500x31, 2/2
( part one )
There were only two ways to come to terms with their problem: the first was to act on it, and the second to ignore it.
It was harder to cope given how distant they were from the rest of civilization, and Ryeowook knew it too keenly. Kyuhyun pretended he didn't care much, but Ryeowook could see exactly how it unnerved the younger man to see the pretty parchment paper with mysterious words written on them like I CAN SEE YOU or GO DIE or even yesterday's TWO MORE WEEKS. Rather than feeling afraid, Ryeowook had felt the irritation pooling in his gut, sidetracked by the instinctive worry he'd had for Kyuhyun's well-being. He figured that it couldn't have been addressed to anyone else but Kyuhyun, considering he was the one who lived here for a considerable amount of time. Kyuhyun, however, could offer no possible suspects for them, and Sungmin and Ryeowook reluctantly let the issue drop.
It was probably wrong of Ryeowook to rip the anonymous letters and discard them before Sungmin or Kyuhyun could see. He'd taken to rising an hour earlier than usual just to hover around the porch, but by the time he'd gotten there, the paper would already be resting neatly on their doormat. Once or twice he'd found a bachelor button neatly tucked inside the envelope, and Ryeowook had viciously shredded the mail in his disgust, nearly tearing apart his own mother's postcard to him in the process.
"This is getting out of hand," Ryeowook muttered tiredly as he stared into the refrigerator without registering anything in sight.
"What is?" Sungmin said, bopping Ryeowook on the head, "move over, I need some milk."
"The letters," Ryeowook said, moving away from the refrigerator to rest his head on the kitchen table in defeat, "I don't know why they're still coming."
"Maybe it's someone who really hates us," Sungmin said, biting his lower lip.
"I don't think it even involves the two of us, Sungmin," Ryeowook said, pointedly staring at the entrance of the kitchen, as if to motion to Kyuhyun, who was still sleeping in his room, "it's probably an old enemy of his or something.."
Sungmin looked thoughtful for a moment, and Ryeowook stared at Sungmin's pursed lips and his bedhead and thought that this was the part of Sungmin he liked the best, when he was lost in his thoughts and anticipating something beyond Ryeowook's understanding. He'd forgotten what Sungmin looked like, when he was like this.
"Or maybe," Sungmin said, sounding amused, "someone really loves him?"
"That's insane," Ryeowook said, flatly, "and it makes no sense whatsoever."
"That's the point," Sungmin said, but didn't say anything else about it, not even when Ryeowook pressed him to talk. There were few things Ryeowook could say he understood about Sungmin, but there was always a part of Sungmin he couldn't breach when Sungmin didn't want to be found out. He'd tell him when he was ready, he supposed, if it ever came to that.
Ryeowook woke up to the lovely sound of Sungmin screaming his head off in the garden, and he shot up in bed, kicking off the blankets and nearly tripping over the bed sheets in his haste. He met Kyuhyun in the hallway, and both of them exchanged looks of trepidation before cautiously heading to the door.
"Hyung?" Kyuhyun asked, tentatively opening the door, "is this about the amaryllis in the garden? Because I swear I didn't forget to water them yesterday..."
"Look at this!" Sungmin yelled, pointing at the ground, "I don't -- this is so --"
Ryeowook immediately felt his head ache. "Sungmin," he said, very slowly, "it's just a broken doll."
"It's not just a broken doll," Sungmin said, testily, and with more bite than Ryeowook had ever heard from him in his fits, "it's my mother's porcelain doll."
"They were very expensive ones, too," Kyuhyun said, solemnly, as he bent over to gather the larger pieces in his palm, "wasn't this an heirloom?"
"Don't," Ryeowook said, but the warning came belatedly, as the edge of one of the pieces scratched Kyuhyun's finger, opening a tiny wound. It was always the smallest ones that hurt the most, Ryeowook thought, dismayed, "come on, we should get that disinfected."
"Ryeowook," Sungmin said, sounding hurt at Ryeowook's indifference, "don't you get it?"
"No, Sungmin," Ryeowook said, grabbing Kyuhyun's wrist to steer him back inside, "I don't. And don't touch it, I'll sweep it up later, okay?"
"How did anyone get inside?" Kyuhyun muttered, still looking back at Sungmin's form. Sungmin didn't bother to hide the glare he aimed at Kyuhyun, and Ryeowook would have yelled at him for it if he'd seen it.
"Did you forget to lock the door again?" Ryeowook said, ever the level-headed one, and Kyuhyun bit the inside of his cheek.
"I'm not sure," Kyuhyun said, yelping when Ryeowook pushed him inside the bathroom with force, "I. I don't remember closing the door after I fell asleep on the couch."
"May I remind you that this is your fault?" Ryeowook said, the gentleness of his tone belying the way he'd doused Kyuhyun's wound with alcohol, "you're going to have to make it up to him, you know."
"I know," Kyuhyun said, wincing, "but you have to remember to be gentle to him, too, Ryeowookie."
"I don't need you to tell me that," Ryeowook laughed, but acknowledged it all the same with some embarrassment. He'd forgotten what it was to feel dependent on Sungmin in such a short amount of time, and he supposed he could blame it on Kyuhyun and the feelings of protectiveness he'd stirred in Ryeowook.
Over breakfast, Sungmin, to Ryeowook's surprise, insisted on keeping tabs on the near-daily threats they had begun to receive on their property. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook exchanged glances, but didn't object to Sungmin's proposition.
I go where I roam, the radio sang. Ryeowook patted Sungmin's hand under the table, brushing his thumb against the soft skin of Sungmin's palm.
Just when Ryeowook was beginning to accept the handwritten threats and the vandalism on their property as daily fodder for his infrequent letters to Kibum, things started to take a turn for the worse.
It was bad enough that he'd almost gotten a heart attack when he opened the freezer to see a dead bird in it. He'd almost screamed but kept himself in check, steeling himself as he clinically deposited the bird in a small plastic bag and buried it in the garden without saying a word. It frightened a small part of himself, how he'd gotten so used to it. He'd almost laughed at the thought that perhaps he himself did all this in his sleep, but it was impossible, considering how he was always the one next to the wall. He couldn't have gotten out of bed without waking up Sungmin, who was a lighter sleeper than he was. (Well, anyone was a lighter sleeper than Ryeowook, who tended to sleep for as long as he would be allowed.)
"What are you doing outside?" Kyuhyun called out, from the doorway, and Ryeowook turned to him, with dirt in his hands and a streak of blood down his arm.
"I found something in the freezer," Ryeowook said, cheerfully, "just a small bird, no big deal."
"A what?" Kyuhyun asked, sounding surprised.
"I'm kidding," Ryeowook said, "the chicken went bad and I didn't want the kitchen to smell."
"Oh," Kyuhyun said, turning back to go inside without questioning his actions further, "okay."
There were some things he'd never tell Kyuhyun. Maybe not even Sungmin, either, but Ryeowook felt that he didn't need to burden Kyuhyun with unnecessary worries. Like, for example, finding out that someone tampered with the water pipe.
"What do we do?" Ryeowook said to himself, thankful that he'd filled all the pitchers with water, but it would take how many hours before they could get someone to fix it, and Kyuhyun and Ryeowook needed all the water they could get. It was true that too much liquid intake would spur the regrowth of the flowers, but depriving themselves of it would leave the flowers with no other choice but to sap their energy until it would literally suck them dry.
Death by crocus infestation, they'd have to write on Ryeowook's death certificate. Ryeowook was still laughing at the absurdity of the idea, and it was that way that Sungmin had found him, that night, slumped against the bathroom wall and tracing spirals into the dirty bath water in the tub, a small sliver of moonlight weakly reflected in the water.
"Oh, baby," Sungmin crooned, enfolding him in a tight, warm embrace, "you're not okay."
Ryeowook smiled, weakly. "Didn't we go through this a few days ago?"
Sungmin laughed, a short chuckle that made Ryeowook's eyes well up with tears. "Don't worry. I'll always take care of you, even if you're so heartless to me."
There was still some light, outside. Ryeowook prayed it wouldn't go out.
Sungmin wrapped him up in blankets and sang sad love songs into his ear, but Ryeowook couldn't sleep, too lost in the quick stream of half-coherent worries that were starting to take shape in his mind.
"I have to go to town," Ryeowook mumbled, weakly pushing Sungmin away, "gotta get some water for Kyuhyun, I have to..." Have to find someplace safer, have to tell Kyuhyun everything, have to get away from Sungmin's suffocating care, what is truth what is falsehood is this terrorism or just Ryeowook's fears coming to haunt him all over again?
"You can't go out like this, Ryeowookie," Sungmin said, "I'll go out tomorrow, drive to town and pick up a few gallons, I promise. Just go to sleep, okay?"
"No," Ryeowook said, "gotta do it on my own -- I don't know if I can--"
"Stop playing the hero," Sungmin growled, holding onto Ryeowook's shoulders and shaking him with an intensity that left Ryeowook confused and angry.
"I'm just being--," Ryeowook started, only to hesitate. What was it that he was about to say? Something about concern, but it sounded too superior, too far from the self-satisfaction he'd felt when he realized that he wasn't the only one. It wasn't sympathy so much as it was...
Selfishness. That was what it was about, but Ryeowook believed he had a little less ill feelings invested in the matter than that, but Sungmin, for all his harsh words or his gentleness made it seem like the most shameful thing Ryeowook had ever done. Was this how Sungmin should treat his blood relative? Somehow, the insensitivity seemed too much, but Ryeowook couldn't stand it if Sungmin blamed him for his own faults. You made me like this, he'd say, and it was the sort of illogical reasoning that he expected from Sungmin. Selfish children rarely had sudden sparks of rationality not limited by their own self-interest, their insufferable, thoughtless greed.
"You can't say it, can you?" Sungmin said, not without a little triumph in his voice, "because you can't swallow the truth."
"You're not the one who's dying," Ryeowook said, voice dangerously low, "you have no idea how it feels."
"Kyuhyun would trust me," Sungmin said, quietly, and Ryeowook felt a flash of irritation in the crack of his knuckles, the snapping of bone.
"I'm not Kyuhyun," Ryeowook reminded him, a hushed, gentle whisper that belied the antagonism in his words, suddenly alert.
"Sometimes, I wish you were," Sungmin said, and Ryeowook said nothing. They were going nowhere at this rate, and Ryeowook would die and Sungmin would still say, You could have been like Kyuhyun, you could have been. Placing blame was easy when he'd practiced it long enough.
How long did it take for Sungmin to claim it as his own, then? It was an art Ryeowook had yet to fashion for himself.
He'd give marigolds to Sungmin. Cruelty and jealousy, but to what end? The absence of mistrust was never without its consequences.
Let’s work through the facts.
Fact one: there is someone who wants to kill you.
Fact two: there is someone who wants to protect you.
The question is, which one is it?
Ryeowook wrote it down in a notebook he’d found lying around the house. Sungmin had left him alone with Kyuhyun for the better part of the day under the excuse of looking for a plumber, but Ryeowook knew that he’d still felt the awkwardness in their argument. Granted, it was one of Ryeowook’s less lucid moments, but Sungmin’s patience had proved to be limited, and Ryeowook wasn’t sure if he liked this development. They’d had numerous fights over the course of their relationship, but it had never involved insinuations and striking at the parts that would hurt deeper than anything else would.
“Playing the hero, huh?” Ryeowook whispered, pressing his cheek against the paper, “I just want to go home.”
The problem was that there was a disassociation between his reality and his subconscious, apparently. When he’d thought of home, he’d felt the ache in his desire, but when it shifted to Kyuhyun, there was still that same quality of want. Altruism didn’t fit into what he’d intended for Kyuhyun, and if it was simply a gratification of his own ego, well, his consciousness was either doing a very good job at denying it, or he didn’t like how simplistic and self-centered the implications of Sungmin’s words were.
It wasn’t that Sungmin had remained irate at him the entire time. He’d tried to be casual about it, but Ryeowook was stubborn, too, and it took longer for him to forgive and forget, at least on the outside. He’d remained unresponsive even as Sungmin had adopted his soothing tone, his affectionate words.
"I’ll take care of you," Sungmin had said, toying with Ryeowook’s fingers, delight and fascination and morbid curiosity rolled into his frightening tenderness, and all Ryeowook wanted to do was to hit him.
So cruel. So kind. Ryeowook had tried to move his fingers, but it had fallen to his side, limp and sapped of whatever strength he’d had in the sudden rush of adrenaline he’d found, a sliver of striped carnations beginning to crawl out of the tender skin under his nails, drawing some blood.
The wound hadn’t closed up. He inspected it in the dim light, but he could still see the dried blood, specks of brown intermingling with the newer wounds. He would have gone to the bathroom to wash up, but he figured they’d need all the water they could get. He brought his fingers to his mouth. It tasted like dirt and copper.
“Hurry up and finish this,” Ryeowook said out loud, unheard. It was only a matter of weeks - days - before he would see this through the end. He closed the notebook and tucked it under the piles of stationary in the drawer, and when he went out of his room, he’d already had a half-formed suspicion in his mind.
Come.
Kyuhyun found Ryeowook going through the toolbox under the kitchen sink, and when he’d asked what he was doing, Ryeowook had cheerfully pocketed the questionable package of nails in his pockets and announced that they were going hunting.
“You could get an infection just from touching that, you know,” Kyuhyun said, “and I don’t hunt, okay? We don’t need to hunt for our own food when we have the convenience of a supermarket in town.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Ryeowook said, crinkling his nose in distaste, “I meant, we should go find that stalker of yours and give him a lesson. Don’t you have a gun in here somewhere? And you’re sprouting daffodils, by the way.”
Kyuhyun looked displeased. “I don’t have a gun,” Kyuhyun said, tersely, “I wasn’t aware I needed it.” He looked uncomfortable at the implications of Ryeowook’s suggestion. It was an effective way to stop the harassment, but there were still some legal repercussions to be had. Besides, he still had his humanity in him, even if sometimes he’d felt otherwise.
“A hammer, then. Or something blunt and heavy,” Ryeowook replied, inspecting the kitchen cabinets for something more useful than a screwdriver, “It has to at least be something I can carry without killing myself in the process, you know.”
“Why aren’t we letting Sungmin in on this plan again?” Kyuhyun, ever the long-suffering one, said in a voice tinged with desperation, “wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be the best at self-defense?”
“I know,” Ryeowook said, “but I don’t think Sungmin would be able to help us.”
"Aren't you afraid of catching it?" Kyuhyun asked, pressing a hand to the top of Ryeowook’s head.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting killed?” Ryeowook said testily, waving away Kyuhyun’s awkward touch to hide his own insecurity. He didn’t claim to be an expert at this whole business of guarding the fort, but there was no choice, not unless he wanted to wait it out and die in the process.
"I'm not scared," Kyuhyun said, but Ryeowook knew a lie when he heard one. He'd been telling it all his life.
He’d had his own conjectures about the whole situation. Some things he still wasn’t too sure about, but it had fit, despite the errors in logic. He had yet to figure out a motive for his suspicions, but he knew he’d be able to get an answer sooner rather than later. The problem was whether or not both of them would be able to prove to be greater in strength. Numbers had nothing to do with this scenario.
"Come on," Ryeowook said, holding out his hand, "let's figure this out together."
His companion stared at the proffered limb, and Ryeowook clucked his tongue at him, impatiently. "I won't leave you," Ryeowook said, "trust me."
Kyuhyun took in a deep, shuddering breath before finally taking his hand.
“Just so you know,” Kyuhyun said, keeping his voice even and calm, “I still don’t trust you enough.”
Good enough.
They took turns watching the front door. Ryeowook would wait in a small, hidden corner of the hallway while Kyuhyun would sleep, huddled beside him and resting his head on Ryeowook’s bony shoulder. Ryeowook had worn a long, baggy black jacket, using the disguise as an excuse to hide the red raw wounds that had started forming along his wrists, the skin of his arms. He didn’t have anything to drink for at least eight hours already, and it wasn’t starting to look good. He’d heard that when the plants had run out of water, they’d start to feed on blood, instead.
It had gotten unbearably itchy, too. He’d scratched at it in his absent-mindedness once or twice, but after opening a wound and seeing a lovely gladiolus mocking him with the unnaturally darker edges of its petals, he’d stopped. It was so tempting to peel the skin away and dig into his muscles, to rip them apart with less surgical precision than he’d intended, but…
Just a few more hours, Ryeowook thought, biting his lower lip, I just need Kyuhyun to be safe.
They waited for two more hours, Kyuhyun impatiently checking his watch and Ryeowook vigilantly eyeing the front door. When Kyuhyun was about to suggest taking a break for dinner, Ryeowook covered Kyuhyun’s mouth with his palm, gesturing towards the shadow outside the door.
“What if it’s just Sungmin?” Kyuhyun hissed, prying Ryeowook’s palm off his mouth and tugging the hem of Ryeowook’s jacket, “I don’t want to go to jail and live with the guilt of knowing I knocked out my own blood relative, okay?”
“I wouldn’t worry about the guilt, if I were you,” Ryeowook said vaguely, pushing him away in his irritation, “I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”
“Well, your plan is really stupid, and I have no faith in it whatsoever,” Kyuhyun said, hotly, standing up, “now I’m going to open the door for Sungmin and we will forget this ever happened.”
“Kyuhyun, you idiot!” Ryeowook yelled, but Kyuhyun had already shrugged Ryeowook’s hand away and strode over to the front door, opening it and greeting Sungmin with a nod.
“See, I told you it was just Sungmin,” Kyuhyun said, turning back to look at Ryeowook with an admonishing glare and Sungmin gave him a small wave and a cryptic smile.
“Were you two planning to ambush me and hit me with,” Sungmin paused to check the object Ryeowook’s fingers had tightened around, “my own baseball bat?”
“Crazy, I know,” Kyuhyun muttered, “sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t be,” Sungmin said, “see, I was planning to do the same to you.”
Ryeowook launched himself at Sungmin with a yell, only to fall to the floor when Sungmin bashed a small pot to the back of his skull.
"Come on, babe," Sungmin said, with mock cheerfulness, "I need you to stay alive, so don't die on me just because you have a concussion, okay?"
Ryeowook registered flipping him the finger before passing out.
Ryeowook woke up with an aching head and feeling like he was drowning. It was only seconds later that his mind realized it was real, and he spluttered as he closed his mouth and tried to swallow the rest of the water in his throat down without spilling any of it.
"Hey, beautiful," Sungmin said, smiling, "how do you feel?"
Like someone hit me with a potted plant, that's what, Ryeowook thought, but kept his mouth tightly sealed. He tried to intensify the glare he directed to Sungmin, but Sungmin looked away, putting the bottle down and going through something on the kitchen table.
Ryeowook tried to move his hands, but Sungmin had taken the healthy precaution of keeping his hands tied in front of him. A little stupid, but maybe Sungmin hadn't meant to keep him confined. That, or he figured that tying his feet to the chair would work, too, and if he wanted to hit him, he'd fall flat on his face on the floor while bringing the chair down with him in his attempt to finish what he started.
He didn't even bother to muffle any sounds Ryeowook would have made. It was unsettling to realize that they were miles away from civilization, and in here, Ryeowook was at Sungmin's mercy, without any hope.
He bruised the inside of his cheek with his teeth, grimacing.
Sungmin puttered around the kitchen, looking thoroughly amused, and set down a plate of last night's dinner. Ryeowook watched him eat, slowly, and didn't speak even when Sungmin offered him a bite, taunting him with a fork. This must be why Kibum never liked him. Sungmin was always a little rude when he wanted to be.
When Sungmin was done, he dumped the plate into the sink. He left the room without giving Ryeowook so much as a backwards glance, and came back five minutes later, hiding something behind his back. The shit-eating grin hadn't changed, either.
“Let’s review the facts, shall we?” Sungmin said, brandishing the notebook Ryeowook had written in earlier, and Ryeowook smiled, warningly. “Oh, don’t be so angry, darling, I just found this while I was going through your things. You know I don’t mean any harm.”
“Says the person who wanted to kill me,” Ryeowook spat out.
“I didn’t want to kill you,” Sungmin said, pointedly looking at him, “you wanted to kill me. Technically, it was self-defense.”
“It isn’t self-defense if you hit Kyuhyun too,” Ryeowook said.
“Oh, him? Well, that’s different,” Sungmin paused, tapping his chin, “him, I wanted to kill. Not you.”
The sincerity was expected. Blunt and harsh, but still honest. Ryeowook stiffened in his seat as Sungmin came closer, bearing a tea cup. "Drink your tea," Sungmin said, "I made it just for you."
Sungmin waited, for a minute, but when Ryeowook kept his mouth closed, he sighed and took a large gulp, leaning closer to pry Ryeowook's mouth open with his tongue.
His mouth tasted like jasmine. Jasmine, and deceit.
“I suppose you’re wondering where Kyuhyun is,” Sungmin said, sometime later, “or maybe you’re thinking about the time more than about his well-being, but you did seem pretty cozy together in the hallway, right?”
Ryeowook didn’t respond. He’d been staring at the floor, feeling tired and nauseous. There was probably something in the tea. His mind had stopped hurting, but he’d felt sluggish, instead, coming up with blanks instead of measures of escaping. He’d tried to wrestle out of his bonds, but he couldn’t muster up enough energy to continue the attempt. Sungmin had stopped expecting any reply from him, and even the slight attempts to bait him where insufficient to hold Ryeowook’s attention long enough.
“I put him in the bathroom,” Sungmin continued, coming closer to trim the begonia peeking out of the collar of Ryeowook’s shirt, “where it’s nice and cool, of course.”
Nice and cool? Ryeowook’s eyes drooped lower. That sounded like a nice place. Nice. Cozy. He’d spent hours in the bathroom more than he could care to count. He’d gotten rid of flowers there, too. Did he remember to clean out the drain?
He felt light in his chest in spite of the heady weight in his mind. Bubbly, almost. What did Sungmin give him? He wanted to laugh but he couldn’t decide if he wanted it more than he wanted to crawl to bed and sleep the day away, and maybe he could sleep with Kyuhyun too, on the same bed, and they would hide from Sungmin until he promised to be good. If he was capable of being good.
“Poor boy’s probably thirsty by now,” Sungmin said, “I cleaned your wounds, by the way. You’re never gonna be able to use that jacket again. I told you to keep hydrated, but you never listen to me, don’t you?”
Ryeowook meant to shake his head, but his head swayed forward, instead. Sungmin placed a hand over his shoulder to keep him upright. “I’m sorry I had to do this,” Sungmin said, reaching around to untie his bonds, “but I promise it’ll only last three hours, tops. After that, you’ll feel okay again, but not as great as when you’re high. I just need to make sure you won’t be there to stop me.”
Stop what? Ryeowook stared at the mole on Sungmin’s arm, barely aware of how Sungmin had pressed a kiss to the rope burn circling his wrist, raw and red. He was having trouble concentrating on anything, but if he focused on something, maybe he could actually take a second to breathe and work things out, if he could even remember it.
“Don’t move, okay?” Sungmin said, patting his cheek, and Ryeowook lazily lolled his head around, “I’ll be right back.”
Ryeowook waited until Sungmin was out of earshot before he tried to stand up. It was only when he found his cheek pressed to the cold tiles that he realized that he couldn’t go anywhere else at this rate.
He slept.
When the drug had worn off and Ryeowook had gathered enough strength to even get on his feet and check on Sungmin, he’d found Sungmin perched on the edge of the bathtub, watching its occupant intently. Ryeowook pushed the rest of the door open, feeling some of the old anger rise in his chest again, and Sungmin crossed his arms over his chest, leaning forward without looking at Ryeowook.
“They don’t grow when there’s no water, huh?” Sungmin said, hand reaching down to curl a lock of Kyuhyun’s hair around his fingers, “I stripped him down to his shorts and there’s nothing coming out, just a lot of wounds.”
“You were expecting daisies?” Ryeowook asked, tersely, and when Sungmin shrugged his shoulders, he turned on his heel and walked back to the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of water in his disgust.
Well, it was always nothing short of amazing to Ryeowook how the atmosphere between them shifted to different degrees. He’d had half a mind to question Sungmin’s sanity, but at this point he’d realized he’d have nothing against Sungmin even if he did try to fight back. He’d probably give him a stronger dose, next time, or keep him locked in a closet in spite of his professions of kindness towards Ryeowook. Don’t even bother, Sungmin’s grip on his shoulder as he’d kissed Ryeowook in the kitchen seemed to say. There were some disparities in the gentleness of his intended action and the message it brought across to the recipient.
He could have filled the spaces left in Kibum’s words, once upon a time. Something about selfishness and going through the motions in the true Machiavellian fashion. He’d have his pretentions about propriety before stabbing you in the back, rather than retreating in his own thoughts. It’s always people that you have to worry about, not the ghosts, because haunting is different from hurting; it’s not the same kind of pain, in the end.
Sungmin had turned on the tap by the time Ryeowook shuffled back in the bathroom. Ryeowook set the container down on the floor, propping Kyuhyun’s body up in a seated position before nudging him awake.
“Kyuhyun,” Ryeowook said, pressing the back of his hand to Kyuhyun’s forehead. It felt cold and damp from the water.
“He doesn’t have a concussion,” Sungmin supplied helpfully, grinning with the same characteristic nonchalance he’d used as a front, “I checked.”
“I bet you did,” Ryeowook said, mouth dry with worry, “tell me something. Did you really plan to-“
“Yes,” Sungmin said, cutting him off. He’d had no shred of remorse in his tone, no aftershocks of guilt in the motions of his hands as he passed it through his hair. It was clinical, almost, and Ryeowook wanted to feel afraid again but there was no use feeling fear. He’d just have to bear it.
“What do we do now?” Ryeowook said to himself, and the only answer that came to him was to wait, and nothing else.
Once, he’d picked up a book in a secondhand store - it was a small, hardbound thing with barely worn pages and the name Basho still stenciled in gold. Rarely used pieces told so many things about the original owners. He’d deduced that they were not fans of poetry, and that they cared little for writings on nature. There was nothing in the brevity of Basho’s words that called to them, no metaphors for the sea and sky that prompted further perusal of the book.
He barely opened it, too. It was probably still in his bookshelf, back in his old room at his parents’ house in Incheon. He thought of this book as Sungmin recited poetry to him in the bathroom while waiting for Kyuhyun to wake up. Ryeowook had Kyuhyun’s head propped up on his lap, smoothing Kyuhyun’s bangs away from his forehead. He could still see the beginnings of a flesh wound near Kyuhyun’s scalp, so he scooped up some water in his palm and spread it over the skin, watching it seep into the opening like water to soil.
Juniper, Ryeowook wrote into the air above Kyuhyun’s forehead. Sungmin looked up with an inquiring eye, but Ryeowook was saved from the explanation when Kyuhyun groaned and moved his fingers.
“So dramatic,” Sungmin said, sounding annoyed, and Ryeowook kicked his leg.
Ryeowook reached over to grab the water he’d brought with him, and he let Kyuhyun drink before he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“He hit me,” Kyuhyun said, eyebrows furrowed as he watched Sungmin get out of the tub with distrustful eyes, “and he hit you too.” He looked like he wanted to do more than to narrate the events to Ryeowook, wanted to push Sungmin back down to the tub and strangle him under the water until he was limp and unresponsive in his hands, but Sungmin wiggled his fingers as if to remind him who was the one with better reflexes.
“Yes, we’ve already established that,” Sungmin said, still cross, “I hit you and didn’t kill you, aren’t you glad about that?”
Kyuhyun stared at him, inching closer to Ryeowook. “You’re insane,” he said, “you are so screwed up I have no idea how you can sleep at night or talk to your mother. I wonder how many people you hit on a daily basis.”
“Sungmin,” Ryeowook said, warningly, and Sungmin bit back the retort that was threatening to spill out of his mouth, a long string of words that would only cause more tension. Would stalling even help? There was no use to attempt to fix this relationship without having to put up a veil of ignorance.
“Why am I in the bathroom?” Kyuhyun said, after a moment. Ryeowook stared up at Sungmin, lips thinned into a displeased smile, and Sungmin shrugged.
“It seemed appropriate at that time,” Sungmin said, smiling at Ryeowook that told him exactly what he meant.
“You’re such a liar,” someone said, and it was not Ryeowook. It was Kyuhyun.
“Strong words, Kyuhyunnie,” Sungmin said, laughing without a smile on his usually open expression. He was more guarded, this time, less hesitant to taunt him. He had his own skeletons to hide, Ryeowook figured. Everyone did. With Sungmin, it was simply unusual to hear of it; he was so good at cleaning up his faults.
"I never fell into the lake, Sungmin," Kyuhyun croaked out.
"Yes, you did," Sungmin said, slowly, as if speaking to a child, "you could ask your sister or your mother or --"
"It wasn't an accident," Kyuhyun said, clenching his fingers into a fist, "you pushed me into it."
Sungmin turned to him, and Ryeowook looked on, eyes hooded and body feeling like lead. From this angle, it was impossible to tell what Sungmin's face betrayed, if he showed anything at all.
"You pushed me into it," Kyuhyun continued, letting the truth finally materialize into the air, out of the secrecy of his own private thoughts, and Ryeowook would have felt so proud if he weren't so tired, "because you didn't want anyone else to divert everyone's attention from yourself. You pushed me because you didn't care about me enough. You've always been selfish."
Sungmin leaned over to brush his thumb over Kyuhyun's cheek, a small motion that bespoke of condescension and pride that made Kyuhyun flinch and Ryeowook tremble slightly at the sight. "I got what I wanted in the end, didn't I?" Sungmin whispered, "you stopped showing up after that."
"I trusted you," Kyuhyun said, no anger in his tone, only defeat, "I loved you."
"It doesn't matter to me," Sungmin replied, and Ryeowook felt a sliver of fear run down his spine at the realization that Sungmin would use anyone, even his cousin, for Ryeowook's sake, at the price of Ryeowook's conscience. Sungmin had a rather narrow mind, the faults of linear thinking and causality wrecking havoc more on his humanity than his sensibility. Ryeowook wanted out.
"All you had to do was ask," Kyuhyun said, passing a weary hand over Sungmin's head, and Ryeowook stared at them.
It seemed easier to take, then. To take and to take until Kyuhyun had nothing left, until Ryeowook could fool himself into believing that he deserved to live more than Kyuhyun, or anyone else, did. Sungmin believed in that far too much, it wasn't healthy anymore.
“No,” Sungmin said, “no, you wouldn’t have said yes.”
He was so sure of it that Ryeowook had to look away. There was no time for any of them, and Sungmin’s perception was flawed in so many ways that he didn’t believe in anyone’s capacity for altruism. What kind of world did he revolve around in, when he was so self-sufficient and he was above everything, above judgment, above insult, and above all morality?
There was anarchy in the kind of rationality Sungmin had possessed. Ryeowook didn’t like the surety in it. Birdsfoot for vengeance. Nothing was permanent.
Even the shame was still there, sharp, and biting.
"You see, Kyuhyun," Sungmin said, "I need you to hurry up and die. Can you do that, Kyuhyun?"
Kyuhyun cocked his head to the side, not meeting Sungmin’s eyes, and Ryeowook put his hand on his shoulder. Kyuhyun’s muscles tensed and shuddered under his touch, and for a moment Ryeowook thought that it was from an overpowering sense of frustration and fear, only to jerk his hand back in surprise when Kyuhyun started laughing, open and honest and maybe not a little too desperate.
Sungmin looked tempted to crack a smile at that, but even he was as lost as Ryeowook was. Kyuhyun leant back against Ryeowook for support, hiding his face behind his hands as his laughter subsided into sniggering, the same kind Ryeowook expected from children that were at a loss in the face of an unexplainable hilarity.
“I don’t get it,” Kyuhyun said, clearing his throat, “you’re not going to get anything out of me when I die. I mean, I’m not the richest person in the world, and you’re not even an immediate family member or anything.”
Kyuhyun put a finger to his own lips, and it reminded Ryeowook of Sungmin. “So going by that logic, you’re not really going to benefit much from my death. I can’t give you anything else other than the house, and you don’t need that, do you?”
Do you? Kyuhyun’s smile, brittle and snide, challenged. Sungmin’s eyes flashed in displeasure, before lighting up. Ryeowook followed his line of vision with some trepidation, only to feel the beginnings of panic sink in when he saw a tiny bud of a camellia resting on Kyuhyun’s ankle.
“It’s true,” Sungmin sighed, playing along to Kyuhyun’s suggestions, “I don’t need you for your money.”
Kyuhyun’s lips turned up, losing none of its antagonism, only to part when Sungmin rested his palm against Kyuhyun’s foot. “I need you for this.”
Kyuhyun looked down, and back up at Sungmin in surprise.
"Do you think it will be okay if I kill him and then let you eat this?" Sungmin said, stroking the flower with a smile on his face, "Ryeowook?"
“Sungmin?” Kyuhyun rasped out, “what are you talking about?”
“I was hoping to wait until next week,” Sungmin said, wistfully, “but you aren’t getting any better, are you, Ryeowook?”
"Shut up, Sungmin," Ryeowook barked out. Sungmin looked too pleased at this development and he would use the guilt to his advantage, would use it at the expense of Ryeowook’s own shame because it was…
"Ryeowook?" Kyuhyun said, turning pale, "you never -- you didn't --"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Ryeowook said, reaching into his pocket and putting the item he’d pulled out of it into Kyuhyun’s palm. A sleeping pill, just in case, "please, just. Just rest, okay? You don't have to worry about me."
He pressed a kiss to the top of Kyuhyun's brow, the only part of Kyuhyun's skin his lips would ever touch. "You don't have to worry about anything."
They carried Kyuhyun to bed in the morning. Ryeowook had told Sungmin to get out of his sight for a few hours, at least, and Sungmin, strangely, had complied. Ryeowook had fallen asleep on the floor beside Kyuhyun's bed dreaming of rosemaries, but when he woke up, Kyuhyun was gone.
He went around the house, cautiously calling out Kyuhyun's name. There was no sign of him in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the yard. Sungmin's car was still gone. For a moment, Ryeowook thought that Sungmin had killed him and disposed of his body in the few hours Ryeowook was asleep, but when Ryeowook looked up, he spotted Kyuhyun sitting on the roof of the veranda, staring at the sky.
"Kyuhyun," Ryeowook warbled, "get down from there!"
Wrong words, he realized, when Kyuhyun stood up, almost losing his balance.
"Don't move," Ryeowook called, "I'll come up in a few seconds!"
Kyuhyun watched him with listless eyes as Ryeowook propped up a ladder to the side, climbing it with some difficulty. When Ryeowook reached the top and scrambled over to the edge of the roof, Kyuhyun didn't say anything.
"Hey," Ryeowook said, trying to smile, only it came out strained. Kyuhyun inclined his head to the side, indicating he'd heard, and Ryeowook felt his palms beginning to sweat. Don't look down if you know what's good for you. Deep breaths.
"You know, I'd forgotten what it was like to like someone," Kyuhyun confessed, apropos of nothing. Ryeowook's head snapped up in attention, but he kept his body in check, tensing up to maintain his balance.
"Are you still thinking about it?" Ryeowook asked, determined to look straight ahead.
"I'd wondered if either of us could wait for each other to die," Kyuhyun said in a strange voice. Ryeowook took a few more uneven steps, still wary of him, until Kyuhyun was within his reach.
"I would have given it to you," Ryeowook said, softly, please come here, come closer, don't --, "you know I would have."
"Don't stop me," Kyuhyun said, digging his heels into the tiles. His feet were bare and white against the darker surface. Ryeowook watched his toes curl with anticipation, "I wouldn't have been able to take anything from you."
You are the most beloved, Sungmin said, once, and it was only then that Ryeowook realized why Sungmin never said mine. Epiphanies come in small doses, until they seep in and it all falls apart.
"Kyuhyun," Ryeowook said, touching Kyuhyun's cheek with trembling fingers. Skin so young and imperfect, but it was still warm with the thrum of life. In a few seconds, what would happen next?
Kyuhyun stiffened into his touch, and Ryeowook let his hand fall, to the side, just as Kyuhyun pressed a small, fleeting kiss into his palm, a light brush that could have been accidental, and nothing else. Desire was never part of their story, and Kyuhyun understood that much.
Kyuhyun smiled, pushing him away, and stepped off the ledge.
Sungmin searched Kyuhyun's body when he saw Ryeowook in the doorway, holding Kyuhyun close to his chest. The blood had dried, by then, and Ryeowook kept pressing kisses across Kyuhyun's cheek, like a sad mother, or a child with a broken doll. When Sungmin had divested Kyuhyun of his clothing and found nothing, Ryeowook only smiled and said, "good boy."
How did that line from the play go again? Rue for you, and for me. He’d let the regret seep into his bones, but he’d learned to rejoice in some parts of it, too.
"What happens now?" Sungmin said, sounding defeated, and Ryeowook tangled his fingers into Kyuhyun's hair, pulling him closer.
"We wait," Ryeowook answered, and it was only then that Sungmin saw the tiredness in Ryeowook's eyes, the strain in his smile.
They’d grown up more than they cared to admit. Weeks ago, Ryeowook would never have believed that Sungmin was capable of irrational extremities, and Sungmin would never have said that he doubted Ryeowook’s judgment more often than not. There were issues they’d left barely patched up, old wounds that stayed and let their better sides stray from reason. When it came down to it, did they learn anything they wanted to take pride in knowing? Sungmin would have more secrets to hide, and Ryeowook would have his fair share of them, too, but Sungmin would carry them longer than Ryeowook ever would. Time meant nothing to him now.
"You know I'd kill for you," Sungmin said, honestly, and Ryeowook shook his head, brushing away the first sign of tears forming at the crease of Sungmin's eyes, water, and nothing else.
"I wouldn't want that," Ryeowook replied, softly, as if afraid to hear something break in Sungmin, but that was impossible because Ryeowook never knew what Sungmin was ever up to until the last minute, when control was out of his grasp and Sungmin had yet to give it up. A dead man, and desperate people -- all these, Ryeowook had yet to come to terms with. There were no honest men left in the world.
They buried Kyuhyun in the backyard. Ryeowook didn’t have the heart to deliver a eulogy, and Sungmin didn’t have less shame to bring himself to do more than watch. There was nothing more to do after digging and laying the body to rest. It was a simple enough process, and Ryeowook resigned himself to the impossibility of remembering Kyuhyun’s face, of preserving his being without immortalizing him with words or pictures. Kyuhyun would stay, and Ryeowook would pack up and never come back. He’d grown tired of wanting to remember things that only brought hurt and no closure, no definite resolution other than death. He’d tried to find something more meaningful in it, but it was not his place to decide on that, nor was it Sungmin’s, or anyone else’s.
Nothing. It was just finished, that was all.
"Let's go home," Ryeowook said, "I'm tired of this."
Sungmin finally said yes.
Ryeowook woke up at six am, bone tired and ready to go back to bed, but he thought of Sungmin, and how he needed to make breakfast for Sungmin. It was the least he could do for him, he supposed. Tomorrow, he wouldn't be alive to cook for Sungmin, to hear Sungmin's voice as he parroted the news for the day. Sungmin had nothing to look forward to but lonely mornings in the future, until he could find someone else to love.
Someone else. The thought of it made Ryeowook's heart clench, but it was the last piece of selfishness he could afford for himself, only today.
The past few weeks had seemed insubstantial, distant to Ryeowook’s memory. He’d almost forgotten the smell of Kyuhyun’s blood on his hands, the sweat on his skin that clung to Ryeowook’s shirt, the disbelief in the way Kyuhyun had said his name. He’d forgotten it in the way that resigned people were wont to do, when there was nothing to look forward to in the future. Ryeowook bore his grudges well, but it was useless when he had no idea how to channel his anger to Sungmin. Life was simpler when he didn’t have to think about human frailty and weakness and obsessing over dead and dying men, until it had no meaning in it, only viciousness and hurt.
He’d never forgive Sungmin for the things he’d done, but he’d never spare him the little love he could afford to give. What else did he have to lose, when Sungmin had everything to give up in a matter of days, all for nothing? He’d be the saddest man in the world, before the month was over.
He got out of bed and started to rummage around the kitchen for something to eat. Outside, there were few birds chirping in Seoul, all concrete and artificial foliage, no abundance of flowers that ran wild unless they were across his own skin. He’d pricked Sungmin, once, in all the hurtful ways of the word. He turned on the TV, not paying much attention to the news. A bank robbery here, a kidnapping there. No mention of a boy who’d died for someone else’s selfishness, for someone else’s own ends. Sometimes, the cruelest stories could be found in the most beautiful places, hidden in the country, where no one could hear about it from a mile away. Ryeowook rinsed his hands and stared at the platter of eggs on the table, feeling sick to his stomach, and it was with reluctance that he got up to rouse Sungmin from sleep.
"Wake up," Ryeowook said, shaking Sungmin's shoulders, cold to his touch, and rolling him away from his position, flat on his stomach, "I'm not spending my last day on earth with you sleeping the day away, let's--"
Ryeowook stopped, and stared at Sungmin, where a handful of petals lay wilting on his chest, save for one thing.
A single, blossoming forget-me-not, right next to his heart.
There were only two ways to come to terms with their problem: the first was to act on it, and the second to ignore it.
It was harder to cope given how distant they were from the rest of civilization, and Ryeowook knew it too keenly. Kyuhyun pretended he didn't care much, but Ryeowook could see exactly how it unnerved the younger man to see the pretty parchment paper with mysterious words written on them like I CAN SEE YOU or GO DIE or even yesterday's TWO MORE WEEKS. Rather than feeling afraid, Ryeowook had felt the irritation pooling in his gut, sidetracked by the instinctive worry he'd had for Kyuhyun's well-being. He figured that it couldn't have been addressed to anyone else but Kyuhyun, considering he was the one who lived here for a considerable amount of time. Kyuhyun, however, could offer no possible suspects for them, and Sungmin and Ryeowook reluctantly let the issue drop.
It was probably wrong of Ryeowook to rip the anonymous letters and discard them before Sungmin or Kyuhyun could see. He'd taken to rising an hour earlier than usual just to hover around the porch, but by the time he'd gotten there, the paper would already be resting neatly on their doormat. Once or twice he'd found a bachelor button neatly tucked inside the envelope, and Ryeowook had viciously shredded the mail in his disgust, nearly tearing apart his own mother's postcard to him in the process.
"This is getting out of hand," Ryeowook muttered tiredly as he stared into the refrigerator without registering anything in sight.
"What is?" Sungmin said, bopping Ryeowook on the head, "move over, I need some milk."
"The letters," Ryeowook said, moving away from the refrigerator to rest his head on the kitchen table in defeat, "I don't know why they're still coming."
"Maybe it's someone who really hates us," Sungmin said, biting his lower lip.
"I don't think it even involves the two of us, Sungmin," Ryeowook said, pointedly staring at the entrance of the kitchen, as if to motion to Kyuhyun, who was still sleeping in his room, "it's probably an old enemy of his or something.."
Sungmin looked thoughtful for a moment, and Ryeowook stared at Sungmin's pursed lips and his bedhead and thought that this was the part of Sungmin he liked the best, when he was lost in his thoughts and anticipating something beyond Ryeowook's understanding. He'd forgotten what Sungmin looked like, when he was like this.
"Or maybe," Sungmin said, sounding amused, "someone really loves him?"
"That's insane," Ryeowook said, flatly, "and it makes no sense whatsoever."
"That's the point," Sungmin said, but didn't say anything else about it, not even when Ryeowook pressed him to talk. There were few things Ryeowook could say he understood about Sungmin, but there was always a part of Sungmin he couldn't breach when Sungmin didn't want to be found out. He'd tell him when he was ready, he supposed, if it ever came to that.
Ryeowook woke up to the lovely sound of Sungmin screaming his head off in the garden, and he shot up in bed, kicking off the blankets and nearly tripping over the bed sheets in his haste. He met Kyuhyun in the hallway, and both of them exchanged looks of trepidation before cautiously heading to the door.
"Hyung?" Kyuhyun asked, tentatively opening the door, "is this about the amaryllis in the garden? Because I swear I didn't forget to water them yesterday..."
"Look at this!" Sungmin yelled, pointing at the ground, "I don't -- this is so --"
Ryeowook immediately felt his head ache. "Sungmin," he said, very slowly, "it's just a broken doll."
"It's not just a broken doll," Sungmin said, testily, and with more bite than Ryeowook had ever heard from him in his fits, "it's my mother's porcelain doll."
"They were very expensive ones, too," Kyuhyun said, solemnly, as he bent over to gather the larger pieces in his palm, "wasn't this an heirloom?"
"Don't," Ryeowook said, but the warning came belatedly, as the edge of one of the pieces scratched Kyuhyun's finger, opening a tiny wound. It was always the smallest ones that hurt the most, Ryeowook thought, dismayed, "come on, we should get that disinfected."
"Ryeowook," Sungmin said, sounding hurt at Ryeowook's indifference, "don't you get it?"
"No, Sungmin," Ryeowook said, grabbing Kyuhyun's wrist to steer him back inside, "I don't. And don't touch it, I'll sweep it up later, okay?"
"How did anyone get inside?" Kyuhyun muttered, still looking back at Sungmin's form. Sungmin didn't bother to hide the glare he aimed at Kyuhyun, and Ryeowook would have yelled at him for it if he'd seen it.
"Did you forget to lock the door again?" Ryeowook said, ever the level-headed one, and Kyuhyun bit the inside of his cheek.
"I'm not sure," Kyuhyun said, yelping when Ryeowook pushed him inside the bathroom with force, "I. I don't remember closing the door after I fell asleep on the couch."
"May I remind you that this is your fault?" Ryeowook said, the gentleness of his tone belying the way he'd doused Kyuhyun's wound with alcohol, "you're going to have to make it up to him, you know."
"I know," Kyuhyun said, wincing, "but you have to remember to be gentle to him, too, Ryeowookie."
"I don't need you to tell me that," Ryeowook laughed, but acknowledged it all the same with some embarrassment. He'd forgotten what it was to feel dependent on Sungmin in such a short amount of time, and he supposed he could blame it on Kyuhyun and the feelings of protectiveness he'd stirred in Ryeowook.
Over breakfast, Sungmin, to Ryeowook's surprise, insisted on keeping tabs on the near-daily threats they had begun to receive on their property. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook exchanged glances, but didn't object to Sungmin's proposition.
I go where I roam, the radio sang. Ryeowook patted Sungmin's hand under the table, brushing his thumb against the soft skin of Sungmin's palm.
Just when Ryeowook was beginning to accept the handwritten threats and the vandalism on their property as daily fodder for his infrequent letters to Kibum, things started to take a turn for the worse.
It was bad enough that he'd almost gotten a heart attack when he opened the freezer to see a dead bird in it. He'd almost screamed but kept himself in check, steeling himself as he clinically deposited the bird in a small plastic bag and buried it in the garden without saying a word. It frightened a small part of himself, how he'd gotten so used to it. He'd almost laughed at the thought that perhaps he himself did all this in his sleep, but it was impossible, considering how he was always the one next to the wall. He couldn't have gotten out of bed without waking up Sungmin, who was a lighter sleeper than he was. (Well, anyone was a lighter sleeper than Ryeowook, who tended to sleep for as long as he would be allowed.)
"What are you doing outside?" Kyuhyun called out, from the doorway, and Ryeowook turned to him, with dirt in his hands and a streak of blood down his arm.
"I found something in the freezer," Ryeowook said, cheerfully, "just a small bird, no big deal."
"A what?" Kyuhyun asked, sounding surprised.
"I'm kidding," Ryeowook said, "the chicken went bad and I didn't want the kitchen to smell."
"Oh," Kyuhyun said, turning back to go inside without questioning his actions further, "okay."
There were some things he'd never tell Kyuhyun. Maybe not even Sungmin, either, but Ryeowook felt that he didn't need to burden Kyuhyun with unnecessary worries. Like, for example, finding out that someone tampered with the water pipe.
"What do we do?" Ryeowook said to himself, thankful that he'd filled all the pitchers with water, but it would take how many hours before they could get someone to fix it, and Kyuhyun and Ryeowook needed all the water they could get. It was true that too much liquid intake would spur the regrowth of the flowers, but depriving themselves of it would leave the flowers with no other choice but to sap their energy until it would literally suck them dry.
Death by crocus infestation, they'd have to write on Ryeowook's death certificate. Ryeowook was still laughing at the absurdity of the idea, and it was that way that Sungmin had found him, that night, slumped against the bathroom wall and tracing spirals into the dirty bath water in the tub, a small sliver of moonlight weakly reflected in the water.
"Oh, baby," Sungmin crooned, enfolding him in a tight, warm embrace, "you're not okay."
Ryeowook smiled, weakly. "Didn't we go through this a few days ago?"
Sungmin laughed, a short chuckle that made Ryeowook's eyes well up with tears. "Don't worry. I'll always take care of you, even if you're so heartless to me."
There was still some light, outside. Ryeowook prayed it wouldn't go out.
Sungmin wrapped him up in blankets and sang sad love songs into his ear, but Ryeowook couldn't sleep, too lost in the quick stream of half-coherent worries that were starting to take shape in his mind.
"I have to go to town," Ryeowook mumbled, weakly pushing Sungmin away, "gotta get some water for Kyuhyun, I have to..." Have to find someplace safer, have to tell Kyuhyun everything, have to get away from Sungmin's suffocating care, what is truth what is falsehood is this terrorism or just Ryeowook's fears coming to haunt him all over again?
"You can't go out like this, Ryeowookie," Sungmin said, "I'll go out tomorrow, drive to town and pick up a few gallons, I promise. Just go to sleep, okay?"
"No," Ryeowook said, "gotta do it on my own -- I don't know if I can--"
"Stop playing the hero," Sungmin growled, holding onto Ryeowook's shoulders and shaking him with an intensity that left Ryeowook confused and angry.
"I'm just being--," Ryeowook started, only to hesitate. What was it that he was about to say? Something about concern, but it sounded too superior, too far from the self-satisfaction he'd felt when he realized that he wasn't the only one. It wasn't sympathy so much as it was...
Selfishness. That was what it was about, but Ryeowook believed he had a little less ill feelings invested in the matter than that, but Sungmin, for all his harsh words or his gentleness made it seem like the most shameful thing Ryeowook had ever done. Was this how Sungmin should treat his blood relative? Somehow, the insensitivity seemed too much, but Ryeowook couldn't stand it if Sungmin blamed him for his own faults. You made me like this, he'd say, and it was the sort of illogical reasoning that he expected from Sungmin. Selfish children rarely had sudden sparks of rationality not limited by their own self-interest, their insufferable, thoughtless greed.
"You can't say it, can you?" Sungmin said, not without a little triumph in his voice, "because you can't swallow the truth."
"You're not the one who's dying," Ryeowook said, voice dangerously low, "you have no idea how it feels."
"Kyuhyun would trust me," Sungmin said, quietly, and Ryeowook felt a flash of irritation in the crack of his knuckles, the snapping of bone.
"I'm not Kyuhyun," Ryeowook reminded him, a hushed, gentle whisper that belied the antagonism in his words, suddenly alert.
"Sometimes, I wish you were," Sungmin said, and Ryeowook said nothing. They were going nowhere at this rate, and Ryeowook would die and Sungmin would still say, You could have been like Kyuhyun, you could have been. Placing blame was easy when he'd practiced it long enough.
How long did it take for Sungmin to claim it as his own, then? It was an art Ryeowook had yet to fashion for himself.
He'd give marigolds to Sungmin. Cruelty and jealousy, but to what end? The absence of mistrust was never without its consequences.
Let’s work through the facts.
Fact one: there is someone who wants to kill you.
Fact two: there is someone who wants to protect you.
The question is, which one is it?
Ryeowook wrote it down in a notebook he’d found lying around the house. Sungmin had left him alone with Kyuhyun for the better part of the day under the excuse of looking for a plumber, but Ryeowook knew that he’d still felt the awkwardness in their argument. Granted, it was one of Ryeowook’s less lucid moments, but Sungmin’s patience had proved to be limited, and Ryeowook wasn’t sure if he liked this development. They’d had numerous fights over the course of their relationship, but it had never involved insinuations and striking at the parts that would hurt deeper than anything else would.
“Playing the hero, huh?” Ryeowook whispered, pressing his cheek against the paper, “I just want to go home.”
The problem was that there was a disassociation between his reality and his subconscious, apparently. When he’d thought of home, he’d felt the ache in his desire, but when it shifted to Kyuhyun, there was still that same quality of want. Altruism didn’t fit into what he’d intended for Kyuhyun, and if it was simply a gratification of his own ego, well, his consciousness was either doing a very good job at denying it, or he didn’t like how simplistic and self-centered the implications of Sungmin’s words were.
It wasn’t that Sungmin had remained irate at him the entire time. He’d tried to be casual about it, but Ryeowook was stubborn, too, and it took longer for him to forgive and forget, at least on the outside. He’d remained unresponsive even as Sungmin had adopted his soothing tone, his affectionate words.
"I’ll take care of you," Sungmin had said, toying with Ryeowook’s fingers, delight and fascination and morbid curiosity rolled into his frightening tenderness, and all Ryeowook wanted to do was to hit him.
So cruel. So kind. Ryeowook had tried to move his fingers, but it had fallen to his side, limp and sapped of whatever strength he’d had in the sudden rush of adrenaline he’d found, a sliver of striped carnations beginning to crawl out of the tender skin under his nails, drawing some blood.
The wound hadn’t closed up. He inspected it in the dim light, but he could still see the dried blood, specks of brown intermingling with the newer wounds. He would have gone to the bathroom to wash up, but he figured they’d need all the water they could get. He brought his fingers to his mouth. It tasted like dirt and copper.
“Hurry up and finish this,” Ryeowook said out loud, unheard. It was only a matter of weeks - days - before he would see this through the end. He closed the notebook and tucked it under the piles of stationary in the drawer, and when he went out of his room, he’d already had a half-formed suspicion in his mind.
Come.
Kyuhyun found Ryeowook going through the toolbox under the kitchen sink, and when he’d asked what he was doing, Ryeowook had cheerfully pocketed the questionable package of nails in his pockets and announced that they were going hunting.
“You could get an infection just from touching that, you know,” Kyuhyun said, “and I don’t hunt, okay? We don’t need to hunt for our own food when we have the convenience of a supermarket in town.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Ryeowook said, crinkling his nose in distaste, “I meant, we should go find that stalker of yours and give him a lesson. Don’t you have a gun in here somewhere? And you’re sprouting daffodils, by the way.”
Kyuhyun looked displeased. “I don’t have a gun,” Kyuhyun said, tersely, “I wasn’t aware I needed it.” He looked uncomfortable at the implications of Ryeowook’s suggestion. It was an effective way to stop the harassment, but there were still some legal repercussions to be had. Besides, he still had his humanity in him, even if sometimes he’d felt otherwise.
“A hammer, then. Or something blunt and heavy,” Ryeowook replied, inspecting the kitchen cabinets for something more useful than a screwdriver, “It has to at least be something I can carry without killing myself in the process, you know.”
“Why aren’t we letting Sungmin in on this plan again?” Kyuhyun, ever the long-suffering one, said in a voice tinged with desperation, “wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be the best at self-defense?”
“I know,” Ryeowook said, “but I don’t think Sungmin would be able to help us.”
"Aren't you afraid of catching it?" Kyuhyun asked, pressing a hand to the top of Ryeowook’s head.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting killed?” Ryeowook said testily, waving away Kyuhyun’s awkward touch to hide his own insecurity. He didn’t claim to be an expert at this whole business of guarding the fort, but there was no choice, not unless he wanted to wait it out and die in the process.
"I'm not scared," Kyuhyun said, but Ryeowook knew a lie when he heard one. He'd been telling it all his life.
He’d had his own conjectures about the whole situation. Some things he still wasn’t too sure about, but it had fit, despite the errors in logic. He had yet to figure out a motive for his suspicions, but he knew he’d be able to get an answer sooner rather than later. The problem was whether or not both of them would be able to prove to be greater in strength. Numbers had nothing to do with this scenario.
"Come on," Ryeowook said, holding out his hand, "let's figure this out together."
His companion stared at the proffered limb, and Ryeowook clucked his tongue at him, impatiently. "I won't leave you," Ryeowook said, "trust me."
Kyuhyun took in a deep, shuddering breath before finally taking his hand.
“Just so you know,” Kyuhyun said, keeping his voice even and calm, “I still don’t trust you enough.”
Good enough.
They took turns watching the front door. Ryeowook would wait in a small, hidden corner of the hallway while Kyuhyun would sleep, huddled beside him and resting his head on Ryeowook’s bony shoulder. Ryeowook had worn a long, baggy black jacket, using the disguise as an excuse to hide the red raw wounds that had started forming along his wrists, the skin of his arms. He didn’t have anything to drink for at least eight hours already, and it wasn’t starting to look good. He’d heard that when the plants had run out of water, they’d start to feed on blood, instead.
It had gotten unbearably itchy, too. He’d scratched at it in his absent-mindedness once or twice, but after opening a wound and seeing a lovely gladiolus mocking him with the unnaturally darker edges of its petals, he’d stopped. It was so tempting to peel the skin away and dig into his muscles, to rip them apart with less surgical precision than he’d intended, but…
Just a few more hours, Ryeowook thought, biting his lower lip, I just need Kyuhyun to be safe.
They waited for two more hours, Kyuhyun impatiently checking his watch and Ryeowook vigilantly eyeing the front door. When Kyuhyun was about to suggest taking a break for dinner, Ryeowook covered Kyuhyun’s mouth with his palm, gesturing towards the shadow outside the door.
“What if it’s just Sungmin?” Kyuhyun hissed, prying Ryeowook’s palm off his mouth and tugging the hem of Ryeowook’s jacket, “I don’t want to go to jail and live with the guilt of knowing I knocked out my own blood relative, okay?”
“I wouldn’t worry about the guilt, if I were you,” Ryeowook said vaguely, pushing him away in his irritation, “I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”
“Well, your plan is really stupid, and I have no faith in it whatsoever,” Kyuhyun said, hotly, standing up, “now I’m going to open the door for Sungmin and we will forget this ever happened.”
“Kyuhyun, you idiot!” Ryeowook yelled, but Kyuhyun had already shrugged Ryeowook’s hand away and strode over to the front door, opening it and greeting Sungmin with a nod.
“See, I told you it was just Sungmin,” Kyuhyun said, turning back to look at Ryeowook with an admonishing glare and Sungmin gave him a small wave and a cryptic smile.
“Were you two planning to ambush me and hit me with,” Sungmin paused to check the object Ryeowook’s fingers had tightened around, “my own baseball bat?”
“Crazy, I know,” Kyuhyun muttered, “sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t be,” Sungmin said, “see, I was planning to do the same to you.”
Ryeowook launched himself at Sungmin with a yell, only to fall to the floor when Sungmin bashed a small pot to the back of his skull.
"Come on, babe," Sungmin said, with mock cheerfulness, "I need you to stay alive, so don't die on me just because you have a concussion, okay?"
Ryeowook registered flipping him the finger before passing out.
Ryeowook woke up with an aching head and feeling like he was drowning. It was only seconds later that his mind realized it was real, and he spluttered as he closed his mouth and tried to swallow the rest of the water in his throat down without spilling any of it.
"Hey, beautiful," Sungmin said, smiling, "how do you feel?"
Like someone hit me with a potted plant, that's what, Ryeowook thought, but kept his mouth tightly sealed. He tried to intensify the glare he directed to Sungmin, but Sungmin looked away, putting the bottle down and going through something on the kitchen table.
Ryeowook tried to move his hands, but Sungmin had taken the healthy precaution of keeping his hands tied in front of him. A little stupid, but maybe Sungmin hadn't meant to keep him confined. That, or he figured that tying his feet to the chair would work, too, and if he wanted to hit him, he'd fall flat on his face on the floor while bringing the chair down with him in his attempt to finish what he started.
He didn't even bother to muffle any sounds Ryeowook would have made. It was unsettling to realize that they were miles away from civilization, and in here, Ryeowook was at Sungmin's mercy, without any hope.
He bruised the inside of his cheek with his teeth, grimacing.
Sungmin puttered around the kitchen, looking thoroughly amused, and set down a plate of last night's dinner. Ryeowook watched him eat, slowly, and didn't speak even when Sungmin offered him a bite, taunting him with a fork. This must be why Kibum never liked him. Sungmin was always a little rude when he wanted to be.
When Sungmin was done, he dumped the plate into the sink. He left the room without giving Ryeowook so much as a backwards glance, and came back five minutes later, hiding something behind his back. The shit-eating grin hadn't changed, either.
“Let’s review the facts, shall we?” Sungmin said, brandishing the notebook Ryeowook had written in earlier, and Ryeowook smiled, warningly. “Oh, don’t be so angry, darling, I just found this while I was going through your things. You know I don’t mean any harm.”
“Says the person who wanted to kill me,” Ryeowook spat out.
“I didn’t want to kill you,” Sungmin said, pointedly looking at him, “you wanted to kill me. Technically, it was self-defense.”
“It isn’t self-defense if you hit Kyuhyun too,” Ryeowook said.
“Oh, him? Well, that’s different,” Sungmin paused, tapping his chin, “him, I wanted to kill. Not you.”
The sincerity was expected. Blunt and harsh, but still honest. Ryeowook stiffened in his seat as Sungmin came closer, bearing a tea cup. "Drink your tea," Sungmin said, "I made it just for you."
Sungmin waited, for a minute, but when Ryeowook kept his mouth closed, he sighed and took a large gulp, leaning closer to pry Ryeowook's mouth open with his tongue.
His mouth tasted like jasmine. Jasmine, and deceit.
“I suppose you’re wondering where Kyuhyun is,” Sungmin said, sometime later, “or maybe you’re thinking about the time more than about his well-being, but you did seem pretty cozy together in the hallway, right?”
Ryeowook didn’t respond. He’d been staring at the floor, feeling tired and nauseous. There was probably something in the tea. His mind had stopped hurting, but he’d felt sluggish, instead, coming up with blanks instead of measures of escaping. He’d tried to wrestle out of his bonds, but he couldn’t muster up enough energy to continue the attempt. Sungmin had stopped expecting any reply from him, and even the slight attempts to bait him where insufficient to hold Ryeowook’s attention long enough.
“I put him in the bathroom,” Sungmin continued, coming closer to trim the begonia peeking out of the collar of Ryeowook’s shirt, “where it’s nice and cool, of course.”
Nice and cool? Ryeowook’s eyes drooped lower. That sounded like a nice place. Nice. Cozy. He’d spent hours in the bathroom more than he could care to count. He’d gotten rid of flowers there, too. Did he remember to clean out the drain?
He felt light in his chest in spite of the heady weight in his mind. Bubbly, almost. What did Sungmin give him? He wanted to laugh but he couldn’t decide if he wanted it more than he wanted to crawl to bed and sleep the day away, and maybe he could sleep with Kyuhyun too, on the same bed, and they would hide from Sungmin until he promised to be good. If he was capable of being good.
“Poor boy’s probably thirsty by now,” Sungmin said, “I cleaned your wounds, by the way. You’re never gonna be able to use that jacket again. I told you to keep hydrated, but you never listen to me, don’t you?”
Ryeowook meant to shake his head, but his head swayed forward, instead. Sungmin placed a hand over his shoulder to keep him upright. “I’m sorry I had to do this,” Sungmin said, reaching around to untie his bonds, “but I promise it’ll only last three hours, tops. After that, you’ll feel okay again, but not as great as when you’re high. I just need to make sure you won’t be there to stop me.”
Stop what? Ryeowook stared at the mole on Sungmin’s arm, barely aware of how Sungmin had pressed a kiss to the rope burn circling his wrist, raw and red. He was having trouble concentrating on anything, but if he focused on something, maybe he could actually take a second to breathe and work things out, if he could even remember it.
“Don’t move, okay?” Sungmin said, patting his cheek, and Ryeowook lazily lolled his head around, “I’ll be right back.”
Ryeowook waited until Sungmin was out of earshot before he tried to stand up. It was only when he found his cheek pressed to the cold tiles that he realized that he couldn’t go anywhere else at this rate.
He slept.
When the drug had worn off and Ryeowook had gathered enough strength to even get on his feet and check on Sungmin, he’d found Sungmin perched on the edge of the bathtub, watching its occupant intently. Ryeowook pushed the rest of the door open, feeling some of the old anger rise in his chest again, and Sungmin crossed his arms over his chest, leaning forward without looking at Ryeowook.
“They don’t grow when there’s no water, huh?” Sungmin said, hand reaching down to curl a lock of Kyuhyun’s hair around his fingers, “I stripped him down to his shorts and there’s nothing coming out, just a lot of wounds.”
“You were expecting daisies?” Ryeowook asked, tersely, and when Sungmin shrugged his shoulders, he turned on his heel and walked back to the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of water in his disgust.
Well, it was always nothing short of amazing to Ryeowook how the atmosphere between them shifted to different degrees. He’d had half a mind to question Sungmin’s sanity, but at this point he’d realized he’d have nothing against Sungmin even if he did try to fight back. He’d probably give him a stronger dose, next time, or keep him locked in a closet in spite of his professions of kindness towards Ryeowook. Don’t even bother, Sungmin’s grip on his shoulder as he’d kissed Ryeowook in the kitchen seemed to say. There were some disparities in the gentleness of his intended action and the message it brought across to the recipient.
He could have filled the spaces left in Kibum’s words, once upon a time. Something about selfishness and going through the motions in the true Machiavellian fashion. He’d have his pretentions about propriety before stabbing you in the back, rather than retreating in his own thoughts. It’s always people that you have to worry about, not the ghosts, because haunting is different from hurting; it’s not the same kind of pain, in the end.
Sungmin had turned on the tap by the time Ryeowook shuffled back in the bathroom. Ryeowook set the container down on the floor, propping Kyuhyun’s body up in a seated position before nudging him awake.
“Kyuhyun,” Ryeowook said, pressing the back of his hand to Kyuhyun’s forehead. It felt cold and damp from the water.
“He doesn’t have a concussion,” Sungmin supplied helpfully, grinning with the same characteristic nonchalance he’d used as a front, “I checked.”
“I bet you did,” Ryeowook said, mouth dry with worry, “tell me something. Did you really plan to-“
“Yes,” Sungmin said, cutting him off. He’d had no shred of remorse in his tone, no aftershocks of guilt in the motions of his hands as he passed it through his hair. It was clinical, almost, and Ryeowook wanted to feel afraid again but there was no use feeling fear. He’d just have to bear it.
“What do we do now?” Ryeowook said to himself, and the only answer that came to him was to wait, and nothing else.
Once, he’d picked up a book in a secondhand store - it was a small, hardbound thing with barely worn pages and the name Basho still stenciled in gold. Rarely used pieces told so many things about the original owners. He’d deduced that they were not fans of poetry, and that they cared little for writings on nature. There was nothing in the brevity of Basho’s words that called to them, no metaphors for the sea and sky that prompted further perusal of the book.
He barely opened it, too. It was probably still in his bookshelf, back in his old room at his parents’ house in Incheon. He thought of this book as Sungmin recited poetry to him in the bathroom while waiting for Kyuhyun to wake up. Ryeowook had Kyuhyun’s head propped up on his lap, smoothing Kyuhyun’s bangs away from his forehead. He could still see the beginnings of a flesh wound near Kyuhyun’s scalp, so he scooped up some water in his palm and spread it over the skin, watching it seep into the opening like water to soil.
Juniper, Ryeowook wrote into the air above Kyuhyun’s forehead. Sungmin looked up with an inquiring eye, but Ryeowook was saved from the explanation when Kyuhyun groaned and moved his fingers.
“So dramatic,” Sungmin said, sounding annoyed, and Ryeowook kicked his leg.
Ryeowook reached over to grab the water he’d brought with him, and he let Kyuhyun drink before he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“He hit me,” Kyuhyun said, eyebrows furrowed as he watched Sungmin get out of the tub with distrustful eyes, “and he hit you too.” He looked like he wanted to do more than to narrate the events to Ryeowook, wanted to push Sungmin back down to the tub and strangle him under the water until he was limp and unresponsive in his hands, but Sungmin wiggled his fingers as if to remind him who was the one with better reflexes.
“Yes, we’ve already established that,” Sungmin said, still cross, “I hit you and didn’t kill you, aren’t you glad about that?”
Kyuhyun stared at him, inching closer to Ryeowook. “You’re insane,” he said, “you are so screwed up I have no idea how you can sleep at night or talk to your mother. I wonder how many people you hit on a daily basis.”
“Sungmin,” Ryeowook said, warningly, and Sungmin bit back the retort that was threatening to spill out of his mouth, a long string of words that would only cause more tension. Would stalling even help? There was no use to attempt to fix this relationship without having to put up a veil of ignorance.
“Why am I in the bathroom?” Kyuhyun said, after a moment. Ryeowook stared up at Sungmin, lips thinned into a displeased smile, and Sungmin shrugged.
“It seemed appropriate at that time,” Sungmin said, smiling at Ryeowook that told him exactly what he meant.
“You’re such a liar,” someone said, and it was not Ryeowook. It was Kyuhyun.
“Strong words, Kyuhyunnie,” Sungmin said, laughing without a smile on his usually open expression. He was more guarded, this time, less hesitant to taunt him. He had his own skeletons to hide, Ryeowook figured. Everyone did. With Sungmin, it was simply unusual to hear of it; he was so good at cleaning up his faults.
"I never fell into the lake, Sungmin," Kyuhyun croaked out.
"Yes, you did," Sungmin said, slowly, as if speaking to a child, "you could ask your sister or your mother or --"
"It wasn't an accident," Kyuhyun said, clenching his fingers into a fist, "you pushed me into it."
Sungmin turned to him, and Ryeowook looked on, eyes hooded and body feeling like lead. From this angle, it was impossible to tell what Sungmin's face betrayed, if he showed anything at all.
"You pushed me into it," Kyuhyun continued, letting the truth finally materialize into the air, out of the secrecy of his own private thoughts, and Ryeowook would have felt so proud if he weren't so tired, "because you didn't want anyone else to divert everyone's attention from yourself. You pushed me because you didn't care about me enough. You've always been selfish."
Sungmin leaned over to brush his thumb over Kyuhyun's cheek, a small motion that bespoke of condescension and pride that made Kyuhyun flinch and Ryeowook tremble slightly at the sight. "I got what I wanted in the end, didn't I?" Sungmin whispered, "you stopped showing up after that."
"I trusted you," Kyuhyun said, no anger in his tone, only defeat, "I loved you."
"It doesn't matter to me," Sungmin replied, and Ryeowook felt a sliver of fear run down his spine at the realization that Sungmin would use anyone, even his cousin, for Ryeowook's sake, at the price of Ryeowook's conscience. Sungmin had a rather narrow mind, the faults of linear thinking and causality wrecking havoc more on his humanity than his sensibility. Ryeowook wanted out.
"All you had to do was ask," Kyuhyun said, passing a weary hand over Sungmin's head, and Ryeowook stared at them.
It seemed easier to take, then. To take and to take until Kyuhyun had nothing left, until Ryeowook could fool himself into believing that he deserved to live more than Kyuhyun, or anyone else, did. Sungmin believed in that far too much, it wasn't healthy anymore.
“No,” Sungmin said, “no, you wouldn’t have said yes.”
He was so sure of it that Ryeowook had to look away. There was no time for any of them, and Sungmin’s perception was flawed in so many ways that he didn’t believe in anyone’s capacity for altruism. What kind of world did he revolve around in, when he was so self-sufficient and he was above everything, above judgment, above insult, and above all morality?
There was anarchy in the kind of rationality Sungmin had possessed. Ryeowook didn’t like the surety in it. Birdsfoot for vengeance. Nothing was permanent.
Even the shame was still there, sharp, and biting.
"You see, Kyuhyun," Sungmin said, "I need you to hurry up and die. Can you do that, Kyuhyun?"
Kyuhyun cocked his head to the side, not meeting Sungmin’s eyes, and Ryeowook put his hand on his shoulder. Kyuhyun’s muscles tensed and shuddered under his touch, and for a moment Ryeowook thought that it was from an overpowering sense of frustration and fear, only to jerk his hand back in surprise when Kyuhyun started laughing, open and honest and maybe not a little too desperate.
Sungmin looked tempted to crack a smile at that, but even he was as lost as Ryeowook was. Kyuhyun leant back against Ryeowook for support, hiding his face behind his hands as his laughter subsided into sniggering, the same kind Ryeowook expected from children that were at a loss in the face of an unexplainable hilarity.
“I don’t get it,” Kyuhyun said, clearing his throat, “you’re not going to get anything out of me when I die. I mean, I’m not the richest person in the world, and you’re not even an immediate family member or anything.”
Kyuhyun put a finger to his own lips, and it reminded Ryeowook of Sungmin. “So going by that logic, you’re not really going to benefit much from my death. I can’t give you anything else other than the house, and you don’t need that, do you?”
Do you? Kyuhyun’s smile, brittle and snide, challenged. Sungmin’s eyes flashed in displeasure, before lighting up. Ryeowook followed his line of vision with some trepidation, only to feel the beginnings of panic sink in when he saw a tiny bud of a camellia resting on Kyuhyun’s ankle.
“It’s true,” Sungmin sighed, playing along to Kyuhyun’s suggestions, “I don’t need you for your money.”
Kyuhyun’s lips turned up, losing none of its antagonism, only to part when Sungmin rested his palm against Kyuhyun’s foot. “I need you for this.”
Kyuhyun looked down, and back up at Sungmin in surprise.
"Do you think it will be okay if I kill him and then let you eat this?" Sungmin said, stroking the flower with a smile on his face, "Ryeowook?"
“Sungmin?” Kyuhyun rasped out, “what are you talking about?”
“I was hoping to wait until next week,” Sungmin said, wistfully, “but you aren’t getting any better, are you, Ryeowook?”
"Shut up, Sungmin," Ryeowook barked out. Sungmin looked too pleased at this development and he would use the guilt to his advantage, would use it at the expense of Ryeowook’s own shame because it was…
"Ryeowook?" Kyuhyun said, turning pale, "you never -- you didn't --"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Ryeowook said, reaching into his pocket and putting the item he’d pulled out of it into Kyuhyun’s palm. A sleeping pill, just in case, "please, just. Just rest, okay? You don't have to worry about me."
He pressed a kiss to the top of Kyuhyun's brow, the only part of Kyuhyun's skin his lips would ever touch. "You don't have to worry about anything."
They carried Kyuhyun to bed in the morning. Ryeowook had told Sungmin to get out of his sight for a few hours, at least, and Sungmin, strangely, had complied. Ryeowook had fallen asleep on the floor beside Kyuhyun's bed dreaming of rosemaries, but when he woke up, Kyuhyun was gone.
He went around the house, cautiously calling out Kyuhyun's name. There was no sign of him in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the yard. Sungmin's car was still gone. For a moment, Ryeowook thought that Sungmin had killed him and disposed of his body in the few hours Ryeowook was asleep, but when Ryeowook looked up, he spotted Kyuhyun sitting on the roof of the veranda, staring at the sky.
"Kyuhyun," Ryeowook warbled, "get down from there!"
Wrong words, he realized, when Kyuhyun stood up, almost losing his balance.
"Don't move," Ryeowook called, "I'll come up in a few seconds!"
Kyuhyun watched him with listless eyes as Ryeowook propped up a ladder to the side, climbing it with some difficulty. When Ryeowook reached the top and scrambled over to the edge of the roof, Kyuhyun didn't say anything.
"Hey," Ryeowook said, trying to smile, only it came out strained. Kyuhyun inclined his head to the side, indicating he'd heard, and Ryeowook felt his palms beginning to sweat. Don't look down if you know what's good for you. Deep breaths.
"You know, I'd forgotten what it was like to like someone," Kyuhyun confessed, apropos of nothing. Ryeowook's head snapped up in attention, but he kept his body in check, tensing up to maintain his balance.
"Are you still thinking about it?" Ryeowook asked, determined to look straight ahead.
"I'd wondered if either of us could wait for each other to die," Kyuhyun said in a strange voice. Ryeowook took a few more uneven steps, still wary of him, until Kyuhyun was within his reach.
"I would have given it to you," Ryeowook said, softly, please come here, come closer, don't --, "you know I would have."
"Don't stop me," Kyuhyun said, digging his heels into the tiles. His feet were bare and white against the darker surface. Ryeowook watched his toes curl with anticipation, "I wouldn't have been able to take anything from you."
You are the most beloved, Sungmin said, once, and it was only then that Ryeowook realized why Sungmin never said mine. Epiphanies come in small doses, until they seep in and it all falls apart.
"Kyuhyun," Ryeowook said, touching Kyuhyun's cheek with trembling fingers. Skin so young and imperfect, but it was still warm with the thrum of life. In a few seconds, what would happen next?
Kyuhyun stiffened into his touch, and Ryeowook let his hand fall, to the side, just as Kyuhyun pressed a small, fleeting kiss into his palm, a light brush that could have been accidental, and nothing else. Desire was never part of their story, and Kyuhyun understood that much.
Kyuhyun smiled, pushing him away, and stepped off the ledge.
Sungmin searched Kyuhyun's body when he saw Ryeowook in the doorway, holding Kyuhyun close to his chest. The blood had dried, by then, and Ryeowook kept pressing kisses across Kyuhyun's cheek, like a sad mother, or a child with a broken doll. When Sungmin had divested Kyuhyun of his clothing and found nothing, Ryeowook only smiled and said, "good boy."
How did that line from the play go again? Rue for you, and for me. He’d let the regret seep into his bones, but he’d learned to rejoice in some parts of it, too.
"What happens now?" Sungmin said, sounding defeated, and Ryeowook tangled his fingers into Kyuhyun's hair, pulling him closer.
"We wait," Ryeowook answered, and it was only then that Sungmin saw the tiredness in Ryeowook's eyes, the strain in his smile.
They’d grown up more than they cared to admit. Weeks ago, Ryeowook would never have believed that Sungmin was capable of irrational extremities, and Sungmin would never have said that he doubted Ryeowook’s judgment more often than not. There were issues they’d left barely patched up, old wounds that stayed and let their better sides stray from reason. When it came down to it, did they learn anything they wanted to take pride in knowing? Sungmin would have more secrets to hide, and Ryeowook would have his fair share of them, too, but Sungmin would carry them longer than Ryeowook ever would. Time meant nothing to him now.
"You know I'd kill for you," Sungmin said, honestly, and Ryeowook shook his head, brushing away the first sign of tears forming at the crease of Sungmin's eyes, water, and nothing else.
"I wouldn't want that," Ryeowook replied, softly, as if afraid to hear something break in Sungmin, but that was impossible because Ryeowook never knew what Sungmin was ever up to until the last minute, when control was out of his grasp and Sungmin had yet to give it up. A dead man, and desperate people -- all these, Ryeowook had yet to come to terms with. There were no honest men left in the world.
They buried Kyuhyun in the backyard. Ryeowook didn’t have the heart to deliver a eulogy, and Sungmin didn’t have less shame to bring himself to do more than watch. There was nothing more to do after digging and laying the body to rest. It was a simple enough process, and Ryeowook resigned himself to the impossibility of remembering Kyuhyun’s face, of preserving his being without immortalizing him with words or pictures. Kyuhyun would stay, and Ryeowook would pack up and never come back. He’d grown tired of wanting to remember things that only brought hurt and no closure, no definite resolution other than death. He’d tried to find something more meaningful in it, but it was not his place to decide on that, nor was it Sungmin’s, or anyone else’s.
Nothing. It was just finished, that was all.
"Let's go home," Ryeowook said, "I'm tired of this."
Sungmin finally said yes.
Ryeowook woke up at six am, bone tired and ready to go back to bed, but he thought of Sungmin, and how he needed to make breakfast for Sungmin. It was the least he could do for him, he supposed. Tomorrow, he wouldn't be alive to cook for Sungmin, to hear Sungmin's voice as he parroted the news for the day. Sungmin had nothing to look forward to but lonely mornings in the future, until he could find someone else to love.
Someone else. The thought of it made Ryeowook's heart clench, but it was the last piece of selfishness he could afford for himself, only today.
The past few weeks had seemed insubstantial, distant to Ryeowook’s memory. He’d almost forgotten the smell of Kyuhyun’s blood on his hands, the sweat on his skin that clung to Ryeowook’s shirt, the disbelief in the way Kyuhyun had said his name. He’d forgotten it in the way that resigned people were wont to do, when there was nothing to look forward to in the future. Ryeowook bore his grudges well, but it was useless when he had no idea how to channel his anger to Sungmin. Life was simpler when he didn’t have to think about human frailty and weakness and obsessing over dead and dying men, until it had no meaning in it, only viciousness and hurt.
He’d never forgive Sungmin for the things he’d done, but he’d never spare him the little love he could afford to give. What else did he have to lose, when Sungmin had everything to give up in a matter of days, all for nothing? He’d be the saddest man in the world, before the month was over.
He got out of bed and started to rummage around the kitchen for something to eat. Outside, there were few birds chirping in Seoul, all concrete and artificial foliage, no abundance of flowers that ran wild unless they were across his own skin. He’d pricked Sungmin, once, in all the hurtful ways of the word. He turned on the TV, not paying much attention to the news. A bank robbery here, a kidnapping there. No mention of a boy who’d died for someone else’s selfishness, for someone else’s own ends. Sometimes, the cruelest stories could be found in the most beautiful places, hidden in the country, where no one could hear about it from a mile away. Ryeowook rinsed his hands and stared at the platter of eggs on the table, feeling sick to his stomach, and it was with reluctance that he got up to rouse Sungmin from sleep.
"Wake up," Ryeowook said, shaking Sungmin's shoulders, cold to his touch, and rolling him away from his position, flat on his stomach, "I'm not spending my last day on earth with you sleeping the day away, let's--"
Ryeowook stopped, and stared at Sungmin, where a handful of petals lay wilting on his chest, save for one thing.
A single, blossoming forget-me-not, right next to his heart.