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Ricky is back at Richmond Hospital. Oh the irony, he never imagined himself actually walking into the morgue on his own two feet, but here he was.
“Sorry, entry here is restricted.” He got about as far as two steps in before they stopped him. He doesn't know who spoke, doesn't care but the pity that laced the voice wraps around his throat. If Ricky had the strength, he would have begged them, gone on his knees and allow the tears he had been desperately fighting back to finally escape. He would have shown them just how much he wanted to be there for Gyuvin, because Gyuvin was always there for him. He wouldn’t have given a fuck about how desperate it made him look.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyways, they already thought he was insane for insisting on pushing the trolley down the flight of stairs so Gyuvin wouldn’t have to take another stupid elevator.
But he only watches as Gyuvin gets pushed away from him, further and further down the cleaning agent-filled corridor, because he feels the sense of helplessness from before. The same feeling that choked him when he stood outside the elevator as the boy he loved fell fifty feet to his death. He was useless, weak, unable to fight fate or the increasingly pressing weight in his chest.
He shouldn’t have let Gyuvin’s body be wheeled in alone, shouldn’t have left Gyuvin alone in the lift, shouldn’t have stopped himself from kissing Gyuvin.
Ricky’s legs finally give in and he slides down to the floor, his back leaning against the solid wall of the morgue.
Hopefully my heart will be next
That was his last thought before he passed out. In the black splotches of his vision, he finds himself desperately seeking out a glimpse of Gyuvin, any sign that he was waiting for him.
Because he would gladly die a million times over as long as Gyuvin was there to welcome him.
"I don't want to see you, not yet."
That voice. Ricky fights to let go of all his conciousness, tries his hardest to succumb to the fate that he was tired of trying to escape. But each time, the voice pushes him back with each steady beat of his heart.
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
When Ricky wakes up again, he’s back in the same hospital bed he’s spent half his miserable life in.
The same brunette nurse walks in, takes his heart rate, writes it down.
The same machines are hooked up to him, needles prick into him at the exact spots they were in before.
It was all too easy to pretend that everything was exactly as it was.
Ricky couldn’t bring himself to turn his head towards the cold, empty bed next to his. Because no matter how long he spent here in the hospital, it was never his home. Gyuvin was.
“He isn’t talking again.”
Because Gyuvin used to do the talking for him. He always had everything about Ricky memorised, always volunteered the information so readily with a smirk that made Ricky feel obliged to at least pretend he was annoyed. Ricky knew they’d send him to a therapist if he admitted he stayed quiet because some part of him still hoped to hear Gyuvin’s voice answer for him once more.
“He isn’t eating again.”
The truth was, Ricky only ate on the days where the pudding in his tray was melon flavoured. Because only then could he pretend his strawberry pudding got stolen by some adorable prankster out to ruin his day.
“I don’t want the stupid strawberry pudding,” he growled. He lowered his voice until his words were barely audible. “They were his.”
“He isn’t sleeping again.”
Ricky can’t shut his eyes. Because when he does, all he can see is the lifeless body of the most alive person he had ever met.
It takes Ricky two months before he can read anything other than Gyuvin’s death certificate.
When he finally picks up the copy of “They Both Die at The End” he found in Gyuvin’s bedside drawer, all he can do is flip through the yellowed pages briefly.
It hurt too much to read it, reminded him too much of their own story, the one that ended so abruptly and prematurely.
His eyes land on a line.
“But because we’re about to die, I want to say it as many times as I want—I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Ricky didn’t have that luxury. In fact, he couldn’t even remember what his last words to Gyuvin were. He did, however, remember Gyuvin’s last words to him.
He scoffs to himself. “That rascal was so perfect he managed to make his last words ‘I love you’”
And… to go live his life.
So when the hospital finally gives him a terminal discharge, that’s exactly what he does.
He visits the fanciest restaurant he can find, watches a horror movie, and rides a zip line at sunset. None of it compares to the montage that plays in his head at everything he does.
In the restaurant, it's like he's back to his first lunch with Gyuvin. Gray hospital food tray with wrinkled garden veggies and slices of meat, Gyuvin peering curiously as Ricky claimed the strawberry pudding as his own. The food had tasted gloriously good that day, seasoned with curiousity and shreds of desire as they studied each other for the first time.
Seated in the red plush seat in the grand movie theater, surround sound speakers booming around him, Ricky realised he'd much rather be watching from the hospital bed with Gyuvin. They'd place the tiny laptop between them, each wearing a side of Gyuvin's old wired earpiece that would crackle to life to deliver each sound. But neither complained, because it didn't matter, what they were truly watching was each other anyways.
Beautiful sunset glowers over the land. Ricky soars through the golden skies, wind ruffling his hair as he squints against the beaming rays of light. He had never watched the sunset with Gyuvin like this. Their love had never adventured outside the tinted windows of the hospital room and the one time they tried, it had put an end to their love. Yet, the warmth of the sun wraps Ricky in familiar comfort.
It felt like his sun was back.
Ricky admires the stunning radiance of it all, the soothing balm that caresses his hurting heart. It gently lowers itself, slowly enveloped by darkness until it eventually disappears out of view, taking with it all the light in Ricky's world. It's gone without a trace, as if it was never there but Ricky feels it in his heart, feels the realness of it all. The joy it brought him never seemed to ebb, the anchor that stopped the devastation from washing him away.
"I'll always remember you," he promises to the sky, the sea and everything else inbetween.
Dusk had finally befallen, robbing the world of its glow but Ricky doesn't let it touch his. He makes his way to the destination he had been looking forward to the whole day: the cemetery.
“Hey,” he starts awkwardly, folding his legs to sit beside Gyuvin’s headstone. His voice reverberates through the cemetery.
If Gyuvin was there, he would have smiled then, the kind that went all the way up to his shining eyes. He had the most infectious, heartwarming and pretty smile… Ricky stops himself before he can spiral.
He taps his phone and the screen lights up.
6.48pm–exactly around the time Gyuvin got stuck in the elevator.
“I’m two months late,” he sighs. “But here goes.”
He feels the air getting drawn into his lungs before he parts his lips.
“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…”
And he never did stop loving Kim Gyuvin.