Epilogue

A/N – Italics are flashbacks

Kyuhyun kneels down by the monumental grave stone. He wipes away at the white and black marble, just like he does every time he visits. Placing a singular Gardenia by the name of his beloved he sits down on the neatly cut grass, not minding the imminent grass stains that will ruin his expensive suit. “Hi. How are you today?”

And though he knows he will never hear the answer, Kyuhyun likes to pretend that he can, that he is smiling that beautiful perfect smile. “I miss you,” he whispers, a solitary tear making its way down, the sadness not fading with time as others had told him it would. Perhaps it was the guilt, perhaps it was the feeling of loss, but Kyuhyun had not gotten over it, could not get over it.

Because Hyukjae had not lived through that wretched night.

Kyuhyun still remembers the way the paramedics had barged into the rock-stars apartment and tried their hardest, even with the frantic Kyuhyun refusing to let go of the limp body. They had wrapped up the wrist but even they knew it was all useless. The pulse was too weak. There was more blood outside than in. The body was too cold.

Hyukjae was pronounced dead on arrival by the medical officer in the Accident and Emergency ward.

The softly yet firmly uttered words, “Time of death xxx,” ended Kyuhyun’s world.

The media had a field day with the scandal couple. The fact that Hyukjae had committed suicide and that the last call being to Kyuhyun and then Kyuhyun being the one who had found him, caused a media frenzy…as well as public outcry. Some for the man who had given up on life…given up his life and some for the love they had supposedly shared. Some at the media who had, in their thirst for front page news, led to the end of Lee Hyukjae. The agencies were no less innocent in this. They had all led to the demise of Lee Hyukjae.

And in it all was Kyuhyun

Perhaps it was hearing Hyukjae’s last message, that till this day Kyuhyun has not deleted, or maybe it was seeing his beloved, pale and a little blue, and so so cold, had changed something in him. Gone was the harsh cold Kyuhyun who had pushed Hyukjae away. Gone was the agency’s puppet. Gone was the scared Kyuhyun who hid in his closet, relishing in its protective darkness, playing the part given to him by the societal playwright. For once, Kyuhyun let the light seep in, he let everyone see who he really was…just a man in love…still in love…with another man.

It had all happened when the distraught Kyuhyun was taken out of the hospital by his agency manager who was there for damage control. The questions thrown at him were like bullets, bleeding out his broken heart. But there was one question that had Kyuhyun reeling in pain, in regret, in grief.

“How do you feel about Lee Hyukjae’s death Kyuhyun-shi?”

How did he feel?

Broken.

Shattered beyond repair.

Dead.

And that’s exactly what he had said, blabbering it all over tears and screams because his rational mind was long gone, the