time travel; sunggyu/woohyun; PG-13

[heehe]

~8,900 words | au

Time Travel
Kim Sunggyu is almost certain of breaking the law or some shit. There had been this yellowing paper he’d lost growing up, listing a horrific multitude of allergies -most of them disappeared with age anyway - and Sunggyu’s pretty sure somewhere between prawns and cashew nuts, ‘morning’ had also been scribbled in.

This - this is criminal, being up at fucking eight in the morning, already halfway across the country stashed jam-packed into a rattling tin can of a subway. There has got to be some rule about personal space because Sunggyu is suffocating between a drooling elderly and a yakking lady who finds it imperative to flatten her rump against something - Sunggyu’s leg in this case - as she maintains her obnoxious conversation. If he scrutinizes - which really is the only thing he can do without tasting a mouthful of heavy perm hair - little bits of chicken seem to wave at him from between the elder’s teeth.

Thirty minutes nearer to his second semester and rain starts clattering on the tin can. Now, Sunggyu is perfectly fine with the increased din - lady talking over the rain, other people talking over the lady. He is also perfectly fine with rivulets racing down windows. He gets slightly irritated at stubborn droplets clinging on, until the train jerks and it disappears downwards like other droplets - but only slightly. What he isn’t fine with, are the umbrellas that push their cold wetness into the throng of people, jabbing him in the ribs and thighs and soaking up his jacket. And cue the dripping overcoats, repelling water onto him - because he had been dry until then, and now he has to travel for another hour damp and god, why does it stink the chances of seats are as slim as him drying off by then.

Sleepy, wet and cold Sunggyu is not a happy Sunggyu - so when something hits him on the head, he really wishes he had some badass x-men powers. Something like telekinesis, or pyrokinesis; to kill, eventually, but torture mostly.

It had been a ball of crushed paper, now laying by his shoe, unhappily sponging up dirty rainwater. It’s too crowded and stuffy for Sunggyu to bother looking around. Instead, he settles for a zen moment in his mental haven - detachment from the physical world, from the bodies (and stupidity) pressing in from every direction -

His knees buckle and eyes snap open. The train seems different now - quieter, emptier, he must’ve fallen asleep. It takes a minute for his brain to start, before registering what tore him from divine slumber; another ball of paper laid a few metres away from him. Annoyance sparks up inside his stomach, growing with each glance for the culprit. If anything, the desolate sight of a frail withering grandmother, a handful of adults dressed in black - somehow symbolic of their sleep-and-vacation deprivation - and sloppy kids sprawled over empty seats, only served to fuel Sunggyu’s irritation. Instinctively, the teenagers should be charged for criminal behaviour, sentenced to eternal banishment - oh Sunggyu totally could’ve - if not for the fact that they were all asleep, in decent clothes.

The train skids to a halt and Sunggyu is hit again, by another projectile.  He looks to the left, noticing for the first time a kid in a brown pullover, hands shoved into his pockets, stepping off the train. Blood rushes to his ears because it has to be him. Sunggyu barks ‘hey!’ at the moment ‘Daegu’ rings out of the metal announcement boxes (so he probably wasn’t heard but he’d like to think he was ignored anyway), and he’s not going to let it slide just like that; not after three times. Grabbing his bags and jostling past adults, Sunggyu registers - he’s in Daegu and the train is about to shut its doors.  This is his stop.

In a mad scramble, Sunggyu forces his way through in a jumble of muffled apologies and elbows, becoming increasingly frantic as the bleeping sounds begin blaring - just a little more and - he’s out with an effort, stumbling and righting himself; scanning the crowd lividly.

He catches the kid’s teeth.

They are sterile white against a backdrop of granite dark suits; an edge of sharp danger - flashing above the discomforting claustrophobia of dripping umbrellas and briefcases. He’s halfway up the escalator, smirk burning itself into Sunggyu’s memories as harsh fluorescent lighting threw shadows over hooded, inky eyes.

Sunggyu swallows - not so much a curse - back, breaths light (caught); stopping exactly what, he wishes he knew.

-

Squares should be straight, sides perpendicular to each other with mathematical precision. The lines should be firm, straight and dark. Sunggyu does not let his lines waver in the middle, let it be sketchy with streaks of white interrupting the trail of lead. He’s learnt that pressing his pencil hard into the paper makes it neater when drawing squares.

Preschool, Kim Sunggyu, is perfectly proportional.

-

Two weeks into university and Sunggyu thinks he might need a shrink. He’s been chucked into a decrepit apartment, wooden floor turned white beneath flaked paint and dust, cobwebs stashed in corners accompanied with croaking window hinges. All of his requests (four) for a transfer have all been shot down with rapid succession by the man-lady admin. She guards the front office, bearing both an uncanny resemblance and loyalty akin to a Rottweiler.

If there’s any luck he can boast of, it’s getting posted to the only apartment the entire lodging block hadn’t planned on using.

First day of school and he’s two hours late for lecture, hair dishevelled and face greasy from the liberal amount of detergent he’d been using in his war against The Apartment. Classes rammed right into him, one after the other, and when school’s finally over, Sunggyu sits at his desk dazed, still processing the first lesson for that day. Majoring in art, with an intimidating coursework (forty showcase pieces and one final course submission), Sunggyu finds the students even scarier. They’ve all come from art schools, wielding such high propensities for artistic endeavours that Sunggyu wouldn’t be surprised if they hung upside down from a tree for an hour to get “the right picture”.

While Sunggyu’s head is still trapped in Monday, sleeping four hours a day and spending most waking hours fighting feelings of despair regarding his own inadequacy - all above trying not to get lost on campus - his heart sinks closer to oblivion on Thursday, as his classmates shared their “topic of interest” during art class, of which “they would be exploring in their pieces”.

Last year, one girl had stayed behind her cohort to retake the exams. She killed herself, subsequently, unable to handle the stress. Sunggyu thinks that he might just take her place this year, in similar fashion to “cyclic systems prevalent in nature” - Sunggyu scoffs at the thought of his classmate’s ridiculous topic (and maybe just a little bit out of bitterness).

The plan for today (it’s already Thursday), is to grab a latte, sit in the plushest armchair and zen for so long that he’d hopefully turn into a statue.

Except even that goes wrong. The bell tinkles as he steps on maroon carpet, air-conditioning rushing past him. At the far end of the room, nearly inconspicuous, Sunggyu recognises a pair of inky eyes wedged into slits. Before he can think paper balls, he’s halfway across the café, weaving between bean bags and stumbling into a coffee table once.

‘It’s you,’ the words tumble over each other as he approaches. ‘The train, you threw and left, we - you.’

Sunggyu stands in his spot rigidly, the café bustling with noise around him. Time stops; awkwardness spanning between them as the kid looks up, regarding Sunggyu with apparent disinterest. Sunggyu hadn’t considered the possibility that this may be a complete stranger, or that he might be committing social suicide right now by confronting a senior - was this kid even a senior?

The kid returns his attention to the sketch on the table, dragging a pencil lightly over a window. As the initial uncertainty wears off, irritation flares up inside of Sunggyu - both at getting ignored and the sketchy lines the kid’s drawing. Gritting his teeth, he falls heavily into the seat, eyes drilling holes into that sharp nose bridge pointing downwards.

‘I don’t know if you’re staring or sleeping,’ the kid begins, setting his pencil down to regard Sunggyu. ‘You know, with your,’ his index and middle fingers draws horizontal lines across his face.

Sunggyu’s mind falters, fumbles, and his mouth opens and closes as if deciding on a good comeback. This kid is really pissing him off; he thinks about demonstrating the full extent of his eyelids’ range (the kid has pretty small eyes but they’re still bigger than his anyway); he wonders if telling him to screw off shows attitude (but he’ll probably really leave and Sunggyu will never find out the truth behind the paper balls). He thinks for so long he realises it’s too late to not look like an idiot; there’s an insufferable grin on the kid’s face, his inky eyes are drawn to crescent blackness (something tumbles in Sunggyu’s chest).

‘“So handsome”, “unbelievably attractive”, “he must be a top student”, which one is it?’ The kid asks and Sunggyu blinks.

‘Wha -’ He gets it a second too late. ‘I wasn’t -’

The kid smirks and Sunggyu notices that he really is kind of attractive. Then he gets even more annoyed.

‘You threw the paper balls on the train, that was you, wasn’t it?’

‘We don’t even know each other,’ there’s this tone that picks on Sunggyu’s ego.

‘Yeah, I recognise you, why did you do that?’

‘It’s amazing how you reach your conclusions.’

‘I didn’t appreciate that.’

‘Let’s pretend that it had been me. Why do you care so much? I’m probably a skitzo or something - how about that conclusion?’

Sunggyu loses his train of thought for a second - yeah why didn’t he think of that?

‘Stop that,’ he snaps.

‘Stop what?’ The kid has this amusement in his voice that Sunggyu really wants to break into half.

‘Changing the subject.’

‘Stop that.’

‘What?’

‘Accusing me.’

‘God, what is your problem?’ Sunggyu glares at the kid - well, tried to, with his hamster eyes.

The kid laughs, genuinely. He watches him shake his head, body vibrating with mirth as he slips his pencil and eraser into his pants, rolling up the paper.

‘Hey,’ Sunggyu stands up, bordering on livid. ‘We’re not done yet.’

‘See you around, Sunggyu hyung,’ The kid says, sliding out of the seat.

Incensed and a little more than puzzled, Sunggyu watches the gait in the kid’s steps - exactly the same as the guy in the hoodie, back at the subway. He’s frowning, running through their conversation, noticing they hadn’t introduced and -

Wait. What?

-

Art theory class ends with a shrilling bell. Sunggyu’s promptly on his foot, grasping at the slipping contents of his file while formulating a hundred different openings in his head. Each sentence begins to sound worse than the previous as he fights against the crowd, pushing and mumbling apologies and suddenly, too soon, he’s sliding into the seat across inky eyes.

‘Hey,’ Sunggyu fumbles for a second when the kid looks at him, and he gapes for a moment before, ‘I think we got off wrongly,’ comes out in an incomprehensible rush.

‘No shit.’

There’s an awkward pause, a million things running through Sunggyu’s head - is he pissed? He’s pissed isn’t he? ‘cause he used the word ‘shit’, and his sentences are short - the kid grins, jagged canine kidnapping any semblance of coherency Sunggyu thought he possessed; and he barely manages to smile back without looking too much like a robot.

‘Painting? Photography?’ the kid asks, reaching out to tug Sunggyu’s development book out of his hand, flipping through it. ‘Sketching?’

‘Painting,’ he replies with slight hesitation, skin tingling from the scratching of the kid’s fingers. ‘I don’t know who you are.’

The kid glances up from Sunggyu’s awful scrawl of a street, face breaking into a smile. ‘Woohyun.’

-

Slightly too bent, this corner of the lamppost. Sunggyu erases it, dragging his pencil over the canvas, scratching filling the room. He’s sweeping strokes across the canvas, trying to ignore the inaccurate lines that fell centimetres short of the pavement’s ideal curve.

‘Erasing, erasing, erasing.’

Nearly dropping his pencil, Sunggyu finds Mr. Yung inspecting his work, permanent frown resting on his eyebrows.

‘What is your piece again?’

‘“Nostalgia”, sir.’

‘Nostalgia does not erase itself, Sunggyu,’ Mr. Yung clucks, straightening up.

‘I just want the sketch to be neat when I paint it, sir,’ Sunggyu swallows, and his stomach wrings as the distance between them expands with unspoken, unexplained expectations.

‘The canvas is scarred with lines. Every stroke leaves a scar, every erase leaves it empty. I want you to think about that.’

-

The café barista is a moody student, all sombre expressions and a frigidity that accounts for the café’s air-conditioning. After a month spent agonising over homework, Sunggyu finds a hidden sense of humour in Myungsoo; this happens after witnessing he and Woohyun gossip (with very colourful vocabulary) about the clothes their teacher had been wearing.

It is slightly over a month; there’s an unofficial rule that the table tucked in the far left corner belonged to him and Woohyun - no student took it, even if both of them arrived late at the café.

‘Hey,’ Woohyun said once, coffee light on his breath. ‘It’s like we own this now.’ Sunggyu takes a second to register how close their faces are, because Woohyun likes to interrupt him in the middle of his sketch; it’s Woohyun’s fault, he likes to shove his face into other people’s, speaking in a way that magnetises a person’s full attention. He remembers burning up, fingers numb from the air-conditioning but the puff of coffee still creeping up his nose. The word ‘we’ hung in his ears, even as Nell played after Woohyun returned to work.

Interrupting his work is what Sunggyu notices about Woohyun. It could be in the middle of perfecting a car, Sunggyu is forced to drop his pencil (lest they make stray marks) because Woohyun is gripping his wrist, flopping his limp hand back and forth.

‘What.’ Sunggyu would question, looking at him like he was stupid and Woohyun would laugh.

Woohyun is irritating. If it isn’t the hands, it would be the legs. Stepping on each other, kicking lightly - he is restless and Sunggyu, exasperated, would give in. His art is also irritating. It is full of stray marks and loose lines, uncertain wavering proportions - angry lines, soft lines, it takes most of Sunggyu not to pull an eraser over the canvas.

He is also synonymous with evasive. Sunggyu is convinced it had been Woohyun who threw the paper balls, but with every question he puts out - Woohyun talks about getting coffee, or dismissing it, or laughing at Sunggyu ‘hallucinating’. His denials come tinted in a shade of humour, an orange gradient that blurs the conviction a declaration holds. Sunggyu can’t believe a sentence that wavers on the fringes of amusement; it feels like a poor cover for a lie.

-

‘Someone’s in a happy mood,’ Woohyun pulls his canvas nearer to himself as Sunggyu unloads a truckload of materials on the wooden table.

Sunggyu makes a noncommittal noise, unrolling his piece and seething at it.

‘Don’t tear your canvas up. Drama is bad for the café’s image and your coursework.’

‘I wasn’t planning to,’ Sunggyu says, looking up helplessly. ‘It just…it sucks.’

‘You’re right,’ Myungsoo speaks over his shoulder suddenly. ‘It does.’

Sunggyu glares upwards and that forces the barista to hold up his palms in surrender, smirking and slinking off. He sinks back into the armchair, watching Woohyun inspect his work, eyebrows furrowed and teeth pinching his bottom lip. It’s slightly attractive and when Woohyun looks up - right at him, Sunggyu flips inside.

‘It doesn’t suck,’ Woohyun sets the canvas down, fingers pointing to the top of the shop houses. ‘It’s just unnatural. Your landscape is old, the building here has a sharp edge at the top. I think rounding it off makes it better, like weathering, you know? Unless you’re aiming for modernity against tradition, that kind of thing?’

While Sunggyu digests that, a clearer direction appears; looking at his work, yeah the roads are too flat, the buildings - one dimensional.

He glances at Woohyun, wanting to thank him, and finds the boy already painting his own piece of work - finds him sort of extraterrestrial; sort of unbelievable (bright and brighter, he might just be -).

Myungsoo breaks his staring by placing his caramel macchiato on the table heavily. Both of them glance up, to the barista giving Sunggyu this all-knowing look, causing heat to expand in his cheeks.

‘What’s your piece?’ Sunggyu asks Woohyun randomly, after Myungsoo left with a pat on his shoulder, trying to distract him from the violent red.

There’s a wry smile as Woohyun looks at his canvas, lovingly, slightly sadly, before returning his melancholic gaze to Sunggyu.

‘Regret.’

-

Dongwoo and Sungyeol moves in mid-March.

Well, not move in exactly. It had been in the middle of Sunggyu’s instant-noodles-dinner when his doorbell rang, and he thinks he hears this hyena laugh - which causes him to stumble from the kitchen.

He stops at the sight in his living room. The doorway is clogged with luggage, Sungyeol resting on one and Dongwoo poking his birdhouse box where all the keys are kept, evidently entertained at its oscillation.

‘Um,’ Sunggyu begins stupidly, catching their attention.

‘Hi hyung!’ Sungyeol stands up, beaming. Dongwoo gets distracted from the birdhouse, an expression of great joy overtaking his features at the sight of Sunggyu. ‘Can we live here?’

He blinks stupidly.

‘Great!’ Sungyeol decides, dragging all the luggage in. Dongwoo adds a, ‘We knew we could count on you, hyung!’.

Sunggyu’s mouth starts a few times.

‘Um.’

-

Friday creeps around again; Sunggyu thinks he’s becoming increasingly insecure about his work. Mr. Yung is stalking the class, standing behind him a few times and it’s all Sunggyu can do to not pull a curtain over his half-painted street, concealing it from invading eyes and unrelenting words.

‘Good texture, Sunggyu,’ Mr. Yung comments and Sunggyu relaxes.

‘Thanks.’

‘But there’s no emotion.’

Lifting his brush from the lamppost, Sunggyu leans backwards, scrutinizing his work.

‘How do I -’

‘You worry too much about technique.’

Sunggyu is lost.

‘This is a good piece of work. Good strokes, good texture, good colouring. But that’s all it is.’

-

‘Hyung, the television doesn’t work!’ Sungyeol complains a week after invading Sunggyu’s dorm.

‘I don’t need it to work,’ Sunggyu replies, energy pale in comparison to the youths in the apartment. Sungyeol is sprawled over the couch manhandling the remote, while Dongwoo leave crumbs all over the floor as he snacks, reading manga. The television is bleating a chorus of static, furious black dots contending with white across the screen.

‘I can’t do my homework without the channel, hyung,’ Sungyeol whines, agitating Sunggyu.

‘Try toggling the power button,’ he suggests absentmindedly, trying to memorize Van Gogh’s timeline.

‘Nothing.’

‘Changing batteries?’

‘Nada.’

‘Hm.’

‘Hyung!’

Exhaling with the vigour of an expired man, Sunggyu faces the pouting kid. ‘It’s probably an antennae problem.’

Sungyeol looks at him expectantly.

‘What’s in it for me if I fix it?’

He watches the kid’s expression cycle through bewilderment, to concentration, to anguish, before lighting up, smiling widely. It is kind of scary when Sungyeol smiles like that. He looks dehumanized.

‘I have information about everyone on campus.’

‘Everyone?’

‘Everyone.’

Tossing the possibility over in his head a few times, Sunggyu begins subtly. ‘What do you know about Nam Woohyun?’ he says the name carefully, nearly too casually. He’s counting on the arbitrary nature of the interrogation to mask his intent - he’s never found out about the paper balls.

‘The genius? He’s in my art class. The teacher’s got pretty high expectations of him, but he’s screwing up somewhere. I mean, we all are, anyway.’

‘Holy shit!’ Dongwoo exclaims from the floor, getting up so quickly he upturns the bag of Ruffles and simultaneously causes Sunggyu to suffer a mental seizure.  ‘Naruto just absorbed the Kyuubi!’

‘Are you serious?’ Sungyeol scrambles from the couch in disbelief.

Sunggyu opens his mouth to address the state of chaos that is his floor and -

‘Hyung you’ve got to fix the television!’

-

Hearing his knees crack, Sunggyu hoists himself into blinding sunlight, spilling through the roof access and prickling his skin. He needs to seriously hit the gym soon, panting like that, but before he paid it much attention, he notices a figure sitting near the ledge.

That back profile is ridiculously familiar and before he could rationalize - ‘Woohyun?’

The figure turns around, prominent canine obvious in the sunlight, and Sunggyu thinks the glow is suitably apt for one such as he. Ethereal, intangible, a star out of reach.

‘You’ve never struck me as a sneaky pervert.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m up here to stare at people’s laundry.’

Sunggyu snorts and Woohyun laughs - a forced, painful, hard sound. There’s a whiff of lavender when he settles down beside him, staring out at a labyrinth of weathered squares. A savannah of sepia concrete boxes stretched towards the horizon, broken by spires of the school’s gallery. It’s hard to breathe for him, experiencing antique beauty at the top of the world.

‘Yeah well, I’m here to fix the television.’

‘Utility man,’ Woohyun says with a tone that suggests being impressed. ‘Sexy.’

‘Shut up.’

Unuttered appreciation lingers in the silence between minutes that pass, hanging clouds drifting lazily above; there’s a slight breeze, forming a silent smile across Sunggyu’s lips (and he knows Woohyun too).

‘I really hate myself,’ Woohyun begins, voice nearly consumed by the soft chorus of vehicles below.

‘Me too.’

Woohyun spares him a cynical glance, amusement in his eyes. He’s caught between being glad that he’s entertaining and offended that he’s not being taken seriously.

‘I’m selfish,’ Woohyun continues, fingers picking at strays of his jeans. ‘I’m a bastard.’

‘Can’t be more selfish than I am.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

He hears the smirk in Woohyun’s voice. Just for that, Sunggyu’s going to spoil the moment with sarcasm.

‘My aunt wants me to be a doctor and here I am, in art school.’

A kid’s echoed laughter fills the silence.

It’s uncomfortably strange because Woohyun is always cheerful - this person is burdened, tired. There’s a foreign, grave, dulling of his eyes, a split-second of lacklustre.

‘You live with your aunt now?’

‘Yeah. I’ve never seen my parents before.’

The sun is exploding millions of times in a second, trapped in a brilliant display of brightness, and yet, the light disappearing from Woohyun’s eyes dims it all.

A car honks, an ice cream truck sings, bicycle bells ring - somewhere beneath the labyrinth. There’s something profound (sadness) in the stretching of Woohyun’s lips, thin and tight.

It makes Sunggyu wrap an arm around his shoulders.

‘Hey, cheer up.’

Woohyun’s face snaps up so suddenly it startles him (he’s doing it again, pushing his face into others - it’s amazingly mesmerizing). Sunggyu’s breath catches in his throat, partly at how close their noses are and partly because Woohyun’s eyes are bloodshot.

‘You know, I -’ his words are incoherent and strained, voice coarse. ‘Just…never mind.’

‘We can talk,’ Sunggyu finds his own words adopting the same quality, his throat like sandpaper. ‘Or not.’

Sunggyu thinks he might be displaced from gravity, blood drumming against his ears.

Woohyun’s eyelashes are long and pretty, and his scent is intoxicating (lavender or cocoa). The ticklish heat of his body is enveloping and his chafed lips - perfectly curved.

Noses merely inches away - Woohyun smiles, wry and sorry. Their advance halts; Sunggyu’s eyelids lifting.

‘I win,’ Woohyun’s whisper ghosts over his lips (warm, damp, butterflies). ‘I’m the most self-centred asshole on earth.’

-

Doorbell.

Non-stop.

Sungyeol protests tiredly from the floor, hitting Sunggyu with a pillow. Dongwoo is out cold, so Sunggyu shuffles out bed, groping the walls with sleep-impaired vision. He stubs his toe twice, knocked his knee against the living room couch, before finally reaching the door.

He opens the door.

‘Hi hyung!’

A pause.

Slam.

-

An empty tube of wasted yellow paint and half of both red and blue lay by Sunggyu’s shoes. He cannot decide on the colours to paint Nostalgia.

The bell had gone off an hour ago but he hasn’t even started.  His paper palette is sagging from the weight of paint in his palm, and Sunggyu’s becoming more frustrated by the second. It’s quiet in the room, a drastic difference from his dorm where Sungjong is ‘working out’ to HyunA’s ‘Bubble Pop’, but its mocking his inability to think.

‘Your strokes look better.’

Nearly jumping off his seat, Sunggyu spins around, shooting Mr. Yung an irritated look. ‘Can you please stop sneaking up on me like that?’

‘Sepia? Monochrome? Vivid?’

Boring. Boring. Flashy. They all look terrible in Sunggyu’s mental picture of what the piece should be. It must be glorious; glowing from unseen, passionate effort on gallery day.

Right now, it’s a chicken scrawl of a cobblestone street, unfilled, scratchy, imperfect; Sunggyu tuts in irritation.

‘You are art, Sunggyu,’ Mr. Yung continues, palm resting on his shoulder. ‘An artist does not create for others. He creates for creating. He creates to live; he creates for himself.’

He starts to defend himself, he knows that, ‘I -’

Mr. Yung cuts him off with a shake of his head, as if to say listen, ‘until you understand that, Sunggyu, your colours will always be wrong.’

-

Leaving his canvas after another futile hour, Sunggyu walks out of class looking at the ground, because that’s what sad people do and it seems proper for him to follow, and right into someone.

Thursday becomes Sunggyu’s most awful day of the week. ‘Sorry -’

Woohyun. Suddenly he wants to retract that apology.

‘Maybe not.’

Iron grips Sunggyu’s wrist as he tries to brush past, tugging him back painfully. Anger prickles through him and he glares at Woohyun. Bubbling, frothing, nearing a fever pitch - simmering at his hold; at that guilty expression.

‘We haven’t spoken in a week,’ Woohyun states.

‘Hi.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

He can’t bear to look at his face; the grip tightens and Sunggyu hates how he winces at that.

‘Yeah, well, wasn’t it awkward enough last time you tried to kiss me?’ His voice is too controlled.

‘Aren’t you used to that? You’re always an awkward turtle.’

Sunggyu tries to pry his arm off and fails, finally looking at Woohyun proper. There’s that smirk on his face and he realises that he’s come to like it, very much. Which really isn’t helping his situation.

‘What?’ Sunggyu asks viciously.

‘Huh?’

‘Us,’ Fire flares again as he watches Woohyun swallow, understanding his question. ‘What are we?’

There’s a moment of deliberation, ‘hanging in equilibrium.’

It’s hard to look at him again.

‘It’s just… I… Never mind.’

‘You what?’ Sunggyu snaps. ‘What is it this time? Stop talking in riddles and finish a goddamn sentence for once. Is it that hard?’

‘I didn’t come here to fight.’

‘Yeah, you didn’t,’ the words are coming out like a furious avalanche. ‘Throwing paper balls, holding my wrists - you know, I thought we had something. I don’t - can’t understand you.’

Hurt clouds those inky eyes he’s  first caught sight of on a cold January morning, but he’s way past thinking, he’s always thinking too much, so much, it’s not fair.

‘Maybe you’d kiss me, maybe you won’t,’ Sunggyu’s voice is level, his words sharp and impaling. ‘It’s probably not a big deal for you,’ he laughs, not even believing himself. ‘Probably not, knowing all the parties you get invited to. Forget it.’

‘You liked me,’ Woohyun says it like a question and it’s nearly too soft underneath his thumping chest. ‘You really liked me, didn’t you?’

Sunggyu yanks on his arm again and he briefly registers Woohyun’s growl before his back collides with the classroom door. Something shatters inside.

‘You’re fucking crazy,’ Sunggyu’s voice trembles as Woohyun pins him harder against wood.

‘It’s just,’ Woohyun’s eyes are bloodshot again, burning into his. ‘There’s just, I can’t tell you.’

‘Then how can I know?’ That we feel the same.

Calloused palms go under his shirt and Sunggyu’s throat constricts, he reflexively pushes against Woohyun’s chest. Woohyun breathes him in along his neck, and Sunggyu’s palms collect into fists, gripping Woohyun’s shirt.

‘There are so many things,’ he shudders involuntarily as Woohyun mutters low and hot into his ear. ‘I’m doing wrong, and you’re too important for that.’

‘Fuck you,’ Sunggyu’s breath hitches when Woohyun grinds into him. ‘And your fucking excuses.’

‘You don’t believe me.’

The air is chilly, his skin burning hot, as Woohyun pulls away and looks at him with this look.

‘No, I don’t.’

Neither of them moves, and Sunggyu, beneath his erratic heartbeat and jumbled thoughts, knows he’s fracturing beneath his half-hearted glare. The hurt in Woohyun’s eyes dissolves into something unreadable, his jaw set.

Sunggyu doesn’t move even after Woohyun’s left. He stands with his back against the door, skin missing - craving the warmth of large hands, neck still tingling and there’s a strange ache in his chest.

-

‘…yung.’

Noisy. Quiet.

‘…hyung.’

Tsk.

‘Hyung!’

Sunggyu jerks awake, mind fumbling, trying to understand his surroundings. It takes a moment for Sungjong’s face to make sense and another for him to remember that he’d fallen asleep on Miss Lee’s homework.

‘How long have I been out?’ Blearily brushing his stationary off, he hastily flips through the assignment. Three pages left.

‘Two hours.’

‘And you didn’t wake me?’ Sunggyu stares at Sungjong unbelievably.

‘You seemed tired hyung,’ Dongwoo offers from the couch, tapping furiously on his PSP.

‘No, he’s just an idiot,’ Sungjong rolls his eyes, arms akimbo as he scrolls through the songs on the television screen. Abracadabra, Gee, Change, Muzik - girl group dances, he should’ve figured.

Hang on.

‘Yah, Lee Sungjong! What did you call me?’

‘When’s the last time you went to the café?’ Sungjong asks without looking at him, deciding on Top Girl.

Two weeks ago. What is he supposed to say; even the youngest knows now.

‘If you can’t do your homework at home, then just stay at the café,’ the youngest continues as he struts in the confined space, in perfect sync with G.NA. ‘It’s not like you’re taking performing courses like Dongwoo hyung and I.’

‘Yah, don’t talk down to me.’

‘Like you’re in a position to talk - boom! -‘ Sungjong mimics the chorus. ‘You -boom!- fought with -boom!- Woohyun didn’t you?’

‘Aw yeah! I got the Sword of Absolute Death!’ Dongwoo exclaims, sitting up and punching the air repeatedly before returning to the virtual world.

‘That’s not -’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Sungjong, I’m warning you...’

‘Guys!’ Sungyeol bursts out of their shared bedroom, a crazed look in his eyes. ‘I did something amazing!’

They all look at him.

‘I made a model of the solar system...out of cheese balls.’

-

They’ve always said art is difficult, but Sunggyu’s never been one to get stuck for more than a few hours - much less a month. Now he’s experimenting, sweeping yellow, brown, blue paint, over a pseudo landscape of his final piece - and they all resemble animal droppings.

‘Do you have like, any idea what you’re doing?’ Kibum asks sceptically.

Kibum, or rather ‘Key’, is this guy with multi-coloured hair and a fashion sense Sunggyu can never comprehend.

‘Honestly, no.’

Kibum sighs, having an extraordinary ability to make a person feel terrible about himself, intimidated of him, and grateful all at once. Rolling his chair beside Sunggyu, feline eyes begin dissecting the painting into shreds.

‘It’s a wasteland. There’s no soul in this,’ he states bluntly. ‘It’s awful.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What’s it called?’ Kibum continues, bending down to scrutinize Sunggyu’s title scrawl. ‘Nostalgia.’

‘A little less yellow, maybe?’

‘It’s not that. Do you have experience to tap on?’ Kibum looks at him, crossing his legs with three paintbrushes between fingers. It’s kind of fabulous.

‘Um, nostalgic experiences? Like…when I return to my high school or think of the exams my juniors are taking?’

He swallows at the diva taking a moment to blink furiously, before resting forehead on fingers, as if getting a headache from too much stupid.

‘No. You need something deeper than that,’ Kibum waves his hand airily. ‘Something like baby times, like your baby shoes or napkin, or the bicycle you rode as a toddler.’

Oh.

Sunggyu has none of those.

He begins life at twelve years of age. Everything beyond - nursery, day care, baby cot, they dissolve into each other; an incomprehensible gaping hole in memory. The details are sparse. He’s been told he suffers from degenerative memory, and with time, he’ll slowly forget even the scraps of chicken porridge and cartoons still left with him.

That’s when he decides that maybe, Nostalgia wouldn’t make such a good project for him to work on after all.

-

There are times in life where everything slows down to a crawl. It is then, that retrospection finally surfaces, gasping for air, having always been trapped underneath all the chaos and fatigue of living.

Sunggyu thinks that he’s never met another less perfect shape. Not even a shape, really. Lines all crooked and grainy; neither square nor rectangle nor circle.

Woohyun is terribly imperfect. The left border does not meet the bottom border. The top juts outwards like the roof of a house.

Proportions all wrong.

Strangers do not throw things at other strangers; do not make fast friends; do not make fleeting lovers.

This imperfect square is coarse and brash and sophisticated in his non-sophistication. He’s a mystery and friction burn, a kind of fire that only confidence gives.

It’s one of those nights Sunggyu wakes up to a sleeping world, crickets singing in their slumber and delirious owls in harmony. In those moments, Sungyeol’s leg would hit the bed lightly. Soft moonlight chases away the shadows creeping over Sungjong’s vulnerable face; illuminates the dreams Dongwoo fights for, behind closed lids.

He stays up, eyes wide open, wondering who the stars stay up for.

-

Stumbling into a spacious room littered with abandoned canvases and unoccupied easels, Sunggyu catches a whiff of oil paint and buttered cookies.

Everything began with Sungyeol interrogating, rather uncharacteristically hostile, if Sunggyu is interested in Woohyun’s art. Well, yes he is, but it’s not like he couldn’t live without seeing it - but Sungyeol just needs that slight hesitation in Sunggyu’s denial and he goes on a traipse with his predisposed notions, resulting in this current situation.

‘His painting’s at the back of the room,’ Sungyeol pushes him from behind, waving in encouragement. ‘He’s not here.’

After glaring at Sungyeol twice more, tripping over a ripped canvas in the process, Sunggyu quells his apprehension and picks his way through the easel maze. There are half-done paintings around him, expressionist, post-modern - a boat under starlight, a girl on the moon, probably some abstract pen scratching all over the canvas (not unlike his exam essays).

What catches his breath is the drying canvas set upon a collapsing easel, tilted against the wall. A boy stares out the window, at a friend smiling with a thousand suns. The room is dark, shadowed with a lonely blue. Outside, it is screaming bright, illuminating and near incandescent.

His chest twists painfully as he scrutinizes the impeccable texture, the blend of colouring; he’s never seen a student paint something so sad before.

This must be Woohyun’s. It’s been over a month.

Clicking sounds, footsteps, the dragging of a chair - Sunggyu’s been so enraptured with the painting, he had been completely oblivious to someone returning.

He suffers a jolt. Inky eyes settles down and uncaps a bottle of water, wetting his brush - inspecting everywhere but in Sunggyu’s direction.

Damn Sungyeol.

There’s a growing silence. They both hear the sounds loud and jarring. The setting down of Woohyun’s bottle cap. The soft blub of water. Scratching of shoe against granite. Sunggyu feels obvious, imposing, like a sore headlight in the night, as Woohyun begins mixing paint without a word.

‘Hey,’ he begins uncertainly.

Woohyun’s mixing red and yellow, brush strokes calm and undisturbed, as orange swirled. He acts like he doesn’t hear it. Sunggyu develops this heightened sensitivity to Woohyun’s actions, every turn of the head, flick of the wrist - all burns him like scalding iron.

‘Look, I don’t know what I did. I fucked up, okay?’

Woohyun begins lacing the windows with orange. Sparks prickle through Sunggyu.

‘Can you please look at me?’

He looks. What a bastard. His movements are dulled, resting his wrist on a knee, brush drying. He’s staring at Sunggyu and Sunggyu doesn’t have anything smart to say. Seconds pass. There’s a leaking sink in the classroom above.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

‘I’m sorry.’

Woohyun’s eyes widen, only slightly, and Sunggyu uses it to surge forward. ‘Besides, you still haven’t told me why you threw those paper balls.’

This sliver of a smile cracks through that concrete face, an echo of that smirk he’s dispensed so freely to Sunggyu before. Relief washes through Sunggyu as he exhales.

‘Sorry about that. I just wanted to confirm.’

‘I really want to ask what you’re confirming, but I don’t know if I’ll fuck up again, I’m just so curious,’ he’s rattling, Woohyun’s eyebrows lift. ‘And when we don’t talk - it sucks. I -’

Woohyun laughs at that and before Sunggyu can frown, cold wetness slashes across his face, orange paint hardening against skin.

‘Stop talking.’

His mouth falls and he lunges wildly for the paintbrush. There’s a mad struggle for the weapon as Woohyun juggles it from hand to hand, Sunggyu practically scaling Woohyun and yelling for it. Suddenly, it’s a competition and Woohyun’s laughter is clear behind Sunggyu’s incoherent protests. They contend in a power struggle that ends up crowding on a chair and it doesn’t stop until -

- an elbow knocks into Woohyun’s canvas.

A pause. The canvas tilts precariously on its edge and this time, the yelps are not about paint. They both reach out madly to salvage it, blood pounding in their ears and - Sunggyu manages to catch it by the sides.

His heart is hammering; they both linger in the split-second, the fate of a year long’s painting hanging by a strand. Their shock had ended so abruptly, a laugh brims somewhere behind Sunggyu’s throat. He’s in Woohyun’s lap, and he really should move - until Dongwoo appears from the row of canvases surrounding them.

And then it’s too late.

‘Guys? Sunggyu hyung? Um, are you hungry? I’m hungry. Let’s have lunch - or...’

Sungjong pops out behind Dongwoo and Sunggyu groans inwardly. The boy’s eyes expand as his jaw drops, his perverted little mind drawing its own conclusions.

‘Dongwoo hyung.’

‘Huh?’ the dancer looks genuinely confused, Sungjong widening his eyes for emphasis. He takes awhile, glancing between the boy and them, before realization sweeps through his features. ‘Oh. Oh. Well then, Sungjong and I are going to head down to the café first.’

The two of them scamper off, whispering excitedly and leaving Sunggyu’s face burning. There’s a high-five and whooping in the distance, which causes Woohyun to burst out in laughter, Sunggyu sighing in embarrassment - relaxing backwards into the painter.

And maybe it isn’t so bad to stay that way for a bit, because Woohyun is warm and ticklish against his back. A little comforting, a little safe and assuring.

Quite possibly, a little like love.

-

‘Hey,’ Myungsoo smiles as Sungyeol slinks over to his side, behind the barista.

Sunggyu gaps.

‘You didn’t know?’ Woohyun asks, catching his expression. ‘They’ve been getting it on while we weren’t talking.’

‘No way.’

‘Just because you have a boyfriend, hyung,’ Sungjong materialises out of nowhere. He needs to stop doing that. ‘Doesn’t mean others don’t have romantic prospects too.’

‘I didn’t - Woohyun’s not my -’ so he fumbles like an idiot, and before he finishes his sentence, a crowd roar cuts him off.

Since the start of the term, the café has been reduced to a zoo. It is virtually impossible to complete an assignment by spending a day there, because Dongwoo had decided to drop by, caught up with long lost dance partner friend, Hoya, and now it’s a dance-off every afternoon of the week.

The thing is, the dance-off never really stops in half an hour. It’s a café, in an art school. In fact, the café is synonymous to dance floor now, and the only reason Sunggyu’s putting his grades at risk is because Woohyun doesn’t stop going.

What separates them from the rest (him, really; Woohyun joins in on the breaking sometimes and Sunggyu is horrified at the social behaviour, or lack thereof), is that they stay. They stay past the crowds, until its dark outside and the distant highway skittered with midnight cars; until little Christmas lights glow around the café and they’re bathed in orange.

Then that’s where their hearts open. Where Sunggyu memorizes the tilt of Woohyun’s jaw as he smiles, the crinkles and lines of his eyes, the baritone voice that sings a timeless lullaby. On some days, their fingers find each other (the apocalypse nears - what’s there to lose?), and Sunggyu recognises the weight of Woohyun’s hand, secure in its firm, steady grip. Other days, they scribble silently, unspoken conversations borne on each other’s sketches.

Hey, I think that lady there looks pretty smokin’.

Sunggyu rolls his eyes.

Want me to get her number?

Woohyun laughs, clear and loud, and Sunggyu tries to ignore that leap in his stomach.

‘I’m kidding. Don’t be mad.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Holy shit, you’re actually mad?’

In all that, there still lingers this hesitance in Woohyun. It’s subtle, like everything else important is with Woohyun, and it doesn’t escape him. A kind of self-preservation or personal reign Sunggyu can’t break the boy free of.

The drop of his hand - a little too quick sometimes. Sunggyu thinks he’s scared, but it’s only near the end of term that he understands.

‘I don’t know why,’ Sunggyu begins. Sketching cobblestones become boring sooner or later. ‘But I can’t remember anything about my parents.’

There’s no reply. Woohyun’s probably dozing off again, or focusing hard on work. Sunggyu glances at his pencil; it’s not moving.

‘I think I’m an orphan.’

‘Don’t - never say that.’

Sunggyu’s chuckle dies prematurely - the crispness in Woohyun’s reply trampling it.

It’s slightly unnerving because he’s never seen him so serious before, staring at the drawing but wrist,  stationary.

‘What’s up with you?’

The boy’s throat bobs, eyes shuttling quickly, setting his pencil down after a second.

‘Your parents,’ his heart picks up. ‘They, they were the best people.’

‘You know my parents?’

Orange vanishes from the lights. It’s black and white as Woohyun frowns, staring out the window, coiled tight like a frustrated spring. Heart thundering, pound pound pound, Sunggyu waits.

Woohyun glances at him, and there must’ve been something in his eyes that refused excuses because he exhales tiredly.

‘Look, I don’t know if it’s my place to say -’

‘You know my parents, that’s why you threw the paper balls in the first place didn’t you? You wanted to confirm it was me.’

‘Sunggyu -’

‘Where are they?’

‘I don’t know if you’d want to know -’

‘Who are they? Why can’t I remember anything about them? Why did they leave me - where?’

‘They’re dead, Sunggyu.’

-

At four years of age when napkins clipped his collars and his steps were wobbly, Sunggyu makes a friend. They stuck together, neighbours, houses right across the street - perched on the lonely edge of Korea far away from blazing city lights and billboards.

Every birthday party Sunggyu writes a card, perfecting his handwriting, decorating it with stickers and colour pencils, because Woohyun deserves nothing but the best. He doesn’t get anything for his own birthdays in return though, except Woohyun’s flashing teeth and the jubilation of running on roads, arms spread wide open with the world at his feet. It’s freedom and flight, escape and dream.

A dream violently shattered to infinitesimal pieces.

Wednesday afternoon, another teacher comes into the class. She calls for him. Brings him to the office. His aunt is seated.

She turns around - and Sunggyu’s petrified at her ugliness. Her face is horrifying - not the beautiful lady who makes delicious pineapple tart, but a monster of lies, a brittle smile of crying sadness.

Woohyun had food poisoning the same time Sunggyu was learning to draw squares. The car had been flying, zooming down the countryside, because Woohyun was vomiting yesterday’s dinner out. Another car crawled, grocery list pinned to its windscreen, pop music reverberating through its windows.

Nobody could’ve seen the bend in the road.

Woohyun moves away with his family on the day Sunggyu says goodbye to his parents, for one last time. Sunggyu’s small, vulnerable heart splintered right across, ripped apart by abandonment and despair. It rocked him unto the floor, wracking against tears as a wide gash tore itself down Sunggyu’s world.

They call it dissociation.

But now he remembers.

-

‘Hyung, I’m sleeping over at Nicole’s tonight,’ Sungjong calls from the living room.

Sunggyu is attempting to seem like he’s cramming Frida Kahlo and Neomexicanismo in his brain. Truth is, he’s just staring blankly at the page. Final written examinations are less than a month away.

Zoning out with a book open is still better than nothing.

‘Did you hear me, hyung?’ the kid appears in his doorway, voice suddenly loud and Sunggyu jerks.

‘Yeah, go ahead.’

Sungjong doesn’t move from the doorframe.

‘I said okay,’ Sunggyu faces him.

‘I’m not going anymore.’

‘What?’

‘Sungyeol and Dongwoo hyungs won’t be home,’ Sungjong sits, cross-legged. ‘You’ll be alone.’

Sunggyu blinks. That’s right, Sungyeol’s doing midnight shift with Myungsoo, and Dongwoo is over at Hoya’s, trying out the new PS3.

‘Silly. I have to study anyway.’

‘Did something happen with Woohyun hyung?’

He’s been: avoiding him, not meeting his eyes in the hallways and disappearing down flights of stairs when Sunggyu shouts for him. The epitome of a passive asshole - evasive and rude.

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

He flips the pages, self-portraits staring out at him unnervingly, watching him.

What will you do, what will you do.

‘You know, Nicole didn’t want to talk to me last month,’ Sungjong says, abruptly. ‘I pulled her by the hair and forced it out of her.’

Sunggyu hesitates for a moment, uncertain of whether he should be learning from this, or if his big brother ego is supposed to do something about Sungjong’s behaviour. ‘Sungjong you can’t just pull a girl’s hair -’

‘Anyway, my point is,’ this kid needs to stop cutting him off. ‘Go and force him to talk to you if you have to.’

Sunggyu flushes, having need advice from a seventeen year old.

-

If Sunggyu had been living in solitude for most of the year, he’s definitely seeing the university town in all its decadent glory right now. The neighbourhood is ablaze with drunken lights, orange, flashing, moving. Sunggyu’s head vibrates with a deep bass rumbling out of an apartment block, and he wonders if there’s a rule forbidding people like him to be here.

A few teenagers burst out the front door of the thumping apartment block, faces flushed in the autumn chill, stumbling onto pavement and laughing deliriously. One of them begins climbing a car, limbs gangly and careless as his friends crowd against the windscreen.

The car probably didn’t even belong to them.

Walking away from the students, now slurring lyrics of an unidentified song, Sunggyu enters the ecstatic tumult with clenched jaws. A bitter taste hangs in the air, shoulders pressing up against him as he tried pushing his way through the claustrophobic heat, speakers blown to the max confusing everything.

‘Woo..?’

He should’ve thought better of asking a drunk girl for the guest list, because all she’s really doing is touching him in all places inappropriate.

‘Woohyun. Is there somebody called Woohyun here?’

‘Small eyes, pretty smile,’ she giggles, bleached hair hanging into her face, and if it’s not for Sunggyu holding her up, her knees would’ve given way. ‘He’s a cutie.’

‘Yes, he is. Is he here?’

‘You’re so boring,’ she’s slobbering all over Sunggyu’s shirt now. ‘Haven’t seen him around since January.’

It takes half an hour to comb the room, without success, before Sunggyu decides for a respite. Squeezing out of the suffocating room, he gasps in cold air, finding the elevator lobby suddenly more spacious. There are students knocked out on the stairs and on the floor, red plastic cups littering the ground. A girl retches out of the front door, hair spilling past her shoulders and as Sunggyu starts to help her, black flits at the corner of his eye.

The exit door cracks open and spiked hair slips out - Woohyun.

His chest jumps, immediately barrelling towards the exit, right into an alley with an over-burdened dumpster and Woohyun a few meters down. Sunggyu swallows, taking in Woohyun’s frame that’s been missing for the longest time. His back is against the wall, head lolling on his shoulders and when Sunggyu stands directly in front, his eyes are red.

A few seconds pass, before Woohyun’s eyes widen and he laboriously pushes off from the wall - Sunggyu’s turn to grip his wrist.

‘Let go,’ his breath is laced with alcohol.

‘You can’t keep fucking doing this to me.’

Sunggyu hears the blood in his ears as Woohyun’s tired gaze connects with his. He notices for the first time how angry he actually is. A knot forms in his gut.

‘What are we?’

Drunken, careless voices bounce off the walls from the road. Dissonant Christmas carols don’t reach them from outside. There’s a rush of satisfaction when Sunggyu squeezes Woohyun’s wrist so hard the latter’s eyebrows twitch.

‘What am I?’

Woohyun looks at the ground, his breaths are shaky. Silence is heavy in the cold.

‘Truth is, I’ve never really forgotten about you,’ Woohyun begins, words still clear despite the hunching shoulders. ‘I-I think you have. Forgotten about me, I mean. But since then, I’ve never,’ a pause, and he continues stronger this time. ‘stopped wondering, you know? If you’re eating, or if you’re doing well in school, or if you’ve made friends and I guess, I-I’m glad to know that I’ve been worrying for nothing.’

Woohyun glances up, hesitantly, and his stomach flips; it’s really warm.

‘So you weren’t planning on talking to me?’

‘I just needed to know if you’re okay.’

‘But we’re like this now.’

‘We shouldn’t be.’

The boy’s eyebrows are knitted, he averts his eyes, and Sunggyu sees the window between them. The window of cold, empty blue, constructed with acrylic paint. He is the boy outside the glass; the toddler smiling with a thousand suns in orbit. And Sunggyu’s heartstrings click, an accurate frequency, a faint transmission of disappearing clarity, with that of Woohyun’s.

‘I don’t blame you.’

Woohyun is visibly frozen for a second. Sunggyu knows that if he weren’t intoxicated, he would’ve pried himself free and bolted.

‘I took everything away from you,’ his words are a quieting tempest. ‘You have nothing now.’

‘Having nothing means having nothing to lose.’

There’s a something teetering on the edge, something unexplainably hopeful and bright, as Woohyun’s throat moves and he faces Sunggyu, heart splayed. He lets go of Woohyun, slipping his fingers between the boy’s, and an uncontrollable grin spreads across his face.

Hey, you know what I mean right?

It’s okay.

-

Next week, they fight over who gets the waffle with more chocolate filling.

Woohyun eats both.

-

The afternoon before Gallery Day, Sunggyu goes and collect Sungjong back from Nicole’s house, needing him to help spring clean.

Sunggyu knocks, and as he pushes the door open, he finds Sungjong gyrating his hips to Abracadabra with Nicole beside.

‘Oh my god, hyung!’ Sungjong screams, and both Sunggyu and Nicole wince from the dolphin pitch.

The kid covers himself with his arms, as if he had any dignity left to preserve.

Sunggyu decides to come back later.

-

His final piece is done.

At the bottom of the painting, Nostalgia is scratched out, with Anticipation written below. The left half of the painting is in monochrome sepia, the right half in vivid kaleidoscope.

In between, Sunggyu has left unfinished portions, white still uncovered, and pencil markings stark against the primed canvas.

Just because art is never perfect, like how squares are not meant to be straight.

-

Somehow, something has changed.

Sunggyu is a little less straight lines but a little more complete now. His centre, pivot, lies in a certain painter. His parents are in the past, have left him - but Woohyun had always been there. With Woohyun, Sunggyu feels human; feels pain and love and hope and struggle - alive, and his parents, if anything, they’d want Sunggyu to live.

‘Hey,’ Woohyun says groggily, opening his dorm door at eight in the morning. Sunggyu thinks eight is just right.

Woohyun greets him with bed hair, white t-shirt loose and eyes bleary. Sunggyu doesn’t even mind the lack of grooming - he kisses Woohyun, fists tugging on the thin fabric of his shirt so hard, he might rip it. The boy’s yelp is muffled and Sunggyu smirks.

‘Somebody’s impatient,’ he mutters lowly when they break apart for air.

‘Zip it.’

‘Oh, I’ll unzip it in a moment.’

Sunggyu’s lips curve against his, dissolving in the security of his hold. The universe loses its balance but it’s okay because Woohyun is there to catch him.

He cannot move forward without accepting the past, but now, he’s going to run towards the future - towards Woohyun.end.