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His legs feel heavy.
As if they’re glued to the pavement—maybe they are, for all Sieun knows. He’s made of stone, and if he takes one more step, he’s certain he’ll fracture—crumble into dust.
He’s sure he’s going to wake up.
Any moment now, he’ll open his eyes to the darkness of his room—alone—and all of this will have been nothing but a dream.
But then, a firm hand rests on his shoulder.
A voice urges him forward.
He recognizes Humin’s voice somewhere in the back of his mind—he knows his friends are there, surrounding him, supporting him—but in this moment, all of that fades into the background.
Because there he is.
Suho. Sitting in a wheelchair, his face turned away.
His black hair gleams under the bright sunlight.
And he is beautiful, so beautiful.
Sieun once read that the brain can recognize a familiar face in less than a second—a flash of neural lightning firing through the fusiform gyrus.
But how can he explain that it’s not his brain, but his heart that’s pounding now—hammering against his ribs, loud and unrelenting, at the mere sight of him?
Suho could’ve been anyone—but his heart would recognize him anywhere.
Sieun moves.
It’s not a conscious decision.
Just motion—like a reflex, like instinct.
According to Newton’s first law, an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force.And for Sieun, that force has always been Suho.
One step, then another—drawn forward without thought, without breath.Suho doesn’t even have to turn around to pull Sieun in like gravity.
Maybe it’s that same force that stops him just a few meters away, holding him in place before he can collide with him—as if the universe itself knows he wouldn’t survive the impact.
But then Suho turns his head.
His eyes find him.
Everything stills. Something still explodes
Sieun had to remind himself to breathe.
Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
It’s a simple pattern—predictable, measurable.
A fact of biology. Something he can control.
Except—his breaths come out ragged.
Too fast. Too shallow.
Like his lungs can’t keep up with what’s standing in front of him.
“You been alright?”
It’s the sound of his voice that does it—the way it cuts through the noise, familiar and warm.Sieun’s throat tightens instantly, so hard it hurts.
The voice messages saved on his phone—the ones he played on loop in the dead of night—they don’t come close to this.
Not even remotely.
This is real.
Suho is real.
Here. Now.
He swallows once. Then again.
Each attempt feels like choking down everything he’s kept buried for so long.
The grief. The guilt. The hope.
It all lodges in his chest, making words impossible.
So he hums instead—a quiet, broken sound.
The only thing he can manage. What could he even say?
How do you answer a question like that?
He hasn’t been alright.
Not even close.
Not until now.
Not until Suho opened his eyes.
But like always, Suho doesn’t press.
He had always understood him like that.
“Who are those guys behind you?” he asks instead, his gaze drifting past Sieun’s shoulder.
“My friends,” Sieun replies quietly.
It’s the first time he’s allowed himself to say those words out loud. But he wants Suho to hear them. Because of you, he wants to add. Because of you, I know what that means. You taught me what it feels like to have friends.
Suho’s gaze lingers on him—long and warm, just like he remembers.
“That’s awesome,” his best friend finally says, the corners of his mouth lifting. I’m proud of you.
Without thinking about it,
Sieun smiles. A real smile.
It’s awkward, crooked—not fully formed—but it’s there, blooming quietly on his lips.
Suho smiles back—in that familiar, annoyingly endearing way that had always make him feel lighter.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, the world shifts back into place.
Every wrong is righted.
And if the sky were to fall, if the world were to end right then—it wouldn’t matter.
Because Suho is alive, smiling, speaking.
The pressure in his chest, the suffocating weight around his heart, lifts—and in its place, something else settles: relief. Raw, pure, and devastatingly good.
But then, all at once, it becomes too much—too perfect, too good to be real.
Sieun can’t breathe. Can’t keep it together.
The sob tears out of him without warning—raw and uncontrollable.
The tears follow, and they don’t stop.
They fall and fall, no matter how hard he tries to hold them back. But it’s useless.
The last time Sieun had let himself feel this much, Suho had just been laid up in that hospital bed—and all he could do was stand there, helpless, not knowing if the next breath Suho took might be his last.
And for a moment, he’s right back there—grief carved into his bones, worry knotted tight in his chest.
And he’s crying.
And it’s pathetic, and stupid, and—above all—embarrassing. He should be laughing. Smiling longer. Saying something light, anything.
Instead, he’s just standing there awkwardly, hands covering his face like a child.
And Sieun hates himself for it—because Suho doesn’t deserve this.
He doesn’t need Sieun falling apart like this, not now.
Not after waking up from a coma.
Not after losing two fucking years of his life.
"I'm so sorry, Suho-yah."
The words barely make it out—muffled by his hands, drowned beneath his sobbing.
He’d said them a thousand times in his head.
Whispered them to an unconscious Suho a thousand more. And still, they’re not enough.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
“Sieun-ah.”
Because of me, Sieun thinks. Because of me. The guilt is still there—crushing, unrelenting—yet Suho is smiling at him.
Not angry.
Not even a little.
And he could be. He should be.
“Sieun-ah.”
If he’d stopped him that night. If he’d just said something. If they hadn’t been friends—
“Yah! Yeon Sieun!”
Sieun’s head snaps up, tears blurring his vision.
And Suho is there. Right next to him.
Eyes red and aching, staring up from his wheelchair.
His hand finds Sieun’s wrist, fingers curling gently around it. And then, softly, he pulls him closer, thumb brushing the skin inside Sieun’s wrist.
And Sieun wonders if Suho can see it.
How broken he is.
If he can see the selfishness hiding behind his eyes—because Sieun doesn’t deserve this kindness. But God, he still wants it.
He wants to be held in it. Drowned in it.
“I’m sorry,” Sieun chokes out, voice thick and uneven.
“I shouldn’t… It’s my fault. I wish—I wish I—”
“STOP, YEON SIEUN!"
Suho’s voice cracks through the air like a whip—sharp, commanding.
Sieun’s lips part, breath catching—his words stuck in his throat.
For a second, everything freezes.
This is it, he thinks.
The moment Suho tells him to leave.
To walk away.
But instead—
Suho’s hand finds his, fingers intertwining with such gentleness it nearly breaks Sieun all over again.
Like he’s something precious.
Like he matters.
“Stop,” Suho repeats—softer now, almost a plea.
“Please, Sieun-ah. Just stop.”
Sieun exhales shakily.
Suho’s gaze is steady. Gentle. Laced with pain. And guilt.
“Look at you,” Suho murmurs, clicking his tongue.
“I knew it. I knew it even back then—how warm-hearted you are.” He hesitates, then adds, barely above a whisper, “But please… don’t cry. I don’t know what to do when you look like this.”
And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?
From the beginning, Sieun could never say no to him.
Not when Suho looks at him like that.
Not when his voice shakes like that.
This boy carved a place inside him a long time ago—A place no one else has ever fit
"Who made my Sieunie such a crybaby, huh?" Suho mutters, reaching up to wipe away the tears on Sieun’s cheeks.
The old Sieun would’ve died from embarrassment.
But this Sieun…
This Sieun had missed Suho so much that he doesn’t care.
“Shut… up,” Sieun mumbles, half-heartedly, between hiccups still shaking his chest.
Because this is them—Suho, who makes dumb jokes, and Sieun, who pretends he doesn’t like them.
Suho laughs—watery, sad.
“I’m sorry, Sieun-ah,” he whispers.“I scared you, didn’t I?”
“I thought—” Sieun swallows, his voice breaking.
“I’m here now.”
Suho’s hand finds the back of his neck—warm, grounding.
I’m here. I’m here.
And Sieun lets those words sink in.
Let them drown out the fear.
The ache.
The loneliness.
Because in the end, that’s what matters.
“Are you okay now?” Suho asks gently.
There’s a crease in his brow, worry etched deep. And Sieun feels guilt twist in his gut—for making him worry.
“I should be asking you that,” Sieun mutters, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.They’re probably red and puffy.
Suho chuckles. “Can you blame me? You were crying like I just woke up from the dead.”
Sieun glares. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Yeah,” Suho murmurs, his smile softening. “But you missed me.”
Sieun turns away, not trusting himself to meet his gaze.
The old Sieun would’ve denied it.
Would’ve pushed him away.
But this one…
He squeezes Suho’s hand.
Yes, he wants to say. I missed you so much it hurt.
The breeze brushes past his face, rustling the trees around them.
And that’s when Sieun notices—how quiet it’s become. His friends are gone.
He wonders if they saw him cry.
If they saw all of it. Suho sighs, pulling him back into the moment.
Sieun looks at him—and for the first time, really sees him.
His hair is longer.
His face pale. Drawn.
And he looks so, so tired.
Suho stares down at their hands, voice barely a whisper.
“Is your arm okay now?”
Sieun blinks. For a second, he doesn’t understand.
Then it hits—like ice down his spine.
That’s where Suho’s memory ends.
That night.
The cast.
Oh Beom-seok.
Time stopped for Suho that day.
But Sieun?
He had to crawl through the aftermath. Alone.
“It’s fine,” he mutters.
Silence.
The weight of everything they’re not saying presses down.
Then—
“I’d do it again,” Suho says, meeting his eyes. “You know that, right?”
The words land like a punch.
Sieun goes still.
Something inside him snaps.
The rage.
The screams.
The bitterness he’s swallowed for months—
They surge to the surface.
“Don’t say that,” he growls, voice shaking. “Don’t you fucking say that.”
He yanks his hand away.
Suho’s hand flinches toward the empty spnace, then curls into a fist.
Jaw tight, he stares down.
“I don’t regret it,” he mutters.
Sieun can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“You almost died,” he chokes out. “You think that’s brave? You think that’s something to be proud of?!”
“I had to,” Suho says quietly, stubbornly.
“I didn’t need you to!” Sieun snaps. “I didn’t ask you to jump in like some reckless idiot and nearly get yourself killed!”
Silence settles between them like a wire pulled too tight. Pain flashes across Suho’s face—and Sieun instantly wants to take the words back.
But he doesn’t.
Suho scoffs. “Oh, fuck off, Sieun. You’re such a fucking hypocrite.”
“What—”
“You heard me!” Suho fires back. “You went in my place that day. You threw yourself into it without thinking. I didn’t ask you to do that either, did I?!”
“That was different—”
“No, it wasn’t!” Suho shouts. “You act like you’re the only one allowed to take the fall for people you care about. But when I do it for you? Suddenly I’m reckless. Suddenly I’m selfish?!”
Sieun’s fists clench. His whole body is trembling.
He doesn’t know if he wants to cry, scream, or hit something.
Maybe all three
“I don’t know when it started… but I knew. I knew it the first time I saw you smile. You know what I thought? Who is this guy, hiding behind all that cold, serious bullshit—when deep down he’s so fucking warm it hurts to look at him?”
“Stop,” Sieun murmured, but his voice cracked.
Suho didn’t ststop.
“What kind of person throws himself into danger like that? What kind of idiot gets hurt protecting me?” His voice broke—rough, uneven, unraveling with every word. “Why the fuck couldn’t it be me instead?”
Sieun’s breath caught in his throat.
“The thought of you being in pain…” Suho continued, voice shaking, “it made everything else disappear. Logic. Fear. Control. Gone.”
He let out a bitter smile—crooked, pained.
“When I saw what they did to your arm… I didn’t even think. I just acted. They didn’t deserve to breathe, not after that. Because facing them—hurting them—was easier than facing the truth. That I failed you. That I wasn’t enough to keep you safe.”
His voice dropped to a whisper, eyes lowering to his lap.
“And in the end… I didn’t protect you.”
Sieun’s eyes darkened.
“I never needed your protection,” he hissed. “I never asked for it.”
“And I never asked for yours either, Sieun-ah!” Suho snapped, his voice sharp and trembling.
“But you still went there in my place. You still threw yourself between me and everything like a fucking idiot. Why would you do that unless it was for the same goddamn reason I did?”
Sieun opened his mouth—
But nothing came out.
Suho shut his eyes, face contorted with something raw—something that looked like agony and shame twisted together.
“I woke up this morning in that hospital bed,” he said quietly, voice hollow, distant. “And the first thing I thought—the very first fucking thing—was ‘Sieun’s going to be worried.’”
A pause.
“But it turns out… I wasn’t unconscious for a day. Or a week. It was two fucking years.”
“Suho-yah—”
“I opened my eyes and everything had changed. Just like that.”
His voice broke again, fragile and distant.
“But I wasn’t scared of that. Not the thought that my body might never be what it was, or that the world had moved on without me. I was scared that you had. That you had forgotten me.”
In retrospect, Sieun thinks—
It’s a cruel joke.
The first time Suho ever hears him laugh out loud,
It’s bitter.
Humorless.
Ugly.
A sound carved from pain.
“Forgotten you?” Sieun echoes, the words spilling from his mouth like shattered glass. “Forgotten you?” he repeats, slower this time
“You think I—” He swallows, voice cracking.
The thought doesn’t even register. It’s so absurd, so far from the truth, that it almost makes him laugh again.
Almost.
“To think I could ever forget you…”
He shakes his head, breath hitching.
“I was there, Suho. Every time I could be. Sitting next to your bed like some fucking idiot waiting for a miracle. I talked to you. I yelled at you. I begged you.”
His voice breaks.
“And even when I wasn’t there—I wasn’t anywhere else either. Because you were still in my head. Every damn second. Like a ghost haunting every place we used to go. You were everywhere.”
He laughs again, but it’s still not a happy sound.
“And you think I forgot you?” His eyes flash. “Even in a coma, you still managed to piss me off.”
Suho lets out a shaky breath—half-laugh, half-sob.
"You almost died, Suho…” he whispers. “You think I’ve been okay since then? You think I sleep at night? You think I don’t see you in that hospital bed every time I close my fucking eyes?”
Suho’s breath catches. “Sieun-ah—”
“No.” Sieun shakes his head, stepping back.
“I’m mad at you, you know?” his voice cracks. “I was fine. I was perfectly fine. I could handle everything alone. I didn’t need anyone. And then you showed up and made me feel like I belonged somewhere—”
He swallows hard.
“Like I mattered. Not because of my grades. Not because I fit some mold my parents wanted— But because I was me.”
“Sieun-ah,” Suho says, but Sieun isn’t listening..
“And then you were gone. And I was alone again. I kept telling myself I should be fine. That I could just go back to the way things were before. But the truth is, I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking do it. I was right back in that same cold, hollow place that used to be enough. But suddenly, it wasn’t. Suddenly, everything felt off. Wrong. Pathetic, isn’t it? I wanted to hate you for that. You know?, I wanted to hate you so damn much—for making me need you the way I do. For making me feel things I never asked for"
Sieun clenched his hands into fist "But the thing is… I can’t. No matter how hard I try. So congrats, Suho. You ruined me. You turned me into someone who doesn’t know how to breathe right unless you’re here. You made me so fucking helpless without you—. And I hate it. I hate that I don’t hate you for it.”
By the time Sieun stopped talking, he was breathless, fists clenched tight at his sides.
Suho stared at him, unmoving. The look in his eyes was piercing—so full of something raw and unreadable that Sieun had to step back, like it physically hurt to be seen like that.
Suho’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the silence like a blade.
“So you don’t hate me, huh?”
He rolled the wheelchair forward, slow but deliberate, until Sieun was standing right in front of him, forced to look down.
“Then what is it?” he asked, gaze never wavering.
His tone was softer now,
“Why don’t you just called for what it is Sieun-ah?”
A pause.
Sieun shot him a cold glare.
“Stop,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
He shouldn’t have come. He should’ve stayed away—should’ve let Suho return to the easy life he had before, the one where he was the cool, untouchable guy who didn’t have to deal with Sieun and all his mess.
Without Sieun and his burdensome feelings.
Without Sieun and the chaos that always seemed to follow
“You don’t get to do this,” Sieun hissed. “You don’t get to look at me like that. Like you want answers you already know.”
Suho didn’t flinch. “Then say it.”
Sieun's jaw tensed. He turned away, blinking hard. He didn't speak.
“Say it, Yeon Sieun!”
“What’s the point?”
“I want to hear it from you,” Suho said, voice shaking. “I want to know if…”
He faltered, pressing his lips together like the words tasted like blood. And then, barely audible:
"…Please say you love me.”
Suho’s voice fractures.
It’s raw. Shaking. Desperate in a way Sieun has never heard before.
And that’s what undoes him.
Not the words.
Not even the plea.
But the look in Suho’s eyes—like he’s on the edge of something, and Sieun’s answer is the only thing holding him back from falling apart completely.
Sieun feels his throat close.
He doesn’t know how to say it.
Not when his chest is burning and his pulse is a thunderstorm.
Not when he’s spent years building walls just to keep people from getting to close to him.
But Suho is still looking at him.
He is Suho.
And he is still waiting.
Still hoping.
And Sieun can’t take it anymore.
So, without looking at him, Sieun exhales—slow and quiet—and lets the words fall.
“I do."
Simple. Bare.
But it’s real.
Suho doesn’t speak. Doesn’t breathe. Like he’s waiting to be sure he heard it right.
So Sieun says it again—just barely above a whisper.
“I do love you. You heard me?”
It’s not romantic.
Not dramatic.
Just a quiet truth, dragged out of him like blood from a wound.
Suho lets out a breath that sounds more like a sob.
His shoulders tremble. His hands clutch the sides of the wheelchair like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
Sieun can see it—see the weight of everything Suho’s been carrying.
And suddenly, it’s too much
He’s angry. So angry. But underneath that—
He’s terrified.
Terrified that this moment will pass, and Suho will vanish again.
Terrified that he’ll lose him all over again, in a thousand slower, crueler ways.
“I’m not good at this,” Sieun says, voice low. “I don’t know how to say all the right things like you do. I don’t know how to—”
“You don’t have to,” Suho cuts in, eyes shining. “I just want you. Just you.”
And that’s it.
That’s what snaps the last thread of restraint.
Sieun moves without thinking, without planning—
One step. Two.
Then he’s grabbing the collar of Suho’s hoodie, dragging him forward with a force that borders on desperation.
And he kisses him.
Hard.
It’s not soft. It’s not pretty.
It’s not the kind of kiss you read about in books.
It’s teeth and breath and two years of agony spilled into a single moment.
Suho gasps against his mouth, hands rising to cling to him, helpless and hungry and alive.
And Sieun kisses him like it’s the only way he knows how to stay.
When he finally pulls back, both of them are breathless.
Their foreheads touch. Their eyes don’t meet.
Sieun swallows.
“That’s your answer,” he murmurs.
A pause.
Then Suho lets out a shaky laugh, barely held together by the remnants of everything they didn’t say.
“Yeah,” he whispers smiling. “You never really were one for words."
And for the first time in what felt like forever,
Sieun didn’t feel like he had to be.
Because in that moment—With Suho’s hands on him and the weight of silence finally gone—
He could finally breathe.