Fearless Voyage | Soonhoon

Untold feelings

It happened without any sort of warning. It had been just like any normal day. They were in Woozi's room. The latter decided to take his mask off and they had spent hours chattering about anything that would cross their mind, sometimes Woozi humming something from time to time.

It had been a good day, like how it always had.

But heaven turned into hell faster than one could blink.

All of a sudden, Woozi's face had started turning red, then blue, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. His respiration had become raspier and raspier, to the point that it wasn't anymore.

Woozi had stopped breathing.

So he simply couldn't start breathing again by himself. Ondine's curse was acting upon him.

His vitals had started going wild, his pulse-oximeter beeping madly, the nurses alarm ringing with no end. Hoshi ha sprang out of his seat. He wanted to help his friend. But he simply didn't know what to do. He didn't know how the respiratory machine worked.

"Shoot! I'm so useless. So, so useless..."

Flashbacks would suddenly come back to him, blinding him.

Seokmin...

His own breath was beginning to act up as he started quivering, feeling his legs go weak.

No... This couldn't happen. Not again.

Seokmin...

He didn't hear the nurses bursting into the room, nor the commotion that followed them as they all started working around the tiny suffocating boy.

All Hoshi could do was stare. But he couldn't see anything.

Seokmin...

Suddenly, he felt a pressure on his shoulder. Looking up, he locked gaze with a gentle-looking nurse.

"Hoshi boy, don't worry. Woozi's state came back to normal. Everything is alright."

As if he was brought back to his senses, Hoshi looked at his friend who was peacefully breathing through his mask, eyes fluttering open as if he had simply woken up from a mere dream. Rushing to his friend's side, he collapsed at the foot of his bed, not noticing that his view was blurred by his tears.

"Woozi! Woozi!" He cried in a broken voice, tugging at the bedsheets desperately. The said boy didn't answer, struggling to breathe properly. But he somehow managed to look at the crying boy. 

"It's so scary Woozi." Hoshi wiped his tears away against the blanket. He then looked up, lower lip wobbling. "It's so scary... not knowing when the ones you love die."

Woozi didn't say anything for a few minutes, simply gently stroking the sobbing boy's hair. He could feel his heart twitch at the sight. Why was this precious thing crying? Was it because of him? But he wasn't even worth those tears.

"I told you Hoshi, I am not scared to die."

Lies. It was all lies.

Until now, he had somehow convinced himself that he wasn't scared. But seeing Hoshi cry for him, care for him, made him feel loved.

He didn't want it to stop.

Not anymore.

He had finally found his reason to live. 

But now he was scared.

"I'm scared. Because I don't want to be apart from you."

Since that day, Woozi stopped singing. Not because he was afraid to die from singing. But because he had found something even more valuable than singing. And that something was something he wanted to live for.

Hoshi.

***

"I like it." Hoshi reached for the tiny hole-like scar, caressing it with the tip of his fingers. "It' so much more beautiful than all those inked numbers." He whispered with a dreamy stare. And it was true for Hoshi. Because of this scar, this pureness. It was what normality should look like, there were no numbers.

Woozi made Hoshi feel normal.

The vitals on the machine started beeping faster at the statement, signalling that Woozi's heartbeat was following this rhythm. It hurt. But Woozi pushed the thought aside. Because it was a good sort of pain. It meant that his heart was beating at a more human speed. It was beating as it normally should. Hoshi made him feel normal. Normal heartbeat. But he still liked it. 

"I like yours." Woozi refuted, letting his own hand linger on the unblemished skin of the boy's neck.

All of a sudden, Hoshi got up from his seat, tilting his head on the side and clumsily pressing his lips against his friend's soft ones. Woozi's eyes widened in shock. Hoshi was kissing him. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He brought his hand to his heart, focusing on his breathing. It was painful, but it felt good at the same time. 

So good.

He closed his eyes. If he had died at this moment, he would die happy.

It was a chaste kiss, but still a longing kiss full of untold feelings.

I like it. I like yours. I like you.

  And as unpredictably as it happened, it also stopped, Hoshi backed away, gaze still locked with Woozi's. 

" What was that?" The other whispered, failing to sound sassy.

"I don't know." He replied, failing as much. "You tell me."

"A promise?" The pink-haired boy's lips stretched in a discreet lopsided smile.

"Yeah, a promise." Hoshi liked the sound of it. "A promise that you'll live a long life."

"A promise that you'll stay by my side during this long life." Woozi completed.

"Promise."

'Promise..."

And their lips met again, still slightly shy, but utterly sincere. Even the sick boy's heart seemed to beat a tad faster. It did hurt, but it felt so good at the same time. A sweet and sour promise.

"...Sealed" He muttered, his breath tickling Hoshi's swollen lips, before replacing his mask on his face, gladly welcoming the air back into his lungs.

While there is hope, there is life.

But life has its cruel ways.