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Riwoo turns 28 and has a fancy birthday party like he always does, and so Sungho’s talking to strangers and old acquaintances on the rented-out hotel rooftop, a glass of wine balanced delicately in his hand.
The two of them had arrived together, Jaehyun helping Sungho carry up the cake and the smaller cupcakes he’d made Riwoo for free, despite his insistence of paying Sungho for his hard work because they ‘were adults with jobs, after all’. Sungho refused, Riwoo relented, and Jaehyun, who was there, too, simply laughed.
“Hey!” Riwoo says cheerfully when he chances upon Sungho standing alone in the middle of the room, sipping casually on his second glass of red wine. “Thank you again for the cupcakes, by the way. You didn’t have to.”
Sungho shakes his head, waving it off. “It’s your birthday, it’s no problem.”
Riwoo nods. “I’m glad you made it.”
Sungho tilts his head, amused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, we never know with you,” Riwoo shrugs.
“I can make the trip, just say the word,” Sungho reassures. He’d moved to Daejeon from Seoul a couple of years ago to regroup, a few months after… everything. And while it’s true that Sungho’s been around less since then—he does still come by when they ask for him.
“By the way—” Riwoo lowers his voice, leaning in closer to ask, “Was my friend making you uncomfortable? Earlier? I just noticed he… yeah.”
Sungho shakes his head, recalling what Riwoo must be referring to. Sungho had simply been socializing with some of Riwoo’s friends from work, and Jaehyun had subtly stepped in between Sungho and a guy who had an arm slung around Sungho’s tensed shoulders. Sungho had sent Jaehyun a subtle nod of thanks, and that was that.
“It’s not like he knew I didn’t like my shoulders touched.” Sungho smiles to reassure Riwoo that everything was fine, that he didn’t have to worry. “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”
“For a second, I thought Jaehyun was making a move on you,” Riwoo jokes, and Sungho breaks into a small chuckle. “Then I remembered you two are weirdos, and it’s none of my business.”
“Thanks,” Sungho rolls his eyes, half-teasing, half-sincere. “Trust me, I know it’s weird. If you can be friends with your ex, then you were either never really in love or still are. Right?”
Riwoo glares at him, shaking his head. “Have you talked to Taesan yet?”
Sungho shrugs. “Not really.”
“He’s over there with Woonhak.” Riwoo tilts his head over in their direction, a gentle suggestion.
Sungho scrunches his nose, recalls the words they’d exchanged the last time he was back in Seoul, not too long ago. “Some other time.”
Riwoo walks away after Sungho clinks the lip of his wineglass with the neck of his beer bottle, and Sungho goes back to enjoying the party on his own.
🌃
1.
“Hello?”
“Jaehyun?”
“Yes?”
“Favor.”
“Yeah.”
“Could you come with me to see my family in Wonju for Chuseok?”
Sungho lets go of the phone to mix up the bowl of cold icing, sandwiching the device between his shoulder and ear.
“Um,” Jaehyun mutters, “like…”
“Yes,” Sungho answers simply, stepping away from the counter. “Like that.”
He waits anxiously for Jaehyun’s reply, but doesn’t think for a second about taking it back. They’re here anyway, and the worst thing that Jaehyun can do is say no.
“You still haven’t told them?” Jaehyun chuckles into the phone, and Sungho shakes his head.
“You know how it is.”
There’s silence on Jaehyun’s end, so Sungho resumes what he was doing. There’s two trays of cupcakes on his counter that he’s preparing for an order. Four dozen, red velvet and lemon. Weird as fuck combination. His kitchen looks like a bunch of condiments threw up in it.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell them?” Jaehyun asks. Neutral curiosity. “Rip the band-aid off?”
“Well, you know, we don’t talk. I didn’t think they’d just ask me back there all of a sudden, for some reason.”
“Right. Last time we went was three years ago.”
Sungho sighs, takes his phone away from his ear, puts it on the counter and then puts it on speaker. He’ll clean up the powdered sugar later. “So, are you gonna do it?”
“Sungho-yah, you should just tell them.”
Sungho laughs, playful. Where did he put the piping bags again? “I’m not hearing a no.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it,” Jaehyun says agreeably, though something in his tone tells Sungho he doesn’t plan to end the conversation there. He knows Jaehyun too well. “Just to be clear—this is under the premise that we’re still together, right?”
“It’s one night.”
“I’m not hearing a no.”
Sungho rolls his eyes, laughing while he’s crouched down, searching through cabinets. “Yes, that’s right.”
“You know I’ll go along with it.” Jaehyun speaks coyly into the phone, trying too hard to be casual. Sungho shrugs to himself as he stands up, roll of icing bags in hand. “But why not just tell them the truth? It’s not like we aren’t friends anymore.”
That’s true. But Sungho’s family is incredibly hard to please, and showing up with Jaehyun like he has to every family event since college has given his parents enough peace of mind that he’s not just alone, and therefore, a failure. Sungho can play the role for one stupid reunion—he’d done it his whole life before moving away—and as for Jaehyun, he’d said it himself. It’s not like the two of them aren’t on good terms. Worst case scenario, Sungho’s parents would make some chastising comment about how the two of them have obviously passed their honeymoon stage, and then Sungho and Jaehyuhn can have a laugh about it later behind closed doors.
“It’s just a lot of hassle,” Sungho replies, condensing his thoughts. “You know how they are.”
Sungho gets to work scooping cream cheese frosting into the bag while he waits for the rebuttal that he knows is coming, “I know. But I know you’ve never liked lying to them. Since when did you care about what they think, anyway?”
“They’re nicer to me when you’re around,” Sungho sighs, bracing himself against the counter. “And it’s not like they care enough about little white lies of omission. I’d be showing up with someone I have a meaningful, long-term relationship with—which is true.”
“Well… yeah, that’s true.”
“So will you do this for me?”
“Yeah. I already said I would.”
“Just making sure.”
“And what about the next time they ask you to come? Are you gonna ask me again?”
Sungho scrunches his nose. “I was thinking we’d cross that bridge when we get there.”
“It still doesn’t make sense to me why they wouldn’t be decent to you unless you’re with someone else, when they were the ones who asked you to come in the first place.”
He chuckles at the concern. “Jaehyun?”
“Yeah?”
“Drop it.”
“Okay.”
The silence that follows is strange, but not entirely uncomfortable. It’s the same color that’s filled the atmosphere since Sungho and Jaehyun had started talking again, navigating the ins and outs of how to be friends again, how to rebuild the parts of them that their nearly 10 year-long relatonship had broken down. Things were the hardest right after they’d split up and decided to take some time away from each other at the height of the heartache and the fear of all the change; but gradually—though it wasn’t as easy as Sungho had hoped—it wasn’t as hard as he’d expected, either. Both he and Jaehyun had managed to be surprisingly mature in the aftermath, graceful instead of spiteful to each other, all things considered.
Sungho supposes it’s the natural consequence of them closing the chapter themselves before letting it reach an uglier end on its own, but neither of them has ever said that out loud. Ultimately, Sungho is grateful for that. They welcome instead of just tolerate each other’s presence. They don’t act like they never happened, and they can still talk to each other the way that they used to with ease, if not just with some new boundaries being set in place every once in a while. They’re a work in progress; in hindsight, Sungho supposes they’ve always been. Jaehyun was the one who told him that when they’d finally decided to talk again, and they’d come to the shared understanding that in the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
So Jaehyun agrees to come see Sungho’s semi-estranged family for Chuseok, and Sungho tells him he owes him a favor in return. And maybe a few reject cupcakes, when something inevitably doesn’t go to plan.
🌃
When the standing around gets boring and he’s on his third glass of wine, Sungho makes his way out of the room out onto the roof, the outdoor area empty and quiet now that the October chill has fully set in.
It’s a nice moment away as he leans over the railing, the city below him and the sky above. There’s only a few stars peeking through the cover of clouds and city smoke, and Sungho feels the chill of the wind on his warm cheeks, red like his wine. He can see the Namsan Tower in the distance, its needlepoint a bright green. It’s a decent night to be out and brooding alone.
“Needed a moment away?”
Of course, Sungho isn’t alone for long. Before he knows it, Jaehyun is walking up beside him, the same beer bottle in his hand as the one that Riwoo was holding, moments ago.
“I’m okay,” Sungho smiles, his voice airy and light as Jaehyun leans on the railing beside him. “Why are you out here? Go back out there and have fun!”
Jaehyun scoffs. “Don’t tell me what to do, Yeppi-yah, I’ll check on you if I want.”
Sungho has half a mind to retort—think of a witty remark, find some way to tease him back—but Jaehyun’s face stays pensive as the words leave his lips, gaze faraway, and the moment passes before Sungho has the chance.
And that’s how they end up in the same place they were when they were 13 and in love—closer to the sky, but still underneath the same stars.
🌃
2.
Breaking up just a few months before their 10-year anniversary was Sungho’s idea, and actually not as explosive as everyone around them probably believed.
To everyone else, it was sudden. To Sungho and Jaehyun, maybe not so much. Sungho doesn’t try to explain the actual reason to people anymore, partly because he and Jaehyun had already hashed it out extensively before coming to that foregone conclusion, and partly because most of their friends simply didn’t realize how, after all of that, it could be a bit hurtful to only hear that doesn’t make sense instead of I understand or I hope it gets better. What Sungho does know—and he knows that Jaehyun knows, too—is that regardless of everything, they’d made the best decision for them both.
They were young when they fell in love: Jaehyun, 13, first, and then Sungho, 16, harder. They stayed with each other through the ups and downs, all the changes and roadblocks that life threw at them hard. They were best friends before they started dating and had made a promise that they always, always would be—even if that meant having to give up something else to make sure that that promise was kept.
Ironically enough, both of them knew that for a lot of people, love had to be that thing—they just never thought it would happen to them. Until it did.
Sungho doesn’t blame Jaehyun, and Jaehyun doesn’t blame Sungho, and neither of them really blame themselves. In the simplest of terms—it was just time to let go. They’d both simply grown into different people—not enough to be unrecognizable, but enough to see the subtle ways in which they’d tried to mold each other back into something else, something they no longer were. They wanted to be a part of each other’s lives in some significant way, but cared about different things. They weren’t the same people they were in high school, or right after college, when being together was simple, and meant going on dates and sharing intimate moments and romanticizing compromise whenever conflict arose.
Most of it was trivial. Sungho nagged a lot. Jaehyun couldn’t clean for the life of him. Sungho was too direct, and Jaehyun would shut down too easily. Sungho worked to get the bills paid and Jaehyun worked toward a dream. There were so many other things—things that they’d realized eventually that they couldn’t accept fully, but had no right to ask each other to compromise, either—and at some point, they had to bite the bullet and realize that being together in the way they were, all the time, felt suffocating more than safe.
It was as best friends that they sat down and discussed if they were willing to give it up, before anything else happened that could turn all their memories sour. It was as best friends that Sungho and Jaehyun had given each other permission to hold on fondly to those days of youth; to the shiny, innocent kind of love that they had—because no matter how it would, or change from that point on—it was good. Perfect, even—if one were only to look at those single, dazzling snapshots of time.
Now, nearly two years later, the two of them are both doing better than Sungho could have ever asked for. Talking to Jaehyun is easy again, when the little annoyances that they both used to have with each other turn endearing again, little things that they can let slide instead of agonize over fixing every night before bed, like they always did towards the end when they had to nitpick every little thing at every single turn. It’s easy, because they can enjoy the good parts of each other without burdening each other with the bad; they’re much more sincere, no longer sugarcoating their words when tiredness catches up to them and results in lukewarm reassurances for overthought insecurities; they can laugh at each other’s jokes without the heavy feeling that comes with knowing that the laughter is fleeting, that there’s a slew of problems waiting for them back home.
Sungho has spent enough time mourning his happy ending. At 25, he and Jaehyun had let go of their youth without having to let go of each other, and they can look back with bright smiles on the time that they had it all.
🌃
“You seemed tense earlier. When we were talking to Riwoo’s friend.”
Sungho laughs and waves it off, doing his best to ease the concern in Jaehyun’s tone. “I didn’t expect you to swoop in like that. How chivalrous.”
“Force of habit, I guess,” Jaehyun laughs. “Should I not have?”
“No, it’s fine,” Sungho shrugs, a non-answer. “This is nice, isn’t it? I didn’t realize how loud it was inside until I came out here.”
“Yeah, I know. Talk about a party.”
“You sure you don’t wanna go back out there? You were having fun earlier.”
“Trying to get rid of me already? I’m hurt,” Jaehyun pouts, clutching his chest theatrically. “Saw you come out here, so I just thought you’d want some company.”
Sungho sighs. He doesn’t tell Jaehyun he’s wrong, because he isn’t. Instead, he watches Jaehyun’s face as he leans back to take a sip of his beer, the angles of his face bathed in the mismatched glow of all the soft light coming from everywhere around them. The stars, the balcony lights, the scattered city noise. They aren’t as young as they used to be, and it shows in the ease with which they can say what’s on their minds, showing each other their hands instead of tiring themselves out with the cat-and-mouse of trying to figure each other out.
“You should drop by Daejeon sometime. I’m looking at spaces to rent out, but I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with it yet.”
Jaehyun tilts his head, curious. “You’ve been saying you want to open up a little book café, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but my mind changes all the time,” Sungho shrugs. “Thinking about it makes my head hurt.”
“Okay, then let’s stop. Don’t stress yourself out too much, you’ll get sick again,” Jaehyun grimaces.
“That was one time!” Sungho protests, and it’s the understatement of the year. It was a few months before they broke up and Sungho was on the verge of quitting his job, and the stress had gotten so bad that his body had betrayed him and his legs gave out on him all of a sudden, and Jaehyun had to take care of him when he couldn’t get out of bed. “But you’re right. I live alone, and I was dead weight back then. I can’t let it happen again.”
“Dead weight? Don’t be all tough, Sungho. I still took care of you. I’d do it again.”
Sungho raises an eyebrow at him, amused. “Please, you were terrible.”
Jaehyun gasps. “Ungrateful bastard!”
“Hello? Soup concentrate straight from the can?”
“That was one time!” Jaehyun reaches out to slap him on the shoulder, but he’s laughing anyway. “God, you and your fucking soup. At least we can laugh about it now.”
They do. They don’t think too much about the undercurrent in all of their words, and Sungho just feels lucky that they can be like this, free to just be.
🌃
3.
Sungho and Jaehyun talk often about how they know everyone’s still kind of hoping they’ll get back together, and they mostly let that thought amuse them instead of immediately brushing it off or shutting it down.
Riwoo brings it up at the dinner table in a joking manner, talking about how metal it is that Sungho and Jaehyun can still sit next to each other, hold onto each other’s shoulders during outbursts of laughter that end up being funnier than the actual joke. Leehan comments on how their hands touch when Sungho passes the soy sauce to Jaehyun to pass to Taesan. To be fair, their friend group had taken a beating, too, in the aftermath of their breakup; that was almost two years ago, but they’re all still in the process of picking up the broken pieces, trying to spend time with each other again, all six of them, without either Jaehyun or Sungho having to basically take turns sitting out.
If Sungho were to go to extremes, he might even say he’d patched up his relationship with Jaehyun faster than he had with all the holes it had left in the fabric of their shared friendships. He’s still not really that sure what it’s going to take for the four of them to understand that they’re actually on good terms and not just pretending for their sake, or worse, just plain lying to themselves about their unresolved feelings. Sungho guesses that maybe it’s because he and Jaehyun were never actually that angry at each other, and everyone is waiting for some nonexisten pot to boil over where they either declare their undying love or finally snap and reveal all of their pent up hate.
It’s not like that, though. They talk casually about the favor that Jaehyun did for Sungho last Chuseok, wanting to get Sungho’s side of things, and they all look at him like he’s crazy when he explains what Jaehyun had understood in mere seconds over the phone. Sungho supposes that if he and Jaehyun are content with how things are between them now, then that’s fine. Never mind the dropped jaws and questioning looks.
Woonhak pulls Sungho aside to ask about it, after Riwoo foots the bill for dinner and they all split off into little groups to walk around the mall.
“So, Sungho-hyung,” he starts, eyes darting around everywhere except towards Sungho’s face, “You and Jaehyun are fine now?”
Sungho rolls his eyes, amused. “We’ve been fine for a while, Unagi-yah.”
“But you broke up,” Woonhak pouts. “Did you two fix everything?”
Debatable—but that’s not what Woonhak needs to hear. “You could say that.”
“But you’re going to stay friends?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’ve fixed things, I just thought you would… get back together?”
Sungho raises an eyebrow, arms folded across his chest. “Is that what everyone thinks?”
Woonhak shrugs. “I don’t know. I was just asking.”
“Jaehyun and I have been friends for a long time. It doesn’t make sense to just throw that away.”
“It didn’t make sense that you broke up, either.”
Sungho purses his lips, holds his tongue. “We’ve already told you, we both decided it was best for us. And we’re good now, see?”
“I don’t know,” Woonhak chuckles nervously. “I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”
Sungho’s face falls, and he’s taken aback. “What does that mean?”
“You were together for ten years,” Woonhak explains, finally looking into Sungho’s eyes. “You were in love. And then next thing you know, Jaehyun-hyung’s heartbroken, and you stopped talking to us, and now, suddenly, you’re just… okay.”
Sungho nods. He supposes it could look that way. The two of them had done their best to spare their friends all the painful details of what was going on in the months leading up to their split, and it’s not like they’d put it on display when they decided to repair their friendship, either. “We are okay. We’re happy. We do talk to each other outside of this friend group, you know?”
“Really?”
Sungho laughs. “Really.”
Woonhak sighs. His brow is scrunched as he looks at the floor, and Sungho can almost see the gears turning ceaselessly in his head, like he can’t seem to find the right words for what he so desperately wants to say.
“Woonhak.”
Woonhak looks up when Sungho’s voice breaks him out of his trance, the look on his face still painfully forlorn. “Mm?”
“No one is saying that it wasn’t real.”
Woonhak tilts his head in confusion. “What?”
“The ten years,” Sungho laughs, the sound wistful and quiet. “Jaehyun and I. Yes, we were in love. That was our first love. And, yes, we thought it was going to last forever—because we were happy.” Sungho smiles at the memory of that time, the strangely comforting juxtaposition of it against how they are in the present. “And even if it didn’t last forever… well, we still are happy, now.”
Sungho doesn’t know if that’s comforting to Woonhak, but it’s his best guess at what he might want to hear. For Sungho, at least, his heart feels light when he thinks about all of those things now: all the memories of when he and Jaehyun had the world at their feet, holding onto the silent promise of forever that they’d made to each other on that starry night.
Woonhak tells him, “I guess there’s just part of me that wonders if you arent as happy as you could be if you were still together.”
Sungho nods. He lets himself sit with the thought, allows it to marinate in the air between them before laying it back down with gentle hands. Woonhak could be right, for all they know. After all, everything that is comes at the cost of what could’ve been. It’s the simplest gamble in the games of life and love.
“What now, hyung?” Woonhak asks after a bout of silence, he and Sungho now just walking aimlessly past the blur of restaurants and shops. “Do you think you’ll ever love someone like that again?”
Sungho laughs, his gaze trained on the ground. It’s one of the rare times when the logical answer is the same as the one that comes from his heart—because their love was the love of their youth, almost all of their firsts spent with each other. There are a number of things that Woonhak could be asking: could Sungho love someone else the same way that he loved Jaehyun? Could he love someone again for that long? For the same reasons?
However he thinks of it, Sungho’s answer is the same: whether or not other, newer loves come along—none of them can ever replace the boy under the stars.
Sungho shakes his head, purses his lips. “When you love like that once… you don’t love like that again.”
It’s not exactly what was in his head—but Sungho means it all the same.
Woonhak clicks his tongue in frustration, and Sungho looks up in surprise. “You basically just told me that Jaehyun-hyung was the love of your life!”
Sungho’s eyes widen in shock at the volume—but even more when he realizes what Woonhak had just said.
“He was,” Sungho answers—and it’s not as weighty a declaration as he would’ve thought. “He is.”
It’s more of a technicality that he adds on that last part, but he doesn’t take it back. Sungho doesn’t think he was ever the type to seek out love, anyway—he’d simply found it in Jaehyun, and Jaehyun in him. Sungho never thought about relationships or anything like that before he met Jaehyun, and he hasn’t thought about them again since after they separated, either. So, yes—on a technicality, Jaehyun may as well be the love of his life.
“Then why aren’t you together anymore?”
Sungho snaps out of that train of thought quickly. There’ll be time to revisit that later.
“Because I’m happy, and he’s happy. And when we were together—we weren’t happy anymore.“ It’s the simple answer, but it’ll have to do. “A happy ending doesn’t always look like it does in the movies.”
“Is this what it’s like when your parents get divorced but say they’re on good terms?”
“We’re not your parents,” Sungho narrows his eyes, reaching out to ruffle Woonhak’s hair. “And it isn’t our responsibility to make the pill easier to swallow when we’ve already explained that it was a mutual decision. Okay?”
Woonhak pouts, but eventually concedes. “Yeah. Okay. As long as you’re happy, hyung.”
“I am,” Sungho nods. He can only hope that Woonhak believes it’s true. “I am.”
🌃
It was under the stars on a summer night that Jaehyun had told Sungho, brazen and sure, I think I’m going to love you forever.
Fast forward fifteen years, and neither of them believe that anymore—and yet it somehow still bleeds into everything they both do.
Sungho doesn’t know how long they’ve been out here together, the time passing as imperceptibly as it always does when he and Jaehyun are in the same space. Sungho looks at him now, beer bottle in hand and watching the Seoul skyline from this high, and whenever they’re away from prying eyes, Sungho feels the most like himself that he ever can be. When they’re together like this, alone in the comfortable silence, it’s easier not to see Jaehyun as just his ex-boyfriend like most people do. When they get down to the bones of things, Jaehyun is his most trusted confidant, his closest friend. They tell people that they broke up because of ‘long-term incompatibility’, and maybe it’s something that only they will ever understand—but there are always going to be moments like this, moments when they’re so in sync and looking up at stars again like they were at 13—and they forget all the reasons why it’s just not meant to work out. Not beyond this singular, present moment.
“Jaehyun?”
“Mm?”
“Do you get the sense that all our friends still think I’m a bad person for… you know.”
Sungho avoids his gaze, focuses on the needle in the skyline. He remembers that night with Taesan—words exchanged and sentiments unsaid.
Jaehyun shakes his head. “I’m sure they don’t.”
Sungho scrunches his nose. It’s another non-answer. Jaehyun is the one who’d managed to stay closer to all their friends for these past few years. “Taesan seems to think that you want us to get back together.”
Jaehyun tilts his head, but he doesn’t look that surprised. Sungho waits patiently for his answer, but instead, Jaehyun has that same, protective look on his face from earlier as he asks, “What did he say to you?”
“I can fight my own battles, Jaehyun,” Sungho soothes, his free hand reaching out to touch the side of Jaehyun’s arm. The tension leaves his stance immediately, and Sungho lets go. “You can tell me things, you know?”
Jaehyun turns his head to look right into Sungho’s eyes, his expressions kept surprisingly neutral as he speaks.
“And if I did want to get back together?” Jaehyun asks, his tone so matter-of-fact that it takes Sungho a second before his own expression falters. “Can I tell you those kinds of things, too?”
Sungho chuckles, because it doesn’t make him as nervous as he would’ve expected.
“Yeah, you can,” he says, because it’s true. “I’d rather hear it from you than our friends, at least. You know me.”
Jaehyun turns away to look up at the stars.
🌃
4.
Sungho happens to be in town, having dinner with Riwoo and Jaehyun, when Riwoo gets a call from a distressed Taesan.
“Leehan’s overstimulated. Taesan said he can’t deal with it on his own. Do you guys mind if we go to them? Taesan said they’re nearby.”
Sungho and Jaehyun shared a single look as they both nodded, and then they were off, no more questions asked.
Riwoo and Jaehyun take care of Leehan when they get there, because Leehan has always felt the safest with them, Riwoo having known him the longest and Jaehyun being the biggest empath known to man. Sungho had stood off to the side, watching over the entire situation as Taesan explained that he and Leehan were on their first date out in a while and Leehan started to shut down when he got overwhelmed by the amount of people and noise, and Taesan didn’t feel well enough to handle it properly on this particular day, which was why he gave Riwoo a call. It was lucky enough that Riwoo was out tonight with Jaehyun and Sungho, and could go to meet them pretty quick.
Riwoo and Jaehyun send Sungho off with Taesan, because Taesan prefers to be left alone when things like this happen, and Sungho is the closest thing to that without actually leaving him on his own.
Sungho walks quietly beside Taesan until they reach a quieter area of the park, the others having taken Leehan in the opposite direction. Taesan looks like he’s on the verge of tears the whole way, but Sungho doesn’t push until Taesan opens up on his own.
When they find a place to settle, Taesan sits down on one of the round benches around a potted plant. Sungho stands a few feet away, not really sure if he’s invited.
Taesan stares at the ground, steely and hard, clearly trying to blink his tears away.
He fails, and the tears fall instead. Sungho steps closer and hands him the handkerchief out of his pocket—which Taesan swats away.
“Why are you here, anyway?”
Sungho throws the piece of fabric into Taesan’s lap instead, deciding not to comment on the attitude for now. Taesan’s clearly frustrated, and he’s always been a little stubborn. “What does that mean?”
“What it sounds like.”
Sungho rolls his eyes. “I catered an event yesterday. Riwoo and Jaehyun said they were free tonight for dinner, so I’m going back home tomorrow.”
Taesan doesn’t respond, and instead hangs his head low between his shoulders, hands clasped in his lap over Sungho’s ignored handkerchief.
“Am I just a terrible boyfriend? Is that what this is?”
Sungho stands there, lost for words. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that—so he goes to sit beside Taesan instead, taking in a shaky, awkward breath and folding one leg on top of the other.
They sit in silence. Sungho can practically hear all the things that are brewing in Taesan’s throat while his head is down, and he opens his mouth to say something so many times, but everything dies on his tongue.
“Don’t say anything to me,” Taesan says, and Sungho’s not sure if he meant to have it come out that aggressively or not.
“I’m not.”
“I meant— Don’t try to give me advice right now.”
Sungho scoffs, the vague hostility starting to get on his nerves. “I’m not.”
“I just wanted us to have a nice time. We were having a nice time, but apparently only I was having a nice time, and I should have realized it sooner.”
Sungho sighs, sympathetic. “It’s not your fault.”
“I told you not to say anything.” Taesan galres up at him, and Sungho jumps back a little, hurt.
So he shuts up.
“‘Cause if it’s not my fault where’s the fucking line, then? When is it my fault? ‘Cause it’s not Leehan’s fault, is it? Are you saying it’s Leehan’s fault, hyung?”
“Taesan.”
“It’s always my fault!”
“Han Taesan.” Sungho says, voice still level, but much more firm. More of the pieces of this come together the more that Taesan voices out his frustrations, and he tries to be the bigger person this time, understand that Taesan’s just taking his anger out on whoever’s closest—and that’s probably why they sent Sungho in the first place, anyway. Better him than any of the others. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just something that happens, and it’s no use passing around blame.”
“Is that what you tell yourself? What the hell would you know, anyway? You and Jaehyun-hyung broke up, didn’t you?”
“Taesan—what?” Sungho shakes his head in disbelief. “Look, I get that you’re frustrated about what happened just now, but this is not abou—”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter whose fault it is anymore with you two ‘cause it’s over, so you’re in no place to tell me that kind of shit anymore after you fucking gave up!”
Sungho eyes widen at that, and he swallows as he tries not to take the words too much to heart. “Take a breath.”
“Fuck you.”
Sungho scoffs as he stands up, just utterly shocked at how this entire conversation has gone. He turns around and folds his arms across his chest, tries to even out his breathing enough to keep a sane level of composure for the both of them, with Taesan already so clearly worked up.
“What is it you’re trying to say to me, hm?” Sungho turns back around to ask, expression neutral. “Say it. It’s been almost two years, so get it off your chest.”
“What do you think, Sungho? You give me all that shit about not giving up when things get hard, about accepting the other person as they are, communicating what you need and listening to what they need and—and then you fucking tell us you broke up with Jaehyun-hyung, like—”
Sungho can’t help but laugh in disbelief, his eyes going wide. “Excuse me? How is that any of your business anymore?”
“You were supposed to last forever!” Taesan yells.
“Okay, and?” Sungho scoffs, pointing vaguely in the direction that they’d walked here from, “It’s not like we act like strangers now, is it?”
“I can’t believe— You know, I might run away sometimes when things get a little too hard, but at least I’m fucking working on it, at least I feel guilty, at least I’m gonna go back there and try to fix it because I love Leehan—”
“Don’t project your own shit on me!” Sungho laughs, defensive, a bitter feeling at the pit of his stomach. “Your problems aren’t my fucking fault! And do you think Jaehyun and I are having dinner together ‘cause we just tolerate each other? Of course not!”
“You two are so— Yeah, you just sit there and pretend like everything between you never happened—”
“Pretend? Who said we were pretending? That was 10 years of my life, Han Taesan, you think I’m going to forget all of it just ‘cause I spent it with him? And why would I, anyway? It was good!”
“You broke up.”
Sungho throws his hands up in disbelief, head starting to pound. “Is that all you care about?”
“You’re an idiot,” Taesan glares. “Don’t you see the way Jaehyun looks at you?”
Sungho shakes his head. He might have been swayed if he and Jaehyun were a little younger than they are now, a little less healed. “Taesan, please. Let it go.”
Taesan looks away from him, his face falling completely. “It’s like I don’t know you anymore.”
“Is it so hard to know who I am when I’m not with Jaehyun anymore?” Sungho takes the few steps forward and goes to sit back down beside him, sighing heavily. “It’s been two years, Taesan. Put it to bed.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Taesan mutters. He finally picks up Sungho’s handkerchief, dabs a few tears away from the corners of his eyes. “I just thought— I thought you’d never leave him. We all did.”
Sungho leans forward, his forhead landing into both his hands.
“Stop acting like wanting to leave is the worst sin of all time,” Sungho mutters, eyes shut. “And just ‘cause it happened to us, doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen to you. It was a choice we made, not some kind of curse that happened to us.”
Taesan doesn’t answer. Sungho takes that as a victory, just glad that they can stop arguing for now.
It only takes a few minutes more before Sungho gets a text from Jaehyun, telling him that Leehan is asking for Taesan back.
“Are you okay?” Sungho breaks their tension-filled silence to ask, and Taesan hands him his handkerchief back.
“Better now.”
“Yeah? Not going to yell at me or Jaehyun when we get back?”
Taesan clicks his tongue, standing up from the bench. Sungho follows. “I didn’t mean that.”
Sungho huffs. He knows that Taesan did, a little bit—but he drops it for now. “Taesan.”
Taesan turns around to face him, eyebrow raised.
“I’m sorry if Jaehyun and I breaking up hurt you.” Sungho declares it simply, because he’s realizing that maybe more people needed to hear it than he’d thought. That maybe they hadn’t really given anyone else a chance to speak about it after Sungho and Jaehyun themselves had explained their reasons, and nothing more—that maybe things going back to normal meant more than just going back to normal for them. “But we’re friends again, and we’re okay. That’s that.”
Taesan nods, and nothing more. “Sorry I yelled at you.”
They walk back in silence. Leehan hugs Taesan wordlessly when they arrive, and Sungho floats back to his place at Jaehyun’s side.
🌃
“You don’t have to worry,” Jaehyun declares with ease, eyes on the deep blue of the night sky. “I don’t want to get back together.”
Sungho nods at the quiet admission, leans onto the railing to turn toward him, trying to catch Jaehyun’s eyes. “Why does Taesan seem to think you do, then?”
Jaehyun turns his head toward him as well, cheek squishing against his arm on the railing. “It’s just… well, it’s natural, right? That I miss you sometimes?”
Sungho nods slowly, blinking at Jaehyun in earnest. He keeps his voice soft, the way he always does when they speak about these more fragile things. “Yeah.”
“Do you?” Jaehyun asks, and Sungho smiles. “Miss me? Us?”
Sungho nods even more, closing his eyes when he feels tears starting to build up behind them. “Sometimes, yeah.”
“Does it still hurt you?” Jaehyun asks, and his eyes start to get glassy, too.
“Of course,” Sungho whispers—because he knows he’s speaking for both of them. Because he knows very well that it means it still hurts Jaehyun, too. “Not as much as before.”
Jaehyun closes his eyes and nods. “That’s good.”
Sungho is the first to stand up properly, and he laughs away his tears as he looks up at the sky. In the midst of their quiet admissions, there’s still that whisper of years-old promises—of trust and understanding and respect—all of the things that make them who they still are today. Jaehyun is still all of those things that he exists as in Sungho’s memories: the keeper of his secrets, the boy who smiles at him with all of the affection in his heart, under the stars. In many ways, Jaehyun is still Sungho’s best friend. It leaves a bittersweet feeling in his heart to reminisce over the times when they were together in a different way, and even more to know that they’d made the harder choice: to let each other go, say goodbye to those days of laughter and tears, when they were too young to know what love really entailed.
He looks at the two of them now, and in many ways, they are still those two fumbling idiots, trying and failing to love each other right over and over again—and Sungho and Jaehyun hold those versions of themselves fond in their memories, forgive them for all their missteps. Sungho looks at Jaehyun and knows nothing more than that he will always be someone precious. And no matter what way Sungho gets to love him—he will.
“You know I’m always going to be here for you, right?” Jaehyun asks when they’re both upright, no smoke and mirrors to mask the sincerity of his tone.
Sungho matches his honesty, because the two of them never know how else to be. “You know I don’t think I’m ever going to love anyone like that again, right?”
“Don’t say things like that,” Jaehyun laughs. “It’ll make me want to come back to you.”
“That’s exactly why we shouldn’t be together,” Sungho teases. “I’d just break your heart again.”
“I forgive you.” Jaehyun pushes himself off of the railing, and playfully bumps the lip of his beer bottle on Sungho’s chest, just above his heart. “You did a good job stitching it back up.”
Jaehyun walks away to go back to the party, and only looks back once to wave at Sungho as he leaves.
The warmth of Jaehyun’s presence lingers when he’s gone. Sungho turns around, fifteen years older, and finally echoes back to the stars, I think I’m going to love you forever, too.