"Jaerim, could you hand me the camera lenses?" 

Jaerim picked up the round lenses as his friend Minki had asked, and handed it to him with a smile.

Minki did not respond but only continued to tinker around with his video camera.

Jaerim only watched his friend while he casually took a sip from his glass of red wine. "Say, Minki. How's your film coming along?"

 

His friend only gave a stern expression with a short response: "What do you think?"

Minki heaved a heavy sigh as he finally clicked closed the lense into his camera. "The whole production was bull! I cancelled everything and requested for refunds for most of the things I could get my money back. I ed it up!" He dropped his camera on the table. Luckily, he didn't break the lenses.

Jaerim, who was caught by surprise by his friend's reaction, immediately set down his glass and asked concernedly, "W-wait, what happened?"

Overwhelmed with frustrated emotions, Minki had gone into a complete rampage. He kicked his chair and threw Jaerim's and his glass to the floor. He suddenly burst into tears, filled with endless aggravation. "I've practically worked on this project for 4 years... and now, it's all gone! All of it, down the drain! I've practically poured my blood, sweat, and tears into this film because the summer film festival expected to have my movie featured on their ing premiere night!"

"H-hey, it's not that bad. We can always work on it together. I'll even try helping you and plus I have other friends who can help with the cameras, and such--"

"Jaerim, don't you get it? I've lost everything. Things weren't going too well with Hyojoo, so she left me! I felt so alone when she left... and to top it all off, I've gone bankrupt. After paying for almost everything for the film, I've lost all of my money. Even my life savings... all gone!" 

His hands harshly run through his hair, gripping the groups of strands into fists. His whole body was shaking with so much anger, tears were falling down his cheeks.

Jaerim was still in shock from the behavior Minki had shown him. He stood up from his seat and walked over to Minki. As he held onto Minki's shoulders, he looked him straight in the eyes.

"Minki-ah. Don't be so negative. Everything will be alright. You've still got me. You don't have to suffer through this by yourself," Jaerim pleaded. He begged and begged, hoping he'd be able to get through his friend in convincing not to give up on his film. 

Minki only shook his head and told his friend. "Jaerim, we just don't know. We don't know what life will through at us. I've simply given up. Time has completely abandoned me." 

Confused, Jaerim tried looking into his friend's eyes and saw nothing but the emptiness that's left inside his very being. The dark abyss that's he's never seen before. It was sinking deep into Minki's soul, that it was as if  it had devoured anything human that's left of him. The darkness of bleak promises embedded itself into Minki's empty shell. Jaerim wasn't even sure if he was still talking to Minki anymore.

"Minki..."

 

 

After an hour, Minki had finally calmed down. Although, Jaerim wasn't sure he had completely convinced him well enough to prevent him from total loss.

Minki stood up after an hour of silence and finally spoke up. "Jaerim. I'm tired. I'll see you tomorrow. Alright?"

Jaerim stood up, meeting eye to eye with his friend.

"Right."

Minki smiled, but his smile looked frail and faked. It didn't have the same usual warm feeling it gave off, but Jaerim shrugged it off and started to leave for the door. 

"Wait, Jaerim-ah. My results from the hospital will arrive at your house tomorrow. Make sure to come to my house tomorrow at around 12 in the afternoon and bring it over."

Jaerim nodded.

He asked one last question before he left.

"This was about those weird symptoms you've been having last week, right? The hard breathing and such?"

Minki only nodded, possibly signaling his friend that he didn't want to talk and needed some rest. And with that, Jaerim left.

 

 

 

The next day, Jaerim woke up to the sound of his alarm. He checked the time on his phone: 9:04 AM

Jaerim went along with his daily routine and walked to the bathroom to wash up. He dressed up and had a small breakfast right after.

He heard the clank of the mail box closing and rushed out of his house to check the mail.

 

The mail consisted of: Bills. Bills. Then one big manila envelope closed in by a seal that was addressed to Lee Minki.

He immediately ripped the envelope wide, pulling out a couple of papers that seemed like test results. Jaerim skimmed and scanned through the contents of the envelope. All the words seemed to jumble around the page but only two words that stood out on the page was: TERMINALLY ILL

Dumbfounded by what was printed in bold on the paper, Jaerim immediately went out into the street on impulse and ran towards Minki's house.

12.45 PM.

But he was too late. His energy and efforts were futile. His friend's body lay limp on the chair he was sitting on in front of the dining table, with his head lulled back. All that was left was his recording camera, unfinished breakfast, a book with the words "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos" written on it,  empty glass bottle, and an empty coffee cup.

Minki was no longer in this world. 

..::end::..

A/N: hi guys! did you like it? hm, sad, ain't it? 

i decided to end it here because i actually planned to only write about the backstory on minki's death in the MV

and i pretty much did exactly that, so i'm sorry for those who were expecting more!

i'm really on a tight schedule, and i hope you would all look forward to my stories next time! 

:-)