Juncture (A HaruYoung & JeongKyu Fanfiction)

Chapter 8

Haruto stared at his front lifelessly. His insides were twisting with an weird sensation of fear, anticipation and determination. Years after years he spent behind that gorgeous, frightening pathway. He experimented with everything, from lifeless objects to living animals. Just that he was the first 'human' to ever go through that. He was scared all of a sudden. What if he got lost midway, what if he couldn't cross all the way, couldn't come back; just stayed stuck in the middle of nothingness?

More than worrying about his life, he kept worrying about one thing- That way he wouldn't be able to save Doyoung.

Doyoung, his lovely, naive, innocent Doyoung. How many years had it been? 10? More? After that small fight in July 6th, Jihoon came to rescue them a little late. Doyoung was badly injured, and even though Haruto himself was barely keeping his eyes open, he prayed hard so that his Doyoung was okay.

Doyoung went though a severe TBI. The bleeding wasn't much, but Doyoung didn't open his eyes ever again. By the time they took the small, fragile boy to the hospital, his limbs had gone all cold. Haruto was shaking from fear. In his head, he just asked God for a favour. Just to save Doyoung. Nothing else. He wouldn't ask for anything! Anything at all! Just his Doyoung back as before. Hating him, doubting him- but alive.

God didn't listen to him. Doyoung was declared dead a little after midnight, at the starting of July 7th. The rest of the time was a blur for Haruto. He didn't know how he slept at night, or even how how opened his eyes the next morning. He would see Doyoung, his smiles, tears, the agony he had before dying. And those made him hallucinate. Sometimes he talked to the younger, sometimes waited for him after school. The day never came when he could hold the hands of his favourite boy. He could only wail, regret and complain to Jeongwoo.

Doyoung's parents were way worse than him. He was an only child. Losing him was living hell for his parents. They blamed it all on Haruto, Jeongwoo and Jihoon. The harsh words from them hurt Haruto even more. There were times when living was burdensome to Haruto. He wanted to die, to go and meet Doyoung and say sorry to him. But he was scared, he thought about his own parents and above everything, he had Jeongwoo who pulled him through every time.

The culprit who killed Doyoung so mercilessly was found after almost three years of searching. Jihoon played a huge role behind it. Maybe it was the guilt he had, maybe it was just the responsibility he felt towards Doyoung and his parents. He did it.

And it left nothing for Haruto to hold on to.

He tried so hard to get back to a normal life, to live and laugh, but he couldn't. There was always the hole in his heart that could only be filled with a certain boy's happy smile, the smile that died right before his eyes.

What would it be like if they never went to the bar that night? What would it be like if he tried a little harder? Instead of giving up, what would it be like if he tried to protect Doyoung from the very beginning? Even from his toxic girlfriend?

Turning back time, fascinating yet not plausible. Haruto didn't waste his time imagining it. Instead, in his hopeless days, he searched for any way, any that could beat the impossibility of saving someone from the past.

Thanks to his good brain and absolute love for physics, he went deeper and deeper and one day, he found the small, very tiny ray of hope. He cheered in a long while, calling Jeongwoo and discussing with him again and again.

He would have to travel through multiverse, meddle with space-time, an obvious taboo in the realm of quantum mechanics. A 1 in a million chance of success even after years of fruitful research. Yet, he smiled. He hugged Jeongwoo.

"Are you sure you wanna work on this?" Asked the younger. He understood very well what his friend was on about. He also knew the absurdity, the madness, the near impossibility of the plan.