Chapter Text
Seungmin watched with an unwavering gaze as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, dyeing the vaporous Seoul sky a brilliant shade of orange, then red, and finally a blue so dark, it was almost black. His bottle of beer felt warm beneath his fingertips and he sighed in defeat as he returned to the fridge to retrieve another.
“Hey,” Hyunjin gave him a curious smile when he entered the kitchen. The blonde stood regally, leaning against the kitchen counter, a glass of wine in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. Even in an old knitted sweater and worn blue jeans he looked like something out of a fashion magazine. Seungmin did once get him to admit he’d done a few modelling gigs in college. “You were out there for a while.”
“I was, wasn’t I?” Seungmin grimaced as he grabbed a cold one from the fridge, cringing at the already diminishing quantity of alcohol. His two friends had only arrived a day ago yet his alcohol and food supply has sufficiently shrunk. “Guess I lost track of time,” he drew back from the fridge. “Is Sung still asleep?”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin laughed, his eyes crinkling, “I thought the alcohol might remedy his jetlag but…” he gave Seungmin a skeptical look. “I guess it just gave him more of an excuse to sleep.” Of course, Hyunjin would be put off by that. He was one of those who rose early and made the most of their day before surrendering to sleep.
Seungmin chuckled and hopped up onto the counter, brushing brunette bangs away from his eyes. “You both only just met so I guess you don’t know this but Jisung loves his bed more than he loves himself. In other words, he loves sleep a hell of a lot .” He smiled fondly at the memory of all the times he’d had to drag Jisung out of his bed – quite literally.
While Seungmin lived a twenty minute drive away from Hyunjin, after college Jisung had moved away to Malaysia with his parents, and now owned a small real estate agency, which meant he only ever left the country to visit South Korea once or twice a year. It was a shame considering he was Seungmin’s closest friend and one of the best things about his childhood.
The best memories of his childhood all included getting up to mischief with Jisung – stealing cookies, riding their bikes out farther than they were allowed, kidnapping the neighbour’s Pomeranian to take him out for spontaneous walks, and dunking each other in the stream during hot summers. You name it – they did it.
Seungmin grabbed a slice of pizza from the box, picking out the mushrooms, and all too aware of Hyunjin’s eyes following his every movement.
“Are you doing okay, Minnie?”
There it was. Seungmin inwardly sighed. Why did Hyunjin always have to ask? Unlike Jisung who Seungmin had known since he was in diapers, he’d known Hyunjin for all of seven months. They’d run into each other at a grocery store and connected through their mutual love for sweet potatoes. Exchanging family recipes for sweet potato pie had led to a very unlikely friendship.
In all honesty, Hyunjin didn’t know him as well as Jisung did, but every time they were together Seungmin could swear Hyunjin saw right through him, past the mask Seungmin wore, past his barriers, past his façade.
“I’m fine.” Seungmin bit into his slice of pizza, chewing slowly before swallowing and turning to look at Hyunjin. “I’m fine, honestly. Things are looking up. Law school’s done. Just signed a twelve month work contract for a great firm, moved into this amazing apartment and…” he shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
“But are you happy ?”
Seungmin tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Come on , man,” he groaned. “I’m happy. Can’t you see that?”
To Seungmin, his ‘happiness’ was pretty visible. He smiled, he laughed, he went out with friends, he went to parties, he threw parties, he went to soccer games, he hosted post-game barbeques, he ate too much, he spent vacations at the seaside, he did everything that happy people did. There was no reason for anyone to suspect that beneath it all lurked a profound sense of sadness, of loss.
But Hyunjin saw it all and it scared Seungmin that someone was willing to pay that much attention to him, to notice the little things, to notice when his mask slipped, able to find the cracks in his walls.
“Guys, I’m hungry!” Jisung’s shout reached them from wherever in the two bedroom apartment he’d dosed off.
“Okay, then,” Hyunjin relented with an unconvinced nod, giving him a pat on the shoulder and a small smile before he strode into the living room. He always probed but he knew not to push.
Seungmin sighed in relief that he’d let it go, however temporarily. He grabbed the pizza box and followed, plastering a smile onto his face.
“Can’t believe you started eating without me,” Jisung pouted, lifting the box out of Seungmin’s hands and sitting cross-legged on the couch.
“You know,” Seungmin’s lips lifted at the corners, “I thought this was going to be a house warming party but you’re warming your bed more than anything else.”
Jisung wasn’t bothered. “We got so wasted last night,” he shook his head, giving Seungmin a wistful smile.
“ You got so wasted,” Hyunjin corrected, exchanging a skeptical look with Seungmin. “Minnie and I spent the entire day by ourselves because you couldn’t pull yourself out of bed.”
“ Minnie and I ,” Jisung teased in a high-pitched voice, snorting out a laugh and choking when Seungmin stuffed his mouth with a slice of pizza. Hyunjin pressed his lips together, clearly trying to suppress his smile. And Seungmin pretended that he couldn’t see his blush, tactfully resorting to stuffing his own mouth next.
“I did get out of bed,” Jisung mumbled through his mouthful. “For brunch.”
“And then you went back to bed,” Seungmin scolded, laughing despite himself. “You only have a few days left here. Let’s not waste it again.” His eyes flickered to the hardcover book wedged between Jisung and the cushion. “Hey, what’s that ?”
“Oh!” Jisung’s eyes widened and he hurriedly put down his half eaten slice. “So, here’s what happened.” Seungmin recognized Jisung’s signature story-telling posture and settled back to hear his tale. “I met this client at a café and this really hot waitress caught my eye –”
“Wait, what happened to the florist?” Seungmin interrupted, recalling how just two weeks ago Jisung had been gushing about her over the phone.
“Jeez, Seungmin,” Jisung sighed. “That’s old news. Now listen. She left me her number on a napkin. So I got home, called her, we went out for drinks. And then she came back to my place.”
Seungmin scrunched his nose, hoping Jisung wouldn’t go into detail, but this was Jisung so…
“So I was pretty excited, because she was really hot,” he proceeded to make a gesture with his hands to demonstrate the shape of her body, “and you know, I was about to get my di–”
“Can we skip the gory details?” Hyunjin made a face. “Please?”
“Gory?” Jisung scowled at him. “Fine. Afterwards, she wanted a tour of the house so I showed her around and she saw that box where I keep my old school stuff and I found this yearbook in there.”
“You could’ve just said that in the first place,” Hyunjin gave him an exasperated look which Jisung responded to by making an obscene gesture using both his middle fingers.
But Seungmin was still gawking at the book. “Is that our senior yearbook?” he grabbed it from Jisung’s hands and both his friends joined him on the carpet, engaging in a short game of tug-of-war before just settling on placing the book in the middle.
They spent close to an hour looking at the school staff, Jisung pointing out their favorites to Hyunjin, making shoddy remarks about their mean no-nonsense teachers, and narrating tales about the times they’d got into trouble, or narrowly avoided it. Hyunjin, a newly qualified art teacher, was quick to defend his profession, ending up in a dramatic debate with Jisung which Seungmin carefully mediated, preventing it from getting heated like almost every other time the two happened to be in the same room.
Seungmin let Jisung do all the talking, mindful of the fact that his best friend had fonder memories than he did of their senior year. To Seungmin it had been a year of nightmares, and one that he didn’t like to revisit often.
And when Seungmin turned the page over to see ‘CLASS OF 2012’ written at the top, he felt that pang of emptiness. Jisung blabbered excitedly about their old classmates and where they were now, who was driving what car, who’d been married thrice, who had twelve cats… But Seungmin could only look at that empty space, five rows down, three photos to the right. He touched a finger to the dark empty square which gaped at him, and the name printed in italics struck a chord in his heart, so powerful that he began to tremble.
Lee Felix
He dipped his head, letting his bangs fall over his eyes to mask their glassiness. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the torrent of memories battering down on him. But it had only taken that one name to tear down the carefully constructed walls he’d built.
The vacant space in an eight year old yearbook shouldn’t have bothered him. But it did. He’d learned ages ago that where Felix was concerned, his feelings were always a whole mess.