Yoseob thumbs forward a few pages in the chapter of the novel he has to finish by the end of this week. He glances around briefly and wonders if their chef’s finished dinner yet even though his parents aren’t supposed to be home until later tonight. If he remembers right, he still has to do an entire page’s worth of questions for this chapter review tomorrow and if he does it on a full stomach, he’ll probably be able to do it quicker and get to his math sooner.

                “Are you even listening? Yoseob-ah,” Chinhae demands. “Yah—look the up from your book.”

                He raises his eyebrows at the older boy, glancing up from the novel.

                Chinhae sighs irritably, reaching out and taking the book out of Yoseob’s hands completely, slamming it down on a nearby table. “I said I was ing sorry,” he snaps. “The least you could do is ing pick up when I call you. Do you know how much ing homework I have? I had to drive all the way to your house on a ing weeknight just because you won’t pick up.”

                Yoseob calmly stretches his arm out and takes back his book, flipping through to find his place again. “I have homework, too,” he says coolly.

                The other boy snorts. “You’re still in ing eighth grade. What the does homework matter to you? I’m going to be a ing third year next year, Yoseob-ah, if my grades ing drop because of you—”

                “They won’t drop because of me,” Yoseob says, looking up again and blinking amiably. He smiles lightly and waves his novel in the air. “We’re done, remember?”

                Chinhae stares. “No,” he says slowly. “No, we’re definitely ing not done. I just ing apologized—so we’re definitely ing not done here, Yoseob-ah—”

                Yoseob stands up, book still in his left hand, and pats the side of the older boy’s face with it gently. “She’s really pretty,” he says thoughtfully, looking up into deep, dark eyes and raising his eyebrows again. “She’s from your school, right? A first year? I feel like I saw her at a benefit—”

                “It was a ing mistake,” Chinhae says, desperation starting to pit into his tone. “Yoseob-ah, I’m serious—” He grabs Yoseob’s wrists, trying to tug the younger boy against his body.

                Yoseob doesn’t fight back. He doesn’t move either—simply continuing to stand there, the smile no longer on his face as the older boy looks at him imploringly, wordlessly pleading. Yoseob thinks about how it’s actually a shame that Chinhae looks so frustrated right now—frustration doesn’t do much for such a good-looking face, oddly enough. He blinks slowly once more up at the older boy. “Bye, hyung.”

                Sometimes Yoseob wonders why he keeps doing this to himself—why he continues to meet boys who he knows he’ll only end up saying goodbye to in a few weeks anyway. He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just stop. He doesn’t understand how one after another, they’re all the same, because isn’t there some sort of probability factor in this? Like picking a good apple out of a sack of bad apples? After the numbers Yoseob has gone through, shouldn’t he have come across at least one good apple?

                He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just stop if it’s become more than obvious that he hasn’t been handed a sack of good and bad apples. He’s just been handed a sack of rotten fruit, where regardless of how many he takes out—they’ll all be the same and he’ll just keep getting sick.

                He keeps getting sick from them, but he has to keep taking them out and eating them anyway. He has to eat something. It’s better than starving to death, after all.

                His cell phone tells him that if he isn’t home in an hour, he’s going to have to search the performances up online tomorrow afternoon because he’ll miss the live streaming time. Yoseob wriggles a bit in the older boy’s arms and stares longingly at the door just a few feet in front of him—he really wants to watch the live broadcast. “Hyung,” he says to Manshik, “If I miss the opening, I’m going to be really pissed.”

                “I’ll let go if you promise to come back,” the older boy says, face buried into Yoseob’s shoulder, arms secured around Yoseob’s waist.

                Yoseob glances at his cell phone again. “Not sure if I can promise that, hyung,” he says easily. “Hanyoung-shii probably won’t like if I hang around here too much, right?”

                “Yoseob-ah,” Manshik begins, angrily, turning Yoseob around so that they face each other. His arms grip Yoseob’s shoulders hard. “What ing more am I supposed to do? I said I was sorry. I said I’ll never do it again. I said I’ll do anything you want me to if it makes up for what I did. She was just—I don’t—it was just—I don’t want her, you know that, I’m ing serious so listen to me—”

                But Yoseob doesn’t need to.

                He feels like he has one song constantly on repeat with the earplugs resting far too tightly and uncomfortably in his ears. He’s heard this all before, again and again, the same song—the same lyrics—and he’s always responding the same way. He always has to sing back, and it’s always the same song for him, too.

                Yoseob tears out of Manshik’s hold, slamming his back into the older boy’s bedroom door. He’s not smiling anymore again, but unlike the last few times the song’s come on repeat, he can’t bring himself to be quite as expressionless as before. Maybe it’s because he’s falling for it again—maybe it’s because Manshik lasted a little longer than the others did and Yoseob got too secure again—maybe it’s because he fell into that terrible thing called hope.

                He lets his fingertips touch the older boy’s cheekbone. “Bye, hyung,” he says, and hates how he actually sounds apologetic, how there’s actually emotion in his voice, how his voice shakes.

                Yoseob thinks that he probably should stop at least before high school. He should stop because the older they get, the more they grow, the deeper things can run and he doesn’t want to get so deep that he can’t even swim himself out—he doesn’t want to keep doing this to the point where he won’t be able to find the shore anymore and grip onto land. He doesn’t want to feel anything—

                Because that’s when it gets dangerous.

                He doesn’t want to drown.

                He walks around the room, bending over and picking up his clothes one by one. He already has his jeans, his t-shirt, and his sweatshirt in his arms—he’s still looking around the chairs and tables for his underwear and socks since he’s pretty sure his shoes are safe near the doorway. It would probably be easier though—and faster—if Daeho wasn’t following him around talking frantically and loudly and furiously.

                “You’re a ing guy,” he says as Yoseob looks beneath the chairs, “what—do you want your ing first time to be when you’re ing married or something? You’re not a ing girl—and you’re going to be a ing first year soon. Why they would you want to go to high school a , are you ing—”

                Yoseob straightens up and wonders why they all start cursing when they get mad. He puts the clothes he’s picked up so far on his desk. “Why do you need to me so badly?” he asks quietly, looking up at the other boy. “You looked fine with Myungdae-hyung yesterday. He’s hotter than me anyway, right?”

                Daeho rolls his eyes. “Why the are you still hung up on that? It’s not like I ed him—it was just making out.” He grabs Yoseob around the waist, his bare chest pressed against Yoseob’s back, swinging the younger boy around playfully—an attempt to appease. “Yah,” he murmurs lightly against Yoseob’s ear, “in high school, kissing’s nothing. You know that, right? I’m trying to be a good hyung and teach you what you need to know, y’know?”

                Yoseob doesn’t say anything. He stands there, absolutely motionless and planning to wait it out until the older boy lets go of him. He plans to wait it out—plans that are immediately cancelled when he feels Daeho’s hands slipping low on his body again, and Yoseob yanks himself away. He grabs his clothes and backs far, far away—all the way to the other side of the bedroom.

                “Hey,” Daeho says softly, laughing slightly, his eyes mildly surprised. He steps forward, one foot in front of the other towards Yoseob. “Hey,” he takes Yoseob’s face in both of his hands, the younger boy’s expression stiff and although he’ll never admit it—frightened. “I’m kidding.” He leans in and kisses the corner of Yoseob’s mouth, the center of Yoseob’s lips, Yoseob’s jaw, Yoseob’s throat. “Relax, okay?”

                Yoseob swallows, his mouth shut tight, teeth digging into his lip. “Leave,” he whispers, shrinking away, edging away against the wall. “Leave, right now. Put on your clothes, ing leave, and don’t come back.”

                It gets easier.

                After a while, it gets easier and Yoseob doesn’t mind having a sack filled with only rotten fruit. He keeps going through them, methodically and almost unfeelingly at this point—just for the sake of keeping himself alive and fed, if nothing else. There are a few that are less spoiled than the others, some that have only gone past their point of freshness by just a tiny margin.

                It gets easier and easier and even though the song keeps playing on repeat, and Yoseob’s response solo keeps falling from his lips on repeat, it’s not so hard anymore. For most people, goodbyes are supposed to be sad—supposed to be hard and difficult, supposed to be filled with thoughts and closing decisions and memories.

                For Yoseob, goodbyes are easy.

                They’re easy, and they’re empty.

                When his parents tell him that they’re moving, that Yoseob has to move schools too, he knows he probably doesn’t react the way they expected. He wants to tell them that there’s no point in waiting until he graduates from eighth grade, no point in letting him have a few extra days to say farewells and fix up contacts and all of that. He wants to tell them that he doesn’t need a few days, doesn’t need that much time because Daniel’s house is right next door and he’s the only person Yoseob actually needs to say goodbye to anyway.

                He’s dropped off at the gates of his new school earlier than he thought he’d get here. He’s not quite used to the distance yet so he woke up far before the time that his alarm clock was supposed to go off at. His parents weren’t even downstairs by the time he was seated at the table for breakfast, but Yoseob figures that’s okay since it’s a new route for his driver too and it’s better than being late on the first day.

                It’s high school.

                That part isn’t going to change no matter where Yoseob moves.

                It’s high school and he’s a little nervous—Daeho’s words coming back into his mind for a brief second as Yoseob starts to think of goodbyes even before he’s said hello to anyone in this building. He still feels his driver behind him next to the sidewalk so he flashes the man a small smile and waves him off.

                A few girls walk past him into the gates, giving him curious looks, and he raises his eyebrows at them playfully—they blink and look away with bright smiles. Yoseob smiles himself, and starts to follow them through the gates, hoping that they’ll lead him to the cafeteria where, according to the orientation paper, he’s supposed to wait until the opening-day assembly.

                He wonders how many times he’ll have to say goodbye during the next three years.