Chapter Text
“One more minute!”
Sunoo’s voice yells out, high and frantic, and the sound places a smile on Heeseung’s face without any effort at all. He shifts from foot to foot, checking his watch. He feels the tendrils of impatience creeping their way in around his temples-- but maybe it’s just a headache.
Sunoo always takes too long to get ready. He has his routine, he says: first his moisturizer, because that’s an absolute must. Then it’s brushing down the strands of bedhead that stick up like downy feathers at the top of his scalp. Then he’s carefully picking out his outfit - though if he knows it always takes this long he should really do it the night before - and then he’s applying his lip tint, the finishing touch before finally, finally, he’s darting down the stairs and grinning at Heeseung as if his “one more minute” hasn’t stretched into twenty.
Sunoo, the boy who takes too long to get ready, and Heeseung, the boy who is always late. If it’s not Sunoo holding them up, it’s Heeseung sleeping in, right through the five alarms that he sets at ten minute intervals, until Sunoo is banging at his door and the screech of the boy’s usually dulcet tones jolts Heeseung into a state of panicked consciousness.
That’s how it is with them; two peas in a pod. Two wholly imperfect people, whose flaws miraculously seem not to clash, but rather to complement each other.
The car ride to the venue is more somber in tone, as both of them emerge from their lighthearted and familiar morning routine and remember what this day is all about. What they are on their way to attend.
The memorial event takes place in the library the girl used to volunteer at, the lobby neatly organized into an array of chairs and grainy black and white photos that make the whole affair appear even more gloomy and morbid than it already is.
Heeseung spies Jake sitting in the front row, hands clasped in his lap and his head bowed over his knees. He wonders how his friend feels about the whole thing; he looks around at the whole literature theme of it all, the accentuation of the bookworm personality this young soul used to have.
What does Jake think of it? Is this what will happen to them all after death— their whole existence and state of being condensed into a singular exaggerated characteristic, a caricature of a living, breathing person? When all is said and done, who really knew her? Was the only thing worth noting about her twenty years of life the fact that she loved to read?
When Heeseung pauses to think about it, he realizes that he can’t even recall the girl’s name, can’t recall how close Jake was to her. It’s not her they are here for, after all, but for him.
Was she his best friend, a close companion, or was she just another acquaintance, a passing face that he was familiar with?
It’s becoming startlingly clear that perhaps even Jake hardly knew her at all.
He feels a tug on his sleeve and looks over at Sunoo, who makes an expression that is some cross between sympathetic and impatient, and motions for them to take their seats.
The place is decked out in flowers — distasteful, Sunoo mutters, and he can’t help but agree— and the building fills with the quiet murmurs of people who are all too aware of the way they need to act and sound in a setting like this.
The air smells like yellowed pages and freshly glued spines. A microphone stand is set up in the center of the room, and the crowd begins to settle. Silence falls.
One by one, people step up to speak: family members, friends, teachers, a woman who the girl babysat for and only met once. They all tell anecdotes of their own variation; some weepy, some humorous, some hopeful. Not a single person addresses the cause of her death. No one says, the word.
And then it’s Jake’s turn.
“We’ve been friends for a while,” he begins, without any proper introduction or clever storytelling hook. The fumbling unpreparedness of it all makes his contribution all the more raw and genuine. His trembling hands unfold and refold the creased sheet of paper in his hands, but he makes no effort to glance down at the script. His face is blanched, and his lower lip is locked between his teeth. “This happened out of nowhere. She never told me anything.”
A ripple of discomfort rushes through the room at these words, the first reference anyone has made to the condition that led to this girl's passing. Sunoo reaches over and squeezes Heeseung’s hand, though it’s unclear who he’s trying to comfort. The air is tense, and maybe he just needs something to do with his hands.
“The truth is, we hadn’t been talking for quite a while. She put some distance between us, a-and—” Here Jake’s voice falters, and Heeseung sees Sunoo close his eyes. “I just wish she felt like she could have come to me. I wish I could have been there for her.”
Nobody looks at the stage. There’s a rustling as people tap their foot awkwardly and uncross their legs. Jake’s lips are now moving silently.
The truth of what happened dawns on Heeseung in a single shining moment, the split instant that it takes for the orange sun to peer out over the horizon and announce its presence. Subtle, dim, entirely missable if you blink too slowly.
Heeseung wonders if Jake knows. He looks at the boy’s face, at the degree of sorrow that is painted over his eyes and cheekbones, and decides that he doesn’t. It’s quite inconceivable that he would know, really.
When people think of the Ailment, of the tragedy, they think mainly of the infected. Those with petals in their lungs, blossoming flowers that eventually clog their arteries and stop the flow of blood to the rest of their body. They think of those who succumb to it, not just to death but to the aching loneliness of not having their love returned.
But that is not the entirety of it. They are not the only victims. Heeseung wonders who has it worse.
Is it the people who die because they were not loved— or is it the people who could not love? How does one live with the guilt that they caused another person’s death? Not through any intentional act of violence, but by something simply beyond the bounds of their control, that volatile and unpredictable thing called the human heart?
The answer is, they don’t.
They never have to live with the guilt, because they will never know. There's a reason not every single human being on Earth has contracted the Ailment, the reason that every little crush or fling doesn’t end in fatality. It only affects those with true love in their hearts, love in its purest form. The same love of soulmates, only that it is a one-way road.
Nothing prevents them from telling the person they love. Nothing is stopping them from saying, Do you know that I love you? Do you know that you don’t love me back, and that is why I am dying?
Nothing is keeping them from sharing this burden, from revealing the key to their demise. But they don’t. They don’t. Those people will never have to live with the guilt, because they will never know. They will never know, because they are never told. Why is that?
The answer is simple. It is because they are loved.
Isn’t that the real tragedy of it all?
“I wish we had been closer,” Jake says into the mic, his voice muted and unsteady. “If only we had just had more time.”
❁❁❁
“Oh god, it’s so tragic,” Sunoo says, in the dramatically affected way he says things, the contrived tone making his words sound disingenuous, even though he means every word, perhaps even too deeply.
Sunoo feels everything; happiness, sadness, longing, regret. He feels everything inside of himself and he feels those things in others too, absorbing their pain into his own and rebirthing it as fresh dew drops spilling from his eyes.
They’re back in Heeseung’s car, both feeling drained and irritable, and guilty for feeling all of those things when they should be mourning. They had taken their leave after exchanging condolences with Jake, who still had that far off look on his face, like he was lost somewhere far away and couldn’t find his way back.
Heeseung’s nail taps against the steering wheel while they sit in silence, needing a brief moment to recharge before attempting to move anywhere else.
Sunoo’s face is fraught with tragedy, in the crippling sympathy one feels when hearing about something unimaginable, something they are secure in knowing will never happen to them. Heeseung knows he feels this way, because he asks him directly.
“Can you imagine that? Having the Ailment?”
He feels out the new word for it, the one that has become the politically correct term to use. Disease sounds too harsh, too unforgiving. Sickness, illness, all those synonyms bring with them a feeling of uneasiness, of discomfort.
Ailment is a compromise. It sounds almost graceful, delicate, and by definition it merely describes a minor affliction, like a stomachache or a chronic migraine. It is unassuming and undermining, and it is perfect because no one wants to face the reality that this silly, trivial-seeming phenomenon borne of unrequited love can actually be the most fatal thing a person can experience.
“No,” Sunoo answers him. “I can’t imagine having it. I can’t picture myself ever loving someone who doesn’t love me back.”
Heeseung can’t either.
It’s a brazen statement, self-assured maybe, but it’s the truth. It’s not that Heeseung is confident that Sunoo could withhold his love for someone who couldn’t reciprocate - rather, he can’t imagine anyone not loving Sunoo to begin with.
Or maybe that’s just him.
How to describe Sunoo? It’s a question he has been asked many times, either by new acquaintances who seek to get closer to the other boy, to crack the puzzle of Kim Sunoo, or by close friends who seek to expose the root of Heeseung’s feelings.
Describe him, they say. Describe him in one word.
What answer do they expect to hear? That Sunoo is smart? Beautiful? Sharp and witty, passionate, empathetic, cold and calculating, frigid and warm, depending on which moment you catch him in?
Being Sunoo’s friend feels like being let in on a closely guarded secret: this is who I am, and nobody else will know it the way you do.
He’s a walking contradiction; a gentle, meek thing who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who also binges horror and action films like they’re candy and lets out a childish cackle every time an actor succumbs to a startlingly gory death.
He is generous and kind, and will turn soft eyes on you as he beckons you to share his food (food that you’ve treated him to, of course), and just as readily, those eyes will turn to flint and he will lightly slap your hands away with a scowl if you so much as try to nab a grain of rice.
He has a heart that seems to be interwoven with others by some invisible thread; he will cry if you cry, will flush with an anger that surpasses your own if he hears that someone has wronged you.
He is also easily distracted, and will get caught up in himself and turn a deaf ear as you confide in him about trivial things, will nod and hum distractedly while tapping away at something on his phone, and it is anyone’s guess if he is even really listening.
Soft words can turn to sharp daggers if the right thing sets him off. Unequivocal passivity can turn to fierce aggression with the snap of a finger. Sweet and bitter, day and night. Hot and cold.
Yes, he is all those things. But all those things are far more than a single word.
“Sunoo is something,” Heeseung will say. “Something, something. He’s really something.”
“You’re lucky,” Heeseung says to him now. “Anyone would love you. It makes it so simple. You, you’ll have a choice. You’ll be able to love anyone you want, and the choice will be yours.”
“And you?” Sunoo asks. “Don’t you have a choice too?”
No, Heeseung thinks. I don’t. I never did.
Because Sunoo has achieved something that he can never have: free will. It’s the luck of the draw, he supposes. Heeseung’s fate has been locked in from day one.
There is no free will in loving Kim Sunoo.
He feels an itch in his throat, a lump lodged somewhere behind his Adam’s apple, like he has swallowed a very small seed.
Maybe he’s coming down with something. Maybe he shouldn’t bend his face so close to Sunoo’s as they speak, maybe he should shut himself up in his bedroom for the night instead of sprawling out on the living room couch, Sunoo’s legs in his lap the way they always position themselves when they have the evening ahead of them and nowhere to go.
Heeseung thinks briefly, Maybe I am running out of time.
But then he clears his throat and the foreign tickle vanishes, and along with it any thoughts of putting an ounce of distance between them.
❁❁❁
“One more minute,” Heeseung groans, flipping over onto his stomach and squeezing his pillow around his head like earmuffs.
“One more, one more,” Sunoo laughs, jostling his shoulder. “It’s always one more minute with you.”
“I could say the same for you,” Heeseung shoots back, his retort muted by the sheets pressed up against his lips.
“What are your plans for today?” Sunoo asks, and Heeseung rolls onto his back and considers the most delicate way to inform the boy that his plans for today do not involve him.
It’s been three weeks since the memorial service. Three weeks since their first up-close encounter with the Ailment, and since then the cases in their county have just been piling on.
Sunoo appears as strategically unaffected as ever, but Heeseung… well, there have been a couple of things on his mind. And when there’s something on his mind, who does he go to?
Sunoo, of course. But that won’t do him any good now. Because the thing that's on his mind now, is Sunoo himself.
“I’m going to go for a walk with Sunghoon,” Heeseung says. Sunoo blinks, and Heeseung can see that he’s surprised— not that he has plans with someone else, but that said plans are a surprise to him. There are usually no surprises between the two of them.
Sunoo opens his mouth, and Heeseung braces himself. He imagines what Sunoo will say: I’m in the mood for some fresh air, too. Can I come with?
Maybe he really had been about to say that. But Heeseung sees the moment Sunoo looks in his eyes, and perhaps he can see the words repeating themselves in his head, over and over.
Please don’t come. Please don’t come.
“Sounds fun,” Sunoo says haltingly, his eyes uncertain. Heeseung’s chest aches. “Well…” He sits up, and the mattress shifts under the release of weight. “You two have fun. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
Heeseung nods, his body feeling wooden. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
❁❁❁
He makes his way across the hall to pick up his roommate— Sunghoon and Jay share a room in their three bedroom apartment, while Heeseung and Sunoo each have their own. The arrangement works out well enough (and if Heeseung wishes that he and Sunoo shared the double instead, then he doesn’t dare say it out loud).
He knocks on the door, and a minute passes before Sunghoon pokes his head out.
“Jay is still asleep,” he whispers. “Let’s go?”
They make their way down the street, the local park just around the corner at the end of the block. They find a bench, halfway soaked from last night’s rain. Heeseung winces as he settles down on the seat, but Sunghoon shows no reaction.
“So what’s been weighing on you, Hee?” he says with a slap to his arm. “You’ve aged ten years since I’ve last seen you.” They’d all had dinner together the previous evening.
“Shut up,” Heeseung mumbles half-heartedly, and Sunghoon’s expression sobers.
“Seriously though,” he says, his brows pinched. “Is something the matter?”
“I’ve just been thinking,” Heeseung begins, waving his hand about. “About Jake’s friend. About all of them.”
“Ah,” Sunghoon nods in understanding. He and Jay hadn’t attended the memorial, since they’d been out of town, but there wasn’t a single person in their city who hadn’t heard what happened. “Unrequited love is a bitch.”
“I knew it was a bitch,” Heeseung says dryly, “I just didn’t know it’d be the death of me.”
The Ailment had sprung up out of nowhere, and doctors all over the globe still can’t make heads or tails of it, or understand how it develops in the body. And here’s the kicker: there is no cure.
“You love him.” Sunghoon says it, and it’s not a question. How could it be?
“Yes,” Heeseung answers dully.
“And you haven’t experienced any symptoms yet?”
“Well, no, I don’t think,” he says hesitantly. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
Sunghoon frowns. “You can’t know that. You two are inseparable.” Heeseung only sighs.
“Just because it worked out for you and Jay, doesn’t mean it’ll go the same way for me.”
Sunghoon ignores this, and grabs his shoulder impatiently. “You know what you have to do, right? You have to tell him.”
“And how the hell do I do that?” Heeseung mutters under his breath. Sunghoon just shrugs, his face a mask of perfect calm.
“Everything that you feel, find a way to vocalize it. What is Sunoo to you?”
Sunghoon makes the question sound so simple, and though this time his answer has not been limited to one word, Heeseung finds himself at a loss for them anyways. What is Sunoo to him? What isn’t he?
“Something,” Heeseung says, hope expanding in his lungs as dread presses down on his chest. “Something, something.”
❁❁❁
When Heeseung steps back into the apartment, the place is dark. He’s alone— after hours of talking and confiding in each other, Sunghoon has slunk off to who knows where to grab dinner, or go clubbing, or whatever that kid does on his weekends.
Heeseung toes off his shoes near the door and turns around, and lo and behold, the cause of all his inner turmoil is sitting on the living room couch, staring back at him.
“Heeseungie.” Sunoo is the one to break the silence, as he always is. Heeseung simply nods at him, an entirely automatic and inept response. He clears his throat.
“Sunoo.”
The boy purses his lips, looking somewhere between disappointment and laughter.
“I haven’t seen you all day,” he remarks with a pout. Heeseung laughs lightly and moves forward, taking a seat next to him.
“Miss me?” he asks teasingly, a strain running through his voice. His face feels taut.
“Of course,” Sunoo replies, just a shade too enthusiastically.
The whole interaction seems synthetic: faux smiles and candy-colored words that are all too bright and much too sweet. It’s not their usual banter, their comfortable back and forth, but something more tense— not layered with animosity, but with a knowledge that a crucial boundary is in imminent danger of being crossed, and both are teetering on the edge.
Sunoo can tell that something is off. He’s not a fool, and he’s especially not blind when it comes to the person whom he knows the best out of anyone. But he doesn’t say anything, just waits, and finally Heeseung breaks.
“Sunoo,” he says, his voice weak and tremulous. “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” Sunoo replies in a hushed whisper, his face lined with concern.
“I’m afraid… of getting sick.” The admission feels innocent enough, yet overwhelmingly honest. Sunoo’s eyes widen, almost imperceptibly.
“Getting sick? Like…” his voice trails off, not wanting to assume. Heeseung nods gravely, each shake of his head feeling like a death sentence.
“Like that.”
Sunoo shifts slightly closer, and Heeseung can smell the faint fragrance of his body lotion, the soft sweetness of delicate English rose.
“Why would you get sick,” he says softly. Heeseung can’t help but look at his mouth, entranced by the way it moves, and he feels an invisible force pulling him forward. “Who wouldn’t love you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies achingly. He meets Sunoo’s eyes, and holds them. He forces himself to hold them and doesn’t look away, even when his eyes start to water, and Sunoo’s eyes are shining, and both their words are caught in their throats with fluttering wings, begging to escape.
“What do you want?” Sunoo’s eyes are closed, and he sounds pleading, wanting, and the answer suddenly seems so, so simple, and Heeseung says:
“Something.”
He leans forward. Sunoo leans in too. Their lips meet, and it’s perfect.
It’s the kind of kiss that they watch on the big screen as they stream the latest hit drama from Heeseung’s Netflix channel, an HDMI cable connecting his laptop to Sunoo’s television. Sunoo will let out an inhuman squeal, the trill of a little bird, and he’ll bury his face in Heeseung’s shoulders, fists clutching at his sweater as the two characters finally face their feelings and share their first romantic embrace.
That’s the kind of kiss it is, and now it’s happening for them. Heeseung is soaring. He is weightless.
On Monday morning he stands in the shower and wonders what he has ever done to upset the universe, as he stares down at the single rose petal, circling the drain.