look at the stars | sunsun

twelve.

Blood doesn't absorb well on snow; the temperature divergence forces it to splash like raindrops on cement, settling in a congealed layer over the icy flakes before it dissolves into the whiteness. Sunghoon knows this theoretically, but he doesn't get to see it in person.

He doesn't, in fact, get to see anything.

The ice below the snow layer is, he discovers that fateful night, savagely jagged under the snow cover.

As he collapses to the ground, his tears pouring red into the immaculate snow, the only thought that goes through his head is regret that the stars were not the last thing he ever saw.

He supposes that even in his last moments, as consciousness slips away from him, he's destined to have no one, far away from the starlight, the only friend he's ever known.

─

The hospital is, in reality, quite a terrible place. The smell of alcohol and antiseptic, sharp and nauseatingly institutional, the blipping and blipping that never stops, the constant movement of people and more people all around that never lets up throughout the days. Sunghoon would be unhappy, but as it is he is spared of the discomfort of his surroundings.

He doesn't awaken for three days and three nights.

Even when he does, he refuses to acknowledge anything. The thick medical gauze layered over his eyes might as well have obscured his mouth along with it. The doctors put him on intravenous nutrition soon after he comes to, and Sunghoon doesn't protest. He doubts he has it in him to lift food to his mouth and swallow, anyway.

His first visitor arrives at nightfall, at least, what he perceives to be nightfall. There must be a clock somewhere in his room, but he has no way to look at the numbers.

"Sunghoon?"

He hears it, the whine of the door opening carefully, then closing again, the soft squeak as someone sits down in the chair that must be beside his bed. It's Heeseung. He must have heard that Sunghoon had awoken, and come to visit after he was done with the day's practice.

"Sunghoon, the doctors say you refused to speak to them. How are you?"

If Sunghoon's eyes were uncovered, he'd have fixed Heeseung with an "Are you kidding me" stare. As it is, all he can manage is a pained smile. He can tell that his silence is throwing the older boy off, but he's beyond worrying about intricacies like that.

"Sunghoon, won't you tell me anything?" Heeseung moves to take one of Sunghoon's hands, cold against his own. Sunghoon, on his part, doesn't pull away, but he doesn't answer either.

The good thing about Heeseung , Sunghoon realises gratefully, is that he doesn't probe into things when he knows nothing will come of it. He knows not to push Sunghoon further, sitting back in his chair and letting the silence fall.

Ten minutes pass this way before Sunghoon speaks.

"What happened to me?"

"Didn't the doctors tell you anything?" He can almost imagine the expression on Heeseung's face. Worried. Puzzled. Concerned, maybe.

"I didn't want to listen then." Sunghoon's throat is dry after days of disuse, and he accepts some water when Heeseung offers it to him. "So, tell me."

He hears the rustling of plastic and paper, and realises Heeseung must be reading from his patient file.

"Blunt force trauma to skull. Mild hypothermia. Multiple lacerations above the shoulder. Severe damage to corneal tissue and optic nerves."

Diagnoses are so detached, so clinical in conveyance of meaning. In layman terms, he was now blind. He would never see again, read again, admire the stars again.

He would never skate again.

How could twelve words so easily determine the end of Sunghoon's future?

He addresses that last thought to Heeseung, who hesitates to think before answering. "Losing one thing doesn't mean you've lost everything."

"But what if," Sunghoon pauses, a cruel smile marring the part of his face that was unobscured by the gauze. "What if that one thing was everything I ever had?"

"Then, you'll find something else. Your life isn't over, Sunghoon."

"You're right." Sunghoon's voice is so quiet, so deadened, so pained as he speaks. "Sometimes I wish it was."

Heeseung senses that Sunghoon wants the conversation to end here. He sits by the hospital bed for half an hour more, before telling Sunghoon he has to be home for dinner. The boy in the hospital bed doesn't respond, but he turns back in the doorway before he leaves.

"There's more to life than being the best, Sunghoon. You've never understood that in the past, but you have another chance now. Don't give up just yet."

Sunghoon thinks about this as the gauze covering his eyes stains red in the empty room.