Chapter Text
Minwoo first sees him in passing, a blur in the corner of his vision as he rushes across campus to make it to class on time. At first, he almost doesn’t believe it. He slows, the flow of students pressing past him, and then he stops altogether.
Skylar.
He’s almost unrecognisable. The boy Minwoo remembers was all shadowed glances and slouched shoulders, but this one… this one stands in the light, laughter spilling from his mouth as easily as breath, surrounded by friends who lean toward him like planets orbiting a steady sun.
His hair is shorter now, neat and deliberate, no longer falling in messy strands that obscured those godforsaken eyes. Eyes that had once burned too brightly, and then dulled. Minwoo remembers them that way most of all, like a painting left too long without varnish, colours muted, life drained.
But here, Skylar looks nothing like that memory. He looks alive.
Minwoo remembers when he last saw that expression grace Skylar’s face. It feels like forever ago, and the memory has grown hazy.
Skylar and his crew have already left his field of vision by the time Minwoo is snapped out of his trance. He swallows the bitter bile clawing up his throat, acid and shame burning together, and turns away. There’s no point going to class in this state.
Sleep never came to Minwoo easily, and this night, sleep is entirely lost on him. Every time he closes his eyes, Skylar’s face burns behind his eyelids. Not the broken boy he remembers (the broken boy Minwoo himself had turned him into) but the one he saw today. Alive and radiant. The stark contrast cuts deeper than any insult ever could.
That was once them.
He rolls over. Stares at the blank wall. Tosses the blanket off, then drags it back over him minutes later. His chest feels too tight, like there’s something lodged there.
There’s no one left in his life that knows of Skylar. To be honest, there’s nobody left in his life at all. After the passing of his mother, Minwoo’s world sobered in a manner that simply hadn’t before.
She had loved Skylar, adored him, even, and when the truth of Minwoo’s cruelty came to light, it was her who had finally drawn the line.
She had stood in the doorway, arms crossed, voice trembling not with anger but with anguish and disappointment. “I don’t know what happened to you, Minwoo. He was such a good boy. Why… why couldn’t you—“
That was the last conversation they ever had before she made him leave. He never returned, never swallowed his pride long enough to try, never offered the apology she so desperately needed to hear. By the time news of her car accident reached him, it was too late. She was gone, and the chance to reconcile went with her.
The night isn’t ending, and his thoughts are running rampant. He wants to suppress any memory of Skylar, bury them six feet under where they’ve belonged all these years, but this chance glimpse has cracked the coffin open. As if maggots are spilling out of his rotten chest. And fuck, he can’t stop circling back to that drunken kiss he never let go of.
He still remembers the weight of it. Soft, clumsy, uninvited. Wrong. Every alarm in his body went off, not because it was Skylar, but because it was him, Minwoo, the one caught wanting.
That was the part he couldn’t stomach. Not Skylar’s lips, not the alcohol on his breath, not the silence after. But the way some hidden, hungry thing inside of him had lit up. The way his pulse had betrayed him. The way a corner of his heart, the part he never showed anyone, whispered yes, claim him.
And he hated it. Hated himself.
Disgust had wrapped itself around him like barbed wire. If he could hurt Skylar, maybe he could carve the weakness out of himself. If he could make Skylar hurt, maybe he could silence the unbearable thrum in his own chest.
They were both boys after all. How repulsive, to yearn for another boy's kiss.
But as time went on, the longing for Skylar had only began to fester and escalate, like an infection. And with that, Minwoo’s violence ascended as well.
But, Minwoo thinks, the kiss had been such a violation of his person. Minwoo had been asleep after all.
(But he had wanted it. Wanteditsobadly it made his stomach lurch. The heat, the shock, the way his heartbeat had stuttered. And the utter shame that clung like venom afterwards.)
Days later, Minwoo drags himself back to campus. After years of curiosity he has finally given in and scrolled, searched, and obsessed over Skylar in every corner of the internet, yet none of it fills the ache inside. Nothing replaces the brief, sunlit glimpse of him laughing and alive.
He’s not ashamed to admit he’s begun shadowing Skylar around on campus. The library, the cafeteria, the soccer field et cetera.
And then Minwoo notices someone new. A boy who seems to hover around Skylar more than the others, always near, always leaving behind lingering touches. And Skylar doesn’t even push him away, if anything, he smiles slyly and ducks his head. This stranger has Skylar’s attention in a way that Minwoo used to take for granted.
It stings.
Minwoo stands on the edge of the soccer field, hoodie pulled low over his face, watching Skylar again, of course. The game carries on around him, players shouting and running, but he barely notices. All he can see is Skylar, the curve of his jaw, the way his hair sticks to damp skin.
The ball is kicked out of bounds, and the game pauses. Skylar steps back, adjusting his shorts, oblivious to anything beyond the field. Minwoo’s eyes are fixed on the way Skylar then lifts the hem of his shirt to wipe sweat from his brow.
And then:
“Watching him, huh?”
Minwoo jumps, heart hammering. He hadn’t heard anyone approach.
The voice is low and hostile. Minwoo looks up to see a man standing there, the same one who hovers around Skylar. He’s the same height as Minwoo, but somehow, he looks impossibly taller, broader, exuding confidence like a wall.
“Excuse me?” Minwoo stammers, voice tight, trying to pull his hoodie tighter around himself.
“You heard me,” the boy says as he steps closer while smiling in an unfriendly manner. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Minwoo answers as he inches away.
The boy smirks and inches closer, unimpressed. “You think I haven’t noticed you watching us secretly this entire week? What are you, some sort of pervert?”
Minwoo recoils instinctively and heat rushes to his neck and ears. “No! I’m not. I’m not a—that,” his words tumble over themselves. And then, with faux confidence; “I wasn’t doing anything of that sort, I just—”
The other steps closer, calm but cold. “Cut the bullshit.” Before Minwoo can react, he grabs the collar of Minwoo’s hoodie and yanks him forward, just enough to make him buckle. “Tell me what the—“
And then a voice cuts through the tension, bright and clear:
“Hey! What’s going on?”
It’s Skylar.
Skylar’s footsteps crunch across the grass, and Minwoo’s breath catches. Minwoo freezes and turns away from the other, who is clutching him even tighter now.
And then it happens. Skylar’s gaze lifts away from the boy and lands on Minwoo.
Time halts.
Skylar’s eyes meet his, and everything inside Minwoo explodes: relief, panic, shame, fear, longing, regret, hunger. Followed by the revulsion he feels at himself for the cruelty he inflicted on Skylar.
It’s crippling and debilitating. The long-suppressed ache of wanting him, wanting his attention, wanting forgiveness, knowing full well he doesn’t deserve it, all at once.
“Min…” Skylar is backing away, wide-eyed and suddenly pale.
“Skylar,” Minwoo breathes, voice ragged. “Yeon Skylar…”
The boy clutching him ruins the moment by heatedly interjecting. “Do you know him or something?” The question is directed at Skylar.
Skylar blinks, and then, like a switch flipping, his expression hardens. He settles into a cold, poker-faced mask.
“I don’t know him,” Skylar says evenly. “Let’s go, Cirrus, come on.”
The boy, Cirrus, doesn’t move. Then Skylar’s eyes turn away from Minwoo (look at me, Minwoo wants to beg), and mellow into something tender when his gaze lands on Cirrus. Skylar reaches out and gently pries Cirrus’s hands off his hoodie, murmuring reassurances that Minwoo can’t make out.
Minwoo’s breath hitches in his throat as Cirrus visibly melts and reciprocates that warm, tender gaze. Jealousy burns bright within Minwoo’s chest.
As Cirrus finally agrees and they walk away, his arm wraps tightly around Skylar’s waist, possessive, like he’s staking a claim. Minwoo stands powerless, the knife in his chest twisting even further.
Then Cirrus glances over his shoulder, eyes cold, as if shooting Minwoo a warning.