Chapter Text
There was something about Seungyoun that made him so easy to lean on. Maybe it was his easy smile, or his loud laughter or how bright and small his eyes got when you told him a story.
Not that Wooseok had no story to tell, though. Everyday was a struggle living life as a blank page, but Seungyoun was interested in everything he had to say anyway. That’s how they became best friends.
From that point onwards, Wooseok lived his life through Seungyoun’s eyes. Since he didn’t know anything, what Seungyoun learned Wooseok learned too.
Seungyoun loved music more than life. He wasn’t a moody person, but he liked moody songs that made Wooseok wonder how he really felt inside his head. He loved hip hop and every now and then, he would rap fast and loud, which made Wooseok love rap too even though he’s couldn’t rap to save his life (but he tried).
Seungyoun said he loved all types of food, but Wooseok could only see him eating pizza or any kind of greasy stuff. He was lean, yet Wooseok didn’t know how with all the fat food he ate.
In class, Wooseok felt more stupid than ever. Why didn’t he remember all the things his classmates knew through all the years of educational system? His old friends tried to help, but in the end only Seungyoun didn’t give up on his faulty brain. He always insisted in tutoring Wooseok.
“So x is?”
“2?”
Both of them were in Wooseok’s house with their stomachs down, feet in the air, holding their pens in one more attempt to make Wooseok understand math.
“2? Where did you get 2 from? It’s 7.”
“Gahhhhhh, I’ll never understand math. I don’t even understand why we need this in life.”
Seungyoun giggled. “Math is important to daily life. And what if you want to work with numbers someday? You need to be ready.”
“I would never work with numbers. Not in this life and not in the next.”
“Never say never. Now let’s focus on math,” Seungyoun said, poking Wooseok on his waist with his pen.
“Don’t wanna.”
Seungyoun smiled. “Stop being lazy.”
Wooseok felt a fleck on a memory, a tiny remembrance sparkling in his head and a warm feeling blooming on his chest. That happened every time Seungyoun smiled.
“Are we sure we never met before?”
“Wooseok-ah. Like I’ve told you a hundred, a thousand times before, we never met each other.”
Wooseok burrowed his face on the pillow. “I’m sorry. You know I’m dumb.”
“You’re not dumb, you’re smarter than me actually. You learn fast as hell, you just…”
“I just don’t remember anything.”
“You do remember stuff.”
“What do I remember?” Wooseok said with a snort.
“You remember… that I’m the most handsome boy in our class.”
Wooseok punched his arm. “You’re not. I am.”
“Since you already lost the hottest guy title, you should study hard to be at least the smartest one.”
“I’ll be both, you’ll see. I hate math though, that ain’t changing any time soon.”
“Show me then. Let’s solve the next question.”
Wooseok’s life at school started to get a natural flow after a while. He knew everyone, he was smart and studied hard, he was even popular.
He wasn’t the only one. Even though Wooseok was the most popular student, Seungyoun quickly ascended into the highschool hierarchy.
Wooseok pretended he didn’t care, but he liked the fact he could turn heads when he walked. He wasn’t sure if he liked when the same thing happened with Seungyoun, though.
Wooseok’s pursuers were simple minded. They giggled when he walked by, gave him chocolate, followed him around. Seungyoun’s admirers were… different.
When Wooseok arrived to class, Seungyoun was already there. Also there was Park Sooyoung, one of his ‘fans’, sitting at a desk in front of Seungyoun, which was Wooseok’s desk.
“Seriously though, listen to tracks I sent you. You’re not gonna regret it, oppa.”
Park Sooyoung walked around school like a nerd, but Wooseok had the special power of seeing things underneath the layers of thick glasses and overall cluelessness. She was pretty, but maybe she didn’t know it yet.
“Good morning, Wooseok,” Seungyoun said, looking up and beaming at Wooseok.
Wooseok stood in front of his desk, waiting for Sooyoung to move. “Morning.”
She looked up for a second and finally jumped out of the desk. “Right, that’s your desk.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m gonna head out. Oppa, don’t forget to listen to the songs.”
“Why is she calling you oppa?” Wooseok mumbled after she left. “She’s our age.”
“Did you say something, Wooseok?”
“Not really.”
His day started in a moody note and just when he was starting to feel better about himself, his doom was announced by the teacher.
“I’m gonna handle the math tests from last week.”
“Shit.”
Seungyoun tapped Wooseok’s shoulder “You did good, didn’t you?”
“Well…”
Wooseok didn’t need to say much as the teacher was fast approaching with the papers in hand.
“Wooseok,” he said with a scowl. “You need to do better. What’s going on? You did well in everything else.”
The teacher dropped the test on his desk and what a surprise, he got a D.
“Wooseok-ah, what happened?” Seungyoun whispered. “You were doing good.”
He shrugged. “I guess I need to study harder.”
“My house today then, we can’t have you failing math.”
Wooseok smiled without looking back. “Okay.”
He always felt more at home in the Cho family’s apartment. Seungyoun’s mother treated him warmly and served them peeled apples. Wooseok’s parents would do the same for him, but the feeling was different.
Today the apartment smelled as always, fabric softener and nice food. Yet Seungyoun’s room smelled just like him. Something wooden, boyish with a hint of mystery.
“Yo,” Wooseok said, dropping his bag on Seungyoun’s big bed.
Seungyoun had his earbuds, but removed them as he saw him coming. “Hello, math’s archenemy.”
Seungyoun always called him like that. Wooseok pretended he didn’t like it, but deep down he felt humored by his choice of words.
“Shutup.”
“Let’s get to the test. Let’s solve the problems one by one.”
Wooseok groaned and threw himself on the bed. “Already? Just let me rest here for a second.”
“You need it.”
“Just give me some time.”
“Everything alright?”
“Kinda? I don’t know.”
“Everything right at home?”
At this point, they were shoulder to shoulder, feet in the air like it was so normal for them. Seungyoun looked at him with his usual compassion written all over his dark eyes, but Wooseok couldn’t straight at it today so he just put his head down.
“The usual. Mom is tense, even sad.”
His mom was so happy when he came home after being lost, but with time that happiness vanished, being replaced by frequent sad smiles every time Wooseok didn’t remember things. And Wooseok always felt suffocated by the pressure of having to remember, the pressure of making her happy.
Seungyoun nudged Wooseok with his shoulder. “She loves you, I’m sure she doesn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know. Sometimes think they would be happier if I vanished completely.”
Seungyoun was always a gentle guy, so Wooseok got a little shock when he grabbed his chin with more force than necessary. “Never say that and never disappear.”
Wooseok’s heartbeat got faster, so he swallowed to calm himself down. “I-I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“If you break your promise and vanish, I’ll be sure to go after you.”
Seungyoun’s hands were too hot and his eyes were too close, so Wooseok pushed him with his shoulder. “Okay, okay. I will never let you go.”
Seungyoun smirked. “Now we are talking. Now if only you could learn math.”
“Shut up, Cho Seungyoun.”
All good things had to end - and by that he meant his time with Seungyoun and not math time - so Wooseok had to return home.
Upon his arrival, the delicious smell of food reached his nostrils.
“Wooseok-ah, is that you?” His mom said from the kitchen.
“Yes, mom.”
“Food is ready.”
“Okay.”
He left his stuff upstairs and came back to the dining room. His dad wasn’t around, but his mother was sitting down with an expectant smile on her face.
“Did you study well?”
“Yes,” he said he sat down.
“I made all your favorite food.”
She always made his favorite food, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her his tastes changed in the last few months.
“Thank you, mom.”
Her smile dropped. “You don’t like it?”
Wooseok immediately grabbed the chopsticks and grabbed the first food and munched fast. “It’s good, really good.”
“If there’s something you don’t like,” she said, grabbing his hand softly. “You can tell me.”
“I love everything, mom. Don’t worry.”
Her eyes started watering. “Sometimes I feel like you’re not happy here and I don’t know how to help you.”
“Mom, please don’t cry. I’m happy.”
“I love you so much, all I want is for you to be happy.”
She was crying, so Wooseok hugged her until she stopped. Later that night, he was the one who cried until he fell asleep.
The coldest season flew by after his heart to heart with his mom. Their lives weren’t perfect, but Wooseok dared to be more outspoken about the food he liked, about his ideas about life and about himself. They accepted that he wasn’t the same boy he was before he lost his memory, so he started to feel like home.
His friendship with Seungyoun was tighter than ever. As the weather got warmer, they got closer to a point one didn’t exist without the other as if the temperature melted their beings and pulled them together into one.
Summer was their season. Wooseok actually didn’t fail in math, so his parents let him do all he wanted, and that included having sleepovers at Seungyoun’s house.
Every time they slept in the same bed, Wooseok felt like there was a supernova inside his body as they spent the night talking in hushed tones about the most meaningless things that existed in the universe.
Things were like usually until one of the hottest days of the year. Wooseok grabbed ice cream for himself and for Seungyoun and headed to his house.
He expected his day to go as usual with them playing games and talking until late hours, but a surprise was waiting for him in front of Seungyoun’s apartment complex.
Seungyoun was there, but he wasn’t alone. Park Sooyoung, their school mate, was in front of him, with no glasses, a nice dress, looking like she finally found her true beauty.
Wooseok took a determined step forward, hoping Sooyoung would see him and leave like she always did when he came around, yet she didn’t him coming.
Sooyoung just took a step forward, hugged and kissed Seungyoun, which made Wooseok pause immediately.
His legs weren’t the only one who paused. His heart didn’t seem to be working anymore.
At this point, Wooseok’s hands were shaking so hard he dropped the ice creams he was holding. He turned and ran, hoping they didn’t see him.
He ran until he found an empty alley and then he broke down right there, hyperventilating as he slid through some random brick wall.
Wooseok didn’t know what happened, but his mind blacked out until a pair of hands held his face.
“Wooseok, what’s going on?”
“Seungyoun, I can’t breathe.”
“Wooseok, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“I ca- I can’t.”
His head was empty, so he stared as Seungyoun got closer, his lips nearing his own. At this point, Wooseok expected to be kissed, yet Seungyoun just blew air into Wooseok’s mouth.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“I was awake the whole time. I thought you…”
“You what?”
“I wasn’t drowning, why were you doing mouth to mouth with me?”
“I’m sorry, I panicked.”
“I thought you were gonna…”
Before Wooseok could even finish his sentence, Seungyoun grabbed his face again and now he finally kissed him until Wooseok was dizzy once again.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Sengyoun said, whispering against Wooseok’s lips. “I saw you running and I was sorry worried for you, baby.”
“Baby?”
Seungyoun stroke Wooseok’s face. “Yes, baby.”
Wooseok was afraid to ask, but he had no other choice. “Do you like me?”
“Of course, why do you think we see each other everyday?” Seungyoun said with a chuckle.
“I didn’t know.”
“You never know anything.”
“Ouch. That hurt.”
“Does this make it better?” Seungyoun said, kissing him again. Wooseok wasn’t expecting, but his friend’s tongue touched his own. For a brief second, he stiffened, not knowing what to do, yet his instincts took the reigns of his tongue, his hands, his mind. He needed more of Seungyoun.
When things got intense, Seungyoun put a hand on Wooseok’s shoulder to split them apart. “Wow, not here. Let’s go to my apartment alright?”
One minute, Seungyoun was grabbing him by the hands, taking him out of that alley. The next, he stopped walking and dropped suddenly Wooseok’s hand.
Finding that odd, Wooseok circled Seungyoun to ask what was wrong.
When he saw Seungyoun’s chest, he didn’t need to ask anymore. Blood poured from Seungyoun’s chest.
Wooseok’s own hand was bloody, so he stared down at Seungyoun to see there was blood pouring from a wound on his hand too.
“Seungyoun, what’s wrong?” Wooseok said, crying, looking around to see what the hell just happened.
Seungyoun opened his mouth to reply, but before he had a chance to speak, his legs gave away.
What happened next was nothing but a collection of blur and shadow in his mind. Seungyoun fell to the floor while Wooseok screamed for help, an ambulance arrived to take an unconscious Seungyoun to the hospital.
Wooseok lay down on the ground and waited as his tears wet the floor. His heart always has a special way to react to Seungyoun, but right at the moment his heart was dead.
Until the doctor came and his heart came to life again.
But Seungyoun didn’t.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save him.”
Wooseok shook his head, as a single tear fell on his face. “This can’t be true. He was fine. What happened?”
“I’m really sorry. We still don’t know exactly what happened.”
At this point, Seungyoun’s mom had just arrived, but Wooseok didn’t know what to say to a mother who just lost her son.
“Wooseok, what happened?” She said.
“I’m sorry, I…”
Wooseok ran and went down the stairs until he found a vacant room. There were several beds there, but opened a closet and sat there. And then he cried until he passed out from exhaustion.
“Wooseok, Wooseok.”
Someone called to him, but he wasn’t sure where. He tried to find the source of the voice, but a burst of light wouldn’t let him open his eyes.
“Seungyoun?”
“Who’s Seungyoun?”
Not caring his eyes would get burned by the sun, he opened them. At first, all Wooseok could see was black, but eventually he saw the one who was talking to him.
“Who are you?”
The guy in front of him wasn’t Seungyoun, and the place he was wasn’t the hospital anymore.
“What do you mean who am I, Wooseok? Are you trolling me?”
“I’m not trolling. Who are you? Where am I?”
“Wooseok, let’s go to class. We’re running late.”
Wooseak ran to the guy and grabbed him by the collar. “Tell me where I am or you’re gonna regret it.”
“Jesus, Wooseok. What’s gotten into you?”
“Tell me,” Wooseok said, releasing the guy’s collar. “Please.”
“We are old friends, we are roomies now. This is our first day in college, remember? I was just waking you up because you have class.”
“Where is my mom? Where is Seungyoun?”
“I have no idea who’s Seungyoun. But your mom… what do you mean?”
“Where is my mom? My dad?”
“Wooseok,” Yohan said, wincing. “You never had a dad or a mom. You’re an orphan.”