Miracle in Summer [HaruKyu FF]

Chapter 8

Haruto's eyes moved underneath his eyelids, his lips tugged to a smile. He just had a sweet dream on his unplanned, long nap. He let out a content sigh and brought the soft bundle inside his arms closer. He felt a little bit cold and needed to get the warmth of the person he was hugging.

Except, it wasn't a person. The thing inside his arms wasn't breathing. It was soft but not warm, and definitely couldn't breathe. He stretched his arm out, skimmed the bed with the palm as far as he could, hoping it would reach the warmth he was looking for. But nothing. His side was empty.

He shot open his eyes and sat up in the bed with a gasp. "Hyung!" He called as he threw the pillow he was hugging away to the side. He tilted his head, moved it around like a broken wooden puppet.

"Hyung!" He called louder. He tried to pick up any noise but there was none, other than from his own hands against the bedsheet.

Haruto stayed still and kept quiet for a while as he closed his eyes. He holds his breath, focusing on his senses. He only needed a small sign, a small feeling he had whenever the older stared at him. He wasn't sure how and why, he only know his hands and the tip of his fingers pricked with a feeling of electricity, crawled up his arms and his whole body, making him feel vivid, alive and somehow making him feel he was being wanted and needed, every time Junkyu scrutinized him with his eyes.

No one ever gave him such feelings before. Not when he hadn't lost his sight, and even more after he lost them. Being wanted and needed by someone was nowhere in his vocabulary after his accident. It was the other way around. No one wants him and it is always him who needs someone. Sometimes, it made him feel unworthy, it made him feel he was three feet tall.

He sighed, shook his head, then ran his hand through his coal black hair. He pushed himself backward until his back touched the headboard. He sighed again before he spoke, "I know you're here, somewhere in this room. Come here, please."

Junkyu was indeed inside the room. Sitting on a sofa, at the darker side of the room, where a small bedside lamp, the only source of light in the entire bedroom, won't reach him. He hugged his knees like he was last night, staring at sleeping Haruto for the past hour. His hands were no longer wrapped in gauze. He had taken them off the moment he saw them.

What was the use of wound dressing if it can't heal anything? A hundred band-aids won't even enough to fix his broken self.

The second he found himself lying down inside the younger arms, he immediately backed out, quietly curled into a ball in the corner, trying to stay as far as he could from the man he was aware had given him the comfort he didn't need.

He lied.

A silent part, the very quiet and pleading part of him, wanted to let go of his worries, ego, and pride, and accept the fact that he needed the comfort. But he couldn't let that happen, knowing well that nothing good was to follow.

What happened to him last night was a reminder. At the end of the day, everyone is going to think of him as a worthless muted, a burden. Everyone is going to leave him as he deserved. He was a murderer, a monster, he deserved no kindness or care from anyone.

It felt worse with Haruto. He felt the attraction he wasn't supposed to have towards the younger. Haruto was something impossible for him to obtain, no matter how much he wanted it. He didn't want to relive and endure another memory of losing someone important that broke him apart and ripped at his flesh until he was metaphorically bleeding out.

He shouldn't have asked Haruto to read for him. He shouldn't have brought him to his house and made himself vulnerable to him. He should have left the moment he saw Haruto at the beach the day they met for the first time because now he felt like he couldn't go through a single day without him.