Archive of Our Own ^beta

The building was high. Very high — twenty-something stories, a large mall and some offices and a bunch of little restaurants and cafés. Chanhee had been here numerous times, as a kid with his parents, with his friends to hang out after school, but he had never been on the roof, not once.

From up here, the people bustling about in the surrounding seemed as big as ants, smaller than Chanhee’s pinky toe. Below his feet was a busy road, leading out of Seoul. Rush hour. Was it 5 pm already? At 5 pm, he was supposed to leave school for the day. Did his friends wonder where he was? Maybe one of them had told the teacher some excuse for his absence to cover his back, or maybe they had told his parents. He had said at home that he’d be studying with his friends until the late evening, his parents shouldn’t wait for him for dinner. The college entrance exam was approaching, everyone was studying. His parents hadn’t batted an eye. Why would they? 

Chanhee shuddered, would have hugged himself if he wasn’t using his outstretched arms to keep himself balanced. The air was cold up here, and the subtle breeze tugging at his clothes and hair made it worse. Chanhee thought to himself that maybe, if he went onto his tiptoes, balancing on the narrow ledge, the wind would take him away. Away into the clouds passing over the large city, up into the sky, away to a place where he didn’t have to think about anything.

He moved his foot. Just a bit. The tip of his worn-out sandal reached over the edge now. It was October, too cold for sandals, but Chanhee hadn’t paid attention to what shoes to choose as he had left the house this morning. He took another step, and the sole of his shoe hovered over fifty meters of nothing but air. He hesitated.

“Hey—” 

Chanhee set his foot back down. He was swaying a little as he looked over his shoulder, blinking against the light of the setting sun. He hadn’t noticed that someone had come up here. In his head, he had already come to terms with the fact that the last face he would see was the cleaning lady’s, who he had passed on his way up the steep staircase. A strange thought that he had tried his hardest to not think to much about – he had refrained from thinking too much at all, but now his mind was all over the place.

He hadn’t expected this.

In front of him, maybe three meters away from the ledge, stood a stranger with wind-blown dark hair. With the sun right behind him, his silhouette seemed to glow. For a brief moment Chanhee thought he was hallucinating. But no. He wasn’t.

Did Chanhee know him? He frowned. The stranger seemed to be his age – did they go to the same school? No, he would have remembered his face. Chanhee was good at remembering faces, they almost always stayed in his mind in full detail – no, he had never seen the boy in front of him before.

A lump formed in Chanhee’s throat as they locked eyes. There was fear in the other’s eyes – large eyes for a small face. Unfiltered, innocent fear. Chanhee could relate. He was scared, too.

“What’s your name?” 

“Chanhee.” His voice sounded hoarse. Feeble. Fragile. He didn’t quite know what to do. He had been caught of guard, and now he didn’t know what to do.

“Chanhee – I’m Younghoon. Let me help you down, okay? Let me, um, let me buy you dinner. Okay?”

Chanhee hesitated. He didn’t move, as if his feet were stuck to the concrete, as he fixed his eyes on the stranger in front of him.

“Chanhee, do you like fried chicken?”

He nodded slowly, an automatic response almost.

“Great!” Younghoon took a careful step forward, as if approaching a frightened deer. He smiled, and looked at him with the kindest face that Chanhee had seen in a while. “There’s this new fried chicken place around the corner. It’s so good, you should go there at least once. We can go there together. I’ll pay!”

Chanhee still didn’t move.

“Do you go to school around here?”

Chanhee nodded slowly, again. Younghoon smiled, again. “I recognize that school uniform. My co-worker has the same. It’s nice.”

Chanhee looked down at himself, the navy-blue blazer over a slightly crumpled white dress shirt, the shorts in the same blue shade. Before he knew what was happening, Younghoon reached out and loosely, gently, clasped Chanhee’s thin wrist to help him down onto steady ground.

Younghoon’s hand was warm, and he didn’t let go for several seconds, making sure that Chanhee stood on both feet. Slowly, the numbness in Chanhee’s body disappeared. He drew in a shaky breath and closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly feeling very, very dizzy.

3 years later

“Younghoon! You have to take tomorrow’s early shift. My wife sprained her back, she’s not supposed to be carrying anything until next week.”

Younghoon bit down on his bottom lip. With his eyes glued to the night’s skyline reflecting on the waves below him, he took a moment to think.

“Listen—” Mr. Lee said then. “I know you need the money. You don’t really have a choice, do you?”

“When do I have to be there?” he asked, voice a bit raised to not be drowned by the traffic noise behind him.

“6 am. Don’t be late.”

He had hung up.

Younghoon lowered his phone. The cold night air bit at his sore hands. He supported himself on his forearms, slowly lowering his head until his forehead rested on the steel railing of the bridge.

6 am. Considering that it took him an average of two hours to fall asleep and it was already midnight, he knew already that he wouldn’t get much sleep.  He let out a frustrated sigh.

“Hey – just jump!”

He looked over his shoulder. A bunch of teenage boys drove by on their bicycles, laughing. They were listening to loud music; and had passed already before Younghoon’s brain even registered what they had said.

Younghoon pocketed his phone and looked at the river. The waves were moving calmly, a perpetual slumbrous movement.

It was late and he was hungry, he hadn’t eaten much all day, but Younghoon didn’t move. Instead, he raised his eyes a bit to look at the skyline. It felt like he could see the entire city from here. It was calming somehow. Hundreds and thousands of buildings and millions of people and an innumerable sea of lights, flashing and flickering and glaring. From here, he could see the tip of the N Seoul Tower, the outline of the apartment complex that a middle school friend used to live in, even the rooftop of the mall he used to work in.

Younghoon hesitated. A strange, heavy feeling settled over his heart as he couldn’t help but think about that one October afternoon, and the boy that had stood right there on the ledge of the roof. He thought about the look in his eyes and wondered if he was still alive.

Looking back, Younghoon would have handled the situation differently. 

Younghoon from three years ago had known nothing. Nothing about life, about how much it could suck and how fucking hard it was. Back then, when his biggest worries that been avoiding his father whenever he had come back from a bar and deciding whether to spend his money at the internet café or the karaoke bar. Back then, when he had walked around with a smile on his face that only seldom faded.

He almost scoffed, resigned.

The Younghoon of today, in the situation he was in now, would have acted differently. He wouldn’t have let Chanhee go so easily. Never. He would have insisted on treating him to a meal, insisted on exchanging phone numbers and becoming a pillar the other could lean against when life would become too much again. Instead, he had let him go too easily.

“Sorry,” Younghoon mumbled. “I should have—" Before regret could take over him, he stepped away from the railing and walked home.

Younghoon had moved into the small room above a grubby and slightly shady bike rental barely three months ago. It wasn’t the best place – power blackouts weren’t uncommon; the window was broken and way too expensive to fix it and there were noisy train tracks nearby – but Younghoon wasn’t exactly in the position to be picky.

As he shuffled up the stairs, Younghoon bumped his foot against a cardboard crate full of waste glass that someone had left in front of his entrance door. He gritted his teeth, choking back a cry of pain to not make any noise before he shut the door behind him. He slumped down on his bed, throwing his backpack onto the floor, chucking his shoes into the entrance area. A train passed by outside the window; the noise roared in his ears. Massaging his aching foot, Younghoon stared into the dim emptiness of his room. There wasn’t much there to look at. A desk and a small kitchen unit on the left, a bar table with two stools and a dresser on the right. The door to the bathroom was left open. From where he sat, he saw his reflection in the mirror. It was slightly distorted.

What even was he doing this for?

He didn’t know. What if he just… no. He would feel like a hypocrite. He couldn’t tell someone standing on the ledge of a twenty-story building to come down and try out a new fried chicken place and then, three years later, step onto that ledge himself.

Before she passed away, his grandmother used to say that a person knew when someone was thinking about them. He wondered if that was true.

The next day, Younghoon had just gathered everything he needed for the day in his backpack, as someone knocked at the door. He winced at the sudden thuds and hesitated for a moment, lingering between his dresser and the bed, before he hurried over to the door.

Younghoon looked into the eyes of his uncle. Early fifties, greying black hair, average height, not exactly beefy but nowhere near scrawny or thin. Mr. Kim was one of these people that seemed approachable on first glance, but then you looked into their eyes. It would be a lie to say that Younghoon wasn’t scared of him every time they met, although he could never let that show – that would be bad, very bad.

“Good morning, uncle.”

“Morning. Up already, I see? I’ve had business to do nearby so I thought I step by and see how my nephew is doing. How’ve you been, boy?” 

“Oh, um, I’ve been—"

Younghoon’s uncle slapped him across the face full-face, cutting him off mid-sentence. The slap was so powerful that Younghoon staggered backwards, grabbing the door for support. He gasped. There was blood in his mouth, the irony taste spread quickly.

“Have you been living well at my cost?” His uncle leaned forward, hands on his hips, smiling wryly, while Younghoon shied away, eyes blinking away tears that the slap had brought forth. His ears were ringing.

“No, I—”

“It’s almost November and you still haven’t given me the money that I gave you in September. Want me to tell your father where you live? I can call him.”

Younghoon flinched. “No,” he mumbled. “Please don’t – I’ll give you the money, uncle, I promise. My sink broke and I had to get it fixed, that’s why—”

“I don’t care,” the man barked.

“’ll bring it over next week. I promise. I swear.”

“Wise choice, boy.” The man pat Younghoon’s burning cheek. The irony taste got worse. “Come by on Tuesday, and don’t be late. You don’t mind if I come in?”

“I have to leave for work now,” Younghoon said quietly, eyes lowered. He was expecting another slap, but his uncle only looked at him before he turned around and went back to his car that he had parked halfway on the sidewalk across the road.

Younghoon waited until he was gone, until the sound of screeching tires had died down, to sink against the doorframe. He still felt blood rushing into his head, his cheek was burning terribly, and his ears were ringing slightly. His lip had burst, hence the blood in his mouth.

He was late for work. Cursing under his breath, Younghoon grabbed his backpack, put on his cap and ran to the bus station.

Mr. Lee didn’t even bat an eye as Younghoon entered the shop – a tiny convenience store, squished between a laundromat and repair service for smartphones – with a bleeding lip and a flushed left cheek. During the first weeks after Younghoon had started working for him, he had asked what had happened whenever he had spotted a black eye, a bruise or burst lip on his part-timer, but with time passing, he had stopped. 

Had he just eventually accepted that he would receive nothing but vague and taciturn answers or had he simply stopped caring? Younghoon knew it was immature, but sometimes he thought that if Mr. Lee had asked one more time, he would have told him.

“Ah, you’re here?” the man asked, looking up from his magazine and eyeing Younghoon, who muttered an apology for being late in between gasps for breath. Mr. Lee was a small man with a receding hairline and heavy eye bags. He could be pedantic and bossy, but Younghoon was convinced that overall, he was a good person. 

“This delivery just arrived.” Mr. Lee gestured towards stacked-up boxes next to the counter. “You know what to do. Make sure that you can see the label on all of the cans, last time I had to go through all of these one more time after you were done. Hurry, you’re late already. Didn’t I tell you to be here on time.”

“Sorry. I’ll get started right away.”

After restocking the shelves – which were far too low for his tall height – Younghoon took care of the dusty shopwindow and glass door and then was ordered to sit at the counter as an old friend from military times walked into the shop and Mr. Lee sat down with him on a bench outside the store. Younghoon heard the two men laugh outside, while he stared at the displayed tabloid headlines until the words grew hazy in front of his eyes. Now and then a costumer came in, but overall, it was excruciatingly calm. He couldn’t even listen to music – the radio that stood next to the cash register was broken again and let out only static noise, but Mr. Lee refused to buy a new one, insisting that the old device just needed a checkup.

When Younghoon looked at his phone to check the time, it was almost noon. He looked over his shoulder as the plain, narrow door next to the counter that led up to the back staircase of the building opened and Mr. Lee’s wife hobbled in.

“Younghoon. Did my husband not tell you to put away the trash? I almost tripped over one of those damn carton boxes on the way down. What are you waiting for?”

“Now?” Younghoon asked, eyes flickering over to Mr. Lee who was still chatting with his friend outside, smoking a cigarette. “Mr. Lee told me to—"

“Yes, now,” the woman huffed, interrupting him mid-sentence. “Up, up with you, I’ll take care of the counter for the time being.”

And so Younghoon disappeared into the backroom, where he gathered all the scattered carton boxes and packaging and paper waste and stuffed them into two large plastic bags. After heaving one of them over his shoulder, he pushed open the heavy back door and blinked into the midday sun. The shop’s back door led to a rather busy narrow street, where taxi after taxi maneuvered around pedestrians and roaming cats shot wary looks at anyone who passed them. 

Younghoon stood at one side of a crosswalk, raising his head high as his cap had slid down into his face a little. About to cross the intersection, he stopped in his tracks.

On the other side of the road, with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his wide jeans, looking at him with his head tilted to the side, stood Chanhee. 

Oh? 

Oh? 

If Younghoon wasn’t holding two heavy bags of trash, he would have rubbed his eyes.

His hair was different – bubblegum peach-blonde instead of black, long enough to fall into his eyes instead of cut short like most high school students – but it was him. Definitely. His face, his eyes and nose and lips, had been engrained into Younghoon’s mind. It was him. 

“I’m glad you’re alive.” Younghoon absentmindedly picked at the food in front of him as he looked at the boy sitting across the small table outside of the tteokbokki place. 

The words came out quicker than he intended, and just as he was about to apologize Chanhee gave him a bright smile. 

“Me too,” he said. “D’you like it? The tteokbokki?”

“Mhm. Yeah,” Younghoon said. For some reason, he was nervous. “It’s delicious. I’ve, um, I’ve never been here before. It’s nice.”

It was indeed a nice place. Younghoon usually spent his lunch break eating something he found in the to-go isle of Mr. Lee’s store, either sitting down on a bench nearby or walking around the area, but as Chanhee had asked him if he perhaps wanted to grab something to eat with him, the thought of declining had not even crossed his mind. Only thirty minutes he had to spare, but he was more than ready to give up his lunch break for this.

Younghoon felt a bit dizzy looking at Chanhee. Chanhee, who had been the center point of many of his worries at night for years, who had almost merged into a dream-like figure in his mind, who now sat in front of him. It didn’t feel quite real.

“I hope you don’t think it’s weird or anything,” Chanhee said, “but I saw you across the street and recognized you, and I wanted to thank you. I’ve wanted to thank you all this time, but frankly I didn’t think I’d ever see you again – what are the chances, after all… Anyway, thank you. Truly.”

“I don’t think it’s weird.” Younghoon smiled shyly. “You don’t have to…” He cleared his throat and fell silent again. “I didn’t really do much. Should have done more.”

“If you feel like nobody cares about you, as if you’re invisible, not much is already a lot.”

“Are you, um, are you doing well?”

Chanhee nodded. He ate another piece of tteokbokki, then began talking. He had a very sweet voice, light like clouds. A bit like cotton candy. “I’d say so. Yeah. I’m doing well.”

As he talked, Younghoon recalled the conversation they had had on the rooftop. For almost an hour they had sat there and Younghoon had listened to every single one of Chanhee’s words. Though they had been strangers, he had poured his heart out – about the struggles with his family, the immense pressure to do well in school, the uncertainty of his future. By the end, Younghoon had known more about Chanhee’s worries and fears and dreams, than about anyone else, despite not even knowing his surname or where he lived.

Was that the reason for why he didn’t feel like a stranger at all?

“I get along with my parents much better since I moved out. I’m studying a lot for the college entrance exam at the moment – to start university I have to get a scholarship, which means I have to be really fucking good at that stupid exam. I really need to get it right this time, I can’t afford to waste another year. That’s it. What about you?”

Younghoon hesitated for one moment too long. Chanhee nodded, as if that moment of hesitating had been answer enough. He tilted his head slightly, leaning forward.

“What happened to your lip?”

“Hm? Oh.” Younghoon instinctively touched the corner of his mouth, ever so slightly flinching at the painful sensation. “Nothing.”

“Can I be honest? It looks like someone slapped you.” Chanhee said, so bluntly that Younghoon was taken aback by it. With his bottom lip pushed forward, Chanhee was swaying his feet back and forth, accidentally bumping against Younghoon’s shin with the tip of his sneakers. “Wait here – watch my stuff, I’ll be right back.”

Younghoon watched with wide eyes as Chanhee jumped up from the table and disappeared through the glass doors of the drug store few meters away from the place they sat. He came back not even five minutes later, with a small tube in his hand. He sat down, reaching for Younghoon’s hand resting on the table, gently pressing the tube into his hand.

“Apply that to the wound.”

“Hm?”

“Your lip,” Chanhee said, voice soft but firm. “Apply the cream to your lip. It should help.”

Younghoon blinked at Chanhee, perplexed by the sudden gesture. He didn’t know if Chanhee took his hesitation as simplemindedness or cluelessness, but a moment later the latter sighed and leaned forward in his chair.

“Let me do it, okay? Squeeze a bit of it on your pinky—” He once again took the tube, fingertips brushing over the inside of Younghoon’s opened palm, and unscrewed the cap. Younghoon watched as he squeezed some of the milky-white ointment onto his small pinky finger, body motionless as only his eyes watched Chanhee move closer and take his chin into the other hand, tilting it up a little.

Younghoon’s breath hitched at the other’s skin touched his. He wasn’t used to gentle touches, much less someone gently taking his chin in their hand. The touch could have brought tears to his eyes if Chanhee’s voice didn’t distract him.

“—and dab some on where it’s hurting.” Carefully, Chanhee touched the corner of Younghoon’s mouth. The crème felt very cool, Chanhee’s hands though were warm. “Do it regularly, and don’t lick it off.” It prickled as Chanhee dragged his finger a bit down Younghoon’s lip, spreading the tasteless ointment.

“Better already?” Chanhee asked, leaning back in his chair with a complacent smile on his lips after having wiped off the rest of the ointment on one of the tissues laying by his almost finished portion of tteokbokki.

Younghoon, who had only now become aware of his elevated heartbeat, nodded, barely able to breathe out a “thank you”.

“Oh, it’s the least I can do for you.”

A moment of silence prevailed before Younghoon spoke up, voice still quiet. “Chanhee?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to think that you owe me.”

Younghoon managed to hold eye contact for only few seconds seconds before his eyes flickered away, succumbing to the look in Chanhee’s eyes that Younghoon couldn’t even possibly begin to describe. He looked at his hands instead, a bit red from the cool air and bruised and grazed as always.

“Hyung – I can call you hyung, right?”

“S-sure.”

“Hyung. Do you believe in angels?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I never did. Not as a child, not I grew older. But hyung, when I saw you on that rooftop, I thought you were an angel for a moment. It sounds so childish, but for a brief moment I was so convinced that you were my guardian angel who had come to earth to protect me. I don’t necessarily think that I owe you a favor in return, it’s more about the fact that I’ll always be thankful to you.”

Younghoon felt dizzy. A new kind of dizzy – not the kind of dizzy caused by exhausting, and neither the kind caused by a slap in the face, but probably more disorienting as both of those.

“I think I have to go back to work soon,” he said then, barely managing to not stumble over the words, standing up to throw away the plastic waste of their food. “N-now. I’m a bit late already.”

“Oh – you should hurry up then,” Chanhee said, raising from his seat as well with his hands once again buried in the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want you to get in any trouble because of me, do I?”

Younghoon was about to turn around when a thought rushed through him, quick like lightning, and he reached for Chanhee’s sleeve to keep him from leaving. He couldn’t let him leave like that again. He couldn’t just walk away again. Not when he had been granted another chance.

“W-wait—”

“Yeah?”

He couldn’t let him leave again. 

“I can’t let you leave aga—sorry, I… Can I have your number? Can we stay in touch? If you don’t mind, I’d like to… maybe we could eat lunch together one time—"

He was rambling, didn’t even know if what he was saying was out of pocket, if it was coherent or appropriate or dumb, but at the end, when he got himself to finally shut his lips and looked at Chanhee expectantly, the latter nodded. 

Then, to Younghoon’s confusion, he giggled.

“Yeah, I’ll give you my number.”

With red cheeks, Younghoon fished out his phone and handed it to Chanhee.

“Call me whenever you want to. Whenever you feel like it – if you need someone to listen to you, if you want a distraction, or if you just want to talk, you can always call me. For whatever reason, even if you have none at all. I’ll pick up.”

Chanhee swiftly typed in his number, pressed it back into Younghoon’s hand before letting his fingertips graze over Younghoon’s hands. He left him standing there on the sidewalk by the tteokbokki place, watching as he jogged across the street, his hair and sweater like splotches of color in this gray scale world.

The first time Younghoon called Chanhee, he said he had no reason to call when in reality, he was desperate for a distraction from everything – the distraction being Chanhee’s voice. Younghoon asked him about his day, and while Chanhee talked Younghoon felt how the tears that had welled up in his eyes before he had decided to call Chanhee, ran dry before they could even brim over. Crouching down in the small back yard of the place he was washing dishes for, during his lunch break, for thirty minutes it felt like the world was kind of alright – or rather it felt like the world didn’t really exist. For thirty minutes, it was just him and the phone pressed against his cheek and the kind voice near his ear. 

The second time he called was because of loneliness, after realizing he had not talked to anyone for a long time, too long probably. He lay in his bed, blanket that he wished was heavier wrapped around his body tightly, phone lying on the pillow next to his face, and in the three hours that they were on the phone Younghoon talked probably more than he had done in the entire last year. About anything that came to his mind, and though he couldn’t see his face, Younghoon knew that Chanhee was listening, truly listening.

“Hyung, do you want to eat lunch together this Wednesday?”

It was Monday. Younghoon said yes without checking his calendar. He didn’t have to work until the evening on Wednesdays, and he didn’t have any other appointments – if he did, he’d reschedule those.

“I’m looking forward to Wednesday,” Younghoon rolled to the side, hugging a pillow to his chest. Chanhee giggled. Younghoon closed his eyes for a moment. He heard his own heartbeat, steady but fast, probably a bit too fast. 

“Me too, hyung,” Chanhee said.

Hours later, Younghoon’s heart was racing once again – for a completely different reason. His heart felt like it was about to jump out of his chest as he approached his uncle’s house, knuckles turning white from how tightly he clutched at the envelope in his hand.

There were few places where he would like to be less. 

Younghoon rang the doorbell – no reaction. He knocked. After some time of waiting, tapping his foot against the ground anxiously, and checking if he put in the right amount of money in the envelope, he rang the doorbell for a second time.

He should come back later. 

It was late afternoon, he could come back in five hours, after work – he was tired, after having already been at work for most of the day, and would rather go home straight away, but his uncle had told him to come and hand over the money on Tuesday, and he did not want to risk anything.

With a big sigh slipping from his lips after almost five minutes of waiting on the doorstep, he turned around. 

“Well, well, who do we have here?”

Younghoon whirled around. Seungjae had come out of nowhere, probably had been in the garden and just now came to the front of the house, facing Younghoon with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Younghoon was rather tall, had been the tallest in his class back in high school, but Seungjae had always been of similar height than him. Seungjae, though, was broader than Younghoon, years of boxing and lifting weights had made him strong, big.

“Hyung.”

“What’s in there?” Seungjae gestured towards the envelope in Younghoon’s hands. “My dad’s money?”

“Rent. I was going to give it to him.”

His cousin came closer. “Oh really? Doesn’t look like it.”

“Hyung, your father sa—”

“Were you going to leave with the money?”

Younghoon’s eyes flickered around the area. The street was empty except for the two of them – it was a dull, overcast day, a bit windy and breezy, not exactly the type of weather that made you want to spent time outside. The wind was messing with Younghoon’s hair. He tucked some strands behind his ears, eyes fixed on Seungjae.

“I thought that there was nobody home – I was going to come back later, I promise.”

“You promise?” Seungjae raised his eyebrow. He reached out, trying to grab the envelope but Younghoon reacted quickly, drawing back.

“Hyung, leave me be,” he said. His pulse had quickened after smelling the alcohol on his cousin, a smell he had more or less trained himself to detect easily over the course of his childhood, a smell that coaxed an almost panic-like instinct out of him.

Seungjae laughed. “Oh, shut up.”

He reached out once again, this time to harshly grab the fabric of Younghoon’s shirt.

“You’re so fucking annoying. Stop scamming my father out of his money.”

“I’m not scamming him!”

Seungjae shoved him. Younghoon staggered backwards, onto the driveway, dropping the envelope. As soon as he regained balance, he was shoved again, though this time he pushed back, forceful enough to make Seungjae bump against his father’s car. He cursed under his breath, rubbing his thigh before he glared up at Younghoon. 

“Son of a bitch.”

It happened fast. Seungjae, provoked by Younghoon’s counterattack, lunged forward and threw a punch. Younghoon, trying to evade his cousin’s fist, shied back, stumbled over a water hose leading across the driveway, and fell to the ground. The back of his head bashed against the curb of the sidewalk, and for a moment Younghoon’s vision blacked out.

“Hey.”

Younghoon barely heard Seungjae’s voice. His ears were ringing loudly, any other noise was basically unintelligible, disorienting.

“Hey, Younghoon, stand up.” He felt a harsh hand on his upper arm, then Seungjae pulled him up. “Fuck, stand up. Younghoon.”

Younghoon blinked, squeezing his eyes shut until the ringing in his ears subdued a little. He almost fell again once Seungjae let go of his arm. His cousin stared at him, breathing fitfully, cursing under his breath.

Younghoon didn’t remembered how he got back home. The walk to the stop, the bus ride, unlocking the door – nothing. In his room, he sunk onto his bed. 

Younghoon wasn’t sure if he had lost consciousness or had fallen asleep, but as he opened his eyes again, waking up to a raging headache, feeling dizzy, it was pitch-black outside. He was hungry, starving, and stumbled to his kitchen isle to put a pot of water onto the stove. His hand was jittery as he opened the kitchen cabinet and pulled out the last ramen package.

Fuck. He had missed out on work, and he hadn’t told anyone. Fuck. 

He searched for his phone.

A missed call. Someone had left a voicemail message two hours ago. Younghoon sat down on one of the bar stools. The room was solely lit by the glaring of the streetlight shining through the narrow window. His ramen was boiling behind him.

He clicked on the voicemail message, vision still blurry so he couldn’t read the name. He flinched the tiniest bit as he heard his uncle’s voice.

“Got the money. Don’t make as much as trouble next time, or I’ll tell your father to collect the rent next month.”

Briefly, Younghoon was confused. Money? 

Oh, right. The rent and cost for the broken sink. He had almost forgotten why he had even gone to his uncle’s home. Seungjae had to have picked up the envelope.

Younghoon’s head hurt so much it felt like it was going to split open. Fuck. He should go back to sleep after finishing the ramen – he had to feel better until tomorrow. He wasn’t going to let a headache, no matter how horrible it hurt, ruin his lunch with Chanhee.

And he held onto that intent. Nothing could stop him. Neither a headache, nor the sudden nosebleed he got in the shower the next morning.

Chanhee was already there when Younghoon arrived at the intersection they agreed to meet at. The moment he saw him, there suddenly was a bouncy spring in his steps that wasn’t there before. Chanhee smiled.

“How are you doing? Are you doing alright?”

Younghoon hesitated. “Yeah. I’m doing well.”

Chanhee squinted his eyes at him, then smiled softly. “I don’t quite believe you, hyung, but that’s alright. Whatever’s going on, I’ll be your perfect distraction. I’ll make you smile. If I manage to make you laugh, even better. I’ve never heard you laugh before, but I bet that it’s to die for.”

Younghoon looked at the ground to his feet. “How are you so sure about that?”

Chanhee shrugged. “Well, I’ve seen you smile. Three years ago. It kind of saved my life.”

They had three hours – by 3 pm, Younghoon had to be at work, and Chanhee had to return to the library to continue studying for the college entrance exam.

The weather was unusually mellow for late October, contrary to the last couple of days – maybe one of the last times the sun would be out before winter would take over – and they decided on buying some street food and go for a walk by the river.

“Tell me about your week.”

So Younghoon did. He told Chanhee about work, the cat that he saw lingering around in front of his home a couple of time, what movies he had watched. He left out the part with his cousin, he left out his uncle and anything concerning money. Chanhee listened attentively. Younghoon was very aware that he was looking at him while they were walking along the path by the river.  

“I admire you, hyung,” Chanhee said.

“Admire me? Why?”

Chanhee shrugged. “Just… in general. You’re so hardworking – can I have a bite?”

“Sure.” They stopped in the middle of the walkway. Younghoon held the stick of odeng out to Chanhee. He expected him to take it, but instead he just came a little closer, placed his hand on Younghoon’s and took a bite without taking the wooden stick from him.

Standing close like that, Younghoon became aware of their height difference. His lips aligned with Chanhee’s forehead.

Chanhee hummed. “It’s good. Damnit, I should have bought odeng as well…”

“You can have the rest of mine,” Younghoon said, with a smile on his lips.

Younghoon only noticed that he hadn’t had any bad headaches while Chanhee had been with him in the moment that he left again, and it was as if the throbbing in the back of his back had just waited for Chanhee to round the corner to return. Few minutes later, he felt warm blood trickling down his philtrum. Holding a tissue to his nose, feeling more lightheaded with every moment passing as he hurried back to his apartment, Younghoon couldn’t help but chuckle to himself sourly. 

The universe had to be playing with him.  He got nosebleeds and headaches when Chanhee was not there? He felt miserable without him?

He knew why he felt that way – he didn’t sleep enough, worked too hard and probably didn’t drink enough.

But with Chanhee, he was just distracted enough to momentarily forget about the pain. It was like that again and again, every time they met up and every time he was left alone again, and like that over half a month passed, and it was mid-November. The air was colder by now, too cold for Younghoon to spend his lunch breaks outside, and too cold to work morning shifts at the port with just his thin jacket but he had no choice.

Two weeks after his mailbox message, Younghoon’s uncle called again, demanding more money this month – almost half the amount of his usual rent more – by next week. Younghoon didn’t know where he was supposed to get that money from without touching his savings for emergencies.

He was close to tears, lying on his bed, blankly staring at the ceiling in his half-dim room, as the phone rang once again, and he answered without looking.

“Hello?”

“Younghoon hyung, hi.” Upon hearing Chanhee’s voice, Younghoon sat up so quickly he got dizzy. “I know it’s late, but could I maybe come over? Just to hang out a bit, I’ve been stuck at home studying all day and I’m sick of it, and I mi—um, yeah. Would you want to hang out?”

“Mh hm. I’d love to hang out.”

Chanhee was at his doorstep just as Younghoon had finished tidying up his room to the best of his ability. When he let him inside, there was this special smile on his lips that Younghoon found it hard to avert his eyes from. 

“You look cute,” Chanhee noted as he took off his shoes. “Very cozy.” Younghoon looked down on himself. Oh no. He had to forgot to change clothes, he still wore that baggy shirt and his comfort sweatpants he had put on the moment he had come home from work.

Younghoon blushed. “You look very nice,” he replied.

Chanhee did look very nice. He wore dangly earrings today, and the stripes of his sweater matched colors with his sneakers and his bracelets. His cheeks were rosy from the cold, and his lips were the same color.

“Here. Bought them on the way here.” Chanhee handed Younghoon a cup of bubble tea before sitting down on the bed, snatching one of the pillows to huddle up against as he started rambling about the weather.

“Your place is nice, by the way.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Mh. Yeah.” Chanhee pushed his bottom lip forward as he nodded, eyes scanning the room. “I think so. Are those swimming medals?”

“Hm?”

Chanhee gestured towards a small showcase on the windowsill.

“Oh. Yeah. Wanna see them?”

He sat down next to Chanhee, with their thighs a hand’s width apart. Younghoon had a hard time focusing on talking about his experiences of being in his high school swim team, but it was probably the only accomplishment he was proud of, and the stories and anecdotes left his lips all by themselves.

“Do you still like it? Swimming?”

“I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Mh. Why’d you stop?”

“My dad.”

Silence. Younghoon knew that Chanhee was looking at him, he could feel it, which is why his eyes were everywhere in the room except for Chanhee next to him. Anything might happen if he looked at Chanhee for too long.

“Would you like to do it again?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope you get to swim again soon.”

Younghoon pressed his lips together into a little smile, fiddling with the ribbon one of the golden medals was attached to. Actually, to be very honest, Younghoon would love to swim again. He missed it terribly. Back in high school, he had dreamed of pursuing it as an actual profession – try out how far he could get with competitive swimming, then become a swimming teacher perhaps. His mother had talked him out of it as soon as he had opened up to her when the topic of his future had come up in a conversation. He wouldn’t make it anyway – who did he think he was? He shouldn’t tell any of this nonsense to his father, and he shouldn’t ever mention it again.

“Hyung. Your hands…”

“Huh?” Younghoon looked at his hands. A sigh slipped from his lips as he looked at his knuckles, bruised, some so chafed they had started bleeding, his grazed palms and sore fingers. They were a familiar sight to him, even in that state, he had become blind to the wounds, had gotten used to the subtle pain. “I told you that I work a lot. That’s wh—”

Younghoon’s words got stuck in his hands as Chanhee took his hands in his, gently and carefully as if his skin was made of porcelain, about to break if he didn’t treat it with the utmost care. Just like Younghoon’s breath tumbled, his heartbeat did while Chanhee examined his hands. There it was again, that gentle touch that Younghoon was so unfamiliar with – something that should be as normal as breathing, but somehow something he only received from Chanehee.

“Do you have a place where you keep medicine and stuff like that?”

“The cabinet above the toilet,” Younghoon said.

Chanhee smiled.

“Stay here,” he said, brushing his thumb across Younghoon’s palm before standing up and disappearing in the bathroom. He was back before Younghoon had even been able to process the sheer tenderness in the way that Chanhee had touched him.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like, hm?” Chanhee climbed back onto the bed, sitting down cross-legged, and pulling Younghoon a little closer until he could comfortably rest his hands on Chanhee’s thigh, palms up. “I’m patching you up, silly.”

Chanhee applied the lotion that he had bought for his hurt lip onto his knuckles and every patch of skin that seemed sore to the touch, gently rubbing it into the skin. He was leaning over Younghoon’s hands, lips pursed in concentration. After he was finished with applying the lotion, he quite literally patched him up. On every little wound he placed a band-aid – not before gently blowing on Younghoon’s skin. Around his knuckles he put bandages, asking Younghoon to hold one end in place while he rolled the white cloth around Younghoon’s hand until he was satisfied with it.

Chanhee took both of Younghoon’s bandaged hands in his delicate soft ones before placing it back into Younghoon’s lap.

“Better.”

“Chanhee…”

Younghoon only realized that he had teared up as he felt a tear rolling down his cheek and tasted the salty taste in the corner of his mouth. He quickly looked away, pretending that something had gotten in his eye.

“I’ll put all this stuff back,” Chanhee said, leaving Younghoon alone for a moment – a moment he should probably have used to pull himself together, but which he could only spend looking at his hands.

“Hyung?” Chanhee stood in the door to the bathroom, tilting his head as he looked at him. With the bathroom light being much brighter as the main room’s, his illuminated silhouette looked strangely surreal. Younghoon blinked against the light.

“Do you think that cat that you told me about is there?”

It was. Just around the corner, sitting on a junction box as if it owned the alley. Chanhee approached the cat, cooing under his breath. Younghoon followed him with a smile on his face.

“You were right, hyung, it’s so cute,” Chanhee whispered.

“Careful, the curb stone,” Younghoon said as Chanhee reached out to pet the cat without looking where he was stepping. Without thinking too much about it, he took his hand to keep him from tripping.

Chanhee glanced over his shoulder, smiling brightly. “It’s so cute,” he squealed again.

Younghoon gave back a smile just as big and stepped next to him, ruffling the stray cat’s fur between its ears.

“How come it’s so tame?”

“I suppose it got used to me petting it and giving it snacks. I even bought cat food to feed it occasionally, but I’ve read somewhere that you’re not supposed to feed stray cats too frequently, or else they’ll get too used to it and stop providing for themselves, and I don’t want it to be dependent on me.”

“Why? Even if it got used to you feeding it, that wouldn’t be a bad thing necessarily. As long as you don’t plan on going anywhere.”

Soon it was time for Chanhee to leave. Younghoon didn’t want him to. He wanted him to stay for longer, one more minute at least – but it was getting late, he knew that, and as much as Younghoon wanted him to, Chanhee couldn’t stay forever. 

“Can I walk you to the bus station?” he asked, aware that the moment he would be left alone again, he would start to feel miserable again. 

Chanhee nodded.

The bus station was empty – cars passed regularly, and streetlights lit up the street quite brightly, but Chanhee and Younghoon were the only one waiting for the bus. They sat side by side on the small bench, Younghoon with his legs stretched out in front of him, Chanhee swinging his feet.

Six minutes left, the monitor said.

Younghoon was talking about a movie poster they had seen on the way there, more relaxed that he had felt in a long time, when out of the blue Chanhee hugged him.

For a moment Younghoon was in shock, motionless, holding his breath, before he wound his arms around Chanhee and pulled him in. He held Chanhee tightly, burying his nose in his shoulder.

Younghoon felt his eyes welling up again.

“Hyung…” Chanhee’s voice gentle as ever, so close to Younghoon’s ear that he could feel Chanhee’s breath tickling against the shell of his ear, was quiet, only meant for Younghoon to hear and nobody else. “When was the last time someone hugged you?”

With those words, Younghoon started crying – silently sobbing, his shoulders shuddering, clutching at Chanhee’s jacket. As much as he tried to push back the tears, he couldn’t. Chanhee didn’t shy away. He only hugged him tighter, adjusted his chin to rest on Younghoon’s shoulder, temples resting against each other.

“Why are you so sweet to me?” Younghoon asked, a little hoarse, as they eventually let go of their embrace, though Chanhee’s hands lingered on Younghoon’s back for a moment. He stared at the floor to his feet, not even able to look at his hands, now that Chanhee had put all these bandages on them.

“Take a wild guess.”

“I don’t know,” Younghoon said. “I really don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Chanhee stared at him, about to answer – as the bus arrived.

“I—” Chanhee stood up, his eyes flickering from Younghoon to the bus’s opening doors and back. “I, um—”

“Get home safely,” Younghoon said, giving him a small smile. He was freezing now without Chanhee’s arms around him. “Sleep well.”

“You too, hyung,” Chanhee replied, and if Younghoon wasn’t mistaken there was a touch of disappointment on his handsome features. “Sleep well.”

Younghoon couldn’t sleep that night. He blamed it on the unusually late caffeine intake, the nightly walk, on whatever that feeling was that Chanhee’s hug had set off in his heart.

Little did Younghoon know that one of the worst weeks of his life so far awaited him.

Throughout the next days, there were moments in which he thought he was dying. Moments in which his head hurt so bad it blurred his vision, moments in which he woke up at night, almost choking on his blood when his nose had started bleeding again out of nowhere, nights in which he couldn’t sleep at all, lying awake or aimlessly walking around the empty streets until his ears felt like they were about to freeze of, only to then almost pass out at work.

After giving his uncle the money that he had requested, he couldn’t afford to pay for the bus fee any longer. He walked all the way to work, and after contracting a cold from being outside so often, he sometimes risked taking the bus or subway without a ticket.

The restaurant owner almost fired him after messing up, and at home he ran out of food but did not have the energy to go to the grocery store and restock his fridge.

Any other person would have gotten over it – everyone had shit weeks sometimes. Whatever, right? 

Younghoon, though, had started to believe that his own mind had conspired against him, not granting him one moment of peace, one moment of serenity, without that horrible sinking feeling in his stomach and the nausea and the helplessness squeezing his lungs shut. It made all of this so much worse, and none of the painkillers would help with that, no matter how many he took of them.

It drained Younghoon to the core, and by Friday he barely got himself to get out of bed, let alone eat properly or make sure he even drank water at all.

And when he walked his way home from work way past midnight, across the bridge that he crossed so often, he stopped in the middle of it, leaned against the railing and let his tears fall. As if a dam in his heart broken, he cried his eyes out, not caring if anyone around heard him, until he felt empty and breathless. It hurt, wanting to cry but not being able to because there were no tears left. Younghoon did the only thing that came to his mind.

He called Chanhee.

He picked up after the second ring. “Hyung!”

“Chanhee…”

“Mh?”

“… you’re still awake.”

“Yeah, I was studying – hyung, is everything alright? Your voice sounds a bit…” He lapsed into silence. Younghoon stifled a sniffle. “Hyung.” Chanhee sounded serious, more than ever before. “Where are you? Where are you right now?”

“Mangpo bridge.”

“Stay where you are. Okay? Hyung, say something.”

“Okay.”

Chanhee hung up, and Younghoon exhaled. It was so quiet around him. Even the cars seemed quiet. Younghoon closed his eyes and tilted his head back. The cold wind was nipping at his skin again, and Younghoon thought to himself that if he didn’t experience the feeling of warmth any time soon, the cold would eat him up.

“Hyung!”

Younghoon looked to his left. Chanhee came running towards him, the ends of his scarf fluttering along behind him. 

“Hyung…” Chanhee panted, reaching for Younghoon’s hand as soon as he was close enough.

“You really came.”

“Of course. Come, let’s go somewhere better than up here.” 

Without waiting for Younghoon’s answer, Chanhee led him down to the river shore. A walkway led along the Han River, dim in the spare light of the streetlights. Chanhee sat him down on a bench with sight of the city skyline.

They looked at each other.

“Did you cry a lot? Why? What happened?” Chanhee gently touched the sensitive skin around Younghoon’s eyes, brushing his thumb over Younghoon’s cheek. Younghoon didn’t reply. He was just glad that Chanhee was there.

“I brought food,” Chanhee said. He was so skillful at moving from one topic to the other once he noticed that Younghoon didn’t want to speak, so skillful at making him feel comfortable, at avoiding unpleasant situations for Younghoon. “Bibimbap and japchae. My mom made those, I still had some in the fridge. I thought that you might be hungry – and I was right, looking at your face. I know you by now, you know?” 

He unpacked two lunch boxes and carefully placed them on Younghoon’s lap, handing him a pair of chopsticks. 

“Eat. Then tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Are you not hungry too?”

“Nope. I ate snacks while I was studying, lots of snacks.”

“I didn’t interrupt you, did I?”

“You didn’t, dummy.” Chanhee chuckled. “Eat.”

The food was the best Younghoon had ever had, although it was a little cold. He chewed slowly, as if wanting to drag on the meal for as long as possible.

“You look cute with that beanie,” Chanhee said.

“Says you,” Younghoon replied quietly, glancing at Chanhee’s fluffy earmuffs.

Chanhee smiled. “Now tell me what’s going on, hyung.”

Younghoon shrugged. “Shit week.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

“I just feel—” A lump formed in his throat, and his eyes welled up again as he was trying to find the right words. Chanhee could tell that he was struggling and took his hand again. “I’m always sad. Most of the time, when I’m not distracted, I feel miserable – miserable and exhausted. It’s just so tough.”

A moment of silence followed, a moment in which the two of them sat side by side, looking at the city stretching out in front of them. 

“Is there any way I can help?” Chanhee said then. “I want to help you.”

“I don’t know. Just maybe stay here with me for now. Please.”

“That’s easy. I don’t plan on leaving.”

Chanhee slid a little closer, just so their thighs were touching. Slowly, he leant over, stretching up a little to press his lips against Younghoon’s cheek. 

“Because I like you,” he added, quietly and quickly enough that Younghoon could have pretended to not have heard it. Younghoon did hear it, and he didn’t even think about pretending that he didn’t. He averted his eyes from the skyline reflecting on the river’s surface and looked at Chanhee.

“But why?”

“There are lots of reasons.” Chanhee’s cheeks reddened, even visible in the dim light. “Want me to tell you all of them? I like looking at you. I like your smile, and your eyes when you smile. I like your voice, the way you talk about movies, the way my name sounds coming from your lips. Your laugh. There’s this little mole on the side of your nose, I like that. Your perseverance. Your—”

He was cut off by Younghoon’s lips on his.

Younghoon’s hands went to Chanhee’s cheeks, pulling him closer, drawing him in. The slight sigh escaping Chanhee’s lips as he leaned into the kiss, his fingertips brushing over Younghoon’s sensitive hands before they settled around the other’s wrists, his willingness to give in to Younghoon, to give him all he needed, his warmth and touch and affection.

Chanhee’s kisses became salvation for Younghoon’s soul, solace for his heart. Not only his kisses, though, his words, gentle and consoling and sweet, his mere presence was enough to lighten Younghoon’s mood, to feel like maybe, the world wasn’t that bad after all. 

Though of course being with Chanhee neither fixed the problems with his rent and it didn’t charm away his headaches and sleeping issues, but he made it all bearable.

The evenings they spent lounging in Younghoon’s bed, Chanhee often nose deep in his books while Younghoon bathed in Chanhee’s warmth, trailing his fingers along Chanhee’s arms, dozing off to Chanhee muttering technical terms to himself to memorize them, helping him revise, seeing him smile contently when he got it right and roll his eyes when he got it wrong.

The hours they spent strolling through the streets downtown, not planning to buy anything, just for the sake of it, just to catch fresh air and talk and hold hands.

The times he accompanied Chanhee to the library, listening to his rambling about his favorite books, watching him skim through the pages, pick up book after book, novels and thrillers and fantasy books, gaze glued to the passionate and excited glint in Chanhee’s eyes.

And while Chanhee was there for him, it felt good to know that Younghoon was there for Chanhee just as well. On days when the pressure got to him, when his fears of the future became overwhelming, Younghoon was there, a shoulder to lean against, a lap to crawl into, arms to be held by. 

It all came to a head the night before the college entrance exam’s results were announced. Chanhee was so nervous that his body trembled, too terrified of what the following day might bring that there was no way he was going to be able to sleep in his room alone – so he spent the night at Younghoon’s place, snuggled against Younghoon’s chest, head on his shoulder. Younghoon was running his fingertips down Chanhee’s spine in soothing motions, mumbling words of comfort and encouragement into his ear, that everything would end up fine, no matter what happened, that he did well no matter the result, that he wasn’t alone no matter the result.

The following day, Younghoon waited outside the school building, leaning against the railing of the stairs leading up to the entrance doors. He was more nervous than when his own results had gotten released – unlike him, Chanhee had a vision, a dream, something he wanted to do with his future, a future that he was willing to suffer for. These results were important to him, the only way he could ever receive a scholarship that would enable him to go to university and get that literature degree.

Chanhee stumbled down the stairs with a broad smile on his pretty face, flying right into Younghoon’s arms.

“I did it, hyung,” Chanhee cried out, “I did so well—”

“Yeah, you did,” Younghoon muttered as he lifted him up and spun him around, coaxing a fit of giggles out of Chanhee. Even as Younghoon slowed down and stumbled to a halt, head spinning a little, Chanhee clung to him like a spider monkey, not intending to let go.

“I’m glad to have you by my side.”

The weight lifted off Chanhee’s shoulders was evident. He pulled Younghoon along with him by the river side on the way back to Younghoon’s place, that carefree smile never leaving his rosy lips. He was talkative suddenly, kept blabbering about books and movies and plans for the winter. Younghoon kept listening to every word of us, taking it all in to the best of his ability. 

Since earlier, when they had picked up pizza for later, Younghoon had felt a droning, heavy headache growing in the back of his head – headaches like this one had become a regular thing, returning again and again, just when he thought that they might be over another one hit him like a crashing wave. 

Younghoon tried his best to ignore the pain, not wanting his stupid head to ruin Chanhee’s nice afternoon, but eventually he had to sink onto the nearest bench, muttering to Chanhee that he needed a short break from walking.

“What’s wrong?” Chanhee asked straight away, crouching down in front of Younghoon who sat down hunched over, hand held already to his nose in case it started bleeding. Chanhee put his hands on Younghoon’s knees to steady himself.

“Just a headache. Just give me, um, a minute.”

Chanhee reacted to Younghoon’s headaches and nosebleeds, his trouble concentrating and sleeping issues with quiet concern, observing him when he had to pause mid-sentence, squinting his eyes until the ringing in his ears had passed, when he woke up disoriented and more drained than the night before. He didn’t say much, silently stayed by Younghoon’s side until he felt better.

He reacted very differently as one day, Younghoon came to pick him up with a bandage on his cheekbone and bruises on his wrists that he had tried to hide by always keeping his hoodie sleeves pulled up to his fingertips. His concern was up-front, with an urgent tone in his voice and worried confusion in his eyes. He grasped Younghoon’s hands.

“Hyung, who’s doing this to you?”

Younghoon faltered, hands twitching as if he wanted to escape the situation, but Chanhee didn’t let go.

“What exactly is going on?” Tears threatened to spill over and run down Chanhee’s cheeks, and Younghoon’s heart hurt at the sight. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Someone keeps hurting you. Someone is giving you a hard time.”

“Chanhee…”

“If you don’t feel comfortable sharing then I respect that, if you need more time, that’s okay, but perhaps if… if you told me more about your situation, I might be able to help you. You could have someone to talk to, not only to distract you but to maybe make it better.”

Younghoon looked at Chanhee for a while, hesitating. If there was one person he was to trust, it would be Chanhee, if there was one person with whom he was to share his worries and fears and trauma with, it would be Chanhee. Despite all of that, the thought of laying his heart bare, making himself as vulnerable as ever, made his throat close up.

“I don’t know what to do,” he breathed eventually, a broken sigh escaping him before he pulled Chanhee close into a hug, clutching at him like a drowning person to a lifeline.

“My father,” he mumbled into the safety of Chanhee’s shoulder. “He’s had an alcohol problem since… forever, really. A bad one. I guess there was a lot of tension between us regardless, but the alcohol made it all worse. I haven’t seen him in two years. The last time I did, he threw a bottle at me and yelled at me to leave and never come back. My uncle helped me find an apartment and hasn’t told my dad where I live, but he… well, he lends me money, but I have to pay back way more. He’s also not the kindest person. He’s a horrible person, actually. I’m… I’m scared of him, but I depend on him. I can’t escape.”

“Is he the one who does all this to you? The burst lip, the bruises…”

Younghoon nodded.

“The fear in your eyes when your phone rings? The reason why you’re practically working yourself to death?”

He nodded again.

“What about your mom?”

“I used to feel bad for her for being with my dad, but with time I realized that all she’s doing was, and still is, enabling my father. She would have had countless opportunities to get him into rehab, or to leave him, countless opportunities to protect her son, but she never did any of that. I’m on my own.”

Chanhee shifted, arms reaching up to cradle Younghoon’s small face in his hands.

“I’m sorry that it took me so long. To open up.”

“That’s alright,” Chanhee said, leaving a sea of little pecks on Younghoon’s skin. “You don’t have to be sorry about anything. You don’t deserve any of this. You deserve to be happy.”

“You make me happy. If it weren’t for you… I know, people always say that you should be happy because of yourself, that your happiness shouldn’t depend on someone else, but it’s so hard when you’re alone.”

“You’re not alone anymore.”

“I am when you leave at night.”

“Then why don’t you ask me to stay?”

Telling Chanhee about all the things that he had kept in his heart for so long had both calmed Younghoon down and shaken him to the core. Despite Chanhee’s affectionate behavior, his unwavering smile when he looked at him, there was something inside of Younghoon, a mean voice telling him that he had told him too much and Chanhee now thought of him as weak, that he’d leave him sooner or later.

Even at night, those worries lingered, in the back of his mind, keeping him from dozing off to sleep. 

He had thought that Chanhee was already asleep, he had pulled him close by the waist minutes ago and since then, he hadn’t moved, when he stirred. Younghoon kept still, eyes closed, focused on the heat of Chanhee’s body, the rustling movement of the blanket. Chanhee’s fingers trailed over Younghoon’s flat stomach before he sat up. Younghoon heard a faint click.

“Hyung…”

“Mh?” 

“The light doesn’t work.” 

“Really?” 

“Mh.”

“The fuse might have blown again. I’ll fix that in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.”
 
“Are you scared of the dark?” Younghoon asked into the silence of the room.

Chanhee scoffed.

“How could I be, with you right here, hyung.”

Those words were alone to rid Younghoon’s troubled mind of any doubts. Because Chanhee sounded so sincere when he said it, so heartfelt. He’d never lie to him. Younghoon hummed contently, rolling to the side to bury his face in Chanhee’s neck.

“Yeah,” he mumbled against his skin, “I’ll protect you.” 

Younghoon felt a languid smile broadening on Chanhee’s lips before he drew back, knees sinking into the mattress as he drew himself up and trapped Chanhee below him, barely clothed body writhing against the crumpled bedsheets.

It was pitch-black in the room as Younghoon’s fingers searched for Chanhee’s svelte wrists, and when he found them, he pinned them up against the pillow, above his head. Chanhee giggled below him. For a moment the lights of a passing car lit up the room, and the sight in front of him left Younghoon speechless.

Chanhee, still with that lazy smile on his lips that seemed so dark in the dim light, looking up at him through thick lashes in a way so brazen that Younghoon felt a lump in his throat, swallowing down as his heart began to race. His hair was wonderfully tousled, spread out on the white pillow in rosy waves between his arms pinned up above his head, asking for Younghoon’s hands to run through the strands.

The car passed, and in a heartbeat the room was cloaked in darkness again. Younghoon heard Chanhee’s every breath, calm and steady, awaiting.

“Waiting for something? You found my hands in the dark, let’s see if you can find my lips too.”

Christmas came and went by. New Year’s Eve came and went by. Chanhee spent a couple of days with his parents during that time, muttering apology after apology to Younghoon as he left, telling him how sorry he was that he couldn’t take him with him, not yet at least. Younghoon told him that he’d be fine – and he was.

He took on extra shifts, worked more hours at the dock – they were always understaffed during the holidays – he even helped at a terribly busy, huge shopping mall in the city center. 

Hours he spent in that building, stuffy and crowded, most of it at the counter where he issued refunds to huffing parents, some of it in the warehouse, unpacking deliveries and cutting up cardboard boxes.

At night, he either lay awake all night or passed out instantly.

When Chanhee returned, life returned with him. Younghoon greeted him with a smile and a kiss, and he took him out to eat Vietnamese. 

“Why are you spoiling me like that, hm?” Chanhee asked. He put his chopsticks down and leaned forward, half-way across the table, the necklace his grandmother had given him for Christmas slipping out of his neckline, dangling over his pho bo dish. Younghoon chuckled, leaning over the table to come Chanhee’s way, meeting in the middle.

“Because I missed you.”

Just as Chanhee leaned in for a kiss, Younghoon backed away, tending to his lemonade.

“Hyung—”

“Chanhee.” Younghoon clicked his tongue, unable to suppress his smile. “Not here. Not in public.”

Two hours later, Chanhee was leaning against the wall of Younghoon’s apartment, scowling up at Younghoon with a defiant glint in his eyes.

“You had fun with that earlier, didn’t you? Teasing me.”

“Maybe?” Younghoon laughed, bathing in Chanhee’s presence and his arms loosely wound around his waist.

“Well. We’re not in public anymore. Just saying.”

“Aren’t you clever,” Younghoon whispered, tilting Chanhee’s chin up before cupping his face. Chanhee’s pretty face, that was all his to admire, all his to kiss, all his to love.

Chanhee’s lips came crashing against his and a deep sigh escaped Younghoon, half a moan already.

“Missed me that much?”

Younghoon didn’t reply, swallowing down Chanhee’s teasing words, pulling him up to his tiptoes before tossing him onto the mattress. Chanhee squeaked, laughing as he pulled Younghoon down to him, onto him.

As Younghoon tasted the faint hint of blood, mixing in with Chanhee’s and his saliva, he thought he might have bitten Chanhee’s lips too hard, until Chanhee drew away. There was smudged blood on his face, around his upper lip, but his lip, a bit reddened, a bit swollen, was unharmed.

“Hyung—”

Only now he felt the familiar warm feeling of something running down his face, his chin, and his hand flew to his nose to stop more blood from staining his clothes and the bedsheets. As soon as the realization hit, a blaring headache crashed against the back of Younghoon’s skull.

“Again?” Panic in Chanhee’s voice.  “A nosebleed again? Hyung, that’s not normal.”

“I’m alright, really,” Younghoon said, sliding off the bed and staggering over to the bathroom. With one hand, he covered his nose. “C-can you hand me a tissue?” 

Chanhee nodded quickly and hurried to his side to hand him the tissue box on the dresser, then stood in the middle of the small room, arms hanging helpless to his sides. 

“Hyung… I’m worried for you. This isn’t normal.”

“I just…” Younghoon’s head hurt as he tried to formulate an explanation. To be frank, he didn’t know why his node bled that often, why he got those headaches, so he gave up trying. He turned on the water, bending down to wash off the blood, let the crimson droplets fall into the sink and stain the water swirling down the drain red.

“Chanhee, could you hand me the white bottle in the cabinet above the toilet?” 

Painkillers made Younghoon drowsy. He fell asleep in Chanhee’s arms, with his head in his lap, sent to sleep by Chanhee’s fingers carding through his hair.

As he woke up the next day, Chanhee sat at the end of the bed, to Younghoon’s feet, his legs pulled up to his narrow body.

“Look.” He had his phone in his hands, holding it out to Younghoon who slowly sat up, blinking away the sleep. Rubbing his eyes, he leaned forward. Chanhee was showing him an article of a medical website – that much he could decipher, but the words were still blurry to Younghoon and Chanhee drew his arm back before he could properly read even the caption.

“Hyung, did you hit your head recently? I know you shouldn’t google symptoms, but… did you?”

Younghoon frowned. Chanhee was staring at him with awaiting eyes, a little widened. He was already dressed for the day, hair combed, earrings in, lips glossy.

Younghoon remembered. He did hit his head. Against that curb in front of his uncle’s house.

“But that was weeks ago by now,” he mumbled.

“Have you been feeling unwell since then? The headaches and all that, did they start after that?”

“Possibly,” Younghoon said, voice now quieter, despondent almost. “I can’t really remember.”

“And you didn’t do anything about it?” Chanhee’s expression seemed like he was trying to be angry but failed to overshadow his concern.

 “I took painkillers.”

“Hyung, you should let that get checked out.”

“Chanhee—”

Chanhee reached out, fingers catching Younghoon’s ankle. He let his thumb run over Younghoon’s skin, a touch so gentle and careful Younghoon sensed it in the depth of his heart.

“Hyung, please see a doctor. I don’t want you to be in pain. Go to the ER – I’ll go with you. Today after you’re done with work. “

Younghoon barely had a choice – Chanhee would have probably dragged him up those stairs to the ER with his own pure willpower alone if he had refused. Hospitals made Younghoon uncomfortable. They reminded him of his grandfather, of that time he had fallen of the slide in primary school and missed that year’s field trip, of the nasty cut wound from one of the plates his father had thrown at him in tenth grade. Without Chanhee clinging to his arm, the squeeze he gave his hand while they sat in the waiting area, without him shooting him a smile before he entered the doctor’s office, Younghoon would have probably walked back out right away, evaded the situation entirely.

“An untreated concussion.” 

The doctor, a middle-aged man with small, round glasses that he kept wiping with a small cloth lying next to his keyboard, cleared his throat. Younghoon sat opposite of the table, fiddling with his phone case in his lap.

“You said that incident was three months ago? Two months?”

“Around that, yeah.”

The doctor nodded, muttering something to himself.

“Nosebleeds and headaches, you said? Classic case – concussions go away on their own without much trouble if detected and treated timely, but even in your situation you’ll have a full recovery, it might just take a bit longer.”

“What do I have to do?” 

Chanhee came hurrying towards him the moment he stepped out of the doctor’s office.

“What did he say?”

Younghoon hesitated, eyes lingering on Chanhee before he turned towards the exit of the hallway. Chanhee might have been smaller than Younghoon, but he had long legs, and no trouble keeping up with Younghoon even as his pace quickened.

“Hyung! What did he say? Is it really a concussion?”

Younghoon nodded.

“He said I have to rest,” he said. “Take time off, limit any kind of labor.”

“That’s all? Then it’ll go away?” Chanhee started hopping up and down, clasping at Younghoon’s arm. “That’s great news, then!”

Younghoon didn’t reply, avoiding Chanhee’s eyes. He felt awful. For the first time since meeting Chanhee, he wanted to be alone.

“Hyung?”

“Great news?”  His words came out bitter, resigned, and colder than he had intended. “Is it, though?”

“Of course!”

With their steps still quick, as if Younghoon wanted to bring as much distance as possible between him and the hospital, they had almost crossed the parking lot by now.

“It’s good news, hyung,” Chanhee reiterated, voice faltering now, though, as he saw Younghoon pressing his lips together. He slowed down, and Younghoon spun around to him.

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Do what the doctor told you!”

A hurt expression flickered over Younghoon’s face. Chanhee didn’t get it. He didn’t understand him, at all.

“Chanhee, I can’t afford to rest. I can’t afford to take time off.”

“But hyung, if you don’t, then you’ll keep having those headaches, they’ll get worse—”

“That’s just the prize I have to pay, I guess. If I don’t work, I won’t get paid, I won’t be able to pay rent – what am I gonna do when my uncle—”

He stopped mid-sentence. Chanhee had lowered his hands, they hung helplessly to his sides as he stared up to Younghoon with a both worried and perplexed streak in his eyes.

“But hyung, I can’t watch you ruin your health and slowly kill yourself—”

“Then don’t,” Younghoon replied dryly. “I’m not forcing you to watch, am I?”

Chanhee froze, lips parted as if the words he had wanted to stay became stuck in his throat. Younghoon’s heart stumbled, dropped down to his stomach. 

“Wait, Chanhee—”

“No, I get it.” Chanhee pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. He blinked quicker; hands curled into small fists. “You’re not forcing me to watch. Okay, sure.”

“Chanhee, I didn’t mean it—” Younghoon searched for the right words, stumbling over the syllables, but before he could even get one sentence out, Chanhee turned around on his heels and crossed the street, beckoning a passing taxi to stop.

Younghoon watched as Chanhee let himself onto the backseat of the car without even looking back once, watched as the taxi drove away, rounded a corner, and then he was gone.

Younghoon should have known that it would come to his. He had pushed away the person that meant the most to him, perhaps even the only person that meant anything to him, really. He was alone again. He should have known.

Chanhee didn’t contact him all week. Sometimes Younghoon stared at his phone for what seemed like for hours, both waiting for a message to pop up, or a call, and contemplating if he should call. He didn’t. He told himself that it was for the better, not for him but for Chanhee, he’d be better off not having to watch the train wreck that Younghoon’s life had somehow spiraled into.

But still. He longed for all of Chanhee. He had not realized to what extent he had depended on the other’s hugs and touches and kisses until he lay in his bed, missing Chanhee’s presence so much it physically hurt.

Exactly seven days after Younghoon had last seen Chanhee, the bell rang and Younghoon sprinted to the door so quickly he got dizzy. He already had an apology on his lips in case it was Chanhee, when he opened the door to face his cousin.

He shied back instinctively, hesitating as Seungjae frowned at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Dad told your father about this place.”

One second, two then three passed before Younghoon realized what Seungjae had said.

“What?”

“He told your dad, Younghoon. He’s angry.”

“B-but what am I supposed to do?” he asked dully.

“Leave. Pack your bags and go. Younghoon, I’m serious.”

Younghoon stared at him in disbelief, taken aback by the honesty in Seungjae’s eyes, a streak of what almost seemed like worry despite his harsh words. “But why would you—”

“Fuck, Younghoon, I don’t want you to fucking die. Just go. I know my dad, and you know yours – I don’t know what you did to piss them off, but… Listen, just go. They won’t search the city for you, but if they found you here—"

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Younghoon knew. 

He was strangely calm as he thanked Seungjae and closed the door behind him. As he retrieved the moving boxes slotted between the wall and his dresser and packed his things. His swimming medals, the fragile ones wrapped in paper, and his clothes, neatly folded, his laptop, old and heavy. He didn’t have many possessions, never really had the time or money to accumulate things, and it all ended up fitting into one moving box. He was strangely calm even as he left the apartment, not even looking back after placing the key under the battered doormat. 

As if someone had put him on autopilot, switched off his feelings. Probably because if only he let his thoughts take over, his worry and fear and helplessness, he didn’t know where that would lead him to.

The street was empty as Younghoon found himself heading towards the bus station. The cold bit as his skin, the rough cardboard where handles were cut into the moving box dug into his fingers, the shuffling of his worn-out winter boots was loud against the concrete, speckled with gravel.

Where to now?

There was only one place that came to his mind. The only place that he knew would feel like safety to him.

Chanhee’s eyes widened as he opened the door to his apartment to the unexpected sight of Younghoon standing at his doorstep, even more so as he saw the moving box. 

“Hyung—"

He wore that sweater, baby blue and very soft to the touch, that Younghoon loved so much on him, never failing to mention how pretty he looked whenever he had worn it. His hair was tousled, unkempt still, and his face a little puffy – it was barely 12 am on a Saturday, it wasn’t unlikely that he had gone out with his friends the night before and woke up not long ago. 

“I’m sorry,” Younghoon muttered. “I have nowhere to go—”

Younghoon didn’t know how he had expected Chanhee to react – still hurt, annoyed, hesitant perhaps. He had surely not expected an amused sneer to leave Chanhee’s lips.

“Hyung.” He tilted his head, a patronizing hue showing in his voice. “What do you mean – you have nowhere to go? I’m right here.” 

He kicked the door open. Younghoon stared at him.

“You should still be angry at me,” he said, stunned.

 “Well, I’m not. I was never angry at you, hyung.” Chanhee gave him a smile. “I missed you terribly. Come in, now,” he urged, reaching for Younghoon’s sleeve. “That’s what you came here for, right? Hurry up, I’ve got a boiling pot of water on the stove.”

Chanhee’s apartment could only be described as lovely. It was so him – the books scattered everywhere, on the small round dinner table on the pale purple beanbag by the TV and the box-spring bed, the cute plushies on his couch, the tidily arranged herbs lined up on the kitchen windowsill. It was a one-bedroom apartment on the eighth floor, with sight of a small park from the large window of the living room.

Chanhee had returned to the kitchen, leaning against the counter after putting in two packets of ramen instead of only one. Younghoon was hesitant to look at him. Chopped scallions lay on the cutting board next to the stove, together with an egg waiting to be let into the boiling water.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?”

Chanhee’s eyes wandered over Younghoon, and for the first time in seven days Younghoon felt like someone was actually looking at him. “If you want to talk about it, you can,” he said. “But you don’t have to. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

Chanhee stepped closer. Younghoon still stood in the same spot, still holding the moving box. He nudged open the box, peeking into it. “If I just reorganize my closet a little bit, I can easily clear out one of the drawers for you.”

Chanhee let his fingers run over Younghoon’s hands then took the box from him to place it onto the dinner table.

“Why are you so tall…?” He grabbed the collar of Younghoon’s shirt, pulling him down to him, fingers curling into a fist in Younghoon’s hair. “Making it hard for me to kiss you,” he whispered against his lips.

For the next hours, Younghoon stayed huddled up against Chanhee. Despite the pricks of conscience that kept nagging him, he kept close to him, taking in all of him, making up for the weeklong lack of affection. It seemed very much as if Chanhee felt the same. When Younghoon hugged him, Chanhee drew him in closer. When Younghoon reached for his hands, Chanhee intertwined their fingers.

Especially in the evening, neither could take their hands off the other. The sun had gone down, Younghoon lay on his back on Chanhee’s couch, legs almost too long for the two-seater, Chanhee on top of him. Chanhee nosed at Younghoon’s chin before burying his face in the others skin, body moving up to straddle his hips. 

Younghoon closed his eyes, holding Chanhee tight against his chest, and eventually the dam around his heart broke and he failed to hold back all of the emotions he had been trying his hardest to overcome silently.

“Chanhee.”

Chanhee hummed against his skin in response, nipping at his neck. 

“I feel guilty. So guilty, for everything, and I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“Using you.”

Chanhee leaned back. He practically sat on Younghoon’s hips now, supporting himself with his hands on Younghoon’s shoulders, his face clouded with an expression of utter confusion. “In what way are you using me?”

Younghoon’s eyes welled up against his will to stay unfazed.

“I’m using you for my happiness, I don’t deserve you. You’re so wonderful, you deserve to be with someone who can give you the world.” 

“But I want you.” Chanhee knit his brows, pressing his lips together as his bottom lip started quivering. “I don’t want to be with someone who can give me the world,” he continued, “not if that someone isn’t you.”

He sighed.

“You’re using me for your happiness, you say. What would be wrong with that? Why can’t you allow yourself to be happy? I love you. You can use me all you want. Gladly.” 

Younghoon swallowed down his tears and let Chanhee bring his hands to his face, thumb caressing his cheekbone before he leant back down.

“Hyung, be happy with me. Okay? So many bad things happened in that old place of yours. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore. You’ll be happier here.”

It became spring. The brown trees turned green. The grey sky turned blue. The sun rose earlier with every morning and eventually, warm air welcomed Younghoon when he opened the windows after waking up instead of icy wind. The plants that were placed on basically all windowsills of the apartment put forth buds, soon blooming into pale-pink blossoms.

Chanhee had been right.

He was happier here, in this apartment, bright and safe and calm.

Younghoon had never lived with anyone but his parents before, and after getting over the initial anxiety and insecurity, he came to realize that living with Chanhee was wonderful.

Waking up next to him, feeling an arm loosely slung around his waist that pulled him the tiniest bit closer when he tried to stand up. The sleepy giggle slipping from Chanhee’s lips as he tried to pretend to be still asleep while also keeping Younghoon from leaving the bed.

Watching Chanhee prepare lunch, laughing as he turned around whining about the onions burning in his eyes. Chanhee’s pleading “hyung, don’t just sit there and help me instead”, urging Younghoon stand up and gently help him wash his eyes out before he joined him cutting up the vegetables.

Being in the bathroom, planning to shave when Chanhee slipped into the room in just his pajama shorts, squeaking as Younghoon quickly turned around and smeared shaving creme onto his nose. Chanhee nudging him onto the toilet seat, getting shaving cream all over his face as he leaned in for a kiss.

The serene, calm feeling settling in his heart was unfamiliar to Younghoon. He was a stranger to coming back to a home, a proper home which provided only safety and happiness and warmth. Without having to worry too much about rent – with two people sharing the rent of one small apartment, Younghoon had been able to quit the job at the port – without fearing who might stand on the doorstep whenever the doorbell rang. His requests to cut back some of the hours he spent at the convenience store and washing dishes had been accepted, giving him time to breathe, to sleep in sometimes, to focus on himself, his health both physically and mentally.

The nosebleeds stopped rather quickly; the headaches ebbed away slowly but surely; he slept better with seemingly every night. Chanhee asserted that it was because he rested more, Younghoon was convinced that in the end, it was all because of Chanhee.

All that bliss that he had never deemed possible for him, it all rooted in meeting Chanhee. Chanhee, the only one who had noticed that Younghoon had been drowning and the only one who had reached out his hand for him to grab. The one who had patched up his body and his heart, who had shown him how gentle and how lovely life could be.

Some days were still tough, of course – sometimes he was helpless against the thoughts threatening to pull him back into that dark place, but on days like that, he wasn’t alone.

As Chanhee received a letter telling him that he was accepted for a full scholarship and would be able to start studying at the beginning of March, they agreed to go out for dinner for his first day of university – go out for dinner in the sense of booking a table at a fancy restaurant, where neither of them really belonged, to spend too much money on steak and wine, to play pretentious for just one evening before going back to eating ramen and searching for the least expensive cereal.

In the middle of said restaurant, a new highbrow place with security men in front of the doors to the saloon and someone playing the piano at the back of the room, Younghoon felt all giddy inside. 

“Ah, hyung!” Chanhee’s excited voice made Younghoon tear away his eyes from the wine in front of him. “Today as I was leaving the campus, I saw a notice at that public pool that opened across from the bus station. They’re hiring swimming teachers for children there.”

Younghoon hesitated. “Swimming teachers?”

“Mh.” Chanhee tilted his head as he cut off another small piece of his medium rare steak. Younghoon could tell that he had to actively make sure he didn’t get too excited, too loud, and accidentally bother any of the other couples in their expensive clothing with their even more expensive wine that were dining at the same time.

“Do you think I should apply for a job there?” Younghoon asked after a moment of contemplation.

“Why not?” Chanhee gave him an encouraging nod. “It’s worth a shot.”

“I haven’t been swimming in so long, though…”

“I’m sure you’ll get back into it super quickly,” Chanhee said. “I think you should definitely go for it.”

A smile snuck onto Younghoon’s lips. A swimming teacher for children – he could see himself doing that. His smile broadened only as he felt Chanhee’s feet nudging against his shin, hidden by the long tablecloth. 

The entangled feet in the restaurant, the hand holding on the bus and the quick pecks exchanged in the elevator turned into lazy, wet, open-mouthed kisses as soon as the door closed behind him. 
Sinking onto the mattress, Younghoon asking if he could undress him and Chanhee nodding so enthusiastically that he almost hit his head against the headboard of the bed, muttering slurred “I love you”s against each other’s skin.

Sometimes Chanhee read until 3 am. Younghoon didn’t mind it, neither the lit bedside lamp nor the rustling of the turning pages. Sometimes Younghoon fell asleep right away, head resting against Chanhee’s arm when he was reading lying down, against his thigh when he was sitting up, and sometimes he stayed awake with him – like that night, with Chanhee entranced by the fantasy novel in his hands, and Younghoon mouthing at Chanhee’s arm, absent-mindedly leaving a trail of kisses on his boyfriend’s bare skin. 

His eyes had almost fluttered shut as he vaguely realized that Chanhee had put his book down. He felt fingers in his hair, carding through the strands in continuous slumberous motions.

“I can imagine forever to be like this,” he heard Chanhee say before he drifted off to sleep.

The apartment building had an accessible rooftop. Not many people came up there, it was merely an empty open area between air filters and junction boxes, but on one warm Sunday Younghoon and Chanhee had heaved two plastic chairs up the stairs, together with a small table, to spend lazy afternoons in the high-up breeze, just the two of them.

Chanhee told Younghoon once that he never came up here on his own, that he avoided rooftops and high bridges and such, but with him he liked the place. When Younghoon was there, the rooftop brought him a sense of comfort and assurance.

It was one of those days, almost early summer by now, that they spent up there, Chanhee with his legs propped up, reading about late Joseon era literature for one of his classes, while Younghoon was just enjoying the sun as he played around with a soap bubble bottle that he had bought for 2 000 won in the mall. 

As Chanhee was nose-deep into the printed pages, a neon orange marker in his hand, highlighting important passages, Younghoon here and there stole a glance to admire him.

His light pink hair, faded to an almost peachy blonde color by now, disheveled by the wind. His concentrated face, the pout on his coral lips, the frown between his eyebrows. He wore new jeans shorts, new in the sense that he had cut off the legs of an old pair as soon as it had been warm enough for shorts. They fit him perfectly. Younghoon’s eyes wandered over his legs, fair and long and at the moment adorned with a couple of light scratches, caused by the baby kittens of one of their neighbors across the hallway. Now and then a yawn shook through him, made him close his eyes and hunch his shoulders and then gently rub his eyes.

“Babe.”

Chanhee looked up.

“You look like an angel.”

It wasn’t often that Chanhee blushed, but in that moment he did. A red hue fell over his cheeks, and he laughed shyly, burying his face in his shoulder before he gazed at Younghoon.

“Hyung,” he whined. “Don’t say that—”
 
“It’s the truth,” Younghoon replied, smiling. “My angel.”

Chanhee replied to his smile with a suddenly mischievous grin and tossed his reading material to the side, snatching the soap bubble bottle from Younghoon’s hands. Younghoon laughed as the wind led the soap bubbles, glittering in all the colors of the rainbow in the afternoon sun, right into his face, scrunching up his nose as he felt them burst against his skin. 

As he looked back at Chanhee, who was still focused on creating as much soap bubbles, puffing up his cheeks, bright eyes following the bubbles through the air, Younghoon wondered if life could even get any better.