Work Text:
Baek Saheon had always hated hospitals.
Not because of the smell.
Not because of the white walls, the fluorescent lights, or the quiet beeping of machines hidden behind curtains.
He hated hospitals because they made people look at you differently.
The moment someone saw the IV in your arm, their voice became softer.
Their movements became careful.
Their eyes lingered too long.
As if being sick automatically made you fragile.
Saheon hated being treated like something fragile.
So when the nurse told him he would need to stay for observation, his first thought was that she was exaggerating.
His second was that he had somewhere else to be.
His third was that he wanted to go home.
Unfortunately, none of those things mattered.
"You'll be staying for a few days at least," the nurse said, adjusting the clipboard in her hands. "The doctor wants to monitor your bloodwork."
"A few days?"
"Yes."
"I don't need to stay that long."
The nurse gave him the kind of smile people gave children who insisted they didn't need a coat in winter.
"That's what the doctor will decide."
Saheon clicked his tongue.
He was tired.
That was all.
He'd been tired for weeks.
Maybe longer.
There had been dizziness lately. Headaches. His appetite had disappeared. He'd noticed more bruises than usual, but he couldn't remember where he'd gotten most of them. He'd had several nosebleeds.
Nothing serious.
At least, that's what he'd told everyone.
Then that afternoon, he'd vomited blood.
That had been harder to explain.
Even now, the memory sat uncomfortably in the back of his mind.
The red.
Too much of it.
The shock of seeing it.
The panic he'd tried to swallow along with the nausea.
And then the ambulance.
The emergency department.
Blood tests.
Questions.
More blood tests.
Now this.
A hospital room.
A temporary inconvenience.
That's what he called it.
An inconvenience.
The nurse pushed open the door.
"Here we are."
Saheon looked inside.
It was a two-person room.
Two beds stood on opposite sides of the room, separated by a narrow space and a curtain that could be drawn between them.
There was a window near the end of the room.
Two bedside tables.
Two chairs.
Two IV poles.
A television mounted on the wall.
The room smelled faintly of disinfectant.
Someone was already occupying the bed by the window.
He was sitting upright, a book resting open on his lap.
Dark hair.
Pale skin.
Hospital clothes.
He looked up when the door opened.
Their eyes met.
For a second, neither spoke.
Then the stranger looked at the nurse.
"New roommate?"
"Yes."
The stranger nodded.
Then he looked back at Saheon.
"Hi."
Saheon stared at him.
"...Hi."
The nurse pointed toward the empty bed.
"You can put your things there. The doctor will come by later."
Saheon nodded.
The nurse left.
The door clicked shut.
Silence.
The stranger continued looking at him.
Saheon put his bag down.
"You've been staring."
"I'm just looking."
"Same thing."
"Not really."
Saheon frowned.
The stranger smiled.
It was an annoyingly pleasant smile.
"I'm Kim Soleum."
Saheon paused.
"Baek Saheon."
"Nice to meet you."
"We're in a hospital."
"So?"
"Doesn't feel like a place where people meet."
Soleum tilted his head.
"Then what do you call this?"
"An unfortunate coincidence."
Soleum laughed.
Saheon immediately regretted speaking.
( *︾▽︾)
The first thing Saheon learned about Kim Soleum was that he talked too much.
The second was that he smiled too much.
The third was that he had somehow been in the hospital long enough to know practically everyone who worked there.
"That nurse is nice."
Saheon looked up from his phone.
"Which one?"
"The one who comes around at eight."
"They're all nice."
"No, not all."
"They're nurses."
"Exactly."
Saheon stared at him.
Soleum smiled.
"You'll know."
"I don't want to know."
"You'll be here a while."
"I won't."
"Okay."
The casual way he said it irritated Saheon.
As though Soleum already knew something he didn't.
Saheon looked back at his phone.
He had several unread messages.
His friends wanted to know what had happened.
His sister wanted updates.
Someone had asked whether he needed anything.
He hadn't answered anyone.
He didn't know what to say.
I'm fine.
That was the obvious answer.
But somehow it felt wrong.
He locked his phone.
Across the room, Soleum was watching television.
A variety show.
Someone was shouting.
Soleum smiled.
Saheon frowned.
"Can you turn it down?"
"Sure."
Soleum lowered the volume.
Five minutes later, he looked over.
"Too quiet?"
"No."
Another five minutes.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
Silence.
Saheon returned to his phone.
Another five minutes.
"Saheon-ah."
"What?"
"Are you always this friendly?"
Saheon slowly lowered his phone.
"No."
"Good."
"Why?"
"I thought you might hate me."
"I do."
Soleum smiled again.
"That's better."
Saheon stared at him.
Then, against his better judgment, he laughed.
Only once.
Quietly.
Soleum noticed.
He didn't say anything.
( *^-^)ρ(*╯^╰)
The first night, Saheon couldn't sleep.
The hospital room was too quiet.
Not truly quiet.
There were footsteps in the hallway.
The distant sound of wheels rolling over the floor.
The occasional beep of a monitor.
A door opening.
A voice somewhere far away.
But compared to his usual life, it was silent.
Saheon stared at the ceiling.
He turned onto his side.
Closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
He checked the clock.
2:13 a.m.
He sighed.
Across the room, Soleum shifted.
Saheon glanced over.
Soleum was awake too.
"You awake?" Soleum whispered.
"No."
"You answered."
"So?"
Soleum smiled in the darkness.
"Can't sleep?"
"No."
"Me neither."
Saheon stared at the ceiling again.
For a while, neither said anything.
Then Soleum whispered:
"What did you do before this?"
"What?"
"Before the hospital."
"Why?"
"I'm bored."
"Read your book."
"I finished it."
"Read it again."
"I don't want to."
"Then sleep."
"I can't."
Saheon sighed.
"You're annoying."
"I've been told."
"Frequently?"
"By you."
"I've known you for less than a day."
"You're fast."
Saheon almost smiled.
Almost.
They talked until three in the morning.
About nothing important.
Favorite food.
Movies.
Places they wanted to visit.
People they disliked.
Soleum told him a ridiculous story from his childhood.
Saheon pretended it wasn't funny.
Soleum knew he was lying.
By four, Saheon finally fell asleep.
The last thing he remembered was Soleum's voice.
"Goodnight, Saheon-ah."
( *^-^)ρ(^0^* )
The next morning, Saheon woke before the nurse came in.
His body felt heavy.
His mouth was dry.
His head hurt.
He sat up slowly.
The room tilted.
He stopped.
Waited.
The dizziness passed.
He pressed a hand against his forehead.
"You okay?"
Saheon looked up.
Soleum was sitting on the other bed.
"Fine."
"You look pale."
"I'm in a hospital."
"Fair point."
Soleum reached toward the small table beside him.
Then held out a carton of milk.
Saheon stared at it.
"What is that?"
"Milk."
"I can see that."
"You didn't eat yesterday."
"So?"
"Drink it."
Saheon narrowed his eyes.
"Why?"
"Because I brought two."
"That's not an answer."
"It is."
"No, it's not."
Soleum shrugged.
"I don't know what answer you want."
Saheon stared at him.
Soleum smiled.
"Drink."
Saheon took the carton.
He looked at the brand.
It was his favorite.
He looked back at Soleum.
"It’s creepy that you have this brand."
"It was an accident that you drank the same one yesterday."
Saheon froze.
"You sure love watching me, huh?"
"I was sitting across from you."
"You pay too much attention."
"Maybe."
Saheon looked down.
He opened the carton.
Took a sip.
Soleum smiled.
"See?"
"Don't look so pleased."
"I am pleased."
"Why?"
"Because you listened to me."
"I didn't."
"You drank it."
"That's different."
"Sure."
Saheon rolled his eyes.
But he finished the milk.
(*≧︶≦))(￣▽￣* )ゞ
The days began to blur together.
Blood tests.
Doctors.
Medication.
Meals.
Sleep.
Wake.
Blood tests again.
Saheon hated the routine.
Soleum seemed to have adapted to it.
He knew when breakfast arrived.
He knew which doctor made rounds first.
He knew which vending machine worked.
He knew which nurse would sneak him extra fruit.
He knew how to make Saheon laugh when Saheon was in a bad mood.
He also knew when Saheon was pretending to be fine.
That annoyed Saheon the most.
One morning, Saheon stood up too quickly.
His vision went black.
His hand caught the edge of the table.
"Saheon?"
"I'm fine."
"You almost fell."
"I didn't."
"You did."
"I caught myself."
"That's almost falling."
Saheon glared at him.
Soleum didn't smile.
That was unusual.
"Sit down."
"I can stand."
"Sit."
"I said I'm fine."
"And I said sit."
Something about Soleum's voice made Saheon obey.
He sat.
Soleum crouched in front of him.
"Does this happen often?"
"No."
Soleum looked at him.
Saheon looked away.
"Sometimes."
"How often?"
"Why do you care?"
"Because you're my roommate."
"That's not a reason."
"It is to me."
Saheon didn't know what to say.
So he didn't say anything.
Soleum stood.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
He returned to his bed.
Saheon stared at him.
"You aren't going to lecture me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I know you won't listen."
Saheon almost smiled.
"Smart."
"I know."
(^_-)db(-_^)
The first time Saheon saw Soleum's hand shaking, it was barely noticeable.
Soleum was reaching for his water.
His fingers trembled.
He switched hands.
Saheon watched.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Your hand."
Soleum looked down.
"Oh."
He flexed his fingers.
"Cold."
Saheon glanced at the thermostat.
"It's twenty-four degrees."
"I'm still cold."
Saheon frowned.
Soleum smiled.
"Don't worry."
That phrase would become familiar.
Don't worry.
Soleum said it whenever he didn't want Saheon asking questions.
So Saheon stopped asking.
For a while.
ヽ(￣ω￣(￣ω￣〃)ゝ
Their friendship grew without either of them deciding that it should.
It happened through routines.
Soleum would wake first and open the curtains.
Saheon would complain about the sunlight.
Soleum would steal his fruit.
Saheon would steal it back.
They watched movies together.
They argued over what to order.
They played games on their phones.
They occasionally fell asleep while talking.
When one of them had a procedure, the other waited.
When one of them received bad news, the other stayed quiet.
There was never a formal agreement.
No promise.
No declaration.
Just I'm here.
And that was enough.
One evening, Saheon returned from a test.
Soleum was sitting on his bed.
He looked up immediately.
"You're back."
"Obviously."
"You took longer."
"There was a delay."
"Are you okay?"
Saheon stopped.
"I'm fine."
Soleum stared at him.
Then nodded.
"Okay."
Saheon looked at him.
"You don't believe me."
"I believe you."
"You don't."
"I believe that you don't want to talk about it."
Saheon was quiet.
Soleum looked away.
That was the first time Saheon realized something.
Soleum never forced him.
He just stayed.
( *^-^)ρ(*╯^╰)
One night, Saheon woke to the sound of someone coughing.
He looked across the room.
Soleum was sitting upright.
His back was turned.
His shoulders shook once.
Then twice.
He coughed again.
"Are you okay?"
Soleum wiped his mouth quickly.
"Yeah."
Saheon sat up.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You're coughing."
"I swallowed wrong."
"That's not how it works."
Soleum laughed softly.
"Go back to sleep."
Saheon stared at him.
Then noticed something.
A small stain of red on the tissue in Soleum's hand.
His heart stopped.
"Soleum."
Soleum folded the tissue.
"It's nothing."
"That's blood."
"I know."
"Why are you bleeding?"
Soleum didn't answer.
Saheon climbed out of bed.
"Soleum."
"I already said it's nothing~."
"Stop saying that."
Soleum finally looked at him.
For the first time, Saheon saw something in his expression that he hadn't seen before.
Fear.
Only for a second.
Then it disappeared.
Soleum smiled. Sou could clearly see the tiredness in his eyes.
"Go back to bed."
Saheon didn't.
(・∀・(・∀・*)
After that night, Saheon started noticing things.
Soleum sleeping more.
Soleum eating less.
Soleum becoming tired after walking down the hallway.
Bruises appearing on his arms.
Doctors spending longer at his bedside.
His family visiting more often.
The medications increasing.
The blood transfusions becoming more frequent.
And every time Saheon asked.
"I'm fine."
Until one afternoon, Saheon stopped believing him.
Soleum had just returned from an examination.
He sat on his bed.
Saheon looked up.
"You've gotten worse."
Soleum froze.
"What?"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Lie."
Soleum’s lips curved into a smile, though his eyes seemed to frown beneath the expression.
Silence.
Saheon felt his stomach twist.
"How long?"
Soleum didn't answer.
"How long have you known?"
Still nothing.
"Soleum."
"A while."
Saheon stood.
"You knew?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't think–"
"You didn't think what?"
Soleum’s head tilted a little while looking at him.
"You were getting better."
Saheon stared.
"So?"
"So I wanted you to be happy about it."
"You think I wouldn't be happy?"
"No."
"Then why?"
Soleum's voice was quiet.
"Because I didn't want you to be afraid."
Saheon felt something break inside him.
"You don't get to decide that."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Soleum looked down.
"I'm sorry."
Saheon turned away.
He couldn't look at him.
Because suddenly all those small things made sense.
The shaking hands.
The exhaustion.
The bruises.
The blood.
The doctors.
The way Soleum smiled whenever Saheon asked if he was okay.
Saheon sat on the edge of his own bed.
His voice came out small.
"Are you going to die?"
Soleum didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
(/ω＼*)……… (/ω•＼*)
After that, everything changed.
Not immediately.
They still joked.
They still watched movies.
They still fought over food.
But now something was sitting between them.
A truth neither could ignore.
Soleum's condition was worsening.
Saheon's was improving.
The doctors began talking about discharge.
Saheon hated the idea.
"You'll be alone."
Soleum looked at him.
"I've been alone before."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know."
Saheon looked down at his hands.
"I don't want to leave."
Soleum smiled.
"You've complained about this hospital every day since you got here."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because you're here."
Soleum went quiet.
Saheon realized what he'd said.
Neither moved.
Then Soleum smiled.
Small.
Almost shy.
"You know," he said, "I was wondering when you'd figure that out."
Saheon stared at him.
"Figure what out?"
"That you like me."
"I don't."
"Sure."
"I really don't."
"Okay."
"You keep smiling."
"I like you."
Saheon froze.
Soleum looked away.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Saheon swallowed.
"You're ridiculous."
"Probably."
Saheon reached across the space between them.
His hand stopped halfway.
Soleum looked at it.
Then took it.
Neither said anything.
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
It started because of the TV.
It was playing in the room, and somehow, faintly, a song drifted. Soft. Slow. The kind of song made for nothing in particular.
Soleum tilted his head, listening.
"Dance with me."
Saheon looked up from his phone. "What?"
"Dance with me."
"You have an IV in your arm."
"I know that."
"So no."
"Saheon-ah."
"No."
Soleum was already pushing the blanket off his legs.
"Soleum."
"One song."
"You're going to fall."
"Then catch me."
Saheon stared at him. Soleum stared back, patient, stubborn, already swinging his legs over the side of the bed like the conversation was over.
Saheon gave up before it even started. He always did.
"Fine. But if you fall, I'm putting you back in bed and telling the nurse you did it on purpose."
"Deal."
He crossed the room and let Soleum lean his weight against him. It wasn't much weight anymore. That was the part Saheon tried not to think about.
They didn't really dance. Not properly. There wasn't room for that, not with the IV pole, not with the narrow gap between the beds, not with legs that shook if you asked too much of them.
Mostly they just swayed.
One of Saheon's hands stayed on Soleum's back, careful, like he was holding something that might tip over. The other held Soleum's hand loosely between them. Soleum's free arm rested on Saheon's waist, and the IV pole rolled quietly along beside them, an unwilling third dance partner.
"This isn't dancing," Saheon muttered.
"It's dancing."
"We're just standing here."
"We're swaying. That counts."
"Says who?"
"Says me. I'm the expert."
"You've never danced in your life."
"I'm dancing right now, aren't I?"
Saheon huffed, but he didn't stop moving.
The song kept playing faintly through the room, half-muffled, warped by the speakers. Neither of them knew the words. It didn't matter.
Soleum's head dropped to rest against Saheon's shoulder. Not dramatically. Not weakly, either. Just tired, in the ordinary way of someone leaning on someone they trusted to hold them up.
"See," Soleum said quietly. "Not bad for someone with an IV."
"You're barely standing."
"You're holding me up."
"That's not the same as dancing."
"It's close enough."
Saheon didn't argue that time.
They swayed like that until the song ended and the room went quiet again. The ads for a water purifier rolled on, the two of them barely moving at all, turning in place in a space too small to really turn in.
It wasn't much of a dance, to be honest.
But Saheon would remember it for the rest of his life anyway.
( ˶˘ ³˘(⋆❛ ہ ❛⋆)!
They made a list.
Things they would do after leaving the hospital.
It was ridiculous.
Shopping.
Go to the beach.
Eat somewhere expensive.
Watch the sunrise.
Take a photograph together.
Get matching keychains.
Cook.
Travel.
Find an apartment.
Argue over whose turn it was to do the dishes.
Soleum wrote the list.
Saheon corrected his handwriting.
"Your handwriting is terrible."
"…It's readable."
"Barely."
"You're criticizing my handwriting while lying in a hospital bed."
"Yes."
Soleum smiled.
Saheon laughed.
They completed some of the list.
Others remained untouched.
The beach was one of them.
They never got there together.
In another life, they did together.
(ᵕ—ᴗ—)(• ᴖ •｡ )
Saheon's discharge came first.
He knew it was coming.
He still wasn't prepared.
The morning of his discharge, he packed slowly.
Soleum watched.
"You forgot your charger."
"I know."
"You forgot your book."
"I know."
"You forgot—"
"Stop."
Soleum laughed.
Saheon zipped his bag.
Then stopped.
He looked at the other bed.
Soleum was still there.
Still wearing the hospital clothes.
Still surrounded by machines.
Saheon suddenly hated the room.
"I don't want to go."
Soleum's smile faded.
"You have to."
"I can stay."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're all better now."
Saheon looked away.
Soleum's voice softened.
"Saheon-ah."
He looked back.
"Live."
Saheon said nothing.
"You've spent enough time being sick."
His eyes burned.
Soleum smiled.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Saheon nodded.
"Tomorrow."
He left.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼
He came back the next day.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
Some days Soleum was awake.
Some days he slept.
Some days they talked.
Some days Saheon simply sat beside him.
The hospital room became quieter.
Soleum became weaker.
Eventually, the bucket list stayed folded on the bedside table.
The television was rarely turned on.
The curtains remained closed.
But Saheon still brought milk. The same milk he always drank.
One evening, Soleum opened his eyes.
"I never asked this, but is that milk your favorite?"
Saheon held up the carton.
"You don’t remember?"
"Of course, I remember. I’m just making sure."
Saheon smiled.
"Well, I bought two."
Soleum looked at him.
"Did you drink the other?"
"No."
"Why?"
Saheon sat beside him.
"Because you’re going to tell me to."
Soleum smiled.
"Good, because I will."
“Drink it, Jagiya~.”
ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ
The last night came quietly.
There was no warning.
No dramatic announcement.
Just a room that had become too quiet.
Soleum was lying on his bed.
Saheon sat beside him.
Their hands were together.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then Soleum whispered.
"Saheon-ah."
"Hm?"
"Did you go to the beach?"
Saheon smiled through the ache in his chest.
"Yeah."
"Was it nice?"
"Not really."
"Why?"
"You weren't there."
Soleum smiled.
"That's your problem."
Saheon laughed.
It turned into a quiet sob.
Soleum squeezed his hand.
"Don't cry."
Saheon's voice cracked.
"I'm not crying."
"You are."
"…"
They were quiet. But the tears that fell didn’t.
Then Saheon whispered.
"Aren’t you scared?"
Soleum took a slow breath.
"A little."
Saheon looked down.
"Me too."
Soleum's eyes closed.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For leaving this world first."
Saheon shook his head.
"Don't."
"I wish I could stay."
"I already know that."
Soleum opened his eyes one last time.
"Promise me something."
"What?"
"Don’t follow me too fast. Live."
Saheon couldn't speak.
Soleum smiled faintly.
"Just eat it."
Saheon laughed through his tears. His other hand held a spoon and tried to feed it to Soleum.
"You start to sound like me."
"No."
Soleum's eyes slowly closed.
"Yeah, but again, I'm better."
Saheon held his hand tighter.
"Hic… Please… Stay…"
Soleum's fingers moved weakly against his.
"I wish I could. Really, Saheon-ah. Goodby—"
And then.
nothing.
No more teasing.
No more complaints.
Only the quiet sound of the machines.
Saheon didn't move.
He didn't call for anyone. Not yet. He just sat there, holding a hand that had gone still, listening to a sound he would hear in his sleep for years afterward.
Somewhere down the hall, footsteps quickened. A nurse must have seen the monitor from the station.
The door opened. Someone said his name ”Saheon-ssi, Saheon-ssi.“ Gently at first, then again, more urgently.
He didn't answer.
A doctor came in. Checked the machines. Checked Soleum's pulse. Looked at the clock on the wall and said the time out loud, quiet and clinical, like it was just another number in a chart.
Saheon still didn't let go of his hand.
"Sir," the nurse said softly, crouching beside him. "We need to—"
"Give me a minute."
His voice didn't sound like his own.
The nurse glanced at the doctor. The doctor nodded once. They stepped back.
Saheon stayed beside him. For a long time. He didn't let go of his hand.
Outside the window, the sky was just beginning to lighten, not quite sunrise, just the first gray edge of it, the sky deciding whether it wanted to change.
Soleum never got to see it.
Saheon watched it for both of them.
The funeral hall was too bright.
Saheon remembered thinking that, absurdly, the moment he walked in. Everything about hospitals had been dim and quiet and careful. The hospital's own funeral hall, three floors down from the ward where they'd spent months together, was lit like it wanted no shadows anywhere. As if brightness could make any of it easier to look at.
It didn't.
A black ribbon hung above the entrance to Soleum's room, the number posted beside it like a room assignment. Saheon stood in front of it for a moment before he could make himself walk in.
Inside, white chrysanthemums banked the walls. A large photograph sat at the center of the altar, framed in black and white ribbon, incense smoke curling up in front of it. Soleum, smiling. Not the tired hospital smile Saheon had gotten used to near the end, but an older one. Healthier. His cheeks weren't hollow yet. His eyes weren't shadowed.
An attendant at the door quietly offered him a white ribbon to pin to his chest. Saheon took it with unsteady hands and let the man fix it in place, since his own fingers weren't cooperating.
He signed the guest book. His name looked wrong in his own handwriting, too steady for how he felt.
Then he approached the altar.
He took the incense stick offered to him, lit it from the candle, and set it upright in the burner among the others already smoking there. He clasped his hands together, right over left, the way his sister had once corrected him at another funeral, years ago, before any of this, and bowed twice, slow and full, forehead nearly touching his hands. Then a half-bow, standing.
Two full bows to the dead. One half-bow to the living.
He turned toward the mourners' side, where a man and a boy stood in black hanbok, mourning bands around their arms, and bowed once more, lower than he meant to.
"You're Baek Saheon-ssi," the man said. Not a question.
Saheon straightened. He hadn't met Soleum's father directly before, only heard about him, a businessman who visited late in the evenings after work, always in a suit, always looking like he hadn't slept. He looked older now. Hollowed out.
"Yes. I'm sorry for your loss."
It was the only correct thing to say, and it still felt like nothing at all.
The father nodded once, and gestured toward the woman just beyond him. "My wife told you'd come."
Mrs. Kim stood a little apart, dressed in the plain mourning hanbok, her hair pinned back severely, a hemp mourning band tied around her head. She'd visited the hospital room a handful of times, always briefly, always looking like she was holding herself together with effort. Saheon remembered her bringing side dishes Soleum wouldn't eat. He remembered Soleum rolling his eyes fondly the second she left.
"He talked about you," she said now. "Every time I came."
Saheon didn't know what to say to that.
"He said you drank only 1 brand of milk over and over again."
A weak, broken laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "He never let me live that down."
"Of course not," she said, and for a second something in her tired face almost smiled. "He wouldn't have."
A boy stood near her, sixteen or seventeen, also in a black mourning band, standing the stiff, uncertain way people stand when they've been told to be strong and don't know how. Same dark hair as Soleum. Same way of not knowing what to do with his hands.
"This is Kim Sion," Mrs. Kim said. "Soleum's brother."
Saheon remembered him too, a few visits, always quick, always a little awkward, sneaking snacks in that Soleum wasn't supposed to have.
"You're the hyung from the hospital." Sowon said.
"Yeah."
"He said you were teasable and annoying."
Saheon huffed, only commenting on the last part. "He was more annoying."
Something flickered across the boy's face, not quite a laugh, too raw for that, but close to one. His eyes were red-rimmed, like he'd been crying and stopping and crying again for three days straight, which, Saheon realized, he probably had. Korean funerals ran that long. Three days of sitting in this bright room, bowing to every visitor who walked through the door, eating yukgaejang from paper bowls because no one had the appetite for anything else.
"He made me promise something," Sowon said suddenly. "Before. He said if he—" He stopped. Started again, quieter. "He said if anything happened, I should find you. And he told me to give you something."
He held out a small ship-folded piece of paper, slightly creased at the corners, like it had been carried in a pocket for a while before this moment.
Saheon took it with unsteady hands.
He didn't open it there. He couldn't, not standing in that bright room with incense smoke drifting past Soleum's photograph, with his parents watching him, with the low murmur of other mourners bowing at the altar behind him.
"Thank you." he managed.
Mrs. Kim reached out and, briefly, rested her hand on his arm. It was such a small thing. It nearly broke him anyway.
"He was happy," she said. "Near the end. I could tell. I don't know if I ever thanked you for that."
Saheon shook his head. "I didn't do anything. I just stayed."
"That's not nothing, dear child." she said. "That's not nothing at all."
Soleum's father cleared his throat, the way men do when they don't trust their own voice. "Eat something before you go. There's food in the back."
It wasn't really a request. At Korean funerals, it never was. Feeding the mourners was its own kind of ritual, its own way of saying thank you for coming, thank you for grieving with us. Saheon understood that much, even through the fog in his head.
He sat at one of the long tables in the adjoining hall, was handed a bowl of yukgaejang he didn't taste, a shot of soju he didn't really want but drank anyway because someone poured it for him and it felt wrong to refuse. Around him, other guests spoke in low voices, the particular hum of a room full of people trying to be quiet and respectful and human all at once.
He didn't stay long after that.
Outside, away from the incense and the white chrysanthemums and the too-bright lights, Saheon finally unfolded the paper.
Soleum's handwriting. Terrible as always. He almost laughed.
Finish the list.
All of it.
Even the dumb parts.
And get two keychains —> keep both.
— S
Saheon stood there a long time, the paper trembling slightly in his hand, the winter air sharp against his face, the black ribbon still pinned to his chest.
Then he folded it carefully. Put it in his pocket, against his chest.
"Okay," he said quietly, to the empty street, to no one, to everyone. "Okay. I will."
Months later, Saheon returned to the hospital.
As a visitor.
He walked down the familiar hallway.
Past the nurses' station.
Past the vending machines.
Past the window where sunlight used to fall across the floor.
He stopped outside their old room.
The door was open.
There were two patients inside.
Two beds.
Two people talking.
One of them laughed.
Saheon stood there.
For one impossible second, he could almost hear it.
Saheon-ah.
Jagiya~.
He smiled.
Then continued walking.
Later, he stopped at a convenience store.
He stood in front of the refrigerator.
His hand reached automatically for the milk.
He took two cartons.
Then paused.
He stared at them.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"Idiotic son of a—."
He put one back.
Then walked outside.
He sat on a bench.
Opened the carton.
And drank.
The milk tasted exactly the same.
That somehow hurt more than it should have.
Saheon looked toward the sky.
Soleum had always wanted to see the sunrise somewhere far away.
Saheon hadn't managed to take him.
But he had gone alone.
He had stood on the beach.
He had watched the sun rise.
He had taken a photograph.
It wasn't the same.
It would never be the same.
But he had gone.
Because Soleum had told him to.
Live.
So Saheon did.
Because he couldn’t forget.
Because he loved him too much, it hurt.
Because loving Soleum had taught him something he had spent his entire life trying to understand.
Depending on someone wasn't weakness.
Missing someone didn't mean you had to stop moving.
And surviving is a must.
Well, he didn’t teach this. Saheon learned it himself.
Saheon finished the milk.
He folded the carton.
Then stood.
Leaving the other one behind.
For a moment, he looked back toward the hospital.
The windows reflected the afternoon light.
Somewhere inside, another pair of roommates were probably arguing over something stupid.
He smiled.
Then turned away.
And walked home.
Alone.