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It has been three months since Leo returned to Australia.
Everything that had led up to this moment passed him by like a blurry montage in a film; snippets of flashbacks whirling together in full monochrome, void of sound, heavy with feeling. An ignorant mistake caused by the very thing that built who he was, the sacrifice he bet his entire future on that consumed a portion of his heart and soul. His talent. His strength that had resulted in his downfall. Leo knew that he should have known better. He had never planned nor wanted his music to offend or hurt people. So he apologized and took accountability for his own actions, bowing his head down to sincerely ask for people to believe in him once more. That he will do better. That he will be better.
He never expected that you only get one chance with the world before it swallows you whole.
This is how he found himself in his bedroom, watching time slip past his fingertips a few days after he broke down at the airport in Australia when his family came to pick him up. It was past midnight, and the distant city lights from his balcony reflected in the opposite wall of his dark bedroom. The university application website was still open on his laptop, details filled in half-heartedly before he resigned himself to the uncontrollable urge of getting swallowed in his own bed. Leo decided to get into fashion design, considering that he had a good eye when it comes to clothing and styling. If he manages to do well, he can finish fashion school with honors and work as an assistant in a mid-range boutique in Australia. An adequate job with adequate pay, all while keeping his head down. The world will slowly forget him, and he can finally return to his normal life.
Leo squinted through the darkness. His room was starting to get messy; clothes strewn in chairs, empty chip bags increasing in number on the floor, his luggages untouched in the corner of the room. Despite the horrid state of his cleanliness, a smile managed to find its way to his lips.
Sangwon would faint at one look of his room.
But Sangwon wasn’t here. He was 5,000 miles away, in a country he had escaped from.
A place where didn’t belong anymore.
A sudden ring brought Leo back to reality.
His phone vibrated against his wrinkled bedsheets, and a name that his mouth had grown familiar with appeared on the glowing screen.
Leo picks up.
“Hey, hyung.”
“Hey, Sangwon.”
An uncomfortable silence lingered after their short greeting. Between the continents and shattered dreams that separated them, he felt more far away from Sangwon as of this very moment. Leo hated it. This kind of air had never existed between them, and no matter how much they try to pretend that nothing has changed, they would still feel that invisible weight circling around their heads; the topic the both of them cannot bring themselves to mention openly nor accept.
A ghost that haunts them wherever they go.
Nevertheless, Leo will still try, because this is the one thing that he will not allow life to take away from him.
He won’t allow it.
“How are you, Won?”
A faint chuckle can be heard from the other end of the phone, the gentle sound reverberating off his ears as if Sangwon was sitting there beside him.
“Stuck.”
Leo tries to swallow down the lump that threatened to fill his throat. “I know, I know,” he agreed, “me too.”
The soft bustle of Seoul can be heard in the background of Sangwon’s call, and Leo resisted the urge to close his eyes and imagine that he was still there, basking it all in when he first arrived when he was seventeen. “So,” Leo hurriedly progresses the conversation, “what have you been doing lately?”
“Looking into part-time jobs at some nearby cafés,” Sangwon responded, “also been reading more books lately. It keeps me grounded for the meantime.”
If he lets his imagination consume him, Sangwon would be lying down beside him on the bed, just like the numerous nights he laid down beside Leo because “the heater in his room was broken”, immersed in his newest poetry read even though he can barely make out the letters in the dark.
“This author is amazing, hyung. I need to check out more of his works at the bookstore tomorrow. Come with me, okay?” Sangwon exclaims in awe as he starts rereading his book from the first page.
A heavy feeling Leo does not want to name starts to flood him inside.
“How are the oth—“
“Hyung, come home.”
No.
No no no no no.
He lets out a cough and tries to feign indifference. “Oh, have you found any fashion designer jobs for—“
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
Leo’s vision starts to blur.
“I already started applying for university, I just need to submit my documents—“
Sangwon sighed in exhaustion. “You just told me two days ago you hadn’t even started yet.”
Leo clenches his phone tightly, trying to shove down whatever it is that could break him when it is let out. “I want to be a fashion designer. This is my new dream.”
“You could barely even start applying for university,” his best friend said in exasperation, knowing better, “Hyung, you are fooling yourself!”
“Sangwon, please.”
“Hyung...”
A bitter laugh escapes Leo’s throat, masking the trembling of his words. “You want me to go back? Going back is a bit hard to do when the entire world hates me, you know.”
“We don’t. I don’t.”
I don’t.
Leo could hear the muffled sniffles from the other side of the phone.
I don’t.
A distant memory.
“Hyung, don’t leave us,” a 19-year-old once begged, “don’t leave me.”
“Come home,” Sangwon whispered brokenly, “for me, please?”
Leo clutches his face with his empty hand, the burden of his name and the clarity of being known bubbling up to the surface as he lets the ugliest sobs rip out of his throat. He lets himself fall to the floor, clenching his fists so tightly his fingernails left scratches on his palms, unable to forbid himself from getting angry at the world, at his haters, at his former company, at himself.
And Sangwon just listens, even though Leo knows he’s also crying with him, for him, at the other side of the world.
He stays, just like he always has.
“You can stay with me.”
Leo forces himself to turn towards his phone despite the throbbing in his head.
An old memory resurfaces from the back of his mind.
“Hyung can stay with me,” Sangwon had exclaimed when the group was discussing about choosing their roommates. His face was still round with youth, untouched by life and genuinely so full of it, his eyes warm and crafted with all the softness the universe could offer. Leo turned a blind eye on the knowing glances and smiles the other members shared, and wrapped an arm around Sangwon’s shoulder before pulling him closer.
“Awwww, you really love me, don’t you, Won?”
He didn’t notice the split second Sangwon had stiffened, nor did he see how his ears had turned as red as the sweater he was wearing. He simply smiled and replied, “Yeah, hyung, I do.”
Leo didn’t know why remnants of the past kept coming back to him when he was doing his best to run away from it. He didn’t understand how his best friend had been the only cohesive thought he had had ever since he returned to Australia.
Homesickness.
“The apartment is small, but I will make room for you,” Sangwon starts to convince him, voice still shaky with emotion. Leo had carved a place for himself in the cold floor, setting the phone down near his head and putting it on speakerphone to further the illusion that Sangwon was beside him. “We can alternate sleeping in the bed and sofa, and we can just get takeout at the fast-food across the street. If you still want to continue doing fashion, I already asked a couple of inquiries about fashion designer jobs in Seoul, and some stores are looking for inventory staff—“
“Why alternate?” Leo asks, the slightest tilt in the corner of his mouth, despite the tears still running down his face, “we can just sleep in the same bed, you know. We’ve done it before back then.”
A loud cough reverberates through Leo’s phone screen, subtly buzzing the phone against the floor. “W-Wha— Well, yeah, we could do tha— I mean—“ Sangwon fumbles over his words, trying to formulate complete sentences before stopping with utter fail. And before he could stop, something big and light wanted to explode out of Leo’s chest. A burst of laughter.
Leo was laughing, and for the first time in the longest while, his chest didn’t feel hollow, and he didn’t feel like that something was infested inside of him. It was full, with something he always recognized but didn’t dare to name yet, and for now it was enough.
Sangwon was stunned into silence, before the contagiousness of Leo’s laughter seeped into the screen and in the cold midnight winds of Korea, until he himself was laughing despite the melancholy of their earlier conversation, despite it all. He felt accomplished, because he made Leo smile again. It was enough for him too.
The call didn’t end that night. They stayed on the phone together, talking about everything and nothing, not giving a care that morning light had returned and another day had begun on their opposite sides of the world. The sun rose, and for the first time, Leo felt it.
Before he fell asleep, an airline website loaded on his laptop.
He’s coming home to him.