"Hey Ji." Youngbae calls out, smiling as Jiyong turns to meet his gaze. It’s been two years and their meeting spot hasn’t changed. It is as usual, underneath the same, semi-luminous streetlight, right by the alley and outside the most affordable sushi bar in town. Small wonder why they had gotten along so well - Jiyong prized frugality and pragmatism as much as he did. Hardly anyone else would've agreed to be brought to a typical, middle-class dining area on a day as extraordinary as May the Eighteenth.

"Where's my gift?" Youngbae remarks playfully, the thin line of his lip breaking into a loose, small smile.

"Well, that’s for me to know. And you to discover, later. Or, never.” Jiyong says cheekily, pulling the other into a hug. "Happy Birthday, Bae." He says in earnest, when they finally make it across the street, into the sushi bar.

"S'been a long while since we've had a meal together," Jiyong remarks absently, a little unsure of what he is to do next. It is fitting he thinks, that years of silence and their near telepathic understanding of each other would leave him at a loss of words time to time.

Was there really anything to say to him anymore? Was there anything that could be said?

These questions nag at his subconscious sometimes, every time— scratch that, most of the time -- he’s thinking about Youngbae. It’s not like he does it often enough that he has derived a definite answer. Jiyong doesn’t go around missing people. He thinks about them, sometimes. Doesn’t miss. Always has a plan on what to do next, around the people he doesn’t miss.

Except, maybe, today, in particular, he struggles to fill in the silence. He’s maybe just a little caught up with how Youngbae’s clean and properly shaven, though the faint trail of stubble still shows down the dimple of his chin. Youngbae’s just so, incredibly ethereally beautiful. Just so assaultingly beautiful to look at Jiyong needs to stop.

“So..” Jiyong initiates the unsuccessful attempt to break the silence - an implicit suggestion in itself that things between them had yet to normalise.

Did he expect things between them to be okay? It was their first meeting in just two years. It shouldn’t be that hard. It’s not as if Jiyong had expected to be able to see Youngbae again, clad plainclothes and living the life of a civilian as if he had all the right and freedom in the world, to do so.

Whoever said those with bloodstained hands had to be chained? Not him.

Not him but Youngbae cries the small, petulant voice in his head.

"Got any plans for tonight?" Jiyong asks when they take the seat by the windowsill. His eyes had been visibly glazed, and his mind persecuted in thought. Youngbae could tell. And, that Jiyong only belatedly realises, was a stupid question. Jiyong wants to punch himself, literally. It shouldn’t be so easy, this easy to lose his sense of control, especially with Youngbae.

But then, Bae wears this same crescent eyed smile on his face, see. It stupifies Jiyong so much and there he goes again — he almost forgets he's drowning in his own absurdity.

"Plans?" Youngbae quirks an eyebrow, expelling a small laugh after.

"Really, Ji? You're asking this question in the evening with me seating opposite you for dinner at a sushi bar?" He jibes playfully at Jiyong, crescent-eyed. "Guess I do have plans. For you, that is. Speaking of which, do you mind if I ask a small gift from your part?”

"Shut up--" Jiyong retorts, bottom lip jutting out in petulance.

"I--." He hesitates, taking a moment longer than usual to process the other's unusual request.

Jiyong figures that since it is Youngbae's birthday after all any right to his request reject would and had to be temporarily inapplicable to him. "Fine. You're gonna get only one gift from me.”

”You haven't changed at all, Jiyongie." Youngbae mutters under his breath using the pad of his thumb to coax Jiyong's eyelids gently shut. "Close your eyes, Jiyongie." Youngbae whispers, voice hushed as he studies the reaction of the younger.

"What are you doing Bae, I..." Jiyong mumbled, chewing nervously on his inner lip, distressed by his own wilful blindness.

Rising ever so slightly from his seat, Youngbae latches his thumb beneath his chin, tilts it upwards gently before edging in to brush his lips chastely against Jiyong's. He was certain it wouldn't trigger too favourable of a reaction on Jiyong’s part, because treading on murky grounds, amorphous distinctions within a relationship was what Jiyong hated most. But no call could hold back Youngbae's desire. He had wished for this for too long. And now, he is sated, just as he was all those years back, up in their dilapidated and wooden refuge.

The brief brush of Youngbae's lips startles Jiyong. Instinctively, he leans in, the years of misguided frustrations and forlornness pent up within his chest vaporising in a matter of seconds. It is like breathing fire; the accident of their lips, the forbidden intimacy revived and all of Youngbae's defiant impetuousness in the face of it all.

", Bae." Jiyong whispers, embarrassingly breathless when Youngbae breaks their kiss. It's disdainfully ineffable, the way Youngbae evinces the human feelings he thought he had longed exiled from every inch of his sullied being. Jiyong had done things; gotten himself so immensely tangled in his own web of lies his very survival is contingent upon his ability to embrace Machiavellianism. He has done enough evil to merit himself a throne in hell; but none yet as malicious as having a literal angel of the earth fall in love with him. It is no exaggeration. Countlessly, endlessly and tirelessly had Youngbae time and again, forgiven Jiyong for the broken promises and most recently even his own near encounter with death.

“Just missed you. Missed this." Youngbae mutters, placing his hand over Jiyong's. Youngbae remains silent for a moment longer, his gaze lingering wistfully at Jiyong's bottom lip.

The silence seeps in again and this time it’s the ticking clock and the unspoken countdown that confines them to their own insular apprehensions.

Time is running out. The law enforcement will find Jiyong, and Youngbae is vaguely aware of how Jiyong will slip past his fingers again; like the golden grains of sand Jiyong had pressed into his palms the first time Youngbae was introduced to the seaside. It was a fearless, inconsequential escape then, when they ignored the school bells, climbed out of rusty, ivy-covered school gates, for that mile-and-a-half run to the sea.

Youngbae can only wish with all his heart now, that semblances of such escapes, such togetherness, will still see a possibility.

"Look -- I'm sorry. For bringing this up, Ji. But I--yeah. I still look back sometimes. It all comes back, you know?"

Jiyong sighs, clenching his fist as he locks gaze with the other. "I know, Bae." He lowers his voice, handing the other the long overdue menu. "I know." He wants to tell Youngbae he misses him too, and that it all comes back to him, comes raining in on him like torrential pelts of raindrops at first and then like the brutal torrents of a dessert storm; every attempt to grab hold of the passing present, is futile. So instead, Jiyong says, "Order something. You must be famished."

"Right." Youngbae nods absently in response. He blinks, before vaguely realising that they are at a sushi bar and both quite literally by the sushi belt. He wants to laugh or cry maybe. They both have too many words left unsaid, too many doubts left to reside within the depths of their hollow chests. It's despair, its whimsical, comical, but its most painful, to see a friendship that had been the most genuine undergo this aching transformation. It could’ve been a beautiful transformation into so much more. Youngbae doesn't speak; he sets the menu gently away before reaching for the tamago sushi.

"Baka." He mu