Red Snow//Renmin

Chapter three

"You- how the- kill?" Renjun gripped his hair, staggering backwards into the void of what was once his room. It was all in his head. But alas, Jaemin's hand rejoined itself and moved to cup his face. And somehow, he melted to the cold, cold touch.

"I wanted to apologise, you know. But it seems like you've forgotten all about me," he said in a small, thin voice. So faint, as if it were a broken music box at the bottom of a pile of other abandoned toys, eternally playing the same torn tune. "I never meant it. But I think I'm too late now." His hands peeled away from Renjun's face, leaving a blushing warmth on his cheeks.

"Go ahead." Renjun's voice got stuck at the back of his throat. "Apologise then."

Two dwindling lights seemed to take the place of Jaemin's eyes, that smiled along with him at the chance.

"You and I went way back. Almost too far back. Sometimes I think we're together in every life, like soulmates. Maybe you are, Renjun." The human took note of how he knew his name without him once telling it to him. And Jaemin's delicate pronunciation of it, like if he said it too loud he'd break it.

"And it was me. I started to get overly protective of you. It was me all along!" His voice threatened to break, and Renjun thought a little dimple formed in the snow where a single tear had fallen, fallen like a devil. Slid off of Jaemin's cotton-looking cheeks and landed with a 'tick' of some clock.

"You already know this, but I got jealous. Seriously jealous. Inhumanely jealous, if you know what I mean. Supern-" Renjun shushed him and then motioned for him to continue, as if he'd done it a thousand times before.

"You started to see someone. I thought I was losing you to some good-for-nothing," Jaemin's words were now laced with steel.

"That hatred drove me. And one day, on a snowy morning like this, I said to myself 'If I can't have him, then no one will'. I came over to this house, a penknife in my back pocket. That happened, Renjun, all those years ago."

"That happened..." Renjun repeated.

"And I didn't mean to do harm to that extent, honest! I only wanted to tell you-"

"-that you loved me?" Renjun instinctively guessed. His mouth wasn't even his anymore. Jaemin squealed excitedly.

"Exactly! And then in a frenzy I just..."

"You pulled it out and let me have it. And then the sirens..." Renjun's mind flooded with various snapshots.

"That was the worst part. When they said you were dead. I couldn't live without you, Renjun." More dimples in the snow. "I just couldn't. And I guess I still can't if now I'm here..."

"Are you here to kill me again? Make me a ghost too?" Renjun suddenly regained his senses.

"Didn't I just tell you I was apologising? Really Renjun, your memory hasn't improved one bit," Jaemin scolded.

"So then are you done?"

"Done in what sense?"

"Done with me? Done apologising? Done with living?"

"That last one would be a challenge for me to solve. But the other two, yes. I just wanted one final goodbye. And maybe the stars will re-align in the distant future." What stars he was exactly talking about, Renjun would have to find out for himself.

"In the meantime whilst I was waiting for you, I was doing that old dance we did when we were kids. I still remember it!" Jaemin stepped back a bit and more footprints formed. The pattern of crunches were vaguely familiar.

"I thought it went like this?" Renjun demonstrated from the inside- ignoring the fact that there wasn't really an inside anymore. The window frame had dissolved away into the frozen, and the curtain faded. Jaemin clapped his hands in delight, Renjun merely thought. He could only detect its echos, through this new mist.

"That was the next part!" Renjun continued to dance, twirling in random times when he felt like it and to everything, Jaemin smiled fondly and cheered him on.

"You're just as elegant as I remember," he crooned. Renjun walked closer, his head somewhat of a blizzard.

"So..."

"So..." Jaemin echoed. "Would you like me to leave?"

"For good?" Renjun slipped out. Jaemin sighed, leaning over into the warmth surrounding Renjun and wrapping him up in a hug with strangely, no wall separating them. Physically.

"If you want me to. I'll do anything for you." His words breathed themselves onto Renjun's neck, tattooing themselves there. They swarmed onto his skin, devouring it gradually. There was a snow-light touch of Jaemin's lips on his earlobe too.

"Stay, then. I can't keep out the cold forever," he murmured, eyes closed. 

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Wooooo another oneshot after like a year lmao. I wrote this so spontaneously cos I REALLY wanted to write for this fest and then idea and then this happened overnight...basically. Hope you enjoyed!!