Chapter Text
Seongje wasn’t easy to overwhelm. He didn't value material, or non, things enough for them to cause such a reaction within him. He wasn’t one for flashiness– at least not the outright, obvious displays of it. Moreso, he wasn’t the one to be scared by it. He grew up in floor to ceiling glass windows, and chandeliers hung decoratively even in the narrow hallways. Flashiness was where he felt home, even if it made the bile rise in his throat.
He wasn’t one to be deterred by visuals of golden, bright and twinkling in luxury, but everything had its own genre and category.
He felt ashamed. For the first time in a while in his life, Seongje felt his head spin a bit from the unease. Standing here, with icons of saints glaring in his eyes from the sunlight pouring from the mosaic windows above. They seemed awfully sinister for something meant to bring peace to one’s soul.
He was at the back, two rows from the door where people who didn’t belong there sat. The same people repenting their choices in the silence while everyone else listened dutifully, as if they didn’t even deserve to hear the holy scripting spilling from the pastor’s mouth. It irked him. What was so great about the religion if it suffocated people seeking refuge?
His eyes darted around, trying to ignore the tightening feeling in his chest with every sharp inhale echoing around him, caused by the piercing words of the preacher. He takes in every one of them and tries to lose himself in guessing their sins so he can pretend he’s not the only rotting flesh in the audience.
A woman with her head hung low when the topic breaches birthing children without marriage. He can see a kid sitting next to her, a small palm in her bigger one, and Seongje wonders how could a mother’s hard work be reduced to a status of her lovelife. What does God have to say about someone’s way of creating life when he, himself, ruined the life of a young girl by forcing it upon her?
A man with a frail frame sits on the end of the bench in front of Seongje’s. His shoulders are hunched, spine bending as he slouches. His hands tremble when the topic hooks on indulgence, patronising addiction. His hand flexes where it lays in his lap like he can’t believe he’s real and functioning. Seongje knows him, the homeless man from the market last week. The one that was shouted at, and judged. What right do these people have to judge the way someone copes with the trouble bestowed upon them by God himself?
He sees a teenage girl that sits at the very first row, in between his parents with her back straight and mouth in a thin line, but Seongje can see her flinch just slightly when the pastor condemns depression right in her face. A small twist of head just slightly away from the speaker, like she can’t bear to see the hateful look in his eyes, the one that Seongje’s sure clashes with what church should be standing for.
Looking around in the crowd, he can’t understand the relieved, priding expressions on some of their faces. What’s so good about the words condemning others, when Christianity preaches to love thy neighbour?
He catches some words faintly, and sees certain people bristle at certain ones, and it’s like a weight lifts off his chest when the final cheer rings out from the small choir on the right side. He doesn’t hesitate to get up when the mass is declared over, his clothes rustling when he springs up among the people slowly moving to get back to their lives. He turns around, three steps and reaching for a door handle.
The sun outside feels like salt in the wound. It feels like it's trying to purify Seongje as he steps out into the quiet garden, on the stoney path to walk around, and onto the road leading downwards back into the busy streets. The trees are green, and the church is a creamy color of peach he's always found too dull to like, but the sunlight works wonders to romanticize the atmosphere.
He gets halfway through the silent path before he hears footsteps behind him. He doesn’t have to think much on who’d be quick on their feet to follow out.
“You’re here,” Baekjin’s voice sounds rough on the edges. The kind of rough Seongje wasn’t there to notice the development of, the kind of rough you get with years spent not using it.
“A trial run,” Seongje says, throwing off his shoulder without turning around. “Wanted to try it out for myself; See what’s so good about churches.”
“Why here?”
“Why not?” He shot back, looking in front of him again. “It’s your pick. It had to be better than the other ones, didn’t it?”
“Seongje–”
“Was it fun?”
“What?”
“Was it fun leaving everything behind? Was it fun leaving me behind?” He tilts his head, observing the way the leaves move in the subtle breath passing through them. He feels Baekjin step closer, his hand moving to hold Seongje’s wrist.
“No–”
“Then why did you do it?” His tone is devoid of emotion, it’s been long since he felt anything but hollowness about the situation.
“I did it because–” Baekjin’s words cut short when the entrance crackled open again, and he promptly jumped back like he'd been burnt. Seongje couldn’t help, but sigh. It was one to know the lack of courage within Baekjin, but it was another to have it displayed so openly in front of him where the other couldn't even deny.
There wasn’t any point in bidding a goodbye, as Baekjin was already walking back and inside the building that sheltered him, so he just left. With his footsteps heavy and his legs tingling with weakness like they might give out anytime soon if he stays on the holy grounds, Seongje walks back down the rocky path.
He hails a taxi, and gets into one when a kind man pulls in front of him on the half-deserted sidewalk. He doesn’t talk beyond the usual, professional small talk, and maybe he senses the storm raging inside Seongje’s mind, eyes downcast and dissociated as he plays everything back to try to make sense of it.
It was bitter, and only that, as he couldn’t find a moment sweet enough to be worth mentioning.
Seongje had joined the Union for the hell of it. For the thrill, the adrenaline; for the power it brought to him beyond what his parents could do. He was trained in boxing already, only gaining street experience beyond his disciplined knowledge and storing tricks under his sleeve. He met Baekjin when he was fourteen. The eyes that kept pining him under an unimpressed gaze, a boy eight months younger who was hungry to get an upper hand on those who had wronged him.
It evolved from there. Seongje couldn’t call what they developed a friendship, because it was less. A companionship, to say the best. An understanding, and a silent pact of not asking each other unnecessary questions. When Union started to gain traction, their dynamic snowballed into one of a boss and his right-hand. It was good, Seongje could feel himself depending on Baekjin to be his tranquilizer, or his reason to attack. It was purely professional, with a strong sense of loyalty.
When it cut to them being feared, Union was huge around Yeongdeungpo, maybe even Seoul. Seongje paid only half a mind to the crowded side of the things, only giving orders when Baekjin was the one to ask him to do so. He spent his evening in Baekjin’s office, playing a role of messenger between Baekjin and the boys who actually got out there and collected information.
A friendship was formed when Seongje utilised his time spent laying on Baekjin’s couch playing on his phone, by starting to tease him. A nickname there, a gesture here and Baekjin’s unimpressed look became a home to Seongje’s annoying tendencies. When he started to run errands once things became serious, Seongje felt peace whenever he could turn back to that door at the end of the day. Even if it was only to report whatever’s been going on.
He first felt a pang of jealousy when Baekjin started hunting for a certain person back when they were still fresh on their journey, but by the time they got to being seventeen, it had turned into an acid wrench in the pit of Seongje’s stomach. Each mention of Park Humin had him wanting to claw the boy’s face and wear it for himself, if only it meant the distance between him and Baekjin would cease. Seongje’s perception of their dynamic turning into friendship had been an illusion by the proximity, as Baekjin was his secluded self once Seongje started operating himself from the gaming cafe blocks away from their bowling club.
Three years of working together, Seongje felt the pain inside his chest develop overtime like a slow composition. More and more complicated in its nature, and less and less bearable to deal with every time he saw Baekjin.
The warehouse was his second favourite place, its desertedness and the quiet that came with the huge space. It wasn’t bad, the emptiness of it, not when Seongje could fill it with his thoughts to the brim.
Things became complicated when one day Baekjin visited, and Seongje teased, and they drank somebody’s leftover beer, and kissed. A blurry memory, but a feeling of Baekjin’s lips pressing against his own carving itself on his insides. The brain, the heart, the lungs– he was ruined within. It gave him hope for the first time in his life, and it was an intoxicating feeling for someone who’s not had passion for anything else before. Suddenly, his infatuation with Baekjin had a name.
Seongje always appreciated romance. Not only the one related to love itself, but the intimate state of being. He appreciated beauty in things, the ability to romanticise, and courage in people less expected, or those he expected it from the most.
Baekjin was the least person he expected to lack what he savoured the most in people. The mention of the kiss was met with a disgusted expression the next day, then a tight, venomous words commanding it to be forgotten. Seongje felt whiplashed when he narrowed his eyes, seeing the shame within Baekjin’s own. He saw Baekjin go somewhere that day, looking over his shoulder and wearing clothes too comfortable and unlike the stuck-up image for Seongje to ever believe Baekjin owned them willingly.
He followed, as his hurt, curious nature that evening had decided. A full forty-five minute walk till Baekjin looked over his shoulder again, more anxious than anything before cutting into a corner and onto a stony path, leading to a huge building that felt like a nightmare to anyone who wasn’t familiar with domineering quantities. Seongje felt something molten trickle down in his airways when he registered the huge cross on the side of it, when he watched Baekjin open the door with a practised heaviness of the key to the lock in his hands.
Seongje knew Baekjin grew up in an orphanage, but he never realised, looking at the scribbles on the informative stand in front of the big, wooden door, that it might’ve been a one that believed God was a saviour to all. Quite stupid of him, really, when most orphanages were religious establishments, but alas. He watched from the window next to the entrance as Baekjin fell on his knees in front of the steps of the sanctuary, rigid and stiff in an otherwise familiar stance and Seongje took a step back, breathless, when he saw the stony surface under Baekjin’s lowered head turn dark with tears soaking it.
It was a tug of war after that, walking on shells in a push-and-pull. Baekjin was cruel, but Seongje never stopped giving. He’d come around the warehouse every once in a while, knowing Seongje had made a space for himself in the loft, sit on the couch next to him and stare at the ceiling.
Seongje started taking from him. He’d let the silence stretch, then lay his head on Baekjin’s shoulder comfortably like he didn’t feel the boy freeze up under him. He’d drop his leg over Baekjin’s, lay across the couch with his legs in taller’s lap and lay his head on his thighs until it became a habit. Until Baekjin learnt the routine and got on with the program; Until he learnt to differentiate between the prayers lodging into his skin, and Seongje’s limbs touching his.
It started with a hand on his back when he laid his head in Baekjin’s lap; then in his hair. It started with small, cautious circles his thumb would draw, then a palm against his cheek. It kicked off into a steady hand on his legs whenever he sprawled across the couch. Baekjin was letting himself lose bit by bit.
Seongje limited their contact outside the warehouse, only visiting Baekjin’s office when it was needed, or he was called for business. He spent most of his time in the cafe and started fully operating from there, having bought the owners’ silence. They contacted each other by short calls, only coming face to face when Baekjin would step through the rusty door and drop down on the couch like a rehearsed dance. A secretive, private dance that Seongje was trying to write off as their own.
They were seventeen and it was months after Seongje saw Baekjin break down in the church that raised him, when they kissed again. A fleeting moment that became a part of the routine quickly after, and Seongje pretended he didn’t see the malicious unease swarming Baekjin’s eyes following after it.
He could handle it, could get Baekjin to get used to it, too.
He had never thought of himself to be the one for wishful thinking, but seeing Baekjin drift away from him again after a while, Seongje felt desperate enough to feel anger instead of hurt. All his efforts wasted and unreciprocated as Baekjin chased what he wanted freely through their fight with Eunjang High. It was pathetic, both Baekjin’s doings and Seongje’s willingness to take care of business for him.
His anger turned to everyone else– Go Hyuntak, Yeon Sieun; Park fucking Humin, as everything seemed to be about him lately. He hunted them down per request, beat Hyuntak upon necessity and made sure his rage was felt. He reveled in the adrenaline as they got his thoughts away from Baekjin’s coldness towards him. He saw him sneak around with the same shut off expression he had before the night at the church, and Seongje turned a blind eye when Baekjin started to go missing every once in a while.
He pretended he didn’t know, he pretended he didn’t make his route way longer just to pass next to the church and have his mind clouded with bitterness at the sight of Baekjin sitting on the bench in the garden. The things kept moving, the world kept spinning even as Baekjin stopped coming to the warehouse at once and Seongje had to keep doing his job, too.
It was the night of Baekjin’s cruelest yet declaration, when Seongje felt angry enough to stop trying all together.
“You never once asked me if I was okay,” he sneered, jaws working in a clench as he narrowed his eyes at the table he was staring at, trying to make sense of how little Baekjin could care. He dragged his eyes slowly towards Baekjin whose frame was stiff, gaze devoid of familiar indulgence usually present when he was in these walls, and Seongje’s mad he’d dare to take away this one thing from him as well.
“If I fucked up with the police, were you planning to beat me to death?”
Baekjin opens his mouth with a blank face, “So what?”
It hits something, and Seongje realises he might have read it all wrong. Baekjin was scared, he had thought before, as he wasn’t oblivious to the conditions of religion in their society. He wondered what he could do to pull him out of the looming shadow of an entity above. He had made theories on why Baekjin would wipe his hands off after touching him, like Seongje was a sin against his fingertip he couldn’t help feeling, but refused to take accountability for.
He had let something wish for a connection they could establish if Seongje just tried harder to shield him from the shame Baekjin’s own mind provided.
But, he has been wrong. It may not even have been forgiveness Baekjin was praying to God for, but despair, in which he felt repulsed by Seongje; prayed for salvation against the seduction.
He doesn’t look away from Baekjin, “I know we’re both bad guys, but I thought at least we were on the same side.”
Implications were clear, and he saw the way something unreadable passed on Baekjin's face. He took a second to look at him, all stiff shoulders and pinched expression, and Seongje realised he needed a step back if he didn’t want to burn every bridge.
“I’m taking a break from all this,” he sees a frown between Baekjin’s eyebrows develop minimally, and thinks how it’s the most he’s gotten from him, “Don’t look for me.”
He went to that church that night, without Baekjin’s knowledge. He sat there for hours, not wanting to go back to the warehouse when he didn’t know whether Baekjin was still there, and not fancying seeing the curious eyes of his mother, laced with judgement. He sat there in the garden since the door was locked, and he let the unexpected rain wash away whatever stray tear dropped from his eyes as he watched the stars reflect in mosaics of saints he couldn’t name, but bet Baekjin could.
When the sky turned lighter, he got himself to move. He stood up, and rounded a corner down the pathway, before clashing into someone.
“What are you doing here?” Baekjin’s voice was as monotone as always, but it was his eyes that were alarmed, and Seongje was fascinated how much they could give away to those who’ve learned to read them.
“Just walking,” he gritted out, “What are you doing here?”
Baekjin didn’t answer, and something about the way he rid his gaze off towards the cross made Seongje snap just a bit.
“Back here to pray away your sins again?”
He saw in real time how Baekjin’s body froze, head snapping towards him and his look devoid of the melancholy it was flooded with just seconds before. He sees his eyes narrow and jaws clench, and Seongje sees his hands fist in a painful grip from the corner of his eye.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Oh, you know, the day after we kissed,” he sees Baekjin swallow at the mention and he looks around frantically like he’s checking no one heard it, “You seemed to be distraught, weren’t you? Did it disgust you that much, Baekjin-ah?”
Baekjin is still panicked when the words leave Seongje’s mouth, hands hovering like he wants to shove Seongje away, like he couldn’t wait for him to shut up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He can’t help the dark satisfaction that curls in his system, and he feels shit about it. But not enough for him to not lean in, see the way Baekjin freezes with Seongje suddenly in his space, body locked up, and whispers directly against his cheek, “Or, were you crying because you liked it too much?”
That’s the part where he gets shoved away, and he stumbles a bit with the injury on his foot. He gets a bitter chuckle in, before Baekjin’s running away towards the building, leaving him staring at the sky to push back the emotions pulling behind his eyes.
They didn’t talk after that, not when Seongje got back to the warehouse one night to retrieve something, only to be met with one of the Eunjang students on the floor, and he saved him, because Juntae displayed something he had craved from someone else in his life for a better part of his last three years of life. Courage is what moves Seongje that night to let roughed up Juntae rest on the couch he can’t even bear to sit on, instead moving on the chair next to it to wait for the rest of the dream team to show up like they always did.
He still couldn’t help but bristle when he saw Park Humin, in all his glory and a hero in everyone’s story again. He sneered something, how Juntae or Yeon Sieun are better than him, and he felt mocked when Humin agreed. It’s another insight into the person he really was, and Seongje couldn’t even fault him anymore. Humin cared, and he saw how Baekjin would want to chase that, but he wished his care was just as meaningful for the man.
He didn’t hold off on agreeing when Yeon Sieun called him either, thinking of how it could be useful for Baekjin for him to trick them, and the thought left his mouth charred when he hung up. Tossing the phone on his bed, he couldn’t help but sink right after it, staring at the ceiling and wondering when he became, and let his actions become so dependent on someone.
Especially the one who didn’t even seem to give a fuck.
It’s a sick twist of satisfaction in his heart when he got what he wanted that day, to see the struggle on Eunjang’s students’ faces when he laid his loyalty to be seen as clear as a day at the very last second. He exited the bowling center with a smirk sharp and wide enough for a girl walking by to look at him weirdly. The supposed victory left a bitter taste in his mouth when he remembered the one he did it for in the first place. He decided then to wait a day, or two, or even maybe four before he checks back in on Baekjin, and makes him regret doubting him.
Would he be able to come back, however? Would he be able to swallow the hurt, the love still an acid swishing against the walls of his heart? Should he pop the ever-famous ‘what are we’ question, hoping Baekjin finally had enough courage to acknowledge the kisses shared in demanded darkness like he despised knowing Seongje was on the other side, yet couldn’t deny himself of the gentle exchange convincing them both they were worth loving?
Finding answers to those questions took him a week. A week of pondering, zoning out and rotting away in his bed; A week of biting the insides of his cheek to not call out Baekjin’s name randomly, having missed the way the letter rolled off his tongue; A week of clenching fists not to reach for his phone.
When he finally did, there was no answer. It didn't hurt, he forced it not to. It didn’t sting either, when he pretended hard enough the shatter in his chest was just a decorative mural. Before he could reason against it, Seongje was on his way to the ‘office’. It was too quiet when he got there, and wondered what could be a task so huge for every one of their boys to be out and about. The second thing he wondered is how Baekjin hadn’t called him about it, so it couldn’t have been that big, or maybe Baekjin had started to hate communicating with him so bad he wouldn’t even call Seongje for backup.
He dragged himself down the stairs and lights were dimmed in the way they always leave during the close-up. It was his own initiative, to fend off people in the hopes they’ll be convinced staff is always inside. A ploy to get Baekjin out to stay at the warehouse, trying to buy them more time for whatever it was they needed time for, Seongje couldn’t explain. It was pathetic, though, that’s for sure.
He heard a breath behind him, and a man he’s only seen in between the lines of Baekjin’s sentences sits there arrogantly like he owns the place. Irritation flooded Seongje’s being, because nobody should have the audacity to carry such arrogance and the sense of ownership in this centre other than Baekjin. The one who made, built and run this place to become a symbol of something. Nothing good, except from a pseudo home Seongje found in Baekjin’s office, but still a symbol of a lot.
“So, you’re Baekjin’s friend?”
The annoyance is shown in the crease between his eyebrows as he turns around, something strong and overpowering taking over his senses. The feeling in his gut is not what he’d like to trust, but it makes him feel nauseous for some reason.
“Yes,” he says without a hesitation, walking towards the man, “Something like that.”
He sees a silhouette, and a wrenching scent of smoke coming from the man as Seongje stands in front of him. It’s sickening and it makes him question how something so familiar could feel so torturous from someone you know holds power to blow your brains out any second.
“We need someone to replace Baekjin,” the words make Seongje’s mind swirl. ‘Chogang’, the outstretched card reads when he takes it between his fingers. “Not for children’s games, like this bowling club.”
“Is it fun over there?” He asks with an easy smile, suppressing the need to ball up the engraved paper.
“Making money isn’t fun. It’s hard work,” the man’s glasses glint dangerously in the white lighting when he leans forward, voice rough like someone who wouldn’t entertain his bullshit. Seongje guessed this is where Baekjin had learnt to do the same, but there’s no gentle feeling in his veins this time being met with deadpan eyes.
“That’s not very romantic,” he mutters, turning around and walking away. The laughter that echoes behind him, cruel and loud, halts him in his steps in its unfamiliar nature. It wasn’t unseen for somebody to laugh their days away in this space, but it was unnatural for the sound to be this sharp and consuming in the worst ways.
“Baekjinnie, do you know where he is?” He asks, turning around once again like receiving the answer in his face would make it easier to bear, “I can’t reach that asshole.”
“I don't know,” the man sighs, and his gaze locks onto the boy, something detached and cold, “I’m curious as well.”
The words weren’t sincere and Seongje exited the door with his lips tight in unease. The ugly kind of doubt that simmers under the skin and drives you crazy till you’re out of your mind. He called again once, twice, three times on his way to the warehouse. He clicked to see the group chat and found it deleted in the little time between the fight last week and the conversation with Mr. Choi. He thought of calling one of the boys, maybe Seongmok, who he knew was present with Baekjin, maybe even Dongha, but something held him back from alerting any of them.
He went to the warehouse and found it emptied out. Baekjin and his leftover belongings, along with some of the boys’ were gone. The table, the seat, the couch Seongje could still feel under his back with Baekjin’s fingers in his hair. They were all gone, and it shouldn’t have surprised him that much when everything they owned was something Mr. Choi owned.
He needed to know, and his fingers flew over the screen before he could stop himself.
“What?” Sieun’s voice is a smooth, flat sound. More of a seethe, than a monotone greeting.
“Yeon Sieun,” he mutters, and Seongje realises he didn’t even plan what exactly he’d ask. The silence lingers for a second, and when Sieun sighs like he’s about to hang up, Seongje’s lips part again.
“Do you know where Baekjin is?”
Another stretch of silence, somehow tense as Seongje stands in the middle of a bare, rusty building. Then a sound, something questioning, and Seongje’s heartrate spikes against his will.
“Why are you asking me that?” Sieun’s tone is defensive, and Seongje can’t fault him for being on high alert with him, but he doesn’t have time to be bullshitting, despite how much he’d like to do it and see Sieun’s defeat again.
“Listen,” he mutters, a low warning he doesn’t know if it’s directed entirely to Sieun, “You fought him, didn’t you? And he’s been unreachable now. If there’s something someone would know, it’s you and your little crew. What about Baku, hm? If you’re dense about it, I’m sure he has answers for me.”
“You really don’t know?” It’s a question, one said with a quiet hum of something behind it, but Seongje stills for a moment, the frown freezing in its place on his face.
“Know what?” He grits and hopes he sounds menacing enough for the nervousness swirling in his blood.
“Baekjin’s dead,” it was blunt. A hard smack of something heavy and wide against his ribs. Sieun didn’t have any responsibility being soft with him, but when Seongje’s breath knocks out of him in a swift manner, it might have been the first time he regretted fucking with the man, only so he would deliver the words actively shattering his mind a little gentler than that.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s dead.”
“You’re lying,” he muttered, the world spinning hard enough for him to stumble, and with nothing to hold on to, he almost collapsed on the ground. Almost, because he refused to be affected to that point when for all he knew, Sieun could be fucking with him right back.
“We were at his funeral yesterday,” the words are quiet this time, something like understanding that feels like nails in Seongje’s skull. “It should be open today as well.”
When Yeon Sieun murmured the address to the speaker that day, Seongje was up and running there in the next second. He just needed to see it with his own two eyes, even if it cost him bewildered looks on his way to the funeral home. The wind kept swishing his hair against his glasses, trying to blind him, and if Seongje was just a bit sentimental, he'd think the wind was trying to prevent him from seeing what lay just in front when he finally got there.
Huffing, he fell forward to brace his hands on his knees to gain just a bit of strength to run up the solid stairs leading upwards to a quiet, classy entrance. It didn't promise any good, a depiction of silence stretched too tragically in the dark of the halls where Seongje's footsteps echoed with each meter. The cries of other grieves fell on deaf ears as a mere buzz when Seongje rushed past them, frantically twisting his head left and right to look into each arch, opening widely to a picture of a deceased, loved one.
He got to the last three entrances, less out of breath and no less scared as his heart slammed against its confines. He let himself have hope then, seeing the dimmed lights till the end of the hall. He let himself hope that maybe it was just a very cruel payback prank.
The first entrance was entirely empty when he passed and his shoulders dropped; The second entrance was just as empty, dust collecting on the surface. The third one had flowers outside, being collected one by one by the mourners to pack them up. He got to the fourth booth and saw a picture of a woman slightly older than his own mother and his shoulders sagged just a bit. He walked to the last one, and his body went rigid with his foot frozen in a step, stumbling only a millimeter when he came face to face to the eyes he fell in love with.
Baekjin’s picture, nice, trimmed and in a proper frame shone under the lights from the middle of the small room; Flowers were arranged effortlessly, not too overwhelming, but an illusion of a well-loved boy to those who didn’t know any of them. Seongje felt like he couldn’t function, and it seemed a little dramatic the way his breath caught when he tried, falling inside the booth and onto the mat regardless of trying to keep standing to the best of his abilities.
He’s never been afraid of death, not something he considered to be a concern for his current way of living, but something still snapped inside him and seized him up as he felt the pressure inside his skull thicken with every second, feeling like his eyes would pop out any minute; Shame and grief dripped like molten lava within his insides, his mouth clapped shut like opening them would warrant something terrible.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the photo, of the soft lines on Baekjin’s face, and the contradicting sharpness of his features. His eyes were alive on the paper, even if they didn’t look particularly lively, and looking at the contour of his mouth, he felt them burnt against Seongje’s cheek Baekjin had once kissed despite himself.
Seongje couldn’t breathe at that moment, spiraling till he sensed movement next to him. His eyes snapped, and there were Dongha and Seongmok, dressed in black, and just as perplexed to see him there. He doesn’t waste time to flyover and bunch Dongha’s collar in his hands, “You knew?!”
Dongha’s signature smirk is nowhere to be seen now, as Seongje’s eyes tear up with betrayal behind his glasses, a snarl of his lips as he grits the teeth when he feels Seongmok’s grip on his shoulder.
“You knew and you didn’t say anything?!” He yells, and it rings out in the mostly emptied funeral hall. “What the– Did he tell you not to tell me?” He laughs incredulously, a punched out sound that rasps just too much on the edges as he sniffles aggressively, “You’re– Fuck!”
He kicks the small trashcan in the corner filled with dirtied tissues. How many people have gone through this entrance while Seongje searched upside down to find the man apparently in a jar right in front of him? How many of them sent condolences into the empty space while Seongje cursed Baekjin’s name? It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair to him, but who was he, anyways? A friend? A colleague? A dog discarded into the backyard till he found a way to open the door to let himself in, only to find out it’s been cemented shut? He felt pathetic being so angry, hot tears sliding down his face just to wipe them away harshly. The two stood near the wall and watched him in silence that didn’t feel confusing, not assessing, but almost condemning on his skin.
Seongje has known Baekjin longer than the two. He has known the two closely much longer than Baekjin had. What was it that qualified them to stand here with armbands suggesting they were to be the ones to receive condolences for Baekjin’s death, when it was Seongje whose heart died along with the boy?
The taxi softly screeched to a halt, and the driver murmured they had arrived. Seongje paid, thanking him absent-mindedly and pretending he didn’t see the melancholic curiosity in the man’s eyes. He tried to leave the baggage in the car as he exited, punching in the password to the gate before it shuttered open. The four-story building looked like it was laughing at him as he pushed the front door open.
He didn’t need to have been raised in a church to know a chokehold a building that raised you could have on you.