Chapter Text
It all started on the foggiest of days, back in their senior year of high school. It was somewhere near the beginning of the school year, but far enough that nobody wanted to be there.
"Class! We have a new student joining our class," their teacher loudly called. "Ricky, you can come in now."
What has to be mentioned is that Gyuvin had a fragile heart back then (well, he still does). He fell in love too easily, fell out of love too easily. It was so common that whenever he'd announce a new temporary crush to his friends, they’d tease him for a few moments and then instantly start making bets on how long it'd take for him to fall out of love.
So when he laid eyes on the hair that was jet black, a handsome face like the prince of a fairytale, and the proportions of a model, he found himself falling head-first. Really, it was unfair. He had a weak spot for tall, pretty people. There was no way he wasn’t going to fall in love at first sight.
The betting started at lunch.
"Four days," Junhyeon said as soon as he put his tray down.
Gunwook shook his head. "No, Ricky's hotter than that. Gyuvin has to admire his eye candy first. One week, he'll fall out of love after the weekend."
"I think it might take two weeks, even," Seungeon commented.
"Hey, can I sit here?"
All the heads at the table (Gyuvin, Yujin, Seungeon, Jihoo, Gunwook, Junghyun, and Junhyeon) whipped to where none other than Shen Ricky stood before them, hair slicked back into an unmoving being. Gyuvin wanted to touch it. He was conscious enough not to.
"Yeah!" he responded instead, scooting over for the other to sit beside him.
Ricky smiled at him. "Thanks. You guys looked reliable and nice, so I thought it'd be better to make friends than to sit all by myself."
Gunwook waved at the blonde. "You're Ricky, right? I'm Gunwook, this is Seungeon, that's Yujin, that's Jihoo, that's Junhyeon, and that's Junghyun. Oh, and the dork sitting beside you is Gyuvin."
Gyuvin smiled widely, eyes never leaving Ricky. "I'm the only name you really need to remember."
"Oh, by the way, you have an accent when you speak. Can I ask where you're from?" Seungeon asked.
Ricky nodded. "I was born in China, but I transferred here from America."
The whole table erupted in a chorus of "Wooow."
"So you can speak English?" Gyuvin asked.
"Yup. Can you?"
"Just a little bit. Gunwook probably speaks better than me."
Gunwook smirked. "You know it," he responded in English, flexing his skills.
That was the mark of everything. From then on, Gyuvin and Ricky were connected at the hip. The only time anyone would find them apart was during the two classes they didn't share together. They walked to Gyuvin's bus stop together, they walked to school together, they went everywhere together. Speculations started going around that they were dating, to which they would make eye contact and burst into laughter, but wouldn't give a straight answer about it.
The bets went from one week to two weeks to a month to a year, until eventually, the two biggest bets were set on Jihoo's guess of the week they graduate and Junhyeon's guess of exactly a week after Ricky would reject him. Eventually, almost the entire school was involved in the betting pool, even some teachers, and every student knew about the infamous not-couple that was Ricky and Gyuvin.
Unfortunately for all those who bet on Jihoo and Junhyeon's guesses, neither were right, because on February 14, Shen Ricky confessed to Kim Gyuvin.
While the two were lost in their own world, Yujin silently collected all the money owed to him for accurately predicting their relationship.
Gyuvin and Ricky, titled "Shimkongz" or “Gyuricky” by the entire student body, stayed together for the rest of their senior year, and then for most of their freshman year of college.
So it was a surprise to Gyuvin on April 3, when they met up at a coffee shop, sat outside with their drinks, and the first thing out of Ricky's mouth was, "I'm breaking up with you."
It was a scenario that Gyuvin imagined sometimes, on nights when things were a little too quiet and his thoughts were a little too loud. It was a line that played in his mind, one that could instantly bring him to tears. If he watched a k-drama where a couple broke up, he'd burst into sobs and make Ricky promise that that would never be them.
(How ironic.)
As expected, tears instantly jumped to Gyuvin's eyes. "What do you mean, you're breaking up with me?" The words were too loud, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Ricky looked down, as if he wished to bury himself into his chair to avoid Gyuvin's stare. "I can't do this anymore."
"Why?" Gyuvin's voice cracked as he blinked back tears. "Was it something I did? Please, I can fix it, just don't—"
"I'm not in love with you anymore. That's it," Ricky said, voice rising above the thousands of thoughts in Gyuvin's mind. He took a deep breath and got quiet again. "I can't keep faking this. It's better if we just part ways."
"Faking this?" Anger seeped into his words as a tear finally dropped down his face. "Oh. So it was just an act. You and me were just a fucking lie to you." He knew that he was drawing attention with his ever-rising voice and the droplets cascading from his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Wasn't it fun to play me as the fool? Maybe you should go get a job as an actor, I think you'd have a successful career!"
"Gyuvin, don't be like this—-”
"Sorry, Ricky, but I'm not as good of a faker as you are. I can't mask the overpowering amounts of rage that I'm feeling right now for the sake of saving you public face." He stood up and grabbed his iced coffee, opening the lid and dumping the contents over Ricky's head. "Well, goodbye then, Shen Quanrui. I hope you're fucking satisfied with this ending."
"I'm gonna kill him."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am. You said that you guys ended on spectacular terms! What kind of a spectacular term is that?"
Gyuvin rolled his eyes. "It doesn't even matter anymore, Taerae. It happened ages ago."
Taerae scoffed. "Eight months is not equivalent to ages ago."
"Nine exactly, today."
"And you fucking keep track of the days!" Taerae dropped onto his bed in frustration. "You locked yourself in your room for weeks when you guys broke up! I had to break into your dorm to get you outside! Mom thought you died!"
Gyuvin bitterly smiled. "Ricky keeps track of the days too. We used to do it when we dated. We never missed a single anniversary." He sighed and moved from the desk chair to Taerae's bed, laying his head on the older's lap. "Is it bad that I want to believe him this time too?"
Taerae's anger melted slowly as he habitually ran his fingers through Gyuvin's hair. "Do you know that Hanbin confessed to me multiple times throughout the time we fake dated? He said things like, 'I love you,' and, he kissed me all the time, and he'd grab my hand under the table even though nobody could see. But I always thought that it was fake, because in my mind, he had no reason to not be faking."
"...Oh."
"You're allowed to want to believe him. I really don't like what he did, but even if you don't want to go back to him, it might be nice to get clarity on the situation. And maybe he's being genuine about everything. It's up to you whether or not you actually forgive him or not."
Gyuvin nodded, contemplating Taerae's words. "I will forgive him. I just need time."
Taerae smiled softly. "Take all the time you need."
And that was exactly what Gyuvin did.
Ricky didn't hear from Gyuvin for a week after the party, and then some, and then it was Valentine's Day. He had long given up hope. Why would Gyuvin forgive him, anyways?
It was a spiral of thoughts and memories; some of Gyuvin, some of his parents when he was little and they were happy, some of the party.
'I don't deserve to love him. I'm just like Dad, I'm—'
"Shen Quanrui, open your fucking door!"
Ricky sat up abruptly. "Go away!"
He could picture Hao's angry face outside the door. "Who are you, Elsa? You'd better open up, because unlike Anna, I can kick down a do—"
The door swung open, revealing Hao with his angry emoji hair clip and Hanbin, holding a key.
"The junk drawer has a spare of all our keys," Hanbin explained plainly.
Hao narrowed his eyes, marched over to Ricky's bed, and sat himself down. "You are telling us what's going through that head of yours, because you've locked yourself in here since yesterday. Have you been skipping class? You better not be."
Hanbin sat on the other side, both of them caging the younger in. "Love, let him think."
Ricky considered how he would escape this situation. He could run away when they were least expecting. Or not, one look at Hao shook off that thought. He could do a backwards somersault and roll out the window. But he wasn’t agile enough for that. He'd have to comply with them.
"We broke up because I told him that I fell out of love with him and that I couldn't keep faking it."
Hao and Hanbin had to take a second to let that sink in, because neither would've expected those to be the first words out of Ricky's mouth. Ricky slightly took pride in how he finally made someone surprised. "Did you mean it?" Hanbin asked.
Ricky shook his head. "No. It was for his sake. A few weeks before the breakup, I was with Mom. She had a hair appointment and wanted to 'build our public image' or whatever. And then she started talking about Dad. Saying stuff about how all men are the same, and how if I kept being so nice to people, I'd get hurt too. You know. Comparing every guy to Dad per usual. But I started to get really paranoid that maybe Gyuvin would actually be like that. Or even worse, I'd hurt him. So I decided that..." His voice went so soft that both Hao and Hanbin had to lean in to hear. "It'd be better to break up with him in a harsh way that would make him hate me forever than risk me hurting him in the future, when it would hurt even more. And also...it'd protect me from being broken up with first."
The two around him were quiet for a moment until Hao spoke up. "What gives you the right to think for him?"
"Huh?"
"You said that it's for his sake. You broke up with him to avoid hurting him. Did he ever say that he was scared of that? You have all that inner monologue, but all he knows is that you apparently faked being in love with him. I think the way you broke up with him would hurt him more than if you just told him your worries."
Hanbin nodded. "You like Gyuvin too much to be like your father, Gyuvin likes you too much too. He looks at you like you personally hung the stars in the sky. Don't give that up for an imaginary image of him.”
Oh.
"Okay. I'm...I'm gonna go for a walk. I need to organize my thoughts."
Hao didn't let Ricky leave the house without a tight hug. "Don't wait too long to fix this."
"I won't," Ricky whispered, hoping that it wasn't too late already.
Gyuvin stared at his phone.
Valentine's Day. The very day that he and Ricky had started dating, back when they were both seventeen.
Taerae's word played in his mind, over and over as he turned his phone in his hand, almost dropping it on his face at one point.
Finally, he opened his texts and typed one out, before deleting it. Type, delete. Type, delete. Type, accidentally send— wait, what?
eumppappa's father
hi
He couldn't take it back at that point, so he just waited. And waited. And waited.
He waited for about five minutes before calling him, just to get no answer. After calling him a few more times, he got really worried. Ricky always answered his texts and calls.
He scrolled down his contacts and called someone else.
"Hello?"
"Hanbin. Is Ricky there?"
"Uh...no. He left a while ago. Went on a walk—"
Gyuvin immediately hung up and grabbed his shoes and an umbrella. He ran out the door, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone else in the house.
It was pouring down heavily, so much so that the umbrella could almost be deemed useless. He went to cross the street, but paused as he saw a young lady under a fort, frowning heavily at the rain.
He sighed and walked over to her, handing over his umbrella. "Here. It won't do much, but you seem like you could use it."
She gasped and took with a smile lighting up her face. "Aren't you sweet! Just for this, I'll tell you a secret." She moved closer, tall heels bringing her up to his height. "He's at the place where he first fell in love with you."
Gyuvin's mind froze. "Excuse me?"
But she was already walking off. He went to run after her, but a car drove between them, and when it passed, she was gone.
If he had more than three brain cells, he'd probably question that happening a lot more, but he in fact didn't have more than three brain cells, so he focused on Ricky and ran to their high school. The campus didn't have a lot of students, as school had probably ended already. So nobody was there to judge him as he ran through the yard, screaming Ricky's name.
He searched up and down the school, inside and outside, but couldn't find the blonde. His memories raced, considering possible places that Ricky could've fallen in love with him. Finally, he ran out of space to go. There was nowhere else. Not the lockers, where he first confessed, not the cafeteria where they first met, not the classrooms where they always would spend their breaks eating bread, not even under the bleachers where they first kissed.
His heart sank as he finally sat on the front steps again, right where he started, with no sign of that light hair and cocky smirk and handsome face and—
'Maybe he never loved you to begin with. So of course he's not here.'
Gyuvin's thoughts, swirling around his head, repeating the name Ricky over and over again, all came to a complete stop. They were instantly replaced by the realization he had. His emotions stopped working, and he instantly started laughing and crying and hyperventilating all at once. The rain was pouring over him, but he couldn't find it in him to care. He held his hands over his ears, as if they could block out his own mind.
Maybe it was karma. He'd faked things too much, lied to people for the sake of himself, waited too long to come clean, and now he was paying for it all. Or maybe the people in the heaven above were laughing in his face as if he were some entertaining show.
He could hardly process the hands prying his own off his ears, or the yelling in his ear.
" ...vin. Gyuvin!"
With a shrill gasp, he was shot back into the real world. Holding his face was a familiar face, but it took him a few seconds to recognize it through the tears.
"Ricky?"
The blonde was crouched before Gyuvin, scanning him up and down, with his eyebrows furrowed in something like worry. "Shit, you're freezing."
Gyuvin looked around and realized that it was still raining, and he was drenched. He then realized that Ricky looked as if he'd taken a bath in his clothes, and quickly scrambled to remove his jacket.
"What are you doing?"
"You don't have an umbrella," Gyuvin replied, voice wavering as he placed the jacket across Ricky's shoulders.
Ricky didn't look impressed at all. "You're literally just as soaked as I am, and you don't have an umbrella either. What are you doing here?"
"I was looking for you. Someone told me that I'd find you where you first fell in love with me, so I was looking everywhere I could think of, and I couldn't find you, and—"
"Deep breaths."
"Right." Gyuvin took in a few breaths of air, giving himself space to organize his thoughts. The rain was just a drizzle at that point. "I was thinking that maybe you never loved me after all. But now you're here, and..." He broke off and buried his head into Ricky's shirt, tears and rain together soaking it.
Ricky ran his hand up and down the other's back. "Go ahead and scream at me. Swear me out. Just say everything while we're here."
Gyuvin cried even harder. "You approached me first. You sat down next to us. You confessed to me. I would've gotten over it if it weren't for you coming up to me. And then you just went and lost feelings. So it's not fucking fair—" he paused to inhale sharply— "it's not fair that you get to shove your way back into my life with a drunk text of all things and ruin everything I've done to get over you! And it's also not fair that you don't answer my calls and texts after worming your way back into my heart! You can't do that! You can't—you—"
The words choked in his throat, buried underneath loud sobs. The rain had picked back up, drenching the two of them. It was warm compared to their freezing skin.
"Gyuvin, can you come with me? I want to show you something."
Gyuvin let himself be pulled up. He leaned against Ricky, not bothering to carry his own body weight. Eventually, they reached a familiar area of the schoolyard.
"Why are we in the school garden?"
Ricky smiled softly. "I doubt you remember, but your elective was gardening. And one day, I had to come give something to Ms. Sunmi, and you were up there. There was a bird who hurt its wings, and you were cradling it in your hands. You didn't even notice me up there because you were so worried about the bird. That's when I first fell in love with you."
Gyuvin scanned his memory, but could only remember naming the bird Joseph Freedom and making it their class pet, only for him to fly away a few weeks later. There was no blonde hair on that rooftop, and he could even remember Ricky asking about the bird when he saw it in the classroom.
"That's not another lie too, is it?"
Gyuvin knew it wasn't, but there was no way it was this easy. Not after all they'd been through. He wouldn't let Ricky back in without a fight.
“I never faked loving you. I was scared. Scared that you'd end up like my dad, or I would. I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't want to get hurt. So I wanted to hurt you so that you would hate me. Then we wouldn't be able to hurt each other. Stupid, isn't it?"
"Why should I believe you?"
"You don't have to. I'm not forcing you to do anything anymore. This is the plain truth, and it's up to you to choose what you want to do with it."
Gyuvin wanted to believe it. He really did, but he still dug for more to question, more to doubt. “Why didn’t you answer my text or my calls?”
Ricky dug his phone out of his pocket and showed it to the other. "My phone died on the way over here.”
“Oh.” Gyuvin looked down. One last question. One last doubt, and then he’d be ready to embrace his true heart. "So what you told me during New Years wasn't a lie?"
Ricky nodded. "I like you. Actually, even more than just like."
Gyuvin took in the words, let them settle in his heart. Finally, he looked back into the other's eyes. "I really like you too. Much more than like. I don't think we can be on boyfriend status yet, but...are you free this Saturday? I want to bake a Valentine's cake."
"Kim Gyuvin, are you asking me on a baking date?" Ricky asked, a smile growing on his lips.
Gyuvin shrugged. "Maybe I am." He wiped his eyes, laughing a little bit. "Are my eyes puffy? I probably look ridiculous. I'm kind of embarrassed now. I just bawled my eyes out in front of my old high school. That's permanently on the security cameras now."
Ricky placed his hands on both sides of Gyuvin's face and leaned in, gently kissing right underneath his eyes, where both current and past tears had dried up. "You're beautiful even if you cry."
"Oh shut up, you flatterer."
They bickered gently as the rain came to a full stop. In the sky, the sun was setting, painting them both in the most beautiful golden light.
That evening, all the smiles that Ricky had to give were genuine and from the bottom of his heart. And that evening, Gyuvin's permanent teardrops only visible to Ricky finally disappeared completely.
("So you're telling me that you gave some random girl on the street your umbrella, and she told you that I was where I first fell in love with you?"
"Yes! I swear, I'm not crazy. She was wearing a pink dress, and had heart earrings, her heels were bright pink, the whole Valentines getup. I cannot make this up."
"Dude, you literally met, like, Cupid or something."
"Woah.")