Jinyoung doesn't register how swiftly Jaebum is fisting at his collar, hauling him up to his feet to shout at his face.
"What the fuck do you want to know huh?"
Jinyoung trembles but he defends himself with words.
"I didn't come all the way to find you instead of going to university to hear your bullshits and tolerate your outbursts. I am not a fucking teenager anymore okay. I can understand things but what I don't understand is how you casually dusted me from your life as if my existence didn't even matter to you."
Jaebum lets go off him at once. The air inside the small room is humid and Jaebum has started to sweat profusely. Jinyoung knows about Jaebum getting anxious every now and then, when he feels perplexed or when he doesn't feels like he is ready for something. He certainly isn't ready for Jinyoung and his questions.
"Answer me goddamnit," Jinyoung gets out of his grip and shoves at Jaebum's chest forcefully.
What follows up is an episode of tearful recap of all the years Jinyoung has missed. He feels remorseful, that he wasn't there to help his Jaebum hyung when he needed him the most and the days he spent waiting for Jaebum's phone call before his disappearance were the days he should have been with Jaebum in person.
Jaebum slumps to the floor along with Jinyoung.
He begins from the start. He tells about how that night, Jaebum's mother had returned early to overhear the two boys in the room. And how everything went south after that.
"Wait, you mother? She knows? I thought...how...she never told me," Jinyoung is falling back on his ass, disbelief clouding his eyes.
"Well, it doesn't matter anymore. She told me enough. And..."
"And that's why you ran away from your home? For this? You fucking stupid..." Jinyoung is on the verge of shoving Jaebum for his obnoxious actions when Jaebum bites back.
"Quit jumping to conclusions okay? I didn't run away because of that. I was...I was okay with everyone finding out about us...I...wanted them to know about us...and accept us but that wasn't going to happen Jinyoung-ah."
"Why? Why do you say that?" Jinyoung's voice trembles with anticipation.
"Because I can't be with you Jinyoung, I just can't. Not anymore. Because circumstances changed and I was a fool to indulge you into having sex with me just because I was curious," Jaebum looks down at his lap.
Jinyoung observes him closely. His clothes aren't particularly neat and the whole shabbiness makes him more than just a stranger to Park Jinyoung.
"It can't be the reason. It's too vague Jaebum hyung. You are lying to me. Why are you lying to me?"
Jinyoung takes his turn to fist at Jaebum's collars this time to shake him.
"You really want to know why?"
"Yes just say it goddamn it," Jinyoung simply shouts.
"I... I wasn't straight Jinyoung. I never was. Dating Sora was just a way to make my mother believe that I was. Years and years ago when I came out of the closet, she thought I was being immature. And then she started to suspect that we were getting closer which we were and..." Jaebum chokes on his sob but continues. "I couldn't let you go to college without touching you for once, without kissing you just once and it was perfect, everything was perfect."
Jinyoung doesn't know what to say anymore. As if he was reading the chapters of his life once again with details that he missed at first.
"She accused me of raping you Jinyoung. You! And I was young and stupid. I believed whatever I did was wrong. I just couldn't face you anymore...and I couldn't face my parents who looked at me like a leper. I just wanted to leave everything behind and start afresh, wipe my history and start over. But here you are. My past colliding with my present."
They look at each other for a long time. Words weren't needed. Jinyoung can't utter anything when he realizes that Jaebum had run away under a false belief, implanted in his head by his own mother who was a delusional mess herself. All these years, in which they could have had a happy life together, wasted. Just because Jaebum believed that he sexually exploited the friend he dotted on since childhood.
It was fucked up real bad and Jinyoung feels his organs trying to push his way out of his mouth.
"Hyung," he finds his voice once again after a stretched moment of pause. "You...didn't do anything wrong. You didn't molest me. I wanted to do it too. I love you, hyung. Don't blame yourself for anything."
Jaebum looks up from the floor after a long time to meet Jinyoung's eyes. He finds the same 5 year old boy he had met in first grade, how he had defended him at every point of his life and how he had fallen for this very Jinyoung who had found him.
Jinyoung doesn't wait another moment before pulling him in for a bone crushing hug as they sob freely into each other's embrace. They stay like that for a moment until Jaebum parts away.
"I don't know what I did Jinyoung...I..."
"Stop, don't say another word."
Jinyoung closes Jaebum's mouth with his and he tastes a hint of alcohol and smoke. And everything was back to normal, as if the years of pain between them and the distance were all wiped away in one go. Jinyoung kissed him as if his life depended on it. They crashed together on the mattress and tore at each other's clothes. They pretended they were back in Jaebum's room and soon it was all dissolved in lust.
When they lay spent, face to face, trying to catch their breath, Jinyoung and Jaebum both caressed each other's face.
"I am not going back without you hyung. You are coming home with me. I am not letting you go."
That's what he hears Jinyoung saying before he drifts off to sleep, naked in his arms. But Jaebum doesn't reply. He has come too far to go back now and he can't let Jinyoung be a part of his fucked up life. All the drugs flowing in his veins which he had taken for years and years to forget Jinyoung, waits in the shadow to strike at Jinyoung's pure flesh as he sleeps.
Jaebum knows what is the right thing to do and sometimes the right thing hurts the most. So before the break of the dawn and before Jinyoung wakes up, Jaebum prepares himself.
There is no life back home, not even with Jinyoung and Jinyoung deserves something better than him. So he rolls up his meager belongings and clicks open the door. Jaebum sighs, a drop of tear escapes his eyes. Jinyoung looks ethereal, sleeping like that and he absorbs the last of his image before he leaves...forever.
"Goodbye, Jinyoung-ah. I will always love you."
The door clicks shut and Jaebum disappears from the face of earth once again leaving Jinyoung on the cold floor and an ever colder reality.
YOU ARE READING
what else is there | jj project
Short Story❝because hyung, i am not going back without you❞ || ● jinyoung embarks on a journey to bring his estranged best friend jaebum home, believing that he is less likely to succeed, specially when he is the reason of jaebum's disappearance. ● a jj proje...