Chanyeol and Baekhyun are sitting in a living room that is adorned with vintage furniture, lace covers set on sofas and fancy crystal chandeliers dangling off the ceiling. Flora wallpaper curls around the room, the colours are pastel from age and there are places where some of it is peeling off to reveal the beige coat underneath. I’m just in the back of the room, barely there, fading into the background. Their chatter is inaudible, but they laugh, they are enjoying their time and not once have they looked this way.

  They seem to  love the time and fun their lives have at this moment, without even wondering for a split second when or how it will end. Just because Chanyeol survived countless operations and surgeries does not mean he’s immune to death. One day, sooner or later, it will get him, grab him and squeeze the air out of him until his eyes roll back and his lungs are shrivelled. Still, it’s like his death is the least of their worries. For them, its about the present, letting go of the past and not looking at the future. It’s all because, especially for Chanyeol, the future might not be as good as the now.

  Chanyeol cracks a joke, causing Baekhyun to break in a fit of laughter until tears well in his eyes. They bellow in contentment, slapping their thighs and clapping their hands. Happiness, so simple yet so precious. I don’t bother joining in when I’m looking straight ahead at the things they are oblivious to. I guess I’m like a photographer, I am there when everyone is smiling, I witness their joy, maybe you could even say I am a part of the entire scene, but in the future, everyone will forget I was there. Even I would forget.

  When I try to view the future, all I see is Chanyeol’s death certificate and the nurses saying I can be free now, but have I ever thought about the step afterwards? Now that I think about it, I can’t exactly imagine a life without Chanyeol. Before he got admitted to hospital, I spent every hour with him. Even when he was moved into the hospital, nothing much has changed. Everyday, he’d be the first person I see. Just imagining waking up, in a room, isolated, and looking for my brother only to realise he’s gone. I mean, him dying and being free was my dream from the beginning…

  … Right?

  I get up from my feet, taking baby steps over and their laughter now hits my ears. Chanyeol glances up at me, beams, and offers a seat. I gladly take it, but for some reason, my palms get all sweaty. Conversations aren’t my forte, unless the questions are about how Chanyeol is doing, and to that, I always reply with a ‘he’s dying more or less’. Today, I start off by ‘hello’ and asking both Chanyeol and Baekhyun what’s going on with their lives. Instead of a normal reply, coughing and wheezing rings in my ears, when I blink, Chanyeol is on his knees, fingernails digging in his throat. He is in pain, I can see that, but won’t he just survive yet another operation?

  This time, it is different, no nurses are rushing in and his skin turns pale. The only one by his side at this point is Baekhyun who is trying to get Chanyeol to breathe. He even performs CPR. That, for Chanyeol is not enough, and he coughs out his blood onto Baekhyun’s face and the crimson drops splatter onto my shoes. I stare at his squirming body, my face plastered with a frown.

  It’s time.

  His eyes go white.

  We’re nearly there.

  His lips go blue.

  He’s dead.

  Baekhyun is the first to cry, saying that my brother managed to always effortlessly make him laugh and realise how short life is and to cherish the smallest things. He whispers in Chanyeol’s hair of how Chanyeol taught him that even one breath is something to be grateful for, he promises that he will not depart forgotten. Baekhyun smiles, retelling all the stories he shared with Chanyeol, and though it seems like he’s narrating them all to me, I know they are dedicated to the boy limp in his arms. How long had they known each other? A few days, yet Chanyeol had created a much bigger impact on Baekhyun throughout those few hours than the years he spent with me.

  It just goes to prove that there’s more to the present than worrying about the future. Instead of immediately mourning and grieving over Chanyeol, I am just questioning myself. Asking myself of questions about Chanyeol, wondering why I wasn’t like Baekhyun; and realising that to me, he was a patient, hardly a brother. I don’t know what his favourite music is, his favourite food, his favourite colour, or the things he wanted to achieve in life. He was just a sick and dying patient who had his death already mapped out for him. All those days I spent hoping for him to die, they were just opportunities for me to adore his existence.

  And now, I’ve lost all those opportunities.

  Life is about living, not about thinking of dying. It’s only now that I realise, but at this moment, it’s far too late.

  Now, I cry. I fall off the chair and Baekhyun catches me, placing my shivering body against Chanyeol’s still and cold corpse. I breathe onto his mouth, whispering and pleading into his ear with every breath I take, “Catch my breaths and come back to me.”

  “Why is my sister crying in her sleep?”

  My eyes flicker open, the brightness of the room blazing at my hooded eyes. Tears are dried to my face and my hair is plastered to my cheek and is ruffled like a bird nest on top. Chanyeol is on a wheelchair, eyes a little dazed from the sedatives of the operation and Baekhyun is steering the chair from behind. I touch Chanyeol’s face, confirming this isn’t an illusion.

  Oh thank goodness. It was just a horrible and daunting nightmare, he’s alive. Never before have I had so much relief seeing him back from an operation. I get up, and grasp his brittle frame to my body, breathing in his scent, crying in his hair. When the drugs wear off, he won’t remember this moment. He won’t remember me crying, he won’t remember me living, and sadly, he won’t remember me so glad he’s alive.

  But I know for sure, I’m going to remember. My brother has a life, a life with a limit, but a life that for now, he is given the chance to live.

Right now, that’s all that matters.