SHINee Duets 2012: fluentinpoison & dreamerofdark (part one)
Title: Levels
Authors: fluentinpoison & dreamerofdark (Team Name - Dorisduo)
Pairing: Onew/Jonghyun
Rating: PG-13 for heavy theme.
Warnings: Someone cursed once. Also talks a lot about death.
Authors’ Notes: Basically we wrote two thirds of this in one day and at the end we hated it. Hopefully you won’t. Also it is unbeta’d because we had trouble finding someone who was willing to beta over 14k fic so we probably missed a bunch of stuff. Enjoy nonetheless! (Also note that this fic is us experimenting with writing more than five tons of story, sorry)
The apologetic smile of the man on the other side of the counter was enough to cause his stomach to sink. He knew what he would hear before the man even had opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry, but everyone else is looking for a job too and we quite honestly can’t hire more people at the moment.”
Jonghyun put on his best “I’m okay” smile and bowed as he excused himself from the restaurant and went back out on the busy street. He really wasn’t okay though, he really needed that job, and this was probably the twentieth-something place he had tried with no luck. Starting to lose hope of ever being able to look Key in the eye again (or paying rent for that matter) he took his iPod back out and placed the buds in his ears. The music he blasted wasn’t really important, but he really didn’t want to think right now, so he raised the volume until his ears almost hurt.
Standing there, eyes closed, he tried his hardest to clear his mind. All he could think of though, was his grumbling stomach, and he decided he really needed to get something to eat before he continued his search for a job. Without a job, he couldn’t pay rent, and Key would quite possibly murder him. He really needed a job, he really, really needed one and that was what kept him focused.
He probably should have checked the crosswalk before he stepped out there. It didn’t occur to him that the bight red light was still flashing its “stop”.
Key would really kill him, he thought as he was frozen in place and the car approaching wasn’t able to stop in time, brakes screeching and everything turned black.
-
Key was unbearable, just because he had gotten into his dream university and now his books on historical clothing and various fabric samples had joined Jonghyun’s various ones on classical composing and notepapers all over their small apartment. Key kept smiling and hadn’t bitched in days, so Jonghyun was getting a bit uneasy.
The worst thing was probably that Key thought he had the right to use Jonghyun as his personal mannequin while waiting for money to buy a proper one. Just because Key had put up with Jonghyun’s voice practice when Key was trying to study for his exams before. Key had this weird fondness of strange colours and odd patterns and Jonghyun didn’t quite think leopard suited him. Especially not bright pink leopard skinny jeans. He found it to clash horribly with his manliness.
Key simply waved it off with some comment insulting his entire manhood, and coming from someone like Key, who really wore bright pink leopard skinny jeans that said a lot.
“I need you for an assignment tomorrow so you better not be going anywhere.” Key said from in front of his computer. Jonghyun stared incredulously at him and put his bag down. “You better be kidding, I’m helping mom tomorrow too, they’re thinking of hiring me there at the kindergarten, so I really can’t fuck this up.”
Key looked at him with his Look. “Fine then. But you better be free this weekend. Or you’ll regret it when I destroy your entire CD-collection.”
Even the neighbours could hear the high-pitched screech (Jonghyun took great pride in it).
-
He didn’t feel much of anything, no pain, no discomfort. Everything was dulled. Sounds were unsharp and images were embedded in cotton and mist. He didn’t know what was up or down, but things were slowly appearing below him, like the props of a play. He could see a room, and people, and a bed. It didn’t occur to him at first what was really happening. The bed was occupied. But what was it, really? Was it a living thing? To be quite honest, it didn’t look like a human, more like a distorted, injured image of one. Bandages covered the crushed pieces of a body, and there were tubes connected to it. He didn’t want to know what they were there for.
He slowly got closer, scared of what he might see. No one seemed to pay any attention to him, doctors and nurses were rushing in and out of the room, yelling stuff he didn’t catch. It was as if he was dreaming, sounds came to him as though his ears were filled with water. Then it dawned upon him, that the one in the bed, that the doctors were trying to keep alive, the pieces, those were his. He was the broken body.
Did that mean that he was dead? He didn’t want to be dead, there were so many things he wanted to do and so much he hadn’t yet experienced. Sound came back to him and he heard screaming and crying from the corridor outside. He knew those voices. Careful to not run into anything he made his way out into the hallway and saw the faces of his most beloved ones. His father had his arm around his hysteric mother, and his sister had sunk to the floor, her face hidden in her hands. She had closed the entire world off.
Key stood a bit away from them, looking lost and unable to quite process the situation. Jonghyun thought that if he had been able to feel pain right now, he’d be breaking even more at the sight of his best friend like that.
He turned away from him and back to his mother. He couldn’t utter a sound, but tried to reach out to put a soothing hand on her shoulder. Because he was still here, wasn’t he? That’s when he realized that he could see right through his hand. It was like someone had switched him out for water. As he stared in disbelief his contours grew stronger and faded, grew stronger and faded, all in time with the defibrillator he could faintly hear from the room behind him.
Once more he tries to reach out, but they don’t notice him standing right in front of them, and his efforts are in vain. He turns to Key and tries to call out to him. No sound escapes his throat. Reluctantly, he tries to reach out and touch Key, but his hand passes right through his bony, hunched shoulders, as if Jonghyun was part of the air itself.
He doesn’t know what to do, so he flees from the reality he feels like he’s not a part of.
-
Each step he takes, he loses a bit more of himself. He can’t look back, and see their faces. Not like this.
-
Jonghyun was waiting outside their apartment for Key to get back from wherever. He had a nagging feeling he should know where Key was, but he couldn’t remember if Key had said anything before he had left. When he thought about it, he couldn’t really remember much of anything after getting rejected from a supermarket and had decided to call it a day. It was probably something he had eaten, he reasoned, trying to ease his sudden peak of worry. Whatever they’d put in the kimchi he’d had for lunch, it’d been strong.
Any other time, he would just enter the apartment, since well, he lived there too, but he seemed to have lost his keys somewhere during the day. Typical him, Key would probably scold him and threaten to withhold dinner.
The sun was shining straight into his eyes, and annoyed, he brought a hand up to his face to shield them. Only it wasn’t very effective, he realized, as the sun shone right through it. Interesting. He studied his outstretched hand with childlike fascination, as its contours were barely distinguishable.
Heavy steps could be heard climbing the stairs, interrupting his musings, and when he saw Key approaching, Jonghyun got up and approached him. “Yo, Key, I think I dropped my keys somewhere. I never thought you’d get back.” he called out.
His best friend seemed to ignore him, continuing on his way to the door with heavy steps. Jonghyun followed behind him, confused as to why he was getting ignored. Had Key found out about him losing his job? Was that why he was so upset?
“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before… I wanted to try and solve it on my own.” Jonghyun tried to explain as he followed Key into the hall.
Key turned around and stared right at him, his eyes slightly red and glossy. Jonghyun took a few hesitating steps back out in the hallway, and Key closed the door right in his face.
-
He sits out there in the stairwell for what appears to be hours, watching the sun sink behind tall buildings through the window. No matter how much time passes, he feels no hunger, no need for sleep, and no stiffness in his limbs from sitting on the cold concrete steps; he’s too deep in thought to notice the absence of these natural functions. He figures he must have done something really terrible to make Key cry like that, but he can’t remember what it is he would have done.
As the streetlights started to light up, he got tired of just sitting there. He decided to step into the chilly night for a walk since he had nothing better to do. He just had to wait until tomorrow for Key to forgive him for whatever he had done and let him in.
He wandered aimlessly around the accompanying neighbourhoods, never once feeling the need to stop and rest or anything of the sort.
It was the longest night of his life. His thoughts were running miles a minute but no matter how hard he tried he could not make the pieces of the puzzle fit together in a way that made any sense. All he had was fragments, and the more he tried to focus on them the blurrier it all became.
As the sun rose and people started to wake up with the city he realized he had quite honestly forgotten to sleep. Despite not getting a minute of sleep that night his steps were still light and his eyes not even threatening to fall close.
-
Key was still ignoring him the next time Jonghyun went to see him, as the younger was on his way to some lecture or another at school, carrying a bag stuffed to the brim with materials, books, a sewing kit and his homemade lunch. Jonghyun knew this; it was always in his bag. More importantly, how would one describe the pattern of the dress shirt sleeve that was hanging out of it? Vomit?
Who would possibly ever wear that without having died first?
In lack of better, more motivating stuff to do, he decided to wander the park, just a little ways away from the campus while waiting for lectures to end.
Because really, what else was there to do.
-
All of his attempts were in vain, Key still treated him like air. He had tried everything he could come up with that normally annoyed Key to peculiar extents. But still, he got no reaction out of the boy whatsoever. He had even tried his best ‘stupidpuppyface’, as Key called it, that even the younger boy couldn’t refuse after all the years spent together.
Jonghyun had lost his patience, the frustration seeping through every nerve in his body. He had never liked to be ignored and this had gone far out of hand already. Jonghyun stretched his hand out to yank his friend harshly to forcefully earn his attention.
He never felt the material of Key’s shirt against his palm. His hand went right through the bony shoulder, making him lose his balance and stumble forward into Key. But instead of the awaited crash, he just continued falling. No head hitting head, no tangled limbs on the floor and the most confusing of all, no pain as Jonghyun hit the ground.
When he finally managed to get his arms and legs together and stand, he saw how Key stood with his back towards him, standing outside their apartment once again. The scene gave Jonghyun a feeling of Déjà vu. The skin on the younger’s arms were covered with goosebumps and his body froze for a few seconds. Key slowly looked over his shoulder right at Jonghyun. Finally, he couldn’t possibly ignore him anymore after that. An expectant smile spread across Jonghyun’s face as he met the feline eyes staring back at him for the first time in what felt like eternity.
Only to have his hopes be crushed seconds later as Key just shook his perfectly styled head violently and turned back before finally taking the last few steps to the door. Keys jingled lightly and the sound of the lock being turned echoing dully in the stairwell. The handle complained slightly as it got pressed down. Key stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, right in front of Jonghyun. Leaving him there like an abandoned puppy without looking back.
Jonghyun would hurt; hurt so very much inside if he could. But his heart seemed to be embedded in white cotton.
At that very moment, he decided it all didn’t matter anymore, everything felt distant, as though shrouded in darkness. Brief flashes of faces held dear surfaced and disappeared without a trace. Memories turned into someone else’s pictures. He threw them out and let the darkness consume it all.
Without looking back or feeling the need to do so, he turned his back on everything he’d had and walked into the night, becoming one with it.
A shadow.
-
It never stopped. It never rested.
He ran as fast as he could, to hell with people, from it. It lined his sight and he couldn’t make it stop. It made no sense, had no instructions. So he ran to get away from it, the single most essential instinct human beings had - the urge to run from danger (the only instinct he had left).
The blinding whiteness.
Because there was no way it wasn’t danger.
It was white as innocence, as snow, as everything untouched and untarnished and it made him shake with anxiety at the mere thought. It was too bright, trying to lure him into it. Whiteness that crept under clothes and straight through skin and stopped your heart.
When he grew tired of running from it, he sought a place that would shield him. Usually he ended up in dirty corners hidden deep in random basements. This time it was behind an old boiler that almost drenched out the sound of it with its sharp bass.
But the white never rested, and it always found him, no matter how well he hid.
The white noise filled his head and he forced himself to breathe through it, hands pressing over his ears and nails scratching his skin without leaving a mark. He whimpered.
No, no, no, no.
He repeated the word in his head until the pressure let up, and the white retreated. For now he was safe.
-
He couldn’t remember how it had happened, but one day after being chased down through forgotten catacombs under the city and through a subway stop filled with people to whom he wasn’t there, he ended up in a nasty bathroom with a row of stalls against one wall. It probably hadn’t been cleaned in years and years, and he doubted it was still open to other people.
Really, by now he was so distanced from the rest of humanity that he didn’t notice the cleaning schedule by the door next to him that last noted a cleaning in 2002, or the rotting corpse of a rat that had been shut in a stall and forgotten. The smell was not of this world, and he still couldn’t pick it up. There were no people where he was, as the stop he’d found had been closed for years after the administrative offices had deemed it dangerous following a series of suicides. The stop had been moved a couple kilometres up the line and the abandoned station now served as maintenance access.
None of this registered in his mind as he stood frozen in front of the mirror. He had to focus all of his might on not keeping his stomach from twisting inside out. There was simply nothing there to see except a faint, faint outline. As if someone had painted the outline of a body on a crime scene to portray the way the body lay stiff after falling and giving in. He could clearly see the decay and flaking paint of the wall behind him, but his own existence was as if wiped out.
As he moved a little to the side, the sensation of his insides clenching registering somewhere in a consciousness far off from his own, the air shimmered in the reflection. He existed, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there.
While the realisation, again, dawned upon him and settled heavy as lead everywhere in his mind, he could hear the static sound creeping up on him. All he could do now was run. And try to survive.
As he panicked ran straight through the door, floating with the air, out into the big waiting hall with its arched ceiling and missing tiles he also failed to notice the compact darkness and the occasional bat that stirred confusedly at the sudden burst of activity.
The power was off, and it was in the middle of the night.
-
Day by day, he grew a little bit more solid. From simple outlines and a shimmer in the air that swore something was actually there and invading it, he slowly became a whole body. He grew a bit stronger at the seams everyday, if you will.
When he first could remember, there’d been nothing. He had definitely not been there. One day he noticed he gleam from the light in his eyes, and things slowly progressed from there. Seemingly over night he grew just that little bit stronger, for every time he escaped the whiteness his contours seemed less surreal and distorted.
It had been a week before he could see something else than outlines. He was suddenly able to pluck at the shirt he knew he wore, and he could sweep hair out of his eyes. Before that point, he simply hadn’t had the hair in his face; take of that what you will.
For the first time he could remember he could feel the harshness of the ground against his back if he laid down on his back in an empty parking lot, and he could feel the asphalt beneath his feet as the aimlessly wandered around the streets, sunrise to sunset. The sun stung a little in his eyes when it hit them from between a shopping centre and an office building, fighting its way up over the sky. The sensation wasn’t a lot, but it was there.
-
After a couple more days animals started noticing his presence. As he walked through a small alleyway, looking for he didn’t even know what, a cat looked up at him, and its yellow lit orbs stared right into his before it hissed and retreated further back into the darkness. It was okay with him! It was more than okay, he felt brilliant! The cat had noticed him, and looked right at him.
He looked around to make sure he was alone, and pleased with that he continued on his way.
The cat saw him, so maybe he really was starting to be more solid.
-
He still couldn’t interact with his surroundings, instead having to wander endlessly around like a misplaced and lost pet with decreasing amounts of things he could think of doing to entertain himself. What was happening, and when would it stop?
-
Their eyes met and the soulful eyes seemed to pull him in. The feeling of being actually seen wrapped him in a warm cocoon of pleasant feelings.
“Hey little buddy”, he greeted in a low voice, crouching and smiling at the little dog leached outside the pharmacy. The small tail wriggled excitedly and it barked a hello at his non-existence. The puppy with brown fur was too young to understand that this human wasn’t natural, or supposed to be there. Instead he was excited at the attention. He’d wanted a long walk and gotten promised one, just to end up here with master. Maybe this one would walk him instead.
“You’re so cute! I’d pet you, but yeah, I can’t really do that.” The young dog seemed to almost understand him, or at least the gist of what he was saying.
He stood and backed away as the owner, a man barely at the start of adulthood, came out of the building and untied the knot from around the lamppost. “I hope he’s nice to you” he whispered softly to the puppy as the owner turned his back momentarily and then watched as the man brought the dog away from him. The dog looked back at him until the pair turned a street corner.
Too bad, really, He’d felt a connection with the little dog.
How nice it must be, he thought, to have an owner who always knew right from wrong and knew better than you about all the confusing things that happened all around the world. He kind of wanted that too for himself, but he was alone and invisible.
A heavy feeling settled in his heart. Where was his “owner”?
-
So what could one do now? He had already gotten it confirmed that he wasn’t dead. He could see himself clearly if he stretched out an arm or something and looked, breathed automatically and could feel the heat of it against his hand. How could he pass on from this quite pathetic state? What he needed was definitely more answers, and meanwhile the questions just kept piling up.
He strolled slowly through the park, hiding in the shades under the blossoming trees. He wished he could smell the flowers, hear the people more clearly. As time had passed and grown into weeks he’d realized that what he heard when people walked by him and talked to eachother, wasn’t the real thing. It seemed like he heard everything through ears filled with water.
As usual when he thought about everything that was wrong he could hear the white void approach. It suddenly hit him like a sledgehammer to the back of the head and he bit his lip, it was the simple truth. He needed to face it, face the very end itself.
All of a sudden it was all around him, the noise piercingly sharp in his ears, the white engulfing the trees and the unaware people alike and shielding him off.
He forced himself to stand up on legs that refused to carry him, shaking like he was going to break. The white tried to reach into him, and he willed it away from him. There was no need for him to let it reach into him; he didn’t want to know what would happen. He closed his eyes as hard as he could but it seemed to matter little against the burning light.
Quite frankly, he’d never been more scared than he was at that moment, a sound that he didn’t realize was his own heartbeat fading in and out through the white noise, and his throat refused to work when he tried to will it to work.
Was it going to end like this, really?
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to wet his mouth enough to speak, something he hadn’t done for as long he could remember.
“You can’t have me” he yelled, voice cracking and ugly.
Everything froze and the static, empty sound disappeared.
-
It was a hard punch to his solar plexus, that’s the best thing he could describe it as. As if someone had lifted him with strong hands and punched him straight in the most sensitive part of the stomach and then let him crash forcefully into the asphalt. Everything was so loud it hurt and he knew in an instant that whatever had blocked the sounds before had been removed.
Smell was still gone, and he was quite thankful, a bit more and it all might as well have killed him. Colours hurt with how vivid they appeared, a bit surreal. They moved and twisted when people moved and it made him feel sick.
It took a couple of minutes before he realized he’d FELT it. Not a little, not like as if it was someone else’s feeling, simply feeling it. He got to his feet, head spinning but both feet solid on the ground and legs carrying his weight. People were still walking through him, but something had changed.
Something had changed, and the rules were different now.
-
After exploring his surroundings anew, still barely affected at all by the nonstop walking, it all grew old. Colours, no matter how prettily they danced, couldn’t amuse him forever, especially not as he still couldn’t interact with objects around him. Yesterday he’d talked to a dog, that’s how lonely he was.
-
He became reckless, chasing the adrenaline-bursting feeling of life and almost losing your grip of it all. Standing surprisingly stable on top of a bridge safety-rail and seeing forever stretch out beneath you and knowing that you could do whatever you wanted, that this sight was only yours; it was an absolutely thrilling feeling. Once or twice he was high enough to touch the clouds, and he wished he could have felt the building charges and gathering mist against his skin.
The ground was nothing when you could almost join the angels. The thought passed through his head and had barely been processed before he allowed his arms to spread and let the gravity that still somehow worked on him to pull him back down toward the ground and the glimmering ocean. The illusion of blue. He liked blue.
-
‘I could really do this forever’, he thought and tried to map the stars and give them names. Names he’d known, names he’d forgotten and names that simply hadn’t been there to begin with.
-
One of the first times he was around to climb on top of a broadcasting tower with all its antennas and technical junk, it was almost dawn. The air was thin, but it wasn’t really smoggy. It was probably the weekend and all of the places that made junk for the faceless mass of people were closed.
Not that the levels of smog or pollen or anything like that bothered him; he felt no need to breathe. It was an annoyance more than something crucial for survival.
As if on cue, he froze. All the sound had vanished, as if the birds in nearby Hangang Park all held their breath, the air had gone still and there was a particularly sharp chilly note to the air.
Then he saw the line of sunlight by the horizon. It had been such a long time since he’d seen something like this without it being hidden behind bitter morning thoughts and high buildings.
The entire sky lightened up with the as of yet invisible sun, dashes of yellow and orange by the horizon growing into soft pinks and hues of purple, purple like bruises and mixed with the still lingering gray of the night. Pastels grew into bolder nuances as minutes ticked by. It reflected onto the clouds and made them glow with promises of the day to come.
Magnified by the filter in his eyes, and the pollution in the air it was so beautiful that he simply forgot to breathe and just stopped dead in his movements.
Perhaps it was because of things like these he was still there? That it was all because of the things he’d missed out on living the life he had?
He still had no idea.
-
Eventually he had to make himself stop. There was an incident, where he’d been walking on the rails and been surprised by both the teke-teke of the rapidly approaching train and the singing from the rail. He hadn’t entirely managed to jump out of the way, paralyzed by the built in knowledge that this would kill him.
He hadn’t died, technically, but he hurt everywhere as he lay unmoving in the ditch, and for every breath he took, the old foggy whiteness faded in, faded out. Close call.
-
The pain and the moments of menacing white had frightened him enough for Jonghyun to not challenge the limits anymore. Instead he tried to feel content standing with both feet on the ground, doing less risky stuff to pass time.
Jonghyun sat on a worn-out bench watching people walk past him. There was an old man with thin hair hurrying to wherever holding on to his cheap briefcase, a few teenagers still in their school uniforms window shopping on their way home. A lot of middle-aged women were trying to find the best deal for the things messily written on their shopping lists and some young adults just littered around, probably with nothing better to do. A woman caught the eyes of the invisible observer. She was clearly good looking with her long hair and nice legs. She had a petit frame and was probably more cute than beautiful, actually. Jonghyun didn’t manage to see the face of this potentially charming girl though as she had almost already disappeared in the masses. Jonghyun hurried after her in hopes of checking her out. It was not like she would know if he did, so he couldn’t be called a pervert right?
He saw the young woman walk through the doors to the public baths before he lost her. He cursed in his head and stood staring at the offensive, closed piece of wood before he took a breath and took a step forward. Once through, Jonghyun noticed disappointedly that his pray was gone. The room he stood in was not the most modern he’d seen, it looked more like it had had a few years on its back with the old interior and exfoliated paint it the corners. An old, wrinkled lady stood behind the massive wooden counter reading through some papers, totally unaware of his presence.
There were two doors potentially leading to the baths on either side on him. No signs were visible so Jonghyun trusted his gut feeling and went through the left one.
-
He stepped into a small locker-room with light green lockers along two sides and a bench with chipped paint in the middle. He could hear the sound of a shower from the adjacent room. Smiling triumphantly to himself he made his way towards the sound of pouring water. Instead of finding a few older women and the pretty girl he had followed, he found one single… man?! Damn, he had gone through the wrong door. That was definitely the last time he would trust his gut feeling when making decisions.
The man was perhaps around his early twenties and sat on a small footstool facing the mirror while he washed the foam from his inky black hair. Fascinated, he stood right behind the only other occupant in the room. Not that the other occupant in question would ever know, but still.
The man opened his eyes once he was done with his ministrations only too look up and stare at the mirror. Their eyes met, his own curious orbs meeting tiny dark brown ones. It took a few seconds of staring at each other before the man let out a high pitched yelp and landed hard on the tiled ground. What just happened? He was confused, had he just lost his balance by himself or did he get scared of something? He knew the man staring at him from his messy position on the floor with wide eyes laced with fear couldn’t see him. He shouldn’t be able to. Right?
-
He felt light, the young man really could see him. He had moved around him in circling movements and still the mans tiny eyes had followed him. That wouldn’t have been possible if he couldn’t at least feel his presence and the fear emitted from his entire being was definitely a sign. Now he was determined to not lose this chance, so what if he couldn’t communicate? As long as someone noticed him he could cope.
-
Following the still nameless man around was amusing for him. He got reactions of badly suppressed fear every time he stood close enough to breathe in his ear and eyes subconsciously searching for him once he hid or got to far behind. It seemed like the man didn’t see him as human but simply some floating mass that had come to haunt him.
For fun, he followed him everywhere, as he went to buy groceries in the super market, as he clumsily fell over a toy left in the park, as he went to the Laundromat and sat in the library reading until the sun had set. As the day had went by the man had started to get used to his permanent presence. He was still far from comfortable with it but he had probably just given up. He must have finally realised that the guy following him around wouldn’t leave him alone.
They sat opposite each other; the young man holding on to a book that looked pretty interesting and he himself just observing since he had nothing else to do. The quietness embedded him in a comfortable silence until the sound of the book being shut closed disrupted. Eyes met and they stared for a moment before the man open his mouth.
“Whatever you are, you don’t seem to be leaving me alone anytime soon.” The voice was soft and soothing but still had a manly touch to it. He could do nothing but silently confirm his statement. The man stood up to put the book away and then discreetly waved for him to follow. Where, he didn’t know, but what did it matter? He simply couldn’t miss this chance.
-
“I hope you don’t need an invitation to enter rooms or something like that.” the man muttered, as he unlocked the nondescript apartment door.
He’d been led through a subway station and the young man had almost bought a ticket for his follower before biting his lip and moving on through the ticket barrier. His subway card case didn’t have a picture like so many of the other people there had. It was simple.
They got onto a train, and as his saviour looked a bit nervous he looked around, and noticed a couple of the other people around edging away from the seemingly paranoid man.
It wasn’t by any means a fancy neighbourhood, he thought as he trailed behind the man into the apartment. He’d seen smashed glass by the bus stop where they’d gotten off (four stops with the subway, an additional three stops by bus) and quite a bit of graffiti around the semi-tall buildings. In general, the entire neighbourhood needed a splash of paint.
The apartment was quite big, even though it was evident that the man lived alone. There were only a couple of pairs of shoes standing there and not many jackets filling up the empty hangers. It did however feel quite homey, he discovered, when warm light flooded the kitchen to his right and seeped out into the hall. When he entered the kitchen, the man seemed to be making tea and for a moment he looked almost scared.
“It’s not much, but it is home. I guess.” he said, scratching his head awkwardly. “I’m Jinki. I guess I never told you that.”
It sounded quite good in his head. Jinki. He really looked like a Jinki.
They didn’t talk after that. Well, he really couldn’t, and Jinki seemed unable to come up with anything to say.
When Jinki went to bed, he had no other choice but to stay in the apartment, afraid of getting lost and separated from his weird man. The only one who knew he was there, and possibly the only one who could help him. It didn’t make the night less boring.
-
Jinki spent the next morning hunched over a big notebook, illuminated by the slowly rising sun outside his kitchen window. He seemed to be drawing, but it wasn’t really clear what he’d been doing until his tea had cooled considerably and he finally showed it. It was a paper full of squares. In every neatly drawn square was a letter or number, a to z and 0 to 9. He’d have giggled if it had mattered. Jinki was quite intelligent and keen on finding solutions, it seemed, so he’d come up with what seemed like a primitive Ouija-board so that he too could communicate. Smart.
Jinki looked up at him with a faint smile, hair not yet dried from the shower earlier. “I don’t quite know what to do with you, but I guess you can come with me to work if you want.”
It wasn’t like he had some urgent matters to attend to or even any engagements at all, so why not. He nodded.
When he looked back up, Jinki was still looking at him. ‘What’ he mouthed. Seemingly Jinki understood it as he quickly turned his gaze down.
“No, I just… Don’t you have a name?”
He thought hard about it but couldn’t remember anything. He hadn’t actually thought about it once, and to be honest he couldn’t remember anything before the point of coming to as if he’d been out, on his back out in some anonymous alleyway.
He shook his head and shot Jinki his best apologetic look. “It’s okay! I just wanted to know if there’s something I could call you because well,” he seemed unsure. “It’s awkward looking like you’re speaking to thin air but even more awkward not knowing the name of the thin air.”
It was a weird thing to say, but he guessed it made sense. Assuming he was a weird sort of ghost he’d have to come from a human. Humans, as far as he knew, all had names.
“Ghost-sshi?” Jinki asked, more of a suggestion than anything. He frowned instantly. It was a stupid name. Deep inside he didn’t want to be associated with some weird being, a lost imprint of a soul or whatever, that went around scaring people and even hurting them. He angrily, instantly pointed to the ‘no’ written down in the notebook along with a few other simple phrases and shook his head. Most definitely not.
Jinki looked a bit shocked at his sudden reaction. “Why?” he asked, as gently as he could, seemingly not to provoke the other any more. For a reply he just kept pointing at ‘no’, motion as if stabbing it with his finger but not actually hitting the paper of course. Jinki sat back, apprehension in his eyes. “Fine then, I’ll just try to think of something else.”
He smiled thankfully at Jinki, easing the worry in his eyes. Whatever was fine, but not ‘ghost’. What he needed was definitely not another reminder of his inabilities.
-
There was a dog on their subway train today. It was big and fluffy and filled his heart with warmth. Also it didn’t seem scared of him, so he knelt in front of it and whispered nonsensical things to it, the owner oblivious to the way her dog was almost entranced by the weird not-quite human.
Jinki watched them from his hard plastic seat, fascinated by the way the dog actually seemed responsive of the ghostly appearance and the way ‘he’ spoke to it.
Jinki still wasn’t quite sure what to think of this mute new appearance in his life. It would happen to someone like him though. Ordinary Jinki who seemed to get along better with animals and facts than actual people, of course it was him out of all people who would end up haunted.
He’d be manning the bookstore alone today, from opening at eight in the morning to about four in the afternoon. The bookstore in question was an independent one, not bound by a chain, and it paid quite decently. He’d been on a quite rare streak of luck when he’d found the ad in the newspaper and known from the moment he saw it that it’d been for him. For once his hard earned degree in literature (especially of the foreign kind) and history had paid off and he’d gotten the job quite easily.
Jinki had always loved books; in fact he’d been obsessed about them since his mother had read bedtime stories to him many years ago. All kinds of books interested him, whether historical recounts or science fiction, heavy books about death or light novellas. If he didn’t have them, he craved them.
As they reached the mall and made their way to the store so that he could unlock it and open up for the day, he wondered what kind of story his ghost companion would’ve been able to tell, could he speak of course. Did ghosts even like books?
He observed the shadow of a man closely as he let him into the store, and got all his answers from the subdued fascination and excitement he radiated. Jinki could have sworn the white thick mass had just gotten the tiniest hint of colour to it. He shrugged it off. Knowing himself, he was probably seeing things.
-
It had been almost obvious, he thought. That Jinki would work in a bookshop.
Despite doing close to no exploring of the apartment the night before he had definitely noticed the very well-filled bookcases lining the walls of the entire apartment. So why not.
Even though it wasn’t a big store at all, Jinki had been to busy to talk to him most of the day, and he’d much appreciated that. It was embarrassing now that he thought about it, not having a story, and being around someone who didn’t seem to want to fill the silence by telling a whole lot of their own. Jinki seemed to be quite lonely, unused to having someone to talk to.
He wandered the apartment. Jinki was sleeping; the digital alarm clock on the nightstand just having stated with a beep that it was three in the morning. It wasn’t like he was trying to take something, and so he didn’t feel like he was intruding. Carefully he looked over all the bookcases, counting them to be a total of 14 and understanding why Jinki had such a big apartment - he needed that much space to fit all of his books.
He wished he could have taken one off its shelf and gotten a closer look at it, or even run his fingers over their backs, but he couldn’t will his fingers to not go straight through numbly. Jinki had quite an interesting collection of books, new and old, and he could feel a stir of something akin to resemblance in his stomach as he came across an old collection of Shakespeare. The sensation was gone before he could reach out and grab it, and he sunk to the floor and almost-cried with a feeling of complete emptiness.
-
When he entered the kitchen next morning, Jinki already through half his cup of lukewarm tea, and managed to catch his companions’ kind of far away attention he made the shape of a book in the air, and mimed writing in it for good measure. In turn he got a bleary stare. “The notebook?” he asked. Yes, he nodded with an excited smile. It was quite amazing actually being understood like this. The notebook, please.
When Jinki placed it on the table and stared at him in wait for his next move, he raised his eyebrow and stared back. After a few seconds Jinki caught up and scrambled embarrassedly for the notebook in order to open it for him.
‘L-A-S-S-I-E’, he pointed. Jinki looked funny when he did, and he laughed to himself at which Jinki sobered up. “Lassie? Like the movies about a particular dog?” he asked, incredulous. In response, he got a nod. “You want me to call you ‘Lassie’?”
They both laughed at how weird it sounded. He liked it though, he’d picked it. “Fine by me, if that’s what you want” Jinki said with a smile and finished off his tea.
-
He wanted to try reading.
Jinki had been eyeing him with concern for the last few days, and while he was growing closer to Jinki, revelling in the fact that he was able to be understood, he was getting restless doing nothing. No matter how much thought and energy he put into it he couldn’t figure out any way to move forwards from where he was. It wasn’t that he didn’t like spending time hanging around Jinki or hearing his soft voice as he tried to not be noticed talking to what was seemingly himself. Actually, he just felt worthless, seeking that faint feeling of recognition because the pain in his mind because of trying too hard was nothing compared to being nothing forever.
Books seemed to have a triggering effect on this sensations as he often found himself drawn to them and staring at certain titles, trying to figure out why exactly he did. Also he wanted something to do, so reading it was.
There was a lull in activity, so he approached Jinki by the counter and waved his hand in front of his face to get his attention. It was a bit tricky to get his full attention off his beloved books, and he’d sometimes get annoyed if it was done for a pointless reason, which he’d have learnt very quickly. “Lassie, go entertain yourself, I’m sure there’s something you can do away from here!” he’d say, and that was actually his way of telling you to fuck off, despite being too nice to say it.
“What”, Jinki said, face still blank and eyes fluttering down towards the printed words. He quickly made a gesture towards the notebook lying open on a small table behind them, dark wood contrasting against the harsh red of the cover. Sighing, Jinki marked his page in the book and turned to him. When the notebook lay open between them, he pointed out his message. Jinki looked a bit confused. “Read?”
Oh yes, he was quite certain it was the right thing to do.
-
For the first few days he had to make Jinki turn every page for him, something the man did with a sigh and roll of his eyes. After that he got sick of having to depend on Jinki, the man oftentimes way too slow for his liking.
Was there anything to do?
Again he found himself roaming the streets, thoughts feeling like they took too much place in his head, filling it to the brim and leaking out again just when he tried to let them be heard. It was almost worse than the white noise that had burned itself a spot in his memory since he knew it was supposed to make sense, and it hurt almost as much.
Think, damn it, he berated himself. Focus.
Why was he here if he was forever meant to be washed out and simply nothing, Jinki the only one who could see him?
He wanted to remember, be seen, have a voice. If he couldn’t, even if it scared him boneless he wanted to die. Or move on, or whatever you did when you were like this. As if it had been waiting for a cue, the white lined his sight, pouncing without finesse, not bothering to creep up on him. Except when he expected the noise in his ears to be covered with the familiar static, all he could hear was bells.
Bells, it didn’t make sense.
It hit him like lightning, burned through him and hurt more than anything he’d done thus far, way more than the train, way more than last time in the park.
Then there was something.
Stop!
The bells, it made sense now.
The white rejected him, spewed him out whole.
He had a name now, a few new rules. He wasn’t ready for the beyond yet, and armed with this knowledge he rushed off into the night, the stars in the sky twinkling at him.
-
Jinki looked at him blearily. “You look like a person now. There’s more colour to you.”
He supposed that was about as much sense he’d get out of him this early in the morning, so he breathed in deep, the scent of books, dust that was hard to get when cleaning and green tea filling his nose. He couldn’t remember a scent ever being this beautiful. The green tea, the honey of Jinki’s shampoo, Jinki himself - he loved all of it.
Excitedly, he pointed at the notebook, motioning for Jinki to give it to him. When he did, he immediately started pointing. ‘J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’, he pointed out, looking up at Jinki’s confused expression to make sure he’d gotten it and then pointing at himself. ‘I-A-M-J-O-N-G-H-Y-U-N’.
Like bells.
-
Encouraged by this huge step forward, Jonghyun wanted to read more books, because they were fascinating and their stories might still be of help. Having a name felt like a huge improvement for his soul, like an injection of sunrays into a dark dreary space. It felt easier to live, to put it simple.
Another thing he wanted to explore was if he really couldn’t touch things. It seemed weird to him, still not being able to interact with things. Not being able to turn the page of a book by himself was still quite honestly a pain, and he wanted to be able to do it. He really liked Jinki, but somehow he wanted to prove his immense success, show Jinki he wasn’t just there loitering around worthlessly.
So he began to experiment with his energy. Trying to will the page to flip with his hands. Obviously it didn’t work out as planned and he managed to look quite stupid while doing it too. He didn’t have a breakthrough until after a few days of trying, when he saw Jinki drop a pencil out of the corner of his eye. Almost without his interference his energy surged forward, and he caught the item in his hand.
It was the most beautiful thing ever, and he wanted to cry and smile at the same time. Jinki looked worried though when he discovered it, as Jonghyun had used all that energy, all the colour had left him too. He didn’t want Jonghyun to push himself too hard.
After that time, and when he’d regained his energy, Jonghyun started being able to turn the page by himself, which meant more time for Jinki to read his own books and made Jonghyun able to pick more freely. Both approved of this change.
Part Two