In These Arms [mxm]

Chapter 2 - Here and gone

As I gawked at the almost middle-aged man in the mirror, I scrambled to my knees and crawled closer to him. Everything I did, so did he. My breathing was heavy and labored as I brought my fingers to my face, feeling a light scratch of stubble in places I'd never been able to grow hair before. My skin was coarser than I remembered, but at the same time, I looked so much smaller and frailer than I did yesterday.

Was it yesterday? When did I pass out? How long had I been unconscious for?

There was a gentle knock on the door before the woman's voice called out. "Haneul? Are you okay? Please answer me so I know you're okay."

I looked at the door and took deep breaths, feeling like the oxygen had been punched out of my lungs. I picked myself up off the floor and stood hunched over, breathing rugged and rapidly as I looked back at the mirror. I stretched my back to straighten it and cracked my neck once again. The woman continued knocking at the door. Without breaking eye contact with the mirror, I reached for the door and pressed the lock.

The door gently slid open before she popped into the reflection, and her heels clicked on the tile floor as she approached me. Standing at my side, she looked at me with a mix of pity and curiosity, before lifting her hand to brush my hair out of my face. Her fingers gently scratched my head, somehow calming the anxiety rushing through me just then.

"I know it must be so scary, Haneul," she murmured. "Waking up after so long, of course you wouldn't recognize yourself anymore."

I turned my head to look at her. I could feel myself crumbling, and I wished she could offer me some words of comfort. Something that would silence the fear in my heart. My eyes were beginning to water, which I could see redness in the man's eyes when I briefly glanced back at the mirror. The woman looked remorse. "Please tell me..." I said, feeling my voice break as my body threatened to break into sobs, "how long was I asleep?"

The woman turned her entire body to face me, and pulled mine to face hers, too. Her hands gripped both sides of my arms, then she reached up and gently stroked my face. "Darling boy," she said. "We've let you use our room for nearly two years."

"Two years?" I repeated, feeling a sob reach dangerously close to the surface. "I was asleep for two years?"

Tears pooled in the woman's eyes this time as she shook her head. "The doctors said you were taking bedspace for more than five years," she said, lips trembling, and she stroked my cheek. "They wanted to turn off your life support to free up room, but there was nobody to consent. In the end, we felt so sorry that we brought you here."

My head felt so hot, and my eyes blinked rapidly as they started to sting. My breathing grew more labored than before. Two and five... "S-seven?" I asked. "Seven years?"

My mind drew a blank. This was too much information to take in... if it was true at all. The level of ridiculousness was more than I could take in one go, and my head was pounding too much to think too deeply. It couldn't be true, because Chanyeol would have seen me to the end. It's not that there was nobody to consent, but that they refused to let me die, right? My body shook and my head grew dizzy. Her words couldn't be true, and I didn't believe them, but they were still so painful to hear.

"Hold on a moment," the woman whispered.

She stepped out from the bathroom and came back in pushing one of the red chairs inside. Positioning it in front of the mirror, I realized she had put shoes and socks on top of it. When she picked them up and moved them aside, she ushered for me to sit down and knelt in front of the chair. "It's too much for you to stand now, so let me help you, hm?"

My head was struggling to understand and interpret anything. I just stood here, staring at her, while she kept flicking her wrist and pointing at the seat. My mind was foggier than the bathroom, still steaming from the bath water. "Come," she said, still adamantly pointing. "Sit, sit."