evanesce
"we can pay someone to come clean it-"

junnie's been sitting on the couch of his childhood home for the past two hours in complete silence, his mind alternating between bouts of emptiness and moments where there's so much going on in his head he feels like he's going to drown in it. there are cleaning products meticulously lined up on the coffee table in front of him, and he's chewed on his bottom lip until it's bare and aching and picked at the hem of his shorts until it's started to fray and there's a deep, worn scratch on his thigh, the stinging sensations the only things keeping him from slipping entirely into those empty moments. his grandparents had been over earlier but in the end junnie had asked them to take the kids for the night so he could be alone - he had things he needed to do, he'd said, hugging his brother and sister and giving them his best smile, promising them everything would be just fine. taeyeon is only six; he doesn't really understand what's going on, but bibi is ten and she knows, even if junnie wishes she didn't. she hadn't stopped crying for more than five minutes all day.

"it's fine. it's been two days, it needs to be done now."

"junmin-"

he visibly cringes at the use of his full name. "i can do it. i don't need help," he'd insisted, this time in korean, his soft voice laced with the stubbornness he'd inherited from their son and they'd recognized it instantly; there would be no arguing him down. so they'd relented, and now he was here, alone as he'd wanted to be, praying to whatever may be listening and asking to wake up from this nightmare he's been so abruptly thrown into. there's a vague attempt to work through the various pieces of the rest of his life in light of this turn of events but he can't think that far ahead right now; right now, all he can focus on is the loud thrum of his heartbeat in his ears and the groaning of his stomach letting him know it's been almost twenty hours since the last time he ate anything and the sharp, sharp sting of his now-bleeding lip, split in two a little left of center. when he stands, he feels like he's going to throw up, but he gathers all the things he's sat out on the table into his arms and heads to the bathroom in what had once been his parents' bedroom.

they never show the aftermath in movies or television shows. when someone dies and there's a mess left behind once the police have done their examinations and the body has been taken, no one stays to clean up. junnie had been lucky enough that they'd drained the tub if only to make retrieval of his mother's corpse easier on them, but the tub and the floor around it are streaked with dried blood, rust brown and harrowing. blood doesn't bother him; he's seen enough of it to be numb to its presence, a consequence of tumultuous and confrontational teenage years. he's looked at himself, face bloodied and bruised, in this exact mirror before, and the sight of his bare face and bloodied lip is familiar and strangely comforting - because even if things were bad back then, they weren't quite this bad. it separates him from the task of mixing up a paste of ajax and water, which is good, because he doesn't want to focus too much on what it's for or what he's doing, and once he's reached the right consistency he takes a moment to redo the headband holding back shoulder-length brown hair. tomorrow, he decides, he'll cut it all off, because today he doesn't like himself much. the nausea returns when he turns around and looks at the scene ahead, but ironically enough, he still hasn't cried at all. he thinks it's because he doesn't really have happy memories with his mother. there's nothing to miss, only a weight to throw into the ocean that will soon be replaced by new heaviness that he hasn't fully realized yet.

it takes three hours and the sun dipping beneath the horizon to make that bathroom sparkle top to bottom, because junnie doesn't stop with the tub and the floor. he scours everything within sight, uses a small flashlight he finds in a drawer to examine every surface, and by the time he's finished it's as if no other human being has ever set foot in that bathroom. his hands are a wreck, skin dry and baby pink polish chipped to nearly nothing; his knees are bruised and his lip looks terrible, but everything is clean - except him. in silence he pulls himself back to standing, avoiding his reflection in the mirror this time as he gathers up everything he'd used to clean and closes both the bathroom and bedroom doors on his way out. once he's put away all the cleaning supplies he makes his way to the upstairs bathroom, because that's the one that was his, and strips down, stepping into the shower and twisting the handle to full temperature. although his skin is burning, junnie barely feels it, and he stays in the shower until the water begins to run cold.

after dressing, the first thing he does is go to the kitchen, thieving an unopened bottle of red wine from the top of the refrigerator and taking it back to his station on the couch with him, electing to drink straight from the bottle after opening it. the second thing he does is reach for his phone, scrolling through contacts until he finds his boyfriend's name. that's when he finally tears up, because the urge to let minjae all the way in is stronger than it's ever been now, and even though junnie had told him he didn't need to come with him, he wished he had anyway. this is heavy, and he's never felt so alone, and he doesn't know how things will turn out anymore and even the thought wrecks him in ways he never thought possible. things would change, out of necessity. but they don't have to yet, not now, so he wipes his face with the heels of his hands before pressing the button to dial.

"i was just about to call," minjae says when he answers, and junnie laughs a little, because they've been doing and saying the same things more and more lately and he likes it, even if he plays annoyed. "i miss you. how is everything going down there?"

"i miss you," junnie answers, a little surprised at the quiet tone of his own voice. "i don't... really want to talk about stuff. just talk to me, okay? it can be anything. i just need to hear your voice."