“I’ll go out with you...as nothing! We’re not friends and we’re not dating! Just say what you have to say”, Hansol said the next day when Soonyoung waited for him in the elevator again. The older smiled, despite Hansol’s harshness. Hansol made the mistake to look at him. He’d always been a er for Soonyoung’s smile. It had something contagious to it so he couldn’t quite manage to keep a straight face.

“Did you just smile?” Soonyoung questioned. Hansol looked away. “No...”, he replied. He got off the elevator as soon as the doors opened.

~

Mrs. Ahn pulled Hansol aside after an hour of working. “My dear boy, this is the second day in a row that you’re acting like an absolute disaster. Is everything alright?” she asked. “I’m really sorry...I don’t know what is up with me”, Hansol lied. He didn’t really want to tell her about his ex-boyfriend.

“Maybe you should go home. How about I’ll give you the week off?” She all but pushed him out of the store. “Feel better soon, okay?” she said before closing the bakery’s door. Hansol sighed for the millionth time this week but he took off anyway. He didn’t go home, though.

Instead, he took a bus up the mountain to the N Seoul Tower. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted up there but he felt like something was pulling him there. He reached the top of the hill after 20 minutes of an angry bus driver honking his way there. It was crowded as usual but he still decided to get a ticket.

He hadn’t come here in three years. This was the place where he was dumped after all. But now that he was here, he found it beautiful. The view over the city was amazing. He took the elevator up to the viewer’s platform. There were people taking pictures and children playing. Hansol walked past the candy and the souvenir shops and made his way around, looking out of the big windows.

He stopped when he saw Soonyoung standing by the window that read the distance to Osaka, Japan. The exact place where he broke up with Hansol three years ago. The older turned around as if he knew the other was there. “Hey”, he greeted. “Hi”, Hansol replied.

An awkward silence broke out. Hansol stood next to Soonyoung by the window. “Why did you come back?” Hansol asked, staring out of the window. “Because I missed you”, Soonyoung said. “After three years you realize that you miss me?” “I missed you ever since I left but I knew that I had to go. I thought it was the right thing to do”, the older said.

They both stared out of the window for a while, neither of them saying anything at all. It was almost like before, Hansol thought. “How about I take you out for lunch? We could talk about everything”, Soonyoung suggested eventually. Hansol just nodded and followed him to the exit.