Water Heart | P.Sh

| 54 |

The morning before Sunghoon's week had run out he had been bad. Really bad. I had agreed to sleep in his hammock yet again and instead of waking up and having him delightfully tell me about how warm he had been throughout the night, he had shivered and pulled me tighter to him while I flinched away due to the ice cold feeling that met my bare skin on my stomach.

This meant that all morning I had been marching back and forth between the deck and sleeping chamber. Either with blanket, soup or tea in hand. Anything that could give Sunghoon warmth had been poured down his throat throughout all morning and until midday where he had insisted that he could sit up.

"You really look too pale to be going up on deck," I remarked as he grabbed onto my elbow tightly to support himself in getting pulled up, "Sunghoon lay down, please..."

"Let me just..." he sighed and grabbed his head with his free hand.

"Sunghoon, please... lay down, at least just do it for me?" I offered and furrowed my eyebrows at him as he shook his head at me.

"You have to stop that," he pointed out and my furrowed eyebrows turned into a frown of confusion, "you have to stop looking at me like that."

"What do you mean?" I questioned in confusion.

"I'm dying Soomin, you need to stop loving me," he shook his head, "you'll just get hurt tomorrow morning."

"Shut up and let me have my feelings," I hissed at him and his eyes sobered up as he sent me a sharp look.

"You need to let go. You have to let it all go. The kisses, the hugs, the words. How I smell, how I touch your waist to calm you down. You have to let that go and you have to let me go, because you'll only get hurt," he sternly spoke before his eyes softened once again and flickered away from me.

Slowly his grip around my elbow loosened as his hand fell back down into his lap and he almost drunkenly swayed back and forth before falling back down in his hammock as I stared down at him.

"Don't worry. I've spent my whole life falling in love with people who would never love me back. This is nothing new," I shortly spoke in a fast manner before turning on my heel and rushing back up on deck yet again.

At the top of the stairs Jay stood waiting for me, like he had done all day. His face carried a certain type of emotion I had rarely ever seen. It was clear he was deadly worried for Sunghoon, which was why he had Jungwon sit by the helm all day (only because Jiyeon refused to let him stand for longer periods of time). It was Jay's way of keeping his sanity while Sunghoon was withering away down in his hammock.

"So what happened?" Jay breathed out as I just marched up from the food depot.

"What we expected. I fell in love and he didn't," I shortly spoke and Jay grabbed out for my arm to stop me in my steps, to which I only ripped out my arm each time he got a grasp on it.

"So you're just walking away?" Jay loudly exclaimed and finally ripped my shoulder harsh enough to make me turn away.

"So what if I am?" I hissed at him.

"How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it's time to just walk away?" Jay questioned in disbelief, "especially when he is dying?"

"He told me to let go of him, so I'm not going down there until the next morning," I shortly excused and he stared at me in disbelief, almost as if I was insane.

"Soomin you're not doing that," Jay announced and I simply nodded at him, "he'll be dead by morning."

"By midnight," I corrected him and he only looked at me in shock.

"Fine. If he dies I'm blaming it on you," Jay announced and I merely hummed at him and pulled myself from his grip.

"Yes, blame me for a curse that was his own fault," I nodded in agreement, rolling my eyes and rushing up to the front of the ship to hide myself.

The moment I sat down behind a box I first really noticed how badly my eyes were burning and how my heart was thumping hard enough in my chest to drown out all the other sounds on the ship. The waves, the crew, yells, hits, conversations.

All sounds and senses were drowned out by the burning tears in my eyes and the thumping of my heart in my ears and all the way out in my finger tips. I was so incredibly terrified of Sunghoon being gone by the morning. I knew it wasn't a violent death he would suffer or anything, but just the thought of him being gone by the morning when I had been so dependent on him for the past few weeks, having to see him everyday, talk to him everyday, have some sort of physical contact with him everyday. All ever since the day I got off the Flottante again.

I dug my face down into my knees, letting the thumping of my heart numb every nerve in my body as I slowly let the water fall from my eyes. 

I don't remember when I calmed down again, when I stopped crying or when I began getting the feeling back in each of my limbs. When my heart calmed down and it was no longer thumping harshly in my ears. I just know it was completely quiet on the ship and beside me stood a plate of food for me, it was all cold and on the middle of the sky hung the moon.

Ignoring the food by my side I slowly pushed myself up from the deck and looked around, a few swabbies were still on duty and Jay quietly stood up by the helm, looking all numb in his face. He didn't even spare me a glance or seem to notice that I still was up on the deck.

Without a word I quietly moved across the deck in my bare feet. I hadn't been wearing boots all day as they made me walk slower when delivering things down to Sunghoon. Down through the food depot and into the sleeping chamber I had been mentally panicking, what if it was already past midnight?

However, when I got down into the sleeping chamber I rushed over to Sunghoon's hammock, noticing how his soft breath fanned at the blanket just under his chin and caused miniscule waves to move across it.

I wasn't gonna sleep in his hammock tonight, he was already asleep and I shouldn't wake him, not now. We had had our last conversation, and despite it not being the kindest or nicest one to end on I didn't regret it. I had made it clear to him that I did love him nonetheless and that was the most I could do for him now.

I pressed a small kiss against his forehead, which was oddly enough burning, almost as if he had just been having a raging fever all morning. As I stepped back from his hammock I just slid down the nearest wall and plastered my eyes onto how the hammock swung back and forth softly due to the waves outside.

In the morning he would be gone, and I could do nothing to prevent it.