“Love doesn’t end, even after death”
– What Severus Snape told me?


December 30, 2013; Monday morning
The humid air smelled like wet asphalt, probably due to the rising sun being held up after one misty and wet day. His ears picked up noises downstairs, the usual rush hour greeting pass the streets of Seoul as the sun shines brighter, the smell of drying asphalt burning his stomach.

Other than the stomach emptying smell, the world seems to be collapsed and warped on Kyungsoo’s eyes as he begun to open the wide eyes he was known to have. Hands outstretched over his opposite sides, his mouth begun to open, and a whine of early sickness weakened his knees and feet. Monday mornings and he’s relax and stable. He doesn’t even know why waking up matters everyday on his life, although he still does wake up, make coffee, and stare at the balcony, smelling the sweet butter from Ms. Kim’s apartment at exactly thirty minutes.

Hours pass by, and the world doesn’t seem to make sense. Time plays at them secretly, time acting as their boss, trying to push themselves against the will of time when you cannot do something anymore. Minutes pass by, and the world doesn’t sound convincing. It’s made up of senseless numbers which counts every skip of a beat when the right time comes. Seconds pass and he doesn’t understand why people play the game. 

There are no right answers, because everything is shattered from debates. Truth and opinions mixed together, making fiction come to life. People do really get played by time, he knows it. 

Stretching his feet as it touched the cold floorboard; the sun raises upwards, the morning feel rising in every second as every beat pass. The world is still collapsed, but it’s just blurry. It’s just plain blurry. His head fuzzed over the sudden retort and he made his way towards his usual spot: his kitchen. 

Fingers roam the table and fingers locked over the kettle and the faucet, the cold metal burning his skin with the rushing and pounding sound of water. His thin fingers roamed the table and he found a button which he presses without hesitation. Fire stood straight over the circular holes as gas became fire, the heat subduing above. When the kettle was filled, he carefully placed them on the fire, which spread over the bottom of the metal and the scorching sound proceed.

He found his way towards a stool he rarely sit at and waited for the whistle of the kettle. With nothing to do but stare completely blank, he took a step forward, mind settled over his wishes to sit over the balcony as he waits for hot water.

Ten steps; noisy feet stamping over the floorboard. Five steps; rough and scratched sounds as feet found cement. Three steps; he climbed onto his usual spot. Five heartbeats; and everything went black. Gone; disappeared, gone.

Simple flick of darkness over the happy and sunny light he felt long before his head fuzzed; long before his foot stepped over the floorboard. A sudden flick of blank paint; scattered and almost anonymous on his eyes as he felt the hard ground over his sunken face.

Long after the loss of sight, his hand shook violently and was never usable until his mind tried to find the path he took not so long ago. Time runs down and he doesn’t have any idea on what is happening, nor does he even care. He do knows how painful it was to smell wet asphalt, the dry space of sun light as it burns his invisible body. Eyes closed and head spinning, he knows the day had come. Time is what it is.

The doctors prescribed medicines that would lessen the pain, lessen the chance of death. It wasn’t really the words they use, or tell, but he knows what they think of. Meds that would lessen the pain, they said. But when transcribed, it would be to lessen the chance of death.

They even told him that the tumour won’t be much of a problem because he had the medicines. It wasn’t the kind of lie he believes in, but he tried and tried until it was painful and intoxicating to think of. He cannot afford to digest those words; the fact that the only thing he does is believe on lies he never knew would be true. He cannot digest the fact that fancies and wanted facts were mixed together, jumbled over the wheel as time goes by. It is the only thing he can do best: believe in things he knows that doesn’t exist.

He started to believe on fairy tales when he was first diagnosed with brain cancer. Never did he know that he would like them; the way the stories becomes so redundant that surprisingly, it make use of a happy ending. It fascinates him how the characters are so believable that he would cry every night, telling himself to stop because they don’t exist. And to stop believing in anything the people asks him about, talks about, and tells him about.

He started to paint when he was pronounced as one of the stage two cancer patients. The first night remembered him of the doctor’s faces. They were so memorable that every single strikes of his paintbrush symbolize their reflective pain towards him. Every single detail he kept in mind, the way the doctors reassured him about the idea, and how they tried to inhale clean air as the world’s light goes off. 

The canvas ended up covered in black. Every planes, every area, was nothing but black paint over rough canvas, because that’s what he saw when the doctor took the courage to face him. Black; sometimes he would admit that he sees grey, although they turn black in an instant. 

“What is… that?” Minseok would ask, somewhere between December last year. Kyungsoo would only nod, making Minseok grin in curiosity.

“You wasted one can of black paint only to paint it on a paper larger than that wall?” Minseok pushed in the thought when he couldn’t stand the sight of the ‘paper.’

“It’s called canvas, not paper. And I had the paint before,” Kyungsoo just answered over his curious friend, disregarding the question again. When Minseok shrugs, Kyungsoo smirked behind his back, the boy noticing how the sides of his cheek fatten with a smile.

“Whatever,” he could only respond over his unanswered question.

Kyungsoo started another painting over the Christmas break as Minseok decided to stay with him since his parents are out of town, the anticipation of being left behind smitten over his gleeful face. It seems like he was happier than him, since he thought he could celebrate the Christmas break alone. But when Minseok appears in front of the door, Kyungsoo’s expectation towards the usual solitude widens and hope clattered all over the floor.

Still, maybe, the companionship of Minseok didn’t cause him any trouble.

He started to draw grey snowflakes as the snow thickens in his perspective. The winter, as what he have heard through his reading of children fantasies, is full of Christmas trees, pine trees being covered with glitter worms of designs, the blinking lights of green and yellow and orange mixed with faint whispers of red as the Christmas light turns alive over the cold Christmas eve. He thinks of it so smoothly and crystal clear that one can finish the painting. He focused on the vision of Christmas on the perspective of something he wants to believe in; something that he wants to believe in, although he has no strength to.

The painting was finished with Minseok’s hands being clapped, Kyungsoo pinning out a dot as eyes to the snowman with black paint. A final sway of silver paint below the eyes and the painting was coming to life. He smiled over his work, and Minseok continues on his clapping.

The Christmas break ended in a park downtown where people rushed in to see the buzz. All things oozed forward and nothing was familiar but the thunderous clatter of heels digging the cement and low murmurs of people as they swarm forward.

Other than the chitter-chatter of female voices, the snapping of cameras pass by in every direction, and since then, Kyungsoo knows which show he signed up to watch for. Background music played in low and slow attempt and the crowd begun to sound so awe about the music. It’s mellow, definitely jazz. Kyungsoo remembers how Minseok pushed aside every people in his way just to feed his curiosity, how puffs of smoke disappeared above his head as the coldness took grip of his lips, hands safely kept inside the pockets of his coat.

The music advanced into a trumpeted beat and the crowd exhaled their “wows” and “woah’s” as the sound system boomed the ground hard. Due to his small frame, Kyungsoo needed to tiptoe for him to get a few peaks over the stage, which he does, and slow thumping sounds greeted his chest. A boy: olive toned, blonde hair, tall frame, definitely a dancer. 

He watches as the boy sway from left to right, hands outstretched freely like it was never rehearsed. He danced gracefully, and his jaw locked mid hanging over the cold air. It was the perfect view he ever saw, and maybe it’s what he wanted to see. His hair flips in every movement, and his feet begun to twirl in unexpected glances. 

It reminds him of ballet dancers who dance in movies which actually focus on hip hop; those characters who do freelance dancing, in every genre, in every move. Of course, it also reminds him of Christmas, his previous fantasy, and the way Christmas was able to bring his hopes up as he reads children’s books. Snow with shards of glass, clockwork tick-ticking over rusted metal; that’s how he describes the boy he saw dancing in the park to Minseok.

“I wasn’t really paying attention, just thought you’d want to watch it because you’re all ears,” Minseok said, jaws busy compiling food. He darts Kyungsoo a look, and he smiled.

“Well, I did enjoy it. Thanks,” Kyungsoo smiled diligently over Minseok’s patience last day. He rarely does that for Kyungsoo, and he made one impossible task for him.

“You know, that deserves a payment,” Minseok’s eyes widen with supremacy.

“Oh, come on. Seriously? You shouldn’t really have done it,” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrowed and Minseok laughed, a hand pointing at Kyungsoo’s half scared face.

“Show me, and explain, that massive black paint over that large canvas,” Minseok took emphasis on the word ‘canvas’ since Kyungsoo hates the term paper.

“That’s it? Just that? Oh, alright.” Kyungsoo stood up, never letting his composure slip, and made his way towards the opposite wall. The painting of pure blackness never leaved the place, and then Kyungsoo started to talk.

Ofcourse, he didn’t tell the truth. Who would think of believing him on his manifestos, telling them that the black paint symbolizes the doctors who pronounced him as dying? That would have made sense if the truth would easily slip and let him free, although he, like before, he hasn’t regained strength. He remained weak, condemned forever.

“Black symbolizes death,” Kyungsoo pinpoints the fact as his fingers soaked over the dry paint as Minseok looked at him with mischievous eyes. “But they mean more than death. It’s death within death. Do you get me?”

Minseok nods, although he wasn’t sure of Kyungsoo’s sensibility.

“Well, that’s it. I’ve ‘wasted space and paint’ for death,” Kyungsoo resumed back to the kitchen table and joined Minseok on eating. Minseok doesn’t look impressed, nor did he make sense of it. This time, his eyebrows furrowed and he cough intentionally.

“I don’t get it. Death within death? Is that supposed to mean any deeper?”

“It doesn’t need to mean anything, right? It’s as simple as that: death within death.”

"Well, it's an art. Basically, it needs to mean something," Minseok said, looking professional.

"Whatever. Maybe I have no explanation," Kyungsoo snickers, resuming on his meal.

When Minseok was stucked on deciphering on what Kyungsoo had said, they resumed to their regular routine. Minseok head on the dishes, and Kyungsoo checked the doors. The night ended with the lamp flicking back to its death. The smooth snore of Minseok distant over the linens.

 

“What if you had an extra day? Or even a second? Will it count? Will it be worth it? Can you say everything in that span of time? What if time exerts and advance, will you cry because you ran out of it? How about a mile-second? Can it help?” Kyungsoo’s mind baffled in patterns as Jongin utter the questions, either way, he still got an answer; a simple one.

“It counts. Even just a faint vision of you in my mind would be worth it. Even if time is that fast for me not to open my mouth is fine, just a simple sight of you is fine for me.”

The boy smiled, his face flushed with red. He leaned in closer just as Kyungsoo looked at him in the eyes, and their lips met, the feeling of eternity closing them in, forever.

“I wonder how kissing tasted like,” Minseok pouts, both hands over his chin as he carefully watched Titanic with his curious face.  Kyungsoo, with his disgusted eyes, continued to watch the movie, eyes used to the scene. It was New Year’s Eve and the streets went wild again, and Kyungsoo had nothing to do but watch movies as what Minseok suggested.

As the movie rushed in, scene by scene, the clock is ticking. He only managed to smile in every second, trying to remember being with his best friend as he mocks in every scene. He will make it to 2013. Ten hours won’t be that long, he knows it. He will make it.

 

Ofcourse, it’s New Year, and the city is packed for surprises.
He didn’t make it. He never did. He won’t make it. He knows this.
Minseok, his best friend, made it to New Year.
He won’t forget the tragic New Year of 2013, that’s for sure.
He didn’t make it. 
Minseok, his best friend, is now a business man.
He’s a writer too, and he wrote Kyungsoo’s biography.
He sold the paintings for a good cause. It earned millions of won.
He sold it for the orphans who Kyungsoo helps during his life time.
Nobody knows this, but somewhere between the streets of Seoul, a man is crying.
Nobody knows this, but somewhere between heaven and earth, a man is weeping.
That’s because he didn’t make it. He never will.
But one dream wrote history; he made it to Christmas.
He made it, but somehow he regrets it. 



The humid air smelled like wet asphalt, probably due to the rising sun being held up after one misty and wet day. His ears picked up noises downstairs, the usual rush hour greeting pass the streets of Seoul as the sun shines brighter. 

“What if you had an extra day? Or even a second? Will it count? Will it be worth it? Can you say everything in that span of time? What if time exerts and advance, will you cry because you ran out of it? How about a mile-second? Can it help?” someone whispered.

“It counts. Even just a faint vision of you in my mind would be worth it. Even if time is that fast for me not to open my mouth is fine, just a simple sight of you is fine for me.” A brief answer.

The doctors gave him a year, maybe half. 
He expected nothing, but when he did, it made him happy.



He started to believe in fairy tales; maybe it could give him hope.
Its redundancy made him happy; the happy endings made him bitter.
Either way, it made him better. It gave him hope.



Christmas is his last season; a month full of bittersweet hope.
But nobody knows this; he was dying at that time.
The cold weather on the park made him worse; it shattered him.
Ten hours; he waited. Fairy tales… Christmas… Jongin… his best friend, Minseok…
He didn’t make it on the first hour.
Titanic sank on that very hour, the cold corpse of the fictions drown under the sea.
The lady with violet lips cried, her hair covered with Christmas.
No, it was snow. 
Her tears were the only thing that was warm.
Kyungsoo cried, Minseok laughed, Minseok was stupid.



“Why are you crying?” Minseok asks as Kyungsoo froze in place, his head tilted over the clock.
“They’re not real. Time plays with them at that time. They’re fiction,” he smiled.
Minseok didn’t get it, but he nods and waited for the movie to continue.



Kyungsoo didn’t wake up on the first hour.
He was frozen in place, head tilted over the direction of the clock.

He never made it to New Year.



Nobody understands the story, because it works like clockwork.
It moves as it follows a beat. But no one knows how it starts to tick.
No one knows that the clock is ticking for Kyungsoo.

It’s only him, the clockwork. He plays with himself, trying to understand time.
But when he didn’t understand, he let the game resume.
Now, he’s the loser. He lost on a game, brought together by him, himself.



No more lullabies. No more thirty minutes to calculate. No more coffee.
No more senseless mornings. No more rush hour. No more time to follow.
That’s because time is what it is.

originally posted on: livejournal