It’s been a while since Wonwoo and Mingyu became friends, two months? Maybe three? Of course Mingyu was also friends with Soonyoung, Jihoon and Jisoo but he was closer to Wonwoo for obvious reasons. They didn’t have any kind of encounter like the ones they used to have before they became friends, they just acted normal, like the friends they were and Wonwoo thanked that, because if the boy did the smallest move to flirt with him he’d go with the flow without thinking twice.

It became more serious on the second week of being ‘normal friends’. He always reached home and layed on his bed for almost 10 minutes till he cleared his mind and stopped thinking about him, which was hard. He enjoyed being around Mingyu, he was funny and nice with everyone around them, sometimes he acted like a little kid and Wonwoo thought that was the cutest thing ever, because it was. He would pout every time he didn’t have the sandwich he liked for lunch and Wonwoo always had to comfort him with a pat on the back, which the boy replied with a little smile.

Wonwoo started to think that maybe he liked the boy, in the like-like way.

So now the two of them were walking towards Hanji’s school when Wonwoo remembered that his mum was home for that day and that he could hang out with friends.

“” Wonwoo said when he remembered.

“What’s wrong?” Mingyu asked.

“Today I can hang out and I forgot to tell them…” he said.

“Oh, can you?”

“Yeah, my mum’s home today, so I don’t need to take care of my sister”

“Come to my place” Mingyu said and Wonwoo looked at him surprised.

“Just me?”

“Of course, there’s no more room for another person in my motorbike”

“You could buy a side car, you know” Wonwoo joked and Mingyu chuckled “But do you have another helmet?”

“Of course, I always carry two of them, just in case” Mingyu said and Wonwoo smiled “What do you say? Are you coming?”

“Yeah, ok” Wonwoo said “Actually, I’ve always wanted to ride a motorbike”

“You’ve never rode one?” Mingyu asked him when they reached his motorbike.

“Never”

“Well, there’s always a first time for everything” Mingyu said as he handed him a helmet.

“Thanks” Wonwoo put on the helmet and waited for Mingyu to get on the vehicle to sit behind him.

“Hold on tight” Mingyu said when he started the engine and Wonwoo obeyed. He hugged Mingyu’s waist tightly, which made the younger smile under his helmet.

They took off high speed, making Wonwoo feel the adrenaline. He held tighter around Mingyu’s waist and smiled. He glanced at the boy who was driving and even though he couldn’t see his face he pictured him inside his helmet, with his concentrated glare on and a serious face.

Mingyu slowed down the speed when they reached a big house, which Wonwoo assumed it was his house. He parked the motorbike and Wonwoo climbed down as well as Mingyu. Both of them took off their helmets and fixed their hair. 

“Are your parents home?” Wonwoo asked Mingyu when they entered the house which seemed to be empty.

“No, they work till late” he said “It’s nice having someone to be with when I’m at home”

“No siblings?”

“No siblings” Mingyu said.

“You’re always alone?”

“Yeah, I barely see my parents” Mingyu said and Wonwoo felt sorry for him “It’s like I live alone”

“Sorry” Wonwoo said and Mingyu laughed.

“Don’t be, it’s ok” he said and Wonwoo followed him inside the house “Do you want me to show you around the house?”

“Yeah, why not?” Wonwoo said and Mingyu grabbed him by the arm and pulled from him to show him around.

It was one of the biggest houses Wonwoo has ever seen. It had the biggest basement one could ever imagine and it was all Mingyu’s. It was well decorated and with all kind of thing one could ever need. There was a mini-kitchen, and bathroom, a sofa with a huge TV and all the video games you could ever think of, it also had like a room where there was a bed, but not a normal bed, it was a round bed, and it was huge, almost five people could sleep there. In the bathroom there was an amazing bath that looked pretty much like a Jacuzzi because it was big and Wonwoo swore that if he could he’d spend a whole day without caring about anything else.

In the living room, where the TV and sofa were, there was an elegant piano with a guitar next to it. Wonwoo assumed Mingyu knew how to play them or maybe they were there just to decorate.

“And this is all yours?” Wonwoo asked with his eyes wide as he looked around the place for the nth time.

“Yeah, it’s sound proof as well, so here I can stay forever and nobody will hear me”

“This place is too big for only three people, you know” Wonwoo said still looking around.

“I know, but I guess my dad likes big spaces, so he built this house”

“Are you telling me he built this?” Wonwoo looked at Mingyu.

“Yeah, with help from a few friends, but yeah, he built this”

“That’s amazing” Wonwoo said and Mingyu laughed.

“Come on, there’s a lot of house to see”

“MTV, welcome to my crib” Wonwoo said sarcastically and Mingyu laughed.

The boy showed Wonwoo the whole house, the kitchen, the living room, the office, the bathroom, the bedrooms, the other office, more bathrooms, etc. The reached Mingyu’s bedroom and Wonwoo was really curious how his room would look like, maybe it was like the other rooms he saw, but when he opened the door he was surprised.

The whole bedroom was full of colors, plushies, posters of his favourite bands, a lot of books, CDs, DVDs, and honestly it was pretty messy. But he didn’t care. The whole room was perfect, it had a king bed that looked extremely comfortable, and opposite to it there was a desk with a laptop and a few books, probably from school. There were a lot of shelves as well where all of Mingyu’s memories where, mostly of them pictures and plushies. He also had a flat screen hanging on his wall, and Wonwoo wondered how many TV this family actually had. Let’s say it was the perfect bedroom and if he could he’d stay there forever, admiring every piece of it.

“Sorry, it’s a bit messy” Mingyu said and Wonwoo stepped in, knowing that Mingyu was behind him.

“Don’t be… it’s perfect” Wonwoo said “Oh god, I fell in love with your bedroom”

“It’s nice, I guess” Mingyu said and walked to the bed and sat down. Wonwoo looked at the bed, wishing to throw himself there and never move.

“I really like your house, it’s really nice” Wonwoo said.

“Thanks” he said “You can move here if you want” he joked.

“I can’t, but honestly there’s enough room for four more people here” Wonwoo said “Oh god, why is this house so big? My house isn’t this big and four people fit perfectly, and believe me, my house isn’t small at all, I find it pretty big. Don’t you get lost?”

“Of course not” Mingyu laughed “Do you want to stay here or you prefer going to the basement?”

“I don’t care, honestly”

“Let’s go to the basement, it’s much better there”

“Alright”

They went down and both of them sat on the big sofa. Wonwoo received a message from his mum, asking where he was and not to come home late, so he just replied saying he was at a friend’s.

“Your mum seems nice” Mingyu said.

“She is... she’s really nice”

“But, what about your dad?”

“He died a year ago” Wonwoo said and Mingyu looked at him horrified.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask…”

“It’s ok” Wonwoo said “Actually he didn’t die, he was murdered. How come you don’t know about that? Almost everyone in the school knows”

“I don’t really pay attention to stuff around me, sorry” Mingyu said “Sorry about your dad”

“It’s ok” Wonwoo smiled “I’m getting over it now… I’m trying really hard since now I’m like the father of the family, I’m the only man, and you know… I act as the dad now, just that I don’t have with my mum and stuff”

“Yeah, that’d be pretty weird if you did” Mingyu said and Wonwoo laughed.

“You want to know what happened, don’t you?” Wonwoo asked and the boy looked surprised “I can feel it, you want to know, you’re a curious person, like me, so…”

“You don’t have to, though, it’s ok if you don’t tell me”

“I’ll tell you” Wonwoo said “I’ve never explained the whole thing to anyone, so it’ll be good if I do, I think it’ll help me get over it”

“Do as you want” Mingyu said and Wonwoo smiled.

“I warn you now that I might end up crying and when I cry I cry a lot, and honestly I can’t really stop” Wonwoo said and Mingyu nodded.

“At least you have a shoulder to cry on” he said and Wonwoo smiled.

“Ok, so it was a nice Sunday when it happened. May, the 20^th. My best friend Doyoon came over, as we always did, on Sundays we always met and that day it was in my house, because the previous week we met at his, so yeah we were in my bedroom, playing some video games, as always. We got hungry and I decided to go to the kitchen to grab some cookies to eat and while I was heading up I sensed something was wrong, so I ran upstairs but didn’t see anything, I walked past my parents room and when I was about to reach my door a hand covered my mouth and I felt a gun against my sin. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t, of course and the man that was holding me told me: ‘Don’t scream, if you do, I’ll blow your brain’, so I tried not to, and then he continued ‘Ok, now I’m going to let you go and you’ll tell me were your parents keep all the expensive stuff, get it?’ So I nodded horrified and this let me go, I turned around to tell him, but seriously, I could barely breath, he was still pointing at me with that gun, so I was freaking scared. When I was about to open my mouth Doyoon came out of the room, oh god, how much I hoped he didn’t do that. He ran and stood in front of me, to protect me from that man, he told him to go away, and he shouldn’t have done that, because that jerk didn’t think twice before pulling that trigger and shooting my best friend” Wonwoo said and stopped for a moment. He breathed in and out and closed his eyes. Mingyu grabbed his hand to comfort him “When he killed him I felt Doyoon’s weight against me, his whole body was dead, he was dead and I was holding him up, wishing he wasn’t, I already started crying by then, and in no time my dad was running up the stairs with my mum and sister behind him. He told my mum to call the police and bring my sister downstairs, because he already spotted Doyoon’s dead body. I kept calling Doyoon’s name but it was useless. I was full of his blood, it was horrible” Wonwoo said and sighed, still with his eyes closed.

“You don’t have to continue… you know it” Mingyu told him with a quiet voice.

“No, it’s ok, I’m fine…” Wonwoo said and looked at Mingyu, who tightened his grip “So… after my mum and sister went downstairs to call the police, my dad tried to fight the guy, which was stupid of him. I yelled at him telling him not to, to stop but he didn’t listen. That made that son of shoot my dad twice. In that moment I gave up, I fell to the ground, still holding Doyoon, but before I could even react the police was already home and they were arresting that ” Wonwoo said “After that they took Doyoon’s body away from me, and I saw how they took away my dad’s as well. You can’t imagine Doyoon’s parents face when we told them what happened… I apologized to them, I told them it was my fault, that he protected me and he got killed, but do you know what they told me? They told me it was ok, because they loved me as their son and that I didn’t have to apologize. Instead of hating me, they supported me and that made me feel even worse… and then my dad was also missing… and…” Wonwoo sobbed and Mingyu made him stop talking. He hugged the crying boy with both his arms. Wonwoo rested his head on Mingyu’s shoulder and cried.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” Mingyu said.

“I miss them… they were the best… why them?” Wonwoo sobbed even more “Why?”

“It’s unfair, so unfair” Mingyu said and tried his best not to cry as well. Seeing Wonwoo like that hurt him so much, it was the worst, he was crying so much, he didn’t know what to do, he only could hug him, but he felt it wasn’t enough “I wish I could do something to make you feel better…”

Wonwoo kept crying wetting Mingyu’s shirt, but that didn’t seem to matter to the boy. Wonwoo hugged Mingyu back, feeling the comfort the boy emitted him and it really helped.

After most than 35 minutes Wonwoo already calmed down, but still he didn’t dare to let go Mingyu, he felt much better after crying, and Mingyu’s embrace was one the most comfortable things ever. He felt how Mingyu reached out for something and handed him something.

“Tissues?” he said and Wonwoo took them cleaning his face.

“Thank you” Wonwoo said.

“No problem”

“Thank you for making me tell you this, really”

“It was you the one who wanted”

“You get what I mean” Wonwoo said and Mingyu nodded.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, you’re the best to cry, you know” Wonwoo said “I’ve never felt so good after crying”

“I guess you finally let everything out”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it” Wonwoo said and sat up a bit “Sorry, I messed up your shirt”

“It’s ok, don’t worry about that” he said as Wonwoo tried to clean it with another tissue “I’m telling you it’s ok” Mingyu repeated and took Wonwoo’s hand to stop him. He looked at him, and he was surprised “I’ve never seen someone being beautiful when they cried… Actually everyone looks like when they cry, but you… you look beautiful”

“Then I should cry more often?” Wonwoo joked and Mingyu smiled.

“Of course not, it hurts seeing you like this, you almost made me cry” Mingyu said and Wonwoo laughed.

“Mind if I go to the bathroom? I’d like to clean my face”

“You’re home” Mingyu said and Wonwoo stood up. He entered the bathroom, leaving Mingyu alone.

“Are you blind or something? I look like sobbing ” Wonwoo said from the bathroom and Mingyu laughed. When Wonwoo came out he sat next to Mingyu and hugged him again.

“You got used to it now?” Mingyu joked and Wonwoo chuckled, but still Mingyu hugged back.

“Just a bit” Wonwoo said and they stayed there for quite a long time, actually.

Then they played for a bit, but they got tired soon and they kept talking, knowing each other a little bit more. They went up to Mingyu’s bedroom and the boy told him about his childhood as he showed him pictures and little memories that were around the bedroom. He learned that Mingyu never had a real best friend, everyone left him for other people, he never knew why, but he got used to it now.

“What’s that?” Wonwoo asked Mingyu and pointed at a certificate hanging on the wall as he lied on Mingyu’s bed. He finally got to lay down there, Mingyu saw on his face how much he wanted to so he let him, why not? Mingyu was sitting on his desk chair. He looked over at what Wonwoo was pointing.

“Oh, that’s a certificate”

“I know, but a certificate for…?” Wonwoo said and Mingyu laughed.

“It’s pretty embarrassing, actually” Mingyu laughed “That certificate was actually given to girls in my school. There was this competition in make-up or something girly like that, and I participated because I was really bored, so I ended up winning this best make-up artist title” Wonwoo laughed and Mingyu smiled “Hey, don’t laugh at me”

“It’s so funny, I’m sorry”

“Actually I have a lot of girly stuff around here” Mingyu said.

“Yeah, like that doll over there, it looks like the old-fashioned version of my sister’s dolls, actually” Wonwoo said and Mingyu laughed.

“Oh, that doll… A girl in my class had a crush on me and for Valentine’s Day she gave me her favourite doll as a present, I still keep it, as you can see”

“God, you’re really sweet and cute” Wonwoo said and Mingyu laughed.

“Yeah, I’m so innocent”

“I didn’t say that… You asked for when we knew each other’s names so…”

“It was a joke, you know that” Mingyu said.

“Whatever” Wonwoo said “What time is it?”

“Hmm… 8.30pm”

“… It’s so late already?” Wonwoo said as he sat up and his phone started ringing. It was his mum, obviously and he picked up “Mum, I’m sorry, I’m going now, I lost track of time”

“It’s ok honey, I was just worried”

“Sorry, I just didn’t look at the time and-”

“It’s ok” she said “Who are you with though?”

“I’m at Mingyu’s”

“I see… Ok, see you in a while, honey”

“Yeah, bye” Wonwoo hung up and stood up from the bed “I need to go now”

“I’ll take you home” Mingyu said standing up as well.

“No, it’s ok, I can walk or take the bus”

“I insist” Mingyu said and looked at Wonwoo straight in the eyes. The later couldn’t deny that, now, he was trapped.

“Ok” he gave up.

They headed out of the house. Wonwoo mentally said goodbye to that amazing place and wondered when he’ll be able to come back. He put on the helmet and sat on the motorbike as well as Mingyu. The boy drove with Wonwoo hugging his waist from behind. He told Mingyu his address before setting off and the boy reached there with no problem. They stopped in front of Wonwoo’s house. The boy climbed down the vehicle and Mingyu did so as well, both males took off their helmets and Wonwoo handed his to Mingyu.

“Thank you for everything” Wonwoo said and Mingyu smiled.

“That’s what friends are for, right?” he said and fixed Wonwoo’s hair.

“See you tomorrow, Kim Mingyu”

“See you tomorrow”

They hugged and when they pulled away Wonwoo looked at his house; he noticed how one of the curtains moved and he knew his mum had been watching them. He chuckled.

“Be careful on your way back” Wonwoo said and started walking towards his house.

He entered home and he was greeted by a smiling mum and a giggling sister “Hello” he said and looked at them weirdly but they didn’t say a word “What?” he asked.

“You didn’t tell me he rode a motorbike” his mum said smiling.

“Yeah, but she did” he said pointing at his sister and approaching her “Am I wrong?” he asked and Hanji stopped giggling. Wonwoo laughed and pinched her nose.

“Yeah, she told me” his mum said.

“I’m thinking of telling him to come over on Saturday, do you mind if he comes?” Wonwoo asked his mum and she smiled even wider, and he could spot some tears reaching her eyes.

“It’s ok, he can come, whenever you want”

“Ok, I’ll go have a shower now, I’ll have dinner when I’m finished”

“Alright, honey”

“Oh mum, later I’ll tell you about his house, it’s the most amazing place ever” Wonwoo said as he went upstairs.

“Ok, now go shower, dear”