Kibum wanted to see the cherry blossoms. A few days more – and they would be gone, and he hadn't appreciated them enough last year, when he'd been single and had no one to share the romance with. He wanted to wear a white shirt and comb his hair back, and take a hundred pictures of him and his lover, together – because they wouldn't be young forever. Because the flowers, and the sky, and the two of them were beautiful enough to be captured in that moment of their difficult happiness.

He'd been saying so, and he'd prepared by buying two packs of Polaroid film well in advance, but now, when it was his free day, and the weather was perfect outside, instead of having the time of his life, he was sitting on the edge of Jinki's bed and staring indifferently at a patch of sunlight on the floor.

“Jinki.”

No answer.

He turned around.

“Are you sleeping?”

Jinki was lying on the bed, curled up, and covering his head with his hand, as if trying to hold it in place.

“I'm not sure,” he answered, finally.

“I thought we could go to Nami island,” Kibum suggested, not much energy in his voice. “Take a walk, you know.”

Jinki sighed.

“It's fifty kilometers away from Seoul. It will take at least half an hour to get to Yongsan station, and an hour to get to the island by train. It will be crowded and there will be couples everywhere, taking pictures for ages under every tree. We'll be completely worn out by the time we get back home.”

“And to go to 7-Eleven, you'll need to get up, take at least five steps to the door, ride the elevator, and then cross the whole road on your own two legs, and then it will take you at least three pushes to remember that it says ‘Pull’ on the door before you can enter. You'll be a different man by the time you return.”

Jinki said nothing.

“I can't imagine you thinking like that every time you need to sneak out to buy cigarettes,” Kibum continued. “Because how can you do anything if you turn each task into such a monster? It's my job to exaggerate stuff and then do it anyway.”

“I can't. That's exactly what I'm saying.”

“Why?”

“I drank too much last night. You can go without me.”

“Go without you, indeed. The whole point was to go together...” Kibum was beginning to accept his defeat when he remembered something. “We can go to the river and see the blossoms there. Half an hour by subway.”

Jinki tensed up.

“I can't go to the subway right now.”

“Sinchon, then? Twenty minutes if we walk normally, twelve if we run like we're being chased by a bunch of homophobic teenagers.” Kibum reached for Jinki's ankle to shake him. “Come on. The blossoms are measly there, but it's a compromise.”

“I wish I could. But I can't move. I can't go anywhere... Really, you can go by yourself, it's fine.”

Kibum sighed.

“You know what I'm gonna say.”

“I shouldn't have drunk so much. I've figured that out myself.”

“I don't need to say it, then,” Kibum muttered, getting up.

He went to the bathroom and got ready to go outside, alone. Yes, he'd prefer to go for a walk with his boyfriend, but if the alternative was to be confined in that room and soak up the gloom that he was currently spreading, there was no other choice.

Jinki heard Kibum walk to the bedside stool where his phone was lying, pick it up and unlock it, graphic pattern lock and all, somewhat disturbingly trouble-free.

“What are you doing?”

“Setting up your alarm clock.”

“It's set up already.”

“I'm making a reminder for you to get up and feed yourself, because apparently it's necessary,” Kibum explained. He added as a note: ‘Yesterday pasta in blue container. Take off lid. Set microwave to 4. 4 is Enough.’

He noticed Jinki's anxious expression in the corner of his eye.

“Don't worry, I'm not watching your hardcore space documentaries.”

Kibum put the phone back down and looked around the room in case he was forgetting something. His power bank was still charging and he went to unplug it.

The scent of his cologne followed his steps – not traditionally masculine at all, it evoked an image of tangerine trees on a fresh dewy morning. The scent of hope.

Jinki wanted it to linger, but he needed to be alone, too.

“Will you come here tomorrow night?” he asked meekly.

“If you want me to.”

“Come. Please.”

Kibum came closer to kiss his face.

“Then I will. Message me anytime.”

And he left.

The weather outside was, indeed, perfect – it was a day for sitting in the park and feeling jealous of people walking their big beige dogs around, for eating ice cream and getting more than enough of that vitamin D. What it wasn't for, was lying in bed alone with blinds drawn, and Kibum felt helpless when he thought about it. There must be something he could do. Must. But he had no idea what it was?

He just wished Jinki had given that day a chance. Once he'd seen that sunlight, filled his lungs with that air, his mood would've surely improved. They'd be joking around together instead of wasting their time being apart.

Don't be such a drama queen, Kim Kibum. Your boyfriend is having an off-day.

He decided to go to the river anyway – he knew that Jinki would want him to.

Just as he was approaching the subway entrance, his phone started ringing. ‘Jjong’. Kibum stared at the screen. Unlike Jinki, he didn't get completely terrified by receiving calls instead of messages, and it was his actual best friend calling, but, for some reason, he didn't want to pick up.

For the first time since the beginning of their friendship, including the time when they'd been in a romantic relationship and excluding that one time when they'd lost each other at a beer festival and Jonghyun got to see Song Joonki give a speech on stage without him, Kibum didn't feel like talking to him. He just had nothing to say.

He waited until the ringing stopped and called another number instead.

A dull voice answered.

“Choi Minki, I know that you're not working and that you need a reason to go outside,” Kibum said in a voice that didn't allow objections. “I'll go to pick you up at your house now and you'd better have your pants on, because we're going to see flowery trees and I don't want to see your things.”

He heard a sigh.

“Bugger off, Kibum.”

“Ten minutes! Pants on!”

“Is a skirt alright?”

“Anything that covers your skinny . Get ready.”

As if by magic, Kibum felt his mood improve and his sense of purpose return – for today, there was a soul he could help heal.

Jinki didn't notice the time that passed between the moment of Kibum leaving and his phone waking up and vibrating like crazy on the stool. At first, he thought that it was the next day already and once again he'd be facing the impossible choice between going to his classes and staying in bed, but the memories came back slowly. The alarm was telling him to eat.

He turned it off and went back to sleep.

It started ringing again, with a different message: ‘Seriously, get up’.

Jinki dealt with it in the same fashion.

But Kibum had foreseen that, too.

‘If I find that pasta uneaten you're gonna regret it~’

Uh.

He lay on his back, struggling to fix his eyes on the spinning ceiling and not fall asleep again. It was a challenge, as his body felt like it could've been made of stone.

When he gave up again, a fourth alarm came:

‘I love you so much it kills me’.

Jinki read the words of that sudden confession over and over.

He had to get up – for Kibum.

He had set the microwave to 5, but remembered his boyfriend's instructions and put it back to 4.

If only that stupid manhwa had never existed. If only.

After he ate, he deleted the app he'd used for reading Jonghyun's monstrous creation.

It resolved nothing. He'd close his eyes and still be dreaming of Taemin and what might have happened to him, because the damage had been done. But at least he did something, and he did it thinking of the person who cared about him much deeper, he believed, than he deserved.

To Kibum's astonishment, his fatalistic predictions did not come true: it was his second week at the new workplace, and somehow he still wasn't ensnared in a forceful marriage to somebody's third cousin. Nor was he in the army or back to his jobless state (yet). In fact, he was making friends left and right, and his new coworkers were even bright enough to accept his organizational advice. He taught one guy to fold and tie his headphones so that they didn't get tangled in his pocket, told a girl who was on the verge of crying all day long because her heels made her feet hurt where to buy good gel insoles (in an app) and convinced another girl whom he discovered during a low shift actually crying in one of the changing stalls to talk to her boyfriend before assuming that he was cheating on her with the hot girl at the gym just because he'd asked her about her green cocktail – and thus, Kibum was officially accepted in his new circle and his social ship had successfully sailed.

That didn't mean that he was loving the job or looking forward to ‘clopens’ or any more customers.

When he entered Jinki's room on Tuesday, he groaned and let himself sink to the floor in his ‘good’ pants.

“What?” Jinki asked. He was where he usually could be found – in front of his laptop, back arched.

“I didn't sit down for ten hours. I can't feel my legs,” Kibum complained.

“There are no chairs?”

“There are chairs. For the clients. There are also CCTV cameras to make sure that my job goes down as soon as my does.”

“That's a bummer.”

“Yeah... Also, I had to explain to a lady that we couldn't accept her six-month-old coupon and she was so mean she almost made me cry.”

“How come? I thought you were a ‘nasty ’.”

“That doesn't mean I don't have a gentle heart,” Kibum argued. “I have to be polite to everyone, and it out my y powers... Oh, and Jongmin told me he'd found a used tampon in a changing stall once and I prayed to our Lord and Savior that the same thing never happens to me. Ah, Jinki, what did I sign up to?”

He groaned again.

“At what point should I remind you that you used to be a hooker?” Jinki asked, ever so rational.

Kibum thought a little before answering:

“These things can't be compared! When you're a hooker, you go to a room or a car, you don't insult anybody's dong unless they're vocally into it, then you go back home and debacterize your whole body, meditate and then you can have your life back, and order that sweater you wanted online. But you can never be sure of what's hiding in a changing stall... Jinki.”

“What?”

Kibum raised his arms.

“Lift me up. Please.”

“Can't two sticks protruding from your do the job?”

The tired young man shook his head like a child.

“If I try, they might snap.”

Jinki closed his laptop and got up, muttering:

“That would be sad.”

Even though he hadn't spent the day lifting boxes and putting clothes on racks, he also felt a complete lack of energy – it even forced him to stop midway across the room and rub his eyes for a moment, because his vision got dark.

Kibum shook his head in disappointment.

“If it's us in our twenties, I wonder what kind of future awaits us,” he observed, huffing as he lifted himself up from the floor.

He noticed that Jinki's hair needed a wash and pulled him into the bathroom so that they'd take shower together.

To tell the truth, Jinki looked haggard – hollow cheeks, deep shades under the eyes, colorless lips. Even when they hugged and kissed, his body was tense. In fact, even though physically he was there, his mind didn't seem to be present: his answers weren't slow or vague and he did what Kibum asked him to, but his sober comments and quips sounded almost robotic, as if he'd somehow put his whole being on autopilot.

The warm shower did Jinki good, it seemed, by bringing some color back to his cheeks and some light to his eyes.

Kibum didn't hurry to put his home clothes on. It had been a while since they had or even touched each other intimately for the last time – their schedules mismatched, they were often tired or not in the mood. It could help him feel better, he thought, wrapping his arms around his lover's waist and leaning closer to give him a kiss. Well, Kibum himself would definitely benefit from a moment of pleasure and affection shared with the person he loved in the midst of stress and bustle of his new life.

With Jinki, he somehow reconnected with his true self. Yes, he still enjoyed running around in the quest of bettering himself and others and, thanks to the openness of his personality and his natural curiosity about the world, would always be willing to bring some colorful noise into his existence, but he wanted, needed with every inch of his skin that feeling of claustrophobic happiness that filled him up in the moments like this – his body was aching, it was time for bed and tomorrow he had to get up early, too, and there was no danger of his life drastically changing for the better soon, but it was enough to be standing under the light of a single lamp in that small, damp bathroom, and be making out with his quiet and unambitious nerd of a boyfriend, for him to feel complete.

They didn't need to speak at all.

Jinki kissed him back and wrapped himself around Kibum as well, his body was more relaxed than before, but there was no eagerness in his touch – he was following along.

Kibum truly wanted it. He led Jinki to the bed, their hair still dripping with water – he didn't want to interrupt the flow that was filling his veins with excitement by such little things as using towels. He climbed on top of him and put kisses on his blushing face and neck. His boyfriend did seem to be getting into it as he ran his palm down his spine and wrapped his other hand around the back of Kibum's neck, clutching onto his wet hair, to pull him closer.

Kibum could feel the impatience growing inside him. He broke off the kiss to work his way down his lover's body with his mouth.

Jinki shivered.

“Bummie.”

Kibum raised his head.

“What?” he whispered, his lips.

“I don't think I can do it right now. Sorry.”

Kibum sat up reluctantly.

“Look. If it's the whole being-gentle thing, it's fine. Go on and crush my bones, I don't mind. I've been kind of missing it, in fact,” he added with a shrug.

“No, it's...” Jinki rubbed his face as if wanting to hide it from view. “…I don't think I can get it up now anyway.”

“Maybe I can? I'm rather good at that, you know,” Kibum suggested with a smirk as he lay down next to him and tickled his chest with his fingertips.

Jinki caught his hand and held it.

“Normally, I don't doubt that. But you can't do anything about it.”

Hearing that hurt. But Kibum also knew it was true. In a very limited (as he wanted to believe) range of situations, what he had or could do was simply not enough.

Jinki indeed looked gaunt, like he hadn't seen the light of day for quite a while.

Kibum frowned.

“How did your day go?” he asked, serious now.

“It... went.”

“It was raining all day. Did you get wet?”

“No, I took my umbrella.”

Kibum's eyes narrowed.

“Then why are your shoes dry?”

Jinki gulped, avoiding his stare.

“I came back awhile ago.”

“What are you lying for?”

“What?”

His boyfriend hit his arm.

“Jinki, it was hot and sunny outside! You didn't even look at the window! You've been missing your classes and sitting here alone without even telling me! Talk about not hiding stuff from each other.”

He sat up again and dropped his head in his hands in frustration.

“What are you obsessing so much over?!”

“Don't you know?”

Kibum groaned from the depth of his upset heart.

“I just wanna take Jjong's stupid big face and ing break it,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “I'm starting to hate him.”

“It's not his fault. I mean, he didn't do anything bad to you, so... don't hate him.”

“Yeah, he only did everything to aggravate my boyfriend's depression.”

“Maybe it's not depression. Maybe it's bad personality,” Jinki suggested quietly.

“Right, you have a bad personality because someone else is acting like a jerk. Cool story, bro.”

“Well, he didn't cause my problems anyway...”

“You know, he likes talking about collective responsibility a lot. I wonder if he is even aware of his own part in anything,” Kibum continued, ignoring the other's remark.

He turned to look at Jinki's face: in his eyes, he could see guilt. It was wrong, he didn't like it. Guilt meant fear, fear meant defeat.

“Would you even be thinking about the Brat right now if you hadn't read Jonghyun's thing? Hm?”

“I-I don't know...” Jinki stammered. “Please, don't call him that.”

“I made you read it,” Kibum said, biting his lip.

“Bummie...”

He lay down, turning to the window.

“Well, the circle is complete.”

“You have no reason to blame yourself for anything. And if you do, it will only make me feel worse,” Jinki told him frankly.

“Sitting inside all day is wrong, Jinki.”

“Maybe. But that's all I can do.”

“Hwayeong gave me flyers for a concert. She's in the orchestra.

Will you go with me?”

As usual, the direction of Kibum's thoughts was unpredictable.

“Who's Hwayeong?”

“I saved her relationship by telling her not to worry about the green cocktail lady at the gym.”

“I don't- You know that I can get bored and fall asleep and-”

“Stop rationalizing it and say yes. We're hardly going anywhere together anymore, I love chamber music and I'm really looking forward to hearing it with you.”

“When is it?”

“Thursday at 7.”

“I might be -”

“You can postpone your meeting with the pillow. I'm sure it'll understand. But if you cancel on me again, I won't.”

Jinki clenched his teeth.

“Okay.”

Kibum turned around, looking a bit happier than before.

“Really?”

The other mumbled something, covering himself with the sheet, and he took that as a ‘yes’.

“Please, don't be late, though,” Kibum requested when the lights were off. “You know that the thing I hate the most is being late for concerts and movies, which is incidentally what always happens to us.”

Jinki gave a deep, deep sigh, accepting his fate.

“Yes, Bummie, I won't be late.”

As he was climbing the stairs to the exit of Seocho station, Jinki checked the time. He was running late. He didn't make that happen, and the delay had been partially caused by the fact that he'd actually forced himself to make a positive step and resume his studies, but one fact was not subject to doubt: Kibum was, somehow, always right. The second fact that was pretty clear was that he was surely already at the venue, stomping his foot and stressing out.

As soon as Jinki permitted himself not to let his boyfriend know that he would be there soon (texting or calling would slow him down anyway, right?), his phone started ringing, shooting a dull pang of anxiety through his chest.

“Hi, Lee Jinki. I'm calling to ask if you'd rather walk into a hungry lion's mouth holding a bottle of ketchup, , or be late when Kim Kibum is waiting for you?”

Jinki sighed. His boyfriend was using that deceivingly calm tone of voice that actually meant that he was fuming mad.

“Why would I be or holding a bottle of ketchup?”

“So?”

“I'd rather walk into a hungry lion's mouth holding a bottle of ketchup, ,” Jinki replied sensibly after almost being run over – the red light had caught him in the middle of the street.

“Ah, so heartwarming to know! So, where the are you?”

“I'm coming.”

“Coming where, how? Are you just coming to the drawer to put your on, are you in the subway, or on the street? Or are you coming because your Philosophy professor is giving you a ?”

Jinki could just imagine Kibum standing by the entrance of the concert hall in his ‘presentable’ clothes (he'd seriously contemplated starting a Youtube series he'd call ‘Looking Expensive When UR Cheap AF’, but laziness had prevented it) and ignoring the shocked looks of people scandalized by his language as they followed the queue to the doors.

“My Philosophy professor is a 70 year-old woman.”

“Well, she's human!”

“I'm walking through the Seoul Art Center now, I'll be there in three minutes.”

Well, technically he'd just started walking through the enormous art complex, and needed at least eight minutes more, but he didn't have the guts to tell Kibum the truth.

“Why are you always ing late?!”

“To give you a chance to let off steam by practicing your wit on someone who'll bear it.”

“You know me too well,” Kibum agreed, appeased a little by the other's altruistic motives. “Anyways, it starts in seven minutes… which is also the exact amount of hairs that I have left on top of my head thanks to stress...”

Jinki ran up two escalators in a row and was too short of breath to continue the conversation.

“Hold on to them, then. See ya in a moment.”

When Jinki finally climbed the last flight of stairs onto the third floor where their free seats were, he found one elderly couple to whom one of the usher girls was explaining that they needed to go down one floor to get to their seats, and one miserable Kibum who in his hopeless state could not be raging anymore and just watched listlessly as the other approached. The other girl was giving him a sympathetic look as if saying, “Come on, she's obviously stood you up. Just go inside and enjoy some Mozart”. That look changed to shock when she realized that the lonely young man in the fabulous sparkly black jacket had been nearly stood up not by some irresistible seductress in a pastel dress, but this disheveled guy who panted an apology through a waterfall of sweat rolling down his face after obviously skipping up a little too many stairs.

Kibum slapped his shoulder faintly (he grew weak after his mental crash) and took his hand, leading him to the confused girl.

“Sorry.”

The usher girl gulped as she opened the curtain for them, her eyes fixed firmly on their interlocked hands.

Thankfully, the stage was still empty and the concert hadn't started yet.

Kibum tutted, making his way to their seats and trying not to tread on the other guests' feet.

“If we hug and each other's faces on the street, it must mean we're army buddies on soju, but a simple act of hand-holding turns us into a pair of flaming homos,” he observed after he plumped down on his designated chair.

“Or maybe it's your outfit,” Jinki suggested, mopping his face with a paper tissue he had ‘stolen’ in a cafeteria.

“y?”

Kibum raised his eyebrow seductively.

“Hell, yeah,” the other answered correctly, and his boyfriend did that charming bashful smile accompanied by a gentle toss of the head that basically meant: “I know, I know”.

The lights began to dim.

Kibum cursed.

“What?” Jinki whispered.

“I was so anxious about being late I forgot to pee.”

“Maybe you can still go.”

“I don't know, it's starting now. I guess I'll just hold it in.”

The orchestra came out onto the stage, bowing to the audience to the sounds of applause that greeted them.

“You sure?”

Kibum nodded, clapping.

“Your bladder may pop, but at least we made it on time, and that's what really matters,” Jinki reassured him.

The other rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

The performance itself was pleasant enough, but Kibum did scrunch his nose at something he believed to be the wrong emphasis when the orchestra was playing Mozart's Piano Concerto K414. Jinki didn't react to that little nuance at all – he was dozing off after fighting it fruitlessly during the previous piece.

He had fallen into the arms of Morpheus completely by the time the first part of the concert was over, and the burst of applause that followed shook him awake. He joined in, yawning his face off – Kibum caught him in the act and pursed his lips.

Jinki shrugged, as if saying, “What? I can either clap or cover my mouth.” His companion didn't reprimand him: either because he chose to appreciate the fact that he had agreed to come at all, or because he was too busy preparing to jump up and run to the bathroom.

The doors opened, and the public poured out into the halls. Kibum's need for visiting the men's room was so urgent, he darted to the staircase without making sure that his boyfriend was following. The crowd separated them, and Jinki didn't even get a chance to let the other know that he didn't need to rush down the stairs – there was a bathroom on their floor, but it was in the opposite direction now.

Jinki let the flow of people going to the cafeteria bring him downstairs. He had no idea where Kibum had gone by now, so he strolled aimlessly around the columns adorning the hall, trying to block out the noise of people by other thoughts. But he had only one distinct thought at the moment: he was tired. Tired not only physically, but at the very core of his spirit.

He'd used to think of himself as a fairly normal, regular person – not particularly bothered by things beyond his little realm, relying on his physical health, the amount of cash that he could use and the idea of things either working out by themselves or losing their relevance with time, so that he wouldn't have to make exceptions and step out of his more or less clearly defined comfort zone for anything.

Missing what he'd never had? Wanting what he'd never needed? Aching after something that had seemingly never really touched his heart that deep? No, that was more than an exception. That was a serious glitch in the system.

When the hum and the bustle became too much for him to bear, Jinki cut through the crowd to prop himself against the wall and watch the scene from afar.

He could see all kinds of people doing all kinds of things – discussing the performance, chattering, laughing, trying to decide what they would order at the cafeteria, and none of them, it seemed, had come here without company. Normal people. Yes, they all looked perfectly normal, but then again, so did he, and now he knew their secret – they were all playing a part, each to their own extent.

Jinki didn't know what he was doing among those strangers, at an event he had no interest in. Kibum was not coming back, and now he doubted that he ever would. He even doubted the fact that he'd been there at all. Maybe he, Jinki, had been alone all along, clinging to that wall, for hours, for days... He slipped his hand in his pocket, his hands gripping the lighter as he observed the sea of unfamiliar faces.

And he saw him.

His lost companion.

How could he ever doubt the fact that he had come here with him? How could he think that he was not coming back, ever? What a fool...

Perhaps it was a vision, but... no, he looked too real. His skin emitted no ethereal glow, and there was no eerie shine in his eyes. And he was taking no notice of Jinki. He hadn't reappeared to haunt him or torment him with the memories of the past. He was simply there – a separate entity with a purpose of his own. Alive.

Taemin wasn't there alone; he descended down the stairs while talking to another, older man, laughing as he came closer to where Jinki was standing. Jinki didn't turn away to avoid being recognized, nor did he pretend that he wasn't looking.

He wasn't shocked, somehow. He wasn't excited, curious, or apprehensive. As his eyes followed Taemin across the hall, examining every detail of his appearance and never turning to the other man, he hardly felt anything. When he passed a mere few feet away from him, Jinki could hear the words he was saying – not that he cared about the content. Life is funny, he thought. So many anguished days and nights, weeks of delirium, all that doubt, and fear, and denial…

…And now, Taemin was standing right there. Jinki could distinguish his voice, asking the girl at the counter for a cup of hot chocolate – because nothing had really changed.

The younger man and his companion found a bar table that wasn't occupied and stopped there with their drinks, when another middle-aged man approached them.

Greetings were exchanged, and Taemin bowed to his elder as required by etiquette. As much as it was strange seeing him at all, it was weird to see him being so polite, all smiles and pleasantries. They had shared moments when he'd been relaxed and approachable like this, but they were mere patches of light in the shadows of his troubled state. Whoever those two elders were, Taemin seemed to be completely at ease around them – especially the man he had come to the concert with – he was rather good-looking and sad-eyed. The three laughed about something, and the young man turned to exchange glances with his companion as if it was a natural thing between the two of them.

“Jinki, I was always open with you, I never... Didn't I tell you that I love you and want to be with you?!”

He could almost read what he was saying from his lips.

“Yes, the viola was excellent… But did you notice that passage in K414 when…”

No. Everything had changed.

“If you don't know where Lee Jinki is, head straight to the buffet.”

“Huh?”

Kibum was here now.

“Did you get anything?”

“No.”

“Do you want something?”

“Yes. I mean, no,” Jinki backtracked, grabbing Kibum, who prepared to go to see the menu, by the sleeve. “I'm not hungry.”

The other looked at his sleeve in confusion, and Jinki released him.

“If you don't want anything, that is,” he added apologetically.

“Nah, I'm fine. They did the first call already, I think, so there's no time anyway.”

“Really? I didn't notice.”

Kibum activated his phone to reply to someone in Kakao.

“Yeah, my bathroom business took longer than I thought. I thought I'd just pee, but then I realized I also had to poop, and now I don't think that that lentil burrito bowl was a good idea.”

“Thanks for telling me about all of that.”

Kibum gave him a mock glare.

He finished his message and pulled Jinki towards the staircase. He was not looking in the direction where Taemin was standing.

A crowd of elderly people taking their time and talking together had gathered by the stairs, completely blocking the way, as elderly people do, and they had to take a large detour around them.

Taemin returned the tray with the empty cups to the counter and rejoined his company, who also began moving back to the concert hall, but lingered, waiting for the crowd to recede as they continued their conversation.

Kibum was leading Jinki towards them.

“Surprisingly many people today,” the man who'd joined last observed, and Taemin's companion nodded.

“Mainly older people, sadly.”

Taemin turned around to survey the public, giving Jinki an opportunity to study his face closer than before. His black hair was longer now. His face was the same – handsome, glowing with youth and some kind of hidden wit, emphasized by the early wrinkles around the eyes.

“There are some around my age here, though,” he argued, turning back to the men. “Don't give up on the young yet.”

Jinki was looking straight at him as he advanced, step by step, not giving thought to possible consequences of such indiscretion. Like a person watching a car coming at him full-speed, he simply couldn't step out of the danger's way or even look away. He was welcoming his demise.

And Kibum, huffing and puffing over the human blockage on the way, was oblivious to it all.

“I'm looking forward to seeing you perform on Saturday.”

“He's the best at the academy,” the companion agreed, making Taemin laugh bashfully.

“No, I'm only looking forward to it being over,” he answered somewhat brazenly, and the two other men laughed with him.

The crowd pouring out of the cafeteria at the sound of the second call pushed Jinki closer to Taemin so that he actually had to make an effort to avoid collision.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, turning sideways as he passed, his jacket brushing against his former lover's back, the scent of his cologne – ocean-like – gently filling the air, Jinki's breath grazing lightly over his hair.

A woman on his left hit him with her angular purse by accident and he flinched. Their hands brushed for a brief second.

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“It's okay,” he heard Taemin say behind his shoulder – a courteous stranger.

As he worked his way up the stairs, he could hear the voices of Taemin's group behind him. His palms were getting moist. He almost wanted to turn around and take one last look at Taemin's face before he disappeared in the crowd, this time for good, disregarding the fact that he would be recognized and... What exactly was going to happen? Would Taemin pretend that he wasn't seeing him? Would he freeze in his tracks? Would he call out his name? He had no idea.

Here's the last step, there are the doors and the usher girls in their meticulously prim uniforms, inviting the spectators back into the hall. Kibum had let go of his hand when holding it had become uncomfortable.

Jinki turned around on impulse.

He caught the very moment when Taemin halted in the middle of the staircase, one hand placed on the banister of faux marble, and looked back at his companion who had fallen behind.

“Taemin, where are you going? Our seats are on the ground floor.”

“Right, I don't know why I went up,” Taemin replied, laughing, and went back down, to no small annoyance of the people who'd been walking behind him.

Jinki remembered pushing his frozen red hands away to help him with his shoe ties.

“I think I know why,” he mused aloud.

“What?” Kibum asked.

Jinki shook his head and continued walking.

He didn't snooze during the second part, which Kibum congratulated him on after the concert was over. But he'd be disappointed to know that Jinki's awake-ness had nothing to do with him learning to appreciate the creations of the great: it was mainly the agitation of the nerves that didn't help him focus on what he was hearing, at all. As always, the realization of what had happened was coming too late, his feelings rising in the aftermath.

Seeing Taemin again after all this time, after believing that he was gone, mourning him in some delirious, masochistic kind of way, undoubtedly meant something for him. And that meaning was as frustratingly unclear as ever.

He didn't see him again after the concert was over. Maybe he'd left at a different time or gone backstage to greet the musicians.

Kibum said he wanted to sing a round or two and ‘do the Old Girl’, and Jinki agreed to go to his favorite noraebang in Sinchon.

“Back at the theatre, you said, ‘I think I know why’,” Kibum remembered after their second round was over, but both of them were too lazy to move. “What were you talking about?”

“‘I think I know why people get distracted and do stupid things’.”

“Because they're dumb like you?” Kibum asked, poking Jinki's cheek with his finger. He'd finished his grapefruit soju already.

“Kim Ki-bully.”

He laughed, grunting.

“Come on, you know I'm not serious.” He patted Jinki's knee. “Let's put the last thousand in and go home to rest.”

They went to the apartment that Kibum shared with Minho, who was out of town with his girlfriend. And while they walked, Taemin was on Jinki's mind.

Perhaps it was the most normal meeting he and I have ever had.

Kibum stopped in the middle of the street and pointed somewhere above their heads.

“Look.”

The branches of a lone blossom tree were gently swaying in the dark.

“We have seen the blossoms together,” Kibum said, giving his boyfriend's hand a squeeze.

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other.

“It's time to get better now.”

For some reason Kibum was whispering.

“I guess,” Jinki agreed pensively, and they linked their arms as they continued walking.

He believed that the other's words were true, but he also felt, for some reason, two contradictory things: like he'd been robbed of something he'd been keeping close, and that he'd been given something he'd never asked for. But, undoubtedly, there was a bright side.

So, no seagulls. No blood on the sand.

Taemin was the ficklest person alive, and in that same drawback he had found his salvation.

Jinki kissed his lover goodnight and wondered where he would find his own.

A/N: Hey guys! The last two weeks have been intense, but I guess constant relocation can be good because you get more commute time, and that means more writing time, ha. Hence my late replies to your comments, but please know that your feedback means a lot to me and helps me keep faith in this - kind of difficult - story. Have a good day/night and I hope you enjoyed this new chapter~ L.