|| straykids oneshots || (bl)

strangers ! (jisung × ?)

"how were you and jisung related?", the police enquired and for once, I had no idea how to answer that question.

the first time I met jisung was when I was wandering the streets one friday night and I heard the song 'cigarette daydreams' playing somewhere near.

curiosity got the better of me and I began following the music. that's when I saw him.

sitting on the roof of a car, in a blue hoodie sat jisung, smoking, while the song played on the stereo of the car.

i looked at him for a moment and left. however next friday, when I walked to that spot and saw him again, I decided to initiate a formal small talk.

however 2 hours later we both could agree that the conversation was neither formal nor small. when I was leaving, he didn't ask for my number. or if I would meet him again. but I did anyway.

thereafter, jisung and I would share a cigarette on the roof of his dad's car every night while listening to 'cigarette daydreams'.

It was like we were partly sharing our high. we were partly sharing death.

jisung and i never talked about ourselves. I didn't know what he did or what he wanted to do in life.

he didn't know anything about me either. all we knew was that at that moment, we were alive and somehow it was enough.

some nights we talked about the cases of the missing people he researched about while some nights we talked about my theories of life.

but then there were also nights when we just laid back in silence, watching the smoke swirl into shapes and disappearing into the starry sky.

"you can drive all night, looking for the answers in the pouring rain" the stereo would say as we stared into the darkness without a word. those nights were the best.

we never said in words that we liked each other. we never even called the other a friend.

for the rest of the world we were strangers. for the rest of the world, we never shared those nights; we never created our peculiar magic.

however every night while leaving, we would share a moment looking at each other longingly, as if saying, "come back, again".

we meant it.

come back, again.

one friday night, jisung didn't show up. the next morning we got to know he had jumped off a seven storey building.

no note. no last words. just a plain, unpoetic death.

I reached the scene of death which was now filled with police.

everyone was seeing to the death of 'han jisung'. I should have been crying. I should have been feeling betrayed.

but instead I just kept thinking how I didn't even know what jisung's first name was this whole time.

after standing on that spot, numb, for 52 minutes, a policeman came up to me and asked, "how were you and jisung related?"

what were we? did I even know him? I kept wondering.

"so? how were you related to him?" he asked again. I spotted a cigarette butt on the ground and kept staring at it.

who were you, jisung?

come back, again? please?

"sir" I paused looking up at him "jisung and i . . . we didn't know each other."

" we started as stranger and ended as strangers "

© inspired