You can feel yourself shattering, feel how your heart shakes in denial, feel how you want to run away from him as much as you want to stay. You find your voice, somehow, and manage to whisper, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yongguk just looks away. “I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

You shake your head at his response. It isn’t about that. You desperately speak, “But why didn’t you tell me?”

He steps back, surprised at how furiously you say this. He looks guilty now, guilty and frustrated at you, but most of all, frustrated at himself.

“Why would I?” He reasons. “If I told you from the beginning, you’d look at me differently. You’d pity me, wouldn’t you? Like right now. Like how you’re looking at me right now. I don’t want people to look at me like that until the day I die. I don’t want my memory to be filled with those kinds of eyes. I don’t want … I don’t want to remember that I am what I am.” His eyes glisten, and it has nothing to do with the city lights. “I hate … what I am.”

You stand there, taking this all in, wondering, hoping, wishing you could do something – anything – but knowing that you can’t. You can’t stop something that has spread over his body. You can’t stop sickness with your bare hands. “I don’t hate who you are,” you say quietly. It feels like the right thing to say. It feels like the only thing to say. “I think … I think you’re a great person … Yongguk. And if I’m looking at you … no, please, listen,” you plead as he starts to lose interest. “Please listen.” He returns his gaze to you, and you continue, “if I’m looking at you like … like I pity you, then I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your place to say that,” he mutters. “If anything, I should be the one saying sorry. For fooling you all this time. Yeah, you’ve probably got it all figured out, right? My little list? The things I did? That’s why I did them. Embarrassment? Shame? I can’t feel those things anymore. I can’t afford to.”

He looks so … sad. He’s always looked so bright to you - a star - a beacon in your life that had coincidentally decided to intrude your dull afternoon. But its like the light has gone out of his eyes with his confession, like his facade has been stripped away, and all you see is a shell … a shell that reminds you of who you were before you had met him.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” you tell him, wanting him to believe, believe, please just believe. “’Sorry’? What are you saying sorry about? For being alive? Because I think … that’s nothing to be sorry about. Because personally, I’m glad, I’m really, really glad, that I met you. And I don’t care … no, I care, that you didn’t tell me before. But I’m not about to just leave, or run away, because I know what’s going to happen to you.” Don’t go. That’s all you can think. “I’m going to hang out with you, and be with you, just like normal.” Because he means something to you, now. He’s not just a stranger. And just as he can’t afford to feel sensitive, then you can’t afford to lose him. It’s that simple. “If you’ll let me,” you finish, searching his eyes. “If you’ll let me stay. For as long as ... for as long as I can.”

He smiles then. It’s a lonely smile, a smile that pulls at your heart. “Yeah … I can do that.”

You smile back, and for a moment, everything feels all right again.

“I’m … gonna go home,” you say, wanting to return to your bed to mull things over. It’s late, anyway, and you doubt Yongguk will want to do anything anymore. Right now feels like the perfect way to say goodbye, but at the same time, it’s like you’re leaving him forever.

“Sure,” he agrees, angling his body away to show that he’s heading home, too.

Before he is completely out of your sight, however, you call, “Tell Himchan thanks.”

He turns back to you, curious. “For what?”

“For calling you,” you explain. “If he hadn’t called … you would have never told me, would you?”

He laughs a little. “I guess so… “ He considers this and adds, “I’ll tell him. And … goodnight.” He hesitates before saying, “… will you call me?”

You grin. There’s a spark of hope in his eyes. A sign. “Yeah. I will.”

-----

Even though you fell asleep past 1am, you still wake up early (6am, to be exact) to find that you can’t go back to bed, even if you want to. It’s annoying that your body refuses to cooperate with your whims, but since you’re awake, you reason that you might as well do something. Yawning and tossing the covers