here lies the cold, battered body of park jaehyun. they’d ripped him from the living and buried his body in an unmarked grave. there were no eulogies sung, no tales of him being the good son or the beloved teammate. ashes to ashes, dust to dust— an entire lifetime amounting to an iota of dirt. all that breathing, and clawing, and fighting, for fucking nothing.
exhibit a: how he’d routinely deny a smoke and push away a drink because he’d been so pathetically devoted to his physique, thinking that all this discipline was going to lead to something. a slot on the team, a notch in his belt. how fucking stupid to think that something as superficial as his fitness was going to set him apart, when he’d always been labelled a freak. now, there’s a live cigarette balanced between his fingers, the heat from the fire an inviting reprieve from the cold, winter night. fuck it. he holds it between his lips and breathes it in, and the ashes that fall look a whole lot like the black rose petals scattered atop a grave.
exhibit b: how he’d once envisioned the three kids and white picket fence with her. chae seori, the girl of his nightmares. he’d held her in the cup of his palms like a child and a white-tailed dove— in his mind’s eye, he’s gentle, yet firm, anxious at the thought of her flying away. to others, he’s inexperienced all the way through. and what this means is that he loved her to the point of reverence, had plucked out the jutting ribs to lock into her form. they say that if you love something, you let it go. jaehyun wonders if what they mean is that love is loss. everything he’s ever loved has turned into a ghost.
so on this witching hour, they stand. park jaehyun, the man who dreamed. chae seori, the girl who lived. they’re face to face with a lifetime between them.
when jaehyun sees her, he doesn’t blink. doesn’t bother with the double take or the second guessing. because the fear, now, isn’t that she’s real— it’s that she isn’t. suppose that’s the dreamer in him, the one that they killed, not caring how the ghost of her had made her way back to him, only that she did. a hesitant, “…seori?” falls, like a child in a dark room, and he goes to her. on the floor, a cigarette barely smoked.
ft. park jaehyun & @acidrcins's chae seori