With shock comes denial. Jaebeom can't even deal with the whole situation, he doesn't know where to begin and how to approach it. When his thoughts tilt towards Jinyoung, he forces himself to think of something else. He focuses on his mother, his studies, his friends. It kind of backfires, though.

"Did you and Jinyoung fight?" Jackson asks one day when Jaebeom has practically dragged them to a bowling alley. He sucks at it, but he needs to do something not to think of Jinyoung.

His friends aren't helping, though.

"Why do you ask?" Jaebeom asks back, doing his best to control his expression and voice, but he can't trust himself so he hides it with the excuse of looking for a better ball.

"You're not talking about him sixty percent of the time, that's why," Jackson explains. "It's been like three days so something must've happened."

"I guess you can say we had a fallout. I don't wanna talk about it," he cuts the topic but doesn't miss the worried looks his friends exchange.

His mother also asks about Jinyoung, wondering if something happened and Jaebeom can't even bring himself to say what happened. His mother was once as Jinyoung is now, right? Thinking about that gives him headache and heartache.

Jaebeom considers getting himself tested because even if Jinyoung says he's real, Jaebeom might be imagining it all. If it's like that, at least there's a logical explanation and he'd have to start treatment, but he'd live with a broken heart the rest of his life, of that he's sure. However, if it's not true then that means the boy he started to fall for, having feelings he never did before for anyone else, is dying.

Jaebeom cannot go through waiting for someone else to wake up from a coma, not someone he so deeply cares about like Jinyoung. It's just too much for him.

Scared of the truth, Jaebeom goes to the hospital, not sure if to get an appointment or to find Jinyoung. Not even when he crosses the doors has he find out what really drove him there. He walks, towards the floor where his mother used to stay, to one of the nurses he's already familiar with. He recalls once asking about Jinyoung but even if he tries to remember he can't grasp what the nurse said.

"Jaebeom-ssi," one of the nurses calls when she sees him. "What are you doing here? Did something happen to your mother? You look miserable," she points out, showing her concern that actually touches Jaebeom.

"I'm going through a rough patch, but that's aside. I was wondering if you can help me with something."

What? He's still not sure.

"Anything. Tell me," she smiles kindly.

Jaebeom hesitates a few seconds, still not sure. He closes his eyes and tries to organise his thoughts but it's just so chaotic there's no light to guide him. Ultimately, he just lets the words leave his mouth, without filtering them.

"Could you tell me if there's certain patient in this hospital?" Jaebeom ends up asking, realising he prefers finding out if Jinyoung is real first.

"Sure. What's the name of the patient?"

"Park Jinyoung," Jaebeom answers. "He is in a coma, for quite a few months already. He is..." Jaebeom stops to think, wondering what's Jinyoung's real age.

As I am today, I'm twenty-three, Jinyoung said when Jaebeom asked long time ago, and now he realises that he meant that memory of his was twenty-three. What happens if Jinyoung is older than that? Way older?

"He... he should be early twenties," Jaebeom replies swallowing the lump in his throat. He needs to find out if Jinyoung actually exists before worrying about his age.

"Let me look at it," the nurse says, typing on the computer and looking thoroughly.

Jaebeom is scared, regardless the answer, it's going to be difficult and it's going to push him to accept one reality. He knows he's not ready for either one.

"Well, we have a patient with that name in a coma since July. He's twenty-three," the nurse replies, looking up to meet him. "Do you know him?" She asks next but Jaebeom cannot answer, holding his breath.

"I-I-I..."

The nurse must interpret his reaction as dread and shock, and in an attempt to help him make sure it's the same person, she turns the screen as much as she can to show him a picture of the patient record.

To Jaebeom's horror, it's his Jinyoung the one on the screen. A younger version, one he's seen already, too. In the picture he has a buzz cut and he looks miserable, like that time when he said to be nineteen.

"Oh dear," the nurse murmurs, reaching out to grab his forearm and squeeze it comfortingly, her eyes pitiful. "He's your friend." It's not a question.

Jaebeom doesn't realise he's crying until the nurse hands him a tissue to dry his tears.

"He's in the room C-eight-seventeen," she adds. "Normally he doesn't get visits so there's no problem if you want to drop by."

Jaebeom tears his eyes away from the picture, wipes his tears and wills his heart to beat normally, but it's so hard, his head is spinning again.

Jinyoung is real.

Jinyoung is in a coma.

He didn't imagine Jinyoung.

Jinyoung might die soon.

Without realising, he nods his head and turns around, trying to orientate himself and know where that room is, but he's lost.

"To your left," the nurse helps and he bows his head in gratitude before moving.

He's shaking, scared of what he'll see, not sure if he's actually ready to see Jinyoung or not. But Jaebeom keeps moving, walking towards the room. It's the last one from the left hall and when Jaebeom is in front of the door with the number and Jinyoung's number in it, he cannot hear anything but his wild heartbeat. It's like a drum set in his ear, deafening. It comes with a buzzing that doesn't let him think and he's getting dizzy, he cannot even lift his hand to grab the door handle and slide it.

He cannot go in.

Overwhelmed, Jaebeom turns around and runs away, because he cannot face an unresponsive Jinyoung. It makes the memories of when his mother was like that come back to attack him, all that fear, uncertainty, all over again.

He feels like throwing up.

Unconsciously, he ends running up through the emergency stairs and only stops when he's at the rooftop, gasping for air as if he was drowning. Jaebeom still feels like he's drowning.

"He's real..." Jaebeom murmurs, feeling too many things at the same time as to pick only one. There's relief, fear, wonder, reluctance, and so much confusion

There's just so much he doesn't understand. What is happening? Why? How? What is he even supposed to do now? The boy he's got to know, the one he fell for is real, in a bed, in a limbo between life and dead while his soul wanders around Jaebeom.

How is he even supposed to feel?

"Jinyoung," he calls, shaking as he walks towards the rail. It's cold, oh so cold. It's snowing but he doesn't feel anything. He's colder than the day in Seoul. "Now would be a good moment to come and try to clear up this mess."

He feels crazy, talking to nothing as if Jinyoung was actually there. He has no idea how it works, what to do to see Jinyoung, all he can do is call for him and wait, clenching the iron bar from the rail, his eyes lost in the horizon.

To his surprise, he hears footsteps approaching.

"Hyung," Jinyoung's voice calls before Jaebeom even turns around. "You're here."

The older turns around and sees an older Jinyoung, but he looks haggard and his own heart clenches at the sight of the miserable boy in front of him.

"You really are in this hospital. Is that the person you meant was waiting for you here back then?" Jaebeom asks, determined to at least get some answers.

"Yes," Jinyoung answers, the younger looks anxious and fragile, wrapping his arms around his slim frame protectively. It looks as if he were scared Jaebeom was going to strike him or anything.

"Are you holding back from waking up? Do you have any control?" Jaebeom continues. His hands still on the rail, grounding him.

"No," the younger replies. "But it's too unsettling getting near my body. I feel like I'm being torn apart. That's why when I come out, I stay away."

"Did you hear me calling you right now?" Jinyoung shakes his head.

"I was waiting here."

"Did you ever plan telling me about this?"

Jinyoung looks down, showing shame in his eyes. "I was scared. I don't even know exactly why we can interact and I just... even if I wanted to stay away, I couldn't. I always ended up looking for you, going to you."

"If you really want to die, why are you still here?" Jaebeom continues, not letting Jinyoung's words affect him.

Jinyoung cannot answer, or he refuses to. He only stares back at Jaebeom, looking as choked up as he feels.

"How did you even end up like this? Was it you trying to kill yourself? Another attempt?" Jaebeom regrets his bitter tone as soon as he hears himself and sees Jinyoung flinching. He wants to apologise but he can't bring himself to say the words, too hurt himself, too.

"It was actually an accident," Jinyoung answers, tightening the grip around himself, looking away. "I was just trying to get as far away from home as I could. I got in an accident."

"How long ago?"

"Five or six months ago? I don't know exactly. It was a night during summer holidays," Jinyoung adds. "I got hit by a truck."

Dreads swirls in Jaebeom's guts, a terrible feeling he's even terrified to acknowledge. Yet... he still asks:

"How did it happen?" His voice is a mere whisper, but Jinyoung hears, heaves an exhausted sigh before looking up and meeting his eyes again.

"I was driving my bike late at night, the intersection seemed empty, I didn't really look around and crossed the road in red light. A truck was coming the other way. I heard the honk louder than the music blasting through my earbuds, the light blinding me. I was frozen, I was just caught. I know the truck tried to avoid hitting me, but it was too bit, the rear still caught me. I flew in the air, and the last thing I saw before hitting the floor was the truck colliding against another car, sending it spinning in the air. Then it was all black."

Jinyoung is shivering as he retells the accident, but Jaebeom cannot breathe, his knees fail him and it feels like even his heart has stopped.

He can see the accident clearly, he's seen the scene too many times, the CCTV recording burnt in his memory. The boy in the bicycle, the truck that crushed him and then sent his mother in a spiral that almost took her life.

"Where... where was it?" Jaebeom somehow manages to get the words out.

"I'm not sure. An intersection near Nambu Bus Terminal," Jinyoung answers and Jaebeom's knees finally give out and he slumps to the ground, in the snow, his jeans getting wet as the snow melts under him but he doesn't feel anything.

"Was it on July fifteenth?" Jaebeom asks, too scared to confirm.

Jinyoung doesn't reply immediately, it feels like an eternity when he mumbles: "Oh."

And Jaebeom feels like the world is falling apart, all around him. That's the day of his mother's accident, one that looks exactly how Jinyoung describes it and the bad feeling is now the most bitter taste in his mouth so he ends up gagging, horrified as he realises Jinyoung caused the accident.

"You... you..." Jaebeom spits, glaring at Jinyoung. "You caused my mother's accident!"

Jinyoung's eyes widen in horror, mouth hanging open but no words coming out.

"It was your fault!" Jaebeom screams, crawling forward, hands buried in white snow, burning. "You almost killed my mother!"

"I-I-I..." Jinyoung mutters, incapable of saying anything else.

The rage, the horror, the resentment and every other dark feeling he's ever experienced since his mother accident come rushing like tsunami waves, pulling him and drowning him.

"LEAVE!" He shouts at the top of his lungs. "LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK!"

His screams are accompanied with burning tears that fall and hit the snow, melting it. Jinyoung steps backward, stumbling, his own horror reflected in his expression, in how his dark eyes turn red and fill with tears.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, hyung," the younger whispers and right there, in front of Jaebeom, he disappears.

The older lets it all out and he just cries, that's all he has left.

∞

Get used to the angst, it'll keep coming for a while D:

Bel, xx