Chapter Text
Sometimes, Youngjun thinks about him.
Smaller than your average male no matter the age they reached. A silly, knitted beanie with ears attached always sat on top of his head. A big grin always adorned his face.
He thinks about him, and how they sat on the swingset after school, pinkies interlocked.
“I’ll always be with Youngjun!”
And when Youngjun sits at his dining table, eating his breakfast with an almost-transparent silhouette sitting across from him— dressed in his exact attire with the addition of a mask with a wide, toothy grin painted on, practically mocking the memory of him— chin perched on top of his hands as he swings his legs about, Youngjun has to wonder if he haunts the others like he haunts him.
“Keiten, you can’t keep trespassing old properties like that.”
“I know, I know.”
“Do you, now? Because it feels like you tell me that and still do it.”
Dane intervenes and places an arm out to separate Riaan from Keiten, the former clearly upset whereas the latter remains stubbornly defensive. “Hey, let’s all back up a bit. We can’t keep doing this every day.”
The comment is more provoking for Riaan if anything though, as he turns to Dane and points accusingly at Keiten. “You say that but the only reason why this keeps happening is because Keiten keeps going back to that damn place no matter how many times I tell him no!”
In response, Keiten smacks Riaan’s hand aside and yells back, “well maybe I would stop going back if you’d help me find him!”
“If the police couldn’t find him, what makes you think you can?!” Instead of pure upset or anger, Riaan’s eyes water, gritting his teeth in frustration as his voice wavers. “Keiten, it’s been three years, you need to move on and stop putting yourself in danger like this.”
“But isn’t this all strange?!” Keiten places a hand on his head. “How am I supposed to move on when the police couldn’t find a trace of him left back then? Doesn’t this imply something else? Like maybe he is alive!”
“He’s not though. He’s dead.”
Immediately, all of the anger, frustration, and upset— all of the emotions that burned high in the room, come to a sudden stop. The room was cold and silent in the blink of an eye once Youngjun said those words. When his three friends snap their heads towards him and stare at him in a mix of surprise and worry, Youngjun can’t help but curl into himself further, both to protect himself behind the crooks of his elbows and to ignore the masked pierrot continuing to mock him, hopping about on top of the desks in the classroom.
(He always loved crazy stunts like climbing up trees and sliding down stairway rails no matter how much older they got. One of his favorites was exploring haunted spots much to Youngjun’s chagrin, but Youngjun would try to follow after him and struggle along in a clumsy mess. Still, even if Youngjun was slow and nowhere near as agile as him, he would always stop and check in with Youngjun during the midst of his own fun.
“It’s okay! I can wait with you. It’s only fun when you’re with me anyways.”
And he would grin like always and hold his hand tight to help pull him up when need be.
“Besides, I have to make sure Youngjun is safe and protected, right?”)
(And the last sight he caught of him was when that cursed house rumbled, creaking ominously as debris fell all around them. In a panic, Riaan and Youngjun stumbled their way through in a rush to reach the exit.
“Youngjun!”
As Riaan barely managed to escape through the exit, Youngjun turned and realized the large portions of the second floor were starting to fall apart directly above him. There was no way he could’ve reacted on time.
Then, for the first time ever, since their lives intertwined that faithful October morning when he first moved in next door as Youngjun’s neighbor, he pushed Youngjun away. As Youngjun fell backwards and undoubtedly Riaan barely reacted to catch him to break his fall, the two of them caught sight of his last moments.
He was always curious and reckless by default, but even those attributes of his were too much for that moment. The scene was seared into both of their memories as they watched him turn up to the ceiling and at that moment, a stray wooden beam dropped and tore his face down with its fall before the rest of the floor collapsed and covered up whatever was left of him.
Everything happened too fast. Even when the house stopped changing, the two stayed frozen in place, the only sounds left being the creaking, dilapidated wood from inside the house and Dane and Keiten shouting in worry for what should’ve been the three of them.)
“I’m sorry.”
When Keiten speaks up so suddenly and in such a soft voice, Youngjun looks up and realizes that the three approached him at his lonely desk instead, all with varied frowns and worried brows directed at him. For him, the attention is a bit stifling, but he doesn’t feel cornered because he knows where his friends are coming from. If anything, any uncomfortable prickles against his skin comes from when the pierrot stops and on the desk behind them, peering down at him with the tilt of a head.
“I know that Youngjun-hyung and Riaan-hyung were there when…” Keiten bites his lip, eyes watery as his voice croaks, “when the ceiling came down on him, but I can’t… I really can’t give up on the idea that maybe we missed something… anything. There just has to be a sign that he existed at one point somewhere in that place, right?”
Something about those words hit differently than any previous, similar arguments that broke out between Keiten and Riaan, because instead of fighting back, Riaan crosses his arms, almost hugging himself as he stares holes into the ground. “I get it, Keiten. It was wrong to have that funeral without his body, but if you keep going back there to that God-awful abandoned house and something happens to you when I couldn’t help keep you safe…”
As his voice trails off, Dane reaches out and holds onto Riaan’s trembling figure, pulls him close and tucks Riaan’s head into the crook of his neck. He holds Riaan steady and murmurs calmly, “deep breaths, deep breaths.”
Keiten bites his lip, trying to quietly stop himself from crying, but Dane notices anyway and uses a free hand to pat his head. The younger one lets him pat his head, allows himself this one moment to let the older comfort him in his moment of weakness.
While Dane is acting like the pinnacle of a mature adult, the somber gleam to his gaze says a lot about how much he was holding himself together in order to act as the glue for the group. Clearly though, he is silently reminiscing and mourning himself.
And Youngjun? He’s tired as he always has been since three years ago at that empty funeral ceremony. Maybe exhausted even, as the masked-pierrot tried to half-heartedly fill in the gap that was left behind in his heart. Irritated, with how the pierrot glances back and forth between every person, cluelessly reaching out to hug Keiten even though his arms phase through him.
(“Itenie!”
Keiten loudly laughed as he tackled him down into a hug, sending both of their small figures flying into the pile of fallen gingko leaves, resulting in a cacophony of high pitched laughter and yellowed gingko leaves spreading out far and wide. Riaan shouted his concerns as he followed after the two whereas Dane simply laughed at the sight.
At the time, Youngjun didn’t own a phone because all of them were considered much too young to have one, but he wished he at least had a camera to capture the scene. Instead, he tried to watch and remember that fluttering feeling as best as he could at that very moment.)
Maybe it was purely a whim, or a gut-reaction to that stupid pierrot constantly haunting him in his everyday life, but Youngjun manages to utter his next few words without a hint of a stutter.
“Then let’s all go.”
For once, within the three years of his missing heart, Youngjun feels his heart ache just a bit when Keiten snaps his head towards Youngjun, misty-eyed but a new sense of hope lit up within his downtrodden expression. “‘Let’s all go’?”
Just that glimmer alone may have been the final nail to the coffin in his assertion for what was originally a half-baked thought. Youngjun nods, asserting, “Let’s all go there. One last time. We can cover more ground more thoroughly with the four of us this way.” He then turns to Riaan, who stares back at him with wide, teary-eyes. “But this will be the last time any of us go back there, and we stick together this time. No splitting into pairs, all four of us. Highest form of security to make sure everyone stays safe.”
Keiten shares a look with Riaan whereas Dane steps forward, eyebrows furrowed with worry. “Then what about you hyung?”
“What about me?”
“You were arguably the closest to him—”
(Youngjun watched from afar how Keiten laughed while roughhousing with Riaan in the flowerfield, Dane simply laughing at them before they both gained an evil grin of sorts and practically dragged him into it as well, the tallest letting out a yelp. He quietly laughed to himself as the sight before Youngjun watched him trek up the hill to him.
“Ta-da! Look, I made a flower ring for Youngjun!”
The ring was a little clumsily made, but it was endearing how he managed to incorporate both a daisy and a clover into the ring. As he slipped the ring onto Youngjun’s finger, he seemed more than content with how it near-perfectly fit Youngjun’s finger.
“It’s cute, but why a ring?” Youngjun couldn’t help but ask, letting him plop down by his side and lean his head onto his shoulder.
“Hmmm I dunno! It’s like a promise, I guess.”
When he said it so innocently and without much thought, Youngjun laughed before resting his head atop of his. He felt content with the answer still, heart full and warm with sunshine casting down on all of them.)
“—and while this gives more closure for us, isn’t this going to hurt you instead?”
(Poor little daisy-pressed bookmark, buried deep into the corner of his bookshelf. Just like how he stayed buried into the corner of his bed, rotting away because it hurt to know that if he opened the door, that same, endlessly smiling face would no longer greet him.)
Youngjun shakes his head, looking up to meet the worried gazes of his friends, stupid pierrot right behind them, tilting his head side-to-side. Always there. Always a reminder of what he’s lost since that unfortunate day. Filling his head with ugly thoughts and leaving his heart more empty than before.
“No. I need this too.”
Because maybe if he goes back and confronts the wreckage that they left behind, the pierrot that haunts him will burn away and stop mocking what’s precious to him.