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Sangwoo lets out a sigh that he’s been holding in for god knows how long. He stands there, staring at the rust that clings to the hinges for a while, and thinks. He’s not really in the mood to leave school and see him. Not really.
He adjusts the straps of his backpack and decides to shake it off. It’ll go away eventually; it always does. It comes back after a while, but when it’s gone, it’s good. He doesn’t know for how much longer he can keep holding in his breath and hoping for something that just isn’t there.
Shuffling through the sea of other students, he makes his way outside, where he is. He’s there as always, waiting for him by the gates with his hands clasped around his bike handles. She is also there with him, and Sangwoo has to force himself to not roll his eyes.
What else could he have expected?
The teen walks, slowly, just to make sure he’s watching their conversation from afar before they notice. Gi-hun’s quick to spot him despite Sangwoo’s attempt at avoiding. Not that he could do much of that anyways. Gi-hun is his only ride home.
“Hey! You took a while today.”
Says the boy with plush cheeks and bright smile Sangwoo absolutely adores. Sangwoo has to swallow the lump in his throat once he sees her latched onto his arm like a parasite.
He can’t be jealous. Seong was never his to begin with.
He doesn’t know what hurts more.
“I had to turn in extra credit,” He lies swiftly, pushing his glasses up to emphasize his point.
Gi-hun seems to blindly take the bait, because he immediately starts going off about Sangwoo and how dedicated he is to his craft. She laughs, but it’s forced, and there’s a small crease in her perfectly good eyebrows.
Sangwoo’s eye twitches in irritation.
“I didn’t know he grabbed your attention so much,” She suddenly speaks up, as if she had any right, with a soft pout as if to guilt trip his hyung.
Gi-hun’s face swivels for a split second before he’s promptly comforting her, rather than apologizing to Sangwoo for her crude behavior.
Sangwoo actually rolls his eyes this time and clutches onto his backpack straps until his fingers go white. “I think I’m gonna walk home today.”
Screw his ride home.
His best friend blinks in utter disbelief, mainly because he’s not used to his friend shutting him out. He’s too oblivious to realize that Sangwoo is upset about something.
“Are you sure?”
No.
“Yeah.”
Gi-hun nods hesitantly and looks back at his girlfriend, probably feeling relieved that he gets to spend some alone time with her. Sangwoo’s blood boils beneath his skin. Staying more than a minute with them makes his chest set off in trepidation.
Anxiety ridden, he gives Gi-hun a forced smile quickly, before walking all the way home on his own.
Once they’re out of sight, thoughts of them plague his mind like a virus he can’t seem to get rid of. He thinks about what they’re doing without him, if Gi-hun is actually enjoying himself, or hating his absence.
He’s tired of Gi-hun’s mixed signals. His soft eyes he only reserves for Sangwoo. His bright smile he only reserves for him. But then he turns around, and does the same exact thing with her.
Sangwoo thinks he should’ve skipped his lunch, because his stomach immediately rolls in discomfort and jealousy. He holds onto a street lamp and shutters out another breath he had been holding in. He’s tired of feeling this way. This jealousy that consumes him from the inside out.
He shuts his eyes and tries to think about anything else other than Gi-hun and his stupid laughter. She probably makes him laugh too. She’s irreplaceable, unlike Sangwoo. He’s not one of a kind. He could be shelved with a bunch of other lowlifes and it wouldn’t make a difference.
Gi-hun frustrates him. One day, he’s all over him, the next he’s all over her. He just wants to shout at him to finally choose already. He doesn’t deserve to be pulled back and forth, used and reused till Gi-hun is bored of him.
But he knows deep down that Gi-hun already has chosen, and that he’s just clinging onto false hope.
Sangwoo kicks over a trash can and it knocks over, vomiting all its junk onto the street. He’s pissed. He’s pissed at Gi-hun for his goddamn laughter and his goddamn mixed signals.
All he wants is some clarity.
Yet he looks down at his hands, and there’s nothing. Gi-hun always leaves him empty handed.
It’s already dawn. The street lamp above his head flickers and entraps his skin in an omniscient yellow.
He huffs and lets out another shaky breath before continuing his walk home.
…
It’s probably a bad idea to be smoking on top of his mothers rooftop. If she ever caught him, she’d have his head sliced on a cutting board and sold on the market.
He doesn’t really care. Not anymore.
He’s too exhausted and anxious. Two types of feelings that usually lead to his fingers twitching for a cigarette. He thinks about those campaigns that say it’s bad for teenagers to smoke and how his lungs could collapse at any second.
Sangwoo honestly wouldn’t mind if they did. The dark thought scares him instantly, prompting him to shove the cigarette between his lips in a haste.
If he wasn’t a little dazed, he might’ve been startled by the sudden sound of footsteps approaching him. Someone takes a seat by him and hangs their feet over the ledge.
“Share?”
“Sure.”
Sangwoo hands it to him, still bitter, but already trying to forget about before. He’s a good friend. He pretends like everything is fine for the sake of their friendship, he tells himself, even though it’s not fine at all.
Gi-hun smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He just takes the cigarette and the lighter and puffs it into the cold air with Sangwoo. Something’s troubling him, Sangwoo can feel it. Gi-hun never knows when he’s upset. Or he just never bothers to ask. But Sangwoo always does, without fail.
“What’s wrong?”
Gi-hun turns his head and laughs at him incredulously. “What? I can’t smoke just for fun?”
His tone is light, but still heavy. She could probably never tell the difference between Gi-hun’s tones, but Sangwoo could.
“You’re upset,” He answers as if it’s the most obvious thing ever and smokes through his nose. The sensation stays there for a while.
“Me and her got into another fight. Like always.”
Sangwoo nods, already recognizing the pattern. They fight, then they make up, then they fight all over again. He’s tired of hearing about it, tired of playing his therapist. It was fine at first, when Sangwoo hadn’t yet realized his feelings, but now it has become daunting.
Still, hope flickers in his chest when Gi-hun tells him their relationship has been going downhill.
“What happened this time?”
Gi-hun shakes his head slowly and tenses underneath Sangwoo’s stoic stare. His face is pulled together in confusion and hurt. Sangwoo wishes he could take it all away. He wants to get rid of her, the source of Gi-hun’s anguish.
Why is it always Sangwoo that ends up being the shoulder he cries on?
“Just her.. being her. She’s very clingy and all that crap. Which I appreciate, but she won’t let me hang out with other people. We always fight about the fact that I might leave her someday.”
He scoffs as if it’s the stupidest thing ever and leans back with one hand, the cigarette in the other.
“Will you?”
“Will I what?” Gi-hun turns his head dumbfounded.
“Leave her someday.” Sangwoo waits patiently, biting his lip in hope.
He feels stupidly devoted to someone who has their attention on another person, waiting for Gi-hun to finally realize that he’s wrong. That she’s not the perfect one for him.
It’s Sangwoo, it’s always been Sangwoo.
“I don’t know.. part of me wants to.”
He waits for Gi-hun to continue.
“But I feel like I won’t find anyone like her. Anyone who gets me like that ever again. It just kind of sucks that all she ever does is bring my mood down now.”
Sangwoo’s chest compresses underneath all the anxiety. The small lingering hope is immediately whisked away, blown out like a birthday candle.
“Yeah. I get why it would suck.”
He tries to give him a soft and comforting smile. It’s convincing. But it’s miserable for him. He’s anything but happy on the inside.
“Can we stay here just for a little while?”
Gi-hun leans his head on his shoulder and closes his eyes at an attempt to shut the world out. Sangwoo does the same.
He lets out a shaky breath and nods, crushing the cigarette on the cement.