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1.
Sunghoon’s the moon. In many aspects, people have always told him he resembles the moon. But in his first lifetime, he is the moon. He creates powerful tides in the ocean, rattles them into crashing, soaring waves. A constant force, steady, straightforward. He passes through the Earth every night, gives it light —but the moon only shines because it reflects the sun’s light.
Sunoo’s the sun. His natural opposite. Brings warmth to the Earth, always sensible, compassionate. Unabashed light, a blinding brightness. The only star in the Earth’s solar system, the centre of it, his gravity holding everything together. It’s a heavy weight for such young shoulders, Sunghoon thinks.
The sun and the moon fall in love, every time they are born this way. It’s inevitable, unavoidable. But their love can never be, it’s been written in the stars since the beginning of time. Star crossed lovers, at least in this few lifetimes.
So the moon chases after the sun, reigning the night, hides when it shows up, always distant but following it. Sunghoon is the moon. Sunoo is the sun. It’s his first lifetime chasing Sunoo, and it won’t be his last.
2.
A love that goes beyond time itself. Pieces of lifetimes, a never ending cycle of memories that Sunghoon lives at the end of every life, memories he never gets to keep. At least Sunoo is in every single one of them.
In each life, each memory, it’s Sunghoon’s soul but not Sunghoon himself. So many things, so many of Sunoo’s smiles, his bright eyes, his tender hands, carefully placing flower crowns on Sunghoon’s hair, the soft skin of his body, moles making a treasure map out of him.
Memories flashing by at the end of his life, like cosmis melodies played on an old, rusty piano. Colours swirl on his vision, a mess of blues and greens and reds and yellows, and the light flashes in his eyes again. And just like that, he’s back again, another life, another time, another story.
156.
With a rollercoaster of a life, Sunghoon has learnt to appreciate the quiet nights and even more the quiet afternoons, lazy moments of peace, the sun hiding on the horizon, casting hues of orange and red all over their bedroom and the warm air.
But in that rare yet welcomed calmness, a sense of something else invades Sunghoon. With Sunoo’s body draped over him and his heart hammering against his chest, he closes his eyes and takes three deep breaths.
“I loved you before,” Sunghoon whispers, his lips pressed against Sunoo’s forehead. His voice sounds hoarse, a truth he doesn’t understand dripping like honey, sticking to the roof of his mouth, to the back of his throat.
“Before?” the younger asks, his voice barely above a whisper, trying to keep the stillness of the room intact for now.
“Before I was born,” he answers, eyes still closed. Sleep catches up to him, wraps its vicious arms around his mind, starts to drag him into the darkness.
Sunoo’s giggles resonate inside his head, but it sounds distant. “That makes no sense.”
“I know, but it’s the truth,” he says, and drifts somewhere far away.
Sunghoon dreams of a field full of dandelions… or sunflowers.
19.
Sunghoon’s hands are shaking, and there’s that characteristic buzzing in his ears, the fast beating of his heart, the blood pumping through his body. His coach’s hands feel too heavy on his shoulders.
Sunghoon’s hands are shaking and cold, and the suit he’s wearing is too tight, too suffocating, plastic rhinestones digging into his skin. The slight makeup he’s wearing feels ten times worse under the fluorescent lights, as if it was melting away from his face. The grip on his towel is weak and the water bottle he’s holding is sliding past his fingers, condensation working like a lube.
Sunghoon’s hands are shaking and cold and covered in sweat, and in the back of his head, he gets the memory of sift, warm hands grasping his, holding them for minutes, a voice calling his name.
The announcer at the rink echoes it, introducing him to the audience now, voice loud through the speakers, and Sunghoon turns around, but there’s no one behind him. No soft hands on his, no bright smile or calming words. Sunghoon’s alone.
Shaking his head, he smiles at his family, at his coach, at the fans holding up signs in the bleachers, screaming his name. Sunghoon smiles at them and at himself at the same time, his own voice echoing inside the empty caverns of his head: let’s go, Sunghoon, you’ve got this , again and again and again, as he makes his way to the centre of the ice.
When the first notes of his program start filling the air, he shuts everything else down. Moving his arm at first to the side, following carefully every step of his over rehearsed routine, muscle memory predicting his next move. Jump after jump —triple salchow, double lutz, triple axel— sometimes combined, step sequences in between. The music gets louder nearing the end, and the cheers of the people in the rink come back to Sunghoon’s ears in the last few spins.
And then he stops, and with him the whole world. Silence again, followed by that same sweet voice calling his name. His mouth fills with the taste of citrus; lemons, tangerine, oranges, the flavours of fruits he hasn’t eaten in days blooming. Then, a flash of dark, fox-like eyes, the echo of laughter, and the memory of a life he hasn’t lived yet.
Sunghoon blinks and the world moves again, roaring around him as he tries to catch his breath. A shower of flowers and gifts falling around him, a few other people skating around him. Sunghoon smiles, the usual smirk as he bows to the bleachers and he laughs, but he’s not happy. The taste of citrus has disappeared from his mouth, and with it the memories.
Sunghoon doesn’t remember the kiss and cry, doesn’t remember the hug his coach gives him or how many points he scored with that killer routine.
He wins, the competition passing by him in a whirl, a big blur of triple axels and twists and the ice beneath his feet, his skates slicing through it with barely any difficulty, and he wins. He’s a champion now.
Sunghoon stands at the podium, clutching the flowers with a hand, biting his golden medal and posing for pictures with the rest of the competitors. Sunghoon is an olympic medallist, Sunghoon is a champion, Sunghoon is his country’s pride.
Sunghoon’s standing at the top of the world, but his hands are shaking and cold and covered in sweat, and he’s all alone.
705.
The 1970’s are tough times for everyone. College student Park Sunghoon included.
Joining the school’s newspaper isn’t a choice per se, rather he’s got a camera, knows how to use it and the head professor promised to pay him at least something for his services. In these trying times, where money isn’t easy to come by, taking a few shots here and there around campus doesn’t sound too bad.
Sunghoon heard about the protest before the chief editor Jaeyun told him about it. There’s posters in every wall of his department and flyers handed to students as soon as they leave any classroom —the ones Sunghoon received with a polite smile remain forgotten at the bottom of his backpack.
But he didn’t think much of it. Sunghoon isn’t much of an activist, the most political thing he’s involved in is the newspaper. Change is good, and necessary too, especially with the conflicts and riots surfacing day after day in many countries, but he doesn’t consider himself an active part of it.
Which is why he never thought about going to the protest in the first place, but when Jaeyun tells him about the article they have to write and everything, Sunghoon realises he doesn’t have much of a choice.
Jongseong chuckles as they walk back home. “You obviously don’t have a choice,” he says, the tone in his voice already annoying Sunghoon. “It’s your job .”
He rolls his eyes and groans. “I know.”
“Besides, it might be good for you,” his best friend continues.
Sunghoon turns to look at him with an raised eyebrow when Jongseong doesn’t say anything else, but the other only shrugs, smiling as he starts talking about something his professor said in class.
—
Sunghoon angles the camera towards the sky, the dark clouds full of water, ready to go down on his head at any second, to wash away any possible thing. Sunghoon is supposed to be taking pictures of the protest, not the sky.
The streets are plagued with people, buzzing with the static sound of life, voices roaring, singing songs, chanting rehearsed mantras. Loud footsteps on the pavement, cars honking in the distance. People hanging out on their balconies, sticking their heads out of the windows of the houses, trained eyes on the swarm of people navigating the streets. Sunghoon looks like one of them; a simple passerby, stopping just to stare in awe at this large movement.
Every person he sees is equal but different at the same time, in sintony and in sync with the rest of these strangers. It feels as if he’s at the centre of life itself, waves of something crashing through him.
Just as he comes back to his senses, eyes still scanning the moving crowd, he sees him . Blonde locks of hair pulled back, the last syllables of a song falling off his open mouth, a cardboard sign clutched between his hands.
Sunghoon angles the camera towards the boy’s face, as he smiles. Under the dark sky, he looks beautiful, breathtaking. And then, he’s looking at Sunghoon, sharp, fox-like brown eyes fixed on him, on the camera pointed at his face, covering Sunghoon’s face.
He lowers it slowly, letting the boy see his face, trying to keep his expression as blank and emotionless as possible. Sunghoon thinks he fails at hiding the storm of emotions climbing through his throat; that sense of roaring calmness, awareness of himself and this place while his mind travels back in time for a fragment of a second, that insane sense of familiarity, of knowing this boy and his tender smile.
The blond smiles at him, wide, bright, happy, nodding at him as if he was silently thanking him.
The picture is the most beautiful thing Sunghoon has ever taken.
78.
“I have a new friend!” Jongseong screams, bouncing up and down in excitement. Six years old Sunghoon winces. His twin brother tends to be as loud as possible at any given opportunity, unlike him.
“Oh, really?” their mother asks, that soft smile on her face as she looks down at Jongseong, patting his head when he sits on his chair.
“Yes, his name is Kim Sunoo and he lives nearby,” Jongseong tells them, between spoonfuls of soup. Sunghoon scrunches his nose when a half chewed piece of meat lands on the table. “He’s so cool!”
Mrs. Park’s smile grows, eyes turned into half crescent moons. Sunghoon thinks she looks like his nana for a second.
“You can invite him over to play whenever you want,” she says, softly.
Sunghoon has never heard of a Kim Sunoo who’s cool and lives nearby, so maybe he doesn’t go to the same school as they do. Or maybe he’s much younger. Whoever this Kim Sunoo is, Sunghoon doesn’t know him, so how cool can he be? He hangs out with all the cool kids, Heeseung hyung, Beomgyu hyung, Jaeyunie, Kai, Taehyunie. Jongseong, on the other hand, while he does like all of them, tends to hang out with the younger, less cooler kids.
Kim Sunoo. Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows and grunts before returning to his own dinner. The veggies must be too soggy by now, yuck . Who cares about Jongseong’s new friend anyways? He’s probably just like any other kid.
Kim Sunoo stays on Sunghoon’s head for the rest of the night, a familiarity at the tip of his tongue that young Sunghoon cannot comprehend.
510.
Sunghoon is in a giant field full of dandelions… or sunflowers? He isn’t sure. Blinking a couple of times, he tries to adjust his eyes to the brightness of the midday sun.
There’s a boy standing in the middle of the place. His face is turned away from Sunghoon, his back towards him, but there’s a familiarity he can’t deny. His hair is golden, shining under the sunlight, the soft strands being caressed by the wind.
The way this scene makes Sunghoon feel is indescribable.
When the boy turns around, sharp eyes focused on Sunghoon, a chill runs down his spine.
Sunghoon has been here before, has seen this boy made out of sun and flowers and soft wind, has lived this before. The memory of it isn’t written inside his brain, rather it’s settled in his bones.
Sunoo looks as beautiful as always under the light of the scorching sun.
85.
This time, Sunghoon is 84 years old when he dies. Old and wrinkly, his memory a bit hazy by now, but having lived the best life he could, filled with love and friends and family, a haul of good memories that his soul will treasure for the rest of eternity.
He takes one last breath and then his lungs deflate and his heart simply stops pumping blood to his organs, and oxygen doesn’t reach his brain anymore. Sunghoon dies in his sleep, and the last thing he dreams about is Sunoo’s soft hands in his, and how hard it is to leave him behind, all alone in this cruel, cold world.
It’s fine, though. They still have a few thousand more lives together.
42.
Sunghoon meets Kim Sunoo on the first afternoon of spring of his junior year of college. He wonders this whole life after that if spring brought Sunoo to him, or if Sunoo brought the spring himself. It doesn’t matter, it’s not really important in the end. Point is, Sunghoon meets Sunoo on an afternoon like any other.
It goes like this:
Sunghoon has been waiting for Heeseung outside of his building for at least thirty minutes now and his patience is running thin. He’s hungry and tired and annoyed, and the fucking wind is starting to mess his perfectly styled hair.
It’s the first afternoon of spring but there are some heavy, dark clouds looming over the city and Sunghoon is scared that they’ll move his way faster than he predicts. If the rain starts pouring and he finds himself underneath a rather skinny looking tree, still waiting for Heeseung, he might kill his roommate.
Sunghoon checks his phone for the third time in the last five minutes, but there’s still no sign of the older boy. He groans as he punches in another vaguely threatening text before locking the device and shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.
When Sunghoon raises his head again, he notices someone crouching down right in front of him. There’s some guy simply staring at a trail of ants by the side of the stone path, the wind playing with the black strands of his hair.
For some strange, universal reason, Sunghoon’s curiosity is piqued. He doesn’t know what it is but there’s just something about the boy and his clear interest in small insects. Sunghoon watches with careful eyes as the stranger places a crumb right next to the trail, a smile appearing on his face when some ants move directly into it.
Then, the boy stands up abruptly. It startles Sunghoon, snaps his attention away from the ants having their feast and directly into him.
Their eyes meet and a cold chill runs down Sunghoon’s spine, even though the weather is uncharacteristically hot today. Their eyes meet and it feels like they are two magnets, pulling closer to each other, like there is a tied string between them, tugging them closer and closer.
And suddenly, they are standing face to face, the stranger’s eyes blinking up at him in confusion. Sunghoon doesn’t know when or why he started moving towards him.
“Hi,” he says.
The boy gives him a shy smile. “Hello.”
Sunghoon fidgets with his fingers, unsure of what to say or do. “How are you?”
Suddenly, there’s a hand stretched out to him, and the other is saying, “Kim Sunoo.” He chuckles loudly and Sunghoon smiles too, shaking his hand. Kim Sunoo’s skin is soft against his own calloused and rough, sweaty hand.
“Sorry,” the other says, smiling still. “I thought you were going to introduce yourself.”
This is the first time Park Sunghoon has ever seen Kim Sunoo, and yet, it doesn’t feel that way. The voice at the back of his head tells him that this moment, this fragment of time is rather important, that Sunghoon should paint this inside his mind and never forget about it.
But there’s no way this is new, he thinks. There’s no way Sunghoon hasn’t seen those eyes before.
43.
Sunghoon stands on the boulevard, the wet grass underneath his fancy dress shoes, and with his neck craned upwards he stares at the cherry blossoms. The petals have started to fall all around him, coats of pink covering the floor. It reminds him of the snow.
That usual hollow feeling creeps inside of him, and Sunghoon doesn’t know how to push it away anymore. His whole chest feels like an empty cavern, the beat of his lonely heart echoing against the walls.
He stands there in that boulevard, his bike thrown into the ground, the dirt staining the tip of his shoe, and Sunghoon can only feel guilt because his mother had spent hours of her time making sure that they were shiny clean before the funeral. The tears that follow come silently. The world, tender for the first time in his whole life, goes completely quiet too, allows Sunghoon to cry in peace just this once.
Then, footsteps echoing loudly. Someone walking towards him, the wind raging into a small tornado, twisting the fallen cherry blossom petals around him. The air smells like spring, saccharine sweet and rough, dizzying. The person stops right beside him, but Sunghoon refuses to open his eyes. There’s no use, all he’s going to find if he looks will be an empty spot, mirroring the emptiness in his chest.
But Sunghoon is only human, and, like any other human, he too has bitter hope blooming in his stomach. He snaps his eyes open, hot tears streaming down his face as he scans the place. Like a flower in winter time, his hope too withers away. Sunghoon is standing alone on that boulevard, and he’s late.
He shakes his head, dries his tears with the back of his hands, sniffling as he picks up his bike and rides away, the cherry blossom petals chasing after him down the street. Sunghoon can’t be late for Sunoo’s funeral.
23.
Like all cursed things, sometimes, Sunghoon remembers. The dreams are too vivid and his lives flash in front of him way long before this life is over.
These are the lives that hurt the most. Sunghoon has every memory sliding through his whole body, like a worm crawling under his skin. He battles them with bared teeth and pointy claws, drowns the edges of fuzzy scenes he’s never lived before, screams into his pillow until the voices of people he’s never met finally shut up.
Sunghoon dreams of tender smiles and the warmth of a body pressed against his side, an arm wrapped around his waist, soft kisses on his cheek and a smile bright enough to leave him blind.
These are the lives that hurt the most. Sunghoon has every memory of Sunoo in the front part of his head. He spends days and nights searching for him through crowds of protesters and activists, a camera clutched in his hands. He asks Jongseong if he’s ever met a Kim Sunoo who’s cool and lives nearby, and tries to swallow his disappointment when the other shakes his head. Sunghoon wastes hours by the beach staring at the sun, as if it would ever tell him anything about Sunoo. Visiting ice rinks and standing amongst a sea of fans at concert venues, just to get a glimpse of something , anything that might seem related to that smile.
Like all cursed things, sometimes, Sunghoon remembers, and these are the lives that hurt the most. Coincidentally, in all of those, Sunghoon and Sunoo never meet.
11.
The dream goes like this:
Sunghoon wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, the rain thudding against his window. The wallpaper is a light yellow colour with a golden flowery pattern on it, the ceiling is plain white. The bed is warm and comfortable and he’s sprawled all over, the sheets —the whole room, actually, smells like vanilla.
( Sunoo smells like vanilla sometimes.)
There’s nothing wrong with this room, but it’s not his, it’s not a place he knows. A weird, unsettling feeling creeps over his chest as soon as he wakes up. It only grows when he sees a pair of skates near the end of his bed and a competition suit he has never seen before, sparkles and shiny rhinestones sewed onto it, draped on the chair by the door.
Sunghoon grabs his phone from where it’s charging on the nightstand next to him, and his heart falls to his stomach when he realises that the picture of him hugging Sunoo, the younger’s bright smile isn’t there. Instead, there’s a picture of a night sky, stars shining brightly. His anxiety grows inside of his stomach, and a notification pops up.
Coach Lee
training in 10
don’t get lost
He takes one more look around his room, before he decides to open the maps app. Apparently, he’s in Beijing right now, in some fancy hotel. Judging by the date, the events on his calendar, the skates and the suit, it’s for the Olympics. The dream feels so real yet Sunghoon can’t bring himself to be happy about it. The ominous feeling in his chest, his anxiety, it seems more like a nightmare than a dream.
Sunoo, Sunoo, Sunoo. It’s all he can think about. Where is Sunoo?
How is it that Sunghoon is in Beijing now, when just yesterday night, a few hours ago, he fell asleep in his bed, in his room, in Seoul, holding Sunoo close to him. Where is Sunoo?
In this weird universe he woke up in, it takes Sunghoon exactly seven minutes to find him. Kim Sunoo’s Facebook profile is full of pictures of food, landscapes, his friends, and photos of a classroom full of paper flowers, tiny desks and tiny chairs and smiling kids. Kim Sunoo —this Kim Sunoo, from this alternative universe, that looks exactly like Sunghoon’s Sunoo— is a kindergarten teacher.
And him —the Sunghoon in this universe— is a skater. Childish dreams of greatness set into stone after long and tiring hours of practice, many championships won, gold, silver and bronze medals hanging from his neck at different ice rinks. There are pictures on his phone with great skaters and some that he still doesn’t know about, landscaped and cities he doesn’t remember visiting but not a single sign of knowing the Sunoo of this universe.
A bittersweet flavour sits on the roof of his mouth and Sunghoon shuts his eyes, hides under the duvet, lets the scent of vanilla fill his senses until he’s drowning on it. If this is some wicked dream, then he can always wake up.
Sunghoon keeps his eyes closed until he starts drifting off to sleep again. He thinks of Sunoo and his tender smile, and the way he curls into Sunghoon’s body when he’s asleep. He imagines the way it would be, if he was there with him in that massive hotel bed and a tiny smile appears as he thinks of Sunoo’s whiny complaints about the pillows or some other thing.
And then, darkness. Sleep drags him away, lets all thoughts slip away from his mind.
When the Sunghoon of this universe wakes up again —exactly fifteen minutes later and late for his first practice— he can’t remember anything. The Sunghoon of this universe doesn’t know Kim Sunoo. Yet.
36.
“We are not going to be in love,” Sunoo says, the words easily escaping past his parted lips. A smile stretches into his face. “But I’d like it if we were.”
Sunghoon can picture it. Holding Sunoo’s hands as they walk down the street, the younger’s easy smile, the annoyance in his face whenever Sunghoon teases him. Easy sunday afternoons and lazy monday mornings, the taste of warm coffee and burnt pancakes, sugary whipped cream and syrup, strawberries and lemon curd.
The winter air hits against his cheeks and Sunoo chuckles at his stoic expression. He tiptoes and plants a kiss on Sunghoon’s cheek, then slides his index fingers between his eyebrows, easing the creases there.
“Don’t think about it too hard,” Sunoo says, with that same easiness in his voice. He’s calm and careful, silent as he presses another kiss on his cheek.
The clock on Sunghoon’s pocket watch strikes 11 and it's time to go, like Cinderella running off at midnight. But Sunghoon’s no prince, he’s just a paperboy, and Sunoo won’t leave anything behind, except for a fleeting kiss.
The younger tries to hide his pained expression, how disappointed he feels as they exchange quick goodbyes and promises of meeting each other again, in the same place, at the same hour, for at least one moment of freedom.
Sunghoon stands under the shadows, silently watching as Sunoo walks away, the streetlights guiding his path. He stands there and thinks about the ache in his chest, the loud beating of his heart, clutching the strap of his satchel.
The taste of forbidden love doesn’t sit right in his mouth.
459.
Sunghoon is in a giant field of sunflowers. He’s thinking about dandelions for some reason. The sun is high up in the sky, and it doesn’t show him any mercy, tanning his pale skin, the midday heat dragging sweat beads out of him.
Sunoo is standing a few metres away from him, his back facing Sunghoon, the wind caressing his black hair. He tries to run towards him, but with every step Sunghoon feels more and more tired and Sunoo’s back seems now unreachable. It’s like the more he runs, the closer he gets, the further they are.
Dropping his hands on his knees and with his head hanging low, Sunghoon tries to catch his breath, heavy puffs of humid, hot air escaping past his lips. When he straightens back up, Sunoo is staring at him.
He smiles —that same happy smile that Sunghoon has seen a thousand times before stretching over his face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Sunoo is smiling at him but he looks miserable, hurt, in pain. The emotion strikes through Sunghoon like a lighting bolt, guilt mixing with something darker in his mouth, a concoction that tastes like poison, bitter and deathly on his tongue.
“You have to wake up,” the Sunoo of the dream says, but he’s no longer smiling.
The dream grows darker by the second, as if the sun had suddenly disappeared. Sunghoon can smell something burning, like leaves or a tree. He blinks —once, twice— and the Sunoo of the dream keeps getting further and further away, the dandelions —sunflowers?— around him set on fire, the whole field looks now like something taken out of hell, tall, orange flames burning everything around them.
Sunghoon stands there, helplessly watching as the only world he knows burns to the ground, as Sunoo hurries away from his grasp even though the younger isn’t moving at all. The dream turns into a nightmare and Sunghoon is burning with the rest of the flowers, but he doesn’t scream, no matter how much it hurts.
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and then, he wakes up.
Sunghoon is alone in his loft in downtown London. The clock by the nightstand beeps, the number 5 blinking back at him in bright, neon green lights.
He stares at the ceiling, as he tries to remember what he was dreaming about. His whole body feels warm, hot , and in pain, a dull ache in every muscle, in every bone. Sunghoon thinks it might’ve been a nightmare.
After taking three deep breaths, he sits up on the bed and shuts off his alarm, the last beep beep still ringing inside his head. Sunghoon scans the rest of the apartment, the tall ceilings and open windows, the kitchen counter and the withering plants by the couch, that sunflower painting that Jongseong gave him as a housewarming gift, even though Sunghoon personally hates those flowers. Now, they seem to stare back at him from the other side of the room, mocking him in his loneliness.
The usual dull emptiness in his chest feels ten times worse today for some reason, the last bits of a fuzzy dream that slips away from his memory before he can make any sense of it.
Sunghoon is making his way into the bathroom when the doorbell rings. He frowns, not expecting anyone at five in the morning, and throws a shirt on before heading straight to his door.
The man on the other side is beautiful a mess, flour smeared on his cheek, a baby blue apron hanging from his neck and tied around his small waist, and what looks like cake batter on his hair. Sunghoon blinks at him, unsure of what to say.
“Hey,” the other says, smiling politely at him. “Did I wake you?”
He swallows. “No, I— I was awake,” Sunghoon manages to say. He frowns. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
The man jumps a bit, eyes wide open. “Right, I’m your neighbour.” He stretches out his hand towards Sunghoon, before glancing at the batter on it. His neighbour grimaces, cleaning his palm on the apron, then extends it back at him. “Sunoo Kim.”
“Sunghoon Park,” he says, shaking the other’s hand.
When they let go, Sunoo says, “Do you have any sugar I can borrow?”
To be honest, Sunghoon doesn’t want to know the details as to why Sunoo is baking at five in the morning on a monday. But he listens to the other’s rambling nonetheless, while he looks for the sugar.
His sister is having a last minute baby shower and Sunoo, who has been taking a cooking class for the last month, promised to take something homemade as a gift. Catch is: Sunoo isn’t good at baking, no matter how many classes he takes.
Sunghoon chuckles when the other says that with an annoyed huff and hands him the last package of sugar he has. Sunoo seems relieved now that he finally has the needed ingredient.
“Thank you so much,” he says when they are back at the door. “I promise you I’ll pay it back.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Sunghoon answers smiling.
Sunoo mirrors it and turns on his heels heading straight into his apartment on the other side of the hallway. Right before Sunghoon shuts the door, the other man shouts “See ya, neighbour!” way too loudly for 5 a.m.
The apartment feels a lot less empty while Sunoo is there, and a lot less cold even after he leaves. Sunghoon doesn’t understand it quite well because he’s back to being alone, but Sunoo seems to leave a trail of warmth right after him, just like the sun rays warm up the couch in the summer afternoons.
The hole in Sunghoon’s chest also feels a lot less heavy too, and he finds himself grinning at the sunflowers painting on his living room like an idiot.
65.
The storm rages outside of the cabin, the trees dancing with it, the wind howling like a wolf. The fire crackles by the chimney, the warmth of it slowly spreading through the whole living room. But the house doesn’t reek of smoke or burning wood, instead the soft scent of freshly made hot chocolate slides through the atmosphere, a cup with floating marshmallows clutched in Sunghoon’s tight grasp.
He’s staring at Sunoo, the casted shadows on his face, the reflection of the angry red flames dancing in his eyes, curled strands of dark hair falling over his eyes. Sunghoon feels at ease here, in this closed off world they —and the rain— have created, and he’s with the person he loves most in the whole world. Sunoo looks adorable under the giant blanket, flushed cheeks and long eyelashes.
“I’ve loved you before,” Sunghoon whispers into the room.
“Before?” he asks, a soft smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Or after this,” he continues, unsure of what he’s saying. “Or more like, I’m loving you at all times.”
Sunoo chuckles after taking a sip from his hot chocolate. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he tells him. “What are you trying to say?”
Sunghoon tries to swallow the lump on his throat. He doesn’t know what it means either, but he knows it’s one of those fundamental truths of the universe, a cosmic meaning that none of them understand just yet.
97.
And when the lights turn off, Sunghoon is left standing alone, the loud cheering of his fans resonating in his ear, vibrating through his whole body. The staff calls his name and everything starts moving, blurry shadows passing by him, coming, going, changing.
But Sunghoon stands there in the middle of the dark stage, the microphone still clutched in his hand, pearls of sweat on his face, his carefully styled hair intact even after five routines.
“Sunghoon,” a voice echoes near him, the sound bouncing inside his skull, amplified by the sudden emptiness of his thoughts.
He doesn’t move, can’t bring himself to do anything but try to catch his breath. A shadow shapes in front of him —his vision is still blurry— the soft edges of someone’s silhouette, the bare light coming through the closed curtains of the theatre forming a halo around them.
“Hey,” the voice calls him again, closer now, and the person in front of him stretches out their hand to pat his shoulder. “Sunghoon?”
Sunghoon blinks —once, twice, thrice— and the world comes back to him, colours and shapes defining themselves as he returns to a state of semi consciousness.
Sunoo, his manager, is there, his soft hand still pressed on his shoulder, the skin underneath the touch burning like a wildfire. Sunghoon doesn’t understand why, but it feels as if he’s seeing him for the first time, even after three years of working together. Sunoo’s reassuring smile seems new , defined, insanely tender, the happiness oozing out of him in waves.
“That was a good show,” the younger says, apparently unaware of Sunghoon’s dizzy state. “You did well, hyung.”
Something inside Sunghoon burns , an unfamiliar yet familiar aching in his bones, the bruising of his soul. He has never felt this way about Sunoo before —in fact, he has never felt this way about anyone before.
It’s strange, and Sunghoon doesn’t understand why it’s happening now, amidst the chaos of wrapping everything up so that everyone can go home. Post concert high, he thinks, but there’s something else blooming in the deepest part of his heart. Like a flower blooming amongst the chaos —no, it’s more like a phoenix, arising from the ashes of something familiar that happened before, regenerating, being born again.
There’s no doubt. With adrenaline still cruising through his veins, Sunoo’s smiles in front of him, his soft eyes focused on him, Sunghoon realises with a rather mortifying intensity that this isn’t the first (life) time he has seen Sunoo.
999.
The afternoon sun doesn’t feel as warm anymore, the last rays of summer disappearing on the horizon with it. Sunghoon doesn’t think he’ll miss this season, he likes fall better anyway. But really, he can’t wait for spring to come.
Still, like any other summer afternoon, he walks all the way to the ice cream parlour, the promise of a sweet, cold dessert making him appreciate the weather a lot more. As usual, the place is empty and Sunghoon gets his treat not long after he arrives.
He has a routine, one that he follows strictly: Sunghoon stays outside of the place for a while, licking stripes into the ice cream, the sweetness of it coating his tongue. He doesn’t sit, the sunlight falling directly into the only wooden bench, and decides to remain hidden on the shadow that the tree planted by the sidewalk provides. Then, when he’s halfway through his dessert, Sunghoon starts making his way back home. Two blocks until the corner and then down straight for the remaining five blocks.
He kicks a pebble until he reaches the corner and the little stone rolls right into the street. Sunghoon stands there for a second, his eyes fixed on something so small. He blinks, and when he reopens his eyes, the pebble is lost amongst the sea of rather similar looking stones.
For some reason the thought makes Sunghoon smile. The fact that that single little rock has made its way back with its own, that now it has found some sort of home amongst his pairs, that he’s not alone anymore.
Sunghoon nods to himself and turns his head, finding a pair of brown curious eyes staring back at him. The air suddenly smells like spring, the sweet flavour of his ice cream feels too strong on his mouth on his tongue. The boy that’s looking at him seems otherworldly, an angel placed on earth only to stand in Sunghoon’s path.
He blinks and thinks that maybe the afternoon sun has managed to fry the few remaining brain cells.
But a sense of familiarity creeps through his spine, burns him from the inside out, like a wildfire, like the flames of hell, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Sunghoon stares at this stranger, a name on the tip of his tongue and it feels like he’s already made it home. It feels as if he just found what he’d been looking for his whole life, like he was a small piece of something bigger, like this stranger, with a name that Sunghoon knows but doesn’t know at the same time, is the other half of his already complete heart.
“I found you,” Sunghoon breathes out, the last bit of ice cream melting, dripping down his fingers.
Sunoo looks at him with an eyebrow raised. Then, a face splitting grin appears, alongside the soft blush dusting his cheeks and the twinkling in his beautiful eyes, crescent shaped moons.
“You found me.”