SOBBED - Tumblr Posts

everytime i read this i start violently SOBBING.

"jae?"

summary: jaehyun buys johnny and mark some cuervo shots. he forgets the one thing that everyone says—stay away from your phone when you're drunk. note: jaehyun finishing his undergrad thesis, johnny and mark as a support system, and a lot of swearing/profanities, really. genre: pure and raging angst | word count: 1.7k — “one bott?” johnny asked.

“sure! this one’s on me.” jaehyun, with a sheepish grin on his face, replied. his cheeks were now hinting a shade of red. fucking adorable.

so why is jaehyun suddenly ecstatic about drinking cuervo and gulping it down straight as if it was… an ordinary non-alcoholic drink?

give the guy his moment. jaehyun’s thesis-making era has finally landed in the area of responsibility. out of all the frameworks and methods to be potentially used for his study (verbatim. legendary thesis), he is anxious. as much as he wants to bag that best thesis nomination from his architecture department, the thought of just getting it at the end of the sem sounds more convincing and realistic which is, well, quite a lonely take from a former A student turned mediocre due to sudden burnout, but that’s life now for some after the unforgiving turn of events embedded in the 2020 history records.

to tl;dr, jaehyun needs a drink and to get drunk. let him be, please? he’s used to bragging about his high alcohol tolerance but his primary goal is to get shitfaced, excuse the expression. a good hangover is needed by the morning; something to make him feel human again. the world is spinning quickly, and he needed to slow time just a little bit to cue his hazy vision and low inhibitions.

so the second cuervo arrived, right? jaehyun thanked the waiter and johnny and mark couldn’t help but laugh at how he was currently losing it all. he holds the golden bottle, his eyes fixed on the shot glasses, and when he poured, the drink spilled on the table. at this point, being drunk is no longer an excuse. his eyesight has also become worst over the years. what’s up with this guy, anyway? just go get yourself a LASIK surgery (to which jaehyun would only reply via text so dryly: lol)

johnny snatched the bottle from jaehyun and poured it into their shot glasses. in this kind of scenario, one would actually tap out and advise the rest who refuse to follow, but dang!, as the younger bro always says, it seems like jaehyun needed this the most. johnny knew the stress as he has already graduated (but still chose to enroll for a master’s degree afterward because the MA sneak beside his name sounds lit!), and mark is amused by jaehyun’s clumsy state anyways.

“mark, stop laughing.”

“oh, why?” mark looked at johnny with confusion.

“because next year, bro, you’re gonna be as shitfaced as jaehyun because of your thesis! haha!”

while the two bickers, the cuervo shots were going down on jaehyun like water. as he takes the nth shot of the night, he lowers the glass slowly and stared blankly at the two of them.

mark slightly gripped the hem of johnny’s shirt to break off the banter.

then he said “yo, the fuck?”

when the both of them faced jaehyun, his eyes were bloodshot… red?

“jaehyun, are you crying?” johnny asked.

“i broke… heart.” jaehyun muttered.

“huh?”

“shit, i broke it.”

“you broke what?”

mark dumbfounded, was just staring at jaehyun. johnny kept asking who, but jaehyun just keeps on speaking in codes.

“fuck, she said “i love you””

“dude... who?” mark asked. the atmosphere is getting serious as he mumbles what we can assume as his regrets. the two couldn’t really tell. at this point, jaehyun’s all over the place; incoherent.

“fuck,” jae cursed for the nth time. “i took it for fucking granted.”

“it was so exclusive. fuck, that ‘i love you’ was so exclusive.”

“fuck. fucking fool. the fuck, jae? i’m such a fucking headass.”

and bratatatat he goes. the other two gentlemen were listening attentively, hoping he’d spill a name or a clue of who he was referring to. but nothing comes out. as if jaehyun was stuck at the moment when the person said “i love you” to him. jaehyun was in a loop, like a broken record. and when he finally stopped blabbering and took another shot, his face was already on the table, and with eyes closed, he fell into a deep slumber.

and god, his position looks so uncomfortable. his arms were just hanging and flanging into the air. the younger noticed his state, so he decided to put jaehyun’s arms and palms over his legs.

“dude”, mark said to johnny. “are you sure he needs it for his thesis or that thing?”

—

when jaehyun woke up, mark was on his phone. johnny, on the other hand, was taking a puff from his vape that is wrapped around his neck. you know those dudes who are not so subtle about their vape life? displaying their vapes like an id, and is lit blue? strawberry-minty flavor, smells good though, in fair. but he would tell you to go away if ever you would want to try. “smoking kills!”, he would say. shoo!

“i feel like throwing up.”

“i’ll come with you. come on.” johnny offered.

they went inside the restaurant across from their al fresco space. johnny led the way toward the bathroom. the rest is history. jaehyun walked out from the bathroom stall and washed his hands and mouth. a little splash on his face was needed, too; just to sober up.

he is in fact, and indeed, sobered up; sound and with consciousness. he said “go ahead” to johnny and went back to their table. mark is texting, probably a hook-up, by now. but he never leaves the gang to give respect to the bro night. he was also curious about what happened to jaehyun, anyway.

but johnny isn’t surprised, like, at all. jaehyun is an eye candy in his university. he sure made his fair shares from time to time but the thing is, they don’t really talk about their flings and such. the pack isn’t a kiss-and-tell, the usual trashy friend group that reeks pride via body counts. and jaehyun would introduce if ever he gets in a situationship leading to commitment anyway. it’s just that mark has never seen this side of jaehyun.

but there is indeed a possibility that jaehyun has this hopeless romantic tendency given he must have watched 500 days of summer approximately 500 times by now, and still believes that summer finn is a bitch.

“drink some water”, mark handed a bottle.

“thanks.”

“so…”

johnny nudged mark. it was a signal to stop the interrogation. mark got social cues, thank god. they’ll let jaehyun spill at his own pace. the guy is still trying to recover. one of these days, he’ll remember and open up because perhaps, it did really get serious at some point.

but jaehyun opened his phone and checked his text messages. there was a message, waiting for a response sent almost ten months ago.

january 11, 2022, 01:11 am | you wrote:

home?

to which he now replied: november 10, 2022, 02:45 am | jaehyun wrote:

not yet

and i dont think ill everr be

jaehyun grabbed the half-empty cuervo and poured it into his glass. mind you, not the shot glass, the bottle itself. mark and johnny, once again, stared at each other. jaehyun poured the last bit of the golden bottle and drank it straight. he winced and his throat felt burning. he then continued typing on his phone.

october 10, 2022, 02:46 am | jaehyun wrote:

and i know it sounds tssstupid

but i think im still in love with you

not think

fuck

i am in love with you

ive always been in love with you

and i never said it

and i wish i couldve said it back whenever you say it

because fuck

you deserved to hear it so much

jaehyun was in the middle of his never-ending texts when his phone rang.

he let it ring a few times. the phone vibrating felt somehow pressuring for the guy. mark and johnny were just staring at jaehyun, waiting for his next move.

shit, it really is you.

-

jaehyun got up from his seat while gripping his phone quite tight and walked a few inches from their table, lingering on the feeling of the buzzes. he took a few deep breaths in and touched the green button.

“jaehyun? are you drunk?” he heard from the other side of the phone. “go home, please, jaehyun?”

jaehyun.

jaehyun. it’s no longer jae.

meanwhile, johnny and mark were squinting their eyes, trying to look out for the dumbstruck fool, trying to catch signals and connect the dots.

“jaehyun?”, he couldn’t breathe. it felt suffocating. “are you still there?”

“hey.”, jaehyun finally mustered up the courage to speak. “i know it’s been a while but-”

“do you need me to book you an uber, jaehyun?”

jaehyun. jaehyun. jaehyun. tears start to swell in jaehyun’s eyes. where the fuck did ‘jae’ go? he desperately wonders.

“please… please call me jae, please? love, please?”

“jaehyun…” you replied hesitantly. “times have changed.”

“just this time, please?” jaehyun desperately asked. “one last time. i just need to hear it again then i’ll go.”

the line felt silent despite the murmuring sounds of happy co-workers cheering for the weekend and the faint booming music to liven up the place. but jaehyun’s world is painted in monochrome; lonely, and lifeless.

“jae…”

“hey, love.”

“jae…”

“i’m gonna miss you so much; every single day, baby. every single day.”

“jae, jae, jae…”

hearing ‘jae’ coming from you sounds music to his ears.

and for the last time, he pretended it was just another call coming from you—those nights like this paralleled before when jaehyun refused to pick up your calls on a night out, shitfaced, while on the other line, there was you who were constantly worried on his whereabouts. but he always got home safely and always told you this:

“don’t wait for me okay?”

and then you played along.

“just go home safely, jae.”

but in a parallel universe, he wishes he ended the calls with this. and he finally said it, when it is now too late:

“i love you so much, love.”

and jaehyun heard a faint sob on the other line, just before the call abruptly ended.

-

jaehyun stared at his phone until everything became blurry and his tears flowed down his cheeks.

he opened the message app and scrolled through your thread, until he reached the last message you sent.

"home?"

but jaehyun, he was never coming home,

now that he has lost the keys along the way.

do you ever think what would happen if rachel was under one of the tables in the study area

what would cal do if andre just shot her without a word

and what if it was the other way round? cal could kneel down by one of the tables, more than happy to shoot someone point blank, only to realize that his gun is pointed at rachel. does he shoot?

would he be so far gone that he would just shoot her on sight? would she try to talk him out of it? would he hesitate and tell her to get out? no explanation, just shut up and get the fuck out of here kind of thing?

do you ever think about that or are you happy

YOURE SO EVIL FOR THUS GODONIGHTT AHHHH

do y’all even think they’d say andre and cal’s names at graduation? do you think other parents would be outraged? would the gabriels and kriegmans even be welcome in the stadium? would cal’s little siblings be able to return to school? or would people avoid both families like the plague?

would their names be in obituaries in the papers? or would they only be plastered on the front covers with horrible words on top of them? cal’s blond hair covered in the word “monster” written in red; andre’s tan skin tainted by the word “killer” in a font bigger than anyone even knew existed.