ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ? || k.th + c.sb ✓

6

{6}

"Taehyun...?"

I looked up from my phone to my mom who eyed me weirdly. "What is it?" I asked softly, giving her an even weirder look.

She cleared her throat and kept down the papers she held in front of her, adjusting her glasses. "Are you okay? You seem a little..."

A frown settled between my eyebrows and I leant back in my armchair a little. "I am okay. Even better I think." She nodded but did not move her gaze away. I ignored that and picked up a water bottle from the table. 

"Did you get a lover?"

I choked, beating my chest hard to gulp down the remaining water.

"W-what?"

Mom blinked, and then smiled in a way only moms can. "You are so giggly these days, so I thought you lost your sanity or something."

"Mom!"

She chuckled and winked at me. "So who is this lucky someone?" I rolled my eyes and went back to my phone where Soobin was telling me about his cousin Lia who hated cucumbers.

The doorbell suddenly rang, and both me and mom turned to the main door that was just at the end of a small corridor.

"I'll take that." Mom said and walked away. The sound of the door opening made my ears perk up as I silently eavesdropped from the living room. "Oh Beomgyu-ah, long time no see!" As soon as I heard that, I found myself rushing to the front door with wide eyes.

There he was, Choi Beomgyu with his chestnut hair and eyes that had dark circles darker than the night. His face wasn't really visible due to the mask he wore but you could say he looked extremely tired and like he didn't get even a blink of sleep for days. "Beomgyu?"

"Can I talk to you?"

Fast forward, we sat in my room beside each other, a suffocating silence between us. My phone continued to buzz all too loud in my pocket, and as much as I would've loved to talk to Soobin, I stayed still. I was getting uneasy with every passing second and fidgeted in my place. 

But then I heard it. A small sob, although it was so small that I couldn't really be sure. Another came, and I was certain.

I turned to look at him. "Beomgyu?"

He really was crying, tears silently rolling down his cheeks that were very visible without his mask. There was a visible stubble. He didn't dare to look up. "I am s-sorry. I r-really am." He cried out.

Dumbfounded was an understatement. I stared at the boy as if he grew another head, trying to contemplate the situation. "H-hey! it's alright, y'know... I understand why you were angry..." I took a pause, taking in a sharp breath. "Is everything alright?" I sensed something must be terribly wrong. Beomgyu was never the one to cry that easily. Heck, the last time I remembered seeing him cry was a few years ago, and that was because his pet parrot had died.

"Everything is over, Hyunnie," he sobbed. "We have lost everything."

"I am afraid you aren't making any sense right now, Beom." A frown settled upon my eyebrows, feeling a clueless but also fearful. His words...they were scaring me. I held his shoulders with both of my hands, making him look at me. "I am listening."

"...K-kai he-" a hiccup,"Hyunnie...doctors have lost a-all hopes. Hyunnie he will die. He will die and it would just be the two of us left." His cheeks were stained with streaks of tears overlapped with fresh ones. He was just 20 but he somehow looked much older with the worry lines at the corner of his bloodshot eyes.

I couldn't believe his words. "You... You are lying, right?"

As if that had hurt him further, he let out another choked sob. "I hope I was." His voice was hoarse, enough to seep through my charade that I worked on for so long— it fell away like the drops of water on a rainy day. Beomgyu was now crying harder, clinging onto me for dear life. "Everything's over Tae. We are gonna lose our sunshine."

"Beom d-don't say that. I am sure he is fine," I say almost pleadingly, not to him but to myself to assure, but my heart was already crumpling down with helplessness and guilt. The sound that came from the other boy just made it harder for me to keep back the tears. "Don't say that... "

I engulfed Beomgyu in an embrace in hopes to warm him as well as myself but it refused to work and I just felt smaller and smaller, emotions overflowing. "He won't die...Sunshine won't die."

Sunshine. It was a name the two of us made for Kai because he lit up our lives with his smiles and little mischieves. He kept us warm with his kindness and support. Just like a sunshine. 

I tried my best to shed not a single tear as I caressed the other's hair. His shoulders shook with the sobs and I regretted everything. I regretted the day it had happened, the day ran away for my selfish reasons and left behind Kai who was just  trying to show his love. I regretted ever coming close to him. I regretted being as clueless about the world I am. I regretted that I reacted the way I did.

But that is all I can do now. Regret.

Time passed by just like that, us sharing a common grief and trying our level best to cope with what is left now. Even though the thought of losing someone so close feared the both of us, it being nothing that we would forget. But that's how the world works, doesn't it? Time holds for none, and we would have to eventually move on from all of it.

Beomgyu's sobs slowly turned to whimpers before it diminished to mere hiccups. I still held hin close, making him lay his head upon my lap.

"You know, I have a secret that none of you knew. And that too for several months now."

I was taken by surprise, making me look down at his face. "You."

"Yes... I may have liked Kai." I blinked at him, mouth falling open just a little. Now that I look back to all those days, it was actually kinda obvious. He always gazed at Kai for long and intentionally admitted defeat whenever we played games together. And with the current situation, Beomgyu was affected the most. His anger towards me was more understandable.

"But he liked you of course. He talked about you with such sparkle in his eyes that just- well, it's of no use now, I guess. We w-won't have him around us anymore..." he trailed off, burying his head in the folds of my pyjama pants.

A question aroused in my head and before I knew it, I heard myself asking that out loud. "Don't you hate me, then?"

"Who said that?"

"Well, you liked him and...I am kind of the reason that he-"

He lifts up his head. "We were all so close, Tae. I can never hate you. I was angry, yes, but never hated you."

"So if you don't hate me...Can I ask for a small favor?"

"What is it?"

"C-can I...meet him? Just for this once?"

He glanced at me searchingly before closing his eyes and emanating a long sigh. "Yes, but we can just meet from far away. He is in no condition to talk. And the hospital is just...a mess. A dead body departs every minute and it would just be depressing there."

"But I want to meet him...please..."

"Are you sure?"

I could do this much for a friend I considered my brother, couldn't I? He was our sunshine after all.

"Very much."

Are you online?

☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆

A/N: A classmate of mine died today...