trigger warnings : drugs, nosebleeds.
junghwa promised she would stay. he was going through a particularly rough chapter in the book of mistakes that is his life but knowing she was, as she promised, going to be by his side for the duration of the holiday gave him some sort of relief. looking back at the promise, it was silly. how extremely comforting her presence was. and not even her presence, but the thought of it. the premise that he didn’t have to go through things alone. it wasn’t silly, scratch that. looking back, it was delusional. the golden offer presented by a loan shark, in this case miss eun junghwa, to the weak and helpless. in all honestly, it seemed like the perfect deal: yes, you can still have terrible self-destructing episodes that somehow you keep surviving and, once all that is done, there is going to be someone waiting for you to come down that won’t judge or try to change you. but isn’t that what loan sharks do? i’ll tell you want you want to hear and you will completely ignore the fine print that says ‘i will break my promise anyway and you will end up much worse than you have ever been.’
when she tells him she’s leaving, he’s numb. not because of her though, that would be giving junghwa way too much credit and he did, in fact, spend most of the baek event secretly snorting cocaine with hyeon in one of the bathrooms. ( not something he had originally planned to do, but he’s just incapable of saying no. even more so when it includes hyeon and drugs. ) he doesn’t regret getting high. hyeon’s coke, as always, was fucking awesome and it made the whole event much more bearable. what’s lingering in the back of his mind, tormenting him to the point that he has to get more high to tune it out, are the doe eyed looks of the people that are still none the wiser about his habit. ( more specifically a certain pair of siblings that shouldn’t be allowed near any eun sibling under any circumstance, but that’s another story. ) what a fucking mess he was. red eyes, dilated pupils and nosebleeds. a sight only a select few had seen before. thank god his hanbok was black so he could wipe the blood without noticeable stains or carrying a bloody tissue around, as unhygienic as it was, and that the event was outside so he could wear sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes. but guilt can’t be wiped away or covered under dark shades. it eats away at him, draining the last remaining drops of hope he had, so he takes another pill, does another line, and waits for his body to shut down, in whatever way it wants.
i could do this all day. and he does. friday was a blur. all he remembers is crying. crying so hard because it had been almost a year since he had let himself do so. there wasn’t even a particular reason behind it, it was just an accumulation of all the repressed feelings he had since he let himself break in that way. his phone rings with a stream of messages from junghwa and his response is to just turn the phone off. his way of saying you don’t get to care about me now. was it stupid to be sad over a promise that was, as stated before, too good to be true? yes. he should’ve known better and it’s his own fault that he thought things could finally go well for him. still, he’s upset. and he thinks he’s entitled to. while he could jump through some hoops and blame his current bleak state on junghwa leaving, he ultimately knows it’s on him for holding onto false hope and thinking things could possibly be better than they are. he hit rock bottom and now it’s like a trapdoor was opened and now he’s just constantly falling, the only thing accompanying him being a voice in his head telling him to just give up.
quit while you’re ahead. but he’s not ahead. he’s in last place, miles behind anyone else. saturday slips through his fingers. he’s not sure if he’s slept thirty or three hours. the drugs in his apartment are running out and hyeon is out of town. not ideal but definitely a sign. he can give the debilitating wiry frame of his body enough time to recover so he can reenter society on monday like the perfect golden boy he’s supposed to be. one good thing about multiple day drug binges by yourself is that there are no witnesses. he can just pretend that he was busy and that his phone was broken and act like nothing ever happened. it’s not like he hasn’t done it before. and since junghwa moved in with him, maybe this is the only time he’s going to be able to do it. okay, now he’s just looking for reasons to excuse his self-destructive behavior. but it’s true. better get it out of his system now so he doesn’t have to hit junghwa with the “can you find somewhere to sleep over for a the weekend, i need to get high to the point i could od but stop right before i do.”
it’s better this way. how many times he’s going to repeat that sentence to him every time he self sabotages and has to act like it was his plan all along. push everyone you care away as you douse yourself in gasoline in front of them and set yourself ablaze. yes, it’s better this way. you’re not hurting them this way, they’ve been pushed away, shoved aside. he’s alone, but it’s better this way. sunday comes around. he’s laying on his back in the living room couch, muscles weak as he hasn’t eaten anything substantial in three days. there’s nothing he can take to help him sleep now, neither something that will wake him up. so he just waits until, hopefully, his eyes give out or some supernatural force takes over his body and he can get to the kitchen and get himself something to eat. the apartment’s main door opens, catching him completely off guard. it’s clear to him no one gives a fuck about him, so why are they bargaining on his apartment at 4am after he’s spent the past couple of days purposely ignoring everyone? then it hits him. he lives with junghwa now. and there she is, in all her glory.
a dry laugh escapes his lips, his voice hoarse as he hasn’t had to use it in a while. “leave.” is what he says as soon as she steps inside. “i really don’t want to see you right now. just go away.”
junghwa promised she would stay. and she had planned to make good on that promise, she swears. it's just that life has a funny way of constantly turning things on their head. so, it wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault. the promise had been made on a condition, one she simply hadn't thought to let jeongmin know about. but, well, tsuki had sworn that the likelihood of her company granting her the vacation time for jeju would be extremely low. so junghwa had taken it as a definite no. yet, right after the chuseok dinner, she receives a text notification confirming that yes, tsuki could go to jeju after all; junghwa hadn't really stopped to think. the thinking was jeongmin's job, it was hers to act. she rushes to their shared apartment hastily, sloppily shoving fistfuls of clothing into a duffel bag. her message to jeongmin is, admittedly, nothing more than an afterthought--she types it out in between shared giggles with tsuki, something akin to excitement coursing through her limbs.
sorry bro ! change of plans, going to jeju w tsuki after all. see u monday !!!!!
junghwa looks back at now and cringes, she could have at least called him; jeongmin was her brother.
in the end, junghwa can't even say the trip had been worth it. and that really made it worse didn't it? had she had the time of her life, maybe she could face jeongmin knowing that, yeah, going to jeju had been vital to her development as a human being. but that wasn't the case, was it, junghwa? god, fuck cha eunho. she wants to say desperately that it had been the party itself that had been an absolute shitshow. it's seojun's fault, she wants to say, it's his fault; had it not been for him, i wouldn't be like this. blame-shifting had always been her specialty, but even junghwa knew she couldn't lie to herself like that.
now, she stares at her reflection in the elevator ride up to their apartment, the duffel bag hanging off the crook of her elbow limply; there's a hint peeling skin lining the tops of her shoulders.
why had she come back, anyway? it felt like nothing other than fuck-up after fuck-up, since she'd return home. she put her career on a complete hold for what? the question hangs like a noose around her neck, tightening just a fraction with every request for an answer. why, why, why?
her reflection stares back at her, mutely.
she's not expecting there to be anyone to announce herself to when she gets home. her keys jangle obnoxiously in the otherwise quiet hallway, and the lights are on when she finally manages to get the door open.
maybe she would have taken jeongmin's request to heart had he not been sprawled about on the floor, looking as close to death as he allowed himself to get. it was a sibling thing, the furtive glances and shared secrets. she knew, he knew she knew, and they both went on with their lives. who was she to tell him what to do? who was she?
an absolute fucking idiot, junghwa realizes now.
junghwa's by his side in the blink of an eye, kneeling to press her ear to his chest, just to reassure herself that it was still beating. had she done this, had she lead him to this? rationally, junghwa knows that isn't possible; jeongmin's been fucking himself up with that shit for about as far as she could remember. but in that moment, curled over her brother's chest, ear still pressed against the space right above his sternum, it certainly feels like her fault.
"jeongmin," i'm sorry. i'm sorry. "what--why?" the question dies in her mouth, reduced to a pitiful choked off sob. but he had promised, jeongmin had promised.
she remembers being twenty years old and riding in the back of an ambulance, curled over her brother's chest. they had been just old enough that they could finally manage to escape their parent's ever watchful eyes, and had made a plan to take full advantage of it. it was a sibling thing, furtive glances and shared secrets. junghwa was twenty years old and watching her brother snort a line off some seedy restroom counter. it's just between us, y'know? junghwa shrugs it off, yeah, she knows. and the rest happens the way it does in the movies. she watches jeongmin follow some brunette into a restroom, and junghwa had laughed. but then she waits, and waits; she grows impatient, finally at capacity to deal with slurring strangers and stumbling clubgoers. it had been anger first, coloring her vision red; she's planned on dragging jeongmin back to their shared hotel, not caring whether he were mid-fuck or not. instead, she finds him passed out on the restroom floor, blood smeared across his cupid's bow.
junghwa, now twenty two, stares down at her brother and feels just as helpless as she did two years ago.
"why?" junghwa asks again, eyes searching his. "i'm not going to leave. you can't make me leave." her head shakes childishly, resolute. he's awake, though, and that is enough for her to latch onto the chance of hope. after the initial wave of shock, she's quick to spur into action; junghwa rifles through the kitchen for water and grabs a pillow off the couch on her way back. she's filled to the brim with a multitude of questions, it takes a surprisingly extraordinary amount of mental strength to not let them spill past her lips and hang awkwardly in the space between them. but she stays quiet for now, as she places a pillow under his head and brings the bottle to his lips. "how long have you been like this?" junghwa doesn't meet his eyes, finds it difficult to do so for the first time in years. she doesn't need the physical reminder that had she not fucked off to jeju, then maybe her brother wouldn't be like this. well, maybe.
