Chapter Text
Jihoon remembers very well the night his mother died.
He remembers very well the grief wafting through the air due to the threat of goodbye.
He remembers very well how he tightly clutched his mother's hand whilst crying silent tears, begging for someone out there to give her a second chance. He remembers how his heart squeezed tight in his chest, remembering the heavy drop of tears cascading from his father's face. And when he looks over to his older brother, hunched over and patting his father's back, he sees very well his brother's scrunched face trying to hold back his tears from flowing as well.
Jihoon prays the best he can. One more year, one more month, or one more week.
“Anything,” He pleads to Heaven above. “Please, I can’t lose you, mom.”
The faint grip on his hands loosens, and the monitor beeps a long sigh to indicate the passing of his beloved mother. Jihoon buries his head onto the side of his mother’s corpse, hoping to seek some sort of comfort he knows wouldn't come.
Comfort that wouldn't come from her, that one he is absolutely certain.
The days leading up to his mother’s funeral were the most painful. Never he would’ve imagined before seeing her face peacefully embraced in an endless sleep inside a casket. His mother wore the most beautiful dress he wished he could've seen her wearing back when her cheeks were accompanied by the natural glow of her skin, and not through layers of makeup to make her seem less lifeless.
He still sees her in his dreams, greeting him with the biggest smile and home cooked meals served on the table for everyone to dine. Everyone sat at the table, all four of them, talking about the most mundane thing ever yet each one of them eager to know what it is the other wanted to say.
On days that he felt like giving up, his mother would be there, cut up fruit on a plate with that slight hint of onion, obviously from the blade that was used to cut onions before. She wouldn't say it outright, but he thinks of the offer as a silent way to tell him to not give up and strive forward.
The woman that would ask him to sing her favorite song from time to time, saying that his voice sounds better than the original singer. The one to hide his obligatory mother’s day card inside a drawer and refusing to throw it away, saying that it might be needed someday.
He still sees her, wearing that skirt, uncertain, asking him if she looked decent enough for the night out with his father. In reply, he says that his mother would look beautiful no matter what she decided to wear. Jihoon thinks his mother is the most beautiful woman in his life.
In his dreams, Jihoon’s mother is alive, wiping his tears for him and would teasingly scold him for being such a big baby.
“If only dreams were real,” Jihoon says, sadly staring at the casket lowering down the ground. “We still need you, mom.”
From that day on, Lee Jihoon decided that biggest fear is Death.
No, not his death, but rather the death of those precious to him.
And then, there were only just three of them.
-
It is only a few years that passes before he’s back, crying once more beside his mother’s grave.
Not much has changed. This time however, it is not just his mother that’s buried underneath this time. No matter how old he gets, he still cries harder than a newborn baby when he visits.
His older brother said that his father died with a peaceful smile.
For someone that carried a lot of burdens, Jihoon is relieved that his father was blessed with a peaceful passing.
Too peaceful, to the point that his older brother mistakenly thought of him just asleep, not knowing that it was more of an eternal slumber instead.
As he stares at his father’s name on the grave plate, he thinks of a younger version of himself in an argument with his father, complaining that getting a degree isn't worth it.
Especially if it is not what his heart desired.
He thinks of broken music sheets and broken dreams.
Still, he remains grateful and tries to forget that unreachable dream he had once, from when he was still young.
“Father,” Jihoon caresses the grave plate with a tender touch. “I forgive you. We’re doing fine, rest in peace.”
It is contradictory, he supposes, the love of a father.
It felt warm yet it blisters when too much. It is comforting as it was uncomfortable to have. To be loved too much, and to be suffocated. To be wanted to succeed, to do what is needed, to not do what is risky.
He sees it, his father bombarded with burdens that stubbornly clings to him in every step.
He could almost hear his father’s once conscious thoughts, asking himself, what would his family eat if he did not get up and push through work every morning? Was his eldest really alright years after their mother’s death? Would his youngest even have a comfortable life pursuing a risky path?
The graveyard successfully adds another one of their family members beneath the ground.
Only him and his brother were left.
-
Fate always has plans, whether it may be unfair to the beholder or not.
Jihoon was always the one on the other side of the bedframe, the one clutching the dying family member’s hands in his. The one crying and bordering begging to some otherworldly being.
He never anticipated to be the one dying instead.
“You,” His brother starts, currently seated beside his bed in all his wrinkly glory. He looks at him, fondness reflected from both his eyes and tone of voice.
“What?” Jihoon speaks in a groggy voice. His voice, along with his other physical features, were evident that they had aged.
“If it really is your time to go soon,” His brother reaches for his hand and squeezes it gently. “You better hug Mom and Dad real tight for me in Heaven.”
“Do you really want me dead already?” Jihoon lightly chuckles, only for the action to elicit a coughing fit.
“No,” His brother says with such melancholy it scares him. “I don’t want you to go yet.”
The chair lets out a creak from his brother moving closer. Soft lips touch his cheek, a strange sensation he hasn’t felt in years.
His brother kissed him on the cheek, just like he used to when they were kids.
The warm touch made him flutter his eyes shut.
‘Goodbye,’ Jihoon says without a sound.
-
“Doctor, patient #0042 has awoken.” Jihoon hears a gruffy voice, although a bit muffled. “Should we remove him from the pod?”
“Excellent. He’s one of the brightest minds the higher ups looked forward to waking up.” The quality of the sound is still muffled, annoying Jihoon completely. Despite the quality, he compares this voice to the one before, distinguishing that this person had a higher tone. This person must be a female, Jihoon notes.
Woosh!
The sound of something opening.
He didn’t notice it before, but that warm stuffiness in the air slowly went away. The air felt lighter and easier to breathe now. It smelt sterile, but easier to breathe nonetheless.
Furthermore, brighter light seemed to touch his closed eyelids. He’s sure that he will feel nauseous once he opens them.
“Bring him out.” Now hearing the voice in better quality, Jihoon might be correct in assuming this person is a woman.
He feels hands all over him, pulling him out of the pod. Their pulls are nothing gentle; They were harsh and fast.
He feels the plush mattress say hello to his aching body. Almost instinctual, he sinks further, reigning all the comfort he feels he needs. He’s never felt a pillow this soft before.
His eyes opened with a twitch.
The bright white walls that greets almost made him puke. It was too overwhelming, seeing that bright color after what it felt like ages, eyes closed.
He felt light headed, like a fog clouding up his brain.
A needle punctures the back of his right hand. He almost yelps from the slight discomfort, surprised at the insertion of the IV.
The pain cleared up the fog in his mind, albeit slightly.
Which brought him to the question,
Where was he?
This wasn’t Heaven nor Hell, something he believed that people went to in the afterlife.
Was this reincarnation just like from those stories his brother used to be obsessed with?
Whatever it was, he was supposed to be dead.
He was supposed to be six feet under, old and wrinkly. His brother’s last show of affection was supposed to be the last thing he felt alive, not the pain from an IV insertion. He was supposed to hug his parents, as promised.
Instead, he was wherever this was, freshly out of a pod similar to the ones he saw in dystopian movies.
A quick glance to his arm, they seemed smooth, ignoring the scars littering the other parts of the limb.
He tries to utter words to ask, ‘Where am I?’, only to fail and violently cough due to disuse.
“Someone make him stop coughing.” The same gruff voice from before says.
In an instant, he feels a hand harshly cupping his chin, forcing him to open his mouth. The warm liquid stings his dry throat.
The sudden intrusion made Jihoon instinctively try to pry the person’s hands away from him. The unknown liquid continues to sting his throat as he fails to pry the man away, his muscles too weak.
His arms shook even with the lightest attempt in closing his hand, how could he push this man away from him?
“Patient #0034, I suggest you relax. Struggling will get you nowhere.” His eyes turned to the familiar stern female voice. She held a clip board, writing something down, not even bothering to spare him a glance despite voicing him a warning earlier.
He finished the glass of the unknown liquid.
He briefly coughs violently, then glares at the man who forced him to drink the liquid. The man did not cower under the pressing gaze and instead went back to the back of the room, placing down the glass.
Seeing that this man would not spare him anymore attention, Jihoon turns towards the woman. She was called ‘Doctor’ earlier by that gruff voice, wasn’t she?
With great effort, Jihoon tries to muster the ability to speak.
“Where… am I?”
The woman only chuckles at the question with a sadistic lilt. “You’ll know very soon.”
So that’s her game plan then, dodging his questions for answers.
Answers… He needed answers.
He opens his mouth once more to inquire, ‘Where am I?’, ‘Where is my brother?’, ‘Who are you?’
What came out weren’t the questions that he constructed in his mind. Instead, Jihoon screams in great ferocity, voice broken. He thrashes around like a wild animal.
His muscles were burning.
“What.. did.. you.. ?!”
The nausea from before came back, even greater than before. His pupils dilated from the pain, eyelids wide, and vision swirling. His limbs flailed around uncontrollably. Tears started to sprout from his eyes.
For all the people around him that crowded his bed, nobody seemed to make the pain stop.
They were all just… writing.
Writing on their clipboards.
They all watched his distressed form with an objective gaze.
“Alright, that’s enough.” The gruff voice comes back to command the order.
Perhaps… he’s ordering them to stop this suffering?
“Tie him down. Now.”
Or not.
They grab his flailing limbs and belt them to the sides of the bed. With resolve and determination, Jihoon tries to break free from the hold, only for the pain to intensify. His struggle from the restraints did nothing to help him break free.
“Keep him awake. We don’t want him to lose all his memory files, or else this experiment will be nothing but a waste of time.”