It takes him longer than usual to get up in the morning. Strangely enough, he’s been awake for hours, eyes set on the white ceiling, memorizing the little cracks, the uneven painting job and contemplating on whether he should change the color or not. Maybe not, he’s not sure how the landlord would react to the fact that he’d probably paint it grass-green just because he likes the color - it makes him think of spring days and flower fields that he’s never walked through but that he’s seen many times in books. Jongsoo likes to paint the flowers green, he remembers, and the sky yellow with pink clouds because they look like cotton candy, he says with the naivety of his four years of age. Jongin thinks it’s fun to reach out and come out of the box sometimes; he thinks that being different is good and he likes how alive he feels whenever he watches his little brother because he resembles her a lot - not in the way he looks, but in the way he wants to do everything and be different from everyone.
He looks at the alarm clock on the bedside table and watches the numbers go by slowly one after the other. It’s too late to still be in bed, but somehow too early. Jongin can bet that if he reaches his hand to grab his phone, he’ll have a hundred missed calls and another equal bunch of text messages from his mother asking if he’s awake, if he wants to go with them, if they should wait for him, if he ate - ‘it’s late Jongin, have you had lunch yet? don’t forget to eat.’ He doesn’t really need to open them to know what they say. Next time he goes home, he is sure that she’ll ask him why he doesn’t sleep over more often or why he doesn’t move back again because she worries about him living alone - being alone.
He gets up after another ten minutes, walks to the bathroom, takes a quick shower, picks up a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and goes to the kitchen. Somewhere between picking up a half-empty box of cereal, he turns the TV on but it stays on a random channel mainly because he’s not all too interested in what is on, it’s actually just a habit doing that, letting the voices on TV to keep him company while he drowns the little corn flakes in milk. When he finishes, the empty bowl is abandoned in the sink to next to all the other dirty plates and bowls. He’ll go for a late session of dish washing tonight, he tells himself.
There are no plans for him to go to college today and he asked one of his co-workers to cover his shift for the night, he’ll just work a double shift the next day. On his way out, he takes his duffel bag, places the strap across his chest and walks to the train station. The next one is in five minutes. He can wait.
And then, on his way there, he carries a modest bouquet of white lilies - her favorite - and to anyone else on the outside, it might be just another sad picture of someone bringing flowers to someone they miss. No one really knows who he is or who she was but the whole world would sympathise with the situation because that is the norm. Everyone offers their condolences when someone passes away, everyone whispers about how devastated the family must be, how this must be and that must feel. Everyone thinks they know. Then again, death is just as natural a phenomenon as life, he learned the practicality of thinking like that, even if his eyes look dead and his silence speaks so loud that even he can’t handle himself. Every year is different - he’s gone through five already - and every year he acts a little bit differently when that day comes. This year he feels especially deflated, he has no idea why. ‘Hey. it’s me’ - it’s a whisper - ‘did you miss me?’ - I did.
It’s almost an hour by train, to go back. It’s less than half the time by car, if he could get into one, his life would be easier but it’s fine, he somehow enjoys the commute.
The smallest room in the dance studio is his for the afternoon and it’s where he plans to stay until its closing hours, encased in his little box, surrounded by sounds and the reflection of himself moving to the beats. He has yet to look at his phone.
However, the hours go by even though no one seems to care for it and the endless loop of song after song offer enough distraction until something else draws his attention and makes him stop. Jongin looks at the phone on top of his bag as if it’s offensive and contemplates letting it ring until whoever is trying to reach him gives up but then he moves closer. The name on the screen makes him snort. “Of course” - ‘royal pain in the ass’, he can read, insistent and relentless, and Jongin knows that the other is not going to give up until he picks up so he supposes he’s doing himself a favor. “Hey.” He manages in between attempts to even his breathing from the effort exerted before.
Hurricane Sehun proceeds to dump all the information in the world on him within the next ten seconds but Jongin’s head is spinning already and that’s why he calls him a hurricane, because he sweeps everything on his way, no questions asked, no buts or attempts at valid arguments. “I’m practicing.” Jongin says, although it’s certainly not reason enough to stop Sehun from getting what he wants. “You bought tickets… you know I could blow this and you’d be losing money, don’t you? Acting reckless isn’t like you, I think you’re spending too much time with me, my bad habits are rubbing off on you.”
He can only snort as he picks up his discarded towel to wipe the sweat dripping down his neck. “I’m pretty sure that my hand would have unintentionally hit the back of your head if I was there. Facetiming me while being mushy is not the way to get my ass to go watch that movie with you. Bring me a meat bun and I’ll consider it.”
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