The silence that surrounded us was deafening, but it did little to the cacophony of thoughts that played in my head. The taciturn statue of Seunghyun sat across. Handsome features clouded by a steady stream of smoke that came from his lips. Rain drummed against the expanse of window, matching the racing of my heart.

“What happened to us Seunghyun?” Words finally breached my lips, but as they shook the strained silence, I almost wished to swallow them whole.

Those beguiling eyes seemed to search his glass of wine for answers before he met my gaze.

“We grew up.” Each word seemed to hang with the same melancholy that had been wracking my chest.

This was never how I intended things to be. I was supposed to go to school to make something of myself. Turn the boy who hung onto every piece of Seunghyun he granted me, into someone who could stand at his side, together. I never wanted to become a stranger.

“Then I don’t want to.” 

“Want to what?” I felt like a troublesome child, especially under that questioning gaze, but I couldn’t let my resolve waver.

“Grow up. Not if it means this is what we’re reduced to.” I was tired of the awkward silences, the questioning glances. I was tired of the endless questions that wracked my brain and hitched in my throat. My eyes fell to my own glass now, and I suddenly understood why Seunghyun found it so fascinating.

Rough knuckles grazed against my tight grip I held on my glass, but I did not look up. Unready to meet that look that left my stomach plummeting to my knees and heart pressed into my throat.

“Yongie.” 

I was strange how a single word could leave your breath frozen in your lungs, yet set something inside you ablaze. My death grip loosened and I finally matched his gaze before I found the word to continue.

“I don’t want to be strangers anymore.”

Seunghyun took a long drag from his cigarette, smoke trailing from perfectly formed lips. His brows furrowed and he searched his glass again, and I could only hope he found an answer in my favor. 

His gaze remained fixed, but he began to speak, husky words wearing their way through the cracks in my nerve.

“We’ve changed. We’re not the boys we once were.” I could feel the heart that once danced at my throat begin to plummet to my feet.

“But I want nothing more than to learn of the man you’ve become.”

His words lifted the weight from my heart and it now played on the tip of my tongue. Our lips collided and I mapped the line and bow of those flawless lips, marveling how after all these years our lips still  perfectly fit.

Seunghyun was right. We were not the boys we once had been, and I was going to commit every inch of body and soul of the man that now sat in front of me to memory.