unconditionally • yunhwa [COMPLETED]

L

TW: mentions of suicide, self-harm, slight gore

Seonghwa raced up the final flight of steps to the roof, not bothering to catch his breath before shoving the door open. The floor at the top was covered with a carpet of rainwater, but sure enough, as he splashed his way through the sheet of raindrops, he spotted Yunho. The younger was seated on the wall surrounding the roof, dangling his legs off the edge of the building. His dark silhouette standing out against the grey sky. All around him, raindrops pelted down, clouds leaking their tears onto any available surface, and the fear that the other might fall grew in his heart.

"Yunho, don't do anything stupid!" The elder rushed to shout.

Yunho only turned to look at him, before he nodded, face aglow despite the gloomy sky. "Hyung, I just wanted to be left alone, that's all. I'm not gonna do anything stupid. I stopped myself once that day, I can do it again."

"I'm not taking risks anymore. Please come over to me," he pleaded, desperation highlighting each word. If the younger had sensed it, he didn't take heed. "Hwa, come over. Come admire the sky with me."

"It's literally just clouds though..."

"Just sit with me, please?" The hint of breaking down so blatantly obvious it couldn't go unnoticed as he gently tapped the wall next to him. Taking caution, Seonghwa pink panther-like crept to the edge of the roof, and looked down, down and down. He sank into a squat, cowering just beneath the edge, shaking.

"I can't do it, Yun."

"Why not? This is an eight-storey building."

"It's eight stories too high for me. I'd rather have my feet staked onto solid ground." His voice was muffled as he spoke to his feet.

"Why are you so afraid of it?"

"I don't know... pathological fear, maybe. Isn't it in human nature to be afraid of things that can kill you?" He glanced up at the younger, who was staring at him with a slightly bemused, yet thoughtful expression.

"Maybe you'd be afraid if you're not afraid of death. Once you're not scared of death, nothing wavers anymore." "I don't think that's how it works, but it does make sense. Why aren't you afraid then?" He questioned back.

Yunho got off the wall and sat down next to Seonghwa, not minding sitting on the rain since he was already wet. "Because I'm afraid of other things. Hwa, I'm gonna tell you something I haven't told anyone, again."

"What right do I have to know. I made you lose trust in me..."

The younger glanced sideways at the other, before pursing his lips and enveloping the elder in a hug, to his surprise. "I still trust you, because you're the one who lent me a shoulder to lean on in my hardest time. Besides, I also know what that slut is capable of. In a way, me coming up here was also a test, to see if you still cared. If you were smitten with that bitch, you'd have gone after her like Yeosang did, and wouldn't be up here right now. I know you're here because you remembered what I told you." Yunho pulled away from the hug, and the older already felt the loss. "You remembered, so I'll tell you what I should've told you way earlier than now. Cause I know, you'll hold it to your heart like I hold your words in mine."

.

.

"My older brother," he began, "took his own life by jumping off a cliff. As I was the only one with him at the time, they suspected me of foul play, even though I was that young. He had everything going for him, they said, why would he do that? Thing is, they don't know what I know. I saw the front he put up with the family, pretending he was doing well, when in reality, he wasn't. To be honest, they were putting too much pressure on him to succeed the family business, and it made him vulnerable... But it's like none of it mattered at all, since I became the black sheep of the family anyway. They hated me for years, like I didn't deserve to be here at all, as if I should have crossed over into the next life instead of their precious first son." Bitterness laced every single one of his words.

"By the time they found substantial evidence to rule me out, though I told them dozens of times I had nothing to do with it, I had already left, and wanted nothing to do with them." He paused, side-eyeing the other forlornly before continuing. "Before they found all the stuff, including his hidden diary containing all his suicidal thoughts, I'd moved out, rented a place, found a job, anything to sustain myself without help from them. I even adopted a puppy, a golden retriever." His eyes lit up, and a slight grin appeared at the memory.

"W-what happened to the dog? Why don't you have it anymore?"

The smile faded. "She was killed. So far, I've only told Yeosang about this, but I spared him the details, there are some things he didn't need to know."

.

.

"A few years ago, I was walking Bunhi in the park, but somehow, the leash broke, and she escaped. I searched for her the whole day, enlisting the help of neighbours whom I never interacted with before for assistance, it was like she'd disappeared into thin air. The next day, I found her beside the bins at the side of the block. Dead."

Stills of the moment flashed through Yunho's mind, the puppy lying beside the large black trash bin, open wounds covering the body, blood flowing, clotting red, onto the pavement, staining the fur. Eyes open but no longer seeing...

"Still, I picked her up and took her to the vet, maybe there was a small chance they could save her, but no, it didn't work out. And to make things worse, I couldn't answer as to how she got injured, so they wrote me off as being incapable... My pet's dead, and you don't believe me, just like that awful family did even earlier. Why kick someone when they're already down?"

Both parties held reflections of each other's expression, tears filling the eyes, overflowing, and trickling down the cheeks. "Tears are the droplets that hold feelings in them." And as the evening lamps lit up, they both had the same realisation. The droplets with feelings hold rainbows, the full array of colours, the spectrum of emotions.

"But that's not the end of it, far from it, actually." He choked out. "The family called the next day, asking to meet up, discuss for me to take over the business. Against my better judgement, I decided to go, and possibly just reject them straight on. Still remember it as clear as day: I was about to knock, enter the room, whole speech prepared, ready to tell them I didn't care about their business and for them to stay out of my life, but all I heard was "luckily we killed off the dog, can't have him be distracted by other compromises." They sabotaged the leash, they murdered my beloved, all for their own selfish plans. It was the last day I called them family. Family was the innocent soul they did away, not them."

"That was also the day I started harming myself. I know you pretended not to, but I know you noticed." Once again, Yunho fell back into his universe of memories, reliving that day once again. It hurt on the outside: seeing how many different shades of red blood can be, watching it flow down his arm, collecting at his elbow before dripping delicately onto the white tiled floor of the bathroom, creating smooth round dots, again and again and again. But despite how much it hurt on the outside, the pain could never compare to how hurt he was internally.

"Nothing made me want to stay there, at the place that only gave me grief, all the recollections in this place, so I moved to another city, here. That's when I met Yeosang, staying with him as a dysfunctional wreck until recently, when I had enough of being miserable, to start working again. But it looks like no matter where I go, people are still gonna leave. Surely you will too, someday. I guess you can't say I'm unafraid of dying, because I'm afraid of the ones I love leaving. And if I die, I'm the one who's leaving the ones I love." A waterfall of silent tears made their way down.

Seonghwa found his voice then. "Look, Yun, none of those incidents were your fault. Maybe you didn't get the best of what life has to give, but your heart is pure, and that says a lot about a person." The younger didn't seem thoroughly convinced, though he still nodded, although grudgingly.

"I can promise you I won't ever leave, and that I love you with all my heart, on one condition."

"What condition?"

"Unconditional. No matter your flaws, your emotional moments, your past, everything. I will go through all of it with you and accept you as who you are for it. Because the past shapes you but doesn't define you. Because I love you, unconditionally."