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Youngjae looks into the eyes of darkness, feels it like a nightmare in the middle of the day. Knows that no matter how many sleeping pills he chases with stale water, how many minutes he wastes dreaming of brown eyes and brown hair, he won't wake up. He knows that love doesn't conquer all, and maybe he believed it long ago, but now all he believes in is whatever will make this all easier. He feels like a hanging man, feels like Icarus when he's standing too close to the picture that's burning his plastic wings. He feels everything so fleetingly, then all at once, then wonders how someone made of Styrofoam bones and cold tears can still stand. 

< 

 Youngjae thinks that sitting with his toes in the grass, staring up through eyelashes and in between the spaces of the leaves, is like looking through a telescope right into Heaven. He's a believer, always was and forever will be, but so is the boy by his side. He likes it here, especially likes the warmth that presses against his side, and wonders if the angels can look down and see them too. He wonders if they mistake the boy by his side for a fallen angel like he does. He wonders  if they can sense the wanting in Youngjae; the wanting to hold Daehyun's hand, the wanting to encase them in this moment forever. He wonders if those up above can see the flowers that crack through his chest. 

>

He sees black and blue splashed against pink and opens his eyes, cringes at the smell of death and sterility. He feels it, too, feels the dread that soaks his lungs, the penetrable feeling of something to come furrowed in his eyebrows. His fingers are wrapped too tight around metal and he wouldn't be surprised if he broke it in half. Other times there's nothing but buzzing in his head and ears, a screeching scream coming from someone he can't see - maybe it's coming from inside his head, maybe it's himself. He waits a few more dense seconds until he sees the other boy stagger down the only-family hallway. He hears his stuttered breathing, sees the limp in his gait, sees something dark and dangerous folding itself in his eyes. He calls out to him, voice scratchy and maybe Daehyun didn't hear him because he keeps staring at the ground. But then he gets closer and Youngjae can smell the pain. Youngjae leaps forward, feels guilty for being gentle with Daehyun because maybe a tight hug would make his skin ache, and just - waits. He waits walking to the car, waits in the drivers seat (which makes his stomach toss in that this-could-be-a-sign way because Daehyun always drives), waits as he locks the front door behind him and waits on the couch.

And waits.

>

Sometimes Daehyun forgets what to say. Sometimes he doesn't remember what words mean what he's trying to say so sometimes he doesn't say anything at all. Youngjae wonders how someone like Daehyun could flake away so easily, wonders what it takes to make a man who lives ten times too much fall ten times too fast. But he loves him, he always will until his heart explodes, but he wishes he didn't. He wishes he didn't because loving him is hurting him, because seeing Daehyun's hair clinging in clumps to the shower drain is like a knife to his insides. 

>

Youngjae misses Daehyun even when he's sitting right by his side, looking right into his eyes, embedding himself in Youngjae's skin. Other times Daehyun's just a shadow, wind that lifts his hair when it breezes by. He tries to speak  but all that comes out is grief and pity, a trembling noise that Daehyun doesn't miss. He doesn't miss the way Youngjae looks at him like he's already lost, that he's looking back at a memory rather than the present. So Daehyun doesn't say what he knows Youngjae wants him to, just clears his own throat and almost passes out because his lungs can't withstand even a few seconds deprived of sweet oxygen.

>

Youngjae hates this the most. He hates feeling useless, like a skeleton with no muscles to make the frame move. He hates sitting by Daehyun's side even though he knows Daehyun wishes he'd leave. He knows that Daehyun doesn't think he should see this, the slow dripdripdrip of the only thing that might save him, the weight of both their lives heavy in the palm of his hand. But Youngjae always stays, anyway, and traces patterns in Daehyun's forearm. He makes sure he doesn't trip his fingers over the tubes, doesn't run his nails over the outline of a bruise, the purple and black spilling outside the lines. Youngjae can feel his eyesight trying to wander, trying to make his eyeballs roll over to the woman sitting by Daehyun's side, but he never lets it. He never lets it because it feels too much like an insult, a break in the anonomyous privacy that comes with being in a place like this.

Youngjae just keeps staring at Daehyun and Daehyun just keeps staring at the tube that pours translucent gold into his veins. 

<

"Hey, can you kick back that ball?"

Youngjae thought he was alone hidden under the leaves of the tree; was the reason he came here, but still looks up at the voice. He sees a boy standing a few feet away, and Youngjae can see his smile even though the sun's hitting him right in the face and he should be wearing his glasses. Youngjae's in the middle of a sentence in his book and wants to read in peace, but he was never a rude person to begin with so he dog-ears the page and looks to see where the ball went. Which happens to be half-way submerged in the murky water of the river that no one ever goes in. 
Youngjae goes to say something but the boy is already right next to him staring at the ball, his shoulder a little higher than Youngjae's. 

"Dang, I don't want to go get that thing."
Youngjae shrugs, smiles because he likes the boy even though he doesn't know his name. He likes him like little kids like kid shows and magic. He likes him and he isn't angry at the interruption anymore; thinks that if anybody else dragged him away from his fake-world he would have still been mad, but because it was the boy with a big smile and curly hair it was okay.

"I can't swim, anyway," Youngjae says as an after thought, something to fill the silence even though Youngjae's eight and the other boy is nine and nothing feels awkward when they're this young.

Youngjae can hear the smile mixed within the words when the boy says, "neither can I."
And, like any eight and nine year old, something so simple - like an inability to stay afloat - bonds them to one another, and Daehyun's laughing("my name's Daehyun," he says after Youngjae asked, shaking the younger's hand like his father taught him) and tells his new found friend to wait right here, I'm going to get another ball and then we can play together.

Youngjae wishes he could get back that old ball and keep it forever.

>

Some days are worse than all the others combined. Some days Daehyun can't even manage to get out of bed; just struggles to breath, swaddled in blankets that he thinks are trying to suffocate him, hands searching for purchase on anything that can keep him anchored to life.
Youngjae hates these days the same way he loves Daehyun. He hates seeing Daehyun being dragged away, hates seeing his caved in veins struggling to break free from the confines of skin, hates seeing the oxygen as it filters in and out of Daehyun's dried nostrils. He hates the fact that Daehyun is a string on the edge of his sweater, hanging and ready to be snipped away. And it's so easy, and it's so easy for Daehyun, too, and Youngjae hates it. He doesn't want Daehyun to think it's easy, doesn't want to snip off the string but sew it back into its rightful place in the sweater, right in the space covering his heart. 
Mostly he wants the suffering to stop for Daehyun, and if he has to be selfless to do that, then so be it.

<

Daehyun coughs and it's ragged and Youngjae thinks it might have cut into Daehyun's throat, but he just huddles over himself with his hands to his lips. This isn't new, isn't old, and all Youngjae does is run his hand down the elder's back, stopping to press down at each vertebrae.
"Maybe you should see a doctor." 
Daehyun shakes his head like every. other. damn. time.

>

Youngjae wonders if Daehyun ever regrets not listening to him, wonders if he hates himself when he realizes that if he listened to Youngjae and went to the doctors months before he might have a chance. But then Youngjae decides that, no, he hopes Daehyun doesn't hate himself. Because Daehyun can't afford to be anything more than hopeful even though there is no more hope pumping out of the hope factory. He still has to hold on, maybe not for his sake but for Youngjae's. 

<

Daehyun wears his heart on his sleeve, always has and Youngjae hopes always will, so when he tries to hide it Youngjae knows right away. He knows by the way Daehyun doesn't greet him when he gets home, doesn't make coffee the way he knows Youngjae likes it. The way he smells like everything but Daehyun is what gives everything away, and sometimes, in the dark with Daehyun asleep miles away, Youngjae wishes he never asked.

"You okay?"

Daehyun tries to ignore him, turns his head and stares at the wall, plays with a pillow in his lap so he doesn't give everything away.
Silence.

"Whats wrong? Talk to me."

A shrug, a lifeless(ha, how ironic) "nothing".

"Bull. Tell me right now, Jung Daehyun. Whatever it is, I'll still love you."

The only thing that Youngjae hears, the only intelligible words past all the heartbreak and sobs is the "oh god Youngjae I have stage four lung cancer, I'm going to die, I love you, oh god."

Youngjae thinks this is what dying from a broken heart  feels like. 

>

Youngjae's never been a religious person, but seeing Daehyun withering away like a flower petal makes him believe in whatever promises to save him. Nights are spent kneeling on carpet or hardwood or linoleum, hands clasped together in some type of forlorn pleading to please, God, just make him better. The next morning his knees are red with the imprint of the floor and Daehyun always makes an attempt to laugh even if lately all that comes out is a fit of wet coughs. 
Youngjae always smiles back.

>

He remembers the nurses telling him once that even when he smiled in fear or pain he still looked happy, and Youngjae thinks that might be a good thing because it'll make Daehyun feel better. He hates when Daehyun blames himself, when he manages to pull Youngjae up onto the bed with him and tell him he's sorry for hurting him through short sobs and lazy(or sick)kisses.

<

Something Youngjae and Daehyun like to do is play video games. It doesn't matter which one or what genre, they like playing for the sake of playing(and maybe Youngjae likes that he's tier than Daehyun)(maybe he likes to let Daehyun win because he gets to see that ten-thousand watt smile and universal laugh). 

"Hey, Youngjae?"

A pixel bullet whizzing through pixel air and shooting into a pixel man, making pixel red spill onto the screen.

"What?"

Youngjae's character moving right into a cave while Daehyun's moving left, crouching down to avoid a sniper on an abandoned roof.

"I love you."

Youngjae's character standing up because the person controlling him slammed on the wrong button by accident; has a bullet rip through his heart. 

"What?"

The big "YOU LOOSE" lighting up Youngjae's half of the game, everything else going black.

"I love you, and I have to say it. I have for a while,actually."

Daehyun's character continuing to move while crouching, avoiding fire and successfully capturing the other team's flag.

"Love me, like as in love-love?"

Youngjae puts his controller down when Daehyun's screen starts screaming "YOU WIN."

"Yes, Youngjae, as in love-love."

Daehyun puts his down, too, swings over so he's staring right at his best friend.

"Finally," a half-tense laugh, "I love you too." 

>

The only thing Youngjae feels now is a hot pain deep within his chest and the cracks in his skin. Every time Daehyun tries to speak past the water in his lungs it feels like someone's pouring lemon all over his skin(it's God, Youngjae thinks). Most of the time all he can make are low whizzes like air coming out of a balloon and Youngjae kisses him quiet. He wants to kiss him every minute of every hour to make up for all the kisses he will miss, wants to apologize through the press of lips for not kissing him enough when there was time. 

Youngjae understands what they mean when they say that time's a fickle thing.

>

The sound of a monitor beeping, spiking into a beepbeepbeep then dropping down to beep.....beep....beep then finally ending in one final beeeeee is what wakes him up in the morning. He interlocks chalk fingers and kisses closed eyelids one last time, whispers everything he wants Daehyun to remember into his ear, smells his scalp that will always be Daehyun's and ingrains into the walls of his nostrils. Hopes that when it gets bad he can call back that smell and know everything will be some fractured type of fine. 

>

When Youngjae gives his speech he doesn't say what he really wants to, or what Daehyun wants to hear, because he knows Daehyun will  hear it when he says his real speech in their bedroom every night for the next three weeks. Instead he says that he loves - loved -  Daehyun and that he was a wonderful human being and blah, blah, blah. 

It was a feat just to swallow back the tears and lump in his throat.

>

Youngjae goes to the grave and doesn't know what to say so instead he digs a hole in the dirt by the headstone and drops a picture of them inside, covers it and hopes their smiles will blot from the photo and travel through the roots to wind up in Daehyun's bones. 
He isn't a cliche so he doesn't leave flowers that will wilt, just bumps his toe against the etching of his favorite word and leaves.

>
Youngjae looks at his reflection in the mirror above the sink and realizes he misses Daehyun like you miss someone who died.

Youngjae's heart sinks at the same time he  remembers that it makes sense to miss him like that.

>

Yoo Youngjae never loves someone as much as he loved Jung Daehyun.