Time flies quickly when you’re not paying attention. Without realizing it they are already in their third year.

University life proves to not be lenient to them as their hands are always full with assignments and presentations and more paper works to be done as well as deadlines to be met. They are constantly racing against time, struggling to catch up with their studies as well as sleep, and for some people, there are part-time jobs too.

Summer rolls by and Chorong is falling asleep when the bells ring signifying someone entering the shop. She jumps to her feet and quickly shoves aside the notes that she was reading. “Welcome!” she exclaims while adjusting her apron strap as a guy wearing a cap brimmed low walks in. “What’s your order, sir?”

The cap covers most of his face and it doesn’t help that he isn’t looking up, but she still can see his beguiling smile when he responds. “Is your number in the menu? Because I’d like to have that.”

“Sorry?” She raises her brows.

The frown on her face, however, turns upside down when the man finally lifts his face and takes the cap off. His smile grows even wider and so does hers. “Long time no see, Park.”

Hoya is having trouble keeping his focus on the projector screen when his phone lights up on the table next to his notebook. He can’t remember what time did he go to bed last night, and his insomnia which developed after losing too much sleep isn’t much of help either. He glances around before pressing the phone to his ear. “Chorong, I’m in clas―”

“Hoya, you need to come quickly! It’s an emergency!”

Having managed to slip out from the lecture hall unnoticed (by the lecturer at least), he hurriedly makes his way to the promised meeting spot. A fast food restaurant doesn’t really sound an ideal meeting place for emergency, but he didn’t question that.

He is greeted by some turning heads and greets by the staffs that are walking by, and without acknowledging them his eyes wanders around to find a familiar face. Soon enough he finds her sitting near the wall happily munching on French fries, and when she meets her eyes Chorong waves him over with a big grin on her face, not a single trace of worry or anything that signifies a crisis.

“What’s the emergency?”

“Best friends union,” she continues to grin.

“That’s all?”

“What do you mean that’s all? Aren’t you happy to see your best friends?”

Hoya almost missed the plural in her vocabulary until his eyes fall onto the man sitting opposite her. The latter glances up to meet his gaze before he could put the questions in his head into words. His expression brightens at the sight of the man.

Woohyun gathers him in a hug as he flashes his famous grin. “That was my idea so you don’t have to blame her. But she did say it would do you a favour since you don’t like the lecturer and always doze off in that class?”

“Shut up, Chorong,” says Hoya with a laugh, while she only chuckles before he returns his attention to Woohyun. “But dude, you douche! You can’t just disappear without any news for months and appear so suddenly out of nowhere one day!”

“I did send you emails every now and then but none of you ever replied!” Woohyun retorts, complaining. “In fact I sent one two days ago before coming. Do you even check your emails?”

Chorong shrugs. “I have issues with technology so I try to keep a distance between us.”

Hoya laughs at his friend as he pulls a chair to their table. “I check them every day for notes and all. Wait, do you even have the address right? I don’t remember you asking me before.”

“Isn’t it [email protected]?”

“I haven’t used― wait, where did you get tha―”

He doesn’t need to finish the question to find out the answer. Both heads turn to Chorong at once only to find her laughing her head off.

Woohyun proposes an idea of throwing a party at Hoya’s place where he’s staying, but the latter sends him a glare just at the mention of the word.

(“He doesn’t have friends,” Chorong reasoned.

“I do have friends alright,” Hoya snapped back.

She mouthed the word “no” when he’s looking elsewhere, and Woohyun could only laugh.)

In the end the supposed party ends up being just the three of them in his small one-bedroom apartment, with food enough for ten people and drinks for even more. Woohyun does the cooking and Chorong helps with the little things (“More like doing a bit too much tastings,” the older boy pointed out) while Hoya cleans up after them which he complains about (“But you get mad if we don’t clean up properly,” Chorong reasons).

The process creates a lot of mess and rackets that Hoya actually starts to worry that his neighbours might come to complain about the noises. He also realizes that his two friends fight a lot, much more than he does with Chorong because he always gives in anyways as a result of spending almost their entire lifetime together. But Woohyun is just as stubborn as she is, always has been since high school, and therefore never quite the one to back out that easily.

Turning the television off, Hoya makes himself comfortable in the couch as he amuses himself watching the two at war, thinking this drama is a whole lot more interesting than any other soap operas.

He wakes up to a slight headache somewhere after the clock strikes two in the morning to use the bathroom after consuming so much alcohol that night. When he returns to the living room, he hears small ruckus from the kitchen and sees Woohyun at the fridge with a glass in his hand. “Oh, did I wake you up?” he asks.

Woohyun smiles when he sees him and shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry. Just felt thirsty,” he responds, holding up the half-empty glass.

Hoya makes a detour and heads there to get a glass for himself and leans against the kitchen top. When he glances at the living room where the three of them fell asleep after filling their stomach with too much food and booze, he realizes that Woohyun has cleared up the mess on the table. “Hey, I thought cleaning up is my job of the day?”

“Yeah, but you crashed before doing your job.”

“It’s not my fault you two teamed up against me and made me drink so much. Whatever happened to our alliance?”

Woohyun chuckles, rinsing his glass before putting it back in its place. Across the room, Chorong mumbles something unintelligible out of the blue and giggles to herself as she stirs in the couch, and the two boys laugh amusingly at her. When the laughter subsides, he clears his throat and looks at Hoya. Hoya catches his eyes and blinks at the former. “Is there anything you want to say?”

Scratching the back of his neck, Woohyun returns his gaze ahead and leans back. “Do you like Chorong?”

Hoya almost chokes on his water at the question. Having been separated for a while, he almost forgets that Woohyun isn’t the type to beat around the bush but goes direct to the point instead. He looks at their friend who is deep in her faraway dreamland before he answers. “If you mean romantically…” he begins, trying to arrange his words. “No.” There’s a pause as he shuffles to his other foot, the air is suddenly heavy and warmer around them and he can feel his t-shirt sticking to his back. He raises brow. “Do you?”

Woohyun nods, and somehow that doesn’t come as a surprise. “The whole time I was away and alone by myself, I took the chance to organize my jumbled up thoughts and figure out my feelings. And that’s when I realized that I really missed her. I mean, well, I missed you too, of course. I know it sounds gay so don’t get it wrong,” he adds, and the atmosphere is lightened up slightly as Hoya chuckles. “But my point is truthfully, really, I missed her a lot.”

“But why are you telling me all these instead of her?”

Woohyun shrugs. “I don’t know. It seems like the right thing to do, I guess? After all you’ve known her much longer than I do.”

Hoya smiles and thinks about his role in her life. He wonders if he’s the reason why she never really has much male friends or receives as many confessions from the boys compared to her other female friends. He recalls their childhood and remembers all their little experiment that turned out to be disastrous incidents. The images of her being the opposite of what she always wants others to see her as come to his mind then, the rare times when she lets her vulnerable side shows.

Looking at his other friend, the smile on his face grows. After all, Woohyun is the only person who has ever penetrated the walls that they unconsciously built around them, filling the void they never realized they have. It feels only right that it’s Woohyun in the end who breaks down the final membrane that has been enveloping them protectively.

“But she’s a mess though. You know that well, right?”

“I do. But she’s a beautiful one, don’t you think so?”

Hoya can’t agree more, suddenly remembering that day when she stood in front of him with flower petals in her hair and dirt stain on her cheek. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

He glances at Woohyun, brows knitting in confusion. “Why?”

“I don’t want ruin things, I guess?” Woohyun shrugs almost nonchalantly. “I mean, I like the things right now so I don’t really want to change anything, at least not yet. And I don’t want to put pressure on her. Plus it’s not like we’ll be able to see each other every day, right? I’ll have to go back after my break ends and you two will resume with your daily life. We’ll probably get busy and not contact each other in a while. So I think maybe it’ll be easier that way. Perhaps she’ll meet some guy that she likes better, too ― someone better than me. Who knows?” he goes on. There’s a pause when Hoya notices that Woohyun has been staring at Chorong all along. She stirs again in the couch, moving to her other side and causing the blanket draped over her body to drop to the floor. He’s about to go and fix it but Woohyun is a beat faster than him, and for the first time he realizes that looking after his best friend isn’t a job that he’ll be able to keep forever.

Strangely he’s not that bitter realizing that Woohyun might be the one who will be taking over this job.

“Plus I need to reconfirm my feelings again too. Give it a rest for some time and see how things go,” Woohyun adds after that, lingering beside the couch with his hands tucked in his pockets. “Figure out if it’s more than just butterflies.”

“Butterflies,” repeats Hoya as he thinks about it. Putting his glass in the sink, he makes his way back to their makeshift bed next to Woohyun who is already seated. “Hey, when did you mature so much? What happened to my idiotic friend?” he laughs, giving Woohyun’s shoulder a punch while the latter grins.

Woohyun returns to Suwon a week later without another mention of that night’s conversation, and as the three of them resume their daily life once again Hoya finds himself wondering from time to time if perhaps he was just imagining it.

Weeks turn into months, and seasons replace one another.

Snow is piling up outside when Hoya hears the phone rings. It is two days after Christmas but his break isn’t over until another week, so he stays home longer to make up for the times off he spent working part times. The sun is bright outside so he guesses that it’s probably afternoon already.

He figures his mother has picked up the phone when it stops ringing. Feeling wide awake, he hits the bathroom to brush his teeth before heading downstairs, only to find Chorong lounging in the sofa with the remote control in her hand. He joins her with a bowl of cereal in hands, at the same time keeping an eye on his mother who is speaking in a hushed voice.

“Who’s she speaking to?” he asks Chorong who has stopped flicking through the channels and now settled on watching a rerun of Winter Sonata although she’s always insisted that she hates the sappiness of it.

“Dunno,” she shrugs. “Relatives, maybe? Or old friends wishing late Christmas?”

He looks over at his mother again before shrugging it off. Leaning back against the sofa while eating his late breakfast, he watches the drama for a while. There is a crying scene going on and Chorong is snickering at it. He snatches the remote control swiftly from her and switches to another channel.

“Hey, I was watching!” she protests.

“But you hate the drama. Plus you were just watching to make fun of it.”

“I wasn’t making fun of it!”

“Chorong, please. You were snickering.”

“But it was just so funny I couldn’t help myself,” she defends. “Fine, I won’t make fun or laugh. Now give me back the remote.”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Lee Hoya!” she snaps, battling to grab the remote back as he struggles not to spill his cereal while yelling at her at the same time.

“Hoya?” there’s a new voice joining them. Both heads turn and find his mother standing next to them. They didn’t even hear her approaching. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

He nods. “Okay. You can talk now.”

“Um, I mean, just you,” she says it softly and carefully so she doesn’t offend Chorong.

The latter only smiles. “That’s okay. I understand.” Chorong gets up and steals Hoya’s bowl before she leaves and flashes him a cunning smirk when he protests. “I’ll return your breakfast to you when you return my remote.”

He lets out a small laugh and redirects his attention to his mother again. “What is it, mum?” he raises his brows rather perplexedly, because the last time her mother had wanted to speak to him alone in a serious tone like this was when all those years ago she was telling him about the divorce.

She fidgets with the hem of her cardigan and hesitates for a moment. “It’s your dad.”

“So?” is what Chorong first says to him after the train departs. There aren’t many passengers on-board so they make full use of the empty seats and make themselves comfortable.

“What so?” Hoya returns, not knowing what her word means.

“Are you going to see him?”

He doesn’t need to know who she is referring to. Glancing sideways at the scenery outside the window, his mind takes him back to the conversation he had with his mother days ago. The phone call had been from the hospital, saying that his father has been hospitalized for stage four of liver cancer, and that he wishes to meet his family to make amends.

Family. Hoya had sneered at that word when he thought about it again. How can they still be considered a family to a man who had walked out from their lives?

He looks back at Chorong who still has her gaze fixed on him. He doesn’t tell her all of that because he knows she understands even without him saying a word. The lunch his mother has packed for the both of them feels heavy on his lap. He puts his hand around the Tupperware as if to keep it from slipping and shrugs a little. “I don’t know.”

Hoya doesn’t let it bothers him and keeps himself busy with assignments and part-times. Chorong doesn’t bring it up again either, though he can tell from the looks she sometimes gives her that she wants to say something about it.

It is two weeks and a half later that she receives a call from his mother, because his phone has been turned off too often and he wouldn’t pick up when it’s on.

“Your dad has gotten worse,” Chorong tells him over a plate of half eaten lunch.

“Did my mum call you?” he probes, taking a spoonful of soup.

“She said you ignore her calls.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Hoya, this isn’t like you.”

“Then what’s like me? Am I supposed to drop everything I’m doing, forget all the things he’s done and just go see him like nothing ever happened?” he bursts, his voice a little too loud that some heads turn their way.

She sighs as the creases in her forehead deepen. “No, that’s what I mean. What I’m saying is, maybe you should think about it again.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she begins, pushing her plate away, no longer having the appetite to finish her meal. “We have only one dad. My time has already expired, but it’s still not too late for you to make the most of yours.”

He stops chewing and keeps his stare low. She gets up before he can come up with anything to say, mumbles something about having to see her lecturer and leaves him by himself. Her words resound in his eyes even after she’s gone, and as he stares into the empty space, he suddenly recalls the way she cried in the hospital the night her father passed away.

Chorong doesn’t see or contact him until Saturday. He’s lying on his bed when he feels his phone vibrating, staring at the white empty ceiling thinking of everything and nothing at once.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he answers honestly.

She keeps silent for a minute. “Hey, do you remember that promise you made when we were kids?”

“Which promise?”

“The one you made after you quit taekwondo.”

“What about it?”

“I want to use my second wish now,” she tells him. “Go see your dad.”

“Chorong, that’s not fai―”

“You said it can be anything. Go see your dad,” she repeats. “That’s my wish.”

“Chor―”

“I just don’t want you to have regrets later.” And then the line goes dead.

He goes to the hospital later not really because it is Chorong’s request, but he’s been thinking of the words she had said to him and as much as he wanted to deny it, she was right.

But it’s easier said than done for him to just walk into room and meet the man he hasn’t meet since he was a kid, so he spends more than an hour sitting at the lobby watching people pass him by. The visiting hour will be over in less than half an hour. He figures if he waits long enough perhaps he will have an excuse to just go back home, make some coffee or hot cocoa and hit the bed although it’s still early. There’s a girl sitting several seats away from him and she, too, seems restless about something. Hoya isn’t really the one to make friends so he doesn’t say anything.

The clock continues ticking and soon only fifteen minutes are left. He wriggles his legs impatiently, still hesitating whether he should enter the room or otherwise. He hasn’t even brought anything as a gift, only himself and his jumbled up mind.

“Who are you visiting?” A voice cuts in and snaps him out of his trance. Hoya looks up and sees the same girl now gazing at him, her expression soft and a tad nervous. He can see the pinks forming on her cheeks.

“My, uh… father,” he replies. “You?”

“My mother.”

“Why are you here then instead of with her?”

The girl shrugs. “I don’t know. The same reason why you’re here instead of with your father, maybe?”

Hoya smiles a little and so does her. Silence falls again as seconds continue to pass by as well as other people in the hospital.

“Hey, tell you what,” she begins, looking away. “I don’t know your story and you don’t know mine, but we have like only ten minutes now. So no matter how bad it is, it’s only for that long.”

“Hmm, you have a point there.”

“So… do we go now?”

He checks his watch and learns that they have a little more than ten minutes, but he nods anyway and stretches his lips sideways. “Alright,” he says, getting up. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” she repeats, a smile tugging on her lips as they walk to the elevator. “Good luck to you.”

“You too,” he returns. She walks out when the door opens at level 5, and vanishes from his sight as it closes again. He takes a deep breath and heads to room 819 determinedly.

To his surprise, Chorong and Woohyun are waiting for him outside when he gets out of the building, huddled in his thick jacket with his hands in the pockets. His eyes widen especially at the sight of the latter.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re not happy to see me?” Woohyun returns, faking a hurt expression.

Hoya chuckles at his friend. “You can’t just simply appear and disappear as you wish and not expect people to get surprised every time. You didn’t even come home for Christmas!”

“It’s not my fault my parents decided to come to Seoul instead,” Woohyun shrugs with that beguiling smile of his attached. “How is he, anyway? Your dad, I mean.”

“He’s okay,” comes as the answer. Hoya’s gaze connects with Chorong’s, and the former is the first to crack a smile. Before they can say anything he feels a strong arm around his back as Woohyun pulls them both around.

“I think we can all agree that good food is all we need right now,” says the older boy while the two only laugh in response.

Hoya’s father passes away five days later. He travels back to his hometown with his two best friends since his father has expressed his wish for his ashes to be spread where his happiest memories were. Turns out he was never that happy after leaving his family, Hoya had learned, and somehow it angers him a little because he thinks his father should have lived a good life.

When Chorong finds his eyes damp where they stand at the riverbank, he tells her it’s just the cold biting wind and cracks a smile that reminds her of the first night after his father left.

When he glances back, he sees Chorong resting her chin on the door pane with her folded arms in between, feeling the wind on her face as the car drives past sceneries foreign to them. Woohyun is at the wheel while Hoya is in the passenger seat. It’s a simple case of wanderlust. The former decided that maybe a long drive can do them good to take their minds off things, so he rented a car despite the latter’s protest that it’s a waste of time and money. But he comes along anyway.

She has her eyes closed. The wind catches her hair and messes her fringe up. His mind suddenly takes him back to the spring of their sixteen-year-old. Hoya wonders why that fleeting memory stays vivid even after all these years. He then recalls the conversation he had with Woohyun earlier.

“So?” he began as Woohyun inserted some coins into the machine and pressed the button, and within few seconds two cans drop.

Woohyun took them out, threw one Hoya’s direction and wrapped his hands around his to borrow the warmth. “What so?” he returned, quirking his brows.

They were at the rest area. Chorong has gone to the ladies’ and Hoya took that chance to relieve his curiosity. “Do you still feel the same?”

“You mean about Chorong?” Woohyun was quick to catch it but Hoya wasn’t that surprised. After all he’s always been the smartest one out of the three of them. “To tell you the truth, yes, my feelings still haven’t changed.”

Hoya smiled at his friend. It’s been half a year since he heard Woohyun’s confession that summer night in his kitchen, and although Woohyun’s not one to change his mind quickly, somehow it made him happy to know that.

Chorong looks up and meets his eyes when she glances at his way. The corners of her lips curl upwards. A beautiful mess, Woohyun has called her, and Hoya can’t help but to agree.

It’s chilly when he wakes up. It’s still dark but he can’t fall back asleep so he climbs out of the sleeping bag and exits the tent when he finds Woohyun missing. He walks for a bit with his hands shoved inside the pockets of his thick jacket, mists forming from his mouth. It is, after all, still winter. Hoya makes a mental note to give Woohyun a piece of his mind for deciding that sleeping outdoors is a good idea.

The sea is serene in the dark, and gleaming with the reflection of the moon. From a distance he sees a small fire and two figures huddled close to it, and after staring for a little longer he realizes that the two figures are his two friends. Smiling, he is about to make his way to join them but his steps come to a halt when he is suddenly reminded of the remaining of his conversation with Woohyun the day before.

“Are you still going to wait this time?”

“Nah. I think I’ll take a chance.”

Somewhere on the horizon, dawn is breaking, painting the sky with brilliant shades of red and orange. It’s a magnificent sight but somehow he feels a little out of place.

They don’t speak about it until when Hoya is sending Woohyun off at the train station several days later. Chorong is absent from the occasion to finish off a paper that she’s been procrastinating from doing.

“She’s avoiding me,” is what Woohyun tells him instead. There’s a smile on his face as he says that but Hoya doesn’t guess if it’s genuine. His words flow smooth as ever. “I confessed to her the other day, when we had that trip. And I got rejected.”

Hoya recalls that early morning when he saw them by the beach, greeting the new day together quietly. He wonders if that was when it happened. “Doesn’t mean that she hates you though,” he returns, flashing a supportive smile.

“I guess not,” Woohyun shrugs, fixing the bag strap on his shoulder. “But hey, Hoya?” The other raises his brows when his name is called. “I don’t think I’ll be able to come down to visit for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“To be honest I kind of expected this, but turns out the impact is bigger than I thought,” he confesses. “I will need some time.”

Hoya scoffs at him. “You hardly ever visit anyway.”

“I guess you’re right,” Woohyun chuckles a little, patting his duffel bag. The train arrives later, and with a pat on the shoulder and not another word, he boards it and vanishes into the distance.

Hoya goes back to his apartment later greeted by a feeling of emptiness so loud it deafens his ears, lies back on his bed and ponders about the smile that doesn’t reach Woohyun’s eyes, Chorong hollow gaze, their friendship that has survived countless arguments and even deaths, and falls asleep like that.

He only receives news about Woohyun when he tries calling him a month later. An unfamiliar voice answers the phone on his behalf and informs Hoya of Woohyun’s collapsing due to fatigue and lack of sleep, topped with a mild fever that has gone on for a week.

He boards the earliest train heading there that he could find. It’s not even that far, the distance between them, yet he has never bothered to do so all these while. Even after the many incidents he has gone through, the regrets he ended up collecting growing up, he realizes only now that he still takes some things for granted.

Unlike usual, he’s on his own this time since Chorong said something about not having anyone to replace her shifts at work and needing to work on her paper. Hoya didn’t want to question so he just nods and tells her he’ll deliver her well wishes, but deep down he still wishes that she could just get over it already.

Woohyun’s asleep when he arrives, so he quietly places his gifts on the side table and settles down on the chair next to the bed. However even without making a sound, Woohyun somehow manages to notice his presence and cracks a smile as soon as he catches the sight of his friend there.

“Why did you come?” he chokes out with effort.

“Can’t I visit a friend?” Hoya returns the question with an easy smile. The former’s lips stretch wider. Out of habit (or curiosity, Hoya isn’t sure), Woohyun’s eyes scan around the room in search for someone who’s not there. “She can’t come. Chorong.”

“I understand.”

“It’s not what you think. She has too much work that she can’t put aside.”

Woohyun shifts his gaze back at him, the smile still etched across his face. “I wasn’t thinking of anything, Hoya.”

So Hoya keeps his smile and swings to another topic, although he thinks it’s not convincing enough. Both of them.

Woohyun insists that Hoya spend the night at his apartment for a rest especially after the journey, which according to the latter was not even that far. Unfortunately Woohyun’s not someone to easily lose when it comes to words, so Hoya has no choice but to obey.

When he reaches the hospital again the next morning, there’s someone else in Woohyun’s room. Hoya’s presence goes unnoticed as the two are deeply immersed in their conversation and breaking into laughter every now and then.

He stands leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed and an amused smile tugging on his lips while watching them, silently until he finally catches Woohyun’s eyes who immediately calls him in, the grin on his face growing even wider. Soon afterwards, Chorong turns around as well. And the smile she has for him as he makes his way to join them says more than words could ever do.

A/N: I know I said that this will only be a two-shot, but after a lot of thinking done I decided to split it into three parts instead so the story won't be too rushed but be more detailed. I know I'm horrible for keeping you waiting for so long but I promise I will complete this eventually!