Final.
Artificial Love“Only the best for my son…”
They were at the ripe age of 15 and 17 when they first met, when the streets were crowded and school had just ended.
Their friendship turned into feelings as time went on, giving him the courage to ask his close friend out.
Their first date resided in the cozy coffee shop, close to one of their high schools, and ended with a chaste kiss under a dim street lamp, that was kept on just for them.
On the rough concrete walls, they knew they had each other in a simple bond,
I have loved you,
I love you,
I will love you.
-C.P. & B.B.
In the cold, misty night, after knowing each other for 3 years- they decided to move in together.
Their relationship was complete - it had no imperfections.
Attending multiple weddings together, their well-kept promise that they were the ones going to stand at the alter soon - kept them going.
Binary was their secret- their sealed promise.
01001001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101
The first time they yelled at each other, they repeatedly apologized and held each other through the night, whispering a soothing ‘I love you’, that was easy to forgive and to accept.
The first time they hit each other, they broke down, mumbling clouded nothings and confessed all their wrong’s.
Jealousy was a possessed demon that ripped them apart, and after the realization that they didn’t live a day without a fight, in that silent moment, he realized:
Their relationship was falling apart.
“Come on, don’t be like that” He sighed.
“I just don’t know if I can trust you anymore, Chanyeol” Tears of frustration pooled in his eyes and his heart broke. He didn’t like seeing him cry.
“She’s a female friend, and if you haven’t noticed, Baek, I don’t like girls! Unless you consider yourself a female, then yes, I like you! I love you, in fact!” He had ranted.
It was hard at that time. It was hard because they simply couldn’t trust each other anymore.
01001001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101
Guilt. It was the overwhelming feeling that scared him. It hurt too much.
When they found out, holding back the tears that welled up in his eyes, he kicked off his shoes and went to their shared room on the university campus. The taller male just stood there in disbelief, home felt different, warmth was cold, and knowledge wasn’t his number one priority at the moment. At least not right now, as he kept racking his brain of answers it wouldn’t give.
It was bone cancer.
And with his crushed soul reaching for the light, his everything crumbled. Turning towards the photos on the wall, not once did he spot the difference, and his SAT scores were nothing if he wasn’t smart enough to use his knowledge for what mattered most. Who cared if he studied medicine when he couldn’t grasp the empty medication bottles and the files of nothingness of the only person that mattered to him most? Who cared, who would care?
And with the sound of a single tear dropping, his world was painted the colour of oblivion and he wondered of how to revert time and to bring him back to before the tumour grew.
Only one of their lives had fallen apart, but it felt like both of their lives fell into shattered glass and no matter how many arrangements they put it into, they’ll never be the same again.
‘The tumour is larger than 8 cm’
The familiarity of the words felt so heavy.
‘It hasn’t spread’
And he doesn’t want to be reminded.
‘Your cancer is at Stage IIB’
The unusually fast beats of his heart hurts, and it screamed out.
‘Take care of your body and visit me next week’
The gentle smile isn’t genuine and he can tell, after a nod of approval, he takes Baekhyun’s hand in his, leading him out of the room.
His back collides with the door and he hurriedly wipes away the tears upon hearing the padding of footsteps on wood, leaving a red mark on the pale skin beneath his eye.
He walks past Baekhyun and he sneaks a glance at the petite boy - but he wishes he hadn’t, because there are smears of red underneath his eyes and his wrists are red and blotchy, evident from rubbing his eyes too much.
Chanyeol’s eyes follow him and he notices that he’s heading towards the kitchen. He then proceeds to follow him.
Baek obviously ignores him and reaches for the water. After three minutes of constant avoiding in the kitchen, Chanyeol huffs and finally opts to speak in the uncomfortable silence.
“Baek, it’s going to be fine, I know that—“
Baekhyun swiftly turns his head and scowls.
“No, it’s not, Chanyeol! Okay? Would you switch places with me? Don’t think that everything’s going to be fine when it’s not! You would love this feeling, right? Of being so useless and knowing that one day you’re just not going to wake up while everyone else will? I had it coming, my family tree is full of cancer anyway!” His voice cracking a little from disuse, he stares Chanyeol in the eye.
The taller scoffed lightly and looks at Baekhyun with a look of worry and betrayal, but after a split second, he masks it with a straight face.
“You must know it all, right, Chanyeol? How I’m going to wither and die, as the cancer squeezes all the life out of me. You and I can’t do anything about it, Yeol. My future’s gone, so what’s the point anyway? I’m just going to die—“
“Stop Baek! Just stop it!” Chanyeol clenches his fists in frustration as Baekhyun just casts his eyes down towards the floor.
“Stop doing this to yourself! The only person you’re hurting is you when you say that!” His tone softens when he hears a loud sob.
Fighting his pride and dignity, he told him the truth, as if bowing down and confessing,
“I might seem selfish when I say this, but you don’t realise who you hurt when you say those words” He breathed.
“Give me time, Chanyeol” Baekhyun whispers, walking out of the kitchen.
-
Chemotherapy:
the treatment of disease by the use of chemical substances, especially the treatment of cancer by cytotoxic and other drugs.
-
“It’d be the best thing to do now…” the doctor added.
“But, would I still be able to go to my university lectures?” Baekhyun asked, his grip tightening around his and Chanyeol’s interlaced fingers.
“At first, yes, but during the process, your body might get quite tired, so it is advised to stay in the hospital.” the doctor, that Chanyeol notes as Dr. Landon, answers.
“I’m not sure,” Baekhyun replies hastily, but Chanyeol holds his shoulders and tells him calmly,
“Baek, you need to do this, okay?” and he nods slowly.
“I’ll make sure to keep you up to date,” he says, and Baekhyun frowns, thinking about all the time Chanyeol will lose, trying to do everything for him.
“I’ll just look at your schedule and arrange some time to get in touch with others attending the lecture.” Chanyeol tells him softly, as if it were nothing, brushing his bangs away from his dark hazel eyes.
-
A few days in and Chanyeol thinks he’s already seen the worst when he’s only brushing at the very tip of the iceberg. He’s studied about it before. But the words were nothing compared to reality.
It had really begun to sink in, and every ticking second made it worse because time couldn’t stop for the both of them, and the more it ran, they were struggling to grasp it as clocks spent no time to rest.
With every passing day and every waking hour, as the chemo side effects grew stronger, Baekhyun saw the difference with his trips to the bathroom becoming more frequent, and he grew aware of the change on his face, the look that made him know he was weak. He decides on not to look at his reflection anymore.
‘Don’t break’
It was his only request, something his body seemed not so fond of when he arrived at the hospital ER after collapsing from exhaustion, while Chanyeol was at one of his lectures.
It was that gap in time when he felt the pain and he knew it was truly real, that this is reality, and no matter what he does, there’s no changing it.
He’s not a fan of cliché storylines, but when Chanyeol rushed into the private room, with sweat rolling off his temples and concern evident on his handsome features, Baekhyun felt like crying, much like Disney heroines, but could only utter so much with his eyes still closed, before he smiled and dosed back to sleep.
-
The sight of the bunch of hair in his hands pulls at his heart, and with every ounce of the existing energy in his body, he wills the tears to pause but it’s no use as he blinks, and they fall, signaling a rush of emotion, and he clenches his teeth, knowing it’s no use. He’s telling his body to just stop already, that it’s done enough. That it’s breaking. Letting out abnormally fast sobs, he clenches his teeth to silence the pained sounds and he holds his head in his hands.
-
“Chanyeol, aren’t you supposed to be at your lectures?” Baekhyun asks, looking at him curiously.
“I’m staying here with you, see? I’m taking online lectures” Chanyeol gently smiles back at him and tries to calm his frantic breathing and quiet down his sobs when Baekhyun takes a nap, because he already told him that two times before.
“Chanyeol, shouldn’t you go to your lectures? You need to, anyway” Baekhyun looks at him, a spark of confusion in his eyes.
“I’m staying here with you, okay? I can take the online lectures” Chanyeol smiles, and he hopes the smaller doesn’t see through it.
Baekhyun only shrugs with a small ‘okay’. Chanyeol has some trouble going to sleep that night.
“Chanyeol?”
Chanyeol looks up at the sound of his name, and sees a broken smile on his lover’s face, but what he hears hurts, and it feels even worse when he tells himself he can’t cry, for Baekhyun’s sake.
“I don’t want to die, Chanyeol”
It feels as though someone’s ripping chunks of his heart out of his body and trillions of needles are stabbing him at an agonizingly slow pace, because he takes Baekhyun’s hand into his and holds it tightly, while Baekhyun buries his face in his collarbone and he whispers,
“It’ll be fine, because you won’t. I love you, okay? I’ll be there.”
And the worst thing about that promise was that it was a white lie, because he didn’t know. He didn’t know if Baekhyun could take it, and he felt pathetic and worthless because Baekhyun needed him.
He knew chemotherapy was hard, that it needed the body to withstand the pain so it could cure. But he also knew that it could kill the person before the cancer had a chance.
It had already been recorded that they couldn’t differentiate between the cancer cells and the healthy cells. Chanyeol could only scoff at that, because why couldn’t the doctors try harder?
-
Two weeks had past, and even though it felt like a year, it’s only been 14 days, and he keeps clinging to the past, desperately shoving sweet memories into long-term, when all he can remember is Baekhyun’s pain.
Two weeks of trying to run from time but it keeps clinging on, because without the existence of time, there is merely nothing, and without it, matter would be nothing. There would simply be nothing without the existence of time, but he’d rather that, than this nightmare.
Of seeing the blood-stained scissors in the bathroom basin, strands of hair in the drain, seeing the trembling hand hold onto a blanket. He knows Baekhyun wants to go. He knows, but every time he looks at the fresh clean cut on his wrists, he has to try not to cry.
All he could do was be there for him, and he was.
With their stained hopes, they sat there in an endless loop.
Through half-lidded eyes, he glanced at the tiled floor, clumps of hair sprawled across it. He then looked at Baekhyun as he slept and memories flooded his mind of the non-existent plans they had made of going on with their life after university.
But he didn’t think he could move on, because his answer to his everything was Baekhyun, and Baekhyun only. Because Baekhyun was there for him, and he was the place he always went back to – Baekhyun was home.
Summer had already come, and the to their song had yet to reach its peak, so he turns towards his partner and smiles nostalgically.
“I’ll take you out”
“Chanyeol, you didn’t have to” Baekhyun squirms a little, when the waiter comes over.
“Aren’t your parents filthy rich? They’re paying for everything else, so why haven’t you come to a place like this?” Chanyeol chuckles in his naturally deep voice.
“My parents were stingy. And we saved up the money to buy a new apartment, right? Why are you spending the money on this place?”
“Why not?” Baekhyun stares at his charming smile and inspects his features, from his eyes to his sharp jawline because he knows, this might be the last time he’ll get to see them.
The dessert comes, plated directly in the centre, a chocolate glaze perfectly swerved over it and the amount of the actual dessert fills up about 1% of the plate, so you can tell it’s from a high-class restaurant.
“This feels like a classic ‘Will you Marry Me’ scene from a drama” Baekhyun laughs to himself, but looks up when Chanyeol doesn’t say anything, as they make eye contact.
“No” Baekhyun says in disbelief, “No way, Chanyeol! Are you serious?” He jaws dropped open and he almost laughed again.
“Nah” Chanyeol brushes it off.
“No?” Baekhyun scoffs jokingly.
“Because I ‘d rather not tell you and get your hopes up before I actually ask you to marry me,”
Chanyeol grins, pulling out a velvet box and lifting the lid open - the item sitting in the box, tucked into red fabric, is the thing he’ll use to decide his future. The ring is laced with a silver trim and a black crystal band resting in the middle.
“You didn’t Chanyeol!”
“Yes, I did!”
“Chanyeol Park, tell me you’re not joking right now” Baekhyun says, trying to look composed, but he can’t, and no words can describe the way he’s feeling.
“I’m serious” Chanyeol smirks.
“Will you marry me, Byun Baekhyun?” He formally asks, ignoring the stray tear that ran down his cheek.
“Do you have to ask?” He grins, and Chanyeol’s not surprised, for they have been joking about this since high school. Baekhyun’s 21 and he’s 23. They’ve come a long way since senior year, when the only thing they worried about was passing up their assignment late and not taxes and electricity bills.
-
“We’ll be signing the wedding contracts next week” Chanyeol whispers by Baekhyun’s ear as he’s starting to dose off. He only smiles and mumbles a ‘that’s great’. But it’s fine. Chanyeol knows he’s tired and lets him rest.
After getting an email from his part-time job, mentioning his presence, he decides to go, seeing as Baekhyun’s asleep. As he walks out of the private room, he looks at the Name Card that read;
Room 128
Byun Baekhyun
And he thinks about changing it now, but decides to wait until they sign the form. Walking through the halls of the hospital, he keeps his gaze locked on his phone, but as he looks up momentarily, he notices a forming crowd of nurses with a few doctors trailing behind. There are nurses shuffling around the area, trying to get to a room. Chanyeol thinks it’s just another patient, but as he brushes past a nurse, he hears her mumbling,
“Room 128, this floor, right?”
And he freezes, because he must’ve heard wrong, but his instincts push his feet forward running towards the crowd as colourful profanities spews past his lips. Without hesitation, he pushes the nurse out of the way, glancing at his engagement ring.
‘No, No, No, No, No’
Baekhyun and his smiling face is all that’s running through his mind and he sprints to the room, crowded with nurses and doctors, and yes, it is his room.
“Let me inside!” He almost swears, and by the attitude of the ignorant nurse, he feels like he will.
“You’re not allowed in this area, sir!”
“Do you think I care?!” His infuriated scream makes the nurse wince, and as fast as it all happens, his gaze turns towards Baekhyun’s and he sees him mouth something before attempting to curve his lips into a heart wrenching smile, and although the crowds were extremely loud with inconsiderate people whispering and talking amongst themselves, Chanyeol hears his words loud and clear.
‘I love you’
So simple yet so strong, and it has him fighting away the people violently, but the others are pushing him back. He refuses this. It won’t be the last thing they ever say to each other. He promised him he’d be there. He promised him he wouldn’t go. Lies, lies, lies.
He could only ever try to convince himself, and he stood, fighting in the hallway because, no way in hell is he not making it into that hospital room.
Because he’ll kick and shove if he has to, he’d do anything.
A single second would be enough.
He just needs to hold him again. To pat his head after an exam and tell him, good job. To not worry about the future and just care about the present.
He knows he hasn’t told him he loved him enough.
Everything happened in a millisecond, and he blanked out.
-
Panicked voices surrounded him, and he figured he was in the same moment, but his eyes were closed, although he didn’t remember closing them.
He felt quite uncomfortable and claustrophobic on the surrounded seat he was sitting on – it felt like a doctor’s chair of some sort.
Opening his eyes, he realises he’s not in the moment at all, in fact, he’s in another place, the furniture and clothing are clearly not from the area, giving off a more futuristic feel, leaving Chanyeol confused and disgruntled.
“Get him out, quick!” there are mumbles and shouts, and he feels suctions and wires disconnecting off of his skin. Arms lift him out of the machine-like chair, and he finally snaps back to life, groggily mumbling,
“Where is this place…?” and a “Where’s Baekhyun, is he here?”
“We’ll just need you to answer some questions, Chanyeol” the person purses their lips in an irritating way. Chanyeol suspiciously narrows his eyes and snaps back to a reality.
“Tell me where he is, first.” He growled.
“What year is it?” the person asks with a sigh, not seeming to care about his question.
“April 8th 2017, why?” he asks again.
“It is August 12th 2117” the person corrects him.
“Chanyeol Park, 23” the stranger goes on.
“Entered Simulator in the year 2100”
“Lost all current memory of present world on January 2nd, 2101”
Chanyeol scowls at the person, “I’m asking you where Byun Baekhyun is” He states, his voice, filled with anger but laced with the slightest bit of pain.
The person scoffs, frustration evident in their eyes, turning from their slouched position to look him in the eye.
“He doesn’t exist”
Chanyeol knits his eyebrows together in confusion and the person continues,
“Your mind created him. And the world that you lived in,”
The person an eyebrow and smirks.
“Happy now? You did this to yourself, okay?”
The mockingly feigned sweet tone makes him feel sick, and he finds himself lunging forward to surround his fingers around her neck, but the person dodges and laughs sarcastically.
“Look at you. What a mess!”
He couldn’t argue, because he was a mess, tears running down his chin with hands trembling at his sides.
Taking her by surprise, he reached up and snatched her wrists, seeing her visibly flinch at the built-up hatred showing in his eyes, and he knows she’s afraid. Quickly shaking off his grasp, she turns to the door.
“Guards, take him away!”
-
The asylum is quiet, almost enough to drown in, with the only melody being the psychotic laughs from time to time, but no one cringes in disgust. It’s a sweet melody, floating lightly against your ears.
A guard goes inside a private room and places down a tray of food. He looks at the patient, then at the sets of 0’s and 1’s written on the floor, which he recognises as binary. It’s quite common, and he doesn’t blame the patient. What better way to keep psychotic patients? Padded walls with cushions and orange stray jackets are all that he’s seen in the place so far, he glances at the other writings and thinks the patient’s name is ‘Byun Baekhyun’, judging by the scribbles he sees. But as he walks out and glances at the name tag stuck on the wall beside the glass door, it read,
‘Chanyeol Park’.
And he almost felt bad.
Merely an imagination, a created affection;
An artificial love
Comments