| Fan Fiction |
by Pseudonym
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Password: jaeriam
Epilogue
“Mariam, come here,” I beckoned her. She stopped what she was doing to give me a look. To give me that look.
Pain that I was accustomed to coursed through me when she gave me a look that very much resemble yours.
“Come on. Daddy’s got a show to do tomorrow and you’re going to come with him. So you have to sleep early.”
Mariam continuously and stubbornly to stared at me with wide dark eyes, refusing to succumb. See, Mariam seldom listened to anyone. Though that irritated the hell out of me, it brought a reminiscent smile on my face of what used to be.
I chortled softly her, knowing exactly what to do. All she needed was a little cajoling and she'd finally succumb.
“Come on sweetheart,” I clapped encouragingly before holding out my hands to her again. “I know you can do it. A lot of people are depending on…”
My voice tapered off as an overwhelming bitterness closed over my throat. Memories of those very words washed into my mind like waves revisiting sands.
The untrustworthy look on Mariam's face lasted for another second before she finally wobbled over to me, dressed only in her pink onesie.
I was so glad that she came over to me without any further encouragement. Because if I continued to goad her on, I would just start thinking about you. I refused to think about you. Or at least, I tried not to.
But that's been kind of impossible.
Every thought, ever since you left has been dedicated to you.
Its unhealthy to be this way, to still make you live in my mind, but even if that makes me feel like I’m going crazy, it’s also what keeps me sane.
“Yay!!” I cheered proudly while picking up our two year old daughter up. My usually frosted heart warmed a bit at the sound of her pubescent laugh as I lifted her in air and brought her down to level with me to set her on my lap. Instead of taking her to bed right away, I sat back and stared at her. Staring at her had become a habit. Ever since the day she was born. Ever since you gave her to me.
I haven’t cried since that day at the hospital. I never cried at your funeral either, and was lambasted by everyone, the public included, for that. I never gave a eulogy either, because I didn’t want to share any thoughts that I had of you with anyone else. Now they wanted to know what I thought about you. Before, crucifixion was threatened if I so much as entertained a thought of you.
They could wonder all they wanted what I thought about you, but they would never know. I would never tell them.
I never talked about you to anyone else. Not even those I was close to. Not even Yunho.
The only time I nearly allowed myself to express my tears, the only time I nearly ran to someone to pour my pain out, was when I actually looked at some fanmail I received. I'd long since stopped readign my fanmail, even though they had doubled since your departure. As I sifted negligently through the fanmail, I came across this CD that said Jaejoong+Mariam. I stared at it for a long time, wondering what could be in it. Could it be more hate crimes from angered fans?
I don’t know why, but I went with my compulsory feelings and slid the DVD into my laptop. I had sat back in the basement musical studio of a new mansion that I’d purchased in France, close to where your grave is, and watched it.
It was you and I on our first public date in Seoul. The very first clip was of hands linked together. Due to the heavy ruckus of a stampede made up of hungry fans and journalists, the clip was shaky. But even the low quality did nothing to take away from the sadness that the video evoked. You looked so confused. So scared, because of the life that I was living. As I watched the clip, I remembered how there were so many people screaming that day Mariam. My hearing kept worsening, but I heard you.
And I looked back. And I came to get you. And I held your hand tightly.
Seeing all of this from the outside looking in was unbearable. It showed me how people saw us.
They didn't know the half.
They didn't know sh*t.
Seeing you and I as a third person reminded me of the hypocrites that I was surrounded by. The very people that hated you were the same ones that called you some sort of martyr now. Mariam, believe it or not, some people considered you a hero. Don't get me wrong, you're my hero. You deserve that title, but these other people didn't know you. It's almost like, now that you were out of the way, then it was okay for them to accept you. Those same people tried distributing merchandise of you and I together because in their eyes, we were a ‘star-crossed’, ‘memorable’ couple. Seriously, it was like a game to them. It was like reading about Shakespeare in class. Someone had screencapped you and I holding hands and somehow, I don’t know how for the life of me, had magnified pictures of our tattoos. From there, they made fanart. They airbrushed it on pictures. They wore it on their bracelets.
Our little secret had become the world's trademark. They don't understand.
I already had enough with all the wannabes trying to act like they knew us, but I had to take legal action when our names and faces were the ones replacing the tattoos on the fronts of their t-shirts and purses.
Mariam, get this, we had become a product. Even behind bars, Soon had somehow managed to make us toys for the public to play with.
Seriously, they thought that this was some sort of drama. Some sort of show. It’s almost like they forgot that this was real.
I don’t understand why because you and I were just simple people. We didn’t have a special catch phrase. For the life of me, I had tried to give us memorable nicknames, but remember how you told me that backfired against me? We didn't have those. We didn’t start out with sparks and intense chemistry.
We were simple.
And that’s why I loved us so much. We didn’t have to try too hard with one another.
Yet here these strangers were, acting like they knew the entire story. They didn’t know that we’d been both bleeding inside before they even knew that we existed as one.
Much like the internal bleeding that I didn't know you were suffering. That was part of the cause why the doctor’s said you left me. They didn’t understand, especially when you’d been pulling through so well for so long.
I didn’t understand.
That's what was so painful to deal with sometimes. Nobody understood why it happened.
They said that they could have tried to revive you but that would've been fruitless. The hemorrhage caused a blockage within your lungs. Conclusively, respiratory failure along with cardiopulmonary arrest were what they branded as the final cause of your death.
I remember not sleeping for three days straight after that. But I don't remember those three days. I had to be given a shot again to force me to sleep on the third day because they called me 'harmful' since my behavior was described as 'disturbing'.
And when I woke up, Mariam, I have never felt so sad in my life, because I thought that I would wake up to find you there. I had woken up, and it had taken me a good few minutes to realize that the previous days had happened. That you were no longer there. My nightmare had manifested. But since then, since that time I held you in my arms until the wells in my eyes run dry, until my arms tired of holding you for too long, until the nurses had to come and pry me away from you, I do not cry. Not because I’m trying to be a macho man. Not because I’m not sad. But because I know that if I cry again, I will never stop, and I will succumb to my urge to find you and leave the kids.
I can't leave the kids. I just can't. Despite this sadness that overwhelmes my life.
There is always a sadness lurking deep within me. It’s like a ghostly reminder that I have to face this world without you.
And I’m trying not to feel sorry for us. I have learned to behave normally. I have learned to smile again. Mariam, Jin and Hye are the ones that taught me how to again.
But even if they revived my laughter, I couldn’t do it the same way I did it when you were here. I
I can’t look at my reflection in the mirror the same way anymore, because your face lives there. So I avoid looking at the mirror at all costs. My body is no longer my own, because when I look at it, I think of us sharing the deepest intimacy two souls can share. And when I do, my entire being aches as I remembered the places where you touched me, and the places where I’d been to the core of your being.
It’s the same whenever I look at anyone who knew me when you and I were together. And it's not easy with strangers either, because they all know me, and even if I dont know them, I know that they know about you and I. I see you in other people because I can tell that you spring up into their minds when they look back at me. Looking at Yunho isn’t the same. Along with Changmin, Micky, and Junsu. I see you in them because I remember trying to forget you back in the day whenever I’d look at them and know that I had a secret. My little secret.
The secret that was safe and sound. The one that I thought eternal for no one to ever harm or take away from me.
I should’ve never felt guilty about you being the one.
I should have never apologized for you.
For having you. For making you mine.
The only guilt I have now is when I look at them because I almost don’t care about them.
I almost hate them. Because I miss you so much. Even the innocent ones, I almost hate.
I have serious problems now that I don’t care about solving. I can’t look at my fans. At all. I know what you would say. You would tell me to suck it up, forgive and forget because that is what you did. But I can’t Mimi.
I can never look at them the same way.
I can’t show them the same love the way I used to, whether I feel it deep down inside or not. It’s not the same in concerts. We had one not too long ago, because for some reason this situation made us more popular. Some production companies have even approached me about making books and movies out of this. They don’t get it. They don’t get that these were our lives.
They don’t get that this is our story and ours alone.
I guess when I sold my soul I was selling my life to the hungry world of entertainment. And you, you had come to save me before I sold the last piece. But now…I keep that little piece of you in me, but I fully sold the rest of myself because of not knowing what else to do.
Even then, as much quantity of my soul that I’ve given to them, you hold the quality. I don’t cry anymore in concerts during your favorite song. My tears are no longer for sale. I no longer was for sale.
DBSK and I had branched off of LN Entertainment to build our own label. It was tough at first, but we’ve got the ball rolling. Each of us pursued a successful solo career with the exception of me. I wrote songs for them, but I remained in the backdrops of the prison I’d created for myself. I made my music and kept it to myself. I need a hearing aid every now and again because of SunJung’s gunshot, but even if I was fully deaf, I wouldn’t need to hear music knowing that you wont hear it with me. Every song that I make personally now has a piece of you in it though, and I won’t show them to the world because I don’t want to share my Mimi.
I wasn’t ready to share you Mimi. Not with Heaven or wherever the place you're at right now is.
I wasn’t ready. Why did you have to go? Why did you have to leave me by myself?
And I’m being selfish again.
After giving Mariam some warm milk to lull her, I put her to bed. I checked on Jin and Hye who were fast asleep. They miss you so much. I'll never forget the day that I told them what happened. They were too young to understand what death was. All they knew was that when I said their Umma wasn't coming back, they started crying. Jin even thought it was his fault for being a bad boy. Hye became more secluded than she ever was, if that was even possible. Over time, with the help of Mama and DBSK, who were very supportive, the kids learned to live without you, but they just didn't forget. There were days when Jin still slept curled up in a ball by the door at night, waiting for you to come through that door. They’re happy children, but they still get angry and confused by the entire situation. And I let them get angry. Because I’m the same way too and I know the helplessness one feels because of the situation. I get so angry by our situation that there are times when I have to escape or else I'll lose it if I haven't lost it already.
So I went to that bridge you took me to. The one with all of our names on beside the electrical pole and the railroad. This is the place I always come to now when I need an escape. When I want to escape thoughts of Soon, which still plague my mind as I retrace the past. There are days I lock myself in a dark room, or just stand here on the bridge for hours, thinking back, trying to fathom how or why someone would do what he did or be the same way that he was. It often left me so confused.
Soon didn't run away like he'd been doing all his life. He didn't bribe some of the dirty cops to give him a free ride. He didn''t slander my name in order to protect his. He turned himself in. Willingly. Everyone but me was surprised. I could already read his mind because, I guess, it's something he'd been teaching me from the start. For him, his job was done. He had fulfilled his wish. He hadn't lost in the end. Therefore, by making himself believe he had won, he had nothing to lose by turning himself in, especially with the knowledge that he couldn't run LN Entertainment anymore or have his past riches. A good portion of BTK were sent to jail too for crimes of their own, and the downfall of one of the longest running gangs continued from there. Soon was sentenced to life for a plethora of crimes that I didn't even care to know about. To be honest, I didn't want to think of what he was doing when he was managing us because it seemed like he was two separate people. Now that the public knew the real Soon, people looked at DBSK differently. Some even looked at us suspiciously, wondering how we couldn't never known Soon for who he really was.
There was a time we were actually accused of being apart of BTK.
People felt sorry for us and thought we were always suffering. We might as well. Everyone was in pain by a number of things, but I can honestly say that what hurt them the most was your death. Which surprised me, considering how before when this all started they cared about their career only. They were all regretful for how they treated you, and just like me, were slightly wary of fans but not as much.
I didn't care what people thought about us though. I cared what you thought, what you think, but its something I can't help when I dont get to hear or see you anymore. That last day Mimi, after SunJung shot herself and I was looking for you, something inside of me seemed to say that 'this is the beginning'. The beginning of an end.
That's also why I keep coming to this bridge. I keep hoping that maybe, maybe you performed one of your disappearing acts. Maybe you came here to get away. Maybe you came here because you had a secret that you were afraid would disappoint others.
Mariam I was never disappointed in you.
I was proud of you. I am. I will always be. But I didn't express that enough.
With my hands in my pockets, I looked out at the river and thought back to the day when we stood here.
Now that I think about it, I understand very well what that look meant. The one that you gave me when we were on this very bridge.
It was the same one you gave me before you closed your eyes for all eternity.
Love at first sight is a heady thought of the mind. It’s to spruce up our imaginations. To fulfill our every desires. It’s not authentic.
It is the love at last sight that teaches you how much you really love a person. It is the love at last sight that makes you question whether the word ‘love’ is enough to describe the emotion you feel towards that special someone.
It’s when you look into a person’s eyes for the last time that you remember the beginning, middle, and the death-defining end.
It’s the finality.
It’s the reality.
It makes you regretful and thankful all in the same breath.
It makes you want to go back or go to the future, to surpass or fall behind this painful moment that changes everything.
Love at last sight changes your perception of what you thought you knew. It alters what you will think of everything for the rest of your life.
It’s irreversible, like falling for the one and not being able to help it, much like death.
Death is like falling in love. It’s strong and unforgiving. There is no coming back from it. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. And I should have accepted it the day that I met you. There are days when I wonder, no, when I know that all of this could’ve been prevented if we hadn’t met. If I knew that I would love you so much, if I knew that my loving you so much would result in your demise, I wouldn’t have stared at your hands. I would have stayed away from you Mimi. I know you hate it when I do this, I know you hate what I’m about to do and say, I know that you know what I’m about to do and say.
But I’m sorry.
And I will never apologize to anyone else other than you. These are my last apologies Mimi.
I should’ve picked you from the start. But now it’s too late. It’s too late. We made it past the illness, you made it. We made it past the storms and everyone else that didn’t want us together. We even made it past each other Mimi.
Can you believe that?
We won the battle against ourselves. Weren’t we our own biggest enemies?
Then what happened?
What happened was, you were right all along. I was selfish. The same way that death is.
And because of my selfishness, I made the wrong decision.
I chose the wrong thing. Please don’t think I loved you any less because of this. I would die if you thought that way. You always reminded me of my selfishness. I never listened. I should have listened. When you cried. When you begged me not to leave. I shouldn’t have let go of your hand when you asked me not to. I should have been stronger for you Mimi…for us…I’m sorry…I love you…
And I’ll never forget…the look in your eyes. On that last day. On our last day.
But don’t worry. You didn’t have to say anything for me to understand you.
Love at first sight has nothing on the last one.
Love at last sight is the unkindest cut of all.
Now you’ve left me here in the world we were supposed to face together. How am I supposed to do it Mariam? How do I take those first steps? Yes, the kids have helped me a lot, but they're leaning on me. Who do I lean on now? Who am I going to lean on forever?
There are days when I don’t want to carry out a task that is so simple to others but not me.
There are days that I don't want to breathe.
Not without your head pressed against my back where you can hear me.
There are days I still wait for you when I go home. I still wait for you when I lay in bed to curl up next to me and stare at the blank ceiling ahead, wondering what's in store for us in the future.
I still wait for you when I look at our children. The children that you blessed me with.
I still wait, even if I know that I have to accept that you’re not coming back. Even if in the back of my mind I knew that something wasn’t right when you asked me how long happiness lasts, I was still hopeful for that future I saw of you and I.
Because I love you.
Because in my mind, since we had been through so much, then the world would pity us and at least let us be together.
I, Kim Jaejoong, and Mariam Louis, the one, I just want you to know, wherever you are, that I hope you can still hear my thoughts the way you always used to, because I can still hear your voice. I hope you can peer into the windows of my soul the way you always used to, because I still long to look into your eyes. I hope you can still hear the beating inside of me that used to make you smile because I feel the urge to stop these very beats when I remember hearing yours for the last time. I hope that you know that these beats were for you ever since the day they’d started and will keep on that way until the very day that they stop and I’m allowed to see you again. I hope you can do all these things because thinking about all of this is what keeps me from giving up on this gruesome world and coming to find you. That and our children. My angels
And I’m sorry…and I love you…
And I will forever be lost without you.
Even though your heart no longer makes the greatest love song beating against mine, I can still hear the echoes that you have kindly left for my lonely soul.
Thank you, my Mimi….
“I wanted to kill you,” I heard from my left side. When I turned to see who it was, Seung was standing a few feet away from me.
I didn’t ask what he was doing here. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral. See, like everyone else, he was wondering why I didn’t cry. He also hated me very much for you not being here. I hate myself too. But I wasn’t going to bow down to him or anyone else.
Seung took a few steps from me, his eyes watery, like they had been permanently that way since the funeral. I didn’t flinch until he came and stood face to face with me. Hatred burrowed deep in his eyes. I returned his stare, but not with hate. I returned it with nothing. Because I felt nothing.
Seung suddenly turned away from me and looked towards the horizon.
“But Mariam would’ve been heartbroken. So think of her as the only reason why you’re not dead,” he continued.
It killed me when people said your name. I hated to hear your name from others because there were days I’d look to my phone and think of calling you. I still had your number in my phone. I still had your texts.
I still had you inside of me.
Seung then uprooted something from his pocket, and when he held it up to me, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“I came to see the kids and when I saw you, I was so ready to kill you with my bear hands. Because Mariam did not deserve this. I don’t care what those fans thought, she didn’t deserve them to take her life so unfairly.”
Seung’s bottom lip quivered before he compressed it against his top one.
“But she asked me to let go, so I’m going to let go. I knew she came here all the time because she felt like she’s failed all of you. There was a time when her treatment was so painful, she asked me to keep this for her because she didn't think she'd make it passed the treatment. She told me to tell you what her answer was. I told her that I wouldn’t need to because she was going to. I was supposed to give it back to her when we were meeting at the hospital I wasn’t going to tell you any of this. I wanted you to suffer the unknowns. But this is what Mariam wanted. So I’m going to go ahead and tell you what she wanted me to tell you. She told me you were waiting for an answer.”
A quick tear slid down his face as he shoved it to me. Everything became a blur before my eyes as I held the ring I’d given to you. It was the one I gave you when I asked you to marry me when we were seated in the attic, watching the snow drift from the skies.
The one I gave you when I told you I would always wait for your answer whenever you were ready. Seung's following words confirmed it all for me.
“Her answer was yes.”
***********************FLASHBACK TO THE FIRST SIGHT************************
I was so bored, sitting at my assigned seat during the conference we were having in America. With my hand against my chin, I watched the mounting crowd. A small smile caressed my lips when I saw the poster from a fan among many that had come to support us. I thought we were only popular in Asia until I came here and saw how much support we had. The fan with the poster seemed to be the most dedicated It said ‘I Will Always Loves Kim Jaejoong Forever! DBSK FIGHTING! <3 SunJung and Cassiopeia’ When I looked up at her I saw that she was shocked and in tears that our eyes had met. They always went crazy ‘when our eyes met’. I thought it was adorable and kind of funny. My smile widened and out of spite, I mouthed ‘I love you too’, only for her to break into a flurry of screams along with the fans surrounding her.
“Oh my word. They’re going to make someone go deaf with all their screaming. Gosh.”
I saw the hands first as they poured water into the glass seated before me. And call me crazy, but I forgot about everything else. See, I had this fetish with hands—beautiful hands. A woman’s well crafted hands could sap me out of reality. I swear. Because it was happening now. They were smooth, hey even smoother than my skin. The nails were polished and well manicured with a cute peach color that made me feel fuzzy inside. The well-sized fingers made me think of doing things to them that would make all the very fans spazzing out right now cry in shame of ‘who I really was’.
But as beautiful as the hands were, the tone of voice had heavy attitude problems. Even if it was spoken in English which I could not understand a word of, the rudeness of which it was spoken discouraged me from looking up.
I didn’t mind.
Because looking at her hands was an entertaining feature enough. The hands suddenly stopped their actions and clung in front of the person.
“Um, excuse me,” the speaker said in Korean.
Snapping out of it, my eyes flew up to a dark pair of eyes surrounded by dirty blond curly hair. I had never seen anyone look so unique. With her Asian features and bronze coloring, I immediately assumed that she had dyed her hair blonde like me.
But all of those thoughts took the backseat to the deep blush that crept up on me.
“May I help you?” she asked and I was further surprised by her Korean. Also the fact that her accent was kind of terrible.
Shaking my head, I turned away from her quickly while murmuring, ‘Nothing’ in the little English that I knew.
“Seriously. Why are you staring at my hands like that? Is there something on them?” the lady asked as she inspected her hands.
“No no no. You have nice hands. They’re beautiful actually,” I found myself admitting, since she wouldn’t get off my case. Then when I realized what I’d just blurted out, I felt my face grow hot with stigma. How could I say something embarrassing like that? ‘They’re beautiful actually’, no wonder Junsu said no woman would ever ask me out.
“They’re beautiful?” the lady echoed in surprise.
I stared at her in bafflement for a while before nodding earnestly.
“Oh,” a blush quickly crept up her cheeks and she did the cutest yet simplest thing of tucking some hair behind her ear. “Well uh, you’re beautiful yourself!”
My reaction was to raise a questioning brow as my faint smile dropped.
“No! I meant, you’re very handsome. Too much I think…”
This time I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “…Sorry…”
“It’s okay. This is all so unprofessional of me.”
She stuck her hand out at me. “I’m Mariam Louis.”
Not wanting to leave her hanging, I stood up like the gentleman my stepmother had whipped me into shape to being and took her hand in mine.
It was smaller than mine. And that’s why it fit. So perfectly.
We both looked up from our hands to find that she’d been staring at me the entire time that I looked at our hands.
“I’m Kim Jaejoong.”
We held each other’s hands longer than necessary and shared a secretive stare that only two star-crossed strangers who are meant to be know about.
********************************THE END********************************