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When the plane first began to shake, Keonho didn’t pay much attention.
He had flown more times than he could count, following the swim team to competitions year-round. He closed his eyes and accepted the sudden turbulence, assuming it was nothing more than ordinary air currents. His mind drifted back to the hug he’d shared with Juhoon before departure. Before almost every competition, Keonho would cling to Juhoon for a hug, asking for a blessing for victory. Juhoon always indulged him. After pulling him close, Juhoon would pat his tense back and murmur softly in his ear, “Do well.”
Remembering that low whisper, the faint warmth of breath brushing his ear, Keonho shivered. A vein pulsed lightly at his temple. He lowered his head and took a slow breath, thinking he had to place well this time—so he could ask Juhoon for a reward.
Then a dull, heavy thud shuddered through the aircraft.
Keonho’s eyes flew open. He stood, looking around, just as the thud twisted into the shriek of bending metal—sharp enough to pierce the ears. Something was wrong. The cabin stirred. Unease spread from seat to seat, leaving wide eyes and drained faces in its wake.
In an instant, screams and sobs flooded the air, tangled with the frantic footsteps of flight attendants.
Keonho grabbed the hand of the teammate beside him. In the deafening noise he could only shout, voice breaking, “What’s happening?!”
His teammate looked back at him, helpless, pale.
“Maybe… this is it for us.”
This is it?
Keonho’s mind went blank. Terror knocked the air out of his lungs. The sense of weightlessness sharpened.
Outside the window, the sky had turned a sheet of lead. Turbulence seized the plane, as if trying to tear the wings apart.
Fear filled him so completely nothing else could exist. His fingers dug into the seat, desperate not to become gravity’s plaything.
Was he going to die?
He hadn’t competed yet.
Hadn’t cut through a lane at full speed.
Hadn’t taken first place.
Hadn’t brought pride to his coach.
Hadn’t gone to university.
Hadn’t fallen in love.
…Love.
He hadn’t confessed to Juhoon.
[Hyung.]
Keonho gripped his phone, trembling as he typed the first word. Sweat mixed with the blood drawn by shards of glass from the shattered overhead light, running down and nearly blurring his vision. He squeezed his right eye shut—it wouldn’t open anymore—and sent the message while his left eye could still see.
The gray loading circle spun.
Only then did he remember.
They were on a plane.
Juhoon couldn’t receive it.
The pale and dark gray circle turned and turned beside the message. Keonho’s strength left him. He closed his eyes.
Secretly loving Juhoon had been fourteen-year-old Keonho’s quiet, hidden thought.
Back then, his life was almost entirely swimming. There seemed to be nothing else that mattered. As an athlete, exam bonuses lightened the weight of school. After training, wandering the empty middle-school grounds while other students were in class was one of his few entertainments.
The hedges trimmed neatly by the gardener were always round. Keonho liked to run his hands over them—tracing leaf veins, studying their shapes, feeling whether the edges were smooth or serrated. Sometimes he pulled too hard. A leaf would tear along its veins, split into strange shapes. He would feel a flicker of guilt, then pinch off the remaining leaves and thin twigs, as if that might hide the evidence of what he’d ruined.
The middle school and high school stood side by side, separated only by iron bars like a prison gate and a single door. He had seen teachers pass through it freely and guessed that was why the two schools were built so close. He wanted to go inside the high-school section too.
Juhoon appeared one afternoon when Keonho skipped class after training, strolling out from the high-school building beyond the gate with a large bag of trash in hand. Leaning against a thick hedge, Keonho caught sight of that white figure and spun toward him.
“Hey! Senior!”
Juhoon paused. After tossing the trash, he looked over. Keonho waved with both arms, almost bouncing.
When Juhoon stopped before the iron bars nearest him, Keonho broke into a wide grin. Sweat that had gathered at his temples was shaken loose by the movement, slipping down his cheek—too quick for the sunlight to catch.
“Senior, show me around the high school, will you?”
Soon Keonho advanced straight into high school, and his contact with Juhoon grew more frequent. Secretly loving Juhoon became fifteen-year-old Keonho’s hidden thought.
Juhoon was already a junior, and modeling work had faded under academic pressure. Still, he could never resist Keonho’s relentless coaxing. Near the end of almost every training session, he would walk quietly into the natatorium, choose a comfortable seat with a good view, and sit waiting, watching Keonho approach with his eyes narrowed in a grin.
“Hyung, did you bring me anything today?”
Keonho held out both hands expectantly.
Juhoon looked at him—just out of the pool, swim cap freshly removed and caught between his fingers. Even with the cap on, his hair was nearly soaked, droplets clinging to dark strands, ready to fall.
Under Keonho’s hopeful gaze, Juhoon turned, took out a brand-new towel, and draped it over his head, rubbing gently.
“Brought a new towel.”
Caught off guard, and disappointed there were no snacks, Keonho quickly devised revenge. He flung the damp towel over Juhoon’s neck, muttered, “I’m training more,” and leapt back into the pool without warning.
Juhoon only sighed at his childishness, stepping closer, letting the splashing water soak his shoes as he waited.
When Keonho climbed out again, Juhoon removed the towel from his neck and handed it back with a small nod.
“Don’t push yourself. Don’t catch a cold tomorrow.”
At such moments, a quiet thought would rise in Keonho’s chest—
Maybe Hyung likes me too.
It did not seem impossible. Juhoon had always been this way: calm, sparing with words, everything he felt hidden in what he did rather than what he said.
And yet, before the thought could take root, Keonho would press it down himself.
Because Juhoon was like that with everyone.
At sixteen, Keonho discovered Juhoon seemed able to do everything.
A week ago he’d seen him playing piano in the music room. Today he found him again on the basketball court. Juhoon never liked wearing much when he exercised; a white tank top was enough. Pale skin and the line of his shoulders stood out sharply among sun-browned athletes.
Keonho glanced down at his own skin— the same wheat-toned shade as every other boy’s — and his mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
When Juhoon smiled, his eyes curved into thin lines, like he had four eyebrows. When Keonho told him that, Juhoon had only lifted his brows slightly and said, “Woah, four eyebrows.”
Keonho always wanted a stronger reaction, always failed. Only when Seonghyeon later told him Juhoon had mentioned the “four eyebrows” comment did he feel oddly soothed—glad Hyung remembered.
In his senior year, Juhoon no longer waited by the pool. Keonho trained harder. He held his breath, rising and sinking in blue water, thrashing through freestyle as if his life depended on it, white foam swallowing his ears. Stroke after stubborn stroke, until his fingertips wrinkled and his shoulders burned, he finally stopped, chest rising and falling.
Through the gym’s second-floor windows, he saw the sky outside—completely black, only fragments of moonlight filtering in.
He thought, Hyung must be in the study hall right now. Maybe.
The day Juhoon received the message, it was raining.
Rain fell in thin, pale lines outside the study room windows. Now and then, gusts of wind drove droplets against the glass beside him, as if trying to get his attention.
[Hyung.]
The moment Keonho’s message arrived, Juhoon picked up his phone, eyes lifting from the cold practice questions. After a few minutes passed with no reply, Juhoon assumed Keonho was probably fumbling with his luggage while getting off the plane. A quiet laugh escaped him—such a brief message was likely just Keonho’s hurried way of letting him know he’d arrived safely.
And because of that, Juhoon found himself wanting Keonho to see his reply as soon as possible—wanting him, just as quickly, to come back. His pale fingers moved slowly over the keyboard.
“Mm?”
He set the phone down, folded his arms on the desk, and rested his head on them, watching the rain.
On rainy days, Keonho always tilted the umbrella toward him, one shoulder soaked. If he’d just come from training, he’d say he’d been in the water anyway. If he’d picked Juhoon up from study hall, he’d say Juhoon had been tired all day and shouldn’t suffer for such a small thing.
Sometimes, after a long silence, he would add—getting rained on for Hyung wasn’t suffering at all. He liked it.
So Juhoon quite liked rainy days.
After a while, he tapped his screen again. Still no reply. He frowned. Maybe Keonho had fallen asleep? Was there a time difference?
He sent another message.
“Good luck in the competition. Come back soon after you win.”