Sanghyuk was so close to giving up waiting for Hakyeon, especially that his class was about to start in 10 minutes and he was nowhere near ready to depart from the corner where he was waiting for his best friend.

What was so very urgent for Hakyeon to order Sanghyuk to meet up with him at 8.50 am was not exactly clear for Sanghyuk himself, but he would have bet his entire fortune that it was nothing of paramount importance. Still, he waited there, bag on his shoulder, cappuccino in one hand and a hot latte with Cinnamon Dolce Syrup in the other, tapping the rhythm of the ripples of his anger with his right foot.

“Good you’re here,” Hakyeon jabbered instead of a greeting, taking his latte from Sanghyuk and giving him some cash in return. “Mm, this is amazing, thanks.”

“Hakyeon,” Sanghyuk said, forcing himself to sound calm. “I’m going to be late. What do you want?”

“Okay, okay,” Hakyeon nodded and reached out his coffee for Sanghyuk to hold. He started rummaging in his own bag, digging up two rectangles of fabric. “Which one would be better for a shirt? This one or this one?”

If looks could kill, Hakyeon would have at least fainted from the one Sanghyuk sent him.

“Did you seriously drag me here to tell you which one of those shiny- materials would look good on you while you obscenely drag your hands up and down your body?”

Sanghyuk’s ominous whisper apparently didn’t scare Hakyeon for he said: “Yes.”

Sanghyuk stared at Hakyeon, silently begging him to say he was just joking, but when he realized that Hakyeon wasn’t, he examined the sparkly navy and the sparkly steel blue rectangles of fabric, throwing his arms in the air.

“The left one,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Hakyeon asked, his expression worried. “Because if you’re just joking—”

“I’m not, I don’t want to spend more time with you trying to decide between ing fabrics than necessary.”

“Navy it is, then. I’m going to Taek— ah, I’m going to get these done.”

Hakyeon looked at Sanghyuk like he mentioned someone who had already passed away. Sanghyuk didn’t care, tried not to care, had no time to care at the moment; thinking about Taekwoon or… other people took him a while because he always arrived at the complicated net of controversial feelings in the end.

“Yeah, well, I have to go now,” Sanghyuk mumbled, fidgeting awkwardly with the strap of his bag.

“Take care,” Hakyeon said so gently it made Sanghyuk feel like he was saying goodbye to his mother. He smiled at Hakyeon reassuringly before walking off towards the tram station.

It was a sunny September day, dry leaves all around the streets of downtown which was a queer sight at any time of the year. The air was a bit chilly in the morning, but it would definitely warm up by noon and Sanghyuk’s jacket would become unnecessary. That feeling just went with the beginning of the new semester.

He didn’t notice the man standing next to him because he was too concentrated on the small pebble he was kicking back and forth with his feet until he saw, from his peripheral vision, the logo of a familiar shop on a brown paper bag. He stopped his actions for a second, and then looked up to see Jaehwan staring at him with an almost invisible smile.

Sanghyuk hadn’t seen him in a while, almost two months, and he hadn’t prepared for meeting him again yet. His chest got heavy and he heard his pulse drumming in his ears—he was suffocating.

“Hey,” Jaehwan said, clear and melodic like always.

“Hey,” Sanghyuk breathed back—he hoped he did.

“Going to class?” Jaehwan asked, pointing at Sanghyuk’s bag.

“Yes,” Sanghyuk nodded. “You?”

“Home. I have no shift today. I just went to grab something for breakfast.”

“But you don’t even like those pastries.”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan laughed. “I don’t. I’m just too used to their taste.”

He looked down at the paper bag in his hand with his smile fading a little, his gaze jumping up at Sanghyuk’s face for a second and Sanghyuk almost let himself believe it was nostalgia what he saw on Jaehwan, that maybe he missed the time they had spent together just as much as Sanghyuk did. Almost.

“Would you…” Jaehwan began, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts for a moment, looking at Sanghyuk again. “Would you like it? It’s a scone filled with peach jam.”

“I don’t want to take away your breakfast, Jaehwan.”

“I already ate the other one,” Jaehwan shrugged. “I’d like to give it to you.”

Jaehwan’s eyes were so shiny and so big and he was so… Jaehwan that Sanghyuk’s heart felt like it was able to beat again after two months of it lying still and cold; it wanted to flutter out of his chest.

“Wait a second,” Sanghyuk said, pulling his bag forward, opening it and rummaging through his textbooks, notebooks, pencil case and water bottle. It took him an embarrassingly long time to take his Mars bar out of the smallest pocket, but when he found it, he reached it out to Jaehwan. “It’s seemingly a chocolate bar but… it’s actually an apology. Chocolaty and nougaty and caramely. I hope it’ll be sufficient.”

Jaehwan slowly took the Mars bar and handed Sanghyuk the scone. He eyed the chocolate like he was expecting it to tell him something, and Sanghyuk smiled, because he could see the impatience on Jaehwan’s face, he knew he wanted to shove the entire bar down his throat right then and there but he was containing himself. He was cautious.

“Thank you,” they said at the same time, grinning at each other.

“Don’t you want to skip your class and go to the park?” Jaehwan asked then. “Or… do you want to study some more cool equations?”

“I don’t care about equations,” Sanghyuk replied, shaking his head.

He watched Jaehwan as he ate the chocolate on the way to the park, Sanghyuk himself chewing on the scone. Jaehwan was still as beautiful, still as heartbreakingly himself that it pressed down on Sanghyuk’s chest, his voice was still like milk caramel candy, but it was okay.

Jaehwan was there. That was all that mattered.

End