The plane arrived at Jeju Island when a new day started peeking through the clouds. It was a bumpy landing that’d have tossed passengers to the roof if not for the seat belts. The man next to Kyuhyun swore loudly as he threw Kyuhyun a glance, half-expecting Kyuhyun to echo his sentiments. Kyuhyun only noncommittally shrug. Truth be told, he welcomed the distraction from the carousel of thoughts that spun in his head.

After going through immigration and collecting his luggage, Kyuhyun stepped out of the airport. The air in Jeju smelled markedly different from that of Seoul, less industrial and maybe, because of what he was here for, more hopeful. 

He hailed a taxi and asked the driver to send him to his hotel. On the highway, he kept his eyes on the scenery that swung by. The sun had risen higher in the sky, igniting a sparkly trail on the surface of the sea that spread out below. His stomach lurched and pulled as he alternated between anticipation and apprehension.

“Your first time in Jeju?” The driver asked in voice roughened by innumerable sticks of cigarettes. He was looking at Kyuhyun through the rearview mirror.

“My third,” Kyuhyun replied politely.

The driver nodded, but looked unconvinced. “You look nervous. Not here for a holiday, are you?”

It was then that Kyuhyun became aware of his body language. His palms were pressed together between his thighs, and he was sitting a few inches too forward. He shifted, flattening his hands on his lap and leaning back into the vinyl seat.

“I’m here to find someone.”

“An enemy? A potential employer? A wife?” The driver chortled gruffly. “I’d say your future in-laws if you aren’t alone. You look like your life is dependent on whoever you’re looking for.”

That, Kyuhyun thought, is not that far from the truth. But he merely smiled before turning to look out of the window again. 

They took a turn into the city center, leaving the expanse of sea behind. The driver pulled to a stop at Kyuhyun’s hotel and drove off after giving Kyuhyun a few words of well-wishes. Because it was off-peak season, the receptionist was able to offer Kyuhyun a room immediately even though there was a couple of hours to go before the official check-in time. He was thankful for that because he was far from being that healthy chap who had boundless energy. The journey from Seoul to Jeju was enough to make him tired.

In his room, Kyuhyun drew the curtains apart and unlatched the windows. The hotel was a distance from the coast but from where he was, he could still catch a whiff of brine in the air.

His original plan was to take a nap to refresh himself, but with the way his mind was buzzing, he doubted he’d be able to sleep. He took a shower instead and changed into a fresh white shirt and jeans. In full-length mirror next to the bathroom door, he looked at his reflection, wistfulness sliding over him as tenderly as silk on skin.

Time wasn’t the only thing that his sickness had siphoned away. Without the in-between layer of muscles, his skin was a loose cover for his bone. The slope from his cheeks to his chin was too sharp, and he was ghastly pale under the spotlight. His newly acquired bone marrow was still striving to adapt to his body and churn out enough blood cells to return a pink sheen to his skin.

His old self would have been unhappy with his current physical state. His new self, not so much. What mattered was that he was here, lungs still working, heart still beating. Everything else was secondary.

He mussed his hair a little and adjusted his collar. He’d given up rehearsing what to say because he was sure that when the moment came, all he’d be able to do was to stare at the person standing before him as he staved off the urge to sweep him into his arms. He’d promised himself that he’d take things slow.

When he decided that he looked as presentable as he could be, he left the room.

::::::::::

On his second taxi ride, Kyuhyun drew comparisons between Jeju and Seoul, and his efforts continued even after the taxi dropped him at the university. As he walked through the school compound, he noted that the school was much smaller than the universities back in Seoul. He passed by a group of giggling girls, a professor-student pair locked in a friendly debate, and a team of young men playing informal soccer. Despite the pockets of activities here and there, the school seemed to be clothed with a sense of permanent tranquility.

Cleaner air, bluer skies, emptier streets and an overall vibe of peace - all of the above could form the reason why a person would decide to make this island his second home.

After getting directions from a few people, he arrived at the correct faculty. Rooms lined the corridor that led to the Department of Classical Music. They were occupied, and as he walked,  his footfalls an erratic rhythm against the muffled music seeping through the walls.

He met his next hurdle at his destination. A set of glass doors, which only opened by card access, guarded the entrance to the department. Because no one answered when Kyuhyun pressed the intercom, he loitered outside, pacing to the window and back. Fifteen minutes passed before a beep sounded. One panel of the glass doors swung outward, releasing a young lady. She had the glazed-eyed look of a student mired too. She didn’t notice Kyuhyun until he stopped her.

“Hey.”

She blinked slowly, her eyes uncannily owlish behind her thick glasses. 

“I’m here to look for Ryeowook,” he continued when focus slipped into her eyes. “I’m his…friend.”

Maybe more than a friend. Maybe not even close to being it.

She angled her chin and used a moment to evaluate Kyuhyun and his intentions. Kyuhyun assumed that he’d passed when she said, “Let me check if he’s in.”

She tapped herself back into the office and came out again a minute later. Kyuhyun didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed when he didn’t see a second person trailing behind her. 

“Ryeowook’s at a class right now and he’s not going to be back until lunch,” she explained. 

Kyuhyun looked at his watch. It was only ten a.m.. 

“Do you want to leave your phone number behind? I’ll get him to ring you when he’s back.”

“I think I’ll wait for him.”

She shrugged as if to say ‘suit you’. “You can take a seat there.” She gestured to the assembly of couches that occupied a common area a few feet away. 

So he did. He clamped his hands between his knees and began to wait.

::::::::::

Chatters erupted in the room when the class ended. Most of the students crammed their belongings into their bags and filed out, discussing their choice of lunch spot over grumbling stomachs. The more inquisitive ones approached Ryeowook with their questions, all of which he patiently answered.

His last student had just left when a knock came from the door. Professor Jang swayed into the room, a takeaway coffee cup in his hand. 

Ryeowook flicked a glance at the clock above the whiteboard, then at the windows that showed hallway. The next class of students had already gathered outside, and they were staring grumpily into the room. “Sorry, Professor, I ate into your time again.”

Professor Jang laughed, the wrinkles etched on the skin around his eyes pleating. “You must be one of the most dedicated TAs we have in the department. Have you considered getting into the academics in the future?”

“There’s still a long way to go before I graduate.” Ryeowook smiled, scooping the pile of teaching materials into his arms. “I should get going. See you around, Professor.” 

On his way out of the room, Ryeowook bowed apologetically to the students whose lesson he had delayed. He checked his timetable mentally and quickened his pace. It was Wednesday today, which meant that he had another class of undergraduates to teach shortly after lunch. 

Three months more and he’d have been in Jeju for two years. When he’d visited Jeju as a child, he remembered folding his arms in tight-lipped sulkiness because the island had none of those fancy theme parks that other cities boasted. Coming back as an adult, he saw the city in a different light. The sound of waves sweeping up the coast charmed him. The roads were less busy and the drivers more patient. The streets were never congested, affording pedestrians the kind of personal space that could only be dreamed of back in Seoul.

He spent his weekdays in school, divvying his time between completing his studies and being the teaching assistant for some undergraduate modules. On weekends, he went out with his peers when he felt up for it, merging into friendly conversations with them over a few drinks. But most of the time, he stayed home or took a bus to the embankment where older men fished in silence. He’d sit there for hours, letting the tranquility of that place reenergise him for the coming week. 

He was doing really well, he thought. Being in Jeju had given him the kind of steadiness that living in Seoul hadn’t.

“Ryeowookie!” Someone squealed just as he turned a corner. He turned his head over his shoulder to see Youngji skipping toward him, her skirt fluttering in sync with her steps. 

“Are you going to the gathering tonight?” She asked when she fell into place next to him. She was a fellow graduate student in the same department as he was.

He scrunched his nose, recalling how she’d persuaded him to attend a gathering once only to gang up with the rest to matchmake him with another girl.

“C’mon,” she swung a playful punch to his shoulder, “we promise that we won’t do anything funny this time. But still, you’re too cute to live without a girlfriend. Think about your beauty, Ryeowook, do you want those genes to go to waste?” 

She blathered on, conjuring absurd reasons to coax him out of his singlehood. She wasn’t the first of his peers to do so. They couldn’t understand that he liked this life of being alone, untethered to another person. There was freedom in having to think only for himself. 

“…besides, there are much more things you can do together with a girlfriend. For example - ”

“Youngji, did you forget that you have a class to teach?” A voice interrupted Youngji’s prattle as they arrived at the foot of a staircase.

Both of them looked up to see Saya coming down the steps, a pile of books in her arms, her face sour. She stopped before them, pushing her glasses up her nose with the joint of her index finger. 

Youngji blanched. “Gosh, how did it slip my mind? I’ll just collect my stuff and I’ll get - ”

Saya shoved the books into Youngji’s chest. “Here they are. Get going now.”

“Thank you! I owe you one! Ryeowookie, we’ll continue our conversation when my lesson ends!” 

Youngji waved and darted off, disappearing faster than an eye could blink. 

“Thank God I don’t have to cover for her.” Saya heaved a sigh before turning to Ryeowook. “By the way, there’s someone looking for you. He’s been waiting for you since morning.”

“Waiting for me?” He frowned, leafing through his memory for an appointment he might have forgotten. “Did he say what for?” 

“You can ask him yourself. If you don’t mind me, I need lunch.” With a huge stretch and yawn that spoke of hours spent hunched over the laptop and reference books, Saya left in the direction of the cafeteria before he could thank her.

He headed up the stairs to the office. On the second-floor landing, he saw a man sitting on one of the couches intended for the visitors. He approached him.

“Excuse me, are you looking for…”

The man lifted his head, and their eyes locked. 

Ryeowook felt as if he was staring down a long, fuzzy telescope which peered into a faraway dream he had long woken up from. A dream, he thought at first, for the past that he’d left behind came back to him only on the rarest nights. But the weight of books in the curve of his arm told him different. 

Kyuhyun rose from the chair. “Ryeowook.” 

Ryeowook felt a faint stirring in his chest. If his heart was a lake, then Kyuhyun’s voice was the pebble tossed into it. Soft ripples radiated outward and then… nothing more. The lake was still again, like it’d never been disturbed.

He could pretend that he didn’t know Kyuhyun, but that’d be a cowardly thing to do. Instead, he lifted the corner of his lips into a smile, then summoned from a cobwebbed corner of his memory the name which he hadn’t expected himself to speak again.

“Kyuhyun.”

::::::::::

They strolled to the park behind the faculty, removing themselves from the hum of the lunchtime crowd. A circular path paved out of cement ran through the park, and it was on this path that they walked. 

A few times, Ryeowook heard Kyuhyun’s breath lifting with the determination to start a conversation. But by the time Kyuhyun’s lips parted, the words he wished to say would untangle into a sigh to be dispersed by the breeze. 

Ryeowook could prompt Kyuhyun, genially ask what brought him to Jeju. But Ryeowook did not, because doing so would mean feigning concern. He’d long decided that the knowing, and not knowing, of the answers he used to seek no longer made any difference.

They were halfway through the path when Kyuhyun finally broke the silence.

“How are you?”

Ryeowook was slightly taken aback by the simplicity of the question.

“I’m good,” Ryeowook replied in reflex. He was aware of Kyuhyun’s eyes on him, but he looked instead at the lawn that filled the inner circle of the path. Under the warm spring sun, a handful of students lazed about, sitting with their legs extended or lying with their heads propped on bags. 

“Life here is better than it could ever be,” Ryeowook said more decidedly.  “I like the peace and freedom. What about you? How have you been doing?” 

Kyuhyun shrugged, a subtle smile fleeting over his lips, gone as soon as Ryeowook blinked. “I’m still me. I haven’t changed. Not much anyway,” Kyuhyun added, “not since the time you last saw me.”

Ryeowook’s heartbeat hiccuped, but the magnitude of the disruption was insufficient to halt him in his track or slow him down. 

Kyuhyun’s words alluded to the things the both of them knew by now but didn’t say - that yes, they were once in love; that they’d been separated after Ryeowook’s accident; that Kyuhyun;d lied when they met each other at Gwanghwamun the second time; that Ryeowook’d later discovered the lie.

Kyuhyun’s voice was earnest, heavy with a story, like he was ready to tell Ryeowook the unadulterated truth. Ryeowook wondered how he should tell Kyuhyun that the things which had mattered to him in the past had stopped mattering.

They walked a few metres in quiet, enshrouded in their own thoughts. Trees lined the outer rim of path and their branches, already lush with leaves, arched overhead. The flowers had yet bloomed, but they were straining against their buds, ready to burst into flamboyance at the right trigger.

“That day at Gwanghwamun…” Kyuhyun began. He paused for fraction to rephrase his words. “I discovered that I was sick that day. The kind of sick that paracetamols and chlorpheniramine couldn’t cure.”

Oddly, the nugget of information neither shocked nor surprised Ryeowook. Information, that was all it was. He waited for Kyuhyun to continue.

“I’m fine now,” Kyuhyun said. “But back then, I wasn’t sure if I would be. I was convinced that it was better for you to go on without knowing that I had a role in your life. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Ryeowook said, shaking his head. “I’m doing well now. To be honest, I only remember bits and pieces of us. I remember that I was in love with you, how we first met, the cafe which we frequented, among few others. But that is all.”

“Maybe I can help you remember everything again. Revisit the places we’d gone to. Do the same things which we’d done before.”

Be how we once were. 

The words need not be spoken to be felt. Longing seeped from Kyuhyun’s voice and thickened the air around them. A long time ago, the intensity of Ryeowook’s own longing would have matched Kyuhyun’s, degree for degree. He’d since moved on.

 The thoughts of Kyuhyun peeked into his consciousness only on rare occasions where he had too much to drink. Even then, the memories were like old photographs which had blurred and yellowed, enough to invoke nostalgia but not enough to inflict pain, and eventually, they’d be returned to the bottom of the drawer where they’d stay untouched for a long, long time.

“The memories… It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I get them back.”

In a few more steps, they would have completed the trail, coming to a full circle from where they’d started. Ryeowook came to a stop, and Kyuhyun did the same. They pivoted on their feet so that they faced each other. 

For the first time since their reunion outside the office, Ryeowook took a good look at Kyuhyun. If Ryeowook had any suspicions about the actuality of Kyuhyun’s past illness, they’d have been debunked. Kyuhyun was thin, his chin tapering into too-sharp a point. In the lapping breeze, the extra fabric billowed around his frame. 

Ryeowook felt a flicker of sympathy which he would have accorded to anyone who had been truly sick.

“Is there no chance for me at all?” Kyuhyun asked softly.

Ryeowook’s caught a glance of their shadows on the pavement and was amused by how they seemed to be a direct reflection of the situation: Kyuhyun’s shadow reaching toward him, his shadow lengthening away from Kyuhyun, the two shadows never touching. 

“Thank you for coming here and apologising to me, Kyuhyun.” Ryeowook said, holding Kyuhyun’s eyes. He bared a silver of himself. “In the past, I’d have wanted, perhaps needed, an explanation for your behaviour that day. But not anymore. Even if I still wanted it, it’d have nothing to do with love.”

Ryeowook looked at his watch. “I must go. I have a lesson to attend. Stay healthy, Kyuhyun.” A smile later, he his heels and departed, retracing his way back to the faculty building.

This would be the second time he’d walked away from Kyuhyun, the first being that day at Gwanghwamun. The difference was that, this time he had no urge to turn back.

::::::::::

Kyuhyun stood where Ryeowook’d left him, his eyes on Ryeowook’s steadily diminishing profile. He desired to catch up and seize Ryeowook into a hug. Ryeowook’s spine would dock against Kyuhyun’s chest, and Kyuhyun’d throw an arm around the front of Ryeowook’s shoulders, locking them into place. 

Then what? Ryeowook’d certainly wrench free from the contact, anger contorting his placid features. Kyuhyun could give in to the desire clawing at his heart, but that’d only make matters worse. 

A distance away, Ryeowook stepped into the shadows of the faculty building, disappearing from Kyuhyun’s sight. 

Kyuhyun’d seen this coming, but the force of his sadness at Ryeowook’s indifferene still took him by surprise. Although Ryeowook’d smiled at him, but those smiles were diplomatic and of little emotional value, the kind given to inconsequential acquaintances you bumped into on the street. Those smiles stopped at the lips, never coming close to his eyes.

Your eyes, what happened to them? A pang struck him like a heavy hammer.

He set his legs into motion and walked the circular path again. By the time he had completed two more rounds, the sun had shifted and his shadow had lengthened, and the tide of his sadness had ebbed away, revealing in their stead the unyielding rocks of determination that had weathered him through his battle with cancer.

He was fighter, and for the past two years, Ryeowook was the main reason why he fought. 

Ryeowook still was.

“I’ll fight again,” Kyuhyun murmured to himself, shoulders squared. 

That night when he was back in his hotel room, he booked the earliest flight out of Jeju.

::::::::::

Youngji’s cajoling escalated into threats she didn’t mean. By the time Ryeowook was packing up for the day, they’d become pleas. She hovered around Ryeowook’s desk.

“Come along with us, Ryeowookie. It’ll be fun, I promise,” Youngji implored, clasping her hand in front of her.

“Some other day,” Ryeowook said as he slung the strap of his sling bag over his shoulder. He made to leave, but Youngji blocked his way adamantly.

“That’s what you always - ”

 Ryeowook interrupted. “I’m really tired today, Youngji.” 

On many other occasions, that was an excuse Ryeowook used to weasel out of the gatherings that Youngji insisted he to join. But he was speaking the truth today. The back-to-back lessons and the unexpected visit from Kyuhyun had sapped him of energy. He wanted nothing more than to return to his apartment and go to bed early, letting the rest of the day wash by.

His voice must have held a note of the weariness he was feeling, for concern unfurled across Youngji’s face, chasing away her pleas. “Are you all right?” She asked.

“I just need sleep.” 

She appraised Ryeowook with a frown, as if wondering if she should further interrogate. In the end, she unwound her entwined fingers to slap Ryeowook’s upper arm. 

“I’ll let you off today,” she grinned lightheartedly. “But you better come to whatever event we have next.” She stepped aside and made a shooing motion with a hand. “Off you go. Sleep those eye bags away.”

That night, before he turned in, he sat on his bed and made his weekly call to his mother. Halfway through answering each other’s usual questions of How are you, What did you have for dinner and How’s the weather over there, he noticed that his mother sounded distracted. Small pauses of hesitation truncated her sentences, as if she was struggling with a dilemma.

His suspicion was confirmed when she finally gave in and asked, “You don’t happen to have someone from Seoul coming to look for you, do you?”

His eyes slid to the window pane ghosted with the reflection of his table lamp. A sigh filled his chest. “I was wondering how he knew where I am.”

“I didn’t want to tell him your exact location at first, but he was persistent. He came to look for me a few days in a row. Unlike what you’ve told me, he hadn’t moved on, sweetheart. He still loves you. He asked for your whereabouts even when he was at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“I had him go to a hospital because he looked dangerously pale.”

Ryeowook rose from the bed and padded softly to the window. His eyes traced the curving path of lamp posts that cut through the park below. He counted the lights to stop his mind from wandering back to the conversation he had with Kyuhyun in the afternoon.

“Ryeowookie? Ryeowook, are you still there?” 

“Yes, Omma, I am.”

She sighed. “Are you angry with me? Did I wreck things again?”

“No, Omma. I had a chat with him just now.”

“And?” Her voice had lighted up with hope. When he took too long to reply, she rephrased her curiosity into a more direct question. “Are the both of you going anywhere?” 

“Not together,” he said firmly. She made a noise of disappointment at her end, and he added, “Isn’t that what Appa and you’d wish for?”

“Your appa, maybe. Me? I wish for you to be happy.”

“I’m happy now, Omma. I’ve moved on.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said gently, but she sounded like she was simply placating her mulish child without believing a word he’d said. “But if you ever find yourself lost and confused, you should follow your heart. You can count on your heart to lead you to the right person.”

His mother’s words kept him awake long after the phone call had ended. He laid beneath his blanket and searched his heart. The answer was clear as day.

His heart didn’t want Kyuhyun. It wanted to keep its peace.

::::::::::

Changmin charged into Kyuhyun’s house one weekend afternoon when Kyuhyun was filling his employment form. The door beeped open with the password that Kyuhyun’d given Changmin.

“What is this, Cho?” Changmin’s question preceded his appearance, ringing out from the hallway. Changmin called Kyuhyun ‘Cho’ only when he was annoyed with him. That made Kyuhyun optimistic, because if Changmin was angry, he wouldn’t call Kyuhyun any name at all.

“Are you really - ” Changmin halted abruptly when he stepped into living room. His eyes drifted over the empty spaces, the cardboard boxes and the smatter of miscellaneous items waiting to be packed. The same eyes narrowed on Kyuhyun. “You were telling me the truth then. You’re moving to Jeju.”

From one of the beanbags haphazardly heaped in the middle of the room, Kyuhyun looked up from, feigning surprise. “Oh, hi there. I didn’t hear you knock. Knock louder next time.”

“The point of you giving me the password was so that I don’t have to,” Changmin said pointedly. “And don’t try to change the subject. Are you really moving to Jeju?”

“I am.” 

Changmin inhaled deeply. “Tell me you’re not crazy.”

“A university in Jeju hired me.”

“What about Prof. Ryoo?” Changmin demanded. “He fought to keep you a position to return to after you’ve recovered. Whatever university you’re going to can’t be better than the university you’re already in.”

“I can only apologise and hope that I can make it up to him in the future,” Kyuhyun said. When Changmin looked like he was fast approaching his boiling point, Kyuhyun added quietly, “Ryeowook’s in Jeju, Chwang.”

“So wh - ” Changmin’s eyes widened. He held out a flattened palm in the air. “Wait, Ryeowook’s in Jeju?” He echoed in confusion. “Isn’t he - ” His hand plummeted in an arc of exasperation and perplexity. He swivelled his body round to swipe an apple from the nearby counter before storming to where the beanbags were and dropping himself into the navy one.

“You have a lot of explanation to do. Start from the beginning. Connect the dots for me,” Changmin demanded, leaning back and ripping a chunk off the apple with his teeth.

By the time Kyuhyun’d finished his story, Changmin was incredulous.

“You went to Jeju without telling me?”

“That was a necessary measure to prevent you from offering to go with me.”

Changmin threatened to lob the core of his finished apple at Kyuhyun. 

“So…” Changmin cocked his head in a question. “You’ve gotten back with Ryeowook and all?”

There was a sharp pinch in Kyuhyun’s heart. “No. Not even close. He said that he doesn’t love me already.” 

Changmin frowned, trying to make sense of Kyuhyun’s motivations. Kyuhyun could see Changmin doing the computation in his head. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you intend to move to Jeju and win his heart.” When Kyuhyun didn’t deny, Changmin asked, “What are your chances?” 

Kyuhyun rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Have you really thought this through? I’m not trying to curse you here, but what if ultimately he rejects you? You’d end up wallowing in a subpar career for no reason at all.”

Changmin made perfect sense, and Kyuhyun’d have agreed with him in the past. After all, career used to measure high on his list.

Kyuhyun set aside the form and pen and lifted himself from the beanbag. A light rain had begun to fall.

“After battling the impossible and coming out victorious, I find that there are only few things left that I’m afraid of,” Kyuhyun said as he treaded to the windows. They whined as he closed them and secured the fasteners. “My career is not of them.”

“What are you afraid of then? Not being together with him?”

Kyuhyun stood at the window, giving Changmin’s question serious thought. In the glass of the window, his reflection was a wraith that stared back at him. His eyes lingered on his own, and he recalled Ryeowook’s. That dull pair of eyes had haunted him since he’d returned from Jeju.

“Before I’d gone to Jeju, I told myself that if he’s happy without me, I could make myself scarce without disturbing his life.” Kyuhyun looked away from the windows, his eyes returning to fix on Changmin. “But he isn’t.You have seen him before, Chwang, and you know how his eyes shone and twinkled with life. He’s not like that anymore. He’s only pretending to be happy. That’s what scares me the most.”

“You want to make him happy again?”

“He became who he’s now because I’d hurt him. I want to try fixing what I’ve broken.”

Changmin looked at Kyuhyun for a long moment before emitting a long sigh. He stretched out his long legs and wriggled his feet, looking thoroughly relaxed. The apple core rolled from its place on his abdomen to the floor.

Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow. “What are you trying to say?”

“That I’m done with being the voice of reason. I’ve fulfilled my part as your best friend and I’m going to stop convincing you not to go to Jeju. It’s a waste of time, honestly. You’re always a bull when it comes to him.”

“This bull thanks you for your support,” Kyuhyun said dryly.

“You’re welcome. Now go ahead and - what were the words that you used? Put the light back in his eyes or something like that? Man,” Changmin shuddered, rubbing the sides of his arms, “I can’t you came up with such mushy descriptions. You’re a mathematician, not a poet. You better win his heart, Cho. You deserve to be happy too.”

:::::::::

On a Sunday morning in late spring, Ryeowook woke up to the muffled jangling of keys, followed by the unlocking of the door to the apartment next to his. He heard the sound of luggage wheels tripping over the threshold into the apartment, and the shuffle of boxes as they were pushed along the floor. He listened closely, but could catch nothing more except for the occasional thuds and clangs as his new neighbour unpacked. 

He was relieved. He was a light sleeper and he’d hoped that his new neighbour’d be as light-footed as the Indian student who had previously occupied the apartment.

When noon approached, he took ingredients out of the refrigerator to prepare for lunch. As he was stirring his pot of kimchi jiggae, he wondered if he should pop over next door to say hello. He’d yet made up his mind when his doorbell buzzed, startling him.

He lowered the flame and hurried to the door, hastily combing through his hair with his fingers along the way. It must be his new neighbour. He opened the door without peering through the peephole. 

The smile which he’d prepared faded when he registered the person standing on his doorstep. 

“Hi,” Kyuhyun grinned fondly. “I’m Cho Kyuhyun, your new neighbour.” He extended a hand.

Ryeowook didn’t take the hand. His mind had gone blank, filled with a static grey that crackled and buzzed. Even the most basic pleasantries had fled him. 

Kyuhyun pulled his hand back smoothly, his grin still in place, his composure unflustered. He held his other hand up. From it, a red plastic bag containing what looked like kimbaps and tteokbokki dangled. 

“Lunch?”

Dumbly, Ryeowook stepped aside, letting Kyuhyun in.

::::::::::

Ryeowook’s apartment was a mirror image of Kyuhyun’s. It was a small place with one bathroom, a space that doubled as bedroom and living room, and a kitchenette shoved in the corner. They sat across each other at the dining table that Ryeowook’d managed to squeeze into the apartment, a spread of kimbaps, tteokbokki, kimchi jiggae and banchan between them. 

Ryeowook poked at his food absentmindedly, his head bowed over his bowl of rice. 

“Eat some of the tteokbokki,” Kyuhyun urged, munching happily through the food. “They’re good. The kimbaps too.”

Ryeowook pierced a rice cake with his chopsticks but didn’t bring it to his mouth. He lifted his head to look at Kyuhyun, questions rolling off him in waves. “How did…How did you become my neighbour?”

Kyuhyun swallowed the morsel of rice in his mouth, “The maths faculty in the your university had an opening. I applied and they hired me, and I happened to be assigned the apartment next to yours.” When Ryeowook’s brows furrowed together in suspicion, Kyuhyun schooled his face into a portrait of innocence and added, “It’s not that unlikely on a scale of probability if you think of it. It’s the middle of the semester and most of the other apartments are taken.”

The truth was that Kyuhyun’d taken advantage of Changmin’s connections to the university to snoop around for Ryeowook’s exact address in Jeju. When the school had assigned him an apartment in the residence meant for staff, he’d appealed, indicating his preference to be housed alongside the graduate students, much to the school’s disbelief. The school agreed in the end, albeit reluctantly. Though, it was entirely out of luck that he was given the apartment directly next to Ryeowook.

“But why are you here in the first place?” A note of impatience had crept into Ryeowook’s tone. “There are dozens of universities in Seoul, or even Incheon. Better universities.”

“None of them are close enough to you.” The words darted out of Kyuhyun before he knew it. 

Ryeowook paled. The air in the room became wrought with tension. 

“I’m sorry if I haven’t made myself clear the other day,” Ryeowook said hurriedly, leaning forward. “I don’t like you anymore. I’ve moved on from us, from whatever we’d shared in the past.”

“But I haven’t,” Kyuhyun said softly. He set his chopsticks down, and the metal glinted in the hairline of sunlight that’d cut across a corner of the table. “I’ve never stopped thinking of you in the three years we’ve been apart. You’re the one who…” He hesitated, gauging how much he should reveal so that he wouldn’t be overburdening Ryeowook with the weight of his feelings.

“I still think of you,” Kyuhyun repeated in the end. “Even when you’re right in front of me, I still think of you.”

“We’re not the same already. Can’t you see that?”

“Maybe we weren’t. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t be together.”

A pink tinge of exasperation had appeared on Ryeowook’s cheekbones. “You’re wasting your time. To me, you’re a friend at best.”

“Friend…” Kyuhyun tested the word on his lips. A slow smile spread across his face, broadening into a wide beam. So he wasn’t just an acquaintance from a faraway past; he was a friend. That was a better-than-expected starting point. He picked his chopsticks up, his appetite returning, more voracious than it’d been at the start of lunch. 

“Kyuhyun?” Ryeowook waved a hand to grab Kyuhyun’s attention. “Did you hear what I just said?”

Kyuhyu nodded with huge satisfaction. “You said that I’m your friend. You can start from liking me as one. We’ll slowly work our way up from there.”

Ryeowook looked mortified. His lips trembled in a stutter. “B-but-th-th-there - ”

Kyuhyun shoved a large piece of fishcake into Ryeowook’s mouth, grinning as the red sauce dripped down Ryeowook’s chin. “Eat your lunch, Ryeowookie. Surely you’d do that for a friend?”

As Ryeowook scrambled to get tissue paper, Kyuhyun didn’t miss the red blush that’d coloured Ryeowook’s ears. His fingers twitched with the memory of the times he’d rubbed Ryeowook’s ears to diffuse the embarrassed redness that’d settled in them. As much as he wanted to, Kyuhyun couldn’t do that at this moment. The last thing he wanted to do was to push Ryeowook further away. 

He would take things slow. Because unlike before, he had more time on his side now.

::::::::::

Ryeowook closed the door behind Kyuhyun and rested his forehead on its vinyl surface, his fingers still wrapped stiffly around the door handle. Kyuhyun’s slippered footfalls trailed away from him, and a few steps later, there was a click as a door unlocked. 

Only after Ryeowook heard the door close did he pull in a long inhale. Then another, and another. It was as if he’d been breathing shallow in Kyuhyun’s presence. He closed his eyes and steadied himself, taking the time to sort out his thoughts.

He’d not expected to see Kyuhyun again after that day at the faculty’s park. Yet Kyuhyun’d returned, looking healthier than he had been two months ago, his body was no longer weedy after putting on some muscles. A slight pink hue had returned to his cheeks, too. 

That wasn’t all. There was now a spark - an intensity - in Kyuhyun’s eyes that unsettled Ryeowook.

Why was that so? Then again, was it necessary for him to figure out why? 

What mattered was that he no longer felt anything remotely related to romance for Kyuhyun. In the two months since that day Kyuhyun came to Jeju and went, Ryeowook’d rarely thought of Kyuhyun. Even when he did, it was in mere passing, when his mind was nonchalantly wandering away from notes and quavers. 

Ryeowook pushed away from the door, a familiar calm settling over him.

If he had to be friends with Kyuhyun, then so be it. Whether Kyuhyun was in Seoul or Jeju, nothing would change. They’d never amount anything to more than friends. 

That he was sure of.

::::::::::

Ryeowook shared more meals with Kyuhyun after that day. After Kyuhyun’s job at the university had officially started, he’d swing by the music faculty once or twice a week to invite Ryeowook for lunch. Strangely, the Faculty of Mathematics and the Faculty of Music neighboured each other even though one worshipped logic and the other, artistic creativity. 

Ryeowook didn’t make it his default reaction to turn Kyuhyun away. For one, he didn’t want to look as if he was deliberately avoiding Kyuhyun. That would seem like he still harboured feelings for the man (which was completely untrue). Secondly, if he were to admit to himself, he found himself enjoying Kyuhyun’s companionship after his initial awkwardness had melted away. Unlike Youngji, Kyuhyun understood Ryeowook’s occasional need to be left alone to recharge, stepping away quietly when Ryeowook was in one of his sullen moods. And, unlike Saya who always had half her mind somewhere else, Kyuhyun listened attentively to Ryeowook, his eyes thoughtful. In short, Kyuhyun was very much different from the friends Ryeowook’d made in Jeju.

It also helped that Kyuhyun didn’t mention or suggest again that he wanted anything more than a friendship with Ryeowook. Between them, there was a comfortable distance of a casual friendship. Maybe Kyuhyun’d mulled and come to agree that this was for the best. Ryeowook was hopeful; he didn’t mind staying friends with Kyuhyun.

July soon swept in, bringing along with it an unforgiving sun, a stiflingly humid weather and Ryeowook’s qualifying examination. The examination had two components: a written exam and a practical before a panel of three assessors. Ryeowook’s choice of instrument was the violin. Despite his peers’ reassurance that he wouldn’t fail given his natural affinity with music, Ryeowook stayed back in the school’s music room to practice daily.

The morning of the examination passed in a blur with the written exam. In the afternoon, as he pulled the last note and slid the violin off his shoulder, the eyes of two assessors twinkled with approval, and their lips quirked with a small, satisfied smile. But the face of Professor Jang, who was the third assessor, remained passive as he scratched his pen across the scoring sheet. Ryeowook’s stomach curdled on itself.

Ryeowook’s intuition was verified accurate when the results came out two weeks later. A letter was delivered to his office desk. He opened it after a moment of hesitation.

The first sentence of the letter congratulated him for making it through the examination. His eyes zigzagged down the words before coming to a pause on the breakdown of his grade. The grade ‘C’ next to Professor Jang’s name stuck out like a garish light among the other two grades of ‘A’, blinding Ryeowook and sinking his heart.

“Is that the results of your QE?” 

Ryeowook whipped around to see Youngji standing behind him, her eyes wide with curiosity. He folded his letter hastily and slotted it in the envelope. 

“You pass, didn’t you?” Youngji asked. Ryeowook’d barely nodded when she squealed “I told you so! You’re too good not to make it through. Everybody,” she rapped her knuckles on the partition of Ryeowook’s cubicle to get the attention of a few other students in the room, “clear your schedule tonight. Ryeowook passed his QE. We’re celebrating.”

There were cheers and claps, much to Ryeowook’s discomfiture and annoyance. 

Youngji seemed to sense his reluctance. “It’s a tradition of the department to celebrate whenever someone passes his QE. You’re not getting out of this.”

He wanted to chastise Youngji for making decisions for him, but he’d never been a combative person. He squelched the sigh that’d risen in his chest, and said light-heartedly, almost mischievously, “Relax, I didn’t say that I’m not going.”

That night, the graduate students of the Department of Classical Music went to their usual eatery that was perched on a outcrop that overlooked the coastline. Kyuhyun was invited too. After all the times he’d come to the faculty to look for Ryeowook, he’d become a familiar sight, and therefore a friend in Youngji’s perspective, to the students of the department. Kyuhyun sat at the end of the table opposite from Ryeowook, melding into a low-voiced discussion with the people in his proximity.

On the other side, Ryeowook played the role of a listener. Well, a half-listener. Every time the result slip - specifically the grade Professor Jang had given him - barged into the forefront of Ryeowook’s mind, he felt as if cotton were wadded down his throat. Luckily, no one noticed how distracted he was. 

As it was a weekday night, business was slow for the eatery. By half past eight, they were the only group of patrons left. Buoyed by soju and liberated from the pressure of having to keep their volume down out of consideration for other customers, they were racking up a cacophony. It was an irony - music students creating a din instead of melody. Across from Ryeowook, Youngji started to howl in laughter at a joke that was lost on Ryeowook. The noise was overwhelming. 

“I need the gents,” Ryeowook said to no one in particular as he rose from the table.

Outside, he didn’t follow the painted arrows that pointed to the gents. Instead, he treaded in the direction that led to the back porch. Compared to the rest of the eatery, the porch was dilapidated, empty except for a tower of stacked wicker chairs that leaned dangerously off-kilter. Leftover light spilling from the eatery’s windows illuminated the space dimly.

The porch used to be a part of the eatery’s dining area until a fire accident charred a portion of it and hollowed the wood. Without sufficient funds for refurbishment, the owner’d closed the area off and barricaded the door that opened directly from the restaurant. 

Ryeowook ascended the porch steps, avoiding the spots where the planks were the weakest. He rested his hands on the wooden railing and looked into the distance where a gathering of trees obstructed his view of the sea ahead. It was a humid night, and the air was heady with the sweetness of flowers in full bloom. He drew in a deep breath nonetheless.

He was twenty-seven, at an age where he ought to know that scores weren’t everything. Still, the grade bothered him more than he’d admit to anyone. He was a perfectionist when it came to music, and even he himself thought that he didn’t do that badly to warrant a ‘C’. So why had Professor Jang given him that grade? Had he offended him unknowingly? 

So deep were Ryeowook in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice that someone was approaching until he heard a sharp creak. He swung round to see Kyuhyun coming toward him in the dim light. Another sharp creak accompanied Kyuhyun’s next step, and Ryeowook’s stomach did a flip-flop.

“Try to walk as lightly as you could.” Ryeowook looked at Kyuhyun’s feet. “The planks here are compromised.”

“That was tricky.” Kyuhyun exhaled in part wonderment and part relief as he stepped into the place next to Ryeowook. 

“Why brought you out here?” Ryeowook asked, turning his body back to face the trees ahead.

“I was wondering why you were taking so long.”

Ryeowook raised one of his eyebrows and jested, “Stalking me?” 

A laugh vibrated in Kyuhyun’s throat. When his laugh subsided, he looked at Ryeowook with warm, sincere eyes whose brightness rivalled even the brightest opals. “Maybe that’s not too far from the truth. My eyes always gravitate toward you, so I can’t not notice you leaving the table even if I tried.”

Flustered, Ryeowook’s eyes zapped away from Kyuhyun’s before they could pull him in. He veered the course of the conversation, his voice thankfully calm as he did so. “I needed a breather.”

“You don’t seem as happy as you should for passing your QE.” 

If it’d come from somebody else, Ryeowook’d have denied the observation with a trite excuse that I’m feeling unwell. But Kyuhyun’s voice was oddly magical. Before Ryeowook realised it, words unspooled from his chest like a snake dancing to the notes from a charmer’s flute. Kyuhyun listened intently, his head tilting in concern at all the right points of Ryeowook’s narration.

Kyuhyun didn’t speak immediately after Ryeowook finished. For a few minutes, the lazy crawl of waves up and down the unseen shore was the only sound between them. Ryeowook wondered if Kyuhyun’d thought that he was childish for being so fixated on his grade.

“I love your music,” Kyuhyun said eventually. He lowered his elbows onto the railing, his back curving like the blade of a scythe.

“You’ve never heard my - ” Ryeowook caught himself when Kyuhyun shook his head.

“You used to force me to listen to your playing.” Nostalgia softened Kyuhyun’s face as he tilted his head to the star-sewn sky. The light pollution in Jeju wasn’t as bad as it was in Seoul, and they could see a lot more stars here. “Your music… it has a lot of heart.”

“But you’re a mathematician.”

“Are you slighting my taste in music? Being a mathematician doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to appreciate good music.” Kyuhyun extended a hand to ruffle Ryeowook’s hair affectionally. Ryeowook didn’t dodge out of Kyuhyun’s reach; a memory had hurtled out of nowhere, stunning him momentarily. In his mind, a series of memories unfurled, all concerning Kyuhyun taking advantage of their height difference to plant a hand on Ryeowook’s head and messing his hair. 

Ryeowook ignored the inexplicable heat that flooded his cheeks. “I guess it’s just felt kinda unfair because I worked so hard for it.”

“If this is the only kind of unfairness you’ve to deal with in your life, then I’m very happy,” Kyuhyun said earnestly. “Let the grade fuel you instead of letting it bring you down, Ryeowookie. Then when you become a world-renowned violinist, you can stare it in the eye with triumph and say ’To hell with you’.”

“To hell with you,” he mouthed the words, pleasure tickling his nerves as he envisioned himself standing before an edgeless sea of awed audience. The dark cloud that had clung to Ryeowook like a second shadow scattered a bit, and he felt lighter.

“Earth to, Mr. Kim,” Kyuhyun teased. He poked Ryeowook’s temple lightly with his index finger. “You still have lots of work to do before that day comes.”

A particularly strong gust of chilly wind rustled the leaves and branches of the trees. Kyuhyun pushed himself away from the railing. “Let’s go inside before the wind kicks up.” 

Ryeowook followed Kyuhyun down the steps. They walked side by side, their long shadows a painting that moved along the dry soil beneath their feet. 

“Kyuhyun,” Ryeowook began and Kyuhyun looked at Ryeowook, “thanks for putting things into perspective for me.”

“You should thank my having been sick,” Kyuhyun joked. Ryeowook thought that he saw a trace of pain but before he could be sure, they had stepped into the shade of a tree and Kyuhyun’s face became draped in darkness. “Most of the things which I thought were important has become not so important now.”

They re-entered into starlight, and Kyuhyun’s face was easy once more. Ryeowook wondered if the pain was a figment of his imagination. He contemplated asking Kyuhyun about his then illness. 

How was it like?

But even as they stepped through the doors and back to the raucous companionship of the others, Ryeowook’s question remained stubbornly locked in his chest.

::::::::::

The steady rain which had been falling over the past week transformed suddenly into a nationwide storm raring to destroy. 

Ryeowook sat behind the desk in his room, a leather-bound book which he’d checked out from the library spread out before him. A safe distance away from the book, a mug of tea sat, its steam rising lazily. The world was drowned in the sounds of water - bucketfuls of it - pummelling the ground and tree branches whipping at his window. 

The contents of the book couldn’t pull him in. Every now and then, he lifted his chin to look out of the window, feeling oddly antsy. He’d returned from school early that day, and the veil of rain had thickened since then. The buildings across the street had become fuzzy shapes in his vision. 

He didn’t know what he was waiting for until he heard, buried among the noises made by the forces of nature, the footfalls which he now knew by heart. He strained his ears and picked up the jagged sliding of the key into the keyhole. A door creaked and clicked as it closed. The series of sounds set his heart at ease. It seemed like Kyuhyun wouldn’t have to spend the night marooned at school.

Ryeowook smiled ever slightly as he redirected his eyes back to the book, the minuscule words no longer fading in and out of focus. 

He was about to finish a chapter when a forked lightning spilt the darkened sky and thunder bellowed. His heart leapt to his throat and the pen he was holding clattered to the floor. His cellphone buzzed just a second later, twitching against the smooth plywood of his desk. He spared a brief glance at the screen and answered the call when he saw that it was from his mother.

Before he could greet her, her voice poured out hysterically, unsettling him. He could hear her tears. “Ryeowookie, your appa -  you appa isn’t picking up his phone. I called him so many times but there weren’t any answers. What should I do, Ryeowookie? What if - ”

“Omma, calm down, please,” he said, even though his own heart rate was picking up at the panic in her voice. “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

His mother hiccuped. She pulled in deep, ragged breaths. “He left for work this morning as usual. He told me that he’ll be going to Chuncheon to survey the land. I didn’t think much about it until I saw the news that the storm has caused a massive landslide in that area. People were ki - ” a sob choked , “killed in the landslide. I couldn’t reach him, Ryeowookie. What if… what if… What should I do?”

He scrambled for the remote control, trying to keep his voice steady. “Did you try calling his company?”

“I did. But all of them said that they aren’t able to contact him or the coworker who’d gone with him.” 

He the mini television at the far side of the room. The news channel filled the screen. A patchwork of footages of Seoul played; from trees snapped at their bases to civilians waddling through knee-height flood, to cars partially submerged in water, to the spokesperson from Korea Meteorological Administration standing behind a podium and explaining to the media that the storm was a freakish one which couldn’t be predicted. When the image of a landslide came on, Ryeowook’s blood turned to ice and his mind whirred.

The storm in Seoul was infinitely worse than that in Jeju. How had he even assumed that his parents - both of them - were tucked away in the safety of their house?

His mother’s sniffles came from the other end of the line.

“Omma, wait for me,” he said almost robotically, “I’m coming home.”

::::::::::

Kyuhyun was a sopping mess by the time he jogged into the solid shelter of the building. He rammed his mangled umbrella into the gaping mouth of the public bin and scaled the stairs, unintentionally leaving a trail of droplets as he went.

Because of the way the building was constructed, the length of the corridor was spared from the lashing rain and wind, and was therefore warmer. Kyuhyun strode to his apartment and slid his key into the keyhole. However, before he twisted the key, he leaned back on his heels to catch a glimpse of Ryeowook’s shoe rack. He grinned to himself when all three pairs of Ryeowook’s shoes were there, a telltale sign that the man was home.

Kyuhyun took a long, steaming shower and cooked a pot of ramen to chase away the chill that swathed his bones. After he’d washed dishes, he knotted the garbage bag and opened the door to deposit it in the corridor for waste collection the next morning. He was about to close the door when he heard the door next to his open. He poked his head out into the corridor.

Ryeowook’d come out of his apartment and was slipping into his shoes. He was dressed in his drawstring pants and a ratty cardigan pulled over a thin cotton tee-shirt. 

“Ryeowook, where are you going?” Kyuhyun stepped barefooted into the corridor. “There’s a storm outside.”

Ryeowook looked up at Kyuhyun abruptly, then looked away just as quickly. “Kyuhyun… some - something happened at home. I need to go back.”

“What happened?”

“It’s - I have no time to explain to you right now. I need to go.”  Ryeowook looked like a coil that was wired too tight. His fingers had turned white from clutching onto his phone.

Kyuhyun stepped closer to Ryeowook, careful to keep his voice soothing and reasonable. “How are you going to get to the airport?”

“I…I’ll find a way. There must be a taxi nearby. Sorry, Kyuhyun. I really need to go.” Ryeowook made to move, but the taller man side-stepped into his way.

“Listen to - ”

“I have no time for this,” Ryeowook snapped. His shoulder shoved against Kyuhyun’s in the narrow corridor. Kyuhyun grabbed Ryeowook by the curve of his arm. Ryeowook spun round. Kyuhyun tightened his grip before Ryeowook could twist away.

“Don’t try to stop me!” Ryeowook barked, the rims of his eyes turning red.

Ryeowook glared at Kyuhyun like an wounded animal, chest heaving with frustration.

“I’m not. Let me come with you.” Kyuhyun said, looking steadily into Ryeowook’s eyes.

He wondered if his voice was enough to calm Ryeowook down. If his voice couldn’t, he hoped that his eyes and the contact between their skin could. He hoped that Ryeowook could find the strength in them to hold on to, and be convinced that Kyuhyun was a fort that could be relied on even when the storm was at its worst.

The muscles in Ryeowook’s arm lost their fight and softened. Kyuhyun released the breath he’d been holding. 

“Ryeowook, listen to me. Grab an umbrella, also a raincoat if you have one. Do you have a pair of boots?” Ryeowook shook his head. “I have a pair in there.” Kyuhyun jerked his chin toward the shoe cupboard outside his apartment. “Put them on and I’ll meet you at the garage in ten minutes.”

::::::::::

Only a handful of occupants living in the same building as Kyuhyun had their cars parked for ready use in the building’s underground garage. One of them happened to be a student whom Kyuhyun had known through his weekly delivery of Algebraic Geometry lectures, and it was this student from whom Kyuhyun managed to borrow a car. In South Korea, university lecturers, or convincing semblances of them, usually commanded great respect from their students, and it took no time for the student to press his car keys into Kyuhyun’s palm.

The car crawled on the glistening road, with Kyuhyun behind the wheel and Ryeowook buckled to the passenger seat. The rain descended in so thick a shroud that Kyuhyun couldn’t see more than fifteen meters ahead even with the headlights at full intensity. Raindrops pounced violently on the metal body of the car, pounding out a din that drowned all other sounds in the enclosed space.

At a red light, Kyuhyun took his eyes off the road briefly to check on Ryeowook. The rivulets sluicing down the window liquefied the light from streetlamps to cast vein-like shadows on Ryeowook’s face. Ryeowook’s hands clutched nervously onto his seat belts. He looked so small and scared.

They hadn’t spoken a word since they’d piled into the car. The road condition demanded Kyuhyun’s full focus, and Ryeowook was imprisoned by his own worry. Before Kyuhyun could say anything, the light turned green, forcing Kyuhyun’s eyes to dart back to the road ahead.

The thunderstorm was worse in the vicinity of the airport. The walk from the carpark to the departure hall was short but unsheltered. They plowed through the tempest in their ponchos, huddling together under the biggest and sturdiest umbrella they could find in their apartments. Rain slanted in and drenched Kyuhyun’s sneakers.

The airport was mottled with dark clouds of disgruntled and haggard travellers. There were snaking queues everywhere. Ryeowook raced along the stretch of counters, tripping over his oversized boots every now and then. Kyuhyun kept pace with Ryeowook. When Ryeowook spotted an empty counter, he rushed to it, his request for the earliest ticket to Seoul leaving his lips in an urgent tumble of words.

“Sir, we are sorry but all flights to Seoul are cancelled,” the lady behind the counter said apologetically.

“But it’s urgent,” Ryeowook pleaded, leaning forward in desperation. “Can’t you find a way? There must be something you can do for me.” 

“Sir, the extreme weather in Seoul has made it impossible for any planes to land. We seek your kind understanding.”

Ryeowook’s elbows sagged onto the counter surface. He bowed his head into the cradle of his hands. Kyuhyun placed a hand on Ryeowook’s shoulder and exerted what he hoped was a comforting pressure.

The counter lady looked at Kyuhyun, her painted lips pursed in empathy. “We currently have many customers waiting for tickets to return to Seoul. It may be tomorrow before tickets are available, but we can put you on the waitlist if you want.”

“That’d be great.” 

After scribbling Ryeowook’s and his phone numbers on a scrap of paper handed by the counter lady, Kyuhyun guided Ryeowook away. Most of the seats near the airline counters were occupied. They passed a long stretch of wall dotted with weary travellers who had taken to sitting or lying on the floor. 

They settled down at an emptier sitting area at the far end of the airport. Across them, a hooded man sprawled across four seats, sleeping with arms folded across his chest.

Ryeowook pulled out his phone to make a call.

“Omma,” Ryeowook said when the dial got through, “are there any news of Appa?” There was another pause. “Don’t worry, Omma. I’ll be back as soon as there’s a flight available.”

There were a few more exchanges before Ryeowook wrapped up the conversation with a Take care, Omma and hung up. Kyuhyun watched as Ryeowook’s thumb swiped the screen to pull out his father’s number. With a shaky breath, Ryeowook tapped on Call and held the phone to his ear.

Seconds later, Ryeowook’s hand fell back to his side. The phone screen glinted under the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights.

“He still isn’t picking up his phone.” Ryeowook’s voice cracked. The strength which he’d feigned when he’d been talking with his mother had shattered to reveal a helpless core. “This is the first time in two years that I’m calling him and he isn’t answering.”

A sob caught Ryeowook’s throat. He doubled over his knees and pressed the heel of his palm into his left eye. Kyuhyun splayed a hand on Ryeowook’s back.

“I want so badly to talk to him now. I used to tell him everything when I was a child, but then we stopped talking to each other after he got angry at me. I could have taken the first step to talk to him, but no, I was too stubborn for that. I don’t know why I let my anger get in the way. This is my punishment.”

Tears rolled down the Ryeowook’s cheeks. Kyuhyun moved his hand from Ryeowook’s back to swipe the tears gently away. “Don’t say that, Ryeowook.”

Ryeowook didn’t reply. Tremors ran through his shoulders, and more tears chased out of his eyes, faster than Kyuhyun could catch. Kyuhyun dropped his hand from Ryeowook’s cheek. He threaded his fingers through the gaps between Ryeowook’s, cupping the smaller hand in his.

“Why don’t you tell me about your appa?” Kyuhyun said. “I’d love to know more about him.”

Ryeowook stopped in his tears to look at Kyuhyun oddly. Kyuhyun grinned, one corner of his lips quirked higher than the other.

“I need have at least some basic information on him before I meet the man later.”

“You’re flying to Seoul with me?” Ryeowook was incredulous. 

“Of course I’m coming to Seoul with you. Hurry up,” Kyuhyun feigned bossiness, “you need to tell me everything you can about him.”

Ryeowook hesitated. His eyes, and the long lashes that framed them, were still wet, but the tears had stopped. Slowly, he began, “My appa… he’s a strict man. He isn’t too tall, but he can be imposing. He doesn’t smile a lot either.”

In Kyuhyun’s memory, Ryeowook’s father was a formidable man with unyielding principles. In the portrait that Ryeowook painted for Kyuhyun, however, there was a softer, more human edge to him.

“When I was a child, he’d strap me onto the back of his bike and cycle the both of us to a lake to fish. That usually happened on Sundays. Most of the time I wandered off in boredom while he waited for a catch. He never worried how far I went because he knew that I’d stumble back in time to see a silver-scaled fish thrashing at the end of the line.”

A sliver of smile stole Ryeowook’s lips, a ray of light that pierced through pewter clouds. But the smile faded almost instantly, as though Ryeowook remembered that he was afraid.

Kyuhyun tightened his fingers and pulled Ryeowook’s hand onto his lap. The action drew Ryeowook’s attention away from his own scary thoughts and onto Kyuhyun.

“No matter what happens, you’ll be okay eventually. I’ll see to it.” 

::::::::::

A voice crept through the mist of Ryeowook’s mind. There was an urgent tug on his hand. 

“Ryeowook, wake up. Your omma’s calling.”

His eyes flew open. He’d somehow fallen asleep with his head tipped onto Kyuhyun’s shoulder. The muscles in his neck felt frozen. It was well past dawn. The sky beyond glass walls of the airport was the serene colour of light blue.

His phone buzzed in his hand, its screen flashing with the hangul characters that spelt Omma. He scrambled, straightening himself, about to answer the call when all of a sudden, horror seized him.

What if it was bad news awaiting from the other end of the line? 

His eyes darted to Kyuhyun. No words could come from Ryeowook’s too-dry throat, but Kyuhyun understood the fear that flurried through him. Kyuhyun moved his thumb across the back of Ryeowook’s hand, and Ryeowook realised that their hands were still tightly knotted together.

You’ll be okay.

Courage surged through Ryeowook’s chest like the sparkly tail of a meteorite. He answered the call.

“Omma?” Despite his efforts to steel himself against what may come, his voice shook.

“Ryeowook, your appa has been found! He’s all right!” The breath which Ryeowook’d been holding whooshed out of him. He shot Kyuhyun a look of relief.

“I was so worried. He had such a close shave with death. We’re at the hospital now.”

Ryeowook sat up straighter. “Hospital?”

“The doctor is tending to his cuts. They’re nothing too serious.”

She went on to recount how his father was found. His father had been on the road when the landslide started, but he’d been quick enough to manoeuvre the van out of the way before the landslide gathered momentum. He was fine except for some cuts by shards of window broken by the initial debris that fell. For the rest of last night, he’d taken refuge in a small village where the originally bad reception was made worse by the inclement weather.

At some point, his mother’s words turned incoherent by the relieved tears she’d dissolved into. Someone murmured in her background, and her voice grew further, until it became his father’s voice at the other end of the line instead.

“Ryeowook.”

Ryeowook’s eyes stung at his name being spoken by his father. It had been too long. 

“Appa, I… I’m really thankful that you’re all right.” 

Silence extended between them. For two years, their relationship had been sanded to a thin point, the path between them too broken and treacherous for any form of communication. They could’ve been strangers if not for their blood ties. Now, at the separate ends of the phone call, they felt around, carefully and gently, for the rightly-shaped words that could mend the path and let them take that first step toward each other.

His father found the words first. They were prefaced by an awkward cough. “Yeah, I’m all right. Just a few cuts here and there. Nothing I couldn’t handle. You don’t have to fly home.”

“I’m coming back,” Ryeowook replied. “I won’t be at peace until I see for myself that you’re all right.” He squinted at the hanging screens that displayed the flight schedule. “There should be a flight soon.”

“I am all right.”

Ryeowook stifled a laugh at the petulance in his father’s voice. He sounded like a child. A mischievous idea lighted up in his head. “Maybe I’ll be convinced if you get Omma to snap and send a picture of you right now.”

He could sense his father’s struggle. His father hated to be in photos. 

“All right,” his father said with a sigh three seconds later.

Ryeowook smiled to himself. “I’ll be waiting for that then.” He told his father to rest well and that he’d give them another call in the afternoon. He was about to hang up when his father blurted uncharacteristically. 

“Ryeowook, I… I’m proud to have you as my son.”

A sharpness shot up the bridge of Ryeowook’s nose, and tears filled his eyes. The boulders which Ryeowook hadn’t realised weighed on his shoulders vanished. That was when Ryeowook realised that the anger between them had long staled, its flame no longer blazing. It was pride instead - maybe spite too - that had kept them from each other. Pride and spite, a recipe for regret. Ryeowook was thankful that it hadn’t gotten to that point.

“Appa,” Ryeowook said, “let’s go fishing again someday.”

A small pause, then, “Sure. I’m ready whenever you are.”

::::::::::

Ryeowook sat in the passenger seat as Kyuhyun took the wheel and navigated the car through the winding roads that led them out of the airport vicinity. Other than the humming of the engine, the inside of the car was quiet. After all, they were two people who had spent the previous night mostly awake.

Ryeowook rested his head in a tilt against the headrest. Trees, then buildings, then trees again, scrolled past the window. Kyuhyun drove well under the speed limit. The road still glistened with yesterday’s storm. Rainwater pooled in the certain spots of the uneven road, forming mirrors that reflected pieces of the sky. 

With fear and worry out of the way and his nerves no longer strung, the things which Ryeowook’d overlooked seized his attention now. For example, he realised that Kyuhyun had made him talk about his father for most of the previous night to distract him from the scary thoughts that’d aded his mind.

It had worked.

The muscles in his neck felt sore, as were the fingers on his right hand. He moved his hand ever slightly, slipping his thumb inside of his fist and moving it across the rest of his fingers. His fingers tingled with the memory of another’s, and the gap between them felt too wide. His eyes wandered to the pair of hands on the steering wheel.

He snapped his eyes back to the passing scenery when he realised with horror what he was doing. Blood rushed to his ears. He pulled in steadying breaths and balled his hand into a tight fist to stop the tingling.

“Tired?” Kyuhyun asked, giving Ryeowook a short glance. “We should probably call in sick today.”

Ryeowook nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep for the rest of the journey.

They parked the car and walked up to their apartments together. Ryeowook kept a short distance from Kyuhyun by walking a few feet ahead. Ryeowook arrived on his own doorstep first. He had the urge to barrel straight into the apartment and shut the door behind him, but courtesy had him turning round.

“Kyuhyun, thank you for last night. I really appreciate your help,” Ryeowook said as Kyuhyun came closer. 

Kyuhyun stepped past his own apartment and came to a stop before Ryeowook, a grin on his face. “Anytime.” Kyuhyun reached a hand out to muss up Ryeowook’s hand. “Next time, just come to me if you need any help, will you? I’m here for you.”

Ryeowook nodded hastily and unlocked his door. He slipped into his apartment with as much grace as he could. Only after he’d closed the door behind him, did air return to him. Still, his heart fluttered like an over-excited bird trapped in a too small cage, unheedful to his orders to stop.

He showered, dropped an email to let his professor know that he wouldn’t be coming in, and slipped into bed. He wanted to sleep it off, but his thoughts kept him awake. His mind kept going back to Kyuhyun. Among his many thoughts, a question stood out.

Was this how I’d fallen in love with him in the past?

Ryeowook remembered the sense of safety that’d enveloped him when his fingers were entwined with Kyuhyun’s. It made him want to rely on Kyuhyun, to hold on to him when the waves of his anxiety threatened to engulf him. Kyuhyun would never let him be swept away.

But… was this love?

“It isn’t,” Ryeowook whispered, as if saying it meant that there was no doubt about it.

He didn’t love Kyuhyun. He was just thankful.

Love and gratitude were two different things. Love was dangerous.

::::::::::

Ryeowook’d been staring at the blank document on his laptop for the past thirty minutes, his fingers frozen over the keys. His eyes strayed to his handphone when its screen flickered to life with a message from Kyuhyun.

Lunch today?

Ryeowook picked the phone up and thumbed his reply. 

Can’t. Having a lesson soon. Won’t be done till 3.

He hit send and threw a glance down the row of cubicles that extended from his, as if worried that someone would call him out on his lie. The office was largely quiet this late morning, and the handful of people who were around were too preoccupied with what they were doing to pay him any attention.

He flipped his handphone over and set it face down before returning his gaze to the laptop screen. The blank document stared back, its whiteness hurting his eyes. Things were not looking good. He had an essay due this Friday and he’d yet gotten a word down. 

Correction: Nothing had been looking good for him since that day he’d returned from the airport. Butterflies seemed to have taken permanent residence in his stomach, and they fluttered too frequently - in an overly excited way - to be considered normal. The cause of this was apparent to him. 

He’d dissected the problem rationally. He’d made it personal policy to avoid Kyuhyun for the time being, at least until he could feel like he was in control again, . In the mornings, he left for school earlier than usual so that the chances of bumping into Kyuhyun at the corridor was next to inexistent. He rejected Kyuhyun’s invitations for lunch. And when Kyuhyun’d rung his doorbell just the night before, Ryeowook’d pretended to be asleep. 

Kyuhyun would soon realise that Ryeowook was avoiding him. Maybe by the time Ryeowook fixed his wayward feelings, he wouldn’t be friends with Kyuhyun anymore. That thought shot shivers through his body. After all, he liked Kyuhyun as a friend. But there was no other way around it. He’d to reduce contact with Kyuhyun before his feelings could be fed and grown into something all-consuming.

His mind knew the right thing that should be done, but his heart - his wretched, wretched heart - was unteachable. It searched for Kyuhyun when his guard was down. It led him like he was a dog on leash to the border where the Faculty of Music ended and the Faculty of Mathematics began, and it made him wonder if he could see Kyuhyun but blame it entirely on chance. 

The constant tug-o-war between his mind and heart transported him back to the days where he had just woken from his coma; those days where his mind and heart hadn’t agreed with each other. He felt as if the progress he’d made over these two years had unraveled, and that unnerved him and made him cranky. Just a few days ago, he’d flared up at a student who’d too many questions to ask.

It’s just a phase, he’d reminded himself repeatedly, it’ll pass.

“Ryeowook, lunch?”

Ryeowook glanced to where Youngji had stood up, stretching her back and popping her joints. The time on his computer clock showed that it was slightly past noon. Where had all the time gone?

“Not now,” Ryeowook replied. 

Youngji’s lips quirked with a knowing, mischievous smile. “Meeting Kyuhyun-ssi for lunch again?”

Before Ryeowook could correct her, Saya sauntered into the office. “Kang Youngji, I’ve been waiting for you for five minutes. I’m going without you if you’re not ready.”

“Chill, Saya, let’s go,” Youngji draped an easy arm around Saya’s shoulders, too used to Saya’s impatience to be fazed. As she steered Saya toward the glass doors, Youngji looked over her shoulder. “See you later, Ryeowookie. Enjoy your lunch with Kyuhyun-ssi!”

After Yeonjae and Saya left, Ryeowook pressed his fingers to his temple and shook his head. With a deep breath, he positioned his fingers over the keyboard. He still had an essay to write.

::::::::::

Ryeowook bumped into Professor Jang on a day where summer showed the first signs of ending. He was walking down a corridor after a class, and Professor Jang was coming toward him from the opposite end. The sight of the professor sparked the memory of the grade that he’d never really gotten. 

When they came into eye contact with each other, Professor Jang smiled at him in greeting. Ryeowook bowed his head jerkily. Their shoulders aligned with each other, then they passed each other by. 

One, two, three, Ryeowook counted the footsteps that trailed away from him. On the fifth count, he gave in to his urge and spun around. In a few steps, he covered the distance between Professor Jang and him.

“Professor Jang,” Ryeowook blurted. His heart thumped loudly in his chest.

The professor’s leather shoes squeaked to a halt against the laminated floor. The professor’s face was caught somewhere between surprise and amusement. 

“Yes, Ryeowook? What can I do for you?”

“Well… I…” Ryeowook’s mouth gaped and closed soundlessly as he fumbled for words. “I have some…questions to… questions which…”

This was starting to look like a bad idea. He ought to have had rehearsed what he was going to say before unceremoniously intercepting Professor Jang. Now he was just going to sound like a student who had an unhealthy fixation with grades. 

“Take your time,” Professor Jang’s eyes twinkled encouragingly. “My students are always more important than the coffee break that I’m about to take.”

Ryeowook managed to laugh despite himself, and he felt his nerves loosening. “Actually…I… I just wanted to ask if there is anything that I can do to improve my music.”

Professor Jang’s brows furrowed together in confusion. The frown was short-lived, disappearing a second later as he seemed to have recalled something. 

“Is this about the grade that I gave for your QE?” He ventured

Ryeowook nodded, his nervousness building up again. “I mean… I really respect you and your decision because you’re one of the most impartial professors I know. It’s just that,” Ryeowook shrugged, “I can’t help but wonder why.”

Someone else was coming down the corridor. Ryeowook recognised him as a graduate student from another department. Professor Jang led Ryeowook to the edge of the corridor where the windows were so that they’d not be blocking the way. Professor Jang nodded at the student and waited for him to be out of earshot before he spoke.

“First thing first: I know that the other two professors on the panel gave you the highest grade there is. But, at the end of the day, music is still largely subjective. For example,” Professor Jang looked at Ryeowook almost goofily, “I may believe that I’m a discerning music prodigy, but my fellow professors may think that I’m a total nutcase.”

Professor Jang chortled, his words lending some truth to the floating rumour that he had always been a maverick who didn’t fit well into the overall culture of the faculty. When his laughter faded, he regarded Ryeowook again, all humour gone from his face. 

“I could only gave you a borderline pass because there’s something sorely missing from your music, Ryeowook.” 

“Something missing?” Ryeowook repeated. 

Professor Jang nodded, leaning against the wall and crossing his feet at the ankles. “Tell me, Ryeowook, what made you decide to play music?”

The simplicity of the question caught Ryeowook off-guard. After a short lull where neither of them said anything. Professor Jang supplied “You don’t have to answer the question. Your reason could be just simple as sheer interest, or as nobel as wishing to bring hope to others. But what I’m trying to say is: Whatever reason you’re playing the violin for, it is be tied to some kind of emotion. Passion, love, anger. There must be something. Yet when I listened to your music, there’s just… nothing.”

Professor Jang looked at him in pity as the words struck Ryeowook. Professor Jang had delivered the harsh verdict as gently as he could to soften the blow. Still, the back of Ryeowook’s eyes prickled. He bit his lips. 

“All the techniques that you have is a vessel that carries your emotions. Of course, your music can work on techniques alone, but without emotions, it will be empty and forgettable. It won’t resonate with your audience.” 

Professor Jang straightened and put an encouraging hand on Ryeowook’s shoulder. “Think about what I’ve said, Ryeowook. You have excellent techniques. If you learn how to harness your emotions, you will be phenomenal.”

After parting ways with Professor Jang, Ryeowook went for a walk around the school instead of returning to the office. The weather was perfect for a stroll, the heat of summer having lost its ferocity now that the season was coming to an end. Wind rolled in from the sea, quelled to a welcoming breeze by the time it’d travelled across half the island to the university.  

Ryeowook recalled what Kyuhyun’d told him that other night. 

Your music has a lot of heart. 

Those words had lifted him when he was at the pit of his confidence. It only confused him now. If what Kyuhyun’d said was sincere, then what kind of weight should he give to Professor Jang’s opposite observation of his music? Whose words should he believe?

“I beg to differ. That’s not the conclusion we can come to on the relationship between this equation and the Pythagoras’ Theorem.”

The voice scooped Ryeowook out of his thoughts. He stopped in his tracks and looked around him. Posters containing complex graphs and equations adorned the walls in a preset interval. A pair of students, one of whom he’d overheard, were engaged in a heated debate in a corner. Ryeowook sighed; his legs had brought him to the Faculty of Mathematics out of their own accord. 

He was about to take his leave when he spotted Kyuhyun a few metres away, talking to a petite lady, his face alit with enthusiasm (was she his friend, his colleague, or both?). Something about the scene irritated Ryeowook. He turned and walked away, hoping that Kyuhyun would not notice him.

He hoped wrong. 

“Ryeowook.” 

He was about to exit the building when Kyuhyun’s voice sounded behind him, accompanied by hurried footfalls. Although the first call was distant enough for Ryeowook to pretend that he hadn’t heard it, the second wasn’t. Ryeowook stopped, looking over his shoulder to acknowledge Kyuhyun. The petite lady was nowhere in sight.

“What are you doing here?” Kyuhyun asked as he came to a halt before Ryeowook. His eyes were bright with delight. “Were you looking for me?”

Ryeowook only shrugged and looked elsewhere. His reticence didn’t dampen Kyuhyun’s spirits.

“Anyway, you came at the right time. I was about to look for you.” Kyuhyun dug into the small plastic bag he was holding and produced a transparent food box. “I happened to be at the city centre for a conference this morning and I was pleasantly surprised to spot a stall that sells this. I bought a box for you.”

Ryeowook glanced at the box in Kyuhyun’s hand. In it laid six neat bundles of dragon beard candy - candied peanuts cocooned in fine, snowy threads of sugar.

“I’ve just eaten,” Ryeowook said tersely.

“You don’t have to eat them now. You can have them later. For tea.”

Ryeowook made no move to take the snack from Kyuhyun’s outstretched hand. The smile on Kyuhyun’s face dipped by degrees, then completely gave way to confusion.

“You don’t like it anymore? You used to like it in the past.”

In the past. 

Maybe that accounted for the disparity between Kyuhyun’s and Professor Jang’s observations of his music. 

Maybe both of them were telling the truth; just that Kyuhyun’s words were rooted in a long-ago memory, before Ryeowook’d gotten into an accident, before they were separated. Maybe in the past, the music that flowed from his fingertips did swell with emotions.

And maybe… the person that Kyuhyun liked was the him in the past, not the him now. 

Ryeowook met Kyuhyun’s eyes with his steely ones. A heaviness had settled in his lungs, and he had to tell himself to breathe.

Coldly, Ryeowook said, “You said it yourself. In the past. I’m hardly that person anymore, am I?”

Kyuhyun reeled back from the jagged edge in Ryewook’s voice. “Ryeowook, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” 

You. That’s what happened; you.

Ryeowook closed his eyes and counted to three to calm himself down. When he opened his eyes again, the concern on Kyuhyun’s face had deepened into a worry so genuine that it only made Ryeowook’s blood boil. 

“Forget it.” 

Ryeowook whirled round and left without a second glance. 

::::::::::

Kyuhyun watched as Ryeowook stormed off. Kyuhyun lifted a foot to give chase, but rationality caught up with instinct before he could take a step, and his foot rested back into place.  

Ryeowook’s behaviour confirmed his suspicions. In the beginning when Ryeowook’d started turning down his invitations for lunch, he’d thought that Ryeowook was simply caught up in his studies. It was now clear that Ryeowook’s avoidance was deliberate.

Where had he gone wrong? Had he imagined all the progress they’d made? He thought he’d given Ryeowook enough space and time to get used to his presence. 

When he could no longer see Ryeowook, Kyuhyun made his way back to his office. As he rounded a corner, he extended a hand to the mouth of a dustbin. A fraction of a second later, with a faint crinkle, the plastic box of candy hit the bottom of the dustbin.

::::::::::

Ryeowook arrived at the doorstep of his Seoul home three hours after he’d crammed his belongings into a duffel bag and booked the soonest available plane ticket out of Jeju. His unannounced return surprised his parents. His mother set her knitting hooks aside and rose from the couch. His father looked up from his self-game of chess. They glanced at the wall calendar at the same time. Chuseok wasn’t until a week later. 

“We thought you aren’t coming back until the Friday before Chuseok starts,” his mother said as she swept toward Ryeowook. 

Ryeowook set his bag onto the floor. “I thought that I should spend more time with the both of you. You know, to make up for not coming back last year. There’s nothing much happening at school anyway.”

That wasn’t the truth, but his parents didn’t have to know that he’d incurred the displeasure of his supervisor by going on leave at short notice. He was lucky that Youngji and Saya had agreed to take over his teaching duties.

His mother held Ryeowook at arm’s length, her eyes sweeping him from head to toe. Shaking her head in disapproval, she said, “You look skinnier than when I last saw you.”

“It’s the shirt.” Ryeowook tautened the shirt at its hem to prove his point. “It’s oversized.”

“Your omma is right,” his father interjected. “You look like you haven’t been eating well.”

Ryeowook looked beyond his mother’s shoulder and at his father, wondering why it had felt so odd to hear his father’s voice. It didn’t take him more than a moment to realise that this was the first time in two years that his father’d addressed him directly, face to face. A small smile curved Ryeowook’s lips.

“Appa, I’ve missed you.”

His father looked like he was about to return the smile when he caught himself. He cleared his throat hastily instead, his red-tipped ears betraying his embarrassment. “Hyeja,” he addressed his wife solemnly, “I’ll head to the market to get dinner ingredients. Our son needs some fattening up.”

“I better come with you,” his mother said as she padded into her room to grab her purse. “You can’t even tell a cucumber from a zucchini.”

“I’ll come too,” Ryeowook offered.

“No, you just rest,” His father said as he retrieved his jacket from the coat stand and shrugged into it. “We’ll be back shortly.” 

Ryeowook returned to his room after his parents’d left for the market. Despite his prolonged absence, his room was free of the dust and stale air he’d expected. He laid down on his bed and propped his head under a bent arm, making a mental note to thank his mother later for keeping his room spick and span. The sun catcher at the window sparkled in the mid-autumn afternoon, scattering a shaft of light and casting shapes that flitted on the ceiling.

His room hadn’t changed in the two years he’d been away. Knots reformed in his chest, and he realised that neither had he changed. 

He had run away to Jeju when Kyuhyun’s deliberate lie had left him confused and heartbroken. Now, he ran again, this time back to Seoul, when Kyuhyun reappeared and shattered the so-called peace he’d painstakingly restored. He’d been so certain that he’d moved on, but it was now clear to him that he’d simply been hiding away in Jeju all these time. 

He hadn’t achieved any of that peace he thought he had. He hadn’t stopped running away from Kyuhyun. What frightened him the most was how his heart gravitated toward Kyuhyun, yearning for him and wanting him in spite of everything. 

But there was no way he’d listen to his heart. He’d done so two years ago, heeded its advice to search for a person who’d no intention of acknowledging him, and got his heart broken in the end.

Once was enough.

::::::::::

Kyuhyun waited in the corridor with his back against the wall and his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his pants. Every few seconds or so, he glanced at Ryeowook’s door, his chest rising with the hope that it’d open, and falling when it didn’t.

Despite living and having their faculties next to each other, Kyuhyun didn’t always set off for school with Ryeowook in the morning. God knows how much he’d love for that to happened, but he’d hesitated overwhelming Ryeowook with his presence. At least he could content himself with the few times telepathy had them coming out of their apartments at the same time.  

Today was different. He had come out of his apartment twenty minutes earlier than usual, determined to catch Ryeowook. This was the only time in the day where he had the chance to corner Ryeowook into talking to him. 

Over the weekend, Kyuhyun’d mulled over the state of their relationship. He identified the culprit responsible: Pretence; there was simply too much pretence between them. Ryeowook’d been pretending that he’d made peace with all the hurt Kyuhyun’d inflicted on him two years ago. In turn, Kyuhyun pretended to be convinced that Ryeowook’d moved on. They needed to peel back the layers of pretence and talk. Heart to heart. Soul to soul. He needed to know what exactly was bothering Ryeowook before he could make things right.

Kyuhyun consulted looked at his watch. Nine in the morning had come and gone. He stepped away from the wall and stood before Ryeowook’s door, disconcerted. He pressed the doorbell. When the trill of the doorbell faded, the silence behind the door became all the more apparent. 

Kyuhyun rapped his knuckles on the door. “Ryeowook?”

There was no answer. No shuffling of feet out of haste to open the door.

He pulled his handphone from his pocket and called Ryeowook. He listened closely as the dial tone coo-ed and caught no corresponding melody seeping out of closed door. Ultimately the dial tone beeped and he was directed to voice mail. A bad feeling gripped him.

He quelled his panic and took off for the Faculty of Music, reasoning that Ryeowook’d perhaps left early for school. As he ascended the stairs to the office where Ryeowook’d be, he ran into Youngji, who was coming down from the other end.

She stopped in her steps, her head tilted to a side. “Kyuhyun-ssi, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to look for Ryeowook. Is he in the office?”

She looked puzzled. “Ryeowook went back Seoul. Didn’t he tell you?”

The panic returned fiercer than before, turning his spine into ice. “Since when?”

“A few days ago,” she replied. “He’ll be back after Chuseok.”

He’ll be back.

Kyuhyun exhaled. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. 

“Are you okay, Kyuhyun-ssi?” She asked, her eyebrows knitted together. “Is it something urgent?”

“It’s nothing.” 

He thanked Youngji and left. He didn’t return to his faculty. Instead, his feet brought him to the park that the two faculties shared, and he traced circular path that he’d once walked with Ryeowook. When he sighted an empty bench under a tree, he sat down, the aged wood sighing under his weight.

When Youngji’d told him that Ryeowook would be back after Chuseok, Kyuhyun’d been relieved that he hadn’t chased Ryeowook out of his life completely. The relief had washed him over like a tide, emptying him of energy and making him weak in the knees. When the relief ebbed, the profound sense of powerlessness remained.

He lifted his face skyward. Because autumn had yet grace Jeju in its full glory, the leaves overhead were still lush green. The morning rays leaked through the holes in the foliage, dappling his skin with shadows.

Who was he kidding when he told Changmin that he only needed Ryeowook to be happy?

He wanted Ryeowook back. But more than that, he wanted Ryeowook to be happy with him. 

::::::::::

Ryeowook was lazing on his bed with a book opened on his tummy when his phone flashed with Kyuhyun’s name. He stared at the screen, making no move to pick it up.

When the screen darkened, he turned off his phone and slid the device into the gap between the mattress and the bed frame. He turned to lay on his other side, his back toward where the device was now tucked. He closed his eyes and willed himself not to think of Kyuhyun. If he could pretend that Kyuhyun wasn’t looking for him, and then he could pretend that Kyuhyun would be back to being a friend whom he didn’t think of everyday single damn day.

He would succeed.

::::::::::

Ryeowook returned to Jeju on a sunny afternoon the day after Chuseok had ended. He was standing at the doorstep of his apartment, grouping around in his duffel bag for his keys, when the door next to his opened. He jumped, and his hand - the one buried in the depths of his bag - jerked. The keys that he’d located just a second earlier slipped out of his touch, disappearing like an ink drop in the sea of his other belongings.

Kyuhyun surfaced from his apartment and, once he was in the corridor, turned to close his door. Ryeowook steadied himself quickly, figuring that it was too late for him to hide. Besides, he’d like to believe that the short trip back home had done wonders and that he was ready to treat Kyuhyun like he would anybody else. 

“Hey,” Ryeowook greeted first. 

At Ryeowook’s voice, Kyuhyun’s head snapped up, like he hadn’t noticed Ryeowook was there until Ryeowook’d spoken. A medical mask covered the bottom-half of Kyuhyun’s face. It was day time, and the lights in the largely walled-in corridor would not flicker to life until it was six o’clock. Despite the general lack of light, Ryeowook noticed the pallor in the little skin Kyuhyun’d exposed.

“Back?” Kyuhyun did not so much as asked than rasped. “How was - ” A chain of painful cough interrupted the question. Phlegm rattled in Kyuhyun’s lungs with every heave of his chest.

“You look terrible, Kyuhyun. Are you okay?”

Kyuhyun nodded. “It’s just a nasty cold bug that’s been going around,” he said, his voice raw and breathless from the cough.

“Have you gone to the doctor?”

Kyuhyun pressed the edge of a fist to his mouth, stifling the next bout of coughs into ones that sounded more like hiccups. When the cough dwindled, Kyuhyun said, “I’m about to visit him.” 

There was a small silence where Ryeowook wondered if he should accompany Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun looked weak - he probably was - and he swayed on his feet like a reed caught in a gentle wind. Then again, it could be the billowy coat that Kyuhyun was wearing that gave that impression. Besides, the clinic was just across the street. 

“I’ll see you around,” Ryeowook said, making up his mind. “Take care and drink lots of water.” He cringed inwardly at his hackneyed words.

Back in his apartment, Ryeowook pulled the curtains aside and threw open the windows to let fresh air in. He stood by the windows and kept his eyes on the sun-drenched street below. A while later, Kyuhyun emerged from the shadows of the apartment building. Ryeowook watched as the minuscule figure moved slowly across the traffic-free street. His heart settled in ease when Kyuhyun safely reached the other side where the clinic was. He moved away from the windows.

As he unpacked his belongings, changed his bedsheets and put the old ones to wash, he divvied a portion of his attention to the corridor sounds and kept his ears alert. Somewhere in the middle of his wiping away the dust that had settled thinly on his desk, Kyuhyun returned. Ryeowook’s hand paused, spreadeagled on the damp rag. Muffled sniffs and coughs seeped into his apartment, then jingle of keys and a door closing.

Thirty minutes later, Ryeowook stood before the stove, stirring a pot of porridge enough to serve two. It was only by-the-way gesture. Nothing intentional. He needed something bland after all the fattening food he’d ingested over Chuseok anyway. He turned off the flame and ladled more than half of it into a Thermos flask. 

Ryeowook’s stomach lurched uneasily when he pressed the doorbell next to Kyuhyun’s door. Listless footsteps sounded after a few beats of silence. The door opened. Kyuhyun’s shoulders pulled back in surprise when he saw Ryeowook.

“I’ve cooked an extra portion of porridge and thought that I could bring some to you,” Ryeowook said, holding out the flask. Internally, he berated himself for not being able to sound casual. What was with the awkwardness in his voice. “You can keep it for later if you don’t feel like eating it now. It’ll still be warm.”

Kyuhyun took the flask from Ryeowook. For a moment, he looked at the cylindrical body of the flask with what seemed like disbelief. He glanced up at Ryeowook, his eyes bright with gratefulness and… hopefulness. “Thanks, Ryeowook.”

Ryeowook offered a small, tentative smile. “It’s nothing much. Well then, I’ll get going and leave you to rest.”

“Wait,” Kyuhyun said hoarsely before Ryeowook could take a step. “Could you stay?”

Ryeowook stiffened. His mind was force-wired to resist any kind of - or anything remotely resembling - intimacy with Kyuhyun. The rejection was already hanging from his lips when a closer look at Kyuhyun chased the words back down his throat. Now that Kyuhyun wasn’t wearing a mask, Ryeowook could see Kyuhyun’s cracked lips and the faint grey that smeared the skin under his eyes. Kyuhyun’s face had become gaunt in the wake of the cold. It reminded Ryeowook that Kyuhyun’d been very sick in the past. Ryeowook shuddered.

“Please,” Kyuhyun said. The vulnerability in the one-word plea dissolved Ryeowook’s indecision. He nodded.

He trailed after Kyuhyun, and he realised that it was his first time in Kyuhyun’s apartment. Like it was in Ryeowook’s apartment, there was a standard school-supplied desk near the windows. Tall stacks of paper towered like buildings on the desk surface and the immediate floor around it. Ryeowook deduced from the rumpled bedsheets and blanket that Kyuhyun’d been sleeping when he’d pressed the doorbell.

“Sit anywhere you like,” Kyuhyun said, a small cough punctuating his sentence. “Though, it’s not like you have much of a choice.” Ryeowook managed to smile at Kyuhyun’s words despite the oddity of the situation. 

The dining table in Kyuhyun’s apartment was a low table - the kind used in traditional Korean restaurants - in the middle of the room. In the end, Ryeowook chose to sit there, cross-legged on the floor, on the side perpendicular to where Kyuhyun was sitting. He watched as Kyuhyun unscrewed the flask and poured the porridge into the cap that doubled as a bowl. Kyuhyun asked if Ryeowook wanted some, but Ryeowook rejected, pointing out that he had half a pot left at home.

As Kyuhyun lifted his first spoonful to his lips, Ryeowook held his breath. Would the porridge be too salty? Or would it be too bland? Kyuhyun swallowed, and Ryeowook’s apprehension was laid to rest when a silver of smile winked across Kyuhyun’s lips. 

They didn’t talk much as Kyuhyun ate. Through the gap between the partially drawn curtains, the sky was a strip of pastel pink and milky purple. The final light from the setting sun tinted the room orange. 

Soon, the bowl emptied, and Kyuhyun refilled it with the remaining porridge in the flask.

“Best thing I’ve eaten in days,” Kyuhyun said, confirming Ryeowook’s suspicion that Kyuhyun’d been sick for at least a few days. 

“This better not be the only thing you’ve eaten in days,” Ryeowook said pointedly.

Kyuhyun looked up from his bowl at Ryeowook with a smile intended to feign innocence. But the same smile also Ryeowook off-guard. His heartbeat launched into a frenetic rhythm. When he understood it for what it was, he became frightened.

What was he doing here? 

“If there’s nothing else, I’m going back.” As Ryeowook hoisted himself off the floor, his knee knocked into the table. The bowl clattered. A little porridge sploshed over its lip.

Kyuhyun gaped, as if unable to make sense of the sudden change in Ryeowook’s mood. “What - ”

“I need to unpack and I have a class tomorrow. I need to prepare for it.” Ryeowook babbled wildly, avoiding Kyuhyun’s eyes.

“Ryeowook, wait.”

Kyuhyun’s hand shot out. His fingers latched onto Ryeowook’s wrist, tugging the smaller man to a stop. Ryeowook tried unsuccessfully to pull his wrist out of Kyuhyun’s grip. Kyuhyun’s fingers didn’t yield.

“Let go of me.” Ryeowook seethed. 

“What did I do this time? Why are you running away from me again?”

Tears of frustration burned Ryeowook’s eyes. After all his fighting and trying, why was he still ensnared by this man?

“Let go, Kyuhyun,” Ryeowook repeated, his voice trembling. The day Kyuhyun had pretended to be a stranger flashed across Ryeowook’s eyes. Old wounds opened, and his heart rocked with the memory of a pain he thought he’d never experience again. “You had no problem letting go of me in the past, so why are you finding it so difficult to do the same thing now?” 

Kyuhyun stiffened. Quiet slipped between them. None of them moved an inch. They were physically connected through one’s hand on the other’s wrist, but the distance that separated them was greater than the most perilous oceans.

“I regretted it,” Kyuhyun whispered. His sick-ridden voice nudged the silence apart. “If I’d known that I’d get better, I would’ve given in to my instinct and pulled you into my arms that day.”

“The fact remains that you didn’t.” Ryeowook shook his head. “Not that it matters now.”

“Everything about you matters.” Kyuhyun got to his feet. He took Ryeowook by the shoulders and drew the smaller man toward him.

Too weary to do anything, Ryeowook’s arms hung limply by his side. “Don’t do this, Kyuhyun. We are no longer…possible.”

“We are.” Kyuhyun whispered, his words a gentle caress against the shell of Ryeowook’s ear. “We can be if only you’re willing to open your heart to me. I love you, Ryeowook, I love you so much.”

Ryeowook disentangled himself from Kyuhyun’s embrace. He backed a few steps beyond the length of Kyuhyun’s arms where Kyuhyun couldn’t touch him. 

“Have it ever occured that you’re in love with the person I was in the past? The Ryeowook in the past laughed at the slightest joke. He played great music. This person you’re seeing right now,” Ryeowook pointed to himself, “he’s sombre, and his professor calls his music empty. He’s not the person that you love. He’s not even the same person anymore.”

“I’ve never expected you remain the same. After all that happened, how could you be? How could I be the same? But I need you to be happy, even if it’s without me. I need you to show me that you are healed of the hurt that I’ve inflicted on you. Only then can I leave.”

“I’m happy.”

“You’re not,” Kyuhyun looked at Ryeowook sadly, “I know you.”

Anger blazed in Ryeowook’s chest. “Don’t speak like you know me well.”

Kyuhyun rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I wish I didn’t know you so well either. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been so senselessly in love with you for all these years and counting. I wouldn’t have gone to look for you at your house the first thing after the doctor cleared me of cancer. I wouldn’t have come to Jeju. I wouldn’t have known that you’ve changed, and I wouldn’t have been caught in surprise that I’ve fallen deeper for you than ever. Yet, after all these, you still do not believe that I have never stopped loving you. The person you were, the person you are, they don’t make difference to me. Both of them are you, and I love you. You.”

Through the tears in his eyes, Ryeowook’s vision was warped and wobbled. He kept his eyes wide, certain that if he blinked, tears would drive down his face. The last thing he wanted was to come undone before Kyuhyun.  

“You drive me crazy, Cho Kyuhyun.”

“You do the same to me. Every time you avoid me, every time you run away, I wonder if that’s the time I’m going to lose you forever.”

“You can’t lose me when you don’t even own me in the first place.”

Kyuhyun closed his eyes and in a long breath. He nodded in defeat. “Right. I don’t own your heart the way you own mine.”

Ryeowook tipped his head backward. He stared at the ceiling above him, willing his tears to flow back where they’d come. It was useless. A stubborn tear had leaked out of his eye and was now carving a pathway down his cheek. He turned away with a pressing need to escape. 

He’d swung open the door when Kyuhyun’s hoarse voice came from behind.

“Ryeowook, what are you so afraid of?”

Memories rushed at him. Memories of confusion, of drifting like an empty husk with no land in sight. Memories of desperation, of stumbling around looking for a person whom only his heart remembered. Memories of despair, of falling apart when he’d realised that everyone he loved had lied to him. Ryeowook’s hand tightened on the sleek body of the door handle. 

“History repeating,” Ryeowook said, stepping over the threshold of the door. “Because when I see you, pain is all that I remember.”

::::::::::

Kyuhyun faded out of Ryeowook’s life like the last trace of sunlight winking out from the canvas of dusk. Messages from Kyuhyun stopped lighting up the screen of his handphone. Kyuhyun still lived next to him. When the environment was quiet, Ryeowook could hear Kyuhyun’s footsteps through the walls, but he didn’t see the man again. 

It used to be Ryeowook who did the whole avoiding thing. Now, it seemed like two were playing the game. It worked in his favour. It was about time to sever the ties that had no place in his life.

On the seventh day since he’d last seen Kyuhyun, Ryeowook took a stool to his cupboard and climbed onto it. He knew that it was the seventh day not because he’d kept track, but because a week had passed since he’d returned from Seoul. Three boxes were jammed between the top of the cupboard and the ceiling, containing the items he’d deemed important enough to be brought to Jeju but were too miscellaneous to be granted a display space in his small apartment. 

Like how he’d play a game of Jenga, he coaxed the box marked ‘Textbooks’ out of its nook, pausing and shifting the angle whenever the other two boxes showed signs of toppling. With a thud, he set the box onto the floor and sat cross-legged before it. He released its top flap from the cellophane tape and peered down at a stack of old textbooks. One by one, he took the books out, setting each of them aside after a brief glance.

The reference book he was looking for rested at the bottom of the box. It wasn’t the only thing he’d found. A small rectangular device slanted over the edge of the book, greeting him with a splintered, mono-eyed stare. His hand trembled slightly as it reached into the box and closed around his old phone, the existence of which, before this moment, he’d forgotten. 

For a long time, he just looked at the phone nestled in his hands. The promise he’d made to himself charged back at him. He’d promised himself that he’d throw the phone away when he had moved on. The time was now, wasn’t it?

Beside him, the books laid forgotten. If he had come across the phone a few months earlier, he was certain that he’d have been able to dump it without an ounce of hesitation. What had changed?

Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain why he did the thing he was about to do. Perhaps he was simply curious. Perhaps some part of him wanted to relive their story for the last time before he let go of everything they’d been together. 

His finger slid to the small elevation where the power button was. He held it down. 

Miraculously, despite more than two years of non-use, the phone chirped to life. The brand name blinkered on the cracked screen, then dissolved. A wallpaper of Kyuhyun and him standing in the foreground of a tulip field filled the screen next. 

Where had the photo been taken? Were there even tulip farms in Korea?

He was distracted before he could deliberate over the questions. The phone started to trill continuously, vibrating in tandem with each of messages that poured in. Each incoming message erased the earlier one from the screen before he’d the chance to read them. Some messages came from people with names that he couldn’t recognise, but the bulk of them came from Kyuhyun. He tapped the screen lightly with his thumb. The chat box with Kyuhyun enlarged.

The latest message was sent barely more than six months ago, before Kyuhyun came to Jeju. Steeling himself, Ryeowook began to read.

[Two pieces of great news today: 1) The doctor said that I’m doing really well and I could be discharged soon and 2) Changmin managed to find out where you have moved to. He said that it was entirely by serendipity. Can I take that as a sign that we’re meant to be? I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again, Ryeowook. I only hope that that day isn’t far away. Love you.]

[It’s official - I’m going all out and fight this disease. :D I want to see you again. Wait for me, will you?]

[I think about you a lot these days, though that’s not to say I don’t think of you in the past. To put it more precisely, I think of you more than usual. Thinking of you makes the sessions easier to bear.]

[Today was my first chemotherapy session. I pretended to stoic in front of the nurses, but it was horrible. I have since puked about five times. I don’t think I can make it.]

[Letting go of you was the hardest thing I ever had to do.]

His heart twisted painfully. The voice in his head yelled at him to stop, hotly reasoning that an awareness of these message would only undercut effort he’d made in leaving a past love behind. On the fissured screen, his thumb slid back and forth, pulling down and revealing the messages, each one sent at an earlier time than the other. He couldn’t stop. He internalised the words, feeling the sharp pain as they became relentless little blades in his blood stream, slicing wherever they touched.

[I attended a conference today and the eclairs that were served during lunch were amazing. I think you’d love it.]

[You have once told me that I am too rational a person to do impractical things. I don’t think you’re right, because here I am, sending messages to a phone number that you probably have stopped using. I don’t suppose you will ever reply or even see my messages. Still, I need to do this to feel that I’m still connected to you at some level, that I haven’t lost you completely.]

[I have lost you, haven’t I?]

Tears welled in Ryeowook’s eyes. I lost you too.

[I’m going crazy from missing you.]

[Ryeowook, my name is Kyuhyun. Do you remember me? It’s okay if you don’t, but if you see this message, call me. Please.]

[Where are you, Ryeowook? Are you better now? I miss you. ]

The words charted a reverse path of Kyuhyun’s hope, sadness, acceptance, despair, helplessness, desperation. He read everything, including the messages that were exchanged when they’d been happy together. When it came to each other, they quarrelled, they bantered, they teased, they cared and they loved. They were like any couple. They would still be together if not for the accident.

No. They would still be together if he hadn’t been so hell-bent on driving Kyuhyun out of his life.

The stillness he’d installed over his heart shattered like a mirror at the end of a charging fist. All the emotions that he’d never thought he would feel again gushed out, filling every corner of his body. Sorrow, longing and want. 

Before turning on the phone, he had readied himself for bittersweet nostalgia, but not this heart wrenching wave that rummaged through his insides, prying and tearing, as if it was trying to reassemble him into the person he’d been in the past. He’d been thrown a curveball.

Kyuhyun not only loved Kim Ryeowook. He had made Kim Ryeowook his life.

Ryeowook doubled over himself, his shoulders convulsing. For once, he listened to his heart.

It told him that he had let the person he loved go.

It told him that never would he meet another person who loved him as much as Kyuhyun did.

It told him that he regretted.

::::::::::

The vicious cold that had infected Kyuhyun made its round and preyed on Ryeowook eventually. He woke up one morning feeling as though giant hands were forcefully trying to pry his skull apart. He felt blindly for his phone and found it wedged under his pillow. With heavily-lidded eyes, he texted Youngji, asking her to let their supervisor know that he was sick and wouldn’t be going in to the office.

His phone buzzed with an incoming call a few minutes later. It was Youngji. He answered the phone with a gravelly voice that took him a pulse to realise it was coming from him.

“You sound terrible,” Youngji echoed his thoughts. “Are you going to be okay?”

Tiny, impish hands scratched insistently at his throat. He couldn’t manage more than a mumble of yes and a non-committal mmm when Youngji told him to visit the doctor. She hung up after that, and Ryeowook fell into a fitful unconsciousness.

He jerked awake some time later, disoriented at the amount of time that had passed. His headache had ratcheted several notches up and his throat burned. He pushed himself off the bed and staggered on jelly legs to the kitchenette, an act that demanded an energy thousand-fold higher than usual. 

He searched for bag of OTC medicines he’d stashed in one of the drawers and downed the pills with a hastily-filled mug of tap water. He lumbered back to bed, pulled the quilt to his chin and snuggled deep into the mattress.

His head pounded with a damning ferocity. His throat prickled with red hot needles.

But at the penultimate moment before sleep claimed him, he thought: This isn’t so bad.

This took the focus away from how much his heart was hurting.

::::::::::

“Ryeowook.”

Ryeowook cracked an eye open. Except for the light that spilled in from the kitchenette, the room was dark otherwise. Had he forgotten to turn off the lights yesterday? He couldn’t remember turning them on this morning. 

“Wake up and take your medicine.”

The voice was warm and gentle, flowing like a stream of clarity through his fevered mind. A silhouette, backlit by the kitchenette lights, appeared in Ryeowook’s sight. Tall and thin, shoulders wide and sure. 

Ryeowook’s eyes stung. He’d recognise the silhouette anywhere. Even if his mind was cloaked in delirium, he could rely on his heart to be right. His heart never forgot. That had always been the case.

An arm looped under Ryeowook’s shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position. A bitter liquid was tipped down his throat. He coughed.

“Here, drink some water.” The cool edge of a glass touched his cracked lips, and he guzzled the water that followed, neutralising the bitterness in his mouth.

He was eased back into bed. When the silhouette turned away, panic erupted in his chest. He wasn’t ready to wake up from this dream. His arm shot forward, and he clasped on. The hand he clung on to was large and steady. A safe harbour.

Don’t leave. The words left his throat as a tiny whimper. But the silhouette understood; he didn’t pull away nor disintegrate with the transience of a dream.

There were so many things he wanted to say, but his vocal cords refused to cooperate. In the end, he dragged his index finger across the landscape of the palm he was holding. Everything - all the feelings that he’d denied, all the longing he’d hidden under an unyielding armour of self-protection - gushed out of him, culminating in six characters that was his rawest reflection.

Mi-an-hae. Sa-rang-hae. 

The hand that he was writing on tensed. It relaxed after a lapse, and its fingers threaded through Ryeowook’s.

“I love you too. Sleep well. I’ll be right here with you.”

::::::::::

The skin under Kyuhyun’s hand was no longer burning as much as it’d been a few hours ago. Kyuhyun removed his hand from Ryeowook’s forehead and sank back into the chair he’d pulled to Ryeowook’s bedside. 

Earlier that day, Youngji’d sent him a worried message. When he knew that Ryeowook was sick, he pulled out of the departmental gathering scheduled in the evening and headed back right after he gave his last lecture of the day. When he knocked on the door and Ryeowook didn’t answer, he zipped to the administration office to request the backup keys to Ryeowook’s apartment. He entered the apartment fifteen minutes to find Ryeowook was out cold on the bed and running a savage fever.

He’d called the doctor next. After the doctor came and left, Kyuhyun followed the doctor’s instructions. He pulverised the medicine, dissolved the powder in water and fed the concoction to Ryeowook. He wiped Ryeowook’s body down with a damp cloth. He stayed by Ryeowook’s side, straightening in alert whenever Ryeowook showed signs of discomfort.

The night had now deepened, and the world was quiet except for the standing fan that whirred in a corner. The curtains wafted and released a slice of moonlight into the room. The bluish glow fell across Ryeowook’s face, illuminating the glorious cheekbones, the slightly agape lips, and the smooth skin between the eyebrows. Ryeowook looked peaceful in his sleep, and Kyuhyun’d like to think that it was because of him.

Before tonight, Kyuhyun’d contemplated giving Ryeowook up and excising himself from Ryeowook’s life. What Ryeowook’d said the other day socked him in his guts. Kyuhyun’d begun to be convinced that he’d brought nothing but misery to Ryeowook by coming to Jeju. 

But what happened tonight…

In the darkness, Kyuhyun rubbed his hands together. His palm tingled where Ryeowook’d inscribed the invisible words.

Mi-an-hae. Sa-rang-hae.

Sa-rang-hae.

A small smile tugged at Kyuhyun’s lips. Folded his hand over Ryeowook’s, he made a promise to himself.

::::::::::

It was the brightness spiking through his eyelids that woke Ryeowook up. His eyes fluttered open in narrow slits, squinting and blinking wider as they adapted to the sunlight that lit up the room. It was morning already. His limbs still felt pulpy with leftover heaviness from last night, but his head no longer felt like it was inhabited by stampeding barbarians. Sleep, he marvelled, does recuperative wonders to your body. 

“How are you feeling?”

Ryeowook snapped his head to the bedside. His jaw dropped. He snapped his head back to the center of his pillow.

“I’m still dreaming,” Ryeowook declared aloud, his voice still not sounding entirely his own even though his throat had stopped hurting. He squeezing his eyes shut. He fisted his blanket and counted his breathing. The apparition would be gone when he woke up for real. 

A few moments later, when no voices said anything, Ryeowook ventured again. He opened his eyes. The air in his lungs froze, and he stopped breathing. Kyuhyun’s face, alit with amusement, was hovering above his. He didn’t even blink.

A large hand laid itself on Ryeowook’s forehead. “Your fever seems to have gone.”

This isn’t a dream. The hand is warm. Ryeowook thought, the fuzziness that clouded his head dissipating. And if this isn’t a dream… 

Ryeowook sprung up and scrambled to a corner of the bed, his spine pressing into the niche where two walls met. “You’re real.”

The amusement on Kyuhyun’s face deepened as he straightened his back. “And you’re definitely not dreaming.”

Ryeowook’s eyes darted around his apartment in search for the missing piece that’d bestow sense to this peculiar situation. He found none. He retracted his gaze and, instead of looking at Kyuhyun, he focussed it on the blanket that pooled around his legs. A chequered flap of the drawstring pants he was wearing peeked out from underneath. He startled with horror. 

These weren’t the pants he had been wearing yesterday and, his looked down at his chest, neither was the shirt!

Ryeowook sputtered. “Wh-wh-wh-why are you here? Wh-what happened last night?”

Kyuhyun gave Ryeowook a deliberately long and meaningful look that made Ryeowook hair stand. “Youngji told me you were sick and I swung by to take care of you. You were running a high fever. But halfway through the night you sort of attacked me, you know,” Kyuhyun gestured awkwardly around the general area of his chest, “here.”

“Th-th-th-that’s impos- ”

“Impossible, I know,” Kyuhyun nodded. “That’s what I dreamed of when I dozed off.” He nudged his chin at the swivel chair. “But you did confess that you love me. Right here.” He showed Ryeowook his palm. “Not a dream.” 

Ryeowook stared at Kyuhyun’s outstretched palm, incapable of moving an inch. The frayed edges of a fuzzy memory began to mend itself. Everything he’d thought had been a dream was coming back to him. The nerves in his right hand fired with the tactile memory of it clinging onto another. He tightened it into a fist on top of his thigh.

Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow at Ryeowook’s shock-stilled muteness. “Surely you are not going to take your words back?”

Ryeowook didn’t reply straightaway. A small part of him - the prideful part - remained obstinate about exiling Kyuhyun from his life. But the bigger part of him was…tired of fighting the waves. Why not let go and go with the flow? Maybe he would be swept to a place where he’d go through the cycle of confusion and despair again; maybe he would be headed to where bliss awaited. He’d never know. He only knew, now that he’d stopped lying to himself, that he wanted Kyuhyun as much as Kyuhyun wanted him.

Ryeowook muttered, “I never said that I would.” Right after the words left Ryeowook’s lips, heat flooded Ryeowook’s face. He avoided Kyuhyun’s eyes.

A wayward spring whined as Kyuhyun lowered himself onto Ryeowook’s bed. Ryeowook cowered out of surprise when Kyuhyun touched Ryeowook’s ear, catching it lightly between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Do you remember?” Kyuhyun asked as he rubbed Ryeowook’s ear gently. “You used to ask me to do this whenever you got embarrassed. Said that red ears are an affront to your masculinity.”

Ryeowook’s eyes fell, a heaviness settling over him.

“I don’t,” he said truthfully. He remembered the bits and pieces, but never their whole story. It made him feel traitorous. Unworthy. He forced himself to look into Kyuhyun’s eyes, which shimmered like brown quartz in the morning light. 

“I can’t remember a lot of the things that happened to us in the past,” Ryeowook said, half-expecting to Kyuhyun’s hand to pull away. It didn’t. It moved to cup the curve of his cheek.

“It’s not important, really. You love me. That’s all I need. We can always make new memories to replace the ones you lost.” Kyuhyun brushed a thumb across Ryeowook’s cheek. “Ryeowook, let’s start over. This time, I’ll take you to Forever.”

Even the toughest corner of Ryeowook’s heart melted, and along with it, all his doubts. He could trust Kyuhyun. He leaned into Kyuhyun’s hand, nodding, a small smile spreading across his face. He saw the same on Kyuhyun’s.

Kyuhyun’s gaze lowered to Ryeowook’s lips. Ryeowook’s heart skipped when Kyuhyun leaned in. However, when their lips were only a few inches apart, Ryeowook covered his own mouth, suddenly remembering something. 

“I’m sick.”

“I’m immune.” Kyuhyun pried Ryeowook’s hand away.

Kyuhyun moved in again, but for the second time, Ryeowook shrank back. Kyuhyun blinked in confusion.

“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” Ryeowook said, blushing harder.

A chesty laugh tumbled out of Kyuhyun. “That makes the two of us.” Kyuhyun moved to his hand to the nape of Ryeowook’s neck. “To be honest, Ryeowook, I can’t wait anymore.” Before Ryeowook could decipher what Kyuhyun meant, their lips touched.

The kiss began slow, nothing more than lips pressing together. Then Ryeowook relaxed, and it built up into a tender exploration. A memory fledged at the back of Ryeowook’s mind - younger, hopeful versions of themselves kissing. They were different now, broken in some places, whole in others. Still, they fit, ridges to grooves. Kyuhyun was home. Why had he been so stupid to be convinced otherwise?

Ryeowook crawled into Kyuhyun’s lap, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. Kyuhyun’s arm curled around Ryeowook’s waist, bringing him closer. Ryeowook’s shirt had hitched up, and Kyuhyun’s fingers the revealed silver of flesh above Ryeowook’s waistband.

They pulled apart for air, their chests heaving, their breathing loud.

Ryeowook rested his forehead on Kyuhyun’s, lost in each other’s eyes.

“Again?” Kyuhyun asked.

This time, it was Ryeowook who leaned in.

::::::::::

Many of their dates were composed of long afternoons spent in homely cafes, each of them enclosed in their own bubbles of concentration, working quietly away at their own tasks. 

It was the same for Ryeowook today as he worked on the homework for the composition module he was enrolled in, drawing and shading music symbols on scoresheets. Things were slightly different for Kyuhyun. As usual, he had a thin pile of journal papers and an open notebook beside his cup of americano, but he was also fidgeting every minute or so. 

Finally, unable to ignore Kyuhyun any longer, Ryeowook looked up from the quaver he’d just filled in. A frown pinched his eyebrows. “You’re oddly antsy today. What’s bothering you?” He noticed that Kyuhyun’s notebook was still stuck on a blank page. 

Kyuhyun grimaced, his eyes flitting to the street outside before returning to Ryeowook. “There’s something that I’m itching to ask you.” The statement was said in a way that sounded like Kyuhyun was seeking Ryeowook’s permission.

Ryeowook cocked an eyebrow, an indication for Kyuhyun to continue.

“Did you… did you really fall out of love with me?”

Ryeowook did a double take, momentarily confused over where Kyuhyun’s question had come from. Then he remembered the conversation they had over dinner last night, where Ryeowook confessed that in the initial period after Kyuhyun’d re-entered his life, he’d felt nothing more than friendship for Kyuhyun. 

Ryeowook smirked teasingly. “Wasn’t someone really nonchalant about it last night? I believe the exact words were ‘It doesn’t matter as long as you are in love with me now’.”

“I’m just asking it for purposes of background reference.” Kyuhyun pulled at his collar. “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

“Well… I don’t mind answering.” Ryeowook stifled a chuckle when Kyuhyun perked up instantly. “But the thing is, I’m not very sure myself.” He nibbled the end of his pencil and thought hard about it, the playfulness of a moment ago disappearing. “It’s true that I felt nothing for you when you came back to me. Then again, I felt nothing much for anything or anybody even before that.”

Somewhere behind the cafe counter, something - cups, possibly - crashed and the staff gasped. Like other patrons, Kyuhyun and Ryeowook turned their heads to the commotion, distracted from their conversation. The cashier apologised for the disturbance, and the patrons resumed what they’d been doing,

Kyuhyun took a small sip of his drink. “So… if you felt nothing for anybody, does it mean that you hadn’t gone out with somebody else in my absence?” Ryeowook suspected that that was the real question that Kyuhyun wanted to ask. 

“No. Of course I didn’t. I don’t think it can be with anybody else but you.” At Ryeowook’s words, Kyuhyun relaxed noticeably, even looking smug. Suddenly, Ryeowook narrowed his eyes at Kyuhyun. “What about you?”

“What what about me?”

“Did you see anyone when you weren’t with me?”

“Are you jealous?” Kyuhyun was grinning. 

Ryeowook rolled his eyes. “As if you weren’t just three seconds ago. Quick, answer my question.”

“It’s a no brainer. I was too busy beating leukaemia and missing you to pay attention to another person.”

A heaviness papered the inside Ryeowook’s chest, and air seemed to have become thinner. The question he had long ago swam to the center stage of his mind. He understood why he hadn’t asked then. It was a question that, when answered, would confer a layer of emotional intimacy to their relationship. Back then, he had wanted distance between Kyuhyun and him. Now, he was ready

“What’s wrong?” Kyuhyun asked, confused at Ryeowook’s sudden silence.

“Tell me everything about how you fought leukaemia. Don’t gloss over the details,” Ryeowook warned quietly when he sensed that Kyuhyun was about to brush him off with a sketchy narration.

Kyuhyun spent a moment in silence, drew in a deep breath, then opened up like a book. He talked about the countless trips to the doctor, the sessions of chemotherapy that he’d endured, and the eventual bone marrow transplant that made him a victor of the disease.

“I was lucky to have waited only a year before they found a match for me in the database. Some patients who were diagnosed earlier than me were still waiting when the doctor declared me cancer-free.”

Ryeowook heard Kyuhyun’s story and felt Kyuhyun’s hardship like it was his own. His heart clenched as he imagined Kyuhyun’s fear as he tussled with an unpredictable foe, unsure when he would succumb.

Ryeowook bit his lip, wrapping his hands around his cup of cappuccino. The ceramic was still warm. “I’m sorry for thinking that I’m the only one who suffered.”

“I want to ask you not to be, but I don’t think you’ll ever be convinced. So I’m just going to tell you that you’ve more than made up for it. Do you know what kept me going?” Kyuhyun locked his eyes with Ryeowook’s, and Ryeowook recalled the messages he’d seen in his old phone. “You. I wanted to see you again. To say my fair share of sorry for hurting you when I pretended to be a stranger. To walk down the same streets of Gwanghwamun with you again.”

“Thank god you won,” Ryeowook said, swiping the bent joint of a finger across his eye. “You saved me by coming back. When I said that I hadn’t feel anything for you or anybody else, it wasn’t because I was incapable of feeling. It was because I forced myself not to. I made my heart dead and mistook its death for peace. It was your coming back that made me truly alive once. Don’t you ever leave again.”

“Never. Not even if you force me to.”

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The sun had just begun to set when they left the cafe. Kyuhyun was recapping a funny episode that’d happened at work when they walked down the street that sloped toward their bus stop. Trees lined the path, stencilling the concrete with patterned shadows.

Ryeowook stopped in his tracks when he caught a flash of orange. Across the road, the leaves of a tree had changed, proudly and prettily standing out from its still-green comrades. The temperature had dipped when the week started, but nothing was as certain a sign that autumn had descended as the changing of leaves.

“Ryeowookie?” Kyuhyun called from ahead. Ryeowook had lagged a few steps behind.

“Coming,” he said. After one last glance at the tree, he smiled and jogged toward Kyuhyun. He slipped his hand automatically into Kyuhyun’s waiting one.

It was fall once again.

Fall in love, once again.

END

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A/N: This is massive, isn't it? There are many things that I wanted to do to make this story better, like giving Changmin a bigger role and making the way Ryeowook fall in love with Kyuhyun more pronounced. Alas, time is short and my life would be thrown into a whirlwind very soon. If I waited for the story to be perfect before I post it, you might have to wait more than a year. Thanks for reading this story! If you have any thoughts about this story, I'll be glad to hear them. ^^