...in which it may not matter whether they care or not

Woohyun/Sungyeol

6826 words

inspired by: > click <

dedicated to karafinite19

…Beep…

                …Beep…

                               …Beep…

He was getting tired of that sound. Getting disgusted. He knew it was going to be the last sound he’d hear after letting out his last breath and just the mere fact was making him want certain shadowy figure with black coat covering its rather shapeless body to come for him sooner and take him away from the world.

He kept tossing, turning on his bed, unable to fall asleep. His thoughts were haunting him. All the pain, sorrow and sadness he’d been through alone, all the responsibilities thrown on him and only him, all the failures that followed. And it all led him to where he was now. Destined to stay in awfully small bed for his limbs until his last day which could also be any other. Destined to think his life over and over, reminding himself of every mistake he’d ever done again and again.

Destined to die alone.

 He had known so many people in his life. He had loved all of them. And they had loved him back, he thought. Yet, once the twentieth year of his life crossed the line, everyone started to leave. Back then he would have thought they’d come back to him again but soon he was proved wrong. Before they left him, he’d thought he’d went through enough already. The people he knew were the only ones he had left. Yet they left him too.

Just like everyone else before them.

He had always been a good kid therefore every time someone told him they were leaving, he replied with mere “okay” and a weak smile. He never was good in showing what he felt even when he always was the most honest person you could imagine. To most people, Lee Sungyeol had always been a riddle. A riddle which couldn’t be solved by any human being he had ever met. So the people he knew had decided to leave him alone and live their own lives. Nothing couldn’t have been easier.

What effort do you have to put into abandoning a person, a human being? None. Human’s nature is to have profit from everything. When a person’s problems wouldn’t make people have any profit, majority of them wouldn’t help. What is a point of helping someone when you don’t have  anything for yourself after? Nothing, right?

Sungyeol’s view on people became as said over the years. He knew he was naïve and overly optimistic person who had always thought that someone he could rely on would come and stay with him. Yet, people had always disappointed him. There was no one to even look at him, no one to care about him. No one to care, already since his childhood. There was just a question left - where had the optimism gone to.

All in all, fate had always been cruel. Very cruel.

"You know what? Do whatever you want!”

“Fine! I’m done with you!”

Waking up to hear his parents fighting again, nine years old Sungyeol merely sighed, went towards the door of his room, turned the key and threw it across the room. Letting his little body slide down against the wooden surface of his door, he already felt tears welling up in his abnormally big eyes.It had not always been like that, little Sungyeol remembered times when they were happy together.

Yes, there were such times. Sungyeol had always wanted to be a big brother and have a sibling therefore by the time Daeyeol was born, Sungyeol’s mood was beyond happy every day. Now however, Sungyeol had every right to be sad and feel guilty. At least that was what he thought.

It was just a week now since Daeyeol had his accident. It was a day like any other, Sungyeol remembered everything. His parents were busy that day so they gave Sungyeola  thrilling mission - to go and pick Daeyeol from the kindergarten. Sungyeol knew that that was something big, a big task just for him and he was sure he’ll do it no matter the circumstances. However on his way to the kindergarten, the boy got lost and was running late. Once he found the way again, he was just there to see Daeyeol walking alone away from the kindergarten, crying.

So Sungyeol ran towards his little brother.

He ran, but not fast enough. Daeyeol was a small child, barely noticeable and exactly that played a big role in the accident.Crossing the road, the green light just jumped on and the little boy’s world went black within a second whilst the last thing he heard was the voice of his big brother screaming his name. Sungyeol saw everything that day and he never cried so much. He remembered every second.

He had failed.

As he cried, sitting on the floor replaying everything in his head again, there suddenly came a knock on the door he leaned against. He blinked the tears away, waiting in silence.

“Sungyeol, open the door.”

It was his mother.

Reluctantly, Sungyeol got up from the floor and went to search for the key. However his mother was not an exact example of patience and as the boy’s view was still blurry he couldn’t find the key which soon had his mother nearly pounding on the door. Finding it a while later, the boy raced and opened the door, letting the woman in.

“What took you so long? Oh my god, do you know where Daeyeol’s white shirt is?” she asked, not sparing even one glance to her son.

Sungyeol, a bit hurt, just shook his head, staring down to his feet trying to hide his swollen red eyes.

“Seriously, could you be any more useless? Forget it, I’ll find it myself.” she snapped, storming out of the room slamming the door shut behind her.

And Sungyeol stood, unable to cry. She’d been like this ever since Daeyeol’s accident. She’d changed and so had his and Daeyeol’s father. And Sungyeol, truth to be told, never said anything, complained or cried in front of them. He never did any of those.

After all, he was good in hiding what he felt ever since his childhood.

Remembering that particular incident, Sungyeol couldn’t help but laugh heartily at his own misery. How ironic his life was. He went through everything just to end up in a hospital without his family knowing about it at all. Daeyeol was never able to walk again after the accident, Sungyeol knew that. One day he found a letter from his parents saying that they’d taken him to the States, where his chances for full recovery could be higher. Sungyeol was eighteen back then; apparently his parents had thought of him as an adult already so they left him, just like that.

Sungyeol was always an optimistic person and he liked to imagine that his little brother had a better life; or the best he could have, yet still he knew that there was no chance of him moving around the same as he did before the accident.

Ever since then, Sungyeol had not heard a word from him nor his parents. And they also had no clue about how Sungyeol’d been doing all those years he spent all by himself and they apparently did not seem to care.

Once he’d found out that every breath he took might have been his last, he felt strange kind of relief. It was an irony. Any other person would cry, try to find about some solution or even a non-existing cure. Sungyeol however was not any other person. He was relieved. He was by all means happy that he wouldn’t have to deal with any more disappointments again. He was glad that he would finally leave this world and find out what’s on the other side.

He looked forward to death. There was nothing waiting for him anyway.

As he kept turning around in the bed; as much as his body allowed him to; there was a knock on the door all of sudden. Having the curtains closed all the time, it became hard to tell day and night apart. Sungyeol did not even know what time it was, he just wanted to sleep and forget about everything at least for few hours.

He didn’t answer. He never did.

After a while there was a creaking sound of the door opening and a bright ray of light flew into Sungyeol’s dark room, hitting him right in the eyes. Squinting, the boy buried his face into his hot pillow, shielding it from the light.

“I knew you weren’t sleeping.” came a voice from the door. “I just came to say bye, my shift’s over. I’ll come to see you in the morning again.” the man added.

The ray of light started to become thinnier and thinnier as the door made the exact same creaking sound as when it was opened. However it stopped mid-way. The man seemed he had something else to say.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Happy birthday, Yeol.”

Then the man left, leaving Sungyeol to himself again. He knew that man pretty well. It was him who found out about his disease, it was him who was there with him ever since.

His doctor, Nam Woohyun.

Closing the door behind his back, Woohyun heaved a sigh. Another shift was gone, another day he could spend with Sungyeol was gone. Around that time every day he was supposed to go home, however he had built a habit over the time to stand leaning against Sungyeol’s door waiting for his colleague to replace him and take the night shift.

It was like that every day. Woohyun would stand and think about one thing only... It was his first day in the hospital when he met certain tall, lanky boy.

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Kim.” Woohyun bowed politely to his employer before backing out of the door.

Grinning widely, he fixed his brand new white coat and his nametag attached to it on the left side of his chest. It’d been a long way to achieve a job like this one and Woohyun was proud of it. All those years he had been studying his parents always paid for everything and they even wanted to bribe the head of the hospital to take their precious son in. Yet Woohyun stopped them from doing so and got the job himself, with his bare hands.

He deserved it.

Now he was walking through the halls wearing a smirk, having nurses greeting him shyly. Thanks to his own effort. As he walked, too preoccupied with trying to hide his actual excitement there suddenly came a hand from his side grabbing him by the shoulder and dragging him away. In complete shock, Woohyun even forgot how to scream for help.

However, realising his surroundings second later, he was glad that he hadn’t shouted because that would be certainly embarassing since the person dragging him away was apparently his colleague in a need of help and they were standing in consulting room.

“Oh, you’re the new one, aren’t you?” the man grinned, immediately reaching out his arm waiting for Woohyun to take it.

“Um, yes. Nice to meet you…”

“Dongwoo. Jang Dongwoo.” he said, exictedly pointing at his nametag once Woohyun let go of his hand.

“Nam Woohyun.” Woohyun smiled warmly. “Why did you…”

“I’m going to need some help. They’re arriving with a serious case of panic attack… And I’m also taking it as an opportunity to test your abilities.” Dongwoo laughed vicously.

“Oh…” Woohyun swallowed dryly. First day and already a first more serious case. Not everyone gets that on their first day and just the mere fact made Woohyun feel more nervous than he already was. On the other hand, he kept telling himself that if he managed to do it, nothing could ever stop him. Quite a positive thinking, wasn’t it?

A second later the door to the room flew open and about five guys dressed in fluorescent orange suits barged in, bringing an uncontrollably  shaking body of a boy who could be something around Woohyun’s age, but probably younger.

“So what do we have here?” Dongwoo asked one of the guys, who was holding the reports.

“Lee Sungyeol, age 21, called us himself since apparently he was at home alone. Good luck, doc.” the guy handed Dongwoo the papers and disappeared with the rest of his squad.

 “Hmm…” Dongwoo muttered to himself, while Woohyun was trying to calm the boy down without success. “This says he never had any issues with health… And yet this happened. Guess the tests will show more to it.” he continued talking to himself before turning to the nurse, giving her instructions.

“Sorry, Dongwoo-ssi…” Woohyun piped up suddenly.

“Yes?”

“I think I might have an idea what happened to him.”

Woohyun’s stated diagnosis was proved right immediately after the results came out. Sungyeol was suffering from an incurable disease of which the name was so difficult to pronounce you would break your tongue ten times at first three syllables. As some kind of reward, Woohyun had been assigned to Sungyeol since then. He did not complain though. He never did.

He was scared at first to even say the diagnosis out loud. He was scared because he thought it might be true. And it was and he was scared even more. He didn’t want someone to go through that again. However being assigned to Sungyeol, he couldn’t do anything. He felt with the boy.

And yet again, he was supposed to watch someone die from exactly the same disease.

First time, it was his older brother. Woohyun remembered how he’d been fighting against the disease spreading in his body like a plague. He remembered how he’d spent days by his brother’s side, talking with him about everything that came to his mind. He remembered seeing his brother getting thinnier every day, getting paler every day. Seeing the life disappearing from his body until it left completely, making Woohyun remain in the world alone.

All alone, just like Sungyeol.

No. Woohyun hadn’t planned on falling in love with his patient, yet sadly, the falling in love process is not something you could anyhow plan. It just happens.

So it happened.

Every time he had his shift, every minute he had free he would spend it in Sungyeol’s room even if it was just to watch the younger boy sleep. Whenever Sungyeol was awake which was most of the time (which also had Woohyun ing for an hour straight since being awake all the time certainly wasn’t anyhow good for Sungyeol’s already poor health) they would talk about everything. Just like Woohyun did with his brother once. To Woohyun it felt like a strange kind of déjà vu. He was completely hopeless, powerless, able to do nothing to help Sungyeol. Yet he still showed nothing. He laughed, joked, grinned every time he had the opportunity just to make Sungyeol feel that everything is alright. That they are nothing more than just friends, which, from Sungyeol’s point of view, was pure truth. That Woohyun felt no more for Sungyeol than he was supposed to…

That everything was going to be alright.

Even after all that time Woohyun spent with Sungyeol, he soon realised he knew very little about the boy. Sungyeol literally avoided personal matters and he had his reasons. Despite Woohyun being serious though, he backed off every time he saw that Sungyeol was uncomfortable with their conversation and changed the subject immediately.

It was strange how could he fall in love with Sungyeol when he knew just his name, date of birth and the fact that his family no longer lived in Korea. There just was something that lured Woohyun in and the doctor couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe that something was just Sungyeol himself.

Woohyun regretted nothing though it might seem like he did. He just accepted his bad luck with a weak smile and tried to cope with it. He did not regret that he fell in love with someone whose time was going to run out soon. He did not regret that he’d met Sungyeol. What made him wonder a bot though whether it was good that Sungyeol knew nothing about his feelings for him.

He wondered whether he should keep it as it was until the very end or just spill everything before it'd be too late.

Some say that some things should stay unspoken, unheard. Some say some