Nine lives || Lee Felix

"I love you too"

- • -

You realised I was gone for a while. It was the first thing that came up in the conversation when I started coming to school again. You checked up on me. You wanted to know how many lives I had left, I told you the truth. Two. You appeared angry. I shrugged it off and left. Everything went back to normal. I sat with Minho hyung on the roof and ate lunch with him after he snuck into the school. You hugged up to Hyunjin's arm and giggled with him a few metres ahead of me.

I hated seeing you two together. I stared at you for a while but you didn't notice. You were too focused on him. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I looked over to Minho hyung who seemed to be really worried. "You're crying." He stated.

I touched my cheek that was indeed wet as another tear rolled down. I glimpsed back at you and I kinda wished you'd turn to meet my eyes and give me the attention I was desperate for. I realised you'd given up. Maybe you didn't care anymore. It made more tears stream down my face till I felt an arm around me. Minho stoked my hair and hushed my sorrows comfortingly.

I wiped my face dry with my sleeve and sat up properly, trying to conceal my emotions again. "Why don't you tell her?" He questioned as he looked directly in my eyes. I was a little overwhelmed and didn't understand what he meant so he clarified what he said. "You love her."

My eyes widened and then I looked back at you and Hyunjin. "Because they look happy together" I answered.

"You're jealous?"

"I don't know. I just... I know I can't have her."

"So you think killing yourself will help the situation? Dude, just talk to her."

"I can't."

"What if you're just misunderstanding the situation?" I looked down at my scarred hands when he asked the question I hadn't considered. "Talk to her." He repeated, patting me on the back and standing up.

The bell rang and we all split up to go our separate ways again. During class, my mind dwelled on Minho's question. For once, my lives that I cared so little about actually mattered to me.

* • * • *

That evening, I went back to the roof to watch the sunset. My mind was clouded with thoughts as I sat on the building ledge, in front of the fence. I was so focused on solving the riddle in my mind that I hadn't noticed the sun was completely gone from the sky. I broke from this trance when I heard Y/N's voice. "Felix? What are you doing up here at this time?"

"How'd you know I was here?"

She stood at the fence behind me. "I just finished with my study group and saw you up here as I was leaving the school."

"Oh."

There was momentary silence before she spoke again.

"I feel like I'm the reason..."

"Reason?"

"That you kill yourself.."

"No."

"Then why-"

I stood up on the ledge and turned to face her. "Because I love you! I'm sorry, I'm stupid and I took my life so many times to distance myself from you because I loved you so much that it tore me apart to see you so close to Hyunjin. I'm sorry I love you." Her eyes were wide, her feet glued to the place she stood and I felt my heart sink. I wanted to run away and hide. My body started shaking, my breath narrow and my balance unstable and that's when I fell.

All I wanted at this point was to stay in my afterlife. I didn't want to face her. I was ashamed in myself but I couldn't escape her. I heard her voice and looked into the distance. There she was surrounded by the darkness of my afterlife. She ran into my arms and held me tight. She was crying but she still managed to look up at me and scream out words I never thought I'd hear. "I LOVE YOU TOO, STUPID! Please... stop taking your life..." A tear trailed down my cheek, followed by many others as I tightened my arms around her. We were a ball of tears at this point but slowly, we calmed down.

We stayed in each others arms, she felt cold but she seemed to be unbothered by it. "How did you get here?" I queried in a crackled voice because of all the crying.

She gave a bitter smile. "Well... I only have one life. I've always had only one life but I chose to give it to you. To save you from yourself."

"So you... took it. You took your life to meet with me here. Why?" My voice started to waver as tears built up in my eyes.

"I think you know the answer to that already. When you love someone, you'd do anything for them." I held her tight, now afraid that if I let her go, she'd disappear. "Felix..." She pat my hair and placed her lips briefly on mine. Her lips were as soft as they looked but the kiss sadly didn't last long. "I can't stay here long. I'm fading." She held out her hand that started to go translucent. "I will be put in my own afterlife soon but I want you to live on for the rest of your life. I want you to value living. Can you do that for me?"

I nodded as she wiped the tears from my eyes with her thumbs. "Maybe someday we'll meet again. Never give up hope." With one more kiss placed delicately on my lips, she had faded into the nothingness and I had awoken in the living world again... without her by my side.

-.-.-.-