Work Text:
Music Speaks Only To Me Now
Chan knows everything is coming to an end, even though he did not expect it at first. No one ever does.
In his studio, the hands of the clock that almost make him go crazy, he starts to think about how much time he still has left.
"Not much," he whispers to himself, as if he was talking to someone else, "but time is never enough."
Why is love, ever, not enough as well, though?
It lasted a few moments – the blink of an eye, some pathetic hand-holding, and now it is ending; it's being pulled away by the placid waves of a sea that knows no peace.
A moment before, just one moment before, they were together and in love.
The first to say it was himself, a barely whispered 'I love you' on a winter afternoon that had led to them spending more time than usual together, and Felix had smiled, he remembers now, looking up from the cookie dough he seemed to be so focused on.
His smile was the end of the world, or maybe the end of the world was his smile (Chan keeps thinking about it, more during the day than at night, and if only Felix had never had that so bright, so warm, so patient and so beautiful smile, he wouldn't be in so much pain now), and the 'I love you too' he'd uttered, his voice thinner than it usually was, had made the eldest give a big smile back.
A smile that smelled of hope, that made him look way younger, as if he had gone back in time and permitted himself to live as old as he should have. This time, better. This time, living.
Oh, our smiles, Chan thinks continuously to himself, if only I'd been able to keep them lit.
The fire goes out, once the wood in the shed runs out, but it's something that can be avoided and solved: do you see those trees, down the road, darling? They seem so far away from us, so at peace with themselves and between themselves.
I know it may sound and seem bad to cut them down and, after all, take their lives, just to keep ourselves warm and survive the night, but sometimes it is necessary and that's the only thing someone can do.
If Chan had cut down a tree and set fire to its branches before Felix's smile (every damn time he looked at him) had faded before his own eyes, maybe things would be different than they are now. If only he had rekindled the flame of his lips with a match...
...if only, if only, if only...
But it couldn't have been his fault alone, he couldn't have destroyed the relationship he had with Felix all by himself, because Chan never had a reason to and Felix alone had neither.
Chan had given his entire youth to live the life he was leading right now, just as he had given his entire being to keep Felix as safe as possible. Sometimes in between his arms, sometimes in his eyes.
Chan had loved only one person, an angel without wings, a soulmate in every way.
He still is loving, deeply and unconditionally, but everything is gone now and nothing seems to make sense.
He can't give himself an explanation about how all of this happened, as his long fingers gently touch and slither on the keyboard in front of him and musical notes gracefully come out of it.
A new melody that tastes like past.
His past, heavy and gruff, embracing his present but choking it with its bare hands, after a few seconds of contemplation.
I did all this for you, but what did you do for me? Why aren't you keeping me? So fragile, so lost, so alone' it seems to scold him, its voice sounding quite like Felix's, his best friend and lover who, now, will never be in his future as all that.
Chan can't explain to himself what what's going on actually is, but he writes a song about his love that's walking away, caught up in a dark forest where the only way out is the way back: the way back to be nothing for each other, to live as one and one only.
One, and one only.
Chan blames himself for every possible and imaginable fault, every fault no true lover should blame himself for, and perhaps it is the fault that keeps him up late at night, every night, until he collapses on his legs and falls asleep to music scores and unfinished letters at the crack of dawn.
And he writes it in his sad song – the saddest one, because love is bedding farewell to him from a window with no curtains, eyes full of regret and shaking hands.
"Goodbye." He hears.
"Goodbye." He whispers.
"Goodbye." He writes.