They say that no human can last longer than ten days without sleep. Without proper rest, your vital organs begin to slowly shut down, one by one. You get to watch your hair and fingernails fall out just as your mind finally realises that it’s the next on the list to fail. And after that, everything turns into a mess.

If only he could have been that lucky if it could happen so quickly. Ten days would be so easy, so much simpler compared to this.

Fatal familial insomnia. Kyuhyun couldn’t even properly register those words when he’d sat with his mother at the hospital. The doctor had been explaining the mutations and proteins that had caused the disease, but Kyuhyun was deaf to everything except for the word fatal. His mother had clung to his hand as he just stared, blind, unable to comprehend what was happening to him.

He’d had to listen to his mother crying over the phone later on that evening, telling his sister about his illness. His illness that had no known cure. His illness that was so rare, that he had to be one in the less than 200 people in the history of the planet to have inherited such unfortunate genes. Kyuhyun couldn’t bear to talk to his sister when his mother had offered to hand the phone to him, his heart hurting too much to even think that he wouldn’t be making it to see her be happily married.

Kyuhyun would never be an uncle. He would never get the promotion he’d been working so hard for. He would never be able to fulfil his promise to Sungmin.

18 months, the doctor told them. 18 months until Kyuhyun would be gone.

It would happen in four stages, the doctor told him the next time he visited the hospital. In the first few months, he was told to expect increasing insomnia, panic attacks and paranoia. Kyuhyun could only listen brokenly, crumpled into his chair as he fought to keep himself from crying in front of a stranger.

For the next five months he would experience hallucinations, phobia and his panic attacks were told to worsen.

In the third stage, he would barely be able to sleep, and his weight would drop drastically.

And then there was the fourth stage, in which he was told that he would have serious dementia, and would gradually become mute toward the last 6 months of his miserable life. Death would soon follow.

“It’s okay, honey,” his teary mother had whispered to him one night as they sat in his room. Kyuhyun didn’t know that he’d been crying so loudly, loudly enough for his mother to hear him and come in. “They said that one patient extended the survival time by one year. If you were to start meditating, and take stimulants and narcoleptics, you’d be able to stay with us for much longer-”

“What good would it be?” Kyuhyun had choked out, pushing her away from him as he stared at her with infuriated disbelief, “They died eventually, just like everyone else. Don’t talk to me like I’m going to be some sort of miracle, mom. I’m going to die whether we want it or not!”

Twenty three. It was too early for him to go now. He still had so much he wanted to achieve; so many places he wanted to go. He knew it was useless for him to try and deny that what he had was anything less than serious, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to give up just yet. He himself had lost someone just years ago, and he would be cruel to bring that kind of grief to his own family. For the sake of his mother, his father and his sister, Kyuhyun knew that he had to ride this out until the end. For them, so in twenty years, they could be proud to say that he had tried to fight it.

If he was only going to live for 18 more months, he could at least make worthwhile memories for them to keep. He could survive until his 24^th birthday and spend it with the people who had supported him for his entire life – he could show them exactly how much gratitude he held for them.

Kyuhyun was so conflicted – so tortured – he could only turn to one person.

It was a dark, dreary day when Kyuhyun stepped out of his car, half-turning to gaze forlornly up at the cemetery gates. They looked the same as always, so tall and inescapably sad that Kyuhyun had to avert his eyes after only a few seconds of looking.

Another thing that hadn’t changed was the grave marker. Small weeds had grown up over the epitaph, and Kyuhyun blankly tugged from the ground as he read those painfully familiar words, ones that he’d seen so often that they had burned into the back of his mind.

Never forgotten.

Heavy tears gathered at the corners of his eyes as Kyuhyun dragged his eyes upward, settling on the name that ached just to hear.

Lee Sungmin.

The grass was damp, but Kyuhyun couldn’t bring himself to think about it as he knelt on the ground before the stone, his eyes focused on the dirt before him. He knew that down there lay his Sungmin, the one that he’d fallen in love with so many winters ago.

He looked down at his empty hand, slowly clenching his fingers into a fist as he fought back the sob that threatened to force its way out of his throat. He could still remember how Sungmin’s hand had felt against his; such a delicate, thin hand, and it had grown weak. He’d felt Sungmin’s strength fade minute by minute, breaking Kyuhyun’s heart each time he’d struggled to take in a breath.

Swallowing so hard that it hurt, Kyuhyun placed two shaking palms on his own thighs. “…Hey, Min,” he whispered out, his voice rasping. This never got any easier, no matter how many times he visited, no matter how much support he had with him.

He just wished that once, he could hear Sungmin’s sweet voice again; feel his warmth in his arms.

“I’m just here to…” Kyuhyun faltered as his voice failed him, quickly wiping his cheek when a hot drop hit his skin. “I needed someone to talk to.”

Silence.

Funny, how after all of this time, Kyuhyun still hoped that one day, Sungmin would answer him.

A lump was forming in his throat, and he could no longer swallow past it. It was there, like a reminder of his grief, of how he struggled to even speak with someone who had left him so long ago. Sungmin would kill him if he knew that Kyuhyun was still so cracked, even after he’d promised to Sungmin that he would find another.

“Sungmin, I have something.”

What would Sungmin think? Would he worry? Would he support him?

“…I’m not gonna make it.”

A car with loud, thudding music passed by on the street outside, but Kyuhyun didn’t hear it, trapped in his own world as he traced the tip of his finger over where Sungmin’s name was carved into the stone.

“I know that I tell you this a lot, but I miss you so much,” Kyuhyun tried to smile, but it came out as a watery grimace as he pressed the sleeves of his jumper to his eyes to mop up more traitorous tears. “I think I know how you felt now, when you…” Kyuhyun couldn’t even finish his own sentence as waves of painful memories flashed through his mind, still so fresh they made him feel as though he couldn’t breathe.

His breathing grew laboured as his shoulders began to tremble. “Did it hurt?” Kyuhyun asked, his voice cracking and hoarse with suppressed emotion. “You were so brave, I don’t know how you did it. I’m so, so scared Sungmin. I don’t think I’m ready.”

Sungmin’s tombstone stood in front of him, cold and with nothing to say. Nothing to comfort him with. But it was the sentiment that kept Kyuhyun from going home – he liked to think that perhaps Sungmin was here, listening to him even as he poured out his pain, trying to wipe his tears.

Kyuhyun slid one hand into his jacket pocket, his hand clamping around his wallet – he knew that in there was a photo of Sungmin, taken when he was healthy and full of life. Kyuhyun held onto it as he finally let his agony fall, his vision blurring as an agonized sob let his mouth.

“Please,” he begged, so utterly destroyed as his other hand reached out to cling onto the side of the marker. “I can’t go through this without you, Sungmin, please…anything…”

Kyuhyun remained like this for over an hour, weeping over Sungmin’s grave until a warm, firm hand was placed on his shoulder.

He knew too well not to get his hopes up. Kyuhyun allowed the person to lift him up from where he knelt, his body cramped and shivering as his father embraced him. Kyuhyun could only bury his face into his dad’s woollen sweater, his face thick with tearstains, some fresh and others old. He’d been fetched from this place one too many times, so Kyuhyun knew better than to resist when he was gently led toward a car and placed into the passenger seat.

As always, Kyuhyun would stare numbly out of the window as the buildings flew past in a blur, so much life around him, but Kyuhyun couldn’t see any of it.

*

Ahra pulled out of her scholarship to come back home and live with them. While he didn’t say it aloud, Kyuhyun couldn’t stand to see her around the house. Knowing that she was back was just another reminder that this disease wasn’t only ruining his life but ruining his sister’s chances of following her dreams killed him inside. He hated the fact that she had given up everything just to spend time with him. Further along down the track, when she would be getting married and raising a family, he knew that she would regret it. He knew that she would regret wasting time on him, when he was just a hollow shell, waiting for death.

She was relatively fine for the first few weeks, until one night when she walked into the lounge room at 5am to find Kyuhyun lying across the couch with heavy eyelids.

“Did you sleep at all?” She had asked, to which he’d replied, “Not tonight, no.”

Ahra had eyed him for several seconds before asking once more, “When was the last time you slept through a whole night?”

And in all honesty, Kyuhyun had responded, “Two weeks ago.”

The severity of his illness seemed to hit her hard at that exact moment, and as the horrified tears had welled up in her eyes, Kyuhyun had gotten his first dose of what it was going to be like going through this with his family. And that it was only going to get harder as the months dragged on.

Kyuhyun kept himself away from Sungmin for the following few days, knowing that it wouldn’t help him at all if he were to try and reach out to the dead once again.

His nights grew progressively longer, little by little. They weren’t much of a noticeable change at first – it was small things that Kyuhyun took note of. It took longer to get to sleep on some nights, and before the sun would even be up, Kyuhyun would be up to watch it rise and greet him in the mornings.

Slowly, over the course of the weeks, his sleeping patterns became irregular. Waking from a night’s sleep no longer allowed him to feel well-rested, and instead he would still feel weary when he managed to pull himself from his bed. Waking up in the middle of the night turned into waking up at 3-4 hour intervals, and then every two hours. The gap between his resting times grew larger and larger, and Kyuhyun could almost see himself beginning to deteriorate whenever he looked at himself in the mirror when he brushed his teeth.

It came to the point where he would spend almost all night simply lying on his back and staring at the ceiling of his room, so irritatingly awake that he couldn’t do anything about it except keep himself busy until his exhausted reached a point where his body was forced to sleep.

His mother tried to encourage him through the disease. If anything, Kyuhyun found her constant, forced cheeriness tiring, but knew that it was with good intentions. His father, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have the courage to even mention it aloud. When his mother would unceremoniously bring the topic up over dinner, Ahra would suddenly lose her appetite and leave the table while his father simply kept quiet. It was strained, and Kyuhyun would feel the arrangement wearing on all of them. More than once he’d told his sister to return to her work and continue on with her life, which usually ended up in both women crying while Kyuhyun tried to apologise and console them.

Kyuhyun took to retreating to his room whenever things got tense around the house. It was also around this time that he began to notice small, irritating things – such as germs, dogs or birds. Never before had those things worried him, but as his rest time grew sparser, had his paranoia grown larger.

He was very aware of people sneezing around him, and made an effort to hold his breath until he was in an area with ‘cleaner air’. He knew that it was ridiculous, and that germs hadn’t bothered him until now, but he couldn’t help but feel a little relieved whenever he reassured him that the air he was breathing was pure.

Small things, such as growls, had Kyuhyun glancing over his shoulder in concern. Bird calls overhead had him scanning the sky at regular intervals whenever he left the house; his mother had noticed it once, her expression grim as Kyuhyun had explained that birds were potentially dangerous predators that could strike down upon them at any given moment.

These small, abrupt fears were unexplainable, and he could see the way it hurt those who were close to him; the way he was suddenly twitchy in public was taking its toll on everyone.

For Kyuhyun, it simply increased the dread that was building up inside of him. He was too young to die. He still had so much that he wanted to do; he still had to travel, work, live. Kyuhyun knew that above everything else, over all of the that was suddenly destroying any promise of a normal life, all he wanted to do was live.

Strange, how despite being more or less monitored by family members 24/7, Kyuhyun felt more alone than ever. There was no one to sit with him late at night, when his mind betrayed his will and he was curled up into a ball. He knew that there was no escape from what was happening to him, and it made him wish that someone was still here with him.

Most of all, he wanted Sungmin. He wanted Sungmin to sit next to him through the cold, lonely nights; to be by his side when he wasted away whatever hours of his life remained in front of cheap, crappy late night television. Kyuhyun was sinking fast, and whether it was into depression or further into his sickness, he wasn’t sure. He could never be sure.

One Thursday afternoon, when Kyuhyun had gone for two straight days without sleeping at all, a knock on the door broke his family out of their usual routine.

Kyuhyun looked up drearily from where he lay on his bed, his eyes swollen and shadowed so darkly that they were beginning to look bruised. Two familiar figures stood on his doorway, their faces unfathomable as they looked down to see Kyuhyun in all of his exhausted glory. Still clothed in the loose pyjamas that he’d been wearing for the last week, Kyuhyun knew that he looked like a mess, but saw no visible reason to change it.

“Damn, Kyuhyun.” Kangin regarded him with something akin to dry pity as he entered the room, sitting down on the end of his bed and gingerly patting his knee.

Kyuhyun couldn’t deny that it was nice to see them. Like a pair of scissors snipping through a very thin thread, he had made no effort to contact any of his friends after finding out about his condition. Weeks of isolation, with no one but his family to talk to, had Kyuhyun actually a little grateful that his two closest friends had come to see him.

Hyukjae didn’t move from where he stood at the door and just watched Kyuhyun with soft, sorrowful eyes, drinking exactly how terrible the sick man looked. Kyuhyun couldn’t even look him in the eye, not when he knew that all he would see was sadness.

So Kyuhyun simply offered Kangin a smile; nothing more than the slight twitch of his lips, but it seemed to be enough for his friend, because Kangin returned the gesture with a squeeze to his leg.

“I’m guessing that you aren’t coming back to school?” Kangin assumed in a gentle tone, watching in silence as Kyuhyun’s eyes almost drooped shut before they fluttered open once more.

Kyuhyun sighed tiredly. There was no way for them to understand how much he lacked motivation to do anything anymore. What would it amount to? Anything he put effort into now would only be for nothing.

Hyukjae slowly but gradually walked into the room to sit down on the floor by the head of his bed, propping his chin on the mattress and staring at Kyuhyun with veiled eyes.

Kyuhyun hated it. He hated that he was hurting so many people, and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Shaking his head, Kyuhyun shifted himself on his bed, wincing when is stiff joints refused to comply. His entire body ached, begging for rest; rest that Kyuhyun truly couldn’t give.

“No,” Kyuhyun murmured, glancing down to where Hyukjae was watching him imploringly. “I’m not coming back. I’m sorry.”

Kangin said nothing as he looked toward the floor. Kyuhyun could tell that he was trying to think of something to say, but there was nothing.

Hyukjae lifted a hand to trace invisible patterns into the mattress, and Kyuhyun rolled his head around to see what he was doing.

“Have you given up already?” Hyukjae asked him, his voice so small that Kyuhyun had to concentrate to hear it more clearly.

That damn lump was forming in his throat again, and Kyuhyun was struggling to speak around it as he managed to croak out, “Not entirely.”

Hyukjae looked at him, his eyes so clearly upset, though none of the emotion spread to his face. “You still have so much time.”

Kyuhyun shook his head slowly, the resolve that he’d created inside of himself splintering around the edges as he placed a gentle hand atop of Hyukjae’s head, weakly pulling his fingers through the thin strands of hair. “I have months at the most,” Kyuhyun whispered, inwardly cursing himself because he was so close to crying again. He should have run out of tears by now.

Hyukjae seemed to be struggling with the same problem because he was squeezing his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “You have 18 of them.”

Kangin’s eyes were watery and glazed as well as he watched the exchange from the end of his bed, his own hand holding his chin so tightly it would surely bruise.

“It’s going to get to a point where I’ll need to be hospitalised,” Kyuhyun explained softly, trying his best to keep the hurt from his voice as he in a painful breath. “I’m not going to be well enough to go to school, Hyuk. I’ll last 18 months, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll be…myself the whole time.”

Perhaps it was seeing the flecks of hope die out of his friends’ eyes that had Kyuhyun breaking down for what felt like the twentieth time. He was still wiping his eyes late into the night, long after his friends had gone home; because he knew that it was the last time he’d ever see them again.

Their time together that night, however brief, was the last.

It was goodbye.

*

Kyuhyun had his first panic attack from walking down a flight of stairs. Having gotten barely any sleep, coupled with the fact that his depth perception was beginning to mock him, Kyuhyun ended up a hyperventilating mess at the top of the stairs, his fingers digging into the carpet as though it would keep him there. Maybe it’d just been his mind, but all he could think about was falling down those stairs; he could hear his bones already snapping and breaking in his head.

Ahra found him like that fifteen minutes later on her way up to her room, and that was how Kyuhyun was first hospitalised from his condition.

“Aren’t there any sleeping pills he can take?” His mother had desperately asked the doctor, while Kyuhyun had simply lain there, looking so completely exhausted and worn out that no one dared to bother him.

He wasn’t so out of it that he couldn’t hear the doctor’s answer, that if Kyuhyun took any sleeping pills, it would only speed up the stages and bring death to him sooner.

No, Kyuhyun shook his head, but no one noticed. They were all too focused on the doctor, too enveloped in their own concerns to see that Kyuhyun was trying to speak. That he was trying to tell them something.

I want to live.

No one saw him, and so Kyuhyun didn’t speak. Instead, he remained absolutely quiet, listening to his family discussing his life without him.

“We could try and induce a coma,” the doctor was saying, “But his brain still won’t shut down enough for him to fall deeply asleep enough for him to gain enough rest. He’s nearing the second stage of the illness, and I think that it is time that you come to terms with the fact that he may have little over a year to live.”

His mother was in hysterics. Kyuhyun wanted to raise his voice, to tell her to calm down, that it’d be ok – but he knew that he would be lying. He was just as terrified as she was, only she had the courage to say it aloud.

After the doctor had left and his mother had gone, he could hear his sister and father discussing him as though he wasn’t even there. Over the quiet beeps of the machines beside him, Kyuhyun listened in silence, staring blankly at the ceiling, and wondering why of all people, it had to be him.

“What if they did induce the coma, wouldn’t it help him?”

“You heard what the doctor said, if anything it’ll just give him an hour or so more sleep before he’d wake up.”

What about what I want? Kyuhyun wanted so badly to say it out loud, but he kept his mouth shut. Saying such things would only make this more difficult, and Kyuhyun wasn’t willing for that to happen.

*

Staying in the hospital was boring. They monitored his sleeping patterns, telling him that his twenty minute naps were giving him no help at all. This was something that he already knew. It honestly didn’t feel as though he slept at all, and that he was simply just lying in his bed for short amounts of time before deigning to reopen his eyes and possibly get up. All in all, the week that he’d spent lying in a hospital bed and counting the periodical beep…beep…beep didn’t help him whatsoever.

Because while he still told others not to think so, Kyuhyun was still hoping that some kind of miracle would save him.

Call him a fool, but he couldn’t help it. He was too afraid of death.

When he was finally released and deemed fit to return to the house under his family’s care, Kyuhyun knew that it was time for him to start doing some of the smaller things that he’d wanted to accomplish. The little boxes on his checklist that he hadn’t even considered to look at until now, until he had approximately half a year until he began to see things that weren’t there.

So Kyuhyun set about looking into his hobbies. Choosing things that he could complete, maybe for a sense of moral accomplishment for himself before he … left.

Despite the hesitation on her face once he’d asked her, Kyuhyun took Ahra out to lunch at least once a week from then on. She would drive them somewhere – he wouldn’t really mind, it was the sentiment that he was focused on – and even if he felt like lying down on the sidewalk and staying there for the remainder of the afternoon, Kyuhyun managed to somehow stay upright in his chair and watch Ahra as she talked to him.

She was so young, so full of life and promise. Kyuhyun couldn’t be prouder of her. He knew that one day, when all of this nonsense was over, she was going to make something of herself.

He felt happy just sitting there, thinking of her future and what she was to become. She was going to be a mother one day; a fantastic one. She would have a husband too, someone who would treat her in all the right ways and take care of her when Kyuhyun no longer could.

Yes, he knew that she was going to be ok. Ahra was the strong one in the family, she was going to be the one who could move past it. She, out of the three of them, would remember him in a good light. That was why he loved his sister so dearly, she was like him in so many ways.

Ahra seemed to be grateful of their time together. When they’d return home, she’d walk him all the way back to his room to ensure that he was back in bed, and sit by him and watch meaningless television programs until their mother called them down for dinner. Kyuhyun knew, whenever she’d wind her fingers through his and pull the blankets up over him, that she was going to be alright without him.

*

“I know that it’s been a while.”

Kyuhyun sat in the familiar place, only now Sungmin’s marker was dusted with the first hints of snow from the oncoming winter. He’d stayed away from here for weeks; he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. He was well aware of the uselessness in confiding with someone who had already passed, but Sungmin had always been the one he would turn to when he needed to talk things through.

Even now, after two years, that hadn’t changed at all.

His father stood outside of the gates upon his request for privacy, which left Kyuhyun more or less alone as he braced himself into the same kneeling position as he had a month ago, only now his eyes on the marker weren’t wide – instead they were heavily lidded and shadowed.

He was beginning to waste away.

He drew in a long breath before he reached out and brushed away the snow from atop the stone, watching it fall down onto the frozen grass below before he dropped his arm. Sungmin had always loved the snow.

“I’m starting to see some of the symptoms,” Kyuhyun said quietly, pulling his jacket more tightly around him when a cold chill swept through his body. “I know that mom is seeing them as well. And so is Ahra, and dad…I don’t know how to comfort them.”

Leaves, dying in the change of the season, fell from the trees they hung from, their slow and gradual release leaving behind the skeleton of the tree beneath them. Kyuhyun stared at it, wondering if that was how his family was going to be once he let go. Would they look so exposed, so cold, without him?

Kyuhyun eventually returned his gaze to the plaque before him, rereading those words.

Never forgotten.

No, Sungmin was never forgotten. Not as long as Kyuhyun was here, Sungmin would never be forgotten. Not as long as Sungmin’s family was alive and healthy would he be forgotten. Sungmin had been too loved, too cherished, to be erased.

It was in moments such as that that Kyuhyun was glad that he had told Sungmin exactly how beautiful he was. How beautiful he would always be to Kyuhyun, regardless of how he looked.

Regardless of how frail and thin Sungmin had looked during his last day in that private room in the hospital clinic, to Kyuhyun, he was the most beautiful thing on the planet.

The thought of it had a small, barely noticeable smile curling the very corners of Kyuhyun’s lips as he closed his eyes, remembering Sungmin’s own beam. Remembering his warmth, his dimples, how his last ounce of strength had been used to accept Kyuhyun’s last kiss they had shared, between so many sobs and smiles that he hadn’t really known what to feel.

Kyuhyun slowly opened his eyes, his body swaying slightly with the wind as he pulled out a picture frame from beneath his jacket.

“I brought you something,” he murmured, placing it down so that it leant against the stone, glancing briefly at the two faces, their faces. They’d taken it together on their first anniversary. After leaning back and holding back another shiver, Kyuhyun lowered his head. “I have to go, Sungmin,” he touched the pad of his finger to the side of Sungmin’s face in the picture, wishing that he could feel the warmth of his skin instead of the cold glass. “Will you wait for me?”

Kyuhyun knew that he should’ve known better than to wait for a response, but he still sat for a further few minutes. Wondering that if this life had been so cruel to him, would he be rewarded with the man he loved in the next?

*

Kyuhyun’s first hallucination came in the worst of packages.

Waking up from a light nap to find a faceless person standing over the edge of his bed was unnerving, and Kyuhyun had screamed so loudly that he couldn’t talk for hours afterward.

His father ran into his room just a minute later to find Kyuhyun cowering and shaking underneath his blankets, a shocked, blabbering mess. His hands were shaking violently, held to his mouth to keep his terrified sobbing in. He could feel them watching him.

Staring.

“Is it still there?” Kyuhyun had breathed out between heavy pants, holding onto his father’s arm so tightly that his nails were leaving angry red marks in his skin. “It had no face…It wouldn’t leave…”

Ahra was the next to rush in, tying her bathrobe around her waist as she took in Kyuhyun’s catatonic expression in her father’s arms. She’d taken one look at him before turning on all of the lights and leaving them as such as she went to sit by her brother’s side.  

That night, Kyuhyun didn’t get back to sleep at all. Ahra soon fell back asleep where she leant against the headboard of his bed, his head leaning against her shoulder as he stared at the place that body had been standing, watching him.

He didn’t know what was more awful – the faceless person who had stood at the end of his bed, or that he could recognise that body without even needing to see their face.

*

“It would seem that you’ve moved ahead into the second stage earlier than we anticipated, Mr Cho.”

Kyuhyun stared back at his doctor. They were alone in the room, as he’d asked for his mother to wait outside of the room while he had a quick check up in the clinic. He couldn’t bear to see her broken face one more time while they received no good news – it pained him to know that she still hadn’t given up hope that he could survive. He couldn’t blame her though, no parent wanted to see her child go before them.

“If you did indeed have a hallucination, then we should assume that the onset of the illness began several months before we discovered it. You were much further along than we really expected you to be.”

Kyuhyun nodded. What was there for him to say? That he was annoyed that his 18 months had just been cut down to 12? He had nothing to comment. He had nothing more to say on the subject.

Which was why, when the doctor had watched him calculatingly over the period of one minute, Kyuhyun simply nodded slowly and murmured, “It’s alright.”

*

What Kyuhyun struggled with most was coming to terms with death. That he was going to die very soon, and the time that he had left was going to pass very quickly.

So as long as he was spending all of his time awake and miserable, Kyuhyun knew that he had to do something different.

This was how he ended up in a pet store, shelling out 500 dollars on a tiny ball of fur on the counter in front of him, mewing and standing on four spindly legs.

“He’s a cutie,” the girl behind the counter commented brightly, pressing buttons on the cash register and tucking away the bills that Kyuhyun had handed her. “Do you have any cats back at home that he can play with?”

Kyuhyun let the kitten nuzzle at his hand, a frown puckering his brow while he let out a short sigh. “No, but he isn’t for me.”

The girl looked confused as she quickly wrote down some care tips for the animal, glancing up at him dubiously. “Who is he for, then?”

“My mother and sister have always wanted a cat around the house,” Kyuhyun explained softly, accepting the piece of paper when the counter girl handed it to him. “I figured that it was about time they got one.”

The girl’s face broke out into a dazzling smile, her head nodding as she completed his purchase with a slam of the till and leaned on the counter to look up at him. “That’s a nice thing for you to do for your family.”

Kyuhyun smiled back, albeit a little weakly and deflated, as he picked up the tiny creature and balanced it awkwardly in one hand. “I’m all about sentiment.”

*

It was almost four in the morning when Kyuhyun abruptly sat bolt upright on his bed, his eyes and nostrils flying wide open as his hand spasmed painfully around the remote he held in his hand. He could have sworn he heard a whisper, so faint that he’d barely heard it over the TV. But it had been there.

His heart thudding painfully in his chest, Kyuhyun’s eyes darted around the room as he leaned to the side to turn his lamp on. The dull, muted light cast its way to his walls and allowed him to see more than just the shadows, his fingers already shaking.

Is this what fear felt like? So completely consuming and unavoidable, Kyuhyun was frozen in his place, his breath caught painfully in his throat as he searched the same empty room, again and again. He knew that something was here. Who else would have spoken to him?

Biting down on his lower lip to keep it from quivering, Kyuhyun sat stock still. He knew that someone had said his name. It had been so faint, but he knew he hadn’t heard wrong.

Too scared to put his feet over the side of his bed and onto the floor, Kyuhyun spent hours sitting stonily amongst his sheets, too afraid to even release his grip on the remote.

It was nearing 7am when Ahra walked past his room, ducking her head in through his door to see how he was. When she saw him, his arms and legs cramped as closely to his body as possible, she was immediately by his side, her hand calmly through his hair.

“What happened, Kyu?” She asked softly, trying to give him a reassuring smile when Kyuhyun’s bruising, trembling eyes darted up to meet hers. He looked so lost, so alone, and she wondered why on earth he hadn’t come and woken her up when he was so clearly distressed.

Kyuhyun leaned into the warmth that his sister offered, breathing heavily through his nostrils and trying to calm down his tight, wound-up nerves. His muscles felt strained from sitting in the same position for so long, and his body was tired. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but his mind was so awake that it was impossible for him to consider it for more than a few seconds.

His jaw working, Kyuhyun closed his eyes before he breathed deeply several times, relief that he finally had someone with him slowly washing out the anxiety.

Ahra would never be able to replace the one he missed, but she could certainly help him out. For now, Ahra could be the shoulder he leant on.

“I’m okay,” Kyuhyun lied unconvincingly, but nevertheless stuck with it as he sighed. “Noona…I need your help with something today.”

Ahra’s arm slipped around his shoulders and held on to them comfortingly. “Of course, whatever you need.”

Kyuhyun nodded, preparing himself for her reaction as he asked quietly, “Can you help me write my will?”

Next to him, Ahra turned frigid. There were several awful moments of silence, during which Kyuhyun scrunched his eyes even further shut, immediately regretting his words.

“Shouldn’t we talk to mom about this first?” Ahra finally said, sounding stiff and a little hoarse. Not that she could really take his request well; he was pretty much asking for her to help him sign his death formally, on a piece of paper that would give away his possessions and funds after he was gone.

Kyuhyun gently placed a hand on his sister’s arm, beseechingly looking up at her. “Can we please just…do this alone? I don’t think mom could handle this.”

Ahra appeared to be torn, “What about dad?”

“He’ll understand,” Kyuhyun lowered his eyes, an ache spreading through his chest. “He doesn’t seem to want to talk about this anyway.”

Ahra shifted beside him, moving to kneel down beside the bed so that she could better see her brother’s face. “What do you mean by that?” She asked, looking genuinely concerned as she studied Kyuhyun’s features.

Kyuhyun shrugged, feeling awkward now as he tugged his blankets onto his lap, trying to give himself something to do so that he wasn’t sitting still. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Ahra looked at him for a long ten seconds before she threaded their fingers together, giving his hand a warm squeeze. “He cares about you, Kyuhyun,” she murmured, standing so she could place a kiss on top of his head. “Never, ever doubt that dad doesn’t love about you, and love you, every second. Promise me, Kyu.”

Kyuhyun winced.

The last promise he made was going to end broken. The last promise he’d made was now useless.

What was the point of promising, when Kyuhyun could never keep them?

But nevertheless, Kyuhyun nodded, not quite able to meet Ahra’s eyes. “I promise.”

*

Voices.

Awful, haunting voices gradually added to his torment as the week drew to a close. They were beautiful, the way they whispered in his ear whenever he closed his eyes. Drawing him to them.

They still terrified him, but Kyuhyun expected them now. He grew accustomed to hearing more than just his family when they sat at the dinner table. He got used to the breathy murmurs that would float past him, and he no longer jumped or froze as he used to. He knew that there was no point in living in fear of invisible words.

He couldn’t understand what the words even meant. They were jumbled and incomprehensible, and often so soft that it sounded just like a sigh wafting over the back of his neck, giving him goose bumps.  Nonsense whispers that often distracted him from whatever task he was doing, so much so that his parents would often walk into the lounge room to find Kyuhyun frowning in concentration at nothing at all, his head cocked to the side and his lips parted as he tried to listen.

As he tried to figure out what on earth those voices were trying to say.

It annoyed him that he gave into the voices instead of blocking them out, but there was little he could do. He knew that his mind was getting sicker with no way of prevention. It was only going to get worse, and avoiding the truth was going to hurt him more in the long run. Listening to strange, unsettling whispers from his own thoughts was something that he managed to take in stride after several long hours of enduring it through the days and nights.

Sometimes they would leave him alone and he could think in peace, and other times, all he could hear was the constant murmuring in his ear when he was trying to talk to someone.

He mentioned the voices to no one, not even Ahra.

Why should he give them more reason to worry? Telling them that his symptoms were, in fact, deciding to kick in, was nowhere on Kyuhyun’s check list.

*

His next panic attack hit him out of nowhere.

He’d been eating breakfast with his family – he hadn’t really been hungry, but after he’d seen how much effort and love his mother had put into making him his favourite pancakes, Kyuhyun really couldn’t say no – when a shadow flickered in the corner of his eye.

Thinking it was just the new kitten wandering around the room, Kyuhyun paid the movement no mind.

But when he stood up and turned around, with only the intention of putting his now empty plate in the sink, his legs disappeared out from beneath him.

An awful shriek tore out of his throat as his face had been just inches from a head of ruffled, black hair, the figure’s back turned to Kyuhyun, but so terrifyingly close, Kyuhyun could do nothing but fall. The shattering of his plate didn’t even register as he stared, wide eyed and his heart thumping, at the body above him.

He couldn’t hear the sudden calls of his name and the sound of chairs being pushed back from the table as he saw his vision blurring, just as the figure’s head turned, only one lidded eye visible over his shoulder.

Had he not been so shocked, Kyuhyun might have reached out. He might have cried. But he couldn’t think past the utmost fear that was rendering him useless, his breath leaving in quick pants that were sending his head spinning.

Kyuhyun wanted to faint. He wanted to see nothing but black. Anything, anything other than seeing him.

It took them an hour to calm him down. Kyuhyun was helped up from the ground by his father, but the brunette could hardly feel him. All he could see was the ghostly figure’s hair, his back, his shoulders, as he was carried into the lounge room and lain down on the couch. Kyuhyun knew that he was babbling, he could hear the horrified whispers coming from his own mouth, along with his wheezing and desperate inhalations of air.

“He’s here, he’s here, he’s here, he’s here-”

His mother was sitting by his head, brushing back the hair from his forehead as Ahra called an ambulance, a hand pressed across to keep herself from crying.

Kyuhyun could still see the silhouette through the doorway.

Sungmin.

Kyuhyun was too scared to say the name out loud – the eyes that had burned into him minutes ago were sending his thoughts whirling, his mind unable to comprehend anything as he held his shaking arms to his chest, his wide eyes still focused only on the mop of inky black hair.

Sungmin didn’t move, and Kyuhyun wondered if he was going insane. Is this what insanity felt like? To be so frightened by something? Even after all of the time he’d spent wishing that Sungmin was still with him, Kyuhyun couldn’t stand this.

It was too cruel.

By the time the ambulance came, Kyuhyun hadn’t spoken to anyone other than himself. His small, inconsequential mutterings were held back to a shattered whisper as paramedics came in to lift him onto a stretcher.

Sungmin still hadn’t moved. He was a statue in the kitchen, looking out of the window over the sink, out into the garden beyond the glass.

Kyuhyun wanted to scream at him, to tell him to get out, to leave him alone, but he couldn’t raise his voice. He couldn’t find his breath. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room; it didn’t fill his lungs the way it should, and his head was dizzy, his eyes wheeling – searching. Would Sungmin follow him?

His arms were pried from his chest and strapped down on the sides of the stretcher, keeping his limbs immobilised as he was taken out and loaded into the back of the ambulance. He didn’t notice any of it.

And this time he couldn’t even scream when Sungmin was suddenly sitting in the back of the ambulance with him, perched on the end of his bed with his back to him once again, staring out of a window.

*

A doctor sat before Kyuhyun, who was propped up with several pillows in a hospital bed. A bright light was shining between his eyes as the doctor checked his vitals, a concerned expression on his face as he lowered the tool.

“Now, Mr Cho, I’ve been told that you had a small episode this afternoon.”

Kyuhyun raised his eyebrows dubiously before he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”

“Okay. Well, I wanted to speak with you about the possibility of beginning therapy.”

What?

Kyuhyun couldn’t hide the astonishment in his eyes as he opened his mouth in surprise. “Hang on, what was that?” Really? Therapy? They expected therapy to help him?

The doctor had on a small smile, but it looked far from real.

“I spoke with your parents just before, and they think that it might be beneficial to speak to a psychologist about what you’re going through. They told me that you said someone’s name, someone who you used to be close with. Are you seeing them, Kyuhyun?”

Kyuhyun stared at the doctor with narrowed eyes, his lips parted with disbelief. If this doctor thought that of all people, Kyuhyun would tell him about Sungmin, he was in for disappointment. His tone a little icy, Kyuhyun stated, “I don’t think that it’s any of your business to be honest.”

The doctor didn’t seem shocked in the least at his snapped reply, and instead nodded as he stood. “I understand. Visiting hours are at four, your family wants to know whether you’re well enough to speak to.”

Of course. Kyuhyun sighed, feeling the headache begin to ache underneath his skull. When was the last time he’d napped? It felt like too long ago, much too long.

His lack of reply had the doctor frowning. “Kyuhyun? Are you alright?”

Those words actually had Kyuhyun smiling bitterly. He looked over the doctor’s shoulder, to where Sungmin’s shadowy figure sat in a chair by the door, his head downcast and his features covered by his hair. Kyuhyun didn’t know whether he would be able to handle seeing Sungmin’s face.

So Kyuhyun, fighting the shiver of fear that raced down his spine, looked his doctor directly in the eye and spoke his mind.

“No. I’m not.”

*

Before, Kyuhyun thought that it was hard when he’d just sat at home all day without sleep. If only he could have appreciated it while it lasted.

Sungmin would fade in and out when Kyuhyun was awake. This left little time for him to relax and simply watch a bit of television, not when he was constantly on edge of when the other would appear out of thin air.

He was released from hospital after a few days, but it didn’t make it any easier. If anything, Kyuhyun preferred to be in the clean, small area of the hospital room. Back at his house, where there was corridors, doorways and dark windows – Kyuhyun couldn’t calm down. And for good reason.

More than once, Kyuhyun had stepped around a corner into another room to find Sungmin’s back just inches from his face.

He’d learned not to scream now. He knew that it was better for him to just keep his mouth sealed tightly, better that he wouldn’t worry his parents or sister again.

Sungmin was difficult to deal with. But it drove Kyuhyun crazy that he couldn’t see Sungmin’s face. One night, when Sungmin had flickered into Kyuhyun’s room with a soft whirl of whispered voices, the brunette had stood up on trembling legs before he’d approached the painfully familiar body. He tried to see Sungmin’s face, but the moment he had stepped around the latter to try to see him, all he’d managed to see was Sungmin’s dilated pupils darting up to his before he’d disappeared into nothingness.

Whether he liked it or not, Kyuhyun was on high alert, 24/7.

Was it punishment, of some kind? For not letting go when he should have?

Ahra had sat with him one night, watching a movie as the sun set, but Kyuhyun’s eyes were focused on where Sungmin sat in the corner of the room, his hands buried in his hair. He looked like he was in pain, and Kyuhyun couldn’t take it.

Ahra had noticed the distress on her brother’s face. “Are you seeing something?” She had asked him, trying to follow the line of his eye, only to see an empty space. If only she knew what he saw.

Breathing in deeply, Kyuhyun merely shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you.”

“I’d believe you.” Ahra said resolutely, looking to him with a soft gaze. “I’m your sister, of course I believe you.”

Kyuhyun stared at her blankly for a moment before his eyes went back to Sungmin, who had lifted his head slightly, running the strands of his dark hair continuously through his fingers. Kyuhyun wondered if it still felt as silky as he remembered. If only he could touch it…

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” Kyuhyun muttered, “I know that I’m crazy, or I wouldn’t be seeing things that I know aren’t real.”

“If you know it isn’t real, why can’t you tell me?” Ahra’s hand clasped over his own, urging him.

But Kyuhyun couldn’t tell. Not yet.

“Because I want it to be real.”

After years of longing, grief and mourning – yes, Kyuhyun wanted this to be real.

So badly.

Kyuhyun almost had another panic attack when Sungmin’s face was suddenly shining in the dim light, pale and torn, a sad smile on his lips as he locked eyes with the brunette.

*

Kyuhyun sat in front of a psychologist. She’d been nice enough, asking the small questions about him and his life, and how he felt about the disease. But Kyuhyun couldn’t concentrate, not really; Sungmin was standing behind his chair, hovering like some sort of guardian, occasionally walking over to where the psych sat to look over her shoulder, before returning to Kyuhyun.

The brunette had no idea what to think. He was having trouble determining whether it was reality or not, but this Sungmin was beginning to warm up to him. Kyuhyun was still cautious about him, and still kept a wary eye on Sungmin whenever he appeared, but it felt as though Sungmin was becoming more and more human – more normal – with each day that passed.

Kyuhyun didn’t find his presence comforting, it was still too strange for him to accept that the love he’d lost years ago was tagging along by his side again.

“The doctors informed me that you may be experiencing hallucinations,” the psychologist had said to him, sounding perfectly pleasant and professional, but Kyuhyun didn’t care. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about them?”

“With all due respect, I’d prefer not to.” Kyuhyun responded shortly, flinching a little when Sungmin flickered into solidity a few feet away, sitting on the other end of the couch he occupied.

The therapist noticed his surprise and jotted a few lines down on the clipboard she held, trying to make it seem casual when Kyuhyun knew that she would be writing about his jumpiness to, in her eyes, nothing at all.

“Mmm,” She hummed casually, even as she lowered her pen and studied Kyuhyun closely. “Kyuhyun, do you know that you can tell me anything you like?”

“Yes.” Kyuhyun answered stiffly.

“I won’t be telling anyone else of the things you say.”

Kyuhyun rolled his eyes. “Only because it’s in your job description.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

From where he sat on the couch, Sungmin turned his head to look at Kyuhyun curiously, something strange glinting in his eyes. It almost looked like worry, but Kyuhyun forced himself to look away before his imagination tortured him too horribly.

He still had an hour to sit in this room with this stranger, and Kyuhyun couldn’t have felt tenser.

*

“Why are you here?”

Kyuhyun had asked it of Sungmin one night, when the love of his life flickered like static into the corner of his room. He didn’t really expect an answer, as Sungmin was so constantly quiet, apparently content to just sit and stare. Sometimes he’d watch the television, and others he’d just silently look at Kyuhyun, before switching his eyes elsewhere.

Kyuhyun couldn’t take it anymore. It was frustrating. He couldn’t focus when Sungmin was near, and if he was having a conversation, it would fade off into incoherency, after which Kyuhyun would quickly excuse himself from the room to escape the worrying eyes.

Panic attacks became so frequent that one night, Kyuhyun overheard his parents speaking about him. They discussed whether it was a smart idea to have him moved to the hospital for a few weeks, to see if it helped to soothe his mind. Kyuhyun wanted to intervene, and say that the last thing he wanted to see was constant white – white walls, white curtains, white floors, white sheets – but he knew that they wouldn’t listen. After all, he was crazy, and who listened to a crazy person?

With the exception of Ahra, Kyuhyun felt completely ignored. His parents were starting to look at him as though everything that came out of his mouth was fiction. Even passing comments, such as how the food tasted or that he was thirsty, had them casting him such permeable, pitying glances. Whatever he said was irrelevant, as were his opinions and thoughts. For the first time in his life, his words felt useless.

Maybe that was why Kyuhyun tried to run away from home. It’d been a fleeting thought, one that promised freedom and a place that no one would know of his illness, but it’d been enough for him to pack his bags in minutes and walk out the front door. He left a note for Ahra and his parents, explaining that he could no longer stay, and that he was going somewhere that would be better.

He’d barely made it to the bus station before Ahra had pulled up beside him on the sidewalk, in a mess of runny eyeliner and tears, and managed to talk him into getting in the car. She told him that their mother and father hadn’t yet seen the note, and upon returning home, Kyuhyun burned it in the fireplace.

*

“You’re going to be very comfortable here, Mr Cho.” One of the nurses was smiling at him, too brightly for him to look at. “Your parents have paid for one of the best private rooms the hospital has to offer.”

Kyuhyun only grunted to let her know that he’d heard her. Sungmin was beside him, walking step-for-step with him as he was lead further and further into the hospital, and feeling more and more confined with each stride he took.

“Your doctors are anxious to speak with you,” the nurse continued to babble, and Kyuhyun had to supress rolling his eyes lest he offended her. “We hear that your condition is stable right now, so they wanted to check up on you to see how you were feeling.”

“Just tell them I’m feeling fine,” Kyuhyun said bluntly, his voice hollow. “I don’t want to be bothered.”

Not taken aback, the nurse just chirped out a laugh. “I’ll let them know.”

By the time they reached the room, Kyuhyun had a fresh headache, and his eyes were beginning to ache from all of the bleached surfaces. He could already tell he wasn’t going to enjoy his time here, and the sooner he could get out, the better.

The room was bare; the only splashes of colour were coloured pillows from his own bed and a small vase of ‘get well’ flowers sitting on the bedside table. The bed was narrow and long, with visible straps on the side to constrain him in case of a fit. He eyed them blankly for a moment before he dropped his bags on the floor, his stomach beginning to whirl. Sungmin perched himself idly on the windowsill, his soft, mellow eyes following Kyuhyun’s progress as the brunette paced his way over to one of the armchairs by the bed and sank into it.

“Can you leave me alone?” Kyuhyun murmured, directing his words tiredly at Sungmin, who actually looked up at the sound of his voice. “I need some time to think.”

Sungmin cocked his head to the side, as though he was confused somehow, before remaining exactly where he was. Kyuhyun sighed, a little annoyed, before turning his head away.

“Please…Sungmin?”

It was the first time Kyuhyun had spoken his name aloud, and he didn’t expect anything to come of it. But just a few seconds later, Sungmin slowly faded into nothingness, leaving Kyuhyun entirely alone in his white cage.

Touched, Kyuhyun whispered out, “Thank you.”

*

Kyuhyun tried to read a book to pass the time, but the words made no sense to him. They jumbled before his eyes, switching and confusing him at each turn, making something that had once been so simple to him become a chore.

He’d once prided himself for his memory. And now, just two weeks after wasting his hours away in the blank room that was his confinement, Kyuhyun struggled to even remember the names of his nurses. They all looked the same to him – they wore the same clothes, the same make up, the same fake smile. Kyuhyun would have brushed it off, had his doctor not informed him of what the following months were to include for him.

His dementia, apparently, was beginning to show its first symptoms.

“It’s really nothing to worry about,” The doctor had told him, “If you find something particularly difficult, you can always call for a nurse. They’ll be more than willing to help you.”

So that more people can watch what I’ve turned into? Kyuhyun had thought drearily, too exhausted at that point with himself, with his life, to answer back. Besides, none of the right words came to mind for him to speak aloud. A hollow shell of the person I used to be. I’m nothing now. Nothing.

I am nothing.

It was like walking through a dream. Kangin and Hyukjae had visited again; tried to talk to him, but Kyuhyun had barely noticed them. What point was there, for him to speak? It wasn’t as though anyone was going to truly listen to him.

It felt strangely good, to give into his misery. To finally allow the disease to wreak havoc on his body. He’d struggled through it for so many weeks, and he was tired. He hadn’t quite given up, but he certainly had stopped hoping for a miracle. It crushed him to think that he really wasn’t going to survive through it, and miraculously live with his family until they all grew old and withered. He was going to die young.

As he lay in his bed, Kyuhyun wearily lifted up one of his slender hands. The skin stretched over the bone looked so thin, so papery, compared to a few months ago. He liked to think that it was just the stress, but Kyuhyun knew better than that.

It finally sunk in, truly sunk in. He was going to die.

For the first time in a while, Kyuhyun cried. He let out all of his anguish, he fear, his loss into those tears, not bothering to keep himself quiet. After all, it wasn’t as though anyone cared that he cried. Everyone else expected him to die, they’d all lost faith.

So maybe that was why, when someone pulled him up and into their arms, Kyuhyun leaned into the feather-light touch, embracing it completely.

He felt so alone, so completely abandoned. Everyone had gone.

Except for Sungmin.

Sungmin was holding him, and Kyuhyun didn’t know how. He didn’t care how. All he could do was bury his tear-streaked face into the chest in front of him, his nostrils filling with that familiar scent, and cling to him. He wrapped his arms around Sungmin’s warm waist and crushed himself into the other, not caring if the moment wasn’t real. It was real for him, and that was all that mattered.

Sungmin stayed with him the whole night. He didn’t speak a word, but Kyuhyun wouldn’t have noticed if he did. His legs lay over the covers while Kyuhyun’s were beneath, his head rested against Sungmin’s shoulder. Before, Kyuhyun might have felt alive again at something such as this happening. Yes, it was like a dream come true for him, but one that had come too late.

All he could do was be thankful that he had Sungmin, even in his dying days.

Those skinny, recognisable hands wove through his own, and Kyuhyun dozed off. When he woke ten minutes later, with sore eyes and a headache, he was alone.

*

Kyuhyun didn’t notice anything, but he could tell by the way the staff looked at him now, everything was going in a downward spiral. They treated him differently.

Maybe it was because he’d ripped the TV down from the wall in a fit of rage when visiting hours were over, and Ahra had had to go home.

Maybe it was because he’d thrown several pieces of medical equipment at the window in a panic attack, and had to be stopped when he attempted to climb out and through the shattered glass.

And maybe it was because of how often he spoke of voices and shadows on the wall, when there were clearly none there.

Kyuhyun would often sit in the room, his legs sprawled out underneath him, staring at nothing in particular. Is this insanity? He’d ask himself, wondering how on earth he was supposed to act from now on. He didn’t feel normal. He felt on edge, constantly, always waiting for the next whisper from his thoughts. One night, he’d smelled smoke and walked to the doorway of the bathroom, which he’d found drowning in flames. After staring at the fire in horror, Kyuhyun had called for a nurse – or anyone – only to be told, very condescendingly, that there was no fire at all. Kyuhyun was so rocked that he couldn’t even protest when they injected a drug into his forearm to calm him down.

Is this insanity?

To be so convinced of something, only to find out that it isn’t real?

Kyuhyun’s eyes automatically moved to where Sungmin was lounging across his bed, his feet hanging off the end as he flicked lazily through the pages of one of Kyuhyun’s books. He certainly seemed real; when Sungmin would brush his hair back from his face during the night, when he’d rest his head on Kyuhyun’s thigh – Kyuhyun could feel him. It couldn’t surely be his imagination.

“Is this an answer to what I asked?” Kyuhyun asked him one night, when they were sitting underneath the window. Sungmin was wearing one of those lovely small smiles of his, and Kyuhyun couldn’t stop staring at it. “When I asked if you could wait for me, does this mean you heard?”

Of course Sungmin didn’t answer. Instead, he just reached across to softly Kyuhyun’s cheek with his thumb, his eyes glittering with a tenderness that made it difficult for the brunette to swallow. Yes, Sungmin was waiting for him. He was waiting for Kyuhyun so that they could leave together.

“I know it didn’t seem like it at first, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Sungmin nodded, as if to say ‘me too’, before slowly turning around and leaning back into Kyuhyun’s chest. Kyuhyun’s arms wound around him, drawing him closer, as he rested his forehead against the back of Sungmin’s neck. He was there, in every shape and form – his warmth, his cologne, the soft whispers of his hair that tickled Kyuhyun’s face. Sungmin was the most precious gift he could have ever received in a time that he needed it most.

*

“Do you remember what my name is, Mr Cho?”

Kyuhyun simply stared back at his doctor, because in all honesty, he couldn’t remember at all. This man was a stranger to him for all he knew, and so he shook his head.

“I’ve been visiting you here for almost a month and a half now. You still don’t know?” The doctor asked, actually sounding very kind as he checked Kyuhyun’s vitals with a small lit torch, looking a little perplexed.

Kyuhyun shook his head again. He didn’t know this man.

There was a heavy sigh before the light clicked off and Kyuhyun had to blink to readjust to the light. Gradually the dimensions of his room came back to him, and he turned in curiosity to the doctor, who was penning something down on the clipboard by his bed before looking back to the brunette.

“Are you hungry?” The doctor asked. “I can have some food brought up for you if you’d like.”

Kyuhyun tried to smile politely. “No thanks.”

The doctor looked at him for a length of time, concern in his gaze. “Kyuhyun, you’ve lost quite a bit of weight. Are you sure I can’t bring you some lunch? It won’t be a bother to anyone.”

Kyuhyun frowned. He hadn’t lost weight, had he? “No.”

Hesitating, his doctor looked at him for several seconds more before he left the room, leaving Kyuhyun alone with the silent Sungmin.

Feeling lightheaded, Kyuhyun got up from his bed slowly and walked over to the bathroom, gingerly washing his hands in the sink before looking up and staring at his reflection.

He couldn’t remember a time that he didn’t look like this. He knew that he’d once been healthy. He knew that a long time ago, his eyes hadn’t looked so heavy – so strained. Heavy, dark shadows, like permanent bruises were situated around them, a mottled mixture of black, blue, purple and deep red dragging his eyes down. His hair was lank and had grown out to the back of his neck, no longer a shine to the locks. His cheeks had sunken and his skin was an ashen shade of white, so pale that Kyuhyun idly thought that he could soon fit in with the white walls around him. The clothes that he’d brought from home hung looser on his frame, and as he ran his hand across his stomach, he wondered whether he should eat more.

But he wasn’t hungry. He couldn’t remember what he’d eaten for his last meal, or when he’d eaten it, but it didn’t bring on an appetite at all. He drank water when he was told to, and he ate when he was forced to.

Sungmin walked into the room behind him, a sort of strange sadness in his eyes as they moved over his thin figure. After a prolonged moment, Sungmin walked up behind him and wound two arms around Kyuhyun’s body, their eyes meeting in the mirror. Sungmin opened his mouth, clearly thinking about something as Kyuhyun watched him tiredly.

And then…

Words, so quiet and soft that Kyuhyun almost didn’t hear them.

“You need to rest.”

That voice, the one he’d missed so terribly, was slipping through his ears. It was so entirely unexpected that Kyuhyun couldn’t bring himself to move, to speak, and just stared at Sungmin in mute shock, overwhelmed with utter surprise.

Sungmin held onto him tighter, not minding how fragile Kyuhyun was at that moment. How breakable he was, in both mind and body.

“Of course I waited for you.”

*

It took time to crack open Sungmin’s shell, but Kyuhyun was finally smiling again.

The tiny, meaningless conversations they had made his days bearable, and for the first time in a long time, Kyuhyun felt true happiness.

He could see the way the staff would glance at him strangely when he spoke with Sungmin quietly, but he ignored them. They weren’t his concern, nor did he care what others thought anymore.

Ahra came to him one afternoon with a balloon in his favourite colour and more games for him to play, a wide smile on her face when Kyuhyun sat up straighter upon her entrance. He’d been talking to Sungmin about his life outside of the hospital when he’d arrived, but Sungmin had looked to his sister, effectively cutting off any conversation.

“How are you today, Kyu?” Ahra placed a kiss against Kyuhyun’s forehead and put the games on the bedside table, looking genuinely happy to see him. “I missed you.”

Kyuhyun smiled. “I missed you too.”

Ahra took hold of his hand and pressed it, and Kyuhyun couldn’t help but notice how hot and uncomfortable her fingers were. “What have you been up to since Friday? I’m sorry I couldn’t come in sooner, I got a job in town and they’ve had me working overtime.”

Kyuhyun’s smile faded, the familiar ebb of disappointment beginning to remerge. “You should go back to your scholarship, noona.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I want to stay with you.” Ahra said.

“You don’t have to do that,” Kyuhyun sighed, glancing over when Sungmin interjected with a soft, Be quiet, Kyu.

“I don’t have to, but I want to. Nothing will make me go back until I’m ready, not even you.”

Pressing his lips together, Kyuhyun shook his head. “I’ll be fine here by myself.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cho Kyuhyun,” Ahra said sternly, swiftly knocking aside his argument and replacing it with her own. “Mom and Dad said that when they came here yesterday, you barely spoke.”

“That’s because I have little to say to them.” Kyuhyun muttered.

Sadness seeped into Ahra’s voice and expression. “They still love you, even if they don’t know how to show it.”

“I’d rather they not come here at all.”

“Then who would you talk to?” Ahra challenged.

Kyuhyun didn’t know why he said it, but he did.

“Sungmin.”

Pure, unfiltered shock raced across his sister’s face as she took a step back. “What?”

Kyuhyun grimaced. “I know it’s probably just … stupid … but he’s here with me. Always. He’s waiting for me.” He looked up at Ahra hopefully, but she just looked horrified.

“Kyuhyun…Sungmin died. You were there.” Ahra stuttered out weakly. “You said your goodbyes.”

“I stayed with him through his illness, and he’s here through mine.” Kyuhyun explained softly, as Sungmin stood up from the chair and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, an unspoken support that meant the absolute world to him. “He stays with me, noona, during the times that you can’t. Please believe me.”

Ahra’s eyes were welling up with moisture as her lower lip quivered. “Kyuhyun, stop it.”

“I’m telling the truth, Ahra,” Kyuhyun said, his tone growing desperate as he tugged Sungmin closer by the hem of his shirt. “I promise you, I’m not lying. He’s right here.”

A tear raced down Ahra’s face as she sniffed and shook her head. “There’s no one there, Kyuhyun. Sungmin isn’t here, so stop this.”

Kyuhyun swore, his hands clenching into fists as he pressed them against his forehead. A headache was beginning to thud beneath his skull, and the coldness of his palms helped to soothe it for a moment as he huffed out his breath. “I wouldn’t lie to you, noona. You’re the last person I would lie to about this.”

Warm fingers rubbed the back of his neck, and Kyuhyun could feel Sungmin beside him.

“I need some time,” Ahra managed out, visibly upset as she walked back toward the door. “To think about this. I’ll be back soon, ok?”

Kyuhyun nodded, and Ahra was gone. There was an ache in Kyuhyun’s heart that hadn’t been there before, and his lungs felt constricted.

“Of all people, I thought she would be the one to listen.” Kyuhyun whispered, and Sungmin sighed softly beside him.

“I know, Kyu. I’m sorry.”

*

“When was the last time you went outside?”

Kyuhyun looked up from his portable game console – he couldn’t really concentrate on it anyway, the storyline he’d played before no longer made any sense – to look across at Sungmin, who sat in the open window. Sunshine poured over his skin, almost making him glow in the light as his lidded eyes looked right back at Kyuhyun, a playful hint to them.

Kyuhyun shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“Are you telling the truth, or did you become a liar after I left?”

At Sungmin’s choice of words, Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes into a glare for several seconds before looking back down to his game. “I don’t remember.”

The other stared at him before exhaling, rolling his head back and closing his eyes. “You need to rest.” Sungmin said again; he’d said it so much since he’d begun speaking, his tone always laced with something that Kyuhyun couldn’t discern.

Kyuhyun sighed, watching with heavy eyes as his character on the screen died for the tenth time – he couldn’t seem to figure out how to work the buttons. Which one should he be pressing to walk forward again? “I can’t.” He tried to begin the game again but the words jumped around before his eyes, and a wave of anger at the stupid console had him slamming it on his bedside table in a moment of heated agitation.

Sungmin didn’t jump at the noise and simply cracked open one eye to look at him worriedly. “Relax, Kyuhyun. It’s ok.”

His fingers curling with frustration, Kyuhyun forced himself to sit back into the pillows as his sudden fit of rage gradually ebbed away. They were so abrupt that not even he could be ready for them, and they would be gone just as quickly.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Sungmin swung his legs back into the room and dropped back to the ground. “You need to rest.”

“Would you stop saying that?!”

His jaw working, Kyuhyun had to fight back another blatant flare of anger, his temper a lit fuse as he snapped out his words harshly.

Sungmin merely gazed back at him calmly, as though this reaction was all he could have expected. “I’m not here to argue with you.”

“Then why are you here? I’d ing love to know.” Kyuhyun barely held himself back from shouting as he lifted his weak body off his pillows and dragging himself off of the side of his bed. “Tell me, Sungmin. Why are you here?”

“Because you wanted me to be.” Sungmin said gently, approaching him and helping him to stand, offering support with his hands and shoulders and letting Kyuhyun lean on him. “You asked for me to wait for you, so I did.”

Cringing, Kyuhyun was placed into the armchair by the bed as Sungmin knelt in front of him. “We both know that isn’t true. You’re here because I’m crazy.”

“That depends on what you define as crazy. If I weren’t real, Kyuhyun, why can you feel me?” As though to accentuate his point, Sungmin placed a tender hand on Kyuhyun’s knee, squeezing it softly. “Why can you hear me?”

Kyuhyun took a shaky breath before he shook his head. “You’re not actually here. We both know this.”

“Why?” Sungmin asked quietly.

“Because I’m sick,” Kyuhyun mumbled it under his breath before he clasped his hand over Sungmin’s. “You’re just a hallucination, a … an imagine of what I want.”

“I’m what you want?” Sungmin rested his cheek upon their overlapped hands, staring up at him through his lashes.

Kyuhyun nodded gingerly. “But I can’t have you.”

“Of course you can,” Sungmin objected in a light tone, though concern clearly shone in his eyes. “I’m here, Kyuhyun. I’m real.”

“No you’re not.” Kyuhyun tried to pull away his hand, but Sungmin put his free hand over it and held, held so tightly and beseechingly that Kyuhyun almost let out the traitorous sob that had built up in the back of his throat.

“I’m real enough for you. Isn’t that what matters? You and I? I’m here for you now, as I’ve always been. I’m here to help you through this.”

Kyuhyun let Sungmin cling to him, his heart too weak to resist any more. “I don’t need help.”

“I know you don’t need it.” Sungmin smiled at him, so warm and inviting that Kyuhyun felt himself melt a little. “But regardless, I’m going to be here.”

*

Kyuhyun didn’t know what he was thinking.

Was it stupid of him to pull apart his shaving razor? He held the blade in his hand, the door to the bathroom locked behind him.

Was he mad to be doing this?

He didn’t want to die, but that was because he had no choice in the matter. He had no choice in the disease.

But this, this is something he had a lot of choice over. He would be controlling his own death, not some stupid genetics.

The blade was just a few centimetres away from his skin, held above his arm like some kind of looming fate, just waiting for Kyuhyun to have the courage to dig it down. His hand was shaking so much Kyuhyun had already pricked himself several times accidentally, and tiny droplets of blood had already fallen onto the stark, formerly pristine white of his hospital shirt.

If he did this, he could be with Sungmin sooner. The man that he loved. He wouldn’t have to go through all of this emotional abuse, the doubt, the worry. He could end all of their suffering so much sooner.

But his family would hate him for it. It would mean that he gave up. It would mean that he didn’t want to spend the last of his time with them.

He moved the blade a little closer, his lips pressed into an anxious line as his heart fluttered sickeningly. Could he do it? He wanted to, but there was still that small voice in the back of his mind, telling him to do otherwise. But it wasn’t loud enough to block out the first and foremost thought:

End it. Be with Sungmin. End it. End it. End it.

He was holding the blade so tightly in his fingers that it had begun to slice into the skin, a thin drip of blood distracting him as he shuddered.

He knew that if he did this, there was going to be a lot more blood.

But what more was there for him here? His sister would be fine, his parents would be fine, his friends would be fine. If anything he would be doing them a favour.

“Kyuhyun.”

The brunette jumped violently at the sudden voice from where he sat on the floor, his head searching around the room in panic. He’d locked the door, how could anyone get in-

Sungmin knelt down beside him, his eyes concerned and almost frightened as he carefully reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hand that held the blade.

“Stop. Think about this for a second.”

Kyuhyun shook his head. “I have thought about it. I want to go with you, Sungmin. I’m finished here.”

“No, you aren’t. You have family,” Sungmin said gently, worryingly, trying to remove the blade from Kyuhyun’s hand but stopping when the brunette held it more tightly, more scarlet falling onto the tiles. “Think about them. They wouldn’t want you to do this.”

“Who cares what they think? I want to think about myself for once,” Kyuhyun struggled with his words, as though they didn’t really want to be said. “I always think about what others want. But this is about me, and I’m tired of waiting around and waiting for death to come to me. I want to be in charge of my life again, Sungmin.” Kyuhyun looked to the other desperately, his eyes scared despite the hardness of his voice. “I want to do the right thing.”

Sungmin’s face softened considerably before he sighed. “We both know that this isn’t the right thing.”

“How do you know?”

“If it were Ahra, would you want her to do this?”

Kyuhyun froze, his eyes widening as the reality of those words crashed down on his umbrella of misery, breaking through the fabric and washing over him, cold and icy. No, he’d hate it if Ahra were to do this. If any of his family were to do it.

He had Sungmin to thank that night. Not the doctors, or his psychologist. Just Sungmin.

Sungmin was the reason he put the razor back down.

*

It took another month before Ahra managed to convince his parents to let him come home for the remainder of his time. Sure, she’d manipulated them a little at Kyuhyun’s request – saying that the last thing he wanted to do was die alone in a hospital bed – but apparently, it had worked.

Sungmin was the one who ped his suitcase once he’d placed it back on his old bed. He had to admit, it did feel a lot better to be home. The familiar smell, the look of the peeling paint, the view out of his windows. It felt like being able to relax after being tensed for much too long.

“Your mom must have dusted before you came back.” Sungmin noted as he piled some of Kyuhyun’s clothes into his drawers, wiping one finger along the top of the wood before he nodded and turned back around.

“I left it pretty messy before I-”

“Who are you talking to, Kyuhyun?”

Kyuhyun’s head snapped around, his eyes locking with his father’s, who stood in the doorway with a newspaper in his hand. “No one.”

His father didn’t look convinced as he stepped into Kyuhyun’s room, tucking the newspaper under his arm. Sungmin sank back, as if trying to disappear from the room, as his father crossed the floorboards.

“Ahra told me about … that.” There was a certain sound of distance in his father’s voice. “Is it true, Kyuhyun?”

Kyuhyun stared at his father wearily before looking down and asking, “Is what true?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” His father said sternly. “Don’t play.”

“I’m not playing, dad.” Kyuhyun said stiffly, raising his eyebrows as he collected an armful of his clothes and unceremoniously threw them in his drawers. “I don’t want to talk about this if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. If this is what happens when you visit the cemetery, you won’t be going there anymore. Understand?”

His short temper bubbling up, Kyuhyun almost saw red for a moment before he took in deep breaths through his nostrils, forcing himself to calm down before he turned and fetched more of his clothes. “I don’t think that you have anything to say in the matter.”

“I have everything to say, I’m your father!”

“Then act like one!” Kyuhyun shot back angrily, glaring at the other man for several murderously tense seconds before he dropped the clothes he was holding onto the floor to point venomously at his dad. “You don’t have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do, not now. Not when you’re insistent on treating me like a ing kid. Get out of my room.”

Kyuhyun didn’t even pay attention to the astonishment on his father’s face as he herded him toward the door, and slammed it behind him.

*

Weeks passed and Kyuhyun didn’t talk to his father again. It was as though a taboo had gone around the house and suddenly the family was very aware of the tension between the father and son, though no one made a move to amend anything.

And as the time passed, Kyuhyun could feel himself wearing out. He grew dizzy easily, and more than once he’d suffered from fainting spells almost everywhere in the house, to the point where it became a habit for Ahra to be in the same room as him, just to ensure that he could fall and break his nose after he got up from the kitchen table.

No one but Sungmin noticed how Kyuhyun was struggling more and more each day.

He was truly, truly dying. He would die soon, but Kyuhyun didn’t mind. Anything was better than enduring this.

“Is this how it felt?”

Kyuhyun could barely move his head across to look at Sungmin, whose own orbs were swimming with tears, devastation written across every inch of his face as he desperately tried to wipe his eyes. He hated seeing Sungmin like that, to see him suffer even after his time of suffering was over. It was his own fault that Sungmin was upset.

Kyuhyun shook his head, a tiny, weak smile tugging at his chapped lips. “No. You were strong, even when no one expected you to be. You’ve always been stronger than me, Min.”

Sungmin’s lips quivered for a moment before he clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, burying his face into the hollow of Kyuhyun’s throat. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this, Kyuhyun. I would do anything to keep this from happening.” His words began to grow softer and rougher toward the end of his sentence, and Kyuhyun grimaced at the sound of it.

“Don’t cry,” Kyuhyun whispered hopelessly, his lips against Sungmin’s hair as he felt the thick dizziness in his head thud against his skull. “That’s what you told me, remember? You didn’t let me cry, so I won’t let you.”

“I was being selfish,” Sungmin murmured faintly, his voice muffled against Kyuhyun’s skin. “I couldn’t handle seeing you cry for me.”

“We’re both selfish.”

Sungmin let out a teary, gasp of a laugh, still sounding too truly upset to be actually amused by his words. “Ahra will be here soon.”

Kyuhyun closed his eyes, half of his face pressing into Sungmin’s hair as he let out a long sigh. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“Don’t push her away. Not now.”

“I didn’t say I would,” Kyuhyun felt Sungmin’s arm secure itself around his diminished waist, like a silent question in itself as the other man clung to him. “But I’d prefer her to remember me the way I used to be.”

Sungmin sniffed before sitting up slightly, shaking his head. “Don’t say that. You haven’t changed one bit.”

Kyuhyun opened his heavy eyelids, barely mustering up the strength to peer up at the latter. “Look at me,” he whispered, “I’m nothing now.”

“You’re perfect.” Sungmin reached up to thread his fingers through Kyuhyun’s hair, making the brunette’s eyes flutter at the contact. Even so close to death, Sungmin could make him feel alive. “You haven’t changed in my eyes, not even the tiniest bit.”

Kyuhyun managed another smile. “Really?” he asked softly.

Sungmin nodded, a hot tear racing down his cheek as his hand Kyuhyun’s jaw, moving down until his palm was spread over Kyuhyun’s chest, feeling his weak heart pump its way toward his last breath. “I still see the same man I met in college. The man who would come to see me even after my parents told you not to. The man who stayed by my side every day even in my final days.” Sungmin in a shaking breath, his hand trembling against Kyuhyun now as he finished, “You’re just as beautiful now as you ever were.”

Kyuhyun could barely keep his eyes dry as he placed one frail, thin hand over Sungmin’s; the other man’s hand felt so much warmer than his. Were his fingers really so cold?

“I love you.”

There was so much more that he wanted to say in that moment. Things such as, you don’t know how much this means to me, but his mouth didn’t seem to want to open them. But Kyuhyun thought that Sungmin might have already known, judging from the way that he was looking at him. Sungmin knew him inside and out – Kyuhyun would never have to explain how much he loved him. How much he meant to him.

When Kyuhyun had dozed off that, neither of them – despite the months of waiting – were ready for him when he woke up.

*

His head hurt. His eyes burned. His limbs were so weak Kyuhyun could barely lift them, and his voice refused to rise above a croaky whisper.

He knew that something was wrong. He could feel it.  He was accustomed to the exhaustion, to the sleepiness, to the headaches, but this was a level above it all.

He felt so completely lethargic that it was albeit impossible to keep his eyes open more than a slit – but they were useless anyway. Every few seconds they unfocused and all Kyuhyun could see was a jumbled blur before him, a mess of his blue bedroom walls and matching fuzzy curtains.

He was dying.

Finally.

*

Hours wore on, and Kyuhyun could feel himself slipping further and further towards unconsciousness, the sharp pains in his head growing weaker as minutes passed by. He knew what it meant, and he could accept it, but his family couldn’t seem to.

Darkness pulsated at him, promising rest and comfort and warmth, and Kyuhyun couldn’t stay away from it any longer. He was so weak, so tired, he couldn’t endure anymore. He couldn’t live anymore.

He was ready, despite him thinking that he would never be. He was ready to leave.

Ahra was clutching at one of his hands, and was forming words, but Kyuhyun could no longer hear her. He wanted to tell her not to cry, that he was going to be ok. This was the end of his pain, his fear, his uncertainty – he would be at peace. It was no reason to cry about, because he was happy.

His father couldn’t keep still. He moved around the room, despite his mother’s urges for him to sit down beside her. Maybe it was Kyuhyun’s traitorous mind, but he could have sworn he saw his father wiping his eyes. Was it the first time he’d ever shed tears for his son? If he’d had the strength, Kyuhyun might have stood up from the bed and embraced his father for the last time. When was the last time they’d hugged? Kyuhyun couldn’t remember any time that he had had a meaningful conversation with his dad. It would be one of the regrets Kyuhyun could carry with him, and he knew that it was too late to mend any broken patches.

His mother was beside Ahra, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to hold Kyuhyun’s hand as his sister did. Her eyes were constantly hidden behind a wad of tissues and whenever she did speak, as rare as it was, Kyuhyun wished he could hear was she was saying. But the thumping in his head – was it his heartbeat he could hear? – was all he could listen to. It was an eerie kind of silence, one where Kyuhyun knew there was so much more going on around him, but he couldn’t concentrate on anyone else. His concentration was declining fast, and even when he caught a glimpse of Sungmin in the corner, his face stained with tears, Kyuhyun couldn’t look at him for any more than a few seconds before his eyes moved elsewhere.

Ahra squeezed his hand, and Kyuhyun looked to her. She was so beautiful, so young. He could tell that she was going to go so far. She was going to have children he would never meet, and a husband that he couldn’t intimidate. But he was so grateful toward her. He wanted to tell her that he was glad that she had come back home to spend this time with him. It was time he may have taken for granted, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. With a watery smile, Kyuhyun croakily whispered to her, “I love you.”

He couldn’t hear his voice, and he couldn’t hear her reply, but he could tell that she felt the same. And that was all that mattered to him.

A soft kiss pressed against his forehead and Kyuhyun looked wearily to see Sungmin stepping away from him. Their eyes met, and everything on his face was readable.

I can’t stay if you can’t. Sungmin began to fade from the room, just when Kyuhyun felt his energy deplete. He’d hit rock bottom. This was it.

His eyes drooping, Kyuhyun curled his fingers as much as possible, trying to reciprocate to Ahra’s touch. “Sungmin is waiting for me.” Kyuhyun watched as his mother laid her head against his stomach, but he couldn’t feel her anymore. He couldn’t feel Ahra’s hand anymore. “I’ll be ok.” He whispered.

Kyuhyun could see chaos in the room, but he was no longer a part of it. He felt so oddly calm, so relaxed. He could finally sleep.

And in those few quiet moments, with his family by his side, Kyuhyun passed away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Kyuhyun.”

Kyuhyun stirred, his head resting in another person’s arms. He could already smell Sungmin’s cologne. There was sunlight against his eyelids, and he felt so warm.

He could feel himself again. For the first time in a long time, he felt good. He felt healthy. His eyes no longer throbbed, his head didn’t ache, and his body wasn’t weak and brittle. With a sigh, Kyuhyun arched his back up and stretched.

A hand brushed back his hair from his forehead. “Sleep for now, Kyu.” It was Sungmin’s quietly content voice, his tone so relaxed and calm and happy.

Kyuhyun smiled, cracking open one eye to look up at Sungmin’s glowing face, so much love in his eyes that Kyuhyun thought he might drown in it. His heart was swelling, and all he could see was Sungmin. The centre of his universe.

“You waited for me.” Kyuhyun murmured, unable to stop staring as Sungmin his cheeks, his chin, and his lips.

“I waited for you,” Sungmin said with an affectionate smile, “I was always going to wait for you.”

Kyuhyun revelled in it all. He didn’t know where he was, but he didn’t care.

He had Sungmin, and that was what was important to him.

They had all the time in the world to be together now.