Work Text:
[ i done been through things through the years ]
── ⋆⋅XI⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon’s life has never fit into more than three boxes.
He doesn’t take up that much space. He’s known that since he was young, since he was unpacking in his goshiwon in Seoul, and now as he unpacks again in his childhood bedroom, standing as bare as it did even when Sangwon lived in it. He grew up in a town of quiet, where everything was small and intricate and intertwined, and it seems that lifestyle never left him.
Which is good, he supposes. Considering that he’s moving back into a small room after five years of chasing something bigger, he’d expected that his life had expanded in that time, but it merely topped off the third box.
His mother insists on helping him unpack. He doesn’t know why. The chill of autumn is starting to settle in, and there’s plenty of housekeeping that comes along with the season to be doing instead. It’s three boxes, and they’re individually not substantial in size either.
“I still don’t know why you decided to move in the first place,” Sangwon’s mother murmurs. She opens a box and squints at the books in it. “We always tell you kids that the big city isn’t going to be everything that you want it to be. I don’t even know why you got your own place.”
Sangwon just locks his jaw and continues folding clothes into drawers. The only new thing he really brought back from Seoul was a degree, and even that wasn’t doing much for him at the moment. The last thing he had wanted to do on earth, his last resort, was what he did now, moving back into this house. The years seem to have made his mother forget, or maybe she’s assumed that he changed. She knows why Sangwon left.
Sangwon tucks the last pair of socks into his drawer, paired together with a semblance of organization. He hadn’t had to pack up to return as quickly as he did to leave, at least.
“Thanks for helping, eomma,” Sangwon practically whispers.
His mother clasps his shoulder. “Glad to see you’re back,” she says. “Things have changed, clearly. You’ve changed?”
It’s technically open-ended, but Sangwon knows it isn’t. It’s a statement. You’ve changed. You better have changed. And Sangwon has, but in none of the ways that she wants him to.
His mother leaves his room, and Sangwon finds himself surrounded by silence. The room looks no different than when he’d left, and he had nothing to add to the walls or his desk. That didn’t change, at least.
Sangwon wonders if the town is any different. If Aunt Im’s cram school is still down the road. If the ramen shop on the corner is still open, or the ice cream shop, or if the door of the second-floor closet in his high school is the same one. Probably not, to any of those. It’s been years. People have come and left. Sangwon left and came. He wonders how many people stayed.
✦
[ wherever you are ]
── ☆⋅I⋅☆ ──
Sangwon keeps all of his school information in a mental filing cabinet. Including his classmates.
It’s not like Sangwon doesn’t know them. Growing up around the same people for 13 years will make you remember them as much as you might not want to. But the information he keeps is shallow, surface level, because that’s as close as he’s gotten to anyone despite the time they’ve spent together but not together. Kim Yena, the girl who sits in front of him, who ate a big in third grade. Dong Wooseok, front corner of the class closest to the door, the fastest boy in grade 7 until Jeon Byeongho, who sits behind him, passed him the next year.
Each person in his class has a similar list in his head. Their town is so tiny and off the radar that all of their mothers are friends, sharing book clubs and wine nights and receipts at the church potlucks. Sangwon finds his own life to have been proof that friendships down span over generations, his mother a natural social butterfly and Sangwon being outcasted when he was in grade 6 and still believed in Santa and evil monsters under his bed. Granted, Sangwon has never gotten along with his mother a day in his life, every single day a battle, so he doesn’t know what he expected. Somewhere in there someone suspected that Sangwon might not like girls, which is a rumour that isn’t exactly helping his case in conversation, but as long as he doesn’t confirm it, he can be left alone. His preference.
All the friend groups that needed to be formed have been, and Sangwon would be too late if he started now because he knows everyone is leaving home as soon as graduation passes. He’s ready for another school year of tangling his earphones and minor teasing, thankful that it’s finally the last one.
But there’s a boy shifting from foot to foot awkwardly at the front of the class, next to the teacher.
That’s new. That’s odd. Sangwon normally waits until the bell before he takes out his earbuds, but he does early this time. There’s never a new student here, and definitely not in the last year of high school.
He sizes the boy up. He’s rubbing his hands together, obviously nervous, and making small talk with the teacher with a toothy grin. His eyes are sharp, narrow, and there’s a nice curve to his nose and his plush lips wrap around every word he says, savouring them as they leave his mouth. Not that Sangwon can hear what he’s saying very well, the buzz of others catching up around him, but it feels like he can.
The bell finally rings and everyone settles in. Their teacher addresses the class, gesturing to the boy standing beside her.
“Welcome back to your final year of high school,” she says. “I’d like to introduce a new student. He will be joining us for the year.”
The boy steps forwards, bowing slightly. He clears his throat. “Hi,” he says. “My name is Lee Leo. I’m from Australia.”
His Korean is a little clunky, of course, and slightly accented. Though he hasn’t spoken much, Sangwon notices that he was right about the way he speaks, hanging onto each word he says, no matter how minor it is. Sangwon watches a few of the other students nod their heads in a bit of acknowledgement, and then Leo is placed in a seat on the opposite side from the classroom as him.
Like everyone else, Sangwon lets Leo’s name and face sink into the back of his mind. The information is there, of course, but it’s no file that he plans to add to. Australian, maybe, but that’s all that there is.
Sangwon opens his pencil case and notebooks, setting his mind with his only intention: making it to the end of the year the same as he has for 12 before this. Laying low, going through the motions of school, and finally reaching freedom at the end. Routine. His preference.
✦
[ it’s difficult not looking invisible ]
── ⋆⋅XII⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon takes himself out on a walk a couple days back into living at home again. He walks down familiar roads, looks around at familiar, unchanged streets, and finds himself walking in the direction of his high school. He carries himself nearly all the way there, pausing when he senses something out of place.
Huh.
There’s a new coffee shop poking out of the row of buildings, sharp brown paint drawing Sangwon’s attention. It’s worn, cemented into the area it lives in, clearly around for a couple years at this point. It’s rare to find a new gem in their town, given that there’s about 6 people total that still live here that are under Sangwon’s mother’s age, and this one is so new even Sangwon doesn’t know about.
He pulls open the door and walks in.
The boy behind the counter is wide-eyed and young. He greets Sangwon with a big smile, his snaggletooth adding a cute sense of charm that makes Sangwon smile back. He doesn’t recognize the boy, and even though Sangwon hasn’t been home in years, there’s still a kind of fresh hope in his eyes. Like he doesn’t know everything yet.
“Welcome to Bluelight, what can I get you?” the boy asks, mouth forming around the words carefully, chewing them slowly. He’s a foreigner, Sangwon can tell. It’s not often this town sees very many foreigners, let alone those who settle down. The last one Sangwon can think of knowing is Leo.
“Just some tea. Any you have,” Sangwon answers.
The boy nods, punching the order into the tablet in front of him. “Any sugar? Honey?” he asks.
“No, that’s alright.”
Sangwon pays promptly and takes a tall table right by the side wall of the café. It’s completely empty. Of course it is, they live in a small town, and the only noise for a nice ten seconds is that of the worker steeping the tea.
Ten seconds.
The door to the café opens, and it even piques Sangwon’s interest, wondering who else could be walking in. He was hoping it would be empty. Everyone knows him here, and everyone will ask too many questions.
“Anxin!” The voice is booming, joyful, familiar. Sangwon can’t quite see the face of the man that bounds up to the counter, but whoever it is makes the worker—Anxin—brighten.
“Hyung!” Anxin matches the energy of the man. Sangwon continues staring at them, a source of distraction in the café. The man is broad, the measly sleeves of his t-shirt rolled up over his shoulders. He seems to be young. That doesn’t make his voice being recognizable crazy—he probably is somewhere in the age range of Sangwon and Anxin. Maybe he’d heard the voice in school. Sangwon shuffles through his mental filing cabinet.
Anxin starts up the coffee machine (understandable that it isn’t on—every day is a slow day here) and Sangwon glances out of the window. The leaves on the trees blow in the wind, the beauty of fall beginning, and they bleed into their leaves, scarring yellow, orange, and red.
Sangwon turns back towards the counter. Anxin has set down two mugs, one filled with a faint grey and the other a deep brown, likely for the other man. Sangwon walks over and reaches for his mug just as the man does as well, their arms crossing paths, and Sangwon jolts his hand back and looks up to apologize.
Lee Leo.
Leo.
Sangwon feels his breathing stop. He can’t be meeting Leo, not here, not anywhere. He thought the older had moved back to Australia ages ago. Sangwon had run away, so he figured that Leo would have too by now. He was supposed to come and leave.
“Sangwon?” Leo sounds just as surprised as Sangwon is. “Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“You guys know each other?” Anxin asks, piping up from behind the counter.
Sangwon still can’t breathe.
“Something like that, yeah.” Leo turns back towards Sangwon, searching his eyes. Sangwon feels too vulnerable under his gaze. Leo looks like he’s been waiting. “I— Sangwon, it’s been so long, I—”
“I’m sorry,” Sangwon says quickly. He lets go of the mug. He needs to leave.
Sangwon turns around and runs out the door.
✦
[ on the verge of a boom ]
── ☆⋅II⋅☆ ──
Sangwon always goes to the second-floor closet during lunch.
It’s the most peaceful place on the school grounds. He used to use the roof, but then someone found him up there—Yang Seolah, gave him a chocolate out of pity on White Day despite Sangwon not giving her anything—and now it’s been infested by the others. But the second-floor closet, even the corridor leading up to it, is always completely empty. It’s Sangwon’s study spot, his lunch spot, his peace. His sanctuary. It’s so much easier to not think about his mother when he’s here. When he does, there’s an easy escape.
Sangwon jumps when he hears footsteps round the corner, the worn, crooked stool he’s sitting on creaking.
He looks up to see Lee Leo, the Australian, drinking from a water bottle in one hand, the other holding a granola bar. Sangwon hasn’t added any more information to his file about him, and they’re already a few weeks into the school year. The other students were immediately all over Leo, urging him to say words in English so they could hear his accent that made him impossible to understand compared to their classes, so Sangwon figured he’d take a backseat on getting to know him. Popular is what he settles on, to feel like he actually knows one other thing.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Leo takes a step back, holding up his hands. “I was just looking around. Haven’t had much of a chance to while I’ve been getting used to all the…” he gestures to Sangwon’s lap, where he has his pens and highlighters balancing on one side of his notebook while his lunch—gimbap, recipe stolen from his sister—rests on the other. “…Homework."
Sangwon nods slowly. “There’s a lot of that,” he answers quietly, twirling a pencil in his hands.
Leo glances around. “There isn’t anyone else here.”
“There’s also a lot of that.”
Sangwon intends to focus back on his homework, pushing the earbud that fell from his ear when he jumped back in, but Leo doesn’t leave. He doesn’t even stand still.
He starts walking closer.
Sangwon holds his breath when Leo’s foot passes the border between the hallway and closet. He reaches for the door, pausing. “Weird. It locks from the inside.”
“This door doesn’t get used often,” Sangwon explains. “I don’t think it’s ever been replaced.”
“Ah.” Leo drops his hand, then sits down in front of Sangwon. Sangwon intends to continue his combination of studying and eating, a regular occurrence, but he can feel Leo’s eyes tracing his pen, following his own eyes across the page.
Sangwon lasts twenty-five seconds before he looks back up. Leo looks… not upset, but disappointed that Sangwon stopped.
“Where’s your entourage?” Sangwon asks, because last time he was aware, Leo was the most popular student at their school, rivalling Jang Doyun, who put together an unforgettable ninth grade graduation party and never fell back down for whatever reason.
Not that Sangwon would know much. He wasn’t invited.
Leo tsks. “I don’t know if you noticed, but they gave up on me after a week. The foreign wow factor wears off after a while.”
He chuckles at his own words, and Sangwon just blinks. Leo could probably sustain a conversation by himself, and Sangwon would probably listen. He still speaks with purpose, even the things that mean nothing, and every word feels like part of the most important sentence in the world. He’s so honest, vulnerable, raw, just from what he’s willing to say to a complete stranger. This conversation feels genuine, no ulterior motive, no trick waiting to be played. Sangwon’s been on the receiving end of too many conversations like that recently.
“Where’s yours?” Leo asks.
“Never had one,” Sangwon answers, because it’s true. “It’s okay. I like being alone.”
“Shit, sorry, I’m intruding, aren’t I.” Leo attempts to stand up but knocks over his water, spilling it onto the floor. “Oh god, ugh.”
“It’s a closet.” Sangwon reaches up and knocks down a roll of paper towels, stuck between a wrench and a spool of rope. “And I… I don’t mind.”
Leo takes the paper towels with a small thanks and makes quick work of mopping up the mess. “You don’t mind? Like, me staying here?”
Sangwon shrugs. “As long as you don’t keep spilling stuff in here.” He notices the word keep, like he expects Leo to come back again tomorrow. He hopes Leo comes back again tomorrow. Even if he actually means something else by this.
Leo laughs, hearty this time, and Sangwon feels something hopeful inside him. “Ah, my apologies for ruining your closet, King…” Leo trails off. “I’m sorry, I never asked you your name.”
Sangwon pauses. He doesn’t remember the last time someone asked for his name, unassuming, unknowing of the assumptions attached to it. “Sangwon,” he answers softly. “Lee Sangwon.”
If Leo recognizes the name from a passing conversation with one of his old buddies, he doesn’t show it. “Lee Leo,” he replies. “Though I guess you know that. Please take this as an apology.”
He picks up his granola bar off the ground, wrapper still wet from the water spill, and offers it to Sangwon. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing fancy. I got it from the vending machine. They’re so much cheaper here compared to Australia, actually.”
Sangwon looks at the granola bar. He’s never had anyone just… gift him something without pity or shame involved. Every birthday invite he declined only initially came because everyone else was invited. Every awkward dinner at the diner a couple blocks down was an apology and thanks for Sangwon completing a group project mostly on his own. His mother stopped giving him birthday or Christmas gifts by 8th grade, and his sister was only able to slip him something when she was in town, which was getting closer and closer to never. The hope in his chest hurts, and he can’t have it ripped away from him now.
“…Why are you being kind to me?” Sangwon finds himself asking, his subconscious coming forward and spilling out the words knowing he couldn’t take them back.
He expects Leo to stand up, tsk, drop the act. Maybe he actually did still have that big group, and they were waiting around the corner prepared to laugh at what Sangwon had said, how he’d acted. He could already see the irony of the gay boy sitting inside the closet. Even the people that aren’t necessarily mean to Sangwon aren’t kind either, they’re only nice.
Leo doesn’t do any of that. His eyebrows furrow together, and he looks genuinely hurt. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he responds.
Sangwon presses his lips together. “This… this doesn’t happen to me every day, you know.”
“You don’t get a vending machine granola bar every day? You’re missing out. These are so good.” Leo holds the granola bar by its very end and flips it back and forth in his hand. “But really, Sangwon, you seem nice. Interesting. And I literally have zero friends.”
Sangwon wonders if that’s the only reason Leo’s talking to him. Because he has no friends. But no, Leo hadn’t said that first. Maybe Sangwon can let himself see this one thing, this one good thing, out to the end.
He takes the granola bar from Leo’s grasp. “Thanks.”
Leo’s face lifts as Sangwon unwraps the granola bar, breaking into a smile that warms Sangwon’s chest. It’s a nice smile, all teeth on display, as genuine as his words were. Sangwon bites down on the granola bar, and it is pretty good, he’ll admit. He closes his eyes, carefully sifting through his head until he finds what he’s looking for.
Lee Leo. Australian. Popular. My friend.
✦
[ ever have any doubts ]
── ⋆⋅XIII⋅⋆ ──
Leo haunts Sangwon.
Sangwon closes his eyes and he sees him. The days that they spent together, that stupid upstairs closet, that toothy grin. He opens his eyes and Leo follows him in the daytime too, in the buildings Sangwon passes that he never ended up taking Leo to.
The thing that he sees the most is his eyes. Leo’s eyes, the way they’d filled with hope when he saw Sangwon, lighting up with the old joy that would always fill them when he reached the closet where Sangwon was waiting. He can only imagine the heartbreak when Sangwon turned around. Probably even worse than how he’d looked when he found out about Sangwon and Doyun.
“Sangwon-ah.” His mother opens his bedroom door, still not knocking. Old habits die hard. “Have you been leaving the house?”
“I’ve been taking walks,” Sangwon answers, rolling over on his bed. He doesn’t want to talk right now. “Not in a few days, though.”
His mother tsks. “You need to get out more. You know, I’ve heard there’ll be a reunion happening soon with your high school class. Aunt Im’s daughter will be there too.”
Sangwon barely remembers being partnered with Im Sumin in his 5th grade dance class, and that’s the latest memory he has pertaining to her. She was studious, smart, and simple. Exactly what kind of person his mother would absolutely love as an in-law.
It’s clear, then. She thinks he’s changed.
“Maybe,” Sangwon hums. He won’t go. Last time he had been willing to go to an event involving his entire class, he’d been humiliated. Last time he’d gone was because of Leo. And this time, he especially won’t because of Leo.
“Did you meet anyone in Seoul?” she asks, prodding. “Even if you broke up. You didn’t call me enough.”
Sangwon called her maybe twice a year. And the answer was no. He’d left his heart here. He shakes his head solemnly.
“Shame,” his mother huffs. “There’s barely anyone here your age anymore. It’s almost time, Sangwon-ah.”
Right. She leaves, finally, shutting the door, and Sangwon turns his head to follow the sound. His eyes flit to the door, then to his desk beside it.
Sangwon’s old notebooks have been on his desk collecting dust for years at this point. He reaches for the top one and opens the pages, flipping through it slowly.
His notes start out straight, the same as they’d been throughout all his years, and the same as the ones he’d taken throughout university. Slowly, then, there’s faded writing—Leo leaving little notes inside his books, and Sangwon erasing them to stay focused. Eventually, one day, Sangwon had given up after Leo had decorated an entire page in his notebook in the time it took him to run to the bathroom and back.
Sangwon finds the page inside this notebook. It’s mostly nothing, but it’s Leo. Good ice cream today. The ahjumma’s granddaughter is getting married! You take so many notes. How come your genius doesn’t telepathically make it to me? Lee Sangwon + Lee Leo.
Sangwon pauses at that one. Their names are stacked on top of each other, and Sangwon then would’ve drawn a heart around them. Sangwon now just runs his fingers over the script, memorizing Leo’s handwriting. His writing is fluent, but the letters are spaced from each other the way that foreigners always make sure to do when they write. It’s similar to the way he spoke, no room for error in understanding.
There’s one more line, written in English, that Sangwon’s eyes fly to.
Thank you for everything.
✦
[ vulnerability’s a fear ]
── ☆⋅V⋅☆ ──
Sangwon had become Leo’s impromptu tour guide when he first accidentally stumbled upon Sangwon’s secret closet, and now he’s starting to use their friendship as a means to beg Sangwon to show him around town.
“There isn’t anything to look at,” Sangwon grumbles, kicking a rock down the road.
Leo sighs. “You’ve said that, like, six times. I don’t know anything about this place, Sangwon! Nothing! Even the most mundane thing will look amazing to me.”
Sangwon just kicks the rock again. “You know I don’t go outside much.”
“More than I have, at least. I can literally count the places I know of here on one hand.” Leo lifts a hand to drive home his point. “My house. School. The convenience store on the corner. That’s all I have.”
Sangwon shakes his head. The road they’re walking down leads to the elementary school in the town, and they’ve got a pretty nasty set of swings. Sangwon doesn’t even know if anyone goes there anymore.
Leo sees the school on the horizon. “Is that your elementary school?” he asks.
Sangwon nods. “You wanna look around?”
“Do I ever?”
That’s how they end up in the playground, Leo taking charge as he looks around. Sangwon reminisces on a couple memories as he looks around, from days that were simpler. He can even see the tree that he and Doyun would constantly dig worms from when they still spoke.
Sangwon feels a tug in his chest.
“Sangwon-ah!”
Leo’s pointing towards the small swing set. “There’s two. It’s perfect.”
Sangwon watches as Leo runs over, trailing behind. He has the joy of a little kid in him. Leo sits on the swing, listening to it scream from the weight. “Jeez, very well kept.”
Sangwon laughs at that, settling into the one beside Leo. “I’m fairly certain now that the youngest group of people living here are almost done middle school now.”
Leo beams, toothy, a smile that is slowly starting to settle itself in Sangwon’s mind. Leo’s smile is so bright and so contagious, and Sangwon can’t help it when a small grin settles on his own face.
His chest burns. The smile falls, and his eyes find the sand in front of him.
Sangwon wants to tell Leo. After everything Leo has told him, asking nothing out of Sangwon, really, he wants to. This is the same playground that he figured himself out in, after all.
“I…” Sangwon takes a breath. “Hyung, there’s something I want to tell you.”
Sangwon takes his eyes off the sand and finds Leo staring at him, already listening. It’s been so long since someone just listened to him. “I need you to promise it won’t make anything different.”
Sangwon knows that Leo would never change his mind about him. Still, the verbal agreement, the seal of the promise, the proof that Sangwon’s presumption isn’t wrong, is necessary.
“Of course,” Leo says automatically. “Nothing you could say would change the fact that we’re friends, Sangwon.”
Sangwon nods, already averting his eyes. He can’t look at Leo when he talks about something like this. “I… I haven’t told the whole truth. I’ve never told anyone this, actually. You remember how I told you about all those rumours about me? The reasons why nobody wants to be around me?”
Leo hums softly.
“They’re not all lies. One of them is particularly true.”
Sangwon looks up at the sky. fingers tightening around the metal chains holding up the swings. He takes a breath, looking at Leo again. This, he determines, must be said while they’re face-to-face.
“I don’t like girls, hyung. That much is true.” Sangwon feels his eyes try to pull away, attempting a cop-out, but he pushes through. They’re words he’s never had to say out loud before, choking him as he speaks. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
Leo’s face doesn’t change. No surprise, no disgust. Somehow that’s more terrifying than if it did. He nods slowly, understanding, and he doesn’t look away from Sangwon once. “Thank you for telling me,” he begins. “I’m happy you feel comfortable enough to tell me.”
Sangwon lets out a breath, finally finding it in him to break eye contact. He looks down at his feet, scuffing them against the sand.
“I meant what I said before, Sangwon. None of this changes anything.”
Not for Leo, maybe. Leo doesn’t know the reason why Sangwon is telling him. And he won’t ask, Sangwon knows. He never pushes.
“You’re not lying either,” Leo continues, kicking his legs like he’s about to start swinging. “Hiding the truth isn’t lying, exactly. I used to use that as an excuse to get out of shit all the time.”
Of course, the conversation goes back to humour, back to the same joy that fills Sangwon up to the brim until he feels like he’ll overflow. Leo’s able to steer between the two easily, riding on a line of reassurance.
“I wish it were that easy for me,” Sangwon mutters.
Leo’s legs stop moving. “How isn’t it?” he asks, cautious, prodding but not pushing.
Sangwon sighs, looking up at the sky. It’s a beautiful day, the sun hiding behind a cloud now, still breaking through and brightening the world around them. There’s a light breeze, cooling, calming. Sangwon breathes alongside it.
“My mom… she doesn’t really like me.”
Sangwon pauses. That one, he’s lied about. With liking girls or not, he was able to skirt past it, say nothing, stay neutral. But relatives and family friends ask him how things are at home, and he says good. His sister comes to visit and acts stern, but she looks at him with worry in her eyes, wishing to whisk him away but not having the means nor the authority to. Sangwon lives like a ghost at home, only existing between there and school, studying in every spare minute he has. If he keeps his head down and in the books, he doesn’t have to speak with her and he doesn’t upset her.
Sangwon finds the words again. “She never really has. Back when my sister still lived with us, she would tolerate me, but now that she’s gone it’s like I just completely don’t exist to her.”
Leo presses his lips together, nodding slowly. “It must be quiet.”
“It is,” Sangwon agrees. “But I’d rather the quiet than listen to her and my sister fight again.”
Quiet is welcoming to Sangwon because it means his mom won’t shove him out of the front door when graduation comes. Sangwon does want to move, of course, and there aren’t any universities in their town. But Sangwon will maybe get a few days to breathe, pack, say his goodbyes before he goes to Seoul.
His sister didn’t get the same luxury. She got one day after graduation to pack before she left, technically out of her own volition if you ask Sangwon’s mother. She wasn’t kicked out or anything, but Sangwon lived in the same house as she did and he knew that there wasn’t going to be a single world where her and their mother got along.
“They’re not exactly on the best terms,” Sangwon says after a while. “They argued a lot when my sister still lived with us. She still visits every few months. For me.”
Leo doesn’t speak for a little while. “What’s her name?”
“Sanghee,” Sangwon answers. “She lives in Busan now.”
Leo tests her name out on his lips. “You clearly mean a lot to her if she still visits you,” he says. “I’m glad she does. You’re a very lovable person.”
Sangwon stares at his feet, digging them into the sand. Leo’s words are so easy flowing, so quick. He acts like it’s easy to be kind to Sangwon, which isn’t exactly something that had been proven to him throughout his life.
“You make it so easy to…” To like you. Because I have a crush on you. Sangwon’s head catches up face enough to stop himself from saying it. “…you’re easy to talk to.”
“Really?” Leo pinches Sangwon’s cheek fondly. “I’m happy you can talk to me, Sangwon. I’m always ready to listen to you.”
They walk home in silence, nearly shoulder to shoulder, and Sangwon debates holding Leo’s hand every step that they take. They eventually split on the corner where the good ramen shop is, Sangwon remembering that he still hasn’t taken Leo there yet. He should.
When Sangwon gets home, past 8:00pm and having skipped Aunt Im’s cram school, his mother is furious. She yells at him until he manages to close his bedroom door, complaining about how ungrateful he is and how he’s never focused. About how he can’t make a habit out of this, and it’s exactly how his sister started going off the rails. Sangwon barely listens, ignoring his mother in favour of reminiscing on the warmth of Leo’s words. They repeat in his mind, washing over him and lulling him, easing his mind. It’s so easy to pretend he doesn’t want to get out like this.
He doesn’t know if he wants to anymore. Not without Leo, at the very least.
✦
[ you’re still really on my mind ]
── ⋆⋅XIV⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon doesn’t know why he ever made the decision to follow his mother’s advice. She never knows what’s best for him. She never fully understands him.
But Sangwon still goes out, and his feet carry him to Bluelight anyways. He stands outside of the building, running his hand along the deep brown panels. He can’t walk in here again. Not after what happened last time. He hadn’t even had his tea.
Sangwon peers through the door. The boy from last time—Anxin, as he remembers Leo saying—is there, wiping down the front counter. He looks up and makes eye contact with Sangwon.
He isn’t able to look away in time. Anxin waves him in, and now he really can’t walk away.
Sangwon tugs the door open, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying to ignore the way his body rejects being in the space. He feels tense, and he’s scared that Leo will walk in again and he’ll actually have to face him.
“Don’t be so nervous,” Anxin says. “I don’t think he’s coming today. Well, he might. It’s kind of a gamble.”
Sangwon steps backwards towards the door, but he doesn’t run.
“Okay, sorry, shouldn’t bring him up.” Anxin starts grabbing a mug. “You didn’t drink your tea last time.”
Sangwon realizes what he’s doing when he starts scooping tea leaves into the top of a kettle. “Oh, please, don’t. I was just leaving—”
“You’re a paying customer.”
“Just think of it as a tip.” Sangwon swallows. “Please.”
Anxin looks up at him with a no-nonsense expression. “Sit down,” he says firmly, and Sangwon complies. He talks the same way Leo does, but instead of using his definition for trust, he uses it to win arguments. Young spunk, Sangwon presumes.
He picks a seat right next to the door, getting a good view of the street as well. He looks out the window as the kettle boils, the previously bleeding tree dried out and dropping crunchy scabs. There’s no wind this time.
A mug is set out in front of him, and Sangwon looks towards the sound. Anxin is sliding into the chair across from him with a soft smile.
Sangwon glances around. “Aren’t you working?” he asks.
“You know this place is dead.” Anxin leans back in his chair. “Besides, this place belongs to my cousin’s boyfriend’s family, so I basically nepo’d my way in.”
“Huh.”
Sangwon stares out of the window again, listening to Anxin tap his finger against the table for ten seconds. “Are you going to drink that?”
“What?”
“The tea.” Anxin pushes the mug a little closer. “I worked hard on it.”
“Right.” It feels free, but if it is, the money is coming out of Anxin’s pocket anyways. Sangwon lifts the mug to his lips and takes a small sip. Unsweetened, just as he’d asked for the first time. He’s surprised Anxin remembered.
“By the way…” Anxin pulls at his shirt, poking a finger at the name tag clipped to it. “My name’s Anxin.”
Sangwon nods. “Sangwon.”
“I know,” Anxin grins. “Hyung’s brought you up before.”
Sangwon freezes. His grip tightens around the handle of the mug. What did Leo tell? How much? How little? “Great,” he whispers.
Anxin’s face falls again. “Tender spot, huh? It is for Leo-hyung too. He’ll only talk about it if I don’t prod and he’s really drunk.” He looks up at Sangwon again. “Shit, I should probably stop talking about him. Sorry.”
Sangwon sets down the mug. The tea is good, he’ll admit. “How do you know him?” he asks quietly.
Anxin perks up, but he doesn’t jump to life the way he did before. “When I moved here a year ago, my cousin’s boyfriend’s friend told me he knew someone that could help me get used to the area. They’d known each other back when Leo-hyung was in Australia and they kept in touch, so when I got here, he was really nice to me. We bonded over the foreign experience, as he put it.”
Sangwon almost laughs because that’s something he can see Leo saying. But he feels like he doesn’t deserve to smile at an anecdote, or anything relating to Leo, because of the way he’d left him twice.
“…What about you?” Anxin asks.
“School,” Sangwon answers simply. “But you already knew that.”
Anxin nods, solemn. “I wanted you to feel included in the question-asking.”
Sangwon lets himself laugh at that, just a bit, a scoff of air more than anything. But it’s the happiest sound he’s made in years, since he’d left for Seoul. Anxin is fun. He’s the exact kind of person Sangwon can imagine Leo being friends with.
“How old are you?” Sangwon asks.
“20,” Anxin answers. “You’re 23. I knew that already. Leo-hyung told me your birthday.”
Of course he did. Sangwon honestly had been getting to a point where he was sure Leo knew him better than he did himself, living inside him and picking options that Sangwon hadn’t even known existed but matched him perfectly. He could say the same for him about Leo, and even now, he retains so much knowledge it’s like they never separated. Leo lives inside him.
“Can I ask you a question?” Anxin asks. “On his behalf?”
Sangwon grabs the mug again, lifting it to his lips. Liquid pours down his throat in a smooth waterfall. “Depends what it is.”
“Why did you leave?” Anxin shakes his head. “Not—not the first time. When you saw him here.”
Sangwon pauses. He knows why he left the first time—school, his mom, the rumours, everything was ruining his life. But now, his life was already ruined, and the universe delivered the person he’d wanted to see the most for five years. And Sangwon had turned around and left, barely saying anything.
He was scared. Overwhelmed. Shocked. But none of those words describe the feeling perfectly.
“I don’t deserve to see him,” Sangwon answers, holding the mug with both hands. “Short answer.”
Anxin looks like he’s about to ask why, but decides against it. “Are you sure?” he asks instead.
Sangwon nods.
Anxin huffs, glancing out the window. He looks back towards the counter and till, and the shop is almost emptier than it was when Sangwon walked in. “He told me something after you left.”
Sangwon doesn’t want to ask, but Anxin will probably make him. He’s willing to work for it. “What was it?”
Anxin clears his throat, lightly pinching his Adam’s apple between his fingers. “I thought I had him again.”
That makes Sangwon pause. He thought Leo would definitely hate him by now. After the way he'd left their grad party, directly against his wishes, and then proceeded to move and was never seen again for five years. If it was Sangwon, he’d be furious. Leo poured so much time and effort into him, and Sangwon didn’t even thank him. He wonders why Leo even thanked him first.
But maybe that’s what it was. When Leo and Sangwon met eyes again, there wasn’t an ounce of hate in Leo’s. Like the thought had never crossed his mind. Only hope, like the thing he’d been waiting for finally arrived, and he was only relieved to see it returned safe and sound.
“Maybe you don’t deserve to see him,” Anxin says slowly, finding the words to say it, “but he only wants to see you.”
✦
[ leverage is key ]
── ☆⋅VI⋅☆ ──
Sangwon doesn’t usually do more than necessary when the school festival comes around. He gets sorted into his group, sets up a booth, and takes shifts. When his are over, he finds solace in the classroom, finally empty after being full.
Like now. The sun is beginning to set, pouring a river of orange and yellow into the classroom through the window. The sky paints a warm picture to coincide with the bustling environment down below, a sea of booths with clumps of people swimming through the crowd. Their entire town must be here. If he looks really closely, he can see Leo’s both, watching the older as he draws the attention of everyone that passes him. He truly is social, and Sangwon is happy to be an observer. Leo asked him to not be gone too long. He should keep his word.
“Sangwon?”
He turns around, and Jang Doyun is standing in the doorway. He looks… nervous, really, sliding the door closed behind him.
“Oh.” Sangwon hasn’t spoken to Doyun since elementary school. Nothing picks up in his chest. “Hi.”
“Ugh, I don’t know how to say this.” Doyun’s shifting from foot to foot as he approaches Sangwon, unable to meet his eye. What is he so nervous about? “I’ve… heard things, Sangwon.”
Usually, when someone has heard things about Sangwon, they’re never good and the person’s intentions aren’t either. This feels like the first is true, but the latter is hard to place. Sangwon doesn’t know what to make of the situation, so he doesn’t speak.
“Like—” Doyun looks up, finally. “I’ve been wanting to approach you about this for a while, actually. I didn’t know who else to talk to.”
“There was no one else?” Sangwon asks, genuinely curious. Doyun has everything. There’s no way there was no other option.
Doyun shakes his head. “Nobody else would hear me out without starting a rumour.”
Sangwon stays silent.
“I mean, speaking of rumours, there’s that one about you… you know… not liking girls.” Doyun scratches his neck. “That’s what I wanted to ask you about, actually.”
Ah, this. Doyun wants something out of Sangwon, and Sangwon just wants to know if it’s a joke or not. “What do you want?”
“Right. Sorry. Um…” Doyun looks away again, out the window, acting as though he doesn’t even care about the conversation at hand. Coping, Sangwon presumes. “I’m curious.”
Curious. Sangwon’s first crush, the cause of that initial tug in his chest that had felt so wrong—he was curious.
“What are you saying, Doyun?” Sangwon asks, voice firm. He doesn’t break that easily, even if his chest pangs.
Doyun closes his eyes, tightly, resetting. “…Could you kiss me?”
Blank.
Sangwon’s mind goes completely blank.
He doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to say. He doesn’t want to give this away—his first kiss, dammit—so easily, as hopeless of a romantic as he is. He knows who he would want to have it. He’s completely given up hope of denying his crush on Leo anyways. He’s probably still waiting for him outside, even, or maybe he’s come to look for Sangwon. And Sangwon told him where he would be—what if he walked in on them like this?
Doyun steps back, as though he realizes what he’s done. “If you tell anyone this happened, I’ll tell everyone you have a crush on Leo.”
“I don—” and Sangwon chokes on his words there, partially from shock, partially because he can’t deny it. He clears his throat, changing his angle. “Don’t do that.”
“It’s not like anyone thinks otherwise,” Doyun shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Ya, Lee Sangwon, it’s taken a lot for me to come out here. Will you?”
Sangwon thinks. It can’t possibly be that awful. Two seconds, maximum. Knowing Doyun, he’ll tell everyone Sangwon likes Leo if Sangwon doesn’t do anything, including kissing him. Sangwon can’t risk that. Leo doesn’t deserve to have his reputation tainted more than it is by being friends with Sangwon.
“Fine.”
Sangwon steps forward, closing the gap between him and Doyun. When he looks into Doyun’s eyes, he’s able to easily. Nothing hurts, nothing burns, nothing aches. Nothing is painful about how Sangwon feels about Doyun.
That must be why it’s so easy for him to lean the slightest bit forward, connecting their lips in an innocent peck for one second. Just one, long enough that Doyun can’t complain he didn’t feel anything. Short enough that Sangwon can ignore the way his heart thrashes; not for Doyun, but for his betrayal towards Leo. Betrayal that he doesn’t even know if he’s entitled to feel because there isn’t a single day in his mind that he’d ever consider telling Leo how he feels.
“Satisfied?” Sangwon asks.
Doyun doesn’t say anything. His expression is straight, pondering something in the back of his mind. He turns on his heel without another word, walking out of the classroom and sliding the door open. It shuts behind him, leaving Sangwon with the weight of what he just did.
Just for three seconds, because the door opens again and Leo is standing there this time, face lifting when he sees Sangwon. “There you are!” he grins, already rushing over to take Sangwon by the wrist. “I told you to not take so long. What were you and Doyun doing here anyways?”
Sangwon doesn’t answer, lips shut tight by some kind of imaginary glue that keeps a hold on him. He can’t say the truth. That destroys any semblance of a chance he had with Leo. He can’t tell a lie, lest he decides to let his heart explode inside of him and eat him alive through guilt, slowly and slowly.
“Nothing important,” he decides, voice soft. “I didn’t look at him for long.”
Leo drags Sangwon downstairs and out the doors, uncaring for the stares they get as he details a story of one of the neighbours that visited his booth. Sangwon can’t bring himself to listen, not when he feels so undeserving of hearing Leo’s voice so joyful. He’s wronged him and Leo doesn’t even know it yet.
I’m sorry, he says, but like many things, it isn’t out loud.
✦
[ shit i let you get away with ]
── ⋆⋅XV⋅⋆ ──
The event hall hasn’t lost any of its glamour over the years. Still large, the largest in their town, still grand, and Sangwon is still terrified of it. His debates, once again, if he should even be here.
No. Anxin told him to. He grabs the door handle and pulls himself inside.
Nobody turns towards the door when it opens, thankfully. The setup is casual, a long table filled with food and a cooler beside it filled with drinks. There’s mingling, and Sangwon recognizes a few faces.
He saunters over to where the drinks are and pulls an iced tea out of the cooler. He rolls it around in his hand, the condensation chilling his hands.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
Sangwon looks up. Jang Doyun is standing in front of him, smirking, and Im Sumin is holding onto his arm. Sangwon glances down at where her hand wraps around Doyun’s bicep, and he can see a shiny ring with a beautiful jewel cemented inside it. Safe to tell his mother that she’s off the table.
“Hi,” Sangwon says quietly, eyes moving back up to Doyun’s face.
“It’s nice to see you, Sangwon,” Sumin greets. “It’s been a long time. Did you move?”
Sangwon swallows. “Yeah. I moved to Seoul for uni. I came back just… why not.”
“I’m surprised you felt confident enough to show.” Doyun cocks his head to the side. “Has a lot changed?”
A lot. Sangwon knows what that’s supposed to mean. Doyun wants to know if it’s still true that Sangwon likes boys. But Sangwon doesn’t owe him an explanation. He’d been the one to offer out the rope, give Doyun one other person to talk to, and Doyun had stabbed him in the back.
“Sangwonie?”
Sangwon turns, but he knows who that is. Only one person has ever called him that.
Leo is standing there, and this time, Sangwon lets himself drink everything in. The rough work booths that he’s wearing, and the baggy pants that fall over them. He’s wearing some graphic tee, and a necklace dangles from his neck.
Sangwon looks at his face and stops breathing.
Leo looks the same, face newly set with age, features strong and tense. His hair is longer, tickling the nape of his neck, and it falls messily over his forehead. His eyes are filled with concern, flitting between Sangwon and Doyun. When they find Sangwon’s again, a smile tugs at his lips.
“Ah, Leo.” Doyun gives him a look, but Sumin begins leading them away from the two before he can say anything else. Leo turns to Sangwon then, looking towards him.
“Hi,” Leo says.
Sangwon gulps. “Hi.”
Leo shoves his hands into his pockets, awkward and boyish, a side that Sangwon hasn’t seen since they first met. There’s a wall, somewhere there. “How have you been?”
“Alright,” Sangwon lies.
Leo holds out his hand, and Sangwon hands over his can without opening it. Leo slides the pad of his finger under the tab, nails trimmed, and the drink pops to life. Leo’s hand shakes a bit.
“I was wondering,” Leo starts, “if we could… go out sometime. And catch up. Somewhere that’s not—” he gestures around.
Sangwon pauses. He wants to say no, but that’s him. And Leo, well, Leo deserves this. To see him. He deserves an explanation.
Sangwon takes the drink. “Okay,” he mutters softly.
Leo slips his phone out of his pocket and Sangwon types in his number with his fingers shaking. He can’t even back out since he doesn't have Leo’s number.
That’s the most of their pleasantries. When everyone’s back is turned, Sangwon slips out of the door, iced tea in hand, hoping everyone has forgotten he was even there.
Only one person is allowed to remember.
✦
[ detriment for me ]
── ☆⋅IV⋅☆ ──
“Hey,” Leo says, a cone of ice cream stuck into Sangwon’s face. It’s dripping over his hand, and a rogue drizzle plops down in the middle of Sangwon’s math workbook on his lap.
Sangwon looks up at Leo. “Really?”
Leo just shrugs. “You weren’t in the usual spot, so it took me longer to find you. And ice cream tends to melt as time passes.”
“Fair enough.”
Sangwon takes the ice cream from Leo, licking the cone to rid it of any spillage before biting into the delicacy at the top. Leo’s right, as Sangwon is currently sitting at his desk in their empty classroom rather than inside the supply closet down the hall.
“What’s with the change in scenery?” Leo asks, perching himself on Sangwon’s desk. “We’re leaving the sad closet behind?”
“You think the closet is sad?” Sangwon asks.
“Well, no, that’s not what I meant.” Leo places a hand on Sangwon’s shoulder, his touch inviting and warm. “It’s not sad when you’re in there, obviously. But a supply closet is just objectively a sad place to be in.”
Sangwon’s just about to say that he likes the privacy and being hidden when, as if on cue, two of their classmates walk past the classroom. The windows peeking into the classroom make everything obvious, and he watches the two guys pause when they see Leo and Sangwon together, giggling to each other as they continue down the hall. This is why Sangowon likes the closet so much. It’s not judgemental.
“What?” Leo looks up at the window, though the other students are long gone. “Did someone walk by?”
“Yeah,” Sangwon answers. “They were lau—”
“Ugh, why do they care so much?” Leo swings his legs on Sangwon’s desk, the table creaking precariously under his weight. Sangwon should tell him to get down—he’s 90% sure these are the same desks they used back when his own parents were in high school. “We’re just talking. Your ice cream is dripping.”
Sangwon glances down at the cloudy spot where ice cream is collecting on top of his notes. He’s not sure if he’s really into it anymore. “I told you,” he says quietly. “I’m not exactly the number one popularity booster.”
“You’re the most entertaining person in this class, if I’m honest.”
Sangwon just looks away because how can Leo say that? Leo is filled with endless good qualities. He’s kind, funny, gentle, truthful, uncaring of what anyone else thinks of him. He’s Sangwon’s role model, truly, and he’s saying that Sangwon is the one who entertains him.
Leo is all of that and far beyond. Sangwon still remembers how sure he’d been that Leo would turn away when he first saw him sitting on that little stool in the closet, but he’d paused. He’d spoken to Sangwon, the first person to do it in years. And he’d continued showing up, every single day, even beating Sangwon there sometimes. He’d probably spent 100,000 won on ice cream for Sangwon at this point, and every time the latter asks why, he just says he felt like it.
Sangwon knows what these observations truly mean. He knows the tingle in his hand when it brushes against Leo’s, passing an ice cream cone between them. When they’re staying late at school and Leo hooks his chin over Sangwon’s shoulder, Sangwon can’t help but pause his studying to run his fingers through his hair. And whenever Leo looks at him, smiling, always smiling because that’s just the kind of person he is, Sangwon feels the burning feeling inside of his chest.
He can’t say it. Not out loud. Saying it out loud means that it’s true, that his feelings are more than those towards a close friend. Honestly, Sangwon hasn’t had one of those before. He wants to tell himself that he’s mixing the two up, that he’s just reading into things, but he wouldn’t feel the burn inside his chest otherwise. The burn that tells him he knows he’s doing something wrong.
Sangwon had had crushes before. Well, one, specifically, on Jang Doyun, who was part of that crew that initially took Leo under their wing. It was back in third grade, in simpler times, where Sangwon was much more outgoing and the entire class was a community, not a club. He and Doyun had been catching worms together, Doyun digging his hands into the mud and Sangwon providing his empty lunch container as a means to keep them in. At first, Doyun had been open and kind, teaching Sangwon how to pack the dirty down into the container to give them a home, but he’d started doing it on his own because he didn’t want Sangwon to get his hands dirty. His own words, said simply in passing, but they’d dusted a little blush across Sangwon’s plump cheeks when he’d heard them.
He developed a sort of puppy crush on Doyun, feeling a tingle in his chest whenever Doyun grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the next patch of dirt. His teachers and mother reprimanded him for his soiled hands and dirt-filled lunch container when he returned from worm-catching, but Sangwon would be beaming, at the very least.
It didn’t take long for the tingle to turn into a burn. Along the line, Doyun had started inviting a girl to come search for worms with them, a name Sangwon has now forgotten since she moved away sometime in junior high. At first, Sangwon thought the burn was just the pain of jealousy, of hoping that Doyun would stop giving away the longer worms to her when Sangwon had the bigger container anyways.
But soon, Sangwon realized that it was completely wrong to be feeling jealous. The teachers would coo about it as they supervised, gushing about how cute Doyun and the girl looked together. Nobody had ever said anything about Sangwon and Doyun like that before. He, as a boy, shouldn’t have felt jealousy. It’s not like Doyun would’ve ever chosen him. And he couldn’t tell anyone about how he felt, because there isn’t a world in this town where Sangwon could admit to feeling jealous of a girl hanging out with a boy rather than the other way around.
Every time he looked at Doyun after that, his chest burned. So he stayed away until the feelings stopped, and Doyun found his group, and Sangwon found himself.
“Sangwon-ah.”
Sangwon feels cold wash over him, dripping down his fingers, in fact. His ice cream cone is essentially forgotten, his entire page of homework and notes covered in vanilla cream. He looks up at Leo, looks down his arm where they’re connected again, or still connected, and the fire bursts back to life. When his eyes find Leo’s again, he’s trapped in his gaze, Leo’s eyes tracing over all of Sangwon’s features, looking him in his eyes and seeing him, past every barrier.
“I’m sorry,” Sangwon mumbles, not trusting his voice to go any louder at the moment. “I’m sorry, hyung.”
“What are you sorry for?” Leo’s hand moves from Sangwon’s shoulder, trailing across his neck, until it comes up to cup Sangwon’s cheek. Sangwon’s face burns, his chest burns, and he’s moments away from shooting up from his seat and running away. Leo’s thumb soothingly runs across Sangwon’s cheek, wiping imaginary tears.
Sangwon might actually cry.
Sangwon swallows, not knowing what to say. He breaks eye contact with Leo, finding it in him to do so, leaning into the warmth of his hand on his cheek. This is a time where he’d escape to that stool in the closet, the whole reason that it’s there in the first place—but he doesn’t want to move. His mind is a blur right now, his chest is hurting, his feelings are on fire, but Leo’s hand is grounding him, in a sense, and the only thing he can think about clearly.
Leo wets his lips with his tongue before he speaks. Sangwon eyes fly to the motion and rip themselves away from it in the same breath. “I don’t want you to go through anything alone, Sangwon,” he starts. “You can… if you want, if you ever want to talk, you can come to hyung. I’ll never judge you. I’m here to listen.”
His hand moves down slightly, tilting Sangwon’s chin to look up at him. Sangwon doesn’t even have to search Leo’s eyes to find what’s always inside of them. Sincerity. Sangwon doesn’t doubt his words for a heartbeat.
“Thank you, hyung,” Sangwon says once he finally finds words. “I will.”
That much he says because it’s true.
✦
[ properly articulate the things i’d like to say ]
── ⋆⋅XVI⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon awkwardly texts Leo to organize a time to meet up. Sangwon isn’t exactly doing much other than walking between his room and his kitchen, so they simply find a time that fits around Leo’s work schedule. He’s a carpenter now, apparently, and Sangwon remembers how firm his hand always felt whenever he touched him.
Leo’s directions lead Sangwon to an ice cream shop, clearly not the one that Leo used to go to when they were in high school based on the distance between them. Sangwon pauses, as he always does in front of doors these days, and walks inside.
He finds Leo sitting at a table near the window, and Sangwon’s chest burns.
Leo invites him over with the wave of a hand, and Sangwon awkwardly slips into the seat across from him. Leo’s arms are folded on the table, and Sangwon wants to reach out and clasp his hands over them. He doesn’t.
“Hi,” he whispers instead.
“Hi,” Leo smiles, adjusting in his seat.
Neither of them say anything for a moment, and in that time, the worker at the counter calls out for Leo. Leo slides out of the seat and returns with two ice creams.
“You ordered already?” Sangwon asks.
Leo nods. “Sorry, I-I hope that’s okay.”
Sangwon takes the bowl from Leo, already missing the waffle cone they used to always have. He misses Leo’s confidence in doing things for him too. “It’s fine.” He stabs the spoon into the dessert absentmindedly, attempting to heat it up. “It’s like old times.”
Leo exhales, finally grabbing his own bowl. He reaches for the spoon, but he doesn’t move it yet.
“How are you?”
Sangwon expects that. He’s been expecting Leo asking him something like that, or some variation—how have you been, how’s it going, even a what’s up. He’s rehearsed his answer of fine so many times that it flows easily off his lips, almost believable.
Sangwon doesn’t expect Leo’s face to fall apart.
The corners of Leo’s lips fall first. His nostrils flare, taking in a harsh, deep breath of air, eyebrows knitting together for a fleeting moment. His eyes—always his eyes—look hurt. He knows that Sangwon is lying to him.
Sangwon clears his throat, stirring his ice cream. “How are you?” he counters, trying to act calm. “How’s your family?”
“I’ve been better, honestly,” Leo answers. Sangwon can tell in his tone that he didn’t need to clarify he was telling the truth. Even all these years later, Leo refuses to be anything but authentic. “My, uh, grandmother died a few weeks after graduation.”
Sangwon looks back up at that, freezing. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “How… how about your parents? And your sister?”
Leo takes in another break, and Sangwon knows that was the wrong question. “My parents, ah… they passed last year. My sister moved back to Australia after.”
Guilt strikes Sangwon so hard he doesn’t even know how to describe the pain. He wasn’t there for Leo’s worst. He couldn’t even be there for that. Sangwon had assumed when he left that Leo still had his community of people who loved him. They were all gone.
Well, at least he had Anxin. Sangwon didn’t know if he could count himself again.
“I’m so sorry,” Sangwon says, voice breaking. He clears his throat with ice cream, nowhere near as good as it was in high school. “You… I…”
“What’s done is done, Sangwon.” Leo looks at him, gaze intense. “You can’t undo the past.”
“Right.” Sangwon wants to change to a more positive note. Not that he doesn’t care, but he feels physically pained by the guilt. “Where’d the, uh, new coffee shop come from? Bluelight?”
“Ah.” Leo takes a bite of ice cream. “It’s where the old ahjumma’s ice cream shop was. The one I bought in high school. She died a few years back too. Nothing really tastes the same, huh?”
So much for Sangwon’s effort to bring them back to a positive note. He coughs. He barely recognizes this town anymore. He barely recognizes the Leo sitting in front of him.
“Sorry,” Leo laughs. “Lots of bad news.”
Sangwon nods. “A lot has changed, I guess.”
“Not for the worse entirely.” Leo cocks his head to the side. “People come and go.”
Sangwon holds his breath. He knows that Leo is talking about him. He doesn’t even know what to say.
“I’m sorry, Leo,” Sangwon gasps. “Really. I—I’m—”
“Relax, Sangwonie.” Leo lays a hand on Sangwon’s and Sangwon’s hand burns. His heart and head pound in turn, the room practically spinning around Leo. “It’s like I said. You can’t change the past.”
Sangwon can’t even speak.
“I know you’re only here because of Anxin.” Leo tsks. “I understand. You’ve changed. A lot of time has passed. There’s no reason for me to be hung up on something that just isn’t there anymore.”
Sangwon shakes his head, because words fail him. Anxin asked him to go to the reunion, yes, but Anxin never told him to go out with Leo. This was Sangwon, all him, and he didn’t want Leo to think that Sangwon had left him behind when he’d left on the day of graduation. “That’s not true,” he finally manages, throat tight.
Leo smiles kindly at him, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’ve been lying to me a lot today, Sangwon.”
“That’s not—” Sangwon coughs, choking on nothing but air. The room is still spinning, and Leo is still the only thing he can see. “I missed you, hyung.”
That, at least, makes Leo’s expression change. The assuredness of his words disappears, eyes widening as Sangwon’s words sink in.
“You…” But in the same moment, it’s gone. “You didn’t even say goodbye. You told me you would stay.”
Sangwon didn’t. He did, and he couldn’t. But he can’t tell Leo that. Not here, at least. Just thinking about the amount of turmoil his mother put him through that final week makes him feel sick.
“I…” he finally gasps, holding on to Leo’s wrist to stop him from escaping the same way he did. “I’m sorry.”
“We told each other everything, Sangwon.” Leo interlocks their fingers, not even sparing a glance, and Sangwon almost jolts away from how the touch hurts. He doesn’t deserve to be this close to Leo, especially after disappearing off the face of the Earth to him. “You were more than a best friend to me.”
More than. They’re so close to words that high school Sangwon would’ve killed to hear, the acknowledgement that what they had was more than what he was convincing himself it was for Leo’s sake. But he doesn’t want to hear them like this, holding hands with Leo across the table while the older’s expression refuses to pick between something warm and something cut off. Sangwon doesn’t blame him.
Sangwon squeezes Leo’s hand. “That’s how I felt too.” And he knows that leaving without another word didn’t show it at all, but… “I’m sorry, hyung. I really am. It wasn’t a choice.”
Leo doesn’t say anything to that, eyes looking down at where he and Sangwon are still holding hands. Sangwon should let go. Leo is clearly hurt, only hurt, and so rightfully so that Sangwon knows he’s overstayed his welcome. He should’ve stuck with Anxin’s advice and only gone to the reunion. Then he wouldn’t be hurting Leo any more than he had the way he was now.
Leo breaks the connection between their hands to continue eating his ice cream, which has gone soupy. Sangwon scoops at the mess inside his and feels completely dull. Their conversation is awkward and clunky after that, and it almost makes Sangwon miss whatever they had been doing before. At least it had been more authentically them. If he hadn’t left, they would still have this relationship.
Sangwon shares short stories about Seoul and university. Leo tells lengthy recounters of specific work days. Even when he laughs while telling a story, it never reaches his eyes. Sangwon knows that Leo deserves the truth, just as he had years before. The truth is what’s standing between them.
They split off from each other half an hour later, no longer able to talk each other’s ears off until Sangwon had long missed cram school and his curfew. Sangwon feels the way his heart pangs when he turns away from Leo. It feels all too familiar.
He knows what Leo deserves. He’s given him his all. But Sangwon feels the way he goes soulless, just as he had when he left their town years ago, and he vows for his own good that he can’t see Leo again. When what they once had has almost slipped completely from his grasp. Sangwon is too nervous to say anything true, and Leo can sense that distrust. The only reason he’ll go see him again is if he wants to get his heart broken.
✦
[ knowing you’ll have to face it ]
── ⋆⋅XVII⋅⋆ ──
Leo knows that Sangwon is avoiding him.
It’s not like their last conversation ended off on the most positive note, but Sangwon knows he’s being obvious. He’ll walk down an aisle in the grocery store, see Leo there, and turn the other way. His walks he takes every other morning take the route away from Bluelight. He debates visiting the ramen place he never got to show Leo, but when he walks in, the older is seated at a table with Anxin.
Leo calls out to him that time as Sangwon spins on his heel. He should know in a town like theirs that if there’s someone he doesn’t want to see, he should simply just stop leaving the house at all.
He finds refuge in the old library, run by a halabeoji that Sangwon is honestly surprised is still alive. He lost the time to visit in middle school, and not much of this has changed, at least. There’s dust between every nook and cranny, the space darkened by deep oak bookshelves, and a couple of well-loved couches make up the seating area. Sangwon typically walks down there, picks a book off the shelf, and reads until he forgets that he’s completely disappointed in himself.
He walks in one day and Leo is there.
It’s not like in the grocery store, where Leo was picking up different fruits. Nor is it like seeing him in the ramen shop with Anxin, a bowl already set out in front of him.
Leo is sitting in one of the couches that faces the door, eyes already finding Sangwon’s the moment he walks in. He’s here for him.
“Anxin told me he saw you walk in here the other day,” Leo says simply, and Sangwon ignores the mental note he makes that he needs to kill Anxin and do it soon. “I wanted to see you.”
Sangwon just nods. He can’t back out. He already walked in.
Leo sighs, standing up. “Can I get you to help me with something?”
Sangwon would move the stars if it would make Leo smile. “Yeah,” he exhales. Leo still wants to see him, at least. He thought that was a lost cause at this point.
“I need help going through my parent’s attic.” Leo shrugs. “Anxin’s working, so I figured I’d ask you.”
Of course. Sangwon isn’t on Leo’s list of priorities anymore. He should feel relieved, knowing that he isn’t going to be chased after this, but his heart only hurts.
“I’m not doing anything else,” Sangwon answers, breathing somehow easy and slow when that’s exactly the opposite of how he feels. “Just text me.”
Leo nods, and he walks out at that. Not looking for anything. Just Sangwon, apparently.
Sangwon sits down in his usual chair with a book that he usually loves, but this time its not the same. He’s on edge. So on edge. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket and wills himself to not look right away. He can’t eat up every bit of Leo that he gets. It’ll only be harder when Leo pulls away. Sangwon doesn’t deserve him anyways.
It’s three days later that he finds himself in front of Leo’s house for the first time. He’d seen Leo’s parents briefly at their graduation, but that was it. Leo always used to tell him anecdotes about how Sangwon and his mother both loved reading the same, or how he and his father shared the same love of bad dad jokes. You’d love them, Leo would say, and Sangwon supposes he would’ve.
Leo invites him in with little warmth. Sangwon’s head moves on a swivel as Leo leads him upstairs, then up once again. Sangwon wonders if Leo lives here, or elsewhere. It’s difficult to tell. Maybe he lives with few belongings the same way Sangwon does.
“There are a lot of boxes,” Leo announces as he tugs the string on the light, and there definitely are. “I just need a brief glance inside to see if there’s anything important in any of them. Let me know what you find.”
Sangwon nods. Leo takes the right side, and Sangwon supposes he should take the left, then. They work in silence, save for Leo humming every once in a while.
It hurts. Sangwon finds family photos, keepsakes, scrapbooks. His parents liked to document things, crafty, which explains why Leo does what he does now. He runs his hand over photos of Leo when he was just a baby, to when he played his first soccer game, to moving to Korea. He finds photos of him and his sister snuggled up on the couch together, Leo and his dad with a fish, him gardening with his mom. When Sangwon finds a photo from their graduation, Leo beaming between his family, he can’t help the hurt he feels.
Leo doesn’t look over at him once while they work, and Sangwon is checking often. He thinks he feels eyes on him, but there’s nothing. Of course. Leo doesn’t think they’re close anymore.
Sangwon sighs and moves the box he's working on to the side. He notices a pristine white envelope behind it, eyebrows furrowing. This is way too new. He picks it up and pauses when he sees Lee Sangwon scrawled on the front, in Leo’s handwriting.
He turns to Leo to pose a question, but Leo is already staring. Not at him, but at the letter. “You found it.”
Sangwon turns the letter over in his hand. “Why does it have my name on it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Leo asks.
Sangwon shakes his head. He and Leo never actually made it to each other’s houses, and Sangwon wasn’t exactly making contact after moving to Seoul. “But I never gave—”
“I liked you,” Leo interrupts.
Sangwon freezes. The letter drops from his hand as his body tenses, purely from shock. Leo slides beneath him and moves the letter somewhere Sangwon doesn’t see.
Leo liked him. Sangwon doesn’t know if he should smile or cry, because Leo liked him, but Leo liked him. When he rested his hand on Sangwon’s cheek, it meant something to him. When he held his hand. When he bought him ice cream. Which means when Sangwon left, turning his back on him, it really, really meant something.
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
Sangwon pauses. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Sangwon. I should've been kinder to you when you came back.” Leo breathes in. “It was really hard without you here, Sangwon, and I didn’t know what to do. You had just left. I felt so… betrayed.”
Sangwon races to talk, but like always, his voice doesn’t squeeze anything out. “Uh—”
“I know you have your reasons and all, but you didn’t call or text me, and then I tried your number and it was completely out of service.” Leo runs a hand through his hair with a dry chuckle. “God, it sounds so childish now, but I thought you hated me. Me, specifically, and it felt horrible, especially with the way I felt about you.”
“Leo, I—”
“I sound so selfish just saying it out loud, but it hurt like hell. And then you came back, completely closed off and completely different from how open and honest you were with me before, and that’s when I knew that you had given up on me.”
He never— “I never—”
“And now we’re here, and it feels like I’m begging you to let me in, and I think it’s because I’ve never known anything else.” Leo looks Sangwon in the eyes, all walls melted and soul stripped bare. “You can hate me, Sangwon. You can refuse to speak to me. You can say you’ve changed and moved on, and that friendship that we had means nothing to you now. But why you left—I just want to know.” Leo explains. “The truth.”
“I left for you,” Sangwon exclaims, exasperated.
Leo finally stops talking. “What?” he asks softly, disbelief coating his voice.
Sangwon takes a breath. He doesn’t tell his story. Nobody else has heard any of it. But he’s talking to Leo. Sincere Leo, trustworthy Leo, the same Leo from all those years ago when Sangwon decided he would at least bear some of himself to him, maybe all of it one day.
This is all of it.
“I didn’t want to leave so soon. I wasn’t even going to move until a week before classes started. But my mom—” he chokes, voice going soft and tender in all the places he hates. “…My mom figured out I like you.”
He doesn’t dwell on the lack of past tense.
“The week of graduation, she found out—probably from a mom of one of Doyun’s friends or something—that he and I kissed, and then somehow also found out that I like you, and…” Sangwon trails off. “She made my life hell for a week. I had my things packed before the last day of school; I only came home to change out of my graduation clothes, grab my stuff, and then I left on the first night bus for Seoul. I changed my number the moment I got there—I had to. I couldn’t stay.”
His voice breaks on the last set of words, eyes filling with tears. He remembers how bubbly Leo had been, eyes wide and giddy as Sangwon slowly agreed to come to the grad party. In hindsight, with lenses of regret, he sees now that Leo had liked him back the entire time.
“Seoul wasn’t easy,” Sangwon continues slowly, the sobs locked in his throat. “It’s not the dream paradise everyone thinks it is. I spent a month renting out whatever place I could because the university dorms weren’t open. After that, all of my time was just studying or working. I wanted to do well… succeed, so that I wouldn’t be back here at square one. Because if I never came back…” Sangwon looks at Leo through clouded eyes, tears condensed but not yet falling. His expression is unreadable. “…she wouldn’t ever question you.”
Sangwon feels his shoulders begin to tremble and knows exactly what’s happening. The tears fall before he can stop them, silent, save for a few gasps of air. He doesn’t move, doesn’t lift his hands to cover his face or turn away from Leo.
Leo’s face opens, the furrow of confusion between his brows slowly disappearing. He takes a step towards Sangwon, slow and careful at first, and then his face melts and he pulls Sangwon into an unyielding embrace.
Sangwon cries. He wails into the warmth of Leo’s shoulder, hands slowly sliding up Leo’s back to hug him back. He doesn’t know if he wants to go back in time and punch himself or thank himself.
Staying would have been easier with Leo at his side.
“I’m so sorry,” Leo apologizes, this time not for anything in particular. “Sangwon, I…”
He squeezes a little tighter, then pulls back and brings his hands to Sangwon’s face. The feeling of his callused fingers brushing away Sangwon’s tears soothes him the slightest bit, enough to bring his cries down to short, breathless gasps. “And here I was thinking you just hated me.” Leo laughs a bit, but not because it’s funny. “I never stopped hoping, Sangwon.”
Sangwon gulps, still recovering. “Hoping for what?”
“That…” Leo tilts his head. “That you would come back. That maybe you had just been sick or something and you would show up again at a reunion or to visit family. I wished for it more times than I can count.”
Leo walks over to the table, the letter Sangwon had grabbed resting on top of a small box. He moves the letter out of the way, opens the box, and pulls out a stack of… more letters. Sangwon gasps as Leo walks back towards him, smiling a bit as he sifts through the stack.
“I wrote you one every year,” Leo says slowly. “Carried them around with me just in case I ever ran into you.”
Leo runs his fingers over them fondly, as though he’s remembered what’s encased in each one. He gets back to the top of the stack, and this one is from this year. Sangwon wants to cry again.
“I especially never stopped hoping that maybe you liked me.”
“I didn’t like you,” Sangwon says before he can stop himself. He reaches for Leo’s hand, resting his on top. His name is written neatly on the envelope, just as it had been on the first one he’d found. For once, his words don’t restrict him now. “I like you, Leo—I never stopped.”
“I couldn’t stop,” Leo exhales. His fingers intertwine with Sangwon’s. “I wanted to make myself move on, to stop thinking about you, but… I feel so much for you, I couldn’t. That’s why I wrote it down.”
Sangwon runs his fingers down the side of the stack. Six letters. He would love to spend days and days on end picking apart each one, finding out what Leo has wanted to say for the past five years, but that’s not important now. Not when Sangwon has finally heard the words he’s been waiting half a decade for. He looks up at Leo, finding his eyes, and there’s a softness in them that Sangwon hadn’t found before. Vulnerability. Love.
“Sangwon,” Leo says with no urgency, like he’s just saying his name to say it.
“Leo,” Sangwon says in turn.
Leo’s free hand comes up to his cheek, cupping it and tracing Sangwon’s face with his eyes. They flicker to his lips for a moment, just a moment, and Sangwon already can’t tear his from Leo’s.
“Can I—god, please, Sangwon,” Leo takes a breath. “Can I finally kiss you?”
Sangwon can’t say no to Leo. He really can’t. He never will.
“Please,” Sangwon replies. “Please kiss me.”
Leo’s hand slides back from Sangwon’s cheek to the nape of his neck, and Sangwon shivers where Leo’s touches land. Leo’s slow, gentle, and Sangwon lets his eyes flutter shut when he finally feels that delicate press of Leo’s lips on his. He exhales the breath he’s been holding against his lips.
Leo doesn’t kiss hard or quickly. He doesn’t force his tongue into Sangwon’s mouth or suck on his bottom lip gently. Instead, Leo kisses like he means it, and Sangwon doesn’t want him to pull away because he’s been waiting. And Leo—god, Leo’s been waiting just as long as he has.
Leo pulls away, half an inch, to breathe before he kisses Sangwon again. Still delicate. Still gentle. Carefully, almost, as though he can’t take any more. Sangwon wants him to take everything. Sangwon feels like he can’t breathe again when Leo pulls away. He needs him around him, always, surrounding him until all Sangwon can think about, which he isn’t far off on, is Leo.
“I lied about the Anxin thing,” Leo says suddenly. “I didn’t even tell him I was doing this. I just wanted to see you one more time before I decided that you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I want everything to do with you,” Sangwon responds, cupping Leo’s face. He’s so beautiful. “I’ve wanted everything to do with you. I don’t deserve you, hyung. I left you and yet you still—”
“You still want me,” Leo finishes. “You were gone for years, and you still want me.”
Sangwon nods. His vision is blurring again. “You were all I could think about.”
It takes a moment for Sangwon to realize it, but Leo’s eyes are welling up too. Sangwon has never seen Leo cry.
“Sorry,” Leo sniffles, wiping at his eyes. “I’m not usually like this. But you—” he chokes, taking a breath before continuing. “You bring out the most in me, Sangwon.”
Sangwon kisses him again because that’s the best way he thinks he can say everything on his mind. Me too. You do that all to me and more. Leo is the one person Sangwon has told all his truths to, and that especially stands true now. He’s always there.
Sangwon pulls back, a faint smile tugging at his lips. He can’t even put into words how happy he is.
“Thank you,” Leo says. “For sharing. Everything.”
“It was impossible not to.” Sangwon presses their foreheads together. “You’re my everything, Leo.”
✦
[ someone hasn’t told you that you’re perfect ]
── ☆⋅VII⋅☆ ──
“Doyun’s hosting a grad party.”
“I know.” Sangwon flips to the next page. University entrance exams are coming up, and at this point, his lunch is forgotten beside the school. His books are stacked in his lap, each subject in order of the exams. He briefly wonders why Leo isn’t also studying, but he’s never really seen Leo with his books out anyways. “I’m not going.”
“Aw.” Leo pouts. “I know they’re really not your scene, but—”
“I’m not going.” Sangwon honestly flinches at the mention of Doyun’s name at this point. Whenever he sees him talking with one of his friends, he has to look away as fast as possible while also wondering if Doyun has said anything to anyone. Probably not, given how nervous he seemed. He hasn’t approached Sangwon again either.
Sangwon upholds his end of the deal. He hasn’t even told Leo. If they’re hanging out together and Doyun is nearby, Sangwon puts himself between them. It helps him too, to not catch Doyun’s eye. He can’t trust his face if that were to happen.
“Sangwon, please?” Leo starts pouting harder, nudging Sangwon leg and sounding like he’s doing some kind of aegyo. Sangwon huffs, finally lifting his eyes from his chemistry notebook.
Sangwon can’t even hide how he feels about Leo anymore. Every time he looks at him, his heart picks up. He’ll stare at the back of Leo’s head during class, despite how far away he is. He wishes he could just shut the door that lets the outside world into their space and kiss Leo until his lips go numb, because containing all of his feelings inside is proving to become more and more exhausting. He can’t pretend his heart doesn’t pick up when they brush hands, or when Leo smiles at him after Sangwon explains a concept after class. It’s all almost enough to ignore the looks they get. Almost, almost, because Sangwon will glance away for a moment and find Doyun looking at them.
He ignores it the best that he can. He pours all his attention to Leo, which isn’t particularly difficult for him. He laughs in time with him, follows him to the best of his ability, and even just follows him because that’s all he can do.
Sangwon can’t say no to Leo. He really can’t.
“Fine, hyung,” Sangwon huffs. “I’ll go.”
Leo cheers, jumping up and wrapping his arms around Sangwon. Sangwon tries to ignore how his face begins to burn. “Oh, yes! Hyung will make it super fun, I promise. We can leave whenever you want.”
“Really?” Sangwon asks.
Leo tsks. “You know me. I never leave your side.”
He draws back at that, cupping Sangwon’s cheek. He’s touchy with Sangwon a lot, especially when they're face to face like this, and Sangwon can never do anything more than look away. He always gets red when Leo touches his face, but he never gets teased. “It better be fun,” he mumbles, filling the silence.
Leo’s hand shifts and tilts up Sangwon’s chin to force Sangwon to look towards him again again. His face picks up as their eyes meet. “It will be,” he promises. “One last hurrah, if you may.”
Sangwon’s throat goes dry until Leo’s hands are off of him. He could get behind that. He thinks that if he has Leo with him, at the very least, he’ll be able to pretend like he’s gotten along with his classmates his whole life.
“It’s barely a hurrah. Worry about entrance exams first.”
✦
[ admit that i’m in love ]
── ⋆⋅XVIII⋅⋆ ──
“Long time no see!” Anxin chirps. Sangwon hasn’t walked into Bluelight since Anxin advised him. “You look happier.”
Sangwon pauses. “You know everything.”
“Yeah, I do.” Anxin already is turning on the kettle, sprinkling tea leaves into the top. Sangwon hasn’t even ordered anything yet. “Leo tells me a lot, you know. But not everything.”
Sangwon quirks an eyebrow.
“He told me that the only person he would tell everything is you, anyways.” Anxin shrugs, preparing a mug. “Before you ask, I’m paying.”
Sangwon just slides into a seat, close to the counter for once. “Thank you,” he says. “Not for the tea, I mean. For the advice.”
“And not the tea at all?” Anxin sticks out his tongue. “I’m always right, but Leo hates it.”
Sangwon smiles and busies himself with observing the trees outside while Anxin makes his drink. A lot of leaves are gone now, but he’s starting to find the beauty in their fallen layers. He finds the change brings new things, like the crunch they leave under his feet as they exhale the tension held inside.
Anxin both places the mug on the table and sits across from Sangwon again. “Can I tell you something, hyung?” He shakes his head. “Can I call you hyung?”
“Yes and yes,” Sangwon affirms.
Anxin crosses his arms on the table, leaning into them. “You know,” he begins, “when I first met Leo hyung, he felt kind of… dull. Of course, he still had humour. He still laughed with me and poked fun and smiled and experienced all of that. But it felt like he was holding himself back for some reason.”
Sangwon wraps his fingers around the handle of the mug, taking a sip.
“Of course, he’d told me about his high school best friend, as he put it, but I could tell from the way he spoke about you that you really meant a lot. More than just a friend, honestly.” Anxin looks Sangwon in the eyes. He’s really picked up a lot of Leo’s habits. “When you came back, it felt like his body didn’t know what was happening. He was running on empty and full of energy all at once. It was scary, honestly, seeing the way he’d just randomly lose all the light in his eyes when we spoke. And if I ever brought you up, god, he’d shut down.”
Anxin looks out the window, watching the loose branches of the trees blow in the wind. Sangwon’s eyes move towards the motion too.
“But now,” Anxin proceeds, “I’m seeing a side of hyung that I never did before. I’ve seen him smile, but I’ve never seen his smile. Not until today. That’s because of you, you know. He’s like a completely different person I get to understand now. You mean a lot to him. I imagine it’s the same for you.”
It warms Sangwon to hear that Leo is that much happier now. And to think he was initially planning on walking away. “He’s everything,” he answers, the truth flowing easily. It always has been that way.
Anxin looks back at Sangwon. “I don’t know you well at all, Sangwon-hyung, but from what Leo-hyung’s told me, I know you’re a good person. I’m glad that you found each other again. I can’t wait to get to know you better.”
He sticks his hand out across the table, and Sangwon almost wants to laugh at the shift in formality from earlier. But Anxin smiles, that same big one from the first time he and Sangwon met, when he was nothing but a stranger, and it’s convincing enough.
Sangwon takes his head. “I’m sure you’re a wonderful kid, Anxin. I can’t wait to learn more about you either.”
Anxin huffs. “Not a kid.”
“Yes you are.”
✦
[ good shit out the way ]
── ⋆⋅XIX⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon and Leo spend more time together after that. Sangwon eventually gets to take him to the ramen shop, which isn’t new to Leo, but his favourite dish on the menu is. They hold hands in the grocery store as Leo does his shopping, scooping things into the cart that he’ll fish out of Leo’s fridge at a later date. Leo insists on following Sangwon to Bluelight, unless he’s working, in which case he orders Sangwon to stay put until he gets off. Sangwon smiles so wide when he sees Leo jogging down the road, a capacity of happiness so large for his heart that it feels completely undeserved.
They also kiss. A lot. They’ll come back from Bluelight or the park and collapse on Leo’s couch, embracing each other, and stay there for hours. They ‘ll whisper love declarations between them, hourly, and shout them daily. Anxin gags at their PDA at first, but stops because there’s just so much of it. They’re making up for lost time, Sangwon supposes, trying to cram five years’ worth of love and affection into a single day.
Sangwon’s mother actually, for once, is quiet. She says nothing about Sangwon’s early mornings out, nor his late returns. Sangwon’s sure that she’s glad to see him gone. He’s practically living in Leo’s house now, and Leo says that he helps the space feel a little less empty and a lot less lonely.
“Those aren’t even in season yet,” Leo points out, watching Sangwon poke at mangoes at the front of the grocery store. “And you’re checking them all wrong. You’re supposed to squeeze, not poke.”
“This is close enough,” Sangwon grumbles. “You didn’t even know there were different types of mangoes until last week.”
Leo just tsks, and Sangwon picks a decent-feeling mango and drops it into the car. He reaches for Leo’s hand.
“Sangwon? Leo?”
Sangwon stops reaching for Leo’s hand at that moment. He knows whose voice that is. Sure enough, when he turns, he sees Doyun and Sumin, arm in arm, a basket balancing on Sumin’s forearm.
Sangwon turns, awkward. “Hi.” His hand clenches and unclenches, unsure if he should reach for Leo’s or not. He wants to, it grounds him, but he doesn’t want to with Doyun watching.
Doyun cocks his head, making a knowing glance between the two. “I see that you guys have… rekindled your flame,” he teases. “You happy with yourself, Sangwon? Didn’t force yourself onto him?”
Sangwon’s fist decides to clench. “I didn’t force myself onto you,” he grumbles. “You asked.”
Sumin’s face shifts, but Doyun doesn’t let Sangwon’s truth affect him at all. “And who believes that?” he asks. Sangwon doesn’t know when he got so cruel. His fist loosens.
“Okay, listen.” Leo steps into the conversation then, interlocking his fingers with Sangwon’s. It’s a bold, bold move, and Doyun’s eyes practically bulge out of his head when he looks at their hands. “You’re really still bringing things up that happened in high school?”
Doyun shrugs. “I mean, it simply explains what’s happening now.”
“You and Sangwon barely had any correlation to each other then. There’s literally no reason for you to be talking to him now.” Leo hums, thinking. “I mean, if Sangwon really did force himself on you, you should be avoiding him, no?”
Doyun’s eyes narrow at Leo, but Sumin decides to begin tugging her along instead. Sangwon swears he hears a “you asked him?” from her as they pass, but he doesn’t concern himself with it.
“I didn’t know Doyun asked you to kiss him first,” Leo says. “I’m sorry.”
Sangwon shrugs. “His story just got to everyone first. I wouldn’t even think about it if he didn’t threaten me.”
Leo nods. “He’s really… a piece of work.”
“I felt like I was betraying you when I said yes, honestly,” Sangwon reveals. “I didn’t want to do it. But he would’ve told everyone that I like you, and… I wasn’ t ready for you to know that yet.”
“I get it. That was years ago, anyways.” Leo squeezes Sangwon’s hand. “You’re ready for me to know it now.”
“I hope you always know it.”
✦
[ maybe he’s buried his anxieties ]
── ☆⋅III⋅☆ ──
Somewhere in their lunch routine, Leo upgrades from granola bars to ice cream. He tells Sangwon at first that the ahjumma running the convenience store down the street gave him an extra, but Sangwon starts to think Leo’s lying to him more and more as the days continue.
Sangwon learns a lot more about Leo. He learns that Leo loves cheesecake and soccer, and that he hates the school uniform. He learns that Leo is a year older than everyone else in their year, something about how school converts from country to country, and he immediately demands that Sangwon starts calling him hyung. He learns that Leo’s family moved back to Korea to be closer to his sick grandmother, and that Leo has an older sister, just like Sangwon does. Most notably, Sangwon eventually learns enough that he stops putting Leo’s file back inside his subconscious cabinet.
Sangwon doesn’t share much about himself. There isn’t much to say without going too far, he thinks, and everything surface level about him is boring. He keeps to himself, mostly studies when he has spare time, and it’s just him and his mother at home. He has things that are bigger, beyond him, and things buried deeply inside his chest. He has bad, ugly, and worse. He’s filled with defects, shortcomings, disappointing aspects that haunt him as he walks and unveil a different side to him, one that he’s not sure if Leo is open to knowing.
He really wishes Leo is. He sounds trustworthy. He’s intentional. One day, when Sangwon finds the courage to begin, maybe not say it all but just begin, maybe Leo can catch him if he falls. He wants to be honest to him, not just because he’s the first person to talk to him in years. He wants to be honest because Leo is so honest to him; about his grandmother, about how he was treated in school, about being in a group that was constantly judged. And yet he still managed to live authentically, finding the silver lining to every situation, and that is so admirable.
Telling him about himself is the fair thing to do. Telling him could be Sangwon’s silver lining.
Leo’s in the middle of a story about his hometown—another anecdote about the band club he’d joined and thrived in—but Sangwon’s mind stays elsewhere. Leo trails off eventually, a furrow settling between his brows.
“Anyways, I’ve said enough about myself.” He pauses to lick melting ice cream off his fingers. “You should tell me more about yourself, Sangwon.”
Sangwon pulls his knees up to his chest, uncertainty coursing inside of him. “Nothing to say,” he muses. “I’ve told you everything, hyung. You’ve seen it.”
“Not even close to everything.” Leo props his chin onto his hand. “Who did you talk to before I got here, hm?”
“Nobody.” And it’s the truth.
“Then why don’t you have any other friends?”
“Rude.”
Leo tsks. “Sorry, my bad. You know what I mean, though. Forget it.”
But Sangwon knows he should answer. He knows the looks they get when break comes and Leo parks his ass on top of Sangwon’s desk, obstructing his notes, and he knows they aren’t friendly. He finds himself smiling around Leo, and he doesn't think any of his classmates have ever seen that expression on him before. The fair thing to do, he remembers. Not everything. Just beginning.
“No, it’s fine,” Sangwon starts.“I’ve never been one for socializing. Everyone made their friends groups before I could join any. Nobody was going to let me in after that.”
“Why not?” Leo asks.
Sangwon bites his ice cream. Cold. He doesn’t know how to word it to Leo, the walls that suddenly came up the moment Sangwon was near anyone. “I’ve been… just, the weird, quiet kid. I’m not attached to any group, so nobody wants to house me in theirs. Also, everyone thinks I don’t like girls, so that’s another reason to run away.”
Sangwon wonders where the last part came out, but he can’t deny the role such a rumour has played in his life. He’d gone from tolerated to avoided unless absolutely necessary because of it. It’s the reason he and Leo get the looks that they do, the reason every smile he lets slip out feels like documentation of a social crime. He knows that the wrong idea is flying around, and such gestures aren’t the greatest help in combatting them.
“What’s wrong with that?” Leo replies.
“What?”
“If you don’t like girls, what’s so wrong with that?” Leo’s frowning, like he doesn’t understand a world where that’s detrimental to Sangwon’s reputation, where any news of it slipping beyond his classmates sets a bomb off in his life. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“It’s…” Sangwon sighs. “It’s an extra insult to add to an already injured social life. The straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Leo bites down on his cone, chewing like he doesn’t like the terms that Sangwon has set in front of him. “Okay,” he says slowly, “but that’s fuckin’ stupid.”
I know, Sangwon wants to say. He doesn’t.
“I didn’t think everyone would be so cliquey,” Leo hums.
“It’s hard to be publicly flawed,” Sangwon whispers.
“But you aren’t.” Leo holds Sangwon’s gaze tightly, assuring, and Sangwon can’t find the strength to break free. “At least, not more than anyone else. I don’t know why they would consider those things completely out of the ordinary. And I really don’t know why those “flaws” are now fair game for everyone to judge when they have their own too.”
Sangwon doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t know what to say. If he had the confidence, the blitheness, he would move across the closet floor and hug Leo. Because there’s someone who sees him, for once. Someone who’s heard it all and hasn’t chosen to run away. Someone who doesn’t make their actions towards Sangwon all for a joke.
But under Leo’s gaze, still trapped, still held, Sangwon doesn’t move a muscle. He doesn’t even let his breath go until Leo’s gaze drops to the ice cream still dripping down his fingers.
“I don’t mind any of that,” Leo says quietly. “Anything you said. I don’t think a single thing you said is a flaw. None of it is a reason for me to stop being your friend.”
He gives Sangwon a quick glance, something behind his eyes, like he knows the weight of his words. Sangwon has never been more thankful for Leo’s tendency to speak his mind, to only say things that he truly believes. Every conversation they have makes Sangwon believe more and more that Leo can be trusted with the truth. All of it.
Maybe Sangwon will give him some.
✦
[ i think you’re a star ]
── ⋆⋅XX⋅⋆ ──
Leo’s attic had very obviously not been cleared out the first time, and it definitely wasn’t going to clear itself. So Sangwon is back up there with him again, moving boxes and smiling at photo frames as they pop up.
“Is this you in middle school?” Sangwon asks, pointing out Leo in a family photo. He’s quite different from how he looked then, face long grown in from nearly a decade ago.
Leo nods. “I’ve never seen anything of you before high school, actually.”
Sangwon hums, presuming Leo is right. “So what do you want to know?” he asks.
Leo pauses, twiddling his thumbs as he starts trying to think up a question. “Ugh, there’s a lot. I mean, you told me you didn’t really have many friends before me, so that’s off the table.”
“Any,” Sangwon clarifies.
“Okay, any.” Leo’s face sets, having settled on a question. “How did you end up spending so much time in that closet?”
Sangwon gulps. There are the normal reasons, of course. “Yang Seolah found me on the roof once and that ruined the spot.”
But that’s not the only one. It’s the fake reason, if anything. Partially true, and true enough that Sangwon can tell it. But Leo doesn’t deserve partially true, he deserves truth.
“But, uh,” he continues, “that isn’t everything.”
Leo leans his back against a table, and Sangwon finds room on the floor. He crosses his legs, holding onto his ankles and taking a breath.
“I don’t really want to talk much about it,” Sangwon begins. “But its what I thought about for most of high school, save for when you were there, and most of my time in Seoul too.”
Sangwon looks up at Leo, who’s watching him intently. He really cares, and that selfless nature is exactly why Sangwon found those thoughts disappearing into the back of his mind the more time they spent together.
“I wasn’t…” Sangwon pauses to think. “I wasn’t doing the best mentally during high school. Nobody liked me, my mother had been ignoring me… you know it all already. It made sense. The closet wasn’t just the most secluded area, but it had everything. I mean, you saw it. There was the stool I was always sitting on that felt like it could topple over easily. There was rope, too, and the door locked from the inside. And nobody came down that way anymore. Nobody would ever come looking for me.”
It dawns on Leo’s face. “Sangwon— so the rooftop—”
“Quicker,” Sangwon explains.
Leo sinks down to his knees, on Sangwon’s level, and holds him. One hand on Sangwon’s cheek, the other on his shoulder, holding him, making sure he’s there. “Sangwonie—”
“But,” Sangwon breathes, “you changed that. When you started coming to me in that closet, there was someone who would know. Someone that cared about me. When I left, I didn’t care about my mother or sister; I cared about you. I knew you would come looking. The one person who would actually be worried, and I left you behind without saying anything. I don’t deserve you.”
“You deserve everything, Sangwon.” Leo wraps his arms around Sangwon. “You deserve everything, and I don’t know who put the idea in your head that you don’t. I’m so sorry you felt that way.”
Sangwon brings his hands up to Leo’s back, slowly, not quite hugging him back. He’s been too happy lately. He can’t be sure that he earned it. “But what have I done for you?” he asks. “You say I deserve everything, but I can’t even give you a goodbye.”
“But you don’t have to say goodbye to me anymore, do you?” Leo presses a light kiss to Sangwon’s neck. “You’ve done everything for me, Sangwon. You let me in. You were the first person to talk to me authentically, and didn’t abandon me after my shiny new coating wore off.”
He pulls away then, still holding Sangwon. “And you forget that you’re the one who never gave up on us. Five years went by, but you came back and you reminded me what it felt like to be so in love.”
“In love?” Sangwon asks softly.
“Yes, in love. I’m in love with you, Lee Sangwon. You don’t know what you do to my heart. In fact…”
Leo pulls away then, standing up and walking to a side of the attic. He sifts around something in his hands for a moment, then returns.
It’s the envelopes. The letters that he wrote to Sangwon every year.
“I want you to have these,” Leo says, holding the stack out. “I want you to read them until you understand how much you’re loved, Sangwon. How much I love you.”
Sangwon just stares at the letters. “I can’t—”
“They’re literally for you, Sangwon.” Leo places the letters in Sangwon’s lap. “They’re everything I wanted to say to you while you were gone. You’re just catching up on what’s happened the last few years.”
Sangwon picks up one of the letters. “I’ll mind the order.”
“They’re dated, too.” Leo leans forwards and presses a chaste kiss to Sangwon lips. “I love you.”
Sangwon takes Leo’s hands. “I love you.”
They still don’t get through the attic.
✦
[ take me my whole life to tell you ]
── ⋆⋅XXI⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon’s gotten into interior decorations.
It started when Leo dragged him into a photobooth, insisting that they had to take photos since they didn’t even have any together from high school. They had been all over each other, and you can’t even see Sangwon in the last photo because Leo had blocked his face from the camera to kiss him.
He bought a corkboard the other day that cemented the wall decorations in place. It’s an amalgamation of places he’s gone with Leo, from restaurant receipts to movie ticket stubs and a pressed flower from a walk in the park. Sangwon loves that wall with everything he has.
And his heart drops to the floor when he walks back into his bedroom and his mother is staring at the corkboard.
He knows what she sees. The entire thing wouldn’t even be incriminating if it weren’t for the photobooth strip. They might be in black and white, but its really not hard to tell what’s happening.
“And I thought Jang Doyun was lying.” His mother looks at Sangwon, and Sangwon doesn’t meet her gaze. “This is what you’ve been leaving for? To parade around with Lee Leo? I thought you had changed, Sangwon.”
Sangwon looks at the corkboard. At Leo. “I never said I did. That’s what you assumed.”
“What am I supposed to do with you, Lee Sangwon?” she yells. “All I’ve done is for you. I dealt with your mess of a sister, I dealt with you, and I invited you back into my home after years hoping that you’d decided to make my life easier for once. And look at you!”
She jabs a finger at the photo. Not the photostrip, no, the photo of Leo and Sangwon kissing. “You just continue to humiliate me. You’re going to disappoint me until the day I die, huh?”
Sangwon doesn’t say anything to that, his previous vigour that helped him manage to respond dying. He can’t argue with her. She’s right.
“It was a waste of effort raising you,” she grumbles. “You are so lucky I don’t just take you out of this house. You left so quickly the first time, I’m sure you want to be kicked out. Don’t bother speaking to me.”
She storms past him and slams Sangwon’s bedroom door shut. Everything is untouched, thankfully, her inability to fathom Sangwon’s sexuality serving to help him in this one moment.
God. She’s right. Sangwon really has done nothing but disappoint her. Couldn’t make it work in Seoul. Barely makes it work here. He goes against every single thing that his mother wants from him. He should just quit while he’s ahead.
He moves towards the corkboard and spots the stack of letters on his desk below it. Leo told him to read those until he could understand how much he loved him. What of Sangwon was there even to love?
He picks up the stack, running his thumb down the side where all the letters meet. He pauses, confused. When Leo had first shown Sangwon the letters, there were six. Now there are seven. Seven, including the one that Sangwon had found initially.
He separates the first one from the stack, Leo’s high-school handwriting staring back at him. Lee Sangwon.
It feels wrong to open them, and Sangwon is especially careful with the seam of the envelope. He opens it slowly, unfolding the letter inside, sitting on the edge of his bed.
July 2nd, 2021
Dear Sangwon,
I miss you.
I miss you so much it physically pains me to be writing this. I don’t know where you are. Everyone I ask says they have no clue, and I can’t even ask your mom since I don’t know where you live. I know you mentioned going to Seoul for school, but I didn’t think you would leave so soon. I thought you would say goodbye.
Sangwon pauses then. He knows he should’ve said goodbye. It’s something he’s regretted ever since he got on that bus to Seoul. Leo deserved to say goodbye to him before he went.
Sangwon reads the rest of the letters. Leo gives him the updates that he’d received in person, little anecdotes, and he even mentions Anxin in the 5th letter.
There’s consistency across the years, even as Leo’s handwriting slowly becomes messier. Every letter holds an I miss you. Every letter is Leo pining for Sangwon, awaiting his return, wondering if he’ll ever come back. In the 3rd letter, he begs. In the 4th, he wonders if Sangwon left because of him. If he didn’t protect him enough.
Sangwon gets to the 7th letter and is already almost crying. He doesn’t know when this one is from. The first is from right after graduation, so it should make sense that there’s only six letters over five years. So why seven?
Sangwon opens this envelope carefully, just as he did with the previous ones, unfolding the page.
September 28, 2026
Dear Sangwon,
I saw you today. For the first time in a really long time. I was visiting Anxin at Bluelight, a regular part of my post-work routine, and I saw you.
I’m sure it came across that I didn’t see you until you came up to the counter, arm brushing against mine. I know how it looked. But I saw you in the window, originally, staring out at the trees like you’d always do in class when you spaced out. I didn’t even believe my eyes at first, because it’s been five years.
You look older now. You’ve always had an old soul, but you look changed. Your lips were pressed thin, examining and focused, and your eyes, your beautiful eyes, were drinking in everything that they were seeing. Familiar, but still different.
I knew I had to walk in. I’d seen how hard it was to get to you before, and I needed to see if we still had a fighting chance at something. I didn’t even know if you were interested then, let alone now, but I still brought myself inside.
And then you ran away.
I have to laugh. You only ever run away when it involves me. I always want to beg you to stay, but you have better things to be doing than spending time with me. I understand that now. It took a while to get it, five years, even, but I do understand. You don’t want to see me anymore.
And that hurts, because I’ve wanted nothing but to see your face again. Your smile. And I guess I got what I wanted in the end, didn’t I? I got to see your face, as confused as it was, before you turned away from me.
Anxin didn’t even ask who you were. He knew. He gave me a hug once you walked out, and I almost cried. I couldn’t even tell him how I was feeling.
Sangwon, I know you don’t want to hear from me, but I’m still writing this letter. I want you to know that I’m waiting, even if you don’t want to hear from me. You could leave me behind, Sangwon, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. I still dream about you. I think about what could’ve happened after graduation. I’ve told you about the dream before, the night I first had it, but I still think about it. Walking you home, kissing you before I leave, watching your cheeks blossom pink the way they always do when you’re embarrassed.
I would’ve told you that I love you. So much.
Since I got back home, all I’ve been able to think about is your face. The tingle in my arm when ours brushed, even though you pulled back and jumped to apologize. You were always so apologetic, Sangwon, as though spending time with you was a chore and not something that came easier to me than breathing. You are not a burden, and I don’t know who put that idea in your head. You are simply human, and you’re the exact person I wish I could see every day for the rest of my life. You are loved, and you are loved by me. I love you. Even if you’ve forgotten me, I love you.
You don’t have to say it back. I never expect you to. But I want you to know.
Yours,
Lee Leo
Sangwon rubs at the spot where one of his tears stains the paper. He folds it carefully, not wanting to taint the letter any more. To think that Leo thought Sangwon didn’t want anything to do with him at all, all since he ran away? And Sangwon thought that Leo would have moved on by now, and Sangwon coming back would be a piece of his past following him to the future, unwelcomed. He somehow blames himself for why Sangwon was so cold to him.
Sangwon reaches for his phone. He needs to hear Leo’s voice. He needs him to know that he’s wanted nothing, no one rather than him.
Leo picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hyung…” Sangwon’s voice sounds wrecked. He doesn’t know where to start. “The letter.”
“Which one?” Leo asks.
“The… god, hyung, I never forgot you.” Sangwon collapses beside his bed, leaning against it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ran away. Again.”
“I understand why, Sangwon,” Leo says, because he knows Sangwon better than anyone else. “You were feeling a lot. So was I.”
“You’re too kind to me,” Sangwon cries, exasperated, wiping at his nose and trying to keep himself understandable. “You have no reason to be.”
“Because I love you,” Leo proposes. “That’s enough reason. No need to question anything.”
“You’re—” Sangwon gasps, fetching air. “I love you, Leo-hyung. I love you. I love you. That doesn’t even cover it.”
Leo hums, a fond laugh breaking through. “I love you, Sangwonie. Are you okay? Do you need me to come get you?”
Always so caring. Always compassionate. “I… I can make it over, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Sangwon pulls himself off the floor, back onto the bed. “Thank you for remembering me.”
“I could say the same thing.”
“You’re just…” Sangwon’s lips form into a smile, the thought of what they technically are bubbling up in his mind. “The greatest boyfriend ever.”
“Is that what we are?” Leo chuckles. “Yes, Sangwon, I’m your boyfriend. I’m yours.”
✦
[ i’m indoctrinated ]
── ☆⋅VIII⋅☆ ──
Sangwon walks through his front door and gets slapped.
He’s witnessed his mother’s rage before. He’s seen the worst of it with his sister, the shouting matches they’d get into between and through slammed doors. But he’s never seen her lay a finger on anyone.
Sangwon doesn’t even feel the burn of his cheek before he’s slapped again, stumbling back against the door. His body slumps against it, against his will, and his brain finally catches up with what’s happening and he raises his arms to protect his head.
“You think I’m a fool,” his mother announces. “Do you think I’m a fool, Lee Sangwon?”
Sangwon doesn’t know what’s happening. “What ar—”
“You have been—” she cuts herself off, a hand coming to her mouth. “God, I can’t even say it. You’ve—you and Jang Doyun—”
Sangwon’s heart sinks. “Eomma, no, I—”
“I know everything, Sangwon, do not make me hit you again.”
Sangwon’s knees buckle and he hits the ground. He’s not used to this. He’s always had an escape. But now, pressed against the door, there’s no way around his mother. “E-Eomma—”
“Lee Sangwon, I told you to be quiet.”
Sangwon’s mouth zips itself shut.
“I can’t even believe this.” His mother begins pacing in front of him. “I thought your sister was bad, Sangwon. I thought you would be different. But here I am, and both of my children are complete disappointments.”
Sangwon feels the tears prick in the back of his eyes. He can’t cry. He can’t cry.
His mother stops, looking at Sangwon, trapping his gaze. “I should honestly apologize to your sister at this point. She has done nothing compared to you. First you’re skipping cram school, and now you’re kissing other boys and you think you deserve to walk in and out of this house? First it’s Lee Leo, and now it’s Jang Doyun. You can’t even pick one? You have to whore yourself out to everyone who’ll look in your direction? Is that it?”
Sangwon shakes his head, subtle, because any sudden movement and he thinks he might actually die. Time is refusing to pass.
“And for what, Sangwon? You have good grades. You have a future. And yet you’re walking around with other boys like you deserve to, and you can’t even pick one that you like. Tell me, Sangwon-ah. Which one?”
Sangwon doesn’t answer.
“I asked you a question, Sangwon. Is it Doyun? It couldn’t be. I’m sure you forced yourself onto him. That’s the only reason he would’ve said anything. So it must be Leo, huh?”
Sangwon knows that if he tries to defend himself and say that Doyun was the one who asked him for the kiss in the first place, he’s going to be hit a third time. Doyun can do no wrong in so many of the auntie’s eyes, and his mother follows that same mindset. But no, no, she can’t figure out he likes Leo. He can’t hurt Leo like that.
“Makes sense. He’s new. You just had to get your dirty hands all over him before he could even adjust to this town. You know what’s right, Sangwon. Do you just not want to do it?”
“I d—”
And like before, it can’t come out. Sangwon can’t say he doesn’t like Leo. He can’t lie about that.
“Is that it?” His mother laughs. “Lee Leo. Seriously, Sangwon, what am I supposed to do with you? You can’t even defend yourself because it’s true, isn’t it?”
Sangwon’s lip trembles. No, no, no. It’s true. It is, but it’s not true the way his mother thinks it is. Things aren’t simply that black or white. He loves Leo. He does, and it’s genuine, and Doyun has nothing to do with it. They had an agreement. Sangwon hadn’t said a single word. His cheeks burn. His eyes burn. His vision blurs.
“And now you’re crying.” His mother finally steps out of the way of the rest of their house. “Go, Sangwon. Go to your room. I don’t want to see you anymore. Don’t play the victim. Just a waste of a son.”
Sangwon struggles to his feet, fighting the tears. He doesn’t want to let any fall, but he feels the first flow down his cheek, hot against his already warm cheeks. He scoops his backpack up with weak hands, flinching as he walks past his mother.
He closes his bedroom door and cries, silently, into his hands. He can’t call his sister. She understands, yes, but she’s always a little strict, always sides with their mother when it comes to Sangwon. He can’t even call Leo. He can’t bring him into this more than he already is involved.
He thinks about his closet, his haven. He thinks about the lock on the doorknob, no way to get inside if it’s turned. He thinks about the stool that seems moments away from giving underneath Sangwon’s weight. He thinks about the rope, next to the paper towels, and how easily it could hang from the light. It’s not a new thought, one that would cross his mind every time he walked into the closet, but Sangwon realizes he hasn’t had it since Leo started joining him in there. Back then, nobody would miss him. Now, there’s Leo.
Sangwon rolls onto his stomach. Everything aches. His head hurts. His cheeks burn. His eyes won’t stop making tears. His chest. His chest is pounding, heart trying to break out of his ribcage because he can’t keep everything inside anymore. His love. His hate.
He needs to leave.
He lies on his bed for what must be hours until his vision clears and his face is sticky from dried tears. He carefully rolls back over, feet planted on the floor before he stands up. He searches for two duffel bags in the back of his closet and grabs whatever he can, dumping it into the bags. He leaves what he deems unimportant, and his room looks no different than where it started from.
Sangwon stacks the duffels in the corner of his bedroom and crawls under the covers, still in uniform. Graduation is at the end of the week.
✦
[ life’s a long and lovely road ]
── ⋆⋅XXII⋅⋆ ──
Sangwon’s mother dies a week later.
She wasn’t old at all, only 54, dying from heart complications. His sister returns for the funeral, and Sangwon silently carries her suitcase into her old room for her. They arrange the funeral together, with help from some of the aunties.
Sangwon feels odd the whole time, uneasy. He goes to the funeral and sits in the front row of the pews next to Leo. He doesn’t stand up to give a speech. He doesn’t think his mother would like hearing from him.
Sanghee speaks on their behalf, completely composed at the podium as she recounts their mother’s life. She makes her sound like an angel, the socially gifted woman she always was. It almost makes Sangwon forget the house that he lived in.
There’s time for a casket viewing, and Sangwon falls into line with everyone else sitting in the rows of the church. Leo is right behind him, and as Sangwon gets closer to the front, watching Sanghee step forward and look at their mother, his stomach flips.
He steps out of line and turns away, doing his best to ignore the whispers he hears as he walks along the line and out of the building.
✦
[ someone’s standing next to you ]
── ⋆⋅XXIII⋅⋆ ──
Their town brings an assorted spread of food and other goods to the funeral. Sangwon finds a quiet table with Sanghee and Leo, and he eats absentmindedly. They’re near the food, and Sangwon can hear some of the passing conversations as people get food.
“So young,” one of the auntie’s muses as she scoops rice into a bowl. “And Sangwon hasn’t even found work yet.”
“I mean, those kids must have stressed her out,” the second ahjumma that she’s talking to remarks. “Both moving out right after graduation… and you know how they are. She had to deal with them both on her own, and after everything she did for them.”
Sangwon freezes. Sanghee gets a bitter expression on her face, picking at her plate.
“So,” Sanghee begins. “Your friend?”
Right. “This is Leo,” Sangwon introduces. “He’s an old friend from high school.” He doesn’t elaborate further.
Sanghee nods. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you as well, Sanghee.” Leo smiles, easy, natural at starting conversation. “Sangwonie told me you work as a journalist in Busan.”
“Yeah, actually.” Sanghee makes another face, and Sangwon doesn’t know what this one is for this time. “What do you do?”
“I’m a carpenter.”
They fall into an easy rhythm of conversation, and Sangwon just stares down at his plate to eat. He pushes around veggies and meat on his plate until he’s made all the shapes he can think of. He still hasn’t found work here, actually, one of the other reasons he’s sure his mother was stressed dealing with him.
Leo excuses himself to the bathroom, and when he’s gone, Sanghee turns her attention back to Sangwon. “You’re dating, right?”
Sangwon pauses. “We’re friends,” he says slowly.
“Sangwon, I’m your noona. I’m not an idiot.” Sanghee leans closer, lowering her voice as to not alert the people still floating around them. Everyone has given their condolences already, thankfully. “He called you Sangwonie. Nobody calls you that, let alone an old friend from high school. He knows my name and what I do already. And I saw you holding hands in the front row.”
Sangwon spoons rice into his mouth, an excuse to not answer for his crimes. She has a keen eye, of course.
Sanghee sits back in her seat. “You know eomma wanted the best for you, right?”
“My best wasn’t good enough for her,” Sangwon mumbles.
“Well, ultimately, that’s what she wanted.” Sanghee narrows her eyes, but not to berate. It feels like she’s staring directly into Sangwon’s soul. “That’s what I want too, Sangwon. I want you to be proud of yourself. The best for yourself might not be the same as what I see, or what eomma saw.”
Sangwon nods slowly. “What’s your point?”
“You know what my point is.” Sanghee picks up her own spoon and gathers up some rice, also avoiding the conversation the same way Sangwon did. Seems as though the way their mother felt about them wasn’t their only similarity.
✦
[ too many accounts to count ]
── ☆⋅IX⋅☆ ──
There’s something wrong.
Sangwon immediately notices when he arrives at the event hall that Doyun’s family owns and the room seems to go quiet. Not actually quiet, of course, but he knows there are people staring at him.
He wonders if his eyes are still red from how hard he was crying his morning while packing the last of his belongings. He wonders if his suit has a wrinkle in it, when he’d ironed and steamed it meticulously because his mother had insisted that he couldn’t bring any more shame to her. There has to be something on him.
There isn’t. But Sangwon sees Doyun, and everything clicks into place. His mother knew. If his mother knew, then she was absolutely the last to know. Everyone else knows what’s happened.
No.
It’s probably the same story that Sangwon’s mother had told him. That Sangwon forced himself onto Doyun, kissed him when he was unsuspecting. The rumour was no longer a rumour, not when Doyun had provided concrete evidence. Sangwon couldn’t deny kissing him.
He needs to leave. He needs to.
Sangwon turns on his heel and gets stopped by a hand grabbing his wrist. He knows who’s hand this is.
“Hyung,” Sangwon gulps, “I want to go home.”
“No, Sangwon—” Leo steps around him and blocks his path. Sangwon doesn’t look past the blue dress pants and hem of the matching blue blazer that Leo has on. “Look at me. Please.”
Sangwon finds it in him to look up. Leo’s eyes are kind, as always, empathetic, but there’s something underneath that isn’t hidden well in his expression. Hurt.
“I’ve heard things,” he starts, and his grip on Sangwon’s wrist tightens like he’s scared he’ll pull away at that. “But I want to hear them from you.”
Sangwon shrugs. He’s tired. He’s not going to fight a losing battle, where everyone else has already suited up. “Everything you’ve heard is true. I can’t—it’s true. Leo, I kissed Jang Doyun.”
Leo’s expression flickers. “But—”
“It’s true, hyung, I’m sorry.” Sangwon exhales. “I didn’t force myself on him. But I kissed him. I’m sorry.”
Sangwon doesn’t know why he’s apologizing, when there’s no stake, but Leo looks like he needs to be apologized to. He grabs Sangwon’s other wrist, lifting up his hands. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Sangwon gulps. He can feel the eyes on the back of his head. Leo’s own flit past him for a second, half a second, and he never breaks eye contact. Ever.
“We made a promise,” Sangwon whispers. “I never told anyone about it. He said if I told anyone, he’d tell everyone that I like you. I never said anything. I never said anything to you.”
Sangwon realizes his admission as Leo does too, his eyebrows furrowing together. There’s still hurt in his eyes, but there’s hope, and there’s something else but Sangwon can’t read into it because his vision is blurring again, just like it did with his mother.
“Do you?”
Sangwon tenses, frozen. Leo just asked him that. Leo asked, and he’s waiting for an answer, eyes practically sparkling from curiosity, beautifully.
He looks beautiful. Sangwon can’t deny that. The blue is the perfect colour for him, and his hair is getting slightly longer so that it lays in his eyes. It’s almost too long for Sangwon, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks because he’ll be gone by morning. He was going to wait a day, like his sister, but he can’t after this. He should leave Leo with something.
“Yes,” Sangwon whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to kiss him. I thought if I did, he wouldn’t—” the tears come this time. “I thought he wouldn’t say anything. But now my mom knows and—Leo, I’m sorry, I want to go home.”
Leo’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds before he closes it. “Home,” he muses. “Right. I’ll walk you home, Sangwon, it’s my fault that you came. We can talk as we go.”
“Home,” Sangwon murmurs again.
“Yes, home, I just—” Leo looks around. “Look, I need to deal with something, okay? Stay right here, please, Sangwon. Don’t leave.”
Leo walks away, into the crowd, and Sangwon manages to lift his head enough to watch him walk off. It’s not a large crowd by any means, their graduating class barely 15 people, but Sangwon’s blinded by the tears in his eyes and it’s taking too long. He just wants to go home, get his things, and leave.
Don’t leave.
Sangwon turns back around and runs out of the doors.
✦
[ missing you is hard ]
── ⋆⋅XXIV⋅⋆ ──
Life without Sangwon’s mother is different. Quieter. Of course, he has Sanghee living with him for the next while, but it’s so quiet. Sangwon doesn’t have to walk on eggshells anymore.
But it’s hard to realize she’s truly gone. There’s no one cooking eggs when Sangwon wakes up. There’s no missing shoes in the early afternoon, only her indoor slippers remaining. And when Sangwon gets home, Sanghee is the one making dinner, though its usually just takeout from a nearby shop.
Sangwon can’t bear to be at home. If he and Leo were seeing each other every other day, they see each other every day after his mom dies. Sangwon goes through the motions, greeting Leo before resting his head on his shoulder and not moving a muscle after that. Leo practically has to start spoon feeding him in order to keep Sangwon alive.
He constantly wonders if those aunties were right. Sangwon’s mother had so much to deal with. His sister, of course, but she wasn’t there when she died. It was only him. Sangwon’s mother probably died fully disappointed in him.
“Sangwonie, open your mouth,” Leo commands, pressing the spoon against Sangwon’s mouth. Sangwon complies, opening just enough, and waiting for Leo to retract the spoon before chewing. He’s slow, swallowing like it’s a chore. It is.
Leo pats Sangwon’s cheek. “Say what’s on your mind.”
Sangwon sighs. “I feel like I’m supposed to be happy about this.”
“She’s your mother, Sangwon.” Leo frowns. “You can grieve.”
“I know, but…” Sangwon shakes his head. “She never once showed me that she wanted me as her son. She used to hit me, hyung. And yet…”
Leo’s face changes. “She’d hit you?” Sangwon hadn’t told him about that yet, clearly.
“When she found out about us, and a couple times in the week after that…” Sangwon remembers bringing out his long sleeves to conceal the bruises that were forming. His decision to leave was long solidified by then, so he’d told himself to just endure it. “But then I should be happy that she died. But all I can think is that she must’ve been so… frustrated. She died mad at me. And I’m absolutely nothing without her.”
“You’re not nothing.” Leo lifts Sangwon’s hand and presses a quick kiss to the back of it. “I’m not going to tell you it isn’t hard to move on. It really is. But you have to find out who you are without that person in your life.”
Right. Leo’s parents were dead. “I’m sorry about your parents,” Sangwon says. “I guess I don’t have to imagine anymore.”
Leo looks out into space, and Sangwon can see the shine of tears forming in his eyes. “I miss them a lot,” Leo says, voice breaking. “It was probably the hardest time in my life, losing them. They did a lot for me. They held a sizable spot in my heart.” He pauses. “They still do. But just because they did a lot for me didn’t mean I didn’t do anything myself. They’re in my heart, always, but there’s other things that can join them too.”
Leo dabs at his eyes. “I try not to think about their death too much,” he says honestly. “I don’t like it. I try to just think of the amount of fun we had and what they gave me. They gave me a place to stay here,” Leo pauses, “where I could meet you again. It’ll definitely be different for you and your mom, just because of how she treated you, but the same principles apply. Find what goes in your heart. Find out who you are without her. And I’m so sorry she treated you that way.”
Sangwon blinks, slowly. Leo’s very right, as he always is. He’s told Sangwon that he’s his everything before, but Sangwon has always wondered how he can be that when he has nothing to give. He clearly has something, if Leo feels that way. He hadn’t even met his mother.
“I’m sorry I never got to meet your parents,” Sangwon says. “You used to tell me I’d love them.”
“I know they’d love you. They do.”
Leo begins telling a story about his parents, namely a road trip that they and his sister went on. He provides anecdotes, between hunting for restaurants in Australia with his dad or losing at bowling to his mother. Sanwon listens attentively to the stories, the way Leo’s face lights up as he recounts them, and finds a smile adorning his own face as well.
✦
[ i hope your house becomes a home ]
── ⋆⋅XXV⋅⋆ ──
Sanghee leaves after three weeks.
It’s just the two of them, Sangwon asking if Sanghee needs a ride to the bus station and Sanghee insisting that she’s fine. Still, she orders Sangwon to walk her part of the way there, and Sangwon will take that.
“How’s Leo?” Sanghee asks.
“Why do you ask?”
Sanghee groans. “Just answer.”
Sangwon, in a twist that even surprises himself, tells the truth. “He’s okay. This whole thing just reminded him of when he lost his parents.”
“Oh, really?” Sanghee leans forwards. “How long?”
“A year ago, I think.” Sangwon doesn’t address how horrible he feels for being nowhere nearby nor aware. “I don’t know how they died. Leo doesn’t like talking about their deaths.”
Sanghee nods, understanding. “Did he tell you about life with them?”
Sangwon nods. “He says it makes him feel better to think about them that way. He told me that losing them was both really difficult and opened his eyes on his own character.”
Sanghee hums softly. They’re approaching the corner that they agreed to split at. She pulls her suitcase until it’s right beside her, pausing.
“Do you know why I'm so hard on you?” she asks.
“Huh?” Sangwon replies.
“You know what I mean. I've been talking to you like mom does. I like seeing you problem solve. But that’s not why.”
Sanghee shakes her head, pacing a hand on each of Samgwon’s shoulders. “The exact same thing Leo said. I want you to find yourself, Sangwon-ah. You don’t have to live for her anymore unless you want to.”
Sangwon nods slowly.
“Find new people, Sangwon. Your people. I know she valued success, so find a way to succeed in your own space. Make friends. Find a boyfriend, though I know you have that one covered. But never stop being ambitious.”
She grabs her suitcase and begins up the hill before turning. “You have nothing to lose, Sangwon,” she says. “You have a circle. Don’t forget that.”
She finally goes up the hill, and Sangwon half expects her to turn around. She doesn’t, and Sangwon watches her backside until it disappears over the top of the hill.
✦
[ all this effort wasted ]
── ☆⋅X⋅☆ ──
Sangwon’s mother isn’t home when he leaves.
Good. He doesn’t know what he’d say to her, how to form his goodbyes. He’d spent most of his time over the week trying to figure out a way to say what he wanted to. Eventually, the note that he left on the kitchen table was Gone to Seoul. No see you later. Sangwon didn’t want to make a promise like that to her.
He walks 30 minutes to the station and there’s a night bus running, thankfully, just as he’d expected. He buys a ticket at the booth and waits alone on the platform, waiting for it to come.
It takes another 40 minutes for the bus to arrive, and Sangwon stacks his duffels before finding a seat. The bus is mostly empty, and he snags a window spot near the front. There’s a small blanket and pillow provided, and he lays out the blanket over his lap. He doesn’t even know if he remembered to pack a jacket.
His hometown disappears quickly from view. His mother will probably be glad that he’s gone, as alone as she may be inside the house. His sister is only a call away, and maybe she’ll be more understanding with Sangwon now that he’s moved out. Doyun… Sangwon doesn’t even know where he is.
And Leo.
Sangwon feels his chest tug when he thinks about Leo. He’ll be heartbroken. That’s undeniable. Sangwon had told Leo that he was travelling to Seoul for university, of course, but he’d never gotten that last hurrah that he’d promised. He didn’t even get to say goodbye properly, utilising the one moment where Leo strayed from his side. He’d confessed, yes, and he didn’t even let himself hear the rejection from Leo’s own lips.
Don’t leave. The most simple instruction, and Sangwon hadn’t followed it.
Maybe he was the problem his mother said he’d become. She was right, about a lot of things. Sangwon was a waste of a son. He should’ve used that rope and stool while he still had it on hand. It wouldn't be difficult to stage an accident in Seoul, would it?
Sangwon didn’t deserve to like Leo. Leo deserved someone better, a nice girl or someone that meshed well with him. Sangwon never matched his honesty. Sangwon couldn’t even follow one request. Leo never found out where he lived, so he had no leads, and now he was even more tainted because he was so associated with Sangwon.
Sangwon hopes that Leo won’t miss him too much when he’s gone. He should find someone better to be friends with. He was social. He’d be fine.
Sangwon stares out of the window. Leo will be fine without him. He isn’t as confident about the other way around, but he has no choice anyways.
It’s for the best. For his best.
✦
[ play it loud ]
── ⋆⋅XXVI⋅⋆ ──
Leo pulls the door to Bluelight open, allowing Sangwon to enter before him. Anxin is behind the counter, as regular, but he’s not alone this time. Three heads turn towards the door, one guy looking around Anxin’s age and the others closer to Leo and Sangwon’s.
“Ah, hyungs!” Anxin beams. “I missed you guys.”
“Funeral,” Sangwon explains.
Anxin’s face falls at that. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m…” Sangwon isn’t exactly over it. “…Managing.”
Anxin nods. “Right, guests.” He jumps over the counter, ignoring the counter door two steps away. “This is Jiahao, my cousin, Junseo, his boyfriend, and Sanghyeon, his friend.” He gestures carefully as he says their names, and Sangwon’s eyes follow. He remembers how Anxin told him how he’d met Leo, and Sanghyeon must be the friend in question from that story.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sangwon says, sliding into a nearby seat. “I think Anxin’s mentioned you before.”
“Sanghyeonie!” Leo reaches a hand out, and Sanghyeon claps it smoothly. “Long time no see.”
“Nice to see you, hyung.” Sanghyeon replies. “Who’s this?”
Right. Sangwon clears his throat. “I’m Sangwon. I’m, uh…” he glances at Leo. “Leo’s boyfriend.”
He definitely blushes as he talks, because Leo pulls him tightly to his chest. “My aegi,” he coos, and Sangwon definitely blushes harder at the sudden nickname.
Anxin’s jaw drops. “You guys didn’t tell me you were dating. Well, I assumed, of course, because you guys kiss in front of me all the time, but still. I used to think Junseo and Jiahao were bad.”
Sanghyeon’s eyebrows raise. “You’re worse than them?”
“Just watch me.” Leo cranes his neck down, cupping Sangwon’s face with a hand. He kisses Sangwon’s cheek, just under his eye, then his forehead, then his nose, and down to his lips.
Anxin screams. Sanghyeon jumps to cover his eyes, and Sangwon tries to pull away but Leo won’t stop kissing him. He sputters, finally freeing himself, and covers the bottom half of his face to try and conceal his blush.
“Point made,” Anxin mutters. “You’re clearly jolly, I get it.”
“I love him,” Leo professes.
Everyone groans at how corny Leo’s acting, but it disguises Sangwon whispering back an I love you too. He’s not used to being praised so openly, flaunted around proudly.
“Gross,” Sanghyeon gags especially loudly.
“Hey.” Leo glares at him. “I know how you and—”
“Shut it!” Anxin interrupts, reddening quickly. “Anyways, how are you, Sangwon?”
Sangwon shrugs. “Fine. Looking for work now that my mom’s gone, I guess.”
Junseo nods slowly. “You know, my harabeoji runs the bookstore down the street. I could put in a good word for you.”
The bookstore. Sangwon spent days on end there, and he had no idea Junseo’s family was associated with it. Just how much did they own here?
“You make everyone into a nepo baby,” Jiahao points out.
Junseo shrugs. “Everyone here knows someone.”
“Would you really?” Sangwon asks.
“It’s no big deal. Friends help friends.” Junseo pauses. “Are we friends?”
“I hope so!” Anxin chirps. “I mean, you guys are all my friends. And it would be really cool if my friends could be friends. There aren’t many young people here, you know.”
Sangwon nods, slowly. “I don’t have a lot of those.”
“Not true anymore.” Leo wraps an arm around Sangwon. “I’ve told you before, Sangwon.”
“What?”
“You know what I’m going to say.”
Sangwon looks Leo in the eyes. He does, somehow. You are so loved, Sangwon. There’s him. There’s Sanghee. There’s Anxin, and in turn, there’s Sanghyeon, Jiahao, and Junseo. And he might feel like he doesn’t deserve him, but he still has them whichever way he decides to think.
“Fuck this.”
Jiahao launches himself off the table he’s sitting on and stalks over to Junseo, kissing him square on the lips.
Sanghyeon screams this time. Anxin buries his head in his hands. “Oh my god, I’m at work. Please don’t.”
Sangwon laughs.
✦
[ i love you and you should know ]
── ⋆⋅XXVII⋅⋆ ──
“I never actually went up here,” Leo remarks, following Sangwon up the final flight of stairs
Sangwon shrugs. “You spent all your time with me, and I spent all my time inside that closet.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to visit it?”
“Yes, hyung.” Sangwon pushes open the door at the stop of the stairs, flinching at the bright light that hits their eyes. He opens the door further, allowing Leo to enter after him.
Sangwon hasn’t been on the roof of their high school in years, actually, aside from the obvious five. It still feels the same, and there’s still that old bench that he used to sit on and look out at the edge of the roof, thinking about taking steps closer.
He grabs Leo’s hand.
“Nice bench,” Leo comments, sitting down. “Was this your old spot?”
“I think so,” Sangwon answers. “I don’t really remember much before I met you.”
Leo chuckles softly. “Is it crazy to say I’m the same?”
Sangwon pauses.
“I mean, Australia was fun and all. I talked to people.” Leo turns to face Sangwon. “But nobody had the same effect on me as you did. I mean, I stopped dead in my tracks because I thought you were so pretty.”
“Really?” Sangwon tries to think hard. “You seemed pretty fine when we met.”
Leo shakes his head. “No, not when we met. When I first saw you. On the first day. I couldn’t stop staring.”
“But I was—” Sangwon pauses. He had been paying attention to Leo, yes, but he’d stopped when Leo was assigned his seat and focused instead on pulling out his notebooks and pens. He supposes between the space between the front of the classroom and his desk, Leo could’ve been staring. “Oh.”
“You’ve always been so beautiful, Sangwon.” Leo cards his fingers through Sangwon’s hair. “Why do you think I was always touching you? I kept touching your face because there were so many times where I just wanted to kiss you in the middle of you talking. But then I’d look in your eyes and get so distracted by how pretty they are.”
Sangwon blushes, turning his face away from Leo. “Stop it.”
“Oh, but it’s true.” Leo interlocks their fingers over Sangwon’s lap.
“No, but hyung.” Sangwon turns back to face him. “You were so… you are so hot.”
Leo laughs, from his belly, doubling over as he squeezes Sangwon’s hand. “You’re adorable.”
“Really, hyung.” Sangwon casts aside his shame and embarrassment for his moment. “You’re attractive. Yes, you have a handsome face, but you have a beautiful soul. Your character is just so… rare.”
“Yours is, Sangwon.”
“Do you always have to one-up me?”
“I guess not.” And Leo actually goes quiet at that, and Sangwon decides he’s won their miniature argument.
He closes his eyes and leans back, feeling the soft breeze blowing amid the warm hug of the sunlight. He breathes in, slowly, and exhales from his mouth.
Sangwon opens his eyes again and looks at where he and Leo are holding hands.
“Are you happy, hyung?”
“I’ve never been happier in my life.” Leo’s eyes are also closed, and he opens them to look at Sangwon. “I have everything.” He squeezes Sangwon’s hand.
Sangwon sighs, looking forward and resting his head on Leo’s shoulder. “Me too,” he decides. “Somewhere. I’m just not sure where.”
Leo detaches their hands to pull Sangwon closer, an arm around him, pressing them together until Sangwon isn’t quite sure where he ends and Leo begins. He would do anything to stay like this, bound as one forever, connected in mind and body. Leo’s always understood him that way, even when Sangwon has been unable to find the words. Sangwon knows what Leo wants to say just from him thinking it. When he looks into his eyes, he sees emotions, feelings, and everything that lives between them and is kept secret from the world.
Leo nods slowly. “Somewhere,” he muses.