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The hospital lobby is nearly silent, with the nurses’ soft voices occasionally interrupting the calm. The setting sun bathes the place in orange and pink hues, reflecting off the brass of the seats.
For a few seconds, Sieun’s world is golden, soft and forgiving around him, a haven of tranquility. He thinks it’s not so much because of the hour as it is because of the absence of the usual weight crushing his chest, always threatening to shatter his ribs. His lungs expand fully for the first time in more than a year, aching with the unfamiliar fullness, as if even his body had forgotten how to function without Suho. His relief is so loud he still feels like he’s floating, happiness warming his chest.
He gazes toward the elevator, his eyes softening and a faint smile tugging at his lips when he thinks about Suho waiting for him upstairs. The skin of his wrist is sensitive after pinching himself too much, the fear that he’s dreaming still pressing against his shoulders, dread coiling in his stomach.
He has dreamt of this afternoon so many times. Dreams of a nurse calling him, sometimes Suho's grandma, but more often, of Suho waking up during one of Sieun’s visits, in the intimacy of his hospital room, just the two of them. Suho would look at him, his eyes gentle, and give him one of his soft smiles that belonged entirely to Sieun. And Sieun—Sieun would fall apart.
The presence of his friends is the only thing that keeps him together, unwilling to unravel in front of them, too scared of what they might see in his desperation, in his tears, in his devotion.
For now, he had left Suho with his grandma to walk his friends to the hospital entrance to part ways. He hadn’t looked back, all too aware that if he met Suho’s eyes, he wouldn’t have been able to leave him behind.
One of them coughs, and Sieun turns to them, awkwardly biting the inside of his cheek as he realizes he’s been staring at the elevator for too long.
They’re watching him, something careful in their eyes, and not for the first time since they befriended him, Sieun feels grateful for not being alone anymore.
“Thanks for coming today,” he says, the words easy on his tongue.
“What are friends for, uh?” Humin almost shouts, his voice too loud in the calm.
He bows apologetically to the nurses staring at him, and Sieun smiles. He never thought he would get to experience friendship again after Suho, and he wished he could tell the Sieun in the past that he would be okay. He would tell him that the world is not so dark, that he doesn’t have to shoulder everything alone, and that it’s much easier with friends. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and Suho is waiting for him there.
“I’m not going home tonight, you can go.”
“We know,” Hyuntak shrugs, “you’re probably not coming to class tomorrow either.”
Sieun nods and holds a smile when Humin mumbles playfully about delinquents skipping school.
There’s a beat of silence before Juntae asks, his voice careful, almost a whisper, “He matters a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
More than anything, Sieun doesn’t say, but the pull tugging at his ribs returns, like a string that draws him toward Suho, a compass that points only to him. It aches, but it doesn’t hurt anymore—not when he’s awake.
“Figured. I’ve never seen so many emotions on your face,” Hyuntak smiles, “and I’ve known you for more than a year.”
Sieun doesn’t say either that he can’t remember if he ever smiled before he met Suho, or that he hadn’t cried in years before him.
They stare, expecting him to say something. At first, Sieun considers staying silent. The depth of his attachment to Suho is his alone, something precious that is too pure to be tainted by the outside world. But his friends are good, and Sieun thinks they already know, at least a little. They’re just waiting for him to entrust them with this part of himself.
“I let half of me lying in that hospital bed for months,” he says simply. “Now, I’m whole again.”
He keeps his eyes on the ground, his words too earnest. He doesn’t see Humin passing a hand through his hair, but he catches the hesitation in his tone, softer than Sieun has ever heard him.
“Is that—is this why you didn’t want to go pick up girls with me?”
Sieun’s heart skips a beat, looking up as Juntae’s eyes widen comically. Humin rarely thinks before he speaks and lacks tact more often than not, but Sieun didn’t expect him to be so bold about it. His throat tightens as he stares at them, waiting for Hyuntak or Juntae to say something—to tell Humin that he’s spouting nonsense, that Suho’s a boy—but Hyuntak only elbows Humin in the ribs.
“No, that’s just because you make girls run away,” Hyuntak scoffs, glancing at Sieun. “He’d have better odds alone.”
It’s a way out if Sieun wants it. Hyuntak made sure Sieun could move on to teasing Humin instead and forget all about what he said. And it would be easy, Sieun thinks, to pretend that his love for Suho compares to the one he bears for his friends.
But he knows it’s not.
He isn’t quite sure what this is yet, but he knows that no one ever got close to Sieun like Suho has—and that he doesn’t want anyone else to. He knows he had planned on living on standby until Suho woke up, even for decades if he had to.
Sieun is tired of pretending that Suho isn’t the most important person in his life. He doesn’t care if Suho doesn’t feel the same way. His devotion comes without strings. He doesn’t need Suho to choose him over everyone else for Sieun to be Suho’s.
“Suho joked once that we might have been married in our past lives. And I—I don’t care what we are in this one, as long as I have him by my side,” he says softly, his voice wavering as he realizes it sounds too much like a confession.
His friends fall silent, and Sieun can’t help but tense. He feels like his emotions are on display, his feelings too raw—but that’s a part of being close to people, making yourself vulnerable and trusting them to treat you carefully.
Juntae gives him a reassuring smile, and Sieun’s shoulders loosen.
“So romantic,” Humin sighs dramatically, before grabbing Hyuntak by the shoulders. “Yah, Hyuntak-ah! How come you’re never this nice to me? Aren’t I your best friend too?”
“Shut up,” Hyuntak groans, trying to escape the headlock Humin has him in. When he does, his hair is ruffled, his cheeks pink, and he glares at Humin before he says, “Sieun-ah, Baku’s more annoying than usual, I think it’s our cue to go.”
Humin scoffs, mumbling an affectionate, “Punk,” before he hums approvingly, “Yeah, I’m getting hungry.”
They chuckle when Juntae grumbles, “But you’re always hungry, hyung”.
“Touché,” Humin exclaims. He turns to Sieun, smiling cheekily, “Come on, your boy’s waiting for you.”
Sieun’s heart skips a beat as he mumbles, “He’s not my—”
But they ignore him, Hyuntak throwing a loose arm over Humin’s shoulders as he drawls, “Dinner’s on you.” Their laughter fills the lobby as they walk toward the door, leaving Sieun alone with Juntae.
Juntae pushes up his glasses, throwing a crooked smile at Sieun.
“I’m glad he woke up,” he says kindly. When Sieun nods, Juntae hesitates before adding, “For what it’s worth, while you were talking to his halmeoni, he thanked us.”
Sieun looks up at Juntae, surprised.
“He said he was grateful we took care of his Sieun while he was away.”
A soft warmth blooms in Sieun’s chest, something fluttering in his stomach as Juntae’s words dawn on him. His Sieun. Suho’s Sieun. Is Suho his too?
He says goodbye, barely waiting for Juntae to leave before he strides toward the elevator, heart pounding in his chest, as each step brings him closer to Suho.
Sieun reaches Suho’s room in minutes, anticipation pooling in his veins. He stands at the threshold for a second, breathing in slowly before stepping inside. The lights are dimmed, the soft glow of the bedside lamp casting long shadows against the walls, and it’s warm—he hadn’t even realized he was cold.
His heart flutters at the sight of Suho fast asleep, snuggled up in a cream wool blanket that contrasts with his dark hair. Suho’s back is turned toward Sieun, and the slow rise and fall of his breathing is strangely soothing, lulling Sieun with its familiar rhythm.
A hint of disappointment at finding Suho asleep gives way to gratefulness within seconds. His small, huddled form on the bed is proof that the worst has passed, so far from the lifeless figure he’d been—lying stiff on his back, arm limp at his sides.
Sieun glances to his right and finds Suho’s grandma sitting quietly in a chair, her eyes soft as they meet his. She stands up slowly, already bundled in her coat.
“He fell asleep waiting for you,” she says, her voice kind and maternal. “Are you staying here tonight?”
Sieun nods. The nurses had stopped fighting him a long time ago, letting him come and go as he pleased, ignoring the visitation hours. It’s not the first time he’s spent the night at the hospital—and tonight, more than ever, he’s not leaving Suho. His heart had ached when the nurse told him Suho had woken up alone in the sterile room earlier today. He’ll never have to wake up alone again, not if Sieun can help it.
“I assumed so. I’ll be back tomorrow—I’m too old to sleep on a chair,” she laughs softly. “I know he’ll be safe with you.”
Sieun’s stomach twists at the certainty in her voice. Cruel thoughts plague his mind, whispering that he doesn’t deserve her trust—not when he’s partly responsible for Suho’s coma.
He has learned to forgive himself (or tried to at least) for the part he played, but he still doesn’t understand how Suho’s grandma can so easily forgive him… or worse, act as if there’s nothing to forgive at all.
He has more good days than bad ones; he and Humin help each other when their demons get too loud. But there are bad days too—days when he wishes he could turn back time so hard it nearly tears him apart.
Today isn’t exactly a good day. As happy as he is to see Suho awake (and it’s a lot), Sieun can’t stop the guilt gnawing at him when he sees the wheelchair beside the bed. Suho had missed a whole year of his life—one he’ll never get back. He should be a senior like Sieun, running around with Humin on the basketball court, sparring with Hyuntak, not turning seventeen during his coma, and facing weeks of painful rehabilitation, learning how to walk and run again.
His guilt must show on his face, because Suho’s grandma walks over and rests a hand gently on his shoulder. Her touch is warm and comforting, and Sieun can’t remember his own mother ever touching him like that.
“I never thanked you, Sieun-ah.”
Sieun swallows thickly. “For what?”
“For always believing he would wake up,” she murmurs, her eyes shining in the soft light. “Thank you for never giving up on him.”
She squeezes his shoulder with a fond smile before grabbing her bag, and Sieun feels the breath leave his lungs. He opens his mouth and closes it again, at a loss for words. He doesn’t know how to tell her that her words mean more to him than she could ever imagine. But when she stops at the door and looks back at him with the kindest eyes, he thinks maybe she already knows.
“I couldn’t ask for anyone better for my Suho.”
Then she’s gone, and Sieun is left blinking back the tears burning his eyes. He exhales shakily and drags the chair closer to Suho’s bed. When he sits down, Suho shifts in his sleep as if sensing him, turning to face him.
Sieun can’t help but stare, drinking in every detail of Suho’s face—peaceful, relaxed, his mouth slightly parted as he breathes softly. Sieun tears his eyes away from the fullness of his lips, fighting the impulse to brush the strand of hair that had fallen across Suho’s forehead.
His eyes sting, and he tries to hold back the tears, but it’s useless.
Suho is awake.
He lasts barely a second before the tears spill over, streaking down his cheeks. He tries to steady his breathing, but his chest aches, a fleet of emotions pounding against his ribs.
Suho is awake.
Suho is awake.
Suho is awake.
Suho is—
He falls asleep like that, his vision blurred by tears, his chin slowly sinking toward his chest. He doesn’t remember when he linked his hand with Suho’s—only the comforting touch, the anchor that keeps him tethered to dry land, far from the coming storm.
Sieun wakes up a few hours later, blinking slowly as his vision steadies. The room is cold—too cold—and the regular beeping of the ventilator that allows Suho to breathe is deafening.
He—no, Suho can breathe on his own; he doesn’t need a machine anymore. Suho is awake, Suho—
Sieun turns to look at him and—no, no, no—Suho lies lifeless in the hospital bed, a breathing mask covering half his face. Sieun chokes on his breath.
This is too cruel, even for fate. He—he can’t—
His hands claw at his throat, desperate to draw in hair, but he’s suffocating. Dread coils like a fist in his stomach. He’s choking on his tears, he—
Suho has never woken up. The entire afternoon had only been a figment of Sieun’s imagination. It had felt so real this time, and he had let his guard down, had convinced himself that he could be happy—that everything would be fine.
He should have known better.
Suho lies in a hospital bed, still in a coma, and Sieun—
He’s reminded of a quote he read once, when a character who had lost everything had been asked, “Have you ever gotten everything you ever wanted?”
“No. But I once got very close”.
Sobs rack Sieun’s body, shaking him to his core.
How is he supposed to leave this hospital room unscathed, after getting so close to touching the sun?
This isn’t the first time he dreamt of Suho, but it had never felt so real, so vivid. Suho’s skin had never felt so warm against his, and he’d never been able to make out the faint freckles on Suho’s neck—his face always too blurry, like mist slipping through his fingers.
He doesn’t know what he did to deserve this—or even if he does. He’s too young to experience grief like this, to carry sorrow so heavy it warps his very bones.
Why give him everything he had ever wanted, only to rip it away?
He thought he was doing fine at Eunjang, with his friends, going on without Suho. But hearing Suho laugh again, seeing the mirth dance in his eyes, makes him realize how much it hurt when he let himself feel—like half of him had been torn away.
He’ll recover, he always does. He has to even. But it’ll hurt more than anything else he ever did.
Sieun can’t escape the pain; he isn’t allowed to. His curse is to go on living. Waiting for the day Suho will wake up—if he ever does.
Grief swallows him whole, and the room tilts around him, black spots dancing in his vision.
There’s no sound except for the ventilator’s mechanical beeping and his ragged breaths—until—
“Sieun-ah.”
He chokes, sobbing for everything he’s lost.
“Sieun-ah!”
He tries to locate the voice, but he can’t see, he can’t breathe, he can’t anymore, he—
“Sieun, please, I—”
Solid hands wrap around his wrists, pulling them away from his throat.
Sieun vaguely wonders if a nurse heard him, coming to help, but his mind is too foggy to hold onto the thought.
“Sieun, you’re okay. I’m here. Look at me, please,” the voice begs. Sieun thinks the person is crying too. “Baby, I’m here.”
“Suho-yah is—” Sieun sobs, “I lost him again, I—”
The voice pleads, cracking, desperate, “It’s me, Sieun. I’m here”.
Sieun doesn’t resist when his hand is pulled forward, placed against a warm surface. A heartbeat pulses under his fingers, and the hand wraps his own tightly, pressing it firmer against his chest.
“Look, I’m alive, I’m here. Try and breathe for me.”
Sieun inhales shakily, his lungs burning with the effort, trying to match the familiar breathing patterns he hears.
“That’s it. You’re doing so well. Breathe in, breathe out.”
The voice is warm and achingly familiar. His mind struggles to name it, too afraid to hope.
The hand loosens its grip, but Sieun doesn’t let go. He anchors himself to the pulse thudding against his palm.
Fingers cup his face carefully, wiping away his tears with slow, trembling strokes. His vision clears, sobs spacing out—and when he blinks, Suho’s tearful face comes into focus.
Suho’s eyes are red-rimmed, wet with tears. His expression is wrecked, stricken—as if Sieun’s pain hurts him.
“Suho…” Sieun breathes, a soft, broken sob. “You feel so real.”
“I am, Sieun-ah. I’m here,” Suho whispers back, voice fervent and breaking. “It was just a dream. I’m here.”
Sieun clutches the fabric of Suho’s hospital shirt. With trembling fingers, he reaches up, trailing his fingertips along the curve of Suho’s hand still cradling his face.
The touch is light at first, like he’s afraid Suho might vanish under his fingers. His fingers trail slowly, tracing the warm lines of Suho’s knuckles, the faint ridges of bone beneath the skin. He slides his touch downward, following the slope of Suho’s wrist, and finally, delicately, he curls his hand around it.
There, he presses his thumb against the hollow where Suho’s pulse thrums, feeling the blood race just beneath the surface.
Ta-dum. Ta-dum. Ta-dum.
Real. Alive.
Suho’s pulse stutters under the contact, and he exhales a ragged breath, the sound shaky and wet with emotion.
Neither of them speaks. For a minute or an eternity, perhaps, the only thing that exists in the entire world is that beating heart under Sieun’s touch, urgent, alive, real.
The vanilla scent of Suho’s shampoo clings to the air around him, clean and sweet, layered over the sterile antiseptic smell of the hospital. Not like in his dreams—this is real.
“You’re real,” Sieun breathes, a tearful laugh escaping him. “You’re here.”
Suho exhales shakily, as if holding himself together by a thread which Sieun could unravel with another sob, gazing at Sieun like he’s something precious beyond words.
“I’m never leaving you again, Sieunnie,” he whispers.
The nickname melts through Sieun’s chest, tender and trembling. It reminds him of the breathless way Suho had said baby earlier, and his cheeks burn even in the dark.
Was that real too? That devastation, that reverence in Suho’s voice?
“Did you… dream of me often?” Suho asks hesitantly.
Sieun pauses. He knows exactly the kind of dreams Suho is asking about. But it doesn’t matter now—not when Suho is here, alive, warm beneath his hands.
Finally, he settles on, “I never stopped waiting for you.”
Suho’s eyes soften, shimmering in the low light, and he looks away shily. When he lets go of Sieun’s face, his wrist lingers under Sieun’s fingers, and he makes no move to pull away.
Neither does Sieun.
They fall into a comfortable silence, and Sieun takes a moment to gather himself, waiting until he feels steady enough to look at Suho without unraveling all over again. When his heartbeat slows, his breathing evens out, and his cheeks are finally dry, he tugs lightly at Suho’s hand, breaking the stillness with a soft whisper as he glances at the clock.
“Are you tired?”
“I think I’ve slept enough,” Suho chuckles, but his smile falters when he notices Sieun’s shoulders tense at the joke.
Sieun isn’t ready to laugh about what happened. Not yet—not when he thought he had lost Suho for good. His eyes flicker around the hospital room, his chest tightening painfully at the thought of all the time they’ve lost.
“I’m sorry,” Sieun says.
“For what?” Suho asks, confused.
“Just… everything.”
“Me too,” Suho whispers. “I’m sorry I left you.”
Sieun exhales a shaky breath, “It’s not your fault.”
He isn’t sure whose fault it is anymore—his? Beomseok’s? Their parents’? Fate’s, maybe.
“But I went alone.” Suho says, voice rough, staring blankly at the wall, “And I… I would do it all over again.”
“Don’t say that,” Sieun pleads, his voice breaking.
He can’t bear to hear it. Not when Sieun had to learn how to live in a world without him.
“They hurt you, Sieun-ah,” Suho says, almost fiercely. “You don’t understand—they hurt you. And I couldn’t—”
Sieun should tell him that it’s wrong. That Suho shouldn’t value Sieun’s life above his own, that Sieun isn’t worth it, and that they’re both too young to know what sacrifice means. But he can’t. The truth is, he understands more than anyone. Sieun would have burned the whole world to ash if it meant Suho would come back to him. He still would.
“I went after all of them,” he confesses.
“What?” Suho breathes.
“When your halmeoni called, I—I couldn’t stand it, Suho-yah. It was so unfair. I couldn’t let them live freely when you—”. He pauses, swallowing hard. “I found Kang Wooyoung and shattered his ankles into pieces. I went back to the school and beat them up. I even stabbed Yeongbin in the shoulder with my pen.”
He sucks in a breath. “This afternoon, when we talked about Eunjang. I told you Beomseok’s father made sure no good school would accept me. But the truth is, few would have. Not after what I did.”
“Did you hurt him?” Suho asks hesitantly.
Sieun doesn’t need clarification to understand he’s talking about Beomseok.
“I tried. I meant to. But… in the end, I just… couldn’t.”
He braces himself for Suho’s judgment, for him to tell Sieun he crossed the line. To call him out on his violence and his tendency to carry a pen anywhere he goes in case he needs to fight. He expects anger and disappointment. But instead, Suho just says, “You were always better than me. I would’ve hurt him for what he did to you.”
The never-ending cycle of violence should scare him more than it does. And somewhere, deep inside, there is fear—but it’s loyalty and devotion that wins, fierce and bone-deep.
“I’m sorry,” Suho repeats. “I’m sorry you had to fight. That you were hurt. That I wasn’t here.”
“You never left me,” Sieun says quietly, and his voice almost breaks under the weight of Suho’s gaze. “I always had you with me. In the way I fought, in the reasons why, I—Everything I did was for you.”
He looks away quickly, cheeks burning. He’s said too much, and it feels dangerously close to a confession—too raw, too real. There’s too much left unspoken between them for Sieun to linger on the way his chest swells painfully when Suho smiles too gently, the way something hot coils low in his stomach when Suho’s fingers trail along his skin, the way vanilla clings to Suho’s warmth and makes Sieun dizzy when he breathes in.
Sieun doesn’t think he ever will. Not if it risks losing Suho again.
So, he changes the subject, trusting Suho to know him well enough to follow.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
“Am not,” Suho smiles, glancing down at the wool blanket. “Halmeoni said you bought it for me.”
There goes his attempt at lightening things. Sieun coughs, looking away. “It’s nothing. Hospital blankets are really thin. I didn’t want you to get cold, that’s all.”
“Yah! You’re so warm-hearted, Sieun-ah. You make my heart flutter, you weirdo,” Suho chuckles.
Sieun can’t help but smile back, something warm and aching blooming in his chest.
He remembers the first time he smiled at Suho, remembers how it felt like learning to breathe again, but also how easy it was to forget how to once he lost him.
And now, unbelievably, he gets to do it all over again. This time, he promises himself, he won’t let go.
“Sorry,” Sieun says, smiling through it.
“Stop apologizing,” Suho murmurs, shaking his head.
“I think I’ll apologize to you forever, if you let me,” Sieun breathes, and it sounds like a vow.
“Forever’s quite a long time, Sieun-ah,” Suho says, cocking an eyebrow, his eyes crinkling, something painfully tender in them.
“Then let’s start with two eternities,” Sieun laughs softly.