Arcus // ATEEZ ✔

22: searching for serendipity

Serim stares at the portrait of Jinju smiling, her eyes swollen and tears blurring her vision as her casket is lowered down into the ground. The day mourns along with them as the sky remained dark ever since morning, and as the soil is being piled up on her casket the rain has been pouring down incessantly. Seonghwa holds an umbrella over her, but she keeps moving closer towards her best friend's grave.

Several others are present as well; the trainee doctors, the nurses and the twins. After visiting and paying his respects at the funeral hall, they didn't hear from Hongjoong whether he would show up to her funeral. No one could contact him, so Serim had hoped that maybe he'd show up today.

Sadly, he didn't.

As they compacted the earth on top of her grave, Serim drops to the ground as Seonghwa lunges to catch her. Letting the rain drench them, Serim cries loudly in Seonghwa's hold, her black dress and legs covered in mud. Seonghwa covers her with his body, but even he cannot hide the tears that are flowing out. The rest watch, their tears not enough to reflect the grieve they feel as they've lost a friend. Yeosang cries the hardest, until his sobs have become muted.

"I was never there-" Serim sobs. "I was not there when she died! I was sleeping when she fell into a coma, I was somewhere else when she was dying!" she shouts. "I wasn't there for her when she needed me."

"Serim," Seonghwa soothes her through his own tears. "You were always there for her, it's not your fault."

"Fate is a fucking cruel thing," she utters through gritted teeth, both from anger and pain. "Look at the people who are here, look at the people who visited her. She's a person who deserves more, she's friendly and she always tries her best to make you feel welcomed. But look at this, because of her cancer she doesn't get to meet a lot of people, she's only known the hospital during her early adult years. She doesn't get to interact with many people and now... besides them," she gestures to the rest, "no one else even knows that she died. Oh Jinju deserves better, she deserves better. Kim Hongjoong... we don't even know where he is right now."

Seonghwa hugs her tight as she's thrashing about, and tries to calm her down while caressing her. "Serim, you need to rest. You've been stressing yourself out too much these past days."

She breaks down as he grips her tighter, and as she feels the tiredness consuming her, she stops crying and breathes hard instead, taking in as much fresh air as she can. Everything feels so tiring, but it's still hard for her to accept that her best friend is now gone. The cheerful and friendly Oh Jinju is now gone, because her brain tumour took her over. She cannot wrap her head around the fact that their shared apartment would be empty now, without her corny jokes or addictive laugh. She doesn't even know whether she'd bear to live there anymore.

After her burial ceremony is over, the 8 of them remain there, sluggish. The loss is a great slap to them, how one moment they were positive that she would return home again yet the next she's six feet under. The rain has stopped but the ground is damp as they sit on the ground, huddling near her grave. Besides them, there is no else who is visiting, and they stay until the sun has shone again that even their clothes have dried up.

"The... Kim Hongjoong guy..." Jongho starts, looking around at the rest; he looks unsure on whether it would be an inappropriate time to bring it up. "After paying his respects he didn't show up today. It's kind of... weird."

"It's not," Serim refutes. "It's not his fault for not showing up. No matter how Jinju felt towards him, we still can't deny that they're still somewhat strangers."

"But you said he even composed a piece of music for her," San utters. "It just felt weird how he suddenly went missing. He cried the loudest after she passed away, and he stayed for a long time. He was like a madman, sitting at the piano, playing while crying. But today, he's gone and no one knows where he went. From his demeanour alone you can tell that he felt Jinju's loss together with us, but why did he not turn up at all?"