“In reality, there is nothing really wrong with his body: he is a healthy young man with great strength in his muscles. The only thing that is keeping him from waking up it’s his mind: he is probably still in a state of complete shock and doesn’t want to face reality right now”

Between Chanyeol and Jongin, only the first man was listening to the doctor; the dancer was looking at the floor, outlining the edge of a tile with his tired eyes, scratching his right hand with his nails. His head was empty, the tears had long melted his every thought and emotion, leaving only the hem of what he was before.

Kyungsoo’s parents had come and gone the day before and they would have returned that day, not even looking at Jongin or Chanyeol, wrapped in their own grief, drowned in their own tears.

“You can’t really stay here any longer, you are not part of the family, but don’t worry: we’ll take good care of him until he’s ready to wake up”

And so they were pushed out of the hospital. Chanyeol threw his head to the sky and exhaled loudly, exhausted. How could this have happened? He knew Kyungsoo’s parents were very traditional, but he would have never predicted an outcome like that. Turning his head to Jongin, he could see that he was broken, not in his body, but in his soul.

They were so happy together: two very calm young men, connected by something that only could be seen with their eyes closed, like a fil rouge but even stronger. Saviors, they were saviors to one another, not really wanting to be so, but even then preventing each other from falling from the clouds they were living on. And now Kyungsoo had fallen, leaving him alone.

He knew all about loneliness, giving what he had gone through after been kicked out of his own house, but he had had Kyungsoo to lean on. The singer had dried all his tears, accepted all his suffering while bearing his own, not complaining once. He wanted to be that for Jongin, but he knew he wouldn’t let him.

“Jongin…”

“I’m going home”

His voice was hollow, devoid of any emotions, making Chanyeol preoccupy even more, but what could he do? Stop him wasn’t the answer, nor letting him go. Conflicted as he was, he ended up doing nothing, waving him goodbye.

He was still looking at the road, in the direction were his friend had long disappeared when his phone buzzed.

“Chan, how is he doing today?”

Baekhyun had come the day before, shedding a single, devastating tear on Kyungsoo’s white cheek. He didn’t want to show it, but he was deeply affected by what had happened.

“Same as yesterday. The doctor said he isn’t waking up because he doesn’t want to and that, fortunately, there is nothing wrong with his health. In this moment, I’m more worried about Jongin: he is out of his mind and I don’t know what he could do in that condition”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that too. I don’t know what I would do if you were the one in the white bed and given how clumsy you are, it’s only a matter of time before that happens”

On a normal day, Chanyeol would have scoffed Baekhyun with a laugh, but he was to tense to do that, so he replied with his rare serious tone.

“I promise I’ll never make you worry like that, not until I’m gone”

A moment, a pulse of the heart, a murmur of the wind, a pause for silence.

“I love you Chanyeol”

“I love you too”

Sehun was reading a book on his bed while Luhan was sleeping cuddled like a puppy right next to him. From the day they had met in real life, they had become inseparable, like two halves of the same painting. How could they have waited that much time before? How could he have been afraid? Just by looking at his delicate face he could feel his stomach pirouetting in his chest like a dancer. His kisses were a blessing directly from the sky above that he didn’t want to let go, nor would he ever do.

Taking a break from his book, he reached out for Luhan’s neck, moving aside his golden hair and accidentally waking him up.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to”

Luhan blinked twice then scratched his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, yawing deeply.

“You…” whispered Sehun with heart eyes “you look exactly like Vivi”

“Say who?” replied the half asleep boy.

“My dog. She lives with my mom now, but she is the most adorable thing in the world”

“So you say I look like your dog?” said Luhan, jokingly arching his brow.

Sehun thought about what he had said, then stared at him with a tight mouth.

“You know that was not what I meant”

Luhan burst out laughing, falling down on the bed again. He was always trying to look cool in front the people around him, but with Sehun he could just be himself and laugh all he wanted, even for silly things like that one.

That moment of delicacy was interrupted when someone rang the bell at Sehun’s house. The young man got up and switched on the intercom.

“Who is this?”

“Sehun, can I come in?”

It was Jongin’s voice, he was sure, but something was not right: not only he had missed yesterday lectures without telling him, but his tone was totally wrong, corrupted, so he immediately let him in. joined by Luhan in the kitchen, he listened to his friend as he told the heartbreaking story from the beginning with an alarming neutral voice.

Neither Sehun nor Luhan knew what to say to comfort him, because there was really nothing to say. He had been rejected, the hard way, and now he had even lost his beloved, even if not forever. His heart might had shattered in pieces, like a broken mirror. The only thing they could do was taking his hand, one each, and held it tight, to make him know there were there for him, that he was not alone.

“My dream boy…” was the only thing he manadged to say afterward, before collapsing on the sofa by sleep deprivation.

The dream boy…

When you cut lose every tie you have with the ground, no weight is holding you back anymore. Maybe that is why humans have lost their ability to fly long time ago, but Kyungsoo certainly knew didn’t forget. The sky was his domain, clouds his palaces; a whole palette of colors at his command, changing depending on his mood and his thoughts.

Did he want to go back? Maybe, but he didn’t want to think about it. There were to many variables to count in, too many feelings that could only break his heart another time and he didn’t want to stop breathing again. He wanted to be stranger than that but he didn’t know how. Muscles? They were easy to exercise, but you mind? How can you make it steadier, more in control?

That was the question he was not able to answer, but there were many others more terrifying than that. He could let himself think about Jongin, or worst, his father.

That look had been printed in his memories forever; he had let him down, but not only that: he was never going to regret was he had done because he knew he was right. He loved him, he finally knew that and he didn’t want to let go of any part of that feeling and he wasn’t letting no one do that for him, but things were different.

It wasn’t just a mere bully, it was his dad, his family. He couldn’t abandon the number one thing he cared about in his life, nor he could let go of Jongin, so he was stuck in that limbo, prisoner of his dream golden cage.

Navy blue was the color he had chosen and he had wrapped himself in that fantasy without pain like a blanket; no ache, no distress, no sorrow, but also no love to be seen. It was a beautiful nothingness that was beginning to swallow him like a black hole and he would have been really happy to let himself fall if not for a little voice on the very back of his head that was shouting with all his might.

Don’t go, you have to wake up and face your fear.

How can I? I can’t even think about what happened right now.

You have to. You are strong, you always were, not physically, but in your mind. That strength will be enough to wake up and talk to your dad. Please, someone’s waiting for you.

Someone’s waiting?

Wake up.

Wait.

WAKE UP.

Two crescent moons sliced the darkness that was surrounding him and let the light again to bring colors in his irises. For a minute, everything was so bright he had to shut his eyes again and furiously nictate for another thirty seconds, but finally everything began to take shape and outline.

He was still in the white room, a mask for oxygen gently placed on his mouth and nose and sever cables going from his arm to a blood bag now filled with some kind of sleeping inducing drug. Everything was hazy and soft, even the air he was breathing, not to do with the real smoky one he had to inhale in the streets.

Someone had thoughtfully put on some low music to not make him freak out first thing when he would wake up and he knew it was probably Jongin’s idea.

Jongin.

He felt so bitter for what had happened with his father, but mostly for how bad Jongin must have felt in that moment; he felt fully responsible for that and wanted to apology, but he couldn’t move, he didn’t have the strength to, and nobody was in the room, so he did the only thing he could: murmur some words, hoping a nurse or a doctor would hear him.

It took five minutes for someone to arrive and it was exactly the two people he needed to see: Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

As soon as they saw him, they widened their eyes and shouted out his name, too happy to do anything else but try to hug him without disconnect the cables starting from his forearm.

“How do you feel?”

They finally managed to ask, almost in tears.

“Like a drunk old man. How many days have passed?” his voice was so groggy he barely recognized it.

“You even sound like an old man” joked Chanyeol, so happy his smile was practically breaking his face.

“Just a couple of days.” Said Baekhyun, locking hands with his boyfriend “Everyone was so worried about you: your parents visited you every day, always crying. It wasn’t pretty”

Kyungsoo let out a sigh of relief: at least they had come, maybe his father could still love him after that. His father… the man who had supported him throughout his life… he couldn’t believe it, he still couldn’t.

“Jongin?” he asked hopeful.

“He is resting at Sehun’s house.” Said Chanyeol with a bittersweet expression “He was here the whole time, always checking on you and talking to you, like you were never asleep. He was so broken he cried every single tear he had…. Wait a minute! I have to call him right now!!”

It took the young man the most excruciatingly long thirty minutes of his life to get to the hospital, Sehun and Luhan at his side and when he finally opened Kyungsoo’s room’s door, the only thing he found his body could do was cry. He had dried up all of his sadness tears, that for sure, but his happiness tears where all there, ready to go.

“Jongin” said Kyungsoo when the two finally found themselves alone “I’m fine, please don’t cry. See, everything’s alright now”

“You don’t even want to know how scared I was when you just flopped on the floor like a dead body. You. Don’t” replied the dancer, his voice soft.

Kyungsoo wanted to embrace him, but he couldn’t even move his hand towards him; he felt so powerless, but Jongin wasn’t and took his violet hand into his.

“I don’t care about anyone else, nor your father nor the rest of the world. If I want to stay with you, goddammit I will and nothing is going to stop me now. Please stay by me side”

Every breath Kyungsoo took was a heavy cloud of steam on the plastic material of his mask and he had to inhale and exhale many times to calm his beating heart. With the only strength remained, he lifted his hand up to Jongin’s cheek and caressed it with delicacy.

“I’ll never leave you. We will talk to dad, he just is an old-fashioned man, but I love him and he has to understand that I also love you. Don’t worry about me, worry about you: you have the puffiest eyes I’ve ever seen, you look like a bear cub”

Jongin’s smile was beautiful, but his laugh? Kyungsoo knew he would be in heaven only by listening to it all day long. And so they laughed, so much the nurse had to come in and kick the dancer out to increase the oxygen dosage, and they still laughed.

It had been worth it, to abandon his dream to come to the real world, only for that time.

Oh, the sky was a beautiful Sapphire.

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Ah, I'm back home and I feel a thousand times better now, so here's a more happy chapter. Also, I'll be gone another two weeks, but I think I'll have time to write so don't worry. If I survive Exo's repackaged album, that is. As always, I hope you enjoyed it ^__^