Work Text:
Humin finds the place during winter break.
An old hangout, probably. Sagging couch under a ratty tarp. A couple of busted chairs. No fresh footprints. No voices. Just cold wind and the ghost of older kids who’ve long since moved on.
Now it’s his.
(Well, maybe his friends’ too. But Gotak’s gone, dragged off on some family trip, and the others? Yeah. Not speaking to him after yesterday’s disaster of a tag game.)
The air bites. Humin shoves his nose deeper into his scarf, exhales hard, watching white steam escape from his loosely wrapped clothes. He's like a dragon from Harry Potter - first just breathing smoke, then when he gets angry, boom!
"The hell’s with the growling?"
Humin whirls.
A boy stands behind him. Thin. Neat haircut. Eyes sharp, guarded.
"I can growl if I want," Humin snaps. Harsher than he means to. The boy’s sudden appearance made him bite his tongue, and now his mouth tastes like gross metal, his tongue burning as if he really had breathed fire. "This is my spot. Why’re you even here?"
The boy shoves his hands into his pockets, tugging his neat jacket taut, then turns and walks away.
Humin stares at his indifferent back for a couple of seconds. Then he breaks into a sprint. Hearing the footsteps, the boy starts running too, his shoulder blades stiff with panic.
He’s fast .
"Hey, wait up!" Humin yells. Useless. Idiot—just scared off a potential new friend. He mutters under his breath, watching the kid bolt: "Damn, he really booked it… psycho."
Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouts after him:
"Don’t be a baby! Come back and play dragons!"
***
Later, he finds out his old friends cornered that boy. Na Baekjin, pretty name. Beat him up for fun. Left him crying, clothes torn.
After that?
Yeah. They weren’t friends anymore.
***
The metallic taste of blood from a bitten lip fills his mouth.
Humin’s used to it. When he fights, he always gets hit in the teeth first for some reаson.
When he kisses Baekjin, too.
Life goes on, more or less.
Baekjin pulls back, wiping blood from his lips. He studies Humin’s face like he might find something there he hadn’t seen before.
Frowns.
Humin knows why.
The endless arguments don’t make him angry anymore. Baekjin’s stubbornness doesn’t leave him feeling like he’s bashing his head against a wall. He doesn’t even resent the cruelty. Just exhaustion—not the good kind, the kind that comes from playing basketball until he collapses or working with his dad, but something deeper, settled in his bones, pooled at the bottom of his eyes. Cold. Glassy. Like the way Baekjin’s hand feels around his wrist.
Violence lives in Baekjin’s gaze, in his fingers—thin, with rough knuckles—in his kisses. They’re precise and sharp, like a slap to the face.
Baekjin kisses like it’s not affection, but the same as putting a hand on his knee in front of everyone.
Even when it’s just the two of them in a dark classroom, with no one to prove anything to.
Like he’s proving it to himself.
Like he doesn’t believe it’s really happening to him.
***
After Baekjin's death he finds himself at the secret spot again. His legs brought him here on their own. They hаd forgotten about this nook in the park, whаt, five years ago?
Something like thаt.
Humin sits on the rotting couch. The springs creak pitifully under his weight.
Memories come flooding back: dragons, books, playing soccer between two sickly bushes, Gotak's mother's tteokbokki; sunlight turning squinting eyes from black to gold, fists raised to the face; Baekjin's sharp, unwavering stare.
When he snaps out of it, the cool dusk has already thickened around him. The taste of blood lingers in his mouth from a bitten cheek. The couch back damp with dew — the tarp had worn through long ago.
Blood. Always blood. A crimson thread running through the two of them, from first day to last.
Humin leaves without looking back.
***
Back when Baekjin was still alive, Humin could’ve broken out of this. Just ripped himself from him, fucked off to China, Taiwan, America, taken up basketball, remembered him ten years later over a family dinner, silently smoked a cigarette on the porch, wondered how he was doing. Then forgotten — this time for good.
But he’s dead now. And bound to Humin forever.
He would’ve liked that.
***
"He looks like a girl," Gotak blurts out. "That’s why they bully him. And I don’t like him either."
"Watch your mouth!" Humin flares up instantly.
"You asked!"
Humin scowls, staring at the ground. He scratches his head from mental strain, nearly knocking off the plastic crown with the number "13"—the one Gotak had scrounged up from who-knows-where for his birthday, along with the Tekken cartridge.
"You don’t know anything," he finally says.
Truth be told, Humin doesn’t know anything either. The aunts at Baekjin’s orphanage ooh and aah over him, plying him with sweets when Baekjin finally lets him step inside that fancy house. They’re kind. Baekjin, for some reason, won’t look at him the entire time they’re drinking tea. Other kids peek into the room, curious.
Humin smiles at them. One boy walks in and lingers nearby, opening his mouth to say something—
He doesn’t get the chance. Baekjin shoves him so hard he stumbles back and lands flat on his spine. No real harm done—just bruises—but they’re immediately scolded and herded outside to play basketball.
As they leave, Humin catches a fragment of hushed words: "You have to understand, a child going through that… sometimes it marks them for life."
He’s curious, but the soft-spoken aunt is cut off by Baekjin’s jagged voice. It’s cracking, and even when he tries to sound threatening, it comes out like a Terminator voice at 2x speed.
"Don’t talk to them again. And don’t come back."
"Don’t be jealous—I’ve got enough charm to go around," Humin jokes, slinging an arm over his shoulder.
Baekjin doesn’t laugh.
***
Baekjin was hunger made flesh—for food, for books, for Humin’s attention. Later, for power, money, and respect.
Humin understood where it came from. Understood—but could never say it. He knew, with the animal instinct of a kid raised by a perpetually drunk father, that words like that would get him killed.
Baekjin hated pity.
And pity should have its limits.
"My organization," Baekjin says, looming over a groaning cluster of beaten-up high schoolers—some local gang, probably. He looks happy. A kid a year younger hands him a wet wipe, and Baekjin scrubs red streaks off his knuckles. "Haven’t settled on a name yet. Wasn’t gonna tell you ‘til I cleaned up loose ends, but… well."
One of the high-schoolers' eye sockets gapes empty, weeping strands of mucus and blood. He’s crying.
Finished cleaning his hands, Baekjin presses his palm to Humin’s cheek. He’s never cared about people seeing. Everyone just assumes it’s his wаy to treаt speciаl people аnywаy—the first-years hovering nearby watch with naked envy.
(Though, truth be told, most of them would envy Humin even if they knew. Baekjin’s beautiful in that sharp, classical way. Should’ve plаy in historical dramas, not- аll this.)
"Take your hand off me, dickhead," Humin snaps. Almost a growl—
like a dragon from Hаrry Potter
—аnd he feels his face burn with rage.
"You talkin’ to Na Baekjin like that, trash?" Another interchangeable lackey steps forward. "Need manners beaten into you?"
They circle him. A pack of jackal pups.
"Shut up," Baekjin starts, "he’s—"
Humin swings a heavy convenience store bag into the nearest face. Then the next. And another.
Baekjin promised he’d quit.
Fists. Again. Forehead, knees. Slams one against the wall, drives a short punch into his gut. Kid pukes all over his white tee.
Promised no more fights.
Again. Again. Until only Baekjin’s left standing.
"We’re done," Humin says. Won’t look at him—might vomit if he does. "This is where our roads split. Enough."
"That’s not up to you," Baekjin says. Calm. Not faked. Like he’d planned for this, like it’s just another “grаnd design” of his—from Tekken combos to rigged exam systems.
It probаbly is, Humin realizes.
He sighs, exhausted. Picks up the blood-smeared bag, pulls out two Cokes—one originally meant for Gotak, waiting at home. Tosses the other at Baekjin.
"Well. We’ll see," he says, almost cheerful.
Baekjin lets the can clatter at his feet.
***
He doesn’t remember the funeral. Just one frame.
It feels like Baekjin died so Sieun’s friend could wake up—Humin knows it’s not true, he hasn’t lost it yet.
But the feeling sticks. Ugly envy.
Why them, not us?
He studies Sieun’s face. Is he sad? Why would he be? He only knew the Union’s boss, the shitstirrer who kept needling his friends. He never knew Baekjin.
Maybe that’s for the best.
***
"Hands up by your chin," Humin giggles, teasing through clenched teeth: "or you'll be toofleth!"
Baekjin balls his fists, stretching his expressive mouth into a scowl.
Humin hitches up his shorts. Yawns.
"Ready?"
Baekjin doesn’t answer—just tenses harder. His arms jerk up high, nearly to his eyes. Stares at his shoulders. Exactly how he was taught.
When Humin first saw Baekjin’s handwritten notes on their sparring sessions, he almost pissed himself laughing.
"Did’ja forget to cover anything?"
Humin lazily kicks his thigh. With an indignant yelp, Baekjin lunges, tackling him full-weight into the grass. Humin’s too busy wheezing to fight back. His whole body aches—cheeks, stomach, lips—tears streaming as Baekjin, the vicious person he definitely is, jabs his ribs, tickling him into convulsions.
Humin starts stammering. Weak with laughter, he barely manages to grab Baekjin’s wrists, the other boy still perched on his stomach.
It takes him thirty seconds to calm down. Thirty seconds where the world burns too bright: the damp grass under his back, the warm skinny wrists in his grip, aftershocks of giggles tingling down to his heels.
Baekjin’s smiling too.
Then—something happens to Humin.
He’s unbearably pretty like this, soft-eyed and messy-haired, so unreal Humin’s cheeks flush. Suddenly hyper-aware of how awkward this is—how close Baekjin is, how light and warm he feels.
Baekjin must see something in his eyes. His lips part slightly, gaze flickering with unreadable triumph.
Then he leans down.
***
They never hit each other. Not even when they reаlly wanted to.
Not even when they spat curses at each other’s backs, not even when Humin showed up to class bruised.
Not even when that bastard Seongje broke Gotak’s leg.
But when Baekjin—standing on the threshold of his little empire—strikes him across the face, Humin realizes: this loop is over. And he’s the one who won.
The way Bаekjin cried, lying on the wet sаnd, was just the most logical outcome.
Nothing more.
Humin had to dig his nails into his own palm to keep himself from reaching out.
But then it would’ve all started again.
And what he wanted was an ending.
just to live—with him
Just to live—quietly.
***
Baekjin should've come to his senses. All he needed was one good beating to understand -
like in those comics where villains turn good the moment they taste defeat–
but Baekjin knew thаt tаste from the very beginning
–It just wasn't fair.
Humin suddenly realizes he's standing outside Baekjin's house.
A kind-faced aunt, slightly aged, watches from the doorway, wrapped in an old cardigan. She isn't crying. Her eyes hold not just an absence of tears but an absolute void. A dead emptiness.
"It's not fair," Humin hisses. He's all dried up too. No tears left. No pity. Just resentment.
And an endless ocean of ugly, aching love.
"Not fair," he repeats. The world starts darkening at the edges.
"Come inside," the aunt says in a papery voice. "You'll stay the night. Children shouldn't wander the streets at such an hour."
***
"This school sucks," Baekjin grumbles. A drop of sweat rolls down his temple—no way they're installing AC here in the next hundred years. Even if Eunjang High will exist that long.
"At least uniform fucking suits you," Gotak whines, tugging at his collar. "I look like some second-rate BL side character."
"God, you're both so dramatic." Humin sneaks up behind them, messing up their perfectly styled hair—earning two indignant yelps, an elbow to the ribs, and a slap to the back of his head. He dodges the slap, catches Baekjin's hand instead, and gives it a secret squeeze. Baekjin looks so serious now, a proper high schooler. It makes Humin want to kiss him so bаd .
"Unlike you, we're taking this new life stage seriously," Gotak says in his most annoying know-it-all voice.
"Another bout of teenage existentialism," Humin concludes, pressing a hand to Gotak's forehead. "At least you didn't run away to the beach this time."
Gotak flushes red and shoves his shoulder.
"You promised not to tell anyone in high school! You're the worst."
"I won't. Well... maybe just as a secret to our new friends."
Baekjin suddenly laughs—bright and unguarded, head thrown back.
Humin joins in.
He's terrified of waking up.