Ursa Minor [2016] part ii
part i
When Kyungsoo opens his eyes, he finds himself looking down onto buildings and buildings stretching into the horizon. It’s night already, and even though he woke up this morning, went to school and sat at his desk for hours, days merge into each other without him noticing; his nausea doesn’t follow him as often as what he had gotten used to, but his perception of time is altered. He just can’t keep track of it all anymore, or maybe it’s that it doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t care. Moments where he opens his eyes to find himself somewhere, like he just woke up but he knows he hasn’t been sleeping for a while, have become familiar.
That night he finds himself on the school’s rooftop. It could’ve looked the exact same way it did back then, as if it had just happened an hour ago, but it’s late and the air is even colder, the wind stronger. The only detail from that scene that remains the same is that he still feels helpless, probably more so in this moment, standing before the illuminated city. It would appear alive if he didn’t know it was already dying.
Through the wind he listens to the faint sounds of the city, the cars, and something like a train passing by, although he’s not sure there’s actually a railway anywhere near enough for the sound to reach him, especially through the wind. He glances to his left and sees Jongin standing beside him. His sudden appearances don’t even startle Kyungsoo anymore, since Jongin barely leaves his mind, infiltrates it down to his dreams, and watching him exhale heavily, right there on the rooftop, doesn’t feel any different.
« What do you want from me? I wish none of this would have happened. What’s going on with everyone? What should I do? What can I do? » All his questions come out at once, not in the way he would’ve liked them to. He looks at Jongin who is all of a sudden too close, only a few inches away, and Kyungsoo notices for the first time how small he is compared to this boy one year his junior. He’s so close he could touch him if he wanted to, but the possibility scares him.
« Jongin, what’s the Suicide Club? » Kyungsoo looks up to eyes staring right through him, as if he wasn’t even there. When the boy in front of him speaks up, it feels like he is talking to himself.
« It’s only a club, Kyungsoo. The Suicide Circle is all of this. It’s all of us. What are they all doing? Everyone is looking for a place to belong. What’s your purpose, what’s your role in this?
You know, there are certainly more suicides than there are in this club. There’s always more to it than what you think. This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly. They fail at being a father, they fail at being a wife, at being a teacher, at being a son. And they fail at being themselves. They connect to others and they connect to the club to fulfil their roles, but in the end, do you notice when a star disappears from the sky? People vanish all the time. »
« Are you going to disappear, too? »
« We all disappear at some point. It’s only a matter of how and when; it’s all the fucking same either way. »
Jongin’s hand is surprisingly warm on the skin of his neck, and a shiver shakes him so strongly he flinches and closes his eyes. The boy is alive after all, Kyungsoo realizes. It’s a weird thought.
« I don’t want to be alone anymore. » And it’s true. He’s been wandering in the dark for so long, struggling to breathe, and despite knowing Jongin is the one that cut off his oxygen, the touch of his skin on his is enough to bring him back to life.
Humans are like stars in the universe, distancing themselves from others at the speed of light. From nothing they start as one, and it feels like it’ll be this way forever, but soon everyone finds themselves alone, and they can’t recognize where they are, nor who they are.
Jongin’s voice echoes in him once more; he closes his eyes, and thinks Jongin must be wrong. There’s only darkness, he doesn’t know where he is nor who he is, but Jongin’s hands on his neck are real, and the lips pressing down at the corner of his own are warm too.
He feels far away from the world, deep into the confines of the universe, but he’s not alone.
-
Kyungsoo gets dragged down dozens and dozens of flights of stairs, pulled by the wrist, his legs moving as if they were someone else’s entirely. They’re running down what feels like miles of glistening pavement, street lights flickering off and drowning them in darkness. He hears a beeping sound followed by an electronic voice and the pavement starts to move under his feet, until he realizes they’re inside a train. Suddenly the light returns, too harsh for his eyes, letting him discern only silhouettes standing in the cart around him, then they’re running down dark streets again. He has no idea where they are going, and even though he tries to speak through his heavy breaths no sound comes out. There’s a pause and then stairs again, stairs and more stairs and Kyungsoo is tired, he wonders for an instant how his legs are still supporting him.
The apartment is even darker than the streets, as if the moonlight couldn’t pierce through the windows. He is guided through a door. He doesn’t remember his shoes coming off, nor his jacket, his shirt removed as well. A hand is pressing his chest down on a mattress, and when he looks up nobody’s there, he can’t see anything but a pair of eyes hovering above him.
« Jongin. » It’s the first sound he lets out in a while, breathless, a whisper.
Jongin kisses him again. He doesn’t understand the meaning of it, but he goes along with it.
When the lips leave his mouth to press on his neck, and hands start to tug at the waistband of his uniform trousers, he turns his head towards the window. The moon’s light shines strangely bright, but doesn’t reach them, doesn’t penetrate the room to hit the walls and maybe chase the shadows from Jongin’s face.
He remembers when he was a child how he used to be terrified of aliens. He’d had nightmares for two years, of aliens bursting into his home and their laser guns turning his parents to bones. He’d always look at the night sky and fear spotting a spaceship piercing the clouds.
The second these memories flash through his head, as he falls and falls down the cliff, he wishes he could’ve seen the edge on time.
Hands slide over his skin, and he clings nails deep into Jongin’s body as if it could stop his fall, but instead it’s everything else that falls with him. He’s afraid, even more than he was back then, six or seven years old boy trembling under his blanket. It’s even more terrifying than ghosts or alien stories, it’s like running from the monster without knowing if it’ll ever catch him, and as he runs he sees other people, tired of running or hurting their leg and stop, but he never knows if they get caught because he won’t look back.
He thinks maybe they don’t get caught because the monster is only chasing after him.
Or maybe there is no monster, and he only keeps running because he doesn’t want to know what happens to those who stop, to those who finally hit the ground.
It feels like the fall ends there when something inside him explodes, white washing over the darkness in front of his eyes for an instant as the heat spreads down his body. The white fades out, blurring out his surroundings into each other. The moon outside disappears, the eyes floating in the dark close and it’s as if the room had vanished.
-
Kyungsoo wakes up in a bed he doesn’t know. He remembers Jongin dragging him to his apartment the night before, but in the daylight it’s the first time he really sees it. The bedroom is strangely normal, maybe a bit too simple. White walls; dark grey blankets; a ceiling fan and a window without blinds or curtains.
The comforter beside him raises slowly, dark strands of hair poking out from under it. He closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the wind outside, the cry of a bird flying by children shouting down the street. It’s a strange, calming sensation.
An arm moves up from under the covers, fingers touching his face lightly. He sighs. It’s not clear who needs this the most, but he suppresses the thought and leans into the touch.
-
When he exits Jongin’s apartment building, the sun has started to set, orange and pink over white and on the other side it’s black and grey where the light doesn’t reach. He stops in the middle of the road, waiting for a spaceship to appear between the clouds. The distant roar of an airplane way above him snaps him out of his thoughts; it sounds familiar, like cars on the highway far, far in the distance. In the darkening sky he can only catch a flashing light vanishing behind the roof of a house.
Two buildings down a family is saying goodbye to an old lady. A man, a woman, two girls about his age, and a young boy. They’re hugging the old lady, smiling and crying a bit, and Kyungsoo can hear them saying « Goodbye, granny! » « I’ll miss you granny, see you soon. » « Take care, goodbye. » They let go of her slowly, and she waves at them before going back inside. The family starts to walk in his direction.
Kyungsoo blinks and the sad smiles, the tears evaporate as he stands on the side of the road, rooted in place. As the family pass him, one of the two girls glances at him and smiles tauntingly. He turns around, shocked, and sees them getting in a white van, then drive away.
It’s silent again. He sees the girl’s smile in his head, and is reminded of what Jongin had said the night before.
There’s always more to it than what you think. This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly.
He wonders if this is what he meant, or if, on the contrary, these people haven’t failed at all.
He starts walking.
-
Kyungsoo goes to school the next day, but does not bother attending classes. It’s the same either way, he thinks. Doesn’t make much of a difference.
He climbs up the stairs to the rooftop, but the door is locked. He’s not surprised. He sits on the stairs instead, and decides it’s probably the better option. The weather’s getting colder and colder, anyway.
He admittedly goes looking for Jongin when the bell rings. The first years’ building, library, cafeteria; and he repeats this for a few days. When he gets home his parent don’t even look at him. Has school called to report on his absence in class? Did his teachers even notice he’d been absent? He wonders if he eventually came back to class he would find flowers on his desk.
He remembers well how it had happened the first time, Jongin disappearing like he had never existed in the first place. He remembers how Jongin had found him instead.
He knows this time’s different, though. He has the feeling it’s his turn to find Jongin. He knows the boy is linked to the Suicide Club in some way, but the side on which he stands is still a mystery.
After a week, Kyungsoo tries to recall the way to Jongin’s apartment from when he’d left to his own house. It’s vague, but after two hours, he’s finally there. He doesn’t think twice before he knocks on the door. He can’t help but imagine a body curled up in charcoal blankets, cans of coffee and energy drinks and dirty dishes littering the floor, the kitchen counters, the bed. He knocks again, louder. Waits.
He feels like crying. He feels like screaming. He bangs and bangs on the door until his fists hurt, his throat dry with the screams he tries to repress as much as he can, until a neighbor appears in the crack of an open door at the end of the hallway, alerted by the noise. He hasn’t felt this angry in a while, but it’s still an illogical emotion flooding his mind, it makes him dizzy and a bit nauseous. His jaw hurts from gritting his teeth too hard.
After the second week, Kyungsoo has stopped thinking about school. He wakes up late when the house is empty, and falls asleep a few hours later before his parents return from work. He goes back to Jongin’s apartment, but only knocks twice. No answer.
Maybe he’s dead he thinks. Maybe he went and fucking killed himself. He probably jumped off a bridge or got rolled over by a train. It still feels suffocating, and his heart beats a mile an hour as he stands unmoving in front of Jongin’s door with adrenaline rushing to his head in waves. It makes the walls twist and turn and the neons flash as he turns around and walks away, focusing his attention on cracks in the wall or stains in the floor carpet.
When he looks up, after only a few steps, Jongin is there, wearing an oversized winter jacket and half of his face disappearing in a navy wool scarf. He’s like an apparition, and Kyungsoo can’t take his eyes off him, not even to blink in fear the boy would vanish again without leaving a shadow behind.
-
Layers of fabric evaporate like steam between their bodies, the press of skin against skin and the harsh grip of fingers the only tangible sensation, the only thing that feels real in that moment. Jongin presses Kyungsoo to him with a desperation that makes Kyungsoo light-headed. There’s a hand pressing hard on his waist and another cradling his head as they kiss urgently, preventing him from pulling back even an inch, as if Jongin hadn’t been the one to disappear for days to begin with, as if he’d had to leave against his will. Kyungsoo doesn’t get any explanation, but it’s not like he expected any; the presence of the boy around him is already surreal in itself.
He lets himself go, surrenders body and mind to Jongin completely. He glances over the edge of the cliff again, but this time the abyss seems inviting. It’s warm, comforting, fingers gliding over his ribs, his hips, his thighs. The touch is possessive, and albeit a little shaky, its confidence makes Kyungsoo feel like himself, as if Jongin was shaping his body to life, confirming his existence. It’s the closest he’s ever felt to any other human being, but it’s the closest he’s ever felt to himself as well.
When Jongin collapses on him, his arms pull the boy’s body against his own to erase the limit between them, to feel the boy’s quick breathing and the strong pumps of his heart in his chest as if they were his own.
After a while, when they’ve caught their breath and the air has cooled down, Jongin shifts on his side and buries his face in Kyungsoo’s neck. With his eyes closed, he feels every place their skin touch as strongly as he can, he engraves it in his memory even if it’d mean overwriting anything else.
« I hate this place. » Jongin says, but there’s no anger in his voice.
« You still came back, though, so it’s fine, right? » Home should be where you want to return to, Kyungsoo thinks, and that’s what Jongin did.
They lay amongst Jongin’s charcoal blankets for what seems like years and years, a warm breath fanning against Kyungsoo’s neck, and his hand rubbing irregular shapes across Jongin’s skin. He feels the boy detach himself slowly to look up into Kyungsoo’s eyes, and Jongin’s own eyes are blank, again leaving Kyungsoo all sorts of heartbroken.
It’s becoming harder to not expect a change. Well, there was a change, somehow, but he can hardly pinpoint what, exactly. He’ll take it though. He’ll take whatever he can get.
« Kyungsoo. » The boy lays back into the space between Kyungsoo’s shoulder and neck, and as he speaks, his lips brush Kyungsoo’s skin softly. The warmth makes Kyungsoo shiver; another reminder that the boy really is alive.
« Mmmh… » He shuts his eyes tight once more and concentrates on the voice.
« I’m afraid, you know? I might sound like I get it, all of this, but I don’t. I still don’t know why i’m here. Sometimes I look at my reflection and it’s not me. I don’t recognize myself at all, like i’m staring back at a stranger and this life isn’t even mine anymore. I get so scared then. »
He doesn’t see but feels Jongin’s hand coming to rest over his heart.
« It’s like my life went by in a flash, ninety years old me or two years old me standing right there, i’m not sure. And I look at myself and I’m so fucking lost. I start to panic because I understand that I’ll never have time to do anything, I won’t ever live long enough to even find that connection. »
He turns his head towards Jongin, dark brown hair tickling his face. His hand on Jongin’s back goes up to ruffle the boy’s hair gently, like he wants to calm him down, even though he knows there’s no helping it. Somehow these kinds of touches come to him so naturally.
« Kyungsoo, do you know what scientists say about the stars? »
« No, what do they say? » He asks in Jongin’s hair.
« Apparently the stars we see at night are so far away it takes millions and millions of years for their light to reach earth. It takes so long that all these stars are probably already dead. My existence feels like that, like an illusion, like it ended before it even started. And I’m just standing there, just fucking stargazing. Maybe I’ve been dead this whole time. Maybe that’s why I can’t find a connection, Kyungsoo. Maybe that’s why. »
Jongin’s hold on Kyungsoo’s body tightens, and Kyungsoo sighs.
« You have all the time you need, Jongin. I’m the same you know. I don’t know what I’m doing either. If you want, we can watch the stars together for a billion years. We’ll watch them for a billion, billion years, doesn’t matter if they don’t exist anymore. We’ll just watch the night sky until every star has disappeared. »
A quiet chuckle tickles his throat.
« … that’s impossible, but okay. Let’s do that. »
Kyungsoo feels helpless even in Jongin’s arms. In this instant, he knows the younger boy is already far ahead, somewhere far in the distance, and he might need those billion years just to catch up to him.
-
Kyungsoo stops keeping track of numerous things. The days of the week, for instance, don’t mean much anymore. Half the time he isn’t sure what day it is, what date it is, and it’s probably because it doesn’t feel important, kind of like when it’s summer vacation and the days blur into each other. He doesn’t have to care about time, if it’s morning or night or anything else.
He stops keeping track of the suicides still happening all around the country. It has spread; it was a Seoulite problem before, but not anymore. He thinks he saw on the news that people have been dying in Japan, too. There have been more suicides in some Chinese cities as well, but it’s unclear. He’s stopped counting, and then he’s stopped noticing altogether. It’s not that he doesn’t care; he still cares, he still wants to understand, but he hasn’t been getting anywhere, so he saves himself at least the thought.
One evening he opens the door to his house and walks into the living room. The news are playing on television, the volume low, almost a murmur. He stops in front of it for a moment, more by reflex than anything close to interest. Nothing registers in his mind because the news are just a death count now, faceless heads and the same monotone voice, almost robotic, one he’s been hearing for weeks. The house is empty and dark, the light of the tv screen flashing on the walls and furniture, casting long shadows that are like black holes hiding behind every surface. As he passes his parents' bedroom, he glances through the open door. Both of them are asleep, and it feels strangely ordinary. Suddenly the passage of time hits him upfront, something he hadn’t been expecting, as if it was forced down his throat.
How long was he gone? Was it just a day? A week?
When Kyungsoo wakes up the next day, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, the same faint murmur of the television can be heard from the living room. Someone is laughing, screaming, all of it blending in with an eerie mix of distorted sound effects. A song comes on, a bit more distinctly, the melody familiar. He gets up, like attracted by the youthful female voices, but he stops in his tracks in the hallway when he sees the door to his parent’s bedroom, still ajar, in the exact same position he had left it the night before. He opens it slowly, to find his parents still in their bed, but the air in the room is cold, stagnant, a buzzing sharp like a needle in his ears. His knees touch the carpeted floor with a thump, the grey of it dirty, dust floating up with the contact of his legs giving out under him. A rotten scent sticks to his tongue, heavy and strong, even more so than the stench of flowers at school. Stains of yellow color the carpet, some of it dripping from his chin to his thighs. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth that he can’t get rid of. His arms shake violently as he lifts a hand to his mouth, but bile comes out again.
He stands up suddenly, black and white spots obstructing his vision, and exits the bedroom as fast as he possibly can. His balance is off, his head heavy and his legs weak. He hits his shoulders and shins on the walls and furniture, not seeing, not registering the steps he takes until he is out the door, the group of preteen girls singing on tv following him until he’s standing outside, a song about expecting a message from a loved one.
Mail me, I want to let you know,
As far as friends go, yours is the best hello.
Mail me, I’m sure you never knew, how I feel about you.
This is real, I need to hear from you right now, or I’ll…
-
The rays of the evening sun hit his face, blinding him for a brief moment before they hide behind a dark grey cloud, the wind blowing mercilessly, the rustle of the leaves around him so loud it could be mistaken for a crashing of waves. He’s sitting at a table in a coffee shop he doesn’t recognize, even though there’s a sort of familiarity to the decor that’s unsettling, as if he’d visited this place once, years ago. He looks out the large windows to his left; on the other side of the glass, it’s Seoul, as he’s always known it, people walking hurriedly in the cold and their white breaths coming out in puffs of smoke.
The coffee shop is almost full, but none of the faces catch his attention. He looks down to his hands; his cup is empty, unused. When he looks back up, Jongin is sitting in the chair in front of him, wrapped up in his oversized winter jacket and navy wool scarf. He smiles at Kyungsoo, a real smile, one that reaches deep into his eyes and moves his entire being. His skin under the dimmed light of the sun looks beautiful. It’s a sight Kyungsoo commits to memory instantly.
« Jongin, what’s the Suicide Club? »
His voice sounds drained even to his own ears; Jongin’s smile falters.
« There’s no club. It’s a circle, Kyungsoo. A social circle. » He traces the shape of it in the air, as if to make a point. « This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly. They fail at being a husband, they fail at being a mother, at being a sister, at being a son. And they fail at being themselves. They fail to connect to others, and they fail to connect to themselves, so they try to connect to the club, even though they won’t ever find their role doing so. It’s pointless. Your role isn’t there. It will never be. »
Jongin’s words are familiar. He has the impression this conversation has already taken place, or something close to it at least.
He can almost predict the boy’s next words, but when Jongin speaks again, all of it feels entirely new.
« The red washing down the bathtub can’t change the color of the sea at all. Don’t forget, Kyungsoo. The club doesn’t exist. »
Behind Jongin, the customers sitting around the coffee shop stop talking and turn towards him, silently. Outside, the sun has almost disappeared, and the rustling of the leaves comes to a halt. A girl is looking at him from the other side of the road. Kyungsoo has seen her before, somehow. There’s a white van parked not far from where she stands, and as the engine starts, she looks away and runs, vanishing behind the vehicle.
A ringtone plays, the melody clear enough for Kyungsoo to make out what the lyrics say. Jongin takes out his phone from one of his jacket pockets, but doesn’t answer; the song continues playing, obnoxiously loud in the quiet coffee shop.
Mail me, hurry up and hit the send key,
Can’t you see? I’ve waited patiently.
Mail me, to my phone or my pc,
I’m ready to tell you that I am…
-
6:23am flashes red on the digital clock that sits on Jongin’s desk. It’s well into winter now, the moon still high up there, shinning brightly through a thin layer of clouds. The light still won’t reach the confines of Jongin’s bedroom, and the contrast of fluorescent white against the impenetrable darkness of the room reminds him of the night he fell off the cliff, never to be seen again. Kyungsoo still feels as if he’s falling, sometimes.
He tries to move but realizes he barely can, laying on his back with strong arms encircling his body, gripping at the fabric of his t-shirt, and Jongin’s head resting on his chest. It should feel suffocating, should add to the claustrophobic atmosphere of that early morning, but somehow this weight pinning him down feels like an anchor. Jongin’s breath against his skin, Jongin’s heartbeat not quite matching the rhythm of his own is calming.
It’s freezing; the heater broke often, Jongin had said, so he extends a hand to lift the comforter back up, covering Jongin’s sleeping form sprawled on top of him. His other hand worms over the boy’s bare back under the covers, tracing the bumps of his spine. It grazes the edges of the large scar marking smooth skin, a rectangular piece of skin missing from his waist, an accident, he had said. An accident. But it’s too sharp, the cut too clean, just like Jongin’s half smile when Kyungsoo had shaken the nerve within himself to ask about it. It hid something, but when was Jongin not hiding something?
Kyungsoo never mentions his dreams to Jongin. The little he can remember, he keeps to himself, always in fear of awakening something in the other boy, of provoking the irrevocable.
When he wakes up again, later in the day this time, the silence and cold sun outside has him trapped in a loop. There’s a pattern he can’t seem to escape from, and it’s not certain if seeing the end of it would be better. It allows him to evade the questions he’s never been able to respond to.
Jongin is sitting on the sofa in the living room, his back to Kyungsoo standing in the doorway, not moving an inch. He’s watching a rerun of the morning news, with the sound barely audible.
« Come watch, something interesting’s going on. » Says Jongin without even turning around, his voice soft over Kyungsoo’s thoughts. He simply sits down, resting his chin on his knees and his shoulder pressed to Jongin’s.
…arrested a group calling itself The Suicide Club and claiming responsibility for multiple murders. The group used the internet to call upon people to kill themselves. Their proclaimed aim was social upheaval. Investigators are now working to uncover the details.
There’s a video footage of what seems like the aforementioned group’s hideout, some sort of abandoned bowling venue with white sheets and a handful of metal tools littering the deserted alleys, a focus on some dark spots on the floors resembling dried blood, followed by images of police officers escorting out a tall man with dyed hair. His clothes are flashy, a matching suit with paillettes all over. As an introduction, the words « Suicide Club ringleader: Kwon Jiyong, self-proclaimed Genesis, 34 years old » in white letters, static at the bottom of the screen.
Is the camera rolling? Wait, film my face, make sure to film my face. Good, good. First remember that reality is invisible to the human eye. We both know that life’s a real bitch. What about doing your best? That’s not good enough! Reminds me of that girl group’s song, how’s it go again? Oh yeah! The world is a jigsaw puzzle, somewhere there is a fit for you! Don’t fit you say? Then-
The video cuts to an overview of the scene, police vehicles and ambulances surrounding the place, a growing crowd of pedestrians and reporters moving about, then jumps back to a large zoom on the man’s face.
I’m the Charles Manson of the information age! Gotta find a place that lasts forever-
And the video is cut short.
« I like that song he was talking about. » Jongin says to no one in particular as he stands up and picks up his winter jacket. He disappears into the bedroom and comes out with his sneakers on, adjusting his scarf around his neck.
« Where are you going? » Kyungsoo asks.
« Out. Just… out. I’ll be back soon. »
Kyungsoo looks at Jongin without a word, the other boy standing by the door, half of his face disappearing behind the large knitted scarf, hands in his pockets. He almost looks like a regular boy then, not one that has been swept away by the world unfairly, struggling to even stay alive. Slowly, Jongin’s eyes turn into small crescents, his gaze still unwavering, and even though his mouth is out of sight, Kyungsoo knows he’s smiling. It’s the first time Kyungsoo really sees it, a full smile that reaches deep somehow, one that lights up Jongin’s figure completely. A strange feeling of dread possesses him then; the smile, he doesn’t understand it and it scares him, shocks him even. He remembers wanting Jongin to smile one day, but now that he did, he finds it just doesn’t fit. It’s not the right moment, not the right place, not the right atmosphere.
Jongin takes a few steps forward until he’s standing by the sofa where Kyungsoo still sits, silent. His dark hair falls on his face, and his eyes relax a bit, his gaze softening as he extends a hand to Kyungsoo’s forehead, and up to lift the fringe out of Kyungsoo’s face. He reaches down and kisses his temple, the touch insistent, lasting maybe longer than it should. Kyungsoo opens his eyes just when he realizes he’d closed them, in time to catch the door shutting with a bang. Thunder growls somewhere far in the distance, again something that feels too familiar: Jongin leaving, Kyungsoo left behind, a storm taking shape over their heads.
Somehow, Jongin always has to be involved.
The sound of the television brings him out of his stupor, colorful lights when he turns his head to look at the screen, cheerful music filling the apartment. Five young girls dance on a stage, singing a song about belonging. It really is ironic; Kyungsoo can’t help but feel slightly amused by it all.
The world is, a jigsaw puzzle.
Somewhere there's a fit for you,
A place where your puzzle piece belongs.
He wonders absentmindedly where Jongin might have been going.
Don't fit you say?
Then make it so.
He stands up abruptly, picking up his own jacket, putting on his shoes in a hurry.
There's nowhere for my piece to go.
Find a place that lasts forever.
The door slams behind him as he makes his way down the corridor.
Perhaps I'd better say "so long."
The sky outside is dark, clouds low and menacing. The wind is freezing, his breath catching in his throat when he steps outside, thunder crashing again but this time only a few miles away.
It had felt distant for a long time; at least several months, how many exactly he isn’t sure, but now as he walks along the sidewalk, looking up when a blinding light tears up the sky, he thinks of Jongin, and he starts running.
-
It’s not as easy as it seems to figure out if he’s really just drawn to Jongin to the extent where he can find him in any crowd, in any place, at any moment. There’s something, that’s for sure, that allows his vision to lock on the boy’s form even in the distance, like his soul is constantly reaching for Jongin’s own.
As he runs down a busy street, bumping shoulders and hips into anyone obstructing his path, muttering half apologies to no one in particular, Kyungsoo’s eyes lock on dark hair and navy blue wool, filtering out everything that isn’t Jongin.
A shout breaks him out of his trance suddenly, catching his attention; a woman, her hair tied up neatly, holding high a wooden sign on which she’d scribbled the words Jump Here in quick black strokes. A college student, a bit farther ahead, holds a similar sign to the tip of his fingers.
Moving with the crowd, he lifts his head towards the escalating skyscrapers disappearing into the heavy clouds. The cold wind makes his eyes water, and when he looks back down, blinking once, then twice, Jongin is gone.
The only difference now is that he thinks he’s used to it, Jongin disappearing suddenly, turning to smoke while he tries desperately to retain him, fingers only grasping at air. Kyungsoo’s knees buckle but he tries running faster, his breathing hitching in his lungs and piercing through his ribs.
He sees him, only an instant of Jongin flashing between the mass of pedestrians, but it’s more than enough for his tunnel vision to block out his surroundings, only letting him catch the subway exit number above the stairs that melt into the concrete of the sidewalk. He goes down and down and down, missing a step here and there but his eyes never falter. He can’t let Jongin escape his sight again.
« Jongin. » He says. It’s not a shout, just the words escaping his lips with an ounce of desperation. It’s impossible for Jongin to hear him over the swarming body of chattering school girls, but he stops in his tracks and turns around, and inevitably their eyes lock.
The world is, a jigsaw puzzle!
A ringtone plays somewhere. Kyungsoo takes a step forward. His feet feel heavy and light at the same time, a bit like they’re not his own. A bit like he’s not himself.
Somewhere there's a fit for you,
A place where…
A second phone rings. And a third. Another one. A wordless tune also, but the melody is the same. He takes a second step forward.
…your puzzle piece belongs.
Jongin never takes his eyes off him, doesn’t move an inch. In the midst of loud conversations and eerie melodies melting into one another, a sharp voice resounds over their heads, mechanic and cold.
« Train number 4 is arriving in 5 minutes. Please stand behind the yellow line. Train number 4 is arriving in… »
Kyungsoo stops counting his steps when he reaches Jongin, standing a few feet away from the edge of the platform, his back to the tracks, and himself barely a few feet from the other boy. Up-close, Jongin’s skin under the slightly green neon lights of the underground looks outer-worldly, shining an unusual hue that accentuates the hollows and dips of his features, injecting deep shadows into his eyes, underlining his eyelids and cheekbones. It casts an even darker shadow under his eyelashes, erasing the glint from his irises.
« Why did you follow me? » It all sounds funny to Kyungsoo, this question out of Jongin’s mouth, genuine as if this wasn’t what he’d been doing from the very start. Following Jongin. Jongin running away and Kyungsoo running after him, just like a game he had agreed to play before knowing neither its rules nor its duration. He really did agree to it, he thinks, even if words hadn’t been part of the deal.
« Where are you going? » Kyungsoo really needs to know, but Jongin only half smiles, a tug at the corner of his lips.
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what he expected.
Don't fit you say?
« It’s the Suicide Club, isn’t it? » Kyungsoo asks, then. He has no idea what to say, but he tries.
« Not really. » A beat passes but goes unnoticed. Kyungsoo thinks about all the unanswered questions between them. The club, the connections, the roles, the others. Himself, but mostly, Jongin. In the end, it all comes down to Jongin. It had always been the case, ever since the beginning. Jongin is the only enigma he needs a solution to.
« Don’t leave me. » The words tumble down his throat and scrape his tongue as they fall out of his mouth. He feels ashamed of himself, embarrassment burning every nerve end of his body; he’d forgotten how the emotion felt, and it leaves him shocked, even, but he doesn’t regret it. It’s the most honest he’s been with himself in a long time. « I don’t want to lose you again. » It’s said with more assurance, this time. If Jongin is startled, he doesn’t show it, levelling his gaze with Kyungsoo’s, whose brows knit in frustration and apprehension, waiting, again, for Jongin to reply.
« Everyone is always so afraid of losing but isn’t filling the hole what’s really important? » His hand reaches towards Kyungsoo slightly, not far enough to touch; just there, between them, as if Jongin was counting down the seconds. « If something is there to replace what is lost, isn’t that enough? »
Then make it so.
A song about belonging plays behind Kyungsoo, extremely loud to his ears although the melody is the same as all the others. It’s cut off by a click and the voice of a girl answering her cellphone, but it starts playing again, vaguely different, the tempo off by a beat. If Jongin left for good, what would replace him? What else does he wake up for, now, if not for the heat building between them as their skin brush? He realizes with a weight pooling in his gut that he’d replaced all he’d lost in his life with Jongin, and the boy was right, it had been enough. He could afford to lose other things if it meant keeping Jongin to himself.
There's nowhere for my piece to go.
« You there! Don’t move! Stay where you are! » A man yells from the opposite platform. Middle-aged, Kyungsoo observes as he glances over Jongin’s shoulder to the source of the shout. He’s wearing a cheap grey suit, sweaty like he’s been running. Kyungsoo squints his eyes to get a better look; Jongin then turns around in the same direction, calmly, as if he’d been expecting all of it. The man looks familiar but he can’t put a finger on the exact memory he’s searching for.
« It’s you, the student with the scar! Don’t move, boy! Stay still! » He hears high-pitched laughs behind him, school girls hiding their giggles behind their hands. Heads are turning towards the man in curiosity. Kyungsoo sees a second man behind the first one, younger, his hair longer, in equally cheap grey slacks and a crumpled white shirt. The two men seem to exchange rushed words before the second one nods and promptly sprints up the stairs.
There’s rumbling thunder deep into the tunnel that has Kyungsoo’s gaze fix on Jongin again, to find the other boy already looking back at him as a hand pulls down his navy blue scarf from his face. There’s a smile there, a real one, beautiful and sincere and it’s anything but what Kyungsoo could’ve ever imagined. It’s nothing like any expression he has ever seen on Jongin, not even the smile from his dream, and in the eyes looking back at him without even allowing a blink to break the moment, he sees Jongin finally, like he’s truly present, as if he’s seeing Kyungsoo for the very first time.
« Let’s go. » Jongin says.
The simplicity of it is unsettling but at least there’s no place for a misunderstanding. Jongin takes Kyungsoo’s hand in his and the thunder growls louder, the lightning morphing into blinding headlights, swallowing the green of the neons overhead.
« Don’t move, please! Stay right there! We just want to talk! » The man in the grey slacks has reached the other platform and is pushing around shoulders and elbows and knees, holding out a police badge high up in the air. Jump here Kyungsoo thinks. When he turns back towards Jongin, he sees the subway stop in front of them and a door open. Jongin gently tugs on his hand.
« Come on. » Jongin says. He’s still smiling, and in this instant Kyungsoo forgets about the cold, forgets about winter looming over their heads, forgets about the thunderstorm raging at the surface.
« Train number 4 is arriving. Please clear the way for passengers getting off. Train number 4 is… »
His eyes squeeze shut, his breath catching in his throat, but a second passes, and just as he blinks, the doors slide closed with a metallic rattling sound that has him flinch slightly. Behind the door window, he sees the faces of the school girls, laughing and chatting on their phone. The ringtones are muted on the other side, distorted. The policeman is banging on the door yet nobody seems to notice. Kyungsoo thinks they missed it, but as he exhales finally, the subway starts to move under his feet, everyone else still standing on the platform.
Aside from the two of them, the train is empty.
Find a place that lasts forever.
They sit on one of the benches, their backs to the windows, thighs and shoulders touching. Jongin leans into the touch, angling himself towards Kyungsoo a little more.
Kyungsoo closes his eyes and silence engulfs him. The heat from Jongin’s hand in his fades.
Perhaps I'd better say "so long."
-
Kyungsoo opens his eyes to the familiar sound of chalk hitting the blackboard, voices muffled, far away. He blinks and lifts his head from the textbook he’d rested his head on for what he swears had only been two minutes. Thankfully, the teacher has noticed none of it, still engrossed in his lecture, scribbling away formulas and quick diagrams, arrows pointing in this direction, arrows pointing in the other, ellipses, underlines, capitals for important notes, switching to the yellow chalk for titles and labels. He holds up the eraser against the board, erasing half of it, before Kyungsoo has time to notice it’s material he hasn’t had time to note down yet.
« Next person to come up and solve this equation…Oh Sehun? »
The boy sitting at the second desk in front of Kyungsoo stands up, shoulders slumped. He’s tall and skinny, his hair dyed brown even though it’s against the school’s regulations. The boy tries for a few minutes before he is sent back to his seat with a defeated sigh. Just as the teacher starts talking again, the bell rings, and Kyungsoo, along the rest of his classmates, gathers his books to finally go home for the day. The sun outside is setting, casting deep red shadows over the students' faces. It seems warm but Kyungsoo knows winter is right around the corner.
As he walks up to the classroom door, he sees his classmate, Sehun, talking with another student. Tall, too, his skin a healthy tanned color, blazing embers under the setting sun. When the boy looks up, Kyungsoo is left frozen in place, his muscles rigid in stupor.
« Kyungsoo. » The boy says, a bit breathlessly.
His eyes are so dark they seem to absorb all the light in the room. The boy stands up straight and shoves Sehun aside when his arm extends towards Kyungsoo, gripping his wrist so hard it stops the blood flow in his hand.
The boy runs, his fingers on Kyungsoo’s wrist loosening, sliding down his palm to fit between Kyungsoo’s fingers. Kyungsoo runs behind him in the hallways, turning left, then right, right again, then left. They run for a long time, but Kyungsoo isn’t tired, and the other boy isn’t showing any signs of slowing down either.
Time stretches under their feet, hallways appearing endless, but in the end it snaps, seconds and minutes crashing into each other when Jongin halts abruptly. Outside, it’s completely black, flashing lights occasionally speeding past them. The floor is shaking faintly, but he doesn’t notice much of it. The boy is smiling down at him and Kyungsoo wonders if he has ever seen something quite like it.
« Kyungsoo. »
The boy is still holding his hand, their fingers laced tightly, and Kyungsoo shudders.
« Close your eyes, and think of somewhere. »
-
Kyungsoo opens his eyes to absolute darkness, yet Jongin in front of him is clear like bathed in daylight. His winter jacket is unzipped and his scarf hangs undone from his neck.
He looks at Kyungsoo as if he's the only thing he has ever known in his life, something not entirely impossible, perhaps. Not entirely. He leans down and presses his lips to Kyungsoo’s, firm but soft, definitive. Kyungsoo closes his eyes like a reflex. Sensorial memory overwriting every image in his mind, he sees with his eyelids shut.
Lightning. A train. A tunnel. A cliff. Red, so much red. Lights blinding him.
Jongin leans back. « Thank you for keeping your promise. »
Kyungsoo doesn’t feel happy. He doesn’t feel much, really.
« Did you end up finding your connection? »
He’s not sure who said it. It doesn’t matter.
« I’m not sure. But somehow, if there’s a meaning for me, there’ll be a meaning for someone else, right? »
And in this exact instant, the last star in the sky disappears.
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
A/N
This is a new, edited and rewritten version of Ursa Minor, written first back in 2012 to 2014. It's been altered to the point it's arguably a new story, with added and modified parts.
For who's seen the movies, you'll be able to catch obvious references to Sono Sion's movies Suicide Club and Noriko's Dinner Table, from which this story was based on.
The line "The red washing down the bathtub [...]" was taken from Derrick C. Brown's poem Instead of Killing Yourself.
When Kyungsoo opens his eyes, he finds himself looking down onto buildings and buildings stretching into the horizon. It’s night already, and even though he woke up this morning, went to school and sat at his desk for hours, days merge into each other without him noticing; his nausea doesn’t follow him as often as what he had gotten used to, but his perception of time is altered. He just can’t keep track of it all anymore, or maybe it’s that it doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t care. Moments where he opens his eyes to find himself somewhere, like he just woke up but he knows he hasn’t been sleeping for a while, have become familiar.
That night he finds himself on the school’s rooftop. It could’ve looked the exact same way it did back then, as if it had just happened an hour ago, but it’s late and the air is even colder, the wind stronger. The only detail from that scene that remains the same is that he still feels helpless, probably more so in this moment, standing before the illuminated city. It would appear alive if he didn’t know it was already dying.
Through the wind he listens to the faint sounds of the city, the cars, and something like a train passing by, although he’s not sure there’s actually a railway anywhere near enough for the sound to reach him, especially through the wind. He glances to his left and sees Jongin standing beside him. His sudden appearances don’t even startle Kyungsoo anymore, since Jongin barely leaves his mind, infiltrates it down to his dreams, and watching him exhale heavily, right there on the rooftop, doesn’t feel any different.
« What do you want from me? I wish none of this would have happened. What’s going on with everyone? What should I do? What can I do? » All his questions come out at once, not in the way he would’ve liked them to. He looks at Jongin who is all of a sudden too close, only a few inches away, and Kyungsoo notices for the first time how small he is compared to this boy one year his junior. He’s so close he could touch him if he wanted to, but the possibility scares him.
« Jongin, what’s the Suicide Club? » Kyungsoo looks up to eyes staring right through him, as if he wasn’t even there. When the boy in front of him speaks up, it feels like he is talking to himself.
« It’s only a club, Kyungsoo. The Suicide Circle is all of this. It’s all of us. What are they all doing? Everyone is looking for a place to belong. What’s your purpose, what’s your role in this?
You know, there are certainly more suicides than there are in this club. There’s always more to it than what you think. This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly. They fail at being a father, they fail at being a wife, at being a teacher, at being a son. And they fail at being themselves. They connect to others and they connect to the club to fulfil their roles, but in the end, do you notice when a star disappears from the sky? People vanish all the time. »
« Are you going to disappear, too? »
« We all disappear at some point. It’s only a matter of how and when; it’s all the fucking same either way. »
Jongin’s hand is surprisingly warm on the skin of his neck, and a shiver shakes him so strongly he flinches and closes his eyes. The boy is alive after all, Kyungsoo realizes. It’s a weird thought.
« I don’t want to be alone anymore. » And it’s true. He’s been wandering in the dark for so long, struggling to breathe, and despite knowing Jongin is the one that cut off his oxygen, the touch of his skin on his is enough to bring him back to life.
Humans are like stars in the universe, distancing themselves from others at the speed of light. From nothing they start as one, and it feels like it’ll be this way forever, but soon everyone finds themselves alone, and they can’t recognize where they are, nor who they are.
Jongin’s voice echoes in him once more; he closes his eyes, and thinks Jongin must be wrong. There’s only darkness, he doesn’t know where he is nor who he is, but Jongin’s hands on his neck are real, and the lips pressing down at the corner of his own are warm too.
He feels far away from the world, deep into the confines of the universe, but he’s not alone.
-
Kyungsoo gets dragged down dozens and dozens of flights of stairs, pulled by the wrist, his legs moving as if they were someone else’s entirely. They’re running down what feels like miles of glistening pavement, street lights flickering off and drowning them in darkness. He hears a beeping sound followed by an electronic voice and the pavement starts to move under his feet, until he realizes they’re inside a train. Suddenly the light returns, too harsh for his eyes, letting him discern only silhouettes standing in the cart around him, then they’re running down dark streets again. He has no idea where they are going, and even though he tries to speak through his heavy breaths no sound comes out. There’s a pause and then stairs again, stairs and more stairs and Kyungsoo is tired, he wonders for an instant how his legs are still supporting him.
The apartment is even darker than the streets, as if the moonlight couldn’t pierce through the windows. He is guided through a door. He doesn’t remember his shoes coming off, nor his jacket, his shirt removed as well. A hand is pressing his chest down on a mattress, and when he looks up nobody’s there, he can’t see anything but a pair of eyes hovering above him.
« Jongin. » It’s the first sound he lets out in a while, breathless, a whisper.
Jongin kisses him again. He doesn’t understand the meaning of it, but he goes along with it.
When the lips leave his mouth to press on his neck, and hands start to tug at the waistband of his uniform trousers, he turns his head towards the window. The moon’s light shines strangely bright, but doesn’t reach them, doesn’t penetrate the room to hit the walls and maybe chase the shadows from Jongin’s face.
He remembers when he was a child how he used to be terrified of aliens. He’d had nightmares for two years, of aliens bursting into his home and their laser guns turning his parents to bones. He’d always look at the night sky and fear spotting a spaceship piercing the clouds.
The second these memories flash through his head, as he falls and falls down the cliff, he wishes he could’ve seen the edge on time.
Hands slide over his skin, and he clings nails deep into Jongin’s body as if it could stop his fall, but instead it’s everything else that falls with him. He’s afraid, even more than he was back then, six or seven years old boy trembling under his blanket. It’s even more terrifying than ghosts or alien stories, it’s like running from the monster without knowing if it’ll ever catch him, and as he runs he sees other people, tired of running or hurting their leg and stop, but he never knows if they get caught because he won’t look back.
He thinks maybe they don’t get caught because the monster is only chasing after him.
Or maybe there is no monster, and he only keeps running because he doesn’t want to know what happens to those who stop, to those who finally hit the ground.
It feels like the fall ends there when something inside him explodes, white washing over the darkness in front of his eyes for an instant as the heat spreads down his body. The white fades out, blurring out his surroundings into each other. The moon outside disappears, the eyes floating in the dark close and it’s as if the room had vanished.
-
Kyungsoo wakes up in a bed he doesn’t know. He remembers Jongin dragging him to his apartment the night before, but in the daylight it’s the first time he really sees it. The bedroom is strangely normal, maybe a bit too simple. White walls; dark grey blankets; a ceiling fan and a window without blinds or curtains.
The comforter beside him raises slowly, dark strands of hair poking out from under it. He closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the wind outside, the cry of a bird flying by children shouting down the street. It’s a strange, calming sensation.
An arm moves up from under the covers, fingers touching his face lightly. He sighs. It’s not clear who needs this the most, but he suppresses the thought and leans into the touch.
-
When he exits Jongin’s apartment building, the sun has started to set, orange and pink over white and on the other side it’s black and grey where the light doesn’t reach. He stops in the middle of the road, waiting for a spaceship to appear between the clouds. The distant roar of an airplane way above him snaps him out of his thoughts; it sounds familiar, like cars on the highway far, far in the distance. In the darkening sky he can only catch a flashing light vanishing behind the roof of a house.
Two buildings down a family is saying goodbye to an old lady. A man, a woman, two girls about his age, and a young boy. They’re hugging the old lady, smiling and crying a bit, and Kyungsoo can hear them saying « Goodbye, granny! » « I’ll miss you granny, see you soon. » « Take care, goodbye. » They let go of her slowly, and she waves at them before going back inside. The family starts to walk in his direction.
Kyungsoo blinks and the sad smiles, the tears evaporate as he stands on the side of the road, rooted in place. As the family pass him, one of the two girls glances at him and smiles tauntingly. He turns around, shocked, and sees them getting in a white van, then drive away.
It’s silent again. He sees the girl’s smile in his head, and is reminded of what Jongin had said the night before.
There’s always more to it than what you think. This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly.
He wonders if this is what he meant, or if, on the contrary, these people haven’t failed at all.
He starts walking.
-
Kyungsoo goes to school the next day, but does not bother attending classes. It’s the same either way, he thinks. Doesn’t make much of a difference.
He climbs up the stairs to the rooftop, but the door is locked. He’s not surprised. He sits on the stairs instead, and decides it’s probably the better option. The weather’s getting colder and colder, anyway.
He admittedly goes looking for Jongin when the bell rings. The first years’ building, library, cafeteria; and he repeats this for a few days. When he gets home his parent don’t even look at him. Has school called to report on his absence in class? Did his teachers even notice he’d been absent? He wonders if he eventually came back to class he would find flowers on his desk.
He remembers well how it had happened the first time, Jongin disappearing like he had never existed in the first place. He remembers how Jongin had found him instead.
He knows this time’s different, though. He has the feeling it’s his turn to find Jongin. He knows the boy is linked to the Suicide Club in some way, but the side on which he stands is still a mystery.
After a week, Kyungsoo tries to recall the way to Jongin’s apartment from when he’d left to his own house. It’s vague, but after two hours, he’s finally there. He doesn’t think twice before he knocks on the door. He can’t help but imagine a body curled up in charcoal blankets, cans of coffee and energy drinks and dirty dishes littering the floor, the kitchen counters, the bed. He knocks again, louder. Waits.
He feels like crying. He feels like screaming. He bangs and bangs on the door until his fists hurt, his throat dry with the screams he tries to repress as much as he can, until a neighbor appears in the crack of an open door at the end of the hallway, alerted by the noise. He hasn’t felt this angry in a while, but it’s still an illogical emotion flooding his mind, it makes him dizzy and a bit nauseous. His jaw hurts from gritting his teeth too hard.
After the second week, Kyungsoo has stopped thinking about school. He wakes up late when the house is empty, and falls asleep a few hours later before his parents return from work. He goes back to Jongin’s apartment, but only knocks twice. No answer.
Maybe he’s dead he thinks. Maybe he went and fucking killed himself. He probably jumped off a bridge or got rolled over by a train. It still feels suffocating, and his heart beats a mile an hour as he stands unmoving in front of Jongin’s door with adrenaline rushing to his head in waves. It makes the walls twist and turn and the neons flash as he turns around and walks away, focusing his attention on cracks in the wall or stains in the floor carpet.
When he looks up, after only a few steps, Jongin is there, wearing an oversized winter jacket and half of his face disappearing in a navy wool scarf. He’s like an apparition, and Kyungsoo can’t take his eyes off him, not even to blink in fear the boy would vanish again without leaving a shadow behind.
-
Layers of fabric evaporate like steam between their bodies, the press of skin against skin and the harsh grip of fingers the only tangible sensation, the only thing that feels real in that moment. Jongin presses Kyungsoo to him with a desperation that makes Kyungsoo light-headed. There’s a hand pressing hard on his waist and another cradling his head as they kiss urgently, preventing him from pulling back even an inch, as if Jongin hadn’t been the one to disappear for days to begin with, as if he’d had to leave against his will. Kyungsoo doesn’t get any explanation, but it’s not like he expected any; the presence of the boy around him is already surreal in itself.
He lets himself go, surrenders body and mind to Jongin completely. He glances over the edge of the cliff again, but this time the abyss seems inviting. It’s warm, comforting, fingers gliding over his ribs, his hips, his thighs. The touch is possessive, and albeit a little shaky, its confidence makes Kyungsoo feel like himself, as if Jongin was shaping his body to life, confirming his existence. It’s the closest he’s ever felt to any other human being, but it’s the closest he’s ever felt to himself as well.
When Jongin collapses on him, his arms pull the boy’s body against his own to erase the limit between them, to feel the boy’s quick breathing and the strong pumps of his heart in his chest as if they were his own.
After a while, when they’ve caught their breath and the air has cooled down, Jongin shifts on his side and buries his face in Kyungsoo’s neck. With his eyes closed, he feels every place their skin touch as strongly as he can, he engraves it in his memory even if it’d mean overwriting anything else.
« I hate this place. » Jongin says, but there’s no anger in his voice.
« You still came back, though, so it’s fine, right? » Home should be where you want to return to, Kyungsoo thinks, and that’s what Jongin did.
They lay amongst Jongin’s charcoal blankets for what seems like years and years, a warm breath fanning against Kyungsoo’s neck, and his hand rubbing irregular shapes across Jongin’s skin. He feels the boy detach himself slowly to look up into Kyungsoo’s eyes, and Jongin’s own eyes are blank, again leaving Kyungsoo all sorts of heartbroken.
It’s becoming harder to not expect a change. Well, there was a change, somehow, but he can hardly pinpoint what, exactly. He’ll take it though. He’ll take whatever he can get.
« Kyungsoo. » The boy lays back into the space between Kyungsoo’s shoulder and neck, and as he speaks, his lips brush Kyungsoo’s skin softly. The warmth makes Kyungsoo shiver; another reminder that the boy really is alive.
« Mmmh… » He shuts his eyes tight once more and concentrates on the voice.
« I’m afraid, you know? I might sound like I get it, all of this, but I don’t. I still don’t know why i’m here. Sometimes I look at my reflection and it’s not me. I don’t recognize myself at all, like i’m staring back at a stranger and this life isn’t even mine anymore. I get so scared then. »
He doesn’t see but feels Jongin’s hand coming to rest over his heart.
« It’s like my life went by in a flash, ninety years old me or two years old me standing right there, i’m not sure. And I look at myself and I’m so fucking lost. I start to panic because I understand that I’ll never have time to do anything, I won’t ever live long enough to even find that connection. »
He turns his head towards Jongin, dark brown hair tickling his face. His hand on Jongin’s back goes up to ruffle the boy’s hair gently, like he wants to calm him down, even though he knows there’s no helping it. Somehow these kinds of touches come to him so naturally.
« Kyungsoo, do you know what scientists say about the stars? »
« No, what do they say? » He asks in Jongin’s hair.
« Apparently the stars we see at night are so far away it takes millions and millions of years for their light to reach earth. It takes so long that all these stars are probably already dead. My existence feels like that, like an illusion, like it ended before it even started. And I’m just standing there, just fucking stargazing. Maybe I’ve been dead this whole time. Maybe that’s why I can’t find a connection, Kyungsoo. Maybe that’s why. »
Jongin’s hold on Kyungsoo’s body tightens, and Kyungsoo sighs.
« You have all the time you need, Jongin. I’m the same you know. I don’t know what I’m doing either. If you want, we can watch the stars together for a billion years. We’ll watch them for a billion, billion years, doesn’t matter if they don’t exist anymore. We’ll just watch the night sky until every star has disappeared. »
A quiet chuckle tickles his throat.
« … that’s impossible, but okay. Let’s do that. »
Kyungsoo feels helpless even in Jongin’s arms. In this instant, he knows the younger boy is already far ahead, somewhere far in the distance, and he might need those billion years just to catch up to him.
-
Kyungsoo stops keeping track of numerous things. The days of the week, for instance, don’t mean much anymore. Half the time he isn’t sure what day it is, what date it is, and it’s probably because it doesn’t feel important, kind of like when it’s summer vacation and the days blur into each other. He doesn’t have to care about time, if it’s morning or night or anything else.
He stops keeping track of the suicides still happening all around the country. It has spread; it was a Seoulite problem before, but not anymore. He thinks he saw on the news that people have been dying in Japan, too. There have been more suicides in some Chinese cities as well, but it’s unclear. He’s stopped counting, and then he’s stopped noticing altogether. It’s not that he doesn’t care; he still cares, he still wants to understand, but he hasn’t been getting anywhere, so he saves himself at least the thought.
One evening he opens the door to his house and walks into the living room. The news are playing on television, the volume low, almost a murmur. He stops in front of it for a moment, more by reflex than anything close to interest. Nothing registers in his mind because the news are just a death count now, faceless heads and the same monotone voice, almost robotic, one he’s been hearing for weeks. The house is empty and dark, the light of the tv screen flashing on the walls and furniture, casting long shadows that are like black holes hiding behind every surface. As he passes his parents' bedroom, he glances through the open door. Both of them are asleep, and it feels strangely ordinary. Suddenly the passage of time hits him upfront, something he hadn’t been expecting, as if it was forced down his throat.
How long was he gone? Was it just a day? A week?
When Kyungsoo wakes up the next day, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, the same faint murmur of the television can be heard from the living room. Someone is laughing, screaming, all of it blending in with an eerie mix of distorted sound effects. A song comes on, a bit more distinctly, the melody familiar. He gets up, like attracted by the youthful female voices, but he stops in his tracks in the hallway when he sees the door to his parent’s bedroom, still ajar, in the exact same position he had left it the night before. He opens it slowly, to find his parents still in their bed, but the air in the room is cold, stagnant, a buzzing sharp like a needle in his ears. His knees touch the carpeted floor with a thump, the grey of it dirty, dust floating up with the contact of his legs giving out under him. A rotten scent sticks to his tongue, heavy and strong, even more so than the stench of flowers at school. Stains of yellow color the carpet, some of it dripping from his chin to his thighs. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth that he can’t get rid of. His arms shake violently as he lifts a hand to his mouth, but bile comes out again.
He stands up suddenly, black and white spots obstructing his vision, and exits the bedroom as fast as he possibly can. His balance is off, his head heavy and his legs weak. He hits his shoulders and shins on the walls and furniture, not seeing, not registering the steps he takes until he is out the door, the group of preteen girls singing on tv following him until he’s standing outside, a song about expecting a message from a loved one.
Mail me, I want to let you know,
As far as friends go, yours is the best hello.
Mail me, I’m sure you never knew, how I feel about you.
This is real, I need to hear from you right now, or I’ll…
-
The rays of the evening sun hit his face, blinding him for a brief moment before they hide behind a dark grey cloud, the wind blowing mercilessly, the rustle of the leaves around him so loud it could be mistaken for a crashing of waves. He’s sitting at a table in a coffee shop he doesn’t recognize, even though there’s a sort of familiarity to the decor that’s unsettling, as if he’d visited this place once, years ago. He looks out the large windows to his left; on the other side of the glass, it’s Seoul, as he’s always known it, people walking hurriedly in the cold and their white breaths coming out in puffs of smoke.
The coffee shop is almost full, but none of the faces catch his attention. He looks down to his hands; his cup is empty, unused. When he looks back up, Jongin is sitting in the chair in front of him, wrapped up in his oversized winter jacket and navy wool scarf. He smiles at Kyungsoo, a real smile, one that reaches deep into his eyes and moves his entire being. His skin under the dimmed light of the sun looks beautiful. It’s a sight Kyungsoo commits to memory instantly.
« Jongin, what’s the Suicide Club? »
His voice sounds drained even to his own ears; Jongin’s smile falters.
« There’s no club. It’s a circle, Kyungsoo. A social circle. » He traces the shape of it in the air, as if to make a point. « This world, it’s full of lies told by those who can’t play their roles convincingly. They fail at being a husband, they fail at being a mother, at being a sister, at being a son. And they fail at being themselves. They fail to connect to others, and they fail to connect to themselves, so they try to connect to the club, even though they won’t ever find their role doing so. It’s pointless. Your role isn’t there. It will never be. »
Jongin’s words are familiar. He has the impression this conversation has already taken place, or something close to it at least.
He can almost predict the boy’s next words, but when Jongin speaks again, all of it feels entirely new.
« The red washing down the bathtub can’t change the color of the sea at all. Don’t forget, Kyungsoo. The club doesn’t exist. »
Behind Jongin, the customers sitting around the coffee shop stop talking and turn towards him, silently. Outside, the sun has almost disappeared, and the rustling of the leaves comes to a halt. A girl is looking at him from the other side of the road. Kyungsoo has seen her before, somehow. There’s a white van parked not far from where she stands, and as the engine starts, she looks away and runs, vanishing behind the vehicle.
A ringtone plays, the melody clear enough for Kyungsoo to make out what the lyrics say. Jongin takes out his phone from one of his jacket pockets, but doesn’t answer; the song continues playing, obnoxiously loud in the quiet coffee shop.
Mail me, hurry up and hit the send key,
Can’t you see? I’ve waited patiently.
Mail me, to my phone or my pc,
I’m ready to tell you that I am…
-
6:23am flashes red on the digital clock that sits on Jongin’s desk. It’s well into winter now, the moon still high up there, shinning brightly through a thin layer of clouds. The light still won’t reach the confines of Jongin’s bedroom, and the contrast of fluorescent white against the impenetrable darkness of the room reminds him of the night he fell off the cliff, never to be seen again. Kyungsoo still feels as if he’s falling, sometimes.
He tries to move but realizes he barely can, laying on his back with strong arms encircling his body, gripping at the fabric of his t-shirt, and Jongin’s head resting on his chest. It should feel suffocating, should add to the claustrophobic atmosphere of that early morning, but somehow this weight pinning him down feels like an anchor. Jongin’s breath against his skin, Jongin’s heartbeat not quite matching the rhythm of his own is calming.
It’s freezing; the heater broke often, Jongin had said, so he extends a hand to lift the comforter back up, covering Jongin’s sleeping form sprawled on top of him. His other hand worms over the boy’s bare back under the covers, tracing the bumps of his spine. It grazes the edges of the large scar marking smooth skin, a rectangular piece of skin missing from his waist, an accident, he had said. An accident. But it’s too sharp, the cut too clean, just like Jongin’s half smile when Kyungsoo had shaken the nerve within himself to ask about it. It hid something, but when was Jongin not hiding something?
Kyungsoo never mentions his dreams to Jongin. The little he can remember, he keeps to himself, always in fear of awakening something in the other boy, of provoking the irrevocable.
When he wakes up again, later in the day this time, the silence and cold sun outside has him trapped in a loop. There’s a pattern he can’t seem to escape from, and it’s not certain if seeing the end of it would be better. It allows him to evade the questions he’s never been able to respond to.
Jongin is sitting on the sofa in the living room, his back to Kyungsoo standing in the doorway, not moving an inch. He’s watching a rerun of the morning news, with the sound barely audible.
« Come watch, something interesting’s going on. » Says Jongin without even turning around, his voice soft over Kyungsoo’s thoughts. He simply sits down, resting his chin on his knees and his shoulder pressed to Jongin’s.
…arrested a group calling itself The Suicide Club and claiming responsibility for multiple murders. The group used the internet to call upon people to kill themselves. Their proclaimed aim was social upheaval. Investigators are now working to uncover the details.
There’s a video footage of what seems like the aforementioned group’s hideout, some sort of abandoned bowling venue with white sheets and a handful of metal tools littering the deserted alleys, a focus on some dark spots on the floors resembling dried blood, followed by images of police officers escorting out a tall man with dyed hair. His clothes are flashy, a matching suit with paillettes all over. As an introduction, the words « Suicide Club ringleader: Kwon Jiyong, self-proclaimed Genesis, 34 years old » in white letters, static at the bottom of the screen.
Is the camera rolling? Wait, film my face, make sure to film my face. Good, good. First remember that reality is invisible to the human eye. We both know that life’s a real bitch. What about doing your best? That’s not good enough! Reminds me of that girl group’s song, how’s it go again? Oh yeah! The world is a jigsaw puzzle, somewhere there is a fit for you! Don’t fit you say? Then-
The video cuts to an overview of the scene, police vehicles and ambulances surrounding the place, a growing crowd of pedestrians and reporters moving about, then jumps back to a large zoom on the man’s face.
I’m the Charles Manson of the information age! Gotta find a place that lasts forever-
And the video is cut short.
« I like that song he was talking about. » Jongin says to no one in particular as he stands up and picks up his winter jacket. He disappears into the bedroom and comes out with his sneakers on, adjusting his scarf around his neck.
« Where are you going? » Kyungsoo asks.
« Out. Just… out. I’ll be back soon. »
Kyungsoo looks at Jongin without a word, the other boy standing by the door, half of his face disappearing behind the large knitted scarf, hands in his pockets. He almost looks like a regular boy then, not one that has been swept away by the world unfairly, struggling to even stay alive. Slowly, Jongin’s eyes turn into small crescents, his gaze still unwavering, and even though his mouth is out of sight, Kyungsoo knows he’s smiling. It’s the first time Kyungsoo really sees it, a full smile that reaches deep somehow, one that lights up Jongin’s figure completely. A strange feeling of dread possesses him then; the smile, he doesn’t understand it and it scares him, shocks him even. He remembers wanting Jongin to smile one day, but now that he did, he finds it just doesn’t fit. It’s not the right moment, not the right place, not the right atmosphere.
Jongin takes a few steps forward until he’s standing by the sofa where Kyungsoo still sits, silent. His dark hair falls on his face, and his eyes relax a bit, his gaze softening as he extends a hand to Kyungsoo’s forehead, and up to lift the fringe out of Kyungsoo’s face. He reaches down and kisses his temple, the touch insistent, lasting maybe longer than it should. Kyungsoo opens his eyes just when he realizes he’d closed them, in time to catch the door shutting with a bang. Thunder growls somewhere far in the distance, again something that feels too familiar: Jongin leaving, Kyungsoo left behind, a storm taking shape over their heads.
Somehow, Jongin always has to be involved.
The sound of the television brings him out of his stupor, colorful lights when he turns his head to look at the screen, cheerful music filling the apartment. Five young girls dance on a stage, singing a song about belonging. It really is ironic; Kyungsoo can’t help but feel slightly amused by it all.
The world is, a jigsaw puzzle.
Somewhere there's a fit for you,
A place where your puzzle piece belongs.
He wonders absentmindedly where Jongin might have been going.
Don't fit you say?
Then make it so.
He stands up abruptly, picking up his own jacket, putting on his shoes in a hurry.
There's nowhere for my piece to go.
Find a place that lasts forever.
The door slams behind him as he makes his way down the corridor.
Perhaps I'd better say "so long."
The sky outside is dark, clouds low and menacing. The wind is freezing, his breath catching in his throat when he steps outside, thunder crashing again but this time only a few miles away.
It had felt distant for a long time; at least several months, how many exactly he isn’t sure, but now as he walks along the sidewalk, looking up when a blinding light tears up the sky, he thinks of Jongin, and he starts running.
-
It’s not as easy as it seems to figure out if he’s really just drawn to Jongin to the extent where he can find him in any crowd, in any place, at any moment. There’s something, that’s for sure, that allows his vision to lock on the boy’s form even in the distance, like his soul is constantly reaching for Jongin’s own.
As he runs down a busy street, bumping shoulders and hips into anyone obstructing his path, muttering half apologies to no one in particular, Kyungsoo’s eyes lock on dark hair and navy blue wool, filtering out everything that isn’t Jongin.
A shout breaks him out of his trance suddenly, catching his attention; a woman, her hair tied up neatly, holding high a wooden sign on which she’d scribbled the words Jump Here in quick black strokes. A college student, a bit farther ahead, holds a similar sign to the tip of his fingers.
Moving with the crowd, he lifts his head towards the escalating skyscrapers disappearing into the heavy clouds. The cold wind makes his eyes water, and when he looks back down, blinking once, then twice, Jongin is gone.
The only difference now is that he thinks he’s used to it, Jongin disappearing suddenly, turning to smoke while he tries desperately to retain him, fingers only grasping at air. Kyungsoo’s knees buckle but he tries running faster, his breathing hitching in his lungs and piercing through his ribs.
He sees him, only an instant of Jongin flashing between the mass of pedestrians, but it’s more than enough for his tunnel vision to block out his surroundings, only letting him catch the subway exit number above the stairs that melt into the concrete of the sidewalk. He goes down and down and down, missing a step here and there but his eyes never falter. He can’t let Jongin escape his sight again.
« Jongin. » He says. It’s not a shout, just the words escaping his lips with an ounce of desperation. It’s impossible for Jongin to hear him over the swarming body of chattering school girls, but he stops in his tracks and turns around, and inevitably their eyes lock.
The world is, a jigsaw puzzle!
A ringtone plays somewhere. Kyungsoo takes a step forward. His feet feel heavy and light at the same time, a bit like they’re not his own. A bit like he’s not himself.
Somewhere there's a fit for you,
A place where…
A second phone rings. And a third. Another one. A wordless tune also, but the melody is the same. He takes a second step forward.
…your puzzle piece belongs.
Jongin never takes his eyes off him, doesn’t move an inch. In the midst of loud conversations and eerie melodies melting into one another, a sharp voice resounds over their heads, mechanic and cold.
« Train number 4 is arriving in 5 minutes. Please stand behind the yellow line. Train number 4 is arriving in… »
Kyungsoo stops counting his steps when he reaches Jongin, standing a few feet away from the edge of the platform, his back to the tracks, and himself barely a few feet from the other boy. Up-close, Jongin’s skin under the slightly green neon lights of the underground looks outer-worldly, shining an unusual hue that accentuates the hollows and dips of his features, injecting deep shadows into his eyes, underlining his eyelids and cheekbones. It casts an even darker shadow under his eyelashes, erasing the glint from his irises.
« Why did you follow me? » It all sounds funny to Kyungsoo, this question out of Jongin’s mouth, genuine as if this wasn’t what he’d been doing from the very start. Following Jongin. Jongin running away and Kyungsoo running after him, just like a game he had agreed to play before knowing neither its rules nor its duration. He really did agree to it, he thinks, even if words hadn’t been part of the deal.
« Where are you going? » Kyungsoo really needs to know, but Jongin only half smiles, a tug at the corner of his lips.
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what he expected.
Don't fit you say?
« It’s the Suicide Club, isn’t it? » Kyungsoo asks, then. He has no idea what to say, but he tries.
« Not really. » A beat passes but goes unnoticed. Kyungsoo thinks about all the unanswered questions between them. The club, the connections, the roles, the others. Himself, but mostly, Jongin. In the end, it all comes down to Jongin. It had always been the case, ever since the beginning. Jongin is the only enigma he needs a solution to.
« Don’t leave me. » The words tumble down his throat and scrape his tongue as they fall out of his mouth. He feels ashamed of himself, embarrassment burning every nerve end of his body; he’d forgotten how the emotion felt, and it leaves him shocked, even, but he doesn’t regret it. It’s the most honest he’s been with himself in a long time. « I don’t want to lose you again. » It’s said with more assurance, this time. If Jongin is startled, he doesn’t show it, levelling his gaze with Kyungsoo’s, whose brows knit in frustration and apprehension, waiting, again, for Jongin to reply.
« Everyone is always so afraid of losing but isn’t filling the hole what’s really important? » His hand reaches towards Kyungsoo slightly, not far enough to touch; just there, between them, as if Jongin was counting down the seconds. « If something is there to replace what is lost, isn’t that enough? »
Then make it so.
A song about belonging plays behind Kyungsoo, extremely loud to his ears although the melody is the same as all the others. It’s cut off by a click and the voice of a girl answering her cellphone, but it starts playing again, vaguely different, the tempo off by a beat. If Jongin left for good, what would replace him? What else does he wake up for, now, if not for the heat building between them as their skin brush? He realizes with a weight pooling in his gut that he’d replaced all he’d lost in his life with Jongin, and the boy was right, it had been enough. He could afford to lose other things if it meant keeping Jongin to himself.
There's nowhere for my piece to go.
« You there! Don’t move! Stay where you are! » A man yells from the opposite platform. Middle-aged, Kyungsoo observes as he glances over Jongin’s shoulder to the source of the shout. He’s wearing a cheap grey suit, sweaty like he’s been running. Kyungsoo squints his eyes to get a better look; Jongin then turns around in the same direction, calmly, as if he’d been expecting all of it. The man looks familiar but he can’t put a finger on the exact memory he’s searching for.
« It’s you, the student with the scar! Don’t move, boy! Stay still! » He hears high-pitched laughs behind him, school girls hiding their giggles behind their hands. Heads are turning towards the man in curiosity. Kyungsoo sees a second man behind the first one, younger, his hair longer, in equally cheap grey slacks and a crumpled white shirt. The two men seem to exchange rushed words before the second one nods and promptly sprints up the stairs.
There’s rumbling thunder deep into the tunnel that has Kyungsoo’s gaze fix on Jongin again, to find the other boy already looking back at him as a hand pulls down his navy blue scarf from his face. There’s a smile there, a real one, beautiful and sincere and it’s anything but what Kyungsoo could’ve ever imagined. It’s nothing like any expression he has ever seen on Jongin, not even the smile from his dream, and in the eyes looking back at him without even allowing a blink to break the moment, he sees Jongin finally, like he’s truly present, as if he’s seeing Kyungsoo for the very first time.
« Let’s go. » Jongin says.
The simplicity of it is unsettling but at least there’s no place for a misunderstanding. Jongin takes Kyungsoo’s hand in his and the thunder growls louder, the lightning morphing into blinding headlights, swallowing the green of the neons overhead.
« Don’t move, please! Stay right there! We just want to talk! » The man in the grey slacks has reached the other platform and is pushing around shoulders and elbows and knees, holding out a police badge high up in the air. Jump here Kyungsoo thinks. When he turns back towards Jongin, he sees the subway stop in front of them and a door open. Jongin gently tugs on his hand.
« Come on. » Jongin says. He’s still smiling, and in this instant Kyungsoo forgets about the cold, forgets about winter looming over their heads, forgets about the thunderstorm raging at the surface.
« Train number 4 is arriving. Please clear the way for passengers getting off. Train number 4 is… »
His eyes squeeze shut, his breath catching in his throat, but a second passes, and just as he blinks, the doors slide closed with a metallic rattling sound that has him flinch slightly. Behind the door window, he sees the faces of the school girls, laughing and chatting on their phone. The ringtones are muted on the other side, distorted. The policeman is banging on the door yet nobody seems to notice. Kyungsoo thinks they missed it, but as he exhales finally, the subway starts to move under his feet, everyone else still standing on the platform.
Aside from the two of them, the train is empty.
Find a place that lasts forever.
They sit on one of the benches, their backs to the windows, thighs and shoulders touching. Jongin leans into the touch, angling himself towards Kyungsoo a little more.
Kyungsoo closes his eyes and silence engulfs him. The heat from Jongin’s hand in his fades.
Perhaps I'd better say "so long."
-
Kyungsoo opens his eyes to the familiar sound of chalk hitting the blackboard, voices muffled, far away. He blinks and lifts his head from the textbook he’d rested his head on for what he swears had only been two minutes. Thankfully, the teacher has noticed none of it, still engrossed in his lecture, scribbling away formulas and quick diagrams, arrows pointing in this direction, arrows pointing in the other, ellipses, underlines, capitals for important notes, switching to the yellow chalk for titles and labels. He holds up the eraser against the board, erasing half of it, before Kyungsoo has time to notice it’s material he hasn’t had time to note down yet.
« Next person to come up and solve this equation…Oh Sehun? »
The boy sitting at the second desk in front of Kyungsoo stands up, shoulders slumped. He’s tall and skinny, his hair dyed brown even though it’s against the school’s regulations. The boy tries for a few minutes before he is sent back to his seat with a defeated sigh. Just as the teacher starts talking again, the bell rings, and Kyungsoo, along the rest of his classmates, gathers his books to finally go home for the day. The sun outside is setting, casting deep red shadows over the students' faces. It seems warm but Kyungsoo knows winter is right around the corner.
As he walks up to the classroom door, he sees his classmate, Sehun, talking with another student. Tall, too, his skin a healthy tanned color, blazing embers under the setting sun. When the boy looks up, Kyungsoo is left frozen in place, his muscles rigid in stupor.
« Kyungsoo. » The boy says, a bit breathlessly.
His eyes are so dark they seem to absorb all the light in the room. The boy stands up straight and shoves Sehun aside when his arm extends towards Kyungsoo, gripping his wrist so hard it stops the blood flow in his hand.
The boy runs, his fingers on Kyungsoo’s wrist loosening, sliding down his palm to fit between Kyungsoo’s fingers. Kyungsoo runs behind him in the hallways, turning left, then right, right again, then left. They run for a long time, but Kyungsoo isn’t tired, and the other boy isn’t showing any signs of slowing down either.
Time stretches under their feet, hallways appearing endless, but in the end it snaps, seconds and minutes crashing into each other when Jongin halts abruptly. Outside, it’s completely black, flashing lights occasionally speeding past them. The floor is shaking faintly, but he doesn’t notice much of it. The boy is smiling down at him and Kyungsoo wonders if he has ever seen something quite like it.
« Kyungsoo. »
The boy is still holding his hand, their fingers laced tightly, and Kyungsoo shudders.
« Close your eyes, and think of somewhere. »
-
Kyungsoo opens his eyes to absolute darkness, yet Jongin in front of him is clear like bathed in daylight. His winter jacket is unzipped and his scarf hangs undone from his neck.
He looks at Kyungsoo as if he's the only thing he has ever known in his life, something not entirely impossible, perhaps. Not entirely. He leans down and presses his lips to Kyungsoo’s, firm but soft, definitive. Kyungsoo closes his eyes like a reflex. Sensorial memory overwriting every image in his mind, he sees with his eyelids shut.
Lightning. A train. A tunnel. A cliff. Red, so much red. Lights blinding him.
Jongin leans back. « Thank you for keeping your promise. »
Kyungsoo doesn’t feel happy. He doesn’t feel much, really.
« Did you end up finding your connection? »
He’s not sure who said it. It doesn’t matter.
« I’m not sure. But somehow, if there’s a meaning for me, there’ll be a meaning for someone else, right? »
And in this exact instant, the last star in the sky disappears.
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
A/N
This is a new, edited and rewritten version of Ursa Minor, written first back in 2012 to 2014. It's been altered to the point it's arguably a new story, with added and modified parts.
For who's seen the movies, you'll be able to catch obvious references to Sono Sion's movies Suicide Club and Noriko's Dinner Table, from which this story was based on.
The line "The red washing down the bathtub [...]" was taken from Derrick C. Brown's poem Instead of Killing Yourself.