LOSE MY BREATH

LMB 19

19: Reunion.

There had been three events in Jisung’s life that had made his heart feel like it would actually stop beating out of shock.

The first had been when he’d been three, when he came back from playing in the woods to find his parents’ house filled with police and medical personnel, a window of the living room broken, adults murmuring in grave tones.

In Jisung’s fuzzy memories of the event, he’d been scared, unsure of what to do. He’d turned around and ran, but that wasn’t what you were supposed to do when there were police dogs around, because one jerked itself free and dragged him back; back to the police and the house that held the bodies of his parents.

The next one had been when a friend had asked for help. Hyunjin was in trouble with some really bad people, and they needed money fast, and Jisung didn’t know how to help except for emptying his college fund and paying it, and Hyunjin was beaten half to death but he was living, and so it was worth it.

Jisung didn’t know how to tell his siblings the reason he had to move to the bad side of a completely different city with cheaper apartments, couldn’t explain why he had to get a job and split the time between work and studying. So he didn’t.

The final was the call made by Felix who told him about Jeongin. When Felix had shouted his voice hoarse, asking him for the reason why, if he was finally satisfied with all the secrecy after he was gone, after he was gone because of him--

Jisung hadn’t internalised anything else about the call after finding out about Jeongin’s death.

Jisung's heart might never recover from the shock of walking into the banquet hall, hearing gasps, and then figuring out what was causing them.

It felt like someone had punched the air out of his lungs. The pain in his chest was suddenly blinding.

There, at the back of the room where the sect leader, his brother along with his wife. His face painted in shock. Jeongin stood up, red-rimmed eyes teary and wide, mouth agape. The time stopped, during which Jisung could only hear the unsteady beat of his heart, his brother’s widened eyes.

“Innie?” was the word that escaped his lips, barely audible.

“Yang Jisung!” came an angry shout, shocked as well, and Jisung’s heart might’ve burst right out of his chest at the sound of his brother’s voice.

“Yang Jisung…” gasped Jeongin and with delay, Jisung realised something.

They weren’t his brothers.  These were… this was someone else… Yang Jisung? Yang Jisung’s siblings.

Minho had frozen next to him as well, but it was impossible to tell if it appeared that way to others. Minho never revealed his true thoughts to strangers.

“Jisung?” Minho asked, voice concerned, and Jisung’s mouth couldn’t work, because he was staring at the very living face of his brother, who was dead.

In his own world. In that terrible, awful, soul-crushing world, his brother wasn’t  anymore. And here he was.

Felix had taken the initiative to make his way to him, and without having the time to react, he was being pulled into a hug that would’ve squeezed all remaining air out of him if there were any.

“You-- You!” Felix growled before pulling back to shake him. “What the hell is this? "How in the hell are you alive?"

Jisung could only stare, eyes wide, at his younger brother's enraged expression. His little brother, who had not talked to him in over a year. Whose last phone conversation with him about their deceased brother and how it was his fault that he was—

“Sung… Is it really you?” asked a teary voice, and his brother was there, in the pretty robes of a fantasy world.

Jisung was mortified to feel tears streaming down his cheeks, and when he freed himself from Felix's grip, he could only hear them shouting after him in the distance.

His head pounded as he ran through the corridors and back into the gaudy gold-covered rooms reserved for the Lees. He slammed the door behind him, his hands shaking, terrified to his core, and simultaneously grateful for the opportunity to see his face and guilty for daring to look.

He stood there, head pressed against the door for an uncertain amount of time. Then, when his knees could not take the position anymore, he knelt and finally he let off a sob, heart paining more as he recollected the memories about that dreadful day.