“Come sit by me, Junsu.”

   Appa?

“Not much longer, Junsu.”

   Don’t leave.

“Don’t cry, Junsu.”

   Please, don’t leave . . . Please . . . Abeoji.

   I opened my eyes to blinding sunlight that beamed down from the open curtains of the window. Sitting up, a pain spiked in my back from the way I had been curled up in the chair that was too small to act as a sufficient bed. This was my second night sleeping in the hospital room that my best friend was being kept in. My second night having such vivid dreams.

   More than a little preoccupied with yawning, I almost hadn’t noticed my audience until I heard the ruffle of blankets and looked at the man who had been sleeping in the hospital bed, now alert and very much staring at me with an amused smirk on his purple hued lips.

   “You look like crap.” Nichkhun’s voice was so hoarse it felt like sandpaper in my ears.

   I couldn’t help but laugh as I stretched my legs and moved the chair closer to the edge of his bed. “You’re one to talk, you look like you could star in a horror flick.” Reaching for his hand, his fingers opened welcomingly to mine and I wrapped my warm palm around his cold hand. “You . . . You were in remission, too.”

   Rolling his eyes, Nichkhun rested his head back on the pillow and breathed in deeply. “Yeah well, ‘going through remission’ is just another term for ‘having cancer’.” For the first time since I’d known him, I could honestly say that Nichkhun looked genuinely bitter, though it lasted only a few short lived moments before he was back to staring straight at me. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

   I sighed. “I took some of my vacation time. Tell me what you need, Khun.”

   Chocolate brown eyes gazed at me for a hopeless moment. “I need a new hipbone . . . Because mine’s so ed up, I can’t even take a piss by myself anymore.” He let out a breathy laugh, void of all humor or relief and then shrugged, as if he had said nothing at all. “But I suppose, for now . . . Chocolate chip pancakes would work.”

   What could I say to that?

   Standing up, I felt the blood flowing back into my legs as I looked at the desperate looking man in the bed and asked. “Whipped cream, too?”

   “Most definitely.”

   It didn’t take long for me to get to the food court and convince one of the chefs to prepare the special request for the hospital’s most popular nurse. I bowed as I was told the food would be delivered up to Nichkhun’s room and then made my way back to the elevator with a slightly lighter chest.

   Stepping off the elevator, a defeated looking Wooyoung in powder blue scrubs stood in front of Nichkhun’s room, staring at the closed door with such dismay it watered his eyes. Part of me felt the urge to look away, like I was watching something private, as the nurse wiped at his eyes with both hands and turned away to face me, only to freeze the moment our eyes locked.

   He said nothing, and neither did I, only . . . He broke first, looking away with a soft mumble. “You probably think I’m a coward, right?”

   “I didn’t think anything.” I corrected him.

   He looked as if he would say something, only the words stopped in his throat and his bottom lip quivered while he almost choked on unshed tears. “He doesn’t think I should love him . . . But I know he loves me.” Wooyoung said, staring at me once more. “I know he does.”

   I stood there, like some statue, as the man walked past me and disappeared behind the closing doors of the elevator. My feet slowly dragging me back into the room where Nichkhun waited. As I pushed the door open, I noticed the tensed expression on the honey blonde’s face, his fists clenched and his eyes closed tight, like that would force away the worry and unease. Khun peered at me through one eye before looking sadly, down at himself.

   “You heard him?” My assumption was confirmed by a silent nod. “Is he right?” Another nod had me sitting on the edge of the hospital mattress. “Then why do you push him away?”

   Nichkhun looked up at me with glistening eyes, the look of a man who had nothing left, the kind of look I sympathized with well. “I can say goodbye to everything else,” He said. “But with him . . . I don’t want– . . . I don’t want to die.” Soft tears rolled down his pale cheeks as I watched him finally break.

   Even the strongest wall eventually crumbles.

I turned the key to the front door and pushed it open, taking the first few steps into house as I let my eyes adjust to the early evening darkness inside. With a shallow breath, I dropped my keys on the table, making my way to the bedroom and staring at the sleeping mound hiding under the blankets. The rise and fall of the steady breathing lulled my worried mind, and for a moment, my mind wasn’t cluttered with the worry of everything. When Taecyeon stirred in his sleep, rolling on his back, I smiled, my feet moving themselves as I climbed on top of him.

   His eyes opened immediately, but it was his smile that followed that got to me.

   The brown eyes squinted through the dark to stare up at me tiredly as he wrapped his warm arms around me and I let myself be engulfed in the flames of his embrace. His scent was comfortable, and he looked at me as I held his face between my hands – tenderly – and then kissed him. I kissed him like we hadn’t kissed in ages. I kissed him like I wanted it more than anything. I kissed him like it would be our last, and he kissed me back equally.

   As our lips brushed softly, I could feel his heart racing against his chest, he whispered. “Is everything okay?”

   Was it?

   I couldn’t lie to him, I couldn’t even lie to myself anymore; there was no purpose in it. I didn’t have time to waste on purposeless things. And so, I simply sighed, resting my head on his broad chest as I murmured. “I’m gonna start chemotherapy . . . I-I want to live,” Breathing in his deep scent, I felt the words and how much I meant them, more than I thought I would. “I want to live for as long as possible.”

   The only response I received was Taecyeon’s arms squeezing me to his chest tighter, clutching on to me with what felt like absolutely no intention of letting me go. That feeling right there, that spark, that flame that I hadn’t felt in so long took ahold of me and in a brilliant flash of a moment, I felt like flying.

I stared at the needle sticking out of my arm so uncomfortably, glaring at the thing for as long as reason would allow me, which turned out to be mere seconds before I sighed and let my arm fall to my side to rest in the only semi-comfortable position it could. I had been waddling around this hospital for four days, and by now, my arm was marked up from the different spots where they had attached an IV drip to my arm.

   The first day of treatment was the hardest. Emotionally, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and forget that the entire world even existed. But the second day was easier, boring, but easier.

   And now, on the fourth day, I just wanted to go home.

   But I couldn’t go home, not when I still had three more days of my blood being pumped with medicine that made me feel more nauseated than anything and left me in a constant state of fatigue. With my IV in tow, I went to the one place in this hospital that had kept me sane for the last ninety-six hours.

   When I got to Nichkhun’s room, the door was cracked open so I let myself in, quite surprised to find the bed empty and the television murmuring on low volume, as if it hadn’t really been watched in forever. A toilet flushed and before I could turn, the bathroom door opened and I watched Nichkhun brace himself against an aluminum walker as he took slow steps towards the bed and eventually smirked at me. “Amazing, you really do look good in anything. I’m jealous~” He mused with a soft wince that was well hidden behind a humorless laugh at his own comment as he sat down on the bed, already out of breath by the little physical exertion.

   I quelled my sympathy for his sake and came to sit in the chair by his bed. “Last I checked, you were the one all the other nurses dream about.”

   “I was that person . . .” Nichkhun stared down for a moment, but this time, his smile failed to reach his eyes. “Then I lost thirty pounds and got a nine inch scar running up my side.” He motioned to the right side of his body and I didn’t have to see under the hospital gown to imagine the deep scar left behind from his surgery seven days ago.

   “You’re still that person, Khun.”

   He just stared back at me blankly before sighing. “I’m a twenty-nine year old invalid.”

   This time, I was the one to laugh, unable to stop my unyieldingly optimistic attitude for some reason. “Then we’re both a couple of invalids.”

   “What an attractive pair we make.” The sarcasm had me raising an eyebrow at the negative tone coming from the other man, but what surprised me most was that he seemed genuinely perturbed by the idea of losing all of his prince-like features.

   “Since when have you cared so much about looks, though?” I couldn’t help but ask dully. It was eye opening, watching the once soft smile of the honey blonde fade completely, replaced with the crumpled pieces of a broken wall as if they had been forced together again like it could ever be the same.

   It wasn’t the same though.

   And that had me understanding, finally, that I wasn’t the same either. Just like Nichkhun, the process of death had its claws in my soul, and all of the remission in the world could never heal the scar tissue left behind.