“My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope
for a better world for anyone, in fact, I want my pain
to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.”

— Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

Nine.
Limbo

~ · ~ · ~

The water now cradles me. There’s no light in sight but a single line in the sky where it escapes like it’s forcing itself into my limbo. I see it shift as the waves rock me side to side. I have no strength to get up or the courage to reach into the light. So, I just watch it from where I am.

Time passes by me like a dream and I just watch as the light shift in colors beyond the line on my sky. If this is what limbo is like, I don’t ever want to leave. If this is existing beyond death, then I would gladly die. Whether or not this is a dream or this is my end, I guess I will never know. It’s not a question for me to answer but a fate I have to figure out myself.

Whether or not I saved Baekhyun is now just a fantasy in my head but I wish — I bad wish — that I did.

Maybe the light in front of me is Baekhyun’s light shining on me. Maybe this is why my limbo isn’t as empty. Because Baekhyun is here to remind me of him so in the years that will come I will never forget who he is.

By now, it feels like a year has passed since I woke up, floating in the nothingness and to the light that again shifts with me. It shifts and the line turns like a blooming flower. It opens up and the brightness blinds me, filling up my darkness, pulling me into it. My heart begins to swell and I hear it.

A beep. A loud one. Then another. And another. Over and over.

“Kyungsoo?” I hear his voice as if he’s here as if he’s with me. Did I fail? Was I not able to save him? “Kyungsoo?” I hear it again and all I see is white — clean and empty yet so dauntingly familiar. I hate to admit it but the longer I stare, the more real it becomes.

I am here. I live.

“Kyungsoo…” His voice screams in my head and I can’t shut it down. “Kyungsoo, goodness. Kyungsoo…”

He cries. “No, no, Kyungsoo.”

“Kyungsoo…” I hear once more before the darkness begins to embrace me yet again. I’m once again into the darkness where the line draws across my sky.

~ · ~ · ~

I float once again in oblivion and I begin to believe that this truly is my hell. A hell where I hear his voice. A hell where VITA remains in my skin and bones. It feels real because it is real. Hell is real and I would rather suffer than know that Baekhyun didn’t survive. I would rather burn in hell than learn of the same hell I put him through.

But Baekhyun’s voice isn’t hell. It’s the only great thing I’ve lived with. The way he talks about the most random of things with an unfailing optimism that lifts up the room. He talks like he’ll live forever and I sure hope he does because I might not know what to do if my hell turns to his death.

“Kyungsoo,” I hear it again, and once again the sky opens up to the brightness, dull and fluorescent. “Kyungsoo,” he says and all I can see is VITA in its haunting glory. “Where is he?”

“It’s okay,” I hear a soothing voice go. “You’re okay, Baekhyun.”

No, this isn’t hell.

“You’re fine.”

This is far from it.

“No. I want to see Kyungsoo.”

“He’s not here, Baekhyun,” the voice says and I see it, a face of someone I’ve never seen before. This person is wearing the same unnerving expression that every VITA employee wears. “Kyungsoo isn’t here with us.”

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun’s voice is weak, nasally, and rough. I can almost feel it in my throat.

“He’s in you. Kyungsoo’s is now with you.”

“What—”

This isn’t hell. This is life.

“You’re alive, Baekhyun,” the person says with a smile. “And Kyungsoo’s the reason for it.”

“No… He did not just… Did he?”

The person nods and the world shifts around me like it’s real. But only when I feel another flesh on mine that I realize this is my reality.

“Baekhyun,” I say and I feel a rush in me.

“Kyungsoo…” Baekhyun speaks and I feel it in my throat. His voice is in me and I almost can’t believe it.

This isn’t hell. This is life — my life, our life.

I am in Baekhyun. I am Baekhyun.

~ · ~ · ~