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en-ternity · 26 days

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⋅ GENRES: best friends (to strangers to friends) to lovers; angst, fluff & smut

⋅ PAIRING: neighbor!Sunghoon x fem!reader

⋅ WORD COUNT: 26.7K

⋅ WARNINGS: idiots in love, but make it slow-burn; i caught myself being bias wrecked by Sunghoon, so don’t say you haven’t been warned; soulmates references although it’s not a fantasy au; mentions of alcohol and drugs; unprotected sex

TRACK 02 OF TAKE MY HAND

There had been a time when Sunghoon thought that you and he were meant to be forever.

And to be fair — his assumption used to make sense. For years, you had been best friends, halves of a whole, and the downfall of your friendship certainly was something no one could have predicted.

But that’s the thing about life — one moment people think they know exactly where they are headed, and the next, everything changes. The wind drifts the other way and suddenly, it is five am at the beginning of another Saturday. Sunghoon is clinging to his couch, wondering who he is looking for because you don’t go to parties anymore.

You were only ten when you first met Park Sunghoon.

While some parents ventured to the bustling cities in search of better opportunities, your parents decided to take the opposite turn and move to Uljin. About two hundred twenty-four kilometers southeast of Seoul and bordering the Sea of Japan, it was a county of sand-dirtied streets, a single commercial avenue, and no twenty-four hour parlors.

The breezes always carried the brine scent of the seashore, and the houses were built in the same bungalow style. No one within the limits of the county escaped the low-pitched roofs with wide eave overhangs nor the exposed rafters at the front porches. But a lucky person could have the beach just one deck away, and a luckier one could have Park Sunghoon as the boy next door.

And well, you were as lucky as luck could be.

The first time you had ever seen him, he stood on the sand with Yeji, a telescope stuck nearby, and the moon softly bathing his features as he looked up at the vast expanse of the night sky.

It was too cold to be outside, honestly, an autumn night that felt like winter on your bones, but you also had heard about the supermoon, and it was the only reason you had decided to sneak out that night, wandering to the beach with a scarf rolled around your neck not just once, but twice.

His little sister had been the first to acknowledge your presence, but it had been Sunghoon who offered to share the telescope with you, the corners of his mouth shyly tucking with a smile as dimples flirted at the soft skin of his cheeks.

Looking at Sunghoon then and there, you didn’t know what he would become to you — how important he would become to you. But on the next morning, he knocked on your front door, asking if you wanted to go to the main avenue with him, and just like that Park Sunghoon was shared cakes in the winter, bike rides to school in the spring, and your whole summer. During the bright and sunny days, Sunghoon would laugh heartily with you, his eyes gleaming with mirth as his dimples never failed to appear, and then when the night fell, he would whisper into the darkness of your room. His back side by side with yours until the sun broke and colored the walls tangerine and pink because you never bothered to close your curtains.

Throughout the seasons that turned into years, Sunghoon became your best friend, and as foolish as it could be — your other half.

ULJIN-GUN, NORTH GYEONGSANG

SUMMER OF 2020

It was later than usual when Sunghoon called that night. The house long turned into nothing but the sea breezes coming through the opened windows of your bedroom and blending in with your phone’s ringtone.

“Sunghoon.”

“Can you come outside?” he asked at the other end of the line.

You leaped off your bed, moving as quietly as you could to the window. It wasn’t as warm as it had been, autumn already pressing onto the late august nights, and tingling your skin, but when you spotted Sunghoon standing at the end of your family’s deck stairs, his jacket was hanging in one of his hands instead of his shoulders.

“I don’t know, can I?” you asked, immediately stealing a smile from him. Even in the distance, you could see it tucking at the corners of his mouth and flirting dimples at his cheeks.

Sunghoon peered up at you, head tilted to the side in a false consideration. During the course of your friendship, you had done it far too often, but still — Sunghoon always started with the same question, and you always replied in the same way. It was a monologue never really planned or written down, but that both of you had accepted and played.

“Just come already, teeny. I brought you a jacket,” he said, slightly shaking the piece in his hands.

You couldn’t help but smile, your heart already pounding in your chest as you tip-toed through the darkness of your family’s house and its back deck.

You barely made it to the sand before Sunghoon slagged his jacket on your shoulders, a sneering huff escaping through his lips because while you settled on your height at the age of fourteen, he continued growing — his jackets turning harder to fit you with the passing years. But Sunghoon was still careful with it, adjusting it as best as he could despite you being a few good centimeters smaller than him now.

“Teeny,” he whispered, giving his jacket one final pat before he held his hand out for you. His fingers spread so you could fill the small gaps in between, your palm a warm touch against his as he guided you toward the sea.

Sunghoon stopped just before the water could reach your feet, but still, the breeze caught the cold sprinkles, brushing them against the exposed skin of your cheeks.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” he said.

“At three in the morning?” you asked. “I don’t think there is anything open kilometers from here.”

“No,” he laughed. “It’s going to be our last semester of high school, so I have been thinking, we should go somewhere else after our graduation.”

“Do you want to leave Gyeongsang?”

“It’s just — I don’t think there are many good options here, and my father has been trying to convince me to try a scholarship at Konkuk University.”

“Seoul? Seriously?”

“Well, Konkuk is one of the best for biological science, and — it happens to be one of the best for linguistics too,” he said. “It’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

Something filled the inside of your chest with his question, so warm and tender. You couldn’t find the words to reply, so you only nodded at him, a smile already tucking at the corners of your mouth because even in his dreams, Park Sunghoon included you.

“I just thought that we should do it together,” he said. Although Sunghoon didn’t give himself enough time to doubt the wisdom of saying it, the words came weakly — almost getting lost in the breeze before you could even clasp them. You pulled his jacket tighter around your body, tugging the collar up to your mouth and accidentally breathing in everything about it: the citrus perfume blended with the brine scent of the seashore, which was the same as saying Sunghoon’s scent. “You are my best friend, plus — you would miss me too much if we ever went separate ways.”

You looked up at him, but he didn’t return your gaze. Sunghoon was still looking at the sky, watching it with the same intensity as when you first met him years and years ago.

Late august nights were never really warm in Uljin, and the air carried a particular humidity that caused his hair to curl fondly. You were glad your mouth was covered and hid the smile you couldn’t control from forming with the realization that it was true — you would miss him.

“Let’s do it together,” you conquered. “Let’s stay together.”

“It’s a promise now,” Sunghoon said.

He looked down at you, suddenly letting go of your interlaced hands. But before you could sorrow the absence of his warmth, he held his pinky finger at you. The gesture was so silly that you couldn’t help but laugh, the sound tingling across the night as you curled your pinky finger around his.

“It’s a promise now,” you echoed.

But you should have known — some promises were simply meant to be broken.

GWANGJIN-GU, SEOUL

SUMMER OF 2022

Kim Haneul was the messiest person you had ever met, and you told her this.

Konkuk University’s dormitories weren’t spacious — actually, just enough had been the term you used to describe it to your parents, but this afternoon, Haneul seemed to be on a mission to make it unbearable. The floor of your shared room had been cluttered with her old textbooks and past projects, some pinkish post-its sorting their destination between home, donation, and trash in her bubbly handwriting as her clothes took every other space.

You had offered to help many times, but she insisted on doing it by herself. What left you no other option than to stay at your desk chair, pulling your legs up, and wrapping your arms around them in an unconscious attempt to save some more space as you watched her fumbling through a pile of clothes.

“Is this yours?” she asked, completely ignoring your comment.

You looked at the apricot dress Haneul had picked up. It was a beautiful backless thing, and the straps were so delicate, you couldn’t help but wonder how it managed to hold everything in place. However, despite its beauty-

“I have never seen it before,” you told her.

“Being honest, I don’t remember ever seeing this either,” she sighed, long and heavy. “I was about to complain once again about this system of us having to empty the dorms every summer but then I remembered that I have graduated, so I would have to leave anyway.”

“You will manage it — you always managed it.”

“I know, I am just stressed,” she said, abandoning the apricot dress and moving her attention to a buttery yellow one. “You know what? My flight is only tomorrow night and you are only leaving for Uljin on Sunday, we should go out.”

“Like right now?”

“One of my classmates is throwing a party tonight.”

“I don’t go to parties,” you said, immediately receiving a look from her.

It wasn’t a lie — although it hadn’t always been like this.

A year ago, it wouldn’t matter whose party it was or what they were commemorating — if Park Sunghoon was there, you would be there too, hands intertwined and sharing the same doubtful cup until it was hard to tell if it was really late or really early. But you couldn’t go back to the university dormitory without getting a warning, and your only option was to crash in his frat house, slipping underneath his blankets as his arms curled around you and brought you closer to him.

His roommates weren’t even surprised anymore. Heeseung barely batted an eye as he caught you wandering around in the kitchen in the mornings afterward, and Jake already had an extra cup of coffee prepared for you.

But then, Sunghoon started to have flings.

Hyuna at the end of the winter semester, Sunhee at the beginning of the spring, Chaeyeol at the end of it, and some others in the middle of all of this.

He still insisted on taking you to the parties, his black Jeep parked in front of your dormitory’s door and ready to take you anywhere. But his girls were always hovering around, their eyes narrowed and unable to conceal the hate they had for you.

Sometimes they were so good at keeping Sunghoon away from you that you didn’t even see him until the party was over, and you had awkwardly been alone for hours, uncertain of what to do or where to go. So eventually, you didn’t feel like going anymore.

Of course, you were still friends outside the furor of the parties. But with the new reality of Sunghoon and his flings, plus you beginning your relationship with Jongseong, you both drifted apart. Days without hanging out turned into weeks, weeks turned into months of no real conversations, and then, Sunghoon canceled the last plan you ever made together and a shouting phone call was the last thing you remembered before your lives had gone on without each other in them. The new and strange became familiar, and all the promises you once made turned into nothing but a memory of a different life.

“You know you are allowed to go to parties without Sunghoon, right?” Haneul asked.

His name whispered through you, making your heart skip a beat, and you tightened your arms around yourself, fighting back the flood of feelings that threatened to overwhelm you at the mention of him.

One thing was to have Sunghoon hovering around your mind, another was to have him verbally put into a conversation.

“Of course, I know it,” you said, forcing out a smile.

Haneul walked towards you, wrapping her hands around your elbows. Her gesture was soft and you could tell she was choosing her words carefully even before she said them.

“You better, because it has been a year since you both stopped talking, and I don’t know. You were never here during the weekends, but now it’s hard to find you outside,” she said. “I don’t want to be that person, but Jongseong spoke some truth in the breakup speech — it seems like a part of you simply disappeared together with Sunghoon.”

“So let’s do something fun tonight. I am going back to my hometown and I have no idea what my life is going to be from now on,” she continued. “Consider this my graduation wish.”

“Wasn’t your graduation wish to get drunk on the university’s artificial lake last Sunday?”

“My graduation wish with you,” she mended.

You breathed in, turning your focus away. Despite it already being seven o’clock, the sun was still hefty outside, and suddenly, you had the impression the room had turned dimmer in comparison. The late june sunset pressed against the windows of your room, and shafts of golden luminescent streamed through the smudged glass.

You could feel the beginning of another summer slowly settling in. And how strange it was — to have the whole season caught in a breath that wasn’t his.

“I will think about it,” you said.

Haneul smiled, giving you a tiny squeeze before she abruptly let you go.

“I know you already have your answer.”

┈┈┈┈

You weren’t sure whose house it was, but there was graffiti on the walls and some lousy music was blasting through a pair of wireless speakers at the corner of the living room. The device long pushed against the wall just like the rest of the furniture so people could dance under the colorful lights, purple and red bouncing on their faces.

A different song picked up, less lousy but still trembling the floor and stealing the sound of Haneul’s delighted scream.

“Let’s dance,” she yelled, pushing her cheek against yours because it was the only way you could hear her beneath all the furor of the place.

“You go on and have fun,” you yelled back. “I am going to get another drink.”

“You really need it.”

You rolled your eyes at her, but she only smiled, leaving you to shove past people, and accidentally elbow a few couples who were too busy making out to open space.

The makeshift bar didn’t change from the last time you had been there. Aside from the notable decay of quantity, the options remained cheap beer and even cheaper soju.

You reached for a beer with a crinkled nose — bitter drinks definitely weren’t your favorite choice, and to add to your distress, someone had disappeared with the bottle opener.

It’s not like you hadn’t seen bar tricks already, people opening bottles with their teeth or countertops, but to perform it seemed different.

You didn’t want to take the risk of breaking a tooth, so you placed the bottle cap on the top of the ledge, carefully studying your next move, yet before you could do anything, he reached for you, his hands brushing against yours more like an echo of touch than in fact a thing as he took the bottle away.

“Careful,” he said. “You might hurt yourself like this.”

You knew it wasn’t a thing, but you could swear your heart dropped at the sound of his voice, that tiny gasp where a heartbeat should be.

You had molded the moment you would encounter Park Sunghoon in your mind enough times to believe you would be prepared when it finally came into reality but there was something strange about seeing someone after so long — a sudden uncertainty if time had passed correctly.

A year seemed like an eternity once, but not anymore. When you looked up at Sunghoon, you weren’t sure if a single day had passed ever since you both parted ways.

His gaze felt heavy on you, taking in how you had pushed your hair back due to the house's warmth, brushing it behind your ears, and allowing your shoulders to be on exposure. Your skin was glowing beneath the colorful light, sparkling with flakes of gold glitter some woman insisted on brushing on you when you left the bathroom. But Sunghoon lingered only a beat on it, choosing to follow the apricot dress Haneul had pulled you in earlier on before he finally met your eyes.

Both of you stood there for a second, maybe two, and then Sunghoon moved, abandoning his own bottle so he could focus on yours. He placed the cap on the top of the ledge, but different from you, he brought his hand down on it with no ado. The beer spilled with the roughness of the act, and the scent of fresh alcohol filled your senses.

“Here,” he said, handing it back to you. Your fingers slipped on his, and although you hadn’t even taken the first sip yet, you were already dizzy.

“Thank you.”

“When Jake said he saw you here, I was about to drag him home saying he had enough drinks for a night,” he said. “But turns out you are really here.”

“It has been some time. How have you been?” Sunghoon asked, retrieving his beer and bringing it up to his lips. You watched as he screwed his face, his nose scrunched because the warmth of the house had accentuated the bitter taste of the alcohol and turned it unpleasant. But he didn’t say anything, his eyes were still on you, shining beneath the colorful lights and waiting for you to talk.

“I have been fine, yes. How about you?”

“Fine,” he said. “Same old thing, classes, the frat house, and parties every weekend.”

The edge of a smile formed on his lips. It was such a small, quiet expression, but it lit him up, and you yanked your gaze to the bottle in your hands, desperate to find something else to put your attention on before the full force of his smile could reach you.

But you had turned your face away too late, and the familiar twinge his smile always made you experience had already occurred.

“Are you going to Uljin for summer?” he asked then.

“I always do,” you replied. You didn’t sound harsh or angry. If anything it was just you saying a factual truth, yet the words seemed to hang longer than it was necessary in the air, and in the rush of the moment, you talked yourself down. “I mean, I have to. They use the summer for inspections and reforms, so we are obligated to leave.”

You made the mistake of looking up, catching Sunghoon’s gaze as it felt on you in the same motion.

Behind him, a man appeared, friendly punching his shoulders before he moved to the makeshift bar and fumbled for a new beer. Sunghoon raised three fingers at the stranger, absently, and barely looking in his direction.

“When?” he asked.

“Sunday,” you said. “June twenty-six is the last day to empty the room.”

“I am also going back to Uljin,” he said. “I could — I could give you a ride on Sunday.”

You straightened yourself at the suggestion, fingers anxiously finding a rhythm against the bottle. It was silly the way your heart was pounding in your chest — silly the way your skin was warm in a way that you knew it wasn’t due to the early summer heat, nor the alcohol filling your system.

It had been a year since you last spoke to each other — a year since you had last made plans together. Everything was starting to feel too familiar beneath the awkwardness of the night, and for another moment, you didn’t know how to respond, choosing to swallow a good amount of the alcohol instead.

In the earnestness of your silence, Sunghoon studied you, his gaze unflinching even as he shrugged away, pressing his back against the cool of the fridge. His whole body moved with the guilt of someone who was taking their foot off the brake and still — was going to pretend what was coming next was an accident.

“Let’s bet,” he said. “Like the old times, c’mon.”

Sunghoon stepped past you, abandoning what remained of his beer at the makeshift bar, and sparing not even a single look back. He simply trusted that you would follow him, and you knew it was such a terrible idea, but perhaps it had been the alcohol already simmering below your skin, or perhaps it had been simply because it was Sunghoon, but you did follow him.

God — you would always follow him.

The living room was even more crowded than a few moments ago, with too many people fighting for the same space on the makeshift dance floor, and Sunghoon reached his hand out behind him. It seemed involuntary, almost as if his body had moved on its own, and he didn’t notice what he had done, but you did.

You wouldn’t lose each other in the middle of the living room, but once, when you were thirteen, you had reached out to him in the middle of a crowd, and then, he had never stopped reaching back to you.

At first, he just pinched the tip of your fingers, but as he opened space through the living room and moved into the stairs, his fingers found the slots between yours, and you let him intertwine your hands.

He caught the second story just as a group was leaving it. They had that happy air of those who had gone too far on their drinks, the alcohol effects heaving through as one of them nearly collided with you. Sunghoon pulled you closer then, guiding you through the corridor before the other could even apologize.

You didn’t know whose house this was, but apparently, Sunghoon did. He took you to the last room without a hint of doubt, as if he already knew it was a game room. The walls painted in the extravagant tone of maroon as a pool table took the space in the middle, velvet smooth beneath the dim light.

Sunghoon let go of your hand only to gather the balls in the center of the table, carefully alternating by stripes and solids before he turned to the wall and took two cue sticks from the hangers.

“If I win, you go back to Uljin with me. If you win, it’s your choice,” he said, giving one of the cue sticks. “Do you know the rules?”

He didn’t need to speak loudly nor lend to your side to be heard anymore. The music was quieter up there, almost an echo through your feet, but still, Sunghoon did — his breath brushing warmly against your cheeks as he spoke.

His accent didn’t escape you this time — that faint echo of the North Gyeongsang lull.

Although you had grown up there, you never acquired that way of rolling your tongue through the vowels and stretching the end of the phrases the way people of the province did, and to hear it made your chest ache in longing.

“I don’t think so,” you said.

“Didn’t your boyfriend teach you anything?” he asked, stepping back. The question had been crafted merely as a tease, but you felt like you had been verbatim attacked at the mention of Jongseong.

He hadn’t been your boyfriend for weeks now, yet the news didn’t seem to have reached Sunghoon, and to be honest, you didn’t mind his oblivion on the topic. Sunghoon never tried to mask his ill feelings toward Jongseong — as cruel as it could be. And perhaps it was the reason that although it was an opportunity, you didn’t say anything about the breakup.

“He taught me a few other things,” you said instead. “He taught me how to drive.”

Sunghoon snorted at that, an unpretty thing that he somehow always made it work as cute.

“I don’t believe you. You hate even the idea of driving. You always refused when I asked if you wanted me to teach you.”

“I always had you to drive me whenever I needed. There was no point back then,” you retorted.

Your tongue had come loose, and you didn’t know if it was the alcohol, or simply the duration of Sunghoon’s presence, but immediately, you wished you could take the words back like air into your lungs.

You turned your gaze away, but still, you could feel his eyes on you, that same unflinching gaze he had in the kitchen and your cheeks burned.

“But no,” you quickly added. “He didn’t teach me pool or anything like that.”

“Let’s make the game simple then,” he said. “I am the stripe, and you are the solid.”

“Do I have to pocket all mine or yours?”

“Yours and the eight-ball.”

“I do not like it already,” you said.

“I will teach you,” he said.

You settled over the stick, and he was on you again, chest pressing against your back as his hands found yours, cupping them into disappearance.

When you breathed in and his scent caught in your lungs, the same citrus perfume he used back in the years, and although now he carried the smell of tobacco instead of the brine scent of the seashore, it was all too familiar to you.

“You have to lose your grip,” he said, his mouth against your hair.

“I told you. I don’t know how to play,” you replied, but Sunghoon only hummed, guiding you through a stroke and drilling the cue ball.

He let you go suddenly, circling the table and taking another practical stroke. This time, he pulled a ball into the pocket, and when he straightened himself back, you noticed he had glitter on him. The golden sprinkles the stranger had rubbed on your skin fetched to his dark jacket.

“You should learn if you don’t want to go with me to Uljin.”

“I didn’t agree on the bet.”

“We are already playing,” he said.

His gaze lifted, finding you still on the other side of the table, considering him, or perhaps, just watching him.

Somewhere below, a mixture of cheers and noises erupted, but there was such a stillness between you.

On one hand, it was probably unwise to allow Sunghoon into your life again.

On the other, whatever you were doing now was already spectacularly unwise.

“Alright,” you determined. “But if I lose, you have to be at seven in front of the dorms’ door — seven sharp, so I still can take the train if you don’t appear.”

“I will be there,” he said, a smile spreading across his face, transforming his features but this time, you did not look away, watching as his bare happiness spread through, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and flirting dimples into his cheeks.

Sunghoon looked so boyish like this, so soft, so — yours.

You had to remember yourself to breathe.

“If I lose,” you said.

“If you lose.”

On the following morning, Sunghoon was waiting for you at the front door of your dormitory, the engine of his black Jeep still on as he leaned on the hood with an apparently unaffected indifference.

His hands had been shoved in the pockets of his dress pants, and a pair of sunglasses had already been equilibrated at the bridge of his nose despite the fact it was barely seven o’clock, the whole campus still in a sleepiness state that only came with the beginning of the summer vacation, and the sky was still a mix of lilac and pink against the clouds.

It had been a year since you fell apart, but it had been years of friendship, and you still could read Sunghoon like no one else. He wasn’t the type to allow his faltering to show easily, but it was only necessary to look a little bit more to notice it was there — a shoulder twitch, hands thumping unrhythmically against his thighs.

When he saw you, he immediately managed to pull a smile, pushing himself away from the car. And everything about it was so compelling — so genuine. You almost could doubt if you had read him right.

He walked toward you, taking his sunglasses off and perching them on the collar of his t-shirt.

“Just those two?” he asked, referring to your luggage, and you nodded, more like an involuntary deed than an answer as Sunghoon was still focused on the objects.

He took both handles, finally looking at you, but your gazes met for a few seconds too long, and it became more awkward than necessary.

Perhaps you should have accepted Haneul’s farewell gift. Although you disliked soju — it doesn’t matter if it had been conserved with the best tangerines from Jeju. A dose of alcohol would do some good on your system now.

“Yeah, just these two,” you finally said.

You trailed closely behind him to the Jeep, not sure what to do aside from watching as he opened the trunk and efficiently hauled your luggage there.

There was something that should be said at that moment, you could feel it trickling through the corners of your mind, but before you could find what exactly it was, Sunghoon had already turned his attention back to you.

“I told you I would be here,” he said suddenly, and almost unwittingly, but the words ached within you so wonderfully that you felt something warm blooming very deep inside of you.

Sunghoon guided you to the passenger side, opening the door and waiting for you to fold yourself into the front of his car before he closed it with a soft slam.

The Jeep felt smaller than you remembered — cluttered with him and his everyday things, and the density of it overwhelmed you. A notebook was thrown at the carpet at your feet, opened to reveal his meticulous handwriting, always in black tint pens and telling something you couldn’t comprehend about marine science or whatever subject biology students had.

You let out a breath you didn’t even know you’d been holding, and when you breathed in, it too, was filled with him, his citrus perfume, and the faint scent of tobacco that you hoped was still from one of his roommates and not his.

“Have you eaten?” Sunghoon asked.

“No, not yet,” you said.

“I thought about stopping at that café,” he said, fingers thumping against the wheel. “The one we stopped when we first came to Seoul.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

┈┈┈┈

Just off the interstate, Daon lived almost like a secret in the middle of the old factories and massive warehouses. Although the café had been running for years, the exterior remained with the same brownstone facade, black roof, and matching glass panels, blending almost imperceptibly with the rest of the neighborhood buildings, but maybe it had been the owner’s intention.

The sign itself had a bit of a marvel in that it was only a black plating with the name written in a Palatino font. And nothing — absolutely nothing, advised it was a café.

You couldn’t remember how Sunghoon found it. Perhaps it had been lucky, maybe it had been a bit of destiny, yet you loved the place.

As soon as you stepped inside, the smell of coffee surrounded the air around you, wiping the harsh exterior with a single intake. The wooden tables lined against the walls, crammed side by side to make room for the amount of plants and crafts scattered throughout the place.

It was a secret — perhaps, a secret within a secret.

Sunghoon trailed behind you to the counter, looking over your shoulder as you fumbled through the menu, and when you were about to turn the page from the drinks to the pancakes, his hand met yours.

“I haven’t finished,” he said, voice winding into your hair. His breath was warm against your exposed shoulders and suddenly, everything on you focused on his presence close behind you. His breath brushed against your ears, and his hand held onto yours, a few seconds more than it was necessary as if he was reluctant to let it go.

Your skin protested as Sunghoon turned to the waitress, tingling with the sudden coldness, and you had to give yourself a moment before turning too.

“Hey, lovelies. What can I get for you?” the waitress asked. She was in her early fifties, with gray sideburns and a smile on her cherry-tinted lips that made strangers feel like family and perhaps it was the only reason you didn’t falter there.

You couldn’t decide on a smoothie, so Sunghoon ordered both — strawberry and mango. And when he suggested the strawberry walnut tartlet, and you refused, his eyebrows went up beneath his bangs.

“It was your favorite,” he remembered.

“It’s alright,” you said, and Sunghoon hesitated, licking his lips as he looked from the waitress to you a few times.

“Go on and grab a table,” he said then. “I will pay for the order.”

“I should pay my part.”

“Buy me something in Uljin,” he said.

You looked up at him, and he smiled. The words had left his lips as nothing, but still — they carried a real meaning. Sunghoon wanted to do something together in Uljin, and how could it be so odd yet familiar at the same time.

For a moment, you stood quiet, a furrow of uncertainty pressed between your brows before you nodded, walking to an empty table.

You wondered if it would be awkward if the silence would stretch on too long, and the spaces between words would be filled with awkwardness. But when Sunghoon came after and took the chair in front of you, he was already asking about your classes and Haneul. He asked about the teacher you hated and the project you had even forgotten you had done last winter until he mentioned it. You breathed a little easier at that and asked about his classes and his roommates — Heeseung, Jake, and the younger guy you couldn’t remember the name of.

“Niki,” Sunghoon remembered. “Or mini Jake, whatever you prefer.”

“Except for the part that he is way taller than Jake.”

“Don’t say that,” he asked, but there was a bite of a smile on his lips. “Jake will be hurt.”

The waitress came with your order then, pulling the plates perfectly in front of each of you. You both slid your plates to the center of the table simultaneously and without a single question, arranging them in a way that would allow you to share, just as you had done so many times when you were younger.

And when the silence appeared for the first time between a bite and another, you finally mustered up the courage to ask what you had been wondering about all along.

“Why did you decide to go back this time?” you asked.

“I just — I just felt like it was the right thing, I have been away for too long,” he said, but there was a note in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

It was nearing ten o’clock, and the world was a little more alive. The sun was coming hefty through the windows of the café, bathing over the two of you. It caught on the glass vase in the middle of the table, scattering shafts of light everywhere. Sunghoon opened his palm to it and then closed, almost as if he could catch the light with his bare hands, and you felt the strange desire to study his face in detail, searching for — something, although you weren’t sure what something would be.

Sunghoon didn’t seem to have changed much throughout the year. Although his skin had lost the last remains of Uljin’s sun and he’d grown his hair out, the tips hanging down past his ear in a way you had never seen before, he was the Sunghoon you always remembered — freckled cheeks and dark strands boyish as it was pretty.

His eyebrows furrowed at something, and you wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but you couldn’t remember the last time you had shared secrets, and suddenly, the question got stuck in your mouth.

The waitress returned, carrying a piece of the tartlet you had refused. For a moment, you thought Sunghoon might have ordered it for himself, but she put it in front of you, clicking her tongue against her cherry-tinted lips and calling you “such a cute couple” before she left.

“Did you order it for me?” you asked. Sunghoon nodded his head affirmatively.

“Thank you, Hoon, but I haven’t ordered it because they use walnut pieces. I found out I am allergic to it,” you said, the words trailing out in a breath. “I came here with Jongseong when he drove me to Uljin last summer, and I had the same stretches I did with you. He thought it was strange and took me to a hospital later. We did a few blood tests, and it came out that I am allergic to walnuts—”

You continued talking, but something had settled inside of Sunghoon. Strong enough to make him dizzy, great enough to ache.

The problem itself wasn’t that you had shared this place with your boyfriend but that Sunghoon finally had noticed how your life had kept going without him.

Between one word and another, Sunghoon stood up, desperate to get away, to escape this conversation and all the realization it brought. He made it to the parking lot, somehow finding his Jeep before he bent down. He didn’t hear you walking up behind him, but you were there, making the breeze slightly tender with your sweet perfume.

Neither of you said anything. The echo of the interstate was the only sound for a minute, maybe two, and then Sunghoon sighed, heavy and world-weary as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“We have really become strangers, haven’t we?” It had been a question. However, the last two words were spoken so slowly — so humbly. He didn’t want to hear the answer, so you didn’t attempt to give one.

A breeze rushed through the parking lot, scattering the greenish leaves of summer in its wake. You were still kilometers away from Uljin, but you could swear the air already carried that faint brine scent of the seashore.

“I am sorry,” you said. “I could have just eaten it.”

“And have allergy reactions until we arrive home?”

“It would be just minor scratches,” you murmured.

“I don’t care what it is,” he said. “If it’s bad for you or if you simply dislike it, I am not allowing you to take it.”

Sunghoon looked at you, lips parted to say something else, but you were already reaching for him, finding the precise place where his hair had grown above the collar of his t-shirt, and he stopped, mind stuck in the middle of a sentence he would never say. His skin was warm there, already loved by the summer heat, and you could feel his pulse hastily reaching for the tip of your fingers before it came into peace.

“I am sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s alright.”

The motions from there were silent and vaguely awkward. Sunghoon stood up and stepped past you, going to the passenger door to open it for you. He waited until you folded yourself back into the Jeep just like he had done this morning and many other times before. Nonetheless, you couldn’t gather the courage to look at him and thank — not even when he settled himself into the driver’s seat.

Your fingers were still tingling with the memory of his heartbeats against your skin.

Sunghoon paused, his hand hovering over the ignition before he inserted the key and turned it with a firm hand. The Jeep wailed to life, the sound of the engine and the radio filling the air around you.

“Did something else happen through those months?” he asked. “Any other allergies?”

“No — not that I remember,” you replied. “How about you? Anything happened?”

“Not that I remember, but if I do remember something, I will tell.”

“Ok.”

“Ok,” he echoed.

The car fell silent, the radio being the only furor between you as he drove out of the parking lot, but for the first time since the party, neither of you tried to fill it.

┈┈┈┈

Uljin wasn’t your hometown.

Being honest, you didn’t even know the existence of the county until you were ten, sitting at the kitchen counter of your childhood house and listening to your parents telling you they wanted to start fresh, start new — a new clinic somewhere closer to the coast, and then, you were leaving the only life you ever knew by the time summer wittered to autumn.

However, you never sorrowed it. The county had a feeling that could be embedded in any person willing to open their hearts. There was nowhere else like Uljin. The sun seemed to shine softer once you passed through the limits of the county, and the breezes brushed a little lighter. Everything about this part of the world made a little bit more tender.

As soon as Sunghoon drove past the welcoming sign, you rolled your window down, allowing the wind to thread through your fingers as you held your hand out, soft and warm, just like a kiss would be.

Sunghoon sighed, not the heavy and world-weary sigh he had released in the parking lot, but a small, quiet, and ragged sigh, almost as if he had not meant to let it escape. You shifted your gaze to him then, watching as he closed his eyes. The wind caught and mussed his hair — already working to bring the curls you had a long time not seen. And it suddenly occurred to you it was the first time both of you were in Uljin ever since high school.

“Eyes on the streets,” you said, loudly enough to be heard over the wind.

“Yes, let’s not try to cause the first accident in decades.”

Sunghoon drove past the emerald mountains, the greenish field being the only thing spreading beneath the sun until you had reached the main avenue.

Other than the renewal of the ice cream parlor and the opening of a new café, the main avenue was the same as it always had been — the same old stores telling their stories through their facades bleached by too much sun and sea breeze.

The bakery opened the avenue, an inviting display window beckoning anyone closer with crunchy tarts, pieces of bread dusted with sugar, and all the other pastry art. And then came the tiny bookstore and a music school closed and derelict due to the summer months. Laughter rolled everywhere, and you wondered if you should ask Sunghoon to stop, just for a quiet second but he kept heading to the coast — heading home.

Your houses remained unchanging as the rest of the county — two bungalows spared by not even two full meters and bathed in the late june sunlight. When Sunghoon allowed the engine to die, you heard the sea crashing against the shore, the sound resonating with the wind bell your mother kept on the front porch, and all of it whispered the same thing:

“Home,” he said. Back where you both started.

Neither of you needed to knock on your doors. The moment you stepped out of the car, you noticed your mothers and Yeji sitting at the table on the Park’s front porch and sipping on some iced drinks.

Yeji was the first to reach you, her arms coming around your waist as she buried her face in your shoulders. Her hair was still wet from the sea and smelling like salt, a wonderful denotation of how she had spent her Sunday morning.

“You came,” she said.

“I always do.”

“Yes, you are the best sister ever.”

“I am right here, you know?” Sunghoon said.

“Oh, sorry for not including you in our sisterhood, stranger,” Yeji said. However, despite her harsh words, she turned to him, her arms wide and outstretched in an invitation he gladly accepted.

Jiyoung reached for you after, cupping your face between her palms as she took a good look at you. And you took the opportunity to look at her too.

Although Sunghoon always said he looked more like his father, you always defended he also looked uncannily like Jiyoung. It was a fact that Sunghoon had gotten his father’s fair skin and thick eyebrows, but whenever he smiled it was all Jiyoung. The corner of her eyes crinkled, and dimples flirted on her cheeks as she smiled at you.

“How can you get prettier every time I see you?” she asked.

“It’s your eyes, Jiyoung.”

“No sense, darling,” she said. “I bet Jongseong has a lot of problems.”

“Not really.”

“But anyway,” Jiyoung continued, her eyes straying to where her children stayed for a brief second before she moved it back to you. “I am so glad you came. I kept asking Sunghoon how you were doing during the semester, and he always replied ‘Fine’.”

“And she is, isn’t she?” he replied, but it went completely ignored by her.

“We prepared a homecoming lunch,” she told you. “I hope you are not tired from the trip.”

“Not tired enough to refuse your lunch,” you said, immediately stealing another smile from her.

“Let’s come inside then,” Jiyoung said, giving you a tiny squeeze before she abruptly let you go. “Yeji, come help me — Sunghoon, unload the car.”

“Hugs and kisses for her,” Sunghoon murmured. “Unload the car for me.”

“That’s what you earn by never coming home,” his mother screamed from the front porch.

“I came on Christmas!” he screamed back. The information had barely been processed by you before Jiyoung screamed again.

“Almost two years in Seoul, and you only came on one Christmas day!” she said, stepping inside the house, but not before you noticed how the corners of her mouth were still tucked in a teasing smile. And you loved it on them — loved that bickering tenderness only the Parks had.

Your mother approached you then, her arm curling around your waist as she guided you to the front porch.

“Are you alright?” she asked, her accent coming so clipped and low after the previous exchange. “Was everything alright during the trip?”

“We should talk later, but yes, everything was fine,” you confirmed. “Where’s father?”

“Inside with Kwangho,” she said. “And hopefully not burning Jiyoung’s lasagna. She spent the whole morning on it.”

Just like all the houses in the county, the Parks had those open floor plans where the front hall ran into the living room, and the living room ran into the kitchen, and the kitchen ran into a double door that gave access to the back deck. Although you couldn’t see it, you knew the sea was right there — just a few steps away by the way the sun bathed into the house in shafts of white light, illuminating everything from the double door to the front hall.

When you moved to Uljin, you thought that eventually, the scenery would start to fade out of your consciousness — that someday you would wake up no longer amazed by the whiteness of the sand and the immensity of the sea. But it never happened and by now, you doubted it could.

Sunghoon once called it tourist fortes. But you defended that you simply had found a home.

Your father was leaning on the kitchen island together with Kwangho, a cup of his favorite whiskey already hanging in his right hand as he used the other to reach for you, hopping you affectionately beneath his arm and interrupting his conversation with Sunghoon’s father.

“Safe trip?” your father asked.

“With Sunghoon driving?” Kwangho questioned before you could reply. “I bet my son never passed the speed limit. Am I wrong?”

“Absolutely not.”

Sunghoon pushed the front door open, and immediately, the warm summer air rushed in, carrying that brine scent of the seashore. Everything smelled like the beach and Jiyoung’s lasagna, still simmering with the warmth of the oven. He stepped into the house, catching you as you walked to the center of the room.

Sometimes, you forgot how tall Sunghoon had gotten until he was standing right in front of you, bottling you in the shadows with his full height and setting a chill on your skin.

“I left your luggage in your front hall.”

“Thank you,” you said. Sunghoon briefly nodded, before he was gone, further into the house and to where your fathers stood. Differently from you, he was greeted in that manly way. They talked loudly, palms hit shoulders in the middle of half hugs. His father extended him a whiskey cup for a toast, and your nose wrinkled at the exact moment his did. Sunghoon had tried whiskey for the first time at a club near the university campus, his knees brushing against yours at the bar’s counter as he swallowed the amber drink and said it was the worst thing he had tried in his whole life. He had burst out laughing then, and you had laughed with him, your body inclining into his direction, hand on his chest before you had even noticed it, and only when he had brushed the tips of his fingers through the back of your ear did you notice how close you had come.

His gaze encountered yours, and it felt like the months that had passed hung suspended in the fine particles of air.

Your mother passed by you, reaching for the dining table with plates and cutlery pulled in her hands. You used the excuse to help her and turned your back on him, your whole body warmer by the memory.

“Oh, do not bother yourself with it,” your mother said. “Bring a stool from the kitchen instead. We are minus a seat.”

“Is someone else coming?”

“Someone else came,” she whispered, her words barely audible beneath all the chaos of the room. And you knew by the way she had leaned to your side that whatever she was telling you, she wasn’t supposed to. “Until Friday, Sunghoon said he wasn’t coming home. Jiyoung only found out he was coming today when you called a few hours ago — she is fuming.”

“But he told me-”

“The stool,” your mother said abruptly. You looked up at her, ready to question what caused her sudden change in tone. But you noticed Sunghoon approaching from a distance, and you allowed the question to be forgotten with a single inhale.

“I have been banished from the kitchen. Maybe I am more helpful here?” Sunghoon asked your mother.

“Of course, Sunghoon. I will put the plates, and you put the cutlery,” she said. “And darling-”

“The stool, I am on it,” you said.

You brought the stool as Jiyoung set the lasagna in the center of the table, followed by Yeji and the blend of salad she had seen somewhere online last summer and turned into her signature on dining reunions. And before any discussion was made, the seven of you crowded around the table that initially was meant for four.

“Are you free tomorrow afternoon?” Yeji asked, leaning in to whisper the question to you. You didn’t think it would make any difference at all. So many things were happening that you doubted anyone would notice she was sharing secrets with you. At the other side of the table, your father opened the first two bottles of wine, and your mother poured, acquiring a comment from Kwangho, something you didn’t quite catch, but it made all of them burst into a laugh, the sound rolling through the ceiling.

“I am,” you said. “Why?”

“I would need your help — I have been asked on a date,” she confessed, earning a playful gasp from you.

“What are you both conspiring about?” Sunghoon called out. Although his words had been accusatory, you sensed a tease in his tone.

You didn’t notice he had taken the seat by your side until he was leaning in too, both of the Parks siblings scents blending your lungs. Citrus all together with the salty scent of the sea.

“Girl’s stuff,” you said at the same time Yeji declared it was nothing. Your voices piled over each other, and you wished you had said nothing at all. But Sunghoon glanced up at you, and if anything, he smiled and straightened himself back to his seat, promptly accepting the salad his mother was offering.

“I will call you,” Yeji said, her voice barely audibly before she straightened herself too.

Nothing really happened between the salad and the main course. Your father talked about business with Kwangho, and your mother discussed something Jiyoung had heard on the main avenue. Yeji complained about school, and it was so familiar and timeworn by the amount of Sundays you had spent like this — so pleasant that you didn’t notice Jiyoung was requiring your attention until Sunghoon’s hand brushed against yours.

“How’s things with your boyfriend?” Jiyoung asked. “Jongseong, right? Is he fine?”

“Oh, Jongseong is fine,” you said, subtly cleaning your throat. There was no way you could escape it this time. “But we — we have broken up.”

The impact of your words was instantaneous.

In your peripheral, you saw your parents looking at each other, a silent conversation going through with just a raise of your father’s eyebrow. Jiyoung and Yeji hung with their lips slightly parted, one being the perfect reflection of the other. Even Kwangho gasped, a mess of words that sounded much like “the convertible guy?” but it was Sunghoon’s surprised question that caught everyone’s attention.

“You what?” he demanded.

“You didn’t know?” Yeji asked.

“I don’t think I have told anyone aside from my roommate,” you said.

“But that’s a good thing,” Sunghoon said. “That guy was just too dumb to realize how lucky he was.”

The words hover steadily and straightforwardly, without a single trace of anything held back. He didn’t even seem to notice the utter silence he had induced. Usually, the house would have been a flurry of activities, glasses being put on the table with audible clicks, dishes being cleared, and two parallel conversations going on beneath the main topic. There would be no room for a single hitch of breath. But now, the soft playlist Yeji had put on the wireless speaker was the only sound heard, and in the sudden stillness, Sunghoon’s words echoed through your body, growing heat into your cheeks.

“Well, I agree with Sunghoon,” your father said, raising a cup of whiskey to his lips. “I never liked that guy.”

“Gosh love,” your mother hissed.

“Was it the one with the convertible?” Kwangho asked again, this time directing it to your father in the hope of being answered.

“Yes,” your father replied.

“No way,” Kwangho said, at the exact moment Yeji screamed at your side.

“Exactly!” she said, “She doesn’t fit convertible car guys.”

“What do I fit then?” you asked.

Yeji opened her mouth to respond, but before she could even articulate the words, they stuttered and stammered, preferring to stay on her tongue. She turned her attention to Sunghoon then, silently asking for his help, but if anything, he shook his head, unable to do anything further.

He would never admit how his heart was pounding in his chest.

“You know what? We forgot to toast,” Jiyoung said, already raising her wine glass. “To their return?”

“What else?” your mother asked.

“Summer,” Yeji suggested.

┈┈┈┈

You had known what would come next, but still, it seemed to come too fast.

As you followed your parents out of the Parks front porch, Sunghoon reached for you, his fingers slightly curling around your bare wrist to catch your attention.

You glanced up at him. Patches of sunlight danced over his shoulders, over the striking features of his face. His dark hair almost looked gold beneath the late sunlight. And there was something so humble and awed in the way he stood, something so familiar and known that you only could nod when he asked if you wanted to go to the beach.

Sunghoon led you between the two houses, the air warm and trapped between the walls before it opened up to the expanse — to the beach, and the sunset spilling across the waves in shafts of pinky peach, and tangerine. You couldn’t help but sigh at the view, an appreciation that came from your bare heart. Sunghoon raised his head at the sound of you, but instead of following your gaze, he turned to you.

“Here,” he whispered, extending his hand so he could help you through the small climbdown. The white sand that almost seemed the color of rose quartz beneath the setting sun slipping under your shoes.

Sunghoon gently released your hand as the sand spread flatly, giving you the freedom to decide whether you wanted to accompany him closer to the sea or not.

Guilelessly, you chose to follow him, stopping far enough for the water to not sprint on your shoes.

Two years ago, you both had stood in this exact place, making a promise neither of you knew how to keep. And as you looked back it seemed a lifetime since you both had been there — it seemed like no time at all.

“I missed this place,” he said, his voice coming so low, you barely could hear him through the sound of the sea waves.

“It always has been here,” you reminded him. But Sunghoon didn’t reply — he didn’t even look at you, his eyes remaining on the sea instead.

“It was lonely without you here,” you said then. You could feel the emotions rising in your throat, your doubts threatening to stammer the word away. But perhaps because you were in Uljin, and things were always easier there, perhaps because the night was approaching, and the memory of this felt like it could disappear together with the sunlight, you allowed the words to come and slip through.

“I understood you not coming home on the first Christmas because of the extra class, but last summer when you didn’t appear to pick me up at the dorms — I couldn’t really comprehend why you wouldn’t come,”

“When I called you just said you decided to stay, and if it wasn’t for Jongseong offering to drive me here, I don’t know what I would have done,” you admitted. “I waited for you until the last minute, you know? Luggage in hands and everything. But it was the day I realized that maybe we were no longer who we were used to be.”

“It’s just — it always had been you and me against the world, Hoon, but suddenly it was just me,” you said. “I kept waking up in the morning and feeling like I was missing something, I knew that there was something wrong, and then, I remembered, my best friend was gone.”

Sunghoon opened his mouth — his lips parting as if he was about to say something, and you braced yourself for a confession, a reluctant truth, some explanation for the mess you both became. But instead, he only seized a shuddering breath, his own doubts silencing him.

Sunghoon stayed like this for a moment, maybe two, looking down at his own hands as if he was trying to sort his thoughts and you turned your gaze toward the sea.

“When we moved to Seoul, I couldn’t sleep because of how noisy the city was,” he said. “We can always hear the echoes of the roads through the house, the train line, the baseball team training until late hours.”

You weren’t sure why he chose to tell you about his insomnia problems, especially given it was something you already knew. But there was a tone in the way his words came through that told you it was the confession.

“Then I called you one night,” he continued. “And the moment I heard your voice I felt like I was here — exactly here.”

You smiled, heart softening at his admission. It was exactly how you felt when you heard his voice. The softest hello teeny after a long day at the university, and the I am coming over although he could never pass through your dorm’s door and you could never leave because of the strict rules. But he would come anyway, parking the Jeep just by your window’s sight and talking until it was easy to breathe again.

“I missed you terribly,” Sunghoon continued. “I know I am the one who fucked up when I started drifting away and canceling our plans. I know I was the one who pulled us apart last summer and I am so sorry.”

“I never meant to turn into a stranger, you were still my best friend,” he said, his voice quieted then to something less than a whisper. “You are still my best friend.”

Sunghoon had hurt you, it was an undeniable truth, and perhaps there was a part of you that would never manage to forget it. But he also had been with you for so long that you couldn’t remember if ever there was a you that didn’t know him. He was your history, and it was so hard to throw history away. It was almost as if you were throwing away a part of yourself.

You looked up at him, but his eyes were already on you, as if he had never looked away.

The first time you ever promised to love Sunghoon was a mystery for you. Someday, you only knew that it had happened, and you had passed through years already loving him. And maybe — maybe you could never recreate that moment exactly, go back and discover when your heart first decided it would give a piece of it to Sunghoon, but you felt like this night was a living echo of it.

When he reached out, gently pulling his hand towards you. You felt a tiny epiphany that you were giving a piece of your heart to him again.

His fingers spread as if he was just waiting for you to pull your hand in his and fill the small gaps, and so you did. It was a small gesture, something that you both were so used to, but it felt more meaningful than ever.

“I am sorry,” he whispered.

“I am sorry too,” you said, your tone coming as soft as his. You weren’t sure why you were whispering to each other. But you liked it, the intimacy of the moment.

He used your connected hands to bring you closer to him and pull you against his chest. He was warm beneath the cotton of his clothes, all his body already loved by the summer sun, and you were so lost in the feeling of him that you barely noticed when he moved, his arms coming around your waist and lifting you off your feet.

Sunghoon laughed then, only once, but his eyes remained in the shape, unable to conceal his pure and unfiltered happiness as he carried you through the centimeters that separated you from the sea. Just when you thought he wouldn’t drop you, he did, allowing the waves to drench your jeans.

“You are a pig, Park Sunghoon,” you gasped, kicking water on him, but if anything, Sunghoon laughed some more, his dimples appearing as he threw his head back and allowed the sound to catch and spread across the breeze. His happiness was so contagious that you couldn’t help but laugh too. And when it died from your chest, you felt something else taking the space — something so wonderfully light and warm. You wished you could hold it like a breath, keep it to whenever you felt like faltering.

┈┈┈┈

As the afternoon shadows grew longer, Sunghoon gestured towards the back deck of your house. And as you followed him, the sound of the sea grew louder and more distinct, the rhythmic crashing of the waves against the shore stealing the sound of your footsteps.

“About Jisung-” Sunghoon suddenly said.

“Jongseong,” you corrected.

“Whatever,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper in the breeze. “I am sorry, I had no idea you had broken up.”

“I think I have told no one aside from Haneul, being honest, and he was wonderful, but-” you stopped, immediately wishing you could swallow the last word.

“But?” he echoed.

“It couldn’t work.”

Sunghoon acknowledged your statement with a slow, deliberate nod, his eyes momentarily unfocused before he moved his attention back to the beach. You didn’t say it wasn’t working, or it didn’t work. It had been the future already pressed into the present, and although he wanted to question it, he didn’t.

“You should get inside,” he said. “The breeze is starting to pick.”

“I guess I will see you around,” you said.

“Yes, of course.”

“Of course,” you echoed, and he wished he could hold time — prevent it from ticking forward as he kept both of you on this afternoon through the sheer force of his will. However, you took the knob, swirling your family’s back door open.

“Night, teeny,” he said as simply as that — two syllables falling from his tongue, but the old nickname tingled through your body, making heat grow into your cheeks.

“Good night, Hoon,” you whispered.

He sighed with the click of the door, an almost imperceptive sound, but it reverberated with him as he made the way back through your stairs, kicking mounts of sand and going back into his house.

Yeji stood in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot and as braced as a fifteen years old girl could look.

“Park Sunghoon,” she started, hands coming to her hips.

“Park Yeji,” he said, mocking her posture by mirroring it.

“You said you weren’t coming this summer.”

“I decided to come last minute,” he admitted

“Last minute as?”

“Yesterday morning?” he said. It had been an affirmation, but the way his voice raised in embarrassment subtly turned the period into a question mark.

“Would it be because of Y/N?” Yeji asked.

“You know what? I think it’s time for you to go to bed, Yeji,” he answered instead.

┈┈┈┈

When you left the shower, the night had already settled outside. The peace and silence only Uljin seemed to have already on its full leverage.

You found your mother sitting at her usual place on the back deck. Her chair facing the sea, and a book balanced on her knees. She wasn’t a keen reader, but she had a habit of trying, and you admired her for it.

“Seems like I lost a lot during those past weeks,” she said as soon as she caught sight of you.

The wind had enmeshed, but the floor was still warm with the memory of the sun beneath your feet as you walked closer and took the seat next to her, allowing yourself a brief second before you replied.

“I only agreed to come with Sunghoon yesterday.”

“It was indeed surprising when you called saying you were in the car with Sunghoon,” your mother said. “Especially after he left you waiting with luggage in hands last summer — but I meant Jongseong. You didn’t tell me you have broken up with him.”

“I kept forgetting.”

“That you have broken up?”

“No — that it’s something important enough to talk about,” you admitted. “I feel terrible admitting it, but I didn’t feel anything when we broke up, so I never remembered to tell it over the phone.”

“Your dummy,” your mother said, the words coming so affectionately that you barely noticed she had just scolded you. The chiding softened by the kindness in her voice. “You have to be in love for a breakup to hurt. I know you cared for Jongseong, but you have never been in love with him although you tried to.”

She did nothing to make her words easier to accept this time and your breath caught audibly with the sudden harshness of it, the salty air heavily setting on your lungs.

“Jongseong said almost the same thing,” you whispered. “He said I was always searching for Sunghoon’s ghost.”

“And were you?” she asked. You looked back at her, lips parted and tongue already rolling into a reply, but the words met an impasse in your mind, and you failed to.

Your mother sighed then, reaching for your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I wish Sunghoon knew,” she said.

Although it had been Yeji who had called you on the following day, Sunghoon was the one standing at their deck’s stairs waiting for you, barefoot, and with only a pair of washed jeans and a white t-shirt completing his attire for the day.

You stared at him, more conspicuous for the fact that you tried to be inconspicuous about it. Ever since you both had moved to Seoul, it had been rare to see Sunghoon in anything that wasn’t dress pants, and button-down shirts, and the old familiarity of it pierced you.

It was a bright day, the sky a pale blue painting above the sea, and the hefty sunlight illuminated his features with such a soft glow. You could swear he had turned younger.

“Yeji is going on a date,” he said as soon as you stepped closer enough. “Did you know about it?”

You felt a little lurch at that. The idea of lying seemed to attempt you. It would be so easy to simply say no — so easily to pretend you didn’t know why Yeji had called you. However, you had allowed the question to hang in for too long, and when you noticed, it was already too late to do so.

Sunghoon looked at you — really looked at you, his eyes narrowing as his jaw followed the same tensing motion. At first, you thought he was merely annoyed, but it suddenly occurred to you that he was feeling uneasy. In the middle of your silence, his finger tapped against his thighs. It could have been an insubstantial change to anyone else, but you knew Park Sunghoon all too well.

“Hoon,” you started. Although you didn’t know the words that would follow. Nothing sounded like something Sunghoon would be pleased to hear. And before you could think it through, Yeji appeared at the back door, a mug in her hands, and the most peaceful expression someone had ever moved towards you.

“Don’t worry about him,” she said. “He has been like this the whole morning, just come to my room.”

Yeji vanished almost as fast as she appeared, leaving you no option but to follow her ruling. You could feel Sunghoon trailing closely behind you as you entered the house and climbed up the stairs.

For a moment, Yeji said nothing about her brother’s following you into her room, the rotating fan being the only sound between the three of you, but then, she reached for a pillow and threw it, aiming at Sunghoon’s head.

He caught it in the air before he sat on the floor, completely unshaken.

“Go on, girls,” he said. “I won’t bother.”

And he didn’t. Aside from occasional huffs, Sunghoon didn’t say anything. He remained silent throughout the whole time you helped Yeji with her clothes and makeup. And only when she was checking the final result in the mirror, he spoke.

“Where is the mysterious boy taking you?” he asked.

“I am not telling you.”

“I think it’s a valid question, Yeji,” you said. “We should at least know where you are going.”

“The open-air cinema at the southern beach,” she said, dramatically rolling her eyes. The answer had been for you, but her reaction was entirely for Sunghoon.

“Happy?” she asked.

“Not really,” he replied, which meant he was — at least, a little bit.

The house’s bell rang, and Yeji sprinted at the echo of it, her bare feet pounding against the hardwood floor as she raced down the stairs.

You had prepared yourself to hold Sunghoon, but differently from what you expected, he remained still, legs outstretched with a deliberate calmness.

The front door was opened and then closed again, and only then did he move, looking up at you, a bite of a smile spreading on his lips before he finally stood up.

“Let’s go,” Sunghoon said, reaching for the pillow his sister had thrown at him and then one of her folded blankets, shoving both items beneath his arms.

“Where?”

“Suddenly, I feel like watching a movie at the beach.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go, teeny.”

┈┈┈┈

The southern beach was bustling in a way you had never seen before. Blankets had been spread all over the white sand, and the air was thick with the scent of caramel popcorn, which was such an uncharacteristic scent for the Gyeongsang beaches. Yet the afternoon was slowly reaching the orange hours of sunset, the sky turning into a blend of orange and pink against the clouds. Everything about it being so carelessly beautiful — you knew it was something only the county could do.

You sat down on the just spread blanket, legs outstretched and drenched in sunlight as you leaned your head back, looking up at Sunghoon. Although he stood quietly on the sand, his fingers tapped absently against his thighs, the gesture somehow disconcerting and otherworldly indicative of the persistence of his uneasiness, and a twinge of concern settled over you.

“Hoon,” you called.

He flinched, his gaze darting towards you, but if anything he took your hand as you extended it to him, palm up and spread in an invitation that required no words. He slowly flung himself down on the blanket with you, his head on your lap and his body sprawled out to the remaining sunlight.

Sunghoon had always been beautiful, a storybook prince, your mother had once conveyed within shared whispers when you were fifteen. And although he was older now, he was still the same. His dark hair swept across his forehead tenderly and you brushed it back, fingertips pressed against his scalp ever so lightly before you tucked it behind his ear. He shivered despite the warmth of the day, his whole body reacting solely to the sensation of your fingers on him.

“Yeji is fifteen,” you managed to say. “It’s time for her to go on dates.”

“We didn’t go on dates when we were fifteen,” he debated.

“Of course, we were so glued to each other that no one wanted to come between us,” you said. “Well, I mean, except for some girls from your fan club — but back to the point, everyone else in our class was going on dates.”

Sunghoon fell quiet at that. The rustling of the other moviegoers being the only furor between both of you. Everywhere voices rose and fell, but the words themselves had been reduced to the echo of the sea waves.

You traced the back of his ear, a single finger following its curve and his eyes fluttered — as defenseless as he could be.

“I miss that time,” he confessed, but the words had left his lips so softly that if you weren’t paying close attention to him, you would believe it was just another wave crashing against the shore.

You leaned over him, casting him in a shadow. Your hair tickled over his cheeks and he went very — very still, a breath stuck into his lungs, but whatever you were going to say was interrupted.

“Is it Park Sunghoon and his teeny?”

You straightened yourself back, searching for the source of the voice, but Sunghoon didn’t immediately do the same. You had allowed the sun to bathe him again. And suddenly, it was too warm there, the summer air pressing firmly against his skin and making him dizzy.

“It is Park Sunghoon and his teeny.”

Although it had already been two years, Daeyeol didn’t seem to have changed from high school time. Your ex-classmate still bleached his hair into the impossible tone of white, and his infamous leather jacket hung above his tank top even though it was one of the warmest months of the year.

Sunghoon met your gaze and held it, a silent conversation happening within seconds before both of you turned to watch Daeyeol approaching.

“Daeyeol,” Sunghoon said, sitting back up.

“First of all, tell me, are you guys dating already?” he asked. It took you a heartbeat longer to make sense of what he had said, but when you did, you immediately could feel the heat growing into your cheeks.

“We are just friends,” you said, looking at Sunghoon, waiting for him to confirm your statement, but this time, he didn’t return your gaze. His eyes still focused on Daeyeol as his jaw clenched for a second, barely the length it takes to draw a breath.

“Too bad,” Daeyeol said. “We made a few bets on the graduation party, and I bet you both would be together within a year.”

“But anyway, I didn’t know you both were back in town. I am throwing a party at my new apartment on Saturday,” he continued. “I am inviting the whole class, and of course, it includes you both.”

Daeyeol made a theatrical turn to leave, ankles almost digging in the white sand, but then, he stopped, looking at Sunghoon through his shoulders. Only then did you notice the joint carelessly placed behind his ear.

He really didn’t change.

“Still with the same phone number, Sunghoon?”

“Yeah.”

“Great, I will send you the address.”

“It was-” you started.

“Unexpected?” Sunghoon supplied. “Strange?”

You nodded a little bit too eagerly to the alternatives, which earned a laugh from him. The sound had been so open and effortless — you found a smile rising to your lips as you watched him flange back on the blanket and turn his focus to the sky. The first stars had already begun to appear, tiny flecks softly mingling the sunset and reflecting on his eyes.

“You are right about Yeji,” he said. “She is grown up enough to commit her own mistake, and I will just be here to say, “I told you, men are all wolves”.”

“Sunghoon!”

“Also, should we go to Daeyeol’s party?” he asked, completely ignoring your protest.

“I don’t go to parties anymore.”

“I have seen you on one just three days ago.”

“Because it was Haneul’s last university party,” you retorted.

“C’mon, I miss going to parties with you.”

It was three minutes to seven in the evening when Sunghoon appeared at your front door. His university jersey above a white t-shirt and black dress pants on.

You opened your mouth, tongue already rolling onto the tease he just wanted to brag about having passed at a university in Seoul, but before you could do so, you heard your mother gasping in the kitchen, something initially incoherent, but then she directed it to you.

“Darling, the phone is for you,” she said.

You turned around, feeling the weight of Sunghoon’s gaze as he traced down your pinkish dress.

“Who’s that?” you asked, hauling your high heels from one hand to another to accept the headset. You couldn’t remember a soul that had your house’s phone number much less that would call on a Saturday night. But instead of coming up with an answer, your mother only shook her head, her eyes following the path to where Sunghoon stood almost guiltily.

“Hello?”

“Y/N, hi — it’s Jongseong,” he said as if you wouldn’t recognize his voice after months of dating. “Sorry, for calling at your house, but you didn’t pick up your phone.”

“I was in a hurry this afternoon.”

“Sorry,” he said again.

“It’s alright, something happened?”

“No, it’s just that I am in Gyeongsang, my grandmother lives here too-”

“Pohang. We spent Christmas there, I remember.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice coming a bit stuck as if he had half held his breath. “I am driving back to Seoul on the first week of august, and I was thinking that maybe — maybe we could meet up?”

You looked behind and noticed that Sunghoon was still standing at your door. However, he had turned around, his hands shoved inside the pockets of his jacket as he gazed toward your family’s front garden with an attention too unpretentious to be unpretentious.

Sunghoon was interested in who might be on the phone, he only didn’t want you to know it.

“I-” you tried, turning your gaze away. But the word met an impasse between your mind and your tongue and you couldn’t find the strength to say no.

But being fair, you never found the strength to say no.

“Lunch, or just coffee — anything you feel comfortable with,” Jongseong said, and he sounded like he always did. He was barely twenty, but he had that easy cadence in his voice, the slow precision of someone who knew the weight of his being. He blamed his father, you thought he was just born different, but you had been together for a year and had known each other for another six months, and you came to learn that behind all of this, he was insecure.

You almost could picture him at the other end of the line: his bashful smile, almost like he was apologizing for even considering it, and you were suddenly back at the university campus a year ago, sitting at the garden as he asked you on a date for the very first time.

It was spring back then, but winter had been lingering in, turning his cheeks pink and fogging the glasses you didn’t even know he used.

“Alright.”

“I will message you once I settle the day,” he said.

“Alright.”

“Y/N?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” he said.

Jongseong hung up so softly, it took another second for you to notice he did and another one to let go of it before you walked back to where Sunghoon stood.

You placed the high heels on the floor, avoiding Sunghoon’s gaze, but before you could do anything he was already kneeling in front of you, filling in your vision as he took one of your ankles in his hands and helped you put on your heels.

“Is everything alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” you said, the word hacking out of you. Sunghoon looked up at you then, and you knew he had heard the uneasiness in your voice too, but if anything he nodded at you, moving to your other ankle.

A breeze picked up, chiming your mother’s wind bell, a tangle of glass notes across the settling silence.

Sunghoon stood up, bottling you in the shadows with his full height. You couldn’t meet his eyes, so you concentrated instead on his shoulders, and how his collar didn’t lay flat against his skin because of his collarbones.

“Ready to have a blast?” he asked.

┈┈┈┈

The ride to Daeyeol’s apartment complex had taken twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five. But as you left the car, it felt like you had gone a hundred thousand kilometers away from Uljin.

It wasn’t just that the breezes no longer carried the brine scent of the seashore or that the houses hadn’t been built in the bungalow style you were used to. But, compared to the coastal part of Gyeongsang, everything here seemed new and expensive.

You once had heard that Daeyeol was the heir of a big retail chain, the sheer number of stores under his family ownership being so high that people stopped trying to hold them accountable when it had expanded to America.

And perhaps he was, but you still did not care about knowing.

Sunghoon took your hand, easily sliding his palm against yours and intertwining your fingers as he guided you through the street and closer to the complex.

As you approached the apartment, the sound of music hit you like a wave, the volume so loud and blaring. You wondered how none of his neighbors had filed a complaint yet.

“I bet he intimidated his neighbors to not file a complaint,” Sunghoon said.

You weren’t sure if you had vocalized your wonders or if Sunghoon had the same thought as you, but either way, it had been amusing.

“I bet he bribed them, it is more Daeyeol’s style,” you replied, stealing a laugh from Sunghoon.

“Or he convinced all his neighbors to come.”

“Fine, that’s Daeyeol’s style.”

As Sunghoon looked down at you, the corners of his lips quirked upwards, and his eyes crinkled. The sound of his laughter still lingered in the air, filling the space between you both with a warm and contagious fuel. He seemed so happy nowadays. You couldn’t help but smile in response, feeling a sense of ease wash over you by simply being with him.

“Let’s go,” he said.

There was no point in knocking if no one could listen, so Sunghoon only pulled the front door open and stepped inside. The mossy scent of the woods was immediately overtaken by tequila, and too many damp skins, weed, and the cheap beer from the forgotten cups scattered through the few pieces of furniture he held.

You took in a breath, wishing it would fill you so you wouldn’t need to breathe on the intoxicated air ever again.

“Sunghoon and his teeny!” Daeyeol screamed. But whatever came after had been only for Sunghoon, the furor of the place engulfing his voice before you could clasp it.

Daeyeol pointed at the end of the corridor, and you followed it, catching the makeshift bar before your ex-classmate stepped in front of your view, giving you only a wink and turning his attention entirely on something else.

“Do you want a drink?” Sunghoon asked, shouting in your ear. The vibration of his voice scattered shivers throughout your spine.

You nodded, and he moved through the apartment as people stopped you, greeting both of you with an acknowledgment you couldn’t return. Your mind was always stuck between families’ names and faces you were sure you could recognize if Sunghoon hadn’t pushed further so soon.

He only eased up when he reached the makeshift bar. The options were tequila, beer, soju, and a great variation of flavored vodka.

You thought of asking for the tequila just to see the surprise on his face because you always had gone for the sweet and Sunghoon knew it. Actually, he had been the first one to point this fact out, so instead, your finger immediately followed the patch to the flavored vodkas, and he caught two cups, extending one to you, and taking the other.

Sunghoon emptied the cup with a quick and practiced movement of his wrist before he smashed it on the table.

You laughed then, taken aback at his sudden outburst as you followed suit. The process was repeated enough times for the alcohol to make its effect, and your thoughts began to slur.

The song changed then, almost too loud to be fully understood, but you recognize it, an old pop song which you didn’t truly know the name of, yet it played so many times on the radio and at parties for you to not know at least the idea of the lyrics. Sunghoon recognized it, too.

You weren’t sure if you had been the one to reach for Sunghoon first or if he had been the one to reach for you. But your hand was on his as he pushed back through the apartment, finding the dance floor. And as the song hit the chorus, his hands were on your waist, bringing you closer to him and swinging you to the song.

Sunghoon was being careless in a way that made your whole body tingle, dizzy in alcohol and happiness, tripping all over.

You shouted the lyrics to him, and he shouted the lyrics back to you. And suddenly, both of you were laughing senselessly as if it was the only thing you ever thought about doing — like it could have been just the two of you in the world.

You were close — too close. Sunghoon had to look down to find your gaze, and when he did, you felt his breath against your mouth, the softest gust of warm air against your lips. The seconds seemed to melt together, and you couldn’t tell how long you had been breathing on each other when his fingers spread at the side of your neck, thumb seizing for your cheek as he angled you up to him. You were already warm from the sticky air and dancing, but you could swear you grew even warmer when he closed his eyes and came closer, brushing his nose on yours.

Your every sense was acutely aware of his proximity. You could feel the firmness of his chest pressing against yours, and the steady rhythm of his breath. Sunghoon was all around you, all inside of you, the scent of his citrus perfume and the Uljin breezes laboriously overtaking the intoxicated air. And you trembled with the thought, a little chill settling through your skin despite the warmth of the place.

But then, he clenched his jaw, brows knitted together as if something was suddenly hurting him, and before you could ask what happened, he moved, abruptly and all at once stepping back.

“Let’s go,” he said.

And the moment slipped through — like a dream you wake up to hastily from. By the time his hand reached for you, fingers finding the slots between yours and guiding you through the mess of bodies, you wondered if you truly almost had kissed your best friend.

“Doesn’t this type of place usually have fire escapes for emergencies?” he yelled.

“I think so,” you yelled back. “Are we in an emergency?”

The question seemed to have taken Sunghoon anew because he looked at you, lips parted in a retort that wasn’t coming fast enough.

“Yes,” he exhaled in the end. “The smell of weed is making me sick, and it’s too warm in here.”

Sunghoon reached for a window in the back wall, shoving it open. A cool breeze rushed in and caressed your skin, tingling it as you watched him jump out onto the fire escape, his figure momentarily silhouetted against the backdrop of the cityscape.

He held his hand out to you, helping you jump through the window frame. His hands firm on yours even as you landed on the stairs. The sun had long set, the world settling hazy and dark, lavender clouds high up in the sky, but the breeze was calm that night, and the heat was still lingering, making the air heavy and all summer-made.

You followed Sunghoon through the stairs and away from Daeyeol’s apartment, or rather, he followed you, standing tall behind you, and always within reach. He had an open hand just hovering by your side as if he was ready to catch you if you tripped over because of your poor choice of shoes.

The rooftop was empty. No lawn chair or anything that would be expected for a place like this. If anything, someone had abandoned a beer can there, what had remained of the alcohol used to extinguish a cigarette.

“I am so tired,” you said, sparing yourself on the rooftop, the shingles still warm beneath the thin material of your dress.

Sunghoon took his jacket off, putting it on your legs before lying beside you. You rolled onto your side to look at him, and he did the same.

“Am I getting old already?” you asked, immediately stealing a laugh from him. It had been a hardly there sound, but you could taste the vodka on his breath, feel the bitter taste on your tongue although you weren’t even sure when you had wandered that close again.

“Definitely, but when was the last time you have been to a party and enjoyed it like this?”

“I think it was during the winter last year,” you said. “With you still.”

“We used to go stupid every night,” he said.

“What a tragedy.”

“And then you started dating Jongsuk-,”

“Jongseong,” you corrected, but he continued as if you had never spoken, rolling onto his back and turning his attention to the sky.

“And stopped going to parties.”

“No!”

“Yes, when you started dating him, you stopped going to parties.”

“Don’t mix up things like that,” you argued. “You started dating the whole university campus, and I had no one to stay with during the parties so obviously I stopped going, but when I started dating him, I went a few times.”

“Fine, you did go, once or twice.”

“Because he disliked those parties, and if I didn’t go with him I would be alone,” you said. “Also there was that time you got so wasted, you started yelling at Jongseong—”

“That he didn’t deserve you,” he said. “Maybe I was too passionate on the way I had said it that night, but I still believe he doesn’t.”

You snorted, your hand bumping into his.

“I am serious,” he said. “The moment you accepted to share the telescope with me and Yeji that night you became my problem, and by my problem, I mean I care about who is with you.”

“So who would deserve me then?”

You looked at him, but he didn’t return your gaze. His eyes were still focused on the night sky, watching the lavender clouds rushing through. Despite the absence of light, you could see how his cheeks were flushed by the combination of summer heat and alcohol.

Sunghoon licked at his lips, and for a moment you thought he had decided to ignore your question, but then, he started, his voice so lowly it almost got lost in the middle of night.

“You deserve someone who loves you with every single beat of his heart, someone who thinks about you constantly, someone who spends every minute of every day just wondering what you’re doing, where you are, and if you’re alright. You deserve someone who will treat you with respect, and love every part of you, including your flaws,” he said. “You should be with someone who could make you happy, really happy — and I never felt like you were really happy.”

Sunghoon finally looked at you again, and suddenly, you couldn’t breathe. The humidity air had curled his hair in the same fond way you remembered and when he smiled, his dimples appeared.

Although it had been a novelty to hear Sunghoon speaking like this, it hadn’t been a surprise. Sunghoon was the type of person who laughed easily, and forgave even faster. He gravitated toward the person in most need in the room without even noticing.

And maybe that’s why he came to you.

You needed him — more than you would ever tell.

To move to Uljin at such a young age had been easy, but looking back, you wondered if it would have been the same without him.

If it would have always felt like a home.

“You know,” you said, barely hearing yourself beneath the sound of your pounding heart. “If you ever find this guy, bring him to me, I will marry him in no time.”

He laughed at it, slightly throwing his head back and when he looked at you again, his eyes were soft — the night sky turning his brown eyes even darker as he reached for you. The tip of his fingers ran along your cheek and he cradled the side of your face.

“You are my best friend,” he said.

“And you are mine,” you answered, but your chest ached with each and every word.

You were just looking at each other. There were no hard edges to grab hold of, no different characteristics on this moment’s beginning or end, nothing to separate it from the other millions you had. But you for the first time after so long you caught yourself thinking what if — what if you wanted something more?

And what a terrifying thing it was.

You didn’t like pool parties — especially if it was Jang Yujin’s pool party.

But late July brought the record of high temperatures to Uljin, the weight of summer pressing and ensuring that the entire county stayed spared between the sea and particular pools.

As Yeji’s friends took the sea behind your houses, Sunghoon felt it would be better for you to go somewhere else. So, despite the fact that you hated Yujin, you found yourself barefoot on the fresh grass of her family house as Sunghoon extended you a cup of cherry vodka.

“Fruity drink to my soft drinker,” he said.

You hardly registered his saying before you caught sight of Daeyeol approaching Sunghoon from behind, a mischievous grin that matched his companion.

“Anything valuable in the pockets?” Daeyeol asked.

“No,” Sunghoon replied, but if it had been to the question or a protest to what was about to come was uncertain. Daeyeol was already lifting Sunghoon by his armpits as your other ex-classmate took his ankles and between one breath and another, Sunghoon was launched into the pool.

The effect was instantaneous. As Sunghoon hit the water with a smack, the whole backward turned into a mess. Some people cheered as others decided to get into the water too.

You worried Sunghoon might be mad, but as he appeared up the surface, scrubbing a hand through his hair, he was smiling.

“Help me out, teeny,” he said.

“Promise me you won’t pull me in,” you said, immediately regretting it. If it hadn’t passed through Sunghoon’s mind, it now was the only thing he could think about.

You stepped back, but he was already leaving the pool, coming in your direction in fast steps. And before you could run away, one of his arms wrapped around your waist as the other found the back of your knees. He held you tight to him, his soaked clothes already cooling your body as he moved and hurled both of you to the edge of the pool.

You pressed your face into his neck, bracing yourself.

“I am here,” Sunghoon said. The first thing you ever hear after the dull sound of the underwater.

You didn’t notice how agitated you were until you felt his hands moving through your body, shifting you so you were straddling his waist.

“You should have let me teach you how to swim when we were younger,” he said.

“Why? I always had you to hold me,” you replied, and Sunghoon laughed, an easy and unpretentious burst of sound whistling across the breeze, and your heart lurched at it. You pressed your forehead against his shoulder, fingers blindly curling on the front of his shirt as you closed your eyes — that sound suddenly reminded you of the shared cakes on his mother’s coffee table and the nights spent on the hardwood floor of your bedroom.

“Yes, you always had me to do everything for you,” he said.

Sunghoon’s grip tightened on you, his fingers deepening into your skin as if his touch itself was a promise he wanted to make. His chest pressed against yours, and you wondered if he could feel your heartbeat — if it was rattling against your ribs as loud as it seemed to be.

All around you, people were still on their own fun, laughing and pushing friends into the water as the sun kept going down, shafts of orange and pink streaming across the water, but you only knew him.

You felt hazed by his closeness, by the way his citrus perfume blended with the scent of chlorine and cedar — by the way he shivered beneath your touch, his breath hitching when you slipped down, mouth accidentally running through his shoulder.

“Teeny?” Sunghoon called, his voice all soft and compelling, “You will always have me.”

He pressed his cheek to the side of your head, and for a while, neither of you moved, lingering in this moment of close silence for what felt like ages.

“I think I will go inside and get something to eat,” you said then, and Sunghoon nodded, carrying you to the edge of the pool and seating you there, but he didn’t immediately let you go. Sunghoon lingered there, thumbs stroking circles into the soft skin on the inside of your leg, just above your knee as his fingertips hid underneath the hem of your dress.

He tugged at the edge of it, fingers light and playful, and it made the air feel warmer, heavier — like the sun was suddenly warmer above you.

You could feel his eyes on your chest, just above the neckline of your dress, catching the scattering of moles that seemed to be growing each other day beneath the Uljin’s suns.

And then his lips were on your cheek, pressing a kiss wet from the water still.

“Bring me something too?”

┈┈┈┈

Inside the house, the air conditioner was fully working, tingling your skin and making you follow the path to the guest room instead of the kitchen.

Sunghoon’s jacket was still on the pile of clothes and purses above the bed, but as you reached for it, you felt a phone ringing in his pocket. At first, you thought it would be his, but as you reached for it, you noticed it was yours.

Yeji’s name shone for you, and you hadn’t a second thought before picking it up.

“Why aren’t you picking up?” she asked, the words coming stuttering as if she was forcing them through.

Your heart hummed against your ears so loud you couldn’t even think straight. You and Sunghoon had left her safety to enjoy the beach with her friends, and if there was something genuinely dangerous, you couldn’t think of it.

“Yeji, what happened?”

“I was stupid, sis, he doesn’t like me.”

You breathed in, taking a quiet second to calm your pulse.

“Hey, it’s alright,” you whispered. “Where are you? Are you home still?”

“Yes,” she said. “Can you come — can you come here?”

“Of course, wait for me just a bit, alright?”

┈┈┈┈

By the time you stepped out of the house, Sunghoon had already left the pool, a borrowed towel in his hand, and Jang Yujin standing by his side. She touched all over him, her fingers grazing his chest before she curled it on his shirt, leaning closer as she pretended to help him.

It was silly the way you felt your heartstrings being pulled at the view especially because it was no novelty — Yujin acted like this back in high school too, but you couldn’t help it despite the fact that you had bigger problems than someone flirting with your best friend.

“Hoon,” you called. You didn’t intend to make your voice sound frantic, but it came that way. And perhaps it had been because you already had his jacket hurled around you, one hand twisted on the material as the other held your previously abandoned high heels, Sunghoon was already slipping away from Yujin, walking towards you as if there was no one else in his eyesight.

“What happened?” he asked, hands promptly cupping the sides of your neck to angle you up to him.

“Yeji called. She was crying,” you said. “I didn’t — I didn’t understand well, but it’s something with the guy she went out with.”

Sunghoon nodded, his thumb drawing reassuring circles on your skin as he availed the situation.

“Have you gotten the car keys?” he asked. It was your time to nod. “Alright, let’s go.”

┈┈┈┈

It was eight in the night when Sunghoon pulled into his driveway, his house so dark that it was hard to imagine Yeji was still there. Even her room had the lights turned off, and only when you called for her did she move, but it had been only enough to peer through the edges of her sheets.

Although there were six missed calls on your phone, Sunghoon’s phone had been idle throughout the whole party. And if it didn’t make it clear that she wanted to talk to you, the way her eyes kept traveling between you and Sunghoon a few times in hesitation was.

“Hoon,” you called. “I think the bakery is still open, could you bring us something?”

His gaze encountered yours for a brief second before he walked to Yeji, kissing the top of her head. He said nothing. He just quietly slipped into his role as an older brother and left.

You crawled into the bed with her, wrapping your arms around her from behind.

“You are smelling like chlorine and alcohol,” she murmured.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“Do you want to talk?” you asked.

“Even with you, I feel embarrassed.”

“Why so?”

“I feel stupid, you know?” she said. “He asked me out and I was already head overhill for him, and now I am like this because I found out he just wanted to make his ex jealous.”

You breathed in, perhaps so harshly that it had overtaken all the other sounds in the room.

Yeji chuckled at you.

“It’s alright, I have already gone through all the phases of mourning throughout the afternoon,” she said. “I am not blaming you and Hoon, please, do not take it like this. But I think I rushed to the first nice guy because I have grown up with people talking about how you and Hoon are soulmates.”

“A fate written in the stars, mom always says,” Yeji continued, and although she claimed to have passed through all the mourning already, her voice broke at the end, and although you couldn’t see her, you knew fresh tears had sprung to her eyes. “I wanted to live it too.”

You tightened your arms around her, bringing her so close that when she sobbed, the force of it resonated as if you were the one crying.

“Yeji, what is yours is reserved. And I am not only talking about a great love but anything in life. Sometimes we get so tied up in an idea that we miss out on the amazingness of what we could actually have,” you said. “What’s yours will come at the right time, so do not stress about anything. You will only get hurt.”

“I am hurt,” she said.

“I know, and I am sorry for it.”

“I am sorry too.”

You weren’t sure how long you had been there, but by the time Sunghoon arrived, Yeji had already drifted off to sleep, her breathing so slow and steady. You rose to your feet holding your breath, trying to make as little noise as possible until you were back in the living room, finding Sunghoon laying out the pastries on the coffee table.

He caught sight of you then and rewarded you with his best smile.

“I took a bit longer because I guessed Yeji wanted to talk with you alone,” he said. “How’s she?”

“Better, I think, she fell asleep,” you told. “I didn’t imagine she would.”

Sunghoon nodded at you, moving his attention back to the coffee table. You thought he would offer to walk you home, call it a night, and let you go, but instead, he gestured to the pastries.

“I got your favorite,” he said.

And it was so natural to fold yourself on Jiyoung’s furry rug, so familiar to help Sunghoon line all the sweets and share. For a moment, you were ten again, doing it for the first time on a winter night. You were fourteen again, doing it after your middle school graduation.

“Is it the moment when I say ‘I told you so, men are all wolves’?” Sunghoon asked, bringing you back to the present moment.

“It is,” you admitted. “But please don’t.”

Perhaps it was because of the way you seemed sad there, the full frown that had taken over your face, but instead of continuing with his scolding, he reached for you across the table, his trained fingers finding the slots between yours and squeezing your hand a little tighter, and it was such a small gesture, but something about it felt so reassuring.

“Yeji will be fine,” he said. “I will make her tell me his name, and I will end him.”

A laugh burst out of you at his words, and that was it — the spell was broken. Sunghoon laughed back at you and you squeezed his hand again, a signal for him to stop it and be quiet, but he did not, and you came to the conclusion you actually didn’t mind it.

His laugh was perhaps your favorite sound in the world.

“Try this one,” he said, extending you one of the pastries. “The bakery said it was a new flavor.”

You leaned over the coffee table, taking his wrist with your free hand and guiding the pastry to your mouth so you could taste it. Your lips barely brushed against his fingertips, but his heart raced beneath your touch, and you let him go.

“It was kinda different,” he murmured. “The bakery.”

“The owner had been planning to do a renovation since last summer,” you said. “He told me when I went there with Jongseong.”

It’s a simple answer, a way to keep the conversation going, but when Sunghoon found your gaze, you could feel the heaviness that Jongseong’s name settled in the conversation.

“Jongseong,” he whispered, and you knew it had been an accident — his thoughts coming too loudly because Sunghoon never cared to say Jongseong’s name correctly. “Do you still talk?”

“We weren’t, but — but he called last week,” you confessed. “He is visiting his grandma. She lives in Gyeongsang too so he wanted us to meet.”

“And you agreed?”

“I did.”

“Do you really love him?” Sunghoon asked. The question stunned you unwillingly to silence, heart racing all together with your mind.

“No” would be the most logical answer. You knew you never really fell in love with Jongseong, but you also knew the implications this statement carried being said out loud — that overwhelming confirmation that maybe you had been in love with Sunghoon instead.

“I don’t think so,” you could have said, but you had already allowed the question to hang in for too long, and in the middle of your silence, Sunghoon had created his answer.

“I still think he doesn’t get you, but I want you to be happy,” he said. “And if it’s with him, I will try to support you.”

“Try,” you echoed, earning a smile from him.

Sunghoon dropped the pastry back into the bowl and spilled himself on the rug. You followed after, being as close as you could without touching.

“Thank you for always taking care of Yeji,” he suddenly said.

“She is my sister too, remember?” you asked, immediately causing him to snort.

Back in the years, it had been a threat, she was your responsibility when her desires were too girly, or when Sunghoon was too tired to follow, but it became something you didn’t mind.

Yeji was as much as your sister as she was Sunghoon’s.

He reached for you, twisting a lock of your hair between his fingertips before he pulled it behind your ear.

“Of course, I remember.”

A faint glow came through the windows, painting stripes of light and shadow over the walls, over Sunghoon’s cheek. There was enough light just for you to see his smile. And you wished you told him then, that he smelled like summer and citrus grooves on the sun, like childhood and home.

You wished you told him how much you loved him.

“Can you stay the night?” he asked, and almost unconsciously, you held your breath. “Just in case she wakes up, all I will be able to say is ‘I told you’ and I doubt it is what she needs to hear.”

You doubted it would be Sunghoon’s reaction, but you nodded nevertheless.

“I can,” you whispered. “Of course, I can.”

You reached up to his shoulders, and he shifted onto the rug, maneuvering closer to you. One of his hands found your waist as the other reached up to your neck, his fingertips brushing and twisting on the hair at your nape. There was a certain stillness on it — your fingers on each other, your breaths getting tangled in the small space between you.

And despite the fact you could feel your chest aching, you had to admit that you were happy. Some people lived their whole lives without getting to experience the type of intimacy you had with him.

Perhaps Sunghoon was your soulmate.

Perhaps you were really in love with him, but you would rather have this tiny sliver of him forever than have all of him for just a moment and know you had to relinquish all of it when you were through.

You could never lose Sunghoon again.

You couldn’t.

It doesn’t matter if your parents were out of town, it was Sunday night, and your seat was reserved on the Park’s dinner table as it always had been.

Sunghoon came to pick you up, showing up at your front door and holding his hand out for you as if it were too dangerous to jump the bunches that separated your families’ properties and walk the path to their front porch on your own.

The Park’s front door hung open that evening, and you could hear Yeji’s selected playlist already resonating through the speakers in the living room, some love song from the 80s reaching for you across the summer breeze altogether with Jiyoung’s faint commands.

“How is Yeji?” you asked, stopping at your troughs.

Sunghoon stopped by your side, peering inside his family’s house before he turned to you. The sun was still hefty despite the fact it was already seven o’clock, patches of sunlight dancing over his shoulders, over the striking features of his face. His hair almost looked gold beneath all of this light and you had to tell yourself to not reach for him — to not trace the soft line of his jaw and comb the hair back from his forehead.

Especially when he smiled down at you, his lips curling almost blearily.

“She says she is alright, but once in a while I catch her staring at the walls with a frown,” he said. “But don’t worry,”

“I will still get his name and end him,” Sunghoon whispered, leaning into your side and you could feel the smile in his voice, the warmth of it scattering and weaving through your body.

You knew it was a fake threat, a joke you were supposed to follow, but you couldn’t. Your body was somehow still stuck in his proximity and you let his words hang in. The evening was still warm from the late july sun, but it had become almost unbearable with his lips brushing against your ear. You could barely breathe beneath his attention and you were suddenly thankful when Jiyoung appeared at the door and caused him to step away.

“Come in, the table is all set,” she said. “I prepared bossam for the night.”

“My favorite,” you said, earning a smile from her.

And for a while, everything was fine again — easy even. But Jiyoung had recently discovered her new favorite wine and by the time the dessert was finished and Air Supply started singing about his secret inner thoughts through the wireless speakers, she was drunk, stumbling to her feet.

“Kwangho!” she exclaimed. “We danced to this song at our high school dance.”

“We know,” Yeji quickly remarked with a scowl.

When Jiyoung got drunk her brain seemed to always reach for the same memories: her high school dance, a terrible dinner with her parents, and her marriage with Kwangho.

Tonight it seemed to have for her high school dance.

“Dance with me,” Jiyoung said, causing a chuckle to escape from your lips as you watched the woman holding her hand to her husband and standing him up.

They retreated from the table laughing through their drunk state and stumbling until they found the back doors and disappeared, leaving the room suddenly too calm — not quiet, the chords of the love song kept resonating and dispersing through the whole room together with Sunghoon’s parents’ small talk coming from the doors but it was steady, peaceful, an echo of the approaching late hours.

“I will take the dishes,” Yeji said.

“I will help you,” you offered, reaching for your plate, but Yeji was fast on taking it away.

“Drunk or not. Mom will kill me if she knows I allowed you to do any real chords in this house.”

You looked at Sunghoon in search of some support then, but he only shook his head, his lips already curving into a fond smile.

“I don’t want to get killed too,” he said.

You could feel your mouth opening in another protest as you turned back at Yeji, but Sunghoon brushed his knee against yours and when your gazes encountered, he didn’t wait for you to say what was on your mind, he immediately held his hand in the small space between you.

“Dance with me too,” he whispered.

You blinked at him, body going slack as you tried to find any sign of a joke on him. But Sunghoon remained still, his cheeks flushed by the same alcohol you indulged in and the late summer heat as he stared at you.

“I don’t know how to slow dance,” you finally said.

“Neither do I, but we can figure it out.”

You took his hand, allowing him to stand you up and take you to the side of the room.

It was no novelty to have Sunghoon guiding you, but there was something different about doing it outside the furor of the university parties and cheap clubs, away from the dimmed lights and intoxicated air.

It felt softer.

He placed your hands on his shoulders, but he didn’t let go easily. You felt his fingertips slowly tracing your pulse before his hands molded to your waist, bringing you closer at the same time he leaned in — just enough to rest his cheek against yours, but every contact was like a static shock, a spark of life where his skin met your skin, and your heart picked up.

“It’s such a sad song,” Sunghoon pointed out. “I don’t know why mom gets so happy over it.”

“Since when have you been fluent in English?” you laughed.

“I have been studying, but living with Jiyoung you have to know the lyrics of this song,” he said. “Between the fiftieth time and the fiftieth first you get curious about it.”

“And what do the lyrics say?” you asked, moving back to look at him. Your hands slid to the back of his neck for support, but your palms fitted so well on the slope curve that you couldn’t help but run your palm over it, fingers curling at his hair and making Sunghoon shiver beneath your touch, the soft rustle of his breath hitching against your skin almost imperceptibly.

It took him another moment to reply.

“He likes this girl — no, he is obsessed with her,” he whispered. “And he knows he is lost without her, but he is also afraid of letting her know it.”

“Why?”

“Well — this part is not in the lyrics,” he said, and you laughed at it, softly and ignoring the fact that your heart was slamming inside of your chest. “Was my analysis approved by my linguist student?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “I always thought he simply meant love could be made out of nothing.”

“So plain.”

Sunghoon swirled you, a twist of his body that led you away from him, spinning on the tip of your toes for a quiet second, before he brought you back to him. His hand caught your waist again, slipping through the thin material of your dress until his fingers found the lace on your waistband.

“Nevermind. I think we are doing it wrong,” he said, letting you go suddenly and abruptly before he sunk himself onto his family’s couch.

You followed after, less forceful as you took the space at his side. You didn’t touch him, but you could feel the heat radiate from his skin and it was just as dizzying.

“When is your date with the dummy?” Sunghoon asked.

“Jongseong,” you corrected, but now it was a name that carried more emotions than facts. “He will be here on Tuesday, and it’s not a date.”

“Sure.”

“He probably just wants to catch up — we were good friends before dating.”

The song changed on the wireless speakers, and the one that came on next was faster, sprightly, and lively. You could hear his parents laughing on the back deck, but when his fingers thumped against his thighs, you knew it was a reaction to his uneasiness rather than him following the rhythm of the song.

“You don’t need to do this, you know?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Please everyone. You started dating Jongseong because you felt sorry to reject him, and I am quoting you on this. You went to that party because Haneul asked you,” he said. “You are everywhere Yeji asks you to be — you are everywhere I ask you to be, and I admit my guilt about it.”

“If you want to go on a date or whatever you want to call it with Jongseong, it’s alright, but if you don’t — please, don’t force yourself to be there.”

“Hoon,” you called, although you weren’t sure what words were supposed to follow, the ideas of your thoughts coming faster than the certitude of it.

“Call me,” he whispered then. “If something happens there.”

“Sure,” you whispered back.

“You are my best friend, teeny.”

“And you are mine.”

August was what your grandma used to call the fickle month. It was the seam between july blue skies and september rains. Just yesterday night, the sky was clean, with not a single cloud to bloat the stars, but as you opened the front door, you not only encountered Park Jongseong but also the promise of rain. The low rumble of thunder that could be heard in the distance, and made the atmosphere almost static.

As you glanced past Jongseong’s shoulders, you couldn’t help but notice his infamous convertible. It was the same as you remembered: showy and with its hood down. Jongseong must have caught your gaze, for his smile turned into something closer to embarrassment.

“Not the best option for the weather,” he said. “But it’s the only one that I got. I can close the roof if you want.”

“People buy a convertible for only one reason,” you said, and Jongseong laughed at that. The sound was so open and easy that you couldn’t help but allow a smile to rise to your lips.

Once, when you both were still dating, you had questioned why he would have bought a convertible when he lived in Seoul, such a rainy city for the majority of the time, but he only smiled and said the exact same thing, a bite of a smile crossing through his lips before he raced through the night and beneath the city lights.

So he rode you with the hood down, the wind trailing and tangling through your hair with the heady smell of rain as the county rolled past you.

Jongseong wasn’t the type to make small talk, so he didn’t attempt to speak under the thrumming engine, nor when he opened the café shop door, holding it still as you stepped past him.

You found it easy to slide into a booth across from him, easy to let your gaze meet his, small smiles playing on both of your mouths. You ordered a smoothie as Jongseong ordered a coffee and a plate of cake for each of you — the same flavor, and you had to bite your tongue to not say it would be a waste because you could share.

But sharing cakes was your thing with Sunghoon.

“How have you been?” Jongseong finally asked.

“Fine, yes, how about you?”

“Fine,” Jongseong said. “Nothing like spending a month at Nana’s house.”

“I can understand, your grandmother is such a lovely person.”

“She asked about you — actually, she asked how I allowed you to escape,” he said, and you laughed at this, cheeks turning a bit warmer and Jongseong’s lip twitched up.

“You have been asked about too,” you said.

“Sunghoon’s mother or yours?”

“How did you-”

“They were the only ones that didn’t seem to genuinely hate me,” he said, head ducking the way he did whenever he was unsettled.

“I am sorry,” you said because you really were — because you didn’t know what else you could say to him.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Actually, that’s the whole point — everyone knows your history with Sunghoon is way deeper than what you both tell. I knew it even before we started dating and it was my option to ask you out,”

“When I told Heeseung I was going to do it he said ‘Y/N? You mean Sunghoon’s Y/N?’.” Jongseong laughed, but you couldn’t do the same. “There was also that night when we just had started to go further into our relationship and you were at my studio. It was three in the morning or something, and Sunghoon called you really wasted,”

“You were so worried about him that I knew there was no one else in the world for you like him. And when we arrived at his place and he started shouting because you were with me late at night, I knew there was no one else in the world for him too.”

A look of disappointment passed over Jongseong’s features, too vivid and too unmistakable to be something buried in the past, and once again, you felt sorry.

“Then you both stopped talking and I know it’s so selfish to say, but I thought something was going to change,” he said. “Yet I only saw you lose the last sparkle in you. I always knew that you loved him, but I feel like I threw it on you when we broke up.”

“You didn’t.”

“I felt like I did,” Jongseong whispered, his gaze holding steadily onto yours, and you could feel he was studying you even before he continued.

“Listen, and please do not take it as your ex-boyfriend saying, but as a friend instead,” he asked. “Heeseung told me that Sunghoon lost it all after you two stopped talking. He would cling to the couch until the parties were over, staring at everything as if he were looking for something that was never coming. ‘Vultures spinning above of what was left of him’ were his words actually,”

“I don’t know what keeps you two from going after each other. If you can’t see it, or if it’s all about doubt and fear, but if he is too scared, you should do it,” Jongseong said. “It’s sad to see you losing what you could actually have.”

You didn’t argue with him. You couldn’t. Your heart was beating too fast, tripping over each heartbeat and making it impossible for you to think straight.

Behind him, the café was still blasting with life. A couple just a table away were sharing the same piece of cake, and when the woman laughed, you felt a longing inside of your heart.

You looked back at Jongseong, but he was already taking the last sip of his coffee.

“Let’s go, I will take you home.”

┈┈┈┈

Jongseong left you on the Park’s driveway, not waiting for you to get to the door to make a turn, his convertible disappearing through the street before you even reached the first stair, and honestly, it was better that way — no eyes watching as you mustered the courage to simply keep moving forward.

You rang the bell once, and then twice, but no answer came. Sunghoon’s Jeep was the only one in the driveway, with no sign of Kwangho’s gray sedan and you took a deep breath before you gathered up the courage to open the door like you normally could.

The door scraped open, and you shuffled in, blinking in the sudden lack of clarity until your vision got adjusted, the only light coming was from the back door. The sun hid behind the storm that never seemed close enough to fall.

You looked up and caught sight of him, leaving his room upstairs and closing the last few buttons of his blue shirt as he reached the first stair.

Sunghoon paused when he found you, lips slightly parting as he stared.

“You didn’t pick up the door,” you mumbled.

“I was on it,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“Not that I mind,” he said, making his way down the stairs. When he stopped in front of you, he bottled you in the shadows with his full height, and it was one of those moments when you realized how much he had grown up.

“Where’s everyone?” you asked. “It’s so silent here.”

“Dad has a conference in Angok, mom always goes with him and Yeji decided to stick around because of the food,” Sunghoon said.

“Smart, I miss my dad’s conferences,” you said, immediately earning a snort from him.

“I thought Jongseong took you out to eat, but you seem as hungry as ever,” he said. “C’mon, I think there’s something in the kitchen.”

None of you bothered to turn the lights on. The path from the stairs to the kitchen was so familiar that you could have done it with your eyes closed. You knew where to step, and where to move so you didn’t hit any of Jiyoung’s furniture. So you both leaned on the kitchen island with the dim light of the end of the afternoon and mixed leftover pastries with Yeji’s experimental cupcakes.

“So,” Sunghoon said, subtly clearing his throat. His fingers thumped against the surface and you felt your chest aching. “Are you two back together?”

“No.”

He stopped at your answer, all at once, and for an instant, something flashed across his face. But it had been too brief, too fleeting, stolen by surprise when thunder hit the shore and his gaze fled to the back doors.

“Why?” he whispered, and it had been so low that if you weren’t paying close attention to him, you doubted you would have noticed it.

“Hoon,” you called, and you hated how you sounded desperate then. The verge of your tears coming in before your thoughts.

You didn’t remember making the decision to move toward Sunghoon, but suddenly, you were there, standing so close that the air felt snuffed. His hands promptly found the sides of your neck, holding you up to him. And when his gaze encountered yours, his eyes were surprisingly bright beneath the dim light.

“Because I couldn’t — no, because I can’t love someone as much as I love you.”

Sunghoon stopped at your words, and the silence that followed was almost mocking. You had lived a good part of your life in Uljin, but you couldn’t remember a day when the waves had been this silent. Your mother’s wind bell had gone idle, and the breeze carried nothing but the promise of the rain — even the thunder had ceased.

“Teeny,” he whispered, and perhaps it had been the way his voice broke at it — perhaps it had been the way his hands fell away from your skin, but your heart lurched in your chest.

You could take a rejection from everyone but him.

You could lose anyone but Sunghoon.

In your mind, you saw Haneul, perhaps the first person who ever had put into words what everyone only spoke as half thoughts. You heard Yeji telling you about her mother and soulmates, and you thought of Jongseong, just a few hours ago saying how there was no way Sunghoon didn’t love you back.

How could they all be so wrong?

“Teeny,” he repeated.

The kitchen was too warm, too sweet, pastries and cupcakes sugary all together with the scent of his perfume and suddenly you felt like you couldn’t breathe.

“You really know how to drive one’s mad,” he said. “I didn’t know the difference between loving you and being in love with you. You’ve been in my life for as long as I can remember,”

“And then you kissed me at that New Year’s party.”

You lurched at his words, an incredulous gasp fleeing through your lips before you could even control it. You couldn’t remember doing it. New Year’s party or anywhere else, you couldn’t remember ever kissing Sunghoon.

One of his dark brows lifted, but there was no amusement in his face as he considered you.

“After we opened the second bottle of flavored vodka or something. It was close to midnight already — we were pretty drunk, and you—” he stopped. “You really don’t remember it?”

“We kissed — actually, we made out in the middle of the living room and I swear, if you didn’t tell me you were starting to feel dizzy when I carried you to my room, I would—” Sunghoon stopped once again, and you could feel his words stuttering and stammering. “I held your hair as you threw up — I held you throughout the whole night as you were sick, but when you woke up in the morning, you said we should forget about everything because it was just too embarrassing for you.”

There was no way the world tripped, but you felt as if the ground had slipped through your feet. Everything was so unstable that you shrugged away, pressing your back against the kitchen island for support.

“I don’t remember,” you whispered. “I mean, I remember getting sick, but before it—”

“Yeah, I — I realized it now, but I thought you were embarrassed about having kissed me and I took it as a rejection, so I started dating random girls, anyone, really. I tried to take my mind off you, tried to forget about your kisses and how you made me feel,” he said. “And it was going half alright, well, until you started dating Jongseong.”

“And I know I had been the worst friend then, and you had the whole right to stop talking to me. But I had this thought for a while that maybe — maybe we could be like the old times again because now I’ve realized that no matter where you are or what you are doing, or who you are with, I will always honestly, truly, completely love you and I would hold this forever — I could be forever your best friend if it meant you were happy where else.”

The words pounded against you, drumming against your skin like the rain that finally had begun to fall.

“When Jake told me he saw you at that party, I thought that was my opportunity,” he said. “That’s why I insisted on you coming with me to Uljin.”

You didn’t notice you were crying until he leaned on you, his lips promptly finding your wet cheeks and kissing the heaving tears away.

“Don’t cry, teeny.”

“We broke each other’s hearts just because we were afraid,” you said.

“We did, but what is important is what we are going to do from now on.”

“When did you get so wise, Park Sunghoon?” you asked, and he smiled at you, his dimples flirting at the soft skin of his cheeks.

“Losing you got me really undone.”

“Yeah, I heard something like ‘vultures spinning above of what was left of him’.”

Sunghoon laughed at this, and then, he laughed some more, this time throwing his head back. He felt as if he had experienced all the possible emotions throughout these last minutes.

“Can’t believe Jake’s saying reached you.”

“Was it Jake’s?” you asked. “Because I heard it from Jongseong who heard from—”

“Don’t say his name,” he asked. “Not now.”

“Fine.”

His hands slid through your waist, bringing you impossibly closer and your skin tingled beneath his touch.

“Can I kiss you, teeny?” he whispered, the question coming little more than a whisper over your lips.

It was adorable the way he smiled there, boyish and warm eyes gleaming in the dim light of the approaching evening.

“Of course, you can kiss me, Hoon,” you said.

You placed your hands at the slope curve of his neck, palms fitting as perfectly as they did on the night previous, and you brought him down to you.

But Sunghoon didn’t kiss you immediately, no — he took his precious time, hovering his lips just a few inches from yours as if he was checking if you would regret it and move away, and only when you didn’t, his mouth slid over yours, taking you slowly, softly, and different from how his fingers burrowed into your dress as he lifted you to the kitchen island.

You had no acknowledgment of how your first kiss with Sunghoon had been, but something within you knew, it had been exactly like this. There was no searching or learning, it was all about you already knowing each other. It was natural to push yourself into him — natural to part your knees and curl your legs around his hips, bringing him so close that you couldn’t tell where your heartbeat ended and his began.

His tongue brushed against your lips, and when you opened your mouth for him, letting him slide his tongue over yours, he groaned, his whole body reacting to the feeling of you. A gasp flew from your lips, and you moved back, but Sunghoon was still leaning in, eyes closed, and lips parted as he followed you through the few inches you created.

“Sorry,” he whispered, straightening himself. It had been just enough to encounter your gaze. But his eyes stayed fixed on you as if he couldn’t imagine anything more fascinating than looking at you — as if all the gravity of the world was centered on you.

But then, there’s the sound of the engine on the driveway, the headlights of Kwangho’s sedan hitting the front window, and you barely had time to jump off the kitchen island, pushing the straps of your dress back into place before the door was opened and the rest of the Parks spilled in like a skimped part of the rain.

A gust of kind smiles and fond expressions.

You wondered if they could see the way you were blushing in the dim light — if they could see the way Sunghoon scrubbed a hand through his hair as he turned around and fought to catch his breath.

When the lights were turned on, Kwangho took a seat on the couch, followed by Yeji as both of them complained about the sudden change of weather.

It had been Jiyoung who approached you, giving both of you a peck on the cheek before she exclaimed how happy she was.

And then you knew that they could and they did.

┈┈┈┈

Sunghoon walked you home with the rain still pouring down, his hand on yours as you both jumped the bunches that separated your family’s property like you always had.

“I will give it five minutes until she calls your mother to tell,” he said.

“I would say they are already on a call,” you replied, reaching for the first stair, but Sunghoon stayed behind, allowing his hair to get soaked beneath the rain, curling at the ends, dripping water down his cheeks, over his lips.

He looked unfairly pretty, but to be honest, he always had.

“Is it crazy?” Sunghoon asked.

“What?”

“That I want to ask you on a date,” he said. “We have run this town from back and forth so many times. We moved to Seoul just to be together and I still want to take you on a date.”

“It’s not,” you whispered.

Sunghoon smiled at you, using your still connected hands to pull you beneath the rain with him — to pull you to him, and when he kissed you, he still tasted like sugar, all pastries and cupcakes sugary and home.

You held onto him, feeling the heat of him through his wet shirt, and this time, you were the one to lick into his mouth. You couldn’t help the way you surged up — onto your tiptoes, and into him until you were out of breath.

“Tomorrow then? Around this time?” he asked.

“Alright,” you said. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he answered.

“Can I at least know what I should dress?”

“Formal,” he said, not even blinking and you furrowed your eyebrows at him. “I am serious.”

It had been a long time coming — you and Sunghoon.

It had been spoken within whispers when any of you were nearby, talked when none of you were there.

It had been so waited up, that your parents only fondly smiled as you appeared formally dressed on the following afternoon and said you had a date with Sunghoon.

He waited outside, the engine of his black Jeep already on as he leaned on the hood, watching as you slipped out of your front door and walked towards him, high heels avoiding stones and pebbles.

“You look beautiful,” he said, and you smiled at him, cheeks growing warm because he had slid his hands to your neck, thumbs pressing gently into your skin as he tipped your head back, angling you so you had to look at him, and take in his gleaming eyes. You could tell Sunghoon was no longer making any effort to hold it back, his pure affection taking all over his face in a way you had never seen before.

The weather had gotten better since yesterday, twilight light settling over the county and lighting him in a tangerine glow that when you pulled yourself closer to him, you could feel the warmth of it beneath his suit.

“You don’t look bad yourself,” you said, and he laughed at it, a burst of sound whistling across the breeze as his dimples found their way to flirt into the soft skin of his cheeks.

Sunghoon didn’t tell you where he was taking you still, but there was a picnic basket on the back seat and he took the road out of town, driving through the same emerald mountains and greenish field you passed on your way back to the town weeks and weeks before.

You reached for him as he passed the county’s welcoming sign, palm resting above the back of his hand on the gear stick, and he shifted beneath your touch, turning his palm to you and slowly interlacing your fingers.

He dropped down a few gears just several minutes after, parking on a clifftop somewhere, a pretty little spot where you could take off your high heels and sink on a blanket on the warm grass as you watched the sun come down on the sea in shafts of pinky peach and tangerine.

“It’s so beautiful,” you whispered, but if anything he only smiled at you. He had unpacked the picnic basket content, spreading neatly prepared sandwiches and perfectly sliced fruits on the blanket. Even a mini champagne had been included and you smiled when Sunghoon spared it in two flutes, the bubbles sparkling in its glasses in the softest tone of rosé because you always preferred it sweet.

“Have you prepared all of this?” you asked.

“Aside from this,” he said, extending you one of the flutes. “Mom and Yeji prepared everything — when I told them I was taking you out on a date, they got genuinely committed to help.”

“I can imagine how,” you laughed, and he moved closer to you, his free hand reaching for your hair, tucking a stray lock behind your ear.

“I was a bit scared of your father, you know?” Sunghoon said. “That’s why I waited outside.”

“Why? He loves you.”

“I don’t know, he hated Jongseong.”

“I don’t think he — or anyone there hated Jongseong as a person,” you said. “They hated what he represented.”

“They hated that he was not you,” you explained. “They made that same welcoming lunch last summer, and you should have seen their faces when it was Jongseong passing through your front door holding my hand.”

“Everyone expected that it was me and you in the end, didn’t they?” he asked.

“They still do.”

“Good thing it is me and you in the end.”

“Is it?” you asked, but his lips were already reaching to yours. His hand spread on your cheek, fingers brushing and tangling through your hair as he brought you closer as if he believed his existence lay in the acknowledgment of you — on how your heartbeats resonated together, how naturally your hands fit on slope curve of his shoulders, and the sensations your bare fingertips are capable of drawing on his skin.

His tongue slid against your bottom lip, softly yet demanding, and you obliged immediately, letting him press his tongue over yours in a way that made your body filled with warmth.

Your fingers curled around his shoulders, pulling him closer as his arms came around you, lifting you over and on top of him. Sunghoon was already hard beneath you, the solid length of himself pressing against you, and the sensation alone was so pleasurable that a desperate sound escaped through your throat before you couldn’t even notice it.

He cursed then, his hands coming up to your waist, and pinching you just to make sure you were looking at him, but you were — you always had been. The sun had disappeared completely beyond the sea, and the remaining luminosity turned his eyes lighter, a blend of honey and whisky as his lashes casted shadows over his flushed cheeks.

And God — he was so beautiful.

“Is it really ok?” Sunghoon asked. You suddenly felt like joking about it, saying that it was as fine as having your first time together on an open field could be.

It’s not that you were awkward about having sex. Actually, you have been more straightforward about it than many of your university friends, but there’s something about having it with Sunghoon — something that made your chest ache with a feeling deeper than bare desire.

The moment seemed to take forever, it seemed to take no time at all. In the middle of your silence, Sunghoon licked at his mouth, his tongue brushing against his already swollen lips, and you exhaled, allowing your thoughts to break into fragments on the ground.

“Yes, of course it’s fine.”

You weren’t sure if it was you or him who ended the gasp between your mouths. You knew you had put a small pressure on his shoulders and he was already on you, nose pressed to your cheek, lips sliding easily over yours, and already too well practiced in the art of making you sigh.

It was dizzying to be kissed like this. Fast, open-mouthed, hands splayed everywhere, and noises swallowed by the other before one of you gasped for air, but every time you caught his mouth again, Sunghoon was willing.

His hand gripped on the thin material of your dress until he could feel the warmth of your skin through it, bringing you closer to him before a single hand moved a bit further and found the hem of it, but he didn’t slip through, didn’t pull it up, not until you pleaded it lowly.

He grabbed the hem then, pulling it off almost too slow, his palms brushing against the heat of your skin, and revealing each piece of you. And when he finally put it completely off his eyes were heavy-lidded, dark, and heated. He looked over at you as if he wasn’t all that sure if you were real, if you were a dream, if you were a mirage that might vanish if he looked away.

It didn’t help that you decided to not use a bra this evening, giving him the perfect view of your breasts way too fast.

“Please,” you whispered, cupping his face, and easing him down so he could hover above you on the blanket.

Your fingers fumbled through his clothes, pushing his suit and curling on the buttons of his shirt almost carelessly. His muscles tensed as your palm grazed him, but when you reached for his belt, he took your hands away.

“Don’t be impatient, teeny,” he whispered. “You don’t know how much I have waited for it, so I will take my time with you.”

You looked at him, drawing out a retort despite the fluttering in your chest. But Sunghoon was already cutting you off with a kiss, his mouth pressing on yours more languid than he ever did and being a perfect match to the way his hand trailed across the lines of your stomach, the tip of his fingers blindly finding your panties.

A breath stuttered out of you at the mere thought of Sunghoon touching you and before you knew it, you were melting for him, head tilting back as he moved his face to the crook of your shoulders, pressing his lips to your neck in a reassuring kiss.

His movements drifted you, the slowness of it, the wick burning to some explosion. His fingers traced your inner tights with no hurry and when you shivered, you could feel his smile against your skin, a way too proud grin because you were exactly where he wanted you to be.

He finally moved his hand then, his caresses coming closer, sweeping softly over your folds, but barely parting you beneath the cotton of your panties.

The fabric clung to you with his every move, and it was dirty in a way that would have made you burn in embarrassment if it hadn’t been with Sunghoon.

You were sure you could come just by the slip and slide of his finger over you, the soft circles he did on your clit, but you wanted more — you needed more.

It might have been that strange string between you, but at your thought, Sunghoon pulled your panties aside, pushing his fingers inside of you with no previous notice. And it was his time to have a breath stuttered out of his lungs, the way you arched your back and shut your eyes at the feel of him suddenly being way too much for him.

“You are so pretty,” he mumbled into your mouth, pressed the words into you with a kiss.

You couldn’t comprehend how he knew you so well — how he knew exactly how to move, and how to make his name escape from your lips a little bit more frantic. Yet he knew, and it was almost maddening. The knot in your stomach got tighter with no ado, each curl of his fingers drawing you closer to the loss instead, but before you could reach it, Sunghoon stopped, all at once.

He moved to kneel between your legs, his fingertips pulling at the laces of your panties, palms almost demanding as he dragged it down over your legs.

“Hoon,” you whined. “Please, I need you.”

It might have been the words, the way Sunghoon never knew how to refuse anything you asked him, or perhaps it was the way you said them, a bit choked up because you couldn’t control it anymore, but either way, he gave in, unbuckling his belt, shoving his pants down just enough to free himself.

“So impatient,” he said teasingly, but you couldn’t mind it. He was already pushing into you, his breath hitching as he whispered your name, pronouncing it a deliberate slowness and you couldn’t help but moan at the whole feel of him.

It was one of those perfect august evenings when the air buzzed with the sea scent and there was not even a single cloud in the sky — the ghost of the stars falling on his hair as you reached for him, bringing him down to you.

This was more than you had ever felt with anyone — no, this was more than you had ever felt about anything.

You pressed your face to the crook of his neck as you came, your entire body coming undone against his as he continued to move his hips into you, gasping at how tight you got around him. But he was gentle with you, words brushing against your temple, and hands barely grazing at your skin.

Sunghoon wrapped his arms around you as he came, his heart beating against yours. He didn’t say anything, just held you until both of your had come into peace together, and it somehow felt deeper than anything you had done previously.

He collapsed by your side, and you wanted to say something, but as you looked at him, you had the strange comprehension that there was nothing he didn’t already know. He was your best friend, your lover, and half of your soul. He had caught all your secrets through your eyes — tasted them on your lips so you only reached for him. Your hand caught his easily, tiny and softly, and he allowed you to curl your fingers around his, pulling him a little closer and burying your nose on the curve of his shoulder.

He lifted your hand, kissing the inside of your wrist, and the overwhelming affection of the gesture made you ache.

You could stay there the whole night — you could stay there forever.

“Hoon,” you whispered. “Let’s go back to Uljin.”

“Alright.”

“No, I meant after the graduation,” you said. “I know the main goal shouldn’t be to go back to our parent’s house after graduation, but there are a lot of nice places in Uljin,”

“Daeyeol’s apartment complex seemed a bit expensive, but maybe we-”

“Is this your way of saying you want to stay with me, teeny?” Sunghoon asked, almost earning a gasp from you. But his laugh quickly made you stop, swallowing the sound of your surprise together with your embarrassment.

His grip tightened around you, bringing you so close — you didn’t only hear the next words, but you felt them rushing through your skin.

“Alright,” he repeated. “Let’s go back. Uljin is our place anyway.”

Park Sunghoon was tapping against your window. A hastened and insistent gait that only ceased when you lifted your head off your pillows, eyes all soft and glazed because the clock on your desk was still marking three in the morning.

And was he on your roof?

You leaped off your bed, moving as quietly as you could to the window and shoving the glass open.

“What are you doing?” you asked. But he didn’t reply. Sunghoon seemed comfortable sitting there, an easy smile playing on his lips as he spread his palms through the roof titles and averted his gaze from you to the sky, observing it for a few moments before he lifted his right hand to it, grazing through the air as if his fingertips could reach for the stars.

“Can you come outside?” Sunghoon asked, and there was no way time had changed, but you felt like the seconds were turning into something more. You were twelve again, sneaking out for the first time on a night in july with him. You were eighteen again, barefoot on the cold sand of august and promising you would stay together endlessness.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “Can I?”

“Please, I had to climb your rafters,” Sunghoon said, lowering his hand.

“You weren’t picking up your phone,” he explained. “And to call the fixed line at three am didn’t seem a nice step, although your parents love me.”

You had to control your will to roll your eyes at his words. It had been weeks since you had confessed to each other in his kitchen, weeks since you officially launched it to your parents, and your father started calling him son.

“Please, I will catch you,” he said.

“Catch me?” you echoed, but he was already slipping through the roof titles, and jumping into your family's back deck.

You breathe in, not giving yourself time to think before you carefully swing over your bedroom window and edged your way onto the roof. Outside, the night sky was colored in shades of lavender and mauve — a typical summer night in Uljin, but the breeze rushed with the wet scent of rain and warned autumn was slowly coming in.

“Can’t I use the back door like a normal person?”

“C’mon,” he said. “I will catch you.”

“Hoon,” you whined, quickly stealing a laugh from him.

“If you are too scared, you can use the back door,” he said, his voice laced in fondness. “But I promise you, it isn’t that high.”

“Will you catch me?”

“Didn’t I tell you so?” he said, extending his arms at you.

You jumped, and he caught your waist as you landed, pulling you against him. And all of sudden you could scent him — his citrus perfume blended with the brine scent of the seashore, and home.

“Caught you,” he whispered, voice winding into your hair. His breath was warm against your exposed skin and you knew it was supposed to be just a statement, but his words tingled through your body.

He stepped back, holding his hand out for you, fingers spread so you could fill the small gaps in between as he guided you toward the sea. Sunghoon stopped just before the water could reach your feet, but still, the breeze caught the cold sprinkles, brushing them against the exposed skin of your cheeks as you watched him take a box out of his pocket with his free hand and extend it to you.

“I thought we should renew our promise before going back to Seoul,” he said.

You took the box suspiciously. It was far too small to be anything but a jewelry or mittens. But the confirmation only came when you had peeled the ribbon, and opened the box, allowing the moonlight to glitter above the necklace.

“Merry Christmas,” Sunghoon whispered.

“Hoon, it’s beautiful,” you replied. “But it’s not even September and we never exchanged gifts.”

“I know, but I got it for you back in December,” he said. “I came here on Christmas solely to give it to you, but you weren’t here and when I went back to the antique store to return it, the witch-looking grandma had disappeared together with the whole store.”

“Are you telling me you bought a cursed necklace as a present?” you asked and there it was. Sunghoon couldn’t control his smile from growing wider, too happy with how you always knew how to follow him.

“How did you know it was exactly what she called it?”

“You are so annoying.”

“Let me help you,” he said. You turned your back on him, allowing Sunghoon to brush your hair away. It was a brisk, soft, barely-there touch, but his fingertips created shivers through your skin as he tied the necklace.

“What was the curse?” you asked, but he didn’t reply. He allowed your words to be carried together with the sea waves long enough for you to decide to turn back to him. And when you did, Sunghoon brought his hands to your cheeks, holding you so you had no other option than to encounter his gaze.

His eyes were bright then, reflections of the stars and his appreciation towards you.

“You are stuck with me for eternity,” he said, and you laughed at him, the sound of it whistling through the air and brushing through his lips as he leaned in, resting his forehead against yours.

“It’s surely a curse,” you said. Your tone was merry, teasingly, but Park Sunghoon knew you like no one else in this world.

“I love you too,” he whispered.

There had been a time when Sunghoon thought that you and he were meant to be forever.

And to be fair — his assumption used to make sense. For years, you had been best friends, halves of a whole, and the downfall of your friendship certainty was something no one could have predicted.

But that’s the thing about life — one moment people think they know exactly where they are headed, and the next, everything changes. The wind drifts the other way, and well, everyone already knows the rest.

Yet soulmates always find their way back to each other, and Park Sunghoon surely was your soulmate.

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