Alone Together [RIIZE]

12. A Reality Check

After Mark died, Sungchan stopped fearing death.

He didn't know why the passing of his parents wasn't enough to do it, but assumed that because Mark was only two years older than him had something to do with it.

When you're a teenager, you think you're gonna live forever. That's obvious, everyone thinks they'll have a bright future and a long life ahead of them. There's a strange immortality complex in teenagers that can only be shattered in certain instances.

Like with Mark.

Mark, first chair in the school band and class president who liked to volunteer with his church's youth group.

Mark, who Johnny was helping apply to colleges literally only a week ago.

Mark, who lived with Sungchan and saw him every day for the past month Sungchan's lived in L.A.

Mark Minhyung Lee, who'll never get to walk across the graduation stage with his friends.

Sungchan realized just them that it doesn't matter how good or bad of a person you are, because death comes for us all. His parents may have deserved what came to them, but Mark didn't deserve to die last night.

It was bizarre, actually. Mark was fine when Sungchan last saw him and was fine when he told Johnny he was going to his boyfriend's house to study. And yet, he ended up with a stray bullet through his head and a fatal crash that finished the job.

The morgue had assumed that the accident was suicide, but the family knew better. Because Mark was never suicidal and he didn't own a firearm. Neither did Johnny. No firearm was found on site and despite how much the coroners tried to convince them otherwise, the car swerving off of the road was a direct result of losing control from being shot at.

Johnny suspected it was purposeful, and he knew for a fact that Mark didn't do this himself. But the authorities told him that he was just grieving and that Mark may have been suffering in silence. It was almost as if what had really happened was being kept under wraps.

Sungchan wondered why, if that was the case.

The funeral was today. It's been a week, and then some. Johnny couldn't plan a bit of it, he's been so distant. He told Jungwoo and Mark's friends to plan most of the program, because anytime he tried to, he'd space out and stop talking.

Johnny barely woke up and went to work anymore. He just shut down, not knowing how to take the situation. Sungchan doesn't think he's even seen Johnny cry yet because he keeps pushing away the reality of it. It had been a miracle that Jungwoo had managed to convince Johnny to get dressed nicely and come at all, poor thing.

Sungchan pities Johnny. He wishes he could make it go away, yet he only just met the man weeks before.

Is this empathy? He wonders.

The funeral was packed, of course. Mark's friends and classmates and teachers and folks in his church... everyone Mark had ever known was there. Shotaro had been invited as well, along with a few family members of his. But he didn't look Sungchan's way at all. He wondered if Shotaro and Mark were close, remembering that Mark had defended his friends before.

There were a lot more people at this funeral than at his parents', Sungchan thinks. Actually, he himself wore his nicest black blazer and too-shirt black pants -the same thing he'd worn to theirs too.

Mark's funeral was full of weeping, that's what Sungchan remembers the most. Weeping and sobs crying out as eulogies were read and hymns were sung. Mark's body lay in the casket in front of them and Sungchan wondered what he was wearing in there. Perhaps his green and purple band uniform or a plain, crisp suit or maybe those tattered Spider-Man pajama pants he loved so much.