I

"I see you even in the darkest of times."

March 2014

I could feel the dulling pain on my abdomen.  I feel like my stomach is tearing up to my chest.  I tried to move my legs but there was something heavy that was keeping them from moving.  I tried to open my eyes but with every time I try, I would see nothing but darkness.  I could hear the distant sounds of sirens and voices but nothing seemed to make sense. 

There was only one thing that was on my mind.  Yuri.  I didn’t care if I would die the next instant that I would try to stretch my eyes open.  I just wanted to see Yuri, to hear her voice and to feel the warmth of her hands.  I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t suffering the extreme pain I was feeling. 

I heard a faint cry.  It sounded so distant yet it felt so achingly close.  It was Yuri’s voice.  And she was calling for me.  Yunho, she cried.  Her voice was hoarse and it sounded like she used too so much of her strength just to cry my name.  I wanted to reach out, answer her call and see her comforting smile.  But I just could not do anything. 

That was when I started to feel the pain I was feeling to become more unbearable.  I could feel my consciousness being away from my body.  The voices and the sounds around me were starting to faint as the pain was becoming extreme. 

Everything was white.  The walls, the ceiling, the door and the curtain that was covering whatever view outside were white.  It was blinding so tried to shield my eyes.  That was when I noticed that warmth that was enveloping my right hand.  While my other hand has a transparent hose to dextrose, my other hand was held by someone as she was sleeping by my side.

 I adjusted my sight to get a better look of her.  I didn’t mind that my whole body felt weird.  Her sleeping face was enough to make me feel something pleasant.  I let my eyes on her sleeping form for what seemed to be forever until she stirred.  I watched as her eyes fluttered open and immediately looked back at my own.  There were lots of emotions in her eyes but I could definitely see the relief to see me awake.

“Yunho-yah,” she cried.  She held back the tears that were threatening to pour.  She hugged me tightly and ignored the groan I elicited when I felt the pain on my abdomen.  “I thought... they said that…” she said through the white hospital gown I was I wearing, “Oh, God.  I spent days of waiting in fear that you might not wake up.  I just didn’t know what to do.”

She has been waiting for me to wake up for days, that I could make out of her choked ramblings.  As I brought my hands to her back to comfort her, memories of the night of the accident came rushing back.  I remember us arguing, screaming at each other and not seeing the red light.  I was driving too fast and it was too late to step on the brake.  Everything seemed to come at once, the crash, Yuri’s scream and the painful stab on my abdomen.  I wanted to stop them all but it was too late.

“Thank God,” I muttered as I tightened my hold on her with my meager strength.  I wanted to feel her warmth with my last strength.  “You’re fine, you’re alive.  I was trying to call out your name to make sure that you were okay but I couldn’t.”

She stopped her incoherent rambling and continued to sob on my shoulder.  I could already feel the part of my hospital gown was considerably wet but I continued to hold on to her. 

“Stupid,” she whispered.

“Stupid Yunho,” she continued.  “You should think about yourself when you’re on the brink of death, not me.”

“I was worried, worried that you might not stand living without me.  You’re pretty stupid yourself.  You’ll shut the world when I die.  I don’t want that to happen.”

I felt her pinch my back and heard her chuckle.  She was fine.

January 2009

                When BoA said that she have a word with someone she knew to help me be a singer, I should never have believed her readily.  She dragged me into a pub with a makeshift stage for little performances.  There was an old piano at the back corner of the stage and a plugged electric guitar leaning on a lone chair at the middle.  Everything else was filled with old, smelly people from their work. 

                “Mr. Lee said that he would let you sing for the night.  Then he will see if you have what it takes to be one,” she said as we were threading our way to an already filled lounge bar.  “Hey, Jaewon, I have a guest.  He’s having his debut stage tonight on the stage.  Why don’t you and Leeteuk huddle at Joong Kook’s table?  He really needs to get over his debut jitters.”

                “Aish.  You just have an excuse to sit here,” the guy with pink highlights on his blonde hair said.   “Is that true, young man?”  I looked at BoA and she gave me the look that I’ll regret breathing if I give the wrong answer.

                “Y-yes,” I simply said. 

                “Alright then.  You do a good job later on.  We’ll just right here to cheer for you,” he said as he and another left their seats.

                “Yuri, two beers, please,” she hollered at the girl at the other end of the bar.  “The guys here are friendly.  They mostly come here to have a good time and to be drunk”

                “You awfully know a lot of people here,” I said my curiosity out loud.

                “BoA’s a regular here,” the girl, Yuri, said.  As he was looking at her up close, she looked like she was barely legal.  She was wearing a Houston Rockets jersey that reached to her knees over a white shirt and jeans.  “Two bottles of beer.”

                “Thanks,” he mumbled while BoA drank on her bottle almost as soon as it was set in front of her. 

                “I heard you were singing tonight,” Yuri said.  She was smiling too bright at him and he didn’t know if it was making him more anxious or a bit too uncomfortable.  “I think it’s great since all I could listen to lately is Kim Joong Kook.  He is not a bad singer but he tries too much to include raps in his ballad songs.”

                Yuri talked too much while BoA drank too much.  When it was my turn to go on stage, they told me that the only accompaniment I could have was either the guitar or the piano.  I didn’t know a how to play the piano and my guitar skills are comparable to my skills at cooking, it was horrible. 

                “I don’t play any of the instruments on stage,” I said to BoA.  She looked at me and gaped.  It was miraculous that there was every hint of sanity on her even after six bottles of beer.

             “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she said and scanned the crowd for someone.  “You go on stage, I’ll handle this.” 

                I dragged my feet to the makeshift stage.  I was imagining the worst possible scenarios and those were not the debut I have always imagined.  I didn’t dream on performing on a stage with drunken men as my listeners and I didn’t dream on screwing my debut stage, even if that stage was makeshift.

                When I was up on the stage, someone was already sitting behind the old piano.  It was Yuri.  She waved at me and smiled brightly.  Did she know how unsightly she looked in her clothes?  She wouldn’t have the courage to up here if she did.  Nevertheless I dragged the chair from the center to the piano’s side. 

                I didn’t know how well she could play a piano or if she knew the song I was singing.  She just started playing and the melody of She filled the pub.  I looked at her as she was playing, her head swaying to the melody.  It was so easy to let the words out of my mouth as soon as I started to sing.  I forgot that there were fifty or so people in the room with us. 

                She looked up to me and held my gaze.   There was a soft glow in her eyes and small smile in her lips.  There were only the two of us.  It was how well we worked together.     

A/N: Thank you all for waiting.  Questions?  Violent reactions?  Or anything you want to say, just type those in the comment box.  I'd be so happy to read those, and answer if I must.