2016.

The Present — Kyungsoo .

Silence to some is golden.

But silence to Kyungsoo is grey.

His headphones bring no music, but he wears them all the same.

The collective roar of the crowd that comes the second he completes a routine, the blinding flashes from cameras of world media when he notches yet another season’s best or world record, the shower of flower bouquets and stuffed toys raining down onto the ice when he takes a bow, relieved but satisfied at yet another flawless skate… 

Kyungsoo hears them and sees them all — memories of him smiling, fleeting by like a quick montage and reminiscent of happier times.

Although, not anymore.

He has forgotten how to smile. 

Lost all reason to, that is.

His prime was gone along with memories of crashing, burning and utter pain. At the young age of 22, he had lost everything he held dear and close to heart. Likewise, the figure skating world thought they had lost one of the rare bright stars in their universe.

The sport would always reminisce about the great, and Kyungsoo was great.

If not, the greatest.

Kyungsoo slips his eyes shut and throws an arm over his face. His memories are too bright in the dark world he has built for himself. How they are unattainable now suffocates him.

Back when he was pushing himself to the limits and vying for every title, the amount of pressure his entire country placed on his narrow shoulders had haunted him each and every step of the way. Although, it is quite the different feeling now.

“Hey, excuse me!”

Kyungsoo furrows his eyebrows at the sudden voice disrupting his grey and recollection of gold. Although, he does not open his eyes to bother with a response of any kind to the stranger.

“You there, in the center of the rink. I must apologise but the under-10 hockey class is going to start in half an hour and I need to prepare the equipment?” The other makes it sound like a question — his voice gentle and uplifting.

Kyungsoo frowns.

He does not like it. He does not like the contrast this new personality brings, messing up the darkness of a world he has cocooned himself in for the past six months.

“The kids will be coming in with their parents soon.”

The anxiousness is clear in the Hockey Coach’s voice, rendering it to almost a nervous squeak. Perhaps he is at a loss because of Kyungsoo’s prolonged, and he dare say quite intentional, silence.

“I promise you can sleep here all you want after we are done with the lesson. I know the owner of this rink,” the speck of colour speaks even louder, as if he wants to talk over the (non-existent) tunes blasting from Kyungsoo’s headphones.

Kyungsoo ignores him, of course, and soon after, he hears skates scuffing against the ice; the man starting to approach where he lays.

“Can you even hear me? Are you friends with Jongdae hyung? This is a private facility used by the National Team so how did you manage to get in—” 

The voice is not so far away anymore.

He figures the sharp gasp the other lets out, cutting off his own speech, is to be expected. Kyungsoo sighs, slips open his eyes and pushes his upper body up till he sits straight. He does not make an effort to mask the annoyance in his face as he slides his headphones down to hang around his neck.

“W-Wait. You’re D-Doh Kyungsoo.” The stranger’s voice sounds strangled.

He scoffs and darts his eyes up.

A rainbow comes in the form of a handsome young man decked in full ice hockey gear sans the helmet. He thinks the other looks familiar, but he cannot seem to put a name to his face. He is probably someone he knew six months back. But of course, six months back is not something he wants to think about anymore so he lets his curiosity go.

“What are you doing h-here? I thought—”

The “you don’t skate anymore” was clearly meant to follow, but the other probably sees the way Kyungsoo narrows his eyes in hurt and contempt for he cuts himself off and tries to apologise. 

The Hockey Coach rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment, “Sorry, that was rude and uncalled for. I didn’t mean it in that way, I’m—”

“Too loud,” Kyungsoo cuts him off, turns his back on him and starts to make his arduous journey back to the walls of the rink. Over at the entrance, he can already spot a couple of families coming in so he tries to speed up the process.

He does not need or want an audience.

“I don’t need your help,” he snaps when he sees raised arms by his side, and when he spares a glance up, he does not feel bad at the way he had made the other man recoil.

But Kyungsoo’s lashing out does not stop the stranger from hovering within an arm’s reach of him.

He sighs and assumes stubbornness is a sickness hard to cure.

When Kyungsoo finally reaches the edge of the ice, he hauls himself up and ignores the many pairs of eyes on him, watching him try to pat dry his pants. Kyungsoo knows they recognise him. Honestly, how could they not when his name had been plastered all over the news previously? He also hears their whispers, but months of experience have taught him not to strain his ears to listen in.

A small boy who looks to be no older than the age of five waddles up to him in his oversized jersey and parks himself right in front of Kyungsoo just then, effectively blocking off his path.

“Woah…” the boy breathes out. “You’re Kyungsoo hyung!” The poor thing can barely stand, needing the help of his short hockey stick to stay balanced on his baby skates.

Kyungsoo stares down at the wide eyes he is met with and at the look of awe he is gifted.

“I love your skating, Kyungsoo hyung. You’re my hero!” The boy beams up at him in all his innocence, but bitterness wells up from within Kyungsoo. He does not need this kind of validation, not anymore. “When I grow up, I want to be a figure skater too. But daddy says figure skating is only for girls, not big boys like—”

“Sehun! Don’t say that—” the Hockey Coach and a woman who is likely the boy’s — Sehun’s — mother reproaches the child. Kyungsoo does not need to look up to see the apologetic and pitiful looks he is receiving from everyone gathered around him.

“Why not, Jongin hyung?” Sehun his head in confusion. “It’s true! I like Kyungsoo hyung the most!” The boy smiles again and grabs onto Kyungsoo’s hands. “Can I get a photo with you, hyung? I’ll paste it beside my bed. I’ve my own bed now… I no longer sleep with mommy and daddy—”

Kyungsoo jerks his hands away from Sehun’s touch, startling the boy. That prompts the Hockey Coach to quickly wrap a protective arm around Sehun and pull him away from Kyungsoo, a deep frown settling on his handsome face.

“I’m no one’s hero,” Kyungsoo fixes the child a look and says in all seriousness, voice cold and lacking in colour. “And I don’t skate. Not anymore.” 

He holds his stare for a heartbeat and glances up at the Hockey Coach one last time before he tightens his grip on the metal framing the wheels of his wheelchair and brings himself away.

When Kyungsoo passes the main doors of the building, the dark clouds hanging in the sky strike more familiarity than the light blinding within. He stares at the heavens for a second and does not forget to send a smile along before he leaves his former heaven and tries to make himself comfortable in this never-ending hell once more.

I miss you. Every single day.

He is not just referring to skating.

~

Kyungsoo turns his head to the side with a defiant look set in his furrowed brows and scowl. In fact, he is one folded arms across his chest away from looking like a petty child giving his parents the silent treatment.

“We cannot help you if you don’t help yourself first, Kyungsoo.” He hears his friend let out a small sigh before a warm hand settles over his two clasped ones resting in his lap. He does his best to calm down and to stop his fingers from trembling.

The psychologist kneels in front of his wheelchair and forces Kyungsoo to meet her eyes with a squeeze around his hands. Although a gentle touch, the meaning behind her words winds up to deliver a hard punch.

“I see from your medical records that your body reacted well when Yixing and his team treated you with a high dosage of methylprednisolone right after the operation. Your lower body isn’t totally paralysed, Kyungsoo. You actually have a 60% chance of recovery, and I quite like the odds. If you undergo rehabilitation, I’m not saying you can go back to your professional skating days, but you may be able to walk again and—” 

“What’s the point then, Joohyun?” he fixes the other a look and watches as her face falls sharply. Perhaps she knows this attempt to convince him to undergo further treatment and rehabilitation will be yet another failure. By now, he has lost count of the number of times they have tried. Seriously , why have they not given up like he has?

Joohyun opens, closes and opens again. She must not know why he is being so uncooperative when all the clinic staff only has his best interests at heart.

“The point I’m trying to convey,” she tries again, “is that you may be able to walk again. You can get your life back, Kyung—”

“You don’t get it,” he raises his voice and cuts the other off mid-speech. “Skating and him were my life! Skating and him were my everything!” He shakes the psychologist’s hand off and wheels himself backward to put some distance between them, to get away from the taunts of the devil — the horrible reminder that he is left with nothing worth living for. “I cannot get the both of them back anymore, so I ask you again… what’s the point?”

“Kyungsoo, please,” Joohyun inches herself forward this time, voice desperate. But she slaps a palm over her own mouth and pauses when he backs up even more, a frantic look in his eyes now. “It’s going to be okay, Kyungsoo.” There are tears in her eyes at this point, her friend’s pain doing its fair part to paint her a victim as well.

The dark world Kyungsoo has built around himself threatens to capitulate.

“It isn’t going to be okay. Stop saying that! Why do you all keep saying that? Baekhyun, Junmyeon, Yixing… and now you. I hate that you all keep saying that!” he cries out.

Kyungsoo balls his hands into fists and lashes out at his thighs repeatedly. “Stupid, useless legs,” he growls. Joohyun gasps and rushes forward to grab his hands, clinging them to her chest in a desperate attempt to get him to stop. The strength he uses to hit himself actually jolts the woman’s entire body back and forth as she tries to hold on.

He only stops and slumps in his seat when he notices he is hurting Joohyun. The psychologist lets go as well and stays on the floor, staring up at her friend with sadness, not pity , in her eyes. Because they all know how well he does with accepting pity (which is not very well at all).

This is not Kyungsoo. This is a shell of the man that was once, and still is, highly regarded as the greatest male figure skater of all time — a prodigy who had won every great accolade the sport had to offer by the time he reached the age of 20.

The golden boy was still considered a newbie when he had stolen the limelight from all the seasoned professionals at the 2013 World Championships in London, Ontario. With a name no one knew sans his own countrymen who had been following the boy’s rise up the ranks from his junior debut to senior debut, from regionals and then to nationals, Doh Kyungsoo placed well enough in a series of Grand Prix to earn himself a coveted spot in the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Sochi in 2012.

A dark horse, everyone called him — an unreckoned force that swept the competition and blew every watching eye away. His inexperience showed when he attempted not one but two risky quadruple lutz to add to his other four quads in the free skate. He stumbled on the landing but stayed on his feet, thankfully. Still, silver was well enough an achievement and a well-deserved recognition of the vast potential the youngster had for the future.

It was his first step to an endless promise of hope and legacy.

Kyungsoo’s exploits in Sochi had earned him a wildcard spot in the Four Continents Championships back in his home nation, South Korea, and he only grew in leaps and bounds. He took to the ice in a real flourish, answering all his critics with a stunning performance in both the short programme and free skate to steal the title from the reigning world champion.

It could only mean a one-way ticket to the World Championships. The sport’s calendar has always been tough as skaters struggle to recover fast after every high-intensity competition, but with his brilliant form and raw energy, he swept everyone away with his stunning, world-record performances in Canada to earn gold yet again and be finally crowned King Kyungsoo .

The world title was not his last, because month in month out, till years passed, he commanded the scene and put up performances worthy of stealing the hearts of the world. Kyungsoo won every single competition he took part in after winning his first world championship title. It had built him up really nicely for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the only jewel missing in his crown, and it is there where he eventually reached for the sun and got the stars.

But dreams, good ones especially, often come at a price.

He wonders if he deserves his ending at all.

The truck simply came out of nowhere one November night in 2015, barrelling into their vehicle and turning their mini karaoke session into actual screams of horror instead of bad rapping attempts.

Kyungsoo remembers that night clearly. Honestly, how can he not when the nightmare beckons every time he tries to sleep, pulling him into its trap, poisoning his mind with dark thoughts to simply end it all.

He hears from his sister and Junmyeon a couple of days after he wakes up to white ceilings and the distinct smell of chemicals in the ward that he had been flung out of his front passenger seat and onto the asphalt upon impact. Three broken ribs, a bruised lung and a high-impact injury to his L3 and L4 lumbar nerves in his spinal cord would condemn him to a changed life.

The pair in the backseat were more fortunate to come away with only bruising and a sprained wrist on Seulgi’s part.

Kyungsoo had spent more than half a day in the operating theatre battling for his life with half the world watching and his loyal fans crying and praying.

Now that he survived, he is not so sure he wants to live on anymore.

Everyone seemed to skirt around the topic of Chanyeol when he always asked where the other was. He knew his boyfriend must have suffered the worst from the crash because the truck came in from the driver’s side of the car. He spent every lucid moment waiting for the other to fill the empty bed beside his, before he submitted to the pull of his drowsy meds and sleep. 

He faintly remembered someone lacing their fingers together with his, caressing his knuckles with their thumb, just like how Chanyeol used to. When he looked up, the smile on the other’s face was as radiant as the day Kyungsoo had agreed to go out with him. He could not hear what Chanyeol was saying, but from the way the latter’s lips curled around his words, he could easily make out his favourite words — three to warm his heart. 

But when Kyungsoo woke up, the bed beside his was still empty, and he wondered if he had imagined it all.

Days go by, he did not know how many, and he grew impatient the longer he waited. The constant pain in his chest had not subsided even after rounds of remedies. In fact, the foreboding feeling grew until it suffocated him from the inside.

His family and friends continued to ignore addressing the elephant in the room whenever they came around to visit, but Kyungsoo was smart enough to read between the silent conversations why everyone always made sure the television in the room remained turned off.

Perhaps the only reason why he had held onto hope for so long stemmed from longing.

Chanyeol’s family visited him one evening and Kyungsoo saw the answer for himself in the way his boyfriend’s parents looked at him, and when Yoora cried while handing over a small red velvet box to him.

He had finally broken down in tears and would remain inconsolable for months because he knew that it should have been Chanyeol slipping the band onto his ring finger, and not his memories of him.

Kyungsoo would have said yes in a heartbeat, but now he cried in vain to the hole in his heart and the four walls looking down on him, like they were mocking his loss. Even the moment when he heard the diagnosis from the doctors about the permanent paralysis in his legs paled in comparison to the realisation that he would never get to see and hold Chanyeol again.

It felt lonely being abandoned by the lights that used to shine meaning on his world. Both his love and dreams flew to a place too high up for Kyungsoo to reach while sitting in his wheelchair. Instead, he could only stay grounded in the grey he reckons is his hell.

~