Recovery

My hand isn’t going anywhere. I’ve spent days reminiscing and days regretting ‘til the point where my memories blend together with my realities and all I can do is regret and reminisce and think about things I can’t fix.

The white of the walls and the sheets and the everything have all merged and now I don’t know up from down from left from right. Blind and trapped with the guilty bounds of my mind, I can’t do anything but sit here by his bedside, waiting for large, emotional eyes to crack open like his heart has. An apology isn’t enough to piece together ventricles and arteries until his heart is whole again. A simple ‘I love you’ isn’t enough to make him trust me again. I’m afraid I’ve broken him.

He breathes hard when he sleeps. It’s as if he’s having nightmares but he can’t wake up. He can’t stop reliving whatever horror is playing on in his head.

I could imagine it to be the day I left but I don’t want to sound conceited or sure of his love for me. I could imagine it to be the day he fell from the balcony but I don’t want him to constantly remember the effect of our broken love.

I wish on every star that sits in the sky for some kind of superhuman power so I can turn back time and never doubt what we had for each other, so I can control his emotions and sooth his mind to stop the distress he’s facing in his sleep. I wish I had the power to fix things.

I sound repetitive, don’t I? Just like a broken record. Maybe he and our love aren’t the only things broken. Maybe I’m broken too.

He’s been flittering in and out of sleep for the past four days but it seems like he never has the energy to stay awake, to open his eyes. Like his body is slowly eating itself away from the inside out, deteriorating, dying.

I’m not sure for how much longer I can sit here, watching him. The doctors tell me I should go home. That sitting by his bedside day after day and watching how he refuses to open his eyes is bad for my health. That he’s stabilized and has a much better chance of surviving.

I think they’re lying to me.

Because I see the ways his eyelids flutter and I see the way he moans in pain and the way he moves spastically when he sleeps and the way his chest heaves when he’s awake and trying to move his paralyzed lower body and the way he sags into the bed with resignation. He’s giving up. And if he isn’t giving up on life then he’s giving up on me and I don’t want him to give up either. I want his awkward and lanky body back in my arms, his own wrapped around me as well. I want his sweet smile and sparkling eyes crinkled in laughter when I mess up a few chords when I try to serenade him. I want weekends spent outside watching the sunrise, curled up together on the old ratty blanket we bought from the secondhand shop when he were thinking about getting a puppy. Heck, I want to see him argue with a puppy like the idiot he is. I want him to whine about how ugly the psychedelic curtains are. And most of all, I want him to finally open his eyes, grin his trademark grin, and listen to me beg and plead for forgiveness.

My hand isn’t going anywhere. I’ve spent days reminiscing and days regretting ‘til the point where my memories blend together with my realities and all I can do is regret and reminisce and think about things I can’t fix.

My hand isn’t going anywhere. It’ll stay clasped to his until he decides to fully come to. I’ll stay by his bedside until I die and I’ll refuse to move even after I die. I promise him my hand isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.

I just hope my nerves don’t make me a liar, don’t make me run away again. I’m so afraid to face him … but I don’t want to run away again.

(

There is nothing but color, swirling and mixing, and he’s sure he’s going crazy now if he wasn’t already. Red morphs into purple into blue into green just like the curtains. And when the colors fade he sees Myungsoo denying him of a hug, leaning away from a kiss, telling him they should take a break, ripping down the curtains, saying he’s going to his parents’ house but then not coming back, leaving.

He needs to leave this place – escape – but the walls around him close in until he struggles uselessly against the edges of his own mind. He doesn’t know where he is or how long he’s been there but he does know the voice that chimes like bells. He knows the voice that whispers sweet-nothings and hums children’s songs and lullabies. It’s the voice that broke him, the voice that kept him awake for nights on end, and the voice that made him do it. Walk off the balcony, that is.

He knew the support was weak, it was going to give out soon, but that voice called out to him with apologies and I love yous and promises of nights spent in each other’s arms again. That was all he needed. All he wanted was to feel loved again by the man who engraved his name on his heart with his sharp tongue and sweet kisses. He just wanted Myungsoo to hold him and he would walk off the balcony again if it meant being in his love’s arms again

He doesn’t remember that night specifically – time was nothing more than a metaphorical concept – but he does remember how good it felt to hear his name in Myungsoo’s tone of voice even if it was a hallucination.

Sungyeol-ah~

Come out here and watch the sunrise with me, beautiful, like we always do on the weekends. What are you doing in there sitting on the bed like that? I’ll sing you the new song I wrote, he said. And we can enjoy each other’s company. It’ll cheer you up, he promised.

And like the idiot Sungyeol was, he went. He went to go watch the sunrise with a fabricated Myungsoo. He went and hoped the real one would come back to him soon so they could watch the sunrise together.

When Sungyeol wakes up, surrounded not by the colors in his mind but by the white of the hospital walls, Myungsoo isn’t there. He wants to laugh, bitter and without humor, but he can’t even bring himself to push his lips up in even a sad smile. Sungyeol can only frown.

He isn’t here. He isn’t here. He’s gone, vanished, disappeared, he’s not here. And despite having a broken heart and falling from four stories because of him, Sungyeol really wants Myungsoo there. With him.

The doctor walks in and the first thing he notices are the tears sitting fat in Sungyeol’s eyes.

“You’re awake. And you’re crying. Care to tell me what is bothering you before I start running some diagnostics?” He asks.

Sungyeol tries to turns his head but stops when he feels a dull pain in his neck. He stares at the wall before him, tears threatening to fall over at any second. Nothing comes out of his mouth, he can’t bring himself to speak. Can’t bring himself to bombard the doctor with questions of if a man with crisp cut hair with a very obvious love for plaid visited. He’s too afraid to ask because Myungsoo isn’t here and if he isn’t here now he probably wasn’t ever here.

Choosing not to further upset the paralyzed man, the doctor ventures farther into the room and over to Sungyeol’s beside. He helps Sungyeol sit up against the frame of his bed until he’s sitting, back against the wall so reminiscent of his endless nights in the apartment. His mind constantly reminds him that Myungsoo isn’t here, he isn’t here, isn’t here, gone. Reminds him that Myungsoo stopped caring, stopped wanting, needing, loving him. Sungyeol thinks his heart has been reduced to just a single blood cell so small and insignificant he should no longer continue to live.

He sits propped up, letting the doctor prod at him as he wishes. He responds when he needs to, tells the doctor no sir, I can’t feel anything in that leg or the other one when he asks. Despondent.

“Doctor Shin, I brought you back some canned tea.” The door bursts open but Sungyeol only registers that voice.

He turns his head despite the pain. He ignores the doctor when he protests and tells Sungyeol he needs to remain still. He ignores it all because he just needs confirmation, just needs to see his face.

“S-Sungyeol,” Myungsoo whispers upon casting his eyes on his lover’s very much so alert figure.

“You’re here. You can’t be here. You can’t.” Sungyeol mutters under his breath because Myungsoo can’t be here. His mind told him so. The one thing that kept him company when Myungsoo was gone would never lie to him. His conscience would never lie to him.

The doctor sighs and quits trying to get Sungyeol to focus and turns to Myungsoo with a smile. “That’s for the tea, son. You’ve been quite the help this past week.”

And Sungyeol can’t believe his ears. There is no way Myungsoo came to the hospital every day for a week because it, it just doesn’t make sense. But he can’t open his mouth again, words dissolving on his tongue before he has a chance to say them. He and Myungsoo look at each other for minutes, even after the doctor slips out of the room unnoticed.

Myungsoo takes careful steps toward the bed until he is by Sungyeol’s side. He takes his right hand with his left and weaves their fingers together.

“I put the curtains back up yesterday,” he says, everything pouring out his eyes and his tone. “Forgive me, Sungyeol. I missed you, I needed you, I was so stupid, I’m here, and I love you.”

Neither of them are sure which one squeezed the other’s hand, tightening their grip on each other. Or maybe they both did it. It doesn’t matter.

Sungyeol still hasn’t found his voice again, but he doesn’t need to speak. After all of this, they have the kind of love that is so intense they can love each other just with their hands.

)

And voila~ The sequel for those who asked for it.

This one took a lot less time to write so I hope it's okay. Thought the effect would be better if I switched the order of their povs.

(ﾉ＾▽＾)ﾉ～～～～♥  ( <----totally putting that at the end of everything, yes )