It took months.

Three more months.

And he was okay again.

He was still terrified by the thought that he would have another relapse, and the fear washed over him colder and stronger everyday.

It was December when he was, again, weeks away from leaving the center.

His time with Chanyeol got longer and longer. They would spend hours in the recreational rooms without knowing how much time had even passed. Minutes would feel like seconds, and hours would feel like minutes. Days felt like hours and months felt like days. This was the case, as long as they were together.

"You've been looking worse for a while, but you look better again." Chanyeol sat in a chair, facing Baekhyun who lay in his bed, nearly half asleep.

"What if I have another relapse?" Baekhyun's concern, his fear, showed in his eyes and voice.

"You won't," Chanyeol insisted, "I won't let you."

"But it always comes so suddenly," Baekhyun paused, "There's no preventing it, you don't know when it's going to come."

"You sound like you're talking about a zombie apocalypse," Chanyeol sat down on the bed, "Is it that scary?"

Baekhyun didn't face him, knowing that if he did, the tears would spill out.

"I want to leave."

"Where?" Chanyeol sighed, "The mental ward or the world?"

Baekhyun kept his head down.

"I've been contemplating for a while," Baekhyun said, "Whether I should jump and die quick, or take pills or drugs until I die or-"

"Stop."

Baekhyun turned to look at Chanyeol with wet, puffy eyes.

"Will you hate me if I leave you?"

Chanyeol smiled and shook his head "no."

"I'll be upset, mourn for you and miss you, but I won't hate you."

"How come?"

"What do you mean 'how come?'" Chanyeol sat back down on the chair beside the bed and smiled again, "What's there to hate?"
-----
The world "ephemeral" could describe so many things.

Flowers are ephemeral.

Winter is ephemeral.

Happiness can be ephemeral.

But Baekhyun saw life as the most ephemeral thing of them all.

Short living, in an instant, a flash of light.

Quick to go, disappearing, sudden.

Gone.

And Baekhyun didn't know whether he hated the word or loved it.

Maybe it was both.

He hated the word because it was sad. Short and quick are sad words too. Eighty years may seem like a long time, but it goes quickly. Everything passes by in a flash, almost too fast for anyone to see any of it.

He loved the word because he wanted life to be as ephemeral as possible. He would have been perfectly happy with sixteen years.

He would have been perfectly happy.

And he didn't know how bad of a thing that was.
-----
Chanyeol set an envelope down on Baekhyun's bed.

"What is that?"

"A list."

Baekhyun glanced back down at the envelope before turning back to Chanyeol.

"I'm going to miss you."

It was five words, but those words held more meaning than a paragraph could.

"You sound gay," Chanyeol grinned, "But I'll miss you too."

Baekhyun picked up the envelope as Chanyeol said, "Just don't read it until you're out of the hospital. Okay? Promise?"

"Promise."

"And consider them before considering anything else. Think about them when you're sitting on the edge of a cliff getting ready to jump. They might seem meaningless. But they also might change your mind."

"Okay, okay. I get the idea," Baekhyun's gaze softened, "Don't forget me."

"I feel like I should be the one saying that," Chanyeol paused, "I won't forget you. As long as you don't forget me."

"You're basically implying that you don't want me to kill myself. And that contradicts the support you've been giving me."

"I never said you need to stay," Chanyeol argued, "I just want you to remember me."

And Baekhyun remembered.

He remembered from the bottom of his heart to the top of it.

And that was all Chanyeol wanted. ||