Chapter Text
“You WHAT?”
Jay almost slammed the closet door close, except his closet doors were the fancy mirror-integrated sliding type. The interior design of this house was unfortunately conducted during a blissful period in his life and it didn't exactly accommodate a negative reaction.
“I fired her.”
Jake - the fiancé and the life source of both his joy and horror - plopped down on the bed, lying flat on his stomach like starfish at the bottom of the sea.
“Our wedding planner?”
“Well-” He gulped, “I’m sure we can totally plan a wedding without a… planner who, mind you, hasn’t done shit but tried to hit on me, forget all of the main points I mentioned, then almost triple booked… Imagine those bridezillas brawling outside her office while I locked myself inside rethinking every little decision in my life. You should feel grateful that I even made it home alive.”
Jay rolled up his sleeve, took off his watch and calmly put it back in the drawer. Then slammed the drawer shut because he needed to satisfy that urge in some harmless way.
“So what are we going to do? What are we going to wear?” He barely maintained his smile.
Jake took a deep breath in, “Clothes.”
“What are the groomsmen going to wear?”
A deep breath out, “Also clothes.”
“Who’s going to contact the venue and the florist?"
“You.”
“Why me?”
“I don’t want to do it…” Jake whined with his head buried in the soft pillow, “I know shit about flowers…”
“And I’m-” Jay sat down on the side of the bed and smacked him on the butt, “allergic.”
“We don’t need flowers.” Jake’s arms quickly wrapped around his waist, embracing the soft spot Jay had for his clingy manner.
“I’m afraid we do, babe.”
Jake laid his head on his Jay's lap calculatedly.
“You said you wanted it simple.”
“That was before you said you wanted a ‘wedding of the century’ and planned to invite 200 people. Then I suppose these 200 people need something to entertain themselves with while they’re there-”
“Fuck that. Let’s elope tonight.”
Jay chuckled, “That’s fine with me, but I know you’ll regret not including our friends and families at this ‘century event’-” he made the air quote, “of yours.”
“I mean we did reserve a venue with the nicest looking stage.” Jake muttered right before he noticed how opposite his dinosaur pajamas looked next to the black shirt and black trousers Jay had on, “Wendy told me she’ll perform for free if we set her up with someone. Soobin will give us a 10% discount on the clothes. I'll bully him to make it 20.”
An idea suddenly sparked in Jay’s mind.
“Let’s ask for help from our friends with the planning too then.” He said, “There must be someone out of the 300 people invited who’s capable?”
“You think?” For someone whose life was centered around connections, Jake wasn’t quite sure about this, “They won’t mind?”
“Not if they’re also looking for something to do.” Jay untangled the arms around his waist, “Now excuse me, I desperately need a bath.”
Jake didn’t let go that easily, “... Can I join you?”
His chestnut brown hair was a mess because he kept nudging his head against Jay like a puppy asking for pets.
“Babe…” The other shook his head with his lips pursed, “If I ever say no, just fucking call the exorcist, okay?”
Jake giggled cheerfully as he unbuttoned his pajama shirt.
“Oh- Oh!” He stopped at the last button and braced his forehead, “Why didn’t I think of this earlier? We literally have a perfect candidate!”
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
Sunoo had been pondering this for a while.
Typical life shenanigans, demands and supplies, causes and effects, karmic cycles, past-life-next-life stuff. None of those helped explain one bit how his life had transformed for the worst - presumably so because he couldn’t imagine a point lower than where he was - all in the span of a few months.
First of all, his mother, who was the only family he had any type of connection to, passed away after a long and draining period of medical treatments, leaving him only a storage full of trinkets she’d collected from local markets and a weeks-old kitten she bought as a bucket list thing. The calico never had the chance to greet his true owner when he was picked up in a shady parking lot.
Sunoo would have found the cat a name already if he wasn’t occupied with so much bullshit at work. Suddenly, his day went from a boring, lifeless routine to a consistent ritual of chaos. Every task was assigned to him, then every mistake was blamed on him. Colleagues kept disappearing after 10 a.m. meeting calls and he kept on taking more work. Part of him knew that no matter how much he tried, he would eventually be replaced. Probably with someone else who’d take a lower pay for more work, or probably with no one at all. Digital era, they said. Making life easier, they said. It was for sure easier until there's no place left for life.
And although a tiny little kitten was no comparison to a child, he started to fathom the pressure that wasn’t unique to any single mother in the world, the way he was hanging on by a thread working a job that was, indeed, no longer “working” in hope to maintain a source of income for both him and a cat he didn’t ask to have.
But of course, since we have established that there was no point lower than which he was in these past few months, he lost his stable office job after a 10 a.m. meeting call like the rest of his team. He was told they were too “human”, as in they made too many mistakes that a machine apparently wouldn't. The company managed to scrabble somewhere for money to sustain the higher tech and higher positions, but he and his team were so low in the food chain, they were no longer “in the budget”.
Sunoo wished he could take matters into his own hand, buy a gallon of gasoline and burn that shithole down to crisp ashes like how he had always fantasized before. The brilliant idea didn’t bear fruit in the end since he couldn’t decide for himself which was the worst scenario - being jobless, having a job in prison, or being roasted to death like a Christmas turkey, thus, out of a defeated sense of pettiness, he settled on sneaking some of the stationery with him when he left.
What could he do with a bunch of medium quality paper, markers and a dozen paper clips? He didn’t know. Yet. He might never find out, unfortunately, since he donated them all a week later.
And not only those worthless things he stole on a whim, but also most of his closet (he kept nothing but two T-shirts, two sweatshirts, a pair of jeans and two pairs of sweatpants doubling as pajamas, a jacket in case he didn’t wash the T-shirts on time), his books (he really didn’t hold back on the hard-cover editions), his furniture (there was the TV he hadn’t turned on for years and the bookcase with no books left on it), his mother’s legacy (bet some grandmas out there will find better uses for those ceramic tableware and the collection of quirky magnets).
After a week of downsizing his belongings and his life, in general, Sunoo took some decent pictures of the kitten to post them on online forums asking if anyone wanted to adopt before going out to buy a-year worth of cold medicines from the nearby pharmacies, hitting the maximum limit he could purchase on each, then passing by the supermarket for the largest bag of dry cat food.
“Eat well, kitty.” He overfilled both the metal bowls with food and water, watched the tiny creature gobble it all up, then locked himself in the bathroom.
“1,2,3,4,5,...” He counted the pills carefully as he laid them out on the empty sink, since he had also removed the last of his skincare products, “10, 11, 12,...”
There should be enough to exclude a plan B. He had no insurance to fall back on, plus he had developed a serious aversion to the smell of disinfectants and the sight of white gowns and cotton bed sheets.
He stared intently at the small mountain of cold pills, wondering where others often ‘begin’ in this type of situation. Each by each, or everything in one go? Could you possibly choke on these things? Could he choke on them to death? What if no one found out on time and the cat was going to die of starvation, together with his misery? What if these things didn’t work, and he had to live the rest of his life with all the failing organs instead? Wouldn’t that be 100% worse?
He glanced back up at the face he saw reflected in the bathroom mirror, asking himself if this was the person he wished to become. Then his phone rang all of a sudden.
Who brought a freaking phone to this type of “situation”, Kim Sunoo? Ipad kid much?
Forever an amateur. Perhaps he should write that down for someone to engrave that line on his tombstone. Forever an amateur.
He intended to ignore it, at first. But the caller proved themselves to be quite persistent about whatever they had to tell him about.
“... Hi.” He unwillingly picked up the call.
“Hi, bunny.” The person on the other side of the line was totally unaware of what he was interrupting, “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” He breathed, “Can you be quick? I have something to d-”
“SHHHHHHH-” The other person aggressively shushed him, “What’s up with you always trying to end the conversation before it even starts?”
“Jake, I-”
“No, you listen to me, because I have something of great importance I need to inform you.”
Sunoo sighed and picked up a pill to put in his mouth, “And that is?”
“Well, as you know, we’re trying to plan a wedding-”
Sunoo broke the pill in half with his teeth.
“Are you having dinner at 9 p.m.?” Jake heard the crunch.
“No.”
“Good, because that is unhealthy. Do you know how many people-”
“Hyung-”
“Fine, fine… Anyway, we’re having a HR crisis because there are too many decisions to make, too many colors to choose from, and overall too many things to do. So instead of happy, we feel drained and exhausted, and-”
“Hire a wedding planner.”
“We did. I let her go yesterday because of her… unprofessional-ity?”
“Hire another.”
“Everyone is booked at this point, and we already reserved the venue, the photographer and florist for an exact date, so it’s not like we can just postpone the whole thing.”
“So what?” Sunoo’s face scrunched at the bitter taste melting on his tongue, “Are you asking me to be the wedding planner instead?”
“Exactly.”
Sunoo let out some awkward laughs until his throat felt so dry he began to cough violently.
“... You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re totally kidding.”
“No, I definitely am not.”
“Well, I-” Sunoo stuttered, sweat forming on his forehead, “I- I’m not fit for any kind of f-future planning right now.”
Jake huffed out a laugh of disbelief, “That’s nonsense.”
“I’m SERIOUS!”
“We’ll PAY WELL!”
“THAT’S NOT THE ISSUE!!”
“WHAT IS THE ISSUE??”
“I CAN’T TELL YOU!!!”
Five seconds of silence passed when Sunoo debated if he should end the call himself when he heard some vague commotion on the other side.
“Babe,” Jake told someone, “your turn.”
“Hi, bunny.”
Fuck.
“...” Sunoo remained silent so his words wouldn’t be used against him.
“Do you remember-” Jay continued regardless of his response, “when we were out drinking in college and you said you wanted to see me as a groom one day-”
It really was because Sunoo thought he was going to be the other groom at the altar.
“That has nothing to do with-”
“Am I your best friend or not?” Jay’s calmness was the utter opposite to the waves of emotions washing over Sunoo, “Because you’re mine. And I would do anything I could to help you when you need me.”
Sunoo would have been touched if it wasn’t for Jake giggling singing ‘I’m jealoussss!!!’ in the background.
“You are.”
And that was only because Sunoo barely had any friends left after graduating. He still couldn't figure if that meant something deeper, or just a part of adulting.
“Am I?” Jake yelled into the phone right after, “AM I??”
“You are, too, of course.”
“So…?”
Sunoo pinched the part between his eyes, “I will… consider…”
“It’s not like you’re going to do it alone.” Jay said, “We’re asking around for more people to join us.”
“... Okay?” Sunoo huffed.
“Sunny,” Jake suddenly broke the silence, “can we come over now? It’d be easier discussing it in person.”
“NO.” Sunoo nearly growled at them.
“We’re coming over.” Jay said, “Can you drive?”
“Sure!”
“Uh-” Sunoo looked at the mess on the sink, “Wait!”
“We’ll be there in like-” Jake hummed, “fifteen minutes.”
“Twelve.” Jay corrected him before ending the call.
Sunoo swept all of the pills and packages into the trash bin in a panic, put back some of the cat food in the bag and rearrange the few pieces of furniture he had so that they seem a bit more lived in, which was particularly difficult because the bed was missing the mattress and the pillows, the interior decoration was heavily carried by the cat toys scattered around the place, and he now owned no kettle to make Jake his favorite instant hot chocolate.
“What the hell?” Jake mumbled as soon as he stepped foot inside Sunoo’s place, “You didn’t tell me you just got robbed?”
He searched around for a place to put down the snacks he bought at the convenience store while Jay curiously watched the free range calico kitten struggling to climb up his legs.
“This is new?”
Sunoo took another look at them and sighed profusely, as if they were the root cause of all problems in the world.
“... My mom’s.”
“Aww…” Jake peeked out of the bathroom door, “Where’s the mountain of skincare, by the way? Where’s your pink minifridge?”
Sunoo paused, “Are you going through my stuff in the bathroom?”
“We ran out of face masks?” Jay wondered.
“We ran out of face masks.” Jake confirmed, “So I was looking for some.”
“In my bathroom.” Sunoo sighed, “Again.”
Sunoo must emphasize that whatever this was, it was not a love triangle situation.
In order to create a love triangle, he needed at least an arrow to point at him. But there had never been one. Jake’s and Jay’s arrows had been pointing at each other ever since they shared that Crisis Management class in college (so basically Jay was the crisis and Jake was the management, surprisingly, and that was how they knew they were good for each other) and Sunoo’s was still pointing at Jay after all that because he forgot how his life was before liking him.
Jake had already known and never tried to put his finger on it. Part of the reason was because he was emotionally smart and sensitive towards everyone. The other part was probably when the confession slipped from Sunoo’s mouth weeks ago at the dinner that was supposed to be the celebration of Jake’s engagement. Jay was outside taking a phone call and Sunoo was so batshit drunk that the only image that hadn’t faded from his memory the next morning was him on his knees begging his friend not to abandon him because, quote unquote, he was ‘getting better’.
So if anyone needs the thirteenth reason why, there you go. Sunoo honestly found it incomprehensible how Jake could act like nothing happened after that. He was sure he would just fling him out the window if he was in Jake’s place.
But then that was perhaps why Sunoo was never the chosen one. He wasn’t particularly impressive for anything, except now for the frequency of unfortunate things that had unfolded. It was just an inkling, but Sunoo was quite positive that when he died, eventually, he would be remembered as that person with paranormally bad luck people told each other about to make themselves feel better about their failures.
“When?”
“I told you last time, didn’t I?” Jake’s eyebrows furrowed while he studied the slightest bit of expression on Sunoo’s face, “November.”
“Oh…” Sunoo hummed mindlessly, sitting on the floor because the bed already looked crowded, chin up, staring at the ceiling instead of his friends, “I forgot? It’s been a lot lately.”
“Aww…” Jake frowned, “Poor baby… Do you want to move in with us for a few weeks while you work things out?”
Sunoo instantly gave him a side eye because someone didn’t seem to remember their last conversation. He thought about an appropriately polite answer for a bit but failed to come up with more than one word.
“... Ew?”
“Ew-” Jake repeated as he bounced back on the bed, banking his chance every time that he wouldn’t break the thing in half and get sandwiched in it, “EW? Babe-”
He turned to Jay who was unusually quiet watching them bicker, “This brat hates our guts now. Let’s leave. You can take the cat.”
“That’s perfect-” Sunoo said, as if he was sincerely relieved to hear that, “You should take the bows and the toys, too. He loves the bone plushie the most, which is weird for a cat but-”
Jake stopped in his tracks and turned around.
“I changed my mind!” He came back to lie on Sunoo’s bed and tried to cover himself with the blanket until he remembered there was no blanket, “I’ll sleep here tonight.”
Sunoo looked to Jay to see if he had any idea what the antics were about, but Jay seemed to have given up on gathering an explanation for anything strange he did.
“Sure.” Jay returned the gaze with a shrug, “But do you want Sunoo to sleep on the floor?”
Jake was still slumping on the bed, but they both saw the tiny flinch in his right foot.
“That’s alright.” Sunoo quickly learned the script, “The floor is cooler, anyway."
“It’s insanely stiff.” Jay winked at him.
Sunoo grinned, “Good for my spine.”
“-Okay!” Jake finally sprang up from the bed, “You seem tired, so let’s talk about this again tomorrow.”
Sunoo nodded. It wasn’t like he could pick all those pills out from the trash anyway.
“Tomorrow. I’ll call you as soon as I wake up.”
Jay scoffed, “That’s generous, considering you’re usually up at 10 or something-”
Jake’s hand reached out to grab his ear, “You’re driving.”
Jay took the keys from him, not having any issue with the fact that they went to Sunoo’s place simply to satisfy one of his fiancé’s impulsive thoughts.
“Bunny, sweetie, listen-” Jake squeezed Sunoo’s shoulders with his hands before he left, “I know it’s been hard for you. All of the… terrible news.”
“Okay?” Sunoo blinked.
“This phase might feel like a rock bottom. Like you’re hitting your rock bottom. It can’t be worse.”
“Thank... you?”
Jake still stared into his eyes with flaming passion, “But do you know what’s the best part about hitting rock bottoms? It’s that you can only go-”
“-up. Alright, I get it. Thanks, hyung.” Sunoo grimaced because Jake just pulled him into a tight hug. So tight it hurt.
“Silver linings.” The other was still immersed in his inspirational speech, “You have to hang onto them, because it will only get better from now.”
Jay found himself a bit of an extra watching the two, so he decided promptly to join the hug at the door. His arms on their back and his short, black hair brushed against the side of Sunoo’s face.
“Good luck.” Fancy words and metaphors weren’t his cup of tea, “We’re only one call away. Though Jake is quite a heavy sleeper and he might miss it, I’m not-”
He got cut off by the crisp sound of Jake slapping his butt.
Sunoo sat on the wooden floor for 20 minutes after their spontaneous visit, just to realize that the couple also didn’t bring the cat with them, or the bowls, or his favorite snacks Jake bought from the convenience store that they didn’t open.
“What’re we going to do with you?”
He stared at the fluffy ball of fur nestled in his lap.
Sunoo decided briefly that he shall postpone his “dark meeting with fate”, as he heard someone in a movie he couldn’t remember the title of call it, just so he wouldn’t have to repeat the worth “die”, or “death”, he wasn’t positive that he was but probably “dying” everyday. In his opinion, it sounded too devastating and tragic for something everyone would eventually do once in their lifetime. “Dark meeting with fate” sounded cliched, it was also mysterious and whimsical, maybe even a little exciting.
Hopefully, that combination was what he needed to proceed for the next few months, because Jake seemed incredibly desperate the next morning when he broke into a rant about how he was caught up in the middle of a bride war, fending for himself while stilettos were thrown and colorful cake samples were smashed against the walls, then too many things were ‘not there yet’, but already ‘becoming’, and these things couldn’t ‘become’ on their own - Sunoo wished Jake could deliver a line without these big metaphors with bigger implications - and they needed as much help from their friends as possible.
Sunoo was a perfect candidate, given that he had some experiences coordinating events, but most importantly, he was unemployed and had all the time in the world to spare, so why not spare it on constructing something meaningful instead.
That was what Jake was trying to say, while Sunoo only wanted to emphasize that he didn’t have so much time as indicated above. He still had a “dark meeting with fate” to reschedule, and no other things could get in the way.
Nothing could get in the way, he mumbled to himself each morning when he woke up.
Nothing could get in the way, he mumbled to himself when he put his arms in the sleeves of the only jacket he owned now, wondering how many times it would take for his friends to notice and whether he should just buy one more.
Nothing could get in the way. Though the level of his impulsivity was unmatched because he indeed got rid of his umbrella, together with all the other stuff, just for the weather to be rainy today.
Sunoo sprinted through the awnings of the buildings and splashed himself when he accidentally stepped on some puddles. His body was barely kept dry underneath the drenched fabric, strands of wet hair stuck to his forehead when he finally arrived at the cafe Jake sent him for the second meeting. The perks, and sometimes the pain, of befriending a freelancer was that they knew all the cool yet odd spots in town.
For example, a hidden cafe with a balcony on the second floor of a record store. Not that it was particularly interesting to him anymore.
He heard a familiar ringtone for a few seconds before recognizing his own phone buzzing and pulled it out of his pocket. A ‘Cheap Ass Bitch’ was calling.
“Hi Sunoo, it’s your landlord…”
The other person said a lot, telling him a bunch of stories that didn’t concern him, and asking him for his understanding every fifteen seconds.
The bottom line was that he was requested to move out by the end of next month and scout for a place allowing him to sign a six-month lease.
But since nothing could get in the way, he still pushed open the green door to the cafe and was welcomed with the lingering scent of roasted coffee beans and warm buttery pastries inside the shop even when his brain hadn't processed the new information really well. The AC made him shiver a bit while he looked around for his friend who swore up and down he would show up at 4 p.m., but was nowhere to be found among the sets of rustic wooden tables and chairs and vases of pink lilies on top of cream table cloths.
Instead, another guy with dark hair reaching his eyes and big earphones over his head was sitting in the corner, staring blankly at the scenery outside the balcony door. He dressed himself like a college student, black T-shirt hung loose on his broad frame, jeans that highlighted his long legs and a pair of sneakers wiggling with his feet under the table. Seen with a book in front of him, most people would assume he was a student trying to study at a quiet cafe like other students often did.
But Sunoo knew for a fact that he was indeed not a college student.
Because there could have been so many things Sunoo had forgotten about Park Sunghoon and his rage-baiting face after 3 years of them not talking, but never the fact that he was half a year older than Sunoo and used that as a leverage to the littlest of arguments they had in school.
That surge of disdain Sunoo felt coming up from his chest to his throat didn’t feel like it had been healed at all by the few years that passed. He dragged his feet over to that corner and knocked on the table with his fist.
The other guy calmly took off his headphones, then glanced up and down at Sunoo like he was examining the best spot to jab his knife when deboning a salmon.
“Thought we’re here for a wedding, not a funeral?”
Sunoo was immediately reminded of how this guy always managed to sound 100 times more disrespectful than he intended himself to be. It should be a talent, actually.
On top of that, what the fuck happened to things only going up from “here”? So far this has been a complete free fall.