off to the races (6/?)
off to the races (6/?)
~ 4050 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii. part iii. part iv.part v.
It was her first spring break away from home, it was her last.
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ i'm now posting this on aff too, so go subscribe if you'd like
Once when Yixing was old enough to get into a knife fight but still was too young to properly defend himself, he got given scars on the skins over his heart. Krystal was even younger than he was so she spent all her days waiting around for him to come back with a first aid kit in hand.
He talks nonsense when he’s in pain. She suspects he sees nonsense too. He never told her what it was like - to be close enough to death to practically touch it. Then again, Yixing did always say she would never have the chance to experience any of what he did as long as he was alive. But Krystal did always say she would have to eventually.
But Yixing was never wrong about anything. But guess there’s a first time for everything.
When one of her heavy eyes crack open, she’s not there anymore. Except she still is - the house with its high ceiling is there but without all the delicate little cracks, the carved fountain stands proud with mossy green twining itself around the sculpture of gods and angels, the tiles are crisped white without any stains of blood. Her muscles flex - finger nails blunt and clean, hands untied and no bruise on her arm. Instead loose white sleeves are draping over them. Krystal doesn’t feel the slightest tinge of pain when she moves. She blinks down at the grass blades tickling at her bare feet then looks up, squinting at the burning sun up in the clear blue sky. The earthy smell reminds her of a warm summer day and she walks over to the window at her left to inhale some more of the floral scent.
This is the same manor, except it’s really not.
“You can’t go up there”
Krystal couldn’t help but jump at the loud footsteps bounding up from the stair case behind her. So there are others in this place too. She wonders if she’d simply die and this is her soul - stuck here because neither hell nor heaven would accept her. It wouldn’t come as a shock to her if some others have died under this very roof too.
“And why not?” Another voice follows just as the running stopped.
Not being able to contain her own curiosity, Krystal slowly walks over to the top of the stairs. It wasn’t close enough to earn her a peek of the sources of this conversation she was hearing. By standing on her toes, Krystal could only see the back of, from what she gathered from the physiques, a young boy.
“Because,” the boy sighs and stands up, making the wood creaks beneath his feet, “We are guests here and not to wander around this place without the owner’s permission.”
“We’re not allowed to go out, we’re not allowed to go up stairs. What are we allowed to do?!” The girl argues, taking several steps pass him.
“You’re acting like a brat,” the boy says with agitation, “I’m not going pretend like I didn’t see you if you get caught this time.”
“Fine,” the girl snaps, throwing her arms up in the art and giving Krystal a glimpse of her sun kissed skin, “But I’m going to go insane if I have to stay cooped up in this house for another minute.”
“Go find something to entertain yourself then,” the boy says harshly, descending down the stairs and
leaving behind the smaller girl, “Find some people to annoy, you’re good at that.”
“I know I am,” the girl agrees with enthusiasm then trails after him, “I like annoying you the most though.”
At the foot of the stairs, the girl bounces of the last step with a wide grin as she catches up to the dark haired boy. A rush of jarring nostalgia floods her as she recognized the two kids now disappearing through the door to a hall way as her and Jongin.
"Wha - How..."
Though it’s lost upon her why she’s reliving through this particular memory from three year ago, Krystal never did forget how he looked that day in his light grey sweater and faded blue jeans. She always hated that cream dress her mother made her wore but it didn’t matter, she would be wearing his sweater over it by dinner time anyway.
It was her first spring break away from home, it was her last.
“She’s breathing,” Someone yells from far away, “She’s alive.”
Then the window shuts, the blinds close, the floor beneath her collapses, the roses shrivel. No, Krystal whispers but not a sound comes out of her mouth when everything falls from under her. No, she hears herself say this time when she opens her eyes to a contorted vision of Sehun’s panic-stricken face.
Yes, she almost hears herself say to death.
-
“She’s stable now,” Suho declares, dumping the bloody latex gloves amongst the equally bloody pile of clothes, “Look, Jongin, I -“
“You don’t have to explain yourself, hyung,” Jongin dismisses what’s about to come next, “It’s okay, you have your reasons for not telling me.”
With his back turned to him and his hands under the hot water, Suho freezes. “You really think this is about us not telling you, Baekyun and Sehun about taking her down to that old manor?”
He raises a questioning brow and pulls out a cigarette. “What else?”
The changes in Suho’s is almost immediate. His back straightens and the line of his jaws turns harsh, why the event of tonight had made the older boy feel this way comes as a surprise to him.
“We almost killed a girl today,” He grits in quiet anger, throwing the soap down in the sink, “If Sehun wasn’t there and came down in time to see what the hell was going on, she would have been dead.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No!” Suho spins around and shouts in bewilderment, “She was supposed to get scared and give up
the information.”
Flicking his lighter closed, Jongin inhales then calmly says, “Then what? You let her skip back to her band of angry boyfriends? Or were you planning on knocking her unconscious again before dragging her back here?”
This seemed to have stun Suho back into silence. His fist uncurled and he turned back to the sink, furiously scrubbing at the dry blood under his nails. Jongin doesn’t need a response from him, they both knew Suho’s smart enough to have considered the prospect of having to end Krystal’s life at the end of the night and he was okay it. But not enough to see it through obviously, or else he wouldn’t have left before all the blood fest started.
“God, you son of bitches are so serious all the time!” Baekhyun emerges from whatever corner of this place he’s been hiding in, “You need to loosen up. A pretty girl didn’t die! We should be throwing a party!”
“In whose honor?” Jongin jokes darkly, “Sehun for saving her? Kyungsoo hyung for torturing her? Chanyeol for nearly ending her life?”
Tapping his chin as if he’s having deep thoughts about this, Baekhyun replies, “How about all?”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Suho announces tersely, “Let me know if she wakes up”
“Yes, doctor” Baekhyun salutes then leans over to him, whispering, “What’s yanking his tiny balls?”
Jongin shrugs with an exhale of a cloud of smokes. “He feels guilty about being partly responsible for what happened to her.”
“Typical,” He says in a bored manner, “How do you feel about it?”
“They shouldn’t have gone behind our backs,” Jongin tells him honestly, “It only causes disagreement. Not to mention that she holds important information and should be dealt with carefully. What those three did today was out of line.”
“Look at you, sounding more mature than Kyungsoo in his grandpa mode.”
He laughs at that and gets up on his feet, stretching in the process. “I’m going to go for a walk - need some fresh air to clear the mood before another one of your bastards pick a fight.”
Baekhyun’s faint ‘see ya!’ follows him down the hall and into the elevator. His father specifically asked for walls thick enough to cover the screams of children in areas that can’t be soundproof. It still astounds him from time to time that Baekhhyun and Baekhyun alone is loud enough to be heard throughout the Kim’s resident. With a halt, the elevator comes to a stop. Jongin plucks the cigarette from his mouth with ease, lazily glancing up at the pixilated number two gleaming in green. The steel door slides open for a fraction but it’s enough for Sehun to step through.
He doesn’t say anything but offers a small nod of acknowledgement then presses the ‘G’ button. His light brown hair is out of its usual shape, strands of it falling into his eyes and others standing up in odd directions. It’s not hard to tell that he had been in frenzied state of mind. Not that racing the traffic is anything new for the boys but he doubts any of them can say they’ve ever had a girl bleeding all over the back seat of the car before.
“You shouldn’t have called me.”
A little taken aback, Jongin says, “You think we should have let her die?”
“Yes,” Sehun says bluntly, “She was basically dead when I got to her, she should have fucking die -“
“Then why the fuck did you help her then?!”
“Because you asked me to!”
As if on cue, the ‘ding’ promptly signals the break of what is soon to be an explosive clash between the two. Sehun rushes out first, not paying any attention to Jongin, hot on his heels as they enter the store room. Rows of dusty boxes are stacked up neatly and Sehun picks an aisle to hide behind, his
lanky form blending in with all the tall assortment of whatever’s been lying around in this shit hole.
“Why were you there anyway?” Jongin hollers after him, “You said you stopped, Sehun.”
No reply.
“I know vodka;a your poison but try to kill yourself on Sul -“
“Do not bring her up,” Sehun seethes, barging down from the other side of the same aisle he’s been sanding in, “I said I would give up drinking and you can take my word for it or don’t but I haven’t touched a drop since.”
“Keep in mind that I’ve known you since I was ten, I know how this habit of yours work, Sehun.”
“Oh yeah?” He leers, “I’ve known you for that long - eight years and still I don’t know who this Krystal character is and why she matters so much that you can’t just let her fucking die!”
Gulping, Jongin then says, “I told you she’s va -“
“Valuable and can be of use with top secrets that will revolutionize the world - got it, Jongin, I fucking got it.” Sehun snarls in aggressive sarcasm, “And I don’t buy it.”
“Then what do you think?” He snarls and goes over to grab Sehun by the shoulder. “Hmm? What do you think made me call you last night? You seem to have this all fucking sorted.”
“You’re not telling me something about this girl,” Sehun growls and roughly pushes his hand off, “I don’t know what it is but I’m sure as hell not going to act like I believe the bullshits you’ve been trying to shove down my throat either.”
His stony glare lands on Jongin once again but rather than the raging anger that’s been expanding the divide between them, there is nothing but jarring disappointment in the way Sehun’s looking at him. He’s only ever looked at him like this once - things were complicated then, things are complicated now. But it shouldn’t be.
“If,” Sehun startss, his voice eerily calm, “If there’s ever a repeat of what happened today, I won’t help her. I don’t give a shit for the brilliant excuses you can pull out of your ass, I will let her rot.”
And Jongin could have sworn that he had a good reason for keeping his fingers crossed that Sehun was at the Choi’s old resident when he dialed his number this morning. Except it’s now in the afternoon, the sun is out and he’s seeing things more clearly. Suddenly his decision to keep Jung
Soojung alive is beginning to resemble a blunder.
-
“Ok, Yixing,” Chen’s looking the calmest he’s been since Krystal’s disappearance but his shaking hands are giving away his anxiety melt down, “Man, I need you to just stop for a second and listen to me. Nothing’s going to come out of you wrecking her room - “
“I’m fine,” Yixing cuts off quickly, his fists still curled Krystal’s favorite knitted cardigan, “Where’s Krystal?”
Luhan’s looking like he’s about ready to cry, says, “Th - that’s what we want to talk to you about.”
Composed yet deadly, Yixing’s cold gaze firmly land on Kris. “Where is she?”
“I can’t fucking do this.” Xiumin cracks, cursing under his breath as he pushes pass Chen’s paling form.
“Where is s - “
“We don’t know,” Kris tells him with unwavering confidence, moving away from the door frame he’s been leaning on for the past five minutes, “She got up and left in the middle of the night - there’s no note, she didn’t take her cell with her. We think K has taken her and is keeping her somewhere as we speak.”
“Or,” Tao adds, “She could be dead.”
When you’ve spend so much time with a person in a small period of time, you start to observe them with enough interest that you learn the telling signs and Yixing, is hardly easy to read. But at the mention of Krystal, he was a dead to Kris. It would always be the little twitch of the mouth - downwards or upwards depending on the direction the conversation was heading and at this moment, his lips were curling into the ugliest of frowns. His eyes are hazy; a murky storm stirring in his dilating pupils. It’s frightening how quickly Yixing could turn from calm and collected to on the edge of hysteria.
“You were supposed to be at home” Yixing says in a barely there whisper. None of them needed him to clarify who it is that he’s referring to, they’ve already been over Chen’s unforgivable fucked ups.
Too ashamed or scared, or both, to look at any of them, Chen keeps his eyes glued to the messy floor of Krystal’s bedroom. “I only left for a couple of hours, I thought she wouldn’t be stupid enough to -“
“No, you didn’t think!” Yixing’s enraged shout cuts through the tense silence, “If you took the time to think she would still be here.”
“We don’t know for sure if she’s dead, Yixing.” Tao steps in with a worried stance. “None of us could have known this would have happened.”
It’s unsettling the way Yixing’s fiery stare seems to snap to Tao in an instant. They never fought, there’s too much rationality between them for an argument to start in the first place. “Makes it okay for him to act like an irresponsible five years old, does it?”
Chen seizes on the pause, butting in. “We’re just all as upset as you are, hyung,”
“No, you’re not,” Yixing’s eyes narrow as he looks at Chen menacingly, “But good, you should be when you still have the chance because if I find out she’s dead, I’ll make you pay the price,” Stepping closer, he pushes his chin’s up and forces Chen to meet his murderous gaze, “With your own life.”
With one last brutal bumping of the shoulders, Yixing bristles out of the room with a resounding ‘bang’ as he slams the door. The whole room seems to shake causing a few of the picture frames Krystal had placed on her nightstand to fall flat onto its front. One of them had been a particular favorite of hers; a decade old picture of Yixing and her at an amusement park. Kris knows how much she loves to retell the story of that day out; how she had trip and ruined her brand new pair of Chuck Taylors that Yixing had bought with a year worth of his pocket money. Each and every time, she’d complain about how he got so angry at her that he wouldn’t say a word to her on the way home unless it was to ask if she was okay.
It still gives Kris a good laugh that to this very day, Krystal is convinced that Yixing could ever get upset at her over anything. You’d think she’d have known by now that that boy couldn’t get angry at her even if he tried. Then it hits him, like that day with Krystal’s bloodied knees around his waist, Yixing wasn’t angry at her then just as he isn’t angry at Chen now.
No, Yixing blames himself.
-
The last remaining hours of the day had been spent in rigid tantrums from all individuals. Suho, a perfect student with his impeccable attending record, managed to drag himself to school by lunch break. Chanyeol had emptied his stomach’s content on the front porch then rushed to the bathroom for another half an hour of barfing. Kyungsoo didn’t bother with explanations and hopped right back on his bike after carrying in Krystal’s battered body. Baekhyun had vowed to sleep in and excused himself to the seclusion of his room. Sehun, in his usual Sehun style, vanishes into thin air. And Jongin, he goes to school but his mind was entirely elsewhere.
Try as hard as he might, Jongin’s thought keeps drifting from the number equations on the chalk boards to the rather graphic image of how Krystal had come in through the door this morning. He didn’t know what to expect when Sehun had yelled two vague sentences into the phone: ‘Krystal was so fucking close to gone’ and ‘call Suho to get his ass back to the house if you want her alive’. Jongin had expected that Krystal, having miraculously survived after all this time, wouldn’t go down without putting up a fight Truth to be told, he didn’t think much of Baekhyun’s (intentional or not) hint that Kyungsoo had decided to deal with Krystal in his own special way. Jongin suspects Kyungsoo have thought it all out; it was almost a sure thing that no one would go around checking up on a girl who can barely make it downstairs on her own - her concussion isn’t life threatening but it was enough to rule out any chance of her escaping for the next few days. Even though in a vulnerable state, he’d anticipated that she would be too stubborn to give away any precious information away. What he didn’t anticipate was Chanyeol following through with the threat. Turning to torture to get what they want has been done before. He too has participated but the threat to kill has always been an empty one - until now.
“Oh Jongin!” A gentle voice clashes with the stillness of the empty class room, “I thought you weren’t here today…I didn’t see you at History so…”
He doesn't recognizes her at first but he’d come to the conclusion that the girl approaching him is Choi Jun-hee. If memory serves him right, they’d sit next together at random and talk enough in class to feel comfortable enough to talk outside of class.
“Yeah, I know,” He says with a silver of a smile, “I wasn’t feeling well so I thought I should sleep it off. How was class?”
She gives him a faintly optimistic look. “It wasn’t too bad today, I guess, rambling Lee didn’t go off topic like he usually does. Then he had to go and give us a stack of homework.”
“Do you think he’ll let it slide if I pretend I didn’t know about it?”
His dry humor seems to have amused her enough to have brought out an awkward chuckle. “Are you going to stay back much longer?”
Jongin shakes his head. “Nah, I should get going soon, shouldn’t I?”
“Unless you want to get yelled at by Janitor Yang, then no.”
“Not again!” He fakes a dramatic sigh, stealing a glance to make sure that she’s buying into it like everybody else around this school does. “You go ahead, I should try to avoid a Friday’s night detention and go see rambling Lee to get my own delightful stack of homework.”
“Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jun-hee nods and waves off, glancing over her shoulder in shy curiosity as she exits the class room.
-
Jongin returns to a desolated environment at the Kim’s mansion.
He checks Baekhyun’s room first, not expecting him to find somewhere else to do nothing but sees no sign of him. He considers Chanyeol but then realizes that he must have gone home. Jongin imagines he feels too disturbed by the presence of his own unconscious victim hooked to a life machine a few doors down from him.
Turning in becomes the only reasonable thing to do - he’s alone with nothing to do and wandering around in the middle of the night alone is like making a death wish. They’ve agreed on being on high alert after kidnapping Krystal. Though unlikely, M might have found some success in figuring out their location and is ready to attack at any given chance. None of them could risk getting caught; they’d have to trade Krystal for one of their own and that puts them right back where they’ve started: at a losing point.
When Jongin’s aware of his own doings again, he’s standing in front of the connected master bedroom with his arms crossed on his chest and his back against the banister. The one to the right is his and the one to his left is where she lies, barely breathing, probably. Is she still alive? He mulls over it for a second then a flood of thoughts slowly pour in - Would he like it if she is alive? Is Sehun right; they should have let her die? She might as well be dead when he found her, she might as well be dead now. Then the most important question of all: Is she worth saving?
No, she isn’t. Jongin has known the answer just as quickly as Sehun has asked it. Krystal isn’t worth saving and the information that she comes with isn’t either but he did it anyway. It was an impulse, he wants to excuses it with an explanation as simple as that but then he’d be lying to himself, wouldn’t he? Jongin couldn’t help himself but want her alive, doesn’t matter how and doesn’t matter where.
Over the years, a part of him had hoped that Jung Soojung is still out there somewhere; enjoying life the way she wants to, living out all the plans she’s told him about.
Taking a few steps forward, he wraps his hand around the cool door knob and twists once then pushes enough to give himself an overview of her current condition. There’s nothing he could do now, he’s made a decision and now all he can do is observe the impact of his doing.
The lights were off and blinds shut but the life support is beeping at a steady rate. Unsatisfied, Jongin enters the room and once he does, he can’t pull back. Cautiously, he edges closer and closer to her bed side and eventually, he is there, sitting on the cold spot over the crisp white sheet and looking down on her lifeless face. There’s an angry purple on the left side of her forehead, her lips are dry and cracked and her entire being is so deadly pale that he could trace her veins with his eyes. She’d bled enough to paint these four walls in red when Suho operated. He was there firsthand to hold parts open and close, had his hands shoved into unimaginable part of her body and after, he’d stood watching as Suho sew her up in repulsion of the damage they’ve done.
“I thought you wouldn’t make it this far,” He whispers without really meaning to, “Soojung.”
~ 4050 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii. part iii. part iv.part v.
It was her first spring break away from home, it was her last.
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ i'm now posting this on aff too, so go subscribe if you'd like
Once when Yixing was old enough to get into a knife fight but still was too young to properly defend himself, he got given scars on the skins over his heart. Krystal was even younger than he was so she spent all her days waiting around for him to come back with a first aid kit in hand.
He talks nonsense when he’s in pain. She suspects he sees nonsense too. He never told her what it was like - to be close enough to death to practically touch it. Then again, Yixing did always say she would never have the chance to experience any of what he did as long as he was alive. But Krystal did always say she would have to eventually.
But Yixing was never wrong about anything. But guess there’s a first time for everything.
When one of her heavy eyes crack open, she’s not there anymore. Except she still is - the house with its high ceiling is there but without all the delicate little cracks, the carved fountain stands proud with mossy green twining itself around the sculpture of gods and angels, the tiles are crisped white without any stains of blood. Her muscles flex - finger nails blunt and clean, hands untied and no bruise on her arm. Instead loose white sleeves are draping over them. Krystal doesn’t feel the slightest tinge of pain when she moves. She blinks down at the grass blades tickling at her bare feet then looks up, squinting at the burning sun up in the clear blue sky. The earthy smell reminds her of a warm summer day and she walks over to the window at her left to inhale some more of the floral scent.
This is the same manor, except it’s really not.
“You can’t go up there”
Krystal couldn’t help but jump at the loud footsteps bounding up from the stair case behind her. So there are others in this place too. She wonders if she’d simply die and this is her soul - stuck here because neither hell nor heaven would accept her. It wouldn’t come as a shock to her if some others have died under this very roof too.
“And why not?” Another voice follows just as the running stopped.
Not being able to contain her own curiosity, Krystal slowly walks over to the top of the stairs. It wasn’t close enough to earn her a peek of the sources of this conversation she was hearing. By standing on her toes, Krystal could only see the back of, from what she gathered from the physiques, a young boy.
“Because,” the boy sighs and stands up, making the wood creaks beneath his feet, “We are guests here and not to wander around this place without the owner’s permission.”
“We’re not allowed to go out, we’re not allowed to go up stairs. What are we allowed to do?!” The girl argues, taking several steps pass him.
“You’re acting like a brat,” the boy says with agitation, “I’m not going pretend like I didn’t see you if you get caught this time.”
“Fine,” the girl snaps, throwing her arms up in the art and giving Krystal a glimpse of her sun kissed skin, “But I’m going to go insane if I have to stay cooped up in this house for another minute.”
“Go find something to entertain yourself then,” the boy says harshly, descending down the stairs and
leaving behind the smaller girl, “Find some people to annoy, you’re good at that.”
“I know I am,” the girl agrees with enthusiasm then trails after him, “I like annoying you the most though.”
At the foot of the stairs, the girl bounces of the last step with a wide grin as she catches up to the dark haired boy. A rush of jarring nostalgia floods her as she recognized the two kids now disappearing through the door to a hall way as her and Jongin.
"Wha - How..."
Though it’s lost upon her why she’s reliving through this particular memory from three year ago, Krystal never did forget how he looked that day in his light grey sweater and faded blue jeans. She always hated that cream dress her mother made her wore but it didn’t matter, she would be wearing his sweater over it by dinner time anyway.
It was her first spring break away from home, it was her last.
“She’s breathing,” Someone yells from far away, “She’s alive.”
Then the window shuts, the blinds close, the floor beneath her collapses, the roses shrivel. No, Krystal whispers but not a sound comes out of her mouth when everything falls from under her. No, she hears herself say this time when she opens her eyes to a contorted vision of Sehun’s panic-stricken face.
Yes, she almost hears herself say to death.
-
“She’s stable now,” Suho declares, dumping the bloody latex gloves amongst the equally bloody pile of clothes, “Look, Jongin, I -“
“You don’t have to explain yourself, hyung,” Jongin dismisses what’s about to come next, “It’s okay, you have your reasons for not telling me.”
With his back turned to him and his hands under the hot water, Suho freezes. “You really think this is about us not telling you, Baekyun and Sehun about taking her down to that old manor?”
He raises a questioning brow and pulls out a cigarette. “What else?”
The changes in Suho’s is almost immediate. His back straightens and the line of his jaws turns harsh, why the event of tonight had made the older boy feel this way comes as a surprise to him.
“We almost killed a girl today,” He grits in quiet anger, throwing the soap down in the sink, “If Sehun wasn’t there and came down in time to see what the hell was going on, she would have been dead.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No!” Suho spins around and shouts in bewilderment, “She was supposed to get scared and give up
the information.”
Flicking his lighter closed, Jongin inhales then calmly says, “Then what? You let her skip back to her band of angry boyfriends? Or were you planning on knocking her unconscious again before dragging her back here?”
This seemed to have stun Suho back into silence. His fist uncurled and he turned back to the sink, furiously scrubbing at the dry blood under his nails. Jongin doesn’t need a response from him, they both knew Suho’s smart enough to have considered the prospect of having to end Krystal’s life at the end of the night and he was okay it. But not enough to see it through obviously, or else he wouldn’t have left before all the blood fest started.
“God, you son of bitches are so serious all the time!” Baekhyun emerges from whatever corner of this place he’s been hiding in, “You need to loosen up. A pretty girl didn’t die! We should be throwing a party!”
“In whose honor?” Jongin jokes darkly, “Sehun for saving her? Kyungsoo hyung for torturing her? Chanyeol for nearly ending her life?”
Tapping his chin as if he’s having deep thoughts about this, Baekhyun replies, “How about all?”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Suho announces tersely, “Let me know if she wakes up”
“Yes, doctor” Baekhyun salutes then leans over to him, whispering, “What’s yanking his tiny balls?”
Jongin shrugs with an exhale of a cloud of smokes. “He feels guilty about being partly responsible for what happened to her.”
“Typical,” He says in a bored manner, “How do you feel about it?”
“They shouldn’t have gone behind our backs,” Jongin tells him honestly, “It only causes disagreement. Not to mention that she holds important information and should be dealt with carefully. What those three did today was out of line.”
“Look at you, sounding more mature than Kyungsoo in his grandpa mode.”
He laughs at that and gets up on his feet, stretching in the process. “I’m going to go for a walk - need some fresh air to clear the mood before another one of your bastards pick a fight.”
Baekhyun’s faint ‘see ya!’ follows him down the hall and into the elevator. His father specifically asked for walls thick enough to cover the screams of children in areas that can’t be soundproof. It still astounds him from time to time that Baekhhyun and Baekhyun alone is loud enough to be heard throughout the Kim’s resident. With a halt, the elevator comes to a stop. Jongin plucks the cigarette from his mouth with ease, lazily glancing up at the pixilated number two gleaming in green. The steel door slides open for a fraction but it’s enough for Sehun to step through.
He doesn’t say anything but offers a small nod of acknowledgement then presses the ‘G’ button. His light brown hair is out of its usual shape, strands of it falling into his eyes and others standing up in odd directions. It’s not hard to tell that he had been in frenzied state of mind. Not that racing the traffic is anything new for the boys but he doubts any of them can say they’ve ever had a girl bleeding all over the back seat of the car before.
“You shouldn’t have called me.”
A little taken aback, Jongin says, “You think we should have let her die?”
“Yes,” Sehun says bluntly, “She was basically dead when I got to her, she should have fucking die -“
“Then why the fuck did you help her then?!”
“Because you asked me to!”
As if on cue, the ‘ding’ promptly signals the break of what is soon to be an explosive clash between the two. Sehun rushes out first, not paying any attention to Jongin, hot on his heels as they enter the store room. Rows of dusty boxes are stacked up neatly and Sehun picks an aisle to hide behind, his
lanky form blending in with all the tall assortment of whatever’s been lying around in this shit hole.
“Why were you there anyway?” Jongin hollers after him, “You said you stopped, Sehun.”
No reply.
“I know vodka;a your poison but try to kill yourself on Sul -“
“Do not bring her up,” Sehun seethes, barging down from the other side of the same aisle he’s been sanding in, “I said I would give up drinking and you can take my word for it or don’t but I haven’t touched a drop since.”
“Keep in mind that I’ve known you since I was ten, I know how this habit of yours work, Sehun.”
“Oh yeah?” He leers, “I’ve known you for that long - eight years and still I don’t know who this Krystal character is and why she matters so much that you can’t just let her fucking die!”
Gulping, Jongin then says, “I told you she’s va -“
“Valuable and can be of use with top secrets that will revolutionize the world - got it, Jongin, I fucking got it.” Sehun snarls in aggressive sarcasm, “And I don’t buy it.”
“Then what do you think?” He snarls and goes over to grab Sehun by the shoulder. “Hmm? What do you think made me call you last night? You seem to have this all fucking sorted.”
“You’re not telling me something about this girl,” Sehun growls and roughly pushes his hand off, “I don’t know what it is but I’m sure as hell not going to act like I believe the bullshits you’ve been trying to shove down my throat either.”
His stony glare lands on Jongin once again but rather than the raging anger that’s been expanding the divide between them, there is nothing but jarring disappointment in the way Sehun’s looking at him. He’s only ever looked at him like this once - things were complicated then, things are complicated now. But it shouldn’t be.
“If,” Sehun startss, his voice eerily calm, “If there’s ever a repeat of what happened today, I won’t help her. I don’t give a shit for the brilliant excuses you can pull out of your ass, I will let her rot.”
And Jongin could have sworn that he had a good reason for keeping his fingers crossed that Sehun was at the Choi’s old resident when he dialed his number this morning. Except it’s now in the afternoon, the sun is out and he’s seeing things more clearly. Suddenly his decision to keep Jung
Soojung alive is beginning to resemble a blunder.
-
“Ok, Yixing,” Chen’s looking the calmest he’s been since Krystal’s disappearance but his shaking hands are giving away his anxiety melt down, “Man, I need you to just stop for a second and listen to me. Nothing’s going to come out of you wrecking her room - “
“I’m fine,” Yixing cuts off quickly, his fists still curled Krystal’s favorite knitted cardigan, “Where’s Krystal?”
Luhan’s looking like he’s about ready to cry, says, “Th - that’s what we want to talk to you about.”
Composed yet deadly, Yixing’s cold gaze firmly land on Kris. “Where is she?”
“I can’t fucking do this.” Xiumin cracks, cursing under his breath as he pushes pass Chen’s paling form.
“Where is s - “
“We don’t know,” Kris tells him with unwavering confidence, moving away from the door frame he’s been leaning on for the past five minutes, “She got up and left in the middle of the night - there’s no note, she didn’t take her cell with her. We think K has taken her and is keeping her somewhere as we speak.”
“Or,” Tao adds, “She could be dead.”
When you’ve spend so much time with a person in a small period of time, you start to observe them with enough interest that you learn the telling signs and Yixing, is hardly easy to read. But at the mention of Krystal, he was a dead to Kris. It would always be the little twitch of the mouth - downwards or upwards depending on the direction the conversation was heading and at this moment, his lips were curling into the ugliest of frowns. His eyes are hazy; a murky storm stirring in his dilating pupils. It’s frightening how quickly Yixing could turn from calm and collected to on the edge of hysteria.
“You were supposed to be at home” Yixing says in a barely there whisper. None of them needed him to clarify who it is that he’s referring to, they’ve already been over Chen’s unforgivable fucked ups.
Too ashamed or scared, or both, to look at any of them, Chen keeps his eyes glued to the messy floor of Krystal’s bedroom. “I only left for a couple of hours, I thought she wouldn’t be stupid enough to -“
“No, you didn’t think!” Yixing’s enraged shout cuts through the tense silence, “If you took the time to think she would still be here.”
“We don’t know for sure if she’s dead, Yixing.” Tao steps in with a worried stance. “None of us could have known this would have happened.”
It’s unsettling the way Yixing’s fiery stare seems to snap to Tao in an instant. They never fought, there’s too much rationality between them for an argument to start in the first place. “Makes it okay for him to act like an irresponsible five years old, does it?”
Chen seizes on the pause, butting in. “We’re just all as upset as you are, hyung,”
“No, you’re not,” Yixing’s eyes narrow as he looks at Chen menacingly, “But good, you should be when you still have the chance because if I find out she’s dead, I’ll make you pay the price,” Stepping closer, he pushes his chin’s up and forces Chen to meet his murderous gaze, “With your own life.”
With one last brutal bumping of the shoulders, Yixing bristles out of the room with a resounding ‘bang’ as he slams the door. The whole room seems to shake causing a few of the picture frames Krystal had placed on her nightstand to fall flat onto its front. One of them had been a particular favorite of hers; a decade old picture of Yixing and her at an amusement park. Kris knows how much she loves to retell the story of that day out; how she had trip and ruined her brand new pair of Chuck Taylors that Yixing had bought with a year worth of his pocket money. Each and every time, she’d complain about how he got so angry at her that he wouldn’t say a word to her on the way home unless it was to ask if she was okay.
It still gives Kris a good laugh that to this very day, Krystal is convinced that Yixing could ever get upset at her over anything. You’d think she’d have known by now that that boy couldn’t get angry at her even if he tried. Then it hits him, like that day with Krystal’s bloodied knees around his waist, Yixing wasn’t angry at her then just as he isn’t angry at Chen now.
No, Yixing blames himself.
-
The last remaining hours of the day had been spent in rigid tantrums from all individuals. Suho, a perfect student with his impeccable attending record, managed to drag himself to school by lunch break. Chanyeol had emptied his stomach’s content on the front porch then rushed to the bathroom for another half an hour of barfing. Kyungsoo didn’t bother with explanations and hopped right back on his bike after carrying in Krystal’s battered body. Baekhyun had vowed to sleep in and excused himself to the seclusion of his room. Sehun, in his usual Sehun style, vanishes into thin air. And Jongin, he goes to school but his mind was entirely elsewhere.
Try as hard as he might, Jongin’s thought keeps drifting from the number equations on the chalk boards to the rather graphic image of how Krystal had come in through the door this morning. He didn’t know what to expect when Sehun had yelled two vague sentences into the phone: ‘Krystal was so fucking close to gone’ and ‘call Suho to get his ass back to the house if you want her alive’. Jongin had expected that Krystal, having miraculously survived after all this time, wouldn’t go down without putting up a fight Truth to be told, he didn’t think much of Baekhyun’s (intentional or not) hint that Kyungsoo had decided to deal with Krystal in his own special way. Jongin suspects Kyungsoo have thought it all out; it was almost a sure thing that no one would go around checking up on a girl who can barely make it downstairs on her own - her concussion isn’t life threatening but it was enough to rule out any chance of her escaping for the next few days. Even though in a vulnerable state, he’d anticipated that she would be too stubborn to give away any precious information away. What he didn’t anticipate was Chanyeol following through with the threat. Turning to torture to get what they want has been done before. He too has participated but the threat to kill has always been an empty one - until now.
“Oh Jongin!” A gentle voice clashes with the stillness of the empty class room, “I thought you weren’t here today…I didn’t see you at History so…”
He doesn't recognizes her at first but he’d come to the conclusion that the girl approaching him is Choi Jun-hee. If memory serves him right, they’d sit next together at random and talk enough in class to feel comfortable enough to talk outside of class.
“Yeah, I know,” He says with a silver of a smile, “I wasn’t feeling well so I thought I should sleep it off. How was class?”
She gives him a faintly optimistic look. “It wasn’t too bad today, I guess, rambling Lee didn’t go off topic like he usually does. Then he had to go and give us a stack of homework.”
“Do you think he’ll let it slide if I pretend I didn’t know about it?”
His dry humor seems to have amused her enough to have brought out an awkward chuckle. “Are you going to stay back much longer?”
Jongin shakes his head. “Nah, I should get going soon, shouldn’t I?”
“Unless you want to get yelled at by Janitor Yang, then no.”
“Not again!” He fakes a dramatic sigh, stealing a glance to make sure that she’s buying into it like everybody else around this school does. “You go ahead, I should try to avoid a Friday’s night detention and go see rambling Lee to get my own delightful stack of homework.”
“Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jun-hee nods and waves off, glancing over her shoulder in shy curiosity as she exits the class room.
-
Jongin returns to a desolated environment at the Kim’s mansion.
He checks Baekhyun’s room first, not expecting him to find somewhere else to do nothing but sees no sign of him. He considers Chanyeol but then realizes that he must have gone home. Jongin imagines he feels too disturbed by the presence of his own unconscious victim hooked to a life machine a few doors down from him.
Turning in becomes the only reasonable thing to do - he’s alone with nothing to do and wandering around in the middle of the night alone is like making a death wish. They’ve agreed on being on high alert after kidnapping Krystal. Though unlikely, M might have found some success in figuring out their location and is ready to attack at any given chance. None of them could risk getting caught; they’d have to trade Krystal for one of their own and that puts them right back where they’ve started: at a losing point.
When Jongin’s aware of his own doings again, he’s standing in front of the connected master bedroom with his arms crossed on his chest and his back against the banister. The one to the right is his and the one to his left is where she lies, barely breathing, probably. Is she still alive? He mulls over it for a second then a flood of thoughts slowly pour in - Would he like it if she is alive? Is Sehun right; they should have let her die? She might as well be dead when he found her, she might as well be dead now. Then the most important question of all: Is she worth saving?
No, she isn’t. Jongin has known the answer just as quickly as Sehun has asked it. Krystal isn’t worth saving and the information that she comes with isn’t either but he did it anyway. It was an impulse, he wants to excuses it with an explanation as simple as that but then he’d be lying to himself, wouldn’t he? Jongin couldn’t help himself but want her alive, doesn’t matter how and doesn’t matter where.
Over the years, a part of him had hoped that Jung Soojung is still out there somewhere; enjoying life the way she wants to, living out all the plans she’s told him about.
Taking a few steps forward, he wraps his hand around the cool door knob and twists once then pushes enough to give himself an overview of her current condition. There’s nothing he could do now, he’s made a decision and now all he can do is observe the impact of his doing.
The lights were off and blinds shut but the life support is beeping at a steady rate. Unsatisfied, Jongin enters the room and once he does, he can’t pull back. Cautiously, he edges closer and closer to her bed side and eventually, he is there, sitting on the cold spot over the crisp white sheet and looking down on her lifeless face. There’s an angry purple on the left side of her forehead, her lips are dry and cracked and her entire being is so deadly pale that he could trace her veins with his eyes. She’d bled enough to paint these four walls in red when Suho operated. He was there firsthand to hold parts open and close, had his hands shoved into unimaginable part of her body and after, he’d stood watching as Suho sew her up in repulsion of the damage they’ve done.
“I thought you wouldn’t make it this far,” He whispers without really meaning to, “Soojung.”