the End
hankyung/heechul, angst
where there are no happy endings
a/n: based off of a moment to remember.
they very sweetly meet at a convenience store. heechul forgets something and has to storm all the way back inside. however, he meets hankyung at the door and they move together, in sync, trying to get around the other. out of the corner of heechul's eyes, he spots what he left in hankyung's hand.
he stops dead, looks at it, and all hankyung does is open it, oblivious. heechul thinks he's being an asshole and rips it from the chinese man's hands, gently guides it to his lips, and drinks it all in once.
he doesn't leave without blowing a lovely burp into hankyung's face. it wasn't until ten minutes later when heechul realizes he left his wallet in the store as well that the coke wasn't his after all because waiting for him at the counter is his wallet... and his own coke...
heechul tries to deny he stole it until he's faced with the foreigner again in awkward circumstances. he needed a carpenter, shiwon sent him one, and hankyung had come. heechul had tried to hide in the most pride way he could think of and when he had the chance, slipped downstairs to the vending machines where he let the coke machine eat his seventy cents.
not even two seconds later as he's reaching for the coke, it's in hankyung's sturdy hand. heechul stands, wide eyes, as hankyung nonchalantly opens it and drinks it all. he isn't surprised when hankyung innocently burps, smiles, and hands the empty can to heechul before turning around and walking away.
heechul can't say it was love at first sight, but he figures it probably was. heechul can't remember.
~
it doesn't take them long to start seeing each other. heechul's friends try to tell him that hankyung won't ever be enough for him; he's just a carpenter. heechul defends him angrily because he knows hankyung is worth more. it doesn't take long before hankyung has an architect's license and a contract. it doesn't take much longer before they have money.
they are in love.
nothing matters to them but each other. they are past in love, they are past i want you, and they only live for each other. hankyung lives for heechul's laughter and heechul breathes for hankyung's soft smiles. with entertwined fingers, they connect heart to heart soul to soul being to being.
they're happy. heechul grows skeptical.
it doesn't take much, heechul tells hankyung. "do you think we'll live happily ever after?!" as he watches hankyung at a batting cage, slamming metal to ball after ball after ball. hankyung says nothing, heechul can feel the sadness in his eyes, and hankyung just offers heechul a hand.
heechul takes it and hankyung helps him up the stairs, puts the bat into his arms and steps around him. keep your eye on the ball, hankyung says as he presses their bodies together and perfects heechul's stance.
it takes seven balls for heechul to hit it and when he does, he doesn't care if there's a happily ever after anymore. he likes whatever this is and he loves that certainty. he feels like he won't ever forget it.
~
hankyung watches with a satisfied smile on his lips as heechul continues delicately putting together their scrapbook. memories, heechul told him once, are very important. he figures it's because heechul forgets so often like a little child, so he likes this side of heechul, cutting and gluing and focused entirely on one thing.
heechul blinks suddenly, looks up, around, frowns. hankyung follows him with his eyes as heechul moves and stands up, lost. he says nothing as the man floats around the house, opening cupboards, the fridge, until he finally opens the front door and looks around. when he turns, heechul spots him and smiles. "where were you?"
hankyung smiles again, says nothing, and heechul sits back down. for some reason, hankyung gets shivers as heechul sits back down. "did you glue this for me?" no, hankyung thinks, you glued that yourself before you got up. he says nothing and heechul laughs. "i thought you wanted to watch me."
"i do." hankyung places a hand on heechul's head. heechul blinks again before turning around, almost as if he didn't realize what was there, and smiles again.
hankyung won't forget this feeling he sees in heechul's eyes of complete confusion, even if it's just for a split second.
~
heechul comes home one day from work and hankyung watches him hesitantly walk in. he doesn't move from the bedroom door as he looks around. hankyung wants to say, you're home, heechul, but it'd be different. it'd be a reminder, not a welcome.
however, this is supposed to be a surprise. hankyung smiles to himself and heechul stops dead in his tracks and looks at the kitchen. it's new. it's white and glamorous, expensive, decadent. a show of new, fresh life so heechul can finally breathe, there's nothing to worry about, our life will always be perfect.
when heechul finally looks around, looking for hankyung, he steps out with a warm smile.
"it's... different," heechul says with a frown. hankyung says nothing, wants to laugh at heechul's naivety, but only sits on a new barstool and waits for heechul to realize just what about the kitchen is different. "it's different, right?"
hankyung flips on a switch for the ceramic stove top and it glows red underneath the glass. "now you won't burn anything."
heechul's eyes widen and he places a hand on the cold granite of the glassy counter top and runs it over the surface. he twirls around, reaches out to the handles on the cupboards and opens them all up, fascinated.
when heechul has looked everywhere and turns around to meet hankyung's soft eyes, he grins. "what'd the doctor's say?"
"they told me to come back next week," he answers nonchalantly as he wraps arms around hankyung's broad shoulders and leans against his back, head in hankyung's newly washed and wet hair.
"they told you that last time?"
heechul just blinks. "they did?"
~
two weeks later, hankyung walks into the doctor. everything in him breaks and crumbles in front of his eyes. he screams. "you told him all of this?" he yells, slams the doctor into the wall. "are you sure?!"
he is sure.
hankyung cries. he is lost. heechul is lost. why was it heechul? why did it have to be him? is this the future that had been waiting for them, for him, predestined, written somewhere in the stars so far away that no one could see it?
it can't be right.
"you should let go," the doctor tells him once hankyung has released his frail body.
but hankyung refuses, matches out, searches everywhere for heechul. he finds him at the batting cage, missing every ball. missing and missing and missing until he throws the bat to the ground and kicks at the dirt. hankyung steps inside the cage and wraps his arms around him.
heechul relaxes in his arms and when hankyung's hold softens, heechul turns around and looks into his eyes. "you find out?" he says with a lilt and a clip at the end of the sentence in a song.
"what?" hankyung smiles.
"i'm not going to be," he pauses and his eyes water, "here," swallows, "anymore." he steps away from hankyung. "how can we live happily ever after. this isn't going to work. let's just stop this before you get hurt."
"no." hankyung closes the distance between them.
"i'm not going to remember you. i'm not going to remember me." he starts crying and hankyung feels himself breaking again. "there are no such things as happy endings."
"i'll remember you!" hankyung's voice raises. "heechul, i'll be your memory. everytime you start to forget i'll pop up, just like this, just for you. you will still be here." there's a pause and hankyung jokes. "it'll be fun. i'll just make you fall in love with me again. it'll be like eternal dating."
they cry. hankyung cannot remember a time he had ever cried this much in his life. hankyung cannot remember ever feeling this entirely, utterly, completely sad in his life because the words
'things will be just fine'
just don't work.
~
Alzheimer's disease
a common form of dementia of unknown cause, characterized by memory lapses, confusion, emotional instability, and progressive loss of mental ability.
it is not curable.
~
"what's my birthday?" hankyung quizzes playfully at the kitchen table.
heechul frowns, squints, searches for the right date. "february?" hankyung nods, smiling, silently encouraging. "ninth?" hankyung places one of heechul's pills into his palm and heechul smiles sweetly.
"the year?"
"nine..nineteen eighty... eighty..." heechul repeats, looks like he is trying harder than he should and it's slowly breaking his heart. "four?" but, at least heechul remembers who he is still, and that's all that matters to hankyung.
"my name?"
"han geng!" heechul laughs as if it'd be impossible for him to ever forget that.
"your name?"
"kim heechul."
hankyung wraps his arms around heechul and heechul swallows the pills. the doctor said they would slow down the memory loss but that's it. there is no cure. there will not be a cure in time for heechul.
it's like this every morning. sometimes it's their address, sometimes it's the day they met, hankyung's favorite food, the color of the sky, the grass, the dirt. sometimes heechul remembers. sometimes heechul can't remember.
most of the time... he can't.
~
heechul quits work, stays home and convinces hankyung that he will do all the chores. hankyung knows better. heechul does send him off to work with lunch, freshly made. heechul generally cooks well and it's better than buying.
the guys give him trouble, it's easy to cover up...
that heechul sent him with rice.
just rice.
and only rice.
he wants to cry, tells the guys that they're supposed to share, and has to pretend it was supposed to be this way, that heechul had not forgotten that he had already packed the rice.
~
hankyung spends three nights writing down everything he could think of on post-it notes from 'this is how you use a toilet' to 'close the door by placing your hand on the doorknob (with a drawing) and pulling toward yourself'. he labels everything, including pictures, objects, where things go, where things don't go.
he tells heechul he'll be home early when in reality, he took the day off. he meets with heechul's doctor who listens to hankyung tell him what heechul is forgetting. the doctor says nothing, tells him he should let him live with his family, people he won't so easily forget. after all, it's the new memories that go first.
hankyung wants to hit him. of course he wishes he had meet heechul earlier, would do anything to spend more time with him.
"just let go."
"no."
when hankyung comes home, the door is open. he narrows his eyes, doesn't quite know what to expect, and enters slowly. shiwon is inside, heechul is hugging him. it clicks, suddenly, painfully, that heechul might have forgotten.
"shiwon," he hears and it's the way he says it that makes hankyung break.
"you're confused," shiwon tells him.
all hankyung does is drop his jacket on the ground and shiwon turns around. heechul frowns, moves behind shiwon as if hankyung is the unwelcome one, as if he is the stranger in this home, as if he is the one intruding.
shiwon tries. "it's not what you think."
of course hankyung knows it's not what it looks like. of course he knows that heechul has simply forgotten him, has forgotten that shiwon broke his heart three years ago, that shiwon had been married and blew heechul off carelessly, that they had agreed to just be friends.
hankyung just doesn't care.
heechul shouts as hankyung pulls shiwon towards his fist, beats him and beats him and beats him. shiwon doesn't fight back, doesn't know how to in this situation because he hadn't done anything wrong, and he can tell that hankyung is not angry at him for the right reason by the strength of his punches.
somewhere, heechul faints and no one sees, no one hears.
hankyung is fighting something much bigger than shiwon and he is completely absorbed by it. he is fighting heechul's disease. he is fighting heechul's death. he is trying to fight the inevitability of it all. he is almost done, he can feel death crawling toward the bigger man, but he is interrupted.
someone his shouting, calling for help for heechul who is helpless. hankyung hates himself for being the one to forget what really matters.
~
"he'll lose the ability to control his bladder, to walk, to speak," heechul's father shouts at him from his seat opposite hankyung. "you're too young to handle this. let us take care of him."
"no."
"you don't have to go through this," he says.
"no."
heechul opens the door, confused, smiles in his billowy pajamas. it's not hard to see how right heechul's father is as heechul's smile glows as urine runs smooth down his leg. hankyung feels hot all over his body, rage, uncontrollable anger as he runs to heechul and gently pushes him into the room, into the door. it clicks shut and hankyung drops to his knees and rips off his shirt.
heechul is confused and wraps his arms around hankyung's head, pushes his forehead into his stomach. hankyung cries as he wipes heechul's legs with his shirt.
~
"what's your name?"
"kim heechul?"
hankyung presses the pill between heechul's lips and he swallows.
"what's my name?"
heechul frowns, looks deeply into hankyung's eyes as if trying to read the name that hankyung chants in his mind. please remember me, please remember me, please remember me. i am han geng. han geng. han geng. han geng. han geng.
"ha...n...?" and he frowns, defeated.
"good job, princess," he sighs and holds onto him. holds onto this moment because he's scared. what will happen when heechul can no longer remember him? he's so scared.
~
it doesn't take much time. heechul is in the kitchen in white with his hair tied back gently. he helps hankyung into his suit jacket and gives him a small kiss.
"i love you, shiwon."
hankyung chokes on his breath but smiles. his eyes water. "you, too."
when he is out of the door, he chokes back his sobs. he calls in sick, goes back to the doctor. the doctor merely laughs at him. "the new memories are the first to go," he repeats himself. hankyung knows this.
"but who does he really love?"
the doctor doesn't answer, picks at his nails. "it gets worse, kid."
it does. when hankyung comes home, there is just a letter. there is nothing but the letter, folded haphazardly, sitting in plain view on the kitchen counter.
i was scared i would forget again. i had to tell you this before i forgot again. i love you so much. he cries. i love you so much, han geng. i remember everything. the sky is blue. the grass is green. your birthday is february 9th, 1984. you are 181cm tall and your bloodtype is b. i love you. i love you so much. he breaks apart, sobs open mouthed. you are apart of me. i cannot forget you. i live for you. i smile for you. i laugh for you. my laugh is your laugh. my smile is your smile. you live inside of my heart so i will never forget you. i am so sorry. i'm so sorry. i don't want to forget this. i don't want to forget us. i have to leave, han geng, i can't keep doing this to you. please he bangs his fist against the granite sobs into his hands.
heechul's words ring in his head. this is for both of us. i won't come back.
~
it's a month later when hankyung gets another letter.
i remember you again. it came to me suddenly. i love you. i hate this. i hate this so much. i remember the store the coke. i remember our house. i remember you. i had to write before i forgot again just to tell you that i love you.
he wants to die.
please don't look for me.
so he does.
~
it takes him half a day to find the right place. when he gets there, his nurse shows him his room, points to a picture of them that is taped to his vanity mirror and tells him it's the only one he didn't rip up. the nurse ushers him outside where he draws absentmindedly toward the ocean.
"you have a visitor."
heechul frowns, looks over at him, confused. he turns back to the nurse as if asking, 'who is that?' and hankyung smiles as his eyes water. heechul stands, drops his notebook and bends down for it.
hankyung is faster, picks up the notebook. scribbles, scribbles, a face, a detailed face. the deterioration burns behind his dark eyes. they're all of him. all of them. as he hands it back to heechul's hands, heechul looks at him hard. "do i know you?"
"nice to meet you," hankyung bows.
the nurse looks sad for him. it's probably always sad to see this. she asks if he would like to each lunch with them and he accepts, heechul doesn't look like he cares or even remembers that hankyung is there.
the nurse gives chopsticks to him and heechul slowly eats from there. half way through, he stops and frowns in that way. he's trying to remember something, someone, and hankyung feels his heart painfully thump in his chest. he doesn't want to be anxious.
"i..." heechul's eyes look like they're watering and hankyung feels his heart breaking. this is what it looks like when heechul cannot remember. hankyung has remembered this look just as well as every other look heechul possesses.
"yes?" the nurse urges.
heechul smiles, already forgotten, and eats more. when he looks up at hankyung, his eyebrows burrow together in inquiry. hankyung remembers this so well. "why are you crying?"
hankyung smiles, shoves some glasses onto the bridge of his nose, and pretends nothing ever happened. after all... heechul won't remember.
"is he allowed to go on a trip?"
~
later that night, the nurse ushers heechul down the street leading to the convenience store they sweetly met at five years ago. hankyung watches from the windows outside as heechul frowns at the sign and makes his way to the front doors. he is trying to remember something but he doesn't know what.
hankyung times their arrival at the door and heechul stops in front of him. he looks up at hankyung as if expecting something before his eyes drop down to the coke in hankyung's hands. hankyung opens it and heechul looks at it curiously, reaches out.
his fingertips touch it softly and hankyung watches him. he sees it flash in his eyes as his fingertips withdraw. he can smell it as heechul breezes past him into the store.
hankyung sighs, wants to stop, but doesn't and turns around. he watches heechul's back as he faces the doctor behind the counter who places his wallet and another coke on the counter.
it's all the same.
heechul takes small, hesitant steps forward. he turns, frowning, and shiwon smiles at him from behind a couple shelves in the back. heechul freezes, whips around to face hankyung.
there is a glimpse of recognition.
and heechul cries. "why won't you live without me?" hankyung wipes the tears from heechul's pink cheeks, ignoring the warmth that is dripping from his chin.
"you are my life."
s.
where there are no happy endings
a/n: based off of a moment to remember.
they very sweetly meet at a convenience store. heechul forgets something and has to storm all the way back inside. however, he meets hankyung at the door and they move together, in sync, trying to get around the other. out of the corner of heechul's eyes, he spots what he left in hankyung's hand.
he stops dead, looks at it, and all hankyung does is open it, oblivious. heechul thinks he's being an asshole and rips it from the chinese man's hands, gently guides it to his lips, and drinks it all in once.
he doesn't leave without blowing a lovely burp into hankyung's face. it wasn't until ten minutes later when heechul realizes he left his wallet in the store as well that the coke wasn't his after all because waiting for him at the counter is his wallet... and his own coke...
heechul tries to deny he stole it until he's faced with the foreigner again in awkward circumstances. he needed a carpenter, shiwon sent him one, and hankyung had come. heechul had tried to hide in the most pride way he could think of and when he had the chance, slipped downstairs to the vending machines where he let the coke machine eat his seventy cents.
not even two seconds later as he's reaching for the coke, it's in hankyung's sturdy hand. heechul stands, wide eyes, as hankyung nonchalantly opens it and drinks it all. he isn't surprised when hankyung innocently burps, smiles, and hands the empty can to heechul before turning around and walking away.
heechul can't say it was love at first sight, but he figures it probably was. heechul can't remember.
~
it doesn't take them long to start seeing each other. heechul's friends try to tell him that hankyung won't ever be enough for him; he's just a carpenter. heechul defends him angrily because he knows hankyung is worth more. it doesn't take long before hankyung has an architect's license and a contract. it doesn't take much longer before they have money.
they are in love.
nothing matters to them but each other. they are past in love, they are past i want you, and they only live for each other. hankyung lives for heechul's laughter and heechul breathes for hankyung's soft smiles. with entertwined fingers, they connect heart to heart soul to soul being to being.
they're happy. heechul grows skeptical.
it doesn't take much, heechul tells hankyung. "do you think we'll live happily ever after?!" as he watches hankyung at a batting cage, slamming metal to ball after ball after ball. hankyung says nothing, heechul can feel the sadness in his eyes, and hankyung just offers heechul a hand.
heechul takes it and hankyung helps him up the stairs, puts the bat into his arms and steps around him. keep your eye on the ball, hankyung says as he presses their bodies together and perfects heechul's stance.
it takes seven balls for heechul to hit it and when he does, he doesn't care if there's a happily ever after anymore. he likes whatever this is and he loves that certainty. he feels like he won't ever forget it.
~
hankyung watches with a satisfied smile on his lips as heechul continues delicately putting together their scrapbook. memories, heechul told him once, are very important. he figures it's because heechul forgets so often like a little child, so he likes this side of heechul, cutting and gluing and focused entirely on one thing.
heechul blinks suddenly, looks up, around, frowns. hankyung follows him with his eyes as heechul moves and stands up, lost. he says nothing as the man floats around the house, opening cupboards, the fridge, until he finally opens the front door and looks around. when he turns, heechul spots him and smiles. "where were you?"
hankyung smiles again, says nothing, and heechul sits back down. for some reason, hankyung gets shivers as heechul sits back down. "did you glue this for me?" no, hankyung thinks, you glued that yourself before you got up. he says nothing and heechul laughs. "i thought you wanted to watch me."
"i do." hankyung places a hand on heechul's head. heechul blinks again before turning around, almost as if he didn't realize what was there, and smiles again.
hankyung won't forget this feeling he sees in heechul's eyes of complete confusion, even if it's just for a split second.
~
heechul comes home one day from work and hankyung watches him hesitantly walk in. he doesn't move from the bedroom door as he looks around. hankyung wants to say, you're home, heechul, but it'd be different. it'd be a reminder, not a welcome.
however, this is supposed to be a surprise. hankyung smiles to himself and heechul stops dead in his tracks and looks at the kitchen. it's new. it's white and glamorous, expensive, decadent. a show of new, fresh life so heechul can finally breathe, there's nothing to worry about, our life will always be perfect.
when heechul finally looks around, looking for hankyung, he steps out with a warm smile.
"it's... different," heechul says with a frown. hankyung says nothing, wants to laugh at heechul's naivety, but only sits on a new barstool and waits for heechul to realize just what about the kitchen is different. "it's different, right?"
hankyung flips on a switch for the ceramic stove top and it glows red underneath the glass. "now you won't burn anything."
heechul's eyes widen and he places a hand on the cold granite of the glassy counter top and runs it over the surface. he twirls around, reaches out to the handles on the cupboards and opens them all up, fascinated.
when heechul has looked everywhere and turns around to meet hankyung's soft eyes, he grins. "what'd the doctor's say?"
"they told me to come back next week," he answers nonchalantly as he wraps arms around hankyung's broad shoulders and leans against his back, head in hankyung's newly washed and wet hair.
"they told you that last time?"
heechul just blinks. "they did?"
~
two weeks later, hankyung walks into the doctor. everything in him breaks and crumbles in front of his eyes. he screams. "you told him all of this?" he yells, slams the doctor into the wall. "are you sure?!"
he is sure.
hankyung cries. he is lost. heechul is lost. why was it heechul? why did it have to be him? is this the future that had been waiting for them, for him, predestined, written somewhere in the stars so far away that no one could see it?
it can't be right.
"you should let go," the doctor tells him once hankyung has released his frail body.
but hankyung refuses, matches out, searches everywhere for heechul. he finds him at the batting cage, missing every ball. missing and missing and missing until he throws the bat to the ground and kicks at the dirt. hankyung steps inside the cage and wraps his arms around him.
heechul relaxes in his arms and when hankyung's hold softens, heechul turns around and looks into his eyes. "you find out?" he says with a lilt and a clip at the end of the sentence in a song.
"what?" hankyung smiles.
"i'm not going to be," he pauses and his eyes water, "here," swallows, "anymore." he steps away from hankyung. "how can we live happily ever after. this isn't going to work. let's just stop this before you get hurt."
"no." hankyung closes the distance between them.
"i'm not going to remember you. i'm not going to remember me." he starts crying and hankyung feels himself breaking again. "there are no such things as happy endings."
"i'll remember you!" hankyung's voice raises. "heechul, i'll be your memory. everytime you start to forget i'll pop up, just like this, just for you. you will still be here." there's a pause and hankyung jokes. "it'll be fun. i'll just make you fall in love with me again. it'll be like eternal dating."
they cry. hankyung cannot remember a time he had ever cried this much in his life. hankyung cannot remember ever feeling this entirely, utterly, completely sad in his life because the words
'things will be just fine'
just don't work.
~
Alzheimer's disease
a common form of dementia of unknown cause, characterized by memory lapses, confusion, emotional instability, and progressive loss of mental ability.
it is not curable.
~
"what's my birthday?" hankyung quizzes playfully at the kitchen table.
heechul frowns, squints, searches for the right date. "february?" hankyung nods, smiling, silently encouraging. "ninth?" hankyung places one of heechul's pills into his palm and heechul smiles sweetly.
"the year?"
"nine..nineteen eighty... eighty..." heechul repeats, looks like he is trying harder than he should and it's slowly breaking his heart. "four?" but, at least heechul remembers who he is still, and that's all that matters to hankyung.
"my name?"
"han geng!" heechul laughs as if it'd be impossible for him to ever forget that.
"your name?"
"kim heechul."
hankyung wraps his arms around heechul and heechul swallows the pills. the doctor said they would slow down the memory loss but that's it. there is no cure. there will not be a cure in time for heechul.
it's like this every morning. sometimes it's their address, sometimes it's the day they met, hankyung's favorite food, the color of the sky, the grass, the dirt. sometimes heechul remembers. sometimes heechul can't remember.
most of the time... he can't.
~
heechul quits work, stays home and convinces hankyung that he will do all the chores. hankyung knows better. heechul does send him off to work with lunch, freshly made. heechul generally cooks well and it's better than buying.
the guys give him trouble, it's easy to cover up...
that heechul sent him with rice.
just rice.
and only rice.
he wants to cry, tells the guys that they're supposed to share, and has to pretend it was supposed to be this way, that heechul had not forgotten that he had already packed the rice.
~
hankyung spends three nights writing down everything he could think of on post-it notes from 'this is how you use a toilet' to 'close the door by placing your hand on the doorknob (with a drawing) and pulling toward yourself'. he labels everything, including pictures, objects, where things go, where things don't go.
he tells heechul he'll be home early when in reality, he took the day off. he meets with heechul's doctor who listens to hankyung tell him what heechul is forgetting. the doctor says nothing, tells him he should let him live with his family, people he won't so easily forget. after all, it's the new memories that go first.
hankyung wants to hit him. of course he wishes he had meet heechul earlier, would do anything to spend more time with him.
"just let go."
"no."
when hankyung comes home, the door is open. he narrows his eyes, doesn't quite know what to expect, and enters slowly. shiwon is inside, heechul is hugging him. it clicks, suddenly, painfully, that heechul might have forgotten.
"shiwon," he hears and it's the way he says it that makes hankyung break.
"you're confused," shiwon tells him.
all hankyung does is drop his jacket on the ground and shiwon turns around. heechul frowns, moves behind shiwon as if hankyung is the unwelcome one, as if he is the stranger in this home, as if he is the one intruding.
shiwon tries. "it's not what you think."
of course hankyung knows it's not what it looks like. of course he knows that heechul has simply forgotten him, has forgotten that shiwon broke his heart three years ago, that shiwon had been married and blew heechul off carelessly, that they had agreed to just be friends.
hankyung just doesn't care.
heechul shouts as hankyung pulls shiwon towards his fist, beats him and beats him and beats him. shiwon doesn't fight back, doesn't know how to in this situation because he hadn't done anything wrong, and he can tell that hankyung is not angry at him for the right reason by the strength of his punches.
somewhere, heechul faints and no one sees, no one hears.
hankyung is fighting something much bigger than shiwon and he is completely absorbed by it. he is fighting heechul's disease. he is fighting heechul's death. he is trying to fight the inevitability of it all. he is almost done, he can feel death crawling toward the bigger man, but he is interrupted.
someone his shouting, calling for help for heechul who is helpless. hankyung hates himself for being the one to forget what really matters.
~
"he'll lose the ability to control his bladder, to walk, to speak," heechul's father shouts at him from his seat opposite hankyung. "you're too young to handle this. let us take care of him."
"no."
"you don't have to go through this," he says.
"no."
heechul opens the door, confused, smiles in his billowy pajamas. it's not hard to see how right heechul's father is as heechul's smile glows as urine runs smooth down his leg. hankyung feels hot all over his body, rage, uncontrollable anger as he runs to heechul and gently pushes him into the room, into the door. it clicks shut and hankyung drops to his knees and rips off his shirt.
heechul is confused and wraps his arms around hankyung's head, pushes his forehead into his stomach. hankyung cries as he wipes heechul's legs with his shirt.
~
"what's your name?"
"kim heechul?"
hankyung presses the pill between heechul's lips and he swallows.
"what's my name?"
heechul frowns, looks deeply into hankyung's eyes as if trying to read the name that hankyung chants in his mind. please remember me, please remember me, please remember me. i am han geng. han geng. han geng. han geng. han geng.
"ha...n...?" and he frowns, defeated.
"good job, princess," he sighs and holds onto him. holds onto this moment because he's scared. what will happen when heechul can no longer remember him? he's so scared.
~
it doesn't take much time. heechul is in the kitchen in white with his hair tied back gently. he helps hankyung into his suit jacket and gives him a small kiss.
"i love you, shiwon."
hankyung chokes on his breath but smiles. his eyes water. "you, too."
when he is out of the door, he chokes back his sobs. he calls in sick, goes back to the doctor. the doctor merely laughs at him. "the new memories are the first to go," he repeats himself. hankyung knows this.
"but who does he really love?"
the doctor doesn't answer, picks at his nails. "it gets worse, kid."
it does. when hankyung comes home, there is just a letter. there is nothing but the letter, folded haphazardly, sitting in plain view on the kitchen counter.
i was scared i would forget again. i had to tell you this before i forgot again. i love you so much. he cries. i love you so much, han geng. i remember everything. the sky is blue. the grass is green. your birthday is february 9th, 1984. you are 181cm tall and your bloodtype is b. i love you. i love you so much. he breaks apart, sobs open mouthed. you are apart of me. i cannot forget you. i live for you. i smile for you. i laugh for you. my laugh is your laugh. my smile is your smile. you live inside of my heart so i will never forget you. i am so sorry. i'm so sorry. i don't want to forget this. i don't want to forget us. i have to leave, han geng, i can't keep doing this to you. please he bangs his fist against the granite sobs into his hands.
heechul's words ring in his head. this is for both of us. i won't come back.
~
it's a month later when hankyung gets another letter.
i remember you again. it came to me suddenly. i love you. i hate this. i hate this so much. i remember the store the coke. i remember our house. i remember you. i had to write before i forgot again just to tell you that i love you.
he wants to die.
please don't look for me.
so he does.
~
it takes him half a day to find the right place. when he gets there, his nurse shows him his room, points to a picture of them that is taped to his vanity mirror and tells him it's the only one he didn't rip up. the nurse ushers him outside where he draws absentmindedly toward the ocean.
"you have a visitor."
heechul frowns, looks over at him, confused. he turns back to the nurse as if asking, 'who is that?' and hankyung smiles as his eyes water. heechul stands, drops his notebook and bends down for it.
hankyung is faster, picks up the notebook. scribbles, scribbles, a face, a detailed face. the deterioration burns behind his dark eyes. they're all of him. all of them. as he hands it back to heechul's hands, heechul looks at him hard. "do i know you?"
"nice to meet you," hankyung bows.
the nurse looks sad for him. it's probably always sad to see this. she asks if he would like to each lunch with them and he accepts, heechul doesn't look like he cares or even remembers that hankyung is there.
the nurse gives chopsticks to him and heechul slowly eats from there. half way through, he stops and frowns in that way. he's trying to remember something, someone, and hankyung feels his heart painfully thump in his chest. he doesn't want to be anxious.
"i..." heechul's eyes look like they're watering and hankyung feels his heart breaking. this is what it looks like when heechul cannot remember. hankyung has remembered this look just as well as every other look heechul possesses.
"yes?" the nurse urges.
heechul smiles, already forgotten, and eats more. when he looks up at hankyung, his eyebrows burrow together in inquiry. hankyung remembers this so well. "why are you crying?"
hankyung smiles, shoves some glasses onto the bridge of his nose, and pretends nothing ever happened. after all... heechul won't remember.
"is he allowed to go on a trip?"
~
later that night, the nurse ushers heechul down the street leading to the convenience store they sweetly met at five years ago. hankyung watches from the windows outside as heechul frowns at the sign and makes his way to the front doors. he is trying to remember something but he doesn't know what.
hankyung times their arrival at the door and heechul stops in front of him. he looks up at hankyung as if expecting something before his eyes drop down to the coke in hankyung's hands. hankyung opens it and heechul looks at it curiously, reaches out.
his fingertips touch it softly and hankyung watches him. he sees it flash in his eyes as his fingertips withdraw. he can smell it as heechul breezes past him into the store.
hankyung sighs, wants to stop, but doesn't and turns around. he watches heechul's back as he faces the doctor behind the counter who places his wallet and another coke on the counter.
it's all the same.
heechul takes small, hesitant steps forward. he turns, frowning, and shiwon smiles at him from behind a couple shelves in the back. heechul freezes, whips around to face hankyung.
there is a glimpse of recognition.
and heechul cries. "why won't you live without me?" hankyung wipes the tears from heechul's pink cheeks, ignoring the warmth that is dripping from his chin.
"you are my life."
s.