6 lifeline

Chanwoo

Sometimes I start to think that I'm being irrational, like I'm clinging onto a worn rope just seconds away from snapping under the pressure of my weight.

If I don't keep trying, then I that means I have nothing to live for. I have so much to live for. I have a family that I love and friends that I adore.

At first I wanted to laugh at myself, thinking that maybe it wasn't hope that I was feeling and instead it was just the fact that I had too much pride to give up without fighting.

Now, I see that it's more important than ever. As those I love slowly give up on me, I have to fight back even harder. It stings, still. I thought they thought I was stronger than that. I've never been one to give up easily, but I guess none of that mattered now.

Nobody knew if I could hear them, or feel a anything or if I even knew what the hell was going on around me. I couldn't blame them for letting hope slip away.

Every time a doctor would give them updates in the room and I happened to overhear, the reaction was never relief. The news was never good or bad; it was always somewhere in between- a complicated middle ground that was absolutely infuriating.

I wanted to know what was going to happen to me in the end. I wish someone would just show up, slap me hard in the face so I know it's not a dream, and tell me if I'm going to make it out alive or not.

So I know if I can let go or not.

I don't know exactly how long I've been out, but the last time I'd heard a nurse utter something to my mother and Hyun-Ki under her breath, she'd said I was going on seven weeks of unconsciousness.

They worried my brain function would rapidly deteriorate at any given moment, and that I would turn vegetative; nothing more than an empty vessel, mind and soul long dissipated.

However, I knew for certain that I'd made one choice correctly; and that was putting my life in Ki's hands.

When medical staff would say something indirectly negative, or hint that decisions should be made in advance for if I got worse suddenly, he would shut them down. They'd been making remarks more and more often, lately, like they were just waiting for my brain to fog over and my heart to flatline.

He wouldn't give, like a rubber band that, no matter stretched how far, he wouldn't snap. He was solid in his belief that I was going to wake and told them that it wasn't needed; not yet. However, I heard the frantic, anxious tone in his voice that worsened every time he was asked the same thing, 'What would you like us to do, Mr. Yoo?' and 'Shall we wait longer, sir?'

Still, he'd tell them the same thing. He wasn't giving up on me.

It's the times where, long after visitation hours had ended, he would linger, always touching a part of me as if he was afraid I would wash away every time he let go. He would keep a gentle hand on my shoulder, my arm, or my own hands laid across my stomach. He was always here, and it made me feel all the more guilty.

You have a job, you have a life, you need to take care of yourself and eat and sleep.

What the hell are you still doing here, with the boy who still hasn't woken up?

Then, I think about it. I realize that if our roles switched, and he was the one laying on this bed, none of us knowing if he was ever going to come back to us, I wouldn't leave his side either.

It's the way we always have been since junior high, throughout high school and still are even as we've graduated university and started our careers- closer than ever.

Somewhere between brothers, friends, and something else too, that I could never quite put my finger on.

I'd hold onto him just as tight as he's holding onto me now.

Even though he can't hear it, I respond to him when he talks to me. If he's just sitting there quietly, I talk to him. I tell him his favorite jokes and reminisce about the past; about the stupid things I'd talked him into doing when we were younger.

Even if he can't feel it, when he squeezes my hands; I squeeze back.

I know that even if every single person on this planet gave up on me and told him he was stupid for holding onto blind faith, he would stay here and rot away with me if it meant that I wouldn't be alone in this.

If I have to go down, then I'll go down kicking, screaming, and tearing the walls down around me until there's nothing left to hold onto.

I'm going to keep trying, harder than ever. It's like I can feel a foreign strength slowly creeping into my head, down my neck, through my torso and into my fingers. It's sleeping into my legs and crashing down into my feet, settling in my toes.

I can feel something changing; he'a standing there with his smooth platinum hair, dangling a lifeline above me with his bangs parting slightly on his forehead like a chilly wind was blowing around him. It's like he's giving me another chance at a life that I've barely begun in our twenty one years on earth. His hand is pale, soft and warm, inviting me with a familiar comfort that I knew I would feel if I could just touch it- a feeling I wish I could drown myself in. His eyes are two round pools of the same clear, glazed chocolate color they always have been, gazing at me as if they can show me everything I could ever want if I just jump in without looking back.

His hand is unmoving, reaching out toward me, waiting patiently.

I'm grabbing onto you, Ki, and I'm not letting go.

I'm ready to breathe the fresh Spring air and open my eyes to see the beautiful, blooming world around me. I'm ready to see the ones that I love and cherish more than anything.

I'm ready to wake up.