Blue

To don a three-piece suit on purpose without having just left the office reminds Daehyun of their first few dates. Dressed to impress because it was always the same for every fling, to draw them in into a pretty dream to have it get torn bit by bit like peeling wallpaper from a grand mansion. Youngjae still hasn't replied when Daehyun texted him about having wired a hefty sum into his bank account for dragging Himchan out for lunch everyday, and that had been a few minutes ago. He's not actually nervous about the reply but more of that he'd told himself he'd go in the moment Youngjae answers him.

He's waiting for you. It'd been a simple message, but Daehyun had lingered outside and used Youngjae as a pathetic excuse to avoid a man who he couldn't give a damn about months ago. Yongguk had been waiting for years so what exactly was the difference? Did it really take bruises and the reversal of time for Daehyun to finally feel remorse for the scars he'd branded Yongguk with? As Daehyun stares down at the bouquet in his hands, he wonders if the heavens had waited for Daehyun to come to his senses but ultimately pitied Yongguk so badly they erased Yongguk of his pain.

Daehyun has sent out people to find out who exactly brought Yongguk to his knees that fateful, dreadful day. Ordered to kill as mercilessly as possible, everyone of them as long as they're close enough suspects -- the least Daehyun can do for Yongguk.

"Sir?" Daehyun abruptly cranes his neck up at the nurse who smiles lightly, an eyebrow raised. "Would you like to go in? You've already registered at the counter so you're allowed to go in." Daehyun stares at her, and for the first time in his artificially constructed life, he awkwardly nods. The metal doorknob is cold and hostile; even the non-living demands protection for Yongguk from a monster wrecking havoc on the beautiful countryside.

Daehyun inhales deeply. He presses down on the handle and pushes the door open, gaze meeting a figure with a book in his hands. Yongguk lifts his head, eyes holding all the summer breezes and invisible cicadas the meadows gladly shared with him. Daehyun averts his gaze because he doesn't deserve to look nature in the eyes and swallows thickly, observing the man-made patterns in the concrete floor.

"Hi."

Daehyun snaps his head up, slumping in dull agony. Yongguk smiles lightly, his book now placed downwards on his lap covered by the blanket. The white behind him is reminiscent of a canvas, Yongguk as the masterpiece who never acknowledged himself as one. He'd let Daehyun grab the scissors and harsh pencils in the foolish belief that Daehyun, under the guise of a man as gentle and detailed as Picasso, would help him flourish into a better man. If only he'd known Daehyun was merely a petty, embittered artist on the streets sickly determined to ruin whoever had a higher chance at happiness than him.

"Hey." Daehyun's voice is hoarse and weak. Yongguk persists in his smiling, barely making it seem like an arduous task to persevere in when even Daehyun's own parents had to force themselves to look joyful in their screwed-up son's presence.

"Youngjae and Jongup brought Himchan out to eat," Yongguk says, his lashes fluttering in such a delicate manner butterflies could only hope to emulate. Daehyun continues to stare stupidly, wondering how exactly he'd found it in himself to destroy someone so beautiful.

"Oh." The air-conditioning is soft but it still masks Yongguk's soft breaths, juxtaposed against Daehyun's gruff exhales. Daehyun remains by the doorframe, afraid to approach.

"Would you like to take a seat?"

Daehyun stands motionlessly, lump in his throat a tumour for all his sins. "I- no, it's alright. I just... came to deliver the flowers." Choppy sentences, bland words, tone of falling apart and broken wings. No pretensious laughter by the razor's edge, paychecks and politician-like lies in syllables. Where did all the speaking classes go?

Daehyun makes no move to hand Yongguk the flowers. He glances to the nearby shelf and hangs his head low, reaching out to place them there.

"I'm lonely," Yongguk whispers it like a confession but Daehyun knows Yongguk is never courageous enough to think just for himself. A chance at redemption rings through his words, a chance for Daehyun to forgive himself because Yongguk has long forgiven him even in the depths of his comatose. That's who Bang Yongguk is. That's not who Jung Daehyun is.

That simple sentence begets tears from Daehyun and he shuffles over at an excruciatingly slow pace. He uncertainly holds out the bouquet, the memory of his very own unbreakable stature and charming smile directed towards Yongguk on Valentine's Day so foreign and unbelievable. Yongguk softly thanks him, admiring the bouquet lovingly.

"Blue roses." Daehyun nods in return, refusing to occupy the chair by Yongguk's side. "I didn't know blue roses could be grown."

"...They can't," Daehyun replies quietly. "I specifically requested for the white roses to be dyed blue." Yongguk hums in intrigue, fingers grazing the pigmentated petals. He asks, "What do they mean?"

"Something impossible to have," Daehyun croaks. Yongguk's smile melts into a purse of the lips and Daehyun wants to rush over to piece it back together. "That's sad," Yongguk mumbles, regarding the blue roses in a new light.

They sink into silence, ready to be drowned with all the willingness the world can lament. "It matches your suit," Yongguk compliments while glancing to navy blue sleeves, rounding off his praise with a bashful chuckle. "You look really smart today." Daehyun slips into a trance, heartbeat doubling like falling deeper underwater.

"Not that you didn't, the first time we met," Yongguk clarifies, that same shy grin painting his glowing cheeks. The reality bashes Daehyun straight through the head as he darts his eyes away, nodding. To Yongguk, the first time they met was a few days ago. He's just the criminal who beat him up for money and landed him in the hospital. To Daehyun, it was three long years ago.

"You should sit," Yongguk coaxes, tender blinks allowing the demon to sit in the presence of a battered angel. Daehyun stiffly presses his knees together, watching Yongguk like an ambitious boy reaching out for the stars under a twinkling empryean.

"They remind me of winter," Yongguk muses, thumbing the floral petals and letting the bouquet rest in his arms. It eerily reminds Daehyun of the dead and he nearly jumps forward when Yongguk shuts his eyes momentarily.

"What does blue mean to you?" The question strikes Daehyun oddly as he observes the way Yongguk's lips arch into his cheeks, how his eyes sketch down to the edges when he smiles. Curves, especially of his female flings, always remind him of race car tracks that demand fast paces, ferocious desire to win and split-second crashes to be robbed of everything. Yet the arcs decorating Yongguk's face are reminiscent of pathways in the countryside, winding down endlessly to give meaning to the journey.

"Oceans," Daehyun decides, thinking of the overwhelming vast expanses and the onsetting panic in never finding the golden shore. Yongguk mulls over it as expected; even if the response is the stupidest bull anyone can come up with, Yongguk is always polite enough to give it a thought. "That's interesting. Oceans... They remind me of light."

Daehyun perks up at the strange response, on a completely different wavelength from his thoughts. Oceans are devoid of light. They fall to a ceaseless depth so dark it ignites fear in nyctophiliacs. They are intensely overwhelming, fully consuming and a hundred percent merciless with the weeds that coil around feet and sharks that rip you flesh by flesh.

"When you swim upwards towards the surface," Yongguk explains, seeing Daehyun's bewildered face, "the light refracts really prettily through the water." Of course. Yongguk would always have a flipped perspective from Daehyun's sour, resentful one. While Daehyun though of the ocean as a threat, wanting to swallow him up and drown him for good, Yongguk thought of buoyant waves and soaring upwards to meet the sun.

"...What does blue mean to you?" Daehyun questions inaudibly. Yongguk delicately nibbles on his knuckle and answers, "Love."

The response makes Daehyun's cartilage shatter into pitiful smithereens. "Why?" He asks, breath trailing his question.

"Blue is so versatile, don't you think?" Yongguk shares. "Just like love. It can be sad, menacing, and even painful, and yet so bright, happy and hopeful the next moment." Yongguk dissolves into a smile so pretty it redefines every word in Daehyun's dictionary, revoking countless examples listed under the most hateful words.

"No matter what shade of blue, they're all beautiful," Yongguk says, sanguine expression ghosting his pale cheeks. "Like love."

Daehyun nods barely, gritting his teeth to hold back the wet warmth of self-punishment down his cheeks. His fingers tremble and the noose around his neck tightens so badly he wants to keel over and hope his decomposed corpse will be accepted by the gentle soil Yongguk blooms from. He would give up everything to make Yongguk's life better.

"I asked Himchan if I fell in love over the years that I forgot," Yongguk confesses. Daehyun almost cracks his neck in his haste to meet Yongguk's eyes. His furrowed eyebrows insinuate clearly an attempt to recollect and it has anxiety clawing at Daehyun's chest, his feet ready to dash out and escape in case Yongguk remembers how truly terrible Daehyun is. Run into the night as the reverse of Notre Dame, a charming cover with heinous insides. He is the real life Phantom of the Opera who was never allowed to give his own kisses and had never received one himself, yet Yongguk had willingly showered him loving embraces and warm touches. The tragic story of the Phantom, Christine and Raoul, where the Phantom locked away Christine and kept her away from her one true love, Raoul. In this twisted version, however, Christine had gladly loved the Phantom back as the Phantom had ripped the foolish her away from Raoul, a boy who could give her the world.

Daehyun wishes Himchan had been firmer. If Himchan had fought harder instead of dwelling in self-sacrifice and eternal heartbreak (since the childhood days, where Himchan would punch boys twice his size to protect the mute five year old), perhaps Yongguk would never have fallen into the despicable hell Daehyun blindfolded with love and lead him into.

"He said I didn't." Rain begins to patter down on the windows, streaking down with gradually growing fervor. It beats down on the glass, the heavens remorseful for having put a flower like Yongguk through a tidal wave of blood and weapons. Left to die on the man-made concrete where something so associated with Mother Nature and the beauty of the world never had the chance to survive.

"Youngjae sighed and left the room the moment he said that," Yongguk admits feebly. The look in his eyes, so hopeful yet so forlorn, has Daehyun wanting to rip out his heart and beg Yongguk to use his life essence to patch himself up. Yongguk's fingers are frail and thin, drumming a tempo on his gaunt thighs.

"Do you think," Yongguk pauses, almost afraid to say the words, "someone else will come see me?" Daehyun makes the mistake of letting a tear slip, inciting a ripple effect from his dark, sinister, sea-like eyes. He's sorry. He's so ing sorry that Yongguk has to feel conflicted over keeping the faith of having fallen in love and being despondent over his missing lover. What's the use of being sorry when the damage is already done? No matter how many apologies, the wounds will still leave scars. But perhaps, the degree Yongguk is suffering now is much better than if he ever found out his lover was the cause of his ghastly accident and deadly amnesia.

"Whoever does," Daehyun chokes out, stumbling over his restrained wails reminiscent of his earlier yells in the morning to a bed of him alone, "even if he does, he's a bastard. A goddamn, ing bastard for coming so late. He doesn't deserve you. He doesn't." His fingers dig into his thighs so hard Yongguk worriedly reaches over. Daehyun looks up with despairing, distressed eyes as Yongguk guides Daehyun's rough, lethal hands away.

Yongguk's skin is still silky and smooth like that of a newborn's. Daehyun apologetically pulls his filthy, filthy hands from the seraph's acquitting fingers and drops his head low. Yongguk gifts Daehyun with quietness to put himself back together and regain composure, smoothen over a mishap so Daehyun retains his debonair, sophisticated profile.

"You said he," Yongguk whispers with a hint of a chuckle. "Not she." Yongguk regards sore eyes with respect, not probing Daehyun's right to privacy. "Were you assuming something?" Yongguk narrows his eyes jokingly, voice teasing and lighthearted. Pretend Daehyun never broke down out of nowhere to save him the embarrassment as Yongguk is just that bloody considerate.

Daehyun's phone vibrates.

Back in five minutes. The text message from Youngjae reads. Daehyun scrolls down.

Not everything is about money.

"Do you have to go?" Yongguk asks, the slightest tinge of disappointment setting off insanity in Daehyun. Daehyun wants to tell him he'll stay as long as he wants, even though it'll never make up for the times he left Yongguk all alone in his misery, but he can't because Prince Charming is returning to chase Rumplestiltskin away.

"Can I at least know your name?" Yongguk utters. Daehyun loses himself in orbs of rivers, not the malevolent ones that kill but streams where salmon reside and rainbows embrace, and apologetically lowers his head.

"...It's okay." Yongguk pulls up a smile, caressing the flowers in his arms. Daehyun envisions Yongguk with a child, affectionate and tender. It's a breathtaking sight Daehyun does not ever want to taint. "If I see blue, I'll think of you."

Azure, sapphire, cerulean. Yongguk's simper colours the room with baby blue, optimistic and innocent. Daehyun nods.

--

They used to curl up on the bed and watch cheap movies after , Daehyun drafting out smoke from his lips as he thumbed through his documents while Yongguk mulled over whether to curl up against Daehyun's arm. smelled like just that, , to Daehyun, but Yongguk interpreted it as a mountain of things like faith, love, and happiness. Perhaps it was why despite how rough Daehyun was, ing hard and fast into Yongguk despite Yongguk's pained whimpers and his sharp grip on the sheets, Yongguk always let Daehyun have his way with him. He mistook lust for love and thought the way Daehyun pinned him to the counter, ripping through his button-down shirt and taking him raw (the blood mixing with Daehyun's release), was a sign of affection. He found love in Daehyun's impatient fists and forceful pounding.

It was more of a formality, really, to spend time with Yongguk like this even though it was a waste of time. Daehyun never liked these kind of entertainment, anyway. He thought indulging in fiction was useless and only read to accomplish the appearance of being literate. He thought it pathetic to create and enjoy a dream world that never existed, that could never happen. All fiction came from failed aspirations that could never be realised, Daehyun believed, because he once wrote of love stories at the age of twelve hoping to find his Rapunzel's castle, only to find her delivered to his doorstep.

"Daehyun."

Daehyun grunted in return, nudging Yongguk off when fingers coiled around his forearm. He sorted through his legal printings, sighing in frustration upon realising he'd left a file at the office.

"Are you watching?" Yongguk laughed, falling back into the headboard. "If you're not, I'll switch it off."

"Yeah, yeah, I am," Daehyun dismissed, disgruntled by the fact he couldn't catch up on work with the few sheets he'd left behind. "What's it about, then?" Yongguk asked, voice teasing and not at all interrogating. Still, in a bad mood, Daehyun veered his eyes to the screen with an irritated scoff and blinked to see a familiar movie playing.

A Moment to Remember. The story of a loving wife who contracted Alzheimer's disease early and gradually forgot her grievous husband. This was his favourite movie when he was young as it was filled with romance, and demonstrated how true love could last through all obstacles. How laughable, how atrocious.

"The fire broke out," Daehyun snapped back as he watched the couple talk back and forth with the doctor. He did not reveal having watched the movie before in wanting to prove Yongguk wrong. The man beside him blinked in surprise as Daehyun victoriously smirked, placing away his documents and sinking back into the headboard.

"I didn't know you were watching it," Yongguk mused, melting into a light smile. Daehyun rolled his eyes and retorted, "Well, now you know." He relaxed and watched the movie, nostalgia clambering onto his back. He thought he would be like the husband when he grew up -- be loyal and protecting, to stay by his lover's side and triumph over the test of time. It was highly ironic.

In any case, the way the marriage was portrayed in the movie was so illogical and ridiculous. It sugarcoated the reality of "love" everyone so pined for that was imbued with pain, anger and hatred. Hurtful words to never be wiped away, unerasable mistakes, intents of convenience, a prison carved from responsibilities and suffocating burdens. It was a good thing that in the movie got Alzheimer's because it was better not to remember their happy times. The moment you've got one end of the spectrum, the other end of it becomes so much more disparate since you have something to juxtapose it against. If you'd just remained on Earth and never got to go to Heaven, you'll never know how bad you have it in Hell since you don't know how great your afterlife could be.

"Hey," Daehyun muttered, biting on his thumb, and Yongguk hummed patiently back. "If you got her disease and you could choose one thing to remember, what would it be?"

"Hm... how about you answer first?" Yongguk mumbled, thinking hard over the question. Daehyun easily replied, "My position in the company." Yongguk nodded, hand hovering over Daehyun's fingers but pulling away at the last minute. "You got an answer?" Daehyun drawled.

"...You," Yongguk admitted sincerely, not an ounce of weightless sweet nothings in his speech. Daehyun glanced at him skeptically and grunted carelessly, fixating his eyes on the television. "It'd be interesting if we could forget and remember what we wanted," Daehyun brooded. Yongguk nodded and gingerly got up, wincing at the pain shooting through his back. His arms were covered with red marks in the shapes of violent fingers, meant to brand him as Daehyun's and no one else's. Yongguk pulled the blanket off him, revealing milky thighs and a flat stomach, and covered himself up by pressing a crumpled shirt to his lower body.

"Would you forget pain if you could?" Daehyun questioned out of curiousity. Yongguk glimpsed back at him with a wry smile, hobbling out of the room to take a shower.

"If I did that, I wouldn't remember you."