Work Text:
(1)
“What are you doing in here?” Asked a stern voice from somewhere in the dark corner of the art room. Sehun gasped and nearly knocked the jar containing dried and hardened brushes on the dusty table.
“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologised, “I know that entry to this old block is unauthorised, but the boards to the windows have been removed by vandals…,” he began to explain.
He heard a rustle of fabric before a figure appeared with what looked like a sheet of dust cover clumsily draped on his body, akin to a toga.
The racing of his heartbeat was so loud that he could hear them ringing in his ears. The unexpected beauty of the man was shocking, to put it mildly. If only he could order his heart to hush the fuck now.
“Have they now?” The man queried with a mischievous glint.
“Excuse me?”
“The boarded-up windows, the vandals, blah, blah, blah,” he clarified disinterestedly, omitting the fact that Sehun had trespassed.
“Yes,” Sehun whispered his reply, unable to tear his gaze from those eyes.
“I’m Jongdae. Welcome to my hideout, Sehun.”
“What–? How–?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jongdae teased, a playful smirk accompanying his reply.
(2)
“Don’t say it,” Jongdae warned his brother who was wearing that sorry excuse of a gauzy shirt that did nothing to hide his beautifully sculpted torso. Jongin rolled his eyes.
“I know you’re going to say ‘I told you!’,” Jongdae pointed at him.
“I told you. There, I said it,” Jongin sighed as he examined the bump on Sehun’s forehead that might turn into a nasty bruise tomorrow. The guy was out cold but thankfully he was still breathing.
Jongin’s finger traced Sehun’s side profile with obvious awe. “He’s like a piece of art,” he observed.
“Yeah? What are we then?”
“We are the literal embodiment of art itself,” Jongin answered smugly, blowing a kiss which Jongdae promptly and annoyingly swatted.
“His body will become stiff as a board when he wakes up. We’ll have to move him.”
Jongin pondered, racking his brain at what Jongdae had just suggested. The room had no suitable place to lie down. While there were some 3-legged wooden stools around, they couldn’t possibly fit the tall man.
“I’ll check his pockets.”
(3)
Jongin found a set of keys, one of which was a key fob with a car brand logo.
“Bingo!” He dangled the keys as a signal for Jongdae to grab them. “Why don’t you find his ride and we’ll plan the rest thereafter?”
10 minutes had passed before Jongdae returned to the art room. Jongin raised his brows, expecting an explanation.
“You’ll see,” was what Jongdae offered as a reply in lieu of one.
When they arrived in front of a battered car with Sehun’s arms on their shoulder because let’s admit it, deadweight was something not to be trifled with, Jongin had his answer.
“He’s living in his car?”
Jongdae had somehow cleared the passenger’s seat and reclined it to an acceptable angle considering the storage boxes it was pressing on its back.
Burrs of passing cars filled the silence. Jongdae’s eyes followed the headlights to make sure none of them was curious enough to stop. Jongin stretched in the back seat as far as the space allowed.
A few hours later, when condensation began to form on the windows, Sehun stirred from his sleep.
(4)
“I hate winter,” Sehun decided within the murmurs of condolences from visitors and mourners in the adjacent room. He sat alone, daring not to look at his mother’s portrait on the altar that was surrounded by white chrysanthemums. As if by doing so, he would acknowledge her passing.
Apart from the funeral home’s staff, no one paid him a visit.
“It’s fine, isn’t it, mum?” He whispered. “I’m fine,” he assured the empty room.
In the months preceding her being finally admitted to the hospital, they had planned the eventualities. The selling of their house in the settlement of crippling debts inherited from his late father, the selection of things to keep which includes the car that his mother bought when he was in high school, and her final request to scatter her ashes in the sea.
“I don’t want to be kept in a columbarium,” she rejected the pamphlets that Sehun had sneaked in between the documents they were referring to. “Just keep the happiest memories in your heart. It’s all that matters,” she pleaded.
Unspoken apologies lingered on the tip of her tongue. Sehun squeezed her bony hands and nodded his agreement to prevent her from seeking forgiveness.
(5)
After submitting his withdrawal application from the university, he drove a little over 2 hours to Jebudo to fulfil the promise. A local fisherman then took him a few kilometres off the coastal water with the red lighthouse as a guide so that in the future, he will just have to offer his prayers from the iconic landmark.
“Farewell mother,” Sehun held his emotions in check whilst on the boat, however, lost the battle as soon as he sank into the seat. He thought of how bleak the outcome was for him. He wondered how little prospect for a drop-out, and how overwhelmingly helpless he felt now that his anchor had been lost at sea.
“The first months after she had gone were exceptionally harsh. My body worked on automation while I was trying to shut down my thoughts. I kept thinking whether my mum would’ve been disappointed if I were to succumb to the temptation that perhaps death will treat me better than life,” Sehun sniffed as he wrapped his cold fingers around the hot paper cup to thaw them.
Jongdae and Jongin were quietly absorbing the story when Sehun suddenly laughed. “We wouldn’t have met then, would we?”
(6)
Sehun pulled open the curtain and the sudden burst of sunlight caused him to squint while millions of dust motes danced around them. Sehun thought of a snowglobe he had once received as a gift. The simplest things made him so happy for days before being forgotten in the following years.
During the evaluation to select only the essentials, his mother gave him a formula using strings of questions - “Do I need this? Does this thing hold a significant value? Do I have the space for it?”
Yes, I need this as a reminder of the happiest moments in my life. Yes, it does hold a significant value because it’s the last present from my father. No, I don’t have the space for it.
His eyes darted to the worn-out rug with faded motifs of unfurled bracken fern leaves that he could still discern and to the rest of the empty room.
“Is it really okay to leave you here?” He regretfully asked, interrupting the farewells between Jongdae and Jongin.
Jongin smiled, his eyes filled in earnest when he replied, “You don’t have the space for a mannequin,” then he turned to Jongdae, “He’s near. I can feel it.”
(7)
“Would you believe me if I said that I was expecting you?” Jongdae watched as Sehun gobbled the steaming tteokbokki from the convenience store. Sehun was instantly choked by the question and began to cough. The tteokbokki was so spicy that tears began streaming down his face, temporarily blurring his vision.
“I’m sorry, were you surprised by the question?” He continued to ask when Sehun had calmed down after emptying his drinking water and was nowhere near anything that might pose a choking hazard.
Sehun quietly nodded.
“Yes to which one?”
“Both.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Can I please ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“What are you?”
There was an unexplainable sadness behind Jongdae’s soft gaze. For some reason, Sehun felt guilty, as if his curiosity was a punishable crime.
“Do you wish to see?” Jongdae held his palm up.
“Yes,” Sehun extended his hesitant arm which somehow contradicted his whispered reply. “Will it hurt?” He wondered just before their hands touched.
“I don’t know. I can’t control what you’re about to see.”
Sehun took a deep breath and exhaled through his mouth. “Okay, let’s do this.”
He could have sworn that he saw sparks at their skin contact.
(8)
They both sat near a crackling bonfire with Jongdae laughing airily at a joke that a man was telling. There was some music in the background that seemed like it originated from a faraway land. There was another sound too in the distance, mixed with the music, the laughter, and the festive ambience. But for the life of him, he couldn’t make it out.
Their eyes met and Sehun immediately realised that he was reliving someone’s life. It was so vivid as he could even replicate the warmth that was spreading on his face and the slight upward curve of the corners of his mouth.
That distant sound hit him again.
It was the susurration of the sea.
Sehun gasped.
.
.
.
“Has it provided some kind of an answer to you?” Jongdae slowly retracted his hand.
“I–, I’m not sure. Did you perchance know where I’m heading to?”
“The extent of my knowledge is that my name is Jongdae, you’re Sehun, and I’ve been waiting for you. I will know it’s you when I see you. You will know it’s me when you touch my hand. So, no. I wouldn’t have known where you were going.” Jongdae finger-counted his limitations.
(9)
Sehun ran his fingers through his hair and stopped to lightly massage his temple. His hand then fell weakly on his thighs.
“I’m taking the long way down from Seoul to South Jeolla. I’m going to Ttangkkeut Village in Haenam county where a senior from the university has recommended a job at his older brother’s inn. It’s where the southernmost tip of the peninsula is located,” Sehun paused to catch his breath. “In the vision, I saw us near the sea.”
“I’ve always wondered what this life meant for me. Where it’s taking me, and why I’m doing such a crappy job at it. So I started to copy. My dreams aren’t my own but belonged to a drunk stranger I met on the train. I’ve become an imitation of the lives of others. A poor effort of realising someone else’s plans. I’m imitating life in order to live.” Sehun closed his eyes while thinking of the best way to form his thoughts without sounding too pessimistic.
Jongdae tugged the ribbed cuff to the sleeve of Sehun’s hoodie to express his concern and sympathy. Sehun couldn’t help but smiled.
“Who would’ve thought that this path will lead me to you?”
-fin-