Your subtleties, they strangle me

I can’t explain myself at all

“Babe, open the door.” Seungcheol begs for the second time. Jisoo usually doesn’t lock the bathroom door when he’s inside. They both have discarded privacy for a very long time. “I need to use the bathroom.” He says in a hurry. He’s been holding his pee for more than thirty minutes and somehow Jisoo seems to take forever to get ready. It’s strange because normally he only needs ten to fifteen minutes.

The door is unlocked a few seconds later and a red-eyed Jisoo comes out of the bathroom. Seungcheol immediately abandons his urinary bladder’s urgent need, his attention fully shifting to his husband. “What happened? Why did you cry?” He yells in panic. His hands are about to reach the younger male’s shoulders, but the latter quickly steps back.

“Don’t.”

Seungcheol stares at Jisoo in confusion. Not only the brunette doesn’t want to tell him the reason he cried, he also doesn’t want Seungcheol to lay a hand on him. Jisoo might be an introverted person, but he has never been this closed off ever since they started to date in high school. “Babe, what the hell is going on here? You scare the crap out of me.”

“I’m just, I don’t feel well today.” Jisoo mumbles, eyes casting downwards. He has always been a bad liar. His eyes never meet his when he doesn’t tell the truth, but he doesn’t want to push his partner to talk anymore because it sure will make him feel more uncomfortable, so he just lets it slide this time.

Despite his effort trying to be chill, deep down there Seungcheol’s truly disappointed at his companion for not being completely honest with him. He never hides or even wants to hide anything from Jisoo (except when he gives surprises to him) and to see the latter being not completely honest with him making him wonder whether two decades they’ve been through means nothing to Jisoo.

“Alright then, I’ll call my boss to take a day off.”

“Don’t.” Jisoo snaps harshly. Seungcheol has never seen his husband lose his temper this fast. What can possibly trigger him to be in such a bad mood? Is it really because of the illness? Because Jisoo had been sick before for several times and he always managed to keep his calm demeanor on check no matter how serious the disease was. “Don’t take a day off. I can take care of myself. I mean, I don’t feel really well, but it’s not that bad. Just a little bit dizzy, that’s all.”

Seungcheol wants to protest because to be honest, the sudden behavioral changes are very alarming, yet he opts not to and just follows the order. He doesn’t want to be an unnecessary burden for Jisoo’s mind at this moment. “Fine, but if your condition’s getting worse, you have to call me.”

The call never comes.

***

And all the wants and all the needs

All I don’t want to need at all

Seungcheol comes home to a bowl of barely-eaten ramen in the sink and this sets his mental emergency alarm off. Jisoo thinks ramen is a heaven-sent food, appetite always increasing suddenly whenever the word ‘ramen’ is mentioned. If the brunette wastes a bowl of ramen, it’s definitely a sign that something terrible must have happened while he was away. He regrets his decision to come to work instead of staying at home taking care of his beloved husband.

Seungcheol immediately runs to his and Jisoo’s shared bedroom in a state of horror. He opens the door to be welcomed by total darkness. Jisoo always says that he hates darkness, constantly refusing to turn the night lamp off before going to sleep, so to see his partner actually enjoys staying in a pitch black room, lying on the bed with blanket covering all over his body, scares the out of him.

It feels like dealing with a complete stranger.

“Please stop.” Jisoo’s whisper halts Seungcheol’s approaching footsteps, but because the older male is so worried about his lover’s condition, he dismisses the order a few seconds later. “Are you suddenly deaf now? I told you to stop.” Jisoo adds with a louder voice as he hears more shuffles in the quiet room.

Seungcheol notices a tint of anger in Jisoo’s voice, yet he’s not sure what the latter is very indignant about. Is his illness that serious so that he feels mad at everything and anything right now? “I’m just worried about you. You seem different since this morning, but you don’t even want to tell me what the hell is going on. I want to help you, but I don’t even know what I should do to make you feel better. I feel useless as your partner.”

Hearing the black-haired man’s rant, Jisoo sighs. “You don’t need to worry about me. I feel alright. It’s just the usual summer flu, but I don’t want you to catch it too, so please sleep in the guest room tonight.”

Seungcheol stares at the slump on the bed that is his husband in disbelief. They’ve been together for twenty years and he never sees Jisoo over-reacts to summer flu. He senses there’s something far more complicated than just petty summer flu that he conceals. “It’s just summer flu for God’s sake. You don’t have to be so extra like this. We often caught it too before and guess what? We survived.”

Jisoo sighs again. “Please just do what I say without any complaints, Seungcheol. Trust me. This is for your own good as well.” His tone sounds defeated and Seungcheol wonders if his words were too harsh for the ill man to handle. He immediately regrets his action, so in order to redeem his mistake, he eventually fulfills his companion’s odd wish albeit reluctantly.

Jisoo keeps telling Seungcheol to sleep in the guest room ever since.

***

You’re finding things that you didn’t know

I look at you with such disdain

Two months has passed since that weird ‘summer flu’ day and Seungcheol notices how the distance between him and Jisoo gets further and further. He still has no idea about the cause, but he takes a wild guess that maybe it’s all his fault. Unlike Jisoo, he’s a careless type of person. He acts before he thinks and his husband has reminded him countless times that his personality might get him into troubles.

This is probably one of troubles he has to face because of his recklessness. Maybe he has hurt Jisoo’s heart without him knowing.

In order to apologize for whatever he did to Jisoo, also to rekindle the old flame, Seungcheol comes up with a plan of a surprise candlelight dinner. It will be in a restaurant where they used to have their first (failed) date. He was feeling bold at that time, choosing such a fancy restaurant despite being a struggling high school student. After the waitress came with the bill, they decided to split it because his money wasn’t enough to cover both of them. His initial scheme to impress the brunette jumped out of the window right away.

“Hey, Seungcheol.” Mingyu, one of Jisoo’s coworkers at Pledis, jogs excitedly towards Seungcheol’s direction as he spots him standing in front of the company’s main gate. He’s there to pick Jisoo up. “Long time no see, man. How are you and Jisoo doing at Tempest? You must be glad you can finally work with your husband. You guys are such inseparable rabbits. It’s gross.”

Mingyu laughs at his own joke while Seungcheol confusedly raises his eyebrow. The taller guy’s words don’t make sense in his head. “What are you even saying? I don’t work with Jisoo and I obviously come here to pick him up. We’re going to have dinner together tonight.” He senses that there must be something wrong with his statements as he sees the blatant puzzlement on Mingyu’s feature. “Something the matter?” He deliberately adds afterwards.

“Obviously.” Mingyu says matter-of-factly. Seungcheol feels the need to prepare himself for another unexpected thing. His partner has been giving him a lot of unpleasant surprises lately. “Jisoo doesn’t even work here anymore. He resigned about two months ago. He said that Tempest had offered him a job and he immediately took it because he wanted to spend more time with you.”

The words ‘two months ago’ catch Seungcheol’s attention. Jisoo resigned at the time where that ‘summer flu’ incident happened. Right now he’s pretty sure that there was something big going on that day. He wonders what it could be and why in the world the younger male felt the need to keep it a secret from him. It’s been two decades and Jisoo still tries to lie right under his nose. Does he suddenly forget their wedding vows to always stay true to each other?

‘What games are you playing, Hong Jisoo?’

***

The walls start breathing, my mind’s unweaving

Maybe it’s best you leave me alone

“Where were you just now?” Seungcheol attacks Jisoo as soon as he sees him entering their house. The brunette gives him a blank stare and he stares back at him, challenging. Their staring contest is broken by Jisoo a few seconds later. “I’m at work of course. Where else would I be?” He replies while proceeding to take his shoes off.

Seungcheol knows that the shoes are just an excuse for Jisoo to dodge his eyes. He’s lying.

Seungcheol scoffs bitterly. Does Jisoo think he’s that stupid so that he thinks he can keep fooling him without getting caught? He’s so wrong if he thinks so. “The proof that I found said otherwise. You weren’t at work this morning and any other mornings since two months ago. I already know that you resigned from Pledis, so just tell me the bloody truth, Hong Jisoo. Where the hell were you?” He loudly barks, running out of patience. This is the first time in twenty years that Jisoo gets his head boiled with anger.

When Jisoo doesn’t say anything, Seungcheol continues by weakly voicing out his biggest fear. “Is there anybody else?” This horrible thought certainly has crossed his mind. As much as he wants to blame himself for Jisoo’s characteristic transformation, he can’t help but thinking that maybe there’s an outside influence that he’s not aware of. Because no matter how hard he tracks everything back, he just can’t find which action he did that set Jisoo’s emotion off.

How happy Seungcheol is when his husband says yes without meeting his eyes. Even though he’s lying, at least his biggest fear doesn’t come true. The idea of seeing someone else makes Jisoo happy hurts his heart so bad. He wants to be the only one who can make him happy. “I know you’re lying. We’ve been together for two decades, so I notice every little detail about you. You never dare to make an eye contact whenever you lie. Please just be honest, babe. What really happened? Where were you? Don’t leave me in the dark like this.”

Jisoo sighs in defeat. He then fishes something out of his bag and gives it to the older man before muttering. “I went here just now.”

Seungcheol curiously peers at the object in his right hand. It’s a Polaroid picture of a big building with 4^th date written on the bottom. That place used to be a park before a group of foreign investors decided to buy the land in early 2000s and cut the greens to build a building of what people now recognize as Nuest Mall.

Although it’s been many years since their 4^th date, Seungcheol remembers perfectly how it went. It was yet another unsuccessful attempt to impress Jisoo. At first it felt like their romantic picnic date went well with all those homemade sandwiches and rice balls (his mom made them because she would never let him enter the kitchen after he almost burnt it when he tried to make omelet rice), but his stupid self forgot to check the weather forecast, so they ended up going home soaking wet as neither of them brought any umbrella.

Seungcheol marvels why Jisoo spent an entire day at that place, but it’s too late for him to ask as the latter has disappeared into their used-to-be shared bedroom, locking the door shut.

***

A weight is lifted on this evening

I give the final blow

Seungcheol gets panic as he’s greeted with two suitcases and three boxes full of his stuff once he comes back from the office the next day. He rapidly runs to Jisoo’s bedroom and bangs the door hard. His husband definitely owes him an explanation. He can’t just kick him out without a clear reason. “Jisoo, open the ing door. Why the hell are you doing this to me?”

“You need to stay away from me. This is for your own good.”

Seungcheol isn’t satisfied with Jisoo’s vague answer. “Why the hell do you keep pushing me away these days? It’s for my own good how?” He screams harshly as his fury keeps rising closer to his limit. “I love you and you obviously know that, so if it’s for my own good, you shouldn’t hurt me by pushing me away like this.”

“Jisoo, please open the door. I beg you.” Seungcheol knocks the door once again as he receives no reply from the other side. He doesn’t notice that tears have streamed from his eyes. “If I ever did something wrong, please forgive me. I know that I’m a reckless person, but I never meant to hurt you. I love you very much, so don’t kick me out like this. I can’t even imagine living my life without you by my side.”

Seungcheol hears approaching footsteps before the door is unlocked. It’s swung open afterwards to reveal a messy Jisoo with all the drying tears on his cheeks and the swollen eyes, yet Seungcheol still thinks that he’s the most perfect human being in this world no matter how messy he looks at the moment.

“I love you too, Seungcheol.” Jisoo says with a trembling voice. “That’s exactly why you need to leave me right now. A monster like me doesn’t deserve you.” Before Seungcheol can state anything else Jisoo interrupts him by pulling his left sleeve. The black-haired man’s eyes widen in disbelief as he sees his partner’s arm, legs going weak all of a sudden.

There’s a rash hidden underneath the long sleeve.

“Remember when I said I had summer flu two months ago? That was when I found this.” Jisoo then shrugs the cloth upon his right shoulder. “This is the second one. It appeared five weeks ago. I currently have four rashes in total. One is on my back and the other is on my left leg. I’m sure it won’t take long to have my body completely covered with these disgusting rashes and that’s why you need to leave. This virus is dangerous. It will eat you in no time.”

“No, that’s not how HIV virus spreads.” Seungcheol finally speaks after having such a hard time processing the painful truth. He then grabs Jisoo’s hands. The latter tries to break the contact, but he holds the hands even tighter. “The virus won’t spread through these rashes, so you don’t have to be worried when someone touches you and no, it won’t eat your body. I know you’re a strong person, so I believe you will survive.”

“Thank you for your words of encouragement.” Jisoo says with a smile, yet the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Seungcheol’s heart shatters seeing it. “No matter how strong I am, it can’t be compared to this virus. You don’t need to offer me sweet nothings. I clearly know that I don’t have much time left and I want to spend it all reminiscing the old time. Our precious old time.”

Jisoo’s precious time eventually ends on a winter’s night seventeen months later.

***

When darkness turns to light

It ends tonight, it ends tonight

This song is a lie. Seungcheol and Jisoo’s love story won’t end tonight. It will be eternal tonight instead.

“119, what’s your emergency?”

“This is Choi Seungcheol. Please lay me down beside my soulmate, Hong Jisoo. Thank you, bye.”