Whether it was caused by shock, devastation, heartbreak, or possibly all of them, I didn’t really know, but the next thing I knew was I was shaking. My hands turned cold, and something started to fill my eyes, obstructing my sight, and I realize that they’re tears. The scaffolds of my structure giving way, I fell on my bed into a sitting position, a part of my mind still not believing what was happening. No. I tried to recall how Himchan looked like the last time I saw him—the soft, pretty expression on his pale face, the joyous aura accompanied with greasiness that always happened to infect me, one way or another. He was all alive and warm—flesh and blood; standing before me Athena-sprung full-blown.

But now, Himchan was dead.

“Miss…?” the guy on the other end of the line spoke, and that’s when I realized that I was making these raspy panting sounds. I held my chest with a shaky fist.

“W-where is he…?” I asked him.

He dictated to me what part of the hospital my lover was in. Morgue. He kept on telling me things that was between coming to the hospital soon because I was the first relation to the victim they had come in contact with and assuring me, sort of like that. I don’t know how the call ended, but the next thing I knew I was running to the hospital, in my pajamas, forgetting to bring any protection with me, to shield me from the chilly wind of the night.

With shaky hands, I scrolled through my contacts, wondering which one among the gang I should call first. My thumb landed on Daehyun’s name, and I called him, and told him about the news. I simply told him to come to the hospital with me, because this was about Himchan. Daehyun called Youngjae. Youngjae called Yongguk. Yongguk called Zelo. Zelo called Jongup.

Even breathing was a struggle for me. While we were walking Jongup never ceased to hold my arm, and kept on lightly pushing my back to make me walk. I didn’t want to see Himchan. I didn’t want to see him dead.

The brave leader he was, Yongguk was the first one to enter the room of death. Next that went after him was Youngjae. Then Daehyun. Zelo, even while we were making our way to the morgue, was already sobbing, Yongguk had to put a firm hand on his shoulder. His hyung was gone, but the poor child had to face it like a man.

“Riri…” Jongup breathed out my name. He was also confused about what to ask me; whether we should go in, or go out of the hospital.

“Go,” I kept my eyes fixated on the white floor. “I’ll follow,”

“I can’t leave you here,” Jongup said in his hushed voice, protesting but at the same time pleading.

Unclasping my arm from his firm hold, I shook my head and motioned him to go in. With a head cast down, Jongup walked into the morgue in slow steps.

 I knew I had to face it, but not now, not at this minute. I was too used to seeing the happy Kim Himchan, the guy whom avidly proved to me about how much he liked me for who I was, for how I treated him, and his persistence made me like him back, to the point of loving him. Why was I too late in admitting? I didn’t want to see him because I was too proud to admit that I liked him back. I was in too much denial to admit the truth, when it was already a given fact.  This was all my fault.

Looking into what the windows of the door displayed, I saw the five boys with their head angled down, their shoulders quaking upward and downward as they cried bitterly. Following their example, I looked down on the floor again. My throat tightened, I clenched my fist, and though I hated it—I fell into sobbing again. Himchan was gone.

I didn’t know how long I had been standing there until someone went out of the door again. When I looked up there was Daehyun, his usually eye-bagged eyes now even made puffier by the tears he’d been spending on his hyung. Before I could say anything he grabbed my arm. “You need to see him.” He said darkly, and dragged me into the morgue.

No. I hated this. This was too much. Altogether too much. I didn’t even want to see him, and now Daehyun was forcing me to look at him?

There he was in all his dead splendor, the pale face made paler as death has marred his life. He lay there still; unmoving, his chest not rising, nor falling. There were several gashes on his face; there was a big red slash on his forehead; his lip was busted. Kim Himchan’s beauty was stolen by death.

Himchan,

Wake up.

Please.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You idiot, why’d you do that?!” I demanded, shaking his body that was half-covered with white sheets. “Why did you have to come? I told you I don’t want you getting harmed because of me!” I yelled at him—nasty insults, heavy obscenities, just to emphasize how much of an idiot he was for getting himself killed because of me, and how much I hated him for doing that. Eventually my strength failed me, that down I sank on the floor, my knees turning jelly; down, down, down... “Kim Himchan…” I buried my face on the space of where he lay dead. “…Wake up…” I srewed my eyes shut, not able to stop my crying. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in different, continuous ways. Nothing could beat the tragedy, the sadness of this all.

***

 I hadn’t the heart to attend the burial. The funeral lasted for only a very brief while; Himchan’s parents said that they didn’t want to prolong the hurt of their son’s death. It was unbearable to me, how much more to them? It turned out that what killed Himchan was that he got hit by a car. Because of the slippery road, while he was crossing the road to the city proper, some drunk-driver didn’t know that the area there was prohibited to be used because of the huge tree that got in the way, and used that path. He lost control in driving, and Himchan paid the price.

As if getting hit by the car wasn’t enough, he was even swept across the asphalt by the car itself, and they crashed onto that tree.

Very brutal, Himchan’s death.

But despite of it all, I was still the cause why he had died.

It was even reported that on the crime scene there were several oranges.

Jongup called me and asked me what time I was going to meet up with the guys, so we could go to the burial together. I told him I didn’t want to come; I didn’t think I’d have the guts to do so. To this my best friend just let me be with a simple “okay”, and promised me that he’ll visit me soon if I was ready to be comforted.

I don’t want to be comforted, Jonguppie. I wanted to tell him.

The next week, at school, Jongup used all means of persuading me to spend time with the guys. Not that I was supposed to proxy their missing piece, but because I’ve been a part of their family now, and what we needed the most now was comfort from each other.

We tried to laugh; we really did. But it seemed that all efforts were in vain; because everything—everything seemed to remind us of Himchan. I didn’t know how he took care of them but it was all too visible. Even the walls of the third music room seemed to scream Himchan’s name.

It was I think in the afternoon, while most of us were having our free time and were gallivanting around the grounds when Zelo asked me, though what gloom he noticed in me I knew not, “Noona, are you okay?” he queried, carefully.

I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay even in the very least. My eyes flattened, but I’ve told myself that I stop crying over Himchan. He would’ve hated it. He would’ve hated seeing us cry. “I’m just like the rest of you, Zelo,” I answered timidly.

The kid pursed his lips, finding no answer for this.

“I’m still…adjusting.” I added.

When it was after-school, I decided to go home early. Seeing Himchan absent and looking for him when in fact he was dead was too painful, every time I realized it. For more than once during that day I was deluded that the guy walking across the soccer field, the garden, the hallway, was Himchan. I was about to run to him but good thing, I had stopped myself in time.

“Riri-ah!” I looked over my shoulder when I heard  that.

Frantically running to me while waving something in one hand, Youngjae was running, and when he stopped, he handed the piece of folded paper to me, his breathing ragged. “For you,”

I knitted my brows. “What’s this?”

“You’ll know,” Youngjae looked like he was undecided whether to smile or to just monotonically state it as he said, “I was planning to blackmail him with that, haha, but…I think you deserve to know,”

I inhaled with a nod. Unconsciously, my hands pressed the paper to my chest. I could imagine Himchan’s warmth just by holding it. “Thank you…” I said to Youngjae softly.

He replied to me with the same tenderness, because such sacred things deserved so. “You’re welcome,”

And I walked home, the sun still setting in the horizon.

When I got to my room the first thing I did, not even caring to change into house clothes, was to read Himchan’s composition. Maybe this is the last letter I will ever receive from him. Reserving my tears for whatever was going to be the most heart-wrenching part of the letter, I opened it, and read—

To my friend, my dearest, the girl whom I love, Riri—

I find this a little ridiculous—writing you a letter when in the first place I have no intention of sending this to you, which is just as absurd as talking to myself but anyway, I’ll just imagine that this could reach you. That’s because I’m really fond of thinking about you and how you’re going to react if ever I tell you these things. I mean, the things that my mouth doesn’t say. The things that you’d be able to hear distinctly if only hearing from the heart was ever literally possible.

(wow, I was really mushy there)

Today is Tuesday, the second day that you’re absent, and the sixth day since I last sent you oranges. You know, it’s a litt