to hurt people in relationships? That you try to be good, and you try to be loving, you try to give it your all and be the best you can be for the person you’re with?”
“I… I wouldn’t say it like that, but-” the other nodded after another moment’s uncertainty. “Yes. I try to give as much as I can.”
Jinki took a long and thoughtful breath in. “OK,” he said. “So talk to me about-this guy you were living with. This man you thought was your soulmate.”
“What’s there to say…”
“For a four-year-long relationship, I would think there’s a lot!” Jinki chuckled.
“He was… he was loud and happy and. And he liked to go clubbing. He liked parties. He liked to cook for us, and he ate a lot. He liked to drink a lot, too, which. Just made him more needy. A-affectionate. He liked watching winter sports. He enjoyed… he was a very intimate person,” he blushed. “And he… he liked to hang out with his friends. He liked to-”
“You’re telling me all these things he liked,” Jinki stopped him. “But you don’t count yourself in that list,” he shook his head and frowned. “Do you mean to tell me that this guy, who you lived with for four years, liked all of those things more than he liked you?”
“I…” Jonghyun wavered. “I mean, we were in a relationship so obviously-”
Jinki waited, eyebrows raised.
“Obviously…” the other mumbled. “Obviously he had some affection for me…”
“OK,” the doctor sat back. “Fine. So I’m going to jump to another subject for a minute here, if that’s alright. Have you had any other relationships before this one?”
“N-no… I wanted to wait to find my soulmate,” Jonghyun answered.
“And do you think you found your soulmate when you found the man you were with?” Jinki posed. “Or, no let me ask you something more important than that: what do you think a soulmate is?”
“Someone… someone who matches well with you,” Jonghyun nodded with confidence. “Someone who cares for you, gives you love and respects you and. Someone who you spend your life with because you are. Because it feels like you’re destined to be together.”
“So you said some really interesting things there,” Jinki smiled wide. “Some very profoundly great things. But lets focus on the first thing. What do you mean by someone who matches well with you?”
“The symbols, of course,” Jonghyun put his hands out to prove his point.
“So… if you can find a match for the symbols on your hands, you think you’ll have found your soulmate. Is that correct?”
“Isn’t-isn’t that how it works?” Jonghyun asked, frowning.
Jinki gave half a smile. “Why don’t we go back to what you said right after: someone who loves you and respects you. Do you think that matching symbols is… is a guarantee of that? That the person will love and respect you?”
“I…!” Jonghyun’s eyes widened. “Yes, of course, it is-”
“So you think that if you match symbols with someone, they would never hurt you?”
“Yeah, of course they wouldn’t!”
“So then why do you think you’re in this hospital, Jonghyun ssi?” Jinki asked frowning and motioning to his office. “Why, if you found your match, are you sitting here in my boring office and talking to me about these miserable things?”
Jonghyun opened and shut his mouth a few times. “Because… because it’s my fault-”
“But I thought you said you try your best to be a good person in your relationships,“ Jinki shook his head. “Are you saying you didn’t try to be good this time? Are you saying you tried to be hurtful and mean and that’s what caused the fight? That’s why you landed in the hospital?”
“N-no, I’m saying that…” Jonghyun took a deep breath, but he looked flustered. “I’m saying that I-I did what I could to save our relationship. But. But I failed at that and now… and now I have to live with that failure!”
“Was it your failure, though?” Jinki asked. “Was it because of your shortcomings that this happened to you?”
“Yes,” the answer was immediate. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve been better. I should’ve been a better boyfriend, a better soulmate, I should’ve-”
Jinki sighed. “What kind of failure hurts you like this?” he asked in a soft voice. “Two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, black eyes, broken nose, internal bleeding-” he looked at the other with bewilderment. “What justifies a punishment like that?”
Jonghyun shook his head and looked away. “You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand,” Jinki readily replied, his tone still kind. “Make me understand, what you did so wrong that you blame yourself for everything that hurts you in your life. Tell me what your fault was to be beaten to within an inch of your life. Tell me what your fault was for your friends to grow out of playing music as a band. Tell me what your fault was for your father to leave the family like that.” He tilted his head in sympathy. “Tell me so I can understand, because I really don’t.”
Jinki fixed his hair before he rang the doorbell, fussing over the bouquet in his hold and waiting on the steps. The house was beautiful, with plastered walls and a porch held up on dark stone posts. It sat in the hills, just on the outskirts of Seoul. A set of stone stairs led up to the garden, where several neatly trimmed bushes and carefully pruned plants lined the property boundaries. In the setting sun, the blue roof tiles shimmered like sapphires.
A tall man swung the door open and grinned. “Hyung!” Minho said and held his arms out for a hug. “You made it, haha!”
“He’d killed me if I missed this,” Jinki joked and they laughed until Jonghyun walked into view with two glasses of wine. He looked healthier and, somewhat happier than he had twelve months ago, when he’d been discharged from the hospital.
As soon as their eyes met, he grinned too. “Hyung,” he said in a warm voice. “You’re here.”
“Of course,” Jinki smiled.
They ushered him in where other guests sat chatting and laughing. There was a table overflowing with gifts and bouquets and other offerings of congratulations. There was music in the background and food was offered to him wherever he turned. On a wall in the dining room hung an expensive-looking guitar, surrounded by framed photos of a very happy couple-a grinning Minho and an adoring Jonghyun.
“So I heard your flight was delayed?” Minho asked him, holding out a plate of cut fruit.
Jinki picked a few into his bowl and mumbled a thanks. “Yeah, the weather hasn’t been too great so they pushed it to tomorrow. It’ll be a bit of a hassle when I get there, but as long as I make it in time for my own presentation slot,” he shrugged.
Minho hissed in wonder. “Yah… a conference in the south of Greece. Doctors sure know how to party, eh?” he laughed. “Anyway. It’s good you could come. Jonghyunnie hyung was so anxious-”
“How’s he been, by the way?” Jinki asked in a low tone. It had been several months since they had put a halt to their sessions. Jinki had seen the full spectrum of Jonghyun’s growth until then. He'd seen the despair, the anger, the hopeful crying when they had reached a place of catharsis together. He'd seen everything, and he’d deemed it time to consider letting the man venture out into the world on his own.
“He’s been good,” Minho nodded. “Some stress with the album coming out, but. He’s doing well. Says it energizes him to work under pressure.” He looked across the room at his soulmate and the sheer amount of love in his eyes was undeniable. When Jonghyun turned to him and smiled, he blushed.
“You’ve been good for him,” Jinki complimented, patting his arm. “You give him a lot of happiness. That’s what he always needed.”
Minho blushed some more, but shot him a salute. “As you ordered, sir!” he joked, and in the action Jinki noted the now-familiar, perfect cherry blossom in the center of the man’s palm-his symbol. His cypher. Holding no more meaning than the fact that it existed like a random mark on the man’s skin. Jinki grinned and nodded when the other excused himself.
Inside his own fists, sitting snugly within the pockets of his heavy coat, a pair of suns flared loud and bright.