Chapter Text
The first time Suho wakes up, he doesn't know he’s awake.
There’s only a crack of light behind his eyes. A shift in the darkness, like a curtain moving somewhere far away. He can’t move anything but his eyes, fluttering open heavily even though he’s putting all his effort into it. The world hums around him, low and mechanical. Someone says something, but it floats by without sticking.
He slips under again without meaning to.
-
The second time, there’s real sound. A beep sharp enough to cut through the fog. His fingers twitch. Maybe. He can’t tell if he imagined it.
There’s a suffocating weight pressing down on his chest. His mouth feels wrong, like plastic. He wants to cough, but the command never reaches his body.
There’s life, somewhere—there’s color, light, and he wants to follow it. He can’t. The effort rips through him and then it all slides away again.
-
The violence of it only comes when he wakes up for the third time. The burning in his eyes caused by the cold hospital lights, the wasteland that is his throat. He can’t speak, or breathe, without feeling like his insides have been lined with sandpaper.
He can’t move without aching, can’t really feel his legs, and yet—he can move.
His mind comes back to his body running through curtains of pure agony, and he’s alive.
It takes him what seems like an eternity to realize there’s someone talking to him.
“Good, that's—oh, that’s really great. You’re doing fantastic,” the voice says, bright and too close. A doctor, probably.
Suho instantly hates it. There’s nothing fantastic about blinking, even if it feels like he had to drag the movement from somewhere deep, half-forgotten. Even if it’s the only thing he can seem to do. How bad had it gotten, really?
The humiliation settles over him like a rough, cold blanket he can’t shake off.
“Can you blink once for yes, twice for no?”
Suho blinks once.
“Perfect, that’s perfect. Can you try to wiggle your fingers for me?”
He tries. He can't tell if it happens. His head feels bolted to the bed; even trying to glance down seems impossible.
“They moved, it’s okay,” the doctor says, as if reading his mind, talking to him as one would talk to a very young kid, “You’re doing amazing. Do you remember your name?”
He blinks once. He tries to speak, but the sound that comes out is little more than broken air.
“It’s okay, talking—you’ll get there. It’s good enough that you understand. You’re a miracle, kid.” The doctor says, seeming even a little emotional. Proud, as if he had done anything to be rewarded.
Suho flinches inside. That’s possibly the worst thing Suho could have heard, the over politeness that covers the truth. If he's a miracle, then it means it was that bad. If she’s surprised he’s even awake, then it means he almost wasn’t.
There’s a burning need to cry somewhere on the back of his eyes, but it doesn’t seem that his body has even that left in him. Childishly, he wishes for his mother, even though that wouldn’t ever happen, no matter how bad it was.
He wishes for Grandma.
And then, he wishes for Sieun. All the effort in the world can’t make his legs work, his body sprint into action, to run to him. There’s no way to reach out. There’s no one but the doctor in his hospital room.
“We’re going to run tests,” the doctor says slowly, “Don’t be scared.”
With immense effort, he blinks, then nods.
-
Suho has no idea how long the blur of tests, scans, and strangers moving in and out of his room lasts. He drifts in and out of consciousness, barely aware of anything beyond the sharp, clinical smells and the constant hum of machines.
He feels only slightly better when he’s back in his room. They allow him small sips of water after they make sure he won't choke. He can speak again.
“What happened?” is the first thing he asks, with great effort, and feels stupid for it.
“You were attacked,” the doctor says carefully, as if considering every word, barely glancing at the paper sheets on her hands as if she knows all the information by heart, “You had several cracked ribs, as well as other minor injuries throughout your body.”
She pauses, almost hesitating, but pushes through it, “But the main concerns were the injuries to your brain. Many tiny ones, like invisible cracks. There were no surgical options except waiting, aiding your recovery while you slowly healed. You were unconscious for some time.”
“H–long?” His voice cracks.
She takes a second too long to respond, “A year and nine months.”
He stares at the ceiling, blinking a few times. It doesn’t feel real. Almost two years of his life ripped away from him.
The doctor keeps talking to him, explaining why they’re optimistic, why the fact that he’s even talking and able to understand indicates how high the possibility is that he’ll make a great recovery. He’s beating all of the odds.
Suho can’t even react. A year and nine months where life went on without him.
That would explain why he’s alone.
-
Suho finds out he’s not alone.
There’s a nurse checking his IV who smiles at him. She talks to him with a kind voice older people reserve for kids they’re fond of, kids they know.
She does know him, Suho thinks. He’s the one that doesn’t know her.
“There’s this kid who’s always here for you, you know?” she starts.
Suho’s heart drops to his stomach. “What did you say?”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” she says, adjusting his line with practiced hands. "And he’s always around. Shows up several times a week. Sometimes twice a day."
Disbelief slams into him first, then hope. Even asking feels too fragile, like any other answer other than his name will shatter him all over again. He might as well not even come back, this time, if it’s not—
“Yeon Sieun?”
She smiles, nods, “That’s him. He’s here so much we put his number in your file even though he’s just a kid like you. Never left your side, even–”
She stops herself, shakes her head, then continues, “And it’s such a nice day out. You must be needing to see a familiar face, yeah? I’m sure he’ll be here soon and find out anyway, but if you want, I can call him sooner.”
He hasn’t seen the sun yet, he realizes. Hadn’t even thought about it at all, about feeling sunlight on his skin. Sieun, however.
There’s a thrumming underneath his skin, like his body is revolting against its new limitations to come back online at the mere mention of him. He’s real, someone outside of Suho’s memories, out there and waiting for him.
Suho barely dares to speak. Her smile softens even more.
-
Sieun’s voice trembles, even though Suho has tried so hard to keep things light. Tears brim in his eyes, and he looks beautiful—still beautiful, more than Suho remembers. Alive, unharmed, right there. Older, too.
The world spins slowly around them. Sunlight brushes against Suho's skin, and a cool breeze slips by every now and then, soft against his face. Yeon Sieun walks toward him.
“Suho-yah,” he murmurs.
It’s disconcerting, it’s the first thing Suho thinks. The fondness in his voice is almost palpable, the relief. The familiarity. He calls out to Suho so sweetly, in a voice Suho has never heard before.
He barely even remembers Sieun calling out to him at all.
Suho had locked them together and worked through his barriers; then he had put himself in front of him, because protecting him is always the most important thing.
He knew Sieun cared about him. He knew what Sieun had done and how much more he wanted to do to protect him. He knew he cared. They were… He knew. He knows. He remembers it, because it was just yesterday.
But it wasn’t, really, and yet. Sieun waited, and he came.
It has been a year and nine months.
Suho sits under the open sky, feeling like a hollowed-out version of himself, while Sieun calls to him as if no time has passed. As if Suho had stayed by his side and earned the right to hear his name spoken with reverence.
He smiles, too—and not too long ago Suho had made an embarrassing mess of himself the first time it had happened. He does it easily, now. He smiles at Suho through his tears, and Suho feels a knot in throat.
“Suho-yah,” he repeats, within reaching distance now. Suho almost wants to ask him to stop, mortified by how much he wants to scream and hide. Hearing it makes Suho feel things.
Things he would’ve gotten over with time, he thinks, had he not been cheated out of that. He feels juvenile. It’s insignificant in the wake of everything that happened, but Suho still blushes.
“Yeon Sieun, why are you crying over me?”
Sieun lets out a little chuckle, and Suho really is not strong enough for it. In any capacity.
He gives Suho an incredule once-over, pure awe in his face. And then, his eyebrows furrow, “You’re wearing my clothes?”
The warmth in Suho’s chest spreads until it’s almost painful. He shrugs, trying to seem casual, pulling his hands from his pockets. “You left them in the room.”
He doesn’t expect Sieun to crouch down to his knees. His hand reaches for the armrest of his chair, and his fingers graze the cuffs of Suho’s—his—hoodie.
“Suho-yah.”
It doesn’t get better the third time. It’s worse, actually, with the way Sieun’s voice breaks at the end, along with Suho’s heart. His tears fall freely, and there’s so much in his eyes that Suho thinks he’ll drown in them.
He wants to apologize. He wants to beg for forgiveness, wants to scream, wants to tell Sieun he shouldn’t have waited for him. He wants to thank him. None of it comes out.
Instead, he forces out, “Sieun–Sieun-ah. You’re going to fall over.”
He nudges Sieun’s fingers with his, willing him to stand up, maybe go to the bench next to them and take a seat.
Sieun nudges his own hand closer, then hooks two of their fingers together. The point of contact feels like resurrection, the sun burning inside his ribcage, on the verge of explosion. He tries, as best as he can, to squeeze back.
They stay like that for a while, until Sieun’s legs nearly do give out.
His friends come towards them wearing the same unfamiliar uniform as him.
“Have your moment,” one of them says, and then, reaches out to ruffle Sieun’s hair. “Call us if you need anything. We’ll meet properly another day.”
He says the last part to Suho. The other two nod, and wave their goodbyes.
Suho can’t quite explain the abyss taking form inside of him. This is all he ever wanted for Sieun. For him to have friends, to not be alone, to be happy. Suho replays the easy way one of them had reached out to offer physical affection, how Sieun had not even flinched. How they’re able to offer help, to be the people Sieun can count on.
He’s happy. Sieun deserves it.
But the hole inside him grows, unrelenting and merciless. Sieun’s life went on, with a space reserved for him, but he’s changed. There’s so much of him Suho missed. He’s more of the parts Suho doesn’t know than the ones he knows.
And Suho is still the same person he was almost two years ago. He’s frozen in time.
Sieun sits on the bench, holding his hand, and they sit with the heavy silence of too much stuck in their throats.
“I wrote to you,” Sieun finally says, like a confession, “To your phone.”
It’s the huge, teary eyes that always do it for Suho. The sincerity in them, saying something so simple, as if he doesn’t have the power to shatter Suho on the spot. So casually making sure he knows Sieun still thought of him. Suho doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to make peace with the selfishness he feels in this moment, the hunger for at least this to be just for him.
“I don’t have it back yet, but I’ll read it.”
“It’s been better, lately, but it’s not pretty.” Sieun warns him.
“Doesn’t matter,” Suho says, trying to not seem so desperate about it. He’d take any chance to make up for lost time, any chance to feel like he still knows him, the illusion that he didn’t miss so much. “I want to know.”
Sieun nods.
-
They talk about things, lighter things, until the sun starts to sink lower. Which school Sieun is going to, who are his friends, where he’s living.
When they’re back inside, he stands quietly while the nurses check on Suho, speaking to them in hushed tones, helping Suho sip water and adjust his pillows. He hovers, reluctant to leave, until a nurse gently insists for him to go home and rest.
Suho tries to fight the exhaustion pulling at him, to savor every second he has with Sieun, but it’s a losing battle.
“C’m’back soon,” he mumbles, his eyelids too heavy to lift. "Sorry... Tired—”
He means to rest for only a moment, but the warmth of Sieun’s presence and the touch of gentle fingers brushing through his hair lull him to sleep before he can say anything more.
-
For the week that follows, Suho doesn’t dream.
Maybe it’s the fact that his brain just woke up from a coma, or the way exhaustion has made a home in him, thick inside his bones like marrow.
He’s grateful to be alive—maybe—but his days are torturous, except for when Sieun gets there.
The mortification is, somehow, worse than the tearing ache of trying to get his body to move. The doctors tell him he’s one of the luckiest they’ve ever seen, impressed he can manage to sit upright, and feed himself in small portions, and his swallowing is good.
The physical therapy is brutal, painful, and so frustrating he wants to quit on the spot. He doesn’t mind the pain. It’s the fact that his body won’t obey that drives him insane.
He used to be—
It’s not him.
He used to be the fastest, the strongest. He used to be able to hold his own. He even had some natural edge in sports. This body; the frail, sickly thin, stiff body that can’t even stand on its own isn’t him.
He can’t even bear the sight of himself.
His only relief is Sieun.
He refuses to let him attend any of his PT sessions with him. Sieun comes after he’s done for the day, and tells him about his own. He doesn’t press when Suho doesn’t want to talk about it.
But he speaks—more than Suho has ever heard. About menial things, or his friends, or how his mom is slowly giving up pretending they have any relationship. He does his homework and thinks out loud, and explains things to Suho that he knows Suho won’t understand, but says he finds it helpful to think. He talks, and reads out loud, and his voice has more confidence.
Suho likes his voice. Embarrassingly—still, because to Suho, barely any time has passed at all—Suho likes him. Still harbors the crush on a quiet, near mute boy who sat diagonally to him in class and never looked his way.
“Suho-yah,” Sieun calls him now, and it rolls off his tongue comfortably. He hasn’t dropped it, like Suho thought he would. It hadn’t been a sweet, heat of the moment thing.
“Suho-yah,” he says softly, then reaches out to hook their pinkies together.
“Suho-yah,” he pleads right before Suho falls asleep, and though the weariness never lets him hear the rest of that, he always feels Sieun’s grounding touch somewhere, right before he falls under. A hand in his hair, or on top of his chest; and once he even swears the felt Sieun’s fingers graze his neck, above his pulse point.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t dream for days. Because Sieun is there, always, tethering him back. A steady line that keeps him from drifting too far.
Maybe that’s why the first time he dreams is when he falls asleep before Sieun gets to the hospital.
-
It’s a bad day. It’s the worst day yet.
In the morning, he drops his food tray—his hands shake so hard he can’t grip. A nurse comes in, gently insisting on feeding him, undoing a milestone he thought he’d secured.
His hair, now longer than he’s ever kept it, falls into his eyes and sets his nerves on edge, every strand a scratch he can’t ignore.
During walking training, his arms give out on the handlebars as soon as he tries to stand. Then again, then again. He’s barely held up by the therapist and nurse on each side. He lashes out on them, throwing a tantrum worthy of a child. He’s so angry his vision blurs.
He refuses to speak, not because he’s stubborn, but because he’s terrified he’s going to fail that, too. His thoughts are fuzzy, jumbled, and he can barely think.
Then he cries, mortifyingly, when he accidentally takes a peek at his reflection.
By the time he’s back in bed, he doesn’t have the strength to sit up, to wipe his face, to pretend he’s still a person.
And because the day is only halfway through, he dreams. Half-memory, half-nightmare. Just a collection of blurred, distorted images. Sieun, bloodied. Youngyi, vanished.
Then Bumseok.
Looking down at him, smiling. Not a malicious smile, just the awkward one he used to give them. He shrinks into himself before his foot connects with Suho’s head in such a strange contrast. He apologizes as he does it, then blames him, then laughs, then cries. Suho can’t hit back, because his body is so atrophied. Can’t even move.
-
He wakes up with sweat collecting on the back of his neck, on his forehead, making his hair stick uncomfortably.
The room is dark, and the disorientation lingers like fog, refusing to lift. His entire body trembles, not from the cold or fear, but from something frayed in him, a rawness that hasn’t had time to heal.
And then, gently, a hand finds his. Hesitation gives way to the quiet certainty of fingers lacing through his.
“Suho-yah,” Sieun’s voice tears through the silence, a soft exhale that carries both relief and worry. “Are you okay?”
Suho shakes his head. Everything sucks.
He can’t bring himself to explain to Sieun how much he hates this.
That waking up in this body, the one that doesn’t fit right anymore, is like being exiled from himself. That every breath is a reminder of what was taken from him. That none of it made sense—not the pain, not the violence, not the way it all unraveled—and that although he would never regret the decision to shield Sieun, there is still a deep, aching resentment that it was ever necessary.
He had been so tired, back then. Too tired to keep standing. And now he’s left with the aftermath, while the people who did this to him walk away untouched, unburdened, free. He is the one lying in this bed, learning to exist again. He is the one who has to carry this.
Sieun’s fingers tighten around his, anchoring him.
“I hate being awake,” is what he can manage. He sees the flash of anguish and guilt in Sieun’s eyes, as expressive as ever; and he wishes that, too, could be taken away. He knows it’s bordering on cruel to say that when Sieun waited for him all this time. When Suho sleeping is probably the last thing he wants to see. “Not when you’re here, though. Never when you’re here.”
“I’m sorry,” Sieun breathes out, and Suho feels the tears in his own eyes that he didn’t even know were there running down his face, mirroring Sieun’s own. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”
Suho cuts him off with a slight shake of his head. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “It’s not mine either.”
Suho knows that much. No matter how many times his therapist prods at the question of guilt, trying to untangle a sense of responsibility he does not feel.
He knows Bumseok went way past any line Suho could've pulled him back from, one he hadn’t even wanted to.
It’s a harder pill to swallow to accept that he doesn’t feel guilt. That he didn’t want to help, at the end. That he didn’t have to.
He was ambushed and brutalized and had his life shattered over nothing he could’ve avoided.
He was made to feel small and helpless because Bumseok had felt small and helpless. Because he refused to swallow his pride even when Suho did his own. Because he had wanted Suho to be worse than he was so he could feel better.
“Still,” Sieun chokes out, “Still. I’m sorry. Everything started with me.”
“You’re my—” Suho shakes his head, but the words fail him.
Who is Sieun to him?
The boy he had—has—a crush on. His first real friend in so long. The one who was just as lonely as him, who let himself open up to Suho’s clumsy, rough attempts. Who put himself on the line for him. Someone Suho loves. The one who refused to leave his side when anyone else would have. His lifeline, his guiding chord.
“You’re you.” Suho tries again. He hopes Sieun understands what he means.
You’re you. There’s only ever you. Everything else is inconsequential.
Sieun nods like he does, “And you’re you. And you’re mine.”
He says it like there’s nothing he’s more sure of—and he’s right. It’s like awakening a second time.
Suho nods, and lets himself focus on the way Sieun holds his hand. The way his other one comes up to his face, fingertips gently grazing the apple of his cheek, then work their way up to brush the sweat-damp hair away from his eyes.
Suho wants, so desperately, to hold him. Something he’s thought about countless times before. Something he never quite got to do.
But nearly nineteen years old, now, Sieun is no longer the quiet, hesitant boy Suho once watched from a distance. He’s bolder, warmer, willing to touch and be touched in return.
So Suho lets himself be touched, tenderly; under hands that don’t prod or examine or measure. Lets his body relax and focus on this one point of warmth, Sieun’s thumb swiping across his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
“I like to see you awake. I know it hurts, and I wish I could take it away. But when you close your eyes I feel like I can’t move until you open them again.”
Despite everything, Suho smiles, “Not going anywhere again.”
“You better not.” His hand doesn’t stop the gentle exploration of Suho’s face, as if memorizing him, making sure he’s real. Suho feels himself starting to blush under it.
“You pull me back.”
Sieun says nothing to that. The caressing—and that’s what it is, Oh God—and the comfort it brings starts to lull Suho’s exhausted body back into a sleep he can’t fight.
“See you tomorrow,” he mumbles out a promise.
“I’ll be waiting.”
-
Suho tries not to fall asleep in front of him too often. When he does, though, he makes sure Sieun knows he’ll come back to him, even if he has to crawl.
-
“If you think it’s a good idea…” Suho trails off, trying not to seem too opposed to the idea of having Sieun’s friends, who at the end of the day are strangers, come visit him. He maintains that he’s happy Sieun has friends.
He feels bad, too, that Sieun has barely spent any time with them outside of school for the past three weeks, and Suho has taken up all of his other hours.
Sieun looks up from his textbook, sitting on the chair across his hospital bed, “I don’t.”
Suho blinks, caught off guard.
Sieun sighs, closing his textbook, “Baku is loud and irritating and doesn’t understand personal space. Hyuntak is louder, more irritating, he’s going to be insensitive at some point. Juntae is good.”
“I’m all of that, too.” Suho frowns into his cup of disgusting hospital cafeteria jelly.
Sieun hums in response, noncommittal, but his mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile.
Suho’s heart hurts in a confusing, good way, “You really like them.”
Sieun’s smile blooms, timid and soft, “They’re fine. I think you’ll like them, too.”
Suho looks at him, and what he sees is someone who’s trying. Someone who wants to share something of his world with him. He looks proud, even. And happy. That alone feels like a reason to say yes.
He swallows around the nervousness building in his throat, the embarrassment of imagining anyone else seeing him in his current state, but he sets it aside. He can bear it.
“Alright. We’ll do it.”
-
Park Humin is the first one he meets officially. Baku. Sieun uses the nickname naturally.
They sit out in the open air, watching as the last of the cherry blossoms fight a losing battle against their cycle of life, stubbornly holding on to the branches before they fall. They carry away the scent of antiseptic.
Suho tries to like Baku. He does like Baku, with a sort of detached distance that’s not really common for him. He really is loud. He’s friendly, caring, and obviously knows Sieun well. Sieun trusts him.
He even comes bearing gifts—a small stack of worn-out volumes from an old sports manga, the covers creased, a few pages dog-eared, one of them lightly stained with what Suho hopes is soy sauce. It’s thoughtful, if chaotic. A gesture with good bones.
“He’s my little brother, you know?” Humin says at some point, pointing to Sieun.
“We’re the same age.”
Park Humin laughs, “It’s the principal of the thing, ice princess. I took you under my wings as soon as I saw you in class.”
Sieun doesn’t even look up from where he’s fiddling with the corner of a juice box straw. “We aren’t in the same class.”
Humin just grins, unbothered, and leans over to ruffle Sieun’s hair with an ease that feels startling. His hands are broad and rough, probably calloused from whatever sport he’s into, and Suho watches with a strange knot forming in his chest as Sieun allows it—barely reacts, just lets him with minimal resistance.
Like he’s used to it. Like Park Humin has it that easy.
“He’s like the kitten I found on the side of the road. Then I found out he’s a cheetah, but then it’s like, what was I gonna do? I got attached.”
Sieun grimaces, clearly mortified. “You’re so embarrassing.”
Suho doesn’t fight the urge to smile at that. Sieun really is, in a way, a little bit like an angry, lethal kitten. “It’s the huge eyes.”
Humin lights up at that, “Right? I’ve been saying that forever. Saddest little glare I’ve ever seen, like an anime character. And tsundere. Do you know how long it took me to win him over? So long, I tell you. Months.”
And just like that, something sharp lodges itself deep in Suho’s gut, disrupting his peace. He smiles back weakly through it.
Suho hadn’t even had months with Sieun before everything happened. Park Humin has known Sieun for longer than Suho can even hope to catch up with, not anytime soon.
“He’s not that hard to crack,” Suho says.
Humin snorts, “Not to you. You’re the obvious favorite, even above Juntae. Even in class, he—”
Sieun cuts him off with an elbow to the ribs, “Why am I the topic of conversation?”
“Because we adore you,” Humin throws an arm around him through a grimace, then turns to Suho, “See how he treats me? Ungrateful cheetah.”
Suho swallows past the knot in his throat, forces down the ugly black hole that makes itself known once again, thrumming inside. He laughs.
-
“He’s something, alright,” Suho says once they’re back in the quiet of his hospital room, the fluorescent lights too bright compared to the soft daylight outside, the silence too full after all of Humin’s noise.
“I told you.” Sieun snorts under his breath, but there’s affection in the sound. “He likes you already. He’s like that.”
Suho nods slowly, eyes trained on the edge of his blanket where his fingers keep fidgeting with a loose thread. The words gather in his throat before they spill out. “I’m glad you have him. That he was there for you when I couldn’t be.”
It must come out more strangled than he means to, shown a little too much of his hand, because it gives Sieun pause.
He stares at him, considering his words carefully. “I’m glad I have him, too. All of them, but…”
Suho interrupts him, “I mean it. It’s okay. It’s awesome, really—”
“I know you don’t mean to—I know. But they’re not you,” Sieun tells him with unshakeable belief. “I was never going to leave you behind if I had a choice. Even when I didn’t have one, I came back to you. That’s just how it is.”
Suho only half understands what he means. There’s still so much he doesn’t know about the time he missed, so much more Sieun went through for him that he’s not yet privy to. Regardless, the words hit him like a freight train. Sieun is pleading, almost, for him to believe it. He does.
He does.
It’s just hard. The push and pull of wanting him there, tied to him, and not wanting to hold him back. Not wanting to chain him to someone who’s travelling a long, seemingly endless road to being a whole person again.
“So there’s no getting rid of you?” Suho jokes, his voice so obviously raw and choked up that all of the words come out shaky.
Sieun smiles at him. It’s never going to get easier, Suho realizes, to watch him do that—open, fond. Not even the defibrillators by his hospital bed could do a better job of shocking him to the core. “It’s statistically negligible.”
He reaches for Suho, fingers brushing his hair away from his eyes, a gesture that’s almost becoming familiar. Sieun is the one who initiates touch most of the time, now. He likes having his hands in Suho’s hair, even if it’s lifeless, shapeless, and Suho mostly hates it.
“It’s so long, now,” Sieun comments, as if reading his mind.
“And sweaty, all the time,” Suho grimaces, then admits, annoyed, “I can’t—It’s hard to reach the scalp. And it keeps sticking to me.”
Sieun seems unbothered, “I’ll wash it for you. If you want me to.”
“Yeah?” Suho manages, the word barely above a whisper, his throat thick.
His heart doesn’t even attempt to let up. He’s lucky he’s in a hospital, with how high the probability of him getting a Yeon Sieun-induced heart attack is.
Sieun only hums as a response, in that way he does when he’s already decided.
-
With Suho’s wheelchair positioned carefully, his back facing the handheld showerhead, a towel draped over his shoulders, Sieun adjusts the water settings with a quiet focus.
“You’re gonna get wet.” Suho points out, glancing at the fabric of Sieun’s t-shirt already dampening around the collar.
“Doesn’t matter.”
There’s no room for argument in his tone, no concern for discomfort—only the kind of casual care that Suho is still learning how to fully absorb.
He supports the back of Suho’s head, guiding it so he can aim the showerhead without letting any of the water hit his eyes. It’s warm, carefully tested on the inside of Sieun’s wrist moments earlier, and when it streams down over his scalp, Suho exhales slowly. He hadn’t realized how tense his body was until now.
Sieun doesn’t rush. He squeezes shampoo into his hands, rubs it together until it’s foamed and warm, and then starts lathering it into Suho’s hair with practiced care. The citrus scent—faintly sweet, clean, unmistakably oranges—spreads through the air. Sieun had picked it himself from the small care bag he brought a few days earlier, determined to rid Suho of the antiseptic sterility of everything else in the hospital.
Then his fingers start doing the work. He’s meticulous about it, moving with a tenderness that somehow never feels fragile. His hands are steady, and his pressure is just right. Not too light, not too clinical. He’s not afraid to really touch him, and that makes Suho’s body tingle all over
When Sieun’s nails trace just behind his ears, dragging ever so slightly in a place Suho hadn’t even realized was sensitive, a small sound escapes him, involuntary and telling.
“Does it hurt?” Sieun asks, low and close.
Suho refuses to open his eyes and check for the expression on his face, because he doesn’t sound concerned. He has the sugar-heaviness in his voice that carries over from when he says his name like that, too much for Suho to try and analyze.
“No,” Suho murmurs, the word lazy and blurred at the edges. “‘S fine.”
“Are you sure?” Sieun asks again, and it sounds like he’s smiling, but his hands don’t stop—they only move lower, sliding down to the base of Suho’s neck. His fingers find the spot where Suho’s hair always seems to gather sweat and discomfort, the part that itches the worst when it dries wrong, and then his nails scrape there just so—right where he knows it’ll unravel him.
Little shockwaves of pleasure hit him, and he wonders if Sieun is doing it on purpose.
The breath Suho sucks in is shaky, but not from pain. “Feels good,” he says, and it’s not really a confession, but it feels like one. Feels like he’s giving something away.
Sieun continues to work in silence after that, and Suho melts in his hands.
-
When he helps Suho back on his bed, he keeps him sitting upright, then climbs up behind him. Neither say anything as he starts to pat a towel to the damp hair with soft pressure, diligently working on the strands to soak up the water.
Suho is thankful he’s strong enough to keep himself sitting down, at least, unwilling to miss any second of this Sieun. Careful, tender as he is with all things that are his. He loses track on time inside this moment, an oasis in a desert.
When Sieun is satisfied, when his hands lower and Suho thinks he’s finally going to get up, he almost jumps when he feels something—Sieun leaning on his back, resting his forehead on the nape of his neck. He feels the little exhales that escape Sieun’s lips directly on his skin. Sieun’s palms run down his back until they rest on his thinned out waist.
Suho gasps.
“Suho-yah,” Sieun breathes out, labored.
“Yeah?” Suho almost chokes.
“You’re here.”
There’s so much pain, and awe, and relief in his voice that tears immediately spring to Suho’s eyes. “Yeah.”
“You’re here with me.” Suho feels Sieun’s lips grazing the skin above the collar of his shirt.
“I am.” Suho exhales, unable to stop some tears from falling, slowly; one then another.
“Sometimes it doesn’t seem real. Like if I stop touching you, or looking, or if I take one step away you’re going to disappear.”
Suho shuts his eyes, leans his head back on top of his.
“I won’t. When I’m back on my feet, the only way is to follow you.”
He physically feels Sieun chuckle, and it’s earth-shattering, that it’s a common enough occurrence now that Suho can recognize it.
Sieun says, “I won’t let you take that back.”
Suho pulls words out of his core and forces them out of his mouth, running over every urge to apologize again that tries to obstruct the way. Pushes down the remorse he feels for leaving Sieun, the resentment stemming from the unfairness of life, the fear that won’t leave the back of his mind that he’s a burden on borrowed time.
Because this matters the most.
“Thank you for waiting for me, Sieun-ah.”
He feels Sieun shift, his head lifting, the tip of his nose brushing slowly up the back of Suho’s neck in something dangerously close to a nuzzle. He breathes in the scent of oranges, and his arms wrap around Suho’s middle.
Suho used to fantasize about hugging Sieun like this. To wrap his arms around his waist, squeeze him against his chest and bury his nose in his hair.
Getting to be the one being held, instead, is a surprise. It’s not bad at all.
The black hole in his core shrinks.
“Thank you for coming back to me.” Sieun replies, lips pressing against the sensitive spot at the base of his neck, suspiciously resembling a kiss.
-
When they feel like his motor skills are good enough for it, he gets his phone back. Coincidentally, they do it on one of the rare days where Sieun can’t visit, and Suho is bored out of his mind.
He thinks back to what Sieun told him.
When he turns it on, the influx of coming texts starts, one after the other, making everything freeze. Suho wills himself to be patient as it takes an eternity for his old phone to cool down and work again.
All of the most recent ones, of course, are Sieun. The last one dates four weeks before—a few days before Suho had woken up.
The other ones stop at the weeks right after the fight.
Youngyi. Bumseok. Suho swipes to delete those without reading.
Sieun’s thread has 304 unread texts.
He clicks it open, and immediately reads the latest text.
from: yeon sieun
Suho-yah, the weather is getting better. I wonder if you can feel it. I’ve been good. Things are so quiet. Except for the friends at Eunjang, but they’re a good kind of noise. I dream about you often, but the nightmares have mostly stopped. Most people probably think you’re getting farther away from me, but lately, I think I can feel you closer. I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking.
Suho laughs, delirious. His heart aches in his chest. Yeon Sieun is a bastard.
to: yeon sieun
they were wrong
you were right
as usual
He watches as the text status icon lights up to read, and then the three dots show up and disappear several times before a text comes.
from: yeon sieun
Have you read it?
to: yeon sieun
no
will now
from: yeon sieun
Alright.
A lot of it is ugly.
to: yeon sieun
not if it’s you
Suho presses the arrow up that lands him right on the last unread text, and starts reading.
-
from: yeon sieun
Where are you
Please pick up
Suho
Please
-
from: yeon sieun
Don’t go there
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho
-
from: yeon sieun
I’m sorry.
-
from: yeon sieun
I went after them. All of them.
-
from: yeon sieun
They’re sending me away to Yeongdeungpo. I’ll still come visit.
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho, please.
Please.
-
from: yeon sieun
Why are they all the same?
-
from: yeon sieun
Ahn Suho, I miss you. Why are you so stubborn?
Just wake up.
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho-yah, I’m trying so hard not to fight. I think [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho-yah, I’m sorry. I fought again [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
I always think about what you would’ve said. I feel like lately [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
My mother tried to send me abroad. I refused to go. I couldn’t leave you, or my friends [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho-yah, I got hurt a few days ago. You would’ve hated it. They called me from the hospital [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
Suho-yah, I think Hyuntak has been making me understand some things [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
I’m finally a senior. It feels like time has stretched beyond [...]
-
from: yeon sieun
I don’t think I can ever give up on you. Someone suggested today that [...]
-
He reads into the night, through all one year and nine months worth of texts, with his heart in his throat. There’s so much more he expected. So much of the bad and the good, so much of him. It’s more than anyone can take all at once, to find out how much you mean to someone. How far they would go for you. How they crawled their way through hell and back to you.
And most pressingly, throughout it all, Sieun had never once spoken like he had given up hope Suho would wake up.
He doesn’t check the time, even though he’s sure it’s late into the night. He doesn’t think about anything as his hands tremble and he presses the call button.
Sieun picks up on the second ring.
“Suho-yah,” his voice comes, soft and knowing.
Suho doesn’t know where to start. There’s just the truth.
“I told you it wasn’t pretty.” Sieun says.
There’s nothing Suho can do about anything he read. He can’t offer help, can’t fix things that have already happened and ended. He can’t interfere or stop or change. He wasn’t there. They have come and gone, and they’re Sieun’s story. They’re part of him, and Suho loves all parts that make him.
Suho loves him. Suho loves him. Not despite his brutality, but because of who he still is with the weight of it within him. The love he manages to give while learning what it is himself.
“Okay,” Suho says, “I have ugly, too. We can be ugly together. It doesn’t change anything. I still—”
“Yes?”
“I’d still choose you. There’s nothing you can say or do.”
Sieun exhales softly on the other end of the line, and his voice comes out small, too much like the Sieun from before. “Alright.”
Suho huffs, “I mean it. Nothing.”
“I believe you,” Sieun assures him.
Suho settles.
He loses track of how long they talk on the phone. Suho asks, Sieun answers with no hesitation. Then, slowly, Sieun’s voice starts to slur. Suho can tell he’s fighting to stay awake, but it isn’t long before the only sounds on the other end are calm, even breaths. Suho continues to listen, until he, too, closes his eyes.
-
He officially meets Sieun’s remaining two friends on Sieun’s birthday.
Suho tries to talk him out of it—celebrating turning nineteen in the hospital yard is ridiculous, he insists. But Sieun, older and somehow even more stubborn, refuses to budge.
Try as he might to feel guilty about it, no one else seems to mind. In fact, everyone seems perfectly content.
One of the nurses helps them set up a table outside. If they ignored the hospital gowns, the IV poles nearby, and the occasional passing doctor, it could almost pass for a regular group of friends having lunch in the park.
Humin brings fried chicken, Juntae brings drinks, Hyuntak brings Sieun a convenience store cake, decorated with shaky frosting on top, reading Ice Princess.
“I would’ve brought seaweed soup, but they wouldn’t let me into the kitchen, for some reason.” Suho says.
They all look at him, startled for a second. Park Humin is the first to laugh, and the loudest. Hyuntak follows, then a timid Juntae. He looks at Sieun, who’s barely managing to hide a smile.
“And you couldn’t run to the store like I did?” Hyuntak points at his cake, then sighs and shakes his head, “This guy, seriously. Is that the first impression you wanna leave?”
“He’s not on trial here,” Sieun deapans. “You are. Except Juntae, on principle.”
“Hey, come on, now,” Baku intervenes, “Don’t be a rebel, Sieun-ah. We won’t approve of this match if—”
Suho doesn’t see it, but the sharp wince on Baku’s face tells him Sieun has kicked him under the table.
“I will,” Juntae says, “You have my blessing.”
Sieun raises his eyebrows at him. “I take it back.”
It’s nice. It’s fun, even, to see Sieun so comfortable. To see him joke around, so little of the heaviness on his shoulders that used to be unrelenting. They light candles for him, only four of them, because those were all the ones Hyuntak could find.
“One for every five years.” Baku says with a grin.
“That math doesn’t add up.” Sieun points out. He blows them out anyway.
They talk, and eat, and Suho tries to keep up with the energy. They’re good kids, really. It’s transparent how much they care about Sieun, how reciprocated it is. His energy starts to run out at some point, and Sieun reaches for his hand under the table, lacing their fingers together.
He squeezes once, silently asking if he’s okay. Suho nods. He hangs on for as long as he can, to the vibrance of life. Hangs on to a Sieun who’s nineteen years old, and has spent nearly two of those holding on to him.
His thumb traces patterns on Sieun’s palm for the rest of the time, hidden from view. No one would blame him for training his fine motor skills.
-
For his own birthday, nineteen year old Ahn Suho relearns how to walk—without falling down, or his legs buckling three steps in.
The kids who are now somewhat his friends give him a pair of sneakers he can’t yet use, but will, soon.
Later, when they're alone in his room, Suho stands in front of Sieun without help.
He watches as a smile breaks out on his face, wider than Suho has ever seen. It’s clear as day how proud he is of him. He’s so beautiful. Suho’s knees nearly buckle for that reason alone.
Sieun steps forward, arms wrapping around Suho’s waist, burying his face in the curve of his neck. Suho had almost forgotten how small he really is—gotten used to looking up at him from the chair.
The air leaves him when he wraps his arms around his shoulders and Sieun tucks himself closer, impossibly, his head right under Suho’s chin. Perfect fit.
He noses at his hair and breathes in the scent of him, holds on to his warmth, lets it all wash over senses. In a push of courage and adrenaline and pride, he presses his lips to his temple.
Sieun makes a tiny nose where he’s hiding on the crook of his neck.
“Suho-yah.” Sieun murmus, muffled.
Suho has learned by now that, sometimes, Sieun says his name just because he can. Nothing follows it, necessarily, not always. He just likes it when Suho replies.
“Hm?”
Suho feels his answer in the form of a pair of lips applying a gentle pressure on his neck. He knows he’s blushing, feels his ears hot with it, but he’s come to accept and ignore it.
When Suho finally tires his legs out and reluctantly pulls away, Sieun reaches for something in his backpack, then hands it to him. A black velvet box.
“Happy birthday.”
Inside is a watch. Sleek black, silver edges, a subtle flash of red. A fancier version of the one he used to wear.
“Because you keep checking your wrist.”
“Thank you. I didn’t even—” Suho feels seen, raw. He rubs the inside of his bare wrist, a newly-found habit. He’s been hyperfocusing on time. “It feels weird that I lost the other one.”
Sieun looks guilty, “You didn’t. I kept it. I’m sorry, I just wanted something to keep with me.”
Suho snaps his gaze back to him.
And it really is, without fail, always the eyes with Sieun. It’s like looking at a body of water at night, shimmering when the moonlight catches it at an angle, inviting you in even when you know how deep it goes.
“It’s yours.” Suho shakes his head.
As if he would ever deny Sieun any piece of him.