Chapter Text
do you know what it is like when someone is dying?
when the life bleeds out of them, leaving a shell of who they once were behind?
do you know what it is like when someone young is dying?
when their paleness, their meek disposition, their depression is due to the many years they will never get to live?
do you know what it is like when someone you love is dying?
you may not.
but seonghyeon does.
as he waits outside keonho's hospital door—thirty minutes before visiting hours begin—he wonders when it all became so wrong.
keonho is the most full-of-life person seonghyeon has ever met.
he is bright. he is light itself, sunshine personified—every gorgeous, beautiful thing bottled up into a single human being.
he is the kind of person who turns heads everywhere he goes, the kind of person who makes you stop and think, wow. he's nice.
he is the kind of man who charms everyone around him, who stole seonghyeon's heart the day they met with a simple wink.
he is the kind of person who dreams—who thinks about futures, and weddings, and kids, and holidays—but also simpler things. what to wear the next day. when to go to the mall. what they should order for their at-home date night.
he is the kind of person who could have anyone he wants—but he is also the person who chose seonghyeon. and chooses him, still. seonghyeon is grateful every single day that passes that keonho is his, and that he is keonho's.
and he is grateful for every single day that passes that keonho is still alive.
because if this were fiction, or a book, or something out of a fairytale, seonghyeon would be the one dying—the one with the terminal illness—the one leaving behind the person who would inevitably enjoy life more.
but real life is no myth, and such luck is not bestowed upon seonghyeon. instead of cynical, stubborn, bitter seonghyeon—who only lives for keonho, who only lives to love keonho—it is bright, beautiful, bold, boyish keonho who is terminally ill.
seonghyeon cannot live without keonho, but keonho could live without seonghyeon, he thinks. it isn't that one of them loves the other more. they love the same amount—seonghyeon is sure of it—the way he is sure that if a magical fairy were to appear to grant him a wish, he would trade his life for keonho's in a heartbeat.
it is a difference in mindset. keonho loves seonghyeon as a part of his life—as the most important part. as someone who loves life, keonho places seonghyeon on a pedestal. seonghyeon, however, is the opposite. keonho is the only reason seonghyeon loves life at all. otherwise, he surmises he would be a passive ghost—an entity drifting through existence with nothing to anchor himself.
seonghyeon has always thought that their meeting was fate, that two people with such opposing views on life could fit together and become part of a love so beautiful. but life has a cruel way of meddling—of poking fun at him and saying, how dare you enjoy life? how dare you be happy? let me take that away.
seonghyeon hates it. hates that this has to happen to his boyfriend, the love of his life—the boy who wants to see the rest of the world and live whatever time he has left to its fullest.
keonho never does anything in halves. not at all. but when it comes to living, it seems he must.
keonho accepted this far more reluctantly than seonghyeon. after all, keonho isn't a skeptic like him.
seonghyeon watched that stubborn, beautiful hope—the hope he fell in love with—turn toward an impossible obstacle: death.
and after appointment after appointment, after fact upon fact delivered with clinical detachment, keonho came to terms with the truth.
he is going to die.
now, keonho stays at the hospital some nights—tonight being one of them—and spends the rest of his time huddled in bed at their shared apartment, watching seonghyeon.
after hearing the diagnosis, seonghyeon immediately took a work-from-home position. he is never getting these days back again. he knows it.
he knows that he and keonho will not have a happily ever after. it kills him a little inside to admit it. but what truly tears at his heart—what picks and gnaws and aches—is that keonho has accepted it, too.
keonho no longer laughs, or pouts, or giggles—except in rare moments when seonghyeon catches him off guard during a kiss.
most of the time, he stares listlessly at the wall, or at seonghyeon, or sniffs quietly, tears slipping from his eyes unbridled.
he no longer wants to go outside. to do things. to play with cookie. to live.
he just wants to wither away in seonghyeon's arms.
seonghyeon is going to die himself if he has to see keonho like this one more day. this is not the boy he fell in love with—this is only a shell of him.
frankly, seonghyeon is lost.
he doesn't know how to coax keonho into enjoying the hell out of the days he has left.
but he is going to do it.
whatever it takes.