I have no idea if anybody listens to them, but I'll still recommend some music for you to listen while reading: Oohyo "Youth - Day"

*Update: I've edited it, I hope now it is more readable than before. :)

It hurt. From the plant of his feet up to his fingertips, it hurt like hell. His skin was burning, inside and out, like his blood had turned into gasoline and somebody was keeping on flicking the match; he couldn’t open his eyes, his lids seemed to be glued on tight, but the worst part wasn’t any of that.

The worst part was the silence. He could hear every pump of his heart, every breath, every murmur… they echoed in his ears like gunshots.

He knew hands had touched his skin, knives cutting into his flesh and masks had been put on his mouth. He knew what they had done to him and he knew what was bound to happen, just like his precious circle he had to come back to the start once finishing one round.

But one fact remained: the circle didn’t exist. There was no inside or outside that stupid line, it was something he had invented to protect himself from the world outside. It is a scary thought but once you know you can’t just pretend not to: you are just like everybody else and if things seem unfair it’s only your fault for not trying enough. Right and wrong are blurred if watched from a closer perspective, a thick gray line you are right in the middle of.

There are no mistakes nor miracles, you shape them to be that.

He had learnt that a long time ago, but terrified as he was, he had decided to forget. Medicines had made it so easy, one pill every night and he didn't even need to try: wake up, don't think, take the pills, go to bed... everything was so simple, so... barren. His mind had began aching for thoughts, for the knowledge he had thrown away.

And there he was:  completely numb. He wanted to be, but even if he could believe that, something was missing. What was it though? He couldn’t remember. It was like that all the time, or better, it had been before when he was bound to the bed; medical drugs made him breathe again but made everything hazy, his memories asleep. He knew what doctors had done to him, as a result of years of hospital visits he knew every procedure by heart, but everything else was gone.

However, he was definitely missing something. Something… maybe someone?

As he chased that black silhouette the pain to his temples became unbearable, but he knew those slender fingers were the key of waking up from his nightmare so he ran and ran and ran…

Until he reached the farthest horizon of his mind.

And it was sunny.

Up the hill, the shadow was waiting for him, a hand stretched. He still couldn’t focus his eyes on him, everything was so bright, but he finally knew who he was. He took his hand and suddenly the ground beneath his feet crumpled and he felt himself fall, down with the water, down with the sunlight, down with Kyungsoo smiling on top of him, eyes wide open and full of tears.

He woke up.

***

The woman with glistening caramel skin brought a hand to as the doctor at the other end of the phone call explained what had happened, devastated. Tears slipped through her fingers and crashed onto the carpet, muffled, silent casualties. 

The man found her wrinkled on the floor, with the telephone still in her hands.

They took the first train in the morning.

***

“Nini”

Jongin turned, rather painfully so, to his aunt: she seemed to have aged ten years in a night, her eyes red and dark and dry as she handed him the tray with the hospital food. Chewed up apples, chewed up vegetables and other chewed up blob that looked like meat but he wasn’t really sure.

He had thought he was taking some steps forward, but that was the exact replica of him two years ago. Figures.

“I’m okay Oba-san” he croaked, out of breath with just a few words “I really am”

Lie. Big fat lie.

He felt like hell had was having a rave party in his lungs and the devil was playing dancing the samba with high heels inside his stomach, but he was awake. He was alive and awake and that damn machine was keeping him oxygenated, so everything was under control.

The old woman watched him eat quietly, helping lift the tubes going straight into his nose and fed him with a little spoon, nodding at every little bite. Jongin was breaking apart: it was one things being physically hurt, that he could cope with, but looking at his aunt sniff and cough to hold back the tears was terrifying.

As soon as he was done eating she put the tray away and took a book out of her little bag. Jongin smiled and got comfortable in his tiny bed, as much as the wires coming out of his body let him; his aunt would always do this: with a hand she held the book and mouthed the words, with the other she gripped at Jongin one really tight.

She was his anchor, the trusty ballast to keep him down to this earth.

“Will you read me something?” he whispered.

She observed him through the lenses of the glasses, as thick as bottle caps, and faintly smiled. She looked so tired.

“Everything for you, my little Nini”

***

How was he there again? Staring at the white sliding door, waiting for the pumping red light to become green with his heart on his hands, praying so hard he could just get home with another body by his side. A body that apparently had been having problems for an entire life and he didn’t know.

How stupid could he get? Of course when Jongin had told him he couldn’t ran too much it had a meaning, of course he had the habit of checking his heart every time he got scared for a reason, of course the inhaler in his pocket wasn’t a light dose…

He was an idiot. At the same time as he was thinking about kisses and butterflies Jongin was dying from oxygen deprivation on the beach and God knows what would have happened if he hadn’t been immediately rescued by a passing fisher of the town.

Fate twisted around his fingers like cuffs, binding him to his sick game. Why again? After Chanyeol, couldn’t he get a little rest? He was drained.

He had shared himself to another human being and that was what happened; was it him that brought that much bad luck onto people?

Selfish little thought, of course not. Not everything had to do with him, Jongin had had a life before him and so did him. They had made choices that had had consequences, invisible to external and casual observers, but they were there.

Jongin couldn’t breathe.

Kyungsoo wasn’t allowed love.

So very funny.

The raven boy wanted to scream. And then the light turned green, so he just did the next best thing: blew his nose a couple of times and dried his eyes, marching in like a soldier. Façades sometimes help, but they certainly cannot heal.

***

"Chanyeol?"

The boy only grunted in response, facing the other way of the street, but Kyungsoo wasn't one for easy defeats. 

"Chanyeol, I won't let you go home until you turn around"

The redhead still refused to look at him, putting on the hood of his sweater and starting to walk in the opposite direction. Something was wrong. Kyungsoo immediately ran up to him and forcefully grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You are nor allowed to ran away from me, you promised to tell me everything if I did the same and you know I did"

Guilt.

Chanyeol bit his lower lip, the only part of his face not hidden, and then slowly lowered the hood: a constellation of blue and purple bruises lit up his left cheek, while the other one looked like it had been burnt with a lighter; he was missing several locks of hair and his usually beautiful curly head was now an asymmetrical mess.

"What... what have they done to you?" Kyungsoo whispered, but the reply never came.

"Tomorrow I won't come to school" he croaked instead, avoiding his appalled expression "I have to go to the doctor"

Kyungsoo remembered that day. It had taken him five weeks to discover Chanyeol had lied: he hadn't gone to the doctor, he had been admitted for the first time to the emergency room. 

***

As soon as the door of the room opened, Kyungsoo stood up and bowed at Chara-san, making her way to exit the hall. Before he could go in, though, she held him by the shoulder and sighed deeply. Something was not right.

“He sleeping now, but you can wait for him to wake up if you want. Just… be careful of what you say and keep your voice down. He can’t take more stimuli than the machine can control”

“Yes madam. And thank you”

He took tiny steps up to the door ajar, counting the seconds until he saw him. It was… indescribable: under a web of tubes and wires laid Jongin, pale and greenish under the neon lights, with two giant medical machines pumping air in and out of his lungs for him. More were attached to his chest and stomach under the vest, electrodes giving signals for his heart, needles pricking his skin to get the medicines in vein.

It was too much.

And yet he sat onto the white plastic chair, toes curled inside his shoes, and stared at him. He knew beautiful, he knew stunning and it had nothing to do with physical appearance. It was about hands moving and reaching up for the sun, it was about smiling as hard as one can.

It was about being alive and not dead on a boardwalk without even socks to protect your feet. Because then it doesn’t matter if you did, have socks and shoes, it doesn’t matter anymore. But to Jongin mattered, he had shiny white socks on, the proof he was alive and beautiful and he loved him for that.

He waited almost an hour for him to wake up, but the instant he saw his lids flutter, he sprinted to his side and delicately took his hand.

“Who… are you?”

Kyungsoo’s smile dropped, but immediately sighed in relief when he realized it was only because Jongin couldn’t see him: his pupils were so dilated he probably couldn’t focus on anything. Patiently, he sat by his side until the medicine’s affect subsided and smiled at him sweetly when he finally recognized him.

“What are you doing here?”

Kyungsoo almost laughed, scrunching up his nose.

“To kill you and ran away with your aunt. What do you think? I’m here to see you”

“I’m not much of a pretty sight right now”

Jongin’s voice was barely a raspy whisper, but in that moment Kyungsoo was more concentrated on the fact that said voice existed.

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you won’t win Miss Universe this year” Jongin smiled, biting his lips not to brake it into a laugh “But I still find you very attractive, tubes and fancy machines included”

The dancer tried to straight himself onto the bed, adjusting his pillow. His skin looked so delicate, made of tissue paper.

“It won’t be like this for too long. I’m not dying; I was close, but I’m not. I’ll just have to be very careful and keep this under control” his gaze fell on his hand, wired up and tangled up with Kyungsoo’s fingers. He grinned “Last time it happened I didn’t think I’d have such a cute nurse to care for me”

And then Kyungsoo lost it. All the tension, all the fear pent up in his chest came out in one single blow; he never had thought he would be crying this harder, so much for saving up his good shirt for Jongin, now it being drenched in tears and snot, but apparently things happens in life. Not always what you expect, but they do happen.

You can choose between fighting them or letting them have their course.

He chose the latter.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hate to say sorry so many times, but I am. I meant to write a long and detailed ending for this story, but I may have changed my mind. I like this version of Jongin and Kyungsoo a lot and I want them to have a proper growth without leaving important aspects behind, hence this short chapter.

It has been a very sad month for me so please excuse the unnecessary angst and corny moments, I'm not in top shape and I really needed to vent somehow, but I hope it can be enjoyable anyway.

Please let me know how you liked it in the comments, suggestions are highly appreciated ^__^

*tiny timid smile*