Walking through the storm – with you, for you, because of you.

Baekhyun walks into his house.

He has been at work for two days straight. His body feels grimy, and overused, his fingers are numb from the feeling of typing constantly. His eyelids feel gritty and his ears are ringing from being constantly on the phone alternatively being screamed at and screaming at people to get the work done.

He has something to do tonight, something scary, something that might change things forever and he dithers over the doorstep over 5 minutes trying to collect his thoughts.

He lightly trips over a haphazard pair of shoes on his wake, it’s very unlike Kyungsoo to leave things lying around. The tie comes off and he dumps his brief case in the hallway.

Tired and half asleep as he is, he does not realize the two people in his living room till it’s  too late. One of them is definitely Kyungsoo; even though he can’t see well in the dim lighting, he would recognize that moan anywhere. He is pushed up against the dining table his tie askew and hair a mess, in to the crook of a broad pair of shoulder, while the the other guys whispers things to him, his hand working Kyungsoo's pant zipper with clumsy fingers.

Something freezing and heavy drops to the bottom of Baekhyun’s stomach. For a second he is numb with shock. No. No. Can’t be.

Kyungsoo opens his eyes in a haze and freezes when he sees Baekhyun and the other guy takes some time to notice that something is not right. He turns around, following Kyungsoo line of sight and sloshes into Kyungsoo in surprise. He is drunk.

“. “ he giggles. “Is this your roommmate. Kyungsoo?” he slurs.

Baekhyun grits his teeth.

“No. No, I’m his boyfriend.”

“.” The dark boy repeats, this time it is not accompanied with a giggle. “Dude. I – I didn’t know. I – ”

“I didn’t know either.” Baekhyun says, grimly.

Kyunsoo who had been quiet through all of this, looks his right in the eye.

“But I wanted you to know.”

The storm their break up had stirred up at been enormous.

Friends fought, took sides, justified and blamed, met after work to discuss how they could salvage this relationship.

“Is 8 years together a ing joke to you?” Chen snaps at Baekhyun one night when they meet.

Baekhyun looks at him, solemnly, head reeling with a million unanswered questions. “To Kyungsoo, apparently it was.”

“what the were you thinking?” Kwangsoo shakes Kyungsoo by the shoulders.

“That I wasted the best years of my life on him.” Kyungsoo shrugs him off and walks away.

6 years later.

A high-society ajhumma in brand name sweat pants runs past him with a tiny dog on a leash. A cyclist misses him barely as he speeds past next. Kyungsoo keeps walking.  It’s been years. He has quite forgotten what it was like on Saturdays in the Hangang Park. 5 years in USA and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sounds of constant chatter around him in Hangugoh.

Kwangsoo is waiting for him near a food cart, bouncing on the heels of his feet, as tall as ever but more wrinkled. It shocks him to see that Kwangsoo is really starting to look 30. Will others be shocked to see him too, grown into his baby fact and sharpened around the edges?

Kwangsoo is only too happy too see him, squishing him in a hug that doesn’t end for 5 minutes and he jabbers away about every possible thing Kyungsoo had missed in their friend circle without letting kyungsoo speak at all. The topic finally circles down to the one person Kwangsoo had avoided talking about for the past hour. They are at a small restaurant, sharing deokkbokki and jjajjangmyun.

“So, what about him. You have worked very hard not to mention him all this time.” Kyungsoo says.

“Can you at least pretend that I wasn’t so obvious.!?”

“No.”

Kwangsoo heaves a sigh. “He got married.”

Across the table Kyungsoo starts and spills some of his coke down his shirt. But his face remains impassive.

“They were good together. Taeyeon was a sweet girl. She had come down from Seoul for a college MT and they met at the beech.”

“Hmmm.”

“They – They got divorced 2 years ago.”

Kyungsoo eyes flick up to his very quickly, there is a flicker of an emotion there, before he looks back down at his food, as poker-faced as ever.

“We used to come here a lot, you know. When we first started working. We were so busy but we wanted to see each other some how, every day at lunch we would meet here, stuff ourselves with food. Sometimes we wouldn’t even speak but it was good, just to sit next to each other and eat and maybe sneak into some alleyway and makeout before running back to work. Before he got too busy to make it home at least once a week that is.”

Kwangsoo looks at him silently. “It would have still been the same. It could have.”

“Could it?

“Kyungsoo, you are my bro and all of that. But. You messed it up. Big time.”

Kyungsoo draws a small pattern on the condensation of his glass. “Did I now?” kwangsoo can’t tell but there is a light hint of hard sarcasm in that tone that confuses him.

“Nevermind. It’s all too long ago now right. Are you coming for the reunion tonight?”

“Should I ? I bet everyone still hates me for what happened.”

“They…. Did. But again, it was too long ago. We have turned 30. THIRTY! It’s time to forgive and forget now.”

Kyungsoo smiles at him. “Sure, that sounds easy enough to do.”

“Oh, shut uop. You can be my date for tonight.”

It’s almmost comical, their reaction to him.

There’s a moment of “Well, hello, who is this…?”, followed by a few rapid eye blinks, and then a double take anda a gasp. All this drama is followed by a hasty cough, or a forced smile and then some stuttered. “Oh, nice to see you Kyungsoo. You haven’t changed at all.”

“It’s not like I frickin killed someone. I broke up with my boufriend and moved to another country! They look at me like I’m on parole or I came back from the dead.”

Kwangsoo massages his shoulders. “You know how it is here. It’s a small town, everyone is in everyone’s business blah-blah.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes but before he could reply there is a squeal of delight and he is wrapped in a couple of pairs of arms, squished into unknown body parts, lifted up, passed around, shaked by the shoulders, hair touseled, cheeks pinched before he is finally allowed to breath. He gasps and clutches at Kwangsoo, his previously immaculate suit wrinkles beyond salvaging now.

“Oh, dear god. I’m taking the next flight back to America, you s.”

“Awwww, isn’t he cute?” Chen giggles. “Honey, say hi. Kyungsoo, my wife Han Mi, Han Mi, Kyungsoo.”

The girl nods and smiles uncertainly at him. She probably know what happened too. Kris  grins at him like a Cheshire cat. Sehun has a tiny smile on his face, which is big deal for him.

Kyungsoo has barely settled into a comfortable chatter with them when he hears his voice. There is a giggle and a called out greeting from behind him and before he knows it Baekhyun shoots past him and headbutts Sehun. His hair is dyed into a silvery glow, but even from behind he looks the same. Kyungsoo sits frozen because he didn’t think, he didn’t imagine it would be lik