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Sunggyu is definitely not depressed.
Contrary to the opinion of his busybody parents and friends, he’s doing perfectly fine lately, thank you very much. Sure, his girlfriend of three years dumped him in favor of her successful idol career and he left his agency instead of debuting at all after years of hard work. But hey, at least he’s working long hours as always, making his grand contribution to capitalist society as the guy who writes commercial jingles and, in lieu of actual hobbies, he has a one-hundred-percent objective, frequently updated list of reasons why he doesn’t need to do anything else. Especially ‘get back out there.’
He’s set his mother’s custom ringtone to the Imperial Death March from Star Wars, so he knows it’s her when his phone rings. There’s also a voicemail from his ex, which he doesn’t acknowledge as he picks up.
“Yeeeees?”
“Oh good, you’re alive.” His mother’s familiar no-nonsense tone comes over the end of the line. “I was about to call the police if you didn’t pick up again.”
“I was working,” Sunggyu lies. He’s lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, like he has been all day, but he’s only resting. Resting is perfectly fine and well-adjusted behavior when you’re the ripe old age of twenty-two.
“Of course you were.” In addition to sharing some of Sunggyu’s sarcasm, his mother knows him well enough to see through his bullshit, unfortunately. Moms. “Anyway, your father and I decided to send you on a vacation soon, it might help you feel less depressed.”
“What? I don’t need to go anywhere. Also, I’m not depressed,” Sunggyu corrects her, frowning. “Besides, vacations are expensive.”
“Oh, it wasn’t my idea. Woohyunie suggested it and planned it all too, so make sure to thank him later.”
Sunggyu groans. He is going to kick his dongsaeng's ass, as soon as he musters up enough fucks to get out of bed. “Where’s this great place you guys are sending me? Antarctica? The DMZ?”
“Hawaii, actually. Woohyun will send you the details, so start packing soon, okay? Make sure to shower and change your underwear regularly,” his mom nags him, and Sunggyu rolls his eyes and assures her he will before hanging up and throwing his phone to the side.
He fumbles around on his nightstand for the notes on his latest composition. There isn’t anything written besides some lyrics in even scratcher handwriting than usual:
♪ Kim Sunggyu sucks, his music is fucking terrible ♪
♪ Kim Sunggyu you don’t do anything of value ♪
“I’m not depressed,” he feels the need to say out loud, again, and crumples up the paper.
Sunggyu scoffs, internally, because he’s too lazy to actually do it.
Hawaii.
Like that’ll fix anything.
--
Much to Sunggyu’s continued displeasure, when he calls Jongwan in an attempt to not get the time off approved, he finds out his own mother’s already ratted him out.
“Just go and enjoy yourself for once,” his boss tells him over the phone. “It’s not every day people get a full expense paid vacation to Hawaii, you know. I’d trade you if I could.”
“Then trade me, hyung. It’s not even actually full expense paid, I still have to buy everyone’s dumb souvenirs and my own food outside of the luau,” Sunggyu corrects him. It’s an important distinction.
“Have a good time, Sunggyu-yah.” Sunggyu can hear the eye-rolling in Jongwan’s voice before he abruptly hangs up, apparently also done with Sunggyu’s bullshit.
Sunggyu sighs. Why everyone he knows is betraying him lately, he doesn’t know, but with any luck he’ll drown in a freak snorkeling accident and they’ll all be super fucking sorry they did this to him.
--
The plane ride isn’t so bad, because Sunggyu gets to spend it all sleeping, but when the flight attendant wakes him up upon their landing he knows it’s all downhill from there.
When he finally collects his luggage from the carousel, he wanders vaguely into the annoyingly bright and tropical airport lobby only to be accosted by a short man with equally bright and tropical pink hair.
“Aloha! Welcome to Hawaii!” The tiny man bustles up to him with a huge grin—Sunggyu’s never seen a grin half that big—and places a fake flower necklace around him.
“Huh…?” At first Sunggyu thinks he’s being attacked, but then he realizes the man is holding a sign that has his name clearly written on it, in Korean.
“You’re Sunggyu-sshi, right? I’m supposed to pick you up.”
The man is also speaking fluent Korean at him, Sunggyu realizes belatedly, and nods. “Oh… right. Yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Jang Dongwoo, your trusty bilingual tour guide during your stay here in beautiful Honolulu!” Dongwoo sticks out his hand, and Sunggyu shakes it, though he makes sure to show that he’s reluctant to do so.
“I… didn’t think I had a tour guide. Are you sure it’s me?” he asks, because who knows, there’s always the off chance there’s another Kim Sunggyu with even worse luck than him around here. Unfortunately, Dongwoo shakes his head.
“Nope, I’m pretty sure it’s you! The guy who hired me told me all about you.” He smiles brightly, and Sunggyu should have figured Woohyun would pull something like this on him. Of course.
“We can take my car to the hotel, looks like you have a suite in a pretty nice one,” Dongwoo explains, taking one of Sunggyu’s bags for him as they head out to the street, though, so maybe that part isn’t so bad. He sure talks a lot, though, launching into some mostly-unintelligible spiel about the hotel they’re going to that Sunggyu doesn’t really process as they climb into Dongwoo’s car.
“Anyway, I really like this job because it’s always nice to meet a lot of fellow Koreans. It looks like you have a lot of fun things on your schedule, too! By the way, is it okay if I call you hyung? Your profile says you’re a year older than me.” The chatter doesn’t stop as they start driving to the hotel, and Sunggyu sighs.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, staring out the window at the palm trees and shit going by outside. “Look, I know Woohyun probably hired you to get me to go out and do stuff instead of stay in my hotel the whole time, but that isn’t really necessary. I kind of wanna get this trip over with and go home, to be completely honest.”
“Hahaha! Not the vacationing type, eh?” Dongwoo merely seems to find this amusing, his baseless and inexplicable enthusiasm not diminished in the slightest by Sunggyu’s grumpiness. This somehow doesn’t surprise Sunggyu despite the fact that he’s only known Dongwoo for a half hour, tops. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to do anything extreme. It’s strictly fun and relaxation time while you’re here!”
“I’m less about fun and more about relaxation,” Sunggyu deadpans, and Dongwoo laughs again. He has a really weird laugh, not in a bad way or anything, but it certainly adds to the suspicion that Woohyun somehow hired a cartoon character tour guide for a fun prank.
They arrive to the hotel and Dongwoo takes care of the check in, though Sunggyu thinks he knows at least enough English to do it himself he doesn’t really complain about having less work to do. Dongwoo even helps him take his bags up to his door, a bright smile on his face as he hands Sunggyu his room key and suitcase.
“Okay hyung, I’ll let you get settled in! Tonight is a free night, tomorrow once you’re all rested we can hit up the shopping district, and the day after that there’s a luau,” Dongwoo says cheerfully, and Sunggyu is too jet lagged to remind him that he certainly isn’t going to be doing either one of those things because he’ll be in his hotel room, sleeping.
“Uh, thanks for the help,” he says instead, offering his hand for a handshake, which Dongwoo apparently takes as a signal to not only shake his hand vigorously but then proceed to wrap him in a full body hug. Sunggyu isn’t usually one for hugs, even from close friends, but Dongwoo’s hug isn’t entirely unpleasant at least. He feels like he returns it pretty awkwardly by patting his back exactly twice (three pats seems like overkill), but Dongwoo doesn’t seem to mind, waving enthusiastically as he disappears down the hallway.
As soon as he’s settled into his room, which is actually a nice-ish suite with a piano of all things for some reason, Sunggyu’s first instinct is to go to sleep. But first, he whips out his phone and makes an international call to a specific culprit.
“Hello? Or should I say, aloha?”
Nam-Culprit answers promptly, and he sounds way too chipper for whatever time it is in Korea right now. Sunggyu wishes he were back already so he could go over there and demand answers in person.
“Why'd you set me up with someone?” Sunggyu frowns into the phone, hoping it will convey his displeasure more accurately even though Woohyun can’t see him.
“What do you mean by that, hyung? I don't recall sending you on a group date.” Woohyun's voice is equal parts amused and exasperated, like he's dealing with a petulant child.
Well. Upon reflection Sunggyu supposes the comparison isn't too far off, but that's beside the point. He frowns deeper.“Yah, Nam Woohyun. I know you’re responsible for this tour guide thing, I heard about it.”
“You make it sound like I’m committing a crime by trying to do a friend a favor and getting him a bilingual tour guide.” Woohyun doesn't really sound sorry in the slightest.
“Well whatever you're doing, you didn't think it through,” Sunggyu tells him. “Come on, Namu. He’s totally your type.”
Woohyun doesn't seem fazed at all by this accusation either. “But you don't even have a type? Also, my taste is impeccable.”
Sunggyu sighs heavily. “I already told you, I don’t believe in rebounds.”
“True, but you also don’t believe in— and these are all direct quotes—waking up before noon, basic human emotion, or doing things,” Woohyun points out, listing a bunch of things Sunggyu supposes he probably blurted out at some point. Figures Woohyun would remember them all. “What I’m trying to say is, it doesn't have to be a rebound. Just having someone around might not be out of the realm of things you might possibly enjoy given the right circumstances.”
There’s a part of Sunggyu that wants to argue further about this, but he’s far too tired to drag one out right now, so he only sighs heavily again.
“Anyway, I’m jetlagged and need to sleep. And I don't need help with my dating life,” he tells Woohyun with finality, though he definitely hears Woohyun ask ‘you mean lack thereof?’ before he hangs up.
Once his phone is set to silent mode, Sunggyu burrows deeper under the blankets, shutting his eyes tight and vowing not to get out of bed tomorrow, for any reason at all.
He still has no idea why on earth Woohyun thought it’d be a good idea to hire him a tour guide, but as long as Woohyun himself doesn’t fly over to knock down the hotel door personally, Sunggyu figures (hopes) it won’t be too hard to win this round.
--
Approximately twelve hours later, Sunggyu’s hopes have already been tragically dashed.
He’s not really sure how, but contrary to his plans to sleep the wretched day away, he instead ended up getting lured out of bed (eventually) with the promise of free food, but mostly a ‘really good record store,’ according to Dongwoo. Unfortunately, Sunggyu hadn’t thought about all the unnecessary crap that he’d get dragged into in between, such as walking, and being outside.
“Don’t you have other people to give tours to?” Sunggyu asks as they sit down on a bench to eat Hawaiian shaved ice. He doesn’t actually care, mind you, but he is somewhat curious as to why Dongwoo has so much time to hang out with him.
Dongwoo laughs and slaps his thigh, when really a shrug would have sufficed.
“That’s what I love about this job, I usually only book one or two clients at a time,” Dongwoo says after he’s done laughing. “I’m not actually on the clock most of the time, I just like meeting new people, you know?”
“I don’t, actually.” Sunggyu shrugs and licks the top of his rapidly melting mound of ice shavings, and Dongwoo, unsurprisingly, laughs again.
“You’re funny, hyung,” Dongwoo tells him. Sunggyu doesn’t deny that part. “Anyway, so you’re into record collecting, huh? Do you like music?”
Sunggyu wants to steer the conversation away from this, but he doesn’t know how. He sighs. “I have a player at home, is all.”
“Ohhh, an antique enthusiast? That’s still cool.” Dongwoo smiles, his wide mouth taking a huge bite of ice before he starts complaining of the inevitable brain freeze. “Owowowowow!”
Sunggyu rolls his eyes and eats the rest of his shaved ice in silence. Dongwoo might not be getting to paid to hang out with him right this second, but he’s obviously either the biggest fake Sunggyu’s ever met or, also likely, a poor soul who’s lost his mind from living in Hawaii too long, or something. In any case, he concludes, no normal human being could possibly have that much positivity.
They finally head to the record store after that, and Sunggyu takes his time browsing through everything, hoping to find some Western artists that are harder to come by in Korea.
“You like Radiohead?” comes Dongwoo’s voice from behind him, so loud and unexpected that Sunggyu nearly drops the precious LP he was holding in his hand.
“Yeah, I guess they’re all right,” he says, sounding as nonchalant as possible to cover up his high-pitched internal screaming because HOLY SHIT RADIOHEAD.
“I like them a lot too! Not that I’d heard of them before I left Korea.” Dongwoo, seemingly not fooled by his brilliant acting, nods and smiles knowingly and flits away, but Sunggyu is too engrossed in his search to notice much as Dongwoo goes over to chat with the guys behind the counter.
In any case, fifteen minutes later Sunggyu exits the store with a bag of fresh LPs in hand, and for once he’s smiling and talking almost as much as Dongwoo. He supposes he owes Dongwoo some manner of thanks for going over and asking the clerk if they had any other LPs Sunggyu might want, and maybe it’s only because he’s feeling less dead inside than he has in weeks thanks to a nearly-mint copy of Pablo Honey, but after he’s done getting emotional over Radiohead he decides to just blurt it out.
“You’re going to the luau too, right? We could go together if you are.”
Sunggyu doesn’t even really want to go to the luau, really, but there will be food and alcohol, and it’s already paid for anyway. Dongwoo breaks out into a smile again, and maybe the accompanying laugh isn’t quite as weird as Sunggyu thought before. Maybe.
“Yeah, I’m going. It’s walking distance from your hotel, so we can meet up there,” he suggests brightly, and they trade phone numbers before Dongwoo has to go pick up a group from the airport. This leaves Sunggyu alone in the shopping district, after he assured Dongwoo like ten times that he could find his own way back to the hotel.
It’s the first time Sunggyu has really walked around Hawaii by himself, since Dongwoo picked him up that morning, and it’s strange. Without Dongwoo there chatting nonsense or laughing that cartoonish laugh of his, it’s almost too easy for his thoughts to drift idly back to things he doesn’t particularly want to dwell on, even when he’s surrounded by such different sights and smells and people.
He stops at an ABC Store on the way back and picks up a pack of convenience store sushi, then eats it alone on the balcony of his hotel suite. There’s the faint sound of music on the breeze, distant ukulele strings, someone singing softly. Sunggyu doesn’t know what the words mean, so he makes up his own meaning as he chews on his food:
What are you even doing? What the flying fuck are you doing with your life?
“I don’t know,” he says aloud to no one in particular.
At that moment a bird flies by, and nearly poops directly on him. Sunggyu barely dodges it, but almost chokes to death on his sushi in the process.
He decides it would be best to spend the rest of the time until the luau (until he goes home) indoors.
--
“So… what exactly did Woohyun tell you about me when he hired you?”
It’s the next evening, and Sunggyu has consumed no less than three of the luau’s complimentary piña coladas. He feels red in the face, and marginally more talkative than usual. He’s lost count of how many drinks Dongwoo has had.
“He said you wouldn’t wanna go outside, and listed some stuff you might want to do. I said not to worry, ‘cause I’ve taken some pretty senior citizens on vacation, so this is like, nothing compared to that.” Dongwoo recounts, or at least Sunggyu thinks that’s what he said. “He also said you were really cute, like a hamster, and that you were more bark than bite.”
Sunggyu can’t find anything to dispute. He tips back the rest of his current drink. “Hamsters don’t bark.”
“Your friend had a really hot voice,” Dongwoo mentions as he also empties his drink, as if that had anything to do with anything. “He’s in Korea? Is he single?”
“Woohyun? Ha! Ha ha, very funny.” Sunggyu laughs, dry and mechanically and obviously sarcastically to any normal human being, but Dongwoo merely tilts his head at him quizzically.
“I mean, I guess he is technically single, but I wouldn’t advise dating him. It’s just a… a bad idea.”
Dongwoo’s eyes widen. “Are you speaking from experience?”
“No, he just...” Sunggyu wonders how to best explain that Woohyun wants to become an idol and therefore probably can't date anyone, but that might eventually entail revealing that he used to want the same thing. In the end, he takes another calming bite of Kahlua pork instead. “We’ve been friends for too long, so I just… know these things.”
Dongwoo nods solemnly, or at least as close to solemnly as someone like Dongwoo can get. “I’ll take your word for it. I just haven’t really dated anyone since I left Korea, so it gets lonely, you know?”
Sunggyu swallows his food, relieved the conversation has moved past Woohyun. “Have you been here that long?”
“Almost a year now. I left Seoul two years ago to study dancing and just started traveling around instead. I used to be in an entertainment agency, but I… left,” Dongwoo says, his lip quivering, and oh god, Sunggyu should have foreseen two things: that he wouldn't be able to avoid talking about his past, and Dongwoo being one of those people who get all drippy and emotional once they get drunk.
“I left mine too,” he admits, distracting Dongwoo from his tears by calling for another round of drinks. “I got a job instead, like a normal person. It’s fine.”
“You write music, right? That’s still really cool!” Dongwoo sniffles and it sounds like he’s trying to be encouraging, but his words only sting.
“It’s not that cool. I’m good at it, but I mostly write watered down bullshit for commercials and stuff.” Sunggyu shrugs, trying not to sound bitter. He’s far too drunk to try very well, though.
“The bright side is, you have a job related to music, right? The closest I get is hula dancing,” Dongwoo laughs, and as if on cue, the dancing music starts. Dongwoo springs to his feet and drags Sunggyu with him.
“Must we?” Sunggyu complains as they join the rest of the dancing couples.
“Just relax, I’ll show you how,” Dongwoo tells him, and Sunggyu’s not sure if he’s glad or not that he has enough alcohol in his system to feel unapologetic enough to try it.
They go through the steps for a while, and Dongwoo is a surprisingly good teacher even when drunk, but soon enough Sunggyu finds himself lazily slow dancing along with everyone else, simply swaying their bodies back and forth to the soft ukulele music.
“You’re a fast learner, hyung. I’m really proud of you,” Dongwoo says next to him, without a trace of irony. Sunggyu stares at him.
“You really mean it, don’t you?”
“Mean what?”
Sunggyu gestures vaguely with his hands. “All the stuff you say all the time.”
Dongwoo seems genuinely confused. “Why wouldn’t I mean it?”
“Because…” Sunggyu mentally scrambles through his drunken haze to find the last semblance of his brain-to-mouth filter. “People don’t usually mean what they say. That’s why I don’t trust them.”
The sun is setting on the beach where the luau is being held, and the music is still playing, and there’s gentle chatter in the background as the other tourists drink and dance and eat. When they sit back down, Dongwoo leans over and rests his head lightly on Sunggyu’s shoulder, and much to his own chagrin, it causes Sunggyu to inhale slightly sharper than he meant to.
“But I’m an exception?” Dongwoo’s smile is infectious, and though Sunggyu is normally immune to cheerfulness he’s too close to being sloshed to not return it a little bit.
“Maybe,” he admits.
Sunggyu absolutely does not believe in clichés. He doesn’t believe in rebounds, nor does he think that it’s true that you can really feel like you’ve known someone for longer than you actually have. None of this helps tell him why even though he’s known Dongwoo for all of two and a half days, he doesn’t feel inclined to pull away.
“Wanna dance again?” Dongwoo asks, after a while.
Sunggyu hesitates. He opens his mouth. It closes again.
He doesn’t say no.
--
The next morning (or at least Sunggyu thinks it might be morning, somewhere on Earth), he opens his eyes to an unfamiliar song being played as an alarm.
He rolls over, too drowsy and hungover to process the situation. His arm bumps into Dongwoo, who snores loudly.
“Holy fucking shit!” Sunggyu screeches altogether too loudly, but Dongwoo barely stirs. They’re both wearing clothes, by all appearances, but Sunggyu isn’t exactly in the state of mind to be thinking of silver linings.
It takes him a full ten minutes to rouse Dongwoo, who at least looks as bleary as Sunggyu feels. Once finally out of bed, Dongwoo volunteers to find them some food while Sunggyu crawls dejectedly back under the covers and contemplates his terrible life decisions. Curling up in a ball doesn’t make him feel better, so he rummages for his phone and texts Woohyun for advice. He doesn't know if Woohyun will actually be helpful in the slightest, but there aren’t a huge number of people on Sunggyu’s contact list who wouldn't need a significant amount of prior explanation.
SG: Help me. The tour guide guy is here, I think he spent the night
WH: seriously?! and you said you don't believe in rebounds, ha
SG: IT’S NOT LIKE THAT
WH: sooo... he ended up in your room by accident??? ~_~
Sunggyu is trying to type out an adequately snappy response when the door to his suite swings open and Dongwoo bounds in with water bottles and two takeout boxes full of pancakes and sausage, looking much more alive than when he left.
“Breakfast is up!” he says, altogether too cheerfully, but Sunggyu takes the food and water gratefully, and they sit down together at the little table on the balcony where Sunggyu’s near-disaster happened the other day.
“I took it from the breakfast buffet downstairs, so it’s good,” Dongwoo assures him as they dig in. “I can’t really cook, I just reheated it.”
“Mm… I can’t cook either.” Sunggyu stares at the sky vaguely. He’s usually not this slow to wake up in the morning, but his hangover headache is nothing short of massive.
Then, like a slow-motion car crash, the realization hits him fully that Dongwoo is here. He’s still in his room. He slept in Sunggyu’s bed last night. All night long.
Shit. Fuck. Shit fuck shit.
“Last night… did… we didn’t… did we…?”
Sunggyu resists the urge to hit himself. His mouth feels dry.
“We stayed up and talked all night!” Dongwoo beams brightly. His cheeks are full of chewed pancakes, making him look like some kind of pink-haired, pancake-eating chipmunk. “Well, almost all night, we both passed out eventually. I didn’t think you had that many words in you, hyung!”
Well then. Sunggyu thought that there couldn’t be a worse situation than having a one-night stand with your tour guide, but staying up all night having a drunken heart-to-heart might just take that odious distinction. “How… how drunk was I?”
“I think we were both pretty drunk. I don’t remember it super well either,” Dongwoo admits. Sunggyu doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making, but it must be a bad one, because Dongwoo claps his hand on Sunggyu’s shoulder and uses his other hand to pound his fist on his chest.
“Don’t worry hyung, your secrets are safe with me,” he says, very seriously, and now Sunggyu really doesn’t want to know what exactly he told Dongwoo last night.
“After all, you only have until next weekend and then you’ll be flying back to Seoul.”
“Oh… right.” Sunggyu twists open a water bottle and drinks half of it in one go, for no real reason other than it means he doesn’t have to talk anymore. He isn’t sure why, but he’s not quite as ecstatic as he thought about going back to Korea.
Dongwoo doesn’t seem to notice his shift in mood in the slightest, instead animatedly jumping off the bed and throwing his hands in the air. “Oh! Oh oh! I thought of a really great place to show you if you have time later! It’s one of my favorite spots.”
“Is it outside?” Sunggyu frowns suspiciously.
“Yes, but it will be fun,” Dongwoo promises. “It’s a really nice view point, I take people there for pictures and stuff a lot.”
“I don’t know…” Sunggyu doesn’t know why he doesn’t flat out say no like he usually would. For one thing, he doesn’t need pictures. Secondly, viewpoints are usually high, and fuck high places. He doesn’t have time to protest, though, because Dongwoo whips out his phone and punches it in with a huge smile on his face.
“Okay, I’ll come get you tomorrow around noon then! I gotta go pick up another client, so I’ll see you then hyung!” he says cheerfully, and bustles out of the room as quickly as he came in.
Finally alone, Sunggyu sighs and flops down on the bed with his phone. When he opens his mobile internet browser, of course the first thing he sees is a news headline about his ex’s group’s comeback, so he turns it off and goes over to the piano in the living room of his suite instead. He hasn’t played in a while outside of trying to compose songs for work, so he sits down on the bench and plays the first thing that comes to mind, a half-assed version of some Bach sonata, nothing special.
“Oppa, that song again?” she laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear as she sat next to Sunggyu on the piano bench. “Why don’t you play something you wrote yourself?”
“They’re not good enough,” replied Sunggyu, hiding his embarrassment as he turned the music page. “The CEO won’t like them.”
“You won’t know until you try,” she said to him. Sunggyu only shrugged and started playing again; she was just saying that. She didn’t actually know anything.
“Eunji…?”
Sunggyu opens his eyes. He’s not in his apartment, he’s in a hotel room. He only realizes he’s fallen asleep on the piano keys when he feels an E-sharp-shaped impression on his right cheek.
Sorry I didn’t ever believe you.
Even if he wants to say it, it’s too late now. He goes back to the hotel bed, lies down, and falls asleep again.
--
“So what did I say the other night? Nothing, uh, super awful, I’m assuming?”
Sunggyu asks as he trails hesitantly after Dongwoo as they shuffle along a treacherous, vine-covered rock outcropping (the “nice viewpoint”, as Dongwoo misleadingly put it earlier) jutting into the ocean at the far side of a beach Dongwoo insisted they check out. The view is nice enough, but Sunggyu doesn’t really get the point of going somewhere this high up when all the views in Hawaii are nice.
“You said a lot of times that you hate your job,” Dongwoo muses, coming to a stop finally when they reach the end of the cliff. “Why not do what you actually want to do?”
“It’s not that easy.” Sunggyu shrugs and looks to the side. “It’s steady money. And if I try to go back to the agency, there’s no guarantee everything will turn out okay.”
Dongwoo shakes his head. “Nah, you’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s you, hyung.”
Dongwoo says it easily, without a trace of sarcasm, that big soft mouth of his curling into a bright smile. The wind blows through his bright pink hair, covering his eyes, and without thinking Sunggyu reaches out to brush it back from his face.
“Dongwoo-yah…”
Sunggyu doesn’t mean to say his name either, but it escapes his lips as easily as his favorite song. Dongwoo leans forward for a moment, almost imperceptibly. Not really knowing why or for what purpose, Sunggyu leans forward too, but then Dongwoo turns and throws himself over the edge of the cliff they were standing on with a loud whoop.
“Oh my god.” Sunggyu scrambles over to the edge as well, too afraid to peer over at first. “Oh my fucking god, I made him kill himself.”
Finally, Sunggyu looks over the edge of the cliff in horror. Dongwoo Is treading water at the bottom, laughing at Sunggyu like he clearly laughs in the face of Death itself.
“Come on! Are you a man or a hamster?” he shouts up, his weird yakking laughter following afterwards.
Sunggyu is scared of a lot of things, but heights are easily Top 3, probably even #2 (after his mom, the obvious #1) by virtue of how easily they cause undesirable effects such as falling to one’s horrible death, and Dongwoo is even crazier than Sunggyu thought if he thinks he’s really going to get Sunggyu to voluntarily jump to his own untimely demise.
Still, he doesn’t know the way back without Dongwoo, so he has to get down there somehow. Figures. He inches closer to the edge, hoping there’s some type of hidden stairway down to the water, but no, there’s just a straight drop to the bottom, and more vines obscuring the way down.
“Just jump! It’s fine!”
Dongwoo’s voice calls out to him again. Sunggyu takes another tentative step forward, trips over a vine, and the next thing he knows he’s hanging onto some plants for dear life while dangling above a bunch of deadly-looking jagged rocks.
“Not fine!” Sunggyu feels actual panic rise in his throat. He looks over his shoulder at Dongwoo, who’s still treading water at the bottom.
“You have to launch yourself off the cliff! Don’t drop straight down or you’ll hit the rocks and, you know, go splat!” Dongwoo shouts, helpfully. Sunggyu resists the urge to barf in his mouth a little.
“Please, God, don’t let me die. I’ll be good. I’ll never swear again, or steal Woohyun’s face products because I’m too cheap to get my own,” he mutters.
His unanswered prayers are interrupted by Dongwoo calling out to him again. “Hyung, come on…!”
Sunggyu shuts his eyes. Praying again to every deity known to man and also Radiohead, he braces his feet against the cliff side, then finally launches himself ungracefully into the water. As things are, he flails around and hits the water a bit painfully, but once he surfaces Sunggyu finds he’s cold and wet but mostly just thrilled to be alive.
“I did it…! I did it! Holy shit, I’m the best!” he shouts to Dongwoo, who laughs as he swims over to join him.
“You’re awesome,” Dongwoo agrees proudly, putting his hands on Sunggyu’s face as they tread water together. Then, he smiles and kisses Sunggyu sweetly like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Sunggyu closes his eyes and kisses him back, some weird bubbly feeling surging through him along with the adrenaline, and he only realizes he’s smiling too when Dongwoo pulls away.
The two of them swim the short distance to the beach, and Dongwoo helps Sunggyu to his feet when Sunggyu finds that his arms and legs feel mostly like jelly as he slides up onto the sand.
“That was the most terrifying experience of my entire life, and that’s including the time my mom saw my 11th grade exam scores,” Sunggyu admits, and Dongwoo laughs again as he helps drape Sunggyu’s arm over his shoulders and they hobble back up the beach like a couple of awkward crabs.
“But for a little bit, you felt like you could do anything, right?” he asks, and Sunggyu has to admit he sort of did.
“I’m not sure it was worth it, but… yeah, sort of.”
Sunggyu looks out to the water, then back at Dongwoo, his eyes involuntarily drawn to Dongwoo’s lips. He’d almost forgotten they’d kissed, and even though it felt like the right thing to do at the time, he doesn’t want Dongwoo to think he did it just because of the adrenaline.
When they reach the end of the beach, he finally stops walking (or attempting to), holding onto Dongwoo’s arm as he turns to face him.
“Hey,” he begins, unsure of how to go about this really. He reaches out and puts his hand on Dongwoo’s face, hoping that will convey enough so he doesn’t have to say it outright. “That was… that was okay, right?”
“You mean when we kissed?” Dongwoo asks bluntly, blasting any hope Sunggyu had of subtlety into outer space. “It was more than okay, hyung! For me, anyway. What about you?”
“I…” Sunggyu feels his face coloring, which is stupid, because he’s not a teenager or anything. He’s got experience in this type of thing for Christ’s sake, or at least something close to it, maybe. “It was more than okay for me, too. I’d be open to doing it again, even.”
“Me too, hyung.” Dongwoo breaks into a grin and pulls Sunggyu into another kiss, this time open mouthed and decidedly less sweet. Sunggyu leans into it, putting his hands possessively on Dongwoo’s hips, and Dongwoo’s hands slip around the back of Sunggyu’s neck and hold him there, their lips sliding together as the sea breeze whips around them.
Sunggyu isn’t entirely sure how long they spend standing there kissing each other, but eventually they walk back to the car like nothing out of the ordinary happened, and on the drive back Dongwoo blabbers on about something unintelligible for most of the ride except for the part where he mentions some movie he wanted to see. As Dongwoo pulls up to the front of the hotel, Sunggyu sits there for a moment instead of getting out right away.
“Do you wanna go see it tomorrow? That movie.”
Dongwoo looks over at him from the driver’s seat and grins teasingly. “Hyung, are you asking me on a date?”
Sunggyu shrugs. He’s definitely not blushing. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
“Sure, let’s go! I’ll pick you up again.” Dongwoo leans over to kiss Sunggyu on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Sunggyu hyung.”
When Sunggyu is too dumbfounded to reply immediately, Dongwoo only smiles at him widely. Maybe it’s because Dongwoo’s teeth are remarkably large (and the mouth holding them even larger), but it’s so unbelievably brilliant that Sunggyu feels antsy as he fumbles to unlatch his seat belt.
What if it is a date, though? part of him wants to ask. Is it only until I go back to Korea? Are we just messing around? Am I messing around? I’ll just make it weird if I ask, right?
They’re stupid questions, though, so he gets out of the car and shuts the door with an only partially forced smile. “Have a good night.”
“You too, hyung.” Dongwoo flashes another radiant smile before driving away.
A while later Sunggyu realizes he’s still standing in the spot where he watched him leave, and shakes his head before heading to the hotel bar for a drink, or several.
--
Even though he knows he’ll probably regret it later, Sunggyu decides to ask Woohyun to video call him once he drunkenly stumbles back into his hotel room. He’s not sure what time it is in Korea, but Woohyun agrees right away, so Sunggyu sets up his laptop on the desk in his suite and calls him.
“Soooo, what happened?”
In addition to sounding extremely curious, when Woohyun comes on the screen, he looks like he's just showered, his towel tied around his head like an old man at the bathhouse, which doesn't make Sunggyu feel any less like he's having a venting session between sad old men. Except only Sunggyu is sad. Or old.
“Just shut up and listen,” Sunggyu slurs out, then proceeds to dump everything on Woohyun—the kissing, the almost-dates, but mostly how he almost died by falling off a cliff, which, in retrospect, was probably just karma biting him in the ass again.
“Wow,” Woohyun remarks at the end of it all. “You’re really gonna miss him when you get back, aren’t you?”
Woohyun might be partially teasing him, but Sunggyu is too close to being hammered to come up with his usual biting retort right away.
“I… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he manages weakly, several eternities after an actual answer would have been appropriate.
“I dunno hyung, it kinda sounds like Dongwoo is just about the best kind of person you could be around right now.” Woohyun crosses his arms, pouting a little at Sunggyu's watery response. "I know you don't believe in rebounds, but aren't you... actually happier with him?"
Sunggyu hiccups once, then frowns at him. “No, that’s—look, I can’t want to date someone I just met. It’s—it’s absurd.”
“It’s not absurd at all.” Woohyun frowns back. “You don’t believe in love at first sight, hyung?”
“I don’t believe in love at all.” Sunggyu scoffs. “If I did, I wouldn't even be in this situation, right?”
“But when you talk about Dongwoo it sounds like you’re having a great time,” Woohyun points out. “And it sounds like he likes you a lot too. Who knows, he might even be the love of your life. And in that case, can I be the best man?”
“I don't... I don't really know how he feels at all.” Sunggyu leaves out the I haven't asked him part, because he knows what Woohyun (or anyone) would say to that. He was already slouching in his chair, but he manages to slouch further. “Anyway, he is not the love of my life. And I’m not even sure I actually like him or if my mind is playing games with me on account of being in Hawaii or something, okay?”
“You’re not sure you like him, you just like kissing him, and want to hang out with him all the time, and jumped off a literal cliff for him, and basically admitted you’re sad you won’t see him when you come back. Hmmm, yes, I see.” Woohyun counts off all the things Sunggyu unfortunately actually said (or implied) on his fingers. “Sounds like a really difficult one to figure out.”
“It is difficult,” Sunggyu insists, feeling his face get even redder than it was from the alcohol. “How do I know if he actually likes me? Does he want to date me? What if he does, what are we going to do once this vacation is over?”
“For starters, you could actually admit you like him. And then you could ask him what he wants,” Woohyun suggests like it’s obvious. Okay, maybe it’s sort of obvious, but that doesn't mean Sunggyu wants to do it. “Look, even if he’s not into you, which he almost certainly is, you have to come back to Korea anyway and wouldn’t have to see him again if you don’t want to.”
“That… that’s true,” Sunggyu mutters, but he’s still not sure. The idea of never seeing Dongwoo again feels weird to him, but he can’t articulate what kind of weird, and how that translates into Other Feelings, so he gives up for now. “Anyway, I need to… sleep.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty late there,” Woohyun shrugs, then his expression softens. “I’m glad you’re having a good time, hyung. Talk to Dongwoo, okay? You'll regret it if you just leave it.”
“Yes, I know I will.” Sunggyu shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay fine, I’ll… I’ll try. After the movie.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Woohyun warns him with a grin, and Sunggyu doesn't know if he will admit it out loud any time soon, but he is grateful that Woohyun has supported him this much. He nods.
“Good night, Namu,” he says, affectionately enough where he hopes Woohyun gets it anyway. After signing off, he pulls out his phone and looks up movie times to suggest to Dongwoo.
He has seven days left in Hawaii.
--
The movie they go see is one Sunggyu’s never heard of, and he can’t really understand most of it because it’s in English, but watching Dongwoo’s reactions to everything is almost as entertaining as any movie Sunggyu’s bothered to watch. They actually chose seats in the back by themselves so Dongwoo could interpret the important parts to him, but soon enough Dongwoo got too immersed in the movie to do much besides watch. Sunggyu uses the time to mull over what he’s going to say based on his conversation with Woohyun, and also to consume an ungodly amount of movie theater popcorn.
When he is paying attention, Sunggyu vaguely gathers that it’s a pretty light hearted movie, but there are some unexpected scary or tense moments that cause Dongwoo to grab Sunggyu’s wrist harder than is entirely necessary, and during the slower parts Dongwoo leans over and rests his head on Sunggyu’s shoulder. He thinks it feels somehow different than when Dongwoo did the same thing at the luau, though he can’t quite pinpoint why.
During the emotional climax of the film, Sunggyu looks over to see tears and snot dribbling down Dongwoo’s face. He quietly hands him some of his concession stand napkins, unsuccessfully stifling a smile when Dongwoo whispers ‘thanks, hyung’ and blows his nose comically loudly into them. Once the credits roll he’s still sniffling a little bit, and Sunggyu helps dab at his face as people file out of the theatre. After he does, Dongwoo gives him an extra-big smile, and Sunggyu tells himself it’s just nerves when his heart skips a beat or two.
They walk slowly out of the theater, Dongwoo uncharacteristically sort of quiet and pensive, and so it’s Sunggyu who has to break the silence as they walk back to Dongwoo’s car.
“Do you… are you busy after this? If not, want to hang out?” Sunggyu attempts to sound casual, but his voice cracks a bit at the end. Thankfully but unsurprisingly, Dongwoo doesn’t seem to notice.
“No, I don’t have a lot scheduled today. What do you wanna do, hyung?” he replies cheerfully, and Sunggyu exhales slowly.
“There’s something I have to take care of,” he admits. “But… I don’t know if I can do it alone, to be completely honest.”
It’s the first time Sunggyu’s ever admitted to anyone he needs help with something like this, but Dongwoo is blissfully unaware of that. He merely looks sort of confused at Sunggyu’s request, but nods and smiles anyway. “Sure, hyung. I’ll help if I can.”
“It’s not a big deal. Let’s go back to the hotel,” Sunggyu assures him as they get back in the car. Dongwoo plays a Radiohead album on his car’s sound system on the drive back, and the two of them sing along to some of the songs together. Dongwoo has a surprisingly nice singing voice, though when they arrive at the hotel and Sunggyu tells him something to that effect he gets uncharacteristically embarrassed.
“I’m not nearly as good as you, hyung.” Dongwoo’s ears flush pink. “Your voice is amazing, I… I had no idea.”
This time it’s Sunggyu’s turn to get somewhat embarrassed, which is weird because he’s sort of used to getting complimented. He shuffles around extra obviously for his room key in an attempt to distract himself from it. “I’ve… uh, had a lot of training.”
They go into Sunggyu’s suite, and Sunggyu sits down on the couch, prompting Dongwoo to sit next to him.
“So, what did you need my help with?” Dongwoo asks, and before he answers Sunggyu takes out his phone and stares at it in his hand.
“It’s not so much that I need your help, as much as I just… sort of wanted you to be here,” Sunggyu murmurs, unable to make eye contact with Dongwoo. “When I was drunk, did I ever… mention Eunji to you?”
Dongwoo regards him for a moment, then nods. “A little… not too much, though.”
“She dumped me. A few months ago, now,” Sunggyu says, the words coming out easier than he expected. He’s never really talked about the breakup with anyone, not even Woohyun or his mom, but for some reason it’s significantly easier to tell it to someone who was thousands of miles away, who never met her. “She’s a singer too, in an idol group, we were supposed to debut around the same time. Things happened and I left the agency instead, and we just… drifted apart after that, I guess. Nothing dramatic.”
Sunggyu turns his phone around in his hand, his voice sounding dry and mechanical even to himself.
“Anyway, we haven’t really talked. She sent me a voicemail, and I want to listen to it, but I haven’t been able to. But I think I’m going to now,” he tells Dongwoo, rambling a little maybe, but he can’t stop. “So… just… could you- maybe, stay here with me.”
“Hyung,” Dongwoo says, his mouth half-open as he looks at Sunggyu. His expression is somewhat surprised, and definitely concerned, but not necessarily pitying. Then again, Sunggyu’s not sure Dongwoo would even be able to pretend to have enough pretension to pity anyone. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”
“Okay.” Sunggyu opens the voicemail and holds the phone to his ear before he loses his courage. When he hears Eunji’s voice, nostalgia hits him immediately like a punch to the gut.
Oppa, I don’t know if you’ll listen to this or not, but I never told you I hope you find what you want to do. It’s okay if you stay mad at me, even forever. Still, for the last three years’ sake, I really, really hope you will find it.
The message ends abruptly, and Sunggyu keeps the phone to his ear even after it ends. He waits to hear it again, to hear her voice, strong and clear like her personality, more than Sunggyu was ever equipped to appreciate. Eventually, Dongwoo’s hand gently coaxes the phone away from his face, and Sunggyu turns to look at him blankly. There are tears in Dongwoo’s eyes, and Sunggyu finally puts his phone down so he can slide his fingers through Dongwoo’s.
“Why are you crying, pabo-yah,” Sunggyu whispers hoarsely as he leans forward and rests his forehead on Dongwoo’s shoulder. “I’m the one who got dumped.”
“Sorry, hyung,” is all Dongwoo offers as he scoots closer and wraps his arms around Sunggyu, sniffling loudly as he does. Sunggyu closes his eyes, balls his fists in the back of Dongwoo’s shirt, and lets out a breath that feels like he’s been holding in for a thousand years.
“Next time, I… I’ll do better,” he tells Dongwoo, after a long, long time. “Next time, I won’t take anything for granted.”
“I know you will, hyung.” Dongwoo’s voice is soft, but rougher than usual as one of his hands comes up to gently stroke Sunggyu’s hair. It should be ridiculous, letting Dongwoo comfort him like this, but at the same time it’s not because it’s Dongwoo. Sunggyu can’t possibly explain it in words.
Eventually, Sunggyu sits back up, but he takes Dongwoo’s hands in his again.
“Uh… at the risk of sounding really lame, what… what is this?” he asks, staring down at their linked hands. “Are we…?”
“We can be whatever you want us to be, hyung.” Dongwoo smiles at him, and it’s a gentler smile than usual, but there’s somehow still a certain strength behind it, a particular energy that radiates from Dongwoo’s entire being. “I’m comfortable with whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Sunggyu wants so badly to ask him what he means by that, what it means about how Dongwoo actually feels, but chickens out of that part for now. He has to save his meager remaining scraps of courage for the more important stuff.
“Would it… be okay if we hung out more? Until I have to go back, I mean,” he says. The idea of going back, formerly so attractive, weighs heavily on Sunggyu as he does. “I think I’ll be able to figure out what I want if we did that.”
Dongwoo’s smile widens at this, and he nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, we can definitely do that! I’m always free in the evenings, even if I have clients to pick up during the day. I can take you to all of my usual hangouts.”
“Sounds good,” Sunggyu agrees, even if he isn’t one hundred percent sure about letting Dongwoo pick all their activities after the cliff incident. It’s not like he has much of a choice, and he consoles himself with the knowledge that nothing short of skydiving could possibly be as bad as jumping off a cliff.
“Er, as long as it’s not skydiving, or something,” he says, just to be safe. “Text me whenever you’re free, I guess? I’m really okay now, so go get some rest.”
“You got it.” Dongwoo leans over to kiss Sunggyu on the cheek before standing up. “Thanks for going to the movie with me, hyung.”
“It’s no big deal,” Sunggyu shrugs, trying in vain not to think about how his cheek feels weirdly tingly now. “Thanks for… you know.” He makes a vague gesture with his hands to reference recent events.
“Yeah, I do.” Dongwoo grins at him one last time before leaving, and then Sunggyu is alone again in his dark hotel room. He picks back up his phone, finds a contact he still hasn’t deleted, and types out a text:
Eunji-yah, I got your message. I’m sorry for a lot of things, but mainly that I wasn’t better to you. I’m not mad at you and I will do my best to find what I want. Good bye and good luck with your comeback.
The moment he hits send, something shifts inside of Sunggyu, numbing his insides as he goes to lie down on the bed. Maybe it’s the words ‘good bye,’ or the fact that he listened to the last thing Eunji had to say to him, or a combination of everything; all the finality, the stark reality of the breakup finally settles into the deepest parts of his bones. He rolls over onto his pillow, wondering why Dongwoo was able to cry for his sake but he still can’t shed a single tear.
He deletes her contact information, and spends the rest of the night staring blankly at the ceiling until his eyes refuse to stay open anymore.
--
The next two days it unexpectedly rains, or not that unexpectedly for a tropical island, but in any case Sunggyu and Dongwoo have to make alternate plans until it lets up.
The first day, Dongwoo takes Sunggyu shopping at the big indoor mall and tries on an assortment of loud, animal-print accessories that would look awful on anyone else, but weirdly suit him. Sunggyu ends up buying him a fuzzy leopard print hat with ears on top, and even though he can’t think of an occasion that it would be useful in Hawaii, the smile Dongwoo gives him when he hands it to him is worth the money spent on a pure impracticality.
Do you like me as much as I like you?
The question floats to Sunggyu’s head all day, again and again, but he and Dongwoo go their separate ways before he gets them out of his mouth.
The next day, Dongwoo is busy most of the day but stops by the suite in the evening so Sunggyu can show him how to play the piano a little bit. Sunggyu was just going to play for him, but then Dongwoo wanted to learn, but then it eventually devolved back into the two of them sitting side-by-side on the piano bench while Sunggyu plays and they talk.
“You’re not bored when you hang out with me, are you?” Sunggyu asks as mildly as he can manage, softly plinking out a random jazz improvisation and unsure what kind of answer he’s hoping for. “I mean, if we were in Hongdae, we could go to a café I like, but I have to rely on you over here.”
“I’m not bored at all, hyung. And it’s not a big deal or anything, it’s my job to show people around,” Dongwoo laughs, and Sunggyu frowns.
“I want you to take me somewhere you don’t take clients normally, then.”
“Hmm…” Dongwoo chews his huge bottom lip thoughtfully as Sunggyu starts on a riff off one of Jongwan’s band’s songs instead. “Tomorrow, we could go by this bar I like. My friend works there, it’s clean, and the drinks are good.”
“Sure, we can go.” Sunggyu agrees without thinking much of it; a nice bar sounds normal, casual, maybe even date-ish.
He only starts to regret it a little bit when they roll up to said bar the next night and loud karaoke music can be heard from within. Outside, curious rainbow-colored flags that Sunggyu hasn’t seen anywhere else fly above the establishment’s sign.
“Rainbow…? Is that a Hawaii thing too?” Sunggyu wonders as Dongwoo shuts off the car engine, and Dongwoo bursts into laughter.
“It’s an American thing. For… you know, the alternative crowd,” Dongwoo motions between himself and Sunggyu, and Sunggyu’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull at him.
“You took me to a gay bar…?”
“It’s just gay-friendly, hyung. There’s usually a pretty mixed crowd what with all the tourists around,” Dongwoo explains, patting him comfortingly. “You’ve really never been to one before?”
Sunggyu shakes his head. He likes other guys sometimes, sure, but despite Woohyun’s best efforts bars in general have never really been his scene.
They head inside anyway, and a few of the customers wave and say hi to Dongwoo as they take their seats at the bar. The bartender is a young man around their age, sleeveless and muscular and with eyebrows like large fuzzy caterpillars. He breaks into a wide smile when he spots Dongwoo, and the two of them do that weird American handshake-hug thing across the bar.
“This is my friend Hoya. Hoya, this is Sunggyu hyung,” Dongwoo introduces him, and it doesn’t escape Sunggyu’s notice that Hoya’s expression steels over for only a split second when Dongwoo isn’t looking. It’s gone so fast that Sunggyu thinks he might have imagined it though, replaced by Hoya giving a friendly grin and a polite nod in Sunggyu’s direction.
“Visiting from Korea? We don’t have that much in the way of soju, but we make great cocktails and have a decent beer and sake list,” Hoya informs him in fluent Korean, and Sunggyu ends up ordering beers for himself and Dongwoo to start with. And then one beer turns into several, and a couple of shots, and Sunggyu becomes possibly more chatty than he normally would be.
“I haven’t sang since I left the company,” he confesses to Dongwoo as another terrible singer takes the mic and starts singing some American song from the 1980s. “In front of other people, I mean. Besides you.”
“You can do it, hyung. Just try it,” Dongwoo tells him, putting his hand on Sunggyu’s shoulder. Sunggyu stares at him. He swears someone said something like it to him all the time, before, in another lifetime, a million years ago, but he just didn’t listen.
You won’t know until you try.
He tosses back the rest of his drink and storms over to the mic as soon as the song ends, punching in the first English song that comes to mind, which happens to be surprisingly not a Radiohead song.
The opening strains of Bohemian Rhapsody are recognized immediately by everyone in the bar, and all eyes turn towards Sunggyu. He feels his pulse race and his palms sweat, but at the same time it’s exhilarating, this irreplaceable, nearly-forgotten feeling of being watched while he sings. He belts out every note to the best of his drunken ability, and by the end he’s sweaty and out of breath, but the entire bar bursts into loud cheers and applause that he automatically bows his head in embarrassment. When Sunggyu looks back up, Dongwoo is cheering the loudest, practically standing on top of the bar and waving his arms at Sunggyu like he just won the lottery, and Sunggyu feels his face flush even redder than it was before.
“You were so cool, hyung! You’re like the lead singer of a rock band,” Dongwoo tells him as he orders this round of drinks, and even Hoya gives Sunggyu a genuine round of applause as he finally takes his seat again after being thumped on the back and high fived by a bunch of strange gay bar patrons.
“I was the lead singer of a rock band,” Sunggyu admits, downing the shot Hoya sets down in front of him. “In high school, I mean. But I wanted to do music more seriously, so I joined the agency.”
“Do you still want to do it seriously?” Dongwoo downs his shot too, asking the taboo question with no ado as usual.
“I don’t know,” Sunggyu says, half-honestly. But he doesn’t tell him no (again).
Eventually Dongwoo heads to the bathroom, leaving Sunggyu mostly alone with Hoya, who stares (glares?) piercingly at Sunggyu, his friendly attitude from earlier vanishing as soon as Dongwoo is out of earshot.
“You know, Dongwoo hasn’t seriously fallen for anyone since he moved here. He doesn’t want to get hurt,” Hoya mentions casually as he puts some ice and unknown liquid in a metal shaker, the thick muscles of his arms bulging threateningly as he shakes it in front of Sunggyu.
“I can relate a little bit,” Sunggyu replies as coolly as possible. His hands are definitely not shaking as he lifts his glass to his mouth and downs the rest of his beer. “You’re pretty good friends with him, right?”
“He’s my best friend.” Hoya’s voice goes from casual to dead serious, and he picks up some metal cocktail picks and starts stabbing olives in a way that makes Sunggyu begin to sweat a bit. “And for some reason I can’t particularly fathom, he really, really likes you. So… you know.”
“You know?” Sunggyu is confused. Hoya splutters a bit.
“You’d… better watch out. Mister,” Hoya jabs his finger at him, not nearly as threatening as before, and Sunggyu suppresses a smile as Dongwoo returns from the bathroom.
“That sounded more threatening in my head,” Sunggyu hears Hoya mutter under his breath as Dongwoo takes his seat next to him at the bar. He looks between the two of them and smiles confusedly.
“What’s up?” he asks, and Sunggyu, feeling a little buzzed and maybe a little pleased with himself (he really, really likes me), reaches out to pat Dongwoo’s head.
“Not much. Let’s sing a round together this time,” Sunggyu suggests, and he doesn’t have to ask Dongwoo twice.
--
“What? He took you to a gay bar?!”
Woohyun exclaims with unnecessary surprise the next time Sunggyu fills him in via video call, his eyes looking like they might pop out of their sockets and attack Sunggyu through the monitor somehow.
“It was just gay-friendly. A mixed crowd,” Sunggyu clarifies. “Anyway, it was practically a date. He’s friends with the bartender, who tried to threaten me. He was... kind of your type, probably.”
“Really? I knew I should’ve come with you. But Jungyeop-hyung said I couldn’t take much time off if I wanted to debut soon.” Woohyun gets a faraway look in his eyes, then immediately snaps back to reality. “I mean—sorry, hyung.”
“It’s okay.” Sunggyu gives him a wry smile; Woohyun knows the best that talking about the CEO and debuts and such are usually off-limits with him. “Actually, I… had a really big favor to ask of you, Woohyunie.”
Woohyun blinks at him, looking confused. “A favor? Does it involve hiding a body?”
“Potentially. I need you to…” Sunggyu pauses and shuts his eyes. “I need you to help me apologize to Jungyeop-hyung. I realized it the other day, Woohyun-ah. I… I need to sing.”
There’s a long pause as Woohyun stares at him through the monitor for a while, his mouth set in a thin line. Then, he lets out a small laugh. “This Dongwoo must really be something. I couldn’t convince you to come back for months, and he convinces you in a few days.”
“He helped a little. But you did too,” Sunggyu admits, and though it's still hard for him to be sincere like that it's more than worth it when Woohyun gets all flustered for a few moments. “Look, when I get back to Korea, just… I’m counting on you, okay?”
“Okay, I'll help. But hyung, you have to tell Dongwoo how you feel. Ask him how he feels about coming back with you,” Woohyun bargains, once he's collected himself. “For acting like you know everything about everything, you sure need a lot of help when it comes to feelings, hyung.”
“We’re going to the aquarium together tomorrow, I’ll ask then,” Sunggyu promises weakly. “I just… haven’t really heard his side of things yet. I just know he left an agency too back in Korea, and then ended up traveling around until he got to Hawaii.”
“Ask him. Just talk to him.” Woohyun’s voice is firm, but his expression is gentle like the last time they called. “No more running away, alright?”
“Right,” Sunggyu agrees for now, but it's mainly so he doesn't disappoint Woohyun. In his heart, he still doesn’t actually know if he can.
He has less than two days left to figure everything out, and it’s not even close to being long enough.
--
The last day before Sunggyu has to fly back is the day they go to the Waikiki Aquarium. They wander around and look outside at the seals and such first, then head inside to look at the tanks. Not long after they get close to the glass a shark swims menacingly by, and Dongwoo and Sunggyu grab each other’s hands reflexively before dropping them.
“Sorry, they startled me,” Dongwoo says sheepishly, and Sunggyu shakes his head.
“I got kind of freaked out too,” he admits. “I thought you wouldn’t get scared by this kind of thing after you jumped off that cliff.”
“I’m actually scared of a lot of things. I can’t watch horror movies, at all,” Dongwoo says very seriously, and Sunggyu vaguely recalls that Dongwoo did get spooked a lot during their movie date. “What about you, hyung? You’re only really scared of heights?”
“I’m scared of a lot of things, too,” Sunggyu shrugs, but in his head are a million thoughts. I couldn’t possibly mean enough to ask you to move back. This might be the last day I’ll ever get to spend time with you like this. Maybe I’ll go back to Korea and nothing will work out the way I hope it will.
He glances to the side as they edge away from the tank’s glass wall to continue their conversation. “But I’m… well, at least I’m working on it.”
“That’s great, hyung.” Dongwoo doesn’t pry any further, thankfully, and the two of them gaze at the aquarium exhibits from afar for a few moments before they start walking again.
“For instance, last night I asked Woohyunie if he would help me go back to my agency. I’m going to try to be a singer again.” Sunggyu brings it up once they stop in front of another tank. “I figured I should thank you.”
“Thank me for what?” Dongwoo looks genuinely puzzled.
“You helped me,” Sunggyu insists. “I don’t usually let people help me, but you still did, somehow.”
The smile Dongwoo gives him is somewhat sad-looking, and he shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything. You’re really amazing for deciding that, hyung.”
Sunggyu merely shrugs; he still doesn’t know why Dongwoo has such a high opinion of him, but he doesn’t ask. They reach the last tank in the hallway, and they stand in front of it quietly for a while. The fish swim back and forth in calming patterns, the light streaming through the tanks in an ethereal sort of way.
“I miss the aquariums in Korea,” Dongwoo speaks up eventually. “This place is really nice, but it’s not quite Coex or Jeju.”
“Have you thought about coming back?” Sunggyu tries, tentatively. “I mean… it’s not any of my business, I was just wondering.”
“I’m not sure. My family wants me to come back soon, though,” Dongwoo shrugs a little, uncharacteristically muted in his actions. "The whole reason I stayed in Hawaii is because I was scared that I might never debut. I guess I ran away instead."
"Was? You're not scared anymore?" Sunggyu peers over at him in the dim light of the hallway. Dongwoo’s mouth is curled in a thoughtful sort of pout, and Sunggyu scoots closer to him, bumping arms with him a little.
“Not as much as before.” Dongwoo bumps Sunggyu’s arm back, the hint of a grin finally forming on his face. “Or at least, I feel like I should at least try again, too.”
They observe the tank in silence for another moment after that, and then Sunggyu opens his mouth.
“Before, Eunji… said I was scared of being happy,” he says, quietly. “And she couldn’t wait around for me anymore. So she left.”
Dongwoo looks at him thoughtfully, unblinkingly. “Are you still scared?”
Sunggyu thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. Dongwoo smiles, and the two of them turn back towards the tank.
Neither of them say anything for a long while after that, even Dongwoo. A huge stingray floats by. Some tropical fish swim in a circle, high above them, not even knowing they’re not really in the ocean. In the soft blue light, Sunggyu feels Dongwoo’s hand brush against his, their fingers linking together comfortably.
And for the first time in many, many days, Sunggyu thinks that everything might not be so terrible after all, that it might be okay in the end.
Or maybe even better than okay.
--
Sunggyu is out of time.
Dongwoo drives him to the airport in the morning, helping him unload his things on the curb and gives him a big hug, squeezing him tight with both arms. “I had so much fun, Gyu hyung. I know you’ll do really great in Korea.”
Sunggyu’s heart feels like it’s stuck in his throat, but he hugs Dongwoo back as tightly as he can.
“Thank you for everything,” he says, searching Dongwoo’s face for some kind of clue. But as open as Dongwoo usually is, he seems weirdly closed-off right now, and Sunggyu does what he tends to do and lets go of Dongwoo, even though he doesn’t particularly want to. “I’ll… see you around, maybe?”
“Yeah.” Dongwoo gives him a watery smile and a wave as Sunggyu picks up his stuff and heads into the terminal, and up the escalator. He feels numb inside, but not the same way as when he said goodbye to Eunji—the closest thing he can describe as is, well, empty. Like he’s missing something.
He’s almost at security when he happens to glance out the glass panels at the street level and sees a familiar car parked in the same spot, its driver still standing on the curb where Sunggyu left him, staring up at the sky.
“Dongwoo.”
Sunggyu presses his hands against the glass, breathes his name out loud without realizing it, the sound suddenly so much more meaningful to his ears.
Dongwoo.
His weird laugh, his cheerful voice, his wide, warm smile. The way he gets Sunggyu to do things he wouldn’t normally do, not by forcefully pushing him, but by gently tugging him along. By holding his hand and doing it with him.
Dongwoo is- Sunggyu can’t find the exact words for it. He’s just so special, everything about him, and nothing like anyone Sunggyu’s ever known.
Therefore, it only stands to reason that Sunggyu is falling in love with him.
Woohyun, though he is loath to admit it, was right. Sunggyu really is dumb, a real idiot really, for not realizing he had to do this sooner. He turns and runs back to the curb, luggage and all, to where Dongwoo is standing in front of his car. As Sunggyu gets closer to him, he realizes Dongwoo is crying.
“Dongwoo…?” Sunggyu approaches carefully, like he might a wild animal. “Are you crying?”
“Sunggyu hyung?” Dongwoo startles a bit when he hears Sunggyu’s voice, then hurriedly tries to wipe his tears away. Sunggyu walks towards him until he’s standing right in front of him, so close that he can feel Dongwoo’s breath on his skin. “Why’d you come back?”
“To check on you, dummy. Good thing I did.” Sunggyu reaches up to wipe some of Dongwoo’s tears with his hand. “Why’re you crying?”
“I’m just…” Dongwoo sniffles, swallows, obviously trying really hard to stop crying, but it somehow just makes him sound even sadder. “I’m… I’m really going to miss you, hyung.”
“Ahh… don’t cry.” Sunggyu doesn’t really know how to comfort him too with words, not yet, but he wants Dongwoo to know how he feels, so he takes a deep breath and pulls Dongwoo towards him by the shoulders. “I didn’t even properly say good bye to you, but I… I think I finally made up my mind.”
“Hyung…?”
Dongwoo’s eyes are so, so big as he stares up at Sunggyu, and Sunggyu stares back for a moment before leaning down to kiss him, softly and more hesitant than he intended. He wants this to be good, but he can’t help but overthink everything at first, but then Dongwoo wraps his arms around him and returns the gesture enthusiastically, and Sunggyu finally relaxes and kisses him just how he wants to (has wanted to).
It’s weird, Sunggyu thinks, he should be more embarrassed about kissing like this where so many people can see them, but he just doesn’t care. He only cares about Dongwoo, about the fullness of his lips as they press against his own, the way their noses brush together, how he smiles into their kiss even though he’s still crying a little, because of course he is.
And when they finally pull back, Dongwoo’s face is as red as Sunggyu’s feels, but Sunggyu finally manages to find the things he wanted to say as he wipes the last of Dongwoo’s tears away with his hand.
“When you said that it could be whatever I wanted it to be—I—“ Sunggyu begins, tries to find the right words to continue.
“What I mean is… it doesn’t have to really be goodbye. I want—I need to see you again, so I’ll wait for you,” he says, haltingly because he’s not used to being this genuine, but maybe that’s just another side effect of being around Dongwoo. “I mean, if you want me to, I will. Be waiting for you, that is.”
“You’ll show me the cafés in Hongdae you really like?” Dongwoo asks, hopeful, and Sunggyu nods.
“It’s… it’s a date.” He forces the cliché out, and normally he would regret it, but then Dongwoo smiles again and he doesn’t. “I’m going to have a lot of fans who want to date me instead when I debut, so you’d better hurry and come back.”
“I will. I promise,” Dongwoo nods enthusiastically, and this time he’s the one to tiptoe up and kiss Sunggyu, so sweetly that Sunggyu’s chest aches even after Dongwoo pulls away again. He doesn’t look like he’s going to cry anymore, but he sniffles a little before pushing Sunggyu back. “Okay hyung, go catch your plane.”
“Right,” Sunggyu says, then adds, “Drive safe,” and his own voice when he says it is so gentle that he surprises even himself.
“Yes, hyung. Message me, okay?” Dongwoo laughs his silly laugh that Sunggyu somehow came to like so much over the past couple of weeks, gets in his car with a wave, and drives away. This time it’s Sunggyu who waves back, watching until Dongwoo’s car disappears into traffic.
Then, Sunggyu picks up his things and heads back into the terminal. He buys a random magazine, a tacky and useless yet expensive souvenir for Woohyun, and cheaper but slightly more thoughtful ones for his parents and Jongwan.
He waits until he’s settled in his plane seat to message Dongwoo, and he keeps it short and simple.
SG: I’m on the plane now
DW: I miss you already hyung. Don’t drink too much without me! kkkkk
The reply from Dongwoo comes almost immediately. Sunggyu hesistates, then types again.
SG: I really like you, Jang Dongwoo.
DW: I really like you too, gyu hyungnim. Have a good flight, I’ll talk to you soon. <3
Attached to his reply is a selfie of Dongwoo, his eyes still a bit red from crying, but he’s smiling brightly and making a peace sign in the driver’s seat of his car. When he sees the picture, Sunggyu smiles a little despite himself (and possibly, surreptitiously saves it). Just as he’s about to put his phone away, though, Sunggyu’s phone buzzes again with a message from his mother.
Did you have a good trip? Better than you expected, right?
Sunggyu looks out the window, across the gray asphalt of the runway. Beyond that somewhere is the ocean, and Korea. Between here and there, Dongwoo is somewhere, he believes in Sunggyu, he even likes him back, and that’s how Sunggyu knows everything turns out okay in the end.
Yes, I did, he types back. Better than expected.
He means it, with all his heart.
--
Here’s what happens:
As soon as he gets back from Hawaii, Sunggyu (with the help of Woohyun) apologizes to the CEO and joins his former agency again, finally quitting his day job to throw himself into the trainee lifestyle once more. He works twice as hard as everyone else, even Woohyun, and though there weren’t initially plans to debut a boy group the CEO begins to consider forming one around Sunggyu and Woohyun.
Dongwoo moves to Seoul soon enough, and spends the better part of the first couple weeks there practically wrapped around Sunggyu, much to Woohyun’s amusement (and Sunggyu’s feigned chagrin). He also somehow drags Hoya—whose real name was 'Lee Howon,' all along—with him, and the two of them join the same company as dancers. Sunggyu and Woohyun start to practice dancing with them, and the CEO walks in on them practicing as a group one day, and just like that the four of them are together, the first confirmed members of their company’s future boy band.
Sunggyu is the oldest and will probably be the leader, even though Woohyun technically has more experience, and Sunggyu feels like he should be more afraid. He’s still nervous, especially since they’re going to decide on more members soon, but he knows it’ll be okay; Woohyun is there as always, and now Dongwoo is there too. Dongwoo is with him, right next to him, every day for the rest of the foreseeable future , and though they’re too busy to go on real dates, Sunggyu still sneaks out with him to the café in Hongdae just like he promised.
They’re all busy, and tired, but there are still good days, and then there are days when Sunggyu feels like he might burst at the seams from the stress. But no matter what kind of day it is, Dongwoo is there by Sunggyu’s side, balancing him out, always ready with a comforting smile, a funny laugh, a gentle touch on his arm. And on the rare and precious occasion no one else is around, he pulls Sunggyu over and kisses him like it’s the only way he can breathe.
It’s no Hawaii, but as far as Sunggyu is concerned, it’s still pretty close to paradise.