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“Ah, don’t look so sad, Sang-woo-ya!” Gi-hun says with a crooked grin and a nudge at Sang-woo’s shoulder from where he sits cross-legged beside him on their living room sofa. “We’ll get other chances; you just have to beat this thing first.”
“Uh-huh,” Sang-woo murmurs in response, pulling the thick fleece blanket Gi-hun has swaddled him in tighter around his goosebump-laden form. “Plenty, I’m sure.”
It’s true; Jeju-do isn’t going anywhere. Sang-woo has managed to coax a refund out of their airline, though not the resort they’d been planning to stay at—a frustrating ordeal, but by no means a damning one. They have money; money isn’t the issue.
It was supposed to be perfect.
Sang-woo’s prestige has sent him many places over the decades—he considers Manhattan in particular a second home of sorts—but not even the most high-stakes business trip he’s ever braved can compare in importance to this weekend in Jeju he’s been planning down to the last minute detail for the better half of a year now. The weekend he’s gone and ruined by coming down with the most violent sickness to strike him in years two days before their departure date.
There’s a sudden sting in Sang-woo’s nose, and he sneezes into the crook of his elbow, the sound making him cringe and prompting a giggle from Gi-hun. “Don’t say it,” Sang-woo warns.
“Say what?”
“That I sneeze like a kitten. I know I do, hyung; you’ve told me hundreds of times.”
“I wasn’t going to!”
“Right.”
Gi-hun pouts for only a moment before shaking his head, expression morphing into an amused smile. “Maybe some samgye-tang would make you feel better,” he muses. “Remember my mom’s recipe? It’ll take me a bit to make, but by the time we finish eating, it’ll probably be time for more medicine.”
Sang-woo’s mouth waters—more at the thought of the medicine than the food. “That sounds great, hyung,” he says, managing a moment of upward contortion to the corners of his lips before his face pulls itself back into its currently default grimace.
Gi-hun squeezes Sang-woo’s arm through the blanket before rising to his feet. “Sit tight, jagiya.”
A few hours later, Sang-woo finds himself curled up in bed with his head resting over Gi-hun’s steadily-beating heart, the warmth of the food in his stomach combined with the sleep aid in the maximum-strength cold and flu medicine Gi-hun gave him with it making him pleasantly drowsy in spite of the burn in his throat and the now marginally-dampened ache in his limbs. Gi-hun is scrolling through cat videos on social media, squealing at every furry, pink-nosed face he sees and angling his phone so Sang-woo can see them too. Sang-woo’s heart flutters at every delighted noise, the lazy smile scrawled across his features genuine this time; he doesn’t close his eyes until they begin to hurt from the harsh blue light of the phone screen, and when he finally does, he promises himself he’ll start figuring out the logistics of another trip for them first thing in the morning.
Jeju-do isn’t going anywhere.
It can still be perfect.
Sang-woo has always preferred rain to shine. Droplets of it the size of pinheads land on his glasses, dappling his field of vision as it follows the undulating line where the sand and sea meet all the way up to the distant horizon: an ashy streak that serves as the lower frame for a never-ending canvas of even more gray. The beach he’s standing on is so vast it feels like its own planet, the air the kind of thick he can taste. He’s barefoot, but otherwise fully dressed in one of his perfectly tailored work suits. He draws a deep breath and digs his toes into the ground, feeling the damp, rough sand ooze between them before leaning back on his heels to anchor himself deeper.
“Sang-woo, dear!”
Sang-woo whips his head around at the sound of the familiar voice, and at the sight of its owner making their way toward him with a smile that could outshine all of Seoul, he swears he feels his heart stop. “Mal-soon?” he breathes.
“That’s Ms. Oh to you, boy,” Mal-soon scolds, lightly pinching Sang-woo through the neatly pressed fabric of his suit jacket, but her grin doesn’t falter. “You graduated from SNU, not from respecting your elders.”
Sang-woo exhales sharply, swiveling his body around to face Mal-soon directly. “My apologies, Ms. Oh,” he corrects himself, his own mouth quirking into a smile, “I just haven’t seen you in so long, and it’s what my mother calls you.”
“You’ll have to give her my best. Say, did Gi-hun do that samgye-tang recipe any justice, or do I have to raise myself from the dead to show him what’s what?”
A hollow pang in Sang-woo’s chest. This isn’t real. “It was great, Ms. Oh,” he replies softly, deciding the fantasy doesn’t need to end just yet. “He takes good care of me.”
Mal-soon sighs, her gaze drifting out into the broad expanse of ocean before them, Sang-woo’s own following suit. “I know you’ll take good care of him, too,” she murmurs, “but you can’t keep holding back like you’ve been. I wasn’t planning to die so soon, you know.”
Sang-woo frowns. “What are you saying?” he asks with some hesitation.
“I’m saying that you keep waiting for the perfect moment, and that moment may come someday, but it also damn well might not. Haven’t you been playing this game long enough?”
“I…” Sang-woo trails off, heart catching in his throat. Mal-soon’s eyes are back on him now, sharp and unrelenting, and he releases a slow, shuddering breath before turning to meet them again. “Tell me what to do. Anything—just tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Mal-soon shakes her head, the ghost of a smile lighting up her features once again, this time with a sad sort of mirth. “You already know,” she says softly before turning her gaze back toward the sea, then upward to examine a growing rift in the clouds through which beams of gold are beginning to strike the surface of the water. “Ah, look at that—the sun’s coming out. Now, don’t you disappoint me, Sang-woo.”
A wetness entirely separate from the subsiding drizzle begins to cloud Sang-woo’s vision just as the world around him begins to ebb. “Never,” he whispers before it fades into nothing.
“Sang-woo…hey, Sang-woo-ya, are you alive?”
Gi-hun’s voice. Sang-woo blinks sleep from his eyes, flinching as they’re assaulted by the light from the room around him. “Hnngh?” He grunts before promptly exploding into a coughing fit—the wet, guttural kind that leaves him tasting metal and gasping for air by the time it’s over. Gi-hun pulls him into a sitting position and rubs circles into his upper back while he catches his breath, then pulls an unopened water bottle seemingly out of thin air and unscrews the cap before pressing it to Sang-woo’s lips.
“Drink.”
Sang-woo seizes the bottle from Gi-hun and drains its contents in under half a minute, gasping with relief when he finishes and nodding thanks. Only then does he realize he’s drenched in sweat from head to toe, both his hair and the faded SNU pajamas he’d worn to bed plastered to his skin. A violent shudder courses through him, and he claws for the sheets, groaning upon finding them equally soaked.
His breath is rattling.
“You look like hell,” Gi-hun remarks, brows knitting with worry. “You don’t sound too good, either. I went out to get some things—ran into Jung-bae on my way back and lost track of time. Did you wake up at all while I was gone?”
The words take a moment to register in Sang-woo’s fever-addled brain, one foot still stuck in perhaps the most vivid dream he’s ever had in his life. “Uh…no?” he guesses.
Gi-hun’s eyes grow so wide Sang-woo thinks they might pop out of their sockets. “Holy shit, Sang-woo, you slept for eighteen hours.”
“Wait, what?”
But Gi-hun is already halfway across the bedroom, bolting out the door before returning almost as quickly as he left, a bottle of water in each hand. “Drink,” he instructs once more, pressing one of the bottles into Sang-woo’s hands. Sang-woo gapes at him for only a moment longer before obeying, Gi-hun’s gaze boring into him until he finishes it—considerably slower than he did the first one. Gi-hun takes the empty bottle from him and sets the remaining one on Sang-woo’s nightstand.
“Did I really sleep that long?” Sang-woo croaks out.
Gi-hun ignores the question, eyes flitting wildly up and down Sang-woo’s frail form. “I think we should go to the hospital, jagiya,” he says; he sounds scared, and that scares Sang-woo. “Your breathing, it…it doesn’t sound right.”
It doesn’t feel right either.
“No,” Sang-woo manages, dragging himself to the edge of the bed to squeeze past Gi-hun, “not—not yet, just let me—“
Gi-hun takes hold of Sang-woo’s wrist, shaking his head. “Sang-woo, it could be fucking pneumonia—“
“Hyung.” By some miracle, Sang-woo’s tone manages to cut into Gi-hun deep enough to loosen the iron grip around his wrist, and he seizes the opportunity to yank it free and stumble across the room, dropping to his knees in front of his still-packed suitcase propped up beside the closet door. Front pocket, his racing mind supplies; he fumbles with the zipper, shoving his hand inside and groping blindly with trembling fingers.
“Sang-woo-ya, what are you—“
Sang-woo turns. He stays on both knees, as if in prayer, and presents the tiny black box.
Gi-hun freezes where he stands.
“This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” Sang-woo rasps as he gazes up at Gi-hun; the overhead light behind his head frames it like a halo. “I…the trip, I had everything planned—“
“Sang-woo, we can’t get married,” Gi-hun cuts in with drooping shoulders and sad doe eyes, “it’s not legal here.”
“I don’t care.” Sang-woo says it through his teeth, and fuck, he’s crying, but he can’t turn back now. “I couldn’t care less about a stupid piece of paper; if you do, I’ll take you somewhere we can do it for real, but all I want is to be able to call you my husband. You’re…hyung, you’re everything.” Sang-woo drops his gaze, squeezing his eyes shut and drawing a deep—albeit ragged—breath to compose himself. “I wanted it to be perfect, but I had this dream that made me realize it might never be perfect, and fuck, I couldn’t wait any longer—“
A hand on Sang-woo’s shoulder. Two fingers under his chin. Hot, fluttering breath against his face. He lets Gi-hun lift his head back up, connecting their gazes.
He sees the universe.
“Say something,” Sang-woo begs, voice cracking under the combined pressure of his tears and the fluid accumulated in his lungs. “Say no if you want—just say something.”
“No?” Gi-hun laughs through tears to rival Sang-woo’s, cupping his face as he smiles from ear to ear. “Sang-woo-ya, you think I’m going to say no to that?”
“I need a yes.” Sang-woo places his free hand over Gi-hun’s, leaning into his touch. “If it’s not a yes, it’s a no for me.”
Gi-hun rolls his eyes. “One condition,” he says.
“Shoot.”
“Hospital. Now.”
Now it’s Sang-woo’s turn to laugh—one he has to stifle before it turns into another coughing fit. “Okay,” he says softly, allowing his eyes to flutter closed. “Okay.”
“Then it’s a yes.” Gi-hun takes the box from Sang-woo, thumbing it open to reveal the simple but elegant gold band inside. For a moment, Sang-woo worries that it’ll either fall off his finger or fail to make it past the first knuckle, but neither happens; instead, it slides on like a second skin. They each let out breaths they didn’t realize they’d been holding. “I’d kiss you if you weren’t a walking Petri dish right now,” Gi-hun quips after a moment of comfortable silence.
Another laugh rumbles deep within Sang-woo’s ravaged chest. “Soon, hyung,” he promises.
“We should get going, huh?” Gi-hun clambers to his feet, extending an arm down toward Sang-woo. “You should get some dry clothes on while I get your things—or do you need help?”
Sang-woo shakes his head as Gi-hun helps him to his feet. “I think I’ll be okay. I’ll meet you outside, ja…“ he trails off, heart skipping a beat as his face pulls into a grin, “…yeobo.”