Drown me in amnesia; bury what memories refuse to be forgotten.

“Have you heard the story of cranes in the afterlife Jongdae?” Lu Han was seated, arms propped against the window sill. It was a sight that Jongdae often walked into, Lu Han’s gaze caught somewhere between the veil keeping the stars from the earth and the gates of faraway clouds from the here and now.

But for now, restless brown eyes glanced across the room, darting, skimming over seemingly random objects scattered in mid-air. Silently, Jongdae broke away from his gaze tracing the almond curves of doe eyes open wide as they lead to the soft upturn of his nose rather reluctantly. His fingers deftly caught hold of the IVF saline bag, plastic casing empty, and he replaced it without the slightest glance as his hands moved of their own accord, twisting, capping and dropping back into place.

He held back the twist of his smile, the awareness that this was too familiar the way heart scans had to be furtively checked every few moments and scribbled onto pre-scripted forms.

“No, I don’t think so.” Jongdae shook his head slowly, hands stilling and dropping to his side as Lu Han’s glances finally came to a stop, resting on Jongdae with a firm gaze and alive with a slow fire that had been reduced to pale embers for a while now.

“When I was little, my parents told me that when a person dies, a flock of cranes would carry them on their wings up to heaven. The closer you are to death, the more clearly you hear the sound of the cranes.” The wistful smile across Jongdae’s face faltered with the dregs of dread collecting in his chest and washing up along his sides as he noticed that faraway turn of Lu Han’s glassy hazel eyes. They had turned in on themselves, reflecting the cavernous space hidden beneath the single layer of amber, as his pale fingers repeatedly clenched and released the blanket across his lap, sheets twisting around his finger.

Jongdae followed the rise and fall of his lips, read it as he would the characters off pale paper as he noted that his eyes were still lost within themselves. The words, he repeated within himself, silently.

“I hear the cranes Jongdae, I can hear them coming close.”

-----

“Hey Jongdae, what day’s the 28th?” Lu Han was seated, the tip of a pen quietly working its way across a calendar in his hand. Jongdae turned, momentarily pausing to run through days and numbers in his head.

“It’s a Friday I think.”

“Hm, that’s good. Friday’s when everyone is winding down. The bars would be open with free flow you know? You think there’d be anyone drowning away the fact that I passed on with alcohol? It would be convenient, easier to forget.” And he smiled, lips pulled up wistfully on one end while the other seemed to be tugging at something tucked between Jongdae’s ribs.

“Haha that’s really funny Lu Han. The only alcohol that’s going to be around that day is in the alcohol wipes in the surgery room.” His voice fell flat, accompanied by toneless laughter as the calender was set down, pen capped tightly and returned to the side table.

At a glance, Jongdae quietly took note that a red marker boldly crossed out a single day on the calendar, a single day among all the others. But as he leant over saline bags attached close by, the tiny details on yellow squares came into focus, highlighting the subtle difference in the scribbled black and the void absence of it, of events and reminders, beyond the red-cross.

The hour ended quietly, words sparse and brittle, what with the fear that each syllable stole another grain of time, another second from the slowly depleting reserves beneath Lu Han’s skin. Jongdae felt a tug on his fingers as he was about to leave, thin fingers clasped around his palm.

“Hey Jongdae, my weak heart just needs a short check up. So attention seeking. I’ll be good as new right after so don’t worry.” And within seconds, Lu Han was smiling off the severity, pushing away the claustrophobic hold of quiet suspense with hesitant laughs and a drifting gaze.

Jongdae could only offer comfort in a terse nod, fingers clenched around another report in red print, hidden beneath used sheets.

-----

“Jongdae, Jongdae it’s Baekhyun. Where are you? I couldn’t find you in your apartment. I’m worried. Do you need me to pick you up? Want me to come over to where you are?”

His words were slurred, slipping on the heavy bitterness that had settled at the base of his tongue, consonants and vowels tripping and sliding into each other.

“No... it’s... it’s fine. You can’t pick up that many pieces of me anyways.” There was a distended chuckle, a knife grating against his throat.

“Jongdae?”

His hand fell forward, eyes threading together the blurred letters swimming across his vision into a name, but it wasn’t the right name, it wasn’t the five letters he wanted to see.

His finger drifted over the buttons, registering the blotch of red against black.

Fumbling, the red smudge was pressed, a short, sharp click heard as feedback as the line went dead.

----

There were people beside him, solemn eyes held downcast and hands tucked restless into their pockets.

He recognised the faces, now veiled by shadows beneath fluorescent lights and overbright surroundings. Doctors, nurses, anyone who had the pleasure of spending a few sparse moments with the porcelain boy in egg white sheets, now stood in silent wait beneath lingering traces of blessings and luck

.

It seemed time had arrived at the red marked cross with petty impatience, his pleas and short whispers overlooked by a brief condescending gaze.

“If you don’t mind, I have something to pass before the surgery. Jongdae?” His head lifted at the mention of his name, straight lipped silence rearranging itself into an uplift, muscles strained as they were held in place.

A small folded piece of yellow was pressed into his palm, a butterfly touch as pale fingers hovered over his upturned hand.

“Pass this to him please? Just in case.”

Jongdae found grains of sand and time rubbing against his throat, wondering why it was that the flow of unrefined sand slowed at the worst of moments, preventing words and syllables from being uttered easily through parched lips. But eventually the words tumbled out, accompanied by a fervent nod as the tremble in his fingers were forcefully stilled and the fragile, flyaway paper was carefully tucked into his pocket.

“Of course.”

“Thank you. For everything.”

“It was nothing.”

Just pieces of your heart strung out in the open that I couldn’t hold onto, couldn’t save from the winter wind. But the words were only for Jongdae to echo in his thoughts as he took a step back in silent retreat.

Moments after, Lu Han was whisked away between sheets of starched white amidst a sea of frantic blue.  Jongdae heard hushed whispers, words of encouragement and sorrow encompassed in misshapen drops rolling off cheeks and streaking pale skin. He turned down to see unseeing amber hardened over, ears unhearing as they passed corridors and turned around silent corners. Maybe it was irrationality taking over Jongdae’s rigid arms, a momentary delusion as he walked through time as though through water. His hands reached forward, landing on thin butterfly fingers and he lifted it with porcelain care. Subconsciously, he began to rub circles onto them, hoping to imprint the feel of life and vigour dissipating from the figure beside him into the tips of his fingers and ink it into memory.

Jongdae caught movement at the edge of his vision, pooling gold as dull embers responded and fairy dusted cheeks were pulled up in a tired smile.

There were words to be said, words hanging off the tip of his tongue, off a cliff yet the final step was never taken, never attempted. Jongdae continued to walk wordlessly, in step with the feet beside him, hasty across smooth linoleum and wallpapered walls. Because a simple “you’ll be fine” did injustice to the heavy smothering air, a truth denied translation into audible sound in the open.

Instead, he replaced them with a shared hope, a wish to be fulfilled. “You’ll find your happy ending.” And as the boy with the porcelain countenance and brittleness of eggshells disappeared behind closed metal doors, Jongdae blamed the watering of his eyes on the strong scent of nauseating disinfectant thickly overlaying the scent of despair, attempting to mask its guilty fingerprints across pastel walls.

----

There was a steady throb in Jongdae’s chest as he counted the seconds spent waiting, each moment resounding louder than the one preceding in his ears.

So he walked, ears trained onto the steady rhythm of rubber against linoleum to calm erratic heartbeats and an overwhelming silence that was too loud, too stark. And with the slow crawl of time beside him, he became increasingly aware of the two pastel blue walls around him and the plaster white ceiling above, reminded by clenched fists and nails digging sharply in his palm to leave behind red, angry indents in his skin.

Eventually, time melded into the walls and air and the sound of footsteps along the corridor petered off to leave only solitary silence and a single bowed figure in wait.

----

“I’m sorry.”

“I know the two of you were close.”

“He was something special to all of us. It’s a pity really.”

“Jongdae I know it might hurt but we need to settle some matters. Would you mind ringing up the number registered under his name? We need to inform them.”

Jongdae looked up, at politely concerned faces, personal anguish well hidden beneath an unfortunate heart forced into a concrete mold. And he found himself letting slip a tired smile, eyes crinkling if only to console and possibly allow a trickle of water to be shed from frozen veins.

“No, I understand. I’ll finish it immediately.”

He walked away in steps forced steady, the tremors held at bay. Somewhere along the way, he felt the beginnings of a skein of ice spreading beneath his skin to numb what had once been flowing beneath the surface of his skin.

---

Leaning against windows tinted a faint rose pink in the afternoon light, Jongdae held the plain yellow paper and turned it over between his fingers. There was script within the paper, simple black ink slowly bleeding through and staining the yellow.

Somewhat like his own pallor wasn’t it? Blood and open emotions seeping through pale, paper thin skin.

It took him a few slips, shaking fingers missing the corners of the paper pressed together before it was unfolded. Quick eyes scanned through the carefully sculpted letters, pausing, tripping over the characters as the words echoed in Jongdae’s ears, in the familiar echo of a lilting sweet voice, of blustery autumn days and silent springs in February, which ended with a soft ring.

It seems so long ago that I asked a simple favour of you, a favour for which I never got the chance to repay you for and I expect you would never seek payment for. And I know it was with gullible innocence that I had accepted the letter from you, in silent hopes that it was from him. But the words written in careful calligraphy were not thoughtless the way he threw them around, carelessly letting loose rampant thoughts onto fragile paper. And for that thank you, even if the words don’t mean much on paper I hope you accept them.

But if you’re reading this, it’s in all likelihood that we won’t be meeting again. I have one last favour to ask of you. Forget me alright? Go to the bar by the hospital and drink your night away, anything, but forget. I told you before didn’t I? I can hear the cranes Jongdae. I can hear them calling for me. I want to be held in their soft, feathered wings, want to ride under the stars with them. And I know it’s about time I left. So, let me go Jongdae. I can’t come back, they’re calling me.

But I’ll admit this now before I leave, before I miss my chances once again and let them slip as I had before.

Jongdae, I love you.

               ~Lu Han