Chapter Text
The day his doctor told Keen a name for the random dizziness spells and bone deep fatigue he had for months is the day everything changed for him. “Multiple sclerosis” an autoimmune disorder where Keen’s own body is killing him which unironically is also what he’s doing to himself whenever he agrees to sit on the opposite side of the table when Sea decides to introduce one of his new lovers to the friend group. Like today.
The soda Keen decided on, skipping the alcohol was sticky in his hands. Across the table of the bar, Sea was laughing head tilted back, his arm looped loosely over his new lover Jan's shoulder, her fingers slowly playing with the bracelet in Sea’s other arm, the one Keen gifted him on their graduation with a familiarity.
That was just Sea. He loved generously, carelessly, scattering his attention among boyfriends and girlfriends who came and went faster than seasons . He was a magnet for new dates, entirely blind to feelings of others and pathetically his own too.
"Keen tell her" Sea called out, kicking Keen lightly under the table. "Tell her I’m impossible to live with under the same roof. "
Keen swallowed the metallic tang of bile offering a practiced smirk that felt like a mask tonight. "He’s a disaster,Run while you can."
The table erupted into laughter but Keen’s gaze drifted to the corner of the booth. Ashi, Aungpao and Ken sitting opposite them weren't laughing. Ashi caught Keen’s eyes his gaze tight with pity that Keen hated more than the feeling of loosing his breath away in the middle of the day.
Everyone in the circle knew. They had known Keen loves Sea since they're seventeen, watching Keen swallow his own heart in silence every time Sea introduced someone new with that bright, careless grin even that now they are 23. What none of them knew was the medical reports of Keen. The specialist had pushed a thick folder containing a series of aggressive treatment protocols. High-dose steroids, heavy immunosuppressant and rounds of intravenous drugs that would leave him hollowed, bedridden to a sterile ward for weeks at a time. The doctor had been careful with her words,
“We can try to arrest the damage you can survive on the long run with continuous medications, but there are no guarantees. It’s months or even years of aggressive immunosuppression, hospital admissions, and at best, we buy you time but you can’t work or leave the ward”
Keen had looked at the consent forms, heart hollow. He refused the beds. He refused the brutal IV lines that would poison his bloodstream just so his own immunity won't kill him. Keen knew precisely what aggressive treatment looked like, turning translucent and gray, the unbearable shame of becoming an object of grief while still being alive
Most of all, he knew what it would do to Sea
Sea, who crumbled whenever a stray cat died. Sea who ran so hard from anything heavy and ugly that he moved from lover to lover, filling every silence with parties, laughter and reckless affection just to avoid the ache of solitude. If Keen allowed himself to wither away in an ICU bed Sea’s world would shatter. He would hover by the bedside, suffocated by terror and his bright spirit will be crushed under the guilt of not knowing sooner.
Sea……. His boba boy.
Keen had loved the boy since the summer they turned seventeen, when Sea had become a one of the few constants in his life when he lost his mother due to the same disease which is killing him now. His Father left them when he was 5. The only way he knew the man as his Father is because he paid for everything, supporting them financially, but when his Mother was slowly losing her life, not having the fight in her, the said man was not with them. Keen sat besides her Bed day night much to her complaints and holding her hands throughout, feeding her medicines. He knew how hard it is caring for a sick person but he couldn't hate his mom, the only parent who ever showed him love. He already knew she hated herself more for making a sixteen year old Keen go through it. This is how he exactly knew what it would do to the person who is sitting besides the bed of a person who’s not willing to live. When Keen buried his Mom six feet under the ground, all had besides him was his childhood friend Sea.
Sea had never possessed the stomach for anything harsh. Even at ten years old, while the other boys in the neighborhood caught dragonflies and dared each other to jump from the walls, Sea had been the kind of child who cried over dead birds. Keen still remembered the humid scent of that august afternoon. Sea sitting cross-legged outside Keen’s home, weeping openly over a bruised street puppy with a broken leg. Sea hadn't known how to set the bone, hadn't known what antiseptic to ask for, but he had stubbornly refused to go home for dinner. He had sat there in the sweltering twilight, his round face full of tears and snort, clutching Keen’s wrist and begging him to help to help the puppy and make it stop hurting.
“You know how to fix things, Keen” ten-year-old Sea had hiccuped, tears dripping steadily “Don’t let it hurt. Please don’t let it hurt.”
“Don't cry boba eyes”
Keen had fashioned the splint, calm and steady as he always was, because watching Sea cry was a scene Keen had never learned how to tolerate. Seven years later, when Keen’s mother finally stopped breathing, there was nothing left in the world for Keen. Except for Sea
~
The terminal ward had smelled of rubbing alcohol. For months, Keen had watched the only person who loved him deteriorate into a corpse. Keen, sixteen turning seventeen, had carried the bedpans, memorized the medicines chart and smoothed his mother’s hair while she cried into her pillow. When her heart finally gave up on a random Tuesday morning, Keen couldn't cry. The funeral was a blur of people and hollow condolences from distant relatives Keen hadn't seen since childhood. Keen sat in the front row of the funeral home, his hands folded stiffly in his lap entirely dry-eyed. People whispered that the boy was in shock, others muttered that he was cold, that the long illness had hardened him into stone. Sea had arrived late, soaked to the bone from the rain, his black shirt clinging messily to his frame.
Sea despised hospitals, and he despised cemeteries even more. When Sea’s grandfather had passed two years ago, Sea had made himself violently sick in the church bathroom, hyperventilating and throwing up not stopping even when the casket was lowered. Funerals terrified Sea Yet there he stood in the doorway of the memorial hall pale, his bottom lip trembling violently. He walked straight down and sank onto the bench directly beside Keen.
Sea reached out, his knuckles white and shaking, and closed his hand over Keen’s fingers. He didn't speak. He just sat there, shivering his own tears spilling over his lashes and tracking down his jaw, crying so hard for Keen’s dead mother that an aunt had to pass him a tissue. But through every shudder that racked Sea's slender frame his grip on Keen’s hand never once loosened. He held on Keen shedding every tear Keen couldn’t.
Three days after the funeral Keen was still the same but the silence was the worst part. There were no nurses’ bells, no beeping monitors, no weak groans from his mother. Just the ticking of the clock in the hallway and the faint smell of lingering medicines. Keen had stopped eating. He had sat on the floor of the kitchen since the afternoon before, his knees pulled to his chest, staring blankly at the cupboard where his mother’s medication bottles were still sitting. The lock on the front door jiggled, followed by the sound of footsteps. Sea stumbled into the dim entryway. In his arms, he carried a chaotic amount of bags containing whatsoever things.
"Keen?" Sea’s voice was stable. He found Keen in the corner of the kitchen floor, hollow-cheeked, his skin pale and unkept. Keen didn't look up. He didn't move a muscle.
"Go away Sea" Keen whispered, his voice sounding like dry stones. "I don't need you here."
Sea ignored him. He dumped the bags onto the counter and set the steaming container of porridge on the floor between them and knelt down on the floor without hesitation.
"You haven't answered your phone" Sea muttered, his voice trembling. He popped the plastic lid off the porridge, the steam carrying the scent of ginger and meat blending with the scent of medicines in the air. Eat the porridge Keen."
"I'm not hungry."
"You have to eat."
"I said get out!" Keen snapped, his head whipping around, eyes bloodshot and wild. "Stop looking at me! Stop hovering over me like I'm something broken! You hate this! You can't even stand the smell of this house Sea, I know you want to run! So just fucking leave” The sound echoed off the silent house.
Anyone else would have backed away. If it was uttered by Julian or Jan or any of the partners Sea would later have in his life he would just run away and never go to them. Sea fears confrontation, of being yelled at. He usually shrank from raised voices.
Instead, Sea’s bottom lip quivered, his big, dark eyes brimming with sudden, hot tears. A wet sob tore out of Sea’s chest, not an angry sob, but the fragile hurt cry of a boy who’s stepping out of his comfort zone just to pull Keen out of his pit of grief.
"I'm not leaving" Sea wept, the tears spilling freely down his cheeks. He didn't try to look strong. He didn't pretend to be brave or wise. He looked terrified, clumsy, and entirely unequipped for the mountain of grief sitting in front of him. "I know I suck at this, Keen. I know I’m stupid and I don't know what to say. But you're the only person who ever stays when I mess up. You don't get to sit here and starve to death in the dark. I won't let you."
Sea dropped the plastic spoon, lunged forward across the floor, and threw both arms around Keen’s neck.
The impact knocked Keen backward against the kitchen cabinets. Sea buried his face into the crook of Keen’s collarbone sobbing so hard and muttering incognizable words “Don’t do this, Keen. Please don’t disappear. Please eat something. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” ………..
For three long, agonizing seconds, Keen sat frozen beneath the weight of him.
Then, the iron dam Keen had maintained through months of clinical diagnoses, and funeral arrangements shattered into dust. A choked sob ripped out of Keen’s throat, a sound so raw and ugly it didn't belong to a seventeen-year-old boy. Keen’s arms came up, locking around Sea’s waist, his fingers digging into Sea’s back as Keen buried his face into Sea’s shoulder. The grief hit him like the water out of a broken dam crushing the breath from his lungs.
They sat on that cold kitchen floor for hours while the afternoon light faded into bruised purple and then total blackness. Sea didn't let go once. Even when his legs cramped, even when his own tears ran dry, Sea stayed anchored to the floor, resting his chin on Keen’s dark hair, his shaky hand rubbing slow circles against Keen’s shaking frame.
“I’ve got you” Sea had whispered over and over into the darkness, his voice hoarse “I’ve got you, Keen. You’re not alone.”
Later that night, Sea had sat beside him until Keen managed to eat down half the porridge, spoon by spoon, Sea’s hand hovering under Keen’s chin as if he were feeding a sick bird. When Keen finally fell into an exhausted, sleep on the living room sofa, Sea had dragged a blanket over him and curled up on the hard rug beneath the couch, refusing to sleep in a different room. When Keen woke up in the middle of the night, his head a little clear and found Sea on the carpet. He lay awake in the dark that night watching the rise and fall of Sea’s shoulders, seventeen-year-old Keen had realized two things with terrifying, absolute clarity. First, that Sea had pulled his soul back from the edge of an abyss with bare, clumsy, terrified hands. And second, that Keen’s life no longer had any meaning for himself. His life didn’t belonged to himself. It belonged to the boy on the floor. Keen owed him every breath, every heartbeat, every ounce of warmth he had left in his body. If Sea was terrified of the dark, Keen would become the light. If Sea couldn't bear the sight of wreckage, Keen would swallow his own blood in silence, making sure that for as long as he lived, Sea would never have to sit on another cold kitchen floor and cry like that again.
~♡
The late afternoon heat was peeling off the asphalt around the central library, thick and dry enough to catch in the back of the throat. Classes had ended twenty minutes prior, leaving the wide courtyard choked with students shuffling between bus stops and bicycle racks. Keen was carrying two sets of drafted engineering diagram in thick cardboard tubes under one arm and a bag of plastic model in the other. He hadn't slept more than three hours the night before. The sun hit him and Keen’s vision frayed. He caught himself on the barricade, breathing hard, his knuckles white against the rough edge as he tried to blink the glare away.
"Keen" The shout ripped straight across the courtyard.
Sea, who had been in the football field yelled. He didn't pick it up. He spun and sprinted straight through the crowd, shoving past a group of seniors without looking, eyes blown wide with terror.
"Hey watch it!" someone snapped.
Sea didn't care. He dropped straight to his knees in the dust, his hands fluttering frantically around Keen’s shoulders, his face completely pale.
"Keen, what happened? What hurts? Are you sick?" Sea babbled, his voice pitching high and breathless, trembling so hard. "Look at me, look at my face. Is it your head? Did you hit something? God, I told you not to stay up finishing my assignment aswell, I'm so stupid, I'm an idiot-"
"Sea shut up" Keen rasped, though there was zero heat in it. His head was pounding, the sunlight stabbing straight into his retinas, but seeing Sea’s chin quiver with that ridiculous, childlike panic immediately overrode his own discomfort. Keen forced his shoulders back, pulling a slow breath through his nose, and reached out with a slightly unsteady hand to grab Sea’s trembling wrist. "I'm fine. Just stood up too fast. The sun is hot."
"You're not fine, you look like a ghost!" Sea’s lower lip was trembling violently big, glassy tears gathering at the rims of his eyes. He had always been this way, fragile, easily terrified, terrified of blood, sickness, or anything that threatened to tilt his world off balance. He dragged his own sleeve across his face, not caring that he looked completely undignified in front of half the faculty, before frantically patting down his pockets. "Water. Where is the water? I had a bottle. Where did I put it?"
Two shadows fell over them.
"Here" A cold, unopened plastic bottle was held.
Ashi stood there with his arms loosely crossed, a black bag slung over one shoulder. Beside him, Aungpao had already set his tea aside bending down to casually gather Keen’s scattered drawing tubes from the dust.
"Breathe, man" Pao said, flashing a relaxed, easy grin at Sea. "He just got a little dizzy. You're hyperventilating enough for both of you."
Sea didn't care who they were. He ripped the plastic cap off the bottle with his teeth, splashing half of it onto his own jeans in his haste, and held the rim directly to Keen’s mouth. "Drink Slowly. Don't choke."
Keen swallowed a mouthful of the icy water, his temples throbbing, but his dark eyes flicked up to the two strangers standing over them. He felt a sudden spike of pride hating the spectacle, hating that people were stopping to look.
"You don't need to baby me" Keen murmured softly.
"I'll baby you if you're passing out" Sea yelled back his voice cracking on a half-sob as he dropped the bottle and threw both arms straight around Keen’s neck burying his nose into Keen’s collar. Sea was trembling from the residual fright. "Don't do that. You know I can't stand it when you get sick."
It was a ridiculous sight.Keen, pale and dizzy on the ground, and Sea, totally healthy, sobbing into his neck as if Keen were the one who needed to comfort him and Keen did. Without hesitation. Keen let out a quiet, defeated sigh that held years of practiced, uncomplaining tenderness. Completely ignoring his own spinning head, Keen lifted his arm, wrapping it securely around Sea’s waist, while his other hand came up to rest gently on the back of Sea’s neck. His long fingers smoothed down Sea’s messy hair.
"I'm right here boba boy" Keen whispered"It passed. See? I'm breathing. Stop crying, you're embarrassing us."
Standing there Ashi didn't move. He watched the whole thing with quiet eyes. He saw the sharp, stubborn guard Keen had put up the second strangers approached, and he saw how completely that guard melted the moment Sea buried his face into Keen’s chest. Keen was the one who had stumbled, the one whose skin was waxy and pale, yet Keen’s entire focus had immediately shifted to anchoring the weeping boy in his arms, absorbing the other's panic without a single word of complaint.
Pao noticed. He glanced sideways at Ashi, catching the way his friend’s eyes had gone dark and entirely still, before Pao cleared his throat and stepped into the gap.
"Looks like he's gonna survive" Pao said smoothly offering a hand down to Keen. "I'm Aungpao. That's Ashi. We’re in your afternoon theory lecture."
Sea finally pulled back, sniffling loudly, wiping his cheeks with the backs of his hands and looking sheepish. "Oh. Hey. Thanks for the water. I'm Sea. And this is Keen."
Keen looked up at Pao, then his eyes drifted to Ashi. For a split second, their gazes locked. Ashi didn't look away his expression was unreadable, steady and deep, carrying a weight that made Keen’s chest tighten. Keen took Pao’s hand, letting himself be pulled upright onto steady feet. "Thanks"
"Don't mention it," Pao said, handing the blueprints over. "Sea looks like he needs a sugary drink before he passes out. We were heading to the canteen across the street. You two want to tag along?"
Ashi didn't say anything, but he stepped back, leaving an open path, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. "It's got air conditioning," Ashi added, his voice low and quiet, his eyes never quite leaving Keen's face. "Better than the sun."
Sea immediately brightened, the panic evaporating as quickly as it had arrived, his careless grin breaking through his red-rimmed eyes. Yes. God, please. Keen, you're having sweet soda, you need the sugar and you'll get me a boba tea!"
As the four of them began walking across the courtyard toward the shade of the canteen, Ashi stayed half a pace behind, watching Keen walk with poise while Sea chattered loudly beside him. It was a simple, shallow beginning, just four classmates sharing cold drinks in a loud cafeteria.
~♡
Keen fell in love mindlessly with the boy. He carried his feelings for years hesitating to express it because he had spent years watching Sea bring home dazzling girls and charming boys after they started uni. He always stood just behind the doorway, the reliable shadow, the safe harbor and a place for Sea to land when the romances went wrong. Keen desperately wished for him to be Sea’s one of the boys, hoping he can love him forever but time never permitted it and now………
To confess now would be an act of unforgivable cruelty that he refused to put sea through. If Keen confessed his feelings he would leave Sea burdened with a dead man's ghost, trapping him wondering what could have went wrong. Damn Sea couldn't even handle a break up properly. He cried more than him for his mother's death. What would even do If the person he thought of building a forever died in the middle. He couldn't do that to him. He couldn't think of letting anyone go through what he went through assisting his mother. So Keen took only the mild, low-dose pain suppressants refusing heavy treatments and hiding his prescription even to his friends. He swallowed the bitter pills dry breathed through every fatigue and dizziness spell alone choosing the quality of his remaining days over their quantity. If his time was already stolen, he would spend every minute of it standing upright smiling beside Sea until the exact moment he broke. This is how he was living since nineteen.
At twenty a year in to managing the symptoms with very minimal Dose of medicines Keen couldn't take it anymore. He was desperate enough to agree for a quick 6 Week admission into the hospital in germany to take all the intravenous drugs and give his body some rest. The lie had been easy to sell a 6 week Industrial internship program.
In reality, He had spent four weeks hooked into high dosage drugs which left him nauseating in a white room smelling of cold hospital disinfectant battling all the chills and violent tremors all alone. The treatment somewhat managed his symptoms allowing him to run on low prescriptions for a while. Even after much persuasion from the doctor to stay in Keen refused everything and flew back. He was exhausted, lighter, his veins bruised beneath long sleeves. He had expected to slip back into their routine unnoticed. Instead he walked into the lobby of his apartment building to find Sea sitting on the cold concrete steps knees drawn to his chest surrounded by crushed beer cans. Besides him stood Ashi completely sleep-deprived whose eyes widen upon seeing Keen. He rushed forward, grabbing his friend by the forearm. “Why didn't you answer any of our calls and Messages Keen!! we were worried and him” he motioned towards Sea “is pathetic. We don't know what to do with him”
Sea looked wild. His dark hair was greasy and uncombed, his shirt wrinkled dark purple bags indicated he hadn’t slept in days. The moment Sea heard the voices, he looked up, and the look of terror on his face froze Keen.
Before Keen could drop his suitcase, Sea collided with him slamming his arms around Keen’s shoulders with a force that knocked the breath out of him. Sea was trembling, his fingers digging frantically through the fabric of Keen’s sweater, as if checking he was still there. "You didn't answer for four weeks" Sea was sobbing into the crook of Keen’s neck. "Four weeks Keen. I let it slide at first, then I called your office. I went to your landlord. I don't know what I was thinking. Something at the back of my mind kept telling me I lost you”
"Sea my phone charger died, the clinic- the seminar schedule was insane," Keen lied, his throat aching with guilt” Sea pulled back, his hands gripping Keen so hard. Tears spilled over his lashes uncontrollably ugly. "Don't do that again. Don't ever disappear like that. You don't get to just vanish, Keen. I can't- I don't know how to do any of this if you're not here" Standing there under the harsh light, watching the boy who laughed off broken hearts and failed relationships cry entirely over four weeks of silence, Keen felt a cold certainty settle into him.
If four weeks of unanswered calls reduced Sea to this shivering broken wreck, the truth would kill him. He knew Sea is always like this but this incident opened a eye for him.Keen reached up enclosing Sea’s trembling figure in his own, making his voice as gentle and solid as possible rubbing his back in slow circles. "I'm here" Keen promised, the lie sitting like glass in his throat. "I'm not going anywhere."
After hearing the well wishes of his other friends and sending them home for a much needed, rest. Keen, let out a exhausted sigh looking at the Boy finally sleeping peacefully in his bed like he owned it. It was the exact moment that he decided he's never opting the hospital again. And he had one more thing to do before completely leaving. Find Sea someone, who can be his safe place who can take care of him, who can love him And most importantly who can give him more years together Which he can't.
~♡
The floor of Sea’s living room was a mess with alcohol bottles and old takeout containers supposedly to mask the pain of another Breakup. Sea sat with his back against the sofa, his head tipped back with a cool towel on his forehead to bring down the slight temperature he was running due to poor heartbreak managing practice. Keen moved through the room with the ease of someone who had cleaned up these ruins a dozen times before. He picked up the empty cartons, cleaned the room and sprayed some room freshener to mask the stale smell of the apartment and set a fresh glass water for Sea.
Whenever the fastburn romances flared and burned to ash the lovers always vanished, but Keen was always the one left sweeping the ruins and helping Sea back on his feet. It was the only rhythm and constant Sea had ever known. Sea reached out blindly tugging Keen’s shirt motioning him to sit down.
"She said I don't listen" Sea muttered deleting his head sighs to look keen in the eye. . He gave a bitter little huff of laughter that sounded more tired than angry. "Said I treat a relationship like a party I can leave any time"
"You do think like that" Keen said softly keeping his voice light. He took the washcloth, dipped it back into the bowl of water, wrung it out and pressed it gently against Sea’s warm temple.
Sea sighed before casually, resting his head on his shoulder sideways which made Keen's heart jump through his throat. Sea wasn't malicious he was just someone who lived entirely on the surface completely oblivious to the depth of human feelings and emotions.
"Maybe I just suck at this" Sea murmured staring into the void. He suddenly tilted his head to look up at Keen’s face who was staring at him with an unexplainable look in his face
"Hey Keen"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we just date?"
The room went still. The hum of the ac in the kitchen sounded deafeningly loud.
Sea gave a loose grin tossing the idea out like a coin, completely unaware of the weight it carried for the other Man.
"I mean it. You already know every awful thing about me. You don't leave. You take care of me. I can surprisingly stay with you aswell unlike my other lovers. If we got together I wouldn't have to constantly perform for someone new. What if we just... did that?"
For one terrifying second, Keen’s entire body went cold. Every hidden corner of his soul the years of quiet devotion he had screamed to reach out to bury his fingers in Sea’s dark hair pull him close and scream Yes please, finally.
Then reality dragged him under.
Two immovable truths locked the gate shut before he could even move.
The first was the clock of his own body. Every morning Keen woke up tireder than yesterday. Sea thought relationships were casual and life is all neon colours. How could Keen accept an offer like that and drag Sea to a world of Greys and make him a widow before he turned thirty?
The second truth cut even deeper, though Keen rarely dared to look directly at it. He was tired. Bone-deep soul-weary tired.
Keen had lost the will to fight a long time ago. Fighting meant clinging to a life that had only ever offered him Pain. It meant endless hospital beds, toxic drugs in exchange of few more months of even more Pain, depending on someone for basic functions. Keen didn't have that fire in him. He had accepted his exit long before. When you have already made your peace with you impending doom, you don't reach out and drag someone else into the grave with you. You don't build a house when you know the ground is about to give way.
Keen let out a soft chuckle masking all the raging thoughts in.
"You're drunk Sea" Keen said keeping his tone dismissive. "And you'd get bored of me in three weeks. Drink your water before it gets warm."
Sea blinked the idea already evaporating from his mind as quickly as it had arrived. He laughed stretching his hands and pushing Keen’s leg with his own. "Yeah probably, You're too sensible for me anyway You'd kill me."
Keen looked down at him, forcing a small smile to even when throat burned with unshed tears. "Yeah" Keen murmured to the quiet room "I probably would."
~♡
Keen returned home very late that night, much to the beggings of sea to save for the night, he was already getting a bit buzzy and dizzy due to skipping his prescriptions all day. Keen had black spots in his visions even before the moment he stepped into his cold apartment room.
“Just 10 more minutes Keen, a tea and extra pills will fix it” He mumbled to himself and breathed through every grueling step he took to the kitchen. Tears threatened to spill over both from his own pain and the encounter with Sea earlier that night scraped all his strength away. He’s a human afterall…….
Keen blinked through the swaying of vision but his body simply gave up, collapsing on the cold tiles of the kitchen, the tea mug shattering in the impact.
Keen doesn’t know how long he was out cold on the floor but consciousness came on his own, Keen realised he couldn’t move his limbs. He didn't panic at first. Multiple sclerosis was a familiar torment. He lay entirely still waiting for the static buzz to settle. Ten minutes. Twenty. But it didn’t pass, if not his vertigo grew even more painful. A strangled cry came out of his throat. The emergency medicine was too far away, he had no other way. His hands with a terrifying difficulty reached down to his pocket to fetch his Phone
Sea’s contact was the first icon.
Keen stared at the tiny photograph, Sea on the beach at sunrise, hair blown across his eyes, laughing without a single care in the world. If Keen pressed that icon, Sea would be through the door in under ten minutes. He would see the shattered glass and the perfect life image he had will shatter on the place. Sea didn't know how to carry wreckage. He would drag them both into a hospital ward Keen had spent years running from.
Keen’s thumb trembled violently, then scrolled past the name to settle on Ashi’s
Ashi picked up after four rings, his voice laced with sleep "Keen? You rarely call me at this time, Is everything fine? "
Keen tried to shape a sentence, but his system were short circuiting, He just wheezed out a small "Ashi."
The line went dead silent. Ashi definitely knew something was wrong "Keen? What was that? Where are you?"
"Home" Keen managed every syllable burning. "Please come soon" He sobbed. And god Ashi never heard something like that from Keen ever since his mother’s demise He quickly grabbed his car keys and rushed out he didn't waste breath "Keep me on the line Keen I’m comming"
The front door opened with a clumsy rattle of keys. Ashi didn't shout. He rounded every corner of his house before finding him on the Kitchen floor, curled up in a uncomfortable position, broken ceramic on the floor and the scary sobs from Keen. His face went entirely white but he moved fast as he knelt, taking Keen in his arms.
Keen sobbed more upon seeing Ashi, his face an unexplained look of shame and Pain
“Hospital please d-don’t call the ambulance” Keen muttered out his vision swarming
Ashi didn’t speak an extra word, carrying Keen out with an urgency and a fear of unknown.
"Someone please help my friend, he's losing consciousness!"
Ashi’s voice tore through the midnight quiet of the ER desperate. Keen hung limp in his arms head tipped back his breath shallow. A nurse responded her eyes widening in immediate recognition the moment she saw Keen’s face.
"Dr. Pang it's Keen!" she called out wheeling a bed. "Code Blue, Get him onto the bed!"
Hands seized Keen carrying him off Ashi. They wheeled Keen off mumbling terms which were too foreign to Ashi. The last thing he saw was Keen’s glassy eyes. Ashi collapsed forward masking in the situation
A nurse approached him “What’s your relationship with Patient Keen”
"I’m his-I'm all he has here!" Ashi choked out his voice cracking due to the weight of the situation. "Just tell me what's wrong with him!"
“Well why did you wait so long to bring him here, you know his condition can escalate quickly turning fatal. He even missed picking up this weeks immunosuppressive dose. He's treating his Multiple Sclerosis like a Joke!!” The nurse scolded him out before walking away. Ashi stood alone in the sterile waiting corridor, his knuckles trembling so hard he couldn't clasp his own hands together. So many questions were swarming his mind, the pain and betrayal of being in the dark was overshadowed by the fear of his friend’s wellbeing now. An hour crawled by. Then two.
It was nearly three in the morning when the doors pushed open again. Dr. Pang stepped through, peeling off her gloves, her face exhausted.
"Are you the one who brought him in?" she asked, her voice clinical.
Ashi lunged forward. "Yes is -is he okay? What happened to him?"
"We managed to halt the acute spasms and growing Paralysis with high dose IV drugs, His cervical spine is severely inflamed. If you have been late by another two hours, the swelling could have compromised his life. Did you know he stopped his maintainance immunosuppressants entirely three weeks ago?"
The words hit Ashi like a blow. "He... he stopped what?"
"He’s been running on borrowed time with regular doses of Anti inflammatory pills" Dr. Pang said, her voice dropping into a frustrated complaint. "Multiple sclerosis is not a headache you sleep off. His disease is actively progressing and he refuses to take even the basic pills. He knows this. I told him this months ago. He refused hospital admission and walked right out of my clinic." She shook her head turning toward the corridor. "He's stabilized in room 412. He’s awake. Talk some sense into him to get him on the bed atleast for a while because if he continues like this, he won't make it to twenty-four."
Ashi walked into room dizzy.
The room was dark save for the pale glow of the vitals monitor. Keen was propped up on the bed, an oxygen cannula looped over his ears, his left arm taped down to an IV splint where clear medication dripped steadily into his skin. He looked impossibly small and translucent. When the door clicked open Keen turned his head slowly. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy with pain, but entirely lucid.
"Ashi" Keen whispered his throat felt like sandpaper.
Ashi took his time comprehending the heavy situation that was dumped on him overnight. He crossed the floor and stopped right besides the bed gripping the cold bars until his fingers ached.
"Four years" Ashi said his voice barely a breath. "Dr. Pong said you've had this for four years."
Keen didn't look away, nor did he offer an excuse. He just stared at Ashi tears threatening to fall off again before he quickly wiped it off with his free hand and looking away unable to look at his friend anymore.
"You sat across from us at the bar today, even offered to take Sea home" Ashi continued with a tremor in his voice. "And then you went home and collapsed on your kitchen floor alone because your body is killing itself"
"Ashi- please-"
"Why don't you take the medicine Keen!" Ashi’s composure shattered, tears spilling hot and fast down his cheeks as he leaned over the bed. "She said you refused the treatments! She said you walked away from the clinic! Are you trying to kill yourself? Is that what this is?!"
"No," Keen choked out, his fingers weakly curling into the flimsy hospital sheets.
“And why didn't you tell us Keen, do you not trust us?”
"No, Ashi. I- it isn't like that"
"Then why?!"
"Because I watched her!" Keen’s voice cracked, a ugly sob tore through his raw throat. A tear leaked from his eye finally. "I watched my mom, Ashi! I sat by her bed for three years while the drugs made her hair frail
and made her vomit until her ribs bruised! She lost her mind and I know she hated it. She spent every single day wishing she was dead while my father sent money from across the country so he didn't have to look at her! The treatments don't save you! They just stretch the dying out until there’s nothing left of you to bury!"
Ashi froze, the breath knocked entirely out of his lungs finally at his friend's outburst.
"I don't have anyone to hold the basin for me. I can imagine putting anyone through it" Keen wept his chest hitching against the cannula, small and broken "My dad doesn't give a damn. I can't be heartless to demand it from you guys. And Sea... God, Ashi, you know Sea. He falls apart like a lego. If he sees me like this, if he knows I'm rotting from the inside out he will drop everything. He’ll hover over this bed, he’ll suffocate in guilt, and he’ll spend the best years of his youth watching me wither away. I won't do it to him. I love him too much to make him my caretaker."
"So you'd rather make us wake up one morning and find you dead in an apartment?!" Ashi demanded, clutching the railing, his knuckles white. "You think that spares him- spares us?! It will destroy him, Keen! He will spend the rest of his life asking why you didn't trust him!"
"He won't" Keen whispered closing his eyes" Because by the time I can't stand anymore... he won't be looking at me."
Ashi stared at him, cold dread creeping down his spine. "What does that mean?"
"I'm going to find him someone," Keen murmured, his words slow and the weight finally settling down as he said it out loud for the first time."Someone stable. Someone with a whole life and a healthy body who can love him through the next thirty years. I just need to hold together long enough to see him settled. Once he has a home... he won't need me anymore. He’ll survive it and for you guys….. I can't help but spend the rest of my life appologising.
Ashi let go of the guardrail The sheer tragedy of Keen’s words suffocated the room. Keen wasn't running from death he was systematically constructing a world where his own death wouldn't leave a crater in Sea’s life trading his own survival just to build Sea a shelter.
“You don't need to do this Keen, Sea- Sea is stupid he doesn’t deserve you.” Ashi sank into the chair beside the bed, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with defeated sobs.
"You're out of your mind" Ashi wept into his palms. "You're completely out of your mind Keen."
From the bed, Keen slowly reached out his trembling, IV-taped hand, resting his fingers against Ashi’s bowed head.
“I'm sorry I didn't want you to find out like this I'm really sorry” Keen sniffled "Don't tell him Ashi" Keen pleaded softly in the dark.
"If you ever loved me if we are brothers... don't tell Sea. Let me give him this one thing."
~♡
Ashi couldn't do this alone, so he called over Aungpao. At five thirty in the morning pao, upon getting a call at such early hour from his friend, asking him to come to the hospital, panicked, only to find Ashi outside a room sitting with his head bowed down.
“Ashi?” Pao approached with a caution
When Ashi looked up his eyes were teary and bloodshot
“ what happened why are you outside a hospital room early in the morning crying” pao asked, scared
“ Keen is inside”
Aungpao froze, his hand hovering inches from Ashi’s trembling shoulder.
"What do you mean Keen is inside?" Pao whispered, his voice cracking with an edge of panic. "Did he get into an accident? Ashi talk to me."
Ashi didn't speak. He just slowly dragged both hands down his face.When he finally dropped his palms, his eyes weren't just bloodshot from lack of sleep they were shattered, completely hollowed out by a brand of grief so raw and personal that it made the breath stop in Pao’s throat.
Pao knew that look. The rest of their circle was blind to it, just as Sea was blind to Keen but Pao had spent years watching from the quiet perimeter. Everyone in the group knew Keen loved Sea, it was the tragic secret they all knew but never spoke out loud around. But Pao alone knew the other secret, the silent more agonizing secret than Keen’s love is Ashi’s own quiet love for Keen since eighteen.
Ashi had swallowed his own heart just as Keen had standing by as a stoic protector watching Keen pine after a boy who gets around like its second nature, living with obliviousness as his second nature and sometimes Ashi can’t help but get mad at Sea, but he loves Keen through every bruise and every silken lie Keen told to keep Sea smiling.
"Ashi…. Don't cry and speak to me"
"His body is killing itself Pao" Ashi rasped, his voice dropping into the sterile silence like a stone hitting bottom. "He collapsed on his kitchen floor last night. Paralyzed. He has multiple sclerosis. Diagnosed since nineteen Pao. Four years. He's had it for five fucking years."
Aungpao went dead still "No. That's bullshit."
"Go look through the glass" Ashi whispered, his voice splintering into a sob as he gestured toward the window of room 412. "Go look at him"
Pao moved on slowly, stepping up to the pane.
Inside the dim room glowing by the monitors, Keen lay tiny and translucent against the white sheets. A nasal cannula was looped over his cheeks, his left arm pinned to an intravenous line where clear steroid fluids dripped steadily into his skin..
Pao turned slowly back to Ashi, whose forehead was pressed against his knees, body shaking with all the violent tears he refused to show to Keen.
"Does Sea know" Pao asked quietly.
"No" Ashi choked out. "And Keen made me swear to God that I wouldn't tell him. He made me promise Pao. He grabbed my sleeve with the shaking hand and begged me not to ruin Sea’s peace."
"Are you serious?!" Pao hissed, stepping closer, his voice shaking with fury. "How can he say that?? Sea literally turns to Keen for everything? And us? what about you??"
Ashi lifted his head, and the expression on his face made Pao’s chest ache. There was fury in Ashi’s eyes, but under it was agony of a man watching the person he loves tear his own life out just to build a home for someone else.
"Because Keen doesn't want to live, Pao" Ashi whispered, a tear spilling over his cheek. "He gave up a long time ago. He’s running on empty, refusing the heavy infusions, refusing the hospital beds. He told me he's going to find Sea someone stable. Someone healthy who can love Sea for thirty years. He’s literally dragging himself to the grave just to make sure Sea has an anchor before he dies."Ashi let out a dry laugh
"Do you know what it felt like?" Ashi cried clutching Pao’s sleeves. "Sitting next to that bed, holding his cold hand, listening to him plan his remaining life not fighting just to make Sea comfortable? He's throwing his entire life away for an idiot who doesn't even see him Pao! And I'm just sitting there completely invisible, watching the only person I give a damn about die for someone who will never love him back!"
Pao dropped to his knees right there and wrapped his arms tightly around Ashi's shaking shoulders.
"Ashi, breathe" Pao murmured his own tears finally falling.
"I can't save him" Ashi wept into Pao’s shoulder, his fingers clutching his shirt. "He's killing himself for Sea, Pao. And he asked me to help him do it."
Pao couldn’t offer any comfort of words so he just held Ashi.
"We go inside," Pao said after a long silence, his voice steadying through sheer force of will. He gripped Ashi’s biceps, forcing the other man to lift his head. "We wash our faces, we go inside, and we’ll try to ground him ok?"
Ashi dragged his sleeve across his eyes, his breath hitching. "He’ll know. He always notices everything when it comes to us. It’s just himself he doesn't give a shit about."
The moment Keen saw Aungpao trailing a half-step behind Ashi, his face fell
"You called him" Keen whispered. It wasn't an accusation just a flat acknowledgment of defeat. "Of course I called him, You think I was going to sit here and swallow this alone?" Pao stopped at the foot of the bed "Multiple sclerosis, Keen? Four years?" Keen closed his eyes, letting his head roll back into the flat, sterile pillow. "Pao don't. I already had this fight with Ashi. I don't have the lungs for round two." "I'm not fighting you, I'm trying to understand how the hell did you hide this from us"
"What was I supposed to do Pao? Make you guys my nurses?"
"We're your friends you stubborn bastard!" Pao snapped, he felt anger unlike Ashi "You think friendship is just sharing beers when things are easy? You think we're that shallow?"
"I think none of you signed up to watch a twenty three year old die everyday " Keen said softly. "I watched it once. With my mother. It rots everything it touches. The resentment, the exhaustion……… I will not leave that behind as my legacy."
Ashi flinched as if struck, turning his face sharply toward the window to control his tears.
"And Sea?" Pao asked, his voice dropping low, testing the waters. "You think Sea would resent you?"
At the mention of Sea’s name, something fragile flickered behind Keen’s eyes before he clamped it shut. A bitter smile curled on his pale lips.
"Sea can't survive it Pao. You know that better than anyone" Keen said, his voice barely carrying. "If Sea finds out he won't resent me he’ll destroy himself. He’ll stop living"
“So you destroy yourself?”
Keen lifted his good hand and pointed it towards the drawer.
"My phone is in the drawer" Keen whispered. "Check it." Pao frowned, stepping around the bed to slide the drawer open. He lifted Keen’s phone and tapped the screen.
There were four missed calls and a string of unread messages from Sea, sent between 2:00 AM and 4:30 AM.
Sea (02:14): Did you make it back okay?
Sea (02:40): Jan left her umbrella in my car. Do you think that means she wants me to see her tomorrow or did she just forget it? Call me when you wake up.
Sea (04:15): Keen? You're usually awake reading.
Sea (04:30): Whatever, sleep well. Don't forget we're getting noodles at noon.
Pao stared at the illuminated screen, the bright, trivial concerns of an oblivious boy contrast to Keen’s life in a ward. "He doesn't know because he doesn't look" Pao said, a sudden, bitter edge cutting into his voice. "He doesn't look because I never let him see" Keen countered immediately "And that's how it's going to stay. Pao, Ashi... please. I can’t fight you guys anymore I’m begging you please let me do this" Keen reached across the bed, his trembling fingers holding Ashi’s hands. Ashi didn't pull away his whole body went rigid under the contact, his eyes wide. "Ashi" Keen pleaded, his voice breaking into a thin childish tone. "Please I’m really sorry that you guys need to see me like this, I didn’t want it to be this way I wanted to be gone silently, but now that you guys know I can’t help but appologise"
Ashi looked down at Keen’s hand on his wrist,at the purple bruises bloom-patterned beneath the pale skin, at the fragile bones of a boy he would have burned the entire world to save. Ashi swallowed the blood in his own mouth, his voice hoarse
"Its ok Keen…. And I won’t tell Sea" Ashi lied to his own heart. "I promise."
Pao looked at Ashi like he saw a ghost. Ashi looked back at him with a pleading look in his eyes that screamed “Play along”
“I promise too Keen” Pao swallowed
Keen slumped back into the pillows exhaling a sigh of relief, entirely blind to the tear that rolled down Ashi’s cheek.
~♡
3 weeks later happened a miracle. His name was Paul, and he was unlike anyone Sea had ever fallen into before. He was a final year architect student, calm, remarkably grounded and incredibly cute.
For the first time, Sea changed. He stopped staying out until four in the morning chasing noise in the club. He learned to listen without fidgeting, started keeping groceries in the fridge in case he needs to host a anxious exam preparing Paul. Watching Paul reach across a dinner table to casually catch Sea’s wrist grounding one of Sea's frantic gestures with an effortless, patient smile and watching Sea soften into it with a peaceful surrender Keen had never seen in him. It shattered Keen’s heart into fine dust. Yet, beneath the agony, an immense, hollow relief settled in. Paul was the harbor Keen could never be. Paul had sturdy, healthy hands that wouldn't tremble with weakness, a steady heart that wouldn't fail, and decades of quiet mornings to offer.
Six months in, sitting on the balcony of Sea’s apartment sharing tea, Keen took a sip and sighed before starting.
"Paul's the one you know" Keen said casually, flicking a loose pebble through the iron grating. "You’ve never looked this steady. Why don't you just marry him?"
Sea choked on his tea, coughing in surprise, but the heat rising up his neck wasn't embarrassment or defensiveness. It was shy, hopeful, and entirely real. Sea stared at Keen with wide, searching eyes, completely missing the strain around Keen's before breaking into a bright grin. "You really think so Keen? You don't think I'd mess it up?"
"You won't" Keen replied, smiling until his jaw ached. "Lock it down before he realizes he's out of your league." The conversation felt like a quiet triumph for Keen’s plan until three nights later, when Ashi and Pao cornered him, this time with Ken, Keen's office mate.
"Are you completely out of your fucking mind, Keen?" Pao snapped, whirling around before Keen could even take off his coat.
Keen blinked, keeping his expression carefully blank as a familiar chill crept over his skin. "What are you talking about?"
"Sea called us," Ashi said, his voice trembling"He told us you two were talking about rings. He said you brought it up. That you told him to propose to Paul. What the hell are you doing?"
"I gave my best friend good advice" Keen said, keeping his voice smooth and detached "Paul is wonderful for him. He makes Sea happy."
"Don't give us that martyr bullshit!" Pao slammed an open palm onto the kitchen counter, the crack vibrating through the small apartment. "Everyone in this group has watched you bleed for that idiot for seven years! Seven years, Keen! We kept our mouths shut because we thought you were just waiting for him to grow up, waiting for your chance. And now the second he finally matures with someone, you hand him off to Paul and push him down the aisle yourself?" "You love him" Ashi choked out, closing the distance and gripping Keen’s upper arms, her fingers digging through his sweater. "It is written all over you every single time he breathes near you. It kills you, Keen. It is literally eating you alive, and you're helping him plan a wedding? Why won't you just tell him? Why do you insist on torturing yourself?"
"Paul can give him thirty years," Keen said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I can't even give him five. Let him have a life that won't end in a cemetery."
"Then you fight it!" Pao snarled, his voice cracking, tears finally spilling over his lashes. "You don't just roll over and pick out rings for another man! There are specialists, clinical trials, hospitals we have savings, we can pool everything! I just didn't understand this from the start, from that hospital room Keen. You can't just throw your hands up and wait to die!"
"Pao, stop" Keen whispered, trying to pull away, but his balance wavered, his limbs feeling like wet clay.
"I won't stop!" Pao shook him, desperate, furious. "You're throwing your life away because of Sea! You think dying in the dark is noble? It's cowardice, Keen! You're letting yourself rot so you don't have to face the mess of being loved!"
"You think I want this?" The sound ripped out of Keen’s chest not a shout, but a fractured, ragged sob that tore through years of silence. His knees buckled under the weight of it, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud. Pao reached out to catch him, but Keen curled inward, burying his face in his trembling hands, completely coming apart.
"You think I haven't tried?" Keen wept, the tears burning hot and suffocating down his hollow cheeks, dripping through his fingers. "I went alone. I lay in that German ward for three weeks vomiting bile and shivering so hard my teeth cracked, and the doctors looked at me like I was already dead. I am empty, Pao. There is nothing left in me to fight with."
Ashi dropped to her knees beside him, wrapping his arms around his shaking shoulders, burying her face in his sweater as he cried with him.
Keen gripped the fabric of Pao’s jeans like a drowning man, his vision blurring behind a thick veil of tears. "Every day I wake up and I taste blood," Keen choked out, his voice reduced to a desperate, broken whimper. "Every day it hurts to breathe. If I fight, all I'm doing is buying six more months of lying in an ICU bed with tubes down my throat, making Sea watch me dissolve. I can't do it to him. I love him too much to make him watch that. Just let me have this. Let me give him this one clean thing before I go. I already told you this"
The room drowned in their quiet, shared sobs. Pao sank down to the floor with them, pulling both of them into a tight, suffocating embrace, pressing his forehead against Keen’s trembling temple. Ken didn’t utter a word, traumatised enough with the scene, he quietly joined the hug.
There were no more arguments left. Keen's tears had washed away any illusion that this could be fixed with anger or defiance. They held him until the shaking stopped, until Keen’s breathing grew dangerously thin and quiet, mourning him right there on the floor while his heart was still beating.
In the end, they let him have his way. They didn't bring up the clinics or the doctors again they simply carried the crushing weight in silence, standing by as the wedding preparations rushed forward. Pao on the other hand carried both Ashi and Keen.
The next three months blurred into a haze of white ribbon, catered menus, and tailored suits. Ashi, Ken and Pao moved through the rehearsals with tight, guarded smiles, their eyes darting to Keen every time he cleared his throat or leaned too heavily against a wall. Keen showed up for every single appointment Sea needed him for. He stood by as Paul adjusted Sea’s tie in the fitting room mirror, watching Paul’s calm cute remarks steady Sea’s nervous laughter. Every smile Sea directed at Paul carved Keen’s insides out with a dull blade, but Keen held his head high, smiling through the ache, entirely committed to finishing the only gift he had left to give.
~♡
Keen was distracted during his suit appointment.
“Earth to Keen you look dead” Sea Joked
"I'm just admiring the view. Never thought I’d see this day." Sea laughed, that bright, bell-clear sound that had lived in Keen’s marrow for a decade. Then Sea’s expression softened, the flippancy melting into something embarrassingly sincere. He reached over and caught Keen’s hand, giving it an uncharacteristically tight, grounding squeeze.
"I need you right next to me, Keen" Sea said, his voice dropping to a quiet register meant only for the two of them. "Not Ashi. Not anyone else. You’re the reason I even believed I could do this without setting the house on fire. I need you with me. The gold bands were already burning a hole through Keen's thoughts. "You know I wouldn't be anywhere else" Keen murmured, his smile steady even as his tongue tasted faintly of zinc and iron.
Two days later, the reality of that promise fractured.
Keen sat on the edge of the examination table, his hands folded neatly between his knees to hide the tremor in his fingers. "How long?"
"A four-week admission. Minimum" his doctor uttered, tapping the schedule planner on her desk. "We admit you Monday. You stay tethered to the lines, on strict bed rest, until we get the inflammation stabilized. If we wait Keen, you won't make it to summer."
Keen’s gaze drifted to the small calendar sitting beside her monitor.
The dates overlapped with precise cruelty. Monday was the seventeenth. Sea and Paul’s wedding was set for the twenty-third. If he entered that sterile ward, he would be hooked to an intravenous drip eighty miles away, bloated and feverish behind quarantine curtains, while Sea stood at the altar turning his head, searching for the friend who had promised to stand by his side.
"Give me another prescription" Keen said quietly. "Double the dose."
"Did you hear a word I just said?" Doctor leaned forward, her knuckles white against the desk. "Steroid bursts won't hold this back anymore. You are drowning in your own inflammation. A month in a hospital bed is your only medical option!"
He looked at the doctor with eyes entirely devoid of fear, filled only with a serene, immovable stubbornness.
"I have an appointment on the twenty-third" Keen said, rising slowly, his hand resting on the edge of the examination table just long enough to steady his spinning vision. "I will not miss it."
He walked out of the clinic leaving his survival chances on the counter. The fire in his chest was spreading, hot and suffocating, but the wedding was only five days away. He only needed his body to hold together for one hundred and twenty more hours.
~♡
The air on the balcony smelled of rain. Inside the venue’s party hall, laughter and clinking champagne glasses vibrated through the air, but out here, forty-eight hours before the ceremony, the world felt narrow and cold.
Sea was leaning over the marble, loosening his collar until his throat was bare. He wasn't smiling. An unexplainable stillness sat within him. A footstep approached him
"Keen" Sea murmured, staring down into the courtyard below without turning around. "Do you ever feel like foreign in your own skin? Your own mind?"
"You’re marrying Paul, Sea. It’s water. Warm, quiet water. He is the safest thing that has ever happened to you."
"I know" Sea said, his voice dropping, thinned by a confusion that sounded almost childlike. "I love Paul. He's kind. He makes the noise in my head stop. But ever since we locked the date... Keen, it feels like I’m leaving pieces of my own behind. It feels like something is dragging my heels backward. Like the second I say the words, I’m locking myself in our house leaving something behind outside."
Keen felt the blood rush cold in his ears, a silent scream catching in his throat. He dug his fingernails into his palms until the crescents bit through skin.
"It's just nerves" Keen lied, the words tasting like poison on his tongue. "You’ve spent your whole life sprinting, Sea. Being still is just terrifying for you. Don't look back. You look at Paul, and you walk forward."
Sea turned then, his dark eyes wide searching, desperate for a answer in Keen's dazed eyes."
The wind ruffled Sea’s hair across his temple, and he looked so young, so painfully fragile, standing there in a tailored suit that made him look like a stranger playing dress-up.
"Is that all it is to you?" Sea whispered, his chin trembling, a tear catching in the corner of his lash. "Just nerves? Keen, look at me. Don't look at the floor. Talk to me"
Keen couldn't hold the distance. He never could with Sea.He lifted his hand careful, slow, fighting the subtle tremor in his fingers and gently tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind Sea’s ear. His touch was warm, impossibly gentle, carrying the same quiet rhythm he had used on kitchen floors and hospital corridors since they were kids.
"I am looking at you" Keen said, his voice dropping to a fragile hush. "I'm always looking at you Sea."
“Something feels wrong Keen, fix it for me please” Sea whispered childlike. Keen held him closer running a comforting arm against his back
This was the problem.
The realization hit Sea like a cold wind, though his mind couldn't name the shape of it yet. Whenever Sea pictured growing old, he realized with a terrifying jolt that he had never once visualized Paul sitting across from him on the porch. When he imagined waking up forty years from now, with bad knees and gray hair, the hands he pictured making tea were Keen’s. The voice he expected to hear in the quiet halls was Keen’s. The only person whose approval made him feel steady, whose absence made his chest cave in, wasn't the man waiting inside with a golden ring it was the boy in front of him right now. Paul is safe, Sea’s mind spun frantically, tangled in its own grief. Paul is good. So why does saying his name feel like a rehearsal, but looking at Keen feels like my whole life? Sea tried to hold all this within thinking its just friendship, the familiarity of Keen doing all this since they were kids. But he was restless
"Keen..." Sea breathed, his knuckles turning white against Keen’s coat, his chest heaving as if the air had run out. "When I walk down that aisle... who sits on the rug when I can't sleep? Who knows how to untangle my thoughts? Paul is... he's great, but he doesn't know the dark parts. You do. How am I supposed to build an entire life with someone else when you're the only one who has ever lived in the center of mine?" Keen swallowed down the blood in his throat, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He gave Sea a small, smile, the most selfless mask he had left and softly pinched the bridge of Sea’s nose, grounding him just as he had done for a decade.
“My boba boy” Keen murmured, holding Sea's trembling arm, gulping down all the truth, every ounce of his marrow screaming in silent revolt.
"You’re on the right path choosing Paul, don't think too much."
I love you. I have loved you since the day you came crying to me to fix things. Please choose me.
His insides screamed the words until his throat felt bloody, but on the outside, Keen stayed as still as a carved stone. A stray drop of tear broke over Sea’s lashes and fell. Keen gently reached up with his thumb, wiping it off Sea’s cheek while his own tears spilled metaphorically behind his eyes, burning him from the inside out.
“I'll be next to you tomorrow, Sea” Keen whispered softly, letting his palm linger against Sea’s cheek for one final, stolen beat. “Front row. Right where you can see me.”
On the morning of the wedding, the cathedral chapel was bathed in pale amber light through high stained glass. The scent of white lilies was overpowering, thick and heavy, cloying in Keen’s failing lungs like damp wool.
Keen stood at the head of the altar, draped in charcoal wool, his fingers locked tightly around the small velvet box inside his pocket. His vision had been strobing in gray vignettes since noon the double-dose had finally abandoned him, leaving his vascular walls porous and hemorrhaging quietly beneath the fine weave of his dress shirt. He just needed three more minutes. Just until the rings were exchanged. Just until the vow was spoken.
Beside him stood Paul, with a practiced smile. Paul’s eyes were not on the minister. They had been on Keen since the organ began to play. Paul had observed the fine tremor in Keen, the ghastly gray tone beneath his makeup, the shallow, desperate hitches of his shoulders every time he inhaled. Paul had watched Sea during their six-month engagement, always catching the subtle tilt of Sea’s head toward Keen’s seat at dinner, the way Sea’s laughter only ever felt complete once Keen looked up to validate it. Paul wasn't blind he knew when a person was being held up by a load-bearing support.
Sea reached the altar, glowing in ivory, a tentative smile curling on his lips as he took Paul’s hands.
"Dearly beloved" the officiant began.
A wet, muffled cough tore out of Keen.
It was not a clearing of the throat. It was a violent, convulsive spasm that doubled him in two. Keen pressed a white linen handkerchief to his mouth, trying desperately to swallow down the flood, but the fate had other plans.
The velvet box slipped from his grip, rolling across the stone.
"Keen?" Sea’s voice cracked, the ceremonial trance vanishing instantly.
Keen tried to force his spine straight, tried to smile, tried to mouth I’m okay, but the room pitched sideways into total blackness. His knees folded like paper, and his body slammed down against the marble.
"Keen!"
~