twenty eight | news

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the sensation i was feeling at the time was akin to someone standing on my chest while i lay down. the breathlessness, the terror. i saw my boyfriend sitting up in a bed that wasn't his, eyes dark underneath and hair a mess. he'd never seemed so unlike himself before, so imperfect. i suppose i'd been swept away by his façade like everyone else, where he'd seemed invincible and all powerful.

"oh..." he whispered, possibly not able to get much louder. his cheeks had already grown hollower in just a week, and his hands were bony where they clutched the sheets on his lap. had they always looked like that? had i ignored it? i couldn't face how ignorant and naïve i'd been.

"hey," i think i said, with xiuying stock-still behind me. i don't think she was breathing, or perhaps i wasn't. this news wasn't forewarned, we hadn't been prepared to see someone who was usually larger than life, falling apart.

"i didn't—" he started, looking away briefly but catching my eyes again with this desperation that didn't suit him. "i didn't want you to see me like this. i thought...i don't know what i thought. i guess i didn't think you had the gall to bypass my parents to get here."

"well first of all," i'd started, catching my nerve and running with it before it ran from me, "you should've given me a heads up. even a lie would've been nice!" i snapped, feeling xiuying take my arm again but ignoring it. "i didn't know where you were, what was wrong, if we were good? you weren't in your room! you weren't anywhere and your mum just fed me this half-baked excuse about you being tired!" i was so angry, and so hurt. but i think he was hurting more than me then, looking at him all small and frail. but he needed to hear this, and i'd have never gotten it out any other time. "and second of all, you should have said something about this before."

"when?!" hyuck interrupted, and coughed after the exertion of raising his voice. from then on he kept his tone level, which was all the more disconcerting when all i had wanted back then was to fight. i deserved to get a fair fight, but he always won, didn't he? in every way that counted, he always won. "when would i have told you? when we first met at your gate? 'hello, my name is donghyuck and i'm terminally ill'."

i choked on my next words, waiting a beat and feeling my sister's grip loosen and fall. the avalanche that was this news just covered me, and i couldn't see the light anymore. what had i been fighting about? was it so important? he was...he was dying. "i..." what was i supposed to say?

or better yet, i think i must've thought at the time, don't think about it.

"you should've told me before we started dating..." but by now my voice was wobbling, my lungs had collapsed and i was using what little awareness and energy i had to stand at all. "oh my god..."

"i didn't mean to say that," hyuck mumbled, leaning back against the headboard and staring off into the distance. "i...well, yeah, i was never going to tell you, alright? because every second i had with you was like living again, and i didn't need to think about the consequences of moving a lot, of eating a bit, of feeling anything at all. our little secret was the only thing separating me from this big, bad shadow and i was never going to tell you because it would've ruined everything. how could i live if you looked at me the way you are now? both of you?"

i tensed and immediately felt guilt bubble in my chest. awkwardly, i'd turned to xiuying who had tears running down her cheeks as she quietly took everything in. god, i'd brought her into it. unknowingly, i'd dragged her into the deep sea of our love affair and secrets. "ying..." i'd whispered, reaching for her hand. she let me take it, still watching donghyuck and holding in something that was fit to burst.

"if you wish i was sorry for all of this," hyuck sighed, looking all too defeated, "then i'll grant that yes, i am a little. there were many occasions i thought i should say it. whenever i had a severe energy crash, when i threw up out of the blue. even even we..." he stopped, sparing ying those details and moving on. "i wanted to tell someone that i was in pain. but not you. you were the only person i could pretend to be infallible for. you look at me like i could hold the sky up above you, and i wanted to be that."

"why would you—?"

"because i love you," he rasped, his eyes clouding with tears as he reached to his face to wipe them away. "i thought i could live forever."

as silly as that notion sounded, i had believed it too. that he was immortal and always reliably there. he'd flown into my life like a comet and now he was showing me the rubble and destruction he'd inadvertently caused when he landed. "i...i love you too. shit, hyuck, what can we do? i'm not leaving you like this. is it really...?" terminal? i couldn't say it. it felt too real.

"i don't want to think so. they throw the word around, but people have made miraculous recoveries. but i need you two to do something for me if we're going to keep going."

xiuying hugged me from behind and i touched her hands on my stomach gently as if to thank her. i wonder if i could've heard this alone. had she saved me without even knowing it? did she know to this day that i would be eternally grateful for her existence in my shambles of a life?

"what is it?" she asked with a voice thick with misery. she had words when i didn't in most cases, but i think we were both thoroughly speechless this day.

"can we pretend this didn't happen? imagine it isn't real."

"no way!" i hissed.

hyuck's gaze faltered and he looked to his duvet for more inspiration to speak. i wasn't sensitive to his cause, i was angry. i wanted him to live and i wanted him to answer all my questions. but i wanted him to be happy and none of it aligned under the same cause. he couldn't be happy if i didn't play make-believe.

"i can't keep seeing you if you're going to bring this up all the time," he reasoned, not looking at me. refusing to meet my eyes like i could burn him. "i'm here, in this town, because the city couldn't save me and this was my last chance at a normal life. my parents are appeasing me, so why can't you?"

"you're so selfish!"

"jun!" xiuying snapped, spinning me around and grabbing onto my shoulder to stabilise me. "listen to yourself. he's dying."

"he's pretending it isn't happening!"

"wouldn't you?" she gushed quieter, searching for my eyes until i met hers and holding my gaze like a hypnotist. she was smarter than me in a lot of ways. had a higher eq than me too. what she could see and could feel in various situations was usually more to be trusted than what i did. and yet i couldn't find the justice in this.

"would i pretend i wasn't dying?"

"well...yes," she nodded once, tightly.

i thought about it for a moment. because who wouldn't start imagining themselves in that same position, with every morning you wake up potentially being one of the last. my chest started to hurt and my mind ran amok as i tried to reason with her. "i don't know. i wouldn't lie about it," i glowered across the room at my lover.

"fair enough. but he's made his choices, and you can make yours now. he's offered to keep this up," she reiterated the terms, "under the condition that you don't look at him like a patient, but as..." she faltered, cheeks turning pink. "b-boyfriend? is that it?"

"yeah," hyuck and i answered simultaneously, and i tried not to look at him when my heart skipped a beat over it.

"then, yes. boyfriend. but if you can't put this in a closet and play out the rest of his normal life as it always has been, then..."

"then you let me go," i turned to him and released an unimpressed breath through my nose. "i don't know what to say. you're asking me to do something really hard, y'know?"

"i know," he hummed, voice weaker than ever.

"i have to carry this with me all alone whenever i see you."

"i know."

"you're going to break my heart in the slowest, most painful way possible," my voice cracked. and so did his when he answered.

"i know."

we stared at each other, in two different positions than we were usually in. for once i was given the lead, the responsibility to make decisions when usually i gave that to him. a tense silence ensued as i processed this deal in my head and what it would've been like to live another day without him. but then i thought that i would be living the rest of my life without him. and it left a scratch somewhere deep against my soul. i can still feel it now when i reminisce like this. an unshakeable, empty and dull pain that acted up when i brushed my memories against it.

"i'll try," i'd said. because if i didn't, i'd regret it for the rest of my life. i could still have my winter with him.

"thank you," he whispered, a content smile falling over his face before his eyes started to flutter tiredly.

"i think we've overexerted him," xiuying muttered carefully against my ear, and i had to agree. we bid him farewell, and i merely squeezed his hand instead of a kiss because i couldn't do that in front of my sister. i've never been able to kiss a man in front of anyone even to this day. old teachings die hard, i suppose.

it wasn't until we were at our own front porch did i realise i didn't even know what illness he had. it didn't seem important beside the rest of the news. xiuying opened the door and led me in, closing it behind her and finally breaking down into proper sobs. ones she had done so well to conceal back at the lees.

"oh jun, i'm so sorry," she wailed, sliding down to sit on the floor and covering her face. she didn't even know him very well, but she still cried for a falling soldier. "i didn't even know — about you two, about him. i didn't know..."

neither did i, i'd thought at the time, sitting down carefully beside her and staring at my shoes as she cried for us both. my eyes were dry and my head hurt like a hangover. but i couldn't even manage a tear yet.

neither did i.

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