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Days have passed since Yuta woke up from his surgery. Or has it been weeks or presumably months? Yuta did not bother to count. He had woken up at the sound of birds chirping near the hospital window, and closed his eyes again at the sight of him still living. He often hears talking sounds around him, the staff protruding at the back of his skin and occasionally, just occasionally, the sound of someone sobbing beside him. He knows by now who it is. It took some time to recognise the excruciating pain of trying to remember moments before the anesthesia was in his body.
He should have died that night. The pain was so unbearable, he had bitten his lips and banged his head to the wall. He almost choked Seunghyun for trying to force him to take those pills he diligently throws away. He had an idea of grabbing the gun sealed in his study, to shoot his throbbing head in front of Seunghyun. But the trigger didn’t move and the suicidal frenzy frizzled. His eyes had widened at Seunghyun kneeling in front of him, his hands grabbed his weak legs as he cried.
“D-don’t Yuta. Please, please don’t do it. You can kill me if you must, but don’t do it to yourself”
Yuta doesn’t remember much of what happened. His memory stops there, it becomes blurry as hospital lights pass through him, Seunghyun talking about his consent as Yuta’s husband from the adopted document, and the next thing he knew he was alive. It was an odd feeling. He was sure he would die by now. He had set a specific time on when he realised he is done agonising his pathetic life and just want it to end.
Turns out, even Baek Seunghyun had taken that from him.
“You son of a bitch!,” he yells as he throws the food tray directly at Seunghyun. Dooshik and Jooha came running in, but the man held up his hand, holding them back from rushing in. Yuta had found some ungodly strength to stand up, IV dripping on his hand now dripping blood as he ripped it off from his wrist. There were no more tears left in his eyes despite him wanting to do so. It was so dry that he couldn’t even cry. Even Baek Seunghyun had taken that from him.
“You wanted me to die just several months ago! Why don’t you just kill me?! Chop my head off and throw my body to the sea! You are a Yakuza for fuck sake, dumping a prostitute will be so easy for you!,” he shouted, the throbbing pain came again, and his nose was bleeding. The next thing he knows is that he falls down to the ground, his legs paralysed and Seunghun has caught him before he lies limpless. The man did not say a word, but he brought Yuta close to his heart, and he heard that again.
A sobbing sound, a pain hollow voice only for Yuta.
Now it has been six months. He left Korea for six months already. His hair has grown. It grows to the point he has bangs now. He finds it bothersome before because his hair always grows so fast so he resulted in making sure it parted sideways. But now in the present day, in which he didn’t care about his looks or he could not give a damn about his hair, he let it grow. Sapporo air was so fresh in the summer. From where he is staying, he can see the mountain peak covered in snow. The flower beds filling in across the land.
Yet the hollow remains fill in his silenced mine. His yukata flows with the wind, his wheelchair creaks against the wooden floor, and Yuta trembles in despair. Did he really want to die? Was it all done and dusted if he pulled the trigger that night? Had Seunghyun not signed the consent for surgery, would he be able to ascend to death so peacefully? He had forced Seunghyun to leave him alone. Send him a one way ticket to wherever he wants to go and don’t come looking for him. He had said he detested the man.
But did he really do so, when the torment crawled at the pit of his stomach, the throbbing pain in his head as memories of Baek Seunghyun came in a form of frizzled broken record? He had yearned for death, to death yet now he is alive, and the yearn has taken place in the form of his misery. Sapporo beauty didn’t let him stray away from the memories. He had hoped those needles would poke something wrong and made him forget. Yet he remembers how deeply hurt Jooha was when he said that one day.
“Hyung, forgetting is such a cruel thing for me. I hurt Dooshik, and even asked him to leave me. But he stays, and despite I was an another person for months, he stayed”
Yuta did not speak of forgetting again. He would have barked and mocked Jooha if he was an ordinary man with an ordinary background. But he knows. He knows what it is all for Jin Jooha life, exploited by people he trusted and went through the torture of perverted sick fucks. Yuta did not compare their life, and Jooha never said it will get better.
So for the next six months, Yuta tries to live for himself. There was no one to stop him from living or dying, but he chose to live. He tries to walk, takes his pills he needs after his surgery and scheduled doctor’s visits. He cleans the old house, step by step because he is still so easily tired. He starts to talk again, to the children who walk past his home back from school, to the elderly who marvel at Yuta’s looks they keep trying to pair him with their daughter, and to the cat that loiters around the house. He picks up foreign language books again, frustrated that he forgot a lot already so he tries to learn again.
It is a miracle, despite it being slow. He can still remember the grammar and vocabulary of each word. His writing is a little awkward, but he did his best. Yet the only language he didn’t try to hone was Korean. He still couldn’t bring himself to even glance at it. How can a language reminisce itself in the form of a man he yearns to forget and remember? Whenever he tries to say a word of it, Seunghyun’s deep voice echoes with the words he says. It was enough for Yuta to put the book down back on the shelf and forget about buying it.
Sapporo air is crisp with dead leaves and dried soils now. Yuta, now standing at the spot he used to wheel his wheelchair on, stares at the empty flowerbed. It looked depressing, but Yuta gazed at it lovingly. Autumn. Those dead leaves are sometimes so dried it almost looked like red, making him think of a man he hasn't listened to for one year already.
He knows Seunghyun still remembers him. All his purchases, the money that was wired in was direct from his wallet. Seunghyun once sent a package filled with socks when Yuta had purchased a bundle of it at the market for the cold. When he was craving for Kimchi, the ones purely Korean made, Yuta had stumbled on a clumsy Zen trying to hide after leaving a package of kimchi in front of his house straight from Korea. Yuta knows Seunghyun still thinks of him a lot, but doesn’t dare to impose himself on Yuta.
He snorted at the thought. He had imposed his life on Seunghyun a lot, yet he doesn’t dare to do it now?
As winter came, and at the first snow had coloured Sapporo white, Yuta had heard a soft knock on his gate. The cat he adopted, he called her Rosie, the way her white fur always red when she digs in the strawberry jam he stole from Yuta kitchen, flinched at the sound that she jumps into Yuta’s arms. Is it another package from Seunghyun? But it is always so discreet, why would it show itself now? He puts down the white feline, takes a step to the gate before he pulls the door open.
At the first snow in Sapporo, Baek Seunghyun is in front of him. “Kujo Yuta,” he had called, pained and desperation in his voice. “Yuta,” he says again, eyes red and lips trembling as he steps closer. “Yuta-ya,” the rasp voice of his, begging for the man in front of himself as he reached to touch him. “My dear Yuta,” he whispered so affectionately, his palm finally reached to touch Yuta’s warm cheek, and only then did he realise he was crying too. At the sight of Baek Seunghyun in front of him.
He had missed this man. Miss him too much the tears he didn’t shed for six months had fallen down for the man he despised to death and loved to grave. “I-I can’t hold it back anymore. I..want you again. Yuta, I want you again, I want to love you again, please,” Seunghyun pleads, voice wet and breaking. His body trembles at every word, and he was no better than Yuta who is a crying mess. The latter had reached out to Seunghyun too, touched his hollow cheeks to wipe those tears. He had lost weight, his under eye with dark circles are now puffy too.
“Why is a Yakuza crying in the middle of the street?,” Yuta sobbed as he says that, crying more now when he realise he can still speak Korean fluently. His attempt at trying to forget it naturally has gone to vain. In front of Seunghyun, he was still able to say a perfect sentence. Seunghyun didn’t answer, crying more as he rubs his wet cheeks on Yuta’s palm. At the end, it was Yuta who pulled him into a hug, the snowflakes falling on them as Seunghyun wrapped around him tightly.
The once strong build that often made Yuta hurt has grown weak in his arms, letting out the sobs as he keeps repeating Yuta’s name again. Yuta didn’t say a word, only closing his eyes as the winter air hit his face. Baek Seunghyun is here , and Yuta finds himself saying You are here, finally to himself. Even after all the attempts of blocking him from his memory, Yuta cannot live without a day not remembering how melancholy and serene Seunghyun’s voice was.
Several days have gone by then. The tatami bed that used to only have Yuta alone, now has Baek Seunghyun naked torso pulling the lean man towards him too. The empty and silent house is now filled with whispers of the two, asking how life was for each of their own, ended with a deep surging kiss that ignites something in them. Seunghyun still loves adoring the flush on Yuta’s skin, kissing every part of it until he is breathless. Yuta, who laughs at the ticklish sensation, often has his giggles taken away when the man kisses him again.
And a few days before new year, days before Yuta will be celebrating his birthday after so many years of not doing so, he pulls Seunghyun into his arms as they watch the snow fall together. “I want to live,” he whispered, closing his eyes as the rush of emotion filled his chest. “I want to love too,” his chest thumping loudly. The arms now cradle him, letting Yuta rest fully on his chest. Tears fall down his cheek as he continues.
“I never wanted to die,” he sobbed, hiding his face in Seunghyun’s hold. “It was the easy option, but I still want to live. No matter how hard it was back in the golden pavilion, the kujo, meeting you again, the surgery and leaving you this time, I found myself hating but also wanting to breathe. I loathe all of it, but I wanted to live. I..hope for it. How pathetic I was that I hoped to live after everything?”
The snow falls heavily. It hits the roof, a proof of an upcoming snow storm. Yet Yuta is so warm in Seunghyun’s arms, as he continues. “I was so ready to leave the world, but then when I woke up again, seeing everything was still the same, it hit me then. Even if I died, nothing will change. I will be in relief if you mourn for me, but that relief is not forever. So it then comes for me to hope, just for one more day, let me live. Let me live at least one day the way I want. At the end, I didn’t hope for death anymore, and somehow, living wasn’t just enough. I still- still want you”
Rough palms reached to his cheek, and Yuta met Seunghyun’s gentle eyes. It wasn’t puffy already. His smile is melancholy, often misunderstood to be calm, yet Yuta can see how deep in torment he is. “Then, even if it's just for one more day, let us live and love. I will love you harder than yesterday, and if we live again for the next, I will make sure the love is bigger than before. Live for yourself, Yuta. But do it with me. Live and love with me, my dear Yuta”
For just one more day, Yuta wants to live and love for himself, with Baek Seunghyun.