ISS 2011: FOR KAIATANA
To: kaiatana
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: The Heart that is Mine
Pairing/Focus: Woohyun/Sunggyu, Myungsoo/Sunggyu
Rating: R
Word Count: 6220
Summary: when it comes down to it, who would you choose? a person you can for eternity and be loved for eternity in return or a person who knows you inside out and loves you just the same? because as we all know, life isn't fair, you can never have the best of both worlds
there’s blood, so much blood. he cries as he cradles the body to his chest. a man stands over him. he screams “why? why would you do this me?”
the man smiles sadly, licking his bloodstained hands as he crouches, gently brushing the tears off the crying man’s face. “you know i love you. i do,” he says. the crying man flinches away from the touch, clutching the cooling body to his chest. he ignores the blood seeping into his clothes, staining his skin a crimson red.
“if you really loved me, you wouldn’t have done this,” he snarls.
_____
true love (troo - ləv)
1. when you find someone you can trust explicitly
2. it is something more than falling in love
3. it is caring for someone selflessly
4. when you fight tooth and nail to stay together
5. true love is putting aside your pride for you loved one
eg: myungsoo shares true love with sunggyu.
at five, nobody really knows what love is. myungsoo learns that by saying ‘i love you’ to his mother, he sees her beautiful smile, something he inherited. he knows his mother likes it because myungsoo has never heard his father say it to his mother ever. at night, his father is hardly ever home until the early hours of the morning smelling of alcohol and women’s perfume.
myungsoo sometimes hears his parents shouting at each other through a haze of sleep. he wonders why they ever got married if they didn’t love each other. and one day, his father never comes home and his mother spends the day crying over it as she holds their wedding photo to her chest. the very same night, his mother comes into his room to tuck him in. her eyes are swollen from the crying and she gently brushes his fringe away.
“myungsoo-ah, you love your umma right?” she asks. myungsoo obediently murmurs, “i love you,” just to see his mother smile and she kisses his forehead. “i pray that in the future, you will find the person who will love you eternally,” she says. “i pray that you’ll find your true love,”
____
at ten, myungsoo meets sunggyu. sunggyu is all bright smiles accompanied with crescent eyes and the kindest of hearts. he becomes class representative because the girls like his gentle voice and kind nature and because he’s pretty popular amongst the guys because he seems ‘cool’.
myungsoo likes him because he’s just really sweet and just plain socially awkward most of the times. they end up becoming seatmates and myungsoo finds himself liking sunggyu more and more because sunggyu, sunggyu has his heart racing in two-four time and has his palms sweating.
one afternoon as they are walking back from school together, little hands intertwined as myungsoo blushes, head titled downwards, he says hesitantly yet sincerely, “sunggyu-hyung, i love you,”
and the brilliant smile as well as the chaste press of lips against lips has myungsoo’s heart dancing in his chest as a feeling he cannot name crashes over him and envelopes him a bright warmth. “i love you too myungsoo-ah,” sunggyu says, wide smile and crinkled eyes.
___
at sixteen, myungsoo learns what heartbreak is. no, it isn’t that he’s got his heart broken. it’s him breaking sunggyu’s heart. dear, sweet, socially awkward sunggyu who’s been with him since they were ten. he allows peer pressure to get to him, his ‘cool’ friends - because myungsoo mysteriously quiet personality makes him automatically cool - tell him that he shouldn’t be so obvious with sunggyu. just because people are more open-minded these days, it doesn’t mean that they’ll immediately accept a gay couple. they offer to help myungsoo cover up his relationship by asking him to go out with them on weekends with sunggyu but sunggyu isn’t comfortable with them. “they look at me strangely myungsoo-ah. it’s uncomfortable,” sunggyu says quietly, eyes cast downwards.
myungsoo rolls his eyes. “oh come on gyu. you can’t be forever hanging around your music class friends,” he snaps. myungsoo hates it that he can’t sit with sunggyu during break and lunch because of the difference in their social standings at school. sunggyu is constantly hanging out with a dancer called howon and dongwoo, a boy in sunggyu’s music class. they all get along famously because they have one thing in common; their love for the performance arts.
sunggyu smiles helplessly as he quietly murmurs, “i guess i can go with you to the movies this weekend,”
but in the end, it’s myungsoo who texts sunggyu not to come to the cinema because there’s been a change of plans. myungsoo has to help his mother out or something like that. but what myungsoo doesn’t know is sunggyu sees him leaving the house with jessica, one of the popular cheerleaders in school, a slight smile on his face that only sunggyu ever sees and it breaks his heart.
in the end, sunggyu is more than willing to play the fool if only to make myungsoo happy and during all that, myungsoo never notices that sunggyu’s stopped smiling.
___
at eighteen, myungsoo goes to college and finally finds out about this whole true love thing. he still remembers the time when his father left and his mother cried. he still hears his mother praying every night for myungsoo to find true love. he learns about it from his biology professor, ms kim.
ms kim is a jovial woman, pretty, young and constantly smiling. when she’s asked why, she’ll say, “because i’ve found true love. what more could i ask for?”
so myungsoo starts paying her visits, he asks her about it, about what true love is. “true love is when you love someone with your entire being. it’s when you’re willing to give up everything for them and not expect anything in return and it’s when you trust them explicitly,” she smiles. “i’ve found mine and i hope for you to find yours too myungsoo,”
what his professor has told him is constantly on his mind. he wonders if he’s found it as he sits through dates with jessica and goes through the motions of his everyday life. he isn’t sure when he realises it but he thinks around the time he heads over to the college’s music department and hears sunggyu playing the piano and singing of the meaning of love and heartaches and this special person who holds a special place in his heart.
myungsoo falls to his knees before the partially open door as a sob rips its way out of his throat, the smell of jessica’s perfume on his shirt, his body choking him when he used to like it. the music stops and the door is thrown open. sunggyu looks down at him in confusion for a moment before he is swept up into a warm embrace. he cries as sunggyu holds him close, gently murmuring, a look of concern on his face.
myungsoo wonders if sunggyu can smell it, a scent that isn’t his own. “why do you keep loving me? you can’t tell me you didn’t know about jessica,” myungsoo cries. sunggyu smiles, brushing away the tears as he smiles brilliantly.
“because i love you enough to trust that at the end of the day, you’ll come back to me,”
___
at twenty-five, myungsoo learns about marriage and the reason it’s so special. he stands at the end of the aisle dressed smartly in a black suit, the first to buttons of his dress shirt left open. much to his chagrin, sunggyu has adamantly argued that dongwoo and howon are going to be his best men and myungsoo cannot do anything about it or he will not marry him.
myungsoo decides that sungjong will be his and it amuses him to no end that sungjong seems more nervous than he is what with the way he keeps fluttering about, making sure no blonde hair on his pretty little head is out of place and that the rings are in order. the doors to the church opens and sunggyu steps in, howon by his side as dongwoo makes his way down the aisle first, lips split into a joyous grin, looking sharp in his open tuxedo jacket and white dress shirt.
as much as it pains myungsoo to even think it, he thinks howon looks good in the striped tuxedo jacket and shimmery black dress shirt as he accompanies sunggyu down the aisle. sunggyu, myungsoo thinks, looks absolutely delicious in the cream coloured tuxedo and the smile myungsoo’s inherited from his mother blooms across his face as he takes sunggyu’s hand in his own.
the wedding is over in a matter of minutes and myungsoo is thankful of it though not so much when his husband is swept away by his mother and his giggling girl cousins. he smiles though when sunggyu’s eyes meet his over the heads of the ladies and myungsoo knows he’s found it. he’s true love.
___
“you understand don’t you? why i’m doing this?” the man says, holding a crying man in his arms. the crying man’s eyes are glazed over as a result of the drug. the man strokes the older man’s face gently, lovingly. “it won’t hurt a bit. i promise you this,”
a kiss is pressed to the crying man’s forehead before the man raises a knife. the metal gleams in the light and he says, “if i can’t have you, nobody can,”
and the knife comes down, piercing the prone man’s chest with a sickening squelch.
___
soul-mate (sōl-māt)
1. a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.
2. the person you are condemned to spending your life finding
3. a person whom you are connected to emotionally and can sense their emotions
4. someone whom you share an intense chemistry and attraction with
5. a person who completes you in every way
eg: woohyun is sunggyu’s soulmate.
at twenty-six, woohyun finds life dull. it’s full of the same things everyday, playing out the same way. wake up, bathe, eat breakfast, go to work in the music store, work until lunch, eat lunch, work until seven, go for dinner and drinks with sungyeol, go home, sleep and rinse and repeat.
he sighs as he leans on the counter. for someone as handsome as woohyun - woohyun has to admit that he has killer good looks and the sexiest smile ever - he’s hardly ever lucky with love. the girls he’s dated shows him off like one would show off a good horse or an obedient dog at a dog show. the guys he’s dated all aim for one thing, sex. and the (non-existent) relationship lasts until woohyun wants someone who wants him for more than his body or the guys get bored of the sex and go off.
at the end of the day, it ends up with woohyun over and sungyeol’s apartment in tears and cradling pieces of his broken heart. the only comfort his best friend can give him is alcohol and a shoulder to cry on. soon enough, woohyun comes to learn that wearing his heart on his sleeve isn’t the best idea after all and he tucks it away in a little jar and hides it somewhere.
on a sunny wednesday morning however, the rinse and repeat routine is broken when a man dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and lose red shirt. the man seemd happy as he strolled into the store, heading over to the oldies section and skimming through the CDs with a thoughtful look on his face. woohyun decides that there is something about him that warrants some investigating and he moves out of the counter and over to the man.
“hello, can i help you?” he asks. the man is startled into dropping the cd in his hand to the ground. “oh, i’m sorry!” he says, flustered. woohyun chuckles, kneeling to pick up the cd and handing it back to him. as their hands brush, woohyun feels the heart that he’s locked up in a little jar pounding to get free.
the man looks as shocked as woohyun feels as they stare at each other. woohyun coughs as he looks away, blushing slightly. the man smiles slightly. “i’m sunggyu,”
woohyun turns to look at the man and every defense woohyun has every built crumbles. “woohyun, it’s nice to meet you,”
___
sunggyu knows he shouldn’t be doing this. he knows he shouldn’t spend his lunch breaks away from his music learning centre -one he’s saved up for since he’s graduated from university, a masters in music tucked under his belt- to spend time with woohyun. because every minute spent with the younger man, be it to sing together or just talk, it has him falling in love just that little bit more.
sunggyu knows he should be avoiding the younger man, it didn’t take him long to realise what woohyun is to him just like how it didn’t take him long to realise what myungsoo is to him. as he lies in bed with myungsoo holding him close, the very thought of having found both his true love and soulmate is a scary and a happy one.
he remembers his parents. he’s never told myungsoo what happened to them because he doesn’t want to relive the memories of finding his mother in a pool of her own blood one afternoon after he came home from school. he doesn’t want to remember how his father wasted away into nothingness, barely even remembering who sunggyu is and what sunggyu is to him.
he remembers as clear as day the contents of the note found beside his mother’s dead body.
sungha,
i love you with every fibre of my being. when i met you, my life was complete, you were everything to me. but like all good things in life, the happy times came to an end. you are my soulmate, my twin flame and everything i could ask for. yet, i have found another, another who makes just as happy, who loves me truly and wholly. i’ve met my true love. my grandmother used to tell me stories when i was a little girl of people who had both a true love and a soulmate. that should one meet both their true love and soulmate and fall in love with them, one or the other must forfeit their life. my dear sungha, i could not allow such a curse to befall you or my true love. i hope you will one day understand why i took my life. i would much rather die than allow for you to give up your life for me to be happy.
loving you until the very end,
chunhee.
it’s only a matter of time, sunggyu thinks, trembling in myungsoo’s arms as the words from the note haunting his dreams.
___
“woohyun-ah, do you believe in true love?” sunggyu asks one afternoon during his lunch break. woohyun hums softly before staring at him, smiling sweetly. “yeah, i guess so. why?”
sunggyu shakes his head, reaching over and brushing woohyun’s cheek. “nothing,” he murmurs. “nothing at all,” and his phone’s alarm rings, signalling the end of his lunch break and he leaves the store with a peck to woohyun’s cheek.
____
woohyun goes home that very same day feeling insecure. why would sunggyu ask him that and then just up and leave. after all the relationships that he’d been through, having sunggyu lie, well not really lie, but keep him out of something he is sure has to do with him leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
with a sigh as he lounges on his sofa, he contemplates calling sungyeol and he does.
“woohyun. what the hell do you want now?” sungyeol whines the moment he picks up the call.
“hello to you too,” woohyun says dryly. “i’m just feeling... down,”
“did your new boy toy hurt you again?” sungyeol asks, concerned.
“no,” woohyun sighs exasperated. “maybe it’s just me over-thinking but, i think he’s hiding something from me,”
“i think it’s just you,”
“sungyeol! you’re supposed to be my best friend!”
“not when the idiot i call my best friend decides to call just when i’m about to get lucky!”
“i didn’t know okay. now help me. what do you know about true love?”
“that it’s utter bull. did you seriously call me to ask me that? i’m so hanging up!”
“no! don’t! i think it has something to do with what sunggyu is hiding from me,”
sungyeol sighs. “i think i have a mythology book about it somewhere. you can have it tomorrow. now go away,”
“this is why you’re my best friend!” woohyun cackles only to hear a dial tone. he glares at his phone before tossing it on the coffee table. whatever it is sunggyu can’t tell him, he’ll find out.
____
in retrospect, perhaps woohyun should’ve delved deeper to learn about sunggyu. of all the things he knows of the singing teacher, being married was not one of them. he feels his little jarred up heart fall out his chest and crash into the sidewalk when he comes out of a bookstore and sees sunggyu coming out of a chinese restaurant a couple of shops down.
he’s about to call out to him when another man with dark hair and fair skin steps out, a hand reaching out to grip sunggyu’s shoulder, a ring on his fourth finger glittering under the street-light. sunggyu smiles a smile woohyun hasn’t ever seen before. one that is wide and has his eyes crinkling into little half-moons, a look of love on his face as the man says something that has him laughing.
when sunggyu lifts and arm to brush something of the man’s jacket, he spots a ring on sunggyu’s left hand and fourth finger and there it is, he hears his heart cracking and breaking into a million little pieces. sunggyu and the man never sees him as they walk the opposite way where woohyun is standing and all woohyun hears is the silence that rings in his ears, he no longer hears that music that he does whenever sunggyu is around and dimly, he remembers the book sungyeol’s borrowed him.
it is once said that a person has two important things in life. a true love and a soulmate. he or she cannot have both. it must be one without the other. should both the true love and soulmate step into a person’s life, one must forfeit their life or havoc will befall.
and it doesn’t really take much for woohyun to figure out who’s who in this little triangle game sunggyu is playing with him and that man.
____
woohyun doesn’t go to the music store for three days. instead, he sits at home with a sour taste in his mouth and a bitter feeling in his chest. it’s a monster that’s waiting to tear its way out to reclaim what woohyun sees as his. dimly, he wonders if this is why either the true love or soulmate has to forfeit their life. because woohyun cannot even stand to think of sunggyu sharing a bed with that man or even being in close vicinity with that man.
do something about it a little voice in his head says, purring. you know you can. it’s really easy.
‘but what can i do?’ he wonders morosely. ‘their married!’
kill him. kill the man. after all, you are sunggyu’s soulmate. he’ll love you no matter what because you’re bonded emotionally no?
‘i can’t kill a man!’ he screams in his head.
the little voice in his head tuts. then my dear, you are going to lose sunggyu to that man. who are you to step in when they’re already married. it’s the strongest bond of all bonds. if you’re going to be a coward, then say bye-bye to sunggyu.
‘i can’t lose him. he’s the only one that understands, the only one who sees me for me. i can’t lose him,’
then kill him. kill the man or kill yourself. it’s just that simple.
woohyun rises from the couch, a crazed look in his eyes as he walks to his kitchen to find the sharpest knife he can find.
kill. kill. kill. kill. KILL! the voice screams in his head.
“kill,” woohyun says, grabbing the knife and hiding it in his jacket. “kill the man,”
____
it’s sunggyu’s day off and quite coincidentally myungsoo’s too. it’s been a while since they’ve had time to spend with each other and they decide to stay home. myungsoo is in the living room, listening to some oldies and reading whilst sunggyu has decided he’d like to try out the recipes that have been waiting for him to experiment with since forever.
he’s gathering ingredients when the doorbell goes off. “myungsoo, can you get the door?” he shouts.
“i don’t wanna!” myungsoo shouts back, a teasing lilt in his voice as sunggyu rolls his eyes, making his way out of the kitchen. he opens the door and is surprised to see woohyun standing there, jacket zipped all the way up, hands tucked into the pocket of his jeans with a sullen, angry look on his face.
“w-woohyun,” sunggyu stammers. woohyun smiles, pulling his hand out of his pocket and touching sunggyu’s face, cupping the older man’s cheek. “hey gyu-ah,” he murmurs lovingly. “you know, we’ve never said it to one another but i do love you,”
“woohyun-ah, what’re you---”
“gyu, who is it?” myungsoo asks, frowning when he sees a stranger touching his husband. “excuse me, who are you?”
“me?” woohyun says, eyes widening in surprise. “i’m sunggyu’s soulmate,”
and he lunges, pulling the knife out of his jacket as sunggyu screams for him to stop. but woohyun can’t hear him, he’s blinded by the rage he feels, the bitter monster roaring its approval as it howls for him to KILL! KILL! KILL THE MAN!
“woohyun! stop it!” sunggyu screams. “STOP! PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!”
“fuck off!” woohyun snarls, throwing a punch. it sends sunggyu reeling backwards and into the wall, dizziness sets in. he tries to get up but the bump he took to his head is taking effect as he struggles to crawl his way to myungsoo. “myungsoo-ah, myungsoo,” he sobs.
myungsoo is fighting tooth and nail to get the crazed man with a knife off of him. the stranger seems intent to trying to carve his heart out. “stop it! who the hell are you?” myungsoo screams, kneeing the man in the stomach.
the man tumbles off him and myungsoo half crawls half runs towards sunggyu. sunggyu reaches out to him and just as he is about to take sunggyu’s hand, he feels a searing pain in his leg. he screams as woohyun hacks at his knee.
“DON’T TOUCH HIM! DON’T TOUCH SUNGGYU!” woohyun screams, enrages, blood spattering onto his face as he hacks at myungsoo’s leg.
RIP HIS HEART OUT! the voice in his head screams. he grabs myungsoo’s ankle and yanks him away from a sobbing and horrified sunggyu. when he has myungsoo under him, he pins the man down with a knee to his chest and he raises the knife, smirking.
“sunggyu is mine,” he hisses and he brings the knife down. it pierces myungsoo’s chest with a sickening squelch as it rips through sinew and muscles and flesh, piercing his heart. woohyun tears a hole in his chest and he sees myungsoo’s heart. uncaringly, he breaks through the ribs with the hilt of the knife and reaches into the chest, ignoring sunggyu’s screams to stop as myungsoo bleeds out. he takes the faintly beating heart in hand and crushes it, tearing it out of the man’s chest and taking sick pleasure in seeing the silent pain on myungsoo’s face as he takes his last breath.
____
there’s so much blood everywhere sunggyu thinks hysterically. he drags himself to myungsoo’s body, nearly vomiting when he sees a gaping hole in his husband’s chest where his heart should be. woohyun stands above the body, holding myungsoo’s heart in his hand as he smiles manically.
sunggyu cries as he gathers myungsoo’s body into his arms, running a hand over the beautiful face he’s known since he was ten. the very same man who’s loved him all the way into adulthood. in his very soul, he feels incomplete, lost without the love of his one true love. he ignores the warmth of the blood that seeps through his shirt, that stains his skin a crimson red.
“why?” he sobs, rocking back and forth. “why would you do this to me? to him? why woohyun-ah?”
woohyun drops the heart and it hits the wooden floor with a ‘splat’ as he kneels before sunggyu, taking in his anguish of losing his true love. woohyun reaches out to touch him and sunggyu flinches. “don’t touch me you murderer!” sunggyu spits. woohyun snarls and grips sunggyu’s face with a hand. he licks his bloodstained hand and presses a kiss to sunggyu’s lips.
“because i love you more than he does,” he murmurs sweetly, smiling.
“if you loved me at all, you wouldn’t have done this,” sunggyu cries, tears tracking their way down his cheeks.
“no, it’s because i love you that i’m willing to kill to have you love me,” woohyun corrects and stands, pushing sunggyu aside and tossing myungsoo’s body away. he wipes the hilt of the knife clean of his fingerprints and puts it in myungsoo’s hand.
“there, now the police will think he committed suicide,” woohyun hums happily. “let’s go sunggyu-ah,”
____
when woohyun’s mind is his own again, he realises with disgust and guilt that he killed a man. he ripped a man’s heart out of his chest with his bare hands. he throws up all over the carpet of his bedroom floor, remembering the way the heart felt in his hand before he crushed it. the blood that was on his hand, that took forever to wash out.
sunggyu. what happened to sunggyu he wonders. he looks over at a large bell jar on his bedside table, filled with what he knows is formaldehyde and his stomach turns when he sees a heart floating inside the jar. a heart he knows with a sickening feeling is sunggyu’s.
he screams, anguish filling the very core of his body.
____
“sunggyu-ah, i’m coming in,” woohyun says gently, nudging the door open with his foot as he carries a tray of food into the room. “go away,” sunggyu says weakly, sitting at the corner of the bed, hugging his knees to his chest, still wearing the same blood-stained clothes from two weeks ago. so far, sunggyu’s refused to eat, sleep or even bathe, snarling at woohyun every time he tried to touch the older man.
“sunggyu-ah, you have to eat,” woohyun coos anxiously, placing the tray on the bedside table. he takes a seat on the bed, watching the way sunggyu eyes him warily, body tense as if ready to take flight if woohyun were to as so much raise his hand. “sunggyu-ah, you’ve lost so much weight! and your clothes are dirty. as least take a shower!” woohyun tuts, reaching out to tug sunggyu to him.
“go away you killer!” sunggyu screams as he breaks down in tears. woohyun feels irritation stir in the pits of his stomach. throughout the two weeks that sunggyu has been staying in the guest room - because the older man had fought and kicked when woohyun tried to bring sunggyu to his room - all he’s been doing is cry and mourn over the lost of his true love.
the saner part of woohyun wants to comfort, feels guilty but the insane voice and monster can only feel irritation. sunggyu is his soulmate. he belongs to woohyun and woohyun alone. like the books said, either the true love exists or the soulmate. the end. and now that it’s only him and sunggyu left, they should be happy. but all sunggyu does is scream at him, refuse to let woohyun touch him and cry over his dead husband.
SHUT HIM UP! the voice in his head screams. MAKE HIM STOP CRYING! HE BELONGS TO US NOW!
with a snarl, woohyun grabs sunggyu’s wrist - it felt to small in his hand and bird-bone light - and pulls sunggyu to him, gripping the singer’s chin with his free hand. “stop crying!” he hisses. “your husband is dead. he can’t be alive or i’d die because neither of us can survive seeing as you love us both. you’re my soulmate. you’re mine,”
sunggyu can only continue sobbing, tongue heavy in his mouth as his mind replays the memory of woohyun ripping myungsoo’s heart out. sunggyu misses him. misses the way myungsoo smiles, misses the way myungsoo holds him at night. he miss him. “i don’t love you. i can’t love you because i’ve always loved myungsoo,” sunggyu chokes out, glaring at woohyun defiantly.
“no!” woohyun roars, the grip on sunggyu’s chin and wrist tightening. “shut up! your heart is mine. it belongs to me because your beloved forfeited his life! say it! say you belong to me!”
sunggyu cries out in pain as his wrist twists under woohyun’s unforgiving grip, tears starting anew. “n-never,” he chokes out, crying softly.
if he can’t love us, if he doesn’t want to belong to us, take his heart. his heart is saying yes. take it. take what’s ours.
‘i can’t kill him,’ woohyun thinks desperately. ‘he loves me, i know he does. he’s just... confused right now,’
kill him. take his heart. take what belongs to us. shut him up. look at him, crying so pathetically over his beloved. he’s blinded by grief. he will never look at you the way he looked at his beloved. take it.
“shut up!” woohyun screams, both at sunggyu and the voice in his head. “stop crying! stop snivelling! stop loving him!” he roars, grabs the bottle of depressants. he pops the cap open and pries sunggyu’s mouth open with his fingers, stuffing the pills in and forcing the older man to swallow. woohyun watches in sick fascination as the depressants start to take effect.
sunggyu’s eyes are glazed and his mouth is slack as woohyun gathers him up into his arms, cradling him close lovingly. “you understand why i’m doing this don’t you?” he says softly as tears make their way down sunggyu’s cheeks, his mouth open in a silent cry.
woohyun strokes his cheek reverently, smiling lovingly. “this won’t hurt a bit. i promise you,” woohyun whispers reassuringly as he grabs the knife on the tray. he sees the fear in sunggyu’s glazed eyes and he coos gently, shushing him. “don’t be afraid,”
and the knife pierces sunggyu’s chest with a sickening squelch as woohyun drives it all the way in, deaf to sunggyu’s screams of pain as he takes his time to carve a hole in the singer’s chest. as he works, he speaks softly, “you sang so beautifully. i wish i could hear you sing before i take your heart. but you’re always so sad and crying. i wouldn’t have to do this if you just loved me,”
woohyun sighs, looking at sunggyu like a mother would like at her child if he did something wrong. “this is all your fault you know,” woohyun scolds lightly, breaking the ribs with a well placed elbow. “oh,” he says, a look of utmost reverence on his face. “your heart is beautiful sunggyu-ah just like you are,”
he glances up to sunggyu’s face, pain etched into his features, mouth open in a silent scream. “so, so beautiful,” he giggles. “goodnight sunggyu-ah, i love you,”
he brings sunggyu’s head up and presses their lips together just as he reaches into the older man’s chest and rips his heart out.
____
“sunggyu,” he cries. “my sunggyu,”
woohyun scrambles off the floor and runs to the guest room. the scene that greets his eyes has his stomach rolling as he dry heaves onto the floor at the sight of sunggyu splayed out on the bed, a gaping hole in his chest and blood decorating the bed and his body.
there’s a heavy stench in the air and woohyun knows it’s because sunggyu’s body has started deacying. woohyun climbs onto the bed and takes sunggyu’s cold body into his arms, his tears dripping onto the man’s face, the expression of pain and grief permanently etched onto his face.
“sunggyu, my sunggyu, what have i done?” he whimpers, hugging the body to his chest. “i only did it because i loved you. i loved you so very, very much,”
____
“hyung?” sungyeol calls out when he manages to get woohyun’s apartment door open. the stench of something that died hits him and his eyes water as he chokes on it. “hyung? are you okay?”
he looks around the well-kept apartment, coffee table messy with take-out boxes, beer bottles and papers. as he moves towards woohyun’s room, the smell of decay is more palpable and sungyeol has to force himself not to throw up all over woohyun’s floors. the sight of a heart in a jar has sungyeol emptying the content of his stomachs at the doorway before he reverses out of the room.
“sungyeol?” he hears woohyun call out weakly. sungyeol runs in the direction of the voice. “hyung! are you---”
sungyeol’s stomach rolls when he sees woohyun cradling a dead body to his chest, the guest room’s bed spattered with blood. woohyun holds the body like it’s the most precious thing in the world to him and sungyeol can only feel disgust welling up in his chest.
“sungyeol, yeollie-ah,” woohyun croaks. “you’re my best friend right?”
“y-yes,” sungyeol stutters, wanting nothing more than to run away and call the police. sungyeol feebly recalls seeing on the news the case of a suspected murder staged as a suicide. sungyeol remembers that they said something about a body of a man found sprawled out over his living room floor with a gaping hole where his heart should be.
it doesn’t take sungyeol long to realise that it was woohyun’s doing when woohyun eases his hold on the body. the body’s chest is torn open and his heart is missing from his chest. he remembers with nauseousness the heart kept in a jar in woohyun’s room and he wonders if that heart belongs to the body woohyun is holding in his arms.
“will you do me a favour yeollie?” woohyun asks and sungyeol nods numbly when he spots a glint of insanity in his once best friend’s eyes. “there’s a heart in my room, will you bring it here?”
sungyeol hesistates for a split second and when he sees the warning look woohyun gives him, he rushes out and brings the jar back. when he steps back into the room, woohyun is no longer holding the body. instead, the body is laid on the bed, arms spread out and woohyun lies on one of it, bringing the other arm to hold him in a disjointed hug.
“yeollie-ah, i killed a man,” woohyun says quietly. “i killed a man and i killed my soulmate because he wouldn’t love me. and now, all i hear is silence. it’s suffocating me yeollie-ah,”
“what’re you t-talking about?” sungyeol says, voice cracking.
“nothing you would understand. sungyeol-ah, do me a favour won’t you? bring the jar here,” woohyun says. sungyeol takes hesitant steps towards the bed and places the jar on it. “thank you, open it,” he orders and sungyeol can only do as he’s told.
woohyun puts the knife to his chest and smiles a smile so full of relief and joy that it makes sungyeol want to cry. “thank you for being my best friend sungyeol-ah. thank you for everything,”
and before sungyeol can even scream, woohyun has torn open his chest and ripped his heart out, dropping into the jar with the dead man’s heart as he dies in the arms of woohyun’s soulmate.
sungyeol cries, screams before throwing up. the stench of the dead body filling him as he closes the jar with shaky hands. with the last shred of respect and love for his now gone best friend, he arranges their bodies so that it looks like a pair of lovers embracing before he takes the jar and places it on the bedside table.
sungyeol smiles through his tears when he sees that no matter how he jostles the jar, the hearts in it always stay connected.
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: The Heart that is Mine
Pairing/Focus: Woohyun/Sunggyu, Myungsoo/Sunggyu
Rating: R
Word Count: 6220
Summary: when it comes down to it, who would you choose? a person you can for eternity and be loved for eternity in return or a person who knows you inside out and loves you just the same? because as we all know, life isn't fair, you can never have the best of both worlds
there’s blood, so much blood. he cries as he cradles the body to his chest. a man stands over him. he screams “why? why would you do this me?”
the man smiles sadly, licking his bloodstained hands as he crouches, gently brushing the tears off the crying man’s face. “you know i love you. i do,” he says. the crying man flinches away from the touch, clutching the cooling body to his chest. he ignores the blood seeping into his clothes, staining his skin a crimson red.
“if you really loved me, you wouldn’t have done this,” he snarls.
_____
true love (troo - ləv)
1. when you find someone you can trust explicitly
2. it is something more than falling in love
3. it is caring for someone selflessly
4. when you fight tooth and nail to stay together
5. true love is putting aside your pride for you loved one
eg: myungsoo shares true love with sunggyu.
at five, nobody really knows what love is. myungsoo learns that by saying ‘i love you’ to his mother, he sees her beautiful smile, something he inherited. he knows his mother likes it because myungsoo has never heard his father say it to his mother ever. at night, his father is hardly ever home until the early hours of the morning smelling of alcohol and women’s perfume.
myungsoo sometimes hears his parents shouting at each other through a haze of sleep. he wonders why they ever got married if they didn’t love each other. and one day, his father never comes home and his mother spends the day crying over it as she holds their wedding photo to her chest. the very same night, his mother comes into his room to tuck him in. her eyes are swollen from the crying and she gently brushes his fringe away.
“myungsoo-ah, you love your umma right?” she asks. myungsoo obediently murmurs, “i love you,” just to see his mother smile and she kisses his forehead. “i pray that in the future, you will find the person who will love you eternally,” she says. “i pray that you’ll find your true love,”
____
at ten, myungsoo meets sunggyu. sunggyu is all bright smiles accompanied with crescent eyes and the kindest of hearts. he becomes class representative because the girls like his gentle voice and kind nature and because he’s pretty popular amongst the guys because he seems ‘cool’.
myungsoo likes him because he’s just really sweet and just plain socially awkward most of the times. they end up becoming seatmates and myungsoo finds himself liking sunggyu more and more because sunggyu, sunggyu has his heart racing in two-four time and has his palms sweating.
one afternoon as they are walking back from school together, little hands intertwined as myungsoo blushes, head titled downwards, he says hesitantly yet sincerely, “sunggyu-hyung, i love you,”
and the brilliant smile as well as the chaste press of lips against lips has myungsoo’s heart dancing in his chest as a feeling he cannot name crashes over him and envelopes him a bright warmth. “i love you too myungsoo-ah,” sunggyu says, wide smile and crinkled eyes.
___
at sixteen, myungsoo learns what heartbreak is. no, it isn’t that he’s got his heart broken. it’s him breaking sunggyu’s heart. dear, sweet, socially awkward sunggyu who’s been with him since they were ten. he allows peer pressure to get to him, his ‘cool’ friends - because myungsoo mysteriously quiet personality makes him automatically cool - tell him that he shouldn’t be so obvious with sunggyu. just because people are more open-minded these days, it doesn’t mean that they’ll immediately accept a gay couple. they offer to help myungsoo cover up his relationship by asking him to go out with them on weekends with sunggyu but sunggyu isn’t comfortable with them. “they look at me strangely myungsoo-ah. it’s uncomfortable,” sunggyu says quietly, eyes cast downwards.
myungsoo rolls his eyes. “oh come on gyu. you can’t be forever hanging around your music class friends,” he snaps. myungsoo hates it that he can’t sit with sunggyu during break and lunch because of the difference in their social standings at school. sunggyu is constantly hanging out with a dancer called howon and dongwoo, a boy in sunggyu’s music class. they all get along famously because they have one thing in common; their love for the performance arts.
sunggyu smiles helplessly as he quietly murmurs, “i guess i can go with you to the movies this weekend,”
but in the end, it’s myungsoo who texts sunggyu not to come to the cinema because there’s been a change of plans. myungsoo has to help his mother out or something like that. but what myungsoo doesn’t know is sunggyu sees him leaving the house with jessica, one of the popular cheerleaders in school, a slight smile on his face that only sunggyu ever sees and it breaks his heart.
in the end, sunggyu is more than willing to play the fool if only to make myungsoo happy and during all that, myungsoo never notices that sunggyu’s stopped smiling.
___
at eighteen, myungsoo goes to college and finally finds out about this whole true love thing. he still remembers the time when his father left and his mother cried. he still hears his mother praying every night for myungsoo to find true love. he learns about it from his biology professor, ms kim.
ms kim is a jovial woman, pretty, young and constantly smiling. when she’s asked why, she’ll say, “because i’ve found true love. what more could i ask for?”
so myungsoo starts paying her visits, he asks her about it, about what true love is. “true love is when you love someone with your entire being. it’s when you’re willing to give up everything for them and not expect anything in return and it’s when you trust them explicitly,” she smiles. “i’ve found mine and i hope for you to find yours too myungsoo,”
what his professor has told him is constantly on his mind. he wonders if he’s found it as he sits through dates with jessica and goes through the motions of his everyday life. he isn’t sure when he realises it but he thinks around the time he heads over to the college’s music department and hears sunggyu playing the piano and singing of the meaning of love and heartaches and this special person who holds a special place in his heart.
myungsoo falls to his knees before the partially open door as a sob rips its way out of his throat, the smell of jessica’s perfume on his shirt, his body choking him when he used to like it. the music stops and the door is thrown open. sunggyu looks down at him in confusion for a moment before he is swept up into a warm embrace. he cries as sunggyu holds him close, gently murmuring, a look of concern on his face.
myungsoo wonders if sunggyu can smell it, a scent that isn’t his own. “why do you keep loving me? you can’t tell me you didn’t know about jessica,” myungsoo cries. sunggyu smiles, brushing away the tears as he smiles brilliantly.
“because i love you enough to trust that at the end of the day, you’ll come back to me,”
___
at twenty-five, myungsoo learns about marriage and the reason it’s so special. he stands at the end of the aisle dressed smartly in a black suit, the first to buttons of his dress shirt left open. much to his chagrin, sunggyu has adamantly argued that dongwoo and howon are going to be his best men and myungsoo cannot do anything about it or he will not marry him.
myungsoo decides that sungjong will be his and it amuses him to no end that sungjong seems more nervous than he is what with the way he keeps fluttering about, making sure no blonde hair on his pretty little head is out of place and that the rings are in order. the doors to the church opens and sunggyu steps in, howon by his side as dongwoo makes his way down the aisle first, lips split into a joyous grin, looking sharp in his open tuxedo jacket and white dress shirt.
as much as it pains myungsoo to even think it, he thinks howon looks good in the striped tuxedo jacket and shimmery black dress shirt as he accompanies sunggyu down the aisle. sunggyu, myungsoo thinks, looks absolutely delicious in the cream coloured tuxedo and the smile myungsoo’s inherited from his mother blooms across his face as he takes sunggyu’s hand in his own.
the wedding is over in a matter of minutes and myungsoo is thankful of it though not so much when his husband is swept away by his mother and his giggling girl cousins. he smiles though when sunggyu’s eyes meet his over the heads of the ladies and myungsoo knows he’s found it. he’s true love.
___
“you understand don’t you? why i’m doing this?” the man says, holding a crying man in his arms. the crying man’s eyes are glazed over as a result of the drug. the man strokes the older man’s face gently, lovingly. “it won’t hurt a bit. i promise you this,”
a kiss is pressed to the crying man’s forehead before the man raises a knife. the metal gleams in the light and he says, “if i can’t have you, nobody can,”
and the knife comes down, piercing the prone man’s chest with a sickening squelch.
___
soul-mate (sōl-māt)
1. a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.
2. the person you are condemned to spending your life finding
3. a person whom you are connected to emotionally and can sense their emotions
4. someone whom you share an intense chemistry and attraction with
5. a person who completes you in every way
eg: woohyun is sunggyu’s soulmate.
at twenty-six, woohyun finds life dull. it’s full of the same things everyday, playing out the same way. wake up, bathe, eat breakfast, go to work in the music store, work until lunch, eat lunch, work until seven, go for dinner and drinks with sungyeol, go home, sleep and rinse and repeat.
he sighs as he leans on the counter. for someone as handsome as woohyun - woohyun has to admit that he has killer good looks and the sexiest smile ever - he’s hardly ever lucky with love. the girls he’s dated shows him off like one would show off a good horse or an obedient dog at a dog show. the guys he’s dated all aim for one thing, sex. and the (non-existent) relationship lasts until woohyun wants someone who wants him for more than his body or the guys get bored of the sex and go off.
at the end of the day, it ends up with woohyun over and sungyeol’s apartment in tears and cradling pieces of his broken heart. the only comfort his best friend can give him is alcohol and a shoulder to cry on. soon enough, woohyun comes to learn that wearing his heart on his sleeve isn’t the best idea after all and he tucks it away in a little jar and hides it somewhere.
on a sunny wednesday morning however, the rinse and repeat routine is broken when a man dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and lose red shirt. the man seemd happy as he strolled into the store, heading over to the oldies section and skimming through the CDs with a thoughtful look on his face. woohyun decides that there is something about him that warrants some investigating and he moves out of the counter and over to the man.
“hello, can i help you?” he asks. the man is startled into dropping the cd in his hand to the ground. “oh, i’m sorry!” he says, flustered. woohyun chuckles, kneeling to pick up the cd and handing it back to him. as their hands brush, woohyun feels the heart that he’s locked up in a little jar pounding to get free.
the man looks as shocked as woohyun feels as they stare at each other. woohyun coughs as he looks away, blushing slightly. the man smiles slightly. “i’m sunggyu,”
woohyun turns to look at the man and every defense woohyun has every built crumbles. “woohyun, it’s nice to meet you,”
___
sunggyu knows he shouldn’t be doing this. he knows he shouldn’t spend his lunch breaks away from his music learning centre -one he’s saved up for since he’s graduated from university, a masters in music tucked under his belt- to spend time with woohyun. because every minute spent with the younger man, be it to sing together or just talk, it has him falling in love just that little bit more.
sunggyu knows he should be avoiding the younger man, it didn’t take him long to realise what woohyun is to him just like how it didn’t take him long to realise what myungsoo is to him. as he lies in bed with myungsoo holding him close, the very thought of having found both his true love and soulmate is a scary and a happy one.
he remembers his parents. he’s never told myungsoo what happened to them because he doesn’t want to relive the memories of finding his mother in a pool of her own blood one afternoon after he came home from school. he doesn’t want to remember how his father wasted away into nothingness, barely even remembering who sunggyu is and what sunggyu is to him.
he remembers as clear as day the contents of the note found beside his mother’s dead body.
sungha,
i love you with every fibre of my being. when i met you, my life was complete, you were everything to me. but like all good things in life, the happy times came to an end. you are my soulmate, my twin flame and everything i could ask for. yet, i have found another, another who makes just as happy, who loves me truly and wholly. i’ve met my true love. my grandmother used to tell me stories when i was a little girl of people who had both a true love and a soulmate. that should one meet both their true love and soulmate and fall in love with them, one or the other must forfeit their life. my dear sungha, i could not allow such a curse to befall you or my true love. i hope you will one day understand why i took my life. i would much rather die than allow for you to give up your life for me to be happy.
loving you until the very end,
chunhee.
it’s only a matter of time, sunggyu thinks, trembling in myungsoo’s arms as the words from the note haunting his dreams.
___
“woohyun-ah, do you believe in true love?” sunggyu asks one afternoon during his lunch break. woohyun hums softly before staring at him, smiling sweetly. “yeah, i guess so. why?”
sunggyu shakes his head, reaching over and brushing woohyun’s cheek. “nothing,” he murmurs. “nothing at all,” and his phone’s alarm rings, signalling the end of his lunch break and he leaves the store with a peck to woohyun’s cheek.
____
woohyun goes home that very same day feeling insecure. why would sunggyu ask him that and then just up and leave. after all the relationships that he’d been through, having sunggyu lie, well not really lie, but keep him out of something he is sure has to do with him leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
with a sigh as he lounges on his sofa, he contemplates calling sungyeol and he does.
“woohyun. what the hell do you want now?” sungyeol whines the moment he picks up the call.
“hello to you too,” woohyun says dryly. “i’m just feeling... down,”
“did your new boy toy hurt you again?” sungyeol asks, concerned.
“no,” woohyun sighs exasperated. “maybe it’s just me over-thinking but, i think he’s hiding something from me,”
“i think it’s just you,”
“sungyeol! you’re supposed to be my best friend!”
“not when the idiot i call my best friend decides to call just when i’m about to get lucky!”
“i didn’t know okay. now help me. what do you know about true love?”
“that it’s utter bull. did you seriously call me to ask me that? i’m so hanging up!”
“no! don’t! i think it has something to do with what sunggyu is hiding from me,”
sungyeol sighs. “i think i have a mythology book about it somewhere. you can have it tomorrow. now go away,”
“this is why you’re my best friend!” woohyun cackles only to hear a dial tone. he glares at his phone before tossing it on the coffee table. whatever it is sunggyu can’t tell him, he’ll find out.
____
in retrospect, perhaps woohyun should’ve delved deeper to learn about sunggyu. of all the things he knows of the singing teacher, being married was not one of them. he feels his little jarred up heart fall out his chest and crash into the sidewalk when he comes out of a bookstore and sees sunggyu coming out of a chinese restaurant a couple of shops down.
he’s about to call out to him when another man with dark hair and fair skin steps out, a hand reaching out to grip sunggyu’s shoulder, a ring on his fourth finger glittering under the street-light. sunggyu smiles a smile woohyun hasn’t ever seen before. one that is wide and has his eyes crinkling into little half-moons, a look of love on his face as the man says something that has him laughing.
when sunggyu lifts and arm to brush something of the man’s jacket, he spots a ring on sunggyu’s left hand and fourth finger and there it is, he hears his heart cracking and breaking into a million little pieces. sunggyu and the man never sees him as they walk the opposite way where woohyun is standing and all woohyun hears is the silence that rings in his ears, he no longer hears that music that he does whenever sunggyu is around and dimly, he remembers the book sungyeol’s borrowed him.
it is once said that a person has two important things in life. a true love and a soulmate. he or she cannot have both. it must be one without the other. should both the true love and soulmate step into a person’s life, one must forfeit their life or havoc will befall.
and it doesn’t really take much for woohyun to figure out who’s who in this little triangle game sunggyu is playing with him and that man.
____
woohyun doesn’t go to the music store for three days. instead, he sits at home with a sour taste in his mouth and a bitter feeling in his chest. it’s a monster that’s waiting to tear its way out to reclaim what woohyun sees as his. dimly, he wonders if this is why either the true love or soulmate has to forfeit their life. because woohyun cannot even stand to think of sunggyu sharing a bed with that man or even being in close vicinity with that man.
do something about it a little voice in his head says, purring. you know you can. it’s really easy.
‘but what can i do?’ he wonders morosely. ‘their married!’
kill him. kill the man. after all, you are sunggyu’s soulmate. he’ll love you no matter what because you’re bonded emotionally no?
‘i can’t kill a man!’ he screams in his head.
the little voice in his head tuts. then my dear, you are going to lose sunggyu to that man. who are you to step in when they’re already married. it’s the strongest bond of all bonds. if you’re going to be a coward, then say bye-bye to sunggyu.
‘i can’t lose him. he’s the only one that understands, the only one who sees me for me. i can’t lose him,’
then kill him. kill the man or kill yourself. it’s just that simple.
woohyun rises from the couch, a crazed look in his eyes as he walks to his kitchen to find the sharpest knife he can find.
kill. kill. kill. kill. KILL! the voice screams in his head.
“kill,” woohyun says, grabbing the knife and hiding it in his jacket. “kill the man,”
____
it’s sunggyu’s day off and quite coincidentally myungsoo’s too. it’s been a while since they’ve had time to spend with each other and they decide to stay home. myungsoo is in the living room, listening to some oldies and reading whilst sunggyu has decided he’d like to try out the recipes that have been waiting for him to experiment with since forever.
he’s gathering ingredients when the doorbell goes off. “myungsoo, can you get the door?” he shouts.
“i don’t wanna!” myungsoo shouts back, a teasing lilt in his voice as sunggyu rolls his eyes, making his way out of the kitchen. he opens the door and is surprised to see woohyun standing there, jacket zipped all the way up, hands tucked into the pocket of his jeans with a sullen, angry look on his face.
“w-woohyun,” sunggyu stammers. woohyun smiles, pulling his hand out of his pocket and touching sunggyu’s face, cupping the older man’s cheek. “hey gyu-ah,” he murmurs lovingly. “you know, we’ve never said it to one another but i do love you,”
“woohyun-ah, what’re you---”
“gyu, who is it?” myungsoo asks, frowning when he sees a stranger touching his husband. “excuse me, who are you?”
“me?” woohyun says, eyes widening in surprise. “i’m sunggyu’s soulmate,”
and he lunges, pulling the knife out of his jacket as sunggyu screams for him to stop. but woohyun can’t hear him, he’s blinded by the rage he feels, the bitter monster roaring its approval as it howls for him to KILL! KILL! KILL THE MAN!
“woohyun! stop it!” sunggyu screams. “STOP! PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!”
“fuck off!” woohyun snarls, throwing a punch. it sends sunggyu reeling backwards and into the wall, dizziness sets in. he tries to get up but the bump he took to his head is taking effect as he struggles to crawl his way to myungsoo. “myungsoo-ah, myungsoo,” he sobs.
myungsoo is fighting tooth and nail to get the crazed man with a knife off of him. the stranger seems intent to trying to carve his heart out. “stop it! who the hell are you?” myungsoo screams, kneeing the man in the stomach.
the man tumbles off him and myungsoo half crawls half runs towards sunggyu. sunggyu reaches out to him and just as he is about to take sunggyu’s hand, he feels a searing pain in his leg. he screams as woohyun hacks at his knee.
“DON’T TOUCH HIM! DON’T TOUCH SUNGGYU!” woohyun screams, enrages, blood spattering onto his face as he hacks at myungsoo’s leg.
RIP HIS HEART OUT! the voice in his head screams. he grabs myungsoo’s ankle and yanks him away from a sobbing and horrified sunggyu. when he has myungsoo under him, he pins the man down with a knee to his chest and he raises the knife, smirking.
“sunggyu is mine,” he hisses and he brings the knife down. it pierces myungsoo’s chest with a sickening squelch as it rips through sinew and muscles and flesh, piercing his heart. woohyun tears a hole in his chest and he sees myungsoo’s heart. uncaringly, he breaks through the ribs with the hilt of the knife and reaches into the chest, ignoring sunggyu’s screams to stop as myungsoo bleeds out. he takes the faintly beating heart in hand and crushes it, tearing it out of the man’s chest and taking sick pleasure in seeing the silent pain on myungsoo’s face as he takes his last breath.
____
there’s so much blood everywhere sunggyu thinks hysterically. he drags himself to myungsoo’s body, nearly vomiting when he sees a gaping hole in his husband’s chest where his heart should be. woohyun stands above the body, holding myungsoo’s heart in his hand as he smiles manically.
sunggyu cries as he gathers myungsoo’s body into his arms, running a hand over the beautiful face he’s known since he was ten. the very same man who’s loved him all the way into adulthood. in his very soul, he feels incomplete, lost without the love of his one true love. he ignores the warmth of the blood that seeps through his shirt, that stains his skin a crimson red.
“why?” he sobs, rocking back and forth. “why would you do this to me? to him? why woohyun-ah?”
woohyun drops the heart and it hits the wooden floor with a ‘splat’ as he kneels before sunggyu, taking in his anguish of losing his true love. woohyun reaches out to touch him and sunggyu flinches. “don’t touch me you murderer!” sunggyu spits. woohyun snarls and grips sunggyu’s face with a hand. he licks his bloodstained hand and presses a kiss to sunggyu’s lips.
“because i love you more than he does,” he murmurs sweetly, smiling.
“if you loved me at all, you wouldn’t have done this,” sunggyu cries, tears tracking their way down his cheeks.
“no, it’s because i love you that i’m willing to kill to have you love me,” woohyun corrects and stands, pushing sunggyu aside and tossing myungsoo’s body away. he wipes the hilt of the knife clean of his fingerprints and puts it in myungsoo’s hand.
“there, now the police will think he committed suicide,” woohyun hums happily. “let’s go sunggyu-ah,”
____
when woohyun’s mind is his own again, he realises with disgust and guilt that he killed a man. he ripped a man’s heart out of his chest with his bare hands. he throws up all over the carpet of his bedroom floor, remembering the way the heart felt in his hand before he crushed it. the blood that was on his hand, that took forever to wash out.
sunggyu. what happened to sunggyu he wonders. he looks over at a large bell jar on his bedside table, filled with what he knows is formaldehyde and his stomach turns when he sees a heart floating inside the jar. a heart he knows with a sickening feeling is sunggyu’s.
he screams, anguish filling the very core of his body.
____
“sunggyu-ah, i’m coming in,” woohyun says gently, nudging the door open with his foot as he carries a tray of food into the room. “go away,” sunggyu says weakly, sitting at the corner of the bed, hugging his knees to his chest, still wearing the same blood-stained clothes from two weeks ago. so far, sunggyu’s refused to eat, sleep or even bathe, snarling at woohyun every time he tried to touch the older man.
“sunggyu-ah, you have to eat,” woohyun coos anxiously, placing the tray on the bedside table. he takes a seat on the bed, watching the way sunggyu eyes him warily, body tense as if ready to take flight if woohyun were to as so much raise his hand. “sunggyu-ah, you’ve lost so much weight! and your clothes are dirty. as least take a shower!” woohyun tuts, reaching out to tug sunggyu to him.
“go away you killer!” sunggyu screams as he breaks down in tears. woohyun feels irritation stir in the pits of his stomach. throughout the two weeks that sunggyu has been staying in the guest room - because the older man had fought and kicked when woohyun tried to bring sunggyu to his room - all he’s been doing is cry and mourn over the lost of his true love.
the saner part of woohyun wants to comfort, feels guilty but the insane voice and monster can only feel irritation. sunggyu is his soulmate. he belongs to woohyun and woohyun alone. like the books said, either the true love exists or the soulmate. the end. and now that it’s only him and sunggyu left, they should be happy. but all sunggyu does is scream at him, refuse to let woohyun touch him and cry over his dead husband.
SHUT HIM UP! the voice in his head screams. MAKE HIM STOP CRYING! HE BELONGS TO US NOW!
with a snarl, woohyun grabs sunggyu’s wrist - it felt to small in his hand and bird-bone light - and pulls sunggyu to him, gripping the singer’s chin with his free hand. “stop crying!” he hisses. “your husband is dead. he can’t be alive or i’d die because neither of us can survive seeing as you love us both. you’re my soulmate. you’re mine,”
sunggyu can only continue sobbing, tongue heavy in his mouth as his mind replays the memory of woohyun ripping myungsoo’s heart out. sunggyu misses him. misses the way myungsoo smiles, misses the way myungsoo holds him at night. he miss him. “i don’t love you. i can’t love you because i’ve always loved myungsoo,” sunggyu chokes out, glaring at woohyun defiantly.
“no!” woohyun roars, the grip on sunggyu’s chin and wrist tightening. “shut up! your heart is mine. it belongs to me because your beloved forfeited his life! say it! say you belong to me!”
sunggyu cries out in pain as his wrist twists under woohyun’s unforgiving grip, tears starting anew. “n-never,” he chokes out, crying softly.
if he can’t love us, if he doesn’t want to belong to us, take his heart. his heart is saying yes. take it. take what’s ours.
‘i can’t kill him,’ woohyun thinks desperately. ‘he loves me, i know he does. he’s just... confused right now,’
kill him. take his heart. take what belongs to us. shut him up. look at him, crying so pathetically over his beloved. he’s blinded by grief. he will never look at you the way he looked at his beloved. take it.
“shut up!” woohyun screams, both at sunggyu and the voice in his head. “stop crying! stop snivelling! stop loving him!” he roars, grabs the bottle of depressants. he pops the cap open and pries sunggyu’s mouth open with his fingers, stuffing the pills in and forcing the older man to swallow. woohyun watches in sick fascination as the depressants start to take effect.
sunggyu’s eyes are glazed and his mouth is slack as woohyun gathers him up into his arms, cradling him close lovingly. “you understand why i’m doing this don’t you?” he says softly as tears make their way down sunggyu’s cheeks, his mouth open in a silent cry.
woohyun strokes his cheek reverently, smiling lovingly. “this won’t hurt a bit. i promise you,” woohyun whispers reassuringly as he grabs the knife on the tray. he sees the fear in sunggyu’s glazed eyes and he coos gently, shushing him. “don’t be afraid,”
and the knife pierces sunggyu’s chest with a sickening squelch as woohyun drives it all the way in, deaf to sunggyu’s screams of pain as he takes his time to carve a hole in the singer’s chest. as he works, he speaks softly, “you sang so beautifully. i wish i could hear you sing before i take your heart. but you’re always so sad and crying. i wouldn’t have to do this if you just loved me,”
woohyun sighs, looking at sunggyu like a mother would like at her child if he did something wrong. “this is all your fault you know,” woohyun scolds lightly, breaking the ribs with a well placed elbow. “oh,” he says, a look of utmost reverence on his face. “your heart is beautiful sunggyu-ah just like you are,”
he glances up to sunggyu’s face, pain etched into his features, mouth open in a silent scream. “so, so beautiful,” he giggles. “goodnight sunggyu-ah, i love you,”
he brings sunggyu’s head up and presses their lips together just as he reaches into the older man’s chest and rips his heart out.
____
“sunggyu,” he cries. “my sunggyu,”
woohyun scrambles off the floor and runs to the guest room. the scene that greets his eyes has his stomach rolling as he dry heaves onto the floor at the sight of sunggyu splayed out on the bed, a gaping hole in his chest and blood decorating the bed and his body.
there’s a heavy stench in the air and woohyun knows it’s because sunggyu’s body has started deacying. woohyun climbs onto the bed and takes sunggyu’s cold body into his arms, his tears dripping onto the man’s face, the expression of pain and grief permanently etched onto his face.
“sunggyu, my sunggyu, what have i done?” he whimpers, hugging the body to his chest. “i only did it because i loved you. i loved you so very, very much,”
____
“hyung?” sungyeol calls out when he manages to get woohyun’s apartment door open. the stench of something that died hits him and his eyes water as he chokes on it. “hyung? are you okay?”
he looks around the well-kept apartment, coffee table messy with take-out boxes, beer bottles and papers. as he moves towards woohyun’s room, the smell of decay is more palpable and sungyeol has to force himself not to throw up all over woohyun’s floors. the sight of a heart in a jar has sungyeol emptying the content of his stomachs at the doorway before he reverses out of the room.
“sungyeol?” he hears woohyun call out weakly. sungyeol runs in the direction of the voice. “hyung! are you---”
sungyeol’s stomach rolls when he sees woohyun cradling a dead body to his chest, the guest room’s bed spattered with blood. woohyun holds the body like it’s the most precious thing in the world to him and sungyeol can only feel disgust welling up in his chest.
“sungyeol, yeollie-ah,” woohyun croaks. “you’re my best friend right?”
“y-yes,” sungyeol stutters, wanting nothing more than to run away and call the police. sungyeol feebly recalls seeing on the news the case of a suspected murder staged as a suicide. sungyeol remembers that they said something about a body of a man found sprawled out over his living room floor with a gaping hole where his heart should be.
it doesn’t take sungyeol long to realise that it was woohyun’s doing when woohyun eases his hold on the body. the body’s chest is torn open and his heart is missing from his chest. he remembers with nauseousness the heart kept in a jar in woohyun’s room and he wonders if that heart belongs to the body woohyun is holding in his arms.
“will you do me a favour yeollie?” woohyun asks and sungyeol nods numbly when he spots a glint of insanity in his once best friend’s eyes. “there’s a heart in my room, will you bring it here?”
sungyeol hesistates for a split second and when he sees the warning look woohyun gives him, he rushes out and brings the jar back. when he steps back into the room, woohyun is no longer holding the body. instead, the body is laid on the bed, arms spread out and woohyun lies on one of it, bringing the other arm to hold him in a disjointed hug.
“yeollie-ah, i killed a man,” woohyun says quietly. “i killed a man and i killed my soulmate because he wouldn’t love me. and now, all i hear is silence. it’s suffocating me yeollie-ah,”
“what’re you t-talking about?” sungyeol says, voice cracking.
“nothing you would understand. sungyeol-ah, do me a favour won’t you? bring the jar here,” woohyun says. sungyeol takes hesitant steps towards the bed and places the jar on it. “thank you, open it,” he orders and sungyeol can only do as he’s told.
woohyun puts the knife to his chest and smiles a smile so full of relief and joy that it makes sungyeol want to cry. “thank you for being my best friend sungyeol-ah. thank you for everything,”
and before sungyeol can even scream, woohyun has torn open his chest and ripped his heart out, dropping into the jar with the dead man’s heart as he dies in the arms of woohyun’s soulmate.
sungyeol cries, screams before throwing up. the stench of the dead body filling him as he closes the jar with shaky hands. with the last shred of respect and love for his now gone best friend, he arranges their bodies so that it looks like a pair of lovers embracing before he takes the jar and places it on the bedside table.
sungyeol smiles through his tears when he sees that no matter how he jostles the jar, the hearts in it always stay connected.