RYEOWOOK

then

On most mornings I’d wake with a smile on my face. Sure, there were days where I stirred to wakefulness feeling cranky and enervated, but those days were few and far between. Given how blessed I was, it was difficult not to love life and to embrace every single day of it with the people I love.

This morning, I hummed a song as I pulled on my favourite button-up shirt and dabbed on my neck a drop of the scented water that Yesung gifted me last month. 

The buttery smell of scrambled eggs floated up from the kitchen and my stomach gurgled in want. I swallowed my saliva, grabbed my bag and hastened out of my room. In my blind rush down the stairs, I clashed with Kyuhyun, who was on his way up to his room. I’d have been sent sprawling if not for Kyuhyun’s steadying hand on my upper arm.

“There, there,” Kyuhyun said, righting me. “I thought we were taught as kids that there should be no running on the stairs.”

I smiled sheepishly. “I’m hungry.”

“Right,” Kyuhyun replied dryly. He wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air before homing his twitching nostrils on me. “You smell different today.”

“I smell good today, don’t I?”

He pulled away from me, mock disgust marring his face. “You smell better without whatever stuff you’ve sprayed on.”

I tried to thwack him on his head, but he dodged easily. Laughing, he said, “Go have your breakfast before Appa starts nagging again.” 

He edged past me and continued his ascent. He was a lanky fellow and like many tall guys, his back rounded into a little knoll. We had told him many times to straighten his back when he walked, but it was a habit of his that neither our appa nor I could get him to abandon.

I hopped down the remaining steps and went through an arch that separated the kitchen from the living room. In the kitchen, I scarfed down the scrambled eggs like a starving wolf. I held out my plate for more, and Appa tipped sizzling strips of bacons and sausages onto my plate after a moment of disapproving hesitation.

“You’re not afraid that you’d return to being the chubbiest kid on this street?”

I shovelled the food into my mouth and washed them down with milk, hiccuping once before I replied, “I’m skinny now.” I looked at the rooster-shaped clock on the counter. “All right, Appa, I need to run now.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang, its melodious music vying for attention with the chirping birds outside. A broad smile spread across my face.

“Yesung’s here.” I said, pushing away from the table. 

Kyuhyun had returned to the living room when I surfaced from the kitchen. He was sitting cross-legged at the coffee table, his laptop in front of him.

“Bye, Kyu,” I waved as I passed him. “I’ll catch you in school later. Remember to join us for lunch.”

“Hold on,” He commanded and I stopped, turning to regard him quizzically.

“What?”

He got up from the carpet and approached me. “Did you not wipe your mouth again?” He picked something off the corner of my lips, and as he drew back, I saw that it was a morsel of the eggs.

I smiled sheepishly, again. “Thanks.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “When are you going to grow up?”

There was no menace in his words, no disappointment. He said it like I was a child, and like he was the doting father who didn’t stop loving the child despite all his minor flaws. Though, in reality, we were brothers.

It was moments like this that made me realise the actual depth of how fortunate I was. I must have done a great deal of good in my past life to be born into this life, to have Kyuhyun as a brother. Our relatives were always insistent on putting the word “half” before the word “brother” when defining my relationship with Kyuhyun, as if that would lessen the affection I felt for him or the importance of him in my life.

“I don’t need to when I have you,” I replied, beaming.

The doorbell rang again.

“You better get going.” Kyuhyun nudged me, already turning away from me. He waved a half-hearted goodbye.

“See you.” I chirped, bouncing to the door and fling it open. Yesung was at the doorstep, looking dapper as usual. I threw myself into Yesung’s arms; he stumbled, laughing. 

“Let’s get going,” Yesung said, working his fingers into the valleys between mine. 

Later, as Yesung and I walked down the street and pass the spot where a wishing tree was, I recited a wish in my heart. Since time immemorial, my wish had never changed.

Kyuhyun was my brother and my best friend. Yesung was my lover and my best friend, too. Together, the three of us were unbeatable. I wanted the three of us to stay together forever.

At that time, I did not realise that my wanting for this happiness to last forever was my first step in the direction of my eventual destruction.

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