What does the ocean look like? - 2min [3/3]
What does the ocean look like? | 2min | pg - 13 | 4000+ [14.000+ the whole fic]
au, angst, drama, romance | beta-ed by forevershining | character death, incest (they are not related by blood)
He stepped out of the building, the cold night-air hitting his face harshly, only noticing that he had nothing but a t-shirt when his body began shaking violently.
It was a bad idea, a really bad idea because honestly, Minho had nowhere to go. People would recognize him without anything to hide his face. But there was no way in hell he could go back now; he needed to cool his head off, he needed that so badly and so he just decided to go to the park nearby, because who would be there in the middle of the night?
He sat down on a bench, the cold surface making him shudder as it met with the thin sweatpants that covered his skin. He leaned back; ignoring the goose bumps and closed his eyes, inhaling sharply. His thoughts wandered off.
They wandered off to himself, his life, his career and everything that he was about to risk. Then they wandered off to Taemin, the first day he just appeared in front of his apartment, the questions he asked, his smile, the brightness he bought Minho, how he made him feel alive again. He remembered the touches and the tears and everything that was strange about Taemin; Minho shuddered.
Not because of the cold that was making his limps feel as if they didn’t exist, no, it was because of the fear. It was the fear of losing what he desired the most and the fear of losing what he already had. He felt the fear of disappointing people and of making Taemin’s smile fade away, the fear of the many tears his fans would shed and the fear of Taemin’s tears and he just felt lost and torn and indescribably sad.
It took him about one hour to calm down. Though his thoughts were not sorted yet, his body refused to let him sit in this cold any longer and his muscles ached so much that Minho had to force himself to go back home. He was not prepared at all to see Taemin and to make decisions, and as he slowly made his way back home, he tried to make up a good excuse to run away again.
***
What Minho didn’t know was that Taemin had not been alone in his apartment while he had run off, what he didn’t know was that that the doorbell rang and when Taemin opened the door he was faced with two men clothed in black suits and Jonghyun smiling at hi. He didn’t know that they had told Taemn to leave Minho alone, he didn’t know that they had told Taemin what kind of consequences it would have if the fans found out about him, he didn’t know that they blackmailed to the boy, saying that they knew something important about him. And he certainly didn’t know that Taemin, feeling shattered and scared and confused agreed, agreed to leave the elder, because it was the only thing he could do.
***
Minho ducked his head when he noticed that the sun was about to go up again and people were making their way to work or school. Being recognized now was something he would like to avoid. He decided to run, since it was the fastest and safest way to get back home.
He made it around the last corner when he bumped into a figure, the impact making him trip backwards and making the other fall to the ground.
“I’m sorry, I-“ Minho looked at the boy sitting on the ground.
“Taemin?” The boy looked at him, his expression unreadable. He stood up, sparing one last glance at the elder before looking to the ground and trying to pass Minho. But Minho grabbed him by the wrist turning his around and forced him to look him into his eyes.
“Where are you going?” he hissed, and it sounded a lot angrier than it should. Taemin was biting his lip, though his gaze was hard and cold.
“I’m going to leave. Let me go.” he said; it was barely a whisper, but Minho understood every single word as if it was burned into his mind.
“Where do you want to go? You have nowhere to run to. Stay.” Taemin shook his head, his hair brushing Minho’s face as he did.
“You have no right to force me to stay with you.” He said, his voice clear and loud before he wriggled his arm out of Minho’s grasp and turned around.
“Wai-“ Minho wanted to grip for Taemin, but a sudden noise behind him made him stop in his tracks.
“Oh my god! It’s Choi Minho!” a shrill voice echoed through the streets and in a few seconds, it was filled with murmurs and noises from people Minho didn’t want to see at the moment.
Taemin smiled, it was not a beautiful or bright smile. It was sad and small, his eyes not forming into half-moons.
“See hyung, that is where you belong, not with me. Your manager was right. I’m just getting in the way.” He whispered and it was barely audible through the nearing squeals and screams.
“Taemin? Where are you going? Stay! Don’t leave me, don’t run away!” Minho screamed, his hands gripping for the boy, missing his thin wrist as a crowd of fans and photographers and reporters was pushing him back.
Taemin stood there, a hood barely covering his face and Minho could see the hurt, he could see the eyes filled with tears and the frustration and he wanted to fight for him, wanted to push his fans away, and to run to the one thing he truly treasures. But still he didn’t do it; he let himself be swept away by the crowd, his body weak, his eyes staring at Taemin who stared back until he disappeared behind a few screaming girls’ faces.
Minho didn’t fight the crowd anymore, the fear of the consequences of what he has done making him freeze, freeze where he was, not reacting to the people pulling or pushing him, asking him questions and screaming his name, hugging him and taking photographs of him. And then he saw Jonghyun and the pushes und pulls stopped and he was dragged somewhere, but he was too paralyzed to notice where to. Taemin is not here. He thought, a strange kind of emptiness filling him from deep inside. He is not here anymore.
***
Minho was a mess. It had been exactly three days after Taemin ran away and despite the fact that Minho had mobilized about 50 percent of Seoul’s policemen to find him, there was no trace of the young boy. Adding to the emotional mess he was, came the mess his reputation and his career were in. The media and his fans interpreted Taemin running away in many strange ways, and there were rumours from him molesting a child, to secretly having a son going through the media and Minho had to chuckle despite himself, because this was so extremely ridiculous.
Minho sat in his bed, absently watching the raindrops fall against the big window and slowly sliding down, only to be replaced by new ones. His brain refused to think about anything else other than Taemin, and it made Minho’s heart ache. In the past weeks he had gotten so close to the boy, he had been so used to him being around, that he nearly forgot how it was to be alone. This time it felt even worse than normal. He felt emptier and more tired and lost, more than he ever had. Maybe it was because he finally knew what it was like to have a family.
He sighed, forcing himself out of the warmth of his bed sheets. He walked towards the kitchen, but stopped in front of the door to Taemin’s room. Since Taemin had run away, he never dared to enter it, but when he wanted to find the boy he had to start somehow didn’t he?
He opened the door carefully, though he didn’t know why, tiptoeing through the room as he breathed Taemin’s scent in. It was barely audible, but Minho still felt like drowning in it, when he let himself slump down on the soft mattress of the small bed in the middle of the room. He rolled around on the bed, memories flooding his mind, and for a moment he pretended that he was waiting for Taemin to finish showering. He snuggled his head into one of the pillows, grunting when he felt something hard and uncomfortable under it. He reached a hand under the pillow, taking out a small plastic box. Minho turned it around in his hand and began reading what stood on it.
He let the box fall to the ground, his hands suddenly losing all power to hold anything. Fuck.
He stared onto space before fumbling his mobile out of his pants pockets. He dialled the familiar number, impatiently waiting for the person to pick up.
“Hey.”
“Jjong, we need to find Taemin.” Minho whispered, his voice trembling as he fought to hold his tears back.
“I know that and we are already looking for him Minho.” Jonghyun sighed.
“N-no you don’t know anything, please Jjong we need to find him. NOW!” he screamed before running out of the apartment, not caring if there was anyone who could recognize him or that it was raining and he was only wearing a dress shirt. He ran for dear life, with no real goal, just knowing that he had to find Taemin. He had to, fast.
***
The next few hours went by like a blur. I
t was running through rain, helpless screaming for a boy that seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, panting as the burning feeling of air refusing to rush through his lungs regularly surged through his body, hot tears that mixed with the cold drops of the crying sky, dizziness, pain, shock, desperation.
Minho felt as if the world was crumbling together around him, as if everything that had mattered disappeared, leaving only the painful thoughts of one particularly beautiful boy in his mind, paining him, making him shudder and gasp as his body refused to work anymore. Taemin.
He fell to the ground, clutching his hair tightly, as if the pain could help him, as if it would make him feel better, make him forget. He let out a desperate cry, his throat hurting, his eyes burning and his feet feeling as if they could fall off anytime. But he didn’t care, he didn’t feel.
All he could feel was the pain of hundreds, thousands of needles piercing his heart, the pain of the possibility losing someone that probably meant more than his own life. And as more and more needles made his heart ache, a cloud of blackness began surrounding it, numbness overtaking his heart first, then his whole chest, his body, his limbs, as he struggled to stay conscious, not to let the blackness blurring on the edges of his vision take completely over.
He gasped, clutched his chest, panted and whimpered, whispers of the boy’s name leaving his mouth and small, silent ‘no’s . But he kept fighting, kept fighting until the darkness surrendered and only the paining numbness of his overly exhausted body was left, until Minho was able to think again, to cry again, to realize what exactly was that had him so broken, so desperate. And as the numbness was nearly completely gone and the sounds he hadn’t noticed were gone came back he flinched in surprise as the loud ring of his mobile pierced through the quietness of the empty streets. His hands were shaking when he fumbled the phone out of his pockets and his voice was too when he answered Jonhyun’s call, who apparently had been trying to call him for the fifth time now.
“Oh God! You finally answer!” Jonghyun sounded beyond relieved and it made Minho feel guilty, though it was not really his fault wasn’t it?
“I didn’t hear the phone.” He mumbled, his voice hoarse and broken, so unlike him.
“Minho, we found him.”
***
Hospitals were something Minho dreaded. They were too bright and too full and there was this suffocating smell and grumpy nurses and crying families and sick, old, exhausted people. They were full of sadness, pain and suffering, and Minho’s heart sank to the ground when he entered the big building. He was trembling and trying his best to keep his tears in his eyes as he walked through the cold corridors of the 2nd floor. He ignored the small gasps coming from nurses, who seemed to have recognized him, and also the way the nurse he had asked about Lee Taemin’s room had blushed.
“At the moment no one is allowed to enter his room, but as far as I know his doctor, Dr. Lee wants to talk to you so if you come with me please.” She said, in a voice that was too bright for him to bear. He nodded and followed her into the back of the hallway to a small office.
The nurse knocked two times and a few seconds later a ‘Please come in’ followed, she opened the door and entered the room, Minho closing the door behind him when he stepped inside.
“This is Choi Minho, the one responsible for Taemin. You wanted to talk to him.” The doctor, a man slightly older than him, handsome, with brown eyes and a wide smile, stood up, nodded at the nurse and walked towards Minho.
“Lee Jinki, I am the doctor responsible for Taemin.” Minho shook hands with the man, nodding and then took a seat on the chair the doctor had motioned for him to sit down. Mr. Lee smiled at, him though his smile was not really reassuring, it was sad. Minho gulped.
“Where is Taemin?” he asked, staring the doctor into the eyes.
“Mr. Choi. I think there are a few things you don’t know, that Taemin didn’t tell you and since he is not in the condition to be able to tell you that I am going to do it so listen closely.” Dr. Lee said, rubbing his temples, his smile fading away. ”Taemin has been my patient ever since he was adopted by your sister.” Minho blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Your sister took part in a program for adopting children coming from contaminated areas. When she adopted Taemin there was a chance of 80 percent that he would be sick. Dead sick. Your sister took the risk and adopted him. We discovered his acute lymphocytic leukaemia when he was four.”
“A-acute lymphocytic leukaemia?”
“Yes in short it is called ALL. A form that is not rare among kids, so it was not really a surprise. We succeeded in helping Taemin live 5 years longer than he should have. But in his case the sickness is extremely strong, up to now we could only force the leukaemia into something like a slumber. It was clear that it would break out again and it only happened a little bit earlier because he didn’t take his medicine. He has to undergo chemotherapy if he wants to survive for more than a few days more.”
“Then what are you waiting for, just fucking start with the chemotherapy.” Minho hissed. Lee Jinki sighed, taking his glasses off.
“Of course, I as a doctor will try everything to keep my patient alive, but the problem with Taemin is that he… well he is tired. We know that this chemotherapy will keep him alive for about three months longer when he is lucky and he knows it too, since it is my duty to tell him as a doctor. I don’t have the right to decide what to do with my patients just like that and after I told him our results Taemin decided to stop now.” he said, sighing.
“What does that mean?” Minho was glaring at the doctor, though he knew it was not this man’s fault, but he needed something or someone to direct his anger at.
“Minho, Taemin decided to not undergo the chemotherapy. That means he has about one, two maybe three days more to live. He said that it is not worth it. I guess you are familiar with the fact that chemotherapy is painful and it causes a lot of emotional stress for the sick person but also for those around him.”
“And what if I say he has to undergo it?”
Dr.Lee nodded.
“Yes that is what I wanted to talk to you about. The problem is that Taemin is of full age, so he has the right to decide and when he doesn’t back off I can’t do anything. So this is where you play your part. Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to lose him, not if I can still do something. For doctors, losing a patient is the worst, so I want you to talk to him. You are the person he has the strongest personal bond to, and I think that you could maybe convince him to fight on.”
Minho stood up, slamming his hands on the desk. “I am not going to let Taemin give up. There is no way. “
“I guess that we have come to an agreement then.”
Minho gulped, but nodded as he stood up as the doctor did, and shook hands with him before going out of the small office. It was kind of hard to hold back the tears.
***
Taemin’s weak breathing was accompanied by slow beeping sounds coming from a machine standing next to his bed.
Minho was stroking over the boy’s pale cheeks as he was fighting to contain his tears.
The room was bright and white and everything but comfortable. The smell of hospital was suffocatingly strong and with every breath, Minho was reminded of where he was.
Taemin was sleeping, probably because of the immense amount of pain-killers they had given him, but at least he looked peaceful and at ease. His skin seemed even paler in the bright light, and he had terrible bags under his eyes, making the boy look sicker than Minho liked him to look.
Taemin was slowly breathing in and out, small huffs leaving his mouth and Minho’s heart clenched because it seemed as if the younger one was fighting for every breath. Minho was trailing the tip of his fingers over the soft skin on Taemin’s face, over the small nose, the cheekbones, down his cheeks and over the slightly chapped lips before letting go and sinking back into his chair, burying his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees.
“Don’t stop.” Taemin whispered and Minho’s heart skipped a few beats, shooting up to lay his hands back on the boy’s face.
“You’re awake.” Taemin managed a nod, fluttering his eyes open. They were showing everything Minho didn’t want to know: shame, anger, fear, gratitude, relief and love.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Minho said, his voice barely above a whisper. For some reason, he was afraid to break the silence.
“I’m sorry.” Taemin closed his eyes and a big round tear rolled down his cheek.
“Don’t be Taeminnie, it’s not your fault, I should be the one apologizing. I was a douche bag and I shouldn’t have pushed you away, you are too important and I’m just gonna make it all up to you when you-“
“I’m not going to leave that hospital ever again you know that, right?” Taemin interrupted and Minho just stared at him blankly, sighing. “Taemin don’t be like that, you just have to fight for-“
“Hyung, I’m not going to do the therapy.” Taemin was whispering, too weak to speak normally but still his voice sounded determined.
“Tae, what are you talking about? You don’t-”
“I am perfectly aware of what I am doing. Minho, please.” He whimpered, as Minho desperately began clutching his hand. “No Taemin I don’t want you to go.” Minho’s voice was rising unconsciously and Taemin flinched a little, but kept his gaze determined.
“Minho I spent my whole life in a hospital or locked in a safety room at home, because my mother was always worried I’d die and I am tired of it. You let me experience how it is to live and to love and I thank you so much, but please… let me go. I’m tired.”
The way Taemin looked at Minho, the way his eyes told stories, of pain, sadness, loss and mostly exhaustion was so desperate, so certain of what he wanted that Minho could do nothing but kiss the boy’s fingers tenderly as he silently prayed for god to keep this beautiful angel alive.
***
A few hours later, Minho explained to Lee Jinki that there was no way to convince Taemin anymore, though Minho could not understand how Taemin, his Taemin that had always been so lively and so desperate to get to know things, that had loved life like little things did would give it up so easily.
Jonghyun patted Minho on the back, handing him a cup of hot coffee when he found the young idol sitting in a corner of the long hospital hallways, tears flowing down his cheeks as he stared on the wall in front of him. It looked quite pathetic in Jonghyun’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything, just sat down beside his best friend sighing loudly.
“Why is he giving up?” Was what Minho whispered, and Jonghyun nudged the younger gently.
“Did you ever think about the possibility that he doesn’t want you to go through this?”
“What?” Minho averted his eyes from the wall to Jonghyun’s face.
“When Taemin would do the therapy, do you know what that would do to you and your life and your career?”
“Fuck.” Minho mumbled, looking down to let and endless flow of tears fall down.
***
When it was time, when the doctors knew that Taemins heart was steadily beating slower, that his body was getting weaker that he nearly couldn’t talk anymore they left the room and Minho was alone with the boy, tracing his fingers along the cold skin in his face.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Taemin whispered, his eyes sparkling in the bright light of the hospital room.
“D-don’t be, you didn’t do anything. Don’t be sorry it’ll be alright okay? It’ll be alright.” Minho took the boy’s weak and cold hands between his, kissing them softly as he mumbled sweet nothings, the words meant for himself to calm down. “Just don’t give up, don’t let go.”
Taemin smiled weakly; he looked pale and tired.
“I’m sorry Minho, I shouldn’t have been so stupid, I shouldn’t have run away and I shouldn’t have left you. I should have told you of this sickness, I should have warned you, I shouldn’t have gotten close to you, I shouldn’t have brought you so much trouble and I shouldn’t leave now I know, but please let me leave, I’m tired, so tired.” He whispered, his breathing more like gasping because he had barely the strength left to talk.
His eyes slowly fell shut, before opening again. Minho was crying, though he had thought that his eyes, after crying so much, much more than he ever had in his whole life, would not let a single tear fall out for the next week he was crying, the tears silently escaping his eyes, without him having the power to stop them. He gripped Taemin’s thin fingers hard, as if they were the last thing to hold on to.
“Please don’t go, please don’t leave me, please don’t.” he pleaded, stroking the boy’s face softly.
Taemin leaned into the touch, his eyelids feeling heavy. “Goodbye.” He whispered before tugging lightly on Minho’s hands, motioning for him to lean down. Minho complied, leaning his ear against Taemin’s chapped lips, savouring every word the boy whispered to him.
Taemin gave the elder one last smile, slowly closing his eyes and one last time he strengthened his grip on Minho’s hand before leaving, leaving forever.
Minho cried out loud, sobs shaking his body, Taemin’s words echoing in his mind over and over again.
“We’ll see each other in heaven right?”
***
Taemin’s grave was small, but beautiful. It was placed next to his mothers and decorated with the most beautiful flowers Minho could find. Pictures, letters and candles were placed around it and Minho had to smile. Most of those letters were from fans, he really loved them sometimes.
He had needed a pause after all this drama and now that had come back, his fans were still loyal and supporting, the strange rumours having died down immediately. He chuckled; it was funny how they said that when he sang, he was so much more emotional than before, though he felt so much emptier.
He didn’t cry anymore, his tears having dried six months ago, when Taemin was carried out of the hospital, Jonghyun’s reassuring hand on his shoulders and the whispers and screams of fans and paparazzi in the background. Taemin’s question had been haunting him ever since, the hoarseness of his once sweet voice and the chapped lips on his ears.
Yes, he thought, we’ll see each other in heaven. And he placed a soft kiss on the gravestone before leaving.
previous | end.
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Note: I'm painfully aware of the fact that the fic is in a medical view total bullshit. but well, that's what I came up with and I have absolutely no idea about those sicknesses so I'm sorry. and well I wrote it a while ago and when I read through it I felt the urge to slap myself..., I dunno I'm not all too happy with the result....
comments are ♥.