You of Death | Woosan

Aren't

He breathes out slowly. His breath stutters, the white puffs of air leaving him in small doses like rocks rolling away from him. Wooyoung watches them, imagining white birds flying further and evaporating in the end.

Why is the reality this heavy exactly?

The male's lungs hurt as if a scalpel is making small scratch marks in his skin. What if it's a cat, asking to be let in a room by scratching the door?

Wooyoung cries out. At last his eyes squeeze shut and tears get out to leave his vision blurry and murky.

He takes in a sharp inhale, which ends up like a lightning striking his ribs.

Wooyoung wants to return home, to that warm weekend feeling of waking up in a sunlit room with people making noise in the kitchen. That messy desk he never paid much attention to since there were always more important things to do in life, things to experience.

Yet if we're on a subject of experience, why did it lead him to where he is now?

The male gasps, crying out again. He wants to breathe.

The bright neon lights of the underground arcade with his friends laughter booming around, the sweet purr of his ragdoll cat next to him, the sighs and nags from his mother, the chocolates on his school desk, the rain running down in the park, leaving the playground dry so he can sit on the swing in the night and think about life.

Life, where has it led him? More likely, why did he let it flow away from him this easily? How come he didn't fight for it?

He wants to apologise to his neighbour, ruffle his brother's unruly hair, go around the campus to scramble enough money for a bouquet of flowers as he has forgotten mother's day again, let one evening pass by with him sitting on the couch and watching soccer with his father, start running in the mornings, thank his friends and never lose contact with them.

Why did he stop calling back?

He believes he hears an animal rustling in the bushes and wonders what it might be. His gaze slides over the dark silhouettes of trees all around.

A bright light flickers somewhere near him, illuminating the grey asphalt. It is rock hard and gives no relief to the male's throbbing back.

How did he end up here?

Wooyoung sighs. His eyes begin to slip closed as a howling noise comes from the distance. A finger twitching, a breath hitching.

He wants that warm comfort of a blanket. Warm food in his freezing frame.

The high pitched howls become unbearably loud as they pierce his eardrums. He pulls his legs closer to his chest until the pain makes him stop. His ribs are burning.

Is he that careless to be sporting a fever?

More noises come his way on the cold asphalt as he lies there, barely there.

Something rushes past him, towards the sounds.

Sighing, he doesn't open his eyes anymore. Sleep is making him drift away slowly. Hopefully to dreamland.

"You're too late. He is dead." a man's voice says in the chilly night.

The words are like Wooyoung's lullaby, tucking him deeper into slumber.

He wants to live.

Yet since when did the warm summer night turn this cold?

And why were his cheeks wet?