Archive of Our Own

It’s on these very tracks that Jungsu had confessed, bright-eyed and flushed, a perfectest peach from the putrid pit. The sun had been bright, the surrounding trees a gentle haze of a green, the leaves leave whispers along his ear. Jungsu had looked him in the eye, this boyish grin on his face, and all who fell under that smile, were doomed to be lost forever. 

"I like you, Koo Gunil. Date me!" 

It’s on these very tracks that Gunil had wholly and unabashedly given his heart up to the boy one year his junior, knowing all that lied in wait, relied on the means he could provide to Jungsu’s end, knowing it wouldn’t end well for him. He’s partially to blame for his own fall. After all, he’d enjoyed it, being Jungsu’s temporary thing. 

It’s on these very tracks that Jungsu confesses, solemn, gaze downcast, finger loosely linked with Gunil’s, a lenient letdown, a taunt to soften the blow. "Sorry, I don’t like you anymore." 

Briefly, Gunil entertains the fantasy of anger. He’ll tear his hand from Jungsu’s, shove him to the ground, let the dirt that makes up Gunil’s being dirty Jungsu’s white button down and pure, clean face. He’ll act blind, never saw this coming. He’ll act dumb and ask why, like Jungsu didn’t come with a caution sign. 

Licking his lips, swallowing that lump in his lungs, he drops his finger from Jungsu’s delicately. 

"Let’s end this kindly," Jungsu sounds, "Let’s stay friends?" 

Gunil grits his teeth, bears a grimacing grin. "Honey—"

"Don’t call me honey anymore." His tone firm, no room for fight. 

Biting his tongue hard enough to taste blood, Gunil nods. Right. That’s the point of it all. 

Swallowing, bearing the audacity to look somewhat ashamed, Jungsu averts his gaze. "I like someone else now." He hooks his thumbs through his belt loops, chewing on his bottom lip, the one Gunil had kissed just yesterday. The least he can say, is he hadn’t expected this so suddenly, or so severely. 

Eyes stinging, a fool to his core through and through, Gunil asks, "What happened to all the moments we were together then?" Maybe he’s a masochist, to ask such a question, when the answer was stark from the start. 

Maybe hearing it aloud though, will somehow coax his heart back into his chest. Convince it to stop loving Jungsu right then and there, because it never should have so stupidly loved Jungsu at all. 

Of course, none of that happens, and Gunil is still hopelessly smitten when Jungsu meets his sorrowful gaze and admits with lacking remorse, "Sorry, they were all a lie. To both of us, weren’t they?" He cocks his head, signaling to Gunil, that he was well aware they both were in on this game, and he was always destined to win, and get all the shiny prizes. 

No amount of preparation, and Gunil hadn’t prepared nearly enough in spite of all he was privy, readies him for the aching, throbbing pain that is his heart breaking. Dull in his chest, a blunt knife forcing its way between his lungs, scraping past his ribcage, ruthless. 

He takes an uneven breath, head spinning, world swaying. 

He looks down, unable to bear the sight of Jungsu, completely unfazed. Not even a dent or crack in his demeanor. Perfectly unharmed. Determining the thing Gunil never needed to confirm. That he’d really meant nothing, to the boy who’d meant everything to him. 

"Okay." 

Jungsu kicks at the dead leaves beneath his feet, careless with all things wilting, supposedly. 

Lifting his head, eyes trained past Jungsu’s ear, Gunil professes, like some rotten assurance, "You made me happy." Surface level and shallow, not looking beneath, Gunil had been happy, as some temporary thing. 

He sees the serrated edge of Jungsu’s smile peeking into the blur of his peripherals, and he turns around, walking past the tracks, the treeline; the tears streaking steadily, silently, down his cheeks. He hopes he gets lost, or at least, Jungsu’s shouting voice is the one that never finds him. 

There’s nothing complicated about Jungsu and Gunil. They’re two stupid selfish boys with chewed cheeks to show for the giddy bite of their greed. 

Jungsu liked Gunil for the way Gunil made him feel. 

Jungsu likes the flushed heat in his cheeks when Gunil praises him and adores him and simpers at his feet, licking Jungsu’s shoes clean, not minding the filth against his blush when Gunil kisses him coy immediately thereafter. Jungsu likes being liked and lucky for him Gunil liked him infinitely. 

So Gunil dates him and dotes on him, and dares to forget the cardinal rule the whole school knows. Like Jungsu but never love him, skittish and sly; the slip of real feelings will spook him shy. 

It’s a pitiful thought, when Gunil sees Jungsu and his new girlfriend in the halls, that Gunil acknowledges his disposability, but denies that anyone can quite like Jungsu as much as he had. Perhaps it’s a way to cope, to be left over scraps, but at least be irreplaceable ones. 

In some convoluted way, he’s right. 

The slap of her hand against Jungsu’s cheek is sickly satisfying for all of a surreal second. 

Everyone stares on in shock as she shoves him to the locker right next to Gunil’s, sobbing angrily, her finger pressed into Jungsu’s chest. "You’re a shitty boyfriend, Kim Jungsu," she shouts, "You’re a shitty friend. You’re a shitty damn person. You can’t keep using people to forget it!" 

Calling her Jungsu’s girlfriend now seems like a misdemeanor. 

Strong enough not to wipe her tears, she spins on her heel, sparing Jungsu not another glance, and stalks away. Back straight, chin held high. Gunil recognizes that stance, and he respects her significantly. She’s much stronger than he ever was. 

Whispers surrounding him, suffocating and claustrophobic, shrinking into the metal of the lockers, Jungsu glances at Gunil from the corner of his eyes, somewhat pleading to be saved. Gunil calmly puts his things away, just like Jungsu always does, and slams his locker shut. Right next to the sharp sound and slam, Jungsu winces. 

Without a word, Gunil’s gaze skirts over him. He slings only one of his bag’s straps over his shoulders, leaving the other free to cry on, and follows on in the girl’s direction. He thinks his company will be appreciated, honestly. The solace of solidarity. 

They should start a club. 

Jungsu’s Temporary Things. 

The track digs into his spine, rusted and dull. He pops peach flavored gummies into his mouth, staring up into the sky. A desperate shade of cornflower blue. There’s the myth that blood is blue, only red at the touch of oxygen. Sometimes Gunil wondered if he were to bleed out in Jungsu’s arms, if he’d bleed blue. 

Jungsu, like a fire, would feed off the air around him. 

Feet appear in his upside down vision, and he looks along the bridge of his nose, slightly cross-eyed. He rips a gummy in half between dull teeth, stares at Jungsu blankly. 

"I hope you don’t always lay here like this," the younger greets. Gunil thinks he’s imagining the faint outline of red fingerprints on Jungsu’s cheek. 

He hides a smile behind his hand anyways, imagining someone else left a mark on Jungsu and he’d had no choice in letting it stay. You can wipe off dirt but you can’t wipe a bruise. 

"Only when I’m particularly suicidal," Gunil says, tone teasing, "It’s not really gratifying though. I can sit up in an instant." He uses his legs crossed over the opposite of the track to leverage himself forward, the bag of gummies crinkling beneath his stomach. "See?" 

Vaguely unsettled, Jungsu swallows a screwed expression, dropping his bag to the ground and sitting down beside Gunil. A sigh escapes his lips and Gunil snorts. "Don’t worry, Su," he soothes, "It’d take more than one fake blond to make me consider the catastrophe of interrupting someone’s cherished commute." 

Pursing his lips, Jungsu stares off anywhere but Gunil’s direction. "I wasn’t worried," he mutters, "Your jokes used to be funnier, Hyung." 

Popping a peach flavored nothing into his mouth, Gunil smiles. "I used to like making you laugh." He offers Jungsu the torn open bag, ever thoughtful, and it forces Jungsu to glance his way, revealing the disrest pinched between his lashes. Hastily, Jungsu reaches into the bag, takes a gummy, and eats it, face bitter like it’d tasted bad. 

Gunil sighs. 

"I don’t think you deserved it," he admits airily, leaning forward, digging his knees into his chest, maybe hoping the boniness he still is will pierce his lungs and prevent him from giving Jungsu any sort of mercy he was never once offered. 

Elbow in his thigh, chin in his palm, Jungsu prods at his cheek, this actually leaving fingerprints behind in the skin Gunil used to preciously paint pink. "Didn’t I?" And really, Gunil should be able to say yes. He can’t quite. 

Shaking his head, he drops his ear to his shin, face fixed Jungsu’s direction. "…you’re stupid. And young. Puberty has greatly inconvenienced your person." He smirks, and Jungsu flushes, locking his ankles and knees together. "You’re a boy through and through, Su." 

"You aren’t?" 

Gunil rolls the bag of gummies unfinished into the bottom of his bag. The rest he’ll give to Jiseok whenever he next sees the rest of them. Third years and first years have very different schedules, believe it or not. "I’m more of a dog than a boy, I think," he supplies simply, smiling at Jungsu’s apparent shock. "Self-domesticated. I’m what all the boys want and all the girls need." 

Scrunching his nose, knitting his brows, Jungsu gapes at him. "Why do you talk about yourself like that?" he asks, faintly aghast. " How ?" 

Shrugging, Gunil slots his knee into the hollow of his cheek, his voice helplessly a bit muffled. "I’ve got no shame. Maybe no dignity. Don’t get me wrong though." He grins, lips distorted against his leg. "A shit ton of bruised pride." 

Looking down, scraping his nail against the eyelet of his sneaker. "It’s not that," he mumbles, "That’s how any senior is…you…you’ve got no self-respect." 

Straightening, Gunil barks out a laugh, shaking Jungsu’s shoulder almost affectionately. "Shit, Jungsu-ah, you’re absolutely right." Realizing he’s making Jungsu blush, he snatches his arm back to himself, crosses the both of them over his curled legs. "Why else do you think I dated you?"

The air is stiff and silent for a long while after. Gunil can’t bring himself to regret it. 

Plus, he’s particularly adept at breaking silences. He zips his bag shut violently, picking it up, slinging the straps across both shoulders. "My point is—" He stands in one movement without his hands, swaying a little, stumbling. He glimpses Jungsu almost jolt up behind him, arms raised maybe to catch him. Gunil wouldn’t trust it even if he needed it. 

Look how well Jungsu caught him the last time he fell.

"My point is," he restates, facing Jungsu, looking down at him, delighting in, to some degree, Jungsu having to look up at him for once. "You’re not a shitty person. Not yet at least. Or even a shitty friend. Seungmin tells me you’re a cool dude when you’re not sucking someone’s spit and self worth." 

Pouting at the mention of Seungmin, flustered at everything else, Jungsu intakes a shallow breath. "But not a good boyfriend?" 

Gunil raises a brow. It goes without saying. 

Growing just a bit restless, clearly here with a purpose, not making any good on it, Jungsu frowns pleadingly up at Gunil. There’s the threat of a shimmer in his eyes, and Gunil turns his head away, biting down on and swallowing his undying urge to console and caress. 

"They’re supposed to go hand in hand," Jungsu says, voice shaking just barely. If Gunil were anyone else, any less pathetic, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed. 

He doesn’t look at Jungsu again. He knows what’ll he do if he does. He’ll give in like he always is. It’s easy to act like you don’t like someone, when you love them. It’s not so much easy at all, to forget loving them, no matter how much you detest them. It’s perched in his shattered heart still, the pretense of Jungsu’s affection and friendship. 

He breathes out heavy through his nose, starting off to somewhere far, far away from Jungsu. He’ll wait a lot longer to cry this time around. "I’m not the one who needs convincing." 

Jungsu watches him graduate. Gunil knows there’s other upperclassman for Jungsu to congratulate, but Jungsu watches him . 

He lurks at the edge of Gunil’s vision as Gunil’s friends surround him, playing with the tassel hanging from his cap, seeing how their hands fit beneath the gown’s billowy sleeves. "Are you wearing anything underneath?" Jooyeon has the gall to ask. Jiseok pulls down the collar to check, so it’s good Gunil is wearing something buttoned. Fancy and creaseless, like Jungsu’s uniform everyday. 

Hyeongjun brings him flowers when friends don’t bring the flowers, the family’s meant to. 

It’s not a romantic thing, but it’s a loving thing. Gunil presses his nose to pink petals, the flowers splaying over his cheeks like a flush, and thanks Hyeongjun earnestly. No one’s ever brought him flowers before, and he thinks he’ll like making something pretty of them once and after they’ve wilt. 

The girl from before, the one who's fingerprints Gunil will forever remember and relish, grants him a kiss on the cheek, tells him how she'll miss him, and she wishes he could stay just one year longer. Who else will she share her shoulders with? A lot of things have Gunil wishing momentarily, that he could be what she needs. That things had turned out differently, and he was more a boy and less a dog and her a girl he didn't deserve. 

They'll probably never see each other again. They're temporary, after all. 

Jungsu is forced to close the distance between them when Seungmin, glued to his side, pulls Gunil into a hug, crushing Hyeongjun's flowers between their flush chests. He'll miss Seungmin the least, he thinks, because Seungmin will make sure they're never far apart. He gifts Gunil a bracelet, one to match his own, so they're bound together forever, and in turn, that means there's one other Gunil won't flee so easily. 

At the edge of the field, they meet, alone in their own world, the sound of tears and praise muffled into the backdrop. Jungsu hands him something, a bag of peach gummies. Heart in his throat, all Gunil can really do is stare at them. 

"Will we talk again?" Jungsu asks, tentatively quiet. 

The plastic crinkles beneath Gunil's harsh grip. He drops his arm, lets the gummies hang at his side, a shriveling olive branch. "Are you going to be a better friend?" To which Jungsu nods, determined, his expression much like it was when he first confessed to Gunil. 

Gunil hopes distance doesn't make this wretched heart grow fonder. Gunil prays that time will heal the bruise that is Jungsu, and coerce it into loving someone other than him, the boy who used Gunil for devotion. 

"Maybe then."

Jungsu doesn’t ever congratulate him, but he watches him leave. 

Gunil would have to be a stupid dog to believe he’d get the praise. 

A year goes by. Gunil doesn't think college changes him much, but when he looks in the mirror, it's harder to recognize himself. His neck thicker, his cheeks fuller. He's less the stick and more the tree now. Despite it all, he's still got a peach for a heart. 

Nothing prompts it. If anything, the divine detests it, but Gunil ends up on the train tracks once more during his visit home. There's this funny joke he tells himself each time he finds himself laying here. It goes like this. 

This time will be the last.  

It never is. He always comes back. 

He lays against the slatted bits of rusted metal, lets it dig into the nape of his neck, a spiked collar. He lifts his arm in the air, spreads his fingers apart, spots the stars between his knuckles. He closes his hand into a fist, catches nothing but cold air. 

He asks himself why he's here, and his self has no answer to offer. Perhaps it's like those cats you see at the cemeteries. Circling the dead things, seeking the trace of comfort from a familiar corpse. What died here? Their relationship? His self-respect? 

Some part of his heart, surely, pressed like Hyeongjun's petals between his lungs. Preserved only as a dead thing, but petrified nonetheless. 

The trees breathe and rasp in the night's wind. A bush rustles and complains, bothered. Gunil exhales, dropping his arm to his stomach, fingers digging into his softened belly, maybe to tear out the rot. 

"Why are you here?" he asks, voice silent and subdued. 

Cicadas sing and leaves lament, it'd be self-centered to think the scenery was spectating them, but the trees bend in a way that shines the moon directly onto their static figures, a spotlight. "Why are you ? I at least live here." 

Squeezing his eyes shut, bracing himself, Gunil shifts onto his knees, looking up. Somehow, Jungsu has only grown taller, broader. Every year's a growth spurt for him, the true tree rooted into Gunil's cracked cement skin. Only the tips of his hair are blond now, not purposeful, just neglectful. 

His face is still boyishly round, though his jaw and cheekbones are just slightly more pronounced. His mouth remains pillowy, his eyes piercing. Above all else he's resentfully recognizable, enough to make Gunil's trodden chest ache. 

He's a masochist, because for the first time in a long while, he feels real. 

"I live here too," he counters, eyes following as Jungsu sits down across from him, him on the tracks, Jungsu just outside them, pajamaed knees framed with grass. 

Blinking like the moon was too bright, Jungsu examines him thoroughly, shamelessly. Pointed, pencil lead pupils tracing the changed outline of Gunil. "Aren't you just a guest to your own room now?" 

Gunil winces. "Ouch," he sounds. 

Jungsu's face drops with some regret and Gunil thinks he almost says it, that forbidden magic word. Sorry . Gunil doesn't want to hear it if Jungsu doesn't completely mean it, and it seems Jungsu knows it, pursing his mouth and ducking his head. 

They sit there a soundless short while, keen on each other's knees, Jungsu's grass stained, Gunil's bared and bruised beneath cotton shorts. Staring hard, Jungsu finally says, "So, how's it like? College? Is it freeing?" Though his tone is inexplicably guarded, he's evidently earnest. 

Honestly, Gunil hardly knows how to respond. He doesn't know how to describe it, even after all these months, a year. He rubs his palms over his shorts, chasing unnecessary friction on his skin, needing something more like a blister. 

"Lonely," he answers, short, deigning to leave out all the derivatives about dissonance and depersonalization and stress and a split soul between home and home. 

Jungsu raises his head, raises his brows, seeming surprised. "Lonely?" he echoes, disbelieving, "But you're so…" Gunil chances a glimpse of him, struggling to gather the words. Still ever so pathetically perking up at the hint of praise. "You're like the perfect friend." 

Huffing a deprecating laugh, Gunil runs a hand through his hair. "People get bored of that pretty quickly," he tells, "Once they figure out I'm no more than a party trick, they wonder how much of me is real, and how much of me is just a fracture of them." The words cut deep coming out, and he really hadn't expected that, throat closing up and nails digging into his thighs. Usually the truths don't hurt so bad. 

He's used to the harshness of them. Either they've grown unforgiving, or his skin has thinned. 

A frown forming from the brows down, Jungsu scrutinizes him, a little perplexed, a little forlorn. "Are you? Real?" 

Looking to the side, rubbing his chin into his shoulder, Gunil shrugs. "I'm not sure." He's starting not to see what makes him up, beyond the hollow bark of his limbs, and the hollow bark of his words. He's a hollow, hollow thing, waiting to be filled by someone else's pretty sentiments, so he can spit them back out for them to sing. 

He doesn't know who he is anymore, when he's not someone's handy, trusted thing. Like a tool, perhaps even less useful. 

Jungsu's expression is tepid. Gunil tends to a smile. "How's high school, Jungie?" he redirects in a whiplash instant, "Decided on a uni?" Petty, inflammatory, "Dating anyone pretty?" 

Mouth shaping into a grimace, Jungsu looks Gunil tentatively in the eye. "I haven't dated since…you know who." Right. Gunil wonders how she's doing. "I'm focusing on schoolwork now," Jungsu says, Gunil raising a brow at the note of boasting in his voice, seeking pride. Shrinking sheepish, Jungsu smiles meekly. 

"Um—I mean, we all are. Trying to get good scores, so we'll get into good schools. Jiseok is never not studying, or helping Jooyeon study. Seungmin's got some tutor, and Hyeongjun is always holed up in his room." He pauses, taking in an unsteady breath. "I didn't know it'd be this stressful." 

Gunil almost bodily twitches, but he's able to contain it to just a spasm of his fingers against his leg. Some part of him thinks, surely Jungsu knows just exactly how he's pushing Gunil's buttons, milking Gunil's sympathy and incessant need to cradle Jungsu in his unsoft palms and show him exactly what to do, and exactly how everything will turn out fine. 

However, he'll be the first to argue that Jungsu is only a stupid boy , not a sadistic manipulator, sights set for some reason on Gunil of all people. 

"I didn't know it'd…" Jungsu looks down, trains his gaze on his sneakers, still the same from the year prior. If it was Seungmin, the sneakers would be new, but this is Jungsu and the sneakers aren't falling apart at the sole, so they're still good. "I didn't know how much I'd miss you, Hyung." 

Gunil's chest slits open like an orange's peel. If there's one thing it hadn't been thick enough to shield, it would be precisely that . He stumbles over slightly, sliding off his shins, landing somewhat awkwardly on his thighs, using one hand to support him. "What?" He gapes at Jungsu, and Jungsu only stares back matter of fact. 

He leans forward, bracing against the tracks with soft palms and stubborn, gripping fingers. Gunil leans back, as far away as possible without fleeing. Jungsu retreats, ever so slightly, lacing his fingers and balling both hands in Gunil's lap. "I need—" 

"Me?" Gunil finishes for him, voice a loose knit collection of fragments and bits and pieces all incoherent and inharmonious. 

Jungsu peers up at him pleadingly, for what, doesn't Gunil just know by heart. Trying his hardest to remain calm, Gunil inhales shudderingly, gently pushing Jungsu away from him by the shoulders. Then, though it hurts, burns his rough padded fingers, melts them to shriveled leaves and kindling, he cups Jungsu's face sweetly. 

"You don't need me, Jungsu," he whispers, a confession that should be coming from Jungsu's own parted lips, "You never did." Jungsu tries to nuzzle into his hand, feel the residue of gratification from when they were still means to each other's end. Gunil doesn't allow him it, dropping his hands to the ground, pushing himself to his feet. 

He looks down, his shins turning brown and green, bruising like fruit. "You don't get it, Jungsu," he mutters, "You're not really sorry for using me, if all you wanna do is use me again." He wipes his shorts off, bends down to ruffle Jungsu's hair. "Even dogs get tired on short leashes, honey. So let's not try to be friends." 

Jungsu stares at the ground, sullen and hopeless. Gunil smiles at him tiredly. "Goodnight, Su. Get home safe." He has to bite his tongue, to keep from saying anymore, spilling further assurance.

"Night, Hyung." 

He doesn't cry at first. Then Jiseok's mother begins to cry, and then Jiseok is crying, and it's a well proven testament that when Jiseok cries, Gunil follows quickly behind. 

Jiseok is in his arms half the night after the rest of them graduate. Maybe because he'd be the only one who'd let Gunil hold him so long. Jooyeon occasionally too. Not really Seungmin or Hyeongjun, though he smothers them too. No one escapes his wrath of affection. Not even the only one who may have been actively avoiding it. 

"Congratulations." 

Jungsu jumps, water slipping from the fountain onto his face and gown. He looks down at the mess, withholding a sigh. If Gunil remembers correctly, this is the same hallway Jungsu's ex girlfriend had broken up with him in. Gunil remembers it like it was yesterday. Too vividly. The slap and the barely there mark it'd left behind. 

Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, Jungsu smiles at him weakly. "Thanks," he replies, though it sounds more insincere than any thanks Gunil has ever heard, especially today. 

Leaning against the wall, looking around the halls he'd been walking through every day just a year ago, now so unfamiliar and strange to him. 

At least it shows he's changed, in some aspect or another, because it surely isn't the high school that has changed. Exactly the same as it was the day he'd left it. Grey floors, grey walls, everything the same dull color of monotony. God, he had fit in so well. 

"I mean it," he states, dragging his gaze back to Jungsu, the tips of his hair still bleached, growing out at an agonizing pace, truly. "You told me you were stressed, but you did it. Seungmin tells me you got into the school you wanted, got high scores on all your exams. I'm…" 

He looks away, at the water fountain, focusing his eyes on the droplets of water tip tapping to the ground. "You did good, Su. You were a good Hyung, and a good student. I'm proud of you." He doesn't see Jungsu's face, only the hand still propped up on the fountain, curling in on itself tight. He imagines his heart in that hand, crushed and slimy, dripping on the floor. 

He's being hugged before he has any time to hate it. It takes a spiraling second for him to even process it, Jungsu wrapped around him in such a way that binds him, arms pinned at his sides, shoulder hooked by Jungsu's chin. Jungsu curls his fingers into Gunil's collar, holds Gunil still by scruff of his neck. "I—" 

"Don't go saying things you don't mean," Gunil warns. 

He can almost feel the way Jungsu's jaw flexes against the side of his head, pushed slightly to the side, trying his best not to be tickled by the softest strands of Jungsu's silken hair. Jungsu smells like spring, peach lotion and floral shampoos, the sun on dewdrop trimmed grass. 

Enveloping him in that same scent, making him a bloomed thing of fruits and flowers, Jungsu embraces him tighter. "I didn't do it by myself," he mutters, "I couldn't have. No one could." 

Gunil swallows, struggling to keep Jungsu's hair from slipping down his throat, suffocating him with roses and thorns. "I'm glad someone—"

"It was you, Hyung. You're always the only person I know how to look up to." He pulls back, the corners of his mouth trembling towards the crescents of his eyes. "So short and yet…" 

Gunil's swift blinks flutter into a halfhearted, poorly attempted sort of glare. It dissipates, Jungsu's fingers loosening from his dress shirt, running up through his hair. He doesn't know how to do really anything then but stare. 

"I'm going to learn from you, Hyung," Jungsu swears, "I'm going to learn how to be a good person. A good friend." 

At this point, Gunil stops questioning himself when he comes back. He simply does, and he does so on a seasonal basis. When the weather begins to change, and the air smells different in the mornings, he decides to go to the tracks where he was once confessed. 

It's summer, sticky sweet, cloying summer. The very beginning of it, in relative terms. His arms are slightly sore from moving out of his second-year dorm just this morning, taking all of that back home. Or, his permanent fixture of a guest room. He's going to keep all those things packed up. 

He's looking for an apartment as it is. So home, currently, is just some stasis of a thing. He's been in an in-between for years now, so he can't bring himself to mind particularly now, more than any other time.

This time, he isn't all too surprised by Jungsu's sudden and unexplained appearance. To an extent, he's almost expecting it. He lays down on the tracks, the way he always does, unsure if they're even in use anymore, but risking it anyways, waiting. 

Then Jungsu is there. His hair finally grown out, black strands curling around his both pierced ears, figure somehow even taller, shoulders impossibly broader. Gunil looks up at him, upside down, from the feet up, and swallows deeply, his heart escaping its leash at the sight of the boy, almost more. 

He sits up without a sound, all of it trapped in the air stuttering in his lungs. Jungsu rests beside him without a word, their shoulders brushing ever so slightly. When Gunil dares glance Jungsu's way, Jungsu's gaze is already heavy on him, threatening to swallow him peach whole, spit out the pit for the hell of it. 

"What was it like?" he asks, once he's found his voice, deep down somewhere in the clearing forage of rot in his chest. It's gotten clearer. It comes back a little, looking at Jungsu's pretty face, but it's cleaner. 

Silent a moment, staring at Gunil solemnly, Jungsu leans forward, crossing his hands in his lap. He thinks about his answer before bending his knees and placing his head between them. "So fucking bad," he groans, "You could've warned me at least a little, Hyung." 

He drags his hands through his hair, leaving his fingers resting limp against the tips of his ears, pink with the night time chill. Gunil shouldn't be so desperate to fix it. Take Jungsu's fingers in his own, warm Jungsu's ears with his pulpy palms and plush pillow—

"I think I did," he argues, "A little." He pinches his fingers together, bending down so Jungsu sees it, huffing a laugh at Jungsu's absolute and utter incredulity and exasperation, mixed into one. 

He unfurls from his legs just to shove Gunil lightly with one hand, Gunil swaying away with bubbling laughter, abrupt and anxious, having been locked within for so long. Jungsu sits straight and stares, blinking swift paced. Gunil covers his hand with his mouth, curls in on himself to stifle the noise. "What?" he asks between his fingers. 

Tearing his eyes away, Jungsu shakes his head. "Thought by now your laugh might've changed," he murmurs absentmindedly, reaching beneath his ankles, crunching dead leaves in his hands, always some bearer of destruction. Gunil almost chokes on any words he might have had left. 

Moving on breezily, Jungsu stretches out his arms, playing with his dirt-stained laces, stark white where the edges don't drag. "I've made friends, I talk to so many people, and I've still got…our friends. But I put down my phone, and my roommates are gone, and I just…" 

His throat bobs roughly, fingers wrapped in shoelace tight enough to cut off circulation. "It feels like I'm the only person in the entire world. In a shitty ass dorm bed all on my own." 

Nothing to say, Gunil just listens, twisting his body just so, barely suggesting the illusion of a comforting hand on Jungsu's shoulder, his pinky brushing against Jungsu's thigh. "You're right," Jungsu sighs, his voice deeper than Gunil has ever remembered, somber, then again, Gunil hasn't heard him talk so much in so long. "It is lonely." 

He almost raises his hand, almost offers the comfort he's kept under lock and key for now years. 

Jungsu turns to him, smile small and soft. "I think I deserve it." To which Gunil can only respond with baffled wide wide eyes. "Just a bit," Jungsu explains, waving his hands in the air, not quite as expressive as Gunil, but meaningful. "It's good for me, not having to rely on people so much to be happy, and—I mean—I still have our friends. I still have friends." He slumps a little, not quite deflating, but relaxing. 

As if completing a cycle, Jungsu pulls his knees back up to his chest, places his chin in the knobby nook between them. The way he looks off into the woods, it's clear he isn't expecting any sort of response from Gunil, and that's good, Gunil is gaping like a fish, nothing significant to offer. Fresh out of vague, sage life lessons, wrapped beneath his own troubles. 

This is all Jungsu. Jungsu all on his own. 

With a blossoming, blooming itch of pride, Gunil notes that this isn't quite how it was ever before. Jungsu looks him in the eye, takes his hand in his own, and crushes all the fluttering petals in Gunil's chest like nothing. "I'm sorry for what I did to you, Hyung," he professes, gentle. 

Gunil opens his mouth, nothing coming out but a pitiful puff of air, rasping and dying. Jungsu turns to him completely, his knees digging into Gunil's side like twin blades. He squeezes Gunil's hand desperately. "Please, Hyungie," he begs, "I know it's my fault, but you used to talk to me so much." He bends forward, bumping his head against Gunil's shoulder, gasping smally at the softness that meets him there. Gunil no longer the skinny, small boy he'd once fed on. 

"I miss your voice," he admits, sullen, "I don't care if you tell me you hate me, if you tell me and detail all the ways I hurt you. I just want to hear you again." 

Gunil shuts his mouth, gathers his words pooling between his teeth like saliva. Feeble, they seep over his lips, and he licks them right back up, drought and dry. "You were just—" 

"A boy?" Jungsu scoffs, cutting him off despite his pleas, mouth snapping shut upon realizing it. He squeezes his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. He presses his thumb into Gunil's palm, an unsaid apology to pair with all the others. "I get it now," he murmurs, "I really do. But, Hyung, so were you." 

He lifts his head, propping his chin on the softness he's rediscovered within Gunil, clinging onto it like you cling to the rays of morning sunshine drenching your blankets when the sleep struggles to take you for just a little longer. Just a little longer, please. 

"I really did like you," he confesses, voice fragile, like it isn't Gunil's world that's the thing shattering, scattering in syrupy sharp pieces around the tracks. Surely, Gunil's heart stops beating, just for a moment, just because of five plain words. "I think what I didn't like, was myself." 

Gunil's eyes fall shut, a sigh escaping him. "Oh, Jungsu," he breathes, sorrowful. He erases himself from this picture of a younger Jungsu in his head, and he sees it all so clearly, without his self to muddle the narrative. 

"I needed someone to like me," Jungsu mutters, lacing his fingers with Gunil's one by one, "But I was not prepared for anyone to like me so much. Or for me to…" He never finishes that sentence, and frankly, Gunil is glad for it. 

He turns his head, raises his other hand, reaches to pat Jungsu's hair, like he might've, all those visits ago. Jungsu dodges it, pulling back, but not letting go. "You can't forgive me yet," he says, expression gravely serious. 

Eyebrows rising, furrowing, Gunil cocks his head and blinks at Jungsu. "I—" 

"No, Hyung." Jungsu hastens to shift his entire body facing Gunil, the whole of it held atop his shins digging into the slats of the tracks. "I have to earn it. By more than being nice to myself." His lips perpetually pout, his brows slanting determinedly, eyes sparking against Gunil's, promising. 

It's just almost the same expression as his confession, the one still branded into Gunil's mind with fire and iron. Carved into his heart like vandalism of bark. G plus—His face is filled in now, features spilling into this mold of enticing gentleness paired with the kindest of slaughters. 

"Okay," is all Gunil manages, struck through the heart by it all. That peach thing beating bruised in his collapsed chest, lungs too big, ribs too tight. 

Jungsu's eyes flick between the both of his, forcefully dragging with all his might, Gunil back into the depths of him. "Will you?" he asks waveringly, "Forgive me?" 

Willing his heart to slow, the hornet's nest nestled in his intestines to steady, Gunil swallows. "You're going to be a better friend?" Jungsu nods emphatically, hair flying about his face, head about ready to fall from his neck. Gunil can't help but smile just a bit. "Then." 

Blinking, tugging Gunil's arm into his full grasp, holding onto it like a pillar, Jungsu questions, questions, "Then what?" Anticipation drawing his spine stiff, scared. 

"Then, I'll forgive you." 

Full body collapsing, Jungsu melts into Gunil's side. There's a box in Gunil's mind, rattling through chains and shackles, vying to be opened, the contents all but cradling Jungsu in cardigan and cashmere wool. All the memories rose tinted, when he was a reckless fool. When they were younger. When they were an approximate of lovers. 

Into the junction of Gunil's neck and shoulder, Jungsu whispers, "It's kind of embarrassing, but I hear your voice in my head, when I'm most upset." 

Gunil knows he's in some sort of severely terrible trouble, when he thinks of a ritualistic affection he hasn't performed in so very long. The act of kissing Jungsu's cheek, making him laugh, making him blush, dirtying that pretty, pure skin, with the filth of his own flesh. 

"You always tell me it's gonna be alright…" 

"Are you sure it's okay?" Seungmin asks, for maybe the millionth time that afternoon. 

The sun painting him slick with sweat, his hair pulled back from his face with one of Jooyeon's headbands, sleeves rolled up as far as they'll go, Gunil heaves a breath, dropping a heavy cardboard box between the sidewalk and blacktop, a patch of yellowing green grass. He wipes his hands against his khaki shorts, sighing, "It's fine , Seungminnie. We're on good terms now." 

He straightens out, stretching his sore arms, briefly glancing the building's way, before looking immediately away, the sight too much. "We're friends," he claims, and he practiced saying it in the mirror one too many times, so it comes out like it should how he wants it to. Casual. 

Still, Seungmin looks at him doubtful. 

Challenging him with a pleasant gaze, Gunil wonders, "Were we ever not friends?" 

Seungmin pauses. "You never talked." 

"Not never ." 

Incredulous, Seungmin stares at him like he's got a screw loose, but it's okay, he doesn't know about the train tracks, just absolutely everything in between. He probably knows almost more than Gunil, and that does give Gunil reason to pause. "I never blamed him," he clarifies. 

Raising a brow, Seungmin crosses his arms, leans against the big metal box where Gunil will soon be receiving mail. "Who else would you blame?" 

Stare focusing in on Seungmin, Gunil blinks, self-explanatory. Seungmin frowns, discontent. "Did he blame me?" Gunil asks, deprecatingly curious, finger a bit twitchy where it scratches at the perspiration of his wrist. Stricken silent, Seungmin shakes his head. 

Shrugging, Gunil turns away. "Then we're friends." Making to pick up that box again, and maybe bring it up the stairs to his brand new apartment, he stops, the feeling temporarily overwhelming. 

He presses his palms to the wrinkled duct taped cardboard, breathing out through puffed cheeks. Seungmin pushes off the mailbox, reaching for him, the words barely leaving his mouth, "Are you o—" 

There's a jarring squeak from behind them and they look over their shoulder in sync. Jungsu stands amidst the middle of the road, grinning at them with something bright orange and round in his hand. Seungmin stares on in blatant bewilderment. "Is that…" He tilts his head, scratching at his neck. 

On the other hand, Gunil straightens and crosses his arms, glaring lightly, struggling hard for it not to warp into a grin. "You did not bring a fucking dog toy for a housewarming gift." 

Tossing it up into the air, catching it, face softening in indescribable ways, subjecting Gunil to something of Jungsu's like fondness but it's always sort of different for Gunil, shaped by a struggle. "Thought you should feel at home, Puppy-hyung. Didn't want you feeling out of place." His words are all fun and farce, but his close lipped, worried smile, is earnest. 

Tired and torn, Gunil drops the glare, dredges up a genuine smile. Seungmin looks between them with curious confusion. Gunil holds his hands up. "Thanks, Su." Then, Gunil knows Seungmin accepts it. Them two being friends, somehow possibly again. 

Shoulders relaxing, as if relieved, Jungsu throws the ball Gunil's way. "Catch." 

Gunil does, dripping orange between the webs of his fingers. Jungsu’s given him his heart back. Just for the moment. 

September chill trailing him, Gunil steps out of the woods, pulling his thin shirt around himself tight, hugging his arms to his chest. He stops, tilting his head, silent in his surprise. Unexpectedly, there lays Jungsu before him, held by the tracks, the moon shining down on him, he's almost like a spirit. 

Whereas the tracks make Gunil smaller, cradle him into the dirt where part of him remains stuck, Jungsu juts out awkwardly over the slatted scattering of stone and pebble. Shifting with discomfort in his letterman jacket pulled around a hoodie, scoffing irritatedly. 

"That's only really comfortable if you're slightly suicidal," Gunil calls out, Jungsu jerking his head Gunil's way, hissing when the rusty metal pinches his neck. Gunil squats down behind him, pushing his back up, before sitting there, crossing his legs, resting Jungsu's head in his lap. "There." 

Slipping free a sigh, eyes fluttering shut, Jungsu relaxes against his shins, muttering, "Then it shouldn't be comfortable for you either, Hyung." 

He's warm, Gunil can feel it, but he shivers when Gunil brushes his bangs out of his face, tracing his thumbs over Jungsu's furrowing brows. "You're right," he murmurs back, the tracks digging into his thighs, a familiar welcoming pain. 

Jungsu hums, like that's all Gunil should ever reply with, more a broken record than he already is. "Home for Chuseok then?" he asks, a conversation flowing between them easier than ever. Less prying teeth, more slipping water between clasped fingers. 

"A guest," Gunil replies, losing himself in the domestic routine of running his fingers through Jungsu's hair, messing it up, starting the process again. 

Grimacing slightly at that, Jungsu peels his eyes open, stares up at Gunil solemnly. "I don't know why I ever said that," he supplies, "I think I was angry at you. That you'd left." 

Gunil raises a brow, tapping Jungsu's nose, shutting him up sufficiently. "You're an awful hypocrite, Jungie." He pinches Jungsu's cheeks until the younger whines, swatting at Gunil's wrists in silent surrender. "You'd get angry so easy. You'd squeeze me when upset, your little puppy." 

At this point, it's less a sore point, more a sly quip only shared between them, Gunil's rash words from that year. They adopt it too easily, probably, but there's a lot in their casket they don't need to unpack. 

So Jungsu shakes his head just slight, mussing his hair against Gunil's denim jeans. "I thought you would've stopped coming back by now," he says, off topic but not entirely. 

Chewing on his cheek, Gunil rests loose fists over Jungsu's shoulders. Jungsu reaches up, grabs one and unfurls it, slotting their fingers together so he can play with it. "So did I." He still doesn't know why he does, but he thinks he's getting there. 

The revelation may unmoor him though, ruin the simple petulant peace he's ripped from this place. Maybe he's just trying to find himself in the tracks, like he'd left himself behind. Perhaps it's his heart. Like when he tore it from his chest, gave it to Jungsu, and Jungsu gave it back, he let it fall to the floor, be swallowed up by the fall leaves, never to be seen in full ever again. 

"Why do you keep coming back?" he asks, voice muffled with repression masked by curiosity. 

There's a lapse of silence, filled by the rustling of the leaves in the cool breeze. The trees holding their breath, standing by in anticipation, watching their favorite show, whatever it is Gunil and Jungsu are called. Unable to look away from the tracks. 

A trainwreck. 

"You." 

Gunil's other hand falls completely open, a muscle jumping in his index finger, curling into Jungsu's chest pocket in shock. His lips part, and Jungsu stares at them, eyes narrowed in his earnesty. When Gunil's tongue darts out, lapping at the dryness of the chapped skin, Jungsu's pupils follow, big like the moon overhead. 

"I kept coming back," he continues, losing any sheepishness possibly reserving him before, "Almost every night I could. So it'd seem like a coincidence, every time I'd find you." 

Rendered breathless, the wind reaching straight into his lungs stealing his speech, Gunil swallows his spit, the little left of it in his dry, dry mouth. Goosebumps rise over his skin, valleys and mountains beneath peach fuzz, and he doesn't think he can entirely blame it on the cold night air. "Wow," he sounds. 

The corner of his mouth lifting a smidge, Jungsu gazes unabashedly up at Gunil, not looking away for even a second, taking it all in, not daring to miss anything more than he's already crassly discarded. "Yeah," he huffs, "You can call me desperate too, if you want. Among all the other adjectives you like to give me." He rubs the pad of his finger over Gunil's wrist, noticing this time when Gunil shudders. "Stupid Hyung." 

Sitting up halfway, just enough to take off his outermost layer, he twists around, draping his warmth and comfort, his favorite jacket he never parts with, over Gunil's shoulders. Gunil bites into his bottom lip, buffers a terribly toothy grin. "Thanks," he utters softly, helping Jungsu settle back into the cusp of his lap. 

"I guess we were both looking for me then," he whispers, listless. 

Perhaps, though, his heart was never returned to anyone, or stuck in the ground, inextricable from where it'd latched itself from the beginning. 

Perhaps, he finds himself only in someone's particular presence. 

Inexplicably, Jungsu giggles, covering his mouth with one hand, curling his knees into his belly to laugh boldly. Gunil only stares down at him, fondly befuddled. "What a good dog," Jungsu wheezes, "Truly a boy's best friend." 

Breathing out through his nose with the barest bones of exasperation, Gunil rolls his eyes, wraps his arms around Jungsu's neck, leaning forward awkwardly until both their hands rest at Jungsu's midriff, his chin atop Jungsu's bared forehead. "Are you really still a boy, Jungsu-ah?" 

"Whenever I'm with you," Jungsu answers, not a hint of hesitance, smiling sweetly up at the stars, the ones in the sky, the ones in Gunil's eyes. 

Steady, solid, Jungsu wraps his hands around Gunil's wrists, holding them in place. "You have every right to hate me." As if Gunil ever has had the spine to do anything more than whine at Jungsu's feet, never nearing the mere thought of hate . "But can I hate you a little bit too?" Jungsu requests, kindly. 

Frowning puzzled, Gunil lifts his head back up, going cross-eyed furrowing his brows at Jungsu placed beneath his chin. "What for?" 

Jungsu pouts. "For what you did to me. You gave yourself to me. I hardly had space in my head for liking myself, and there you went, burying yourself in between my lungs. You're like a flea." None of his words carry any venom, only a syrupy saccharine complaint. That of which sticks acidity sweet. 

"A parasite dug under my skin." His voice softening steadily further with each wrangled word. So fuzzy soft, dandelion seeds, they might fall apart, blow away, if Gunil dares breathe. "I couldn't forget you. I couldn't live without you." 

His hold around Gunil's wrists are vice-like, afraid to let go, afraid his stupid words will once again scare Gunil running, like they never fail to do. Soothing, assuring, Gunil fists the fabric of Jungsu's sweater between roughened palms, skinned incessantly from all the times he's managed to fall. All for one single person. 

"Keep hating me like that," Gunil hums, throat sore with the sap, "And people will start to think you like me, Kim Jungsu." 

"I never liked you," Jungsu rasps, the words meaning something entirely different than what they once might've. 

Gunil smiles, hovering his face parallel to Jungsu's, feeling Jungsu's quickened breaths in the rise and fall of his stomach where his hands are stuck. "Say my name, Jungie," he says, "My name and nothing else." 

Eagerly, eyes a little wide, Jungsu complies. "Gunil." 

"A pet name," he muses, brushing their noses, indulgently, rightfully cruel. 

"Gunillie…Honey. Honey." 

Gunil closes the distance, his smile pressed to the skin beside Jungsu's eye. For his good behavior, Gunil grants a gift. A crescent kiss to the skin of his cheek, without the filth of before. 

Jungsu blushes, the world turns pink. 

Jungsu kisses Gunil on his knees, between knees. 

On the fuzzy floor of Gunil's apartment, atop a raggedy rug from his childhood. During a lull of silence, their friends gathered in the kitchen, raiding his cabinets for any other liquid form of lightheaded laughter. 

Neck bent over his stiff sofa cushion, sober only just a shade more than Jungsu himself, Gunil is on the ground too, it's where he's most comfortable. Don't give dogs blankets, some will say, they always prefer the cold hard concrete. 

Jungsu presses him there, using one of Gunil's thighs as a seat, the other a legrest. His arm draped over one of Gunil's shoulders in lieu of a sweater, their skin simmering enough to excuse any shivers, but shiver they still do. He buries his thumb in Gunil's pulse, searches for the battered beat of Gunil's stolen heart. 

He slots his lips between Gunil's, scrapes his teeth over Gunil's pink, fragile skin, smiles at the silent smack their parting makes, tries it again. Angling his head, suckling on Gunil's cupid's bow, only satisfied when Gunil requites, slides his palms over the small of Jungsu's back, fingers dancing over Jungsu's drunk sweat spine. 

Not even when Gunil was Jungsu's, did Jungsu ever quite kiss him like this before. Needy, yearning, trying to slip Gunil into his soul via spit and sighs. He kisses Gunil’s lips swollen, bruised. The skin gone from pink to red to blue. 

Sighing into Gunil's mouth, Jungsu slurs, "Would you use me if I wanted?" 

Sobering up in an instant, bringing up his hands to gently, kindly push Jungsu away, Gunil shakes his head. "God, no," he breathes, trying to smooth out Jungsu's growing frown with his fingers. 

"Please," Jungsu begs, lips pursed in that poignant perpetual pout of his, prominent only more when buzzed. "I want you to forgive me." To which Gunil only blinks shocked, forgetting not everyone knows he's long forgiven everything. 

Exhaling, pecking Jungsu's lips once, just chastely, before he loses the chance forever, Gunil pulls Jungsu into him, resting his cheek on Jungsu's head, soft hair smelling faintly of alcohol and apples tickling his jaw. "I already did that once, so let's stop doing that entirely." 

Blinking blearily, Jungsu regards him through glistening lashes genuinely. "…when?" 

"I dated you, didn't I?" queries Gunil quietly, smoothing Jungsu's hair down and away from his nose, needing somewhat to breathe. "I was letting you bear with my feelings, letting myself love you, knowing you couldn't handle it all."

Jungsu hums, considering it seriously, even in his state. "You were unfair maybe," he says, sounding unsure of it still, but not willing to fight for any stake. Finding solace he won't sacrifice in Gunil's arms. "At least you weren't mean." His face drops a shade, and he runs his thumb back and forth over Gunil's neck, a frantic wordless apology. 

Again, Jungsu forgiven, Gunil places his hand over the touch, stilling its futility. "Does it matter anymore?" he wonders, trying at dismissal, not quite certain why the words get caught in his throat, like a younger him is reaching up from his bones, wrapping vengeful hands around his esophagus. 

Lifting his head, disentangling himself from Gunil just enough to look him head on, Jungsu glares. "As long as we matter, it'll matter," he insists, firm. 

He'll insist, persist, but will forget the intricacies of that conversation. He can't, won't forget though, the skeleton of it, of Gunil, pinned beneath the weight of him. Will forever remember wanting to be kissed by Gunil, and the admission that once, Gunil had loved him. 

The next morning, a throbbing ache in his head, a delicious ache between his lungs, he finds the stupid dog toy he'd given Gunil, beneath Gunil's couch. On his way out of the apartment, everything between them unsaid, he throws the ball as far as it will go, watching the vivid orange fade into the street. 

Down the steps of his parent's house, Gunil descends. Hands stuffed in his pockets, the wind ruffling his hair, he almost intentionally forgets to wear anything beside his short-sleeved sleep shirt. Forgetfulness or preparedness, none of it steels him for the sight of Jungsu standing there, feet braced, rooted into the slate grey sidewalk. 

Their gazes clash, Gunil's lips parting, a huff of laughter falling from Jungsu's own. "I didn't think I'd be right," he awes, "I didn't really think I'd catch you here. You're going back, aren't you?" He holds out his hand, fingers splayed patiently. 

Taking it easily, lacing their pulses together, Gunil is pulled out into the road. "Yeah," he answers, amazed a bit too, "I was." 

Jungsu positions Gunil before him, slipping off his jacket, fitting Gunil's arms through the sleeves of it. "I knew it," he celebrates beneath his breath, "We really must be soulmates, Hyungie." He folds the cuffs at Gunil's wrists so they don't fall to Gunil's knuckles, in any way possibly preventing them holding hands. 

"Soulmates," Gunil snorts, "Or maybe you know me. Or maybe you're just that smart." He leans up, kisses Jungsu's cheek, a thanks. Jungsu smiles, positively pleased and glowing pink with it. 

They walk to the tracks, impossibly for the first time together. Twined fingers swinging between the two of them. Their shadows twist and lengthen as the moon lowers, the sun heightens. Dawn paints them peach, ripe for the picking, sweet to the tips of tongue and teeth. 

Gunil stands inside the tracks, the soles of his heel pressed against the rail, to make him just ever so slightly taller, to better face Jungsu, standing outside them. Their fingers hang midair, a chained link they're willingly bound by. 

Jungsu looks him in the eye, unwavering and unchallenged. "Will you forgive me, before I say this?" he asks, considerate and kind. 

Gunil scoffs. "I forgave that boy you were a long, long time ago, Jungsu." He tugs on Jungsu's finger, not even hard enough to pull at a thread, and still Jungsu stumbles closer, trips to sate Gunil's will. "And you're not even him anymore." 

Jungsu grins, the sun blinding through crescent eyes, his one slightly crooked tooth catching along the needing curve of his lip. "I still don't like you," he tells, and Gunil knows to not even try and falter. 

He cocks his head, smiles close lipped Jungsu's way, relishing in Jungsu's trembling exhale, in the way he too can now make Jungsu's lungs stutter. "Well, at least now you're a good friend," he gives, and Jungsu's eyes light up, the sunshine overtaking his face, he's a blossoming flower before Gunil's eyes, and it's hardly nearing spring.

It’s on these very tracks, he gave Jungsu his heart. 

It’s on these very tracks, Jungsu broke that same rotten thing. 

It’s on these very tracks, Jungsu refused to ever give it back. 

It’s on these very tracks, Jungsu pulls Gunil down from the rails, his arms sliding against Gunil's, holding him tight by the elbows, pressing his thumbs into the crook of them, feeling Gunil's pulse through twin sunflower-seed-like moles. Feeling what's been his, race under his touch. 

On these tracks, Jungsu confesses, "I love you, Gunil. I've loved you for a long while." 

Gunil sags into him, the words a relief, setting him free after centuries. He opens his mouth, his own words that have sat beneath his tongue long enough to almost rot ready to sprout free, but Jungsu isn't done. 

"I love you, and I need you, and I can't live without you, you make me like me. No one could teach me best how to do that," he muses, "But someone who loves me back." 

Unable to summon any sort of glare, lips pulled too wide around smiling confession, Gunil narrows his eyes at Jungsu. "Don't steal the chance from me," he scolds, "Let me say I love you too myself." 

Jungsu giggles, hands sliding appreciatively up Gunil's biceps, replacing any need for a sweater, coming up to cup Gunil's cheeks, his turn to make them a pretty petal pink. "Sorry, honey," he murmurs. 

Blossoms burst between his lungs, right where his heart is meant to be, curling around his ribs tickling every part of his insides, but his heart is elsewhere, with someone else. You need a heart to live though, so it's good he's got a new one now. One a little too big for his chest, taller and softer and sharper too, but it fits perfectly there nonetheless. 

"I love you too, Jungsu-ah." Lips wobbling, Jungsu, for the first time in his life not natural to him, forces a pout. Gunil sighs, rising on his toes to lay his lips over Jungsu's cheek. "I love you, honey." 

Brimming with joy, Jungsu smiles shyly down at shriveled leaves, careful not to crush them. He squeezes Gunil’s fingers smitten with his own. "I'll make you happy," Jungsu promises. 

And nothing is temporary any longer.