a/n: dedicated to ro, ( @shinysobi ) who has become one of my closest friends in caratblr. ro and i have yapped, for hours on end, about everything and nothing, and especially about mingyu and jihoon. whenever i have even the slightest inspiration for a new plot, ro always encourages me to take it further, resulting in a whole bunch of headcanons that will probably live on only in our dms. call me crazy for gifting someone angst on their birthday, but ro is one of the few people who loves angst as much as i do, and i couldn't resist this fic idea :)
the fic will be divided into 4 parts, because i suck at planning ahead, but please anticipate the next parts to be slightly happier than this emotional wreck!
shout-out to supi ( @supi-wupi ) for making this cute banner!! its exactly the way i imagined <33 also thank you for reading over this fic. serena ( @gotta-winwin ) , jina ( @facethesunflower ) and rae ( @nerdycheol ) helped me figure out the storyline of this fic!! thank u alll <33
and lastly, happy birthday ro :) ILYSM WOOZILOVER69 <3
word count: 2.4k
contents: jihoon x f!reader , angst , medical!au , but not much focus on the medical aspect , this part is just sad , reader gets fired , jihoon gets dumped , nightmares
when the door to the director’s office closes behind you, the rain outside is a light drizzle. by the time you manage to empty your locker and drag your weary feet out the main entrance to the hospital, the large drops of rain feel almost painful as they hit your skin.
you walk to the nearest bus stop, and the rain doesn’t let up. you’re standing there alone, getting drenched in the rain like a fool, because everyone else either checked the weather forecast and remembered to carry an umbrella, or had someone remind them.
as the doors of an empty bus come to a halt in front of you, it hits you just how lonely you’ve been. you’re not sure if the lone bus driver notices your tears mix with the rain soaking you, but he thankfully doesn’t probe when you ask, “till when do the buses run?”
“for a few more hours, till eleven,” the bus driver replies, and you feel a weird mix of relief and sadness at the thought of getting to be alone for some more time.
“i’ll pay whatever it takes to just keep driving till eleven. you can go anywhere, i don’t mind,” for a moment, you think the old man may laugh in your face at your request, but his kind eyes reveal that he must have encountered people just as lost as you felt now and driven them out to a better place.
“no worries, kid,” he smiles. “just take a seat, i’ll look after the rest.”
the bus ride passes in silence as you stare out of the window, head completely devoid of any thoughts. it was a welcome change from the constant tornado of what-ifs, maybes, and could have beens that wreak havoc in your mind.
for the first thirty minutes, the bus driver tries to subtly take a look at your silent, shivering figure. he’s probably wondering why someone soaked to the bone wouldn’t ask for even a paper napkin to try and dry themselves off.
at the lack of any communication from you, the remainder of your bus journey passes with the bus driver’s eyes focusing on the road, while yours wander aimlessly.
at the end of your two hours, you manage to pull out crumpled bills from your wallet and hand them over to the driver before leaving the bus.
you had no idea where you were, and for the first time in ages, the uncertainty surrounding you wasn’t slowly killing you from the inside. you pull yourself together for long enough to find dry clothes, a nearby hotel, and a room for the night.
the end of a day that you’d never even imagined manages to surprise you one last time—when your head hits the pillow, you immediately drift off to sleep. the haunting beep of your pager, the constant worrying about your future, and a thousand regrets from your past weren’t around to keep you awake, and you feel an ironic sense of gratitude for your current situation right before you fall asleep.
hearing your mother’s voice over the speakers of your phone makes you tear up. the nostalgia of hearing her ask if you’ve eaten breakfast, just like how she used to when you still lived with her, creates an uncomfortable lump in your throat. you swallow thickly and answer shakily, “no, i haven’t eaten yet, eomma.”
“you should eat, sweetie. grab something from the hospital cafeteria, won’t you?” your mother tuts, the concern in her voice making you sick to your stomach with the guilt stirring up in your gut.
it had been three days, ten hours, and twenty-four minutes since you’d stepped into the hospital. your white doctor’s coat hangs off a chair at your dining table, the pocket that once held your employee badge empty. you hadn’t touched that coat in three days, ever since you left the hotel and came back to your apartment, not even to disentangle the stethoscope hanging out of a pocket.
the usual, perfectly-pressed white fabric of your coat was now crinkly with misuse, and each wrinkle stared back at you tauntingly, reminding you of your failed goals.
“i’ll do that,” you say, instead of saying i don’t even work at the hospital anymore. “my team needs me now, eomma. i’ll call you back later.”
“okay, sweetie,” your mother sounds hesitant, almost as if the crack in your voice makes her doubt your employment status. “call more often, okay? i really miss you.”
“i will,” you lie, again, and there’s a strange pain in your chest long after the call disconnects. a pain you thought you’d gotten used to over the years of lies and excuses.
things change, a small voice in the back of your head says, and after looking at the abandoned white coat on the chair across you, you couldn’t agree more.
“i can’t do this,” younghee sighs, the tense line of her shoulders giving away her frustration. “you keep asking me the same question, and it’s—”
“forgive me for wondering how much longer i’ll have to wait to get married to you!” jihoon interrupts her, shrugging his coat off with more force than usual.
“why do you keep asking if you know you’ll get the same answer?” younghee argues. “begging a hundred times won’t make me say yes!”
“begging?” jihoon scoffs. “now you think i’m begging you to get married? we’re engaged, for fuck’s sake! am i not allowed to ask about our wedding? it’s been three years, younghee. aren’t you tired of delaying this every time?”
“i am tired, jihoon,” younghee answers, but the exhaustion in her tone sounds different. “i’m tired because i don’t want this wedding at all.”
“what do you mean?” jihoon asks. “do you need more time to think? because three whole years seems like a lot of time to think.”
“i-i’ve already made up my mind,” younghee sounds resigned and guilty, and jihoon’s mind keeps firing off alerts at the unfamiliar tone of younghee’s voice. what he learns, though, is that no amount of warnings would have prepared him for the words that followed.
“i don’t want this wedding at all, jihoon, because i don’t want to be with you anymore.”
———
the aftermath of this recurring nightmare is the same. jihoon wakes up gasping for breath, his shirt soaked with sweat and heart racing unnaturally.
like clockwork, he looks to the empty side of his bed, the lingering scent of younghee’s shampoo having faded from the pillows a long time ago. he looks at the nightstand next to him and the framed photograph of him with who he thought would be beside him for life.
then, with robot-like movements, jihoon leaves his bed, the unblinking numbers on his alarm clock reading 4:37. he wordlessly pads into his kitchen, tries to ignore the matching pink mug next to his blue one, and pours himself a cold glass of milk.
the coffee machine next to the stove lays unused, like it has been for the past six months, with no one to drink coffee. jihoon always found coffee too bitter for his palate, and with younghee gone, even milk spreads over his tongue like bitter poison.
on nights like these, jihoon thinks. he thinks about the pathetic person he’s reduced himself into by living within the same, suffocating walls of his apartment. he thinks about how he should move on, at least make some effort, but he also thinks about how much it hurts his heart to even walk past the living room and glance at the bouquet of dead roses he had bought for younghee six months ago, the night everything had changed.
everyone tells him he needs to move on, but change hurts, and jihoon has never liked feeling pain.
you weren’t planning this, but somehow, your entire apartment has been packed into boxes. your apartment, with its ceiling-to-floor glass windows and large balcony, once your safe space, had now become a cruel reminder of how you didn’t have a job to pay even another month of rent.
“you’re leaving? just like that?” a voice startles you out of your thoughts, and you turn to see haerin standing at the door of your apartment, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed.
“how did you know i was—?” you start, but haerin interrupts you with a pointed look. “mr. song called me when he saw the packers enter your apartment. why didn’t you tell me?”
you can’t get yourself to feel too angry at the old watchman, not when he’s taken care of you on multiple occasions when you felt so tired after your shifts at the hospital to even unlock the door to your apartment. you do, however, feel dread crawling its way up your chest at haerin’s sharp gaze.
“i didn’t think it was that important,” you shrug, your lie sounding unconvincing to even your ears.
“i know i call you an idiot, but i never thought you were this stupid,” haerin scoffs. “you’re my best friend, y/n. how could you think that you moving out wasn’t important enough to tell me?”
“haerin, let’s just drop the topic,” you sigh. “i’ve got a lot to do, and i can’t waste time like this.”
“i know you’re trying to push me away, but you forget that i’ve been your friend throughout med school,” haerin ignores your protests as she steps into your apartment, carefully avoiding all the scattered boxes. “i can deal with your every mood, so don’t expect me to leave here without an explanation. why are you leaving all of a sudden?”
“is it really that hard to see?” you sneer. “i fucking failed, haerin. i messed up and now i have no job, and no hospital is willing to take me in. anywhere i go, people stare and whisper at me. i’m the new freak in this city, so forgive me for running away from something that hurts me.”
“have you even tried to look for new positions?” haerin counters, her eyes softening when she sees the tears in yours. “i have a friend at asan, and he can help you out—”
“i don’t want to be a charity case,” you shake your head. “i haven’t worked my ass off just to be handed a job offer out of pity. i’m done with this city, and it’s clearly done with me too.”
“you can’t be giving up that easily, y/n,” haerin presses further. “give it some time, and maybe you’ll even get your old job back.”
“with kim hyungsoo kissing the director’s ass? yeah, sure,” you roll your eyes. “haerin, he got me kicked out of the hospital i’ve contributed a quarter of my life to. he has money, power, and every odd is stacked against me. there’s no way i’m going back there.”
haerin’s shoulders slump; she’s clearly out of any other arguments, and it makes you feel a twisted sense of relief. you don’t want to have a pointless argument with your best friend, but you also wish that something, anything, would stop you from upending the life you’ve made for yourself in seoul and going back to your hometown.
you hang onto a sliver of hope, expecting haerin to magically come up with another solution, but your next move is clearly laid out in front of you when haerin wraps you in a tight hug and says, “i’ll miss you, y/n.”
“haven’t seen you in this town before.”
jihoon turns his head to the side to see a kid standing next to him. he has a serious expression on his face, as serious as a ten-year old can get, but the bright red lollipop in his hands and the shaggy bowl-cut made it hard for jihoon to take him seriously.
“do you have another one of those lollipops on you?” jihoon answers, and the kid gives him a judging glance. after ten seconds of scanning jihoon up and down, the kid gives him a satisfied nod. “i’ll give you two if you give me 500 won.”
“deal, but you need to tell me your name first,” jihoon smiles, and the kid is quick to reply.
“my name is kim dohun,” dohun says. “what’s yours?”
“lee jihoon,” jihoon offers him a handshake, and dohun just gives him an unimpressed look, so jihoon awkwardly retracts his hand. just when he thought that he’d botched his first conversation with possibly one of the only people who didn’t know who he was in this town, dohun speaks up.
“you look tired. do you want ice-cream?”
dohun looks much more trusting now, and that makes jihoon smile even wider.
“yeah, i’d love an ice-cream, dohun-ssi.”
within five minutes, dohun had led jihoon to a convenience store near the train station jihoon had arrived at. with the air of someone who knows what he likes, dohun picks out a strawberry-flavored ice-cream for himself, and looks at jihoon as he picks out his choice.
with a melona ice-cream in his hands, jihoon joins dohun on the bench outside the convenience store after paying for both their snacks. his luggage is tucked away next to the large tub holding umbrellas for customers who forget their own.
“so, ahjussi, you still didn’t say—”
“call me hyung, dohun-ssi,” jihoon stops him. “i’m really not that old.”
“doesn’t look like it,” dohun mumbles, but he agrees anyway. “you can call me just dohun, jihoon-hyung. now can you tell me why i’ve never seen you here?”
“i’ve been away, dohun-ah,” jihoon sighs. “i was born here, but i moved out a long time ago, maybe even before you were born.”
“why did you move out?” dohun asks. despite all the maturity he tries to carry himself with, jihoon can clearly point out the childlike curiosity peeking through in his tone.
“because of…. work,” jihoon replies, as vaguely as possible.
“it feels like you’re lying though?” dohun questions with an accuracy only children possess in making judgements about new people. “your eyes look very sad, hyung.”
jihoon figures that even smiles can’t hide the heartbreak in his eyes, so he cuts out the pretense. dohun seems to appreciate the honesty in the defeated line of jihoon’s shoulders, and jihoon feels relieved that he doesn’t have to lie to another person about how he’s feeling.
“i am sad, dohun-ah,” jihoon confesses. “and i don’t know when i’ll feel better, or even if i ever will.”
“you will, hyung,” dohun says, and his words feel even more genuine than all the consolation from colleagues jihoon left behind in daegu. “i’ll help you, if you’d like that.”
“i’d like that,” jihoon nods, turning to face dohun. “i really would.”
some people considered you lucky to be jihoon’s first love. you were the first person he’s ever got lost in. you were loved by someone who could sew sonnets together with melodies to create a biography about you; not much people could say they were loved that much.
not a lot of people could say they kept their first love, either. you were lucky to be jihoon’s first. you were unlucky to be jihoon’s first. all the intensity he had stored away in anticipation for a relationship had been poured into loving you, and although it was exhilarating, it was also a thousand times more painful when jihoon realized first doesn’t mean last.
there wasn’t a part of you that jihoon hadn’t come to known. when all was said and done, and your chapter in his life was completed, there was no running away from the memories. the love he had for you was immortalized in the songs he wrote about you. every listen was another cut to the heart that jihoon had eventually decided to leave behind.
📣: bestfriend!Jihoon // fluff // kinda f2l-ish i guess :p // 700~ words
A/N: thank you for the request, anon! yet another cute prompt i wouldnt have thought by myself if not for you guys' wonderful minds😖 it is a fact that jihoon has been living rent free in my mind so this was my personal jihoon agenda HAHAH anyway! i hope this jihoon fluff can help you go through your monday a little better <3
find the rest of requested drabble here
Due to your place getting renovated because you absolutely can’t stand having to fix leaked sink in your kitchen every two months, you’ve been sleeping in Seventeen’s dorm, courtesy of your best friend Lee Jihoon. He has said a lot of them are back in their family houses because they’ve gotten two weeks off and you can sleep in his room while he can just sleep in one of the empty rooms.
You’ve been reluctant at first despite knowing them since a long time ago and are practically close with at least half of them, but Jihoon says they told him they don’t mind and you can just cook for them and help around if you feel bad about staying there for free. So you agree.
It’s been three days since you’ve been staying over and you’ve found that even if the lot of them aren’t in the dorm, it doesn’t mean the dorm is quiet. This very second, Soonyoung and Chan are bickering over which one of them are closer to you when Jihoon, who’s known you for at least a decade, is literally sitting there watching the debate unfold.
“There’s no way she likes you more if she keeps on asking me what kind of food do I feel like eating everyday,” Chan argues, recalling the way you always look for him before deciding what to cook for dinner.
“That’s literally because you’re a baby and are very picky with your food,” Soonyoung rolls his eyes before shaking his head and proposes another reason on why he’s your favorite. Jihoon snorts in amusement, though the sound is small enough that they don’t even hear it. You’re beside him, simply laughing at the scene because you’ve no idea why they’re taking the debate this seriously.
When Jihoon moves to his room (your temporary room now), your eyes follow his movement before you eventually decide to follow him in after telling the boys to calm down because your favorite is Minghao who’s been quietly watching them from the side. The both of them whines at Minghao’s triumphant grin, and you simply wave your hand as you make your way to Jihoon’s room.
He’s rummaging through his drawer when you come in, and you simply sit down on his bed while you watch him from behind. He lets out an ‘aha!’, getting the thing out of the drawer and into his pocket before eventually turning to address you.
“Why is the popular girl here instead of gracing your presence outside?” he asks with a grin, sitting next to you.
You glare at him, though there’s an amused smile on your face. “You know they’re just messing around.”
“Are they, really?” he rises his eyebrow, only stopping the teasing when you threaten to choke him with his blanket in his sleep like you did when you both were in middle school. “Alright, alright. I guess I should be glad they like you this much.”
“They’re probably just trying to get you into it,” you tell him before you throw yourself back to the bed, Jihoon soon following suit to lay beside you.
“Me?” he laughs. “Why me?”
You roll your eyes, absentmindedly saying your next words. “Because they probably know I like you the most.”
“Oh, do you, now?” he turns to the side to face you.
You blink continuously, the realization hits you a little too late and Jihoon’s already laughing his heart out. “No—I, uh, I mean they know you’re the closest to me!”
“Sure, sure. I know that’s what you mean to say,” his tone is calm and collected with a sign of mock resignation, but that’s why it’s all the more annoying to your ears.
“Jihoon!” you hit him with a pillow, which he easily catches and simply hugs to his chest as you continue to be flustered.
After teasing you some more, he finally stops to let your embarrassment die down.
“It’s okay,” Jihoon says, breaking the silence, and you finally meet his eyes with a frown because you’re sure he’s just going to tease you again. But you’re wrong because he’s not, but his words after that are enough to fluster you even more than all of the things he did before combined.
my participation in week 8 of the carat revival challenge: “you must erase your memories of me, i’m poison”
-
You knew he was different, from the moment you saw him. And the darkness looming over him.
It was impossible not to notice. How everyone would press themselves up against the walls when he passed through corridors, as if wishing to be absorbed by them. And how there were always at least five seats between him and the next person in lecture halls, as if a magnetic field surrounded him. Before even knowing why, you avoided him like that too, mirroring the crowd. But word spread quickly, as it does on campus.
Jihoon was marked, eventually sang the birdie in your ear. In his early teen years, sinister spirits had cursed him into a limbo between their realm and yours, extending anyone who touched him the same fate. There were only rumors to answer the why question, so you stopped listening. Kept observing. He kept glaring, always glaring, everywhere at everything. Presence so big and simultaneously small.
He dropped a pen on his way up the lecture hall once. Before thinking, you picked it up, following him to his seat. And he freaked out when he saw you approaching, jumping as far away from you as he could without coming too close to anyone else. The utter fear in his eyes, finally breaking that heavy glare of his, raw terror shaking throughout his entire body. You remember your heartbeat, how painful it was. Laid the pen on his table. Retreated three steps.
“Don’t worry, I won’t touch you,” you had said with a crack in your voice and his chest had heaved and heaved until you were back in your own seat, far away from his reach.
After that, you really couldn’t look away.
He always ate his lunch on a loan bench on the outskirts of campus, a safe distance between him and the rest of the world. Until you breached that distance. Disrespectful, even then you knew. But seeing him so lonely bothered you. And that was often, as you were always watching.
When you had cleared your throat, he had jerked. Eyes wide again, scared. Your voice cracked when you asked him if you could sit on the other end of the bench and eat your salad with him. He must have thought you were insane. Others did too. Neither of you said a word the entire time you ate, that day.
Having your lunch on his bench became sitting two seats away from him during lectures. No words became few words. Terrified glares became curious looks. And you were elated.
Until you weren’t. Until your hands started itching with an insatiable desire to embrace his own when you saw him holding his pencil, his chopsticks, his bag. Such delicate fingers, you wanted to touch them.
So one day, you told him. The distance between you widened immediately as he backed away with fear resurrecting in his eyes, and you ignored the sound of your heart breaking, loud in your ears.
“It’s okay,” you had said, your unsteady vowels cracking. “I won’t touch you. I just thought you should know.”
And you kept your word, respected the distance separating you from the skin your own so desperately wanted its hands on. Your heart was rotting, you could feel it. But you knew you had to let it.
Too many friends told you to stop and so many names were hissed behind your back. But seeing Jihoon smile, on that one November afternoon when you tripped on your own shoelaces, made it all okay. And it made you nauseous. Because you realized then.
“I lied,” you say now, on his bench, on your end while he sits on his.
He looks up from his boots and so much shame pumps along with the blood in your veins.
“About?” He is frowning and his hands are poking out of the sleeves of his coat and you want to touch them so badly it feels like your fingers will fall off.
“I want to touch you.” You have spoken those words before, but they taste different now.
Jihoon hides his mouth behind his scarf and disconnects his gaze from yours, ears increasingly pink. “I know.”
“No, but-” you start, hands curling into tight fists on your lap, as if meaning to suffocate the desire tingling within them but to no avail. “I said I wouldn’t but I-.... I want to.”
He understands, of course. And his eyes shoot up and there is fear there again. It almost angers you.
“But...” he mumbles behind his scarf. “But you- you can’t. I- I’m cold and if you touch me, you-... You’ll become cold too...”
“Jihoon,” you sigh, chest clenched. “I know that... And I said I wouldn’t touch you but-... I lied! Because I want to...”
You were never sure if he reciprocated your sentiments, always so quiet and private. And far away. Even now, when his wide eyes meet yours, you still don’t know.
That fear, that terror, you just want it to never exist when his eyes are full with you.
“Are-”
“I’m sure, Jihoon.” There is no crack in your voice now.
And many moments pass. A tense silence, so thick it almost turns the cold air around you hot. Everything is so still and the concept of time so foreign. He just watches you.
It never mattered, but you finally know his feelings when his arm stretches and lets the sleeve of his coat expose his palm halfway across the distance between you. And even though it never mattered, knowing it makes your heart so much bigger, plump and red after rotting for so long.
Your fist shakes, barely containing its excitement.
A smile curls your lips. “Are- Are you sure?” it is your turn to ask.
His chest is heaving and you can see that he is terrified. But you think he no longer wants to be. Jihoon nods. “Yes. I’m sure.”
So you reach out. And knowing that you are about to become a child of darkness for the rest of your eternity does naught to stop your skin that finally meets his.
pairing: lee jihoon x reader
genre: soulmate au
wc: 1.2k
warnings: murder, minor and major character death...
a/n: in a universe where the name of your soulmate is tattooed on your wrist and you don’t age until you meet them
Disgust. Is the first thing Jihoon feels when he walks into the back hall of the club. The sweaty air and tight walls littered with stolen kisses and discarded hearts makes his fist clench tightly around the package secured in the pocket of his jacket. He scoffs. Of course you would choose a place like this. He reads the tags next to each door lining the hall.
15a. 16a. 17a… ah. He checks the text you sent earlier that night to confirm the room number. Once he’s checked, he clicks his phone off and stuffs it into his pocket opening the door to room 18a.
“Jihoon,” you say once he’s entirely inside the room, “took you long enough.”
“Sorry,” he mutters heartlessly. The apology burning his tongue.
You nod. “Do you have it then?”
Jihoon reaches into his pocket and pulls out the package wrapped in old newspapers and hands it to you.
You unwrap the packing greedily, and once the flask is uncovered, the light of its contents shine onto your face. A green halo encompasses your head.
“I hate this part,” you scowl despite the way you hold the flask so tightly as if you’re scared it’ll slip from your fingers and shatter.
“Just get it over with.” Jihoon tells you already tired of the transaction and the stench of death.
You pop open the cork of the flask and down the green solution, scrunching your nose at the smell and taste.
“It’s worse than normal this time,” you cough eyeing the empty flask before handing it back to Jihoon. He shoves the flask back into his pocket. “How long do I have?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
You inhale slowly, tears surfacing beneath you eyes. “He said his name was Vernon,” you say quietly kneeling beside his body and pulling out the needle in his arm, “Only found out his name was actually Hansol when he pulled out his ID for the bouncer. This one hurts more than the others,” you say shakily, staring at your tattooed wrist. And when you twist your wrist to fall back on the velvet carpet, Jihoon can clearly see the name Hansol printed on it. Jihoon stares at his own empty, untattooed wrist with a saddened gaze. He’s envious of you, that in your prolonged lifetime, you’ve had many soulmates, but Jihoon, with his short lifespan in comparison to yours, can’t even have one.
“Jihoon,” you call, patting the patch of carpet next to you and next to Hansol, “sit with me.” And when he does, you snake your arm around his, settling your head on his shoulder. Jihoon feels a lone tear fall from your cheek onto the fabric of his coat. “Tell me about the others.” You tell him, burying your head further into his shoulder. And when your voice cracks, and your nails dig into the skin on his arm with so much force he can almost feel the pain in your heart, Jihoon can’t help but comply.
So he does. He tells you about your first and deepest love: Minghao who the frozen lake swallowed whole. He tells you about Joshua, the sweet one, whose heart stopped so suddenly one night. He tells you about Jeonghan who went hiking and never came back, and about Soonyoung who shot himself in the head. Finally, Jihoon tells you about Hansol who traded in his life for heroin.
With each name of your past soulmates that leaves from his lips, your sobbing grows. Louder, greater, sadder; and Jihoon’s heart falls apart at the sound. But he remembers to catch the fragments of your humanity that fall from your eyes.
You cries grow softer, whispering their names into the collar of Jihoon’s coat, but when you get to Hansol’s name, your cries increase yet again. “I think I loved him. Hansol,” you add as if Jihoon needs clarification. “Why do I do it? If it pains me so much, why do I bother?”
Jihoon doesn’t respond. That same question being the same one that haunts him every night. The same one he couldn’t find an answer to, no matter how hard he tried. He looks down at your face only to find you already staring at his. There’s a lingering green light in your eyes that has shivers running down Jihoon’s spine. You shift and catch his lips with yours. It only registers a second after that you’re kissing Jihoon, and Jihoon is kissing you back. Your lips are wet and taste of salt, but that doesn’t stop the butterflies soaring in Jihoon’s stomach. Rather what makes Jihoon pull away is the reason in his head that reminds him that no matter how pretty you are and no matter how much you make his heart swoon, you’re still a cold-blooded murderer.
Jihoon checks his watch. “We should go,” he says in a crisp manner, “your fifteen minutes are almost up.”
Fifteen minutes, Jihoon thinks. Fifteen minutes and you remember why you torture yourself like this. Fifteen minutes and you forget the names of the boys you loved and the boys you killed. You forget they even existed, but you remember the intent. You remember the purpose. Fifteen minutes and you go back to being immortal. You go back to never aging. Fifteen minutes and the serum, that you have entrusted Jihoon with concocting despite you being perfectly capable of making it yourself, takes affect.
And so the two of you leave, and your fifteen minutes pass by. Jihoon troubles himself with wondering why he had to owe you. He wonders why you bother involving him at all. As Jihoon walks you home, he sneaks a glance at your wrist. Hansol’s name is slowly disappearing. Jihoon wonders how long until a new name is tattooed on your wrist. And when he leaves your house that night, he knows. Except that he doesn’t find out the new name on your wrist the way he usually does. You texting him the name, telling him to keep an eye out for it. No, you’re too fast asleep for that. Rather this time, Jihoon finds out the new name manifested on your wrist by the one faintly appearing on his.
Jihoon’s heart shatters. His world crumples. The sky collapses around him. Jihoon drops to his knees when he recognizes the letters forming on his wrist as the same ones that make your name.
Jihoon walks home with a new purpose that night.
///
The fire burns so bright, casting a golden glow on Jihoon’s face. He wonders if he looks the same way he feels. He hopes, feeling each individual crack in his heart, that he doesn’t. He stares madly at the flask in his hand, the same green serum you downed earlier that night, waiting patiently in the palm of his hand. He pops open the cork, and swallows it all in one gulp.
Fifteen minutes, Jihoon thinks. Fifteen minutes and Jihoon forgets the pain that rots his heart at the sight of your house up in flames. Fifteen minutes and Jihoon forgets the fact that you’re still inside.
And fifteen minutes later while he is still sitting outside your burning house, Jihoon understands. He understands why you tortured yourself the way you did. Because once his fifteen minutes are up, Jihoon, for the first time in his life, feels-
