Chapter Text
***
Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes
But it's the only thing that I know
When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes
It's the only thing that makes us feel alive
***
Dunk Natachai died in spring, when sunflowers bloomed in the garden welcoming the beautiful world after long, depressing rainy days. Phuwin also felt that after Dunk's death, Joong also stopped his time at that spring.
After the day Dunk died, Joong never wanted to talk again. He just sat on the bed where Dunk struggled with his illness for years. His empty eyes were always silently staring at the whiteboard where dozens of photos were pasted on it. Joong didn't come to Dunk's funeral –until the end he was fighting himself who wanted to believe that Dunk was gone, he didn't cry either –or at least Phuwin never saw him cry. But his silence was worse than the possibility of Joong crying all day, because the man was dead. Pond tried to scold Joong every day and said that that was not the kind of life Dunk wanted to happen to Joong after the man was gone. But Joong didn't pay any heed to Pond's words. And Phuwin knew that over time his lover had started to give up talking to Joong Archen.
Phuwin himself, he didn't know what to say. He's not the type to give advice to others because he didn't know what it's like to be in Joong's position. The person he loves is still alive and with him all the time, he didn't know how it felt to be left behind forever by someone so meaningful. Especially when they made a promise where they would meet again after being apart for two years. Joong was disappointed, he was hurt.
Joong's health was getting worse day by day. He didn't want to eat so in the end he had to be given an IV. His parents came home and settled down to see and take care of him. They didn't look too surprised at Joong's condition, sad yes, but surprise? No. Especially his mother, not as Phuwin expected. When Mrs. Aydin told Phuwin about Joong's past, Phuwin understood. Joong had experienced something similar, and he fell sick when Dunk left him when they were high schoolers – even though there was a possibility that he would meet the man again. But now? Little by little Phuwin started to understand how Joong felt. Where did his eyes always go every day –at those photos, Phuwin began to understand that in Joong's mind, Dunk was still alive. And that was the truth.
Sometimes, a person lives for the truth they want to believe and not for the truth that actually happened, because it is easier for someone to accept the things they want to believe.
Phuwin felt his heart ache seeing his friend trapped in his own truth. But just like everyone did when dealing with something tough, Joong needed time. Phuwin believed that one day Joong will return because he knew Dunk himself will bring him back into life even though the man couldn't be by his side anymore.
After waiting for an entire month, the day arrived. That afternoon Phuwin was tidying up Dunk's things in his room –Joong was in his and Dunk's garden. He was always there from noon to evening and Phuwin had been there, he saw Joong just remain still while looking at the sky. Phuwin was tidying up the patient's clothes that Dunk last wore on the day he died, that's when he found something in his trouser pocket.
A photo.
Through Phuwin's eyes when he was observing the series of photos on the whiteboard, he realized that there were no photos of Joong and Dunk there –the photo that included only the two of them in it. But there was one photo that Dunk didn't stick there and he kept it in his pocket.
It was a photo of him and Joong. Just the two of them. Smiling happily and Joong kissed Dunk's cheek in the photo.
Dunk kept it to the end, he didn't stick it on the whiteboard because he knew he would remember that day. He will remember the photo.
Phuwin swore, that day was the first day in his life he cried like the saddest person in this world. He wept profusely and his weeping lasted a long time. Long enough until he found Pond who came into the room and looked at him in shock –shaking him many times while asking what was wrong. He didn't like seeing Pond worried but he didn't know what to do with his broken heart.
He didn't know how Joong felt about Dunk that was leaving for forever, but even as a friend who witnessed almost everything – Phuwin knew he was heartbroken too. His heart ached to see so much hope that happened between the two of them that in the end had to be gone in an instant, because fate said otherwise.
Maybe, just maybe, the thing that hurt Joong the most wasn't Dunk leaving him alone. The thing that hurt him the most was the fact that he always waited for Dunk with hope. He waited every second of it, he waited for the moment when the happiness he felt would come for the second time. The same happiness that he wanted to feel again when he saw the photos of him and Dunk on every polaroid sheet. And Dunk was waiting with pain, waiting for Joong to come back and prove that the hope they always yearned for would come back again. But at the end of the wait, everything had to end with Dunk's last breath – and Joong knew that the happiness he was waiting for would also go with that man.
Phuwin didn't say anything else after that realization, he just told Pond that he wanted to meet Joong. Pond tried to understand it and the man even helped Phuwin jump over the bedroom window so he could get to the garden. The sun was already hanging low, maybe only an hour left until the sky was completely dark. Phuwin found Joong in the same position he remembered Joong always was in.
Phuwin was sure Joong knew that someone was coming, but Joong didn't say anything. Phuwin was just silent as he sat beside his friend, also looking at the light in the evening sky –a stark contrast to their mood.
Gently, Phuwin gave the photo he found to Joong.
“Are you looking for this photo?”
For the first time Joong responded to something. The man turned to Phuwin's hand and his eyes showed something deep when he saw what Phuwin gave. Then he picked it up and stared at it for a long time. Phuwin was still waiting.
"I found it in the trouser pocket that Dunk wore last."
Now Joong looked at him and his eyes filled with tears. Phuwin smiled gently, he knew the only one who could bring back Joong's emotions was only Dunk Natachai .
“Phu.” Joong's voice was so weak, his voice was hoarse and Phuwin really missed the joyful note in that voice – it had been a long time since he last heard it. "It hurts."
Then Joong started crying and Phuwin was trying his best not to cry along with the big man. His friend, brother, and best friend.
“It hurts to the point that I want to die.”
Joong started to punch himself in the chest and all Phuwin could do was pat him on the back –just like how his mother used to comfort him when he cried because his beloved dog was killed by a car. Joong's cries got louder and Phuwin knew they could be heard all the way to Dunk's room. Pond, who was worried, immediately approached the two of them in the garden and Phuwin asked the man not to come closer.
When Joong calmed down a bit, now he could only look down and bite hard on his lips until it felt like Phuwin was starting to see the blood there.
“Dunk once told me that you always wait for him. When the man stopped his sentence because he forgot what to say, when he took a long time to choose the food menu at the restaurant, when he had not finished reading for days. Dunk said, you never do anything. You were just waiting for him." Once again Joong turned to him, his eyes showing a big question mark because of the topic that Phuwin suddenly brought up.
“And he was most grateful for that.”
Joong snorted, "I didn't do anything meaningful."
“But for Dunk, it meant a lot. Do you know why?"
Joong was silent, Phuwin could see through his eyes that the man didn't know anything about Dunk's feelings about this.
“Because by waiting for him, he knew that you believed in him. You believed that he would finish his sentence, he would choose his food menu, he would also finish his reading. . in the end.”
Phuwin smiled sincerely. Joong never knew how good a man he was. Even though sometimes Phuwin liked to be rude to Joong, but deep down, he loves his friend like a brother. Joong was like that, he always did what he usually did and he never realized what he was doing was something that really meant a lot to other people.
“Maybe that's also the reason why Dunk asked you to leave him that day. Because he wanted to repay what you have done to him in the same way.”
"What do you mean?"
“At that time Dunk thought that it was his turn to wait for you. He wanted to show you that he believed in you as well as you have believed in him all along.”
Something like an understanding hit Joong, Phuwin could see through how his eyes sparked something even though they dimmed again. Phuwin knew he wasn't good at talking, but he had to tell the things that miraculously Phuwin understood about Dunk Natachai. Joong should know too.
“Now, Dunk is gone. We all miss him – you will miss him terribly. I know, Joong."
Joong nodded, he whispered something weakly – almost sounded like a whisper to himself saying how much he missed that man.
"But can you just think that right now, in a much more peaceful place – painlessly, Dunk is waiting for you? In that place, Dunk believes that you two will meet again. And maybe it's for the best because he couldn't do that in this place – he's too sick to do that.”
Yes, that's what Phuwin understood and that's what Phuwin wanted to tell Joong too. That they will meet again, maybe not in this world but surely they will meet again.
“Can you think like that and also trust that man?”
At first it was difficult, but little by little after that day – Joong changed. It seemed like whatever Phuwin said to him had sunk deep into his heart –and to be honest it wasn't Phuwin's words that changed him, maybe Dunk himself had done it to Joong. Phuwin could feel that there was another hope rising within his friend.
The hope that he can still be happy with Dunk, later, at a time he can't know for sure.
Joong was back to work. He ate, he worked, he played as usual, he lived. Smiles returned to his family and Joong even though sometimes his smiles never really touched his eyes– but he was more able to show his emotions.
Phuwin thought everything was back in place, but he was wrong. Joong had something happen to him and neither Phuwin nor Pond realized it, it was too late when they found out.
Phuwin often heard rumors that Joong was a doctor who couldn't perform surgery. He always thought the rumors were ridiculous because Joong was a professional doctor and there was nothing for him to be afraid – Phuwin always knew Joong as a confident and positive guy. It wasn't until a month after he heard the rumors that he found out the real reason why Joong was afraid of doing a surgery on someone.
He was very traumatized when he heard the heart monitor machine working.
A major operation was performed and for the first time Joong and Phuwin were in the same operating room. The operation went badly that time because the patient could not be saved due to complications, his heart stopped beating and the monitor made a distinctive monotone sound. At that time Joong had a panic attack. He couldn't breathe and his face turned blue. Phuwin immediately took the man out and saw him vomiting in the bathroom. Then when he finished emptying his entire stomach, his body was still shaking and he still couldn't breathe properly so he had to be rushed to the ER.
When Joong fell asleep after that episode, Phuwin realized, it seemed like Joong's time was still stuck at the moment when he heard Dunk's heart monitor indicating that the pulse of life had stopped. Even though Joong wanted to get up, something inside him locked the memory of that day and it traumatized him because the memory could never be erased.
Sometimes life is funny.
In the past, Dunk tried his best not to forget the things he wanted to remember. And now Joong was doing his best to erase memories of things he wanted to forget but could never.
How could fate make the lives of these two people so tragic?
After that day, Joong decided to continue his medical studies abroad. He chose Germany due to its technological advances. Phuwin found out later that Joong was also researching dementia there.
One year, two years, five years later Phuwin and Pond finally heard something from Joong Archen. The news that made them all remembered Dunk again. Because all this time, especially after Joong left for Germany, the man never talked about Dunk again. Now when he heard Dunk's name come again from the man's lips, everything felt better.
Joong opened a donation site to help dementia patients. The patients that felt as if there was no hope anymore in this world. The name of the donation site was: Dunk's HOPE. It seemed that the donation site had received a lot of positive responses and more and more funds for medicine development have been received from volunteers all over the world.
One year later, Phuwin and Pond felt proud of their friend because the man was in the newspapers in Thailand and also in his present country, Germany. After all this time, finally there was one dementia patient who recovered from her illness. Of course this brought great hope for other dementia sufferers. And one of the doctors who managed to help the patient to recover was Doctor Aydin, Joong, his best friend.
Joong was asked how he could create this miracle by the media and the press and Joong just shook his head. He did not create miracles, he only helped miracles happen. Joong said that dementia patients are not just patients who are physically sick like other illnesses, dementia patients are patients who also need care and trust because they are also in pain psychologically. No one faces the pain as big as the patient themself.
“Although I have never experienced this disease myself. But someone once showed me how frustrating it could be to forget things they wanted to remember. They were tormented by themselves. And most of them wanted to give up because it's so hard.”
“When that happens, don't let go of their hands. You just need to be around them, waiting for them and trusting that they can handle themselves. It's fine if they forget the people around them, you just have to say who you are, introduce yourself again and also say that 'There's nothing wrong with forgetting me, everyone has weaknesses.' Being by their side makes them feel much better than giving them medicines and therapies.”
Phuwin remembered seeing Pond teary eyed when he heard Joong's story on the news. Joong made his country proud and Dunk was right, Joong can create miracles for this world.
One year later, Sare got married. It was then that Joong returned to their country and met Phuwin again. They were already in their thirties and Joong only laughed when his parents' relatives asked when he would be getting married, Joong was the most popular single in the country – they joked while patting the man on the shoulder proudly. Phuwin and Pond could only smile bitterly from a distance.
After Sare's wedding, Joong spent most of his time at Pond's old house –which was only a few blocks from the hospital where Phuwin worked, Joong sneered while laughing. Even though Pond himself already had a much more decent house in the suburbs with Phuwin, he will never sell this house because of the memories in it. While he was there Joong drank several cans of beer and even though it was short, Phuwin knew what the man's eyes were searching for, he kept looking around. Joong seemed to be looking for Dunk in this house. Yes, this was indeed the first time Joong set himself up at Pond's house again.
It seemed like returning to Pond's old house opened Joong's Pandora's box. After that day he didn't straight away return to Germany, he visited an amusement park – rode the pirate ship alone, came to Dunk's favorite chicken franchise, and he ended up in Dunk's patient room which had been empty for a long time.
Only then did Phuwin find out that Joong bought the room and held the key. Joong didn't go home and fell asleep there for days.
When he returned to Germany, Joong said a strange goodbye to Phuwin and Pond. He said he would come home. And he was very happy to have known Phuwin Tangsakyuen and Pond Naravit in his life. He always hoped that they would always be healthy and happy.
Three months later, through the media, Phuwin understood what Joong meant.
"Phu, I'm going home. I am so happy."
Joong died at the age of thirty-two due to a sudden heart attack while he was treating one of his dementia patients. The doctor there diagnosed that it was possible for a healthy, asymptomatic adult male to have a sudden heart attack like Joong's, the disease's name being Brugada Syndrome.
Joong's death brought deep sorrow to the health world because he was remembered as someone who was very instrumental in developing a cure for dementia. Phuwin and Pond experienced that sadness again for the second time, they had to lose their friend quickly and suddenly. But in their hearts, they were happy because Dunk and Joong's waiting was finally over. Now they are met.
And from what they saw the last time they met Joong, the man seemed to know that his time was not far off and he looked more peaceful than whenever they had known a Joong Archen.
Seven years after Dunk's death, now it's Joong's turn to leave this world. But there wasn't too much grief after that, as anyone who knew Joong well would know.
The man really wanted to go home.
He missed Dunk.
And now, they have met again in another dimension that humans couldn't think of. They could finally be happy, maybe happier than their happiness that was forever imprinted on the photos they took.
***
So you can keep me
Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans
Holding me closer 'til our eyes meet
You won't ever be alone,
wait for me to come home
***
“Dunk!”
Dunk was looking at the sky, sitting on a garden bench. When he heard the voice, Dunk looked back, he smiled when he saw the figure he missed so much appeared there. The man smiled at him, ran as hard as he could to make the white gown he was wearing carried backwards by the wind.
He ran to Dunk.
"Aren't you coming too soon, Chen?"
Joong smiled stupidly when he arrived in front of Dunk who had stood up from his seat, the man greeted him with a warm gaze.
"I have completed my task there, you watched everything from here, right?" Joong smiled even wider when he saw Dunk nodding proudly at him.
"Doctor, you are really cool."
Dunk gave a thumbs up then they stared at each other for a long time then he smiled so brightly. Their eyes spoke to each other, saying things they didn't have time to say in person when they were still on the other side.
When they were done with their communication, Dunk took Joong's hand and held it tightly. Now it was his turn to take this hand and Joong had never been happier than he was right now.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"Home."
FIN