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“Will you fight again?”
Humin stills. Of all the things he thought Sieun would say, this wasn’t one of them. “What?” he says, voice barely above a whisper.
“If you do, do you think it’ll change anything?” Sieun says, pausing for a response. When he doesn’t get one, he continues, “For every action, there is an equal reaction. Do you think if you fight, the cycle will end there? This will only lead to someone getting hurt,” he says.
They don’t say anything else for a while. The silence between them is heavy, but not entirely uncomfortable.
“Why does…” Sieun starts, “Why does Na Baekjin act like that towards you?”
Humin saw the question coming, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. He feels the tears pricking at his eyes already. Christ.
“We were just—“ he murmurs, voice cracking as he says, “We were just childhood friends.”
There’s something heavy about his words, but Sieun won’t push him about it. Humin’s glad, he thinks he might start crying real soon, real fast if he does.
Desperate for a change in topic, he switches it to Sieun’s hospital boy.
“What about you?”
“What about me?” he replies, deadpan.
“You know what I mean. What about the boy whose picture you keep in your wallet, what is he to you?” Humin asks, tone teasing but soft.
“You snooped through my wallet?” Sieun says, disbelieving.
“Remember when you lost your wallet a few days ago? I found it in the basketball club room, and it happened to open up as I was bringing it to you, anyways— Don’t change the subject, ice princess,” He rambles, amused, but there’s something soft in his eyes— Sieun can tell. He’s seen this look on Suho before, many times.
“What is he to you?”
He has this look on his face, sad eyes and a bittersweet smile. His eyes are suspiciously glossier than usual, Humin notes.
He can’t really judge, not that he was going to, but he’s pretty sure he’s wearing the same expression on his own face right now.
The boy takes a while to answer, but when he does, his voice comes out softer, a little wetter than before, “Suho was—“ he cuts himself off, “Suho is my friend. My best friend,” he pauses, looking for the right words. “He always seemed… larger than life. Like the earth, the moon and all the stars were nothing compared to Ahn Suho.”
“Wow, man. You could totally be a poet,” Humin says, like he genuinely believes in that.
“I know, right?” Sieun mutters, his tone dripping with sarcasm. The small smile playing at his face widens, just a little.
“How did you two meet?” He asks, curiosity piqued. How did this Ahn Suho manage to capture this boy’s heart? He doesn’t do a good job of hiding it, Humin clocked Sieun’s big fat crush on Suho the first time they talked about him.
“It’s funny. The first time we met, I tried to bash his head in with a chair,” Sieun says, his small smile widening into a grin, “I got into a fight with some other kids, and I guess I got too violent, because the next thing I know, this guy I’ve never even seen before throws me across the room and tells me to not cross the line.”
A pause. Sieun still has that bittersweet smile on his face, and his gaze has wandered far away, like he’s looking for the right words.
“He always had his own morals that he swore by. Like he had these imaginary lines that he never crossed. He never let anyone else cross them, either. He has this… righteousness to him. He always fought for what he believed was right, and he always won,” Sieun says.
“Wah, is he any better than me?” Humin smiles.
“Maybe you guys would be tied. Suho was an MMA fighter, before he started working his two jobs,” Sieun mutters, “You remind me of him, sometimes. You’d both get along like a house on fire,” he says, voice light— soft.
Humin can relate. When he first saw Yeon Sieun, his striking resemblance to Na Baekjin hit him like a punch to the gut.
“You remind me of Baekjin, too,” Humin says, “When I first met you, it felt like I could see him in you.”
A beat passes. Then two. Then silence overcomes them once more, until Sieun asks, “What about you and Baekjin, how did you two befriend each other?”
Humin stills. It’s time he gets this off his chest, he thinks, so he gathers his thoughts, overcomes the lump in his throat and starts from the very beginning, when one boy saved another from typical elementary bullies, when one boy taught another how to fight— fully intending to fight only when the situation calls for it— and when one boy betrays another, twisting the other’s teachings for power, ultimately falling victim to the sick desire inside him called greed.
Humin talks, and talks, and talks. It feels so refreshing, getting this heavy weight off his shoulders. His face feels wet, and only when he brings his hands to his cheeks does he realize he’s crying.
Sieun listens to him, the entire time. He chips in at the right times with a question here, a comment there. It feels nice, being listened to. He doesn’t feel like he’s burdened Sieun with his own feelings, not once.
He stops talking after a while. Silence engulfs them once more, but it’s less tense than before— more comfortable.
Two boys sit there, in the middle of the night in Yeongdeungpo, talking about everything and nothing at all, about old friends and new ones, and all the things that have lead them to where they are now.