"I guess I have to warn you I might die for a day
And I think about it so much until it finds itself a grave
'Til we've argued every politic and burned in third degree
I feel like the ghost in your tragedy"
Adeline by Sarah Jaffe

I was almost at my limit of sleep deprivation. The burning glow from the laptop’s screen in front of me nearly blinding me each time I attempted to blink away the drowsiness from my dry eyes, weary and weak in the late hour of night. What time was it, again? I glanced at the clock for the first time in apparently ninety-seven minutes and leaned back my head back, pushing my glasses up to rub my sore eyes.

   When I opened them again, a shadow was looming over the back of my chair and before I could even gasp, two slender hands were holding onto my cheeks as warm lips descended upon mine from over top of me.

   MinJun kissed me several times before I finally spun my chair around and pulled him into my lap. “What are you doing awake?” I asked him as he pulled the ear buds out of my ears and kissed both of my eyelids.

   “Taecyeon,” He said my name like he was begging me for something. Something that he wouldn’t, or possibly even couldn’t, tell me. “I just wanted you to hold me.”

   How many more times would those expressive eyes look at me, I wondered?

   This next kiss was stronger, more dire and burning. As if he was trying to remind me exactly who I belonged to; it could only be him. This burning passion that enflamed my entire existence since the very first moment we met, was my reason for living. However, before the fire could spread to other parts of our bodies, MinJun leaned away from me and pressed his forehead against mine as he drew heavy, ragged breaths.

   I watched his closed eyelids through the darkness, felt his hands clutching desperately at my shirt, and let my arms tighten around my husband’s waist carefully while he turned away and coughed out ruggedly.

   You could feel his fragility now.

   And that scared me.

   More than the hours spent in doctor’s offices, or the missed days of work, my co-workers acting so suddenly curious about my private affairs as they mutter their pre-condolences to me, or the simple fact that, before long, I would be a widower. More than all of that, it was MinJun’s newfound weakness that unsettled me. The look of fear it brought to his eyes as he lost all of that passionate freedom of his, replacing it with what I could only describe as bits and pieces of death.

   My arms impulsively tightened around him, so that there was some delicate strength to my hold on his body as he finished his coughing fit and laid his hands on my shoulders. Cold fingers combed my hair, and after another deep breath, I felt his words reverberate through his chest as he spoke. “You’re overthinking again, love.”

   Overthinking.

   Perhaps I was, but my feelings were my own and I honestly had no intention of ever letting go of these feelings, they belonged to MinJun. “Don’t act like you’re not afraid.”

   The words fell out of my mouth colder than anticipated, but the smile he showed melted my frostbitten heart. “Of course I am . . . I’ve just been so afraid for so long.” MinJun explained, his gaze shifting away as he found the words. “When I found out about my sickness, I was a mess – I’m still a mess, I just . . . It’s like I’ve found this incessant acceptance of death. I no longer dream of the future, Taec . . . I can’t even imagine it anymore.” I trembled, though I tried to hide it, he felt the tremor of my chest, I was assured by his gentle embrace of my head to his chest.

   I felt a wetness when I blinked and buried my face deeper in MinJun’s shirt as he held me. Crying had always been something so trivial that I had never seen a use for, yet here and now, I felt a lifetime’s worth of sadness escaping from the corners of my eyes.

   “What am I gonna do without you?” My heartbeat rapidly at the thought and he let the corners of his mouth pull up only slightly at my question. With one hand cupping my tear soaked cheek, he kissed me right on the lips.

   “You’ll continue to be the amazing man I fell in love with.” He said back so effortlessly. “You’ll write stories and poetry about our love. You’ll light a candle with Chansung every year for me and put white flowers on my grave. You’ll adopt the beautiful baby boy we always wanted and you’ll name him for me. Whatever you do, just be happy, that’s all I ask.”

   To live happily in a world without him, I parted my lips to protest, but the words caught in my throat and I closed my mouth. I realized then, that this had been part of his plan the whole time, the secret he kept from me for all those months. I could no longer say that happiness was not an option without him because, yes, there was another. Not better, nor less. Just another. Someone whom I equally loved.

   If this was his choice, then I had no option but to respect it, no matter the circumstance because I loved him and I always would.

   That thought sparked a memory from the not too distant past, and I spoke. “As long as there’s a sky above us and land under our feet, I’ll love you . . .”

   MinJun smiled for real this time. “I won’t forget.”



“What exactly are we doing here, again?” Chansung questioned beside me. His attentive eyes thoroughly took in our surroundings as we moseyed around the dealership that displayed various makes and models of motorcycles. But I was too entranced by the prized objects to fully pay attention to him.

   My fingertips bushed along the leather seat of one and as soon as I felt its firm padding, I felt the wave of long forgotten thrill crashing against me like a tsunami. I in a sharp breath and pulled my hand from the rough leather. Beside me, Chansung sighed audibly and I looked at him with a small smile.

   “Have you ever been on one?” I asked, but the younger only shook his head. “I used to have an old nineties model, back when I first met Jun in Daegu. We flew tough those days so quickly. So many evenings riding around the city, end up at some motel and spend the rest of the night ing each other senseless . . . just to get up for work and do it all again the next day. At times it seemed so miserable, but there was a kind of irreplaceable beauty in the struggle of being so young. And in the simple things like listening to him sing me to sleep as the sun rose through the curtains.” As I said this, it felt like it was yesterday.

   I still remembered the exact moment I fell in love. To MinJun, it was love at first sight, but for me, the love settled in; it crept up slowly, until it finally caught me off guard. “His name was Junsu, then . . . He wanted to be a singer, and when his father died we moved to Seoul in hopes of him pursuing his career – I held a few small jobs here and there until I finally found one where I could write professionally, where I could express myself through written word . . .”

   MinJun’s words from the night before still struck a few chords in my heart that I couldn’t deny. “We had so many dreams between the two of us, so many things we’d hoped to do.” My mouth was barely working anymore, and I saw Chansung leaning closer to me, probably in order to hear me properly. “If only we’d known.” I looked in his large eyes and watched them soften immensely.

   “Hyung,” Chansung started as softly as ever. “If you’d known, would you have really done things differently?”

   The question was obviously rhetorical, since he knew me well. He knew me far more than I had given him credit for and that only made my heart swell up more for the doe eyed juvenescence. Chansung smiled after I failed to reply, and let his fingertips find mine, immediately curling around my hand as he kept staring me right in the eyes, as if to consume me.

   “You guys seem to think that MinJun’s going to die and that there’s nothing we can do about it.” He was struggling to keep his voice low and steady, but his face burned with a beautiful mix of pain and determination. “Well I can’t accept that. I hate that he’s sick, I really do . . . but if things would have happened so differently, I might not have met you both . . .” His fingers squeezed mine for a brief moment before he let out a deep breath and looked ahead of him. “Now, I think blue and black would suit you best.”

   This time, he looked at me with a mischievous smirk and I was frozen still at the glimpse of someone who I hadn’t seen in what felt like forever, resting inside him. And I suddenly realized why my husband chose him.