Mino would tell him so, his voice hardens as the lingering thoughts in his eyes fade out. This is how you walk away, Mino repeats again, you stand up, stop talking, do me a favor, hyung, do me a ing favor, and just leave. The regular smile on Seunghoon's face stays on, as he draws circles after circles from the coffee rings on the table. They were talking about something, he couldn't bring himself to remember. Must have been nothing, except for the fact that Mino has ordered coffee for the third time. The third ing time, as Mino puts it. I can't ing stand the winter in Seoul, five minutes later and your hot coffee is basically a total glass of brown ice cold coffee flavored water. I can't ing stand it. Mino-ah, he hears himself thinking, the only thing you couldn't stand is me, sitting across from you and my head elsewhere over the rainbow. Perhaps he should look a little bit more apologetic, in the end, it's him who pretends that he doesn't understand anything, practically nothing, from the hugs that are much more frequent than friendly, to the way Mino would look at him across the room, and the dead silence he would give Mino every single time the kiddo tries a conversation. 'I gotta go,' he always said, but then would he sit right there, flipping a random magazine that he never was a fan of, just so that the longing gaze towards him wouldn't have to be reciprocated.

You are hopeless, kiddo. He remember saying once, when the younger boy didn't know when to stop. Personally, he doesn't mind being bugged by the kid, it was cute almost, if only he remembers how to respond to this kind of thing. Mino is only one year short, but somehow their hearts do not follow. Mino has a heart of a five-year-old, trembles every single time a new thing comes across. The day that kid met Taehyun, he could swear that he could smell the testerone screaming under the boy's skin. Jinwoo was once an instant crush, and some of Seungyoon's songs melted  that young heart. Mino is like 1,2 MIC check, falling in love every time the traffic light turns. It was not a bad thing, not too bad anyway, if he wasn't one of those cheesy love stories that Mino would then muse badly in his rap.

It was a late summer night (how cliche') in New York city, at a corner near Brooklyn bridge where the two of them sneaked out in the middle of a photoshoot to have a freestyle rap duet, that Mino decided he would be the next great love of his life. He had laughed so loudly everyone on the street stopped and looked that them. Mino was so embarrassed he could have sworn that he saw tears coming from those eyes. But he never stopped laughing, even when Mino played guitar and rapped about how a burdened heart could be healed if he feels the same way. Feel the same way, his thought never came that far. Stop wearing your heart on your sleeves, kiddo, he could have said so but he honestly didn't remember, the only thing he remembers is that Mino stopped talking to him for a while just to come back with more songs. And coffee dates, to which he agreed once or twice, only because he sincerely wished for a coffee break after all those long hours practicing and avoiding Mino's gazes at the same time. At least in a coffee shop, nowadays, it is not impolite to swipe your phone while being with somebody else. 

Of course those didn't end well.
 

Especially the one in which Mino basically broke a mug and cursed loudly at the cold coffee. Then looked at him, hurtful eyes and all, and told him to walk the  away. He kept smiling while making himself busy by drawing circles after circles from the coffee rings on the table. He finished his artwork with a mindless less than 5 minutes after hearing Mino the first time ,then stood up. In all honesty, there would be a day he deeply,deeply regret this, but for some reasons, today, the though of it has yet to form. This could have been the last time Mino would ever look straight into his eyes, or that they even talked. But he couldn't remember. Mino would though, he was sure of that, as he saw the look on his eyes when he said his last words  before leaving.

Kiddo, I know how to walk away. But do you?

That must have been when Mino broke the mug, not before getting his third coffee. He wasn't really paying attention. But when he stepped outside of that coffeeshop to the first snow of Seoul, he turned left instead to go buy a pack of Malboro at a convenient store. That, was his first cigarette in a very long time.

./.