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It came as no surprise when Geonwoo found himself feeling empty as he faced his half-living body.
His dry, cracked lips, deep sullen eyes and pale skin made him look so lifeless — as if he were balancing on a thin line, barely grasping for the will to live. Geonwoo couldn't deny it. It was not far from the truth, after all.
He didn’t actively want to die, not really. He simply did not care enough to hold himself together anymore. The thought of tomorrow, the day after, the weeks stretching endlessly ahead, felt pointless.
He chuckled softly, a sound that carried no amusement, just a hollow echo to fill the moment. Despite being unable to actually smell the air inside the white hospital room, he was sick of it. He knew the scent like it had been drilled into the back of his nostrils. It reminded him of everything that had left him.
Though it made no difference, the slightly uneven blanket resting atop his chest, his physical body, was fixed before he left the room. When he reached for the door handle, his hands dispersed through it. He pressed his lips together closely.
He was not sure where his feet led him next, his mind buzzing with confusion, fear, and a haze of emotions he could not decipher. Sure, he should have felt panic at seeing his own body lying still before him, but the truth was, even that was asking too much for him.
Geonwoo stopped when he reached a glass door. He tried reaching out again, but to no avail. With a quiet sigh, he stepped forward and walked through his reflection. Beyond it was a beautifully decorated garden, suited for the hospital’s peaceful environment.
Patients and visitors filled the space, yet Geonwoo did not feel suffocated. The day was windy, the season shifting gradually from spring to summer, and a small voice in his head whispered that he should have taken the sweater from his room. Geonwoo thought it would not matter anyway.
He chose the furthest bench beneath a large, sturdy tree on the right side of the garden. He brushed the dust away and sat comfortably as he could manage in a body that no longer felt entirely his. It was 15 minutes later when a figure suddenly came into his view, almost planting themselves on his lap.
"Oi! Watch it!" Geonwoo scowled, scooting aside with an annoyed huff.
He took a look at the person next to him, a young man with reddish hair. After a brief calculation, Geonwoo assumed they were close in age, perhaps a year or two apart at most. And annoyingly — the man was attractive as hell.
Hey. He was half-dead, not blind.
The man sighed in exasperation, eyes boring into the distance with very obvious dark circles under his sharp eyes. Then, as if unsettled, he shifted suddenly and glanced around the garden before lowering his head again.
Geonwoo picked a nickname for him. It was something he often did when observing people.
He settled for Red.
The man — now Red, continued to be in that position for several minutes, back hunched, elbows braced on his knees and head buried in between his palms. Geonwoo almost leaned closer to take a look at his face when he noticed Red’s shoulder began to shake. Then, from him came a sob. And another.
Red cried quietly, painfully. Like he was afraid of getting his sadness known. His pitiful weep pinched an emotion in Geonwoo that made him itch.
It started in his chest, burning as though it were trying to force its way out. The sensation made Geonwoo edge away, suddenly hyperaware of everything around him. His heart pounded violently, breath catching in a way he hadn’t felt since the day he stopped caring whether he lived or not.
The despair, anguish and desperation of clinging to a final lifeline. With the passing of his grandmother, Geonwoo was gone too.
But this was different.
This grief doesn’t belong to his memories. It isn't his grandmother, nor is it about any of his past.
Amid the pain, Geonwoo realized. A part of him, far and deep inside, knew what was actually happening.
He was not stupid. Socially inept, maybe, but not an idiot. He was introduced to this concept long ago, before he was old enough to understand the complexity of it. This phenomenon that he didn’t have time to explore properly because how could he?
He looked at Red. Or tried to.
And with a sick kind of clarity, realized, it was shared.
"Ha.. Shit.. Don't tell me.." Geonwoo crouched down on the ground with his hand clutching his chest.
Kim Geonwoo had long forgotten a fact; one that he tried really hard to bury at the back of his mind.
He had a soulmate.
Geonwoo saw Red a few more times after that. At first, he dismissed it as coincidence because there's no way he had to be half-dead to finally meet his soulmate; but another two to three crying sessions later and Geonwoo stopped lying to himself.
The universe, cruel as it was, had tied him to this man.
Despite himself, Geonwoo learned things as he followed Red around the hospital.
Now, Red was Chinese. That fact was apparent when Mandarin came spouted out of his mouth one day. Thankfully, Geonwoo had studied it back in school and actually paid attention, so he had no problem inserting himself in any conversation.
And, the sole reason for the tears that fall from his eyes, albeit very frequently, was his mother. Geonwoo didn't mean to eavesdrop, but when you were invisible, things like privacy stopped existing. And so he listened.
Red's mother had been admitted for a while now, and Geonwoo rarely saw her awake. She was suffering from a brain tumor and the surgery that can help her live a little longer, cost a fortune.
The money which Red doesn't have, because Geonwoo also learned that Red was still a student. There was no one else hovering nearby. No relatives swapping shifts. Just him, the two of them.
Geonwoo didn't like the feeling that settled in his chest when that clicked. It sat there, heavy and uncomfortable. A thought he wasn’t ready to indulge yet.
He started noticing things after that.
It happened first when he saw the boy never stayed still for long. He would fold in on himself on the rooftop bench, shoulders shaking, breath stuttering, and in the next second, wiped his face roughly and straightened his back as if the world had not just cracked open beneath his feet.
He cried like someone who had lost everything — and yet continued as if something remained worth reaching for. He spoke gently to the nurses and smiled at his mother despite the tightly clutched fist Geonwoo noticed he concealed from her sight.
Geonwoo did not understand it. And because he did not understand it, he watched.
He also discovered after a few days, the name of this boy whose hair had been dyed to medium dark brown, almost turning black, causing him to run out of reason to call him Red anymore.
Xinlong.
He Xinlong. That was the name.
And Geonwoo unconsciously wished to keep it tucked safely in his memory. From that moment on, he knew life would not remain the same.
The first time Xinlong laughed, it startled him. It was soft, too brief, it was barely there. There was a cute child playing with a kitten in the garden’s bay, and Xinlong let out a small breath of amusement as he watched her before catching himself. It barely even registered in the air.
But Geonwoo felt it.
He pressed a hand against himself as if to confirm it had happened.
Later, when Xinlong’s mother's monitor suddenly beeped continuously and nurses rushed in, a new pressure crushed down on Geonwoo’s chest so hard that he had to brace himself against the wall.
Xinlong’s panic and fear had lodged inside him like it belonged there. The sense of loss that he truly understood so well, it was terrifying. Because no one knew when it could happen.
And sometimes, not often, Xinlong would stop mid-step.
His brows would knit together, eyes glancing to an empty corner of the room. Once, he had turned around abruptly, eyes scanning the space behind him before he shook his head with a confused laugh.
“Why did I think someone was there?” Xinlong murmured to himself.
Geonwoo froze. Perhaps this bond has reached too far past the limits of flesh. Perhaps, perhaps, Geonwoo had felt too much.
It was a chilly autumn evening in September when Geonwoo chose to waste his endless time in the far corner of the rooftop again, now finding solace in a place so constant in his dull, unnerving life. The flowers had wilted slightly, braving through the cold weather as winter crept closer.
He laid back on the bench, eyes fixed on the sky scattered with stars. It was beautiful, he admitted. Geonwoo let himself drift —even though he doesn't really need it; before hearing steady footsteps coming towards his direction.
"I'm starting to think you're obsessed with me." He muttered to no one, really. And if he was being honest, he was the one following Xinlong around.
He opened his eyes to see Xinlong sitting an arm's length away. Without thinking, Geonwoo reached out, maybe there was a part of him that still hoped. Pathetic. He laughed dryly when his hands passed straight through Xinlong's skin.
Of course.
A heavy, deep sigh drew his attention back. Geonwoo watched the way Xinlong's eyelashes met when he blinked, how his eyes drifted aimlessly, the same thing Geonwoo had been doing moments before.
Xinlong rummaged through his side jeans pocket and took out his phone, a wired earphone attached to the end of it. He slipped one earbud in and let the other hang loose. Geonwoo could hear the soft music playing through the abandoned bud.
♪♫ The good days and even the painful days ♪♫
From this angle, Xinlong looked unreal — impossibly so. Geonwoo could not process how someone like this existed. As he blindly admired the brown haired face, he had missed the movement of Xinlong's lips and felt his heart fall to a pit when he heard the man's voice.
♪♫ When you look back, was it all just nothing much ♪♫
The night Xinlong spoke into the dark, he did not cry. His hands were clasped tightly together, closing his eyes as he moved his head upwards. The city hummed faintly below them, alive and indifferent. A cold wind brushed past, tugging at the edges of Xinlong’s loose sweater, his hair ruffling along.
♪♫ If only my bruised heart, my blank heart can feel again ♪♫
“I don’t know who you are,” he started. His voice was low, careful, like he was afraid to break the stillness in the air.
Geonwoo swiftly turned towards him. The words settled in, foreign. There’s no way…
“But if you’re really out there…”
Xinlong sounds broken, like a falling piece of glass that is unable to be caught before it reaches the floor. Or the clattered sound of plates, stumbling on top of each other after someone clumsily drops them. Or the sound of raindrops hitting the window of a rundown rented room of a basement in Seoul. The brunette's voice quivers through each of the words he said.
♪♫ Even if I endlessly fall, even if I fall to the ground ♪♫
Xinlong’s voice caught just once. He inhaled sharply, then exhaled as slow as he could. He opened his eyes, turning to the side. Nowhere, in particular.
“...please stay.”
♪♫ Please catch me ♪♫
Geonwoo’s chest tightened. His lungs ached. He felt a hollowness, sharp and cold, spread through him, as if a piece of him had been left behind on that rooftop with Xinlong. As if the other had really seen him.
He understood with terrifying clarity: if he disappeared, Xinlong would feel it. Not a sudden, unbearable pain. But absence. Like losing something even before knowing its shape.
Geonwoo himself had known absence before. He had lived with it, let it hollow him out. He knew what it did to people — how it could rot hope from the inside without a sound. And yet, hearing Xinlong speak into the night, feeling that invisible tether pull taut, he finally felt the harm.
He noticed the slight quiver of Xinlong’s shoulders. Every small detail of the boy’s posture stabbed into him, each movement reflecting the fragility of that request.
A sharp, unexpected sob broke his trance.
HIs eyes snapped to Xinlong. Geonwoo had been holding himself still, mind straining to process whatever just happened. The boy hadn’t seemed like he was going to cry earlier, he had been so controlled, so careful, and now he had cracked. It shattered, and no matter how many times Geonwoo had seen it, it would never be enough for him to explain the sheer heaviness it placed on his heart.
"Don't cry..." He muttered softly, afraid Xinlong might actually hear him if he said any louder. His hand lifted on instinct, aiming for the tears as if he could truly touch him. When it passed through the empty air, this time it shook Geonwoo harder. The slightly itchy sensation at the edge of his eyelids went unnoticed.
Geonwoo only realized his own walls were crumbling when a whispered prayer escaped from him.
He jolted upright in his seat, sucking in air too fast, too shallow. The world spun violently around him as he clutched his collar with trembling fists, sweat forming on his forehead. His eyes blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of the whiplash of emotion coursing through him.
It hurts.
He looked at Xinlong.
Really looked.
Xinlong’s shoulders were drawn in on themselves. His face was twisted, tears spilling freely now, unguarded. He wasn’t trying to stop them anymore. He didn’t have the energy to pretend.
And the moment Geonwoo met his eyes, the pain doubled.
No — not doubled.
Aligned.
“Oh,” Geonwoo whispered. “Oh… this is yours.”
Geonwoo choked as he tried to breathe. His lungs refused to cooperate, heartbeat racing and everything felt clogged. Each inhale caught halfway, like his body had forgotten how this was supposed to work.
He staggered forward and sank to the ground, knees hitting first, then his hands. The air felt thick, wading through something he couldn’t see. His head was spinning so hard he thought he might black out. The world narrowed to sound and pressure and feeling.
There were sobs everywhere.
Soft, broken, ugly — overlapping until they blurred together. Geonwoo pressed a hand to his chest, unable to tell when the sound had started coming from him.
This weight, this hollowed-out ached. This unbearable sense of something being gone and never coming back. An intense loneliness he had always felt, but intensified from two souls intertwining.
Geonwoo bowed his head, breath still uneven.
He hadn’t prayed in a long time. And he hadn’t wanted to stay, either.
But now… now the idea of leaving felt cruel.
(And so, without knowing for certain why, Geonwoo chose to stay.)
It was noisy. The sun was extra blinding today. His body felt sticky, wet and dirty. Urgh, this smell... he hates this smell. The smell of... medicine.
A faint, prickling awareness began at the edge of his mind. He blinked, or tried to, and the world shimmered in fragments. A blur of light, a faint hum of beeping, the metallic tang of something unfamiliar.
Then, slowly, painfully, he realized he could feel. His fingers twitched. A shiver ran through his arms. He could smell the air — the sharp, antiseptic bite of the hospital ward, the dryness of the sheets against his skin, the wires connected to him.
His eyes fluttered open, and he squinted against the harsh fluorescent lights that buzzed above. Not the sun he got used to in the garden. Not the night sky he saw while laying on the rooftop bench. Reality pressed in, quick.
How long had he been here? Every joint ached, stiff and sore, perhaps from all that time staying still like a corpse. His throat felt dry, parched like a Savannah desert, even though he's never been there. He struggled to remember the last thing — the rooftop, the cool night air, the distant sound of the city…
Xinlong.
The name slammed into him like a punch. Geonwoo’s chest tightened again, air forced out in a short, ragged gasp. He needed to breathe. He needed to move. He needed to see Xinlong.
In a desperate attempt, he pushed himself up from the bed. His legs buckled, betraying him, and he hit the floor with an embarrassed thud. “Argh…” He yanked the drip on his hand, ignoring the sharp sting coursing through his veins.
I have to go meet him. Now.
However, before he could take a single step out of his room, the nurse appeared in the doorway, eyes wide.
"Mr Kim! You're awake! Where are you going? You're not well yet." She reached for him, and instinctively, Geonwoo retaliated in panic.
"You don't understand! I have to go!" he keeps on screaming desperately, wanting to be let go. His fists clenched, voice raw as it scratched at the tip of his throat.
The nurse struggled to keep him in place, pressing for help as his large frame resisted. A doctor and a few nurses arrived, grappling with him until a sting in his thigh forced him back.
The grip around him loosened, and through the haze of adrenaline and pain, he muttered with the last energy he had:
"I have to... meet him.."
His eyes flew open after what felt like years. A younger nurse was tending to his drip proficiently. Geonwoo moved his fingers, the senses crawling back into his body.
He tugged on the nurse. "Nurse.."
The nurse jumped slightly at the contact, unaware that he had been awake. She gave him a polite smile. "Yes, Mr Kim? Are you feeling better?"
He held his head in his palm, shifting on the bed to sit up.
"I.. I really need to go somewhere. Please.. I.. I'll be back, I just need a second.. Please..."
Geonwoo didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do but he knew he needed to find Xinlong. Perhaps it was the soulmate bond calling to him, forcing him to involve himself in this emotional connection he didn't even wish for. And maybe it was the attachment that had tied to him through all those times he spent lurking around that boy.
His desperation clearly reached the nurse, who hesitated, torn on making decisions. She called for her colleague and decided Geonwoo could leave for an afternoon walk after a brief checkup.
About thirty minutes later, Geonwoo pedaled his wheelchair, finally freed from the watchful eyes of the doctors and nurses. His mind was fixed on one location. He knew it. He had been there, had watched, had heard everything. His path was already decided.
Geonwoo stopped in front of a four-person ward. The familiar sight returned him back to the person he was thinking of at the moment. He was scared of what he might find behind the door. But even more afraid of missing the moment.
He slid the door gently, peering inside as his heartbeat hammered through his entire being.
The hospital bed which Xinlong's mother laid before, now empty and bare. The sheet was pulled neatly at every corner without creases, as if to erase the last traces of her presence. The stillness in the room; Geonwoo understood instantly.
And there he was, the person he was desperately looking for. Xinlong was sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulder slumped as he packed his things into a bag. Geonwoo couldn't see his face clearly, but he felt the weight of the boy’s grief in every tremor of his body. He knew too well how the other was feeling. Both from experience and from the quick beating of his heart now.
Xinlong bit his lower lip. Every breath he drew made him want to bury his head on the ground. His eyes stung with exhaustion, the aftereffects of the crying that had left his cheeks damp and his soul raw. It had been two days since the boy's whole world came to a halt. That smile which always greeted him had now become a fleeting memory.
He looked at the window once more, letting out a dry, humorless chuckle at how peaceful the day seemed to be, even though his world had already turned grim. He slung his bag over his shoulder, making his way to the door.
When he stepped out, his eyes caught a young man in a wheel chair. Hair tousled and messy, yet impossibly, achingly, beautiful.
Xinlong winced as a ringing sound struck him sharp on his ears the moment their eyes met. For a fraction of a second, something inside him shivered, a spark he couldn’t name.
"Xinlong."
The sound of his name fell softly from the man’s lips. He blinked, chest rising and falling in uneven gasps, confused. He had never seen this person before, yet there was a subtle tug at the corner of his unconsciousness that locked him in place.
Somewhere, it felt like a memory half-remembered.
The other’s gaze held him steady. His eyes were gentle and earnest, mirroring what Xinlong didn’t yet understand but instinctively trusted. That look, which told him exactly what he wanted to hear, felt more comforting than any words.
It was telling him that everything will be alright.
Xinlong’s chest tightened, his vision blurred, and the dam around his eyes were on the edge as if waiting to break. The presence of this stranger — this man who seemed to exist both everywhere and nowhere — rooted him back to the ground. He hadn’t known something was missing, but now, somehow, it felt right.
Geonwoo's lips curl upwards. His first smile in two years.
"I promise, Xinlong. We'll never feel alone again."