arcanny

[arcanny]

Ephemeral

Ephemeral

.

genre: romance [angst fluff]

au: NonIdol!Jaemin

word count: 1.6K

content warning: character death and bad grammar (english is not my first language)

author note: i’m very new to tumblr, it would be nice if you left a comment, a note or even reblogged it. this is my very first oneshot and it was in the draft for long so I brought it out. hope you enjoy reading ! (the header is too big for my desktop theme i’m gonna fix it soon! for now i just advice you (if you read on desktop website; to zoom in and then my header won’t be so annoying hoping it helps)

(adj) lasting for a very short time.

I nearly startled in my seat when a new sound pierced through the deafening silence. Steps and breaths followed by a small cough. I gazed up and realized I wasn’t the only one in the train coupé. Opposite in the plush seats sat a boy. He ran a hand through his blonde hair with a striking streak of blue hair disheveled on his forehead, sniffled with his cute nose, and gave me picture-perfect smile. On his white t-shirt, the print said over there, and he did look over at me.

“You are staring,” He said.

All of the sudden my cheeks felt warm, they would be rosy red.

“You are staring” I replied as I let the defense position take control over my choice of words.

His eyebrow was raised for a short moment before he smirked.

“You are worth looking at.”

—

Two weeks went by and Jaemin and I were together at least seven days out of the 14 days. He continually made me do things that I didn’t even dare to do before. In the public swimming pool, he made a jump from the highest diving board. The sinking you get in the stomach when you stand several meters over the pool’s surface and look down at the pit of it. The sinking feeling typically goes away as soon as you hit the water’s surface. That was not the case for me. For when I swam up through the clear chlorinated water, there stood a beaming Jaemin who would pat my head. He made the sinking feeling continue.

—

I sat with Jaemin in his dining room. The light from the ceiling lamp shone down on the food in the otherwise dark room. There was an awkward silence. Jaemin smiled at me whilst his brother shook his head. The brother gave him a small nudge.

“Is it now wrong to smile at one’s girlfriend” He grinned.

He always did it; he always had to break the silence. I took a bite of my plate, the food burned down my throat.

“It tastes delicious,” I said.

“It’s good you like it, Jaemin told me it’s your favorite dish.” His mother said.

She nodded towards him as he sheepishly grinned while rubbing his neck. He then coughed and the silence came again. Now the brother wasn’t the slightest irritated - he was worried. He looked over at his mother who just looked at the ground mumbling something. Nobody said anything. Butterflies started erupting in my stomach, not the usual colorful tranquil ones. These were dark and panicking in there.

—

Jaemin followed me home. The moon illuminated the small sideway we took as the silence overfilled everything. You could clearly hear the first raindrop that reached the asphalt. It sounded like an earthquake when Jaemin cleared his throat. Or was it a cough? I was reminded by the dinner and the sudden mood shift. The butterflies breaking out of their cocoons.

“Jaemin?” I asked. He froze.

“What happened earlier?”

The sound of his strides became louder and louder, mixed with the splashing sounds by the raindrops. He didn’t say anything, just stared out in the rain, raindrops trickling down his face.

“Jaemin what happened?”

My hand pushed his shoulder the hot tears pressing behind my eyes.

“Just…say something”

He finally stopped and looked at me with a piercing gaze.

“Say we always will be together,” He said.

“What?”

“Y/N, say we always will be together.”

The cold raindrops dripped from his body, but not even a hurricane could move him out of place. Not until he had what he wanted; me.

“We’ll always be together,” I promised.

—

“Do you believe in life after death?” Jaemin asked me once, we’ve had been together for almost a year. Sunlight streamed through the windows, it reached his dreamy eyes framed by long lashes and his astronomic telescope on the table. He also had luminous stars in the ceiling and prints of the universe on the curtains. I liked that about his room.

“I would like to believe, in life after death. I don’t like the thought of it all just ends,” I replied after thinking my answer it through. My voice was the only sound that broke the silence.

“I’m not Christian,” He said, “- but I would like to believe in life after death too,”

I shrugged and asked:

“How would Paradise look like?”

“I don’t know. As long as you are there.”

He showcased me a toothy smile, and a warm feeling grew in my body.

—

One night Jaemin and I wanted to watch the meteor shower together. We were laying in my back-yard waiting. A small cloud of steam formed when Jaemin coughed. He was there waiting intently. Like a little kid waiting for permission to take a bite of a cake. My hands fiddled with a brown withered leaf and pulled my hands into my body as the cold feeling started to spread in my body. I was just about to lose my patience and asking if we could stay outside but then Jaemin pointed.

“There!” He shouted with a high-pitched voice. I laughed by his excitement.

I did not see the first shooting star although it did not matter considering there went a few seconds before a new one appeared on the night sky. It continued. Thousands of stars flew across the night sky, like random blobs of paint littered across the sky as it infinite canvas. We were laying for a long time whilst Jaemin eyes were glued to the night sky, wide open, whereas mine were always fluttering waiting to let me shut them.

“Y/N, you can’t fall asleep.”

I rolled onto my side.

“I’m so tired”

However, Jaemin insisted until I promised to stay up with him and watch the meteor shower.

—

The morning after I was awakened by Jaemin, he shook me, and his facial expression was enough to send me trembling. He trashed roughly around in the blankets and his right arm was sticky and sweaty on top of his right leg which was red swollen. With shaking hands, I called an ambulance.

When the ambulance finally arrived, everything was chaos. I had no figures on how many men were running around in luminous jackets, and I tried not to catch a glimpse of Jaemin who laid half-unconscious on the stretcher.

The short trip to the hospital felt like hours. I sat and stared out the window at the tailgate. The world continued. Jaemin laid on the stretcher. At one point I tried to squeeze his hand, but he didn't squeeze back and it made me cry even more

“What is going on?” I asked his mum. She took a deep shuddering breath and looked at the ceiling. I could not see if she was trying to hold her tears back.

“When you have… “Her eyes shut in a concentrating way whilst she continued: “…Lung cancer. When you have lung cancer there is a bigger probability for deep vein thrombosis in the legs.”

There, the mild smell of cleanliness in the hospital went from being pleasant to awful, and the sound of the nurses' clicking shoes outside became unbearable. I was sweating and freezing at the same time and I could not find the normal rhythm in my breathing. Lung cancer. It sounded so wrong in my ears, yet it was the truth. Now I finally realized why Silas insisted on the meteor shower, why he was coughing all the time. I got nausea, I had to clamp a hand over my mouth and stare into the wall so I would not to throw up. Jaemin has Lung cancer.

“Lung cancer?”

My voice thin, so thing it cracked, the tears silently falling down my cheeks. Jaemin’s mother shifted in her seat seconds later crying in her hands.

“He did not tell you?”

I shook my head.

“No”

—

He left us a week ago, I wasn’t even there. He died of his lung cancer which I did not even know about until a week ago. All I know is the phone call from his brother.

“He is dead,” He said.

I guess he just couldn't bear to say more. That is understandable.

I promised Jaemin not to be afraid of new things, but I’m scared. I’m scared of the life I lived before him.

In his notebook, which he had called his will, I received this message:

Dear y/n I love you

Dots started appearing before my eyes as I stumbled around the floor. Trying to stay conscious.

—

I just went out and spread his ashes. They would have buried him, but I told them I would not let him rot. Jaemin was too ethereal to rot in the underground, he belonged to the celestial world like the twinkling star of life he was. That wish is probably the only thing I've said all week. Otherwise, I just nodded. I nod to people when they say they are condoling. I nod to my mother when she glanced sees me with a pitiful look in the eyes sighing.

I don't know what else to do. But I didn't nod as Jaemin flew away with the wind; I cried.

—

I bike home. It's a beautiful day, but it's as if I don't feel the beauty. The sun shines on my face but I can’t feel its warmth. The wind whispers in my neck, but it’s not pleasant. My mind is too clouded to see the truck coming through the sideway. I’m too slow. And just before I hit the truck, I swear I could hear a voice whisper:

“Meet me in Paradise.”