a jar of hearts (Taegyu)

18: inevitable fate

    “Beomgyu?” Hueningkai quivered, skidding on the ground to reach his level. His hands hovered over the older boy, unsure of where to set them when his life was being drained from him. “Beomgyu, look at me. You’re okay— you’re going to be fine.”

     Kai didn't want this to happen. In no way would he have wished this on his worst enemy, nevertheless his best friend. He held the initial anger and hurt dearly to his heart, and it crumbled him under the weight, but he would grow stronger and overcome it.

     He would bear the weight of being in love with him and he would break through. After that, things would be back to how they should've been; with Beomgyu finding the smallest things to enjoy in his life while on the edge of losing it all.

     How would that happen now? How could anything go back to how they should've been when Beomgyu was the one that held it all together?

     "Kai-ah," Beomgyu whimpered through a hoarse voice, his cheeks slick with tears and red with heat. His tone was broken and defeated, and he was sinking too deep— beyond rescue. "I'm sorry."

     "It's not your fault," Kai hurried, his voice urgent and desperate as he tried to get Beomgyu to register his words. It was as if he was talking to the boy through a plane of thick, noice-cancelling glass. The words were simply bouncing back, never getting through to him nor were they reaching his ears. "Beomgyu, listen to me. It wasn't your fault. I forgive you— do you hear me?"

     No sign of recognition. He was talking to a boy who could only listen to the malicious, degrading words from himself. He was trying to convince someone who was so far into his own mind that no light words would amount to the hectic turmoil he was putting himself through.

     When Kai watched the remorse in his eyes begin to shift into something unfamiliar, it hit him then. It all came crashing down.

     He was already too late.

     Beomgyu met his eyes, tear-filled and beautiful all at the same time. There was never a moment where he’d look out of his element.

     How unlucky Kai had been to fall in love with him.

     How unfortunate he’d been to be here, watching the stars leave his eyes right in front of him, to watch the frantic recognition morph into a blunt, lifeless stare.

     How ill-fated he had been to be the one witnessing this first hand; to watch helplessly as the boy he loved lost all the love he had and became an empty shell of what used to be. How did things come to turn out this way?

     To watch Beomgyu lose what made him whole.

     Choi Beomgyu had lost himself.

     Taehyun had fallen in love.

     Have him hear such an outlandish thing only a year earlier, he would have turned around and shrugged the person off, jeering at the impracticable words. He’d never seen himself in a place where he would be wholly vulnerable to someone; fully prone to wounds as he let them wield the sword.

     After all, only a fool would trust someone that much.

     Taehyun was a fool. A fool in love, that is.

     After beholding the consequences of someone he loved wasting all her hearts, he’d been stricken exactly where the wound was tender and open. Watching his mother be played and abandoned was like a blunt knife wedging itself deeper and deeper into an already open slash.

     He had to watch with his five gleaming, vivacious hearts as his mother neglected him with five eclipsed hearts on her own wrist.

     She never spoke to him even once, never even acknowledged his presence when he spoke. How could she? She'd been robbed of the ability to care about him. The five dark hearts on her wrist had chained her down and slowly extracted every ounce of sympathy she had.