One month

Jonghyun comes back home from a busy day and finds his mother staring blankly at the TV in front of her. She doesn’t blink once as Jonghyun helps her shift into a lying down position and gently throws a blanket over her. He kisses her on the forehead once and her lips curl slightly as she tries to smile at him.

Jonghyun decides not to tell her the news and thinks he never will and sleeps on it.



The next day Jonghyun finds himself sitting in a cosy little café at the corner of the street nursing on an extra hot cup of coffee to heat up the blood flowing through his veins.
Across him sits Taemin and Minho and they’re discussing their wedding plans.
Jonghyun’s never had a problem with Taemin and Minho being together. But he feels pressure pushing down on his body when he looks at them. They’re together and they’re happy and Jonghyun’s never been happy with anyone for a while. Considering the circumstances, he figures that he should probably get on to that.

“You’re coming right?” Minho asks him, referring to the wedding.

“Yeah,” Jonghyun lies.

At that moment a boy walks into the café and orders something. His hair is black, streaks of red going down his fringe. His pants look tight yet he paces comfortably in them as he waits for his order to arrive.

He locks eyes with Jonghyun and he smiles at him. Jonghyun unconsciously shoots him a shy smile back.



The next day Jonghyun is back at the café because he has some gut feeling that the boy would be there—which he is. The boy locks eyes with Jonghyun again but this time he looks away shyly.

Jonghyun’s legs are wobbling as he tries to walk over to where he’s sitting but a taller guy beats him to it, sitting opposite of him. He and the boy look at each other once more before Jonghyun walks away in defeat.



That night Jonghyun lies wide awake in his bed as he counts the cracks in the ceiling. He thinks about that boy and he thinks about how soft his lips must be. He thinks about what it would be like to hold his hand and walk through the park with him in the cold. He imagines the boy snuggling closer to his body to keep himself warm. Jonghyun smiles at the thought.

Jonghyun sets his last goal in life which is to have this boy and love him.


Two months

Jonghyun hasn’t stopped thinking about the boy since he first saw him and coincidentally, Taemin and Minho invited him to join them for dinner. Jonghyun feels the need to dress up nicely. He checks himself in the mirror and rehearses some lines in his head. He’s not going to go to dinner unprepared. When it comes to a beautiful boy like that, thorough preparation is complete necessity.

At dinner, everyone waits for their food to arrive. Jonghyun casually asks Taemin and Minho how they know Kibum—or Key as he introduced himself—and Taemin tells Jonghyun that he’s known Key since he was little.

Jonghyun turns his head sideways to look at Key—who is sitting next to him—and mentally comments on how beautiful he looks and he doesn’t realise that he’s been staring for a long time until Key’s velvet-like voice asks him, “What are you looking at?”

Jonghyun keeps the stuttering to a minimum when he replies, “You look nice.”

Key smirks like he knows that he looks nice and Jonghyun chuckles at his cockiness.

The food arrives and suddenly it turns into a race to see who gets to eat what out of the small variety of food.



Taemin and Minho bid their farewells and Jonghyun offers to walk the beautiful Key home. Key smiles shyly and they walk together slowly. The wind brushes against their faces and Jonghyun feels Key’s hand brush up against his and—almost on instinct—looks at him. Jonghyun makes the first, bold move and intertwines their hands together and Key doesn’t seem to mind at all, especially when he inches closer to him.


5 months

Jonghyun falls down while walking up the stairs and before he can fall backwards his beautiful boyfriend catches him and helps him walk up the rest of the way. Key laughs and jokes that Jonghyun’s getting old and Jonghyun grins, spontaneously catching Key’s lips in the empty staircase.


6 months

Jonghyun comes home one day and finds his mother lying on the couch. He kneels beside her and whispers in her ear that he loves her very much and tries shaking her in order to wake her up. He spends twenty minutes trying to wake her up and eventually settles with the inevitable. He calls for an ambulance and waits until they arrive.

They pronounce her death before they get to the hospital and Jonghyun cries while holding her cold, lifeless hand.

Jonghyun then thinks to himself, ‘at least she didn’t know,’ because if she did know, then she wouldn’t have died peacefully.



Jonghyun avoids Key for two weeks and even went to live with Taemin and Minho. While he stays there, they tend to his every need without reluctance and even plan the funeral for him. Key calls almost every hour pleading him to come back and apologising for something he never did and Jonghyun feels sorry for him. He finally calls Key back but doesn’t tell him what happened. He just tells him that he’ll come back home soon.



Jonghyun goes to see Key the day right after the funeral and Key doesn’t question his dishevelled appearance at all and skips straight to enveloping him in a tight hug. Jonghyun wraps his arms around his waist and kisses him softly on the neck.


10 months

Jonghyun faints one day and is sent to the hospital, almost sending his boyfriend into cardiac arrest.

Key waits anxiously in the waiting room while the doctors explain to Jonghyun that his health is deteriorating quickly and Jonghyun pleads to the doctors not to tell Key and the doctor nods, ordering someone to bring Key into the room.



Jonghyun visits Minho one day with a painful aching in his head and in his heart (literally and figuratively). Minho offers him a drink and Jonghyun declines, wanting to get straight to the point.

“You okay buddy?” Minho asks and Jonghyun shakes his head.

“There’s some important things I need to tell you,” Jonghyun says and Minho makes a face like he already knows.

“I wish you and Taemin the best and I also want to apologise in advance for not making it to your wedding.”

Minho looks at him doubtfully. “Why?”

“Because I know how much you want me to come but I’m not so I’m apologising.”

Minho shakes his head. “No, why aren’t you coming?” Minho seems a little bit aggravated as well as incredibly curious and Jonghyun tries to keep a straight face.

“I don’t have long.”

“You don’t have long for what?”

Jonghyun sighs and looks around everywhere and yells at the Gods why the hell this has to happen to him.

“Doctors tell me I don’t have long.”

Suddenly everything in Minho’s head clicks and he feels himself run out of breath with an uncontrollable feeling piling up in his stomach and he feels like he’s about to explode.

“How…How long have you known?” Minho stutters.

“Almost a year”

“How much do you have left?”

“A couple of months…Maybe a month or two.”

Minho bows his head and his fingers hold a tight grip on his hair. He looks back up at Jonghyun and asks him, “What about Key? Have you told him?”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “I don’t plan on telling him. I don’t want him to feel burdened.”

“You have to tell him,” Minho orders him and Jonghyun could already see his eyes filling up with water.

Jonghyun shakes his head. “Even if I tell him, there’s nothing he can do.”

“Maybe there’s—“

“No,” Jonghyun deadpans.

The two get up at the same time and Jonghyun wraps his arms around him. “Take care of him.”

Minho hugs him back. “I will.”

“You’ve been a good friend,” Jonghyun says as they let go.

Minho salutes him, as if to tell him, ‘you too,’ and Jonghyun leaves, knowing this will be the last time to see his best friend.


11 months

Key is snuggling up against Jonghyun’s chest listening to his heart beat against his ears and he drowns in the sound. Jonghyun’s fingers are twirling strands of his hair leisurely and he thinks about how much he wants everything to stay like this.

“Jonghyun,” Key whispers and Jonghyun looks down at him lovingly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you love me?” Key asks.

Jonghyun’s fingers run through Key’s soft hair and messes it up a little but for once, Key’s too lazy to scold and fix it up. Jonghyun’s hand brushes against Key’s lips and Key kisses it gently before Jonghyun wraps both his arms around him.

“I’ll always love you,” Jonghyun whispers and he tries his best not to cry.

“Always?”

Key shifts and straddles Jonghyun, his eyes pleading for an answer and he looks genuinely doubtful. Jonghyun’s hands run up and down his sides and he sits up to kiss Key on the cheek. Then the jaw. Then his other cheek and then finally planting one on his lips.

“Always. I promise.”


13 months

Jonghyun looks back at Key who’s sleeping peacefully on the bed. He leaves a letter at the bedside table and he kisses Key lightly on the forehead.

“I love you,” he whispers and lightly brushes the hair out of his face. Key shifts a little a mumbles things Jonghyun can’t understand.

Jonghyun ends up sprinting out of the apartment and goes back home to where he used to live with his mother.
He wants to die like his mother—peacefully. He wants to close his eyes and never open them again. He wants to die without feeling pain and he wants to die where his loved ones won’t be near. He doesn’t want Key to have to take care of him afterwards.



Key wakes up that morning and is sad and confused to see his bed empty. He gets up, has a shower and then dresses up for Taemin and Minho’s wedding. He goes over to the bedside table to put on the necklace Jonghyun had bought him a little after they started dating.
He notices a letter and he opens it curiously and sits on the bed.

“Key,” he reads and smiles when he notices its Jonghyun’s messy handwriting. “I’ll always love you. Always.”


15 months

Key stares at the tombstone and all he can think about is how fast everything went.

 “I love you,” Key whispers and the wind carries his words to the sky. “Always.”

Fin.

~~~~~~~~~~

A/N:

Just going to leave this little angsty thing here...
I'll update my chaptered fic soon.
SOON.

Ignore the errors.

Comments are loved <3