The world is blindingly white, yet still too dark to make out anything but a lone gray figure in the distance; a silhouette of the most powerful being, ironically curled into a fetal position.

I am that figure.

Silence blows across this cold white expanse, chilling me to the bone, but it has no effect on me anymore; I am already frozen over. It takes my numbed senses a moment to realize the white-hot grip on my neck is in fact freezing, and another to realize that those hands around my raw neck were my own. The grip tightens, but I feel nothing.

I am not a part of my body: I am disconnected. I am trapped in white expanse – the prison of my mind; my hands by a cruel jailor who is none other than myself.

I can escape; I am quite capable of it: I am finally strong enough to break the bond. But I cannot bring myself to forget everything between us; I cannot bring myself to move on; to cut the strings. So I hang like a puppet, held up and controlled by thorn-like memories.

~  

The silence in the hospital ward is punctuated by the steady beeping of the cardiac machine connected to the body on the bed, as still as the silence is. In contrast, outside the hospital the air roars with noise as reporters and the media crew push against the barrier of policemen, trying to get impossible shots of the comatose man within the ward.

“How did this happen?”

“What is the reason behind his sudden health failure?”

“Has this man always had a disease that he had hidden from the world?”

The reporters are screaming out their questions, each too impatient for the previous man to finish his query, resulting in a jumble of harsh and forceful voices tarnishing what should be a clean and noise-free environment.

The nurse looks out of the window with disapproval clearly marring his perfect features. If he has the power to, he would shut all those impudent people up and send them home. He clearly holds no such power, however.

He looks at the figure lying on the bed; the reason for all this commotion. It isn’t like the hospital had never attended to VIPs before. They have – but…. He sighs, irritated: VIPs always leave commotion and chaos in their wake.

There isn’t one person who does not know Kim Jongin, and right now, probably the whole country can see him on their TV screens or hear his voice on the radio. It is the topic in trend – he is. Everyone is asking how he suddenly fell into a coma. There are no signs of an accident, no clues at all. He is a living mystery – barely living mystery, the nurse thought to himself.

He looks back at the man on the bed. With his eyes closed, he looks almost innocent, almost childlike, with that highbrow, and slightly parted pink lips; and the nurse can almost separate him from the corrupt, tyrannical identity that had ruined his, along with many others’ lives. The young nurse shakes his head suddenly like he was attacked by a nervous spasm – he can’t afford to think of Kim Jongin that way, not when he hate– not when he is his patient.

He walks away, glad that the patient, however powerful, lacked the ability to read minds when stuck in a coma.  

~

I may be benumbed, yet I am aware.

I remember.

I know. I feel everything.

But I can think of one thought alone.

You.

I crave you~

~

The man stops in his tracks, and slowly turns around.

His heart rate has increased…. doubled, within a second. He could swear someone was watching him.

His eyes glance towards the monitor showing the bedded man’s awareness and sees a sudden spike interrupt the steady green line.

The nurse’s heart rate triples. He knows I’m here.

~

I know that I am slowly dying, trapped in the darkest recesses of my mind, unable to stop the vicious clock in my heart tick closer to its end.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t try to resist.

You.

The thought makes me pound the ground, sending the ripples of silence in the air to grow into static waves.

You. The moonlight shining in the darkness that I stand in. You help me rise to my feet, guiding me up with the puppet strings my hands are still bound in. I follow every push and pull, turning into the tide, servant only to the moon; slave, only to you.

Why? –you may ask…

Because you make me smile. My eyes may look unfocused and deranged, my mouth stretched open like it’s a smile held in place by metal hooks alone. Yet it’s you that’s on my mind, and it’s you who makes me laugh like this.

Run away from me. Just try. You know, we both know I will chase you. I’ll chase you even if you run in the direction of my death.

~

Time has passed. It is five weeks since Kim Jongin has been admitted into hospital. The noise has died down, more than three quarter of the reporters have left, but peace has yet to dawn on the hospital.

The same nurse tends to the unmoving body on the bed. He has now gotten used to the stillness of the nationally hated man, the vulnerability of him. He has had countless thoughts of revenge, and the most ironic part was, he was capable of it: It was too easy – the all-powerful Kim Jongin lies in his palm.

But he has not made the fatal blow.

There is too much at risk, he keeps telling himself. He has family. He has his job. Money, food, shelter. He has too much to lose. He isn’t desperate. Yet.

He has not made the fatal blow. Yet.

~

I can feel your thorny embrace circle my body, reaching out, trying to snuff out my life, my existence, like I am a mere candle – too weak a flame to ever satisfy you, or to ever warm your cold frozen heart.

I, this small flame, lie in your palm, vulnerable. I can be snuffed out at any moment, without even a second thought given; I can be swallowed whole, engulfed – for I am nothing compared to you who is called ‘Thunder.’

Yet as small and as weak as I am before you, I refuse to be crushed. I will follow the trail you leave behind; I will haunt you as you haunted me.

Why?

The answer is so simple, I can spell it out for you:

L       O      V      E

~I was always addicted to you~

~

After months of stillness, a twitch. Not even an inch, not even a centimeter: just a millimeter, yet still, there is no denying that that little finger moved.

The nurse gulps. He is running out of time isn’t he?

He asks himself again: What have I left to lose?

~

Addicted….

I hear myself whisper the words, an ironic smile twitching up the side of my mouth. Those were the very words I told you, whispered into your ear. The last words I spoke….

Can you not remember?

~

It comes to the nurse in flashes. Everything he lost-

His younger brother’s life… His mother’s mind… His soul.

He remembered everything. It was too painful to simply forget.

~

The pain begins.

I am flung around. My head bangs against invisible walls slowly enclosing around me, and I feel as if my skull is about to split open from the pressure.

I am pulled to one side, just to be tossed the other way, dashing my chin on the floor. Sounds familiar? It’s the same way you manipulated me.

~

But now the time for pain was over. There is only so much you can feel before you start becoming numb.

Now, it is the time to pay back all those years he has waited patiently. It is the time for revenge.

He walks to the machines beside the bed. His eyes fall on the main switch, the life support.

It’s too easy. A single pull, a single tug is all it will take.

~

I push. I push against your pull. I keep pushing. But even that, you are using against me.

All my efforts backfire; I can hold against it no longer, and everything I have held back comes rushing at me at twice the force.

Blows my mind.

~

I can do it. Just watch me.

I can, and I will blow your mind…

~

I run.

Run closer to my end.

You.

Can’t you see?

~

Can’t you see? I’m just returning the favor.

I am going to do what you did to me.

~

You can’t leave me alone.

And why?

I laugh at the irony.

~

Cold, shivering hands touch the plug. Heart beats race, drowning out all other sounds. He can feel the surge of electricity beneath his fingers, all that power, pumping into that …that… you couldn’t say person, you couldn’t say human. …that being, all this power like a disgusting black leech. This being, that he has been watching – has been forced to watch – for months, counting each day as it goes by. This being, that he had seen every day, so much that he has memorized his very being, his very existence.

It could all end here.

~

~You are addicted to me~

~

Those cold hands grip the plug, and…

I fall to my knees, open my mouth wide, and with my last energy I ….

~

A/N:

If you are, by any chance, wowed by this... all credit should go to 카이! He is the source of inspiration for this Oneshot, and him alone. 

So, without further ado:

생일 축하 함니다~생일 축하 함니다~

사랑해 캼 종인아~

생일 축하 함니다~ <3

~사랑해~

And that is a perfect example of my epic fail at Korean >_<" Anyway. You get what I'm trying to say, right?

"Happy birthday, Kai. We love you."

<3

~