fic: everything has a weight (but it's lighter with you)

[rurusayshi]

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fic: paperplanes

[rurusayshi]

paperplanes

minbin | lee know / seo changbin | 1,3k | rated: m | completed
tags: major character death, alternate universe - never let me go (2010) fusion, angst, bittersweet, established Relationship

fic under the cut

“Bin-ah,” Minho whispered from behind as the night stretched into soft inhales and exhales of the awaiting sleep. “I found him. Two weeks ago, he was at M&S buying chocolate and wine.“

Changbin turned around to face him. “Hyung, we are advised not to do that.”

“I know,” Minho laced their fingers together. It was calloused, from all the work Changbin did in the warehouse. So was Minho’s, from cutting and carving wood all day. “I already know Changbin-ah.”

There was a very clean line in their life, from beginning to the end, fate didn’t prepare big surprises for either of them. Life started at Hailsham, ended on a hospital bed. Love came naturally, at the fingertips of Minho’s caring touch and his lips covering his own, the slow nights murmuring sunsets, the crickets, the lullabies. The walks at Verulamium Park. Feeding the birds. Falling asleep behind Roman ruins. 

The constant every donor got used to. The reason for their sole existence was that their bodies were not their property. They were cloned from a source, nurtured to be owned by the source. Devoured. Limb by limb. Minho’s left kidney. Changbin’s right eye. 

Changbin lived to let it happen, Minho did not. 

“He is nothing like me,” Minho breathed with heavy salt on his tongue. “He has my face but he is nothing like me Changbin-ah.” 

The downward slant of Changbin’s lips went even lower with worry. It tugged on Changbin’s heartstrings in all the ways it shouldn’t and bloomed into this ugly heavy weight that shuddered in his stomach. 

“What about me?” Changbin tried. 

Minho’s face hardened, all the lines on his face drawing this pained version of him. 

Changbin turned his back and closed his eyes. Swallowed heavily. Didn’t say anything when Minho hugged him from behind.

“Changbin-ah, I need to tell you a secret.” 

Don’t. He wanted to say. 

“I will kill him.” 

 

—

 

In the morning, an empty bed welcomed him. And a note that the words between the parallel lines said, “I had to.” 

Not I’m sorry. Not I love you. 

None of those.

But his fridge wasn’t empty like it was yesterday and the day before. It had all of his favorites, prepared and cooked by Minho, and was brought here with a thirty minute bus trip that took between two towns. 

Changbin didn’t touch the food. 

 

—

 

But eventually he did, because his heart wasn’t the type to hold grudges. It knew hurting and it knew acceptance. 

Sometimes he wondered if he himself was the cruelest. 

 

—

 

Changbin rushed to Verulamium Park when he got the call. 

The sun was above, the winds were at bay and the weather forecast wasn’t expecting rain. The crowd grew naturally, separated by the lake in the middle. People moved in groups but not all of them. Children ran after the birds. Couples had their well cared dogs on leashes. Some were heading to the cathedral. 

Minho was alone. Minho wasn’t moving. It took Changbin a little while to spot him. 

“Fuck you! ” His first words after another two weeks of radio silence were said before his fist found Minho’s right cheek and then the grass below. “Fuck you! Fuck you for ruining everything! You could’ve just waited. With me. We had time. We fucking had time! ” 

The tears swelling up in the corners of his eyes blurred Changbin’s vision and gave him this disoriented image of Minho under him, laying there with no protest, baring himself all with a terrible smile blooming. “We were still alive, how could you then? ”  

Minho reached up and kissed him. All blood and red because Changbin did a number on his face. Yet he kissed Changbin slowly, held his face between his palms and kissed him in calmness until they were both out of breath. 

“I had to,” Minho said. “I had no choice, Bin-ah.” 

To that Changbin wanted to kill him himself there and then. 

“I was never going to make peace with my life. I was never going to be happy, please understand that.” Minho’s voice was softer, pleading. “If anything, it wasn’t for revenge.” 

But it wasn’t for freedom either, Changbin thought.

Then he sat up when he couldn’t hold back his tears, nor his body from trembling and shaking. 

Most donors didn’t see after their third operation. Some lived only until the second. Changbin went through one, Minho too. But they had time. 

Changbin thought life wasn’t so bad as long as he had Minho. They weren’t allowed alcohol but the small, crowded space of pubs were still somewhat where their hands covered the other, then their fingers intertwined. When they met for a small exchange, when that became hours, when the rain poured down over them and they were running to find a shelter, together sharing one raincoat. When they sat together in the train, when they were browsing through the stalls of Herne Hill market on Sundays, when it was just him being an unhelpful hand in the kitchen to Minho. When Minho brought a hand and carded his hair, murmuring a recent pop song his old radio played. When they were laying down together on his bed, Minho planting lazy kisses down below his spine.

Their lives could have ended anytime, most humans didn’t live long either. 

(It was a lie. Now most of the population had their donors to keep them breathing and alive for a long, long time. It was just a truth from past times.) 

“I love you,” Minho managed to say. “I love you Bin-ah.” 

“I know, hyung.” Changbin let out but couldn’t say the same words back. He remembered to be brave. He once was. He wasn't one when love felt like a goodbye.

Changbin pushed himself on his knees to wipe away the blood on Minho’s face with his sleeves but it just left stains in red. A horrible feeling sank down heavily in his stomach. The red, he thought. Couldn’t dare to imagine the rest.

But Minho tugged Changbin’s hands away from his fruitless effort and kept it between his own firmly, pulling Changbin with him when he got up. 

“You should leave now, Binnie-ah.” The grip Minho had on him screamed against the words spoken. He didn’t have time to protest. He didn’t have time to say goodbye, either.

But Changbin knew very well, the moment he got the call, he knew. 

He knew he should have never come. 

The grave feeling of dread wasn’t easy to swallow down when he saw Minho’s eyes following something from far. How his focus shifted entirely the moment realization dawned on him. 

It happened so fast. A little red dot right at the center of his forehead, next second Minho was collapsing on the ground. 

No . 

Changbin couldn’t scream at first, something blocked his throat. 

Then he managed to croak out his name, “Minho hyung,” he muttered. “No.” Disbelief. The tip of his fingers found Minho’s neck, then his pulse point. “No. Wake up. Hyung, wake up.” Disbelief. Firm. Stubborn. 

Each second his sight got blurry. 

The tears dampened his cheeks. 

“Hyung ,” Another try. His voice shaking, his voice cracking like the reality caught him finally. “Wake up! Please wake up!” 

Changbin grabbed Minho’s shoulders to rock him back and forth. But Minho didn’t wake up. So then, he shouted. “Help! Please help him, please!” 

No one did. The crowd took one glance at their wrist piece and their gazes only held pity. But was it for them, and solely for their agony, genuinely or was it because a donor, a potential, was wasted? 

Changbin knew the answer. From how they only came to collect Changbin, and rushed him to the emergency mobile for a checkup. From how they left his questions unanswered. From how they remained indifferent to what happened, from how they acted like nothing had happened. 

Changbin knew the answer.