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— THE WORLD SEEMED JUST A BIT LIGHTER THAT DAY. The day that the quiet town of Riverdale found out about the magically reappearing King brother. Whispers of his existence flooded the halls of Riverdale high, gathering into a tidal wave of rumours and lies.
When Kevin found Betty at her locker, she hugged him so tightly it almost hurt and smiled brightly, almost laughing at the news. Excitedly rushing to rip missing posters off the walls and making a show of tossing them in the trash.
He's back!
He's home!
Kevin tried to buy into her excitement, as he collected the missing poster's staples in his hand for her.
But the more he thought about it, about Johnny, he thought about the way Johnny had acted during his hospital visit, as if he'd been talking to some invisible person.
It was unsettling to think about, but Kevin couldn't help remembering the way Johnathan shot up and yelled at the wall about his feeling of guilt for his dead brother.
It was weird. To see Johnny spiral so much in such little time. To have seen him bleeding out in the middle of the road, staining the sharp yellow line.
Kevin couldn't help but just follow after Betty quietly, giving small smiles here and there as his mind was wandering between the simple yet heartbreaking ideas of what happened to his best friend?
Even Cheryl Blossom had a small smile on her face when they passed by each other in the halls. She didn't make some snide comment about Betty's shoes, or the way Kevin's hair looked slightly messier than his usual clean brushed dark locks.
Her own brother was dead, but now, with Jonathan back, she didn't feel quite so alone in the experience.
The King brothers had a place in all their hearts. When Vincent's death hit the town, no one spoke about anything else for days. People broke down at the news.
Even after Jason Blossom's body was found, there were barely any uttered words about him. As if the King's disappearance was more interesting type of an unsolvable mystery.
Now, Jonathan's re emergence from the void of unknown, was somehow putting them back together again.
Though Kevin kept his head down and those haunting thoughts about Johnny to himself, he noticed that Jughead Jones was a few short bursts away from a grin, Archie was laughing and looking fondly at one of the missing posters he'd taken down to help Betty. Betty was practically skipping to every lesson.
So much tragedy, brought back together by him.
And he probably had no idea.
Veronica Lodge was new in the school- or more so in the town. She had noticed the missing posters before, had even made a comment about how cute the kid was. But she couldn't really understand why people were so obsessed with him.
Even now that he'd come back, she was a little indifferent.
"So he's been gone for a few years and he just shows up out of nowhere completely alive?" She asks, chewing on a fry as they eat lunch at a picnic table outside.
"But his brother is dead." She pointed with a different fry, waving it around to emphasize her speech.
Betty nodded, the blond curls in her high ponytail bouncing with movement.
"Interesting." Veronica shrugged.
Kevin could tell she was judging Jonathan a little. Just that small over the shoulder glance as she shrugged told him that she believed Johnny might have killed his brother.
After the hospital visit Kevin had sat through, he wouldn't have been so quick to disagree. But they got blood samples back and most- if not all of it belonged to Johnny.
Betty noticed the look too, and sat forward in her seat, "Maybe we should go visit him! You could meet him yourself."
Kevin's eyes widened at the idea, not wanting Betty to see him the way he himself had.
As if by some otherworldly coincidence, Kevin's phone went off with a typical ringtone.
And looking down at the contact name, his eyes met 'The King's Queen'.
Jonathan's mother.
The contact had been a joke, one that the woman had made herself, but in this moment Kevin's blood turned to ice and he froze.
"Oh! There's Minnie now, ask her if we can come visit after school!" Betty shook with happiness, glancing at Veronica.
Kevin swallowed his fear and answered the phone.
"Hello?" He asked, trying to push the wavering down and settle his stomach.
"Kevin, hello dear." Minnie sounded tired, but nothing more.
Kevin sighed slightly, knowing that Minnie would have told him immediately if something had happened to Johnny.
"Hey- Hi Min, how are you?" Kevin stumbled, now having no idea why she called.
"I'm well, thank you. Listen, honey, I was just calling to let you know what Johnny is doing a lot better today. I know you visited him during an episode and I just wanted to let you know he's okay." The woman spoke with a slight shimmer of sorrow, knowing that her son might as well have gone completely mad.
"This doesn't mean it's gone." She continued. "We had someone take a look at him and he's supposedly adopted a few personalities into his mind-" she sighed heavily and paused. "It's difficult to explain..."
Kevin shook his head, before realizing how stupid that move was and he spoke out loud, "No, Minnie it's okay-"
"They think-" She almost sobbed. "They think there were others with them. My boys, the doctors think they weren't the only ones taken and that Johnny has adopted the personalities-..." she took wavering breathes and Kevin's hands shook. "Of these other kids who died."
Kevin was quiet for a moment, "How does that work?"
"I don't know, sweetie, I just think it's a coping thing- he thinks they made it out with him but-..." Minnie inhaled sharply, trying to gather her thoughts.
Minnie King had always been an empathetic and emotional person. These 'other kids'? She cried for them. She knelt to the ground and weeped imagining the horrors they had to face, imagining their parents faces when they'd finally receive the news.
And she hated feeling so thankful that at least one of her sons made it out.
Kevin knew she needed a bit of time to herself, but looked up at Betty's eager face.
"Can he have visitors?" Kevin whispered into the phone.
Minnie gathered herself for one final sentence, "Just don't try and force them away... he needs them right now."
Kevin's heart broke as she hung up the phone, the ringing dial becoming a white noise for his thoughts.
author's note
I feel like the delivery on that was rushed but lemme know
