Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Minho,

I feel like a lonely wife writing to her distant husband in the military and I would very much like to rip this paper out in that it’s frustrating to know I cannot just speak to you like we have since forever. I don’t know what to write on this blank sheet of paper that your sister demanded me to fill, I am hoping you are better at words than me in your reply.

Your cats miss you.

Don’t die,
Jisung.

Chapter Text

Jisung,

I appreciate you not actually ripping the paper apart, it would be very hard to make out your already scribbly penmanship through the pieces. You can talk to me on paper just like we have, I don’t see why not? I suggest you simply write everything down and tell me everything at once like you always do, and I will reply to every bit like I always have.

Or have you lost that trait of yours since the few days I’ve been away? Do you not anymore want to talk to me for hours on end and then allow me to talk back to you about the few bits of information I remember through your excited chatter? I have to admit, it was one of my more liked traits of yours. An unliked trait would be wanting to rip the paper apart; don’t you see you would rip my heart with it too?

When have I ever been better at words than you? As I remember it, you have taught me the words I use, every single one of them, and it is because of you that I can be as coherent as I am in my speech.

I have always admired that about you; that you were able to convey what you wanted to say in just a few words – I do think my habit of saying too much of everything except for what I mean to say is fairly annoying to you, too.

Take this letter, for example. If it had been you in my position, you would have already told me about how horrible it is to not have me by your side all day, and then you would have moved on to talking about your new environment, and you wouldn’t have needed as many words to tell me you miss me.

It wouldn’t have taken you so many words of me complimenting you against my better judgement for you to just say what you mean. I fall short of words to explain the awkwardness I feel to not have you here as a shelter; maybe this is why I should be in the military? To learn to talk to people more than just head nods.

Anyway, let me tell you about how it is in the military, make sure to envision whatever I tell you so you get a first point of view, and don’t forget to include me in the vision! If I say so myself, I am the most important part of the dream, aren’t I?

We have wooden bunk beds here, but it is in a fairly better condition than we had originally anticipated. I have a small nightstand, which I did not think I would have access to, but my bunkmate Chan, rarely uses it, so I get the privilege of using it.

In your next reply, make sure to send me things I can put on my nightstand, so I can look at them and remember why I am in the military, every night I go to sleep.

I hope my extremely well though out letter was enough inspiration for your rambling to come back. I would be disappointed if that wasn’t the case.

I’ll turn into the sheets now, turns out that even though we underestimated the living conditions here, we majorly underestimated what a broken body feels like.

I’m too tired to keep on moving my hand, but there are a million more things that I haven’t said yet, so do reply and remind me to say those too.

Tell my family I wish they would write me a letter too, and take good care of my cats, especially Doongie, she can be very wild and obnoxious when she wants to be.

Take care of yourself too, okay? Write me back as fast as you can, at your convenience. It is my turn to be waiting like a lonely wife, is it not?

Yours,
Minho

Chapter Text

Minho,

I was not expecting such an extended reply to my bare minimum letter. You’d be right, I do miss you nowadays after spending every day together with you, but it is one thing to speak it and see you roll your eyes and another thing to commit that truth to paper knowing you will have it with you whenever you want it.

What shall I do if you use it against me in a court of law? Who knows the power of the military these days, should I be afraid?

No, Minho, I have not lost my trait of talking, but it turns out that now that you are gone, my family finally realizes how much I actually do talk. They have told me on multiple occasions in a single day that I should have joined the military alongside you so that I wouldn’t bother them with my constant chatter.

It also makes me realize how quiet they must have thought I was, seeing as you were ever the only one apart from Changbin that I used to relentlessly talk to. It was a good technique to annoy you and to put you out of a tough spot when you seemed down.
Changbin handed me a whole stack of blank paper and some pens so that I could write down whatever I was going to talk to them about so that I wouldn’t disturb them with my words.

I had become somewhat used to you listening to me without a complaint, and I don’t know how much they mean it when they tell me to stop talking. Do they really not understand? That I want to show them affection?

I want to tell them, tell you, about my day and ask about theirs, but it seems all my family is interested in nowadays is picking out a good wife for me and being too involved in the neighbours. It stings, but it’s okay, I guess.

My memories are quite different from yours if you think I gave you your words. I may have taught you a foreign language, but as far as I remember, you have taught me to talk to you, in a way I feel good about using my words. It’s really a stark contrast from my family when I think about it.

I don’t quite know how to put it into a sentence, what I’m trying to say, but maybe I will write a song about it one of these days and figure out the words then.

And no, as much as I might sound like a hypocrite when you talk in bursts and start rambling, it is quite endearing to watch. I wish I could watch it over and over again, and then I wouldn’t need anything else to keep me entertained.

Did you know your ears tinge red and your eyes turn into slits whenever you cross your arms and start ranting? Even if it is about something you like, you always look so bothered by the fact that it requires you to say so much.

I wouldn’t admit this to you if we meet. Still, I cherish those moments when you do talk a lot, outside of your snarky remarks and torture methods to make me cry because it gives me a glimpse into your world and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I get to be the person for you that you talk to things about.

Does that make sense? It’s funny I ask that, though, it’s usually you asking me that, in one of those scenarios I wrote above about.

Do you feel like writing in a diary too? Logically I do know that I am writing to you and you will inevitably read them and know the things I write, but I find myself being more honest than usual when I start writing. Maybe because I am not talking to a person, but there are fewer bounds to what I say (or, well, write.)

I do admire the lines you wrote complimenting me, and I especially like the embarrassment you must have gone through when you put those thoughts to paper. It’s okay, Minho, I know how great I am, you don’t have to spell it out for me.

You should be thankful I am sparing so much of my precious to you, shouldn’t you? I am obviously of very high standards, and you, as a mere peasant, should come back from the military and start serving me instead.

The military does sound like what we imagined, except when I imagine you there, the charm reduces so much. It must be because my royal eyes are not used to seeing peasants such as yourself.

I don’t have many things that would suit your nightstand, but I am sending along this pain relief medicine that my sources have told me works wonders. You will get used to it soon, and then you will be doing so much exercise that it will be enough for the both of us, and I will finally be able to give up on running every morning.

I really hate running, especially without you here. It gets quite lonely when it’s just me and the trees and the winter fog, and I don’t hear your laughter resounding through the air.

Before you ask, no, I will not write that into a song, thank you.

Tell me more about your bunkmate, Chan? Is he nice, along with everyone else there? If you need me to come there and set some people straight, just send me a shout, and I will hear it even from so far away.

See? Aren’t I so nice for putting up with you and even helping you?

Doongie is laying with me as I write, and my left hand is under her, held hostage, and she takes the greatest nap I have seen her take. She is so obedient to me, maybe it’s you that’s the problem.

Do specify what “million things” you were going to tell me in your letter. I bet you my favourite sweater that it still won’t be as long as this one is, though. I will personally count all the words!

You can’t be a lonely wife in the military, Minho. I really have to explain everything to you. I hope you know I just sighed so loud when I read that part.

In this metaphor, you clearly are the strong husband at work (best friend gone to the military) and I am the lonely wife (best friend at home) staring out the window and being lonely (getting all your cats' attention and making them like me more) and waiting to finally talk to you after years (we are sending each other regular letters).

Do you finally understand now? Do not misuse my brilliant metaphor under any circumstance, it’s disgraceful.

Don’t die,
Jisung.

Chapter Text

Jisung,

The military is indeed very powerful, I almost think I can lift you up with one hand now, even though it has only been a little over a week since I started training. You are light, to begin with, so be prepared to be thrown into the lake when I come to meet you all next.

I miss you, too. If I say any more than that, I believe I will once again end up in a jumble of words that gives you so much pleasure, so I will refrain.

I had predicted that to happen with your family, as you know, I am not their biggest fan. But I was hoping that they would realize how interesting your conversations really are, although niche, and that they would be excited to e able to take a peek inside their son’s mind. But I guess not.

I do like that Changbin told you to carry a stack of papers; I quite agree with him. You know I will listen to you; where else will I go if not for the presence of such a noble like yourself?

If your family does not want to listen to you and accept the way you show them love, then it is completely their loss. I hope you are not wallowing in self-pity and isolating yourself as you usually do. Will I have to come all the way there and get you out of your room again?

What is that about you finding a wife? I had to do a double take to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. We are still young, does your family have no brain at all, excuse my language. It cannot happen, how would you even deal with it?

Have you genuinely ever thought about it? Starting a family? Because I had no thoughts of ever pursuing a woman before you mentioned it in your letter and I have not started now. I am content with myself as I am now, and I think it would be unfair if I married someone without loving them the way they deserve to be loved.

Have you found a partner in the days that I have been gone? Is that the reason? You know you can tell me. You don’t have to be scared to admit it to me, you know that, no matter who it is.

I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that my Sungie is looking for marriage already. I wish I was there to talk to you about it because as absurd as the fact is, writing them down and only receiving replies after a few days takes away from the efficiency.

Do not hesitate to send me more letters whenever you feel like it. I do not give a fuck about anyone who thinks it’s weird that you would send me five letters for every one of my letters; it is not about them, and it will never be.

I have so much respect for you in that you can say what you want to say. I have told you this before, haven’t I? In one of my previous letters, I’m sure. I want you to tell me about your day, it is most fascinating to hear. Even if your family doesn’t want to listen to you, I’m happy about that fact if it means I can keep your excitement to myself.

It almost sounds like I am writing to my lover, does it not? I’m glad our letters are in English, otherwise, someone would surely stumble upon them and think we should be banished from society. It’s a funny thought.

Maybe I laughed too hard, but my bunkmate, Chan I mentioned, just asked me what was so funny in whatever the hell it was that I am writing. What am I supposed to tell him?

I don’t feel at all like writing in a diary, like you. It just feels like how I have always talked to you, maybe just in more words. When I look at the length of my letters, sometimes I surprise even myself.

I have said things in my letters that I do not think I could ever admit even in a diary. It’s a good thing they are only letters to you; I can say anything.

Maybe I am braver on paper than I was in person. This reminds me much of that quote by Virginia Woolf:

“How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?”

Having picked up both a gun and a pen, I would say pulling the trigger sometimes loses its perilous nature in front of picking up a pen and daring to say the things you have not ever said out loud.

I don’t know how you do it, be so in tune with yourself, because I swear to you half the time, I do not know how to fathom what I feel; it is a ride and I can never get off, apart from those letters.

Do not lie to me on paper, Jisung, I know you are hoarding a wardrobe full of things that you want to give to me (I may have seen your collection before I left) (spare my life, please) and I would like them very much.

The medicine works wonders, but I have been training so continuously that as soon as the pain reduces, I am back to doing gruesome exercises. I follow them only in hopes of doing something for my country and for our families.

Speaking of, did my family also forget about me? I have not received a single letter, though I was fully prepared to get one from mother, with all the side dishes packed along. And my sister, as well, I think about her quite a lot. What has she been up to, these days? Changbin?

I miss everyone at home, I wish there was another way to serve in the military with you there too.

I doubt your fancy ass would like it here, though. You would kill me if I ever made you taste the food they give me here. Chan claims it’s an abomination. He’s not far off if I’m being honest.

Keep up the running despite me not being there, your health needs it after all the chocolate you devour every day. We run here every morning as well, usually at the same time that I and you used to go, so maybe you can pretend you hear the thud of my footsteps right behind you, about to catch you.

You can almost hear my laugh, too, then, just like I do yours. It feels more like a chore here, instead of it being fun like when we used to run. My legs hurt so much, instead of my stomach, at one of your stupid jokes again, and sometimes I keep expecting to hear you squeal when you trip over that bush like you always do.

Maybe I will write a song too, and maybe you can put music to it.

Chan is a lifesaver. He is so kind, and he deeply cares for everyone he meets. He’s so inspiring, Jisungie, I only wish to have even half the passion he has in his eyes. He’s just here for the mandatory enlistment, unlike me, so he will leave in about a year, and then he plans to visit his best friend in Australia.

He’s so smiley when he talks about Australia (and his best friend), it’s heart-warming to see. But then you hear gunshots outside, and it fades the smile off his lips and it makes me so sick that we need to have such wars just to bring peace. It’s ironic in the most twisted way possible.

I wish you could meet him; he shares a love for writing music just like you do, and if his humming is any indicator, he’s an amazing one, too. I still don’t understand how you can create music that doesn’t already exist.

Where do you find the music from?

I’m convinced that either the cat in your arms isn’t Doongie and you have simply stopped caring about my cats and have forgotten their names, or you have used some of your evil royal witch power to brainwash him.

Is he doing well? They don’t miss me too much by the looks of it, little shits.

Are you going to send me your favourite sweater in your next letter as promised, then? I hadn’t even realized that it’s been such a long letter. My arm has gotten used to writing for so long, it seems. This is all your fault.

Okay, you can be the lonely wife, then. But in stories, don’t the strong husbands always die? I wouldn’t want you to be a widower, Jisung! Promise me you’ll find yourself a wife after I’m gone, one of those girls your family suggests. Keep me in your heart, won’t you?

My hands are getting cold with the winter air now. I must really be passing away soon, don’t you think?

I look forward to your warm sweater, I hope it can remove the coldness from my hands.

I would end this letter on a better note, with a better last sentence, but after the training today, I honestly do not have the energy to think. So, you can have this messy and imperfect letter.

Give my kisses to Soonie, Doongie and Dori, and don’t get married while I’m away,
Minho

Chapter Text

Minho,

I hate you. I hate you since the moment I had to let go of my sweater just to send it to you because of a stupid bet. This is all your fault. Not mine. I hope you’re happy that you caused me to lose the one precious thing in my life. Thanks a lot, Minho, such an amazing best friend you are.

Marriage is unacceptable and no, I’m obviously opposed to it. I thought I was very clear on my stance on getting a partner. My type in partners is too different, and there has only ever been one person I would remotely consider to date. I have no interest in marrying any time soon, and though they keep looking for wives for me, I doubt they’re actually serious about it. If they are, I’m sure they’re not going to force me.

I am aware you are not the biggest fan of my parents, but I would like to believe that it comes from them being traditional in their way of loving and parenting and that they do still care about me. Family is rarely everything you want, but family itself is rare too.

And yes, I will have to restrict my talking to just you, again, as it was. Instead of sending more letters, I will try to make the one letter I send long so that I can still save funds. Some of us are not employed, Minho.

Your questions threw me off, it was like a barricade. Are you jealous, hyung? I always knew you were in love with me.

“It almost sounds like I am writing to my lover.” Almost? As if that’s not true? Have you rejected me as your husband? Do you not love me anymore? Was it me, have I done something wrong? Are we not lovers?

This is what you sounded like when you asked me those questions, hyung, but I like it so it’s okay. I can’t blame you for worrying about your lonely wife at home.

(I hope you know that recently I have been keeping your letter right next to mine while I write this so that I don’t forget to answer everything. This is why this is much more structured, you could say. It takes a lot of effort so I might not do this next time, I don’t apologize for the haphazardly written plots of my letters.)

Your family misses you a lot. You’re all they can talk about at the family gatherings every other day. I think they did write letters to you, but Changbin dropped all of them into the lake on his way to the post office and the only one yet to be sent was mine as I go to the office myself. He couldn’t salvage the other letters so you should expect other letters soon if your family does decide to write again.

Though I don’t think they will, the stationary has been increasing in costs lately and it’s caused some…tight funds, you could say. I’m writing from the notebook pages of our old school notebooks, and I might take a daily job at the local newspaper of reviewing the literature. Those blogs earn a lot these days.

If I can’t do songwriting as a career, then at least there are other creative fields. And I get to read books for a job and get paid for it, I think that really is the best deal I would be able to find.

And maybe I would be able to afford that stack of paper Changbin was talking about because I know he won’t buy me it, his stingy self could never in this economy.

I do not isolate myself, Lee Minho. I simply prefer my own company to other mere mortals who think they have a say in anything I do. I only let you in because you are sometimes tolerable and the knocking on my door gets annoying when I’m just trying to sleep.

Fuck you, I was going to give up running but why do you have to be so metaphorical and say that to me? As a songwriter, I simply cannot ignore poetic imagery and I hate you even more now because you’re the sole reason I’m going to be running.

I have mostly gotten over what my family says to me, but even I find myself annoying sometimes when I simply can not shut up around people I like. Whenever I am around my family members, I feel this urge to talk to them about anything at all because I love them and I want to interact with them, but they never seem to be interested anymore. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the only times I am social are when I write these letters, and when I sometimes talk to Changbin.

Did I mention Changbin’s gotten a proper job as well? He helps out at the small store his father owns, and I heard your sister might be joining there soon as well, to help out with the financial side of things.

If that was your twisted and indirect way of asking me to protect your sister, I refuse. She cannot be handled by fragile people like me; she would sooner break my bones with a snap before listening to what any of us is saying.

I commend her for that, though. I’m not worried about her, I know she can stand up for herself through anything, and she’s not afraid to ask for help, either. She lives the way she wants to, and not many people find that in life.

I can only hope I break out of my shell soon, too. The urge to tell my family about my career ambitions comes and goes, like the wind, high when they’re laughing with me and I feel like everything is good, but then they start telling me that I’m not good enough even for a woman to be interested and then I know they’re only going to be madder if I tell them what I wish to do.

Chan sounds like an amazing friend. I hope you two get to stick together during training and when you get enlisted into another force if that’s a thing. I’m not really sure about all the technicalities of the military, though I probably should be. I wish I could meet him, too. I’m sure he writes good songs.

I will make sure to send you some of your eomma’s stuff if I can, I don’t know if they allow it.

You ask me where I find music, but I’m asking you what isn’t music? Most people take life for granted too much to properly appreciate that they’re alive, in the true essence of the word.

I find music in love, and love is everywhere that you see. It’s in the warm sunshine that hits your face when you open the curtains, and it’s in the drowned letters of a mother to her son in the military, and it’s in homemade kimchi dishes, and love is in a warm sweater too big for your size.

Do you not see that we are surrounded by music? I am merely putting it to paper in pretty words, but music is for everyone who dares to take a look around and stand there and just listen.

Maybe I will write a song out of that.

And if you ever write a verse, you are legally inclined to send it to me, and I will put my best music to it because making music alongside you is music in itself, to me.

See? This is why you’re in the military and I’m on the more poetic side of things. We need to balance it out; too many guns aren’t good and neither are too many pens.

My days have been good, but hectic. I have been trying to make a list of books that people would like to read about and I always find myself going towards the romantic ones. My family thinks it’s because I’m looking for a wife as well, but I guess it’s because the inherent idea of love has so much music in it that I cannot resist it. Do you think it’s weird? Or less manly that I read romance? I hope you don’t believe that men should only enjoy violent pieces of media because it would be sad to know that I wouldn’t be able to tell you about the books I do read.

Even before I have gotten the job, I am actually vibrating out of my skin in anticipation to be able to read these books for free and be able to write reviews for them. I really wish I get the job, it would make things a lot easier.

I spend quite a lot of time in your room, too. I think your mom likes it because she can pretend her son is still there in his room, and it breaks my heart but I’m pleased that she sees me as a son enough to be comfortable with that.

Your room doesn’t smell the same without you; the godforsaken perfume you liked to spray is finally gone and I feel weirdly nostalgic. Maybe I will spray it again, just to see if it feels more like you. Maybe your mother will like that more.

When you come back home and slowly find your things gone, do not blame me. It’s not my fault that you don’t use your things here and I do have not enough money to buy new things, so I help myself to your clothes and your mother’s food every once in a while.

You’re getting my sweater in return, so I guess that should be enough to cover it up.

My days have been uneventful, but thank you for letting me tell you how they went. It feels weird to thank you, even in a letter, but still. I don’t want to think about it, but the way my family’s reaction to me was aligned really fucked with my head. But worry not! I have three cats to cope with.

I have adopted your cats and your coping skills, it’s almost as if I am turning into your mother’s son.

Maybe you should come back soon and check so that I don’t steal your identity completely. I like your family more, anyway. And you.

I can assure you I have not forgotten your cats, I’m not a lowlife. That was clearly Doongie, you’re just in denial because she never gave you love. I’m the better-liked one and now you’re offended, but maybe consider: she’s my cat now.

How could I ever replace you with one of those other women? Maybe I will forever live in grief if you die, and you will come back to me.

Do not die. Or I will resurrect you and stab you myself. Only I have the right to kill you, okay? I choose, not you. Don’t joke about that, you stupid, it’s not good.

Wish me luck for the interview so I can buy you stuff for your nightstand,
Jisung

Chapter Text

Jisung,

I apologize for the terribly long wait. I hadn’t had enough time to even drop by to the post collection and pick up any letters. We have been swamped with training; I guess the hectic schedule is getting to me.

Even now I write in such a delirious state of mind, I think writing this letter to you is my only form of escape from the constant busy tasks I find myself in. this letter is probably going to be short as well; I do not know how much time I have to write this before they will come do the rounds.

I cannot express how grateful I am that I am holding your sweater in your arms, I wasn’t expecting it to really be the same one I’ve seen you wear countless times. How did you let go of it so easily just for me? Thank you, I’ll make sure it’s in the best care.

I don’t want to sound like I wouldn’t support you if you do wish to marry but the thought of it is so bizarre to me. I hadn’t even realized you had a type in partners – we have never really talked about this, have we? Enlighten me, then? I, too, would like to know what this one person you speak of did that they are the only one you think of?

It is a relief to hear that you don’t plan on getting married any time soon- thinking about it even makes my brain hurt. How do people usually react when their best friend suddenly brings up getting marriage? And you might trust your parents with not forcing you, but I will once again be the one not believing you. I do not trust them enough to turn on you whenever they feel comfortable according to their own situation. They have never considered your feelings as much as you deserved to.

I know I am being harsh, but my mind is too tired to put up a filter, so please do not get offended by my words; I only mean the best. I simply mean to say that maybe you should try and eradicate the possibility completely form their minds, as much as you can, because I have a feeling they will try to backfire it on you. And I do not want to see you stuck again, because of their doings.

Family itself is rare, Jisungie, but the best thing is that you can choose the people you call family. I just ask that you choose the best for you.

I wish every day that my wages could cover the costs of both of our families when I finish training, but it is only a hope till now.

Yes, I am, in fact, in love with you. Thank you for noticing. Where did the sudden respect come from? I am not evem used ot hearing you say hyung when we speak in Korean, why did you write in on paper when we write in English?

I won’t question it, though. The rare respect I get form you is astounding, really.

How did you ever think I could reject you as my lover? I’m hurt that you would even entertain such a thought. I yearn everyday to come back to you, and yet here you are believing such foolish things. I could never not call you my lover; I could not find it in my soul.

Ah, of course, are we still keeping up the lonely wife metaphor? Well, then, I hope that you have not worn yourself out by crying in my memories, I promis that I am still there with you every tie you think of me. Because every time you do, I am thinking of you too.

I should take your technique as inspiration from the next letter, but I think I really will fall off the bed if I so much as attempt to move my arm. Maybe I will have to give this letter to Chan and go and post to the office. I cannot even move my legs now, without the help of your ointment.

And it’s all fine, the haphazard way you write your letters. It feels much more real that way, like you are speaking every thought that comes to your mind, related or not, just like you used to talk to me when I was back home.

Tell my family I miss them terribly, as well, and especially that I miss my mother’s bulgogi. Today, I was thinking of her, and I almost missed a shooting target when I thought of how I won’t be able to taste her bulgogi for a long time now. The food here still gives me goosebumps, but I think I’m getting used to it.

I absolutely had not expected Changbin’s antics to still be continuing, but it seems he cannot let go of his silly mood. Tell him I prefer that he weep over me and my absence, and that his sadness should be the only reason he does something wrong. I’m sure he’s celebrating that he gets a long break away from me, but I will find a way to torment even from here. Noting else gives me more satisfaction in life than seeing Seo Changbin suffer, tell him that in those exact words.

You are my eyes and my ears and my words now, Sungie, for back home, and I’m relying on you to have any semblance of home remain in my mind. I’m relying on you to help me talk to people, even here and at home, and I think it’s a little bit funny that after all the similarities we share, you did not give me your easy conversation skills. I come off as awkward, at best.

I am so elated to hear that you found a job that aligns with your desires, Jisung, you deserve it. Make sure you tell me all about the books, okay? I do not think I need it yet, but the atmosphere here makes want to beg to you give me anything bright and light and happy, anything that you can give me through those papers. The darkness here is overwhelming.

I am so glad you are not here, Sung, for once, because ei do not think I could stand seeing your sunny eyes dim down in the suffocation here. Take care of yourself there, okay? And I will make sure to take care of you from right here.
And I will wish that you get the job that you want, because I know you did so well in the interview, and regardless of the pay you get, I want you to be happy with the work you do. it is one thing to work to get paid, but it is another, crueller thing, to work and get paid for something that makes your chest feel hollow.

I hope your heart does not feel hollow with those books, or with the letters I write you. And for the love of god, and me, please do not ever give up writing your music. You will always have one dedicated fan, and that is me.

Have you come up with any new ideas or verses? Perhaps about my beauty? I would be honoured to hear them. I once found myself humming to one of your songs when I couldn’t sleep, and me and Chan both fell asleep peacefully that night. And that is the effect your music has on people. Sungie, it’s a gift, so make sure to use it well.

Your words spoken make me laugh, and sung make me cry, and your music puts me at peace. It sounds much like the sun writing about the moon, doesn’t it?

I have nothing to say to your isolating methods other than that people do not simply gets tear tracks on their squishy cheeks and red squinted eyes when they wake up from a simple sleep. And is ee you are back to calling me by my full name.

It feels strange to be called by just my name now, and not the way my superiors and coaches call me. I almost think I would have forgotten my name had you not reminded me, and it scares me just the smallest bit.

Do not hate me for speaking the truth, there is poetry in running and I will only give up when I make you see it. Will you write me a verse about it once you see the poetry in it?

I do not know how you could see yourself as annoying, or anything remotely close to that word you like using about yourself so much. Did you not see me writing to you like you are the sun just a few paragraphs ago?

I want you to talk to your family, but not at the expense of your thoughts. I do not care if you think of yourself as annoying, because I love your words enough for me and you and your whole family as well, and I will never get tired of hearing you talk.

Except when you talk about marriage.

I hope that Changbin is enough of a confidant to you when I am not there; I do not want you to feel lonely. I do not want Changbin to feel lonely either, but do not tell him I said that, okay? Both of you need to be okay in my absence, otherwise I would not survive being here.

I am so happy to hear about my sister and Changbin, it will do both of them some good to get out there. I still worry about my sister, though, it keeps me up at night, even if I tell myself I’m being irrational.

I hope we both find the courage to live the way we want to, too, Jisungie.

What the fuck? Your worth is not fucking decided by which woman fancies you and which doesn’t, it is entirely unrelated and frankly, none of their business. If I wasn’t so tired, I would punch someone on your behalf. I really want to.

You are good enough. You are so worht it, and you don’t even realize it when you talk about yourself. It cannot even be mistaken as modesty, I can see it plain as day that when you joke about being so royal, you don’t really believe that you should be valued that much. You think you’re just normal, Jisungie.

But you know what? I like normal. Normal is home, normal is peaceful, and normal is exciting at the same time because you can know what’s coming and still be happy about it because oh, you love it so much.

You sounded off when you talked about Chan. I wish I couldn’t read you as easily as I can, but there is no need to be insecure. I don’t know if what I’m writing comes off as mocking, but I promise that’s not my intention I mean it, baby.

You are my best friend, and that is never going to change. Chan is a friend on the same journey that I’m on, but you are everything that reminds me home and of newness at the same time. Normal, right?

It’s so much more than normal and it’s not at all normal but normal is exactly what it feels like, and I like it like that.

Even when you’re being foolish, remember that you are always on my mind.

Being apart after twenty years spent together every day has an effect on me, too, Sungie, though I may not always show it. And I know that you haven’t been physically affectionate with anyone lately, through your writing, an I wish nothing more than that I could be there so you could hug me. Even though I would pretend to hate it. I always let you, don’t I?

But here I am, letting you down today. It might be my biggest regret about coming here, so I hope the package I’m sending you finds you well. Wear it and tell me if the sweater smells anything like here; I made sure to wear it to sleep so maybe, you can hug me that way.

I hope my words feel like a warm hug to you, because that’s all I’ve wanted them to be, since I started writing. I don’t know if the warmth in the fabric of the wool sweater will last, but I sure hope you feel it either way.

I’m sending it with the same warmth you have when you talk about the music you can hear in the world, the same one that you will probably leave my room with a trace of, and I cannot wait to go home and feel it myself.

Of course I do not think love stories are for women and action for men, those are useless standards. Why should we keep people’s interests out of their reach just to make other people happy when it is none of their business? People like what they like, and it is entirely about them and no one else. I am so glad (have I been using this phrase a little too much?) that you’ve found a genre that you admire, not many are able to do that.

Again, I do not care if they are romance novels, you must tell me all about the lovers and the stories and the verses you will probably write of them, because the way you tell me those things is the kind of poetry that I like.

My mother does seem to adore you more than me, so I would not be surprised in the least if she had officially replaced my entire being with you by the time I come back. The only thing I ask of you is to not claim eomma’s bulgogi as yours: that will always remain mine.

Doongie is NOT yours, you asshole. Doongie believe people shouldn’t let their families fuck with their head, so be more confident in yourself, okay? Just like I am confident in you, and maybe then I will remotely consider the idea of sharing Doongie with you. Maybe.

I apologize for all the grammar mistakes I have probably made in this letter, I am so sleepy that I have to rub my eyes so that the tears do not fall on the page.

Do not talk about you dying, Jisungie, it awakens a barely suppressed fear in me that everything I am doing in power to keep you safe is powerless and that I cannot do anything to protect you in the real life.

I will not die, as long as you promise to never even entertain the thought of you being hurt. I do not know what I would do if it was to happen. Just thinking about it…fuck.

I feel like I could break down every single sun that exists except you, so that you can shine. I am here, and please never think that I am just saying. Maybe I have said it too much in my letters and not enough to you in speech, and I hope I find the courage in me to tell you it when we meet. And I hope that it is soon.

Do not miss me so much that I have to wipe tears off your face; my hands are calloused now and I don’t want you to feel the roughness on your cheeks.

You are enough for me,

Minho (hyung).

Chapter Text

Minho (hyung) (ew),

I’m worried about you. It is rather abrupt, but what do you mean you did not have time to even drip by to the post collection? Is your back acting up again or do they simply train you so much? I really thought there would at least be some theory classes where you could physically relax, no?

It hurts me to see how out of it you are even through a page, so I’m requesting you please not write these letters if it’s affecting your sleep and your discipline by the officers. I will keep writing to you if it makes you feel better; I am at home every day after all, I have nothing better to do on my hands and you know I would drop things to write you a letter if I could help you. Please let me do this for you, hyung.

I wish the sweater was warmer and thicker enough to get you through winter, because I know you will be shivering like a cat during the coldest months now coming, and I know you have packed so light because you wouldn’t listen to me, so I had to use my superpowers and give you my sweater.

Alas, I cannot yet tell you about the type I have in partners; I have not quite yet completely come to terms with it myself, so bear with me as I figure it out. You will be first to know, anyway. What do you reckon my type is? Don’t lie, I’m sure you have conjured up all kinds of scenarios of me with different types of people if you have had the time. It is very ironic that you would think about that.

Also, how would you be the one getting stressed if it is my marriage? Shouldn’t I be the nervous one at the thought of having someone walk down the aisle to me? I don’t know how people would react at the prospect of their best friends getting married, but I am fairly sure they don’t sound so jealous that it is obvious even on a mere piece of paper, hyung, are you scared someone will steal me away and you won't be able to talk to me every day? don’t worry, Minho, I'll make sure to spare you a few seconds of time after I part with my partner.

Can we not talk about my parents in our letters now, for this conversation? I try to pull away and see that it is wrong for myself, but it is so hard to separate myself from them as a different entity, they have taken over my identity and I feel as if I am the truest myself when I speak to you. I do not know how to separate myself either, even though difficult, and I am stuck in a loop except that your letters are a gateway to somewhere that my overworking brain lets me rest and I am so grateful.

I despise the idea of marriage as much as you. Maybe I wouldn’t hate it if I had someone to love, but I hate it for the reasons that they push me to marry. I do not think anyone except the two people should get a say in what your marriage prospects look like; they are not the ones getting married. I agree that they might have hurt me, and then denied it, but marriage is too big of a step that I will not let them take no matter what. I fight with them, and my resolve is strong because of you, but I am scared that they will manage to pull me over to their side once again and crumble my resolve.

my family is not the best, but they are not the worst. I do not know how to say it; they care about me and that is why they try to give me the best life they can, but it is only best from their point of view and they will not let it go even if it kills me to go through what they do to me, but it comes from a place of love for me, right? It is love, but the wrong kind of expression. I would like to hold on to that. I have not chosen them, but I have chosen you, and you have chosen me, and my family is you too. Your eomma considers me her son, so I choose her too, and Changbin fits in anywhere, and I am so glad that I get to call you (and Changbin, otherwise he might murder me).

I got the job! It is such a change from the sombre topic, but I got the job! I have only gotten the news right now as I wrote this and I cannot write fast enough to convey how happy I am right now. I get to support you and our families, and I get to do it in a place of something I love to do and to do it at home. I am so elated I feel like I could fly right over to you and hug you to death instead of that sweater. I am holding the acceptance letter in my hands and I wish I would have sent it to you but I feel I need to look at it for approximately seventeen eternities before I will believe it. I cannot believe I was really qualified enough to get accepted, or what possessed the interviewer to accept me, but I am just so relieved that nothing else matters at this moment.

And you were the first to know.

Damn, are you telling me to disrespect you then? Okay. Take advantage of your friend’s mistakes, I guess, and rob yourself of the respect I was feeling for you.

And careful, hyung, without your smirk and your sarcasm it’s hard to tell whether you’re joking or not. What will you do if I really fall in love with you all the while you were just joking? And you're not in love with me? What will you do then?

Does Chan read all our letters, then? Do you really trust him with that? If you do, then he must be a very worthy man. Keep using the ointment, too, and even though Chan might be your best friend now or whatever, don’t share it with him. I don’t mind being selfish if it means you get more to use, okay? Please use it. It’s expensive and I did not buy it for a stranger I have only heard about twice in my life on a piece of paper.

My letters might be haphazard, but they are still so much more organized than what my thoughts have been like these days. There is this constant thought that persists and refuses to leave my mind and I do not know how to manage it, because I am so lost in trying to figure it out. See, I cannot even describe it properly. It is looming over my head and I have come to terms with it but I also haven’t, at the same time. It feels too new and too unreal, but I do not know how to feel about it in any other way. I do not know the consequences.

Your family is probably the only people keeping me on the ground right now. I just had her bulgogi yesterday and it tastes just as divine, but maybe it would have been cooked better if it were for her actual son. I could see her crying as she made it even though she pretended It was just the smoke, and I know she was thinking the same thing as you did. It’s a cruel thing, but maybe it will taste better when you come back.

I told Changbin what you said in those exact words, and he said that he would join the military solely to learn how to fire a gun so he could kill you on the spot. And then I told him he already had guns to begin with and he has never laughed harder at a joke before; I think my jokes have finally grown on him. Changbin has been a big help, and even though he tells me I’m fine, I know he has been there for me more these days. Maybe I am more transparent than I thought.

I admire your awkward skills in that it helps me guard off assholes who wouldn’t talk to you for more than two seconds if you weren’t good at responding to them; the people who are interested genuinely will make an effort, and that is how I know they will be good for you. Do not count your skills as a weakness, hyung, because they are a strength in my eyes and if I am your eyes and ears and words, then you have to believe it too, right?

Besides, you did not sound awkward with Chan at all. Is he so good that he managed to break your barrier, really? I am happy for you, Minho, truly.

You’re sometimes silly, though, because if you didn’t want to see the sun in my eyes dim down, you would have never left me here alone. I do not say this to blame you; I have so much respect for your decision to not listen to what anyone has to say and follow your dreams to serve the country, but you can not blame me if I say I wish you were here with me. Do you know how fast my heart beats when you send me a letter and I have to calm myself down that inside will be a letter in your handwriting and not a typed-out list of men who fucking died and it includes your name? Do you know how terrifying it is?

Because it is probably one of the worst times I’ve had in my life when I go to get that letter. There is excitement to read your words, but there is the heart-dropping fear of finding out you do not exist in this world anymore and I would not even get to look at you again. It kills me to write this, too, because it makes everything so real that you could just be gone right this second and I would be writing meaningless words to someone who would never be able to read them and never able to know how much I truly loved them.
Please, please don’t die. I did not ever mean it lightly when I ended my letters with them, and I do not mean them lightly now. I would not like to receive my sweater back all bloodied and tightly packed in a box without a trace of you in it.

My chest feels fuller than ever when I write to you, how could you assume it could ever be empty? I could never give up music when your eyes exist. Where would I put all the poems I write about you if not in my music? And all the lines you write to me in these letters? I am saving each and every single one of them, remember that.

I know I am joking, but you do not know how relieved and happy I am that you fell asleep to my music and that you even remembered it in a time of stress. It makes me believe that in a tiny bit of my heart, I can make music in the same way I wanted to and to hear you say that is too overwhelming to explain. Maybe I will also write a song about that?

I have always said that the sun and the moon are lovers, perhaps forbidden to the few glimpses of each other when day shifts into night and vice versa. It is quite similar to me and you now; I only ever truly feel your essence with you and your letters, but I never stop thinking of you even when I do not have a paper clutched in my hand.

Do not forget about yourself no matter how much you serve the country, Minho. It is you serving the country and you deserve to be named. If you cannot put yourself first, at least think of yourself. I will put you first, and I will remember your name no matter what, so please, even if you forget your name, never forget that I will always think of it.

I think the looming problem in my head is making me more insightful and lyricist-y than usual, right? It is taking up too much paper, I do not think I can literally afford to tell you about my day, it would ruin my budget.

It is a tragedy, to not tell you about my day, but be sure to tell me about yours to make up for it.
and you say you aren’t tired of hearing me talk, but maybe the papers running out are a sign that I simply shouldn’t, too. I want to, but I cannot.

There are so many things like that, but this might be my least favourite one. Your words always seem to have more of an impact on me than others; I guess it is because you reserve your words, and when they come out just for me, it feels better to know that you think I am worthy enough. And you are always there quietly whispering in my ear that I am worth it, and you are the only person I hear over a thousand screaming voices telling me to shut up.

I talk for you, and I write for you, and I make music because of you.

Thank you, Minho, even though I might have never said it out loud before.

do not tell me I am normal, neither that you like normal; I simply do not have the energy to understand it in the way you mean and how it differentiates from how I want you to mean it. If normal is home, and I am normal, does that mean I am your home? Will it mean that if you get used to the military you will call it home too, that you will visit me as something out of normal?

I apologize for being so blunt in this letter, I truly did not want to waste so much paper talking about myself, but I cannot seem to stop when it is you I am imagining.

It’s funny that when I wrote that out, I had not yet read your words about Chan, and how now that I have, I feel much lighter. Is that wrong, Minho, do you think it’s wrong? I don’t even know what I’m asking, but will you please tell me it’s okay? Tell me it’s okay.

And I apologize again if I made you feel like I do not like Chan. It’s not that I dislike him, it is just that I am scared of letting go, I guess. It is hard to imagine you have a life there, even though I genuinely wish it is as comfortable as it can get. Do you want me to send some pillows too if it is allowed?

How the fuck did you manage to deduce I have not been hugged since you left through just a letter? Are you spying on me? Is that something they make you do as training in the military? But yes, I do wish I had my arms around you and you were squirming like you do and I wish I could tell you to your face that you did not let me down; that I was happy about the fact that you were the last person I hugged and you will probably be my next, too, when you come back. I fancy hugs but they are infinitely better when I can make you laugh in the squealy way that you do.

By the way, there was another box that I received, now that I think about it, and I think it’s from you? But I don’t know what you could’ve sent me and I’m a bit scared to open it. Have you sent me literal guns? Was this part of your secret spy training? Let me open it right now, okay? I’ll be back (you don’t have to wait on paper when you read this, but I like that I can talk to you like this, so let me.)

Minho.

Why did you send the sweater back? What does “it’s warm enough for you now” even mean? Your note makes no sense. You make no sense to me. I didn’t mean I wanted it back, you idiot. You can keep it, maybe on your nightstand. I sent it because it’s my favourite one, but I know you must barely get anything to cover yourself in this winter, and your back pain will only get worse if the weather maintains.

did you plan to make me cry like this? If the paper is teary and the ink runs off, it is not my fault, it is entirely yours. I am sending it back, with this letter, but I have not failed to notice your scent on it. You still smell the same as you did, like vanilla somehow, but there is a fresh musk to it that smells like rainwater, and I hope to god you did not go out in the rainy weather last week. What if you catch a cold? I don’t like my love letters snot covered, for your kind information.

Make sure you wear it, okay?

I have to explain everything to you in this household. I don’t know how I’ve survived so long with you, to be honest. How have I not lost my mind?

Do not tell me I am poetry, Minho, do not tell me that the way I talk is poetry when your breathing is much more poetic to the world that my existence itself. And do not rope me into writing verses about you this way, it makes it hard for me to decipher what you mean by it; if it is genuine or if you are joking.

Do not fluster me so much even through paper, you idiot. I may end up loving you, or worse, hating you. I hate you. I love you.

I do not have the liberty of using much more than what is left of this paper and then one more leaf, so I will briefly respond to everything you say, okay? Listen carefully, maybe you can hear my voice in it, too, if you hold it close enough.

Yes, I will tell you about every story I read, if I have enough paper, otherwise, I can tell you them all in person, as soon as that can be. Yes, your mother loves me more than you and her bulgogi are mine now, and you can’t do anything about it even as I lay with my cat, Doongie, on the floor of your bedroom, which I have now claimed mine.

If you are mine, then everything you own is mine too, is it not? I could give away everything I own including you, but maybe I will keep your smile to myself.

And your cat. My cat. Our cat? Our cat. Our cats.

If you are so worried about me, why don’t you come here and show me how strongly you feel it? Instead of sending me my own sweater, why don’t you return me back my smile that is resting on your face, so far away from mine?

You might say everything too much in your letters and not enough in your speech, but both of them are your words and they belong to me, so I do not mind either way. Keep telling me all your words and I will make sense of them, always.

And I would love your hands even if they are calloused, as long as they stay on my cheeks.

I had a dream I met you, and I can only hope that it comes true, because in my dream you held me through the night, and I did not just have to hold your letters pretending they were you.

Don’t die,
baby.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

Don’t worry about me so much! I promise it is not as bad as it feels now. I knew what I was signing up for, and when I lay down, I am tired but there is satisfaction that the tiredness is proof of my hard work. There are theory classes, but they are far too outweighed by the physical aspects. But it is not a bad thing; I will soon be ready to be an actual soldier! Me, a soldier, your Lee Minho! I am so honoured that I will have a chance to be addressed by that title, and to really serve, not just with training. I think me and Chan will be enlisted together, seeing as we joined very close to each other.

I am not disrupting any of my sleep or my schedule by writing you a letter every two weeks. I wish they were more than enough, if not consistent. And have you ever known me to let anything personal affect my work? It does not feel like work at all, but I will tell you that talking to you helps me concentrate better on my training because I know that you are okay and will have my reply soon.

I cannot force you to tell me what you like in your partners, but I have known you long enough to maybe have an inkling. I would have gotten it out of you if I could if I was there. I imagine maybe a petite girl, matched with your interests and just as ambitious as you about her hobbies. Someone who understands you without you having to talk much, and someone who is there to listen when you do talk. Someone who will give you as many hugs as you need and then you won’t need the sweater to keep the cold out anymore.

Maybe you imagined a more physical description, but this is only what comes to mind. Maybe I am right about you liking these traits, but I know that these are the traits I would want in your partner, and I wouldn’t have anything less. Only the best for my Jisungie, right?

and that is why I would be stressed about your marriage, too. What if someone less than deserving of you takes you away and I have to watch from a distance as you are in a miserable marriage with someone who cannot love you the way you want them to? You, Han Jisung, are one of the biggest romantics I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and you are also the one person that deserves someone to love them more than anything.

You love easily, baby, you will love anyone so fiercely because you have a heart even bigger than your cheeks. You will look at someone like they have hung the moon and stars in the night sky, but you deserve who will turn day into night just so they can hang the moon and stars for you.
So, even for my sake and yours, do not marry someone who cannot give you the life you envision in your books. Society does not deserve that love, and neither does it have any say on how much you should be loved or by who.

Keeping you safe falls under keeping the country safe, so if anyone dared lay a hand on you, be it your blood or not, I would not hesitate to become your soldier and put those skills to use. Maybe I could get away with it. Do you think we could get away with murder, Jisungie?

I don’t quite agree with your view of your family, but I know that it cannot be easy to feel the way you are feeling, so because it might make you uncomfortable, I will not write back about them, but you should know that I will read whatever you send me.

Ah, Jisungie, I knew you had it in you. What did I tell you? They would be fools not to take someone like you who actually adores their job instead of only doing it for the name and the money. Holding your letter in my hands is enough to feel like how you probably had felt when you had your acceptance letter there, and it is an amazing emotion. I am so proud of you, do you even know?

You can look at it for seventeen eternities and it will not change, because it is your hard work and determination that has made you capable of making it, and it will never change.

Think of all the opportunities after this, Sungie, that you will be able to read all the books that you wanted to, and you won't have to pay for them, and you will get paid in return! And people will read your works and know you by name in the newspaper and you will support our families and I know that you will do such a good job of writing me longer letters, now, too, won’t you?

My Jisungie is so popular now, but don’t go revoking your title of lonely wife just to be stolen away by someone else, yes? What will your husband in the military ever do if you left? I have already lost the title of hyung so many times, will you also leave me divorced and crying?

of course, I was not joking. We are married, are we not? I see you are already taking away the credit of our spoken marriage and it is not fair to leave someone over a piece of paper. Whatever shall I do? you are telling me that you are not really in love with me yet? Even after all these verses I seem to keep writing in my letters?

I guess I need to up my game, then, before some fancy author with fancy words makes you fall in love with them instead.

You really seem so adorable when you write about Chan, I can clearly see the focused frown on your face and your heavy sighs. I imagine you would be glaring at me if not for the distance. I trust him, Sung, but not as much as you. Never as much as you, and everything said in these letters is only ours. I tell Chan sometimes about you, and about the funny things you tell me, but I can not fathom being so open to him as I am to you. And I will not share the ointment, okay? Besides, he has his own.

Did you know his best friend in Australia made him the ointment? It is not store-bought but rather a recipe passed down from generations that his best friend snitched on and gave to him even though the recipe must not go out of the family. I think their bond is just like ours too, but then again, are they married? I don’t think so, therefore they cannot be as great as us.

Is that what you wanted to hear? Because it is true. I will tell you as many times as you need to but do not forget even in your messed up head that I will never not be yours. Your husband. The dad of my cats, even if you claim them to be yours.

You worry me more than you worry about me, Jisungie, whatever in the hell went down that you messed up your thoughts like this again? Is it something to do with the marriage again? Or your partner types? I do not care if you can't describe it, I understand perfectly well enough. You have to come to terms with it, as long as it takes. I will help you if you decide to confide in me, and I will tell you to trust your gut even if I do not know. Your instincts are one of the best things about you, and I assure you they will not be wrong. Love yourself and accept yourself for who you are, because it is my favourite version of you.

I love your messed-up thoughts because they make you who you are and help you figure something out about yourself, even if they might give you a hard time doing so.

What are you so scared of, Sungie? I have never known you to shy away from accepting something from yourself. You take it in stride, and you always are so confident about yourself in front of strangers even though you might be battling your family or yourself. Even me, Sung. So what are you so scared of this time? What is so different? Please tell me, so I can help you. I do not want to push your comfort, but please won't you tell me so I can help you? It is like hell just sitting here and waiting for two weeks to get your letter and make sure that you are okay.

Trust me when I say that I will accept you for who you are and that it will change for the better always if not capable of not changing. My letters will never stop, neither will my trust in you. Tell your mind to shut up the thoughts that make you sad and listen to your husband, will you?

I hope you won’t make yourself unhappy to make others happy, that’s my biggest wish.

You have still not sent me the bulgogi from my mom; are you holding out and stealing all my food? Han Jisung, I better not find you keeping away the bulgogi, but I will let you off the hook for now, if it is something that makes you happy. And I will make it taste better when I come back, too.

I don’t know how I didn’t consider this before, but is it Changbin who has been eating all my bulgogi? It wouldn’t surprise me if he decided to eat every single bit of food in the world, but he doesn’t get to touch my bulgogi or I will bury him into the ground before he even has a chance to point a gun at me. Maybe he will die even sooner, what with your killer jokes. Get it?

I’m thankful to him that you get a pillar as strong and buff as him to lean on, as well, God knows I would like his muscley arms right now. Maybe they would hurt less after training. I think Changbin might even work out even more than I do as training. I don’t even know who he does it for, but he keeps saying everyone will fall for him by his muscles. How can someone pay attention to his muscles when his disgusting(ly cute) smirk is right there?

Call him cute and tell me his reaction, will you, Sungie? It would bring me so much pleasure in a time like this to envision him being annoyed. And also you calling him cute. I wish you would call me, your own husband cute, as least once.

Or maybe I will get Chan to call me cute if you refuse to, hm? I'm positive he wouldn’t mind; he would even go as far as to call me nicknames as I do you, baby, would you be okay with that? He did break down my barrier, you’re right, but it is because of his charming smile and the slight Australian accent that he picks up from his friend all the time. I might fall in love with the accent and the muscles that Chan has too if you don’t tell me I’m cute.

I think you have already approved of Chan, as you think anyone who genuinely made an effort to talk to me despite my incoherent speech, and if you are my eyes and my ears and my words, then you definitely approve of Chan as my husband, right?

You are my eyes and my ears and my words and my heart too, Jisungie, and you are more idiotic than I thought if you think I will leave you after just a mortal death. I promise you that every letter you receive will contain only the words that you have given me the liberty to say, and never once my name in a list that would make you not be able to see me again. I do not think such a paper could ever exist, that it could keep your name away from my name. I only ever like seeing my name when it is in your penmanship followed by a lack of honorifics.

Do not ever fear that I will die here, because even if I do, I will hold you even in death. I will remember your embrace even as I’m dying and I will not let go without making you feel warmer than the sweater does. So I hope that next time you receive a letter you only go to pick it up with excitement in your heart, and never a sliver of doubt that it might contain my name. My letters will only have your name in them.

You break my heart, my Sungie, and you are my heart so you break yourself when you write this, too, because it makes me want to give this up and come back to you because I really cannot bear to see the look of fear in your eyes and not comfort you with my cats. I hope that they are good companions while I stay here. I will always exist for you, please, excuse my shaky handwriting but I am sorry with my whole being that I have left you there where you can't be in my line of sight all the time, but I have come here for you so please never think you won't ever get to look at me again. It means that I wouldn’t get to look at you either, and that is maybe the single thing that could bring me back from here, but please do not make me choose.

You are the reason I smile when you smile, and I have to stay here to make sure that you keep smiling just like that.

If I am ever dying, Jisungie, I will never forget to return your sweater, but I will wear it as I lay down, too, and sleep. Maybe for the last time, maybe I will wake up, I don’t know, but your sweater is well used and I swear that you will see both of us again. And then you can hug me like you hug my cats.

Can you believe that I have become someone who is craving touch? Would it be too out of my personality to say that I want to hug you in this moment to make sure you know that my hands are not cold when you hold them and that I will not die as long as you keep holding my hand?

Will you make me a song, too, then, with all the verses we write? Maybe it will feel just like a hug, and maybe I can hum it under my breath again to fall asleep. You are my favourite musician, Sungie, and only a small part of that reason is that the songs are about your husband. Me. It flatters me to no end to know that you envision me when you write all your love songs.

Maybe you have never shown me a love song, but I know you keep them hidden away. You always get such a fond look in your eyes when you write them that it is impossible not to guess that it is a love song. I hope they really are about me.

Or I will get Chan to write a love song about me, instead.

It is too early in the morning now for metaphors about the sun and the moon and them in love, but I can tell you that as the sunlight illuminates the room and helps me write this letter, it is nowhere near how bright you look when you laugh. There’s another lyric for you.

I have just realized, that I could not forget myself if I wanted to, because you are my heart, as I said and I do not think there is any force in the world that could make me forget you, even if I am not breathing.
I told you I will say it s many times as you need to hear it.

You are worth it to me, my Han Jisung. You are so worth it.

I talk only to you and I write only to you and I only listen to music written by you.

Thank you, Jisung, even though I have never said it out loud before, either.

You might not have the energy to decipher what my words mean, and I do not even remember what part of my previous letter you are referring to, but it means exactly what you want it to mean, in the same way you want me to mean them. I have never lied to you, and I can tell you that my last letter was all true. Every single part.

Why would you apologize for talking so much and wasting paper when I want you to talk to me anyway? I imagine you while talking as well, and if I can write such long letters like you do, even though it is not even in my character too, then you should be writing me a novel in every letter. And I would still make time to read all of it.

And it is okay. All of it that you are feeling is okay, and it is allowed, and it is you in its truest essence, and even if you don’t know what you are asking, I will always say yes.

They were my wedding vows to you, by the way. They sure sound like that.

My life here is not even a shell of what it was with you, and Chan is just another shell, too, at this beach, lost in the sand of the army. We were just lucky that our shells were near each other. But if you put my shell to ear, you would hear your own song reverberating through it.

I do not laugh in a squeaky way, I have a most sophisticated and proper laugh, and I do laugh like it every time you say something in your letters that catches my fancy, so you may as well imagine me hugging you too. It is neither impossible nor difficult for me to tell when you have been starved of an affectionate touch through your speech; I have known you since you were toddlers and your way of speaking that reflects on your words has been the same when you haven’t been held in a while.

You might be mad at me that I sent you the sweater back, but it really is warm enough for you now. I have put my scent on it and dreamt of you while sleeping in it and that is the most, I can do from here to make sure that you feel held. Even if my arms are narrow and short, I will hug you.

You don’t have to think about the smudges on the paper, especially not if you think I wouldn’t be able o decipher what you said through them. I think your tears say enough for me to not have to even read the words that were wept away with them. But maybe I will send you a letter full of snot, and see if you can determine how bad of a cold I have as of now.

Maybe the sweater you have sent back again will do me some relief in this weather.

You have mentioned this so much in your letter, and yet again I stumbled upon a paragraph and you telling me to not call you poetry and that you do not know if I am joking. How could I have ever been joking about something like when literal sunshine shines out of your crescent eyes when you are happy? And that I want to become one of these old aunties on the street so that I can pinch your cheeks and annoy you because they are so bunched up? And how do I tell you that the ocean loses its waves and overflows when you cry?

I am not used to being so open, but you bring it out of me even on paper and I surprise myself again and again as words I never expected to live inside of me pour out on the paper, spilling like ice cream on a hot summer day, and I can only wish that you have brought me an umbrella for this summer because I am not used to this heat.

Sometimes it scares me that you will think you preferred me when I did not talk much, but I have this need to tell you whatever comes to my mind, after being apart for two weeks after every letter, so please do not mind it.

Count that as a verse, too, if you may.

My husband is so beautiful. My princess, no? my lonely wife and my princess and my husband and my Sungie, what should I call you out of all these names? "My heart" seems fitting.

I hate you too. I love you too.

They are such insignificant words, just four of them, but they mean a lot to you, don’t they? And they mean a lot to me too, by extension. I truly mean it, Sungie.

I can hear you through the paper without having to hold it close; you write the way you talk and the bright sparkle in your eye is unmissable as I read your letters. You can keep my smile with you, I don’t think it was ever mine or anyone else’s anyway, or it could never be. But please do not take Doongie. She is one-fourth of my soul.

Hm, our cats. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Maybe if we are husbands, they can now belong to both of us.

I will return your smile to you when you return me my cat, my heart, and my sunlight. For now, you can have this letter, instead. I will keep telling you my words, and that is all I can give you in return for the way you make my days so much better by writing to me.

Maybe I can’t hold you through the night, but I will hold your sweater tight and hope that you feel the strength that I am missing you with, and that my calloused hands stay on your cheeks to wipe away any stray tears.

I will cradle you with the gentle touch that you cradle a newborn baby with, as you have addressed yourself as one in your letter. And I will make sure that I take the utmost care of my hands, so I never have to worry about hurting you. God knows it will devastate me if I never cup your cheeks again.

Maybe I really am an old aunt, in spirit.

You are in my thoughts even when you don’t think you are,

your 남편

Chapter Text

Minho,

Have I ever told you how inexplicably cute you are? How adorably squishy? You put the best aegyo performers to shame. You make my heart squeeze so much and you are so cute and you are the person whom the word cute was invented for. Minho is cute. You are cute. You are so cute, the cutest hyung ever.

Your eyes crescent when you smile and you have a faint dimple that no one notices but I do and I love it so much because it is so cute, just like the rest of your face, and you have cute ears that turn cutely red and cute bunny teeth that look like an actual cute bunny when you stare at something in shock and your mouth drops open, cutely. You are so cute.

How will you be so cute if you lose your sleep? You will be cute even with your cute eye bags, but I don’t like seeing you cute if it means that you are very uncutely sacrificing your sleep over it.

I like my partners to be cute, hyung, just like you thought I might. And just like you think you are cute. You are cuter than anything I have ever known and if I was there I would put you in the palm of my hand and always stare at you because you are so cute. You are too cute so I need to protect you from people with Australian accents and dimples who want to write songs for you because that is solely my job. If I pull the trigger on them instead of the pen, then it will not be my fault, but your cute face’s because you attracted so many people.

It is only me that gets to call you cute, on behalf of everyone else. My cute Minho hyung.
But yes, you’re right, and maybe I have already found the person you have described, too. Someone exactly like that checks off every trait you mentioned and is also so cute. Dare I say the cutest person I have ever met? They are also a little bit hot, which is embarrassing to say, but they are. Sometimes I lose my mind when I think about them.

Is it a shock when I say I have already found that someone? They are so cute, hyung, how could I ever not like them? Love them? And their sweaters are so cute, too, and imagine they look even cuter in the sweater I have lent them.

I think I might want to marry them, hyung, and I want their cute face and even cuter heart to be by my side forever. The chances are too great of someone sweeping them away, don’t you think I need to ask for their hand in marriage before they are tied to someone else, but I don’t know if they will accept me in such a relationship.

What if they like me only as a friend? What if they don’t want me? The risk is too great, and losing them is not an option. I will accept their friendship If it means I get to keep them and their smiles and their tears with me. I cannot lose them even as a thought. The hurt is too great to acknowledge and I would be better off throwing myself into the universe than even putting our friendship to a test like this.

I think, about their options and types, but I am not them. I am not their type, not even in any of the options they could have as a type. Maybe I am not even on the list of people they could be attracted to in this world. What would I do without their cute words now and then, grounding me to reality?

Hyung, I know in my heart that they have made it into the night to hang the stars and the moon for me, because when I look up into the darkness, every twinkle reminds me of them, and every single bright star is their smile, and all of these constellations are reflected in their eyes when I look at them.

They give me nicknames in passing, barely like they even mean to call me it, and it makes me wonder if they know just how much of an effect they have on me. I want them to call me nicknames like they mean it. I want them to call me theirs.

I do not care if they can't give me the life I want, even though I know they can, and I do not care if society doesn’t accept us. They will never accept me and them together, but I could fight the world for them if they will hold me by the hand all through it. I could die for them, but I couldn’t bear to see the sea in their eyes wash over the stars that already have a home there, so I will have to settle on killing them.

Wah, my Minho hyung is so strong. Lee Minho, solider, to the personal service of Han Jisung. It sounds cute, doesn’t it? We could get away with murder if you pull me along with you when you run by my hand because we both know I cannot run with my puny legs.

Another thing is that my person (is that what I will be calling them from now? Yes. Yes it is.) loves me for who I am, and they were happier even more than me when I told them that I had gotten the job. They were so proud, hyung, and I wanted to cry because how could someone be so perfect? I think I will never be able to find anyone as good as them, and I do not want to. I love them by choice, and my choice will never change when it comes to loving them.

It is such an insignificant word like you said. Love. But I think I might need a word stronger than that to even begin to describe how deeply I feel for them. There exists no word in any language that would do their beauty justice. It makes me want to make my own words to have a word to call them by, but I am not genius enough to come up with something that could encompass something so limitless like their love.

They love so deeply, and so slowly and then all at once, and it is a rollercoaster to be on but I have found that it is the only rollercoaster that doesn’t make me want to be sick, even though it might be the highest one I have ever been on yet.

I might want to be their husband, but I think I always will be your lonely wife, still, because I could never separate the two titles. They are equally close to my heart and I adore them both. I couldn’t leave you divorced and crying, now, can I? how could I do that to my cutest precious hyung?

I wouldn’t revoke my lonely wife card even though I have been stolen away. But I am telling you to swear on my life to not get stolen away. You can’t, hyung. Simply not. don’t you see you would leave me battered and bruised? Your heart would be battered and bruised and no longer a lonely wife, but an even lonelier one without you.

And you are still joking about our marriage, hyung. If I get married to the, would you mind? Wouldn’t you like to marry me yourself and make me yours and make sure I am no longer stolen away but yours forever? I would write verses and verses for you, and you would not understand, would you, hyung?

I have not fallen for an author, but they might as well be just as amazing a songwriter as I am if their lyrics and verses are anything to go by. Their verses might have been the one thing that made me realize that I am so in love with them, so deeply gone for them, and not just as a friend.

But do not make the mistake I did, Minho, and don’t go falling for Chan with his pretty verses and songs and hair and god forbid, if he has dimples, stay away from those. Don’t you think my cheeks are better? You cannot fathom being his, and you shouldn’t, either. If we are married, as you say, then you cannot leave me hanging if you pine over them?

And don’t go calling me a hypocrite for saying that. I have a perfectly valid reason that I cannot tell you because it is a corporate secret. I work in very confidential terms, hyung. You mustn’t know.

Chan has his best friend, and you have me, so you can't go stealing away his best friend’s man, okay? You have to stick with me. Please. They are not great as we are, because they don’t know what it is like to write letters like this and mean every single word more than you thought you could mean them.

Hyung, it reminds me to ask you, did you know even your words are cute? Does Chan ever tell you that? He should, but I am glad he doesn’t, because I can only call you cute. You are only mine to call cute.
You are as cute as our cats, and I have to substitute them for your cute unimpressed and frowning and annoyed faces when I pet them because they are the closest thing, I have to you.

My thoughts? No, they aren’t messed up at all! And I am in no way, shape or form thinking of marriage! Not to anyone else but my person! Did I tell you yet about how perfect and angelic they are? Sometimes I don’t think they are real, and I have to remind myself that they are real, indeed, and that they thought I was worthy enough to be their friend. I think I get so starry-eyed when I look at them, hyung, because how the hell can I not?

If they gave me a chance, I would light up their sky just like they have lit up mine. They are my night sky, and I want to be the brightest sunshine for them so they never have to face darkness without me again. I want to warm them up when they are cold and I want to see their sun-kissed skin so they can look even more like the angel they are. My heart hurts, Minho when I think of how much I want them. I might just cry again. I can feel the water right up under my eyes.

I have come to terms with my feelings a whole lot, hyung, hence the long-ass letter about them. I needed to tell you because I need to shout it off the high rollercoaster that I am on, but I am not really able to do that. It’s such a funny thought. I don’t know why it’s funny, it just is. It is, isn’t it?

You are so cute, Minho hyung, telling me to love myself the most when they exist in my life. I couldn’t love myself more than I love myself even if I tried. I couldn’t. My favourite version of myself is when I am in them. I like myself, I love myself when I am with them.

But I’m scared of loving them, too. Not because of what happens to me, but what might happen to them if they found out if everyone found out I loved them. I do not care if they hate me, but I couldn’t bear to see someone as pure as them be hated for something of my own actions.

If loving him is a sin, then I do not ever want to be holy.

Good, your letters shouldn’t stop, because they make me less scared and more strong and I like that they do. I will listen to my husband forever because you treat me so well. I won’t make myself unhappy anymore, hyung, because it makes my person sad, and I don’t want to see them sad. Not because of me. I will love myself if it makes them happy.

I will love myself even more if it makes you smile. It is my biggest wish that you keep smiling and that sometimes I am the reason that you do.

I can’t tell Changbin what you said, because he is still downstairs drinking something that tastes remotely like burning water. I spit it out as soon as I took a sip, but the burning felt weirdly satisfying but then I think Changbin was mad or sad or both that I was finishing his juice so he took it from me and sent me to my (your) room to sleep. I think the juice has made my brain all mushy because it feels like it.

But I don’t want to sleep! And I told him that! So he told me to reply to my lover boy again, so here I am replying to your letter. I giggled when he called you my lover boy, because it is so cute, but then he glared at me and he is so scary when he glares so I quietly came up to your room and I am here talking to you again. But I think I might fall asleep now, even without finishing your letter! I’ll give it to Changbin before I fall asleep, though! Will you forgive me if I have only read the rest of your words? My hand doesn’t feel like it can move. Maybe my hand is asleep, too.

And don’t ever again go waxing poetic about Chan again, because ummmmm (have you tried to write multiple M’s all together? It gave my hand a cramp, but it was fun!) it makes me feel weird in my stomach and not like Changbin’s juice! It makes my stomach turn and I don’t like it!

Your letter makes me cry, hyung, everything you write that I cannot reply to now, makes me cry even more. I love you, hyung, and I don’t say it all the time, but I really really do. It is a shame I cannot reply to you, but I am so mad at you for saying all these perfect things and making me cry all over again.
And I will really write you a love song, just give me some time to come up with a melody worthy enough that it could do everything I want to say justice.

I want to hug you so bad, right now, please won't you come here like I have asked you so many times? Please, hyung, nothing is enough and I want to hold you again. It is so pathetic but I mean it when I say that no one can hold me as you do. you keep making me reply to things you write because I cannot help myself, but please come here. Lay by my side right now as I fall asleep, and you can leave even before I wake up, but please be here. I will pretend that you are right by my side until it comes true.

Come law with your heart and make it happier, won’t you? Come cup my cheeks and make me feel your breath on mine like I have longed to feel, and take my breath away and replace it with yours.

My eyes are closing, now, and I still see you behind them. I’ll cut the letter off here, but they are never a limit to the words I could still say to you.

Goodnight, my love, and I hope you sleep well.

PS. You are cute.

Don’t die,
Minho’s Jisung.

Chapter Text

Dear Jisung,

What the fuck?

If I am so cute, then how the fuck did you fall for someone else? Am I not cute enough for you? Jisung, you cannot speak of your person like they mean the world to you and then talk to me like I am your world, too. It is not fair to either of us. I wanted to smile for you at your overuse of calling me cute, but did you imagine me when you wrote those words or were you still thinking of your person?

Because, Jisung, I don’t want any compliments from you if they are not meant for me, especially not if they are misplaced and are actually meant for your lover. Do I not qualify? Your cutest hyung’s stomach is twisted because of you, Sungie.

Guess I really am the lonely wife? I was right about that from the start, was I not? I write you letters that would border on love letters if they ever got out and yet you go falling for someone else?

Did you give them the same sweater you sent to me? If I smell it right now, will there be a foreign smell that belongs to not you and not me but someone else who I will have to share you with? I cannot say if I am sad or something else, but you have made me want to tear my hair out and I would do it if it was for you.

I have not lain in peace since your words, I have not been able to get even a blink of sleep because your words haunt me. I want to support you in your love, but I am scared on your behalf that you have fallen for some stranger that I do not know of.

You don’t know this, Sungie, and I doubt you even remember it, as it dates back to when you were only around eight or nine years old. I was comedically protective of you back then, and I still am, hence the anecdote, but you used to fancy someone. One of our friends, that was. And you played with me and then every single day and you never let me pretend to be the person they were dating because you wanted that role for yourself in the make-up roles we used to play along with.

You used to blush so much and it was fun to see because you thought they were your nice friend and you used to share all your kimbap rolls with him that I used to sneak on your plate first. All my rolls ended up with them, but I didn’t mind because they made you happy until one day, you were too hungry, and you ate all of them yourself. And you forgot to give them one. Do you know what they did?

They broke your favourite lunchbox. And then they threw the pieces of them at you and they hurt you so bad that you started bleeding. Because they were only ever your friend because you brought them those rolls every single day. I remember that you cried so much that day and I could not even beat them up with my eleven-year-old self’s strength because it would make you even sadder. Even if they were the one who hurt you, you would still stand up for them when I tried to tell you about their actions.

“They must be really hungry,” you used to say, and you believed it so fiercely that I couldn’t find it in myself to break your little bubble. But then, they stopped hanging out with us and you were so crushed because you missed them.

And what I mean to say is, Sungie, you have grown but sometimes you trust a little too much, which I admire about you but only till I know that the person will not end up hurting you. And it scares me because I do not know who you are talking about like this, and it terrifies me to think that they will hurt you more severely if you don’t share your metaphorical kimbap rolls with them one day.

You deserve to be put first and if someone cannot do that, baby, then they should stop leading you on. I do not think I can handle you being so crushed ever again. It would not be good for my health, seeing as I am an old man like Changbin says.
Don’t endanger your husband like that, Sungie, and promise me that if they ever fall in love with you the way they are supposed to, then it will not undermine the letters I write you.

They might be cute and kind and understanding and everything, but they will never be able to admire you the way I do because there is no one else when there is you, not even the certain people with Australian accents and dimples who want to write songs for me.
You already write me such beautiful verses; were they not enough that you found someone else? I could write even more verses if you ask me to. And I will.

Why are you leaving your cute Minho hyung behind? I had feared that someone would sweep you off your feet, but how could you not even think of your lonely husband in the military who wears your sweater to sleep? How could you not think about how I would feel when I find out that the sweater you have given me after embroidering your warmth in it already belongs to someone else who is a mere stranger to me?

I am feeling a way that I cannot explain, and words have failed me now to express what it is. There is a little pest in my mind running around and telling me that I have no right to say who you can or can not fall in love with, because I have sworn to be by your side no matter what, but please allow me to at least make you consider. Please, Sungie, do not fall in love with someone who cannot love you back. If they do not even make an effort to put the stars in the sky for you as I have for so many years, then then they deserve the darkness of the night and not the shine of your eyes.

As much as it warms my heart to see you so fulfilled when you ramble about them and that you trust me with your messy thoughts, I don’t know how to feel about it. If you are sure, Sungie, then all I can say is that remember me when you walk them down the aisle, because I will be right there looking at you as you experience the most beautiful moment of your life.

Speaking of. Do you know what the most beautiful moment of my life was? I sound like I have aged a thousand years when I speak of the past, but this moment takes place when you had only started your last year of education and I had gone to university and you had to stay in school without me. You never told me that you missed me that entire year, even though I could sense it because I did too.

And then, one day, on your last day, you burst into my room and you started yelling at me because “how dare you not understand that I miss you, hyung! You’re so annoying!” and all I could do was laugh because even if you hadn’t realized it, I had heard you whispering it to my cats every single day how much you wanted to be together. And you didn’t think it was embarrassing or sappy or too emotional for men because we had always been like that. It was funny because it was then that I realized that every single “I miss you” note that I had put on my cat’s fur for you to see, you had never received. My cats had eaten all that paper and you had not once been able to see me return you the sentiment because of them. And your tear-streaked face paired with Soonie’s fur making you sneeze made me laugh even harder.

You threw such a fit, and then I had to spend two days entirely trying to write an “I miss you” note again for every day that you had spent without me at school, over two hundred times and you would not even look at me until I gave them to you. And then you cried more until you passed out with your arms around my cat, and on my bed, and I had to sleep on the floor.

The next morning that I woke up, you were lying on me because you had somehow managed to fall off the fucking bed in your sleep and I had not been able to contain my laughter. And maybe I was too loud because you woke up through me shaking so much and then we were both laughing so much, that we couldn’t breathe. We were just there, fallen off the bed and crushing Soonie between us, laughing at absolutely nothing and ourselves, until my mother came up and stared at us like we were clowns and reminded us that we were making too much noise.

And that moment when you laughed so much with me is my favourite moment I have spent in my life, even after other countless moments like that. It still remains my favourite, and when you experience your favourite moment with your person, I hope you feel just as happy as I did when I experienced mine.

Happiness is all I have ever wished you, baby.

And there is no way that they have not already started fancying you, too, because how could someone not want you?

You are Han Jisung, who could not want you? Is there a single person who would not want to spend their life with you?

No one comes to mind, not even your person, not even myself, and I can assure you that your person will want you. If losing them is not an option, and if you think you are not acceptable as their type, then maybe it was not meant to be. You will find someone who loves you and you are their only option, baby, because you don’t deserve to be picked out of the others; you deserve to be the only person someone can think of when they think of marriage.

Jisungie, I am guessing you were under Changbin’s juice’s influence when you wrote this, and I don’t think it was juice at all, but I am telling you now if you do not remember that you have referred to your person as “him.”

Tell me if I am wrong, but you are in love with a man. And if you were scared that I would not like you because you fell in love with a guy, you have not known me at all. How could I fault you for falling in love? Even at eight years old and even now, I have known.

Because, Sungie, the friend you had a crush on when you were so little was a “him” too. You hold so much love in you, Sungie, and it doesn’t matter if it is not directed at the kind of people that old aunties tell you it is supposed to be directed at.

But you are wrong, sometimes because you have said that every single bright star is their smile, I fear you have looked into a mirror instead of at the person you love because no one’s starry eyes compare to the galaxies yours hold.

If your person doesn’t tell you that in this lifetime, I will see to it that they know that they have wronged Han Jisung’s personal soldier, Lee Minho. And it is a very dangerous thing to wrong me, nowadays.

I will call you mine if they do not call you theirs. You are already mine, but if they need a wake-up call to see that, then I will give them. But why have you never listened to the countless time I have called you mine in our letters? When I am truest it is in my letters, and you have not fallen in love with me, then who could you think of?

You might not care if he cannot give you the life you want, but if it is anything short of the fairy tales you are also in love with, then that is what I will make them be. Fictional. Nonexisting. Maybe even dead.

If they truly love you, they will fight to keep the smile on your face for even just a second longer even if it means that they will have to light everyone. You deserve to be fought for, my Han Jisung.

Why do you play with my heart like this, though? When you tell me you would fight for the world with their hand in yours, and then you tell me that you want me to hold your hand when we run away, what do you mean, Sungie? Because I want to hold you with both hands, but it seems you only have one hand to spare for me, now.

It’s okay, I guess I will hold on tightly to you with both of mine, so I can pull both you and your lover along with me, and keep you both safe if it means you will smile for me then like you did when you were laughing with me back then.

Do not ever think to compare my love to theirs, because they could start to imagine to love you so as I do. asl for my hand, and I will give you life. So long as you pull me closer, because that is what makes us both happy, then we will be alright. I will lay by your side again when you sleep, but I will never leave even as you wake up and look at me through your bleary eyes.

You are cutest when you wake up, confused and then smile at me when you realize that I am there. It makes me realize over and over again that I am truly grateful that I am the one you have chosen to be friends with. And then my wife won't be lonely anymore, because I will make sure that you know that you are the only one.

You are the only one of your kind. Han, remember? One, the only one.

For me, and for everyone else. If you never find someone to love you, always come find me. You don’t even have to look, just tilt your neck and I will be there.

I will be right there, cupping your cheeks just the way you want with my palms that are made just to hold you, breathing the same air as you and taking your breath away to give you mine because there is no one else in the world I could watch being with you like that, instead.

Won’t you let me be the one that makes you happy? Can’t I be your him?

I miss you, Han Jisung.

your him.

Chapter Text

Dear Minho,

Even after such a long letter about my person, half of which I wrote under influence and have no recollection of, I must have forgotten to also mention that my person is also the dumbest and thickest person I have ever met. And also, their nickname is Minnie, so I might refer to them like that. It is a good name, is it not? Minnie?

If you are jealous, you can just say it, hyung! If you were to read over other letters you would know that you are in love with me but I guess you have not realized, it yet. We are still husbands and yet. If you have given me the honour of being your husband then won't you understand what I am trying to say?

All my compliments to you are always said with meaning; I do not throw away compliments just like that when it comes to you, especially when they go deeper than skin. You should know that, by now.
And I am sorry if I can’t reply properly to you because I have no memory of what I had written to you that warranted such reactions of yours. I am going off whatever makes sense and whatever bits and pieces I remember.

I sure as hell don’t remember calling my lover “him” and I don’t even know what I said to you when I called him that, but I guess you caught on. It’s a man I am in love with, and I think I am more scared of that fact than you are. Where did you come from, that you can just take away my fears like that? It is concerning how fast my doubts about confessing to you about my identity have disappeared into thin air.

I wish you knew exactly what I was (probably) trying to convey through my message, but I know that assuming you will just know what I mean is unfair to us both. But I want you to know that I would never let you be the lonely wife. Are you already stealing my role now that I have told you about my person?

There is nothing and no one stopping me from being so close to you. I would not let anything come between us, anyway. If I was in love with someone who did not like our relationship, I do not think I could stand to be their friend for another second. We are a package deal, hyung, are we not? everyone is always saying that, and it rings so true.

And what if I did give them the same sweater as you? What if your sweater is tainted with someone else’s love for me and someone else’s smell? What will you do, then? Will you stop making hollow promises and come do what you told me you will do at the end of your letter? I haven’t known you to be someone who doesn’t keep their promises, so don’t let me down, now.

Minho, trust me blindly when I say that I will never be able to find someone who can be better than him. No one person could exist that would make me think of him any less than I do now. You probably don’t know how much they mean to me because it has been only, what, two letters since I have told you? But I have been in love with them for my whole life, I have just realized it now, and it feels like not just one life, but that I have been in love with them for lifetimes.

They could never hurt me, hyung, not willingly, because they are my person and, well, if they tried to, I have you to put them to their graves, don’t I? I know you will protect me, then what have I to fear?

I cannot write so many words right now because I have a headache and the post office closes in an hour, so I will be brief. I really do not remember anything before I turned ten, not even what scenario you tell me about.

But let me tell you, hyung, my person would never even dare to touch my lunchbox if it wasn’t to feed me themselves. I talk with experience when I say that they are the kind of person to do what you did, to try and fight them because they made me cry and hurt me.

They are so much like you, when I think about it now, it is almost like you are the same person. Isn’t it ironic?

I trust only you with the ferocity that I do; I do not even trust my family as much as I do you, but my person is on the same level as you, too. Another similarity, hm? They are so much like you, god, it really is so funny. You know they look like you and their personality is exactly like yours, too. And they like cats.

(I don’t know why I’m referring to them as “them”, still. I think I am still reserved about openly being able to say that I am in love with them. With him. Is it wrong of me to fall in love with them and then not do them justice by not even being able to call them “him”?)

Changbin is right when he says that you are getting old, and what does that tell you? It tells you that you should stop fucking around and come make me yours, officially, as your husband. I’m winking at you through paper! My winks aren’t going unnoticed, are they?

Hyung, I know I take things lightly sometimes, but I promise you that if they ever love me back, the way you think they should love me back, they will never undermine the letters you write me. Nothing could ever do that. I hold these pieces of paper too close to my heart for it to not break if someone was to take them away from me.

There is no one else when there is you, for me too, hyung. I do not know how clearly, I can tell you what you need to know, but the only thing holding me back is that I am still clutching my cats in fear that the reaction will not be what I expect it to be.

I would don’t mind if you wrote me more verses. In fact, I look forward to them, now. I challenge you to write me the most beautiful song I have ever heard. If you cannot put a tune to it I do not mind, the lyrics will do. can you outdo my favourite lyricists? Can soldier Lee Minho also be songwriter lee Minho?

Hyung, please, this is bordering on cruelty. If you don’t know what you are feeling, then I am insisting that you find out what it is, because hyung, I know what it is, but I had not expected you to be so blank when it comes to your own emotions. How long have you gone just using me to translate your emotions so much that you cannot do it yourself, now? I have not left you behind, and no one else except you could sweep me off my feet like I want to be, but if someone did then what would you feel, hyung?

How do you feel when you think about how the sweater, I gave you after embroidering my warmth in it already belongs to someone else? A mere stranger to you? Oh, but they’re not a stranger, hyung. Quite the complete opposite, if you just looked into what you are feeling. I think I might cry if you cannot name it. I am sorry that it is my not being able to tell you that makes it so hard for you. I am sorry that I cannot say it outright like I want to, I guess that is something I should improve, hm?

I have fallen in love with someone who does put the stars in the sky for me, I have fallen in love with someone who is exactly what I deserve, and you do all of these things, too. Thank you for being the person that makes me realize what I truly look for when I love someone.

Fuck you to the same stars and back, though, for thinking that my most beautiful moment isn’t one that I have spent with you. It I the same as yours, which sounds like I am making it up, but I remember that day like it was yesterday and I think of it every time I think that I am not happy living. It makes me smile so much that my cheeks hurt, and it gives me hope that everything is okay as long as I am laughing with you and your cats. I think I consider y own micro-family when it is us and our cats because it is all I have wanted and known since I was so young.

Did you know, hyung, that I had fallen on you not accidentally but on purpose? Because the bed sheets didn’t keep away the cold and your small frown while you slept brought me such comfort that I couldn’t help but roll over to sleep with you. But I had to make it look like I had fallen down because that is how my brain worked then and I was too embarrassed to admit to myself that I wanted to be warmed by you.

But I have grown used to wanting that, now, and that is why I can tell that you don’t mind it, too, that you want it, too, so that is why I cannot sleep, and that’s why you can’t either. We have grown too comfortable sleeping with each other, I can't stay away for long without being deprived.

Somehow, I don’t think it will be a problem if I sleep with my person. I think I will be lulled to sleep most comfortably.

And if you don’t know why I say that, then I truly understand why you are in the military and not in university.

I love you, hyung. And if there is not a single person who wouldn’t want to spend their life with me, then I hope my person wakes up smart enough to know that they want me. I know they do, now, but I just need them to realize that, too.

Happiness is all I have ever wished us, hyung. But if all I can get is sadness, then I will still take it if it is with my person.

I cannot be more ready for you to pick me, choose me, take me. So, when will you?

I haven’t looked in a mirror when I look at their smile, Minho, because I have a photo as proof that their smile could light up the world and I know it’s true when I look at you.

And if you still don’t think it's true that their smile means so much to me, then you can come here yourself and tell me why you don’t want me to think that. If it's so bad to wrong you, nowadays, come and be my personal guard to ward off non-deserving lovers, why don’t you?

Minho hyung, I will rip this sheet apart like I threatened to do a long time ago. If you don’t give my person a wakeup, call as soon as possible I will take away your title as a soldier, because then what are you doing? Go, shoo, work on that wake-up call, okay? How fast are your services? How fast can I expect results? I expect my money to be used perfectly! Otherwise, I will have no choice but to turn a blind eye to you calling me yours in your letters and pretend that it was from my person. I cannot replace you or your words, but I can dream, hyung. It has what has gotten me so far.

Changbin is yelling at me and telling me I have five minutes to finish up my letter before he misses my turn and just goes to the post office himself, so I’m sorry I can’t write more.

But I’ll just say this before I go: if I deserve to be fought for, is that why you are a soldier? My personal soldier? You have told me you fight for my smile and to protect me as much as you can. Should I count this as another similarity or are you just the same person?

And if it’s the same person, then I will no longer need to spare you only my one hand because I will hold onto you with both my hands just as tightly as you have. Your love is never unrequited, not from me. I cannot imagine someone loving me as much as you do, hyung, because you make me feel it even when you are not here. So much so that I think your cats are a tiny bit tired of me screaming into their fur to not disturb the neighbours.

Would you have figured it was you if it was you, hypothetically speaking? If I wanted you to be my lover, in earnest and not just a roleplay of marriage, would you ever have given me a chance? How long would it have taken?

If I tilt my neck right now, will you be there? Will you be there to hold me as I let go of my breath and take yours? When will you come to make good on your promise, hyung, I am already losing my breath thinking of you and if you do not come fast enough, I might die.

Take me before someone else does, baby. Call me yours before someone else has the chance to.

I miss you and your lips and your eyes and your smiles and I miss you.

Don’t die,
Jisung.

Chapter Text

Dear Jisung,

No way you have found someone to love with the same name as me? I can only hope that it is not the same name as mine because then you would be split up into two people, with the same name. and I do not think it would be fair to me if I had to see my name written on half of your heart and still know that it was not mine to hold.

But maybe if they are dumb enough, they will not know that the other half is their name and not mine. The only problem Is when they start thinking even my part of your heart is theirs; in which case I will show them that both of them are mine anyway.
Why did you have to fall in love with someone else, Sungie?

Nevertheless, with someone who you would also call Minnie? You went too far, Jisungie, and you dragged my heart along with it.
And maybe I am jealous, Sungie? Jealous that my favourite person in the world wants to belong to someone else now, someone that I have not even met, and that I do not have someone else to call Sungie and someone else to fall in love with. If you are my heart and you belong to someone else, then do you not think my heart would be twisted?

Because if I say I am in love with you, will you stay? If I say stay, please don’t go, Sungie. Or I will have to take you back and I do not want to do that if it causes you to hurt, but I too, am hurt and sad and jealous that I cannot have you anymore.

How dare you find a lover with the same nickname as me? Do you croon his name with the same love that you do mine? I have not heard your voice in so long, baby, but it still rings in my ears when I think about it.

You say such things of my love, my love. You say that your lover is just like me and that he has the same name as me, and we have so much in common, too, then did you not see that I am still right here? You found me in someone else and that was enough for you to let go of me.

I had hoped one day that I could tell you the only reason I have not tasted alcohol even once is that I do not know what I am like when I am under influence, and I don’t trust anyone to be there to witness it except you. And I am so glad, even in a selfish way, that you just wrote to me when you were vulnerable like that because I don’t know what I would have done if you were harmed in any way.

But I must say it was one hell of a letter, Sungie. One that gave me a feeling of hope and warmth and maybe it was my favourite letter from you yet. And I say yet in hopes that we will continue our letters in the same spirit.

I am Lee Minho, but if you ask me, I am your best friend, first and foremost, and I have special magical powers gifted to me to be able to take your fears away. I have a spell to make you fall in love with me, too, but I want you to do that by yourself and not with someone who is the same as me but not me.

If you thought that I would turn against you because you loved a man, you have never known me, Sungie. You have never looked at me twice if you think I of all people would not understand your love, and who it is for. Your identity is all that it is you, and I do not care how you define it, you will always be my Sungie.

I know that the people around you, even the ones that you thought loved you, might hold their reservations about your love, but I am one person who will never stray just because of that, okay? You can talk to me about it all you like, and I will listen to you like I always do.

I am not a lonely wife, but I will be the littlest bit lonely if you stop trusting me and if you trust your lover than you do me, Sungie. I cannot ever imagine having a lover when you are here, but if I did, I don’t think I would be able to be as close to them as I am to you. It is simply too much to tell them. Baring my soul to someone else feels impossible; you are so brave for doing that.
My brave Sungie, maybe you should be the soldier out of us, hm?

I know you think that our relationship will never change, baby, and I am holding on to that hope as tightly as you are, but I have seen it in society a few too many times that the lover is always more important than the friends. And I am so selfish for thinking that we will stay the same. So, Sungie, all I will say is, I’m sad that I wasn’t the one you loved, but I will always be happy for you and your love. And I will always be here if you need me. Just a tilt, am I right?

Read that again if we ever distance ourselves, won't you?

Please don’t ever think that I was unhappy because of you, because if happiness is all you wished for us, then I will make sure your wish comes true and that we are happy.

I think, if you stop talking to me, I’ll truly be all alone in this world. It is funny to think about. Maybe I will steal your seater, though. Would you mind if I don’t give it back? Because my thoughts sound too much like a goodbye and your sweater makes me stop thinking of it.

Honestly, without you in my life, deep inside I’ve never felt alive.

It is not about if your lover will let us be friends, but more of you not wanting to be with me as much as you do your lover, and I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to split your time with me and him, and gave him more of it. You love him, Sungie, I can't possibly fault you for that.

And to explain the long wait for this letter, I just needed to get my thoughts straight. I think it would have been even longer if Chan had not forced me to write this out and tell me to stop acting like a lovesick fool. It’s funny when you think about the one in love is you and yet I’m more affected by it.

Gosh, I make everything about myself in these letters, don’t I?

I don’t know how I would have felt, but if I was your person, I think I would have already figured it out and would have been admiring you from far in hopes that you will tell me what you want, point blank because heaven forbid an angel like you to deserve to be confessed to by a peasant like me. I think that’s what your person is worried about; that you are too high for them. I know that is what I am worried about what would I have been worried about if I had the honour of being the one you loved?

Are you sure you are not in love with me, Sungie?

It’s not wrong if you can’t admit your love to them, Sungie. Maybe it would be if this love was normal to see, but it is not and therefore you should be allowed to take your time, as much as you need, to admit to yourself that you are in love with a man.

Maybe you can start by calling them “him” to me in your letters, hm? And don’t mind me if I read them as “you” because the things you say to me while addressing “you” make me think you keep switching “you” and “him”. They sound like things you’d write to your lovers, so I should assume that it’s a mere mistake when you say “you” instead of referring to your lover, shouldn’t I?

“Stop fucking around and come make me yours, officially, as your husband.” Sungie, are you sure this wasn’t a letter to your lover and did you just forget you were writing to me? Winking at me? Well, nothing you can do about it now, I’ll just keep them to myself.

I can have that while you have your love, right?

I’m winking at you, too, then.

I can’t send you an entire song right now, but I will send you a lyric I overheard on the radio.

My first, my last, my everything
And the answer to all my dreams.
You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star
My kind of wonderful, that's what you are.

It rang so true for me when I think of you. I don’t know if it outdid your favourite lyricists, but I hope that it can give you a little bit of the taste of what my heart sounds like when it talks to you, and hope that it helps you wait for me while I write you a song.
Don’t leave me before you hear my song, okay? Give me a chance to be songwriter Lee Minho, and then you can tell me if your lover truly is better than me.

Don’t pretend that this whole thing isn’t cruel to me, too, Sungie. You have made me be so cruel because I know what it is I feel, but I cannot say it because you love someone else and I cannot be the one you think of when you love them. You have helped me know my emotions even if you don’t know how you did. Don’t ask me how I would feel, Sungie, because it is far too deep to explain on paper.

It is enough for me to fulfil my promise, I’ll say. But it is not so important that I interfere in your love for another man just to keep the promise.

Before I stop this letter and resume my training, Sungie, I want to say thank you for letting me be a part of the most beautiful moment of your life. And I am so happy that you have grown to want it, wanting me and my comfort, and I can hope you can find that with your lover. And if you don’t, you know I’ll hold you.

Even if my arms are so hard, now, I’ll hold you through anything. So laugh and rest and let me take care of everything, okay? And let me, too, think that you and I and our cats are just the family we need.

I think you forget I could have been in university with perfect ease, that I only came here as a choice. I know well enough what you mean, Sungie, but I want you to make up your mind about if you truly mean it, because if you say you don’t, then I will sink into the ocean, incapable of taking my breath back.

I have picked you already, Sungie, ever since we were kids, and I have chosen you over others every single time, and there was no other option I would ever pick either, and I will take you if you let me.

I need you to say it, Sungie, and I will take you whenever you like, only if you say what you want. Do not run away if I do, baby, because I’ll catch you before your lover does.

And before you write your next letter, Ji, work on what you are saying to me about your lover and the other way around. Because you have said that their smile could light everything up, and the only way you could know that is if you look at them, yet you say you know because you have looked at me. Is it a mistake, Sungie? Or did you just want to throw me off a cliff like that? Do you not know what I feel?

I want to be there by your side, fending off all the incapable lovers, but what if everyone thinks it is because you are my lover, hm? And if everyone thinks that and if you have never loved me like that, then I would be a fool just like I am now. Make your choice, Sungie, me as your personal soldier and him as your lover, or just me, with you, everywhere.

Yeah, Sungie, I’ve told you before that I am a soldier to protect your smile, to fight to keep it there, and I don’t care if it is the same reason as your lover. They already have you and your sweater; can I keep your smile to myself?

But is it so wrong? So wrong for me to want you and your sweater’s scent all to myself, too? Sungie, tell me if I am being so selfish if I just want your sweater to be mine, with only my love for you tainted on it. It doesn’t smell like anyone else except you and me, at all, but to think someone else is blended so flawlessly in there makes me want to set fire to something.

My promises are never hollow, baby, and I have not stopped thinking about my promise, but if you tease me so, I might end up coming to you and doing something so incredibly stupid, so I have to hold myself back. Don’t tell me that I will let you down if I don’t keep my promise; haven’t you gotten your lover who’s just like me to fulfil that promise, now?

I want to be the one to take your breath away, Sungie, and I want to be your “him”, and if that is not what you wanted, then why did you let me call you ‘baby’ and promise you that I would do just that? It’s not fair, Sungie, and now I don’t want anyone else to take my place.

Why don’t you come to me, then? If you want me to finish the promise so bad, why don’t you come here without your lover and tell me the sweater is just for us and make our breaths one?

Is it not highly inappropriate to make me talk like this knowing that you have someone else as a lover? If they are better than anyone else, and if they would protect you from everything, then wouldn’t they be more capable of taking your breath away than me?

Or have you realized that they are a mere lookalike, and I am right here? If you want it to be me, who taints your skin for the first time, to kiss your heart-shaped smile until you melt in my arms like I want you to, then Sungie…

Make me.

Let me call you mine, baby?

I want you and your lips and your eyes and your smiles and I miss you.

Waiting for you(r letter),

Minnie

Chapter Text

Dear Minho,

I have loved someone with the same name as you. I want you to do exactly what you said you will. I want my lover to do that. There is exactly one person who I want to do it with. You know, don’t you? Please tell me you do? I have read your letter over and over and there is no way that you don’t know, right?

If it is me instead of you if it is me saying I love you, will you go away? Will you leave me if I mean it differently? If I mean it in the same way that I mean it to my lover? And I have only one lover hyung. Because even though I might have a heart big enough to love everyone, hyung, as you say, I have devoted all of that love to just one person, and he’s my reason for waking up every morning and making me feel the same way I did when I woke up sandwiched between you and your cats.

Don’t take my reason away, hyung, and don’t pretend that you do not know of my love. Of my lover.

You know. I know that you do. and if you really don’t, still, then maybe I have failed to make you see the truth. Maybe I am not good enough for you to see me as what I want you to see me as. I may seem like I speak in riddles, hyung, but they are all unravelled when it comes to you. It is plain as day, and it is so obvious to me that you will break my heart if you do not know.

Do not even try to pretend that you do not even have an inkling of what my words have meant all along, hyung, because you call e Sungie so often only when you know something and you’re keeping it from me, and it has something to do with me. I can read you too easily, after all these years, and I still love you, the same and yet so different.

Recognize me, and then tell me you know.

Tell me you know who I love. I’m desperate, hyung, for you to know, but I need you to know it yourself.

I’m sorry, Minho, if I have truly failed. Forgive me, and forget what I say, but please don’t.

Your cats miss you,

Sungie

Chapter Text

Jisungie,

I don’t mind so much that you love someone who I share names with, but more that I do not know who exactly it is and yet they still managed to make you fall for them? Him, sorry. I don’t know if you really mean when you say you want me to kiss you, Sungie, if you keep your words up for too long, then I might really do it. Fuck your lover, if it comes to that. And I mean fuck in a very, very dangerous way, Sungie.

But I really have no clue, Sungie, because I wouldn’t want to hurt you like this if I knew. I might have teased you, but I could never pretend so much that it would end up hurting you. I have an inkling, but I, too, can’t say it until you tell me who it really is. I need to be sure, baby, so please, tell me.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was wrong, and I wish I could have so that I could see the smile through your words again in your next letter, but I guess this will have to suffice.

I can feel you trying to isolate yourself even from here, Sungie, and it hurts me more now because I know that you’re isolating yourself from me too, this time, and it is easy to do so because I am a mere paper in your life now. But listen to a scream even through paper, that I don’t know who it is and I don’t mean to hurt you by not knowing.

Maybe I couldn’t have gotten into university anyway, hm? Your hyung is so stupid, isn’t he? Then won’t you make it easy for him and tell him what’s wrong so he can make it right and know who your lover is before he comes to you in the middle of the night just to kiss your lips? Because I really will, if you don’t tell me.

You know I will, don’t you?

And then we’ll be even greater best friends than we are now because other bitches couldn’t imagine kissing their best friends without having to clutch their pearls and gasp out loud.

Why the fuck would I go away if you told me you loved me? No matter the way you meant it, I would not give you up. I need you to know that, baby, my bond with you knows no conditions. I’m not like those people at church who tell you they will accept you unconditionally while they have a whole book of conditions to follow.

My only condition, ahem, is that you always write me letters. I have found that I’ve taken a certain liking to communicate through words, like this, now, so even when I am back with you, let’s write letters sometimes, okay?

I won’t ever dream of taking your reason away, because I don’t know who it is, and also because you are my reason to wake up and why would I want to see you sad? It doesn’t make sense, does it?

Jisung, I’m not joking with you. I have no thoughts of your lover’s identity other than a small inkling that says it is me (I always knew you were in love with me, I love you too, baby) and I would like to know if you would like to tell me. I am all ears, Sungie.

You have not failed, Sungie. You may feel like you have failed, and failed me and yourself, but I can tell you right now that it is not true. I wish that I could figure it out, but I haven’t and I have beaten myself up over it a thousand times. I even asked Chan about it out of the blue, if he had any inklings and he had to remind me that he hasn’t known us outside of the military. See, if I'm that dumb, then how to expect me to solve those mystery puzzles?

Isn’t it funny that I am taking advice from Chan so that I can know what is up with you? The very person you thought would take me away from you wants nothing but to make you talk to me again. I know you are reading this, Sungie, so then what is stopping you from picking up the pen I know you have clutched in your fist and telling me what is wrong?

You know that I don’t want to break your heart, that I want to hold it and cherish it and all those cheesy things that I have said to you over those letters, then you can’t possibly think I would ever even consider making it so hard for you just for fun? I do not have a clue, and I’m sorry. Will you tell me more about them? I can’t promise that I’ll figure it out even after that; you’ll have to tell me.

Won't you tell me? Please, Sungie, or I will go crazy here thinking that I have hurt you.

Please hurry to write me back a letter. I am waiting most painfully and in constant thought of who your lover is. Do not think of me as cruel; just dumb.

And when did you get so intuitive to know when and what I’m keeping from you, hm? You don’t have to worry about these things or about hyung, okay? Hyung will figure it out. I’ll take care of it myself so you don’t worry your pretty head about it, okay?

Do not tell me that my cats love me, Jisungie. Stop making my cats a metaphor for yourself. Tell me you miss me, outright, even if you are so upset with me. It sits wrong with me to think that you have a frown on your face nowadays and not the bright smile that I left behind and that I think of every day.

And, listen to me because I’ll say it so plainly only once, okay?

I love you, Han Jisung.

And that is your cue to burn this paper and never speak of it again, never mind the fact that the words are true. How culd I have possibly become so cheesy? I hadn’t even noticed how mushy I had started sounding, and I hope you forget about all of it.

Only remember the time I promised you I’d take your breath away, okay?

Bye-bye, Jisungie, I’m waiting for your reply and for you to smile again.

Your dumb Minho-hyung

Chapter Text

Sungie,

I cannot for the life of me understand what I could have said to you to follow your silence, and I am scared, Sungie, because without the promise of your never-ending letters, the sun doesn’t rise as bright and training feels more like a burden without thinking of you. What are you feeling, my Sungie? Won’t you talk to me even from a thousand miles away?

I miss my cats,
Minho

Chapter Text

Minnie, my lover,

Haven’t I told you about my best friend who has gone to the military? Not Changbin, even though I know you think his muscles are enough to get him in without any training, but the military sadly doesn’t work like that.

Minnie, my best friend keeps breaking my heart, really. I have told him outright so many times the thing I want, though maybe he hasn’t put it together yet because even though I have been obvious, he needs more than that to pick up on it because he’s not the brightest of the bunch but I love him like that.

But anyway, I wrote this letter in hopes of confessing. I know it is so weird, that a man is into another man, right? I’m sorry if my feelings make you uncomfortable and you can tell me if they do and ill whisk myself away so that you won't have to deal with it anymore.

I like you, Minnie. I would go as far as to say that I am in love with you because I had not realized how deep my feelings ran, but I am certain now. And I cannot take the fact back.

All I ask of you is that even if you are disgusted by the prospect of being queer at this age, or even if you don’t want it to be me, will you be my friend still? It is too much to ask, though, so ill ask you to just maybe be kind to me when you reject me if you can. I don’t think my feelings could take you yelling at me.

I have not called anyone else other than you as Minnie, and I never will, even if it might be their name or what everyone else calls them, because, to me, it can only be you, ever.

You have told me, too, that you like me, to some extent. And I am hanging onto that hope as I write this letter. I didn’t think it would come so soon, but the moment is here and I am seizing it.

You have told me, maybe in not so many words, that you’d want to be physically affectionate with me, maybe even take my breath away, and it makes my heart stop when you tell me you will. I don’t have the same courage as you to say the exact word that you somehow used, but you know what I mean, don’t you? You always do.

I never know if you are being genuine with your words, if you feel the same as me when you write those things that make me crazy, or if you are still just merely joking. Or if you mean them and you just don’t know yet that you have started meaning them. I hope it is the latter. Your words mean too much to me now. And they always have, even when you saved me from the mean kid who wanted all my food and hurt me for it.

My music, the one you so adore, has never been for anyone else’s ears but you. I may want to perform these songs for everyone, but no one will ever know what they mean and who they are meant for except for you because it is you that I have written all my love songs, consciously or not.

Minho hyung, if you thought this letter was a mistake to send to you, then I guess you’re wrong, huh? This letter was always meant for you because it is addressed to Minnie and you have always been my Minnie. I’d like it even more if you were my Min with an ‘e’ extra at the end.

How could my person ever be someone other than you? You were my ‘him’ all along, hyung, and I will cry if you will still not think to figure it out.

I have read your last letter over and over, to the point that it is absorbed in my veins and Changbin has had to put up an intervention and physically tear the letter away from my fingers so that I would come down for dinner.

And how could the sweater ever be of anyone else’s scent other than me and you? If you choose to not love me back and if you really don’t feel anything, then I will still hold onto the sweater, hyung. Even if I ever get over you, which is impossible in itself, I will not stop loving you or the sweater and all I have hoped for is to one day hear those words from you too.

I am in love with my person, my best friend, my soulmate, my hyung, my Lee Minho. You.

I want to tell you to come here and take my breath away like you had wanted to, but I guess I am not good enough, and I am too scared of putting you in trouble if they see your breath on mine, so I will wait and wait until I can kiss you like you are mine when I no longer care about anyone else.

Will you promise to not hate me in that time?

This is my limit, all that I can say without being so explicit about it, because believe it or not, I am shy to say it to you. So I’m here, in my bed, cuddling our cats and hoping that you will read this and consider making me your real lonely wife.

And do not be in despair, hyung! I will send you another letter with all my thought about your last letter because you didn’t REALLY think I would just let that go? No, you will receive a much longer one after this, too!

I know I seem confident, hyung, but I am clutching onto Doongie and shaking so hard that Changbin has already asked me if I want the heater on. How do I tell him I want no one else’s warmth other than the one that you exude from your words?

Reply fast, hyung.

And, if your answer is a no, you’ll be kind, won’t you? Please?

I love you,

Jisung.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

When will you stop fooling me? When will your torture top? Why would you do this to me, to pretend that your “him” is truly me when I have expressed my desire for it to be me even when I know that it could never be me?

I wish my happiness on you and your person but I beg you for my life to tell me who the fucking “him” is so I can accept them as yours and you as theirs. Because, Sungie, all of these hints you keep giving me truly break my heart knowing that you are joking to be in love with me when your heart belongs to someone else who is just like me.

For your lover who is so tender and lonely and so much like me, imagine their face like mine as take pity on me and tell me who you are in love with, baby, so I can fucking stop calling you mine in my head as I have recently without even realizing, and so that I can reverse whatever love I have felt for you that might betray your love to him.

I need to know who you fell in love with, that is not me so that I can mentally think of giving you away and have to no longer live in the anguish of calling you mine when you consider yourself someone else’s.

If you let me live in this delusion for too long, Sungie, and it is already too long in my opinion, then you will not be able to stop me from whatever I do to make you mine.

Did you have fun, Sungie, when you wrote me this confession letter? Did you think that I would laugh? Because I am incredulous that you would joke about something like this even when I think I have obvious enough about what I want; you.

Is your lover aware of the letters you send me? Are they fine with you making me want to run home and do things to you that I think I cannot say anymore like I could have if you were not someone else’s already?

I want to love you.

Is that enough for you to understand that what I feel for you is what you said you felt for me when you confessed to me as your joke? But it is real to me; and for me to believe that you love me back, which is what I have wanted for so long, is just a joke, that all my dreams for you were nothing more than a piece of paper with roleplaying, I need to know which one of my lookalikes swept you away before I could even start thinking of you like it.

I cannot bear to acknowledge the possibility that your words could hold truth to them because it would be too impossible, wouldn’t it? That you love me back? I want to believe in us, in you and your words, but how can I do that when I know that I could never be the one you fall for?

When you could have so much better?

If I am your only Minnie, you have always been my only Sungie too, but I am scared that if I let myself ride into the sunset with you, and sleep through the night with you, then the morning light will make me open my eyes and you will not be there because you would know that there is someone else, better, waiting for you in the sunset too.

And I do not think I could survive that. If you truly did not mean it as a joke, Sungie, then hold my hand and tell me you are mine, please.

The more I write, the more I want to believe, and the more I realize that your words couldn’t have been just a joke, that they must hold value to them because they are, after all, your words and you wouldn’t do this to me, and that you sound too much like you really love me, but it has been such a fantasy of mine that I cannot even breathe as I write to you now.

You do not even know how hard I am clutching your sweater now, Sungie, because I wish I did not tell you of my love through the black of the ink but instead, I could tell you I love you straight to the black of your eyes.

I will come in your dreams tonight, baby, and if you wake up with a smile on your face, then you’ll let me kiss that smile, won’t you? You’ll tell me that it was me all along, again and again, won’t you?

If you didn’t mean those words, Ji, then please know that I wish I could have made you mine, and if you did, if you love me as I love you, then I hope you know that I am too far gone for you and that I wish I could be with you right now.

I want to indulge myself in your unrealistic fantasy painted for me so badly, Sungie, but I cannot do that until I know for sure and satisfy myself with the fact that you have somehow fallen for me too.

If you tell me to, I will be your best friend, just a friend if you like, always with you even while you love someone else. I can’t stand to see you in someone else’s arms, their breath for yours, while I am right there, but I will make it work if you decide you still want me by your side. I hope your lover makes you happy, whoever he is, but deep down I’m sorry but I will never be able to stop wishing to be the one who puts that smile on your face.

I want to come home to you and wrap into one of your hugs like we usually do even as friends, but I want you, even more, to press your lips to mine without a moment’s hesitation. I want to melt into your arms and fall asleep to your face and dream of us and know in my heart that you will be there in the morning, by my side, not because you have to but because you choose to.

To love me and to be there. I could go on and on about what I want to experience with you throughout my life, but I think I would run out of pages if I did, so I will cut myself off here in hopes that you will be able to tell what I want.

You know, don’t you?

Won’t you tell me you want it too? Because why did it have to be someone else, baby?

I am coming to see you, Sungie. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I will tell you right now that I have the chance to come see you for a day before I go back to the military, and I will be leaving in maybe three weeks.

So read my letter and tell me what you meant to my face, okay? And do not try to think I will not do good on my promise if you decide to love me.

I want you so bad, my Sungie, and I cannot wait to see you. If I cry, it is all your fault.

I love you, and I hope you mean it,
Minnie

Chapter Text

Lee fucking Minho,

How dare you have the power to leave us behind like this and then make Jisung so upset? What the fuck did you say in your letters such that it has him breaking down over dinner?

Whatever it is, I hope you know that it is because of you that he is now so fragile today that he couldn’t even get out of bed without me helping him walk. It is because of you, and I never thought that my first words to you after you left for the military would be blaming you.

Every single time you send him a letter, without fail, he is either laughing with pure unbridled joy or crying over some metaphor that you must have written him. You are so whipped for each other and yet you still hurt him? You dare to put tears on his face that I haven’t seen since the day you left. Which, I must mention, that you weren’t fucking here to witness.

I was the one, Lee Minho, I was the one who had to witness him throwing up in the middle of the night and telling me he wanted to have a gun in his mouth because he hadn’t seen you that day. I’m not exaggerating, so if you don’t want to break the fucking free spirit that is Jisung then fucking tell him you didn’t mean whatever you said in your letter.

Or I swear to God I will not hesitate to come there myself and take a life.

Why do you do such things that make me want to hurl something at you every time? It is at moments like these that I realize I haven’t written to you in a long time. So, I pick up a paper and pen and talk about how fucking grateful I am to be your friend and then Jisung comes into my room and falls on the bed and he’s sobbing his heart out and he’s clutching your letter and I don’t even have to look at the name to know that it’s your name inked on it.

You’re the only one who can affect him like this, and you damn well know it, too, so unless you don’t want to live past morning, you better fucking hurry and fix whatever it is.

I should tell you now that he’s fully aware that you’ve sent another letter but I have kept it from him because I don’t want him breaking down all over again. Promise me that whatever you say in the letter following this one will be something that gives me back my cheerful friend, and not the shell of a human that lies on the bed.

I had a million questions about you settling in, and as much as I want to ask them even now, you need to make up to Jisung about whatever you did or you need to tell me what the fuck happened between you two to elicit this reaction from him.

It was so hard, Minho, so hard to take care of him after you were gone. He may have sounded whatever fine after it in your letters, and I know he made an excuse that your sister forced him to write a letter, but did you know that he was the one begging your sister to give him some of her loose paper so he could write to you?

But he was scared that he’d interrupt you or put you in trouble at the military and hence it was so short so that you wouldn’t feel so obligated to reply. But of course, you did, being you. And I mean that in not a bad way.

So, I’m telling you, you are the one who knows why he’s like this, even without seeing him, and you are the only one who can fix it, so pray to God you can fix it too before I come for your ass. And I won’t be as gentle as those fuckers you go to war with or whatever.

Don’t die before I get the chance to kill you myself, either or I swear I will being you back and you will have to face my wrath.

Because why the fuck did you have to leave out of nowhere? You left us shattered, hyung, and it was so fucking terrible without you and I couldn’t even work properly because your sister and your Jisung kept blowing their noses onto me. It’s not easy being the tough one as it looks, even though I might make it seem flawless. Because I’m flawless. But anyway, write back to me about your doings and maybe I will grace you with a better and nicer reply.

I’m sending along the bulgogi you asked for, even though I font think you should be having it right now.

Fuck me and my thinking that that you are deserving of the world. But so is Jisung, especially so you need to do whatever magic to your letter so next time I see him, he’s smiling.

I’m not giving him the letter you sent before, though, and I might not even give them and hold them back again if you don’t reply to me properly.

And I also think he might not want to read them either. He’d holding off because I have an inkling that he knew you had sent another letter; he keeps a record of the times your letters will arrive and it is already for another two letters but he has not even asked, and he only blinked twice at the letters I hid on my desk before he moved away.

As amusing as him not talking to you would be, it hurts to see, too. I might not go as far as to keep your letters away from him, but if he doesn’t want o read them himself, then I cannot help you, hyung, because you know how stubborn he is.

I will take care of him while I can, but he needs you and you know it. You know, and yet, you don’t say anything.

I don’t think you know how terrifying it is for your best friend, who is already in pain because his other best friend left him, to come into your room and cry on the floor because of that other best friend and you can’t even tell him and you have to keep to yourself that you miss his best friend too and you consider his best friend as your best friend, too, because he really is, and that there’s another fucking letter that might break his heart even more.

Get your fucking shit together and do what you need to do. Jisung is sad. It’s because of you. Fix it.

Take care of yourself, bastard.

Seo Changbin.  

Chapter Text

Seo Changbin,

I didn’t expect you to write a letter, especially under such circumstances, so I’m not going to count it as your first letter to me after I’ve come here.

I don’t know what I could have said to Jisung to make him so upset ad it breaks my heart just as much, and you know it. I wish I could be there with you all more than you could imagine, so please do not hold it against me, Changbin, because I think it would hurt me even more if I ever came back from the military to find out that I had lost my right to call you a friend.

And do not refer to yourself as an outsider when you speak of me and you and Jisung; you are as important to me as Jisung is. Perhaps the way I love you two is different, but never the intensity. Don’t ever doubt yourself on that, and you will never hear this from me again so you better believe it right now.

I don’t know what you had expected me to say to the bulgogi you sent, so I’ll just say the truth. Did you think that I wouldn’t recognize your cooking from my mother’s? how mad at me are you to pretend that the food you have sent, you didn’t make? Even though I know from the way it is prepared that it has been you who has been spending countless hours in the kitchen?

Did you know my mom doesn’t give me kimchi along with it? Did you know you’re the only one who feeds me kimchi this often?

I promise that I am trying to make Jisung happy because it’s all ever wanted. Even though I think I may have realized something late, something that he’d wanted me to realize for a long, I am trying my best to see that smile on his face again.

But for as long as I have to keep up my efforts while he still is so gloomy, take care of him for me, okay? And take care of yourself too, while you’re at it, so you can cook me more food again.

Don’t be blown away by the wind; your height must make that challenging and I understand that, but please don’t fall over by a mere gust of wind.

I’m sorry for leaving you, and I’ll see you soon,
Minho

Chapter Text

Jisungie,

It’s Christmastime!

It’s your favourite holiday, isn’t it? I hope that you’re merry and you’re drinking and eating well. I hope that something in you knows that I love you and that Christmas time without your hyping it up is boring.

Everyone in the bunk beds in the room sang a small melody for Christmas but there’s nothing other than that; I think we were all scared that it would remind us of our families.

Someone asked me who I’d like to spend my Christmas with. I think they were expecting me to answer with my family, and I did, but all I could think of was you and how we have not spent a single Christmas apart since we became friends.

But we’re so much more now, wouldn’t you agree? Your hyung is such an idiot to not see that you love me. At least, not in the way you wanted me to know. All along, I only thought that you loved me so much just as a friend; that it was so normal to love your best friend like that, in that way.

And I think a big part of it was that I felt the same way that you did for me, and so I thought it was friendly, too, though it didn’t quite fit with that label. But the thought of being more hadn’t even occurred to me because it wouldn’t be any different than being with you, just with a new name.

And then we were both men, so we never got to see lovers like us out in the open anyway and it ruined any of my chances to even be able to acknowledge that it could be queer. What I felt was supposed to be different to what I was supposed to feel, and I didn’t even think of it twice.

And I hurt you in that way, and I hate myself for it. It was no one’s fault but mine, and I cannot even blame society for it because you saw through your feeling as plain as day; you recognized what exactly it was with such ease that it puts me to shame now that I think about it.

But if you were so in tune with me and my feelings, how did you not catch up to how I was literally so in love with you? Now that I look back on it, there’s no other way we could have ended up. I don’t think not kissing you was ever in the options for me in my lifetime.

And I can say that now, can’t I? now that I’ve missed you enough to realize that your lover was me all along? And I kept telling you to say it to me clearly and I couldn’t understand even when you put it so blankly and I feel like laughing and crying at the same time.

It’s so dumb of me to not see it first. But if it is any consolation, I think I have been like this for you ever since we met. You have given me the rosiest cheeks, only you, and I should have known I liked you a little bit too much when my heart pitter-pattered in my chest even when I looked at you.

Pitter-patter. Huh. You’ve got me using words I would’ve usually mocked anyone for using. I guess that’s what you do to me. Do you see how badly you’ve got me wrapped around your finger?

And I didn’t even know it. I still cannot get over the fact of how I didn’t know. Fuck, I was so, so idiotic to have caused you pain over something that’s so obvious now. I think if people were used to seeing two men in love, they’d see my love so clearly, they’d have known I was gone for you even if I didn’t.

But, Jisungie, now that I say this, you’ll write me back, won’t you? Please, I don’t think I can wait for three weeks and wake up without a letter waiting for me in the office.

We have both said that we won’t ever stop, and if I have kept my promise, then won’t you keep yours too? even if your hyung has messed up so badly, will you give me another chance?

I need you to know that I have known of the way you love, of who you love, and just because I couldn’t figure it out doesn’t mean that you are not good enough in loving me, because I know you’ll overthink yourself to death and come up with such a bizarre scenario. As if I couldn’t love you back? As I fi could be faking this and I could be fooling myself with what I feel?

I don’t think I can ever take my feelings or my words back now. And I never will.

I knew what you felt towards your friend that day who stole your food wasn’t just friendly because when you described what you felt, it was the same way I felt about you and I have known for a long time that I have not seen you a mere friends way, even though I have tried my hardest to not think about it and get rid of the feelings and just see you as the best friend, but I couldn’t, and it scared me because I can’t lose you.

Sounds like what you said to me, doesn’t it? Then please take me back? Hm?

Changbin tells me you sobbed on his floor, and my heart shatters every single time I think of it. You cross through my mind once, and then you just never leave. You never have since I have known you. Even when I didn’t know, I thought of you.

I have not been able to sleep because I keep thinking of you in pain and it successfully takes the peace out of the sleep and I would rather not have a nightmare of you leaving me. I would instead stay awake until dawn so I can pretend the sunshine is you.

Return my daylight back to me, my love, so that I can show you that I am still here, waiting for you, waiting for us, and so that I can hang those stars in the sky that you love so much. If you see them in my eyes, then talk to me so that I can smile and have those stars again. And I promise I will take them out of my own eyes and place them in your eyes.

Please write me back, Sungie, or I will go insane. I will completely lose my mind. Please answer me, give me a reply. Just a single letter on a whole page is fine, too, as long as I know that you know I love you.

I love you back.

Merry Christmas, and don’t forget to take care of my lover,
Your Minho.

Chapter Text

Jisung,

It has been a month since I have been aching for your words without a remedy. Your sweater has been clutched in my hands every moment that I am in my bunk, and training feels like a nightmare because I cannot fully focus on you even though you keep chasing me.

I miss you in the intervals and I miss you even when I’m busy. I miss you in the moments between each; I think that’s what my love for you is like. You are in every single one of my breaths, and you are woven in between them, too.

You have turned so weak, hm? All those fantasies in the books that you read where the tough man only is soft for the love interest have come true, haven’t they? But you’d need to write me back to see how much I love you.

Haven’t I said it so many times now? And every single time I tell you I love you, it feels more and more impossible that I could ever wear it off. I’m in love with saying I’m in love with you.

I love you, I love you, I love you and I love loving you.

I hadn’t realized that I’d laughed freely when I’d been thinking of it and my bunkmates had glared at me because we’d all just had a hard day, and there I was laughing over my love for you.

You do that to me; you make me laugh in my hardest moments and all my happiest moments are because of you.

If you are still not convinced, I can up the metaphor game even more if you like. I’ve learnt a thing or two from you over the years, you know?

Or has Changbin really not given you these letters? Have you not even thought to look for my letters, my love? My letters to you will never stop no matter how badly we ever have a disagreement.

I know him too well, though, and he is incapable of having a single mean bone in his body, so tell me, baby, tell me what’s wrong and let me fix It and bring the smile back to your face.

Don’t be so mad at me that you cut me off, Sungie, don’t cut me off like this. I can’t think of what I’d go on for if it wasn’t for you.

Please come back to me. I remember mentioning running out of paper when I was telling you what I wanted to do with you, and now that I have more paper, here is an incomplete list of what I can remember now, and I wrote this in hopes that your answer was yes because I was such a fool to think we wouldn’t both fall in love, wasn’t I?

My eyes don’t feel like eyes when they don’t look at you, and colours don’t feel as vibrant when they are not the shade of your skin, and my heart doesn’t beat when I don’t read your words and my ears don’t want to listen to anything if they can’t listen to your laugh and my arms only ever want to hug you and hold you, and my legs can walk on any road and they’d still lead to you; be it through an ocean of fire or a desert of ice.

Allow me to at least cherish the way your hand curves the ink over those pages and let me revel in the hopes that one day you will caress me the way you caress your handwriting.

I am waiting, but I wish I was kissing you,
Minho.

Chapter Text

Jisung,

I have tried to stay away, to patiently wait for your answer but it now feels like it has been too long and my hand is holding this pen because it cannot hold you, so I hope to god you read this and give me at least some sort of indication that you’re there.

Are you okay, Jisungie? It is an ironic question, I know, but have you been eating and drinking well? I hope you still have been laughing and as bad as it sounds, I hope that the reason you are not writing back to me is that you are mad at me and not because there has been some hindrance in your life.

I haven’t spoken to you in so long and I wish that we were allowed to use telephones just to even be able to hear you breathe.

I wish I could say that talking to you makes me want to jump like those schoolgirls are always saying, but I am sorry to say that I do not. well, sometimes, yes, when you are being so extra and you do everything that I pretend to hate, it makes me want to jump. Did you know that? You probably did, didn’t you? I think there’s barely anything that you don’t know about me.

People know things about me that I tell them. You know things about me that I don’t even tell myself, Sungie, so you can tell without it I have been without you.

I have started being profoundly mean and snappy to the others, Chan told me. And he said that I should really try and convince you to talk to me again so that they don’t have to suffer the consequences of my waiting. I hadn’t even realized that I acted bitterly when you deprived me of something.

But, usually even as my heart beats fast, there is a surety when I am with you because I know that we cannot be separated. Even if we would not love each other like this anymore (which is an impossible feat in itself) I could never let go of your hand.

I’m holding onto you with both of my soldier-y hands, remember? They have grown quite strong, and they will come in handy when we are freefalling.
Love makes you so cringey, Chan tells me, and I find that I do not really care if I am annoying as long as it is for you.

It really does not feel that those words are coming from me, in every single letter, and I am starting to realize that ti really does feel like writing in a diary except the diary is you and the words come straight from somewhere that was buried so deep before.

It feels refreshing to share it so openly, now, without hesitation.

I cannot wait to see you, my love, and even before that, I cannot wait to read your letters to finally know that you have accepted me; that you have let me call you mine.

It has been seventy-two nights that I have slept without a certainty that a letter is waiting for me, and seventy-two days of yours that you have not told me about.

How have we been not doing this for ever? I was so blind; how could I have been so oblivious to this? When I think of it now, there is simply no other way that this could have gone.

So come back to me, please.
Minho (hyung)

Chapter Text

Minho,

Will you believe me if I tell you I didn’t mean to be unresponsive for so long? Will you believe me still if I tell you that the condition in our neighbourhood hasn’t been good?

There’s been riots, hyung. The people broke down the services and the shops near all our houses and in the nearby streets because they found out that there were two women in love.

I do not even know how they made the discovery, but they beat the women up right in front of our windows and broke their houses. There have been multiple protests going on and they’re all so violent and they look like they’d kill us if they got the chance.

I’ve been in my room all day. Watching the chaos erupt right here where we call ourselves at home is too much for me even to have an appetite. How could they break into someone’s home just because they do not approve of the love that isn’t even theirs, to begin with?

Is it so bad if I still love you despite all of this? Will you love me back despite that, too?

I haven’t read a single one of your letters, hyung, and I’m so scared that if I do, you will shatter me into pieces and not stay for long enough to pick me up and put me back together.

I’ve missed writing to you even though I live in the uncertainty of knowing what you feel towards me. Maybe you love me, maybe you don’t, maybe you’re disgusted. I could know the answer if I had just read your letter but I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to face them by myself.

I need you to be here even to do this, hyung. So tell me.

Do you promise you won’t break my (your) heart if I dare to touch the letters piling on my desk?

They almost look like a mountain now, but I don’t know if they’ll catch on fire or provide me shelter if I make them my reality.

I am so sorry for the long wait if you still care. And if you don’t, and you are still reading this letter anyway, I want you to know that in every way possible; whether you have wanted me to or not.

I cannot take my feelings back. I cannot stop loving you and I cannot bring myself to be sorry for loving you.

It is the best thing I have ever done.

Love,
Sungie.

PS. If you write back to me, address it to Sungie. If you don’t write back, then it is enough of an answer for me.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

It has most probably been two or three weeks since you have written that letter to me and I am just now getting it, as usual. I hope you haven’t convinced yourself of my silence due to the long transportation duration.

If calling you Sungie is all it takes for you to believe me, then that name is the only one that I will ever speak.

Sungie. Sungie.

I promise, my Sungie, that it will not break your heart. Not in the way you think it will. I couldn’t make myself hurt you even if I wanted to. And I could never want to. You look pretty when you cry, but only when there is a cheeky smile, too.

I like your tears when you are happy, but I wish I could drown in an ocean of your tears so that I did not have to live to see them ever again. Did you know, Sungie, that I feel most important when I am there to wipe your tears away?

I have looked for my purpose in life, and I have found that it is to make sure the smile never falls off your lips. It’d be such a shame if you took your heart-shaped lips and bunched up cheeks away from the world and from me.

Can you tell by my words that I love you? Please read my letters, Sungie, because I have written my heart out to you and I’m counting on you to take care of it now.

I cannot promise, though, that I will never break your heart. You know that I am not the brightest if it took me so long to realize our relationship, and I try my best to make you happy but if I ever unknowingly hurt you, then make me cry.

Punish me to death for making you upset and I will gladly dig my own grave and lay in it.

because I cannot promise that I won’t break your heart, I would never want to, because I have put your heart in my hand and admire it like a butterfly, but I am scared that I wouldn’t be able to turn away from you so easily if others try to hurt that butterfly.

Stay safe from the protests, okay? I will find out more about it. Those women deserve to love one another, and the people should have no say in it. But, Sungie, that will never be us and I promise you at least that, okay?

I can die for you, but I refuse to have either of our lives taken just because of the love we held.

My life has lost all colour since I have not read your words, and I only see blackness all around. It is not the colour of your almond eyes as it used to be, it is not the shade of your lips, and it is not the shade of honey that your skin is.

Return my colours back to me, my Sungie.
Minho

Chapter Text

Lee Minho,

I wrote a poem for you. I couldn’t send it along with my other letter so I am sending this around a week after that one. I don’t know if you have received that one yet, but I do hope that you will read it.

I have not fallen in love with you.
Rather, I have flown and risen above the clouds
And reached the sky and the stars
And I have touched you.
I have not fallen in love with you,
Because rather,
I have found love to be you.

I don’t know what your reply will be. I cannot bring myself to think about it, and it is the witching hour now and my chest hurts the littlest bit, so please accept this poem in place of the songs I have promised you.

Don’t die,
Jisung

Chapter Text

Sungie,

How did you expect for your poem to reach me at the same time as your earlier letter if you sent it so many days apart? I wish I could write you a poem back, but I do not think I could ever make it sound as good as yours sounds. And I cannot believe that it is meant for me.

Give me a chance to prove to you that I would write that poem for you, too, if I had the ability to weave words the way you do. I only know one word, and it is poetry enough to me. And it is your name.

I hope you are reading my letters as I write this, and I hope this letter doesn’t reach you too late.

I ache for your words,
Your Minho.

Chapter Text

Minho,

Don’t fuck with me.

My writing must look shay to you, despite the cursive, because you’ve made me shiver like this in the middle of the night, again, because I am holding your letters in one hand and writing with the other and I can barely see past the rivers flowing down my cheeks.

They don’t seem to stop no matter how hard I try, and it's because of you, and my smile doesn’t feel like it's going to fade any time soon and it's because of you, too.

I hope with everything in my chest that you were not joking because your words sounded too real to me for them to have been made up. And f you were joking, hyung, then I am going to make you mine no matter what because how should I let go of someone who speaks so highly of me even though I don’t see why?

If you didn’t mean your words, if you didn’t mean your words, then I am going to make you mean them because there is no way that you didn’t mean them, hyung, and there is no way that you wrote them without loving me.

I believe you, now, when you say that you love me. It was easier than I expected I thought it would; to accept that you could love me this way, too. and you do, right? Are you still stuck on the likes when I’ve gone way past love, now?

I didn’t remember as vividly that I even had liked someone else other than you, that was a guy. Even n my oldest memories I remember looking up to you so fondly and not even knowing what love was.

And now I do, so I wrote you a poem. Love is you, hyung, and I’m so glad that it is you.

I crave to be with you through this; I crave that you could be right next to me and tell me what you told me in your letter so that I could savour your words with your voice. But again, I don’t think I could have stood that. I would have started crying the moment you started. I have, like this, anyway.

I’ve dreamt of many things in life, including you and us and other irrational things, but it is one thing to know that it’s not irrational anymore, and another thing to keep buried in my chest.

I wish I could scream my lungs out to ease the bubbles in my chest but I don’t think even that could help me get rid of the intensity I feel when I remember that this is real.

I want to spend forever by your side and I want to be with you through the good and the bad and when you’re hyper and when you’re stuck to a bed and snoring and when you’re covered with snot and when you’re playing your cats and every single thing else.

It’s weird, right? To think that I’ve already spent all these moments with you already. I’ve been there for you like that even without the confessions, and I would have been like that forever, but to me, it just seems so much different to hold you when we both know of our feelings.

Let me hold you through the night, only once; I don’t want to go any longer without seeing you and I’m afraid that once I sleep and wake up tomorrow these letters won’t exist anymore, and I’ll wake up from whatever this dream is.

I have so much to say to you, my love, but as I keep writing I keep finding more things to say to you with every word I need to add, and I cannot get rid of the urge to tell you every single thing that comes to my mind. The first thing I’ll say is that it evades me how I am now allowed to call you my love and have you know that I mean it exactly the way I write it.

You write such good letters to me, hyung, and there are so many things in them that I would spend pages and pages replying to everything you said, but I think I would end up writing a novel (I may have started one) and it would not be enough.

But if you want to know what I want to say, then why don’t you come to for the night and let me tell you and let me hold you like I want you and let you kiss me like you want to?

Promise me, that when you do come to meet me, that you meet me in the confines of our room and kiss me like the world that’s watching knows I’m yours, alright?

Keep your promise to me, hyung, and I’ll reward you.

Love, in every way possible,
Sungie.

PS. My name sounds different when you write it, now, and I want to keep hearing it over and over.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

Your shaky writing is indicative of how you’re trembling, but for once I am not worried because I know that it is out of happiness and not the gloom that seems to surround you so often.

Don’t let go of my letters even in the morning, so that whenever you think I do not love you, you can see for yourself the way I write your name with all the affection I have in my heart.

I have said this so many times, and yet it becomes truer every single time, but you have made me so emotional. I have become so poetic because of you that I even think poetically now! I’m not kidding!

I wish I could share my writings with you but it seems whenever I try to sit down and get my ideas on paper I’m caught with thoughts of you and all words escape me.

Whatever words I do write to you, though, I have never joked about them. I meant them more than I know I do. I love you anyway, but I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to woo me.

Isn’t that what has been going around these days? My friends in the military have been trying to woo this one lady who works in the kitchen here because they all fancy her. I don’t know how to tell them that they only think of her as attractive because everyone likes her. How should you fall in love with someone without even having known their name?

I can’t imagine a world where I have not known your name. neither one where I have fallen for you without your name. My Sungie, it means so much to me that I can be honoured to call you that. My Jisung. My Han Jisung.

I knew the first time I learnt your name that I belonged to it.

And so, how could you ask me if I am stuck on “the likes” when I have said I love you a thousand times? It will only grow; in meaning and in amount.

I remember throwing a small fit with all the angst in my heart when I had a crush on someone else, and I had to console my heart by immediately rescuing the stray cats down the street.

I had gotten a major beating by eomma for bringing them in, but neither eomma nor appa were cruel enough to kick the cats out again.

Had you known that the three cats have always been ours, anyways? Even in the times that I have called them mine, they always belonged to me and my love, and my love is incomplete without you.

I remember when you met them, you spent the whole day with them, and you didn’t go meet the friend that you liked, and it gave me such great satisfaction that you were playing with me.

I was a little mean, wasn’t I? Maybe I can just blame it on being little overall, too. I got you in the end, so I don’t hold any regrets, I’d steal you from anyone even now if I had to.

Thank you for the poems you have written me, but where are my songs? Those albums you once promised to write for me when we were a few years younger? Maybe if you write me enough songs, I can play them for long enough that it takes away the wait from meeting you.

I promise that I will tell you all of this in real life, too. I used to be such a coward not to tell you how much I loved you that it has brought you to question it now. So believe in me that I will build up the courage to tell you everything when we meet.

I am not a poet, but oh darling, I have become one ever since I have seen you.

And I wish I could have seen you cry over my letters because it pains me to know that I wasn’t there to wipe your tears away. Your cheeks must suffer the consequences now, and it is one more lost opportunity to caress your face.

Tell me of your dreams, Sungie, tell me every single one of them which you remember, and which ones you want to be true so that I can wish upon the stars I have hung for you for them to become true.

Rational or not, I will decide; make a wish and it is mine to fulfil. Let me give you the world, on behalf of all the time I have spent not knowing what you meant to me.

And save your lungs to when I make you scream, whatever way you want it. Whether it is in an open field for us to scream together, for you to yell out that you’re mine, or whether it is in the middle of the night that I am making you scream out of love.

Wait for me; I cannot wait until the moment when I can make your throat go raw. Would you want it too? To see how much I love you, to let me express through touch what I cannot express through my words?

Because your words sound so much like wedding vows and I want to return them, but I want to think them through and I want to say them for the first time when I am looking into your eyes.

Paper isn’t enough for me anymore, Sungie, and I crave to be near you as you do me.

I have promised you forever even when we were nothing more than friends, and I am promising you forever even now that we can never be anything less than lovers.

It is not weird to me to relive those moments with you, because even though holding you might feel the same both ways, I want to adore the way your eyes shine two different ways now that I have realized what it truly is.

I hold you through every night, my love, so don’t think I am not there when you close your eyes. I am looking over you and intertwining my fingers and watching you smile softly as your drift off to sleep, and you are never alone.

It is a dream, but it is real, too. If sleeping beside me is one of your dreams, then making them come true is mine.

When you wake up, I will exist and the letters will exist and I will be right there, too, and I promise you that you will have more than one chance to call me ‘my love’ and to say everything you cannot fit on this paper just yet.

Let me tell you a secret – if you whisper my name in the middle of the night when you miss me, you will hear me whisper yours back. I lay awake just as you do, in the hopes that I was lying with you instead.

Tonight, I will wish that I can read this novel that you have started writing as soon as I can. I am here for you as you write, but I know that I can be of no help, so instead let me offer you food and love, okay?

Tell me what your characters are, what they wish to do, and how the story was born. What is it about, Sungie? What has your mind come up with so vividly that you have the motivation to write it out on paper?

I have always respected authors, and now you do too, for how can someone create a new world and a new life with just ink and paper? It is a gateway to another world from this one, is it not?

I cannot blame you for wanting to escape but do not leave me here without you.

I am yours in every universe that already exists, and in every one that you create.

Do not tempt me with your lips, Sungie, it is a very dangerous game that you play. How should I resist my urge to break the rules just to taste the plush of your lips and the way they smile into a perfect heart and the way your cupid’s bow makes me want to trace it with my tongue?

You drive me insane.

Will I get my reward soon, Sungie, if I tell you that I have kissed your name every single time in all of our letters? Press your lips to the paper and you will feel my breath every time I have said your name.

I crave your love and your touch and you,
Minho.

Chapter Text

Minho,

You make me delusional in thinking that my name means so much more than it actually does. It is only a name, hyung, it only sounds different when you say it now, but it is still only a name.

I had forgotten for a second that Sungie is not my name, that it is a nickname you have gifted me with and placed in my arms for me to own, from you. I feel I am more Sungie than Jisung now. What you call me is all that’s left in me.

And I guess that is the poetry you had rubbed off on you. I have always wanted a poetic lover, and for it to be you, it all makes sense in the end, doesn’t it? It’s good that you can write so beautifully now, and that you haven’t reverted back to your word-challenged self after revealing your feelings.

I would like to have poems written for me; it’s the least I deserve for granting you such attention so as to be called your boyfriend. Don’t you agree?

If you cannot get your thoughts down on paper, you better stop thinking of me for a few minutes and try, because I will never stop pestering you to write me something. I have become a writer to yearn for you, so a poem to me is much deserved. Then, maybe, I can write a love story for us, too.

If I wrote about me and you, what would the story be like?

It is astonishing to me that you would twist my words like this. I spoke of making you fall in love with me after you had already fallen for me, and that too after a delayed and foolish break. How could someone think writing love letters is a friendly trait?

And you still think I should be the one wooing you? Absolutely not, I think you should start courting me all over again and show me that I should really say yes to being called ‘baby’ by you forever.

I do feel a little bit bad for the woman being chased by those ingenuine men, though, I can only hope that whoever she ends up with gets to know her and accepts her for her, not just because she is conventionally attractive.

I am so thankful to be loved by you in the way I want to be loved. And yet, sometimes it is hard to believe. I spend half my time loving, and the other half learning how to let myself be loved.

You call my name as if you are more in love with it than myself, and it breaks something inside me while putting me together. It means more to me than you know.

And that is exactly why you should do it more. I have a desperate need to know how you would make me fall in love with you. What have you been doing through the years to have a hold like such on me, hyung?

how could you make me feel so much with the cats when I hadn’t even known that they were yours; courtesy of me?

You remember so much, hyung, whenever you tell me something about us from the older days, I do not know anything and I am left reading your anecdotes like a story. What I would give to relive them again, in a new light where I know that someday you would love me back, too.

All I remember is you with your round glasses and your bunny smile and your squeaky laugh when you played with me and your cats, our cats, and the way your baby hands would be swallowed up whole by my fingers.

I miss the days when you were so tiny that you had to look up to me and I could ruffle your hair, but that is about all that I remember. I’m sure that I would have left any one of my other friends to obviously play with you, though. Back then, too, I had thought you would want to play with friends your age and so I made my own, with hardships, but no one could compare to you.

Playing dinosaurs and makeshift households with you was just different, hyung.

Will you someday write me a letter with all of the memories you have of us? Recite to me our story the way you remember it?

Because I cannot imagine a small Minho having a crush, much lesser on me, without even knowing it. I wonder if it would have been different if we would have realized earlier our feelings had we grown up in a more accepting society.

Would we have been able to accept ourselves, then? I have accepted myself and you to a fault, but I still do not feel comfortable fully. It is hard to describe, is it not?

There has been talk of a riot taking place in America for the rights of those people. As people, I should say. America seems like such a vast country, but it is terrifying to think of, too. it is so different from here. I wonder if it is the same in Australia, too.

Do you remember my family friend? Felix? He and his family live down under, too, and I wonder if people like us who live there are any different in their identities.

This is something I think about so much, Minho, but I never know where to let it out so I guess I will just send it to you. I would have done the same had you been here, anyway.

Minho, do you think either of our parents would understand a love like this? Because I have never understood why they would be against it, why anyone would.

Why would outsiders be upset if two strangers loved each other? why would they go to such heights to create conversion camps? Just to force them to love the way they think is normal? The cruelties and the horrifying stories of the torture we deserve just because we dared to love don’t seem fair, hyung, and I am angry as much as I am scared.

Is it really so selfish of us to merely love? I have questioned myself so many times, thinking that I couldn’t let anyone know and that it was something to be ashamed of, but if this love grants me the power to make you mine, how could it be bad? For being myself, for loving you, I do not think it is a sin.

I would willingly write songs about sinning just because they are for you, and I promise you I will write them, but I will not send them to you until you come to visit me and listen to them for yourself.

I will give you the honour of listening to the songs the same day you come to me and tell me how much you love me in person, as you have told me you will. You better start building your courage right now, just as you are building your muscles, probably.

Are they almost bulging just like Changbin, now? Do you think I’d be able to swing on them if you tried? I think you’d be strong enough to throw me around by now.

You have not told me, hyung, of what you have done all these days in the military, and I have a long list of questions that I suspect you already know. Tell me about your day too; it is so fascinating to know, even though sometimes boring as you are in it.

How is Chan doing? Has he noticed you flying o the clouds yet now that I have granted you permission to love me? I’m sure I have done them all a favour by saving them from your grumpy mood; it can be deadly. If you ever were a few men short during a war or something and you pulled up your grumpy face they’d go running back, and I truly believe that.

It is so adorable to me, though, the way you scrunch your nose as everything even though you have no nose bridge it looks just like when Dori was little and used to hate Soonie so much. I wish I could see you like that again, even for a moment, even if it is a frown.

I have so many dreams with you that I can not tell you all of them – you will just have to lay with me every single night and share them with me to know. Do you expect me to cause my brain stress by remembering all my dreams when I already know that the recurring theme is for you to pull me in your arms and kiss me?

Now that I have thought so long about it and I know that you want it too, I cannot stop thinking about it. I wonder what your touch feels like; my skin has not forgotten yet it reaches out to you every moment to feel your skin against mine, again.

Come quickly; I cannot wait until the moment when you make me scream, and I need to discover which exact way it is that you choose to make me scream.

If you make a wish for me, if you want it to become true then, let me tell you what I wish for every night.

Ask the stars for me to give us a happy ending, because it is something that neither of us has in our hands but if you so claim to make my wishes true with the stars, then beg them to give us a happy ending.

I have gotten my beginning and my middle and both of them are full of elation but I hope that when I die, I die by your side. I hope that we become stars, too, and we can still be so close up above. Even in death, I wish to be near you, in the darkness of the skies.

Ask the universe to let us swim in the stars.

I am caressing my lips over yours through papers and waiting for the day they become real and make my throat raw.

I am glad I drive you insane; maybe it will make you return home faster.

Don’t die,
Sungie

Chapter Text

Sungie,

I am still shocked that you keep ending your letters by telling me to not die. Do you not trust me? I would give you anything you want and if my staying alive is it for you, then so be it. I do not mind being selfish if it is for your sake.

Don’t say that your name is merely a name; don’t disrespect my lover like that. I hold them very dearly, and I will fight if you do not give their name the utmost affection.

You say that you have forgotten your name is not Sungie but rather it is only a nickname from me to you, but it engraved into me as my lover’s name and so if you feel your name is that then I cannot say anything against it.

But it is worrying me that you would come near to forgetting your real name. surely not, if you live in a house with other people who do use your real name? and please, do not tell me that they have not even talked to you enough for them to have said your name, not even for supper?

It is not okay, my Han Jisung, that I keep you so dearly and that your family does not. I do not know if it is the reason you forget, but I can guarantee it plays a part. Please, talk to Changbin, and tell him to hang out with you when I cannot, because I cannot have you forget your name.

If I call you by your name and you do not look towards me, I will have lost my lover.

I couldn’t go back to my word-challenged self, as you referred to me if I tried. There is an addiction in talking to you, though paper or poetry or music or spoken words, and I am a victim.

If you forget your name, then let me remind you that your name is the only one I have in my vocabulary. It is you, and I cannot forget you, so do not dare forget yourself.

If it takes writing a poem for you to realize that I truly hold so much love for you, then okay. Let me write you a poem and let yourself be the poetry on my pages.

I would like you to know that all the sarcastic and humourous confidence that you have on paper, gives me great pleasure and I have laughed at it, but I wish that it were real. I wish that at some point we reach a day where you can call me yours as you mean it and that you could know it’s true.

And also, maybe as a side note, I want you to know that I could disarm you out of the fake confidence in less than a second and have you screaming instead, so if that does not tell you how much I’d like to love you, maybe my touch will.

What do you think? What kind of screaming do you prefer, my Sungie?

if you wrote about me and you, I do not know what another story will be like because I refuse to imagine us anywhere outside of this reality. The possibility of us still not having each other in another universe is too unbearable to imagine, and this reality we exist in is like safety for me. I know that I am with you here, with or without the world’s support, but I am here and I can hold your hand as your lover, and I do not prefer any other reality to this.

It reminds me, you have adorably forgotten o tell me about your story, or maybe you have left in on purpose, I do not know, so I am asking again. What story have you come up with in that head of yours?

If you open up my last letter, you will know all that I have asked about your story, and I know that you have been waiting for me to ask so I think you might have just skipped over replying about it, so tell me again.

Your family should be proud as fuck, of you, because how could someone so talented really exist? You read books, and you write them, and you make music and you smile like an angel, and how could someone resist loving you?

If you want me to court you so badly, then tell me how to. You are the reader, the writer, not me. Tell me what it’s like in your books and let me make you fall in love with me.

If you say so, then I am already better than the books you read, hm? I have woven every piece of us together to make you fall in love with me, without knowing it, and without knowing that I was in love too, and it’s paid off. Does it not feel so much better than the books?

I do think bringing the cats in was the best idea my younger self ever had, as it seems to be the one thing that has made you so smitten with me. Be careful, or I might think you are just with me for my cats. Have you pretended to fall for me just to be able to call my cats yours?

Because it looks like that to me. What do you say, Sungie, are you just after my cats?

And why do you talk so regretfully of the past? It does not matter that you don’t remember much of the past. As long as you remember me, as long as you are with me in the present, we will be okay. Don’t tear yourself up over such a trivial thing, alright?

Should we make a deal, though? If you are so desperate, then maybe one day I will send you a long letter with every single memory I have cherished of you, with every moment I remember spending with you all through the years.

It will probably be so long, wouldn’t it? It will take up so many pages, but I cannot wait to write it all now. I will send it to you sometime in the future, when I am closer to coming home to you so that you will know I am coming, as a small hint if I cannot convey it in my letters then.

And we have enough time to live through every single one of these memories again because we have all the time in the world. We have enough time, and if we don’t, I’ll steal some from the universe.

On second thought, though, it is maybe for the best that you do not know of the most embarrassing moments I have had. My round glasses sure have granted me the chance to be someone I cannot stop being ashamed of, now. God, I used to be such a child, and I was so awkward that I am happy you do not remember me stuttering.

And I do not fucking have baby hands, thank you very much.

I should smack you on the head with those same strong hands of mine now for even thinking that I did not want to play with you. The rounded glasses and the awkward fiddling rarely left anyone my age or older who was playing with me, and I hadn’t wanted to play with them anyway when you were right there with the dinosaurs and makeshift households.

Did you know I used to hate playing makeshift households? My sister used to do it all the time and it was so annoying I would shut her out and come out to play with you. And then you’d play the same thing with me again. But it was the way you always made us married in the story and the way you pretended that we were both asleep while laying on the ground and then you’d wake me up with a heart smile on your face and I knew it was my favourite play then.

But I would still prefer dinosaurs; I had the chance to lift you up and twirl you around, and you’d laugh like it was the best thing in the world. I have spent so much time just being happy by seeing you happy, my Sungie, and there is no one I’d choose over you to spend my time with. And there is no option, either, other than you.

But, after all these years, tell me, how did you even come up with the idea to play makeshift houses? Because as far as I know, you didn’t play with my sister as much, and none of the people at school did, either. How did you even come across it?

however many universes you change for us, Sungie, I do not think my dumbness will ever reduce, so I apologize that you’ll have to be kept waiting in every other reality like you did this time.

I do agree that maybe we would have realized our feelings as not completely platonic towards each other had we lived in another time. Maybe in the future, it will be better. I hope that the generations, as they progress, have a chance to live happily with the person they want and be themselves.

do not fear your feelings if you cannot fully accept yourself just yet; let yourself take time. No one has ever come across such a love, of two men together, and if we have been chosen for a love so special, then it is okay to be so stunned by it. But don’t ever stop believing in yourself, or thinking that it is a bad thing.

Whatever you are going through, I hope you let out on the letters, because you are not alone and I am right here on this journey with you, too.

About the riot – we have had so many discussions about it, too, in the military. Not officially, but there have been rumours that something similar might happen in Korea. As much as I admire the people planning the riots here to stand up for themselves, I hope that they will be safe.

But I hope, Sungie, in a small part of me, that they do not take place.

I do not think I would be able to go out there and be the one to stop them from protesting when all I want to do is stand with them and scream for our acceptance just as they are. And, of course, the fact that everyone in society? They will never see it as just a protest, they will see it as rebellion and use it to prove that being queer is so, so, sinful.

I wish, one day, society is aware enough to know that people like us, people who are different, do not owe them niceness. We are humans, are we not? And yet, a single negative emotion and is used against us to slander our identities?

What happened in America has only been half-revealed in this country we call ours, Sungie. What I hear of it now makes it to be that the police have invaded a bar or something similar the sort, full of people just like us, and been…not as nice to them as they would be to “normal” people.

The people protested back against them, and I truly have so much respect for them, but there has been an incident that one of the beautiful women who led the protests has been found dead. Rumour has it, that the woman was actually a man. That she is just a fake woman.

But I do not understand why they are so bothered. This will sound mean, maybe, but what the fuck do they have to do with whatever a person wants to be. Why are they mad that a stranger chose a different identity that what they had assumed it to be?

How the fuck is it any of their business?

I hope it is not as bad as America and Korea for your friend Felix in Australia. I would ask Chan what it is like down under, but I am afraid of what will happen if it turns out he is not as kind to people like us. Isn’t it so heartbreaking? That the people you know best, who you thought would support you through everything and are so nice and kind, cannot accept your love?

Honestly, Sungie, I have no idea if either Chan or our parents are open to it, and even subtle questions about it might result in lethal reactions. I promise that when I come there, I will try to see if they are okay with it, but please do not try anything without me.

People’s anger towards this issue is so vastly different, and more often than not very dangerous, so please, Sungie, do not put yourself in a position like that when I am away. Just thinking the worst, just the mere thought of them doing anything to you, makes my blood crackle with fire.

You are right in your anger, Sungie, and it is so justified, just as being scared is. I will not say I am not angry, and I will not say that I don’t want to do something to the world. But if you wanted to burn it down, I’d hand you a matchstick and watch as you took your revenge.

The world hasn’t been kind to us, and it is broken and wrong, but the world is ours, is it not? I love it even with all its flaws because of you. You exist, and that is a reason big enough for me to forget all the sins of the world. And you have taught me to love everything, Sungie, you have taught me to love despite the flaws, because you have taught me to be hopeful of the better times.

I look forward to the future, and it is because of you, my love.

Thank you for granting me the opportunity to see the world in all its glory and be hopeful for all the goodness in the world. One day, it will be better for us, and you have made me believe so.

I hope that when the world becomes a better place, it is because of the songs you have written. The way the song goes is the way the world restores. I cannot think of a better way to bring peace back than to worship the artist that resides in you, Han Jisung.

And the world will know you by your name. my Sungie behind closed doors and my Han fucking Jisung to the rest of the whole world.

You make me impatient to come to meet you, right now, just so that I can listen to your music, and it is an effect you have on me every single time I think of you.

My muscles are certainly not as big as Changbin’s yet, and neither are they strong enough yet for you to swing on them, but when I come to you, I promise that they will be enough to pick you up like the princess you are.

My roommates are eternally grateful for whatever you have done to me because I kid you not, Chan came up to me this morning as I held your letter and said, “Read this every day so that you don’t fucking look at us like you’re about to us and save it for the wars.” and I couldn’t do anything but laugh.

Maybe my first laugh in a few weeks or so, and then all the people around me froze and looked at me as if my laughing was an alien sight.

But that’s about what goes on in the military. I am grateful every day that I get to serve, though the food has not improved I cannot complain. I have kind of become used to it by now, I guess. I have even started making some food myself like I did when I was home.

It was only meant to be once, and only a small portion but I think my comrades in the room liked it so much that now, no matter how much tiredness is seeping from me through my bones, they force me to cook something for them. They tried to help, but they were so hopeless that I had to kick them out of the kitchen otherwise it would take longer to clean up than cook! Can you believe them?

I have not grown out of my habit of always eating with you yet, and before you ask, I do always make a small extra portion for you, even if you are not here. I wish I could feed you with my own hands, but I am too far away so making food for you and telling you of it is my only way to cook for you.

Did you know I learnt to cook only for you? It started as a small cake for your birthday if you do remember this, but I got used to cooking for you, and the way you would savour it made me feel useful, and the habit has still stuck to always make extra for you.

Even my friends here have stopped questioning why I serve an extra plate beside me when we sit down to eat. They all assume I have a lover; a wife at home, and it made me laugh once when they asked. Chan had only smiled at me as if he knew something I didn’t, but then he shut up once I started describing you.

I do have a lonely wife waiting for me, at home, don’t I, now? I have asked the stars if I do, and they have said yes.

You really shouldn’t end your letters with such intimate thoughts, Sungie, they will be my death one day.

Last time I told you to press your lips to mine where your name is there, so now, listen with your ears and you will hear the stutter in my heart.

If I ever told you what I think of doing to make you scream when we are together, you would hate me, Sungie.

Love, from me and my thoughts,

Minho.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

A poem, as you wished.

Say, will you love me until the very end,
Until the next time we’re born for each other?
Night falls into a bright day, without you here
Good Morning my love, I want to say.
If you hear me whisper along your cheeks,
End my pain and let me hold you.

Love,
Minho

Chapter Text

Minho,

I may sound like a broken record in that I keep saying it over and over, but if you do not mind being selfish for me, then come back home.

It’s weird that I say this to you so much because as much as I want you home, I know that your heart would still linger in the moments you spent where you are now, and I cannot find it in me to take away such an integral part of yourself. I want you back to me at any cost, but not of your dreams.

And it would not sit right with me if I dared unload all my problems onto you without caring for yours.

My family is not so much of an essential roadblock that you need to worry for me to this extent. I will not forget my name because you remind me every day, through the letters that I read again and again, and I will remember it until the day I die because you will call me it.

During meals I am usually in my room, or at work, and I do not interact with my family so much nowadays that they have a reason to talk to me. I miss them sometimes, and I feel guilty that I am not making any huge tries to talk to them, but there is a sick relief that I will not have to get yelled at or have to look at girls for marriage and end up having to be rejected because of my inability to make a good partner.

I used to really believe these things, what they said about me until you taught me not to, and I am so grateful that I have a reason to look at myself in the mirror and not frown.

If I managed to make you my lover, then there must be something special about me, right?

Changbin has offered on multiple occasions for me to just go live with him so that I do not have to talk to my family, but I think as much as I have grown out of believing them, I could never truly let go. I do not know how to stop hoping that under all the venomous words, there lies an attachment to me and that they only say those words for my betterment. I’m not brave enough to just leave them behind, and I don’t want to, either.

The fake confidence you say I have makes me believe that I am truly on the journey to loving myself the way you do because I have a confirmation that you will never stop loving me and being kind to me. I could conjure up such negative scenarios for everyone I know in life, and sometimes, in the early days, even for you, but now I know you, and now I know that even if you stopped wanting to support me, you are not the kind of person to leave me hanging.

Do you ever feel like escaping? I want to escape to someplace with you, hyung, because throughout my life even with you by my side, in this world I have not found a moment of peace with myself. I have not had a single quiet moment where my brain has stopped running and I could live in a silent blissful void where I do not have to think of anything; just breathe.

I want to experience that with you, while you hold my hand. I want peace in whatever way I can get it.

Peace is a high-flying bird and I, a mere onlooker. I want, just once, to taste the air of freedom where I am no longer bound to my mind. I want to stop thinking, to put an end to the countless jumps and trains of thought I experience every moment.

I’ve chased it for so long, but I have not been fast enough to catch it. If you hold my hand, maybe I will take flight, and maybe I will hold peace in my hands.

Help me, hyung, to close my eyes and breathe and not think. I want to stop, I want to get out, and I want to do it with you.

Do you think that when you make me scream, it will be loud enough to stop my world on its axis?

Because I do, and I crave the moment that you will follow through on your promise because I know in my heart that being one with you will bring me the peace I long for.

Maybe I should have studied philosophy instead, hm?

One day, hyung, whenever you have the time, ask me if you want to, what I wish I could do in my life if it was not for the times we live in. Ask me once, and please let me tell you who you are falling in love with. Let me show you what you already know but this time, more pronounced.

I ache to let myself be known. I feel that it is so prideful of me to want to show the world who I really am, inside, but I cannot do that. I cannot talk to the world so freely, so I will talk to my world instead, and that is you.

And, as you reminded me, I have started writing! I had not realized that I forgot to reply to that part of your letter, and I had to pluck it out of the steadily growing mountain of letters on my desk, to make sure that you were not just lying and teasing me.

You will be on your knees begging me to stop and my list of fantasies will not cease to exist, so don’t tell me to say what it’s like in my books. I have my own fantasy right on the other side of this letter, but if you so insist, here you go:

The hero, every single time, chooses the world against the lover. Why does he do that, just to save the world and let go of his lover? A world that was so cruel to him versus a lover that has been by his side? And the villain is left forever torn, mistaken as cruel as he tries to undo something that has been broken beyond repair by society, and all he wants is to love, and he would tear apart everyone just to choose his lover over and over again.

The villain, too, deserves some kindness, don’t you think?

The so many ways that the villain tries to explain himself to the world, to fight for what he believes in and to make the love interest he fails, and the hero gets the girl just because he has a moral compass that is illusioned to be for the greater good.

Since when has love been something about good or bad?

I have always found the villains so much more fascinating – they are shown to put in so much more effort into love, and so many actions, and yet, the hero sweeps the girl off her feet, just because he’s a goodie two shoes, do-no-wrong, the person who will ultimately let the girl go anyway and play with her like this?

This has strayed away from being a list, but maybe one was not needed in the first place. You do not need to court me like the books to make me yours (and besides, the book characters don’t live so far away with limited communication and resources and no time to indulge themselves).

Maybe, though, my love language is receiving a love letter that is filled with every memory that my over holds with me, and the notion that it is a sign that he will be home soon is that much sweeter.

And I want all the memories, no exceptions! Even the ones with the adorable round glasses and the makeshift household games and the dinosaurs and whatever else that evades me and I want them written by you, and I want to know how your young heart felt.

I will be imagining you every day, writing that letter slowly every time you remember something, with your baby hands which do not write fast enough as your mind wants you to, and your rushed writing will remind me of the sea tides crashing, also reflecting the way I will feel to read those words.

On how I came across the makeshift households game, I myself only remembered after you spoke of it, and it is more embarrassing to think of now than it was to do, then. I had not even known, hyung, that it was a real game that so many other people played. I simply saw my family at home and yours and I wanted to know what it would be like to experience it with you, so I made the game up and I thought I was so smart to come up with it so subtly.

And it paid off because it was worth it in the end.

Do you think we’ll make our own house in the future? One that’s made of more than just blankets and sticks? I have a billion ideas on how I want to decorate it, with you, Minho.

I do not yet have the courage to read or reply to the rest of your letter, as I feel I will understand and believe them more if I do not wet them down with my pessimism once again and read your positive words in the middle of the night when I do not feel…good.

I have come to find out the name of the woman involved – Marsha P. Johnson, she was, and I could not even pronounce her name at first because I am so used to three-syllable Korean names now, but looking at her picture, with her smile, it made me realize that despite fighting so much, her smile lit up the room even in the dark photo.

She was born a man, I think as you said, and she turned into a woman because she thought she was one, and she felt like one, and I find it so admirable that she went against all odds and gave herself a name and an identity that she wanted and I am so grateful that people like this, like her and like you, exist to make my thoughts a little bit better when I am drowning under the cruelty of the world.

I hope for your sake that the riots do not happen here – they will be no good and the voice of people like us will reach nowhere in the current state of the country.

And I am not strong enough either, even to go to the protests if they happened or even to talk about this to my parents or friends. I do not know of their reactions just like you, but I hope for our sake that they are kind. It is hopeful thinking, maybe a tad too much, but I hope that if they cannot accept us, they at least respect us.

It would really be such if we lost everyone because of this, wouldn’t it?

I hope, once again such a dangerous thing to do, that there is some love left in the world.

Without it, we would not exist, but without friendship, nothing would exist, as much as I would love you, I think we would both be shattered without the light of friendship reflecting on our windows as we go to sleep, and we would not wake up to the sun because it will have gone out if our friendships were severed.

I want to tell you that Chan and your other friends will come through and be kind as I am sure they are about other subjects too, but it is a matter that cannot be spoken of either, so we will be left in the dark. I want to give you hope, too, which keeps you going, but I am afraid I only have so much of it left now.

I am glad to learn, though, that you keep a plate next to you while you eat, because so do I. It has confused my parents many times that I always take two dishes with me upstairs to eat, but they think I have an increasing appetite even if the food ends up being poured back into the containers.

I want to tell you so much about my story, but every time I sit down to say something about it, I come up with a new idea for it that I immediately have to write down otherwise I will forget, so we will spare the details for when I have given it flesh and bones and tell you only the small version.

I have written about two men, in love, and there is not much to it other than that love.

It is a way of acceptance, for me, and a way to have an excuse to think of you a little bit longer as I write the love interest. I have given them all the problems that I face and I have made the love interest so much like you that the book is now scarily close to us in the present, but instead of us being in fear about our futures, I have written that they were simply in love without a single doubt around them, and they get their happy ending in their home, and they never face the troubles that we do, now.

I know that the story might not be so interesting because it does not have a main conflict yet, but it is my own epilogue in a sense, and it is already my favourite story in the world to think of. I can cling to this story when the world gets a little darker and when it is hard to imagine the light in your eyes, and

I hope that when you get the chance to read it, that my words feel like coming home to you.

If you are afraid of this reality, then let my words come around you like a blanket and surround you in the story I wrote for you and think only of that and forget about the world.

I have pressed my ears to your letters but they do not compare to your laugh as much as I try, but I settle for the heartbeats of yours that match mine.

Tell me what you think of doing to me, and let me decide to not hate you, anyway. Let me tell you that

I want it too. and if that causes your death, then it will be a happy one.

I love you, my soldier behind closed doors and my Lee fucking Minho to the rest of the whole world.

I miss you with every passing second that I have to grow old without you,

Sungie.

Chapter Text

Sungie,

My love, I am most ashamed to be writing this without first replying to all of your sweet sayings, as I have not had the heart to open your sacred letter at a time like this, but I will soon when it is bedtime.

The military has gotten news of a war, maybe a few months away that an enemy country is planning. I do not know much, but the atmosphere has dropped and we are freezing with the knowledge of the war crimes that might take place.

Do not worry about the war, Sungie – it isn’t likely to happen, but I will win it for you if it does. And do not worry about me, either; I am happy and healthy with your image in my heart, and I will survive.

But I beg of you, baby, to tell me something happy. Something that will bring me delight in the darkness of the tunnel that we are facing now. Your words are like a light in that tunnel, and I have no defence against the war than to smile at the thought of you writing me happy memories.

Tell me what you dream of us and our house and our future, and tell me who you are the way you want to tell me and tell me that it will all be okay and that soon I will be in your arms.

I cannot define “soon”, but with your letters, I will create something akin to the way your hold feels, so please, give me something to hold onto.

I send you my deepest apologies for the delayed replies but I promise to read all the letters you send and reread the old ones (they have become home for me, here.)

I think of you every time I patch up my wounds, because it is your memory that heals me, so please do not be upset if I cannot write so much these next few weeks.

War or not, the training is crucial, and there may be a cut-off of communication going outside the region.

Send my regards to everyone there, but do not worry them, alright? And do not make yourself anxious in my thoughts – rather, write me a letter that makes us both joyful and immerse yourself in hope and send some of its last drops to me, too.

I terribly miss my cats.

Yours,

Minho.

Chapter Text

Minho,

War is not near, and I can assure you that you will be not stuck in it and you will come out of it alive because I have wished for it and you must complete it for my sake. I don’t know how much power and truth my words hold but if it is enough to make you sleep without a single thought of death then I will have achieved my goal.

I will tell you about myself some other time, so that you can fall in love with me without the threat of war hanging over your head, and you can be happy then, too. trust me when I say you don’t only deserve to hear happy things when you are going through the pre-effects of war.

Your cats have been extra messy and mischievous around me lately, and I like to think that they think of me as their new owner now, but nothing can replace me with the way you cared for them. Doongie has been sniffing Changbin so much lately that I have been suspicious, and I had to stop him from being idiotic and making your cats drink soju.

But I admit, it would have been a funny sight to see, wouldn’t it? I will wait for you to come until I actually try to get drunk because I do not trust anyone except you when I am not sober. But I miss the way you looked with flushed cheeks when you sneaked your way into your appa’s closet and found alcohol.

Your cheeks were tinged pink and they were better than any sunset could ever imagine to be, because then I had witnessed the bright sun in your smile, the sunset in your cheeks, and the night sky in the stars in your eyes, altogether, and it will be something I live for.

I live for the day that I can build a house with you. I want to have a small lake in front of our house, so we can both pretend that we can swim but just stand in the water instead. I want to make memories with you and I know which ones, too. I want to pretend to fall into the water just so you will come after me and catch me like a princess. I want to catch a fish and have a pet and take care of it every day, and do you think Bread is a good name?

When I was little, I somehow always dreamt of this fish called Bread, and now I want to own one. Will you help me catch the fish? I’m scared of them.

I know we cannot have kids, but if we could, and oh I hope so much that we could, I want us to have a little girl. I want her to have two Appa’s, and I want to have fun with her and I know that you will be so protective of her, just as you are of me. I hope that she is clumsy, like me, because I love to see your heart jump out of your chest every single time I’m about to fall.

And oh, how I fell.

I don’t want a big house, really. I just want a small one in which only us to can fit in, and so I can feel you from every corner of the house, even when you are in the kitchen making me food, and I want to be able to sit on the windowsill and serenade you so loudly and embarrass you. Even though we cannot be so open about our love, I still like to dream of a day I can shout out to everyone that you are mine.

I do not want a window in our bedroom, hyung, because I want to be able to kiss your lips just the way I like, without being fearful of watchful eyes. I want you to make me scream, as much as you like, without the sound carrying anywhere. I want to have everything with you.

And I want to have a dog! It will be hard, maybe, to have one even though we have three cats already, but I want a white, fluffy dog and call it Night.

And I want you to teach me Korean properly. I still struggle, sometimes, and I want you to make me sit in your lap and put your hand above mine and trace letters on a page and let me stare at you while you teach me with so much concentration.

And I have started learning, myself, and I can write some, too, now.

The only words I know how to write yet are your name. I don’t need to know any other words.

And one day, I want to be able to marry you, Minho. I want to have traditional clothes and food and I want everyone to be there, and I want to make you mine in every single way that I can.

I have seen a rose field not far from our house, and I want to take you there one day, and properly ask you to be mine, not just merely on these flimsy pages. I want to lay down in there in between all the flowers and hold you.

I want to take you to one of those video game stations, and I want to play with you all night there and I want us to lose any semblance of time as we throw ourselves into the bright light of the screens and I want you to shut me up when I inevitably beat you and boast about it.

I want to take you out of Korea, too, one day, and maybe visit Australia. Felix says it is a great place to visit, that there is so much sun and water everywhere and the beaches are everywhere and there is good food!

And I can show you all the things! Even though I don’t remember much from there except the language carried over, I want to take you to where I used to live, and make it a part of us, too. I want to show you all the spots I used to play at as a kid, and all those spots I will kiss you in. One kiss for every spot, deal?

I do not remember mentioning this but my friend Felix! Whom I don’t think needs an introduction anymore, is coming to Korea for a few days and he's going to stay with me! I haven’t met him in such a long time! Did you know our birthdays are only a few hours apart? You can’t not love him; you’ll know when you meet him!

And you can meet him too when we go to Australia! And he can show us around places if I’ve forgotten any because he still lives in the same neighbourhood.

Dream of the hot suns and the tasty food and the calm waves of the water, and forget about the monstrosity of the war, and rest your eyes and go to sleep, my Minho. I will wait for you to sleep every night first, and then I will do so myself so that I know that you are resting.

Work hard and be strong, my soldier, but don’t work so much that I have to come and get you as an excuse for you to be in my arms. Don’t be so desperate!

I’m sending along a small crochet of Soonie, Doongie and Dori that I have made in my free time, and I had meant it as a surprise for your birthday, but I guess I will send it now if they do my job and fight off all the bad dreams.

Dream of me, instead, if nothing works, because I will know when you do, and I will make sure to give you the best dreams.

I exist here, and in your dreams, and everywhere that you need me to.

I have pressed my lips to every single word I have written in this letter, so hold this page and let me make you feel okay.

Sleep well,
Sungie

Chapter Text

Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie Sungie
My Sungie.

For if it takes me saying your name to make you love yourself like I do.

Your lover,
Minho

Chapter Text

Sungie,

I hope you have already received my last letter.

I will write your name over and over again so that you do not forget, my love. My existence is because of you, and if you dare forget yourself, you will lose me in those memories, too.

It is so genuine of you, and it astounds me to my core, that you do not wish to be separated from your family. I wish that you have a good relationship with them because I know that you crave it more than love. You deserve to be loved so unconditionally, my Han Jisung, and if not by your family, then I am glad to be the one to show you how you should be loved.

It makes me happiest, so fucking happy, to know that you believe in my love for you, now. Even if you are not quite there yet, I am so proud of you for having the courage to believe in someone, and that someone being me.

I will love you so that you will not doubt a single word about my feelings for you. I can never escape them, and I do not want to. If my love was a cage, and I had the chance to escape, I would only wrap the bars tighter around myself.

I promise that when I come back, I will take you somewhere that you can breathe. I see you suffocating, I feel it through the way you write, and I want to take you away from it. I will help you stop thinking until the only word you can pronounce is my name, and it is up to you if you want it to be as pure as you are, or as craveful as a touch.

Peace is a high-flying bird and you, a mere onlooker, and I, your solider and huntsman, who brings that bird to you. I leave it in your arms to cradle it and savour the feeling, and it is yours now and it is a present from me to you: peace.

When I make you scream, my Sungie, it will not be as a last effort for bringing you peace, but rather to show you how incredible you are. I want to make you fall apart under my fingers, I want to watch you unravel and give you the bliss you wish for.

And I will give you peace through it, but it will not only be limited to when I touch you. I would lay down my life and I would take one, too, just so you could hold onto the calmness.

I will give you all the memories you want, past or present or future or in your dreams, and I will not leave a single one out if it makes you smile. I miss it; the way the ends of your lips curved upward and the way your lips form a heart that resides in my heart, too, and the way your laugh sends a pang through my chest, and the way your lips would fit so perfectly against mine and the way your eyes would turn into crescents and your face would be split in half because of your laugh and your cheeks would be bunched up and it would bring me the greatest joy in life to witness every single time you have laughed.

And I know you well, I do not need you to spell out who you are for me to notice you. Do it, go on and tell me who think you are yourself, in your words, because I know that is a desperate beg, a cry to be understood the way you understand others so much, and I am here to tell you that you need not beg to me to want to know you. I know you already, every part of you, the ones you don’t even know about.

I know your favourite colour, and I know why it is your favourite colour, and I know that it is turquoise because it reminds you of the waters back home, and I know that you love food, and I know that you love sharing and that you’d give it up in a second to make someone happy.

Every part of you stores so much love, Sungie.

And I know all of it. After all, loving is knowing, is it not? To love someone is to know them. Let me know you, let me show you that I genuinely do know you.

You do not have to be the one begging to be understood. Tell me about yourself, and tell me how to know you, and I will be the one begging to get to know you more.

You do not need to set a time to make me get to know you; I will fall in love with you even with a war raging over my head.

And I know for sure that even if we lose everyone just because we love each other, there will still be so much love left in the world because you will still exist.

You need not give me false hope about the people we surround ourselves with, and not for Chan or my other comrades, either. It would cut deep if I found out that Chan would not prefer to be friends just because of what person I love, and it would matter to me, but not so much that it would blind me from you.

You have been my hope for so long, so let me be yours. I am so, so grateful for the letters you have sent me with so many things that have made me smile, and I have clutched your sweater tight to hide my tears because they are for no one but you.

I don’t care what the people say about us, or our love, or about the story you write because it is something my lover has made himself and I will cherish it so much. I wish I had stronger, better words to say what I want to say but my throat feels constricted, and my brain is not thinking of anything except for how I wish I was with you so I could tell you how proud I am of you.

I hope you can know everything that I am not able to say.

I cannot promise you that our story will be flawless and that we will not have troubles, but I will give you your happy ending no matter what. Do not ever stop believing in that, Han Jisung.

I miss you so much, and your last letter feels like hope to me, and it also feels like home. My home and hope, and it is you and your words.

I want to see the way my cats would look drunk, and how they annoy Changbin, and I want to assure you that I will be there when you get drunk, and I get to witness you without any of those filters you sometimes keep putting up and hide the essence of who you really are. I can tell, when you are faking something, even in the letters you write me, so don’t pretend anything because I will know. Be true to me, my love, and then you believe that I will accept you anyway.

I want a house with you, the way you described, and I want a daughter to raise with you and I want to see you serenade me and I want to cook you so much food and I want to make you scream where only we can hear it, and that you only scream for me, and I will walk you down the aisle, American style and I will do it in our Korean traditions all over again, and I want all the pets and I want to have all the things you said to me, as long as I get to kiss you at the end of the day.

I will teach you Korean, but you have so much faith in me that I will not be the one getting distracted instead; I will trace the shape of your smile, delicately and softly until you are begging me to press my lips to yours.

And I want to watch you fall apart in every place you have said – in your house, and mine and ours and in the lakes and the video game stations and rose fields and Australia and your childhood spots and every place we go.

I’m glad that you have a friend coming to see you, and I am sure that he will be dear to me, too, but I cannot help feeling jealous that he gets to see you in person and hug you and listen to you laugh and I cannot.

I guess your crochets will do in your place.

You exist not only in my dreams but everywhere to me.

I will not tolerate the way we kiss only on paper; I promise I will kiss you soon, and I will make up for every time I made you pretend that a paper could show you how much I love you.

Love,
Minho.

Chapter Text

Feathers of touches
Holding hands and running wild
With the wind kissing our cheek
The warmth – so soft
Making me so weak

You in the air
So fresh and beautiful
Reminds me of every moment of us
Oh, baby, we are so rare
Found only in each other

Comforting voice ringing through my ears
I can imagine your voice through the paper
Can't wait to hear the words from you
Can't wait to sing this song together
Telling me, “you’re perfect for me”

This is another love song;
Stay by my side,
Listening to this together
And ill hold you forever
Making sure that you won't break
We’ll hold onto each other for long
With nothing to hide
Oh, let the world fade

Every sight reminds me of you
I always get the déjà vu
But this time without you
Whenever I close my eyes, your smile
Makes me run miles to see you

Rosy kisses
Speak how much we missed
More precious than golden treasures
We are flying out of the world
Feeling the butterflies all over us

Oh it’s a paper love
We make each other so loved
This is a beautiful piece
That fits perfectly in me
The universe has bound us together

You are perfect
We are picture perfect
A beautiful piece of my heart
The universe has bound us together
Nothing can keep us apart

This is another love song;
Stay by my side,
Listening to this together
And ill hold you forever
Making sure that you won't break
We’ll hold onto each other for long
With nothing to hide
Oh, let the world fade

Hyung,

Hyunghyunghyung- it has been a year. It has been exactly three hundred and sixty-five days since I have seen you with my own eyes, and how much longer should I take it? I ache even in my dreams to touch you, and I saw you in them last night and I have never felt such distance between us than when you were so close to my eyes and so out of reach.

Your smell disappears from the blanket so much that the perfume you used to own has run out, and I do not have the heart to buy a new one because it wouldn’t be so inherently yours.

In my dreams, too, you were so infallible in how you made me feel, because even then you held my hand and I could have sworn I felt the heat on my arms when I woke, but it left so soon – fleeting as it is.

The cherry blossoms have gone and come by again, like when you left, and I did not have the confidence to gift you one and decorate your hair with them, but I do now, and I hope so eagerly that I can paint you with my love and the blossoms and see you smile in the glow of the sun.

Here is my song to you; one that I wrote a long time ago in hopes of one day serenading you. I cannot send my voice along with the letter even as much as I wish I could.

I hope that the song is capable of even portraying a fraction of what you have allowed me to feel through your last letter. I have traced your ink every single time you wrote my name, and I have felt you through it every single time. It rests on my nightstand now, and if I were a carver I would make a place in my chest to let the letter rest between my blood and heart, where it belongs.

I was looking at the stars yesterday night, and I found a constellation that resembles your smile. The sky glowed so brightly around it, and I felt a part of the warmth that the constellation surrounded it.

Would you allow me to draw it on you, once you are back home? I have ink ready to flow, but instead of words, I would like to create a drawing on you.

Art, on art.

You speak of my family differently than I do, though I assure you that even if they are not capable of loving me the way I crave to be, you are right there giving me that and more. You have given me a happiness I had never known, and the taste of it on my tongue is so raw, so pure, and I am addicted.

Do not ever feel like I am not loved, and I will not, either, because you exist and it is all that matters. You exist, to me if not to anyone else, even in life, even in death, even after death, and even when the stars decide it is time for us to live again, and over and over again, I will love you and I will be loved by you.

I hope too, that when you say you would wrap the bars of my love tighter around yourself had it been a cage, that you do not feel stifled. This is not my way to make you worry about what I think, but I wish so highly that you feel free in your love for me. Like I do; I feel like I am running in a field with the sun reflecting on your face and I am chasing you and we are laughing and it is all I have ever wanted, and I can go wherever I want, and I would still want it to be with you.

It is my choice to love you, and I want to love you, and I do. I do. I do.

Do you think these could be my wedding vows? Wah, the drink Changbin gave me earlier warmed me and also made me feel more courageous in picking up the pen. I suspect it is alcohol and that he lied about it being juice, but I cannot be sure when it feels so good.

It clears up the haze in my mind until all I can think about is you, but it has an underlying current that I am just on the brink of a waterfall about to trip down. When you make me forget everything, I think I will have fallen off the brink already, and I will either fly and soar to the heights of the sky or discover the harsh beauty of the ocean. Either I will be happy to experience, as long as it is because of you.

I want you to make me feel good, hyung. I want you to make me fall apart, and I crave like there is no tomorrow.

And that is me. I am my hopes and wishes and I am whatever I have done in this life that shapes me. I had written you about wanting to tell you about myself, but I was in an existential state of delusion and I had not known myself till then either, and I had felt like I was drowning, but I can see so clearly now, and I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for your letter.

I have only now realized that you know me more than myself, like you said, because if my hopes and dreams are you, and my actions you have witnessed since the start of my life, then who to know me better than you?

Sometimes I forget who I am, and all I will remember in the echoes of my head are the ways you have said my name over the years, and I will grasp onto air to breathe and not come up with an answer about myself, only knowing that you are there.

Tell me, hyung, who I am, give me a chance to know myself because I am at a loss for words and answers and there are too many questions. Ink your words so I can read them over and over until I remember who I was when I feel delirious again.
I crave to be understood; not by others but by myself. Teach me, show me who I am, through your eyes.

But do not tell me about how those eyes have teared up due to the war? It fills me with agony that I do not know the reasons that you cry, and that I am only there in the spirit of my sweaters to keep you warm when you do. Tell me why, my love, and let us be each other’s hopes.

And I will wait here for you and write about the happy ending that we will get.

I will write more to you when I feel better – maybe what Changbin has fed me is getting to my head, but it feels like I am about to fall asleep and it is not even near afternoon yet.

See you soon, my love.

Don’t di-

Hyung, it's Changbin. I only gave him a mild amount of alcohol to make him fess up about his recent happiness, but he feel asleep writing to you, instead. I respect you (and am terrified) hence I will not read this letter, however, please tell Jisung to explain to me if calling you his love is a way of making you like him more than I do.

I'm finishing this letter off and sending it because it looks pretty done to me, and if I have seen him with alcohol before, then I know he will worry and fret over his handwriting and write this all over again, and please do not mention to him that I told you this, but it has been hard on him recently as his job refuses to pay him the fair wage. Most of it goes to keeping his family afloat with food, and these papers, and he has been reusing the same shawls even in this harsh winter.

it hurts to see him like this, and my intentions were never bad to give him alcohol, but it was to keep him warm because this bastard will never tell me upfront that he's freezing but will rather die of having a cold and not being able to breathe.

When are you coming home? We need you here, Minho hyung. Jisung, especially, needs you. ever so selfless, he will not ask for you t come without saying it's only because he misses you, but it's more than that. I can only do so much to support him, but you and he have a different, deeper connection. I've always felt that you two were stronger and closer to each other than I was when we all hung out together, so please make sure to tell him it's okay.

I'm sure it's so cold in the army too, and I hope you're keeping warm. Dying of cold winds would be rather anticlimactic as a soldier. Don't embarrass us.

And i guess i miss you sometimes (and don't die, to quote your "love")
Seo Changbin

Chapter Text

Hyung!

I had a vivid dream of writing you a letter with one of my songs, but it was too shameful to really write it out, so I’ll settle for telling you about the new book I’ve just read for my job! It is not so much a story than poetry with words woven so beautifully that I can almost picture them, almost touch the images if I reach out hard enough. I could so completely write a literary analysis in one of my letters to you, but I think I prefer telling you about it and seeing the sparkle in your eyes when you, too, read this work.

I’m sitting in a rose field as I write to you now, imagining myself as one of the characters. Though, I don’t think it fits me very well. There is a period, in the story, where they have unfiltered hate towards each other.

I think I have never hated you. I never have been able to.

The book, Pride and Prejudice, has been a long-time classic, but I have only gotten my hands on it now. My job has given me a courtesy copy, which is a feat in itself. The reasons they did, you don’t need to know – know that I am better than ever.

When I think of it, Mr Darcy has never hated Lizzy, either, and yet she believed that he did, and hated him regardless of what he felt. It is so wondrous to me, that it is not just named pride and prejudice, to represent each one of them. Rather, both of them can be either.

Lizzy, who holds so much pride, developed a prejudice towards her later-to-be lover. And Mr Darcy, who had too much pride to be able to tell Lizzy about Wickham before the letter. But he gets over it so maturely, that I cannot help but adore his character. His personality is truly striking, as is Lizzy’s.

I could only hope in my dreams and wildest fantasies that I one day be able to write something akin to Jane Austen. To write words spun together so beautifully, that it stays in people’s hearts long after the pages have been decayed in the original copies, but the story is never dead.

My hands and my heart bleed in a desire to be known, every part of me aches to be known as someone who made such stories, and such music, that defies the tests of decades and centuries. Is it not shallow of me, to hope for fame?

To have the talent of writing such dialogue, such prose, such a story that you lose a part of yourself and when it returns, it is so intricately woven into your soul that you know you need to breathe it to stay alive.

It is like a drug. And I cannot get enough, and I love being the addict.

She’s the society, hyung, and the characters are us, maybe – twisting and turning to fit into the moulds of their vision and failing. The comprehensive answers too, are so simple yet misunderstood. Isn’t that a bit poetic in itself? But even if she is society to others, she manages to be so inherently herself that she stands out.

There must have been real people like her too, don’t you think? Those who weren’t afraid to stand out, but also those who were afraid, those who knew that if they wanted to keep living that they’d have to bury the parts of themselves that people saw as dark and sinful.

But I am not worried, hyung, that we might have such a threat. I am, but not to the extent that I had when I first let you know about my feelings.

It does make me think, however, about how many people before us also had a love like ours, so deep and infinite, or maybe they couldn’t find a love like ours because they couldn’t expose themselves, and what kind of people they love.

How many people in our own families, who lived before us, felt so suffocated because of not being able to love? What if there was a tragedy, my love, and we have never come to know about it?

Love deserves to pierce.

Universes and days and seconds and lifetimes, and people. I wish I could know everyone in our lineage who were just like us, and even in death, let them know that they were not a monster.

Can you believe, that the people of our kin thought of themselves as inhumane creatures just because other people said they were? If they didn’t have a way to justify their love and believe that there really was something wrong with them, that they were somehow broken and incurable with a disease?

Our brothers and sisters, and friends and cousins, and uncles and aunts and…mothers and fathers? It is so terrifying, don’t you think, to know that someone we love so dearly could believe so low of themselves?

I wish to get rid of this pain, of this newfound wave of melancholy I’ve harboured in my chest after reading this book. It has made me so happy, maybe it is my favourite one so far. I love the way it has made me think so much, but it hurts to think of it.

How is it at your end? It still sounds like a fever dream to me, but now Changbin has told me that I wrote you a letter yesterday already? I hadn’t planned to, but it had been a year and I guess I was too out of touch with myself to remember.

What did I write to you? I hope that I answered your previous letter, but if not, tell me and I will write to you everything all over again.

And, for my sake, I will count today as a year, too. Three hundred and sixty-six days.

A year and a day.

I am sending along a copy of the book, but I don’t expect you to read it if you don’t have time. I won't feel sad if you don’t, so don’t be so pressured to do it. I want you to flip through the pages and write me back if you find something.

I am so proud of you, always, my soldier.

Don’t die,
Jisung

Chapter Text

Sungie. Are you there?

The war. I fought for you. Are you safe? Talk to me. My god, anything, a blank page, a single letter, a trace of ink, anything.

It is a horror here to be hiding under my bunk and stealing my roommate's pen to be writing you like this, and it feels strange, the slender form of it between my fingers after two years of waiting to be able to do just that. The bizarre emptiness of my mailbox after these twenty three months has shaken me to my core; what happened to you? Are you okay? How is everyone?

I have not heard yet how much the attacks have affected our area back home, and I have to go out again soon, but Sungie....anything.

Take no notice of the way my hands shake as I write you this - they are begging to be pressed to yours to feel the warmth and liveliness in this dark night. You know that I think too much for my own good, and I know I sound stifled but do not worry - you cannot blame me, I've come back to a complete lack of any letters from you in the 702 days that I was gone - and I wish that you will never get to know how haunting it can feel to write home to you like this not knowing if you're alive.

Talk to me. I'm waiting. It's all I've done every moment that's kept me from writing to you, and I do vow to be much more detailed in upcoming letters to you, but I cannot bring myself to use any more of Seungmin's ink to talk to you when I don't know if there's anyone on the other side, anyone getting these letters. I mean, surely it is just a communications breakdown, yes?

Talk. To. Me.

Don't make me suffer. Write to me.

I cannot promise a prompt reply but I am here always, I am alive and fighting for you, and that's what I have done in this eternity of war.

Yours,
Min