Everything smells a painful, dreary sort of sterile when Kunpimook wakes up, but at the same time it’s strangely calming. He knows he’s in a hospital at once, because you never quite forget the smell of a hospital, and you don’t see people lying or trying to smoke someone when it involves their deathbed. So maybe it’s sort of a guarantee of his survival, because another lie might just make him finish the job of poisoning himself.

He feels immune, in a sad, defeated kind of way.

Kunpimook spends what feels like hours staring up at the ceiling, memorising the patterns that the shadows make on the pale surface, not moving his head because he’s afraid of what he’ll find when he looks around. Kunpimook’s learned that all it takes to make you depressed in this world is to look around, because there are always things to be sad about.

Eventually, though, the need to learn about his surroundings surpasses the fear of it- and he looks first to his right, where a window’s letting in soft beams of moonlight that are swallowed promptly by the brighter, harsher light of the table lamp. Then, with some difficulty, he turns to his left.

There’s a bedside table, and under the fruit bowl there’s a note, signed off by Jackson, he realises, and a telephone. His hands shake violently when he reaches over for it, but he gets a hold of it anyway, and after a moment of scanning it he realises it’s asking him to call the older man the moment he wakes up.

But Kunpimook puts the note down, straining over to reach the telephone with the hand that isn’t attached to the drip, and finally, he dials a number he knows from heart, but hasn’t dialled in the past five years.

It’s a little sad, and a little frightening, how long it’s taken him to come to this decision, but even so he still hesitates when he punches each button on the wireless phone, deliberating with every number, but then the call’s going through before he can stop himself.

He realises on the third ring that he has no idea what time it is now, or there, for that matter. His mind’s too numb to calculate the time difference. On the sixth ring, he’s sorely considering giving up, but then a woman picks up, her voice painfully familiar to Kunpimook’s ears, a little tired and a little confused.

“Jark krai?”

His breath catches in his chest as he parts his lips to reply, a tear already leaving its salty, warm trail down the side of his face as he does so.

“Mae?”

*

It’s morning when a rush of relief, and at the same time, guilt, fills Kunpimook, when he sees the figure pass by the glass pane looking out into the corridor, and struggles to sit up as Yugyeom walks in, dressed casually, almost, eyes lighting up at the sight of him.

“I didn’t know when you’d be awake,” those same, protective arms come to wrap around him, carefully avoiding the drip, and Kunpimook hugs back, relishing in the warmth he’s had the privilege to become so accustomed to. “I was planning to stay here the whole day if you weren’t awake yet.”

“How’ve you been?” Kunpimook asks worriedly, thinking about Jaebum and the look he’d given Yugyeom once he’d raised the alarm. “Did Jaebum give you a hard time?”

Yugyeom lets out a dry laugh, sitting in the chair at the bedside. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around at all after I broke his nose yesterday.”

Kunpimook’s eyes widen. “You…what?”

“He crossed a line,” Yugyeom says with a bitter sort of smile, fingers tightening a little around Kunpimook’s hand. “The cyanide- that’s what was in your food, it was his idea. I think he assumed Jackson was the one behind Youngjae’s death, as some crazy stunt to try and get one up on him, and he thinks it’s because you told him. So I guess he thought poisoning you would be suitable retaliation.”

Kunpimook doesn’t even have it in him to be mad at the fact Jaebum was the one behind him- he’s too amazed. “So you hit him?”

“Several times, I think,” Yugyeom says it with a sort of carefree air. “I don’t even remember what happened- he just kept talking about how you had it coming and everything after the ambulance left and I think I just snapped,” his voice wavers a little, remembering the incident. “I-…I really thought you were going to die, you know, so hearing him shoot his mouth off like that- I don’t know. I apologised and everything afterwards, but it sort of felt really good doing it.”

Kunpimook lets out a choked sort of laugh. “That’s great. I’m not even being sarcastic right now, or saying it because he poisoned me or cheated on Jinyoung, it’s about time somebody did that. So what now?”

“Dunno,” Yugyeom shrugs. “Jinyoung probably thought I went crazy- but he didn’t try to stop me. I think he thought Jaebum deserved a bit of that too. I think he’ll let me pass it off as temporary insanity, and Jaebum wouldn’t want to air his dirty laundry in public by making something like this blow up- I’m his cousin, after all, people might get suspicious. So things go back to normal, I guess,” he flicks a stray piece of lint off the knee of his trousers, looking unconcerned. “It’s not like crazy like this hasn’t happened before without everyone pretending it’s all fine the next day.”

“If only they knew,” Kunpimook chuckles bitterly, and for a moment there, basking in that happiness, he almost regrets what he’d done the previous night. But he forces up the courage to tell Yugyeom anyway, because the younger man deserves to know as much.

“Yugyeom,” he starts, gut twisting in apprehension when the other man turns to him, gaze questioning in that casual, trusting air that they’ve worked so hard to attain between them. “I’m-…I called my mom, yesterday night,” he holds his breath. “I’m going home. I was thinking about Jinyoung, Jaebum, and-…and what Youngjae said,” he’s looking at the sheets now, unable to look the other man in the eye. “There’s nothing here for people like us. We’re selling our humanity in exchange for money, Gyeom, I can’t-…I can’t. I’m going home.”

There’s a pause, before he feels soft fingers under his chin, slowly tilting him to face the other man, and though there’s nothing but a gentle sort of expression on Yugyeom’s face, Kunpimook still winces.

“Great,” he mimics, grinning slightly. “It’s about time you did that,” Yugyeom leans back in his chair, still regarding him tenderly, and though his mouth barely moves his eyes are smiling. “I think I’m going home too. Yesterday-…yesterday was enough,” he rubs his eyes tiredly. “I’m going to hand in my resignation and go away for a while. Jaebum-hyung might find some way to object, but I’ll figure it out.”

“That’s great,” Kunpimook can barely believe his ears, a smile spreading on his face, reaching forward though his body’s still weak to hold Yugyeom’s hand, like it’s assuring this is happening, that this isn’t some wonderful dream he’s about to wake up from. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to, until it’s over-…”

“No, you should go home while you can,” Yugyeom laughs, smoothing a thumb over the other man’s knuckles. “Jackson was talking about letting you go home to “recover from the experience”, you should take the chance while you can.”

“How is he?” Kunpimook’s attention is turned back to the note, and the uncomfortable way Jackson had spoken when Kunpimook called that morning.

“The media’s spinning it such that it looks like Jackson was the actual target, some sort of corporate espionage, but you got poisoned instead because you two ordered the same things, and the plates got switched,” Yugyeom shrugs. “The police are investigating, but the commissioner’s in Jaebum-hyung’s pocket, so chances of him getting charged are slim to none,” then, “I think Jackson-hyung feels guilty. You ought to capitalise on that.”

Kunpimook rolls his eyes. “We’re over that, remember?”

Yugyeom laughs wearily. “It’ll be hard, getting used to the new lifestyle.”

“What? Of not politely pilfering off every rich person in sight?” Kunpimook chuckles. “We’ll manage. Besides, it’s not like Bangkok’s got a lot of those anyway.”

The younger man’s laughter peters out a little, and when Kunpimook looks back he’s a little taken by the depth of emotion in his eyes.

“We’ll…we’ll still be talking, won’t we?”

That freezes something in Kunpimook, really sinks the idea in that he’s going home, back home to Thailand to his family, away from Korea where Yugyeom is. But this place holds too many bad memories, too many nightmares, for him right now, to be able to entertain the thought of staying, or even coming back, yet.

“Sure,” Kunpimook says a little softer, before letting out a nervous laugh. “There’s always Facebook. And if you’d stop being such a prude I could introduce you to Instagram.”

“For real, though,” Yugyeom says, and there’s a hint of urgency in his voice this time, before, like everything else he feels, he apparently reins it in, and the emotion’s replaced by a sort of resigned contentment. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’m not dying, sheesh,” Kunpimook laughs, but he his grip on Yugyeom’s hand tightens. “We’ll stay in touch.”

*

Yugyeom’s right. Jackson does come in, almost an hour after Yugyeom leaves, looking vaguely uncomfortable and sort of guilty. He agrees to Kunpimook’s request for resignation immediately, as if he’s almost relieved.

“My PA will settle your flight back,” he says, waving the issue away hastily. “Your medical fees too. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“It’s alright, really, I can-…” Kunpimook starts.

“No, it’s fine,” Jackson says, looking a little strained, like he’s making a plea. “Let me.”

And that’s it, that’s the end of their stint together in Korea, and though it can hardly be called an ending, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

Kunpimook’s almost sorry to say goodbye.

(He accepts the invitation to call up anytime with grateful warmth, though, just in case.)

*

The next week passes in an agonising blur, and Kunpimook only realises what he’s actually doing when he’s standing at the departure gate, passport in hand and carry-on bag over his shoulder, Yugyeom at his side.

“I’ll get in contact when I touch down,” Kunpimook’s babbling, a little from the nervousness of finally going home and mostly from the thought of leaving Yugyeom behind. “It’ll take me some time to get home after that though, but my father said he might be picking me up, so I won’t be able to call until-…”

Yugyeom sweeps him into a hug, quashing every last residual hint of nerves, and Kunpimook lets out a shaky exhale, winding his fingers into the fabric of Yugyeom’s shirt.

“I’ll miss you too,” he finally blurts out, one week late, and Yugyeom’s shoulders shake slightly with mirth at that.

“There’s always Facebook,” he grins softly after they part. “And I got Instagram just for you, so stop complaining.”

Kunpimook doesn’t stop smiling all the way until he gets to the plane.

*

He stumbles many times coming home- struggling to speak Thai to the immigrations officer, perspiring involuntarily in the rush of hot air that greets him through the linkway the moment he steps out of the plane, but then he walks into the arrival hall and sees the embarrassingly huge group of people, all carrying signs with his name written in wonky Korean (as some sort of joke, he supposes), standing behind the barrier.

And for a moment there it feels like he’d never left.

His mother cries a lot and his father insists on carrying his luggage until they get to the car, and his little sister fusses over him till it’s suffocating, in a nice kind of way. It chokes him up a little, how they’ve all changed so much in the blink of an eye, like he’s woken up from a coma, come back to life five years too late.

But then he goes home and realises his brothers have filled his old room with giant pink and white heart-shaped balloons, and amidst a lot of exasperated laughter and chasing and popping sounds, something tells him maybe it isn’t too late after all.

*

It’s hard, trying to tear down an old life and build up a new one from scratch, and a few weeks into Kunpimook’s return, a restlessness starts to wear into his bones.

Yugyeom messages, as promised, but they’re both busier, both fighting to regain control over their lives, both wondering if they’ve made the right decision and trying to forget the scars from years past, and it isn’t long before daily messages start coming once every few days, once a week, then fortnightly.

Then Kunpimook realises he hasn’t spoken to Yugyeom for a month.

He passes by a bicycle cart selling magazines in the streets on the way to his new job, and the familiar print of hangul on a glitzy teen magazine catches his eye, long enough for him to feel something dull tug at his heartstrings, mourning the death of one of the relationships Kunpimook’s held the most dearly.

He isn’t stupid- he’d accepted a long time ago that this long distance relationship would never work out, but there’s a stupid, naive part of him that secretly hopes he’d be surprised, that they’d defy the norm and live out the quietly happy ending he’d envisioned so hopefully. Sometimes he finds himself staring and wondering where Yugyeom is, how he’s doing, if he’s broken off from Jaebum entirely or if he’s still hovering, lost in transition, struggling alone.

*

Nightmares come sometimes, of sweet wine and choking breaths and a crushing loneliness, and Kunpimook wakes up wishing desperately Yugyeom were here to soothe him back to sleep.

It builds up, month after month, until a year later and he’s walking to the bus stop, and a group of schoolgirls pass him by, giggling and talking loudly, hair wet and tumbling down their schoolbags, a giveaway that they’d just finished up with some extra sports activities at school and are going home. Kunpimook recognises the uniform at once- it’s that same suffocating blue, same reek of money, same designer schoolbags and lacrosse sticks, held carelessly in hands too small to understand the weight of their actions, and it hits him so hard he has to stop in the middle of the pavement.

His eyes catch on one of the girls at the side, clutching to the wrist of the girl in the middle, chattering with an electric, overflowing sort of excitement that stops automatically every time the other girl opens to speak. It sends a painful, bitter kind of jolt through him when he recognises the look on her face: the carefully reverent elation, calculated to brighten in approval whenever the other girl says anything at all. For a moment, then, he’s just standing there, watching them until they disappear around the darkening corner, until their voices fade into the rush of evening traffic.

It’s impossible to do anything that night, crippled by the thought of that girl and the hundreds of others out there in the world just like her, (just like him), about to blunder their way into what would become one of the biggest regrets of their lives and completely oblivious to that fact.

It settles on his chest like a boulder, the heavy burden of wisdom and this burning desire to reach out desperately, pluck all those girls and boys in the world out there out of their internal thunderstorms, wake them up to the fact that a meaning beyond the poison of the lifestyles of the rich and powerful lies ahead, waiting for them to find it, if only they don’t succumb to the venom of their desires first.

It’s so frustrating, this helplessness to do anything but watch while it’s happening, while it’s happening everywhere around him, to adults, to children, men and women and girls and boys and he can’t do a thing.

(Or at least, that’s what he’s been told.)

He ends up making the decision a lot faster than he thought he would.

The phone is heavy in his hands when he makes the call, and part of him just wants to put it down, stop this crazy stunt, ask himself properly what the hell he’s doing (he definitely hasn’t been thinking about it for the past year, no) but she picks up much too fast for him to change his mind.

“Mint?” Kunpimook’s voice is nervous over the telephone when he speaks, fumbling a little over the childhood nickname his friends had given the woman he’s speaking to. She’s the daughter of an MP, known for having considerable clout in the Constitution of Thailand, whom he’d known from school, one of the few people he still kept vaguely in touch with to this day. “This is Kunpimook, uh, remember me? From school?”

He wonders again what the hell he’s doing for a while, if he’s crazy, and if she’ll think so too, but then she replies, voice clear and direct, probably from years in Oxford doing law and politics.

“Kunpimook-ah?” she sounds puzzled, if not a little curious. “Why? Are we all having another reunion?”

“No, I just-…” he inhales deeply, reciting the summary he’d rehearsed in his mind just before making the call, clenching and unclenching his fingers around the phone before continuing. “I’m thinking of-…of doing something, and I really need your advice. Can you hear me out?”

There’s a pause on the line for a while- Mint had never been a stupid girl (her mother being a top researcher, and her daddy a diplomat, probably helped with that) and Kunpimook knows she’s considering if this is worth her time. But then-…

“Sure,” she says, still inquisitive. “But no promises. What is it you’ve got in mind?”

*

It’s slow, but he makes it work.

Kunpimook drags in contacts from school, smiles and talks passionately and paints glorious pictures in their minds, and though he’s shaking inside from the conflict and the fear, for once in his life he knows what he’s doing, he knows what he wants and it’s only the thought that he isn’t doing it for himself.

He’s doing it for that schoolgirl in the street, doing it for the fresh college graduate discovering that the only way to power is by clawing into the people with it, doing it for the frustrated women in this world under that corporate glass ceiling, forced to marry into affluence in order to obtain it.

And bit by bit people start coming to him with open arms, like-minded men and women, tired and confused and mesmerised by this notion. It’s like a dream, discovering all these people who’d once been through the same struggle, gone through the mill and come out the other side, weary and angry and burdened, carrying a weathered sort of pained injustice that lights up at the idea that they can change it, they can change it for the future, for the better.

So Kunpimook stands as it all works itself out, gradual but steady, feeling the knot in his chest loosen, but with a melancholy sort of twinge.

Only one thing’s missing.

*

It takes five years.

Half a decade after Korea and Kunpimook’s wandering down the street near Wat Phra Kaew, trying to remember where he’s supposed to meet a friend. He notes the palpable presence of loud foreigners and bustling tour groups with some amusement- this temple is one of the main tourist attractions of Thailand, after all, especially in Bangkok, and it’s to be expected.

It’s also to be expected that he whirls around to look at the sound of a painfully familiar language, trying to be heard over the throngs of tourists.

Kunpimook can’t help it, this compulsive need to turn around and crane his neck to look every time he hears someone speak Korean here, in that vague, stupid hope that he might just turn around and see what he’s looking for one day. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson after five years of having his hopes let down, but Kunpimook supposes he’s still as stubborn as the day he’d left.

“Tell them we need to hurry,” it’s a man, brown tips dyed into his hair and glasses on, dressed in the usual tourist wear- cargo pants and a tee shirt, perspiring in the tropical heat, speaking tersely to another woman in Korean, and Kunpimook’s shoulders slump slightly in disappointment.

He’s just about to turn away when that same man looks around in half a panic, clutching on to his map. And with the one word he says after that, everything takes a hundred and eighty degree turn.

“Yugyeom!” And Kunpimook snaps to attention, eyes wide, straining to look over the heads of the people in the way.

He’s standing in the middle of the crowd, disregarding the annoyed looks that people shoot him when he’s in their way, eyes wide and palms sweaty, trying to see where the man’s looking at. There can’t be many people in South Korea with that name, right? There’s still hope, isn’t there?

“Yugyeom, we really need to go now, the bus is coming at any moment. Yerin-…”

He turns back to the woman, who’s laughing lightly at the sight of him looking like he’s about to go into cardiac arrest, and then it’s that moment, the moment Kunpimook’s heart stops when a head rises a little above the crowd, like the man’s getting up, probably from reading one of the inscriptions on the floor.

“Hyung, relax,” and that voice hits Kunpimook like a vortex, sending everything that’d once actually been relatively stable in his head into a crazy whirl, bouncing off the walls of his mind.

This can’t be true, he can’t be here-…

“Don’t get so stressed,” the woman’s speaking again, laughing, heading in the other direction. “I’ll go gather the group first, you try to calm down.”

Kunpimook’s standing, staring, unable to believe what he’s seeing- it’s Yugyeom, Yugyeom standing ten metres away, looking as ridiculously good as ever five years later, even just in jeans and a tee and a knapsack, Yugyeom in Thailand, of all places, and he thinks he’s just about as panicked as that guy over there right now.

That panic escalates tenfold when Yugyeom turns to look over the crowd, as if searching for someone, and his eyes drift down, gradual and a little concerned, until the breathtaking moment that they lock with Kunpimook’s, and stay there, quiet and searching.

And in that moment the earth could’ve broken in half and the sky could’ve fallen and Kunpimook wouldn’t have noticed, because of the galaxy so much more worth watching in Yugyeom’s eyes, a beauty compacted in eternities of starlight and secrecy across volumes in time he hasn’t been able to look upon in so long, and it seems to steal all the air from his lungs, slow down the chaos of the world around them into a muffled standstill. He can hear the pound of blood in his veins in his ears, can feel the heat rising around him, drawing out beads of sweat on his forehead though he’s already so used to the climate, and in that moment he wishes it could remain this way forever.

Then a clear, soft sort of smile starts to tug at the edges of the other man’s mouth, and he draws closer, flowing with the crowd easily towards Kunpimook, who feels like he’s rooted to the ground, unable to do anything but stand and wait with a shocked awe as Yugyeom closes the distance between them.

“Yugyeom?” the syllables are so foreign on his lips they almost ache with the happiness of forming them again, but his voice is small, tentative, barely audible over the clamour of the holiday crowd. “What-…” his mouth is so dry it’s hard to speak. “What are you doing here?”

“Field trip,” Yugyeom says, as if Kunpimook’s supposed to understand what that means, because aren’t field trips for kids-…

“Saem!” a boy fights his way out of the crowd to reach them, bumping accidentally into Yugyeom’s back in his haste. “Saem, you’d better come soon, I think Jaehyung-seonsaengnim is going mad-…”

He notices Kunpimook for the first time, then, who’s trying to connect the keyword that’d just fallen from this boy’s lips to the man standing in front of him right now.

“Do you know him?” the boy’s voice is loud in an arrogant sort of way, the type of tone that doesn’t know it’s being arrogant at all because the owner’s spoken like this all his life.

“Don’t be rude, Hanbin,” Yugyeom chastises him. “Greet him, go on.”

“Sawaddikrap,” the boy bows rather reluctantly, fumbling with the Thai word.

“You’re-…” Kunpimook feels a slow sort of warmth start to spread in him, overflowing and sweet and comforting. “You’re a teacher now?”

“Who is he? How come he knows how to speak Korean?” Hanbin cuts in loudly, but Jaehyung’s panicked voice rings out over the crowd, and Yugyeom turns back in concern.

“Go back first, don’t make Jaehyung-seonsaengnim worry,” Yugyeom pushes Hanbin in the direction of the group of students now gathering, where Jaehyung is, whilst he reaches into his pocket for something. Kunpimook feels his heart rate speed up even more (if that’s possible) when Yugyeom takes a step closer towards him, to mutter something in his ear.

“I got to go now but-…” he’s interrupted by another anguished shout of Yugyeom by the distressed teacher behind them, and Kunpimook feels the other man take his hand, pressing a name card to a hotel into his palm. “Come see me this evening, we’ll let the kids back into the hotel by eight, at the latest-…” Kim Yugyeom, get over here now, the bus-…, “please,” Yugyeom’s voice holds a secret, a plea, of sorts, and it manages to draw Kunpimook in effortlessly like that first verbal tussle had, five years ago, at Mark’s party. Then he’s gone, disappearing quickly into the crowd to herd the kids towards the bus.

That leaves Kunpimook standing alone, slightly dazed, the name card to the hotel still in his hand, and now late for his meeting.

*

The day passes in an excruciatingly slow blur, just one event happening after another that Kunpimook barely registers, as he waits impatiently for night to fall, for another encounter to assure him that the afternoon wasn’t just some crazy dream. At seven forty-five he finds the hotel, some five-star establishment just a little outside the busiest area of Bangkok, all lit up and glittering like the hope that’s just starting to spark within him.

It’s grander than he’d expected for a kids’ field trip, but he supposes he should understand why when he’s seated in the lobby, and Yerin, the lady from before, if he isn’t wrong, shepherds the kids in, reminding them gently to be quiet.

They’re all rich, all obviously born into some ridiculous affluence or another, obvious in the way they speak and the way they hold themselves and their designer luggage and accessories. It makes sense- in a distorted kind of way, like Kunpimook’s missing the pieces somewhere.

Yugyeom’s sent the last pair of kids up, two girls, when his eyes finally connect with Kunpimook’s, where he’s seated at one of the couches in the hotel lobby. A smile lights up his face, and it’s hard to believe that Kunpimook still feels the same way he did five years ago seeing that smile.

He exchanges a few words with the other teachers in the lobby, quiet and quick, before he’s heading over, and Kunpimook feels an anxiety bubbling in the pit of his stomach when Yugyeom reaches him.

“Want a drink?” he asks, then, like they’re back in Korea, like he’s picking up right from where they’d left off, and though there’s an indignity somewhere in the maelstrom of emotions currently bouncing around Kunpimook’s head, he nods, with a faint smile.

*

“So I spent a year after that doing child psychology and early education- they took into account my social sciences and arts degrees, and helped me get a permit to teach literature and everything, so,” Yugyeom shrugs, over the iced coffee in his hands. The streets are still humid but cooler at this time of the day, and they’re seated outside a convenience store near the hotel, facing a deserted carpark. It’s a far cry from the twenty-dollar cocktails they once used to sip, but somehow Kunpimook likes it better this way. “It all worked out pretty well after a while.”

“It’s-…it’s nice to hear that,” Kunpimook doesn’t know why the thought sits so well with him- it feels complete, feels right, somehow.

“Did I seem out of place?” Yugyeom asks, a little amused, and Kunpimook immediately shakes his head.

“No, no, it’s right, it feels like-…like what you would’ve done, you know?” he says, stumbling over words in his haste to get them out. “I’m glad.”

“I know I’ve done something right, then,” Yugyeom’s smile is breathtakingly tender, framed by the beams of soft moonlight and streetlamps, and Kunpimook’s overcome by the sudden urge to match his mouth to it, refresh the memory of the imprint that smile had once made against his lips, but he pushes it down, turns away, instead.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he mutters, grinning anyway, and Yugyeom chuckles.

“I…” the younger man leans over a little, though they’re already side by side on the bench, a curious look on his face. “I heard you started a charity campaign, though? Promoting a fair workplace, and everything?”

“Oh, that,” Kunpimook flushes, waving it away. “It-…it’s nothing, really, I had a lot of help from loads of people,” he shrugs, averting Yugyeom’s eyes. “I just felt I had to do something, after Korea, you know? I couldn’t just-…just stand there and watch everything happen. And it worked, I guess, I feel like more people-…” he winces a little. “More people know now, I guess.”

Yugyeom’s smiling again when he looks up, that same, soft kind of smile, as warm as his embraces and soothing as his words, and it fills the other man with an inexplicable gratification, like the final thing he needed to know he’d done the right thing.

“Sounds like what you would’ve done,” he mimics, chuckling as he leans back to take another languid drink, like something’s just been resolved for him too.

But something’s still nagging at the other man’s conscience, a question demanding to be answered before Kunpimook can be fully satiated, because it seems suspiciously coincidental, almost.

“Why-…” the question falls from Kunpimook’s lips, then, before he can stop it, voicing the concern that’d been lingering on the tip of his tongue since that afternoon. He hesitates a little. “Just…why a-…a teacher, though?”

Yugyeom hangs his head in what looks like sheepishness, then, tinged with a content sort of resignation.

“Your-…your nightmare,” he starts off, biting his lip as he turns to see Kunpimook’s reaction. “You were mumbling in your sleep, that night, so I,” he says in response to the other man’s surprise. “I kind of put two and two together, you know? And it got me thinking,” Yugyeom shrugs here, like he’s still thinking about it. “You know, what if we could-…sort of, change all that?”

By accident or on purpose, the younger man’s hand settles on Kunpimook’s, blanketing the slender digits in a tender warmth, but the action’s so natural, so honest, that he hardly notices.

“Change their mindsets before they grow up, let them know-…there’s value in life, and not just their own, you know?” Yugyeom chuckles. “It’s ridiculous sometimes- the parents can be nightmares when they want to, but I feel like…like it’s worth it, you know?”

“So you became a teacher?” it makes sense, it does, and the resolution in Kunpimook’s chest warms further.

“It seemed the best thing to do at the time,” Yugyeom laughs. “I think Jaebum-hyung’s set some corporate boycott on me, because I didn’t get accepted by any of the companies associated with his after I wanted to start working again, but that’s a good thing, I guess, because I’m here now,” he smiles knowingly. “Here with you.”

Kunpimook lets out a choked exhale, trying to roll his eyes and failing because he agrees one hundred percent on that. “How’s that working out for you so far?”

“Great,” Yugyeom laughs. “It’s almost a fair trade.”

“Almost,” Kunpimook smacks his hand away, threatening to spill coffee on them both. “Yeah, right.”

This is where Yugyeom conveniently leans in, catching the other man completely off guard, and Kunpimook’s enlightened to the fact that his kisses haven’t changed one bit, still just as gorgeous, just as breathtaking, except this time, unlike the fierce, hungry passion that’d devoured them back in Korea, this one’s sweeter, gentler, like they’ve got all the time in the world to pour their love over and there’s no need to rush. It’s like the perfectly fulfilling conclusion to the prologue of their relationship, the opening to the beginning of their happily ever after, and Kunpimook wonders if he’s ever felt so content before in his life.

Kunpimook unconsciously his lips after they part, reliving the taste of their kisses, but Yugyeom’s eyes are wondering, worried, slightly, lips parted with the held breath of a rehearsed but unasked question.

“Kunpimook-ah, I-…I know it’s not fair of me to ask, because you’ve got your family, your job, but-…have you ever, you know,” Yugyeom stutters a little here, and Kunpimook already knows, with a nervous apprehension, what he’s going to ask. “Thought about-…about expanding your campaign overseas?”

The thought sinks properly only when Yugyeom says it, only when he really asks, what he’s pleading of from Kunpimook.

“I have contacts in Seoul, they’ll be more than happy to help, they just need someone’s guidance,” a stream of words flows forth from his lips, like these are reasons he’s thought over and put down on paper and memorised for a moment like this. “You’ll be able to go back regularly to see your family- your fares will be subsidised if we work out the government grants right, and-…and we’ll be able to work out your lodging and everything just fine. And you don’t have to worry about your job, your qualifications and everything-…”

“Yes.”

“…-are more than enough,” Yugyeom comes to a breathless stop, and for a moment it’s silent between the two of them, struggling to comprehend what’s just been said, to think properly about the repercussions of this decision.

Family. Friends. Campaign. Kunpimook’s remembering bits and pieces of his life here now, each one weighing heavier and heavier on the opposing scale, but the promise of something greater, something higher, lies ahead in the hand that Yugyeom’s offering to him now.

Yugyeom must be able to sense the conflict in his head, because he backs off, and the moment defuses. “I-…I don’t expect you to make a decision now, you must want to talk about it with your family first, and everything, but-…but when you make up your mind-…” his sentence seems to end at the edge of a cliff here, overlooking a gorge of endless possibilities laced with painful sacrifice, but the hope that balloons into his words takes Kunpimook’s attention away from it, makes it better. “We’ll get in touch?”

Kunpimook finds Yugyeom’s hand, laces their fingers and settles it between them on the bench, and it calms the butterflies in his stomach from their tangents of apprehension and anticipation, reminds him that they’re here now, with each other, and that it’s what counts.

“I will,” he promises, lost in thought, hovering over the possibility of going back, back to all the nightmares and the fear, away from his family and the home he’s just rebuilt for himself here, and for a moment he’s terrified of the mistake he could potentially be making here. But then he think about Yugyeom, the only source of strength he’d been able to rely on to face it all, and suddenly, he feels safe. He feels okay.

Not impenetrable, not invincible, not immortal, but okay. And maybe okay works for him now.

He’s so lost in thought he almost doesn’t notice when Yugyeom moves, pulling something out of his knapsack to place gently on his lap, shaking Kunpimook from his musings.

“What…?” he picks the book up, turns it over, and even in the dim light he can tell at once what it is- why’d Yugyeom bring it here? And why would he pass it to him? “You brought this?”

“You wouldn’t believe what kids these days are doing for literature classes,” Yugyeom chuckles, and with deft fingers he reaches over, pushing the worn cover back and flipping through the pages easily. In the poor streetlight Kunpimook still manages to catch the highlighting, still in the same lilac and indigo he’d once been so eager to read, and it passes in a blur until he realises they’re at the back of the book, at the end of the story.

Then Kunpimook sees the new highlighting, one he’d never caught before, the final memento to the story, in a new colour- blue, this time.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Amidst the ability to lie, the ability to beg, to manipulate, then, Kunpimook realises they’ve unlocked something that breaks all that, that manifests beginning from the bottom of their hearts to their lips and fingertips. It’s an ironic idealism, a senseless hope, that consumes them, what both makes them vulnerable and saves them, a weapon and a shield, and it draws them to each other like a magnet. Helpless but safe. Suspended but assured. This is the home they’ve created for the two of them in their hearts, waiting to be inhabited.

“I missed you,” Yugyeom says finally, barely murmuring the words, so close Kunpimook can feel the warmth radiating from his body, reaching out and shrouding him in a blissful, invisible embrace he’s missed so badly.

And all of a sudden he’s sure he can face it, sure he can stand up and fight against the current and come out of this battle alive, as long as he’s got Yugyeom by his side, as long as they’re pulling through together, hand in hand, side by side.

For a moment, then, Kunpimook pushes the worries out of his head, pushing the fear and uncertainties away in favour of focusing his full attention on the moment at hand, lets himself be selfish and think only about how much he’s longed to feel this again, how much he’s pined for this for the five years they’ve been apart.

Best case scenario, we never meet again. Worst case scenario, we tear each other apart.

It seems like an eternity as he closes the distance between them, and for a moment there’s just the far-off sound of occasional traffic, the low hum of the streetlight, the sound of the night going to sleep around them, and he smiles against Yugyeom’s lips, more peaceful than anticipatory, more secure than fearful.

“I missed you too.”

Middle ground always did seem the best idea.

______________________

a/n: cries so that's the end of that

uhm well i'm not sure if this is necessary but i'm going to ramble anyway i'm sorry T.T

this story's really important to me? the writing process was incredibly rewarding and seeing the end product (sort of makes me cringe sometimes cries but) gives this sense of fulfilment? ugh this is weird but i sort of feel like i want to do a self-indulgent dissemination (of sorts) for this fic (and most of my other fics cries) on my livejournal soon and that's where i'll ramble even more but yeah ;A; i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing this ;A; 

might i also direct you to the wonderful chanyeolanda's spin-off based on this fic cries (please see trigger warnings before reading though!)

but thank you for following me on this wonderful journey and i hope i didn't bore you too much through this fic T.T thank you to the people who commented! i loved reading your opinions cries \o/ 

sincerely,
hiphopbabylion <3