Archive of Our Own

1.

If it wasn’t for the gentle sound of the waves it would feel like he is staring into absolute emptiness, the sea before him nothing but a vast expanse of darkness. Kihyun takes a step and then another on the wet sand, stopping where the crest of the waves laps at his feet, the dark of night hiding their flowing shape from his eyes. There are no stars tonight, only the moon hanging heavy in a cloudy sky, greedy of its own light. It’s getting colder, and Kihyun can feel in the salty breeze that summer is waning, slowly slipping into the stillness of autumn.

“Did you put rocks in your pockets?” a deep voice suddenly asks and Kihyun turns to the intruder, a slow smile on his lips.

“I am not contemplating death, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Changkyun laughs, coming to stand next to Kihyun, burying his feet in the sand.

“The others were wondering where you went.”

“I felt like walking for a bit, but then it’s too dark to see anything.”

“Wanna go back?”

Kihyun looks down at the hand Changkyun extends to him, this calloused, strong hand he knows well and he fits his own against his palm, threads his fingers in between his just like he always does. Changkyun smiles, tugging lightly until they fall into step towards the bonfire they lit earlier, the only dot of light on this deserted creek. Kihyun watches the shadows moving against the flames, their voices ringing clearer as they step closer, inane jokes and loud laughter, shrieks of delight over stupid songs blaring from the crude speakers of a cellphone.

“And here he comes!” a loud voice booms in Kihyun’s ears before he’s pulled into the circle of light, flames dancing on tanned skin and warm smiles and he shakes his head, laughing as a can is pushed into his hand.

“I wasn’t even gone that long.”

“And yet we missed you so much,” Minhyuk says, sitting down on a blanket already occupied by a drowsing Hyungwon, long legs extended in front of him.

“I bet you didn’t even notice I was gone until like ten minutes ago.”

“You wound me,” Minhyuk says, leaning against Hyungwon who accommodates him immediately. Kihyun rolls his eyes, sitting on the sand next to Hoseok’s bulk, the guy wordlessly passing him a bag of crisps.

“Did I miss anything interesting?” Kihyun asks him, Hoseok shaking his handsome head, nodding to Jooheon as he answers.

“Jooheon got scared of a moth, would have set himself on fire if not for Hyunwoo’s timely intervention. Changkyun said something no one understood and we all collectively decided that since the sun rises in less than an hour might as well just stay here and watch it. You guys have the morning shift, right?”

“Yeah, we do,” Changkyun answers as he sits on the other side of Kihyun, opening a beer retrieved from the cooler.

“Sucks to be you.”

“Won’t fight you on that.”

Hoseok answers something Kihyun doesn’t listen to, letting the conversation weave around him, Changkyun’s deep voice and Hoseok’s smooth one; his eyes are lost on the flames eating the dry wood they lugged down here earlier in the evening, Minhyuk screaming about a last bout of unrestrained summer fun as they made their way down the rocky coastal path. There’s something hypnotic in the flitting of the flames and Kihyun stares, their warmth reddening his cheeks, keeping at bay the cold breeze of the ocean. Minhyuk was right, in a sense, this night does feel like a close, another summer gone by and they are still all here, standing in the same place.

“This song’s bringing me way down, can we switch?” Minhyuk’s voice breaks through Kihyun’s reverie and he hears everything now, the wind that picked up, the backwash of the ocean, Jooheon’s laughter as Hoseok scrambles to his cellphone and the song, the voice, that voice he used to know so well, don’t worry even if I leave, you’ll do well on your own – and it’s gone, a strange feeling of loss left behind. Kihyun stares at the shadow line beyond the bonfire and there’s memories drawn there, ones he doesn’t want to recall, not now, not on this night.

“Hey, Kihyun, weren’t you friends with this guy?”

“What?”

“You know,” Jooheon repeats, “that singer just now. Suga? Like back in high school. What the fuck was his actual name?”

“Min Yoongi,” Kihyun says, and his voice sounds slow and faraway to his own ears, pulling that name from a past he’d pushed back down, buried in his own mind, deep, deeper than the earth.

“Yeah, that’s the guy. Didn’t we see him once?”

“Probably,” Kihyun says, “we were kind of always together, so…”

“Yeah, what happened with that?”

“Nothing,” Kihyun shrugs, leaning back on his hands, farther from the fire, farther from the light. “He left for Seoul and I had to stay here, and then we kind of just drifted apart.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Jooheon says, before launching into a debate with Minhyuk on which advantages they would pull from a famous friend. Kihyun is grateful for the diversion, his gaze going out of focus as he stares at the slowly dying flames. And then there’s a warm hand covering his, callous fingers fitting in the spaces between his own, and he looks up at Changkyun, at his tanned face and kind eyes and there’s a small comfort there, his lips mouthing the words, are you okay?

I am, Kihyun thinks as he nods, Changkyun sparing him a small smile. It was a long time ago. And yet he still sees him clear as day, standing there on the threshold in his school uniform, too long hair Kihyun used to cut himself tangled by the wind. Come with me, he’d said, but there had been a cough from inside the house and if Yoongi wasn’t ready to stay, Kihyun wasn’t ready to leave. You know I can’t, and something had changed in Yoongi’s face – he did know, but the reality of it still hurt, and when he had turned his back Kihyun had wanted to run after him, talk to him, touch him one last time, but he hadn’t. He had closed the door instead, and this had been their end.

“Look,” Changkyun says next to him, pointing at the horizon. Kihyun sees it right away, a thin line splitting the sky from the ocean and he stares as all falls quiet around him. The sun is rising, setting fire to their small world of water and sand as the sky cloths itself in yellows. Nothing was ever this beautiful and Kihyun feels a soft sort of sadness lodge between his ribs, pushing against his heart and he averts his eyes, looking down at his hand in Changkyun’s own, at the traces they left in the sand. Next to them Hoseok has laid down, staring at the slowly lightening sky up above. Minhyuk is dozing, sprawled against Hyungwon who’s gazing at the ocean, Jooheon and Hyunwoo seated next to him, softened and quiet. Kihyun stares at them, at the dying embers of their bonfire, at the remains of beer cans and disemboweled chips packets they gathered to one side. This is the life he chose, Kihyun thinks, and there shouldn’t be room for regrets.

2.

The good thing when everything hurts is that it distracts you from your thoughts. Kihyun groans, turning to his side on Changkyun’s mattress and he’s greeted by the man himself, his profile brightened by the soft light streaming from the hopper windows of his basement studio. He’s reading, something in English Kihyun doesn’t bother to try and decipher the cover of.

“Did I sleep long?”

“Not really,” Changkyun answers, putting the book down on his chest. “Feel any better?”

“I’m so fucking sore. Next time we have to go put down goddamn foundations lets actually get some sleep first. I hate concrete.”

“I think it’s mutual,” Changkyun deadpans, turning on his belly as he takes up reading again. It’s then that Kihyun notices how shirtless he is and he stares at the slope of his back, the bend of his shoulders, the line of his neck. There’s a scar on his upper arm from their first job together, the one where they met, the one where Changkyun cut himself on a metal spike and bled through his overalls. Kihyun follows the lines of his arm to his shoulder, and there’s a mole there he shifts his weight to kiss, licking a path to the one on Changkyun’s neck.

“I thought you were sore,” Changkyun laughs, abandoning his book to turn towards Kihyun.

“I am,” Kihyun says, losing his hands in Changkyun’s hair, pulling slightly to bring him down, down where he’s close enough to kiss. A warm hand finds its place on Kihyun’s hip as Changkyun deepens the kiss, shifting his weight over Kihyun before parting on a breath.

“You taste gross.”

“Fuck off,” Kihyun half snarls, Changkyun laughing as he dips his head to nibble at Kihyun’s neck, at the point he knows will yield him those gasps he likes, Kihyun’s body shifting against him.

It’s slow and lazy, the weariness lodged in their flesh bringing a soft kind of languor to each of their gestures, each of their kisses, each of their breaths. Kihyun sprawled on his back, head tilted up, lips parted and spit-slick and Changkyun kisses him again, Kihyun humming into his mouth, hands tangled in Changkyun’s hair. It’s easy, it always is. Always had been, since the beginning. Finishing late one night, riding the bus tired and filthy. Changkyun offering up his place, because Kihyun lived far. Stripping out of sweaty overalls and glancing just a bit too long at each other; a tilt of the head, lips parting on a breath and they had crashed into each other, easy, easy, and they’d needed this, whatever it was – a little company, a little tenderness.

Kihyun moans as Changkyun pushes a knee between his thighs and he grinds down on him, a little wild, a little desperate, and Changkyun smiles with wolf teeth. His hands snake down Kihyun’s sides, down to the brim of his underwear and Kihyun’s hard already, despite the weariness, despite the ache in his limbs.

“Hyung, I’m gonna take care of you, yeah?” Changkyun says with that raspy voice Kihyun adores and he can only hum, closing his eyes on Changkyun’s greedy smile as the latter dips his head lower, lower still, until Kihyun can feel his breath against the soft skin of his thighs. It’s easy, like it always is. Changkyun takes his time, peeling Kihyun out of his underwear, licking paths to nowhere on the inside of his thighs, Kihyun straining under his hands. Changkyun takes him into his mouth, slowly, and Kihyun’s breath catches in his lungs, hips arching off the mattress and Changkyun doesn’t restrain him; he takes more of him into his mouth, swirling his tongue against the underside of Kihyun’s cock, leaning back to suck at the head and Kihyun whimpers, drawing a chuckle from Changkyun.

It’s a slow rhythm they build, languid and sloppy, Kihyun’s hands lost in Changkyun’s too-long hair, choked moans falling from his lips. He doesn’t last long, and that was never the intention – his mind is quiet, his body has forgotten the ache; he simply feels, and for a blessed moment Changkyun’s hands, Changkyun’s mouth on him are the sum of his world. Changkyun swallows when Kihyun spills into his mouth, rolling onto his back as Kihyun opens his eyes, residual light dancing on the ceiling. They remain quiet, a soft kind of silence keeping the world at bay and Kihyun wishes it could never end. But it does, as all things do, Changkyun moving onto his side to look at him.

“When do you have to leave?” he asks, and this is it, all the ugliness Kihyun had pushed beyond the realm of his senses crashing back down on him. The unmistakable smell of the long corridors, the white light of the neon overhead, the plain color of the walls and his own father, reclining there in his bed, emaciated and weak, the rhythm of his heart spelled by a machine. Kihyun flails for his phone, lost somewhere in the sheets, checks the time and it’s still a long way off, he can still remain for a while, floating on the island of Changkyun’s mattress.

“Not until a couple of hours. I’m just going there to eat with him.”

“Okay,” Changkyun says, and he moves closer, resting his head against Kihyun’s shoulder, wild hair spilling on Kihyun’s skin.

“You need a haircut,” Kihyun says then, threading his fingers in the dark mess, pulling on a strand until Changkyun slaps his hand away.

“I like looking like this.”

“Like an unkempt bum?”

“Keeps the rabble away.”

Kihyun laughs, sitting up and the soreness in his limbs is back. He stretches slowly, conscious of Changkyun’s gaze on him and when he turns back Changkyun looks soft, too soft; there’s an ache in his chest Kihyun doesn’t owe to the morning shift and he looks away, moving to get off the mattress.

“Come on, lets shower and then I’ll cut your hair while we still have time.”

Changkyun protests weakly but he complies, finding a reward in the form of Kihyun kneeling on the wet floor of the shower. When he sits on the chair Kihyun pulls out for him, half dressed and barely dry, he looks content, happy, and Kihyun watches him with metal in his jaw, the ache in his chest still there, growing vines under his heart.

“Please don’t fuck me up,” Changkyun says as Kihyun takes up the scissors.

“You know I won’t,” Kihyun laughs, combing through the messy strands of Changkyun’s hair. “I already cut your hair like three times.”

There’s something familiar about the gesture, about him standing there scissors in hand and Kihyun would rather not think about what it means but he was never really given a choice.

“I know,” Changkyun says, shifting on the chair. “Hey, do you think I would look good-”

“-with my hair dyed?” Yoongi asks, craning his neck to look at Kihyun above his shoulder.

“You’d look good in anything,” Kihyun answers, pushing at Yoongi’s cheek until he looks away so he can keep working on his nape.

“You’re just saying that cause you want to get into my pants.”

“I’ve already gotten into your pants. Like, multiple times.”

“Are you calling me a whore?”

“Can you shut up so I don’t mess up?”

Yoongi laughs, quieting down as Kihyun finishes, small snips of the scissors and lingering touches.

“I’m done.”

“Cool,” Yoongi says, tilting his head back until he can stare at Kihyun upside down, and Kihyun smiles, bending to kiss him. It’s summer, the last one, and if Kihyun had known what would happen next maybe he would have told him then, what the feeling blooming in his chest was called.

“Hey, you okay?”

“What?”

“You’re spacing out”, Changkyun says, lines of worry on his face and suddenly Kihyun can’t bear it anymore, the look in his eyes, the softness of his skin, the love he fears he feels under his touch.

“Sorry, I gotta go.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” Kihyun repeats, putting the scissors down as he makes his way to the door. Changkyun gets up from his chair but he doesn’t follow, watching him put his shoes on with a frown.

“What the fuck, Kihyun?”

“I’ll talk to you later,” Kihyun says, words rushed and voice raw.

“Ki–”

The door closes with too loud a sound in Kihyun’s ears and he rushes upstairs, rushes to the street where the heat of their waning summer stifles him, an oppressive weight bearing down on his chest. It’s a short walk to the bus stop and he looks back as he stands there, yet he knows Changkyun won’t follow. Changkyun, with his deep voice and warm eyes and simple hands, spelling his feelings with every touch. Kihyun looks down, stares at a crack in the pavement and he is a fool, he knows, stuck in a hallway of regrets he built himself.

The bus is half empty when Kihyun steps in and he sits near a window, gazing out at the scenery outside, at the quiet coastal town he spent his life in. He should have left, he thinks, leave behind these old streets he knows by heart, leave the wind and the ocean and the sand he’d always bring back in his shoes. Come with me, and he’d always wondered what it would have been like, to say yes, to follow, but he hadn’t and the voice on the radio had become the one of a stranger, of a ghost in half forgotten memories that too often bled into his days.

Kihyun almost misses his stop, absently staring at the dull facade of the hospital through the bus window before it registers that this is where he’s supposed to get off. And when he does realize it, he almost stays in his seat. Time stands too still, over there. The plain walls and the polite smiles, the aseptic smell and the dull light streaming from the windows. It never changes, and Kihyun climbs the stairs to his father’s room like he already did a hundred times; and the room is still the same, and the light hasn’t changed, and the man in the bed offers him the same tired smile. Kihyun wishes it would stop, sometimes, wishes something would happen to make things change but he knows there is only one possible end here, and he isn’t ready.

“How are you feeling?” Kihyun asks, and he knows it’s foolish but he doesn’t know what else to say. So he sits on the creaky chair near the bed and asks his dying father a question whose answer is carved in his withered flesh.

“You came early,” his father says, and it already seems like too much for the frail body in the bed, straining towards him for a greeting.

“Yeah. I just. I wasn’t particularly busy today.”

His father smiles and Kihyun remembers a time where it didn’t look as pained, where it didn’t look as gaunt. Death is already there, he knows, staring at him from his father’s ashen face.

“Are you in pain?”

“Not really,” his father answers, exhaling a labored breath. “The nurses take good care of me.”

Kihyun smiles in turn, taking his father’s hand in his and it’s too thin, too light, the hand of a ghost and Kihyun feels his throat constricts, a familiar weight curling in his belly.

“Kihyun, it’s okay,” his father says, voice more assured than Kihyun heard him in months. “I’ll be okay. I know it’s coming. It’s time. I am tired.”

“Dad…”

“I know you’ll be fine, without me. I was never really there for you, anyway, was I?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kihyun says, and he’s twelve again, standing at the threshold of his father’s bedroom, listening to his endless coughs. There had been nothing he could do, then. There was nothing he could do now.

“When I’m gone…”

“Can we not talk about this?” Kihyun asks and his father smiles, opening his thin arms for Kihyun to nestle there, just like he used to do when he was a child, lying his head against his father’s chest, against his beating heart, gentle hands stroking his hair.

“Dad, I’m tired these days, I’m so tired,” Kihyun says, and just as the words leave his mouth he feels their weight below his heart, sinking there like a drowning man.

“I know. But it’s going to be fine, Kihyun. You’re doing so well. I’m glad you’re my son.”

Kihyun feels tears push behind his eyes but he won’t let them fall, resting there in the last warmth his father has to give.

“I’m scared of being without you. Of how much I’ll miss you. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You won’t be. There’s so much out there for you. But you will have to be brave, and go find it yourself.”

Kihyun doubts there is anything still brave in him. He doesn’t say it, though, closing his eyes, letting the gentle back-and-forth of his father’s hand upon his hair lull him to an almost-sleep. It’s this image he’d like to keep, this peaceful embrace lighted by a waning afternoon. And he knows, when his eyes close, he knows that one day there will be a last time, and there is never enough time for goodbyes.

3.

“How is he?” Hoseok asks in his gentle voice, and Kihyun looks down at his drink, at his beer turning flat. The place is quiet, too early in the evening for partying and Hoseok found them a table in the corner, softly lighted by the fairy lights hidden in the fake ivy falling from the ceiling.

“Not so good,” Kihyun answers, and his voice sounds faraway, too simple words for such a pain.

Hoseok nods, seeping at his own drink and Kihyun is grateful for his silence; Hoseok never really needed words anyway, his feelings spelled out on his handsome face for those who knew how to read him.

“There’s a part of me that–” Kihyun interrupts himself, starting over and the words claw at him on their way out. “Would you think me a monster if I tell you there’s a part of me that’s relieved?”

Hoseok stares at him for a second, fingers tracing the rim of his glass and he shifts then, sitting straighter, warm eyes not leaving Kihyun’s own.

“No. I wouldn’t. It’s been so long. You both suffered enough. You want an out.”

Kihyun nods and it’s there again, this weight under his heart, pushing tears behind his eyes and he wipes at them before they can fall. Hoseok opens his hand, palm up on the table and Kihyun fits his own against it, head hung low.

“You don’t have to get through this alone, okay?”

But he does, Kihyun knows, the loss and the grief will purely be his own, yet there’s small comforts to be found in Hoseok’s steady hand, in his gentle voice and earnest face.

“Yeah, okay,” Kihyun agrees, and Hoseok smiles, bright enough that something shifts in Kihyun and he has to smile back, unsure but there all the same.

“Better?”

“Yeah, better,” Kihyun nods, and he finds that it is true – the smell of the hospital, the image of his father on his sick bed, all have receded somewhere further deep, somewhere he can barely reach, yet he knows that any wrong move and he could fall back to these depths. So he pushes everything aside, everything but Hoseok’s warm hand, everything but the lights on the ceiling and the beer in his hand. And it’s fine, like this, a fragile sort of peace he must shelter like a fledgling fire.

And it works, if for a little while. Minhyuk joins them later on, with a wild story and Hyungwon on his heels, holding a plate of cheese sticks like an offering. They find room for them, and for Hyunwoo, too, quiet and tired, slumping on a stool next to Hoseok, his bulk strangely diminished as he hunches forward, spearing one of the remaining sticks with a tiny fork. There’s Jooheon, too, and Changkyun behind him, Changkyun with his still too long hair and too dark eyes who won’t look towards Kihyun when he sits down. It does something to Kihyun, something slightly ugly and the drowning man is still there under his heart, sinking deeper at each smile not directed at him, at each word he doesn’t hear, at Changkyun’s hands on Jooheon’s shoulder.

“You okay?” Hoseok mouths to him, and Kihyun nods because he is, really, or more precisely he has to be, and so he smiles, and maybe Hoseok can see through him or maybe he can’t, either way he accepts it and Kihyun lets go, turns off his mind and lets himself drown in the lights and the voices and the greasy food, alcohol in his veins replacing the beat of his stilling heart. He’s not really there, though, half of his being hanging someplace near the ceiling, deaf and numb, the night he can see outside the window pouring in through the cracks in his guise. It’s not all bad, though, there’s something peaceful in letting go, and Kihyun floats, words he doesn’t hear weaving around him in familiar voices, the slightly bitter taste of alcohol on his tongue burning a path to the pit in his stomach.

Kihyun loses time, a little bit; he looks down at his hands, weirdly pale against the dark of his jeans, and when he looks up it’s time to go, chairs scrapping back, jackets being pulled over thin tee shirts and Hoseok counting bills in his hand, waving him off when Kihyun offers his part. They tumble down the stairs to the street below, lighted in neon reds and yellows and they’re loud, laughter and shrieks and half-yelled songs and Kihyun falls back, watching them from behind, shivering under the slight chill of the night. There’s an inexplicable feeling blooming within him, something wistful yet gentle and he wants to give it time to grow. But someone falls into steps beside him, pulling him back where it’s cold and empty.

“I’m not gonna ask about earlier,” Changkyun says, and there’s nothing in his voice Kihyun can read. “But I just… You keep doing stuff like this, and–”

“I’m sorry,” Kihyun says, “I just have a lot going on.”

It sounds weak and empty even to his own ears and Kihyun winces, looking ahead of himself, towards the broad back of Hoseok, towards Hyungwon’s tall frame, rather than at Changkyun beside him. He doesn’t want to see his own mistakes reflected back at him.

“Yeah, I figured,” Changkyun says before falling silent. As they walk side by side Kihyun knows he has been forgiven yet again and this isn’t what it should be like, he thinks, this isn’t it, yet Changkyun slips his hand in his and Kihyun holds on to him, to this warmth he knows well, and he threads his fingers in between his just like he always does. The walk to the bus stop is both too short and too long, not enough time to find the words he should say, to find some honesty and the bravery that must follow, but enough to know this is a pattern he must break yet he sees no way out of.

Their little band scatters into the night, bus headlights and hasty farewells and soon enough it’s just Kihyun, sitting there with the last of Changkyun’s hesitant smile dancing in his mind. It’s easy, it always is yet Kihyun knows there’s nothing simple about Changkyun’s feelings, about his own, and he wonders how long they can keep going. You never say what you really think, you never do what you really want, someone had told him once and Kihyun shivers under the chill of night, brown eyes and a gummy smile arising in his mind. He’d been right, then, and now too, and Kihyun lets the bus pass him by, rummaging in his pockets for his earbuds.

It’s cold there on the bench, summer undeniably over. Kihyun adjusts his jacket, hand clutching his phone where he presses play, letting the music flood his ears. It’s funny, you think anything is possible when you’re a kid and the voice is sharper, older than he knew it. Kihyun closes his eyes, lets his head fall back against the glass panel of the bus stop, a sigh caught in his chest. He’s tired in a way that sleep wouldn’t cure, so many hours that he sees before him, every single day is a repetition of ctrl+c, ctrl+v, and it’s true, it is.

The morning shifts and too much work and dirty overalls on Changkyun’s floor, Changkyun’s hands and Changkyun’s smile and the last nights near the ocean before it gets too cold; bus rides and greasy food and an empty apartment, hospital visits and hospital bills and hospital nurses smiling their contrite smile, Minhyuk’s laugh and Hoseok’s warmth and the fairy lights; the man drowning under his heart, drowning, drowning, and nothing changes, nothing changes until it does.

4.

Kihyun kneels and he bows and the collar of his dress shirt digs into the soft skin of this throat. There’s the smell of incense, and the smell of the white flowers whose name he forgot. There’s his father’s portrait amongst them and an array of people in suits whose words he doesn’t hear but he bows and he shakes hands and says his thanks. He sits on the floor of the small room and it’s day and then it’s night, and maybe he falls asleep or maybe he doesn’t; someone brings him food he doesn’t eat, not until it’s cold and soggy and makes his stomach hurt.

He stares at his father’s portrait but the man in the picture looks nothing like the one he remembers. There’s nothing of the laugh lines and the warm eyes and the slight downturn of his mouth, of the exhaustion and the fear and the tenderness, of the feel of his hand and the sound of his voice. Kihyun stares inside himself and he finds nothing there either. All is quiet; the beating of his heart, the pull of his muscles, the flashes of his synapses. There’s nothing to hear, nothing to feel, and so he sits and he bows and he shakes hands and he says his thanks.

It’s in this void that he finds him. Soft footsteps approaching, and when Kihyun looks up the eyes he meets aren’t the ones he was expecting.

“What– what are you doing here?”

His face is thinner, sharper, but it’s the same smile and the same eyes and Kihyun stares and stares and yet it doesn’t feel quite real enough.

“Hyungwon told Hobi who told me and – and I thought I should come. I’m sorry for your loss.”

It’s the same words Kihyun heard a dozen times, spoken with the same restrain; the same sorry words that never did anything to alleviate the grief.

“I didn’t know they were still friends,” Kihyun answers, and this gets a smile out of Yoongi, a real one, one Kihyun knows by heart yet it doesn’t feel quite the same and Kihyun stares, looking for what changed, trying to fit the man standing here in front of him against the one living in his memories.

“How are you holding up?” Yoongi asks, “it’s been… It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has,” Kihyun says, and this isn’t working, not like it should be. Yet they sit side by side on the polished floor, knees drawn to their chests and they talk, Yoongi’s voice deeper than Kihyun remembers. Yoongi asks and Kihyun tells him, about their town that never changed, about the ocean, about fires on the beach at night, about loud friends and about his dad, too, about the hospital and the fear and the loss. Yoongi nods and Yoongi listens and Yoongi speaks the right words, the ones Kihyun needs to hear yet it does nothing to ease his sorrow and so he asks instead, and Yoongi tells him. About the city, about hardships and hard work and what came of it, not quite there yet, about songs on the radio and live halls and happiness, too, and Kihyun understands then that there was never a place for him in it.

And yet it doesn’t move anything in him. There is nothing more to feel, nothing more than what’s already there, regret and loss and sorrow and it’s all the same, and Kihyun cannot find it, cannot remember what made Yoongi a part of him, all those years ago, cannot find enough to fill the hole in his side. Yoongi left, and the memories that remained were nothing more – the boy in them is long gone, turned into a man of sharp wits and sharper eyes.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” Kihyun says, face buried in his knees. “I feel like there’s nothing left for me here anymore.”

“Do you want to –” Yoongi interrupts himself and when Kihyun looks up there’s someone else in the small room with them, someone staring with wide eyes and Changkyun was never so hard to read. Kihyun starts, making to get up but Changkyun turns away before he can reach him and it jolts something in Kihyun, something cold and sharp like a shiv between his ribs.

“Who was that?” Yoongi asks, and Kihyun has no answer to give.

“I’ll be back,” he sputters without looking at Yoongi as he hurries out of the room, down the corridor without putting his shoes back on. Changkyun is still there, leaning against the wall as if to catch his breath and relief floods through Kihyun as he steps closer, Changkyun watching him approach.

“Changkyun–”

“Nothing left for you?” Changkyun asks, and there’s no reproach in his voice, no anger, just weariness and hurt, the same hurt Kihyun can see reflected in his brown eyes.

“I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay,” Changkyun interrupts, and the smile he gives runs a blade through Kihyun’s guts. “He came back for you, right? I know I can’t compete.”

“He didn’t–”

“Hyung, it’s okay. I know you don’t feel the same. I just thought, maybe, with time… I don’t know what I thought.”

They fall silent, and the right words are never there when Kihyun needs them the most.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Changkyun starts, “this really isn’t the time or the place.”

“I guess not,” Kihyun laughs, a short thing that ends on a choked sob and he’s surprised at himself, surprised at the tears prickling at the corner of his eyes, at the breath stuck in his lungs, at the knot in his throat. And Changkyun doesn’t say anything, Changkyun opens his arms for Kihyun to fit there, find the warmth that he needs and it’s easy, always easy, a place to bury his sorrow and his weariness, a place where there’s no need for pretense.

They remain until there is no more tears to be spent, no more breaths to gasp out, and Kihyun is grateful for Changkyun’s silence; there is nothing to say, nothing that will ease his grief, nothing that will bring back his dead. They remain and Kihyun listens to the steady beat of Changkyun’s heart, listens to the deep tremor of his voice when he speaks again.

“I don’t wanna see you leave,” Changkyun says quietly, “please don’t come tell me goodbye when you do.”

Kihyun lifts his head, staring at Changkyun’s face, at his tired eyes and his still too-long hair and he knows now that someone else will cut them for him, that someone else will chase that sadness from his gaze and something stirs under his heart, a choked feeling he cannot name and this isn’t it, this isn’t how it should be yet Kihyun still cannot find the honesty, cannot find the bravery, too many things he cannot put aside and his hands in Changkyun’s own feel cold, useless to wipe the hurt he can see spelled on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Kihyun says, and he hates those words, hates how weak, how inadequate they sound. But Changkyun smiles, leaning his forehead against Kihyun’s and he’s forgiven again; Changkyun is easy, always has been, never expecting what Kihyun was not prepared to give.

“Everything’s gotta end sometimes,” he says, and Kihyun nods, a bitter taste on his tongue. This is a day for goodbyes, ones he never wanted to give. Yet he watches Changkyun go, standing there on the threshold of the funeral home, and there is another goodbye he must come back to, one that was months in the making yet it doesn’t hurt any less.

Yoongi is still there when Kihyun steps back into the parlor, sitting with his back against the wall, staring at the portrait amongst the flowers and Kihyun wonders what he sees, wonders how he remembers the man pictured there, what kind of memories he has of him – all the dinners they shared together, all the rides to school and the sleepovers they both spent listening to him cough, Kihyun curled up against Yoongi, listening to the sickness spread in his father’s cells and death was already there, all this time ago.

“He’s okay?” Yoongi asks, and Kihyun plasters an awkward smile on his lips, a waving gesture of his hand pushing the matter aside.

“Yeah, no worries,” and it must be that Yoongi cannot see through him anymore; he smiles back, light and genuine, and as he stands Kihyun feels the drowning man in his chest, still there, still gasping for air.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“Not for a while,” Kihyun answers, and soon enough he’s seated at a corner table in a small restaurant, Yoongi turning his back to the room. Not famous enough to get recognized, he says, but one never knows. And it’s simple, weightless words exchanged over their steaming jjigae and there’s small comforts there, something lost coming back yet all Kihyun can think of is Changkyun’s brown eyes, the slight downturn of his mouth, don’t come tell me goodbye, his back as he’d left and once again Kihyun had wanted to run after him, talk to him, touch him one last time, and once again he hadn’t. You never say what you really think, you never do what you really want, Yoongi had said once, and his tone had been light yet the words had buried themselves in Kihyun’s flesh; he’d carried them with him, all this time.

You will have to be brave, his father had said, and maybe that’s what he had meant. The bravery to be himself, something he could never do; there was always too much at stake. Yet the more subdued, the more quiet he was and the more he lost – meekness had never held back anyone and Kihyun stood deserted, sand in his shoes, lungs slowly filling with water.

“What you said earlier,” Yoongi is saying, spooning rice into his jjigae, “about how there may be nothing left for you here. This means you’re leaving, right? Will you come to Seoul?”

Kihyun stares, stares at Yoongi and his earnest, beautiful face, at the hand wrapped around the handle of the spoon, at his dyed hair and the stylish shirt he wears, gaping on his collarbones. And he lets the answer come to him, lets the words escape his throat without trying to swallow them, lets the drowned man in his chest struggle to the surface.

“I need to let you go.”

“What?”

“I need to let you go,” Kihyun repeats, “I’ve held on to you because it was easier, this way, easier than facing all that went wrong but… I can’t keep doing that. It’s not fair. To you or me or anyone.”

Yoongi lets his spoon rest against the side of his bowl with a clinking sound that has Kihyun look down, and maybe Yoongi knew, Kihyun thinks, maybe he always knew; when he looks up Yoongi’s smile is gentle, tinted by a soft melancholy looking back at days gone by.

“You’re staying here.”

“Yeah. That’s… That’s what I want. For now.”

“Good, then.”

“You’re not mad.”

“Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know,” Kihyun says, and Yoongi smiles again, picking up a lotus root from the banchan to lay on Kihyun’s rice.

“Eat. It’s been a long day, right?”

“Yeah,” Kihyun answers, a light feeling bubbling in his chest; relief, maybe, or something else, something akin to hope and anticipation.

5.

Kihyun goes with Yoongi to the train station. He waits with him, watches him get on his carriage, waits until he finds his seat to stand at the window and wave him goodbye. There’s his number in his phone and a promise to keep in touch, this time, and the light feeling in Kihyun’s chest is still there as the train leaves, Kihyun watching until it’s out of sight. Goodbyes do not have to hurt all the time, he learns, goodbyes do not have to spell an ineluctable end.

Kihyun runs, then. He runs through old streets he knows by heart, wind in his ears carrying the smell of the ocean; he runs until he cannot run anymore, lungs bursting but the staircase is there, and it’s almost chill in the corridor, the last light of the waning afternoon drowning it in shadows. He pounds on the well-known door and it’s almost too long until there’s an answer, almost too long, but Changkyun is suddenly there, hair sticking up every which way and maybe he was asleep, bleary eyes staring at Kihyun as if seeing a ghost.

“What– I told you I didn’t–”

“I don’t want to leave,” Kihyun says, out of breath, voice raw and slightly too loud.

“What?”

“I don’t want to leave,” he repeats, pushing by Changkyun to let himself in. “I don’t want anyone else to cut your hair, I want it to be me, I want to be here with you.”

He turns back, watching as Changkyun closes the door, watching as he steps closer and he looks soft, so soft, an old grey shirt and threadbare jeans and Kihyun wants to touch him, and so he does. He grabs his hand, threads their fingers together and Changkyun lets him.

“I’m sorry,” Kihyun says, “I’m sorry for everything, I just...”

“Have a lot going on?” Changkyun says, lips quirked in a gentle smirk that has Kihyun laughing ruefully.

“Yeah, I guess I do. It’s not an excuse to be a jerk, though.”

Changkyun smiles, something barely there and he looks down at their hands, biting his lips.

“You love me, right?” Kihyun says then, and Changkyun sharply looks up, eyes wide.

“What?”

“Sorry, did I read that wrong? I thought–”

“No,” Changkyun says, and he’s not looking up as he speaks. “No, you’re right.”

Kihyun gently tugs on his hand then, until Changkyun leans forward, until he can wrap him in his arms. Honesty, Kihyun thinks, and the bravery that must follow.

“I don’t know… I’m not sure what I feel. But when I’m with you, I… I feel fine. When you touch me I don’t think of anything else. I thought I wanted to leave but I couldn’t do it. Not when you’re here. Can that be enough? Can I be enough?”

Changkyun’s hands come up around his back, fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt and Kihyun can feel him pressing against him, warm and yielding. He feels him nod against his shoulder, feels his hair brush the soft skin of his neck.

“Yeah,” he says, voice muffled against Kihyun’s body, “yeah, you’re enough.”

Kihyun leans back, gently nudging Changkyun until he looks up and he kisses him then, softly, kisses him on the edge of his cheekbone, on his cheek where his dimple appear, on his lips, again and again and Changkyun chuckles, tangling his hands in Kihyun’s hair, bringing him closer, closer still. They tumble back, blindly looking for the bed and the sheets there are warm and messy.

“Were you taking a depression nap?” Kihyun laughs as he pulls Changkyun down with him.

“Shut the fuck up, it’s your fault.”

“Sorry,” Kihyun says as Changkyun settles next to him. Now that his breath has calmed down, now that Changkyun is there, a comforting warmth digging in his side, what Kihyun had pushed away slowly comes back, slithering from hidden depths; the call from the hospital days ago, the portrait amongst the flowers and the dark suit he’s still wearing, with his white armband and stiff collar. Yoongi, too, and all he has to let go of now, watching as the train disappeared down the tracks. He can feel a wetness clinging to his eyelashes yet there is no sobs in his chest, only a vast emptiness he doesn’t know how to fill.

“Kihyun?”

“Sorry,” Kihyun repeats, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. Changkyun shifts, sitting cross-legged next to him and his fingers come up to the knot of Kihyun’s tie, pulling gently. He opens the first few buttons of the white shirt, unpins the armband from the jacket’s sleeve and slides it off, carefully folding it and leaving it upon the pillow. Kihyun sighs, something deep and shaky, and Changkyun leans in to kiss him, slowly, once upon his brow, upon each of his closed eyelids, upon his cheeks and his mouth where he lingers. Kihyun’s hands come up to lose themselves in his hair and Changkyun leans further in, shifting until Kihyun can feel his weight upon his chest, warm and grounding.

“How do you… How are you supposed to grieve?” Kihyun asks after a silence, voice almost too quiet to hear.

“I don’t know,” Changkyun answers. “But you can cry if you want to.”

“Can I stay here a while?”

Kihyun can feel Changkyun nod against his chest and his arms come up to keep him there, keep his warmth and his weight and his smell, keep the soft feeling of his breaths upon the skin of his neck. Kihyun can feel the tears spilling from his eyes, gently dripping along his temples to land on the pillow under his nape, and he can feel his breaths caught in his lungs, can feel the black ink of his sorrow spreading between his ribs. But it’s less lonely than he imagined, less dire, and he knew that it was coming, and suffering needs to end, sometimes. And so he lets it go, lets if flow out of himself until it exhausts him and he falls asleep, cheeks dry and mind empty.

When he wakes, there’s a weight on his belly and he gazes down at Changkyun, who’s using his stomach as a pillow as he reads. It’s another book, the cover hidden from him and Kihyun wonders how long has it been, since they were together like this.

“Did I sleep long?” he asks, and there’s a certain sense of déjà-vu, Changkyun craning his neck to look at him as he puts the book down on his chest. The grey light of early evening draws shadows on his handsome face and Kihyun stares, looking for the name of that soft feeling below his heart.

“Not really,” Changkyun answers him, “do you feel any better?”

And he does, Kihyun realizes, a clean emptiness where the tears used to be. He sighs, stretching his arms over his head, letting them fall back to bury a hand in Changkyun’s hair.

“Can you read to me a bit?”

“From the beginning or–”

“Just where you left off,” Kihyun says. He just wants to hear Changkyun’s voice. It takes on a new quality when he reads, a thoughtful lilt to his words and Kihyun listens, fingers lazily stroking his hair.

“‘Of course. An act is all there is. There isn’t anything else. In here’ – he tapped his chest with the lighter – ‘there isn’t anything.’”

Changkyun pauses to turn the page, Kihyun closing his eyes, hand stilling as Changkyun’s voice rises anew.

“He turned and walked across the floor and out. I watched the door close. I listened to his steps going away down the imitation marble corridor. After a while they got faint, then they got silent. I kept on listening anyway. What for? Did I want him to stop suddenly and turn and come back and talk me out of the way I felt? Well, he didn’t. That was the last I saw of him. I never saw any of them again – except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.”

Changkyun’s voice stops but there’s a strange resonance in Kihyun’s chest,an echo of the words that hangs there.

“Why did you stop?”

“It’s over,” Changkyun says, closing the book and putting it down at his side.

“It ends like that?”

“Yeah,” Changkyun says, shifting until he’s on his side next to Kihyun and it’s cold, suddenly, where his head just lay.

“I can’t decide if it’s a good or a bad ending.”

“I think it’s a good one,” Changkyun says, idly playing with a strand of Kihyun’s hair, winding it around his finger. “Some people are just not meant to stay in your life. That’s okay too, you can’t always keep everything.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kihyun says, and he wonders, had he listened? Had he waited until he couldn’t hear him anymore, had he hoped for Yoongi to turn back? He cannot remember anymore, and he finds that he doesn’t mind as much; yet another thing he should let go down the river.

Changkyun’s hand leaves his hair and he straightens up, leaning on his elbows to peer at Kihyun’s face and he’s close, not enough to kiss though, and Kihyun remains on his pillow, staring at him, at his warm brown eyes and messy hair, at the full lips and tall nose and that’s something he wants to keep, Kihyun realizes, that’s a goodbye he’s not ready to make.

“Do you still want to cut my hair?” Changkyun asks out of the blue, and Kihyun laughs.

“What?”

“You mentioned my hair when you came in.”

“Oh, right.” Kihyun says, remembering the urgency he’d felt of coming here, of finding him. “I just felt possessive.”

“Of my hair? That’s a weird thing to be possessive of.”

“Oh, I’m possessive about the rest of your body parts too.”

“Don’t say it like that, ‘body parts’,” Changkyun makes a face, letting himself fall onto his back. “It makes you sound like a serial killer.”

“Maybe I am one.”

“You’d be so shit at it.”

“Yeah, probably,” Kihyun answers, rolling on his belly so he can nuzzle at Changkyun’s shoulder. “I don’t really mind sucking at serial killing, though.”

It’s not funny but Changkyun laughs anyway, the high-pitched laugh Kihyun loves and it’s easy, like it always is, lame jokes and lazy kisses, soft touches and softer words. Changkyun sighs against Kihyun’s lips as he kisses him, as he threads his hands into his hair, as he runs his palms down his sides.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Changkyun nods, chasing another kiss. “When will you be back?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Kihyun says, and it seems so close, not enough time for that sorrow to settle and maybe it will never disappear completely. But he can learn to carry it, carve a space in his bones for it to rest, a small shrine of grief to his lost ones.

“Changkyun?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna cut your hair.”

Changkyun doesn’t protest this time, pulling off his shirt and sitting on his desk chair, Kihyun standing behind him with a pair of scissors, combing through his hair. Kihyun takes his time, lingering more than he needs to, flitting touches to Changkyun’s nape and the soft skin of his temples.

“Can I ask you something?” Changkyun’s voice rises in a lazy drawl, eyes half closed.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you run out last time?”

Kihyun pauses for a bit resting his hands on Changkyun’s shoulder before taking up snipping again, tugging on the short hair at his nape.

“I used to cut Yoongi’s hair, too. And I… it felt too much like déjà-vu. I freaked out. I don’t know. I was a mess. I’m sorry.”

Changkyun hums under his breath, and Kihyun can tell there’s something else he needs to ask, it’s in the tense line of his shoulder, the slight droop of his neck.

“Do you… Are you still in love with him?”

“No,” Kihyun says, and the readiness of the answer surprises even himself. “I haven’t been for a long time. But, you know, he became… An idea, in my mind. Or an image. Of when it was still… When it still felt like life could turn out better. I sort of hung on to it. To him.”

Changkyun nods, Kihyun’s hands dropping back to his shoulders, sliding down to trace his collarbones.

“Do you dislike your life that much?”

Kihyun looks down, at Changkyun’s soft, tanned skin, at the slope of his shoulders, at the little scar on his upper arm and the muscles of his back. And he thinks of nights spent near the ocean, watching flames dance on the faces of his friends, loud laughter and stupid jokes and the fierce devotion found there. He thinks back on his father’s soft voice, his quiet sort of love and his frail hands, warm and gentle.

“No,” Kihyun says then, “I don’t.”

Changkyun turns on his chair, looking up at Kihyun and he’s smiling, a soft smile Kihyun adores and he bends to kiss it, kiss him, tangling his hands in his hair to keep him close and when he breathes the drowned man in his chest breathes with him.

6.

“The last time we had a drink in a bar was in May and it was earlier than usual, just after four o’clock. He looked tired and thinner but he looked around with a slow smile of pleasure.”

Changkyun’s low voice barely covers the noise of the train and Kihyun shifts, sinking further into Changkyun’s side to hear him better. They’d started the book back from the beginning, the one from that day where Kihyun had come back, disheveled and out of breath. Changkyun read and Kihyun listened, and he’d kiss him three pages in and they got nowhere fast. But it was nice, and Kihyun liked it, and there were a lot of new things Kihyun liked. They had dyed Changkyun’s hair a warm auburn and it had been a mess but Kihyun liked the way sunlight reflected in his hair now, on lazy afternoons they spent in bed after the morning shift. He liked the way Changkyun fit against him, the way his voice sounded, so close to his own skin, the way he’d understand what Kihyun meant, when he’d give him his food, his thoughts, his touch.

He’d liked the apartment they’d found, on their fourth trip down to Busan, small but not too small, enough space to host friends on the living room floor and close enough to the ocean that they wouldn’t miss it. He’d liked that it was Changkyun who’d suggested they leave, try their luck elsewhere, tired of sweaty overalls and sore arms. He liked that it was still easy, so easy, like it always had been. And he liked that he knew, now, what that feeling was, nesting there under his heart.

“I walked out leaving him sitting there shocked and white-faced as well as I could tell by the kind of light they have in bars. He called something after me, but I kept going. Ten minutes later I was sorry. But ten minutes later I was somewhere else. He didn’t come to the office any more. Not at all. Not once. I had got to him where it hurt.”

“Changkyun?”

“Yeah?” Changkyun interrupts himself, looking at him above the book. Their carriage is almost empty; the middle of the week in winter no one wants to see the ocean.

“I know what I feel now.”

“What?” Changkyun says, darting eyes to the few passengers they share the space with but no one is paying them any mind, absorbed in the pages of their own books, half-lulled to sleep by the windows, deaf to the world under headphones.

“I know now, I love you.”

“I knew already,” Changkyun only replies, but there’s a smile dancing on his lips and Kihyun knew it would mean a kiss, were they anywhere else. “Now shut up, we’re getting to the good part.”

Kihyun nods, resuming his position against Changkyun, whose voice rises again, with this particular cadence it takes when he’s reading.

“I didn’t see him again for a month. When I did it was at five o’clock in the morning and just beginning to get light. The persistent ringing of the doorbell yanked me out of bed…”

Kihyun closes his eyes, listening to that voice he adores, threading in with the clack clack of the train’s wheels, the soft whirring of the air-con and his own breathing; he lets himself sink, in Changkyun’s warmth next to him, in his soft body; in the river he’d learned to let flow.