Work Text:
He hadn't been to this place in a while, something close to a year if he remembered the counter he had on his phone. Standing here listening to the waves, and feeling the breeze on his skin, it was nice, calming, peaceful. This place could never really be the same though, not after everything that happened here.
“It's pretty up here,” someone said from behind him.
Hongjoong spun around and nodded to Seonghwa, turning back to the ocean.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked, sure that his voice was lost to the waves.
“San told me about this place a while ago,” he said simply and settled on the bannister next to him.
San had told him. Interesting.
“Have you been up here before?” Seonghwa asked, looking at him so gently Hongjoong turned away.
“Yea,” he admitted, “I used to come up here all the time actually.” He let his finger trace the ledge of the concrete barrier, fingers following the faint but familiar stains in the rock.
“Used to?”
“Yea I haven't been back for a really long while actually.”
“Why?” he said carefully, then amended with, “if you don't mind me asking that is.”
Hongjoong pursed his lips and stared down at his arms for a moment, the twisting feeling in his gut present and aggressive as he looked at the slight peak of skin from under his sleeves. Seonghwa still needed an answer, he remembered, so he shrugged and looked up at the horizon, “Truthfully?” he said to no one, “because I don't wanna jump anymore.”
There was silence between them for a while. Hongjoong was happy to let his mind trail itself back down familiar paths, back through the memory of hands in his and nights spent chatting with the ocean carrying their voices away.
“I-” Seonghwa tried, “I'm sorry, I didn't know.”
Hongjoong made a dismissive gesture, “it's fine, I never told you.”
They sat in silence for a while, not uncomfortable but he knew Seonghwa’s mind was whirring faster than he could reasonably keep up.
“Do you wanna hear the story?” He asked and turned to the man next to him that felt like lemongrass and sleep.
“If you’ll be okay.”
“It’s been long enough now, the memories don't bother me much anymore.”
“Then I’ll be here to listen.” He smiled at Hongjoong, sweet like peaches and Hongjoong smiled sweetly back. ‘Am I allowed to look at him like that?’ he thought suddenly of the question that had been plaguing him for days, his heart supplied the same answer as always ‘how could it be wrong when he's just so nice to look at.’
“I think about 5 years ago now, I fell into a bad cycle,” he said and looked back to the ocean, this time at the swirling water crashing against the cliffs edge
Hongjoong had wandered up here while looking for a place to get away from his family, from his friends, from everything around him. The sound of the waves against the rocks helped to sooth his mind. It quieted his thoughts and eased the high strung tension in his chest.
Nothing had even happened, it was just a bad day. He woke up feeling wrong. He went through his daily motions for the third month in a row. Nothing felt right to him, nothing had substance. There was no feeling behind everything, his facial expressions seemed more preprogrammed than genuine. In the simplest way he could articulate it was that he felt like an amalgamation of equations that spit out an answer based on a variable.
The ocean helped though.
It felt nice to not have the mind numbing static that he’s been hearing for the past few months, it was nice to not have to suppress the itch under his skin for once.
It was nice.
He stayed until the sun started setting.
He came back the following day.
And the next.
And the next.
None of the visits made him feel better, but they were a nice place to feel like he didn't exist for a while.
He met her at the beginning of summer.
He had taken to spending his evenings in the little overlook, bidding his parents goodbye, telling them that he was going to the ocean and getting the usual dismissive, ‘don't die, it's a hassle to plan a funeral’ response he stopped taking as a joke anymore.
She was sitting on the ledge of the divider, head tilted up to the wind and smiling sweetly at the sky.
“It's dangerous to be sitting up there,” he called out of a sense of obligation.
She turned to him with a shocked look but smiled at him, looking at his eyes like she saw something in them.
“It's really peaceful up here isn't it?” She asked in return, “makes your mind go quiet for just a moment, that's why you're here right? To make your mind quiet for once?”
Hongjoong stood shocked for a moment but he nodded and offered her a smile, “yea, pretty much.”
She patted the spot next to her and after a bit of maneuvering he hopped up and joined her. They talked until the sun set and they both needed to go. Over the days of summer they met up more and more, they exchanged names, schools, jokes, you name it. Hongjoong felt okay with her, not good, but he finally found someone who had the same feeling as the ocean.
After a particularly bad day, he went to their little spot earlier than usual. This was the first time he cried here. He sank to his knees and cried. He was in so much pain, it hurt so much that he wanted it to stop. He wanted the pain to stop even for a little while.
“Bad day?” She asked him gently, placing a hand on his shoulder and joining him on the floor, “me too,” she chuckled and leaned into his side, “but now we can be sad together right?”
So they were sad together.
They spent the entire summer there, together, sometimes talking, sometimes just looking out at the ocean.
It was nice.
“I think I’m gonna be going away soo,” she said one day near the end of their little meeting.
“Oh yea?” he asked with only slightly forced concern, “where to?”
She shrugged and looked solemnly over at the ocean again, down towards the rocks in thought, “I don't know, I just know that it’ll be soon, I don't have details.”
The following week he went to their spot much earlier than usual, needing to deal with the churning in his stomach. The pain was near unbearable now, even the ocean could only do so much for him now.
He walked up and saw her in a beautiful white flowing dress standing on the edge of the barrier and staring up at the sky, just like the first day they met. She looked angelic. He didn't call out to her, knowing that it wouldn't be right.
She stood there for a moment before she turned around to him. Their eyes met and she smiled, her beautiful hair framing her face as the wind caressed it.
“It’s time for me to go, Joongie.”
Suddenly he understood what she meant. He understood where she was going and deep down he knew why she had to leave.
“There’s no way I can get you to reconsider?” he asked, voice so aggressively real that it shocked them both, but she smiled and shook her head, “afraid not,” she said to him, “there is little else here for me, and besides, one way or another it was gonna happen.”
He walked over to her and looked up at her figure one last time as tears welled in his eyes. He didn't want her to go, he didn't want to be alone again.
“Please don't go,” he begged her, “please I don't want to be alone again.”
“You won't be, I’ll always be here for Joongie,” she sniffled a little, “but make me a promise okay?” She bent down into a squat and held out her pinky, “promise me you’ll never end up on this ledge okay? You got that fire in your heart, it's not gone like mine, please chase it,” she said shakily, “for me.”
Hongjoong reached out and linked their pinkies together, “stay and you can see me do it.”
“I’ll be watching you, always,” she released his hand and stood up again, “I don't want you to see this, why don't you turn around and count down from twenty?”
“You don't have to do this.”
“I do,” she insisted, voice so calm and sweet as the wind around them, “please turn around, I'm gonna do it either way, I don't want to make you see this.”
With all the fight he had left in him, he turned around and started crying again, mentally counting down as he grieved. He didn't get to finish counting when he turned around to call out one last goodbye and all he saw was a small pool of dripping red on the ledge and her shoes tucked to a corner. He ran to the edge and looked down, screaming out at her body on the rocks below.
He dialled for the emergency services but he knew they weren't going to arrive in time, she was long gone. He took her shoes and her letter and read it as he cried over her, as he grieved for a girl he knew so well yet not at all, he kept the necklace she left behind and made sure to keep the note she left behind for him like she said.
After her death he went back to nothing. Back to empty. Back to hopeless husk.
He hadn't noticed that he had grown to feel better around her, his sadness didn't permeate his day.
His parents were advised to put him in counselling for what he had seen but they didn't follow through with it, he went for a few sessions of grief counselling before they pulled him out of it.
He went on in a limbo for years, always coming back to that spot to look over the edge. Sometimes he would sit on the barrier and look down at the rocks. He would trace over the bloodstained concrete. Other times he would stand on the edge and look down at the rocks, feeling gravity pulling and weighing him down, the ocean calling for him to join her.
He never jumped, never had the guts.
“Eventually I moved to Seoul, and, well, you know what happens after,” he shrugged.
“I’m…” Seonghwa had tears in his eyes and Hongjoong reached out to wipe them away, “I don't know what to say.”
“You don't need to say anything,” he smiled and rubbed his thumb over his cheekbone, “I got help for it all, had to stop once we started training but I’m okay now.”
Seonghwa nodded and pulled him in for a hug.
Hongjoong hugged him back and smiled.
They parted after a long moment and Hongjoong took time to stare at him, ‘you would find him in a polaroid picture’ he had described Seonghwa to maddox once, ‘I bet he tastes like birthday cake, and storytime, and fall’ and none of that had ever been truer than right then and there.
Seonghwa leaned down and pressed their forehead together, still silently crying, “I’m glad you stayed,” he whispered, “I’m glad you kept your promise.”
Hongjoong grabbed his cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss. It was salty with tears and nothing more than a press of lips together but all he could think was ‘he tastes like apple juice and peach’ and ‘he smells like lemongrass and sleep’.
They pulled away and Seonghwa smiled at him and hit him lightly on the shoulder, “I didn't wanna do that right now,” he laughed.
“You were gonna kiss me?”
“Yea, I was, but after all you said I was gonna wait.”
Hongjoong laughed and held his hands tightly, “I wouldn't mind making new memories here,” he admitted and ignored the twinge in his chest.
“Wherever she is, I know she’s proud of you for keeping her promise.”
Hongjoong nodded and looked out over the ledge again. If he looked hard enough, he could see her standing amidst the rocks and between the foam, looking up and smiling.
“Let's go back home,” he said with a smile.
“How about dinner first?”
“Yea…Dinner sounds great.”
As they were leaving Hongjoong took one look behind him. The clouds at that angle formed a pretty good approximation of her on the day she jumped.
He nodded to her and turned around to get in the car.
He’s never been happier that he kept that promise.