my last words to you

hello...

it was late november and junhui wrapped his dark jumper tightly around his torso, attempting to put heat into his body as he took slow steps through the gloomy shadowed corridor. the hospital corridors weren’t normally this cold but due to temperatures dropping outside, the rawness of outside seeped its way throughout the building. junhui had been visiting the hospital every day for around five months and three days, he had been counting every single day. as he walked through, the undisturbed corridors of the other patients suffering just like his boyfriend was, drove junhui to insane heartache. 

shuffling his feet around the corner and past a small bench placed outside of another empty hospital room, junhui arrived at the door he had come into contact many of times before. after taking a deep breath, the taller dark-haired boy peered around the wooden sterilized door to see if any nurses were around to do their daily examinations on minghao.

but to junhui’s delight, today there were no nurses within sight. it was just himself and minghao for the first time in a while.

minghao had been suffering from an illness the hospital soon came to discover that the younger had been living with from a very young age. without an actual explanation as to how this came around, or what it was, there was no cure. well, so the doctors had said after the first month of minghao being rushed into hospital after collapsing during their weekend dance practises and not waking up for two weeks. this was all behind the reason they never got to be alone. although, the younger boy was never awake due to him being put into an induced coma shortly after they diagnosed him for tests to be done, so it was never as if the nurses stopped them from talking.  

the smaller boy lay peacefully in the white linen sheets of the hospital bed. his once deep dark eyes closed over, and his long eyelashes laid perfectly above his cheekbone which sat out, structuring his face. the darkness of his hair contrasted against his snow coloured skin and his plump pink lips were now cracked, tinted a light shade of purple. minghao’s face was sunken, and his collarbone prominently sat out, averting the attention from his facial features.

junhui pulled a chair over beside the younger boy, sitting down slowly, afraid to move too fast in case he made a collision with the machines connected to minghao. he reached his hand over and lifted the smaller’s stone cold hand into his as slow as he could manage. the older boy was not only scared of hitting the machines but was scared in case he broke one of the younger’s bones due to him being so frail. after giving minghao's hand a gentle reassuring squeeze, a warm tear rolled down the older boy's tanned face. junhui wiped it away quickly with the sleeve of his black jumper and quickly retreated his arm back around his body. a heavy sigh escaped his lips as he looked down at his lap.

"hey hao..." junhui whispered, not wanting to talk too loudly in case the nurses heard him. "i really miss you." looking back up at the younger boy, the knot in junhui's throat grew tighter, attempting to hold back a loud sob.

"i wish," junhui stopped for a moment, he recollected himself before continuing. “...i wish that you would wake up for me. come on minghao, it has been five months, you aren't normally this late." junhui smiled weakly at his remark as tears continued uncontrollably rolling down his face. he didn’t care anymore about crying, he had been holding it in the whole time and it had been tearing junhui apart piece by piece. still looking at the younger, he sat and waited for a reply, or even a smile from the pale boy. but instead silence was the only thing that filled the room.

it was no longer minghao's soft laughter that filled junhui's ears or the loud humming of a song junhui had heard so many times but minghao was humming so he didn’t mind. nor was it the younger boy’s music playing loudly through his earphones which would have been left on the counter. it was just silence.

the only thing that could be heard was soft footprints of the nurses scurrying around outside of the door, attending to the other sick patients, and the constant quiet beeps from his heart monitor connected to the younger, giving junhui the slight hope minghao will awake soon.

junhui looked at the black watch tied around his thin wrist. he had an hour before visiting hours were over. another hour of sitting in a white walled room next to the person he cared about the most. next to the only person who believed in him whenever junhui felt worthless. the only person who kept junhui smiling through the toughest of times and the one person who truly cared for and loved junhui.

the older boy stood up. he decided to look through the small cabinet situated beside the younger’s hospital bed to see if any of his belongings needed taken home due to minghao not being able to use them for a while or just to be nosey as he really had nothing else to be doing. kneeling down after opening the small drawer, junhui pushed aside medical forms that had been stuffed in by the nurses, and rummaged through looking for the things he knew minghao owned.

after pushing past old packets of tissues and three pairs of broken headphones junhui had left there himself, the dark-haired boy lifted out what looked like a small photo album hidden deep at the back. junhui closed over the drawer and paced back around to where he was situated originally. placing himself into the red hospital armchair, he looked over the cover with glossy eyes and ran his longer slender fingers across it, admiring the detail of the front page.

...