Her tattoos, he dreamt of them vastly. In them she would bracket the silky brunette strands behind her ear, revealing the nape – the inked letters elegantly stark by her pale skin, Lee would always be torn between perceiving her details or her charms. Panic would engulf him when she would look at him- some times they would sit by the meadows watching the sunset, in others, it was by the coastal island listening to the songs composed by the waves. All they did was sit, with her fierce gaze on the nature ahead while he had his on her.
He hates it when she looks at him, even in the dreams he was aware of its end. He wakes up with a jolt because it is where it stops, when he gets seen by her. As if it was forbidden or sinful for him to be there with her while she was supposed to be alone.
He slept in strips, calling it a nightmare he would start his day by dragging himself out of bed- leaving it unkept. Periodically he would step on the messy entities that lay around- staining or denting the epoxy flooring of his penthouse in Las Vegas. He would cuss at himself but seldom bothered to clean his lavish pigsty up.
Sometimes he would walk straight to the closet and shove his washed clothes in, while in another scene he would pick one less greasy shirt from the ground and buttons it up by his half-naked body. But not on Tuesdays. He can't risk the wrath of a certain young boy who never misses the date to get him to-
Lee groans when Han Hwan walks in, his collage backpack slung lazily and his disappointment appropriately valid.
"I shouldn't have told you my passcode" Lee muses glumly walking to the washroom. The boy follows him with his patience visibly compressing. He might explode if wasn't given what was needed. And he needed an explanation for so many things that he had lost count. But the start was-
"Where are your fresh clothes that I got it done for you last week?" Hwan throws a murderous look at Lee- he had been doing what he can while he balanced college and this degenerating man from the past two years only for him to confess-
"I think I used it to clean the kitchen yesterday" the onset of guilt that panged by Lee's stomach was overpowered by his pride. So he squeezed a good amount of paste by and began brushing his teeth. Hwan stood by the entrance not a bit surprised. Lee was aging backwards mentally while his face did the opposite. His once styled and trimmed hair was now overgrown mane that curled by his ears. His roguing beard could help him pass off as a member of a drug cartel, or even worse, a homeless man if it wasn't for the logos from the brands he wore.
Of course it's Hwan who forces him into ordering them.
Though stained and dirty, he still had the delightful laugh and quirky smile when he turned to acknowledge a pissed off Hwan.
"I am just kidding, I kept it safe so that I can wear them to the hell hole you drag me to every Tuesday" he adds a wink and proceeds to spit out the salty taste of foam. Hwan sighs in relief, if not a step ahead at least he had the decency to save them.
"You know how expensive these therapies are? If you manage to open up a little- your tic tac sized brain might realize that It's not a forensic interrogation and it's perhaps something that could help you"
Splashing the cold water on his face Lee felt his drowsy infers waking to a memory.
"Expensive? Of course, you can own a black card and still want to save money, it's what she did as well"
Hwan had no response to that. He has seen this man hurting like no one else, when Hwan had his family to help each other, Lee had his self-loathing that took him to the bottom of what none could have foreseen.
"I can live here if you let me. I always wanted to move in. Pent houses are my scene" Hwan sniffs, crossing his arms and leaning by the frame. Lee frowns in horror.
"And do what? be my Mom? No- thank you"
Hwan could only roll his eyes and sigh at his tantrums. He was skeptical he might be the only sane person left in their household. His Dad had thrown himself to a series of work overload while his mother seem to divert her cure to alcohol. While Lee had many friends that were there for him, he did the one significant thing he seem to be good at. Running away.
In fact it's Hwan they consult and call when they desire to know of Lee's whereabouts. Lee made Hwan lie, if not- he would threaten him with the idea of never letting him in his life more than he already has.
Lee moved back to vegas, had cut off the ties with his family. Ran a sketchy garage and dismantled his penthouse worth millions of dollars to somehow making it look like a haunted seaside cabin. He was the ghost that plagues in it.
Hwan was the angel or paranormal expert who seem to keep the spirit in check within regular wonder if it was fine to pull out a tooth or two of this man to get him to make work again.
When Lee got presentable enough Hwan tossed Lee the key to shin's car, Lee wasn't impressed by how it hit his face. He wasn't prepared for a catch or to drive her car.
"You driving today, I cut my thumb chopping broccoli"
Lee enters switching off the voices that sprang up in his head using the subtle breathing tactics that the therapist had advised him of. He hates how It assists, he despises how he was unconsciously striving to find a cure when he deserves to suffer.
"That's illegal. To eat that thing" Lee offers his useless output to a boy who didn't care enough. His thumb was fine- he wanted to get this coward to drive. Hwan noticed the longingness in the eyes of Lee when he takes the wheels. It was her car- it didn't even smell like her anymore. And as it was hard to admit- Hwan couldn't seem to forgive himself for how he seemed to not do the same.
Was he forgetting his sister?
He can't remember someone all the time, but the number of times when she houses his thoughts, seems to have declined by the past year. By now, he solely thought of her when he had to assemble Lee into a semblance of normalcy. It was a responsibility she gave him till she recovers, And it's been long enough for him to give up on it.
He can't seem to. Lee could be annoying and broken too frigid to use your time on. But he wasn't a stranger- living in the same city he would swing by his apartment when Hwan would fail to call him or simply call him with a flu-infused voice. It was mostly a load amount of scolding and barked orders to eat healthily and stay warm that Lee did. Sometimes shoving a thermometer into his mouth and buying him a meal included.
Hwan secretly knew what his gestures were for it was his favorite part where Lee seem to acknowledge him. When the line between being his brother in law and brother blurred was when Lee agreed to share his password to his house and allowed himself to be dragged by Hwan to get some psychological aid.
"How- how are you?" Lee croaks, failing to hide the genuineness in his tone. "You didn't come last week"
"I had exams"
"It's not the season"
"I had a date"
Hwan Lied, the last Tuesday he was at the hospital to meet shin. He had gone to see her after two months- though Lee had transferred her to vegas and despite Hwan and Lee were the only ones who get to see her often, Hwan hadn't visited her for a good sixty days. Lee knew- he wouldn't remark on it.
But when Hwan received a call from the doctor stating a mild motion movement from shin- he almost dropped the egg he was to crack by the pan for dinner. Shame and distress crowned him at his neglecting behavior. Was he so weak to have given up on her so soon?
But was it even humane to hide this progress from Lee?
Hwan had advised the assigned medic to not inform Lee of this- though there was a motion detected, it still wasn't anywhere near a recovery. It could even have been the trick of a night- Hwan was intimidated of what would happen if nothing heals in the future.
Lee was learning to breathe again, he can't afford to plug him back into a supporter where nothing was promised because of a speculation.
After the therapy session, Lee and Hwan went for a dinner that none of them seem to be dedicated to. Hwan could taste the change in environment and he suspected that it had to do everything with Lee. In a Korean BBQ restaurant, Lee emerged to occur more American than the Americans themselves. His jersey overcoat and rugged man bun earned him few flirty glances from young aspiring girls. Hwan looked like a child in comparison to this tall and broadened man stuffing his share of food.
"Have been working out I see" comments Hwan- they have been doing this every week for a year. every time Lee would make fun of what the psychologist had suggested to him, but on rare days he would silently contemplate the logical reasoning it withheld.
Lee makes no effort to talk, usually, it was another way around when Hwan would ignore his snarky remarks- tonight the stationing pose of Lee seem to bore a level of strange aura that Hwan hadn't come across.
When they finished, Lee drove them to Hwan's neighborhood. By the time they reached the sky seem to have unbolted into a pour of merciless rain. The street was empty with a couple of residents running inside their house. Lee got out after shoving the key by Hwan's lap rather heatedly.
Whatever it was that he had been bottling up uncorked in the dark.
Dumbfounded at such attitude, Hwan pursued the trait and got out. The rain soaks his clothes wet In a matter of seconds.
"What are you doing?" he shouts through the sound of tapering water as an equally drenched Lee ran a hand through his hair with a bitter chuckle.
"I am walking home" he states. Hwan wasn't naïve to Lee and his uncalled actions. But this was something else- this was alarmingly serious as he took a step forward simultaneously questioning Lee and his antics.
"What is it? What happened?"
It cost him so much to build the relationship he had with Lee. he can't let it dissolve like this when-
"I am not your responsibility young man," Lee says, his eyes narrowing down to slits. "I know you are not here for her"
Hwan had to pretend to be offended despite how true it was.
"You have no right to accuse me of healing from grief-
"I don't. I am not accusing you of anything you fool" Lee spat his terms with anger, his voice rang like thunder that the storm lacked. "I am accusing you of staying here for a man and tending him when he and his forsaken family is the reason behind what happened to your sister"
This fused Hwan into exclaiming out once more.
"For how long are you going to blame yourself for this?"
Lee had the quick answer conjured.
"Until you will stop wasting your life on a deranged me by staying here"
"I am here because I opted to study-
"No person in the right state of mind would choose vegas for education when they have better entries at the disposal"
With that a silence falls upon them, the rain had entirely absorbed into for them to feel its nuisance. Right then, they were in enough trouble for each other.
"What about the promise I made to her then? She knew what would become of you without her around" Hwan had treaded carefully by the mention of her for so long that it took his whole to do it with pride. He was proud of what she was and is. And he wants her to feel the same about him. even if it means playing a carpenter with a job of constantly knocking some sense into Lee.
"I can take care of myself. I don't need anyone. " defends Lee, Hwans calm smile fuels his irk.
"Maintaining your insulin and building a body is keeping you alive. You are not living, you are surviving"
Lee for a moment, even a gist of it realizes how credible that was. Then he also reciprocates how he doesn't care. So he turns around to leave with the last punchline, silently wishing that it will keep Hwan off his hair.
"Then let me survive. I am good at that"
Lee strides off the street with no intention of getting a cab or getting shelter. The rain panned out to a suitable pour as he looked up at the starry and clearing sky- it was a tight rope, the dreams he gets of her sweet laughter, her voice that soothes his pain as in those dreams that felt more like home than when he wakes up.
He prays on each day.
The minute he wakes. But nothing ever happen. The world moved while his slept. Slept on a cold hospital room foreign to his ordeals. He didn't ask much.
He just asks her. The fate can take his soul the moment she wakes. He will be happy with the idea of her living for them both.
If only it was that easy to trade.
If only it was the prayers that were blessed.
To see her quiet and cold, pale and thin by the crisp mattress, so unaware of him and the days that flew and fell like the dried autumn leaves only angered him more. The first couple of months went by with him pulling the strings and connections to get the culprit back behind the bars. He received his punishment, but it wasn't the end to the trauma that Lee was hit by.
And when Lee stumbled with a curse that brought him back to present, when he felt a hit by his shoulder, he turned around to a panting Hwan. The hwan who had ran to him so that he could stop Lee from going any further with his grouching stamina had his phone clutched in a death grip while his useless lips only spewed out heavy exhales Lee waited for him to compose.
But hwan didn't seem to mere physically lost his breath, if anything he was spellbound and stunned.
Lee had so many questions that came with such behavior of Hwans- but before he could open his mouth Hwan wheezes out.
"She's awake"
If that didn't stopped the heart of Lee. What came next sure did.
"They- They called. They said She woke up And you are the one she is asking for"
The next is epilogue. Oh heavens.