Chapter Text
To those who can’t move on and those who can’t stop moving,
Ylido had always been a quiet, small town. The people who lived there tended to mind their own business, their personalities hardened by the unkind living conditions.
Unkind living conditions, as in, Ylido was basically situated in the middle of the desert. No green areas, no mountains, no nothing. The only thing it had was an underground water source that allowed the town to keep existing.
Aside from the houses, there wasn’t much else. A place that could hardly be called a square where a small market was held every Sunday, a firearms store and a ranch. Not even a sheriff would grace the place with his presence.
Oh, right. Ylido was Seonghwa’s town.
Seonghwa, who was staring unimpressively at the man who was currently half-asleep on the counter, muttering something about his missed payment. It was a rather usual occurrence, Yunho, a childhood friend of his who grew too tall to be a normal-looking outlaw, coming back to Ylido from month to month to get drunk, complain about his life, and get laid. In that precise order, yes. Specifically, him coming to Seonghwa’s tavern.
“I swear, that fucker is so good in bed, but he always ends up disappearing before I even wake up!” Yunho exclaimed, lifting his head to look at Seonghwa in the eyes, dramatically clutching his chest as if he didn’t constantly have men - and women - throwing themselves at him.
“Why are you sounding so heartbroken?” Seonghwa just answered after serving quickly another costumer’s drink which he had memorised by heart.
“Please, he’s so beautiful. You wouldn’t get it.”
Truly, Seonghwa wouldn’t. Aside that Yunho presumably being infatuated with someone enough to not wanting a one night stand only was actually scary, Seonghwa had never really thought about loving someone in a romantic way. Much less falling in love.
The only major thing he had to do in his life was, after all, keep running his tavern, the so called ‘social place’ of Ylido. His father’s. Well, it had been Seonghwa’s for a while, since his old man was currently buried six feet underground.
“Whatever. Just don’t get into trouble, Yunho.”
His best friend waddled slightly as he got up and threw Seonghwa a charming smile, making the latter’s nose scrunch in annoyance.
Him and Yunho had actually slept together once when they were sixteen. It had been Seonghwa’s confirmation that he was into men, but also that Yunho was not his type at all. Too tall.
“Trouble comes with the job, but I’ll try.” He placed some coins on the counter and left, managing to walk straight enough to not collide with the table next to the door or slam his face into the wall.
The night went on as usual with no new costumers, if not for a few cowboys, thieves or runaways unfortunate enough to stumble in the tavern looking for a bed to sleep on. Seonghwa’s place was not an hotel or motel.
After a few more hours, the tavern was empty. It was normal, because it was Monday, and with the market being on Sunday, money was tighter the first day of the week, it had always been.
The door opened and someone walked in. Seonghwa looked up and the sight made him ultimately conclude that he should have just kept the tavern closed tonight.
Hongjoong. Kim Hongjoong. Kim Hongjoong from Vapidlake.
He walked in as if the desert itself had pushed him inside. Hongjoong was a cowboy who only came an handful of times a year - and really, Seonghwa was glad - never announced. He was pretty known around, and the absurdly high bounty on his head spoke for itself.
Seonghwa was not a fan of his, lots of people weren’t. However, he didn’t dislike him because he because he was scared, he disliked him because the cowboy was arrogant, rude and so, so full of himself. Under all that leather he probably had knees smaller than Seonghwa’s fingers, yet his ego was taller than a mountain.
At least that was the impression he made. If he wasn’t like how he portrayed himself, he had never made an effort to change the wrong perception.
Hongjoong didn’t greet nor comment on his arrival time, he just nodded once and slid into a stool. Funnily enough, it was the very same stool where Yunho had been sitting barely two hours before.
Yunho despised the man, too. The two of them had once started bickering over a shot of alcohol, threw hands like kids having a fit, and got kicked out by the tavern owner himself. Needless to say that there still was bad blood between them.
“We’re closed.”
“Didn’t see no signs outside. I just want a drink.” Hongjoong replied with a little grin.
Seonghwa sighed, his hand reaching for a glass he wished he could shatter again the cowboy’s face rather than filling it. He should invest on a sign.
“One.” He said, pouring the alcohol and sliding it across the counter. When he met the other’s gaze, he held it with no problem; Hongjoong’s eyes were fierce and burning, but not even the cruelest of outlaws could hide his tiredness from Seonghwa, who was used to see his clients getting drunk to escape their own misery.
“This place looks the same.” Hongjoong commented after a while, sipping his drink, unbothered by the burning down his throat.
“Just like you do,” Seonghwa answered, crossing his arms.
“Touché.”
The man was dressed for distance, as always. He was wearing a long duster with its edges darkened by travel, fights, and only Hongjoong knew what else, leather gloves and a shirt that had probably once been white. His black belt carried an holster with a gun inside, worn on leather trousers.
His hat was the same as the other times Seonghwa had seen him, tipped over his face but not quite enough to cover his shit eating grin.
“Don’t you get tired of making drinks in this place?” The cowboy asked, taking his eyes off Seonghwa for the first time since he stepped in.
“There’s nothing else I could do here.” His answer was only half true. Yes, there wasn’t much else he could do here, which was the reason why every person went away as soon as they could, like Yunho. Not Seonghwa though, never him.
“Perhaps.”
Hongjoong finished his drink, putting the empty glass down. Seonghwa immediately put it in the sink as if he wanted to erase all sort of trace. Then, Hongjoong set some money on the counter and got up, securing his hat with his hand. Force of habit.
“I’ll be on my way.”
“Suit yourself.” The other didn’t even look up, suddenly finding the act of rinsing a glass very interesting.
The hinges groaned when Hongjoong opened the door, yet the wind slammed into him hard enough to make him stagger a step back.
“What the fuck,” he muttered, frustrated. He closed the door to avoid more sand flooding into the tavern, more than it already had due to the wind that is. He had to push it with his shoulder to fight back the current going in every possible direction.
“You ain’t going anywhere in that sandstorm.” Seonghwa frowned.
“Yeah I wasn’t planning on setting down.” Hongjoong said, his mind going to his horse outside. He immediately had the sick thought that the animal was either halfway to the next country or lying low somewhere, smarter than its owner.
“You’ll have to wait it out,” Seonghwa begrudgingly said. “Don’t touch anything.”
Sure, he didn’t like the man, however that didn’t mean he wanted him dead, choked on sand.
He didn’t add anything else, he just headed towards his coffee machine, not minding that it was night.
“You got rooms in the back?” Hongjoong called out, and even if he was turned around, the taller could hear the smile in his tone. “Spare one, maybe? I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
“You don’t sleep back there,” was the flat answer he got. “That’s private.”
“Private,” Hongjoong echoed. “I’m not after anything of yours.”
“Well, I should hope not. Since you’re here, might as well help me secure the tavern from the hellhole that’s happening outside.”
They spent the next half an hour putting rags on the edges of the windows and against the small crack between the door and the floor.
In silence.
Outside the world had gone to dust, the sandy wind swallowed all of Ylido in its passage. They could hardly tell where the land ended and the storm began. Seonghwa silently hoped that Yunho, that idiot, was okay. Knowing the man, he was probably in some stranger’s bed in that moment.
After the whole ‘let’s patch everything up I hate sand getting inside’ thing, Seonghwa finally brewed himself some coffee. He made one cup for the cowboy too, because he had manners.
Hongjoong took the mug offered to him after he had placed his hat on a table, and sat on a stool again. He broke the silence easily, “So, I’ve been wondering, you run this place alone?”
“In all the years you have stopped here, have you ever seen someone else with me?”
Hongjoong laughed as if Seonghwa had said the most hilarious thing in the world. He hadn’t. “I don’t know, maybe you have a friend, or a wife.”
That earned him a sharp look, and no answer was needed.
“Come on, do you want to pass the rest of the night in silence? Supposing that you’re not letting me sleep here unattended.”
Seonghwa internally sighed at the choice of words. “I would be an idiot to leave you alone,” he paused briefly, contemplating his thoughts. “…my father built this tavern. I kept it after his death, couldn’t tell you why.” He concluded more quietly, immediately realising he had said too much for his liking.
The other nodded, setting his mug down. “So you’re a sedimentary.”
“Unlike you.”
Hongjoong didn’t bat an eye. “Well, I don’t think you’re the travelling type?”
Seonghwa made an offended nose to that, “Excuse me?”
He received a snicker in response, “Your clothes.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Okay, maybe they weren’t the most optimal choice for changing location frequently, so what? Beauty was a pain, and Seonghwa was more than willing to suffer.
For instance, he was wearing a simple white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, over it hung a short, sleeveless jacket. A wide belt held some layers close, crossing his waist where a strip of fabric fell like a divided skirt open at the side to show the dark leather trousers beneath it. And, of course, his boots. He also had dark hair that reached his shoulders that he often kept tied with a strip of fabric.
Fabric, yes. Why? Because Yunho was the leather lover between the two of them. Seonghwa had always had a feeling about just how deep his enjoyment for the material went - but he did not want to explore that.
“Wrong? There’s nothing wrong.” Hongjoong said with a sly tone. “But I fear that harsh movements would be…complicated.”
Seonghwa just scoffed and turned around, not wanting to look at the cowboy’s face for a second longer. It will be a long night, maybe a long day, too.
While during the day the desert made men sweat buckets, at night it was freezing cold, especially during sandstorms. After finishing their night coffee session, they lit up the fireplace with some logs that were always kept as a backup, Seonghwa rarely passed whole nights there.
Seonghwa ended up swiping dust off some shelves to keep himself awake; he found an old deck. It had probably been left there by a drunk client or by his father years prior.
Either way, he didn’t question its existence and just tossed it on the counter, catching the cowboy’s attention, “Didn’t take you for the gambling type.”
“I’m not.” Seonghwa frowned.
“Good, I’m too tired to win anything anyway,” He reached for the cards and started shuffling them. “Any favourite game?” He continued.
“I never play.” Came the swift answer.
“Ah, I see. You’ll learn then.”
They played in silence while the storm outside clawed at the tavern’s walls.
Really, Seonghwa didn’t know a single rule, but he managed to catch on fast enough to lose slowly every time. Hongjoong wasn’t a gloater, he mentally noted, surprised. The man just looked at the cards on the space between them with an unreadable expression.
Gambling was one of the man causes of fights breaking out in the tavern along with an excessive alcohol consumption mixed with a giant self esteem.
“Lucky night for you.” Seonghwa muttered after another hand.
“Not sure I’d call it that,” the other replied, gesturing at the shut window to hint at the weather. Seonghwa almost smiled at that. When the fire sank low, he added another log as Hongjoong split the deck once again.
“You’re getting better.”
Seonghwa just scoffed and muttered something about having a decent teacher.
The last hand ended without either of them really saying who won. Hongjoong stacked the cards into a small pile and pushed them aside. Every time neither of them spoke, the silence felt absurdly awful for two men who didn’t even know each other personally. So, Seonghwa was the one who broke it again.
“Will you ride far after the storm clears out?” It was a dumb question, not only because its answer was obvious, but also because Seonghwa did not care in the slightest about the other’s plans.
“Yeah, probably. It sounds like it’s got hours left though.”
“Yeah.”
“Guess we’ll wait it out.”
When Seonghwa glanced up, Hongjoong was looking at the flames, his face softened by the light. Then he shifted, his hand automatically going to his head just to remember that he wasn’t wearing his hat. “You keep this place too clean.”
“Where’d that come from?” Seonghwa raised an eyebrow, even if he was a bit of a clean freak.
“Just saying. You’ve got time on your hands.” The tone was mild and lazy, however it landed wrong.
“I work.”
“Sure you do. Most folks who grew up in this dust hole get away as soon as they can.” Again, that landed wrong, it stung and screamed in Seonghwa’s ears.
His voice came out harsher than it was meant to, “Are you done with judging my life?”
“I wasn’t judging.”
Seonghwa turned away, half contemplating throwing the man out in the storm. There was a certain prickle in his chest, the same, familiar one he got when he was younger whenever he felt his father’s eyes on him, the shame from being commented on.
Sensing his silence, Hongjoong exhaled quietly. “I didn’t mean to-“
Seonghwa just cut him off, stubbornness in his voice, lacing him like a mask. “Whatever.” He busied himself with the glass from before again while Hongjoong moved his stool next to a wall, closer to the fireplace. The motion of wiping the already pristine glass steadied Seonghwa’s hands, yet his mind wouldn’t stop running.
He had never been a fan of storms, actually. It wasn’t because he couldn’t ride his horse, drink, and flirt with people left and right while wearing an hat, no, he wasn’t the type. It was because the night his father died, there had been one, and now the smell of dust had clung onto his memories ever since. He had been nineteen, and by the time the sky had cleared, the tavern was his without anyone wondering a thing.
Living in the desert while having this issue was inconvenient yes, Seonghwa recognised the fact.
Before that, Seonghwa could only remember the smell of alcohol, doors slamming and a voice screaming.
Hongjoong snapped him out of his thoughts. “Forget I said anything,” he tried again.
“Already had.” He hadn’t. But Seonghwa couldn’t help but find this this…sensitive part of the other man unexpected. Weird.
His mind swallowed him once more, and after he didn’t know how much time, Seonghwa realised that Hongjoong hadn’t spoken nor moved in a while. He glanced up, and there he was.
The cowboy was leaning against the wall with crossed arms, still sitting on the stool. His hat was tipped low on his face, he had probably picked it up again to filter the light of the flames, and his breathing had evened out. Huh, so even the harshest of outlaws could fall asleep in an ‘unknown’ environment.
Seonghwa silently sighed, walked to a table and sat down on a chair. He looked at the flames, at the coals flaring, at the oranges and reds. Maybe Hongjoong hadn’t been wrong, maybe staying too long in Ylido really made dust sink into his bones.
Without him fully realising, sleep came. It snuck fast while the wind pressed against the walls.
.⋆ 𖥔 ݁ ˖₊‧.⭒.‧₊˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖ .
He woke up to a soft sound of scraping against the windows. The storm wasn’t over yet, but it would probably be soon. That still didn’t change the fact that the air smelled of ash and grit.
His neck ached from sleeping on a table and his arm had gone numb beneath him. Then his eyes landed on Hongjoong.
He was in the same position where he had dozed off some hours before, how he had not fallen down to the floor, Seonghwa didn’t know. His hat was still tipped the same and his arms were still folded, too. His gaze lingered longer he had wanted to; Hongjoong’s features were softer while he was alseep. He almost didn’t look like a criminal, he looked…younger, more at peace. Maybe he just looked less like he could shoot you if you breathed wrong.
The fire was low, Seonghwa rose quietly, stretched, and fed it another log. The ash shifted, hissing slightly at the intrusion.
The storm had gone quiet, meaning that, to Seonghwa, the atmosphere finally felt normal again, and not oppressive on his chest.
Almost as if he knew someone was looking at him, Hongjoong stirred a few minutes later. He blinked blearily, like he was processing where he was and why. “Still there,” he muttered, probably to himself.
Seonghwa answered either way. “Looks like it.” He poured some freshly made coffee into two mugs and set them on the counter. The cowboy walked over and Seonghwa slid a cup towards him, Hongjoong glanced at it somehow warily.
“It’s not poisoned.”
Hongjoong scoffed. “I know. Got anything to make it stronger?”
Seonghwa blinked. “Not for breakfast,” he simply replied. He just received a grin in response. “Just a drop?”
He sighed, but he reached under the counter anyway and pulled out a cheap bottle that was already open. “Here. Don’t come crying if in a few years your organs fail to work.”
“So dramatic.”
Seonghwa didn’t know how Hongjoong managed to scent his coffee with alcohol so early in the morning, but again, not his business. He had to bite his cheek to not huff out a small laugh after the sarcastic remark, though.
They finished their coffee in silence, neither of them having the energy nor the topics to hold a conversation.
Admittedly, Seonghwa got lost in his mind again. Hongjoong was always been alone when he stopped by. Maybe the cowboy just preferred to ride alone, he wouldn’t put it past him. Yunho was like that, too. Yet the way he spoke, his sarcasm, his somehow easygoing tone, made Seonghwa think that the man wanted someone.
He felt the question rise, heavy on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it down, looking at the main interest of his mind instead.
There was the same silence from the night before between them, and just then Seonghwa realised how little the counter actually separated them. Hongjoong leaned in, his elbows resting on the wood. “You ever think about sharing this place with someone else? Like, permanently.”
He didn’t. He also wanted to chuckle at the similarities of their thought process.
“Sometimes.”
“And?”
Seonghwa lacked of an answer for something his life didn’t have.
He looked at him. The other’s eyes were sharp, but not necessarily mean or evil, even if him of the day before would’ve had disagreed. He didn’t know who moved next, he only knew that the space between them kept narrowing until the low sound of the flames got muffled in his ears.
So close.
So close to what? To understanding? To trouble?
The thought scared him more than it should have.
Seonghwa drew back first, the room seemed to exhale with him. He immediately reached for the two mugs, mentally chalking it up to being a bartender.
“They’re empty.” He stated the obvious, his voice flat as it always was.
“They are.” Hongjoong answered just as steadily.
Seonghwa turned his back, took them to the sink, and let the water running fill the silence that followed the interaction.
By noon, the storm had gone completely still.
Seonghwa followed Hongjoong outside when he decided the weather had cleared enough. The cowboy exhaled and when he spoke, the smile was almost audible in his voice. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Somehow, his horse was still there. It was half sheltered behind the remains of a broken shed across the road, its fur was coated in sand yet it still looked beautiful.
“Guess she’s smarter than me.” Hongjoong said, walking over to the animal, caressing it in a surprisingly tender way. He tightened the saddle straps, checked the rains, and then swung onto the animal.
He looked down at Seonghwa. “Will you be alright?” Seonghwa gave a short nod, “Been alright before.”
Hongjoong smiled faintly at that. “You take care, Seonghwa.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
The outlaw chuckled and tipped his hat, “Right.” And without saying a thank you, not that Seonghwa was expecting it, he turned the horse with a light tug.
The path would be harsher than the usual due to all the sand and stuff, Seonghwa figured. That, however, didn’t seem to be a problem for Hongjoong, who didn’t look back as he faded into the distance.
.⋆ 𖥔 ݁ ˖₊‧.⭒.‧₊˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖ .
The storm had left a layer of dust over every corner of Ylido, but the locals just swept it away and continued with their life and their routine.
Routine. That was what kept Seonghwa going.
People started coming through again, habitual costumers, travellers, outlaws, thieves and all. As long as they paid, everyone would be served in his tavern; Seonghwa had never been the picky type, so he didn’t bat an eye when criminal with bounties higher then the value of his whole being stepped in and ordered something.
It was around midnight of two weeks later when a familiar voice cut again through the air.
“Yo.”
Seonghwa looked up from the counter. The man in the doorway was wearing a dusty jacket, an even dustier cowboy hat, and the same grin he’d had since they were kids.
“Yunho,” he said, his brows furrowing. “You’re early,” and he really was. Yunho usually came back every few months, not every few weeks.
“Yeah, I know. The storm pushed me off the rail, figured I’d let you feed me before I get back to working for my sins.” Yunho replied, slipping into a stool.
“Still calling whoring work?” Sure, Seonghwa wasn’t a saint, but the other was something else.
Yunho just laughed as Seonghwa filled him a glass. “On the house.”
The cowboy then hummed, “Okay, I actually have some news.”
Seonghwa quirked an eyebrow, “Do tell.”
“I actually caught feelings.”
Seonghwa did a double take at that. “You?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” Yunho snorted and leaned forward. “I met him in a tavern a few towns from here. He’s tall and with a big ass bounty on his head. Drove me insane trying to get him to talk.”
Seonghwa shook his head, yet he had to bite back a smile, “You sure he wasn’t just married?”
“Wouldn’t have stopped me. Besides, if he was, his wife would surely be satisfied.” Seonghwa’s nose scrunched at those words, really, he wasn’t a fan of details. “Good for you. Someone ought to put up with you.”
“Don’t be jealous, you still got this place to keep you company.” Yunho teased, his tone warm beneath the mockery.
“Yeah,” Seonghwa glanced at the busy tables. “Lucky me.”
If the cowboy had caught the undertone, he didn’t make comments about it, he just kept drinking. That had always been the good thing about the man: he didn’t press, didn’t offer a suffocating comfort. He was just there, ready to beat up someone if asked to.
Seonghwa remembered one day, they had been around twelve years old. They had been sitting on the sand behind the tavern, eating peaches they had stolen from a cart.
Yunho had looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Did you fall again?” He had asked, too casual to be actually casual.
“Yeah.” Seonghwa’s voice had been short, clipped. Yunho had nodded, however his gaze had stayed on the dark mark under Seonghwa’s collarbone, one which his shirt hadn’t been properly hiding.
“Doesn’t seem like a fall, Hwa.” The name had sounded too sweet in Seonghwa’s ears, but he had said nothing. He’d just shrugged and looked at the fruit in his hand. Yunho hadn’t pressed it, not then, not ever, but afterward every time he looked at his friend there was a certain mix of anger and concern on his features.
Seonghwa had learned to avoid that attention over the years.
“What about you?” Yunho’s question brought him back to the present.
“What about me?”
“Got anyone willing to bear with you and this place?” Seonghwa didn’t have an explanation for the fact that before answering, his eyes had gone somewhere near the door, looking for a presence of a person who wasn’t there or actually confirmed. Because, what?
“No. I’ve got work.”
Yunho, ever the dramatic, let out a long, theatrical sigh. “There it is, the Great Wall of Seonghwa. You ever get tired of pretending you don’t want anything?”
The older shot him a flat look. “You ever get tired of saying nonsense?”
Yunho smirked, “Nah, never.”
When the cowboy left about two hours later, Seonghwa’s eyes swept to the door once again, the worst part being that he didn’t even know why.
.⋆ 𖥔 ݁ ˖₊‧.⭒.‧₊˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖ .
Ylido’s Sunday market was the same as every other single time. People came because they always did.
Seonghwa walked slowly with his hands in his pockets of his light trousers. He stopped by a stall that sold beans and traded a few coins without talking much. The woman behind the table looked unchanged, the same she looked over the years, older like only people who lived in the desert could get.
Everyone knew everyone, except for the few travellers. Seonghwa used to come with his father to buy items he didn’t know about; now, he could almost still hear the man’s complaints about money, about people, about everything. He always used to to put an hand on Seonghwa’s shoulder to push him through the crowd.
‘Keep your eyes open, a fool gets cheated faster than a drunk.’ Little did Seonghwa know that the lesson had never been about beans and trades.
Seonghwa didn’t look back to those days fondly, he just remembered them. And really, aside from the fact that he was now alone, nothing had changed.
He brought bread, salt, and some dried herbs. A kid dropped an apple and it started rolling on the ground, Seonghwa bent down, picked it up and handed it to the child without saying a word and without expecting a thank you.
Yes, nothing had changed. The only difference was that his father would have probably crushed the apple with his foot to teach the kid a lesson about not playing with food.
For a second, Seonghwa caught sight of his reflection on a window while he was on his way back to the tavern. He wasn’t wearing an hat, he wasn’t wearing a black, long coat either, yet his jaw was set in a way that made him look like a man who could have been his father from the right distance.
He casted his eyes back on the ground before the thought could fully settle in his mind.
Four months passed like wind over sand.
The tavern stayed pretty much the same with its atmosphere, its light that created shadows on the bottles, its same handful of regulars and its same mentality. Seonghwa moved through it all with a rhythm that didn’t require thinking.
Clean, open, pour, nod, close. The days folded into one another until they piled onto his chest.
He spoke less, slept more and ate when he remembered he had to function as a human being, when he remembered he wasn’t ash yet.
And right because he was a human being, he had a libido, too. Not the highest, of course, but he was still a man in his twenties. He was just a man. The night brought him company sometimes, it was always with strangers, people he wouldn’t see again. He never made an habit out of it, but he didn’t turn the offers down either.
Once, during those months, he let a man around his age stay. Nothing extraordinary, but enough for someone like Seonghwa who wasn’t a fan of kissing for lust only. When it was over and the stranger had gone on his way, Seonghwa had found himself staring at the empty space beside him on the bed, and he swore he heard a different voice in his head. A different person’s.
He had shuddered. He had told himself he was just tired. He had closed his eyes and forced his brain to turn off.
But after that, he stopped accepting.
He’d also catch himself thinking about his father. Not with fondness, not with grief. Just memory.
Seonghwa had inherited the tavern the way people inherited debts. He had thought about leaving Ylido then, at nineteen years old, he remembered looking at the vast desert, the place all the youth ran towards to look for freedom.
But he hadn’t left. He never really knew why.
Yunho had left an year later after having tried for months to convince Seonghwa to join him. Needless to say he failed. Others did too, there weren’t many young people left in Ylido.
But Seonghwa hadn’t left. Not because he loved his hometown, but because he felt obligated to keep the tavern. And maybe, just maybe, because no one else had ever taught him how to have the desire to achieve something else.
No, he hadn’t gone away, and he wasn’t sure if that made him loyal or just lost.
It was late, about 2.30am. There hadn’t been many clients that night, and Seonghwa had already started cleaning, counting the money, all the stuff even if there were technically still thirty minutes until closing.
Then the door opened.
Seonghwa’s broom stilled as he turned around, mentally cursing whoever had decided to step inside. He looked up and there he was, that pain in the neck of an individual, Hongjoong. The man looked more like he had rolled in the sand rather than he had rode on it with his horse.
“Evenin’” Hongjoong casually called out as if Seonghwa wasn’t in the middle of closing. He received a flat, simple and humble: “You look like shit,” in return.
The cowboy just smiled and shut the door behind him, “You always know how to make a man feel welcome.”
“You want a drink?”
A nod. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Hongjoong pulled out a stool and sat in front of the counter with his head between his hands, discarding his hat to the side. To say he looked exhausted was an understatement.
They started talking about everything and nothing at the same time. About a town five days from here where the food was absolute trash, about Hongjoong’s horse almost throwing him off a cliff, about the crazy price of whiskey these weeks. None of it mattered and that was what made it easy.
Seonghwa mentioned Yunho, too, to which Hongjoong snorted, “You still see him?”
Seonghwa had just blinked, but deep down he held back a laugh, “You’re still holding that grudge?” He shot back.
“Not a grudge,” Hongjoong declared. “I just don’t like people who speak nonsense.”
“You mean when he asked if you were tall enough to reach the saddle?”
“I’ll start holding a grudge against you too.” Hongjoong glared, but it was more tease that anger. Seonghwa chuckled despite himself, “You both deserved to get thrown out that night.”
They resumed talking about uninteresting things, and Seonghwa was almost drawn to Hongjoong while they spoke. The small notions such as his fingers tracing the rim of the glass, his eyes crinkling at the edges every time he grinned, his overall demeanour, he was simply so….Hongjoong.
Some minutes after finishing his drink, the cowboy stood up. “Are you leaving?” Seonghwa asked before he could rethink his words.
“Just going out, it’s hot in there.”
It wasn’t, not one bit, but the door shut softly behind him, leaving Seonghwa alone again. He should wrap up the closing now that he had the opportunity, now that there wasn’t anyone else. However, for once, the silence felt too heavy for cleaning.
Finally, he sighed and set down the rag he had picked up.
The desert was windy and cold under the moonlight, Hongjoong stood near a well, looking up at the stars. Seonghwa slowly walked up to him, his boots crunching softly on the sand.
“You like stargazing?” He quietly asked.
“No, not really,” Hongjoong said. “But a long time ago I used to do it with someone else.”
Seonghwa hummed, not really knowing where the conversation was headed, wishing he had brought something else to offer besides quiet sympathy.
“His name was Wooyoung,” Hongjoong continued, as if he had to tell it to anyone who was willing to listen. “He said the desert was too boring, so he would never shut up around me.” His tone was a mix of fondness and ache. “He didn’t really care about work. He always told people that he rode because it made him feel alive.”
He hesitated after that, but Seonghwa didn’t push, he just waited.
“And because he was with me.” Hongjoong added, and with that, he fell into silence.
Oh, a lover, then.
Seonghwa stared at the horizon, “What happened to him?” His voice almost got lost under the stars.
Hongjoong hesitated again, and really, Seonghwa understood the feeling. Just as he was about to take his question back, the other answered. “Storm took him out. Should have been me.”
Seonghwa’s throat tightened for reasons unbeknownst to him. “Was he the type that would get mad at you for stayin’ alive?”
Hongjoong smiled for the first time during that conversation, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No,” he muttered. “Guess not.”
Grief was a weird thing.
Hongjoong turned towards Seonghwa. “Have you ever lost someone?”
Seonghwa sighed, he owed the other a reply. “Not a lover.”
“Still counts.” There was no comment on the choice of wording.
“Maybe.”
A soft breeze picked up again and the cowboy stepped closer. “Seonghwa,” he said, quiet.
“What?” His breath trembled slightly.
“You always this hard to look at?”
The older didn’t reply, because how do you reply to something like that? Coming from a man like that? Instead, his hand reached out to Hongjoong’s cheek, slowly as if he was going to disappear like in a bad dream. But Hongjoong, the same Hongjoong who had just spilled his heart out about his dead lover, let him. Even more, his own hand gripped Seonghwa’s sleeve.
The space between them folded as they leaned in, and their lips met. Hongjoong tasted like alcohol, but Seonghwa paid it no mind as his fingers fully cupped his face. The kiss was soft, achingly so, neither hadn’t kissed or been kissed with care in a long time.
Seonghwa let the warmth spread through his body after a long cold day, after a long cold life. Hongjoong’s hand went down to his waist, not rough like every sane person would expect from an outlaw no, he was surprisingly gentle.
When they pulled apart, their faces remained close.
“Didn’t think you’d let me,” Hongjoong muttered.
“Didn’t think I would either.”
They spent some more minutes like that, leaning against each other as if remembering how it felt to have someone. Hongjoong had a thoughtful look on his face, he looked halfway torn between kissing the older again and mounting on his horse and leave. He spoke instead.
“It’s late,”
“Yeah.” Seonghwa’s voice was low, a certain tiredness it in.
“You should close up.”
“I should.”
Back inside, after ditching the last cleaning duties for like, the first time in his life, Seonghwa drew the bolt across the door with steady hands. Sadly, his mind wasn’t as steady, his thoughts were all over the place.
He turned towards the back, where a narrow hallway let to his private rooms. He didn’t say a single word, he just paused around the corner and waited.
Hongjoong looked at him, really looked at him, then followed.
Seonghwa’s room was small, its ceiling pretty low and a faint smell of alcohol and dust clung onto the air. It wasn’t meant for company, it had never been.
The cowboy stood near the door, looking awfully unsure for a man who usually had smug as second name. Seonghwa, for his part, didn’t really know what to do either. His rare one night stands were brought to the space that resembled a guest room, surely not here. This place had been his father’s, and now it was his.
“You can sit.” Seonghwa said, the words feeling foreign on his lips.
Hongjoong nodded, and after hesitating yet again, he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, shredding his coat. “You don’t bring people back here, do you?”
“No,” was the simple answer.
“Why me then?”
Seonghwa slowly freed his hair from the leather tie as he looked out of the small window. “Because.” When he looked back at Hongjoong, the man had his elbows on his knees and he was staring at the ground, almost burning holes through it.
“Wooyoung he…” he trailed on and then started again. “I keep wondering what he would say if he saw me now. If he’d still…if he’d still…” he frowned, shutting his mouth for the second time. “Sorry, you don’t need to know this.”
Seonghwa walked towards him before his mind registered it, “If you’re talking, I don’t mind.” And really, he didn’t. Hongjoong was a mystery, and for whatever reason, Seonghwa wanted to drown in him. If talking about Wooyoung was his way of processing things, so be it. Seonghwa would listen.
“Seonghwa?” Hongjoong called out for the second time that night.
“Yes?”
“You should get some rest.” The other said.
Seonghwa hummed, “So should you.”
Hongjoong hesitated for the millionth time, then, after taking off his boots, laid on the bed. Just as Seonghwa was about to head out to sleep in the other room, Hongjoong scooped closer to the wall without looking at him in the eyes.
Seonghwa stared at him. Then, after a small sigh, blew out the lamp.
They didn’t speak again, no good night, no nothing, but hey, at least Seonghwa found out his bed was big enough for two people. They didn’t face each other either, not that they could have noticed in the darkness. Seonghwa thought about how easy it would have been to ruin everything, and how strange it felt that he hadn’t done it.
No, instead of self sabotaging himself, he just laid on his back, sensing the warmth of another person beside him, breathing the same air.
It took him a while to fall asleep.
When he woke up, the bed was cold. The other half of it looked untouched if not for the faint crease on the sheets where Hongjoon’s body had been.
For a long while, Seonghwa didn’t move, maybe if he didn’t, the whole thing wouldn’t be real. He just laid there, staring at the ceiling with a plain face. When he finally stood, he saw that Hongjoong’s few belongings were gone, there was no thing such as a piece of paper or a note, either.
Nothing.
Of course.
Of course someone like Hongjoong would just disappear.
It wasn’t like he was expecting something different. He just looked at the messy table, as if the emptiness of the room could outweigh the emptiness that was making his chest ache. There was a lump on his throat, and Seonghwa loathed it. Why was he even surprised?
By the time the tavern opened in the evening, Seonghwa had went through his daily duties as always, crossing them off his mental list with a diligence only he could have in Ylido. He moved on autopilot, it was almost uncanny how he shut down all his emotions to avoid them spilling out.
Behind the counter, while ignoring a couple on a date, he found himself staring at a single bottle on a shelf, a cheap one that Hongjoong hadn’t even touched. The same one that his father loved to drink, loved to finish in one night, loved to grip with his fingers. Seonghwa could almost hear the sound of the object shattering and its glass shards hitting the floor.
Unlike his mother who had stopped flinching over the years, Seonghwa had never been able to. He had always wanted to ask her how she did it, however he had never gotten the opportunity. Because, in contrast to adult him, she had moved away to another town as soon as she had enough money. Or enough depraved men who were willing to pay a married woman to leave with them. She had left without looking back, Seonghwa had been five at the time.
He could have stood there in a daze forever if the world hadn’t pulled him back.
“Hey!” The man who was on a date demanded his attention, glaring at him. “Are you going to do your job or not?”
Seonghwa blinked, the room shifting into focus again. “Right,” he muttered. “I apologise.”
It didn’t matter who left and who didn’t, he would always be surrounded by ghosts who didn’t love him.
By 3am the tavern was empty again. Seonghwa slid the bolt across the door and leaned against it for a moment. The quiet pressed on him like a second skin, even more than the usual, and Seonghwa wanted nothing more than to shred it and be reborn. Sadly, he couldn’t do that.
The air reeked with the smell of alcohol, a table in the back had its chairs upside down and there was a liquid spilled on the floor. That will take a while to clean up.
He hated this kind of silence, it was the same silence that used to hang in the atmosphere before something happened with his parents. With his father. Because of his father.
When the floor was clean enough to avoid the next clients falling and smashing their head onto the wooden boards, Seonghwa started running a cloth on the counter, just sweeping the thing back and forth for the sake of it. His reflection trembled slightly in the bottles behind the bar, including the cheap one from hours before. He stared it again, slower this time.
His father, his mother, Yunho, Hongjoong, they all tangled together in his mind until they formed a mushed spider web that moved him around as if he was a broken rag doll. He hated it, hated it, hated it.
He exhaled, looking out of the window to try to sway his mind to another direction. Bad choice, the stars reminded him of Hongjoong now. He looked at the ground instead. He was tired, not the kind that could be fixed with sleep no, the kind that dug under his skin until it took everything.
He blew out the fireplace and went to his room, shutting the door behind him with more strength than necessary.
He sat on the bed, kicked off his boots, unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his shirt, everything suddenly suffocating him. The moonlight poured through the window, pale like the color of salt. It traced the curve of his jaw, his loose hair and it glimmered on his light trousers and on the smooth line of his throat, especially his adam’s apple. He had never appreciated nudity, he despised the human body in its pure form.
He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until he saw stars, ignoring the stinging sensation of something acutely close to tears.
Something inside him gave in. Gave up. It was too much, everything was. Was it even worth it? Waking up, working, and then going to sleep? Repeating everything just to see a man you loved cared for who will only disappear again? Living in a self loathing bubble that was only something visceral and cruel?
And since when he had started caring about Hongjoong?
He stood suddenly, his hand hitting the side of the nightstand. A glass he had placed there weeks prior toppled, fell, hit the floor and shattered. Oh, the irony. The sound broke throught the quiet and it was like an unspoken permission to Seonghwa, Seonghwa who lived as noiseless as possible.
He grabbed the back of the chair and flipped it, making it end up on its side. Forcing a sob down with so much pressure it hurt his throat, he grabbed onto the curtain and pulled, tearing it until it was reduced to a mere rag on the floor.
He had never felt so much. And why? All because of a man?
He pulled open the drawer and a second after, clothes were spilled all over around. Because they weren’t the travelling type, because he didn’t leave. Because he was hard to look at.
He turned around and saw a photo hung on the wall, the only one he had. There were him and Yunho as kids in it, smiling brightly in the sun. It hit the wall opposite to where it had been, smashing against it, and the glass spiderwebbed right on the taller’s face.
He wanted out. Immediately. Out of his own body, his own being, his own life, mind and soul. He couldn’t do this anymore.
When he stopped, his rationality catching up to his actions, the room looked like a catastrophe. It was. Seonghwa looked around breathing so heavily his pulse muffled his ears and his cheeks were wet without him noticing it. He collapsed onto his knees, basically gasping for air, shuddering so hard that the sobs almost got pulled out of his lungs.
The whiplash that hit him made him almost nauseous; he didn’t know for what or who he was waiting for in his life, all he knew was that there was a part of him that was getting tired of it.