Work Text:
Suffocating.
Soobin felt like he was suffocating.
His chest tightened with every passing second and he found it difficult to breathe, like a thick, dark smoke was clouding up his lungs. The world around him was spinning and he could feel his heart hammering inside his ribs. His brain was a jumbled mess of nerves and was in total chaos, much like the scene he was witnessing as his feet were glued to the pavement and his body was frozen with shock.
Soobin stood before what was left of the building he and Beomgyu used to call home.
In the dark of the night, it was the bright and angry flames that lit up the streets. You could barely see its structure within the flickering tongues of red and orange. The blare of sirens coming from the parked fire trucks and ambulances rang in Soobin’s ears while firefighters were scattered around the area, trying to put out the fire. It smelled of smoke, the strong odor assaulting his nose. People whom Soobin recognized as their neighbors were screaming and yelling, pushing and shoving each other out of the way. Some were teary-eyed trying to find and contact their loved ones, and some were doing the best they could to salvage any property they could find.
And at that moment, there was only one thing on Soobin’s mind.
Beomgyu.
It was then that things finally started to sink in, and now Soobin was scared. Beomgyu was alone in the apartment, and Soobin was driving home from work a little later than usual because he had to go to the jewelry shop to pick up Beomgyu’s “surprise.” And even as Beomgyu pestered him about it for hours on end, Soobin wouldn’t budge, saying ‘Patience, Beoms. You’ll find out soon, it’s a surprise for a reason.’ But even as he examined his surroundings, he could not find his lover anywhere.
Soobin hurriedly opens his contacts on his phone and tries not to panic, clicking the “ㄱ최범규” (A Choi Beomgyu) at the top of the list and pressing the cherry red call button, leaving an imprint of his sweaty finger on the screen. Upon doing so, he remembers the exact conversation they had on the phone just ten minutes before he got here.
. . .
Binnie, I miss you so much. Are you driving?
Yes darling, I’m on my way home, at the stoplight. Give me ten minutes.
Mmh… okay then. Hurry up, I want to know what the surprise is! You said you’d tell me tonight. Don’t think I’ve forgotten!
(Soobin chuckles to himself and fiddles with the blue velvet box in his pocket, the smile on his face growing ten times wider and a lovely strawberry pink dusting his cheeks.)
You’ll see. Just wait a little longer, okay? I’m almost there, don’t piss your pants from excitement.
Gross, you have a weird sense of humor.
Got it from you.
Eugh. Can you just come home already? I miss my boyfriend. What are you even picking up?
Ah, you’re so stubborn. Like I said, you’ll see it tonight, it’s an important surprise. But I miss my boyfriend too. I’ll be home soon Beomie, I promise.
Okay… you promised! I’m gonna stop talking now so you don’t crash the car. Drive safe, okay babe? I love you so much.
I will, darling. I love you most.
. . .
The touch I got too used to,
The face that smiled at me,
Will I not see you again anymore?
. . .
This was not how tonight was supposed to go.
Soobin had it all planned out in his head. Tonight—just a regular night in the middle of November, when the chilly autumn breeze blew hard and the trees have finished shedding their tan and copper colored coats—was the perfect night.
He would take Beomgyu to the park where they first met as teenagers, turning on the LED lights that he spent days putting up between the branches of the old giant oak tree planted in the center, their secret little spot as highschoolers. Beomgyu’s eyes would light up with a million stars while he stares at the scenery, recalling all the fond memories they spent under this tree together, his smile mirroring Soobin’s. Soobin would tell him to find the sticky notes hanging from the branches and Beomgyu would only scoff and huff, complaining about how he was doing all the work when the surprise was supposed to be for him. While Beomgyu busied himself finding the papers that read ‘Choi Beomgyu, will you marry me?’ when put together, Soobin would get down on one knee behind Beomgyu and pull out a blue little velvet box from his pocket. Beomgyu would find all the sticky notes and put them together, and it would dawn on him. When he turns around, he would gasp and cover the grin on his face with his two hands as Soobin repeated the words on the papers. He would then open the box, revealing a dainty silver ring perched inside with a single, sparkling diamond adorning it. Beomgyu would nod his head like an excited puppy, saying ‘yes’ over and over while Soobin slipped the twinkling ring on his finger. Then Soobin would lift Beomgyu and twirl them around like how all the cliché couples in romance dramas did, and they would share a sweet kiss under the giant oak tree, making one more happy memory there.
It would have been the perfect night.
But instead, here Soobin was, calling out his lover’s name like a desperate plea, waiting for someone to come running into his arms, safe and secure. He had called Beomgyu’s phone more times than he could count, only for all of them to go straight to voicemail. He tried texting, a train of anxious messages filling up their chat and burying their previous conversation but to no avail. At this point, he had already walked around the whole area, checking nearly everywhere. His voice is panicked when he asks around for a long-haired boy, a head shorter than him, as his eyes scan every face that passed by him. He was worried sick, tears brimming his eyes as he continued shouting. His breathing was unsteady, just like his steps as he roamed around the area like a lost child looking for his parent. He never stopped trying to call Beomgyu, his phone glued to his ear.
Just when his throat began to hurt from continuous usage, Soobin found his neighbor and one of his closest friends, Kai. Kai lived in the apartment next to him with his boyfriend and best friend, Yeonjun and Taehyun respectively. Soobin exhales, glad that his friend is safe, putting his phone down for a second and tapping Kai on his shoulder. Kai sharply turned around, a hint of hope flickering in his eyes, before it quickly dissolved into disappointment, though Soobin could tell that he tried to hide it. Soobin’s heart sank.
“Kai-yah…” He hesitated to ask about Beomgyu when he could see the panic in the others’ eyes, almost as if Soobin was staring at his own reflection.
“Have you seen Yeonjunie hyung? Please, I’ve been trying to call him for hours, Taehyun is still coming from the gym… Please, Soobin hyung.” Desperation was evident in Kai’s voice. The tall boy was gripping his phone tightly, showing Soobin an entire column of missed calls from Yeonjun. Soobin shook his head, looking down and swallowing his words.
Kai frowned and sniffled before Soobin pulled him into a hug to comfort him. The way Kai almost immediately collapsed into Soobin’s embrace told him that he needed this. Sobs wracked Kai’s body as he allowed himself to break, crying into Soobin’s shoulder. In a way, it comforted Soobin too. Made him feel a little less lonely for a while.
He felt selfish to wish that it was Beomgyu in his arms instead.
“Huening-ah!” A distressed shout comes from behind Soobin, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Kai’s sobs momentarily stop. He flinches in Soobin’s arms upon hearing the voice, before gasping shakily and lifting his head. “Yeonjun,” He whispers, his voice watery. “Yeonjun!” He repeats, his voice now louder despite it breaking.
When Soobin turns around to look behind him, Kai is already letting go of him and taking broad steps toward a very worried black-haired boy. Yeonjun had his arms open as Kai called out for him. They hug each other so tightly when they reunite, like the other would disappear if they let go for even a split second.
A small, sad smile forms on Soobin’s face when he leaves them. But even from a distance, he doesn’t miss the pair’s relieved sighs and tender whispers between teary kisses. He catches fragments of their conversation, hearing phrases along the lines of ‘i’m sorry,’ ‘my phone died,’ and ‘i’m glad you’re okay.’ At the same time, they were touching, feeling each other everywhere, as if they were trying to convince themselves that they were truly there and not just a figment of their imagination.
How Soobin yearned for Beomgyu’s warmth again, to be engulfed in one of his bear hugs and to feel his sweet, soft lips pressed against his own. Anyhow, he doesn’t allow himself to be distracted by his thoughts for more than ten seconds before he starts looking for Beomgyu again, remembering his prior mission and pressing the call button on his phone for the hundredth time that night. He could only pray that Beomgyu’s phone died or got lost and that he was perfectly safe, like Yeonjun, Soobin thinks.
He stops in his tracks when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He had hoped that he would be greeted by the oh-so-familiar round eyes and the long wolf cut of a certain boy, but instead, he comes face-to-face with enchanting fox-like eyes and short black hair. It’s Yeonjun. Soobin tries to mask his slight dismay by acting startled by the his presence.
“Hey, Soobin. You’re looking for Beomgyu, right? Because… I found him.” Yeonjun’s voice is soft and quiet when he speaks, as if his words were sharp daggers that could hurt. Soobin, however, felt his heart jump, a newfound hope seeping into him.
“Wh— what? Where is he?” He perked up, eyes expectant and hopeful. At the same time, Soobin was confused as to why Beomgyu wasn’t with Yeonjun if he had found him. Yeonjun just looked at him with sadder eyes, his brows furrowed and a frown on his plump lips when he caressed Soobin’s arm. This alarmed the latter.
“He’s in one of the ambulances, he’s…” Yeonjun’s voice quivered and became even softer as he trails off, afraid to finish his sentence. Despite Yeonjun’s quiet voice, his words now felt like twenty large blades stabbing and hacking away at Soobin’s heart. He realizes that he hasn’t checked any of the ambulances. Maybe because his mind subconsciously rejected seeing Beomgyu in such a state that he needed to be there.
He follows Yeonjun’s gaze and finds a bunch of people swarmed around an ambulance, loud sirens and pained cries mixing together into a dreadful soundscape.
There was an ugly feeling in the pit of Soobin’s stomach that made him want to throw up at the scene. Despite the twist in his gut and the lump in the back of his throat, he willed himself to briskly walk over to the crowd, frantically pushing people out of the way and leaving Yeonjun standing by himself among the sea of strangers.
Soobin was not ready for the sight that greeted him as he reached the front, because there was the boy he was so desperately calling out for.
Beomgyu was laid out on a stretcher on the ground, looking peaceful and still, a stark contrast compared to the scenery around him. His favorite pair of grey cotton sweatpants and the baby blue hoodie he borrowed from Soobin just yesterday were both badly torn and visibly scorched, and there were multiple wounds and cuts on his face and exposed skin.
Soobin felt sick to his stomach , his brain shutting down and tuning everything out, his surroundings distorting into plain white noise.
It was like the world stopped for Soobin, everyone and everything else vanishing into the air. Right now, it was just Soobin and Beomgyu. How ironic it was that the same thing happened in all their firsts— their first meeting, the confession, their first date, their first kiss.
Soobin lets out a choked whimper as he rushes to Beomgyu’s side. Beads of tears began to flow down his cheeks and his knees buckled under the suddenly heavy weight of his body, dropping his phone and plopping down next to the stretcher on the damp, concrete ground. He takes Beomgyu’s hand in his and laces their fingers together, the usual fuzzy warmth in Beomgyu’s palm replaced with a harsh coldness. He takes Beomgyu into his arms and cradles him. Swallowing his sobs, Soobin shakily but gently caresses Beomgyu’s cheek with his free hand, wiping the maroon stains on his skin with his thumb.
“Beomgyu, hey, Beomie. I’m home, darling.” Soobin whispers, his voice breaking and barely audible over all the noise. But Soobin only hears a long, deafening silence while waiting for Beomgyu’s response.
When he tries to find a pulse or listen to Beomgyu’s usually soothing breathing, he is met with nothingness. Just Beomgyu’s cold wrist and his lifeless body.
Soobin feels his blood run cold, feeling dizzy and lightheaded, his fingers going numb. He clasps his mouth in disbelief and horror as his worst nightmare materializes right before his eyes. He was feeling everything and nothing all at once as reality came crashing down on him, his heart feeling a million emotions only for all of them to blur together like an ugly, smudged painting.
“Oh no, no no no… Hey, hey. Choi Beomgyu, wake up. Wake up, Beoms, please!” Soobin desperately pleads, tears blurring his vision while he shakes his lover violently in a futile attempt to wake him up. “Your surprise. I still have to show it to you. How could you forget? Please open your eyes… wake up baby,” Soobin rambles on, his voice trembling and weakening with every word. His heart is in denial, refusing to accept his cruel reality, but the logical part of him knows that he’ll never see Beomgyu’s beautiful chestnut eyes flutter open again.
“Help! Help him please! Please, anyone!” He shouts and turns to the nearby medics, but they shake their heads and hang them low, one of the female medics murmuring something like ‘he was dead when they found him’ and ‘likely suffocated inside.’ Soobin couldn’t really hear her over the rapid beating of his heart thumping in his ears.
A long, anguished shout that he didn’t know he was holding erupts from Soobin’s mouth, not even caring that he had an audience surrounding the ambulance. He cries and wails and screams until his throat feels scratchy and sore, as if his voice had the power to bring Beomgyu back to life. He plants a teary kiss on Beomgyu’s icy lips one last time, thinking that maybe if he wished hard enough, a miracle would happen and those true love’s kiss things in the movies and dramas would come true. But of course, it was in vain. What hurt more was that Soobin could no longer taste the sweetness of Beomgyu’s lips that he ached for. All he could taste were his salty tears, blood, and the bitterness that was beginning to settle in his heart.
He felt like he was drowning. Pain and grief flooded every crease and crevice of his lungs, all the way up to his throat where it strangled it, closing in on him until Soobin found it immensely demanding to even breathe and could only take short, shallow breaths. Beomgyu would have been the hand that pulled him out of this treacherous ocean. Beomgyu was his oxygen, his life source, his everything. And Soobin had lost everything .
He could not stop crying even when his chest began to ache, even when he felt like he had just swallowed a box of thumbtacks that were pricking at his throat, even when he could taste traces of his own blood in his mouth.
Eventually, Soobin gets tired, his loud sobbing now reduced to soft weeping, his body shuddering with hiccups every few seconds. He clings onto Beomgyu’s limp body and never lets him go, burying his head into his clothed collarbone, damp with tears. Instead of Beomgyu’s fragrant green tea cologne, it is replaced with the smoky scent of ashes and charred fabric.
He does not even have the energy to fight back while he’s being peeled off Beomgyu’s corpse, just staring at him with mournful and glassy eyes while the paramedics take him and roll the stretcher into the ambulance. One of the paramedics holding him asks for his contact after letting him go, droning on about funeral services or something Soobin wasn’t really listening to. He mechanically gives them his number and they thank him, saying they’d contact him soon before hopping into the ambulance and driving away, leaving Soobin slumping on the sidewalk by himself.
Looking around him, Soobin couldn’t stomach being in this place anymore, he felt like vomiting with every passing second he spent there. With Beomgyu gone, everything felt empty, painful, miserable. Everything felt wrong .
. . .
When I close my eyes,
I feel like it will remind me of the times that we were together.
When I close my eyes,
I feel like I will think of only the happy memories again.
. . .
Soobin runs. He runs away from the torched remains of his apartment, away from the noisy sirens and people, away from it all. He runs and doesn’t look back, everything he owned (except his car) was probably consumed by the fire anyway. With nowhere else to go, he only had one place in mind. He runs for a while until he reaches the park. The park where he and Beomgyu first met, the park where they were supposed to spend a happy night under the stars. He reaches the old giant oak tree, staring at the LED lights he arranged and untouched sticky notes. Soobin scowls at the scornful gaze of the embellishments dangling from the tree, almost as if mocking his brutal fate. The seed of bitterness planted into his heart now flourished and spread, growing thorny, distasteful vines that left him feeling nasty everywhere inside.
He tears the sticky notes hanging from the tree’s branches and pulls on the string of tiny lights with much force while he yells, angry hot tears falling from his face. Soobin completely detangles all the lights he so diligently put up from the tree after fumbling with them multiple times, and repeatedly bashes them on the ground like a whip, the poor lights becoming a victim of Soobin’s rage. He chucks them to the side without any remorse. He then moves to the small papers and rips them to tiny little shreds, crumpling the remnants and throwing them on the ground. He grunts angrily while stomping on them furiously, the grass becoming collateral damage and crunching under his worn-out shoes. The same worn-out shoes Beomgyu would always nag at him to replace because they were so old. ‘If you wear it out one more time, its soles will literally peel off,’ Beomgyu would say. Soobin could still hear his nagging voice in his head, loud and clear.
It was sick how everywhere he looked, everything he saw, Soobin got reminded of Beomgyu. His shoes, the park, the old oak tree, the ruined decorations from his failed proposal. He lets out a dry, mirthless laugh between his tears and looks up at the sky to gaze at the stars—something he, again, would typically do with Beomgyu. However, there were no stars tonight, just a vast, lightless ocean above his head, the moon hidden by thick drifting clouds.
Completely spent from his tantrum, Soobin is panting as he sinks back against the trunk of the tree. He sits in silence for a little while, looking around the dim, deserted park, only hearing the occasional crickets and the rustling of leaves in the wind. It’s too quiet and he is left alone with his thoughts, now spiraling into the deep, deep rabbit hole of guilt and regret.
If only I had proposed sooner, if only I didn’t have to pick up his ring tonight… if only I had arrived just ten minutes earlier.
Then perhaps Soobin could have gotten both him and Beomgyu out of the fire in time, driving away from the burning building to the safety of the park where he was now. Perhaps he and Beomgyu would be sitting down, huddled together under the giant oak tree like they did countless times before, finding comfort in each other’s warmth and presence. Homeless, maybe wounded, and rattled from the whole thing, but at least they were alive. At least they had each other. And Soobin would have set the ring aside and proposed on another day.
But Soobin sat hugging his knees to his chest on the itchy grass, under the giant oak tree, still sniffling quietly. Homeless, unscathed, and rattled from the whole thing. Yes, he was alive. But he was alone .
He inspected the silver ring crafted specifically for his supposed fiancé. It was supposed to be the start of a new chapter, a bright future together with Beomgyu. Now, it was just a painful reminder of a future he could never have. A future that will only exist in his dreams. He puts it back in his pocket, unable to stand the taunting gleam of the diamond he carefully selected. It probably won’t see the light of day again, Soobin presumes.
He cries again but no more tears come out, he has run out of them. He shuts his eyes and squeezes them closed. He prays that this is all just a twisted nightmare, and that tomorrow he’ll wake up in the comfort of his soft cushiony bed, with Beomgyu snoring soundly in his arms, the warm morning light making him seem like he was glowing. But deep down, he knows that the only thing that will greet him at dawn is the prickly grass beneath his legs, the cold autumn wind nipping at his lips, and a gaping, Beomgyu-shaped hole in his heart that only Beomgyu could fill.
Under the pitch-black darkness of the starless sky that night, Soobin lost his home. The world had stopped for him, everyone and everything else vanished into the air.
Now, it was just Soobin.
. . .
When this night passes,
I'm afraid that I won't see you.
When this night passes,
I'm afraid that I'll be left alone.
. . .