Even though I was in the rain, I liked it

Because there were traces of you left behind

Because longing is a beautiful pain

I thought I could endure

I had many mistakes, many scars

Actually, I’m so scared, I just wanna end it all

Rain falls and dries and disappears

You can’t just go like that, please'

He hears the horribly familiar shrill of a flat line as he runs down the long corridor of the hospital. The clatter of his shoes echoes against the white walls as he frantically

searches for the right room number. The nurse clad in pale white frantically plasters herself against the walls to make way for him and the doctor with a stethoscope slung

around his neck watches in alarm as he rushes past them. The technicians nearly crash their carts as his speed takes them by surprise. He takes a turn and his ears are flooded

with a lullaby.

It was a swan song, a tune every person only played once in their lifetime which some dreaded while others rather enjoyed. It was the wail of an animal with its tail caught in

a trap as its life

slowly drained, the sound his boyfriend had heard on the telephone for months and what he was now hearing.

---------------------------

He smiled as a tear slowly rolled down his ashened cheeks, the first tear he let drop since he was told his days were numbered and his first and last sign of

weakness. His body was weightless and he could no longer feel his limbs, nor the ache that had been lingering in his muscles for months. His vision began

to blur and he could barely make out the silhouette of the doctor who had treated him since the day he had visited the hospital after feeling sick for months

or his best friend sprawled over his body as sob after sob shook his body. Neither of them made any move to help him as his heart rate became more and

more erratic by the second.

They knew and he knew, almost more well than they did. His time had finally run out and truthfully, he was quite grateful. Because of his illness, he had

gotten endless rounds of grueling treatment in which more medication than he could count with his fingers and toes were pumped into his body through

drips and shots. While it was extremely uncomfortable to be unable to move for hours, the after effects were always the worst. They always left him so weak

and sick that he couldn’t get up from bed for days. Sometimes, he felt like the treatment was killing him quicker rather than helping him get better.

His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton as he heard his best friend’s muffled sobs next to him. Struggling to move with the little energy he had left, he

slowly lifted his stiff and trembling, but still warm, fingers to catch the thick tears cascading down his friends swollen face.  The sobs paused for a second as

the other lifted his head and grabbed his hand with both of his own trembling hands. No words were exchanged between the two but the latter had already

understood what he meant

Heechul had been his closest friend for as long as he could remember and had always supported him through thick and thin. Because he physically couldn’t

make it back to his own house or take care of himself after his treatment sessions, Heechul had graciously offered his apartment and hospitality, never once

complaining about all the extra work he had to do. If he hadn’t met him, he might have dated Heechul, but Heechul had only ever been a friend, albeit an

extremely close one. He was the one who had changed his world, who was his world. He was the one who could make him smile no matter how foul his

mood was and the one who embraced him for who he was. He was the reason he had persevered and now the reason he was giving up.

Faintly, he heard the sound of the monitor flatlining as he stopped breathing.  His body convulsed as it made a last bid to live and then he was as a stiff as a

board. His eyelids fell, covering his eyes and he didn’t fight it.  Though he could no longer produce any sound, his slowly formed his last words with his

cracked and colorless lips.

I still love you….

The next time he woke up, he was lying nestled in a field of yellow daffodils. The sun was shining in the cloudless sky but the air was neither warm nor cold.

As he looked around himself, he could see nothing but miles and miles of flowers in all four directions. There was no people or living creatures, just him and

more yellow flowers than he’d ever seen in his whole life. Laying flat on his back, he gazed up at the clear blue sky.

So this was heaven….