Timshel

[kaisooficrec]

Title: Timshel Genre: Psychological, Angst Rating: PG-­13 Warnings: (highlight for spoilers) Drug Abuse Length: ~2,000 words Summary: Jongin was stuck looking out of the window, with almost a hundred dogs staring back. The rain was angry that day, which was weird, because the rain wasn’t supposed to be angry. That wasn’t the point. And yet here it was, beating down on the window as if it was trying to get in. Like a kid who had been locked out and didn’t know why. He approached the window, raised his hand and wiped a little circle in the grey condensation that had formed. One little circle, and then another little circle, and then a little semi­circle, a pointy nose, spiky hair. He considered filling the hair in, but then decided against it. A spiky zig zag surrounding the face, angry eyebrows to show that the face was yelling. ‘It’s Vegeta.’ He murmured, staring at his creation. And then he remembered why he had approached the window in the first place, and wiped the little Vegeta from the glass. The wind was making the leaves whip around and the boughs bow, and the clouds created a flat, grey sheet above the rooftops. He looked down, at the street before him, and more eyes than he could count stared back. Dogs, seemingly hundreds of dogs, had gathered outside his house, their fur spiky and black from the rain. Jongin stared at the dogs, and the dogs stared back. No one moved. And then he went downstairs, taking the steps three at a time, almost falling down. He wrenched the door open, and felt a giant heavy wet mass slap him in the face as all the dogs rushed in at once. There didn’t seem to be an end to the dogs, all kinds, big, small, fluffy and short haired, all with bright eyes and sodden fur. Finally the last dog entered, an aged Yorkie, and Jongin closed the door. He turned to see that the dogs had made themselves at home. They lined the stairs like guards, lounged on his sofa, sniffing his shoes, poking around the kitchen. Jongin knew he should be perplexed, angry even, but he didn’t have it in him to be surprised. This felt like it was supposed to happen. He made to go and get some blankets to stop his furniture from being ruined, but he saw that the dogs were drying before his eyes. Some of the smaller puppies looked like they had just come out of a grooming salon. He made to count them, but the dogs had wormed themselves into every nook and cranny of his house, and the ones he could see wouldn’t stop wriggling. He kept getting to around ten and then losing his place. ‘Can you all stop moving, please?’ He muttered under his breath, but all the dogs in his vicinity whipped their heads round and went stock still. He counted the dogs – twelve in the living room alone – and then went around the rest of the house. The other dogs were also seemingly standing to attention, and before long he got his final number. Seventy-­five dogs, including the three Labrador puppies that were playing with his toilet roll. ‘That’s a lot of dogs.’ Jongin said, and then went up to his room. Some part of his brain questioned why he wasn’t freaking out. Seventy­five extremely well trained dogs weren’t supposed to turn up and make themselves at home, but then again, the rain wasn’t supposed to be angry either. And yet here he was, with angry rain and almost a hundred dogs in his house. He flicked open the lid of his laptop, opened Chrome, like always. There were seven word documents open, all of them blank, apart from the first. There were always seven word documents open, and six were always blank, and the first always had the first three sentences of the story he was being paid to write, but never did. Chrome showed the little dark grey dinosaur on the light grey field, and Jongin smiled. He didn’t own a router, he didn’t have broadband, never had. He purposefully never bought it so he could play his dinosaur game without being bothered by the Internet. He had dubbed the dinosaur Chen, because he thought that the dinosaur looked like a Chen. It felt like an inside joke that he had forgotten. He liked the dinosaur game because he liked the way the dinosaur ran, the animation only having two modes, left foot forward, left foot back. An infinite loop to make it look like he was running, whereas in reality he was standing still. It was the cacti that were coming towards Chen the dinosaur, at ever increasing speeds. Sometimes Jongin wouldn’t even look at the screen, just let the instinct take hold. If he died he died, but usually he didn’t. Some days he could watch the sun rise and fall whilst letting his fingers do the job for him. Jongin was the world champion at the dinosaur game, although he wasn’t to know. He didn’t have wifi. At one point, when his dinosaur just clipped a cactus and died anyway, he snapped out of his reverie with a curse, to see that his room had been entirely filled with the dogs. They were staring at the game. Jongin marvelled to see the intelligence in their eyes, even the puppies, with their paws still heavy with baby fluff. He stared at them, and they stared at the dinosaur that was no longer moving, and then one by one they turned to stare at him. They stayed like this for so long that the moon swapped with the sun and the room was filled with its white light. Jongin stared at each one in turn, noting the breeds and characteristics of each dog. The biggest was a brown Great Dane, with sleepy eyes and a body so big it didn’t know where to place itself. The smallest was a puppy toy poodle, curled up at the feet of a shiba. One closest to him, a medium sized black mongrel with a curly tail, seemed to be the most intelligent of all. He was staring at Jongin with a mixture of detached curiosity and concern, and soon Jongin found himself staring at only this dog. The others seemed to fade into the white walls of his room. And then this dog moved. He moved close to Jongin, placed a paw on his knee. Jongin held his breath. He wasn’t sure why. ‘Have you ever left your house, Jongin?’ The dog wasn’t speaking, and yet it was speaking. ‘No.’ The dog seemed to nod, and then as one, the pack got up and filed out of the door. Jongin found himself following them, even though he was under no obligation to. They went single file down the stairs, single file out of the cat flap Jongin couldn’t remember installing. Only the Great Dane, the Alsatian, and the mongrel remained, looking at Jongin expectantly. He opened the door, and they too filed out. Jongin felt himself on the edge of something he wasn’t sure he wanted to cross. In his mind, he thought that he had left the house only yesterday, popped out to get some milk, went to buy the newspaper, go to see a man about a dog. And yet, when he thought about it, he realised that he couldn’t remember any details of the town he was living in. He couldn’t even remember its name. The dogs went out, all seventy­ four of them, down the pathway, around the red letterbox that he saw out of the corner of his eye, behind a hedge that needed trimming. The only one that was left behind was the mongrel, staring at Jongin by the gate. His face was impassive, but Jongin fancied that he was smiling, a ‘come on then’ smile, ‘what are you waiting for’ smile. So Jongin placed one foot on the wet red tile of the pathway, and then another foot, and realised he hadn’t felt the rain for a very long time. He made his way down the drive, slowly and unsurely, until he reached the dog, who looked up at him with reassurance in his eyes. Jongin petted the top of the dog’s head affectionately, and stepped out into the street. ‘You’re lucky you found him when you did.’ The man speaking was middle aged, salt and pepper hair, eyes tired. ‘Another few days like that and he would’ve died, for sure.’ Kyungsoo ran a hand through his hair and stared at the emaciated man lying unconscious in the hospital bed before him. ‘It’s a matter of luck, I guess.’ He replied. The doctor pulled out a clipboard, and recited off it mechanically. ‘There was around 192 mg of morphine in his bloodstream – 200 mg is the lethal amount. We also found a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs, LSD, methamphetamines, the like. The full report will be disclosed once we have run all the appropriate tests.’ Kyungsoo was only listening half­heartedly. He was concentrating on the prone form of his best friend, pale as the sheets around him. Kyungsoo had taken it upon himself to go and check on Jongin, once he realised that he had not heard from him in over a month, and after Jongin’s agent had called him up to say that Jongin wasn’t replying to calls or answering emails, and could someone go around and make him get his act together please. Kyungsoo had opened the door with some difficulty, as the doorway was cluttered with pamphlets from political parties and leaflets for the latest pizza deals. The lights were off, the house smelled stale. The wifi router was lying dead on the hall table; the cable clumsily hacked in two, the wires inside frayed. He made his way into the living room, shrugging off his wet jacket. The rain had been relentless that day. The living room was deserted, as was the kitchen and the bathroom. He made his way up the stairs, avoiding the heaps of books and clothes that had been piled up on each stair like sentries, and entered Jongin’s bedroom. Jongin was sitting at his computer, his hair long and unkempt, his clothes hanging off him in all the wrong places. The screen was blank and grey, open on the little Chrome dinosaur game that was shown when there was no wifi. The dinosaur was unmoving, Jongin’s bony finger resting lightly on the keyboard. Jongin was looking elsewhere, out of the window, staring at nothing. His profile was harsh and gaunt, completely alien to what it used to be. Kyungsoo felt like crying. On the bed were syringes, empty pill bottles. The stuff you read about, hear about, see in movies, not actually see in real life. To say he had a drug problem was probably an understatement, Kyungsoo thought bitterly. Gallows humour. It had taken Kyungsoo almost a whole day to get Jongin’s attention, to the point that the moon had risen. Kyungsoo could barely see, but he didn’t want to turn on the light and spook Jongin. His friend had turned absentmindedly away from his computer, and was now facing Kyungsoo, seeing but not really seeing. It was a little scary, if he was honest. A hand on his knee seemed to wake him from whatever drug induced stupor he was in, the murmur of ‘When did you last leave your house, Jongin?’ seemed to rouse him to his feet. Kyungsoo made his way with Jongin down the stairs, very slowly, his heart breaking at the sight of Jongin’s knees prominent through his jeans. Jongin didn’t seem to want any help, frail as he was, so Kyungsoo just stayed one step ahead of him, single file down. Kyungsoo opened the door, and stepped out into the rain, turning around expectantly to wait for Jongin. He could’ve picked Jongin up and carried him out, he looked so light, but some part of him knew that Jongin needed to take the first step out himself. And so, painfully slowly, Jongin placed one bare foot on the wet tile, and then another, and then another. He reached the gate, shakily reached out one arm to steady himself on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Together, they both stepped out onto the street.

Comments

[nignojmik.livejournal.com]

i honestly love this????? it's so bizarre at first and your mind comes up with so many different explanations: a fantasy world, a bizarre dream... insanity maybe?

and then the scene suddenly changes, and the doctor is telling kyungsoo about jongin's drug abuse and it all clicks

and you think about what happened before and after this and then you get sad bc it's likely nothing good for jongin

great job !!! c:

[perfect illusion (from livejournal.com)]

Woah this was intense and it has me yearning for more like I need to know how Jongin ended like that and eugh too many angsty feels right now but this was just beautiful so well done to the author :')

[ineedadance.livejournal.com]

Thus was so crazy and I'm so into it! I loved how you just gave that tiny peek into the backstory that let the readers kind of extrapolate and imagine on their own. Great work!

[shineebean.livejournal.com]

i absolutely love this. the way jongin's addiction manifests and how it parallels what really happened from kyungsoo's pov is brilliant. jongin's situation is sad and scary, but i'm taking the title and his decision to take that first step out to mean that he'll be ok!!! thank you for writing such a poignant fic.

[(Anonymous)]

Ok that was just simply wow. I have no other word to explain what i felt. Great job author, all the kudos for you

[eterninitys.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD.

This is honestly brilliant and mind blowing like I was expecting some sort of horror when you started mentioning about the dogs rushing into Jongin's house. And thennn, it turned he was only hallucinating. YOUR DESCRIPTION IS A+. I absolutely love how you describe the whole state of Jongin and the house when Kyungsoo found him. You amazed me im so ;;;;; Mannnn, this was an incredible journey I love how you played with our mind. I mean. Someone under the influence of drugs would have thought of such weird stuff like Jongin had and we wouldn't know what would happen to them if we didn't find them but luckily Kyungsoo was there otl I am glad Kyungsoo found him ;_; (idk how to English anymore idek if I made any sense but consider that this is one of the best psychological fics I've ever read!) Short but intriguing! And of course,I love your writing ;;;;;; I hope you could write more like this fic in the future!

[kaisooxxx.livejournal.com]

I may have an idea who wrote this fic. i have a guess but i'm not gonna tell.

but, let me tell you how drawn i was from reading the first part up to the last sentence, and all i can say is this is brilliant! the fact that jongin is hallucinating got me the chills for some reason. this is really good!

[(Anonymous)]

Its a nicely written story, I honestly loved it, love the pacing love the narration. A backstory and a sequel would be nice too:)

[nightescapade.livejournal.com]

i'm not expecting a psychological au here but i'm thankful there's one bc this is very brilliant! jongin's hallucinations scared me even if what he could se were dogs of different breeds, but it's scary in some way. also, i can relate to jongin playing that dinosaur game on chrome =))) that's a nice idea to include here in this fic. one more thing, that scene a dog talked to jongin got my hairs stood up and i'm kinda expecting that it's kyungsoo and it turned out to be kyungsoo in the end. wow! this story is very disturbing but really really good. i honestly like stories like this. so i thank you for writing this one :)

[sootea.livejournal.com]

this is true art my friend I'm so shook idek what to say ashdjshagsk.

[(Anonymous)]

this was so interesting to read! while i was reading i was trying to figure out what was really going on and then once it became clear i was just really baffled. the entire atmosphere you created was really... dream like? i don't know if that makes sense but it gave me chills at times and i can like picture all of it, jongin sitting in front of that computer and how worn out he must look. it was short but really well written and it just makes you wonder what exactly happened to jongin, like i feel bad for both of them without even knowing too much backstory. i would've definitely been interested in reading more of this but i understand why it's kept short. great work and thank you so much for writing this :))

[aaaaaaa (from livejournal.com)]

This is absolutely brilliant, every word gets my mind to buzz in a good way. I loved how everything clicked when Kyungsoo gets in the picture, and God. It is just so brilliant and mesmerizing. I love it so much!!!

[nudaetelhu.livejournal.com]

Oh god this was really good. 2k words but so full of meaning and story i love this so much!!! Thank you so much for this<3

[hojichadust.livejournal.com]

omg this was so so good lajhflsgdflskhlahd

the thing i liked the most about this is that it's so short but there's still such a tangible story going on. there's like these little details that you drop where it kind of fills in the blanks but still leaves some questions, which i think really is how short stories are supposed to be done--there should be that ability to contemplate what went on in the story even after it ended, i think it's super cool that you were able to include that! all of the best stories should be able to provoke discussion at the end of it imo ^^ and the cool thing was that it still technically had an ending too, it wasn't totally open-ended. really really well done! can't wait to find out who wrote this im so so curious

[convexxed.livejournal.com]

Okay, I wasn't expecting that twist.

An infinite loop to make it look like he was running, whereas in reality he was standing still.

NNNGGGGHHHH. I love the dinosaur game lmao but this can apply not only to it but also to life and I think you described perfectly well Jongin's situation in this single line. I mean, it's so simple yet powerful and don't we all feel stuck in a loop sometimes? Idk man this was really pretty in general and my heart aches for poor little Jongin but at least he was found in time so it's cool.

Thank you for writing this!! It's lovely <333333

[darkreminisce.livejournal.com]

wow i thought jongin was a little mental but its the drugs thats doing things to him
im glad kyungsoo found him in time and that jongin responded to him (or rather the dog)
this is brilliant, thank you for writing!!!!

[sanscherif.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful, and it everything flowed so well. I was almost worried at one point, because what if he steps on the road and didn't see a car hurtling towards him?

Mental illness is scary in a way that it isn't much talked about because the idea that it is taboo. But these are the people we need to catch early on. And we could have, if we take time to listen. To really listen.

Kyungsoo said that Jongin's his best friend. Where was he in that one month, I wonder. What happened? What happened that he didn't notice signs of Jongin wasting away?

[adrycn-9.livejournal.com]

I thought that this was very creative! And i love how u used dogs, its so jongin haha!! I thought that this was a fresh new way of writing and depicting drug abuse & is very clever!!!

[lotusk]

This was incredibly well-written. I really like the pacing and the way you slowly revealed fragments of detail which lead the reader down a certain path, only to take them on a different one that leads to a chilling, yet somehow hopeful destination. At first I thought the story had an element of magical realism to it but the more I read ... the more I realized that wasn't it at all. I don't gravitate towards reading angst but I'm so glad I made an exception with this story because this was just kind of mind blowing. It had the air of some postmodern stories and novels I've read in the past and just thank you. Simply brilliant.

[(Anonymous)]

2000 words never ended so quickly
I wish I could read and know more about them
Awesome writing thank you

[blueheadband.livejournal.com]

wow you did such a good job of setting the scene and atmosphere i almost felt like i was going a little crazy while reading until everything became clear at the end. this was so well written omg wow

[shrekaisoo.livejournal.com]

this is truly magical, thank you for this!!! you are so talented !!! <3

[noticemehyung.livejournal.com]

This hit me in places I didn't know could hurt ;; This was so weird to read, not in a bad way obviously, but it was so.. dream-like? The surrealism is amazing. Kyungsoo's POV at the end was so sad but at the same time so sweet. He waited all day to get Jongin to be okay enough to leave the house I just.. My heart♡ This is really amazing♡♡♡
I actually didn't read the genre or warning when I first read this and was just like "yeah, hundreds of dogs surrounding where Jongin lives sounds about right, they're smart."

[shrekaisoo.livejournal.com]

This is the Kanye West of fanfiction... aka GOD

thank you so much for writing this strangely addictive (hehe) piece of art, it's terrific! (though i'm a little afraid of dogs rn... at least it wasn't spiders hehe)

[나는 비차이 (from livejournal.com)]

Woah. I didnt want to read the spoiler yiu had posted, but safari's reader view revealed it anyway. Kinda depressed it did that because your fic would have made more impression. Not your fault, totally mine.

But omg, your description in jongin's pov was really powerful. I havent had much interaction with those who abuse drugs and are ill (ive seen them during a part of their recovery phase), but i feel that your descriptions really match what happens in real people. Someone in the comments mentioned that the fic had a dream-like quality about it and i totally agree because i would assume that chronic use of illicit drugs just kind of melds all the days together.

Then the portion from kyungsoo's pov. That was powerful too. Because you got to see the situation from his eyes and how it really looked. Damn. Thats crazy.

Thought i was about to cry because you marked it angst, but im just left in awe.

[cupcake-soo.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, what an amazing way to depict something like this.

The way you paralleled this made everything so much more satisfying, which also parallels with the fact that as things became clearer for me as a reader, there is that hopeful feeling that things would become better for Jongin as well.

I was actually really excited when my thought that Kyungsoo is the dog that led Jongin out of his house was confirmed.

This was such an amazing read in such a small amount of words.

Thank you for this story!

[daintydewdrops.livejournal.com]

This is just short but it made a lot of impact for me tbvh.

I liked how I can see Jongib's situation based on his POV and how Kyungsoo described it. I was kind of nervous and the first parts but I kind of figured out especially on how Jongin sees a lot of dogs. It seems like he really feels high and it is quite saddening.

I'm just glad Soo found him and eventually, things will be okay on Jongin's part.

Ahhh. This is beautifully written. Thank you so much for this. All the love xx <33

[yeongwonnie.livejournal.com]

Ok wow, this was short but so intense. The first part made me shudder, you managed to describe that hallucinatory state so efficiently. There's nothing scarier than losing control over your own mind and losing yourself inside your own head. Somehow I could tell the talking dog was Kyungsoo? Reliving the scene through Kyungsoo's eyes was heartbreaking but I like that there was that little sliver of hope at the end with Jongin stepping out on his own and leaning on Kyungsoo. It's a striking image in both its literal and figurative meaning. I am in awe and you are an amazing writer.

PS : I looked up the title on google and came across some of the most interesting reads. Thanks to you, I feel a little less ignorant now ^_^

[vitasnellaa.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you liked it ^^
Tbh I was a little nervous about the response because I had never posted any of my stories online before so I was really pleasantly overwhelmed by the response!
Also I'm glad you looked up the title - if you get time, please read East of Eden! Not many people are aware of it, but personally I think it's one of Steinbeck's best works.
Anyway thank you so much! I really appreciate it :^))

[yeongwonnie.livejournal.com]

I'd personally be glad to read more from you, if you feel comfortable enough to share again of course :)

Oh I will! I love books and the things I read while looking up the title definitely piqued my interest. It's now on my must-read list.