GUNS and POETRY

choice

a/n: previously published as preamble

the story will continue from here on.
listen to peace by taylor swift  for this chapter

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happy reading :)

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06 | choice

"We thought you were dead."

Jaeyoon's voice is a burnt mixture of curiosity. He doesn't add any consolation to it, nor any note of relief, and he finds himself wishing he was right. He should have been dead. It was better used than his emptiness.

Youngkun shares his gaze although they lack his steel. "We thought we'd lost you. The Boss was so regretful to have lost you. You were important to him- his only family."

Yes, the Boss. the man he had owned his blood and bone to. Guess he owes him an explanation now as well, although he cannot really remember who he was. His memories aren't strong enough to hold onto. More of it feels like a dream than real and true. But what is the truth anyway?

The more he learns, the more he feels the cracks in his bones, waiting to snap and take him down.

But he must sit through. And he does; forcing himself to listen to a tale that outlined the palms of his hand. The crash. How unexpectedly it happened and toppled them over- leaving no time to even clutch at straws. Leaving her flesh charred and his memories whitewashed with demons. He listens to Youngkun as he learns of an empty casket, for death had been too cruel to offer them even a remaining scrap of a bone or a dead white eyeball. How they sat through people who never learned to mourn for the dead and had done so, all because the Boss had wished peace for his daughter. Peace she never got with air in her lungs and her heart beating. The eagle delivered the eulogy on his behalf- because in losing them he had lost them both. Because he was his son and she was his daughter, and it was regrettable to lose both of your children on the same day, in one funeral pyre.

The cracks magnify, but they don't snap. He is stronger than he wishes to be.

"We're so glad you're alive." Seokwoo's voice holds an infinite weight . The regular tapping pauses momentarily as he speaks. He has been quiet for a long time, leaving Jaeyoon and Youngkun to fill in the gaps- staring out of the window, his arms stubbornly crossed for an entirety of time. And yet he could see his fists clenched to his sides as he heard of the fire, like he was trying to prevent himself from going back.

"Yeah, we are," Youngkun agrees easily, a flicker of a smile on his face. So much better than being bloodied and bruised, like the image he had of him in his mind.

He attempts to reflect it but his muscles do not comply. So he ends up sighing instead, lying through his teeth like he has been doing all this time that it is almost effortless.

"I am, too." He says, because it is the right thing. Because when someone saves your life, you thank them. You return the favour, even when it returns you to the mindless existence you would rather escape. Thank you for saving me."

*

This is what hell must feel like.

The noise closes in on him like gurgling water, swirling through his insides, threatening to spill over. As he looks around, his feet according to their own accord against the linoleum floor- one-two-three, a graceful waltz with no designed rhythm, leading him all but a closed gate.