Under the sky in room 553

10

"Yeonjun, come on in."

"Good afternoon, auntie. Oh, uncle Choi. You're here too." Yeonjun politely bowed, taking off his shoes and putting them on the shelf by the door.

One afternoon, as he was about to exit his classes, he received a text from Beomgyu's parents. They had invited him to come over to their home, telling him there were some things they wanted to discuss. Of course Yeonjun agreed.

Naturally, they have been fond of him ever since he was little. Practically growing up together, Beomgyu's family felt just like his second family.

Therefore, he had no reason to feel such dread and anxiety from just visiting Beomgyu's parents. Yet, why did the knot in his gut signal  him that whatever he was about to hear, it wasn't good news?

"Come sit, Yeonjun." Said Beomgyu's dad, gesturing at the living room couch across from where he and his wife were seated upon. Yeonjun could only offer a small smile as he made his way there, putting his backpack down by his feet.

"How are you?" Asked Mrs. Choi, her expression adorned with the nurturing smile Yeonjun had grown to like. "I'm well, auntie. I was just about to go visit Beomgyu at the hospital."

At the mention, he noticed simultaneously how both their faces dropped. His heart sank. There was silence that hung heavier than it should, before Mr. Choi took it upon himself to break it.

The next things he said broke more than just the silence, however. "About that..." He started, looking up at Yeonjun with hesitancy that he'd never seen before." We have decided, after much thought, to finally put Beomgyu down."

It was as if you could hear a pin drop, the silence breaking down the last wall of strength he had. Yeonjun had felt his exterior cracked. If his entire life ever since he lost Beomgyu was a nightmare, he would very much like to wake up now. "I'm sorry?" He choked out, and turned to Mrs. Choi,who was sitting next to her husband. The warm smile moments earlier was now completely gone, replaced with a frown as she hung her head low to avoid his eyes.

This, Yeonjun realised, wasn't a dream. Rather, it was beginning to look like a horrible nightmare.

"But how can you decide to do that? He's your son, uncle! He's going to wake up soon. Trust me. H-he's getting better." He blurted, tone growing less confident as he went on. He wasn't even sure if he himself believed that last bit. Alas, he persisted. "We can't give up on him!"

"Yeonjun," calmly called out Mr. Choi, face crestfallen. Yeonjun watched as he reached for his wife's hand and squeezed it. "It's precisely because he's our son that we made this decision."

Yeonjun just couldn't understand the logic of the adults. How could they be so heartless over their own flesh and blood, when he himself struggled to come to terms with it every day? Did they suddenly turn heartless?

The anger bubbling up in his chest must have shown on his face, because Mrs. Choi's expression shifted. "But—"

"Yeonjun, please. It's our decision. We're his parents. He's—" she spoke, having to pause just so she could breathe. "He's our only child. If it's been hard for you, it's been... Much harder for us."

Maybe it was because she was right, but Yeonjun couldn't conjure a coherent response. After what felt like hours after, he found his voice again. "Surely there's something we can do? Something I can do to help? Please, anything—"

"It's been three years." This time, it was Mr. Choi that spoke, his voice firm but cracked.  His jaws were tightened now, face dark. He was growing impatient at Yeonjun's lack of understanding. "We've waited for three years. The bills have been staked high. His treatments are costly, and at this point—it's not that we wanted to give up, Yeonjun. It's just that we can't afford to go on anymore." He paused, staring Yeonjun dead in his eyes. The resolution in them took Yeonjun back. "Both financially, and emotionally."

Quietly, Mrs. Choi added. "This is better for him."

This did not rub him well, because the next thing he knew, he was up on his feet. "How can it possibly be better for him?! If you need help covering the cost, I can help. My salary from my job at the convenience store isn't much, but I'll give you all I have. I can drop a few more classes to work another daytime job too. I can even help other kids with their homework for pocket money if that'll make a difference at all—"

A slammed hand on the coffee table jolted Yeonjun out of his train of speech.

"To live a life more painful than death; if my son had a say, do you think he'd want to keep on living?" Bursted Mr. Choi, now standing up as well. His voice no longer had that composed edge to it, suddenly raw with emotions he seemed to have been holding back. "Be honest to yourself, Yeonjun. You knew him as well as we did. If Beomgyu could make a choice, would you truly think that he'd choose what we didn't? To prolong his suffering, and watch those around him crumble because there's nothing they can do except leave it up to fate?!"

Yeonjun froze, lips agape with no words coming out. He so badly wanted to deny everything the older male said, telling him that there was still hope; that Beomgyu would wake up, or that he'd want to keep fighting.

But it had already been three years. Yeonjun could barely hold onto that remaining spark of hope anymore—was it still a spark? or was it now just a dying flicker?—so how could he even convince others to do the same?

The look on the couple's face told him that whatever Yeonjun was about to feel now with this establishment, they already have come to terms with. Therefore, he bit his lips, shakily sitting back down.

He would never admit it, not even with a knife pointed at his throat—but at the back of his mind, he knew. And perhaps he had always known.

That Beomgyu's parents were right. Everything they said, Yeonjun couldn't find it in him to refute. Because it was all true, and Yeonjun couldn't waste another second trying to delude himself into thinking it wasn't.

While he spent the past three years locking himself up in a fantasy, his parents have been bracing themselves to face the harsh reality. Oh, how he wished now he was strong enough to have done the same.

The realisation that he had been distracting himself, turning a blind eye to the inevitable—that his Beomgyu wouldn't wake up anytime soon, no matter how many more paper hearts he folded for him. This discovery filled him with cold dread, heart aching and lungs too heavy. He blinked, as the sparkle of hope in him completely gave way to darkness. His Beomgyu was never coming back, and there was nothing he could do to change that.

The silence in the room was so intense that one could hear a pin drop. Neither of them spoke, and for the longest time; it also felt like neither of them remembered to breathe.

After what felt like forever and back, he spoke up. "How long...?" He couldn't even afford to finish the sentence, voice cracking as he looked up through his blurry vision at the couple.

"A month, at best." Said Mr. Choi, back to his previous position of sitting and holding his wife's hand. His voice was composed again, and this time, Yeonjun could almost hear a trickle of guilt in it.

"His birthday." He cryptically said, which earned him two pairs of questioning eyes thrown in his way. "His eighteenth birthday. Let me celebrate it with him," Yeonjun's voice grew quieter with every spoken word. By the time he arrived at the end of the sentence, it was barely audible when he added, "please—one last time."

Then there was silence as a look of contemplation washed over the couple's faces. They stared at each other for what felt like minutes, having an unspoken discussion.

Reluctantly, Mrs. Choi spoke up. "Alright. But we're afraid that would have to be his last day."

Yeonjun smiled apologetically to himself, nodding. "That's fine." He deeply inhaled, trying to steady his trembling hands by clamping them together. "That's enough."

It wasn't enough, and it probably will never be—but what more could Yeonjun ask for? Who would grant his wish? Who would give him more? They were moving on borrowed time. Time granted to them through money and debt, chemicals and machinery. Yeonjun had always known this, but this was the first time he allowed himself to come to terms with the cruelty of that realisation.

It wasn't enough, but it somehow had to be.