Chapter Text
Today
The next time Jisung opened his eyes, the room was pitch black. Often, people talk about seeing a bright light, as he had seen often with his visions and premonitions. Perhaps he wasn’t as good of a person as he thought he was if he missed out on heaven. Hell was associated with red, but maybe it was actually black. The only sins he committed was knowing when people would die, and making Minho depressed once he lived out the nightmare scenario Jisung saw months ago. The day Georgia decided to take Covid seriously. Before the hundreds of thousands of deaths Jisung saw coming.
Minho. His arms weren’t wrapped around Jisung’s waist like they normally were.
But also, Jisung was awake.
He dug his fingers into the sheets to make sure there was something tactile he could ground himself with. The folds on the mattress and the blanket tucked around him both crinkled under his touch. Okay. He ran his fingers on the top of the blanket to lead them towards his cheek, where they pinched it. Hard.
“Oww!” He chastised himself.
Wait. He made sounds.
Can you talk in the afterlife? He guessed so.
But someone else was making sounds?
Jisung heard a familiar grumble in front of him. The grumble of a loving partner who doesn’t like being woken up. He stilled in disbelief. Looking through the earthly definition of darkness, he saw Minho leaning against the wall, sitting upright, head slowly straightening from where it was slumped to his left side. His brown eyes had a cat-like stare, paying attention to no one else but him. A smile spread across his face. Jisung closed his eyes and opened them.
Yep, Minho was still there.
“Morning, jagi.” The love was still in his eyes. For him, it was just another day.
“You’re up…I mean, you’re awake.” Minho hummed and gave Jisung a curt nod. “Why didn’t you stay with me?”
“I want to be,” He paused, looking for the right words. “First one you see when you wake up.”
Jisung wanted to be absolutely sure he made it. “What day is it?”
“My birthday!” Minho crawled to Jisung’s side and gave him a soft kiss. “Happy birthday to me.” The familiar melody from one year ago rang out again in a different room, in a different world, but with the same affectionate tone. “Happy birthday to me. Jisungie is alive…eee.” Jisung grinned when Minho quickly tried to rhyme the words, hopefully returning the same loving look back. “Happy birthday to,” Minho kissed the tip of Jisung’s nose with a loud, exaggerated smack and pulled back with the largest grin Jisung had ever seen. “Me.”
Jisung studied his fiancé closely, still not quite believing he was alive. “I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah.” Minho nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I still love you.”
Jisung wiggled himself free of the blankets and sat up. “Me too.” He held his arms out wide. “Happy birthday, jagi-ah.”
Minho stood up and hooked his arms under Jisung’s armpits to properly hug him. “Thank you!”
Jisung’s feet briefly kicked in the air before finding the ground and squeezing the life out of Minho. “I’m so sorry if I scared you.”
Minho couldn’t quite breathe properly, but having Jisung in his arms made everything better. “It’s okay.”
“Like, I cannot stress enough that I thought I was going to die.” Minho hummed a random tune, knowing Jisung was about to say a bunch of English words that he probably wouldn’t understand. The important part was that it would make Jisung feel better. “I thought I would never see you again. With how many people I’ve killed. I felt so much existential dread. I saw you cry over my dead body! It was all so real, you know?”
“I know.”
“I thought I was a prophet or something.”
Minho chuckled and buried his nose in Jisung’s hair. “Praise Jisungie!”
“I wasn’t even trying that hard in my classes because I thought I wasn’t going to finish them!”
“Bad Jisungie!”
A cautious knock on the door was followed by a welcome sight. “Happy birthday, Minho! Did Jisung wake up ye…oh, he did! About time sleepyhead!”
Jisung gave Minho a quick peck on the cheek and rushed across the room, flinging himself into the arms of the only mom he’s ever known. “Good morning!”
She gave Minho a curious glance over Jisung’s shoulder. “Morning, Jisung.”
“I love you so much.” Jisung took a deep breath and held her tight. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Her soft chuckle warmed Jisung’s heart. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive too.” She let him go far too soon and looked back and forth between her unofficial son and his fiancé. “Do you boys want breakfast?”
Jisung nodded as she and Minho talked back and forth about what he wanted for breakfast. He was alive, standing right between them, hearing a conversation about food. A rush of gratitude washed over Jisung as he smiled, trapped in his own world of acknowledging life and being a part of it when he was so sure he wouldn’t. A strong pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders and lips landed on his cheek, forcing Jisung to look to his left. Seeing Minho smile on his birthday instead of cry filled Jisung with so much joy that he closed his eyes to savor the moment.
“Falling asleep again?”
“Nope.” Jisung focused on each touch Minho gave to him freely. A brush on his arm, a chin on his shoulder, that perfect nose nudging his jaw. “Just grateful I’m still here.”
“Me too, Jisungie.” Minho laced his fingers with Jisung and started walking towards the kitchen. “I love you.”
“Till death do us part.” Might as well tell Minho what Jisung hoped for if he woke up today. “As Lee Minho and Lee Jisung.” Minho stopped as Jisung walked past him. A slight tug of his hand made Jisung turn around to see Minho with a look of shock on his face. “I’m sorry.”
Minho’s fast blinks were not his usual cat-like confusion, but instead fighting back tears. He shook his head before pulling Jisung back into his embrace. “I...umm, would that make you happy?”
“That would make me very happy.” Jisung put his ear on Minho’s chest and heard his heart beating hard. “Would that make you happy?”
“That would make me very happy too.”
Jisung heard sniffles from above him and started to panic, but didn’t want to leave the feeling of a warm body holding him. “Don’t cry on your birthday!”
“Happy.” Minho kissed his love’s forehead for reassurance. “Happy cry.”
“Good. We can happy cry together.”
“After food!”
They both laughed and descended the stairs together. As partners. As lovers. As soon-to-be husbands. Both alive and well and healthy and young. In this crazy world of death all around them, and vaccines hopefully on the horizon to slow it down, the gift of life was so precious. And the gift of finding love, and keeping it, in a shut down world was even more rare. By finding both love and life, Jisung knew he was blessed beyond anything he could imagine.
Even rounding the corner, he saw the wall calendar from his dream tucked underneath the cabinets and to the right of the sink. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it earlier, but his thoughts were elsewhere for months. The picture on the upper half was full of beautiful pink and purple cosmos flowers in full bloom, shining in the sun, the leaves and stems glimmering from a light layer of dew.
In the most inconspicuous way possible, Jisung looked at the lower left corner of where the days were notated by square after square.
It was true that there was a circle on the lowest left square. The last Sunday of October. A logo beneath it crediting the local nature center for all the photos. But the number 25 wasn’t on the upper left hand corner like he saw in his dream, but instead the upper right. The circle his dream self drew, a symbol of his impending death, was instead a balloon. A ‘22’ was written inside it. A string hung from its base to a weight on the ground, which was just an unevenly shaded triangle. A symbol of Minho being part of the family now. A family Minho didn’t know this time last year. A love Jisung didn’t have this time last year…
“Jisungieeeeeeeeee!”
Jisung blinked a few times to see his mom with a worried expression. She was rapidly going in and out of view due to the hand Minho was waving in front of his face. “Oh, sorry. I, umm…”
“It’s okay.” She said gently. “You two can sit down while I make breakfast. How do pudding pancakes sound?”
Minho sat on the chair and plopped Jisung on his lap, holding him like a stuffed animal. “Like the best birthday present after Jisungie waking up!”
The three of them talked and laughed. For them, it was just another day. For Jisung, it was the first day of a new life. A new beginning that he thought wouldn’t happen for many months. He went to sleep alive, and he woke up alive. It sounds like a strange concept, but believing something so sincerely is hard to shake. In Jisung’s mind, for over one decade now, there were truths and facts to life; The grass is green, the sky is blue, and Jisung can predict when people are about to die. But this time it didn’t work. Maybe the rest of the times he predicted death weren’t his fault either…
It was certainly something to ponder in the future, but not today. Not on Minho’s birthday. Not on his fiancé’s birthday. Jisung stayed on his lap and kissed the top of his head in deep appreciation and gratitude, and got a cheeky smile in return. This is where he belonged. Whether in Georgia now, or Busan later, he belonged with Minho.
There was never a doubt. Not from the first day of class. Not from their practice room dance or confession on the beach. Not from their weeks apart and weeks together. Whether on walks or cuddling in the same bed night after night. Every day Jisung thought he was one day closer to his death, Minho was always there. Always smiling. Always supportive. Always…there.
“I made it.” Jisung whispered into his hair. “I made it because of you.”
Minho shook his head. ”We made it through together.” Jisung’s eyes fluttered at how hard that statement hit him. "And we will have many more.”
Many more.
Yeah, Jisung reflected.
Many more.