The river had always surrounded their life.

On that warm August afternoon in his twenty-first summer the river brought them together. He could still recall the way Jiyong smiled up at him from the bench next to the water; his front teeth were still crooked, his hands and mouth stained a faint orange color from the red popsicle that refused to be washed away completely. A warm breeze rushed past them, swaying both of them for an instant, and Jiyong raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as his smile began to tire.

"What do you want for you birthday?" he'd asked.

"A kiss," Jiyong replied, never missing as much as a single beat. That mischievous smile of his sprang back to his lips as he watched Seunghyun's face turn as raspberry red as his popsicle was, while the other was internally considering a sudden dip in the river to escape the fire that had set his cheeks aflame. Jiyong laughed and sprang to his feet, resuming their stroll with his companion now trailing behind him much more shyly than before.

Two years later the river brought them together again, as Jiyong pulled his car over beside it one night when the two of them were on their way back from a company meeting. He'd put it in park so roughly that Seunghyun thought he was angry, and his expression was confused as he glanced up from his phone, unsure of quite what he said to piss him off. But Jiyong was staring out the window into the rain and so he was unable to see the look on his face, though he could see his shoulders rising and falling with deep, laborious breaths. He had seemed agitated and distant all day, as if something bothersome was on his mind, and Seunghyun had just passed it off as stress from their busy schedules.

"Hey," he started gently, his anxious fingers fumbling with his phone in an attempt to keep his hands occupied, "you know the CEO didn't really mean what he said--"

Jiyong turned his cheek toward him, cutting him off mid-sentence with that why are you having such a hard time understanding this? kind of tone he often used on him during choreography sessions. "Hyung," he chimed, his soft brown eyes harboring a strange electricity as they ticked towards him. "Please shut up."

Then he reached across the center console, firmly pulling the phone out of the other's hands and flipping it shut before setting it aside. Seunghyun continued to stare at him with confusion, alarmed by his disrespectful tone and struggling to make sense of his foul mood, as Jiyong began to soften with a sigh and unbuckled his own seatbelt. He leaned towards him.

"Why don't you get it?" Jiyong asked. His question was more of a lament to himself than an actual question, but Seunghyun was still gathering his breath to answer it anyway, and the sound of him inhaling caused Jiyong's intent gaze to drop to his lips. His hand rose, his nail-bitten fingers reaching inside the hood of the other's sweatshirt to his neck; the gesture stole away any answers that Seunghyun had come up with.

Jiyong decided he'd explain, although he was fairly sure he didn't have to as he leaned closer again, their gazes meeting. "I like you..." he whispered, his firm hand on Seunghyun's neck pulling him in, able to feel the way he swallowed with such sudden difficulty. "Like me back." A silent gasp was the only answer Seunghyun could give him before he met him for a kiss that left his lips stinging, as he suddenly saw what the problem was as well. Jiyong was volatile, fiery, like a Zippo lighter, and Seunghyun's thumb unknowingly rested on the flint, lighting him up time and time again.

One night the river parted them for one final time.

After that the years passed in a daze, until Seunghyun eventually sat alone in a house in Busan. He was much older; the years showed on his face and they showed in the silver of his temples. Near his bed sat a book of poems left opened to a poem by Langston Hughes, titled Suicide's Note.

"The calm,
Cool face of the river,
Asked me for a kiss."

He never visited the river again after that night.