Minhyuk sat in his bed, feeling the low bumps of the letters as he passed his fingers along the pages of his book. The raised dots were recognizable but oh so foreign to him, a cognitive dissonance washing over him as his mind interpreted the random patterns into words without having to stop and spell out each letter upon placing his finger upon them. “Frog and Toad Are Friends” was an interesting choice to transliterate, and he found himself often confused at some of the more casual English phrases the author used.

There were some funny parts, he had to admit, for an adult like himself to read a children’s book. As with all kid literature, some of the things he would have glossed over as a child definitely made sense to him, and the life lessons were much clearer to the adult Minhyuk. Perhaps the accident and his condition had also given him new insights that allowed a positive reversion to his more youthful side, having already seen the bad side of life and wanting to see the good things instead.

After finishing the chapter he was on, Minhyuk closed the book and set it aside on the drawer next to his bed, sweeping his hand sideways to call for a staff member. He accidentally hit the vase of flowers his sister had left him, making him panic momentarily as it shifted to the right.

“Did you need me to call someone for you?”

Minhyuk jumped at the new voice, almost falling backwards off of the bed. He heard the other person apologize profusely before heading to where Minhyuk sat clutching his heart.

“Jinyoung, I told you to let the receptionist know before you visit.”

Despite his wildly beating heart, Minhyuk’s voice was calm. The younger boy continued pattering over to the blind man and scratched his head.

“Sorry, hyung. I wasn’t in the mood for busking today, so I decided I’d head here, since I was already in the area.”

Minhyuk gave a thumbs up and nodded, signalling that he wasn’t upset. Jinyoung had been coming to visit him ever since Yeri introduced the two to each other. It was rather comforting for Minhyuk to have someone come in more than twice a week, and more so because Jinyoung wasn’t coming as a volunteer but rather a friend. The two spent long hours speaking about menial things, such as how often Jinyoung dyed his hair and what advice Minhyuk had for dating girls. The younger boy was soft-spoken but very eloquent, something Minhyuk figured could be attributed to his songwriting skills. He had brought his guitar over a few times, humming sad ballads some days and upbeat pop songs on other days, often drawing a crowd in the hallway. Although Minhyuk couldn’t see his reaction, he figured that Jinyoung shied away from the attention, because he generally packed away his instrument as the voices started chattering praises for his talent.

“Does that mean you don’t have your guitar with you?”

Jinyoung shook his head before remembering and answering verbally. “No, I was just visiting some sites nearby, taking pictures and stuff.”

Minhyuk hummed. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to play some guitar too.”

Jinyoung’s eyes widened, his pretty face morphing into something closer to shock than surprise. “You play, hyung?”

“Yeah,” Minhyuk answered. “I used to be in a band with a few friends back in college.” He laughed, remembering their band name. “We called ourselves CNBLUE. The BLUE part was actually a backronym for burning, lovely, untouchable, and emotional, and I was lovely, believe it or not.”

“Wait, that is pretty funny. What did you play? Guitar?”

“I was the drummer, which is not really where you would expect the lovely of the group to be jamming out, but I played guitar too. Mostly when I was alone.”

“That’s really cool. What genre do you prefer? If you have a preference, that is.”

Minhyuk thought for a moment. “I don’t have favourites, per se, but we mostly performed soft rock and ballads. Yonghwa, our vocalist, took the lead in composing songs, since he was actually a music major. The rest of us just wanted to impress the girls.”

“Well, did it work?” Jinyoung said while laughing.

“Mmhmm,” Minhyuk answered. “That’s where I met my girlfriend.” He got quiet. “The one I was going to marry.”

“Oh…I’m sorry about that.”

Minhyuk waved him off. “Nothing to worry about. I let her go. She didn’t need me to burden her.”

“You must have loved her a lot to do that.”

Minhyuk looked up and stared wistfully into the darkness that he saw every day. “Huh. I guess so.”

Jinyoung furrowed his eyebrows, not liking how melancholic and resigned the older man seemed. He greatly respected Minhyuk for his resilience and optimism after having a virtually perfect life taken away f