~~~~~
"What happened next?" A young boy frantically tugged at Soobin's sleeve. "Come on! You have to tell me!"
Soobin gently smiled, crouching to meet the child's height. "Well, after the war ended, Taehyun and Beomgyu found each other again, and they lived happily ever after, just like Yeonjun and I."
"But... Yeonjun hyung is-"
"Yeonjun is resting. He'll be awake soon."
"You said that yesterday."
"And I meant it then as much as I mean it now." Soobin tapped the boy's nose with his finger. "Time to go to sleep, okay? We have a big day ahead of us."
"Tomorrow's just a normal day," the child giggled. "You're so silly, Soobin hyung."
Soobin watched the kid run off in the direction of the pediatric ward.
A woman in a white coat poked her head into the room. "Thank you again for keeping him company. For some reason, he's just not interested in socializing with the other kids."
"Of course," Soobin smiled, standing up. "And yeah, I'm familiar with that type. So, they still haven't found his parents?"
The doctor sadly shook her head. "No, and I doubt they will."
She sighed, gazing off into the distance before turning to leave. "Well, good night, Soobin-ssi."
"Good night." Soobin quietly shut the door before sliding into bed beside a still figure.
He kissed Yeonjun's forehead, ignoring the beep of machines off to the side and the tube coming out of the older boy's mouth.
It had been six days since his final seizure.
Soobin curled up beside him on a mattress far too small for two full-grown men. He stared at the worn stack of envelopes on the hospital's nightstand. Letter after letter arrived for months after he left Taehyun at the border. Beomgyu wrote about the stars and the sky and how much he missed seeing them without smoke forcing tears from his eyes.
Taehyun simply wrote about Beomgyu. The night they'd spent together in the bomb shelter. The shine of his wedding ring after he polished it with a spare rag. Their life before everything had fallen apart.
Soobin kept the letters close to his heart, rereading them over and over again in the waiting room of the doctor's office, in the taxi to the emergency room, in the armchair beside Yeonjun's bed. As long as Soobin had the letters, everything would be okay. He could ignore the frantic beeping of Yeonjun's heart monitor. He could ignore the whir of the machines surrounding their bed. He couldn't ignore the lack of envelopes in his mailbox, but he could pretend it was because of slow postage.
Always blame it on slow postage.
There was no need to look into the fact that Beomgyu's letters had stopped first.
Or that Taehyun's ceased shortly thereafter.
YOU ARE READING
Station 553 | Taegyu & Heehoon
Fanfiction"That's the hardest part. Learning to forgive yourself so you can move on." "Did you?" Beomgyu shook his head. "I don't think I can ever forgive myself for hurting Taehyun. It was just by chance that I ran into him again. Chance that we ended up tog...
