Immortal Desire || SanHwa / Seonghwa x San

5. Pain

*please PLEASE listen to this song as your read this (Cornfield Chase - Michael Forster)*

Deathly screams resounded in the house as San sat upright, tearing his voice to shreds as pain shot through every fibre of his body.

He screamed so loudly, clutching his arms to his chest, that he could taste blood trickling down his throat. His bones, his muscles, joints, even his blood, screamed, with him, in agony.

No amount of ointment would save him from this. All he could see was red, a grave softly outlined within his closed eyes.

With pained sobs, San threw himself out of the bed, running out the house and sprinting towards the mountain.

It didn't matter how much he hurt, how much his body hurt, he ran, and he didn't stop. Tears streamed down his face as his feet pounded the ground.

His bare, bleeding feet.

He ran the whole way up the mountain, choking on tears and breath, never stopping until his knees met the hard stones of Wooyoung's grave, and his arms wrapped around the gravestone as he cried.

He pressed the bridge of his nose into the edge of the stone, letting his tears wet the surface.

He was in so much pain, so much agony, he screamed.

It wasn't even daylight yet, the sky had no hints of blue. The birds hadn't woken yet, it was so silent in the forest. There wasn't a single sound, leaving San's voice echoing in the dark.

San clutched Wooyoung's grave as close to his chest as his body would allow.

He could feel death in every joint, in every bone and beat of his heart. It was shredding his muscles, tearing his skin apart, breaking and shattering every bone in his body.

Yet he wasn't dying. He couldn't. He could only hold onto the only thing he knew right now.

It was like he could feel deaths hand around his throat. It wasn't cold like you'd expect, fingers didn't press into his veins, or try to choke him, no nails tried to pierce his skin.

No, the hand was warm. It was soft, delicate, gentle. It held him there, not trying to kill him, but to hold him on the thread of life and death.

It reminded him of the pain in his neck, right in the spinal cord above his shoulder and below his skull, as if it were cracking eternally.

A stark contrast to the warmth of the hand.

The face to the hand wasn't dark and soulless either. San didn't fear it. While he couldn't see features of the face, he could see the soft blonde hair like his own. He could imagine the gentle gaze of the eyes he couldn't see.

It left him crying. San could only trace his fingers across his neck as if to touch the hand that held him, only to feel nothing but is own, burning skin.

He pulled away just barely, to try and see the w.y engraving. His tear soaked eyes however rendered his vision blurry, and although San couldn't see the carving itself, he knew it was there, and that was enough.

"Whyy??" San sniffed. He hugged the stone tightly, and he stayed there.

He stayed there well into the dawn, past the birds waking, as the sun peeked through the morning fog. He couldn't leave. He didn't want to. He needed Wooyoung...

And he would have stayed there forever.

But San heard soft footsteps approach him. As he peeked his eyes over his shoulder, his blurry vision gave light to a pair of shoes walking towards him.