“I’m telling you, blue icing is the best icing!”

            “You’re only saying that because it’s your favorite color,” Hongki frantically shook his head.

            “No, seriously taste it!” And, with those final words, he dipped a finger into the frosting and shoved it into my mouth. It was rather good frosting, but the fact that I finally agreed to getting it instead of the green had more to do with the boy beaming brightly to my right than any actual love for the frosting on my part.

“I still can’t believe you proposed without a ring,”

“Hongki, you wouldn’t have liked anything I picked out anyway,”

“You still should have bought a ring,” he continued grumbling to himself, but didn’t complain when I linked our fingers together on the center console.

            “Don’t forget I want-”

            “Mister Almond,”

            “In a-”

            “Waffle cone,”

            “And don’t forget about-”

            “The cool spoons that change color, yes I know, Hongki,”

            “I was just making sure!” I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the fondness that curved my mouth into a small smile.

“Can we get married in a forest? Like, is that a thing we can do?”

“We can get married wherever you want, I don’t care,”

“Hey you have to take part in these decisions too, Jongh-”

“Hongki watch out!”

            “Hongki,”

            “…”

            “Hongki. Stop,”

            “…”

            “I swear if you don’t stop chewing on your nail,”

            “I’m not chewing on my nail, it’s the skin around my nail,”

            “How does that make it any better?” Hongki frowned at me, pulling his hand slowly away from his mouth, and then reaching forward and flicking me in the forehead. I scowled and rubbed at the spot his nail had made contact.

            “Really?” Hongki shrugged, already back to staring at his sheet music and chewing on his thumbnail, sorry, the skin around his thumbnail.

911 what is your emergency?

“He won’t wake up, oh my god, he won’t wake up,”

            “Jonghun,”

            “Eh?” A bright light momentarily blinded me before my vision faded back to normal. Hongki was fiddling with a camera, thumbing at the buttons and ignoring me.

            “Yah, did you take another picture?” Hongki shrugged, turning the camera off and placing it on the table next to him before moving so his head was in my lap and he was looking up at me.

            “You’re too handsome to not take a picture of,” I scoffed, but my face still flushed red when Hongki gave me an airy smile and a wink.

…car crash on East Laney…4 car pile-up. 3 dead, 2 in critical condition, 1, miraculously, with only minor injuries…

            “You don’t need another shirt with a skull on it, I’m serious Hongki put it back,” I was, of course, ignored. “Yah! Hongki seriously more than half of your clothes have skulls on them,”

            “So? I like skulls, they’re artistic,” Hongki picked up another shirt before continuing to walk down the aisle, forcing me to follow when he didn’t stop.

            “What’s so artistic about your cranial bone structure?”

            “I just like them okay!” I rolled my eyes. Hongki could be so annoying sometimes.

Drunk driver, name currently undisclosed, hit an SUV with a mother and her daughter, both of whom died on impact, and a truck…another car was involved with the wreck, 1 man suffered minor injuries but the other was rushed to the hospital where it is said he is undergoing his third hour of intensive surgery…

            “What are you making?”

            “Gamjatang,”

            “Gamjatang?” Hongki shrugged.

            “And rice,”

            “Why?” Hongki smiled.

            “Because you love gamjatang and rice, and I love you,” I laughed.

            “You’re so cheesy,”

            “You love it,”

…massive brain hemorrhaging and bruising of internal organs…reports indicate probability of survival at a hesitant 30%...

            “We’re not getting a dog,”

            “You haven’t even heard my argument yet! Come on, Jonghun!”

            “No, Hongki. We can’t get a dog we don’t have time to take care of it!”

            “The others can help when we’re busy!”

            “Well what about the fact that it will leave hair everywhere?”

            “That’s not going to be a problem at all and even if it is I’ll clean it up come on Jonghun please?” Hongki gave me a pleading look, but I refused to fall prey to it.

            “No,”

            “Jonghun,” I didn’t respond, choosing instead to continue reading. “How scary are dogs to you on a scale of 1-10?” I threw my newspaper at him, missing his head by a hair as he ducked and started laughing.

            “Shut up!”

Please just come back, please, please, please…

            “Winter makes me love you more,”

            “So during all other seasons you only love me half as much?” Hongki laughed and nodded.

            “You’re far more irritating all other seasons,”

            “Yah! What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “You complain about how hot it is in summer, how many people sneeze on you in spring, and how everything’s dying in fall. But you love winter, so all I hear about it how much you love me,”

            “Winter makes you sappy,”

            “No it doesn’t, I’m just stating the facts here. Winter makes you sappy,”

            “Let’s agree to disagree,”

            “Sure…but you’re still a sap,” I laughed but didn’t argue, turning instead to stare back out the window at the falling snow, Hongki wrapped in my arms.

It is with heavy hearts that we report one of the men involved in the recent pile-up died in his 5^th hour of surgery…Lee Hongki, aged 24, he will be missed.

            “There’s this new restaurant in town and I heard they have really good sushi. We should go,” Hongki shook his head without bothering to look up from his spot curled into his pillow.

            “Too much work. Stay in bed,” He murmured, obviously still half asleep. I couldn’t help but laugh, tugging at the sheets until Hongki eventually got so fed up he grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at my face.

            “I’ll go to your stupid sushi restaurant just leave me alone!” I continued laughing, letting go of the sheet and sliding closer to press my lips to Hongki’s cheek briefly.

            “Thank you,” I whispered, to which Hongki only responded with a huff, though he also turned to cuddle closer to me and press his forehead against my neck.

Choi Jonghun, lone survivor of the crash on East Laney, mourns the loss of his new fiancé and best friend of several years…

            “What?”

            “Marry me,” Hongki dropped his chopsticks, and then his jaw.

            “I-you can’t just-Jonghun,” Hongki’s face was turning progressively redder as he struggled for a response. He had always told me my tendency to ask such straightforward and out-of-the-blue questions was infuriating.

            “We don’t have to do it now, I’d rather do it during Christmas anyway and it’s a little too late for that.” Hongki huffed and crossed his arms.

            “You didn’t even do it properly! Where’s the ring? And what about getting down on one knee?” I rolled my eyes.

            “You’d hit me if I actually got down and asked you, I would know you told me, and I figured you’d want to be with me to buy it. The ring I mean,” Hongki glared at me, though there was little heat in his eyes.

            “You’re lucky I like you, Jonghun,” he then turned back to his food. I took that as a silent yes.

Hongki, Hongki, Hongki come back you were here just minutes ago

We shouldn’t have gone to get that sushi

Hongki oh god

Hongki no

No

            Gray really doesn’t suit you. And neither do these words. “Cherished and loved by all he met”. You were loud and blunt and you had far more enemies than friends. It’d be much more accurate for those words to say “Sometimes cherished and usually loved by a select few who can deal with drama”. Either way, they’d make my chest ache no less.

            You always told me you hated funerals; that you wished you didn’t have to die simply because that meant you’d have to have one.

            Well we didn’t have a funeral for you, but I almost wish we had. Maybe it would have left me with something more than this strange and empty pit in my stomach. To be able to say a last goodbye. To watch you get lowered into the ground. To have been able to confirm that, yes, this really was the end. I haven’t cried very much since that first night, after I watched you get rushed into surgery with your pulse rapidly fading and your blood staining the hospital sheet around you. You didn’t ever come out of that room. Not like I had convinced myself you would.

            I waited and waited, just to see that smile and hear you say “I’m alright you idiot stop worrying”. But it was a doctor who came out instead of you, and instead of that radiant smile, I got a pitying frown.

            He told me there was too much blood lost, that you were too far gone but that they had tried everything they could. I got to hold your hand before they took you away, and even though it was cold and your fingers didn’t curl around mine like they always do, I felt like you were still there. That maybe you were just sleeping, and the doctors had it wrong.

            I miss you.

            Sometimes I sit and stare out the window, watching those two kids who live across the street bicker. And I remember how we used to sit together and laugh as they pouted and yelled and stomped about, because we used to be the same way. We were best friends, forever.

            Mail still comes in with your name on it, so I’ve taken to not checking it anymore.

            The boys came around after you were buried, asking about me, but all I could talk about was you. They cried, more than I’ve ever seen them cry, and I wondered why I couldn’t muster up the tears as freely as they could. Then I figured it was because all the power I had left to feel anything stronger than a faint sadness had gone when your heart stopped beating.

            Heechul came by too. It makes my chest ache, the way he reminds me so much of you (although it’s always been more you reminding me of him.) It was the first time in a long time I’ve ever seen him so serious. It was also the first time I saw him cry. He was fine, up until the point he saw that stupid wall of pictures I still haven’t been able to take down.

            I miss you taking pictures.

            And I miss you saying my name.

            I miss how we used to sit and watch the snow fall.

            And I miss you making my favorite foods.

            I miss arguing with you.

            And making up.

            But I think what I miss most of all.

            Is you saying, “I love you.”

“Jonghun, we’ll be together forever right?”

“Of course, for forever and every day after.”