Chapter 17 Making the best out of something while you know things are going to end sooner or later is hard. Kyuhyun can acknowledge this.   Kyuhyun, Jongwoon, Hyukjae and Donghae had started the new year with fresh hopes and a positive spirit. Maintaining that feeling, however, is harder than it seems. Kyuhyun almost felt the urge to lit a sky-rocket every day to send all the negative feelings away, but that wouldn’t be possible. And probably even illegal. And let’s not forget the average age on the square they were all living on. A minor explosion every day is probably not too well for the other residents.   Jongwoon went through his 11th and 12th chemo session and through his 11th and 12th radiation session. Things still went the same as before. He was ill for about a week after the chemo, and he was in pain for who knows how many days after the radiation. And in the weeks where he was finally feeling a bit better he would visit some of his friends at their respective houses, visit Kyuhyun at his work, visit Hyukjae at his work (that was new, but he decided that he wanted to see what Hyukjae was doing when he was away), and he would even visit Donghae at his work. Though, visiting Donghae he didn’t do that often. As we all know, Donghae works as a dance teacher, and Jongwoon can’t dance due to his back. Watching all those smooth movements made him miss the days he still could move smoothly as well.   Kyuhyun’s and Jongwoon’s relationship was improving again by the day. Kyuhyun started to get more secure about himself, knowing that he was doing all he could for Jongwoon, and because Kyuhyun started to get more positive, it started to show fruits in their relationship too. They would often go out together; either to the park, or to the café, or shopping, or even to the cinema. Just like normal couples do. And if they didn’t go out, they would just sit together at home, hoping to not get disturbed by Hyukjae, who thought it was funny to walk in on them if they were alone in a room, shouting “OOPS!” as if he saw something wrong, while they weren’t doing anything erted.   The kiss they shared on new years eve didn’t turn out to be the best kiss someone could experience. The more Kyuhyun and Jongwoon kissed, the more breathtaking it would become. So when Jongwoon had his 12th chemo session, and turned ill shortly after, Kyuhyun had a hard time to get through the day without kissing. Kyuhyun missed it that much, that even though Jongwoon was vomiting all over the place, Kyuhyun still felt like kissing him. But he didn’t though, that would have been TOO disturbing. But just thinking about it makes clear how much Kyuhyun was missing it.   All of this make it seem like things were actually going better again, or at least didn’t regress. But it isn’t quite like that. As time passed by, Jongwoon did lose weight rapidly. He got sickly thin, his eyes started to crawl back into his skull, his cheeks turned hollow. The skin around his eyes started to turn darker, while the rest of his skin turned paler.   At nights, he took off his wig as well, so whenever Kyuhyun was sleeping next to him and woke up, he could really see how bad it was actually going with Jongwoon. In the mornings, when Jongwoon wasn’t wearing his wig and some makeup to hide his black encircled eyes, he would look so sick, that it scared Kyuhyun sometimes. But of course, when Jongwoon stood up, he would put his wig back on, put on some makeup, and with that he would look much healthier. It’s amazing what some makeup and hair can do to people.   But it got harder and harder to hide it. Jongwoon wasn’t only missing his normal hair anymore. His eyebrows were gone too. And even his eyelashes were gone. And you can’t really get wigs for those, can you?   But Jongwoon was still strong -- still holding on as ever. Saying that he was just looking like this because of the damn chemo, and as soon as he was finished with that, he would turn into his y old self again. Kyuhyun always answered that Jongwoon still was his y self.   But of course, seeing someone actually regressing as fast as that doesn’t really make the hope go up.     ✭✭✭✭✭     “KYUHYUN?!”   Kyuhyun, who was just helping a costumer, looked up surprised when he heard someone shouting his name in a, what he would call, an angry tone. Hyukjae came storming in, dragging Jongwoon with him. When Hyukjae noticed that it was pretty busy at the café, and everyone was staring at him due to his loud voice he laughed nervously and sat down quietly at a still empty table together with Jongwoon who glared at him unstoppable.   Kyuhyun’s boss could tell Hyukjae really needed to talk with Kyuhyun, so he looked for someone to take over Kyuhyun’s spot for a few minutes. It would probably be better if Kyuhyun would talk to Hyukjae straight away, because Hyukjae looked like he was going to kick a scene at any minute now.   Kyuhyun walked over to Hyukjae and Jongwoon as soon as one of his colleagues took his place behind the counter and sat down next to Jongwoon and across from Hyukjae.   “What?” He asked in a friendly yet curious tone. He seriously had no idea why Hyukjae would come running in like that, even dragging Jongwoon with him. Hyukjae and Jongwoon had gone out together today. Hyukjae finally had a day off, and for the first tim