It seemed like Daeyeol was the only one counting the days till Sungyeol woke up; everyone else was counting up to the day they would unhinge him from the complicated machinery he was attached to, that made his lungs rise and fall mechanically in a steady rhythm.

While going to the bathroom, he had overheard his parents talking about cremation. It filled him with anger that his parents were planning on how to dispose of the body when Sungyeol was very much alive – maybe he needed that machine to breathe, but at least he was breathing. The faint lines of heartbeats were still crawling across the ECG screen like a centipede.

Daeyeol had a feeling that Sungyeol could hear them, even though they were separated by a thick glass barrier. Sometimes, when he would sit by the glass and talk to Sungyeol about Sungjong, he saw the ECG lines becoming more prominent, speeding past the screen faster. And then they would fall back into the creeping pace. Sungyeol’s heartbeats also sped up when the doctors talked about taking him off the ventilator.

They couldn’t explain it, the doctors – they tried to explain it off to Daeyeol as arrhythmia or something, words that had no meaning for him. His brother could hear him, he could hear them talking about him.

That was why he got mad at his parents for discussing funeral arrangements – Sungyeol didn’t want to hear that; he wanted to know that they were all waiting for him.

He wanted to know that Sungjong was waiting for him.

But was he?

They had brought a grief counsellor for Daeyeol. The man tried to explain to him how he was avoiding a tragedy that he had to deal with, sooner or later.

“It’s a way of coping, avoidance,” he had told him, patting him on the back.

“Then let me cope my way,” Daeyeol had replied simply.

Regardless of what everyone else said, he knew his brother was alive; he could feel his soul.

“This isn’t living,” the doctor had said.

“How can you live knowing that you have murdered someone? Look at him, look at his heartbeat – does a dead man have that?” he had retorted back.

The doctor probably regretted teaching him to read the ECG monitor. That wasn’t the only thing he had learned in this hospital. He knew about comas, and artificial ventilators and lots of other useless stuff. He would tell Sungyeol about it when he woke up; he would probably laugh at him. But at least he couldn’t call him ignorant anymore. Sungyeol had some nerve, calling him ignorant when he himself was oblivious to the world around him.

“God, I miss you so much. I need you so much,” he murmured against the cold glass sheet separating him from his brother.

The ECG lines picked up; his heart was beating faster and faster.

Daeyeol held his breath. But the beats lost their pace.

Only if Sungjong had been here, saying the same thing, it would have been enough to bring his brother back.

“God, Sungjong I hate you so much.”

There was nothing Daeyeol could do.

He wouldn’t have been there when the doctors had taken him off the ventilator; he found it utterly revolting, no less than murder. But he knew his brother would want him to be there, one last time…

What he found even revolting was that Sungjong had sent him a text finally in reply to his countless ones. And it was revolting.

Mianhe.

Sorry.

It was sickening. He had thrown his cell phone against the wall when he had read it. The next moment he was near the wall, trying to salvage the wreck that was now his phone. It had been a gift from Sungyeol. His brother wasn’t usually the type to buy him gifts, but he had bought him the phone. Daeyeol had never changed it.

Sungyeol had always been the bombastic one, the louder one, the loved one. He was the kind of person who filled a giant room just by being in it. He was the sound, the feel, the sight of their family. Daeyeol was more of a silent storm, and Sungyeol was the sky that kept him alive. But not anymore.

Not anymore…

At least he would know Daeyeol cared for him, that he fought until the end.

And even though it would break him, he would know that Sungjong had never been worth his time.

You are a romantic, sweetheart, maybe that’s why one love is never enough for you.

It’s a pity I couldn’t complement you like you complemented me. You were more than everything I ever needed, but you – you needed more.

I wish I could say that you will pay for this, but you won’t. I won’t let you.

Remember I told you I’d run away with you if you ask me to, I’d never look back. I was so desperately in love with you that I pitied myself sometimes. And at other times, I was too busy holding you close to my body, trying to slip into your clothes, seep under your skin.

My darling, countless nights I had spent thinking about leaving you. Every time I tried to imagine leaving you, my vision was engulfed in a hollow blackness, a thousand feet drop into nothingness.

One night when you called and said you’d stay the night out, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to hang myself because I couldn’t break-up with you, and I couldn’t stand the pain either; but then you came back with tears in your eyes and all I could do was hold you in my embrace, gently shushing you and singing you a lullaby. I knew I had to be there for you.

If only you’d thought the same.

Sweetheart, you know sometimes I stayed awake at night, long after you had been lulled into a false sense of security and a peaceful sleep, staring at the ceiling and counting the cracks. There was one more, every time I counted, as if the ceiling was also keeping tabs on you.

On those nights, I wondered who was more desperate – you, who dug through dirt, buried your bones and returned with a fake smile and dirt underneath your fingernails, or I, who knew every last skeleton in your closet and yet watched over the burial like a monk under the oath of silence. You never thought I would find out, did you dear, all those summer flings and winter affairs.

I waited for you, dear, I truly did, but you were like Cinderella on her first ball, too dazed to know that good things last only until the clock strikes twelve.

It’s sad because all you needed to do was turn around and see me waiting.

Dearest, my brother had once asked me if you could love someone so much that you’d die for them. I had laughed at him and said, “I’d die for Sungjong if he needs me to.” Daeyeol was mesmerised by my devotion. He told me he wished he had someone like that in his life.

At times he would suddenly say, “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” I was amazed by how he always knew. So I asked him one day how he knew and he simply said, “You unconsciously smile when you’re thinking about Sungjong. That’s the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

How can I pay you back for all the happiness you’d given me? Because all the pain you’ve caused me doesn’t touch the happiness I had received.

Sweetest, you drew stars on my wrist with a sharpie and kissed them, because you couldn’t bring me the stars from heaven. That blank ink on my wrist was way more dazzling than any star any light years away, and I’d exchange it any day for the moon or the sun.

You were the only thing in my life worth having.

Sungjong, I just want to know, was there a time, was there a single moment when I was enough for you? Tell me please, because I want to cherish that moment, frame it and hang it on my wall and cling to it like it’s my soul.

I just want to know if you cared, Sungjong, if you loved me.

It’s been weeks since I’ve been dead, because this isn’t living – but I think it’s time for me to wake from this slumber of mistrust and masquerade, and pain that has to be lived through, not felt. You might have believed that anything that glitters is worth trying out on your fingers, but you taught me one invaluable lesson: life stops only when you stop living.

I can’t let you forget me. So it’s time for me, my love, to feel you again. Death can be deceiving, but it takes one who has been there to know.

Remember how I told you, I’ll protect you always no matter what. Unlike you, I keep my promises when it comes to you.

I’d never give up on you, not in a million years. I’ll find a way.