When Heroes Cry
The crunch of newly fallen snow grated against his ears as he stepped onto the platform of the empty train station. Sighing he stood there restless.
Recently there had been few things that Kim Jaejoong took pleasure in doing. As cliché as it sounded food had lost it's flavor and colors had paled in his eyes. For months he had passed his days with little aim or purpose.
He had been living as if half of his lifeforce had been taken away for the past year since she had died. It was as if a chain of guilt were holding him back, keeping him from moving past his own grief.
"Jaejoong, give me back my book," Jaeyoung pouted as she swatted at the small book that Jaejoong held above his head.
"Nu-uh, not unless you don't tell Umma and Appa that I cut class," Jaejoong threatened, "Until you prove yourself worthy, I'm not going to give it back."
"I promise, please give me back my book," Jaeyoung begged.
"Nope, we'll see tomorrow, if you're a good girl."
Everyone often assumes that tomorrow and the next day will come to them. But it never came for Jaejoong. Time stood frozen for him on that day.
The day. The day. That day. How could he face each day? With each one more tiring than the next and each memory bringing him further and further away from the past, he dread the coming of each day, dreaded waking up in a world where the room across the hall stood dull and vacant...
Huddling into his large overcoat, he could feel a stinging sensation where his tear ducts made themselves known.
Maybe he hadn't been good enough. Maybe he should have treated her better when he could. Maybe he should have learned to let go long ago.
The rain. The water. The crimson color of the blood that mixed with the water and black pavement around her body formed a bloody halo of a fallen angel.
It all mixed together in his mind.
Her pale face as he looked over her was alien to him, something he had never seen in all the years that he'd grown up with her.
"Jaeyoung! Jaeyoung!" the words were stuck in his throat. He wanted to yell louder, scold her for lying in the streets and playing dead.
But he couldn't. And the rain continued to fall.
But her breath didn't.
The scenery flew past his eyes as he looked out the tinted windows of his car. Barren trees flew by and a kaleidoscope image of white, blue, and black danced in his eyes.
Closing his eyes, he slipped into what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep.
"Jaeyoung, you're really going to kill me?" Jaejoong asked as he lay pinned under his twin sister's body.
"Yes," the fury and frustration in her eyes made him want to laugh. She was a tiny girl, but had the same feisty spirit that he had inherited.
"What are you going to do when I'm dead then? There'll be no one to hold Appa and Umma back when they're mad at you," Jaejoong asked playfully.
"Tsch, I can handle them myself," Jaeyoung scoffed as she continued to try to pin his arms down with her legs.
"Oh really?"
"Yes, as for what I'll do once I'm done with you…I'll move into your room," she answered, continuing, "It's bigger than mine…Ugh it's so unfair…"
Just as she said that Jaejoong had managed to flip her off the bed.
"Ouch…" she got up, and rubbed her back glaring at Jaejoong, "Even if I'm your sister, most people would still consider me to be a girl."
"What kind of girl is so cold hearted to not care if her brother was gone?" Jaejoong retorted smirking.
"You're a brother? More like a bum, who's going to mourn for you?" Jaeyoung muttered as she left the room.
Jaejoong laughed to himself as he turned back to his book. She always said that when she was cross. But he always remembered how she bawled her eyes out when they were just 5 years old when he had fallen from the monkey bars in the nearby park. They had both started crying. Jaeyoung first, then Jaejoong. Jaeyoung - because of the blood; Jaejoong - because Jaeyoung was crying.
"Stop 59 – Jirisan Passengers please exit for their respective doors."
A hollow voice on the intercom woke Jaejoong up from his memory. Getting up from his seat he looked out at the station and a jolt of pain ran through his body.
The familiarity rushed into him. His pores soaked it in as he stepped off the train. Jirisan. Jaeyoung's mountain. It seemed to him that every part and corner of this place belonged to her.
Ever since they were young, Jaejoong and Jaeyoung had come to this mountain with their parents for their yearly hike. Jaeyoung, being the one who loved the outdoors always look forward to the trips with a sort of wonderment that mirrored her somewhat stubborn naïveté.
She'd always be the one to push past Jaejoong to get out of the train and run excitedly around the station, even when she was 15, her immaturity and purity always shown through.
Draped in the colors of winter, the mountain seemed to be aureate a haunted and holy air to its surroundings. It seemed like the spirits of lost hope and lives wandered between the trees, looking for their soulmates, making the air charged with an essence of longing vacancy.
Breathing in deeply he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tattered letter. Smoothing it out in his hands he began his journey. To kneel at the foot of the mountain. To kneel at the feet of Jaeyoung…
It had been the week after their 17th birthday that it happened. He had gone to school earlier than usual to clean the classroom as punishment for causing a ruckus in class again. The memory of that quiet morning and the patter of rain outside the classroom window were things that he'd keep with him forever. It was the last moment of peace he held before it was broken.
There had been a bang as the door of the classroom slammed open. A bang. And then his 17 year old world came crashing down.
"Yah, Kim Jaejoong…" one of his classmates said panting, "Outside…your sister…outside now…front of the school…"
"What she got into another fight?" he had asked wearily.
The boy shook his head, "..car…your sister got hit by a car…go!"
He froze for a moment. Maybe that moment would have been the difference. The difference between life and death for her. Maybe it wouldn't have been, but he'd never be able to forget the moment that he paused and watched his vision narrow into a small tunnel.
Then he began to run.
As he walked along the snow covered path, he looked up at the pale winter sky. It seemed to hold no comfort, no mercy. Like a white room in an asylum.
Was Heaven like that? An asylum?
It couldn't be. Jaeyoung didn't belong there.
He had never prayed before, but now he raised his hands and pressed his palms together as he approached the shrine at the foot of the mountain. Closing his eyes, he sent a silent pray up, wishing that Jaeyoung would be happy where she was and fulfilling all her dreams she hadn't been able to when she was alive.
He swallowed back his regret, as he once again took out the letter in his pocket. Pressing it into the palm of his hand, he said to no one but the silence of the woods,
"Jaeyoung ah, it's me, your oppa. Your oppa that you left behind," he paused and smiled gently at the word, "Yeah even though I'm a couple of minutes older, I'm still your oppa."
He faltered. Maybe it was pointless, talking to a person on the other side. Maybe once a person leaves there's no way to ever reach them again. Maybe that was the true bitterness of death.
He swallowed and spoke louder as if that would make him be heard by the other side,
"Yah Kim Jaeyoung! Wake up; it's me, Jaejoong, its ok that's your sleeping now. Rest all you want, but you better be just as good as I am when we meet again," his voice hitched.
"You didn't even have a first love yet, isn't that an embarrassing story to tell the angels?" His felt his warm tears fall and freeze on his face as he continued, "And whatever happened to giving me a niece and two nephews? You think you can just skip out on that?"
Silence answered him, as he hunched over his sorrow. The mountain was too big. It seemed like life was staring right back at him, judging him with its harsh eyes.
Holding up the letter to the dull light of the mountain snow, he took out a lighter from his coat pocket. Crying, he said to the white silence that held Jaeyoung from him, "Remember this, I'll be a great man. Even if I wasn't a great brother to you, I'll become one that you can look down upon and smile at with pride."
The cold air blew past his black hair, and he closed his eyes as he lit the paper,
"This is my promise to you."
He watched the paper burn slowly on the grown before him. The flames licked at each other greedily leaving behind only embers and dust. Getting up, he looked back up at the mountain, and from faraway, he could hear a songbird call.
Dear Jaeyoung,
I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I could say it a hundred times over and it would never bring you back. Remember how we'd always be able to tell what the other was thinking when we were younger, that special connection that we once had? Who do I have now? What do I do now?
I'm sorry that you never had a chance to fall in love. You always said that was something that you had to do before you died, fall in love, but you never did. But I'll fall in love twice as hard for the both of us. I'll eat twice as much at the dinner table and work twice as much for the both of us. I'll live twice as fully and twice as happily…and hopefully it will be all brought to you…
I don't really know what else to say except, watch me. Watch me and never blink for a second, it'll only be fair, cause every moment of my life I'll be bearing your memory.
- Jaejoong.