a belief in vision (2/2)
a belief in vision (2/2)
taemin-centric (feat. taemin/sulli, implied!taemin/krystal-and-kai/krystal) for onceuponataem
drama, romance; 5655w, pg
a/n: i'm not sure where i found all the words for this and how it's possible that they sound better in my head than on an actual typed document but one must not complain. i'm also not sure how this became more of a character piece than a pairing fic but who cares, right? this is for you, naomi! i love you, kid. and enjoy, taelli shippers! ♥
Taemin still only believes in the things he sees.
He believes in the solutions of equations in front him as he scribbles them out on a blank sheet because he found his way there, through the sea of numbers, unscathed. He believes in the result of experiments he constructs and its functions and use because the robot works on the third try after he’d changed a few things and tinkered with the engine. He believes that his prototype works because the panel at NASA says so and approved his internship. He believes he will get to where he wants to be because his life is already laid out in front him, on several sheets of paper and Jinri is so happy for him she promises to go with him wherever he wants them to go. He believes Jinri because she is there, in front of him-smiling that beautiful smile and loving him for who he is, has become and will be.
He believes… but, some doubt remains.
Taemin still isn’t sure what to make of seeing Soojung wherever he goes.
“Don’t you think you’re a little too young to hotwire yourself to caffeine so early in the morning?”
The first day back from the hospital, Taemin wakes up to see Soojung perched on his desk-her legs crossed at the heels as she fiddled with her hands on her lap. He yelps and bumps his head on an overhead cabinet, knocking his papers off the shelf to rain down on him and his bed.
She laughs that lilting laugh he remembers laughing so much and he reels as she edges just a bit closer. He moves but can’t find the words to speak. His mouth opens but nothing comes out and when she moves-her touch is icy on his cheek. Cold but soft, like always.
She speaks (“You’re going to need some ice for that bump of yours, kiddo. There’s some in the fridge.”); and then blurs out of sight. Disappears.
Taemin believes (knows) he’s gone insane when he looks and sees a bag of ice he’s so sure was not there before.
But-he doesn’t tell anyone about seeing Soojung’s spirit. Taemin thinks she’s haunting him so it’s his problem to solve. There was no need to bring other people in the mix. Not Jinri-who always smiles and laughs even when all he sees is her grey jacket and Soojung walking in time with her. Not Kai-who loves (loved) Soojung more than he ever did and hasn’t moved on at all.
He groans, burying his head under a pillow. No, he can’t tell anyone. That’s that.
Soojung is perched on his desk everyday for a week after that first day, eyeing him from where he slept and following him throughout the day.
Her presence annoyed him; scared him shitless. It made him uncomfortable to move around and live through day to day. She was there in his classes, whispering answers to his tests that he’s sure she wouldn’t have known if she were alive. She was there when hung out with his friends, laughing at jokes Minho throws around and hovering closer to Kai than him. She was there during his dates with Jinri, walking alongside her and commenting on how pretty her hair looks and her dress and Oh her shoes are darling, wonder where she bought those?
Her presence annoyed him but he refused to say a word. Not to Jinri. Not to Kai. Not to anyone who mattered or less.
Soojung huffs a lot when he passes by (through) her and his skin prickles at the cold. He keeps his eyes downcast when she appears in front of him-wearing her favorite teal skirt and spotless white blouse, lips dusty pink and skin flawless (almost luminescent) in the light.
“You’re going to have to fess up sooner or later. You can’t keep ignoring the fact that you can see me, Taemin. I’m not leaving anytime soon.”
“Taemin…”
Jinri’s hands are always warm when she touches him, always soft when she lays them on his cheek. It’s times like these where they are truly alone-free from the horror of his accident and his visions of Soojung-that he feels peaceful. Safe. Taemin wishes he could stay in the comfort of her touch forever.
She’s worried when she asks, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Taemin, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he replies, eyes closed and breathing the oxygen in deep into his lungs. His legs are propped up on the armrest of her small couch as they stay-in for the day. Her dorm room enveloped in scents that are distinctly Jinri’s and he is thankful for the promise of lavender and chamomile wafting through the air.
(He’s gotten sick of the jasmine in his room. Soojung’s scent.)
“Really?” she confirms, her tone soft but resolute. Strong.
He opens his eyes and blinks at the uncertainty in her eyes. He doesn’t want her to worry because there is nothing, absolutely nothing.
And when he nods one last time, she accepts it and goes back to brushing his hair. Taemin tries not to run away when the scent of jasmine hits his nose seconds later.
“Have you been having trouble seeing since the operation?”
Taemin sits timidly in his chair on his hospital appointment, fixing his sights on the desk instead of his doctor’s face. A metal bar lies on the surface, his doctor’s name-Dr. Changmin Shim, Opthalmology and Eye Surgery-stamped across it in block letters. His name is responsible-sounding, almost powerful and Taemin briefly thinks that it suits him very well.
They are a lot alike, Taemin muses. Both of them were believers in Science; in what was freely visible and palatable to the senses. Dr. Shim wouldn’t believe he were seeing ghosts if he were him. He would have chucked it up to being heavily medicated and being at the brink of exhaustion. Which he was, he tells himself so adamantly, I’m just tired from all of this and school and medication.
“Mr. Lee?” He looks up and watches his doctor watch him and quirks an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
The good doctor smiles, his eyes slanting one way and asks again, “Have you had some trouble seeing since the operation?”
“No.” And he says it because it’s the truth. Only he leaves out the fact that he sees more than what was normal (Soojung); that he believes more than what is common and right in the world. The doctor, he thinks, doesn’t need to know his thoughts. That’s not what he’s paid to cure.
“Are you sure? Because Nurse Choi has mentioned you’ve been constantly rubbing your eyes since you got out of the hospital and to an ophthalmologist like me that is a worrying habit.”
Taemin shrugs, “There’s nothing wrong, I promise.”
And then he blinks and Soojung is there.
Why are you here? He thinks and she answers.
“Because you haven’t accepted it yet.”
Accept what?
Soojung shrugs as she walks (floats) towards him, laying a surprisingly warm hand on his cheek. Taemin blinks, his form stiffening for a moment before relaxing because her touch had always calmed him, no matter how little he put her in his heart.
She replies rather ambiguously, “You have to let it go, Taemin.”
He meets Kai 6 and a half weeks after his hospital discharge and wonders why neither of them had sought each other out earlier. His friend has his feet up over his desk when Taemin arrives for the class they share. They look from either ends of the classroom, acknowledging each other before Kai tips his head towards the seat next to him. Taemin relents, walks over and sits.
Neither says anything until it’s become too long a pause and their classmates dutifully file in to fill the room.
Kai breaks the silence first, pulling his feet down to sit up straighter in his seat. His notebook is open before Taemin even realized its presence and starts doodling shapes at the paper’s edge. “How’ve you been?” he asks, softer than usual and Taemin wonders if his friend is asking him about his condition or if the question was just asked out of courtesy.
He studies him for a moment before deciding the reason is the latter. “I’m fine. You?”
“I could be better.” Kai replies, shrugging. “Jinri?”
Taemin can’t help the smile that turn his lips up and wide. “She and I are good.”
“I always knew your kink would be ‘Hot Nurses’, dude.”
Kai smirks a little when he speaks and in that moment, Taemin think he might not have lost his best friend yet at all. He laughs, the first genuine one in forever it seems, and punches his friend on the shoulder.
“Fuck off, Jongin.”
Kai nods, unusually unperturbed by the use of his real name and continues doodling absentmindedly. It takes both of them a full minute before they realize that the shapes were actually letters and the letter spelled-
“Krystal.”
Taemin’s breath catches and his ears begin to ring. Kai tears the paper haphazardly, crumpling it into a ball in his fist. He shrugs just as he looks over at him, eyes guarded as though he didn’t trust him-Taemin, his supposed best friend-to understand why he’d written what he wrote.
He probably shouldn’t, Taemin thinks, easing himself into even breaths. He breaks gazes and tips his head back, drawing oxygen into his lungs-long and deep, calm. He closes his eyes and tries his hardest not to flinch when he opens them again only to see her floating in front of him (them). I don’t even trust myself to understand what it is I keep seeing.
But Kai surprises him by dispelling the tension, speaking in a tone that was reminiscent of the before and not the after of everything (Soojung, death and the unrequited love) in between them. “She said she hated her English name, but I always thought she secretly loved it too.” He smooths out the crumpled paper over his desk, smiling slightly and Taemin swears he sees Soojung look at Kai affectionately instead at him.
“I would call her ‘Krystal’ just to piss her off, though it never stopped her from looking my way when I do.”
Taemin breathes-in relief, he thinks but he doesn’t know why-and shrugs, “You were the only one allowed to call her that. She pummeled anyone else who even tried.”
Soojung shrugs at the statement and in that moment something clicks in his head.
Then he says it before thinking it through-“She secretly loved you, I think.”-and Kai’s easy smile slips right off.
“You’re an asshole, Taemin,” Kai hisses, leaving abruptly just as their professor starts roll-call.
Taemin sinks into his seat and Soojung sighs beside him.
“You’re not supposed to antagonize your friends, Taemin.” She looks sad as she says this. “Especially not Jongin.”
“Then why do you appear?” What do you want from me?
He asks a beat too late because Soojung fades away and he finds himself alone.
Jinri is worried but doesn’t want him to notice. Except he does because when she leans in to kiss him ‘hello’ there is something heavy (anxious) in her taste that unsettles him.
“How was work?” He brushes her cheek as he pulled away, his eyes search for something-anything-in her eyes but Jinri is good at keeping things to herself. Too good, his conscience muses and his mind flashes to the thought of her all-too familiar coat resting at one end of his couch and to the crash he painstakingly refuses to go back and remember.
“I got spit on by a 3-month old baby then that patient in Room 1012? The one who wanted her breasts reduced? She snuck her Chihuahua during Visiting Hours and I had to run around chasing it when it started racing down the ward.” Jinri tells him, feigning a yawn to snuggle up to him on the miniscule couch in his tiny apartment. She stretches her limbs over the arm rest, patting her hair down as she laid her head on his lap. Taemin’s fingers immediately find purchase in her locks and it eases her better than anything in the world.
She likes this quiet. She likes him too, so much, and if the air was clearer she would have told him so sooner but she doesn’t because it’s not. Not so clear at all.
“Are you trying to put my lap to sleep?” His voice takes her out of her reverie and she’s grateful for the little distraction. Blinking up to him, Jinri merely shrugs in response, splaying her hands on her stomach as their quiet atmosphere enveloped them again.
This is one of the things he values most about their relationship. The quiet is never stifling or awkward. It is calm and easy and beautiful-loving if anything because it is what they feel for one another, Taemin’s sure of it. He loves Jinri. He loves her eyes, her smile, her quirks and her passion. He loves that she knows what she wants in life and that her plans include him because his most definitely included her. He loves her so much it kills him that at the same time he cannot bring himself to trust her at all.
Not enough to tell her at least, of what he (thought he) knew or what he’s been seeing (hallucinating) for the past month.
There is never a good time to tell the person you love you’re still seeing your ex. Not especially when said ex is dead, dead, dead.
A few more minutes of this and vaguely Taemin wishes they’d agreed to meet elsewhere. To be surrounded by his things still mixed with some of Soojung’s and have the person he knows (thinks) he’s in love with makes his airways constrict. The air (or lack thereof) is stifling and it kills him bit by bit because there are things left unsaid and he can’t seem to absolve them both to peace at all.
And then there was Soojung’s constant appearance. Beautiful, happy, dead Soojung floating beside him on the free armrest. Staring at him with her sparkling eyes and smiling…
He tries not to choke as Jinri rises to bury her face against his neck, his arms encircling her waist immediately. He holds on because he has no one else to go to. Not his parents, not Kai-no one.
Soojung’s tone is unfailingly kind. “She’s so pretty. I’m glad you chose a pretty one after me. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She grins at them as she moves to stand up and turn away, fingers ghosting against the material of Jinri’s fucking light grey jacket on the armrest.
“Tell her, would you? Tell her and be honest.”
He blinks and thinks, about what?, and somehow Soojung hears it.
“About what you know and how you feel. Tell her about the dreams, the hallucinations… tell her about me. Tell anyone, even. Anyone who’ll listen.”
“I hate your jacket.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He fingers the sleeve of the coat and feels a wave of disgust awash him. He throws it across the room without a second thought.
“Taemin! What do you have against that coat?”
“Nothing-just that I hate it. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Absolutely not.” She replies, frowning as she searched his face. His face is blank and he wishes he didn’t believe it was hurt in her eyes that he so clearly sees. “Come on, tell me what’s really wrong.”
Tell her about me. Tell anyone.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Liar, Soojung whispers. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been acting so strange since you got out of the hospital.” Jinri tells him, tone soft and worried and so loving it pierces his heart. “What’s the matter? Have you been feeling sick and not telling me?”
Taemin shakes his head (and the words intensify, Tell her about me. Tell anyone.).
“Is it about the accident? Did you remember anything more about it?”
Soojung smiles and hovers over his head.
“It’s nothing. I just-I hate-” His head feels heavier now that he sees all of himself reflected to him in Jinri’s eyes. All of the hurt, the pain, the guilt-“I’m just tired, I think.”
“Taemin…”
“Jinri, stop it.”
“Have there been any problems since our last meeting?”
The doctor is more tired than usual today. Taemin can tell by the darker than usual circles under his eyes expertly hidden underneath his glasses. He thinks he’s allowed to know when his doctor’s tired or not after weeks of therapy and appointments. They were more than acquaintances now, but less than friends. That had to account of something.
He doesn’t mean to be flippant but when he speaks, he winces at the sound of it being exactly so. “Nothing I can recall since you asked last week.”
“I’m surprised you managed to string 9 words together to say to me.” Dr. Shim’s eyebrow shoots up and studies him with a wry look. “You must really be feeling better, huh? Or worse if you’re just making up for whatever’s lost in you?”
“I thought psychiatrists were the nosy ones in the Doctoral chain, Dr. Shim?”
“We’re all pretty up close and personal when it comes to our patients, I think, in some sense. And please, call me Changmin.”
Taemin shrugs, relenting under the hard gaze his doctor threw his way. He sighs only because what else was there to say?
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“You look like someone who wants to say something but won’t.” Changmin says, leaning forward onto his desk with a concentrated look of determination etched on his face. He has his hands folded together in front of him-a quintessential physician habit, Taemin deliberates in amusement, that didn’t miss the young doctor at all. Changmin unfolds them to wave around his empty office. “Care to share with the class?”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“Mr. Lee?”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
Taemin sways a bit, nausea slowly overwhelming his senses. He tries to freeze himself into position, upright on his seat but-Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“Taemin? Taemin, are you-“ Pause, crash. “Jinri, get an saline IV, air mask and 0.001cc of adrenaline STAT! He’s hyperventilating!”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
He wakes up to see stark white walls and Jinri’s hand wrapped tight around his. Soojung sits at the end of his hospital bed, smiling sadly and waiting.
“Tell her about me. Tell anyone.” She repeats; a mantra of sorts and when she disappears, Jinri wakes.
The moment her eyes looks into his, the glass breaks.
He knows what to believe in but wishes he didn’t.
His voice is hoarse (tired, dejected, resigned) when he finally asks,
“Were you on duty when I was delivered in from the accident?”
Jinri’s brow furrows in confusion but she responds regardless. “I was. I’d just logged in when you were wheeled in…”
“So you might have seen my car?”
“It was raining so hard that night that it was almost impossible to see the roads clearly. I could barely cross the street without-” She stops, eyes widening in slow realization.
“Almost getting hit by a car? Yeah, I know the feeling,” Taemin deadpans, extracting his hand out from under hers almost too roughly that she gasps in surprise. The sound hurts him but admitting this hurt even more. “I remember someone wearing a light grey coat before the crash happened,” he continues, swallowing as his monitored vitals beeped beside him. Taunting him, almost, by the sound of them-beep, beep, be-beep. “Some idiot decided to cross the street without looking both ways at a non-pedestrian walking zone while I swerved out of the way and crashed into a tree.”
There are tears in her voice when Jinri speaks, “Taemin… I couldn’t have-”
“Does it matter?” He says angrily, feeling the tears prick his eyes, “Soojung is dead-my girlfriend is dead. I know what I saw and I know it was your jacket and I-I only believe in what I see. I wish I didn’t… but I do. We killed her. We did. And I had the nerve to fall for you after.”
“Taemin,” she’s crying now, “It was an accident. It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t hear about the crash until you were wheeled in! If it were me, shouldn’t I have witnessed it? I would have gone over to help immediately if I was there! But I wasn’t! You have to believe me! Please… please…”
“You said yourself: it was raining too hard that night. You couldn’t have seen it if you were in a hurry. It doesn’t matter-she’s gone and she’s haunting me. I can’t do this.” He presses the hospital emergency button on his remote and looks away as nurses rush in and take the scene of them (Jinri crying, him lying prone) in. “Get her out of here, please. I can’t look at her.”
“I heard… about what you said to Nurse Choi.”
Changmin visits him practically seconds after Jinri is pulled away and just as he moves to sign papers for his discharge. He is leaning back against the doorframe of his hospital room, his hands are deep within his pockets; his eyes lowered as though he was anxious to come inside and speak to him. Why his doctor would be so worried, Taemin had no clue, but he waited nonetheless, dropping the pen on the table to raise an eyebrow at his visitor.
“Can I help you?” He asks and Changmin finally moves from his place.
“You got it wrong, you know. She wasn’t involved like you said.”
Taemin pauses at this. “How would you know?”
“Because I saw what happened,” Changmin admits, swallowing something (his pride) in his throat. He steps towards the windowed walls overlooking the nurse’s station and points.
Taemin looks and he sees a slender woman in a white coat taking notes into a folder. She is a beautiful woman and when she looks up (all bright-eyed and doe-like) he sees why he would think so. With her hair pulled back in a low-sloped ponytail, pink lips and flawless skin-he briefly thinks of Jinri and aches. Then he looks back at his visitor and wonders aloud, “What about her?”
“A month ago, she and I were breaking up a block away from the road you were driving along. Actually, ‘breaking up’ isn’t the correct term. More like I was leaving her… casting her aside; something like that. I’d left her crying under a gazebo in a park near the hospital and she ran after me. She would have caught up with me too… if she didn’t hear the crash.” Changmin looks at him, resigned, “She was wearing a light grey jacket that night and didn’t look both ways before crossing.”
He breathes in deep, taking in the information. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t think it’s fair to ostracize yourself from the woman you love. Believe it or not, I do keep myself updated with my nurses’ lovelives… if only to amuse them and myself from time to time. It keeps me on their good side when they know they can speak to me.” He smiles in a self-deprecating way and Taemin almost feels inclined to smile back. He thinks of how Jinri likes to talk and his heart drops from under him. Damn.
“And your point is?”
“If you’re going to blame someone, you should blame me. Or Yoona,” he gestures to the window, face breaking into brief sadness before sighing, “Or both, if you want. If I hadn’t left her in such a state, she wouldn’t have run after me and you wouldn’t have swerved into a tree. It’s not fair for you to hurt Nurse Choi for something she didn’t have a part of. All she’s ever done was care for you.”
Taemin nods, “And love me… apparently.”
“You say that as though it’s a bad thing.”
“Isn’t it?” He retorts though his tone is anything but mean. “Why did you break up with her?”
Changmin shrugs, “She isn’t mine to begin with.”
Taemin’s almost afraid to ask but he does anyway. “But you loved her?”
“Love,” The doctor corrects him then shrugs, “but it’s not going to work out.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know how to love her right,” he replies, heaving a breath too deep for his lungs, “But my friend does-her boyfriend does. He’s a Medical Director for a hospital in Japan and he asked her to come with him after ignoring her for months to arrange his transfer.” Changmin laughs but all it sounds like is cheerless. “We weren’t supposed to become more but Yoona, she… she wanted more.”
Something about his words ring true to his ears. “And you didn’t.”
“I do.” He says, sighing once more, “But it’s not enough, and soon she’ll be living in Japan and I’ll be here.”
“Why don’t you follow after her then?”
Changmin throws the question back to me with a cynical smile. “Why don’t you?”
“Jinri deserves better than me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I don’t know how to love her (anyone) right. Taemin sighs, his lips quirking upward into a smile that matched his visitor. “I see your point.”
The doctor nods, understanding the silence and Taemin once again thinks they are too much alike.
“Yeah.”
Jinri’s cries echoes aloud in the room hours after she is wedged away and his nurses tell him it’s ok to leave. His heart is not in his chest when he leaves. It is with her-Jinri-because even though he believes what he saw, he loves her still-truly-and what Taemin is left with is nothing but the image of Soojung shaking her head. Changmin’s words ring in his ear as she floats beside him and he waits for her to finally speak.
As usual, her tone is kind,
“That wasn’t what I meant when I said you should tell her.”
“Then what?” he asks her aloud, acknowledging her presence (the first time and probably only). Angry at first before deflating-how could he argue with a ghost? A figment of his imagination?
“You were wrong to accuse her. She had no part of this. We were to blame.” Soojung pauses and sighs, brushing his hair past his forehead.
The next she opens her mouth, the words are sad but loving, choked with emotion, “… and even though you say otherwise, you haven’t accepted the fact that I died. That you loved me the same way I did in your own way but was never able to tell me. Because you didn’t believe in love then, at least until she came along. You fell for her because she made you believe in things I could never make you consider when I was alive.”
Soojung is beautiful, he thinks, when she cries. Even in death and it throttles him to feel so much for someone he can-will-no longer see.
“You have accept it and let me go, Taemin.”
“I never wanted you dead.” I’m sorry. I wish I was better for you then. I wish I loved you better. “I never wanted to hurt you or Kai or Jinri… I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
“I know.” She tells him and leans to brush her lips against his. He watches her as she fades into light, smiling beautifully the way he remembers, “I know.”
“Tell her about me. Tell anyone who’ll listen. Don’t forget.”
Taemin blinks. “Okay.”
It’s awkward when they meet again, with Taemin’s hands are filled with a bouquet of cheerful posies and Jinri’s are clutched over patients’ records.
“I saw Soojung everywhere, after the accident,” he admits, shoving the posies under her nose. He is flushed and nervous as she stares back at him, waiting. “I was almost sure I was going nuts but I think I was only seeing her because a part of me still believed she was still… out there somewhere. Hiding from me. She likes to play hide’n’seek. That’s kind of her thing.”
“Soojung always teased me about my loving her in a certain way that wasn’t… normal. She would say that I would only really know her worth if she were to disappear. I always called her a drama queen whenever she said but when she finally did-disappear-I think my heart finally understood what she meant. And that killed a part of me that only believed in the physicality and not in… emotions.”
He takes tiny steps forward, watching for a reaction but when Jinri gives him none he soldiers on. Results be damned.
“You were right… about me not accepting her death. I blamed you because of something I saw that I thought made sense. It wasn’t fair to you or to me because I was essentially forcing myself into a standstill in my life. I couldn’t accept that I had played a part in her death and that I could have loved her better before it all ended and I… I love you, the way I should have loved Soojung. And that scares me because I don’t know how a real love looks like to the world and all I’ve ever believed before was what I could see and calculate.”
“Love isn’t an equation.” She replies simply and Taemin can’t help but laugh at the cliché.
“Yeah, I know that now.”
Jinri nods and holds the flowers to her nose as he held his breath.
“My shift ends at six,” she tells him with her smile and his soul lifts and he swears he can hear Soojung’s laugh ring in his ears. “Dinner and a movie?”
Taemin closes his eyes and breathes. He blinks. He sees. He loves.
“I’ll see you then.”
(( “I lo’ed her, y’know. I did. I do. You st’le ‘r from me.”
Weeks later, Taemin thinks his helping Kai onto his couch is a clandestine meeting waiting to erupt. And when he manages to wedge Kai into a corner of the couch and Jinri tells him she’ll make his friend some tea, he thinks the eruption might as well happen sooner than later.
When was a better time to let your friend yell obscenities at you than right now and where else but at your couch nonetheless? At least, Taemin thinks, he’ll have Jinri to comfort him later. Kai has no one. Soojung is dead and hovering still between them in smoke and unshed tears.
“Let it out, man.” He says in placating manner and knows it won’t help but he tries anyway. “I’m sorry she’s dead. I really am.”
“No, you’re n’t. You d’nt kn’w at all.” Kai slurs in anger even as tears stream down his face. Taemin feels sick at the sight because he’s never seen him this way. Not ever. Not even when his parents died and his own parents fostered him as an adopted son. Not when he (they? No, most definitely ‘he’) lost Soojung.
“F’ckin ev’ryth’ng up. You h’d ‘r th’n you thr’w ‘r away just”-Kai snaps his fingers-“like”-snap-“th’t for some floozy nurse.”
“Hey,” Taemin glowers, lips set in a thin line. Jinri walks in with the tea in her hands, undisturbed by the comment even though he knew she must have heard it-“Don’t talk about Jinri that way. She helped me get better!”
“And who helped Soojung?!” Suddenly Kai’s blurring gaze clears and he yells so angrily the walls shake. They stand off at one another, scowling and hurt. And when Jinri tries to pull his arm back, he doesn’t let himself budge from his position.
Not because he won’t but because he can’t.
“You could have just fought it out at the party. Screamed and yelled and thrown things. I wouldn’t have minded because at least it was in my house!” Kai continues, pushing at him with every force of his being. Jinri shouts for him to stop but doesn’t move any closer when Taemin holds a hand up. He doesn’t want her to get involved, he doesn’t want her hurt. If Kai were to hurt anyone that night, it had to be him. He deserved it.
“I would have watched over both of you! The roads were flooded that night, you asshole! If you’d have listened to me Soojung would have been alive right now!”
Kai breaks down and all Taemin knows to do is hold him until he calms. It is the least he can do for the man who loved her better than he ever could.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers it and thinks it’s enough.
He and Kai make a proper memorial.
Neither of them was around when the Jung family had buried their daughter, but then both of them didn’t feel like they were allowed to join in their grief. Instead they moved to create their own-complete with sandwiches and drinks she liked and over a blanket she quilted when they were freshmen by her grave. The soil was just soft enough from the rain.
Jinri had declined to join them, saying that it was their moment and she wasn’t a part of them when Soojung was alive. “She deserves to have a day with her best friends. I just hope she likes the way I made her sandwiches for today.” She said, grinning while she packed the papered breads into a stack inside a basket.
“Soojung would have liked her,” Kai commented, breaking off a piece of his sandwich with a smile, “They would have been partners-in-crime.”
“Like us?” Taemin offered, tossing a can of root beer his way.
Brushing the granite of the tombstone above his head, Kai nodded as he moved to lay back on the grass.
“Yeah.” ))
END
taemin-centric (feat. taemin/sulli, implied!taemin/krystal-and-kai/krystal) for onceuponataem
drama, romance; 5655w, pg
a/n: i'm not sure where i found all the words for this and how it's possible that they sound better in my head than on an actual typed document but one must not complain. i'm also not sure how this became more of a character piece than a pairing fic but who cares, right? this is for you, naomi! i love you, kid. and enjoy, taelli shippers! ♥
Taemin still only believes in the things he sees.
He believes in the solutions of equations in front him as he scribbles them out on a blank sheet because he found his way there, through the sea of numbers, unscathed. He believes in the result of experiments he constructs and its functions and use because the robot works on the third try after he’d changed a few things and tinkered with the engine. He believes that his prototype works because the panel at NASA says so and approved his internship. He believes he will get to where he wants to be because his life is already laid out in front him, on several sheets of paper and Jinri is so happy for him she promises to go with him wherever he wants them to go. He believes Jinri because she is there, in front of him-smiling that beautiful smile and loving him for who he is, has become and will be.
He believes… but, some doubt remains.
Taemin still isn’t sure what to make of seeing Soojung wherever he goes.
“Don’t you think you’re a little too young to hotwire yourself to caffeine so early in the morning?”
The first day back from the hospital, Taemin wakes up to see Soojung perched on his desk-her legs crossed at the heels as she fiddled with her hands on her lap. He yelps and bumps his head on an overhead cabinet, knocking his papers off the shelf to rain down on him and his bed.
She laughs that lilting laugh he remembers laughing so much and he reels as she edges just a bit closer. He moves but can’t find the words to speak. His mouth opens but nothing comes out and when she moves-her touch is icy on his cheek. Cold but soft, like always.
She speaks (“You’re going to need some ice for that bump of yours, kiddo. There’s some in the fridge.”); and then blurs out of sight. Disappears.
Taemin believes (knows) he’s gone insane when he looks and sees a bag of ice he’s so sure was not there before.
But-he doesn’t tell anyone about seeing Soojung’s spirit. Taemin thinks she’s haunting him so it’s his problem to solve. There was no need to bring other people in the mix. Not Jinri-who always smiles and laughs even when all he sees is her grey jacket and Soojung walking in time with her. Not Kai-who loves (loved) Soojung more than he ever did and hasn’t moved on at all.
He groans, burying his head under a pillow. No, he can’t tell anyone. That’s that.
Soojung is perched on his desk everyday for a week after that first day, eyeing him from where he slept and following him throughout the day.
Her presence annoyed him; scared him shitless. It made him uncomfortable to move around and live through day to day. She was there in his classes, whispering answers to his tests that he’s sure she wouldn’t have known if she were alive. She was there when hung out with his friends, laughing at jokes Minho throws around and hovering closer to Kai than him. She was there during his dates with Jinri, walking alongside her and commenting on how pretty her hair looks and her dress and Oh her shoes are darling, wonder where she bought those?
Her presence annoyed him but he refused to say a word. Not to Jinri. Not to Kai. Not to anyone who mattered or less.
Soojung huffs a lot when he passes by (through) her and his skin prickles at the cold. He keeps his eyes downcast when she appears in front of him-wearing her favorite teal skirt and spotless white blouse, lips dusty pink and skin flawless (almost luminescent) in the light.
“You’re going to have to fess up sooner or later. You can’t keep ignoring the fact that you can see me, Taemin. I’m not leaving anytime soon.”
“Taemin…”
Jinri’s hands are always warm when she touches him, always soft when she lays them on his cheek. It’s times like these where they are truly alone-free from the horror of his accident and his visions of Soojung-that he feels peaceful. Safe. Taemin wishes he could stay in the comfort of her touch forever.
She’s worried when she asks, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Taemin, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he replies, eyes closed and breathing the oxygen in deep into his lungs. His legs are propped up on the armrest of her small couch as they stay-in for the day. Her dorm room enveloped in scents that are distinctly Jinri’s and he is thankful for the promise of lavender and chamomile wafting through the air.
(He’s gotten sick of the jasmine in his room. Soojung’s scent.)
“Really?” she confirms, her tone soft but resolute. Strong.
He opens his eyes and blinks at the uncertainty in her eyes. He doesn’t want her to worry because there is nothing, absolutely nothing.
And when he nods one last time, she accepts it and goes back to brushing his hair. Taemin tries not to run away when the scent of jasmine hits his nose seconds later.
“Have you been having trouble seeing since the operation?”
Taemin sits timidly in his chair on his hospital appointment, fixing his sights on the desk instead of his doctor’s face. A metal bar lies on the surface, his doctor’s name-Dr. Changmin Shim, Opthalmology and Eye Surgery-stamped across it in block letters. His name is responsible-sounding, almost powerful and Taemin briefly thinks that it suits him very well.
They are a lot alike, Taemin muses. Both of them were believers in Science; in what was freely visible and palatable to the senses. Dr. Shim wouldn’t believe he were seeing ghosts if he were him. He would have chucked it up to being heavily medicated and being at the brink of exhaustion. Which he was, he tells himself so adamantly, I’m just tired from all of this and school and medication.
“Mr. Lee?” He looks up and watches his doctor watch him and quirks an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
The good doctor smiles, his eyes slanting one way and asks again, “Have you had some trouble seeing since the operation?”
“No.” And he says it because it’s the truth. Only he leaves out the fact that he sees more than what was normal (Soojung); that he believes more than what is common and right in the world. The doctor, he thinks, doesn’t need to know his thoughts. That’s not what he’s paid to cure.
“Are you sure? Because Nurse Choi has mentioned you’ve been constantly rubbing your eyes since you got out of the hospital and to an ophthalmologist like me that is a worrying habit.”
Taemin shrugs, “There’s nothing wrong, I promise.”
And then he blinks and Soojung is there.
Why are you here? He thinks and she answers.
“Because you haven’t accepted it yet.”
Accept what?
Soojung shrugs as she walks (floats) towards him, laying a surprisingly warm hand on his cheek. Taemin blinks, his form stiffening for a moment before relaxing because her touch had always calmed him, no matter how little he put her in his heart.
She replies rather ambiguously, “You have to let it go, Taemin.”
He meets Kai 6 and a half weeks after his hospital discharge and wonders why neither of them had sought each other out earlier. His friend has his feet up over his desk when Taemin arrives for the class they share. They look from either ends of the classroom, acknowledging each other before Kai tips his head towards the seat next to him. Taemin relents, walks over and sits.
Neither says anything until it’s become too long a pause and their classmates dutifully file in to fill the room.
Kai breaks the silence first, pulling his feet down to sit up straighter in his seat. His notebook is open before Taemin even realized its presence and starts doodling shapes at the paper’s edge. “How’ve you been?” he asks, softer than usual and Taemin wonders if his friend is asking him about his condition or if the question was just asked out of courtesy.
He studies him for a moment before deciding the reason is the latter. “I’m fine. You?”
“I could be better.” Kai replies, shrugging. “Jinri?”
Taemin can’t help the smile that turn his lips up and wide. “She and I are good.”
“I always knew your kink would be ‘Hot Nurses’, dude.”
Kai smirks a little when he speaks and in that moment, Taemin think he might not have lost his best friend yet at all. He laughs, the first genuine one in forever it seems, and punches his friend on the shoulder.
“Fuck off, Jongin.”
Kai nods, unusually unperturbed by the use of his real name and continues doodling absentmindedly. It takes both of them a full minute before they realize that the shapes were actually letters and the letter spelled-
“Krystal.”
Taemin’s breath catches and his ears begin to ring. Kai tears the paper haphazardly, crumpling it into a ball in his fist. He shrugs just as he looks over at him, eyes guarded as though he didn’t trust him-Taemin, his supposed best friend-to understand why he’d written what he wrote.
He probably shouldn’t, Taemin thinks, easing himself into even breaths. He breaks gazes and tips his head back, drawing oxygen into his lungs-long and deep, calm. He closes his eyes and tries his hardest not to flinch when he opens them again only to see her floating in front of him (them). I don’t even trust myself to understand what it is I keep seeing.
But Kai surprises him by dispelling the tension, speaking in a tone that was reminiscent of the before and not the after of everything (Soojung, death and the unrequited love) in between them. “She said she hated her English name, but I always thought she secretly loved it too.” He smooths out the crumpled paper over his desk, smiling slightly and Taemin swears he sees Soojung look at Kai affectionately instead at him.
“I would call her ‘Krystal’ just to piss her off, though it never stopped her from looking my way when I do.”
Taemin breathes-in relief, he thinks but he doesn’t know why-and shrugs, “You were the only one allowed to call her that. She pummeled anyone else who even tried.”
Soojung shrugs at the statement and in that moment something clicks in his head.
Then he says it before thinking it through-“She secretly loved you, I think.”-and Kai’s easy smile slips right off.
“You’re an asshole, Taemin,” Kai hisses, leaving abruptly just as their professor starts roll-call.
Taemin sinks into his seat and Soojung sighs beside him.
“You’re not supposed to antagonize your friends, Taemin.” She looks sad as she says this. “Especially not Jongin.”
“Then why do you appear?” What do you want from me?
He asks a beat too late because Soojung fades away and he finds himself alone.
Jinri is worried but doesn’t want him to notice. Except he does because when she leans in to kiss him ‘hello’ there is something heavy (anxious) in her taste that unsettles him.
“How was work?” He brushes her cheek as he pulled away, his eyes search for something-anything-in her eyes but Jinri is good at keeping things to herself. Too good, his conscience muses and his mind flashes to the thought of her all-too familiar coat resting at one end of his couch and to the crash he painstakingly refuses to go back and remember.
“I got spit on by a 3-month old baby then that patient in Room 1012? The one who wanted her breasts reduced? She snuck her Chihuahua during Visiting Hours and I had to run around chasing it when it started racing down the ward.” Jinri tells him, feigning a yawn to snuggle up to him on the miniscule couch in his tiny apartment. She stretches her limbs over the arm rest, patting her hair down as she laid her head on his lap. Taemin’s fingers immediately find purchase in her locks and it eases her better than anything in the world.
She likes this quiet. She likes him too, so much, and if the air was clearer she would have told him so sooner but she doesn’t because it’s not. Not so clear at all.
“Are you trying to put my lap to sleep?” His voice takes her out of her reverie and she’s grateful for the little distraction. Blinking up to him, Jinri merely shrugs in response, splaying her hands on her stomach as their quiet atmosphere enveloped them again.
This is one of the things he values most about their relationship. The quiet is never stifling or awkward. It is calm and easy and beautiful-loving if anything because it is what they feel for one another, Taemin’s sure of it. He loves Jinri. He loves her eyes, her smile, her quirks and her passion. He loves that she knows what she wants in life and that her plans include him because his most definitely included her. He loves her so much it kills him that at the same time he cannot bring himself to trust her at all.
Not enough to tell her at least, of what he (thought he) knew or what he’s been seeing (hallucinating) for the past month.
There is never a good time to tell the person you love you’re still seeing your ex. Not especially when said ex is dead, dead, dead.
A few more minutes of this and vaguely Taemin wishes they’d agreed to meet elsewhere. To be surrounded by his things still mixed with some of Soojung’s and have the person he knows (thinks) he’s in love with makes his airways constrict. The air (or lack thereof) is stifling and it kills him bit by bit because there are things left unsaid and he can’t seem to absolve them both to peace at all.
And then there was Soojung’s constant appearance. Beautiful, happy, dead Soojung floating beside him on the free armrest. Staring at him with her sparkling eyes and smiling…
He tries not to choke as Jinri rises to bury her face against his neck, his arms encircling her waist immediately. He holds on because he has no one else to go to. Not his parents, not Kai-no one.
Soojung’s tone is unfailingly kind. “She’s so pretty. I’m glad you chose a pretty one after me. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She grins at them as she moves to stand up and turn away, fingers ghosting against the material of Jinri’s fucking light grey jacket on the armrest.
“Tell her, would you? Tell her and be honest.”
He blinks and thinks, about what?, and somehow Soojung hears it.
“About what you know and how you feel. Tell her about the dreams, the hallucinations… tell her about me. Tell anyone, even. Anyone who’ll listen.”
“I hate your jacket.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He fingers the sleeve of the coat and feels a wave of disgust awash him. He throws it across the room without a second thought.
“Taemin! What do you have against that coat?”
“Nothing-just that I hate it. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Absolutely not.” She replies, frowning as she searched his face. His face is blank and he wishes he didn’t believe it was hurt in her eyes that he so clearly sees. “Come on, tell me what’s really wrong.”
Tell her about me. Tell anyone.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Liar, Soojung whispers. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been acting so strange since you got out of the hospital.” Jinri tells him, tone soft and worried and so loving it pierces his heart. “What’s the matter? Have you been feeling sick and not telling me?”
Taemin shakes his head (and the words intensify, Tell her about me. Tell anyone.).
“Is it about the accident? Did you remember anything more about it?”
Soojung smiles and hovers over his head.
“It’s nothing. I just-I hate-” His head feels heavier now that he sees all of himself reflected to him in Jinri’s eyes. All of the hurt, the pain, the guilt-“I’m just tired, I think.”
“Taemin…”
“Jinri, stop it.”
“Have there been any problems since our last meeting?”
The doctor is more tired than usual today. Taemin can tell by the darker than usual circles under his eyes expertly hidden underneath his glasses. He thinks he’s allowed to know when his doctor’s tired or not after weeks of therapy and appointments. They were more than acquaintances now, but less than friends. That had to account of something.
He doesn’t mean to be flippant but when he speaks, he winces at the sound of it being exactly so. “Nothing I can recall since you asked last week.”
“I’m surprised you managed to string 9 words together to say to me.” Dr. Shim’s eyebrow shoots up and studies him with a wry look. “You must really be feeling better, huh? Or worse if you’re just making up for whatever’s lost in you?”
“I thought psychiatrists were the nosy ones in the Doctoral chain, Dr. Shim?”
“We’re all pretty up close and personal when it comes to our patients, I think, in some sense. And please, call me Changmin.”
Taemin shrugs, relenting under the hard gaze his doctor threw his way. He sighs only because what else was there to say?
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“You look like someone who wants to say something but won’t.” Changmin says, leaning forward onto his desk with a concentrated look of determination etched on his face. He has his hands folded together in front of him-a quintessential physician habit, Taemin deliberates in amusement, that didn’t miss the young doctor at all. Changmin unfolds them to wave around his empty office. “Care to share with the class?”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“Mr. Lee?”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
Taemin sways a bit, nausea slowly overwhelming his senses. He tries to freeze himself into position, upright on his seat but-Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
“Taemin? Taemin, are you-“ Pause, crash. “Jinri, get an saline IV, air mask and 0.001cc of adrenaline STAT! He’s hyperventilating!”
Tell anyone. Anyone who’ll listen.
He wakes up to see stark white walls and Jinri’s hand wrapped tight around his. Soojung sits at the end of his hospital bed, smiling sadly and waiting.
“Tell her about me. Tell anyone.” She repeats; a mantra of sorts and when she disappears, Jinri wakes.
The moment her eyes looks into his, the glass breaks.
He knows what to believe in but wishes he didn’t.
His voice is hoarse (tired, dejected, resigned) when he finally asks,
“Were you on duty when I was delivered in from the accident?”
Jinri’s brow furrows in confusion but she responds regardless. “I was. I’d just logged in when you were wheeled in…”
“So you might have seen my car?”
“It was raining so hard that night that it was almost impossible to see the roads clearly. I could barely cross the street without-” She stops, eyes widening in slow realization.
“Almost getting hit by a car? Yeah, I know the feeling,” Taemin deadpans, extracting his hand out from under hers almost too roughly that she gasps in surprise. The sound hurts him but admitting this hurt even more. “I remember someone wearing a light grey coat before the crash happened,” he continues, swallowing as his monitored vitals beeped beside him. Taunting him, almost, by the sound of them-beep, beep, be-beep. “Some idiot decided to cross the street without looking both ways at a non-pedestrian walking zone while I swerved out of the way and crashed into a tree.”
There are tears in her voice when Jinri speaks, “Taemin… I couldn’t have-”
“Does it matter?” He says angrily, feeling the tears prick his eyes, “Soojung is dead-my girlfriend is dead. I know what I saw and I know it was your jacket and I-I only believe in what I see. I wish I didn’t… but I do. We killed her. We did. And I had the nerve to fall for you after.”
“Taemin,” she’s crying now, “It was an accident. It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t hear about the crash until you were wheeled in! If it were me, shouldn’t I have witnessed it? I would have gone over to help immediately if I was there! But I wasn’t! You have to believe me! Please… please…”
“You said yourself: it was raining too hard that night. You couldn’t have seen it if you were in a hurry. It doesn’t matter-she’s gone and she’s haunting me. I can’t do this.” He presses the hospital emergency button on his remote and looks away as nurses rush in and take the scene of them (Jinri crying, him lying prone) in. “Get her out of here, please. I can’t look at her.”
“I heard… about what you said to Nurse Choi.”
Changmin visits him practically seconds after Jinri is pulled away and just as he moves to sign papers for his discharge. He is leaning back against the doorframe of his hospital room, his hands are deep within his pockets; his eyes lowered as though he was anxious to come inside and speak to him. Why his doctor would be so worried, Taemin had no clue, but he waited nonetheless, dropping the pen on the table to raise an eyebrow at his visitor.
“Can I help you?” He asks and Changmin finally moves from his place.
“You got it wrong, you know. She wasn’t involved like you said.”
Taemin pauses at this. “How would you know?”
“Because I saw what happened,” Changmin admits, swallowing something (his pride) in his throat. He steps towards the windowed walls overlooking the nurse’s station and points.
Taemin looks and he sees a slender woman in a white coat taking notes into a folder. She is a beautiful woman and when she looks up (all bright-eyed and doe-like) he sees why he would think so. With her hair pulled back in a low-sloped ponytail, pink lips and flawless skin-he briefly thinks of Jinri and aches. Then he looks back at his visitor and wonders aloud, “What about her?”
“A month ago, she and I were breaking up a block away from the road you were driving along. Actually, ‘breaking up’ isn’t the correct term. More like I was leaving her… casting her aside; something like that. I’d left her crying under a gazebo in a park near the hospital and she ran after me. She would have caught up with me too… if she didn’t hear the crash.” Changmin looks at him, resigned, “She was wearing a light grey jacket that night and didn’t look both ways before crossing.”
He breathes in deep, taking in the information. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t think it’s fair to ostracize yourself from the woman you love. Believe it or not, I do keep myself updated with my nurses’ lovelives… if only to amuse them and myself from time to time. It keeps me on their good side when they know they can speak to me.” He smiles in a self-deprecating way and Taemin almost feels inclined to smile back. He thinks of how Jinri likes to talk and his heart drops from under him. Damn.
“And your point is?”
“If you’re going to blame someone, you should blame me. Or Yoona,” he gestures to the window, face breaking into brief sadness before sighing, “Or both, if you want. If I hadn’t left her in such a state, she wouldn’t have run after me and you wouldn’t have swerved into a tree. It’s not fair for you to hurt Nurse Choi for something she didn’t have a part of. All she’s ever done was care for you.”
Taemin nods, “And love me… apparently.”
“You say that as though it’s a bad thing.”
“Isn’t it?” He retorts though his tone is anything but mean. “Why did you break up with her?”
Changmin shrugs, “She isn’t mine to begin with.”
Taemin’s almost afraid to ask but he does anyway. “But you loved her?”
“Love,” The doctor corrects him then shrugs, “but it’s not going to work out.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know how to love her right,” he replies, heaving a breath too deep for his lungs, “But my friend does-her boyfriend does. He’s a Medical Director for a hospital in Japan and he asked her to come with him after ignoring her for months to arrange his transfer.” Changmin laughs but all it sounds like is cheerless. “We weren’t supposed to become more but Yoona, she… she wanted more.”
Something about his words ring true to his ears. “And you didn’t.”
“I do.” He says, sighing once more, “But it’s not enough, and soon she’ll be living in Japan and I’ll be here.”
“Why don’t you follow after her then?”
Changmin throws the question back to me with a cynical smile. “Why don’t you?”
“Jinri deserves better than me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I don’t know how to love her (anyone) right. Taemin sighs, his lips quirking upward into a smile that matched his visitor. “I see your point.”
The doctor nods, understanding the silence and Taemin once again thinks they are too much alike.
“Yeah.”
Jinri’s cries echoes aloud in the room hours after she is wedged away and his nurses tell him it’s ok to leave. His heart is not in his chest when he leaves. It is with her-Jinri-because even though he believes what he saw, he loves her still-truly-and what Taemin is left with is nothing but the image of Soojung shaking her head. Changmin’s words ring in his ear as she floats beside him and he waits for her to finally speak.
As usual, her tone is kind,
“That wasn’t what I meant when I said you should tell her.”
“Then what?” he asks her aloud, acknowledging her presence (the first time and probably only). Angry at first before deflating-how could he argue with a ghost? A figment of his imagination?
“You were wrong to accuse her. She had no part of this. We were to blame.” Soojung pauses and sighs, brushing his hair past his forehead.
The next she opens her mouth, the words are sad but loving, choked with emotion, “… and even though you say otherwise, you haven’t accepted the fact that I died. That you loved me the same way I did in your own way but was never able to tell me. Because you didn’t believe in love then, at least until she came along. You fell for her because she made you believe in things I could never make you consider when I was alive.”
Soojung is beautiful, he thinks, when she cries. Even in death and it throttles him to feel so much for someone he can-will-no longer see.
“You have accept it and let me go, Taemin.”
“I never wanted you dead.” I’m sorry. I wish I was better for you then. I wish I loved you better. “I never wanted to hurt you or Kai or Jinri… I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
“I know.” She tells him and leans to brush her lips against his. He watches her as she fades into light, smiling beautifully the way he remembers, “I know.”
“Tell her about me. Tell anyone who’ll listen. Don’t forget.”
Taemin blinks. “Okay.”
It’s awkward when they meet again, with Taemin’s hands are filled with a bouquet of cheerful posies and Jinri’s are clutched over patients’ records.
“I saw Soojung everywhere, after the accident,” he admits, shoving the posies under her nose. He is flushed and nervous as she stares back at him, waiting. “I was almost sure I was going nuts but I think I was only seeing her because a part of me still believed she was still… out there somewhere. Hiding from me. She likes to play hide’n’seek. That’s kind of her thing.”
“Soojung always teased me about my loving her in a certain way that wasn’t… normal. She would say that I would only really know her worth if she were to disappear. I always called her a drama queen whenever she said but when she finally did-disappear-I think my heart finally understood what she meant. And that killed a part of me that only believed in the physicality and not in… emotions.”
He takes tiny steps forward, watching for a reaction but when Jinri gives him none he soldiers on. Results be damned.
“You were right… about me not accepting her death. I blamed you because of something I saw that I thought made sense. It wasn’t fair to you or to me because I was essentially forcing myself into a standstill in my life. I couldn’t accept that I had played a part in her death and that I could have loved her better before it all ended and I… I love you, the way I should have loved Soojung. And that scares me because I don’t know how a real love looks like to the world and all I’ve ever believed before was what I could see and calculate.”
“Love isn’t an equation.” She replies simply and Taemin can’t help but laugh at the cliché.
“Yeah, I know that now.”
Jinri nods and holds the flowers to her nose as he held his breath.
“My shift ends at six,” she tells him with her smile and his soul lifts and he swears he can hear Soojung’s laugh ring in his ears. “Dinner and a movie?”
Taemin closes his eyes and breathes. He blinks. He sees. He loves.
“I’ll see you then.”
(( “I lo’ed her, y’know. I did. I do. You st’le ‘r from me.”
Weeks later, Taemin thinks his helping Kai onto his couch is a clandestine meeting waiting to erupt. And when he manages to wedge Kai into a corner of the couch and Jinri tells him she’ll make his friend some tea, he thinks the eruption might as well happen sooner than later.
When was a better time to let your friend yell obscenities at you than right now and where else but at your couch nonetheless? At least, Taemin thinks, he’ll have Jinri to comfort him later. Kai has no one. Soojung is dead and hovering still between them in smoke and unshed tears.
“Let it out, man.” He says in placating manner and knows it won’t help but he tries anyway. “I’m sorry she’s dead. I really am.”
“No, you’re n’t. You d’nt kn’w at all.” Kai slurs in anger even as tears stream down his face. Taemin feels sick at the sight because he’s never seen him this way. Not ever. Not even when his parents died and his own parents fostered him as an adopted son. Not when he (they? No, most definitely ‘he’) lost Soojung.
“F’ckin ev’ryth’ng up. You h’d ‘r th’n you thr’w ‘r away just”-Kai snaps his fingers-“like”-snap-“th’t for some floozy nurse.”
“Hey,” Taemin glowers, lips set in a thin line. Jinri walks in with the tea in her hands, undisturbed by the comment even though he knew she must have heard it-“Don’t talk about Jinri that way. She helped me get better!”
“And who helped Soojung?!” Suddenly Kai’s blurring gaze clears and he yells so angrily the walls shake. They stand off at one another, scowling and hurt. And when Jinri tries to pull his arm back, he doesn’t let himself budge from his position.
Not because he won’t but because he can’t.
“You could have just fought it out at the party. Screamed and yelled and thrown things. I wouldn’t have minded because at least it was in my house!” Kai continues, pushing at him with every force of his being. Jinri shouts for him to stop but doesn’t move any closer when Taemin holds a hand up. He doesn’t want her to get involved, he doesn’t want her hurt. If Kai were to hurt anyone that night, it had to be him. He deserved it.
“I would have watched over both of you! The roads were flooded that night, you asshole! If you’d have listened to me Soojung would have been alive right now!”
Kai breaks down and all Taemin knows to do is hold him until he calms. It is the least he can do for the man who loved her better than he ever could.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers it and thinks it’s enough.
He and Kai make a proper memorial.
Neither of them was around when the Jung family had buried their daughter, but then both of them didn’t feel like they were allowed to join in their grief. Instead they moved to create their own-complete with sandwiches and drinks she liked and over a blanket she quilted when they were freshmen by her grave. The soil was just soft enough from the rain.
Jinri had declined to join them, saying that it was their moment and she wasn’t a part of them when Soojung was alive. “She deserves to have a day with her best friends. I just hope she likes the way I made her sandwiches for today.” She said, grinning while she packed the papered breads into a stack inside a basket.
“Soojung would have liked her,” Kai commented, breaking off a piece of his sandwich with a smile, “They would have been partners-in-crime.”
“Like us?” Taemin offered, tossing a can of root beer his way.
Brushing the granite of the tombstone above his head, Kai nodded as he moved to lay back on the grass.
“Yeah.” ))
END