Archive of Our Own

Everything is easy to calculate in retrospect. Mathematics is simplest with a clear head, a clean sheet of paper, and a handful of necessary formulae. He sits down in the empty kitchen, clears a space for himself, and tries to start with one.

It's three weeks After. He makes a note, subtracts the time, and he's back to waking up with no memory of having falling asleep--no, before that?--he's in a car with Kyungsoo, holding hands over his ears, angry that this evening should have been spoiled by their daughter's inability to keep her teenage monologue of angst to herself, angry that Kyungsoo takes everything so fucking personally--

Before that? When they'd adopted Jinri? Single tuft of hair slicked to her brow, mother shaking from the exhaustion of birth, hands waving them away. She didn't want compensation, just fees to cover her prenatal care and an agreement that no contact would be pursued after the paperwork was completed. They agreed, though not without argument, bowed and that had been the end of their very limited contact. They'd officially adopted her, changed her family name, called her Jinri, and then she'd been theirs, a part of them, a screaming, red-faced tenant in their home.

No, definitely afterwards. After the easy minutes of staring into her face, the harder days of learning how to time catnaps around her feeding schedule, how to make love with her in the same room, suckling on her fingers. Way after, when Jinri is sixteen and embarrassed that she has two fathers, neither of them biological, who know all about the irregularity of her period because she's too indiscreet to ball up her used pads in the pink trash can in her bathroom. When Jongin is just starting to get used to the fact that she isn't ten, but also isn't twenty. That she is a child who doesn't want to be treated like one.

And he'd just mastered baby-talk, it'd felt like.

Jongin draws a long line down the paper, separating the right hand column from the left. This is where it gets tricky, he thinks. This is where luck plays the most interesting of games. Call it physics, call it chance, call it a miracle--this is how a third of his family dies, and two thirds live.

There are empty five-hour energy bottles littering the floor. Kyungsoo never would have put up with that. Even Jinri's been complaining--I'm hungry, I'm sick of takeout, there are bugs everywhere dad--but Kyungsoo had always cleaned. He'd put in long hours at the bank crunching numbers, and then he'd come home, slip on an apron, and make dinner. And Jongin would slink in from the studio, part strained muscles and sweat, and do the dishes.

They'd adopted Jinri because Kyungsoo had wanted her more than anything else. Because Kyungsoo had held Jongin and, in a moment of abject weakness, said, fists balled, hair windswept, eyes on the river in front of them, I don't think I want to leave the world without a family.

You have me. The waterside hill had been quiet the same way the city was quiet--an undercurrent of noise, a background of gentle bustling, the kind Jongin had grown up with, and a slow murmur of water. The wind had been flat, and the ground hot and hard underneath their legs. It'd been a dry summer, that year, and an equally cold winter. Isn't that enough? It should be enough.

And Kyungsoo hadn't said I'm sorry but nearly a decade of love granted Jongin the magical ability to read Kyungsoo's facial features just as easily as his voice. There'd been exhaustion there. He'd probably spoken to his mother recently--longing for grandchildren, still desperately homophobic and delusionally convinced her son was just about ready to marry a woman providing he could be set up with Ms. Right. He hadn't said it can't be enough but Jongin knew it honestly could never be enough.

There's water decorating the page, blurring the numbers. Fuck.

Kyungsoo had been good at calculations.

After, then. After after after. When he'd been sitting in a hallway in the hospital, confined to a wheelchair, arms stuffed into slings, and a solemn-faced resident had crept up and said Mr. Kim, I'm sorry for your loss.

A second to say those words, to undo the work of twenty-five years. Of long nights in the studio when Kyungsoo had brought him breakfast, of birthday cards reading, I'm so proud of you and nothing else, of stuffed animals celebrating small successes, with tiny little medals hung around their necks, replacements for the ones Jongin hadn't snagged in reality. Of walks at midnight, holding hands despite the cold, speaking frankly about their desires to do something in the world worth remembering, and their fears that they were never going to be able to.

"I love you," Kyungsoo had said with red eyes and a redder face on the fifty-seventh day of eleventh grade in the deserted fifth floor's men's bathroom. "I love you, you asshole."

"No," he'd said then, "no no no fucking way," and he says it enough times that the doctor takes a step back and calls for a nurse, eyes wide, hands clutching his clipboard.

Jongin drinks another energy drink, feels his heartrate spike with the taste of chemically reproduced strawberry sour in his mouth, and finds a new sheet of paper. Another line down the middle. Two people on one side, one on the other.

Life turns on a dime.

The resident's name, Jongin learns entirely by accident, is Sehun. Oh Sehun, and he's technically not a resident. He's a neurologist who takes too many shifts, stays up too late, generally considered the most unhealthy sort of workaholic, even compared to the newly-minted white-coats desperately trying to justify their placement in the hospital. He walks like a zombie, is shaken by almost nothing, and prefers limited contact with patients and coworkers alike. Not even the nursing staff is quite sure what to do with him, despite their years of experience watching him amble into the office around dawn and roll out a few days later, skin sallow and dry.

"I think I'm going crazy."

"Therapy and drugs," Sehun says without looking up. "I can't offer you anything other than that. Would you like me to schedule an MRI? Look for brain damage? We saw nothing last time, and you're not due in for a visit until April, but I'm game if you are. Mind you, insurance won't cover it."

"Even if you find something?"

Sehun taps his pen against his desk and sighs, looking up. His eyes are ringed with dark bags--he looks like Jongin feels, in a sense. Exhausted, at the end of his tether, totally fucking crazy. "I'm not going to find anything."

"How do you know?"

"Chart says you were in a car accident, but luckily you weren't wearing a seatbelt. So you won't have a problem with whiplash, and we didn't see evidence of any kind of traumatic brain injury. As you know, there was some internal bruising and bleeding, and you fractured your collarbone in three places, but you're fine now."

Sehun's office is totally devoid of personality. There's not a single item on his desk that isn't work-related, and the only paintings on the walls look like they've been hung by the hospital in an effort to institute some cheer into the otherwise drab room. "I don't think I'm fine. I've been waking up in weird places, I've met you twice, I've had this fucking conversation twice, and we've done the MRI and I know my insurance hasn't paid for it and I can't pay for it but you find something. And it's something small and not relevant and I waste tens of thousands of fucking dollars and at the end of it I have to go to sleep and see Kyungsoo again."

"Please sit down, Mr. Kim. I don't want to call security."

Jongin hadn't realized he was standing. He's confused--he thinks he's had this conversation before. With Kyungsoo in the room. They'd been worried about Jinri--she'd died of brain damage, and Kyungsoo had been worried it was happening to Jongin too. There were gaps in Jongin's memory, and there were almost three weeks he couldn't account for. With Jinri they'd been lucky, after a fashion--an intraparenchymal bleed in the medulla oblongata. The quick, silent death. And so they'd come to the best neurologist in the hospital--a fellow by the name of Oh Sehun, and Sehun had planted the first seed of doubt: not everyone dies immediately, he'd said. While the injury was fatal, sometimes it took patients a month to die of a cerebral hemorrhage. It was lucky Jinri hadn't suffered, really.

"Lucky? I'm going to kill him," Jongin had said, more for something to say to cover the numbness spreading up his fingertips than out of real anger. Kyungsoo had sat and cried and Jongin had cried with him. What else can I give you, Jongin had thought miserably, feeling Kyungsoo pull away into himself, heartbroken and achingly lonely. Kyungsoo, please.

"Please sit down," and everything dissolves, Jongin notices that he's on his feet, fists slamming into Sehun's desk, sweat beading along his forehead. Sehun's nameplate is teetering at the edge of the table.

"I'm sorry," he finds himself saying, sitting back down, putting the sign back where it belongs on Sehun's desk. To his credit, Sehun doesn't bat an eyelash--just sits with his head tilted slightly, unamused, face schooled into impassivity. "Look, maybe we can try this again? I haven't been sleeping, can't even think properly. Days run into each other. I can't sleep--I just keep dreaming about her, and I need her out of my head."

Sehun looks at Jongin, puzzled. "Don't you mean him? Your partner?"

"No. Her."

"Therapy," Sehun says tightly. "That's it."

"Jongin, Jongin."

Jongin wakes up with molten fear coursing through his veins. There are sheets around his ankles, he registers dimly, and hands around his waist. "Jongin," a voice he knows too well croons, "Jongin."

"Yes." The word comes out as a croak. He's shaking and trembling, and the room looks too bright for night. "I'm awake."

"Sorry I woke you. But you were screaming and--" Kyungsoo doesn't finish his sentence, just smooths down Jongin's fringe, like the way he used to when Jongin would get into fights in college and slink back, miserable and bruised. "Everything okay?"

Jongin looks down at his hands. There's some scarring, some scabbing, and some residual memory of pain, but nothing else. "You could say that."

"Should I make breakfast?"

There's a note of hysteria in Kyungsoo's voice. It's been there since the accident. And even though Jongin doesn't think he could stomach breakfast, he doesn't want to deny Kyungsoo this small comfort. He breathes in the sharply clean linen scent of their bedclothes. "Please."

"Eggs sunny-side-up? Your favorite?"

Jinri's favorite. "Duh."

He gets dressed slowly. They've both taken time off work to mourn, and their closets show it. Kyungsoo hasn't done the wash since Jinri's death, and Jongin's been turning his underwear inside out and pulling on shirts that haven't seen light since their university days. He brushes away the itching discomfort of the night's restless sleep and splashes water on his face.

In the kitchen, something burns. Jongin closes his eyes and pretends not to smell it--Kyungsoo had never burned their breakfast before, not even when a morning blowjob had made them late. It'd been an amazing morning, Kyungsoo digging fingers into Jongin's scalp, Jongin's mouth wide around Kyungsoo's cock. He'd bitten at the insides of Kyungsoo's thighs, played with the soft skin behind his balls as Kyungsoo has reached for the range in an effort to turn off the gas.

"Let it burn," Jongin had said. And Kyungsoo had tugged at his fringe and said, "don't be an idiot" and that had been the end of that.

Jongin walks past Jinri's room, tiptoeing out of habit.

"I ruined your toast. And eggs," Kyungsoo whispers as Jongin exits the dark hallway and emerges into the kitchen. "I'm sorry."

His voice is hoarse and thick with phlegm. "It's okay."

"She would have thrown a fit. She wouldn't have eaten it."

Jongin takes the plate and sits down, pillowing his head in his arms. "Actually, in a dream I had--"

"Orange juice?" Without waiting for his reply, Kyungsoo fills two glasses, sets them down on the table, and then realizes his mistake.

Jongin grabs them both just to forestall any reaction. "Thanks," he says hurriedly. "I'm dying of thirst."

"What were you saying about a dream?"

Jongin doesn't want to think about the dream anymore. It's sliding away from him--a conversation with a doctor, their daughter--things he shouldn't say to Kyungsoo, especially not right now. "Nothing, nothing." Jongin gulps down both glasses without pause. "Just. Let's go out today. Get out of the apartment."

"Go where?"

They hadn't taken a trip--just the two of them--in years. Amazing how drastically a child will change your lifestyle, Jongin realizes. Trying to think of a day without her is like overcoming deeply ingrained habits, patterns, neural wiring. The programming goes deep, but they'd been together for longer. Jongin knows they can get through this. "The zoo."

"It's freezing outside."

"Don't be ridiculous. Then wear a coat."

"Jongin."

There's a dull thud in his skull, ears buzzing like water's filling them, like he's losing all sense of balance. The clock on the wall blurs, and the hands on it are unreadable. Kneading at his temples to alleviate the pressure, he sighs, frustrated. "Come on. Don't argue--let's just go."

It is fucking freezing outside. Wind howls, slipping through the inevitable gaps between their layered clothes, numbing their extremities. Jongin can't feel his face or his hands, and even if it's a Sunday and the place is crowded, there's an eerie quiet to the zoo. Even the animals don't seem particularly inclined to movement, and so after a while of peering past descriptive signs into seemingly empty cages, Jongin thinks it's time to give up.

Kyungsoo agrees. They find an overpriced coffee shop a few miles down the road where they slowly divest, stripping out of their heavy sweaters and coats and scarves and curling hands around their steaming mugs. Jongin remembers being twenty and dragging Kyungsoo to similar establishments after a wild night out, trying to sober up with black coffee and croissants, convincing Kyungsoo not to attend his eight A.M. biology lectures by running hands up his shirt and between his thighs.

They're sitting at opposite sides of the table now. Jongin wonders what'll happen if he slides a leg up Kyungsoo's. He reaches for his hand instead, fingers brushing up against the wedding band that matches his own, curving his palm over Kyungsoo's knuckles. The skin is chapped and raw.

The waitress gives them an odd look when she comes to check if they'd like refills, but doesn't say anything. Jongin is grateful for small miracles.

"This was a terrible idea," Kyungsoo says, slipping his hand out of Jongin's and sipping at his drink. "It's going to take the rest of the day for me to start feeling my toes again."

"Man up. It's just a little cold."

"I didn't see you rushing to stay outside when we found this place." Kyungsoo rubs his hands together, shivering. "You don't even like the zoo all that much. Why did we come here?"

Jongin feels himself frown. "I loved the zoo. I've always loved the zoo, especially the bears? We haven't come here in forever, but that's because I can't stand hearing--" dread cools his throat. Fuck. Not what he'd wanted to say.

Kyungsoo cottons on too quickly. "Right. Jinri hates zoos. She thinks sticking animals in cages is cruel."

"Hated," Jongin corrects gently, ice still creeping through his body. He tightens his grip on his drink. It needs to be said, he reminds himself. The strange, murky dizziness disorients him for a moment. He clears his throat twice before continuing: "Come on. It's been almost a month. Let's just--"

"Just what." Kyungsoo's voice is shrill and frighteningly cold. "Just what?"

"Let it go."

"Easy for you to say."

"It isn't easy at all. I just know we can't sit around pretending she's not dead. We can't change the fact that she's gone. There's no point. Just--" The ambient noise in the coffee shop fades away. It's just Jongin and Kyungsoo, now, voices beginning to crescendo. "Just move on. She loved you very much. We did a good job--we raised her well, and she was a nice, smart kid. But she's gone, so can we please just--"

A chair scrapes along the floor and Kyungsoo gets up. Dimly, Jongin registers that Kyungsoo's hand is smashing his cup against the table, ceramic shattering, shards and coffee flying in every direction. Someone screams, furniture is moved around in a blur, and slowly Jongin feels something wet and sticky seep along his cheek. Jongin lifts a finger to brush it away, but it leaves a thick, slimy trail behind.

Blood, then. He swallows.

"She wouldn't want you to fall to pieces like this. She would have wanted us to be happy," Jongin urges. His ears are ringing and he wants to throw up and hide behind a bench and apologize to all of the onlookers for having caused a scene. He wants to erase this, erase today, erase the last few weeks and start all over again where they had been. He wants this to be college again, he wants to take Kyungsoo's hand and just sit together easily for hours and hours at a time. He wants to stop dreaming, he wants Jinri's ghost to leave him the fuck alone so he can continue spending the rest of his life with the only person he's ever wanted in it.

And fine, he's angry, he doesn't know what Jinri would have wanted--he had never been as close to their daughter as Kyungsoo, preferring to hold her slightly at an arm's length. Fine, he didn't understand her. He'd tried, dozens and dozens of times, even before she'd hit puberty, sitting with her at the swings and trying to reach out to such a simple, unconcerned kid and understand why she had to come into their happy little family and mix everything up. Why she made Kyungsoo smile even when she was trailing mud through the kitchen and flinging Cheerios across the room. Why she was allowed to bother Kyungsoo when he was working, when he never was.

Kyungsoo had sat with her and taught her things she'd never learned in school. They'd shared hobbies. They'd even shared heroes: one Ernest Shackleton, an Arctic adventurer. And Jongin, bored of the books and documentaries, had bought her barbies and plastic purses for her birthdays and couldn't understand why she didn't like to dance.

Jinri was, and had always been Kyungsoo's. But it was simpler to pretend that they'd been a family in retrospect. To add things up, one and one and one making one, not three.

Jongin swallows. "She'd want you to keep going, she'd want you to be stronger than this."

"Sir," the waitress says, "sir you've broken store property, you're going to have to pay for this."

"I am leaving," Kyungsoo enunciates. "I am going home, and you can do whatever the fuck you want to pretend that this is okay, that we are going to be okay, but don't come home. Not tonight."

"Wait, Kyungsoo."

The waitress moves closer. "Sir, you really need to pay for the damage--"

"I'll pay," Jongin assures her, brushing her aside. He grabs at Kyungsoo's jacket. "Please don't leave like this. I'm not trying to say--"

"Don't come home tonight. Don't fucking dare."

"Please, look, I just wanted to move on from all of this--" Now all heads have turned. Jongin withers under their collective stares. He wonders what they're thinking about, what they're seeing, whether he's the asshole for insisting that they move the fuck on, or whether everyone pities Kyungsoo for having been saddled with a guy incapable of loving their daughter. Whether people think that Jongin killed her.

The idea is stabbing. I did love her, he thinks self-righteously. I tried to love her. I just didn't love her as much as I love you, Kyungsoo. "I'm sorry," he says again, letting the cloth slide out from between his fingers as his finger seize. "I'm so fucking sorry it wasn't me instead of her, okay?"

"Don't pull that," Kyungsoo snaps, tossing down a twenty. "God just--go to work, pull your own weight for once. Don't come home until you remember that she was your daughter too."

It's irrational, but Jongin flinches as Kyungsoo slams the door to the store. The waitress snaps up the bill and leaves her hand outstretched for more. He moves to hand her his credit card, but notices the name embossed on the plastic. Kim Jongin, it reads deceptively.

This is the card for their shared account. Jongin knows that his salary doesn't contribute all that much towards their joint savings. Kyungsoo's right to complain, in a sense. He swallows his shame and digs out an old debit card registered solely under his name.

"Are you okay?" she asks belatedly, gesturing towards the cashier where she runs his card through her machine. "Sorry about your--"

"Husband," Jongin says. He peeks at the reader displaying the amount owed, wondering whether this will be an overdraw. Luckily, the payment clears.

"Right." Unabashedly, she sweeps away the curls falling out of her ponytail. "Sorry about the fight."

"Our daughter died."

"Oh."

"He really loved her."

She pauses. "Parents usually do."

The words are cruel, probably because she hadn't meant them to be. But Jongin feels them drive into his heart anyway, lodging uncomfortably in his breast, and he brushes away at the blood on his cheek again. It leaves a smear that feels heavy and oily, and the waitress winces.

"Usually," he replies.

There's a hotel he knows--one he's never told Kyungsoo about, a place from before their time together, when Jongin was just Kim Jongin, responsible only for his own happiness. It's an older building--a relic of the sixties, a time before building codes mandated accessible windows and large, traffic-friendly staircases. Everything about the place was claustrophobic and tightly wound about itself, secretive and hidden. Which is probably exactly why Jongin finds it so attractive.

He walks through the doors and memories of his last visit assault him--he'd been swaying through the halls, half-drunk, exhausted from fighting with Kyungsoo. Jongin hadn't wanted to be a parent, hadn't wanted the responsibility of caring about the trajectory of someone else's life. He could barely handle his own, at that point.

And he couldn't shake the feeling that Kyungsoo was trying to replace him.

The ceiling of room 14A is still cracked. He's not sure why he asked for this room specifically, but it feels something like karma, a full circle, coming back to the place where it had all began sixteen years previously. The balding doorman certainly hadn't recognized him, and neither had the young lady filing her nails at the desk taking his cash and handing him a keycard, but he'd remembered their predecessors. An Italian man at the desk, and a young porter with yellowing teeth.

Kyungsoo had been calling him constantly on his cell phone, leaving dozens of voicemails, all variations on the same theme: Jongin, please pick up. Don't just run away every time we have an argument and you know how much this means to me. As if the only thing stopping Jongin from capitulating was a lack of understanding of how badly Kyungsoo wanted a kid, a family, everything that Jongin had never promised he could provide.

I love you, some of them had said.

Jongin feels for his phone, but it's dark and his inbox is empty. This time, Kyungsoo won't be calling and begging for him to come home. This time it was up to Jongin to apologize. Kyungsoo had become stiffer as they'd aged, less likely to take his share of the blame just to forestall an argument. In contrast, Jongin had felt himself become even more malleable, almost like he was making up for the years he'd strung Kyungsoo along, delighting in the attention Kyungsoo gave him while never showing Kyungsoo the same generosity.

He hadn't even realized it was happening until today, frankly. And he hates this about himself.

The room is drab, carpet an industrial navy, bedsheets scratchy and cheap. Jongin lets himself into the bathroom and splashes his face with warm water. Suddenly he feels exhausted and chilled, fingers still numb from the outdoors, heart compressed so tightly he thinks he might explode.

"I'm not happy about this either. Just because I didn't want her in the first place doesn't mean I wanted her to die." His mirrored face mouths the words, and it looks like some grotesque parody of sincerity. But he doesn't know what else to say--how else to explain that he never would have wanted her to die. It didn't mean he didn't want to get over her death, to heal the rifts she'd torn in their little family. It didn't mean he hadn't mourned for her.

Jongin hadn't wanted to adopt. He'd never made his dislike of children a secret, but it hadn't even been his aversion to kids that had made him resist so strongly: it was the hole in their family that Kyungsoo'd wanted to fill with her--with a little girl, with someone he could take care of. Like Jongin wasn't enough on his own.

But Jongin hadn't wanted to share Kyungsoo. Jongin was supposed to be enough--Jongin was always supposed to be enough. That had been the point of their wedding, of those vows Kyungsoo had forced Jongin to memorize. Until death do us part, he'd said in a church. Jongin hates churches, hated the story of Jesus fucking whoever. But for Kyungsoo, he'd said the words, walked down the aisle, even let Kyungsoo's mother hiss nasty epithets into his ear about their perverted lifestyle. Those were supposed to be all of the compromises Jongin would ever have to make. The wedding was the end, it wasn't supposed to be the start of Kyungsoo's fantasy of a perfect, nuclear family with himself at the center as father, breadwinner, and husband.

Jongin hadn't signed up for that. He'd agreed to love Kyungsoo forever and for always, and that was supposed to be enough. It really should have been enough. At the time, at the very beginning, saying I love you was the biggest compromise Jongin thought he'd ever make.

The last time he'd been here he'd gotten drunk enough to throw up all over himself. He'd stayed for three days, showering only for something to do, staring out of the window the rest of the time. Kyungsoo hadn't found him, just left increasingly desperate messages in Jongin's inbox. Jongin had picked his phone up eventually and dialled home.

"I love you," he'd said, voice hoarse with disuse. "I love you so much."

Kyungsoo had understood. "I know. I love you too. I just--this is something I need. I've always wanted a family. I've always, always wanted kids."

Jongin had closed his eyes, leaned against the window--he remembers this bit terrifically clearly, light falling into his face so he'd had to squint. "One kid. Just one. I'm not--cut out to be a parent."

"No one is. We learn along the way. We'll be really good."

"I don't have. Any experience."

"I'd rather hope not," Kyungsoo had replied dryly.

"I mean--"

"I know what you mean." There was a long silence, and Jongin had tried not to think about his absentee father, his twice-divorced mother, the alcoholism, the hospital bills, the creditors. "We'll be really good. I'll buy books. We'll learn everything there is to know."

"Books," Jongin had said disbelievingly. "We're going to learn about raising a kid by reading about books?"

"Yes. Come home. I've already ordered a dozen."

"You're ridiculous." Jongin had opened his eyes, taken stock of his stained tee, his dirty room, his unshaven scruff. "I love you."

"One kid. That's all I'll ask for."

"Fine. Okay. Okay." It hadn't been okay, but Jongin had thought it just might be. Maybe not with books, but with enough time--with Kyungsoo, just maybe.

He pats his face dry and scratches at his neck. The cold is wearing off, and his skin feels hot and uncomfortably dry.

This isn't the kind of place with a minibar or a room service, and Jongin is too tired to brave the weather for a bottle of vodka. He's too tired to get drunk, too drained to want to forget, too exhausted to pretend that he doesn't care.

He lies down on the sheets without even removing the duvet cover and sleeps.

He does not dream.

When Jongin wakes up, he's finally clear-headed enough that he knows exactly what he has to do. It's like his headache from yesterday has been entirely erased, like the muddy incoherence of the day before has slowly been wiped away, clean sidewalks after a rainstorm. There are soft bruises forming in his back where coils in the mattress have spent all night poking, his muscles are stiff, but overall he feels much better for the night away from home.

He gets back into his clothes, drops his key on the unoccupied front desk and leaves a note explaining his departure, and hails a cab.

He just has to be honest. He has to tell Kyungsoo that maybe he didn't love Jinri at first--she'd been ugly, wrinkly, and she'd smelled bad--but he learned to love her. He'd been terrified of holding her, scared of dropping her, of ruining her. He hadn't wanted her to be teased in school so he'd bought her beautiful dresses. He'd read her diary during the day just so he could try and understand her. Teenage girls had been mysterious and incomprehensible when he'd been in high school, and time hadn't changed that.

They could get a dog. Not as a replacement, Jongin would say, just to help them cope. He'd have to emphasize that nothing could ever replace Jinri, that she'd always be special, but that they needed to move on regardless. Maybe they could send a letter to her favorite celebrity--that athlete Kang Taejoon or whatever--ask him to pray for her. Jongin might not believe in god, but Kyungsoo always had. Maybe this would help. Maybe this would fix what he'd broken yesterday, convince Kyungsoo that he didn't want to forget the time they'd spent together a family, he wanted to honor it. But he also wanted to just move on. As quickly as possible. Put their life back together again so Jongin could stop feeling useless and unworthy of Kyungsoo's energy. He just wants to be happy again, he could say, hands on Kyungsoo's shoulders. They owe it to her--to themselves--to be happy.

The cab pulls up, Jongin jiggles their building door open and hails the elevator. As it climbs up, red numbers ascending, he wonders if he should have brought breakfast or coffee as a peace offering.

The doors open, and he shuffles down the hall to their apartment. The bottom lock has been broken for years, so he unlatches the deadbolt with his key and lets himself in.

"Kyungsoo? I'm--" Jongin trips over a shoe and just manages to brace his fall with his arm. "Jesus Christ," he shouts, nursing his elbow, "what the--"

And then he freezes. Because he hadn't tripped over a shoe, he'd tripped over a boot. One he'd bought two seasons previously. It had been one hundred and forty-four dollars before tax. Pure leather, the salesperson had assured him. With a one-inch heel.

Jinri's boot.

He gets to his feet.

"The fuck are you doing," Jongin spits, dashing through the apartment, staring at the floor littered with garbage bags and unwashed clothes. The place had been spotless last night--today every surface in the kitchen is covered in dirty dishes. Food particles crunch under his feet, and even the air smells stale. "Kyungsoo."

A hinge creeks in the hallway. Jongin squints--it's from Jinri's room, fucking hell, has Kyungsoo been in there all night again? And Jinri walks out of it.

Jinri.

Jinri.

"Oh my god," Jongin stammers, tearing at his face. "I buried you."

"Dad?" She steps daintily over a pile of underwear. "Dad, are you making breakfast? Are you awake?"

"Jinri." He doesn't move, he doesn't want to touch her in case he breaks her, in case she falls apart in his hands. He remembers the first time he'd been left alone with her when she was a child, screaming hysterically for some reason or another and he hadn't understood why she'd been crying. He'd picked her up and asked her countless times whether she was hungry, what she wanted to eat. She'd screamed, he'd screamed, he'd shaken her and Kyungsoo had walked in and--

"Dad," she asks again, tugging at his coat. "Dad were you outside? What were you doing--did you buy food? I'm really hungry, there's nothing left to eat in the house."

"There were eggs yesterday," he manages, staring at her incredulously. "How are you alive?"

"Huh?"

He presses his face into her hair. She's tall, but only for her age, and he smells the shampoo on her scalp. She's real, very very real. Either that, or he's crazy. "Oh my god, Jinri."

"Dad, you're scaring me." She pulls away. Equally as realistic--Jinri had never liked his hugs, only Kyungsoo's.

"Where's papa?" Jongin asks.

She'd always called Kyungsoo that. Papa. An attempt at normalcy--she didn't have two dads, she had one dad and one papa. "Where has he gone, has he seen you yet? He'll be so--oh I can't tell you how worried he was. He cried, we both cried, we fought and it was terrible but you're fine, you're totally fine." He's endlessly relieved, chest light, sickening feeling in his gut entirely gone. She's here, he can stop trying to fix something he might never have been able to make right, she's here here here. They can finally go back to that moment three weeks previously, they can be a family again, together, vaguely happy. And there'd been problems--bills and chances at college acceptance and twenty-five year old arguments to rehash--but they'd been familiar problems, problems they could work through during the day and put aside at night when Jongin curled a hand around Kyungsoo's waist and fell asleep.

Jinri's here now, Kyungsoo will finally be happy again, and Jongin can have Kyungsoo back.

He shakes her slightly. "Where did Kyungsoo go?"

She stiffens and her eyes widen. He knows something's wrong even before she says anything. "Dad. Papa's gone."

"Gone?" Jongin's mind races. The damage in the house is incredible--maybe Kyungsoo had lost it, finally really lost it and destroyed the place before Jinri had come back to them. "We'll find him," he says reassuringly. "We'll tell him you're back and everything will be okay again. Maybe we'll even see another play. How does that sound, sweetheart?"

"Dad, papa died. His funeral was three weeks ago. What's wrong with you?"

The words hit him slowly, like the truck, the impact he hadn't felt immediately but had ratcheted up slowing, building into a wave of jarring pain, white noise of unimaginable pain.

"I saw him yesterday," he says over the deafening squeal of hysteria. "He can't be dead. What are you talking about."

But Jongin couldn't have seen Kyungsoo yesterday. The apartment is buried under weeks of trash--three weeks, if Jinri is to be believed. This is not the same place where Kyungsoo had meticulously prepared breakfast, dumping the charred remains of the toast neatly into the hideaway trash can.

This is not the apartment they were in yesterday. But this is Jongin's apartment. Kyungsoo had gone to the zoo with Jongin yesterday. They'd had a row in a coffee shop, and a shard of ceramic had cut open Jongin's cheek.

The cut. He brushes Jinri out of the way and races to the bathroom, almost tripping over a bucket and plunger, and flings himself in front of the mirror. There's a thin scab along his cheek.

"Kyungsoo," he whispers, tracing it. "Kyungsoo, where are you?"

"Dad, you're scaring me."

"Kyungsoo is here. He broke a cup yesterday."

"Dad."

Jongin traces the line with his fingertip. The skin feels uneven, and he's tempted to pull off the scab just to see if he bleeds.

"Jinri, love," he says instead, head whirling with indecision, "there's a coffee shop. Down the road from the zoo."

"Dad."

"Listen to me. Google them, get me their number. Now."

Jinri hiccups again. "Dad stop, what are you--"

"Do it."

She slips out of the bathroom, bare feet smacking against the floor. After a few minutes she hands him a post-it with the number written in red ink along the top. He leans over the sink, picking at the skin and glaring at his reflection, and digs his cell out of his pocket.

"You've reached Gregory's. How can I help you?"

"Hi there. I was wondering if I could ask about the damage I caused yesterday? I just want to make sure everything was resolved when I left."

"You were at home all day yesterday," Jinri whines.

He ignores her and presses the phone more sharply to his ear. "I was the man with my husband. I don't know how many gay couples you see a day, but we broke a cup and I paid for it."

"Excuse me, but I think you have the wrong number. I was here from opening until we closed and--"

"There was a waitress with big red curls. She'll remember me. I told her my daughter just died."

"What are you talking about, dad?"

There's a long silence, and Jongin's heart hammers in his ribcage the entire time. He's shaking when she finally responds. "Sir, I have red curls. I'm the only person who does. And I have no idea what you're talking about."

Jongin recognizes her voice--the disinterest, especially. Jinri is still tugging at his coat--he hasn't even taken it off. He's sweating and shaking but there's a cut on his face. He got it when Kyungsoo had lost his temper in the cafe. Right?

"Jinri, did I have this cut yesterday?"

"I don't know. Please stop, you're really scaring me."

The energy drops out of him. Jinri is beautifully alive, a head of mussed hair and oversized pajamas. She's a skinny sixteen year old girl, and he's her father. Her only father. Because Kyungsoo is gone.

Fuck, Jongin thinks. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

His fingers find the scab on his cheek and he rips it off with a fingernail and watches himself bleed. Behind him, Jinri's eyes widen.

He has no idea what to say. So instead, he says nothing, and they stare at each other through the mirror, room silent save the sound of the water running and the clamor of faraway traffic leaking through the walls.

"I'm sorry the apartment is gross," he hears Jinri saying a few hours later, opening the door. "I'm sorry you came. I didn't know who else to call."

Her voice snakes through the apartment into the back master bedroom. After trying to clean for all of thirty seconds, Jongin had given up, choosing instead to lie down and stave off the migraine slowly building in his head. And Jinri, for the most part, had stayed in her room.

"I don't do house calls. I'm not allowed to be here in my official capacity as a doctor."

Jongin frowns. He has no idea whose voice this is, but it's loud and low and entirely devoid of inflection. "Jinri," he calls. "Who's here?"

There's a series of low mutters, and then a hurried pitter-patter of feet down the hall. Jinri slides into Jongin's room. "I was scared. With your face and that stuff about the coffee shop and that weird phone call--I called the doctor."

The guest knocks at Jongin's door. "Can I come in?"

"Please," Jinri says, tugging at Jongin's hand. "Please talk to him. They said to call if you acted weird after the accident."

"They didn't mean call me," the lean, thin man says, drawing himself up. "You're supposed to call a nurse and make an appointment to come into the hospital proper."

"Don't yell at my daughter," Jongin says, already unamused by the doctor's disinterested drawl. "Who the fuck are you, anyway."

The doctor frowns. "You don't remember me?"

Jongin opens his mouth to refute the possibility--of course he'd remember such a weird guy--when he realizes that he does know who this is. This was the neurologist who'd told him about Jinri's death three weeks previously, lips pursed, voice just as flat. This was the guy who'd said they ought to be thankful Jinri hadn't suffered, hadn't died slowly of migraines and diminishing physical ability, blood bubbling in her skull. This was the asshole who'd worked Kyungsoo up into hysteria, worried that after losing his daughter he was about to lose his husband too. This was Oh fucking Sehun.

Jongin has no idea how that little detail could have slipped his mind. His head aches.

"Oh my god, get out," Jongin finds himself saying, "get out of my house before I beat the crap out of you."

"How long has he been--confused?" Sehun asks of Jinri. "Has he been vomiting? Disoriented? What has he been eating? Where has he been?"

"I don't know, is this bad? He was fine yesterday. Upset, but wandering the house and throwing things everywhere. He didn't say he had a headache, just talked about papa."

"Is no one listening to me?" Jongin gets up and grabs a belt from the floor, brandishing it wildly in haze of anger. He can't think straight, he's so infuriated, he just wants Sehun out of his fucking apartment because this is somehow probably all Sehun's fault. "I swear, I'll use this if you don't get the fuck out of my house."

"He's been scary all morning," Jinri admits, cowering. "He's been really, really scary."

"I'm sure. I can't do anything here, but you should take him to the hospital as soon as you can. Disorientation isn't usually a symptom I'd panic over, but vomiting and migraines definitely are, and what with the accident--better safe than sorry. He might have been drinking, might have taken something."

"Oh Sehun."

Sehun snaps. "If you hit me, Mr. Kim, I will sue you, regardless of whether or not you're dying from a hemorrhage. And I will personally see to it that your daughter is taken away and put in foster care until she turns of age." With that, Sehun turns on his heels and walks out of the room. He's not the least bit like Kyungsoo--he doesn't slam the door when he goes, nor does he make a fuss about his leaving, almost as if he's so disinterested in the goings on of their house that he couldn't really give a damn whether or not Jongin is upset.

Jongin wants to throttle him. But Jinri is still standing by the bed, staring at the belt in his hands, eyes wide and frightened.

He's not sure what to say to her. She looks like she's about to cry, and Jongin doesn't know what he'd do if she started crying.

"I wouldn't have really hit him?" Jongin tries. He's not sure that's an honest assessment of the situation, but there's no need to frighten Jinri further. They're already barely getting on.

And besides, she's his last link to Kyungsoo. There's something about their entire situation that doesn't feel right. He knows he couldn't have imagined those days with Kyungsoo, those odd lapses in his memory. He knows that little girls don't just magically reanimate. And yet she feels so so incredibly real, so thin and fragile under her pajamas, so tiny. With her in the room, Jongin can almost feel Kyungsoo's presence. It's almost like he can fall forward and touch him.

Jongin doesn't sleep that night. He paces the hallways, kicking household items and garbage out of the way furiously. He has no idea why he's so furious with himself, but at one point he slips on a dishtowel and Jinri screams and he pleads with her to please shut the fuck up and go back to sleep.

For a dead kid, she's pretty fucking loud. And then the realization: she isn't dead, he's horribly confused, he has no idea what's wrong and why he keeps trying to remember Kyungsoo when Kyungsoo had died, must have died.

But there's still that cut on his face that Jongin can't explain. He clearly remembers their argument in the coffee shop, getting hit by a shard of ceramic, brushing blood away from his face. He remember shamefully paying with his old debit card. He remembers getting a room at a cheap hotel he hadn't visited since Jinri's adoption. He remembers Jinri's funeral.

But Jinri isn't dead. Kyungsoo is. Jongin has no idea how he'd managed to switch the two around--wishful thinking, a traitorous part of himself supplies--but the apartment is testament to the reality. Kyungsoo hasn't come back. Jinri is still here.

And now he's supposed to be a father? All on his own? When he'd been Jinri's age he'd spent his time in back alleyways blowing sleazy guys for a bit of money just to put himself through hell. He remembers coming home with dirty palms and a dirtier mouth, washing his tongue with soap and throwing up until his stomach shook from the physical effort of trying to expel something that wasn't even there.

There's something wrong with this picture. Kyungsoo had been the responsible one. Kyungsoo was the one who was supposed to make sure Jinri grew up properly.

At seven he gives up and takes the metro to the city hospital where Sehun works. He's early, a nurse tells him. Sehun doesn't get in until the first shift of the day begins. Jongin tries not to bolt, sitting himself down and convincing himself that this is the right thing to do, that Sehun can help him. That Sehun cares about Jinri's safety, if only just slightly, and that might be enough to convince him to listen to Jongin and explain what the fuck could possibly be going on.

Sehun arrives just as the wall-clock strikes eight--exactly on time. The bags under his eyes are deep and purple, and his hands are shaking when he opens the door, casting a sideway glance over to where Jongin is sitting, but his voice is steady. "Do you have an appointment?"

"I have to speak to you, Oh Sehun."

"Doctor Oh. I spent four years in medical school, one year as a resident in internal medicine and another three in neurology. I passed the boards. I deserve my M.D., thank you very much."

"Doctor Oh, then. I need to talk to you."

Sehun steps into his office, not even bothering to hold the door open for Jongin. "You sound much more coherent today. Mister Kim. Congratulations, you probably aren't bleeding inside your head."

Jongin slicks his hair out of his face and takes a seat. Sehun's mouth is impassive, and his eyes are trained on his computer screen. He's a doctor, Jongin reminds himself. You have to tell them these things. He might be able to help you.

"I love my daughter very much," he says hesitantly, looking at his feet. It sounds like an excuse.

"I'm sure you do." Sehun presses enter a few times and then scowls. "And you don't have an appointment. How unsurprising."

"Listen to me. Just listen. I think--I think I'm going crazy. I keep--I'm almost a hundred percent sure I. The other day, I had a fight with Kyungsoo."

"Kyungsoo?"

"My husband."

"Who died, yes."

"No, who--I think. I imagined he was alive and we went to the zoo and had coffee. He made breakfast too, but he burnt the toast. Instead it was Jinri who died."

"Physically impossible given the configuration of the car," Sehun responds disinterestedly. "But I guess this is what trauma will do to you. If I recall correctly, visual hallucinations don't usually manifest alongside psychiatric disorders, so I'm pretty sure this Kyungsoo is just a temporary delusion. You'll soon be rid of him."

"Pretty sure? You guess?"

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Sehun snaps. "I don't deal with feelings, I deal with numbers and very physical evidence. And medicine isn't conclusive, ever. It's a load of guesswork, you ought to know that. The emergency department had expected to save your partner. But they didn't, because they hadn't known how badly he'd been injured. Bodies are very complicated things. They've very fragile, very easy to break. That's medicine for you."

"But--"

"Therapy and drugs," Sehun says without looking up. "I told you, I can't offer you anything other than that. Would you like me to schedule an MRI? Look for brain damage? We saw nothing last time."

Jongin shifts, and realizes he's already on his feet, hands tacky with sweat.

"No, thank you," he says.

When he gets home he only just remembers to step over the mess of shoes littering the front of the house. He trips over a garbage bag instead, cursing when he smashes his knee into a cabinet as a result.

The kitchen smells like pizza and there's a checkered box on the table--Jinri must have ordered in. He takes a slice and devours it lukewarm. He can't remember the last meal he's eaten. Intellectually he knows it must have been breakfast with Kyungsoo yesterday, but it feels like it's been much longer than that.

He polishes off the last two slices and leaves the box where it is.

"Dad," Jinri says, peeking her head out of her door. "Are you better now?"

Jongin walks over and leans on her doorpost. "I was fine before. We're going to be fine. Dad was just a little shocked to see you."

She wrinkles her nose. "I'm not five anymore. You don't need to talk like that. Anyway, you were angry at the hospital too."

"At the hospital?"

"When papa--when they said papa was gone. You were angry that I was fighting with papa. I just wanted to make sure you weren't angry anymore."

He had been, Jongin remembers. Just as Jinri reminds him, the memory comes back, unbidden, filling in the gaps in his understanding. They'd been sitting in the hallway and he'd been confined to a wheelchair, arms stuffed into slings, and a solemn-faced Oh Sehun had crept up and said Mr. Kim, I'm sorry for your loss. Jinri had started crying. Jongin had wanted to slap her, numbness flooding his limbs and chest, hysteria bubbling in his throat. She wasn't allowed to cry. She'd known Kyungsoo for sixteen years--he'd known him for twenty-five. He was the one who should have been crying. He'd hated her for a moment, then, and imagined a world without her, imagined a world where Kyungsoo had survived instead.

Jongin wants to throw up. He'd been--and possibly still is--trying to take Kyungsoo's death out on a sixteen-year-old girl.

"I was--" Jongin can't justify it. It's horrifying, because Jongin's always been the sort of person who could push away physical discomfort and address almost any situation. It's why he's always resorted to getting drunk in order to stop feeling, to stop consciously processing the world. Jinri just brings out the worst in him. "I was not. Myself."

"Are we going to be okay?" She looks terrified. For a second, he even resents that.

Her father just died, Jongin reminds himself. I'd be fucking terrified too.

"We'll be okay, kiddo. We can do it, can't we?" Steeling himself, he offers her a fist. It's something Kyungsoo used to do, and Jongin just hopes this will be enough, this pale imitation of Kyungsoo's kindness.

She coughs and responds with a gentle bump. it's both gratifying and dejecting--she'd never indulged him before.

"I loved Kyu--your papa," he tells her. "I loved him so much."

"I did too. I'm sorry we argued."

He opens the door and hugs her. She's so terribly thin in his arms. "It isn't your fault," he says with a confidence he doesn't quite feel. "People who love each other fight all the time."

"Like us?"

The words are painful. He hadn't realized how much they'd grated against one another, how their personalities didn't quite line up, jagged edges scraping and scratching and leaving long jagged cuts in their shifting wake. He traces the reforming scab on his cheek.

"Like us."

Jongin puts Jinri to sleep before he starts drinking. He begins with the vodka and then, finishing that, opens up the brand new bottle of Malibu Kyungsoo had bought as a treat for their anniversary. He knocks back shot after shot until he's so shitfaced that he needs to throw up.

He staggers to the bathroom, braces himself, and lets it out. It doesn't even burn, just explodes out of him--a rush of alcohol and water. Afterwards he doesn't even want to get to his feet, just flushes the toilet and watches it spin down into the pipes and wonders how the fuck he's supposed to get up in the morning, how Jinri is going to react finding him with his head stuck in a toilet bowl. Maybe she'll call another doctor--or worse, Kyungsoo's mother.

The house is already a mess. Jongin remembers what Sehun had said about taking Jinri away and putting her in foster care, shacking her up with a family with a mother and a father, most likely. They could be another poster case for failed gay adoption. Heck, Kyungsoo's mother would probably spearhead the fucking campaign if she didn't take Jinri herself.

The world lurches. Jongin rests his head on the toilet seat. It's not the first time he's fallen asleep like this. He used to wake up in unfamiliar places, wandering around the city trying to figure out how he'd gotten there, taking an early bus in to school and washing up in the bathroom. There used to be nothing worth thinking about but that moment of blissful unconsciousness, nothing at all worth feeling. And then something had changed--it hadn't been immediate, but he'd slowly come to think that there was something more--something better. He'd found dancing and Kyungsoo, not quite in that order, and the entire world had opened up.

Kyungsoo had confessed in high school, but it'd taken years for Jongin to return the sentiment. First, Jongin had had to grow up.

He lets his eyes close.

The first coherent thought Jongin has is that he's drowning. He must be--there's water in his eyes and he's gasping for breath and something is ringing in his ear.

It's only after a moment that Jongin realizes he's hearing language.

"What the fuck are you doing here. I locked you out--I told you not to come back last night." Kyungsoo dumps another half-bucket of water over Jongin's head, at which point Jongin realizes that he's desperately hungover and definitely not alone.

"Kyung--soo?"

"Get out. Get the fuck out of my apartment."

The floor is sopping wet, but otherwise impeccably clean. The toilet doesn't even smell of vomit. Jongin rubs at his eyes and peers into the bedroom where the sheets are the only things out of place. It's not the same bed he'd seen last night. It couldn't be.

"Oh my god," he says, heart simultaneously sinking and soaring. "You're alive."

"Were you hoping for something different?" But Kyungsoo doesn't sound angry, just icy and impassive. His resolve doesn't last all that long--after a moment he sets down the bucket and eyes Jongin sympathetically. "Dammit, you'll catch cold. What the hell were you doing in the bathroom? How did you even--I didn't even hear you come in last night."

Jongin gets to his feet, knees stiff from a night of sleeping on ice-cold tile. Kyungsoo is exactly as Jongin had left him two--three?--nights previously. There's a day of growth on his chin, but other than that--Kyungsoo is there. Haggard with grief, clothing hanging ill-fittingly from his shoulders, but there. Alive.

"I didn't come in last night."

"So how did you--"

"Wait. What day is it?"

"Tuesday. What's wrong with you?"

Tuesday. They'd visited the zoo on Sunday, Jongin remembers, and it'd been busy despite the cold. Jongin hadn't returned home that evening. He'd booked a room at a hotel, spent the night there, and then taken a cab home. He'd seen Jinri that day, and Jinri had called Sehun over. And then the following morning, Tuesday morning, he'd seen Sehun.

It shouldn't be Tuesday. It should be Wednesday. "What--where was I yesterday?"

Kyungsoo's forehead alternatively furrows and smooths. Eventually he appears to decide to forgive Jongin, and offers him a hand. "I don't know what you're talking about, but you're scaring me. If this is a joke--"

"This really isn't a joke."

"We were at the zoo on Monday. It was too cold, so we got coffee. And then we fought. You still haven't apologized for that, by the way."

Since their daughter decidedly isn't dead, Jongin rather thinks he doesn't need to. "Look," he says, fighting back a sudden wave of nausea. He still feels hungover, miraculously, though he remembers not drinking in the hotel, not even having a glass of water to ease his migraine. "Look, I have to tell you-I need to show you something crazy. You wouldn't believe--we went to the zoo on Sunday. Not Monday. I still--do you have the tickets?"

"The tickets?"

"Receipts. Anything to prove where we were yesterday. Sunday. Monday."

Kyungsoo grabs Jongin's shoulders. "Jongin. Jongin. What are you talking about? Did--did you drink? Did you get--you said you weren't going to do that anymore. We had a deal. You don't get drunk enough for this to happen."

"But you were dead," Jongin chokes. His whole body feels desperately cold, and he's shivering, teeth chattering, slowly slipping out of the warm comfort of his and Jinri's cluttered apartment into the sterile reality of Kyungsoo's arms. This is real, he knows. Kyungsoo couldn't have died. This is real, their daughter is dead, and Jongin will have to find a way to atone for that for the rest of his life.

But that's okay. As long as he has Kyungsoo--everything is fine. They can adopt a dog, find something else to concern themselves over, and maybe they can even start being a real couple again instead of an odd, limping parody of a family.

"I'm sorry," Jongin says finally. "I don't--I was confused. I don't know what I was saying. I didn't drink." If it was Tuesday, Jongin thinks hysterically, he couldn't have.

"You reek of coconut. And you're hungover."

"Check the Malibu under the cabinet. It's unopened, I promise. And I couldn't have gotten back here drunk without you noticing."

Kyungsoo bites his lip. "I'll check," he says stiffly. "But. You're right. You couldn't have. You're too loud for that. But how did you get back without--did you get in through the window?"

Jongin tries to laugh. It's difficult, but Kyungsoo is kind enough not to notice that it's still half a sob. "We live on the twelfth floor, Kyungsoo. That's impossible."

"I'll check the Malibu."

Jongin steps closer, leans into Kyungsoo's shirt. It smells of sweat and of sleep. It smells of Kyungsoo.

"I love you," Jongin whispers. "You're just. Thank you."

Kyungsoo's hands slowly move to encircle Jongin's waist, gently patting at his back soothingly. "You don't--there's nothing to thank me for. I'm sorry, for it's worth. I didn't really mean that you should have died instead of her. I never would have said that."

But Jongin would have. He feels sick. "No one's to blame."

"We shouldn't have been fighting."

Chills trickle down Jongin's spine. He tries desperately not to think of Jinri crouched behind her door saying the exact same thing.

"It isn't your fault," he says with a confidence he doesn't quite feel. "People who love each other fight all the time."

Kyungsoo's fingers are no longer soothing. "Like us?"

And Jongin looks over his shoulder at the mirrored medicine cabinet hanging above their bathroom vanity. The cut on his face is gone.

"Like us."

They spend the day watching movies neither of them pay very much attention to, and Jongin curls himself around Kyungsoo just to lose himself in Kyungsoo's physical presence. He forces himself not to remember this room littered with garbage, clothes, cleaning supplies, and shoes, but it's not easy. His vision doubles, and one scene is superimposed onto the other, until he's seeing the ghostly outlines of garbage bags and boots and paper towels and empty water jugs.

By nighttime, he's nervous. The only pattern--the only constant about this entire rollercoaster of insanity has been sleep. And Jongin has no idea what he'll wake up to this time, but he's pretty sure he doesn't want to find out, especially if the answer isn't Kyungsoo.

He drinks coffee before bed, and forces himself to stay awake as Kyungsoo slowly falls asleep, lips slipping open, breathing evening out. Jongin tip-toes out of bed, then, too worried about joining him, and returns to the kitchen where he brews a pot of thick Turkish coffee and proceeds to drink the entire thing.

By morning he's wired. He tries to conceal it, but Kyungsoo doesn't even seem to notice--just drifts through the day cleaning and reordering the pantry and staring at a page in a book he's been trying to read for the past few days. It's a biography called An Unfinished Life, which Jongin finds more horrifying than ironic.

But Kyungsoo doesn't mention Jongin's growing obsession with caffeine, and so Jongin decides not to pick fights.

Eventually, Jongin does end up falling asleep. He can't remember when it happens, but he's shaken awake by his daughter in a kitchen that looks even worse than he remembers. Jinri is staring down at him, eyes wide, toothbrush in her mouth.

When he moves to bat her hand away, she steps backwards hesitantly.

Kyungsoo is not there. Jongin can feel the difference immediately. This kitchen is warmer, it smells thick and mouldy. And, of course, their daughter is there, pigtails undone, foaming toothpaste trickling down her chin.

"It's Tuesday, dad. I'm supposed to be going back to school today. You have to take me. Sign some forms. Did you forget?"

Tuesday. Tuesday the sixth. Two days--one day? Still unclear--after the trip to the zoo. But it'd been Thursday when he'd fallen asleep in the kitchen with Kyungsoo reading his stupid biography a few feet away. Thursday the eighth. Over breakfast, Kyungsoo had said it was a shame that Jinri would never be going back to the expensive private school they'd enrolled her in for high school. They'd bought her a new uniform for junior year--the upperclassmen were permitted blazers and pants, and Jinri had wanted both. Kyungsoo had vaguely mentioned making arrangements to have the contents of her locker shipped to their apartment.

"I'm sorry," Jongin says, rubbing his head. There's no reason to scare Jinri all over again--he definitely doesn't want Oh Sehun barging into their apartment a second time. If Jinri is a figment of his imagination, she'll go away in good time. He just needs to tolerate her existence until he falls asleep again. Or, rather, wakes up.

She wipes at her chin belligerently. "Well. We're going to be late. And you should change--you look homeless. Papa never came to school looking like he didn't own a proper suit."

Past tense. And even as Jongin tells himself that it's okay, that Jinri isn't real anyway, she's just a fucking hallucination, he finds that he's furious. I will never be your father, he almost says, I will never, ever love you nearly as much as he does. What the fuck am I supposed to do about that? Thankfully the words die in his mouth. He swallows them roughly and forces himself to remember their talk and his resolve from earlier that week--yesterday, for her. Fist bumps. Jongin trying to be Kyungsoo as best as he can.

She's just sixteen. She has no idea that she isn't real, that her death tore Kyungsoo apart, that Jongin is going crazy.

But none of that is her fault.

"I'm sorry," he tries, gentling his voice. "I'm just not feeling well. I drank too much last night."

"Papa said you're not allowed to get drunk."

"Papa was right. I shouldn't be drinking. Now finish getting ready--I'll go make myself respectable."

She smiles. Inexplicable relief floods Jongin's chest. He hadn't realized how worried he'd been that she'd panic.

"Not your work clothes. They're ugly--and sweaty. And stained."

Kyungsoo hates his sweatpants and tee-shirts as well. "Real clothes. I'll find something. I promise, kiddo."

"Don't call me that. I'm not five."

"You'll always be five to me, you little brat. Now go get ready--you have toothpaste dripping onto your collar."

She looks down. "Dammit, why didn't you tell me? Now I need to change!"

Taking her to school is manageable. Ordering in dinner, holding a conversation over the empty ramen packets scattering the table, watching television together at night, one arm curled around her shoulder. It's all doable. Jongin knows he'll be going home to Kyungsoo. He knows Kyungsoo would give anything to be in Jongin's place. He tries to remember how she feels and wonders how he'll tell Kyungsoo about his delusions. He wonders what kinds of details Kyungsoo will want to hear about, and so he studies her face more intently than he ever has before. She has big, pouty lips, full cheeks, and her eyes are puffy in the morning.

He opens a window to clear the air. Distant noises from the major roads seep into the apartment. It's too cold to keep them open long, but the fresh breeze is jarring, sharp, and cuts through all of his recent discomfort. He feels invigorated, and he breathes in the sharp sting of winter gladly. It's his favorite season.

He's alive. He has Kyungsoo and he has Jinri. And maybe Jinri isn't real, but she feels real. The apartment feels real. It's warm and cluttered and comfortable, almost more comfortable than the sterility of--

Jongin pauses and shuts the window, sharply cutting out the sounds of traffic. Furious with himself, he forces himself into bed and buries himself in the covers on his side, leaving room for Kyungsoo.

But when Jongin wakes up, the kitchen is still filthy, and it's Wednesday.

And then Thursday.

And then Friday.

On Saturday, he calls Oh Sehun.

This time, Jongin meets Sehun at a cafe. Sehun looks exhausted, and there's a weird reddish stain under his nose. His fingernails tap restlessly against the coffee table, a noise that remains annoyingly persistent, audible over the low murmur of other customers enjoying an early morning rendezvous.

"I still think you should see a therapist," Sehun says, accepting his coffee from the waitress. He doesn't add milk or sugar, just starts drinking immediately. Jongin waits for his to cool.

"Therapy takes months to work. I don't have months--I need to get back before too much time passes."

"No, you're working within the delusion now. You have as much time as you need to get better. This is reality--unless you think I'm a figment of your imagination?"

"You have to be. Because if you aren't, then--"

"Then your partner is dead. Which, unfortunately, is the reality of the situation. I was on the floor when it happened. I watched my colleague call the time of death."

"Stop it," Jongin whispers, staring at the wooden table unseeingly, "shut it."

Sehun wrinkles his nose and jerks his chin forward. "I watched our staff cart his body off to the morgue. I watched your late partner's mother refuse an autopsy. She signed three different sets of paperwork."

Jongin feels himself tremble. He's starting to remember Kyungsoo's mother, he remembers her shrieking and grabbing onto his arms you killed my son, I hate you, you horrible, filthy, disgustingly perverted-- The memories aren't clear--they're fuzzy and muddled, but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're his. "Stop it."

"She cited religious objection. Would you like a copy of these documents?"

Jongin sweeps his hand across the table, scattering their mugs and saucers. The cafe falls silent, and then a waiter shouts angrily. Jongin can't even hear what he says, over the dull, aching memory of a cut on his cheek and red curls in his face.

Sehun's nose is bleeding.

"Oh my god," someone shouts, "someone--are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Sehun says, not even bothering to wipe away the blood trickling down his nose. "I'll pay for this, and we're leaving. I'm sorry for the disturbance."

"I'll pay," Jongin hears himself say, "just. Don't leave."

And Sehun fixes him with an icy glare. "We are leaving together. You still need to apologize to me."

"Your nose is bleeding."

Sehun doesn't even flinch, just grabs a napkin from the table and shoves it flush against his face. "I'm fine. We need to go. Talk this out."

"I'm crazy. Clearly I'm fucking crazy, I'm imaging this, this isn't real, you’re not even here, I don't even fucking know you all that well."

Sehun wrests Jongin out of the store. "Then stop calling me."

"What am I supposed to do? Tell Jinri that she's dead? Her father's alive? I'm living in some weird fucking limbo where every time I go back to sleep I'm magically transported somewhere else?"

"Jesus," Sehun curses, running a hand through his hair. "What--what do you need from me? What could you possibly want from me? We're strangers. I'm a doctor. I've met you three times. I hate patients, which is why I usually deal with comatose ones."

Sehun's arm is terribly thin. Not for the first time, Jongin notices how unhealthy Sehun looks--perpetually pale and exhausted. He wonders if Sehun ever eats anything at all. "I just need to talk to you. Get a few things straight."

"That's what you need a therapist for."

They pass a park. Jongin gestures towards a bench, and, rolling his eyes, Sehun joins him, primly folding his hands in his lap. It's a ridiculously endearing gesture.

"Please. I don't know anyone else, and I can't trust that someone won't decide I'm a danger to Jinri. I'm the only parent she has left--she can’t lose me too."

"You might actually be a danger to her. What then?"

"I'm not. I'd never hurt her. I," and Jongin swallows, "she's my daughter. I raised her."

Sehun doesn't reply. Jongin wonders how much Sehun has figured out. "You were the one who told me Kyungsoo died. And you told us about Jinri when it happened. You're the only person who was there."

"I wasn't there. Your daughter is alive, Mr. Kim--"

"Jongin. My name is Jongin."

"--Jongin then. Your daughter is alive. I watched your husband--"

"Kyungsoo."

Sehun covers his ears. For the first time, he raises his voice. "Shut up, shut up. I don't want to know, I don't want to get involved, this isn't my life. It doesn't concern me."

He's shaking, Jongin notices. And-- "Your nose is bleeding. Again."

Sehun wipes away the blood with the backs of his hands. "I need to go home. I need you to leave."

"Are you okay? You look sick--"

"I'm fine. Just. Leave me alone."

Sehun looks impossibly young, sitting swathed in layers of coat and sweater and scarf, shivering into his palms tacky with blood. Jongin digs a tissue out of his pocket. "You're getting--you're dripping blood all over yourself. It'll stain."

"I don't need it."

"Just," and Jongin moves in, brushing the tissue against Sehun's nose, helping him stem the blood flow. "You're a doctor. You should take better care of yourself."

"You should listen to me and let go. Leave. I'm not interested in hearing about your delusions. Kyungsoo isn't real. He's dead."

Kyungsoo. He remembers.

"I kissed him last night. I held him."

"You won't hold him again tonight," Sehun sniffs. "I promise."

"And what if I do. What if he's back and this goes away--what am I supposed to do?"

"You won't. It's a delusion."

"Can I come see you again? Maybe we can try something else if this doesn't work."

Sehun is still shaking, and blood is starting to seep over his hands, staining his fingers. He walks away without answering.

Jongin takes that as a yes.

"Morning sleepyhead."

Jongin rolls over, clinging to the residual warmth haunting the sheets. "Hmm?" The apartment is cold, and someone's rolling a blanket off of his shoulders.

"It's Saturday. I'm making pancakes." There's a hand in his hair, and Jongin curls into it, slowly opening his eyes. Their bedroom is spotless. After promising to wash up, Jongin stumbles to the bathroom without tripping over anything and splashes water on his face.

"Come on. They're getting cold."

"Coming." Water trickles down his cheeks. Jongin grabs a towel and wipes it all away. He's starting to get used to this. "Just give me a sec."

That afternoon, he takes out a sheet of paper while Kyungsoo vacuums. There's a pattern here, there has to be. He's not sure when the switching first started, what his blurred memories are concealing, and when he tries to think back his head aches and he starts to remember double breakfasts, twice as many mornings, months of time where there were only weeks.

He bites the inside of his mouth until the world stops spinning, and tries to focus. He starts with the zoo and the ceramic cup--the first switch, then was waking up with Jinri and the three-week old mess in their apartment and Oh Sehun storming in uninvited. The second is waking up with his cheek pressed into their porcelain toilet, Kyungsoo pouring water over his head. The third is when he'd taken Jinri to school.

Jongin taps at the paper with the point of his pen. There's nothing connecting them. Or at least, there's nothing connecting the times he'd woken up with Jinri twice in a row. Whenever he falls asleep with Kyungsoo, he wakes up with Jinri, but the opposite is never true.

His pen pauses over Sehun's name. He circles it twice, lazily, and then with more emphasis. Sehun. He's seen Sehun before he'd gotten drunk enough to pass out in his bathroom, and he'd seen Sehun three days after he'd woken up just in time to take Jinri to school.

Sehun is the connectome. Jongin crumples up the sheet of paper slowly, watching Kyungsoo at of the corner of his eyes to make sure he hasn't noticed what Jongin's been up to. It's Sehun. Oh Sehun, the odd neurologist who works long hours and never seems to eat quite enough. It doesn't make very much sense, but Jongin finds himself relaxing into the surety of the idea, tension draining out of him. He can get back again. He doesn't have to stay awake forever, trying to trick his system into restlessness. He can finally relax.

For a second, he flattens the paper, staring at Sehun's name. Jongin still doesn't understand why he's never sure what day it is when he wakes up with Kyungsoo, why it's always a day after he's left when he wakes up with Jinri. He has no idea why someone totally unconnected would be the bridge between these two possible universes, why it would be Oh Sehun of all people, but that's not important. What is important is maintaining his relationship with Sehun. He needs to see Sehun to get back to Kyungsoo, which means Sehun has to be willing to see him.

So Jongin takes Jinri to school in the morning and drops by the hospital in the afternoon with a cup of coffee and a bureka that Sehun never eats. After a while, Sehun stops kicking him out, just asks if he'd stop making noise so he can concentrate on his patients. After a few pointed references to Kyungsoo--Jongin still isn't sure if he needs to mention Kyungsoo's name or not for the swap to work correctly--he obliges and moves a chair into the corner of Sehun's office, well out of his way.

Jongin tries not to fidget. Instead he watches Sehun's delicate fingers flutter over the keyboard in his office, and pull heavy books off his shelves. His eyes are dull in the office, and even as he solves more and more complicated questions, responding to the most difficult and time-sensitive queries with the same infuriating calmness, Sehun remains inscrutably disinterested.

Jongin thinks back to the nosebleeds, to the bloodshot eyes, and wonders what could be wrong with being such a well-known physician that Sehun can't even bring himself to sleep at night.

Every day for a handful of hours, Jongin chats with the nursing staff and slips into Sehun's office between patient visits. After a few hours of ensuring that they've covered enough similar topics as previous conversations--Kyungsoo, Jongin's burgeoning insanity, Jinri--Jongin pops back home, watches crappy daytime television to kill time, and orders takeout for dinner. When Jinri gets home from school, Jongin ruffles her hair like Kyungsoo used to, asks about her classes, and then escapes to bed as quickly as he can.

He wakes up with Kyungsoo. He's never sure what day it is when he wakes up, but Kyungsoo doesn't seem to notice the odd skips in time, so Jongin doesn't mention how Fridays mysteriously become Mondays overnight. Kyungsoo speaks distantly about returning to work, but he spends most of his day cleaning and putting Jinri's room right, fussing over the exact order of her stuffed animals and books instead. Jongin doesn't press the issue--he'd rather not fight with Kyungsoo, after all, and slowly Kyungsoo's begun to use the past tense when discussing Jinri. Their relationship still hasn't mended completely, Jongin can still feel the gaps that Jinri's left in their life, but it's healing. Slowly, but definitely.

Sometimes they even talk about the past: about a time before Jinri, about how Jongin hadn't given Kyungsoo the slightest inkling that he was interested, instead just tugging him along and reveling in the feeling that there was someone fascinated by him. Jongin winds his legs around Kyungsoo's and tries to tell him how much he regrets that, all of it, without saying anything. And sometimes they don't talk at all, just stare into space and drift off. Jongin feels complete with Kyungsoo under his hands, with Kyungsoo's arm around his head. It's a weight he's had over two decades to get used to. And when Kyungsoo starts snoring lightly into the crook of Jongin's shoulder, Jongin clings to the couch and pinches himself in an effort to stay awake.

But inevitably, he falls asleep. Nothing works--not coffee, not energy drinks, not running up and down a few flights of stairs and punching walls until his knuckles are bruised. Nothing can keep him going indefinitely. Eventually, Kyungsoo disappears, and Jinri comes back.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

Routine deviates around Thanksgiving. Kyungsoo's mother agrees to take Jinri for the weekend, not even bothering to extend an invitation to Jongin, which Jongin is perfectly fine with, seeing as his idea of a happy ending is watching her get run over by a Gay Pride parade floaty.

With Jinri gone, Jongin allows himself to break open the liquor cabinet again. Usually he doesn't trust himself--doesn't want to wake up disappointing Kyungsoo with a hangover. The same check-the-alcohol-cabinet excuse will work only once. But he hasn't managed to get ahold of Oh Sehun. Sehun usually works every shift he can at the hospital, but even the nurses don't know what he does during his off hours. And, unsurprisingly, he's not working on Thanksgiving weekend. After wheedling and nagging at them, explaining that all he wants to do is take Sehun out properly for once (Jongin winces at the lie), they slip him an address. It's a really shitty part of town--full of student complexes and subsidized housing units.

Jongin's pretty sure Sehun makes enough to live elsewhere.

When he gets there, he rings the doorbell fifteen times and knocks until his knuckles throb. "Sehun," he shouts, voice echoing in the building's hallway, "Sehun, open the door."

Eventually a voice trickles out. "Go away. Whoever--whatever you are, I don't care."

Maybe he's having financial troubles? Hiding from creditors? Angry ex-wives? Jongin hadn't seen a ring on Sehun's finger, and the nursing staff had been pretty sure he was single, living alone. "Sehun, it's just me. Jongin."

Sehun laughs. It's a hysterical, eerie sound--a cackle that seems to bubble out of the door. "Don't give a fuck. Leave. Don't want to eat or drink coffee. I'm fine."

Jongin flushes. He's empty-handed--he should have thought to bring food, dammit. Sehun always looks unfairly thin, and it's clear he's not going anywhere for the holidays. Sehun never talks about a family or a life outside the hospital. "I need to see you."

Sehun doesn't answer. So Jongin forces the lock.

The door opens easily--either Sehun doesn't know the door is broken or he hasn't bothered to fix it. Regardless, Sehun is on his knees in the hallway polishing the floors. The apartment is almost totally empty and devoid of furniture, but every surface is spotlessly clean, light gleaming off the wood.

"Get out," Sehun says excitedly, tossing something at his head. Jongin doesn't manage to duck, and a wet rag slaps him in the face. It reeks of ammonia. "You're going to mess shit up."

"I just need to see you. So I can get back." Jongin peels the cloth from his skin and throws it back.

"I am not entertaining your delusions," Sehun over-enunciates, scrabbling over the floor for the cloth rag. His hair is mussed, poofing all over his head, and he's wearing a heavily wrinkled tee and tight jeans, both of which betray an unnaturally frail physique. "I am cleaning, you need to get out, chill out, maybe drink and forget your dead Kyungsoo. Whatever it is, you need to stop ruining my fun."

"Fun," Jongin says flatly. "I didn't realize scouring a place until it shone was prime time entertainment."

"Some of us are cultured, civilized humans who like to keep ourselves neat. Your apartment wasn't exactly for for human habitation. On that note, care to show yourself the door?"

"It's broken, by the way. The door."

"I know."

"That really isn't safe."

Sehun rolls his eyes. "There's nothing to steal here. It's not worth getting in a locksmith. I can spend the two hundred bucks on something else."

"Oh yeah? Like furniture?" Jongin has no idea why he's so angry with Sehun all of a sudden, but it's frustrating that the asshole won't even accept the tiniest overture of friendship. Sure, he'd come here for Kyungsoo--but couldn't Sehun pretend to be interested in him? Jongin had spent weeks with the guy. Somehow he now knows that when Sehun is agitated he paces and taps on things. That he opens reference books after he's already sure of what they'll say. That when he loses track of something he has to find the file and spread it out along his desk, each paper next to another, tracing the individual's progress with his finger, like it's a graph he's built in the air for his eyes only. Sometimes it seems to tell him things, and he'll stop and read something into his dictation device. Jongin hates the breathy way he always says period.

Jongin has absolutely no idea why he cares, but he does.

"I never exactly invited you over." Sehun gives up on the cleaning, brushing his hands off in his lap and gets up off the floor. His fingers are wrinkled and stink of cleaning solvent.

That stuff is terrible for your hands. Kyungsoo always wore gloves.

Maybe no one's ever told Sehun that. Maybe he has no idea you're supposed to wear gloves. Jongin doesn't know what working hundred-hour workweeks is like, but he's pretty sure it's not conducive to maintaining a vibrant social life. Even Kyungsoo kept more regular hours, and he worked on Wall Street.

Suddenly Jongin feels overwhelmingly guilty. He's here to talk about Kyungsoo. Sehun is here to relax. Clearly they're mutually exclusive events. "Fuck, Sehun. Can I just buy you dinner?"

"No."

"Can you just--can you eat dinner? I'll order takeout. I won't even stay."

"You'll mess up the place. And I'm not hungry."

"Don't you have someplace to be? It's Thanksgiving. It's a holiday."

"No."

You're done here. You've seen him. that's all you need to get back, Jongin's conscience reminds him. You need to get back to Kyungsoo. He's waiting. He's probably cooked up something amazing.

But Sehun won't be eating anything like that tonight. Sehun has probably scrubbed through his fucking palms with those chemicals. His hands look bright red from where Jongin is standing, anyway. And Sehun might have no idea that you're supposed to wash that stuff off and maybe he'll even eat before cleaning his hands and Sehun seems like the worst sort of idiot, brilliant at his work but a complete fuck-up otherwise and Jongin has no idea why he cares.

Only he does. Sehun feels familiar--Sehun feels like everything Jongin used to be. Lonely, for one. The kind of desperate, aching loneliness that tears a person up, that leaves someone so quiet their voice will go hoarse for lack of people to speak to. And Jongin owes Sehun, if only for acting as the go-between for so long, for giving Jongin everything he could want. His daughter on one hand, and his husband on the other.

He grabs Sehun's arm. "We're going to get Chinese food. Now."

"Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it, I don't have the time for that, I need--"

Jongin shudders at the note of hysteria in Sehun's voice. And then he looks back, and cringes. "You're nose is bleeding again," he says softly. "You need a tissue."

"I need you to leave me the fuck alone, Kim Jongin. I don't--I don't want to know your name. I don't want to deal with patients even when I'm supposed to be having fun during my free time."

"This is fun?"

"We've established that it is for me, idiot."

Jongin yanks Sehun off the floor. "No, we've established that I'm taking you to dinner. I'll pay. We can--I won't talk about Kyungsoo, and we'll pretend we're just two regular lonely guys who have nothing better to do than have a meal together. Then you can come back and spend the rest of the weekend staring into space if that's what makes you happy."

Up close, Jongin realizes that Sehun is shaking, eyes wide and red-rimmed, lips chapped and cracked. "You have no idea," he says blissfully. "Extremely fucking happy."

"Yeah, well. I don't think I want to have an idea."

It's not true. Guilt yawns in his stomach. They walk, Sehun dragging his feet at every step, until they find a suitable location. Jongin orders for the both of them and watches Sehun pick at his food. Jongin can't find anything to say, so he just eats and eats until everything he ordered is gone.

When he wakes up earlier that day all over again, Jongin runs to the bathroom, convulsing, and throws everything back up. Kyungsoo asks if he's coming down with something. Jongin reassures him that it's just his nerves.

Kyungsoo cooks a meal for his entire family who stiffly pretend that Jinri is on some stupid fucking extended camping trip of sorts. The entire time, Jongin's head throbs with sublimated fury.

And he wonders if Sehun's had anything to eat in this universe as well.

Jongin doesn't want to see Sehun after Thanksgiving. He wants to see Kyungsoo. He wants to tell Kyungsoo about Sehun, he wants to get rid of Sehun entirely, he wants to stop caring about Sehun's hands and the idiotic way he doesn't seem to wear gloves when he cleans, the way his apartment is devoid of furniture, the way the lock on his door is apparently just there for show.

But to see Kyungsoo, Jongin has to see Sehun. So Jongin goes, more reluctantly each time, desperately looking to extend the days he spends with Kyungsoo. He downs energy drinks every few hours and wonders if he can find a doctor to prescribe him Adderall. And his conversations with Sehun are stiff and stilted and full of things Jongin wants to say and ask. Instead he tries to tell Sehun everything there is to know about Kyungsoo.

Sehun eventually buys himself a pair of earplugs.

By Christmas, Jongin is desperate enough that he considers calling Sehun. The other Sehun--the one who's met Jongin only twice: once to tell him that Jinri had died, and then again when Kyungsoo had panicked over the suspicious gaps in Jongin's memory. Even if that Sehun remembers how rude they'd been to him, Jongin can guess that Sehun wouldn't care, would sit them down and ask them what was wrong with Jongin and why he felt he needed to be prescribed Adderall. Sehun was like that, Jongin had come to realize. He doesn't hold grudges. He doesn't let himself care that much about any one thing.

"What's on your mind," Kyungsoo asks over dinner.

Jongin would really like to stop thinking about Sehun. "Nothing. This is great, what is it?"

"Takeout," Kyungsoo admits. They eat in silence for the next few minutes, Jongin wondering whether he can ask Jinri's Sehun for tips on fooling Kyungsoo's Sehun into prescribing medication. Eventually, Kyungsoo puts his spoon down and coughs lightly. "You've been weird recently."

Jongin shrugs. "It's fine. I'm just still working on pulling myself together." It's a terrible excuse. Even Kyungsoo's been sleeping better, looking much more relaxed, less like the world's just collapsed. And while their relationship is still not what it once was, while they're still edging around the deep chasm of hurt, at least they're getting better about not falling into it accidentally all of the time.

Kyungsoo's always been strong, Jongin realizes. Not like himself. He gets up to help Kyungsoo with the dishes.

"Well," Kyungsoo says, grabbing Jongin's arm and burying his nose in Jongin's hair, "take your time then."

"That tickles."

"This? Do you want to see what tickling is really like--c'mere, you."

Jongin snickers and leans into Kyungsoo's arms. They wrestle, moving out of the kitchen towards the den, falling over each other onto the carpet. Kyungsoo's leg hooks over Jongin's body, hips flush against Jongin's torso, and it's the first time that they've been so close since Jinri's death. Jongin arches up into Kyungsoo, gently pressing himself closer, feeling his erection slide against Kyungsoo's tented pants.

"You're hard," he says softly, bringing a hand to stroke Kyungsoo deliberately through his trousers. Kyungsoo keens, and it's a deliciously dirty noise.

Jongin's missed that noise. His fingers find Kyungsoo's zipper, and he slowly works it down, sliding his hands underneath the waistband of Kyungsoo's underwear, past dark curls, down until he hits a silky soft, achingly hard, hot bit of skin.

"Found it," Jongin whispers teasingly as Kyungsoo moans again and tugs at Jongin's hair.

Jongin burrows into Kyungsoo's arms when they've finished, sated and languid, willing himself awake. Kyungsoo plays with his sweaty bangs.

"I was thinking of seeing Oh Sehun. Tomorrow, actually. About my sleeping problem."

Kyungsoo stiffens. "The neurologist? It's weird you bring him up, actually. I was reading the newspaper the other day, and apparently he killed himself."

Ice floods Jongin's veins, wiping out all traces of exhaustion. "What?"

“He overdosed. He was a druggie, apparently. The police found all sorts of things in his apartment: cocaine, ecstasy..." Kyungsoo trails off uncomfortably. "I wasn't going to mention it. I know you don't like hearing about these things."

"I wasn't a drug addict, Kyungsoo. I was an alcoholic. Big difference."

Kyungsoo just shrugs. But Jongin ignores him, focusing instead on the varying pieces of evidence that suddenly make too much sense: constantly dilated pupils, jittery hands, the all-consuming restlessness...all of them suddenly coherent parts of a larger problem.

Which, of course, he's too late in solving.

"Jongin? Are--what's wrong, then?"

"Nothing, I'm just." Fuck. Jongin's screwed up. He should have noticed--if anyone, it should have been him. He's the one spending time with Sehun, he's the one who knows what a drug addiction looks like. He travelled in those circles, he knew those people--knew what happened to them. In the days before Jongin found Kyungsoo, he was a part of them, however loosely related. And to know that Sehun was suffering just like him, and that Jongin hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even thought to notice, was terrifying.

Jongin feels guilty, dirty. He’s taken so much from Sehun. Sehun had given Kyungsoo back to him. And Jongin did absolutely nothing to help him in return. And now it’s too late.

Kyungsoo turns a page in his biography. Jongin looks up, looks past the blocky title into Kyungsoo’s unconcerned face, and realization dawns: Sehun’s given Kyungsoo back to him, but only here, only while Jongin sleeps. Which means it isn’t too late at all.

It's Christmas here, but Jongin's been awake for a day and a half now. It isn't Christmas back with Jinri, it's still the day before Christmas. Sehun is still alive there. Sehun will be alive for another thirty-six hours.

He looks at Kyungsoo--slides his hand along Kyungsoo's shoulders and cheeks. And Kyungsoo smiles in response. It's the kind of smile Jongin's grown up with--it reminds him of the millions of times Kyungsoo's looked at him like this, just the two of them, surrounded by a world suddenly losing all meaning and all relevance, melting away from that moment, consecrated in time. And Jongin feels his heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

"Let's go to bed," he says softly, closing his eyes and pressing his face into Kyungsoo's shoulders. He tries to strip all the inflection out of his voice, but Kyungsoo knows him too well for that.

There's a long pause, and Kyungsoo sighs, choosing to let Jongin keep his secrets. Jongin's never been so grateful. "Okay. Let's sleep. Should I make a cup of tea first?"

World enough and time, Jongin thinks. "One last cup of tea, then."

When he wakes up, Jongin reaches for his phone immediately and dials a familiar number. "Sehun?"

"--the fuck is this?"

"Kim Jongin. I'm sorry for calling so early--"

"I really don't think it is physically possible for you to be as sorry as you'll need to be for waking me up at three in the morning on an off day."

"--but," Jongin continues loudly, heart still pounding, "I need to see you tonight."

"It's Christmas Eve," Sehun says flatly. "I have plans."

Jongin's chest is thudding. "Yeah, well. Now you have different plans. You can clean the kitchen another time. Come out with me, Oh Sehun."

"Is this--"

"Just you and me. My daughter's with her grandmother for the entire week. I," Jongin swallows. He doesn't want to lie, not to Sehun. Sehun doesn't honestly deserve that. "I just want to get to know you a bit better."

"I don't understand."

"I just. We hang out all the time in the hospital, but you're always busy. So let's get something to eat. Or drink, if you don't want to eat."

After a moment, Sehun coughs gently. "Drinks sound fine," he mumbles. "Where should i meet you?"

That's too much leeway. Kyungsoo hadn't mentioned when Sehun had died--or even how, exactly. Jongin can't risk it. "I'll pick you up. Early. I have a surprise."

"A surprise?"

Jongin's mind races. "I need to tell you something."

"Is this about--"

"Sehun, just trust me. It's very important. Please."

"...what time are you picking me up?"

"Three. In the afternoon."

"That's really early for drinks."

"Please, Sehun."

"Fine. Okay. Yes. Three in the afternoon."

Jongin hangs up first, clinging to the phone, to the remnants of Sehun's voice. He's alive, Jongin thinks. Still alive. Which means Jongin has most of another day to make sure Oh Sehun is okay.

And for a moment, he wonders why he cares. Why it matters so much that Oh Sehun not do exactly what Jongin had tried to do in high school, in college. What Kyungsoo had saved him from.

There's a shuffling noise down the hall--most likely Jinri using the bathroom. Jongin curls into himself and closes his eyes. It's not that. It's not about saving Sehun. Sehun seems interesting, seems like he has a thousand stories he hasn't told anyone in years. Sehun seems lonely, and Jongin knows what loneliness is like, what desperate, deep, unending loneliness really means. It's forgetting how to speak to people because you spend so much time in your own head, it's your voice always coming out hoarse, it's simultaneously wanting to be alone and never wanting to be alone ever again.

It had been Kyungsoo who had saved Jongin. But it'd been the practice room that had changed him. The insecurities are still there, lurking under his skin, leaving ugly marks along his consciousness when he indulges in self deprecation, but dance drives it all away. Dance is about rhythm, about forgetting, about starting from the top every single time, regardless of how perfect the previous few routines had been. Dance is forgiveness, and dance is everything Jongin has ever made his own.

It's odd to admit, but it's really not about Kyungsoo in the least. Maybe that one time--that one drink, it had been Kyungsoo who had saved him. And Jongin has felt grateful for that, for the years that Kyungsoo had invested in him, but they've become partners over time. They were supposed to be partners. Fathers. Parents. Together, indefinitely, as equals.

Somehow, Jongin's never felt like he's stopped owing Kyungsoo everything.

The world feels very distant, but the blankets are warm. Jongin sets his alarm and sleeps until noon.

"So," Sehun says, answering the door in low-slung blue jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. "Sup."

"It's freezing out. You need to wear a coat."

Sehun glares at Jongin. "Are you my mother or something."

"Put on a coat, Sehun. It'd be really great if we could get through one afternoon together without visiting the hospital." It's not funny, but Sehun rolls his eyes exasperatedly anyway. Jongin counts that as a small victory and watches him rummage through a closet for something decently thick.

Sehun doesn't lock his door, and Jongin tries not to let it bother him. They walk out, carefully keeping an appropriate amount of space between their bodies. Sehun drags his feet. Jongin has to wait for him at the corner of sidewalks sometimes.

At first there's nothing to say. Jongin finds that all of the conversation points he'd prepared fall flat--Sehun hasn't seen a movie in theaters since Toy Story 3 came out, he doesn't follow any sports teams, and the only magazine he reads is the Economist. After a moment, he admits that he only keeps a copy on his desk for show and doesn't exactly get much further into it than the comic on the inside front cover.

The admission is one of the most personal tidbits Jongin's ever heard Sehun reveal. He relaxes into it. "I don't think I've ever read the Economist. Isn't it about, like, the economy?"

"Obviously. You're an idiot."

Jongin just manages to bite back, Kyungsoo thought so too. "Yeah well. I'm a dancer. You don't really need to be a genius mathematician to become a virtuoso ballet dancer."

Sehun cocks his head, almost like he knows what Jongin hasn't said and appreciates the effort. It's weird how transparent he is when Jongin knows what to look for. His hair falls into his eyes, he brushes it away, and Jongin feels his heart catch.

"You were right about the coat," Sehun says. "Thanks. Though I really do like the cold."

"It's. Yeah." Jongin coughs. "I thought we'd walk around for a bit. Some stores should still be open. And then there's a place I wanted to go."

"Did you say that you had something to tell me?"

"I lied," Jongin says firmly, "I just wanted to see you."

"I hate you," Sehun retorts without an ounce of malice. "I hate you so much."

"It was terribly effective, you have to admit."

They both walk a little too briskly, but sometimes Sehun stops to laugh at an animal, or examine a particularly odd pile of snow. Jongin finds himself laughing without meaning to, watching Sehun tumble over a sidewalk and lose his footing on sheets of ice. Sehun snorts and decidedly doesn't help when Jongin trips over a patch of frozen sidewalk himself.

Weirdly enough, they start to have fun. Sehun likes window shopping, peering through stores filled with tiny lights and gorgeous holiday displays. Jongin gets him a cheap, stained glass bauble when Sehun isn't looking. It isn't until Sehun takes it, cradling it between very thin fingers, that Jongin realizes Sehun probably doesn't even have a tree.

That doesn't seem to dampen Sehun's enthusiasm. Jongin wonders when Sehun last received a gift from someone, whether he'll put it in his office what it would look like, dangling from his lamp, colors glinting over his desk and walls. Jongin's been there so many times he can imagine it, can imagine Sehun watching it, and he finds himself smiling at the thought of Sehun finally having something of his inside that drab office.

They arrive at the bar around eight. The place is dark and fashionable, sleek floors and sharp corner. While it's expensive, Jongin has a bit of money to spare. They order drinks, Sehun laughs again, lines in his face softening, lips quirked upwards into a half-smile, and Jongin almost forgets that Sehun was supposed to die tonight, alone in his apartment. Almost.

"This was fun."

"It was," Jongin answers honestly, tilting his glass towards Sehun. "It really was. We should do this again."

He means it, weirdly enough. Days are longer when Jinri's at school and Kyungsoo is gone. Jongin's taken to filling his time with Sehun--but usually at the hospital, surrounded by sick people and the memory of everything Jongin's lost. And this place is better for Sehun, it relaxes him. There's a looseness about his shoulders Jongin's never seen before. There's an expression on his face.

It's really nice.

"There must have been something you wanted to say," Sehun insists. "Like. About."

"You mean Kyungsoo?"

Sehun's hand tightens around his glass. "Yeah. Him."

"We don't always need to talk about him."

"But you want someone to talk to. That's why you come and see me, right? It's not about the migraines or the memory problems you were having earlier this year, it's that. It's the same reason you keep talking about your dead partner like he's alive."

Jongin winces. "No. It has nothing--Sehun. Kyungsoo is still alive."

Sehun's face flattens. "Are you--"

"Just. Look, I know this sounds crazy, and I hadn't wanted to tell you, but just. Listen to me, okay?"

"But all that is fine. I can deal with that. It's just--the worst bit is the flip, Wherever I am, I end up there the next time I switch. It doesn't matter where I was the last time I flipped, and I have no idea what happened to me in the meantime." Jongin fingers his drink, scraping the salt off the edge of the glass. "One second I'm with a girl who doesn't even like me very much, and the next I'm with her father who would kill to bring her back. The fuck am I even supposed to do about that."

"Clearly you shouldn't emulate my workaholic coping mechanisms or you'll end up getting dragged to drink in empty bars on Christmas," Sehun says, lifting a glass in a mockery of a toast. "You're serious, aren't you. You're not pulling my leg?"

"About living in two universes? Yeah, I really am. Not that I'd know if I was making it up, but I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy."

"Huh. So what am I, in your other universe? Also a doctor? Is your family the only thing that's different?"

Jongin shutters up. "I--don't know. Why?"

"I'm curious. I never wanted to be a doctor. Was wondering if I found a way out of it in this other world of yours."

"I don't know," Jongin says a little too quickly. "I was a bit busy watching my dead husband cavort around town. I have no idea what happened to you. But--"

"But?"

"For what it's worth, you did become a doctor. You told me that Jinri had died. We--Kyungsoo and I came to see you a few times for consultations." You looked just as bad there as you do here. Bloodshot eyes, constant fidgeting, nosebleeds, deep scratches in your arms. Fuck. Why hasn't anyone noticed? "You're a good doctor. There as well."

Sehun shrugs stiffly, brushing off the compliment. "I guess it doesn't matter," he says with forced resignation. "Medicine is in my blood. My mother, father, paternal grandparents, sisters--all of them are doctors. Of course I was going to be a doctor."

"I didn't know that." The bar is noisy, music pumping through the speakers. Jongin has to lean in to hear Sehun talk, close enough that their knees brush. "Actually, I didn't even know you had siblings."

"There's a lot you don't know," Sehun admits. For a second his voice unravels. It's soft and uneasy and he sounds much younger than forty-two, much younger than the impenetrable neurologist behind the office desk that Jongin's been dealing with these last few weeks. He sounds almost childishly lost, Jongin thinks. Confused, alone, and very upset.

"You can tell me a little about yourself? I mean, I've basically just told you that I'm hallucinating waking up in a world where my husband isn't dead and my kid is instead. I'm not really sure how you could trump that."

"It might not be a hallucination. There are things--mathematical explanations, alternative universe hypotheses, physics--that could explain all of this."

"I read those Wikipedia articles. No one even believes in those things." And you're deflecting.

"No one respectable," Sehun allows.

Jongin hails the bartender. He's going to need more alcohol than this, he feels, to get through the night. Slowly his old tolerance has reawakened in him. His liver feels primed for the upcoming workout.

"Let me get this straight then. You believe me? You think this--all of this is real?"

"I think reality is subjective. Whatever world you're living in at the time is the real one, because it feels real." Sehun takes his glass and knocks most of the margarita back in one shot without batting an eyelid. "There's no point going crazy over it. Just be happy you get both your partner and your kid."

"Two people who want just each other. I'm on the wrong side of the line."

"So maybe you have to make a decision. Maybe," Sehun says, drawing a line on the bar with his finger, "look. Maybe you're being given the chance to hop over to whatever side you want more. Maybe you just have to choose--just have to go to sleep wanting to stay there badly enough."

Jongin remembers waking up next to Kyungsoo and having sex--desperate, needy, and angry--the way they hadn't fucked since they were newly married and constantly hyperaware of each other's bodies. Jongin remembers finally pinning Kyungsoo to the edge of the sofa with one hand, grabbing lube with the other, and slicking up them both generously before canting into him. Sex with Kyungsoo might have gotten less adventurous over time as their bodies became less and less flexible, but it was just as fulfilling as it'd always been. They'd grown used to themselves and each other and the way their bodies moved together into one unit.

But there was also Jinri, the beautiful little girl who was in love with a boy herself. She hadn't finished high school when she'd died--she hadn't even gotten into college. Kyungsoo had fretted over ordering brochures and saving for an SAT tutor to help her with the trickier math sections. Kyungsoo had wanted her to go to Yale or, failing that, his alma mater. Jongin wasn't particularly concerned about the place, but had wanted her to major in something more sensible than performing arts.

Jinri Jinri Jinri. What would have happened had some other family taken her? Some family with a more traditional nuclear structure, some people better equipped to deal with her mood swings. People who had read more books about adolescence than they had. People who might not have arranged for a trip into the city and gotten her killed.

"That's not fair," Jongin says eventually. The bar blurs in front of him. "It's not--how can I--how am I supposed to be the one to--"

Sehun slides a hand over Jongin's shoulderblades. The contact is electrifying--it's the most intimate Sehun's ever been with him. And once again, it's Sehun offering comfort, and Jongin relentlessly taking. "Well. If it makes you feel better, I don't believe it."

"It doesn't make me feel any better."

"I know. I don't--I can't say anything. I just don't know what there is to say." Sehun scrubs at his cheeks. "Look, I'm really not a therapist. I don't like talking to patients. I like sitting in my room and doing my job and coming home and--"

In the dark light, Sehun looks even more tired than usual. He has a beautiful face, Jongin realizes. It's a bit long and stern, but also incredibly honest when Sehun forgets to focus and steel away all emotion. It's the kind of face Jongin thinks he used to have when he would beg drinks off people at bars: dead eyes, a sallow face, thin lips. It's the kind of face Kyungsoo saved him from.

Instinct guides Jongin. Fuelled by liquid courage, he slides a hand up Sehun's cheek, thumb brushing against the line of Sehun's cheekbone. Sehun vibrates beneath him, shivering violently. Jongin moves closer, sliding a leg between one of Sehun's, kneecap brushing against the constricted fabric around Sehun's inner thigh.

"You're brilliant," he says, meaning it. His words feel unreal, like they're not his, like he's passing them down to their deserved recipient. "You're brilliant, Oh Sehun, and you deserve more than this."

Sehun takes a shaky breath, but doesn't move away. "More than?"

"Stop doing this to yourself. This isn't happiness. This isn't the way it works."

"Stop--"

Something clicks. Jongin had been at a bar, too drunk to focus, Kyungsoo's hands on his chin and cheek. Stop doing this to yourself.

It'd been the alcohol, then. This wasn't alcohol. This was worse, in a way. This was too easy to hide.

Sehun's entire body trembles underneath Jongin's fingers.

Kyungsoo had known how to talk Jongin out of the bar, into a cab, into Kyungsoo's warm apartment with a cup of tea and slice of toast. Jongin's apartment is filthy, and he's never had any of the right words, never been able to time anything other than a landing on a full note. Kyungsoo had had the benefit of years of friendship; Jongin has had weeks.

He presses Sehun's face to his chest and curls his arms around Sehun's head. "Shhhh," he whispers into Sehun's ear. "Let's. Let's get out of here."

"We didn't finish--"

"It doesn't matter." The alcohol doesn't matter. Jongin can't fall apart again--he doesn't have the time for that anymore. Kyungsoo put him together once. It'd be cruel to let his work go to waste.

Not everyone has the luxury of having a Do Kyungsoo. But everyone ought to.

They stumble out of the bar and into the cab the bartender had called, and Sehun gives his address to the driver.

And when they get back to Sehun's apartment, Sehun slowly unbuttons his shirt, Jongin unbuttons his, and traces fingers along the deep scratch marks on Sehun's torso, the bruises along his arms, the thin skin of his cheeks and his eyelids. They waddle into the bathroom, lights off, shedding clothes along the way. Jongin sucks at the juncture of Sehun's neck and shoulder and Sehun grinds into him, pausing to grab at a corner or wall for purchase.

Sehun shivers when he comes. Jongin holds him so he can't rip at his own skin, hands flush with Sehun's clammy palms, and then they do it again twenty minutes later, after Jongin's taken Sehun's socks off and sucked on each one of his toes.

It isn't until he's seconds away from total oblivion that he realizes that had he not saved Sehun, he might never have seen Kyungsoo again.

Jongin realizes that he hadn't factored in that possibility. That regardless, he had needed to save Sehun anyway.

Jongin wakes up with a headache. He forces his eyelids open, gummy and crusty with sleep, sees Kyungsoo drooling into their shared pillows, and screams.

"What the fuck," Kyungsoo says when he's done trying to muffle Jongin's mouth with a bit of their duvet. "What is wrong with you?"

"Nightmare." Jongin stumbles into the bathroom. His hands are shaking, and his face is pale.

He cheated on Kyungsoo.

"Oh my god," Jongin moans, sticking his head under the tap, "oh my god. That didn't happen, that couldn't have happened."

Kyungsoo's hands are shoved into his pants. "Oops," he says boyishly, leaning against the doorframe, "it definitely happened. You still sore or something?"

"Oh my god," Jongin says, staring at his reflection, water dripping down his face, onto his cheeks. His head pounds. He's hungover. "This isn't happening. I wouldn't have--"

"We could do it again?"

Jongin finds that he's paralyzed. A week ago--a day ago--he might have turned around and hooked fingers into Kyungsoo's sweatpants and whispered, yes, let's. But Jongin still feels the press of Sehun's ribs against his hands, the shaky way Sehun panted as Jongin worked him open with his fingers, the coconut alcohol at the back of his throat. Jongin heard Sehun talk about his family and medicine and take off his shirt to reveal deep marks along his chest, cuts no one's ever taken care of, bruises no one else has probably ever seen.

Water swirls down the drain, and droplets slip into Jongin's ears, muffling all sound. It's far too late to pretend nothing's happened. Jongin hasn't just cheated on Kyungsoo--he's found a part of himself he thought he'd buried in the past. He thought he'd changed so much since then, but watching Sehun stumble through the streets with a slowly burgeoning smile on his face reminds Jongin of everything that's still the same, the past he can never forget. Jongin might not be comprised only of his mistakes, but he also can't forget them when they were such an important part of his journey through adulthood. And he can't let someone else suffer through them.

Staying with Kyungsoo now would be abdicating responsibility. It would be lying. It would mean pretending that Sehun didn't mean anything, that Sehun and Jinri's world was just a delusion, a springboard into this one. It would be letting Jinri and Sehun die all over again.

There is something despicable about that that idea. Jongin wonders what he would have become had Kyungsoo simply given up on him in college, stopped following him around grabbing bottles out of his hands and forcing him into the dance studio after classes.

His stomach drops out. Kyungsoo's fingers find his waist, but there's absolutely no comfort in the gesture. He sticks his head back under the faucet before mumbling uselessly, "let's go back to bed."

Jongin wakes up with a headache. This time he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and doesn't freak out when Kyungsoo's leg isn't hooked over his hip as it had been three hours previously. His eyes are still gummy, still encrusted with discharge.

Light streams through the blinds in Sehun's bedroom, coating his sandy hair with flecks of morning. Jongin runs a hand through it before remembering exactly what he's doing.

Cheating. Sleeping with someone else while Kyungsoo is--

No, don't think about Kyungsoo.

He watches Sehun roll over, batting hands at the headboard of his bed, delightedly clawing at Jongin's side. Jongin makes a note to help Sehun trim his fingernails, eyes unconsciously tracing the deep marks all over his torso.

He needs to leave. Immediately. None of this is right--either way he's betraying someone, either way he's fucking up tremendously. And it doesn't matter that neither of them will ever know or even take him seriously--because every time he flips he kills one of them. The doctor or the husband.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Jongin leaves a note by the bedside table. It takes him twelve tries to come up with something that won't make Sehun think this was a mistake without simultaneously committing too much. When he's done, when he's closed the blinds and bedroom door and snuck out of the apartment, he finds a cafe that's fairly full and definitely anonymous, orders an extra large coffee, and thinks.

He can't go back yet, because going back means seeing Sehun again. And that isn't fair. Seeing Sehun means reliving last night--means taking ownership for whatever it is that they did together. Jongin can't pretend it was nothing--and in a sense he doesn't want to. Sehun reminds him too much of who he was before he'd met Kyungsoo and started to believe in himself and the power he had to craft his own future. Sehun is mired in self-hatred, and Jongin wants to bring him out of it. Because Sehun isn't like Jongin at all--he's smart and dedicated and all too transparent. Sehun pretends not to care so he won't have to care too much. And Jongin is pretty sure that the reason he refuses to learn his patients' names is to distance himself from them so he doesn't kill himself trying to save them.

Sehun is a much less selfish person than Jongin ever was.

No, Jongin can't see Sehun yet. Not when he'll just be using him to get back to Kyungsoo. That'd be ten thousand kinds of wrong. And Jongin likes Sehun--he likes Sehun a lot. He wants to see what Sehun will do with himself, what he could be like once he shakes off the ominous shadow of the drugs he's on. When he works to make himself happy, when he stops spending all of his time in the hospital or cleaning up his apartment.

Jongin knows what Kyungsoo's life is like. It's full of nine A.M. meetings and brief texts at lunch. It's a five digit salary he spends on a college fund. It's Jinri. And, to a much lesser extent, it's Jongin. But Sehun's life is a mystery--a blank slate, tabla rasa, one that can start filling up only in this world, in a place where he's alive and time moves forward linearly. It's almost unfair to take that away from him just for the chance of seeing Kyungsoo again for another few hours.

Taking out his cell phone, he pulls up the call record. He wipes it. And then he pulls up his inbox, wipes that, and finally, erases Sehun's number.

Are you sure you want to delete this contact?

Jongin doesn't trust himself not to go crawling back to Sehun's side when he feels lonely again, when Jinri's presence is too much, too terribly much to bear. He doesn't trust that Sehun won't become another easy way to escape.

He hits Yes.

Jinri comes home after Christmas. She's enjoyed staying with grandma, she says, shoving her boxes of presents in her room and bounding over to the couch. But she'd missed her dad.

"I missed you too."

"Liar. You were probably out with friends."

Jongin absolutely does not want to continue this line of conversation. "Something like that. But I still worried about how much you'd miss our tiny apartment when you had grandma's whole house to run around in."

"S'not tiny. It's," and here Jinri pauses delicately, "it's dirty."

"Papa's in charge of cleaning."

Jinri nods solemnly. "I know. You do grocery shopping and dish drying."

"Brat, you say that like that isn't difficult at all!"

And Jinri laughs. It's the first time she's laughed in front of him since the accident. Almost three months, Jongin realizes, for her. For him it's been more like half a year, bouncing between timelines and repeating entire chunks of time. She's started to open up a bit more. Sometimes she talks to Jongin likes she would to Kyungsoo, and sometimes she talks to Jongin like she would have had she and Jongin ever been closer. He likes the latter much more, and rewards her with small hugs and pats on the forehead when she remembers that he won't ever be her papa, but maybe he can be her father.

Jongin ruffles his hair. Dammit. Dammit. "You're right, Jinri. We should clean this place up. It's disgusting."

"Grandma says we probably have rats."

For all Jongin dislikes Kyungsoo's mother, this he can give her. "She's probably right."

The apartment hasn't been clean since that day. It feels almost like an admission to clean it: Kyungsoo is gone, Kyungsoo is never coming back, they need to move forward. There are traces of Kyungsoo in this filthy apartment, reminders of where he'd stepped last and what he'd last eaten. By putting everything away, Jongin knows he'll be destroying all of that.

Somehow, the thought doesn't disturb him as much as he suspected it would. Because Kyungsoo is still sort of alive. Because even if Kyungsoo can't come back here, Kyungsoo will always be there, on the edges of his subconscious, waiting for him to see Sehun and fall back asleep.

The paper towels drag through the dust. Jinri ruins a pair of sweatpants, and Jongin promises to buy her new ones. They squirt Windex at each other and Jongin is sure he swallows too much Ajax, but it's fun. Relaxing. An uneasy kind, like a shunt relieving pressure, but nice nevertheless. Jongin hasn't realized how he's been mired in guilt these past few days.

Even worse, he hadn't realized how he was cheating Jinri, how little time he'd been spending with her.

She was his daughter too, after all. Sehun, Jinri--both of them depended on him in a way Kyungsoo never had and probably never would.

Jongin pushes that uncomfortable thought to the back of his head.

It takes them weeks to fight through the layers of grime, dirt, spilled food, and dust, especially since Jinri goes to school in the morning and Jongin forces himself to visit the studio. He teaches classes. Someone asks him about Jinri's options for college, and he looks into the SAT tutors Kyungsoo had researched before his death.

He doesn't visit Sehun. He thinks of Kyungsoo and at night, he imagines fucking him, he imagines dancing with him, he imagines going to karaoke and dinner and spilling milkshakes in Kyungsoo's lap entirely accidentally and visiting amusement parks and ditching work to sleep in late. He imagines meeting Kyungsoo all over again, that first day of high school, and warning him to stay away, not to fall in love with him. He imagines meeting Kyungsoo and telling him to abandon that terrible cowlick of his. He imagines dating him from the very beginning, or never at all.

Weirdly enough, they're all good dreams. He wakes up well-rested, calm, and gets out of bed all on his own every morning. The apartment is always warm in the winter. Jinri is always annoyed that he takes so much time to get ready and threatens to find someone else to take her to school.

Sehun calls a few times. Jongin never saves his number. They don't talk about Kyungsoo at all, and Jongin doesn't ask to see Sehun. Instead he asks questions about Sehun's health, his hands, whether he's been careful recently, and Sehun tells him a story about college and expectations he didn't want to deal with, and a very peppy kid named Park Chanyeol who taught him how to induce artificial happiness.

And slowly, time begins to heal.

In February, the weather takes a turn for the worse. They're snowed in one Monday, and Jongin makes pancakes while Jinri watches television. Kyungsoo never would have let them eat in the living room, but Jongin doesn't care, just puts his feet up and watches cartoons, gesturing wildly whenever anything inappropriate happens and asking whether Jinri really should be allowed to see any of this.

"I'm turning seventeen," she says with a huff. Jongin rolls his eyes and sticks his foot in her face, changing the channel to one showing a rerun of Lilo & Stitch.

"That doesn't mean anything. You're too young for this stuff."

"Oh? What were you busy with at my age, then?"

Alcohol and clubs and the occasional illegal substance. Whoops. "I don't remember being your age," Jongin says loftily. "I have always been old. And anyway, I'm just looking out for you."

"So I end up with a steady salaried position somewhere? Unlike you?"

"Exactly," Jongin nods solemnly, gently spilling maple syrup onto his lap. "Oh dammit."

"Incidentally," Jinri says, kicking against the couch, "I have a date for Valentine's Day, so I'm going to be home late."

"Excuse me. I couldn't have heard you correctly. A date?"

"Almost seventeen," Jinri reminds him. "Can I have another pancake?"

"A date." Jongin wonders what Kyungsoo would say about this. His hands find his phone almost automatically, dialing through to the hospital and plugging in Sehun's extension. Jinri gets up to serve herself, Jongin hears Sehun answer the phone.

"Jongin?"

Jongin's chest hurts. Sehun's voice sounds as soft as it had on Christmas. "Hey, you."

"Do you need to see me? I--I don't have to work today. I can leave."

Jongin watches Jinri lop another bit of batter into the frypan, toes tapping at the tile floor to some tune she's probably humming. Her hair is getting long--almost time to suggest she gets it cut, Jongin thinks. It clogs up the bathtub and he hates having to clean it up.

"Jongin?"

And Jongin thinks of Sehun and his long, thin fingers. He'd probably be excellent at cleaning hair out of bathtubs. Jongin would insist he wear gloves, though. "No," he says finally. "I wanted to ask you what you thought about seventeen-year-olds going on Valentines Day dates."

"Excuse me?"

"Is that Doctor Oh?" Jinri grins. "Tell him you're being curmudgeonly. That's an SAT word."

"Apparently she's been studying. Jinri. And she wants to go on a date. I figured I needed a second opinion."

"From me." But Sehun sounds bemused, not angry.

"From you."

"Tell her 'absolutely yes, and please don't come home before eleven because I'm taking Jongin out for dinner.'"

"I heard that," Jinri calls. "Thank you, Doctor Oh!"

"You're incorrigible," Jongin retorts. "That's also an SAT word."

Jinri sticks out her tongue and then remembers the pancakes, hopping across the kitchen to shut off the flame. Sehun laughs on the other end of the phone.

"I'll call you later. It was good to hear from you."

"You too." Jongin hangs up, butterflies in his stomach. A date with Oh Sehun. Maybe not really a date--it's much too early for that--but a get-together. An evening where it's just the two of them. Without Kyungsoo.

Jinri locks herself in the bathroom and starts running the shower. The cartoon is still running--she hasn't bothered shutting it off. Typical.

"This is my family," Stitch says. "I found it all on my own. It is little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good."

He changes the channel.

Jongin decides that the best kind of get-together would be one spent at home. So Sehun brings over takeout--Chinese, and it's awful and greasy but Jongin doesn't even care--and a DVD. He looks better. Not great, but his cheeks aren't as convex as they had been, and his eyes are slightly brighter. His fingers still shake when he hands over the bag of chopsticks and plastic forks, and there are traces of blood around the edges of his nostrils, but he smiles.

He eats a bit of dinner. Jongin tries not to force the issue. They make small talk--what life's been like recently at the hospital, how much nicer this place looks when it's cleaned up, how Jinri's enjoying school.

"The nurses miss you," Sehun says. "They liked you hanging around."

"They never told me that, just asked me to stop stalking you. Want a fortune cookie?"

"No thanks, they taste like cardboard."

They do, but Jongin wants to see what's inside his. He cracks open the cookie, pulls out the sheet of paper, and reads: "Your lucky color is pink."

Sehun rolls his eyes and grabs another eggroll. "See, ridiculous."

"You never know. This might come in handy."

When they're finished eating, Sehun pops the DVD into the console and joins Jongin on the couch, wrapping his arms around himself. Jongin contemplates offering him a blanket, but instead he leans in and whispers, "you cold?"

"Not now."

"You really should speak to someone."

The movie starts. It's a mystery film. Jongin doesn't like mysteries. He watches Sehun instead, follows the curve of his ear, the line of his neck, the prominent bones of his shoulder and collarbone, visible through his jumper.

"I know, I'll take care of it," Sehun says finally.

"Hmm?"

"I've wanted to get clean for a long time. And I will. I promise."

"I'm just worried."

"I don't want you to worry. I'm okay."

"I know," Jongin says. He does. Sehun really will be okay. And so will Jongin. "We should hang out more often, then. Jinri seems to like you a lot. Sorry I haven't called."

"And it's okay? Even if we don't talk about--even if--"

Jongin slides a hand over Sehun's. "I think it's over," Jongin says slowly. "I think Kyungsoo wouldn't have liked our lives to go to hell. He would have wanted us to be happy."

"I still don't like hearing his name," Sehun admits. "You're not having those dreams anymore?"

They weren't dreams. Jongin knows they weren't. They'd been far too real and cold for that. "I'm not."

"Good." Sehun leans back and sighs. "This movie is awful."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Sehun sleeps over that night. He takes the couch, and Jongin passes him a blanket and sheets. Jinri tiptoes around him when she gets in.

"He was tired," Jongin whispers, pressing a finger to his lips. "Otherwise I would have warned you. How was your date?"

"Minho eats his burgers with a knife and fork," she whines. "It was ridiculous."

Jongin snickers and ruffles her hair. "You don't mind Sehun staying here?"

"He's sleeping in the living room right? Why would I care."

"Don't walk to the bathroom in just your underwear tomorrow morning. Put on clothes."

Jinri eyes Jongin oddly. "I don't think Doctor Oh is straight," she says. "Just in case you were concerned."

Jongin chokes. "That's really none of your business." He tangles his fingers in her hair, and they share another giggle before Jinri skips off into her bedroom and leaves Jongin all alone.

Eventually, Jongin makes his way into the back bedroom. It's a long walk that feels endless. He gets ready for bed, arming himself with his favorite pajamas, ones Kyungsoo had bought him on their honeymoon, and slowly relaxes into the plush of his mattress.

It takes Jongin a while to fall asleep that night. He wonders how much Jinri knows, how much he's prepared for her to know. It's only February. Kyungsoo died in September. They have a long way to go before either of them are entirely okay with that, but they're both getting there. Slowly, but surely.

Jongin doesn't particularly remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up, leisurely surfacing from some odd, hazy dream, he somehow senses that he shouldn't open his eyes. After a moment, he figures out where he is. Kyungsoo's arms are so familiar, Jongin thinks he could recognize them with only the slightest brush against his body.

"Kyungsoo," he whispers, lids still shut. He turns towards him, and immediately a hand moves to cover Jongin's eyes.

"Don't say anything," Kyungsoo says softly. "Just listen to me for a minute."

Kyungsoo's hand is heavy and warm and terribly real. Jongin feels his resolve begin to crack. He loves that hand, loves holding it, loves kissing it, loves when it's inside of him. His pajamas itch. "Kyungsoo."

"You've done really well. You're brilliant, Jongin. And you deserve more than this."

"More than--"

"Jinri is really lucky to have you. And Sehun as well. You've done really well with them. But you can stay here, if you want. I can find a way for you to stay here. So everything will be easier."

Jongin's mind doesn't seem to be working properly. He's processing everything exceedingly slowly, and he wants to ask million questions--what is Kyungsoo even talking about, how could he know?--but something's tugging at his memory, something warm and strong and important. For once, there isn't time to ask anything. He tries to calm the panic in his stomach.

The apartment is cold. Jongin clings to the blankets. Jinri likes it five degrees warmer.

Sehun does too.

Sehun. Still sleeping on the couch. And Jinri is probably wandering around the apartment in her underwear even if Jongin had expressly asked her not to. Not like Sehun would say anything--he's far too polite for that.

Kyungsoo's hand is still over his eyes. Jongin tries to smile but something clogs up in his throat. It's resolve. It's terrible and painful and stings his nose.

There's no time. He has a choice to make.

"I love you," he whispers. "And I'm so sorry. But they need me more. They always have."

Kyungsoo lets out a deep breath and kisses Jongin on his temple, on his cheek, and finally on his lips. Kyungsoo's mouth is soft and gentle. Jongin trembles.

"I know. They do."

"Kyungsoo."

"It's your decision."

"That's so not fair."

Kyungsoo laughs. "It's only unfair because you're a really good person, because you won't let them muddle through time without you."

Jongin knows what it's like to have no one, to not believe in himself, to need reassurance, to find Kyungsoo, to find acceptance, to find direction. Jongin knows what it means to have a family. It's something neither Sehun nor Jinri have right now, and it's something he can give both of them, maybe. In time.

"I couldn't."

"I know." Kyungsoo breathes in deeply, and when he opens his mouth next, his voice is thick with hesitation. "This is it, Jongin. Keep doing what you do best. Dancing, breaking hearts--"

"Kyungsoo."

"I'm kidding. Keep the kitchen clean. I hate it when you don't take out the garbage every morning--it smells."

It's hard to compress twenty-five years into a single sentence. Somehow, Kyungsoo's managed to do it.

"I will."

There's another light brush of lips against Jongin's forehead, and then the pressure disappears entirely. He thinks he hears I love you one last time, but it's so similar to the time Kyungsoo had said it in the eleventh grade that he can't decide whether it's something he's heard or imagined, whether it's a memory or an echo.

He keeps his eyes shut until it's gone, until he feels warm again, until he hears feet scampering across the hallway. Until all of the sterile coldness of Kyungsoo's world has vanished. He shuts his eyes so fiercely his forehead begins to ache, and even then, knowing he's back in his own king-sized bed all alone is almost too much to handle. Understanding that he'll never wake up with with Kyungsoo again is overwhelming, and he thinks he could almost drown in the knowledge.

He brushes tears away from his cheeks. And then there's a knock at his door. "Dad, you up yet?"

"Shh, I'll take you to school if he isn't. He was pretty tired yesterday."

Sehun's voice. Sehun and Jinri, waiting for him to get up. To continue on with life. To take Jinri to school, to go to work, to send Sehun a text and a few pairs of plastic gloves. To take out the trash.

So many things to do.

Jongin takes three deep breaths, clenches his fists, and opens his eyes.

"I'm up," he calls. "I'm getting up."