A Belief in Vision and Other Parts [✳️]

A Sign of Weakness

Sometimes Kai wishes things were different. He wishes that he had seen Soojung first. Had been the one to have his coffee mixed up with hers, had shared the same Philosophy course in Freshman year, had gone to the same Lyn concert with his middle school friends. If things had gone his way, maybe Soojung would be alive—laughing in his ear, loving him.

Maybe then he wouldn't be in the stupid situation of falling in love with his best friend's girl. Again.

· · · ·

They sit in silence. Watching the water run by.

It's cold out but he doesn't move because he knows she won't need it. She has a jacket around her already anyway—something she pulled out of her bag and something he instantly recognizes. He's not surprised to know that her choice hasn't changed...

("So this is it, huh?"

Jinri shakes her head. "Come on, Kai. There is no 'this'. This is how it will always be.")

But it hurts anyway.

· · · ·

Kai calls her Sulli and it pisses Taemin off. Because he'd introduced her as Jinri and it was only polite to use the name she's given with and not make up new ones just because you feel like it, Kai.

He takes a long swig from his beer before turning back to look at his best friend in the eye, tuning out the rant he'd been going on about since they had arrive at a bar blocks away from the hospital where Jinri works. Taemin's eyes gleam when he talks about her; something he knows was never an effect Soojung evoked. It makes him sad for a moment to know that he's probably the only one of them who thinks of her still, who wishes things were different and the same at the same time.

And then suddenly he's angry and he says so, slurring—"Don't you miss her at all?"

Taemin stops mid-sentence, and it seems to him that his best friend is genuinely surprised.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Kai wants to tell him. He wants to shake him and say everything he feels should be said—It's too early for you to move on. To forget. How could you do this to her memory? Didn't she mean anything to you at all?—but doesn't.

Because Kai never likes to force things unto others and he isn't going to start now. So when Taemin asks again, this time serious—almost worried—and looking at him as though he was about to break, he looks away and shakes his head.

And then when Sulli comes over and Taemin comments about how he couldn't make him call her by her actual name, it pinches his heart when she laughs and says she doesn't mind.

For in that moment Kai hears Soojung but sees Jinri and it drives him insane.

So he asks the bartender to pour him a shot and gulps it down. He decides to ignore Taemin for the rest of the night as continually he asks for another.

· · · ·

"He thinks of you as a brother. You know that right?"

His stomach pulls again and he lowers his head to vomit another round before replying, "I know."

"Then why did you say those things to him? Why do you hurt yourself and him?" She paused, rubbing a concerned hand over his shoulder, "I saw it, you know. Even when no one else did, I saw how much he cared and missed her. Shouldn't you know it too?"

The thing is Kai does know. He does and he's usually ever so grateful because Soojung deserved their love even when they (he) didn't deserve hers in return. But he can't fathom to feel thankful for this knowledge. Not when he feels the way he does and he misses Soojung but wants her. It's wrong, wrong, so wrong.