Work Text:
The cold winter air sneaks in through the cracks of the old windows in the house. Jaeyoon has bundled himself up in blankets while he sits at his desk to combat the cold, but it always feels worse on nights like this. Nights where the old, decrepit house creaks and groans with loneliness, hollow sounds finding their way into Jaeyoon's eardrums and knocking around his brain, and poisoning his mind. With his thoughts tainted, he stares at the blinking cursor of his word document. Will this book ever be finished?
The house was left to him by his grandmother who he'd barely seen as a child and lived out in the countryside; the middle of nowhere. Jaeyoon reluctantly moved out here a few weeks ago, his friends encouraging him to get some space and do up the house, but not once had he imagined how lonely, and scared he'd be out here.
It's windy tonight, more so than any other night, and it does nothing to soothe his worry and stress. This house didn't feel like home no matter what he did. New curtains did nothing, bright decor looked out of place, and his grandmother's old furniture made him feel strange. Filled him with grief and made him remember how someone had been living here happily weeks ago before their life got turned upside-down.
He hears a loud sound from the other side of the house, from where he sits in the dim and damp kitchen. His wide knowledge of the horror genre tells him to ignore it, what good ever came from being curious? Who knows what would be waiting for him there. Maybe a murderer? Maybe a ghost?
Wrapped in his hulk of blankets, Jaeyoon moved from the table and went into the hallway, his slippers making scuffing noises against the floor as he went.
He can see his breath as he traverses to the other side of the house. He doesn't know if it's the weather, or his fear, but it seems much colder now. It settles heavily on him, sitting in his bones. What if it's a ghost? Lore spoke of how the presence of ghosts spikes a chill in the air, but that was lore. It was all made up by people who didn't have a grip on their minds. Simply ghost stories.
With chilled fingers, Jaeyoon grapples for the door for a backroom he hasn't dared step foot in. He'd taken a peek when he got here, but with the stuff piled up and dusty, he was afraid it would topple and crush him.
Now, it seems he has no choice except to check it out.
He slides the door open, and the room is as dark as can be. Jaeyoon fumbles for the lightswitch and lets out a sigh of relief when it blinks on.
The room is the same. Boxes and knick-knacks piled high, still thickly coated in dust, looming over Jaeyoon somehow in the small, cramped room.
Stepping into the room, Jaeyoon is apprehensive. Something must have fallen, but he can't see anything that's obviously been pulled down by gravity... Was it in another room? Most of the other rooms are devoid of things that could fall though...
He ventures in further, coughing from the dust that he's upturned. A lot of the stuff in here is to do with shamanism as his grandmother used to practice it, and that was actually one of the reasons Jaeyoon had barely ever seen her. His father disapproved of his mother's shamanism, saying it was a stupid superstitious practice and not wanting Jaeyoon or Jaeyoon's sister being influenced by her.
Jaeyoon secretly admired his grandmother, but that means nothing now with her gone. He remembers his father's stone face at the funeral and sighs which causes more dust to be uprooted and Jaeyoon begins to cough again.
In this jungle of a room, in the farthest corner from the door, Jaeyoon spots something sparkling in the light emitted from the old lightbulb. Crouching down to inspect it closer, he finds a snow globe.
"What would she be doing with a snow globe...?" Jaeyoon mutters to himself, reaching out and picking it up and out from the box it hides in. It brings something with it as Jaeyoon lifts it, something resembling a letter.
He takes both the snow globe and the letter back to the kitchen, forgetting the scare from earlier.
After quiet moments of deliberation, Jaeyoon opens the letter. The envelope is unaddressed, but it looks recently written with no stains of old age so he figures it shouldn't hurt.
Dear Jaeyoon, it begins. His grandmother wrote this for him?
By now, I'm gone and you're residing in the house that I've left to you. I hope you'll treat it well and make it into a home. I haven't been able to look after it in recent months with my illness and it's beginning to crumble.
She was ill? Jaeyoon feels the sting of guilt at not having checked in, or at least known that she was sick. Dad had told them it was 'just old age' , but that wasn't the case, was it? And urge to ring his dad and give out to him bubbles up, but he should get through the letter first before throwing metaphorical fists.
The house isn't the only possession I wish to give to you, I was planning to give it to your sister, but something tells me that you need it more than she does. The snow globe—it's magical. It will grant you happiness when you shake it, and I truly do wish for you to be happy, grandson. We might not have met often, but I cherish our memories together. Do you remember that cold winter morning when I bought you the red bean fish-shaped bread? You were so happy when you took your first bite, that it's become such an important memory to me. I hope you will make lots of cherished memories, grandson.
I love you,
Grandmother
The memory of that cold morning biting into the warm, and tasty fish bread covers him like a warm blanket, his heart aches, mournful. He wishes he had more memories with his grandmother, and more memories with him .
It's funny how loss reminds you of loss. How each loss has had this deeply ingrained effect on you and how you go about your life. Look at Jaeyoon now, some washed-up depressed writer, who's only slowly recovering because he's determined to claw his way back to how happy he was 3 years ago. Who knows if he'll ever get there.
The snow globe sits there on the kitchen table, totally out of place and calling to Jaeyoon with his grandmother's promise of happiness. One shake wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt a desperate man to flirt with the idea that a magical snow globe could give him happiness, right? It's completely far-fetched but Jaeyoon is way past disbelief at this point, his scepticism has vanished into his sadness as if said sadness had swallowed it, made a meal out of it.
Jaeyoon shakes the snow globe.
He waits. The clock on the wall ticks by the seconds, taunting him.
Nothing happens. Not 5 minutes later, not 10 minutes, not 30 minutes later.
Jaeyoon shuts down his laptop and goes to bed to face the nothingness of his consciousness.
Jaeyoon groans the next morning. He untangles himself from his blankets and trudges to the bathroom where he sees his puffy eyes from yet another night of bad sleep. He goes through the motions of making himself look human just so he can stare at his laptop yet again.
He had wished to not have any dreams last night, however, the damn snow globe was taunting him and showed up everywhere he went. So much for happiness, all it offered was torture.
He shuffles to the kitchen to prepare his coffee and stops in the doorway, his heart skips and his eyes bug out of his head.
"Seokwoo?" he whispers. This can't... This is impossible. What he's seeing is--
"Hey, honey. I'm back from the store." Seokwoo grins at Jaeyoon from over his shoulder. He's at the counter chopping something. "Your coffee is brewed." He nods to the coffee machine and yup, a full pot of steaming coffee sits there, but Jaeyoon can't move. His feet are stuck in place.
"Jaeyoon? What's wrong?" Seokwoo asks, turning around with a worried frown.
"How-" are you alive? Jaeyoon's mind finishes, because Seokwoo shouldn't be standing there. Jaeyoon remembers identifying him. He remembers the funeral. He remembers Seokwoo's family being disgusted with his presence.
Seokwoo shouldn't be here, because he died in a car crash three years ago.
Jaeyoon's legs give up and he drops to the floor. Even as Seokwoo flutters about him nervously, his mind can't comprehend the man being here and being alive .
It isn't until later, after the shock dissipates somewhat, that Jaeyoon remembers the snow globe.