Written with Isadora_Quagmire

Jonghyun stared at the billion blades of grass around him, stared at the grains of soil it grew out of, dried up from the summer heat. He stared at the path of a lethargic earthworm, tracing his eyes along its slow progress beside his little finger, lifting his palm away and making a tunnel for the insect. Just like he used to as a kid.

He stared at time tick and tick and tick on his wrist like that’s all it could do, that’s all it was capable of. But no, he corrected himself. Time does more than just tick. The sun began to set before him. Children were called back by worried parents, picnic blankets were folded away, cars were reversed carefully out of the parking lot, ready to make their way downhill and back to the city. Time does so much more than just pass.

"It’s been three months," he said to amber light as it slid down the front of his knees, bringing velvet night in its trail. And really, the back of his mind told him it’s been more than just three months. Kibum calling his name behind him said it’s been more than just three months, twelve days, nineteen hours and a few minutes since Jonghyun told his best friend he loved him.

Three months, twelve days, nineteen hours and a few minutes since he had his heart handed back to him with the packaging still unopened.

"Jonghyun-ah. I'll never understand your fascination with minutiae. Everything you do, you measure in these tiny segments. Cataloged and boxed up into digestible units of time and quantity. Why do you do that?"

When Kibum is restless, he starts to nitpick. It's his own way of breaking life down. For Jonghyun, it is the ticking of time and the markers of its passing journey. Kibum, though, loves lists.

"I guess it's just another of your obsessions. Like your German industrial dance albums on vinyl. Seriously, what is that about? And the Bearbrick keychains. You don't even use them. You still have the Black Butler keychain I picked out for you that the anime shop last year. One more thing to collect I suppose." With an exasperated sigh, Kibum stopped talking, instead choosing to lie on the blanket beside Jonghyun.

"Obsession is a dirty word. Devotion is better. I love without reason or rhyme but my devotion, that can be counted on. That's why I'm are here." Jonghyun's eyes glazed over with exhaustion. Sleep was rare when you've spent your time chasing the dawn and dusk. But that's the magic hour when the veil between spirit and living is lifted. And Jonghyun would never miss a one.

Everything was in between, in fact. Like how his own body felt at ease and sick at the same time; that insistent press in his ribcage telling him he was ill beyond repair but the breeze playing with his hair contradicting otherwise. Kibum, too was a wedge between two worlds. Because there he was, right beside Jonghyun. But there he was, not close enough.

"I should've brought my guitar," Jonghyun suggested, then twisted a little to see Kibum smile at the clouds. If he could, he'd stretch up and lay his ears to the man's chest with incomparable contentment. If he could, he'd jump and run away from here because it hurts so bad to just watch from a distance.

"I could've sung for you."

"It's a really nice sky today," Kibum spoke over him. "So clear and quiet. I like this kind of sky. I like it when it's not too sunny and not too rainy. And it's not going to snow for another month or so. It's the perfect color, don't you think so? Not too blue, not too grey, just the right hint of orange and--"

"Bummie..." Jonghyun mumbled, daring to pull the hem of the other's shirt. "Listen to me sing a little..."

The arm lifts up, and a knife-like gaze flicks to Jonghyun's face.

Kibum had a way of cutting Jonghyun to the quick that never failed to amaze him. There wasn't any defense Jonghyun could mount to the assault on his person. It left him bare. before Kibum.

"As much as you hate it, bear with me. I probably won't be able to do this again. Lucky for you." A cheerless laugh at his private joke then silence. It seemed so easy to ask but harder to act. Still, the cold sweat signaled a need for haste. It had to be now.

It was a nasally falsetto that Kibum had never been fond of, but it drifted into a rich tenor with dips into deep baritone. Mournful notes accenting a love never realized still throbbing with want. Where words were inadequate, the tremor in his throat sang tears into the melody and with a last breath he wept. Because Jonghyun was a crier.

Kibum tutted once, loudly, before sitting up and enveloping Jonghyun in a tight hug.

It felt like the cruelest prank, disbanding all of Jonghyun's safeguards against the other. He found his hands clawing through Kibum's sweater, his chin digging a place in the curve of Kibum's neck, his soul leaking out to spill onto Kibum's shoulders. Maybe if he had more control of himself he would've climbed up on Kibum's lap, too. And it was so cruel, because none of it was permanent. Nothing was permanent-- not even Jonghyun himself.

Kibum scrubbed his palm on the back of Jonghyun's scalp. "You know why I said no that day... don't you?" He parted away and cupped Jonghyun's cheek carefully. "You know, right?"

He sobbed and scrunched up the front of Kibum's clothes in his fists, shaking his head at the checkered pattern of their long-faded picnic blanket.

"I know. I knew before I said it." And he did. Jonghyun knew Kibum could never return his love. But that's the funny thing about a heart. It doesn't work in reason, doesn't care about reciprocity. It just loves until the seams burst and the tide of emotion overrules every defense.

Jonghyun was unable contain himself and in the heat of that moment, he'd confessed. A million times, he wanted to take it back. Stuff it back inside and wait for a better time, maybe forever. But in that million regrets was the lone spot of relief. The pressure in his chest receding like a seeping balloon allowed him to finally breath deep.

But he didn't know that the puncture of that warm sack that cradled his tender heart at night would leave him empty. Now the useless organ clanged against the brittle walls of his ribs. Sobbing in front of his love, the rattle echoed in his ears fights the rising volume of his cries. Still...he wanted to hear Kibum say it. Just one more time. Until the husk of his heart completely died, he still held hope that maybe this time, Kibum won't kill him again.

Kibum let out a little laugh. "Where did we meet, Jjongie?" he asked, smoothing down the other's ruffled hair. He leaned the top of his head between Kibum's collarbones, feeling a hand draw ellipses on his back.

The hospital ward had smelled like Dettol and watered plants. The air had been humid and slightly sweet to take in. Or perhaps that was just a side-effect of the surgery he'd been through sometime earlier. He remembered groaning and shifting off his back for the first time in weeks, maybe even months--he'd lost track of how long he'd been bedridden.

He remembered seeing candle-shaped fingers holding up a newspaper. He remembered fox-like eyes skimming over the paragraphs. He remembered them momentarily moving to take him in and cutting him for the very first time. "So you're alive," the shapely mouth had said. "That's some good news, I suppose. Didn't want to give my lung to someone who couldn't accept it with some gratitude..."

Jonghyun crept his hand to his front, not feeling the scar through the thick fabric but knowing a part of Kibum pumped life inside him. "We met when you saved my life," he said.

Kibum hummed. "And what happened after that?"

Still living in that memory, Jonghyun remembers the fever in his body rise at the sight of that perfect boy speaking in dulcet tones only for him. Barely registering words, Jonghyun couldn't respond to the other with his weak voice. Instead he stared until the boy spoke again.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" They studied each other a bit longer before the door to Jonghyun's hospital room opened and the nurse came to his bed side. It shouldn't have mattered how close she was as she checked his blood pressure and adjusted his IV bags. And it didn't really...until her shuffling found her occupying the same space where Kibum sat. Like little more than a breeze she blew through Kibum while the he neither panicked nor flinched. All Jonghyun could do was gape, since acknowledging the strange phenomenon was too much for his weakened state to handle.

"Who... are you?" Jonghyun had asked in the haze of medication and morphine. Repeating the question had given him no relief, only a bout of coughing. The man on the other bed had simply stared a moment longer before returning to daily news. "P-please sir..." Jonghyun had begged, suddenly struck sleepless. "Who are you? What is--where is this place?"

A set of violins had played him a sad dirge but he'd restlessly tossed and turned till the ceiling filled with mirrors and reflected him back in half-death. Sunken eyes, sunken cheeks, paled face. The doctor and nurses flew around his bed in a quick battle against his ailment. He'd let them tug him forwards and backwards like a mother rocking her child's cradle. He'd let them cut him open and sew him shut again and and again and again...

He'd had to sing to himself to ensure he was alive.

"That's a beautiful lullaby..." Kibum had complimented, offering his thigh as a pillow. "I could sleep to it forever." Jonghyun had felt a hand slipping over his scalp then, just as he did now. He sobbed harder at the memory, sliding his palms under the other's sweater to gather the heat into himself.

"You lost me when I died saving you, Jjongie."