Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Unrequited love isn't so hard, Seungkwan thinks.

It goes like this.

Most nights, Hansol enters the code into Seungkwan’s keypad and steps into his apartment with a takeout meal in hand, an especially welcome presence on particularly onerous days after work when the kids are super loud and Seungkwan wants to order more jjajangmyeon than he knows what to do with. When it’s Hansol’s turn to be annoyed, kept late at the studio or some demo going wrong, Seungkwan breaks out the tteokbokki and ramyeon, attempting rabeokki because it’s Hansol’s favorite. Sometimes he gives Hansol an extra boiled egg just to see him grin fondly in gratitude, toothy and soft.

As an unspoken rule, Hansol stays over instead of going home. They play video games or watch movies or listen to music quietly, side by side in comfortable, companionable silence broken only by Seungkwan’s sleepy chattering or some random hypothetical from Hansol. When it’s time to go to bed, Hansol lopes to Seungkwan’s room like it’s second nature. He’s prone to sleeping on his back like a freak, which means he’s carved a space out in Seungkwan’s mattress that’s all his own.

On those occasions, Seungkwan says goodnight and turns to face the wall and his happiness is so total, so complete, that he can barely restrain himself from staring over his shoulder, desperately pleased that his favorite person in the world is within whispering distance. More often than he wants to admit, Seungkwan exploits the gift by waking Hansol up at an ungodly hour just to talk, but Hansol’s eyes are always soft and indulgent as he nods and listens, so it’s worth being an imposition.

Sure, Seungkwan’s bad ankle aches in the morning from being cramped for hours, but his sheets smell like Hansol’s cologne and stupid 3-in-1 bodywash/shampoo/conditioner till laundry day, and it reminds Seungkwan of middle school, how they used to share uniforms and sometimes before tests Seungkwan would duck his nose into his collar just to pick up the scent of Hansol’s soap and the aftershave he didn’t quite need yet.

And if he gets to wake up to Hansol’s cute bedhead, the dark warmth of his eyes, the low rasp of his morning voice, well. That’s just a bonus.

So they have this routine, but Seungkwan never turns it into a thing. His love for and attraction to Hansol simply exists, as steady and silent as the turning of the seasons. It’s been this way since Seungkwan’s voice first cracked, and will likely remain that way till Seungkwan’s hair goes grey.

Because Seungkwan, as impetuous as he can be, isn’t stupid. Being friends with Hansol is where it began and where it very well may end. The sleepovers and shared meals, the almost unbearable intimacy of knowing each other down to which tooth they lost at what age – Seungkwan knows how those things can hold different weights to different people and he knows that when Hansol looks at Seungkwan, there are no dreams. No desire.

So the hypothesis that, given the chance, Hansol’s mouth would be hot and perfect against his —

Well, it remains untested.

This, what they have, how they are, it’s enough.

Really.

Maybe this categorical denial is why Seungkwan doesn’t let himself notice when things change.

It’s a few weeks into the new year by the time he realizes that Hansol has barely come over. The shift is nothing sudden or marked, more a combination of factors. A series of canceled meals, Hansol sending a distracted, “Sorry, I’ve got some things to do. Rain check?” text before Seungkwan can suggest dinner or a drink or video game. Lingering 1s on KaTalk and a general sense of widening disconnect. Eventually it’s just Seungkwan and increasingly stale packets of Shin Ramyun, and then even more gradually, Seungkwan with a protein bar and his phone, scrolling YouTube as shadows lengthen across the floor of his living room, and suddenly, weeks have passed by without Seungkwan knowing what verse Jihoon made Hansol rewrite, or having sung the harmony for a new hook Hansol is trying out, or sharing some outrageous thing a child has said, or describing in piteous detail the way his chest clenches wistfully when he looks at little Hanuel with ribbons in her hair.

The sheets stop smelling like anything but detergent and body heat. Seungkwan goes to bed too late and there’s no one to talk to, the loneliness ringing in the dark blue of the night.

Hansol is never mean about canceling plans. He doesn’t seem standoffish the way people do when they’re intentionally avoidant. He’s still the same Hansol when they do meet, chiming in on inside jokes or rolling his eyes affectionately at Seungkwan’s antics. He still sends Seungkwan memes and songs, short treatises on esoteric topics that he’s decided to look up for no reason other than curiosity. Now and then, they’ll even share lunch together during the day, laughing the same way they always do, shoulders and knees pressed together as they sit on the same side of the table.

So at first, Seungkwan tells himself that this kind of loneliness is a part of adulthood, the growing list of priorities that people have other than their best friends, their old routines. That it’s temporary and it’ll get better.

But then it gets worse. In addition to general unavailability, small signals start to indicate that something is wrong. Hansol changing the subject when Seungkwan asks if he wants to come over, or holding himself just the slightest bit away when Seungkwan goes for a hug. Texts coming only in short, curt responses, never first. Creating distance where there didn’t used to be any. Rapidly and all at once, they slide out of sync and for the first time in his life, Seungkwan’s mercurial moods aren’t at fault. This is Hansol’s doing. His choice.

It makes Seungkwan want to ask the questions, ones that feel stupid and irrational and needy:

Are we okay? or What’s going on with you? or the worst of all, Did I do something?

Seungkwan won’t do it. His biggest fear has always been being an imposition on others with his love, which he knows from past experiences can sometimes be too big, too deep, too overwhelming. He won’t chase after Hansol, who is notorious for running when pressured. Anyway, he’s got more dignity than that. Or at least, he wants to have more dignity than that.

So he keeps quiet. Doesn’t allow himself to interrogate or confront. Seungkwan tells himself to wait it out, that things can’t be that bad, that he’s imagining the distance and that Hansol is just overworked, overstressed, that he needs space.

And then their stupidly big social group is out for monthly drinks, and his school friend and dongsaeng Chan lets slip that Hansol is dating someone.

Seungkwan, slugging back a beer, feels the bracing chill of dread settle of him in a chokehold, freezing him in place. Across the bar, Hansol is smiling with every single one of his teeth, looking for all the world like things are normal.

Dating someone. Hansol, dating someone. A girl, Chan supplies helpfully. Some creative director at Hansol’s company.

When he finally confronts Hansol, Seungkwan is five beers deep and the type of inconsolably angry that he knows will lead to hurt feelings if he doesn’t control himself.

“Girl problems?” he asks. He’s followed Hansol outside, ostensibly for air, but mainly — mainly because sometimes Hansol is concerned, Seungkwan feels like a dog on a leash. Trailing behind. It makes his voice snide.

Hansol whirls, eyes wide. “Whoa!” he says. “Uh. Hi, Kwan-ah. You scared me.”

“Mm, well, maybe you deserve it,” Seungkwan says. Nasty. Sorrowfully. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks now.”

Hansol’s expression goes blank in a blink, a heartbeat, and Seungkwan snorts.

“Yep, and there’s the look.” He points to Hansol, pokes him right in the chest. Waits for the wince. “The Chwe Hansol look. The one you get when you’re trying to be myserious and cool.”

“That’s just my face,” Hansol responds.

“No, I know your face. All your faces,” Seungkwan retorts, and tries not to gag on the resentment trapped in those words. “What’s going on?”

Hansol’s eyes skitter away, before meeting Seungkwan’s again. Embarrassed.

“Hansol,” Seungkwan’s voice is a whine. “Chan says you have a girlfriend.” Buried under the exasperation is real hurt, and Hansol seems to hear it, because his brow furrows and he looks more furtive.

“Ah,” he says. “Yeah. Um. Her name is Yoona. We’ve been dating since last month.”

Seungkwan frowns and takes a step back. “Aish,” he says, oddly off-balance. “And you didn’t think to tell me?” He scratches his neck, feeling a little dizzy at the news, trying to process—

“Since last month?” he clarifies, trying valiantly to recapture the thread of the conversation. “Were you just gonna wait till you got married to share the news? I thought I was your best friend.”

For a second, Hansol looks guilty, jaw tensing. He mumbles, “Not everything is about you, Seungkwan,” and it’d be a little mean for how blunt it is, except Seungkwan knows by now that Hansol’s just like that. Not one for emotional outbursts, stoic to a fault with certain topics. Defensive, sometimes, when he knows he’s violated a social code.

“Rude. This is big news, Hansol, and I feel like you—” Seungkwan cuts himself off, looks down. Shoves his hands in his pockets, and shrugs.

“You usually talk to me about big things,” he says, resolutely. “That’s all.”

A memory pops up then, unbidden, of Hansol once pushing him away with a laugh: Sometimes you’re a lot!

They were fifteen, Seungkwan remembers, fresh off their first major fight. Seungkwan knows he might have been a bit smothering, especially for someone so fiercely introverted as Hansol. As a result, Hansol had retreated, flinching away from Seungkwan’s touch, hanging out instead with a group of older, edgy kids who used to bully Seungkwan when they were small.

That fight ended with Hansol throwing his first and last punch when one of those kids called Seungkwan pathetic, but sometimes, Seungkwan looks at Hansol and considers the painful truth that maybe he is pathetic. Maybe he is a lot. Maybe that’s why Hansol has pulled back from the nights spent together. Maybe it’s not about being busy hiding a new relationship at all. Maybe it’s the chance Hansol’s been waiting for, to cut him loose because Seungkwan’s love has never waned or tempered or normalized, only ballooned. Grown so big it must be a burden.

Maybe Seungkwan is the problem here, and has been for longer than he knows.

It’s a very dramatic spiral, but he's drunk, and he has a lot of baggage, and with Hansol, with the prospect of losing Hansol, Seungkwan can’t help himself. Ready for the worst case scenario so it doesn’t blind him out of nowhere later on.

“Never mind,” Seungkwan says abruptly. A breath pulls through his lungs, and it feels unexpectedly serrated. But he keeps his voice carefully light when he says, “I shouldn’t have pushed. If there’s something you want to tell me, tell me when you want to. Uh, if you want to.”

He gives a grin, tries to ensure it’s normal and not like he’s internally spinning out. Probably only succeeds in making himself look slightly like a maniac.

Hansol frowns. Fidgets. Reaches out to tug Seungkwan’s elbow, all his obstinance fading.

“Seungkwan,” he says, contrite. He’s the first one to apologize when they’ve been fighting, and Seungkwan can see he feels badly now. His kindness only makes Seungkwan feel meaner, pettier. Worse.. “I — hey, look, I didn’t mean to not tell you. It’s just really new, and I…I didn’t know how, or what to say.”

There’s a little thread of hilarity that works its way through Seungkwan’s voice when he says in an exaggeratedly deep, slow voice: “Hi Seungkwan, I’ve been dating this girl. I think she’s my girlfriend now. Want to meet her? It might be hard though because I’m avoiding you for some reason.”

Sarcasm is a shield, and Seungkwan regains some of his backbone, standing straight and arching his brow. “I know it's your first girlfriend and everything,” he says, pulling his elbow out of Hansol’s grasp, “But why does that mean you have to ignore me?”

For a long beat, Hansol just looks at him. Finally, he buries his face in his hands, groaning in defeat.

“Ugh,” he says. “You’re annoying.” But there’s a warmth there that sounds a little like relief, too. Like maybe Hansol’s been waiting for Seungkwan to ask.

“Not as annoying as you,” Seungkwan parries, ignoring the pang of another insecurity awakened by what would be banter if it was anyone but Hansol.

So maybe Seungkwan is overly persistent, who cares? He’d rather that than being a fortress. Somewhere along the way of their friendship, Hansol started building these impenetrable walls around every feeling that mattered, and Seungkwan’s got a shit ankle after a volleyball accident right before graduating. He can’t scale heights anymore, so all he can do is chip away at the brick and mortar, knock down the concrete, until there’s room enough to fit through.

It’s slow going, but if being Hansol’s friend has taught Seungkwan anything, it’s to be stubborn when it matters.

Hansol leans back against the brick wall of the building, avoiding Seungkwan’s eyes. It’s his biggest reveal; for someone who loves eye contact as much as Hansol, for someone who communicates — radiates — sincerity through a prolonged and steady gaze, whenever he looks away, he’s hiding something.

“What’s going on in Hansollie’s brain?” Seungkwan asks softly, tone more conciliatory. His own emotions make it hard for him to be fair to Hansol, he knows that. Just because he feels things deeper than friendship doesn’t mean Hansol does, and hey – fine. Maybe best friends doesn’t mean telling each other everything.

If it did, Seungkwan would’ve confessed ages ago.

Hansol finally looks at him, and the full force of his brown eyes has Seungkwan captivated. It’s the only excuse he has for the way he misses Hansol saying:

“Do you think we’re a little…codependent?”

Seungkwan frowns and steps back. “Pardon?” he asks. It's the first English word he ever learned from Hansol's eomma, and he breaks it out in particularly bewildering moments.

Hansol flushes and loses some of his square-shouldered bravado, looking abashed. “I’m just saying,” he says, and his eyes dart away again. “We spend a lot of time together.”

Seungkwan’s frown deepens. “Well, we’re…friends?” he says, wishing he didn’t sound hesitant. “Right?”

Hansol’s eyebrows shoot up and he nods frantically. “Oh wow, yeah, of course,” he says earnestly. “That’s — that’s not even a question.” He reaches out, grabs Seungkwan’s hand. Seungkwan laces their fingers tentatively, feeling a bit like he’s got whiplash.

“You can’t get rid of me,” Hansol says, voice warmer now, body language more sure. “You saw me with bleached tips. And we have each other’s secret family recipes.”

Seungkwan laughs under his breath. “The world’s most useless knowledge considering us,” he teases. His repertoire is better than Hansol’s, but it’s not exactly Michelin starred.

Hansol’s responding grin is mischievous, playful and boyish, and it makes Seungkwan’s skin flush hot, enough that he almost forgets what they’re talking about until:

“I just — I started thinking. About how I stay over so often. How you always cook for us. And I think, before, I didn’t realize how much that stuff was stuff people do for each other when they’re dating. Now, I guess I’m wondering if maybe you and I relied on each other too much, instead of, you know. Meeting other people.”

Hansol’s hold tightens on Seungkwan’s hand before he drops it, reaching up to pull his fingers messily through his hair.

“I have Yoona, Seungkwan, and it’s been new, but. Really good.” His smile is shy, and Seungkwan feels a pang, realizing that for the first time since he met Hansol, there’s a part of his life that’s completely foreign to him. The realization is unwelcome, the way all inconvenient truths are.

“And?” Seungkwan asks, faintly, because there’s an and and he’d better get ready for it.

Hansol’s eyes turn more serious. “And. I dunno. I would talk to her about coming over to your place and she was surprised it was so often and I thought — wait. Does he have someone like Yoona for him? Besides me? Am I holding you back from having someone like that? Because I want you to have someone like that. So, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was avoiding you. I just figured, you should have a person besides me to be with, to come home to. To do the stuff we did but have it mean something. I…guess I was trying to give us space. To give you space. In case you wanted that, too.”

He bites his lip, looking vaguely nauseated at his rambling, stuttering speech. Maybe it’s an anxiety borne of experience, because he peers at Seungkwan now and asks worriedly, “…Did I fuck things up?”

Hansol isn’t an asshole, Seungkwan thinks distantly, amidst the bells clanging in his head, but what a way to politely say you're kind of a loser.

Despite feeling like his carefully ordered world has just been blown up by a series of unintentionally and casually cruel words, after more than a decade of knowing Hansol, of loving Hansol, Seungkwan shouldn’t be surprised. He’s exactly the type of person to examine old relationships through the lens of new ones, trying to make sense of and order his reality in ways that fit his evolving understanding of the world around him. Especially if he’s got a new, well-meaning girlfriend asking all the wrong questions.

And if Seungkwan is being real, Hansol has always been kind of dense when it comes to Seungkwan’s feelings for him.

So instead of cursing, or walking away, or flinching, or telling Hansol that space is the last thing he’ll ever want when it comes to them, Seungkwan just smiles. A small, sincere, true smile.

Because underneath it all, the thing that stands out the most is that Hansol wants him to be happy.

“No, you didn't,” he says, taking the frenetic, drunk, righteous and angry energy in his heart and forcefully smashing it into a small box. Like a very skilled trash compactor. His voice goes quiet enough that Hansol has to lean in, sliding a hand over Seungkwan’s waist to steady them both as he closes the distance. “You didn’t fuck up anything at all, Sol-ah.”

He smiles. His teeth aren't bloody, but they taste like metal anyway. 

Hansol’s answering grin is soft, so sweet that it makes Seungkwan’s nose sting. He knocks his shoulder against Seungkwan’s, gives him an uncharacteristic hug, and then proceeds to tell him all about Yoona.

They stay outside until the rest of their friends join them, and when Hansol decides for the first time in weeks and weeks to follow him home, Seungkwan lays in bed next to him, listening to the even cadence of his breath and feeling the press of his body from shoulder to thigh, trying not to view this as a hollow victory at best.

The moon halos Hansol’s face a watery blue, and just for one more night, Seungkwan lets himself look.

|

The good news is, Hansol starts coming over again once they have their conversation at the bar, the boil lanced and relief heavy in his voice whenever he talks about his day, peppering in non-sequiturs about Yoona, pausing, then beaming when Seungkwan offers patient – if noncommittal – “mhhmms.”

The bad news is, Yoona has helpfully offered to set up “Hansol’s best friend!” with someone they work with. Even worse, it’s with Hansol’s approval, it turns out.

“Hansol,” Seungkwan says, when Hansol tells him this, and he has to force himself not to pinch the bridge of his nose, “Did you guys set up… a double date?”

Hansol fiddles with his lip in the way that used to drive Seungkwan nuts and now only mildly elevates his heart rate. “Yeah,” Hansol says after a moment. “I mean, I’ve talked about you so much and Yoona would love to meet you.”

Seungkwan drums his fingers on the counter, feeling a little strange. Put off by the idea of Hansol — or Hansol’s girlfriend — intervening in this tender part of Seungkwan’s heart.

“You could just invite her over,” Seungkwan points out.

“To your apartment?” Hansol asks, giving a weird look. Seungkwan’s cheeks warm; for a minute, he’d forgotten this wasn’t Hansol’s home, too. Stupid, he thinks to himself, winded by the sudden force of his stomach dropping. So stupid.

“No,” he says, to save face. “To yours, and have me over for dinner too. We haven’t done that in awhile, anyway. I don’t see why we need to engineer a date for me to meet someone so important in your life.”

“Uh,” Hansol says, ears going slightly pink as he shifts in his seat. “Well. We’re kind of…couple-y? I thought this way it might be less awkward.”

Seungkwan’s heart pangs and he looks down at his plate, studiously twirling a noodle around his chopsticks. What Hansol means, Seungkwan assumes, is that a visit at Hansol’s would quickly become Seungkwan third-wheeling, and no one wants to be the one to kick him out of his childhood friend’s home when it’s time for him to go. Which is new, and embarrassing, if fair. Still, the idea of being set up with someone else, much less set up by Hansol and his new significant other…it turns Seungkwan’s stomach.

“You don’t think it’d be awkward to be introduced to two new people at once?” Seungkwan asks. “Instead of just, you know, the one? Your girlfriend? Who you’ve been with for weeks now and I still haven’t met?”

He tries not to sound combative, but Hansol catches on anyway.

“Hey, Seungkwan,” Hansol says, voice quiet. “I want you to meet Yoona. I do, but I want it to be the right time and the right way. You’re both really important to me.” When Seungkwan looks at him, his eyes are as sincere as always. He reaches out and squeezes Seungkwan’s wrist, a point of contact that both burns and grounds. “And as for the date, look. You know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, right? I just…I want you to be happy, too.”

Seungkwan sighs.

The too is glaring, an itch under his skin, the idea that Hansol is happy right now and it’s because of someone else. That his silly seal-bark laughter isn’t the sole or even primary domain of Seungkwan’s antics anymore. That there’s a person who knows Hansol in a way Seungkwan could never dream of knowing him, a person Seungkwan hasn’t even put a face to the name to, yet.

That Hansol doesn’t view himself as the person to make Seungkwan happy. That he is willing to pass that job on to a stranger.

His heart is squeezing in his chest, but Seungkwan smiles weakly. “I’ll think about it,” he promises, because it’s the best he can do.

Hansol grins and drops a piece of pork from his plate onto Seungkwan’s, a gift for this concession.

As always, it’s their shorthand, and they go back to talking about mundane topics, shoving at each other good-naturedly like nothing out of the ordinary ever was discussed at all.

It’s the slightest balm on Seungkwan’s hurt that some things, at least, remain unchanged.

For now.

|

Jeonghan likes to tell Seungkwan that it’s the proximity that creates the feelings.

In between wiping Min Jung’s tears or combing back little Hyo’s hair, they have casual conversations about life outside of school. Jeonghan is exceptionally nosy, though, and he tends to make sweeping judgements about even side characters in Seungkwan’s stories. Hansol is a major player, juicy enough for Jeonghan to sink his teeth into, however tiny and unthreatening they are.

“I’m just saying,” he says in a benevolent but lofty tone, “He’s all you talk about. Even when there’s no possible way for what you’re saying to logically be about him. If you talked about him even two-thirds less of the time, I bet you wouldn’t be moping right now.”

This isn’t very helpful to Seungkwan, but he doesn’t say so, because otherwise Jeonghan will make him take bathroom duty again.

“Noted,” Seungkwan says. “Stop talking about Hansol.”

Jeonghan narrows his eyes. “The point isn’t to stop talking about him,” he corrects. “It’s to find other people to talk about, too.” He stops, fixes his apron. “For example, I tell stories about Seungcheol and Joshy.”

And, like. Even though obviously Jeonghan just wanted to sneak in another mention of his two boyfriends, that advice does sound more helpful. Seungkwan is sure it’s something he should take under advisement. It’s just — never going to happen.

“I’ve known Hansol longer than I’ve known I was gay,” Seungkwan says. At Jeonghan’s look, he amends, “Okay, longer than I admitted I was gay. But the point is, he’s — he’s been the longest, most enduring part of my life, hyung. Even when I try to find others who could begin to take up that much space in my day to day, it’s. I don’t know.” He shrugs, suddenly feeling miserable. “It’s hard. It doesn’t feel good. Or right.”

Jeonghan gives a disgusted snort. “That’s because he’s wormed his way into your soft heart, like it’s an apple core! He’s at your apartment all the time! He’s at everything you bother to do outside of work! He’s everywhere! You need some distance, Kwan-ah. Stop looking at him like he’s your only choice when you’re not even an option to him.”

Jeonghan is not usually so full of tough love, Seungkwan thinks distantly, his body growing hot at the blunt, shameful words. But he’s not wrong. Seungkwan knows that, as tough a pill as Yoona has been to swallow. Hansol might eat his food and sleep in his apartment and rub his back when he gets indigestion, but when it comes to wanting Seungkwan romantically, well — didn’t Hansol once teach him a saying about pigs in the sky? Never has he looked at Seungkwan with anything that could be characterized as helpless yearning, at least.

“Distance,” Seungkwan tries, rolling the word and concept around in his mouth. “Hm.”

When he’s back at his apartment and staring somewhat morosely at the stool near the kitchen island that has a permanent dent in it the shape of Hansol’s ass, Seungkwan finally considers the fact that maybe he should take Jeonghan’s advice.

Maybe he should try to move on.

Loving Hansol is too easy, is the thing. It always has been, even at its most unrequited, when Hansol was confessed to by a different girl every day in their last year of middle school, and Seungkwan was just a scared, closeted kid who could barely ask for a hug from his best friend without worrying his secret would be revealed. Even then, it was easy to love Hansol through the fear, when faced with the magic of Hansol’s kindness, his straightforward and simple goodness, the intensity of his care for Seungkwan, how much they made each other laugh, how well they fit together.

As adults, it’s even easier to look at the man Hansol has become and fall deeper and deeper into that daydream where one of them closes the scant distance that exists between them when they lay in Seungkwan’s bed and —

Well. Never mind.

Probably it’s only been this easy because Hansol’s never really dated before. Seungkwan obviously has had his own reasons for never trying to find a boyfriend but Hansol’s just been sort of picky, preferring to be really sure about something before going for it. When all of their peers were out dating, Hansol and Seungkwan were holed up in one of their apartments, sitting side by side even while doing completely different things. Just existing together was enough.

Seungkwan has never forced himself to confront the reality of Hansol choosing someone else because he’s never had to. Hansol’s always been around, and Seungkwan’s always been able to pretend that one day things may change and Hansol may look at him differently. With passion, instead of just affection.

Now, it feels too late for all that, if Hansol is going so far as to suggest Seungkwan date someone his girlfriend is recommending.

Yoona must be really special.

Seungkwan inhales through the sorrow making his palms ache. He presses the worn leather of the kitchen stool, trying in vain to get the indent to smooth out.

What if he stays this pathetic forever? What if he doesn’t exorcise these ghosts, what if he continues to let them linger, a glutton for the punishment of keeping Hansol close, of waiting for something that won’t happen? What if he just — keeps pretending?

No, he thinks, heart thudding. No, it’s time to try something different.

Hey, he texts later. It’s dark and he’s in bed and the loneliness next to him is so fucking large, and the stool in his kitchen still carries the impression of Hansol’s weight. Let’s do it. Why not? Set me up. I’m free next Friday.

A long stretch of silence, then:

A salute emoji followed by three thumbs ups and a cat with heart eyes, and it’s done.

The next step forward.

|

His name is Mark Lee, apparently.

He’s a recording artist at the studio, Hansol texts. He seems like a really nice person. And he’s talented. I like his music.

That’s something — Hansol has notoriously exacting taste. (Not good, per se, at least not to Seungkwan’s ears. But exacting.)

Is he cute? Does he dress well? Will we look nice wearing matching couples accessories? Seungkwan types. He tries to be funny about it, lighthearted.

There 1 disappears from his message immediately, but it takes a while for Hansol to respond.

I guess, he says. But I don’t really pay attention to that stuff.

Seungkwan resolutely does not say I know, thinking of the entire year in university when Hansol wore the same rainbow tie dye sweatshirt and wool beanie. Not the most fashionable, Hansol.

Still, Seungkwan hopes Mark is attractive enough to help him forget the fine planes of Hansol’s face, the dark brows and dark eyes and the warm smile. How handsome he is without even trying.

Send a picture please, he says and Hansol sends an eyeroll emoji then a thumbs up.

Later on, there’s a selca — Hansol sandwiched between two gorgeous humans. One, a woman with dark hair in a blunt bob, waif-like in build and dressed all in black, big eyes that sparkle and a friendly smile. The other, a man with similarly big eyes, tan skin and messy hair dyed a soft denim blue, and a bright grin that looks just short of bashful.

These are the people Hansol works with every day? Seungkwan feels faint.

Yoona is so pretty, Seungkwan types. He’s guessing, but there’s a certain way their bodies tilt towards each other in the picture that makes him think he’s right. He resolutely does not compare himself to her, aware that such a line of thought won’t lead anywhere remotely flattering. And so is Mark. He checks out for potential couple outfits. I can wear denim if I must.

Hansol types back almost immediately: WOW and you wouldn’t even wear paisley for me that ONE time?

Seungkwan snorts, remembering a day a few years ago when they’d been stuck in the rain and Seungkwan had to borrow something from Hansol’s wardrobe to wear home. Hansol had been wearing a horrendous paisley sweater, a gift from his mom, and he’d offered it right off his back to Seungkwan. Aside from not being able to handle a shirtless Hansol, the pattern really was a worse consequence than catching a cold, and he’d told Hansol that. Ever since, Hansol has kept a couple soft, pattern-less sweaters in his drawer just in case, if not without some grumbling.

The smile fades from Seungkwan’s face when he considers what to type.

Well, he writes carefully, putting in a cheeky emoji, we’re not a couple, right?

This time, Hansol doesn’t answer back for hours, and when he does, it’s only a:

Right. Night, Seungkwan.

For awhile, Seungkwan scrolls through their messages, the way that without fail, they wish each other good morning and good night, the memes and the jokes and the offers for food, the requests to be let into each other’s respective homes. A whole life lived in this little window, and yet, somehow, it’s these latest words that rock Seungkwan to his core.

Right, Hansol wrote. An acknowledgement of what they’re not, under all the evidence of what they are.

It shouldn’t hurt the way it does, thick in Seungkwan’s throat for one heavy, suffocating moment. He wonders whether going out with Mark Lee will ease the choking hold that hopes of Hansol have had on Seungkwan. He wonders if meeting Yoona will wake him up from his silly little fantasies, finally make him let go of these wishes like so many balloons into the sky.

He doesn’t know.

Night, Hansol, Seungkwan finally writes, and then turns his phone over in the dark.

|

Mark is a fun text partner.

Hansol gives Seungkwan’s number to Mark and on Wednesday after school, Seungkwan finds a new contact and a hi :) awaiting him.

whoa you’re a teacher? that must take amazing patience.

Haha well, dealing with Hansol gives me patience

dude! ㅋㅋㅋㅋ that’s so funny. idk man vernon hyung kind of scares me. i think little kids are probably easier on the ego

Don’t be fooled by his intensity! He just cares a lot. And he also has a staring problem

well, with someone like you around, i might have a staring problem too ;)

Mark Lee! That is very forward

:) sorry, I couldn’t help it. you’re cute

Ah. So are you.

Seungkwan is not usually a flirt, and especially via his least favorite medium of KaTalk, but Mark is sweet, and funny, and not creepy about even his more daring comments. He is polite (cute!) and sends emojis to convey tone, and there’s no guesswork involved — whatever he feels, he finds a kind, interesting way to say it.

In a world where he hadn’t met Hansol first, Seungkwan wonders if he could’ve fallen in love with someone like Mark.

As it is, he may already be well on his way to a crush. Mark asks questions, curious as to Seungkwan’s thoughts, and he shares his own day, sends clips of demos he’s worked on. Within a week, Seungkwan has more insight into the studio than after years of being friends with Hansol.

It makes him pause, experiencing what it’s like to be seen with intent, not just because of a shared history. It feels — good. Sweet. Like being let into a dry home after walking through a spring rain, chilled and seeking warmth without realizing.

On the day of the date, Mark messages:

hyung, what are you wearing tonight?

Hmm. Something pink, I think. Hope that’s okay.

A picture comes through of Mark in a pink t-shirt and black jean jacket, a shy grin on his face as he takes a selca where he’s obviously trying to look cool. Seungkwan feels a fond grin creep up despite himself.

just wanted to make sure we matched

It’s nothing special, maybe, standard couple-type flirtation. But…Seungkwan has always had these fantasies of someone wanting him back enough to declare to the world around them that he was taken.

Symbols, gestures, they matter to Seungkwan. Hansol has never been showy, has never been the type to even call someone a “best” friend aloud or let anyone so zealously claim ownership of his attention. Scrupulously fair, even when it’s stung: Seungkwan once asked Hansol to wear a friendship bracelet and within two days, Hansol had given it back, telling Seungkwan with a characteristic bluntness in his voice that it felt a little mean to the people who didn’t have friendships like theirs.

Seungkwan has learned to temper his desires over the years, grateful for all the other ways Hansol shows him he loves him. It’s been fine.

Mark, though. Mark doesn’t hold back. He picks up Seungkwan holding a bouquet of flowers and beaming with charm. He’s gorgeous in real life, boyishly handsome with long lashes and a charisma that is palpable. He’s wearing pink like his picture promised, and he seems so delighted to be here.

“Hyung,” he says, “you look just as pretty as your picture. Is it okay that I say that?”

Seungkwan blushes. “Aigoo,” he mutters. “You don’t have to flatter me, I’m already going on a date with you.”

He takes the flowers and inhales, though. They smell beautiful, fresh. Popped into a vase on the kitchen counter, they almost look — hopeful.

Then Seungkwan’s eye falls on the Veggie Tales plate that Hansol once brought back from a trip to America to see his family. He remembers how excited Hansol was to give him the plate, and thinks about the way the plate fits into Seungkwan’s life so naturally, a relic of love and friendship.

It feels like a taunt; he can add all the new things he wants to his life, can compare Mark and Hansol down to the last quality, but what if —

What if there’s no outrunning Hansol in the end?

Seungkwan swallows, and shakes his head.

Tonight isn’t about that. It’s about trying something out. Making room for a future with someone who actually likes him back.

When they leave the apartment, Seungkwan allows Mark to hold his hand.

|

They arrive exactly on time, and the moment he sees Hansol swing open the door, Seungkwan fears holding hands with someone else will not be enough.

Hansol answers with a small smile on his face, his hair swooped carelessly over his forehead, wearing a black button-down and dark jeans, a chain glittering around his throat.

“Hi,” he says, pushing his hair back, heart-shaped birthmark on display as he rakes fingers through his waves.

As inevitable and swamping as a tsunami after an earthquake, the love and longing surges inside Seungkwan.

Seungkwan has had so many daydreams of a Hansol who cleans up for a night on the town with him, lingering on the sense memory of Hansol’s cologne, the knowledge of him putting effort into looking good for someone he’s attracted to. And now all those daydreams are real.

Only it’s not Seungkwan living them. It’s Yoona.

Yoona, who is as beautiful as her picture, stepping up next to Hansol to slip a delicate hand through his arm.

Yoona, with tattoos and piercings, but shrewd eyes that take Seungkwan in carefully, allowing him no quarter to run or avoid her.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” she says. “Hansol says you’re his second favorite person in Seoul, behind his halmeoni.”

Seungkwan blushes at that, both touched at the sentimentality and absurdly offended at the way Yoona doesn’t look the least bit threatened.

“Ah,” he says, “Well. I like him a little better than my fur nephew Bokkeu, so I guess we’re even.”

Mark snorts. “Where do I rank on that list, hyung?” he asks cheekily, cute enough to get away with being so daring.

Seungkwan finds himself smiling. ”I have to wait till the end of the date to judge,” he says.

Yoona coos at that and Seungkwan blushes again. It’s only then that he forces himself to make eye contact with Hansol. It feels momentous, somehow, to look at Hansol with new eyes. To start learning the Hansol who is taken, who has a girlfriend, who is in love with someone that isn’t Seungkwan.

Funny; Hansol’s face looks just the same as it ever has. Warm. Kind. Slightly concerned because he can see Seungkwan’s nerves.

A flat smile on his lips. Amused, probably, at the way he’s flirting with Mark.

“Already comfortable with each other, huh?” Hansol asks. “You guys are matching.” His voice is light.

Seungkwan feels the very last shred of hope die in his chest at that, the way Hansol doesn’t look even a little disturbed by Seungkwan’s hand holding Mark’s, by their flirtation. By the way he and Hansol are so clearly standing on two different sides of the room, rather than shoulder to shoulder like they usually are. Heart to heart, like Seungkwan thought they were.

Your dream was always a dream, Seungkwan, he says to himself firmly. Better to wake up here, before it really hurts.

He squeezes Mark’s hand, takes a deep breath, before smiling like an animal baring his teeth.

“Ah, I guess you both just knew us so well, to bring us together,” he says to Hansol. Then, to Yoona, “I’m glad to meet you, too, Yoona-ssi,” he says. “Thank you for inviting me over.”

Yoona smiles prettily. “Call me noona, please,” she says. “I’d like us to be close.”

There’s so many responses Seungkwan could give to that. He’s saved from having to do so when Hansol interjects.

“Yoona loves the Wonder Girls,” he says. “She works with Ahn Sohee sometimes.”

Seungkwan, despite himself, is impressed. “Wow,” he says. “You’ll have to tell me everything. Um. Please.”

Hansol grins. “Told you,” he says to Yoona, and Yoona giggles, leaning up to press her nose against Hansol’s cheek affectionately.

Seungkwan’s stomach twists. It takes grumpy cat levels of persuasion for Hansol to allow people to touch him casually. Seungkwan has been the exception to the rule for years, Hansol even getting a starburst tattoo on his ear as a dare one day in university, just because Seungkwan used to love his ears so much.

So of course the new exception would be his girlfriend, of course it would be, but it hurts.

Mark’s hand tugs his, warm and present. “I once recorded a feature for Sunmi sunbaenim, hyung. Does that move me higher up the list than Bokkeu?” His ask is kind, playful, like he sees the need for Seungkwan to anchor himself on something, and is offering up himself.

Seungkwan turns to Mark. Tries to forget that the last time he was within whispering distance of Hansol was in bed, framed by the moonlight. Tries to view it as another world, another life, a country he was briefly touring and has no use to revisit anymore. He smiles a smile he hasn’t used in a long time. A smile he’s practiced in front of the mirror, a smile calculated to be devastating. A smile that is almost a smirk, but not quite. Bright. Sweet. The barest edge of a leer.

A smile meant to seduce.

Just because Seungkwan has been in love with his best friend for years doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own carefully cultivated charms. He used to imagine letting them loose on Hansol some liminal night and seeing where things go. That thought feels painfully childish now, so instead, he uses them on Mark.

“There’s a lot of things you’d need to do in order to move up past Bokkeu,” he answers. “The question is, are you up for it, Mark Lee?”

Mark’s eyes widen in pleased surprise, and he barks a laugh, one that makes Seungkwan giggle, too.

“Keeping smiling at me like that, and there’s literally nothing I wouldn’t be up for,” Mark responds sincerely. “Uh, except, like. Murder. Sorry, hyung.”

The honesty of the answer makes Seungkwan laugh even louder, dropping his head against Mark’s shoulder for support because he finds Mark adorable.

“No murder,” Seungkwan assures. “Maybe just take any tomatoes in my food, and get me an endless supply of iced Americanos.”

“Oh, dude, wait till you meet my manager Jaemin, he drinks five shots of espresso in one drink on the daily—”

Yoona smiles, stepping smoothly between them.

“Let’s talk about Jaemin’s psychotic coffee addiction another time,” she says, hands waving in the gesture of someone who has been personally subjected to said addiction herself. “Ah, it’s so nice that you two get along! People say Mark is so similar to Hansol — and if Hansol is your best friend, I’m not surprised you’d love Marky, too.”

Seungkwan blinks, surprised that people would draw similarities between Mark and Hansol. He tilts his head, squinting. He supposes he could see it. They’re both a bit dorky, and unconventionally sweet.

“There aren’t any tomatoes,” Hansol says suddenly, and everyone looks at him. He shuffles in place, eyes pinned on Seungkwan. “I, uh. We knew you didn’t like tomatoes. There aren’t any tomatoes in the food. So you won’t have to give them to Mark.”

Seungkwan blinks again. There is a short, awkward silence before Yoona is laughing, filling it up with bubbly non-sequitors, ribbing Mark lightly. They head over to the dining table, and Seungkwan finds he can’t do anything but stare at the back of Hansol’s head. His head is full of white noise and cotton.

This sort of thing is exactly why he can’t get over Hansol. The matter-of-fact way Hansol interjected with something only he knew about Seungkwan. How he made no big deal of the kindness in making sure the meal they had would be tasty for Seungkwan specifically. The slightly petulant way he hinted Seungkwan didn’t need to share his tomatoes with Mark after all.

It makes his dead hopes rise from the cold soil where they were buried. As he takes his seat across from Hansol, he lets his foot nudge against Hansol’s. When Hansol’s gaze meets his, Seungkwan mouths a small, heartfelt “Thank you.”

Hansol grins, a private bubble of joy between the two of them, and his foot touches back gently.

“Seungkwan,“ Yoona says, voice bright as Mark pours everyone water, “Hansol told me you guys have been best friends since you were kids. Is that true?”

The bubble pops. Seingkwan startles, dragging his foot back. Hansol frowns, though he does the same.

“Yes, noona,” Seungkwan replies politely. “He threw up on me.”

Mark snorts, soup splattering. “Iconic,” he says in awe.

Hansol gives a small smile. “It was pretty memorable, yeah.” he says. “I was allergic to something the school gave us as lunch. Seungkwan sat next to me and asked why I was green, and—”

“—and he said it was because he was an alien, not because he was sick to his stomach—”

“And then maybe some of my food came out of my mouth. On Seungkwan’s uniform.”

Yoona breaks into big peals of laughter, and so does Mark, while Seungkwan hides his smile behind his hand, trying to look stern.

“Sollie is lucky I don’t hold a grudge,” Seungkwan says.

Hansol gives a lopsided smile. “You’re right,” he says. “I am. Really lucky.” He plays with his chopsticks for a moment, looking down. “Seungkwan was one of my best friends from the start. When we were little and kids would call me a weird foreigner, he’d go and lecture them like a miniature politician. He was kinda my hero. Still is. Even though he never kills the bugs when we go camping.”

Seungkwan sits back, stunned and touched.

“Yah,” he says, flustered. “Like you’re any better with them! Remember that moth that chased us out of Jeonghan hyung’s cabin the last time we visited?” He scratches his ear, blushing. “Anyway, where did all this sentimentality come from?”

Hansol shrugs, eyes glinting as his gaze flicks to Mark. “Want to make sure everyone knows how awesome you are,” he says.

Mark just looks amused, while Seungkwan gives a slow shake of his head. “Noona, be careful, this kid’s dangerous for the heart,” he says.

Yoona pats Hansol on the shoulder. “My heart loves a little danger,” she teases. “And anyway, it’s sweet. I love how close you two are. Like brothers.”

It doesn’t seem pointed but Seungkwan feels it like a knife anyway.

“Yeah, Seungkwan is family,” Hansol says. He looks down at Yoona proudly, and the knife cuts deeper. It’s an expression that Seungkwan wishes he’d never seen: soft, shy, besotted. Designed to make everyone else in the room feel like they’re not even there.

Seungkwan’s own expression doesn’t waver, but the cold glass of the proverbial window he’s pressing his face against feels like ice against his cheeks. It’s only broken by the heat of Mark’s elbow as it bumps against his, and there’s a warm, knowing look in his eyes when he says, “I definitely know how awesome you are, by the way. It’s pretty obvious.”

The words are a life raft in an ocean of choppy waters. Something Seungkwan desperately holds onto. Because he’s so turned around, so dizzy with emotion.

Like brothers, Yoona says, and that’s how Hansol sees them too, only Seungkwan has been too dumb to get it.

Seungkwan is dumb. He’s always so dumb.

“Obvious, huh,” he says to Mark, just a tad unsteady. “Ha ha! Well, at least to some people.”

Seungkwan doesn’t let his foot touch Hansol’s again for the rest of the night.

Dinner passes by without anything remarkable, just small talk and good food, a few getting-to-know-you questions that reveal Yoona was a film major and Mark an idol group trainee before going solo, that all of them except Hansol hate and are confused by Labubus, and that no one can agree on how many members there are in Super Junior because, as Seungkwan keeps arguing, there are eras.

It’s fun. Under any other circumstances, Seungkwan would want to do it again.

As it is, they get to the door at the end of the night, and after Yoona has hugged them goodbye and Hansol has awkwardly waved because he’s staying behind, when Mark asks Seungkwan if he wants to get a drink, Seungkwan is almost tempted.

But underneath all the normalcy, the thing he can’t burn from his brain is the stamp of images — Yoona’s hand on Hansol’s arm, the smile Hansol shone down on her, the guileless look she gave before calling them brothers, the mixed signals of Hansol’s gaze flickering from her to Seungkwan, the almost apologetic tilt of his smile as he said goodbye.

It’s a lot. It’s too much. He tells Mark so, apologizing for being tired.

Mark nods. “No problem, hyung,” he says sincerely. He is holding Seungkwan’s hand again. “Hey, but, um, can we do this again, though? You and me.”

Seungkwan’s eyebrows shoot up. “You want to see me again?” he asks. He can’t imagine he’s been the most sparkling company.

Mark smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course. I know Vernon hyung only set us up as, like, a one-time thing, but, I dunno. You’re cute and funny and there’s something kinda sad in your eyes that makes me want to know more.”

He steps closer, head tilted. “It makes me wanna get you to smile and mean it.”

Seungkwan is stunned by Mark’s honesty and insight. For a moment he freezes, not wanting to show this level of vulnerability. But then he sighs.

“I want to smile and mean it,” he admits, voice almost whisper.

Mark asks, “Can I kiss you?” and Seungkwan’s response is to nod, swaying forward as Mark’s mouth presses lightly against his. It’s short, warm, a burst of sugar and spark. Not quite a firework, but a fizzy drink after a hot day. Seungkwan melts into it.

“I feel like your heart is someone else’s,” Mark says, pressing his hand to Seungkwan’s chest. “But I know how that is.”

He chuckles softly, letting his hands drop from Seungkwan’s chest to take Seungkwan’s hands in his.

“Most of my songs are about that, you know? Loving someone even when it hurts.” He fiddles with Seungkwan’s fingers hesitantly.

Seungkwan swallows, throat scratchy around his emotions.

“I’m pretty pathetic,” he says on an ironic, breathless laugh. “Right? That you could tell so easily.”

Mark shakes his head. “No,” he corrects gently. “There’s just this, like, way that someone who is hurt has, of saying that they’re fine even though it’s a lie. Usually people don’t notice. But I’m an expert at hearing it. And seeing it.” He shrugs. “At feeling it.”

Now that Seungkwan is looking…

“What’s his name?” Seungkwan asks. Poor Mark, joining Seungkwan’s club of lonely hearts.

Mark shifts from foot to foot. “A guy I knew when I was a rookie,” he says tersely. “It’s not important.”

Seungkwan tilts his head, and his own sadness is mirrored in the most subtle shadows of Mark’s face. Empathy is the bow of a cello moving slowly over strings, yearning and melancholic.

“Fine,” he decides after a moment, heart thumping. “Okay. Why not? Let’s try.”

Mark’s eyes widen and brighten. He smiles as he leans in for another short, fizzy kiss, a wordless contract.

The feeling in Seungkwan’s heart when they finally say goodbye isn’t optimism, but it also isn’t an all-swallowing darkness that calls for lots of ice cream and sad dramas, so that’s something. He can feel Mark’s mouth against his own, soft and lingering, when he cleans up for the night, and it’s novel enough to make him forget about Hansol and Yoona for a bit.

Then the text comes.

It arrives past midnight, though Seungkwan isn’t sleeping. The bed feels empty, and the city is too silent.

Hey…hope the date went well. Mark is a good dude. And so are you, Seungkwan. I mean it when I say you’re amazing. You deserve to be happy.

Dude-zoned. Somehow it feels less like a paper cut through the phone when Mark does it.

Seungkwan laughs helplessly, and thinks about the fact that one message from Hansol, reeking of sincerity and genuine, if platonic, love, puts more butterflies in his stomach than a whole night of Mark’s brown eyes and earnestness. Maybe something is broken in him, to want something that isn’t his and never will be. To search for castles in the sky in ordinary, everyday messages.

Against his better judgement, Seungkwan goes to sleep with his finger tapping his phone screen, like it’s a door to a life that’s just out of reach.

When he wakes up, he sends a smiley face emoji, and doesn’t look at his phone for the rest of the day.

|

Seungkwan and Mark go on their first real date to a baseball game.

It’s fun; Mark buys Seungkwan three meat skewers and insists he looks cute in every photo he takes of Seungkwan eating them. He wipes Seungkwan’s mouth with a napkin and says “Cute,” in a voice that makes Seungkwan blush. It’s enough to guarantee date number two. Then date number three, and soon—

What follows is a whirlwind courting period, hanging out as often as their busy schedules allow, going on sweet, casual dates and texting back and forth often. They kiss in dark corners of the park nearby Seungkwan’s apartment, and drink wine at bars the coolest idols frequent. Seungkwan spends more and more time with Mark, and less and less time with Hansol. It’s fine; they text now and then, but Seungkwan knows that this is how it is supposed to be. Their pockets are no longer one another’s to live in.

Eventually, a month after dating, Seungkwan and Mark soft-launch on Instagram.

Just the sliver of Mark’s hoodie in one of Seungkwan’s pictures, but there’s an immediate like from yoon_j that makes it feel bigger, more real. Mark comments with a rose and tangerine emoji, and Seungkwan has to hide a smile, the little crest of shyness that sits warmly in his heart.

The like from vern_online makes something more complicated stir in Seungkwan’s chest but he doesn’t examine it.

At work that week, Seungkwan accidentally opens a voice note in front of Jeonghan on a break. They’re washing their aprons and then Mark’s voice rings out, crooning a bar of something sexy and R&B, followed by a soft, shy huff of laughter at the end.

“Oh, what’s this,” Jeonghan says, delighted, as he scrubs a combination of fingerpaint and snot off his hem. “Found someone who finally knows how to woo a high-maintenance romantic like Boo Seungkwan? Let me see a picture of him, all I got was a sleeve on SNS.”

Seungkwan scoffs but relents, because ultimately, Jeonghan’s nosiness always feels like love.

Jeonghan crows when he sees the photo of Seungkwan and Mark from a recent walk along the Han River, ruffled hair and pink cheeks and matching clothes, streetlights haloing their hair in gold.

“Couple clothes already,” Jeonghan says shrewdly. “It’s nice you found someone who doesn’t waste time.”

Seungkwan snorts, patting his cheeks to hide the blush.

“I keep telling you that Hansol wasn’t wasting my time,” he says, putting away his phone, weary but stubborn in this old argument. “He didn’t even know I was waiting for him. That’s not his fault.”

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?” he asks. He doesn’t say more, but like always with Jeonghan, he doesn’t really have to. What he doesn’t say is damning enough.

When they hang out later, Seungkwan can’t help but mention his conversation with Jeonghan to Mark. By now, he has shared the true bleeding heart of his love for Hansol with Mark, and rather than being afraid, Mark has met each revelation with gentle encouragement and patience. Seungkwan thinks that despite being younger, he may be more mature than Seungkwan could ever hope to be.

“Would you ever tell Vernon hyung?” Mark asks. “How you feel?”

It’s strange; in such a short time, Mark has carved a space for himself in Seungkwan’s life. He comes over to Seungkwan’s place a lot, his presence so warm and undeniable he chases the loneliness into dusty corners. He eats Seungkwan’s food and laughs at Seungkwan’s jokes, and though they don’t have the anchor of a shared past, they’re building something with their honesty, these deep talks over beers and dinner. It’s enough that the apartment has started feeling smaller and the empty kitchen stool has stopped hurting quite so acutely.

The Veggie Tales plate still sits in Seungkwan’s kitchen, but at least it’s partially hidden by the blue plastic bowls and plates that Mark favors.

“I don’t know,” Seungkwan says. He stirs at dinner on the stove. No more rabokki or takeout. Being with Mark is about growing up, so Seungkwan’s just about mastered fried rice. “Did you ever tell your guy how you felt?”

Mark hums, picking at his lips.

“I thought I did,” he says, a small rueful smile in his voice. “A lot of times. But I guess when you get used to showing love and you realize it’s just never registering, you sort of start wondering if it’s less of a communication problem and more that they’re in denial on purpose. I think I was afraid that if I gave him the chance to reject me out loud, there would be no coming back from it, you know?”

Seungkwan blinks, momentarily winded. He holds his hand over his chest, clutching at the ache beneath his ribcage.

For most of his life, his nightmares were not of taking an exam naked or losing teeth; instead, he dreamt of Hansol hearing the words and his eyes glazing over, his hands flying out to push Seungkwan away, his mouth saying things that couldn’t be unsaid.

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says, voice thin. “I know.”

Mark stands up, coming to hover next to Seungkwan. He loops an arm around Seungkwan’s waist and rests his chin on Seungkwan’s shoulder, a steady presence.

“I like that I can be truthful with you, hyung,” he says. “These last few weeks, it’s helped me write songs that I think happy, well-adjusted people would sing.”

Seungkwan barks a laugh. “Is there actually a market for that?” he asks, and Mark giggles into Seungkwan’s neck.

“There will be, one day. When we’re finally, like,

completely over them.”

Seungkwan softens at Mark’s solidarity. “Can you ever get over a storyline that’s never resolved?” he asks absently, not expecting an answer.

Mark tightens his arms. “If you find an interesting enough new plot, yeah,” he says.

It’s a curious dynamic, letting himself fall a little more everyday for Mark even when half his heart is already tender for someone else. It helps that Mark is traveling the same journey.

As if hearing his thoughts, Mark presses his mouth softly against Seungkwan’s neck, a physical intimacy that Seungkwan hadn’t even known he was missing. Seungkwan shivers in Mark’s arms.

“We’re in this together, Seungkwan-ah,” Mark says. The drop of the requisite hyung is deliberate, a connection. “Let’s take it a day at a time.”

They stand in silence for a while, and then Seungkwan shakes himself from his stupor and ushers them to the table to eat dinner. They move topics of conversation to lighter fare, Seungkwan telling stories of the crazy administrators at the hagwon next door, Mark sharing ideas for his next album. After dinner, they sit on Seungkwan’s couch and kiss, Mark’s hands moving with purpose, Seungkwan’s blood simmering with interest.

And perhaps most momentously, they end the night laughing together, taking a picture with messy hair and swollen lips and Seungkwan’s sweater slipping down his collarbone, and they post it to Instagram without Mark’s face hiding.

Jeonghan sends an immediate text: “Is this the hard launch?”

Seungkwan isn’t ready to say yes, but — he’s ready to say maybe. And that in itself feels new.

When it’s late, Mark gets up to go home. It’s still too early in their relationship for him to stay over. And shamefully…stupidly… something continues to prevent Seungkwan from erasing the very last Hansol-only place in his home with someone else’s presence. The bed still feels too big without Hansol next to him.

But it’s good. It’s a good night, and Seungkwan feels lighter, somehow, an optimism fluttering in his chest.

After he brushes his teeth and does his skincare routine, he crawls under the covers and opens his phone.

The first thing he sees is a message:

Yo. Remember when View came out and you almost failed the CSAT because you couldn’t get it out of your head?

And just like that, his whole dinner with Mark, making out with him on the couch, every cute little joke and understanding word, flees out the door.

The thing about spending his whole life with Hansol is that Seungkwan will never, ever be able to escape the easy way Hansol invokes their bond. Sharing some silly memory — it doesn’t just make Seungkwan smile. Instead, it reminds him that Hansol is a part of his history, entrenched in every good and bad moment that shaped him. And now, it also reminds him that Hansol isn’t his to make those memories with anymore. So alongside the helpless, fond love comes a terrible, yawning sense of grief.

Yeah, Seungkwan texts back, genuinely distressed to discover there are hot tears sliding down his cheeks suddenly.

It’s embarrassing to miss someone so badly, despite them being right there, but the ache intensifies into stinging in his nose, a flood of heat in his eyes.

And then you sent me some terrible song and said ‘now THIS is house music,’ and I wouldn’t talk to you for a whole week because you disrespected SHINee.

There’s a pause. Hansol sends a picture:

A younger, spottier Hansol with shaggy brown hair and an endearing smile, his arm thrown around the shoulder of a chubby-cheeked Seungkwan looking sullen, fried bleached ends worse for wear.

Seungkwan’s heart breaks for the boy in the picture, already so far gone on the one next to him. Unwillingly, the tears come faster, Seungkwan’s nose clogging up.

But I made up for it when we were like 23 and I introduced you to Key, Hansol responds, none the wiser to Seungkwan’s turmoil, so don’t ever say I don’t know you, Boo.

Seungkwan chokes, sucking in an agonizing breath. He shakes his head, trying to get ahold of himself. Berating himself all the while, he gets out of bed and trudges to the living room, flicking on the light and sitting on his overstuffed couch, clutching a throw pillow. It feels like neutral territory here.

After a series of shuddering inhales, honking into a wad of tissues, he looks back at his phone.

Hey, u ok?

Hansol’s concern, the fact that he can tell something is wrong because it’s taken more than a millisecond for Seungkwan to text back, undoes Seungkwan anew. He breaks down again, shoulders shaking. His phone sits unattended, buzzing, but Seungkwan can’t bring himself to answer. Hope and anger and misery swirl inside him, the nice feelings from his night with Mark all but chased away by his body’s unfair reaction to Hansol. He’s a walking cliche, he thinks despairingly. Jeonghan would be so mad.

An hour later, worn out from sobbing and still sporadically tearing up, Seungkwan hears the door code beep. He’s startled enough to finally look down at his phone.

I’m coming over, it reads.

The door swings open, and Hansol stands there, larger than life after weeks of being swept up in the whirlwind of his new life, devastatingly familiar in the apartment threshold. He’s wearing pajamas and slides over socks and a ridiculous beanie tugged so low his head looks like an egg. His face is arranged into a deeply concerned expression.

Seungkwan gapes. “It’s past midnight,” he says soggily.

Hansol shrugs, eyes not leaving him.

There’s no hiding his tear-stained cheeks, but Seungkwan tries to bluster anyway. “You can’t just come in uninvited anymore, what if Mark was here and we were doing things!!”

Hansol blows out a breath. He closes the door and takes off his shoes, sliding into the pair of fuzzy house slippers that have always been his. He walks over to Seungkwan and sits down heavily on the couch. He has his determined look on, the one he used to get when Seungkwan was a kid and got emotional and couldn’t say why, those times when Hansol would comfort him like it was his only job.

“If you were texting me while you and Mark were doing things, I’d be worried for a different reason,” he says dryly.

Seungkwan gives a congested-sounding laugh.

Hansol grins. “Instead I’m just worried because you stopped responding mid-conversation. You know how many alien abductions start the same way, Seungkwan? I’m your emergency contact, so pretty sure that gives me door code rights, especially in cases of maybe-alien-abduction.”

He’s so silly and such a dork and when he takes Seungkwan’s hand, even that chaste touch, the loop of his fingers through Seungkwan’s, bottoms out Seungkwan’s stomach more than practically climbing into Mark’s lap earlier tonight.

Damnit. Damnit damnit damnit.

It makes Seungkwan start to cry again, this time out of frustration as well as longing.

The tears must startle Hansol, because his hand tightens momentarily before he’s pulling Seungkwan close, circling his arms around Seungkwan and hugging him.

Sobbing in the arms of the person who is causing the tears is a unique torture, but it’s also a gift. A catharsis that lets loose something Seungkwan has held inside for so, so long.

Maybe Mark asking him tonight if he’d ever tell Hansol how he feels was a sign. Maybe this is necessary. For Seungkwan to start over, maybe he has to really, truly accept that what he wants won’t ever happen.

Maybe he has to say it, even if saying it might mean his nightmares come true.

The clarity cuts through the tears, Seungkwan finally sitting up and swiping at his face with difficulty. He feels a sickening decisiveness settle grimly in his chest.

“Seungkwan,” Hansol says softly. “What’s wrong?” He reaches for Seungkwan’s hand again, and instead of feeling normal, it feels like a sign of something more, even though it’s not, and Seungkwan hates this.

The longing in Seungkwan’s belly solidifies into resolve.

With a shaking voice, Seungkwan announces: “I was in love with you.”

It’s a little like sky diving.

Seungkwan once went, when their friends group traveled to New Zealand after university. The fear and exhilaration of no safety net, of not knowing what’s going to happen next but hoping the bravery will pay off.

He feels his stomach twist at the half-truth — speaking in past tense is as courageous as he can get.

And even that is enough to drain Hansol of any color, pale skin turning parchment white. Everyone thinks Hansol is stoic, without expression, but his face is the most expressive Seungkwan has ever seen.

The expression right now looks like Seungkwan punched him in the face and then ran away, pained and bewildered and robbed of breath, a shocked look in his eyes.

“I think, I think I was in love with you my whole life,” Seungkwan barrels on, ripping the bandaid off, exposing the wound to the elements, though it’s ugly and raw and unhealed.

“And I knew you never felt the same way, and it was fine, I lived with it. But it hurt when you got with Yoona. And it hurt when you introduced me to Mark. Because that meant you never would see me the same way. And now, when I’m finally trying to — I posted a picture with Mark on Instagram tonight, did you see? I think we’re like, going public. For real. And I’ve been so hopeful because he’s actually great, and he actually wants to be with me, and I thought maybe we could be —”

Seungkwan’s hysterical, breathless rambling cuts off.

His face crumples.

“But one text from you brings all these what-ifs. All these thoughts. Still.”

Seungkwan takes a deep breath.

“Hansol, I don’t want to burden you. I just want to lay this to rest. I want to look at Mark and see him, not a consolation prize for some stupid fantasy, and it’s so obvious now that I can’t. Not unless I stop pretending things with you are normal.”

Hansol stares, eyes unblinking. He’s listening intensely, mouth closed in a thin line. There’s the beginning of an apology in the set of his shoulders, and Seungkwan knew that there wouldn’t be some storybook ending to this, but the confirmation makes him nauseous anyway.

“Look, I trust us enough to know we can get through this,” Seungkwan says, voice trembling, pleading. “If you want us to.”

Hansol’s expression breaks and he stutters, words stumbling over each other:

“Yes, yeah, Seungkwan, yes,” he says. “We’re friends, that — I never want that to change.”

God. Brothers and friends. Beautiful labels, were it from any other man. It’s a bitter, if not unexpected, pill.

Seungkwan swallows it, because what else can he do?

“Okay,” Seungkwan says. “Okay, then I think we need to…I think I need to do some things differently. Like, I’m going to change the door code. And you have to stop texting me all our favorite memories, at least until they stop feeling like love letters. Not that they are, they just seem that way because I’m a tragic freak.”

Hansol’s answer is immediate. “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he says, low, chiding.

Seungkwan breathes a despairing laugh. He looks down at his hands, which are still in Hansol’s, which have been in Hansol’s throughout this whole confession.

“And I need you to say it, too, Hansol,” he says, ignoring Hansol’s admonishment, pulling his hands into his own lap. “The truth. How you feel. So I can move on.”

Seungkwan looks up at Hansol, the hardest thing he’s ever done.

“You know how I get,” he says self-deprecatingly, quietly. “How I harbor all these hopes even when I say I can take a hint.”

“Seungkwan,” Hansol says, the one word heavy with all the emotions Hansol is obviously struggling to parse out.

It’s 1 am and he ran here to comfort his friend and his friend dropped this bomb on him. Seungkwan knows it’s unfair. But Hansol has been unfair too. How can someone not hope, when they’re loved so well? Known so deeply?

“Please, Hansol.”

Hansol’s voice is scratchy and slow, disbelieving. “Seungkwan, I…I never knew,” he says, and the crazy thing is, it’s not a lie. He looks lost at sea, like the sky is green and the oceans are red. Out of his depth completely.

Seungkwan would normally be the one sense-making for him. This, though, Hansol has to do alone.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Hansol says. A whisper now, hoarse. “I’m so sorry, I—I want you in my life always.”

He stops. Flounders.

“Just not that way,” Seungkwan finishes, throat tight and aching. “I know. It’s okay. I promise.”

It’s not, but the benediction gives Seungkwan a dignity he would not otherwise have. He won’t beg. Hasn’t he spent years doing that unconsciously anyway, with every date he has turned down and every night he’s slept next to Hansol without asking for anything else?

Hansol’s phone goes off, a bright chime. Seungkwan sees the name next to a heart, a message with a question mark. He imagines Hansol, impulsive and sometimes a bit lost in his own world, getting out of his shared bed with his girlfriend to come here. The cognitive dissonance of it. Leaving his partner to go sit with his friend only to tell his friend he doesn’t want anything more than that.

Seungkwan feels bile rise, sick and acidic.

“Go home, Hansol,” he says finally, clasping his hands together to stop from reaching out. “Thank you for coming and I’m sorry for all of this.”

Hansol’s eyebrows are furrowed, and his cheeks look flushed, hectic with anxiety. “Seungkwan,” he says.

“We’ll be okay,” Seungkwan says. “With a little time. It’s better this way. No lies, no secret hopes. And now I have Mark. Right?”

After a moment, Hansol reaches out, hand firm on Seungkwan’s shoulder though Seungkwan flinches away.

“Right,” Hansol says. His voice is tentative but his face is resolute. “And I’ll always be here, too, Seungkwan. That’s never going to change, no matter what you tell me, or how you feel. We’ll figure it out.”

He holds Seungkwan’s gaze for a long moment before leaning in and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

It’s what Seungkwan used to do for Hansol when they were kids, when Hansol was hurting but unable to say why, so used to being quiet and introverted. There’s something so achingly loving about the gesture, that even after Seungkwan’s confession, even though he’s unable to return Seungkwan’s feelings, he still wants to comfort him in their shared language.

It’s loving, but also awful. Horrible. Seungkwan feels another hot line of tears slip down his face.

“Go,” he whimpers, and hears Hansol’s sharp, strained inhale before he’s shifting off the couch and walking to the door.

Long after Hansol’s gone, Seungkwan finally, robotically gets up and changes the door code. He stands there for a moment, swaying, then slumps against the wood.

I’ll always be here, Hansol said.

Seungkwan can’t help but think of it as more of a curse than a promise.

|

In the days that follow, there’s a new normal.

Hansol keeps on texting, though his messages are less nostalgic and more careful.

Hi, he says, and sometimes that’s all for the rest of the day. Like he wants to make sure they’re still connected but is afraid to do anything else.

And Seungkwan, he finds himself responding exclusively with stickers, not words. He isn’t even certain what he would say.

They still hang out, but mostly in their big friends group, and usually with Yoona tucked in at Hansol’s side and Mark glued to Seungkwan’s. They don’t make prolonged eye contact. They don’t touch. And Seungkwan’s laugh is always a beat later than it should be, a note sharper. Hansol’s face is more implacable, his head even further in the clouds.

Seungkwan gives Mark a friendship bracelet he made with his students, and Hansol’s eyes flicker to Mark’s wrist the whole first night he wears it out.

But they don’t talk about it.

Hansol doesn’t take care of Seungkwan in his small ways, filling his water or picking out cucumbers before handing him a dish. Seungkwan doesn’t touch Hansol’s ear when Hansol’s anxious, doesn’t defend him or gently encourage social cues when he’s teased.

But they don’t name the distance.

Once, Hansol invites Seungkwan over to his apartment, a nod to the boundaries Seungkwan drew about his own door code. The visit is less spontaneous, since Hansol has to plan around visiting Yoona as well, and the location change is jarring. It’s frustrating because everything about being with Hansol still feels like home, but Seungkwan forces himself to think instead about how one human being can rack up this many Coupang packages without being buried alive.

Truthfully, it’s awkward. It’s like…Hansol is holding back, waiting for Seungkwan to set the pace. And Seungkwan is so tired of being the one to urge Hansol along.

He tried to turn his attention to Mark, instead.

“That’s where my head should be anyway,” he tells Jeonghan during nap time one day, rather aggressively folding napkins for afternoon snacks later. “Where there’s an actual future.”

And it’s no hardship or anything. Mark is kind.

“I like how much you mean what you say,” he tells Seungkwan earnestly during a weekend afternoon at a local university music festival. They’ve been eating copious amounts of street food and debating the merits of kkadugi versus oi sabagi. (Seungkwan might be a little too passionate about why radishes are superior.)

“I like that you say what you mean,” Seungkwan parries back, because there’s no guesswork with Mark, no worry that maybe he’s secretly exasperated with Seungkwan for wanting too much, for taking up too much space or energy. The sincerity and admiration shine in Mark’s eyes.

Of course, if he’s being charitable, Seungkwan allows the memory of the faint brush of Hansol’s lips against his forehead, and the echo of Hansol’s vow that he wasn’t going anywhere. The knowledge that in his own way, Hansol always showed his sincerity and admiration too.

Ah. But comparison is the thief of joy, and Seungkwan isn’t allowed to think about that anymore, about how good it felt but how he wanted more. Possibly more than Hansol would ever be able to give.

He opened Pandora’s Box once. He shouldn’t do it again. So he very resolutely tries not to.

Instead, he continues to pretend everything is normal and that he didn’t pour his heart out to his best friend only to have it unceremoniously poured back into his stupid chest.

They hang out in a group of four, Seungkwan and Mark and Hansol and Yoona, going to dinner or for drinks. Sometimes Mark invites Seungkwan to the studio after school so he can sit behind the dials and watch Mark sing, see Hansol work. Yoona will come by with new samples for cover art, and they’ll all look so beautiful and serious in their element that Seungkwan can’t help but feel awe.

It stings, the unintentional comparisons whenever Seungkwan stops to consider Yoona for too long, but he tries to bury it deep. When Hansol kisses Yoona or leans into her embrace, Seungkwan very deliberately lets his eyes slip over them, unseeing. Avoiding the sight altogether would be telling, staring would be creepy. This combination of seeing and not seeing, it’s the best of both worlds.

“You need to get a grip, hyung,” Mark says once, behind his hand. “Noona thinks you hate her. She says she’s never seen anyone more committed to never making eye contact.”

Well. The new normal is a work-in-progress.

The most important thing is, if he works hard, Seungkwan can almost forget the humiliation of spilling his feelings to Hansol and being rejected. He can almost look at Hansol and feel nothing but friendly fondness. Maybe just a flicker of desire, only a twinge.

Almost.

Every now and then, Seungkwan forgets himself and touches Hansol’s ear, or says something in a voice heavy with brimming love, and Hansol goes still. Then Seungkwan hurtles back to that night, the pale blanch of Hansol’s skin, the way he shook his head without sound as he tried to tell Seungkwan he didn’t feel the same way.

In those moments, Seungkwan’s cheeks go hot, scalded by the force of his shame.

But then time resumes moving and Hansol keeps talking and Seungkwan reminds himself that he’s rewriting more than a decade of habits. He has to relearn what it means to be Hansol’s friend, despite and because of the complexities of his feelings.

It’s fine. At least Seungkwan is attempting. That’s enough.

And anyway, Hansol hasn’t gone back on his own words and values yet — he hasn’t started ignoring Seungkwan, or run away, or talked down to Seungkwan like he’s a pathetic loser. If anything, Hansol is gentler, more careful. More tolerant. More anxious about not doing anything that might make Seungkwan feel bad or spook him.

They can figure it out, a life together as friends, even with Seungkwan’s feelings and Hansol’s girlfriend between them. They can make this work. They can.

The most current barrier is the strange formality they still aren’t able to breach. It reaches its peak several weeks after Seungkwan’s ill-fated confession, a build up of stilted rhythms and yet another night avoiding saying anything real by keeping their significant others between them as a buffer.

They’re at one of Seungkwan and Hansol’s favorite haunts, a bar in their old college neighborhood, and Yoona and Mark are getting drinks for everyone. There’s a joke from their youth that Seungkwan wants to make but it feels wrong, like it belongs to different people now. The thought makes him unbearably sad.

When the heavy quiet between him and Hansol reaches a full five minutes, Seungkwan finally gives up and reaches out, tugging at Hansol’s sleeve.

“I miss you,” Seungkwan blurts, feeling sick to his stomach at his own audacity, remembering what happened the last time he was honest. “I know it’s been weird, but. Are we — can we still talk to each other?”

Seungkwan doesn’t even finish his tentative overture before Hansol leans closer, interrupting in his eagerness.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, of course, whatever you want, Seungkwan, seriously. Guess what? I saw a cloud shaped like a badminton racket. I bought a juicer and turns out you can juice, like, anything. Sofia got a cat and she named it LaBooBoo because it looks like you. I —”

Hansol’s voice cracks. It lowers, softens. “I miss you, too,” he says, vehement. “I want us to be okay again so bad. But…not at the cost of your feelings. I don’t want to hurt you, Seungkwan.”

He looks helpless. Pleading. So, so dear.

“Hansol. We’re friends,” Seungkwan says, the word echoing heavily in his skull, “Okay? That’s what we are. Forever. Which is special enough on its own.”

He smiles, and finds he doesn’t have to force it. Mostly. “We’re good, Hansol. Let’s…be good.”

Hansol puts a hand out. “Shake on it?” he says. He sounds a little desperate. Seungkwan stares at his hand for a moment.

“Hansol, really?” he asks.

Hansol wiggles his hand stubbornly. “Shake on it,” he insists.

Seungkwan inches his own hand out, allows it to meet Hansol’s. The expected frisson of heat is still there, but he keeps his expression schooled as Hansol gives one, then two, pumps.

Then Hansol tugs him closer and hugs him, a solid embrace, torso to torso, Hansol’s face buried in Seungkwan’s shoulder. The closeness, the warmth, is so unexpected that Seungkwan squeaks. Over Hansol’s shoulder he sees Yoona and Mark making their way over. There’s a peculiar look on Yoona’s face as she stares at them, a flash of something fragile and uncertain. It’s strange in someone so confident and stylish. Seungkwan closes his eyes, unwilling to unpack it.

Instead, for just a second, he allows himself to sink into Hansol’s closeness.

“I’m not gonna lose you,” Hansol mutters into Seungkwan’s neck, his characteristic stubbornness cut by an edge of uncertainty. “Tell me how not to lose you.”

Seungkwan sighs. “You haven’t,” he promises. “You won’t.”

It’s not backwards movement, he tells himself, allowing himself to be sucked back into Hansol’s orbit. This is not a concession. It’s not insanity, or whatever they call doing the same thing twice and anticipating a different result. Because Seungkwan doesn’t anticipate a different result this time. He just thinks he’s going to tolerate the truth of it all a lot better, without hope or expectation.

He’s got his best friend. And he’s got a boyfriend. And it’s totally okay that they are two separate people.

Really.

Still. When Yoona and Mark finally reach them, Seungkwan makes sure he is the one to step away first.

|

The next few months pass by quickly, until the quarter ends with Mark’s album release party.

Seungkwan has been privy to Mark’s entire creative process over the last several weeks, and he’s very proud to see it pay off now. Mark is the star of the show, his second mini album dropping to critical acclaim. Seungkwan is happy to accompany him; there’s something addictive about the incandescent joy on Mark’s face when his title track starts playing. They still aren’t necessarily at the stage of, say, celebrating their 100 days together, but Mark is a part of the fabric of Seungkwan’s life now, and he’s a very good kisser. They are working on it, and Seungkwan is ready to play the doting boyfriend.

So, though Hansol and Yoona and all their friends are at the party, for once, Seungkwan tries not to be so hyper aware of Hansol. Instead, he watches Mark, a softness in his smile as Mark bops around and thanks his friends and colleagues and God with an earnestness few can mirror.

He’s watching Mark so closely that he notices the exact moment when Mark’s expression freezes.

Seungkwan follows Mark’s line of sight. There’s a man with reddish brown hair and golden skin, the casually expensive style of an idol. He’s watching Mark with the same intensity, same frozen expression.

Seungkwan has seen enough dramas to guess what happens next. His stomach sinks.

He turns to Mark, a questioning look in his eyes.

“Haechan,” Mark tells Seungkwan, when Seungkwan quietly asks his name. “From my rookie days.”

Seungkwan realizes that this whole time they’ve been together, Mark has known the ugly guts of Seungkwan’s unrequited love, but he’s carefully tucked away his own damage. And Seungkwan never asked, too caught up in hurting and healing himself. It makes him a little ashamed to think of his self-absorption, especially since the look on Mark’s face is one like looking in the mirror:

Total, desperate yearning.

“Oh, Mark,” Seungkwan murmurs softly. He brushes the hair back from Mark’s forehead, and Mark looks at Seungkwan, eyes wide, though his gaze keeps flicking back towards Haechan in the crowd.

“I didn’t know he’d be here, hyung,” he says. “Really. I didn’t think he’d come. He, um. He usually ignores all the studio’s invites.”

Seungkwan cocks his head, letting his hand fall to clasp Mark’s.

A slow dread creeps up on him, even as he valiantly smiles. “Maybe he’s finally got something to tell you,” Seungkwan suggests.

Mark shakes his head. “Hyung,” he says. “No. It’s been years. And I can’t think like that and then get disappointed.” There is a familiar fear in Mark’s face, an instinct of self-preservation that Seungkwan recognizes. A cowardice running alongside a longing sort of hope. “Besides, you and I…”

He gestures between himself and Seungkwan. His voice trails off. There is guilt and conflict in his eyes, but Seungkwan clucks his tongue.

“We aren’t married, Mark-ah,” Seungkwan tells Mark softly, trying to sound understanding even though his stomach is rioting. “Are you really telling me that between him and me, you’d choose me?”

It’s a blunt way to phrase it, too intimate, but Seungkwan can be that way, sometimes. Mark gives him an agonized look before Seungkwan breathes out a laugh.

“One of us deserves a happy ending, Mark. And if it doesn’t work out with him, we’re back to where we are now, right?” He brushes Mark’s cheekbone with a gentle knuckle. “At least hear what he has to say.”

Mark, with an uncertain and trembling expression, asks: “Do you need any company, hyung? Want me to get someone?”

Seungkwan waves a hand at him. It would be bad for Mark to gallantly bring over Hansol, or even worse, Hansol and Yoona. He mumbles something about going to get a drink, and somewhere in the jumble of words he thinks he may wish Mark well.

Mark goes to find Haechan.

Seungkwan goes to find the open bar for a glass of wine.

An hour and three glasses later, perhaps not as well-paced as he wishes they’d been, Seungkwan is drunk. He looks around the room aimlessly. It’s by luck that he catches a glimpse of Mark and Haechan in the corner, Haechan looking at Mark like he’s the sun, Mark tilting towards him like a flower. The lack of distance between them is telling, as is the grip Haechan has on Mark’s arm. They disappear into one of the conference rooms before anyone can see them, and that —

Well. That’s that. Seungkwan dashes off a text to Mark, slightly sloppy already:

I’m breaking up with you before you can break up witb me!!! Mark Lee. Thank you. You’re a great kisser. Be happier than me.

He turns off his phone ringer with a flourish and throws back another glass of wine. Maybe it’s a little melodramatic, but Seungkwan thinks he’s earned the melodrama.

Now what? No boyfriend, no reason to be at this party, left with his own thoughts…

Oh. He really has to pee. With a beleaguered sigh, Seungkwan makes his way to the bathroom.

This is not a betrayal so much as it is an inevitability, some part of Seungkwan reasons. He’s been so emotionally occupied by his feelings for Hansol, he’s sure he hasn’t been the best new boyfriend. And Mark never made it a secret that he, too, was hung up on someone else.

But, still. They were — they were trying. It’s galling that Seungkwan wasn’t good enough to give Mark even a moment of pause when asked who he would choose.

Ah, that’s not the issue. Really, it’s probably less flattering than that: the competitive side of Seungkwan is upset about something petty and small — that Mark gets resolution while Seungkwan is clumsily zipping himself up in the men’s room, muttering to himself, as his unrequited love just stands there watching it all happen.

Wait. Hansol is standing in the bathroom. Did he follow Seungkwan in?

Of course the universe would find a way for Hansol to see this.

“Kwan-ah?” Hansol asks.

Seungkwan thinks he’s probably more drunk than he thought, because he’s imagining a tenderness in Hansol’s voice, the kind that he always longs for. He tunes Hansol out, unwilling to entertain this while Mark is somewhere already sucking face with the love of his life. Probably.

Seungkwan wonders what kissing Hansol would be like. Whether it would soft, or hot, or—

“Hey, Seungkwan. What’s wrong?”

Seungkwan heads to the sink to aggressively wash his hands instead of answering. The harsh soap strips his fingers, makes them raw, but that’s fine. Sometimes when his thoughts get too much, the simplicity of rituals helps to calm him down, even if the casualty is his skin.

Hansol knows this. He reaches over, gently moving Seungkwan’s hands from the tap, turning off the spigot with one hand as he holds Seungkwan’s wrists with another. Water drips to the floor and Seungkwan stares at the puddles on the tile as Hansol pats his fingers dry with a paper towel.

“Seungkwan,” Hansol says again. “Want me to find Mark for you?”

Seungkwan jolts. The thought of Hansol finding out about Mark and Haechan, of the misunderstanding and the pity — it burns through Seungkwan like fire.

“No!” he says. “No, I’m fine. I just had too much to drink. I don’t want to bother Mark.”

Hansol looks at him with skepticism on his handsome face. “You only drink this much when you’re sad,” he says softly.

Seungkwan’s laugh is sharp like glass, jagged and bright. “Why would I be sad?” he asks. “What reason could I possibly have to be sad, hm, Hansol!”

He dares Hansol to name it, the thing they don’t talk about. Instead, Hansol turns red, looking away.

“That’s what I thought,” Seungkwan says, quiet, bitter.

Every second they stand in here is another second someone could come in and witness their sorry tableau. Seungkwan sighs and rakes a hand through his hair.

“I’ll text you later,” he says. “I’m leaving.” He walks out of the bathroom, head beginning to hurt.

Hansol follows.

“Let me take you back to your place,” he says seriously. “You’re not sober, Seungkwan, and even if Mark is too busy, you should have someone to take care of you.”

Seungkwan is about to answer when another voice chimes in.

“I can take him,” Yoona says. She’s leaning against the wall, waiting for them. “You still have to give a speech, yeobo. But I was going to say goodbye anyway. I’m so tired.” She touches Hansol’s shoulder, pressing her lips to his cheek. “I’ll see you at home?”

Seungkwan looks away. There’s literally nothing he wants less than to be accompanied by Yoona anywhere, especially after that sickeningly sweet display, but he can’t say so.

Hansol looks from Yoona to Seungkwan. “You okay with that, Kwan-ah?” he asks, uncertain. Even Hansol can tell how mortifying this set-up is, but—

“Whatever gets me gone faster,” Seungkwan says finally. It’s the snippiest he’s been to Yoona. She just smiles faintly, trading looks with Hansol like Seungkwan is a child to be managed.

Blessedly, Yoona is quiet until they get in her car. Seungkwan puts on his seat belt and rests his forehead against the window. One of Hansol’s old SoundCloud songs plays on the sound system. The car smells like Hansol’s cologne, and Yoona’s shampoo. The combination makes Seungkwan’s stomach turn.

They’re on the highway when Yoona finally speaks.

“Seungkwan,” she says, her voice even and serious. Her eyes are focused on the road, but she’s paying close attention to Seungkwan. He can tell by the way she holds herself very still.

“Yes, noona?” he says, tired, voice fuzzy. He hopes she’s not going to try to bond.

“Hansol told me you confessed your feelings.”

Seungkwan feels like he’s been doused in cold water. He scrambles up, sitting upright so quickly the seatbelt cuts into his neck.

“Nothing happened,” Seungkwan says, hating that his voice cracks. “Noona, I swear, nothing — nothing came of it.”

Yoona inhales.

“I know,” she says simply. “Hansol told me he just sees you as a friend. He told me he cares a lot about you, but not like that. I’m sure it must have hurt to hear it, but I’m glad he was honest with you.”

Seungkwan feels ice in his veins, prickling under his skin. Betrayal is sharp like a needle. Piercing.

“But what I don’t understand, Seungkwan, is why you’re still chasing him. Hanging out with him like you’re hoping for more. Asking for his time and attention when you’re an adult and can take care of yourself. When you have your own boyfriend.”

Yoona’s voice does not waver. She keeps driving, eyes on the road, while Seungkwan keeps staring, eyes on her.

“I know best friends are close. I know you grew up together. But the behavior you’re used to, sleeping over, sharing food, touching so much. You’re taking advantage of Hansol’s good nature, and it’s —” She inhales again. “It’s embarrassing for you, honestly.”

Seungkwan’s face is not cold anymore. Now it’s aflame.

“Embarrassing,” he intones, a dull echo.

“You’ve got Mark but for how long?” she asks. “Hansol and I talk about it sometimes. How we’re not sure whether you two will last because you’re acting like you’re still interested in Hansol.”

There is a stoplight and she finally turns to look at Seungkwan.

“He’s really concerned for you. He wants you to be happy. But you have to want that, too.”

She taps the steering wheel. “I’m your noona,” she says, and her voice is kinder now, more cajoling. “I know how hard it can be to get over old crushes. Especially someone as lovely as Hansollie.”

Seungkwan makes a noise. Something between pained laughter and disbelief.

Yoona puts the car back in gear and her eyes go back to the road. “But don’t you think, if he was going to feel the same way, if this was going to go the way you wanted, he would’ve already said so?”

She hums along to Hansol’s song for a moment, letting that blow land.

“You’ve known him for longer, and you know him better. And he still decided he wants me, Seungkwan.” She purses her lips. “I’m not trying to be mean. But I know Hansol will never say it to you. He’s too nice, so here I am. Begging you to back off so he doesn’t have to be awful to your face, one day.”

The car comes to a stop in front of Seungkwan’s building.

“What do you want me to do?” Seungkwan asks, voice thin. Wavering. “We’ve been in each other’s lives since before we could shave.”

His ears are ringing and he’s sweating. His breath is coming faster. He refuses to have a panic attack in Yoona’s car, but there’s a tidal wave of humiliation swamping him right now, drowning him as he realizes Hansol has let someone he’s known for less than a year see the most intimate parts of their relationship.

That he’s talked with her about Seungkwan, not as something precious but as something pitiful. A problem to be solved. A trial to be endured.

“I want you to give him space,” Yoona says. “I want you to keep away, and I want you to ask him not to follow. Don’t give him the burden of your feelings for once. Recognize that people grow up and apart, and let that happen to you both. Sometimes friendships can’t be saved after you tell a truth like yours. I think you should stop trying.”

Seungkwan stares at her for a long beat, at the grave seriousness on her face.

“Right,” he says after a moment. “Right.”

He climbs out of the car, movements slow and stilted, brain reeling.

“Seungkwan,” Yoona calls. The window is open. Seungkwan doesn’t turn to look, but he listens.

“Hansol said you were his hero when you were kids. Isn’t it time to look out for him again?”

Seungkwan scrapes a shaking hand over his face, inhaling a trembling breath. He gives one short nod, blinking tears away.

He doesn’t move until he hears Yoona’s car drive off.

In any normal circumstance, Seungkwan would tell Yoona to go to hell. He’s seen enough mean little girls in elementary school to recognize one now. She’s insecure and lashing out. Logically, Seungkwan knows he should talk to Hansol and make a decision with him. That’s what adults do.

But when picking between fear and logic, Seungkwan never picks right. On the inside, he’s still fifteen, ready to be rejected by the guy with brown eyes and a crooked, toothy smile, not only as a romantic prospect now but also as a friend.

It might be stupid but Seungkwan is scared that Yoona is right.

What if, given the choice, Hansol sides with her?

What if, offered the chance to forcibly diverge their lives like a tree split down the middle, Hansol is glad to take it?

What if, told that Seungkwan will go while asking Hansol not to follow, Hansol is secretly relieved?

So Seungkwan’s faith in Hansol has been shaken; sue him. He’s not sticking around to figure out whether all those what-ifs are true.

This way he doesn’t have to.

Mark and I broke up, Seungkwan texts Hansol as he walks into his apartment, numb. I’m going to need some time to myself. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me.

hold up, comes the message immediately, I can be over in like thirty minutes. u want ice cream?

Seungkwan takes a breath. Imagines Hansol leaving the party early and telling Yoona the reason. Imagines the last time he came to rescue Seungkwan from a late night heartache, which was also ironically enough caused by him. The disaster it all would be if Seungkwan lets it happen again, no matter how much his heart wants it.

The problem is, Seungkwan keeps trying to force the shape of their relationship into something one of them doesn’t want.

It can’t be like this anymore. For both their sakes.

If you were ever my friend, Seungkean writes, please don’t contact me again until I ask you to.

There’s a sequence of dots, starting and stopping, starting and stopping. This continues on for a long time. Seungkwan thinks about the range of replies, wonders if Hansol will end with a heartfelt insistence to take care of him, or even worse, some version of a dreaded, u sound like ur breaking up w me too lol

Instead, Seungkwan gets a text that makes him groan into his hands, helplessly endeared even as he hurts.

An image of the teary eyed Spanish speaking cat from Shrek, and three words that are somehow painful and healing at the same time:

whatever u need.

|

Despite the fact that Seungkwan did not answer a single one of Mark’s calls the night before, the next morning, bless his heart, Mark is at Seungkwan’s doorstep, flowers in hand and a giddy but apologetic expression on his face.

“Dude,” Mark says, and that’s all he needs to say for Seungkwan to understand that his Mark and Haechan are together, which means Seungkwan and Mark are not.

Seungkwan is tired enough to simply invite Mark in, patting Mark’s shoulder clumsily and making them tea as he explains his and Haechan’s epic love story.

Friends since they were kids, too repressed to acknowledge feelings, too worried about their careers to fight for each other and to close the distance Mark forcibly put between them. But there was sweetness and light, too, the puzzle-fit of them together, the way Haechan accepted and understood Mark like no one else, and how Mark came alive when Haechan was in the room. Opposites in every way except for their ambition and their belief in one another, and the terrible wondrous chemistry between them both. Now that they’re successful, older, lonelier, Haechan got tired of wondering. Of letting Mark run. And so there he was last night, brave and beautiful and putting himself on the line. All Mark had to do was choose to reach back.

It’s such a familiar story that it twists Seungkwan’s guts, makes him clutch his belly as it aches.

“And he’s soooo annoying but I like him so much — hey. Hyung. Are you okay?” Mark asks worriedly. “Hyung?” He lowers his voice. “Oh my God, you didn’t fall in love with me, did you?”

Seungkwan laughs so loud it might actually be insulting. He shakes his head frantically.

“No,” he says. “No, I just —” He turns away from the cup of tea he was pouring and places his palms on his eyes. “What happened with you and Haechan-ssi, it’s not going to happen with me and Hansol. It—I guess I just realized. There’s no chance. Less than zero.”

Mark’s gaze softens. “Hyung.”

Seungkwan shrugs helplessly. “Ah. It’s not your problem. My life is a mess, Mark Lee, and you were very good at taping it together for a while.” He looks at his hands. “I really am so happy for you. Even if I’m jealous. But…I’m also scared because this means I have to let all the pieces fall back to the floor. It means I have to be broken.”

Mark shakes his head. “No, hyung. You could let yourself heal,” he says. “You don’t have to keep putting the jagged ends together hoping they’ll fit. I get that Vernon hyung plays an important role in your life but if he can’t appreciate the role you want to play in his, maybe you both need to move on. Because you’re worth more than, like, limbo. And, look. It’s okay to be sad about it for as long as you need, you don’t have to just pretend to accept it to keep the peace.”

He touches Seungkwan’s wrist. “You can mourn if you want, hyung. The world won’t end. Things die but that doesn’t mean something else won’t live again.”

Seungkwan’s withered, battered heart feels like salted ground. But Mark’s words, so poetic, stir something in him. A resignation but a resilience, too.

Hadn’t he decided last night to cut the tie with Hansol, to chop off the root of the plant that is choking them both? With Yoona’s words, there isn’t really an alternate choice, anyway.

Maybe he can cleanse and heal the wound, if he actually acknowledges it.

“I hope we’ll still be friends, Mark,” Seungkwan says quietly, flipping his hand over to hold Mark’s for a moment.

Mark squeezes it, smiling. “Haechan is kind of crazy jealous, but I think he’s gonna be obsessed with you, hyung. So yeah. We can still be friends.”

Seungkwan covers his mouth, a surprised laugh leaking.

“Thank you,” Seungkwan says again, heartfelt, repeating his text from the night before. “Truly.”

Mark shakes his head. “You don’t have to thank me, hyung. I think we were meant to find each other when we did. You taught me that it’s possible to care for other people no matter how much I cared for someone else. That my heart isn’t a finite resource. That it was possible to start again, if I wanted to.”

He tilts his head, a bittersweet smile on his face. “We didn’t quite get there, in the end, but I hope I taught you that, too.”

The thing is, Mark did. And if it were anyone other than Hansol as the ghost chasing Seungkwan, and if Seungkwan was anyone other than Seungkwan, maybe starting over would have started sooner.

But just like with Mark and Haechan, Seungkwan has a feeling that things have to unfold for him in their own time. With their own lessons.

He gives Mark a hug before he says goodbye, but the broken pieces feel just a little less sharp than before.

|

For the first time in both their lives since the day they met, Seungkwan and Hansol go more than a week without speaking at all.

Seungkwan mutes Hansol’s account on Instagram, and only sneaks a look every Friday over a glass of wine, but doesn’t let himself passive aggressively like any of the cool artsy photos of Hansol and Yoona. Hansol’s not smiling in any of the pictures but that’s just Hansol. Seungkwan doesn’t read too much into it.

Of course, Hansol hasn’t liked a single post of Seungkwan’s either, not even any of the older ones that Seungkwan reposts in nostalgia, like a photo of a cheetah cuddling with an orange cat, tagged with @on_yourmark. And Hansol loves cats.

When he informs Jeonghan about his breakup with Mark, the first thing Jeonghan asks is:

“What did Hansol say about this?”

Seungkwan just shrugs and continues to lay out snack boxes, counting methodically in order to avoid telling Jeonghan the truth. Jeonghan looks like he’s going to say something, but Seungkwan makes sure to mess up the apple versus orange inventory and to prevent raising hell with six year olds, Jeonghan goes to find more and it’s all forgotten.

No one else in the friends group brings it up, though Dokyeom and Mingyu send more messages to their dongsaeng than usual. Seungkwan and Hansol have always been their own contained ecosystem. Until Yoona, no one has ever interfered.

For better or worse, Seungkwan is hoping it will stay that way.

Weeks turns into a month without hearing Hansol’s voice (written or otherwise) or seeing his face. It’s weird. So weird. It makes Seungkwan feel terribly empty, something like an endless pit of hunger gnawing away at his insides.

There are little reminders everywhere, of course. A tube of Hansol’s favorite lip balm in Seungkwan’s work bag. The allergy index pulled up on Seungkwan’s phone so he knows when pollen is bad. A picture of them at Everland as Seungkwan’s background on his home laptop when he doesn’t want to get out of bed to watch Netflix.

He wonders whether Hansol is noticing and hoarding all the little ways Seungkwan has left behind his own presence, too. Skincare in Hansol’s bathroom, a special tea blend from Jeju in Hansol’s kitchen. A memory foam pillow Seungkwan got Hansol for his 20th birthday that Hansol literally only uses for special occasions.

They are woven so deeply into one another’s lives that trying to untangle them from each other completely would be impossible. Seungkwan is sort of impressed that Yoona even tried.

Still; Seungkwan does his best to ignore these reminders rather than linger. Like stepping carefully through a field of landmines.

By two month’s end, the absence of Hansol is like pressing on a bruise. It’s not sharp anymore, not as glaring. It’s something Seungkwan accepts, an ache that hasn’t healed but also doesn’t throb, just exists, mottled and dark, on the surface of his heart.

The group’s annual cabin trip happens, replete with the scary moths that Seungkwan still doesn’t know how to fight off.

Hansol doesn’t come. It’s the first cabin trip he’s ever missed. Seungkwan sips a beer and looks at the moon through a haze of campfire smoke and he misses the press of Hansol’s leg next to his.

But instead of opening his phone and voicing it, he burns a marshmallow on a stick and watches it melt into a blackened, sticky mess.

Despite being the louder, more emotional one of the two of them, Seungkwan is just as stubborn as Hansol when he wants to be. He won’t give in first. He thinks he may even one day learn how to live with the ache, the way he did most of his early adulthood. He’s already lost so much face in front of Hansol and Yoona. He can’t stand the idea of losing more.

Back at his apartment, Seungkwan puts away the VeggieTales plate. He reupholsters his kitchen stools. And he starts sleeping diagonally across the bed. Each step is a small, foreign step towards crafting a new existence. It feels like he’s erasing Hansol in subtle ways, though it’s remarkably hard to find all the threads and cut them completely out, especially when most of them have been invisible, tied around the ventricles of his heart like it is a turkey trussed up for a meal. His love for Hansol is the stuffing, still moist. Beating under the cover of skin and flesh and muscle.

No one in the group talks to him about Hansol, an implicit agreement. Seungkwan gets his news on Hansol’s well-being only from the absence of news itself.

But one day, right around when his new comeback is being planned, Mark calls Seungkwan while Seungkwan is on the way home from school.

“Hyung,” Mark says. “The studio has been so intense. They brought in a new producer and writer named Lee Jihoon - the one who used to be a trainee with Pledis? He’s like a legend. So no one wants to mess up around him. We have to bring our quote unquote best selves.”

Seungkwan smiles. “That sounds like a Jaemin quote,” he says. He turns down a local street, thinking about getting some teokbokki for dinner.

“It would be fine except Vernon hyung is a mess,” Mark complains, before he seems to catch himself. Seungkwan’s chest thumps.

“Oh?” he says casually. The stall ahead is steaming, smelling of oil and spice. There are couples everywhere.

“Ah, yeah.” Mark hesitates. “He’s…well. He’s been really quiet lately. This past couple of weeks. Months. Kind of grumpy. Most of his demos are getting rejected from the company because they’re sort of dark. He’s—”

He says, delicately: “He’s sad, hyung.”

Seungkwan swallows. Of course Hansol is sad. It’s to be expected. Hansol loves Seungkwan, that’s never been a question, and hurting for him — not being able to be there for him when Seungkwan is hurting too— it would be distressing. This is not shocking.

He cannot be emotionally swayed.

“Ah,” Seungkwan says. That’s all. His mouth waters as he looks at the teokbokki stall. Unbidden, he thinks about the shape of Hansol’s hands when they hold chopsticks, when they feed Seungkwan with an affection that has always been innate.

“He asks about you,” Mark says. It’s like a bomb landing, the words detonating with a force that takes Seungkwan’s breath away. “He acts like he’s not asking about you, but he must still look at your SNS, hyung, because how else would he know you hang out with me and Haechan? Why else would he still be interested in what we do?” The roar of cars and distant beeps of horns filter through the air. “I called him on it today and he got really quiet. And then he said he just wanted to make sure you were happy.”

Seungkwan’s voice is ragged when he says, “What is he gonna do if I’m not, huh?”

There is anger and despair in his words. How dare Hansol still care about him from afar, without being brazen enough to do anything about it? How dare Hansol respect Seungkwan’s request for space, to be level-headed enough to give him that space, to not need to see Seungkwan the way Seungkwan sometimes feels he needs to see him?

It’s an unhinged mental monologue and it is unfair. Seungkwan can’t help it, like he never could.

Mark sighs. “That’s what I said,” he explains. “Aigoo, I didn’t mean to bring him up. I just thought it might help to know that you’re not always as alone in your feelings as you think you are. Maybe there’s something salvageable there.”

Seungkwan doesn’t tell Mark that he is alone — that Hansol not only said it himself, but told Yoona as well. That there’s more proof of his loneliness than Seungkwan knows what to do with.

“You’re the one who told me to move on,” he says, frustrated.

Mark pauses. “He has your picture on his phone and he looks at it when he thinks we can’t see,” he says in a rush. “We have a shared studio playlist and all he’s been putting on it for weeks is Frank Ocean songs. He yelled at me when he found out I was with Haechan because he thought I cheated on you. I think he stole the friendship bracelet you gave me.”

Seungkwan blinks.

“Hyung, you were pretty obsessed with Vernon, and I wanted to encourage you to give yourself space. But…I’m starting to wonder if he’s pretty obsessed with you, too.”

Seungkwan breathes in through his nose, willing away the siren call of hope. “Someone should tell him that he’s obsessed with me,” he snaps.

There’s silence on the phone and then Seungkwan heaves a sigh. “Sorry, Markie,” he apologizes softly. “I just — none of this matters. He’s got a girlfriend. Sure, he might miss me, but so what? Not enough to do anything about it. I can’t always be the hero—” His voice cracks, thinking of Yoona’s malicious last words. “—the one who fights for him.”

He says, small and tired, “I want to be worth fighting for, too.”

Mark croons, a soothing, sympathetic sound. He changes the subject swiftly, and after some mindless chatter, Seungkwan’s chest stops feeling like someone was stomping on it for hours. He buys dinner and goes home, and manages to forget the humiliating conversation, lost in the oily, saucy deliciousness of hot teokbokki.

And then someone knocks on his door.

Seungkwan’s face is smeared with gochujang when he opens the door. It burns hot around his mouth when he sees Hansol on the other side.

Hansol, tall and dear and looking weary. Hair longer, curlier, greasier. Crammed under a beanie. Eyes circled in grey, lashes still impossibly long. Muscles gone, limbs lanky though his shoulders are still broad. Acne on his cheeks — probably stress breakouts.

He’s still so beautiful, dark-eyed and devastating.

“I know you asked me to leave you alone,” he says quietly. “I know you hate when I don’t listen, so I’ve been trying really hard to listen. To hear you even if I don’t always understand. But Mark called me and he said something and I had to come over because, Seungkwan —”

There’s something wild in Hansol’s eyes.

“If you think I’m not willing to fight to keep you, you’re so wrong. I have fought so hard all month to keep you. Fought myself from sending you messages. Fought the guys from making you come to hangouts. Fought my mom and your mom from staging an intervention. I’ve done everything I can to make sure you get the time you need to decide I’m worth being in your life again, even though it breaks my heart not to talk to you or see you, Kwan-ah. And maybe I’m doing it all wrong. Maybe I’ve been an idiot like everyone keeps telling me and it’s my punishment now, trying to figure out what you need even though you’re so fucking far away. But please don’t think I’m not fighting to keep you. I’m fighting. I promise I am.”

It’s the most words, the most ardent string of sentences that Seungkwan has heard from Hansol since they were in their early teens and Hansol was explaining the genius of Avril Lavigne.

Seungkwan isn’t sure what to say. He feels impossibly tender, and impossibly indignant at the same time. His face must reflect his conflict because Hansol gives a small, unwilling laugh.

“I didn’t come here for a response,” he says. “I just wanted you to know that I’m done staying away.”

Seungkwan flinches. Hansol’s knuckles are a whisper, a caress, against his cheek.

“You know me, but I know you, too. Boo Seungkwan, you’re the last person who needs to be left alone. So I won’t. Sorry. Not sorry.”

Seungkwan closes his eyes at the determined note in Hansol’s voice. He doesn’t open them again until Hansol has backed away. Until the ding of the elevator sounds.

Until Seungkwan can no longer feel the imprint of Hansol’s heat signature in the vicinity.

|

Hansol is persistent.

It’s something Seungkwan has bemoaned and celebrated about him for years. When Hansol makes a decision, no social rule or outside influence can change it. He’s laser focused, implacable.

Right now, Hansol’s decided he’s done waiting for Seungkwan to invite him back. Instead, he’s going to take advantage of the soft spot in Seungkwan’s heart that never seems to harden. And that means showing up — every day — in Seungkwan’s life, not as something taken for granted, but as something worth saving.

It’s different than it ever has been, though. That’s what throws Seungkwan off. Hansol doesn’t meet Seungkwan on familiar territory, in familiar ways. Rather than reaching out as a response, reactively, he takes initiative to set the tone.

He sends Seungkwan voice notes instead of texts, halting then picking up speed, low-toned and thoughtful, his musings and observations, questions that don’t rely on their years of friendships but probe who Seungkwan is now. Who he wants to be.

He makes a shared playlist and adds songs to it that convey more than words can — Seungkwan’s old favorites from Wonder Girls and One Direction, but also countless pop punk tracks that shaped Hansol’s teenage years, melancholy guitar riffs and vocals somehow nostalgic. New tracks, too. Mark’s latest album, a song about sea breezes that feels like a confession, different than Hansol’s usual taste but intimate, emotional.

He sits outside Seungkwan’s apartment, waiting for him after work instead of letting himself in, cooking dinner for the both of them instead of letting Seungkwan do it, instead of ordering takeout. (Burnt pajeon is still pajeon, and it’s the effort that counts.)

One week, he sends a pizza to Seungkwan’s Wednesday class for lunch. So the kids give you a break for once, he writes in his scrawled penmanship.

Seungkwan remembers he always complained about Wednesdays being the worst days, how much he hated the school lunches. He remembers also that he was always convinced Hansol never listened.

The memory feels uncharitable now. Jeonghan raises an eyebrow and whistles as he looks at the pizza boxes, looking impressed despite himself.

“Your Hansollie is learning,” he says. “Good. Wish he’d have ordered the goguma version though.”

It’s seductive, seeing Hansol try. It would almost make Seungkwan let his guard down, if not for the ways he sees Yoona still in the periphery of Hansol’s life, in stories and SNS and in the background of calls. There’s no possibility where they both co-exist in Hansol’s world, not after the album launch conversation in the car. Seungkwan knows that. He feels, in many ways, as if they’re just biding time, he and Hansol and Yoona, until an inevitable end.

Which happens more violently than Seungkwan expects.

An average weekday after school, and Seungkwan is walking home from the subway as usual. The light turns green and he walks forward. The next moment is a wash of screeching brakes, the slam of metal, the horrible jolt being hit so hard in the chest he is flung several feet.

When everything stills, the silence is louder than the crash. His hands shake in loose fists, gravel embedded in his skin. He can’t make his lungs work right.

Someone is talking to him — a stranger’s voice, steady, asking if he is okay, if he has someone to call.

“Emergency contact?” they ask.

His throat closes as his vision narrows. He hasn’t changed it in ten years. It’s Hansol.

How embarrassing, Passing out is a mercy, if he’s honest.

He wakes up to the sound of machines he doesn’t recognize and a dull, spreading ache that makes it hard to breathe all the way in.

White ceiling. Harsh lights. His arm feels heavy, wrong.

“Seungkwan-ssi.”

A familiar, if chilling voice. Yoona. Too close. Too controlled.

Seungkwan turns his head slowly. His ribs scream in protest. Yoona is standing beside the bed, arms crossed tight against her chest, eyes sharp and wet in a way that makes his stomach drop.

“Hansol came. I came with him,” she says, like it explains everything. “He went to talk to the doctor.”

Seungkwan swallows. His throat tastes like metal. “I didn’t — I didn’t call him.”

“No,” she says flatly. “You didn’t.”

Seungkwan is just tired enough to wonder if Yoona is going to stab him like some sort of drama villain. It would be very rude. He just got hit by a car.

Instead, she exhales, runs a hand through her hair. “How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Like…I got hit by a car,” he murmurs. “Why do you care?”

“I’m not a monster,” Yoona snaps. Her composure cracks just enough for something real to slip through. “I don’t want you to be hurt.” Her shoulders twitch. “I just want you to be somewhere else. Somewhere Hansol won’t follow.”

Seungkwan blinks at her. “You talk like I lured him here on purpose.”

Her laugh is short, humorless. “Didn’t you?”

The room feels smaller. The air is heavier.

“I didn’t step in front of that car,” Seungkwan says. “I just have shitty luck. For instance: loving my best friend even though, as you said yourself, it was always one-sided.”

He doesn’t know how to not be honest, not here, injured in a hospital bed with a flimsy curtain and his unrequited love interest’s girlfriend as his only company.

Yoona steps closer to the bed, lowering her voice — not threatening, but careful. “Do you know what it’s like,” she asks, “to love someone who’s already emotionally married to someone else?”

Seungkwan’s breath catches. Pain flares momentarily. Then confusion.

“From day one, I watched him light up when your name came up,” she continues, words coming faster now. “I watched him drop everything when you called. I watched him look for you in rooms you weren’t even in.” Her jaw tightens. “He stared holes in Mark’s skull after your first date. He came running to you the night you posted your first couple selca. And then he came home to me and told me you were just his friend. That you confessed to him but he couldn’t believe someone like you would even want to be with him. That you deserved better than him. Like that wasn’t an insult to me.”

The silence rings.

Seungkwan stares at her, heart pounding, something cold and electric crawling up his spine.

“You weren’t just his friend,” Yoona says. “Maybe he never let himself see it, or maybe he just was blind.” Her voice breaks, brittle with resentment. “But I saw.”

Seungkwan’s jaw drops. The truth settles heavy in his bones:

Yoona didn’t confront him because he was delusional, or because he was embarrassing Hansol.

She confronted him because she was afraid.

“He still chose you,” Seungkwan says. He coughs against the dryness in his throat, the weariness. The disbelief. “I chased and chased like a fool, and he ran. Every time. You won.”

Yoona’s voice thins out, raw now. “That’s what makes it worse. I didn’t win. I was so mean to you in the car, and — and for no reason. He was with me but he was a wreck, looking at his phone for weeks. Missing you. Thinking about you.”

A tear trickles down her cheek. Seungkwan wants to feel sorry for her but there’s emptiness in his chest.

“You know that we were on a date today? And he didn’t even look at me once he got the call. Didn’t ask me to come along.”

She gives another laugh devoid of mirth. “I’m his choice out loud but I’m not his choice where it matters.” She rubs her sternum, over her heart. “I’m not in the life he builds for himself in his head. I’m in the life he just found himself living. Is that winning?”

Seungkwan closes his eyes. When he reopens them, he feels them burning.

“How ironic that I stayed away because you told me I was hurting him,” he says. “Because you made me feel like I was ruining his chances at a happy home. When your home wasn’t a home in the first place.”

Yoona looks, finally, like she is ashamed.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway,” she says. “I love him but it never meant a damn thing. I dumped him in the hallway while he was signing your release papers. I just wanted to tell you before I left that he’s very stupid and you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Seungkwan gives a sudden, surprised laugh, almost like it is ripped from him involuntarily, before clutching his ribs.

“You’re kind of a bitch,” he says, reluctantly admiring. “I could’ve liked you.”

Yoona shrugs. “Goodbye, Seungkwan-ssi,” she says. She turns to slide the curtain open, and the world seems to grind to a halt.

Hansol stands there, face pale, eyes blown wide like he’s been punched straight through the chest.

For a moment, no one moves.

Then, Yoona shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Hansol,” she says. And she pushes past Hansol, shoulders square as she walks away.

There’s a long stretch of silence. Just the hospital noises around them. Hansol’s horrified face. Seungkwan’s aching chest.

“What a crazy first girlfriend experience, huh?” Seungkwan says finally, overly bright. “At least you’ll have good songs to write out of it.”

His ribs hurt. His arm hurts. Life feels so absurd.

He’s still in love with Hansol. Panting after him, heartbeat pounding in tune with the may-be, may-be, may-be now reverberating in his skull.

Life feels so absurd.

“You don’t have to stay,” Seungkwan adds. “I forgot you were my emergency contact, I —I can grab a cab home.”

Hansol doesn’t reply. He only looks more horrified. He steps closer, mouth open without sound.

“I’m sorry,” Seungkwan says in a panic. His brain is overloaded with the weight of all that’s happened in the space of less than 12 hours. “I didn’t know she would break up with you. I mean, to be fair to me, she was kind of awful in the end, wasn’t she? But I know you liked her. And I know I’ve been — a lot. A lot to handle. I must have really messed up your life, Sollie. I’m sorry. Aish. All this drama I’ve created for you. So inconvenient. You can go now if you want.”

Hansol doesn’t move. He stands at the foot of the bed, hands clenched so tight his knuckles have gone white, like if he loosens them even a little he might fall apart completely.

“I didn’t know,” he says hoarsely. “Seungkwan-ah. I should’ve broken up with her first.”

Seungkwan averts his eyes. The words fall like stones. Hansol sounds wrecked.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he responds quietly.

“I swear to you,” Hansol continues like Seungkwan didn't say a word, stepping closer, voice falling apart under its own weight, “I didn’t know she said those things. I didn’t know she made you feel like—” He swallows hard. “Like you were something I needed to excuse.” His hand touches Seungkwan’s ankle over the bedsheet. “Your feelings weren’t a joke to me, okay? Or, I dunno. A rumor to pass on. They were — they are something precious.”

It heals something to hear Hansol confirm it in his honest, firm way. A balm over a burn. They breathe in silence for a moment, a rift coming together, stitching at the seams.

“It didn’t feel like that,” Seungkwan finally confesses into the quiet, the tears spilling over, creating a blurry image of Hansol frowning in distress. “It felt really embarrassing. I felt so small.”

Hansol shakes his head. “Seungkwan. I’m so sorry,” he says fiercely, squeezing Seungkwan’s leg. “You’re the best thing in my life. I didn't do my job, if it was this easy to not believe that.”

Seungkwan gives a watery laugh. "Hansol. When it comes to you, I don't want to be a job."

Hansol ducks his head. He takes Seungkwan's hand, gently, gently. Wipes at the corner of his eye. "Jobs offer structure. Stability. A sense of well-being. They're important. They have important functions, Seungkwan." He bites his lip. "I know what to do, when I'm bad at my job. I know how to do better. But with people, with relationships..."

Seungkwan doesn't answer. He can't. What a Hansol analogy, the retreat into safety, a language he can understand. His heart aches. He places his hand, the one with the IV line, over Hansol's. Squeezes.

“The last couple months have been hell,” Hansol blurts, voice scratchy. “Without you.”

“It was only two months,” Seungkwan says, giving a ghost of a smile.

“Felt like two years,” Hansol says, grinning weakly back. He clears his throat.

“Can we talk about it a little more, maybe?” he asks hesitantly. “About everything else she said? About — us?”

Seungkwan winces, half out of humiliation and half out of his rib pain becoming overwhelming.

“You’re tired. Let me drive you home,” Hansol says instead, straightening. “The doctor wrote down the prescriptions, and I picked them up downstairs.”

That reprieve given, the ride home is conducted entirely in silence, but the air between them stays electric, swollen with words yet to be said. Seungkwan is so exhausted he can’t quite make sense of what’s coming next, so he doesn’t even try. The window is cool against his cheek, and he tucks his arm close to his chest, protecting it against any bumps on the road, though Hansol is careful to drive smoothly.

When they get to Seungkwan’s apartment, Hansol carries the bag of prescriptions in one hand and trails him up the stairs like a shadow, his other hand ghosting over Seungkwan’s back.

Inside, he flicks on the light, drops his car keys, and turns to Seungkwan. Seungkwan thinks Hansol might say goodbye, or even ask if Seungkwan wants him to stay.

Instead:

“I know you just got hit by a car but…um, what if I kissed you?”

Seungkwan’s eyebrows fly up to his forehead.

“What?” he asks faintly, certain he’s misheard. Cursing the jump in his heart that happened regardless.

“Just—” Hansol drags a hand through his hair, pacing a step closer. His voice is raw, frantic. “When I got that call. I was so scared, Seungkwan. I felt like our whole lives together flashed before my eyes, and there was something huge I was missing the whole time. Maybe Yoona was right about me being blind. Maybe I’ve seen you as one thing for so long that it never registered that you could be something else, too. Maybe kissing you is the way I open my eyes.”

It is cruelly logical. Seungkwan feels it like a blade, pressed against the skin of all his years of loving Hansol. Testing a kiss, like he is an experiment, like attraction and emotion can be reduced to some hunch that Hansol needs to verify.

His voice shakes. “If you have to ask, it probably means you don’t have the feelings she thought you do.”

Hansol looks gutted, but he doesn’t back down. His eyes burn, steady on Seungkwan’s. “I’m asking because I’m pretty sure I do, which means that I’ve had these feelings for years. That I’ve been stupid enough to just never see them or name them. Stupid enough to waste all this time. To hurt you.”

He steps closer, hand hovering by Seungkwan’s cheek. “Can I — you were really brave, Seungkwan. To name it first. And it must have been so sucky, to wait for something you didn’t get back. I don’t want to make things suckier. You can say no and I’ll live with it.”

Hansol’s lips are bitten, chapped. Pink. He looks terribly earnest. Seungkwan can’t help but stare.

His pulse thunders in his ears. He wants to spit no and make it sharp enough to slice through the years of confusion and self-doubt. He wants to say no, and laugh meanly at how conveniently timed Hansol’s epiphany is, how there is no cost to bravery when he knows feelings will be returned.

He wants to say no and end this, to protect what is left of himself.

His throat scrapes raw as he forces it out. “No.”

Hansol’s face crumples. He nods, like he’d been bracing for it, and his hand drops to curl uselessly at his side. “Okay,” he whispers, stepping towards the kitchen counter. “Valid. Then—then I won’t—”

But before he can finish, Seungkwan’s fingers have already fisted in his hoodie. His body moves before his mind can stop it, yanking Hansol forward, slamming their mouths together in something that isn’t a kiss so much as a collision.

It is fury and grief and relief and longing all at once, years of silence exploding into the press of lips, the sting of teeth. Seungkwan’s ribs scream when Hansol stumbles into him, but he doesn’t let go, can’t let go.

Hansol makes a noise — strangled, desperate — and for a moment he doesn’t move, like he is too stunned to believe anything is happening. Then he is kissing back, clumsy and ruined, hands catching Seungkwan’s jaw, holding him closer.

It isn’t gentle. But it is sweet. And raw, and impulsive, and necessary.

When Seungkwan finally rears back, breath ragged, he shoves Hansol’s chest hard enough to make him stumble. “That,” he says, voice shaking, “is what I’ve been drowning in for years, Chwe Hansol. Are your eyes open now? What do you see?”

Hansol stares at him, lips parted, chest heaving, looking like the ground has been ripped out from under him.

“You,” he says, voice low. His hand comes up to fit around the curve of Seungkwan’s skull, fingers tangled in Seungkwan’s hair. His touch feels like fire.

He leans in again, and this time his brow is set with intent.

“You’re all I see,” he says. “Boo Seungkwan. You’re all I want to look at ever again.”

He kisses Seungkwan, and this time, all the tension and fight melts out of Seungkwan’s body. The taste of Hansol, the warmth of his mouth and the certainty in his embrace, it is overwhelming in its comfort. Like being cold all his life and finally, finally sinking into a hot bath. Pins and needles, but in a good way. 

"Oh man," Hansol says reverently when they part, breathless, urgent. "I didn't know it could feel like this."

Seungkwan takes a shaky breath. "Feel like what?" he asks. He can't quite believe this is happening. 

Hansol breathes into Seungkwan's mouth, air for air. "Like home."

Seungkwan laughs. "I've known all along," he says. Not a brag. Not a confession. A load he's finally allowed to lay down because Hansol will carry it.

Hansol's eyes soften. "That's 'cause you're really smart," he says seriously. "I always take a little longer. Sorry."

Seungkwan slips his arms around Hansol's waist and allows himself to nestle his cheek against Hansol's chest, hearing the steady heartbeat, soaking in his body heat. Not a friendly hug, nor a desperate attempt to hold onto each other. Just pure feeling.

"As long as you're here now," he says. "Are you?"

Hansol pets Seungkwan's hair, fingers slow, dragging through the strands. “I’m in love with you too,” he says, quietly, plainly, confidently. “I didn’t say it then because I didn’t know it then. But maybe that’s because…how do you know something that’s like breathing? But I do. I love you.”

He tilts Seungkwan's face up and kisses Seungkwan’s brow, his cheek, his nose. His mouth once more.

Seungkwan feels like he’s spinning in a dome of lights, fireworks lighting him up inside. His ribs and arm barely hurt, not in the light of Hansol’s philosophical admission.

“Okay. Well. Keep breathing,” Seungkwan instructs. “Please.”

What he means is please keep loving me.

“Cute. You don’t have to say please,” Hansol responds, and brings him close for another long, tight hug.

What he means is, loving you is inevitable.

|

That night, when they go to bed, Seungkwan peels back the covers and once again allows himself the simple pleasure of staring at Hansol next to him.

Just like before, Hansol is sleeping in bed with him.

Only tonight, for the first night of the rest of their nights, instead of facing away, they are facing each other.

Two halves of a heart, curved in till their foreheads and knees touch.

“Do you still think we’re a little codependent?” Seungkwan teases, an echo of the question Hansol had asked so long ago.

Hansol nuzzles into Seungkwan’s face, sleepy and sure. “You can’t get rid of me,” is his answer.

Seungkwan thinks he can live with that.