This is gospel for the fallen ones, locked away in permanent slumber.

Cold. Isolated. Desolated. 

Where does the mind go, when one is frozen in time, locked away in a timeless chamber? There is a boy who looks beautiful in white, whose breath no longer fogs up the glass. He lies in eternal bliss, eyes closed serenely. Jinki studies him for long hours, studies the perfect jawline, the scar on the boy’s eyebrow. In this room where time stands still, it’s hard to tell how long he has been staring. 

Cryonics. Low temperatures. Life preservation.

These are the words they tell him. The brain tumor had spread much too quickly, eating away at Kibum’s speech, memory…and they can’t save him – not right now. But hopefully, in the future. 

Jinki shrugs on his jacket, bearing with the cold for a little longer. Somewhere in the distant future, Kibum will wake up to answers instead of more questions. Will this treatment work? Would you like to try the newest, latest, best, biggest stride ever made in radiology? Someday a doctor will give guarantees instead of maybes. 

Today is not that day, not yet.

They met under the sunshine, on a bright day when the sun is relentless. Jinki squints at the brightness, wishing desperately for his sunglasses or at least some shade. Kibum walks right into him, camera in hand. They stumble together, falls to the pavement in the midst of murmured apologies and assurances. Jinki lands on Kibum’s camera and cracks the lens. 

Kibum demands compensation, hands akimbo. There is something overly ridiculous about the boy in the bright pink leather jacket, peering down at Jinki’s exasperated face. 

“Well, are you going to give me your contact information or not?”

“You bumped into me!”

“You sat on my camera!”

Jinki settles for taking Kibum to lunch. Their lunch probably costs more than what it would take to replace the lens, but Jinki doesn’t mind.

Shy smiles, nervous laughter, fluttery feelings soon settle into something more comfortable. Kibum is excited about everything. His life is one big show – lavish costumes and colorful characters. Jinki lives in cubicles and set work hours. But when Kibum takes his hand, Jinki doesn’t think about the differences, he just thinks about shared interests and warm smiles.

Jinki writes letters after letters because lignin and cellulose fibers outlast a human’s life. He stores them in an airtight box inside his closet. They are mundane, just his everyday life. Hey Kibum remember when…hey Kibum, I miss you today. He wishes he had better things to say. Jinki goes to work like everyone else, eats like everyone else, wastes away the hours, just waiting.

Hey Kibum, I miss your voice. I miss your laugh. I miss your smile. 

Hey Kibum, I love you.