Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

(Kihyun sits by the open window of his empty classroom with his arms on the sill and his cheek on his arm, watching the sky blaze too blue, heat bearing down upon the dusty playing field. There are boys there, five of them, yelling and pulling at each other over a soccer ball, tanned faces and tanned arms and sweat glinting on their foreheads. Kihyun stares and Kihyun wonders if he could ever be one of them, careless smiles and easy touches that don’t mean anything.

There is a boy there Kihyun’s gaze follows, and his smile is a little nicer than the other’s, his laugh a little louder, his face a little brighter. Kihyun knows him and Kihyun should hate him. Hate the way nothing seems to reach him, the way he always sneers at him, the way he wears his tie crooked and the nonchalance of his demeanour. And he does, somehow, a burning hate flaring each time they lock eyes.

But this is the day Kihyun has decided to stop lying to himself. It’s too late, he knows, much too late. And so he stares, his arms on the sill and his cheek on his arm, he stares and he listens and the thoughts in his head rip a hole in his heart.

Yoo Kihyun is in love with Min Yoongi.

It’s not so accurate, though. Being in something with someone seems to imply some sort of reciprocity, some sort of action. Kihyun’s love is not that kind of love. He keeps it hidden, barred from light and water, waiting for it to withers. It sits like a stone under his tiresome heart and he feels it bruising against his ribs.

It’s the last day of school, and Yoo Kihyun is in love with Min Yoongi. )

1.

It’s a bit strange to be back here after all these years, Yoongi thinks. Nothing has really changed, as is often the way with small rural towns. It feels like the shops he passes on the main street are exactly the same he has already passed a thousand time on his way to school; the same faded store-fronts, the same peeling paint, the same ajummas loudly recounting the same anecdotes to each other. He had thought he’d hate it. He’d braced himself in the train on his way here, braced himself for the dust and the rain and the depressive look of the town, crushed flat under the grey autumn sky. Yet it wasn’t so bad, not as bad as he’d make it, at least. The weather was actually quite nice, the air crisp, not a trace of rain and crunchy leaves on the pavement he stepped on with a bit too much glee. The quiet was nice, too. He had forgotten about that, how quiet everything is here, compared to the city.

“Alli! Fuck,” a loud voice resounds from behind him, sending Yoongi’s heart crashing against his ribs and shattering his dreams of rural silence.

“Catch him! Catch the dog!” the man keeps yelling, and before Yoongi can do anything he’s overcome by white fluffiness and a dog bounds past him, closely followed by a blond man huffing and puffing. Somehow the only thing Yoongi notices is how his overalls have ducks patches sewn on their front pocket.

“Thanks for fucking nothing, dude!” the man throws at him without even slowing, running down the street after his dog. Yoongi stops, mouth agape, and he should probably yell something back but nothing comes to mind. People usually don’t address him this way. People usually don’t address anyone this way. Yoongi stares after the man and the dog, kind of pettily hoping he won’t manage to catch him but all his, admittedly crass, expectations are crushed when the dog bounds straight into the arms of a dark-haired man standing next to a parked pick-up truck. Yoongi hears a laughs, and that laugh wakes something in him, something he cannot quite pinpoint.

He walks closer, stopping under the porch of a cellphone store (and that one was definitely not there back then), watching the man crouch to pet the dog as the chaser is bent over next to him, trying to catch his breath.

“Did you miss me?” the man is asking, and that’s it, Yoongi thinks, he knows him from somewhere.

“He fucking smelled you all the way back up the street I thought I’d die running after him.”

“You’re the least fit farmhand I know,” a third man, leaning out of the pick-up’s window, says to him.

“Next time there’s any chasing to do you’re doing it, let’s see how well you fare, dickhead,” the chaser answers sourly and the man laughs, not offended for a bit. But Yoongi is still staring at the one crouching next to the dog, trying to place him. He has to erase the knitted wool sweater, the tired pants and the muddy boots, has to shorten the hair and thin the body, but it’s him, it is, it’s Yoo Kihyun. Granted Yoongi had never seen him smile that way, had never heard him laugh this loud. Mousy, quiet Kihyun, and maybe the feeling unfurling in his stomach is guilt.

Kihyun stands after a last pat on the dog’s head, saying something Yoongi doesn’t hear and the chaser climbs at the back of the pickup amongst empty crates, calling the dog to him as Kihyun skirts around to reach the passenger door. As he passes, his gaze lands on Yoongi. Yoongi freezes. But Kihyun just shares an absent smile, the one you give strangers you accidentally lock eyes with, and disappears behind the truck. Somehow it shouldn’t sting this much, Yoongi thinks. He should probably be relieved, even, that Kihyun doesn’t remember him. There was nothing good enough to remember, between them.

He shrugs, absently staring at the cellphones behind the glass window, trying to remember what was the last thing he had said to Kihyun, but that’s not what’s come to mind. What he remembers is a dusty field, the heat of summer bearing down on him. Taehyung hanging off his arm, sweaty hands and glistening eyes, Hoseok kicking the soccer ball way too hard, the laughs and the yells. He had looked up, then, he had looked up as if someone had called him. He’d seen him, leaning at the window sill, a mass of dark hair and rumpled uniform. They hadn’t locked eyes. They hadn’t said anything. Taehyung had kicked the ball and Hoseok had pushed him back into the game and it was the last time Min Yoongi had seen Yoo Kihyun.

2.

Hoseok drives way too fast. Way too fast, and always with the windows down, except when it’s raining. Kihyun can see Minhyuk’s back pressed against the rear window to shelter himself from the wind, Alli snuggled up to him. There’s an old song on the radio, something Kihyun used to know the words to. Hoseok keeps sneaking glances, giving him an itch on his skin but Kihyun keeps his eyes stubbornly locked on the road. Until he can’t stand it anymore, after Hoseok opens his mouth to close it right back again once too many times.

“What?” he asks, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice but the awkward laugh Hoseok gives tells him he failed.

“Nothing, just. You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kihyun retorts, wishing Hoseok would keep his unnatural observational skills solely on the vegetables they harvest.

“Just. You seemed fine and then not so much.”

Kihyun sighs, bringing his eyes back on the road. He can see the edge of their own fields coming up, the pumpkins they have to harvest soon resting their heavy heads on the soft earth. He knows that if he’s going to say anything, it’s going to have to be now. Hoseok knows him well, waited for the relative privacy of the truck to offer him a chance to talk.

“Was I that obvious?” Kihyun asks and Hoseok shrugs, keeping quiet.

“I thought I saw someone I knew,” Kihyun says, “and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

Hoseok hums, switching on his turn signal before engaging on the dirt path leading to the farm despite the road being entirely deserted. Hoseok’s just lawful like that.

“What kind of someone?”

“A high-school classmate kind of someone?”

“Good kind or bad kind?”

This stumps Kihyun for a bit. Mostly it had been bad. Not terribly bad, but enough that he didn’t like thinking back on his high school days. It hadn’t been entirely Yoongi’s fault, though. He had mostly just gone with the flow. It’s Kihyun’s own feelings which had hurt the most.

“Mostly not great I guess,” he says eventually, seeing Hoseok nod from the corner of his eyes. Hoseok always seems to understand perfectly well what you mean.

“I doubt it was really him anyway,” Kihyun continues, “I don’t see why he’d come back here.”

“If it was, do we need to keep an eye out?”

It’s an innocent enough question, but Kihyun bursts out laughing. The image of Hoseok, tanned, muscular, won’t-hurt-a-fly Hoseok looming over his own high-school crush slash sorta-bully Min Yoongi in the middle of a pumpkin field has a distinct flavour of absurdity he cannot really get over.

“I think I’m gonna be fine,” he says when he manages to calm down, Hoseok smiling as he parks the truck, “but thanks.”

“Anytime, boss,” Hoseok says, turning off the engine. When they exit the truck Minhyuk is already there, scowling, hair an angry blond mess.

“Next time you’re getting in the back,” he snarls, pushing a finger in Kihyun’s face.

“I can’t. I have a bad leg.”

“Lies and slanders!” Minhyuk yells, throwing his hands over his head before stomping in the direction of the house, Alli bounding on his feet. Hoseok laughs, starting right away on unloading the empty crates.

“How much did you guys sell?” a smooth voice asks then and Kihyun turns to Hyunwoo with a jump. He never hears him arrive. Someone so big shouldn’t be so quiet, Kihyun thinks for the umpteenth time, gesturing to the empty crates in the truck bed.

“Everything,” he says proudly, “once again we shall thank American imperialism for making pumpkins so popular at this time of the year.”

“I’ll send a letter to the embassy,” Hyunwoo says evenly as he grabs some of the crates Hoseok had unloaded, dragging them to the barn down the driveway. Hoseok stares at him. Kihyun stares at Hoseok.

“I’m sorry he’s so dense,” Kihyun eventually says, when the silence stretches. Hoseok’s absent gaze snaps back to him, a slight blush on his cheeks.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kihyun says, shrugging. The door to the house has opened, Hyungwon leaning against the door frame, and if Hyungwon is awake it’s that surely food has been made. Kihyun is starving.

“Your mum brought an apple pie,” is the first thing that comes out of Hyungwon’s mouth when Kihyun reaches him. “And geotjeori. And she said to eat it with the leftover galkugsu from yesterday.”

“Alright,” Kihyun says, toeing his boots off. Hyungwon has already lost all interest in him, burying his face in Alli’s fur.

“We’re spoiling him,” Kihyun remarks, “he’s supposed to be a guard dog.”

“He’s guarding my heart,” Hyungwon answers, cheek pressed to the top of Alli’s head. Kihyun pretends to gag. Hyungwon shows him his teeth. Alli rolls on his back and both of them crouch next to him, offering well-deserved belly rubs.

“You’re the worst guard dog ever,” Kihyun tells Alli who doesn’t seem to mind. Hyungwon laughs, and it’s then that Kihyun notices something is slightly askew. It’s in the way Hyungwon touches the dog, as if looking for comfort. In the way the corners of his smile don’t really reach his eyes. Kihyun doesn’t say anything,

“My parents called,” Hyungwon says eventually, a lilt to his voice Kihyun doesn’t like. His hands have stilled in Alli’s bright fur.

“Oh god,” Kihyun says, lifting his gaze to Hyungwon, “what did they say?”

“They wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“Why?” Kihyun asks, a sour taste in his mouth. He’s not the biggest fan of Hyungwon’s parents. He has yet to find a way to let them know their son will never be like they expect him to be, and that it’s fine. That Hyungwon himself is perfectly fine the way he is.

“Probably so you can tell them how super good I am at tilling,” Hyungwon says dejectedly. He has crouched even lower, splaying his fingers on Alli’s belly.

“Last time I let you near a hoe you almost brained yourself,” Kihyun remarks evenly.

“I know, I was there. And so was my blood.”

Kihyun snorts, and the tentative smile blooming on Hyungwon’s face makes him feel better.

“If they call when I’m not there just don’t answer,” Kihyun says then.

“I thought you said I should stop ignoring the real world.”

“I meant as in, don’t stay in the orchard reading past ungodly hours when everyone’s looking for you and it’s goddamn freezing. Ignoring phone calls is a human right.”

Hyungwon looks up when he smiles this time, and it’s a real smile, one that reaches his eyes. Kihyun resists the urge to pat his hair like he would do Alli’s and gets up, offering Hyungwon his hand so he can pull himself to his feet.

“Let’s go make lunch,” he says, and that finishes to restore Hyungwon to happiness. Sometimes Kihyun sorts of envies Hyungwon’s capacity to forget everything unpleasant just as soon as he deems it over, no traces left in his mind. Admittedly his grip on reality isn’t all that firm, but maybe Kihyun’s is too much so. And he thinks back to the figure standing near the shop, and he hadn’t told the entire truth to Hoseok. Kihyun had known right away it was Yoongi standing there. And he knew perfectly well how that made him feel. A bit rattled, a bit stunned, a bit upset. He had thought that wound had closed over long ago, but half a second had sufficed to tell him that it had not, the flesh still raw, the blood still wet.

“Get away from that pie!” Hyungwon is yelling, which is enough out of character to snap Kihyun back to the moment.

“Damn okay,” Jooheon says, startled, his guilty hand cradled to his chest. He’s muddy from head to toe, Kihyun figuring that he must have come from weeding the fields. Somehow Jooheon always manages to make an unbelievable mess of himself and Kihyun suspects he does it on purpose for some obscure reason.

“Can’t you get cleaned-up before you come tracking mud everywhere?” Kihyun asks as he gets to the fridge, dragging out the impressive amount of leftover kalguksu to dump it into a pot and reheat.

“Minhyuk evicted me from the bathroom yelling something about his hair. We need to finish renovating the other one before there’s a murder.”

“Or you guys could like, go back to your own homes sometimes.”

“And miss out on all the fun? No way.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes as he stirs the pot, hearing Hyungwon bringing out plates and cutlery, needling Jooheon into helping him. They don’t even have to ring the impressive cow bell they installed outside to signal for dinner. Somehow everyone has figured out Kihyun and Hoseok’s return meant lunch. Hyunwoo and Hoseok drift in together, closely followed by Minhyuk, in a better mood now that his hair are back to normal. Changkyun is the last to join, sitting at the head of the table as Kihyun puts a hearty bowl of noodle soup in front of him. Alli has disappeared under the table, patiently waiting for the scraps he’s sure to get.

“I think Beautiful needs new shoes,” Changkyun says, absently pulling at his noodles.

“I still can’t get over how you guys named a donkey ‘beautiful’,” Jooheon remarks, earning himself a kick under the table and a glare from Minhyuk.

“Shut up, it’s a perfectly adequate name,” he says and Jooheon shrugs, slurping down noodles.

“I’ll call my dad,” Hoseok tells Changkyun “I think he should be available tomorrow.”

Changkyun beams at him in thanks, now free to focus on his lunch. It’s Kihyun’s favourite part of the day, them all seated there at the big table Hyunwoo custom-made from scrap wood. They’re always too loud, too messy, too themselves and Kihyun likes it, likes the warmth they give off, the familiarity of their voices, their demeanour.

“I’m a bit worried about the pumpkins in the bed we made last month,” Hoseok says towards the end of the meal, “some of the plants are wilting.”

“Shit,” Kihyun says, resting back in his chair. “Pests or root rot?”

“I’d say rot.”

A collective groan is heard around the table, Kihyun rising his hands in an appeasing gesture.

“I’ll go take a look. It’s not so bad if we catch it early enough.”

“I’ll go with you,” Hyungwon says then, “I have to check on the bees.”

The bees are the only thing Hyungwon seems to actually like taking care of on the farm. Kihyun only had one hive at the beginning, acquiring two others when Hyungwon had shown an overflowing enthusiasm like in nothing else he did, apart maybe reading. Kihyun had also taken to add companion plants to the pumpkin fields, ones the bees would like; lavender and sunflowers and marigolds, and the fields had turned into a swath of colours he liked to just look at, sometimes, seated on the porch.

“I’ll come too,” Minhyuk says and Hyungwon smiles at him before burying his face in the rest of his noodles. Minhyuk wasn’t great at a lot of things on the farm either, principally due to the fact that he didn’t really care and thus did no effort whatsoever, but somehow the bees and Beautiful the donkey had managed to win his heart. Them and Hyungwon, Kihyun suspects, but he never asked.

As a true testimony to how much he wants to eat the apple pie, Jooheon volunteers to clear the table once everyone is done eating, going so far as starting on the dishes as Hyunwoo cuts the pie in equal parts.

“By the way,” Hyunwoo says quietly, letting his spoon rest against his plate with a clink. “Namjoon invited me to his Halloween party. I thought maybe you guys would like to come too.”

“Does he actually host it on Halloween this year?” Jooheon asks when he stops chewing for long enough that words can get out.

“No. It’s like, tomorrow.”

Minhyuk snickers, shaking his head. Namjoon is a bit odd. He owns the only bookstore in town, the one where Hyunwoo and Hyungwon spend an inordinate amount of time hanging at. When he had learned Hyunwoo was actually working on his literature PhD. he had latched onto him with slightly too much enthusiasm and Hyunwoo, being nice, had returned the friendship. Kihyun had seen him a couple times, mostly at the parties Namjoon liked to host sometimes, even if he spent the majority of them sitting in a corner nursing the same drink.

Kihyun remembered him from high school as part of Yoongi’s gaggle of friends but also, not really. He’d been sort of hanging there, aloof and detached, seemingly not all that aware of the high school politics going on around him. To be perfectly honest Kihyun had sort of liked him then, and sort of liked him still.

“We have to get up at 6 for the harvesting on Saturday though,” Hoseok remarks, Changkyun raising his gaze to him.

“Yeah? And?”

“Nothing. Just thought of putting that out there. Last year you threw up in the field.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“It was funny,” Hyungwon adds, making grabby hands until Hyunwoo slips him another slice of pie.

“See, it can be funny this year too. Come on.”

“You guys go,” Kihyun says then, “I’m giving you the afternoon off to prepare. I’ll start on the harvesting myself, just show up when you can.”

“Seriously?” Changkyun asks him with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Kihyun says, laughing. “You guys sort of deserve it. It’s only the small patch near the fence anyway, it will be done in no time.”

He can feel how they hesitate, sharing glances and wiggling eyebrows.

“That’s an order,” Kihyun adds, “go to the party or you’re all fired.”

“You can’t fire me,” Hyungwon pipes up, “I’m your cousin.”

“Want me to send you back to your parents?” Kihyun asks without malice.

“I can’t wait for the party,” Hyungwon says, shoveling more pie into his mouth.

Kihyun watches them, satisfied. The little nagging thought at the back of his mind, the one shaped like a high school boy grown up too fast, has almost disappeared.

3.

Once again Yoongi notices how Namjoon never really changes, and that it should probably be concerning, but Yoongi remembers that he already felt like kind of an adult back in highschool. They’re sitting in a little coffee shop, one that looks like any other indie coffee shop you can find back in Seoul, with wooden floors and mismatched tables and it’s that, more than anything else, that makes Yoongi realize how much time has actually passed. That and Taehyung, sitting there, telling them about his goddamn wedding, of all things.

“I’m glad you could come,” he’s saying, the grin on his face threatening to split him in half.

“Did you have to get married here though? Couldn’t you do it like, back home?”

“This is ‘back home’,” Taehyung says, and, well, Yoongi figures he’s sort of right.

“I’m happy everyone will be back,” Namjoon is saying, with a fond look on his face that would make Yoongi gag if he wasn’t so glad to see him. Namjoon’s the only one of them who stayed in their home-town, for whichever obscure reason Yoongi had never understood. Something about roots, and going travelling and coming back and a place waiting for you and what are you saying? Yoongi had interrupted, pushing a half-drunk Namjoon off the sofa. But the Namjoon in front of him right now is perfectly sober, the soft expression on his face a bit too much for Yoongi, who turns to Taehyung.

“When is everyone arriving?”

Taehyung shrugs helplessly. Everyone is supposed to stream in during the next few days. He had been too busy to keep track.

“It’s too bad they won’t be here in time for my Halloween party,” Namjoon says, nursing the black coffee in his hands.

“Who the hell hosts a Halloween party three weeks before the actual Halloween?” Taehyung asks, sipping his own drink, some ungodly caffeinated concoction with too much sugar.

“Me,” Namjoon says, “it’s sort of a tradition around here now. Everyone comes.”

Everyone, Yoongi thinks, and something uneasy unfurls in his chest.

“Hey, hum, guys?” he asks, not really sure if it’s a good idea, but both Namjoon and Taehyung are already staring at him expectantly. He licks his lips, continuing nervously. “Remember Kihyun? Yoo Kihyun, from high school?”

“What about him?” Taehyung asks, brows slightly furrowed. Yoongi wonders how Taehyung remembers Kihyun. If he feels the same guilt, the same strange feeling under his heart.

“I think I saw him in town, but like… Didn’t he leave too? Like he had a scholarship or something.”

“He came back,” Namjoon says, putting down his drink on the table. “He took over his parents’ farm.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says, and Yoongi knows what he’s thinking. For a class of country bumpkins they all had relentlessly mocked Kihyun for living on an actual farm. And Kihyun had done all he could to distance himself from his family. The irreproachably pressed uniform, the clean haircut, the smart glasses. The straight As and the scholarships and the grand aspirations. It had been all for nothing, bringing in more torments, for different reasons this time. Whatever he did was the wrong thing, and it had been much later that Yoongi had realized they had all successfully managed to make him hate himself.

“And how is that working out for him?” Taehyung is asking, Yoongi turning to Namjoon in earnest.

“Pretty well I think. I don’t know him very well. But I’m sort of friend with this guy who works for him. Son Hyunwoo. I invited him to the party, you can ask him then.”

“You invited him?” Yoongi croaks, wondering once again if Namjoon truly never noticed what was going on at the time.

“Yeah?”

“Will Kihyun come too?”

“I don’t know. He came once or twice but it’s a busy time for him now. Why? You don’t like him?”

More like I think he hates me , Yoongi says, and then wonders. The Kihyun he had seen, with the dog and the rude friend, he had seemed happy. So far from the sad, scared teenager he remembered. He hadn’t even seemed to recognize him, and Yoongi wonders why that still stings. If he’d been him he would have wished to forget, too, the ones who had stood by and did nothing, the ones who had laughed, the ones who had stared and sneered and pushed him away. He catches Taehyung staring at him with a worried crease on his brow, and pushes a forceful smile to his lips.

“No, I was just wondering. It’s been – it’s been a while.”

“You can always visit him if you wanna catch up.”

Yoongi almost laughs at the absurdity of Namjoon’s remark but then, he hadn’t stopped thinking about Kihyun since he’d seen him, and maybe he did want to see him and – and what? Apologize? Ask him how he’s doing? Yoongi shakes his head, something wistful tugging at the corners of his lips.

“I’m good. Like you said, he’s busy. There’s no need.”

“Alright,” Namjoon shrugs, picking up his drink again. The conversation shifts back to Taehyung’s wedding but if Yoongi manages to laugh and nod at the right places, he cannot focus on what is really said. He keeps thinking back to Kihyun, Kihyun laughing with a dog and Kihyun crying in a school bathroom, Kihyun climbing in a blue pick-up truck and Kihyun gathering the remains of his scattered lunch, Kihyun looking at him without recollection and Kihyun looking at him with eyes asking for help and him ignoring him, ignoring him and laughing along.

And he needs to do something, Yoongi realizes, he needs to do something about these feelings, this guilt he kept within him for all those years. Somehow the idea of Kihyun being out there, hating the memory of high school so much he doesn’t even recognize him, spills tar between his ribs.

4.

“So?” Hoseok is asking, crouched next to Kihyun in the little pumpkin patch near the beehives. “What’s your verdict?”

“Root rot,” Kihyun sighs, thumbing the leaves of the wilting pumpkin plant. They had tried a new variety in a little empty plot, and the plants had thrived, at the beginning. Not anymore. He hears Hoseok swear next to him, stares at the sad, wilting plants, and allows himself to feel the defeat spread through his being before speaking again.

“We need to destroy the infected ones before it spreads. Do we still have fungicide? We used it last year, right?”

“I’ll check,” Hoseok says, “I think we still have some.”

“This sucks,” Kihyun says, letting himself fall on his bum in the soft earth. He can hear faded giggling coming from the beehives; Minhyuk and Hyungwon are there, dressed in full beekeeping gear, doing god knows what to the hives. But watching them makes Kihyun feel better, and so he stares for a little more, listening as Hoseok makes suggestions on where to start, how they should check all the other plots to make sure, how they can’t repeat the catastrophe that was the pest infestation of two years ago.

“When it rains it pours,” Kihyun says absently, hearing Hoseok startle next to him.

“What?”

“Nothing, sorry.”

Kihyun wonders if this is all a bad omen. Yoongi’s reappearance, Hyungwon’s parents calling, the root rot spreading. It feels like something ominous is gathering strength, and Kihyun shudders on the cold earth.

“Let’s get this over with as soon as possible. Get Hyunwoo to help us, and send Changkyun and Jooheon to check the other plots.”

It’s depressing work. Uprooting the diseased plants, throwing them into crates they charge on their old pick-up to go dump in a heap they’ll burn later. They had planted these as seeds, had watched them grow, and now Kihyun held their lifeless corpses into his hands. Admittedly he was being a bit dramatic, but the others weren’t exactly brimming with joy either. Even less when Changkyun and Jooheon came back, feet muddy and faces grim.

“How did we fuck up this bad?” Kihyun asks, throwing his hands up.

“It rained much more than last year,” Hyunwoo is saying, “and the summer was much too warm. The water stayed in the soil.”

“We should have known,” Kihyun says, and it’s hard not to take this as a personal failure. The others exchange worried looks, shuffling their feet, and Kihyun shakes himself. This is his land, he’s supposed to be the one to know what to do.

“Sorry,” he says, “it’s alright. It hasn’t spread that much yet. We’ll just do what we have to and it should be fine.”

Everyone nods, and for once not even Jooheon complains when they have to spend the whole afternoon out in the fields, ripping out diseased plants, making innumerable trips to their growing heap. Beautiful helps them by munching on the wilted leaves, two of Minhyuk’s goats approaching curiously. As Beautiful eats Kihyun takes the opportunity to check his hooves and it’s true that his shoes needs changing; he makes sure to ask Hoseok again, who confirms his father will come in the next morning.

With all this to take care of, Kihyun sort of forgets about the party. It sneaks up on him a day later, when Hyungwon shows up to breakfast with a bright blue clown wig.

“What’s this?” Kihyun asks over his coffee, an eyebrow raised.

“My costume for the party,” Hyungwon says, beaming. “Minhyuk and I are going as clowns.”

“Like, murder clowns?”

“No. Just regular lame clowns,” Hyungwon answer. “His wig is pink,” he elaborates and Kihyun bites back a laugh, nodding, slightly endeared by the note of excitement in Hyungwon’s voice. As Hyungwon sits Hoseok trudges into the kitchen, wishing them good morning. His father drove here with him, he explains, and went directly to the stables. Kihyun nods, wiping his buttery hands on his thighs as he gets up.

“I’ll join him,” he says, Hoseok nodding as he grabs himself a cup of coffee. Kihyun likes Hoseok’s old man. In their cases ‘like father like son’ applies for the best. They’re both gentle, both honest, both loyal men who’ve helped Kihyun more than he could ever repay. As he passes he grabs the last slice of pie from the day before.

The morning is cold, wisps of mist still clinging to the trees, and Kihyun hugs his coat tighter to himself, one hand holding the plate of pie. He finds Hoseok’s dad already busy taking off the old shoes from Beautiful’s hooves, who lets himself be handled without protesting, for once.

“Hello,” Kihyun says softly, setting himself on a ball of hay.

“Oh, hi Kihyun,” Hoseok’s dad answers, glancing above his shoulder. “Everything alright?”

“Sure. I brought you apple pie.”

“Who doesn’t love apple pie at seven in the morning,” Hoseok’s dad says, letting go of Beautiful’s hind leg and wiping his hands on a kerchief he retrieves from his apron’s pocket. He sits next to Kihyun, taking the pie from him.

“Hoseokkie tells me you have root rot?”

“Yeah,” Kihyun sighs, “we got rid of most of the diseased plants yesterday.”

“Big losses?”

“Not so much that it will be a problem.”

“Still sucks, though.”

“Yeah,” Kihyun laughs. “I didn’t think it would be this hard, even though I grew up here. I guess when everything’s your responsibility it feels different.”

Hoseok’s dad nods, swallowing a hearty bite of the pie.

“It does. But you’re doing well. Much better than everyone thought you would when you came back.”

“I bet,” Kihyun says, remembering. Strangely it had been an easy decision, dropping out from university, giving up his scholarship to come back here. It had felt like the first real choice he had ever made, and it had felt good, almost powerful, as if he’d finally regained control over himself. He’d been good at studying. Excellent, even. But it had not made him happy. It had been an escape, something to do to give himself value because if not this, what else was there?

Pumpkins, it turned out, and the few years he had spent on the farm had felt more real, more compelling than all those who had came before.

“I hope Hoseokkie’s not giving you any trouble,” Hoseok’s dad continues, and Kihyun shakes his head, smiling.

“He’s not. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“Good,” the man says, finishing off the pie in an impressive bite, “you need good friends.”

Kihyun smiles something wistful, wondering if Hoseok’s dad knows more about him that he’s letting on. Hoseok and Kihyun had met a few years back, when Kihyun used to come for summer break. Hoseok was already working on neighbouring farms while learning his father’s trade, and he’d come to Kihyun’s farm to help with the summer crops, tomatoes and eggplants and zucchinis. Somehow they had hit it off right away; Kihyun had needed Hoseok’s patience, his gentleness and companionable silences. He’d been Kihyun’s first real friend, now that he thinks about it, and something warms unfurls in his chest, flowing right there between his ribs.

“Don’t let him off too easy though,” Hoseok’s dad says as he stands, dusting off his hands on his thighs.

“I’ll finish here with Beautiful, I have a few horses to go check out sooner than later.”

“Sure,” Kihyun tells him. “Thanks, come by the house if you want a bite before leaving.”

Hoseok’s dad waves him off, already more interested in Beautiful than anything else, and Kihyun hurries back to the house to get out of the cold. It’s a lazy morning today, Changkyun and Jooheon even slower to arrive than usual, Minhyuk showing up well into the morning, when Hyunwoo is already out in the fields with Hoseok and even Hyungwon has decided to be useful for once, quietly weeding the diseased pumpkin patch near the beehives. But there is work to do, and so it passes quickly, much too quickly, all finding themselves seated at the table spooning kimchi jjigae into their mouths well before they’re truly hungry.

“Can we change here?” Changkyun asks, snapping Kihyun out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“For the party? If you let us change here we can do some more work and then go directly from here.”

“You don’t have to,” Kihyun waves him off, spooning another burning mouthful of jjigae past his lips.

“Yeah I know, but we want to.”

Kihyun looks up at him, a little surprised to find everyone staring.

“If it’s because of the root rot I’ll survive. I’m not gonna go cry myself to sleep out in the pumpkin patch and freeze to death.”

“It’s not that,” Changkyun says, but it’s exactly that, Kihyun knows, “we just came a bit late this morning and since you let us off the hook for tomorrow’s harvest…”

“Alright alright,” Kihyun concedes, rolling his eyes, “change here if you must.”

It’s when Kihyun watches Hoseok strut out of his room in a skintight cowboy outfit that Kihyun thanks Changkyun for insisting. This is too good to pass up.

“Is the stripper effect wanted or is it because you just look like that?” he asks, leaning against the wall. Hoseok does a little spin and something obscene with his hips.

“I’m feeling this.”

“Well I’m not,” Hyunwoo’s voice reaches them from the bathroom, and Kihyun watches with growing glee as he emerges in a cop outfit that could probably get him arrested for indecent exposure.

“Seriously,” Kihyun says, “did you guys find these at a sex shop?”

“No, but thanks for the tip,” Hoseok says, laughing as Hyunwoo rolls his eyes. But he’s blushing too, and Kihyun wiggles his eyebrows to Hoseok who doesn’t get it. How can someone who looks like that can be this innocent will always be lost on Kihyun.

“Dudes I don’t think I fit in the door,” Changkyun’s voice reaches them feebly from the living room and they all pile inside, discovering Changkyun there, wiggling terrifyingly stunted arms.

“Why?” Kihyun croaks over Hoseok’s hilarity.

“I don’t know, I just had it.”

“You just had an inflatable dinosaur costume lying around.”

“Yeah,” Changkyun says, and Kihyun stops asking.

“This is going great,” he says instead, turning to smack right into Jooheon coming down the hallway.

“You’re not dressing up?” he asks, Jooheon looking down at himself and the awful flowery shirt he’s wearing, dribbling over brown corduroy slacks.

“I am dressed up. I’m a hipster. Call me Johnson.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes, following everyone to the front door.

“You guys will never make it into the party,” he says, “they’ll shoot you on sight.”

They have to help Changkyun more or less crawl through the front door, his stupid inflatable dinosaur head wiggling all the while. Minhyuk and Hyungwon have brought the pick up to the front, effectively making it a clown car, and Kihyun watches them all pile up inside the rear-bed, ready to wave them goodbye when Hyungwon leans off the passenger window, gesturing for him to approach.

“Are you sure you’re not coming?” he asks, and there’s a worried lilt to his voice Kihyun doesn’t quite like.

“Yes, there is work to do tomorrow. It’s gonna be fine.”

“It’s just, I’d like it better if you came. I don’t know if I wanna go if you don’t.”

“You wore that wig all day. You do want to go.”

“No,” Hyungwon says, and Kihyun glances at the dinosaur’s head sticking over the truck’s cabin, at the bright pink of Minhyuk’s wig through the windshield, at the misery growing in Hyungwon’s eyes.

“I don’t have a costume,” he ends up saying, to which Minhyuk’s voice rises in answer.

“That can be arranged!”

Somehow they all file back into the house, Changkyun included, even though they have to lock Alli in the living room to prevent him from chasing the dinosaur, despite the hilarity of watching Changkyun scream-wiggle down the hallway. They gather around the kitchen table, watching as Minhyuk furiously carves into the biggest pumpkin they could find.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Kihyun says, everyone shushing him.

“I could just go as a vampire,” he tries again later, when Minhyuk has almost finished his masterpiece. “I’m sure I got those plastic fangs somewhere.”

“No,” Minhyuk says, turning a grimacing pumpkin to him. “Vampires are overdone. We gotta stand out.”

“We have an inflated dinosaur,” Kihyun says lamely. “We will stand out.”

“Put that on your head, Kihyun.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Minhyuk, no,” Kihyun says as sternly as he can.

“Minhyuk yes,” Minhyuk retorts.

Kihyun should know no one ever wins against Minhyuk. And so he learns that the inside of a pumpkin is pretty humid, despite the padding and the hood he is wearing. The pumpkin itself is pretty heavy, too.

“I will die.”

“It looks so good though”, he hears Minhyuk say. Or maybe it was Hyungwon. The sounds are sort of muffled inside the pumpkin. It’s kinda restful, in a way.

“Can we go now?” Changkyun asks, and the comedy of getting him out of the house and into the truck bed starts all over again.

They arrive an hour late to the party, and Minhyuk was right. There’s at least four vampires.

“Overdone,” the man himself whispers at the approximate place of Kihyun’s ear as they stand at the entrance of the bar, surveying the surroundings. Namjoon always throws great parties. He rented a nice little bar this time, the kind Kihyun never has the time to go to, the kind he would probably not dare to enter even if he had. It’s too slick, too nice, wooden floors and antique looking tables and the spooky twist they added to the decoration is in good taste, nothing tacky, none of the plastic bats and dancing skeletons Minhyuk and Changkyun had taken to pepper all over the farm.

Another thing Minhyuk was right about is how much they stand out. They get stares, and Kihyun can feel Hyunwoo trying to shrink himself behind him. There is a lot of guests they don’t know. A lot of guests with the kind of slick, non-tacky costumes to go with the decoration.

“Why did I let you guys talk me into this,” Kihyun grumbles from the depths of his pumpkin but it’s not as bad as it could be, he realizes just then. There is Hyungwon next to him, his hand squeezing his own and he looks happy, settled, and when Minhyuk drags his tall frame towards the thick of the crowd, his hand slipping from Kihyun’s, he looks back and beams. There’s Hoseok, pulling on Hyunwoo’s hand to get him to go dancing, and Changkyun’s dinosaur head bobbing tall over everyone else’s as Jooheon uses him like a snowplough to get through the crowd.

“Goddamnit,” Kihyun swears softly, rotating in place until he’s but a straight line away from the bar. The visibility from inside the pumpkin is not great, and he really hopes the bar will be able to give him a straw long enough for him to be able to drink. He cannot get through this entirely sober.

When he get there he finds Jooheon holding a drink to Changkyun’s face. They had not foreseen that Changkyun’s stupidly stunted inflated arms would be of absolutely no use whatsoever.

“That’s quite the turnout,” Jooheon beams when he sees Kihyun approach.

“I’ll kill you both,” Kihyun retorts. But Jooheon’s right. Kihyun hasn’t seen so many people in one place for years and he’s not entirely sure how he feels about it. A bit stifled, to be honest, and he’s suddenly glad for the barrier the pumpkin provides between him and everyone else.

“Some friend of Namjoon is getting married,” Changkyun says, “and that’s like, half his guests.”

“Please do not try to get yourself invited,” Kihyun warns, Changkyun smiling his wolfish grin.

“That’s too late,” Jooheon says, “we already met the guy. He loved Changkyun’s costume so much they’re mates now.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Kihyun grumbles, “we’ve been here five minutes and you managed to get yourself invited to a stranger’s wedding?”

“I can’t help it if everybody loves me,” Changkyun says, gesturing for Jooheon to give him another sip. Kihyun feels like kicking them both.

“Oh look,” Jooheon says, “that’s the guy.”

They both wave like two idiots and Kihyun follows their gaze to a tall, pretty guy waving back at them from the other end of the bar. He looks familiar, Kihyun thinks then, and oh, of course he does. Kim Taehyung, third year, class 6’s resident pretty boy. Kihyun is about to dive behind Changkyun when he realizes that no one can recognize him, hidden as he is inside a pumpkin. Kihyun mentally thanks Minhyuk for being unhinged but his heart is still hammering against his ribs and he wonders what it is, fear or shame or both. Taehyung hadn’t really done anything to him, just like the majority of his class. He had just stood by, and laughed sometimes. Shame, then, that someone would be here who remembered what it was like, for him, what he himself was like. Kihyun needs a drink.

Thankfully there’s enough fancy cocktails with fancy straws to last him a lifetime, and it’s when he finally manages to fit the straw through his grimacing pumpkin mouth that Jooheon decides to drag both him and Changkyun towards the dance floor. Kihyun complies if only to see how Changkyun will fare in his ridiculous costume. Better than without, it turns out, and Kihyun laughs, and maybe it’s not so bad, even if Taehyung is right there at the back of his mind.

“That’s quite impressive,” someone says next to him when Changkyun manages a spin that almost whacks out half of his audience.

“You should see him without the costume,” Kihyun retorts, “he’s even worse.”

The guy laughs, and it sounds familiar, way too familiar; Kihyun turns his whole body towards the man, and gapes.

He must have aimed for some kind of rock-star look, smudged eyeliner and silver studs in his ears, too-tight leather pants and a ripped shirt under a leather perfecto. Kihyun rotates quietly back towards the dancefloor, teeth clamped on his straw, and tries to breath.

“You have an interesting costume too,” Yoongi is saying, and Kihyun chokes on his drink.

“Thanks,” he manages to croak out, “it’s a bit last minute. My friend made it.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know about the party either. I came for Taehyung’s wedding so I didn’t have anything.”

“So you mean to tell me those are your actual everyday clothes?”

Yoongi looks down at himself with a sheepish look.

“Kinda? The pants are Taehyung’s.”

“Figures,” Kihyun grumbles, taking a hearty sip of his drink. They never put enough alcohol in these things.

“Isn’t it hot inside the pumpkin?”

“I’m sweating like a whore in a church,” Kihyun says and oh, well, maybe they do. Yoongi is laughing. It’s a nice sound. The one that had drawn Kihyun to him, back then. Yoongi would laugh with his whole body, gummy grin and crescent eyes, carefree and happy and it had been the most perfect thing for Kihyun, something he had envied at first, something he had loved in the end. He’d started to watch him then, looking out for the small things that made Yoongi Yoongi; the pouts and the laughs and how he would fall asleep in class, how he’d lean against his friends, the way he spoke too loud and seethed quietly and Kihyun had foolishly hoped some of it could be directed at him one day, some of the laughs and soft touches.

Of course it had been a ridiculous hope, and when Yoongi had finally looked at him Kihyun had seen the same contempt than everyone else in his eyes, tinged with a pity Kihyun had hated. And so he’d done his best to hate him too, hate everything that made Yoongi Yoongi.

“Do you want to get some air outside?”

“What?” Kihyun splutters, turning to Yoongi again. “I just got here.”

“I know,” Yoongi is laughing again and it churns something in Kihyun’s stomach, something buried and wilted. “I don’t mean leaving, just–”

“Yo pumpkin boy!” a loud voice interrupts them, Minhyuk draping himself over Kihyun in a cloud of synthetic pink hair. “I lost our strippers.”

“We have strippers?” Kihyun asks dumbly, trying to push Minhyuk off himself with no luck.

“Yes. You know. Our own village people. Oh hey,” he says, spotting Yoongi. “Nice costume.”

“Thanks?” Yoongi answers, unsure gaze shifting from Kihyun to Minhyuk. It’s when Minhyuk’s eyes narrow that Kihyun starts to sense danger.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Minhyuk asks, peering too close to Yoongi’s face.

“I don’t think so,” Yoongi says, “I’d remember the hair.”

“Oh!” Minhyuk exclaims, turning to Kihyun. “He’s funny. A funny man.”

“How many drinks have you had?” Kihyun asks, noticing the rosy tint of Minhyuk’s cheeks.

“Not enough.”

“We’ve been here like fifteen minutes.”

Minhyuk shrugs, leaning too heavily against Kihyun’s shoulder, his wig mushed against the pumpkin. Kihyun is afraid to inhale it were he to breath too hard.

“I’m sorry,” he says to Yoongi, “I’m going to help him find our strippers.”

He turns away before Yoongi can answer, and maybe Yoongi does say something but the music is too loud, the pumpkin too thick for Kihyun to hear anything. He pilots Minhyuk through the crowd, half listening to his ramblings. His grip on Minhyuk’s arm may be a little too tight, his heart may be hammering a little too fast, and there’s an itch at the back of his head wanting him to turn around. He doesn’t, though, eyes forcefully locked ahead of him as if he was afraid they’d stray, and he wishes he had never come. It would have been better to sit at home crying about the root rot instead of stirring up old feelings he thought buried.

Minhyuk saved him twice, though, and he relaxes his grip, sitting him gently at an empty table.

“You alright?” he asks, Minhyuk looking up at him with watery eyes.

“I am.”

“Where’s Hyungwon?” Kihyun asks then. Hyungwon is the kind to disappear at parties, and it can be both a good and a bad thing.

“He found Namjoon and now they’re sitting down talking about books like two old men,” Minhyuk says sadly. A good thing, then, and Kihyun falls into the chair next to Minhyuk.

“I got bored,” Minhyuk is saying, “so I wanted to play with the strippers but I couldn’t find them. And then I found you. I’m sorry I interrupted your flirting.”

“I wasn’t flirting,” Kihyun says, and then wonders if maybe Yoongi was. The idea is quickly dismissed, though. Kihyun’s wearing a pumpkin for a head, no one would flirt with that. No one flirts with him without the pumpkin either, though, and Kihyun stops this train of thoughts right there before it turns into a pity party.

“Maybe you should have,” Minhyuk says, “he’s cute.”

“I’m wearing a pumpkin as a head,” Kihyun remarks.

“I’m sorry. You could take it off.”

“No,” Kihyun says, “I’m committed now.” And he’d also rather have his entire farm rot on its feet than Yoongi see his face. But Minhyuk doesn’t need to know that.

“I know where I know him from now,” Minhyuk keeps talking, words slurring into one another. “I yelled at him to catch Alli, and then he didn’t, so I yelled at him some more. Maybe I should go apologize.”

“I think you’re good,” Kihyun tells him. Minhyuk nods, leaning against him, and Kihyun wonders where all that sudden, quiet melancholy is coming from. He cannot look at Minhyuk but he can feel his warmth, his side rich with the feel of it and he leans into it, something soft unfurling in his chest. He wonders, then, if things would have been different if Minhyuk had been there in high school, if he’d have stood up for him or let it happen like everyone else. It’s rotten thoughts, Kihyun knows, but Yoongi and Taehyung’s presence had stirred something ugly in him, something he cannot quite push back down.

“Do you think I’m likeable?” Minhyuk then asks, a bit out of the blue, and Kihyun stiffens. He suddenly wishes he didn’t have the pumpkin head and could look at him, see his expression. As it is Kihyun simply leans into his touch, hoping the comfort is enough.

“Of course you are, what are you talking about?”

“Like, hypothetically, would you date me?”

“That’s a very weird question,” Kihyun says, “but hypothetically, if I was into you, I’d see no objections in dating you.”

“Okay,” Minhyuk says, and it doesn’t seem like the answer he’d wished to hear.

“Come on,” Kihyun says then, jostling his shoulder. “What’s this all about?”

“I just,” Minhyuk interrupts himself, the silence stretching between them, not entirely uncomfortable. It had been a long time, Kihyun realizes, a very long time he hadn’t just sat there with a friend.

“I like your cousin,” Minhyuk ends up saying, and Kihyun laughs.

“Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“But I don’t think he likes me back,” Minhyuk continues, and that’s it, then, the sadness pouring out of him.

“Ah,” Kihyun says. “Well, it’s hard to tell with Hyungwon. But he lets you take care of the bees with him even if you suck at everything.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Minhyuk deadpans, and Kihyun laughs.

“I mean, you guys came with a couple outfit. I thought that made things pretty obvious.”

“But he dumped me to go talk books with an old man.”

“Namjoon’s not old.”

“He feels like he’s a hundred, though.”

“That’s… not wrong,” Kihyun says, and he hears Minhyuk chuckle. “Just… you know, just ask him. Hyungwon’s not great at reading people. Just tell him how you feel.”

“It’s weird,” Minhyuk says then. “It’s way easier to talk to you when you wear a pumpkin as a head.”

Kihyun laughs, pinching Minhyuk who swats his hand away. Strangely he feels better, lighter, as if Minhyuk had dragged him back to the present where he belongs, where he’s happy, where he’s loved, where the biggest issues he faces are pumpkins’ diseases and the romantic foibles of his friends. Yoongi and Taehyung are just ghosts, ones he can ignore, ones he can bury.

“Oh,” Minhyuk says then, “there they are.”

Kihyun looks in the direction Minhyuk is pointing at and sees Hoseok, his imposing frame leaning into Hyunwoo, who’s now wearing his cowboy hat. They’re both flushed, both laughing, and a slow smile creeps on Kihyun’s lips at the sight.

“Do you wanna bet whether they hook up or not?” Minhyuk says next to him and Kihyun shoves him.

“Don’t ruin it,” he laughs, “this is pure and beautiful.”

“You know if we don’t do anything they’ll be 40 and still mooning over each other.”

“Says you.”

Minhyuk shows him his teeth and punches him in the shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, still Kihyun pretends to collapse in his chair, resting his head against the table. He hadn’t realized how heavy the pumpkin was until it touched the wood.

“I’m gonna stay there,” he tells Minhyuk, “just collect me when you guys leave. This is so warm and heavy.”

“Just take it off, seriously.”

“No,” he says, and Minhyuk shrugs. They stay like this for a few minutes more, talking about all and nothing, and it’s nice and easy. Minhyuk gets restless when the music switches to something more upbeat and he leaves Kihyun to go join Changkyun and Jooheon, who are still there on the dancefloor, their moves increasingly more chaotic as the amount of drinks they ingests grows. Kihyun wonders for a second if Namjoon will regret inviting them to his chic Halloween party, before realizing Namjoon isn’t the kind of guy to care about things like that. He probably hasn’t even noticed the state they’re in.

“Are you okay?” a voice asks him after a while and getting back up is a full ordeal; he has to raise his head with both hands, turning his whole body in the direction of the voice before croaking an “I’m dandy.”

And of course, of course it’s Min Yoongi. At least he isn’t sitting down, Kihyun thinks, and then wonders what really is his deal, why is he stalking him? Does he have a thing for pumpkins? Maybe Kihyun should ask.

“Did you find your strippers?” Yoongi says instead, and Kihyun almost laughs at he absurdity of the situation.

“We did. They’re having a grand ol’time. Did you need something?” Kihyun asks and Yoongi shrugs, the ice of the drink in his hand clinking against the glass.

“Not really.”

“Do you have a thing for pumpkins?”

“What?” Yoongi asks, and Kihyun can’t really believe this actually came out of his mouth.

“Sorry,” he cringes, “it’s just, I don’t know why you’d talk to me.”

“You guys are funny,” Yoongi answers, “and I’m bored.”

That’s a good enough reason, Kihyun thinks, and then something possesses him to offer Yoongi a seat. Which he takes, because that’s what normal people do. And then Kihyun realizes with growing horror that Yoongi still laughs the same, still speaks the same, still pouts the same; that all the things that made Yoongi Yoongi are still there under a new, subtle layer of weariness, one that might have come with age, with whatever found him after he left high school, left their town and Kihyun’s life. And it’s directed at him, now, it’s for Kihyun that he laughs, that he speaks and when he leans towards him an inexplicable sadness unfurls in Kihyun’s chest. Because it’s not really true. Because Yoongi isn’t talking to Kihyun, he’s talking to a random guy with a pumpkin for a head he finds funny. Things would probably be very different if he knew, and so Kihyun grows quiet, his answers shortening, and he can see confusion on Yoongi’s face as his laugh dries, as his voice wavers.

Once again, Kihyun’s saved by synthetic hair. Blue, this time, Hyungwon falling in the chair next to him and leaning his head against his shoulder.

“I’m tired,” he says. “I wanna go home.”

Hyungwon’s social battery runs out the fastest, and if he used to force himself for everyone else’s sake Kihyun had quickly put a stop to that.

“I’ll take you,” Kihyun says, “the others already planned on taking a cab anyway.”

The only regret Kihyun has in leaving now is that he won’t see Jooheon stuff Changkyun into a car, but he can probably live with that.

“I have to go,” he says to Yoongi, “it was… nice, talking to you.”

And it’s true, Kihyun realizes, despite the unpleasant aftertaste it leaves him. He all but drags Hyungwon stumbling behind him, and if he hears Yoongi asking for his name, it’s easy to pretend he didn’t, music and loud voices and pumpkin and all.

5.

Yoongi wakes with a headache, crusty eyes, and a warm weight on his stomach. Taehyung groans when he pushes him off, rolling away and taking the comforter with him. Yoongi shivers, chasing the warmth, and ends up having to wrestle the blanket from a giggling Taehyung.

“When does Jimin arrive?” Yoongi asks sourly, “so you can bother him instead. I can’t believe he’s marrying you.”

“I know, he has awful taste in men,” Taehyung says, magnanimously letting Yoongi crawl back under the comforter. “He’ll be there tomorrow night.”

“Is Namjoon keeping all three of us?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, “you’ll probably end up on the couch though.”

“I’ll live,” Yoongi shrugs, stretching. They forgot to draw the curtains and the crisp light of early morning inundates the room Namjoon graciously lent them. He uses it as a sort of storeroom for his bookshop downstairs and the walls are packed with shelves bending under the weight of an impressive collection of second-hand books he has yet to price, to say nothing of the unopened boxes on the floor. Somehow he still managed to shove a sofa-bed in there, the one Taehyung and Yoongi are currently sharing.

“How’s the head?” Taehyung asks, “you got pretty hammered last night.”

“It’s your new friends,” Yoongi answers, “they’re awful.”

Somehow he had ended up doing shots with a guy dressed as a dinosaur, who needed the help of his own friend, dressed as a maths teacher or something, to actually down the shots since he couldn’t use his own arms. It had been a weird night.

“They’re funny. I think I invited them to the wedding.”

“Isn’t the table plan already decided?”

Taehyung shrugs, spreading his long limbs over the bed like a starfish. Yoongi wacks his hand away.

“I don’t even remember their names,” Taehyung says lamely, “I don’t think I even gave them the date. Or the address.”

“Speaking of names,” Yoongi remembers suddenly, “I talked to a guy wearing a pumpkin as a head but he never gave me his name. Do you know who he was?”

“I don’t even think I saw a guy wearing a pumpkin,” Taehyung says, rolling back on his belly. “Or maybe I did? I don’t know. I feel like this is something I’d remember.”

Yoongi deflates a little, worrying at his lip. He had liked the guy. He’d been funny in a dry sort of way, kind of surprisingly insightful at times. It had sort of sucked, when his friend had dragged him away.

“Oh,” Taehyung says then, noticing Yoongi’s prolonged silence, “are we having a Cinderella situation?”

“A what?”

“Did the damsel disappear at midnight before you could get his name?”

Yoongi wacks Taehyung in the head with a pillow, but all in all he’s right. It kind of felt like that. Except that instead of coming in a pumpkin carriage, he was wearing one. As a head.

“Fuck off,” he drawls, “I think he left earlier than midnight too.”

“Well that sucks,” Taehyung says. “Just ask Namjoon. He might know, ‘twas his party after all.”

“That would make sense. I will if I ever manage to get out of bed ever again.”

“That bad, uh?”

Yoongi just nods, the pounding behind his eyelids intensifying with each words that leaves his mouth. If he tries to move the room starts moving with him and it does nothing great for whatever is still rolling in his stomach. He hears the shift of blankets, feels Taehyung’s weight leaving the mattress and a few minutes later a cold glass of water is pressed against his face, Taehyung offering him aspirin when he opens his eyes.

“Maybe that’s why Jimin is marrying you.”

“This and my huge peen,” Taehyung says as Yoongi downs his glass.

“I regret every word.”

Taehyung laughs, something mercifully subdued and Yoongi groans as he sits up, running a hand through his hair to flatten the mess. He thinks back on the last night and it had been fun, it had, even after Cinderella had gone; the feel of the place, the people they had met, it had felt like those carefree university parties he hadn’t attended enough of and he had needed it, he realizes, he had needed to forget himself for a little while.

When he musters enough energy to actually move they trudge to the kitchen where they find Namjoon seated at the table, pouring warm milk on his cereals as some classical music piece plays in the background. Yoongi stares.

“What?” Namjoon asks.

“You’re pouring warm milk on your cereals.”

“I am,” Namjoon says, leaning back to put the pot back on the stove in one fluid motion.

“But why?” Yoongi asks, distressed.

“Because that’s how I like it.”

“But it’s gross.”

“You don’t know that. Just try, you might like it.”

“Yeah and I might like cocaine but do you see me trying?”

“Maybe you should,” Taehyung says, pouring coffee into two mugs, one of which he slides to Yoongi once he sits down. “Maybe it would take that stick outta your butt.”

“I do not have a stick up my butt.”

“You do,” Namjoon says, “you’re judging me because I like warm milk on my cereals.”

“Me and the rest of the world,” Yoongi grumbles, wetting his lips in the coffee.

When it doesn’t burn him he takes a hearty gulp, hoping for his head to clear. It doesn’t. Taehyung sits opposite him, grabbing at the plate of toasts resting in the middle of the table. It’s quiet for a bit, save for the occasional yawn. Yoongi always liked mornings at Namjoon’s place, his kitchen messy yet homey, Namjoon’s quiet presence and the smell of coffee. It’s so different from his own apartment, his stark, empty kitchen and the noises from the street right outside spilling in with the grey light of rainy days. He should visit more often, Yoongi thinks, he should, and he wonders how long it has been since they haven’t met altogether like this, a wistful nostalgia unfurling in his stomach, souring the toasts.

“Oh, Namjoon,” Taehyung is saying then, effectively interrupting his thoughts. “Pretty boy here had something to ask.”

“I did?” Yoongi asks, Namjoon turning to him with a curious look.

“Cinderella,” Taehyung mouths, and Yoongi rolls his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he waves Namjoon off, Taehyung kicking him under the table. Somehow, now that it’s about to be out in the open, Yoongi doesn’t really want to know who pumpkin boy actually was. It would make him real, and real people come with all sort of luggage Yoongi never knows how to deal with.

“Pumpkin boy at the party,” Taehyung is saying before Yoongi can steam roll over him, “who was he?”

“Pumpkin boy?”

“He came in with the dinosaur. You know, the guy with the pumpkin as a head.”

“Oh,” Namjoon beams, “that was Hyunwoo’s friend, Yoo Kihyun. You know, from high school. We talked about him last time.”

The room spins, and this time it’s not because of the alcohol. Pumpkin boy is Yoo Kihyun and Yoo Kihyun’s luggage must contain Yoongi himself. Yoongi feels like whacking his head against the table, and a glance at Taehyung, staring at him with wide eyes, tells him it shows.

“Why?” Namjoon is asking, blissfully ignorant of the turmoil currently rolling in Yoongi’s head. “You guys hit it off?”

Yoongi makes a sounds between a gasp and a groan, Namjoon’s brow furrowing.

“Namjoon,” Taehyung asks hesitantly, gaze darting from him to Yoongi. “What do you remember of Kihyun in highschool?”

Namjoon’s spoon clinks against his bowl as he sets it down, staring at Taehyung. He must sense something is askew, his voice hesitant when he speaks.

“Not much, to be honest? I was kinda out of it back then. He was quiet, I guess. Didn’t have many friends.”

“Didn’t have any friends,” Taehyung answers, and Yoongi suddenly wants him to stop. “Dude, he was bullied mercilessly. Like, if I was him I’d have stopped coming to school. He had it bad.”

There’s a silence, Namjoon looking crestfallen, gaze darting from Yoongi to Taehyung.

“Did you guys – did we do it too?”

“Not really,” Taehyung shrugs, picking at his toast. “We went along with it, though. No one stood up for him. I thought he’d hate our guts honestly, I’m surprised he talked to you,” he says then, looking up at Yoongi.

“I don’t think he remembers me,” Yoongi says lamely, and it’s when he hears it aloud that he realizes how stupid it sounds. Of course Kihyun remembers him, how could he forget? I don’t know why you’d talk to me, Kihyun had asked, and it takes on a whole new meaning now, now that Yoongi knows. So does the quiet Kihyun had withdrawn into as the night wore on, so does his abrupt leaving, so does him pretending not to hear, when Yoongi had asked for his name.

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” Yoongi says then, “if there’s a guy dressed as a pumpkin of course it would be the guy owning the pumpkin farm.”

“So it’s more Romeo and Juliet than Cinderella then,” Taehyung remarks, and Yoongi’s gaze snaps to him.

“Seriously?”

“Sorry,” Taehyung says. “It’s just. You’re really cursed, aren’t you? The one time you meet a guy you like, turns out it’s your victim from high school.”

“He wasn’t my victim.”

“He was everyone’s victim. One time you barrelled into him while running after me, he fell, and you laughed at him.”

“It doesn’t sound that bad,” Yoongi croaks, an ugly feeling rising in his stomach.

“He fell into a puddle. Him and all his textbooks. We didn’t even help him up.”

“I wanna die,” Yoongi whines, leaning his head against the cool wood of the table.

“You like him?” Namjoon pipes up, the only information apparently worth retaining from the whole spiel.

“No,” Yoongi says, rising his head way too fast for the headache he’s still nursing. “I just. We talked last night and I thought it was nice. He was interesting. I had a good time.”

Namjoon nods, twirling his spoon in his bowl.

“He comes by the shop sometimes, with his cousin, and Hyunwoo,” he says, a bit miserably. “He’s nice. He never talked to me about high school.”

“He probably wants to forget the whole thing even happened, to be honest,” Taehyung says, finishing to rip apart his toast.

“Why are teenagers so fucking awful?” Yoongi moans from his newfound nest of misery. “Why couldn’t I have been a decent one?”

“You didn’t wanna be next,” Taehyung says. “Better him than me, this type of thinking, you know.”

“I feel like shit. How didn’t I feel bad at the time? Am I a monster?”

Taehyung shrugs, organizing the remains of his toast in a little pile at the centre of his plate.

“I don’t think you realize, at the time, how awful it fucking is.”

But you do , Yoongi wants to say, we were there, we saw everything, we knew and we did nothing .

Yoongi had heard Kihyun cry, once. The kid had locked himself in the bathroom on the third floor, the one no one really used, too out of the way. Yoongi had seen him go in, had followed for a reason that escapes him now; maybe he had had something to say, maybe he’d wanted to try. But Kihyun had locked himself in a cubicle and Yoongi had heard the wrecked sobs that followed. So he had stood outside, just in case, scaring off a bunch of first years so that Kihyun could remain alone, he had stayed until he had heard the lock click open, the water run. He’d ran away then, shame and guilt twisting in his belly, and Taehyung’s right; he hadn’t wanted it to be him, and he’d known, he’d known that the day he stood up for Kihyun was the day he’d become a pariah too. And so when he had bumped into him, when Kihyun had lost his balance and fell with a splash, he’d forced a laugh out and hadn’t helped him up.

Quiet, mousy Kihyun, with his smart glasses and pressed uniform, dark hair slicked back and full mouth set in a constant frown. Kihyun walking quickly down the corridors, hugging the walls, dodging mean stares and harsh words alike. Kihyun leaning at the window, his arm on the sill and his cheek on his arm, looking down at the dusty playing field, summer heat bearing down on him, sun shining in his dark hair. He’d watched him, Yoongi realizes then, he’d watched Kihyun everyday for a whole year, had listened to him cry and had wished he wasn’t such a coward, guilt and shame and something else twisting in his stomach, something he hadn’t recognized then, something he feared now.

“I need to talk to him,” Yoongi says then, Namjoon and Taehyung’s stare bearing down on him. “I need to talk to him and tell him I’m sorry.”

“What good would that do?” Taehyung asks, his voice soft, eyes full of concern.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi says, “but this time, this time I want to try.”