Title: The Angel’s Name

Pairing(s): YunJae

Rating: PG 13/15

Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst

Length: One-shot

Summary: He just wanted a name, he found so much more.

The Angel’s Name

In days like this one, I think a lot about the past, my wife says it's because I'm old, I guess I can't help it then.

Yesterday we were celebrating my granddaughter birthday. It was a belated celebration as we waited for a date when all the family could be reunited, the all extended family in fact. Now we have another reason to be reunited.

But today, I have a secret celebration too. Today I remember the day I met my best friend.

We were eight at that time; he was born a couple of months earlier than me. It happened in a hospital room. I was there because I had the bad luck of getting involved with the wrong people. I thought they were my friends but when they convinced me of going up the permanent closed tree house at the backyard of the church and after they left me abandoned unconscious on the ground without help after I fell, I knew they were never my friends.

I had been at the hospital for the longest time I had been at any other place beside my house I could remember. My father was an important doctor there and I was well known so the nurses used to let me wander around as long as I didn't break the rules. That's how I met him. I saw a couple leaving the hallway where the rooms of that floor were carrying a crying boy that later I knew, they were his parents and his brother.

I went to explore and stood before the door of his room. He was talking with a lovely lady with gray hair and round glasses.

"It was my fault, grandma. I asked him to stay..." he said hiccupping while the lady was drying the tears from his face. "I'm scared of being alone..."

"But my dear, don't you know that you're never alone? Your angel is always next to you and if you're a good boy one day you will see your angel and you can ask for their name..."

"My angel?"

"Yeah, you're not alone, my dear."

I stayed there till she left and after I entered his room and we became friends since then. The kind of friends that leave a sign on your cast because, my friend Yunho, left a giant sign on my leg and arm casts both accompanied with special drawings. I have those casts in a box in the attic of my house till this day.

I left the hospital before him; all I could understand then was that something was wrong with his heart, a con anomaly. My dad told me that Doctor Yang was going to put a patch on his heart. After that, he was better.

Next year we went to school together. I was happier than never before. We couldn't play like all the other kids but we never left them to pick on us. Yunho was happy that his brother Changmin didn’t have to get involved in fights to defending him from the bullying anymore. At first, his brother didn’t like me one bit but we end being good friends too. Trough the years, our families became closer too.

We went to the same university. I was in the Law Department and he entered the Medicine School. He always wanted to be a pediatrician. I was with my second girlfriend when we finished school.

By the time they met, I’d already had had four girlfriends and zero heartbreaks as I didn't fall in love for real, Yunho had never have any partner.

That day, Yunho was waiting for me under one of the trees of the campus’ garden doing what he always used to do: lay on the ground closing his eyes remembering his late grandma and the stories she used to tell him. I could see him from my tutor's office. That day it started raining so I tried to hurry to finish my tasks so we could go home.

The first sight Yunho had from him was upside down. He was bended forward holding a yellow umbrella. I still remember their first conversation because I was close enough to hear them.

“You shouldn’t sleep here. You’ll get wet.”

“You’re here, angel… are you going to tell me your name?”

“A- Uuuh… Jaejoong…”

“Beautiful, as I always thought…”

Jaejoong laughed and that’s when Yunho realized he wasn’t dreaming with his angel anymore but face to face with the one he was waiting all his life without even knowing it.

I was the first one he talked with about his feelings for Jaejoong when he realized about them, even before than Changmin that was outside the city. I remember him glowing when he told me about their first kiss.

I felt really happy for them and I had the mission to help them distract Jaejoong's brother, Heechul, and his eagle eyes so they could date without him 'casually' appearing wherever they went. It was easier when Changmin returned.

Changmin still laughs a lot remembering the day we arrived to Yunho's apartment with a surprise cake for his birthday and we found a totally flustered Jaejoong there after -we knew right away by how they were acting- their first night together. They were madly in love.

Their parents were worried when they decided to live together the next winter. They haven't finished studying after all, even when they both had part-time jobs that allowed them to rent their own little comfortable places, sharing would be easier.

I heard somewhere that when everything is going well, you have to fear because something is going to go bad soon, and that's what happened at the beginning of Yunho's last year at university. His health deteriorated so much he had to stop working and going to classes and had to spend every time longer periods of time at the hospital.

My father told me that with people that were born with the same heart's condition of my friend, a very tiny amount would get to the point of needing another heart as theirs couldn't work properly anymore besides having the patch. Yunho, my best friend, was among those people, he needed a donor because his heart wasn't going to resist too much longer.

We were all devastated by the bleak panorama. Yunho's family, Jaejoong's family, my own family.

I started to pray with Yunho when he was at the hospital like I did when we were fifteen and he went under surgery again, till one day he asked me to stop.

"We can't..... we're praying for..... someone..... to die..... so I can live..... That's not right....."

I left the place and couldn't go back to the hospital for three days, I felt lost listening to his plea with his faltering voice over and over again inside my head. I used to find strength in my prays and then I was there, in a church desperate and sad. I met my wife that day, she just told me that we haven't been praying for someone to die but to find the heart of someone who wanted to leave a part of they behind when their time in this earth had ended.

I kept praying asking to find strength to endure whatever Destiny held for us.

I used to observe Jaejoong carefully. He was paler and thinner than ever before. However he never let it show. He was always wearing a lovely smile when he was at the hospital, encouraging his partner every time. He began to cover the dark circles under his eyes with makeup and wear lose clothes to cover for his lost of weight.

He was really strong, he never cried in front of Yunho or their families. There were days so hard that I couldn't explain myself how he did to not breaking down in front of everyone and still be the source of strength of our families.

I remember his voice singing or reading for Yunho at days when everything seemed worsen.

Jaejoong was always like that. The only time I saw him breaking down was the day we went to pick up Yunho from the hospital.

It was my friend's birthday and he was allowed to leave the hospital for a few hours.

Their mothers went crazy with the preparations for the party at the country house Yunho's family had and Changmin, Heechul and I stayed awake all night and if Jaejoong wouldn't have the important mission of going for Yunho the next day, they wouldn't have let him sleep either so after leaving the hospital at Jaejoong's car I went to the back seat to sleep a little.

Later I opened my eyes and heard my friend coughing. I still remember their conversation from my place hiding my face.

"Are you alright? Do you want to put the oxygen mask on?" Jaejoong asked to his lover in the passenger seat.

"Let's go..... home..... I only want..... to be with you....."

"What are you saying, babe? Everybody will be so sad. They're all waiting for you..."

"Remember when we….. went to renew our driver's license?..... we signed the organs..... donation form..... we laughed cause..... you said...... that we'd be so old that maybe none..... of our organs would work anymore....."

"..."

"I'm sorry..... I had to leave you so..... soon..... I-"

"Don't! Please stop..." Jaejoong pulled in and stopped the car.

"We know..... it's the last time….. I'd have loved..... to grow old….. with you..... we won't be..... together anymore..... you have to promise….. go on with your life…"

"What about me then... I could get out of this car and fall and break my neck and die... or I could meet a less stubborn man in my trip next week and run away with him... it could be me the one leaving you behind and you'll be healthy but without me and-"

"Don’t say that... what would be the meaning of living a life without you?…..”

“Isn’t the same for me? I can’t- I can’t if you give up like this… you want me to be strong but then…”

At this point they both were crying, and I was doing it too from my hidden place at the back seat covered with a blanket till the hair and pretending to be asleep.

“Jae-”

“No!”

“Love…”

“I said no!... you don’t know what destiny holds for you. I was about to throw everything away, studies, family, friends… I wanted to take a bag and run far away from here I don’t even know why but the day I decided would be the last one at the campus I saw you sleeping under that tree and I haven’t expecting anything but everything had a meaning again…”

“Jaejoong…”

“Then you promise me too… if you want me promising you to go on with my life even if you’re not with me, promise you’ll do it too if it’s me the one not by your side..."

I couldn't hear what they said after as they joined their foreheads and were whispering to each other. They sealed their promise with a kiss, short and sweet.

Days passed and Jaejoong left the city for work reluctantly. When he was away, I received THE call. There was a donor. I left everything at work and rushed to the hospital. I didn't pay attention to my surroundings where someone was crying; maybe I should have done it. I tried hard not to think about the person that had the accident.

When Yunho woke up and could talk, the first thing he asked was Jaejoong's whereabouts. He was still on a trip, his mother told him. Weeks passed and Yunho became more anxious.

I couldn't keep hiding the truth from him. We had an agreement of never lie to each other and my friend knew something was wrong so when he asked me I took his hand and put it on his chest over his heart. I didn't need to say anything else... he understood right away.

He cried, a heartbreaking sound that ripped my soul and I was crying too when his parents came to see him and take me out.

For many days he lost any desire of keeping with his recovery or any therapy. I think he was hoping follow his lover and it was me when his and Jaejoong’s family allowed me to see him again the one that had to help him to put himself together.

I reminded him the promise he made. He didn’t know I knew but he cried in my arms till he fell asleep. The next day he was willing to continue living.

Years passed and my best friend finished his studies and he became a pediatric cardiologist, one of the best. Through the years he attended many patients; a lot of them kept sending him letters and gifts even when they were adults.

He never fell in love again. Jaejoong’s mother used to say jokingly that it was because her son’s heart was unable to love any other but Yunho.

I, Heechul and Changmin had our children and with time, they had their own. I’m a proud grandfather of three.

When our children were little, “Uncle Yunho” used to tell them the story of an angel living inside his chest. He used to tell them that instead of a heart, he had an Angel flapping his wings.

Two years ago, in a day like today in this same house, it was raining again. I went to look for my granddaughter at Yunho's study room. Her cousins were outside playing with the other children in the house. She rather than being covered in mud liked to stay with her Uncle listening to his stories or sleeping in his lap. When I saw her, she was carrying a blanket.

"My Uncle is cold," she told me, "shh... Don't make noise, they are sleeping."

"They?"

"My Uncle and the Angel. He's not moving his wings anymore."

I looked at my friend laying on the divan of the room. I was barely able to call my wife to ask her to take the child out.

It looked like he was only sleeping. He was smiling with that smile I hadn't seen in years, a smile reserved only for Jaejoong every time Yunho met him. They were together again or maybe they always were even if not physically.

That way I lost my best friend in a day when I was celebrating another year of friendship.

I know they're somewhere looking upon us or maybe they're already in a place were they can live together and love each other this time without being cruelly separated by destiny.

While I'm writing these lines, I'm wishing I can find them in a different life and witness that utmost love they had for each other once again.

END

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It wasn't a sacrifice, it was a cruel destiny's twist. One was a donor, the other needed one and an accident happened (/□＼*)・゜

A/N Maybe I should put a TW… sorry for that.

The song for this story is Camilo Sesto’s “Mientras Mi Alma Sienta” (As Long As My Soul Feels), a beautiful song with the melody of Albinoni’s Adagio

Click: Music Video / Lyrics

Thank you very much as always for subscribing, voting and commenting.

Thank you for reading it ^-^

A BIG Thank you to Maribeth787 for saving a copy of this story T-T (and the others too)... I thought I have lost it forever. I just fixed it a little