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Ischemic heart disease.
According to the doctors, Choi Seungcheol was dead before he hit the ground. One moment the group had been shooting a magazine cover photo, then Seungcheol had stumbled forward, a hand clutching his chest, and that was the end of it. A cardiac arrest.
Jeonghan hadn’t been there; he was miles and miles away performing his civil service. In a way he’s kind of glad. It would’ve been awful to watch his lover die, to try and shake him awake only for his eyes to remain closed, to see his colour fade. He wouldn’t be able to live with that image in his head, with the weight of that being the final moment they ever spent together.
Sometimes he wonders what Seungcheol felt in that final moment. Was he scared? Did he know what was happening? And those are the times where this unbearable guilt makes its way into Jeonghan’s gut. He should’ve been there, to hold him, to tell him it was okay.
But then again his presence wouldn’t have made a difference anyway because according to the doctors, Choi Seungcheol was dead before he hit the ground. Alive one second, gone the next. Logically he knows that's how everyone dies but it’s different when it’s Seungcheol. He had more life in him than anyone Jeonghan has ever known. The thought of him being dead, gone, somewhere that Jeonghan can’t follow, is incomprehensible.
But then again, pretty much every thing has felt incomprehensible these past few days.
Jeonghan doesn’t remember being told what had happened. As hard as he tries he can’t fill in the gap in his memory between being sat at his desk and arriving at the hospital. The one thing he does remember is seeing the members and some of their parents and siblings sat in the hallway outside of Seungcheol’s room. He remembers the way they’d all looked at him, tearful and pitying. There wasn’t a single person in that room who didn’t know about their relationship, it’s not hard to imagine what they were thinking while looking at him. He remembers the cold shame that had run through his bones as they took in his emotionless face, he remembers it well.
Seungcheol’s Eomma had asked him if he wanted to see the body, to say goodbye, and a cold fear, a primal terror raced through him. He shook his head. No. It was more of a knee jerk reaction than anything. There’s just no way he was going to go in there.
And then there’s another jump in his memory because suddenly he went from sitting down in the waiting room to waking up in his parents’ house. His mother was worried, she begged him to eat something and so he did, moving on auto pilot. He didn’t feel sad, or scared, or even numb. He didn’t feel anything. There was a vast nothingness inside of him, no heart, no lungs, no bones. Just skin.
It’s like he was braindead but fully conscious at the same time. His thoughts never seemed to go deeper than the surface level. He lived in each moment. He threw himself into funeral preparations, desperate to give his love the send off he deserved. It didn’t help that Seungcheol’s parents were too heartbroken to make certain decisions. The responsibility fell to Jeonghan but he didn’t mind, he was even thankful for the chance to do something other than stare at his ceiling feeling hollow inside.
And then suddenly he was alone at the living room table one evening, when the coffin had been bought and the location had been booked, and all that was left to do was write a speech. A speech about Seungcheol, the love of his life who was dead and gone and anlmost buried annd never coming back. He was staring down at the blank paper when a cold, uncomfortable, ache had settled in the empty mass in his chest. It hurt to breathe and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to get rid of it, that is until he’d abandoned the paper, blank and untouched, and found something else to occupy himself with.
In fact the feeling had come back every time he sat down to write a speech, so every time he walked away.
And the days had continued to fly by which was strange because time had been frozen for quite a while. He woke up everyday and he showered and he ate and he pretended not to notice the worried looks his Eomma kept giving him. He spent a lot of time doing nothing, just staring into the void, mind completely blank. He thought of nothing, not even Seungcheol. At some point during the blur of days Joshua had come over. He’d sat beside him on the couch and talked to him for ages and ages about his memories of the three of them, of Seungcheol and that cold pain in his chest had come back with such an intensity he feared he was going to die.
“Joshuji,” he’d said. “Please go.”
The funeral takes place on a Thursday. It’s an awkward day of the week but is there ever really an ideal time for a funeral? He wakes up and eats and puts on his plain black suit and feels absolutely nothing and then suddenly he’s in the car and his appa is driving and there are flashes of cameras all around him.
His brain starts doing that thing again where he zones out. The next thing he knows they’re inside the venue. He’s shaking hands and accepting condolences with the most sincerity he can muster but half the time he can’t even register who it is that he’s talking to.
Then the service begins and he takes a seat in the front row which is strange because he’s never sat in the front row of a funeral before. He never imagined that it would feel anything like this. It’s lonely. That’s the first real feeling he’s had since the world ended.
He feels lonely.
His eomma sits on one side of him, Joshua on the other, yet he feels totally indescribably alone. He’s by himself. None of these people know how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking. There’s a slight dread in his stomach when he realises the only person he’s ever really let know him is gone.
The hollowness that had previously possessed him is disappearing, it’s being worn down and chipped away at by something thick and nauseating. Nevertheless, he tries his best to pay attention to the service. There are many speeches, some from the members, and he tries to follow along, he really does, but the growing unease in his stomach steals most of his focus.
And then he feels eyes on him
”Hannie?” Joshua asks, voice gentle and quiet. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
It must be time for his speech.
And now he finally feels something other than lonely. Anxiety rushes through him, cold and suffocating, because he still hasn’t written his speech. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say. But he has to go up. He’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t.
“It’s okay,” he says. And then he gets up and makes his way to the podium, bringing his empty paper with him because he’s a fraud by nature and he can’t stand the thought of people knowing he didn’t prepare a speech. He doesn’t want them to think he doesn’t care.
And now he’s at the podium and he’s staring out a crowd of people who cared about his boyfriend and knew him on a personal level and want to gather here in honour of him, and it’s as if his brain switches on for the first time since he heard the news. There’s a rush of feelings in his stomach, in his chest, and it’s intense. It’s dizzying the way he goes from feeling nothing to everything, the way his brain goes from hushed and slow to throwing so many thoughts at him he can barely breathe. His chest seems to cave in and his fingers grip the sides of the podium in front of him.
It hits him now, the intensity, the magnitude, of where he is and why he’s here.
Seunghceol is dead. He’s gone. Jeonghan will never see his smile again, never laugh with him in bed, never tease him ever again. Never again. And it’s unbearable, the weight of that knowledge. It’s crushing.
He sucks in a small breath. He needs to calm down. It’s ridiculous, the idea of calming down when the other half of his soul is gone, but he has to try because there are dozens of people watching him, waiting to hear what he has to say about the one and only Choi Seungcheol.
Jeonghan was never a good boyfriend. He was lazy and bad at expressing himself and a bit too stubborn for his own good and the guilt hits him in waves. He’ll never be able to undo any of that, never get to go back and love Seungcheol the way he deserved to be loved. But he does have a chance now to do something good, to give a speech good enough to atone for the smallest fraction of a fraction of his sins.
But where would he even begin? What should he even talk about? Seungcheol himself or their relationship? Because it feels like it should be the latter- they all knew seungcheol anyway- but how could he possibly describe their love? The magnitude, the tenderness, the purity of it is something he’ll never find the words for.
He gulps, looking down once more at his paper as if words will magically appear.
Memories come rushing back to him, snapshots of his lost joy. The two of them snuggled up on the couch together, going for walks in the middle of the night, trying and failing to bake macarons. Seungcheol had promised him that when he came back after his enlistment, they’d try again and that they’d get it right but now they never will.
There are so many things that they’ll never get to do but somehow he thinks that might be okay. They did enough. Every moment he got to spend with him was a privilege.
“I love him.” He says, voice trembling. It’s the only thing that he can think to say because he’s been silent for far too long and in his desperation he’s reached for the one thing that’s been true for most of his life.
He loves him.
He loves him with every fibre of his being and maybe he sucked at showing it sometimes but Seungcheol knew. He knew everything about him. It was like some kind of superpower. It was amazing. Everything about him was amazing. He was just perfect, like everything good and honest in the world rolled into one beautiful human being but he’s not here anymore and Jeonghan is alone. He needs him.
“I love him.” He whispers again so softly the mic barely pics it up and then he’s sobbing. His face crumbles and his chest heaves and he weeps for his lover. And he’s holding onto the podium like a lifeline because the world is ending and the ground is trembling beneath him, the foundations of his life are ruined, and it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
It’s not fair. How could the universe take him from him, the one thing he can’t live without. His Cheol, his soulmate, his partner. His person. No matter what he was going through he was always there for him, like an anchor keeping him steady, a life jacket in the times he feared it was all too much.
Through all of the bitterness and hurt and tears, he finds himself calling out for him. “Cheol-ah,” he weeps over and over again. “Seungcheol-ah.” It’s like a prayer, pure and desperate.
There’s no reply. Seungcheol doesn’t call back, “Yes Jeonghannie,” the way he has so many times before. Of course he doesn’t, how could he? But it still shocks Jeonghan to his very core because there’s never been a time in his life that he called and Seungcheol didn’t come. He’s always been there, always. From when they were awkward teens, unsure of the feelings between them, to when they were confident men, blissfully in love, he’d always been there.
He was just so reliable, so unwavering in his strength and loyalty.
How could he abandon Jeonghan on his own like this?
No warning. No apology. Nothing.
There’s a hand on his arm. It’s Joshua and he’s speaking but Jeonghan can’t hear him over the volume of his crying. He comes back to the present just enough to remember he’s supposed to be giving a speech. He’s messed it up. This is his last chance to do something good, to repay his lover for all the joy he brought to his life and he’s messing it up.
“Let me finish,” he sniffs.
”Jeonghan…” he pleads. There’s a pitying edge to his voice and he can’t stand it.
”I said let me finish.” Jeonghan snaps.
He waits until Joshua is finally seated again before he continues.
”My Seungcheol isn’t the same Seungcheol you all had the pleasure of knowing.” He says, trying his best to keep his voice steady. “He liked to put up a front most of the time, this dominant, unbreakable facade. But he was a massive softie. There were things he didn’t like to let other people see like the way he cried at sad movies or got nervous at the drive-thru. He was always scared he’d drop something. He never did. He didn’t like people knowing the kind of books he liked to read. He didn’t want people to see the face that he made when he was really concentrating hard. I thought it was gorgeous, his dimples would show and his tongue would peek out a bit but he didn’t like people seeing it. He didn’t like people knowing just how needy he could be sometimes.”
He swallows past the lump in his throat. All he wants to do is sit down and cry but he has to finish this first. He has to get it right.
“But these things he hid from the rest of the world, he shared them with me. He let me see him and help him in his most vulnerable moments. How lucky was I to be the one person on the planet he felt safe enough to be his true self with. I don’t even know if I’m worthy of the trust he had in me but I’m proud that he relied on me so much. Because so many people relied on him for so, so much. I know I did. I relied on him for so much more than I’ll ever be able to talk about. Because he was always there y’know. When I was sad, or I was hurt, or I was scared. He was always there.” His voice wavers dangerously. He’s never been more hurt than he is now and somehow he has to navigate that without his greatest support.
“He always helped me.” Suddenly he’s sobbing again, shoulders heaving. He hiccups through his sentences. “He made me feel like I was never alone. But I am. I’m alone now because he’s gone and I didn’t get to say goodbye. I wasn’t even there.”
He finally let’s go off the podium. One hand clutches at his chest and the other covers his mouth.
“How could he do this to me?” He sobs. He throws his head back and sobs. It hurts. Every fibre of his being, every hair on his head, every cell of his skin, of his insides, hurts.
How could he leave him behind like this? Alone and hurt. How is he supposed to survive this on his own?
He backs away from the podium. He doesn’t even remember what he said but he knows it wasn’t good enough. It could never be enough to even begin repaying him for the light he brought into his life,
It’s a closed casket. Jeonghan was the one who made the decision but he regrets it now. He just wants to touch him one last time, feel the softness of his cheeks. He wants to see the soft youthfulness of his face. But he can’t. All he has left now are his memories.
He stumbles over to the coffin, still crying the whole time. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop. He runs his fingers over the smooth shiny wood.
“I love you.” He sobs.
He’s trying to think of anything else he wants to tell him, before he misses his chance (again). He should’ve said goodbye to him properly at the hospital. When he could’ve held his hand and kissed his forehead and laid beside him.
He needs to be near him more than he’s ever needed anything before in his life.
For a brief moment he considers opening the casket. It’s more of an impulse, a burning desire, than a consideration, yet the moment he lifts up his arms to do it, he freezes. He can’t. He won’t. Because the Seungcheol locked away in this wooden box is not the person he wants to remember when he thinks of his lover. He’ll remember the way he looked when he slept after sex, the way he’d blush after compliments, the way he smiled. He’ll remember him in life, not in death.
He leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the top of the coffin. “I love you.” He says again.
It will always be true, always. There’s no amount of time that could make his love for him fade. There’s no version of reality where he falls in love with anyone else. Seungcheol is it for him, whether he’s here or not, he has his whole heart.
Oh Jeonghan can’t believe this. How could fate be so cruel. How could the universe separate him from the one person he needs like oxygen. He won’t survive this and he doesn’t want to. Let him die and be with his soulmate. What use is his life if it’s going to be lived in darkness and misery?
There are hands on him, pulling him up. When did he get on the ground? They’re pulling him away from the coffin, from his heart, from the centre of his universe.
”Leave me.” He cries, arms flailing.
He leans forward and rests his forehead on the cold earth, his love’s name falling from his lips again and again and again. “Seungcheol-ah, Seungcheol-ah,” he calls out. It’s like a prayer. Again there’s no response.
He’s making a whining sound, high pitched and desperate, in the back of his throat. There’s no way this is real. He’s going to come back. He has to. He always comes when Jeonghan calls. Always.
And then arms are carrying him up and away and he screams but they don’t let him go. He doesn’t know who it is, can’t see though the tears blurring his vision, but he knows from the touch alone it isn’t the one person he so desperately needs.
”You can’t leave me alone like this,” he sobs, reaching for the coffin. “I love you!”