next story's gonna be a Haechan princess au 😩💔
⊷ 50
Pitch black.
Endless darkness that he couldn't see the beginning of.
San propped his elbows up on the railing, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. He looked down at the water below.
It could swallow him whole and yet he wasn't the least bit scared. After all, his life was already pitch black. Wherever he looked was nothing but faded colours and muffled sounds.
A lifeless place without even a hunch of happiness.
It is all useless, he thought as he lifted himself up, bringing one leg over the railing.
I am useless, he thought as he brought the second leg over the railing. His fingers were only loosely wrapped around its metal bars. A strong wind or a slight push and he would be gone.
The world before him was tumbling. Spinning. He was one step away from leaving this misery behind him. One step away from getting rid of the unmeasurable guilt he felt.
One step.
"If you're gonna jump," a voice said nonchalantly, "can I have the whiskey?"
San looked to his side where he spotted a young girl about his age looking at him. He frowned.
"What?"
"I mean, it'd be a waste," she thought out loud. "Plus, if you just take that down with you that would be littering. So you might as well give it to me."
It was due to her bizarre reaction to this situation that he wondered if this girl was even real or if he was just too out of it.
"Are you serious?" he asked.
She hummed, tilted her head from left to right. "Kind of?" She stepped closer so that she was standing right next to him - merely on the railing's other side. "Why do you wanna jump?"
Confused, unsure what to say, he didn't say anything at first. He just looked at her and so she changed her question to,
"Is there anything I can help with?"
He scoffed. "No one can help me," he said with a heavy chest. "No one believes me. And even if they did, no one would want to get on his bad side anyway."
Intrigued, the girl looked at San curiously. She didn't know what was going on. But this? It sounded interesting and that was all she needed.
"Give it a shot," she dared him, excited about what he was going to say.
However, San seemed to feel more and more confused with every word the girl said.
"What do you mean?"
"You said no one believes you," she reminded him. "Try."
He laughed in disbelief. "Didn't you listen? Even if you were to believe me, you wouldn't want to go against him," he urged.
'Him'.
San was so confident that he didn't even feel it was necessary to name the man that caused him all this sorrow. To the girl, however, this made it all the more intriguing.
She grinned. She didn't seem to take the situation seriously.
She was enjoying herself on the brink of someone else's death.
"Sounds like fun~"
It was because of this genuine enthusiasm that San couldn't tell whether she was being serious or not. Whether she was even sane.
"Alright, let me help," she decided confidently.
"No one ca--"
"Yeah, yeah, I got that," she dismissed his comment.
She reached for the bottle in the boy's hand, took it away from him and took a sip. Despite the burning in her mouth and throat and despite the bitterness, she didn't grimace in the slightest. She just smiled, satisfied at the feeling it left behind.
"Seeing how you are about to jump off a bridge, I take it you don't have much to lose," she reasoned. "So you might as well give it a try."
He wasn't sure what to think. She was not wrong; he had nothing to lose.
Not anymore.
"Why would you help me?"
"Why?" she repeated. She thought about it for a second ere concluding, "I don't have a good reason. I'm just bored."
San pushed out a laugh. Though drowned in disbelief it held genuine amusement in it.
He kept his eyes on her as she took another sip of the whiskey. Once again it seemed as though the burning sensation went unnoticed as she merely hummed in satisfaction after the liquid had made its way down her throat.
Watching her, he couldn't deny that it seemed as though she was a little insane. Still, he wasn't completely opposed to her offer. He was simply desperate enough to put his hopes in this stranger.
"So?" she asked, sounding like she was slowly getting disinterested. Her offer still stood, merely the effort she put into convincing him was dwindling. "Are you hungry? Dinner's on me, what do you want?"
Too surprised by her offer, San didn't react right away. He just watched her, leading her to make a decision on her own.
"No preferences?" she wondered. "I want fries. Ice cream too." She put a hand on her stomach that growled in perfect timing. She sighed, then eyed the boy. "What's your name?"
"San," he replied without much hesitation.
"Okay San, let's go," she decided and turned around, unbothered by him still standing on the other side of the railing and unimpressed by him never actually having agreed to her offer.
Of course, San could have ignored her. He could have let her leave.
But he didn't.
With difficulty, he got back onto the other side of the railing and caught up with her through a couple of big steps.
"What's your name?" he asked once he was close enough. He had told her his; it was only fair that he learned hers too.
That simple question was enough for a smile to grace the girl's lips. She smiled knowing he was with her and smiled knowing she had bought him some time.
"Ji-yoon."
"Yangyang," Wooyoung called the younger boy as he stepped into the living room, closely followed by Haechan. It was quieter now since Chenle and the others had already picked up the rest of the WayV boys.
The second the two entered the room, all the boys inside got up. While Yangyang quickly made his way towards Wooyoung who didn't pay much mind to anyone else, the other four all focused on Haechan.
As the doctor and his patient left the room, the questions started piling up.
"How is Joon?" Kai asked.
"Is she okay?" San inquired.
Changbin nodded, agreeing with all the questions that had been asked ere muttering,
"I really hope she is alright."
"She is, right?" Felix guessed optimistically. "Else they wouldn't be so calm. At least Haechan wouldn't."
Haechan frowned. "Why me? What about Wooyoung?"
"You're more emotional than him. You get upset easily," he noted. "So I guess you'd be riled up if your girlfriend was in bad condition."
Kai laughed mockingly ere noting, "They're not a couple."
"What?" Felix looked back and forth between the two boys, surprised to hear that. "My bad. From the way you two act I really thought you were."
Changbin hummed. "Honestly, same."
Kai smirked. "Right?" He shook his head in disappointment. "What are you doing man, hm?"
"I didn't have the chance to-" Haechan grumbled, getting irritated.
He wanted to have this conversation long ago but things kept piling up. So much happened, leaving him with no chance to address it and so Ji-yoon and him were still nothing but friends, despite both of them wishing to be more than that.
"That's not the point," Haechan said eventually. "She is okay. She is sleeping now but she's fine."
This was enough to ease their minds, and so Changbin and Felix took a seat again, while San kept his eyes on Haechan and Kai watched the two cautiously.
He glimpsed back at the other two boys, figuring that this wasn't the right place to talk.
"San," Kai called the boy's name. "Why don't you and Haechan go check if everything's okay outside?"
His attempt at giving the two privacy was appreciated. San looked at Haechan who gave that suggestion a small nod.
"Sure," he said, "we'll do that."
Haechan waited for San to grab his gun before accompanying him outside, where the two quickly found themselves engulfed in silence.
Both of them had too much to say to figure out where to start. It felt like nothing they had to say was a good beginning and the more they thought about what they had on their minds, the less they recalled what they even wanted to say.
In the end, the first metres of their walk were spent in silence.
Haechan kept telling himself that he didn't speak because of how focused San was. He walked slowly, yet it seemed as though he was following a specific path. Arms resting next to his torso comfortably, yet his right hand was never too far away from the gun he carried.
"Do you do this often?" Haechan asked eventually, trying to break the ice. "Watching over the house, I mean."
"Not really," San said despite knowing that it might not have looked like it. "When it's just Taemin and Joon we don't."
He didn't look at Haechan even once. He blamed it on having to focus on his surroundings yet that was only an excuse. San was merely too nervous to look at the younger one right now.
"She only occasionally asks us to keep an eye on everything when she lets someone stay over," he explained, "because usually that means someone's injured. Like today."
He took a deep breath. He was thankful that Haechan had taken the initiative and had talked first. It didn't make it easier to figure out what to say but it made it less daunting to speak.
"I am not sorry for just running away like that," San said eventually, feeling the lump in his throat grow. It might not have been the right thing to say but it was the first thing that came to mind. It was a first step toward explaining himself. "But I am sorry for not coming back earlier."
Haechan had his eyes on San, watching him as he walked and looked around, eyes eagerly searching the area.
"It was hard for me to face you and the others back then. I know you and In-su were close and someone had put in a lot of effort to make it look like I was responsible for what happened."
He paused, finally took his eyes off his surroundings and looked at Haechan.
"It really wasn't me, Haechan," San urged, sounding like he was close to getting riled up.
"I know." Haechan felt himself drown in guilt when he said, "I should have never doubted you but... I couldn't think straight. Then when you left, it seemed even more like you were just running away from it all."
Despite all that, they never forgot about him or In-su. They never stopped wondering and trying to figure out what had happened. And above all,
"We were looking for you," Haechan told him and San nodded.
"I know," he said, biting down on his lip nervously. "But I couldn't face you without knowing what had actually happened. I felt sorry that this affected you to a point where it even shaped the rest of your lives. So I... I just couldn't return empty-handed."
Haechan had to laugh. "Don't you think it was the same for us?" he asked. "All these years trying to find explanations just so you could feel at ease..."
His voice drifted off when he realized that all of this had been for nothing. All their efforts had been in vain as, whoever was responsible for this, had done a good job at getting rid of any bit of evidence that could incriminate them.
"And we still couldn't figure it out."
San hummed. "It's okay." He smiled awkwardly. "This would have been easier had I known that the evidence was with me all this time."
Shocked, Haechan stopped. He reached for San's arm, causing him to come to a halt too.
"You have evidence? You know who did it?" the younger asked in surprise, a sense of happiness in his voice, yet he barely allowed it to shine through. He was too worried, too scared that maybe he was setting himself up for disappointment.
San, however, quickly nodded. He smiled. It was the first time he managed to smile after having heard the recordings. There had not been enough time so far to take a moment and process what had happened.
There had not been enough time to realize that he had found what he had been looking for for the past years.
"It was Kang," he said, voice heavy upon saying his name yet it soon regained some strength when he added, "with this and everything else... we might have enough evidence to convict him."
A happy smile lingered on his lips. "Really?" he questioned. He was in disbelief. Kang was an influential man. He was willing to do the worst to get what he wanted. "Are you sure?"
San understood his hesitance and the need to make sure that this was enough. After all, there was no saying how a trial would go.
But he was confident.
The number of people on his side kept growing. The evidence he had kept piling up.
"I found old recordings. You can only hear his voice but..." He took a deep breath to keep himself from starting to doubt his chances. "Even if that doesn't work, Joon had Changbin, Felix and Sungchan gather things on him too and she said they found plenty. Also, she said she'd make sure Jungwoo and his friends would help me with all the legal aspects."
He took a deep breath. Whatever was going to happen, he was confident it would work out.
It had to.
"I'm not sure what will happen," San admitted, "but Kang won't stay mayor for much longer."
Overwhelmed. At a loss for words. Haechan stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the older one, hugging him tightly.
A little startled, yet San soon did the same.
"I'm glad," Haechan muttered. He was glad that things were looking up. Glad that he had found out who was responsible for this.
But more than anything, he was glad to have his friend back.
Glad ⊶