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Neither of them remembered the beginning of how they began. All they remember is the result. Park Jinyoung, as this life calls him, is the ethereal lightness; the warm touch of blinding fluorescent light meeting a baby in the beginning of its life. Jinyoung is the first breathe it took; the first bell like laughter that escaped its lips, the every so iron-like grip as it held onto its mother’s fingers.
Jinyoung was life.
Im Jaebum, also as this life calls him, is a void. He is hushed whispers in the hospital waiting room and choked back sobs staining black garments. Jaebum is the touch of cold skin and pale eyes; he is the ever present reminder in the room. Jaebum is the slowly fading strength in a grip, life slipping through its fingers.
Jaebum is death.
There is an old tale about two deities that the world has come to unknowingly worship. Ones whom are present in every practiced religion: life and death. Life was in love with death, and death was in love with life. They’ve been this way for as long as the other could remember; description expanding beyond the reach of existing hieroglyphics and words. They, like any tragic story, were forbidding from their love. Jinyoung existed in the light and Jaebum in the darkness. Should they ever come together, they would extinguish the other completely. Light would overtake death and death overtaking light. The world would be in chaos without them and they weren’t nearly that selfish.
Or maybe they weren’t nearly ready to make that kind of sacrifice yet.
There was a time when they were happy. They don’t really remember that time anymore. Jinyoung had long given up reminding Jaebum of a time when they could hold hands and exist on the same planes; a time where they had more than stolen glimpses of the other’s fading eyes and tattered love letters not found until decades later. He’d given up partially because he found out it only brought Jaebum sadness, but also partially because he was beginning to lose the memories himself.
They don’t talk about why their fates became the way they were, nor do they talk about missing each other and their far forgotten wishes of the future. They don’t get to meet often, banished to different planes that they reluctantly rule; but every once in a while when the stars lined up they are able to meet and during those instances, life sends death gifts, and death keeps them forever.
1.
He was quite young. Jinyoung had watched him grow up fondly like a mother. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt as he willingly allowed the soccer player from Mokpo to give into his dizzy spell that sent his body down a flight of stairs. Choi Youngjae, his name, fractured his skull and was unable to regain consciousness.
Jinyoung watched as his parents covered him in his favorite wool blanket. His mother wept as she held onto his hand for dear life. “He’s so cold,” she sobbed. Jinyoung felt himself being pulled towards the kid. One touch and the boy with sunshine in his eyes would wake up.
He reached to touch his fair skin when he heard an all too familiar throat clear itself.
“Jinyoung,” the deep voice said. Jinyoung turned around and was met with soulless eyes.
“Jaebum,” he remembered the name as familiar taste on his tongue even if he hadn’t spoken it in almost a decade.
“He has a beautiful voice,” Jinyoung said wordlessly, far too familiar with how this will turn out. He tuned out the vibrations coming off of Mrs. Choi’s shoulders as she tried to will her baby boy awake.
“Will you give him to me?” Jaebum hummed; an amusement in his voice.
“Of course I will.”
“I love you, Park Jinyoung.”
“and I you, Im Jaebum.” If Jinyoung let it, the sight of Jaebum’s Cheshire cat smile could drown out the prolonged beep to be heard in the background. If he let it, Jaebum’s smile could evaporate the pained screaming of a childless mother.
But Jinyoung didn’t let it.
2.
Jaebum wondered why the good died young. He would have to ask Jinyoung about it when he could. The list of how many things Jaebum would have to ask Jinyoung was growing long, and it had been over two centuries since Jaebum had been able to see him. The two lonely centuries ended with the drowning of Mark Tuan, a boy from LA who thought he could surf the way he skateboarded: recklessly.
“Jaebum,” the melodic voice called to him and he did all he could from whipping around and pulling Jinyoung into his death-inducing embrace. “It’s not his time yet.”
“I can feel his pull stronger than you can. Won’t you give him to me?” Jaebum persuaded. It was lonely in the darkness. Jinyoung knew that.
“His sister is getting married in three days.” Jinyoung sighed.
“With death comes new life.”
“I love you Im Jaebum,” Jinyoung sighed.
“and I you, Park Jinyoung.” Jinyoung couldn’t help but feel the corners of his mouth tug upwards at the statement. He watched as Jaebum pulled Mark up to his feet, as he comforted Mark into his new reality, as he began fading away like dust settling through a ray of sunlight.
3.
Jaebum and Jinyoung could always feel the pull when someone is born or when someone dies. The pull is inevitable as the universe tries to decide who the life belonged to. It was like they were magnets; but they aren’t normally drawn strongly to the same person at the same time.
When they are, on those rare occasions when Jinyoung gets to set his eyes on the complexity that is Im Jaebum’s cheekbones, they get a chance to decide together if the person should live or die. It’s never been a huge debate, one side will always feel the pull stronger than the other, and undoubtedly that side should take the person’s fate into their hands.
Jinyoung watches the two best friends as they’re scrapped off the sidewalk. Kim Yugyeom and Kunpimook Bhuwakul were taking a bike ride together when a speeding bus hit them. Yugyeom had noticed and tried to shield Kunpimook, the younger of the two, from most of the damage. Needless to say, Yugyeom was the one in the critical condition; though Kunpimook wouldn’t wake up either.
Jinyoung felt a familiar presence and felt his heart beat. “I didn’t think I would be seeing you so soon, lover.”
“I can’t deny that I’m glad, even under these circumstances.”
Jinyoung desperately wanted to reach out and touch Jaebum’s cheeks, to soothe the glimmer of self-hate he still saw flash through Jaebum’s eyes every time they met. Sometimes Jinyoung wonders why he was chosen to be life when the more caring of the two was always Jaebum. Maybe that was the point though; maybe that was part of their punishment.
“We could each take one this time,” Jaebum suggested dryly.
“I don’t want one to wake up without the other…” Jinyoung felt a lump form in his throat. He wondered what Kunpimook would feel like if he woke up in the light to find that Yugyeom was no longer in it. He wondered if it would compare to how he would feel if he came to one of these rare occurrences and found that it wasn’t Jaebum in the darkness, but a newer version of Death.
“Can’t I have them both?” Jinyoung carefully said and watched as Jaebum pretending to ponder the suggestion.
“I’m sorry Jinyoung.” Jaebum’s breathe shook at the ending of his name. “It’s been so lonely…” Jinyoung felt the lump form in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was from the screaming he heard in the background mixed with the metallic smell of blood and crushed bones or if it was the look in Jaebum’s eyes; pleading at him for another gift, another friend.
The silence that followed registered to Jaebum as approval. He reached for Yugyeom and pulled him up.
Every now and then you get souls who will quite literally fight to stay alive. Yugyeom broke free from Jaebum’s grip and Jaebum only looked more determined at the struggle.
“You shouldn’t fight it.” Jinyoung sighed, having rehearsed this conversation a million times for Jaebum’s sake.
“I can’t leave him. I’m all he has.” Yugyeom struggled to control his shaking. He tried to draw in courage and breathe and stood tall. “Please don’t do this, whoever you are, are you angels? Please have some mercy.” Against his own will, Yugyeom fell to his knees as he tried to touch the younger boy, “I’m all he has,” his voice broke, fingers transparent in the plane they existed.
“Jaebum,” Jinyoung warned. There was only a short amount of time the two of them could spend on the same plane as human souls before the balance began to shift. Jaebum nodded in understanding.
“If I don’t take you, I have to take him.” Jaebum said to Jinyoung’s surprise. It was true that when death appeared on the same plane as human souls existed, he would have to take a life in order to get back to his own plane, but he’d never heard Jaebum say it out loud before.
“If I die….”
“He can live.” Jinyoung finished for him, afraid the kid will start balling some more.
“Ok.” Yugyeom decidedly stood up, his eyes not leaving the tattered boy on the ground.
The younger boy began to wake up in the commotion, his hand searching for the ones of a cold body lying next to him. The paramedics sighed with relief as he began breathing by himself again. Jinyoung stroked the tears that fell on his cheek when Kunpimook’s eyes fell on the shell of his best friend.
“Yugyeom?” His voice came out shrilled and panicked, as if he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. “No, no nononon” he whispered.
“It’s time to go.” Jaebum lead Yugyeom by the shoulder, patting it for empty reassurance.
“I love you, Bam.” Yugyeom called out.
Bambam’s, Kumpimook’s nickname, head snapped up from his tear stained hands. “What did you just say? Did you just say something? Guy! Guys!” He quickly gestured towards the paramedics. Jinyoung’s eyes widened as he realized his hand had fallen onto Yugyeom’s heart.
“Jinyoung?” Jaebum’s voice broke through the Jinyoung’s shock.
“I’m sorry, I... I didn’t…” Jinyoung couldn’t find the right words. Not when Jaebum was looking at him like he just stabbed a knife through his non-beating heart.
4.
Immortality was a dull existence. Jinyoung had decided this a long time ago when the sounds of a baby’s laugh had become more than mundane to him. He tired of the tiny, untainted eyes. Jinyoung hated his role. He hated overseeing every aspect of a human’s life because life could be so unfair sometimes.
He remembers the soccer player from Mokpo who secretly worked odd jobs to pay for secret vocal lessons.
“He really did have a beautiful voice,” Jaebum once said to him in a letter.
Jinyoung then remembers the laughter of the LA boy when he first steadied himself on his first surfboard, knees trembling with fear but adrenaline rushing through his veins. He closed his eyes and remembered the way the boy flipped backwards and forwards on his trampoline without a care in the world. He remembers the first time that boy got his heart broken by the pretty girl next door.
Jinyoung remembers that with life comes all the sadness that life brings. That those who die are lucky because it all stops for them; that they no longer have to feel the painful feelings of watching the person you love die, of rejection, of humiliation, of knowing that the world is equally filled with bad people as it is good.
Jinyoung then remembers that with death comes some happiness as well. He remembers that death brings newly carved marble and beautifully grown flowers. Death brings revelations and clarity. It brings light the things that a person truly wishes for.
So Jinyoung brings Jaebum a gift to remind him that he is not only cold hands and tear stained cheeks. He is warm embraces and beautiful last words.
“His name is Wang Jackson.” Jinyoung said without turning around, already aware of the aura that Jaebum emits whenever they are on the same plane together.
“Jinyoung…” Jaebum cautiously speaks.
“I want to you to have him” Jinyoung says, a weight lifting off his shoulders when he turns around to see a light flash through his lover’s eyes. Hope. “He’s a really funny guy,” Jinyoung recalls a joke he overheard about a priest and lemon walking into a bar. “He’s also an athlete; Olympian actually.”
“I love you, Park Jinyoung,” the words sounded like how chocolate tasted. Jinyoung closed his eyes and tried to remember how Jaebum’s arms felt around him. He had no doubts that Jaebum was trying to recall the same thing.
“and I you, Im Jaebum,” Jaebum smiled an old smile; one Jinyoung hadn’t seen in quite a long time.
There is an old tale about the gods of life and death. It’s said that life fell in love with death long ago, and death fell in love with life equally long ago. They are star-crossed; unable to join their destinies together due to a mutually assured destruction. But fate is much crueler than just that. Sometimes they are able to be together. Sometimes Jaebum is able to catch glimpses of crinkled eye smiles and Jinyoung chapped pink lips. Life and death are in love, and so Life brings deaths gifts. And death keeps them forever.