Two months.

It took two months before Sungmin came back to school.

Two months for me to see him again, because for some reason I had no right to go and see him at his house.

What made things even worse was that Mr. New Guy had left at the same time as Min and never come back. I didn’t mind the fact that he was gone, I just minded the fact that he had left at the exact same time as my boyfriend. I knew there was something fishy about this guy, but… I still didn’t know what. I couldn’t think of any reason why he seemed so strange to me. Maybe there was something about him that didn’t make him seem like a student. Because I was pretty sure that he wasn’t a student. A real student. It was probably easy for him to make people believe he was younger than he really was, because he was Asian and had a baby face. Like Sungmin. Except that Sungmin’s face was a lot cuter than Mr. New Guy’s. It wasn’t even comparable.

Just my biased feelings.

The feeling that something wasn’t right about the new guy hadn’t left me when Sungmin came back to school after two months. But the moment I saw my boyfriend arrive at school, I couldn’t help but momentarily forget everything about the strange guy because I had missed Sungmin too much.

And it actually took me a few seconds to notice that, when he had seen me, he had run to me to jump in my arms. When I noticed, I was still hugging him tight. I frowned and softly moved him away from me to look at him in the eyes. He was smiling softly, as usual, but there was something different about him. I suddenly found out what it was.

“You have muscles!” I let out as I was touching his arms.

He smiled a bit more and chuckled. “I missed you too.”

“I’m serious! You have muscles! More than before! You-”

“I’ve been working out a bit…”

“Working out? You? But-”

Hold on.

Two months.

Something had happened during those two months. At the beginning of those two months. And the two months had been there for him to recover from that something…

I looked at him, my eyes full of hope. Was he…?

As an answer, he pulled me somewhere nobody would see us, and pulled his shirt up. On his chest, there was a scar. A long scar right where his heart was. Delicate, pale. Full of experiences. Life, near-death, problems, life again…

His voice was only a whisper, almost lost in the usual noise of the crowd of students in the school. And yet, I heard it perfectly.

“They found out what it was. My heart had a very slight irregularity that made it unable to withstand any shock, and it was the cause for everything. They operated me for it. Or maybe I should say it in another way. A renowned genius found out what it was, Henry found out what it was. Henry operated me for it. For free, because he knew how hard life was for me. Henry saved me so I could come back to you without the fear of dying any minute. Henry acted as a student to approach me. A bit for fun, but also for me not to hope too much at first.”

“But how…”

“It was extremely risky. Which is why I told you I had no idea for how long I’d be gone. He had to open me, move parts of me, and put everything back to place without making anything break once he was done. He had to play with my life.”

Which was why he had told me he’d be more important than me…

“Henry insisted for me to work out a bit before going back to school. Under control, of course. To make sure it would work. You have no idea how strange it felt to run… how strange it felt to feel my heart beat regularly without skipping when it started going faster… you have no idea how afraid I was, when I saw you, that it would explode…”

He had started tearing up. I hugged him tighter and wiped away his tears with my lips. “Min…”

“I love you, Kangin. At first I didn’t want to get operated. I didn’t want to risk my life just to be able to do sports and other stuff like that. But when Henry asked me to spend lunchtime with him, when you were angry, it made me so nervous I was afraid I’d die. And I remembered our first kiss, and I remembered your promise never to leave me no matter what, or something along those lines. I thought that you’d stay with me even without the need to protect me. And I thought you would probably prefer me not to die for no good reason. So I accepted, and I hoped with all my soul that I’d come back to you.”

He hid his face in my shirt and smelled it softly, as he always did before he had to leave for two months. “And I came back to you. So please tell me you still like me. Please tell me you haven’t forgotten about me. Or else this would all have been for nothing.”

“I could never have forgotten about you. I don’t like you, I love you. I missed you. I missed you too much.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you anything. I didn’t want you to have false hopes in case I wouldn’t make it…”

“I love you.”

“Kangin, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care, I love you.”

“You do understand why I did it right?”

“I don’t understand, I love you.”

He finally smiled for real, and chuckled before he kissed me. Passionately.

“I love you too. Are you crying?”

“I’m sorry. Manly men don’t cry…”

“Manly men cry. They have feelings. They don’t fear to show them.”

“I love you. I missed you. I need you. I love you.”

“You’re a manly man, Kangin. Now that you let your feelings show, you’re the manliest man I’ve ever known. You taught me happiness, I taught you what you wanted to learn: how to be manly. Aren’t you happy?”

I chuckled through my tears. “I am. Because you’re here with me. And because I love you.”

He smiled and kissed me again. “I love you more.”

“I know. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have risked dying.”

“I love you, idiot. So just kiss me and then we’ll go kick some brat’s bouncy .”

“Huh?”

“You thought that Kyuhyun Cho never came to see me and bully me? You thought wrong. Now that I can defend myself, we’ll have fun. Okay?”

And it made me laugh. “Okay. Min, you know what?”

“Nope, but it probably won’t be long before I do.”

“I love you.”

“I knew that. You know what?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you even more.”

---------------------------------------

Wait what...

KANGMIN. WHY DID YOU DECIDE THAT THE STORY WOULD STOP THERE. I HAD PLENTY OF THINGS IN MIND FOR YOU TWO like making Sungmin get bullied and Kangin fighting an epic fight under the rain to save him, and a hot night with hot stuff happening, and other things like that. FUDGE.

Oh well, characters never listen to me anyway. I should know that by now.

I'm sorry it ended so abruptly. I hope you still enjoyed that! ThanKYU for reading!