Cryo [2/2]
Title: Cryo
Genre: Drama, Sci-fi
Summary: Would you give up your present for a chance at eternity? In the new world, Novus Orbis, Yunho is the man of science who discovers the key to humans' lives --except Changmin's.
[Previous: 1 of 2]
Changmin had only required a number of conditions to agree to move in to Yunho’s pad. Apparently, Yunho had applied for a structural swap a week before he asked him to move in, interchanging his residential pad with the one above it. The change had allowed for a reconfiguration of entry points; basically, it’s now immediately accessible from both the laboratory and the isolation pad above. Changmin’s glad to have a bigger space to move about, although he once commented over dinner that Yunho could have done better by moving the entire area thirty-five floors up for a better view.
Yunho had replied that places halfway up were considered the best in the capital. Too high and you’ll be reminded that the clouds are all fake with the fine but obvious lines of Skyguards covering the top protective films of the city’s biosphere, which are responsible for simulating blue skies or cloudy days.
Changmin’s tells him he's read stories about raindrops on the biosphere’s protective film, and the sound of thunder rumbling during storms in the natural world outside.
Yunho shakes his head. It’s been two centuries since the last natural rainfall in the world was recorded.
---
Four and a half months into the research, the test results show an 85% decrease in aging time, putting it nearer the normal lifespan of humans before the release of the Aeon vaccine. They don’t waste time in administering it to Changmin and his cousin.
That night, just as he was about to turn off the lamp before going to sleep, Changmin sees a glass cylinder on his bedside table. Inside, another layer of pale amber material covers a finely frayed object that's flat and elongated. It's tinted with bright red at the lower end, gradually thinning out at the middle to a mix of green and yellow, and on its tips are the most exquisite blue he's ever seen. It's incredibly stunning, the way colors spread and come to life with the nearby light shining on them. There are inscriptions beneath the cylinder, and Changmin squints to read.
Feather of an Old World Ara Macao specie of Aves class from Amazonia (now part of Southern Occidens)
Preserved with tree resin
2028 A.D.
Changmin smiles, memories of a first kiss coming to mind. Beside him, Yunho stirs, and Changmin watches him sleep with that open mouth, breathing even as his chest rises and falls to a slow and relaxed rhythm. The man groans and lightly scratches his stomach, before turning towards Changmin and putting an arm around him.
Changmin places the cylinder back, turns off the lamp, and snuggles closer to Yunho.
He doesn’t forget to kiss him goodnight.
---
Yunho notices him plucking strands of his hair out.
“Are you doing what I think you’re doing? I have a trimming globe tucked away down at home, it’s programmed with every hairstyle you can possibly imagine.”
“When did styling ever involve ripping out of hair? I’m weeding out the grays. I started having them over the weekend, but it’s since stopped after you gave me the serum.”
“You had gray hair? I didn’t notice at all.”
“Yeah, seems like I’m the type that ages quite gracefully.”
“Hm, you’re always gorgeous whenever I look,” Yunho unwraps a strawberry-shaped sweet, unmindful of how Changmin practically beams with the compliment. “So, how does aging feel like?”
"Aging?” Changmin knocks on the mirror to make it disappear before turning to answer his inquisitive doctor, “Let's see... it's surprisingly alright. You realize time really is ticking, too slippery to hold with your fingers. The next thing you know you’re inevitably dancing to a certain beat. Events feel real compared to seeing others living day after day like a redundant show. When you look at it that way, aging doesn’t seem so bad.”
Changmin continues, “I think it’s quite a chore to live an extended life in a repetitive manner, don’t you?”
"But immortality opens up more time to explore possibilities.” Yunho throws a candy to him, “Did you know? When the whole project was pitched to the Highest Council of Nobles to administer Aeon to the entire Novus Orbis, it was with the notion of ‘meaning’, and how the severe weakening and shortened lifespan of the human race within the last millennium has led to people living unsatisfactory lives. There’s something lacking in today’s society, Changmin, and they need more time to find it."
Changmin scoffs at the idea; he’s read an article about it. He agrees about having longer lives, but the part about ‘meaning’? He’s still not convinced, “Yunho, honestly, do you believe that a life simply lived long is a meaningful life? What is this ‘meaning’ even? I say these people just need to read more of the Old World literature. The Ancient wisdom may be behind in science, but other than that they absolutely top us. We don’t ‘find’ meaning. We make it. The length of one’s life can be long and still be unsatisfactory.”
"True. But you can also have a life that’s both long and meaningful. Win and win.”
“Well, there’s that, too. But Sensei… is this really any way to comfort your patient?"
---
Reality catches up fast and Yunho can’t run fast enough to avoid getting sucker punched in the gut. The second patient passes away one morning when a strain of botulinum toxin contaminates the city’s drinking water the night before. The staff had shut the entire building’s supply of running water as soon as the news hit, and Yunho had administered treatment to the patient but it was the resulting complications which ultimately led to her death.
Something changes in Yunho that day.
For the first time in months, Yunho has Changmin confined to the isolation pad for the whole day, altering the exit code, and having it completely stripped of unnecessary implements. Even the shelf of paper books was pulled out, and Changmin is back to reading scientific jargons from Novus scrolls. When night comes and Yunho’s yet to be seen he goes to the live comm monitor and calls him in.
He’s tempted to shout the moment he hears the beeping of the doors, but all ideas of a fight go out when he sees Yunho in front of him, still shaken from the morning events.
“Yunho?” Changmin asks and holds the other man’s face in his hands.
He hasn’t seen this blank stare from him before, and frankly, he doesn’t want to again, “Come here,” he pulls him in and takes him in his arms. Yunho’s breathing on his neck is unsteady, fatigue evident, but he holds on to Changmin tighter as if attempting to bury himself in the embrace.
“Let’s just go to bed and rest, okay?” He whispers, rubbing Yunho’s back, and he feels him nodding, murmuring words which don’t need to be heard clearly for Changmin to know the anguish in them.
---
Changmin knows it’s no one’s fault; as part of the inherently active Ministry of Exploration his cousin has been barely holding on since the bout of pneumonia months ago and has been in and out for a good while. He had actually expected his uncle to last longer than his cousin, but when it didn’t turn out that way he didn’t think much of it.
He had lost his parents when a section of the Third Habitat’s biosphere collapsed during an experimental construction nine years ago, where his mother and his father were coincidentally assigned to work together, and has holed up himself in the Orbis Archives ever since.
It’s not that he was close with his parents before they died; in fact, he had grown up with only a nursing android to provide for his daily needs, which he later found out as common practice for children of prominent families. Another practice of these families is to have their babies borne by surrogate androids in birthing facilities, where the parents only needed to leave their reproductive cells, and claim their child nine months later. No effort required, just loads of money. Changmin had seen all of these in his medical records when he was ten years old, an afternoon before one of the Shim family’s monthly dinners. It was only during these dinners that the members of the Shim bloodline gathered, and it was Changmin’s only chance of talking to his parents.
Until now Changmin’s proud to say that he ate more than usual during that particular night, because it was then that he began to understand what families were and how they worked in this world.
Needless to say, aside from sharing the same blood, there was no significant attachment between him and his relatives. They didn’t bother with him as long as he worked for the government, and as for him, he simply didn’t bother.
For Changmin, all his cousin’s death told him was that he, too, can die sooner than later.
It’s not exactly something new.
---
On the tenth day of confinement, after a lengthy night of discussion about Changmin’s health topped with a good hour of incessant nagging, Yunho finally allows him to get out of isolation and back to their residential pad.
When Yunho shows up with an especially-made safety suit for him, Changmin replies that he didn’t spend the last ten days idly and that, “I was able to sharpen one of the scrolls into a knife would you like me to test it on you.”
Yunho wastes no time in telling him the exit code.
---
It’s past dinner and Changmin peers over Yunho to glance at the book he’s reading.
“Cryonics? Are you planning to freeze me now?”
“Changmin! Didn’t I schedule an early rest for you today? I can’t have you moving around too much.”
Changmin sits beside him on the couch and proceeds to lie down, head on Yunho’s lap and arms straightened at his sides, “There we go. I’m resting, and it’s still early, sensei.”
“You…”
“Put your book away?” Changmin asks with uncertainty in his voice and full innocence in his round eyes.
Yunho has yet to learn how to go against Changmin when he plays the innocent card with those big eyes of his, so he has no choice but to indulge and save his reading for later. He earmarks the pertinent pages before placing the book on the table. No more point in hiding the book now.
He cards his hands through Changmin’s locks which have grown longer the past months, soft and fine as his fingers comb through smooth.
It’s these moments; Yunho tells himself, why he persists on finding that elusive solution.
The way Changmin would instinctively lean into his touch, warm skin on his cold palms. How he’d close his eyes when Yunho massages his temple, lips quirked up and beaming in pure bliss. Changmin’s body, even after he’s lost a couple of pounds, still fits so snugly with Yunho’s whenever he holds him at night.
The small space of quiet that blankets and envelops them when just the other’s presence is enough.
It’s all of these and everything else in between. It’s utterly sublime, burning him slowly, and sometimes he trips over himself realizing how it’s all too vast for him to hold on to.
These are moments that he doesn’t want to yield to time.
Changmin takes Yunho’s left hand and threads their fingers together, thumb drawing circles on his palm, “It’s still a long way to the cure?”
“Your blood doesn’t respond well to the serums I’ve made so far. It took me months to isolate the affected genes, however this particular type of damage hasn’t been encountered even among the scientific communities in the Orion continent. I had nothing to supplement my research with, so it’s taking me long,”
He takes their intertwined fingers and plants a kiss on Changmin’s hands, “I’ve tried asking assistance from some scientists I know, but everyone's occupied with their own projects. You’d think after I gave them Aeon they’d be more helpful…”
“So, cryonics?”
“You know how I’ve kept blood and tissue samples of all the recorded patients? Three days ago, I ran an age test on a batch to check if they’re still viable for a replication procedure. The findings were accurate up to the minute. It’s as fresh as they day they’ve been put in for cryopreservation. Almost like the Old World saying, ‘frozen in time’.”
So the dead man’s blood achieves immortality on ice,” Changmin puts it succinctly, almost acerbic in his tone.
Yunho’s jaw clenches.
He nods.
Changmin reaches out to pull Yunho down for a kiss; short, sweet, and accepting, "I'm fine with aging though. Death too. It's only fair to have an ending to a beginning, no?"
"Idiot, you're fine because you're the one who's leaving."
"That might be true," Changmin pinches Yunho’s cheek, "or are you saying that you won't want me when I start getting wrinkles?"
“That’s not it, and you know it.” Yunho sighs, “Besides between the two of us, I’m the one who has the scarred face.” It’s true. His skin never took wounds too well, and he’s avoided mirrors for years because he dislikes being reminded of them. The advanced regenerative properties brought about by the Aeon vaccine have smoothed the scars, but traces of it remain. He’s literally scarred forever, he muses as he traces his fingers on his own face.
"Don't say that. I wouldn't have you any other way." Changmin rises to sit on Yunho’s lap instead, and he noses along his jaw, inhaling the scent his body’s gotten accustomed to: a mix of candies, vanilla and disinfectant. It’s not what most would consider tantalizing, but to him it is because it’s Yunho.
It’s Yunho, and it’s all he wants.
"Changminnie..."
"Hm?" Changmin murmurs to Yunho’s neck as a hand traces down his chest. He’s always relished how Yunho’s deep voice would permeate his senses when their breaths are this close. He licks at the small scar on his throat, and Yunho groans, tugging on Changmin’s hair.
“Stay with me.”
---
Changmin spends that night watching Yunho sleep, spends it replaying in his mind all their past conversations: playful banters, heated arguments, anguished silences, and just about every word they’ve exchanged during the days they’ve spent together.
There’s something lacking in today’s society, Changmin, and they need more time to find it.
He looks around their room and sees the glass cylinder on the table, the feather’s colors real and vivid under the lamp’s glow.
Changmin thinks it would be greedy of him to ask for more.
---
"What do you mean you’ll take your chances?”
“I mean I’ll live for as long as my body will let me.”
“No.”
“It’s my body, Yunho. It’s my choice what to do with it.”
“I won’t accept it.”
“Yunho,” Changmin gathers Yunho’s hands in his own, “Yunho, listen to me. I can’t let you spend your life trying to find a cure while I’m just frozen in a chamber. You’re a doctor, a scientist, and you have a responsibility to the people. You can’t waste your life for just one person.”
Yunho’s hands curl into tight, hard fists, “No. You’re not just one person.”
“But I am,” He plants a kiss on the knuckle of the man’s hand and it doesn’t take long for it to unfurl. Changmin places his cheek against Yunho’s palm, tries to push down his gut the lies he is tempted to say and believe, because the truth can no longer be denied.
“I am.”
---
Yunho doesn’t speak to him for three days.
On the the afternoon of the fourth day, the strap of his geta slippers breaks.
---
It’s during dinner that Yunho finally talks to Changmin again.
“If you want to die,” He rests the chopsticks on his bowl before drawing a huge breath, “I’ll die with you.”
"Wh-“
“Aeon only protects the body against aging and other internal causes of mortality. Severe instantaneous damage from external sources can still lead to loss of life if the body's supply of recuperative cells run out before the body achieves a stable condition.”
"Yunho!" Changmin slams his glass on the table, hard, loud, and downright furious. "That's enough. It's still long enough before I die! And you'll live, you'll learn to live after!"
Yunho knows it’s a foolish, selfish idea. In the age of quasi-immortality, it's almost spoiled of him to wish for death.
But the past few nights he’s only had nightmares of Changmin leaving him for a place he himself can’t go to, and during the days it’s been too easy to imagine Changmin not being there for him to see, to hear, and to hold. Fear seizes his blood cold, and he feels it breaking and taking away something very important inside him, shutting all else down.
Changmin gets up from his seat. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, and not ever.
"...it's not long enough." Yunho mumbles to himself, and his chest hurts, pain swelling, spreading and stretching wide and fast, enveloping him entirely.
"What," Changmin asks; he's too far to hear, to far to see Yunho's tears falling from where he's standing.
"I said it's not long enough! It will never be 'long enough'! How can you so easily decide on things yourself? We'll be together long enough? I'll be able to live on after? That's bullshit, Changmin, and you of all people know it!" Yunho snaps, shoving everything off the table and sending it crashing to the floor.
He’s tired. So, so tired of thinking.
"Why is it... that I should live longer than you? Do you have any idea how it feels to know that you'll soon break, and that no matter what I do, no matter how much I hold on to you, you're just going to slip out of my grasp when the time comes?
“Can you blame me if I want to buy us some more time? Or if I want to be with you even in death?"
Yunho looks into Changmin's eyes, eyes that are just as tear-stained as his and he finds a lot of things. Fragility. Sorrow. Desperation.
"This world...” Yunho takes a deep breath, voice shaking, “I met you in this world. But if you weren't meant to stay here, if you were meant to leave, then I too am willing to leave and meet you on the next. And the next after that. As long as I have you."
---
They don’t sleep that night.
They both watch in silence from the bed as the antique clock on the wall ticks, second by second. Yunho keeps him in an unyielding embrace as Changmin lays his head on one of Yunho's arms.
Changmin pulls on the arms around him to bring them impossibly closer, until he can feel the gentle rise and fall of Yunho's chest and his heartbeat on his back, and his breath ruffling the strands of his hair with every exhale. He tries to feel as much of him as he could, tries to sear this scene, this thin blanket of serenity, the comfort of this moment in his mind.
Changmin’s safest place is with Yunho and nowhere else.
He hears Yunho’s breath hitch, and when he feels the press of quivering lips on his nape, Changmin lets a single tear fall.
Time looms above them, walking and inching closer with each tick of the clock, counting down loud and clear. The sound was previously a challenge; now it only taunts them with its constant and unchanging beat.
One, two.
It won’t be long now.
---
It's a fever.
Changmin coughs. His throat and chest burns, and Yunho nurses him all day, silently staying by his side. He gives Changmin his medicinal treatments at the exact time required, cleans him up with wet towels and wraps him in thick blankets. He holds his body close to his own during the long nights, never leaving Changmin alone.
---
Changmin wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Yunho in the kitchen, staring blankly at the window and unaware of his presence.
Changmin sees his own reflection on one of the glass panels, and he almost doesn’t recognize himself. It's only been a week since he last saw himself, but in that time his face has sunk, and his clothes now hang loosely on his gaunt frame.
"It's okay if you don't want to do the cryo,” Yunho says, startling Changmin out of his self-scrutinizing.
He turns and Changmin sees him forcing a smile, “Whatever you say, I will live for as long as you will. If you believe you aren't meant for this world, then so am I."
There’s resolve in Yunho’s words, and Changmin can do nothing but accept it. He walks, footsteps slow and sure, willing his legs to keep moving forward. Yunho makes to stand, but Changmin raises a hand to stop him. It’s been a week since he last walked, but he’s just as much a man of resolve as the other.
“Don’t leave,” Changmin rasps out, his throat still clawing and he can’t talk too much. Yunho catches him as he stumbles at the last step, “Don’t leave me here.”
Yunho’s grip stills; there’s no need to reply to know what the answer is.
Yunho pulls him up easily, lets him lean on the counter for support, and Changmin rests his head on Yunho’s chest as the latter pours him a glass of water. He puts the glass against Changmin’s lips and holds him with the other hand to steady him as he drinks.
When all that’s done, Yunho wipes the drops on Changmin’s chin and lets him lean on him again, hands drawing circles on his back.
There’s a lot in this world Changmin can accept without a need for struggle: artificial beverages, structural defects, political agendas, fake skies, social isolation and even his very own death. It’s alright. He’s okay with his body being unable to keep up with this world.
He was never meant for this world in the first place.
Changmin was always meant for Yunho.
He can accept his own death, but not Yunho’s. Never Yunho’s.
And there’s only one way to resolve the two.
"Yunho,” Changmin whispers, voice clearer this time, “I'll do it."
Now
Novus Orbis: 79th Habitat of the Orion Continent, Year 3165
"Sensei."
Yunho looks up from the book he's reading, finding his assistant researcher standing by the laboratory door holding an opened Novus scroll. Her face is calm and without any expression, but Yunho understands the second she looks away what this is all about.
He shuts the book and cuts straight to the point, "Which of them?"
"C-2591," she reads from the report on hand, "The genes exhibited a positive response to the serum during the first 7 months in the simulated quicktime chamber, maintaining negligible senescence throughout. Cellular regeneration speed was at par with post-Aeon humans, and antibodies were also successfully able to ward off infectious pathogens administered, with the exception of four which critically affected the sample and required medical interference. At the end of the seventh month, however, cell division slowed considerably, particularly the immune cells, and senescent cells displayed a significant delay to apoptosis. The quicktime recorded death at the 378th year," she ends, tapping on the corner of the scroll to close it.
Yunho doesn't reply; he lets out a long, heavy sigh before leaning his head on the worn out chair, covering his face with the Old World text he was reading earlier.
"I'm sorry," she adds, her superior's disappointment already too familiar but always so intensely palpable.
"Too short," Yunho murmurs to himself.
"Sensei?"
"Nothing, thanks for the report. Could you get me a cup of coffee?"
She surveys the laboratory, used coffee mugs scattered around, some of them half-finished and now stale. She remembers decades ago when she was especially instructed by their last patient to serve tea in the afternoons, repeating again and again the particular blend to use and how to prepare it, "Meticulously," he would tell her with stern eyes, "Cutting corners is absolutely unforgivable if you want an excellent pot of tea." She had obeyed his instructions precisely to the last dot, as a woman of science is wont to do, coming into Jung-sensei's personal laboratory every afternoon, without fail, with a pot of freshly-made tea.
But it will, also without fail, always be left untouched. Jung-sensei would not drink the tea she brings, but he's never told him to stop making it. In turn, the man has developed an obsession with coffee, drinking several cups a day, two shots each cup. It's half-sweetened, but still too bitter for her taste.
She looks at the old clock hanging on the wall, "It's almost 11 in the evening, sensei," she says, but she proceeds to the beverage dispenser anyway. "Are you perhaps planning to continue working on C-2606 tonight?"
She places the steaming mug on the table by the chair, along with the scroll containing the report.
"2606 to 2617 is done, I'll have it sent down tomorrow. I'm working on C-2618 now," Yunho tells her, before taking the submitted scroll and opening it,
"You've done well. You may leave."
Yunho doesn't wait for her to exit the room and immediately begins studying the details of the failed serum. He reviews the charts and graphs, flatter lines telling him that the serum's less erratic than the ones before.
It's a significant improvement, but it's still not enough.
Outside, the city's overhead clock buzzes: 11 o'clock. The sound drags on for a minute, before leaving him in silence once more.
He rises, taking the crumpled laboratory wear with him and slipping it on. He walks to the work screen across the room, turning it on and revealing a running list of the C-samples, then opens the latest one: C-2618.
He'll go on.
End note
At this point I would like to apologize for any errors in the story readers may have found. For those readers who have a background in science, particularly in biology (genetics/gerontology/medicine or what more): you likely found scientific inaccuracies and for that I sincerely apologize. I confess I do not hail from such background, and have very limited knowledge and comprehension with regard to the entire business of biological immortality, and it has been presumptuous and ambitious of me to exploit my creative license in writing this. I am truly sorry if this has offended anyone, and thank you for reading the whole thing and getting here nevertheless.
I must also admit that Cryo wasn't set out to be my first in this fandom (in terms of publication), but just happened to be the first to be finished (if I may dare say so). I had initially planned to put up a crack fic for my first Homin, but that was fifteen months ago and it's now part of a folder of unfinished stories (babies which cry out to me and I with them). This is all to say that it wasn't my intention to give a drama for my first fic, but things don't always go the way we want them to, so here we are.
Now then, on a lighter note! If there's anyone who might be interested in becoming my precious beta reader (even after the frightful mess above), please do message me on tumblr or lj! My username is the same across websites. I will be immensely indebted to you. It's comedy this time around, so we'll have fun, I promise! :D
Thank you for reading!
Genre: Drama, Sci-fi
Summary: Would you give up your present for a chance at eternity? In the new world, Novus Orbis, Yunho is the man of science who discovers the key to humans' lives --except Changmin's.
[Previous: 1 of 2]
Changmin had only required a number of conditions to agree to move in to Yunho’s pad. Apparently, Yunho had applied for a structural swap a week before he asked him to move in, interchanging his residential pad with the one above it. The change had allowed for a reconfiguration of entry points; basically, it’s now immediately accessible from both the laboratory and the isolation pad above. Changmin’s glad to have a bigger space to move about, although he once commented over dinner that Yunho could have done better by moving the entire area thirty-five floors up for a better view.
Yunho had replied that places halfway up were considered the best in the capital. Too high and you’ll be reminded that the clouds are all fake with the fine but obvious lines of Skyguards covering the top protective films of the city’s biosphere, which are responsible for simulating blue skies or cloudy days.
Changmin’s tells him he's read stories about raindrops on the biosphere’s protective film, and the sound of thunder rumbling during storms in the natural world outside.
Yunho shakes his head. It’s been two centuries since the last natural rainfall in the world was recorded.
---
Four and a half months into the research, the test results show an 85% decrease in aging time, putting it nearer the normal lifespan of humans before the release of the Aeon vaccine. They don’t waste time in administering it to Changmin and his cousin.
That night, just as he was about to turn off the lamp before going to sleep, Changmin sees a glass cylinder on his bedside table. Inside, another layer of pale amber material covers a finely frayed object that's flat and elongated. It's tinted with bright red at the lower end, gradually thinning out at the middle to a mix of green and yellow, and on its tips are the most exquisite blue he's ever seen. It's incredibly stunning, the way colors spread and come to life with the nearby light shining on them. There are inscriptions beneath the cylinder, and Changmin squints to read.
Feather of an Old World Ara Macao specie of Aves class from Amazonia (now part of Southern Occidens)
Preserved with tree resin
2028 A.D.
Changmin smiles, memories of a first kiss coming to mind. Beside him, Yunho stirs, and Changmin watches him sleep with that open mouth, breathing even as his chest rises and falls to a slow and relaxed rhythm. The man groans and lightly scratches his stomach, before turning towards Changmin and putting an arm around him.
Changmin places the cylinder back, turns off the lamp, and snuggles closer to Yunho.
He doesn’t forget to kiss him goodnight.
---
Yunho notices him plucking strands of his hair out.
“Are you doing what I think you’re doing? I have a trimming globe tucked away down at home, it’s programmed with every hairstyle you can possibly imagine.”
“When did styling ever involve ripping out of hair? I’m weeding out the grays. I started having them over the weekend, but it’s since stopped after you gave me the serum.”
“You had gray hair? I didn’t notice at all.”
“Yeah, seems like I’m the type that ages quite gracefully.”
“Hm, you’re always gorgeous whenever I look,” Yunho unwraps a strawberry-shaped sweet, unmindful of how Changmin practically beams with the compliment. “So, how does aging feel like?”
"Aging?” Changmin knocks on the mirror to make it disappear before turning to answer his inquisitive doctor, “Let's see... it's surprisingly alright. You realize time really is ticking, too slippery to hold with your fingers. The next thing you know you’re inevitably dancing to a certain beat. Events feel real compared to seeing others living day after day like a redundant show. When you look at it that way, aging doesn’t seem so bad.”
Changmin continues, “I think it’s quite a chore to live an extended life in a repetitive manner, don’t you?”
"But immortality opens up more time to explore possibilities.” Yunho throws a candy to him, “Did you know? When the whole project was pitched to the Highest Council of Nobles to administer Aeon to the entire Novus Orbis, it was with the notion of ‘meaning’, and how the severe weakening and shortened lifespan of the human race within the last millennium has led to people living unsatisfactory lives. There’s something lacking in today’s society, Changmin, and they need more time to find it."
Changmin scoffs at the idea; he’s read an article about it. He agrees about having longer lives, but the part about ‘meaning’? He’s still not convinced, “Yunho, honestly, do you believe that a life simply lived long is a meaningful life? What is this ‘meaning’ even? I say these people just need to read more of the Old World literature. The Ancient wisdom may be behind in science, but other than that they absolutely top us. We don’t ‘find’ meaning. We make it. The length of one’s life can be long and still be unsatisfactory.”
"True. But you can also have a life that’s both long and meaningful. Win and win.”
“Well, there’s that, too. But Sensei… is this really any way to comfort your patient?"
---
Reality catches up fast and Yunho can’t run fast enough to avoid getting sucker punched in the gut. The second patient passes away one morning when a strain of botulinum toxin contaminates the city’s drinking water the night before. The staff had shut the entire building’s supply of running water as soon as the news hit, and Yunho had administered treatment to the patient but it was the resulting complications which ultimately led to her death.
Something changes in Yunho that day.
For the first time in months, Yunho has Changmin confined to the isolation pad for the whole day, altering the exit code, and having it completely stripped of unnecessary implements. Even the shelf of paper books was pulled out, and Changmin is back to reading scientific jargons from Novus scrolls. When night comes and Yunho’s yet to be seen he goes to the live comm monitor and calls him in.
He’s tempted to shout the moment he hears the beeping of the doors, but all ideas of a fight go out when he sees Yunho in front of him, still shaken from the morning events.
“Yunho?” Changmin asks and holds the other man’s face in his hands.
He hasn’t seen this blank stare from him before, and frankly, he doesn’t want to again, “Come here,” he pulls him in and takes him in his arms. Yunho’s breathing on his neck is unsteady, fatigue evident, but he holds on to Changmin tighter as if attempting to bury himself in the embrace.
“Let’s just go to bed and rest, okay?” He whispers, rubbing Yunho’s back, and he feels him nodding, murmuring words which don’t need to be heard clearly for Changmin to know the anguish in them.
---
Changmin knows it’s no one’s fault; as part of the inherently active Ministry of Exploration his cousin has been barely holding on since the bout of pneumonia months ago and has been in and out for a good while. He had actually expected his uncle to last longer than his cousin, but when it didn’t turn out that way he didn’t think much of it.
He had lost his parents when a section of the Third Habitat’s biosphere collapsed during an experimental construction nine years ago, where his mother and his father were coincidentally assigned to work together, and has holed up himself in the Orbis Archives ever since.
It’s not that he was close with his parents before they died; in fact, he had grown up with only a nursing android to provide for his daily needs, which he later found out as common practice for children of prominent families. Another practice of these families is to have their babies borne by surrogate androids in birthing facilities, where the parents only needed to leave their reproductive cells, and claim their child nine months later. No effort required, just loads of money. Changmin had seen all of these in his medical records when he was ten years old, an afternoon before one of the Shim family’s monthly dinners. It was only during these dinners that the members of the Shim bloodline gathered, and it was Changmin’s only chance of talking to his parents.
Until now Changmin’s proud to say that he ate more than usual during that particular night, because it was then that he began to understand what families were and how they worked in this world.
Needless to say, aside from sharing the same blood, there was no significant attachment between him and his relatives. They didn’t bother with him as long as he worked for the government, and as for him, he simply didn’t bother.
For Changmin, all his cousin’s death told him was that he, too, can die sooner than later.
It’s not exactly something new.
---
On the tenth day of confinement, after a lengthy night of discussion about Changmin’s health topped with a good hour of incessant nagging, Yunho finally allows him to get out of isolation and back to their residential pad.
When Yunho shows up with an especially-made safety suit for him, Changmin replies that he didn’t spend the last ten days idly and that, “I was able to sharpen one of the scrolls into a knife would you like me to test it on you.”
Yunho wastes no time in telling him the exit code.
---
It’s past dinner and Changmin peers over Yunho to glance at the book he’s reading.
“Cryonics? Are you planning to freeze me now?”
“Changmin! Didn’t I schedule an early rest for you today? I can’t have you moving around too much.”
Changmin sits beside him on the couch and proceeds to lie down, head on Yunho’s lap and arms straightened at his sides, “There we go. I’m resting, and it’s still early, sensei.”
“You…”
“Put your book away?” Changmin asks with uncertainty in his voice and full innocence in his round eyes.
Yunho has yet to learn how to go against Changmin when he plays the innocent card with those big eyes of his, so he has no choice but to indulge and save his reading for later. He earmarks the pertinent pages before placing the book on the table. No more point in hiding the book now.
He cards his hands through Changmin’s locks which have grown longer the past months, soft and fine as his fingers comb through smooth.
It’s these moments; Yunho tells himself, why he persists on finding that elusive solution.
The way Changmin would instinctively lean into his touch, warm skin on his cold palms. How he’d close his eyes when Yunho massages his temple, lips quirked up and beaming in pure bliss. Changmin’s body, even after he’s lost a couple of pounds, still fits so snugly with Yunho’s whenever he holds him at night.
The small space of quiet that blankets and envelops them when just the other’s presence is enough.
It’s all of these and everything else in between. It’s utterly sublime, burning him slowly, and sometimes he trips over himself realizing how it’s all too vast for him to hold on to.
These are moments that he doesn’t want to yield to time.
Changmin takes Yunho’s left hand and threads their fingers together, thumb drawing circles on his palm, “It’s still a long way to the cure?”
“Your blood doesn’t respond well to the serums I’ve made so far. It took me months to isolate the affected genes, however this particular type of damage hasn’t been encountered even among the scientific communities in the Orion continent. I had nothing to supplement my research with, so it’s taking me long,”
He takes their intertwined fingers and plants a kiss on Changmin’s hands, “I’ve tried asking assistance from some scientists I know, but everyone's occupied with their own projects. You’d think after I gave them Aeon they’d be more helpful…”
“So, cryonics?”
“You know how I’ve kept blood and tissue samples of all the recorded patients? Three days ago, I ran an age test on a batch to check if they’re still viable for a replication procedure. The findings were accurate up to the minute. It’s as fresh as they day they’ve been put in for cryopreservation. Almost like the Old World saying, ‘frozen in time’.”
So the dead man’s blood achieves immortality on ice,” Changmin puts it succinctly, almost acerbic in his tone.
Yunho’s jaw clenches.
He nods.
Changmin reaches out to pull Yunho down for a kiss; short, sweet, and accepting, "I'm fine with aging though. Death too. It's only fair to have an ending to a beginning, no?"
"Idiot, you're fine because you're the one who's leaving."
"That might be true," Changmin pinches Yunho’s cheek, "or are you saying that you won't want me when I start getting wrinkles?"
“That’s not it, and you know it.” Yunho sighs, “Besides between the two of us, I’m the one who has the scarred face.” It’s true. His skin never took wounds too well, and he’s avoided mirrors for years because he dislikes being reminded of them. The advanced regenerative properties brought about by the Aeon vaccine have smoothed the scars, but traces of it remain. He’s literally scarred forever, he muses as he traces his fingers on his own face.
"Don't say that. I wouldn't have you any other way." Changmin rises to sit on Yunho’s lap instead, and he noses along his jaw, inhaling the scent his body’s gotten accustomed to: a mix of candies, vanilla and disinfectant. It’s not what most would consider tantalizing, but to him it is because it’s Yunho.
It’s Yunho, and it’s all he wants.
"Changminnie..."
"Hm?" Changmin murmurs to Yunho’s neck as a hand traces down his chest. He’s always relished how Yunho’s deep voice would permeate his senses when their breaths are this close. He licks at the small scar on his throat, and Yunho groans, tugging on Changmin’s hair.
“Stay with me.”
---
Changmin spends that night watching Yunho sleep, spends it replaying in his mind all their past conversations: playful banters, heated arguments, anguished silences, and just about every word they’ve exchanged during the days they’ve spent together.
There’s something lacking in today’s society, Changmin, and they need more time to find it.
He looks around their room and sees the glass cylinder on the table, the feather’s colors real and vivid under the lamp’s glow.
Changmin thinks it would be greedy of him to ask for more.
---
"What do you mean you’ll take your chances?”
“I mean I’ll live for as long as my body will let me.”
“No.”
“It’s my body, Yunho. It’s my choice what to do with it.”
“I won’t accept it.”
“Yunho,” Changmin gathers Yunho’s hands in his own, “Yunho, listen to me. I can’t let you spend your life trying to find a cure while I’m just frozen in a chamber. You’re a doctor, a scientist, and you have a responsibility to the people. You can’t waste your life for just one person.”
Yunho’s hands curl into tight, hard fists, “No. You’re not just one person.”
“But I am,” He plants a kiss on the knuckle of the man’s hand and it doesn’t take long for it to unfurl. Changmin places his cheek against Yunho’s palm, tries to push down his gut the lies he is tempted to say and believe, because the truth can no longer be denied.
“I am.”
---
Yunho doesn’t speak to him for three days.
On the the afternoon of the fourth day, the strap of his geta slippers breaks.
---
It’s during dinner that Yunho finally talks to Changmin again.
“If you want to die,” He rests the chopsticks on his bowl before drawing a huge breath, “I’ll die with you.”
"Wh-“
“Aeon only protects the body against aging and other internal causes of mortality. Severe instantaneous damage from external sources can still lead to loss of life if the body's supply of recuperative cells run out before the body achieves a stable condition.”
"Yunho!" Changmin slams his glass on the table, hard, loud, and downright furious. "That's enough. It's still long enough before I die! And you'll live, you'll learn to live after!"
Yunho knows it’s a foolish, selfish idea. In the age of quasi-immortality, it's almost spoiled of him to wish for death.
But the past few nights he’s only had nightmares of Changmin leaving him for a place he himself can’t go to, and during the days it’s been too easy to imagine Changmin not being there for him to see, to hear, and to hold. Fear seizes his blood cold, and he feels it breaking and taking away something very important inside him, shutting all else down.
Changmin gets up from his seat. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, and not ever.
"...it's not long enough." Yunho mumbles to himself, and his chest hurts, pain swelling, spreading and stretching wide and fast, enveloping him entirely.
"What," Changmin asks; he's too far to hear, to far to see Yunho's tears falling from where he's standing.
"I said it's not long enough! It will never be 'long enough'! How can you so easily decide on things yourself? We'll be together long enough? I'll be able to live on after? That's bullshit, Changmin, and you of all people know it!" Yunho snaps, shoving everything off the table and sending it crashing to the floor.
He’s tired. So, so tired of thinking.
"Why is it... that I should live longer than you? Do you have any idea how it feels to know that you'll soon break, and that no matter what I do, no matter how much I hold on to you, you're just going to slip out of my grasp when the time comes?
“Can you blame me if I want to buy us some more time? Or if I want to be with you even in death?"
Yunho looks into Changmin's eyes, eyes that are just as tear-stained as his and he finds a lot of things. Fragility. Sorrow. Desperation.
"This world...” Yunho takes a deep breath, voice shaking, “I met you in this world. But if you weren't meant to stay here, if you were meant to leave, then I too am willing to leave and meet you on the next. And the next after that. As long as I have you."
---
They don’t sleep that night.
They both watch in silence from the bed as the antique clock on the wall ticks, second by second. Yunho keeps him in an unyielding embrace as Changmin lays his head on one of Yunho's arms.
Changmin pulls on the arms around him to bring them impossibly closer, until he can feel the gentle rise and fall of Yunho's chest and his heartbeat on his back, and his breath ruffling the strands of his hair with every exhale. He tries to feel as much of him as he could, tries to sear this scene, this thin blanket of serenity, the comfort of this moment in his mind.
Changmin’s safest place is with Yunho and nowhere else.
He hears Yunho’s breath hitch, and when he feels the press of quivering lips on his nape, Changmin lets a single tear fall.
Time looms above them, walking and inching closer with each tick of the clock, counting down loud and clear. The sound was previously a challenge; now it only taunts them with its constant and unchanging beat.
One, two.
It won’t be long now.
---
It's a fever.
Changmin coughs. His throat and chest burns, and Yunho nurses him all day, silently staying by his side. He gives Changmin his medicinal treatments at the exact time required, cleans him up with wet towels and wraps him in thick blankets. He holds his body close to his own during the long nights, never leaving Changmin alone.
---
Changmin wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Yunho in the kitchen, staring blankly at the window and unaware of his presence.
Changmin sees his own reflection on one of the glass panels, and he almost doesn’t recognize himself. It's only been a week since he last saw himself, but in that time his face has sunk, and his clothes now hang loosely on his gaunt frame.
"It's okay if you don't want to do the cryo,” Yunho says, startling Changmin out of his self-scrutinizing.
He turns and Changmin sees him forcing a smile, “Whatever you say, I will live for as long as you will. If you believe you aren't meant for this world, then so am I."
There’s resolve in Yunho’s words, and Changmin can do nothing but accept it. He walks, footsteps slow and sure, willing his legs to keep moving forward. Yunho makes to stand, but Changmin raises a hand to stop him. It’s been a week since he last walked, but he’s just as much a man of resolve as the other.
“Don’t leave,” Changmin rasps out, his throat still clawing and he can’t talk too much. Yunho catches him as he stumbles at the last step, “Don’t leave me here.”
Yunho’s grip stills; there’s no need to reply to know what the answer is.
Yunho pulls him up easily, lets him lean on the counter for support, and Changmin rests his head on Yunho’s chest as the latter pours him a glass of water. He puts the glass against Changmin’s lips and holds him with the other hand to steady him as he drinks.
When all that’s done, Yunho wipes the drops on Changmin’s chin and lets him lean on him again, hands drawing circles on his back.
There’s a lot in this world Changmin can accept without a need for struggle: artificial beverages, structural defects, political agendas, fake skies, social isolation and even his very own death. It’s alright. He’s okay with his body being unable to keep up with this world.
He was never meant for this world in the first place.
Changmin was always meant for Yunho.
He can accept his own death, but not Yunho’s. Never Yunho’s.
And there’s only one way to resolve the two.
"Yunho,” Changmin whispers, voice clearer this time, “I'll do it."
Now
Novus Orbis: 79th Habitat of the Orion Continent, Year 3165
"Sensei."
Yunho looks up from the book he's reading, finding his assistant researcher standing by the laboratory door holding an opened Novus scroll. Her face is calm and without any expression, but Yunho understands the second she looks away what this is all about.
He shuts the book and cuts straight to the point, "Which of them?"
"C-2591," she reads from the report on hand, "The genes exhibited a positive response to the serum during the first 7 months in the simulated quicktime chamber, maintaining negligible senescence throughout. Cellular regeneration speed was at par with post-Aeon humans, and antibodies were also successfully able to ward off infectious pathogens administered, with the exception of four which critically affected the sample and required medical interference. At the end of the seventh month, however, cell division slowed considerably, particularly the immune cells, and senescent cells displayed a significant delay to apoptosis. The quicktime recorded death at the 378th year," she ends, tapping on the corner of the scroll to close it.
Yunho doesn't reply; he lets out a long, heavy sigh before leaning his head on the worn out chair, covering his face with the Old World text he was reading earlier.
"I'm sorry," she adds, her superior's disappointment already too familiar but always so intensely palpable.
"Too short," Yunho murmurs to himself.
"Sensei?"
"Nothing, thanks for the report. Could you get me a cup of coffee?"
She surveys the laboratory, used coffee mugs scattered around, some of them half-finished and now stale. She remembers decades ago when she was especially instructed by their last patient to serve tea in the afternoons, repeating again and again the particular blend to use and how to prepare it, "Meticulously," he would tell her with stern eyes, "Cutting corners is absolutely unforgivable if you want an excellent pot of tea." She had obeyed his instructions precisely to the last dot, as a woman of science is wont to do, coming into Jung-sensei's personal laboratory every afternoon, without fail, with a pot of freshly-made tea.
But it will, also without fail, always be left untouched. Jung-sensei would not drink the tea she brings, but he's never told him to stop making it. In turn, the man has developed an obsession with coffee, drinking several cups a day, two shots each cup. It's half-sweetened, but still too bitter for her taste.
She looks at the old clock hanging on the wall, "It's almost 11 in the evening, sensei," she says, but she proceeds to the beverage dispenser anyway. "Are you perhaps planning to continue working on C-2606 tonight?"
She places the steaming mug on the table by the chair, along with the scroll containing the report.
"2606 to 2617 is done, I'll have it sent down tomorrow. I'm working on C-2618 now," Yunho tells her, before taking the submitted scroll and opening it,
"You've done well. You may leave."
Yunho doesn't wait for her to exit the room and immediately begins studying the details of the failed serum. He reviews the charts and graphs, flatter lines telling him that the serum's less erratic than the ones before.
It's a significant improvement, but it's still not enough.
Outside, the city's overhead clock buzzes: 11 o'clock. The sound drags on for a minute, before leaving him in silence once more.
He rises, taking the crumpled laboratory wear with him and slipping it on. He walks to the work screen across the room, turning it on and revealing a running list of the C-samples, then opens the latest one: C-2618.
He'll go on.
End note
At this point I would like to apologize for any errors in the story readers may have found. For those readers who have a background in science, particularly in biology (genetics/gerontology/medicine or what more): you likely found scientific inaccuracies and for that I sincerely apologize. I confess I do not hail from such background, and have very limited knowledge and comprehension with regard to the entire business of biological immortality, and it has been presumptuous and ambitious of me to exploit my creative license in writing this. I am truly sorry if this has offended anyone, and thank you for reading the whole thing and getting here nevertheless.
I must also admit that Cryo wasn't set out to be my first in this fandom (in terms of publication), but just happened to be the first to be finished (if I may dare say so). I had initially planned to put up a crack fic for my first Homin, but that was fifteen months ago and it's now part of a folder of unfinished stories (babies which cry out to me and I with them). This is all to say that it wasn't my intention to give a drama for my first fic, but things don't always go the way we want them to, so here we are.
Now then, on a lighter note! If there's anyone who might be interested in becoming my precious beta reader (even after the frightful mess above), please do message me on tumblr or lj! My username is the same across websites. I will be immensely indebted to you. It's comedy this time around, so we'll have fun, I promise! :D
Thank you for reading!