hellooo friends! :_) here's the new chapter, and i must say beforehand that you can't expect much because this is more of a filler. very weird writing going on this time, so please beware and i hope you don't cringe too much. i hope y'all like it! <3

Mingyu stopped in his tracks. “Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo stood next to Seungcheol, who grinned and waved at Mingyu like they were the best of friends. He was just about to enter the shaded pathway with the shophouses, unaware of the residents occupying that space, when he thought he saw Seungcheol attempting to kidnap his best friend.

“What the , hyung, stop trying to tell Wonwoo about what we do.”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrow, and Mingyu groaned.
Seungcheol chuckled and pointed to the pathway. “You probably shouldn’t go there, now. Unwanted company, as Wonwoo had already met.”

“Ah, whatever,” Mingyu tugged Wonwoo’s sleeve, pulling him away from Seungcheol, “let’s just go to the bench, I have something to say.”

Seungcheol made a retching noise, gesturing wanting to vomit, and Mingyu rolled his eyes.

“Thanks, hyung.”

The waves were crashing. What a sound, Wonwoo thought, it was louder in Mingyu’s vicinity; his house stood nearer to the shore, while Wonwoo’s was hidden slightly away, closer to the forest.

All of a sudden he felt a sense of deja vu, sitting at the bench, listening to the crackling and the gale, to Mingyu’s breathing, feeling sweat dab at his shirt. Squinting at the setting sun, trying to see beyond the offing, to dismiss the heat waves transmitted in the colour of the sky and the ocean.

He sighed. The leaves of the trees that cloaked their bench area on the cliff rustled, susurrant, around their legs and falling off the edge. The town was only heard in the distance - the cars’ engines whirred softer, occasional bicycle bells rang, somewhere a fishmonger was still trying to sell the leftover salmon caught earlier, and children ten years younger were trying to steal japanese neri ame.

Mingyu sat down with a grunt, crossing his legs and narrowing his eyes. “Feels kind of deja vu, huh?”

Wonwoo smiled. There was a silence, like the last time they were there, except he had a script he was trying to recall and a Mingyu who sat confused.

They liked it. To have mutual silence, a few seconds to really appreciate the motion of the waves that kept the town alive - both heat and water alike.

It was morning, the other day, the first day of summer, but it was evening now instead. The sun prepared to set and Wonwoo remembered somewhere in his script he wanted to confess amongst the vesper, with the flush of fuchsia and the gradient of gold to blush.

“You said you had something to say?”

Wonwoo closed his eyes. In summer, the temperature cooled in eventide and the gusts began to sail, blowing gently against his skin and hair.

“I have to go to Seungkwan’s,” Mingyu looked at his best friend carefully, trying to observe emotion evident. It was always more beneficial to take drama class; why Wonwoo chose to take a segregate class on literature would never stop mystifying him.

“Seungkwan’s? What for?”

“I’m going to turn it against you.” Mingyu said, and two seconds after even he realised it was such an awkward saying. Wonwoo turned to look at him instead of the waves, tilting his head.

“What? In which era are you living in? Who even says that anymore?”

“My grandmother does.”

“So you live in her era?”

“You’re the one who keeps watching those dramas, and you’re calling me old?”

“Everybody watches those. You’re just too dumb to understand anything, so you aren’t interested.”

“You- fine, I’m going to let that one go, but only because we’re straying off course.”

“I’m listening.”

Mingyu rubbed circles into his temples. “Okay, so my mother found out.”

Wonwoo nodded.

“And you know she’s religious, just as she isn’t as chill as yours.”
Wonwoo snorted.

“And, and I wanted to tell you first.”
Wonwoo urged him to continue.
“That I was going to Seungkwan’s, so he could write another article.”

“That I forced myself on you?” Wonwoo raised his eyebrow.

Mingyu flinched at the choice of wording. “Yes, but not in that manner-”

“Yeah, Seokmin told me.”

“What?”
“He called me, he told me you were going to get interviewed.”
“Is that why you looked like you were going to punch me?”
Wonwoo sighed. “I was, but then I thought you were just being rational.”

Mingyu wanted to laugh. “No, you don’t understand.”

After gold comes blush, and after blush comes onyx.

The day was ending, and Mingyu wasn’t liking how it was.

He was always the sensible of the two.

Put things back where they were, don’t touch anything, arrange vertically, place horizontally. If equilibrium is threatened, take out the obstacle to reinforce balance.

In a cairn, you stack a stone atop of the last. If the stone makes the cairn wobble, rationally, you’d take out the stone and replace it with another one. Rationally, you don’t let a single rock collapse the system, and all the efforts made to build that stack in the first place.

His mother’s words came back, and he contrasted them with Wonwoo’s. Sin, sin, sin. If he had guts, he’d tell her they were just words from a white book.

If he had guts, he’d tell Seungkwan and Seokmin to jump off the cliff, or Jihoon that he appreciated him for all his idiosyncrasies until the previous day. If he had guts, he wouldn’t be sitting there, on the bench they claimed theirs years ago, trying to think of something to say.

“Just, just punch me.” Mingyu concluded, but in the dark, with the town’s orange lights glowing from houses and shops behind, it was hard to discern what his best friend, the person he’d known for eight years, was thinking about.

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “On your face?”

Mingyu cringed, but nodded. “Yeah, and do it squarely. Like, don’t hit my jaw.”

Wonwoo made a fist, hitting softly as an aim at Mingyu’s cheekbone. “Like here?”

Mingyu groaned. “Classic, yeah. On the cheek.”
His best friend grinned. “Seems like there’s a good side to this.”
“Just hurry up, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Close your eyes. Don’t think you wanna see a flying fist coming at you.”

Mingyu did as his best friend ordered, and he pursed his lips in anticipation of agony.

Wonwoo looked at the waves, the distant part of the ocean no longer visible but a part of a star-lit sky.

When Seokmin called him, he couldn’t say he was surprised. Mingyu was always the sensible of the two, after all.

It was sensible to turn it against him, practical to secure safety, logical to leave the ramifications to the person who started it all.

The downside of being in a small riverine town was that other than a few fancy restaurants, fishing gear, boat rentals and the wild, there wasn’t much to do. The upside of it, however, was that you truly got to see what dark looked like.

What onyx of elements appeared to be amongst the small glow of hanging oil lamps, what the ocean looked like melding with the sky.

What the stars looked like, emancipated, and the harbour like Van Gogh’s over the rhone painting. What the void could look like, if you stood at the edge of the cliff and stared downwards, the blackness of the ocean recreated like a black hole.

Or, l’appel du vide, as they would say, just the feeling to jump into nothing.

He sat next to Mingyu, who still had his eyes closed, and he knew punching him at this point wasn’t going to make himself feel better. If there was someone he did want to punch, it was the person who set the bar of a woman needing to date a man, and a man needing to date a woman.

So, instead, he leaned towards his best friend, like last summer, and he placed his hand on Mingyu’s thigh.

“Wonwoo, hurry up. If you’re any slower I’m going to change my mind.”

The waves were splashing. The rhythmic pulse of the sea seemingly urged him to go on.

Like last summer, he thought, when it was still evening, and it wasn’t that dark, and he wanted to confess right then and there.

He pressed his lips onto Mingyu’s, and with the last time they properly did, he didn’t know timing, consistency, but he did at least try to close his eyes. He had them shut, just waiting, like the last time Seungkwan pestered him to watch a lousy romcom and the main characters just stood around limply with their lips mashed together.

Unknowingly, he let out a small laugh, because that scene was hilarious.

The main character was tall already, and he had to bend down to kiss the female lead about sixteen centimeters shorter, but that cut lasted a good sixty seconds, with adjuncts of shimmery flowers surrounding them. Wonwoo recalled commenting about