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“When are you gonna stop mooching off from my allowance?”
The exasperated sigh that follows is what made Eunho look up to the pink haired boy sitting across him. It was quite funny to hear that nagging phrase almost everyday and yet here they are sitting again together, eating their lunch that the other had paid for. A strange normality, an unpracticed habit already ingrained in their everyday schedule.
“Stop talking nonsense, you know elders should always treat the young ones.”
“We were born barely a year apart.”
“You don’t hear me say that when you demand to be called hyung.”
The hyung in question, Bamby, could only scoff, “You’re exhausting.”
Eunho grinned, having yet won an argument against him. It was their routine. Bamby complaining but also paying the exact amount of price both of their food cost and Eunho arguing back to all the arguments his hyung starts. He tried breaking that routine once by paying for both of them only for his hyung to look at him weirdly, asking if he was sick, even adding a click of a tongue and a threatening “ don’t do that again”. And what is Eunho if not an obedient person?
Eunho broke the silence that had befallen them, “Also, I already told you I’d pay you back after I've bought it.”
“By being my chauffeur?” Bamby raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” the younger affirmed with a nod, “Wouldn’t you want someone driving you around anywhere, anytime?”
The older one crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair, “I would prefer someone in a Bentley than a motorbike.”
Eunho mirrored his hyung’s previous actions, “Not when you’re always running late.”
“I don’t need an annoying driver like you.”
“Okay, then tell me how can I pay you back? I told you I’ll pay you back in money and you rejected that too. So, how?”
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Eunho felt every hair strand in his body standing at attention, every end of his veins quickly pumping up and down in unison with his heart. This always happens to him whenever he meets Bamby’s stare. The wanted chaos that triggers his amygdala everytime he bears witness to the multiple supernovas happening in Bamby’s eyes.
But all good things must come to an end as Bamby first looks away, with almost half of his face covered in a pinkish tint. Eunho dug his nails on the biceps his hands are respectively resting on. Too afraid that the static on his fingertips will end up traveling across Bamby’s skin, tracing every part covered in the similar hue of his hair. He doesn’t know what his hyung had thought of to induce that reaction to himself but he knows he will instantly say yes to whatever he wanted.
Opting to bury all these thoughts, Eunho jokingly said, “What nasty thoughts are you thinking about now?”
There was a sudden kick on his shin, eliciting an expletive from him. He looked at the perpetrator who was looking at him darkly.
“I was joking,” Eunho pouted. “But you thought of something, what is it?”
Bamby opened his mouth but instantly closed it, “It’s nothing.”
“Just tell me.”
“No, I told you it’s–”
“So, it is something nas–”
“Kalguksu.”
Eunho tilts his head while looking at Bamby whose face is almost twice pinker than his hair.
“Kalguksu?” The younger repeats.
The older one breathes in and out and looks back at him, “Yes.”
Eunho scrunched his eyebrow together and circled his wrist in a motion asking for more info, “Kalguksu, what?”
“You’ve been raving about it."
“Yes? Do you want me to take you to that kalguksu place I’ve been frequenting?”
“No, I want you to make me one.”
“You want–” Eunho buried his face on his palms to hide the growing smile invading it, “–you want me to cook you one? Just that?”
Bamby scoffed, “And? Is that a problem?”
Eunho resurfaced from his palms. “So, you wanted a chef instead?” he joked, unable to stop the giggle from escaping his mouth.
“Forget it,” Bamby said as he carried his tray and started walking away from the table they were eating on.
The younger one instantly followed him but Bamby was swift with his movements. He quickly finished clearing up the cutleries he used and immediately exited the cafeteria without waiting for Eunho. This urged the younger one to clear his hurriedly, albeit clumsily, so he could follow the other before he could lose sight of him.
Eunho ran to the direction he knew Bamby took and within seconds he saw the familiar mop of hair. He heaved a sigh of relief before wrapping an arm around the older one.
“I’ll cook up one once we get home from our group trip,” he whispered, while looking down at Bamby.
His eyes never strayed away, waiting for Bamby to return his stare. And not a minute later, his wish was granted and all Eunho wanted was for those pink orbs to be seared behind his eyelids thus even when his eyes are closed, it’s all that he could see.
“You promise?” Bamby whispers back.
Promises could be fickle. For Eunho, they’re as fragile as fine china and yet as important as one too. If his hyung asked him to promise, he would agree to it in a blink of an eye no matter what kind of conditions were set. He took all the promises he had made with Bamby as something that he would swear to his life to never break.
But to not overwhelm his hyung with his never dying loyalty, he entwines his pinky with Bamby’s instead and softly answered, “I promise.”
A cough, one that convinced him that his lungs wanted to escape through his mouth, is what woke Eunho in his dreamlike state. As his senses slowly wake up one another, he starts to be aware of his being. He felt poking in almost every part of his body; not enough to stab, not enough to graze. It didn't hurt him, it was more like a permanence and his body had mold in accordance with it.
There was something flowing that’s hindering his eyesight and he could only blink it away as his hand grew heavy at the mere thought of using it. He’s not out of it to not know it’s blood or that it’s his blood. He would want to scream out of fear or hurt but he may as well have swallowed rocks with how ragged his throat feels. Right, rocks, he could see them now. Slowly getting out of his mind’s limbo state, he realized he had been lying face first on the ground with his body burying the pebbles beneath him.
Holding on to his consciousness was like trying to catch a butterfly from the air. All he knows is that if he closes his eyes, then he’ll be devoid of feeling anything at all. There was something tempting him to just do it, to close his eyes and cross the line. As his body numbs and eyes grow heavy, he tries to reach out to that temptation.
A hand, one that was wet and colder than he was, is what made him drift back to reality. He could feel the palm shakingly caressing the top of his right hand. Eunho moves his head sideways, trying to see who it was. He was fully expecting death to have him on, only to be stood corrected at the sight of his life assuming the same position he’s in.
“Don’t sleep, Eunho-ya.”
As if a strong wind passed by, the fog in his mind instantly cleared up. He slowly tried standing up from his position, moving as if adrenaline was injected in his every vein. But his body was too heavy for his feet to carry, so in a move of desperation he decided to crawl.
“Hyung,” Eunho called out, holding Bamby by his shoulders and slowly moving him so he could lie down by his back.
Eunho sought Bamby’s eyes and he breathed out of relief upon finding it already sparkling back at him. “We have to look for help.”
“Go look,” Bamby raggedly breathed out, “You can leave me here.”
The younger one shook his head, “I’m not doing that.”
“You have to. I can’t–” the older one reasoned while trying to control his breathing.
Eunho saw Bamby’s hand reaching for something below him. But before he could follow his line of sight towards it, that very same hand softly landed on his cheek, holding his head still.
“Listen Eunho. If you can move, then go.”
“No, maybe Yejun or Noah hyung are on their way. I mean, it’s them, they always know what to do. They’re probably still looking for Hamin, yes, let’s just wait for them. I can’t leave yo–”
Suddenly, there was something cold touching him on his other cheek. It was Bamby’s other hand and it was drenched in that scarlet red he had been familiar with for the past minutes. Eunho couldn’t help but reach out and lay his hand against it, looking at it with eyes shaking.
“Hyung, your hand–”
“It’s fine. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
But it wasn’t. Like being plunged abruptly in deep water, air was being deprived of him.The murky waters covered his eyes and he’s losing sight of his hyung. The ringing on his ear keeps getting louder as he continues drowning straight to the rock bottom of the ocean called his mind.
“Eunho,” Bamby repeatedly called out, but the other seemed lost on his own. Stumped with how to get the other’s attention, all he could do was wrap his hands around the other’s neck and bury his head towards his shoulder. Using one of his hands, he softly caresses Eunho’s hair. He admits that this one is done for selfish reasons rather than offering comfort to the other.
Bamby had accepted that his youthful life will end here. He knows that this moment he’s spending in trying to urge Eunho to save himself is merely borrowed time and he’s angering death in every breath he’s struggling to take.
He’s bargaining with God. Praying and holding on to that hope that God believes in equivalent exchange. After all, God so loved the world that he had to give his only begotten son for them to not perish and live an everlasting life. And Bamby was the same, he had loved. He was willing to give his life if it meant that Eunho remained living the life he had yet to experience.
“I’m sorry, hyung.”
Bamby paused in his caressing, “What are you sorry for?”
Eunho broke free from his hold. Bamby assumes that he would stand up now and leave him to look for help. Hypocritically, his heart breaks a little at the thought of Eunho leaving him behind even though he had prayed for it. Until the end, life found its way to be cruel to him.
But he was proven wrong in his assumptions when the younger one lied down beside him, facing the sky with a morose look in his face.
“I can’t save you or myself,” He looked at Bamby and pitifully chuckled, “I don’t think my legs are working anymore.”
“Oh,” Bamby whispered and thought to himself that life truly is cruel .
Listening to each other’s silent lamenting brought a weird sense of comfort. They let their shoulders touch, eliminating the empty space that exists between them. They’re bleeding out and along with it is their desire to just be beside each other while feeling the other’s body as it rises and falls with every breath they take.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?” Eunho breaks the silence.
Bamby moves his head sideways to look at him, only to find that the younger one already had his eyes on him.
“I’m a Christian,” Bamby jokes.
Eunho quietly chortles, “I knew you would say that.”
“What about you? Do you believe in it?”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
“So we could meet again. I’ll believe in anything as long as we can meet again.”
Bamby smiles, “Then wouldn’t it be more comforting to believe in an alternate universe?”
“I’ll believe in it too.”
“Maybe in another universe, you had already bought the red motorbike you’ve been saving for.”
“Yeah, I’ll drive, and drive, and drive until I finally find you.”
“And then?”
“We’ll eat kalguksu?”
“You have to make it first of course.”
“Alright, we’ll drive to my place and I’ll cook kalguksu for you.”
“That sounds like a plan. Will you really do all of that?”
“Of course,” Eunho whispers.
“You promise?” Bamby whispers back.
Promises could be fickle. But the promise of another universe them still rounding and breathing in each other’s orbits gave Eunho the strength to entwine his pinky with Bamby’s and softly answer, “I promise.”