whispers in the night 

[ chansoo / suyeol / seho / angst / unrequited love / death mentioned ]

Every night, Chanyeol wakes up in the middle of the night and he wanders from room to room, pointing and mumbling a name. “Kyungsoo… Kyungsoo…” he whispers and points at the empty study, the cooled stove, and the small window bench. He looks around but does not see. He blindly searches.

Junmyeon trails after the taller man in the dark without a word. He accompanies his lost friend every night, gently guiding him out of harm’s way and never to his desired destination. Junmyeon knows where Chanyeol wants to go. But he can’t let the other man go. Where Kyungsoo is simply is too cold and too silent and he is certain that Chanyeol hates both of those things: the cold and silence.

By sunrise, the taller man is back in his bed, exhausted and disappointed.  He’d shed tears if he still has any, but only his heart is crying now. Eventually, Chanyeol falls asleep, dreaming and forgetting, in hopes of healing. He sees the familiar heart-shaped smile in his slumber and hears the tender voice that whispers his name.

“Chanyeol, I’m still here…” Kyungsoo calls out to him in his subconscious, “I miss you so much.”

Every day, Chanyeol dreams and his memories haunt him. So every night, he searches through the apartment he has once called home. He searches for a glimpse of anything that still looks familiar, any reminder of Kyungsoo that is alive and not just another inanimate object in the darkness. However, he rarely finds what he needs. He only sees Junmyeon’s concerned gaze and he crumbles, falls to the ground, and breaks apart, over and over again.

He breathes, but often he tries to will it to a stop. Chanyeol climbs into the bathtub and tries to drown his pain away, let his consciousness flow away with the water eagerly embracing his body and mind. Life is meaningless without love, he has always said. “Without Kyungsoo, life is meaningless,” Chanyeol tells Junmyeon before he faints and the older man chokes back a sob as he tightens his grip around the drenched body in his arms.

As Chanyeol fades, Junmyeon moves into the apartment permanently. His eyes are dry and bloodshot, but he dares not sleep or even blink. He can’t predict what Chanyeol is going to do next, even though the taller man has spent the last three hours just staring out of the window at the hundreds of undying lights in the city. Finally, Chanyeol picks up his guitar and strikes a chord. Softly, he sings.

All I want is nothing more

To hear you knocking at my door

‘Cause if I could see your face once more

I could die a happy man I’m sure

Junmyeon walks over and sits next to the singing man. He wraps an arm around bony shoulders and shuts his eyes tight. He wants to cry, but he must be strong. One of them must be strong. Chanyeol his dry lips and sings more, his voice trembling with each note and his tongue stiffening with each word.

When you said your last goodbye

I died a little bit inside

I lay in tears in bed all night

Alone without you by my side

For the rest of the night, Chanyeol and Junmyeon lean against each other, drawing any comfort and warmth they can from the body next to them. Until the sky turns from black to a pastel grey and until the stars blink away to the brightening day, the two men remain in the same position. Sometime in the night, Junmyeon drifts off to sleep and faintly in his slumber, he hears Chanyeol continue to sing.

But if you loved me

Why’d you leave me?

Take my body

Take my body…

All I want is

And all I need is

To find somebody

I’ll find somebody, like you…

When Junmyeon snaps awake, cold sweat coating his back and wetting his fringes, he turns sharply. Chanyeol’s peaceful sleeping face comes into view and the taller man’s chest heaves up and down in surreal serendipity. Tears of relief well in Junmyeon’s eyes and after taking a quiet, shaky inhale, he lets it all go. All morning long, he weeps. He cries for Kyungsoo, for the Chanyeol whom Kyungsoo has left behind, for himself, and for the Chanyeol that he is trying to put together again.

Two days later, Sehun comes to visit. Junmyeon makes him tea and they sit face to face across the small coffee table. Chanyeol slumps against the window and like always, he stares out at the city decorated in lights.

“You can’t stay with him forever, hyung,” Sehun says solemnly in concern.

“I will, if I can,” Junmyeon answers firmly and sips from his cup. For a few minutes, the apartment is silent. Sehun scans his older friend from head to toe and his heart wretches. Junmyeon has become a mere shadow of the man he used to know. His cheeks have sunken in, his eyes hollow, and the confidence in his form has been worn away by fatigue and fear. Sehun shifts his gaze to Chanyeol, who is akin to an empty human shell, and he chews absent-mindedly on his bottom lip. He knew the taller man would be a mess without Kyungsoo in his life, but he didn’t expect things to be this bad.

“He’s getting better,” Junmyeon informs the younger man, almost proudly, “He is at least sleeping for parts of the night now…”

“Hyung…” Sehun sighs.

“He’s also eating more, he’s getting better, I know he is. Chanyeol needs me more than ever. He will be better, I'm sure. If I jus-“

“No, he won’t,” Sehun interrupts suddenly, his voice wavering from frustration, “Chanyeol hyung will never be the same again, hyung. You can’t replace Kyungsoo hyung, no matter how hard you try. The Chanyeol we knew from before has already died with Kyungsoo, so stop trying to bring him back. Stop trying to replace a ghost… Hyung, please stop trying to love someone who has already disappeared…”

Junmyeon scowls and glares at the younger man, but he says nothing. Everything Sehun has said is true and he knows it. He just cannot completely accept it, not yet. He too has always loved Chanyeol, as much as Kyungsoo and maybe even more, but the taller man did not choose him. Chanyeol does not love him that way.

“You can’t stay with him forever,” Sehun repeats himself and sighs again, blinking away the tears rushing to his slender eyes. Junmyeon continues to glare at his visitor, refusing to speak, and the heavy silence returns into the apartment. It is only broken when Chanyeol mumbles a name, the same name he mumbles every day and every night: “Kyungsoo.”

Finally, Junmyeon sighs in annoyance and begins to clear the tea away. He shuffles back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, blatantly ignoring Sehun’s intense gaze following his every movement. When he cannot find anything to busy himself with anymore, Junmyeon sits by Sehun’s side and buries his face in the crook of the other’s neck. He inhales shakily and grips the corner of Sehun’s sweater tightly in his fist. The younger man smoothes Junmyeon’s hair with affection and kisses him on the forehead. The older man mumbles against skin damp from his tears.

“I just want him back… I just want Chanyeol to come back…”

“I know,” Sehun murmurs and glances at the taller man who is lost in grief. The younger man gulps down the knot in his throat and kisses Junmyeon on the forehead again, “I know…”

That night, Sehun stays over, for Junmyeon and for Chanyeol. He holds onto the older man’s hand in the middle of the night, as they trail Chanyeol from room to room.

“I’m won’t leave him just yet,” Junmyeon whispers as he stares, unblinking, at the back of Chanyeol’s slumping shoulders. Sehun turns to look at the older man’s determined profile and he tightens his grip on their joined hands.

“Then I’ll stay here with you too.”

Junmyeon looks Sehun in the eye and for a moment, the latter thinks he sees more than just gratitude. However, it disappears in a split second and Junmyeon’s attention goes back to Chanyeol. The younger boy lowers his gaze and feels the warmth in his hand slips away.

“I love you, but you don’t love me,” Sehun whispers into the night and watches as the older man walk away.

“Because your heart is already filled to rim with thoughts of someone else,” Junmyeon thinks as he follows the lost giant’s every step.

“All I want is you, but I can’t have you,” Chanyeol mumbles and searches again for that familiar face in the shadows.

“So I can only watch you from afar…” Kyungsoo’s voice seems to echo somewhere inside the apartment, “and I miss you so much.”

FIN.

A/N: And I thought I was doing well writing happier things lately D: well, back to angst. The song is Kodaline's All I Want.