Chapter Text
it was hard to know how long jongseob had been like that. maybe his entire life. maybe since he met shota. it didn’t matter anyway, since shota couldn’t ask him anymore. because jongseob was dead. had been for a few weeks now, and shota could tell his parents were getting irritated at the stupid way he acted like jongseob was still here.
shota couldn’t help it. if he could pretend, as stupid as it seemed, his chest would hurt a little less when he thought about jongseob. his hands would itch less, scratch long, painful lines up and down the skin of his arms a little less often.
deep down, shota knew that pretending wouldn’t work forever. he knew that at some point school would start up again and jongseob’s name wouldn't be called during homeroom attendance. there wouldn’t be a pin button-heavy messenger bag saving the seat next to his on the bus.
their shared locker would stay halfway empty forever, and no one would bother leaving flowers or memorial notes taped on the door because jongseob had never bothered to get to know many other people at their school. he always said there was no point in it if shota was there every morning to get him through the day.
for now, though, shota could pretend a little while longer. he could lay unmoving on his bed or maybe in the cramped little tree fort jongseob’s dad had built for them when they were younger and imagine jongseob laying with him. in his imagination, jongseob would wrap his thin arms and legs around him like he always used to do, and shota would listen to him rant about whatever book he was currently reading.
shota remembered, though he wanted to forget more than anything, which book jongseob had been reading in the days leading up to his suicide. he had tried reading it once, to see why jongseob liked it so much that he re-read it more often than any other books on his shelf. he made it four pages in before jongseob’s small, neat handwriting filling up the margins left him dry-heaving.
he quickly realized that all the physical reminders that jongseob, at some point, existed all around him, but never would again, only served to make shota want to die. at least in death, the pain would settle, and maybe jongseob wouldn’t be too angry at him for following him there so quickly.
but no matter how much it hurt shota to see the small pieces of jongseob scattered around his room and their tree fort, he knew he could never pack them away to be forgotten. after all, jongseob had always been claustrophobic.
the only thing shota could be sure of was that jongseob could never be forgotten. his best friend, his only friend, really, was once the most magical person he had ever met. shota found a lot of things unearthly beautiful in life, but he knew nothing would ever compare to jongseob.
now, he wasn’t sure he even believed in magic, and he didn’t have the energy to play pretend with his little sister anymore. how could he, when the reason he believed in it at all, when the energy he got from making jongseob laugh, was gone? shota would never see it again.
maybe it would all hurt a bit less if he hadn’t loved him. maybe it was for the best that shota would never get to tell him. not that it mattered now, because not much mattered now that jongseob was dead. it didn’t matter that he was all he thought about. it didn’t matter that he blamed himself for it all.
shota tried his hardest to keep his mind empty of all things jongseob, which was hard when jongseob was the only thing he thought about when he was still alive. he had no energy to do anything but stare at the glow-in-the-dark constellations jongseob had stuck onto his ceiling the summer shota had realized that he loved him.
he spent the days crying, and spent the nights trying to remember the myths behind the constellations that jongseob would tell him to fall asleep. he wasn’t sure if he regretted not focusing on the story, or if he was just grateful he could remember what jongseob’s voice sounded like when he was close to falling asleep.
when the sun shone through the gaps in the curtains in the early morning, shota refused to look at his desk, at the photo of him and jongseob taken back in may. every time he caught a glimpse, the image of jongseob caught mid-laugh, his snaggletooth that was rarely visible that summer, and his thin arms looped tight around shota’s waist, shota sobbed like the world was ending. it felt like it had.
his mother worried about his tear-stained, puffy face every morning for the last three weeks, and his head hurt all the time from crying so often, but how could he not? jongseob was dead. the way shota saw it, there was nothing here for him now, nothing for him to stay living like this anymore.
it felt like an inevitable truth that the only thing to look forward to for the rest of his life was to die, if only to see jongseob again. maybe that wasn’t a healthy way of thinking, and maybe jongseob would be weirded out by how intensely shota loved him.
the one time shota thought about the idea of jongseob feeling the same way, just a few days after he died, he threw up the small amount of food his mother had begged him to eat. he felt sick and disgusting for days, then he lost enough weight that even his little sister noticed.
shota tried not to think about it since then, but it didn’t take much effort. he couldn’t think clearly these days. in the back of his mind, he knew he had to get up, had to start living a normal life again. his family were worried about how long he spent in his room, laying there staring at plastic stars in the dark. of course, they knew how important jongseob had been to him, but there was no way they could know the full truth, so they didn’t understand.
they didn’t understand why he seemed to switch between being unable to stomach hearing his name, to pretending he never died at all, talking to himself at night as if jongseob was there to hear it. shota wondered if, at some point, someone would get sick of him and force him to move on.
maybe his mother would come in, quiet and gentle like she always had been, and attempt to coax him out of bed. maybe his father, the polar opposite of his mother, would slam the door against the wall and use the fake, too-cheery tone that made him feel sick again.
he’d probably try to crack a joke that wouldn’t land, and then leave shota alone in the blunt silence that followed. the first time he had tried, shota got out of bed for the first time that week and stayed in their fort for three days.