Chapter 4: Typhoon and Hurricane

15th August 2015

“The obsession toward the certain type of comic or the faceless male subject is no longer aggressive or compulsive. Patient is slowly gaining back his normal behavior, prior to the event. However last night around 1200 am, patient was seen running down the west wing hallway yelling out a name: ‘Max’, but has no recollection of doing so the next day. But patient did confirm that ‘Max’ is not the male subject in his dream. This incident only happened once.”

Doctor Kim’s patient journal – Lee DongHae’s record no.16

11th May, 1990

DongHae woke up, noticed that he was lying on one of the hospital bed. The familiar smell of atheistic flew into his nose making the brunette grimaced. He didn’t like the it, it made him felt uncomfortable. He sat up, tried to bring his hand up to wipe his face only to realize that someone else was holding onto his hand. The brunette was surprised to see that it was HyukJae, the platinum blond was sleeping soundly while the male hand was tightly wrapped around his. His eyes were red and puffy from crying too much. DongHae cringed looking at his lover in pain like this, but he knew this pain was unavoidable. There was no death that didn’t bring sadness and tears. He was going to brush his hand into HyukJae’s soft locks when he noticed that there was someone at the door. It was Isabelle. To say DongHae felt happy that the girl opening up to him was an exaggeration, but he was confused as to why the girl would be here. Isabelle walked up him, her red braids popping up and down as she walked.

DongHae sat there; hand hovered on top of HyukJae’s head. Something about her stare that bind DongHae down to his spot, he couldn’t even move a finger. Isabelle stopped walking when she reached the end of the bed. The ginger girl stared at him into his eyes as she softly said, loud enough for DongHae to hear but not enough to wake HyukJae up.

               “Don’t think about it.”

                “What?” DongHae asked back, his eyebrows rose in question of the girl’s strange advice. Don’t think about what?

                 “When you start thinking about it, you’ll leave HyukJae.”

Didn’t give DongHae a replied, Isabelle walked out of the room. Leaving the brunette behind, mind burnt with questions. He didn’t understand what Isabelle was talking about it, those cryptic words made DongHae felt uneasy because of the three words in Isabelle’s ambiguous advice, ‘you’ll leave HyukJae’. Those words echoed in DongHae’s mind, it taunted him. Crunching his eyebrows together DongHae tried to remember what was he thinking about before then. He realized, it had to relate to last night as well as today, with this overwhelming apprehension of loosing HyukJae. His mind raced to pierce everything together, and when it clicked, the word flew of his mouth before he could control it:

                  “Yunho”

                   “Hm?”

It seemed like he had woken the beautiful male next to him, HyukJae rubbed his eyes before his face was filled with relief as he hugged DongHae tightly. In less than five seconds, DongHae could feel his shirt getting wet. He wrapped his hand around the slim figure, as if he was reassuring HyukJae that he was here, and he wouldn’t go anywhere else. He could feel the male’s body vibrated in his hold; HyukJae must had been so scared. To see Max gone and found DongHae unconscious in the garden right afterward. Rubbing his hands up and down HyukJae’s spine, he kept on repeat the two words “I’m here” again and again until HyukJae stopped sobbing. Only then HyukJae freed himself from DongHae’s embrace to looked at the older male in his eyes.

            “Thank god, you’re okay. I was so scared. I thought something had happened to you.”

            “I’m alright, I’m sorry that I made you worried.”

Gently touching the younger male cheek, DongHae apologized for scaring HyukJae. He saw HyukJae leaned in for a kiss of which the brunette was more than happy to comply. The kiss was desperate; it was full of tears and agitation. It was almost as if HyukJae was kissing him to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming, to make sure that DongHae wasn’t going anywhere. It broke DongHae’s heart feeling the kiss and he remembered something. Whenever he thought about Yunho, about his family in Korea it brought him an excruciating pain that almost took him away from here, from HyukJae. He thought to himself, he should listen to Isabelle and stopped thinking about Yunho or Korea. He should just think about HyukJae. Suddenly he felt a cool hand inside his shirt and quickly grabbed it, he looked at HyukJae and shook his head. The blond lowered his head in disappointment and disheartened motion.

            “You don’t like it?”

DongHae’s heart cringed at HyukJae’s heartache question. He hastily pulled HyukJae into a soft kiss, before hugging the male. His hand ruffled the male’s blond hair, he said tenderly:

            “I like it, I want it. But it’s not today. You have been through enough for the day. There will be time for this, and I can ensure you at that time even if you don’t want it, it will still happen.”

DongHae smirked as he saw HyukJae blushed at his last words, the male nodded and buried his head into DongHae chest. Rubbing his blond hair into the crook of DongHae’s neck. He heard and felt HyukJae murmured:

            “What will happen when your volunteer times here ended? Does that mean you’ll leave me?”

            “No. We’ll make it work.” DongHae shook his head while, holding on to the blond slowly lying back to the bed, letting HyukJae rested his head on DongHae’s chest. He said with uttermost confident in his voice. He would make it work for HyukJae, no matter what happen.

            “Promise?”

            “I promised.” 

***

They buried ChangMin three days after, despite the new name, ChangMin’s real name was the one engraved onto the tombstone. Maximilien Kincaid, born February 18th, 1980 – died May 10th, 1990. An epitaph was also engraved onto the grave, it was chosen by KyuHyun if DongHae had to be frank, he wasn’t surprised when he saw the boy chose the quote: “Death is not a foe, but an evitable adventure.” But what surprised DongHae was that there was no relatives at the funeral. The only attended were everybody in the hospital, no outside relatives.

It was then the harsh reality in HyukJae’s words about the real purpose of this hospital hit DongHae. All the patients in this hospital weren’t just here to enjoy the few last moments of their life. The real reason for them being here were because their loved ones left them here to die in solitude. It was like a nursing home but in a more twisted ways that disgusted DongHae.  All of sudden he admired all the people who worked here. They weren’t related to any of the people here, but they devoted their time to be here, so that none of the patient here had to go through such lonesome deaths.

DongHae had never felt so ignorant like he was feeling at that moment. He had lived a happy and uncaring life; not knowing such cruelty existed until he came here. He saw out of everyone, KyuHyun took the death the hardness. The boy became secluded after ChangMin was gone. No more pranks, no more talks, KyuHyun became a shadow behind HyukJae most of the time. It was as if because ChangMin was gone, KyuHyun’s only love one left was HyukJae.

And the thought of loosing HyukJae too, frightened KyuHyun. To the point that the kid would refused to go back to room 8 with DongHae. If it was around two weeks ago, DongHae would swore that he wouldn’t kept HyukJae always from this ten years old devil in disguise but seeing KyuHyun like how he was at the moment, he couldn’t do it. He told HyukJae to transfer the ten years old into the blond room. 

About a month later DongHae could say he had grown accustomed to the lifestyle here. His usual routine to the hospitals, or the nightly dates with HyukJae around the streets. He had even moved into HyukJae’s house so that his university wouldn’t have to pay his rent for him. DongHae was sure that his university was more than happy to do so. He would say life was pretty much perfect, he got the cutest boyfriend, his job at the hospital was teaching him more experience than he would ever imagine. It was like after twenty-two years DongHae’s eyes were opened for the first time.

He loved every little moment of the secret dates they had together, how they tried to tease each other underneath the table, by subtly brushing their legs together. How they would deliberately waited till the last minute to cross the road, in order to have a chance to hold each other hand and run to the other side. Or how they would talk but in passing all those little innuendos that only they could understand. In people eyes, they were the best of friends, they were brothers, but when HyukJae’s house closed they were something else. They were something more.

***

The brunette groaned as he woke up, his body stirred slightly, a smile broke out on his face when he saw the figure next to him. He saw the blond groaned at the sunlight while tried to snuggle closer to him. He felt Hyukjae was hugging him tight, brushing his platinum locks onto the crook of his neck. It was ticklish, but he enjoyed it. Chuckling at his lover adorable actions, his chest rumbled slightly earning a whiny groan from the male, whose still refused to open his eyes. Brushing a few loose strands off HyukJae’s forehead, he thought about the time he asked HyukJae about Korea. He still remembered Erica had told him that HyukJae had never been to Korea. It slightly surprised DongHae, since the male was Korean and HyukJae did speak perfect Korean.

                     “You never been to Korea?” _HyukJae turned around at DongHae, slightly surprised at the question. The blond looked at DongHae, scratching his head before answering.

                    “It was expensive, flying. My grandfather and his entire family migrated here when WW1 ended. My mum married my dad here and we never came back to Korea. Despite the fact that I can speak and look Korean, I was born and raised here.” _There was a hint of regret in HyukJae’s voice, it was opaque but DongHae saw it. He placed a small kiss onto the blond temple.       

                     “One day, I’ll take you back to Korea.” _Hyukjae’s eye lit up as soon as the words left DongHae’s mouth. He shot right up, hugged his boyfriend tightly, a childlike grin appeared on the blond face.

                      “Really? Will you take me to Gwanghwamun Square.” _DongHae chuckled, he cupped HyukJae’s cheek, placing a b