Archive of Our Own

Or maybe it starts before then. Maybe it starts when he sees him in the halls for the first time. Maybe it starts when they talk for the first time. Maybe it starts when they kiss for the first time.

Jae doesn’t know anymore.

To be honest, he doesn’t think that he knew anything to begin with.

It’s a dull day. Jae's going through the halls, a third year at university, struggling to handle his shitty part-time job and his even shittier classes at the same time. His glasses hang on the bottom of his nose, dangerously close from sliding right off, and his pale bleached hair points in every direction.

He has no time for pleasantries or excusals, pushing past anyone and everyone that’s in his way. He doesn’t need to be late to another lecture, especially since it’s still the first week back from holiday break.

Jae thinks he’s in the clear when he rounds the corner, but he ends up running right into someone and knocks both them and their things onto the ground.

He lands with a soft thud, and an audible groan escapes from the other person’s mouth.

Jae looks up then, sees a man with a soft face and soft eyes, his hand reaching up to grab at his hair.

He has no time for this, though, and quickly grabs all his things that are sprawled on the ground. He gives the other person- Brian, it says on one of the papers- some of his things that he accidentally picks up and apologizes a few times before walking away.

He makes it to class, earlier than he thought he would, and nods at the teacher lightly.

Brian, Jae thinks to himself as he sits at the end of the table next to the window, furthest from the front of the lecture hall. Maybe today wouldn’t be as dull as he thought.

Jae sighs as he looks up at the room number of the door he is standing in front of. It’s a second-year course, he knows that, but he doesn’t have much else that he wants to take. But he also doesn’t want to walk in the door; he’s embarrassed that somehow everyone in the lecture will know that he’s older than them all and that he might be some sort of idiot who can’t pass any of his classes so that’s why he’s taking courses a year below his actual year but to be fair it’s because his course load is messed up this year and the third-year courses he had chosen hadn’t turned out the way he expected them to so here he is now in front of a second-year philosophy lecture and-

He decides to just rip the door open and walk in instead of continuing his mid-midlife crisis.

There aren’t that many students sitting at the tables and even fewer sitting where he usually sits in any of his lectures. So, with a slight grin, he hikes his bag up his shoulder and heads toward the back of the lecture hall.

He slips into the seat and lets his bag drop to the ground, his head resting on his chin and his eyes fixed out the window.

Then passes a few seconds, minutes, he isn’t sure, but time is passing and it’s passing too slowly. He hears the chair next to him pull out, and Jae turns his head to see the person he ran into last week- Brian- sit down next to him.

“Hi,” Brian whispers. His voice is low, thick, sweet, and filled with too many emotions for the single word that he speaks.

Jae has to swallow.

“Hi,” he manages to squeak back. It’s weak, awkward -- more awkward than he normally is -- and he just squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that Brian (he’s liking the name more and more the more he thinks about it) doesn’t notice anything weird.

“There… isn’t anyone sitting here, right? Don’t want to just take someone’s seat.”

Jae shakes his head a little too vehemently, suddenly feeling like his throat is too dry and no words will come out of his mouth.

“No, no one’s sitting there. Well, I mean, not that I know of. It’s my first day in this lecture. Just switched in yesterday.”

Brian smiles. It’s a small one -- just lips, no teeth, and with the slightest hint of laughter -- but it’s a smile nonetheless and it makes Jae’s head run wild with its imagination. He reaches out a hand, “Younghyun,” he says, and Jae’s too dazed to make any sense of it.

He somehow manages to take the hand in his, shakes it gently, tries not to think about how soft it is or how well it fits into his own.

“Jae,” he says back. Spits it out like he doesn’t remember how to talk, says it like he doesn’t know what it means.

“Jaehyung,” he tries again, “but just Jae is okay. No one calls me Jaehyung.”

Brian -- Younghyun? -- smiles again, and Jae thinks he could get used to the sight of it.

“Well then, nice to meet you, Jae. Hope we’ll be able to spend some more time together in class. Maybe outside of class too.”

Jae nods, can’t trust himself to talk right now.

He nods again, and Brian lets out the lightest laughter Jae has ever heard.

“Great, that’s good to hear. I look forward to the rest of the semester then, Jae.”

“Yeah,” Jae breathes. “Me too.”

Brian- no- Younghyun slumps into the seat beside him. His headphones dangle around his shoulders and his hair’s parted in the middle, falling just short of the lobes of his ears.

“Jae,” he says while he’s sitting. It catches Jae off guard, forces him to pay attention.

“Yeah, Younghyun, what’s up?”

Younghyun doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even make an effort to look like he heard Jae. Jae leans forward, tries to see where Bri- Younghyun’s eyes are drifting, but Younghyun suddenly snaps his head in Jae’s direction, startling him backwards.

“Why do you always sound so awkward and stiff when you say my name?”

Jae blinks, has to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose from where they slid down because of the scare. He isn’t quite sure how to answer- that’s a total lie. He knows exactly why he sounds so stiff, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Well, you see-”

“I mean, it’s not like there’s really a shorter version of my name. If you really wanted to, you could call me like, ‘Youngie’ or ‘Hyun’ or something, but that just sounds bad. Doesn’t work as well as your name does. Or, shit, what if it was like, ‘Young K’? Get it? Because it’s Young from Younghyun and K from Kang. Young K. Yeah, rolls right off the tongue.”

Jae blinks again, confused.

“Wait, so your name’s not Brian?”

Young K, as he so desperately wishes to be called, turns to look at him. Slowly, though, dragging the seconds by and making Jae feel like he's made a big mistake.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Jae tries to think of a million excuses he could blurt out to save his ass, but none of them seem like good ideas and so he just tells him the truth.

“When I ran into you that first time I saw the name Brian on top of one of your papers and I thought that was your name and I guess not and sorry Brian- I mean Younghyun- I mean Young K- I mean- wow, you have too many names already.”

Younghyun looks at him, laughs, feels his whole body shake. Jae watches in horror, unsure of if he was just let off the hook or if he just dug himself even deeper into his own grave.

“That’s where you got that from?” Younghyun manages to wheeze out, and Jae nods. He really doesn’t think it’s as funny as Younghyun’s making it out to be.

Younghyun finishes laughing at him, looks at him with a smile.

“My family just moved back here from Canada. That was the name I used when I was over there. I was carrying a bunch of forms that had my English name on them, I guess you must’ve seen one of those.”

Jae doesn’t say anything, is too caught up with Younghyun’s brilliant smile and the fact that he came from Canada and could-

Oh, wait-

“You can speak English, then?”

It’s Younghyun’s turn to blink before he gathers himself.

“Yeah, I can.”

That has Jae grinning brighter than he has all year, and he wraps an arm around Younghyun’s shoulders.

“Yeah! My man Brian over here and I are gonna be talking shit about all of you in English and none of you are gonna be able to do anything about it! Nice!” He yells out before something else occurs to him, “Can I call you Brian?”

Younghyun grins.

“Yeah sure, go for it.”

And Jae’s laughing again, and Brian’s laughing with him too.

Jae knocks on the door while Brian peeks out over his shoulder. No one’s answering, and Jae’s getting more and more embarrassed as the seconds tick by.

“Wonpil. Yah, open the door, asshole.”

Brian looks at Jae’s face. He’s never seen the older angry, thinks he looks nice, thinks that his round glasses suit his face very well. Other things pop into his head too, but he shakes them away before they can turn into anything other than thoughts.

Suddenly, the door opens and Brian’s no longer looking at Jae’s pretty face. Instead, he’s looking at a man, shorter than him, with short brown hair and a square smile. He’s strangling Jae, has him in a headlock that’s rather impressive, if Brian had to say.

“Who’s the asshole? You want to say that again, Park Jaehyung?”

Jae taps Wonpil’s arm repeatedly.

“Okay, okay, Pil! Can’t breathe over here! Please let go!”

Wonpil laughs, lets Jae go and smiles at him. He notices Brian then, gives him a quick once-over, nods at him politely.

“You must be Younghyun. It’s nice to finally meet you. Jae’s always been talking about you. You sure sound like a great guy, let’s hope you live up to those expectations.”

Brian stares at Jae with wide eyes, “What the hell did you say to him?” Comes out of his mouth, low and sharp. Jae just rubs his neck with both hands, shrugs noncommittedly.

“Not much,” he says.

“Doesn’t seem like 'not much', you ass,” Brian bites back. He smiles at Jae nonetheless and follows Wonpil into the room.

Jae sighs. He kicks off his shoes and trails after them. Sungjin and Dowoon are already there, are already sitting down and stuffing their faces with popcorn and chips and all kinds of drinks.

Some that Jae isn't sure Dowoon should be drinking.

“Jae! You brought a new kid!”

Jae flips him off.

“Shut up, Dowoon. He’s older than you, you don’t get to call him that.”

Dowoon just sneers at him, takes a sip of his Coke.

“Whatever, Jae. You’re just jealous that you don’t have a man yet,” Dowoon giggles as he sinks himself lower into the seat. Sungjin just throws a pillow at him, says something along the lines of respect your elders.

Jae flips him off again, takes a seat next to Wonpil.

“Whatever, Dowoon. It’s not like you’re doing much better in that department. Have any girls even tried to hit you up?”

Dowoon wiggles his eyebrows.

“Maybe, maybe not. I know I at least get more action than you, though.”

Jae blushes, rings an arm around Wonpil.

“Who needs action when I have Wonpil? Right, Pillie?”

Wonpil picks Jae’s arm up by the sleeve, drops it back into Jae’s lap.

“Uh, sorry, Jae. That’s not about to happen anytime soon,” he says, trying to look disgusted, but a fit of laughter is bubbling out of him.

Jae sees it, ignores it, pretends to be offended instead.

“Fine, whatever, I guess I’ll just sit over in the corner by my loner self and cry because none of you assholes are nice enough to just be my friend and not pick on me after I get to see you guys for the first time in three months since I just got back from America. Yeah, whatever.”

And Jae knows that gets them because Wonpil is already on top of him, smothering him with a hug.

“Aw, Jae, you know it’s not like that.”

Jae sees Brian from the corner of his eye, and Brian just raises an eyebrow at him in amusement. A smile’s playing on his lips, and Jae just sticks his tongue out at him.

“Okay, off. Let’s get wasted and tell each other about our shitty semesters so far.”

He hears four cheers.

It’s two in the morning when Jae checks the time. Dowoon’s passed out on top of Sungjin, but Sungjin’s just barely conscious enough to notice. Wonpil hasn’t been drinking, opted instead to have Coke so he could be awake enough to drill Brian with any questions he could think of.

Brian, of course, is a tank. He's drunk more than enough to knock Jae out, and he seems to be puttering along just as fine as he had been when he got there. Jae, on the other hand, is struggling to keep his eyes open. His head feels heavy and he wants to take a nap.

Jae tips over and his head lands on Brian’s shoulder. Wonpil giggles, points at them with thousands of things running through his head.

“That’s cute.”

Brian looks down at Jae, shrugs, lets Jae keep his head there.

“He must be tired. Don’t think he got much sleep last night.”

Sungjin screams out of nowhere, drunken words leaving his mouth, nothing more than an incessant babble.

“You guys should kiss!” He yells, throwing his empty beer into the air. “Look,” he starts again, “I’ll even do it with Dowoon.” And then he starts gently hitting Dowoon’s face until the young boy wakes up, and then he kisses him right on the lips.

Dowoon just groans, hits Sungjin’s face away and goes back to sleep. Sungjin lets out a guttural laugh, passes out right after too.

Brian chuckles, looks down at Jae again.

“How about it, Jae? One for the laughs?”

Jae shrugs, too drunk to make any good decisions for himself.

“Yeah, sure.”

Brian kisses him then. It’s soft, sweet, and it sobers Jae up. His lips are too chapped and it’s rough and it feels like the kiss is lasting for hours and it won’t end, but Jae isn’t sure that he wants it to end because Brian’s lips are really soft and they feel really nice against his own and-

And then it’s over and the kiss feels like it was all too short and Jae’s heart is screaming for more.

Wonpil giggles, makes direct eye contact with Jae. He stops laughing when he sees the look in Jae’s eyes. His eyes dart over to see Brian smiling softly to himself before he gives Jae another look, claps his hands, and then stands up.

“Okay, I think we all have to go to sleep now. Younghyun, you can head on in. Take any of the rooms, they’re all open. I need to talk to Jae and somehow figure out how to move these two dickheads on the couch.”

"You don't need any help from me?"

Wonpil gives him a sweet smile, shaking his head just the slightest.

"No, it's fine. Besides, it's the first time you're here, and I know that despite everything, you're still tired, so go take a rest."

Brian nods, sulking away to one of the rooms further in the house.

Jae’s still reeling from what happened.

Wonpil knows, sits in front of him, cups his cheeks together.

“Jae, hey, you still with me? Are you okay?” He asks, his eyes worried, his lips pressed together flatly. Jae just nods. He nods a few times before he shakes his head, and the tears seem to fall from his eyes out of nowhere.

“No, no I’m not. I think… I think I’m falling in love with Brian.”

Wonpil sighs, brings Jae into a hug.

“I’m sorry, Jae. I wouldn’t have asked him so many questions if I knew. Wouldn’t have let Sungjin get drunk. He gets stupid when he’s drunk, you know that. You’ll be okay, though. I know it’ll be okay.”

Jae nods against Wonpil’s chest, dries his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“Come on, help me drag them into one of the rooms.”

Jae’s head is face down against the desk, a headache pounding against his skull. He feels like something’s caught in his throat and he can’t think clearly. He hears Brian sit down next to him, feels something slam down on the table in front of him.

He looks up. “Water,” Brian says, throwing some Advil on the table as well. Jae reaches for it, shoves the pills into his mouth and drinks the water like there’s no tomorrow. Even still, it feels like there’s something stuck in his throat, scratching at it and making him cough.

“Are you okay, Jae?”

Jae nods, “Fine,” he supplies, clearing his throat repeatedly.

Brian looks at him, doubtful, but shrugs anyway.

“If you say so,” he begins, but his thoughts trail off as he sees someone walk into the room. He hits Jae’s arm once, twice, three times, points toward the door.

Jae squints, sees a pretty girl with pretty curls and a pretty dress, bold red lips and perfectly manicured nails. He sees Brian’s face, looks at how happy it is, looks at the smile plastered across his lips, feels himself crumble at the light in his eyes.

"Jae, do you see her? What do you think?"

Jae sighs, paints on a crooked smile and says, “Yeah, Brian. She’s really pretty. You should definitely give it a go.”

Brian grins down at him.

“Yeah? You really think so?” But he isn’t listening anymore. Jae knows he isn’t. He just turns his head back, stares out the window and blinks away the tears.

He coughs one more time, and this time, a faded pink petal falls onto the table.

Jae blinks, stares at it, feels his heart drop.

He grabs the flower, crushes it in his hand and hopes that no one sees. He shoves it into his pocket and covers his mouth to make sure that no more come out.

He stays until the end of the lecture, runs out of the room after that. Doesn’t say goodbye to Brian, doesn’t even think that Brian notices. Too busy talking to the girl he had been pointing to earlier.

Jae runs, runs to his room. Shoves open the door, doesn’t bother closing it, collapses over the toilet.

He retches, once, twice-

Twice is all he needs before it all comes up.

And suddenly, he’s surrounded by flower petals. Soft pinks fading to white lay unmoving on the ground, staring up at him as if they’re mocking him.

He balls a hand into a fist, punches the ground.

Why, he cries. Why did it come to this?

Jae hasn’t been to his philosophy lecture in three days, hasn’t left his room in three days, doesn’t even think that Brian’s noticed that he hasn’t been there. Too caught up with his new girlfriend, the girl that Jae knew he would get because Brian is just too nice and too funny and too beautiful and too him.

He laughs to himself, laughs until he starts crying and until his laughs start sounding more like sobs and his giggles feel more like tears and he’s shaking from the pain in his heart.

He clutches his heart, rips at the fabric, pulls, hoping that it will do something to make it stop hurting so much.

But nothing does.

Jae throws his phone across the room. It lands on his bed softly, softer than he wanted it to. It lands and he watches the screen turn on and he sees the message and he knows it’s from Brian and he wants to cry and grab it and call him and yell at him but he doesn’t. He holds it in and he curls into a ball and he coughs up another flower and he shakes.

He shakes, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Jae crawls over to his toilet again, hunches over it, looks at the flowers and blood that are filling it. Flushes it once to get them down. Flushes it twice to get rid of the rest. Flushes it a third time to drown the flowers that just came up again.

He wipes the corner of his mouth, coughs a few times, throws up a little again, but doesn’t even bother to flush this time. The flowers spill out of the bowl, falling to the ground.

At least they’re pretty, he thinks, picks one up with his fingers. He’s shaking, he realizes, and his skin is pale and white.

There’s a knock on the door, makes him realize that he never locked it, doesn’t know who could be there, doesn’t know who’s coming in. It’s not like he could stop them, anyway.

The door clicks and pushes open, and Jae hears them take one step, two, three, and suddenly Wonpil is all he can see and he feels like crying all over again and he does, and Wonpil just falls to his knees in front of him.

“Oh, Jae…”

Jae cries.

Cries more than he has in years.

"Wonpil...” he tries, wraps his arms around Wonpil’s neck, buries his face against his chest.

“Wonpil, it hurts. It hurts so much.”

Wonpil doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even know where to begin. He looks at the flowers all over the ground, counts them until he gets to one hundred and can’t count anymore. He hugs Jae tighter, doesn’t know what else to do except hold him closer.

“Wonpil, I can't do this anymore. It hurts."

"It's okay, Jae. It's okay," he says, but swallows. He doesn’t know how much of that he even believes, doesn’t know how much pain Jae must be in to cough up these many flowers.

He rubs Jae’s back in circles, lets him cry into his sweater.

“It’ll be okay.”

Brian is confused, doesn't know why Jae won't talk to him, doesn't know why he feels so empty.

He tries calling, but Jae won't pick up. He texts, but Jae doesn't respond. He's stopped reading them altogether, too.

He's worried, but he doesn't even know where Jae lives.

His girlfriend, ex, he’s thinking now, with the way he’s been ignoring her, has been trying to get a hold of him for a few minutes now, but he dismissed it all with a sorry, busy and kept trying to figure out how to find Jae.

He’ll admit, asshole move, but when your friend’s M.I.A. and you have no idea how to find them since they won’t respond to you, it takes a bit more priority than other things at the time.

Brian realizes that he doesn’t really care, doesn’t really want to go to her anyway, doesn’t really mind if he never kisses her.

He’d rather kiss Jae instead.

He shakes his head, looks up from his phone to see if he can maybe catch a glimpse of Jae walking across campus or coming out to the outdoor café or anything when-

Wonpil.

He sees Wonpil walking across campus, sees him carrying too many books at once, a grimace on his face and an iced coffee in his hand.

None of that's important, though, and Brian runs up to him, stops him, asks him, pleads him, begs him to tell him where Jae is.

Wonpil smiles sadly. There’s something in his eyes that says more than he’s letting on; it makes Brian worry, makes Brian wonder, makes Brian’s thoughts run crazy.

"Even if you knew,” he starts, and Brian’s starting to lose hope, “there's nothing you could do about it, Younghyun. Nothing any of us can do about it."

Brian looks torn, his eyes are filled with confusion, his heart is pounding with frustration.

"Why?" He croaks out, his throat dry, burning with so many words unsaid.

Wonpil shakes his head, tries to start three different points, tries to come up with any excuse, tries to come up with ridiculous stories so that Brian just walks away. Ends up not saying any of them.

"That story isn’t mine to tell, Younghyun. If you're really that worried, I’m sure he’d be willing to talk to you. He lives in Building H. Room 915."

Brian's gone before Wonpil can say anything else.

It takes one knock, two, three, before Jae notices that someone's at the door, that someone's trying to get in.

It takes one knock, two, three, before Brian just opens the door and walks in himself.

It takes three seconds, two, one, before either of them sees the other; before they realize who it is.

And Brian almost cries.

Jae does.

He's sitting on the ground, a circle of flowers surrounding him; his eyes are red and puffy, his face pale and lifeless.

Brian reaches out to him, "Jae," he whispers, but Jae shakes his head.

"There's no point, Brian. You can't do anything. You can't. You can't," and Jae starts throwing up again, and more flowers cover his bed, fall onto his dresser, fill his lungs.

He falls over, his head hits the side of his bed.

The tears spill over, but no sounds come out of his mouth. He’s silent, but the room’s filled with words that neither of them can say.

Brian pulls his hand back.

“Is there…” he starts, a million ways he could end the question, but none of them seeming right. “Is there really nothing I can do?”

Jae laughs bitterly. Coughs once, twice, winces three more times. He pulls a petal out of his mouth, throws it on the ground with the rest of the broken flowers.

Brian stares.

Jae breaks.

"Please, please just go. I can't look at your face anymore. It makes everything so much worse."

Brian's heart shatters. He looks at Jae, looks at the flowers, thinks about the stories.

Realizes what’s happened.

"...Me? It's because of me?"

Jae laughs, a sad, sarcastic laugh that shakes his whole body, ends with a frown plastered across his lips.

"Of course it's you. It's always been you. Who else could it have been?"

And Jae cries again, lets the tears fall from his eyes, lets them soak the sheets of his bed.

He cries and he coughs up another petal and he pretends that Brian isn't there. He pretends and he closes his eyes and hopes that he leaves and prays that he's gone-

Until he really is gone.

And then Jae keeps crying.

And Brian slides down the back of the door, listens to Jae's sobs, holds his head in his hands.

Still, he cries for Jae too.

Jae hasn't moved from where he is, doesn't think that he can anymore.

Brian hasn't tried talking to him again, hasn't made any attempt to show up again after that day.

Jae thinks it's better this way, thinks that he'd rather die alone than have Brian watch as he gets weaker.

He'd rather die alone than have Brian watch him go through the pain.

“I’m leaving now, call me if you need to talk,” is what Wonpil said earlier. Before he left him alone with his thoughts and his pain and the fear of dying.

There's a knock at the door. Jae doesn't respond, figures it's Wonpil anyway, that he must have forgotten something when he left. He turns his head as little as he can, coughs one more time, stares out the window by his bed.

Then passes a few seconds, minutes, he isn't sure, but time is passing and it's passing too quickly. His throat feels dry and his lungs are full and he’s choking on his own blood and it's hard to breathe.

He hears a chair pull up next to him, closes his eyes.

Wonpil takes Jae's hand into his own, holds it, feels the way it fits right into his and-

That's not Wonpil's hand. Jae whips his head around, too fast for anyone healthy, way too fast for him. He winces, but he sees Brian. Brian, always Brian, looking down at him with wet eyes, a sloppy smile on his face, an apology plastered all over him.

"Hi," he whispers, and Jae thinks about it all again.

"Hi," he manages back, his voice weak once more, but for a whole different reason this time.

“There isn’t anyone sitting here, right?” He tries again, but it crumbles and he breaks and there are no more words and just tears.

"I'm sorry-" Brian starts, but Jae shakes his head, no, cuts him off.

"It's not your fault. It isn't. Don't feel bad about it. You did nothing wrong. I’m sorry. I'm sorry I had to go and fall in love with you. I'm sorry I have to leave you like this. I'm sorry we couldn’t spend more time together, you know, happily."

Jae tries to smile, coughs up a flower instead.

Brian opens his mouth again, but Jae covers it with the little strength he has left in him.

"Please don't say anything. You don't need to say any more. Knowing you came back one more time is enough for me.”

He takes a deep breath, wheezes it back out.

“I'll miss you terribly, Brian, and I really do love you. I hope your life continues on beautifully without me."

Jae smiles, really does this time, and watches the tear that falls out the corner of Brian's eye. Brian grabs Jae's hand, takes it away from his mouth.

"You idiot."

He leans down, gently kissing Jae.

Jae blinks at him, confused, scared.

A tiny bit hopeful.

"What?" He asks, hoping it means what he wants it to, praying that he's reading this right.

Brian just rests his head on Jae's bed, holds one of Jae's hands tightly in his own two.

His shoulders shake with the patterns of crying, and Jae feels something inside of him break.

"Brian..."

"I'm sorry," he manages to get out through his sobs. It's shaky and broken, but clearer than Jae's breathing has been for the past few days.

"I'm sorry for everything, Jae. I didn't think about anything until I realized you could really be gone and I thought that I wouldn't ever want that and I wanted to be able to wake up next to you and see you every day for the rest of my life and just be able to spend time with you whenever I wanted to and I thought it’d be really shitty if you ended up dying even though I never got the chance to try and kiss you properly because after we kissed that one time as a joke I always thought that you had really pretty lips and saying it out loud makes me realize how stupid I’ve been and I guess through all of that thinking I finally realized that I'm in love with you. I’m sorry."

Jae cries again, and Brian's right there to wipe the tears away.

“No,” Jae tries to say, but Brian just nods his head, lets another tear fall down his face. Jae shakes, bites down on his lower lip, squeezes Brian’s hand.

"You can't be lying to me, Brian. I'm sick and dying, I wouldn't know any better."

Brian shakes his head, kisses Jae's forehead, both his cheeks, his chin, his nose, and finally his lips.

"No, I'm not lying. Don't think I could. Wouldn't be able to live without you. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure out." And he's crying again, and Jae feels like he can breathe for the first time in a long while, doesn't feel like throwing up all his intestines, doesn't worry about the petals falling out of his mouth.

He breathes and he kisses Brian again and he laughs. It's happy, it's sad, it's crazy and it's messed up, but Jae kisses him and thinks that Brian's lips fit perfectly against his.

"I'm so sorry, Jae," he says once more, but Jae shakes his head again.

"No more apologies. I don't want to hear them anymore."

Brian smiles gently, no teeth, just lips, and Jae feels his heart do flips inside his chest again.

"Then I'll just keep telling you I love you then, is that okay instead?"

Jae smiles wider for the both of them.

"That's more than okay with me."