Acrophilia

XXXIII: horror

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.