≻〉 ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⋆✦⋆ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ 〈≺

Disclaimer,
- fluff
- college au
- pining
- long chapter (sorry)
- car accident
- angst 
- character death 
- healing
- pt.2

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When Daewon woke up, the first thing he noticed was the beeping of a heart monitor. His eyes were still closed as he laid unmoving, listening to his surroundings. On his left, there was some noise sounding like metal on metal along with a woman's voice humming a song Daewon couldn't recognize.

After some struggle, Daewon willed his eyes to open, blinking up at the white panel ceiling above him. Slowly he turns his head to the left to see a nurse. The woman gasps when she notices him staring at her.

"Well, good morning to you," she says, regaining her composure. She starts to say something else, but it gets lost as Daewon falls unconscious again.

Days later, Daewon wakes up with more strength than the first time. He pushes his body to sit in the bed as he looks around. The room was mainly white, a plant of some kind hanging on the windowsill. There was a t.v mounted to the wall and an ugly green and blue lounge chair.

For a moment, he forgot that this wasn't even his bedroom and that he was in the hospital. Then as his brain slowly caught up with reality, Daewon pondered on something; why was he in the hospital and not at home? He tried to remember why or how he ended up here, but the last thing he seemed to remember was being in the car with

"Yeonjun," he gasps. Even though he couldn't fully remember, Daewon knew he needed to find Yeonjun because if he was in the hospital, most likely Yeonjun was too.

Carefully unhooking himself from the machines the doctors connected him to, Daewon held on the iv stand as he began making his way out of the room.

He'd merely made it two steps out, then a nurse spotted him and rushed over.

"Daewon, we need you to go back and lay down. You had major surgery, and you need lots of" she starts, but Daewon interrupts her.

"C-Choi Yeonjun, 22 male birthday September 13, 1999, h-he has pink hair and...is he here is he ok? I was with him, I was just with him," he stumbles over his words, his breathing gets heavy as he gets worked up thinking about the possibility of Yeonjun not being here too.

"Daewon, calm down. Your friend is ok," the nurse says, rubbing his back.

"Where is he?"

"I need to take you back to your room," the nurse says calmly, placing a hand on Daewon's lower back, trying to urge him to walk back to his room.

"I won't go until I see him," Daewon protests as he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, but Yeonjun still hasn't woken up ye-" just as the nurse was finishing her sentence, a hard slap on the wall sounded out in the hall, causing everyone to turn and look back.

"Daewon! Kim Daewon!" A pink-haired man shouts as he hopped down the hall, using the wall for support. He had a cast all along his right leg, his head wrapped in gauze, but he was still handsome.

"Yeonjun" Daewon all but sobs as he sees his friend. As best as he could, Yeonjun makes his way to Daewon, collapsing in his arms.

"I'm so sorry, baby! I should have paid attention to the road. I'm so fucking stupid you could have died!" Yeonjun sobs.

"Hyung, everything's ok. I'm ok," Daewon sobs as he tries to hold Yeonjun up.

"Someone, please get these boys to a room," a doctor shouts. The nurses help Daewon and Yeonjun to Daewon's room and sit them both on the bed.

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"You know it's a miracle, really," the doctor says in disbelief. After catching the boys up on everything that had happened since the paramedics brought them in from the accident.

"You both waking up at the same time. It's weird but a miracle. Glad to have you two up and with the living," he jokes before leaving.

"I'm still really sorry, Daewon," Yeonjun says.

"Hyung, it's ok. We're alive, and that's all that matters."

"Yeah, but you could have died," Yeonjun sniffs, trying not to cry again, "I'd never forgiven myself if you would have died. I should have been more responsible and-"

"Hyung, I didn't die. We didn't die. We're alive," Daewon says. He brings Yeonjun's hand to his chest, letting him feel his heartbeat.

"I'm alive," he says, reassuring Yeonjun yet again.

"Yeah," Yeanjun sighs as he leans back against the bed. Daewon lets go of Yeonjun's hand and leans over to grab something off the side table. As he leans over, he hisses in pain, forgetting he had stitches in his side.

"Are you ok?" Yeonjun questions as he begins to panic yet again.

"It's fine. Stop worrying," Daewon says as he settles against Yeonjun.

"Now let's find something to watch" the t.v. comes to life with one push of a button, and the two boys try to find something to watch.

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Due to their doctor's orders, Daewon and Yeonjun stay in the hospital for several days while recovering from their injuries. Since both boys weren't close with their parents, they didn't get an extended visit from them. They stuck around long enough to check if their kids were alive, pay the bill, and that was it. Neither of them minded since they had each other and their friends who visited them when they could.

"Daewon, if you don't go eat, I'll kill you," Yeonjun threatens playfully. Daewon whines, not wanting to move. He was comfortable just laying with Yeonjun. During their entire hospital stay, they'd shared the same room and the same bed for the most part. Maybe it was the fact that they both could have died, or perhaps they were just at each other's side for moral support. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter much, at least not to Daewon. He liked being able to simply be like this with Yeonjun even if it wasn't how he'd dreamed it to be.

"I'm comfy like this," Daewon sighs.

"Come on, Dae, you haven't eaten all day. I want my baby healthy," Yeonjun says, nudging Daewon.

"I'm not a baby," Daewon huffs, but Yeonjun wasn't convinced. Gently he brushed Daewon's bangs back off his forehead before kissing the tip of his nose.

"You're my baby," he whispers. 

"I'm going to get food," Daewon says, rushing to get up and escape his embarrassment. Yeonjun laughs boisterously, watching Daewon retreat.

"I love you, Daewon," Yeonjun shouts. Daewon hesitates at the door for a second. This wasn't the first time Yeonjun's told him he loves him, the older did it often, yet Daewon's heart always acted like it was the first time.

"What not going to say it back?" Yeonjun teases. Daewon turns around and smiles.

"Me too"

"Tch, you never say it back. You always say me too," Yeonjun pouts, his arms crossed over his chest.

One day hyung. One day I'll tell you how I feel.

"I'm going to get food. You want anything?"

"A hamburger that smells like real meat," Yeonjun says, being fed up with the hospital food they've been eating.

"Tofu burger it is," Daewon giggles before leaving.

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The cafeteria line was surprisingly long today. Apparently, some kind of cake was on the menu, and it was very popular among patience and hospital staff. Daewon managed to snag a slice before it was gone entirely. Along with the cake, he had Yeonjun's tofu burger, spaghetti for himself, and orange juice for both of them.

On his way back to their room Daewon saw flashes of white coats rushing into one of the rooms. As he got closer, he saw it was his room, room number 183, the one he shared with Yeonjun. The plastic tray slipped out of his hands, landing on the floor with a loud clang causing the food to scatter across the floor.

His entire body was wracked with fear, his limbs shaking with every movement as he approached the room. There were nurses and doctors all around the bed, all shouting out words Daewon couldn't comprehend, but one thing was clear, the thing he could only see.

"Yeonjun," he whispered, but it didn't sound like his voice. It sounded like someone else, and it felt like he was in someone else's body because this couldn't be happening. This had to be some sick dream his mind was having due to fear. This couldn't be real.

As he moves into the room, he could see the doctors clamoring around everyone shouting over one another and hear the heart monitor flat-line ring loud in his ears.

"Yeonjun hyung!" Daewon shouts panicked, gaining attention from the nurses inside.

"Get him out of here," someone commands. Nurse Sooyeon, the woman who had been there when Daewon woke up, approached him.

"Come on, Daewon, you don't need to see this," she says, trying to move him away from the scene, but Daewon wouldn't budge.

"No, please, please," He says, already starting to cry. His chest heaved with every heavy breath he tried to force into his body.

"Save him, please, save him. He can't die, please," Daewon sobs to the nurse who allowed him to hug her as he cried.

"They are going to do everything they can to save him, Daewon, I promise," Sooyeon says.

"I need to stay with him, please! Yeonjun, please! Don't die, please!" Daewon mindlessly babbles. He was trying to reach around the nurse while at the same time trying to hold onto her. He was confused and didn't know what to do.

The nurses pushed the bed out of the room with Yeonjun laying motionless on it. Seeing his best friend, his crush lying like that caused Daewon to break down even further.

"No h-hyung!" he sobs. His head was spinning, and he felt like he was going to pass out.

"Come on, let's sit down, ok," Sooyeon says, helping him to the chairs nearby. She rubbed Daewon's back until he calmed down.

"He's going to be ok right? Yeonjun's not going to die," he questions. Sooyeon wanted to tell him everything would be ok, and that Yeonjun would live, but she couldn't tell him that because she didn't know if he would live.

"Let's just wait for the doctors, ok, Daewon?" she says instead.

"Ok," Daewon agrees numbly.

"In the meantime, is there anyone we can call for you?" Sooyeon questions. She didn't want Daewon to be alone just in case Yeonjun didn't make it.

"M-my phone," Daewon mutters, looking towards the empty room.

"I'll go get it, and you tell me who to call, ok?" Sooyeon says before going to retrieve his phone. Daewon sat by himself on the cold wooden chair while Sooyeon calls his friends so someone would be with him. When she came back, she let Daewon hold her hand. Sooyeon talked about the most random things to help Daewon keep his mind of the tragic event that was currently taking place.

While they wait for the two, a doctor comes back. He had blood on the middle section of his scrubs, and the look on his face caused Daewon's stomach to drop. The man was saying something, but Daewon didn't hear anything after the words "I'm very sorry, but Yeonjun died-" everything after that didn't matter because Yeonjun was dead.

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Daewon sat with Hyunjin during the funeral. Other than Yeonjun, he had been Daewon's closest friend. Hyunjin held onto his hand the entire time and helped keep him from having a breakdown.

"Now we'll have Kim Daewon share a few words about Yeonjun," Yeonjun's dad says. Daewon always hated Yeonjun's dad. He was a piece of shit who never cared for his wife or his son, and now both were dead.

"You gonna be ok," Hyunjin whispers. Daewon gives a hesitant nod before standing up and heading to the front.

"Choi Yeonjun was my best friend. When I moved here halfway through sophomore year, the weird kid no one felt like befriending Yeonjun became my only friend. It was weird for me because I wasn't one to befriend someone so outgoing and loud. I like people who have boundaries, and Yeonjun, he definitely didn't have them," Daewon says, causing a few people in the audience to chuckle.

"It was because he didn't have boundaries that I found myself growing close to Yeonjun. I got to just be myself, raw and unmasked, without fear of judgment or anything. Y-Yeonjun was the best friend I could have asked for. He was a smart, caring, loving beautiful person. If you needed someone he was there no matter the reason and I w-" Daewon tried to continue but could only whimper as tears began to cascade down his cheeks.

"I wish I could have done more for him. I wish I were a better friend. I- I-wish," Daewon looked into the crowd, looking for someone to ground him. Yeonjun had always been that person for him, and now, without him, Daewon could only cry. Hyunjin quickly went to the small stage, wrapping an arm around Daewon's waist before leading them back to their seats.

"This is an emotional time for all of us. Thank you, Daewon, for your kind words. I know it's not easy coming up here after suffering such a great loss," Mr.Choi says. On top of Daewon's sadness, his chest burned with anger as Yeonjun's dad spoke like he gave a fuck, but he couldn't say anything. He didn't want to cause a bigger scene, especially when he knows Yeonjun would have hated it. 

"You did so well, Daewon," Hyunjin whispers as he hugs him.

"I couldn't even f-finish my speech," Daewon whispers. He had a death grip on his pants as he took slow breaths trying not to sob in the middle of his best friends funeral. 

"Shh, it's ok. I know, it's hard. You did well, though," Hyunjin says, but Daewon felt like shit. 

The rest of the funeral went by in a blur and before Daewon realized it people had cleared out of the church. 

"What are you going to do now? We were going to get some food if you're down," Hyunjin says. Daewon was going to question who "we" included, but his question was answered for him when he saw some of Yeonjun's other friends, Wooyoung, San, and Changbin, coming over.

"I uh, just want to go home," Daewon mutters lowly.

"Ok. I can take you home before we go to the"

"Thanks, Hyunjin, but I can get there on my own," Daewon says interrupting him. He says goodbye to everyone before leaving the church and wandering until he could find a bus stop to get him home.

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It was a long time before Daewon was able to return to school. The first thing he did was change his major from art to business. Painting had always been a hobby for him, but Yeonjun had convinced him to turn his hobby into his passion. Without the other here to persuade him otherwise, Daewon didn't see the point in sticking with it any longer.

He still hung out with his friends and went out places with them, but they noticed he didn't have the same happy spark as before. It was understandable, it had only been three months since Yeonjun died, but they were all worried Daewon wouldn't be the same.

Before he knew it, a year had passed, and it was fall again. As Daewon walked on campus, he saw someone he recognized trying to gather up a pile of papers. Quickly he rushed over, collecting as many of the loose pieces of paper he could before handing them to the boy.

"Beomgyu, right?" Daewon questions. The boy nods and flashes a smile. He looked a lot different from when Daewon first met him. Beomgyu's hair was long going down to his ears which were now both double pierced. His boyish chubby cheeks were gone, replaced with a strong jawline and defined facial features. 

"Yep. You're Daewon, right?" Beomgyu questions still unsure. 

"Yeah," the two stand awkwardly, only being acquaintances. They'd only met a few times because of Yeonjun, who was Beomgyu's older cousin.

"H-how've you been?" Beomgyu questions first not wanting things to be too awkward.

"Ok, I guess. How about you? School going ok?"

"For the most part. I failed a few classes last year, so I have to retake."

"Oh-that sucks. I'm sorry."

"It's no biggie," Beomgyu shrugs, and then they fall silent again.

"I like the painting you did of him," Beomgyu says after a while. "In a fucked up way, it's like a tribute to him even before he died."

"What painting?"

"The one in the gallery. It doesn't have a title. Did you not know what to name it?"

"Uh, I guess not," Daewon says, although he was still confused.

"Anyways, I go and just look at it for a long time. You captured him well in one painting. I'm jealous. I wish I knew him like that, but I was stupid and ignored him most of the time."

"He cared a lot about you," Daewon says, hoping to ease the boy's heart.

"You too. He talked about you all the time. It was kind of annoying," Beomgyu admits, which left Daewon astonished.

"H-he did?"

"Yeah, he did," Beomgyu says, sighing. "Anyways, if you ever just really miss him, go look at the painting. You did a good job."

"T-thanks"

"I gotta get going. See you around hyung," Beomgyu says. Before he can get too far, Daewon calls out to him casing the boy to spin on his heels.

"If you ever need something, let me know."

"Ok. Thanks," and with that, Beomgyu walks away.

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When Daewon went home that night, he checked his paintings. Instead of Yeonjun's painting, he thought he'd kept safe at home, he found the painting of his old house. Somehow he did, in fact, turn in the wrong painting. Even knowing this, Daewon didn't go to see Yeonjuns portrait in the gallery. Not yet.

It wasn't until a month later when the desperation of seeing it got to him. Fall had begun to settle in now fully, the trees mostly bare but some still clinging to their multicolored leaves.

"If you ever just really miss him, go look at the painting. You did a good job."

Daewon kept those feelings at bay for the most part, but the feeling of missing Yeonjun was just really getting to him, and he did miss Yeonjun. A ton. This whole year was hard to get through every day. Building up his courage, he walks down to the school art gallery. Making his way through the building, he comes across the painting he did of Yeonjun that one day out in the courtyard.

Sitting on the bench in front of the painting, Daewon sits and just stares. Even though he'd spent hours on it, it was like he was looking at it for the first time. Daewon took in how the light hit the painting, allowing it to shine slightly and how every bit of color jumped out at him. However, the thing he admired most was Yeonjun's smile, Yeonjun's very being that highlighted the painting.

Daewon felt a small splash hit his hands and realized he was crying. For the first time in a long time, he was crying not because he was sad but because he was somewhat happy. Beomgyu was right, he did a good job, but that was because it was Yeonjun he was painting. He was painting the person he loved, someone he'd spent countless numbers of hours with, someone who knew him inside and out.

Wiping his tears away, Daewon stood up and left the gallery. As he exited the building, a gust of cold wind caused his body to shiver. Pulling his jacket tighter around his body, Daewon began to walk through the large courtyard. As he walked, he noticed the leaves falling, a mix of greens, browns, reds, and oranges. They reminded him on Yeonjun how the leaves were multiple and unpredictable colors, just like Yeonjun. In this moment of peace, Daewon allowed himself to say the words he'd been holding inside for years.

"I love you too. Choi Yeonjun" 

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When I say I bawled like a baby writing the ending I mean I bawled like a baby. It made me so sad but sadly that's the plot of the story.

Minus the sadness I wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted on part one you guys are amazing! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤😊😊😊