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There’s a new kid in town. Allegedly, given that no one’s seen anything except the moving van parked outside of the old house by the park. Seokmin says there’s definitely some kid — there was box labelled baby clothes out on the sidewalk next to another toppled over with textbooks.
Their high school was small. Small enough that the high school and middle school were actually crammed into one campus and that no teacher worth their salt would be running up here. So, new kid it was.
“I hope they’re a cute girl,” is Seungcheol’s take on the news. “Not that you two aren’t eye candy.”
Mingyu fake gags. Seokmin pops his mouth into pufferfish lips to make kissy noises but he slips on a stone, screaming. Catching him by the elbow, Seungcheol sighs as he tugs him back onto the pavement.
“What makes you think you’d get a chance, anyway?” Mingyu bumps Seungcheol with his shoulder, making their schoolbags jostle.
Soon they’ll pass by the outskirts of the park and get a glimpse of the street that overlooks the pond. The old house will sit there, yellow and faded. Maybe they’ll catch a silhouette against a window or the flutter of a curtain.
“Who cares?” Seungcheol replies. He kicks a frost-slicked stone from Seokmin’s path, “At this point, my eyes will rest easy on anyone who I know hasn’t eaten glue or pissed their pants before.”
“You know, Josh’s never pissed in class or eaten glue,” Seokmin waggles his brows.
“I know it’s hard for you but stop being so gay, man.”
“Says the gay one.”
This time, Seungcheol shoves Seokmin and lets him flail onto the road, shrieking.
Mingyu meets the new kid first.
There’s a modest ice rink near the school. The neighbouring hockey teams reserve it mostly, sometimes birthday parties or school trips. Most of the time it’s empty with there being a larger and lovelier frozen lake for the winter months. Maintenance of the building is poor but there’s a small flush of wildflowers that cling to it brick sides, followed by a shallow field that bleeds into a woodland’s edge.
During the blue hours of weekend mornings, Mingyu will sometimes make his way up there, a backpack slung over his shoulder.
There’s nothing out of place as Mingyu walks over. Up the slope where the pavement cracks open, stepping over the springing dandelions, the trees eventually come into view. Then, the faintest ridge of a mountain range, blurred by the last of the mist. Here, from the hilltop looking down, the town looks like a play set.
Once he’s close enough, Mingyu finally sees it. The main doors are unlocked, the padlock swung open.
Probably one of the coaches or facility members forgot, Mingyu decides, walking over to inspect. However, once he’s there and peering through the door windows, he sees that the lights are on, stark against the dark hallways.
Well.
Mingyu takes a step back.
This is how horror movies begin. Small town. Early morning, alone. Empty building, mysterious light, one fucking idiot thinks he’ll just take a peek, it’ll be fine.
Mingyu’s just about to turn the hell-fucking-no around when a movement stills him.
At the end of the hall, through distant doorway windows there’s some person there. Some guy, skating by. Mingyu squints. A guy around his age. Mingyu knows almost every person in his school.
The new kid. He huffs to himself. Not a cute girl.
Curious, he twists the door handle open.
The minute Mingyu steps into his new apartment, his phone rings.
He doesn’t bother to glance at the caller ID.
“Yeah?”
“Are you—wait, you’re not driving right now right?”
“No, not driving,” Mingyu hums, “and yeah, I’m here.”
“Okay,” there’s a breathiness in his voice that Mingyu knows is borne from a smile. It makes his own wider, “Okay. I’m sorry I can’t be there right now, I’ll—”
Mingyu waves his hand despite being alone and begins rolling his suitcases into the room. “We’ve been over this a million times, it’s fine. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Mingyu’s not a particularly stealthy person. Luckily for him, the new kid is at the far edge of the rink, facing away as Mingyu does his best to melt into the shadows and shuffle like a penguin to the far edge of the spectator seats.
Is this creepy? Mingyu isn’t trying to be a weirdo—but he’s definitely toeing the weirdo-factor by hiding in the shadows. Maybe he should say something, make his presence known. That would be less weird.
Wait, no. He can’t just announce himself, what the hell.
Hovering in a stiff posture half-way between a crouch and a stand, Mingyu lifts his head, ready to high tail it out when his thoughts turn blank.
The new kid is beautiful.
Mingyu’s brain pauses.
Beautiful, like, as in his skating.
The guy glides closer and Mingyu quickly ducks. The new kid’s blades carve a wide, smooth curve and in that second Mingyu can make clear his face. Slanted, sharp eyes. Small lips in a tired tug. There’s a serene, almost sleepy expression to him as he starts snaking along the length of the rink.
He moves like nothing from what Mingyu’s seen from the town kids and his classmates. Their bodies tilt awkwardly and their arms stutter like broken planes mid-flight. Not so the same of the hockey team, who are less about grace, more about efficient ferocity.
No. He moves like he’s made of wind. Soft circles on the ice, a little spin, glides his way across the perimeter as gentle as a fingertip tracing a paper’s edge.
Then, the new kid swerves to the middle, suddenly picking up speed before he’s kicking off into the air and Mingyu stills his breath for the second he’s airborne, breathing back out as he lands on one foot, one leg poised out and gliding off in a wide curve. He repeats it once more, then again later.
As if nothing, the new kid wears only the soft frown of concentration.
Mingyu watches, riveted. Never before has he seen anyone move like that on any surface. Pure athleticism all from this lanky teenager with the blank face.
Unable to ignore its pull, Mingyu doesn’t know how long he watches until he notices the scrap of morning light from the window above, no longer early blue. He checks his phone and bites his tongue. He’d been watching this guy practice for almost half an hour.
Staying as stooped as possible, he sneaks back to the door, sending one last glance over his shoulder. The new kid is standing in the centre of the ice, back facing him, shoulders rising and falling in gentle breath. His head twitches, as if about to turn, and Mingyu dashes around the corner.
With the excuse that he never actually got to do what he wanted, Mingyu returns the next day. It’s the same hour, the sky an uninterrupted grey and the winds stronger. Biting, as if to usher Mingyu. Hurry, it seems to say, this way.
The door is padlocked shut. Mingyu wilts a little. He peers into the windows and the hallway is pitched black. Without any overhead light, the ice is mute and grey.
Well.
This was dumb.
What were the odds anyway?
“Are you stalking me?”
Mingyu whips around, shrieking.
It’s the new kid, standing a few feet away. He’s bundled in the same padded jacket as before, a duffel bag at his hip with those black skates dangling out. Unlike yesterday there is no tired calm, no soft exertion colouring his cheeks. Instead there is a stiff, hackled stare pinning Mingyu in the face.
“Uh,” Mingyu stutters, “n-no.”
The new kid’s eyes sharpen.
“I’m not! I just…” Mingyu’s tongue has gone dumb and sticky, latching onto the roof of his mouth. Like this, it can only grab the mortifying truth. “You were kind of cool.”
That, for some reason, seems to surprise him. His stony face drops for a moment before he fumbles to put it back on quickly.
“Who are you?”
Mingyu rubs his neck, “Mingyu,” he answers.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh. I,” he grabs his backpack and unzips it, pulls the fabric down to show off the inside, “I take photos sometimes.”
There’s silence.
“Usually there’s no one here,” he continues, “so when I saw that the door was unlocked, I went in.”
This seems to appease the boy. He nods, stares at Mingyu again a little before his gaze drops. He tilts to the side, one foot coming up to rub at his calf. “Okay. I’m Wonwoo.”
“You’re new, right?” Mingyu asks.
“Yeah.”
“Are you enrolling in Gose High?”
Wonwoo nods. The quiet type, Mingyu notes. Or maybe just shy.
“So…can I watch you skate?” He motions to the front door and laughs pathetically in what hopes is an easy, open way, “You can say no, by the way.”
Wonwoo gnaws on his lip. His bottom lip is rather plush, slightly chapped but bitten pink in the morning chill.
“Sure,” he decides, eyes meeting Mingyu’s again—just briefly—before he makes his way to the door. He pulls a key out from his pocket. “I don’t mind.”
The first night of moving in, Mingyu abandons unpacking at eight to turn on the television. It takes him a few presses to find the right channel but eventually the the bare walls and floorboards are cast in a glow of televised white.
He doesn’t immediately pay mind to what’s going on, resuming fussing at the tacky tape residue and wondering where he put all his kitchenware. Only when he hears that name, his attention snapping him upright, does he move to sit down and watch.
It’s not so obvious to the public eye, but Mingyu can trace the anxious, anticipatory lines of Wonwoo’s face with the familiarity of a sun-faded poster. He can see it all, even if washed away by the light.
He’s dressed in navy, the top loose and thin with a sunburst of white crystals irradiating out from the collar. They catch the stadium lights and glisten, morning dew glittering down his chest. His eyes are smudged dark, smoked with subtle blue; his glossy black hair is parted from his forehead and a fresh pink sits on his cheeks. He is early mornings, he is the first light peering through the grass tips. Mingyu could fool himself into thinking he was in a wake-sleep dream.
Small ribbons flutter at Wonwoo’s cuffs as he does soft circles along the ice. It’s his same warm up routine.
The commentators talk. Mingyu hardly hears them. Glimpses of numbers, competitions, old and new records. One day, he will look at them, these titles and decimal points, and learn how to feel something different.
Tonight, however, he lets himself hear the music start and watches Wonwoo begin to move, cutting through the white like a starling against a winter’s sky.
“Dude, you’re staring.” Seokmin hisses, elbow nudging Mingyu in the ribs.
Mingyu elbows Seokmin back, “I know,” he hisses back.
It’s at that moment that Wonwoo finally looks their way from across the cafeteria. Mingyu waves him over. Seokmin’s jaw unhinges.
Most of the cafeteria were glancing at Wonwoo anyway but now Seokmin’s boggling as Wonwoo makes his way over.
“You know the new kid?” He whispers.
“Uh, yeah. In a way,” Mingyu shrugs. There’s an exciting itch, a pleasingness to the concept that he doesn’t want to look too closely at.
Wonwoo wasn’t particularly talkative when he’d practiced with Mingyu as spectator that day. In fact, he seemed a little more stiff and Mingyu tried not to watch too loudly. At times Wonwoo would acknowledge him with brief glances, ones which never failed to send the most silent of thrills across Mingyu’s skin.
It was the thrill of a new friend, he’d reasoned. A cool one, one who acknowledged his existence beyond flicking erasers at his head (thanks, Seokmin).
During his breaks, Wonwoo had come to rest where Mingyu sat. Their conversations were stilted but not uncomfortable and Mingyu managed to learn tidbits. Wonwoo had been skating since he was six, he was in his senior year, he moved because of family reasons and no, the cold didn’t bother him too much — he was used to it.
Mingyu realised, seeing him slip his way through the room, that Wonwoo carried himself with much less grace on land.
“Hi,” Mingyu smiled up.
Wonwoo’s lips twitched, still trying to fold his gangly limbs into his seat. “Hey.”
“I’m Seokmin!” Is the scream that ruptures Mingyu’s left eardrum.
“Hi,” Wonwoo nods at Seokmin, lips twitching even harder.
It doesn’t take long for Mingyu to learn that Wonwoo is the quiet sort. It takes him a while to learn that he can, however, be pried open.
It becomes custom for Wonwoo to sit silently with Mingyu and his friends during lunches, but he’s absent during free periods and after school. If it weren’t for Wonwoo’s presence in Mingyu’s photography elective, he would’ve thought he was a ghost haunting the cafeteria.
Mingyu thinks it’s because Wonwoo’s aware of himself as the wrench in their dynamic. Seokmin was the most accommodating and he will try to invite Wonwoo into conversation, but if even Seungcheol cannot bounce the rubber ball of small talk, it’s fruitless.
Mingyu doesn’t mind Wonwoo silence. It’s awkward, definitely, and there’s a quickening of his pulse whenever Wonwoo is nearby that he’s choosing to think of as a sort of social anxiety. It’s hard not to be aware of Wonwoo as reticent as he is. When Wonwoo doesn’t appear one day (a cold, Mingyu finds out later) Mingyu finds his attention drifting mid-story. Seungcheol kicks him in the shin.
The first time Wonwoo walked into the photography classroom, Mingyu was surprised. Wonwoo hadn’t noticed him, busy glancing around for an empty spot least likely to piss someone off, and Mingyu likened him to a fawn, long-legged and shy, nervously surveying an open and empty field. When Mingyu waved him over, he saw him breathe in relief.
“You like photography too?”
Wonwoo pulled his chair back, settling on the edge instead of the full seat.
“Everything else was full,” he admits, “but it’s not like I’m good at any of those either.”
Mingyu thinks that’s a joke. A joke!
He smiles, pleased. Wonwoo looks away.
“Do you know how to develop film?” They’re out on the school ground figuring out what to capture for their weekly assignment (topic: metamorphosis) out by the dilapidated bleachers. Mingyu walks safely on the grass, Wonwoo balancing on the teeth-white benches.
Wonwoo shakes his head. He holds his camera stiffly—more preoccupied with not dropping it than using it.
Mingyu lifts his camera to point at Wonwoo. He expects the latter to shy away, much like Seungcheol does with flailing hands, but Wonwoo barely reacts. He only blinks into the viewfinder, unfazed.
Mingyu doesn’t mean to take the shot but his fingers move on habit. Click, whir. Mingyu lowers his camera, staring at it in the swell of confusion of a body acting independent of its mind. He must look visibly confused because Wonwoo laughs.
Soft, more breathy than anything. But it has Mingyu whipping his head up.
“Hey!” He splutters, “What—why are you laughing?”
“Sorry,” Wonwoo doesn’t sound sorry in the least, “it looked like you forgot what a camera was.”
“That’s,” that’s not it, “that’s rich coming from you. What’ve you got?”
Wonwoo steps away and out of his reach and there it is, plain as the greenness of the grass beneath their shoes, a smile on Wonwoo’s lips. Cheeky. A smirk. The rapid realisation loops in Mingyu’s head (a smile! A smile. A smile) and he’s overcome with a small but wild burst of confusion. Wonwoo mistakes it for something else.
“It’s a secret,” he’s still smiling, hugging his camera to his chest.
“You forgot how to use it, didn’t you?”
“That’s also a secret.”
Mingyu huffs and waves him over, “Here, I’ll show you again.”
It’s simple, he starts when Wonwoo’s standing at his side, twist here to adjust the focus, here for the zoom. The latch is here if you want to check how much film you have left. As he talks, the smile on Wonwoo’s lips soften but do not fade. Not completely.
A lot of the luster about Wonwoo’s newness had faded when he revealed himself to be of the reticent sort. It doesn’t deter the small admiration of girls to his looks, however.
Mingyu is sporty and loud and adept at small-talk which means his rings of acquaintances spread wide like a girthy, deep-rooted oak. He hears rustles of talk, that so and so thinks Wonwoo is a little cold, but that’s what makes it enticing right? And did you hear? Wonwoo supposedly rejected some junior at the back of the water tank—
It was the sports shed, actually. Wonwoo had told him. It surprised Mingyu, in a warm, gooey egg-yolk way that Wonwoo was telling him this sort of thing of his own volition. She was kind of cute, he’d finished off and then glanced at Mingyu before looking down at his laces, but not really my type.
Oh, Mingyu said back, the surprise firming into something rubbery and tough, that’s a bummer.
If Mingyu was to be hyper objective about it, he could sort of see why girls would be into Wonwoo. Mingyu knew girls tended to like taller guys, and Wonwoo was objectively handsome. Maybe even objectively pretty cute in an unexpected way, when one caught him in a pleasant or distracted mood and the soft sharps of his face melted with butter-soft daydreaming. Mingyu could see how it made sense, in a girly way.
On chance occasions, his focus would slip to his peripheries and he’ll note Wonwoo’s looks. Like now, his striking profile as he artfully balanced on a sidewalk edge, stepping over its frosted patches. His nose, slanted and elegant, was getting pink again. Same as the curve of his cheek as he glanced away from Mingyu’s gaze.
It did make sense.
It also wasn’t something Mingyu was estranged from himself.
He was sporty and loud and praised for his straight nose, his handsome jaw, the curve of his eyes. Seokmin teases him for it, and Mingyu taunts him back. He can recognise with neutrality, just as he does to himself, why Wonwoo would be so notable.
Wonwoo glances at him again.
“A bummer for you, I mean,” Mingyu punches Wonwoo lightly on the shoulder but then grabbed him by the arm when he tilts too quickly, “don’t get so cocky that you think you can get picky now.”
“I’m not picky,” Wonwoo doesn’t shake his hand off. Mingyu doesn’t let go, “I’m just a specimen few can afford.”
Mingyu makes a horrible honking noise and shoves Wonwoo again, letting him stumble onto the empty road.
“You suck!” He laughs.
Wonwoo’s laughing too, the loudest, fullest Mingyu’s ever heard. It’s deep, just like his voice, but rich and sharp and it paints his face anew as if a canvas was torn to reveal a hidden, brighter image beneath. His nose scrunches up.
The first week of classes catches Mingyu in a whirlwind. He leaves classrooms with complicated syllabuses, introductory content and new names spinning in his head only to be met with the spinning architecture of huge buildings, rising up in dead ends and forgettable brass names.
Mingyu’s avoiding the twisting stream of students — whom always seem to know where they’re going — when he finds himself wandering onto an emptier edge of campus.
The sports facilities, he guesses, spying the track circling the open space behind the collection of concrete and glass buildings. It hasn’t settled yet, the enormity and the busyness of the place. The unstoppableness of city living.
The door to one of the nearby buildings opens and laughter colours the air as someone steps out. Even at this distance, Mingyu knows who it is from the first few notes. His memory is quick and lethal. The familiarity unmistakeable.
In the distance, Wonwoo turns his head over his shoulder, mouth opened as if to speak to someone. Mingyu turns and leaves.
Since that second time, when Mingyu learnt Wonwoo’s name, Mingyu hadn’t seen him skate since. He wouldn’t admit that he was waiting for an invitation, but.
By chance, one week, Mingyu makes his usual trek up the hill and spots the door unlocked. With a flutter in his chest, he makes his way inside only to pause once he reaches the entrance to the rink, hand paused on the handle at the sound of a second voice.
He peers through the window. There’s a woman there. His mother, Mingyu guesses, but then Wonwoo comes to a stop in front of her. His face is hard-lined in concentration, listening to whatever the woman is telling him with small nods.
Wonwoo glances in his direction and both he and Mingyu freeze. The woman notices and turns her head.
“Mingyu’s a friend,” is what Wonwoo says once Mingyu’s standing by his side, introductions freshly made. The way he says it makes it sound like a barter.
Mingyu’s heart dislodges from his throat and he tries on a polite smile. The stern face of the woman makes him quiver.
“That’s nice,” she fixes Wonwoo a stare, “as long as he’s not a distraction.”
Wonwoo’s cheeks redden. “I know that.”
The woman, Soyeong, Wonwoo’s coach, ruffles Wonwoo’s messy hair. “Kid, you know what I mean. Now stop wasting our precious time together and get out there.”
Grumbling, Wonwoo steals a glance at Mingyu’s way, fingers combing through his fringe, and huffs quietly at no doubt the perplexed look on his face. He pushes off the handrail and glides to the ice. Even to Soyeong, Mingyu’s presence fades away as the air crystallises with sharp focus again.
“So, Mingyu, Wonwoo didn’t tell you?” Off-practice, Soyeong does a complete flip. The pinched lines between her brows smooth away, pinched lips lifting as she ruffles Mingyu’s hair as if he too were her protege.
They’re sitting in the spectator seats, Soyeong in the middle and Wonwoo bent down, untying his laces, fringe shielding his eyes.
Mingyu’s tongue ties around itself, insane information and innumerable questions ricocheting in his head. Only a weak “No…” tumbles out.
Internationally ranked. Junior champion. Youth Olympics medallist, heading straight onwards to the bigger, more brutal podium. Soyeong had glowed as she listed off what Wonwoo had been up to the last twelve years, the two of them leaning against the handrails as they traced Wonwoo’s path along the ice.
Honestly. What the fuck?
Soyeong’s laugh rings out in the open space. She tugs Wonwoo’s ear. “Geez, I didn’t train you since you were barely walking for you to not brag about yourself a little.”
Wonwoo swats her hand away, grimacing. “What am I supposed to do? Bring a medal to show and tell?”
“Uh, yeah!” Mingyu squawks folding his body forward to stare bug-eyed at Wonwoo, “I can’t believe you have a Wikipedia page and you never told me.”
Soyeong gushes even harder.
Despite the impassiveness to his face, Wonwoo looks pointedly embarrassed when staring out at the ice, pink eared, as if all those accolades were baby photos Soyeong had whipped out from her wallet.
“Well, don’t tell anyone, okay?” He says quickly, “It’s…I’d rather it stay just between us.”
“Why?” It doesn’t make sense. Mingyu thinks Wonwoo just might be the coolest person he knows. Like, ever. “You’re like fuck—” he glances at an amused Soyeong, “freaking incredible!”
Wonwoo stares harder at the ice.
“Mingyu,” his voice has turned soft but strained and a worry wells in Mingyu’s stomach, wondering if he’d gone too far.
“Wonwoo’s a little shy,” Soyeong steps in. Even she has wilted a little, calmed down enough to pin Mingyu with an asking look, “he gets enough attention already. Yeah?”
Blinking, Mingyu’s eyes sweep across the empty rink. He imagines swathes of people, rows that go up into the mountains, lights that turn the ice a glowing fluorescent, booming voices and earthquake podiums and an ocean of undulating eyes. He looks at Wonwoo, who every day sits quietly at a cafeteria table, chin in hand and listening, or tucked into a thick novel.
“Yeah,” he swallows, unable to tear his eyes away.
Maybe it’s a little creepy that Mingyu’s here. Still, he doesn’t move from where he’s sitting.
Unlike the ice rink back home — at this point home is still found at the lip of the woods, in the wildflowers, the old rain-beat bleachers and the toppling fences where the soil is too soft — the one here is enormous. Beams hold the cavernous ceiling up like frames of a metal cathedral. The stadium lighting is sun-bright and doesn’t flicker in odd places. The plastics of the seat are glossy smooth, when Mingyu runs his fingertips over the lip there are no sharp scratches catching his skin. Even the ice here looks brighter, whiter.
He has his sketchbook open, film camera shut and quiet on his lap. There’s hardly anyone here despite the facilities being available to the public on weekends. Warm days will turn rare soon.
There’s a mother with her child, holding their arm with a tight grip as they follow close the perimeter. There are some friends who gaggle at one end but appear to already be leaving, their bright puffer jackets zipping to the exits.
Mingyu feels stupid. He moves to pack away his things when the doors below open and two figures walk in. Soyeong, to Mingyu’s surprise, follows behind Wonwoo. From the back she looks the same, still keeps her hair in a low ponytail, hair a deep molasses brown. The sight of the both them tug a bittersweet chord in Mingyu’s chest.
Wonwoo does his warm ups. Weaving in and out, little spins, soft circles. Soyeong says something that makes his lips twitch. Then, his gentle expression focuses, and he starts practicing in earnest.
By now, Mingyu has memorised the names and become familiar with their movements. Luxes, axles, spins, loops and on — all their technicalities are lost to him because above all, it’s still the closest thing he has seen to magic.
The doors open again and the spell snaps. In the middle of his routine, Wonwoo comes to a still and his eyes draw to the new stranger and to a hushed fear, Mingyu sees his face split into a warm beam. Wonwoo skates over to the rink edge.
Just a friend, Mingyu thinks. But then the stranger loops an arm over his shoulder and, in their embrace, presses a discrete kiss to his cheek. It’s so subtle, secretive, that if Mingyu wasn’t transfixed he wouldn’t have seen it.
Mingyu is an idiot. He doesn’t know what is worse, the hope he had kept small in his pockets all this time, or the ease in which Wonwoo does not even look his way. Foolishly, wistfully, he had hoped there was a special something about him, a magnetic, fate-coated presence that would demand Wonwoo’s attention whenever they were near.
It was shot in the dark, he tells himself. He didn’t actually believe it were to happen. The way it is now is so obviously more likely it didn’t even need to be said.
The stranger is tall and dark-haired, undeniably handsome and unbearably fitting beside Wonwoo in some exclusive synergy. He points and chuckles at Wonwoo’s pink nose. Soyeong comes over and tugs Wonwoo’s ear but it doesn’t dampen his smile a bit.
It’s enough. Mingyu tears his eyes away.
“Dude, you’re like so gay.”
Mingyu breaks in the middle of his sentence, “What?”
Seungcheol laughs airily and stretches his arms out behind him, the weight of his words lost to him whilst repeating waves of panic forced Mingyu to swallow.
“Wonwoo!” The call has Wonwoo, sat on the edge of the court, away from the basketball sweat, jumping, “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Mingyu’s fat, gay crush on you.”
Wonwoo frowns, “Excuse me?” His voice is flat. Almost unbothered.
Mingyu shoves Seungcheol in the shoulder, his face fiercely hot and his friend cackles.
“Dude,” he bites. He doesn’t know what to say. He does know what he wants to do — fucking shove Seungcheol off a rock cliff. The ferocity is so intense he wants to die.
“He’s totally ditched us,” jabbing his thumb at him, Seungcheol keeps walking. His mouth keeps moving and never before has Mingyu felt the need to punch someone, “to hang around you. Seriously, precious boyfriend time, no?”
Mingyu barely holds back from exploding, the thin thread of his temper held back only by the pin-sharp knowledge that panicking means there’s something to panic over. Something he has to hide, desperately.
“Shut up, man.” He needs to cool himself, can’t cool himself, bites down against the locust swarm stripping apart his control grain by grain. “Don’t be gross. He—” Mingyu’s eyes dart to Wonwoo who's still frowning. He swallows, “isn’t a weirdo like you.”
Swinging an arm around his neck, Seungcheol tugs him down and ruffles his hair. “Chill, Gyu. You’re so easy to rile up,” his voice is still sweet and easy. Wonwoo still hasn’t said anything.
“Just don’t do anything nasty in front of me. I liked my lunch.”
It’s when he’s laying in his bed later that night, staring out at the moon as it drifts by like a slow, white balloon, replaying Seungcheol’s words, that Mingyu recalls Wonwoo’s.
I’d rather it stay just between us.
Wonwoo never mentions that afternoon to Mingyu. Mingyu won’t ever bring it up. He can’t make up his mind how he feels about it. Insects crawl through his skin at the idea of taking it out, laying it open between them. They itch at him. Say something, they scuttle.
But say what? Mingyu doesn’t know what he’d say, or if he should apologise. He knows Wonwoo isn’t like that, and neither is Mingyu. They could just leave it at that.
Yet there’s also something he wants to hear. He wants to hear Wonwoo say it himself, maybe. Maybe Mingyu’s looking for reassurance. Maybe Seungcheol, that stupid asshole, has planted an idea in his brain and he needs to prune it quick lest it grow over the rational part of him.
But he knows Wonwoo’s not like that. Because he doesn’t look like them. Or talk or dress or is anything like them, really.
Wonwoo didn’t pay much attention to girls, true, but it was because he didn’t have time to care about that. He was busy.
Mingyu pays attention to girls. He finds some guys nice looking, but that doesn’t mean the same thing. So it’s okay.
“Do you want to finish the photography assignment together?” Mingyu asks once class has ended. They’re putting the crates of equipment away in the back room and in the cramped space he felt it was unbearable that Wonwoo was not only silent, but not looking at him either.
Wonwoo had been distant somewhat lately. Because he was busy.
“Sure,” Wonwoo was popping the lens caps back on, gaze glued to his hands. “When?”
“Uhm. I’m free tomorrow. My little sister might be home, though. And like, I know you have a lot of things on your plate anyway—”
“It’s fine, Mingyu. I can make time.”
“Yeah. Cool.”
“You can come over to my place,” Wonwoo says. All the lens caps are fitted but he’s still transfixed on them, one finger idly tracing their edges, “My mom won’t be home.”
Mingyu’s heart, the silly thing, stutters. “Okay. That’s okay.”
The reason why the house is empty, Wonwoo explains, is because his grandmother is sick. If she’s not holed in her office, her work now remote, his Mom visits the hospital. That’s why we moved here in the first place, he had said while the water in the kettle was boiling over, it was a last-minute thing. She doesn’t have anyone else.
The timing is pretty bad. It was approaching competition season when Wonwoo had to slash his training schedule for a week to depart from the city. He’d wanted to stay and live on his own, but everything was too last minute.
“Soyeong coaches full time. But she also has her own family.” There isn’t anyone else, lingers between his words.
“You’ll figure it out. Our ice rink doesn’t suck that bad.” Mingyu’s reassurance sounds empty even to his own ears. He knows nothing about Wonwoo’s real life, he realises. There’d been a whole other path Wonwoo had been running on before this dingy little town near the mountains; bigger, wider, slicked with polished metals and satin ribbons, glazed with flashing lights and—
Mingyu stops. He shouldn’t think like that.
“Hey, for our assignment,” he starts, “I know where we should go.”
Wonwoo makes a curious noise, brows lifting as his eyes round owlishly, sipping his tea. He flinches, scalded, the pink tip of his tongue poking out from his pink lips.
“Y-yeah,” A hot cloud of embarrassment puffs up from Mingyu’s chest to his neck and he pats his pockets distractedly, “I’ll show you. C’mon.”
When he realises they’re trekking up the familiar route to the ice rink, Wonwoo groans. But Mingyu shushes and tugs him onwards, veering to the side and then behind the building to the small meadow. The wildflowers are still stubbornly in bloom. They sway in the gentle breeze and Mingyu smiles when he sees Wonwoo brush them with his fingertips as they walk. The day is fine and sweet, spun-sugar clouds cruising across the sky. The sunlight is tea-coloured and warm.
“Should I make a joke about you murdering me?” Wonwoo says, turning to Mingyu when they began approaching the lip of the woods.
“I think the postman saw us walking together,” Mingyu reassures, “But I guess that just means I have an extra body to take care of.”
Wonwoo hums, amusement sparkling in his eyes as he shoves Mingyu forward. “Come on, show me this secret.”
Halfway through the short walk there, Mingyu faces Wonwoo. “Uh, I don’t actually know if it’ll be there.”
A incredulous laugh, “What? Your secret has legs?”
“Yeah, actually.”
Wonwoo’s lips round in surprise. Cute.
Mingyu wants to say something, do something, but a bit of movement catches his periphery and he tugs Wonwoo aside behind a tree.
A fox, a piece of fish held in her jaws, stills at their scuffling. Behind him, Mingyu hears Wonwoo draw in his breath. She sniffs the air, sharp snout pointed in their direction, the glint of scales flashing a wet silver and white as she lowers her head, hesitating. Ears flexing around, raising one paw tentatively as if testing the safety of movement, before returning to her previous trail.
“She’s sort of used to my scent, I think,” Mingyu explains, “But I don’t know about yours.”
“You know a fox?” Wonwoo whispers. They’re still pressed close, the heat of Wonwoo’s body warms the whole of Mingyu’s back. He feels his words more than hears them.
“I stumbled across her when she was just a kit. She was young and dumb, and it’s not like I hurt her.” Mingyu ushers Wonwoo to follow him deeper into the trees. They have to be more careful now, though most of the autumn leaves are soggy with the night’s rain, not all of them dampen their footfalls, “I think she learnt to recognise me. And appreciate my cooking.”
“Still,” he continues once they’re in a denser spot crowded with low-lying shrubbery, thick and matted. Ahead, ferns sprout and shade the empty hollow of a fallen trunk, “it’s best not to get too close to the den.”
He crouches down behind a cluster of shrubs and young trees. Wonwoo follows, their thighs pressed together.
When the first of the kits peek out, little snouts sticking out from a hidden burrow beneath the log, Mingyu feels a hand grip the back of his shirt.
“Mingyu,” Wonwoo breathes.
They watch in silence as their mother drops her catch for her kits to tear apart. Mingyu reminds himself to show Wonwoo the river one day.
They’re growing rapidly. It didn’t seem too long ago that they were the size of footballs. Now, they’re bouncing and leaping, asking for play from their unmoveable mother as she scans the surroundings with her yellow eyes. Two of them tackle each other in a flail of limbs and pitched squeaks.
Beside him, Wonwoo breathes out in silent laughter. The grip on his shirt tightens. This is something Mingyu hasn’t divulged to Seungcheol nor Seokmin about. It didn’t feel right. Not that it would be wrong, but Mingyu felt that some things were so tender, so intimate, that they had to be cupped to the chest.
“Are there foxes in the city?”
Wonwoo shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I guess there could be. They could scavenge, but it’s a little sad to imagine.”
Mingyu hums, “You sort of look like them, you know.”
Wonwoo serves him a deadpan look. Mingyu giggles quietly.
“Do you want to take a photo of them?” Wonwoo asks, looking away.
“No,” Mingyu studies Wonwoo’s profile, his sharp eyes and how they soften into that calm he’s only ever seen on the ice, “I kind of like to hope they’re just my secret.”
“Our secret, you mean.”
One of the kits tumbles over, its thick cotton tail whipping purple leaves into a flurry. Wonwoo’s nose scrunches up.
Mingyu breathes in, “Yeah.”
“Mingyu.”
It comes at no surprise that Mingyu gets caught. He always gets caught, never one to be particularly adept at being cautious. Still, it doesn’t prepare him for this moment. It’s an encounter he’s fantasized and dreaded and played like a tape in his head, but now with the real Wonwoo standing before him—he’s gets stuck on pause.
“You really are stalking me,” Wonwoo, Wonwoo who’s looking at him once more, smiles weakly.
He’s nervous. Maybe uncomfortable. Mingyu can’t tell anymore.
The familiar planes of Wonwoo’s face bend and shape into unfamiliar expressions. The pieces are the same and aside from looking a little older, a little more mature, they’re the same kind eyes and straight brows, the identical plush of the lip as Wonwoo bites down into it.
“I didn’t know you went here,” Mingyu answers truthfully, “but then I saw you.”
“You didn’t say hi?”
“Didn’t know how. But, hi, by the way.”
“Hi,” Wonwoo seems to, maybe, fight a smile. He shifts from one foot to the other. “It’s good to see you, Mingyu.”
There’s a grip squeezing down on Mingyu’s entire torso. It makes him feel like a bruised lemon, sour and bursting and he purses his lips at the tartness of his yearning, the way it suddenly seeps into his mouth and curls his tongue back. It’s good to see you—had things been different, those words would never have needed to be said.
It was always good to see Wonwoo. Those months they’d shared had turned Mingyu into some sort of streetlamp, always lighting up, always waiting for the evening stars, a flick of a switch, a trick in timing.
“It’s good to see you too,” Did you miss me? “You look well.”
Wonwoo’s eyes soften and it’s the gentle rain, the forest floor, the smooth stone between Mingyu’s fingertips before he hands it to Wonwoo in those afternoons he taught how to skip stones.
“I am,” he says back. He grips his duffle tightly, “you do too, considering I think you got even taller.”
“About an inch and a half,” Mingyu preens.
Wonwoo laughs and it’s the same crystal sound. But it peters off, ending quiet and awkward as they forget how to look at each other.
“I…” lifting up his bag strap, Wonwoo readjusts it for the third time, “have class soon, actually.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s cool.”
“I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah,” A cold breeze freezes the question Mingyu wants to ask, “See you around, I guess. My…my number’s still the same.”
Wonwoo stills for a second. Something crosses his face, wilted, like Mingyu had just stepped on him. But he recomposes himself and springs back quickly enough that Mingyu nearly wonders if it’d been his imagination.
“Yeah,” the smile Wonwoo dons doesn’t reach his eyes. “Bye, Mingyu.”
Mingyu begins having dreams he can’t remember.
He starts in the middle of the night. Not in the shock terror of a nightmare but in that jilted, swift surprise of tipping over and he’ll blink up at the darkness as if he’d just been staring at the sun. Blue settles over the colour of his dream as they sink into the walls.
Sometimes, he’ll fall back asleep in a sleepy disorientation. Mostly, his heart hammers, too alive, and he’s left to study the ceiling, too lucid to bother closing his eyes.
Sometimes, he’ll look out the window and see the wildflowers, the treetops, the misty kiss of the mountains on the horizon like a lovely ghost. He’ll think of Wonwoo, he doesn’t know why. Maybe he was dreaming about him.
It’s easier in those hours, the tether between himself and the room is distant and if he lets his fingers slip, the string floats out of his reach.
When the night is blue he won’t question why he thinks of Wonwoo, why he knows it’s Wonwoo.
Instead, as he lays his head back on his pillow, his eyes will fall close and he returns to the moments of sunlight spreading thin across their town. Walking home, their shadows stretching across the concrete, blue and sweet like saltwater taffy.
He doesn’t know what this memory of Wonwoo is saying but he sees his lips move. Chapped and chill-bitten pink, they curve around his teeth. It’s difficult to focus, Wonwoo speaks ocean sounds, and Mingyu falls back asleep.
One day, Wonwoo asks Mingyu to bring his skates with him.
The windows high on the wall are black squares pinned by dots of white. Wonwoo’s breaths come in steady puffs of white as he grins with pink mischief, hurrying Mingyu to pop his skates on.
“You just want to see me make a fool of myself,” With a pull, Mingyu does the last of his laces and rises from the seat like a weak-jointed colt.
Wonwoo’s already laughing at him.
“I will neither confirm nor deny.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Mingyu’s not bad on the ice. Like how he’s not bad with both feet on solid, traction-able ground. He just has his moments where his feet forget they’re feet, like how his hands forget they’re hands whenever someone dares to hand him anything with greater monetary value than fifteen dollars.
Which is a delight to Wonwoo’s million dollar smile. Stiff-limbed and striding with dumb confidence forward, Mingyu scrunches his face as Wonwoo glides leisurely in front of him, heels twisting to skate backwards, taunting him with his stupid decades-long practiced skill.
“Really,” Mingyu grumbles, “this is so—treating amateurs, novices like—you’re a shit coach.”
Wonwoo hums and does a fucking circle around Mingyu, hands behind his back.
“Why did you bring me here,” he doesn’t whine, “I could taunt you with things too.”
“Like what?” Settling beside him now, Wonwoo arches one of his perfectly straight brows.
“Like—” Mingyu falters, Wonwoo suddenly grabbing his wrist and tugging him along, “uhm.”
His throat is dry and tight all of a sudden and it’s not helping at all that Wonwoo’s face is still impressively passive.
“Like?”
“Don’t goad me,” Heat rises to Mingyu’s cheeks, “Like shooting hoops. Fixing things. Cooking. Uh, cleaning. Your locker is—”
“Okay, mom,” Wonwoo rolls his eyes.
A weird panic sizzles in Mingyu. He splutters, tries to laugh, “I’m manly.”
That has Wonwoo stilling, which means Mingyu comes to a halt too. Standing in the centre of the ice, if it weren’t for the chill already present, the hard and confused Wonwoo settles on him might explain what Mingyu feels deep in his gut.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
“You called me mom.”
“I didn’t actually—Ugh, Mingyu,” Wonwoo’s lips purse and the apple of his cheeks bunch up and what in undoubtedly supposed to be a frown. He’s upset, but to Mingyu—
“What Seungcheol said. It got to you, right?”
Lips parting in surprise, the memory explodes back into Mingyu’s head. The panic returns but in hot, flashing flares.
“No! Of course not. I’m not, he was being stupid. Don’t listen to him.”
“He was being stupid, but that’s not my point.”
The confused silence only riles Wonwoo up further. The grip on Mingyu’s arm tightens. A part of his brain is beeping like a fire alarm, tripping over itself to find a way to extinguish the weird energy between them. The other part is standing shock still in the sudden, hot glow.
“Mingyu, I dress up in glitter and rhinestones and smokey eyeliner whilst I twirl around for people on some fucking ice,” Wonwoo heaves a sigh. He then speaks a little quieter, “if you’re trying to prove something, to me or whoever, don’t.”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah.”
A beat.
“And I don’t think of you like that. You know.”
“Like what?” Wonwoo sighs again, letting go of his hands with a shove. A complete flip to himself a moment before.
“You know…” Mingyu chews on his tongue. It’s hard to look at anything now, the ice is gleaming and piercingly bright under the floodlights, the scars and pick marks on its surface swirling psychedelic. “It’s a sport. And you’re really athletic. It’s cool.”
Wonwoo snorts. He pulls away. “Thanks. I know.”
“And,” Mingyu should stop right now. He should bite his fucking tongue. Should swallow the raw flesh and coppery, burning blood. “I think it’s really beautiful.”
It’s not just the awkwardness. This is, Mingyu realises, a different Wonwoo. Sort of. Yes. Whatever.
Mingyu doesn’t even want to be here. As in, this spot specifically, standing in the centre of the bar with this Soonyoung guy on his side and a passionfruit something in his hand. This spot, a perfect vantage point to see everyone in the room, including Wonwoo.
Which means Soonyoung can see Wonwoo. Soonyoung, who seems to know Wonwoo, waving him over the moment their eyes meet. Eyes, which flick over to Mingyu for a second.
“Jeon Won-uuu,” Not minding the drink in his hands, Soonyoung throws himself at Wonwoo who seems to catch him only reluctantly, “you’re here! You’re actually here! And not broiling chicken breast in your sad little kitchen! Jeon Won—”
Plucking the cup from Soonyoung’s hand, Wonwoo places it down on the counter. “And that’s enough for you,” he then turns to Mingyu, pearly teeth on display. “Hey, stranger.”
“Hi,” is what Mingyu wants to say but it comes out breathy and stupid and like he’s swallowed a cloud.
A cloud of stupidity.
“Oh,” Soonyoung’s eyes, squinted in a squeaky smile, pop open, “you know Mingyu!?”
“We went to high school together.”
Soonyoung punches Wonwoo in the arm, “We went to high school together.”
“Not the whole time.”
Soonyoung’s mouth rounds in a sharp and sober understanding. “No way,” he breathes, “the odds, huh!?” He slaps Mingyu on the back with shocking strength and turns to Wonwoo. Wonwoo looks like he wants to die.
Mingyu doesn’t get it, “What?”
“Nothing!” He slaps Mingyu again, this time with the intention to shove, “Nothing at all! Mingyu’s really drunk by the way. Needs a sobriety companion to walk him home. Wonwoo wants to go home too, because he’s boring and fit. Bye!”
“What?” Mingyu, befuddled, a little freaked out, swivelling his gaze back and forth between the other two. “I’m—”
“A long lost childhood friend! I know, I know.”
Wonwoo looks like he wants to die and drag Soonyoung down with him.
“Soonyoung, what the fuck, I just got here,” but then Mingyu’s goblin of a roommate grips his wrist and forces down the last of his drink mostly on his face. Mingyu splutters, chokes a little, the cold sensation of passionfruit something down his shirt and fuck. Maybe he should die too.
“Goodnight.”
“I’m going to kill him. No, wait,” Wonwoo pulls out an old, soft-looking sweater from the backseat of his car, “I’ll slice him open and rearrange the organs of his body, since all that comes out of his mouth is—anyway. Sorry. This is all I got. Might smell like oranges.”
“Uh,” Mingyu plucks the sweater gently from his hands, “it’s fine. Really. Don’t sweat it. I mean, I smell fruity anyway.”
Wonwoo snorts into his hand.
This: standing in the car park, moon high in the sky and city lights behind them, lamplight outlining a stiff, red-eared Wonwoo. Alcohol staining the front of Mingyu’s shirt, the chill breeze on the soaking spots. It feels like one his dreams. They stare at each other a beat too long.
“I’ll just turn around. Give you some privacy,” Wonwoo huffs out.
“Right. Thanks,” Mingyu does the same. He tugs off his shirt, glad for the darkness and the emptiness of the lot, and quickly pulls on the sweater. Its fabric is a little thin for the temperature and it does smell like oranges. It fits just right.
Mingyu remembers how everything Wonwoo wore always was a size too large but now… Mingyu huffs, thumbing the soft fabric. Things change in agonisingly slow waters, but the memories flood fast and unpredictable.
When he turns around, he catches the flash of Wonwoo glimpsing away.
“Sorry!” Wonwoo yelps. “Sorry,” he repeats, groaning, and slaps his face into his hands, “that looked bad. I thought— but that doesn’t mean— I’m not a pervert. I didn’t see anything.”
“I know, Wonwoo. It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know, between the two us, it feels weird if I’m being the levelheaded one.”
“Shut up,” Wonwoo bites, his lip corners twitching.
They stare at another for a moment too long and Wonwoo looks down. He shifts his feet, scuffs his shoe. “Hey, do you want to go for a walk?”
It’s still early, the moon’s not even that high. The risk of Wonwoo being a serial killer is also not that high. Mingyu’s been in the woods alone with an interesting boy before, anyway.
“Lead the way.”
The night grows warmer with Wonwoo by his side. It’s silly, but it doesn’t make it any less true. They do some catching up and the things that are caught are the stifling standard: how was high school? The end of it, I mean. What are you studying now? How’s your mom, your parents, your sister, Soyeong, Soonyoung? I guess you got that friend in the end. A boyfriend, even!
(Mingyu doesn’t actually say the last one, lest something).
It strikes him on their second lap of the lake, how little time he and Wonwoo had. Not one year, barely half a year. How incredible a handful of months could be, the technicalities of his situation and the people around him have lightly shifted but it would be wrong to say little has changed. The magnitude felt correct in his heart rather than his mind.
They’re walking idly, their gazes fixed more to their shoes or the shimmering inky surface of the water. Wonwoo was always a slow, gentle presence to Mingyu. Solid and rooted but swaying with the winds, colouring with the seasons, he always seemed so sure of himself even when he was being jostled around the country.
And though it was Mingyu who had stayed, he’s somehow found himself back to Wonwoo anyway. Even if he’s always been taller, he’s still looking up at him.
No. Rather, it was incredible how one person could be. To recognise someone meant to know something fundamental about them, but to also know what had been changed. Wonwoo is older, more comfortable in his posture, he is a little nervous around Mingyu, however. Awkward, but appropriately this time.
“—both his knees. The teacher made me carry him to the nurse’s office and he told me to tell her he’d actually hit his head so he could nap instead.”
“And did you?”
“I pretended we’d hit our heads together. It was a great nap.”
Mingyu smiles. “I’m happy for you.”
Wonwoo shuffles a little, ears tinting red. “Soonyoung’s more trouble than he’s worth, so don’t tell him I said anything nice about him.”
Mingyu hums. He almost loses himself to his thoughts again and Wonwoo notices.
“Mingyu?”
He likes that Wonwoo doesn’t ask what’s wrong? Likes that Wonwoo doesn’t take silence for disturbance, is more patient than Mingyu deserves.
“I missed you.”
Mingyu has always been bad with patience. His face rapidly turns hot.
A brutally long silence stretches between them. Mingyu trains his attention to his shoes which he realises have stopped walking. Barren trees loom over, branches scratching the sky. There is only lake sound, traffic, and their breathing.
“Me too.”
Mingyu looks up, looks at Wonwoo.
The time they shared together wasn’t that long. But neither was their time apart. They’re standing close, closer than what they had started with and time and space seem so inconsequential then. Seem so much the same.
Mingyu wants to kiss him. He knows he can’t, there’s someone else for that now.
But it’s enough to dream it privately, to drink in Wonwoo’s sweet face, his rough lips, and his clear, bright eyes. They’re standing in a memory, in a moment. It’s both the proximity of their bodies and the déja vu that must also transport Wonwoo— Mingyu sees the colour of recollection soften his face— that warms Mingyu to his core. Watching that day return to them like a seabird, wings warmed by a Summer from across oceans.
As cold as it may be, Mingyu is adamant that Wonwoo see the woods in its snowy glory. Granted, it’s not that glorious yet. The snowfall has only been light but there’s a prettiness to it still. Glittering frost, rows of baby icicles, the hollow silence of trees asleep.
“I hate you.”
The sound of Wonwoo hating him.
“You’re dumb as rocks for becoming a pro ice skater.”
Wonwoo sneezes.
“I hate you so fucking much right now.”
Mingyu ribs him but gives him both his pocket warmers.
“Why did you bring me out here?”
“Because it’s pretty!”
“There’s nothing here. You’re dumb as rocks for thinking this is a nice place when it’s fucking dead.”
“You said you didn’t mind the cold.”
“The rink does not have perilous mountain winds and wet earth.”
Mingyu snorts, rolling his eyes.
“I’m showing you a nice time amidst beautiful, beautiful nature so I don’t appreciate your unreciprocating attitude.”
“The portable heater in my room is prettier than whatever’s here.”
Mingyu latches onto himself onto Wonwoo’s arm, shoving their faces close together. “Including me?” He grins toothily.
It’s quick, but Mingyu is too close to miss it. First, Wonwoo’s eyes drop down to his lips. Mingyu’s stomach gives out. Then, Wonwoo stumbles back but Mingyu’s still attached to him so they both trip and awkwardly fight for their footing. It leads to Wonwoo pushing Mingyu back, his breath a little jilted and his cheeks pink.
The joke is something Mingyu has made a million times with Seungcheol and Seokmin and never, ever has it landed like that.
“What the hell?” He tries to laugh, stuttering on the hot, white blizzard of his heartbeat, “What was that?”
Mouth clamped, Wonwoo swallows. He stares at Mingyu, unwavering.
“What was that?” Mingyu tries again, not trying to laugh anymore.
The intensity of Wonwoo’s gaze turns Mingyu nervous. It’s a plea, he realises. For him to know something without Wonwoo needing to say it. But that’s not how Mingyu works. He can’t do that sort of thing, silence will catapult his thoughts, splinter them into shrapnel. The truth might have already exploded in his face, but in all the panic, Mingyu doesn’t know which echo to listen to.
But he might—he’s not stupid.
He can guess. Not just from Wonwoo’s reaction, not just his pretty pink face and fearful-hopeful round eyes. It’s been the things Wonwoo has said, what Mingyu hasn’t said, what others have been saying. It’s the ice rink, the walks, the way their secret doesn’t actually need to be a secret, which has only made it so tantalising, so delicious. It’s how Mingyu had wanted Wonwoo here, to show him something he thought Wonwoo would like.
It scares Mingyu, to hear the ringing, painful silence beyond.
“I,” Wonwoo starts and stops. His breath is shallow like he’s just done a routine, white puffs of condensation from his lips.
“You don’t need to say it,” Mingyu says quickly, more himself. But one look of Wonwoo’s hurt expression and he regrets it.
“Okay,” Wonwoo’s voice doesn’t shake, “I think you already know. And it won’t matter for long, anyway.”
Mingyu is so afraid to speak that he doesn’t ask. Wonwoo inhales deeply, shakily.
“I don’t think you’d do this anyway, but… Just between us, yeah?”
They don’t talk about it.
Sometimes Mingyu looks up and Wonwoo’s glancing away. Sometimes Mingyu’s the one snapping his head down at the hint of eyes.
Their friends probably notice. Even when Mingyu finds himself wobbling back to Wonwoo, helplessly, there’s a marked change.
But they don’t talk about it.
“I’m leaving.”
“I’m moving back to the city, actually. We… I found a place near Soyeong and my old high school. I’ll be living on my own, but there’s paperwork for that and I turn 18 next year anyway and Soyeong’ll check on me. It’ll be a lot easier on the both of us, time-wise, and my mom will be relieved that me being here won’t hurt my training.”
“So, yeah. I’m transferring back. I wasn’t even gone for that long so my classmates will probably think I’m really weird for disappearing and coming back like this. But that’s fine. Uhm.”
“You know, I don’t… I mean, it’s kind of obvious. You’ve met me and stuff, I mean, but I don’t really have anyone like you. A friend, I mean. A close friend in my old school. It’ll be pretty weird going back to that. But I did miss a lot of training so, hah, I guess I need it.”
“I have a competition after the New Year’s, actually. Just a national thing, so you could come. If you want to. It’s pretty out of your way and New Years is about family so you can actually just pretend I never said that. Yeah. Uhm.”
“I thought I should tell you. I didn’t meant to do it so out of nowhere, but…Yeah. I’m leaving soon.”
Seungcheol calls him. Mingyu stares at the caller ID for a three rings before he schools himself to answer.
“Gyu!”
“H-hey!” Mingyu sits a little straighter from where he’s on the floor. His fingers roam for something to fiddle with and settles on the rolls of film scattered around him. “What’s up?”
“I feel like we haven’t seen you in ages, man.” A pause, “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Of course I am.”
There’s a huff on the other side.
“Alright, no, I get it. There’s so much shit we have to do at the moment, I keep losing track of everything because I think I forgot to screw my head on last week,” another pause, “and, like, the thing with Wonwoo, I heard.”
The roll in his hand clatters. “Y-yeah?”
“About that… I realised I shouldn’t have made things uncomfortable between all of us with the shit that I said. I mean, what we’ve all said, but especially me… I’m sorry. I was really stupid. I hope I didn’t realise too late, especially now that I’m not really able to talk to Wonwoo.”
“I can tell him,” Mingyu looks down, “And we were all pretty stupid. And young.”
“Yeah. Young, dumb and stupid. Still, you’re my friend first and foremost,” a sigh, “And I get that with everything, life and things, we can’t all be as close as we used to be and I, I don’t know, things have kind of felt different between the three of us. But I just wanted to tell you that, and that I’m still here for you. We were glue-eating buddies, after all!” There’s a strained, short laugh. “I’m sorry it took me a while. And for being a loser, not saying it face to face.”
Mingyu shakes his head, “It’s okay. I wasn’t the most sensitive person to Wonwoo, either. And we’re good, Cheol. We’re good.”
“I know for a fact that Seokmin will be at your door in a bit with the waterworks.”
Mingyu laughs, properly, as he envisions it perfectly.
Only on special occasions does Wonwoo drink alcohol. An athlete thing. A Soyeong’s deathly grip on his body’s performance thing. Therefore, Soonyoung informs Mingyu, Wonwoo’s a fantastic lightweight.
“Just two, you said,” Wonwoo stresses but he obediently holds his cup out as this Jeonghan person pours him another.
It’s someone’s birthday. Maybe Jeonghan’s? Mingyu can’t be sure and he doesn’t want to ask, not when he’s technically not supposed to be here. It was Soonyoung, who knows Wonwoo who knows Jeonghan, who is unofficially dominating the communal kitchen tonight, who invited him here.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Jeonghan sing songs. He grabs Wonwoo’s wrist and forces their cups to clink together.
“I’m under the influence.” Wonwoo gripes throatily.
“I have been told I’m very persuasive.”
“Amongst others."
“Erh…” Mingyu politely creeps into their conversation. He sends worried eyes over to Wonwoo’s loose, blurry form and knows that come morning, Wonwoo will be disappointed in himself. It concerns him even more that Wonwoo, who has been training almost manically, has allowed someone to crack his rigid responsibility.
“Spit it out,” Jeonghan smiles with dainty practice, “you have a problem.”
“Wonwoo, he shouldn’t push himself… or… he’ll lose his own self respect.”
Jeonghan pffts. Right in Mingyu’s face. Even Wonwoo huffs at him. Mingyu feels the need to tuck his tail and turn around.
“Wonwoo pretends he’s a machine. He doesn’t deserve self respect.”
“It’s cute you care, Gyu.” It seems to slip from Wonwoo’s tongue, who touches his lips, eyes rounding with surprise. Jeonghan has a very pretty smile.
Somewhere between the bodies and the minutes and the shuffling of their feet, Mingyu ends up standing beside Wonwoo. They’re together, leaning against the counter. Then, leaning against the doorframe, Wonwoo with one hand on the lip, the other tugging weather-appropriate boots on, and Mingyu notes the pale down on his peachy cheek with affection. Then they’re outside, gulping the thrillingly cold air, walking down the campus green and towards the park.
The place had become a default rendezvous point for them. The paths are cobbled and wide, perfect for walks at the end of mindless days, and mind-numbing revision sessions. The vending machines by the lake sells hot cans of coffee, cold cans of coke, and novelty canned bread that Wonwoo really shouldn’t eat. It’s also their go to spot for walking off a bit of buzz before Mingyu is steered by his sobriety companion back to bed, wind-chipped and warm.
For once, it’s Wonwoo’s turn. As he sobers, he crystallises, his jaw cutting the moonlight as he laughs, loudly, his apology.
“What for?” Mingyu asks.
“I don’t know. I’m embarrassed.”
“About?”
“You’re going to make me say it.”
“Say what?” Mingyu grins. He doesn’t expect Wonwoo to return his gaze, smiling up at him so warm and intimate. Mingyu feels woozy, both hot and cold with want and wanting someone who he cannot have.
“That it’s humiliating that I called my high school crush cute to his face?” Wonwoo asks.
Mingyu falters, his grin dropping like a stone. He straightens.
“Don’t,” he pleads.
“Why not?”
“I… I’m not like you,” he scuffs his shoe on the pavement. “It takes me longer to move on.”
Surprise rounds Wonwoo’s face but Mingyu pushes on, keeps them walking. But then Wonwoo grabs his elbow and tugs him into a gentle spin around to face him.
“Move on?”
Mingyu cringes.
“You have a boyfriend. I saw,” he sighs, “I’m glad. I was a wimp and you… You were… Wonwoo?”
He slows at the sight of Wonwoo with his hand slapped against his face. Puffs of his breath rise out from behind his palm and between his fingers as he mutters curses to himself. His ears, already pink, are swallowed with the colour now.
Taking his hand away, “we broke up,” Wonwoo clarifies, head high but expression pinched.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t like, a big deal. We weren’t together long and, and I wasn’t really in it and…” Suddenly, Wonwoo groans and slaps both hands over his eyes, scrubbing. “Mingyu, why did you bring that up!”
“I’m sorry!” Mingyu steps back, flailing, “I just saw you and you said that and now I don’t know what to say!”
“You made it messy!”
“Why is it messy! I didn’t ask you date another guy! And I didn’t ask you to break up, either.”
“Because… Ugh, you’re so stupid!”
Mingyu pouts. “I’m being really unfairly targeted here.”
“I’m trying to—” Wonwoo grits his teeth, “tell you something.”
Mingyu blinks. “What is it?”
Wonwoo glares at him and Mingyu knows that he’s trying to be murderous, but he’s so red-faced and shy and exactly like how Mingyu remembers him. He wants to die. Wonwoo broke up with his boyfriend. He wants to jump into the frozen lake and die.
“Nevermind,” Wonwoo whips his head to face forward and away, still grumbling. “What were you going to say?”
“Say what?”
“You said you were a wimp and then that I was something.”
“Huh, what? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mingyu flusters.
“Tell me.”
Mingyu sticks his nose into the air. “You ruined it. You made the moment too messy.”
“Mingyu!”
“You’re so dramatic!”
“You’re dramatic!”
“If you tell me what you were going to say, I’ll tell you what I was.”
“You first.”
“Fine,” Mingyu sniffs, “Since I’m really un-dramatic and really mature.”
“You’re arguing with an half-sober person in a park in the middle of the night.”
“And I’m telling the half-sober person that I thought they were the coolest person in my stupid town life and deserved a cool boyfriend!”
That makes Wonwoo stop. “You think I’m cool?”
Mingyu sniffs again, “Not anymore.”
“Do you think I still deserve a cool boyfriend?” Wonwoo asks, sly and slow like a pleased cat.
Now Wonwoo’s just rubbing it in. “Pfft,” Mingyu pffts, betraying the stutter of his heart, “you can do whatever you want.”
Wonwoo levels Mingyu with a purposeful stare. Mingyu listens attentively to it.
“Good. Since I don’t like cool guys.”
“What?”
“I said,” Wonwoo repeats, slow and deliberate, “I don’t like cool guys. I honestly like them a little wimpy.”
Without a word, Wonwoo closes the short distance between them with a step. He takes Mingyu’s hands out from his pockets and interlaces their fingers together, gripping Mingyu tight enough to stop him from quivering. Mingyu holds his breath. Wonwoo looks down, his short, dark eyelashes fanning out. Their palms are pink and clammy, the night blue and sweet. Mingyu wants to break. He wants his quivering body to fracture and fall into pieces, his happiness, his glowing, translucent, prismatic bliss too bright to hold inside.
“That’s a very specific and targeted…confession,” he murmurs, flushed.
He bumps his forehead against Wonwoo’s, copies the smile on his lips.
His answer rings out in the silence, silvery and clear.
Mingyu won’t be going to Wonwoo’s competition. What Wonwoo had said was true, it was during the New Years season and he had family coming over and holiday plans and cousins to suffer through, and getting to the city — explaining why he had to go to the city, what Wonwoo meant to him for him to hassle everyone so much for — it was too much.
Mingyu was a coward. He was afraid of seeing Wonwoo somewhere else, being someone else. In the months it would take for them to reunite, the Mingyu from a tiny, snowy town near the mountains would only be dwarfed by the space and time and giant city life.
He supposes that’s why, at the very least, he has to see Wonwoo off. Privately, so that his courage could stand taller.
Wonwoo only has one suitcase and one duffel bag packed. It’s the first time Mingyu has been over to Wonwoo’s room and though he never pictured his space as cluttered, glancing around from his spot on the rug, it’s even barer than he’d anticipated.
“My mom’s over at the nursing home,” Wonwoo explains the silence, handing Mingyu a mug of honeyed tea he’d retrieved from the kitchen.
“The cold weather isn’t doing too well for her,” he continues, shifting to his grandmother’s condition, at Mingyu’s concerned face.
The empty home. The even emptier bedroom. The sparse, vacant way Wonwoo talks about his family, his old school, his life. It betrays what Mingyu knows is within him. The the intense passion, his burning resilience, his calm kindling that has stoked for years in the loneliness. Wonwoo is so intrinsically warm it makes regret bubble into Mingyu’s throat.
“Will she be back soon, to see you off?”
Wonwoo nods.
“Good luck,” Mingyu manages to say. He clears his throat, “for the competition. You’ll…You’re incredible and I believe you’ll do your best.”
He edges closer, sets his untouched tea down on the dresser.
“I mean it,” he continues, “you’ll do great. For a city boy.”
“Thanks, Gyu.”
“I got you something. It’s kind of rushed since it was so last minute.”
Mingyu sees Wonwoo wince as he fumbles for his backpack. He takes out the small, cardboard box, a single, thin blue ribbon adorning it. When Wonwoo takes it, Mingyu watches the soft curiosity on his face, his hands lifting it gently at the lightness, his glance of permission over at him. Mingyu nods.
Wonwoo undoes the ribbon, tucking it between his fingers as he pries the lid off.
They’re photos. Snapshots of their town, the woods, the rink, of an unaware Wonwoo, of secret Mingyus, of them together goofing off in photography class. Their shoes, looking down on the autumn dappled forest floor. The fox kits.
Mingyu watches Wonwoo’s face crumble. But, after a beat of panic, he realises it is in sweetness. A warm, buttery, sugary crumble as Wonwoo smiles at him, tiny, with his brows creased in a minuscule frown.
“It’s wonderful,” he says. Mingyu wants to melt into the floor.
“It’s nothing,” he says quickly.
Wonwoo looks down at his hands, cupping the photos. “I’ll miss you.”
Mingyu makes a small noise. The frown on Wonwoo’s face deepens and he groans.
“This is embarrassing. I hate this. But, Mingyu, you made my time here worth it. I wasn’t looking forward to having everything uprooted, even temporarily, but now I sort of don’t even want to go.”
Wonwoo’s face is red now, his laugh watery.
“I know that I… You might… have an idea of me. If you know what I mean. And I’m glad that you didn’t shut me out.” He takes in a breath, “If that doesn’t make sense, just pretend I didn’t say anything.”
“I know.”
Wonwoo breathes out.
“Me too,” Mingyu blurts. A hot, familiar fear bubbles up in his chest and he fights it down, “I wouldn’t shut you out. Because me too. It’s—it’s weird and unfamiliar and I was kind of an asshole but… I did a lot of thinking, and me too. I’m sorry it took me a while to let you know.”
He doesn’t realise his hands are trembling until Wonwoo’s placing a hand atop of his. Normally, Wonwoo’s touch is shockingly cold but Mingyu dissolves, his fingers spilling outwards to meet his fingers, his palm to Wonwoo’s.
Neither of them know what to say. There’re a hundred headlines plastering Mingyu’s mind but none of them fit. What could Mingyu say that could distill how much Wonwoo has coloured his every day? What order of tongue tips to teeth to palate, lilts and tones, melodic lips can make sense of what he feels? The confines of a sentence, of his poor and awkward vocabulary wouldn’t be enough to tell Wonwoo how happy he is that they ran into another, all the ways they’ve collided until the grooves of their lives began to fit together.
Maybe that’s why, with nothing to say, he leans close. The air between them is whisper thin and sun bright. When Wonwoo tilts his pretty head, Mingyu closes his eyes.
The farewell of it slips between the seams of their lips. It’s why Mingyu holds Wonwoo close, so that the memory of this moment will follow.
Even on the television, Wonwoo is stunning.
Mingyu wishes he was there. The emotion comes to him so strong, so powerful and out of the blue that it compresses his lungs tight against his spine. He has missed so many. Wonwoo’s first competitions, his first medals, his first records, and then his seconds and thirds and so on. It’s so trivial and impossible to regret such things but Wonwoo makes Mingyu want the trivial and the impossible.
Wonwoo picks up his momentum, leg swinging out, and he’s taking off into a triple axel, landing in a cool, cutting swerve. The commentators appraise.
Mingyu recognises this routine. He has seen it many times after school and before school, Wonwoo puffing angrily or triumphantly his reddened cheeks at the end of the song, which now plays on stadium speakers rather than his dingy handheld one.
Mingyu wishes he was there.
The crowd pulsates. Wonwoo’s cream shirt billows, his sleeves taper into slim cuffs and narrow down into his waist, the satiny fabric rippling as he glides past the stands. Against the dark movement of the audience he’s a lone ship, sails against the windy waters, parting onwards through the ice.
Even on the television, Wonwoo’s smile cannot be dimmed.
The powder of his makeup subdues the colour of his cheeks but Mingyu grins at his red ears, peaking out through his ruffled black hair. Wonwoo, in his glittering navy, circles the rink, waving to the cheering crowds, a pleased shyness even now, years later, as he bows, laughing when he spots himself on the screens.
There are flowers in his hands, there are flowers on the ice, raining alongside his name.
Wonwoo is hugging Soyeong, their words uncaught as she squeezes his cheeks. They sit, tense, in the kiss and cry area, waiting for those numbers.
When Wonwoo tugs his jacket sleeves over his fingers, a sharp wish hits Mingyu. To be there for all of them. No bad planning, no unforeseen schedules and stupid leases and rental vehicles, not even Wonwoo’s eye roll and it’s just for qualifying, you drama queen.
So Mingyu will be there. What parts of reality that he can bend, he will take by his fingers and fold their two corners to meet one another in whatever future awaits them.
Mingyu has made an impressive dent in unpacking when the front door unlocks. At the sound, he scampers over, catching the familiar huffs and shuffle of luggage before the door manages to swing open.
“Mingyu!” Wonwoo yelps, teetering backwards as he’s enveloped completely.
Somewhere behind them, Wonwoo’s suitcase topples over, his duffle dropping onto the carpet. There’s a few stern slaps on Mingyu’s shoulder.
“Put me down, oh my God!” Wonwoo hisses.
“I missed you,” Mingyu says, settling him that important inch back down. He remains hovering as Wonwoo picks up his bags only for Mingyu to snatch them immediately, ignoring Wonwoo’s amused chuckle as he leads them into their bare little apartment.
“I’ve already set up the bed,” Mingyu plops the bags into a corner, returning to Wonwoo to drop a kiss to the crown of his head. He’s a mess, the scent of hotel bed sheets, taxi cabs, and weariness lingering on his clothes.
Humming, Wonwoo leans tiredly into his touch. “Did you take out the kettle too?”
“You want your usual?”
“No, I can make it.”
Mingyu takes Wonwoo’s cheeks into his hands, squeezing gentle as he presses a kiss now to his lips. Sighing into it, Wonwoo brings his own hands up to cover Mingyu’s.
“Go wash up,” parting, Mingyu murmurs into the soft, night-cold skin beside Wonwoo’s mouth, “I’ll do it.”
A sweet sound escapes Wonwoo’s lips when Mingyu pulls away and Mingyu can’t help but press another kiss to his cheek at the sight of Wonwoo’s exhausted features, eyes drooping shut and hair a fluffed ordeal. Refusing to separate just yet, Wonwoo leans into his chest, resting his entire weight as he slides his chin onto his shoulder.
“I missed you too,” Wonwoo breathes into the side of his neck.
Mingyu holds him close, the warmth of their bodies soothing the emptiness of the room.
“Welcome home.”