crosswalk crash part 2

a car crashes. i don’t really see it happen, but i hear the big pickup crunching with the concrete barrier and flipping over it. it’s almost funny, really, how it drops out of sight to the bay as though following the bend of my thoughts. i don’t wait for the crosswalk to turn green (is the car wrecking me, now?). when i reach the other side, i look down the steep slope to the water and see the truck sinking on its side, its front end crumpled. i can’t see the driver.

i can’t remember calling the emts, so maybe someone else did it. i must have called namjoon, though, because he shows up beside me at some point, squinting down the hill to where the responders are pulling a body out of the cab. not a boy, a body.

“seokjin.” his voice rasps like the bottom of a dry well and he tries to scramble down to the wreck, but someone wrestles him back. taehyung comes up beside me.

“who is it?” he asks, even though he already knows. “i―i have to leave. where’s jin-hyung? he’s supposed to be picking us up. please, tell me where he is―” he crouches beside me on the sidewalk and i can’t hear anything anymore.

it’s jungkook that pulls the two of us away from the wreck. he half-coaxes, half-pulls taehyung to his feet, and when he sees me not moving he grabs my arm and pulls me along. he puts me on one side of taehyung; maybe i’m supposed to help support him in some way, but he’s standing up fine now and i keep forgetting where i am or where i’m supposed to be going. he takes my hand shakily and we walk that way, hand in hand in hand up the hill, back to a home that does not belong to any of us.

“he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine.” jungkook keeps saying. “come on.” taehyung doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re inside, past the ahjussi who wants answers, and tucked back into the kitchen, sitting on the floor. the two of them sit side by side and i wish i was one of them, but i’m not. when yoongi comes in, he tells them to get up; they’re going to the hospital. they’ll take the bus. i think they’re going to leave me but they don’t― taehyung rises and hesitates, looking down at me. i don’t think either of us has said anything.

“you come too,” jungkook says, seeing taehyung’s look.

“why?” yoongi questions, harsh and calculating.

“she was there at the crash. and―” he glances back through to the living room towards ahjussi. “i don’t really want to leave her here.”

yoongi nods, and we slip out the back door together. i stick on sandals and walk behind them until yoongi gestures irritably. “get up here. if you’re coming then don’t get left behind.”

taehyung paces himself beside me after that. on the bus, jungkook and i sit while yoongi and taehyung hold onto the overhanging grips, standing close above us as though to shield our own private grief from the rest of the passengers, to keep it something sacred and afraid.

jin’s hospital isn’t far, but by the time we reach it, he’s already dead. yoongi gets namjoon's text when we're just outside the big sliding doors, and he doesn't say a thing at first, but we can tell by his face.

“too late,” yoongi says at last, shaking his head. he curses bitterly until his own tears cut him off, and jungkook turns his head away. taehyung keeps walking, so i stick with him, following blindly until he stops and looks through a half open door. namjoon is sitting with his head in his hands, crying. seokjin’s body is on the bed but i don’t want to see his face. we stand there a long time, tae and i, until he turns away.

“i’m going home.” he says, and i don’t turn to watch him go.

after a while, hoseok and jimin run in past me; yoongi follows them at a walk.

“are you alright?” jungkook asks, trying to stall even though we both know he’ll go in.

i nod, and watch the horror congealing in his expression as he blows out all the air in his lungs and then reaches for the door. i can't bring myself to follow him; i walk home by myself, not taking the bus in an attempt to wear off the grief and shock sitting in my bloodstream. it doesn’t work.

at home, ahjussi interrogates me: all the questions i don’t want to think about and don’t want to answer. he gets angry when i’m slow to answer, yelling at me. (are there never any neighbors to hear?) but i don’t have anywhere else to go. instead of arguing, i just slip away to my room once he’s started running out of steam and wanders into the kitchen to find leftovers.

(i don’t cry myself to sleep, because i don’t fall asleep. i watch the truck flip over a hundred thousand times and i hear all the sounds i don’t want to remember. namjoon’s yelling as the paramedics held him back; jungkook’s constant murmuring reassurances, the angry scuff of yoongi’s boots on the asphalt. i just do  n o t  want to think about it, but i do. i do until the sun comes up, and then i find the sleeping pills in the cabinet and try to get a little chemical-induced rest.)

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