It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Normally, he would enjoy the silence screaming all around him and let him lull back to his imaginary land. Normally, he wouldn’t bother to investigate the place he was at; it was changing all the time anyway. Normally, he would be dead to the outside world and the world would be dead to him. Some say that after life, there is nothing but peace in form of silence. Some say that there should be a lit tunnel, some kind of a gateway to another world.

His eyes were closed, however he sensed the light. There was no sound, he heard the silence. His body wasn’t under his control anymore, he couldn’t move even when he so desperately wanted to. The air was so unbearably heavy on his chest, he felt like running out of breath every second. Maybe it was finally over, he thought. That little voice reading his thoughts aloud in his head sounded so weak; it really made him think that he was dead.

But he couldn’t be.

Normally, he wouldn’t care and let lady Fate do whatever she intended to do with him. Normally, he wouldn’t bother. But then there was that tiny, barely audible sound that came out of nowhere. An almost inaudible sound of a door closing. So he wasn’t dead. Unless that door was a gateway to heaven; he chuckled inwardly at how hilarious that sounded in his head.

Steps.

There was someone with him.

A sigh from that person.

And he couldn’t be any more sure who that was; Woohyun, undoubtedly. He wanted to laugh immediately, it was even more ridiculous than him entering heaven. Him of all people. Heaven wasn’t the place for him, apparently nor was hell. Earth, the worst of the three was the place for him. Sometimes he caught himself wondering why he was still alive when death had so many chances to get him. Why he was still breathing when oxygen had been knocked out of his lungs so many times, why there still was blood running through his veins when he had lost so much of it.

There was no answer.

Suddenly, he heard Woohyun as he sat beside his bed making weird noises, as if eating. Getting all the strength he had within him to one place, he used it to open his eyes - slowly and painfully. Bright light hit him immediately, he had to close his eyes again.

“Don’t eat my food, hyung.” he said instead, his voice coming out as nothing more than a hoarse mumble. Even he was surprised, it was as if he hadn’t talked for months. But then again, he was presumably at hospital. Who knew for how long he was unconscious.

But it worked, he got Woohyun’s attention right away. “Are you... awake?”

He chuckled, if the sound he made resembled chuckle in some way, and wondered if Woohyun had always been so dumb. He cracked his eyes open again, flashing Woohyun a small, yet genuine smile.

“I told you once that you’re not dying on my watch, Kim Myungsoo.” Woohyun grinned widely.

Myungsoo though knew everything that was hiding behind that smile. One wouldn’t believe how many things the two of them had been through together, good and bad, with happy and sad endings. They had been through everything an average person could imagine; they knew everything and yet so little about each other.

And Myungsoo remembered very well the day Woohyun saved his life for the first and certainly not the last time.

Myungsoo felt his lungs screaming for a break, breathing was becoming harder to handle. He was running for so long already, his legs also felt like giving out. Passing the lockers quickly, he hid behind one line and as quietly as he could, he slipped into janitor’s room. Trying to calm down, he placed his hand on his chest, feeling his frantic heartbeat under the fabric.

His ears were perked up, prepared to catch the slightest sound coming from the outside. When he heard the steps of his pursuers had gone away, he let out a sigh of relief. That day, again, it felt like they were really going to kill him, even when he didn’t do anything.

He never did.

The seniors just liked to bully. Sometimes to the point where the bullied ones would end in hospitals for weeks. They liked Myungsoo especially though. He never knew why him, but as the time went, he had heard the birds whisper that it was because of his looks and rather huge popularity. Though Myungsoo himself had never done anything to achieve either of those things. His looks were the work of his parents and his popularity was the work of his looks mainly.

Even so, he had never made any friend; he had never felt in need of one.Or more like he didn’t want to become a burden to someone who could possibly be his friend. It was better that way, he thought, being on his own, quietly getting through life without being noticed by anyone.

With a bit clearer head, he quietly opened the door and looked out, the corridor seemed to be empty. It was late in the afternoon, it had to be empty. Heaving out a sigh, he stepped out of his hideout just to see four guys waiting for him with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows.

That was it, he thought.

Myungsoo didn’t remember much from the fight, however the mere thought about that immense pain, the memory - it all made tears well up in his still with sleep dazed eyes; back then, Woohyun had suffered his fair share of pain as well. Because of him.

There was no pain anymore; it was one of those cases where psysical pain became too much, too much to handle that the brain stopped to register it. Myungsoo couldn’t move, his body wasn’t listening, it was numb. The only thing he could feel was something warm trickling down his cheek, presumably blood.

A sudden realisation came to him after a few moments - he didn’t care about what was going to happen to him. If he wasn’t going to die that day, it would be likely to happen the next time or the one after that. The bullies had always gotten away from it with their hands clean; money was the key. And it finally came to Myungsoo that he didn’t care.

It was never going to end after all.

Within the following minute, he found himself being slammed against the railing on the school’s roof with the four older guys surrounding him. At one point he even wanted to laugh, everything was so ironic. His life itself was. He was inwardly laughing at how pitiable he must have looked as he was receiving one kick after another into his stomach, legs, arms, even head.

“How pathetic.” came a sudden voice from the door leading to the staircase. “Ruining pretty faces, what a shame. Don’t you think you should try it on someone as ugly as you?”

Myungsoo couldn’t look up to see who the newcomer was. Maybe an angel, he thought. Maybe the devil. It could have taken just one more blow to the head and he would finally cross the line separating the world of the dead from the Earth. It was certainly the devil, Myungsoo decided. Only the devil would save him, so he could suffer from more pain, more hardships. He could continue suffering it through his nearly insufferable life.

The devil it was.

As he was lying there with his head bleeding onto the ground, his senses were slowly betraying him as well. His vision became a blurr, he heard buzzing in his ears and head, he didn’t feel the pain anymore. And it was cold. Despite it being still hot even  so late in the afternoon, he felt goosebumps breaking out on every part of his body as he started to shiver slightly. A few moments before he finally out, he’d felt himself being picked up by someone to their embrace.

“It’s going to be fine.” the person said. “You won’t die while I’m still here.”

People usually meet when one approaches the other, or by an accident when they bump into each other. Myungsoo and Woohyun were quite rare exceptions. Back then, Myungsoo had woken up in a hospital and sadly for his mind, he’d remembered every bit of the incident on the roof. Somehow he’d felt thankful to the person who had saved his life even though he couldn’t deny that he would have preferred to be left there to die.

The first meeting was quite unusual, since when Myungsoo woke up, Woohyun was sharing the hospital room with him, having a few scratches, a broken arm and a huge stupid grin on his face.

Myungsoo blinked, snapping out of the past. “Yeah… Yeah, I know.” he replied quietly.

Woohyun felt the air tighten about his body. “What happened this time?” he asked as gently as he could; he didn’t want to press on so much.<