Curate, connect, and discover
Khun's absence was not easy. Bam's gaze would return to the empty seat beside him each time, the one stubbornly reserved for his sleeping best friend. It was force of habit by then. He would try to imagine what Khun would look like seated there, remember his voice and face and sly demeanor, the memory eventually becoming a blurred spectre of blue staring him in the eye and plunging a knife through his chest.
Soon he'd forgotten what Khun sounded like, and then he thought, that's it - he's forgetting him, and there's nothing he can do about it.
He forced himself to look forward, and the seat sat empty in the edges of his vision.
When Khun awoke, returned to him warm and smiling, he drank in his image, sated his longing in the marine of his irises and nearly drowned when his hand rose to brush fingertips across his face -
"Your hair... It's gotten quite long."
Khun didn't need to know it was meant to match his, time spent imagining him in the reflection of mirrors in his place; it's a ridiculous thing to admit –
"Yeah. It's not as long as I'd like it, yet."
"Are you well?"
Bam looked at him. Was he well?
Yeah. Yes. He breathed, one of Khun's colognes wafting pleasant in the air, upending nostalgia into his heart, a breath of winter's air–
"With you here," he responded, unable to stop himself.
Khun smiled. Safe haven found in the curve of his lips, carried in his currents, a return to alright, a shifted axis restored. His veins spring hope anew from where ice silenced its flow, and the future will no longer be something for him to face alone.