Warning: PURE ANGST (without a doubt this time)

White.

The color he had come to hate.

Here, in this hospital he stayed in more frequently than his own home—all the walls were white, and all the floors, and the furniture, and the bed sheets, and the nurses’ outfits, and the doctors’ coat—all white.

And the sight of him—lying motionlessly on an uncomfortable looking bed, wearing white hospital robe—his white skin deathly pale.

He greeted him every day, but he never replied—only beeping sounds of heart monitor and dripping noises of intravenous fluid answered his words.

The snow was falling outside, more whiteness as if mocking colorful memories—of making snowmen with orange carrot noses, of building snow fort and castles, of endless snowball fights with hot chocolate and extra fluffy marshmallow on the side after a begrudging truce, of eating snow and getting scolded, of him—laughing cheerfully showing two rows of white teeth.

He sighed, closing the curtains to hide the white blanket that covered the hospital grounds—it was also white, the curtains, but at least it did not contain any happy memories. Memories that flashed briefly, after being collected over the years. It made him smile for a while, but a glance at the star of those reminiscences and a pounding headache came to visit him instantly.

“Hyesung-ah…” he grabbed the lukewarm hand carefully so as not to move the catheters too much, avoiding to look at tubes that were connected all over his body, every single one necessary to support him.

“Say something?”

As he expected, there was no answer—not even a tiny sign that he heard him. No answer, even though he desperately wanted to be the one he answered to.

How long had it been since he last heard his laugh? Could he even still remember how he sounded?

But at least the heart monitor was still beeping faithfully, at least there were still spikes and troughs in the line of that cardiogram monitor—at least, even though only through the help of the ventilation system covering his beautiful face, he was still breathing. At the very least…

***

He could still remember how small he felt when he heard the doctors’ diagnosis. He thought that Hyesung’s frequent fainting episodes were due to anemia, or something similar. He thought that some medication and some rest would be enough, and the bright smiles would grace his face again. But the doctor ordered CT-scan with dark expression and the result was what he never wanted to hear. He remembered how empty he felt when he heard the prognosis, lost in the crazy storm in his mind, every word that the doctor said flew over his head.

He knew nothing at all—not knowing what to say or what to do—only staring at the man next to him, committing the conscious sight of him into his memory, because he didn’t want to admit how long he could still stay.

The echoing sobs of Hyesung’s mother filled the room; Hyesung’s father’s shouted protests to the higher deity. But the worst sound was of Hyesung’s silent tears—his eyes solemnly closed.  He was pretending to be strong again—like when he got the cut below his eye when they were kids, like when he injured his knees and went through surgery to repair it when they were teenagers. Eric knew that look and he knew that it was Hyesung’s last effort to keep things together—by locking his lips.

And he felt so small—so small because everything was too heavy to bear, too heavy to understand, and he knew nothing, nothing at all, that could fix this—him.

***

The disease progression was too quick, and suddenly the hospital turned into being their second home. Hyesung was getting weaker and weaker and it was so difficult to watch him breaking apart day by day—hair falling out, losing weight, bones sticking out.

He just learnt to love him. He was still learning on how to love him.

After years of being best friends and drowning in his own stupid denial, he had just started to learn.  He had stumbled way too many times in the past, turning a deaf ear to what his heart was trying to say. He had fallen so many times, trying to erase the feelings that had grown way too strong to be cut away. They had fought, verbally and physically, although he never understood what for—he just started to understand—that it was just a poor attempt in covering the tension that had run so high between them.

Regrets creeping up on his soul.

Regret of not being able to admit everything earlier. Regret of not being able to hug him tightly more, to kiss him more. Regret of not being able to stay together with him as lovers longer.

He could barely walk in this infancy stage of this journey—he was just starting to crawl. How could he ever learn to walk if he was not there together with him on the way, holding each other’s hand?

***

Green.

The color he had come to learn to hate too.

Like the color of this plastic chair that had been his only friend for the last few months. The lone green furniture in the room, standing out like a sore thumb among all the whites. It was hard and cold, exactly like reality.

It was also the color of the hospital’s visitor robe that he had to wear every time he entered his room, and the color of the outfits of the surgeons who came out from the surgery room with his lifeless body in tow, with grim expression on their faces.

The shade of the trees in the hospital grounds reminded him of the color of the leaves in his memory, but the color seemed so bright inside there—of riding the bicycles together on the road lined with oak trees, of lying on their backs on the thick grass watching the clouds, of trying to give each other’s their own portion of vegetables, of fighting on who would use Luigi instead of Mario, of him—his