Acrophilia

XXXVI: fear

"Jinyoung-ah!" Jaebeom screams, eyes wide in shock, head turning from one side to the other looking for the other man but the rooftop is empty. "Park Jinyoung!"

His heart rate picks up as he realises the younger man isn't around. It wasn't his intention for things to turn out like this, he was caught up in thought, one moment he was just considering everything which is already so hard when he's so tired and sleep deprived, and the next second Jinyoung isn't there anymore.

"Aish, why are you so impatient!" He complains, rubbing his hands through his hair in frustration. "Couldn't you give me a little bit more time?"

Exhausted to no end but defeated, Jaebeom pushes himself to walk away from the rooftop although he has no clear aim of where he's going, he's just moving, his thoughts consumed by Park Jinyoung. Although he knows he still has deep and strong feelings for Jinyoung, it's not in Jaebeom to just blindly follow his heart and choose without thinking of repercussions. He isn't a romanticist like Jackson who would choose Mark over everything. Jaebeom has to think carefully before making a decision and romantic love is something he's never experienced before, something that never had much importance to him. It's the first time he's actually had real feelings for someone so he's inexperienced. It doesn't help that the situation he's in is so impossible and confusing, with their lives so tangled it seems destiny.

You might be fated or something worthy of a drama, Jaebeom remembers Jackson saying, and the many other times he teased him about being fated to Jinyoung and whatnot. Now that he thinks about it he cannot help snort in the middle of the street, looking like a weirdo.

Well, it seems Jackson was right because their lives are so tangled and twisted, from the accident to Jaebeom being the only one who can see Jinyoung, and how it seems Jinyoung is only real when he's around the older. Doesn't it seem like they are actually fated?

It's both a funny and overwhelming thought.

Couldn't we have met some other way if we were fated? Jaebeom thinks, wishing he would've met Jinyoung in just a normal setting, slowly fall for each other like Mark and Jackson did, without so much life and death issues.

But as he thinks about that he realises maybe he wouldn't have given Jinyoung a second glance, he would've stayed away from a weirdo like him. It was because Jinyoung keep popping out of nowhere around him, it was because he was vulnerable, alone, and in need of someone who could hold him and put him back together like Jinyoung did that he opened up and unavoidably fell for Jinyoung.

Fated.

And it seems fate is laughing in his face because when Jaebeom realises where his feet have taken him, he's at one of the bridges that cross the Han River. He laughs, humourlessly and tired because isn't there where he met Jinyoung?

"Fine, I'll accept it's fate but I'll never tell Jackson," Jaebeom mumbles to himself, chuckling lightly.

He takes a deep breath and takes a step forward but as soon as he does that he spots a slim frame by the rail. His heart stops as he sees the person trying to climb it, his mind only thinks of Jinyoung and a scream gets stuck in his through, his whole body freezing. As the person succeeds at sitting on the rail he realises a dress flips with the wind and long hair dances around the head of a young girl, slim and fragile to the point it seems the wind will take her away.

As Jaebeom realises it isn't Jinyoung and just another person his body reacts and he sprints forward just as the girl puts her feet at the other side of the rail, hands still holding her but body leaning forward, ready to jump.

Jaebeom is far away so he runs and screams: "STOP!"

But Seoul is loud even, especially during the day; the buses, the cars, trains and everything else is louder than his voice, muffling his screams and making it all futile. He stills screams as he runs with everything he has, but he doesn't even get closer when he girl lets go of the rail, her body falling forward and into the dark and seemingly still waters of the Han.