Chapter Text
There comes a strange time in everyone's life when they will do anything for love.
When you can move mountains and defeat an entire army with your own fists.
Choi San has never been like this, he has let go until now. In fact, his whole life he just let go. He didn't have the courage to tell Wooyoung how he really felt about him. He couldn't even simply try to contact him. He let go when he saw him in the school hallways, when he watched him read books, and even when Roan treated him like air.
He believed that he was not good for him, and that what he felt was inappropriate and would not be supported anywhere. He preferred to hide in the shadows and leave.
He preferred to watch Wooyoung grow up with him, yet so far away from him. He repeated that it was for his good.
Even when he was selected for the Games, he didn't tell anyone about it. He didn't even have the courage to confess it to his own brother and his friend. He believed that since it had no future, it was unnecessary to upset him about it.
All his miserable life he only worked and brought home money, with which he tried to buy some bread before his father drank it away. There was always only a beautiful boy with ebony hair in his world, and just looking at him seemed to be enough.
He was ready to give his life for him in the arena without delay, and he was going to do it even if he didn't get his approval.
He went for him in the arena, looking for him to protect him. He guided him to keep him safe and expected that he would leave at the right moment.
He couldn't go home knowing Wooyoung was dead, he couldn't bear it.
Everything changed with a few words he heard from him.
A simple confession made him not want to die anymore. Not now, not after all of this, not when his dreams are so close to reality.
Wooyoung looked exactly like he did when he heard his name called at the reaping day. He may have been a little thinner and worn out, but he had the same expression on his face. San then watched him from the crowd, his heart stopped for a moment before he was chosen and set his sights on saving him.
He'll still do it, he'll still save him, but he won't go down without a fight.
"Wooyoung."
"San."
They stood only an inch apart and San reached his thin hands around his neck and threaded his fingers into his curled locks. Their foreheads touched and he closed his dry eyes.
"You have to trust me" he whispered, his cracked lips brushing the shorter one's tear-soaked nose. "Do you understand? You have to trust me."
''But..."
"If you really do love me, trust me. And we'll see each other soon."
He tightened his hands on his black hair and took one last deep breath, filling his mind with his sweet scent. It calmed him down, allowed him to think.
"But I can't, San, I..."
"Hush" he frowned, still remaining motionless in this perfect position of two bodies joined together. "Me either" he hesitated to calm his trembling lips. "I love you too, Wooyoung. I have always loved you and always will. Don't you forget about it."
He moved away in one movement, tugging on the last strand of his curled hair. It was as if he wanted to remember their soft texture, the way they felt under his fingertips.
He reached for a few berries and hold them carefully in his hand. He wasn't afraid anymore.
"What do you want to do?"
He heard a quiet voice behind him, in which panic could gradually be felt.
He froze for a moment, then dismissed the thought and raised his hand to his mouth.
"San?! What do you want to do?!"
San stood up one last time and took a small chain from under his thin, tattered and dirty T-shirt, then pressed it into the crying boy's hand.
"It's my mother's. The only valuable thing I have apart from you. And the only one I took from home. You'll give it back to me when we meet again."
In shock, Wooyoung could only tighten his fingers on him.
San smiled at this and then popped some berries into his mouth and swallowed them quickly before changing his mind.
He saw fear in Wooyoung's eyes, the irises quickly narrowed, and a long howl pierced the forest that could tear any heart into pieces.
"What have you done?! San, God, what have you done" he cried, hitting his chest, tugging at his shirt, but it was too late. "I promised to tell you why I got so many points in the qualification, oh San, I promised to tell you!"
"And you will. With no cameras, and no fear."
"But..."
"Remember what I told you, Wooyoung. And that..." he felt much worse, he felt dizzy and his legs felt like they were made of cotton wool. He staggered and fell, and Wooyoung caught him mid-flight so he wouldn't hurt himself. He was breathing strangely slowly, his tongue tingled strangely. "That I love you very much."
That's the last thing he choked out before closing his eyes.
Wooyoung maniacally stroked his cheeks, combed his blond hair as if to wake him up. His heavy tears flowed down his face, but it was too late. San made a decision.
He leaned over him to hear his heartbeat for the last time, it was silently beating in an irregular rhythm, keeping him alive for a while.
Wooyoung regretted many things. He didn't know how their story would end, will they ever see each other again, like San promised him? If they succeed, will they still be the same?
The arena changes people. They can be completely different outside.
He regretted that he had never noticed how San was involved in his life. How he make it better without being noticeable.
That his love was becoming so obvious now, when he had never noticed it for so many years.
He wished he had been more soft for him. That they didn't have more time, that their lives will never be normal again.
That he didn't keep his word and didn't tell him what he promised.
That he couldn't talk to him when he really needed it.
That he was so terrible to him. So cruel.
That he attacked him.
Now when he thought about how he had attacked San, almost killing him, he felt sick.
Leaning over San's body, he only heard the sound of the last cannon through one ear, and then his heart broke for the second time.
How many more times can it break before there's nothing left left to cure?
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the winner of the eighty-seventh Hunger Games."
Then he lost consciousness. He didn't know if it was because of emotions, fear, exhaustion, or because of the Gamemakers, who had to get him out of the arena.
He didn't know if he ever wanted to wake up.
He only had light flashes as he left the arena. The place that killed him, but also gave him a new, completely different life. From above he saw all the places he had been, half-flooded fields and forest. He even thought he saw various colorful flowers growing in the clearings. Why didn't he let him put colorful flowers in his hair then? Why wasn't he gentler with him?
In his sleep he remembers how he was connected to various devices, they gave him medicines, a drip, and suddenly he was transformed from an outcast thrown to certain death and became the object of the utmost attention. He was washed, again against his will, but he didn't say anything. Someone was saying something to him, but none of the words had any meaning.
He didn't see San being taken away by the hovercraft.
Did that mean he would stay there? Could he just stay there? There were so many questions around that he couldn't even think of what answers he could consider.
Someone gave him an injection, he didn't even flinch at the feeling of the needle being inserted into his arm, as if he had become immune to all pain.
He ignored everyone in a white coat until he saw bright red hair tied in a messy ponytail in front of him. Dressed in black, he stood firmly in front of him and leaned on his waist. He looked closely at the boy and sighed.
Wooyoung looked up and blinked sluggishly as if in slow motion.
"I didn't think I'd see you again. This cunning bastard really keeps his promises" Orys muttered and smiled sadly, letting him know that life wasn't over yet.
But he didn't know about San's plan, about the effects of the berries, that there was a glimmer of hope.
Wooyoung decided he wouldn't tell anyone about it until he saw San alive and well.
As long as he sees him.
He looked out the small window of the hovercraft, watching as it landed outside the arena and left the place once and for all.
Or at least that's what he thought.
*
San drifted between the world of the living and the dead. He no longer knew the boundary between sleep and death. Everything seemed too real to be a dream, and at the same time he felt too alive.
He saw Wooyoung sitting under a weeping willow tree. He is reading his favorite book and smiling in the bright sun. The rays fall on his perfectly white complexion or black curls. How raspberry lips curl in thought and eyelashes cast a shadow on the pale pages.
He looks up, black eyes focusing on San. He smiles, enjoys his presence, waves his thin hand at him and invites him to his secret place.
San will finally be able to sit next to him, he even starts running, he wants to make it before his vision ends forever. He wants to have him one last time, even in his dreams, he wants to feel what it's like to really have him.
And then he opens his eyes.
Instead of darkness, there is bright light around.