A sigh escaped Yongguk’s lips. His mind was a cluttered mess, a labyrinth of fragmented memories, familiar silhouettes and tiny voices. He tapped his fingers furiously on the wooden table as he let out another deep heavy sigh. Yongguk looked up at his editor from the pieces of paper that he had been scribbling on mindlessly for the past few days, consisting of only angry handwriting and incoherent words. The other male had one leg draped over the arm of the sofa across the room, sipping his fifth- no, sixth cup of coffee. His lips were drawn into a tight line, and Yongguk knew that his editor was clearly displeased. Very displeased.

“Still nothing? You’ve been stuck on the last chapter for millenniums, Yongguk. And nope, I’m not exaggerating.”

Yongguk rolled his eyes nonchalantly.

“Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’ve never suffered a writer’s block for this long before. Is it because of that crazy little fictional character that you’ve made up in your head? He’s not real, and he’ll never be rea-”

“Get out, Himchan.”

Yongguk’s hands balled up into fists of rage, and he was so close to strangling his best friend to death.

“Yongguk-ah, I… I’m sorry. I-“

“GET OUT.”

Once upon a time, there lived a writer. His name was Yongguk. He drifted among invisible ink and faded words. He was always found hunched over a notebook, fingers smudged in ink stains. He liked creating different worlds in between pages – worlds that he can embrace, breathe and live in. He liked creating different characters, developing them into real people with feelings and emotions. He was a kaleidoscope of untold stories and magical dreams.

Once upon a time, the writer fell in love. His name was Daehyun, the main male protagonist in Yongguk’s new urban fantasy novel. Daehyun always visited Yongguk at 4:00AM in the morning. His skin glowed with splashes of invisible ink and faded words. His ribcage was decorated with tiny heartbeats. He preferred forehead kisses and morning hugs. He lived through the pages, and through the ages. He believed in happy endings, and he sank his teeth into happiness.

Yongguk thought that Daehyun was so, so, so oddly real and beautiful. He swore that he could almost feel Daehyun’s pulse while flipping through the pages. And he did not want Daehyun to leave, ever. Daehyun was everything Yongguk could ever ask for.

3:57AM, 3:58AM, 3:59AM.

4:00AM.

“Hi, Daehyun.” Yongguk smiled.

“Good morning, Yongguk hyung.” Daehyun smiled too.

Yongguk remembered the first time he met Daehyun.

It was 4:00AM. Yongguk woke up to find himself surrounded by darkness. His chest felt eerily constricted, almost as if the black walls around him were trying to strangle him, forcing every breath out of him. He struggled to sit up, and tried to see beyond the darkness. He momentarily flinched as his fingers brushed over a skin-like texture. The other party gasped slightly at the sudden skin contact.

Yongguk’s breath hitched in his throat as he tried finding his voice. “Wha- Who are you? Why are you on my bed? How did you even get into my room?!”

The lights flickered and lit up the whole room. The stranger had switched on the table lamps. “Um. Hi, Bang Yongguk. I’m Daehyun, Jung Daehyun.” His words rolled out of his tongue in a deep, smooth tone.

It gave Yongguk the chills. The stranger – no, scratch that – the beautiful stranger was the lead character in his upcoming novel that he was currently working on. Jung Daehyun was supposed to be fictional. He was not supposed to be in Yongguk’s room, and on Yongguk’s bed now.

The honey-voiced stranger spoke again, assaulting Yongguk’s thoughts and bringing him back to reality. He wondered if it really was reality.

“You have a really deep voice.”

“Oh. Is that a good thing?”

“Yes.”

Yongguk’s eyes met Daehyun’s and a small smile tugged on his lips.

“You are exactly how I imagined.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“...Yes.”

4:00AM. The alarm screamed mercilessly in Yongguk’s ear. He woke up feeling all groggy and disoriented, one of those nasty mornings in which he was too exhausted from his work to even lift a finger. He turned around slightly and found a surprise beside him. A very pleasant surprise.

"Hi," Daehyun hummed, resting his head on Yongguk’s chest.

Yongguk pulled Daehyun closer and planted a small kiss on his forehead. Yongguk loved it when he woke up with Daehyun beside him. It immediately made his day brighter.

If Yongguk squinted hard enough, he was able to see Daehyun's original world underneath his skin, within his bones. Unfortunately, the world was frozen, time stopped and everything stopped with it. Yongguk sighed. He knew that he could no longer drag the ending of his story any further. Especially not with Himchan nagging at him every single day.

("I demand money for hair treatment after you're done with this book. Do you have ANY IDEA how many strands of my precious black hair had turned white during this period?!")

But he was afraid – afraid of Daehyun leaving him, afraid of Daehyun disappearing into thin air, afraid that this was all just a beautiful dream.

“You’ve been sighing a lot lately,” Daehyun frowned.

“I’m sorry… It’s just… It’s hard,” Yongguk muttered under his breath as he gently ran his fingers through Daehyun’s hair.

Daehyun nodded slowly. “D-do you want me to leave?”

Yongguk stared at him in disbelief. His expression was intense, and it startled Daehyun a little.

“I mean… You’re having such a hard time because of me and-“

“No,” Yongguk snarled angrily, clashing his lips against Daehyun’s to shut him up. Daehyun yelped in surprise, squirming in pain as Yongguk shoved his tongue down the younger’s throat. The kiss was rough, fiery and uncomfortable, unlike all their other kisses. Ink gushed out from his bruised lips. It did not felt like shooting stars exploding in his mouth like it usually did; it felt like thousands of knives piercing through his entire body and tearing him apart instead. Daehyun crumbled under Yongguk's touch, bit by bit, his lips turning into sand and cascading down from the corner of his mouth like a waterfall. Yongguk finally broke away to catch his breath, and a choked sob managed to escape Daehyun’s throat.

“Oh god, Daehyun," Yongguk’s voice was tinted with a thick layer of guilt. "Daehyun please stop crying. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking…” What the hell was I thinking?

Daehyun’s eyes crinkled in immense pain. Yongguk held him tightly and apologised over and over again. He whispered sweet nothings into Daehyun’s ear, and Daehyun’s lips curved into a small smile. He just couldn’t be angry with Yongguk for more than a millisecond. For what seemed like eternity, the two of them just laid there, listening to each other's heartbeat, lost in each other’s embrace.

“Daehyun-ah! We’re going out today!” Yongguk announced happily, his voice slightly higher than usual. (Although his 'higher' voice didn't exactly make any big difference since his original voice was so eerily low. But it didn't matter because Daehyun liked Yongguk's voice. A lot.) He was creating a mini-rampage in his house, stuffing a bunch of things into his bag, with a… toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.

Daehyun’s jaw dropped instinctively. “But hyung, it’s 4 in the morning! The sun isn’t even out yet!”

“Exactly!” Yongguk grinned. “This is the perfect timing!”

“O-okay. But please, for the love of god, finish brushing your teeth first.”

Yongguk and Daehyun walked down the street in silence. Daehyun eyed his surroundings warily. This was his first time stepping out of Yongguk’s apartment and he was shivering with fear. This was all so new to him, and so different from Daehyun's original world. He clutched Yongguk’s hand tightly.

“What’s wrong?” Yongguk threw a worried glance at Daehyun.

“I’m scared. What if people think you’re insane? Talking to yourself like that.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna have a blast today. Alright?”

Daehyun giggled. “Yes sir!”

“We’ve made it! Just in time!”

Daehyun was swimming in a pool of confusion. The both of them were standing in the middle of a beach, and Yongguk simply told Daehyun to wait. Then it happened - Golden rays started pouring out of the horizon, heating up the sand beneath their feet and illuminating the sky with its radiance. The sun rose slowly into its rightful place, transforming everything from monochrome to polychrome.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Daehyun nodded in delight. “It’s really, really pretty. But why…?”

Yongguk’s cheeks flushed into a faint shade of red. “I just thought that… We’re technically a couple, but we’ve never even had a proper date before. So…”

And suddenly, they were kissing. This was Daehyun’s way of repaying his lover, and he made sure to do it properly. The two of them were perfectly in sync, their bodies melting into each other as Daehyun drugged Yongguk with his kisses. Slowly, teasingly, Daehyun removed his lips from Yongguk’s. And he did it in a way that left Yongguk’s mind spinning and his skin burning. Daehyun took a deep breath and exhaled.

“I love you, Bang Yongguk.”

There, he said it. He finally said it, and he meant it. Yongguk was silent for a moment, and Daehyun instantly became worried. What if it was all one-sided from the beginning? What if it was just his imagination playing tricks on him? What if his hyung was just humouring him? However, his worries were (obviously) uncalled for. Yongguk brushed Daehyun’s hair away from his face, and kissed his forehead softly.

“I love you, Jung Daehyun.”

“You’re writing today. I haven’t seen you write in ages.”

Daehyun appeared behind Yongguk, resting his head gently on the elder’s left shoulder. Yongguk was calmly writing away, collecting words from the edges of his heart and imprinting it onto paper with every ounce of sincerity. He ruffled Daehyun’s hair with his left hand, and continued writing with his right hand.

“I have to. I don’t want Himchan chasing after me with knives in both hands.”

Daehyun laughed a little, but it did not ease the discomfort that was threatening to spill out of his heart. “What do you think will happen to me once you’re done with the story? Will I be locked in the book forever? What if...” He bit his lip. “What if I can’t see you anymore?”

Yongguk cupped Daehyun’s face with his hands, making him meet his gaze. “Then I’ll write another one. I’ll write about us. I’ll write you a happy ending.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

Yongguk leaned back in his chair and hugged the stack of papers close to his chest. It took him a little more than a year to finish writing the book about him and Daehyun, and it was finally ready to be published to the world. No one dared to question the relationship between them, not even themselves. Not even Himchan. They were happy with each other, and that was all it mattered. Daehyun hadn't visited ever since Yongguk completed his previous book, but Yongguk waited. He waited for a day, a week, a fortnight, a month, a year. The days were merely long quiet nights under the sky, the stars whispering in his ears, his heart bursting into dust, his thoughts dissolving into the stale air – and all the remained, were just words that danced at the tip of his tongue, and melted upon paper.

3:57AM, 3:58AM, 3:59AM.

4:00AM.

“Good morning, Yongguk hyung.”

Yongguk smiled. The voice echoed under the moonlight. A year had passed, but the voice was still coated with the same sense of familiarity that Yongguk loved and missed so much. The voice that tattooed itself onto Yongguk’s bare chest and tainted his soul with memories. Daehyun was no longer a fading fragment of his memory, no longer a foolish illusion in his imagination. He was very very real, and most importantly, his. Daehyun believed in happy endings, and Yongguk gave him the best ending ever.

“Hi, Daehyun.”

Once upon a time, there lived a writer. His name was Yongguk. Once upon a time, the writer fell in love. His name was Daehyun.

And they lived happily ever after.

I've written us down, and now we'll live forever.
The world will read us now, and now we'll live forever.