Chapter Text
The relationship between them never returned to how it was before. Clearly, under the curtains from the public eye, the two ventured into Wonderland together with their naked bodies. Jooheon wished he could be more sensitive to the matter and not engage too heavily into sexual deeds with the innocent I.M., but he was not able to stop.
It was not like he wanted to, either.
Something inside of Jooheon told him to corrupt I.M. and drown him into the amazing world of lust that could be under the pretense of love. However, Jooheon wanted to be a morally correct person, so he attempted to keep his penis inside his pants and protect as much, if there is any left, of I.M.’s innocence as possible. Staying inside of Jooheon’s lane was difficult when all he wanted to do was make a left turn into the fast lane to I.M.
Jooheon was expecting I.M. to come over to his place in about ten minutes. He was not planning to let himself seem unappealing, so he began to brush his teeth at the speed of an Olympian runner. Turning the faucet on, he cupped the falling water and then gently massaged through the locks of his auburn brown hair. Dabbing a little of his cologne over his neck, Jooheon contemplated midway through his preparation if he was going the extra mile doing all of this. “Oh, fuck it,” shrugged Jooheon as he continued prepping himself.
Soon enough, the doorbell rang and signaled the arrival of the awaited guest. Jooheon stepped closer to the door, noticing the door was unlocking itself. He froze in terror as he realized that no one besides his landlord should have a copy of the house key. The chances of the owner visiting was unlikely, so Jooheon was certainly scared at who could possibly be behind his door.
As if the wind was angry at Jooheon, it blew open his door wide, slightly pushing back Jooheon along the way. Jooheon covered his eyes and peeked subtly to see that no one was at the door. He checked left and right outside on the doormat to see that there was not a single person in sight. A chilly sensation shook his system, and he was unclear on how to properly react besides close the door and pretend he saw nothing. “I’m not going crazy. I’m not crazy,” Jooheon muttered, rubbing the non-existent bags on his eyes.
The couch spontaneously flew and flipped over on its own, proceeding to shake the living soul out of Jooheon and devouring his whimpering heart. Something was happening inside of Jooheon’s house that was beyond the explanation of science; there was no way that a small passing wind was able to do that to the couch. A vibration inside of Jooheon’s pocket immediately surprised and made the anxious male scream out loud. Realizing how irrational he was becoming, he checked the text and noticed it was from I.M. He rushed to the door and opened it to see the most comforting face that he rely on to relax his rowdy spirit. “I.M., my place is fucking haunted,” stated Jooheon with a disturbed expression. It was not Jooheon’s pure intention to freak out his best friend, but he had to let it out.
I.M. looked into the kitchen to see that there were two strangers casually sword fighting as Jooheon did not pay any attention to it. He wanted to say something about it, but the two strangers looked at him and shook their head together. “To clarify, you didn’t invite anybody over, right?” I.M. asked, looking into Jooheon’s conflicted eyes.
“What? Hell no! I live alone!” Jooheon defensively stated, frowning as he had no time to be fooling around when there was a ghost of some sort haunting his place.
Making a mental note in his head that the two strangers in the background were miraculously unseen by Jooheon, I.M. nodded politely and told his best friend to wash his face over by the kitchen sink to easily bring what was in his mind in the open. I.M. witnessed as Jooheon turned and walked straight into the kitchen without acknowledging the fact that the two strangers stepped apart from each other to make room for Jooheon. When Jooheon returned to I.M.’s side, he seemed more calm and collected than before, but I.M. was about to lose his own mind over the fact that there were two guys quietly conversing in the background that Jooheon was unable to pick up on.
“Maybe I should just sleep over at your place. Yeah, I think that should be the best thing to do,” Jooheon began speaking, but I.M. was not paying attention because the guy with dark brown hair spontaneously pulled a sword out of literal nowhere and pointed it at the nose of the blond-haired guy.
“Uh, ye, yeah! Sure, whatever you say,” I.M. dumbfoundedly replied, being dragged out of the place by Jooheon’s grip. He watched as the two strangers in the kitchen started to swing blades at each other. He must have been really overworked to be seeing hallucinations.
Jooheon was far more peaceful at I.M.’s place, settling into the couch and loving the idea that it remained on the ground. He could only hope that the evil spirits that were haunting his place were not following him. He never believed in those ghost stories before and thought the supernatural was a giant pile of fabricated shit. Now, he was firmly trusting the credibility of those stories after experiencing it first-hand.
Jooheon had a rough week the following day. Monday, he was beyond hungry. He ate up most of his food in his fridge, and he went out of his way to go out for lunch to eat at buffets. Nothing was satisfying him like it used to, and he could not help himself but continuously want to end this suffering of dissatisfaction.
Tuesday was a, well, a horny day. He kept I.M. home all day to help him deal with his sudden urge to suck, lick, and fuck the day away. He forgot what hunger was, but he was starving to get a taste of what I.M. had for him from his cock. It was until midnight that Jooheon was laying in bed with I.M. knocked out from all the sex. Jooheon did not want to admit that it was too good, but he also could not understand why his sex drive skyrocketed into space.
Wednesday was awful since he oddly wanted to keep his money to himself. He did not want to spend it on food if he could have someone bring him food for free, which meant I.M. was bringing food over, and the sudden obsession to keep I.M. at his home longer than usual. In fact, he almost did not want I.M. to go home at all. He was selfishly keeping the things that he loved close to him and not wanting to share it with anyone. Jooheon felt no remorse that it weirded out I.M. as long as the rapper was by his side, then it mattered little to how I.M. felt.
The next day made Jooheon apologize deeply to I.M. through text about his sporadic mood swings. It was honestly out of control. He was hoping that Thursday would come to be a better day for him, but he was wrong. The whole day, he arrogantly thought he was better than everyone. He neglected his mistakes at work and put it on other people because he firmly believed that they were not happy that Jooheon was an incredible worker than them. It brought plenty of tension between him and his coworkers, which happened to be his friends as well, and they consequently avoided contact with Jooheon most of the day at work. Usually, they would get together to have dinner at least once a week, but they simultaneously decided among themselves that Jooheon would not be invited.
Jooheon frowned the whole Friday because his pettiness and growing hatred for his coworkers were building up. He thought of ways for pay them back for not inviting him to dinner. It carried over to his interaction with I.M. when the rapper defeated Jooheon in a mobile game they were playing together. Jooheon purposely bought a lot of in-game credit and made his team unfairly strong against I.M.’s team, which were all using free items that can be earned through quests and item shops. Jooheon, with his team packed with exclusive items for players that paid for it, wrecked havoc among I.M.’s ranks. As much as Jooheon was supposed to feel bad, he actually felt amazing that he destroyed I.M.’s will to play the game. It served the rapper right for beating him the first time and bragging it in Jooheon’s face. I.M. really disliked how Jooheon was acting, so he left early and told Jooheon to not text him for the rest of the night.
His luck continued to fall when Saturday came around, not giving Jooheon a break of his outburst of negative emotions. He stayed at home and wallowed at the things he lacked in himself. It was this dissatisfaction at things that he did not have that other did have that made him a mess of self-depreciation. He hated that his friends on Instagram were enjoying going to fancy and expensive restaurants together. He strongly disliked how people were traveling to places that he never heard of. He was envious of other’s good looks, personalities, wealth, lovers, and more. All of which he did not need to feel bad for, but he felt every inch of this despair weighing on him.
Sunday was not, as I.M. always called, ‘a fun day.’ It anything but entertaining, to say the least. Jooheon slept into the afternoon, which was something he usually never did, but he was insanely tired today. When his body was rested enough, he lazily stayed in bed, not to even grab a bite for his stomach to digest or drink water for his dry throat. Hunger and dehydration were blocked out of his senses as his will to not move anywhere was overriding them. Jooheon refused to check the messages on his phone or scroll through his Tumblr feed. He was too lazy to do anything; all he wished he could do was to do nothing.
I.M. came over to check on Jooheon since he was not responding to any of his texts, and he was disappointed to see that his best friend was doing nothing but acting like he was a sloth. The rapper forced himself to get Jooheon out of bed, but it was a difficult task than it should be since Jooheon literally did not move a muscle. In all of I.M.’s opinion, he thought that Jooheon was similar to a dead body. Due to how nice and amazing I.M. was, he did everything that Jooheon was supposed to do like dishes, cooking, and even jerking off the other male. Secretly, he chose to not tell Jooheon that he could tell that Jooheon was feeling all these negative emotions, but he was subconsciously feeding off of it. It somehow gave him a lot of energy to do more activities as long as Jooheon was in a bad mood.
Jooheon returned to normal after exposing a variety of different sides of himself to the world. He started the new week with apologizing to everyone for what he had done, and he wished that he could get along again with everyone. Luckily, everyone could see that he was remorseful for his actions and allowed the mistakes he made to slide. However, he owed a lot of favors for people, which were not something he minded completely as long as they were within his capabilities.
A strange occurrence at Jooheon’s house was happening frequently enough for him to count it as a problem. Black feathers were always found around the porch, but there was a connection to I.M. since it would usually appear after I.M. hung around. There was no explanation to help Jooheon understand the situation, but he stood back and thought that there should not be any black-feathered birds in the area. It did scare him, but it only did by the tiniest level of fear, which was enough to neglect and continue on about his life.
So the next time I.M. gave Jooheon a visit, Jooheon gave the rapper a thorough investigation, searching the man’s body shamelessly on the porch to check if his best friend was purposely leaving all these feathers around as an annoying prank. “What… are you doing?” I.M.mentioned as he was patted down from crotch to ass.
“Checking for feathers.”
It did not help add context to the random search, but I.M. shrugged as he figured it was something that was bothering Jooheon enough to do this. “Okay.”
After verifying that the musician was clean, Jooheon sighed, scratched his hair repeatedly, and pondered back and forth as to clear up his reasoning for doing the body search. Acting quickly, Jooheon was surprised to see I.M.’s finger placed on his lips as to tell that it was all fine to leave it as it was. He nodded and allowed the rapper into his home and proceeded with their plans to hang out.
As the door closed behind them, the same night-colored feathers slowly caressed the ground. I.M. sat on the couch and thought how funny Jooheon reacted when his place was trashed, which was most likely because of the two guys that were about to fight in his kitchen, and slept over at his place instead. I.M. thought a little about where those two were and what their intention was, but he had to bring himself back to reality when he caught Jooheon next to him rubbing his forehead back and forth, as if to relieve a massive headache. “Do you need anything?” I.M. checked up on his best friend, wandering over to place the back of his hand to check the temperature appropriately. “Hm. Doesn’t seem like you’re burning up.”
“Y-yeah, I just… have been under the weather or something,” Jooheon retorted, proceeding to the kitchen to take out the ice pack that he kept in the freezer, which would suited perfectly for these type of problems. He sat back down on the couch and laid with the pack on his forehead to mitigate the pain.
It was not in I.M.’s purest intention to be happy, but he could feel his inside transforming to goo as he somehow absorbed the pain that Jooheon felt. Subconsciously, I.M. desired Jooheon to feel deeper pain to the point that he would kneel over, face drenched with sweat and tears, begging the rapper to free him from his misery. The ominous thought sent shivers down I.M.’s spine, but he could feel regret pooling in his stomach. “I’m sure it’ll go away,” I.M. half-assed a smile, hiding the secret intentions in the back of his head. “I promise to take care of you.”
“I.M.,” Jooheon warmly grinned, whispering the innocent name from his angelic lips, beckoning the other man to lean close to his face, “I like you. No, I think I can actually, honestly, say that I love you.”
I.M. was overwhelmed with happiness, so much of it that it was swelling in his heart and ribs. Now that I.M. had the chance to think about it one more time, it was not beating only faster but was actually aching. It hammered, pounded, and roared inside of him like a rabid lion waiting to be freed. He bent down to his knees and began breathing harder. With shortness of breath, I.M. was blacking out really fast.
Jooheon, worried that his friend was having a panic attack, got up from his position and examined I.M.’s condition. What was also convenient for the man was that his headache earlier was disappearing rather quickly. “I.M.! I.M.!” Shaking the rapper’s unconscious body on Jooheon’s living room floor.
Jooheon’s brain cranked out ideas and chose the safest route to handle the situation by looking for his phone to call the ambulance. Before he could search his pants pocket, I.M. woke up, eyes as black and empty as the bottom of the ocean, and powerfully clenched Jooheon’s throat. He picked up Jooheon without any problem and surprised him because Jooheon never remembered I.M. going to the gym that often. I.M. threw Jooheon straight across to the front door with his back crashing into the hard material. “Kneel, human,” I.M.’s voice echoed throughout his home, scaring the living shit out of Jooheon.
Jooheon was unsure of how to respond, but he was ready to run out the door. As soon as he made an inch of movement, I.M. pointed his finger towards the ceiling and forced Jooheon magically into the air until his hair was rubbing the said ceiling. “I-I.M.” Jooheon muttered, afraid of angering his best friend.
“I am not I.M., human, but do not fear. Your soul will be mine ,” I.M. uttered, crushing his opened palm, which caused Jooheon’s throat to slowly squeeze together.
Through his gasps of life, he feared something that he never thought he could experience—the brink of death. Jooheon’s body was twitching to fight, but it was a hopeless struggle. His heart racing, afraid that it was not going to pump at any moment, and fingers scratching the wallpaper behind him. His skin’s pigmentation was being distorted and red, and then it went subtly purple. The brain was panicking to find a way out, but it was also beginning to shut down. His lips opened, moving his dried tongue to make room for his air pipes to release one last sound. Of every single one of the words he knew throughout his whole life, nothing was worthy for his last breath, but there happened to be one that he subconsciously knew. It was someone’s name, and it drew closer to the shore as his life was hanging on a spider’s thread. “Cha-ng-kyun,” Jooheon managed to muster his strength to say, not knowing what that name meant or to who it belonged to. He stopped struggling, and his body was freed from whatever was holding him in the air and plopped to the floor unconscious.
“Ah, so this is my despair,” I.M. whimpered, staring with watery eyes at Jooheon’s body, realizing the truth who he really was. He was never a rapper, nor a musician. He did not have a parents. He never had a life as human overall. He was a fallen angel, and his real name was Changkyun. He tortured and purposely hurt his best friend, his human, his lover. He was not willing to accept that he also almost killed Jooheon, too. He noticed that the life force that Jooheon had was fleeting, and Changkyun had an idea that he knew could fix the problem, but it also carried a lot of consequences. If there was something that he could right in Jooheon’s life, it would better be this exact moment.
Praying, something that Changkyun found to be hilarious, he clasped his hands together and said, “Satan, God, please forgive me, for I have sinned.”
“Jooheon! Jooheon!” A kid was calling out his name. Jooheon opened his eyes and noticed that he was back in his parent’s house. He saw a little kid with black hair, a semi-large and nicely-shaped nose, and he also had a grumpy expression plastered over his face. The kid was by the door and ran off with the door closing behind him. “Follow me!”
“W-what?” Jooheon was not complying with how things were going. It certainly felt like he was alive and breathing. Strangely, his memory was all over the place and was unable to recall the most recent thing to him besides waking up. His room was deafening and was permeated with an aura that creeped him out.
He slowly walked to the door where the kid ran off to and opened it to only be greeted with a flood of water consuming the room. Jooheon floated before everything was sinking into the blackness, and he could feel himself swirling and following where the current was taking him. Air bubbles violently escaped his mouth as his lungs tried to take in the water. He was going to drown to death!
Suddenly, he washed up on the shore of La Jolla shores. The rocky sand scratched itself against his gently skin, and he flinched to the pain. First thing he did on the shore was throw up the large amount of water that accumulated inside of him. After feeling better, he got up and tried to walk up the stairs. With reality shifting, Jooheon had an incredibly hard time believing that he was actually in the scene he was stuck in. He cautiously looked around during his journey to the top of the staircase. The waters were thunderous as they crashed against the shore, and the seagulls were playing around with leftovers on the sand. “What the fuck is going on,” Jooheon could not help but say aloud.
“Over here!” The kid’s voice sounded a tad deeper, but it was not by a lot. Jooheon looked up to noticed that the now teenager was looking back at him from the top. Wanting to have his questions answered immediately, he ran up to the top to catch up to the teenager, and it only added to his dismay when he reached the top.
“No way,” Jooheon uttered, analyzing how it was possible for his environment to change without a warning. He was no longer in California, but he was back in South Korea at the top of the mountain that he used to climb with… who? All he could recall was that there was a temple placed in the middle of the surrounding to let the visitors to pray to their gods to grant them some sort of wish. Or at least he believed that was what it was used for.
The teenager from before was standing over the fence that was supposed to keep people from jumping. He smiled and gestured with his hand to follow him. “You’re so slow, Joohoney.”
“Please don’t call me that,” Jooheon calmly retorted, walking over to where the strange teen was. When he arrived, he tried to grab onto the black-haired teenager’s hand. “Get down, or you’ll get hurt.” Without a warning, the kid fell backwards, forcing Jooheon to jump forward, a little too forward to attempt to catch the stranger.
He fell alongside the only person he met in this distorted reality of the world. However, there was not a bottom. It was only black. Actually, it felt flat, like he already hit the surface and was able to get up. Noticing it was too cramped, he was only able to move forward and back with how his body was positioned like he was crawling beforehand. The ground collapsed spontaneously and Jooheon fell again. This time he was back at his workplace in the convenient store. The roof had a giant hole from where Jooheon fell. He looked around to look for anything out of place.
“Inside of here, Jooheon,” the teenager’s voice deepened again, and his body was taller than the last time Jooheon saw him. He entered inside where the juice section was and into the cooler area.
Undoubtedly, Jooheon ran to follow the exact traces that the man left behind. His curiosity of how and why this man was vaguely familiar helped him stay strong to keep following this path. He ventured through the random brands of juice and other drinks before he got into what was supposed to be the cooler area, but it was another shift of reality. He crawled out from under his bed, the bed that was back in San Diego, and looked around his home. Hearing noise in the living room, he followed it and saw someone standing by his door.
A very familiar figure turned and faced him. Jooheon’s eyes responded with tears, which he was unable to hold back or control for whatever reason it was. Memories flowed back into his head and revived his brain of everything that he went through and reminded him who made a giant impact on his life. His lips quivered, unsure if the name will come out right, but he mustered his courage and gave it a shot, “Changkyun.”
“Jooheon, choose your own fate.” Changkyun stated, holding his smile for Jooheon as the wallpapers begin to peel off.
“What?”
“This is an alternate reality that God and Satan created to test us. Through this door, you can go back to your rightful reality. Where you and I were at your part-time job back in South Korea,” Changkyun explained.
“I assume there is a choice if I decide to stay here. In this alternate reality.”
“Yeah, frankly, this reality falling apart, completing its task to God and Satan. We can literally dissolve into oblivion, nothingness, and blackness.”
“I—”
“I want you to choose for yourself. I’ll follow and support anything you choose, but you must know that there are consequences waiting for you in both realities.”
“One is easier than the other, obviously,” Jooheon chuckled, noticing the tears that escaped his eyes were fading away into nothing. “We can disappear together here, never have to worry about another thing. In the other reality, we have a lot things to face, for yourself and I.”
“Uh, huh.”
“Let’s just go back to where we belong, to our original timeline,” Jooheon stated, casually walking up to hold Changkyun’s hand, taking note of the room disappearing before his eyes. “Not to live longer or anything, but for me to experience life for what it is. Whether it is overwhelmingly difficult or supremely easy, I just want to be able to experience it all.”
Changkyun tightened his grip and led Jooheon through the door. A blinding light engulfed the both of them as they leaned close to each other to have a final kiss. Their voices echoed through the oblivion and nothingness, bringing hope to the empty room.
“Are you scared, Jooheon?”
“No. I’ll be fine. I’m not afraid, Chungkyun.”