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Taeyong eases into consciousness slowly. It’s a transition rather than a singular moment of sudden clarity. Like the way one can’t point out the specific second daylight breaks, first transforming the pitch black into the most restrained of dark browns, then gently bleeding into burgundy and wayward crimson, and finally melting into soft pinks and wisps of yellows to coax the world awake.
His brain is mush, with what little words that he can put together. Heavy and fogged up, with a dull ache at the base of his head, as if it had come into contact with some blunt force that he doesn’t recall. His mouth is parched and his whole body feels fragile, and he stays lying simply out of demand. After minutes, he opens his eyes a crack. He squints at the view, now more alert and cautious of the blurry ceiling above with gently thrumming recessed lights. Faint whiffs of antiseptic and chemicals mingle with a vaguely familiar body perfume. Out of his sight, he hears a constant beeping, and even farther out, muffled footsteps and occasional voices.
Too preoccupied with the unnerving concept of this foreign setting, Taeyong hardly registers a shift to his side until it speaks.
In alarm, he strains his neck to turn. There, at the corner of the hospital room, he sees another blur, this time in human form seated on a couch.
“Babe?” He hears it again, the blur’s voice cracking with sleep and exhaustion. He’s heard that voice before. Where has he heard that voice before? He heaves a breath and forces to open his eyes wider, his eyelids feeling like dumbbells. The unidentifiable blur shifts again. It approaches him now, and Taeyong would’ve reeled back, had he had enough energy in him. But the smell of that familiar perfume strengthens as the figure kneels next to his bed. Its face- his face- is still blurry but clearer now, and Taeyong’s uneasy guard crumbles into an automatic smile.
“Johnny,” Taeyong says the name into a grateful exhale. It takes another moment of realization for Taeyong to make sense of his presence. “Why,” Taeyong croaks, licking his lips to try again, “Why are you here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” The response comes with a gentle hand combs through his hair. It’s not an experience Taeyong’s felt before, and for all intents and purposes, he should be weirded out by the unconsented touch. But it feels nice, and with that feeling comes a surge of warmth within him that further encourages him into an awake and attentive mode.
"Well," Taeyong speaks deliberately, willing his tongue to cooperate. “First time seeing you in the flesh.”
Johnny’s hand in his hair suddenly stills, and is then removed entirely. The sudden chill where the warmth used to be leaves Taeyong illogically upset. Between his groggy head, his poor eyesight, and his funny feelings, Taeyong misses the look of abject horror on Johnny’s face.
Taeyong heaves another sigh. "While I’m like this…" He closes his eyes, trying to remember. “What happened to me?”
“An accident. You suffered a blow to the head,” Johnny seems to be struggling as much as Taeyong to get his words out. He squeezes Taeyong’s hand and wills a shaky smile. “But you’re fine. You’re healthy, and that’s all that matters.”
“So you flew across the country for an online friend?” Taeyong continues talking slowly, his gears churning in his head. “That's weird,” he ends with a smile.
(Johnny thinks he can fly across the universe for Taeyong, but doesn't say it.)
“But wait,” Taeyong furrows his brows. “How are you here, in my room? Does this hospital just let anyone in?”
Johnny falters, but for only a second. “I signed the hospital papers as your husband to admit you.” He lets out a sheepish laugh to punctuate it. “There was nobody else around when you got hurt.”
“Why don’t I remember...” Taeyong trails off. The fear of the unknown rises up in him again, like seering lava slowly and decisively burning all other traces of emotion in him, until it comes up as the sole conqueror of his withered insides. He starts breathing harder as he racks his brain for the missing pieces that just seems to have vanished overnight, and grinds his teeth to hold onto some semblance of self-control.
A comforting squeeze of his hand at his side is what grounds him. He focuses on that anchor to keep from slipping into his mind entirely.
“What's the last thing you remember?” Johnny asks carefully.
Taeyong can't pinpoint anything specific as the definitive last thing. That’s the thing about memories, he assumes. The brain doesn’t care so much for chronology as it ought to, holding them all in a hodge-podge mixture in a basket, with the only real identifiers of a timeline being the subject matter of the memories, themselves. So he racks his brain for a memory with Johnny, one that holds more data than the others. “Animal Crossing. We were going through the wedding season together through Discord, I think it was day seven of the event?”
Johnny only speaks up again when Taeyong looks back at him. “You were in a coma for two weeks.” He opens his mouth again, falters, and ends with a wordless nod and another squeeze of Taeyong’s hand.
(But Johnny’s memories with Taeyong amount to sheer volumes beyond Animal Crossing. Enough to fill the largest libraries. He remembers years of them, nine to be exact, and all the ups and the downs that they spent together. He’s learned all of Taeyong's facial expressions and ticks, the tiny changes in Taeyong's voice when he holds back what he says, the terrain he's mapped out across Taeyong's skin. If only it had been the Taeyong of before, Taeyong could've easily called out the fake smile plastered on Johnny's face.)
“Two weeks,” Taeyong huffs. “And then some, I’m guessing, if I don’t remember you visiting me. So much time, gone from my life. Just like that, huh?” He ends in a nose-crinkling smile.
Johnny doesn’t respond.
“Let me see you,” Taeyong softly whines when Johnny stays silent. His eyesight is shot, and he wonders if his worsened vision was damage caused by the accident. “Do you know where my glasses are?”
Johnny flinches at the command, coming back to the reality of masked expressions and friendly cordiality. “Coming right up,” he says as he fishes out a pair from the side table.
“These aren’t mine,” Taeyong warily glances down at the cheetah printed frames.
“They’re new,” Johnny offers.
Taeyong’s unsure, but puts them on anyway and finally sees Johnny clearly. “You look like you aged a decade compared to your online selcas,” he says jokingly.
But in his head, Taeyong's floored. Johnny is fucking stunning. Defined smile lines around his mouth, whiskers at the ends of his eyes, specks of grey peppering his evening shadow complete his look. Who says beauty fades with age? Whatever filter Johnny had been using for his photos was doing his true beauty a disservice, Taeyong thinks.
It also suddenly makes him aware of how he might currently look. Like a disgrace, presumably, given his emaciated state and the lack of his skincare regimen. “Give me my phone, will you?” Taeyong asks, trying to sit up on his elbows and falling back down when they fail to hold his weight.
Johnny immediately rushes forward in concern. “You okay?” He asks, pushing back the sleeve of Taeyong's hospital gown and gingerly pressing at his shoulder bone with his thumb. “Does it still hurt here?”
Still? Taeyong wonders. Why would his shoulder be in pain if his accident only hurt his head?
(Taeyong wouldn’t know. How could he have? It was a residual sprain from moving furniture a week prior, the two of them. Spring cleaning to signify new beginnings and starting over. Or so Taeyong had told Johnny, in an effort to convince the other to give a hand. How ironic it sounds now, Johnny mourns thinking back. How ironic that they’re now taken all the way back to the beginning, like a cassette tape being rewinded and overwritten on playback, erasing the original content without a trace beyond Johnny’s own memories.)
Taeyong looks at Johnny somewhat curiously, observing. For reasons unknown, Johnny’s awfully concerned, so Taeyong tries not to flinch at the sudden physical proximity and impulsivity. But Taeyong isn’t great at hiding his emotions, especially from someone who can pick up Taeyong’s smallest reactions.
So Johnny reels back, folding his arms near his chest and balling up his hands into fists as if he's been reprimanded.
“Phone?” Taeyong asks again, pushing away the guilt that’s suddenly overcome him.
Johnny ends up taking out his own phone from his pocket. Taeyong sees his hands shaking, and pitys him enough to correct his request for his own phone. Johnny fiddles with his phone for longer than it takes to open the camera app before handing it over.
Either Johnny must have insides into the tech industry, or Taeyong hasn’t kept up with the current phone trends, because this phone looks oddly strange. Moreover, its camera catches everything. Taeyong’s face looks like he’s been through a war. “I look atrocious,” he sighs.
“Nonsense, you look lovely,” Johnny says with pious fervency, and Taeyong is glad the doctor enters the room just then, because he's not sure he could've kept the reddening heat from reaching his cheeks.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” Johnny gives Taeyong a kind smile, and then guides the doctor back outside to the hallway and closes the door behind him.
(“He doesn’t remember anything, Dr. Qian,” Johnny pleads, shedding the mask he had donned inside the room. “Please let me tell him, that’s all I ask. I’ll ease him into it. It’s going to shock him regardless, but please let me tell him the truth, one at a time. It needs to be me.”)
“Good to see you up, Taeyong!” The doctor is all-smiles as he greets Taeyong and assesses his vitals, and it automatically puts Taeyong’s mind at ease despite only having met the doctor just now. Dr. Qian’s smile is contagious, and Taeyong smiles back as he follows his movements and listens raptly to him relaying the information.
Johnny, too, looks on as Dr. Qian moves through the room. His expression isn’t amused, though, rather anxious as the doctor stops to study a certain monitor. “How is he?” Johnny eventually asks, now standing where he had kneeled next to the bed.
Dr. Qian hums, rapping at the keyboard and reading some more. “We’ll oversee him here for another few days until he’s ready to perform his daily activities again.” The doctor spares a brief, knowing glance at Johnny before moving to Taeyong with another smile. “You’ll be up and running in no time.”
“Thank you,” Taeyong says sincerely.
“Couldn’t have done it without your own willpower,” Dr. Qian nods back. “You’re a fighter, Taeyong.”
The doctor spends a few more minutes monitoring Taeyong’s system, informs them of regular checkups to be conducted by the nurses, and leaves.
“Listen, Taeyong?” Johnny composes himself after the two are alone again. “There's something I need to tell you.”
Taeyong has had a nagging doubt something bigger was brewing ever since Johnny had stepped outside the room. He hesitantly asks, “Am I dying?”
“No!” Johnny instinctively reaches out to grab Taeyong's arm. His fingers feel hot to the touch, and his grip more forceful than he intends, as if he doesn't want something to slip away again. “Thank goodness, no. It's just that, you've lost some of your memories.”
“Oh,” Taeyong exhales in relief. That much, he had already been made aware, what with him not remembering having met Johnny or faced the accident. “How much of my memories are gone, like a few weeks-worth?”
Johnny smiles kindly, but with perceptible sadness. “About nine years-worth.”
“What?” Taeyong starts. “Is that a joke?” When Johnny only shows even more pity, with trembling lips and watery eyes threatening to spill over, Taeyong gets angry. “How do you even know?”
“Since we've played Animal Crossing? That's how long it's been.”
Taeyong registers this. Then slowly shifts from confusion to panic. He suddenly feels like he had died, yet someone else had gone inside his body and had continued living for him. Like they've stolen his identity, used it for their own whims, and then spit out the remains for Taeyong to finish. It unnerves him and it frightens him, and he's breathing hard and he's crying and he struggles to get up and run away. To where, he doesn't know and doesn't care, but it's just not right. But he's still weak, and Johnny doesn't have to try hard to hold him down.
“You lived these years beautifully, Taeyong. To their fullest.” Johnny’s voice trembles through his own tears, stroking Taeyong's cheek as Taeyong hyperventilates.
“I want those years back,” Taeyong snaps back through gasps and sobs. He doesn't know who to blame, but there's someone right here and he'll have to do. He grabs Johnny's shirt, still crying and hiccuping in pain. “Give me back my life.”
“Oh, Taeyong.” And now Johnny's crying, loudly and unashamedly. “I'm so sorry. All I've got are stories. And photos, tons of them. I can help you fill in some of those memories, but not everything, not every single experience you had. I'm so sorry.”
Taeyong shakes his head, trying to come to grips with the situation. It still freaks him out, seeing a casual friend, a person Taeyong’s only spoken with virtually be so real, and on top of that, be so moved at Taeyong’s own plight. Taeyong shouldn't have lashed out at Johnny. Clearly, their relationship has only become stronger over the years if Johnny's insistence on staying by Taeyong's side has anything to say about it.
It takes less time for Taeyong’s anger and frustration to subside than for Johnny to stop crying. So after being spent from the wrought of emotion inflicted by the news, it’s Taeyong’s turn to try to quell Johnny’s pain. He lifts his arm and tries to wipe Johnny’s endless tears down his cheeks.
“Nine years, huh?” Taeyong tries to crack a smile. “We've been gaming buddies for that long?”
He watches Johnny's nose crinkle up into a sniffle before he lets out a tiny smile of his own. But there’s still an inescapable pain behind it, a scar etched deep into his being, and Taeyong wonders just how terrible whatever that weapon must be, for it to wreck such destructive havoc on someone so utterly beautiful.
“Among other things,” Johnny eventually says while looking down, tracing a finger on the bed sheet next to Taeyong’s arm. He’s conscious about touching Taeyong now. Taeyong wishes Johnny weren’t so, but the urge itself is strange and foreign. He wasn’t supposed to have such a tactile relationship with this casual acquaintance to begin with.
“So,” Taeyong says. “Tell me what we’ve been up to.”
(And so Johnny does. He fills in the safe zones - stories of Taeyong’s family and his budding career, his ever-changing hobbies and his stories of success and breakthroughs, of his struggles and his failings. A lot of the memories Johnny reveals might sound mundane for a third party, but nothing related to Taeyong is ever mundane to Johnny. All the while, Johnny keeps a single secret hidden. Never outright lying, but hiding everything that points to their married lives. At least for a few more hours, until Johnny can work up the courage. Because how frightening it must be for Taeyong, Johnny thinks, to wake up and not only to have years stolen from him, but to also be wed to a man he doesn’t even love, much less one he hardly knows?)
“We’re roommates?” Taeyong exclaims. “No wonder you know so much about me. For how long?”
“Five years.” Seeing Taeyong’s awed look, Johnny quickly adds, “we don’t have to stay roommates anymore, though. I’m happy moving out.”
Taeyong is taken aback by the offer. “But if we’ve worked fine for so long, I dunno. Why don’t we stay roommates?”
“Yeah?” Johnny’s voice is strained, like he’s at odds with himself. “You’d be okay with that?”
“For a while, anyway,” Taeyong clarifies with a grin. “No fair that only you got to see how we’re like together. I’d like to see how it goes for myself.”
Johnny looks away then, because even a complete stranger would’ve been able to read his silent joy. “I’ll get lunch for the two of us,” he excuses himself.
Johnny comes back with two takeout bags and is met with two more people in the hospital room than the number he had left it with.
“Oh my god, they’re so cute, Yangyang,” a nurse mopes, one that Johnny has met several times before named Jaemin. He doesn’t seem to have an actual task in this room, and has resorted to wrapping himself up on the IV stand and cooing away at the room’s residents.
Yangyang, a hospital technician currently typing away at one of the computers, doesn’t warrant the remark with anything other than an eye-roll.
Johnny sets the bags on the side table and works at pulling up the couch and moving Taeyong’s bed into a sitting position. “This place is your favorite. But it just opened up a few years ago, so I guess it’ll be the first time you’ll be trying it,” Johnny says as he maneuvers a sliding table over Taeyong’s lap.
“Rude,” Yangyang speaks up for the first time. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and squints at Johnny. “If he hasn’t tried it yet, aren’t you just putting words in his mouth?”
“Yangyang!” Jaemin gasps, looking morally offended.
“That’s alright,” Taeyong says with a laugh, hoping he can play it cool with the hospital’s records dubbing the two of them as husbands. He’s not entirely sure if he needs to continue this charade, but he does so anyway in case Johnny would no longer be allowed into the room, otherwise. Should be easy enough, shouldn’t it? “I lost my memory, I’m afraid. Johnny’s just trying to remind me how I was in the past.”
“Oh my god,” Jaemin looks like he’s about to cry. “This is the most painful love story.”
Yangyang pauses with his work to throw a deadpanned look at Jaemin.
The look hardly fazes Jaemin, who continues to wonder aloud, “I wish I had someone who’d take care of me like that.”
It’s Yangyang who's offended now. “What am I, then, chopped liver?”
“Someone who loves me, unconditionally.” Jaemin still dreamily looks between Taeyong and Johnny, ignoring a fuming Yangyang.
“This is so good!” Taeyong remarks, mouth full with his first bite.
“Ah, I asked them for no corn!” Without thinking, Johnny removes the corn kernels from Taeyong’s bowl and replaces them with the pieces of meat from his own.
“It’s alright!” Taeyong is startled for the nth time today, flushing at the complete care and attention Johnny gives him, even when they’re in front of strangers.
“I’m literally going to cry, Yangyang,” Jaemin sighs audibly. “It was sweet enough that he’s practically been living at the hospital in case his sweetheart wakes up. But this?” Jaemin sighs again, and nearby, Taeyong hears Yangyang sighing on his own. “Boyfriend goals.”
Taeyong has been trying to play it cool by putting all his attention to the food in front of him. But the final blow has him choking mid-gulp, and he starts coughing uncontrollably.
“Taeyong would do the same for me,” Johnny says as he pats Taeyong’s back to calm him down.
Once he catches his breath, Taeyong thinks that maybe Johnny's giving him too much credit. They're friends, sure, and now roommates, but these delicate touches and affectionate actions? To put a pause on his life for who knows how many days to camp out in a tiny hospital room, all for him? It sounds as ridiculous as the currently flipped situation. But Johnny's smile is as wide as Jaemin’s aspirational words, and Taeyong doesn't have the heart to correct him.
They spend the day chatting, the two of them. Really, it's Taeyong talking and Johnny listening, only speaking to answer any and all questions Taeyong asks, but otherwise simply holding onto each word Taeyong utters as if it were a prayer.
(To Johnny, Taeyong's words are prayers, uttered here in front of him by an angel whom a miracle has graced upon. His Taeyong is alive and well, the love of his life whose recovery he had firmly believed, but had a tiny, festering what-if in the back of his mind that's finally been erased. His beloved Taeyong finally awake and talking and laughing as he always has been, and god-willing, always will be.)
The evening sun casts a glimmer when Johnny moves his hand.
“Is that a wedding ring?” Taeyong can’t help but to reveal the disappointment in his voice. Then, remembering they’re roommates, asks in confusion, “Are you two still...?”
Johnny stills, his eyes immediately traveling to Taeyong's own hand by instinct, to where a tanned band displays where a ring used to be before the surgery.
“Yes,” Johnny admits, although with some regret.
“Tell me about...them,” Taeyong finishes, a bit more prepared now to come to terms that maybe not everything Johnny had revealed online might be the truth.
Johnny plays with his ring for a long while. Flashes of emotions traverse his face, and Taeyong has a hard time reading any of them.
“I’ll tell you about him later,” Johnny eventually waves off with a laugh. “It’s complicated.”
“But he's okay with us being roommates?” Taeyong asks, and before Johnny has a chance to reply, he says, “Not that I don’t want you as my roommate. Just curious about him, on his behalf.”
“Oh, don't worry about that,” Johnny smiles. “He's fine if you're fine.” And then adds haltingly, “Are you? Fine with me, that is?”
“Of course! You've been so nice to me. Your husband's lucky to have you.”
Johnny grins, his eye whiskers crinkling. “You think he's lucky?”
Taeyong grins back. “Probably not as lucky as you are, though. I know I wouldn't let my man live with someone else.”
“Yeah,” Johnny leans forward and Taeyong catches a wicked glint in his eyes. “I know you like to be in charge.”
“Right,” Taeyong croaks out, unsure why he suddenly feels hot and bothered in this air conditioning. For the first time that day, he wishes he had something else to be preoccupied with other than Johnny’s face. He looks around the room and asks, “Have you seen my phone, then? You said you told my family that I’m awake,” Taeyong says, asking only in his interest to change the subject and hence the mood.
“It’s, um,” Johnny wrings his hands, looking elsewhere. “Out of commission. But yeah, I’ve let your family and your friends know.”
(Taeyong’s phone is fine. But his phone screen is a photo of the two of them during their third anniversary, and they have a healthy enough boundary to keep their phone pins private. Johnny's only pushing off the eventual trauma Taeyong will face when realizing he's married. But he’ll tell him soon, he wills. Before the day is over.)
“What about my memory loss?” Taeyong questions. “Did you tell them about that?”
“That, I think maybe it’d be better if you let them know,” Johnny placates Taeyong with a gentle smile. “But tomorrow. You just woke up, and it’d probably be better if you gave a day to yourself. What do you think?”
Taeyong shrugs. “I guess. I’ve barely gotten through all the stories I’ve had with you.” He leans back, suddenly overcome with fatigue. “Who knows what else I’ve missed.”
“Take your time,” Johnny says. “Nine years can seem like a lifetime. I’ve already tied up any loose ends you had, so there’s absolutely no rush to getting back to the living.”
“Come here,” Taeyong waves his arm in Johnny’s direction, and when Johnny follows his instruction, Taeyong lightly holds onto Johnny’s hand, playfully swinging it. “You’re a real sweet guy, you know that?”
A shriek at the room’s doorway makes Taeyong miss Johnny’s blush.
“Don’t stop because of me!” Jaemin frantically waves his hand that isn’t pushing a cart. “Please, pretend I’m not even here! Just gonna give Taeyong’s daily bath.”
“My what?” Taeyong’s voice cracks.
“Standard procedure for long-term patients. Unless, now that you’re awake,” Jaemin pauses in fiddling with his tools to cast a glance at Taeyong. “You’d rather have your hubby bathe you?”
“I’d rather bathe myself, thanks,” Taeyong bristles, turning red.
“Isn’t there a communal shower on a higher floor?” Johnny questions, to Taeyong’s relief.
Jaemin cocks his head at Taeyong. “Can you walk already, then?”
“I’ll take him there,” Johnny confirms.
“Oh,” Jaemin says. Then, with dawning revelation as he looks between the two, “Oh. I see your plan, you sneaky little lovebirds.”
Horrorstruck, Taeyong retorts, “We’re not-”
“Fancy seeing you in these parts,” Yangyang strolls in the room as he casts a flippant look at Jaemin.
“I literally drive us to work everyday.” Jaemin frowns. He turns to Taeyong, apologetic. “Sorry about him. He's been going through something since this morning.”
“What I’ve been going through,” Yangyang glares at Jaemin, “is my best friend assuming I’d just feed him to the wolves if he ever gets sick.”
“I never said that!” Jaemin balks. “I just said, if I had someone who loved me, then-”
“You’d drop me in the garbage chute?” Yangyang finishes. “Is that all I am to you, a stepping stone to some fairy tale prince?”
“That’s not-”
“Treason!” Yangyang points a shaky finger at Jaemin. “Treason of the highest order!”
“You see what I’ve been dealing with all day?” Jaemin tiredly looks at Taeyong. “Can you tell him? Surely there's a difference between how a friend and a romantic partner takes care of you.”
“Or you can try to understand Yangyang’s point of view,” Taeyong says, now more invested in their relationship than he thought he’d be. “See how Johnny takes care of me, even though we’re only friends?”
Jaemin and Yangyang share a look. Yangyang has his mouth open, and Johnny cuts him off.
“Ah right, only friends,” Johnny winks at Taeyong.
Yangyang stares. “Is some kind of freaky roleplay for you guys?”
Taeyong quickly comes to his senses, inwardly chastising himself. “Yeah,” he plays along. He still isn’t sure how the friend-only protocol works for visitors who are basically sleeping in the patient’s hospital room.
“Really?” Jaemin grabs a chair and pulls it up to the bed. “What's the point of a roleplay where you're friends? Where's the spice?”
Taeyong's eyes widen. “Well,” he stammers, at a loss.
Johnny comes to the rescue. “Now that’s a tad personal, isn’t it?” His warm laughter is enough to catapult Taeyong's heart out the hospital window if Taeyong hadn’t wanted to jump out himself, out of pure mortification.
Jaemin pouts. “But I wanted to know how this game goes.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Yangyang says, exasperated. He points at Johnny and Taeyong. “You got two people in love, for who knows how long right? So what if they wanted to, I don’t know, go back to their roots? So they pretend only to be friends, so they can fall in love all over again. Right?” Yangyang looks at Johnny for confirmation.
Taeyong wonders if Johnny feels as awkward as he is at the moment, but Johnny only offers a small smile and quietly responds, “Not a bad idea at all.”
Jaemin coos, “They're so in love. Can you even imagine?”
“Can I even-” Yangyang scoffs. “You disgust me, Na Jaemin.” With that, he storms off.
“What did I do now?” Jaemin groans as he follows him out the door.
Night falls, and with it the remaining time before Taeyong needs to rest, on the doctor’s orders.
“There’s one more thing I’ve been keeping from you,” Johnny begins.
He’s clearly at a loss, anxiously leaning forward in the pulled-up couch and Taeyong absorbs his painful emotions into his own. “It’s okay, Johnny. Whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
(Oh, but Johnny would keep it from Taeyong, if only he could. To have Taeyong start over entirely, without any messy strings leading back to Johnny, that’s the dream. Alas, the world is too small and the impossibility of destroying five years’ worth of evidence is a laughable matter. No, Johnny can’t reverse time entirely. He can only show Taeyong a way out, if he’s so inclined.)
“But I have to.” So Johnny begins with a deep breath.
“Seven years ago, we had become more than friends. I still lived on the other side of the country, but we started seeing each other then. Virtually at first, and then with actual trips, either with you flying over to me or me to you. Nearly broke our savings towards the end of it, we just couldn’t stay apart for so long.
“Five years ago, we decided to move in together. It was you who suggested it, actually,” Johnny forces out a strained laugh. “I played the devil’s advocate, even though I liked you a lot. You deserve the world, you know? And I wasn’t sure I could give you the world. But we made it happen.
“Three years ago, I asked you to marry me. I know, I wasn’t even sure if I should move in with you. But I knew then, and maybe I was being selfish, but I knew I couldn’t live without you. Even if I wasn’t enough for you. Even if I had to give my last breath for your sake, because that would make me happier than living for another moment without you.
“What I’m trying to say is, you really are my husband. Or were, if you’d prefer that. I don't know.” Johnny's face contorts in an attempt to barricade his heartbreak from spilling. “It’s too much to ask you to stay married to me, especially when you have no memories of us being anything more than internet friends.” By some inhuman strength of resolve, Johnny has the power to smile just then. “I’ll be happy with whatever you decide.”
It’s apt that Taeyong's brain turns to mush for the second time that day, a bookend to the twin experience of heavy fog that rose with the morning sun.
Johnny takes Taeyong’s silence as brewing anger, and hurriedly adds, “I know I should’ve told you about your marital status this morning, and I’m sorry I didn’t. That was wrong of me. I was selfish- again- and I just wanted one more day with you.” He looks down at his hands, expression shrouded in shadows. “I’ll arrange for the divorce papers to be mailed to us- to you. I’ll have moved out of the apartment by the time you’re released from the hospital, so you don’t even need to see me after today.”
“You are selfish, Johnny,” Taeyong mumbles. He picks at the fabric on the bed sheet. “Were you even going to listen to what I had to say?”
“I’m sor-”
“You drop this bomb on me, and give me, what, all of five seconds for a response before you decide for me?” Taeyong’s voice rises as he looks up at Johnny, who is all but cowering back in guilt. “You were just going to neatly pack up your things and leave my life? You said we were together for seven years. It’d really be that easy for you to get over me?”
“But if that’s what you want-”
“I’m disappointed in you, that’s what I have to say.” Taeyong crosses his arms. “If you really loved me, wouldn’t you give our love a fighting chance? Won’t you give me a chance?”
Johnny gapes in confusion.
“And it’s also unfair,” Taeyong continues, now looking at his nails, “That you got to experience our married life when I haven’t. Well, technically, I have, but on another technicality, I haven’t. It just doesn’t give me enough information to decide whether it’s something I want or not.”
“I can send you photos-”
“Moreover,” Taeyong pretends to have not heard the worst idea on earth, “In his evening rounds, didn’t Dr. Qian say there’s a probability that I might get my memories back?”
“He said a very small probability-”
Taeyong rolls his eyes at Johnny. “Fine. But we have a couple of scenarios here. On one end, there’s the scenario that I may very well remember everything I’ve forgotten. On the other, I fall in love with you, all over again.”
“There’s a third end, too,” Johnny sulks, but his mood is considerably brighter than when the conversation had begun. “The one where you end up hating me.”
“That is true. And at this very moment, I do hate you, Johnny,” Taeyong reaches over to grab Johnny’s hands into his own. “I hate you very much. But you can change that, can’t you?”
“Do I get a trial period, then?” Johnny bites down his lip to keep himself from smiling. “Like you get to divorce me any time between now and sixty days from now?”
“I can divorce you between now and your deathbed, Johnny. That’s how marriage works.”
“Right,” Johnny finally lets out a huff of laughter. “What is this, then?”
“Think of this as,” Taeyong pretends to be in deep thought. “Roleplay.”
Johnny grins as he gets off the couch. “Where we pretend to be friends, and then fall in love?”
“Precisely,” Taeyong’s breath hitches as the bedframe dips with Johnny’s added weight. The familiar perfume envelops Taeyong now, reaching out roots far into his memories, into his past where he’s smelled the scent countless times before, one of many keys- numerous, yes, but unlimited, certainly not- all to unlock a treasure chest of experiences hidden away in his mind for him to eventually find. Taeyong breathes in the scent again with a smile. “And all the while, I’ll be in charge.”