2.




"You have a few books of a friend's," Hyungsik says tersely, and Ryeowook hears the sound of honking cars in the background; he's probably on his cell phone in his car and Ryeowook's about to tell him off for it but suddenly he remembers he has no right to it.

"Okay," Ryeowook ends up saying stiffly, and Hyungsik mercifully hangs up immediately, telling him he'd be there in five minutes.

Ryeowook spends three minutes restlessly trying to find something to clean (his apartment's spotless, now that he has more time in his hands), and the books are on the coffee table already, waiting. He ends up taking a bath, staring at the wall in frustration and pretending not to hear the door bell while he sits in the tub, absorbed in a bubble bath that has more water than bubbles, really.

He takes his time putting on his clothes. He has the luxury of it now, even with Hyungsik impatiently knocking on his door. Red feels like his color today, that baggy one that Hyungsik said he liked but Ryeowook knows he hated anyway, simply because it was from Kyuhyun and Hyungsik's always had his suspicions about that. He dries his hair with a towel, turning on the radio to drown out Hyungsik's voice. Let him wait. Ryeowook won't let him in so easily.

It's thirty minutes later that Ryeowook finally opens up, and Hyungsik pushes him up against the wall, all anger and desperation and quiet violence and Ryeowook knows this Hyungsik like he knows Hyungsik's small fears; it's familiar and reminiscent of the time they started to fall apart. It's the fear of never completely knowing someone else's soul that keeps Hyungsik wary of him, and Ryeowook knows it, relishes in it completely.

"Don't come over again," Ryeowook tells him the next morning, leaning against the doorway with a cup of coffee in hand and Hyungsik's heart in the other.

"I didn't know you smoked," Hyungsik says, instead, staring at his desk, the one with the ashtray he keeps forgetting to clean out.

"You didn't know a lot of things," Ryeowook answers.

Hyungsik smiles at him, sadly. "I had my misgivings, but you already knew that."

You had every right to be jealous, Ryeowook wants to tell him, you had a right to call me out on it, but all he says is, "I know."

It's the best way to kill any further conversation, he finds, and Hyungsik doesn't forget to take away what he came for in the first place, at least, what it was he told Ryeowook he would get. Just not the thing that matters.

Ryeowook ends up wondering how Hyungsik ever got his address anyway.