Chapter Text
What Sejun liked most about the rain is that it is everything he could ever admire in something. It is imposing, halting everything at its onset, drowning out noise anywhere its torrents go. It is cold, making one seek warmth and comfort under a flurry of blankets. Yet, it is soothing and would wash away all traces of unwanted memories of the past… perhaps even words unsaid.
Must be coincidence, he thought to himself. Because these are the things that Sejun admired about Josh, too. Like rain, Josh is vibrant and full or life. He is strong-willed and does not bite his tongue if he knows he is right. There is a coldness to his exterior, but Sejun knows—oh, yes, he knows—that the coldness hides a warmth inside. A warmth like a flurry of blankets on a rainy night like the one they were having now. Finally, Josh is soothing. His presence had always managed to calm Sejun down… like the scent of lavender, lemongrass, incense, or smoke. Josh is homey yet leaves a little bit of bitterness at the tip of Sejun’s tongue.
Yes, Josh is as precious to Sejun as his own existence. But as Sejun stood in front of the man he loves, not quite moving or making a sound, Sejun could not help but dread whatever Josh was about to say.
Josh sat on one side of the bed, both feet laid flat on the carpeted floor of the room. He hunched as he sat with his elbows to his knees, his head cast down and eyes not meeting Sejun’s. Josh sighed deeply. A tired sigh. Sejun could see his chest heave under his shirt. It was dark, the lights were out, but Sejun could see every little detail as if the sun were shining right next to them.
The sun might as well burn him now. Come morning, perhaps Sejun would have to leave.
“I… don’t know what to say, Sejun,” Josh started, unsure and speaking between pauses. He waited for the words to come to him, Sejun waited for his own courage to return. “I just… the rain… really reminds me of you.”
If Sejun could feel his heart, he was sure it would ache. How long has it been since to him Josh was like rain?
Since that afternoon all those years ago, when Sejun was on his way back to his dorm. He was running, getting soaked as it rained bullets from the sky. Lo and behold, Josh was running to meet him with a huge red umbrella in one hand. Josh had known he forgot his umbrella and came to the rescue. Sejun found himself drawn to the older man’s smile and his kind eyes ever since.
“You’re stubborn, like the rain,” Josh chuckled. “Remember that time you forgot your umbrella and I came to fetch you? You were so mad that I ran from the dorm just to get to you.”
Sejun smiled. So Josh reminisced about the same memory. Yes, the rain would always be special to the two of them. It was where everything started.
It was also where everything ended.
“Now, it’s raining again and I…” Josh sighed, “I just want to say… I’m sorry.” He grabbed his dark brown hair and fisted it angrily. “I’m sorry.”
No, Sejun wanted to say. He wanted to talk. But Josh didn’t look like he was finished so Sejun pulled his hand back and gripped his own shirt like a lifeline.
Let him talk, Sejun decided. Let him let it all out.
“You were… my comfort, Sejun. You know that, right? I guess… I was just so scared to lose you back then that I ended up scaring you away…”
Josh looked up. Sejun thought he was going to look at him, but Josh instead stared straight ahead, at window and the rain. Torrents of water still poured relentlessly against the glass, making it look as if it were melting.
The noise did not give Sejun a reprieve, not even a pause to be able to speak.
“That day we fought… I… didn’t mean what I said,” Josh told him. “I’m sorry that I yelled. I’m sorry I said all those things that I said. I’m… sorry.”
Sejun smiled a sad smile at the memory. It was raining then, too. But not like the rain that used to be their life together. What used to be a gentle, happy downpour turned into an angry and bitter onslaught. Their lives had turned into a complete clusterfuck. They kept fighting for no reason. Sejun was always angry, Josh was immovable and stubborn. They tried to fix it, fight for it. They thought their love for each other would be strong enough to see them through… but it was not.
Sejun had asked to meet Josh then so they could talk things over. But Josh… didn’t know if he wanted to be with Sejun anymore. At least, not back then.
“I was lying back then, Junie…” Josh said. The pet name he reserved for Sejun rolled on his tongue like a reverent prayer that might have saved Sejun from burning. “Junie… you were… always important to me. You are still important to me.”
Josh closed his eyes. Sejun took a step forward, wanting to reach out to him.
“Junie… Sejun… I love you… always.”
Sejun bit his lip. If he could cry, he would already have. But the rain beat him to it. Rain fell even harder outside, the heavens mourning Sejun’s pain and cried the tears he couldn’t cry.
“I will always be in love with you, Junie,” Josh said, eyes still closed and tears now flowing freely out of them. “But… I have to let you go now.”
No!
Sejun crossed the distance between them. He ran, knelt in front of Josh, and wrapped his arms around his beloved…
But his transparent figure could not hold on to the living. As a wandering spirit, Sejun could only pretend that he was hugging Josh, he was pressing soft kisses on his forehead, he was begging him not to let go.
Don’t let go, he pleaded. Josh, don’t let me go.
“That same day when you had your accident,” Josh whimpered, “I wished it were me. I wished I were the one who ran after you. Maybe then I would be the one who got hit. Maybe… maybe then I wouldn’t feel so much guilt.”
No, no, no! Sejun was practically screaming against Josh’s ear. He could hear his own voice, it echoed even louder than the thunder that clapped outside. But Josh could not hear it. Josh could not hear a spirit’s cries.
Not your fault, my love. Never your fault.
Sejun pretended that Josh could feel his palm as he caressed Josh’s cheek. He liked to think that he was able to wipe the tears away. Because that was all he could do, anyway. Just pretend he was still flesh and bone, and not just an astral body whose feet barely touched the floor.
“I know if you were here,” Josh said, laughing a little bit, “you would probably shout at me and tell me that I’m being stupid. That it’s not my fault… that it was an accident.”
And it is. Baby, it is.
“Did you know it took a while before I started to believe it?” Josh told him. “Took me two therapists and three years to finally accept that some things just… aren’t because of my shitty luck.”
I know, Josh. It’s not your fault.
Josh wiped his cheeks and went back to hunching over himself. Sejun just stood back up in front of him.
“But every time it rains and it pours heavily, I just still remember you. Your beautiful smile… even with those barricades.”
Sejun smiled. Josh had always shown a dislike for his braces. He always said it was unreasonable to have them when Sejun already had a smile so beautiful. Josh liked to run his tongue over Sejun’s braces, like an act of rebellion against the wretched wires cemented against his teeth.
Sejun sighed at his own memories, clutching at his shirt.
“But right now… Junie… Sejunie,” Josh called Josh called to him, as if he knew Sejun was close by—always close by, “Sejun, I have to stop holding on to you, now.”
No… please, no.
“For my sake… and yours,” Josh said. “I can’t… keep you prisoner here.”
Josh, don’t, please! I don’t know where I would go if not with you!
“I feel like if I keep holding on to you, you would never, ever find peace.” Josh groaned, as if he struggled to say the words.
Don’t forget me, please!
“You don’t know… how hard it is for me to say this.” Josh wiped his face with one hand and then smiled. “But I feel like this is something I have to do to move on with my life.”
Sejun wrapped his arms around Josh again. If he could trade his own existence for the chance to hold him in his arms once more, Sejun would do it in. Consequences be damned.
“You said… You said you wanted me to be happy. But I thought I wouldn’t be happy without you. I believed that for years, Junie.” Josh breathed out. His whimper got stuck in his throat and he stopped it from escaping his lips. “Now… Now I want… to finally want that for myself, too.
“You would understand, wouldn’t you, Junie? That I have to let you go because… it’s unfair for me and… for the one who is with me now.”
Like an arrow to the chest. Sejun was no longer alive, but the pain still felt as real as if he had been stabbed several times… as if he were being hit by a careening car and into a lamp post all over again. All because he was running after the painfully beautiful man named Josh.
“Ken is…” Josh smiled, and a hint of a blush peeked under the apples of his cheeks. “Ken is great, Junie… If you had met him, you would like him, too.”
I know him, Sejun thought. I see him with you everyday for the past few months.
Something dark and sinister seemed to rise from below Sejun. Like black smoke rising and covering his feet up to his knees. He let it. He let it cast a black pool underneath him, let it lick the garments he had with him in the afterlife. Sejun felt himself getting eaten away by darkness.
“He’s one stubborn son of a gun,” Josh chuckled. “Really, if you knew the headaches he gives me. They’re like the headaches I used to give you.”
Sejun grit his teeth.
“But I love him, Junie,” Josh confessed. “I love him in a way that’s different from how I love you. If you were rain… he is… a blazing fire. But both can be love, can they not?”
The darkness around Sejun stopped moving for a moment.
“And I want to love him right. I want… to shower him with the love I couldn’t give you… the love you so deserved but was taken from you,” he explained. “Sejun… Sejun, I hope you understand. You gave me your everything, and I want to give the same to someone else. I want… to learn to love as fiercely as you did… but I can’t do that if I’m still holding on to my regrets of you.”
The dark smoke started to fizzle until it disappeared right underneath Sejun’s floating form.
“Sejun, I want to love Ken completely,” Josh pleaded. “You’ll understand if I have to let you go, won’t you?”
Josh… Please don’t forget me… Josh, I’m scared.
“Ah, but…” Josh wiped the mix of tears, drool, and snot that was all over his face. “But I hope you don’t mind… if I still keep memories of you. Is… is that okay, Sejunie?”
What?
“I just… everything you taught me, every memory I had with you… they’re too special to forget,” Josh told him, smiling a bittersweet smile on his handsome face. “You won’t mind, would you? If I still remember the days we spent together? You will still be peaceful, won’t you?”
Oh…
Josh broke down sobbing. He was shaking all over with his head clutched in his hands and his hands on his knees. Whether in the past or now, Sejun had never seen the man crying as hard as he did. Hard as the rain that fell outside. His face was wrinkled in several places, his eyes had long become swollen from all his crying. Even Josh’s voice became hoarse from all his whimpering and groaning.
“J-Josh? Hey!”
Sejun glanced at the door. He did not notice that it had opened. Yellow light flooded into the room from outside, and the shadow of a tall man with broad shoulders came sprinting inside.
Ken, Sejun recognized, knelt in front of Josh and took the man’s hands in his. Sejun moved away.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Josh looked up at Ken. Then, he clung to his neck so tightly that Ken dropped his bag as he leaned forward to hug Josh back. Ken cradled the keening man’s head in his large hands and started to shush him. Sejun watched, immobile.
“Is it about… him?” Josh nodded. “Okay… okay, just let it out.”
“N-No, no. I’m… I’m okay now. I’ve been crying for a while. Shit, my eyes hurt.”
Ken chuckled and peeled himself away from the embrace. Then, he wiped Josh’s tears before kissing him on the forehead… his nose… his cheeks. He peppered Josh’s face with small kisses, making Josh laugh. Sejun smiled from where he stood, too.
“Sejun must have been a really great guy, huh?” Ken started, using the back of his hand to wipe Josh’s eyes. “You wouldn’t cry this much for just anybody.”
“Sorry,” Josh said. “Sorry, I said I wouldn’t mention him around you anymore.”
Ken shook his head. “Hey… You love him. I accept that. He is part of you as much as you are of him. And… I love you. That means, I love the part of you who loves him, too.”
“Thank you, Ken…”
Josh smiled when Ken claimed his lips in a slow dance. If Sejun were alive, he would have held his breath. But he wasn’t. So he could only let his chest rise and fall as he watched the man he loves being cared for by another.
He had been watching them from afar for a while now, and he could see just how much better Josh became after Ken came into his life. Josh smiled more, laughed louder, looked better. And Ken was as nice as nice men came. He seemed to really care about Josh, not even minding the fact that Josh was—still is—in love with Sejun.
Maybe, Sejun began to think, if it were Ken… if Sejun leaves Josh to Ken… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?
And Josh said he wouldn’t forget him. Josh said Sejun would always have a place in his heart. A special place that no one could replace. Surely, that meant that Josh would love Sejun until the end? Surely, Josh would think about Sejun every now and then; when it rains, or when he forgets his umbrella, or when he catches a glimpse of someone in braces.
Suddenly, Sejun felt lighter. The weight in his chest that he has held on to for a long time was starting to lift, a warm and fuzzy lightness taking its place.
I… have to let you go, too, don’t I, Sejun said to Josh. This place… is not a place for me anymore.
Sejun could feel something pulling him. Like a hand tugging gently at his shoulders, wanting to take him somewhere else. He ignored the feeling for a little while—please, let me do this—and approached Josh, who was being held in Ken’s warm embrace.
Sejun bent down, pretending to comb the man’s hair away from his forehead. Then he pressed his lips against Josh’s crown.
I love you, Josh, he whispered. Even in death, I love you.
When he said that, Sejun felt less scared.
The tugging was becoming stronger. The warmth slowly blossomed into a pleasant heat that Sejun wanted to succumb to.
Sejun turned to Ken. The man was still caressing Josh’s back like it was a fragile, precious treasure. He gave Ken an apologetic look. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of Ken’s head. With a shaky breath, Sejun said, Take care of him for me.
Sejun stood. Then, he took a step back.
Okay, he said. I’m ready to go.
The rain outside abated, turning into a gentle drizzle. Having no more regrets, no more fears, no more second thoughts, Sejun let the warmth embrace him, comfort him. He cast one last look at his beloved—I love you until the end, Josh—and turned his back. Then, Sejun disappeared into thin air.