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What is it with people’s obsession with time? What makes them look so dazedly into the hands of a ticking clock? What mesmerizes them to the point where they set alarms accurate to the second? It’s utter rubbish. Rubbish.
Why do other people get to enjoy time, while Changkyun is stuck in his endless loop?
Sometimes he wonders if things could have been different.
In another life, Changkyun imagines bright blue skies across a colorful field. A plain expanse of grass, dotted with the blue of peonies, the yellow of daffodils, and the white of carnations. The wind blows south, and Changkyun has to shield his eyes from the brightness of the sun.
“Changkyunnie!”
Hyungwon stands in the center of it all, blond hair in a great disarray on top of his head. He smiles, the apples of his cheeks high on his cheekbones, the curve of his lips ever so wide, the corners of his eyes crinkled just so. Changkyun absorbs the picture into his memory. Absorbs the pink of Hyungwon’s flush, the brightness of his eyes.
Hyungwon looks majestic in his beauty.
And then at night, when the sun has settled and the moon peeks out from the clouds, Changkyun crafts false memories of beauty — the midnight blue sky, splattered with a smothering of twinkling stars that glow, the dark green of the field, with spots of yellow from a couple of fireflies buzzing past. The landscape is a beautiful dark violet, with the moonlight illuminating rare patches here and there.
“Changkyun.”
Hyungwon is there, too, inches apart from himself. His blond hair now white from the rays of the moon, his features outlined by the shadows that the night casts on him. Hyungwon is smiling, still, and his grin is so, so wide that Changkyun reaches out to touch his cheek but the memory dissolves into the air, and he is left with nothing, nothing, nothing.
But for this endless loop.
It’s midnight, and the room is a dull grey. The green of the electrocardiograph is stark against the darkness, and the machine makes constant beeping noises that fills Changkyun’s head over, and over, and over.
“Hyung...”
The rhythm has never changed — it drives him absolutely insane. It has been two years, and the rhythm has not changed since the day they came. It is constant — perhaps a reminder that Hyungwon is holding on but barely. A reminder of the promise he now regrets.
“Yeah?”
Changkyun sits on the chair they’ve provided, unmoving, staring at the steady rise and fall of Hyungwon’s chest. This is also another rhythm, inhale, and then the ECG beeps once, and then an exhale, another beep. It’s a little like music, except the track is endlessly repeating, puncturing its way into his brain like a needle — inhale, beep, exhale, beep.
“What do I do if you’re unresponsive?”
He’s been sitting here for god knows how long. These days, the weeks blur together into a messy tangle of time; the clock on the wall runs, but its little ticks are drowned out by the rumble of the ventilator that keeps Hyungwon alive. Sometimes Hoseok visits and Changkyun doesn’t even notice.
“Hmm... I don’t think it will ever get that bad, you know?”
“You should rest,” Hoseok would say, placing a comforting hand on his back, “it’s what he would have wanted of you, Changkyun-ah.”
“What if it does, hyung?”
Changkyun, then, to respond to Hoseok, would smile his bestest from his gallery of fake smiles, and says, “I want to stay, hyung.”
“Well, you’d have to stay with me, I guess.”
Hoseok looks at him sadly, “for how long?”
“How long, hyungie?”
Changkyun breaks their gaze. Chooses to stare at Hyungwon’s long eyelashes instead, delicate like glass butterflies that could shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces.
“Mmm... until the end, of course.”
“Until the end.” He answers Hoseok.
“...okay. I promise.”
Sometimes, the beeps get too loud. It’s like a sea: Changkyun tries to swim to the surface, but the sound waves submerges him over, and over, and over, and he is left gasping for breath, struggling to rise to the top where he would see the radiant sun again.
Times like that, he thinks of the piano.
He thinks of Hyungwon’s long digits as they glide across the black and white keys. Changkyun thinks of his shoulders as they move in rhythm with the music — jolts sharply when Hyungwon presses down hard on a key, rises gracefully when he touches the key feather light.
The image is beautiful.
And as a soft classical melody plays in the back of his mind, he tries to not think of the tubes on Hyungwon’s bruised hands. Of the various plasters on his arm where the IV had been connected prior. Of his unmoving shoulders.
Breathe. Do not drown.
The sky is bright blue, the fields are green. Changkyun raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, his jacket is occasionally ruffled by the south wind.
He checks his watch. It’s ten past twelve. The inconsistent rushes of the wind booms against his ears as he walks closer and closer to his destination.
He arrives, then, and from his tote he takes out a bouquet of daffodils, peonies, and carnations. The flowers are scattered, tangling with the small leaves that the florist had arranged earlier.
He stares at the gravestone — made of marble; so fragile, like it could shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces. Changkyun kneels, his knee touching the damp earth, and he places his forehead flush to the marble.
“I’m sorry.”
He sets the bouquet down, gently placing it atop the other wilted flowers on the earth, and stands up. He leaves, the rustling of the wind a cacophony in his eardrums, the ticking of his watch almost audible. A thousand unspoken words hang in the air, and yet Changkyun is silent.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”
Somewhere, in another place, someone shuts a file close. On the cover, it read:
Patient: 2601-b [CHAE, Hyung-won]
Request: halting life support.
Status:
accepted,processed, closed.
He checks the time on the wall. It’s easy now, with glowing digital clocks that appear on command. His own ECG beeps in time with his breathing. There is no one on the chair adjacent.
He closes his eyes. Lets the rhythm swallow him once more. Piercing, piercing, piercing — drowning, drowning, drowning.
What is it with people’s obsession with time?
Changkyun has all the time in the world.
As he exhales, he thinks, finally, he’s going home.
End.