-Two days later-

“Are you spacing out again?” a voice suddenly jerked Myungsoo out of his dreamland.

“What?” Myungsoo blinked, looking around in confusion.

“You were,” Sunggyu shook his head in exasperation. “We’re never finishing this boat at this rate.”

Myungsoo looked at the pile of cardboard boxes lying behind Sunggyu and groaned. The two of them were sitting in the tiny backyard of Myungsoo’s apartment complex, trying to build the cardboard box, which was due the very next day. And as one might expect, they weren’t really making any progress.

“Oh, sorry,” Myungsoo whispered. “I was just…”

“Spacing out, that’s what you were doing,” Sunggyu snorted. “You’ve been doing that ever since Friday. What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s nothing,” Myungsoo lied. He couldn’t exactly tell the older that he was suffering from the first heartbreak, could he?

“We really need to get this done today, or else we’re going to fail that class,” Sunggyu said insistently, waving his hands around rather aggressively. “And for that, we need some kind of building plan!”

“I got it, I got it,” Myungsoo nodded, sighing. Of course Sunggyu would expect him to make that plan. He couldn’t exactly blame the older; he was supposed to be a physics prodigy, after all. “Do you have any sketch paper and a sharpie?”

“They’re lying right on your lap,” Sunggyu said with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh.” That was the first time Myungsoo noticed the mentioned items.

“Dude, what’s up with you?” Sunggyu asked, a hint of worry filling his voice. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Myungsoo dismissed. “Let’s make the building plan. There’s three of us, right?”

“Yeah, we need all three to fit on the boat,” Sunggyu nodded. “Speaking of which, where the hell did Sungyeol go? He said he’d go buy some drinks, but that was an hour ago.”

“Sungyeol was here?” Myungsoo furrowed his eyebrows.

“You were talking to him!” Sunggyu exclaimed. “Seriously, Myungie, what’s up with you?”

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” Myungsoo shook his head. He chose not to comment on the nickname he was just given. “Alright, so how much do we weigh together?”

“I’d say about two hundred kilos?” Sunggyu suggested. “Probably less, but it doesn’t hurt to have some fallback.”

“So we’ll displace two hundred kilos of water,” Myungsoo murmured as he scribbled it down. “We need about one meter in width, two in length… so point two in height? That doesn’t sound right.”

“What?” Sunggyu asked, his eyes staring intently at the paper in Myungsoo’s hand.

“Oh, nothing,” Myungsoo shook his head and scratched out his calculation. “You know what, let’s just build something. It’ll float anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Sunggyu frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a good idea…”

“We’re going to be fine, hyung,” Myungsoo reassured him, although he himself wasn’t really convinced. But well, that was what the math claimed. “As long as it is about two meters long and one meter wide, we can do whatever we want.”

“I’m taking your word for that,” Sunggyu glared at Myungsoo. “What about the shape?”

“You know, ship shape,” Myungsoo shrugged. “Make it look like a real ship and we’re done.”

“There must be something more to it,” Sunggyu furrowed his eyebrows.

“Hyung, do you trust me or not?” Myungsoo asked impatiently.

“Alright, alright, I trust you,” the elder immediately conceded. “Let’s get started then.”

Truth be told, Myungsoo couldn’t care less about the ship. His mind was occupied by what he had seen two days prior, and no matter how hard he tried not to think about it, the moment he let his guards down a little bit, the image of Hoya hiding behind the bookshelf, his shirt buttoned up messily, came haunting back at once.

It had taken him several minutes to recover from the shock that day, and Hoya had confirmed Myungsoo’s fears—he’d admitted to dating the y idol. Myungsoo’s world had shattered that day, and now he was nothing but a walking corpse. A walking corpse that thought of itself as a walking corpse. He chuckled on the inside at that thought.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Sunggyu’s voice once again dragged Myungsoo out of his world. Myungsoo blinked several times in confusion before he realized what Sunggyu was talking about—he was about to puncture a hole into the main deck of their almost finished cardboard ship.

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” Myungsoo apologized hurriedly.

“You know what, you go sit over there,” Sunggyu pointed at the small grass patch next to them. “I’ll finish this on my own.”

Myungsoo didn’t wait to be told twice. He put down all the tools and sat down on the grass. His mind once again became occupied with the memories from that night. He knew now that he had only been living in a bubble; there was no way Hoya would ever have become his. But he didn’t want to pop that bubble. It was the only thing that kept him going for the past year; what was he supposed to do?

“Yah,” again, his train of thoughts was interrupted by a voice. Only this time, it didn’t belong to Sunggyu.

“You’re finally here?” Sunggyu scoffed. “Took you long enough.”

“What are you doing to the boat?” Sungyeol asked, his voice rising.

“I’m building it, can’t you see?” Sunggyu retorted. “And what’s up with that informal tone?”

“Whatever,” Sungyeol rolled his eyes as he put down the small bag he was holding. “How are we supposed to fit in this thing?”

“What do you mean?” Sunggyu asked. “We sit-”

“How?” Sungyeol interrupted the older boy and pointed at the ship. “Just look at this thing! How are three people even supposed to fit in here?”

Now that Sungyeol had pointed it out, Myungsoo could see the problem with their ship. While it was true that a two-meter-long box could fit the three of them, it was no longer a two-meter-long box. It was a two-meter-long ship, whose sides diverged both at the front and in the back. The effective “box” space was just over one meter.

Sunggyu seemed to have spotted the problem as well as he immediately dropped the knife he was holding. “We can fix this.”

“With?” Sungyeol raised an eyebrow. “You already used up all the cardboard!”

“There has to be a way-”

“No wonder everyone calls you Last-Gyu,” Sungyeol exclaimed. “Can you be even more useless?”

“Don’t you think you’re a little bit too rude?” Myungsoo chimed in. “He’s your hyung-”

“And you,” Sungyeol glared at Myungsoo, effectively interrupting him mid-sentence. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? Why didn’t you stop him?”

Myungsoo gulped. There was something inside Sungyeol’s eyes that completely rendered him speechless. Never before had he felt such a fierce stare from anyone but his sister. Whatever retort he was going to say was completely forgotten, and instead, Myungsoo said. “I-I thought it would occur to him.”

“Why are you blaming me?” Sunggyu barked out angrily. “You were the one who made the back of the ship!”

“We’re screwed,” Sungyeol rolled his eyes as he grabbed his bag of drinks again. “We’re totally screwed.”

“Yah,” Sunggyu called at Sungyeol when he saw the younger turning around. “Where are you going?”

“Home!” Sungyeol shouted back. “I can’t work with you guys!”

“Are you seriously-” Sunggyu didn’t even get to finish his sentence as Sungyeol had already disappeared behind a corner. “Whoa, this kid. Is he for real?”

“We’ll manage, hyung,” Myungsoo patted the elder on his shoulder. “We’ll be alright.”

On the inside, Myungsoo was trying to figure the tall boy out. His actions didn’t make any sense to him; why did he care about the state of the ship so much? He had shown no interest in helping them build it before, so why was he so mad? And more importantly, what was that thing in his eyes?

“So what do we do now?” Sunggyu asked, his voice sounding strained.

“Just go home and get ready for tomorrow, hyung,” Myungsoo replied. “Just standing here won’t help anything.”

“Alright,” Sunggyu nodded with resignation. “I’ll come over with the car tomorrow so we can take the boat to school.”

“Sounds great,” Myungsoo smiled weakly. The two of them silently carried the boat inside the building and leaned it against the wall. Myungsoo added a quick note, explaining to potential curious neighbors the purpose of the boat. He said quick goodbyes with the older boy and headed up to his apartment.

Once in, he practically ran to his room and collapsed onto his bed. He shut his eyes close, imagining a meadow in his head. There was nothing but grass and himself; he sat down on the ground, taking a handful of dirt into his hand. This method had always worked before; whenever he’d needed to clear his mind of his thoughts, he would retreat here, to his safe haven. No one could get inside; it was just him and only him.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when his consciousness returned, but the sun was already setting. He unwillingly stood up; if he didn’t want to get chained to a lamppost again, he needed to clean up the apartment before his sister returned. His eyes landed on the gigantic poster across the room. Four boys were smiling brightly at him. A week ago, he would have returned the smile without thinking; but not that day. Not anymore.

He took several steps forward and slowly dragged his arm up, until his fingers touched one of the corners of the poster. He needed to end this nonsense; he had to pop that bubble whether he wanted or not. With one quick move, he tore the poster down.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to himself as he crumbled it in his hands. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this anymore.”

Back when he was in the States, whenever he felt down, he would watch a performance by Fedora. That would be all that he needed to pull himself back together. But what would save him now? When Hoya was the issue, who would be his knight in shining armor? An image of a scoffing boy who really resembled an owl suddenly popped into Myungsoo’s mind. That couldn’t be it… could it?

I originally planned to have the race happen in this chapter already, but I somehow managed to drag the whole building scene over a thousand words... so you'll have to wait another week for the real action! Just so you know, you can look forward to some skinship... as well as the return of Viktorie! Stay tuned for "Water Does You Good" on May 18th!

A side note: Anyone interested in an angst one-shot featuring Sunggyu and Woohyun? Check it out here. Thanks, guys, for your continuous support! Any comments and upvotes are greatly appreciated!

Karma~