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It wasn’t supposed to go this far.
It was never supposed to be… this.
They’d agreed. No real feelings, just an easy way to keep both of their families off their backs about dating.
It’s not like Minho hadn’t already memorized how Thomas takes his coffee (three whole packets of sugar and just a little creamer), or what his three favorite colors are (green, sky blue, and dark purple), or his favorite place to go when he’s upset (the abandoned warehouse at the edge of town).
It’s not like Newt would have thumped him hard on the back of the head if he’d known about this.
But he doesn’t, because he’s halfway across the world--has been for nearly three years-- and he’s not even going to make it back in time.
He thinks they could have been happy, if he’d just said something instead of hiding everything.
(Minho doesn’t think about how Thomas had leaned in, how his eyes followed him no matter where they were, how Brenda told him that ‘they were beating the lesbian stereotype for moving in’ when she’d been over to help move Thomas into his little apartment.
He’d been worried it would feel crowded. Instead, it just felt right.
“Shuckface, why do you have so many books?” Minho hauls the last of the book boxes into the living room. “It’s not like we don’t have a library down the street.”
“I just like reading, Minho, what’s so hard to understand about that?” He can hear the eyeroll in Thomas’s voice. “Besides, I offered to leave some at my parents’ or Teresa’s.”
“Oh hell no, you’re not bringing those to ours!” Brenda yells up the steps. “Keep those books away from our apartment, you understand? Teresa and I have enough already.”
Carrying Thomas’s microwave, she stops to lean up and whisper to him. “Don’t you think that it’s a little soon, Mr.-I-Don’t-Do-Commitment?”
That was before Thomas. Before they agreed to fake-dating long term.
“No. We’ve known each other our whole lives, this is just… a little something extra.” He thought it would be harder, but from the way Brenda laughs, he knows he’s got a sappy expression on his face.
“Well, you might have taken long than Teresa and I get together, but at least we waited six months to move in together. It’s been six weeks, Minho.” She teases, finally moving past him into the apartment.
“Brenda, stop making fun of my boyfriend or I’ll invite Teresa to my bookstore visit next week!”
My boyfriend. He never wants to stop hearing those words.
“Mr. Park, I understand you are here to finalize a few arrangements for the Murphey wake?”
“Yeah,” He swallows, hard. “Yeah, I am.” He knows why he’s the one doing this, instead of Thomas’s parents or even Teresa. Because they think he would know better than them as to what Thomas would want.
He does. Has since the first time they’d talked about it, when Thomas had his first big scare and had been in the ICU for a week.
He’d thought he had so much time, then. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, because Thomas needed to focus on himself.
The looks Teresa and Harriet had sent him had told him he was not successful at hiding it from them.
“Right this way, Mr. Park.” It’s still so weird, being addressed as Mr. Park. It’s something he and Thomas laugh about, because--
Used to laugh about.
It’s something they used to laugh about.
Minho forces himself to take a deep breath.
They--they should have been happy.
He shouldn’t have been so stubborn, and he should have stopped hoping Thomas would pick up his hints, and maybe he wouldn’t be here right now.
A voice in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like Thomas’s, tells him it’s not his fault.
(It doesn’t make him feel better.)
“As you know, his parents have already decided on a closed casket.” He nods. They’d been on a trip when Thomas had--when he had-- when he had passed. They weren’t there for that last day, and he wants to hate them for it. But he can’t blame them, because seeing Thomas like that… it’s the first time he hadn’t seemed like himself, at least to Minho, and it’s not something he’d want anyone else to see.
“And is that for show or will it be used?”
“It is.” Minho forces himself to say. “Thomas--he wanted one of those tree pods. I think I sent the forms in already?” He honestly can’t remember; he’s spent most of the past few days cycling through crying, denial, and screaming at the walls of the little bedroom that he’d painted purple just for Thomas, because fuck his security deposit, it wasn’t more important than doing anything that would make Thomas smile. Fuck what the neighbors think of him; Thomas is gone and he’s not getting him back.
“Yes, let me find that.” Minho is on autopilot for the rest of the appointment, signing where he needs to and picking the type of tree.
(White birch, Thomas’s favorite.)
“Would you like to see him before we prepare the pod?”
He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, but he does.
He’s the one who was there, he shouldn’t need this to prove to himself that it’s real.
But he does, so he takes it.
“I’m extremely sorry, Mr. Park, for your loss. It’s a shame you lost him before you could get married.” The undertaker says.
“We--we weren’t engaged.” The look he’s given is doubtful.
“I’m sorry to have assumed, then. Given that he had a ring, and you didn’t, I thought…”
“We weren’t engaged because I’m a coward,” Minho blurts, before he can stop himself. “I never told him--I never told him anything. He knew me inside and out and I knew everything about him, every little habit, and I still couldn’t tell him. If I had told him, told him that I loved him instead of going along with the fake dating idea, maybe--”
They could have been happy.
He doesn’t bother to stop himself from crying in the middle of the hallway. He broke down at the grocery store last week because he’d had to get some vegetables and he’d thought about the way Thomas would always pick the funny-looking ones, and they’d rate them.
It’s not the same.
Nothing is the same.
Minho hates his apartment now. It’s not--it’s not just his anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time. Even before Thomas officially moved his stuff in, before they’d started fake dating, there were bits and pieces of Thomas.
Now he’s everywhere, but he’s gone, and Minho hates him a little for that.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep this, Minho?” Gally holds up a picture book Thomas had made, full of high school and college memories and the day they moved in and their six-month ‘anniversary’ and god, Minho should have kissed him when he laughed like that. He should have kissed Thomas so many times.
“No, you can take it.” He’s numb, mostly. The funeral is tomorrow, and he’s supposed to speak, and he doesn’t know what to say. Not about Thomas, he can always talk about Thomas, but he doesn’t want to talk about him like this.
“Why, Minho?”
“It's a momento from the person I hate the most.”
“Minho, I know you miss him, but don’t say that.”
“I do! I hate him. Why did he have to leave, Gally?” It’s not even his first breakdown of the day; Alby and Harriet were here for that one. “He wasn’t--he wasn’t supposed to--we had time, and he’s just… gone.”
Despite his words, he takes the picture book from Gally, flipping through it.
There’s a really bad picture of him, from when he’d caught Thomas’s fever and tried going to class wrapped in a blanket with a thermos of soup and cough medicine tucked into his bag.
He missed Thomas more than he thought it was possible to miss <em>anyone</em>, remembering his laughter before he’d threatened to tie Minho to their the bed if he left again while he was sick.
“I just want him back, Gally.” His voice cracks. “I just want him back.”
He hasn’t told anyone but the undertaker that they were fake dating. It hadn’t been fake for him, not for a long time. And Thomas had held his hand and kissed his cheek and had a smile just for him and come to boring work dinners and taken horrible pictures and laughed at bad jokes. Thomas, who had picked him to show off to his parents and sister, picked him to be Chuck’s surrogate older brother when Thomas was out of town, picked him.
Thomas had suggested the engagement. He didn’t have to, neither of their parents had mentioned anything.
Thomas had picked him.
Minho can’t pinpoint when it happened: when he knew it was more than a crush, when he knew he was in love, but it doesn’t matter.
He’ll never get to say the words to Thomas.
“I don’t want pictures, I just want him.” He’s aware that Gally is trying to comfort him, but there’s nothing that can do that anymore. Nothing save for Thomas walking through that door, and that’s not happening.
“I hate him, Gally, because I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”
Their whole lives had been built around each other. They had their friends, their families, work, class, but Thomas was his person for everything.
He hates him so much right now.
(But he hates himself more because it would have been as simple as one sentence, and then everything might be different.
Everything would be different.)
Thomas had made a will, because of course he had. That’s such a Thomas thing to do, being prepared for everything, even this.
He filmed videos.
Videos, because he wanted them to hear things in his voice.
There’s a group one, and one for each of them separately.
Minho cries when he sees the background of his. Thomas is in their bed, the purple wall behind him, looking exhausted and pale, head bandaged, but smiling at the camera.
“Minho,” And his eyes focus on Thomas’s chest, rising and falling, a little too fast--he’d been nervous about this.
Scared.
“Minho, I just… I think I’ve only got a few days left, now. Between the chemo and the accident, I don’t think I’ll be able to say this in person.”
No, Thomas. No.
He pauses the video. He can’t--he can’t do this. He can’t watch Thomas spend one of his last days alive filming a two-hour long video for him. Not when the group video was filmed earlier (he’d been in the hospital, before they’d brought him home and brought hospice in.) and is only an hour.
He can’t.
He has to.
He wants to know what Thomas wanted to tell him. He wants to hold onto this image of Thomas, frozen in time, smiling at him through a screen.
He can’t have both.
Minho squeezes his eyes shut, breathing deeply, then opens them again and starting the video again.
“I know this wasn’t real, but Minho, it felt so real. I loved you, I love you, so much. You’re my best friend, one of the smartest, funniest people I know, and I think I was in love with you long before we even thought about fake dating. Teresa made fun of me all the time for it, and that’s why she was always a little mean to you, I’m sorry. Sonya wasn’t any better, she knew too. I think even Gally knew. It’s okay if you didn’t love me back that way, but I wanted you to know. You painted the bedroom for me, you let me move in, you kissed me in front of our friends and held my hand when I was scared or upset and no one else could see. I’m--I don’t know what happens after death, you know how I feel about that--but I know that I’ll miss you and that you’re the only person I would have wanted to spend my life with, if we’d a chance. If I’d had more time, instead of being a ticking time bomb. Without the accident… or even with it, if I were going to live longer, I would tell you in person. I’d tell you right now. You’re in the other room, taking a nap on the couch, and it would be so easy to tell you right now. But I don’t want you to feel pressured to tell you you love me just because I’m dying.”
It wouldn’t have been because he was dying.
Thomas rambles through the whole video, telling him his favorite memories and stories. He tells Minho he loves him over and over again.
Minho remembers that day. Thomas had gently kicked him out of the room because he’d wanted to do ‘end-of-life’ things, but he hadn’t wanted to go far, so he’d just gone to the living room to watch TV.
He’d been right there.
Right there, with Thomas only five days away from dying, and he could have had this for real.
He cries himself to sleep, Thomas’s pillow clutched to his chest.
Minho doesn’t leave the apartment for three days, not until Newt--finally able to come over--gets Sonya to pick the lock and let him in.
Newt takes one look at him and knows.
“Show me the video he left you.” It’s not a request, and Minho loads it up and sits next to Newt on the couch, dry-eyed. He’s spent too many hours crying lately; now he’s just numb.
“Minho, you bloody shank.” Newt grips his shoulders hard. “I’m not going to lecture you, I think you’ve done that enough yourself.”
He nods. He doesn’t really care what Newt does, none of it will bring Thomas back and fix this.
“You’re going to tell me your favorite stories. I wasn’t able to make the funeral, I didn’t hear them.”
“I--” He’d tried to speak, tried to share something of <em>his</em> Thomas with everyone who knew him, but he’d ended up crying too hard to say much of anything. “I couldn’t do it, Newt. I couldn’t even speak at his funeral.”
“Why did you agree, Minho?”
“Because I wanted to be close to him, because even if we weren’t dating he was my best friend and my favorite person in the world. I didn’t want him to be alone, or stuck with his parents during treatment. Take your pick, there’s a lot.”
“Sonya told me about you nearly seven months before he was diagnosed, Minho. It’s been two years, and neither of you said anything?”
Minho had been too scared. He hadn’t wanted Thomas to focus on his feelings while he was doing chemo and radiation and experimental drug trials.
Newt laughs, when he says that.
“You know, Minho, I got a video too. And that’s almost exactly what Thomas said. He didn’t want you to be worried about being the perfect boyfriend and having to deal with everything about his treatment if he told you he was in love with you.”
“I think he knew.” Minho whispers. “At the end. I was the only one who didn’t leave.” Teresa and Chuck, and their friends, they had all seen Thomas in his last few hours--Thomas hadn’t wanted Chuck to watch him die, always trying to protect his younger brother.
“He also sent me another video, Minho, but it’s really for you. I haven’t watched it.”
“The one he already gave me is two hours long, did he really have more to say?”
“Min, he could never shut up about you. Whenever we talked, it was always about you.”
And that wasn’t weird or strange because everyone had thought they were dating.
“I’ll watch it. Alone.”
“After you shower and eat.” Newt doesn’t compromise on that, even though he protests. He just wants to know what else Thomas wanted to tell him.
“Hi again, Minho. I left this one for Newt, because I wanted you to watch these in order.”
Thomas is in the sweater he’d been wearing when he died--one of Minho’s, he’d lost the strength to change on the second to last day, and Minho had just wanted him to be comfortable and warm.
“Lissa helped me set this up, don’t worry, I didn’t do it myself. She sent you out to buy ice cream before I woke up, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to get too much of my favorite and forget what your own is again.” His voice is so much weaker; he’s propped against five pillows to sit up.
“I heard you, Minho. I heard you tell me you love me, and I was too drugged to answer, and when I woke up you were gone. When you get back, we’re going to eat ice cream and you’re going to tell me stories. Lissa’s going to up my meds again after this; she wanted to earlier but I wanted to do this first. I wanted you to know I know, in case I don’t have the strength to say it out loud again.”
He hadn’t. This… this might be the last time Thomas spoke in his life.
“I love you too, Minho. Thank you for telling me.” Thomas breaks off into a coughing fit, and from the strength of it, Minho knows he was holding back throughout the video. Lissa comes in, gets things straightened out, and turns off the video.
Thomas was right, though. He’d gotten Lissa two pints of mint chocolate chip, and he’d gotten Thomas his cherry with chocolate chunks (five pints) and a pint of peanut butter chocolate for himself.
He’s got four pints of cherry with chocolate chunks in his freezer, and it’s never been his favorite, but he pulls out it and eats it anyway.
Minho doesn’t know what he’s going to do when it’s gone, but for now, he lets their friends come in and crowd together on the couch, and they open up the picture book Gally had saved and talk about the videos Thomas left them.
Maybe he’s never going to fall out of love with Thomas. Maybe he’s never going to stop holding onto him, onto his laugh, his dumb fashion sense, the way he talked.
That doesn’t mean it has to hurt.