Daehyun sighs as he enters the room; it’s been a long and tiring day but this has become a tradition that Daehyun has no intention of breaking. He looks over his collection of random and seemingly useless items arranged carefully on every surface of the room. Impassively, he moves around to place his new additions amongst them carefully. They serve no purpose really; Daehyun only relives the memories once, immediately after he touches them.

Daehyun isn’t particularly attached to any of them; he just likes knowing all the secrets behind them - their true value, and how much their original possessors had treasured each one.

Daehyun slips the first one out of his pocket - a small hand mirror with an ornate clasp.

It’s smudged with too many fingerprints, but Daehyun is satisfied when he sees his reflection in it anyway. He smiles wide, adjusting his collar. He absolutely cannot believe that he’s scored a date with you, the girl he’d been eyeing for months now through the window of the café. He gives himself one last look, one last pat down before snapping the mirror shut. You’ll be here any minute now.

Any minute now. Youngjae feels like he’s going to explode any minute now. His head swirls; hurts and his face is pinched from the pain despite himself. It attracts the nurse’s attention and she greets him with a concerned look. She tells him that they’ve upped his dosage since the current one wasn’t helping and Youngjae just nods, trying his best to look grateful. He takes the pills from her, slips them into his mouth and gulps down the glass of water on the tray.

Then he leans back and waits until the woman is out of sight before spitting them all out and crushing them into the crowded crook in his bedframe. He sighs as he lets his head drop heavily onto his pillow. Youngjae doesn’t want to cause problems but he finds that whenever he takes his pills, his dreams turn out blurry as if screened and Youngjae hates it.

He hates that, no matter what he does, all he remembers of you are broken fragments. Hates living in this limbo between the glimpses of then and the nightmares of now.

But it’s all he has. These fragile wisps of a memory buried too deep within the recesses of his head, is all he has left. So Youngjae waits. Waits for the day he’ll break out of this prison that holds only reflections of the real you.

Daehyun lays the mirror down and turns his attention instead to the steel castle sitting next to it. It’s still covered in the dirt Daehyun had found it buried in and he moves to sweep them off, letting the little particles fall onto the wooden floor.

The dirt crunches under Daehyun’s feet and he’s somewhat aware that he’s probably ruining his shoes but he finds, to his surprise, that he could care less about that right now. He reaches for your hand, curling his fingers between yours and smiles when you tug at it excitedly, leading him towards the pink castle modeled after fairy tales. He has to admit- he had been a tad embarrassed to be here, but now that he’s with you, nothing else really matters anymore.

Nothing. Nothing matters to him anymore. Yongguk grasps the neck of the heavy bottle tightly and pours himself what must be the hundredth drink of the day. He picks the glass up when it’s full and downs the liquid in one go, ignoring the burn in his throat as he does so. The ice cubes clink emptily around the glass when he places it down and the sound somehow reminds him of the echo in his heart.

Suddenly feeling sick, Yongguk shoots up, making the side table spin on its legs and the almost empty bottle tips, falls to the ground with a resounding crash. Yongguk stops in his tracks and grimaces to see the liquid seep into the grains of his hardwood floor - The sight looks too much like the loneliness that has crept into his life after you left.

Dazedly, he stumbles through the house, letting his palms drag over the surfaces of his home. Your home. The one you two should be sharing now. He sees the kitchen counter that you two would prepare breakfast at. He sees the little loveseat you would cuddle in while a movie plays on the TV. He sees the bed you would make love in and wake up in each other’s arms on.

Yongguk slides down into a crouch; unable to keep himself steady any longer, and buries his face in his hands. Everything just seems so empty without you. And nothing he does seems to fill that hole in his heart.

He misses you.

Daehyun places the castle on the highest shelf and conjures a couple of miniature clouds from thin air. He gives them a little push, making them float between the cold, steel towers. It’s a pretty sight but it only fills Daehyun with a sense of melancholy and longing. He lingers to stare at it for a while until a clatter captures his attention. It’s another new addition to his collection – a toy wooden horse that has fallen from the turntable he’d placed it on. Daehyun climbs down the steps to pick it up and return it to its place, watching as it turns round and round with its brothers like a roofless carousel.

The carousel. Junhong remembers it clearly, even as he fingers the picture of it stuck onto the wall on the far end of the room, amongst the many well wishing cards and handiworks of your friends. Junhong smiles to see the sheer number of them - a testimony to the number of lives you’ve touched. You’ve always been kind and caring, and altogether too loving. Especially to people who didn’t deserve it.

People like him.

Junhong goes to stand by your bedside, your pale cheek with a thumb softly. So softly, as if afraid you might break into pieces with anything more. He in a deep breath but it does nothing to stop the tears and they spill over all too quickly. Big, fat drops fall onto your pristine white blanket against Junhong’s wishes.

Junhong lets out a broken sob and he sinks to his knees, reaching out to hold your open palm in both of his. He buries his face in your hand as he cries and fills it with tears.

The memories are what torture him, because they remind him of everything that you’d had - Your first date, your first embrace and first kiss.

The first time he’d learned to treasure someone.

And the torture him, because they also remind him of everything he’s ruined. Everything he’s come to regret.

Daehyun straightens suddenly, struck by a belated realization. He stops the turntable and turns each horse around. And when he starts it up again, the horses go forward, round and round. It registers, just barely, in Daehyun’s head that it’s right now but he feels little satisfaction and merely picks up the camera next to it; the spinning horses look like they might make a pretty picture, he thinks.

Daehyun’s smile gets impossibly wider as he snaps the picture. The warm wind ruffles his hair just like how he remembers and he thinks maybe things cannot get any better because you were here – at his favorite beach, in his hometown, the bustling city of Busan. Daehyun hugs you to himself, the sounds of your laughter filling his heart to the brim. All of his favorite things were here, what more could he ask for?

Only one thing. That you leave him alone. That’s all Jongup could ask for. It’s all he wants now. And yet, you still plague him. Day after day and night after night. You’re always there, here, everywhere. Even when he works himself to the bone or when he dances to the point of collapsing. You’re just there.

Jongup swears aloud and flips his desk over. Hot, angry tears roll down his cheeks as the occupants of his desk also roll off one by one to crash noisily onto the ground. He pulls at his hair in frustration. Nothing works, and every time he thinks he’s free; thinks he’s forgotten you, a random, abandoned memory will surface and he’s trapped yet again.

What’s worse is that Jongup just couldn’t understand why this was happening. Why couldn’t he just forget you? He had always been good at forgetting. He was rarely upset, rarely hurt. He always took everything in stride; not paying too much attention to the things that could hurt him.

Until now. Until you. And he couldn’t figure out why. Couldn’t understand when you had turned from being his angel, the light of his life, to this insurmountable wall of pain.

Daehyun sets the camera down and turns to watch the movie playing on his wall. It’s his last item of the day and though it’s been a long time since he’s felt anything, he feels a stirring within him. Tears start to fill his eyes, without him knowing and without his permission. The movie plays on and Daehyun watches.

Daehyun quickly realizes, with panic rising, that he’s paralyzed and that the only thing he can do is watch. The doctor and nurses fuss about him and their activity do nothing to ease his anxiety. One of them finally comes over to jab the button at his finger frantically. The effect is unbelievably quick as Daehyun finds himself floundering into his subconscious. A different movie plays there; choppy and disorganized; Daehyun feels incredibly disoriented and only manages to pick up a few pictures – A fight, a dance, an accident, a wedding… pain.

Death.

Himchan slumps into the couch. He can’t remember when he’d put the film on, only knowing that it’s playing yet again. It’s reflex, he guesses, to turn it on the moment he wakes up… or maybe he just didn’t turn it off.

He watches anyway, as two smiling faces stare back at him. They look so happy, as if they owned the world and before he knows it, he’s crying again. The tears slip down his cheeks, unrestrained and Himchan can’t help feeling the betrayal that comes over him.

He’d thought he was done crying. He’d thought he’d cried himself dry. Thought he had stopped feeling.

But then anger fills him. Along with pain and confusion. And regret and loneliness.

Himchan blinks away the tears and stands purposefully. He strides to his chest, rifling through his drawers carelessly until he finds what he’s looking for. Himchan stares at the weapon in his hand for a moment, wondering if this is really what it would take for all of it to go away.

He raises it, takes aim and fires right into the wall to wipe away those stupid smiles. Those stupid smiles that bear no meaning any longer except to fill him with despair.

Himchan puts the gun against his head, feels the cold, unyielding steel bite into the skin at his temple.

Is this really what it takes? For all the pain to go away?

He fires.

Only one way to find out.

He falls.

Daehyun watches, mesmerized, as the last of the grains fall from one bulb to the other. In the back of his mind, he marvels at it all. How fragile humans are. How flimsy the notion of love is.

The last grain of sand falls to land together with the rest and Daehyun reaches for the hourglass. He turns it over and watches as it starts all over again, with tears in his eyes.

----

“You understand what you’re giving up? You understand what this means?”

The voice booms from above, under, left and right and Daehyun resists the urge to curl into a ball or to cover his ears at least. The darkness and sheer raw power in the room makes him tremble and a sob escapes his lips, but he nods anyway. He’s already made up his mind; didn’t need to think about it because he’d sworn he would do anything for you and he intended to keep that promise.

“Very well,” the voice says and at its words, Daehyun feels a scalding pain on his back.

A scream gurgles in his throat and he’s forced into a sprawl on the cold tiled floor. He writhes as the burning sensation spreads all over his skin and inside his lungs. Hot, painful tears drip down his face, joining his drool into a puddle on the floor. Daehyun grasps, frantically, for something to hold on to, but all he can do is scrape at the floor with his nails, filing them on the unforgiving marble. Daehyun passes out soon from the pain and when he wakes next, he’s greeted yet again by the voice.

“It’s over now,” it tells him.

Daehyun sits up tentatively, stretching and testing his limbs, which are now covered entirely in black. He arches his back and a sudden force pushes him forward, making him stumble. Bewildered, he turns to see what it is and his eyes widen impossibly.

Wings of black stretches from the middle of his back, just below his shoulder blades, and open up into two identical walls of majestic feathers. He flexes them with awe and they spread wider, wider than an arm’s length.

“Confusion, loneliness, regret, grief and despair. You are all of that. And they are all of you now. Wherever you are, so they will also be.”

Daehyun blinks with each word, the amazement from before gone and instead he somehow senses that something is amiss but he’s unable to place what it is. And then, almost like a glass being filled with water, Daehyun is filled with all kinds of pain. He gasps and is brought to his knees again as the feelings intensify, overwhelming him from within and coating him without.

The walls of darkness that surround him fall and a blinding brightness replaces it. Daehyun cringes from the light and in his confusion, he hears the voice one last time.

“This is your curse.”