The world doesn't end when you're alone, but it's much more bearable when there are people you can call home.
"He held me when I thought I was dying-and I was holding him when he begged me to let him die."
A soulmate AU in which everything you write...
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Bang Christopher Chan
Chan hated crying, hated the proof of his sadness. His eyes would swell, his top lip would be slick with snot, and his cheeks would feel tacky under dried tears. It never made him feel better. It made him feel gross. He would rather trap the feeling in his body than it be pulled out of him. But on a day like this, he couldn't avoid it.
He clutched his phone in his hand, a set of pictures of a girl and her friends celebrating on the screen. She was older than he remembered, not far from being grown. Her hair was longer, smile finally straight, and her feed was littered with signs of a flourishing personality.
His sister was still a child when he moved overseas. His baby brother even younger. Now his family was celebrating her birthday while he took it in through pictures.
Most of the time it was embarrassing to text his parents while he was still here. Too embarrassing to text the siblings that barely remember him. He had nothing to show for the time he had missed out in their lives. It was shameful. It was humiliating.
I'll be too busy to call today, but tell sis I said happy birthday. Tell the kids I love them and miss them.
They say they love you too
He didn't know if it was just formality for them to say or if they really meant it. He didn't know how they could love him when they barely knew him.
Chan closed out his apps and buried his face in his hands, not bothering to wipe away the tears that had formed. He could not bare being on social media for very long. It only made him feel sick, seeing his childhood friends starting their lives while he's still practicing. Holding onto someday.
A sob clawed it's way out of him, before he could even muffle it. It made his skin itch, and it would be easier to give in. But he couldn't.
Chan had asked Changbin once if he had ever received a scar from his soulmate. Rationally, he knew that marks of injury did not transfer, only marks from writing or drawing did, but it was still something that paranoid him. It would be a shame to make his soulmate wear the burden of his own weakness.
Changbin's soulmate was decidedly not clumsy, something that didn't surprise Chan. He was too put together and responsible to end up with any large scars. Changbin told him he's been like that since they were kids. Changbin instead asked his soulmate if he wore any scars at the hands of Changbin.
It was a relief that the response was negative.
Staining the softness of his soulmate still made him feel guilty. He had been told once,
i think my biggest fear is one of us dying before we can meet
It was the same day Chan decided to get clean, the same day he decided to fight back and not be overcome by his depression. And it was—extremely extremely hard. But he could not do that to his soulmate, he was not that cruel. He could fight, he could survive rather than live, so his soulmate would never feel the way he did. He was smart enough to know at this point, his soulmate was the reason he was still alive. The thing that tethered him to this world. It was not fair to put on him, but it had to be enough.
