〈 I Wish You Were Mine ╱ MarkHyuck 〉 ✓

마흔다섯

The ride to the hospital was a blur, a fevered nightmare that refused to slow. Donghyuck's chest heaved, his hands trembling so violently he could hardly hold his phone. The city lights streaked by in fractured colors, and every second felt like it was dragging him deeper into a pit he could not climb out of.

When he arrived, he didn't even remember how his feet carried him through the sliding doors. All he heard was the sterile hum of the fluorescent lights, the distant shuffle of nurses, the quiet buzz of life and death braided together in the hallways. His voice cracked as he stammered Minhyung's name, demanding, begging for answers.

The nurse looked at him with that practiced softness that only comes from seeing devastation too often. She didn't speak—she only nodded to a man in uniform, who gestured for him to follow.

Donghyuck's legs were lead. Every step toward the morgue was heavier than the last, as though the ground itself was punishing him, pulling him down. The corridor grew colder, quieter, the air dense with the scent of antiseptic and finality.

When they stopped before the steel door, the man hesitated. "Are you sure you want to—"

"Yes," Donghyuck croaked, the word breaking. "I need to see him."

The door groaned open.

The morgue was a cavern of silence, its air sharp, metallic. White sheets lined the steel tables, rows of unclaimed bodies that whispered of unfinished stories. And then, the nurse led him to one.

The sheet was pulled back.

Minhyung's face lay before him—pale, still, a terrifying imitation of sleep. His lips were colorless, his lashes damp as if tears had once lived there, his skin marred faintly by the violence of fire and impact.

For a heartbeat, Donghyuck forgot to breathe.

The scream tore out of him, raw and guttural, a sound no human throat should ever make. He stumbled forward, clutching the edge of the table, his nails scraping the steel until they burned. His knees buckled, collapsing beneath him, his body convulsing with sobs.

"No... no, no, no, Minhyung—wake up, please—wake up, hyung—" His voice shattered against the cold walls, bouncing back like a cruel echo. He shook the lifeless body as though it might stir, as though twenty years of love could defy death.

Tears streamed down his face in torrents, blurring his vision, yet he could not look away. His hands traced Minhyung's jaw, his cheek, his lips—lips that had once kissed him, lips he now realized he would never feel again. He pressed his forehead against Minhyung's, the chill of death seeping into his bones.

Donghyuck whispered, his voice splintering, though Minhyung had never said the words—he had only lived them. "And I was too late. I was too blind."

He screamed again, the sound breaking into sobs that left him gasping, clawing at the emptiness in his chest. Nurses rushed in, trying to pull him back, but he fought them with a desperation born from grief. His nails dug into Minhyung's clothes, his body arching as if ripped in half.

"I can't do this without you! Do you hear me? You can't leave me like this! You can't—"

His cries dissolved into incoherent wails. The room spun, the edges of his vision darkened, and all he could see was Minhyung's still face, the boy who had once been his everything, now reduced to a body behind glass and steel.

His sobs grew violent, shuddering through his ribs. Nurses tried to pry him away, but he fought them with the ferocity of a man possessed, nails scraping against steel, knuckles bleeding.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM! DON'T TAKE HIM FROM ME!"

It took three men to pull him back, but his arms clawed, reaching desperately for Minhyung's lifeless body.

He collapsed to the floor, his face pressed to the cold tile. His screams dissolved into hoarse sobs. His lungs burned, his voice shredded, but he could not stop.

Then—like a cruel twist of fate—the door opened again.

Nakyung.

She froze in the doorway, her hand over her mouth as she saw Donghyuck crumpled, Minhyung pale and still. Tears welled in her eyes instantly, but she didn't step forward. She couldn't. Her body shook as she whispered, "No... no, this isn't real."

Her words barely reached him. Donghyuck's entire world was the table in front of him, the absence staring back at him.

But another figure entered—fragile, older. Minhyung's mother.

Her knees hit the floor before she could even stand upright. She reached for Donghyuck, her voice shaking, breaking, her hands clutching at his sleeves.

"Donghyuck... I was wrong," she cried, bowing her head to him. "I was so wrong. I thought I was protecting him, I thought pushing you away would save him, but I... I destroyed him. And now—" Her words dissolved into wails. "Now my son is gone."

Donghyuck's sobs fractured. He turned, meeting her eyes, seeing the same devastation mirrored back. For years, she had been the wall between them. Now she was rubble, crumbling before him.

He didn't know if he forgave her. He didn't know if forgiveness even mattered anymore. But her grief sliced him open all over again, because it meant Minhyung was truly gone.

The nurse gently placed a clear plastic bag beside them—Minhyung's belongings. Donghyuck's shaking hands tore it open. Inside: a worn passport, half-scorched documents, a guitar pick, and—his heart stopped—a small stuffed toy.

The one Minhyung had meant to give him.

Donghyuck clutched it to his chest, collapsing forward with another scream, so loud it seemed to shake the steel tables around them. The toy smelled faintly of home, of fabric softener, of Minhyung. He pressed it to his face as if it might bring him back.

Flashbacks assaulted him—
Minhyung as a child, handing him his first stuffed toy.
Minhyung strumming his guitar softly, his voice cracking on a love song he never dared to dedicate out loud.
Minhyung smiling like sunlight at kindergarten, saying, "I'll always stay with you."

And now, he was gone.

Donghyuck's sobs turned hoarse. His body shook violently until exhaustion left him limp on the morgue floor. His mind replayed one thought, over and over, until it hollowed him out completely:

I loved you too late.

Later, they found his belongings—the untouched luggage left at the airport, still tagged, still waiting. A half-read book, the stuffed toy he couldn't bring himself to give, the guitar pick he carried everywhere. Evidence of a life cut off mid-sentence.

Donghyuck held the luggage to his chest and sank to the cold hospital floor. His sobs no longer sounded human—they were animal, feral, the sound of a heart tearing itself apart.

That night, he did not sleep. He could not. His mind replayed the moment over and over: the kiss they shared, the words Minhyung had left him, the silence that now stretched eternal. He was trapped in a loop of memory and regret, a prison with no walls, only Minhyung's absence filling every breath.

And for the first time, Donghyuck realized—he had not only lost a friend, or a love. He had lost the part of himself that made him alive.