chapter five

Upon returning home, Hyesung settled down at his kitchen table to eat the food gifted to him by Eric. It was lukewarm, but Hyesung enjoyed it nonetheless. He hadn't eaten a meal that was so packed with such care in too long a time.

After his stomach had been satisfied, Hyesung dove for the comfort of his bed, not removing his shoes until he had relished for numerous seconds in the warmth and softness of the blanket. He felt as if it an entire lifetime had passed since he last felt so sleepy and so willing to go to sleep, unafraid against the dreams that had haunted him for the past nights.

Eric has that effect, I guess, he thought as he contently tucked himself under the sheets after shedding his socks. He burrowed into a cocoon of warmth, peacefully settling into a sleep that was perfectly unwilling to allow him to wake up as serenely as he dozed off.

--

The smell of coffee suspends itself in the air, blending with the warm scents of fresh bread. Miran sits across the square wooden table, gleefully heating her palms around a mug of steaming hot chocolate. A strand of hair freely dangles near the corner of her eye.

"This is nice," she comments after taking a short sip of her drink. She grimaces and sticks her tongue out the corner of ; clearly, the beverage is scalded her tongue. "Never thought I'd be cooped up so far in the back of a café. I didn't even know this spot existed."

"Sorry." Unease. "It's just...you know..."

She looks up, and there's no hint of any remorse or irritation in the curves of her face. Rather, there's a thrillful sparkle in her eyes. "I'm okay with it! It's fun! I know how much trouble it'd be for you if someone caught us out together, too. I'm fine with anything we do. As long as we're together." She seems to innately understand the exact words to say that create an atmosphere of comfort, dispersing the awkwardness of being stuck at a table that doesn't even appear to have been cleaned in several months.

"Thanks."

She shakes her head, making nothing of the situation. Instead, she shifts the subject matter. "Oppa, how do you think I'm doing? With the doctor stuff, I mean."

Pride. Undisguised pride. "Great. You look like you're enjoying yourself a lot."

She grins. What a beautiful smile. "Good! Because I am enjoying myself! I finally know what it feels like to have everything in the palm of my hand. I wonder if this is how you felt when you became a singer. Just...happy."

"Yeah. I'm proud of you."

The smile on her face wavers for a moment. Why? She clears and drinks her cocoa. The conversation dies down for a few seconds, and all that can be heard is the gentle conversation of the people around them and the harmonizing clinks of spoons against plates.

"You remember what I said..." she begins. It's unsettling to see her unsettled. "You know. About going abroad."

A slight sense of panic. She isn't going...is she? "Oh. Yeah."

"Oppa! Don't sound like that; you'll make me feel bad," she whines, making a slight pout with her lower lip. She quickly becomes serious again, straightening her posture and at last brushing the stray hair from her face. "You know how much I need this, right?"

Yes. But. "I'm a selfish person, Miran. I wish you'd just stay here. Is that being too honest?"

She giggles, covering as she does so. It's a contained reaction, to lighten the mood as it gloomily settles between them. "No. Being straightforward is good. But as much as I'd like to stay with you..."

The answer is obvious. She has to go. And nothing will change that.

"I know. I'll support you. I'll just...I'll miss you. A lot."

Her smile is getting weaker, and it's clear that she's trying her best to not cry. She's always been terrible at not crying, so it's impressive now when she's able to control herself.

"I will too," she says. Then she stares, with a look half-determined and half-sorrowful. "But I promise! I'll be back real soon to come get you. And at that point, I'll be so pro at surgeries that you'll be even more impressed with me. And then you can marry me and all of your fans will have to accept me because I'm so awesome!"

Laugh. She dreams big and dreams bigger as she gets older, never letting the troubles of life obstruct her from what she wants.

"Of course. I'll be waiting."

--

Hyesung opened his eyes. The ceiling was a hue of dark blue, a combination of the dark and the silver skin of the moonlight.

It took several moments for the memory from his sleep to settle in, and it did so painfully. It felt as if several claws had clenched their way around his heart and were relentlessly applying pressure. His head spun. He couldn't breathe.

Tears accumulated in his eyes and traveled down the sides of his face. He brought his palms up to his cheeks, his fingers curling around his hair as he struggled to stifle the pain thudding against his chest. He felt sad, angry, frustrated. 

It was an utter mistake to believe that he could go to sleep without being disturbed. He felt like a fool for thinking such a thing. He fumbled out of bed, desperate to find something that would distract him; at the very least until sunrise.

Music. That was it. Music was always the thing to go to.

He stumbled out into his living room, finding the materials containing the music that he was to listen to for work. It took him several clumsy tries to get the CD into his player, his blurred vision and his trembling fingers not making the task as simple as it should have been.

He slumped against his sofa as the music filled the room. He cradled his head in his hands, wondering what it would take to shake this horrible, horrible feeling off. This was far worse than the previous dreams. He feared that if this was what he saw in his sleep tonight, then next time...

None of the melody in the song was entering his ears. He didn't want to hear anything right now. His tears came to a slow as the pain gradually faded into a numbing feeling that spread across his body. The lack of emotion was exactly what he wanted, yet exactly what he didn't want.

By the time he came to his senses, several songs had already completed playing. Dazed, he stared across the room at the speakers, which were now playing an upbeat song in his direction. The excited rhythm forced him to stand up and turn off the music before it pushed him into an even sadder state.

As his apartment returned into silence, he wondered what he should do to shake off the depression that was potently graying his surroundings. He had barely slept for even a few hours; it was late at night and he should have been deep asleep but was now too shaken to even try to be. How was he supposed to pass time until morning?

He glanced over at his loudspeakers, which were presently not singing. It would be great to get even a little bit of work done. But obviously, that didn't work out very effectively when he was alone with his own thoughts. He could certainly try to call Junjin and see if he wanted to continue working, but it was so late at night that he would feel incredibly guilty for interrupting Junjin's time to resolve his own issues.

Hyesung gnawed on his lower lip as another idea entered his head. He could contact Eric. He might still be up; he was so energetic that it barely seemed as if he even needed sleep in the first place.

It didn't take him long to dismiss the idea. It didn't make sense for him to accept so much help from Eric in the first place, and it would be unfair to try to use him just to boost his own mood.

He sighed softly. While he preferred having some company to distract him, it wouldn't feel entirely right. He should and could take care of himself. He grabbed his coat from where he tossed it on the couch and strode out the door. Tonight felt like a good night to drink.

He hurried away from his apartment building, trying to ignore the pins of cold that were jabbing at the edges of his ears and nose. The numbness creeping along across his skin was beginning to match the feeling inside of him. 

Before long, he arrived at his favorite late night street food tent. As he entered the flimsy shelter, he bowed his head toward the owner, a muscled middle-aged man, who curtly nodded back. Hyesung preferred to eat here when he went out because not once did the owner make a fuss about having a celebrity in his place. It was one of the few places where he got the feeling of being a regular human being.

"What would you like for tonight?" the owner gruffly asked.

"Some soju would be fine," Hyesung replied. He sat down at one of the tables as the other man immediately went to go retrieve the alcohol. He rubbed his hands together to get some blood flowing to his fingers. The owner returned with a shot glass and a green bottle.

Hyesung thanked him and got to pouring himself a dose of drunkenness. He hadn't gotten wasted in quite a long while, and the anticipation of it was almost refreshing.

"Thank you!" a voice, b with energy, came from the entrance of the tent. Hyesung, unable to trust his ears, lifted his head with his lips touching the rim of the glass. 

Eric was there, reaching out with a hand of bills to pay the owner.

"Eric?" Hyesung burst out. He couldn't prevent the name from carrying his sheer disbelief. It was...a preposterous situation.

Eric curiously glanced over at Hyesung. He then laughed, clearly feeling equally as shocked as Hyesung was. The two ran into one another much too often for it to be not ridiculous. "What a coincidence."

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Hyesung asked, estranged.

"Picking up some kimbap for my sis to eat at school tomorrow. What're you up to?"

Hyesung shamefully turned toward the setup of alcohol on the table in front of him. In one glance, Eric also seemed to understand. His face turned solemn as he said, "Mind if I head over to your place with you?"

--

"Welcome to the place I call home."

Eric followed Hyesung into his apartment, shaking his shoes off his feet. "Ah, so this is the humble abode of sir Shin Hyesung."

Hyesung bashfully nodded, wishing that he had done a bit of cleaning. The rooms of his apartment were generally well-organized, but now and again he would get lazy and leave a shirt or two lying around. Taehak frequently nagged him to "kindly remove" his "bodily wrappings" from where a visitor could see them.

"This is nice," Eric commented in an honest tone. He made his way into the living room. "Can I sit?"

"Sure," Hyesung replied, and Eric plopped down onto the couch, adjusting the cushions beneath his thighs.

"So, what've you been up to? Since it's been so long since we last saw each other."

Hyesung smiled weakly, unable to react to the sarcasm in Eric's voice. "Trying to sleep."

"Ah."

The question forming in Eric's mind was not lost on Hyesung: why can't you sleep? Still, he was shaken enough that he couldn't find it in him to be able to talk about it. "Hey...do you want to...help me with my music?"

Eric instantaneously grew attentive. "Of course!" He didn't appear to care about Hyesung's obvious steering of the conversation topic. Hyesung appreciatively headed over to his music player and resumed the CD to the last song that he listened to.

They worked side-by-side in a diligent manner, the job made simpler with Eric's amazing ability to focus. He was, for some reason, incredibly interested and motivated and had an uncanny aptitude for music. Hyesung found it awe-inspiring, especially when there were no more new tracks left to listen to. They had wrapped up Hyesung's work within an hour.

"You're too good at this," Hyesung praised, sincerely impressed.

Eric proudly crossed his arms and wagged an index finger at Hyesung. "I have many a talent when it involves persistent labor."

Hyesung didn't doubt the truth of that statement. Aside from this one incident, Eric's work integrity was bound to be beyond normal based on how he took care of his sister.

"Eric..." Hyesung said, "if you don't mind my asking, why are you taking care of Yurin? Are your parents...elsewhere?"

Accompanied with no change in behavior or expression, Eric replied, "They died."

"Oh." Embarrassment flowed through Hyesung's nerves. He had initially assumed that they were gone on business or something else temporary. "I'm...sorry. Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

Eric shook his head, relaxed. "No, it's okay. It all happened a long time ago, anyway. My mom died from childbirth complications when my sister was born. Her health was never very good in the first place. Apparently it was a miracle that she survived having me. The doctors told her when she was pregnant with my sister that going through with it would be dangerous, but how can a loving mother sacrifice her child for herself, you know?

"My dad afterward tried harder to raise us." Eric exhaled deeply and leaned back into the couch. His eyes lifted to the ceiling. "He worked as an active police officer, though, and was shot and killed on the job. My sister was only two years old. A bunch of relatives offered to take care of us, but...I must've been paranoid or something. I thought about what would happen if something happened to them after they took us into custody. It would only make us go through the same kind of grief over and over again. I was a legal adult then, so I decided to quit school and started working."

Eric finished talking, pressing his lips together. His face was unreadable. Hyesung discovered that he had been drawn into an entranced silence. "Wow," he breathed. "You...work hard."

Eric's eyes returned to Hyesung's as he shrugged. "It's difficult sometimes. I think a lot about how things would be different if my mom had been healthy, and if my dad had a safer job." When the corners of his mouth lifted, it was slightly bitter. "But, you know. The past is over. You can't spend your entire life sad about things that you can't change."

Sad about things that you can't change...

Hyesung slumped into the seat beside Eric. He crouched over, his arms dangling uselessly with his elbows on his knees.

"If only it were that simple."

-------author's notes

Hi!! Hope you all enjoyed that chapter!

Please read: to increase incentive for commenting, I'm going to start making use of a comment-update system. The number of comments on a chapter must exceed ten in order for there to be another update that week. For example, if I receive at least ten comments on this chapter, I will publish another chapter on Friday. This will ensure a chapter published on Mondays, and another on Fridays (EST). If I do not receive ten comments by Friday of any given week, then the next chapter will come on the following Monday.

Hopefully this story is good enough for this sort of system to work orz. Either way, this will result in at least one guaranteed chapter each week, but you get more if you pop in once in a while and speak to me ^3^. Happy reading!