Work Text:
Ahn Suho wakes up. He wakes up confused and disoriented, but calmly, slowly resurfacing, like all the panic he feels should be there has just ebbed away.
It's probably the meds he's on.
They tell him he's been in a coma, his gran arrives and she looks older, aged more than he thinks worrying about him should have aged her. With her there, they reveal to him it's been 2 years. He's kinda glad for the meds now because he feels the starts of panic in his stomach, but it just dissipates, starts again, dissipates.
They talk about physical rehabilitation, but the details are not mentioned yet, he should rest for now, come to terms with this new reality.
(Two years!?)
The doctors leave and his gran remains, holding his hands and he wants to cry and scream and fight, but he is exhausted and numb and… his parents didn't even come back for this, they probably didn't even call once in all that time.
“Where's my phone?” He asks and his gran reaches into the drawer and pulls out his phone. It's shut off but it turns on, full battery. It even connects to the service without complaints, except for the immediate pop up of update demands.
Because it has been two years since it was last used.
He puts it face down onto the bed covers, eyes already strained from the glare. Arms already tired from just holding it up.
His gran gently pats the back of his hand.
“Suho-ya, you should rest. You are tired.”, she pleads soothingly.
But what if he wakes up and another two years have passed? Fear grips him and dissipates in the next breath. Whatever he's on is definitely the good stuff.
“I’ll just… a moment.”
He manages to turn the phone around again and start up the updates, hopefully they will be done in the morning (after sleep? What time is it anyways? Oh, his phone says 9:37 in the morning). He let's it fall back down and drifts into sleep and dreams he won't remember.
-+-
He wakes back up and it's dark. He hears his gran breathing in a bed beside him, asleep and he relaxes slightly. His phone is on the side table and it takes him two attempts to get it across the ten centimetre devide to his bed. He turns down the brightness to the lowest possible setting, swipes away the successful update and restart notifications and just looks at it for a moment.
What is he supposed to do now?
He swipes over to the app screen, maybe he'll send a message out (to who? It's been two years!) and his eyes almost fall out.
Attached to his messenger app is a red bubble with a number reading 583.
What.
The.
Hell?!
The phone slips from his weak hands and he scrambles, exhausted but stubborn, to pick it up again. He needs to know who sent all these messages. (He suspects, hopes, knows, and the thought squeezes his heart, his lungs, the blood in his veins.)
He opens the app and it's Sieun’s chat at the top, 574 unread messages. His breath catches, the image of the other boy blooming in his mind, his warm eyes and cute cheeks. The fucking smile that robbed his breath that one time it happened.
There are tears gathering before he even opens the chat and he stubbornly blinks them away.
At the top are old messages. His own worried questions where Sieun is, if he's okay. And then Sieun's worried questions about where Suho is and to please call him or text him back.
There's a time jump then. About two weeks after his fight in the ring (after he was put into a coma).
‘I’m sorry, Suho.’
Hours later: ‘I crossed the line.’
A day and a half later: ‘Suho, I was transferred to another school, Eunyang. The only school that took me in after what I did. I was fully prepared to pay for everything, but I got hold of a video of what they did to you and blackmailed Assemblyman Oh into making it go away.’
‘You probably want to know what happened. But I can't bring myself to tell you yet. I'm sorry. I will tell you later.’
‘I miss you.’
Suho has given up on blinking away his tears. He's just reading now, through his blurry vision and shuddering breaths. His ribs hurt from trying to suppress the sobs wanting to break free.
He continues reading.
‘I have moved in with my mom. She is angry at my father for letting all this happen. I don't understand why she suddenly cares, but I can see it burdens her. She has never liked having to take care of me. Suho, will you wake up soon?’
It goes on like this, a tableau of lonely messages, days, weeks, months of snippets of Sieun's life, his thoughts and struggles and then:
‘Suho-ya (Suho’s eyes widen at the sudden change of address, his ears growing hot as if they actually heard it in Sieun's voice.) when I found out what had happened, when I saw you in this hospital bed and everyone told me you'll probably never wake up again, I lost my mind.’
‘I hurt so many people, I stabbed Yeongbin and almost bashed his head in. I beat that fighter, Kang U-Yeong, crippled his leg for life.’
Coldness washes across Suho’s skin, while his heart bleeds. Sieun almost ruined his own life, just because Suho was dumb and crossed his own line before Sieun ever did. Lonely Sieun, who had finally noticed him, who had finally let him in and then everything had slid out of control, escalating until they ended up here.
‘I’m sorry, Suho-ya. For everything.’
‘I never want to fight again.’
“I'm sorry too, Sieun-ah.”, he croaks into the still darkness.
He continues reading, tears rising, falling, drying and then rising again. Clinging stubbornly through the exhaustion, through the headache that forms from the crying and the still painful light of the screen.
‘I’m tired. Suho-ya, how many nights will I lie awake hoping and dreading to wake up in the morning and find you awake or gone? I'm so tired.’
Suho’s heart feels like breaking.
And then, finally. Sieun finds a friend.
More than one. Three.
He complains about them, but he also writes how they reminded him of what Suho taught him (what did he teach Sieun? Oh.). Their first few weeks are a war story and Suho suspects Sieun didn't write everything, but it is enough to get a good picture.
But then. Finally, Sieun seems happier. Even if he still writes he misses Suho and has trouble sleeping and has days that seem full of guilt and darkness, there are finally happier stories being told and Suho can't wait to thank these faceless, unknown people for every one of them.
Sieun is a person that needs all the love in his life. He deserves it. Beneath his cold, hard, stubborn shell was the softest heart and Suho loves him.
Suho has missed two years.
But Sieun made sure he didn't miss these two years of his life and carried him in his heart through everything that happened.
Finally, he is able to let his phone fall to the bed, uncaring where it lands, his eyes burning and gritty. Losing the fight for consciousness he slips into dreams with a thought.
I want to see you. Sieun-ah.
The End