Chapter Text
the next week, jisung’s brother is out of the house to spend the weekend at his girlfriend’s house. jisung is tasked with taking care of his brother’s frog on such short notice and he’d be fine with it if it weren’t for the fact that jisung’s brother suddenly calls to say that he’s going to be staying for another 2 weeks.
jisung gets by. he takes care of the frog as best he can and he sorely misses his brother because he doesn’t like being home with just his mother. all he can do is hold out and wait for his brother to come home so he has someone to hang out with. chan and changbin are too swamped in work stuff to have much time to spend with jisung, so it’s a few weeks of jisung, the frog, and an endless stream of youtube videos for a while.
jisung’s brother keeps texting the family group chat the whole time he’s gone. he shows pretty pictures of the mountains he’s been exploring and the cats he meets and the giant frog he finds in a river. and jisung is pleased to see his brother having a good.
that is, until his brother sends a link to an apartment with the message that he and his girlfriend are going to start apartment hunting together.
jisung is happy for his brother, truly. it’s nice that he’s got such a good relationship that he wants to move in with his girlfriend and that he wants to get away from their shitty neighborhood. but jisung is also devastated by the news, because it means his one Person in his entire family is no longer going to be there to tide him through the moments where he’s not with chan, changbin, or seungmin.
he tries to reason with himself that apartment hunting takes a long time, and that his brother isn’t going to be going anywhere for a while.
his reasoning fails pretty quickly when jisung and his mother go to pick jisung’s brother up from the girlfriend’s place. when jisung’s brother apologizes for being late with a big smile on his face and breaks the news that on the drive over, he’d gotten the call. the call saying that he and his girlfriend have closed on the apartment and all they have left to do is sign the lease before they can move in.
jisung spends the 3 hour car ride trying to hold back tears the entire time. his chest is hot and constricted and his eyes won’t stop burning and grief hits him like a tidal wave over and over and over again because jisung is losing the one family member who gives a fuck about him.
his brother is staying for another month. jisung can handle that, he supposes. it eases the pain of this already sudden goodbye.
he finds it very difficult to cope with the news. jisung can’t help it. for the rest of the time his brother lives with them, jisung will be going into his room late at night while everyone’s asleep. and he’ll see his brother’s slides in the hall, right in front of the room across from jisung’s. and jisung imagines those slides no longer being there because pretty soon, his brother won’t be here, either. and jisung cries.
they plan a few get-togethers and special dinners and days between jisung and his brother so they can get the full goodbye. and they’re going to do a road trip together to his brother’s new place, where they’ll have dinner and stay the night so jisung can prolong his goodbye and make a good memory on the way.
jisung and his brother spend so much time together. even more so when jisung’s brother finds a stray kitten and takes it in as his own. and they spend so much time bonding over the cute little guy and getting him assimilated to his new home.
jisung goes out to walk bbama a few days before they’re set to leave for the road trip. there are a bunch of boxes stacked outside their door. jisung thinks nothing of it.
jisung is outside walking bbama when his mother comes outside and asks jisung:
“do you know why all these boxes are out here?”
jisung feels fronted by the question.
“yeah, why wouldn’t i?”
he may have been kept semi out of the loop, but jisung knows that they’re going to drive his brother to his new apartment in a few days. and the boxes are probably just them loading up the car early to lessen the amount of preparation on the day itself.
“your brother said he didn’t tell you,” his mom says.
“tell me what?”
“that his girlfriend’s parents texted and told him they were going to pick him up and take him there today so he can surprise his girlfriend. they’re on their way right now.”
jisung’s whole word stops on its axis. already there are tears gathering in his eyes and his breath feels really thick and he can feel himself start to shake a little bit.
there’s no way, right? there’s no way these people decided to come snatch his brother up out of his life within a few hours. not without notice or even asking jisung’s brother if that’s what he wanted in the first place.
jisung was supposed to get his road trip with his brother, his mom, and the cat. he was supposed to slowly make his peace with it on the 2 hour drive up to his brother’s new place. he was supposed to stay the night either in a hotel nearby or in his brother’s new apartment and his brother was going to make dinner for them and jisung would get to see him for half of the next day before he and his mom left.
jisung was supposed to get to say goodbye , goddamn it and he was supposed to be allowed to make this a good memory so he wouldn’t be absolutely shattered.
and they’re just going to, what, take it all away from him because they’re selfish and want to give their daughter a surprise? without asking the other family if they had any plans or if his brother was even ready to leave yet?
they had plans to go on a walk later that afternoon. they were going to go to a cafe tomorrow. jisung and his brother had a special dinner that they were going to make tonight. they were supposed to get to say goodbye slowly and have last memories together.
he spends the rest of the walk with bbama desperately trying not to burst into tears, but he’s anxious and incredibly upset. he’s quivering and he gets the stomach ache he only gets when he’s too upset to function because of the anxiety.
he comes in eventually with the intent to hide or see his brother a little more before he’s taken away from him. but he’s quickly swept into helping his brother pack and trying to distract the cat so he doesn’t escape or get anxious. and suddenly the girlfriend’s parents are pulling up to their apartment building and everybody’s rushing to help jisung’s brother pack that extra little bit more.
jisung is trying his goddamn best to hold it together, but he has to walk away and blink hard and bite the insides of his cheeks about 8 times so he doesn’t wind up crying.
all of a sudden, jisung is helping get the cat in the carrier. and he’s helping his brother cram things into the car. and then all at once, the car pulls away and jisung’s brother is pretty much out of his life save for 2 holidays a year.
and jisung didn’t even say goodbye because he knew if he opened his mouth, he’d cry.
jisung goes into the house and hops into the shower and cries so hard he can’t breathe for nearly an hour. he bursts into tears intermittently throughout the evening, doing his best to conceal it while his mom’s awake.
once she’s asleep, jisung spends the entire night crying. almost non-stop. so much it makes his chest hurt so bad he feels like he can’t force a breath in. and his cheeks hurt because of how hard he cries and his skin is rubbed raw from the sheer amount of tears. his throat hurts and his nose won’t stop bleeding because he’s been crying so hard. and he feels like he’s dying every time he breathes because his one Person in his entire family is now someone he’s only going to see twice a year.
he’s grieving. in such a way that he’s only ever felt when someone in his life has died. he feels like he’s being ripped apart and he feels so empty but so full of despair and tears and he can feel the giant empty spot in his life growing larger the more he thinks about how many things he’s losing now that his brother is no longer going to be living with them.
all jisung does for the next week is cry. he is so paralyzed with the grief that all he can do is think about his brother not living with him anymore and all of the things he’ll never be able to do with his brother again, and he cries so hard his nose bleeds and his chest hurts and he gets a migraine.