The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance • Monsta X

x. [END]

"Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from."

― Raymond Carver, The Bridle

--

"I'm sorry," Hyunwoo apologized, bowing his head, but he felt a hand clap on his shoulder and he looked up.

"There's nothing to apologize for," the chief told him with a tired look in his eye. "You've worked hard for us these past few years, and we're grateful for that."

Hyunwoo just gave a vague nod and turned toward the door, but the chief cleared his throat.

"Just one quick question, Officer. Did you have any particular requests for your transfer? Anywhere you want to go? I can put in a good word for you."

Hyunwoo waved his hand in the air. "Anywhere is fine, sir."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure." Hyunwoo left the office and headed to his desk. He'd cleared it out yesterday after spending most of the day in the hospital and then the morgue. He'd listened with deaf ears as the medical examiners had told him about a series of injection marks in Hyungwon's arm over where his old patches of eczema had used to be, and he stood there while they read him the toxicology reports and told him more things he didn't want to hear. Hyungwon's body was lying beneath a sheet just in front of him, but Hyunwoo didn't look. Hyungwon's last wish had been to be invisible, after all. He would honor that to whatever degree he could.

"Hey," interrupted a voice to his right, and Hyunwoo looked over to see Jooheon standing at his desk, staring at Hyunwoo with those eyes that had seen too much. "I heard about Hyungwon," Jooheon said, mouth fidgeting as he fought with a few different expressions, finally settling on a grimace. "I'm sorry."

And Hyunwoo had to wonder whether Jooheon was sorry about what had happened or sorry about not having emotionally invested himself in the kids like Hyunwoo had. He'd warned Hyunwoo, to be fair. He'd told him what would happen, and Hyunwoo hadn't wanted to listen. But even so...it wouldn't have changed anything. Hyunwoo could understand Jooheon's position in trying to remain uninvolved, to keep his personal and professional life separate so he could do the job, but Hyunwoo wasn't Jooheon.

He'd said it all along. He wasn't cut out for this. He was a prop cop who'd forgotten that he wasn't real. It was time to go back to the show and put on his costume and his shiny badge and forget about rundown motels and parking lots full of caterpillars and cans and kids who had ceased to exist.

Hyunwoo just shrugged in response to Jooheon's words, too numb to say anything back and too wounded to trust anything that came out of his mouth.

"You're leaving?" Jooheon asked, looking down at his desk with a frown. "Because of..."

"I'm just a little tired," Hyunwoo deflected, looking down at his own desk and seeing a blank spot where his nameplate should have been.

Jooheon was quiet for a long moment. "Tired as in you need more sleep, or tired as in..."

"I asked for a transfer," Hyunwoo said, still unable to look over at his partner of five years. "I think I just need a change of scenery."

If Jooheon sensed the incompleteness of Hyunwoo's words, he didn't call him on it. Instead, he stuck out his hand, although his eyes flickered downward. "You always had my back, and I just know I'm going to hate whoever they put at your desk, but..." He clenched his jaw. "It was an honor to work with you."

Hyunwoo looked over at his outstretched hand, and after a moment, he forced himself to take it, looking up briefly to meet Jooheon's eyes before looking back down because he couldn't hold his sharp gaze. "You too," he said, squeezing Jooheon's hand.

"Hoseok is off for the morning but he'll be in later if you want to say goodbye," Jooheon offered as they both pulled their hands back to their sides. "We can throw you a little party and everything. We've got a decent chunk of change built up in the yawn jar, I bet we can pick up a cake and some balloons or something."

"I don't know," Hyunwoo said, rubbing at the back of his neck. The thought of standing before Hoseok and his analytical gaze was troubling to him. He was afraid that Hoseok would try to fix him, would try to make this horrible pain go away, and he wasn't ready to part with the loss just yet.

Jooheon just grinned at him. "C'mon, it's your goodbye party, you have to come."

"Yeah...yeah, okay," Hyunwoo agreed, giving Jooheon a small smile before snaking his keys out of his pocket. "I've gotta go take care of a few things for now though."

"All right," Jooheon said, scooting to the side so Hyunwoo could get past him. "We'll see you later then?"

Hyunwoo gave a half nod. "Take care," he said, and Jooheon repeated the same to him as he walked past.

--

The drive to Widowmaker's Bridge took longer than he'd thought, mostly because it was only accessible through a series of smaller roads and because he'd only driven out there once or twice before while on duty. He parked his car on one end of the bridge and began walking toward the center.

The bridge was empty at this time of day. In the evening, some of the local junkies would likely gather, although maybe not tonight if they saw his car parked there.

He wondered if Hyungwon had been coming out here.

He stopped in the dead center of the bridge and rested his forearms on the railing. He remembered dropping Hyungwon off all those years ago, turning to Jooheon and telling him that it was a bad idea, and Jooheon saying that it was the only thing they could do for him. He remembered watching as Hyungwon's addict mother had clutched him close to her chest, and he remembered Hyungwon's back and how he'd read the pain there. He'd known that Hyungwon wasn't okay, and yet he'd let him go back there.

That was the last day he'd heard his voice since he'd seen him in that building, and that was why it had surprised him so much when Hyungwon had spoken to him. Voice showed the passage of time even when skin didn't, carried the pain even when there were no scars on display.

What if he would have brought Hoseok with him that night? Would that have changed anything? What if he'd talked to Hyungwon sooner and heard the scars his skin was hiding?

He shook his head, dispelling the fantasy that there was any other outcome that could have occurred. He'd told himself as much the other night when he'd tried to figure out if picking Hyungwon would have been the right choice. But in the end, choices were just rocks in a river; the water of time streamed around them and continued flowing, uninterrupted.

Choices didn't matter.

"None of this matters."

"I don't exist," Hyunwoo whispered, testing out Hyungwon's last words. "I'm not even here." He looked down at the water running beneath the bridge, the current fast and strong, the rocks sharp and dark. Normally, the fear of heights would have made him avert his gaze, but it was easier to stare down now. Perhaps, once he'd relinquished his existence, his hereness, he'd relinquished that fear as well. Or maybe it was the simple fact that not being here seemed to make none of this real. He wondered if that was how it worked for Hyungwon, that by being invisible, his fears became invisible as well. "I don't exist," Hyunwoo whispered, his words mere murmurs beneath the crashing waters below. "None of this matters."

And then Hyunwoo became invisible too.

--

published 02/22/21 (mm/dd/yy)

1294 words

A/N: Stick around for the afterward! I'll be posting my research sources and some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits for TUVI. Thanks for reading everyone!