The doctors had said the battle was already lost. There was nothing they could do but wait for him to deteriorate and die. You had told him that he was deteriorated enough, but they all just placed a hand on your shoulder and told you that all that you could do to help was stay by his side, and tell him that you loved him. And you did. You loved Daehyun so much that you wanted to marry him, and now he was lying on his death bed when he should have been walking you down the aisle. It wasn’t fair, and it was all your fault you had ripped him from the comfort of his new home and asked him to leave again because you were bored. It took everything in you to not find a scalpel and mutilate yourself.

                “It really isn’t your fault.” Daehyun said as his heart monitor beeped on. He was awake, but his skin had that sickly look to it and he was slowly eating. He said he just wasn’t hungry but his body was losing weight rapidly. “Hey… had I not gotten sick they would have never found the cancer.  That’s the bright side of this all I guess.” he laughed out. It made him cough and his whole body was in pain. You didn’t want to stay and watch him rot but you had to. You felt like it was a moral obligation to. You could have called a pastor and gotten married before he died, but Daehyun urged you not to. He didn’t even have the chance to buy a ring though he loved you more than he had ever loved anything or anyone.

                You were sure he was going to be your only love. Daehyun was someone who made you feel like the drab of the day was a little less gray. He was the pigments and the hues that made every second full of color and it was slowly turning back to black and white. Every night, you’d cry over his sleeping body in hopes your tears would revitalize him somehow, but nothing worked. The morphine he clicked into his body just made everything less painful for him, but not for you. Not in the slightest. As his body grew weaker, he was more dependent on you than ever and you could see the humiliation and shame in his eyes when he couldn’t do something as simple as bathing himself. He always looked like he was about to break down and cry in front of you, but he needed to be even the slightest bit strong to ease up on you.

                Even in his weakest state, he was still thinking about you. When he felt like he had to call a nurse because the pain was too much, he’d tell you to leave the room no matter how much you wanted to stay in there with him. He even tried to eat solid foods, but nothing stayed down. He would reminisce about your cooking and his as well and he’d try to crack jokes, but they’d fall flat through a coughing attack and brown phlegm would come up, and he looked at it and knew this was his end. When his urine bag turned red at times he really knew that life was slipping from his grasps.

                Daehyun urged you to buy the apartment back and get the cat in the times he was asleep, but you refused. You used what little clothes you had with you and you showered and stayed by his side all the time because you asked him, what if he died while you were out? What if you left and he was the one who never came back? You couldn’t risk not saying goodbye, but that’s what Daehyun wanted. He wanted to die while you were away so you wouldn’t be able to see him in his most vulnerable state. He said he didn’t have his last words prepared, but he said they’d probably be that he loved you, and that he was sorry.

                You told him to leave out that he was sorry. He had nothing to be sorry about. Saying that he loved you was more than enough.

                And the days went on and on with Daehyun’s health dwindling down to the point where you couldn’t count the needles and tubes in his body if you tried. Opening his eyes was painful and he was just mouthing words, and even that was a task. Breathing was a whole new obstacle and you had never heard a heart beat so slowly. Now, you wished him dead because you wanted him to be out of the pain he was in. You wanted to know if you should call his house and his mom and dad and tell them that their son had cancer and was going to die any hour now, and Daehyun managed to crack and smile.

                “What unusual circumstances to meet your fiancé’s parents under.” Daehyun said, and it was almost inaudible. It was a good thing you were practically laying on him, and you tried to keep your body as light as you could so you wouldn’t hurt him. The nurses had to remind you to eat and to sleep and to use the restroom because you watched him so intently. You couldn’t allow another moment to slip away with him while he was becoming more and more ghost than human as every day passed. You couldn’t remember a day or night when your eyes didn’t burn or puff up from crying so much. Daehyun would wake up and try to touch your face and wipe away the stray ones, but he couldn’t even lift his arm. The only thing he could do was let you use his hospital gown as a tissue.  

                Seeing him drift away closer and closer to heaven each new day was watching a piece of yourself float away too. It came to a point where Daehyun couldn’t talk. He couldn’t move and all the hair you loved to run your hands though were gone and his tanned, caramel skin was like diluted coffee and it left the bitterest taste in your mouth. The hand you had held so many times wouldn’t and couldn’t hold yours back, and the Daehyun you once knew and had met on a bus so many months ago was out of sight but seared in your mind. You’d do anything to see his smile again and to have it warm your heart. Doctors said his would stop beating any day now, and it was so different from how it was when he was first admitted.

                He would talk and laugh loudly to the point the nurses told him he needed to be quiet because other patients were sleeping, but now, it was like he just wasn’t there. You didn’t know if you had the jurisdiction to ask them to pull the plug, but the best you could do anymore was offer him more and more drugs when he’d groan in pain. His face would twist with agony and when he opened his eyes they were pleading. He was begging to die by the time you asked anyone of you could put him out of his misery. It was one of the hardest decision you had to make in your entire life, but it was one that you knew he would want. He needed to be out of pain and if that was the last thing you could do for him, you would. The last thing he needed in his life was more suffering. You at least had a home and a family to still talk to while he just had you. You loved him.

                When you asked, the doctors and deliberated, and they decided it was for the best, and they said it would take a few days for everything to be settled. Y ou said that was fine. It left you with enough time to sit and tell Daehyun everything you never got the chance to tell him. Even if he couldn’t respond, it was worth a shot.

                He opened his eyes a little past noon on a rainy summer day. It was humid outside and the rain fell down the glass pane, but inside, it was freezing. You couldn’t let Daehyun see you were cold so you braced though it, and he looked at you, and you smiled.

                “Good afternoon, Daehyun.” you started out slowly. It was hard to speak. Your throat was closing with the tears that threatened to fall. “Today’s the day. I know that’s not something to casually talk about, but… you know.” you sighed. He had enough will to nod his head and he tried to smile, but it was forced. “You’ve been strong. Stronger than I’ll ever be in my entire life. And, I had a lot to talk to you about, but you just look tired, and I am too. I don’t really even know what to say anymore to you because you’ve just… you’ve been my words when I was at a loss for them. You’ve been my whole world, and to see you go away… and to know I’ve made this decision. It hurts Daehyun.” you said.

                You broke down. Tears flowed endlessly down your face and you didn’t want Daehyun’s last memories of you to be bad ones. The nurses were filing in now, and you knew there wasn’t much time left before he ran out of his own. The clocks would start ticking again, and Daehyun would finally be set free of his cage and his soul would soar. “I’m so sorry I ever made you leave the comfort of the house!” you cried. “I’m so sorry! I love you. I love you, Jung Daehyun. Please… please live happily in another place where you’re at peace and you never have to hurt again. Promise me that. Promise me you won’t dwell on me and that you’ll go to heaven and I’ll see you again one day. You’ve got to promise me that and then we can get married and have kids and we’ll… I love you.”

                The words were choked, but Daehyun looked up and at you, and the nurses were by his bed, plug in hand. He smiled. He smiled the toothy, white as the clouds on a clear summer day smile that made your heart warm up enough to make the room feel like paradise. “I promise.” he said. “I love you too. And goodbye. I’ll see you later.”

                There was a loud, constant tone of the heart monitor flat lining and the room was dead silent other than that. You watched as everything faded to gray when his eyes shut for the last time. He’d never wake up again. You’d never look over beside you in the morning and see his face. Or have him snore. Or have him cooking breakfast on the weekends. You’d never wait with him at the bus anymore and you’d never bring him a coffee and all of his stuff was at your coworker’s and you’d have to bring it all back with you to the apartment but he wouldn’t come back with you. Daehyun was gone.

                Daehyun was gone.

                His funeral was small. It was you and a few people from work and his parents said they couldn’t make it, but they said they were sorry and you apologized to them as well as best you could with the language barrier there. He was lowered gently eight feet under in a beautiful casket you had the honor of picking out.

                It wasn’t much of an honor considering everything.

                He was dressed to impress in the best suit he owned that he had bought with his own money and before you let him be buried, you bought rings. You went to a small jewelers and you didn’t look for anything extravagant, just some weddings bands. You wanted you two to be bound in love in some way or another, and though there was no service and you weren’t legally widowed, you wanted something on you to remind you of him. You didn’t know why you would do something like that for him, but they say love made you do crazy things. When you slipped it on his fingers, you knew he was smiling at you from above. You’d marry him for real. Some day.

                And just as fast as he came into your life, he left. The procession was lovely, and you spoke a few words about him before you broke down into hysterics and couldn’t finish. His body was buried with countless flowers and then, you watched the hole be filled in. You watched as his final resting place was covered over, and patted down. Daehyun was dead. He wasn’t coming back. You left a fresh vase of flowers at his grave and you felt like you should have crossed yourself or do something to tell God that you got the message, but you didn’t. You wanted to sit and lay down on there and weep until you couldn’t any more, but that wasn’t an option. Daehyun wouldn’t want that. He’d want you to get up, go home, and live on.

                It was a hard and painful process. You got back the apartment and with it, you got your cat back, your stuff, and his. It was all in the living room for the longest time before you could even stand to look at it. His clothes still carried his scent and your cat always seemed lonely because Daehyun wasn’t there to talk to it or give it extra treats for no reason. He still had papers from online about the group he was going to join and there were still little things like movie ticket stubs that he had saved from when he went out with you. He even kept receipts of all the nice dinners you had gone on and in his wallet he carried a picture of you that you had never seen because Daehyun kept a lot of things hidden. Now you knew it wasn’t out of distrust of you, but of adoration. He had saved so many things and you didn’t know what to do with it all now.

                There was still a drawer with some of his clothes, and it was the drawer you had cleared out for him when you told him that this was your home now, and the band around your ring finger burned because it was only your house again and no matter how many times you reached over to cling to Daehyun in the middle of the night, his body wasn’t there, no matter how hard you wished. It was like learning how to walk on your own again. He wasn’t there to lock the door behind you when you came in or left and you found yourself still buying groceries and setting the table for two. You threw back the bed sheets for both you and he and you didn’t know when it became so hard to breathe when you heard a clock tick. When he was with you, all was slow. Everything was new and exciting and Daehyun didn’t push you around.

                The bus driver, when you finally went back to work, looked at you sadly. He was at the funeral as well, and he knew how hard it must have been on you. He nodded, and you nodded back, and when you walked to your seat, you saw he had left a card and some flowers on it as a sort of an apology. He said he was the initiator for it and he should have never done anything as stupid as that, but it wasn’t his fault at all. He was caught in the crossfire and you bowed to him when you got off the bus and this time, you didn’t even try to hold back tears.

                Work was slow, and the clocks mocked you on the walls as people came in and out over and over, and there were familiar faces even after all of the months of your absence. You had to leave the front counter numerous times to go into the back and sit and breathe through the panic attacks and overall mental breakdowns because there was something in the back of your mind that kept reminding you of what Daehyun liked to drink when you got off work but you wouldn’t get anything for him because he just wasn’t going to be there. Everything had shattered before your very eyes and now doing anything was impossible without thoughts of him flooding into your head. You wanted to quit your job and just lay around the house and cry all the time.

                So you did. You just called into work and told them you needed more time off to recover, and they understood thankfully. You just needed some time to collect yourself if that was even a possible thing now. Every time you heard a creak in the apartment you expected Daehyun to surprise you and for him to tell you that this was all an elaborate plan to make you realize how much you needed him, but every week when you visited his grave, it wasn’t disturbed. You laid down his favorite flowers, sunflowers, and you sat and just talked to him, trying your very best to not cry in front of him.

               There were days where you’d look at the plot next to him and notice it was empty and be reminded you still had a loaded gun.

               But to do that would be to lose to life, and Daehyun would have surely been disappointed in you, because if he could live though everything he had lived through, surely you could love through his loss. And though, it would take you time to recover, you did, and walking on your own two feet once again was unbearable on some days, but it happened. There were stumbles and there were falls, but the thought of Daehyun always got you back on your feet. The air was always a little bit thicker and it always stung in your lungs without him there, but that was okay.

               Life post-Daehyun was going to be okay. It was miserable, but it was okay. You worked a drab job, and you lived in a drab apartment with a drab life and it all felt like clockwork. There was a familiar tick to the time and there wasn’t anything new, and no one knew. No one had to know anymore, because there was no point in opening up to anyone because there wasn’t anyone anymore who was going to approach you on the bus one morning and offer you a chocolate and make your heart skip a clockwork beat. There were times where you thought you saw Daehyun on the bus again, but it was just your heart trying to compensate for lost time. Now, all you had was the time to keep you sane. You counted down the minutes until you met Daehyun again, and that’s the new solace you found in the roundabout days that passed on and on.

                The clockwork began again. Public transportation had always a sort of a sweet escape. There were familiar faces, but no one really cared to get you.

                Except one boy, but not anymore.

                No one really minded when it was late at night and you got on only to pull your coat over your eyes and cry some before taking a quick nap.

                Except when you had a boy with you to share a coffee and a seat with, but not anymore.

                Your phone, which was older than most, buzzed when it was about time to get off, and with a heavy sigh and strayed glances from the people around you, you would get up, off, and trudge home.

                You used to have someone who would at least hold your hand, but not anymore.

                Nothing spectacular ever happened nor did you meet anyone that made your breath catch in your throat.

                There was one. But, not anymore.

                Nothing made the cold days a little warmer and nothing made the hot days a little more bearable.

                Not anymore.

                There was a bleak nothing, and in it, there was comfort.

                Forever.

A/N: Thank you for reading.