wild_terrain | The Beacon; My Siren

Title: The Beacon; My Siren
Author: wild_terrain (ie. fi_chan)
Banner (Made beautifully by love_cassiopeia):

Chapter: [30/ ?]
Rating: MA15+
Genre: AU [FLANGST, mystery, spirituality, romance]
Summary: Philophobia… The fear of falling in love or being in love. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I met him… Kim JaeJoong was my age—a youthful 25 years—and the owner of a popular café, yet he was already known around town as the mysterious hermit who had chosen to completely withdraw from the world. How on earth could someone so young be afraid of loving others to the point of secluding themselves from all human beings? What was he afraid of? What was he hiding? I just didn’t understand it. And by that stage, the need to understand it was all I could think about... In fact, he was all I could think about…

Jung Yunho… For all of my life I had grown up away from the limelight. I couldn’t stand being noticed by anybody, and for a long time I thankfully never was. But then you came and suddenly you were everywhere – waving to me as I swept the café after closing, saying hello to me as you cycled past the bench I was sitting on, helping me carry my groceries inside whilst talking non-stop to me as if we were actually friends… Why are you always around making my heart thump erratically? Why do you even care? The more you try to explore this town, the more I need to step up and protect you from your own curiosity, because I know It is out there and I know It wants to harm you…

Trailer: CLICK TO WATCH~~

Beta = moon1084 <3

A/N: Well hello, we've reached 30. Heh, originally I only made chapter banners up to 30. I should have known myself better than to think I could tell a story like this in 30 chapters LOL! Anyhoos, sorry for the long delay. <3

I kept my hand on Yunho’s phone every second I wasn’t wheeled away for chest x-rays and all the other tests that came with it. It was a little pathetic perhaps but I was paranoid that it would ring and I wouldn’t feel the vibration.

I waited and waited for it to ring. Even when I was eating or drifting off to sleep, I almost always had a hand on it. It would be worth it if I could just hear his voice again.

What would I want him to say?

I closed my eyes and made myself promise to just revel in the comfort of my imagination and not get my hopes up at all.

“JaeJoong, sweetie…” he’d say. “You’ll be okay. They’re looking after you there and I will call you every day until I can next see you. If you need me to call at any other time, I will. Go to sleep now, baby. You need to rest or I’ll be worried. I’m only a phone call away. Be brave. I love you.”

I smiled into my pillow and ignored the tear that slid down my cheek.

I no longer had any doubt that Yunho knew exactly how to contact me. The fact that there was nothing but silence these days rested heavy in my stomach. Somehow I was in the process of being rejected. I didn’t know how to feel about that. That awful cynical side of me that I’d once been able to suppress with Yunho’s guidance was starting to creep up again. That side of me told me that I shouldn’t have been surprised by this silence, that it had always been inevitable. The moment I started to feel something for another person—something even more special than what I felt for Yoochun and Changmin—it was just a matter of time before they’d say goodbye to me one way or another.

You’d think I’d be used to the silence by now, having accepted it since I was a child. Silence from Yunho though hurt in a dull pulse that never left my chest.

I loved Damien, my adventurous, protective older brother, I loved my mother and my father, but it had been so long since I’d been with them. Their memories had long started to fade into a blur. The inner child in me clung to those last shreds of memories in terror that if even those went, I’d have nothing and I’d really be alone. But the part of me that wasn’t still a child had already accepted that my emotional attachment to my family had started to fade with those memories. I had learnt to be independent. I lived by myself, for myself. Some days my inner child would cry… Jayden would cry… But I was JaeJoong now and I would hush that child and keep on walking.

Then Yunho came.

Yunho was a fresh love. He had filled me right up. My memories of him were so clear and so real and so strong that I felt worse without him around than when I did as a teenager without my long-deceased parents. He was a love I could touch. If I reached my hand out, I could feel his warm skin, I could intertwine my hand with his and feel the strength of his hold. He was real, not a memory barely remembered.

He was so real that when he wasn’t around I started to ache.

I was still independent JaeJoong but I longed for his company and his laugh and his stories. He had such an exciting life, one I couldn’t imagine ever having but secretly craved for all the same. Would I ever hear his stories again?

I leant back against my pillow and stared blankly ahead. I listened to the silence, started feeling the silence…

I had brought this new pain upon myself. It was another reminder that I could only outrun my fate for so long. Yunho wasn’t permanent and he was never meant to be… I had to accept it.

No, no! I shook my head fiercely. I didn’t want to accept it! I wanted him here with me always. But…

I gazed down into my lap and felt the familiar prickle of warm tears. Yunho always hated my defeatist attitude and here it was again. I was too tired to fight it.

I let the liquid fall down my cheeks without bothering to wipe it away.

Maybe if I closed my eyes I’d be able to go back to that brief time when I was with Yunho and happy. It was a time I’d always remember, a time I’d hopefully always be able to go back to if I sat like this and replayed the film of our time together behind closed eyelids.

I had a feeling I would be aching for a very long time. Jung Yunho, the loud and bold explorer from a different city was the risk I had taken…but our story was ending.

I slipped a hand under my blinds and pulled the thin, horizontal bars of wood back with the base of my wrist. I pulled them back far enough for my head to peep through and then lay motionless and gazed into the darkness.

It was a clear night. I could see the tiny pricks of stars shining above the trees and roofs of houses. Just by the edge of the window the moon hovered, nice and full and bright. I knew it was only shining as brightly as it did because somewhere else the sun was still shining on it from a place I couldn’t see, but right now, the perfectly round spotlight looked like it was glowing from within all by itself. It looked absolutely stunning to this dull half moon lying in my bed. Or was I a quarter moon?

I rested my head back against the soft pillow and continued to look out. Even the patches of grey craters on the otherwise bright white globe seemed endearing. It had been through some hard times but there it was still hanging on as best as it could in the sky. I wanted to reach out and touch it, run my fingers over the pale surface and then into the soft, black silk beyond, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to.

I suppose I was lucky that the pretty moon was in view out my window on the night I couldn’t sleep. I’d slept too much in the day and now my body was rejecting any of my attempts to melt into a land of nothing. It was nice to at least have something beautiful to look at.

Nights were always hard for me. I felt most alone when everyone else was sleeping. Everything was so dark and quiet. It was hard to tell if I was awake or asleep when my days and nights consisted of the same stillness.

The moon started to blur. Ah, I was awake. I was awake because the hot tears solemnly sliding down my cheeks were my punishment; they were the result of the moon’s judgement. I could feel how disappointed it was in me, perhaps even angry. I tried so hard to be a good person but…just wasn’t. I was a disappointment. Again. And alone.

“I don’t mean to be like this…” I whispered. “I’m exhausted.”

I waited until my vision cleared, waited for forgiveness, and then words fell from my lips again in a soft hum of breath. “You’re so beautiful…and I’m sorry.”

It hurt too much to keep looking at it so I let my blinds fall back into place. They banged against the window in a loud crash. The sound startled me, too rough for my night-adapted ears, causing my body to jerk backwards.

Like stepping onto the glass of a broken bottle that had fallen from my hands, memories cut into me and there was no band-aid for them. The most vivid was of the last time I had heard my blinds smashing loudly against the windowpane. That night I hadn’t been alone. Beside me had been the glowing white skin and dark silky hair of a wondrous, almost mythical creature. Love had been everywhere and we, the center of it.

But time had run out and I had been helpless in watching the beautiful creature beside me dart out of my arms to make room for its wings to unfurl in a flurry of white dust. I knew it didn’t want to go but had to anyway. It had flown back up to the sky without me. We hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. Our love still hung around the air but it was meaningless without him there. I wanted to follow him, fly up after him but I didn’t have wings. I was just a useless human.

This was my torment. I could wait in the darkness every night, staring up at the sky until he flew back down for me but I could never grow wings myself to get to where he was. I was stuck here, forever waiting.

From somewhere in my core, misery flew out of its chambers and slammed against the wall of my chest in a violent tide. I ducked my head under my pillow just in time as a wail clawed its way out. My sheets and pillow captured the sound and muffled it.

I miss you so much, my darling.

When I woke up the next morning, my head was still covered with my pillow but my face was dry, as was the sheet beneath my cheek. There was something on my shoulder making my body shake. My head bolted up and tossed the pillow sideways onto the floor. There was a soft sigh and I blinked the confusion away until I came face to face with my sister.

“Oppa…” she said quietly, crouched beside my bed in her pajamas. “It’s morning. You normally get up now. Did you still want to go to work or…?”

“Oh.” I looked around my room blearily. How could it be morning? I wasn’t ready for morning.

“I could still call in and…”

“No.” I sat up and rubbed at my eyes. I knew it was important for me to go but my body still felt like lead.

HyunAe left me to get ready and I did so…somehow. But I skipped breakfast. I couldn’t handle food right now and my body would probably reject it anyway. I slung my work bag over my shoulder and walked out into the hallway. A soft feminine hum came from HyunAe’s room and I paused only long enough to hear that she was on the phone to Yoochun.

There was only one car in the driveway when I walked outside—mine. My parents had already left for work. I was a little relieved at that.

I got into my car and cut all extra thoughts off as I drove to work. When I arrived and parked, I didn’t know what to even do with myself. I was here again. I was supposed to be Jung Yunho, the capable, friendly guy who made kids laugh and charmed everyone else. I could do that again. I could be Jung Yunho…

No, I couldn’t.

Jung Yunho’s hands didn’t shake when hooking a kid into his harness. Jung Yunho didn’t feel lightheaded standing up. He didn’t let his eyebrows furrow so easily when teenage girls got too loud and silly. Jung Yunho was a professional. But I wasn’t. The thing I was now was unsteady and uncoordinated and nervous. Even after an hour, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I entered another battle with a teenage boy’s harness and found I couldn’t even unscrew one of the metal hooks until I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. Who sweated so much in winter? The metal hooks in the harness jangled in an irritated song as I fiddled, and when I finally let the poor kid loose, I straightened back up to come face-to-face with my boss.

“Good morning, Yunho.”

How long had he been standing there? My cheeks could only redden as I nervously greeted him back. I held my trembling hands together in front of my stomach respectively. He stood, saying nothing for a while. I didn’t know what he was thinking as he looked at me.

“Could you come have a chat with me in my office now?”

“Yes, sir.”

I followed him across the room and up the stairs that lay beyond the STAFF ONLY door. Our scheduled meeting today was supposed to be about the task he had entrusted me with when his friends and potential business associates came later on in the week, but it turned into something else entirely.

“Yunho…” Lee sat behind his desk and stared intently at me. I tried to sit still in the big black chair opposite him “You don’t quite seem your normal self today…” I tried to keep my face blank. I could feel it so close to cracking. “Are you alright?”

I opened my mouth to answer but no noise came out. I gave an extremely slow nod. Even my own head was fighting against me, trying to shake out a ‘no’ instead.

“Yunho, I hope I don’t sound insensitive, but… Hmm. I have known you for a while now and on Thursday a different boy was sitting in front of me. Quite different. I am a little confused as to how three days would have such an effect on one of my most capable employees. I do believe you even promised me you’d make good use of your long weekend, make it a good one…” he paused and leaned forward over the desk. “Was it perhaps a little too good?”

I felt my eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Did you have a little too much fun?” he tried again. “Without leaving enough time to…come back to your senses?”

“Sir?”

“Yunho, you’re a little unsteady on your feet, your hands and arms are trembling and your skin is a little purple under your eyes. I know you’re still young enough to think certain things are fun but there are healthier ways to unwind that don’t compromise professionalism at work—”

“Sir,” I gasped, my eyes widening. “No, sir, I’m not on drugs! I’ve never taken drugs in my life—nothing stronger than aspirin. I didn’t even enjoy the morphine I was given once in hospital!”

“I see…”

I lowered my eyes in embarrassment. My boss really thought I had spent all weekend popping pills and getting high? It was odd timing, but I felt some of my old self come back then—the part of me that would feel offended at that assumption. I’d been through hell, gambled with fate and lost, been left to watch someone die…and he thought I‘d been lounging around taking drugs all weekend? I knew I looked like shit right now but…drugs? Really?

“I apologize then. I am just…confused. What is going on, Yunho? Talk to me.”

“Umm… I…” All the right words were getting tangled up in my throat. I had barely spoken all weekend, certainly hadn’t recounted what had happened to anyone, and I wasn’t about to start. I respected Lee but I didn’t want to tell him anything.

“You are not on drugs and not inebriated?”

I nodded.

“So what you are feeling right now is a natural low?” he deduced. “You do look quite sad, Yunho…”

Sad? Such a simple word. It was so painfully simple and so painfully right.

My lips thinned out as I tried to swallow back the emotion. Why was it that you could stand up in front of someone using the strength you never even knew you had but be knocked down so easily from just the simple truth being said out loud? It was like wielding an ancient sword in the heat of battle only to be instantly knocked down by a little stone thrown at you.

“What happened, Yunho?” Lee asked softly.

I looked up into his eyes and words escaped my lips before I could monitor if they were a lie or the truth. “My friend died.”

The corners of my mouth felt heavy, as if I had grown older already and lines now marred the sides of my mouth. They made it almost impossible to smile.

Lee looked shocked and then concerned and sympathetic all at once. “Oh, Yunho… I am so sorry…”

We sat in silence for several long moments—him trying to digest this news and what it meant for me, and me trying to block and push away images of translucent skin and blue-tinged lips.

“When did this happen?”

“Friday.”

“When is the funeral?”

My hands gripped the chair hard and my breath vanished. “I don’t know,” I whispered. Anxiety rushed through my veins. I was here and he was there… I had no idea what was going on. Had I missed it? Was there even one?

“I’m sorry, Yunho, you’re grieving. I don’t want to upset you further. It’s very hard to deal with these things… You are very brave to come into work today.”

“I had to, sir...” To distract myself. To be Jung Yunho. To live up to the expectations he had of me.

“Perhaps it’s a little too soon though. This is only a very recent event. You haven’t had a proper chance to grieve yet. Grief can affect us in many ways… Some places are unsuitable for it…”

I looked up at him. My heart was pounding. Was he…?

“I think you need to go home, Yunho.”

“Sir—” I began to argue. He held up his hand and my mouth closed obediently.

“This is not an easy workplace, Yunho. You are not typing into a computer or calculating the cost of lettuce heads. This is a recreation center where customers’ safety is more easily compromised. Harnesses are great, but they are not necessarily enough to keep inexperienced climbers out of danger. It is dangerous for staff to be working in a different frame of mind than normal. Like people operating heavy machinery after taking drugs that have drowsiness as a side effect, or taxi drivers driving under the influence of alcohol, grief is a little dangerous in the workplace. Grief is a very powerful emotion—incredibly powerful, and it can grip us tight sometimes. Our mind and our bodies. If something were to go wrong, the wrong frame of mind could compromise someone’s safety. Even those experienced like you are not immune.” His sympathetic look burned holes through my already fragile sense of self and I suddenly couldn’t look at him anymore.

“Do you understand what I am saying? And where I am coming from, Yunho?” he asked quietly.

“I understand.” Even to my own ears my voice did not sound good.

“Please wait here while I find your friend. Junsu should be here today, allow me to get him up here for a moment.” He left his chair and I felt a hand on my shoulder. “For now I think you need a little more time. A few more days. Don’t worry about Thursday, I will find someone else to assist.”

“Sir, no- Please-” Now I was begging?

“We’ll see how you feel later.” That was a polite way of placating me, but really I had already been dumped from that role regardless of whether I picked myself up by Thursday. In other words, I was lacking. If someone was in danger, I’d be useless. Just like I was on Friday. No one knew about that so why did it feel like everyone did?

The door shut softly behind Lee as he left the office and my head flopped and fell down onto the hard wooden desk in front of me. The sting heating up my forehead barely registered as I tried not to completely fall apart. The hatred I felt for myself and my utter uselessness was so strong I was seconds away from punching the desk.

My self-loathing was interrupted by the door clicking open again and a concerned voice called out my name. I quickly lifted my head off the desk in a last attempt to keep up the façade that I was Jung Yunho and still in control.

My peripheral vision told me that Junsu was bent over at the waist beside me and I felt his arm curl around my shoulder. Two confused and worried eyes gazed at me. “Yunho, are you okay?”

“Like I said, I think it’s best that he goes home early,” Lee spoke. “You have my permission to go with him—if you’d be so kind as to return later to help our remaining staff out.”

“Thank you, sir,” I heard Junsu reply and arms gently urged me up. He walked me out of Lee’s office and back down the stairs with a protective arm still curled around my shoulder.

“Yunho, let’s go outside for a second. I need to talk to you.” He grabbed my bag and walked out of the centre. He then led me around the corner of the large building and we sat down and leant our backs against the cement wall. Further down from where we sat the outside abseiling area was just viewable but our little nook was fairly private.

“Yunho, what happened? Lee said something about a friend passing away?” His voice was a mixture of worry and disbelief.

“Mm…”

“Yunho, what’s going on? Who passed away?”

My jaw tightened, fighting against his request to give him a name. Instead I said, “Junsu-yah, I’m so confused.”

“Hmm?” he gently prompted, massaging my shoulder with the hand that was still hugging me to him.

“I don’t know if he’s dead or if he’s alive…”

“Who?”

“My JaeJoong.”

His name said out loud by my own lips finally shattered all of my defenses. It all came back. Everything. Every haunting image. Junsu pulled me into his chest in a fierce act of protection as my body started to shake with the tears that I’d thought I’d run out of. “Oh god, Junsu, he drowned. He drowned in front of me and I watched him die.”

Junsu’s body hardened in shock and his reaction made things feel just that little more real and horrible. And my words were all true—I’d seen my lover motionless and empty within his body, and nothing I had done had changed anything or helped him. I had lost him that day. My best efforts weren’t good enough. After everything I had told him, after all the belief he’d had in me, I had let him down.

I wanted to scream and claw at my head to make all the memories and home truths go away. I wanted to rip them to shreds before they could rip me to shreds. Those memories were burning me and I could no longer block them out—especially not the image that had burned me a thousand times since I’d first seen it: the sight of my baby lying slack in my arms as waves tumbled over him, crucified on the invisible cross and gone forever.

”J-JaeJoong…drowned?” Junsu gasped out.

“I tried so hard to get to him but he went under before I could reach him,” I choked out in a mess of breathy words and deep groans.

We sat in silence for a long moment and then finally Junsu found his voice again. “W-When did this happen?”

“Friday. I came up to see him because Lee gave me that weekend off and I found him at the beach. I don’t know what he was even doing there. He hates the ocean so much; I could barely get him in it up to his shins when I went there with him. Why was he there, Junsu? Why was he in the water? Why is this happening?”

“I d-don’t know, Yun…” Junsu spoke in a daze.

“I’m so fucking useless, Junsu! I knew this was going to happen but I still failed to help him!”

“What…?” He still sounded dazed. I knew my news would have shocked him and he still needed time to process them, but now that someone else finally knew about what had really happened over the weekend, I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself anymore.

“I’ve known he was going to die for ages, I just didn’t realize it until it started to happen,” I whispered. “I don’t even know how to explain it, I just… I’ve been having nightmares of him dead in the ocean for months, for longer than we’ve even been together as a couple. They weren’t just dreams though, because I had them over and over again, the same ones, as vivid as ever.

“In those dreams I was at that beach and I ran down it to get to him but fell into a hole in the sand that was like a patch of quicksand stopping me from reaching him in time. Then it happened for real on Friday. But I jumped around the hole in the sand so I wouldn’t be trapped. It was like someone was warning me and letting me learn the hard way that the key to getting to him in time was not to fall down and be delayed. And I was relieved as fuck because, thanks to those dreams, I did get to him but…I couldn’t revive him at all. He was dying when I pulled him out and he was dead by the time I got him onto the sand. What was the point of having those fucking reoccurring nightmares if I was just going to lose him anyway?!”

My god, I was so angry. It simmered below the surface of my whole being and joined forces with my grief. Why was I always such a fucking failure? Even pre-warned I was hopeless.

“You really had premonitions of this happening?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Have you had premonitions before?”

“No, not really. Nothing big like this…”

“That has to mean something then. It wouldn’t have been for nothing, Yun.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Su, I’m really scared. I don’t know what’s happening to my brain.”

“Nothing’s happening to you, Yunho, you’re fine. Stop panicking…” Junsu gave a light kiss to the side of my forehead.

“Su…” I felt him shift, moving his face closer to hear my soft, petrified voice. “Su, I’m really scared. Those dreams are just so… And I keep losing touch of reality… I think I’m losing my mind and I don’t know how to stop it!”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything keeps getting mixed up in my head. Sometimes it feels like I’m still in one of those nightmares but then something happens and it seems that I’m actually awake and this is real.”

“You’re in shock, Yunho… I think I’m in shock too… I really don’t know what to say right now…”

“Junsu…”

“Mm?”

“Paramedics came…”

“Huh?”

“That day… Paramedics came and they took over from me. They had an AED. It might have worked. I’m not sure,” I whispered.

“What do you mean it might have worked?”

“I told you, I’m so mixed up and I’m losing my mind! Everything is so vivid up until the paramedics’ arrival. That’s when reality and…something else started to mix in my head. I walked somewhere… Away. And then... I was here. I don’t remember in between very well, and I don’t know the outcome very well…”

“Do you remember what the paramedics did?” The poor guy kept sounding more and more confused by my nonsensical rambling.

I closed my eyes and leant further into Junsu. “The AED was out and he was continually unresponsive but…I think I heard them talking to him… But then that’s all blurry and I start to think they were actually talking to me and I just made that whole thing up about him regaining consciousness to help myself get through it.

“I really can’t trust what I saw. When I was watching everything happen, I saw paramedics appear and disappear from my head.” Junsu’s shirt bunched up in my fist as frustration filled me. “My mind went weird to deal with everything. But the thing is, Su, I got up and left…so some part of me must have seen what really happened. If he was alive, why would I come back home? Why would I leave?”

“Yunho… You really don’t know if he’s alive or dead?”

I shook my head.

“Why haven’t you called him or Yoochun or somebody to find out?” Junsu sounded incredulous. All I could do was shake my head again. It probably did sound stupid but Junsu hadn’t been there. He didn’t have to live through this fear.

“When I was home and started getting some of my head back, it felt like he was gone. I can’t handle this, Junsu. I don’t want to find out that all along my brain…the bits of my brain that hopes…I don’t want to find out that that hope isn’t real… I saw him dead, Su. And I know that was real. But right now it doesn’t have to be real!”

“Yunho… Yunho, I love you and I know you are in deep shock right now but you have to find out. Even if the answer is not a good one. If he did…” Junsu’s voice wavered a little, “if he did pass away, we need to know. We need to pay our respects. Get closure for ourselves. Honor him…”

The thought of going back to that place if he wasn’t there anymore drew a cry from me and Junsu held me closer until the waves of sobs started to lessen back to the odd shake of my shoulders.

“I think we should go home for the time being,” he said softly. “Get warm. Have a lie down. Talk in private. Eat something. I’ll drive you home, okay? Your car is easy enough to drive. Come on, Yun. Let’s go.”

I found myself back in bed in an empty house. Junsu lay behind me on the bed, gently spooning me and stroking my hair. The heater was on in my room and it was very nice to have a warm body beside me too. Junsu and I had been best friends for so long and I knew he wouldn’t judge me for feeling so weak now.

“Su…” I murmured hoarsely. “Have you ever wondered what Eunbi would look like dead?”

I felt him shudder at my morbid question. “No. I really haven’t.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I know.”

“I remember every detail.”

“Oh Yunho…”

“Every time I beat down on his chest and nothing changed, I felt like such a failure. The one time he needed me most, I was useless. I was trained to know how to respond to an emergency like that… Trained as part of my job. My job is the one thing I knew I could do. In my pathetic life, it was the one skill I had that my parents couldn’t call me hopeless at. I needed to have something… The man I love needed my help and I failed him. Su, I’m so angry and I don’t want to be the reason he died!”

“If he died…” Junsu softly said. “And you’re so full of shit, my beautiful Yunho, my beloved best friend. Yes we are trained more than the average person to deal with accidents and emergencies, but we are not paramedics. Even if we were, reviving someone who is in bad shape is not something that is guaranteed at all. You’re dealing with a very complex human body here. Some might respond better than others. If you couldn’t revive JaeJoong yourself, that is not your fault. He certainly wouldn’t blame you for that.”

“JaeJoong is the only person who believed in me enough to actually listen to my thoughts and advice and step out of his comfort zone. My opinions meant something to him. To have lost him… It kills me that I let him down like this. It. Kills.Me,” I ground out, watching my knuckles turn white as I clenched the bed cover tightly.

“I know this sounds stupid, especially since I didn’t go through what you did, but this guilt and fear and clouded mind sounds normal. I think you’re gong through some posttraumatic stress. You’re one of the nicest men I know, you very rarely judge anyone but the one person who never escapes your judgment is yourself. You are far too hard on yourself and you have been for as long as I’ve known you. None of what happened is your fault. Yes you may have had premonitions but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you had them because you were supposed to change what happened. Maybe you just needed to know in advance what was going to happen so you’d be able to start dealing with it early.

“And as far as the resuscitation goes, you’re not a god—it’s always going to be hit or miss. He’s just lucky there was someone there at all who cared enough to even try.” His voice was soothing but none of my pain lessened. “Right now, you’re allowed to be scared, Yunho, to feel helpless and confused and weak. I feel scared, and I’m only listening to what happened to both of you.

“Like Lee said, it’s important to just chill out right now. To calm down and not jump to conclusions Wherever JaeJoong is right now, he wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up so much.”

Before I could stop it, another sob came out at the sound of his name and I tried to muffle it in the pillow. Junsu stroked my back.

“What if he’s really not here anymore, Su? What if my baby isn’t here…”

“Shh…” Junsu whispered, stroking my hair.

“I need my baby, Su. I need him. I need him, I need him!”

Junsu wiped the tears and snot and saliva and whatever else was running down my chin with a folded tissue and then went back to stroking my hair.

“He’s my other half.”

“I know. I know how much you love him. When you love someone you give them your all. And you did. You fought hard for him. Let go of that guilt.”

“I don’t know if I can…” I whispered.

Junsu said nothing but continued to lie with me. He’d already been with me for quite a while; I felt bad for worrying him and keeping him away from work. He’d have to go back sometime. “Take my car and go back, Su…” I murmured against my pillow. “I’ll be okay now.”

The thought of Junsu leaving me alone in my personal hell actually terrified me. With him here, I felt like I had a sidekick to ward off some of my enemies. What if as soon as he left those terrible enemies swooped down and descended upon me like a pack of bloodthirsty animals? I was easy prey and right now I didn’t feel strong enough to hold them at bay and keep them from ripping me apart and devouring me. Some of them were already starting to sneak up again and Junsu hadn’t even left yet.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay longer?”

“Go. Lee will rage otherwise.”

“I’ll talk to you again when my shift is over then. Keep your phone nearby.”

“Impossible. I’m not using one at the moment.”

“What? Why?” I felt him sit up against the headboard.

“Lost it during the accident.” I shifted until I was lying on my back and slowly looked up into Junsu’s face. “I think my sister tried to find it and said something about…” I tried to ignore my racing heart. “…It being with JaeJoong, but…”

He nodded in understanding. “But you don’t know if you made that conversation up or not.”

I nodded glumly. I realized just how dry my throat was when I tried to swallow and struggled to.

“Yunho… I can tell you now that this is reality. This conversation is real. We need to stay grounded in reality to even start to get through this. You’re not alone, Yunho. Whatever reality is, we’ll find it together and get through it together.”

I didn’t know how I felt about that but my body nodded for me.

“I care about JaeJoong too…” he said softly. “I need to know for myself.”

I turned away from my best friend and curled back into a ball on my side.

“I’ll see you later, Yun.” A hand patted my shoulder and lingered for a moment and then I was alone again in my room. I had only closed my eyes for a few seconds when another body jumped onto my bed and bent down over me.

“What are you doing, silly?”

I smiled slightly as long, silky hair fell over my cheek and neck.

“I thought you hated lying around on your butt? Hurry up and get up so we can go somewhere.”

“Where?” I questioned. I sounded wary but truthfully I was thrilled at the thought.

“Anywhere you want. You haven’t finished showing me places.”

“I know… I’ve just been…tired. I’ve been really tired.”

The soft hair tickled my skin as he moved backwards and sat on his heels behind me. “It’s not coz you’ve been going to the gym a lot, is it?” He sounded very grumpy.

I bit my lip, trying not to start laughing. I didn’t even need to look behind me to know what kind of expression was on his face right now. “Not you and your gym complaints again,” I smirked.

There was no reply…but I hadn’t been expecting any. That sadness had crept up again and with it I recognized the feeling that I was alone again. I buried my head into my pillow, but the wet material under my forehead and nose held no comfort.

“I’m going to have to say goodbye to you, JaeJoong…” I whispered. “If you’re not here…I don’t know what I’d do. But…living in my head isn’t helping me. I never used to be scared of anything but now all I can think about is how scared I am of losing you.”

I waited for a tear to finish its slow decent down my cheek and drop onto the mattress before I continued. “I’m so sorry that I used to find it silly that you were scared of so many things… I was such an idiot… I probably helped you in all the wrong ways.”

I stopped to swallow through the lump in my throat. “Baby, why were you in the water? Why did you go out that far? You couldn’t swim well and you were scared of water; why would you put yourself in so much obvious danger?”

I closed my eyes and gripped the sheets until my hand started to feel numb.

There were so many questions. Would I ever get the answers to them or would it be another mystery left to sink to the bottom of the ocean like the brother who once haunted my dreams?

Damien…

Oh my god!

My eyes flew open and I sat up with a jolt.

///TBC///

A/N: I know, I know, not very uplifting. These things take time… And I know it’s still unclear what really happened to JaeJoong but…we’ll get to that. As for Yunho… Boy’s still a confusing, crazy mess, but do bear with him. I had to get this chapter out of the way but Yun’s craycray is going to settle right back down now. ^^

Speaking of Yun, it’s so interesting seeing how different everyone’s thoughts are on him. There’s a real split between opinions. I wonder if any will change to be better or worse? LOL~

Alrighty, I’m off to reply to everyone’s comments. It’s so nice not to be losing sleep right now to write essays! =D

/Edit: Errgh I got so distracted so it's now past 2am and I need to sleep so I'll have to reply to comments tomorrow. Shame on me... T___T *douche bag*