Chapter Text
Song suggestion: In My Room by Julia Wolf
Chapter One - Blood Pacts
A funeral for a 20-year-old was another type of sadism.
Yunho sighed.
The death of his childhood best friend had come as a shock, and yet not, his friend was always scrambling to find the next quick adrenaline hit, the next thing to spike his heart rate faster and faster. It wasn’t surprising he had ventured too far into the forest and gotten himself mauled by the animals.
People sobbed. The scent of refrigerated sandwiches lingered. Yunho thought about the assignment he had due next week.
His suit matched the grey carpet stained with spilt juice. It clung to his wide shoulders uncomfortably and itched his wrists. His collar felt restricting.
Perhaps he should’ve been crying, or at least sad at the loss of his friend, yet the reality hadn’t quite kicked in yet. The friendship had ended on slightly bad terms, with Yunho deciding to escape the small town they had grown up in and start at the university 2 states away, whilst Mingi didn’t understand the desire to sit still and learn. Mingi was happy with just him and Yunho, doing him-and-Yunho stuff. Like getting himself killed.
Perhaps Yunho should have tried harder to stop him. Maybe he should've followed. Maybe it’s better he didn't.
He should’ve been there. He was a promise broken, shattered by an angry remark and distance. Everything Yunho had promised had splintered with a single selfish decision to run away.
The funeral itself had been simple. Mingi’s body had been disfigured, so the casket was closed and buried without fuss. A song Yunho knew Mingi would’ve hated played for a minute too long. The notes cut through the quiet air, and suddenly Yunho was back in the sticky heat of the summer, watching as Mingi’s hair flared violently white against the sunlight. The sting of bleach, of the bruises, everything returned in a single, electric pulse reflected in the music playing. People told tales of Mingi’s bright personality and how it was a pleasure to know him. It was all bullshit. In reality, Mingi was a bastard. He wreaked havoc on the lives of their town, the two of them spending their teen years breaking into shops, houses, cars, anything they could crack open with a hairpin and Yunho’s intelligence. Mingi laughed at girls and fought with boys, and spent summers pulling Yunho’s hair and getting him in trouble.
One summer, when the air was thick and the electricity couldn’t keep up with the rising temperatures, Yunho bleached Mingi’s hair a startling shade of white that burnt his ends and made his sharp features poke out harshly. His father’s fists rained down black and blue, but Mingi’s gaze - relentlessly tracking Yunho, a constant pressure - made the ache dull just enough, like the slice of cool air right before a summer storm begins.
That was the summer they slit their palms open and shared their blood.
“Blood pacts mean you can’t ever escape me, Yunho-ya,”
Mingi whispered that night,
“I’ll always be by your side. Even if you try to leave me.”
Mingi never did sound like he was joking.
Yunho’s smallest finger pressed against Mingi’s, heartbeat hammering in time with the thoughts, always, always, always, as Mingi’s breath hummed in the air.
Mingi watched Yunho as if he were keeping count of his breaths, his heartbeat. Like looking away might change something.
One day, Mingi found Yunho crying on his back porch, with skinned knees and a handprint burned into his milky white cheek. They were barely 13, with eyes wide with curiosity, and arms bronzed from every waking moment spent outside together. His arm had wrapped tightly around Yunho’s shoulder with no words exchanged. They didn’t need to talk. Yunho’s father was known for his erratic temper and harsh words.
“He says we are too intense, that God won't continue to love me if I put all my love onto you”
Mingi had gazed at Yunho, at the hand shape on his right cheek and his black curls wrapping over his ears. The soft scent of rain had broken through the air with a breeze, and a bird cawed in the distance over the rumble of tractors. Yunho had stared back. Mingi’s sharp eyes watched every twitch of his face, his hair trailed down his nape in thick brown strands, and the small white scar across his top lip almost glistened in the grey of the fall. He remembered his t-shirt was an old one of Yunho’s, a faded blue Spiderman top with a rip in the sleeve, and his pink knees poked out of grey cargo shorts that matched Yunho’s own. Mingi hadn’t said anything to that, just stood up and grabbed Yunho’s hand, his fingers soft and delicate, pulling him inside the house to play on the PlayStation.
The solemn song cut away, leaving a hollow ache in the air and Yunho’s heart. The only sound was gentle sobs around him, and his own heartbeat, reiterating that staccato always, always, always, a promise broken on ugly terms and violent ends.
Mingi hated slow songs. His reckless nature thrived with the adrenaline of a loud, fast beat, a tempo that made his heart rate skyrocket as his hands fumbled with his latest hobby. They could never sit in silence. Not due to any awkwardness or unfamiliarity. Quite the opposite. But Mingi could never sit still, not like Yunho, who would sit with his back straight, chin held up and shoulders back, whilst Mingi fidgeted and bounced clumsily next to him. They were both a similar height, skyscrapers that towered over the rest of the town, boys with trousers always too short, shirts too tight, limbs too long. But when sitting, Mingi hunched inwards like he was trying to protect his soul. The fast-paced songs Mingi would blare as they rode their bikes across town, as they read comic books and pretended to be Spiderman, as they threw apples from the orchard at passing tourists, these were the songs Yunho wouldve played at Mingi’s funeral. Mingi hated sadness.
Guests began to drift away in clusters slowly. Hands briefly grazed his shoulders in silent words of apology. Voices cut through the silence. Yunho nodded at their apologies, their attempts at comfort.
Girls grasped his hands, promising to keep in touch, to be there for him if he needed someone to talk to, how Mingi was a kind heart, a soft soul, a lovely person. Mingi was none of these. Mingi was fireworks at a carnival, he was bitter chocolate and salted caramel and sickeningly sweet candyfloss. He was all burnt hair and grazed knees and pinky promises. He was harsh, angry words, and stinging punches, and a shove in the school playground that grazed your knees bloody. He was everything and nothing and forever and always.
His heart continued to beat with the promise of always.
By the time his feet had dragged him away to his own house, the night had darkened, and Yunho still felt the ghost hands of his best friend cross his shoulders. The silence of the house settled into the corners of the rooms. The empty silence fuelled his insomnia. The walls felt too close, the air too still, the shadows too dark.
His feet moved before his thoughts had caught up. Yunho didn’t remember deciding to leave. His footsteps sounded loudly across the empty streets as they carried him down paths, past the church, into the roads Mingi and he had ridden their bikes down, past the old sweet shops they had spent summers breaking into, all the way to the place they had left Mingi.
Trees stood tall in the silhouette of the night, whistling prayers into the silence and mocking Yunho as he walked through the town. The moon glowed brightly in the black of the sky. In the distance, an animal cried in anguish. Guilt ran through him as Yunho briefly hoped it was the same one that killed his best friend.
As the night grew colder and darker, Yunho reached the rusted gate of the graveyard. His hand wrapped around the cold metal, and a violent creak cut through the silence as he pushed it open. Rows upon rows of tombstones lined the overgrown grass, marking each dead body with its own guard. The air smelled like rain and freshly cut grass. Mingi had always smelled like the earth, like a forest, like Mother Nature herself.
His knees collapsed under the weight of his own thoughts. Mud dirtied his charcoal grey suit trousers, a colour Mingi had laughed about when discussing their favourite colours.
“I like cement grey. It’s versatile, easy on the eyes, like me,” Mingi had grinned, briefly brushing against Yunho’s shoulders as they sat licking at sticky sorbet after school.
Now the colour only reminded him of what was gone.
The soil was upturned, freshly covering the black box he had seen lowered into the same place a few hours earlier. Towering over the dirt was a cement grey headstone, engraved with the words ‘Song Mingi, beloved Son, Friend, Family, Forever remembered, Forever missed’. Forever. Forever, his body - mauled beyond comprehension - would rot beneath the earth, folded into a box too small for his frame. His hair would remain a tangled mass of brown, his dark eyes forever closed, never tracking Yunho’s movements again.
Something inside Yunho broke.
Tears spilt across his cheeks, his cheeks flamed red, and his nails dug shallow cuts into his palms.
“You said you’d never leave,” He spat violently, his hands curled into fists on the ground,
“You said we were stuck together. You don’t get to leave first.”
His heart pounded in his ears. The night air felt bitter against the heat of his flaming cheeks, anger and grief burning the milky skin.
“I thought you would be fine without me. You were always the one running off, always the one who didn’t need me as much as I needed you. I thought we had more time. Why, why did you do this? Why couldn’t you have waited for me, why, Mingi!”
His nails bit into his palms, deep red crescents left in the fleshy skin. He didn’t notice the sharp sting until something warm dribbled across his palms, dripping onto the fresh dirt.
“It was meant to be always.” Yunho cried, flinging himself to the ground.
“So come back, His words whispered out into the night.
The air around him turned still. Silence crept into the shadows that licked at every edge of his perception, darkness sinking deeper. A chill crawled up Yunho’s spine. For a single moment, Yunho had the strange, unmistakable feeling he wasn’t alone.
The outpour of emotions left his body feeling numb and drained. Palms brushed against his dirtied trousers as he pulled himself back together, piece by piece, leaving his wreck of emotions in the dark with the grave.
Nobody needed to know of his breakdown. His emotional downpour would die with Mingi, left in the mud above him. Mingi had been the first to see his real tears, and his body would be the last.
It was a Sisyphean task, leaving the graveyard behind, knowing this would put the full stop on the sentence that was Song Mingi. But the world continued even after his demise, and Yunho couldn’t factor a full breakdown over his childhood best friend into his academic life. His parents expected him to remain passive, strong, and focused on his future.
As he followed his empty footsteps back past the church, the sweetshop, the memories of a long forgotten summer, a second presence drifted in his shadows. An eerie feeling of being followed filled him. Not watched. Followed.
In the distance, laughter whispered into the soft winds. A memory of Mingi stealing candied apples from a carnival vendor licked at Yunho’s thoughts. His hand grasped around his as they ran, burnt caramel in the air.
Behind him, soil sank into the spot Yunho had vacated.
Yunho did not look back.
Something did.