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The air was biting but Nicholas didn’t feel it.He remained knelt in the damp earth, his knees stained and aching, clutching a single, wilting daisy. His eyes felt like scorched glass—dry, stinging and heavy—yet no tears came. Since the news broke twenty-four hours ago, he hadn’t screamed, hadn’t collapsed, and hadn’t even uttered a word of denial. He had simply turned to stone.
He had watched the blur of the funeral through a hollow haze. He watched them lower the mahogany box, watched the soil swallow his best friend–his love whole and watched the crowd trickle away until the cemetery was nothing but shadows and silence.
Fuma had stayed back, a silent sentinel in the distance. His heart fractured a little more with every hour Nicholas remained motionless. He had pleaded with him to rest, to eat, to breathe but Nicholas was anchored to the grave by a weight no one else could see.
As the sun bled into a bruised purple horizon, Fuma finally stepped forward. The grass crunched under his boots, the only sound in the suffocating quiet. He placed a gentle hand on Nicholas’s shoulder, feeling the tremor beneath the fabric of his coat.
"Let’s go, Nicholas," Fuma whispered, his voice thick with a mix of grief and worry. "It’s getting dark. You’ll catch a cold."
Nicholas didn't pull away but he didn't rise either. He slowly tilted his head back, his gaze vacant and hauntingly small as he looked up at his husband.
"What about him, then?" his voice was a fragile thread, barely audible against the wind. "How can I leave him alone? He’s never been without me."
Fuma didn’t have any words left and his own tears felt trapped behind a wall of exhaustion. Instead, he pulled Nicholas against him, wrapping his arms around his husband's trembling frame as if he could shield him from the very air.
"He’ll be okay, Nico," Fuma muttered into his hair, his voice thick and strained. "He’s at peace now. Let’s go home. Please."
With a final, lingering look at the earth, Nicholas leaned forward to place the solitary daisy atop the fresh soil. His fingers brushed the dirt, a silent goodbye he wasn't ready to say. When he tried to stand, his legs gave way—months of adrenaline and hours of kneeling finally catching up to him. Fuma’s arms were there instantly, a steady, unyielding force catching him before he hit the ground.
The drive back was a blur of streetlights and heavy silence. Fuma kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on Nicholas’s knee, pressing down firmly to let him know he was still there. When they finally reached their apartment, the familiar scent of home felt alien, a sharp contrast to the cold finality of the cemetery.
"You need to eat something, Nicholas. Just a little," Fuma pleaded softly, his voice echoing in the quiet kitchen.
Nicholas sat at the table, his coat still buttoned, eyes fixed on a scratch in the wood. He didn't blink. He didn't nod. He was a ghost inhabiting a body that had forgotten how to function.
Fuma let out a long, shaky sigh, his heart aching at the sight of his husband so utterly broken. He didn't push for conversation. Instead, he quietly prepared a bowl of warm broth. He sat beside Nicholas, dipped the spoon and brought it to his lips.
"Open up," Fuma whispered, his touch as light as a feather.
Nicholas obeyed mechanically, his jaw moving with a slow, rhythmic hollowness. Fuma fed him with a heartbreaking tenderness, moving with the patient, careful grace of someone tending to a wounded child, terrified that if he moved too fast, the silence between them might finally shatter.
---
The moment the weight of the duvet settled over Nicholas, the silence of the apartment became too loud, too final. The "frozen" version of him shattered instantly. It started as a jagged, gasping breath and escalated into a visceral, guttural wailing—a sound so raw it seemed to tear through his very chest.
Fuma, who had been in the washroom reaching for a damp cloth, dropped it. He nearly lost his footing on the tile as he bolted back into the bedroom, his heart hammering against his ribs in sheer terror. He had never heard Nicholas make a sound like that; it wasn't the sound of a man crying but of a soul being physically ripped apart.
"Nicholas! Nico!" Fuma scrambled onto the bed, pulling the shaking man into his lap. He gathered him close, tucking Nicholas’s head under his chin and rocking him with a frantic, rhythmic intensity.
"Baby, I’ve got you. I’m here," Fuma choked out, his own composure finally fraying at the edges. He felt the heat of Nicholas’s tears soaking through his shirt, the racking sobs making it impossible for Nicholas to even catch his breath. "Dear, what’s wrong? Talk to me—what happened? Please, please stop crying. You’re going to make yourself sick."
Nicholas’s fingers clawed at Fuma’s back, his nails catching in the fabric as he buried his face deeper into his husband's chest. He couldn't form words; there was only the agonizing, rhythmic heave of his shoulders and the high, broken keen of someone who had finally realized the world was different now and it was never going back.
Fuma didn't let go. He pressed his forehead against Nicholas’s damp temple, whispering broken reassurances into the dark, his strong arms the only thing keeping Nicholas from falling completely into the void.
The sound that left Nicholas was barely human, a ragged mix of salt and grief that soaked into the fabric of Fuma’s shirt. He clung to Fuma as if he were the only solid thing left in a world that had turned to liquid.
"He never let me see," Nicholas choked out, his voice wet and trembling. "He was breaking... and I thought he was happy. I thought he’d just... always be there. I was so blind, Fuma. I didn't even know. I never saw how much he loved me."
As the exhaustion of the wailing took hold, Nicholas’s mind drifted, pulled back by the gravity of a memory he had tucked away in the dusty corners of his heart.
High School, Years Ago
The grass was damp against their uniforms as they lay in the middle of the football field, hidden by the shadows of the bleachers. The sky was an infinite stretch of ink, waiting for the stars to fall.
"You know," Euijoo whispered, his profile illuminated by the pale moon, "if you make a wish right when they streak across, it’ll come true."
Nicholas scoffed, though he didn't move his gaze from the stars. "I don't believe in that, Euijoo. It's just space dust."
"Just do it, Nichol," Euijoo insisted, nudging his shoulder with a soft, playful grin.
"No way. You do it," Nicholas countered, his voice dropping an octave as a familiar bitterness sharpened his tone. "Wish for Yudai to finally notice you. Isn't that what you want?"
He watched the way the moonlight caught the sudden, pink flush on Euijoo’s cheeks at the mention of the name. It was a beautiful sight and it felt like a serrated blade across Nicholas's chest. He had spent years building a world where he was the center of Euijoo’s universe, only to realize the gravity had shifted toward someone else.
He wanted Euijoo to be happy; he truly did. But watching that radiant, shy smile bloom because of someone else's name was a weight he hadn't known how to carry.
Nicholas’s grip on Fuma’s shirt tightened until his knuckles turned white.
"I spent so long being jealous of Yudai," he whispered into the dark of their bedroom, the irony tasting like ash. "I spent so long protecting my own heart that I never looked at his. I never saw what he was actually wishing for that night."
Fuma held him tighter, his chin resting on top of Nicholas’s head, letting the silence hold the weight of a realization that had come far too late.
The memory hit Nicholas with the force of a physical blow, more painful than the cold earth of the graveyard.
He remembered the way Euijoo used to look at him back then—the gentle, lingering gaze of a boy who had found his entire world in the person sitting right next to him. They were two outsiders in a country that felt too big and too fast, bound together by the shared struggle of a new language and the quiet comfort of each other's presence. Nicholas had been the protective shadow, the "scary" boy who softened only for Euijoo; Euijoo had been the light that made Nicholas’s world visible.
But Nicholas had been convinced that a light that bright couldn't possibly be meant for him."He was trying to make me snap," Nicholas choked out into Fuma’s chest, his voice thick with a new, sharper kind of grief. "He talked about Yudai... he spent all that time with him just to see if I’d care. Just to see if I’d finally say something."
As the first streak of white light tore across the sky, Euijoo didn't look at the stars. He looked at Nicholas.
Nicholas was staring straight ahead, his jaw tight, his heart a shattered mess of jealousy and resignation. He was so busy being "happy" for Euijoo—so busy playing the part of the supportive best friend—that he missed the way Euijoo’s hand twitched, wanting to reach for his.
Euijoo closed his eyes tight, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks. He didn't wish for Yudai’s attention. He didn't wish for popularity or to fit in.
Please, he had prayed silently, the words a desperate ache in his chest. Please just make Nicholas notice my heart. Make him see me.
"He got his wish," Nicholas whispered, his breath hitching in a broken, hollow laugh. "I finally noticed. I’m looking right at it, Fuma... but his heart isn't beating anymore."
The weight of the realization was suffocating.
Every "accidental" touch, every lingering look, every time Euijoo had mentioned Yudai just to see Nicholas’s reaction—it all flooded back with a devastating clarity. He hadn't been replaced; he had been chased and he had been too afraid to turn around and be caught.
Fuma tightened his hold, his own eyes damp now. He didn't try to offer platitudes. He knew there was no fixing a realization that came years too late. He simply tucked Nicholas’s head back into the crook of his neck, sheltering him as the storm of regret finally took hold.
"I’m sorry, Euijoo," Nicholas sobbed, the name a prayer and a plea. "I'm so sorry I was so slow."
The grief in the room seemed to thicken as Nicholas confessed the secrets he had buried for years. He spoke into the crook of Fuma’s neck, his voice a haunted rasp, finally unraveling the tragedy of a boy who had been dying long before his heart actually stopped.
"When Yudai came along..." Nicholas whispered, his fingers curling into Fuma’s shirt, "I felt... relieved. I thought, finally. Finally, someone who knows how to hold him without breaking him. I thought Yudai saw the things I was too scared to look at. I thought he was the protector Euijoo deserved."
But the protection was a thin veil over a rotting foundation.
The smell of floor wax and sweat clung to the hallway after the physical fitness exam. Nicholas had been laughing, catching his breath, until he noticed the empty space beside him where Euijoo should have been.
He found him in the back of the washroom, hunched over a sink. The sound wasn't a normal cough; it was wet, heavy, and jagged.When Euijoo pulled away, the white porcelain was splattered with a terrifying, vivid crimson.
"Euijoo!" Nicholas had lunged forward, his heart plummeting into his stomach.
"It's fine, Nicho," Euijoo had gasped, his face pale but his smile unnervingly steady as he wiped his mouth with a trembling hand. "Just worked too hard. It’s totally fine. Don’t tell Yudai, okay? He worries too much."
But it wasn't fine. It was the legacy of a bloodline that seemed written in ink and shadow.
The "curse" was a whisper in Euijoo’s family—a history of vibrant lives snuffed out in their youth. An uncle at twenty. A mother who had survived only long enough to bring Euijoo into a world that her husband couldn't bear to look at. Euijoo had grown up in a house of silence, his father’s eyes looking through him, seeing the ghost of the woman he’d lost.
Only his grandmother had offered a refuge but even her love couldn't reach the dark hours of the night. That little boy, barely tall enough to reach the sink, had learned to muffle his coughs into a pillow so the house wouldn't hear. He carried the guilt of his mother’s death like a physical weight, certain that the blood in his lungs was just the price he had to pay for existing.
"He was so scared to be a burden," Nicholas sobbed, the realization fracturing his voice. "He spent his whole life hiding his pain so people would love him. He thought if he showed the blood, they’d look away like his father did. And I... I let him hide it. I wanted to believe him when he said he was okay because the truth was too scary to face."
Fuma held him through the tremors, his heart breaking for the boy Nicholas had lost and the man Nicholas had become. He kissed the top of Nicholas’s head, a silent promise that in this house, there were no curses—only a love that could hold the weight of the truth.
"You didn't know, Nico," Fuma murmured, though he knew the words wouldn't heal the wound yet. "You were just a kid, too."
"I should have looked closer," Nicholas whispered. "I should have been the one to see."
.
.
.
The air in Yudai’s small room was thick with the scent of old paper and the hum of a desk lamp. For months, there had been a glass wall between them—an unspoken agreement not to push too hard, not to ask the questions that lingered in the shadows under Euijoo’s eyes.
But that night, the wall shattered.
Euijoo was restless, his laughter a little too sharp, his hands trembling as he reached for a textbook he wasn't actually reading. He was starving—not for food but for the kind of touch that proved he was still tethered to the earth. He looked at Yudai with a raw, desperate hunger for a love that didn't just observe him from a distance but claimed him.
When Yudai finally reached out, the tension snapped. He pulled Euijoo close, his touch tentative and reverent, as if he were handling a piece of ancient, fragile silk. He wanted to show Euijoo that he was seen, that he was cherished beyond the roles they played for the world.
But as the fabric of Euijoo's shirt slid down his shoulders, the breath died in Yudai's throat.
In the dim, amber glow of the lamp, Euijoo’s skin wasn't the flawless porcelain Yudai had imagined. Spread across his chest and shoulders were tiny, blooming blossoms of red—petechiae—like a map of a war being fought beneath the surface. They weren't bruises from a fall or marks of a struggle; they were the quiet, leaking evidence of a body that was starting to give up.
Euijoo froze, his breath hitching, his eyes darting to the floor. The shame he had carried since childhood, the "curse" he had tried to wash away in the school sinks, was finally laid bare.
"Euijoo..." Yudai’s voice was a ghost of a sound. His fingers hovered just millimeters above the red spots, afraid that even a touch would make them spread.
"Don't look," Euijoo whispered, his voice cracking. "Please, Yudai. Just... don't look at it. Just hold me."
He didn't want a doctor. He didn't want a diagnosis. In that cramped, quiet room, he just wanted to be a boy who was loved, even if the blood in his veins was already turning against him.
Nicholas shivered in Fuma’s arms as he recounted the story, the haunting imagery of those red marks etched into his mind.
"Yudai told me later," Nicholas choked out. "He told me that was the night he realized he wasn't just loving a boy—he was guarding a sunset. He spent every day after that trying to hold back the dark."
The dawn that followed was gray and suffocating. Yudai hadn't slept; he had spent the hours watching the rhythmic, shallow rise and fall of Euijoo’s chest, his arms locked around him like a human fortress. He didn’t ask about the red marks. He simply held the boy who was leaking away.
When Euijoo finally stirred in the pale morning light, his voice was a ghost of a whisper, devoid of its usual warmth.
"Don’t tell Nicholas," he said, his eyes fixed on a patch of peeling wallpaper. "Please, Yudai. Promise me."
Yudai had promised. And for months, that promise became a slow-acting poison.
Nicholas remembered the day he heard the news. He had found Euijoo sitting alone on the school roof, looking smaller than ever, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. When he asked where Yudai was, Euijoo had simply said, "We’re done, Nicho. It’s better this way."
Fury—white-hot and protective—had surged through Nicholas. He didn't wait. He didn't think. He tracked Yudai down behind the gymnasium, pinning him against the brick wall with a snarl.
"How could you?" Nicholas had hissed, his fingers bunching Yudai’s collar. "He loved you! He gave you everything and you just walk away? What did he do to deserve you throwing him away like trash?"
Yudai didn't fight back. He didn't even flinch. He just looked at Nicholas with eyes that were older than a youth's should ever be—eyes that were drowned in a grief Nicholas couldn't yet fathom.
"I didn't leave him, Nicholas," Yudai said, his voice flat and breaking. "He pushed me out. He told me he didn't want me to watch him disappear. He said... he said he didn't want my last memory of him to be 'the end.' "
Nicholas’s grip loosened. The anger drained out of him, replaced by a cold, creeping dread.
"He told me it was better for us to walk separate ways," Yudai continued, a single tear finally escaping. "Because he’d rather I hate him for leaving than have me break apart while staying. He thinks he’s saving us, Nicho. He thinks if he dies alone, nobody gets hurt."
In the quiet of their bedroom, Nicholas’s sobs had turned into exhausted tremors. Fuma held him through the memory, his own heart heavy with the weight of Euijoo’s lonely sacrifice.
"He tried to protect everyone," Nicholas whispered, his voice cracking. "He broke Yudai’s heart to save it. He hid from me to keep me happy. He spent his whole life making sure the people he loved wouldn't have to feel the weight of his 'curse'..."
He looked up at Fuma, his eyes bloodshot and searching. "But it didn't work, did it? It just hurts more. It hurts so much more knowing he was alone in the dark."
Nicholas understood that Euijoo didn’t want a mourner; he wanted a friend. He didn’t want the suffocating weight of pity or the tearful eyes of someone watching a clock. So, Nicholas gave him the only thing that mattered: life.
They spent their nights tangled together in the same bed, limbs entwined as they whispered into the dark and their days wandering the city until their feet ached and their lungs burned with laughter. Nicholas cherished every second, anchoring himself to the present, even as the shadow of the future loomed larger.
Then came the day of the flower field—a vast, rolling sea of yellow color swaying under a relentless summer sun.
Nicholas walked with a deliberate slowness, his fingers firmly laced through Euijoo’s.Despite the sweltering heat, Euijoo wore thick, long sleeves, the fabric a shield against the world’s eyes, hiding the red blossoms that were spreading across his skin.
"You know," Euijoo said, his voice light but carrying a strange, fragile weight. "I had a dream once."
"What kind of dream?" Nicholas asked, watching the way the wind caught Euijoo’s hair.
"That someone would confess to me in a place like this. In a flower field," Euijoo said, looking out over the petals. A small, sad smile touched his lips. "Yudai just... approached me in a hallway and said, 'I like you.' It wasn't exactly a fairytale."
Euijoo giggled, a soft, melodic sound that felt like a plea. He was trying so hard to tell Nicholas what he needed—not just to be cared for but to be chosen.
Nicholas didn’t hesitate. The world around them seemed to go silent, the buzzing of the cicadas fading into the background. He let go of Euijoo’s hand only to sink slowly onto one knee in the dirt. He reached out, plucking a single, sturdy flower from the earth and looked up with a gaze so intense it made Euijoo gasp.
"I like you, Euijoo," Nicholas said, his voice steady and raw. "I really, truly like you."
Euijoo stared down at him, his features fracturing. His lips trembled and for a heartbeat, the mask of the "best friend" almost fell away. But then, he jerked his gaze toward the horizon, a shaky laugh escaping him.
"You're so funny, Nicho," he whispered, his eyes swimming with a grief he wouldn't name. "Always making jokes."
Nicholas stood up, the words 'I’m not joking' burning in his throat. He wanted to scream it until the hills echoed, to grab Euijoo and force him to see the truth. But he looked at the exhaustion in Euijoo’s posture, the way he was swaying slightly in the heat, and he stayed silent. He chose peace over the truth.
That was the last day Euijoo ever walked.
As the sun began to bleed into the earth, casting long, golden shadows over the flowers, Euijoo leaned his head against Nicholas’s shoulder. He was so light, as if he were already losing his grip on the world.
"Thank you," Euijoo whispered, his breath a faint warmth against Nicholas’s neck. "For everything, Nichol."
Back in the apartment, Nicholas tucked his face into Fuma's chest, his body finally going limp from the weight of the memory. "That was the last time he was really there," he choked out.
Fuma held him tighter, his own heart aching for the boy who had carried that silence for so long.
---
The sterile white of the hospital hallway became Nicholas’s entire world. It was a place where time didn't move, only the slow drip of IV bags and the squeak of nurses' shoes. In the midst of losing his anchor, the universe played a cruel, beautiful trick: it gave him Fuma.
Fuma was there for his own grandmother, a quiet presence at the end of the hall. He had noticed the "lonely boy"—the one with the haunted eyes who never seemed to leave the plastic chairs. But Nicholas was drowning in guilt. Every time Fuma tried to offer a kind word or a cup of lukewarm coffee, Nicholas snapped. He was abrasive, cold, and intentionally rude. To be kind to someone new felt like a betrayal to the boy dying behind the door of Room 202. He didn't want a new light; he wanted the old one to stop fading.
But then came the night the silence changed.
Fuma’s grandmother had passed in the early hours of the morning. Nicholas found him slumped in a shadowed corner of the waiting room, his broad shoulders shaking with a grief that had no voice. The sight shattered Nicholas’s defenses. He walked over, his own heart heavy and knelt in front of the stranger he had been so cruel to.
"It will be okay," Nicholas whispered, the lie tasting like ash but his hands were steady as he reached out.
Fuma didn't hesitate. He collapsed forward, burying his face against Nicholas’s torso, his fingers clutching at Nicholas’s shirt as he finally let out the breath he’d been holding for weeks. In that moment, two broken pieces found a way to fit together.
.
.
.
As the months bled into one another, something shifted. Nicholas found himself looking for Fuma in the hallways, sharing hushed conversations over vending machine snacks. The guilt was still there, a constant thrum in his veins but so was a new, terrifying warmth.
One afternoon, as the golden hour light filtered through the hospital blinds, Nicholas sat by Euijoo’s bed. The lump in his throat felt like a stone, making it hard to swallow but he forced the words out. He told Euijoo about Fuma.
Euijoo’s reaction wasn't what Nicholas expected. There was no hurt, no flickering of the jealousy they had played with in high school. Instead, a genuine, fragile peace settled over Euijoo’s pale features.
"He sounds really kind, Nicho," Euijoo murmured, his voice thin but clear. "The nurses... they told me about him. They said he’s spent the last six months here, mostly just making sure you aren't sitting alone."
Euijoo reached out, his hand—now almost translucent—resting over Nicholas’s trembling one. He squeezed with the last of his strength, his eyes shining with a selfless, heartbreaking clarity.
"I’ll be fine, Nicholas. Truly," Euijoo whispered, a final benediction. "Don't spend all your energy on me anymore. Save some for him. Save some for yourself."
The guilt was a physical weight, a cold stone in Nicholas’s chest that sat right next to the growing warmth he felt for Fuma. Fuma had become the exception to every rule Nicholas had built for his solitary, grieving life. He was the one who forced a spoon into Nicholas’s hand when he forgot to eat; he was the one who gently tuged him toward the hospital exit just to let the fresh night air hit his lungs. Fuma didn’t just love Nicholas; he guarded his sanity.
Late one night, in the quiet sanctuary of Fuma’s apartment, the air changed. The confession came softly, a steady vow in the darkness. Nicholas looked at him, his heart a battlefield of old loyalty and new hope.
"You can't get jealous, Fuma," Nicholas whispered, his voice cracking. "I love him. Even if he’s fading, even when he’s gone—Euijoo is a part of me. He’s in my blood."
Fuma didn't flinch. He simply reached out and anchored his hand to Nicholas’s. "I won’t," he promised, his gaze unwavering. "I’m not here to replace him, Nico. I’m here to hold you while you remember him."
The days that followed were a blur of bittersweet transitions. Nicholas felt a gnawing anger at himself—how could he be planning a future, imagining a life with Fuma, while his best friend was counting his final breaths?
But Euijoo, ever the selfless light, wouldn't let him drown in shame.
"Don't wait for me to be gone to start living, Nicho," Euijoo murmured one afternoon, his voice a mere thread of sound. "If you want to marry him... do it. Don't let the timing stop you."
"I can't," Nicholas choked out, leaning his forehead against the metal bedrail. "I want you to be my best man. I need you there."
A faint, ethereal smile touched Euijoo’s pale lips. "I’ll be watching, Nicho. From right here," he tapped his own chest, then pointed toward the window, toward the sky. "I’ll have the best seat in the house."
Nicholas leaned down, his heart breaking as he pressed a lingering, tender kiss to Euijoo’s temple—a gesture so intimate, so filled with a decade of unspoken words, that it left Euijoo stunned. Nicholas lingered there, his breath hitching.
"Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Nicholas whispered against his skin.
"I know," Euijoo breathed, his eyes fluttering shut. "I know. But don't waste your life on a memory, Nicholas. Please."
A single, hot tear escaped Nicholas’s eye, falling and tracing a path down Euijoo’s hollow cheek. It looked like Euijoo was the one crying.
"Did you ever love me, Juju?" Nicholas asked, the question he had been too afraid to ask in the flower field, the question that had haunted him since high school. "In that way? Did you?"
Euijoo didn't speak. He simply closed his eyes, a serene, pained expression settling over his face. In that silence, in the way his hand twitched in Nicholas’s grip, Nicholas finally got his answer. It wasn't a "no"—it was a "forever," delivered too late to be lived but just in time to be known.
The morning of the wedding didn’t feel like a beginning; it felt like a race against a setting sun.
Nicholas stood before the mirror, his fingers fumbling with the lapel of his suit. Every time he caught his reflection, he didn't see a groom—he saw a man trying to outrun a ghost. But he had made a promise. In a sterile hospital room, amidst the hum of monitors, Euijoo had gripped his hand with a strength that shouldn't have been possible.
"I want to see you get married, Nicho," he had whispered, his eyes sunken but burning with a final, desperate light. "Please. Fulfill this one wish for me. Let me see you happy before I go."
And so, Nicholas did.
The ceremony was small, hushed and heavy with a bittersweet gravity. In the front row, a laptop sat on a chair, its camera directed toward the altar. On the other side of that screen, in a darkened hospital room miles away, Yudai sat by Euijoo’s bedside.
Yudai was the silent martyr of their story.Even after being pushed away, even after the breakup that was meant to "save" him, he had never left. He held the tablet steady, his own heart breaking in two as he watched the man he loved watch the man 𝘩𝘦 loves marry someone else. It was Euijoo’s quiet, tragic charm—he drew people in so deeply that they would rather suffer by his side than be whole without him.
Nicholas moved through the vows like a man underwater. He spoke the words to Fuma but his eyes kept flickering toward the camera lens. He cried throughout the entire service—not tears of joy but the jagged, salt-streaked grief of a man saying hello and goodbye at the exact same time.
The only moment the sobbing stopped was when the officiant pronounced them husbands. Nicholas leaned in and kissed Fuma. It wasn't a performance; it was a desperate anchor. He kissed Fuma with the intensity of someone drowning, thanking him silently for being the strength he didn't have.
There was no champagne. There was no dancing.
The moment the "I do's" were finalized, Fuma didn't even look toward the reception hall. He gripped Nicholas’s hand, pulled him toward the waiting car, and ignored the confused glances of the guests.
"The reception doesn't matter," Fuma whispered, his voice firm and grounding as he started the engine. "We're going to him."
Nicholas sat in the passenger seat, his wedding boutonniere already wilting, his hand trembling in Fuma’s. They sped through the city streets, the white ribbons on the car fluttering like surrender flags.
They reached the hospital in record time. Nicholas didn't even wait for the elevator; he ran up the stairs in his tuxedo, his breath hitching in his chest. He burst into Room 202, still smelling of expensive cologne and wedding lilies, to find Yudai still holding the camera, his face wet with tears.
Euijoo was still awake. His eyes were glassy, fixed on the door. When he saw Nicholas in his wedding suit, a tiny, breathless sound escaped him—a laugh or perhaps a sob.
"You looked... so handsome, Nicho," Euijoo breathed, his voice barely a vibration in the air. "Thank you... for letting me see."
Nicholas sank into the chair beside him, clutching Euijoo's hand while Fuma stood in the doorway, a silent, supportive shadow.
"I did it, Juju," Nicholas sobbed, pressing his forehead against the bedrail. "I did it for you."
Even now, with his breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches, Euijoo’s spirit remained a flickering candle in the dark.A weak, playful glint sparked in his sunken eyes as he looked toward the foot of the bed.
"Yudai..." Euijoo rasped, a ghost of a smirk tugging at his pale lips. "Make sure you... take care of Nicholas for me."
Fuma, standing by the door with his wedding band still feeling strange and new on his finger, tried to force a laugh. It came out as a broken, breathless sound. "Hey now," Fuma countered softly, stepping closer to anchor Nicholas’s trembling shoulder. "I’m the one who actually married him, remember?"
Euijoo’s gaze drifted to Fuma, softening with a profound, quiet gratitude. "I know. That’s why I’m telling him to watch you," he whispered, his chest heaving with the effort. "To make sure you never hurt him. Don’t think I won’t see... I’ll be watching. From everywhere."
A violent cough racked his frail frame, and Yudai was there in an instant, gripping Euijoo’s hands as if he could pull the pain into his own body. "Don’t talk, Juju. Save your strength," Yudai pleaded, his voice thick with a decade of unshed tears. "I’ll take care of Nicholas. I’ll make sure Fuma treats him like a king. Don’t worry about a thing."
It was a devastating tableau—the husband and the ex-lover, bound together by their devotion to the boy who was slipping through their fingers. Even as the light was fading, Euijoo’s only concern was the man he was leaving behind.
Yudai looked over at Fuma, his expression hard with a desperate kind of urgency. He leaned in, his voice a low murmur meant only for Fuma’s ears. "Take him away, Fuma. After... after this. Take him on a honeymoon. Somewhere far."
"He won't go," Fuma whispered back, glancing at the back of Nicholas’s head. "He’ll want to stay by the grave. He won't leave him."
"Just do it," Yudai insisted, his grip tightening on Euijoo’s hand. "Look at him. He’s breaking, Fuma. If you don't take him away from this building, there won't be anything left of him to save."
They both went silent as they watched Nicholas. He had stopped crying or perhaps he had simply run out of tears. He had pulled Euijoo’s palm to his lips, his eyes closed tight, murmuring something into the skin of Euijoo’s hand—a prayer, a secret or perhaps the final confession he had been too afraid to speak in the flower field.
In that moment, the monitors were the only heartbeat in the room, ticking down the seconds of a love story that was finally, peacefully, coming to its end.
Nicholas’s grip on Euijoo’s hand tightened, his knuckles white against the sterile hospital sheets. The wedding band on his finger felt like a lead weight, a symbol of a future he wasn't sure he could survive.
"Did you ever really loved me, Euijoo?" Nicholas’s voice was a jagged shard of glass, raw and bleeding. "Why are you being so selfish? How can you sit there and tell me to walk away into a life without you?"
Euijoo didn’t flinch. Instead, a serene, heartbreaking smile spread across his face—the kind of smile that belongs to someone who has already seen the end of the movie and knows how it has to go.
"I am selfish, Nicho," Euijoo whispered, his breath hitching as he forced the words out. "I’m selfish because I want you to be happy, even if I’m not the one holding your hand. I’m selfish because... because I love you enough to let you go."
He looked past Nicholas for a moment, his gaze landing on Fuma, who stood like a silent guardian at the foot of the bed. Then, his eyes traveled back to Nicholas, a flicker of his old, mischievous spark returning for one final, fleeting second.
"Enjoy your honeymoon, Nicho," he teased, his voice dropping to a fragile, raspy thread. "If I had such a handsome husband waiting for me... I wouldn’t be wasting my time in a hospital room."
"I can't," Nicholas choked out, his forehead dropping onto their joined hands. "I can't just leave you here. I can't go be happy while you're—"
"You have to."
Euijoo’s voice suddenly carried a strange, final authority. He squeezed Nicholas’s hand—one last, lingering pressure that felt like a seal on a contract.
"You have to live for both of us now. That’s the deal, Nicholas. That’s my wedding gift to you."
He closed his eyes then, his head sinking back into the pillow. The monitor’s steady beep was a slow, rhythmic reminder that Nicholas’s entire world was finally ready to become a star.
The first night of their marriage wasn't a celebration; it was a vigil. There were no candles, no silk sheets, only the sterile, oppressive silence of a life that had been put on hold.
Fuma didn't ask for passion. He didn't even ask for a smile. He simply sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Nicholas into his lap, wrapping his arms around him like a protective cocoon. He spent the hours tracing the line of Nicholas’s jaw with soft, lingering kisses, trying to breathe his own strength into his husband’s trembling frame.
"Let’s go away for a few days, Nico," Fuma whispered into the crook of his neck, his voice a low, grounding hum. "Just a small honeymoon. A cabin in the woods or the coast. Somewhere the air doesn't smell like medicine."
Nicholas had only shaken his head, his eyes fixed on the wedding band that still felt like a foreign object. "I can't leave him, Fuma. I can't leave him alone in that room. He’s waiting for me."
And so, they stayed.
Euijoo lived for exactly seven days after the wedding.
It was as if he had been holding his breath for five long, agonizing years, anchoring his soul to a breaking body by sheer force of will.He had survived the blood in his lungs, the red marks on his skin and the crushing weight of his "curse" just to see that one moment—to see Nicholas chosen, to see him loved by someone who had the strength to stay when the world went dark.
The light in Euijoo’s eyes began to dim. He had fulfilled his final duty as a best friend, a soulmate, and a secret lover. He had ensured that Nicholas wouldn't be alone when the silence finally came.
On the seventh day, as the sun began to rise over the hospital roof, Euijoo finally let go. He didn't struggle. He simply slipped away in his sleep, a faint, peaceful smile lingering on his lips—the smile of a boy who had finally finished his long, lonely watch.
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The apartment was draped in the heavy, indigo shadows of the present night. The frantic wailing had finally subsided, leaving Nicholas hollowed out and trembling in Fuma’s lap. The wedding band on Nicholas's finger caught a stray glint of moonlight, a silver reminder of the vow he had taken while his heart was miles away in a hospital bed.
"I was so selfish," Nicholas whispered, his voice cracked and raw, his forehead resting against Fuma’s collarbone. "I was planning a life with you while he was counting his last breaths. I was kissed and celebrated while he was bleeding out in the dark. How am I supposed to live with that?"
Fuma didn’t pull away. He tightened his hold, his hands broad and warm against Nicholas’s back, grounding him to the here and now. He waited for the silence to settle before he spoke, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut through the guilt.
"You weren't being selfish, Nicholas," Fuma murmured, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. "You were fulfilling a dying man’s wish. That is the least a person can do for someone they love. You gave him the one thing he needed to finally let go—the knowledge that you wouldn't be alone."
Nicholas shivered, a fresh wave of grief hitting him as he thought of the seventh day after the wedding. The day the monitors went flat.
"And you aren't the only one carrying this weight," Fuma continued, his gaze drifting toward the window. "Think of Yudai. He’s out there tonight, too. He’s in that empty apartment, suffering in a silence that none of us can truly understand. He stayed until the very end, even after being pushed away. He loved Euijoo just as much as you did and he’s doing it all alone."
Nicholas went still. He pictured Yudai behind the camera, the silent martyr who had guarded Euijoo’s "sunset" for years. The realization that his pain was shared—that he wasn't the only ghost haunted by Euijoo’s light—made the air in the room feel a little less suffocating.
"We have each other, Nico," Fuma whispered, his thumb tracing the line of Nicholas’s jaw. "But Yudai only has the memories. Don't hate yourself for having a future. Euijoo fought for five years just to make sure you had one."
Nicholas finally closed his eyes, letting his weight fall fully into Fuma’s arms. The "curse" of the past was still there but for the first time since the funeral, the heavy stone in his chest felt like it might one day turn into something he could carry.
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The air at the coast was different—salt-stung and biting, a sharp contrast to the suffocating, medicinal stillness of the hospital. Fuma had driven for hours, the wedding ribbons long since tucked away in the glove box, replaced by the quiet hum of the heater and the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers.
They arrived at a small, weathered cabin perched on a cliffside. It wasn't the "honeymoon" of travel brochures; there were no rose petals or champagne. Instead, there was the roar of the grey Atlantic and the scent of damp cedar.
Nicholas stood on the wrap-around porch, his coat buttoned to his chin, his breath blooming in white plumes against the twilight. He looked out at the horizon where the dark water met the darker sky, his fingers habitually twisting the silver band on his left hand.
"He would have loved the sound of the waves," Nicholas whispered, his voice barely audible over the wind.
Fuma stepped out behind him, draped a heavy wool blanket over Nicholas’s shoulders, and stepped into his space. He didn't pull Nicholas away from the view; he simply became a part of it, his chest a solid warmth against Nicholas’s back.
"He would have told you to stop brooding and go inside to the fire," Fuma murmured, his chin resting on Nicholas’s shoulder.
Nicholas let out a short, broken laugh—the first one that didn't feel like it was tearing his throat. "He would. He’d say I’m being 'too dramatic' and ask if there were any snacks."
They stood there for a long time, watching the tide pull the shore back into the deep. For the first time in five years, Nicholas didn't feel like he was waiting for a phone call. He didn't feel like he was holding his breath for a monitor to flatline. The "curse" of Euijoo’s family had finally run its course, leaving behind a silence that was no longer terrifying—just quiet.
"Fuma?"
"Yeah, Nico?"
"Thank you. For taking me away. I didn't think I could leave him but... I think I left the grief at the cemetery. I only brought the memory of him here."
Fuma turned him around, his hands cupping Nicholas’s face. His thumbs traced the dark circles under Nicholas’s eyes, a silent vow of patience. "That’s all you were ever supposed to carry, baby. The love, not the weight."
Inside the cabin, the fire crackled, casting dancing amber shadows against the walls.They spent the night tangled together on a rug, talking not just of the end but of the beginning—the way Euijoo's eyes crinkled when he smiled and the way Euijoo used to trip over his own feet when he was excited.
In the middle of the night, Nicholas woke to the sound of the wind. He looked at Fuma sleeping beside him, then glanced at the window. For a fleeting second, he imagined a single daisy blooming in the salt-cracked earth outside.
He closed his eyes and finally, truly, fell asleep.
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𝐸𝑃𝐼𝐿𝑂𝐺𝑈𝐸
Yudai remained the silent keeper of the flame. While Fuma and Nicholas built a life out of the wreckage, Yudai lived in the quiet, silver space between memory and reality. Fuma would often pull him aside during their rare dinners, his hand heavy on Yudai’s shoulder, urging him to find a light of his own. But Yudai would only offer a ghost of a smile and shake his head.
He wasn't trapped; he was simply occupied. He was haunted by a boy with round, inquisitive eyes and a smile that seemed too bright for a body hiding blooming bruises beneath a cotton shirt. To Yudai, moving on felt like leaving Euijoo alone in the dark again and he had promised he would never do that.
Every month, without fail, Yudai visited the grave. He would kneel in the mud, indifferent to the stains on his coat and leave a letter tucked beneath a stone.
“He’s doing well, Juju,” the letters would read. “He’s eating again. He’s laughing. Fuma is exactly who you hoped he would be. Nicholas is happy. You can rest easy.”
Back in their home, Nicholas had finally learned the delicate art of carrying grief without letting it crush him. There were still nights when the rain against the window sounded too much like the hospital hallway and he would wake up with a gasp, his chest tight with a decade of "what-ifs."
But Fuma was always there. He never showed a flicker of annoyance or jealousy. Instead, he would pull Nicholas into his chest, letting him cry until the tremors stopped, understanding that loving Nicholas meant loving every ghost that came with him. He knew that Nicholas’s heart wasn't a room with a limited capacity but an ever-expanding space where the old love lived alongside the new.
Their greatest act of healing came three years later.
They decided to adopt—a small, quiet boy from a Korean orphanage who had the same curious tilt to his head that Nicholas remembered from high school. When it came time to choose a name, there was no debate, no hesitation.
"Is it okay?" Nicholas had asked, his voice trembling slightly as he looked at Fuma. "To give him that weight?"
Fuma had looked at the toddler playing on the rug and then back at his husband, his expression filled with a profound, steady respect. "It’s not a weight, Nico. It’s a legacy. It’s a way to make sure the world never forgets the boy who wanted you to be happy."
And so, they named him 𝘌𝘶𝘪𝘫𝘰𝘰.
Now, when Nicholas called the name across the living room, it no longer tasted like salt and hospital air. It sounded like laughter. It sounded like a future. And sometimes, when the light hit the hallway just right, Nicholas could almost swear he saw a shadow of a bright, gentle boy leaning against the doorframe, smiling because his wish had finally, truly, come true.