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II/IV (1/2)

gentle bones jongbuttbutt 227790K 2023-11-02

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[they say you die twiceyou'll be carried away once by the winds of time

and the other-

by your lover's hand]

One time we argued because I came home drunk and I started telling you things.

“I’m fucked, Daehyun. This is so messed up. I’m so messed up.”

That was what I kept saying the whole night. I remember because I could still taste it on my tongue in the morning.

You left my dorm in the morning. We were both angry because we never dared to say the things we should’ve said. I knew it, I knew. But I had been pretending. I pretended to be normal. But another part of me would be in some other boy’s sheets, and my soul is in your hands, I feel most alive when I’m with you, when we do things I would never be able to do with a girl. That’s the part of me I find in my poems. You slammed the door and left. I didn't see you for a week and I'd write to you daily. I never got an answer from you until Sunday. You put a crumpled slip of paper in an envelope and slid it under my door.

The ink was fading from the paper, but I recognised my handwriting. It was my writing. The one I had thrown from the roof, the one I had watched as it drifted away from sight-

As we watch our lives pass from the cheap seats,

I’ll write you all the love in the world on this crumpled piece of paper.

I hope it’s enough because it’s all I have in exchange for some affection.

That’s what was written on the paper. And everything fell into place that day.

You are Jung Daehyun. You get riled up easily and your accent shows when you're angry. But you're brave and you never pretended to be something you're not. And you were crazy enough that day to ask me to be yours.

And I'm Kim Himchan. The boy who was too afraid then to tell you he loved you first. Before you loved him.

I’m sorry we didn’t meet at the end of the path the other day. But you still manage to find your way into my dreams every night.

Himchan peers into room 59, it’s quiet save from the steady hum of the air conditioning. He takes a step forward and freezes when he sees Daehyun propping himself upright on the bed. Daehyun is smiling, serene, eyes bright and drenched in morning light.

You’re awake. Himchan says, startled, more for his own benefit.

“I didn’t take my pills.” Daehyun says with childish laughter and it makes Himchan’s heart skip a beat. His toes go numb and he shifts on the balls of his feet to keep himself upright. Daehyun pats the spot beside him and Himchan is artlessly drawn towards him. He sits himself on the chair and lets Daehyun study his features over and over again.

“I wanted to see you.”

Himchan nods, the lump in his throat grows and his mouth is dry.

“I loved you a lot, didn’t I?” Daehyun mumbles, his voice rustling like the wind and Himchan shatters. He nods and tries to swallow the tears but they come anyway and Himchan scratches at his arm.

“I’m sorry.” Daehyun pulls Himchan’s fingers away from his arm and laces them with his own. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s the morning and the sun has wrapped itself comfortably around them. Himchan feels the headwinds pulling at his soul, and he finds himself in Daehyun’s arms again.

Everything works around a schedule in the hospital, every day at about 2 he gets to escape the routine for an hour or so. Youngjae takes him on a different route every time and although Daehyun is starting to walk just fine, he thinks it would be more efficient on a wheel chair. (Daehyun doesn’t tell Youngjae, but he has always wanted to try out a wheel chair when he was young).

“We’re going to the park behind the hospital. It’s a little far away but we can make it.” Daehyun hums a reply. He doesn’t turn his head back to look at Youngjae, but he knows the younger male is smiling. He always sounds different when he smiles. Youngjae has his break at 2, but he has decided he is unable to leave Daehyun alone, as Daehyun himself so aptly puts it. Youngjae just thinks it’s nice to get a little fresh air once in a while.

“You know people are usually excited to get off the wheel chair and actually use their legs.” Youngjae says as he takes a long lick off his ice cream cone. “But I have to admit the sympathy you get comes in pretty handy.” They smile deviously at one another, admiring their extra-large scoops of ice cream. Daehyun gets up from his wheel chair with a groan and hobbles over to sit beside Youngjae by the bench. It’s a quiet park, there isn’t a playground, no proper bicycle track, it’s nothing much, and that’s how Youngjae likes it when he sits with his packed kimbap.

Youngjae likes taking Daehyun to the park, it feels nice to not have patients calling his name all the time and the other senior nurses telling him he has paperwork to do. And it sure beats holing Daehyun up in his room all the time because then Youngjae would have to deal with his daily jokes that Daehyun conveniently gets from the internet.

“What?” Youngjae says when they’re both done with their ice creams and Daehyun is staring at him like he has a trail of chocolate ice cream on his upper lip. Daehyun shrugs and chuckles, his hospital gown sagging slightly over his collarbones. And soon they’re settled into comfortable silence again, that is until Youngjae suggests they take a walk a little further because there’s a pond at the end of the park and there might be fish they could feed. And Daehyun really starts to think that Youngjae fleets between treating him like the teenage son he never wanted and a senile old man.

“You know what could be fun?” Daehyun leans back against the wheel chair and beams at Youngjae, all teeth and gums and disappearing eyes and Youngjae raises his brow, sceptical at the amount of excitement Daehyun is exuding. Excitement usually means bad ideas when it comes to Daehyun. “You could push me really fast. It’s a downhill drop. That would be really fun.” Daehyun says, and he’s still smiling like he’s challenging Youngjae to say no to him.

“No.”

Youngjae directs his attention up ahead. The pond should be around here somewhere-

“And why’s that?” Daehyun smirks this time. Youngjae thinks it’s ridiculous how he’s so smug all the time when he’s dressed in unflattering hospital pajamas that are obviously a size too large. Not to mention Youngjae has seen him naked before. It’s not a bad body, really, it’s just that that shut Daehyun up for a while.

“Because this,” Youngjae taps on the wheel chair and the screws give out a pained creak, “this is hospital property. Not to mention it’s very old.”

“Admit it Yoo Youngjae. You’re incapable of having any fun.” Daehyun teases and he’s about to check for Youngjae’s reaction but it’s too late. His wheelchair is gaining speed and he’s rolling downhill a little faster than he’d like. Youngjae had pushed him. Youngjae that little bitch. The aged contraption groans as it rolls down the tar path. Daehyun is about to scream when he feels himself being pulled abruptly to a stop and he hears roaring laughter from behind him. He clutches at his heart, now weakened by his little misadventure. There is no way to win when it comes to Youngjae, he had learnt it now.

"Wasn't that fun Daehyunnie?" Youngjae says, breathless as he tries to recover from the laughter that still threatens to spill out of his lungs.

"Let's just find the damned pond."

Himchan spends whatever free time he has with Daehyun, and today his phone lies at the bottom of his pile of work and he's at the hospital, they are sitting at the café, watching as the current pulls the lunch crowd away. It's 3 and it's suddenly quiet. There is no need to shout their conversations over the blurred noise. Daehyun shifts in his seat and Himchan has many things to say, but the floodgates at the back of his throat remains shut.

"So your favourite drink is Americano. And you don't really like sweet foods."

Daehyun makes a mental note as Himchan nods. They had agreed to starting all over, to give Daehyun more time to take it all in and Daehyun has been relearning everything about Himchan. From the way he forces his laugh back when he talks by limiting the movement of his lips to the way he studies his surroundings with such great detail. And through the lack of familiarity Daehyun has to remind himself that he had loved him so very much once.

He tries another question, "when did we officially meet? Since that time in Middle school didn't count."

Himchan stops playing with the lid of his drink and a smile pulls at the corners of his lips. Daehyun takes it that he's not offended and he stills in his seat.

"We met at a cemetery."

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