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Ever since the first time Han Jihoon was told by the doctor who has been taking care of him for the last one year that his life is drawing towards its twilight, he starts noticing the presence of a black-cloaked figure standing at the corner of his hospital room.
That unknown guest is always standing there even when the sun just goes up and kisses the line of the sky or when the night falls and crashes the time. But it seems like nobody has the ability to see it, except Jihoon and himself only. He had asked about that guest to his parents several times, whose later would look him in the eye as if he’s gone mad. So for a bit of time, he tried not to worry about it.
Until at the third night of the guest’s visit, Jihoon woke up just as the clock struck twelve with an enormous scythe curved right above his neck.
“Give me your last words.”
Jihoon’s eyes slowly moved to his left. The three-nights-in-a-row mysterious guest, who still covered its—his; Jihoon thinks he heard a young man’s voice—face with the black veil of his, turns out has a voice that sounds as calm as a river stream in the middle of the night. Not too high or not too low. The silence lingers in the air for a moment before Jihoon finally able to move his lips,
“Are you my Grim Reaper?”
No words came to be an answer to Jihoon’s question. But that question was clearly rhetorical. The scythe grew even closer to Jihoon’s throat before the same sentence flew to the air, “Give me your last words.”
Jihoon weakly coughed and pressed his eyes closed—his smile grew slowly on his face. “There’s a letter in the top drawer of my nightstand.”
For five and half seconds, the black-cloaked guest does not move even a bit; probably spent the slight time to hesitate the value of that request. But then the chilling sensation that Jihoon felt on his throat by the presence of the scythe suddenly went away. There was no sound of footsteps, but he knows that his unknown guest has walked away from the bed and knelt in front of the drawer.
“The white envelope with a blue seal.” His guest’s murmuring made Jihoon reply with a small nod. Now the sound of a sheet of paper being opened befriends the silent. It must be so long until finally The Grim Reaper get up and sends back another words, “The receiver’s name is ‘Choi Youngjae’. He’s… not your family.”
“Indeed.” Jihoon painted a very thin yet sweet smile on his pale face. He doesn’t look at his guest even a bit, but then with a strong conviction, continued his words. “He’s someone that I loved.”
The silence creep. There’s no clue that shows that The Grim Reaper would say anything more; from the corner of his eyes, Jihoon then noticed that the person he’s talking to was still locking his gaze at the white envelope that seemed very contrasted if it got compared to his black glove.
“I want to stay alive at least until the weekend.” Jihoon finally confessed, with no pleading or demanding tone in his voice as if he doesn’t really care what decision The Grim Reaper will make in the end. “Youngjae-hyung will visit me this Sunday. I want to tell him how I feel about him before I die.”
It is obvious that postponing one’s death is impossible. But the Grim Reaper didn’t refuse that wish at once. When Jihoon carefully sat his body up, he saw the Grim Reaper put back the envelope with caution to the position it initially placed in the drawer. In a blink, the scythe was no longer there with them and the Grim Reaper, finally threw his veil over his shoulder.
“I’ll grant your wish—but everything costs something.”
And Jihoon felt his gaze grow wider. The man looks way younger than all the Grim Reapers he had imagined ever since he was a kid, or those he ever saw the illustrations of in the books he read. The Grim Reaper’s face is carved like a stunning statue that has no emotion and soul. His eyes are even darker than the color black on his cloak, and have no glimpse of lights no matter how small it could be—even though the lamp that lights the whole room is always left on and bright. But the gaze utterly locked Jihoon’s to not to move or go.
“What… Should I give you something in return or…?” Jihoon asked—his neck starts to feel like it’s burning.
Answering the question Jihoon had asked, for the first time a silent and almost invisible smile came to the emotionless face; giving Jihoon neither any serenity or calmness.
“Your death will be a hundred times more painful than it initially would be.”
KISS ME GOODNIGHT
A Hoonzhen/Hanhaep Fanfiction, written by Ekigawa Ruri
“Ugh, not this one! You can’t even tell the difference between Gardenias and Chrysanthemum??? How old are you, five?!”
If you think that being a Grim Reaper would make you work with blood everyday, probably it’s not really applied to the Grim Reaper that was sent by the God to Han Jihoon. Today, he had to work with a bunch of unfamiliar flowers and a very blunt teenager that always protested over everything he did. The Grim Reaper had agreed to grant Jihoon’s wish and let him live for 5 more days, and in return, he will take Jihoon’s soul in such a painful way—and God said that for that, he had to keep an eye on Jihoon for 5 times 24 hours attentively. Unluckily, Jihoon has no guest beside him and his parents, so now he had to be the lamb of the young man’s slaughter (re: Jihoon forced him to help him arrange the confession for Choi Youngjae that will occur on Sunday, and turns out Jihoon has at least 78 plans to do to make the confession ended as perfect as possible).
“I have never in my (not-so-called) life been forced to do this kind of shit.” He hissed under his (not-so-called) breath while Jihoon kept instructing him to unwrap the bouquet he had wrapped with full devotion just because Jihoon said that ‘Chrysanthemums symbolizes mourning and remembrance! You want him to think that I’m cursing him to death?!’
“Well, you have to learn a bit about that,” Jihoon shrugs, “Isn’t it good to know what flower you had to put on the grave of those you killed?”
“I don’t kill, I pick them up and bring them to God. And no, I won’t spend my time looking for what flowers I have to leave on their grave.”
“Oh, you arrogant little shit.”
“You are the arrogant little shit you’re talking about right now, I suppose.”
“So what should I do?” Still with the same unsatisfied scowl engraved on his face, Jihoon slowly walked towards the Grim Reaper and his ugly-wrapped bouquet that was filled with a bunch of somber and hideous flowers. “I don’t have any more money to buy more flowers nor any energy to pick them up myself…”
“Why do you need flowers, though? You said you’re just going to confess your feelings to him, don’t you?” the Grim Reaper argued. Jihoon sent him a gaze that looked like he’s staring at the most stupid person he had ever known, so the Grim Reaper blinked for a second and tilted his head in confusion. “What?”
“You've never been in love, have you?” asked Jihoon, sighed deeply.
The Grim Reaper shook his head, “What for? I’m a Grim Reaper.”
“Us humans too don’t really have reasons to fall in love.” Carefully, Jihoon took those flowers from the Grim Reaper’s hands that were still covered by the same black gloves. “I think every single creature actually has the ability to fall in love. With anyone. With anything. Those who never fell in love just never had the chance for it.”
For a moment of silence, the Grim Reaper stood right beside Jihoon’s weak body and watched his fingers run through all the flowers’ petals as if they were his lover’s hair. The sunray penetrated through the barred wide window and the semi-transparent curtain that covered it, landed perfectly on Jihoon’s pale face and voluntarily gave him a bit of their color. Once Jihoon grabbed a new paper to wrap the flowers at last, he showed it right in front of the Grim Reaper’s face and smiled with pride.
“If you treated them with love, even these gloomy flowers would look lovely too. See?” He sang, pushed the bouquet to the Grim Reaper’s chest. “Take a look. And go buy me better flowers for Youngjae-hyung. Hurry.”
“So, Mr. Grim Reaper—what’s your name again?”
It’s almost evening again when the Grim Reaper’s bouquet finally pleased Jihoon’s expectations after 40 attempts that ironically continued to fail. The Grim Reaper, lifted his face from his 41st bouquet after hearing that question, decided to frown before he drifted his answer to the air.
“We—me and the other Grim Reapers—don’t really get called by our personal names.”
“But I’m gonna spend at least 4 days more with you. I can’t just call you ‘Mr. Grim Reaper’ over and over—that nickname is a bit inefficient.” Jihoon sighed while resting his chin in his palm. His other hand, with The IV catheter remained in the back of it, still holding a pen he used to write another love letter for, his one and only beloved significant other; Choi Youngjae. “And I’m going to write down your name here to credit your wholesome effort while helping me prepare my confession to Youngjae-hyung! But he would freak out if I told him that the one friend who helped me the most is a Grim Reaper, so tell me your name.”
“I’m certain that I’m not your friend.”
“Oh, still so cold and arrogant.”
At last, the Grim Reaper cautiously put the flower bouquet beside Jihoon’s nightstand and ran a gaze towards the letter for a second. Then he opened his mouth, speaking slowly as if it’s not something usual for him to pronounce his own name.
“It’s… Hanjin.”
Jihoon raised his eyebrows, “Pardon?”
“My name,” repeated the Grim Reaper with a slightly more clear voice, “Is Hanjin.”
“...Hanjin.” Unconsciously Jihoon duplicated the name to his own tongue, letting his own voice become one with the air. Then he gave Hanjin a wide, cheerful grin that didn't really suit his colorless face, “Can I call you by that name from now on? Hanjinie? Hanjin-ah?”
Hanjin grunted, “Do whatever you like.”
“Really? Yay! I’ll introduce you to Youngjae-hyung with this letter!”
And so the next entire hour, the room was only filled by the sound of pen dancing above a paper and Jihoon’s muttering every word that he wrote down on his letter. The night began to cover down all the lights that came from the window, and once Jihoon slipped his feet down to the floor and slowly walked to the light switch, Hanjin stopped watching the cloud’s glacial movement and turned his head to Jihoon as if he knows that in a second, Jihoon will start over the conversation again with another question.
“Hanjin-ah,” he called, with his frail back facing Hanjin now—not even a glimpse of his face was visible to Hanjin at that time. To add the oddness of the scene, he didn’t immediately turn on the lights and his voice was, Hanjin remarked, a bit shaky. “Why… why do you want to help me?”
To answer that question, Hanjin almost took a minute and half of hesitating. “No reason,” he said at last, “I just wanted to.”
The light finally came back to the room when later, Jihoon turned his body over to show Hanjin his freshly-shaped smile while tilting his head to the left. But the smile didn’t even reach his eyes, and seemed queer to be put on Jihoon’s face that initially graved with such a generous beam.
“So you’re still gonna help me until I finally tell Youngjae-hyung how I feel about him?”
Hanjin mirrored how Jihoon threw his head to his side and replied in absolute sarcasm, “Well, I have to.”
Jihoon giggled. This time, Hanjin realized that Jihoon’s eyes looked a bit smaller and he instinctively showed the identical tiny smile.
The same poor room that spent such a calm night had to suffer on, in the next morning, another episode of Jihoon nagging endlessly about how bad Hanjin’s talent is at doing handcrafts. It’s Thursday already, and all of sudden, Jihoon wanted to fill an enormous glass jar with something that he called ‘paper lucky stars’ and, once again, forced Hanjin to sit with him for the entire day to be absorbed in the paper-folding activity and made a hundred paper stars (or more). This, Jihoon said, is one of the many confession methods that are currently happening among teenagers his age.
“If I can fill the whole jar with the stars, they said my confession will be accepted,” explained Jihoon to answer Hanjin’s never-ending bawls of how useless those stars are. “So do it correctly, duh! And it’s not useless—I know that even Cupid would be so impressed by my lucky-stars-jar!”
Hanjin laid his body wearily on the foot of Jihoon’s bed, yawning while looking at his third star that looks more like a tooth than a star. “You haven't even filled half of the jar yet.”
“That’s because you don’t put all your effort into this and keep complaining.”
“This is not my job.”
“Oh, come on. You’ve promised to help me with all your heart and energy!”
“That’s because you forced me to.”
“Talking about your job,” Jihoon suddenly leaned closer to Hanjin, with two eyes glimmering with excitement, “Tell me more about your job! How long have you been a Grim Reaper? Is it fun? Is it depressing? Do the Grim Reapers really take our souls to God by kissing us???”
“Wha—kiss?!” Hanjin repeated in disbelief and disgust—his nose deeply crinkled. “Where did you even hear about that…?”
Jihoon innocently shrugged, “My parents said so.”
Hanjin lifted his gloved-hand to pinch his own nosebridge and let out a long sigh. “I’ve been working as a Grim Reaper for as long as I can remember. No, it’s not fun. Yes, it’s depressing. And about the kiss… maybe it’s only for those who die and remain as a good person in other’s memories. I never did that, though.”
“What? Kissing someone?”
“Kissing the humans whose souls I took to God.”
“So you did ever kiss someone! Is it the other Grim Reaper?! Hey, tell me more! Does it really taste like lemon, kissing?”
“Just try it out and kiss your Youngjae-hyung.” The Grim Reaper took the white blanket behind his back and threw it right towards Jihoon’s face, causing the young boy to yelp hysterically. “And no, I never kiss anybody, and don’t really have a plan to be involved in something like that.”
Right after he had freed himself from the blanket attack, Jihoon showed a big grin and asked mischievously, “So I’ll be your first kiss later?”
The gaze that Hanjin pitched right at his two eyes seemed like the Grim Reaper personally thought that it was the most disgusting question he ever heard. He took all his paper-stars that all shaped like anything but a star and tossed them again to Jihoon’s face. “I’m not going to kiss anybody, especially you.”
“Whyyy??? I’m a good kid, you see!”
“You’re a brat.”
They spend half of the day throwing all the paper-stars and curses to each other, leading to at least three nurses had to check Jihoon’s room to make sure that no thief or robber has visited him or just to shut him up because the loud noises he had made alone (they couldn’t see Hanjin who also participated on the mission to upend the whole room) had called many protests from the neighbors. At the end of the day, they had to start over to fill the jar again with the new paper stars… and at least four of the 214 stars Hanjin had made are included this time, after such a hard training session and Jihoon scolding him for the whole afternoon.
The laughter, however, did not remain until the night came.
“Jihoon-ssi, can you hear me?! Breathe with me—no, don’t do that—yes, like that! Just inhale and exhale slowly—Hey! Where’s the oxygen cylinder?!”
It was totally crowded at Jihoon’s room when Hanjin came back from picking up a mini bunch of small colorful flowers—and to see that amount of doctors and nurses was not really a big thing to face as a Grim Reaper, but not less than an hour ago, Jihoon was so well. And it startled Hanjin a little to see Jihoon whimpering and grasping air in pain for a whole 30 minutes, so he stayed at the door and started counting the flowers that lay in his palm. The chaotic air remained for two hours or more, and when Hanjin finally stepped in to the room after the nurses had ensured that Jihoon is now breathing normal again, the boy looked paler than usual and both his eyes were closed; while half of his face—at least both his mouth and nose—covered by a venturi mask.
“I brought you some flowers from the hospital garden.” Hanjin mumbled quietly, putting the flowers on the nightstand beside Jihoon’s bed—not really sure if Jihoon is actually awake and conscious enough to hear him or not. But Jihoon’s long eyelashes fluttered after those sentences to say that he’s listening to Hanjin right now, so Hanjin continued. “You’re not going to die yet. It’s my job to end your life later.”
Jihoon’s right hand, thin and had grown even more ashen than before, tried to reach the flowers weakly. Hanjin watched him fail and didn’t do anything. Then, a strange voice that sounded like a forced chuckle trapped in a very small room came from Jihoon. His eyes were finally half-opened, moving to the way where he couldn’t find the Grim Reaper.
“I know.” He said, smiling in irony.
“... So you’re that sick.”
“Well. I’m going to die very soon, after all.”
No one said anything for the next 10 minutes. They were deep into the silence that was only layered by Jihoon’s breath. But later it reached the point where his slow breath once again hitched and started to tremble. The next second, Hanjin realized that there were two or more drips of tears on Jihoon’s roseless cheek. His blue-bruised left hand where a new IV line just sited clutched the white, thin blanket as if he tried not to throw his cry out in one moment.
“I…” his shaky, quiet voice then cracked the silence off, “I’m not… I’m not going to die before Sunday, right…?”
As if he never told Jihoon the answer to that question minutes before, in an instant Hanjin shook his head, “No.” His tone, to his own surprise, sounds not calm at all—so he took another minute to realign his intonation over. “No. You’re not going to die before you do what you really want to do. You’re… going to be okay. Don’t worry.”
The young boy looked at Hanjin with a very deep, teary gaze. Then he lifted the same hand with the one that tried to reach the flowers on the nightstand to Hanjin and said, “... Can you hold my hand?”
And the Grim Reaper froze for a solid time. His gaze landed upon the pale hand before moving his eyes to Jihoon’s face, then to his hand again. “I can’t take off my gloves.”
“That’s fine.” Jihoon replied, almost pleading. “I just want to feel something.”
A slight second after a solid hesitation, Hanjin reached the slim fingers carefully, let Jihoon desperately clutched onto the satin glove’s texture and made those two separate hands, at least for the whole night, become totally one.
Jihoon’s parents came to visit in the Saturday morning, and he himself has recovered faster than anyone could ever expect; awakened as fresh as if he had just been born into the world anew. The family was deep into a fun conversation for some hours, and before the clock struck towards lunch time, the middle-aged couple took turns to kiss their son’s forehead and left a big tin box with Jihoon. Once they closed the door, Jihoon jumped off his bed to approach Hanjin, who has been standing by the window since morning and, as always, watching the cloud moving.
“Look! I still have a picture of Youngjae-hyung and me that my friend took on his graduation day last year!” He chimed cheerfully, pulled out a photograph from the box and pushed it into Hanjin’s palm. “This is him. Isn’t he beautiful?”
The photo that later Hanjin peered thoroughly showed two young boys in a same school uniform standing in front of a school’s signboard, with pinkish air from the blooming cherry blossom trees around the school and the bluest sky Hanjin has ever seen. One of them, familiar enough for his eyes, is the younger Han Jihoon—shorter dark-brown hair and puffy eyes befriended with a wide innocent smile. That was the first time Hanjin ever saw him with such happiness and red hue painted on his face. The other boy, however, seemed so new to Hanjin. And indeed, with two dark eyes shining like a diadem, black soft hair and a thin sweet smile, the older boy looked like he was created to be something that even the sky would adore. One of his hands was ruffling Jihoon’s hair, and his other hand held a graduation certificate. They both look truly, utterly close to each other.
“He graduated a year ago?” Hanjin asked. Jihoon nodded with a radiating pride.
“He’s now a student at the most famous university in town. He really is the coolest person I’ve ever known—oh, I can’t wait to tell him how much I love him!”
Once Hanjin lifted his face from the photograph, the view that welcomed him looked even stranger. The current Jihoon, the one that he met at the line between life and death at that time seemed even more alive than ever, staring at the photo with two imaginated love-shaped pupils in his eyes and a small, tender smile. A cold wind has been blowing over the town since morning and remained even until midday, slightly wafting Jihoon’s dark hair and revealing his forehead for a bit of a moment. He wore a white warm outer above his blue hospital gown today that with no intention made all the color on his skin seem to glow under the cloudy hospital room’s lighting. Hanjin sighed soundlessly before he calmly nodded.
“... Yeah.” He said, while not even a bit of the photograph is in his sight, “Beautiful, indeed.”
The grin on Jihoon’s face widened while he stole a glance of Hanjin from the corner of his eyes, “He has grown even more beautiful as a college student… You have to see him this Sunday! You will be there to watch my confession, right???”
It’s weird. The question got Hanjin suddenly feeling like a freezing, chill breeze had just blown upon him. He had to close the window to prevent the bitter air from biting his body that was perfectly wrapped by a cloak, but the cold followed him even after it was only him and Jihoon in the room. Jihoon, at last, completely dropped his attention to Hanjin, tilting his head in confusion,
“Are you oka—”
“Of course I’ll be there,” Hanjin disrupted the question before it came to be one with the air, no longer looking at the very baffled Jihoon. “It’s… It’s my job.”
“But why do you—”
“I said I’ll be there, can you just stop asking—”
“Hanjin,” called Jihoon in a desperate tone, shook his head weakly. “You’re crying.”
And there it was; the first time Hanjin realized the stinging feeling right below his two eyelids and two drops of tears fell to his chin—the very first time he cried during his entire time on earth, and he didn't even know what to do. He tried to wipe them away, the tears, but they forced him to try harder and harder. He hated the sensation he felt in his throat as if he was a human being that had to stopped functioning rightly every time they lost an enormous amount of oxygen to breathe with—and he thought, at first, that it was the delayed effect of the recently freezing wind that struck him out of nowhere, but when he saw Jihoon kneeling in front of him to perfectly face him with such a worried look on his face, he came to such a bitter conclusion; that the cause of his tears was, in fact, no other than Jihoon.
“Hey,” whispered Jihoon carefully, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
When Hanjin showed no ability to speak, Jihoon’s hand almost had lifted towards the teary face of the Grim Reaper, but in a second, Hanjin brushed off his hand harshly—leaving the whole room grasped by the utter silence after his action. Jihoon’s eyes widened, either because of the shock or the hurt feelings that probably bit his heart, knowing his good intention wasn't even welcomed by Hanjin.
“Don’t touch me.” Hanjin demanded in silence, lips pressed in a thin line.
Jihoon took his gaze from the hand that just got fended by Hanjin’s hand to Hanjin’s face again, now with a strange look in his eyes. He later pulled the sleeve of his outer to cover his whole hand and reach for Hanjin again—and this time, Hanjin had only leaned back to avoid it and didn’t brush him away. A woeful smile came to Jihoon, before with the fingers that were still covered by the tweed sleeve, he wiped away all the tears that rolled down over Hanjin’s pale face.
“You just don’t want me to touch your skin, don’t you?” he muttered while Hanjin slowly took a deep breath and stopped shivering. “You just don’t want to kill me. If I touch your skin just then, I could simply die.”
To see Jihoon had explained something he didn’t say anything about yet, Hanjin put his gaze in total to the floor, but Jihoon’s left hand had joined to hold his other side of face and lifted it up so their faces were now only bounded by 5 cm air and nothing more. There’s something Hanjin just saw in Jihoon’s dark brown eyes that made him feel another unbearable pain in his chest.
“Hanjin-ah,” said Jihoon in a soft, steady voice, “Are you afraid of something?”
The question was simple. But to answer it in utter honest, Hanjin had to take the whole voice in his throat that still left and a big bunch of courage;
“Why—” he felt his lips quivered, “Why… do you look so okay with talking about that confession? It will be your last moment—it will be your death.”
And to his sheer shock, the smile on Jihoon’s face just grew even wider—even though the sorrowful note still lingered there like a winter air stayed in early spring.
“Because I love him.” Jihoon caressed Hanjin’s wet cheek as if he was made by a fragile glass, humming the answer under his breath. “And every time something reminds me of it, the death seems kinder to me. It doesn’t scare me anymore.”
“But your death might be more painful than you could ever imagine—”
“Love is a stupid thing, indeed.” the young boy interrupted, let out a small chuckle. “But it’s calming, Hanjin. So I’m no longer afraid of the pain. Someday, when you finally get the chance to be in love, you will understand.”
But if it will make him ignore the pain only to be with someone that he loved, Hanjin will never wish for himself to be in love.
Sunday came as fast as a breath. That day, the sun glimmered dimly behind a group of grey clouds, and the breeze felt even more chilling. Hanjin had just come back from the hospital garden when he caught Jihoon huddled on his own bed while writing another love letter for Youngjae.
“The last one didn’t sound like me, so I’m writing a new one.” he said while scratching his chin, chuckling awkwardly. “How was your morning walk? Got any cute flowers today?”
He sat up when Hanjin nodded and lowered himself onto the white-sheeted bed, pulling out the flowers that he picked from beneath his black cloak. The time Jihoon saw a bunch of flowers with white, long-curved petals, he lifted his eyes to find Hanjin’s and a smile lit up his pale face.
“White lilies.” His slim fingers reached the flowers, but seemed not to have the intention to lift it up and hold it in his palm. “My favorite flowers.”
The deep-black eyes of the Grim Reaper replied to the gaze Jihoon had thrown before he asked, “What is the meaning of them?”
“Oh, they have so many meanings,” Jihoon licked his lower lip, looked away. “Purity. Innocence. Selfless love. Rebirth.”
He took a cracked breath for a second while his hand grasped upon the paper of the letter he held.
“You can bring them to a wedding,” he paused to draw a perfect smile to Hanjin, “Or to a funeral.”
Hanjin’s eyes finally moved to the pure-looking flowers and for some time, it was only silence that sat between them in the hospital room that felt bigger and bigger. Alas, Jihoon took one envelope from the drawer beside his bed and put the letter he had wrote in it before he tap Hanjin’s left shoulder,
“Youngjae-hyung will come around six in the evening,” he tilted his head and continued, “Will you wait?”
Nothing came from Hanjin’s sore throat except, “Yes, of course.” and a simple nod.
After lunch time, Jihoon proclaimed that he had finished all the preparations and expressed his wish to wander around the hospital for the last time—while of course, dragging Hanjin with him. It’s weird for Hanjin to see Jihoon brightly greet everyone they meet at the corridors, including all the patients, young and old, and even the visitors that strangely know him as if he was their distant cousin. No—in fact, being this cheerful while knowing that in several hours you will be dead is weird enough.
They had just reached the hospital garden right when suddenly, rain started to pour over the entire town and erase the entire presence of the sun. Although he showed some disappointed lines on his face, Jihoon wisely suggested sitting on a bench in front of the Cardiac Ward that faced the garden. They sat in complete silence and let the rain talk for them for a long while.
“... Jihoon-ah,”
Jihoon hums an answer, moving his sight to see Hanjin from the corner of his eyes—and even though he realized it, Hanjin didn’t throw any glance away from the garden and every raindrops. He only lifted his hand a bit and say,
“I just want to feel something.”
It’s probably more or less another minute before Jihoon started to drifted his breathy giggles to the air, finally stroke Hanjin’s black glove in a deep line, and in the end, interlaced his fingers with Hanjin’s. The thought in his head later came up to his lips and successfully aired out, “Will we meet again in the hereafter?”
The question invited a funny snort from Hanjin, but he sincerely answered, “Of course,” He squeezed Jihoon’s palm even tighter when he repeated the precisely same words. “Of course.”
Three hours of watching the rain and saying nothing probably felt enough for Jihoon, so at 4 o’clock, he became the one who broke off their hold and decided to take Hanjin back to the ward he had been living in. On their way to the room, they walked past a big bulletin board that showed many health-related posters, but when he saw the one and only poster that seemed like it’s not a health-related poster, Jihoon stopped his steps and stared at the poster for a moment. Hanjin later realized that the poster indeed did not tell anything about health, but showed a promotion of a firework festival near the hospital instead.
“The festival will be held tomorrow,” muttered Hanjin, slightly glancing towards Jihoon who now has built a tiny smile in the corner of his lips.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “To celebrate the arrival of spring. It’s the same festival as the one I attended five years ago.”
“Five years ago?”
“Mhm. That was when I met Youngjae-hyung, at that festival.”
Hanjin saw a glimpse of melancholic shadow in Jihoon’s eyes before the boy looked away from the poster and threw another bright smile at him.
“But, well, I won’t be able to come again tomorrow, after all.”
But Choi Youngjae didn't make it to the hospital at exactly 6 PM. Not also when the clock’s needle struck the number 7, or 8, or 9.
The air grew colder while the rain didn’t stop even until all the lights from the apartment windows across the hospital one by one started to switch off, and the silence became one with the whole town. But Jihoon still curled up beneath his blanket and never looked away from the door that didn’t move even a bit after the nurse that changed the bedsheet leaving the door stood ajar. At the time Hanjin realized that the flowers in the bouquet beside Jihoon’s nightstand look like they’re no longer willing to wait, he stepped towards it—and he saw Jihoon flinched at his presence.
“... Jihoon, I’m not going to—”
“I know,” he heard Jihoon’s shaky voice echoing throughout the room. “I… I know… I’m sorry, please let me wait for a bit longer…”
Hanjin felt another sting bit right in the middle of his chest. And for Jihoon’s sake, or for himself, he did not give him any answer.
The waiting time was very near to the end as Jihoon started to sob silently, and Hanjin just knew that Youngjae would never come over. In the middle of the fragile silence, while the whisper of the rain was still singing outside the window, Jihoon’s trembling back was the only thing Hanjin could ever see that night. He was on the verge of taking off his glove when he heard Jihoon tried to say something between his cries.
“I…” he said while his breath once again became hitched and uncontrollable—his colorless hands, Hanjin saw, still clutched onto all the letters he had written as if they were oxygen for him, “I… If I knew that he wouldn’t come…”
Nothing Hanjin could really do except to sit right beside him and carefully hold his hand, stroking all the lines that were visible enough in the dark. In the end, Jihoon had no more strength to hold back all the tears and slowly shed all the emotions he had in his weak and frail body. He fell towards Hanjin’s arm and wept,
“It hurts…” his voice became so hoarse that it didn’t sound like him at all, and the chain of the painfully restrained sobs made Hanjin start to tremble, too. He slowly took Jihoon’s head to his shoulder and nodded, as if he’s asking Jihoon to let everything out even if it takes time. “I—I don’t know what to do… It hurts so much… I can’t—I… I can’t breathe… I know that he doesn’t even feel the same—but… but…”
“It’s okay, Jihoon—You’ll be okay,” whispered Hanjin, only to realize how strange his voice sounds too. “If you need something, I’m still here—”
“Hanjin-ah,” Jihoon interrupted in a weak voice, “You… Can you kiss me?”
The wish that Jihoon asked to him had Hanjin thought that if he was a human, he could probably felt his heart stopped beating for a solid second. He tried to look for Jihoon's weary eyes to see if there's any doubt in them, “But… but if I kiss you—”
“I know,” and the world came to utter silence for a moment before he let out another whimper and continued, “I know… and that’s why, please.”
Midnight had arrived with the strike of the clock, and Hanjin knew that it’s his obligation to do his task before the due date. But he felt Jihoon’s hand gripped the side of his cloak, hard but unsteady. So alive, and so scared. Jihoon left the impression of the most alive person Hanjin has ever known that Hanjin had no courage to take the air Jihoon breathed in.
“... Do you still want to see the firework festival?”
To say those words, Hanjin has been asking himself the same question a hundred times; ‘Will it be okay? Will it make God angry with me?’ but once he saw Jihoon’s utterly messy, sorrowful face lifted towards him in confusion, he ignored the pain he suddenly felt in his left chest.
“Let’s see the fireworks tomorrow.” He repeated, tried to shape a tiny smile while his lips quivered. He brought Jihoon’s hand to his palm and squeezed it with tenderness. “If we can’t bring you to the festival then we should just watch from here, the window is wide enough for us to see the entire night sky—or if you’re steong enough to climb the stairs, we can go to the rooftop—”
“Hanjin,” his idea, in an instant, was cutted off by Jihoon who looked at him with his teary eyes that now showed how bewildered he felt at that moment, “But… why?”
Hanjin blinked twice, “‘Why’...? I don’t know, maybe so that you can be happy before you have to really die—”
“No, I mean why—” Jihoon shook his head firmly, “Why… why do you still want to help me…?”
This time, Hanjin couldn’t bring himself to just say that he had no reason at all behind his act—because deep inside his black, bleak heart, he can find a clear and obvious answer. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the truth either. So he swapped off that question along with the ache that throbbing inside his body, and said,
“Who cares about that?” He shrugged with the smile spread wider across his face. “You only have one day left. Just try to be happy for the whole day, and I’ll complete my task.”
After that sleepless night, Jihoon fell asleep right when the morning sun had come out from its hideout and didn’t wake up even when the golden dusk greeted the room through the window glass. And for the entire day, Hanjin spent his time sitting beside the boy and counting the new white lilies he had picked from the garden. His left hand had been trapped between Jihoon’s warm, unmoving fingers, and he had no intention to break the hold even a bit before those two dark-eyes had shown themselves near the evening to welcome Hanjin again on his sight.
“You’re awake.” the Grim Reaper muttered between a thin smile on his face. He helped Jihoon to sit himself up deliberately after he could hide those flowers back in his pocket. “It’s… 6 PM right now. The fireworks will be started in around three hours—”
“So last night was real.”
The sudden sentence Jihoon had just blurted made Hanjin look away from the wall clock to see the drained look that was painted in visible black on Jihoon’s face. He slowly took his hand from Jihoon and gulped, “Well… It was.”
It was his first time seeing Jihoon’s eyes reflected a deep void inside the small and weak body since the first time they met—Jihoon obviously had a thousand emotions hidden behind his hospital gown, but there was never any one of them that was called ‘numb’. Jihoon brought his own hand to his face, took a deep, long breath before glancing towards the window.
“... It’s not raining today, huh.” He mumbled under his breath.
Hanjin, too baffled to build a proper sentence, only nodded weakly and said, “Yeah.”
“I hope tonight the sky will be clear enough for us to watch the fireworks.”
“Yeah.”
“... I really can’t wait.”
“To see the fireworks?”
The smile that at the next second Jihoon had put on his lips was the most sorrowful smile Hanjin had ever seen.
“Yes,” he replied in a very slow tone. “And to die.”
Jihoon’s hand never felt as cold as it was that night.
He climbed the stairs to the rooftop in steady steps, but for the whole time, he didn’t look anywhere but the stairs where his feet stood on. The hospital stairs were not even as quiet as the air that the two shared—no conversations had aired out between them until they reached the rooftop, so that the night noisy air welcomed them like a warm hug they never really asked for. The rooftop garden, filled with pink bougainvilleas and petunias, became the only colors they could see under the night sky. Their hold broke off once the two of them sat on the nearest bench, even though Hanjin had wished for it to never break until his last day on earth.
It’s almost 10 PM when out of the blue, Jihoon bit his lip and stated, “I never really have a chance to say thanks to you.”
Hanjin, watching Jihoon adoringly looking at the moon for a whole ten minutes as if he could see the moon in Jihoon’s eyes, responded with a small voice and one simple sentence, “It’s my job.”
For the first time on that day, he heard Jihoon let out a slight chuckle, “To make me die peacefully?”
Hanjin shook his head, “No. To not let you regret anything.”
And once Jihoon moved his sight towards Hanjin to see him clearly, the first firework tore through the dark night and bursted its thousand colors everywhere. The paleness on Jihoon’s face had vanished and was replaced by a red shadow, that was replaced by a purple shadow, and was replaced again with a blue one. Hanjin could see his own reflection in the deep brown eyes and when it got wet and teary, Hanjin thought that it was his eyes that produced another drip of tears already, but Jihoon’s shaky voice denied his thought.
“I can see the fireworks on your face.” he said with a smile. “They’re beautiful.”
Hanjin thought that something had just gripped his ribcage and almost broke it in the first trial. Another shot of fireworks was thrown to the sky, and Jihoon did not let his eyes walk away.
“Am I really going to die after this?”
A nod became the first answer to that question before Hanjin could build his words into one perfect sentence, “Tell me if you’re not ready.”
Jihoon snorted, “I was never ready for everything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your eyes.” mumbled Hanjin in a fraud, imaginative silence, “They’re trembling.”
No one said anything for another minute while the third firework came again to paint the whole rooftop. It’s not hard to realize the tears under the corner of Jihoon’s eyes because he didn’t have the talent to hide his emotion, but at that time, the fireworks were too loud, and no cries of his had ever been heard.
“Is it going to be that hurt?” Jihoon’s trembled question came to Hanjin’s hearing sense. “Dying… Is it really as painful as you’ve always described it?”
“I think so.”
“Even more painful than a heartbreak?”
Hanjin took a gulp of air and shook his head weakly. “No. Maybe not that painful.”
The answer that Jihoon finally got gave him a glimpse willing to let out another laugh. He lean towards Hanjin and gradually reach the Grim Reaper’s hand to simply whisper,
“Kiss me.”
The night air felt freezing when Hanjin took off his gloves and let his hands breathe for a moment. For the first time, he could trace every single injection mark on the back of Jihoon’s left hand, or each vein on Jihoon’s wrist, and now, their warmth had finally come back.
Jihoon looked down, right through Hanjin’s gaze and Hanjin’s soul. A flower, probably had long and curved petals, had bloomed beneath Hanjin's skin when he finally wore down the distance between their lips. And more flowers bursted forth, over and over and over. But he took even more oxygen from those flowers and granted them to Jihoon instead of grasping the air he could take from the boy. The moment they finally pulled up from each other’s lips, Jihoon let his head fall to the crook of Hanjin’s neck and broke the silence.
“You lied.” And he sounds like he’s smiling, “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Yet something crushed Hanjin from the inside as a price he had to pay for letting his body to touch Jihoon’s warm skin. He thought, ‘Oh, God will be so angry, God will be very angry,’ a thousand times in one second, but whenever something reminds him that at least for the whole night, not even God can take Jihoon away from his embrace, the anger of God seems kinder.
“Thank God, then,” he responded, sensing the warmth of Jihoon’s soul gradually ruining him bit by bit. “Thank God. Good night, Jihoon-ah—sleep well.”
It was too late for him to convey his feelings once the next second came, for that Jihoon’s eyes had entirely closed—so he told to the moon and the stars about it instead,
“Oh...” That night, his tears felt heated and pleasantly warm when he called Jihoon’s name as if it was a prayer, while he slipped his two arms around Jihoon's weak and unconscious body, “Jihoon-ah, Jihoon-ah...
“I think... I think I’m in love with you.”
A glimpse of the morning sun came through the window and called him from his long, deep sleep. And once again, the all-white room welcomed him without saying any words, and Han Jihoon had never felt as alive as he felt that day.
But then he saw two white lilies, one was as fresh as it just picked a minute before, while the other had wilted and turned grey, laying right over his chest. A black satin fabric that wrapped the two flowers crumbled and ruined. However the warmth of whoever owns the fabric still lingers as if it was there to greet Jihoon again and stay by his side for the rest of his life.
As if it was there to say, ‘I’m no longer afraid of the pain, for I love you very much and it’s enough for me to ignore their presence’.
— AG, Ekigawa Ruri.