"I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation."
― Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
--
"I'm sorry to bother you," Minhyuk said, a clear note of hesitance in his tone.
Five years had passed since Hyunwoo had returned the kids to their families, and three years had passed since Kihyun's death. Throughout that time, Minhyuk had called frequently, often just to talk Hyunwoo's ear off about this or that. Hyungwon never called.
"It's no bother," Hyunwoo responded, sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes. He slipped on a pair of reading glasses from his bedside table and squinted at the digits on his alarm clock.
12:53
"Sorry, I woke you up, didn't I?" Minhyuk asked, sounding apologetic enough to almost hang up, and Hyunwoo quickly reassured him.
"No, I was just...resting my eyes, I wasn't really sleeping."
"Uh huh," Minhyuk said with a soft chuckle before pausing. "I really am sorry to bother you, Hyunwoo. But..." A quiet hesitance. "I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important."
"What is it then?" Hyunwoo asked with a small frown that Minhyuk couldn't see. He held the phone to his ear with one hand even as he was sliding out of bed and patting down his chair, trying to locate the pair of pants he'd left there.
"Hyungwon," Minhyuk said, his voice soft with an air of both sadness and affection. "I just...he doesn't want me to call you, but...he's not in a good place, and...he won't even listen to me anymore really. And without Kihyun... I just...don't know who else to go to. I tried talking with him last night, but he wouldn't listen. Just pretended I wasn't there. He said he was invisible or something and that I couldn't see him, something weird like that. It scared me a little bit. I was hoping you could check up on him."
"All right," Hyunwoo said, having managed to shove his legs into the pants and hike them up before realizing they were on backwards and having to repeat the process. He shrugged his arms, one after the other, into a jacket he'd left draped over a kitchen chair, and he fished for his keys in the bowl of miscellaneous items by the door. He sifted through several mints, a few coins of varying denominations, and what felt like a paperclip before he managed to snatch his keys up. "I'm on my way. Do you know where he is right now? If it's near the motel, I can be there in fifteen minutes."
"He's been hanging out in this one building lately," Minhyuk said before giving him the address with additional directions before apologizing again for waking him and asking if Hyunwoo wouldn't mind checking in with Minhyuk later to let him know how it went.
Hyunwoo gave him his word that he would, and then he was in his car and heading toward quadrant four.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Hyungwon. Before Kihyun had died, he and Minhyuk had still hung out in the parking lot every now and then, but most of the time it had been occupied by younger boys who Hyunwoo didn't know as well. Even on the rare occasion where he'd found the two in the lot, Hyungwon had almost never been with them.
He'd thought he'd seen Hyungwon standing outside on the balcony of one of the rooms, but when Hyunwoo had tried to wave up at him, the figure had vanished back inside, leaving Hyunwoo unsure as to whether or not it had really been him in the first place. All his efforts to check in on the boy had gone unrewarded, and after Kihyun's death and his patrol switch to avoid the motel, he only got news of him through Minhyuk who had assured him that Hyungwon was fine.
But if he was fine, then Minhyuk wouldn't have called him at one in the morning.
He parked outside the building Minhyuk had told him. It was a block or two over from the Walour Motel and looked to be an unfinished complex. Most of the windows on the lower levels had been boarded over to keep out squatters, but as Hyunwoo looked up, he saw that the upper floors simply had gaping holes in the walls, windows that had never been filled.
He got out of his car, locked it and slipped the keys in his pocket. Then he began walking around the building, looking for an entry point. He could always break or remove one of the boards, but it would be easier to slip in through a pre-existing aperture.
About halfway around the building, he found that one of the boards had actually been pried up from the bottom, and if he pulled it outward, he could create a space just large enough for himself to slip through. He did so rather ungracefully, stumbling into the interior of the building and putting a hand against the wall as he gave himself time for his eyes to adjust to the dimness within. Some light from the windows on upper floors spilled down through cracks and openings that had been left in the flooring, likely for pipes or cables.
With the help of the faint illumination, he navigated to the stairwell and began climbing. The darkness lifted a bit more with each level, and when he'd finally reached the top, some of the light from streetlights outside filtered into the openings within the building, marking the silhouette of a figure curled up in one of the windows.
Hyunwoo moved slowly, not bothering to soften his footsteps so as not to surprise Hyungwon by his approach. Even though Hyungwon had to have heard him, he didn't move or react. In fact, he wasn't even looking over at Hyunwoo. His head was turned to the right, his back to Hyunwoo, and he was gazing out at the city. Hyunwoo wondered what exactly it was he was seeing. If he was seeing anything at all.
He stopped a few paces away from Hyungwon, not wanting to crowd him but wanting to be near enough for Hyungwon to feel, instinctively, that he wasn't alone. Now that he was closer, he could make out Hyungwon's left arm, which was resting on top of his knee, and in his hand, a cigarette. The end of it gave off the barest red glow, the only color in the whole room, and he wondered how long Hyungwon had been out here. Hyunwoo waited for Hyungwon to say something, but after several minutes of silence, it was clear that he wouldn't be the first one to speak.
"Hyungwon," Hyunwoo said, trying to keep his voice even. Standing here now felt like he was being forced to look at himself in a mirror, to hold his own guilt before himself and be unable to look away. In how many ways had he failed them?
Still, Hyungwon didn't respond. Hyunwoo wasn't even sure that he'd heard him.
"Hyungwon, I'm just here to talk," Hyunwoo tried again, taking several cautious steps to his left so he might be closer within Hyungwon's peripheral vision.
He hadn't really been expecting a response, so when Hyungwon spoke, it startled him a bit. "It's a bit late for a chat, isn't it?" he asked, and Hyunwoo realized it must have been a long time since he'd heard the other's voice because it was surprisingly smooth and reserved, nothing like the bright voice he'd heard all those years ago on the other side of the fence. It was just another reminder that Hyungwon wasn't a boy anymore. He wasn't truly a man yet either; he was somewhere in between.
"Did Minhyuk call you?" Hyungwon asked after Hyunwoo had been silent for too long. "I bet he did," Hyungwon said quietly, more to himself than to Hyunwoo.
"He's just worried about you," Hyunwoo offered up since there was no point in keeping his caller anonymous when Hyungwon already knew it to be Minhyuk.
"If he's so worried about me, then why did he send you? Why not come here himself?" Hyungwon asked, and he looked down at his hand, frowning at the cigarette as though surprised to see it there, as though he'd forgotten how he'd gotten to this point in time at all. He tapped the cigarette against the edge of the window's ledge, the side facing the street, and he watched the ashes fall down onto the city like dirty snow. Then he stamped the glowing end of the cigarette against the concrete within the building and left the cigarette in a grave of other cigarette corpses. It was hard to see in the poor lighting, but Hyunwoo thought he could make out about two dozen old cigarettes. How often did Hyungwon come up here? And how many cigarettes did he smoke a night? How many hours had he spent curled up in this lonesome cutout of a forgotten window-to-be?
"I'm not sure," Hyunwoo admitted, sensing that honesty was all Hyungwon would tolerate. He watched as the hand that had previously been holding a cigarette began shaking slightly, and Hyungwon, as though sensing Hyunwoo's eyes, tucked his hand into his pocket of his sweatshirt. "It's a little cold," Hyunwoo said despite knowing that the shaking had nothing to do with the cold. "Shouldn't you be wearing a coat or at least a jacket?"
"You know, I don't talk much to Minhyuk anymore," Hyungwon said, ignoring Hyunwoo's last comment and returning to his previous train of thought. "I'm not even sure why he'd send you here. Or how he knew I was up here. He came up here yesterday, but I was invisible then. He couldn't see me."
Hyunwoo didn't know what to make of the end bit, so he focused on what he could understand. "Why don't you two talk?" Hyunwoo asked, the corners of his mouth pulling down. When had been the last time that Minhyuk had told him that Hyungwon was fine? How long ago had that been? And when exactly had they stopped talking? "You two have been friends for so long, what happened? Wouldn't Kihyun want you guys to take care of each other?" He sensed that he was close to hitting a nerve with all of his questions, and he got quiet, wanting to give Hyungwon space to talk.
"Kihyun could never mind his own business," Hyungwon answered, not much of an answer at all really, as he sighed, pressing his back further against the concrete column behind him. It looked as though he might just sink into it and become part of the structure of the building. "And Minhyuk...Minhyuk is okay," he finished with an unexpected bitterness to his tone.
"Minhyuk is okay," Hyunwoo repeated, doing his best to keep his tone even and soft rather than belie his curiosity. "Minhyuk is okay, and you..."
"Minhyuk is fine, just fucking dandy, and I..." Hyungwon paused to give his head a few sharp shakes. "He's fine," he repeated, raw anger and distress pouring out of his with each word. "He hasn't changed at all. Nothing's changed. It's like it never happened."
"But it did happen," Hyunwoo said, his voice small now, as tiny as possible while Hyungwon's anger and sadness and fear grew and grew, eating up all the empty space around them. "It did happen, and you're not fine," he filled in, speaking slowly, treading carefully, ready for Hyungwon to snap at him at any second. "And it's hard to talk to Minhyuk when it looks to you like he's unaffected by what happened, right?"
Hyungwon didn't say anything, by the wan light from outside highlighted the tense set of his jaw. "He's fine," he muttered after a few moments, shaking his head but still refusing to look over at Hyunwoo. "He's fucking fine." A small, derisive chuckle that came and went like an arrow, fleeting, slicing through the air, and then gone.
"But he's not, not really," Hyunwoo said, hesitating to speak about it because it really wasn't his right to divulge the private conversations he'd had with Minhyuk since then but he didn't know what else to say to Hyungwon right now if not the truth. But he couldn't exactly tell him that Minhyuk called him sometimes and just cried for ten minutes before hanging up, can he? "He calls me sometimes, and he's...he's not fine, Hyungwon. I know it might look that way to you, but-"
"You were always on his side," Hyungwon interrupted, his voice quiet and dead. Hyunwoo preferred the rage, the anger to this emptiness that he heard now.
"What do you mean?" Hyunwoo asked, brow furrowing slightly because he honestly wasn't sure what Hyungwon meant.
"Minhyuk. You're always siding with him, picking him over me. Of course you'd defend him, even now."
"Hyungwon, I'm not picking him over you-"
"You did back then, too," Hyungwon said quietly, and Hyunwoo stilled because he knew exactly what Hyungwon was referring to, and the guilt that was staring back at him was opening its maw and devouring him whole.
"I'm so sorry," Hyunwoo whispered, looking down because he was too much of a coward to face the boy (man?) in front of him. "I'm so fucking sorry Hyungwon-"
"We were both there. You could have chosen either one of us. It wouldn't have really made a difference. But you chose him. You could have picked me, but you picked him." His voice was calm, indifferent, but Hyunwoo knew that indifference to be a lie.
"I'm sorry," he repeated because it was all he could do. Words didn't matter now. Only actions had any lasting effect, and he'd taken actions that had hurt Hyungwon. Hyungwon was absolutely correct; that night when he'd gone undercover, he could have made an appointment with either of the boys. But he'd chosen Minhyuk out of necessity for the operation, thinking that Minhyuk, as the older child, might have more intel, might be more psychologically stable. And despite the hundreds of nights that Hyunwoo had second-guessed his decision, he couldn't really fault himself for it. He'd seen how out of it Hyungwon had been once they'd recovered him, how disassociated he'd become. Hyunwoo would never get the chance to know whether or not things would have turned out okay if he'd picked Hyungwon instead that night because that wasn't how life worked. He didn't get to magically live out hypothetical alternative choices and see whether or not they'd have been successful. No, he had to live with the choices he'd made and the victims he'd created.
"It wouldn't have really made a difference though, right?" Hyungwon asked, still looking out over the city. Was he searching for something he'd lost? Or just observing the lives of people who were okay in a way he wasn't? "What's one more night compared to weeks of torture?"
"Hyungwon-"
"You made the right call," Hyungwon interrupted, finally turning his head to look over at Hyunwoo, who fell silent. "Better to save at least one kid than lose two, right?"
"Hyungwon, what do you mean?" Hyunwoo asked, cold panic taking flight in his veins at the possibilities of his insinuation. "Why do I have to lose anyone? Why do I have to lose you?"
"I've been gone for a long time," Hyungwon said, looking back out the window and taking those haunting eyes off Hyunwoo. "But it's hard to know you've lost something until you remember that it exists in the first place."
"I didn't forget about you," Hyunwoo argued, the icy panic in his veins giving way for the briefest flare of anger. "I looked for you, Hyungwon. But you were never there anymore. And I gave you my number but you never called me. You avoided me, how was I supposed to-"
"I'm not blaming you," Hyungwon said, and his words didn't hold any malice. "You're right; I avoided you." His voice grew quieter still. "I avoided a lot of people." He paused, inhaling shakily. "It was hard...being around people. Talking. Listening. It's still hard." He pulled his hands out of his pocket and looked down at them, and even though the cigarette was gone, he still looked surprised to see them. "I don't even...sometimes I forget."
"Forget what?" Hyunwoo asked, and something about the change of tone in Hyungwon's voice concerned him, that faraway dispassionate curiosity of someone seeing themselves for the first time through the eyes of a strange.
"That I'm still here," Hyungwon said, and the shaking of his hands brought a confused shine to his eyes. "Why am I still here?" He looked over at Hyunwoo, his face shaped in a helpless question.
"Hyungwon-"
"I don't know how long it's been," Hyungwon said, turning his head to the right once more and looking out over the city, that confusion still on his face, his question unanswered. "I live in my head so much, it's hard to keep track of when I'm living in...whatever this is. Here. But even now, even this, you..." He looked over at Hyunwoo as though just taking him in now, as though there were a wall of glass between them, some impenetrable plane that separated them, a wall that could not be crossed. "It's hard to know if this is all in my head too." He stared at Hyunwoo, his eyes questioning but without the drive of true interest. "It's hard to know," he repeated, and he looked back out the window.
"I'm real, Hyungwon," Hyunwoo said, swallowing as he raced to think of all the steps he'd need to take. Hoseok – he should call Hoseok and see if he could talk with Hyungwon. Clearly Hyungwon needed help, professional help that Hyunwoo wasn't equipped to give. But should he call Hoseok and tell him to come here? Or would Hyungwon go with him willingly? "I'm real, and you're real, too." For now, he just had to go along with it.
"But that's the thing," Hyungwon said, his voice sounding odd, like a child who couldn't figure out how two blocks fit together. "I don't want to be real. I want to be invisible. I want to disappear." He tilted his head. "Do you know what my mom asked me? After you brought me home?" He shook his head. "She asked me where the money was. She said if they were really selling me, then there would be money, and where was the money? Where was her money? I wasn't invisible then, she could see me and she kept asking me and screaming at me."
He paused, and his next words came out in a whisper, his train of thought fragmented as he seemed to step backward in his mind. "I've been invisible before. I'm invisible a lot, actually. It's a rather nice feeling. I think I'd like to be invisible like that forever."
"Hyungwon," Hyunwoo said, calling his name more harshly this time and unable to hide the panic from his tone. "I don't want you to be invisible, I want to talk with you and see you. I want you to stay here, to stay visible, to be real, to be here."
"But I don't exist. I'm not even here." Hyungwon's gaze over the city turned upward, and although Hyunwoo couldn't make out the moon and the stars, he imagined that Hyungwon could from his angle. "I don't exist," Hyungwon repeated, more quietly this time, and then, "None of this matters."
"Hyungwon-!"
But the boy was already tumbling out the window, and although Hyunwoo darted forward, reaching out with a prayer of grabbing a hand or an arm, the boy was already beyond his reach, and Hyunwoo watched as the boy became invisible on the street below.
--
published 02/18/21 (mm/dd/yy)
3276 words