✎dearest, author belle ⿻

coffee breath part 3・✦

*from previous chapter*

Blacking out is a pleasant, cool sensation as compared to the heat of pain. The darkness doesn't drown me and clutch me in its iron claws. It washes over me gently, coaxing me to rest.

9-year-old Jaemin and Chuhua meeting for the first time. A shy wave, a quick smile.

Jaemin and Chuhua sharing books and crayons.

Chuhua telling Jaemin she has a tumor.

Jaemin telling her he has an angina.

"Va-Vagina?!"

He blushed beet red, waving his hands in front of him so hard she feared they'd fall off.

"Angina! Not- not- vagina," he mumbled the last part.

Jaemin and Chuhua became the Dynamic Duo of the hospital.

Jaemin and Chuhua, together forever.
Jaemin and Chuhua are best friends forever.
Jaemin and Chuhua promising under the cherry tree in the moonlight to never leave each others side.

Jaemin broke the promise.
Jaemin broke the promise.

The day his angina finally became something more and his heart turned on him. The day he stopped smelling like caramel and started smelling like roses and false tears. The day I cried and screamed and pulled his posters off the walls and clutched his sheets and hugged them tight, hoping that'd bring him back, that he was there.

I seized for the first time that day, and then I Forgot. I Forgot it all.

The Head Nurse runs in, and sees me wailing in front of his file.

"Oh sweetheart," she murmurs, sweeping me into her arms. She takes me to the East Wing, where the names of all the patients that died were displayed. I hated that Wing. It stank of death. I stood in front of Jaemins name and picture, quiet tears running down my face.

Head Nurse stands behind me, sighing quietly.

"I'm sorry Chuhua, I know you loved him."

I cock my head.

"Not in the way you think."

~~

That night, I just know that Jaemin won't be in the room. I walk to the cherry tree instead. He's there, of course, thin and fragile, blond hair turning black at the roots.

"You figure it out Chihuahua?"

I punch him with no real intent.

"Asshole. You left me so many clues."

"I told you I'd help you remember."

"You did."

I stare at his face, memorizing it, holding it in my heart, and locking it away in the safest corner of my mind.

"I have to go now."

"Please don't," I beg him, voice breaking.

I hug him with all my might, under the moon, and whisper in his ear.

"Jaemin and Chuhua."

"Together Forever."

I sob into his chest, tucking my head under his chin.

"Live for me," he whispers.

"Promise," I say.

I'm still hugging him when he turns into a shower of starlight and disappears. I'm still crying when the boy who was my best friend, the boy who taught me to live, the boy who loved me and the boy who I loved turns to starlight.

He was my best friend and first love, but he wasn't my boyfriend. I never thought of him that way. He wasn't a brother either. I loved him with the intensity of a partner and bickered with him as I would do with a brother, but he was never either one. Jaemin had always been my best friend, and he would always be just that. My best friend and first love. Platonic, not romantic, comfortable with how we were.

I'm crying when that boy turns to starlight. But I'm determined, excited to see what life has ahead for me. I'm not sad. I'm reborn. I promised him I'd live. And I'd live for him. I'd live to the fullest.

I'd do it for the boy with blond hair and a goofy smile. I'd do it for the boy with the scent of caramel hanging in the air around him. I'd do it for the boy with coffee breath.

— end —

nyssa's note: Credits to belle and her autocorrect for chihuahua (inspired loosely by my lips like warm coffee by Junielogy)

belle's note: ALL BECAUSE OF AN ANONYMOUS GIRAFFE AND MY AUTOCORRECT TURNING ON ME