Chapter Text
He opened his eyes.
It took him a moment to adjust his gaze, as he had a hard time understanding what was around him.
Where was he? He was sitting, hands in his lap, spine straight. With a light body, barely noticeable. Inside what appeared to be a bus. But not just any bus. Was he dreaming?
The bus inside barely had a few places occupied. In which Wonwoo was, there was the window on his right side, through which he observed something very unreal.
Outside there only was a blue color, as if that bus was making its way through a passage full of celestial stars under the sea. Celestial blue, passing rapidly, evenly. Flashes that were constant. But Wonwoo could breathe.
The bus inside seemed ordinary and at the same time, magical. That was the only way to describe it. There were plants and vines within it all over the place, some seats had flowers of all kinds growing on them. On Wonwoo's seat there were hydrangeas around, and under his feet, there were interspersed grassy areas.
He raised his eyes and on the ceiling, not very lit because the only light was the bluish one from outside, he could see some origami cranes hanging and swaying. Although the bus seemed to be going very fast, it could hardly be felt.
So Wonwoo paid more attention to the surroundings, and noticed that next to him, the seat was also occupied. He was almost startled, because he hadn't seen that young man until now.
He looked at his side profile, who was tall and pretty at first glance. His seat was surrounded by white lilies that seemed to fit very well with his presence, because inexplicably, Wonwoo felt a purity emanate from that young man.
He seemed to be the same age as him. Just about 22 years old.
Until the stranger turned to see him, with a smile. His big eyes stared at him and it seemed to Wonwoo that there was a certain familiarity in them despite never having met him.
“You just got here, I see. It shows in your expression that you have no idea where you are,” he spoke, his voice silky smooth from how soft it sounded.
Wonwoo just blinked. That dream felt so vivid, so hard to imagine. The other young man tilted his head to the side, suddenly curious, with that gentle smile.
“Aren't you going to ask?” He said, a little amused.
The bespectacled raven-haired blinked again, and then he cleared his throat, realizing he could speak if he wanted to. It really was a dream that felt almost real.
“Where am I?” he asked, mostly because the stranger had mentioned it. If it was a dream, he wouldn't have to worry, since at any moment he would wake up.
“Oh, well, you see, we're in a limbo,” he answered casually.
Wonwoo frowned uncomprehendingly. “Limbo? Is this the limbo?”
The young man, who had brown hair, nodded. Wonwoo noticed that he had white clothes, and realized that he was also dressed in the same way.
“Does that mean we're dead?” He asked now, since according to his knowledge of theology, limbo was the place where the souls that died in original sin, the unbaptized, went. The forgotten.
“Oh no, none of that. It's not that kind of limbo,” the stranger replied, chuckling softly. “This is the Limbo of Denial.”
That confused him more. Wonwoo continued to frown. Did his brain have enough imagination to dream something like that?
“What do you mean by that?”
The young man looked ahead, his face calm, more serious.
“It's a very special place, to which only those people who are in a very big state of denial enter,” he said, with a slow voice. “Yabbay has really strange places in it, but not for that, less magical.”
Yabbay? Wonwoo knew that name because that was the name of his city.
“Strange places?”
The young man nodded, again with that lovely smile.
“Yabbay is a very special place by itself, there is nothing like it in the world.”
For Wonwoo, Yabbay was a simple city like any other. It looked more like a town, considering that its population was not so great, that it was surrounded by mountains, fields and forests, and the sea, and that the population didn't grow or decrease. It didn't change at all, it progressed slowly, but surely.
It was a quiet place.
“And what does this have to do with Yabbay?” Wonwoo continued to ask. If he could talk in his dream, he would use it to the fullest. He wanted to know how far it went before he woke up.
“Well, as I said, Yabbay has its magical places. And this is one of them.” The young man stretched out his arms, pointing at the bus.
Yes, it seemed magical and unreal. Wonwoo looked inside a little more and noticed that there was no driver driving the bus. There were only six seats occupied in total, counting the two they were in.
Inside were four other young men who did not differ much in their ages.
Wonwoo looked at the aisle between the seats, where there was grass and more flowers. Even a pond below the ground, transparent, where Koi fish could be seen swimming in parsimony. It looked like a surreal painting.
“But you said it's a limbo... of denial?”
As its name said, it seemed to denote a negative place, and that bus didn't look like that. There was a peace in there that Wonwoo couldn't explain.
“That's how it is. We are trapped here.” Again he said casually.
“Trapped? For how long? How long does it take to get to the stop?”
He wanted to find out more about this place that his dream mind had set out to create.
“Time doesn't exist here,” answered the other young man, to which Wonwoo thought he had a lot of patience and willingness for his questions. “And the only stop is yours... Or rather, one's own. No one knows where that is or when we'll get to it.”
Then his gentle countenance changed to a more serious one, as if a gray cloud crossed his features.
“The only way to know is to agree to keep going. As long as we are in denial, there is no way the bus will stop for us.”
All of that seemed very cryptic to Wonwoo. He didn't quite understand what was happening.
“What do you know about this place? I'd like to know what the hell I'm dreaming, because it's so weird…”
The young man looked at him with wide eyes, surprised. Then he laughed, covering his mouth. Wonwoo looked at him uncertain of his reaction.
Until he calmed down, the stranger shook his head.
“This is not a dream, what are you talking about?”
Wonwoo frowned again. “But it is, there's no way this is real."
“As much as it feels that way”
The stranger looked at him with amused eyes.
“But it is. You're not dreaming... Although I don't blame you, I also believed the same thing when I got here. We all did.”
The boy pointed his chin at the other four passengers. Wonwoo turned his attention back to them.
Even though there were many empty seats and the two of them were in the right row, ahead, two other boys were sitting next to each other, in the left row. There were also other two, also sitting together, but further ahead than the others.
One seemed to stand out because his head was higher than the rest, he must have been very tall. He looked familiar to Wonwoo, but he couldn't tell from where.
“I can't believe it,” he replied skeptically.
The boy next to him shrugged. “So that's a double denial and it's going to cost you more to get off the bus.”
Wonwoo made a face. “I'm going to wake up and all this will cease to exist.”
The big eyes that were similar to those of an owl looked directly at him again, with an unreadable expression.
“That's not going to happen, sorry. Time may not matter here, but we can feel how long the trip is when we can't get down.”
For some reason, Wonwoo couldn't doubt his words.
He turned his eyes to the window, where the passage remained the same. They were closed and he couldn't feel the air. The only sound was that of a flow that he could not perceive.
Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember going to bed like he usually did. He had no memories before that. Everything was blurred in his head.
“And how can you get down? How can you get out of here?” he asked, putting a hand on the window glass. He felt the warm surface directly on his skin.
“Well, in this place come the souls of people who can't accept something in the real world. They deny it so deeply that they don't want to go through with it. They are in denial... So the only way out of this limbo is with acceptance.” Explained the stranger, which Wonwoo would like to give a name to.
“Accept reality?”
What was he denying to have fallen into such a place? He might not quite believe it was real, but he decided it was better to trust that it was.
“That's how it is. It is the only way.”
Wonwoo looked back at the boy next to him.
“What's your name?,” he asked directly.
The young man smiled tenderly at him and immediately the jet-haired felt a warmth within himself.
“My name is Jun,” he introduced himself. “And yours?”
“Wonwoo,” he replied simply.
For another reason (that were beginning to accumulate, all so mysterious) that name did not seem so foreign to him.
“So, Jun... how long have you been here?”
From the way Jun referred to that place, he must know it very well. Wonwoo had just arrived and still didn't understand what was happening, but the other boy knew where they were.
He listened to Jun sigh and how he stroked one of the lilies on his seat.
“A while…” he expressed wistfully.
If what he said was true, then Junhui was also in denial about something that he still couldn't accept. But Wonwoo didn't even know his own reasons.
What had brought him here? Did he have something that hurt him so much to accept that he was dragged into this beautiful, yet strange place, and stuck there?
“What did I do wrong in my life...?”
“Jun?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Yes, Wonwoo?”
He shouldn't have gotten flustered like this because a stranger called his name, but Wonwoo's heart beat strangely in response to Jun's voice.
“Ah... Well, it's just that I can't remember or know exactly why I'm here,” he said, almost stumbling over his words, averting his gaze.
“Oh, don't you know?” Wonwoo shook his head. Junhui touched his chin and then pointed to the seat he was on. “Then ask the flowers, they will tell you. They are hydrangeas, how pretty.”
The jet-haired again made a gesture of confusion.
“Flowers? How...?”
“They're yours, you should know that.”
Jun chuckled childishly, as if it was the funniest thing. Wonwoo couldn't feel annoyed with him. He smiled awkwardly and shrugged.
“This place is really weird, really.”
“It's magical,” Jun said, eyes sparkling.
“Okay... magical.”
Before trying to talk to the flowers (he had no idea how to do that), Wonwoo turned his attention to the other passengers, suddenly curious.
“Have you talked to them too?”
Jun raised his eyebrows and also turned his attention to the others. “Yes I have. They came after me, after all.”
So that ‘a while’ was true.
“Did you get here first?”
Junhui nodded, his eyes now on the cranes above their heads.
“It was just me. And then the others began to arrive. You are the last.”
Even though Jun mentioned that there was no time there, he guessed that it was an ingrained human habit to count the minutes and hours passing by.
“Do you know why they're here?”
He was always a curious person. He may not remember his life in the real world, but his personality had followed him there.
Jun nodded again. The other boys were chatting amongst themselves, just as Wonwoo was chatting with his seatmate, but he couldn't hear them.
“Do you want to know?” The brown-haired looked at Wonwoo with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
“Well... I'm curious, yes,” he said, embarrassed, with a hand on the back of his neck.
“Okay, I'll tell you, just because I know they'll soon be getting off the bus, going back to their lives in the real world.”
The young brown-haired man looked at the passengers who were with them, with whom he had spoken as they arrived. Before that, he'd felt very alone there, without understanding what that place was or if it was a dream from which he did not seem to wake up.
“Okay, can you see the two up ahead?” Wonwoo nodded. “The one in the window is Joshua, he arrived after me.”
Wonwoo looked at the hair as dark as his on that man, who turned to see his companion with gentle eyes. Everything about him exuded an evident calm and wisdom.
“Joshua can't walk.”
His gaze returned to Jun, frowning at his choice of words. But the young man did not flinch.
“You know? Grief is the response to a loss, of any kind. The first phase is denial and it's the most stubborn of all, because we feel like we can't get out of it... We feel so vulnerable and out of control when we don't deny our reality.” Junhui smiled sadly. “Joshua lost his ability to walk in an accident. He is destined to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life at such a young age... It's not an easy thing to accept, is it? He lost his legs, his support. His stability.”
Wonwoo also lowered his brows in empathy, with sadness.
“It's hard, yeah…”
“However, here he can walk. You would have seen him when he first arrived! Even though this isn't a very big place, he paced back and forth down the aisle without getting tired,” Jun said, chuckling heartily. “Still, Joshua knows that this is not the reality. That he has to move on, walking in another way.”
Wonwoo noticed that purple dahlias were growing on the young man's seat. Very elegant flowers, like the aura he had.
“The other boy next to him is Seokmin. He arrived after Joshua and I.” Jun smiled, shaking his head. “Despite having fallen here, he seems like a very optimistic and lively person. It was harder for him to remember his reasons for being in this place.”
The jet-haired man looked at the profile of that dark-skinned young man, who smiled as if he had the sun on his face. Right away he understood what Jun meant.
“Seokmin couldn't get into college at the same time he was rejected in an audition he did for a play. He wanted to leave Yabbay to study far away, but he couldn't do any of that... It's also not easy to accept when you fail at something you've worked so hard for.”
Wonwoo understood that feeling. The one who made you feel like someone incapable, useless, powerless and aimless.
“Very hopeless,” he commented, looking at the dandelions sprouting from Seokmin's seat.
“That's right, but both of them have been giving each other strength and they seem to be one step away from accepting it.”
Wonwoo nodded. Even though it all seemed very abstract, at the same time it made sense to him. Those two strangers had a familiarity to him, somehow, and he hoped for the best for them in the real world.
“Well, the other two,” Jun continued. “They arrived at the same time.”
The raven-haired with glasses was surprised.
“They know each other?”
“Indeed... And there's a reason why they arrived together.”
Junhui's countenance changed back to a more somber and subdued one. His eyes were very expressive, it was something that Wonwoo could notice.
“The young man at the window, the thinnest and smallest, is called Minghao.” The way he spoke of him seemed as if he was speaking of someone he knew, but there was no recognition on his features. “And the other next to him, tall and dark, is called Mingyu.”
That name also resonated with Wonwoo, vaguely. Jun looked at both of them with sad eyes.
“The situation with him is unavoidable. Not that ours isn't... But no one can change death and sometimes you don't know where to make a wish so that doesn't happen.”
Wonwoo frowned. “Death?”
The young brown-haired man nodded and closed his eyes.
“In the real world Minghao has a terminal illness and his death is imminent. And Mingyu of course can't accept it either.”
The jet-haired felt the heaviness in his chest. There wasn't a loss there yet, but sometimes you didn't even have to experience it to grieve something like that.
“The two of them love each other very much, you know?” Jun commented with a soft smile.
“They're friends, right?” Wonwoo said, looking at him again.
Minghao's seat had red roses on it, and Mingyu's seat was surrounded by daffodils.
Jun gave him an amused look again.
“Yes, they are friends, but I don't mean that kind of love, Wonwoo.”
It took the jet black-haired boy to understand until he said "oh" and nodded in realization.
Then it hurt more... Of course they couldn't accept it so easily. The world was a very cruel place, definitely.
“Even so, they'll soon accept it too, I'm sure they'll leave in peace.”
And from the way he addressed them, it seemed that peace would extend to him when they accepted it.
Now only Jun's reason remained. And his own.
There was a momentary silence, because he didn't know how to ask. If Jun had been there for so long, it was because he was having a hard time accepting his reality.
How painful could it be?
“Jun... why are you here?”
He encouraged himself to ask, cautiously. The man caressed the petals of the lilies, as pure as he was. O castitatis, Lilium!
It was difficult for him to speak at first, because just as Wonwoo concluded well, Jun couldn't accept his situation in the real world. It was costing him a lot.
“I too... had an accident,” he said at last, looking down at his lap where his hands were joined. He had an air of vulnerability that made him look beautiful, but Wonwoo didn't like to see him without his smile.
Jun took a breath and released it in a sigh, to continue.
“I had an accident and lost my sight, in both eyes.”
Wonwoo tried not to make any reaction other than lowering his eyebrows in pain.
“You know? It's not really that I can't accept that I'm blind for the rest of my life.” He gave a sad smile, holding his trembling hands. “I had a dream…” His voice trailed off, but he standed firm. “I wanted to be a doctor more than anything in the world. Pediatric surgeon.”
His lips trembled as well, but he kept talking.
“Not only did I lose my sight... I lost my dream.”
And Wonwoo found it very tragic and horrible that something like that happened to Jun, that despite not knowing him, he could feel his good heart and that he was a great person, who deserved everything good.
He clenched his fist and jaw, feeling the anger at the injustice of the world.
There were bad and deplorable people who had everything... And then there were them, who seemed to be great people who would never do any harm, who suffered for things that were beyond their control.
“I am so sorry, Jun,” he said with honesty. He couldn't imagine the enormous pain it was to deal with something like that.
But the boy next to him smiled.
“I appreciate your empathy, thank you,” he said, with that beautiful sadness in his smile. “But we have to face our tests on our own, and it's time for you to meet yours, to move forward.”
The jet-haired understood what he was referring to. He was there like all of them because there was also something he couldn't accept in the world. He couldn't move forward because of his refusal to do so.
It must have been something difficult and painful. Wonwoo didn't know if he had the strength to face what troubled his heart so much.
“You said I have to ask my flowers, right?”
He looked at the hydrangeas surrounding his seat. Blue, purple and white, all of them beautiful.
He gave a short chuckle, noticing the irony of the flowers that represented him. He could understand that, that the flowers of each one reflected their soul, their inside.
Dahlias, elegant and mature. Dandelions, bright reflections of the sun. Daffodils, tall and grandiose. Roses, beautiful and tempting.
Lilies, pure and immaculate.
Hydrangeas... Rain flowers. The flowers of misfortune.
“Hydrangeas have a dire meaning,” Wonwoo said, stroking the bluish petals. “They are the flowers that represent loneliness.”
“But they also symbolize gratitude and besides, they are very beautiful and serene flowers. They represent abundance by their petals” answered Junhui, looking at Wonwoo's profile, who had saved sighs and didn't want to release them.
“Perhaps…” Wonwoo looked at the flowers and then closed his eyes. “Perhaps the beautiful is always destined to be fatal.”
[ ❁❁❁ ]
The memories came, somehow he felt in a dark cave, and above his head, the memories passed one by one, with the feelings being thrown like stones at him.
He saw his life. The misfortune. The condemnation.
Grieving the loss was not just an event. Would it have been easier that way?
Losing something like a part of his body, of his functionality. Like his movement or his sight, his voice or his hearing. Or losing a loved one who had all his love and devotion. Losing an opportunity in life, failing at something he fought for.
But no, Wonwoo didn't have that kind of pain.
His looked like a long-drawn rope. There was no accident, rejection, bad news. Just accumulation. Just... realization.
A black mist on his chest, spreading into his mind until it was completely clouded. He carried it for years, never clearing the sky of his thoughts.
It bound chains to every part of his being, and what he lost was more than just hope. He lost himself.
Life stopped making sense. He stopped having pleasure. The beautiful life, hung the truth of him to the yoke. Wonwoo felt so lonely and heartbroken.
He no longer saw the future that didn't even seem far away, just covered in more of the same. Of more disappointments. Not to change. There was only sadness and weariness.
The past also ceased to matter. His present weighed so much that he remained lying on the ground, exhausted to the core.
What Wonwoo denied was life. And for that, he had tried to get rid of it.
To die in body, just as his soul had already done so long ago.
[ ❁❁❁ ]
When he opened his eyes again, he was still there, on that seat surrounded by flowers, on that bus that was moving aimlessly, without stopping anywhere.
He raised his head forward. Six people... No, four.
Where were Seokmin and Joshua?
But that was not what Wonwoo had on the tip of his tongue. He turned his head to the side and Jun noticed the look of panic on his face.
“Won--
“I killed myself,” he said, his voice shaken. “I took my own life, I'm dead, right? Didn't you say we were alive? I--
A hand was placed on his shoulder and Junhui leaned towards him, calming him down.
“Wonwoo, we are alive, but trapped. You didn't die, okay?”
Junhui felt the agitation of the other and came his own sadness. Now that Wonwoo knew the reason for being there, the most difficult part was missing, which was acceptance.
He had gone through the revelation of the reality of him and it was not easy at all. The young man next to him looked down at his hands with eyes full of regret.
“You are alive.” He assured again, but Wonwoo shook his head several times.
"I'm half alive... What I can't accept is living.” He looked at Jun with lowered eyebrows and dark eyes. “If I stay in denial, I'm going to die, isn't that ironic?”
He directed his gaze towards the other two remaining boys accompanying them, especially towards Minghao.
“There are people who can't accept their death... And I can't accept my own life,” he said weakly.
He looked back at his empty hands. Not by having the revelation in front of him would he be able to push through it to move forward.
His hands began to shake. The world out there hurt him too much and he was too tired to move on. Dying had been his solution. His freedom?
But where would he go? If he refused, would he really die?
Then Junhui took his hand and gave it a light squeeze. Wonwoo looked at him again and his kind and beautiful face entered his field of vision. Jun looked like an angel, descending from heaven just for his salvation.
“You know why we're here, don't you?” he began to speak, carefully, meditatively, trying to convey peace to Wonwoo.
“Because we are in a state of denial,” he answered.
But Junhui closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head.
“That is only what brought us here, but not the reason we have been brought to this place.”
Wonwoo breathed in through his nose and blinked in confusion, listening attentively to Jun's words.
“Then what are we doing here?” he asked, a deep sadness in his chest.
“We came here because we've been given a second chance,” Jun replied, taking Wonwoo's other hand in his. “If we go ahead and overcome our duel, without letting ourselves be defeated, we will discover that in life you are born twice, and that second chance that I am talking about is our moment of strength and awakening. To open our eyes for the first time to be grateful for what we have, that nothing is lost and nothing is taken away, without something being given in return.”
His words resounded like an echo in that small space between the two, where Wonwoo couldn't stop looking at those big eyes that looked at him with compassion. With love in his expression.
Love, because Jun was a person full of kindness.
Wonwoo felt a tear roll down his eye, without realizing it. He touched his cheek, his wet face. Why had he started crying?
Junhui moved back, still holding Wonwoo's left hand, and looked ahead.
“Joshua and Seokmin already accepted it, almost at the same time, they were able to move forward. They got off the bus with their heads held high. We will follow behind them at some point... Our stop will come, because we cannot stay behind.”
Wonwoo wiped away more tears that fell from his eyes, each one coming out, each one holding back. He didn't understand why he was crying, maybe the sadness he felt was too much to keep it inside him.
He didn't know how he was going to do it. It sounded easy to say that he could accept it, but he didn't know where to start. He did not find the answer within himself.
“Oh... them too,” Jun said softly. Wonwoo looked at his profile, as the young man was looking ahead with a small but genuine smile. “At last they accepted it too, they are willing to move forward... Together.”
He looked in that direction, towards Minghao and Mingyu. Both boys looked at each other, with great affection and understanding between them.
“About time…” Jun said, with that relieved expression, melancholic and happy at the same time.
The two men in front began to glow. Wonwoo was surprised at the light that emanated from them, born from within them and spreading through their bodies. They were both a blaze of pure white light.
They kept looking at each other and were holding hands although Wonwoo couldn't notice that.
Until the light increased and he had to close his eyes, because it was too much. He covered himself with his forearm and waited for it to subside.
When he did and the light disappeared, in those seats that had been occupied before, there was nothing.
He watched this in surprise and turned his attention back to Jun.
“What was that?” he asked.
The young man with brown hair, without looking at him, closed his eyes and wiped away a tear that Wonwoo did not notice.
“They accepted their fate and decided to go their way. They got off the bus, like Joshua and Seokmin.”
The jet-haired understood. They had arrived, they had seen their duel. And in the end, their state of denial ceased to exist, as they accepted the real world. They would move on. They would take advantage of their second chance, their time together.
So now, on that bus that was still traveling in the bluish and starry tunnel, only he and Junhui remained, sitting side by side, with their own burdens and sorrows that they hadn't yet been able to accept.
He sighed and looked at the young man next to him. Junhui conveyed so many feelings to him that he couldn't explain.
In him, he saw the same beauty of the moon, with the serene and pure silver. On his features was a map of the stars that he remembered, they had been his only comfort on cold nights. He felt that he completed him, somehow. That the hand that was holding him fit very well with his own hand.
That Jun was his guide, and in turn, the person he himself had to guide.
“In Yabbay there are many magical places, you told me,” he spoke again, the line of tears already dry on his sharp cheeks.
Junhui nodded, looking down.
“I only remember that green hill on the outskirts, where you can see the whole city, where there is a bench to make wishes, or something like that. Actually, I've never been there.”
The brown-haired boy cracked a smile and looked at Wonwoo.
“I know that place... Although I only went once.”
“Really? And did you make a wish as the legend says?” Wonwoo asked, relieved to see the smile return to Jun's beautiful face.
The other young man nodded.
“Of course, I didn't go all the way up the hill for nothing.”
They both laughed softly, putting sadness aside for a moment.
“And did your wish come true?”
Junhui, with his big eyes, looked directly into Wonwoo's dark eyes.
“I don't know that yet, but I trust that one day it will. I wished for it with all my heart, so it has to happen.”
Wonwoo raised both eyebrows.
“And what was that wish?”
Junhui puffed out his cheeks in response.
“If I tell you, it won't come true.”
It seemed natural to Wonwoo to appreciate that childish side of Junhui. Apparently he could be mature and wise, as childish and naive.
He wasn't that different from him in that respect. People always expected from the image of him that he would be someone serious and cold, even mysterious and well-behaved. But Wonwoo could be giggly and clumsy, things could go over his head and he was easily distracted.
“I've never been there and now that I think about it... I'd like to know what the city looks like from there.”
He didn't know why he said it, but deep inside, he missed the wind, the sun on his skin, as warm as it was. The vision of the breadth of the sky, the birds flying over it. The bright green grass.
He missed sitting down somewhere and reading. The bitter taste of coffee. Pet a cat. The scent of tangerines. The moths gathering around the spotlight, seeing the warm light that was his favorite.
He realized how much good life still had.
“We're from Yabbay, right?” He said, looking up at the paper cranes dancing in harmony.
“That's right,” Jun replied in his soft voice. The jet-haired looked at him suddenly, giving their union a squeeze.
“Then let's go up the hill together,” he said, a strange resolve inside him.
There were so many good things, despite all the bad. He had gotten up from all the falls. Yes, he had scars all over his body and soul, but he had survived them.
For every tear, he had had more laughs. For any nonsense. For every nightmare, he had hundreds of fantastic dreams. For every disappointment, his victories had been greater and more memorable.
For every cloud in the sky, when the rain fell, it was a blessing to the earth.
Junhui looked at him in surprise, not expecting that.
“Come with me, Jun, I haven't made my wish yet,” he said, waiting for the other man's response.
Because Wonwoo, with all the bad things that had happened in his life, realized that he still wanted to live it. The sorrows would never go away, but not because they were inevitable they had to predominate. And he didn't have to do it alone.
Not Junhui... Not him either...
“Oh.” Then he remembered Jun's reason for being there. He couldn't see what Wonwoo missed so much. “Jun, I--
But a sincere smile was shown on the other young man.
“It's okay, Wonwoo,” he said, genuinely moved. Genuinely happy that he asked that of him." I'll go with you to the hill, so you can make your wish."
And as he said those words, a crane fell from the roof onto Jun's lap.
Both young men looked at it, made of bluish paper. Junhui took it and seemed to lose his thoughts on it for a few moments, until he passed it to Wonwoo.
“Or you can wish it all at once.”
The jet-haired accepted it and looked at Jun without understanding, so the young man smiled broadly.
“You know what they say, if you have a thousand origami cranes you can make a wish.”
Wonwoo chuckled lightly.
“This is just one,” he replied. “I have 999 more to go.”
But Jun shrugged.
“There are 999 less, but you already have one more than zero.” Then he pointed to the roof of the bus with more cranes. “Although, who said you don't already have them? You can make your wish.”
Wonwoo opened his mouth, but felt the radiance emanate from him. He looked at his body where a light was beginning to come out.
“Huh? What's going on?”
Junhui also looked at him carefully, and then smiled again.
“You already accepted it, Wonwoo, it's your time to get off the bus.”
The dark eyes looked at the other young man with some confusion. At what point had he accepted it? Could he really move on?
However, he was sure of it.
Junhui let go of his hand and Wonwoo felt the immediate emptiness. He looked at him with some fear. The light was growing around him and soon he would be gone.
“Jun? How about you?” he asked eagerly.
He had arrived first and still hadn't left. Wonwoo didn't want to leave him alone. But Jun was still smiling and shook his head.
“Do not worry about me.”
Noting that this did not appease Wonwoo, he put his hand to his chest. To the heart. He then made a cross over that area.
“I already told you that I will go with you and you have to do your part too. It is a promise.”
And with that last glimpse of Jun's smiling face and the light that surrounded everything, Wonwoo felt his body sink into a deep peace.