Chapter Text
The big city is cruel. And it's cold. Taerae knows these facts, has known before he moved to Seoul that with the amount of people milling around, there's bound to be times when he feels like nothing more than a speck of dust. And he knows the winters are worse here than they ever were in Cheonan.
Unfortunately, all of this comes into stark focus when he's alone on a bench on the banks of the Han after the fifth failed job interview in as many weeks and his favourite bungeoppang stall is closed.
He feels brave for not crying.
Instead, he frowns at his phone, completes the crossword of the day, and schedules extra shifts at the bar he works at. At least, he's not completely unemployed. Small wins.
He waits for half an hour more, just in case the stall owner senses Taerae's distress from wherever he is and shows up to make bungeoppangs for him. He does not.
He get up, brushes off the dust stuck to his coat and begins his walk to his apartment still hung up on the snack. His apartment is nearly half an hour away but he reasons that if he were to break down in tears despite his best efforts, it would be better to cry on busy streets where no one pays attention to you than on a confined train with nosy people breathing down your neck all the time. Plus, it's basically a mental health walk at this point.
The cold seeps into his bones, though, a nasty side effect of most mental health walks in the middle of winter. Under the thick coat he borrowed from his roommate, the suit he picked out with his mom, and the scarf that his grandmother knit for him for Christmas, he's cold for other reasons than the weather.
Fortunately, he reaches his apartment without an incident, crying or otherwise. As he fumbles with the key and the lock, he desperately prays his roommate isn't home.
The way his day had been going, he should've known his prayers wouldn't be answered.
Hao is sitting on the broken recliner that sometimes doubles as their meditation chair, and he's staring right at the door.
“Kim Taerae, would it kill you to pick up your phone?”
Taerae wanted to retort - he always picked up his phone - but then he remembered how he'd put it on do not disturb for the interview. First, the lingering taste of failure returned. And then, the tears returned.
He stood there for a moment, trying to put together words that could make it past the choking feeling in his throat. Turns out, no words could do that quite yet, so he just stood there with drooping shoulders.
Hao must sense his distress, much unlike the lost bungeoppang stall owner, because next thing he knows, the other is standing in front of him, hands placed on his shoulders.
“Not good?” Hao asks. Taerae shakes his head.
Then he's wrapped up in warm arms pulling him close, petting his hair. The tears don't fall but they come really close.
Hao’s hugs are magic, they need to be copyrighted and patented and then commercialized to hell and beyond because there's actually nothing better to experience in the world. Taerae feels the frost on his body melt away, though he suspects that that's largely the radiator in the apartment. The frost inside his body, the one plaguing his mind with thoughts of failure and being stuck in a rut, is however no match for Hao’s hug.
“Do you want me to ask Hanbin to give you an off tonight?” Hao asks above him, mumbling into his hair.
Taerae knows how Hao and Hanbin work so he asks in return, “Will you ask him or will you order him to do it and then pretend you asked politely?”
“The latter,” Hao sighs.
That, at least, makes Taerae laugh. He pulls away from Hao, giving him a pat on his shoulder.
“Thank you, hyung, but it's okay. I could probably do with some distraction,” Taerae replied, shaking off the coat and scarf.
“Are you sure? Because Hanbin won't mind and I can distract you right here with all the video essays I’ve been hoarding,” Hao points back to the TV which is, as expected, paused on a video essay on what looks to be tattoos.
The idea of Hao’s company sounds amazing. The idea of Hao’s video essays does not. Taerae feels a shiver down his spine as he remembers the two hour long torture of ‘Public and Private Histories of Calligraphy’. He hasn't looked at calligraphy the same ever again.
“I'm good, hyung, I promise,” Taerae responds in lieu of expressing his fear of video essays.
Taerae leaves to wash up and change before he has to head out and Hao ruffles his hair before letting him go.
By the time Taerae is ready to head out Hao has already retreated to his room and Taerae is thankful for that because if he allowed Hao to give him one more hug he might actually start crying.
He armors up with layers of warm clothes for the cold and his headphones for the unruly voices in head and makes his way out.
His bus is late per usual. When it arrives, he's relieved to find more than a few empty seats. A few stops down, a mother and baby sit down opposite him and he passes the rest of their ride contorting his face in various shapes to make the baby laugh. It makes that feeling, the one that he's merely a speck of dust, dissolve a little.
At his stop, he helps an elderly man on to the bus and guides a gaggle of foreigners to the cafe they're looking for. For a moment, he lets himself feel like less a stack of rejected resumes and more like a living, breathing human.
The bar he works at, Aurora, is a short walk from the bus stop and he trusts himself to not need the headphones to keep the tears at bay.
He shouldn't have because by the time he steps into the bar, he looks like a mirror of his self from the afternoon with drooped shoulders and a frown pulling his whole face down.
Behind the counter, Hanbin, in the middle of arranging the glasses and bottles, turns to him with a bright smile. Seeing the state of Taerae, he comes out and just stands with open arms.
With his body feeling heavier than lead, Taerae plants himself in the open arms. Shakily, he takes a deep breath and lets Hanbin’s warmth cover him this time instead.
“Did Hao hyung tell you?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he threaten you to tell me to take the night off?”
“Yeah but my phone ran out of charge so I missed all his calls and texts and what I believe were some strongly worded emails.”
“Never let him know how thankful I am for him, it'll feel like enabling his worrywart tendencies.”
He bumps their foreheads together and lets Taerae step back before asking, “But you really are good for today?”
Taerae nods.
They get to work, shifting around boxes in storage and helping the cooks arrange groceries in the back. It takes up the hour they have before opening and then Hanbin is switching on the sign outside and the first customers are rolling in.
Aurora is a small establishment, their total number of employees can be counted on two hands, but they have a steady flow of customers. There's their regular roster of college kids from the nearby universities, there's occasionally businessmen that stumble in after work hours, and due to Hanbin’s own preferences they're a hotspot for craft beer enthusiasts.
More evenings than not, they're also joined by the owners of the club. Now, at first sight, Hanbin does seem like he's the brains behind the bar - he has a proper office with a nameplate and a do not disturb sign, he's the one signing the employee cheques and shipment orders, and he works insane hours - but Hanbin also swears that Mingi and Mingyu are the true owners of the bar.
Taerae hasn't seen how much Hanbin earns but he's seen his own cheque (definitely on the higher side for a part-timer) and Hanbin drives a respectable car and pays for crew dinners on his own without having any imminent complaints so he figures there's no point questioning how these administrative things work.
It doesn't hurt that Mingi and Mingyu are a lovely couple of guys, and also a lovely couple in general. They're super big on the whole “family not coworkers” thing and who is Taerae to say no to that.
Today's one of those days where Mingi and Mingyu (and not the MinMinz, as Taerae had tried calling them once, only to receive the most judgemental expressions their faces could muster) walk in hand-in-hand and straight to where Taerae is serving a customer on the barstools.
Before Taerae can greet them, Mingyu has extended his freakishly long arms over the counter and straight to squishing Taerae’s cheeks.
“Look at you, my poor baby,” Mingyu seems to be frowning more than even Taerae had been.
“Which company was it, because we know some people, and-” Mingi starts next to him and Taerae knows for a fact that they do know some people in high places and that they're weirdly secretive about it but he also thinks that maybe a publishing house doesn't need a hit out on it because they didn't want to hire him.
“Does everyone in Seoul know that I'm completely unemployable?” Taerae jests, though his words come out slurred from all the cheek squishing.
“Don't say that,” Mingyu responds, sitting himself back in the barstool.
“You're employed like right now,” Mingi adds, as if it helps. Mingyu whacks him on the arm.
“Listen, Tae, our friend is coming in right now - 3 Manhattans, by the way - and he knows people that work wi-” Mingyu continues. Taerae chooses to block him out because he can't hear more about people who know people. It's one of those things that make him feel like a speck of dust. Like maybe he wouldn't be struggling if he knew people outside his bubble of safety.
The bell above the main door rings and behind him Mingi shouts, “Jiwoong hyung, here!”
Taerae freezes. Jiwoong is a common name, right? Or at least, it's not uncommon. Because Seoul is big and cold and really the chances of bumping into Jiwoong here, at his place of employment, has to be infinitesimal.
But the body at the door, the one that Taerae refuses to look at from his frozen position, really the only body there, is also frozen. He's letting all the cold air in.
So, Taerae looks up. Seoul is big, yes, but also incredibly cruel. Kim Jiwoong is standing there, just as cold as the city outside.
Taerae never got a guidebook for how to behave with your ex’s brother, both of whom you haven't spoken to in 3 years, but he's confident that it doesn't include
Step 1: Freeze
Step 2: Drop the carefully constructed Manhattan you made
Step 3: Scream “no!” the same time as the brother screams “yes” when your employers (who now seem to also be said brother’s friends) ask if you two know each other.
Those are the steps he follows anyway.
It's not that he doesn't want to associate with Jiwoong, it's that he doesn't want the Minminz to know he knows him. Because then their twisted little plans with the knowing people and the pulling of strings will be back in full force and he can't handle that.
But since the cat’s out of the bag anyway he doesn't want Jiwoong to fend for himself either.
“Forgotten me already, Taerae?” Jiwoong asks, coming to hug Mingi and Mingyu. He poses it as a silly question but Taerae can see the doubt behind his eyes.
“No, no, hyung, I was saying no to the,” he sweeps his eyes over the counter and the spilled Manhattan, “...for the drink. Like, oh no I spilled it!”
Taerae thinks he does jazz hands then but his memory is overtaken by the slight relief that washes over Jiwoong.
“No glass breakage so we're fine,” Mingi comforts him, peering over the counter to double-check.
“How do you two know each other?” Mingyu asks as Taerae busies himself with cleaning up the drink, catching Jiwoong’s eyes.
“Uh, Taerae is my brother’s friend,” Jiwoong settles on a half-truth. Taerae thanks god for that because explaining his one serious relationship to his bosses tonight might actually have been his last straw. There's always a tab open on his browser with a ticket to Cheonan ready to be booked and he doesn't want to commit to it today.
“Gunwookie?” Mingi asks and Jiwoong hums in assent.
It's less than a half-truth even. Taerae was Gunwook’s boyfriend. But the operative word should be was. He was. All that's there of them is in the past, nothing in the present.
Except Jiwoong now. He was in the past and now he's here in the present.
Taerae wishes a hole would open in the ground and swallow him whole. It needn't even be a big hole, smaller than a manhole, but with the added power of making everyone forget about him.
Taerae presents them with the drinks as they discuss the parking situation outside. Thankfully, they seem to have forgotten Taerae’s predicament as they make their way to one of the booths lining the wall. Mingyu gives his cheek one last pinch and Jiwoong’s lingering gaze is hard to ignore but the doors open again, a large herd of college students coming in, and Taerae busies himself with them, with the present.
He lets himself glance over at the offending table every once in a while, he can't see Jiwoong but the way that Mingi and Mingyu on the opposite bench seem to be laughing at everything, things are going well. They order another round of drinks and then a round on the house for everyone, which means more work for Taerae to distract himself with.
Hanbin’s been locked in the office all night because the accounts are imbalanced somewhere and though Mingi and Mingyu don't seem the least bothered, Hanbin loses his mind about it nonetheless.
As the trio’s night starts wrapping up, the couple swing by Hanbin’s office. If they can't sort him out, there's always Hao a speed dial away to get him back on track. They make Taerae promise to call Hao if things don't pan out for them. Which they won't, Taerae is sure of that.
In all this, Taerae forgets the problem with them disappearing from the scene.
“Taerae-yah,” Jiwoong seats himself at the bar, sweeping his hair back. He holds his alcohol well but the flush is still evident on his skin.
“Hyung,” Taerae responds with his customer service smile. Force of habit.
“I- We- What time do you get off? I was thinking we could take a walk, maybe catch up?”
Take a walk and catch up? Cool, cool, yeah super cool. That's a normal activity that people do all the time with other people. And Taerae is a person who does normal people things. He's a person who lives in the present and not the past and when the past presses down on his present, he doesn't freak out.
He desperately wants to say no.
“I'll be free in about 20, if you want to wait,” Taerae responds, because he never really learnt how to say no as a kid.
“20, yeah, I can,” Jiwoong hiccups, “wait.”
To his account, he keeps silent while Taerae sends off the remaining customers, checks the till, and wipes down the counters. He seems to be humming something and rocking back and forth.
Eventually, Hanbin drags out Mingi and Mingyu by the ears. Literally. It's improper in about three different senses of propriety but it's also Hanbin so it makes sense.
“Why did you let these two in?”
“They have the keys, even if they fumbled with them for a while, they would've eventually made it inside. Also, they care about you,” Taerae shrugs at the end.
“Hanbin-ah it's literally just 500,000 won. That's nothing!” Mingyu whines, his body contorting as he tries to get away from the ironclad hold Hanbin has on his right ear.
“Nothing? Nothing? That could make or break us in a bad month,” Hanbin is screaming, but like silently. Silent screaming. He's very good at it.
“But it's not a bad month! It's a really good month and quarter and also year!” Mingi screams from the other side, definitely sobering up.
Taerae notices Jiwoong watching on with a smile. It's amusing for a first-timer - there's at least 7-8 cms and a couple years between Hanbin and the giants he's wrangling. Taerae is used to it. They're in his present, they are his present.
“Sorry about them,” Taerae offers a gentle reassurance.
Then, he turns to Hanbin, phone in hand. “Hanbin hyung, let those two go or I'm calling Hao hyung and telling him you ignored his messages on purpose.”
Unsurprisingly, Hanbin lets go of them like they're on fire. Like the freaks they are, the two immediately check on the other’s ear instead of their own, cooing and making noises no respectable adult should.
“Et tu, Brute,” Hanbin points accusingly at Taerae and slams the door behind him as he returns to his office.
“Aw man, I didn't even get to introduce myself,” Jiwoong complains. He really does look sad about that. Taerae claps his shoulder.
“Jiwoongie, our Uber is outside. Do you want to come along?” Mingyu asks, finally pulling away from the man beside him.
Jiwoong looks between them and Taerae. “I’ll drop you guys to the car. I'll get back on my own.”
To Taerae then, in a lower voice, “I'll wait outside.”
Taerae nods in response.
So that's an ixnay to a sudden yet rewarding cancellation of the forbidding walk.
Mingi and Mingyu hug Taerae and try to sell their presumably extralegal services once again before they're being dragged out by Jiwoong.
Taerae takes a deep breath.
Taerae’s always lived in the present because it's the only way he could make it to the future. So, he figured when the past came around it would wipe him out completely; instead, it's the gentle knocking of a known hand.
He tries to plan what it'll be like - they'll walk around, exchange surface level information about their lives, and then they'll part. Maybe Mingi and Mingyu will bring him around every once in a while and they'll exchange pleasantries as Taerae tries not to think about Gunwook and the love he buried in the footwalks of Seoul.
It won't be hard. Not as hard as the past had been.
Taerae knew Hanbin wouldn't open the door, not when he'd used the low blow of threatening him with Hao, so he dropped him a text to let him know he was leaving. He got a thumbs up in return.
He locked the till behind him, powered down the lights outside, and stepped out into the world.
Jiwoong was leaning against the brick wall on the side of the building, a cigarette in his mouth and his eyes closed.
“I didn't know you smoked,” Taerae prodded as he walked towards him.
“New habit,” Jiwoong replied, opening his eyes.
He took it out and crushed it beneath his foot.
“Do you want me to walk you to your place?” Taerae asked.
“I’d rather walk you to yours.”
“You're drunk and terrible with finding directions.”
“That was years ago. Now I'm drunk and really good at using Google Maps.”
Taerae sighed, smiling anyway. “Fine. Walk with me.”
✴︎
Taerae and Gunwook were pretty much the perfect couple.
They met in their junior year of high school in detention, Taerae for tardiness and Gunwook for forging his mom’s signature for participating in a debate two towns over. Gunwook didn't even mind because he'd won the debate anyway.
They danced around each other for a while, taking turns to walk each other home, sharing earphones during breaks, and texting each other till the early hours of the morning. At the end of their junior year, right before winter break was set to start, Gunwook asked Taerae out. There was no doubt in either of their minds about what the answer would be.
They were each other’s favourite people bar none.
The next year, they applied to all the same universities together. Taerae for Literature courses and Gunwook for Music Production. They found each other halfway between their houses, both clearly running to the other’s house, and pushed their acceptance letters from Yonsei into each other’s face at the same time.
Seoul wasn't far from Cheonan but it was big and new and everything they had ever wanted.
They helped each other pack their belongings into the large suitcases that they were set to carry. Taerae figured out pretty quickly that despite his general genius, Gunwook was a hopeless packer - he hadn't put in a single bedsheet or pillow cover in any of the bags but had managed to fit two plushies into one of them. Taerae managed to negotiate it down to one plushie with kisses for bribes.
After they'd settled into their respective dorms, Gunwook had come over as soon as their families had left. They had their first time that night and suddenly kisses never seemed like enough.
They also built a small group of their own - Taerae met Gyuvin in his Eastern Philosophy class and Gunwook introduced Ricky to them as the only competent partner he had ever had in a group project.
With their sheer will to stay away from third-wheeling Taerae and Gunwook, Ricky and Gyuvin had somehow stumbled into a relationship themselves. Taerae and Gunwook knew, obviously, but they let the other two believe they were completely oblivious; though, that too became hard when the lovebirds started ogling each other in front of Taerae and Gunwook. They broke and told them about their relationship a week later and Taerae and Gunwook acted their hearts out.
The first cracks in Taerae and Gunwook’s relationship started appearing halfway through their second year at college. Their course load was heavier and their schedules completely mismatched. Some nights, Gunwook would stand Taerae up without notice and other nights it happened the other way around. They would text their apologies and hope for the best but the time they spent together wasn't even a fraction of the time they spent waiting.
They were becoming people in the real world and it was tearing them apart.
When they did meet up, the fights had become more and more frequent. Hushed whispers about things they would've considered non-issues mere weeks ago - who paid for dinner last, who remembered their anniversary, who had a busier schedule.
Ricky and Gyuvin tried their best to fix it too, trying to distract them from the topic at hand with tales of their days and classes but it was like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.
At the end of their junior year in college, Taerae and Gunwook had broken up. All it took was two whispers - one from Gunwook, a quiet “I don't think we're working anymore” and one from Taerae, an equally quiet “I know.”
Taerae was proud of them for being adults, he'd wanted to be one for so long and he'd finally done it, heartbreak and all.
They remained civil, hanging out with their friends at different times, wishing each other a happy birthday and letting their moms send things back for the other when either of them visited Cheonan. They even took pictures together at their graduation, all four of them.
And then Taerae applied for higher education and moved to the other side of the city. Slowly but surely, he lost contact - first with Ricky, and then slowly Gyuvin, and then at long last with Gunwook.
Instead, he found Hao at university. Quiet and composed in class but absolutely off the hooks at their apartment. When Taerae started looking for a part time job, Hao introduced him to Hanbin, a guy he was seeing “casually” and “didn't want to get serious with”.
That act lasted about two months.
By the time Taerae had been employed at Aurora and taught the basics by Hanbin, the latter had already exchanged I love yous with Hao and Hao had guaranteed Taerae a groomsman position for their wedding in the distant future.
In this way, Taerae had his small but definite happiness in the big city.
It didn't matter as much when he cried about his first love and all the burdens he carried at college if it was in Hao’s arms, with his gentle reassurances. The seed of loneliness that had been planted in his heart since the breakup had kept growing, sending strong roots into the crevices of his body, but at least he had someone to turn to, both at home and work.
In this way, he lived in his present, one step at a time. One breath at a time.
✴︎
“You look well,” Jiwoong starts as they stand under the red light. The streets are empty this time of night but from what Taerae remembers, Jiwoong is some sort of lawyer and even completely safe jaywalking doesn't seem right in front of a lawyer.
He also doesn't think he looks well. He looks tired at best, a shell of his former self at worst.
“You don't have to lie to my face, hyung.”
“No, no I'm-” Jiwoong huffs out a laugh, “I mean it. You look like you've grown into your skin.”
“So I was ugly before?”
“You know you've always been beautiful, Taerae-yah,” Jiwoong responds, a beat too quickly.
“That's rich coming from you,” Taerae jokes, ignoring whatever the hell that last comment was. It feels weird coming from the man that called him a loser regularly for dating his brother. In his defense, he did call Gunwook lucky for dating Taerae so it's unclear where he stood all that time ago.
The light switches above them.
They cross the street quickly.
“You look well too, hyung.” A beat. “And really old.”
Jiwoong laughs at that and it's the same laugh that Gunwook has, loud and enunciated.
“Working as a prosecutor will do that to you.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“I don't think that applies here but you're welcome. I am keeping this city so safe,” Jiwoong responds.
A fast car passes by them, definitely breaking some kind of law. Then, Taerae is being shuffled, put on the inner side of the sidewalk. He ignores the warmth that that gives rise to in his heart. Jiwoong had always looked out for him and Gunwook and he was glad that that hadn't changed.
They're quiet again and it's no secret that it's because of the elephant in the room. Taerae decides he's had enough of the elephant.
“How's Gunwook?” he asks, eyes focused on his shoes.
“Gunwook is good, yeah. Between jobs at the moment but he's fine,” Jiwoong replies, fairly good-naturedly. “Not dating anyone, if you're concerned about that.”
Taerae sputters. He was curious but he didn't need to be read for filth like that. “That is not why I asked, I promise.”
It is good to know that they're stuck in somewhat similar places. Like the universe could take a lot from them but not the core of their beings, the similarities that tied them together.
“Are you?” Jiwoong asks.
“Dating anyone? No.”
Jiwoong hums. He wonders how he must look to the older. Not quite different from when they last met but not quite the same either.
“Well, what have you been up to?”
Dangerously simple question. The real answer would be something like this - I broke up with your brother and it sent me spiraling so far down that I'm not sure how to get out of wherever I am, I have 2 friends, one of whom is my literal boss, I have 2 degrees and yet I'm still unemployed, and I'm starting to hate this city but I can't think of our hometown as home anymore so I'm stuck here. Also, I tutor a 17 year old that lives in my building and that's sometimes the highlight of my week because it's like I'm finally good at something again.
“Studying,” Taerae says instead. “And job hunting. The usual.”
“That's rough. I don't know if they should have, but Mingi and Mingyu mentioned they could pull so-”
“Please do not enable them,” Taerae groaned. “They've done more than enough by hiring me. How do you know them anyway?”
“They were witnesses in a case I worked on recently.”
Taerae stops in his tracks. “Witnesses?”
His voices must come out louder than he anticipated because Jiwoong covers his ears for a moment.
“Yeah but the case is over so now we're just hanging out,” Jiwoong answers. “No need to screech.”
“Sorry,” Taerae whispers, before continuing. “I just do not understand the two of them. I mean, the bar is doing well and it generates profit but it's not really profit profit, just a little over breaking even. So this isn't their main business but they also have never told us what they do and they're always talking about knowing people for things. What is their deal?”
“Sometimes I find it's best to not ask questions,” Jiwoong comforts, patting Taerae’s back.
“You're a lawyer.”
“That's why I can say this with certainty.”
They walk a little further.
“Have you been back home recently?” Jiwoong asks.
Taerae hasn't. Not because he doesn't want to go, but rather because he's afraid he'll want to stay forever and that would mean all the years he spent in Seoul were one big waste. He can't afford feelings like that. That's how the past gets him, squeezing and squeezing till he becomes the insignificant speck of dust he's always worried about becoming.
“I haven't had the time,” Taerae replies and this time when Jiwoong hums, he can tell that the other knows he's lying.
“I would kill for some hot chocolate right now,” Jiwoong remarks, changing the topic. He kicks a stone on the sidewalk and chases after it, turning behind to look at Taerae with a proud smile.
“Hot chocolate? This is clearly green tea weather,” Taerae replies.
“Not true. It snowed during the day. Snow time is for hot chocolate. Green tea is for windy days,” Jiwoong explains, like it's a science.
“You've literally never been so wrong. I can take you to court on this and win,” Taerae retorts.
“Not the court, nooooo,” Jiwoong whines. “I barely leave it anyway. And you used to really like hot chocolate back then.”
“And I still do, my mom’s recipe has never failed me, but this is just green tea weather,” Taerae emphasizes, turning his finger around.
“Reminds me of when you watched The Conjuring at our house and spilt the hot chocolate all over my bed. I think I can still smell it sometimes when I'm back home,” Jiwoong cringes, shaking his head like the memory is still alive.
“That was… I have no excuses for that. Well, no, actually it was Gunwook that chose the movie despite my many complaints,” Taerae shrugs.
“I don't suppose horror movies have grown on you since then?”
Taerae ponders for a moment, remembers how he had to sleep in Hao’s bed for a week after they watched Exhuma. “No, they haven't. Romcoms all the way.”
“Favourite romcom, go!”
“Notting Hill,” Taerae blurts out.
“Good choice,” Jiwoong nods. “I would've said When Harry Met Sally.”
Taerae hums. “I never really liked Harry.”
“I'm not even going to bother correcting you on how wrong you are. I’m offended by your lack in taste,” Jiwoong adds, shaking his head in faux disappointment. It makes Taerae laugh.
“What's your favourite film then, since you're such a connoisseur?”
“Probably Oldboy,” Jiwoong answers.
“Can't go wrong with a classic. What else do you have in your Letterboxd top 4?”
Taerae feels Jiwoong staring at him so he turns his head. There's confusion on his face. “Letter boxes?”
Taerae can't hold his laughter back. He stops and grabs on to his knees, wheezing like there's no tomorrow. A little way down the sidewalk, a woman closing up her store throws them a dirty look.
“Hyung, you're so lucky to live a life untainted by Letterboxd,” Taerae wipes his tears away, catching up to where Jiwoong stands a few feet in front of him.
“No, tell me, tell me what you're talking about,” Jiwoong asks, tugging on Taerae’s sleeve. “I want to know too.”
So, Taerae explains Letterboxd to his ex’s brother on a sidewalk at nearly 3 am. At some point, Jiwoong wrestles his phone out of his pocket, downloads the app and follows Taerae before putting it back in. Something about Jiwoong’s face as Taerae explains the review system tells him that he's never opening the app again, though.
Taerae’s disappointed when his building comes into view. They have to part now, he has to go back to his present and leave behind this night like a special memory, locked in the deepest recesses of his mind.
“This is me,” Taerae points to his apartment, coming to a stop. “I would invite you in but my roommate is a really light sleeper.”
A white lie; Hao sleeps like a log. Taerae just isn't brave enough to let Jiwoong into his apartment - that's how lines between the past and the present get blurred, like if Jiwoong’s cinnamon scent mixed with their rose mist room freshener, his whole world would come falling down.
To his credit, Jiwoong understands. He says he doesn't have work tomorrow and he really does seem to understand how the map on his phone works so Taerae doesn't feel terrible about letting him find his way home.
They wave simple goodbyes at each other, they aren't really people that hug. Gunwook was a hugger.
Taerae shakes the image from his head.
He watches Jiwoong’s retreating back for a while, commits it to memory for the special box in his mind, and climbs up the stairs leading to his building.
As he punches in the code, footsteps come falling behind him, someone losing their breath. Taerae turns.
“Taerae-yah, I don't have your number,” Jiwoong waves his phone at the bottom of the steps.
The decision isn't as difficult to make as he thought it would be. The past isn't as scary when it's standing in front of him with ruddy cheeks and red ears and a trenchcoat that has seen better days and it doesn't look like it'll be the end of him.
He steps down and enters his number on the screen.