17 Days - SVT

013

"Hey, Hao."

Minghao turned around, confused. "Junnie?"

"Hao." said Junhui breathlessly, stopping directly in front of the younger. "About fate..."

"Fuck fate." said Minghao bitterly, kicking at the sand.

Junhui raised an eyebrow.

"Fate brought us here to die." said Minghao. "Haven't you realized? It's raining almost all the time, day and night, so we can't have a fire, so we're freezing. Supplies are running low, and it's only been a week. And what with Chan being too sick to stand on his own, I... I just don't see how anything good can come out of this."

"Hao, listen to me." said Junhui, placing a hand on Minghao's shoulder to stop him from walking away. "In the very beginning of this mess, you told us all that fate had a reason for everything, right?"

"Yeah. Death." said Minghao miserably.

"No, hear me out." said Junhui patiently. "When we first ended up here, think of the state I was in."

"You were... a mess." giggled Minghao, remembering the makeshift bandage of a leaf.

"I was." Junhui nodded in agreement. "I was scared and sad. I knew instantly that I'd lost a lot. And of course, I was hurt. If it weren't for you, I might have bled out right then and there. But you took me under your wing when no one else could."

"To be fair, you came to me first." said Minghao. "Scared the hell out of me, too."

Junhui chuckled. "I could tell. But you didn't have to save me. You could have let me die and had a week's supply of food to eat."

"Hyung!" said Minghao in disgust.

"Okay, sorry. Seriously, though, none of us had to save each other. We could have recreated the Hunger Games and waited until everyone else dies. Heck, we could have sped up the process! But we didn't. We took care of each other, all thirteen of us, and-"

"Can you get to the point?" asked Minghao impatiently.

"Alright, fine. What I'm saying is, if fate really has it out for us, then why did we unite? Fate could have divided us, and look what happened instead."

Minghao frowned. "I guess... wow, you have a way with words, hyung."

"Glad I could help." said Junhui, smiling.

"Why did you come to talk to me in the first place, though?"

Junhui bit his lip, averting his gaze. He wasn't so sure if he was ready anymore.

"Well... who said I wanted to talk to you?"

"But-" said Minghao, looking a little hurt.

He was cut off by a pair of lips against his.

As their bodies naturally moved closer, rain poured down softly. It felt like something from a movie.

Maybe this was their movie... in real life.

Wait, this was real, right?

This felt too good to be real...

Junhui broke away first, smiling. "See, this is what fate wanted for us, too."

Minghao roughly pinched himself behind his back. It hurt a lot.

So this was real... no way.

Did this mean Junhui liked him back?

"I think I've changed my mind about fate, then." grinned Minghao. "I love fate!"

He threw himself against Junhui's body, the elder hugging him tightly with a large grin on his face. Minghao's face was buried in Junhui's shoulder, small tears of joy spilling from his eyes. It felt almost... illegal, to be this happy on a stranded island. If he ignored the fact that they were probably going to die any day now, this could be just like any other day, except today, he found the one he would stay with forever. That doesn't happen everyday, now, does it?

He honestly didn't care about his inevitable death anymore. He knew his time was limited, and so was everyone else's. But they'd all found their happiness - each other. As long as they were together, in life or death, nothing else mattered anymore.

***

Yet again, Chan shot up in the middle of the night and ran outside to vomit, barely making it to the bushes. This had been happening ever since he had first gotten sick, and he hated it. He couldn't even move without something happening.

And every time it happened, he thought of his parents. When he was sick as a child, his parents would do whatever they could to help him feel better. Where were his parents when he needed them?

Well, that was easy. They were in some secret, far-away place, and he could never see them again.

Unless...

The longer he stayed there, the longer he lost his mind. Even if a rescue team were to come along, what was the point of going back to that hellish town full of memories? How could he recover when he was walking the same streets they had walked, inhaling the same scents they had inhaled, living the same life they had lived and were supposed to be living right now?

He had no one, no one except the boys on the island with him. But at that moment, it was quite obvious they didn't need him. They had each other. They had all fallen in love. There were five couples, and one in the making. He was the outlier. What did it matter to them if he was gone? What would it matter to anyone?

Sure, they had made him happy in the past week. But so had his parents, and where were they now?

Chan knew this much by now: good things don't last. Easy come, easy go.

He sighed and dipped his toes in the cold water, instantly sending a shiver down his spine. He was going to swim until he couldn't. And then, he'd drown, and all his problems and burdens would drown with him. He couldn't bother anyone anymore.

But then again, the water frightened him. It had taken his parents away so swiftly...

Wait, wasn't that what he wanted? To go find them in the sky?

But was it really what he wanted?

He thought of fate. He already knew his fate, deep down. But couldn't he just live to see his friends' fate? Surely it couldn't take long. Something inside him told him there was a light at the end of this seemingly endless dark tunnel, slowly guiding his friends to their happy endings.

He wasn't one to listen to gut feelings like this. But this one... this one seemed likely.

And while he knew he wasn't part of this happy ending, he could at least help his friends for the first and last time, to let them know that there was still hope for them.

Fate had different plans for him, that much was clear. But he just had to accept it. And so he did.

For the others. And mostly, for Eomma and Appa.