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Heeseung copes well with changes.
In meetings, he makes it a point to arrive early, with a few more minutes to spare, so he can prepare himself for whatever is coming.
The strong smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts through his nose as he enters the coffee shop. He saunters towards a booth, some two or three tables away from the entrance, and opts to sit beside the window. He glances at his watch, then at the blinking digital clock atop the barista's counter. Leaving the house with 30 minutes reserved for unexpected anomalies gave him a 15-minute leeway. He’s meeting with someone he hasn’t seen in years. He has to prepare himself, how to respond, how to react, what to say, etcetera.
The 15-minute leeway is torture.
He bites the peeling skin on his lower lip, his fingers subconsciously fiddling with the hem of his jacket. His leg won't stop bouncing, and his eyes won't stop straying towards the entrance, even though there's still 12 minutes before the person he's meeting with is supposed to arrive.
He brings out his laptop, opening it to see his screensaver—a picture he took years ago of a particular landscape in Seoul. The silhouettes of the buildings were emphasized by the overlapping oranges, pinks, purples, and blues as the city lights replaced the setting sun. He took pictures because the sky was especially pretty that night.
Or maybe it wasn't really the sky that made that night special.
"You're early."
His heart stops.
Or, at least, that's what he was expecting. Surprisingly, it continues to beat, albeit unsteadily and barraging inside his chest.
"You're early too." Heeseung did his best to hide the surprise in his voice. He smiles, nodding at the clock displayed for all the customers to see. They still have 10 minutes before the actual time of the meeting.
"I thought you're gonna be late. You were never on time," he light-heartedly remarked to lighten up the atmosphere. He should've known better than to poke fun at the newcomer, which would have been completely fine if they were friends because otherwise, it would come off a little offensive.
Kim Sunoo and Lee Heeseung are not friends anymore.
"Well, things change." Sunoo was nonchalant about it.
"Right." Heeseung tried to be.
Silence.
Sunoo sits primly on the other side of the booth. The first thing he did is whip out his laptop and place it between them like a barrier.
Some things do change, Heeseung thinks, as his eyes wander around the expanse of the other's face.
Gone were the plump, cherub cheeks that seemed to puff up every time their eyes met, and the warmth in his eyes that could probably rival the sun with the way it lights up the world when it rises. Heeseung feels the sharpness of Sunoo's gaze prick his skin even if it wasn't directed at him.
"How have you been?" He couldn't help himself but blurt out. He meant to ask him that question, anyway.
It took Sunoo a few seconds to respond. "I've been good, I guess. As good as one can get in their third year in uni." Sunoo smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He didn't even really look at him, navigating through his laptop, seemingly eager to just get on with their meeting and leave. Heeseung's chest ached a little.
Nah. He's overthinking things. Maybe the other just has too many responsibilities on his plate right now.
"I haven't ordered anything yet. What do you want?" He stands up and prepares to make a beeline towards the counter, wallet in hand. Heeseung planned to order two Iced Americanos before Sunoo arrived. Maybe it was a good thing that the other came before he got to order because Heeeung's not exactly sure whether Sunoo still wants the same thing. It's been years since they last drank coffee together. His taste may have changed too, for all he knows.
"Iced Americano, please. Thank you." Something inside him lit up.
"With blueberry cheesecake?" Heeseung added, a ghost of a smile on his lips. Some things never chan—
"No, thanks. I'm good with just the coffee." Sunoo presses his lips into a thin smile and returns to what he was doing. Heeseung is stunned for a moment, but his feet reflexively moves toward the counter.
Sunoo doesn't like the bitter aftertaste of the iced americano, which is why he always order something sweet to pair it with.
Well, he used to.
Heeseung wants to smack his own head. It's been three years; so many things can happen within that time. Why is he insistently trying to bring back the past?
Of course, he knows why. But it doesn't make the poison of denial less potent.
"As for the speaker, this is tentative because our contact with Mr. Hyun can't be reached as of now. We have a backup plan, though, if it happens that he can't make it." Heeseung supplied about the lineup of lecturers for the seminar included in the program. Their colleges are collaborating for the annual celebratory project to promote and showcase both the colleges of Social and Natural Sciences.
This is the purpose of their meeting today: to discuss and arrange plans to be relayed and disseminated to the other committees in charge.
Not to dwell on the retrospective side of things and regret my life choices. Heeseung heaves a frustrated sigh at the thought.
"Okay, that's good to know." Sunoo didn't speak more than necessary. Every reply was curt, monosyllabic, concise at best.
He used to be bubbling with laughter and stories.
As Sunoo double-checks the minutes of their meeting, Heeseung tries to busy himself with his own, anxiously tapping his pen on the table, then twirling it around his finger. If it weren't for Troye Sivan's song playing in the background, the silence would've deafened him.
Anything hurts less than the quiet.
Sunoo clasps his hands in relief, "Alright. This is progress." It reminds Heeseung of one too many times that the other would clap his hands when he's satisfied or happy about something. The thought made him smile, but it falters just as soon as it appeared when he realizes that their meeting is about to end.
He doesn't want it to end.
Heeseung asks expectantly, "No more concerns on your end?"
"None. It was smooth-sailing, Heeseung-ssi. Thank you!"
Heeseung-ssi.
It's 3:36 pm.
He doesn't want the meeting to end.
"Do you wanna have a proper lunch? Or an early dinner?"
Heeseung copes well with changes, so a change in his schedule should pose no issue. He makes it a point to follow them to a T so he can accomplish tasks in an orderly fashion, but he can make space for… things that would suddenly come up. At 5:00 pm, he's supposed to be home and working on his paper in Immunohematology.
He still has ample time.
Sunoo is apparently taken aback. Heeseung worries he may have creeped him out, but he's surprised when Sunoo agreed.
That's how he found himself later, sitting across the prettiest boy in the diner, gobbling up greasy fast food. So much for proper lunch.
"How have you been, Heeseung-ssi?" Sunoo asked after gulping down his glass of pineapple juice. Heeseung chews the fries in his mouth, giving himself a few seconds to carefully contemplate what to say.
"Please, drop the formalities." Heeseung gave a timid smile. "Stressed with uni too, but other than that, I've been okay." Heeseung has so much to say, but he doesn't know how to proceed from there. He wants to ask Sunoo how he's been, how is college treating him, but more importantly, how has he been after that day?
Would he accept his apology, even if he's three years too late?
"That's good to know," Sunoo replied. He looks down on his half-eaten burger and picked the vegetables apart with his fork. He bites his lip, anxiously picking at the raw skin.
"I missed you, hyung." Sunoo lets it slip. The smile that came after is one that Heeseung never really liked to see.
It reminded him of that one time when Sunoo lost to second place during a General Knowledge Quiz Bee in high school. He could've won, he should have, but his buzzer malfunctioned at the last round. Heeseung will never forget the flash of disappointment in his eyes. If you don't know him well enough, you'd think there wasn't a hint of it at all. But he smiled, one that was pretty (which is a given because all kinds of smile from Sunoo is pretty), serene, accepting defeat. Heeseung was annoyed in his stead, because it was unfair. What happened was unfair, yet Sunoo took it as if it's okay, and that's just how it is.
It pains him to see that Sunoo is giving him that same smile right now.
"I'm sorry."
"What for, hyung?"
Sunoo used to say that Heeseung is like an angel. He never saw what the younger boy saw in him, so he never understood where that came from too. If there was an angel here, it's definitely not Heeseung.
"You know what I'm talking about," Heeseung whispered, afraid that saying it out loud would rip open supposedly healed wounds, that saying it out loud would make the pain more legitimate. But it's not his pain. He doesn't get to act like it's his. No matter what tone of voice he uses, it's not up to him to decide the legitimacy of the pain he caused.
"Ah." Sunoo nods in recognition.
"It's been years, hyung. I'm okay now," Sunoo said with an easy smile. The warmth Heeseung's been desperately searching for ever since he saw the other earlier came back, just a little bit, but it came back. It would've warmed his heart, too, but he doesn't like the implications of it.
"Really?" He didn't mean to sound condescending, but what's done is done. He wants to slap himself because of his audacity to act as if he was the one abandoned and not the other way around.
Why is he so mad that Sunoo has moved on? It's a good thing, he should be happy for him.
"Really. Let's hang out together again if you're up for it." Sunoo was cautious when he offered, and Heeseung knew what he said was as empty as the glasses of water between them.
Sunoo has moved on, and he hasn't.
"Okay. We'll be meeting again next week to outsource materials and sponsors. Same time, same place?" Sunoo places his tablet inside his bag and closed it with finality. They had run through their progress for today, and it's time for them to part ways.
It's almost 5:00 pm. He doesn't know if he can finish his paper as per his plan, but schedules be damned.
"Can I walk you home?"
"I—why?" Sunoo looked genuinely confused. "To catch up? Or, I don't know. It's not safe to go home alone, so consider this a favor from me." Heeseung looks down, a tint of red coloring his ears as he scratches the back of his head. Sunoo giggles at the sight.
"Why are you shy? You could've just told me that you missed me too, hyung." Sunoo didn't hide the smug in his voice, but he stopped himself. He looked at Heeseung with wary eyes. It's comfortable, but the type that's reserved for 16-year-old Sunoo and 17-year-old Heeseung. It somehow feels intrusive for 20-year-old Sunoo and 21-year-old Heeseung to share the ease in the atmosphere, even though it's objectively harmless.
Even though it's them.
That was years ago, before they drifted apart. Would it be okay to just do this? As if nothing happened?
The resulting genuine smile on Heeseung's lips somehow assured Sunoo. "Come on, you're not the only one here who reunited with a friend." A friend you abandoned yourself, you buffoon. Heeseung swallows the guilt and he almost chokes.
It was chilly, the jacket he's wearing doesn't seem enough to combat the cold seeping under the layers of fabric. Sunoo looks cute and comfortable in his layers of sweater though, tucking his face in a tacky orange and blue scarf around his neck.
To catch up. But silence is palpable from both sides. Heeseung doesn't know what to say. He has a lot that he wants to say, he just doesn't know how to tell Sunoo. Does he even have the right to bring up the things he wants to talk about? Like that one time when Sunoo had started matching his schedules with his, so he wouldn’t run errands alone? Or that one time when Sunoo cut classes when he knew about how sick he was? Or that time when everything was overwhelming him, so Sunoo dragged him to the nearest museum to help quieten his thoughts? Even though it was Sunoo’s birthday and he had to spend it with a sulking Heeseung?
Or that one night when Sunoo made him realize he's capable of love, but he dismissed it and stupidly said that he "doesn't swing that way"?
"Hyung, wait." Heeseung feels the light press of a hand against his arm, bringing him to a halt. The sound of the shutter brought Heeseung back to his senses.
Sunoo had whipped his phone out, taking a piece of the scene before them with him. "Pretty," he whispers to himself, eyes glowing as they focus on the picture he had just taken. Heeseung peeks, careful to put a safe distance between him and the other. He saw the silhouettes of the buildings, miles away from where they're standing, emphasized by the overlapping oranges, and pinks, and purples and blues as the flickering city lights replaced the setting sun.
Heeseung is reminded of the night before their graduation ceremony. He had brought his bike with him because Sunoo insisted on learning how to ride it. He said that it would be embarrassing for a college student not to know how to ride a bike, so Heeseung, as his friend, was obligated to teach him. They had biked most of the day and stopped to rest on the bridge’s stone railings, looking down on the city center, marveling at how the sun rested for the day while the city seemed to breathe with life.
Sunoo was the most beautiful that evening. So much prettier than the view of the sun slowly drowning in skyscrapers, the swirls of colors doing wonders to his delicate features. Sunoo was a sight to behold, and Heeseung had to consciously check if he was still breathing because…. wow.
His eyes mirrored the way the city lights sparkled, like stars of their own. He kept on chanting pretty as he pointed towards the constellations sprinkling the night sky, and Heeseung found himself saying the same, except his eyes are not trained on the sky.
"Hyung." Sunoo had called. Heeseung only hummed in response.
"What if someone," Sunoo was fretting with his fingers. He paused to think, head tilting to the side as his eyes squinted on the horizon, as if it can help construct what he wanted to say. Heeseung found it cute.
"What if someone tells you that they like you?" Heeseung didn’t seem to fully register the question.
"It depends who that person is." It was a question that had been asked of him far too many times that the answer was automatic.
"What if," Sunoo looked at him with eyes that resembled black holes, ones he would willingly get lost in, "What if they're a guy?"
Heeseung felt something fall apart.
"Heeseung-hyung?" There is hint of worry in Sunoo’s eyes. "Are you okay? You look tired, you should probably go home first. I'll just have someone pick me up."
Heeseung feels hot tears camping on the corners of his eyes. "Sunoo, that night, were you gonna confess?"
He doesn't know where the surge of courage came from. Maybe it had been pent up after all these years, and now that he's here with Sunoo—not actively avoiding him like what he'd done in his first few weeks in uni, to the point that fate took the wheel and decided to never make their paths cross ever again—the dam finally broke.
Sunoo looks at Heeseung like how one would when they don’t want to spook a child. The idle moments didn't help the pounding in Heeseung's ears. He can't breathe, he thinks. It's a question he had been meaning to ask all these years but never found the guts to do. Hell, after he told Sunoo that he's not gay, he bolted, pretending that something urgent happened at home and he needed to go back.
Graduation came, Sunoo wasn't there.
In a blink, summer break went by, and there wasn’t a night that he never dreamed about what happened.
Then came his first year in college, convinced that he has left everything past him. Still, his feelings, once more, hit him like a fucking truck when he saw Kim Sunoo on the campus premises, laughing with other students. The bloom of rose color on his cheeks and the lovely way his eyes squint did—and still do—unspeakable things to his heart.
"Was that the night before our graduation?" Sunoo chuckles. Heeseung is confused. What's funny? Does he somehow find his misery funny?
"Sorry for laughing. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at myself because looking back, anyone would be scared if someone just indirectly confronts them if they're gay." Sunoo fans his face, the permanent spot of pink on his cheeks made him glow more, and the sun enhanced it into something far more breath-taking.
"I had the biggest crush on you, hyung. All throughout high school." The tranquil in his voice fuels the turmoil in Heeseung’s chest. Sunoo said it as if his feelings doesn't matter, as if it isn't a big deal. He just dropped a bomb on Heeseung, for heaven's sake.
"You do?"
"I did.”
Sunoo has moved on. Heeseung is stuck.
“I didn't try to pursue it because you're straight. You always made it a point to remind me that you're straight." Sunoo jokingly said, but there's a lingering hurt in his voice, or maybe it's just Heeseung's mind trying to put a band-aid on the wreck that’s his heart.
"I'm sorry."
"What for?" Sunoo is genuinely confused.
"For everything." Heeseung can't really explain what he meant by everything, but Sunoo seems to understand.
Heeseung copes well with change, but it doesn't mean he likes change.
It was a hot summer night, and they had just gotten out of cram school. Heeseung offered to treat Sunoo some ice cream, and the younger didn't refuse, he never refused anything from Heeseung.
It was then that Heeseung realized what had changed.
With mint chocolate melting on Sunoo's fingers, his careless laughter permeating the noisy sidewalk, spreading through Heeseung like a virus, he knew what changed, and it clung to him like the permanent stain of green on his white polo.
The change was gradual. He guesses it started in middle school. They weren't friends then, but he knew who Kim Sunoo was. He's no stranger to pretty things, most especially pretty people. Sunoo wasn't just pretty appearance-wise, but you know how sometimes there are just people who exude a special kind of vibe? That's Kim Sunoo.
Heeseung was naturally drawn to him.
It was in high school when they became friends, and Heeseung reveled in that special kind of vibe Sunoo exudes. He liked being friends with him—he loved being friends with him.
Heeseung wasn't one to question change because he knows it's inevitable, but it doesn't mean he appreciates it when change jumpscares him to death. So when his feelings for Sunoo painfully crashed onto him like how a wave does towards the shore, he didn't appreciate it. He also didn't appreciate the fact that he's a guy.
Looking back, he can't really blame his younger self. It was a first, he panicked, he didn't know any better. And when Heeseung is faced with unfamiliar things, with no chance to prepare, he bolts.
It was hard to come to terms with his sexuality in all those years.
Three years later, Heeseung hopes he's not too late.
"I liked you. All throughout high school. Even before that, I think." Heeseung pauses, eyes trained on the blot of orange and gold slowly dying over the horizon. When Sunoo doesn't say anything, he continues, afraid that the spontaneous burst of courage would ebb away like the sun if he lets the silence sit longer.
"I still do."
"What--"
"Sun?"
Sunoo's head whips behind him, and Heeseung follows suit. A boy around their age jogs towards them.
"Hi, love. I'm here."
Heeseung feels his insides explode.
The smile on Sunoo's face is slow, deliberate, like the rising sun waking up to grace the world with its spectacular presence, the way his eyes form into little crescents. His happiness flashed before Heeseung in slow motion, almost taunting.
It's the same smile he's always craved to elicit from the other. It has been three years, but happiness always look good on Sunoo. It will forever suit him.
"Hyung, this is Sunghoon. He's my boyfriend."
Sunghoon greets him with a smile and an offer of a handshake. Heeseung has never wanted to crawl inside the sewer and into the depths of hell so bad in his life.
Heeseung copes well with changes. He prides himself on how well he handles them. He understands that change is inevitable, as well as the chaos it brings, so all he can do is work around it.
But Heeseung abhorred change. It was foolish of him to think that he copes well with it. That's just how it appears on a surface level because, in truth, change overwhelms him to the point that he just lets it drag him by the feet. He doesn't work around it, it controls him, and now he's forever stuck in this place, still here, right where he left Sunoo.
He left. Why is he the one who can't seem to move forward?