Chapter Text
"It's okay. Everything will be okay."
Lino listened to that too often as he would freeze in front of kitchen cabinets. He would still the deafening sound of the world circulating around him: the droplets by the sink, the loud scream of the drying machine, the screeching kettle, or the ambulance passing not so far in the distance.
"It's okay. You will be okay. We'll be okay."
Lino listened to that one more time, wondering in his head about what that meant. What his husband, Chan, had implied. Why would he be so concerned? Lino just couldn't remember a bit of.... wait, what was that again? Ah, yeah, on how to turn on the microwave.
'How do we do that? Which buttons? What kind of pot is eligible to be put in?' Lino would take ten solid minutes before finally finding out what to do as he sat cross-legged because the pain was still there. An excruciating one. Chan would come over almost immediately, holding his hands dear, "It's okay. Let me help you."
Lino would stare at him with disbelief and offence, "What do you mean? I am just trying to heat this meal from Eomma. "
Chan would sigh very loudly as he had to recite what he had done in the last three months, "Yeah, honey. But your hand is burning because you take the pot without a kitchen glove. This will handicap you later from-"
"So you think I am a handicapped person?!"
It would always go down there. Lino would raise his voice in every minute detail when Chan reached out to help him. The cat-eyed would throw everything he held and run away to their room. He would run and run until...
"Chan, what room is this?"
Until that. Until Lino stopped in his tracks, almost immediately forgetting about his initial anger. Just like always, Chan would rapidly go to Lino's side as he froze in front of the room.
"It's okay. Let's just go to our room ." He would murmur as he patiently ushered Lino the other way, leaving the door in breathless silence.
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"Chan, why is our clothing smelling like toilet cleaner instead of flowery detergent?"
Chan had just submitted another work online. Since that day, he had made clear that he would only take jobs from home. There would be no way he would leave his husband alone after all that.
This scene was not new. Chan memorized it almost every so often. His Lino would stare at Something in silence, in confusion. Something that had never happened before 'that day.'
Chan would always rush to Lino's side, wherever it would be. Laundry room, kitchen, garage, or even sometimes the toilet.
"Why is the laundry smelled like a toilet cleaner? Did you put a toilet cleaner instead of our detergent?"
Chan wished he could playfully joke around about it like they used to. After all, Lino apparently emptied the whole toilet cleaner instead of detergent into the laundry, not him. Still, there was no way he could defend himself - or joke about that.
"Chan?"
Chan wished he could hold Lino now for emotional support, for he felt the tears form at the brink of his eyes. He wished that it was he who could throw himself to the warm embrace of his cat-eyed husband, telling him how scared he was. How tired he was. How much fear and weakness crippling inside him.
"Chan, do you know what I should do after the laundry?"
Chan could only throw his back a little just so he had a little momentum to wipe his tears.
He longed for his husband. Yet, then, he knew that Lino needed him more than anything.
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"Yo, bro, we're celebrating our album award tonight. Would you like to come?"
It was Bin. He was face-timing Chan right in the middle of Chan's other crying episode. Bin pretended he didn't see, not because he didn't care. Rather, knowing Chan all too well, he knew that the man hated to look weak more than anything. He knew that Chan would always tell his mind when the time came.
Although, if Bin had to be honest, he felt like the time never come, especially in the last three months. Chan would need to remember basic things in their work. All he would talk about was Lino.
" I can't, Bin. Lino needed me." That. Bin had memorized the exact response all too dear in the last three months.
"You know you also have to take care of yourself, right? You can't lose yourself when Lino-Hyung is already over the place."
"What do you mean? Lino is my husband, Bin." Bin could sense the rising tension in Chan's tone. He sure didn't mean to offend his beloved Hyung. Still, he couldn't sit there when his best friend fell apart. Don't get him wrong: he cared for Lino as much. Still, he believed that someone out of that household had to still be sane. Otherwise, both of them would fall apart.
"You do realize that I don't mean that, right? I'm just saying, maybe, you should take Lino-hyung to therapy since..."
"Since what?" This time, Chan's tone grew even harsher.
So, Bin gulped deeply as he tried to choose his words wisely, "Since he had lost his mind from,"
"My husband is not crazy, Changbin."
"I didn't say he was!"
"But you implied?"
"He is depressed, Hyung. And so are you. He can deny it, yes. But you, you shouldn't. One of you had to still hold the stirring wheel clear. You,"
"Channie, do you know how we wash dishes?" Bin's daring attempt to address the elephant in the room was interrupted by a weak shout from Lino from the other side of the room.
So, hurried and hurt, Chan just managed to say one more line, heavy in pain and sarcasm, "I've gotta hang up. Thanks for nothing, Bin. I hope you will never lose a baby like we did."
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Lino was thirty-four when he first conceived. They never tried hard or anything. Both of them knew for long that they would be married one day. They knew it very early, perhaps when they were eighteen.
Still, a baby was never Something they had planned. They didn't work against nor pursue the idea. It was just, for them, having to be together was more important than anything. They didn't even know if any of them would be able to conceive.
Lino put a small gift box beside his freshly baked lemon cake on a late summer day. Chan remembered the day all too dear, including the frown on his brows. Soon as he opened the box, he still awkwardly asked, 'Did you get a woman pregnant?' He sometimes would recall the sting in his forehead because Lino smacked his head rather strongly that day before he grabbed his hands to place them on Lino's abdomen. Chan remembered the tremendous joy and the fallen tears in his eyes that night. He had always wanted children with Lino. Yet, since Lino had not considered bringing up the topic, he would keep them inside himself. So, when the day happened... Chan couldn't even describe how full he felt.
Since that day, Chan recalled only joy. Lino would often complain about his extreme back pain or the breakout in his skin. Chan would always hold him day and night as he extolled the heavily pregnant husband of his. Lino would roll his eyes, saying how Chan was bulshiting his ways. Sometimes, they bicker until they feel the stirring movement inside Lino's abdomen.
They would bicker about who their - child's favourite parent was.
They would bicker about which ice cream flavour they-the child-would liked the best.
Or the colour of the nursery room
The kind of fashion the baby would take, given both of them didn't care the gender, and would most probably raise them in a specific gender spectrum
In the end, they didn't mean any of the tension. They were genuinely happy about becoming parents with each other, the love of each other's life.
One day, Lino was found unconscious in the kitchen. Chan initially felt relieved that he didn't see any blood or signs of miscarriage around. He thought Lino was just a little bit overwhelmed. Until he brought the pregnant husband to the hospital when his whole world stopped,
"Chan-ssi, I think we have to abort the baby. Your baby's blood situation was identified as a toxin to Lino-ssi's body. In the end, there's a chance that you will lose both of them altogether, rather than just Lino-ssi or the baby."
So, Chan had to break that news to Lino. As expected, the cat-eye would reject. Lino screamed and shouted at Chan when the latter suggested an abortion.
"What's the point of having a child when we don't get to raise them together, Lino? We can always try for another one. Someday. But for now, if we carry on, it's not just about losing you or the baby. It was not. It was 'both.' Do you really have the heart to do that to me?"
Chan remembered Lino's heavily crying face as he was ushered into the operating room. Chan recalled how lifeless and empty Lino's turned after he regained consciousness. Chan was ready for tantrums, hatred, or condemnation. Surprisingly, there was nothing. Nothing.
Lino would only murmur lowly, requesting what kind of funeral he pictured for their baby. He would eerily calm Chan instead, saying how he - Chan - would have another baby one day.
Chan felt he should've known things wouldn't be as perfect as they seemed, for the symptoms came later, one at a time.
"Channie, how does someone brush their teeth?"
"Channie, there's this bag with 'tea' written on it. Should I eat it?"
"Channie, if my clothes are dirty, the internet says I had to do laundry. What's that?"
Chan wished there were books for those who lost their children and not just for those who were expecting - pregnant. Chan wished he could tell too: that Lino wasn't the only one losing the child, but also him. And as days went by, Chan realized that he didn't only lose a child, he also lost his husband.
He perhaps didn't realize another major fact: he started losing himself too.
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"Chan, how do we do the dishes?"
As Chan was absorbed back into reality, he wished the earth would swallow him whole, once and for all.
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Link to the TedTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1O_MjMRkPg
Let's be moots! @ShadesofShipps