Chapter Text

CHAPTER 1

Nothing but Silence

Yeonjun POV

“Waste, waste away in the gutter with me

No, I can't tell what is fake in my reality” - Devil by the Window

My suit jacket falls into the laundry basket, ready for my housekeeper to wash. I unbutton my dress shirt in front of the mirror, admiring just how good I can pull off Prada. It’s nice being able to worry about the trivial things, like what cologne I’m wearing (it’s Dior) and how clear my skin looks today. It feels good not having to be reminded of the bad things. I sigh and let myself sink into the warm bathwater, already bubbly with my favourite bath mix. My phone rings and I groan as I reach for my phone on the side of the bath. The buzz stops for a moment, then starts up again. I hesitate, my thumb hovering over the screen.

It's Soobin. I know it’s him: the same name, the same number, the same sense of urgency.

What do I even say?

“Good evening, Yeonjun speaking?”

There’s silence on the other end, followed by shallow breathing, ragged and unsure. My heart twists, but I hold my breath, waiting for something—anything—to break the quiet. But it never comes. The line cuts off. I stand there, phone in hand, staring at the screen. That should’ve been obvious to me. I should’ve expected this. It’s always like this. My phone slips from my hand onto the stone floor, shattering the sound of silence. I’m not sure why he kept my number after all these years, after all those lies that I told him. I should’ve changed my number, I should’ve blocked him, I should’ve done anything. But I didn’t. 

I put my head under the water and hold my breath for as long as I can.

⌞ᯓ★๋࣭⏱ ⭑⌝

As I get out, my body aches from staying still for so long in the hot water. I look out at the view from my bathtub, a lookout of the lake and mountains, with the golf course down below. As I take in the beauty of the sun setting, I see something that shouldn't be there. It looks like someone with a face I will never forget. But just as quickly as I see the figure, it vanishes, and I realise that my hallucinations are back. I open the mirror cabinet – which is filled with skincare and medications—and get the pills I have to take whenever the symptoms come back. I wince as the bitter taste fills my mouth and the stinging returns to my head. I sit down on the black marble floor and try to soothe the pain that happens every time the symptoms come. Water drops on the floor, and I realise that it's falling from my eyes. I force my eyes shut, forbidding tears to form. I've stopped crying for thirteen years, I can't start now. The phone buzzes again, and I just let it ring. I can't bother picking it up this time.

Not this time.

⏱

I walk to my bedroom, mostly because I don’t know what else to do. I spend the day drowning myself in work so I can forget things that happened years ago. It doesn’t feel like years, though. It was just yesterday when me and him drifted apart. When I drew a line around the earth and forbade him from crossing it. He still stayed, even when I asked him to leave for his sake. I notice the old photobooth picture me and him took when we were younger. 

I should move on, I know I should. But how can I when this—this photo, this memory—feels like the last piece of him left? It’s all I have, and maybe that’s why I can’t put it down, even when it makes it hurt more. I pick it up with trembling hands, still damp from the bath. The water didn’t wash everything away. 

His name is still engraved in my mind, his smile like a painting and my brain the canvas. I trace my finger around the outline of his face close to mine, the regret pounding against my chest. I drop the picture on the carpet floor, watching it flutter down,  and I collapse onto the bed. The sheets are cold beneath me, and the weight of them only makes me feel heavier. Maybe we will never meet again, and maybe we'll never be together till death do us part like we promised. My head throbs, and I whimper at the pain; I know I should be working, but I'm too exhausted to do anything. 

Toughen up, Yeonjun. You have work to do.

I grab my laptop and head to my office, a huge room with large floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a dark oak desk in the centre. The glass door leading to a balcony reveals a beautiful view of the river flowing past the house to the lake. I sit down on my office chair as a shiver runs through my body, the house has always felt empty, but never has it been this lonely before. I look at the phone, waiting for the person to call me again. This time I’ll pick it up… I need to pick it up.

Before it’s too late.

⏱

My assistant resigned, meaning I need a new one. I get applications almost instantly, so I start flicking through their CVs. My eye flickers towards a familiar face. A face I needed to see so badly. I tell myself it’s a coincidence, but even my pessimistic self doesn’t believe my lies. There he is, right there: Choi Soobin.

My first love.

But I can’t let my personal life interfere with my professional one. It wouldn’t be fair to the other applicants. Where the other maybe-secretaries come from big businesses, this would be Soobin’s first job. I don’t trust big company people, though, and I do trust Soobin. Maybe, just maybe, it can work.

I send him a quick email, asking him whether he wants to proceed with an interview. He replies quickly and I trace his words with my fingertips. Soobin is going to work for me. My Soobin. I smile into the computer—my face reflecting off the screen—but I catch myself quickly. This is merely for business purposes, nothing else. This is not for my own selfish reasons, its just because I know Soobin and Soobin knows me. Soobin is smart. So much smarter than I could ever be. He’s reliable, professional, and patient. He would be the perfect assistant.

My mind goes back thirteen years ago, when I first confessed to him. It was the first snow, and my cheeks were all rosy from the cold. It just… slipped out, I guess. My feelings were suddenly out in the open for everyone to see. I half expected Soobin to laugh and brush it off. 

Instead, he kissed me on the cheek and ran away, blushing.

I stood there like the cold had frozen me, warmth creeping up my neck like a winter sunburn. If I had stayed there any minute longer, I would have collapsed from shock. 

My grip tightens on the mouse. 

Spring, 2023

Yeonjun and Soobin were sitting under the cherry blossom tree playing their usual games on their phones, competing against each other. 

“Hey! That’s not fair, I should’ve won!” Yeonjun shouted, a smile on his face.

“Nuh-uh, I won fair and square,” Soobin teased, poking Yeonjun in the shoulder, “you’re just bad at the game.” He said, resting his head on Yeonjun’s shoulder.

“Fine, but this time I’ll win and I’ll prove it!” Yeonjun said playfully, nudging Soobin with his shoulder jokingly. Soobin made inappropriate noises in Yeonjun's ear, reaching for his hand, as most boys their age did.

“Hey! Stop distracting me, Soobin… You’re gonna make me lose.”  Soobin smirked as he watched his friend glaring at his phone and spamming the screen seriously.  

“All right, all right.” Soobin grinned mischievously as he let Yeonjun win, a part of him secretly pleased to see his friend so thrilled. He didn’t mind losing—watching Yeonjun smile was enough for him. Yeonjun’s face lit up as he jumped to his feet, doing a little victory dance by twerking and prancing around. 

He shouted, “Told you I’d win, told you!” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” but inside, Soobin was secretly smiling and giggling at his silly friend. 

A Flower with Wilted Petals

Soobin POV

“It feels like everybody's happy but me
It hurts more when I smile than when I cry” - Run Away

I stare at my hands, watching them tremble as if they belong to someone else. My tears are burning my eyes, and they drip like a leaky tap that refuses to be fixed. I look up at the doctor, his face full of professional sympathy. 

“It spread?...” The doctor nods slowly and adjusts his glasses. He looks like he’s an old priest giving a sermon he’s given a hundred times before. Except he's younger than me, so that makes no sense.

“You may be able to live longer than 6 months if you get treatment, but if you don’t… the chances of surviving for more than a year is extremely slim.” 

Even in 2036, people are still as breakable as porcelain mugs. You would expect they had a cure for cancer by now, or at least a subscription plan. I look at all of the medical posters on his wall, contemplating my luck. All sorts of posters with pictures of lungs and brains and slogans like ‘Early detection saves lives!’. 

I snort.

When they found the first traces of cancer, the doctors had been so smugly optimistic. 

“Caught it early!” 

“We can get rid of it immediately!” 

“Normal life ahead!” 

Somewhere between the biopsies and the cheerful pamphlets, something went wrong. One of the doctors botched it and nearly lost his license. I refused to ruin him.

He told me he owed me his life. 

I look back at Dr. Kang's kind eyes.

“How much is the treatment?”

“You’re considering it? It might not even work out, just so you know.” I nod, despite the coil in my stomach. I trust Dr. Kang. “It depends, but in your case…” 

The numbers hit me like a brick wall. That’s more than I make in a year. Maybe two. I laugh, but it comes out sounding more like a sob.

“Should I just… hope for the best?” I mutter.

⌞ᯓ★๋࣭⏱ ⭑⌝

I can’t work right now, not when I know that I’m probably going to die this year. I need to work, but it feels impossible. How can I focus on something as mundane as earning money when all I can think about is the fact that I might not even see next year? 

I want to grow up, live with the love of my life and adopt lots and lots of cats. We could live in a cottage in the countryside, where there aren’t many people and cars, and we’d lie under a cherry blossom tree and talk about life, like the good old days. Every morning we would sit together at the table in a room painted with sunlight and eat a nice home-cooked breakfast, with a vase holding fresh flowers from the garden, and we would have no worries about the world—just a simple, carefree life.

I love my vision, but the only person I want to share my future with no longer loves me. Maybe they never did, and perhaps I just imagined it all along. 

I shrug off the sadness, trying to hold on to my usual optimism, even as it starts to slip away. Hey, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with this sad, almost empty feeling of losing him anymore.

But I know that he was never mine to lose in the first place. I know that he might never be mine, but there’s a saying that the best way to admire a flower is from afar. So maybe I have to do just that; instead of just plucking the flower, I should water it.

Sadly, he doesn’t know that he’s a flower.

My flower.

⏱

I put my laptop away and look out the window of my small apartment. The weather matches my mood today: gloomy and grey, but a little sliver of the sun tries to salvage the occasion. Maybe a walk outside would do me good.

I get to my feet but my vision blurs at the sudden movement. The doctors never told me that living would be so hard if the initial treatment didn’t work. My hands are clumsy but I manage to put on my coat and look at least half decent. 

The elevator groans like it’s been chain-smoking for decades, and when I step into the lobby, the receptionist robot scans me with its plastic smile. I smile back.

“Good afternoon, Soobin! Current weather: 13 degrees, 40% chance of rain, 60% chance you regret leaving the building without an umbrella!” I slip a coin into the slot to borrow a ‘smart umbrella’. 

“Reminder: Your medical debt is now 487,000 credits! Would you like to set up a payment plan?” I frown. So does another tenant. She looks at me with a mix of pity and disgust. I look down.

“Remind me later, junk heap.” I whisper.

Outside, the wind brushes my face, and I take a deep breath. Okay, maybe six months isn’t the end of the world. I can still see the cherry blossoms bloom. I can still have breakfast in a sunlit kitchen. Maybe I’ll even adopt that ridiculous number of cats I’ve been dreaming about.

I smile at the thought. If chemo makes me bald, at least the cats won’t care.

A kid on a skateboard nearly bumps into me. I stumble back, waving my hands like I’m conducting an orchestra.

“Whoa! Careful there, future X-Games champion!” I call.

He smirks, salutes me like a soldier, and zooms off.

Across the street, a woman juggling groceries pauses.

“Soobin! Morning! Don’t let the rain wash your smile away!”

I wave back, hiding the way my chest lurches behind a grin.

“Thanks, I’ll try my best!”

Further down, Mrs. Kim is being dragged by her tiny dog.

“You’re always so cheerful, Soobin,” she says breathlessly. “Don’t you ever have a bad day?”

I shrug, keeping my grin in place.

“Not allowed to, ma’am. Neighbourhood rules.”

The barista from the street corner coffee shop waves. “Extra chocolate for the usual cheerful customer?” The smell of coffee overwhelms me, and my hands turn clammy. My head starts to spin.

“Of course! You know me so well.” 

“I swear, one day you’re going to order something different and I’m going to faint.” I laugh, even though my hands are shaking.

“Don’t faint just yet, I’m not strong enough to catch you.”

I stumble a little, but she doesn’t notice. 

I grip the cup tight, but they don’t notice.

I cry a bit when I smile, but no one notices.

Because to them, I will always be the happy, sunny Soobin. To them, I’ll grow old and have a family. To them, I’m an ordinary boy in his mid-twenties; healthy and smart, with a future full of potential.