[M] Nothing but Darkness (1/2)

My head is filled with clouds.I still feel tired,

But I do not wish to sleep.

I only want to look at his face;

He looks so peaceful as he slumbers.

I wonder if he is dreaming,

What he is dreaming.I remember what I dreamed last night.

I remember every detail like I remember my name.

I touched him so many times;

Would I wake him if I touched him now?I want to touch him,

But I can only touch him in my dreams.

Why must I be asleep to experience love?

I want to know how his skin feels now.It felt...so...real in my dream...

I can still feel his softness on my fingertips.

I wonder if his skin is as soft in reality as it is in the unconscious.I bet it is softer,

More pleasant to feel than what I can even imagine.

I wonder what part of his body is the softest.His hands that are always open, waiting for something...

His neck that is thin and weighed down by the burden of thoughts in his head...

His chest that is bony and still in the absence of a steady heartbeat...

His arms that are scarred and weak and tired of carrying the weight of his grief...?Or maybe his lips.

His lips that are always dry,

That crack when he smiles too big

And are rejuvenated when his tears gather around the edges of his mouth.

What would it be like...

To feel his lips?With my fingers...

With my own lips?Would they taste sweet with words he will want to share with me,

Or will they be bitter with resentment for me and my sinful attraction to him?

Oh, I want to know how they feel!

I want to know how they taste!I want to know how every part of him feels,

How every part of him tastes.

I want to know,

And the best time to find out is...Now.

Right now.

I think...

I think I should tell him.

Tell him the truth.

If not now...

His taste may disappear before I ever get to experience it.He might move away before I ever get to touch him.I might not ever get to smell him or hear him or see him again.

Love is experience,

Something I must experience...With him.

Only with him.

"Woohyun?" Sunggyu whispered as he shook Woohyun's shoulders.

"Woohyun? Woohyun?

Wake up, Woohyun."

Woohyun whimpered as he was shaken back into reality. He tried to open his eyelids,

But he was instantly blinded by the light of the lamp.

He closed his eyes again quickly

Because the light was too strong.

"I have something to tell you," Sunggyu began. He dared himself to touch Woohyun's hand,

But he wanted to wait until the moment was absolutely perfect -

After he had said all that he wanted to say.

So he placed his hand close to Woohyun's,

And his breath fell short as he thought of how his skin might feel.

"Yes?" Woohyun responded with a yawn. Sunggyu was worried that he was too tired to listen and comprehend,

But that thought was almost reassuring to Sunggyu. It might make revealing his unnatural feelings that much easier.

Sunggyu's heart was beating so fast

And his thoughts were collecting at the forefront...He was ready to tell him everything.

"You have to promise me something, first and foremost."

"Okay."

"Promise me that...

You won't hate me. No matter what I say,

No matter how uncomfortable you feel about what I say...

You cannot hate me.Not now,

Not ever."

"I promise."

"Then...I'm ready to tell you...

To tell you the truth.

I'm going to speak for a while, Woohyun,

And I'm going to speak freely.Free from thoughts and impulse and memories.Only from the heart.

So as I speak,

I ask that you listen,

Not with your ears...

But with your heart.Because that is where my words are directed.

I still remember the first time I saw you,

Bleeding to death...

Completely alone.

My first thought was to save you,

Because I thought that no one deserved to die.

Especially not young,

Before experiencing life at all.

But that thought...

That impulse to help you...

Soon turned into something...

More.Something I had not felt before

And therefore could not identify. Something that felt strangely like heat,

Only it scolded me internally. And I felt it when I looked at your face,

At your hands,

At your arms covered in gashes.

In hindsight, I'd say those feelings were feelings of attachment,

All part of a longing I felt to see you heal. And when you opened your eyes that day in the hospital...

And looked into mine as I stood by the side of your bed...

Those feelings of attachment grew into possessiveness...

Possessiveness into admiration...

For your ability to pull through and live again.For your dedication to me

And to sewing a lasting friendship between us.

And with time...

The more I saw your face and your hands and your arms covered in scars...

The more I admired you. And the more I admired you,

The more I longed to be near you. And the more I longed to be near you...

The more I realized that the heat inside my body was raging,

But only when I was around you. And that's when I knew that, for you...

I was feeling something great.Something terrifyingly strong.

But it took me until just recently...

Until I saw you helpless and sorrowful and reminiscent and scared...

To realize the strength of that feeling,

That feeling I have for you.

It is the strongest of all feelings known to man.Stronger than terror,

Much stronger than grief,

Happiness to an extreme and ecstasy overshadowed.

For you I feel...

Love. Genuine,

Unmatchable,

Unquestionable love.

And no matter how much I try to convince myself differently...

I am unable to escape this feeling you hold over me.

As long as you exist,

I will love you.

As long as you are who you are,

I will love you.

And even if you leave suddenly and fall asleep eternally,

I will still love you.I will always love you.

I made myself a promise on the day I first saw you

That I would protect you,

Heal you,

Bring you to life.And from that promise...

I have myself been animated,

All because I have been thinking of you and of you only.

And I know that what I feel for you is...wrong...

And I know that you may never look at me the same way again

Or trust me enough to be in the same room with you...But I thought you had the right to know

Exactly how I feel.

How I feel about you.

I love you, Woohyun,

And I'm not afraid to admit it anymore.Not to you or to anyone.Not even to myself.

Because I want to love you, Woohyun,

In every single way I can.

And even if you don't love me back,

My feelings for you will not change."

Woohyun tried to open his eyelids again,

But he could not.

The light was too bright.

He wanted to talk to Sunggyu,

To cry out loud and rejoice with him

Because their feelings were mutual

And their love was hanging on their skin and dancing at their sides...But the light was clouding his senses;

It was cutting off his words.

The light soon triggered a memory,

And the memory was of her.

The light was her

And she was the light;She was still in his memory

When he was still in the light.

The last night.

Tonight is our last night together. The last night before she left;

The night I should have stopped her.

I sit on my bed

With my back against the wall.

She sits on my lap

With her head against my chest.

My arms are wrapped around her.She feels cold and empty,

Like her body is made of feathers

And her skull is made of wishes.

We are silent for a long time;

I wait for her to speak.

I can hear the words she wishes to speak claw against her cheeks.

I wait for the words to escape.

When she finally deviates from her cycle of memories,

The words leak from her mouth like water.

Everything she says I remember;

Her words were always of consequence and otherworldly wisdom.

"It's amazing to think that...

The memories you forget you even have...

Always resurface. At some point in time.

Whether you realize it or not. Because they are a part of you.

They are what comprise your existence. They are integrated into the picture you paint of your life

And of your future;

The way you greet other people;

The way you see yourself in the mirror;

The way you interpret your thoughts;

The way you experience emotions

And lose yourself in time.

I was just remembering...

Part of my past.Bits and pieces only. I have no clear beginning,

And certainly no clear end.

But I thought I would share with you my memory.Because I know so much about you...

But you know almost nothing about me.

I know almost nothing about me, too.

So I'll tell you what I can remember.

I was born into the world alone.

Alone and in darkness.

I cannot remember anything about who I had been...

I don't remember anything before the day I first saw you.I only started to live

When I first saw your face.

That's when I realized that I had two hands and feet,

A heart that beat,

And a body that gave off heat. That's when I realized I had a pulse,

I knew how to breathe,

And that thoughts are quieter when you share them with someone else.

I have tried countless times

To remember the faces of my parents. I must have had parents...

All children have parents.Surely I wasn't dropped onto the face of the earth...

I must have been borne to someone.

But every time I try to remember a face...

Every time I get close to seeing a pair of eyes, a set of ears, or a tuft of hair...Your face gets in the way.

And I can never see past it.

I have always felt alone

And I have always felt undead.

But when I saw you in my vision...

I knew that I would be resurrected soon.

And the night I saw your face...

I coughed up blood.

I had never seen blood before;

I had never been alive before.

I wanted to know more about it...

The essence of life on my fingertips.

I rubbed it all over my hands and face. I smelled it and it smelled sweet,

Because life was sweet to me...

Because I had never had one. It was all so new...

Blood smelled like novelty.

And when I looked at the blood that ran from my face onto my arms...

I thought of you and your scars and how much you must have bled. And that was when I realized that we are opposites:

You are living,

And I am long-dead.

I may have blood in my veins,

But I am connected to the spirits of the dead,

And the dead is in me.

I was born dead;

I am death come to life."

I tighten my hold on her;

I am afraid she might be taken away from me.

I don't know why,

But I suddenly feel like I am in the presence of a ghost.

In my head, I think that ghosts can only visit from the past...

But in my heart I know differently. Ghosts exist in the future, too. She is proof -

Nonliving proof.

I feel like she might vanish before my eyes;

I am not ready for her to go yet. She is precious to me,

She is the person I live for. I live for both of us,

Because she is not yet used to being alive.

But maybe,

Even now,

She is not alive. Maybe she is only trying to convince herself,

And maybe the blood in her veins is not hers at all. Maybe it is the blood of her ancestors,

Of the spirits or the gods or even Fate herself,

By whose cruel fingers she would be pried away

And left to rot alone in darkness,

Free to die

Just as she had been born.

As I hold her small frame against my chest,