The Beacon; My Siren - Chap 29

[wild_terrain]

Title: The Beacon; My Siren
Author: wild_terrain (ie. fi_chan)
Banner (Made beautifully by love_cassiopeia):

 

Chapter: [29/ ?]
Rating: MA15+
Genre: AU [FLANGST, mystery, spirituality, romance]
Summary: Philophobia… The fear of falling in love or being in love. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I met him… Kim JaeJoong was my age—a youthful 25 years—and the owner of a popular café, yet he was already known around town as the mysterious hermit who had chosen to completely withdraw from the world. How on earth could someone so young be afraid of loving others to the point of secluding themselves from all human beings? What was he afraid of? What was he hiding? I just didn’t understand it. And by that stage, the need to understand it was all I could think about... In fact, he was all I could think about…

Jung Yunho… For all of my life I had grown up away from the limelight. I couldn’t stand being noticed by anybody, and for a long time I thankfully never was. But then you came and suddenly you were everywhere – waving to me as I swept the café after closing, saying hello to me as you cycled past the bench I was sitting on, helping me carry my groceries inside whilst talking non-stop to me as if we were actually friends… Why are you always around making my heart thump erratically? Why do you even care? The more you try to explore this town, the more I need to step up and protect you from your own curiosity, because I know It is out there and I know It wants to harm you…

Trailer: CLICK TO WATCH~~

Beta =  moon1084 <3

A/N: Here we go, my pretties! Hmm, when my beta read the previous crazy chapter she was like 'loll you know, you're gonna have to have almost written chapter 29 when you post chap 28 because it's going to drive people crazy having to wait too long.' haha, and so I was like 'ho shit, so true' and I got my butt into gear to write and type chap 29 as fast as I could. So you can thank my beta for this, hahaha.

 

I don’t know what world I was living in. I didn’t understand anything going on around me. Strangers surrounded me all the time. They spoke a different language to me; I just couldn’t grasp what all the words meant. My brain must have been getting old because I just couldn’t piece anything together anymore.

It wasn’t just my brain that hurt and felt useless but every other part of me as well. It felt hard to breathe. There was something down my throat. Or there had been… It still felt like there was but when I tried to raise a trembling hand to my lips there was nothing there anymore.

I was so tired. People talked loudly all the time around me but I knew no one and I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed.

I was pretty disoriented now but I had been even more so when I had first been taken to this place. To a hospital? I just lay and let them do things. I really wanted to sleep, to find peace but they wouldn’t leave me alone. They fiddled with me and tried to explain things to me but I could only nod and let them play with me, groaning all the time when whatever they did felt uncomfortable and hurt.

Apparently I needed help breathing because my lungs had had a lot of water in them. They had needed to get it out and from my stomach too. I think they were appalled by how much they had needed to get out. No wonder I felt so awful.

The tube was gone now though and things were finally a little quieter. I still felt awful. Still felt tired and confused, but the silent room felt good.

I let myself have a longer nap. When I woke up, things felt less fuzzy and my world started to make sense to me again. I was here because something had happened in the water. Something bad. Something had gone wrong and they were trying to make me better, make me myself again.

Yet, when I closed my eyes, it was no longer a refuge but a torment. Fear sliced through my heart and memories I wasn’t ready to recall tried to play out in flashes of images accompanied by terrifying sounds. I wasn’t ready to deal with that—not without comfort around me, not without someone I knew near me.

One name kept coming to mind. Thinking of the name gave me comfort. Whenever things were too much, I’d think of that name to calm me down. If you get through this, I’d tell myself, you can see Yunho. So just get through this. I didn’t know how to get into contact with him; I didn’t even properly know where I was! But I would see him, I assured myself.

When people who weren’t in uniform were allowed to see me, I finally got a familiar face. I was so relieved to see him that my sore throat started to itch and my eyesight blurred over.

He came over to hold my hand and I really did cry silently a tiny bit.

“How are you feeling, Hyung?” my waiter and friend asked.

“Not great. Lonely,” I confessed.

“Don’t worry, Hyung,” he firmly assured, sitting down in a chair beside my bed and then taking up my hand in his. “Things are going to be fine. And you’ve got me; I won’t be leaving you.”

“Thanks Chunnie…” I choked out.

He rubbed my hand a bit, warming it up. I really was so relieved to have him here. “I called Yunho but I’m not getting an answer,” he said with nonchalance. “But don’t worry, I’ll keep trying.”

“He’s probably working. Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry him,” I gave a little smile.

Yoochun didn’t answer. He looked confused for a brief moment and then looked like he wanted to say something but just sat back a little in his chair and said nothing.

We waited for my doctor to come back and made small talk between us until he left. Yoochun didn’t seem to have much of a clue about what was going on and he seemed reluctant to ask me about what had happened. I must have looked really fragile. I suppose most people in hospital did… I was glad I couldn’t look at my reflection.

Calm footsteps sounded near my door and a middle-aged man in uniform walked in. My doctor nodded at Yoochun with a polite smile and then spread more light on the situation for the both of us. I was finally lucid enough to hear the truth.

I had drowned. Narrowly survived, in fact. I had swallowed a lot of water and my heart had stopped. With my heart ceasing to beat oxygenated blood to my vital organs, if I had stayed in that condition for any longer without help, I could have been severely brain damaged. There was still the chance I could have partial damage. The beach had been isolated so it was a miracle anyone had even seen my plight and called for help.

The paramedics had given me CPR and restarted my heart. That’s when I had woken up into a world of loud chaos. I had been taken to this hospital and been treated in the emergency ward. I had needed to be stabilized, needed salt water pumped out of me to avoid infection and something they called secondhand drowning. Almost a liter of water had been taken out of me. I was also susceptible now to pneumonia and bronchitis and other conditions, so I needed to stay in hospital for at least a few days or possibly a week for more tests and recovery time.

That didn’t sound too fun, but after the shock of all that information, I realized I’d do whatever they wanted from me. It was frightening to learn of what that one trip into the ocean could have cost me and what I was still in danger of. How could everything have gone so wrong?

The doctor had gone on to emphasize a few more things. Mostly that I was incredibly lucky and then the obvious—that I couldn’t afford to be so careless in the future.

After the doctor had left, promising to come back later, Yoochun and I sat in a sobering silence for a while. He was probably more confused than I was. It may have been selfish keeping my personal story to myself when it could have given him some of the answers he needed, but I just didn’t feel up to it to voluntarily put it out there in the open. Not even if he asked, which he did a good few silent minutes later.

“Hyung… What were you doing at the beach?” A quiet question to ease the silence. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer him. “You hate them, don’t you?”

That was an easier question to answer. “Yes. I do hate them.”

“Yeah…” Silence again. “So why did you go?”

I shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Hyung. I don’t want to upset you or embarrass you. I don’t mean to sound so nosy. I’m just a little…overwhelmed. This is kind of surreal, isn’t it?” He smiled then, probably trying to lighten us up—me in particular—but to me he smile just looked shaky. “I waved you out of the café like normal this morning… I didn’t think I’d be in here by the afternoon…”

He practically handed me a change of topic. “How did you hear about… What about your shift? The café…?”

“Seunghyun is covering for me. The other staff held out until normal closing time but they couldn’t be properly debriefed before they left. Seunghyun’s looking after the place until I get a chance to run back and lock up for you. And close that mouth because he doesn’t mind doing that. With your permission though, I think we should leave the café closed for at least tomorrow. Maybe not necessarily the whole time you’re out of action in here, but at least tomorrow for sure.”

I nodded, closing my eyes for a bit of relief. My head hurt too much right now to even go through details of the café. I couldn’t trust my own thoughts on it. I’d gladly hand the duty over to someone else to take care of it for me for now. Their brain would at least be clearer than mine.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, leaning into my pillow. “I don’t know what’s best…”

“Let’s just keep it closed tomorrow and then move from there when the time comes. I’ll make sure the staff are debriefed over the phone or something.”

“Thank you, Yoochun…”

“No need. Don’t even think anymore about it, we’ll take care of it.”

I smiled, squeezing his hand a little.

“And…to be honest, Hyung, customers won’t be confused—most people know what’s happened anyway. Not the details of course, but we live in a small town and there was a lot of commotion and…”

“Say no more,” I sighed. “I’m glad to have fulfilled everyone’s weekly dose of gossip.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Yeah… I knew something big was going on but I tried to keep concentrating on my job…”

“Good boy,” I interrupted with a fond smile. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have tried asking everyone who came back inside what was going on after they went to investigate.”

“Ah…” He avoided my gaze and I laughed.

“It’s okay, Yoochun. You’re only human. And I kind of trained you to do that anyway.”

“Yes you did,” he agreed. “You kept me employed because I was an excellent busybody. A top notch sniffer dog in the realm of locating gossip.”

I chuckled quietly and nodded. “And you didn’t even have to sniff the customers, did you?”

“Only the pretty ones.”

“Err, you’re dating someone right now, remember?”

“How do you think I fell in love?”

“Yoochun!” I scolded, trying not to smile. I also tried not to think about who he was dating and who her brother was.

“Anyhoo, long story short, it didn’t take me long to find out you had been loaded into an ambulance looking like shit—” he stopped, eyes darting to me apologetically but I waved him on. “I came as soon as I could but I had to wait a while until they were happy with you.”

He looked away from me then, his eyes unfocused as he sat deep in thought over something. “Everyone seriously would know… So why isn’t…?” he murmured to himself but then stopped speaking out loud. His silence was making me uncomfortable—only because whatever he was in deep thought about looked serious and since it probably concerned me, I wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“Hey Hyung,” he finally said, looking at my again. “I’m still a bit antsy about the café. The staff are going to be confused and Seunghyun will need to be getting home soon. I don’t think you want a hungry and bored Seunghyun wandering about the café. He might not be toilet trained either.” A bright smile followed his joke. I let him think it worked on me.

“Sure, go. I’ll be fine.”

“It won’t take me long to lock up. And then when the Chun returns, the loving will continue,” he said, opening up his arms theatrically. I had to hand it to him, he actually did make me smile genuinely at that.

The smile was short lived. I loved Yoochun’s company—it distracted me from feeling things I didn’t want to feel, but it was important too to have time to digest everything alone. Why did things go so wrong? How had I ended up here? I was supposed to have burst one of my bubbles, but instead I had managed to burst everyone’s bubble and gotten them involved in my mess.

At that time, I had no idea to just what extent people had been involved. I was about to find out.

I expected the next person to walk through the door to be Yoochun or a nurse but it wasn’t. A polite knock sounded and I looked up into the eyes of an older man. He looked older than middle-aged but not old enough to be…old.

“Kim JaeJoong?” the man asked hesitantly even though my name was written above my bed.

I nodded slowly.

“Ah.” He looked as shy and awkward as I felt. “Hello. It’s nice to see you.”

He slowly made his way over to my bed. I watched him silently, twiddling my fingers underneath my sheet. This afternoon had been like a nightmare for me with stranger after stranger talking to me, and my bravery was beginning to crumble away.

“You look so good now,” he murmured, still hovering awkwardly by my bedside. “Wow, you’re…quite beautiful for a lad…” I looked away for a moment. I certainly didn’t feel beautiful or attractive right now. The man must have had cataracts. “I’m ByungTae,” he introduced a little louder. “I erm…was the one who called the ambulance for you…”

“Oh!” I sat up taller at that and felt my heart start to pump a little harder.

“Yes… So it’s good to see you nice and well. Well, it’s only been a half a dozen hours or so but you do look better,” he added kindly.

I was still at a loss of what to say. I quickly offered him a seat and thanked him profusely.

“You’re more than welcome, young lad. I really didn’t do much at all.”

“You saved my life!” He really had. Without him I would have… I couldn’t even think about it. It was too horrible. And worst of all, I would have left Yoochun and Changmin and others with the burden of that shock. I would have left my Yunho behind… He might have been burdened terribly, like I had been when my family left. My throat started to tighten at the very thought.

“I was one of several who saved your life. There’s really no need to thank me so much,” ByungTae interrupted my thoughts with a small smile. “I hope you don’t mind me intruding here, but I wanted to see for my own eyes that you were doing better. The last time I laid eyes on you, you were a teeny bit blue.”

“I’m sorry…” I bowed my head.

“You reminded me how fragile life is. And how miraculous it is too. Our bodies are so complicated, and we’re certainly not God, but sometimes even we humans can perform miracles and get a life to return, a tired body to work again. It really is just lovely seeing you up and recovering.”

I smiled politely, bowing my head again lower.

There was a noise by the doorway and I found Yoochun standing there. I gave him a big smile to let him know he wasn’t interrupting anything and that I wanted him there. Yoochun only smiled a little but came in all the same. I had no idea what was bothering him but right now I needed to hear the rest of my saviour’s story.

“Yoochun,” I gazed up at him feeling emotional. “This is the man who saved me.”

”Only called the ambulance,” ByungTae humbly said and then gave a little chuckle, “I know I’ve got many golden years left, but my body just ain’t what it used to be back in my younger days. I really did just call the ambulance and help out a bit at the end. That other young man was the one who did everything. He deserves your praise more than me.”

Oh god, there was someone else! How many people had I inconvenienced?

“T-There was someone else with you?” I numbly asked.

“Yes. I thought he would have come by before me?”

“No…” I shook my head slowly, confused.

“Oh, a shy hero then. I even brought his phone back for him. I wanted to congratulate him in person but he’s not even here. What a shame that is…” I waited for the man’s gentle rant to end, feeling queasier with each second. I’d had no idea this whole time that I had someone else I needed to thank. My mistake was quickly involving more and more people and I just felt downright awful about it.

“Could you please tell me what happened? I need to know how much I need to thank you all …” I asked weakly.

“Oh, but are you sure…?”

“That bad?” I grimaced.

“No, no! Just… Yes,” he smiled apologetically. “Well, it started when I was walking my dog, Princess, down the beach. She helped us too, you know? I wanted to bring her along to check up on you too but since this is a hospital… But I think you’d really like her. Everyone likes her. She’s tiny and white and fluffy all over…”

I smiled at him as he continued to describe his dog to me. I wondered if he was a widower or if his children had left for someplace far away. He reminded me a bit of Yunho—he got sidetracked easily and waffled on for all the right reasons and with the best intentions.

“Anyway, Princess was on her daily walk and she started barking far more than usual. I looked up and saw this young man bolting down the beach towards me. I was thinking: ‘gee wiz, this lad’s a bit eager, isn’t he?’ I thought Princess was barking at him because he did look a bit ferocious. Next thing I know, he’s throwing his phone at me so I could call an ambulance and then he dived into the water with his clothes on.

“I saw you struggling in the water a bit but then you went completely under the waves and the young man was only half way towards reaching you. I got us an ambulance and just stood and watched.”

I nodded, oddly enthralled.

“I’m telling you, son, you disappeared without a trace. He found you somehow though, pulled you up and dragged you all the way back, single-handedly. I helped move you over to the sand but it was tough even for two people. Adrenaline’s an amazing thing, isn’t it?”

I looked over at Yoochun with my mouth a little open, hoping to exchange a similar glance, but instead of reflecting awe, amazement and all of the other emotions undoubtedly all over my face, he looked pale and worried. I felt my face fall for a brief moment but was soon distracted again by the rest of ByungTae’s incredible story.

“That young man performed numerous sets of CPR on you until the ambulance came to help. I’m so sorry, Kim-sshi, I was frozen solid beside you, bloody useless. Apparently I’m terrible under pressure.”

I shook my head and reached out to pat his arm. “I’m so thankful to you…and the other man. I’m sorry I’m so unresponsive, I’m just…” I stopped to shake my head again. “Just so overwhelmed. I caused everyone so much stress. You all helped me, risked your lives, and you don’t even know me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

He smiled then, incredibly happy. He really was a very nice man.

“Before I run off, I’d best leave this with you…” He rummaged around in the plastic bag he’d placed by his feet. He lifted out a black and silver phone. “Sorry, it’s a bit sandy. The young man threw this at me so fast I couldn’t catch it in time, all tangled up in Princess’s leash.”

I reached out tentatively for the black object. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. He saw the confusion on my face. “In case he comes to check up on you too. Or maybe you can decode that thing and find his number so he can come and get it. I don’t know how to work those gadgets too well.”

I looked down at the phone in my hand. He had to be kidding if he thought I’d be able to work it. It was just one big stretch of screen with sand stuck around the border where glass met plastic. I didn’t even want to touch the screen when it wasn’t something that belonged to me. It felt too sacred too touch, too personal, too much of an invasion into someone else’s life and property.

I lightly skimmed the top of the glass to feel the soft texture but the phone lit up and I almost dropped it.

“Wow, that’s a lot of missed calls…” I breathed out, reading the text that was written over the screen with increasing guilt.

“Most of those are probably from me…” I heard Yoochun murmur.

I looked up at him in confusion for a moment, trying to comprehend just how he knew the identity of the other man who had saved me when we were both just hearing about this person now. He looked back at me unwaveringly, a thousand things flashing through his eyes and somehow I just…knew. Knew the horrible truth.

The phone of my beloved rested heavy in my palm and I almost dropped it. Again.

“Thank you for coming to see JaeJoong,” I heard Yoochun say, taking control for me as I sat in a horrified daze. It was nice having a friend who knew when to take over when you were suddenly paralyzed. “And thank you for all that you did for him. We’ll be sure to give our friend his phone back.”

“Oh, he’s your friend!” ByungTae exclaimed.

“Yeah. A very good friend. I’m sure he’ll be very happy to know you came by to check on JaeJoong. And very thankful for your help as well.”

“That’s lucky then!” ByungTae said and slowly stood up. Yoochun looked relieved that the kind retired man had finally taken the hint that we needed to be left alone to talk privately.

He said goodbye to us and I numbly told him I hoped to see him and his dog around town sometime. He smiled at that and then Yoochun followed him out of the room to see him off politely. It gave me a moment alone to look back at the sandy phone weighing my palm down. Now when I looked down at it, it was all too familiar.

My fingers curled around it protectively. It was the only part of me that could still move.

I had felt absolutely shit this afternoon as the hospital staff cleaned me up and drained my stomach and lungs, but the level of shit I was feeling right now gave earlier a good run for its money.

This was a bad dream. Worse than that, this was a bad reality I actually had to deal with. There were so many thoughts swirling around in my head—most of them making me feel absolutely sick—and so many questions. When Yoochun came back into my room and reclaimed the chair closest to my bed, I asked him the most obvious one in a barely audible voice. “Is it true?”

“I think so…”

“What was he even doing here? He said he’d call if he had time off work!”

“I guess he wanted to surprise you…”

“Surprise me?” I laughed without feeling. “And instead I was the one surprising him…” My voice shook.

Yoochun remained silent, gazing at the phone still tightly clutched in my hand. “He came this morning… A little after you went out. The last time I saw him, he was leaving the café to look for you. I guess he found you…”

I listened to Yoochun’s quiet explanation, barely breathing.

“I guess I know why he wasn’t answering any of my calls now,” Yoochun said with an ironic smile.

I didn’t smile back. “Where is he now?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t reach him by his phone, remember?” Another ironic smile.

“If he was there then…how come he’s not…” I couldn’t finish the sentence through the tightening of my throat. It was ridiculous how many emotions I was feeling today and how quickly they all jumped around and changed.

The weak splash of a smile on Yoochun’s face faded back to the grim expression he’d been wearing almost all evening. “I’m not sure…” he said quietly.

I knew he knew more than he was letting on. He’d only upset me more if he didn’t tell me everything. “Yoochun, it’s okay. Please just tell me!”

He let out a sigh. “When I went back to close up the café, I had a look around and…your room was empty. I didn’t see any of his things there anymore…”

I nodded numbly. In theory this information didn’t make much difference to me—when I’d left the café this morning, my room hadn’t had his stuff in it, so why shouldn’t it have just my things there now? But the phone now warm from my body heat suggested otherwise. He had been here and his stuff had once been in my room today too. I just had to accept it.

“What do I do, Yoochun?” I breathed out. “I messed up so bad and he saw it… He had to go out and get me… He’s going to be so mad at me…”

I couldn’t finish my thoughts for a nurse came in to fiddle with me and write something down on my charts. I only noticed how dark it was outside my window when I watched the nurse attend to the blinds. It was getting late and I immediately made Yoochun leave to eat his dinner and get some rest from such a crazy day. He left a kiss on my forehead and promised to be back tomorrow.

“Don’t worry too much or over think things; it’ll all turn out okay,” were his last words to me before he reluctantly left the room.

As soon as he left, I finally burst. I had the pillow muffle my sobs as they racked my body in violent waves. I couldn’t even reflect on what Yunho witnessing everything meant, or what the tangled bunch of emotions I was feeling were. I could only cry until my exhausted body took control for me and rocked me into an early sleep.

The pillow covered my hand that still clutched Yunho’s phone. His phone was warm in my palm but I was left feeling cold.

I woke up the next morning without my normal alarm, feeling incredibly battle weary. I tried to go over yesterday’s events, but what had happened seemed almost unbelievable. Even with my past history of craziness it seemed unbelievable!

It hurt my head to think of why and how I almost drowned, so I decided to move those thoughts to the back of mind where the other issues I needed to deal with were lined up. And what a long line of issues it was.

Next up was Yunho. The horrible truth was that he had seen my failure and had even had to take action to grab me from the claws of the water. What was he thinking right now? Was he really angry with me? That too hurt to think about and I cowardly moved it to the back as well.

The next issue to deal with was Yunho again. Even if he was angry or appalled or disgusted, why hadn’t he come to see me? Why were his bags no longer in my room? Had he left town with the intention of not coming to see me? Of not making sure I was really alright? How could he just leave? That hurt the most to try and think about so it got sent to the farthest back of my mind without delay.

That left me with one more issue: Yunho. This one was nicer at least.

ByungTae had mentioned yesterday that Yunho had dived in after me when he saw me struggling. Yunho had risked his life to get to me, to bring me back… When ByungTae had told me all that and I had pictured a stranger doing that for me, I had felt chuffed and amazed and grateful beyond words. Knowing now that that had been Yunho… Apart from embarrassment and all of those other dark emotions clinging to me now, I felt slightly…special.

It meant even more to me that it had been Yunho charging down the beach to get to me and rescue me instead of a stranger. He probably would have done that for anyone (he was so kind and brave and selfless), but he had done that for me, even after he’d seen me screwing up. He owned my life now. I felt so much love for the man. Love, and adoration, and thankfulness. I thanked anyone who may have been looking down at me for Yunho. For letting me meet him; for letting him come into my life.

I just hoped I hadn’t ruined all of it.


Until Yoochun came back, I spent the morning staring at Yunho’s phone. I touched the screen to make it light up but then my thumb twitched and I accidentally erased his missed call list. I started to panic. How did you get them back? Could you even get them back? What if they had been important? I’d just given Yunho another reason to be angry with me thanks to my stupid hand.

Breathe in, JaeJoong, what’s happened has happened.

After the panic subsided a bit, I took a proper look at the main image on his phone and smiled ever so slightly. It was a photo of the city. I had actually been there the day he had taken it on the sightseeing tour he had made for me. In fact, I was in the photo. We both were.

I remembered that moment well. A sudden breeze had come up—well, more like a gale—and just as Yunho had been about to take the photo of us, my hair had shot up in all directions, covering parts of my face and whipping into his. I had gasped in shock and Yunho had started laughing and the little bastard had taken our picture anyway. We’d taken a proper one again afterwards but it was the crazy hair and screaming slash laughing photo he had set up on his phone. How many people had seen that photo? I was going to kill him!

I had to admit it was a welcome sight right now though… Yunho hadn’t come to see me here for whatever reason, but at least I now had his smile and laughter with me.

Every few moments his phone screen would darken and I would be left looking at an ugly reflection visible in the dark glass. It wasn’t me windswept and gasping like in the photo I loved gazing at, but me in a hospital gown, messy-haired and solemn. Whenever that happened, I’d quickly tap the screen again to get rid of the appalling reality that kept trying to crawl back. I knew that to keep sane, I needed to hold onto those happier memories, hold onto them tight and never let go…

Throughout the day, visitors and nurses distracted me from the phone. Yoochun came of course, but now Changmin had too. He had gotten news of what had happened and joined the ranks at my bedside. He kindly never brought up the conversation we had had the day before my accident about beaches and swimming. I, who sat looking awful and pale in a hospital gown, had clearly been humiliated enough already.

Surprisingly, by the evening even most of my workers from Café JaDe had made quick visits to see me—including two of my chefs, my other waiter, Seunghyun, and the man whom I often left in charge when I was busy. So many beautiful people had come to see me. I hated myself for still feeling incomplete.

It wasn’t thrilling lying in hospital all day feeling silly, but I was at least getting used to it better than I had on Friday. Dinner came and went quicker, and after one of the nurses closed my blinds and left, I was able to light the phone screen up one more time to say goodnight to Yunho. Once the screen darkened, I slipped it under my pillow again and held onto it as I drifted asleep.

By my third day in hospital, I ran low on things that could distract myself from the bad feelings I had been blocking. I was worried about Yunho. It wasn’t his normal routine to come all the way to town and then leave on the same day. If I was really desperate for denial, I could have entertained myself with the notion that Yunho had only planned to come up for one day in a moment of overpowering spontaneity and therefore didn’t have time to come to the hospital. And couldn’t remember Yoochun’s number since I had his phone now. And hadn’t thought to get the number from his sister.

But I was never one for denial. I’d scared him off. Or maybe he was just too angry to want anything to do with me for now. Whichever one it was, I just hoped he was alright. I hoped he wasn’t suffering over it—or at least, not too much.

I wished the most that I could say sorry to him in person. Look into his eyes, touch his face…

Stuck in a hospital bed without any communication with him was slowly wreaking havoc on my stomach. It squirmed all the time and made me feel queasy. That was just the physical affect of my worrying… Inside me was an even bigger minefield I had to treat with care. For now, that meant staying safe and not taking a step in any direction. It was survival. My survival, until I got out of here.

My sweet and amazing friend, Yoochun, came back again to keep me company that Sunday afternoon. We played a couple of matches of the only card game I knew well and then I watched him jig around in his seat. “What are you doing, Chunnie?”

“My bladder dance.”

“You need to go to the toilet?”

“Maybe…”

I watched him trying not to laugh but then something tickled the small of my back ferociously and I too shot up and squirmed about in my own dance, trying to get away from my pillow.

Yoochun eyed me back in similar amusement. “Need to pee too or are you just making fun of me?”

“N-No. Something’s…” I pulled back my pillow and saw Yunho’s phone flashing and vibrating. “Oh gosh.” I picked it up carefully and stared at it almost fearfully.

“Phone call?” Yoochun guessed, leaning over to look at the screen. “Oh. It’s my girlfriend. She’ll be harmless—just click the green button there and talk. I really gotta pee now, preferably in a toilet and not on your floor!”

I watched him dash away in aghast and then quickly stared in horror at the trembling phone. My heart raced as I hit the green button on the screen.

“Hello? …Hello?” The familiar sounded muffled and I realised I was holding the phone upside down. I quickly turned it around and tried to find my voice to say hello back. It came out barely a whisper.

“Yes hello there. This is Jung Yunho’s phone, right?” HyunAe asked.

“Y-Yes it is.”

“…JaeJoong? Is that you?”

“Yes, it is…”

“Oh, you have my brother’s phone! Thank god. The idiot said he had lost it somewhere. Honestly, he is lucky you’re the one that has it. I could be dealing with some random crazy person chewing up all of his credit right now. It would serve my brother right, mind you, for losing important things all the time.”

I listened to her rant, feeling more and more confused. When she finished and asked me how I was, I was even more confused. I told her I was so-so and she sympathized but it was just like a normal conversation.

“I better let you go, JaeJoong-oppa. I’ll be sure to tell my dingbat brother you’ve got his phone nice and safe. Have a good afternoon!”

“R-Right… Goodbye…” I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it incredulously. There was no yelling at me for distressing her brother, just typical brother-sister insults and the usual amount of concern for me. She thought everything was fine. With Yunho and I as well… Maybe everything was fine?

Yoochun bounded back in a few minutes later with renewed energy now that his bladder had finished its performance.

“Yoochun… Does HyunAe know what happened?” I asked when he was sitting back down again.

“Oh, erm… I don’t know. I haven’t personally told her anything yet…”

“But she’s your girlfriend!”

“It’s not really my story to tell, Hyung. Not without your permission. I was confused for a long time about what happened anyway. I thought it would come better from Yunho…”

“I don’t think she knows yet then…” That had to be a good thing, right? I didn’t have to suffer more embarrassment and humiliation knowing my story had spread to Yunho’s family… But not just that—if Yunho hadn’t told her, he mustn’t have found a need to. He mustn’t have been suffering too much from it.

It was a huge relief on one hand, but a part of my gut flip-flopped from the hurt that came with the second part of that option. If my mess hadn’t affected him enough for his sister to notice something was wrong, he wouldn’t have been completely turned off from coming to see me before he left. But he hadn’t come…

“What did Hyunnie want?”

I kept my eyes on the now static phone. “To know who had Yunho’s phone. He told her he had lost it.”

“That’s good then!” Yoochun said. “Now that he knows you have his phone, he can ring it himself sometime and talk to you. He’ll know exactly how to contact you here.”

I nodded thoughtfully. I hadn’t thought of that.

I swiped a finger across the glass screen in a soft caress and Yunho’s beaming face laughed back at me. The phone was still warm from the conversation I had just had with his sister. It was probably also warm from being pressed against my back for so long during my card games with Yoochun. It was my constant, cherished companion here. It never left my side.

Yoochun picked his small pile of cards back up and examined them carefully to refresh his memory from where we had left off. I let him plan his next move, hoped even that he would take a long time to make up his mind. All I wanted to do right now was stare at that precious phone for as long as I could.

Yunho’s phone had always been special—mostly because it was my way of feeling connected to him, the closest link I had to him. When I held it in my hand, I could feel part of Yunho there, contained behind the glass. Even his face appeared there at the touch of my thumb like magic.

But after that call, his phone had suddenly become so much more to me than even all of that.

Now it was also hope.

I heard knocking. It may as well have been wind passing over a leaf for all the attention I paid to it.

Sounds all blended together these days. The only ones I really cared to make something out of were the sounds outside my window—the birds mostly but sometimes also the hum of a car in the distance. Life was carrying on and although I didn’t participate in it, it was nice to hear that innocence.

I let my eyes close again and remained curled up under the bed covers. My room was dark but I didn’t think it was night yet. It was just an artificial night. My blinds were still down. I hadn’t had the energy or motivation to pull them up.

It wasn’t a good day today. I had known it the moment I’d opened my eyes that morning. It just…wasn’t a good day.

How many days had it been? Three? They all ran into each other so I couldn’t be sure when one started and one ended. Time just felt so slow.

I strained to remember what I had even done in those three days.

On Friday I had come home just in time for dinner. I had walked home from the station and gone straight to the bathroom to take a long, warm shower. I had tried to ignore the surprised faces of my family at my early return. I couldn’t talk. I wouldn’t talk. They let me eat in silence, knowing that I was beside them physically but nowhere near them mentally. And then I went to bed early without unpacking my bags.

They must have made a note to leave me alone and give me space because when I got up on Saturday, there were no questions fired at me and I was able to leave the house unscathed. It was business as usual. That was the funny thing, I didn’t feel like myself and this unspeakable steel ball in my chest weighed me down, but I was still somehow able to pretend that everything was normal.

I made everything normal. I got up, got dressed, brushed my teeth, unlocked my car and drove over to the gym. I worked out well into lunchtime. I didn’t touch the weights but made use of the cycling and running machines. I moved without thinking until my shirt was plastered to my skin. I stopped, I went into the public showers, relaxed under the spray, changed into a clean shirt, grabbed a sandwich, sat down to eat it, then left.

Unable to squeeze anymore out of the gym, I had parked my car in a side street and walked over to a building I hadn’t been to for a while. There, I had made an appointment to get my hair cut. Then I waited. An hour before closing time, I sat down in the chair and told them to cut most of it off. I was really, really getting sick of the long locks. They were so impractical for everything I did—my job, my working out, my lifestyle. I couldn’t stand the feel of my overgrown fringe falling into my eyes all the time. Even worse was the feel of the long, thick clumps of hair that lay over my neck in a heavy mess all the time. It had been so unpleasant on Friday, stiff from salt water and clinging to my neck like cold hands preparing to strangle me. My neck and face needed room to breathe. They didn’t need to be weighed down by extra burdens.

At least by the time the scissors and shaver had been put down in exchange for money, part of me felt lighter again. It wasn’t brilliant but it was a start.

I had come back home in time for dinner again and once again ignored the shared glances between family members. I didn’t go to bed early like on Friday, but lay under the covers until my normal bedtime, reading most of the articles in the latest issue of my favourite travel and hiking magazine. I had picked it up when I had nothing else to do before my haircut. It was well worth the cash in my wallet.

That day had been my day of normalcy. My one day.

I thought I could just keep going like that for a while—at least for more than one damn day. But when I woke up on Sunday, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get out of bed. Not for breakfast, not for a shower, not for lunch. My limbs felt so heavy. My everything felt heavy.

Even if I hadn’t focused on any particular thought the previous days, I could never really trick subconscious in submission. It knew and felt even more than my conscious mind did. There was only so long I could block it out when it tried to speak to me.

My subconscious was…unhappy. I just didn’t have the strength to make it better today. Or anytime soon. So I just lay there not moving.

The knocking on my door that had interrupted my daze finally stopped—but only long enough for the door to open and close again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my sister sneak in and pause in the middle of my room. She was watching me closely but I didn’t try to focus my eyes on her or on anything. I let her keep staring for as long as she needed.

“Oppa… What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t have put it into words even if I wanted to. I couldn’t pick just one thing out of the many weighing me down inside to answer her with, so what was the point? There was no answer. No need to speak. No need to do anything.

HyunAe came up to my bed and knelt down beside it. Her hand lightly touched my arm but I still couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want her to see this. I was her big brother and I wasn’t supposed to do this in front of her. Problem was I still didn’t have the energy to even try to hide this from her.

“Oppa, you need to eat something.” She sighed at my silence. “Did you get into a fight with…” No name passed through her lips and I was thankful.

She changed tactics, “Are you going to be okay for work tomorrow? Maybe we should call and get you some time off. A day or two of sick leave…”

“No…” My first word for the day and couldn’t you tell! I sounded like I had been out all night screaming into a karaoke microphone. I would have liked to have screamed. Screaming might have helped. Where was the energy to do that though? “I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“But—”

“I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow. For my boss. I’m going.” In all honesty, I didn’t know how I would even get myself out of bed tomorrow but that was my problem to deal with. And I could deal with that tomorrow.

“Where’s your phone?”

“Huh?”

“Where is your phone? I need to make sure I have your updated work number.”

“HyunAe!” I was her brother. As close as we were, she still had to know when to respect my decisions.

“Oppa…” she said quietly. “You need to at least let them know you’re not feeling very well.”

“I’m fine.”

HyunAe didn’t even bother to laugh at how hollow my proclamation was. Even I almost cringed at it.

It had only been a few days; how could it already feel too hard to remember what being fine used to feel like? A new surge of sadness weighed me down further and I closed my eyes.

“Oppa, where is your phone?”

“I don’t know…” Trying to locate it would use up too much of my conscious brain and that was counterproductive to my plan of shutting it down. My phone could be anywhere. Most likely in the bag that I had thrown onto the floor days before, which I still hadn’t been able to touch.

“You really don’t know?”

“It’s probably in my bag. It’s not in my pockets.”

I barely paid attention to HyunAe as she dug around in my bag and came up empty-handed. “I can’t see it here, Oppa…”

A piece of sharp consciousness came through the mush for a second. “Oh. Yeh, I lost it.” My brain turned back to nothingness after that small revelation and I started to fall asleep again.

“You lost it? How could you lose it? Are you sure?”

I clung to sleep faster. I did not want to give those memories any chance to resurface from the deep well of my mind, yet my sister may as well have been pulling up the rope that was wrapped around them.

“I’ll go ring your phone for you. Maybe it’s somewhere else in your room?”

Whatever you want, dear. I was too far gone to care about anything but peaceful darkness. A phone, I could certainly care less about.

I had maybe five minutes of pure silence and calm before voices started to poke holes through my unconsciousness. My sister was back in my room and saying something or other to me. I opened my eyes groggily and she smiled at me. “Oppa, I found your phone. JaeJoong-oppa has it. It’s perfectly safe.”

There were only two words in that whole sentence that got any reaction from me—‘JaeJoong’ and ‘Safe.’

“That’s a relief, isn’t it, Oppa?”

“Mm… Relief.”

“Yeh, no random has it and is looking through your pictures or using up your money. Hey, don’t go back to sleep now! I’m going to make you something to eat.”

She left with a warm smile and I almost managed one too but that weight was still too heavy for my face to be able to move freely.

I was glad to be left alone again if only for a little while. She had woken me from sleep only to yank on that rope binding my memories down. The brick on the end of them had come up easily in my drowsiness, and now that it was out in the open, the weight of it felt even more real.

Now one part of my depression had a name and my sister had said that name out loud. Worse, she had made me think it and now it was free to run around my mind.

He was both my heart and what pierced it. Part of me yearned so fiercely for him, but the other part burned. Conflicting emotions warred on inside me, unable to live in harmony together.

And so lay my depression…


///TBC///

A/N: Ahh. Both our boys are trying to survive by avoiding the big issues… *sigh* Too bad they might have to face the facts next chapter. We’ll see how that goes…

Ohhh, and it occurred to me that it completely slipped my mind last update to assure you guys that the previous chapter (chap 28) is probably the worst in the whole fic, so once you got through that one, you made it. So…there is my belated reassurance lol. *hugs you all, brave souls that you are* ^^;;

Thank you for reading and commenting! Your thoughts are always interesting and/or awesome. ^__^