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“How many fingers am I holding up?” Gyuvin asked, holding his hand right in front of Ricky’s face with all five fingers stretched out like a fan. They were still waiting for the bell to ring, the last scraps of lunch break ticking away. The sky outside was sharp and bright, sunlight spilling in through the open windows and washing the classroom in a gentle haze of warmth.
“Five,” Ricky answered smoothly, eyes narrowing as though to match the shape of Gyuvin’s hand. He tilted his head, lips tugging upward. “Your hands are big, Qubing.”
“Ah, is that so?” Gyuvin’s grin curved his eyes into crescents, soft and bright, as though the light in the room belonged only to him. “What a pity.”
“A pity?” Ricky laughed, mock offense coloring his voice. He lifted his glasses, wiping the smudged lenses with a practiced swipe of his sleeve. The blur sharpened back into definition, and he slipped them onto his nose again with relief. “I may not have worn them earlier, but I wasn’t wrong. Your hands really are big.”
Gyuvin hummed, leaning in a little closer. “Okay then. Try again, but this time—” He reached forward, movements unhurried, asking without words. Ricky didn’t protest, didn’t even flinch. Gyuvin slipped the glasses from his face with a kind of care that didn’t match his teasing tone. “This time I’ll make it harder.”
The world dulled into softness. Shapes lost their edges, colors melted together. Ricky blinked once, twice, until his gaze found Gyuvin’s silhouette still clear enough in front of him. His friend’s raised hand blurred, but the shape of two fingers—peace sign—stood out like it always did.
“It’s a two, Qubing,” Ricky said, reaching out blindly with a small gesture for his glasses back. Gyuvin obeyed, but not in the way Ricky expected. Instead of pressing them into his palm, Gyuvin leaned forward, sliding the frames carefully over his ears, brushing away a strand of hair caught at his temple. The simple touch felt deliberate—almost too deliberate.
“Rick,” Gyuvin asked softly, searching his face, “what do you like more—yourself with glasses, or without?”
Ricky tilted his head, blinking at him. “Why is that even a question? I need them, obviously. But… not having them makes me feel relaxed, too. Like I don’t have to see every single thing all at once.”
Gyuvin didn’t back away. “Then what about me? What if I had glasses?” His voice carried something more than curiosity now—an insistence, as if he wanted to anchor the moment, to keep Ricky looking only at him.
Ricky studied him, still caught in the closeness. “You don’t need them. But… if we’re only talking about looks,” he said with the smallest smile, “you’d probably look good in them.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
And Ricky could feel the shift of a thought becoming a plan. Gyuvin’s eyes lingered on him, heavy with something brewing.
Before Ricky could press further, the bell clanged through the classroom. Their teacher strode in, dropping their bag on the desk. “Alright, class, settle down. Pass your assignments.” The room groaned and panicked around them, but the fragile bubble between Ricky and Gyuvin broke all the same.
That was high school—where Ricky could see Gyuvin a little brighter, a little clearer than the days he’s left only to imagine now.
When was the first time Ricky truly realized he needed glasses?
It wasn’t because the world was picture-perfect, some clear-cut scenery like the ones paraded on television screens or in glossy magazines. His eyes were never the lenses of a camera—never something that could freeze an image in sharp relief and preserve it as memory. His vision was not built in 4K like the technology humankind bragged about. No, his eyes, as young as he was, worked more like a screen downgraded to 480p: recognizable, yes, but never crisp.
Still, it wasn’t so bad. He could see without glasses, could function just fine—navigate hallways, read chalk on the board if he squinted, make out faces even if they blurred at the edges. Life without glasses was survivable, but with them, life became sharper, fuller, the way it must feel to step out of fog and into clear morning air.
And there were always silly little moments. Times when he forgot he was even wearing them—asking his mother where his glasses had gone, only for her to laugh and point at his head where they rested like a makeshift headband. His blurry world could sometimes be funny like that, softening life in ways he didn’t expect.
But then there was the other side. The part where the glasses were both blessing and curse, clarity and fragility all at once. He learned that the day he bumped into someone in elementary school, losing his glasses in an instant, and with them—most of his sight.
It was just after classes, that golden stretch before noon gave way to afternoon, when the park filled with children spilling out from school like marbles scattered in every direction. Ricky hadn’t even meant to play. He’d been on a different mission entirely: picking leaves, smooth or jagged, broad or thin, for the art activity they would do the next day. A collage of leaves, she’d said, so the work could be pretty. Ricky liked that. He liked pretty things. He liked seeing them.
The wind tugged gently at branches, scattering leaves across the playground, and he gathered them one by one, slipping them into his small bag as though they were treasures. He crouched low to pick one with deep veins when it happened—a sudden impact from the side, a body colliding with his own before he even had time to brace.
The bump jolted him, surprise ringing through his small frame. His glasses slipped instantly, skidding from his face and clattering onto the ground. And just like that, half his world fell away with them.
“Oh—sorry! Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
The voice was young, hurried. Ricky blinked, trying to focus, but the boy’s outline was nothing more than a blur—arms, legs, a head, all smudged together by his uncooperative eyes. The colors of him existed, but the edges didn’t.
It struck Ricky then, how much of the world he only held by the fragile thread of two lenses perched on his nose. How easily it could slip away.
Before he could even respond, panic tugged at his chest. He had to find them first. His glasses. They couldn’t have fallen far, but without them, the world might as well have tilted sideways. The ground beneath him was only streaks of brown and grey—sand, dirt, who could tell anymore? He couldn’t even see the boy’s face clearly to ask for help, only that his hair rounded out in a blur like a coconut. If the boy ran away, that was all Ricky would remember.
But rushing could be just as dangerous. What if he stepped on them by mistake? The idea alone made his stomach churn. He couldn’t afford another pair, not so soon. His prescription had just been adjusted, the lenses were newer—and more expensive. He couldn’t break them.
Where were his glasses?
Ricky dropped to his knees, palms sweeping over the ground in frantic arcs. He crawled forward carefully, trying to will his fingers into the shape of sight, searching for that thin, familiar frame. But there was nothing, only the grit of sand, the curve of pebbles, the useless blur of everything around him.
His heartbeat climbed, fast and unsteady, as though the rhythm itself had slipped from his control. He tried not to let it show—especially now, when he couldn’t see the other’s reaction. The not-seeing made it worse, like drowning in a shallow pool.
Where were his glasses?
“Excuse me.”
The same boy’s voice. Ricky’s head turned instinctively toward it, though the figure remained an indistinct shadow against the light.
“It seems you were looking for your glasses,” the boy continued.
And then, against the blur, something glimmered—sunlight catching on glass, flashing in the boy’s small hand. Ricky’s breath left him in a shaky rush. His glasses.
He reached out, hesitant, cautious, like one wrong move might shatter the moment. His fingers brushed metal, cool and familiar, and relief washed through him as he lifted them to his face. The world clicked back into place as the blur sharpened, the boy’s outline solidifying into something real.
“Thank you,” Ricky said, short but sincere.
The boy blinked at him, flustered, as though he hadn’t expected gratitude. “Oh—you don’t have to thank me. It was my fault, too.”
And then, as if he had been holding back a smile all this time, the boy brightened—his whole face lighting up like the afternoon sun overhead. “Why don’t I make it up to you by… Can you play with us?”
Ricky hesitated. His first instinct was to retreat. “But I don’t interact with strangers,” he said. Not cold—never cold—but cautious in a way that colored even his simplest words, the kind of caution that seeped into his tone like water through paper.
The boy didn’t falter. “I’m Gyuvin,” he offered easily, like it was the simplest solution in the world.
Ricky blinked, caught off guard by how natural it sounded. “…Hello. I’m Ricky.” He raised a hand in a small, awkward handshake, something he had seen adults do. Then he added, almost as a shield, “But it won’t be necessary. I’m supposed to go home soon.”
“Oh.”
It was a small sound, but it carried the weight of disappointment—like invisible puppy ears drooping, the boy’s energy deflating in an instant. For a second, Ricky almost regretted his own words.
He glanced down at the small bag in his hand, the leaves he had gathered so carefully. His assignment was done. Above him, the sky was still clear, sunlight lingering with hours left before evening. For some reason, he thought the boy he’d just met shouldn’t have to look that sad—not if Ricky could help it.
“Okay,” Ricky said quietly, almost surprising himself. “Let’s play, Qubing.” He hoped he said the name right.
And just like that, Gyuvin lit up again, brightness returning in full force. “Yay! Let’s go, Rick.”
Like it was the most natural thing in the world, as though they had known each other longer than just a few minutes.
It was the summer break of their second year in university when Gyuvin first suggested it—no, insisted on it. A ridiculous idea, Ricky thought, as Gyuvin tugged him along by the hand to the eyeglass store Ricky frequented.
It was a place Ricky would rather avoid if he could. Too bright, too sterile, the kind of white light that left no corner untouched, no shadow to hide in. But necessity often pushed him through those glass doors, because he had no choice. Glasses wore down. Prescriptions changed. The world blurred if he didn’t.
What he couldn’t quite grasp was why Gyuvin wanted to go there. Ricky’s own glasses had lasted a year and a half already—still sturdy, still wearable. If he could make them last longer, he would. He even had a spare tucked away for emergencies. There was no reason for this trip. And yet, here they were.
Before Ricky could puzzle it out further, Gyuvin was already speaking with the staff at the counter, paying for something he hadn’t even mentioned beforehand.
“Thank you for your purchase. Would you like us to check your prescription too?” the cashier asked, their voice as bright as the store itself.
“No,” Gyuvin said, his answer firm and immediate. Then he tipped his head toward Ricky, smiling like he was proud of himself. “Please only check his. He has severe eyesight, you see.”
Ricky sighed softly, but he didn’t fight it. What was there to deny? He let himself be guided, once again, to the familiar chair. The chart lit up before him, letters rearranged from the last time, because the doctors were smart—too smart to let patients recite from memory.
He read what he could, stumbled on a few, until finally it was over. When he looked up, Gyuvin was watching him, smiling like he’d never once grown bored of the sight. As if just the act of looking at Ricky was enough to make him happy.
“So, how is it?” Gyuvin asked eagerly.
“Still the same,” Ricky answered, sliding his old glasses back on while they waited. “Not better, not worse.”
“That’s good, then,” Gyuvin said, his tone as warm as sunlight. “At least it’s not worse, right?”
Ricky only nodded.
Soon after, Gyuvin’s own purchase was ready. He tucked the new glasses carefully into their case, as though they were something precious. “I’ll wear them later,” he said, glancing at Ricky with a spark in his eyes. “When you get yours. So we match.”
And then, without hesitation, he reached for Ricky’s hand, threading their fingers together as naturally as breathing. He never missed—not once—as if part of him wanted Ricky to memorize the shape of this touch.
“For now, let’s get ice cream,” Gyuvin said as they stepped outside, the automatic doors parting to release them into the waiting heat of summer.
It wasn’t the kind of heat that clung sticky to the skin, but the dry kind—still relentless, but easier to bear. Neither of them could decide which was better, only that both were nuisances in their own ways. The lesser evil changed depending on the day.
“Let’s do that,” Ricky said, his voice soft as he glanced down at their hands. Gyuvin’s hand was big against his—broad palms, long fingers, veins running faintly like paths beneath the skin. Calloused in some places, warm in all. Imperfect and perfect, all at once. Comfortable.
Ricky liked Gyuvin’s hands in his. He always had.
“We’ll get strawberries and mangoes,” Gyuvin declared, his tone leaving no room for debate.
“Yes,” Ricky replied simply. Because they both knew it was true. A fact that never changed.
An obnoxiously loud action scene blared from the television—explosions, gunfire, a chase sequence so dramatic it almost shook the walls. And yet, when the characters finally opened their mouths, their voices were softer than a fly’s hum, forcing anyone watching to strain. Ricky, however, didn’t seem to notice.
He was curled up on the sofa, a book balanced neatly in his hands, already halfway through despite having only started it earlier that day. The story had its hooks in him—page after page, he devoured it with a pace that was steady but insistent, like he couldn’t bear to let go. The movie played on, but to him it was nothing more than background noise.
Gyuvin had his head leaned against Ricky’s shoulder, his own eyes unfocused on the television. He wasn’t really watching either—at least, not the movie. He was watching Ricky, the slight furrow of his brow when a sentence demanded his full attention, the way his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose only for him to push them back up absentmindedly, again and again.
“Is the story that good,” Gyuvin asked quietly, “that the movie’s just noise to you now?”
Ricky hummed, not looking up, still caught in the tide of words. “I’m getting to the exciting part, Qubing.”
Gyuvin chuckled, not offended. He knew Ricky’s habits by now. Besides, he couldn’t really argue—the movie was in the middle of an extended sequence focused on a character Gyuvin loathed, the kind of subplot that dragged instead of entertained. He almost preferred Ricky’s silence and the steady rhythm of turning pages.
The room was bathed in dim yellow light, warm but not entirely enough to read by. Gyuvin shifted slightly, tilting his head so his voice could reach Ricky better.
“Do you want me to turn on all the lights?” he asked.
“No need. This is fine,” Ricky replied, eyes never leaving the page.
“Won’t your eyesight worsen?” Gyuvin pressed gently.
Ricky finally glanced at him, lips curving faintly. “I don’t think so, no.”
That was the end of it. Gyuvin didn’t nag, didn’t push. He wasn’t interested in scolding Ricky like a worried parent. He simply let him be, content to stay there, shoulder to shoulder, curiosity tugging at him—not about the movie, not even about the book, but about the way Ricky looked when he was so deeply lost in something he loved.
Time passed. Eventually, Gyuvin noticed that Ricky’s fingers had stopped moving, stilled on a page that had yet to be turned. His eyes were closed, breaths soft and even. Somewhere in the comfort of the sofa, the hum of the movie, and Gyuvin’s steady presence, Ricky had drifted.
Gyuvin smiled, so faintly it was almost private. He reached up carefully, sliding Ricky’s glasses off with practiced gentleness, as though even the smallest disturbance would undo the peace he’d found. Setting them down in a safe corner of the table, Gyuvin shifted just enough to let Ricky’s head rest more comfortably against him.
After they picked up their half-black, half-silver rimmed matching glasses, they ended up in a photobooth. There was no special occasion, no milestone worth marking, but that was the point. With Gyuvin, even the ordinary felt like something worth remembering.
The flash of the camera and the mechanical countdown filled Ricky’s focus at first. They posed simply—smiles, peace signs, the kind of pictures that might’ve looked unremarkable to anyone else. But then Gyuvin, never content to keep things ordinary, reached above Ricky’s head at the last second, slipping a leaf prop into his hair to match the bright red. A living strawberry, framed by the camera.
Ricky turned toward him with a small pout, and the booth caught the expression mid-motion: lips pressed, eyes narrowed, a picture he knew Gyuvin would treasure far more than any of the posed ones.
Then, just as the timer blinked down for the final shot, Gyuvin slid off his glasses in one smooth motion. Ricky barely had time to widen his eyes before Gyuvin leaned in and kissed his eyelids. The camera captured it perfectly—Gyuvin’s lips at his lashes, Ricky startled and softened at once.
“Perfect,” Gyuvin said as the film developed, grinning with all the satisfaction of someone who knew exactly what he’d done. “It turned out beautifully.”
Ricky only sighed, caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement. He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to Gyuvin in return, a fleeting brush that still managed to set them both ablaze. Their cheeks flushed so scarlet they nearly matched Ricky’s hair. Maybe it was true—without his glasses, Ricky sometimes found it easier to be bold.
“You’re even warmer when you blush,” Ricky murmured, though his own face burned too.
This time, it was Ricky who laced their fingers together, guiding Gyuvin outside. Gyuvin still held his glasses in one hand, but Ricky didn’t mind. He never minded when Gyuvin was beside him. Even if the world blurred into smudges of light and color, Gyuvin’s presence made everything sharper, steadier. Clear.
He could feel Gyuvin’s gaze pressing at his back again, familiar and insistent. Without looking, he teased, “You’re staring at me funny again, aren’t you?”
“Hm? Me? Nooo~” Gyuvin answered in an overly bright voice, the kind of tone that betrayed him instantly. He slipped back to Ricky’s side like a shadow, like glue, refusing to let space linger between them.
Ricky only shook his head, a quiet smile tugging at him.
Silly Gyuvin.
The bed was comfortable, but comfort wasn’t what made Ricky’s chest ache the way it did. They were lying there, facing each other, close enough to feel the warmth of each other’s breaths. Their eyes met, shining faintly like stars—but the shine wasn’t from joy alone. It was because Ricky was crying.
Gyuvin’s hand rose instinctively, trying to brush the tears away before they could fall further. “Ricky, my love… why are you crying?”
The tears didn’t stop. Hot and unrelenting, they rolled down Ricky’s cheeks, slipping into the hollow between them. “Qubing… I can feel my eyesight getting worse.” His voice cracked on the admission, like saying it aloud made it more real.
Gyuvin’s heart clenched, but he forced his voice to stay steady. “Oh, Rick. We’ll make it better, hm? We’ll figure it out.”
But Ricky’s fears poured out faster than Gyuvin could soothe them. “When I look at myself, it’s like there’s something in the way. Like a wall I can’t break through. And even now, even with my glasses… it feels like the world is slipping further and further away.” He clutched at Gyuvin’s shirt, as if holding him would anchor him to clarity. His glasses stayed on this time—because Ricky wanted to see him. Needed to see him. He couldn’t bear a single day without Gyuvin’s face.
“Qubing, I’m scared,” Ricky whispered, his voice breaking as it repeated, mantra-like. “I’m scared of what will come. I’m scared of the day I can’t see you anymore. What then? What then?”
Gyuvin’s hand slid to his cheek, warm against the cold panic carved into Ricky’s skin. His touch was steady, even when Ricky’s whole world felt like it was blurring apart. “Rick… it’s fine. It’s going to be fine.” Gyuvin’s voice was soft, low, as if speaking too loud would shatter him. He brushed away the tears with the sleeve of his hoodie, wiping them gently until only damp skin remained. The silence stretched, fragile but whole, until Gyuvin asked, almost in a murmur, “Can I kiss you?”
Ricky only nodded. A kiss would be lovely. A kiss might quiet the fear, if only for a moment.
Gyuvin leaned in and pressed his lips to Ricky’s, slow and unhurried, as though he could kiss the fear out of him. Each brush of his mouth felt like a promise: I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. Halfway through, Gyuvin reached up and slid Ricky’s glasses off, setting them aside with the same care as always.
Ricky pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes wide despite the dim glow of the moon filtering in from outside. “I want to see you,” he whispered, his voice trembling, raw. “Why do you always take them off when we kiss?”
Gyuvin’s answer came with a small smile, though his voice was thick. “Because we don’t want them to break, do we?”
“They’re not that fragile,” Ricky murmured, though his hand had already sought out Gyuvin’s, threading their fingers together like instinct.
“True,” Gyuvin conceded easily. Then his gaze softened, as if the weight of the entire world was in Ricky’s eyes. “I’m only making excuses because I love the way your eyes look. And if you ever do take your glasses off, I swear I’d get a nosebleed.”
The words were ridiculous, unexpected, yet spoken with that same unshakable sincerity Gyuvin always carried when it came to him. Before Ricky could even roll his eyes, Gyuvin broke into laughter—wild, breathless, unstoppable. He laughed so hard he leaned back without looking, only for the back of his head to collide squarely with the headboard.
The dull thud was followed by a hiss of pain.
And then—blood.
Ricky blinked, stunned, until the red trailing from Gyuvin’s nose came into focus. His heart lurched, panic catching in his throat. His hands scrambled for his glasses, sliding them onto his face with haste, because he needed to see—needed to be certain, to see him clearly.
The sight of Gyuvin, wide-eyed and sheepish with blood dripping messily down his nose, was so absurd Ricky couldn’t stop the first words that left his mouth. “Qubing, you look like a pervert.”
Gyuvin gawked at him, wounded, “What? No, Rick—”
“I mean,” Ricky interrupted, voice softening despite the curve of a cheeky smile tugging at his lips, “are you alright?”
The tease lingered in the air, but his eyes—shiny, worried, aching—gave him away. He couldn’t bear the sight of Gyuvin hurt, not even in something as foolish as this. He reached for tissues with trembling hands, careful as he dabbed the blood away, as though the smallest pressure might break him.
Gyuvin groaned dramatically, half-complaint, half-defense, but Ricky only let him, holding him steady. Because even here—even in this ridiculous, messy moment—his fear lingered in quiet corners of his chest. That one day he wouldn’t be able to see Gyuvin’s foolish grin or his bleeding nose or the way he made light of everything, just to ease Ricky’s heart.
And so Ricky clung to the sight, memorizing it, even as Gyuvin whined. Because beneath all the laughter and complaint, there was only love, and Ricky’s hope to never lose it.
The sky had already been growling, warning them, before it finally gave in. The storm broke heavy and unrelenting, the sky splitting open with a roar of thunder. Rain lashed against the streets, turning them slick and dark, as if the whole world had been swallowed by water and anger. They had been just about ready to head home when they realized—both of them, foolishly, carelessly—that they had forgotten their umbrellas.
Gyuvin, always the one to throw himself forward before Ricky could stop him, shrugged off his jacket and tightened it around himself, already moving toward the downpour. “I’ll be back. Wait for me, okay?” His voice was steady, but Ricky caught the glint of determination in his eyes—the kind that said he’d rather be drenched to the bone than let Ricky get sick.
So Ricky only nodded, his heart tightening with guilt as he watched Gyuvin disappear into the curtain of rain.
The world around him blurred into shades of grey, water streaking the glass storefronts, turning headlights into smeared halos. The rain rattled the earth, unrelenting. Ricky pulled his arms tighter around himself and let his thoughts wander—maybe Gyuvin will catch a fever after this, maybe I should have been the one to go, maybe—
That was when laughter broke through the noise.
He blinked, turning, and saw a child just a few steps away, crouched beneath the awning, dribbling a ball with stubborn cheer.
Bump. It hit the ground, bounced back to his small palm.
Bump. Again, steady and careless.
Bump.
This time, the ball slipped. Skidding over the rain-slick pavement, rolling faster, farther, until it tipped off the curb and into the street.
And before Ricky could even process, the boy darted after it.
“Wait—!” Ricky’s voice caught in his throat. It’s just a ball. He wanted to shout it, to stop him, but the child’s small figure was already lunging toward the open road.
A flash of light flared in Ricky’s periphery—too fast, too close. The blare of a horn, the scream of tires skidding against water. A truck.
And his body moved before thought could catch up.
“Look out!” he cried, shoving the boy hard, away, out of reach. The child tumbled back toward the safety of the curb. Safe. Alive.
But Ricky—
The light swallowed him whole.
For the briefest second, everything was sharp, clearer than it had ever been. The world came into focus with brutal precision—the raindrops gleaming like glass beads, the neon reflections on the puddles glowing with impossible clarity. And he thought, dazed, Oh. The lights are so bright and clear all of a sudden…
And then came the darkness rushing back in.
His lips parted, his heart breaking with every beat. And he whispered, almost like a prayer, almost like an apology carried by the rain itself, “Qubing, I’m sorry.”
Gyuvin had only been gone for a moment. Two streets away, maybe three. Just long enough to grab umbrellas so Ricky wouldn’t complain about the rain later, just long enough to imagine Ricky waiting under the shed—arms folded, glasses fogged, lips pushing into that little pout that Gyuvin adored. He’d even bought two, one extra, so that next time, when Ricky inevitably forgot again, they wouldn’t be caught like this. He’d been ready for that face, that voice, that familiar whine turning soft when Gyuvin teased him.
Not… this.
Not the sound of people shouting, their voices sharp and frantic in the downpour. Not the wall of bodies gathered in the middle of the street, shielding something from sight, their umbrellas forming a jagged, quivering canopy. Not the child crouched by the curb, wailing into his hands, a ball abandoned in the gutter just behind him. Not the truck stopped in the road, headlights glaring like merciless eyes through sheets of rain.
Not this.
Gyuvin’s chest tightened. He blinked through the storm, searching the waiting shed where Ricky should’ve been. Empty. No neat silhouette. No glasses catching the faint glow of the streetlight. Ricky wasn’t there.
No, no—maybe he was in the crowd, maybe helping, maybe… maybe. Gyuvin’s legs carried him forward before the thought even finished. He opened his mouth to call, to shout Ricky’s name, but when the circle of people parted enough for him to see, the first syllable died in his throat.
Because it was Ricky.
Ricky, his Ricky—sprawled on the wet asphalt, clothes torn, blood blooming into the water beneath him, glasses nowhere in sight.
The umbrellas fell from Gyuvin’s hands, clattering uselessly against the ground. He dropped to his knees, heedless of the cold puddles soaking through his jeans, heedless of the rain matting his hair flat against his forehead. His arms scooped Ricky up, clutching his limp body like the world would end if he let go. Maybe it already had.
“Rick—Rick, oh my god—” His voice broke as he pressed his cheek against Ricky’s rain-chilled face. The street spun around him, voices turning into unwanted noise. All he could hear was his own heartbeat thundering against Ricky’s silence.
And then, as panic surged sharper, crueler—he realized.
Ricky wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“Where are they?!” Gyuvin’s voice tore through the storm, raw, frantic. His eyes darted everywhere—puddles, asphalt, gutters—but the rain swallowed everything. “Where are his glasses?! He can’t see without his glasses, he can’t—” His hands fumbled over Ricky’s face, as if he could fix it with touch alone.
“Rick, can you see me? Can you—please, answer me—are you alright?” His questions tumbled out, one after another, frantic and useless, his tears hot against Ricky’s cold skin. No matter how many times he begged, Ricky didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes.
And then, as if struck by lightning, Gyuvin remembered. The matching pair. The glasses they had just bought together, a silly little promise disguised as practicality. His were still on his own face.
With shaking hands, almost dropping them, Gyuvin tore his glasses off and slid them onto Ricky’s nose, desperate, whispering against his lips, “Here, Rick, take mine. You’ll see me now, won’t you? You’ll see me. Please—look, it’s me—”
But they didn’t fit. The prescription was wrong—his lenses weren’t Ricky’s. To Ricky, the world through them would still be nothing but blurs and broken outlines. They weren’t his. They could never be enough.
“Please,” Gyuvin sobbed, clutching him tighter, forehead pressed to his temple as if he could will sight, breath, life back into him. His voice cracked open, softer now, breaking apart like glass. “Please come back. You need your glasses, Rick. You need me. Don’t… don’t leave me blind too.”
The rain swallowed his words, heavy and merciless, but still he whispered them, again and again, as if repeating them could tether Ricky here. As if love alone could stand between him and the dark.
“Have you seen his glasses?” Gyuvin cried out suddenly, voice hoarse, reaching toward the faceless crowd of bystanders. “Please—someone—tell me you’ve seen them!” His desperation clung like blood to his tongue.
A stranger startled, eyes flicking toward the gutter. Gyuvin followed their gaze. There—half-sunk in a puddle, lenses fractured, the arms bent out of shape—Ricky’s glasses.
He staggered to grab them, the cold rain slick against his fingers as he lifted the ruined frames. Broken. Crooked. Useless. He held them to his chest anyway as if they were holy, as if holding them meant holding Ricky, rocking forward with Ricky limp in his arms.
“No, no, no…” The words spilled from him in a hollow rhythm, a broken record skipping in the rain. His shoulders shook with it, head bent low, tears and stormwater mixing down his face.
The wail of the ambulance siren tore through the air then, splitting the scene open, stirring the people into frantic motion. But Gyuvin only curled tighter around Ricky, his voice collapsing into one last, trembling whisper.
“No…”
The waiting room was too bright, too clean. The smell of antiseptic clung to his throat, bitter and sterile, burning every time he tried to breathe. Gyuvin sat there, knees bouncing, fingers digging into his palms until his nails left crescents in the skin. The tick of the clock on the wall echoed louder than it should have, each second dragging, dragging, like it was mocking him—time moving on while Ricky was still behind those doors.
When the doctor finally stepped out, Gyuvin shot to his feet so fast his chair clattered back against the wall. His voice came out strangled. “Is he alright?”
The doctor’s words blurred into each other, panic rushing in his ears. Something about timing. About the ambulance. He clung to that one word—luckily—as if it could anchor him. But then came the words he dreaded even more: impact, head injury.
He already knew. He had felt it. He had carried Ricky’s body in his arms, cold and heavy, skin drained of all warmth. Hours ago but still in his hands now, still in his chest, still pressing into his ribs like he couldn’t shake it.
Then the words he hadn’t braced for: his eyes.
Gyuvin’s own blurred for a moment. “What about his eyes?” His voice cracked, desperation shredding it raw. He was leaning forward before he realized it, like he could drag the truth out by sheer force.
“We’ll be doing the best we can to try to bring his sight back,” the doctor said gently, too gently, as if that softened anything. “Mr. Kim, we’ll try.”
And then the doctor was gone again, swallowed by a call of nurses and doors swinging shut.
Gyuvin was left standing there, weightless and crushed all at once. The antiseptic smell hit him again. The clock ticked, steady and merciless. He lowered himself back into the chair but couldn’t stay still; his knee shook, his hands shook, even his breath was shaking. If only. If only.
If only he hadn’t left Ricky like that. If only he’d stayed close, walked with him through the rain, shoulder to shoulder. Everything was his fault. He could feel it in his bones, in the ache crawling up his spine, in the hollow in his chest.
The clock ticked on. The antiseptic burned. And Gyuvin sat there breaking, waiting, waiting, waiting.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Gyuvin asked, the same question he always used when he wanted to tease.
“I don’t know… five?” Ricky guessed, his voice light, though his eyes could not follow.
Gyuvin laughed, but it cracked in the middle, trembling where it shouldn’t. “No, Rick. It’s ten.”
Ricky frowned softly, then felt it—the warmth of Gyuvin’s palms cupping each side of his face. “Can you feel it?” Gyuvin asked.
“I do,” Ricky whispered. “I feel you. You’re warm.” His voice went tender, as though warmth itself was rare. “I love your touch, Qubing.” And he leaned into it, melting, as though Gyuvin’s hands alone could hold the world steady.
“I’m warm?” Gyuvin asked, almost in disbelief.
“Yes. You’re warm. And I know you’re smiling so wide right now, you look like an overjoyed puppy.”
“How’d you know?” Gyuvin asked, still pretending to tease. But Ricky could hear the shake in his voice.
“I just know.” Ricky’s hands lifted carefully, searching, tracing. He moved along the curve of Gyuvin’s cheek, the line of his lips, the familiar softness of skin that carried the shape of every smile Ricky had memorized in his bones. His other hand moved up, reaching toward Gyuvin’s eyes—he didn’t need to see to know they were crinkling when he smiled.
“I feel it,” Ricky said again, smiling faintly.
And then Gyuvin’s hands caught his, fingers weaving through his own. A kiss pressed into his knuckles, and with it, wet drops that weren’t rain. Tears. Ricky stilled, feeling them soak into his skin.
“Why are you crying?” he asked softly. He reached for the handkerchief tucked into his clothes, fumbling, then offering it clumsily. “Your eyes and nose are probably red now too… like Rudolph.” He tried to tease, but it broke at the edges.
“It’s nothing.” Gyuvin’s voice was thick, already betraying him. He guided Ricky’s hand, the cloth moving clumsily over his damp face. “It’s just… Kim Rick, you know my every feature.”
“I do,” Ricky said simply, like it was the easiest truth in the world. “I spent years memorizing you.”
Gyuvin laughed—shaky, uneven—but Ricky could feel the vibration of it beneath his fingers. He smiled too, because Gyuvin was easy to memorize. Too easy. He’d always been. Even without his eyes, even without the light, Ricky would never forget him.
But then, almost without warning, Ricky felt the warmth start to slip. Gyuvin’s touch grew lighter, faint, as if the heat of him was fading away. And the fear clawed at him instantly.
“No—don’t,” Ricky whispered, clutching at his hands. His grip was weak, but desperate. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, Rick,” Gyuvin soothed, though Ricky could already hear his footsteps padding across the room, arranging things he couldn’t see, can’t understand. “Just stay where you are.”
Ricky listened. The blinds came down with the softest rasp, shutting out the weak warmth of early morning sunlight. Even that faint comfort on his skin vanished. And in its place was a silence so deep it pressed into his chest.
What’s happening? Ricky wondered, his chest tightening with unease.
The mattress dipped again, Gyuvin returning to him, close enough that Ricky could feel the warmth radiating off his body. A hand brushed his hair, settled by his temple.
“Ricky, keep your eyes closed, okay?” Gyuvin murmured from just behind him.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he opened them—nothing had changed for him in days. But he nodded, trusting, obeying. He felt Gyuvin’s careful fingers at the edge of his face, felt the slight tug and peel of something being lifted away. The bandages. The faint rip of fabric and tape sounded impossibly loud in the hush of the room.
And then—another voice broke the stillness.
“Congratulations, Mr. Shen, the surgery was successful.”
Surgery. The word landed oddly, distantly, as though he were still caught in some fever dream. He had known about the head injury, but his eyes? He had been too drugged, too tired, too consumed with Gyuvin’s presence beside him to hold on to every word the doctors had said. The last few days blurred into a haze of anesthesia, of sleep, of Gyuvin’s voice anchoring him whenever he slipped too far.
Now Gyuvin’s whisper cut through: “Rick… you can open your eyes now.”
And so, slowly, Ricky did.
At first there was only brightness—raw, piercing, almost painful. Then shapes, lines, colors snapping into place. The clarity was shocking. No blur, no smudged outlines, no familiar weight of glasses on his nose. Just the world, sharp and startling.
His breath hitched. Because the very first thing he saw was Gyuvin.
Gyuvin, who was trying so hard to smile, though his eyes were swollen red, his nose blotchy, his ears burning pink. He looked exhausted, wrecked, unbearably human. And yet Ricky thought he had never seen anything more beautiful. His chest ached with the sight of him, the kind of ache that pressed tears to the back of his throat.
“Rick,” Gyuvin said, voice trembling, already wet again with tears, “you can’t cry just yet. If it helps… I’ll cry for the both of us.”
Ricky let out a soft, helpless laugh, blinking carefully, forcing back the tears that wanted to fall. He wanted to, so badly, but he couldn’t cry, not yet, not so soon. So instead, he just looked. Just looked. Because this time, he didn’t have to imagine Gyuvin’s features, didn’t have to memorize them only by touch. He could see. He could really see.
The room was full of people—doctors, nurses, all waiting for his response—but Ricky only saw Gyuvin. His Gyuvin, clearer than ever, brighter than anything.
It was too much. His ears burned, his chest was splitting with everything he couldn’t put into words. And Gyuvin, who knew him better than anyone, caught it immediately.
“Too many eyes on you, huh?” Gyuvin murmured with a watery laugh.
Before Ricky could answer, those big, warm hands slid gently over his eyes again, plunging him back into darkness.
But this darkness was different. Not frightening. Not empty. It was soft—safe.
Ricky let out a shaky breath, a faint smile tugging at his lips. This time, it wasn’t unwelcome. This time, it felt steadier than anything else, because beneath it all he could feel Gyuvin’s touch, could feel Gyuvin’s heart beating steady and sure, in perfect sync with his own.
♡