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Hanbin didn’t know his body could betray him like this – didn’t know staying upright could become a choice he had to remake every few seconds, each one harder than the last. Kept forgetting why he even bothered.
This would be what replayed behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes:
Matthew mid-laugh at something Yujin had said, head tipped back, and then his knees just gave. Not a stumble. Not even a sway. One moment standing, the next folding.
The way his hand drifted up with fingers barely curled – not grasping, not reaching, just confused, like he couldn’t understand why the floor was rushing toward his face.
How his body crumpled, joints unlocking in the wrong sequence. Shoulder, hip, knee. That brightness in his expression extinguishing before his cheek hit the ground.
“Mashu?”
Ricky’s laugh came delayed, hesitant. “No way. He’s not seriously doing this right now.”
“Yah, get up.” Taerae planted his hands on his hips, shaking his head with practiced exasperation. “Nice try, but we still have four hours left.”
This was classic Matthew – the tension-breaker, the one who’d throw himself on the floor dramatically after brutal sets, groaning like he was dying just to make them laugh when their bodies screamed.
But this time, he didn’t pop back up with that grin that made everything bearable.
One heartbeat passed.
Then another.
Jiwoong stepped forward, uncertainty creeping into his voice. “Matthew? Quit messing with us.”
Still, they waited. Because Matthew was going to open his eyes any second and ask why everyone looked so scared.
…No movement.
Cold dread locked around Hanbin’s lungs.
What stuck with him later wasn’t the shouting or the chaos that came after. It was that terrible suspended silence where eight people stood frozen because nobody’s brain could process what their eyes were seeing.
How everything seemed to stutter – sound, motion, thought, the pulse of the world itself.
Then Hanbin was moving.
He surged forward as someone screamed his name. Because Hanbin always knew how to fix things… he’d fix this.
Voices rose around him – someone fumbling for a phone, another yelling for help – but the sounds felt muffled, distant. He dropped hard to his knees, his fingers trembling as he searched for a rhythm at Matthew’s neck.
No flutter of life beneath his skin.
“Move.” The word tore from his throat as he shoved someone aside. “And call 119.”
His hands found their position over Matthew’s sternum – was this right? Heel of one palm pressed firm, the other locked on top, elbows straight. Beyond the flimsy material of Matthew’s singlet, he could feel ribs beneath his palms. Fragile. Breakable.
His vision tilted as he scrambled through fragments – bullet points from that poster in the practice room corner that they walked past every day without seeing. Half-remembered instructions from a mandatory safety briefing three years ago. The training dummy with its tidy plastic chest that gave way at exactly the right pressure, making it look clean and simple and possible.
Nothing about this was simple. The dummy hadn’t been warm. Hadn’t been his best friend.
“AED – where’s the AED?” someone shouted.
Hanbin’s head jerked up, neck straining. There was one somewhere, he was certain, but it might as well have been in another building. Nobody knew exactly where it was or how to use it. It had always been just another piece of equipment in a corner, something you hoped never needed to be touched.
Because tragedies happened to other people in other places. Not in their practice room. Not to someone they loved.
Hanbin did the only thing he could.
He threw his weight behind each compression, feeling Matthew’s chest give way beneath the pressure. Was he pressing too hard? Not hard enough? The uncertainty clawed at him as sweat beaded along his hairline.
“Breathe, Matthew,” he whispered between sets. “Please. Just breathe.”
He counted aloud as tears began to blur his world.
“Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.”
Tilt the head. Pinch the nose. Blow.
This wasn’t how he’d imagined their first kiss. Not with Matthew’s lips unresponsive under his, not with the taste of fear sharp on his own tongue.
He’d thought about it – God, he’d thought about it more than he should have. Imagined it tentative and nervous, maybe after a late-night conversation where he finally found the courage to say what had been building for years. Imagined Matthew kissing back.
Never like this.
He breathed hard into Matthew’s unresponsive lungs again. One breath. Two breaths. Stop.
Watched for the rise of his chest. Nothing.
Hanbin tried not to let the panic show. His shoulders ached as he repositioned, pressed down again. “One. Two. Three–”
Behind him came a sound – high and broken. Could have been Gunwook, could have come from his own throat.
“Thirty.”
Again. Mouth to mouth. Pouring air into lungs that wouldn’t hold it.
“Come on,” his voice cracked. “Come back to me.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. Footsteps pounded outside, getting closer. Professional hands displaced his, pushing him back with practiced firmness.
“Sir, we need you to step away.”
“No–” It came out strangled. “I can still– he was responding, I felt something!”
“Sir.” Firmer now.
Stronger hands seized him under the arms, hauling him backward. “Wait, I need to–” He fought on instinct, shoulders wrenching as he tried to twist back toward Matthew. “Let me–”
He wasn’t finished. There was still a chance.
The paramedics moved around Matthew’s body and he watched them work. Watched Matthew’s chest rise with artificial breath and fall without it. Watched gloved hands press down where his had been, clinical and tireless and clearly not enough.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Then one paramedic checked a watch.
The compressions slowed. Became uncertain. The paramedic looked to another, and then Hanbin heard five words that cleaved his world in half:
“…nothing more we can do.”
There might have been other words – instructions, condolences – but they disintegrated before they could take root. His mind rejected them, spit back out by a consciousness that couldn’t process such finality.
Because it didn’t make sense.
You didn’t call it on someone who was supposed to grow old – supposed to go gray and complain about his back in fifty years. Someone who had plans, so many damn plans.
Matthew wanted to learn bass properly, wanted to visit every country they performed in, not just the venues but the streets, the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, the places tourists didn’t go. He wanted to take Hanbin to Vancouver, to show him the house he grew up in, the slopes where he learned to snowboard.
He was supposed to have decades.
You just didn’t call it on a person like Matthew.
Someone sighed – deep and defeated, and that was the sound that made Hanbin move.
No.
He barreled forward, shoving past arms that tried to hold him back, pushing blindly against someone’s chest. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel, and at the end of it was Matthew.
“You’re wrong.” His voice came out small and bewildered, like a child being told the sun wouldn’t rise tomorrow and not understanding how that could be possible. “Why are you stopping? You haven’t saved him yet. He’s only tw– try again! Please.”
He grasped at uniforms, at the calloused hands of these people whose job was to save lives. His fingers dug in so they’d have to listen. “He was singing in the car two hours ago. He was complaining about the air conditioning being too weak. You don’t understand–” His voice failed for a second. “He’s always running hot. He never gets cold, never knows his limits because he doesn’t feel it and n–now he’s going to get so cold and he won’t even know.”
But the paramedics just stepped back, and their faces – professional, grim – told him everything.
Hanbin’s knees hit the floor again, not that he would’ve felt anything. He lunged forward and gathered Matthew into his arms. Limp. Heavy in a way he’d never been before. Pulled him close like proximity alone could stitch life back in, like if he just held tight enough Matthew’s heart would remember how to beat.
He cradled Matthew against his chest, arms wrapped tight around his torso, one hand sliding up to support the back of his head. He held him like he had the right to, like their years together had earned him this.
“Matthew-yah,” his voice trembled. “Hey, look at me. Hyung’s right here, I’ve got you. Nobody’s giving up.”
Matthew was still warm. That had to mean something.
“Jiwoong hyung, help me.” He barely looked up.
But Jiwoong didn’t move. Just stood there with his mouth trembling, hands clenched so tight at his sides. Jiwoong – who always took care of them because he prided himself in being the oldest. Even he had nothing.
Hanbin’s chest tightened as he twisted raound, Matthew’s weight shifting in his arms. “Hao hyung–” His voice climbed. “Please do something. Didn’t you hear me?”
But Hao’s gaze slid away, fixed hard on the floor.
Hanbin looked around wildly, vision jumping from face to face – Ricky, Gyuvin, Taerae, manager hyung – searching for someone, anyone who would tell him he wasn’t crazy. That they were the crazy ones instead because–
“Why is no one helping me?”
“Hanbin, you have to calm down.”
When had he started shaking? His hands trembled and he couldn’t make them stop.
“This isn’t funny.” He turned his attention back down, fingers combing through Matthew’s hair and brushing it back from his forehead in slow, familiar strokes. Matthew loved this. Would always fall asleep right there under this touch.
Hanbin shook him softly now, like he was doing just that – sleeping in Hanbin’s arms. “Don’t do this to me. You’re okay, right?”
Silence answered him.
His hands moved restlessly – rubbing Matthew’s arms in long, firm strokes, trying to coax warmth back into cooling skin. Then his fingers found Matthew’s, squeezing hard and massaging them between his palms to bring the blood back.
“Seok Matthew, that’s enough.” He held Matthew’s face with one hand, thumb pressing down on the softness of his cheek. “This isn’t the time for games. Stop playing around.”
But Matthew didn’t lean into it. His head just lolled, neck gone loose.
Hanbin flinched.
“Okay, new deal. I promise I won’t get mad at you.” His voice shook with the effort of trying to sound normal, trying to sound like the hyung Matthew needed him to be right now. “But only if you wake up right now.”
A hand reached for his shoulder. Hanbin jerked away violently, his whole body recoiling.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped. “Leave us alone.”
He drew Matthew’s still form back to his chest, one arm firm around his waist while the other cradled his head. His body curved protectively around Matthew’s as he began to rock, hoping the motion would keep him tethered to this world.
He never stopped moving – rubbing Matthew’s arms again, patting his back in a steady rhythm. But it did nothing to stop Matthew’s skin from paling, his lips losing their colour.
A hand gripped his shoulder once more. A voice, softer now. “Hanbin… please. He’s gone.”
He laughed, wrong and empty. “What do you mean? He’s right here.” He looked down at Matthew. “He just needs a second. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for as long as it takes.”
Matthew’s head slumped against his shoulder, and Hanbin felt bile rise in his throat, cold sweat collecting at the back of his neck. He swallowed hard, tried to get it together. He couldn’t fall apart. Not yet.
He adjusted his grip, trying to hold something in place that was already slipping away.
He was rocking again without meaning to. The way his mother used to rock him during summer storms when he was small and convinced the thunder would break the sky open. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“I’ll do whatever you want. You know I’m good at that.” He tried to smile through his tears but it twisted grotesquely on his face, a broken thing that hurt to hold. “I always give in to you because I… because you–”
The words caught in his throat. Big words, important ones.
He said instead: “I promise I won’t take you for granted. I’ll tell you about the dreams I have, the ones where it’s just us. I’ll tell you that I–” He choked up, “I’ll tell you everything.”
Nothing.
“I know you can hear me,” his lips brushed the shell of Matthew’s ear. “You always listen to hyung, don’t you? So just listen one more time. Squeeze my hand. Even just a little.”
He interlaced their fingers. Matthew’s hands were smaller than his – something that had always surprised him given how much strength they held. He’d held this hand so many times. Pulling him up from the floor after practice, steadying him on icy sidewalks, reaching out for no reason at all because he could, because Matthew always squeezed back.
He held on now, waiting for that pressure. Muscle memory. Reflex. Anything.
Matthew’s fingers remained slack in his own.
He lifted that hand to his own cheek, held it in place there with his own palm over it. “Feel that? You’re touching me, so you’re still here. You’re still with me.” He turned his face into Matthew’s palm. “Don’t… don’t go yet.”
He leaned down to push their foreheads together, skin against cooling skin.
This close, he could see everything. The smile lines that had creased around Matthew’s mouth from a lifetime of laughing. Every single mole – the one by his right eye, the small one near his lip, even the faint ones on his neck that disappeared in most lighting.
Matthew’s eyes were closed. He looked peaceful. That’s what people would say after. He looked peaceful.
“Yah,” Hanbin whispered, voice breaking. “You didn’t say goodbye, so this doesn’t count. You made me promise we’d stick together no matter what, remember? That’s why you can’t leave. Please.”
No response.
He pulled Matthew flush against him, both arms wrapping around him, hauling him closer until there was no space between them. Tighter, so tight.
He breathed against Matthew’s temple, “I don’t want this, Seokmae-ah.”
His chest heaved with silent sobs as he buried his face in the crook of Matthew’s neck. He breathed in deeply, clinging to the last traces of warmth before they slipped away forever. Searched for any hint of him – the honey-coconut of his shampoo, clean sweat, that sweet indefinable baby scent he’d never realized he’d associated with Matthew until now.
It was already fading. Air stealing it.
The world was taking Matthew away from him piece by piece.
“– need get him somewhere more appropriate soon.” The words were muffled, but they made their way to him.
Somewhere more appropriate.
Yes. Right. Not here. Not on this hard, dirty floor. Hanbin should’ve remembered that. Should’ve gotten him somewhere comfortable immediately instead of keeping him here. Somewhere safe and without all these people staring.
“Okay.” His voice came out quiet, suddenly calm. Reasonable. A couple tremors moved through him. “Okay, we’ll go home now.” He adjusted his grip on Matthew, trying to figure out how to lift him. “You can sleep in hyung’s bed. You always say mine is warmer than yours.”
He looked up, eyes scanning for whoever was in charge. “Can someone help me get him to the car? He’s– he’s tired. We’ve been working too hard. He just needs to rest.”
Behind him, more people were crying. Whimpering. Someone was saying his name with wretched gentleness. But it all felt distant, like it belonged to a different world. Not this one.
This one was simple: Matthew was tired, and Hanbin was taking him home.
The senior paramedic crouched beside him. “We’ll help you move him, okay? But he has to go–”
“Yes.” Relief flooded through him. Finally, someone who understood. “The car isn’t far. I can carry him if you just–”
“–onto the gurney.”
Hanbin blinked. Looked at the contraption they were positioning nearby. The thin white sheet draped over it.
“We’ll take good care of him,” the paramedic continued softly.
“But where are you taking him?” The words came out sharper now, bleeding doubt.
A pause. “To the hospital.”
“He doesn’t need the hospital.” His arms locked tighter around Matthew. “He needs to come home. With me.”
They tried explaining after that. Procedures and protocol and paperwork. Had absolutely nothing to do with going home. Circling around what they actually meant until finally – finally – Hanbin got it into his head.
They were going to bring Matthew somewhere he couldn’t follow.
“No, no, no.”
The panic, when it hit, obliterated everything else.
“You can’t have him!”
More hands. More voices. A wall of people closing in, trying to separate what shouldn’t be separated.
“We need you to let go, sir.”
They were everywhere, pulling, prying. Someone was trying to loosen his grip finger by finger. But Hanbin fought like hell. Begged with all he had too, words dissolving into sounds that weren’t quite language anymore.
“Hanbin-ssi! Please don’t make us–”
Someone was apologizing. Over and over. I’m sorry Hanbinnie, I’m sorry, we have to, I’m sorry.
It was ugly. It was obscene.
He couldn’t stop this. Couldn’t protect Matthew from what came next. Couldn’t shield him from being taken and handled, from the cold and the dark and the loneliness.
When they finally tore him away – and they did eventually, it took three of them and Hanbin’s legs were numb and his throat was raw from screaming – his arms were still bent in the shape of holding someone.
Empty now.
He’d let go. He’d actually let go.
And he realized with sickening clarity that all the things they’d never said would stay forever unspoken.
It was only three weeks ago when he’d woken before dawn to Matthew padding into his room, a blanket draped around his shoulders.
“Can’t sleep?” Hanbin had mumbled, already shifting to make room.
“Nah.” Matthew climbed in beside him, pressed the back of his neck into Hanbin’s open arm, and sighed. “Just wanted to be here.”
“Okay then,” Hanbin whispered. His hand came up on its own, fingers threading through soft hair, and he felt Matthew relax into it.
Tomorrow, he’d thought. Tomorrow, I’ll tell him.
He fell asleep again with warm breath against his collarbone.
There had been so many tomorrows he’d promised himself. So many moments he’d convinced himself he had time.
I love you.
Too late. All of it, too late.
Hanbin didn’t remember the ride. Couldn’t remember the sterile waiting room or the faces that kept appearing, mouths moving.
“–sudden cardiac arrest–”
“–undiagnosed arrhythmia–”
“–genetic predisposition–”
“–electrical pathways–”
“–undetectable without–”
The words had shapes but no meaning. They were explaining how. How this could’ve happened. How nothing and no one was at fault.
But they weren’t explaining why.
Why Matthew. Why now.
Hanbin stared at the wall and felt nothing land
Later, he wouldn’t remember any of it. Couldn’t recall a single medical term they’d used, couldn’t repeat back the explanation. Because he hadn’t really been listening, after all. Hadn’t been able to.
None of it mattered anyway.
They could’ve told him it was an act of God or blamed whatever inexplicable freak occurrence. They could have said anything, and it still wouldn’t have made sense.
Matthew had crossed an ocean to chase his dreams, learned a new language, adapted to a culture that wasn’t his, trained until he wanted to give up and then kept training. Survived a survival show and all the criticism. Had fought and clawed and earned his place here. Found his family in ZB1, found everything he’d worked so hard for… and for what?
He’d done everything right. Never missed a workout, never half-assed a rep, took his vitamins and superfoods seriously. Went to bed early. Stayed hydrated. Treated his body like a temple he was responsible for maintaining.
And his heart had killed him anyway.
Twenty-three years. That’s all he got.
Cut short in a practice room, in the space between a laugh and a breath.
“Hanbin hyung, you should try to eat something. Just one bite. Please?”
Hanbin couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt hungry.
He barely even registered that it was Gyuvin speaking – careful, too kind, like he was made of glass and might shatter at any moment.
Maybe he was. Maybe he would.
Nothing felt real anymore. Had he even breathed properly since Matthew stopped? Had he slept? He was wearing different clothes than before, so someone must have made him change, but he couldn’t remember doing it.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he rasped, noticing all the eyes on him. His first words in… hours. Days. The others flinched, maybe because his voice didn’t sound like his anymore.
He was supposed to be their leader. The strong one. The one who held them together when everything fell apart, who had answers, who made decisions, who knew what to do.
But his anchor had been cut loose and without Matthew to steady him, he was just another broken thing drifting in the wreckage.
Nobody left to hold him in place. Nobody to calm the trembling under his skin. Nobody who–
Nobody who was Matthew.
“Hanbin.”
He pulled away sharply before anyone could touch him, arms wrapping around himself.
He couldn’t bear their comfort. Couldn’t accept their shared understanding or their pity because that would make it real. That would mean acknowledging that they’d all lost him, that this wasn’t just Hanbin’s nightmare but everyone’s new reality.
If he accepted their grief, he’d have to accept his own.
Accept that he’d never again wake up to Matthew’s snores. Never hear ‘hyong’ in that specific way only Matthew managed to say it. Never feel Matthew’s hands digging into his forearms after practice, tiny and strong, working out knots Hanbin didn’t know he had.
Never get to watch him finally master that bass line he’d been struggling with.
Never take that trip to Vancouver.
Never introduce him to his parents as anything more than just “Hanbin hyung”.
He’d have to accept that the person who knew all his fears and hopes and matched his pace through every hard practice and harder performance was gone. That the boy who’d chosen Korea, chosen this group, chosen him and stayed – that boy wasn’t coming back.
And Hanbin didn’t yet know how to exist in a world where Matthew wasn’t.
So he clenched his fists until his nails bit crescents into his palms, and he held onto the pain instead – this unbearable, magnificent, soul-destroying ache that had taken up residence in his chest.
It was all he had left.
Proof that Matthew had existed, had mattered, had left a hole in the world shaped exactly like him. Proof that Hanbin had loved him – was still loving him, because he didn’t know how to stop.
He’d feel every inch of it. Every sting. Every stab. Every moment when he forgot, only to remember all over again.
Let it live in the spaces Matthew used to fill. Let it hollow him out if that’s what it wanted to do.
Because the alternative was forgetting, and Hanbin would rather hurt than forget.
Because they were best friends.
Nothing less.
But maybe almost brave enough. Almost ready. Almost there.
In another world, another lifetime – they could’ve been something more.
In this one though, they’d never be anything but…
Almost.