Blue

"Hey."

Daehyun doesn't tear his gaze away from the ceiling fan, watching it go around in circles like the train of thoughts in his head. Carriages carrying all memories of him and Yongguk, rattling down a continuous track with nowhere to go.

"Sorry for what Himchan said." Daehyun blinks slowly, the blades disappearing as fast as they appear. "I deserve it," he breathes. You've lost, you ing bastard. You've lost, and there's nowhere for you to go now. "No one deserves to be laughed at, not in this situation. It's not a game," Youngjae states, leaning back into the chair tiredly. It sounds like a warning or a premonition, or more accurately, a tormenting reminder. "You've wrecked him. Both of them."

Youngjae brushes the sides of his jeans, opening his eyes languidly. Daehyun wishes his hands will wilt and take away the destruction he'd inflicted on Yongguk. Heal the scars ingrained into Yongguk's sinews and have it rebound onto his own flesh twice as hard. In place of those beatings, put in words he should have reciprocated a long time ago.

"He's gotten retrograde amnesia. Lost about five years worth, according to Himchan. So you never met him." The words stab Daehyun in the chest, digging in mercilessly like an icepick drawing blood. "Himchan wants to go with it. I'm not for it, since it's hiding the truth. But that's up to Yongguk whether he's going to remember."

"What are the chances he'll get it back?" Daehyun asks weakly. Youngjae shrugs. "Don't know; it was a pretty bad blow. Himchan wants you gone by the time he regains it -- if he ever does." Silence drifts between them, like shallow waves washing up to shore. Daehyun imagines wading in it, chasing after it as it recedes into a vast expanse of untouchable blue.

"You've lost all your power," Youngjae remarks as he stands. "You were able to make Yongguk the happiest person alive and the saddest at the same time. I'm sure you know what you picked." Indeed, Daehyun had the power to make a flower bloom to its fullest or have it droop till its petals broke off. Yongguk was a delicate, beautiful thing and he'd been more than sadistic to want to see the torn down side to him. 

"Yongguk's not a prize." Youngjae takes a step towards the door, sighing. "Human. He's human. Hope you've finally gotten it in your head." He walks off without another word, leaving the aisle empty and silent.

Daehyun buries his face into his hands. He doesn't stop the tears from flowing.

--

They met on a windy day in September, the month of falling leaves and wilting branches. Daehyun had noticed a man peculiarly standing at one exhibit, gazing at it with persistent admiration despite having observed it for a long time. Intrigued, Daehyun went up to inspect the painting. It wasn't much, just a titled frame with a quote inside and a white statue of a woman kneeling before it. The glass was cracked, the woman's hands painted black till shoulders underneath attempting to fix the photo. Red light was cast onto the limbs of the woman and just beneath her eyes, streaks of blood running down her ebony skin.

There is always some madness in love.

"Makes you think, doesn't it?" The man beside Daehyun breathed, stare never leaving the words engraved into white stone. "It's my favourite quote."

Daehyun smiled, arms crossed over his chest. The man was a little taller than him, holding onto a book with both his hands. He looked awfully serene, breaths soft and gentle. "Oh? So I'm assuming you know love well?"

The man shakes his head lightly. "No, I don't." He steps a little closer to the exhibit, lips folding. "But I'd like to feel what it's like." He put up a hand, blocking the lights of one of the woman's hands. The red fell onto his skin as Daehyun watched quietly. "The madness in love."

"What's gotten you curious?" Daehyun asked, stepping closer to the man. He had pretty fingers, almost as pretty as his girlfriend's, and definitely prettier than his fiancée's.

The man put down his hand, humming. "My closest friend." The exhibition hall was full of white, and it fit the man's peaceful demeanour. Daehyun adjusted his black blazer, raven leather shoes shifting against the cement floor.

"He's in love?" Daehyun asked. The man nodded, hands grazing the ends of his ivory dress shirt. "I don't know how to feel about it," he confessed.

"What, is he a stalker?" Daehyun joked, igniting a sweet laugh in the other man. "No," the man wheezed, lowering his head to muffle back a few more chuckles. Daehyun turned his head towards the man. Daehyun was attracted, no doubt.

"Then it must be the kind that makes you wonder..." Daehyun paused, staring closely at the black staining the woman's arms. "What sane person would do such a thing?"

The man nodded slowly and his eyes softened. "Unrequited love." His gaze was so broken it stopped the breath in Daehyun's throat for that split moment.

"Ah," Daehyun replied, quiet sigh leaving his lips. "Are you in love with him?"

The man shook his head, head drooping like a shrivelling flower. "No," he spoke, voice nearly inaudible. "He's in love with me." The man retreated from the sculpture by a step. "I want to know why..." The man wheezes. "Why, when I don't deserve it. Not any of those years he's given me."

Daehyun veered his head fully towards the man, smiling. "Even in these few minutes we've met, I feel like I already know why." The man chuckled in return, finally glancing at him. His eyes were a misty shade of brown and his skin was pale.

"What about you? Do you know love well?" The man asked. Daehyun took a deep breath, grin stabbing upwards into his wrinkled skin. He moved closer to the man, steps slow and slick.

"Let's treat love like a game," Daehyun said, bringing his hands up to clasp them together. "I've been following the instructions but I just can't seem to get my hands on the prize."

"Maybe there's no manual for it, and love's not something you play to win," the man answered breezily, smiling delicately as he turned to face Daehyun fully. Daehyun nodded, amused.

"Waxing lyrical on an autumn day," Daehyun chuckled, looking up at the man. "I like you..." He gestured a little, eyebrows raising, and the man beamed. "Yongguk. Bang Yongguk."

"Well then, Yongguk, it's been a pleasure to meet you. I'm Jung Daehyun," Daehyun breathed, never letting their gaze break. "Shall we continue our conversation somewhere else? Over a cup of coffee, perhaps?"

They parted only late at night when the store was about to close, promising to meet again with the exchange of numbers and foggy breaths. Yongguk was a freelance song writer just scraping by to make ends meet. Outings to catch the latest movie and visit the newly opened art museums dwindled into private dates by the river, and Yongguk had fallen hard and fast for a man who never was what he seemed. He had perfected his act with first-class tickets to countries Yongguk dreamt of visiting and surprises at his doors, bouquets extravagant along with dates to high-end restaurants. Daehyun found out too late that Yongguk's b smile everytime he opened his door to a surprise was barely for the gift in Daehyun's hands but the man himself.

Yongguk could not crawl out of the pit that Daehyun dug and laid out as a trap, the many other flings barely making it out alive and full of hatred. Yongguk remained captive in the abyss of darkness, jailed but willingness shining through his tender touch whenever Daehyun fed him through the bars with counterfeit love.

Yongguk had learnt the hard way the man Daehyun was underneath. He'd stumbled upon the papers to a property under Daehyun's name, and an unfamiliar female one in the co-owner slot. Relationship: fiancée.

Daehyun was an embittered man too wrapped up in the sins of others to build a conscience. From the moment he was born, he was hailed a precious prince with a crown loose over his head, obscuring his innocent, doe eyes. The heir to a huge company, a path the kids in his preschool envied he had the privilege to walk while others had to pave the way from scrap. Indeed, Daehyun was grateful for most of his childhood years, till he decided when he was ten he wanted to be a singer. He'd gotten the worst beating of his life for piping up during his dinner, all childish beams and untainted buck teeth, for suggesting something so ludicrous and harmful to their repertoire.

It gradually started to weigh on Daehyun's shoulders as time went by and he realised he was chained in shackles to a red carpet. He was a train on a track chugging down to a fixed destination, past the lush green fields where he sourly watched as the other children independently ran about. He had no freedom; his journey was tattooed onto his back in the form of a bullet train ticket. Then the last blow came when his parents introduced him to a girl. Of course, they'd noticed the boy becoming more and more resentful as time faded, cherub cheeks replaced with wrinkled skin and dark circles.

So they humoured him. They set up a stage and pretended there was no intention behind the arrangement though their written scripts dangled behind their backs. They constructed a meaningless fantasy of no substance where Daehyun was allowed to say whatever he pleased but ultimately, that girl and him were still the lead actors of a romance play. A comedy, if you thought deeper, because Daehyun was a fool to actually believe he had the choice to choose who to love. There was no bloody thing; his parents taught him that when he transferred from his high school and intentionally away from his first crush. Whatever they worshipped in books, those fairy talkes falsely portrayed as everyday love stories, they were not true. Marriage was a thing of convenience because the spark dies out at most a few years in. It's all about mutual benefits and the ability to rely on one another in the long run.

And Daehyun thought, as he watched others frolick in the flowers while he rattled with no control down the tracks, if he couldn't run as he pleased and giggle at the butterflies, then no one should. If he was going to barrel down this rigid route with the endless expanse of meadows and forests just out of reach, he might as well set fire to it since it was of no use to him.

Thus started Daehyun's sickening reign of puppeteering, Prince Charming as his facade and the many Cinderellas waiting to be sweeped off their feet. In order to regain the nullified opportunities to play as a child, Daehyun reeled many of his toys in and dismantled them like a curious boy with dolls. Dig his nails into their pretty faces, rip out their hair and pinch at the seams to see where it took for a blow to crumble them for good. Dated them all at once and waited for the big reveal, shattered hearts and dignity with the lesson "never let down your walls" learnt. It felt nice to have control over something, for once. He didn't have say over his life but he certainly had for many others.

Daehyun was a master of pretense and Yongguk was just another man to be thrown away at the end of the day. He'd not only had a fiancée at the time he chased Yongguk, but he also had another girlfriend. When Daehyun the magician did his grand finale, his girlfriend slapped him and stalked off with tears in her eyes, as expected. 

But even as the damage caved Yongguk into Himchan's arms, he returned to Daehyun. A broken toy Daehyun was done with, clinging pathetically to its owner. Yongguk did not deserve this. He did not ing deserve to have his first love, his first relationship be all a farce. He did not deserve to be cheated and have the purity of love so quickly blackened before his face.

Yongguk did not deserve to be Daehyun's plaything, shrapnel stuck in his throat and blood leaving a trail through their memories for Yongguk to retrace and bask in and Daehyun to ignore.

It hadn't been just physical abuse, Daehyun's anger from his restrained life vented on Yongguk's thin frame. It had been emotional abuse and the repeat of the stinging reminder that Yongguk was nothing more but a lowly e meant to please for a fleeting night. Daehyun thought Yongguk was stupid. One day, Daehyun would get married and Yongguk would not even be invited to his wedding. He would have children and grow his empire for the next generation, while Yongguk would pick up the pieces of countless years dedicated to a man he knew so clearly would leave.

Daehyun did not believe in love, so the only logical explanation was that Yongguk was simply an idiot. And he was, indeed. He was an idiot for bracing the hurt and putting himself back together night after night only for Daehyun to shatter him again.

They were so different. When happiness came to mind, Yongguk thought of mending things and Daehyun thought of destruction. When kids came to mind, Yongguk thought of orphanages and sending homemade feasts over and Daehyun thought of next-in-lines. When blue came to mind, Yongguk thought of the bright sky and Daehyun thought of the menacing ocean that swallowed up everything.

Daehyun had abandoned Yongguk that night. Gotten into one of his stupid mood swings, thrown him out of the car with nothing and left him to walk fifty miles back. He'd been mobbed by a bunch of hooligans and left for the vultures on the street, battered and bleeding onto the asphalt. By the time they found him, he was on the brink of death with his loss of blood staggering from the gory gash in his head.

Yongguk didn't deserve any of Daehyun's heinous doings, and it had taken him years and Yongguk's wiped memory to realise so.

The hospital is cold and emotionless, bleach scarring Daehyun's tanned skin. The man makes his way down, route etched into his sinews. Youngjae's text lies under his thumb on the screen. We're out for lunch. Probably 15 minutes. Make it quick.

Daehyun tensely opens the room, heart jumping out of his throat when he sees the sleeping form on the bed. Everything in the room is white, like the innocence Daehyun had ripped from Yongguk. The tears begin to prick at his eyes but Daehyun reminds himself that the rich never cry. Jung Daehyun never cries, yet the man feebly laying on the bed is enough to make Daehyun offer up his heart in exchange for forgiveness.

The baby's breath in Daehyun's hands are shaking. Daehyun collects himself and walks towards Yongguk, noting the white roses he'd sent yesterday in the bin. He gently places the bouquet beside Yongguk, making the mistake of gazing at the man's sleeping face.

Beautiful.

Yongguk's eyes flutter open. Daehyun freezes and his lungs forget how to work. Yongguk bats his eyelashes languidly, lifting his head weakly to take in Daehyun's mangled eyes. Daehyun's throat is dry and all the water that'd been drowning him for weeks disappear into his eyes.

Yongguk's chapped lips quirk at the ends. The universe halts and Daehyun wonders in what world would someone bestow a smile of kindness onto a demon so disgusting and condemned.

"They're pretty," Yongguk whispers as he admires the flowers, chest rising and falling slowly. Daehyun remains wordless. "I told Himchan not to throw away the others, but he did." Yongguk releases a small sigh, sinking back further into the pillow. Daehyun wants to reach out and carress the perfect hands he'd clawed at a month ago.

"They mean sorry, right?" Yongguk asks, expression amiable. He angles his chin to the trash. "The white roses."

Daehyun's lips retain their cold line though the wet warmth wells up in Daehyun's eyes. He barely manages out a nod. Yongguk shifts slightly in bed, cheek against his pillow and eyes holding all the geniality in the world. "What does this batch mean?"

Daehyun gulps thickly, repressing the urge to break down into tears. "Innocence," he croaks, fingers trembling. "Fragility."

Yongguk hums, face so peaceful Daehyun thinks it's best he doesn't remember what Daehyun has done to him. Return Yongguk back to his beautiful state and let Daehyun, that shameful beast, sneak out with guilt breaking his back.

They remain in silence, the soft whirr of the air-conditioning bridging their presences. Daehyun wishes to attach their lips and have Yongguk smile halfway into their kiss, eyes crinkling like the beautiful rise of crescents in the starry night sky.

"You were the one who attacked me, weren't you?" Despite the accusation in his words, Yongguk's voice holds absolutely no malice and in fact, a much too generous sense of pardon. The scar on his face is deep. Daehyun yearns for Yongguk to just kill him already.

"...Yes," Daehyun breathes, a cracked sob chasing the end of his sole syllable. Yongguk lowers his head, lashes gently touching his pale cheeks. "What did you take from me?"

Daehyun can't answer that. He can't list the amount of things he'd stolen from Yongguk, a brutal robber dancing around Yongguk while the latter readily sat there and watched.

"A lot," Daehyun chokes, the tears building up so much he can't see Yongguk properly. Yongguk lets out a quiet breath. "Why'd you do it?" His face is veered towards Daehyun, head tilted one side and vulnerability shining through his gorgeous orbs.

"I was unhappy. I wanted more," Daehyun croaks, tears streaking angrily down his face. His stature falls into shambles in front of the man who can't even remember him as his lover of three years, passed off as a petty thief of a crime much smaller than his actual felony. It's a merciful conviction because the ers who beat up Yongguk that day has begrudgingly sinned less than Daehyun has over the years. Daehyun would gladly give up his soul to repair Yongguk back to the way he was.

"I forgive you." Yongguk's delicate words unleash fully the wetness clawing at Daehyun's eyes, the man's built wrecked with violent sobs and suppressed wails. He doesn't deserve this. Not at all.

"You don't know what I did to you," Daehyun whispers, words so frail he sounds foreign to himself. The tall empire state building collapsing for a man with a heart to rebuild it back by himself, despite the debris slashing through his chest.

"I can't remember it now, can I?" Yongguk chuckles softly. Daehyun nearly shakes his head, pleading for Yongguk not to laugh because Daehyun had tore it off of Yongguk's face since a long time ago. It stabs through his heart, the knife twisting and turning to spill blood.

"Whatever it was you needed from me, I hope you got it," Yongguk finishes, flashing a smile. Daehyun almost cackles derangedly at the irony. He'd pulled Yongguk apart in search of that freedom he was never bestowed with, but left realising the man himself was what he was looking for. Now, Yongguk's far gone from his grasp, along with the sinful years engraved into their skins.

"You should go," Yongguk urges, glancing to the door. "Himchan will be coming back in a few minutes." His smile brighten as he glances to the baby's breath.

"Thank you for the flowers." Yongguk purses his lips, looking around thoughtfully. "But there's already so much white in this room." He cheekily faces Daehyun, the latter's broken shadow falling behind them under the afternoon sun. "Can you get me another colour? Like..."

Yongguk mulls over it for a moment, uncertain. Daehyun holds back a wail and the desire to fling himself into Yongguk's arms. Have Yongguk his hair despite he himself being hurt, whispering soothing words and sweet nothings.

"Blue?" Daehyun wheezes, taking in Yongguk's features. Yongguk offers him another smile and Daehyun shatters again.

"I'd like that a lot."