Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, Sadness. Warning: Death!fic!
Summary: Lee Seunghyun shouldn't cry.
AN: I was so inspired to write a fic after I read the lyrics to Dae's "Baby, Don't Cry." Sorry, but this is terribly sad, it made me cry while writing it. If you'd rather fluff, go check out the other fluff that I have written instead,
 

I recommend reading the English trans lyrics if you haven't already here.

The hospital is silent, a faint ‘click, click, click’ echoes in the halls as an old man walks slowly back to his room with his cane. Silence... there’s never been a silence so loud before.

No one speaks. Not DaeSung, not SeungHyun, not YoungBae. Not JiYong.

After all, if Lee SeungHyun isn’t allowed to speak, why should they be?

But then, Lee SeungHyun isn’t even allowed to be alive.

DaeSung, YoungBae, and the older SeungHyun stand close around the hospital bed, watching. JiYong kneels beside the bed, head bowed, his slight frame shaking. He’s crying.

There’s still no sound.

JiYong holds, clutches, the hand of a boy whose skin has gone cold for a while now. He whispers incomprehensible nothings, speaking to the sterile white sheets.

“Don’t cry. Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.”

Lee SeungHyun isn’t crying. Anymore.

“Smile. Smile, baby, give me your smile.”

But Lee SeungHyun isn’t smiling.

“Darling, open your eyes. Come see the sun; come see the sun with me. There are no more clouds, I promise. Look, SeungHyun, look at the sun. It’s shining for you. So open your eyes and look at it.”

DaeSung can’t take it anymore. He bursts out of the room jerkily, tears streaming down his face and he wishes that JiYong would just stop. Stop talking to a dead person, JiYong. Stop it. Stop making me think he’s gonna answer you back. He always answers back. Always answers you.

“You were wrong, SeungHyun. Wrong. We chose you first. Before you chose yourself. You were never second-chance. Why won’t you believe me?”

YoungBae cracks. Because he knows. YoungBae knows that out of all 4 of them, YoungBae was the only one who believed. Not SeungHyun. Not DaeSung. Especially not JiYong.

Only one person waved goodbye at the bus stop all those years ago.

YoungBae has always hated liars.

He leaves the ward angry, so angry, because it was always him. Not JiYong.

“Wrong again and again, weren’t you, SeungHyun? You don’t need friends. You don’t need anyone else. No one but me. What do you need, SeungHyun? A friend? I’ll be your friend. Your best friend. I’ll be that one friend that doesn’t leave you. Never leave you, SeungHyun.”

Choi SeungHyun doesn’t leave. He’s the eldest. Choi SeungHyun needs to be there for his dongsaengs. Has to always be there, he has to take care of the maknae. But maybe it’s a little too late.

It’s too little. It’s too late. Choi SeungHyun can’t be there for his baby anymore. There’s nothing left.

And then JiYong’s the only one in the room.

Except, JiYong doesn’t think he’s alone. He doesn’t even know he’s at the hospital, kneeling beside his SeungHyun’s bed. JiYong thinks he’s somewhere else... a rooftop... at night... yesterday night.

---

“SeungRi?”

There’s no response from the boy sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling precariously in the open air.

“SeungRi, is that you?”

JiYong can recognize him now. It’s SeungRi.

“SeungRi, what’re you doing up here all alone? It’s cold.” JiYong asks but doesn’t take it any further, deciding instead to take a seat next to his maknae and press close, sharing the heat that SeungRi needs more.

Minutes, maybe hours pass. They watch the city lights and taxi cars race by, watch as life that has nothing to do with them go on.

“Hyung, why do they hate me?”

JiYong looks at SeungRi, whose face watches pedestrians walk by idly. JiYong wonders if he even sees them, the people, their faces, their sharp words that they wield against anything they don’t like.

“No one hates you, SeungRi.”

“No one loves me, either.”

JiYong doesn’t answer.

“They told me I wasn’t meant to be here. Told me I wasn’t good enough. They were right, huh?” His voice is thick with something, thick with tears that wouldn’t change anything. So what’s the point.

“You proved them wrong, didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

JiYong doesn’t have an answer to that, either.

“It wouldn’t matter, would it?” SeungRi says pensively, not bothering to wipe his eyes, not when they’re wet again within seconds.

“What wouldn’t matter?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I were gone. Nothing would change, not really.”

“Nothing?”

“DaeSung deserves more parts.”

“So we’ll give him a solo.”

“They wouldn’t care, though. They don’t.”

“Not even your fans?”

“Especially not them. They’re cruel, hyung. So cruel. They care the least.”

“They adore you, SeungRi.”

“They adore me when they want to. They rip me apart when they don’t.”

JiYong knows it’s true.

“They don’t want me. They wouldn’t care. They’re so mean. What does it matter to them if I actually read what they write about me? What’s it to them if I cry?”

“Don’t leave me, Ri.”

“Leave?”

---

“I’m sorry, SeungRi. So sorry, I’m so sorry,” JiYong cries out to no one, nothing. If only I’d said something... done something... SeungRi’d be with me now, he wouldn’t be crying, he’d be laughing, because that changes everything.

“I HATE YOU, SEUNGRI. I HATE YOU SO MUCH, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!” he screams viciously at the boy in the bed. “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE! LOOK AT IT, DAMMIT, OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE THE MESS YOU’VE CREATED!” JiYong knocks over chairs and throws the glass vase of flowers at the wall, watching unflinchingly as the glass shattered and the pretty, vibrant flowers began to die on the floor.

“Why, SeungHyun?” he sobs, falling to the floor. “You’re a strong baby, the strongest baby, so why?! Why did you leave me?! Why did you listen to them, why didn’t you listen to me?! Why are your eyes closed like they’re saying goodbye?” he demands, furious that SeungRi has the audacity to leave before JiYong says he’s allowed.

“You didn’t even say goodbye, SeungHyun,” he informs SeungHyun. “You didn’t even let me have the chance to kiss you goodnight. Didn’t even let me tell you that I see your perfection, even when you don’t.”

“But it’s okay, SeungHyun, because I’ll forgive you. Because I love you. I love you, SeungHyun, did I ever tell you that? I do. I love you.”

“Baby, don’t cry, you should be smiling. Because behind the clouds, there’s a sun that’s shining.”