twenty four

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[i recommend the music]

22:03

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Woo                           3 minutes ago
I knew you wouldn't come to see him at the same time as us. I'm not sleeping in the hospital tonight.

Woo                            4 minutes ago
I prefer to warn you, he didn't wake up.

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I wander, slowly, through the dark corridors. Sometimes, a few streetlights split the features of my face until I reach the room eighty-eight.

Then I stop tensed, hands in my pockets.

I am hesitant.

And I am terrified.

Did you know that, Jongho? Eighty-eight is the number of constellations we have so far.

A sigh escaped me.

I watch him through the transparent reflection of the dusty-tipped glass. His eyes are closed, his breathing is deep. It diminishes as I spend more and more minutes looking at him. The strength to walk through the door has left me and my throat has become knotted.

I simply watched my star fade into the darkness of a dry-smelling room.

My lower body finally unlocked, the slow sound of machinery accompanied the creaky entrance to the room. I tried miserably to control my heavy breath before stopping in front of him, detailing for a last time every bit of his pale-skinned figure.

The thinness had filled him up, avoiding to spoil the beautiful lines I had always known.
And while I was complaining about the ugliness of the sky, a hand came to take mine with delicacy.

I was slightly startled.

Even though he was sick, his skin was still exquisitely soft.

I drifted, surprised, my irises on his porcelain face where his eyes filled with stars were already staring at me.

A warm liquid ran down his right cheek. My thumb brushed the crystal water before being in turn wiped by the fabric of his white blouse.

With the help of the strength he had left, his arms had invited me to slump down as we used to do.

I inhaled his sweet smell, a scent that reminded me of afternoons in the park scoring goals between course bags, of nights spent observing other dimensions, discussions starting with fruit and ending with vegetables. Our smells mixed on our sheets, the apartment walls muffled by our lovemaking.

His fingers had started to play timidly with my badly coiffed hair.

Tightening its grip on its belly, I stuck my head to its chest.

My grandmother had always told me that the last moments of a life are often the most silent.

Now I can even tell you that they are deafening.

And when I felt his grip weaken, I stood up, brushing my nose against his.

His humming punctuated the invisible constellations, and my hands running through his hair recreated that feeling that was conducive to our first exchanges.

In the choking of a common sob our lips sealed. His tongue came to say goodbye to mine and his teeth nibbled tenderly on my fleshy lips. I could have stayed there for hours, and I think you could have too Jongho, but it was in that moment that you chose to leave, leaving me alone in a room where the emptiness you had bequeathed was manifested by machines.

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 [jonggi]Where stories live. Discover now