YESUNG

now

Two hours have passed since I’ve found Ryeowook in the bathroom. When I close my eyes, or when I simply blink, I’d see the gory bathroom in heart-crushing clarity. The details jump out at me one after the other like images pre-installed in a plastic toy camera. I can almost hear the clicks.

I blink, and I see the limp arm hanging over the edge of the bathtub. I blink again, and I see the blade spinning circles on the surface of the water. When I close my eyes for the next three seconds, I remember the way the water flowed around his body, as if he was an inconsequential obstacle, before it continued its journey down the drainage hole.

I let the details captured by my memory assail me. I let them tear me over and over again, until I am lifted to the pinnacle of pain. 

In the corridor outside the morgue, I slide down the wall until I am hunkering on the floor. I carry my head between my hands, my fingers tangling through my hair and yanking at them until my scalp burned. 

I deserve more pain. More, more.

I didn’t kill Ryeowook, but I let him die. I let an angel die. I am worse than Satan.

I think of the bathroom door that was unlocked, and how easily I could have entered and saved Ryeowook. 

Maybe Ryeowook was waiting for me to save him. 

Maybe, as blood was flowing out of him, he was thinking: If Yesung Hyung comes in and saves me now, I’ll continue living. 

Maybe this whole thing is Ryeowook’s way of testing my worthiness and I haven’t proven myself to deserve him.

All I did was to return to bed. I fell back into sleep when Ryeowook was just a door away, dying.

A hollow laugh kindle at the base of my throat at the irony of the situation. I slam the heel of my hand into my temple. Once, then twice. My arms still reek of Ryeowook’s blood. My skin still tingled with the memory of Ryeowook’s cold body as I pull him out of the tub. My shirt is wet, stained with red shades of varying deepness.

I hear desperate footfalls pounding down the corridor. Such footfalls only belong to family members who were called to the hospital in the dead of the night. You can hear the denial in them: Please, please, tell me this isn’t true. Tell me that you’re just joking.

I open my eyes to see Kyuhyun stumbling toward me, his slippers slapping against the pristine floor and echoing in the empty corridor. His hair is tousled by sleep and he is wearing a faded shirt and an old pair of drawstring pairs. On his pale face, his eyes are crazed with disbelief. 

It is the first time I see him like this. Kyuhyun has always been the cool and unaffected one among the three of us. But then again, Kyuhyun is hardly cool and unaffected whenever Ryeowook’s wellbeing is being called into question.

I stand up, and he slows down when he sees the blood on my shirt. For a long time, we stand like the opposite poles of a magnet. The corridor is silent except for our breathing and the buzzing fluorescent lights above us. 

I want to say something, but what can I say? I’m sorry? It’s not my fault? I don’t know why…?

Eventually he breaks the silence. “Where is he?” He asks, his voice hoarse.

I lift an arm and point at the room just in front of us. He staggers past me and as the door of the room opens, a glacial puff of air caresses my skin. I shudder, this time remembering the Ryeowook’s body as it is laid on the metal table, a white cloth drawn up to his shoulders.

On the clock not too far away from me, I see the time, the day, and the date.

18.07

I will always carry the number with me. Kyuhyun will, too. This is the day which we have lost the person who mattered to us the most.

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