Yesung used to hate the hospital. Maybe he would not have, if he had been in a private suite.

But if he had, he would have never met Han Geng.

Han Geng, the tall, handsome doctor from the building next door.

Han Geng, who apparently decided that Yesung was checking him out way too much and that it was his turn to check him out.

Han Geng.

Yesung has now been in the hospital for nine days. Two days ago, Han Geng had checked up on him instead of Dr. Choi Siwon, so they’d finally met, face to face.

“Hey, snap out of it,” a laughing voice cuts in, rudely disrupting his thoughts. “You need to take your medicine.”

“So mean…” Yesung grumbles, holding his hand out for the bitter white pills. “As if they’re going to help me.”

“Don’t say that,” Siwon reprimands sharply. “You’ll be fine in a while.”

A while. And how long is a while?

Yesung isn’t stupid; he knows that he is dying. His family knows, his friends know.

Everyone knows.

But Siwon won’t have any of it.

“I will cure you if it is the last thing I do,” he had said once, slowly and clearly, dead serious.

Yesung only nods, and Siwon takes his leave, but not before replacing the drip bag by Yesung’s side.

“Take care and keep your hopes up,” Siwon reminds before disappearing out the curtain of a door.

“As if,” Yesung scoffs to an empty room. A warm breeze blows in through the open window, fluttering the curtain.

The trees’ leaves shine freshly green, and Yesung finds himself mesmerized, slowly falling into a trance, mind throwing itself back.

“Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know or don’t care?”
“…”
“I think you don’t care.”
“But I do.”
But his argument had sounded weak, even to his own ears.
“Do you?”
She had laughed coldly, a short scoff.
“I don’t think so.”
And as he watched her walk away, back straight, he just didn’t realize how much she meant to him.

That had been five years ago, when he was still young.

Young and stupid.

“What are you thinking about?” a warm voice asks penetrating his thoughts.

“Old love,” he answers with a wry smile, looking up into sparkling brown eyes.

Han Geng smiles back at him with a soft smile.

“Ah, old love,” he repeats wistfully. “Those were good days.”

“But better days now,” Yesung says defiantly, glaring into those misty eyes. Han Geng laughs, leaning in to press his lips against Yesung’s cheek.

“Of course, my dear,” he chuckles. “Because you are with me now.”

---

It has since been a week since they first met.

Yesung grows thinner by the day.

“You have to eat!” Han Geng beseeches, pushing a plate towards him. “Just a bite!”

“Then you’ll say, ‘Another one!’ and eventually, I’ll have eaten the whole thing,” Yesung retorts. “So no.”

Han Geng sighs. “Jongwoon…” he says softly, using Yesung’s real name. “I can’t just watch you die.”

Yesung’s eyes soften, if only a bit. A warm spring breeze blows into the room, bringing with it the fragrant sunshine.

“I know,” Yesung finally replies, quietly. “But I have no more to live for. I know I’m dying.”

Han Geng is silent for a long while, gazing out at the clear blue sky, but with an unfocused gaze.

“I could get you out,” he whispers. Yesung barely catches the words, but latches on.

“I know a place we could go,” Han Geng continues, eyes still faraway. “A place for dreamers like me. A place for lovers like us. A place where everyone…”

He trails off. The sunlight strikes his face at just the right angle, and Yesung sees an angel.

“Take me there,” he says simply. “Take me to where you go.”

Han Geng turns his head, focusing his gaze on Yesung’s sharp eyes.

He smiles. “It’s illegal, you know.”

---

A lone orange streetlamp illuminates the dark street. Passing by is a lean figure, carrying another person on his back.

If one did not know better, one might have thought that the figure was a murderer, and the motionless load was a dead body.

As it is, however, the figure is Han Geng, sneaking out an adamantine Yesung from the hospital.

“I don’t care if it’s illegal,” Yesung says stubbornly, crossing his arms.
“If we get caught, we’re both dead,” Han Geng warns.
“I’m telling you, I, don’t, care.”
They both know that Yesung leaves one sentence unsaid.
“I’m dying anyway.”

So here they are, slowly struggling up the cobblestone road, slowly making their way to the top of the hill.

“Goddammit,” Yesung mutters into Han Geng’s ear. “You can put me down, you know. It’s not like I can’t walk.”

“You’re a ing invalid,” Han Geng puffs with difficulty, beads of sweat running down his neck. “I will ing do this.”

Yesung rolls his eyes and sets his weight down on Han Geng’s arms, forcing him to retract them if he doesn’t want broken ulnas, fractured radii, and dislocated elbows.

“Let’s go,” Yesung says shortly, walking on his own two legs.

Or rather, he would like to, seeing as a long period of lying in bed have granted him with the power of forgetting how to walk.

Despite himself, Han Geng laughs as he helps Yesung up. “I told you, didn’t I?”

“Shut the up,” Yesung growls, rubbing his knees. “Let go of me.”

“Nuh uh,” Han Geng throws back, hoisting Yesung onto his shoulder. “You ain’t doing no more walking tonight, not on my count.”

“Put me the down!” Yesung screams, pummeling Han Geng’s back with tiny fists. “Did you hear me?? Put! Me! DOWN!”

Han Geng only chuckles and continues his ascent, shrieking Yesung and all.

Fortunately, Yesung falls silent and still, breathing heavily from exertion.

Han Geng feels soft fingers tracing patterns on his back and smiles.

He hears Yesung sigh, almost inaudibly, and his heart clenches.

He knows how helpless Yesung must feel and how frustrated he must be.

“We’re here,” he says gently when they reach the top. “Yesung, wake up.”

“I was never asleep, you moron,” Yesung grumbles. “Put me down now.”

Han Geng smiles and lowers Yesung to the ground.

“Look over the water, Jongwoon,” he whispers. “Look at that light.”

Yesung is already so mesmerized, entranced by the rippling water, the broken light on the river.

Han Geng sits down beside him, and awed silence prevails.

Yesung lets out a breath, tilting his head back, gasping involuntarily.

“Geng!” he exclaims, clutching Han Geng’s arm. “Shooting stars!”

Han Geng looks up, and indeed, white light is streaking across the velvet black sky.

“Make a wish,” Yesung whispers, but Han Geng is already wishing for Yesung to recover.

He wishes so badly, so that they may live their lives out together, so that Yesung may find the courage and will to live again.

He wishes so much that tears escape his eyes, silently sliding down his cheeks to land upon Yesung’s cold hand.

Yesung looks to him, reaching up to wipe the tears away.

“What’s wrong?” he asks softly. “It’s about your wish, isn’t it? Don’t tell me, or it’ll never come true, and honey, I want everything you wish for to come true.”

Han Geng only envelopes Yesung in a tight hug, bringing him as close as possible. Yesung continues to murmur soothing words, and Han Geng can almost believe that it’ll all be okay.

The moon is setting, a bright disk of pure white light gradually moving towards the horizon, and they won’t have much time left.

Yesung allows a slight smile to creep onto his face. He feels happy here, right now, with Han Geng, and a comforting thought occurs to him as the first rays of the sun appear.

He’d like to spend the rest of his life like this.

---

Han Geng manages to haul Yesung back to the hospital before the sun leaps out of the river.

“What were you up to?” Siwon questions suspiciously, noting Yesung’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

Yesung smiles, sitting up; he knows that he hasn’t looked so alive in forever.

“I found the will to live,” he responds, looking into Siwon’s eyes, unable to hide his excitement.

Siwon laughs, seeing the giddiness in his patient’s dark eyes. “I’m glad,” he says. “I really am.”

That day, the fragrant breeze flows in, swirling around the hospital in a rush. Yesung laughs, lifting his hands up to feel the soft air.

Beyond the hospital window, the trees dance just for him, shining freshly green. Spring is fading into summer, and the sky shows clear blue.

A ray of sunlight beams through the clouds, falling upon Yesung’s chest, right where his heart lies.

Yesung lets out a breath, realizing already that his source of happiness comes from within.

Fireworks burst in his chest, and everything is so bright and beautiful. He wants to stay, stay in the world that he has just found beauty in.

Stay in the world that he has just found love in.

He can’t help but laugh again, reaching a hand out the window to feel the warmth that spreads through his entire body.

It’s all so new to him, so joyful, and he wants to jump up, yell out to the world that he is in love.

“I’m in love!” he ends up laughing, waving at the hospital staff beneath his window. “I’m in love! I’m so in love!”

The nurses wave back with big smiles. They all knew how Yesung once was, pale, listless, and without hope.

As they look up at him, laughing at everything beyond his hospital window, pointing out everything as if he had never seen it before, they know why.

---

“They told me that you’re feeling better,” he says with a smile, sitting down beside the bed.

“You’re kidding me!” Yesung replies. “Life won’t get me down! Hell, I want to live!”

Han Geng laughs, holding Yesung’s hands in his own. Maybe it’s the lighting, maybe it was last night, but Yesung looks so much better than he had when they first met.

His dark eyes sparkle with all the stars in the universe, his cheeks are flushed a rosy pink, and his entire being just seems to glow.

“I’m in love, Geng,” he breathes now, leaning forward, eyes laughing. “I’m so in love, and it’s just the best feeling ever.”

“May I ask whom with?” Han Geng murmurs, pressing his lips to Yesung’s delicate hand, never breaking his gaze.

As Han Geng slowly straightens up again, Yesung softly captures his lips with his own in response.

After a long while, Han Geng pulls away, and he Yesung’s cheek with a finger.

“Damn, I love you,” he whispers, eyes full of emotion. “I’ve been in love with you since the first day, but you just wouldn’t see.”

“You told me, remember?” Yesung reminds him. “You said that Siwon liked one of your patients, and you liked one of his, which just happened to be me.”

Han Geng chuckles, dropping his hand to knead Yesung’s leg. “True,” he admits. “But you were still so deep in your hopelessness that it never really reached you.”

“Well, now it has,” Yesung challenges, crossing his arms. “So you have no excuse.”

“No,” Han Geng laughs as the wind picks up, whirling into the room to ruffle their hair. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

---

That night, Yesung’s heart collapses.

It’s quick, without warning, and relatively painless.

When the nurses find him in the morning, cold, stiff, and with an expression of amazement, they know that he has passed into another world.

Perhaps it is better than what he had on Earth.

Maybe it will suit him better than this life.

For Siwon, it comes as a shock. The patient that he had seen just that morning, so full of life and hope, gone, just like that.

Fate is too cruel, but Siwon prays that God will give Yesung a better life in Heaven.

Han Geng takes the news calmly, although he disappears immediately afterwards.

Siwon finds him on the hill by the river, staring blankly into the water.

Without saying a word, Siwon sits down beside him.

They stay like that for a long time, until the sun starts to set and the stars appear.

“He was so happy,” Han Geng whispers, voice rusty. “I took him here, snuck him out at night, and he was so entranced, enchanted by the water.”

Beside him, Siwon only listens. He knows that there is nothing else, nothing more, that he can do.

“He was in love with me,” Han Geng continues, voice thickening. “And I hate myself for using the past tense already, especially since I’ve been so in love with him since the beginning, and now he’s gone and I’m already moving on-”

He breaks down into gasping sobs, shuddering with the urge to scream and throw himself into the river.

Siwon seems to read his mind, because Han Geng feels a strong pair of arms around his shoulder, warming his soul, telling him that it’s okay.

“Using the past tense isn’t forgetting,” Siwon murmurs. “It’s accepting reality, realizing the truth.”

“But I don’t want to!” Han Geng struggles against Siwon’s locked arms, trying to desperately to join his Jongwoon in the clouds.

“You have to!” Siwon hisses, throwing his weight backwards onto the pavement. “He wouldn’t want you to be like this! Do it for him!”

Han Geng stops fighting, falling into a limp, pitiful mass of tears and pain and hurt.

“I just want him back…”

---

Two months later, on a clear summer day

A lone figure makes his way across the wide plain, carefully, carefully, as to avoid crushing any delicate flowers.

He reaches a gray stone tablet, set into the fragrant earth amid waving grasses and rushing wind.

For a long time, he only stands there, hands in pockets, gazing down at the inscription painstakingly carved upon the stone.

Finally, he takes in a deep breath, lets it out, and begins to speak.

“It’s been hard without you, you know? Life is dull and boring again, just like it had always been, before you came along.

“Kicking and screaming, Life dragged you into the middle of my path. I was… more than shocked, I suppose, to find your eyes boring into mine that day, when Sooyoung pointed you out.

“My first opinion, I won’t lie, was that you were a stalker, perhaps hospitalized for insanity.”

He laughs, taking out his right hand to rub the back of his neck.

“You were so mean about it too,” he remembers with a wistful smile. “Siwon and I were talking about you, and you snapped at me to tell you the specifics.

“Oh, Jongwoonie…”

Han Geng lowers his hand, smile fading as he prepares a final farewell.

“I love you, you know that? I will always love you, and knowing you was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

“But as life goes on, don’t we all? I have to live, Yesung, and I know that you would want me to as well.

“So here I am, saying goodbye for the last time. I am leaving you, really and truly. I’m going back to China, leaving you forever.”

Han Geng’s tears fall onto the grass that grows from Yesung’s grave, blurring his vision and closing his throat.

“Kim Jongwoon, you are still my life, and I will never forget you, so don’t you forget about me.”

Han Geng turns, walking away quickly, not bearing to linger.

But at the edge of the plain, he turns, looking back.

The wind rises, blowing the grasses so that they cover Yesung’s headstone. Han Geng lets slip a small, sad smile.

Then, for the last time, he turns away.
 
Kim Jongwoon; Yesung
August 24, 1984 – April 16, 2007
May God light his path in Heaven, for his time on Earth was not enough.