TRIGGER WARNINGS: this chapter in particular contains descriptions and allusions to suicide attempt.

Jaebeom sleeps with his mother that night, just because he needs that comfort. It works well as his father doesn't come that night, staying working in his office, which isn't a weird occurrence. He spends the next day in a very absentminded state, scared but not brave enough to go look for Jinyoung, still needing some time to let go of the resentment and stop blaming him for what happened. It's harder to blame it on life—fate or whatever—than to blame it on someone else. Life doesn't have a face to look in the eyes when saying: 'it was you.'

What pushes Jaebeom is going into his dark room to develop pictures. He's avoided doing that for so long, knowing Jinyoung was the focus of many of the film pictures he's snapped. Now, as he gets everything set, he is scared of what the result might come.

He is nervous the whole time as he develops the film, watching the images slowly come alive as he soaks the paper in chemicals. He feels heartbroken when the images show up, but in none Jinyoung is present. Jaebeom still hangs them and looks at them intently, trying to find even a little bit of the younger man, but he fails.

In some pictures there's a little something, a disruption in the lighting, like refraction, and he thinks that's Jinyoung, that's the little thing he could capture in a picture.

It is only a little bit comforting.

Jaebeom spends hours in the dark room, even after he's developed almost every picture. He just stares at the pictures, remembering when he snapped them, reminiscing the moments with Jinyoung, allowing the nostalgia to soak him.

Jaebeom misses Jinyoung, that's for certain,

That night, when he goes to bed, Jinyoung is all that's in his mind so he makes the decision to go to the hospital the next day, to make sure the younger man is still there, still somewhat alive. In a coma is better than dead.

However, falling asleep to get to the next day proves to be harder than Jaebeom anticipated, and that night his father is home so he cannot go to this mother for comfort; instead, he lies in bed being consumed for all sort of thoughts. He starts to imagine what he'd do if when he goes there they tell him Jinyoung passed away. The situation shocks him so much he ends up shaking his head and forcing himself to think of something else, but his mind always comes back to Jinyoung.

Always to Jinyoung.

It's an ungodly hour and he hasn't slept a minute, so he's exhausted. Yet, Jaebeom manages to leave his bed and drags himself to the bathroom. He's only planning to relieve himself and then try to go back to bed, he never expects to find a gory scene from a nightmare when he walks in.

To his horror, the bathroom is being used. Sprawled on the floor there's Jinyoung, gasping for air, his blood slowly covering on the tiles under his body. He's pale, exhausted, looking too close to the older version of Jinyoung Jaebeom's got to know.

The older lets out a choked scream, not too loud but filled with terror. He launches himself forward, tripping and falling to the floor, crawling to Jinyoung. The younger's blood touches Jaebeom, soaking his own pyjamas bottoms, warm against his skin that now is cold with dread. His hands desperately reach out to get a hold of Jinyoung, his heart beating in his ears with panic, deafening him. He can see Jinyoung muttering something, but he cannot hear it over his heartbeat.

"Jinyoungie! Jinyoungie!" He cries out, pulling Jinyoung towards him, shaking hard.

Horrified, he grabs the younger's arms, finding that's where the blood is coming from and seeing the long slits from elbow to wrist, not across but along, with the clear intention to kill. Jaebeom cannot breathe, he shakes even more as he wraps his hands around the younger's forearms, as if like that he could stop the blood oozing from them.

"Jinyoungie, what did you do?" He breaks out, desperate to bring the younger closer, still shaking and choked up, crying in paralysing fear.

Jinyoung is dying in his arms!

"Hyung..." Jinyoung speaks. "It's okay... I won't die this time, it didn't work out," he continues, curling against Jaebeom, sighing deeply as if that was all he needed.

"Jinyoungie," Jaebeom cries, hugging the younger so tight, still terrified.

"I won't die... I'm not dying," the younger insists. "This is just a memory..."

Jaebeom tries to listen over the sound of his fear, over mindless screams in his head that just cry for help. He does his best to listen and understand, to remember the reality of Jinyoung.

A memory... right. Jinyoung is in a coma, this is just a memory, of a time he tried to kill himself and it didn't work out.

Regardless, Jaebeom holds Jinyoung even tighter, not letting go of his forearms, burying his face in Jinyoung's raven hair, breathing in and out, rocking the two of them slowly. He cannot speak, the thought that this was Jinyoung at some point chokes him, that he really open up his veins trying to die hurts Jaebeom so deep as if the same blades had been buried in his heart.

He feels like he's also bleeding out in that bathroom floor.

"Why... why..." he cannot even utter the words to ask Jinyoung why he did it.

"I didn't want you to see me like this... this version of me," the younger whispers, sounding so weak, at the verge of leaving and it makes Jaebeom feel cold to the bone. "I was scared this would happen."

"Why?" It's all the older can mutter.

"I... I just wanted to see you... so much..." Jinyoung sounds so weak it makes Jaebeom's heart hurt even more, so he holds the younger closer, tighter, crushing. "I've been... coming out in every way I've tried to kill myself lately." Jinyoung laughs, humourlessly, pained. It makes Jaebeom want to scream in agony. "I'm being punished for what I did to you, aren't I?"

"No, Jinyoungie... no," he tries to say but he's so overwhelmed he can't manage to make any intelligible statement, anything to help Jinyoung. He is just there, feeling as the boy grows weaker, closer to die.

It's the most horrifying thing to ever happen to him, having Jinyoung dying in his arms... even if it's just a memory.

"I'm sorry, Hyung," Jinyoung whispers slowly. "I want to... do what you... want but...I know you don't... want to see me but..." Jinyoung starts to tremble and Jaebeom freaks out, he doesn't know what else to do.

"No, no, Jinyoungie, no. Don't..." he doesn't know what he's asking for, at this point he's just stuttering incoherent sentences.

"I know I don't... deserve forgiveness but... I miss you," Jinyoung's voice breaks, whether is out of grief of pain, Jaebeom doesn't know. Is Jinyoung suffering like when it actually happen? Does the memories come with the pain of then?

"Jinyoungie..." Jaebeom cries. "Please..."

What? He still doesn't know, he just know he wants Jinyoung to be all right, to not die in his arms, to be alive.

"I'll do what you want... I won't come to you again... I swear... but tonight, please... don't let go of me," Jinyoung begs, breaking Jaebeom's heart all over again.

"I won't," he promises.

Jaebeom releases one of the arms, his hand now covered in scarlet red blood cups Jinyoung face, making him face him. The younger is crying so he kisses the corner of his eyes, wiping those tears even if his own fall over the younger's skin. He pulls back again and presses a kiss on Jinyoung's forehead, lingering there as he keeps holding the younger on his lap, against himself.

"You'll be fine, you don't die this time," he speaks, not so much to comfort Jinyoung but to reassure himself. "You make it out of this."

"It hurts... it burns..." Jinyoung mutters, a confirmation of a fear in Jaebeom's mind. "I'm cold."

Jaebeom cannot pull him closer, doesn't know what else to do, how to help Jinyoung. He rubs his blood covered thumb over Jinyoung's cheek, his hand trembling as he paints those beautiful factions he adores in painful death. He leans forward, his lips, as shivering as the rest of his body, land against Jinyoung's, a soft pressure that's as warm as the younger's blood. The older increases the pressure as his own tears keep falling, as both tremble in fear and pain.

"Adeul?" Someone calls.

Jaebeom pulls back immediately, looking back over his shoulders to find his mother, watching him with worry in her eyes. His heart stops for a second and he turns back to look at Jinyoung, but he's gone and everything about him as well. The blood, the warmth... everything.

Jinyoung is gone.

The void in his chest when Jaebeom realises that is so vast he feels lost and out of place, like he's not there but floating somewhere else, in an empty blackness. He's cold again, feeling stripped of something too precious, too important.

"What happened? I heard you scream," his mother asks and Jaebeom cannot look at her, he only stares at his hands, completely clean as if he had never touched Jinyoung's blood, as if he didn't hold him, trying to stop him from drying in his arms.

"Nightmare," he mumbles. "It was just a nightmare."

"Oh dear," his mother sighs, and Jaebeom can hear her coming. He wants to tell her to stay away, he feels too raw to let anyone touch him, but he's too weak to let the words out. "It's okay, the nightmare is over," she adds, stopping by his side, her hand on his head as she pulls him against her legs, doing her best to give him a comforting hug while he's on the floor.

Is it over? He asks himself. Is the nightmare really over? Jinyoung is really dying in a hospital room, Jinyoung really tried to kill himself before. He might lose Jinyoung any moment and now he starts to think how inept he is, how incapable to help Jinyoung.

He begins to cry again, the tears just sliding one after the other as he mourns for a loss that hasn't happened, but that's so threateningly close. He mourns for a Jinyoung that was alone when he was bleeding out. A Jinyoung who didn't want to live, a Jinyoung who didn't have anything to hold on.

You make me want to stay, Jaebeom remembers when Jinyoung said that, he remembers the younger saying many times how Jaebeom had become everything to him. Now, because Jaebeom pushed him away in his own hurt, Jinyoung is all alone again.

He told the younger to wake up as a punishment but he has no trust that's something Jinyoung will do, or even if he is capable of doing.

Jaebeom is once again, terrified.

∞

Sorry I couldn't update yesterday, I got busy and then fell asleep. I'm sorry if this chapter harmed you in any way. 

Bel, xx