Chapter Text
Euijoo stood in the kitchen staring blankly at two mugs sitting beside the sink before slowly putting one back into the cabinet.
Then another.
Then another.
Until only one remained.
His chest tightened painfully.
He left that one out.
For days after returning from Japan, Euijoo barely slept.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Nicho crying in the hotel room in Tokyo.
Saw his pale face.
His trembling hands.
The way he whispered I love you at the airport like it physically hurt to say.
Euijoo had replayed that goodbye so many times now that parts of it no longer felt real.
Sometimes he woke up convinced he was still there.
Still in Japan.
Still holding Nicho.
Then reality settled over him again like cold water.
And every time, grief followed immediately after.
Though grief for what exactly, Euijoo still couldn’t fully explain.
Because technically nothing had changed.
They were already breaking up before the trip. Euijoo had already chosen to leave. He already knew he’d hurt Nicho.
So why did it suddenly feel impossible to breathe inside their apartment now?
Why did every room feel haunted?
Why did he keep turning toward sounds that weren’t there anymore?
Nicho’s slippers still sat near the entrance. A hoodie still hung over the couch arm. Half-used skincare products remained lined up neatly beside the bathroom sink.
As if disturbing it would make their situation permanent.
Fuma noticed immediately that something was wrong.
“You look exhausted,” he said softly one evening.
They sat together at a quiet restaurant near Fuma’s apartment, though Euijoo had barely touched his food.
“I’m fine,” Euijoo answered automatically.
Fuma looked unconvinced.
Euijoo hated that look.
Not because it was judgmental, but because it was kind.
“You’ve been spacing out a lot,” Fuma admitted carefully after a while.
Euijoo rubbed tiredly at his face. “Sorry.”
Silence settled briefly between them.
Then Fuma quietly asked, “Is it because of Nicho?”
The question pierced straight through Euijoo’s chest. He looked down immediately.
And that alone was answer enough.
Fuma’s expression dimmed slightly.
Not angry.
Just sad.
“I thought the trip was a bad idea,” Fuma said honestly.
Euijoo swallowed hard. “It was,” he whispered.
Japan should have given him closure.
Instead it ripped every old feeling back open until Euijoo no longer knew what he was supposed to do with them.
Because Nicho had looked at him in Japan the same way he used to at nineteen.
Like Euijoo was still the center of his world.
And somewhere during those five days, holding him beneath blooming sakura trees, sleeping beside him, hearing him sing again, Euijoo had realized something terrifying.
He still loved Nicho too.
Not in the same way as before. Not innocent anymore. Not uncomplicated.
Their relationship had become painful long before Fuma entered the picture to the point where Euijoo felt like they only knew how to hurt each other.
Even still, when Nicho smiled at him in Japan, Euijoo’s heart reacted instantly.
Like muscle memory.
Like instinct.
Like home.
Euijoo stared blankly at his untouched food.
Fuma looked down at the table silently.
Which somehow hurt worse.
Because Fuma understood and Euijoo hated himself for that too.
—
The following week passed strangely.
Euijoo kept reaching for his phone constantly.
Opening messages with Nicho.
Reading old conversations from years ago.
Photos from college.
Videos.
Voice messages.
At three in the morning sometimes, Euijoo found himself scrolling through Nicho’s Instagram silently in bed.
The final post stopped his heart every single time.
A photo of blooming sakura trees glowing gold in morning sunlight.
Euijoo stared at it so often he practically memorized every branch.
Every falling petal.
Every shadow.
Then one night, unable to stop himself anymore, Euijoo opened his contacts and pressed on Nicho’s name.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
One call.
That was all.
He just wanted to hear his voice again.
Just once.
But then he remembered.
The airport.
The promises.
After this trip ends, I’ll never bother you again.
And Euijoo had promised things too.
So after a long time just staring at the screen, he locked his phone instead.
—
Days passed.
Then weeks.
And slowly, something awful began curling inside Euijoo’s chest.
Not grief exactly.
Something worse.
Dread.
All the strange moments from Japan kept replaying differently.
The pills.
The exhaustion.
The constant comments about death.
The way Nicho looked out of breath after barely walking.
How loose his clothes had become.
How cold his hands felt.
How he stumbled during the sakura bloom.
How he kept speaking like someone saying goodbye forever.
Euijoo sat awake one night at nearly four in the morning suddenly remembering the beach.
May I suffer the consequences.
His stomach twisted violently.
No.
No.
Nicho was dramatic sometimes.
Emotional.
Not suicidal.
Right?
—
Three weeks after returning from Japan, a package arrived with a Taiwanese shipping label.
His blood ran cold before he even opened it.
Inside was a guitar case.
And on top of the case was a recorder and a note.
Euijoo stared at both items blankly.
Then reached for the note carefully.
His breathing stopped completely when he recognized the handwriting.
Euijoo,
Nicho asked for this to be sent only after he had passed away.
He wanted you to have it.
Thank you for loving him.
—The Wang family
The words didn’t register properly.
Euijoo read them once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then suddenly the apartment floor felt unstable beneath him.
“No,” he whispered instantly.
His voice cracked badly.
“No.”
His hands shook so violently he nearly dropped the letter.
Passed away.
No.
No no no—
Nicho was twenty-seven.
Nicho was supposed to go home.
Supposed to live.
Supposed to—
Euijoo collapsed hard onto the floor beside the package, breathing unevenly.
His ears rang loudly.
Somewhere far away, he became aware of himself crying.
Not graceful tears.
Not silent grief.
Broken sobs tearing violently out of his chest while denial clawed uselessly through him.
No.
No.
This wasn’t real.
This couldn’t be real.
Then his gaze landed on the recorder.
And suddenly every terrible instinct from Japan came rushing back all at once.
The pills.
The weight loss.
The comments.
The promises.
The goodbye.
Euijoo made a horrible sound in the back of his throat.
This had to be a sick joke.
With shaking hands, and blurry eyes, he picked up the recorder and pressed play with shaking hands.
At first there was only soft static.
Then Nicho’s voice.
Euijoo stopped breathing instantly.
It sounded fragile in a way that made something inside Euijoo immediately begin unraveling.
Then Nicho started singing.
And Euijoo broke.
Because he knew the song instantly.
Of course he did.
Nicho used to sing it half-asleep during college while Euijoo played guitar badly beside him.
Used to hum it while cooking.
While studying.
While walking home late at night through cold Japanese streets.
Euijoo pressed his hand hard against his mouth as Nicho’s trembling voice filled the apartment.
It wasn’t perfect anymore.
Some notes wavered.
His breathing sounded uneven.
But it was still beautiful.
Still Nicho.
By the end of the song, Euijoo was crying so hard he could barely see.
Then Nicho spoke. He spoke about the trip, the cheating, the cancer.
His mind rejected every sentence instantly even while his body already knew it was true.
Because suddenly everything made sense.
Every strange thing Nicho said in Japan.
Every look.
Every stumble.
Every exhausted breath.
Euijoo curled forward violently, gripping the recorder so tightly his knuckles turned white.
And when Nicho quietly admitted, “While you were with Fuma… I kept thinking about how unfair it was.”
Euijoo made a broken sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp. His chest physically hurt now like something sharp had lodged beneath his ribs.
“At first… I wanted you to suffer.”
Euijoo squeezed his eyes shut hard. Because he deserved that.
God, he deserved worse.
But Nicho still forgave him anyway.
Even when dying alone, even abandoned, even heartbroken.
Nicho still chose kindness in the end.
That realization shattered whatever remained of Euijoo completely.
By the time Nicho softly whispered, “I love you, Byun Euijoo.”
Euijoo was openly sobbing as the recording left the apartment in silence.
For several seconds Euijoo couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
Then suddenly nausea surged violently through him.
Euijoo scrambled to his feet so fast he nearly slipped before stumbling toward the bathroom.
The second he reached the sink, he threw up.
His entire body shook painfully.
Again.
Again.
Nothing left in his stomach except burning acid and grief.
Euijoo gripped the sink desperately while tears streamed uncontrollably down his face.
Nicho was dead.
Dead.
Gone forever.
And Euijoo had left him alone.
A horrible scream tore out of him before he could stop it. The kind of sound dragged straight from unbearable pain. He collapsed hard onto the bathroom floor afterward, crying so violently he could barely breathe properly.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out uselessly. Over and over. “I’m sorry—”
His voice cracked apart completely.
Then through broken sobs, Euijoo whispered shakily in unpracticed Taiwanese, “I love you too.”
The words dissolved immediately into crying again. Because Nicho would never hear them now.
Hours later, Euijoo still sat on the bathroom floor unable to move.
The apartment around him remained horribly quiet.
And for the first time since everything happened, Euijoo forced himself to think honestly about Fuma.
About how all of this started.
The truth was uglier than cheating.
Because nothing between him and Nicho had broken suddenly.
It happened slowly.
Like cracks spreading through glass.
Nicho had been unhappy long before Fuma appeared.
At first it was subtle.
Sleepless nights.
Mood swings.
Sudden silences.
Then eventually the sadness became something heavier.
Darker.
Nicho stopped going out as much.
Stopped dancing.
Stopped singing around the apartment.
Sometimes Euijoo would come home and find him lying silently in bed staring at the wall.
At first Euijoo tried.
God, he tried.
He held him.
Cooked for him.
Stayed awake talking to him until morning.
Told him over and over that things would get better.
But depression was cruel.
Because eventually every conversation started feeling the same.
Euijoo would say something wrong.
Nicho would cry or lash out or apologize so much it made Euijoo feel guilty for even being tired.
Then Euijoo started feeling afraid to come home sometimes.
Afraid of what kind of night waited for him.
Afraid of another argument.
Another breakdown.
Another desperate attempt to fix something he no longer understood how to reach.
And then Fuma appeared.
Fuma laughed easily.
Listened well.
Never demanded anything emotionally from Euijoo.
Being around him felt light again.
Euijoo hated how relieving that felt.
At first he told himself it was harmless. Just friendship.
Just someone helping him breathe a little.
But emotional affairs rarely announce themselves clearly.
They happen quietly.
One conversation becoming ten.
One dinner becoming weekly routines.
One person slowly becoming the first thing you think about when something happens.
And Euijoo, weak, selfish Euijoo, let it happen.
Because he had so much love in him still.
And somewhere along the way, loving Fuma became easy.
Confessing to Nicho afterward was one of the worst moments of Euijoo’s life.
He still remembered Nicho’s face.
The disbelief.
Then devastation.
Euijoo almost took it back immediately.
Almost begged forgiveness.
Almost stayed.
But by then things between them already hurt constantly.
And Euijoo was exhausted too.
That was the truth he hated most.
He had been tired.
Tired enough to hurt someone he loved.
Then came the pills.
Euijoo shut his eyes tightly against the memory.
Coming home to Nicho sitting on the bathroom floor afterward with dried blood on the floor and toilet.
Euijoo kneeling beside him shaking and terrified.
Nicho crying so hard he could barely speak.
Euijoo remembered holding him that night thinking:
I can’t do this anymore.
And immediately hating himself for thinking it, because Nicho was suffering, because Nicho needed him.
But Euijoo was drowning too.
He wanted to save Nicho, wanted to stay, wanted to love him correctly.
But every day together had started feeling like survival instead of living.
So Euijoo left pieces of himself elsewhere instead.
With Fuma.
With work.
Anywhere quieter than the grief waiting at home.
And because of how badly they ended, Nicho had fought cancer alone.
The realization hit Euijoo so hard he doubled over again.
All while Euijoo was distracted by another life.
Another love.
Another future.
And even after suspecting something was horribly wrong during the Japan trip, Euijoo still left early.
Couldn’t even stay one full week.
Couldn’t even make Nicho’s final days less lonely.
Euijoo pressed both hands over his face and sobbed again.
Because now he understood why Nicho looked at him that way beneath the sakura trees.
Why every goodbye felt too heavy.
Why Nicho held him so tightly that last night.
Nicho knew.
The entire time—
Nicho knew he was dying.
And still spent his last strength trying to love Euijoo gently enough to let him go.
—
A year into dating Euijoo, Nicho learned something important.
Euijoo loved mornings.
Loved them in an almost offensive way.
Early morning walks.
Early morning coffee.
Early morning sunlight.
Meanwhile Nicho loved sleeping.
So naturally, at barely seven in the morning during spring break, Nicho was miserable.
“You’re evil,” Nicho muttered sleepily as they walked down the quiet street together.
Euijoo laughed immediately.
Cold spring air drifted through the nearly empty roads around them, brushing against blooming trees and quiet shopfronts just beginning to open for the day.
Nicho’s face was still puffy from sleep.
His cheeks were flushed pink from the cold.
His hair stuck out messily beneath the hood pulled over his head.
Euijoo looked at him once and started laughing harder.
Nicho narrowed his eyes instantly.
“What?”
“You look angry at the entire world.”
“I am.”
Euijoo grinned brightly before leaning down and kissing Nicho’s cold cheek.
Nicho immediately shoved him away halfheartedly.
“Don’t use affection to manipulate me.”
“It’s working though.”
Nicho scoffed sleepily under his breath while Euijoo laughed again.
God.
Nicho thought distantly that Euijoo was beautiful in the mornings.
There was something softer about him before the rest of the world fully woke up.
Something unguarded.
The kind of face Nicho wanted to spend the rest of his life looking at.
The thought embarrassed him enough that he looked away quickly.
Beside him, Euijoo bumped their shoulders together lightly.
“Teach me something in Mandarin.”
Nicho blinked in surprise.
“Hm?”
“You’ve been learning Korean,” Euijoo pointed out. “It’s unfair.”
“That’s because your language is way easier than mandarin.”
Euijoo looked deeply offended.
“It’s not that much easier.”
Nicho gave him a look.
Euijoo laughed quietly again.
Then waited expectantly.
Nicho studied him for a moment.
The hopeful look on Euijoo’s face.
The curiosity.
The trust.
Then slowly, Nicho hummed thoughtfully and looked away toward the pale morning sky.
After a second, he spoke softly.
“Ài lí, sī guá siōng hó ê ūn-miā.”
Euijoo blinked.
Confused immediately.
“What?”
Nicho kept walking.
Expression suspiciously calm.
Euijoo hurried after him.
“What does that mean?”
Nicho repeated it again slower this time.
“Ài lí, sī guá siōng hó ê ūn-miā.”
Euijoo leaned closer while they walked, brows furrowing adorably in concentration.
“Is that Mandarin?”
Nicho yawned sleepily.
“It’s Taiwanese.”
Euijoo looked surprised by that.
Then curious again.
“What does it mean?”
Nicho shoved his hands deeper into his pockets against the cold.
For once, he suddenly looked shy.
Euijoo noticed immediately.
And softened.
Nicho glanced away before answering quietly:
“It means…”
His voice grew gentler.
“Loving you was the greatest fate of my life.”
Euijoo stopped walking entirely.
Nicho got two steps ahead before realizing.
When he turned back around, Euijoo was staring at him with an expression so unbearably warm it made Nicho’s heart stutter.
“What?” Nicho mumbled defensively.
Euijoo smiled.
Slowly.
Beautifully.
Then under his breath, carefully, he repeated:
“Ài lí…”
His pronunciation was terrible.
Nicho burst into laughter instantly.
“No, no— not like that.”
Euijoo started laughing too.
Then stubbornly tried again.
And again.
Until eventually Nicho walked back over to him smiling helplessly and began correcting him properly.
Patiently.
Softly.
Their breath fogged faintly in the cold spring air while Euijoo practiced the sentence over and over beneath blooming trees.
Finally, after several attempts, Euijoo straightened proudly.
Then stepped closer.
Close enough that Nicho could see sleep still lingering faintly in his eyes too.
Euijoo looked directly at him.
Completely sincere.
And in careful Taiwanese, he said, “Ài lí, sī guá siōng hó ê ūn-miā.”
Loving you was the greatest fate of my life.
Nicho’s face lit up, and Euijoo’s face flushed.
At nineteen years old, standing in the middle of a quiet Japanese street with spring sunlight spilling softly over them, they genuinely believed this moment would last forever.
And years later, long after love became grief, long after Japan became unbearable, those words would remain carved on Euijoo’s guitar forever.