Chapter Text
When Kangmin started climbing on the dinner table, that's when Sangwon knew it was about time to leave.
The older Sangwon got, the earlier he ended up retiring from parties. Although the white-girl party music was always fun, with age, it all seemed to get too loud at times - too many noises, too little light, and too many people Sangwon knew by face but not by name. Recently, Sangwon felt like he had aged an additional 65 years with how half of the people who interacted with him asked how Geonwoo was doing. It's understandable why they'd ask that, given how they used to show up at every event side by side, like two peas in a pod. Unfortunately, the pod burst open almost exactly 4 months ago in a shouting match, sending the peas flying in opposite directions.
Kangmin took his side in the divorce, as did a small number of their other mutual friends. Geonwoo claimed custody over the other half of their friend circle, including the unintentional cause of their friendship break-up. And although Sangwon would love to respectfully flip Geonwoo off the next time they bumped into each other, he couldn't say that he didn't miss some of his friends lost in the mess of their custody battle. Heck, maybe he even missed Geonwoo a bit. Now, to celebrate the end of the semester, he didn't have to book a restaurant for 12 people any more - his friends that remained all fit on one table. There wasn't a "kids table" and "adults table" to divide the 03 liners from everyone else, just a pitiful handful of weary guys with weary smiles. His friend group's end-of-semester dinner wasn't filled with boisterous cackles or discussions about what everyone's Chinese name meant: it all felt a bit more mellowed out, a bit quieter.
As Kangmin began trying to take his T-shirt off, Sangwon tipped his head back in one swift motion, letting the vodka hit his tongue and slide down his throat. The burning feeling was something he'd never been able to get used to, and the scent was still as sharp as ever he set the shot glass down on a random chair. Warmth spread throughout his chest - a mix of intoxication and embarrassment at being friends with Yoo Kangmin.
"Who wants to sing with me?!" Kangmin shouted, stumbling slightly over a wrinkle in the dirty tablecloth. Someone in the crowd, equally as drunk, yelled back asking what song they'd be duetting to. Kangmin pondered for a drawn-out moment, pressing a finger to his lips like a baby deciding between apple and carrot puree for lunch. As much as he loved his best friend, Kangmin's aegyo was disgusting enough to send Sangwon speedwalking back to the kitchen, far removed from the chaos and closer to where he could pour himself another shot.
Squeezing past bodies on bodies, it seemed like people were dissipating the closer he got to the kitchen. Privately, Sangwon let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, letting his shoulders relax. As he swung the door to the kitchen open, he was hoping to find his sanctuary, a cute little hidden spot for peace and quiet. To Sangwon's surprise, there was an oddly familiar silhouette leaning against the kitchen counter, with round eyes and fluffy brown hair that he knew all too well.
Alone in the kitchen was none other than Zhou Anxin. He blinked up at Sangwon - slow, deliberate, almost shy - with a look that felt half-curious, half-inviting and 100% impossible to look away from.
A small, startled smile flickered across his face, revealing a hint of his dimple. "Sangwon-hyung," he said, voice raised just enough to carry over the booming music. "Fancy seeing you here."
Sangwon's mouth went dry. Standing in front of him, in star-patterned jeans and an artsy hoodie, was someone he hadn't spoken to in months, not since his friendship with Geonwoo had gone up in flames.
"It's a bit awkward, isn't it? Hah..." Anxin shrugged, looking off to the side. Awkward was barely scratching the surface of how Sangwon felt, to say the least.
"Sorry." Sangwon replied intellectually, scratching the back of his ear. "It's just... been a while, yeah."
What else do you say to the reason why you destroyed your friendship of 5 years? Whether it was intentional or not didn't matter. A general feeling of discomfort and shame lingered in the back of Sangwon's mind.
"You look good. I like the eye makeup." Anxin grinned, revealing his stupidly cute snaggle tooth. "The glitter."
"Thanks."
They looked at each other. Sangwon felt the urge to lick his lips - they suddenly felt very, very dry and chapped.
"What about me?" Anxin asked in that innocent tone of his, tilting his head like a baby kitten. "Do I look cute?"
The worst part was that Sangwon didn't know - he didn't know if Anxin was being mean and was referencing what tore half his friend circle apart, or if he was genuinely asking whether he looked good or not. Of course he looked amazing, a perfect mix of chic, trendy and comfy, but there was no way Sangwon could say that out loud.
"I'm sorry." Sangwon chose to apologise for the second time that night.
"Huh? What -"
"For the mess. For making you uncomfortable, before." Sangwon looked down at the floor, not wanting to see those stupidly large doe eyes. He then continued, in a much quieter voice. "And for not keeping in contact. It's stupid, but... I didn't know how to."
After all, how do you keep in contact with someone who made you feel like both the happiest and the saddest man in the world?
-
When Geonwoo first introduced Anxin to everyone ask his new boyfriend, Anxin was quiet. He said yes to everything and laughed a bit too loudly at everyone's jokes, shy as he was. He memorised everyone's usual drink order at their favourite spot, tagged along whenever someone wanted to go to the bathroom but didn't want to go alone, and slowly, he opened up, becoming an irreplaceable part of the friend group. Way too many nights were spent doing blind karaoke at Geonwoo's apartment, with Anxin and Sangwon designated as the ones picking all the songs, since they had the (self-proclaimed) best taste in music.
It started as something small - Sangwon's gaze lingering on Anxin's lips for a second too long, Sangwon laughing a bit too hard at Anxin recounting a story. It was all harmless: they just got along well. But soon, Anxin's voice stuck in his head long after Sangwon got home, swirling in the depths of his brain. Soon, every shared smile felt like a secret Sangwon couldn't keep for much longer. It was so much fun dancing with Anxin, eating with Anxin, even doing nothing but scrolling on their phones together - but Sangwon hated himself for how his heart raced every time Anxin walked into the room, even with Geonwoo always being beside the younger. Sangwon was happy for Geonwoo, his sincere and loving friend. Sangwon was also happy for Anxin, his acquaintance turned confidante. That's what he told himself, over and over, even as his chest tightened and his guilt started gnawing at his bones, chipping at them piece by piece. It was a physically repulsive kind of guilt with no outlet - no one to confess to, no one to forgive him.
Then, the second shift. This one happened more quickly - the change in Geonwoo's eyes when he looked at Sangwon. Initially, he thought it was his own paranoia taking over, but eventually, he realised Geonwoo was always watching; not cruelly, just cautiously. It made Sangwon want to curl up into a ball and vomit his guts out. He started second-guessing everything: how long he looked at Anxin, how much time he spent texting Anxin. Sangwon, with all the might in his heart, wanted to tell Geonwoo that his feelings would pass, that it was never meant to happen. He pulled away from the both of them, little by little.
In the end, Geonwoo's quiet disappointment exploded into a rage on a Monday evening.
Sangwon can't even remember exactly what went down, as his brain definitely blocked half of it out as some kind of defence mechanism. It was something like this: Anxin feeling sleepy during movie night, Sangwon squeezing next to him on the couch, and for a second, all felt right in the world. Then -
"I cannot believe your fucking audacity."
"Geonwoo-yah, what are you -"
"Just tell me the truth." Geonwoo had sneered, practically dragging Sangwon off the couch. His fist was clenched around the fabric of Sangwon's sweater, scrunching it cruelly. "Are you trying to fuck my boyfriend?"
"What? No!" Sangwon had retorted. The words hit harder than he expected. "Of course not. I respect both of you, together."
Geonwoo laughed, a sharp hollow sound. At this point, one of their other friends had tried to separate them, tugging on Geonwoo's shoulders, and Anxin had fully woken up from his nap, looking at them with poorly concealed horror. "I know you. I see the way you look at him, how you laugh at everything he says. You think I'm stupid?"
Sangwon's throat tightened. "I'm not - I never tried to -"
"You're my best friend, Sangwon-ah. You think you can lie to me?" Geonwoo snapped, shaking with anger. "Don't fuck with me. Everyone's noticed how close you two have gotten, how you cling onto Anxin at any possible opportunity."
Sangwon shook his head desperately. "No! No, I swear - I know how it looked, but I would never do that to you! You're my brother and - fuck, okay, I like him, yeah, I do." Sangwon's voice cracked. "But I kept that shit to myself, and I didn't mean for it to happen, and - oh come on man, god, you know he only likes you -"
Geonwoo's grip tightened, betrayal blurring into something even more raw and painful. "So you do like him? Some friend you are, huh? Huh?!" he spat out viciously, pushing Sangwon against the wall with a loud slam.
At this point, Anxin had stood up, undeniably overwhelmed. "Hyung, stop it." he had pleaded. "I didn't - I had no - there's nothing going on between us." Sangwon turned away from his voice: he couldn't bear to hear what he had to say, let alone look at him and see whatever scornful look was surely overflowing from his eyes. It was clear that Anxin was struggling to put his thoughts together, and so, sticking to what he knew, he grabbed Geonwoo's hand.
"Back off, back off, back off! All of you!" Geonwoo shrieked, forcibly throwing Anxin's hand off him.
A silence fell over the room. Twelve boys, crammed into Geonwoo's living room, all stood still, and not one of them made eye contact.
"Why didn't you stop it?" Geonwoo whispered, looking at Sangwon right in the eyes. His grip loosened, like he was about to break down.
"I tried to. I didn't want to feel this way, god, I didn't want to hurt you." Sangwon defended himself, trying to explain him and his messed up feelings. Geonwoo just stared at him
"Well, you did."
Sangwon figured that Geonwoo probably wasn't in the mood to be reasoned with, so he let himself get kicked out of the apartment. He had sent Geonwoo a series of texts asking to talk things over and spent hours trying to call him, but after that incident, Sangwon was blocked. No calls, no texts, just silence. And maybe Geonwoo was right to do so. Maybe it didn't matter than Sangwon never made a move. The crush itself was enough - his feelings were a quiet betrayal that bloomed where they shouldn't have. It was mainly Kangmin who pulled him out of his depressive state, physically dragging him out of his room so he could stop stewing on his thoughts. Yes, you could have handled things better, Kangmin said, but there was no reason to punish himself for having feelings. Yes, you could have tried earlier to step back more clearly and draw a line in the sand, but Geonwoo was wrong for getting aggressive and violent, he said, patting Sangwon's head. Sangwon was grateful to have him.
Sangwon never checked if he was blocked by Anxin - he physically could not handle it if he confirmed that he was. The idea of being hated by 2 of the people he had been closest to was too much to handle. All he could manage to do was promise himself that if he ever saw the younger again, he'd be honest. About everything.
Which brought him back to the present moment, where Zhou Anxin was still standing in front of him.
"Sangwon-hyung." Anxin took a step forward. "I.... accept your apology. I appreciate it."
Sangwon sent him back a little smile.
"Hyung," Anxin repeated. It was impossible to avoid his gaze, burning with a sense of what could have been urgency. "I just wanted to say something."
Anxin paused again, trying to piece together the right words. "Take your time," Sangwon mentioned gently, placing a hand on the kitchen counter to ground himself. Anxin smiled back at him, one of those silly-looking half smiles.
"Back then, when we saw each other almost everyday, it wasn't... weird. I was never uncomfortable. I had no reason to be." Anxin expressed, his Korean phrasing a little stilted, but clear enough. "I didn't know back then that you... you liked me."
Sangwon froze, pulse quickening.
"I only realised when everything blew up. Then all the little things made sense." Anxin said, not quite looking at Sangwon anymore.
Sangwon swallowed. "Oh." He wasn't sure what else to say.
"I'm not trying to make things weird." Anxin added quickly, fiddling with his collar. "I just - your apology made me think about it. And I've thought about everything a lot, since the, um, fight."
Sangwon let out a slow breath. "Well, I never told you. I didn't even really admit it to myself right until everything fell apart."
"And then we stopped talking." Anxin voiced, his voice suddenly hushed.
"I didn't know how to stick around without making things awkward, and I was afraid to ask you what you were feeling, what you wanted."
"I understand." Anxin's eyes softened. His mouth opened to speak, then closed. There was a short pause, not necessarily comfortable, but not painfully awkward either. Anxin spoke out again, his voice louder than before.
"Hyung, I missed hanging out with you."
The words hit Sangwon harder than expected, especially after months apart. Now, he looked at Anxin, really looked. The same eyes that teared up at Sangwon's end-of-semester showcase, the same arms that greeted him with warmth after a long shift at the café: they were all still there, attached to the same Anxin by a complex network of blood vessels, nerves and ligaments. Perhaps, in their time apart, some of his childish cheek fat had disappeared, but the boy who stood in front of him still approached him with the sincerity and affection of a loyal puppy.
"I liked hanging out with everyone, but it was... extra easy being around you, extra, extra easy." Anxin laughed. "I took it for granted."
"Anxin-ah, you -"
"I should also say sorry. I'm sorry for not reaching out afterwards." Anxin admitted. He hesitated, at first - the kind of pause where he wasn't sure if it was okay. His arms half-lifted, then faltered. When he noticed that Sangwon noticed, he smiled.
They closed the gap, Anxin's arms settling on Sangwon's shoulders, and Sangwon's arms carefully wrapping around Anxin's waist. The hug started awkwardly, built on unsure angles and shallow, constrained breathing, but as the seconds ticked by, Sangwon let himself breathe in the familiar scent of someone he used to know, someone he used to tell as his secrets to. He let himself melt into the hug.
When Anxin finally pulled back, their hug just a heartbeat longer than Sangwon expected, an embarrassed smile crept up onto his face.
"Thanks," the elder murmured, voice shy. Anxin gave a reciprocal nod. The gap between them had narrowed significantly, their shoes almost touching. Sangwon wanted to close the distance, stitching them back together until they were woven into the same fabric once more.
"How do you want to... move on from here?" Sangwon questioned, trying to be brave whilst failing to conceal his nerves. "I'd like to spend time with you again, but I don't want to cause any more fights. I don't want to get in the way of your relationship." Sangwon clarified. "It might take me some time, but I'll work up the courage to, um, apologise to Geonwoo at some point, and -"
"Hold on a sec," Anxin interrupted, clasping Sangwon's forearm. "Do you not know?"
"Hm?" Sangwon blinked.
"Sangwon-hyung, I broke up with him. About 2 weeks after everything happened."
It hit like a sudden drop - all of a sudden, Sangwon felt dizzy, nauseous and weightless simultaneously, like his body was being hurled off a bungee jumping platform at record-breaking speeds. The words echoed, unreal and impossible to process. What the hell? Sangwon waited, waited for Anxin to tell him it was a joke, but the look on his face implicitly told him that it was real.
"I thought you knew! It was a whole thing, yeah." Anxin continued, squeezing Sangwon's hand. "I guess the news didn't reach you. Oops."
Sangwon's stomach twisted with a rush of confusion, disbelief, and something heavier.
"Oh my god, it- it was all b- because of me, wasn't it? I really fucked up everything for you guys, shit." Sangwon apologised, the guilt hitting him like a truck. Memories of that night flashed through his head again, like a slideshow of horrible nightmares.
"No no, hyung, don't feel bad about it! You didn't hold me at gunpoint and force me to break up with him or anything! Don't blame yourself, hyung, seriously." Anxin reassured, swaying Sangwon's hand back and forth to try to bring Sangwon back to the present.
"But I ruined your -"
"Hyung!" Anxin pouted, tugging on Sangwon's arm resolutely. "It was a buildup of many things. Geonwoo-hyung and I, we were already arguing about everything back then - small stuff, big stuff, all of it. He got jealous easily, and he got mad at me over absolutely tiny things. Every time I wanted space, it meant I didn't love him enough, and that space just had to be some kind of, I don't know, threat or something. Then when it came to you one day, he just... exploded."
Sangwon had always seen them as the perfect couple, trading inside jokes, finishing each other's sentences and flowing together in a rhythm that no one else could keep up with. There was an undeniable warmth between them that seemed effortless, like they had their whole lives together figured out and were secure in their future together. So this - this felt like spinning the whole world on its axis.
"Him getting all violent with you was the final straw. There was no way I could see him in the same way after that." Anxin emphasised, pursing his lips. "I was used to him making me feel small sometimes, but humiliating Hyung like that in front of everyone, and with such mean spirit... I don't think he was in the right headspace to be in a relationship."
"You..." Sangwon didn't even know where to start, looking at the small boy in his arms who still managed to smile. "That wasn't fair on you, Anxinie."
"I know now." Anxin laughed under his breath. "Our relationship was good at the start, and I could feel that he really treasured me, but the person he became... that wasn't the Geonwoo that I knew."
"Is he still bothering you now?" Sangwon couldn't help but inquire. Geonwoo had left him alone for the most part, but he had no idea Geonwoo had been on the edge of a huge mental breakdown for so long. Geonwoo had always been the ideal man, strong where it mattered and intelligent to a fault. When had it all gone wrong?
"I had to change dorm rooms because he, um, kept showing up outside." Anxin confided, looking sheepish despite the fact that he just disclosed rather terrifying information. "But it's fine! I feel good now. Tonight was good - I took the initiative to leave the house for once, and I managed to talk to you again. It reminded me that I'm... I can be strong. At least a little bit."
Sangwon gulped. "You are strong. No one can change that."
Anxin let out a chuckle, patting Sangwon's side. "You've always said things like that, Hyung."
"Like what?"
"Like you care." Anxin answered softly. "Like you... look out for me, and everyone else."
Sangwon's lips twitched, and for a second, it felt like the air between them shifted. A glint of joy and mischievousness appeared in Anxin's eyes, colouring his expression into something both new and nostalgic.
"So, what did you come into the kitchen for?" Anxin teased, sliding his palms to rest on the counter behind him. "Don't tell me you were going to drink yourself silly."
"I've only had two shots tonight, and I didn't pre-game before I pulled up." Sangwon explained, nudging Anxin's shoulder with his own. "I'm a responsible adult."
"Responsible adult or barely responsible?" Anxin laughed, picking up his drink that Sangwon hadn't noticed.
"At least I'm not a coward." Sangwon taunted, looking down at Anxin's drink. It looks like sugar, fruit and rainbows, the kind that barely tastes like alcohol. "It looks like you're drinking orange juice, you baby."
"I'm not!" Anxin defended himself, standing up straight all of a sudden. Sangwon smirked. "It is alcohol." He took another sip, like he was trying to prove himself as some alpha man.
"Sure it is," Sangwon teased, mock-serious. "Next you'll tell me that the can came with a little paper umbrella."
Anxin laughed, swatting at Sangwon's arm. He missed. "Not everyone needs to down 18 million shots of gin to have fun. Let me enjoy my cute and girly little drink."
"Don't insult girls like that." Sangwon shot back. "You should see what my noona drinks after work. Besides, shots build character, Anxinie."
"Hmm, as we all know, hardcore drinking is the best indicator of good character." Anxin countered, lifting his drink in a mock toast.
Sangwon huffed, shaking his head. "Fine, enjoy your liquid candy. Your baby food. Your Chobani yoghurt."
"Can you drop it?" Anxin whined, rolling his eyes. "Stop being mean, hyung."
Even as Sangwon continued to tease the younger man, he couldn't help but think that Anxin hiding his smile whenever he found one of Sangwon's bad jokes funny was sweeter than anything in that stupid drink.
They continued chatting about anything and everything, catching each other up on life updates like new projects and pretty things they saw as they went about their lives. They fell into a comfortable rhythm as the night went on, eyes glued solely onto each other, even as other people eventually began shuffling in, out and around the kitchen. It was nice to share Anxin's warmth again.
Unbeknownst to them, someone had taken a picture with the two of them chatting in the background and uploaded it onto their story.