Chapter Text
Where shadows fall, I find my voice.
In your eyes, my heart survives.
Pearly laughter from lychee lips paints Sunghoon's world with so much unbridled joy that he might as well be wearing rose-coloured glasses.
Something so mundane as helping cook for the patients becomes such a variety show to him.
"What are they even doing?" Beomgyu asks, looking over her shoulder as she passes by with the IV tray.
"Living passionately," Jay replies to her, appearing bored but secretly suppressing his smile. He stands at the door.
Inside the kitchen, it's a whole dilemma.
"You just have to chop them gently like this, not commit a brutally heinous serial killing of the poor onions," Sunoo corrects him gently, though Sunghoon thinks his smile is a bit too wide to not be secretly controlling his laughter.
He puffs out his cheeks, sweating and teary-eyed, and begins clumsily pushing the unfortunate chopped onions into the sizzling wok. Then gasps as some evil stray drops of the scorching oil hit his arms.
He backs down as per instinct and almost ends up falling on the floor when Sunoo's hands grab his waist.
"Hyung, you can just sit down," Sunoo repeats for the sixth time that afternoon, with the same hurried smile and airy voice. "You've helped a lot, I'll carry on just fine."
"No," Sunghoon is one stubborn bitch, because never back down never what? Never give up. He's not sitting down even if he's a total ass in the kitchen, even if he ends up burning half the hospital before fire brigade can even pick up the call. Because yes, that's how offended he is by the hospital food.
"Bro thinks he's the Imma-die-before-I-lose typpa main character," Beomgyu wheels away the tray, deciding to give those patients their IVs before witnessing a hospital arson.
Jay stays at the door, keeping an eye on the enthusiastic volunteers inside. "Might as well bring a fire extinguisher here."
"Don't be dramatic, Jay. It's always good to die a heroic death," Sunghoon states wisely.
"Not this heroic. You know what? Imma just head out. Couldn't text my dad that I love him so I can't really afford to die right now." And then he for real leaves, but not before passing Heeseung and Jake in the way, who enter the kitchen just after.
"...death and disease. When the taxol started, he went all glossy eyed and quiet and I can't even describe anymore. It breaks my heart, it just breaks my heart to see them like this," Jake fervently yaps with a quiver in his voice, as though he's horribly close to tears, to a Heeseung nodding somberly.
"Chemotherapy is the worst, I try my best to call in sick everytime I get a duty there. Like, no thanks. How could the universe be so cruel on some people? Sunghoon, you're not supposed to be standing for long?"
Sunghoon swears frustratedly at his concotion before turning to face Heeseung. "Sunoo's here to take care of me—"
"Sunghoon woke up and decided to revolutionalize hospital cuisine!" Jay calls out from outside as he leaves. "So be sure to keep a fire extinguisher with ya!"
"Damn, is it that bad?" Heeseung peers interestedly in the wok. "Sunghoon seems a bit enthusiastic?"
Sunoo hands Sunghoon some green onions to chop, then answers, "Sunghoon is definitely a bit more than enthusiastic, though. Just look at the way he cuts these..."
Jake studies Sunghoon while he's cutting the green onions and then sighs. "I don't think the cookbook tells us to behead them like a psychopath. Anyway, you do you bae. At least you're passionate."
"Um, guys," Sunghoon confronts the cookbook, a finger between his teeth, "Is there a difference between salt and white pepper?"
The sterile kitchen falls into silence.
"I guess I'll just go and bring the extinguisher," Heeseung says quietly.
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"They have this little thing going on, Heeseung hyung and Jake. Explicit, in all meanings of the word," Sunghoon tells Sunoo as he brushes his wet blonde locks. "Me and Jay even caught them red-handed once, if you'll believe me."
"What are the odds?" Sunoo's speech is punctuated by unusually loud mouth-breathing, but Sunghoon doesn't mind.
He shrugs. "I think they're confused? I think Jake's fallen in love and Heeseung thinks of them as something casual?"
"Just as nosy as me, aren't you? I'll be honest, you don't really look the type."
"To be nosy?" Sunghoon grins. "You'll be surprised, I am a lot of things I don't look. For example, gay."
"I disagree. You look VERY gay. Just really confident and sassy in your own way."
"Wow, thanks. I was worried I'd give off the vibes of a disgusting alpha or sigma male. Anyway, back to topic."
Sunoo spares a tentative glance outside the curtains at the door, to check if Heeseung was back from his shift yet. He had gone again into the chemo bay, and had left them in the ward with the promise that he will be back by a few hours, leaving the other temporarily disabled patients in the care of Sunoo.
"Do you think you could pry things out of Jake so we could think about how we can properly play matchmaker?"
Sunghoon clicks his tongue. "I'm closer to Jake than Jay, but it's still been such a small amount of time I've been with them. I'll try anyway."
"Good—" Sunoo's words are cut short by coughing. But then he emerges. "Sorry. I mean I'll...(cough) ask Heeseung—"
The coughing doesn't stop. Sunghoon's whole body stills, hairbrush still clutched tightly in his right hand. "Sunoo?"
"I'm fine," Sunoo wheezes, then coughs again. "It happens sometimes, I'm fine."
But the coughing still doesn't stop. Sunghoon feels solid ice where his spine should be. "Should I call a nurse? Heeseung hyung?"
He bolts towards his phone and dials Heeseung's number while pressing the red bell button on the wall at the same time and waits for three minutes. None of them answer. None of them answer and Sunoo's coughing and wheezing still doesn't stop.
The older dials Heeseung's phone twice more then gives up because he knows that the nurse is in the chemo bay. He presses the emergency call button multiple times. No one comes.
He turns back towards the younger now struggling to breathe. "Sunoo..."
People say that when you love someone you consider them your superior in all causes. Most of poetry has been written with that opinion in view. But it's also just an opinion, and opinions vary.
Love is a strange thing. When you love someone, seriously love someone with all your being, you don't just think of them as your superior. You think of them as your superior, your inferior and your equal, something that is engraved in every bit of you. Something that breathes everytime you take a breath, something that survives whilst you survive. Ardent love will always have impurities, because pure love doesn't actually exist, can't exist.
Real love has all other emotions tied to itself; happiness and sadness, hopelessness and hopefulness, adoration and envy, all simultaneously. You unconsciously pity them so you care for them. You unconsciously envy them so you adore them. They're so ethereal in your eyes that you can't help but curse them a little for making you so smitten. People don't realize it, but it happens. Emotions always have their anti-emotions present with them.
Because that's just how humans love and be loved. Because that's just how humans are, equal parts heavenly and grotesque, angels damned to live in a fatally ill planet, and a horribly limited lifetime.
So when Sunghoon's dark, fearful eyes meet Sunoo's caramel, tear-filled ones; his heart seems to bleed onto his ribs and his stomach, melting them into something helpless and beaten. Sunoo can't breathe and his hands are cold when Sunghoon holds them.
Cold, like the blizzard. Cold like his mother's voice. Cold like the rink when he fell.
Cold, like Jungwon's last laughter and his hand when it slackened inside Sunghoon's grip. Cold, like Gaeul's decaying body buried in layers of snow as it rained down upon her lifeless form. It was so white, whiter than the fluff of her fur.
"Someone!" Sunghoon shouts out into the setting sun outside. Sunoo gasps and pants and slowly turns blue. His eyes are gold, hands cold where they rest inside Sunghoon's big ones. So cold that the warmth of the older boy's hands, that used to stabilize their temperature, that used to be the sky for the burning star, means nothing anymore.
"Nurse! Doctor, anyone!" Sunghoon shrieks so loud he feels his throat wound. "Someone, please! Come here! Help us! Help us!"
("No, no!"
Cold, cold, cold. White.
Everything is cold and white. Until it isn't.
Until it's red.)
"EMERGENCY! RESPIRATORY EMERGENCY!"
He undoes the buttons on Sunoo's shirt and elevates the struggling boy's head. He is still blue. He still can't breathe.
("Jungwon! Jungwon, look at me," Sunghoon shouts through a mouth full of blood. The metallic taste of iron.
But Sunghoon is not a murderer. He is just sorry. He is just sorry.
"Jungwon, please," and Jungwon looks at him.
"Hurts, everything is red." He lets out a tiny laugh and it burns an ever unclosing hole inside Sunghoon's gut. "The snow is so pretty.")
"IT'S LIFE THREATENING! SOMEONE, ANYONE!"
Sunghoon tries to run out and shriek in the open, but he falls to the cold hard floor on his face, lips cutting and starting to bleed, teeth chattering and starting to ache. The other patients try to call out but alas, helpless as they were lying on their backs, useless as they were standing on their feet.
He looks back up to see Sunoo. His eyes roll back into his skull, and Sunghoon's eyes cry. His heart bleeds. Hands shake, voice trembles.
("HELP US! SOMEONE, ANYONE!"
The snow is so beautiful. Painted white and tainted red. Red. Red.
There's a pool of blood where Sunghoon's mouth is. Both his legs are as though they've been bitten off of his body. Beneath all the stream of red dripping from his left leg, the white of the bone sticks out. Head spinning, he looks up at the sky.
Please, please help us. Please, please don't help me. Let me die, so that I'll be forgiven.
Will I be forgiven?)
Sunoo falls over beside him, still gasping and panting, desperate for a single breath. The single breath that Sunghoon takes easily, with zero effort, and he hates this very breath that's being given to him and not Sunoo.
Seconds become hours, minutes become a lifetime. The lifetime that's slowly being sucked out of Sunoo's lungs. In, out. Breathe in, out. He can't. Neither of them can, at this very moment.
"Sunoo, we'll get through this, we'll..." Sunghoon's hopeless motivation goes fruitless as Sunoo remains unaware of his words. The older just decides to hold his cold hand. Tightly. Sunoo grips it back with the little life residing inside him.
(There's no leash in his hand. He's let three lives die, three innocent lives. Jungwon never did anything wrong. Maeum never did anything wrong.
Gaeul, his heart drops to his stomach. Gaeul never did anything wrong.
So who's the sinner? In between him and Jungwon, in between heavens and the earth, where lies the evil? Is it the spreading blood across the snow, or the last ghost of laughter in Jungwon's eyes that reflect the stars he now couldn't see? The protruding bone from Sunghoon's skin, or the darkness seeping into his open wounds? The red blood in his mouth, nose, eyes — all over his conscience?
Sunghoon is not a murderer. He's just sorry. He's just really, really sorry and all of it is useless. Jungwon lies decaying next to him, already so far away despite being near.
Lost somewhere between beginnings and endings, discarded by fate. A terrible, beautiful, haunting melody.)
Sunoo's hand is still cold as ever, but now it loses all the warmth underneath and slackens, pulse fading. Sunghoon knows how this will end.
I don't know why I try anymore.
And you go, and I stay?
It's always the right person and the wrong ways. I hate to be right, please tell me I'm wrong, please tell me I'm wrong.
"Hyung.. don't ... cry.. I..." Sunoo struggles and struggles.
'Cause it's on again, off again, love you like oxygen. I don't know what to say, or do.
"Sunoo," Sunghoon cries and bleeds, cries and bleeds, cries and bleeds, "My Sunoo. Hold on. Breathe for me, my love, please breathe for me."
Rip apart my chest, yank open my ribcage and take my lungs. Let every breath of life that I take become yours.
On again, off again, love you like oxygen. You don't know what I'd do for you.
"..love..." And then Sunoo's breathing, that meant the entire universe to Sunghoon, ceases.
Sunghoon closes his eyes, unable to restrain the tears clogging his throat. They become acid inside. He gently runs his hand through his beloved's blonde locks, wraps him in a hug and buries his face into his shoulder, his heart shattered and soul crushed into nothingness.
He cries bitterly.
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"Sohyunnie! Don't run too fast, you'll fall!"
Trees of winter stand like skeletal sentinels, branches etched into the sky like the lines of a child's drawing, mournful. Sunghoon doesn't know yet what mourning is. Or he doesn't yet realize it.
"Sohyun!"
He laughs and runs after his sister, small feet periodically drowning in the blanket of snow and back up again. The snowflakes crumble and break under his touch.
"You'll never get your snowman's nose again, oppa!" Sohyun shrieks with glee, waving the carrot in the air as she runs between the trees, her magenta scarf flapping behind her.
Then she stumbles, legs tangled together as she falls flat on her back. Sunghoon stops laughing and runs faster, feet pounding against the snow and sending it flying everywhere.
"I told you so! I told you not to run," Sunghoon helps his sister up, letting her lean on him as she stands and starts wiping snow off her face. Tears start falling on her cheeks. "Oh, no, it's okay! Don't cry. The snow is soft! It probably doesn't even hurt this much."
Sohyun glares at him mid-sob, tears instantly freezing on her eyelashes due to the cold air piercing her skin. Then she pushes him harshly, suddenly laughing, and he lands on his back against the harsh white snow.
"Ah, okay, I'm sorry! It hurts a lot," Sunghoon sighs as he stands on his feet, brushing off the remaining snow from Sohyun's face and clothes. Then he does the same to his coat.
"I wish removing the bad things off life was as easy as brushing off this snow."
Sunghoon pauses. "What do you mean?"
"Things we can't help, things we can't control..."
The hospital reports. Gold, silver and bronze medals. Sohyun staring longingly at her parents hovering over Sunghoon at all times, going to school without a packed lunch while the three of them went to interviews and photoshoots.
The poor five year old wishes Sunghoon would get removed off of her life. She must wish it.
He is going to die, to die. All good things come to an end, but all bad things come to their end too. So he is going to die.
The evil has spread in his heart, though the doctors say that it is a disease.
"Oppa, why do you look so sad? Don't be sad. Sohyun will take you to the snow fairy."
"To the what?"
"The snow fairy. He makes everyone happy, heals wounds." Then she sprints away towards the darkness.
"Yah, SOHYUN! Eomma will kill me today. Don't get lost, please, I'm so tired of running!"
But Sunghoon stands up and chases after her anyway. The snow-drenched woods are creepy enough as it is — he doesn't want to find out the species of dangerous beasts in this forest the hard way.
He leaps into the dark, but his sister is nowhere to be found.
"Sohyun..?"
An eerie silence. Sohyun seems to have disappeared off the face of earth. His heart jumps up to beat in his throat.
"SOHYUN! STOP PLAYING, PLEASE, THERE ARE BAD ANIMALS HERE!" Sunghoon shouts. But like always, his voice carries neither meaning nor reply, even as it echoes in the desolate forest.
Snow is starting to fall. Sunghoon still hasn't found Sohyun. The winds pick up, fanning his face with occasional harsh, cold flakes.
"SOHYUN!"
He sprints blindly in the dark, just barely missing the tree trunks, shouting into the distance where light fades.
"Your sister has gone home to her parents, safe and sound."
A blinding flash of light makes Sunghoon stumble. He covers his eyes and squints. "Who are you?"
A bright figure walks into existence, growing tall against the dark, illuminating the leafless, lifeless trees. "What am I, indeed, if not the deepest parts of your calamity-stricken heart?"
Sunghoon tilts his head to the side in wonder. "How do you know my heart?"
"How else would I know, if you hadn't yanked open your ribcage and offered it to me to eat? Peeled like a pomegranate and it got stuck in between my teeth. Your sorrowful flesh and blood contained something no ten year old's should."
Snow flies directly on their bodies. Sunghoon continuously tries to wipe it from his face, but the bright figure remains unbothered. Perhaps it was because he was more light than shape, more insubstantial than not. Even so, Sunghoon couldn't help but feel not so scared. Calm, even. He couldn't help but feel that he will not be harmed here. Not after what he's gone through.
"Why would you want to eat my heart, of all hearts?" Sunghoon speaks slowly, starting to shiver now. He puts his hands in his pockets but they're even colder than outside. "I'm... I'm abnormal. Eomma keeps telling me it's my fault. Appa keeps telling me to do better. Sohyun, she... I'm sorry to her. I don't know. Sorry."
"My weather-beaten boy. Tell me, when we get cold, what do we do? What do you do?" The bright light stands in front of him but the sound seems to come from somewhere else. Somewhere inside of the shivering little ten year old's chest, loud enough for the entire forest to hear. And, strange enough, everyone did seem to be listening in — even the violent blizzard of the night.
"When we get cold, like really cold, we try to... To get warm..." Sunghoon timidly answers, then continues a bit confidently when the figure nods at him. "We wrap ourselves up in blankets, drink hot drinks, eat something hot. I love it when Eomma makes us all soup and Appa tells us stories when we sit down to eat. That time, I feel... Normal."
"And what makes you feel you're not normal now?"
Expectations, camera clicks, the extra muscle in his heart...
Sunghoon swallows all the words on the tip of his tongue. "I just have to do well."
Crowds, competition...
"Well, as in just okay or well as in, better than most?" The figure cheekily asks, and Sunghoon, despite himself, feels the corners of his mouth lift.
"Well, as in, the best."
"Such big wounds at such a small age. Why do you have to be the best? What about life — this traitorous, fleeting sensation?"
"I have to do it, for Eomma, Appa, Sohyun..."
"And what will happen if, God forbid, you're not the best? If you fail?"
Sunghoon purses his lips. "Eomma and Appa will be angry, Sohyun would hate me more. And I, I'll just... Disappear."
The figure smiles; or at least appears to. Sunghoon can't tell because it doesn't have a face. "Disappearing isn't the worst fate, you know. Sometimes it's necessary to disappear in one world and appear in another. Sunghoon, you have been standing in the blizzard for too long, stuck inside your head and you haven't ever known what it's like to be warm. What little warmth you've experienced before is a mere ghost of what you deserve to feel."
"So you mean," Sunghoon looks at his hands and the way they're ice made flesh, "that we won't be standing here in the cold for long?"
"That decision is nobody's to make, but yours. Walk out searching for warmth or find it lingering underneath, waiting to be felt. Whichever decision you make, let light enter. Winter is over, so I beg you, please let spring bloom in your barren garden — even if it is temporary."
Sunghoon dreamily looks up at the figure, not even noticing the subsiding blizzard around him which was calming down quietly. Must all flowers bloom in spring? What about the ones that bloom in winter? If spring's to come, then does that mean that the flowers of winter have to... die?
"It's time," the figure says as wolves start howling in the background. The ground underneath the snow begins to shake.
That's when Sunghoon remembers it. The tender, refreshing fragrance of lychee.
"Sunoo," his lips form the word even before he knows what it is, what it means. Of how cosmos bleeds from his lips when he says it. "Where is Sunoo?"
The ground trembles violently, knocking Sunghoon off his feet for a second time. The figure towers over him in silence, as though contemplating, then finally answers.
"Sunoo is not in pain. Anymore."
And then, without warning, the figu re flies into Sunghoon's chest. Warmth, glorious and unbelievable warmth spreads through the entirety of his body.
The forest dissolves, and so does he.
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Clank, clank, clank.
Sunghoon's eyes are burning.
Clank, clank.
He opens them with difficulty, wincing when the bright lights hit them.
His vision adjusts to witness a feeble, fragile old man being wheeled away into the trauma OT. His first thought is the fact that the glowing figure is still nearby, watching.
Oh, it was just a dream. Sunghoon blinks violently. It was just a dream. And Sunoo, his heart sinks as he remembers it, Sunoo is nowhere to be found in this realm anymore.
He blinks back the immediate tears that threatened to drown him, tries to feel stronger than how much his heart can ever be, and glances around in the waiting area. Either that it's a late hour, or that there aren't many patients here anymore.
He blinks against the waterfall building speedily behind his eyelashes. Everything hurts. Maybe this is what it feels like, to have the whole sky fall on you.
"Sunghoon?"
He looks up. Brown doe eyes and pink thin lips.
"Heeseung hyung." It is not a question. Not even an answer.
The nurse nods, looking somewhat intimidated. "Let me take you to Sunoo."
Here comes the waterfall. Sunghoon's whole body shakes with pain and fury and the intensity of his sobs. "You... Irresponsible fucking management... You..."
Heeseung sighs in a long-suffering way, shaking his head from side to side.
"I kept screaming, kept calling you..." Sunghoon becomes unable to speak due to uncontrollable weeping.
"Dr. Choi wants to talk to you." Heeseung merely states and gets aside to let Yeonjun pass. The doctor bows his head in front of Sunghoon. "I'm so sor—"
"DON'T FUCKING COMPLETE THE SENTENCE, YOU BASTARD! I SAID, DON'T SPEAK!" Sunghoon screams between earth-shattering sobs, completely out of his mind.
"Oh, no, he's undergone extreme distress," Dr. Choi Soobin appears in the hallway and runs towards Sunghoon, who now realizes that he's sitting on his wheelchair.
"I know what you did, I know what you did with Soobin's wife, I know what you... Sunoo never deserved it. He never hurt anyone, he didn't deserve it... Didn't deserve to die because of your mistake..." Sunghoon seems to have crossed all the thin lines of insanity, emotionally shattered. "You're a lying, cheating—"
"What are you talking about, Sunghoon-ssi?" Yeonjun frowns profusely. "I don't quite understand? How can you call me a cheater?"
Soobin rubs his shoulders as he cries. "Sunghoon-ssi, let it all out, it's better than to keep your pain inside. Jagi, don't stress him out, he's gone through extreme trauma at the moment."
Jagi?!
"Wait a damn minute—"
Yeonjun sighs, then shows him the ring on his finger. "Sunghoon-ssi, never in the 28 years of my life have I ever cheated. The woman who, you think is my husband's wife, is also mine. I'm married to two people."
Sunghoon's jaw falls open and for a good moment he stares ahead at the two doctors, tears still falling on his cheeks subconsciously. Then he asks in a small voice, "Is that even possible?"
"Of course," Soobin lets out a sigh of relief at Sunghoon's calming state. "Yes, the government legalized that three years ago. We have been married for this long."
Sunghoon closes his mouth, slightly embarrassed at his previous opinion on Yeonjun. He imagines the look of shock on Sunoo's face and almost laughs, but then his heart constricts painfully again at the memory of his smile.
"Okay, so," Yeonjun begins speaking very fast, as though fearful that Sunghoon might start shouting again, "We were really really late to rescue Sunoo. But we encountered a miracle."
"And that is?" Sunghoon asks bitterly.
"That is, Sunoo survived. Congratulations. No, Sunghoon-ssi, don't look at me like that, I'm not pranking you! It's real! Sunoo is okay! Though, I must inform you, his lungs are barely functioning and I kept telling him to list himself up for a transplant before, but he didn't want to. But now, he somehow agreed to it, and also to keeping his oxygen cannula with him at all times for three months until his lungs get replaced. How's that?"
Sunghoon freezes in place, staring just at Yeonjun's and Soobin's happy faces. His voice comes out croaky when he speaks.
"Is that... even possible, again?"
"Yes, Sunghoon-ssi. Just like how a heart can be replaced, lungs can be transplanted as well." Soobin answers his question, pinching his cheeks with fondness, very relieved to finally give him happy news.
"Can we come out of the shadows now?" Jay asks as he and Jake emerge out from behind a waiting area chair. "Congratulations, bro!" They kneel on either side of Sunghoon and hug him tightly.
Warmth. Glorious, seeping warmth that Sunghoon has never felt before.
Even though the bright glowing figure existed only in his dream, Sunghoon couldn't help but imagine the tranquil smile on his luminous, serene face at this moment.
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"Hey, you promised you won't take it off agai—"
Sunoo, safe and sound and alive, urgently presses a finger to Sunghoon's lips, cutting off his words. Taking off his oxygen cannula, he glances around to check if Beomgyu hadn't strayed anywhere near their bed, then whispers:
"Don't run that mouth so loudly over here. It's not like I take it off even during meals anymore, let me breathe freely for a moment."
Sunghoon softly grasps Sunoo's delicate wrist and kisses the finger that lies on his mouth. Then he watches Sunoo melt, blush and crumble under the touch of his lips. "Are you sure you'd be able to do that?"
"Do what?" Sunoo looks at him with hooded, honey glazed eyes and the black haired boy can't help but smirk.
"You know what, forget it." Sunghoon's lips travel to knuckles, then to the palm and then to the wrist. Sunoo's dainty hand, despite being cold, feels unironically warm. The warmest, most welcoming heart with soft snow for hands.
Sunoo drops to sit beside him on the bed. "You know... You used to be really really cold. But now you're warm — it was because of your disease, which got treated. About me, I don't know if I'd ever get rid of hypothermia..."
Winter is over, so I beg you, please let spring enter your barren garden even if it is temporary.
Sunghoon secures Sunoo in a gentle embrace, knowing that if it were possible, he'd try to melt into the latter's body. And Sunghoon knows, in all that he has in himself, that Sunoo feels the very same.
"I just want you alive and healthy, I don't mind anything else, not even a little bit of cold skin. I love you. Maybe it is a bit too soon to feel this way, maybe it is not, maybe the universe is still trying to catch its breath after being so violently shaken, but I love you. I want you to kiss me."
The blonde doesn't waste a single second in complying. He makes himself at home above Sunghoon, wrapped in his arms, their souls entangled in a blissful blizzard of rose-coloured snow.
Sunghoon smiles against the kiss when he realizes.
Sunoo's lips taste like lychee lip balm.
How symbolic. How so symbolic.
The said boy whispers speedily between kisses and pained breaths, moves his lips desperately as though this is a fever dream and he's about to be brutally woken up, "I've missed kissing you without the stupid cannula, so much. I love you too. I love you too. I swear you're the reward God gave me for enduring obstacles and I love you. You became the first breath of winter that my broken lungs ever welcomed, and I love you. I love you too."
Sunghoon wants to tell him that he's the greater reward, that he's the first ray of the sunlight and the first blossoming flower petal of spring, but his lips are too busy tasting sweet lychee. Tasting and swallowing the pleasant sugary, dulcet words coming out of his mouth and how their meanings feel when tasted right from Sunoo's divine tongue itself.
He caresses Sunoo's hair, fingers dancing in his blonde locks and undresses his mouth with his tongue. If this isn't a treasure, the greatest blessing to ever exist, the what exactly is?
They break apart, breathless in love, and meet each other's hazy, greedy gaze — dark chocolate eyes level with golden honey ones. Sunghoon lets Sunoo caress his cold hand on his suffused, hot face.
"My baby," Sunoo mutters, more distractedly than not since his attention is fixated in making the older wrap his arms around his neck. "Hyung, can you stand up? Try?"
Sunghoon tilts his head in curiosity. "What are you intending to do?"
"Just trust me. I did my research."
"Lord help me."
"Shut up," Sunoo sasses as he helps Sunghoon up on his feet. "Not everyone gets my premium interest, just so you know."
"Oh, I'm so honored that Satoru Gojo is clenching his fists in envy."
Sunoo takes a step backwards, causing Sunghoon to stumble a little. "Hyung! Don't try to be smooth and extra, just take normal steps. You're not actually a kid anymore."
"But my heart is," says Sunghoon with a solemn sigh.
"Always the cheesiest, corniest comebacks."
But the tender, sunlit curve of Sunoo's lips is ever so loving.
"Now," he begins, looking up at Sunghoon with the most expectant eyes, "do your legs hurt? Can you stand without support — not that I'm taking it away from you, just asking — can you?"
Sunghoon closes his eyes for a split-second, briefly trying to savour the sensation of Sunoo's hands; one on his torso and one on his waist, keeping him in place. And, of course, the scent of lychee body wash.
"Let go of me, for a bit. Stay there, but let me try standing."
The younger boy apprehensively displaces his hands. One, two, three seconds later, Sunghoon gains balance. Four, five, six — he's still there. He looks back at Sunoo, almost bursting out laughing at his utterly bamboozled, wide-eyed reaction. Seven, eight, nine — and the seconds keep on stretching. Sunghoon is still standing without support.
"Hey guys guess who I got as my boyfr— WHOA WHOA WHOA," Jake suddenly pops into existence nearby, holding hands with Heeseung. Sunghoon turns his head to look at them, still wearing his see?-i-made-it smile.
Jay walks in after, carrying a huge stack of food in his arms, and scolds Jake in a disapproving way. "How many times have I told you to keep your goddamn voice down! Down, oh my god whatisthatisthatastandingsunghoonisee— what?"
"Calm the fuck down, you all," Sunghoon snaps, rolling his eyes because only Sunoo gets to have this audacity of exaggerating his illness. "I was shortly unable to walk, not ordered to be physically impaired by mother nature for evermore. Look—"
Next, many things happen at the same moment; Jay almost drops the phone in his hand through which he had started to record, Sunoo squeals, Heeseung's mouth falls open and Jake screams, "SUNGHOON, NO!"
...all because Sunghoon takes not one, not two or even three, but four fast, steady steps consecutively. He stumbles on the fifth, but it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does, aside from the fact that he's soaring through skies and gleefully cutting through air.
"Was I that hopeless of a case?" He asks to general applause, with every single patient clapping and cheering for him with his friends. Jay's mouth twitches.
"Sunghoon, you little shit, have you been free riding on us all along?"
"Sunoo-yah, save me from Jay's wrath!" Sunghoon quickly walks back to Sunoo, feeling immensely, immensely grateful to have his walking ability back, all jokes aside. He buries his face into Sunoo's neck and hears the way giggles escape his mouth, hears his breath and thanks God again.
Sunoo's body is still a bit cold, and that does not bother Sunghoon in the slightest — because never before, in his life, has he held more comfortable warmth in his arms.
Lychee, he concludes, is not just a fruit, but a journey from death back to life. Finding your purpose in the noisy, monotonous world, trying your hardest to push through days despite the hurdles — it's like the deep pink hard cover. But once you overcome it, once you make it through, the soft and sweet fruit welcomes you. It too, finishes, and you're left with another hard lychee shell to peel.
Perhaps life can be just as simple as this. Sad day, happy day, sad day then again happy day, rather than being the sole view of hundreds in a crowd, rather than having their countless pairs of eyes scanning your slightest movements — perhaps life can be lived with minimum interaction with people who make you uncomfortable. Perhaps it's acceptable to live nameless and die nameless — who even cares about tombs and decayed bones anymore?
For Sunghoon, life is not a competition anymore. Life is just... Life. Difficult but compulsory to live. With some moments in between, moments that make the difficulties worthwhile. Maybe that's all that is to living, after all. Life gets cold, but there's always warmth somewhere.
True, nothing will be the same ever again — but perhaps he doesn't want it to be. Perhaps the most beautiful moments are the ones where we get little epiphanies out of the blue, at unexpected times — fleeting realizations that come and go before they're thought of, and leave the minds lest they come back as mere memories.
In the cold, sterile hospital, upon which the skies cried and the unfortunate relied, he found vibrant shades of unapologetic hues.
And Park Sunghoon found warmth in cold, found life in death.
But most importantly,
He found Kim Sunoo.
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