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Haknyeon noticed the scars the first time his new housemate arrived at their apartment. It was also the first time that Haknyeon had seen him not wearing a hoodie. From the doorway, he watched Sunwoo haul his things into their now shared apartment — the flex of his muscles accentuating the scars — and honestly, he felt scared.
Ju Haknyeon first met Kim Sunwoo a week before he moved into the apartment.
He had ranted the night before about finding a fairly decent place to live in but the rent was too much for one person so he asked his friends if they were willing to move in with him, or if they knew anyone who was looking for a place. Luckily, Eric volunteered a friend he knew from his college — also an athlete, though Eric never really specified what his sport was — who apparently got kicked out of the varsity dorm because he was in the middle of a probation period.
Haknyeon should’ve said no then. When the word “probation” came up, he thought that maybe it was because he flunk a few subjects. It never occurred to him that Kim Sunwoo was actually on probation because of a fight. Eric just mentioned that he was helping someone out being bullied, but never really the specifics of it. Whatever the details of the probation were, Haknyeon didn’t care. He was just excited to finally have a new housemate. .
Eric said Sunwoo was willing to take over half the rent — even more because apparently he earned money a lot in his games, but Haknyeon said no and that he’d pay for his share. Now, Haknyeon trusted Eric so if Eric had high praise for this person, then there was no reason to doubt him.
And there really was no reason to doubt him.
They met at a bakery near the apartment complex. Sunwoo was running late but informed Haknyeon he could buy anything in the bakery and he’d just pay for it as in exchange for his tardiness. So, Haknyeon didn’t mind and bought himself a pizza bread, stuffing himself even before Sunwoo could come.
He was in the middle of devouring a mango-flavored bread when Sunwoo came in.
Like Eric said, he was kind, very cheerful to talk to, though there was an air of mystery to him. He barely said anything about himself even though Haknyeon had talked on and on about his life.
It was the fact that Sunwoo had been very attentive, very interested in everything Haknyeon had to say that for the whole hour they were together, Haknyeon had told Sunwoo about his school life, his family life, and even his love life (or lack thereof). Only when Sunwoo excused himself an hour later, telling him he needed to go to training did Haknyeon realize that Sunwoo didn’t say anything about himself other than his name, his age, and that he was an athlete.
Haknyeon didn’t mind — and again, he should’ve — because it was their first meeting. Besides, they were only meeting to be housemates anyway, and not anything else. If they end up becoming friends as a result of living together, then Haknyeon would be happy with that.
If not…well.
He’d cross the bridge when he got there.
They met every day of that week, only talking about the details of their mutual cohabitation. Every day Haknyeon tried to pry a little more about Sunwoo’s life. He’d give him vague answers, or none at all. Not wanting to annoy him, Haknyeon didn’t push through with his inquiries.
Despite that, they ended the week with Haknyeon having a positive outlook for this new relationship.
And when the day that Sunwoo finally needed to move in, Haknyeon was excited.
Until… eventually, he wasn’t.
Sunwoo had been able to move all his boxes and bags — a total of four boxes and two duffel bags — from the lobby towards the second floor where Haknyeon’s apartment was, with Haknyeon only watching from the doorway. Despite asking Sunwoo if he needed help, the latter just shook his head and said he could handle it, so Haknyeon stayed by the door, keeping his distance and not making unnecessary movements that will disrupt Sunwoo’s process of moving in.
Throughout all that, Sunwoo kept on his very thick black hoodie. Haknyeon wanted to point out that he’d probably get hot, but even before he could comment, Sunwoo was already stripping his hoodie off.
And that was when Haknyeon saw the scars.
It covered the length of his arms. Some were shallow, and would probably fade in time. Some were even deeper — more permanent. Seeing those made Haknyeon step back.
He stood by the doorway fearing for his life and after an hour, Sunwoo managed to move in.
That was a whole month ago, and until now, Haknyeon hadn’t done anything to get close to his housemate, despite his original intentions. These days, all he wanted to do was avoid Sunwoo at all costs. What mattered was that he washed his dishes, threw his trash in the right place, and paid his rent. As long as he would be able to do all those then Haknyeon would be fine.
They didn’t need to be friends.
“So,” Eric said, in the middle of lunch. “How’s Sunwoo?”
“You’re evil,” was the first thing Haknyeon said. From across the table, both Younghoon and Sangyeon, their “ sunbuddies ” from their colleges (someone who took care of freshmen; Younghoon was Haknyeon’s and Sangyeon was Eric’s) stared at them curiously, slightly sitting further in case a fight ensues.
“What did I do?” Eric said in between bites of his sandwich.
“I can’t believe you got me a criminal roommate!”
Eric and Sangyeon both choked on their drink, while Younghoon just looked scared. (It was actually a funny sight, him just holding onto his sandwich tightly while his eyes were wide, looking at Haknyeon then at Eric questioningly).
“What do you mean crim—” Younghoon couldn’t finish what he was trying to ask because Eric interrupted, rising up from his seat and slamming his hands on the table.
“Kim Sunwoo is not a criminal,” he said matter-of-factly, voice a little too loud for comfort, and for everybody passing by their table to hear. Sangyeon bowed to them, smiling his usual charming smile, hoping that they forget whatever they’re witnessing and just walk away, while also pulling on the hem of Eric’s shirt to get him to sit back down.
“But have you seen his arms?” Haknyeon said.
Now, Younghoon looked more confused than scared, and Sangyeon mirrored the same expression.
“How are his arms — which look very nice, actually — connected to him being a criminal?” Eric asked.
“It’s full of scars,” Haknyeon whispered. “The only reason you get that is if you’re getting into fights.”
“Or if he’s an athlete,” Sangyeon pointed out.
Haknyeon stared at him, a little confused as to why he didn’t think of that, before looking at Sangyeon skeptically. Because what kind of sport would give that many scars?
As if reading his mind, Sangyeon answered. “He did a lot of sports when he was a kid, from football, to figure skating, even boxing.”
“How do you know that?” Eric asked.
“He was good in everything he did. That’s why the college looked out for him. I usually joined them whenever they were scouting high school students, so I saw Sunwoo in every possible sport you could join.”
“That’s why he has scars?” Haknyeon asked, still in disbelief.
Sangyeon just shrugged. “I heard he did get into a lot of fights when he was in high school, but he could only get into our college if he behaved himself — looks like he did.”
Haknyeon hummed in understanding, though still a little confused.
“If you want to know more about him, just go ask him, Hak.”
That was easier said than done. Because of the month of not talking to each other, Sunwoo and Haknyeon have created a schedule that didn’t include one another.
Sunwoo would wake up early to get to his practice, making sure not to disturb Haknyeon, who would often find himself asleep in the living room or the dining table — too busy studying during the night. He’d come home at the end of the day, having already eaten and would go straight to his room to get some sleep even before Haknyeon could realize he was already home.
And Haknyeon would only know he was home just because of Sunwoo singing in the shower.
So, breaking that habit felt almost impossible.
Or Haknyeon was just too afraid to do it.
But, he messaged Sunwoo that day after talking with Eric and his older friends that he wanted to grab dinner with him. Sunwoo only replied with an “okay".
Despite everything, Haknyeon was still nervous.
He waited until eight when he told Sunwoo they’ll be having dinner. Five minutes later, when Sunwoo still hadn’t arrived, Haknyeon messaged him if he was still going only for no reply to be sent back.
Regardless, Haknyeon still waited.
Sunwoo eventually arrived a few minutes after 8:20, looking disheveled. He was sweating, still in his track uniform.
Haknyeon couldn’t really comment about anything when he saw Sunwoo's arm bleeding from a scrape at the back of his elbow.
“What happened there?” Haknyeon asked, cringing about how worried his voice sounded.
Sunwoo grinned. “I tripped,” he said, sheepishly. “I know that sounds funny for a track athlete, but yeah.”
“You tripped?”
“I wanted to get here in time for dinner but sadly,” he let his message trail off, before adding, “I just wanted to have dinner with you,” Sunwoo admitted shyly. “I was afraid you would leave.
Haknyeon refused to acknowledge how that statement made him feel. He hit Sunwoo at the back of his arm to tell him it didn’t matter if he was late. Haknyeon would wait. It’s not like there was anywhere he could go to, anyway.
Trying to calm down his heart, Haknyeon grabbed the first aid kit from a drawer in the kitchen and started cleaning up Sunwoo’s wound.
“You’re good at this,” Sunwoo said, just watching.
“I got injured a lot back home so my mom taught me how to clean up wounds,” Haknyeon said.
The admission made Sunwoo start talking about his life, more detailed. He started talking about his practice that day, before proceeding how he got into sports in the first place. Sunwoo talked about how his mother wanted him to be active in something and so he took up sports to get the nagging off of his back. He admitted to Haknyeon how he was actually grateful for his mom, though he never really said that to her.
Through all this, Haknyeon listened, failing to multitask, cleaning his wound and listening to Sunwoo’s stories. It had been the most animated he had heard Sunwoo be. Haknyeon wanted to listen.
After he finished cleaning the wound, Haknyeon dug through the first aid kit for band-aids, eventually finding the favorite brand he always used.
“That’s cute,” Sunwoo said, as he watched Haknyeon placed a dark purple band-aid over his wound.
“I bought it because of its name,” Haknyeon said, showing Sunwoo the band-aid brand, and the name of the color below it.
“Cyber grape,” Sunwoo read. “That’s interesting.”
“Right?” Haknyeon said, before finishing his work.
Sunwoo stared at it for a while, looking at it in awe, before he eventually smiled at Haknyeon, like a little kid being handed a candy.
Haknyeon refused to think about what that smile made him feel.
“Let’s eat?”
“Let’s.”
When Sunwoo woke up that morning, he left Haknyeon some cheesecake he bought from the bakery nearby, leaving a note saying how thankful he was to him for cleaning his wounds, and adding that he’d see him later.
As soon as he got to the university, he immediately started warming up as he waited for his other teammates.
“Sunwoo,” someone called just as he finished stretching.
“That’s a cute little thing,” Changmin said, patting him at the back of his elbow where his wound was. Sunwoo found himself smiling again at the sight of the purple band-aid on his arm. “My roommate placed that there for me.”
“Your roommate you keep talking about that we haven’t even met?” Jaehyun commented.
“I met him,” Sangyeon said, appearing from behind Jaehyun. “He’s nice.”
Jaehyun pouted. “He always experiences the good things first.”
With a smirk, Sangyeon walked closer to Jaehyun. “Want to try?”
Blushing, Jaehyun cleared his throat, before getting into a lunge position, seemingly stretching his muscles.
Sunwoo shook his head, going to his position and sliding a hand over the band-aid making sure it stays there.
For some reason, Sunwoo found himself getting even more injured.
He wasn’t doing it on purpose to have Haknyeon keep patching him up. It sort of just happened that way.
The first time it happened again was at the house. When he was making fruit salad for the two of them, he accidentally nicked his finger with a knife. They both watched in horror as blood flowed down from Sunwoo’s finger to his wrist. A sharp intake of breath from Sunwoo broke Haknyeon from his thoughts, immediately rushing to put Sunwoo’s hand under running water before rushing to get his first aid kit again.
And like before, Haknyeon used his purple band-aids again.
The next injury was a small cut on the bridge of his nose after getting into a fight with a high school kid bullying another of his classmates.
“You shouldn’t be getting involved with children’s fights,” Haknyeon said, carefully placing the band-aid over Sunwoo’s nose.
“You’d do the same if you were there,” Sunwoo teased.
Haknyeon bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t agree.
After a week, grape-colored band-aids covered Sunwoo’s whole body.
One day, Haknyeon insisted he walk Sunwoo to his practice, excusing he might trip on the way. (In truth, Haknyeon actually wanted to see him practice, but he didn’t tell Sunwoo that.)
“Sunwoo,” Jaehyun called. “You look like the tough character from some comic book,” he teased, igniting into laughter. Though Sunwoo found it liberating — like battle scars — Haknyeon felt embarrassed. He didn’t think what Sunwoo’s friends would feel like with Sunwoo’s colorful band-aid before using it.
He just thought that it was cute.
So, on the way back home after Sunwoo’s practice, Haknyeon asked to drop by the convenience store.
“I’ll just go buy some energy drinks,” Sunwoo said. Haknyeon nodded, walking towards the first aid aisle to buy band-aid. He bought the regular brown ones, rushing towards the counter to buy some.
“Oh?” Sunwoo asked once he saw the cart. “What are the band-aids for?”
“You used all of them!” he said with a pout.
“No colored ones?” Sunwoo asked, looking distastefully at all the plain ones — named “buff bandaids”. Haknyeon shook his head. “They ran out too.”
Sunwoo noticed the way the guy behind the counter raised his brow — as if he just caught someone in a lie. He turned back to Haknyeon, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it — whatever there was that needed to be talked about.
Haknyeon used the plain colored band-aids the next time Sunwoo got hurt. It was actually just a little scratch, and hadn’t even been bleeding, but Sunwoo still insisted for it to be treated the same as his other injuries, a statement Haknyeon found himself laughing at.
“You’re expensive to take care of,” Haknyeon said.
Sunwoo giggled. “I’ll pay for everything if you promise to keep taking care of me?”
Sunwoo noticed the blush painting Haknyeon’s cheeks and all he could do was laugh.
The “buff” band-aids didn’t give Sunwoo the same feeling as the grape-flavored ones, so the next day, after his practice, he dropped by the convenience store to buy band-aids. Turns out there were a lot of colored band-aids. He made sure to take the grape-colored ones that Haknyeon always used; a teal set; and even a “spotify” set band-aid, colors ranging from the spotify colors and you wouldn’t know the color of the band-aid until you opened it.
Sunwoo found it ridiculous, and thought that it’ll be fun so decided to buy it as well.
“Hak,” he called the moment he entered the house, excited to show off his new purchases.
“Did you scrape your knee somewhere again?” Haknyeon called. Sunwoo found him splayed on the living room sofa, looking through something on his phone.
Sunwoo laughed. “I’m actually intact today,” he answered, walking towards Haknyeon who already stood up and tallied a 1 on their mini whiteboard underneath the words “Days with injury-free-Sunwoo.”
“What’s that?” Haknyeon asked as soon as he saw the bag Sunwoo was holding.
“Band-aids,” Sunwoo said, spilling the contents on the table.
Haknyeon looked excited, looking through all the colors Sunwoo bought, but after a while, his face soured.
“Your friends are teasing you, though?” Haknyeon whispered.
Sunwoo scoffed, realizing Haknyeon’s insistence not to use colored band-aids anymore.
“Hey,” Sunwoo said, tapping Haknyeon on the wrist. “I like these better than those plain ones. I love showing them off, especially because you put them on.”
Haknyeon blushed, looking away from Sunwoo — wondering if he could put band-aids on his cheeks to cover the redness.
Haknyeon knows Sunwoo was clumsy. Though he didn’t want to tell that to Sunwoo because he always said it was just him being unlucky — and maybe it was both — but at the end of the day, Sunwoo was actually just really clumsy.
The thing was, witnessing Sunwoo being clumsy, made Haknyeon think he wasn’t.
If you would ask Kim Sunwoo, he’d say that even if Haknyeon didn’t get as many injuries as he did, Haknyeon was still clumsy. It was probably the worst idea to put them in one house together, knowing how clumsy they both are. The lucky thing, at least, was they ended up always taking care of each other. Maybe that was the perk of everything.
That day was one of Sunwoo’s matches.
Being Sunwoo’s VIP guest, Haknyeon was able to sit at the bench area with all the other players. (One of Sunwoo’s friends seemed to be very excited to see him but Haknyeon will Sunwoo about it later.)
After two laps, Haknyeon felt nervous, but at the end of the match, Sunwoo ended up winning.
Adrenaline shot through Haknyeon’s veins, feeling how proud he was for his roommate. Following the rest of Sunwoo’s teammates, he rushed into the field wanting to congratulate his roommate first.
But the rush of the crowd ended up making him trip.
The first person Sunwoo looked for in the crowd of people congratulating him was Haknyeon. He looked at every face in front of him and even craned his neck just in case Haknyeon was shoved at the back.
What he didn’t expect was for Haknyeon to be a little far away from the crowd, clutching a bleeding knee. Feeling worried, Sunwoo excused himself and immediately rushed to his roommate’s side.
“You’re so clumsy,” Sunwoo whispered, grabbing a bottle of water from the bench and cleaned Haknyeon’s wounds.
“I can do it,” Haknyeon said, removing the box of band-aids inside his bag. (Yes, he had brought it along for emergency in case Sunwoo trips. He didn’t expect he’d be the one falling today.)
“I know you can,” Sunwoo said. “But right now both of your hands are scraped and so are your knees, so let me handle it.”
Haknyeon couldn’t really say anything when Sunwoo grabbed the box from his hands.
“I was always the one patching you up, and now look at us,” Haknyeon pointed out, grinning in embarrassment. “It feels kind of strange.”
“I have an injury though,” Sunwoo said, while he placed the last band-aid on Haknyeon’s left hand.
Haknyeon’s eyes widened, looking over Sunwoo’s body to see where the injury was. Sunwoo put a hand over his chest, and Haknyeon was ready to remove it just so he could clean the wound only for Sunwoo to grab his wrist lightly.
“I’m suffering from a broken heart,” he joked.
Haknyeon scoffed, pushing Sunwoo forward on his chest, making him fall from where he was kneeling.
“I can’t believe I told you my heart is broken, and you pushed me,” Sunwoo complained. “On my heart.”
“You’ll live.”
Sunwoo grinned, just staring at Haknyeon as if waiting for something. Knowing what he was waiting for, Haknyeon sighed and asked, “So, what broke your heart, Mr. Kim Sunwoo?” gathering the litter from the band-aid and putting it back in his bag.
“I have a crush on my roommate but I don’t think it's reciprocated,” Sunwoo said, feigning despair in his voice.
Haknyeon stopped. His back was facing Sunwoo, and he put all his will not to turn around in shock and ask him what he meant.
It was clear what he meant and that made Haknyeon’s heart beat loudly. Still, he wasn’t going to allow himself to lose to Kim Sunwoo, so he schooled his expression before facing his roommate.
“I don’t think you need any patching up then?”
Sunwoo raised his brow. “Why’s that?”
“Because it is reciprocated,” Haknyeon replied. “Your roommate likes you very much too.”
Sunwoo lost, breaking into the widest grin Haknyeon had ever seen on him.
After the competition, Eric found Sunwoo and Haknyeon in the middle of the field, with Sunwoo putting band-aids on Haknyeon’s hands.
Eric approached them with the purpose of surprising them, and just destroying the moment.
As he walked closer, their conversation got louder.
He ended up stopping in his tracks, blinking a few times, wondering if he was actually hearing what he had heard — the lamest confession he could ever hear.
“You know what,” he exclaimed loudly after seeing Sunwoo smile widely, “I don’t even want to ask,” he said, turning around on his heel and placing a hand over his ears to remove the conversation out of his head.