Drowning in the Distance

XXXI | Y/N

"What happened to winging it, Y/N? Doing it 'Yeji Style'?" Karina says, nudging me playfully. I glance up from my detailed itinerary, laughing as I carefully fold it and put it into my back pocket.

"Rome wasn't built in a day." I smirk at her and Tzuyu, proud of my Vatican City joke. "Get it? Rome?" Tzuyu laughs, rolling her eyes.

"New lungs, same lame sense of humour. I mean, really, they couldn't have replaced your, I don't know, your... funnybox while you were out cold?" I take a deep breath at her words, my lungs effortlessly expanding and contracting. It's still so wonderful, I can hardly believe it.

These past ten months have been bittersweet, to say the least. My new lungs are amazing, the physical pain of the surgery gradually giving way to a whole new life. My parents are back together, and we're all finally starting to mend, too. Like my new lungs, it hasn't fixed everything that's broken. The losses of Yeji and Jaemin, as well as Renjun, are pains I don't think I'll ever fully get over. Just like I know that no matter what, some part of me will never get over Haechan. And that's okay. The pain reminds me that they were here, that I'm alive. Thanks to Lee Donghyuck I have so much more life to live. So much more time. Aside from his love, it was the greatest gift I could ever receive. And I can't believe now that I almost didn't take it.

I thank Mark, the original owner of my lungs, every second of every day. It felt weird at first, having something that belonged so absolutely to another person inside of my body, breathing inside of me, for me, but I adjusted. I met his family a few months after the transplant, allowing them to engulf me the way that they didn't get to with their son, their brother, to say goodbye. They told me everything about the boy whose lungs were now a part of me. They told me how Mark had been such an awkward kid, but how his laughter lit up the room, how people just gravitated towards him. His parents showed me photos, and we laughed together, my new lungs expelling borrowed air, and we cried together, my new lungs wracking with sobs. Mark had been involved in a car accident, a drunk driver striking his small four-door on the highway after spinning out; a head-on collision at 80 miles an hour. They told me that he'd felt no pain, that it hadn't hurt. It was instantaneous, just like it had been for Yeji, just like she told me. I told Mark's parents about Yeji. They said that she sounded like the kind of person Mark would love, that he would have liked a little more spontaneity. Who knows, maybe Mark and Yej will find each other... wherever they are.

I gaze around the airport at the high ceilings and the wide windows, excitement coursing through my veins as we walk to gate 17 for our flight to Rome. A trip I can finally take. To Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel and the first of so many things I want to do and see. It isn't with Yeji, and I certainly won't be crossing off that... particular item on Haechan's bucket list, but just going makes me feel closer to them both. I realize as we walk that I'm setting the pace, Karina and Tzuyu following right behind. I would have keeled over from this much walking a few months ago, but now it feels like I could just keep going and going.

"Everyone in for a picture!" Karina says when we find our gate, holding up her phone as we squeeze together, smiling big for the camera. After the flash we pull apart and I glance down at my phone to see a picture from my mum of my dad eating breakfast, his eggs and bacon in the shape of a sad face with the caption:

MISS YOU ALREADY, Y/N! Send pictures!

I laugh, nudging Karina. She looks down at my phone, eyes scanning over the messages as she snorts.

"Hey, make sure you send that to my parents. They'll find that absolutely..." My voice trails off as I see that her mouth is open in shock, and she's staring at Tzuyu.

"What? Did I do that thing with my face again?" Tzuyu asks, sighing loudly. "I don't know why I keep smiling like that-" Karina holds up her hand to cut her off, her eyes flicking urgently to a big group of people waiting to board their plane, finally focusing on something behind me. Tzuyu inhales sharply. I turn around, following her gaze, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as my eyes travel down the long line of people.

My heart begins to beat faster when my eyes land on Johnny. And then I know. I know he's there even before I see him.

Lee Donghyuck.

I stand, frozen in place as he looks up and our eyes lock, the familiar deep brown that I've dreamed about for so long almost knocking me off my feet. He's still sick, portable oxygen slung over his shoulder, his face gaunt and tired. It's almost a physical pain to see him like this, to feel my lungs filling anew when his can't.

But then his mouth turns up into that boxy smile, his eyes glittering, and the world melts away. It's Haechan. It's Hyuck. It's really him. He's sick, but alive. We both are.

I take a deep, unhindered breath and walk over to him, stopping exactly six feet away from him. His eyes are warm as he takes me in, his grin not faltering in the slightest as he scans me from head to toe. No portable oxygen, no difficulty breathing, no nose cannula, no 'drowning in my own mucus' as he so poetically described it so long ago.

I'm practically a different Y/N than I was 10 months ago.

Except for one thing.

I let out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding, my lips pulling upward. I grin cheekily at him and take just that one more stolen step, until we're five feet apart.