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Matthew’s luggage for Canada include a rolling carry-on bag, stuffed with clothes, that’s been packed into a larger luggage that’s otherwise empty. Gunwook tries not to laugh watching Matthew studiously clip it in place. He asks, as politely as he can, “What’s the point of that?”
“It’s only four days, so I’m not taking much there,” Matthew explains diligently. “But I’m gonna bring a lot back, and I don’t want to take another suitcase from home and have to deal with it here…”
Gunwook hums—he’s never flown for fourteen hours for any reason at all, much less to move away from home, so he doesn’t really have much room to talk. But still, it’s in his nature to argue, debate kid and all. “It still feels like a lot of wasted space.”
Matthew looks up at him, jaw set stubbornly but eyes still bright with humour. He says, “For what, you?”
It’s a good thing that they are so different, that Matthew cannot hold his tongue while Gunwook has mastered the art of holding his breath. Were they the same, Gunwook might’ve let his answer slip; yes, he would’ve said, emphatic and pleading. Who else but me? Is there anyone else but me?
As it stands, he lets enough go. His tongue might not slip, but his smile does, all the way off his face.
Matthew doesn’t notice. He’s looking back down at the suitcase, securing it further even though it doesn’t need anything else.
//
Flying from Seoul to Vancouver means achieving a temporal equilibrium, of sorts. Matthew leaves at the crack of dawn on Sunday from Incheon International Airport and lands at the crack of dawn on Sunday in Vancouver International Airport. The earth spins in the opposite direction that he’s moving, so he’s not losing any time at all.
It’s a process more economical than Matthew’s tickets himself—he’s flying business class, a luxury that he didn’t have when he took that fourteen hour flight for the first time.
I feel refreshed, he tells them upon his landing, a message that follows a few photos of faces carved into wooden poles and graceful water features with naturalistic design. Yujin was curious about what the Vancouver airport looks like. Matthew seems more than happy to share.
His excitement is tangible, even across two oceans and fourteen hours and a screen. Maybe I’m just excited to be home?
Gyuvin snorts and then sends from right next to Gunwook, or you just slept on the flight.
ㅋㅎㅋㅎㅋㅎㅋㅎㅋㅎ i guess. That makes Gyuvin laugh out loud, tipping to rest his head on Gunwook’s shoulder. They’re both watching Matthew’s messages come in on their own separate screens. but also, i landed at the same time i left, so it doesn’t feel like i missed anything at all.
Gunwook turns off his phone. “He’ll be going through customs,” he explains at Gyuvin’s curious look. “I’ll text him later.”
Gyuvin just shrugs and looks back down at his own screen. Gunwook looks straight ahead, and not over Gyuvin’s shoulder, and counts backward from one hundred until his heartrate feels slower.
//
Matthew flew fourteen hours to Vancouver, but he’s currently sixteen hours behind. By the time that Matthew wakes up, most of them have gone to bed, even the later sleepers like Yujin and Taerae. Matthew’s not just on a different continent but on the farthest coast, which makes it weirder, because then there’s a lot of overlap in their waking periods, but in inconvenient ways.
They’re working when he’s winding down. He’s busy when they’ve got moments to spare. Logic dictates that Matthew should still be beholden to their time, and he kind of is. He complains about bleariness, about jet lag, about how he’s going to be flying back to Seoul right when he starts to acclimate.
But he adapts very suddenly, for no reason at all. Even though his sleep schedule is kind of fucked in the favour of Seoul’s clock, and even though he’s only there for a handful of days, Matthew still manages to get back on Vancouver time with relative ease. He jokes that it’s his talent, that he’s made to sleep as soon as the sun goes down, and this is just his natural state of being.
Ricky says that he was like that too, during his short trip home to Los Angeles. That maybe, their native time zones are a circadian rhythm of their own—homesickness is the chirp of the cuckoo bird, as persistent and reliable as the short hand switching from one hour to the next.
it’s like our body knows where we’re meant to be, Ricky says. Gunwook can’t quite parse the tone. If Ricky meant it to be read with plaintive wistfulness or lax playfulness. He tries it both ways. Neither one feels particularly good.
//
Matthew isn’t much of a texter, but he mostly disappears from their group chat entirely. And from their social media. And from his own paid chat. He’s busy, trying to pack as much as he can into the little time that he has. He goes camping with his dad, shopping, and he attends his sister’s dance class.
These aren’t things that he shares with them. Gunwook knows this because of Matthew’s private instagram, the one he used to keep in touch with his friends, to keep them updated on his life. His previous posts are all blurry mirror selfies and scenery, novelties of Korea and the idol profession. The captions never translate well, full of slang and inside jokes, lacking entirely in grammar, the same way that Gunwook talks to his hometown friends but in Korean.
All the members with private instagrams follow each other. It’s for accountability’s sake, Hanbin explained. Gunwook never minded the arrangement. He’s a bit nosy. His favourite thing to do was to go through the comments, and then the profiles of everyone who bothered to leave a message.
Matthew was always more than willing to explain every single one of those friends. Matthew would always say, “I’d love to introduce you to them, someday. They’d love you.”
Gunwook sees their names in Matthew’s comments now. Instagram’s translation feature gives him a decent enough gist. They’re offering to meet up, yelling at him for not giving enough of a warning, teasing him by asking if he’s giving up the idol life.
They’re young, funny, and attractive. They’re people that Matthew loves; he tells them as much, as free with it in English as he is in Korean, I love you, I missed you, I can’t wait to see you–
Gunwook hates them. Gunwook wishes that they would disappear, that they would leave Matthew alone, that he’d never had to see them again.
There are still three more days before Matthew gets on the plane to come back home.
//
The trip was something that Matthew decided on his own. He asked for permission, yes, but he asked with an unusual amount of steel. Matthew has always been their troublemaker, their rule breaker, but he doesn’t go out of his way to be defiant for the hell of it.
Yet, when he asked to go home, he was unflinching. Intentional. He asked in front of everyone, words carefully chosen and clearly rehearsed, face cool and gaze even. “I know that Ricky’s trip home was only because of the circumstances,” he reasoned, very steadily, Hanbin’s hand on his lower back.
Something twisted in Gunwook’s gut at that—he could’ve helped Matthew find the right words. He would have stood by Matthew’s side. He was in debate, he went to nationals. Arguing is what he’s best at. He’s good at sticking up for people who need it. Hanbin didn’t even help that much in the end. All he offered was silent support; how useless.
It was Matthew’s voice alone that said, “I miss my home a lot. I’d really like to see my family again.”
Even though it worked, Gunwook thinks that it wasn’t strong enough. That Matthew got lucky. If he was in charge of Matthew for this, he wouldn’t have made Matthew say anything. He would’ve advocated for Matthew himself, he would’ve said, because hyung deserve to see his family, because you owe hyung the world, because I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t.
Then again, Gunwook would’ve argued for something different. He’s of the opinion that a trip is foolish, and a waste of time. Why should Matthew fly home for just a few days when instead, the company could’ve flown Matthew’s family out to visit? That would’ve made more sense.
There was no need for Matthew to go so far away. No visa to renew, no documents to collect, nothing. Just sentimentality. Everything else he needed was right there, in Seoul, in their dorm.
But Matthew asked Hanbin for help. And so, what Matthew got was permission to go to Canada.
//
The biggest star of Matthew’s instagram is his dog. Teddy. His story, his post, his comment, and his caption—all of them mention Teddy. He’s sad that Teddy’s old now, too old for Matthew to take for a nice long walk. He’s ecstatic that Teddy remembered him, even after two years apart.
Apparently, Teddy jumped right into Matthew’s arms as soon as he walked through the door, without even a moment of hesitation.
Gunwook’s never had a pet, so maybe he just can’t get it. But honestly, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Teddy grew up with Matthew. He should remember.
If he didn’t then he doesn’t deserve to see Matthew at all.
//
The bulk of Matthew’s messages come in the dead of night, while they’re sleeping, on his third day there. It’s a bunch of questions about what types of souvenirs, treats, and gifts they’d like, before he suddenly remembers that they’re sleeping, and he signs off with a joking apology.
Twenty missed messages, and then nothing but radio silence after.
“I hope he doesn’t bring back too much,” Hanbin frowns, lower lip caught between his teeth. He’s messaging Matthew privately; THE DORMS ARE ALREADY MESSY ENOUGH!! WE DON’T NEED MUCH, JUST THE FOOD WOULD BE GOOD!!! “Like, he’ll probably bring back maple syrup, which we don’t even need but it’s not like I can tell him no–”
Hao nudges the phone out of Hanbin’s hands. “How else is he supposed to keep it with him?” He asks, a question so sudden and vague that it spins around Gunwook’s head, a flash flood of confusion. Hao is well-spoken in every language, even Korean, especially Korean, and such a clumsy sentence doesn’t suit him.
Gunwook looks to Hanbin, expecting to find his own confusion reflected there. Hanbin’s eyes are, instead, soft. He looks back to Hao. Hao says, “If you taste it on someone else’s breath, then it’s not just a fever dream. It’s not just you.”
It makes no sense. Maybe it’s a continuation of a conversation that they started in private. Maybe it’s a mark of maturity, an invisible line that Gunwook hasn’t crossed yet despite being legal. Maybe it’s because Hao ranked first, and Hanbin ranked second, and Matthew ranked third.
It can’t be because of Canada, though, because neither Hao or Hanbin are there. They’re stuck here, with Gunwook, with Matthew all the way over there. A fourteen hour flight, a sixteen hour time difference, multiple continents and oceans between them.
But Hanbin’s head tilts in consideration. “A home away from home?” He asks, teasing, which doesn’t even make any sense. You only have one home, and it’s where you keep everything that matters. “Is that why you’re trying to get me to eat your durian? To smell it on my breath?”
Hao laughs. “Exactly!”
Gunwook wants to rip his hair out.
//
To keep a bird from flying away, you can clip its wings. But if you do, the bird grows despondent and dull. It grows to resent you.
Even worse, it might try to fly regardless. And, with its impaired wings, all it can do is fall. All it can do is die.
//
There was a period in February where Matthew got very quiet, and very still. Afterwards, he jokingly called it his lonely mode, but it didn’t feel very funny at the time. He spent a lot of time with Yujin, then, because they were still roommates at the time. It wasn’t because Matthew was seeking Yujin out. He just didn’t feel like leaving his room, and Yujin didn’t really want to leave Matthew alone.
He lost muscle because he didn’t have the energy to work out. He lost sleep because he wasn’t ever tired enough to drift off at the end of the day. His screen time went up because he was always on his phone. His Korean got worse because he kept calling home and speaking in English.
Gunwook tried so many different things. He’d ask Matthew to spot him at the gym; he offered different filming ideas and asked if they could livestream together; he found different restaurants for them to try; he even asked Matthew to make him pancakes, even though he really didn’t want them.
Matthew seemed to appreciate the efforts, even if he never took Gunwook up on any of it. “Just stay with me,” he’d ask, and Gunwook would bite the inside of his cheek because that was the one thing he felt like he shouldn’t do.
He wanted to. He wanted to stay, wanted to hold Matthew through the night, he wanted to bury Matthew into his chest like a dog buries bones into the soil, hidden in the corners of the backyard where only he can find it, mine, mine, mine.
Matthew wasn’t made for the dirt, the ground, the soil. He was made to soar through the sky like a comet, a streak of light amidst the stars.
But Matthew would hold Gunwook’s wrist, and ask, “Can you stay with me for a bit, Gunwook-ah? Just for the night?”
And it wasn’t hard for Gunwook to say yes. Because he wanted to. And so he did—it’s always easier with permission.
//
“What do you miss the most about home?” Gunwook asked Matthew back on Boys Planet. Back before anything really mattered. Back before he knew the answer would come back to haunt him.
Matthew, back then, had been stick-thin and haggard with exhaustion. His face was in a perpetual state of sallowness, like he never had enough to eat and he never got enough sleep. Which was true. None of them looked particularly great at the time.
But then Gunwook asked, and Matthew’s face lit up, just a little bit. It was the smallest and most quiet kind of glow. The same way the surface of your skin glows when you cup your hands around a candle.
Back then, Matthew had said, “Back home, it felt like everything just made sense. Like I just… fit in.”
It had hurt to hear back then, but for the right reasons. Gunwook had frowned, hurt, and it was because he felt bad for Matthew. He was hurt on Matthew’s behalf. The thought in his mind, back then, was a simple one; I hope Matthew can visit his home soon.
He was underfed and anxious and exhausted all the time on Boys Planet.
He was a better person back then too, though.
//
At three am on the fourth day without Matthew, the third day that Matthew’s been home, Gunwook almost makes a phone call. A video call, really, through Line, because he doesn’t understand international rates and is too scared to try. Then he does the math; three am in Korea is eleven am in Vancouver, Matthew might be doing something then. He doesn’t want to interrupt Matthew’s family time. He doesn’t want to encroach. The idea makes him sick.
He’s scared of a lot of things, nowadays. Being an adult shouldn’t be this scary, but adulthood is different for Gunwook than most people. Two more birthdays, and then everything is over.
Gunwook stays awake a little longer and calls around ten in the morning instead. His eyes hurt, and his mouth is dry.
The call rings thrice. Then, the entire screen freezes. And then–
“Gunwook?”
Not Gunwook-ah, or Gunwook-ie. Gunwook swallows his sinking heart down to his stomach. “Hyung?”
Pixels clump and clear to form a grainy image. The audio quality crackles between clarity and background noise, too poor for Gunwook to piece it all together. Something rushing, something buffeting. The image comes together in parts—brown hair, soft skin, black rimmed glasses.
Matthew’s face is swollen—Gunwook’s so used to his diet-sharpened jaw that it catches him off-guard. “Hyung, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Matthew laughs, an incredulous quality to his voice. “What time is it there, Gunwook-ah?”
“It’s ten.” He tries not to panic. Did you forget already, you always remembered what time it was when your mother called from your childhood home, is it easy to forget about Seoul when you’re there, will it be harder for you to switch back to our time when you come back?
There’s clamouring off-screen. Matthew turns his head and Gunwook sees an airpod—that must be why he can’t get any background noise, why it feels like he’s in a wind tunnel in the palm of Matthew’s hand. It’s disorienting. He can’t make sense of his surroundings.
Gunwook’s not fluent in English, but he gets the gist of what Matthew says. The first thing that Matthew says is, my bandmate is calling from Korea. Then he says Gunwook’s name—hey, that’s something that Gunwook can recognize.
Then there’s a face poking into frame. Gunwook can’t make out more details than dirty blond hair and green eyes and freckles, but this person is close enough to Matthew’s face for Gunwook to see red, and also loud enough for the earbuds to pick their words up; “Is he the one I always see clips of you kissing, or is that the other one?”
Matthew explodes into laughter, openly shoving his friend away. “Cut it out, man!” He splutters, disappearing out of frame to pursue an argument that Gunwook can only follow half of. “Gunwook is– yeah, he's tall– no, I told you, that’s not– don’t say that I get around, that sounds awful–!”
He’s careless with the phone. It bounces and shakes all over the place. Gunwook stares, nauseous, but unable to look away. Besides, you shouldn’t close your eyes against motion sickness. You have to stare at a point, far away, far enough that it seems like nothing is moving at all.
Matthew’s camerawork shows no such thing.
“Am I–” Gunwook croaks, and then coughs. The camera goes suddenly still as the sound startles Matthew to stillness. “Am I interrupting? Are you busy?”
“No, no, not at all!” There’s more movement, Matthew standing and straightening, Matthew walking away. He’s holding the camera high, high enough for Gunwook to get a look at the ground. There’s a white-lidded cooler, a pit with a small fire, towels and lounge chairs and sand. The chair that Matthew walks away from has a green bottle in the cup holder.
Gunwook blinks. “Are you drinking soju?” Matthew always refuses soju whenever he’s offered. He didn’t even drink on Gunwook’s birthday. Something hot licks in the pit of his chest.
Matthew whines, “It’s all that Ryan brought!” The camera swings back down to his face. It’s still grainy. He’s got bad reception—Gunwook is suddenly terrified that his reception is too good. That Matthew can see every single pore and pinch of Gunwook’s features. “We’re at the beach– the lake, I mean. It’s not an ocean beach, but we brought some coolers, we’re having a fire out here, my friend has a cabin, we’d come here every summer– here, look–”
Tap tap. The camera spins around. Gunwook looks at blocky, low-resolution waves. White foam on gray waters; the sky is kind of gray but kind of orange, the sun setting behind several walls of clouds; the shore more rock than sand.
“Pretty, right?” Matthew asks, expectant.
The reminder comes sharply, as sudden as a broken bone, a snap of white hot clarity. Three years before and a fourteen hour flight away, Matthew Woohyun Seok was born here. He grew up here. Gunwook’s face on Matthew’s phone is a more foreign sight than the unknown waters stretching out in front of them.
Gunwook stares out at the rolling tide and wonders how many times it lapped against Matthew’s ankles before Gunwook ever even knew Matthew’s name.
I hate it, he thinks, shaking with rage. I wish it dried up, and I wish the riverbanks burned. I wish that it all was rubble, so the plane couldn’t land, and it would’ve come right back instead.
“I’d love to see it in person, someday,” Gunwook tries. It’s the right answer. When the camera turns back, Matthew is smiling from ear to ear.
//
If Matthew hadn’t made the top nine, then he would’ve given up his dreams and gone back to Canada.
That’s as far as Gunwook ever lets himself think.
//
Flying forwards through time means you lose a day. It’s a fourteen hours fast-forward through part of their break;Matthew lands with only a few days to get over his jet lag and too many gifts in his bag for him to even begin distributing.
It’s a lot of cheesy tourist stuff, emblazoned with the maple leaf and drenched in red and white. Most of the edible items smell incredibly sweet, as if they’ve been drenched in maple syrup. There’s a decent chance that they have, at least by the concern on Matthew’s face as he inspects the bottle of maple syrup that he brought home.
“Hyung,” Gunwook says—not a greeting, because he already gave one the moment Matthew walked through the door. It was off-kilter and strangled, because he hadn’t expected Matthew to return as handsome as he did. Nothing changed physically. But freedom loosens every cell in Matthew’s body. It’s a good look on him.
Matthew looks up at him. It feels wrong. Gunwook has always been taller, but he should be the one looking up. He should be jumping up and into Matthew’s arms, he should be saying look, I remember, I did good, right, I remembered, I missed you so much, welcome home!
But that’s the problem. It isn’t, and it never will be.
Gunwook swallows a mouthful of sand. It cuts his throat as it goes down, rocks hidden in the softness of the grain. “Was it healing?” Gunwook asks instead.
Matthew’s entire face opens up, but also saddens, all at once. A sunflower’s petals opening for a sun that’s been tucked away behind the clouds. “It was,” Matthew says, a sound that’s more of a breath than anything else, a wistful sigh. “I’m really, really glad that I went.”
There’s no right answer to that. Gunwook won’t say, I’m glad that you left. But he can’t say, never leave us again.
“That’s good,” he says instead, shoving his hands into his pockets. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat. “B-But… I’m glad that you’re back. That you came back so soon.”
Matthew pauses, and then his smile goes tense in the corners. “Thank you, Gunwook-ah,” he says kindly, and then he turns back to his suitcase with stiff shoulders.
He was right to bring the carry-on and a checked-in box. Both have been stuffed to the brim.
Gunwook keeps watching him. With every passing moment, the silence grows more pointed, and Matthew’s shoulders hunch higher and higher.
For the briefest, most terrible moment, he considers taking Matthew’s suitcase and breaking it in half, so it can never take him anywhere again.
Then, Gunwook walks away.
//
The best way to stop a bird from flying away is through prevention. Shut your doors and close your windows. Keep it caged and away from any possible form of escape.
The most important step, though, is also the most simple. At least in theory. In practice, it’s arduous and frustrating. It requires patience, skill, understanding—but Gunwook is lucky to have that in spades.
You just have to teach that it can’t fly too far away. That it always has to come home.
//
Later, Gunwook finds Matthew sitting at the table. He’s staring into space, brow pinched, but startles when Gunwook offers him a bottle of water. Gratefully, he accepts, and drinks.
It’s awkward and silent. Stilted. Gunwook waits for Matthew to finish a third of it before he speaks. “Hyung.” It’s a croaky, nervous sound. Gunwook can feel his heartbeat in his throat. “Did you miss me?”
Matthew blinks and then grins. “Of course!” It’s light, teasing, and playful. The way that they always are. “I missed you more than anything in the world.”
Liar, Gunwook thinks, fond. But it’s okay. It’s not Matthew’s fault. It’s just his nature. Gunwook’s the one who’s responsible for changing it.
He says, “I missed you a lot.” Somewhat sad, and ashamed, and hurt. He hunches in and makes himself small. “I– I’m sorry, I just– was lonely without you.”
Matthew’s ears get red and he bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says, strained. He takes another nervous sip. He reaches up to hold Gunwook’s face, his eyes all big and wide and distraught. “I’m sorry, aegi-yah, I didn’t mean to leave you all alone.”
Gunwook gently grabs Matthew’s wrists. His hands are so big, but not big enough. Ideally, he’d be able to hold Matthew in his palms, cage him in with his fingers, and never let him go. “C-Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” He asks, plaintive and small. “Please?”
“Of course.” It’s an immediate agreement, hurried and concerned. “I– hyung is sorry for being unfair earlier, when I was unpacking– I misunderstood what you said– hyung wasn’t being fair–”
Matthew goes quiet when Gunwook tilts into his palm. “It’s okay,” Gunwook lies, because it isn’t. “I understand.” Another lie, because he doesn’t, and he never will.
But it’s the complete and utter truth when he says, “I was just so happy that you came home.”
Matthew makes a noise at the word, conflicted and caught in his throat. But then Gunwook looks at him through his lashes, lips pushed out and down-turned, and Matthew forces a smile. “I’m happy to be back,” he says, and that’s the key—there’s a truth in it. Matthew isn’t happy to have left so quickly. But he’s happy to be here, to be with the members again.
Eventually, it’ll be the only truth worth keeping.
But, for now, Gunwook stands and brings Matthew with him. He grabs the bottle of water and says, “Let’s go to bed, hyung. You must still be tired.”
“I’m still on Vancouver time…” Matthew says, apologetically. “It’ll be a while before I can fall asleep, I don’t wanna keep you up…”
Gunwook just smiles. “I just need you,” he says. It’s easiest when you’re telling the truth.
And Matthew swallows, and nods, and follows him.
//
That night, in his dream, Gunwook tells Matthew to stay. And even though it’s a dream, Matthew smiles sadly, and says that he can’t.
But, because it’s a dream, Gunwook is able to make him. By whatever means necessary.
Because it’s a dream, it’s silent when Matthew screams—Gunwook doesn’t know what agony sounds like in his voice.
He hopes he never has to find out.
When Gunwook wakes up, he doesn’t feel sick. He’s smiling.
Then, he looks down and sees Matthew still asleep, nuzzled against his chest. Drooling, a little, and snoring a lot. Gunwook smiles even wider—he didn’t expect Matthew to drink the whole bottle of water. He’ll be asleep for much longer than expected.
It’ll give him more time to work out what to say, even if he’s already got the general idea; wow, hyung, you sleep really well with me, even though you were jetlagged. I slept well too, much better than I did while you were gone. Huh? Yeah, I didn’t sleep well. I was up all night, I felt really restless, if you’re okay with it, can we sleep together again?
Matthew snuffles, shifting closer. Gunwook’s cheeks hurt with how much he’s smiling. It’s all so simple, because all of it is just true.
Then he thinks about his dream. About the less simple way—well, simpler in approach, less simple in reasoning. He doesn’t want to keep Matthew clipped, chained, or captive, or whatever. Matthew was made to fly. And Gunwook hates, hates, hates to see Matthew sad.
But he can’t help but admit that some of it can sound kind of nice.
He leans down and presses a kiss to Matthew’s hair. Then, he goes back to sleep.