Chapter 4

I didn’t realise our time was so brief. The days we shared slipped by too quickly, and with you, I felt joy I hadn’t known in a while. I began to recognise my emotions again—gentle yet warm— and the world I once drifted from began to feel near.

You were a bother, or so I believed… yet I never wished you gone.

You moved around me like a planet drawn to its star.
And if one day you're no longer here, my orbit won't break.

Your memory—your gravity—remains. Subtle. Inescapable.

“Uhh… is it early childhood?! Between 1 to 3 years?” Leonis blurted out confidently.

“Wrong. Infancy—0 to 1 year. Trust versus mistrust.” Haneul glanced down at Leonis’s notebook, a chaotic mess of scribbles and doodles that hinted at how hard he struggled to focus in his psychology class.

“Ugh, Mr. Erik Erikson, please spare me. Just possess me during the exam and bless me with passing grades!” Leonis whined, launching into a rant about how dull and monotone his child development professor was, comparing him to other, livelier lecturers.

“Erikson’s psychosocial stages… interesting. Stop complaining and at least explain it to me. Might help you more than whining,” Haneul scolded, half-amused, as they walked past a row of stalls—Leonis was staring down at his notebook, still trying to decipher the chaos of his own scribbled notes.

“Ugh, before we get there, can we grab some bubble tea or something? Studying stresses me out and makes me hungry!”

His frustration makes Haneul scoff, noticing how they always seem to eat right after class whenever they meet. He wonders if Leonis’s love for food is truly just hunger—or if it’s a form of binge-eating to cope with his stress.

Today wasn’t one of their usual meetups.  Their classes had ended at the same time today, and they’d planned to visit Leonis’s mother at the hospital together.

When they arrived and reached the registration counter, Haneul hesitated—unsure whether to stay behind or join him. But Leonis gave him a small, reassuring smile and a nod, silently letting him know he wanted him there. Without another word, he registered both of their names.

She was in a private room. The window was open, letting in a soft breeze that lifted the white curtains, casting them adrift above the woman resting in bed, her eyes closed. From afar, she looked almost regal—like a sleeping beauty—with her porcelain skin and long, silky blonde hair draped across her shoulders.

Leonis stepped in first, changing the water in a vase before pulling out chairs for both himself and Haneul.

“Mum! Look who I brought. I finally got a friend over,” he said, taking her hand and gently rubbing it with his thumb. “So now you know I’m not a loner, alright? I have friends!”

She didn’t respond, but Haneul, watching from the side, noticed something—maybe a faint smile ghosting across her lips.

I’m sorry, Leonis. I didn’t realise so much about you. Just watching this hurts—I can’t imagine being in your place. But one thing’s certain: she raised you well. You’re the kind of person people love… and I admire that too.

The room may have seemed still, even somber, but Leonis’s presence filled it with warmth. Nurses would come in, laughing softly as they teased her about how handsome her son was, how devoted. Later, Leonis joked with Haneul, and they shared stories—embarrassing moments, wild adventures, silly rumours from school. How no one expected two opposites to click.

But maybe they weren’t opposites after all. Leonis helped Haneul to face his fear of riding a bicycle. Leonis had learned how to paint. Despite being from different courses, they found time to explore each other’s interests—an exchange that was mutual, meaningful, and never dull.

And Leonis was sure—certain—that his mother was listening. He could see it in the small, soft smile on her lips.

His green eyes shimmered, a thin gloss of tears forming—not sadness, not quite, but subtle joy.  And Haneul realized: the fearless, tough guy everyone thought they knew was only one side of him. Most people had no idea who Leonis really was.

But he did.

Haneul’s almost-black hair glistens with brown streaks as the light from the sky outside the window pours into the ward. The swirls in his hair fly poetically as his eyes narrow at the hospital bed. The machines—the IV fluids, the tubes, the heart monitor, the blood pressure sensors—the tubes filled with blood, the others filled with medicine.

His gaze shifts, rotating across the white walls of the room. A confined space for the sick, yet in this instance, a sanctuary for the chronically ill—and perhaps the terminally ill. The sharp scent of antiseptic lingers in the air, a cleanliness so perfect it feels like time is suspended, dictated only by the patient’s remaining days.

He blinks once. The second blink is slower. The darkness lingers. Then, a third—fully closed.

Haneul opens his eyes.

Looking at the half-filled jar, he sees the stagnant, muddled water and the flower drooping, its head bowed low. His eyes reflect the bedspace—a familiar setting that makes him bite down on his lip. A silhouette of a family, and another elderly figure—now a man—rests peacefully in his bed.

The white walls are muted. Everything feels muted. It’s suffocatingly sad.

Haneul has always tried to bury it in the back of his mind. The vision, the setting—they blur, distant, inaccessible. Or perhaps, he refuses to remember. To truly recall how, once before, he had been in Leonis’s place.

When his father passed away, his world shifted—reshaped into something he had never imagined would come so soon.

He doesn’t want his friend to feel this way.

Blinking again, his eyes sharpen, locking onto the back of the blonde man standing beside his closest blood—a mother who had held him in her arms, who had raised him into the joyful boy he is presently.

Through the faintest movements, Haneul sees Leonis’s emotions—the ones he chooses not to display. At least, not by default. Not in front of society.

And yet, he smiles. A quiet defiance against the inevitable. A lingering hope—one he chooses to share with Haneul, despite everything.

Haneul’s lips sting. There is a bitter taste.

I see you, Leonis. And I...

I am so sorry.