Work Text:
When they arrived at the center of the lake, Wonwoo asked Soonyoung if he wanted to jump into the lake with him.
“And?”
“Haven’t decided yet,” Wonwoo said.
But why not? He added.
Soonyoung thought about it for a moment, in a very serious way. Then he decided, “I’m hungry.”
-
They sat in a corner of the market and were having their ramyun and tteokbokki. Wonwoo didn’t talk much the whole time which was weird. Soonyoung asked him if something’s wrong but then suddenly realized it himself.
“Wait, is it because I didn’t jump into the lake with you?”
Wonwoo didn’t answer nor look at him, minding his own business eating ramyun.
“Oh my god,” Soonyoung exclaimed.
He laughed out loud, “Jeon Wonwoo, you’re twenty-five. Are you aware of that?”
“Ya Kwon Soonyoung,” Wonwoo warned, put down his chopsticks and took off his glasses (they were getting foggy because of the steam). “I’ve been sad okay?”
“And in case you forget, I do get sad very often.” he solemnly added.
Soonyoung was still laughing but clearly got softer now. He looked at Wonwoo and licked his chopsticks unconsciously, thinking out loud, “well then...shall we go back? I promise I’ll jump with you this time...straight from the boat! Right into that lake!”
Somehow he got excited. Wonwoo just looked at him with a bored expression, food in the mouth, “I don’t intend to force you into this.”
“You’re just weird, Wonwoo.” Soonyoung smiled and wrapped his arm around Wonwoo.
“But I think what we did, or, what we didn’t do, was right. You might catch a cold if we jumped into the lake,” he added.
Wonwoo finished his ramyun and stopped acting upset. He said wistfully, “you’re just not romantic at all, Soonyoung.”
“I know,” Soonyoung scratched his nose. “But why’s everybody telling me that.”
This year Soonyoung’s birthday gift from Wonwoo was actually just Wonwoo throwing out one day’s trash for him. Soonyoung complained about it to his friends, but no one said Wonwoo was not being romantic. This is so unfair. One month later, Soonyoung brainstormed really hard to think of a birthday gift for Wonwoo and ended up with a baseball cap. As a result, he was roasted by everybody for lacking essential, basic, starter-level creativity–well what should he do? A gift should be just as simple and useful as possible!
After their birthdays, August came, and Soonyoung found a job as a P.E. teacher at an elementary school. When Wonwoo first heard about it he laughed for five minutes straight. Soonyoung put on his serious face: I’m honored, like, really honored. I don’t know if you understand it or not, but I’m really honored to be a P.E. teacher at an elementary school.
Wonwoo asked, “well, perhaps...is there any sport that our Mr. Kwon will be good at?”
Soonyoung pretended to be hurt, “come on, you know that I’m a taekwondo master.”
“Other than that?”
“Well,” Soonyoung hesitated, “maybe...gymnastics?”
Soonyoung teaches gymnastics at an elementary school. Everybody who knows him knows about that, but no one has ever thought that it was weird. Wonwoo, on the other hand, told everybody about it when he saw them and laughed literally every time. He works at a technician center and has even told kids who just went there for broken phone screens.
Sometimes the kids would go like please dude, I don’t have a P.E. teacher named Kwon and Wonwoo would warn them that they should not interrupt him because it was Wonwoo that was in charge of their phone right now.
Soonyoung tried scolding him, “Jeon Wonwoo, you should not laugh at people and their job. Plus, you don’t earn more than me so you don’t get to tell jokes about me. Instead, you should cook, wait at home for me to come back, and reflect on your own wrongdoings every day.”
Wonwoo said, deadpan, “I’m getting my bonus tomorrow.”
Soonyoung naturally responded, “then I take it back, Mr. Jeon.”
-
They invited a lot of people to their little apartment to celebrate Soonyoung’s new job. And of course it was just a bluff to make Mingyu and Seokmin cook for them. After getting their stomachs stuffed, all of them lay down on the floor in the living room which was relatively big considering the size of the apartment, and chatted idly about the times when they were still in high school. Soonyoung was picking his ears and not really listening. He burped a few times and snuggled closer to Wonwoo.
“I forgot to pump my bike tire. I’ll take the subway with you tomorrow,” he said quietly.
Wonwoo was half asleep by this time and just nodded.
Then, it was not exactly expected, but he dreamed about high school.
Wonwoo saw that the sun was setting and Soonyoung was with him on his way back home. The surroundings were very familiar. Wonwoo was walking slowly and Soonyoung was walking beside him with his bike.
“Why’s there a seat at the back?” Suddenly he had this urge to ask Soonyoung that.
Soonyoung answered plainly, “there’s a seat so that I can take people home.”
Wonwoo instinctively sat down on the seat and said, “then take me home.”
Soonyoung said okay and tried to get on the bike, but it turned out that he couldn’t balance it really well with somebody already sitting on the backseat. He scratched his head, looking slightly embarrassed, and pushed Wonwoo a little, “ya, I can’t do it while you’re on. You need to get up so that I can start pedaling. Just jump on afterward.”
Wonwoo listened and got off. The bike started moving at a strangely slow speed and Soonyoung turned around and shouted, “Jeon Wonwoo! Get on the bike! Quick! I can’t hold it this slow!”
So this was what Wonwoo saw in his dream.
His backpack was heavy on his back. Soonyoung’s back. Soonyoung who was struggling with the bike and his half-turned head. His side contour lightened by the setting sun. His white shirt, dampened with sweat. And the worn-off cushion at the back of Soonyoung’s bike.
Wonwoo was already tall by then. Within several steps, he caught up with Soonyoung and hopped on the seat, with his feet dangling and touching the ground slightly. The bike was not steady at all. Soonyoung was shouting and making weird noises at the front, while at the same time started pedaling really fast. Wonwoo felt his body was yanked so he grabbed Soonyoung’s waist. And they flew straight ahead just like this.
When he was awake, he found that Soonyoung was eating watermelon and making awful sounds. Wonwoo rubbed his eyes, “Is that a watermelon?”
Soonyoung stared at him and nodded.
“What the hell, it’s almost winter...or am I still dreaming?”
“It’s Seungkwan’s gift,” Soonyoung said, pointing at the balcony. “He said they were on sale in the supermarket so he bought them all.”
There were a lot on the balcony. Green, little watermelons. Very weird. Wonwoo mouthed what .
“Some hot guy delivered them to us, with his van, and he’s like, very hot,” Soonyoung said dreamily. “Seungkwan lucky little shit.”
Wonwoo shrugged. He closed his eyes again, not quite willing to get up yet.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“One a.m.,” Soonyoung said nonchalantly.
“Stop lying,” Wonwoo said, eyes closed.
Soonyoung claimed with his loud voice, “I’m not lying! Just look at your phone!”
And it was, indeed, past midnight. Wonwoo rubbed his eyes for a second time and finally put on his glasses. That soonyoung who was eating watermelon became clearer.
“Then why are you not asleep?”
Soonyoung said while eating, “I’m waiting for you okay? I don’t want to wake you but I also don’t want to just leave you here...you look cute when you are asleep, by the way...but just go and shower because I’m very very sleepy and I need to sleep right now.”
From their bedroom, they could see the street lamps nearby and the traffic far away. At a glance, the lights were like a glowy river. But if they turned around and looked outside carefully, there was no river but a few shining dots.
After shower Wonwoo climbed on the bed and lay beside Soonyoung. When he turned around to face Soonyoung, his side glance captured the light river again.
Before him, Soonyoung was already asleep with his mouth slightly open. Wonwoo couldn’t really help it but tried to close it for him with his fingers. Soonyoung murmured in his sleep, what , and went back to sleep with his mouth closed.
The lights were off so Wonwoo couldn’t really see anything. There were no differences if he opened his eyes or closed them. He didn’t want to go to sleep yet, since he just woke up. So he just stared into the darkness silently and waited.
Everything was quiet and all of a sudden Wonwoo thought of waiting for fireflies to appear in the dark when he was a kid. No one knew if a firefly would appear or not the next second, the little, shining creature that flew, but little Wonwoo waited, and kept waiting.
Soonyoung suddenly spoke, “are you having trouble falling asleep because you just took a nap?”
Wonwoo was taken aback and blinked a few times, “em, yeah.”
“You are really difficult to deal with.”
Soonyoung said and raised his arms with his eyes closed. Miraculously he found Wonwoo’s face and planted a large number of small pecks on it. While Wonwoo felt like being attacked, the last peck landed on the lips. Soonyoung stopped there, satisfied. He pulled Wonwoo into a hug and said, “all right, there there, now go to sleep, good night!”
Wonwoo started to laugh. Then he found Soonyoung asleep again. He laughed even harder, almost shaking in Soonyoung’s embrace. But strangely his head felt heavy in a while and he felt really really drowsy. Half consciously he thought that maybe Soonyoung knew how to cast a spell.
-
The next morning both of them walked to the subway, as planned. On their way, Soonyoung asked if Wonwoo wanted to go rowing a boat again.
Wonwoo was wary, “you don’t mean to push me into the lake right? I don’t want to go into the lake this time. Don’t forget that neither of us knows how to swim.” Soonyoung laughed and fake punched him and said of course not you funny head.
Soonyoung needed to go to work early so Wonwoo arrived at work an hour earlier than usual. It was too early. Nobody was here. So he sat in his chair and peacefully zoomed out.
Some time later A boy in uniform appeared. He saw Wonwoo and approached but looked unsure. Wonwoo came back from his daydream and adjusted his glasses. Before he could even put in a “what can I help you”, the boy started rambling, “hi how are you the thing is that my girlfriend goes to another school nearby but we meet every day to go to school together...my phone died this morning i just can’t turn it on...what should i do i have to meet her at the subway station but there are so many people how can i find her without my phone oh my god…”
He showed Wonwoo the phone. Wonwoo had a quick check and told him that it was probably because the battery was burnt.
“Did you throw your phone in the pool or something?” Wonwoo asked while fiddling with the phone.
The boy tried to recall for a long time but only scratched his head and said he couldn’t remember.
Wonwoo put the phone down and told him, “I can’t fix it now since we’ll have to find your type of battery. You’ll probably have to wait till the day after tomorrow. Do you have someone else’s number so that I can contact you?”
The boy nodded but still looked upset. He wanted to say something but chose not to. Wonwoo saw that, took out a phone from the drawer, and handed it to him.
“You can use this to call her. Just give it back to me when you have your phone back.”
It was a flip phone. The boy said thank you and looked at the phone curiously. He flipped it, and flipped it again.
Wonwoo sighed, “dude...you know we don’t have passwords on this kind of phone right?”
The boy was surprised, “oh my god it means the phone is fully charged here!”
Wonwoo said, “yes it does. But don’t look at anything in there.”
“Oh, hyung, is this your old phone?” The boy’s eyes got large and sincere. “I would never look at anything in it I promise. You can trust me!”
Wonwoo waved him off and said, “just go. I hope your girlfriend answers phone calls from weird numbers.”
The boy left and Wonwoo put his phone into a ziploc bag, labeled it, and put it aside. Out of habit he then went to get his own phone and saw on the lock screen three messages from Soonyoung. Two of them were about rowing boats in a park, and the third was several emojis.
His colleagues came half an hour later and said he got the battery the boy needed. So Wonwoo texted his old number and told the boy to pick it up when he finished classes. When the battery was changed and the phone was finally turned on, Wonwoo saw that the lock screen was a picture of the boy and a girl standing in front of the gate of a university.
Both the boy and his girlfriend came in the afternoon. They both looked happy. Wonwoo put his old phone back in the drawer and the boy said seriously, “I only used your phone to make a few phone calls. I didn’t do anything else!”
Wonwoo thought he was funny. He gave the phone back to the boy, “okay, I appreciate it. Just take care of your phone and don’t make it wet next time.”
His girlfriend laughed, “he always does that! Tech idiot.”
After they left, Wonwoo’s colleague (single) sighed, and Wonwoo was already with his phone, asking Soonyoung when he would get off from work.
-
Actually Soonyoung had already finished his work. He was sitting in his small office and planning a really really romantic rowing trip. He wrote down in his rarely-used journal: Kwon Soonyoung & Jeon Wonwoo’s Romantic Rowing Trip .
He did research and pondered. For a long time. And about half an hour later, only when Wonwoo texted did he realize he should’ve left already. But by the time when he was on the subway, all he could think of was only things like surprise kisses at the center of the lake .
He comforted himself that although his ideas were boring, they seemed nice enough.
While Wonwoo was waiting for Soonyoung, he took out his old phone and checked out the texts kept in it. They were all from high school. He deleted most of the texts and the only left ones were from Soonyoung.
So fucking dumb, but he couldn’t help smiling.
Eating together, arguing about littlest things, flirting, they went on and on and it seemed like high school was all about these things. Rereading the texts made him feel as if he had experienced everything again, those long days of the past.
Growth, promises, desires, and love...Wonwoo thought about these things. He knew Soonyoung and him were the same kind of people, people who want to be looked at, who want to be cared for, who want to be able to be kids. So he had worried that if both of them wanted the same, who would be the one that gives those things...and who would be the one that gives first ?
In fact, things got figured out really smoothly.
The answer was simple: if you happen to be the child at one moment, I will be the adult that protects you; while at another moment when I want to be the child, I know you will do the same for me.
In high school, Wonwoo got a few texts from Soonyoung that he didn’t want to send out but sent out accidentally. The longest one was not a confession or complaint. Unknown to Soonyoung, long after high school Wonwoo still kept it and read it oftentimes.
3:57 AM
Wonwoo, I’m scared so I want to text you. Don’t worry, it’s nothing scary...I just need you. It’s raining really hard right now and the electricity is cut off so I can’t turn on the lights. Mom and dad are asleep so they don’t know. I got woken up by the rain but I can’t turn on the lights now so I’m scared.
When I’m scared I will think of your bored face. When you’re bored, it means that nothing serious is happening, and that I’m safe. But you’re not like my mom or dad or sister. The thought of you glamorously protecting me is giving me goosebumps kkkkk...well, because Wonwoo will never pretend to be a hero, because I’m the one who likes to pretend to be a hero. Wonwoo will only protect me secretly and thinks that I don’t know. But I know. Wonwoo is the kind of person who protects a hero behind their back.
I wrote too much. I don’t even write this much for my homework. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place now I’m tired. So Wonwoo-ah, why can a person always be brave...?
…
Both of them have a lot in themselves that they want to let other people see, but at the same time, they have even more that they want to get rid of and bury. This is a decision that both Kwon Soonyoung and Jeon Wonwoo have reached separately in their life.
…
How many nights are there, when you just wanted to deal with the difficulties all by yourself? But being on one’s own...was not an unhappy thing. It was only out of habit and a desire to grow up sooner, to finally become an adult, and to be able to protect you when you need me. And it was not because the thought of you never appeared; it was exactly because I liked it so much, to be thinking about you in this lone, independent, strong heart.
There were so many emotions and so much intensity in this lone heart, so many thoughts, and of course so much love. Where does all that love come from? The things that you express and present to me are already warm enough; how beautiful will the rest of your love be, if you decide to reveal? Winter lake will turn into a hot spring if we jump into it. A plastic bag will turn into a hot balloon if we blow up the bag. Then the hot balloon will take us up in the air, and we will fly high into the sky together. The world is our fantastic, fanciful battlefield. As long as we have each other, we can always fight off fear, loneliness, worries, and sadness.
-
Off the record, Soonyoung has given plenty of moving speeches, and the quantities haven't affected their qualities.
It is exactly Kwon Soonyoung & Jeon Wonwoo’s Romantic Rowing Trip today. When they arrive at the center of the lake in the boat, Soonyoung starts to take deep breaths in an exaggerated way. Then he pauses in an exaggerated way.
Wonwoo knows that it is his signal to make something big (so he starts to laugh a little already).
Soonyoung enters a zone of full confidence and determination, pretending to be a hilarious messenger sent by God. He is too serious and acts too much, but Wonwoo knows that only through this can he get rid of himself–the shy kid who gets uneasy easily, or the tall child who got scared on a stormy night.
So Wonwoo will act side by side with him.
“Wonwoo-ah, I know it for sure, and I know it clearer than anyone else does, that–you will always be happy!” Soonyoung exclaimed.
With that Wonwoo thinks, yes, I will.
“Something I’m sure of...do you know what that is?”
Wonwoo replies, no, I don’t know.
“That is...dugudugudugu…”
Soonyoung starts doing drum rolls, so Wonsoo also starts doing drum rolls.
“You have my love! So you will be the happiest person ever!”
And with that Wonwoo smiles and thinks, yes, of course.