Cold.

Wet.

Bo was suffocating from having the water entering his lungs; he was struggling for breath. Despite the fact that it was his intention to drown himself to the bottom of the steam and ended his miserable life, the human instinct for survival still kicked in fast. His arms and legs were thrashing, splashing the water, causing bubbles to encircle his body. Nevertheless, Bo suppressed the survival instinct and closed his eyes, letting go of everything.

And it worked.

Bo could no longer register anything around him. No more coldness. No more wetness. No more struggle.

Everything was calm and peaceful.

*******

A white ceiling came into view when Bo's eyelids upheaved, unveiling the darkness from his vision. Though it might be the same color as the ceiling in his house, this one was newer. It was cleaner and different.

"This can't be heaven, can it?" He asked himself in a hoarse voice, eyes still fixated on the ceiling.

"No." A deep, gentle voice answered Bo's rhetorical question.

Bo's eyes widened, and he began to look around. The moment he tilted his head to the right 一where the door was一 he saw an unfamiliar figure in a faded blue jean and a white T-shirt walking inside, carrying a small tray with a bowl of something that smelled like chicken porridge.

The man seemed to be a few inches taller than him but not that much older. Only when he came closer did Bo realize how gorgeous the guy was. His raven hair was down, covering the narrow forehead just above his thick eyebrows with a pair of deep-set brown eyes underneath. His cherry lips had the color of a healthy, natural red shade that complimented his white-skinned tone and oval face-shaped, uniquely when it was adorned by a cute mole just under the left lower lip.

"Who are you? What're you doing here?" asked Bo once the man came to a stop next to the bed.

"I'm your saver, and what I'm doing is saving your life," the man answered with a stern face. "And this is my house. I don't think I need to explain to you what exactly I'm doing inside this building."

Bo shut his lips and turned his head away. The thought that he was still alive did not bring him any joy. It contradicted all his intents and purposes.

"The name is Sean, by the way."

"I don't care." said Bo impertinently, before turning his head back to face the man named Sean. "Why did you do it?"

"Huh?" Sean arched his eyebrow at the sudden question.

"Who gave you the right to save me?"

"I'm a doctor. I save lives."

"Then go and save the lives of those who want to live! Why bother saving me when I don't even have the will to live? Are all doctors nosy like you?!"

Sean narrowed his eyes at the Bo and put down the tray he held on the nearby table. He crossed his arms around his chest and said in a somber tone, "I don't know about other doctors, but yes, I've always been this nosy. I can't stand someone with perfect body-shape, handsome face, and usable limps like you disparaging your precious lives as if it's worth nothing."

Bo sat bolt upright on the bed immediately, ignoring the dizziness that swept up to his head at the sudden movement. He glared at Sean right after the latter finished talking.

"Who are you to judge? You don't know a single thing about me. You don't know how bad my life is."

With a shrug, Sean replied calmly, "Yeah, I don't know anything about you. Care to tell me?"

"Why should I even bother with that?"

"Fine, then don't tell me. You're nothing but a spoiled brat anyway. At first, I didn't want to judge the book by its cover. But it looks like my assumption isn't wrong."

Bo was filled with rage at the sarcasm. Not only was this man nosy, but he was also ill-mannered. Bo could not believe how a man with such an attitude could obtain a medical license. Did morality not taken seriously these days?

"YOU!" he exclaimed, shooting up to his feet as soon as his adrenaline led him.

In just a second, he was face to face with the very person he wanted to confront, hand raised in the air, preparing to punch Sean in the face. However, the fist was never got to land, for his thin wrist was wrapped inside a warm, big palm of Sean.

"LET GO OF ME!" Bo yelled and tried to break away from the firm grip but failed.

It was hard to believe that even though the two had similar body frames, Sean was more powerful than him. It made Bo feel inferior, although both of them were males. The fact that he was shorter and weaker made Bo feel extremely frustrated that his eyes involuntarily generated a type of liquid known as tears.

Why am I so useless in everything? Everywhere that I go, I can only hear and see the word 'fail'! Bo scolded himself within his head.

Strength began to crawl away from the shorter's body as the negative thought took over, leaving Bo to stop struggling and going weak in the knees. He would have slid down to the floor if it were not for Sean, who used his free hand to encircle his waist and brought the small frame into his broad chest for a balance. The hand that grabbed Bo's wrist finally let go and tenderly patted the shivering back that was quivering due to hiccoughs and sniffs instead.

"it's okay. Just cry your heart out. Don't hold back. I'm here for you," Sean said in a soft voice as he buried his chin into the silky strand of Bo's hair.

Whether it was the sweet voice or the comfortable, warm embrace, Bo did not know. For now, he could no longer weigh out any thinking or reason. He just needed a shoulder to cry on. However, Sean did more than only offering his shoulder. He offered his broad chest and a hug. Additionally, he was also proffering a safety feeling that pacified every bit of negativity and malaise within Bo's body.

No words were exchanged for a short while, leaving the whole room silent except for the sounds of breath drawing and sniffing. Sean patiently stood still and let Bo shed tears into his shirt without caring about the stains afterward. His hands continued making their ways up and down the shorter's back affectionately, trying his best to make sure the latter felt comforted.

When Bo seemed to calm down, Sean broke away and helped him sit back down on the bed before shoving his hand inside his pocket and taking out the clean, white handkerchief.

"Feeling better now?" Sean asked while handing the muckender to Bo. " Mr...," He trailed off when he realized he hadn't gotten to know the name of the person he had rescued yet.

"Bo," answered Bo, in a voice that was only slightly louder than a whisper, but Sean was still able to hear it. "Just Bo."

"Bo..." Sean repeated the name that sounded so right when coming out from his lips. He did not know why, but he found this name very beautiful, just like the person who bore it.

"It's a beautiful name." He could not help but blurt it out, making Bo look up from under his damp, tear-stained eyelashes with a face as red as newly bloom rose.

"Um...thank you." His voice came out weaker than intended.

Shyness seemed to be overhauling, making him act like someone he was not, especially under the taller's eyes, who kept staring at him without either blinking or changing direction for even a mere second.

Sean's lips then curved up into a smile. He subconsciously lifted his hand to brush the wet locks away from Bo's smooth forehead. In doing so, his fingertips brushed against the white skin, causing the receiving end to shiver slightly.

"Don't mention it," said Sean as he peered into Bo's eyes, with nothing but gentleness deriving from the bottom of his heart.

Bo sucked in a breath at the ethereal sight before him, making his lungs almost burst due to the excessive storing of oxygen that needed release. His heart kept palpitating from the left side of his chest as if someone was playing a rock and roll drum-kit from inside there whenever his eyes and the taller's brown ones met.

As a man himself, Bo knew he shouldn't find the one standing before him titillating, but he could not help it. His body reacted on its own, denying every sensible reason he tried to bargain with it. Afraid that his body was showing off more abnormal reactions, Bo decided to be the first to break eye contact, hoping it would somehow calm him down.

"Also," said Bo, hoping to divert his attention from the one before him. His eyes were landing on Sean's feet, to which he caught sight of a pair of dark-green slippers; his favorite color.

Bo couldn't understand whether it was mere coincidence or intentional, but everything about Sean kept leaving a deep impression on him in a way that he couldn't explain. It was something new to him. He had never felt this way before. Not even with his ex-fiance back then. This feeling was genuinely foreign.

"Yes?" Sean asked when Bo didn't get to finish his sentence.

Clearing his throat, Bo tried to finish where he had left off. "Also, I'm sorry for throwing a fit at you earlier. I mean, you took the effort to help fish me out of the water and brought me here. To react that way, it was totally rude of me. I apologize for that."

A soft chuckle echoed inside the room as the sound wave escaped from the cherry lips of the person standing. Hooking the slender fingers under Bo's chin, Sean lifted the incarnadine face to meet his.

"Don't mention that, either. I'm more than happy to be the one who withstands your rant and the one to calm you down, Bo."

As a psychiatrist, Sean had said this phrase to countless numbers of his patients before. Nevertheless, this was the first time that a new type of ardor transpired when he told them.

Those might be the same words, but the sentiment surely was different. It was a feeling of wanting more than just the usual paid consultant. A kind of devotion that drove Sean to want to involve himself in everything related to Bo.

Not just for a short moment, but a whole lifetime ahead.

Bo had no choice but to peer back into the taller's eyes since Sean refused to let go of his chin. He kept staring until he could almost memorize every structure, starting from the scleras to the pupils and the irises of the enchanting corneas around Sean's eyes.

Just when Bo thought they would be spending the rest of the day staring at each other, the scene changed. Everything happened at lightning speed that he was caught entirely off guard.

The pulchritudinous pair of eyes that he had been staring at seemed to make their way lower and closer to his own vision. He didn't have time to register what was going on until he felt something wet and warm atop his lips. The brown pupil was long gone, replaced by the fluttering eyelashes that were pricking his cheekbones at the proximity.