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His fingers dug into his shirt as he dragged his feet down the stairs. It was baffling, how the coldness seeped into his bones like an intrusive stranger knowing no bounds as it violates his own. Baekjin wasn't the coldness type of person, he preferred summer and it's embracing warmth instead.
The scrape of his hand against the metal railing echoed in the empty bowling area, deserted and unwilling to comfort his battered body. His foot dragged behind him, and his fingers clutched harder when he almost slipped down after a slight stumble. His jacket was ripped around the waist-line, and his white turtleneck sat smudged with excessive amount of dirt and blood he was sure belonged to him and many others.
His mind still reeled from the much that happened in the last five hours of his life, but the whistling inside his ears, accompanied with a reaping headache, distracted him enough to have walked to the Union's office.
He's felt the eyes on him ever since the last of his men departed from the fight scene. He laid there through Dongha's unfiltered staring and Seongmok's dreadful silence, through feeling the sunset on his skin and closing his eyes to feel it adore him for the first time in a long time. It felt sacred to the wounds.
Baekjin didn't have to guess who it was, it's been a rehearsed dance for a time long enough for it to feel reassuring. He felt his eyes on his limp, his form; The curve of his back as he hunched in on himself. He never spoke during these walks, and Baekjin didn't waste a breath on it either, finding the proximal distance somewhat of a leveling add onto their estranged dynamic.
Maybe it was his only solace after such a fight, but for the first time since the last week of dancing around each other, Baekjin spoke as he braced himself against the wall of his doorframe, having walked all the way to his personal office.
"Are you going to apologise?" His whisper was hoarse, but the footsteps stopped all the same after he uttered the words. No response, however, awaited him.
"I do not want to hear it, if that's what you're here for," he rasped again, refusing to turn to grace the other with so much as the glare in his eyes.
Continuing to walk, he got no answer again, and it made him think if he was even expecting one; If he'd gone crazy enough to demand knowledge of thing he was already aware. Was he that far gone to abandon his reputation and let his feeling take over?
Being honest with himself, Baekjin could tell them dominating his brain already. It's been swallowing him for days now, haunting his consciousness; Loneliness was cancer of the soul one couldn't cure, and Baekjin felt it swallowing him all his life, but having Humin turn him down as violently as he did, made it much worse.
But what was the man doing here, after a rejection Baekjin would remember for his whole life?
"Are you here to finish me off?" He felt himself choking up saying the words, as if it were to be the final nail in the coffin he laid himself in and closed the lead of. "Are you going to kill me, Humin-ah?"
He felt a hand on his shoulder, it reminded him of the time Humin used that same hold to pull him off those bullies. Baekjin would say he'd have never touched them, if he knew that day would be the beginning of the end for their friendship, but he doesn't regret it; He remembers the crunch of their bones against his knuckles and feels accomplishment about it each time. He couldn't regret it if he tried to, even if it cost him a chance of better life.
"Do it," he whispers, knowing Humin's close enough to hear it.
They've been doing this for a while. Baekjin felt Humin's gaze on him for the first time last week, after he visited home for the last time. It was odd, to have the attention of someone willing not at any cost to give it just seconds before, but it was always short; As if Humin was just taking his fill seeing the dread of his life, before rejecting him to his face again minutes later.
Baekjin has felt his presence all over the place, be in late in th evening on the way home, or after a sleepless night on the way to school. He felt invincible at Yeo-il, as Humin could never come in and his eyes would drop from the middle of Baekjin's shoulder-blades, but then it'd be the time to go and Baekjin would feel his gaze pierce the side of his face as he ignored where it was coming from.
The same, blackened demeanor and a hood over his head that made Baekjin want to crawl his skin off if that'd ensure he's not perceived without knowing what he's putting out, and the same attire that made his heart flutter, as his need to isolate Humin's attention had finally come true.
He wished to meet his eyes someday, but for that Humin would have stand in front of him.
"Get on with it," The hand rather slipped down from his arm and squeezed his bicep only slightly, as if giving assurance it was there, but it all felt much too suffocating.
"What do you want then—?" He got turned around then, coming nose to nose with a face he's yearned to see this up close for years now. He saw the each millimeter of the surface and wonders what he'd be willing to do to keep this image in his sight.
He settled on committing it to memory instead, though it had never been that good to begin with. He could only hope it sticks for the rest of his life.
"What are you doing?" He asked, and again, Humin didn't answer.
He'd never known the boy to be this silent, and it made him wonder if he was a trick of imagination; If Baekjin's mind felt tortured not enough by Humin, to summon him in front of his very eyes in a manner of lulling Baekjin's heart. He had only known Humin who liked having the last word, so seeing a dead expression with zero sound such as that one was truly an experience.
"Should we fight again, is that what you want?" His words weren't broken, but exhausted; Baekjin felt himself slipping down a strange slope as his vision hazed at the edges the longer he stood sagged against a wall.
Humin neared more than he already was, putting his arm around his waist and pulling him closer into a hug they had never shared. It took him a second to melt into it, high-strung and mistrusting, but of poor heart and decisions as he'd already beat down enough to not question it.
"Is this what you're here for? A hug—?"
Baekjin felt the air from his lungs get knocked out faster than he could voice his frustration, as Humin's hand punched a hole into his stomach, knocking him right against the tight embrace he couldn't wiggle out of.
His breath caught, not in the silly way it did sometimes when he couldn't do it anymore sometimes, but a spasm where his body felt like it was giving out on him. His heart squeezed together and his stomach clenched, a whimper from his mouth as his eyes bulged right out, processing the turn of actions. There's not much he could do, after all.
He gasped a tiny beat, but it caught in his throat, and before he got to cough it out, Baekjin found himself slipping onto the floor in front of Humin's feet. He fought against the blacking of his brain, and followed instincts; Coughing out blood and curling on himself. However, it didn't last long as he felt himself be dragged into the room, with door slamming shut and a figure slamming him against the concrete back first.
The back of his head crunched painfully against the floor and Baekjin's eyes rolled back just enough for him to see a bit of white, only to realise it was the light bulb above him in the middle of the ceiling. A face came into his vision, and Baekjin felt his body feel with fear.
Not the youthful, self-hatred that usually came with seeing Humin, the shame of his feelings towards the other boy and the words of his foster-teacher, spoken into existence while a heated cross burnt into the curve of his spine, back of his neck where Humin had grasped just the evening before; But fear— searing hot, heart-chilling fear that made his eyes tremor upon meeting his. He was afraid of Humin, and at that same realisation, did he finally see a glint of something in the figure's eyes as it prayed down on him.
Satisfaction, like it could read his very mind, and feel his thoughts. He seemed hungrier than before, and Baekjin felt the other dig into his bruises as if he was trying to reach in and rip out his ribs one by one. He felt a puncture, and his skin rip open just enough to be penetrated right then, he could only scream.
Not for his teacher, as she would never help; Nor did he scream for his mother, she shouldn't have to deal with his mess. The only other option he had to scream for, was digging his nails into his flesh like he was nothing but a sack of potatoes to choose from. He felt the warm blood pour down, and Baekjin could only sob.
"Humin," his voice shook, but the boy stopped his movements when he heard his name, not looking at Baekjin directly, but acknowledging. His words were fleeting as his eyes kept trying hard to focus on staying open, and seeing, "Please stop, Humin, I know I did wrong, please."
"Baekjin-ah.." Humin spoke, and Baekjin looked at him as if he was something unreal. His voice was deep, distorted and cruel in its tone, as if the Humin he kept seeing in his night terrors had come to life and to haunt him.
"Humin, please," he sobbed again, and more blood spilled out his lips. It was probably the reddest they've looked in his life.
He wished Humin would kiss it away; Not this one, but his. He wished the Humin he grew up with were here to wake him up from this nightmare. He felt the searing pain of his muscle tissues ripping and he wished this Humin would just kill him immediately for what it's worth.
"Humin," he prayed, breathy and filled with agony he didn't think would ever be directed to the person above him. He trembled, but didn't know if it was the blood loss, or the glare that met his eyes, devoid of any empathy, and at that, humanity.
He tried to swat at him with all his remaining strength, his arm almost falling right back down but his fingers managed to touch Humin's face only a bit, sliding down with anguish of inability as a sign of finality. He felt cold, not like the body he had punched with no reservations just hours before. It was scary to feel the glass-like skin.
But, the thing is, Humin still looked angelic, depicting his worst, most frightening nightmares.
This was not how he wanted to remember Humin, as he felt himself losing consciousness at last, so he tried. He tried recalling what Humin was like, and tried to make scenarios of what he would have been like, but each time he tried, the pain got more unbearable.
It was as if he was being punished for each thought birthed, and it wasn't long before his heart gave out to the pressure. He coughed, once, twice, blood pooling in his mouth as if the sins of his life lived wrong were stuffing him full from inside out till he couldn't breathe anymore; Until his lungs burst like confetti in his chest and until his heart compressed in on itself enough to pump the blood out of his blood vessels.
He felt his trachea break in and wondered exactly when Humin had wrapped his other hand around his throat and pressed like there was no tomorrow.
There was, in fact, no tomorrow for Baekjin anymore, but he doesn't think it bothered him anymore, not when he had seen what Humin could be like towards him; Not after his love had shriveled up in the bottom of his heart and turn into fright like he hasn't known before; Not after his ribs were half exposed through the softness of his ripped shirt and broken in with a punch that he had once thought meant something special between them— And extension of their love.
Baekjin didn't want to leave anymore, and as his heart stopped to move under his sternum, the last thing he saw was the black glare of Humin's hair; The last thing he touched was the hardness of the floor beneath him; The last thing he heard was animalistic breath against his ear; The last thing he smelled was the stench of his own blood soaking the place; And the last thing he tasted was death upon him.
Seoul Daily Paper. Oct 18, 2026 —
The cause of death in Na Baekjin's death certificate, issued on 18th October of 2026, age of sixteen, states a mental breakdown with severe fatal issues inflicted on the body by self. The video footage evidence attached to the case, submitted by his disturbed employer at the Yeongdeung-Po Bowling Center, depicts the boy self-harming with his own nails, and the brutalistic behaviour displayed is speculated to have been due to illegal substance consumption, the boy and his friends have been accused of selling throughout the district.
Humin first sees a shell of Na Baekjin around the corner of his street the evening of the other's funeral.