Chapter 13

Taeyong was researching his next case for a moot, and wondering how the hell the defendant managed to appeal for habeas corpus in such a short time. He wrote small neat notes on the side with a blue ballpoint pen, occasionally tapping on the table with it when he couldn't quite understand.

He hadn't really made up with Jaehyun in the past two days.

They talked but it was strained and short and snippy and they were both prideful. Now they were just avoiding each other and that was pretty easy to do when he was neck deep in assignments and Jaehyun was always at work. But he never liked fighting with him for long.

"Hypnotise," Mark said. And Taeyong snapped to his direction, forgetting he was right there across the coffee table, penning down something in his notebook.
"What?"
"Biggie. Hypnotize. That's what you were humming. Am I right?" Taeyong blinked; suddenly Mark looked a lot like Jaehyun with his dark hair falling over his forehead and those eyes looking at him curiously.
"Huh... yes. You like his music?"
"I like all rap music."
"Me too... Jaehyun finds it appalling."
"I bet he does." Mark chuckled before scooting over next to Taeyong. "Hyung can I ask you something?"
"Sure."

"How long have you and Jaehyun been with each other?"
"Why do you want to know?" Taeyong asked, surprised out of all the topics he wished to discuss that it was that one.
"No reason. Just curious I guess. He doesn't tell me anything anymore. He doesn't call, not like he used to anyway." Taeyong doesn't know how to respond the melancholy in Mark's voice so he skirts around the matter entirely. Perhaps later he would ask.
"I moved in during winter. I had family problems and your brother kindly offered his spare room."
"How did you meet?"
"Oh wow, that's a long story. You sure have loads of questions."
"I have a lot of time on my hands."
"We met in the hospital."
"That's romantic."

Taeyong snorted.

"He was treating my cousin. Around your age. Annoying. I should introduce you two someday; you'd make a good pair. Then after that, there were a few more bump ins. We met at a crematorium next."
"Classy."Taeyong was beginning to understand how the constant adolescent sarcasm drove his lover mad.
"Then he asked me for coffee and that night we fuc-" Taeyong coughed, trying to dispel the mental image of the first night and reconfigure his words for a more appropriate audience. "We talked. We talked that night." He corrected himself but Mark smiled doubtfully at him, seagull eyebrows arching up suggestively.
"Totally. Because all adults do in the dead of the night is talk."
"Shut it, kid. I'm giving you the pg-13 version." Mark pouted as Taeyong shoved him to the side playfully, face flushed pink. "Your brother was a because he never called me back."
"What an ."

"I know right? Then one fine day I had the unfortunate pleasure of getting beaten up by loan sharks and landed myself in his emergency room, lucky me."
"That's kismet. Maybe a little bit dramatic but Kismet no less."
"I'd like to think it was but I had a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder so it was less red string of fate more clinical thread stitching to my knee."
"Do you love him?" Mark asked, unabashed, eyes wondering to meet Taeyong's intense gaze.
"Well, that's a loaded question."
"Do you though?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. I love your brother." Mark smiled, and they are silent for a moment.

"Tit for tat. Tell me about Jaehyun when he was younger." Taeyong patted his knee and closed his book, turning to face Mark.
"I don't remember the exact details because I was a toddler. But he played basketball. He was really good at it and I used to watch him play at games. He was studious and polite; he was nice, pretty popular. But he didn't bring any girls home though… I understand why now."
"You don't find it strange?" He asked softly, biting his lip and meeting the young boy's mischievous eyes.
"I think you're prettier than most girls anywayhyung." Taeyong blushed at his words, looking away to hide his face.

"We had a large so he would hang with his friends more than he would hang with me. I never understood why he was so... detached."
"What do you mean detached?"
"It was the little things really, the way he would downcast his eyes at the dinner table as if he was... intruding. The way he would grimace when my mother kissed his cheek. Sometimes he'd fight with my father in the study about the future and other things. I was a child; I thought it was just... normal." Mark let out a heavy sighed that made him seem years older than he was. "He treated himself like a house guest for those four years. As I got older... I understood. He wasn't my brother. Not in the way that mattered. I didn't hate him for it. I get it. It was hard on him too."
"The divorce?"
"Yeah. He didn't complain. He was always smiling. He was never mean to my mother or me but I could tell. As I got older I began to understand; he was lonely. He didn't feel like he..."
"Belonged?"
"Yes. I suppose."
"It's so hard to get him to talk about his feelings."
"Yeah... I've tried. Why do you think I visit him almost every year?" Taeyong smiled, looking at the young boy in a new light.
"So you love him too..."
"Of course. He's myhyung. I just wished we were less estranged." He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant.

"I see... what were you writing before?" Taeyong leant to look at the small leather notebook he was fiddling with.
"Ah... this? It's silly." He shook his head.
"You write lyrics? For rap I assume? Jaehyun said you liked the rap scene here."
"He did? So he's not totally inattentive." Mark let slip as he turned to open his notebook. "Hyung, can you help me find something to rhyme with this?"
"Sure kid."

"What did you talk about?" Jaehyun asked whilst loosening his tie. He had come home earlier to Taeyong and Mark laughing and writing lyrics. Maybe he was stupid for feeling jealous. But they had looked so cosy and close and he was low-key envious over their new bond.
"Stuff. Rap music. America. Korea. You."
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"What on earth did you gossip about me?" Jaehyun growled lowly, pouting and pulling the other flush against his chest. Head dropping down to Taeyong's shoulder.
"We didn't gossip. We talked. He looks up to you, you know?"
"That's funny." Jaehyun snorted but Taeyong shifted in his grip, before glaring at him. "Oh... you're serious."
"He said he doesn't hate his father. Nor you. In fact, he adores you. He's sad you guys don't bond and that you're always so distant. He knows he's an annoyance but it's all purposeful because he hopes you see that he's not."
"He's not a total annoyance."
"He also agrees you were an for not calling me," Taeyong admitted, his cheek with his index finger.
"Your camaraderie with him is unsettling." He drawled.

"Jae..."
"So what do you have planned?"
"Planned?"
"Pfft. I doubt you have no plans for some sort of brotherly reconciliation ala Dr Phil." Jaehyun scoffed.
"I'm not exactly going to force you. That would defeat the entire purpose... but if you don'tmake up with him by the weekend I'm moving back into my old room."
"You're bribing me with abstinence of ? This is your great idea? Celibacy?" Jaehyun gasped, gripping onto Taeyong's arms with a renewed sense of desperation.
"Leverage. It's leverage, not blackmail or bribery."

Jaehyun was in for a long haul that Friday, his shift ending at midnight. He took a sip of his steaming coffee from his favourite blue mug and began signing papers on his desk that Seulgi had prepared, miscellaneous things like lab samples and stocks of new trial drugs. He leant back into his arm chair and sighed, massaging his neck slightly from the constant ache of sitting on a desk and then working long hours.

A slip of paper caught his eye, the cheque; it is still there with all its glorious zeroes.

For a moment he wondered if he should give it to Taeyong. It was technically his choice, it was his. But he didn't want to.

His memories flit to his past, far gone, if only he could forget.

The study room of his father was a very antiquated room, it had a black heavy door, and a large ebony desk dominated the room; behind them were French windows that lead out to the upper floor veranda. There were piles and piles of scrolls, plans and layouts spread on the desk, held down by a plethora of paper weights, metres of blueprints all marked with the same precise handwriting. It smelled of Montecristo cigars and his father's musky cologne.
He didn't like going into this room.

It was foreign and full of period features like the trellises by the window panes and the marble fireplace they didn't even use. It reminded of where he was: in a pre-colonial house, in suburban Connecticut where the grass was always green and the white picket-fenced neighbourhood was always picturesque and serene. And they were, essentially, the perfect family.

"We won," Jaehyun repeated for the second time because the first time he said it his father didn't even look up from his work papers. He was still panting from the adrenaline rush of the game. The sky was a lovely shade of coral, seeping into pale blue. There would be a party that night, no doubt, at the captain's house. There would be free flow beer in red solo cups and smoke billowing in the dimly lit rooms, there would be girls and boys, it didn't matter who, because they would flock to him. And he would hang with the rest of the popular kids because he was Jay, he was attractive and athletic and intelligent and polite. But he was far from happy.
And he would get himself drunk and stoned with the rest of the team because he sure as hell didn't want to remember his father's next words.
"So you've said." His father clicked his tongue and sipped his cognac straight from his crystal decanter.
"You don't care." His voice took a strained turn.

It was a blunt statement.

"No. It's not like that Jay." He looked up from his papers for once, removing his reading glasses; plastering that practised sympathetic face that Jaehyun hated so much.
"Stop pretending."
"I've just been busy... look I'm sorr-" He stood up and tried to apologise, wiping his ink-smudge fingers onto his slacks.
"You never call me Jaehyun or Yonooh? Why? Because it's the name my real mother choose for me? You never show up to my games. You never show any interest in what I'm doing or my hobbies or my grades or anything!"
"Stop this. You're not five anymore." He frowned and put down the alcohol.
"You're unbelievable."
"If you're mad at me, fine. I get it." He raised his hands in defence before pulling a few hundred bills from a drawer and letting them drop upon his blueprints. "Here's a few hundred. I know you have a party tonight so enjoy, don't get caught by the police when you get drunk and then maybe tomorrow you can buy those Micheal Jordan's you wanted at the mall. Hmm?" He plopped back down on his swivel chair, looking just as uninterested as before.

"You're really unbelievable." Jaehyun scoffed. He stormed out of his father's study, letting the door bang shut. The vibrations reverberated in the old house and up his spine. God, he hated this house.
There was a flicker of movement at the corner of his eyes, and he found himself face to face with a young Mark, his eyes wide, his mouth opened in an ‘O' shape.
"Hyung." He called out but Jaehyun's hands clench into fists and his gaze hardened. Jaaehyun brushed past him coldly, ignoring his step-brother's presence again.
He didn't hate Mark. Not really. But there was a slight jealousy there. He was young. He was naive. He knew that when his father doted on the younger, it was because he was a good kid. And he was loving and carefree and so generous with his smiles.

And Jaehyun envied that, his ability to smile at anyone and everyone. Because as much as Jaehyun tried, he can't kiss his stepmother back and he hesitated when he was asked to join on family vacations. Maybe he was just an for not trying to assimilate into the family he had; maybe his stubborn heart just didn't want too.
But it didn't matter. He was going to get pissed that night anyway.

"Jaehyun. Jae!" Seulgi's voice made him snap out of his reverie.
"I'm sorry. I was... dreaming. Did you say something?"
"Yeah... Dr Park has a family emergency; he asked if you could take over his surgery at 2?"
"Yeah, sure." He nodded quickly; flustered he had been caught daydreaming.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah... I was just lost in thought." Jaehyun shook his head.
"Okay..." Seulgi left with her eyebrows up but she said no more.

He looked at the cheque once again and slipped it into his briefcase.

"Taeyong psstttt. Taeyong. Tae." Jaehyun shook Taeyong from his sleep.
"Hmmm? What time is it? Why are you waking me up at 4 am?" He groaned when he saw the digital clock blinking and his side, realising the bedside lamps were on and Jaehyun was half-hidden in the shadows.
"You have to wake up." He shout-whispered.
"Is the house on fire?" Taeyong asked groggily, attempting to blink the sleep from his eyes.
"What? No."
"Then I'm not waking up." He slumped back onto the bed, pulling the blanket even tighter around himself.
"Come on Taeyong! You told me to make things right with Mark and I am!"
"What right? What? What about my right to have some peaceful sleep?"
"Taeyongggg. Wake up! We have to go to Hangang now!"
"Why on earth do you want to go to Hangang at 4 am!"
"To play basketball!"

"You're insane."
"I am! I told you." Jaehyun's laugh woke him up and for a moment he stared at the older, in the dim light. Crazy. He was bat crazy. Why did Taeyong even love thisweirdo
"Basketball?"
"Yes. I already woke up Mark."
"Ugh, the things I do for love." Taaeyong groaned and kicked Jaehyun off the bed with his foot; he landed with a dull thud but merely smiled, dragging the other down from the bed too. He slid down and pushed Jaehyun simultaneously as the other was laughing like a psycho.
"That was totally a Game of Thrones reference." He smiled.
"Yeah, well... Winter is coming up your if you don't get off me."

And that was how they ended up in the courts by the Han River, playing basketball at 4 am because Jaehyun was a genius at pulling of crazy ideas like this.

"Okay but seriously... why couldn't we play basketball like in the morning or something?"
"I felt a sense of urgency."
"Couldn't your sense my annoyance permeating out of my pores then?"
"Oh, I felt it alright." Jaehyun laughed before snatching the ball from him and landing a slam dunk.
"Woah,hyung you still got it!"
"Of course."
"I can't believe you're cool with your brother dragging you out of bed to play basketball at this ungodly hour."
"It's because he did all those things did I agree. He seemed hell bent on this... He's rarely ever this persistent." Mark panted as they fought over the orange ball.
"True." Taeyong rolled his eyes.

They ate ramen by the water, at a 24-hour convenience store, the heat of the noodles quickly making up for the chilly spring breeze. Unmannerly slurps filled the quietness as they feasted on their convenient store ramen and other unhealthy snacks, they were famished from all the sudden night exercise and it was awakening to have the spice of the soup slide down their throats.
"Ah, seriously this tastes so good."
"It does."
"Ah... this is the taste I can feel in Korea." Mark sighed happily, leaning back into his chair whilst sipping on banana milk.
"I'm going to the toilet."

"Let's take a walk."
"What about Taeyong hyung?"
"He'll find us."

"Do you remember the time I fought with dad in the study?"
"The one after you won state championships? Yeah... why?"
"I bumped into you after that. Do you remember that?"
"Yes... you were pissed. Rightfully so."
"I got really hammered that night at a party."
"And in the morning you were puking amongst my mother's rose bushes."
"Yes... and you brought me inside the kitchen, sat me down, you forced me to drink orange juice and some ibuprofen. Then you made me pancakes and drizzled too much maple syrup on it because-"
"Because you like a lot of maple syrup on your pancakes."
Jaehyun smiled, nodding.

"I do. You paste a cooling pack on my forehead and then dragged me to my bedroom and removed my shoes. And you told me to sleep."
"I did."
"And that afternoon when your mother wondered who smashed her precious garden gnomes."
"The ones with the red hats," Jaehyun recalled, a smirk pulling at his lips.
"Yes... those. Those were ridiculous."
"I love mum but I agree wholeheartedly."
"You told her... that you had been carelessly messing around with the garden hose. And I never... I never thanked you for it." Mark stopped short when he realised Jaehyun's voice had taken on a softer tone.
"You never had to. I'm your brother."
"Yes. Yes, I do. I do have to thank you." He paused and looked him in the eyes. "I also have to say I'm sorry."
"Jaehyunhyung..." His eyes widened.
"I was never was the ideal big brother you wanted. I'm sorry."
"You don't have to."
"I was always out with friends or getting stoned or playing basketball to have had been the brother you wanted me to be."
"I knew. I understood. It would be a lie to say I wasn't upset. But I get why you were... distant."
"That didn't give me the right to be a jerk to you. I'm sorry."
"You were never a jerk." Mark insisted and Jaehyun snorted.
"You're always so nice that it's kind of aggravating. And I kind ofhated you for it."
"I'm honest." He chirped.
"Too honest."

"You've changed." Marked laughed.
"I'd like to think for the better." He playfully shoved his brother.
"It's Taeyonghyung isn't it? He's making you re-evaluate things."
"He's teaching me to love." Mark made a gagging face but smiled afterwards.
"It is good. He is good. He's good for you."
"You think?"
"I know."

"Taeyong... he... he's had it rough. More than you can imagine. And the fact that he can smile at me in the morning and laugh and study law like it's interesting. And he can grin whilst being stitched and cry whilst watching Up..."
"Everyone cried when watching Up." Mark rolled his eyes.
"I didn't!" Jaehyun protested and Mark rolled his eyes even more at the blatant lie. "The point is... he... makes me so amazed and so regretful and so humbled to live the way I do. So very humble to have him."
"He does. You're less... sad, more smiley. Less cautious, more insane. I mean who puts a disco ball in their kitchen?"
"It was from a song!"

"He's good. You're good with him. We're cool, I was never mad at you. Needy perhaps, but not mad."
"We're cool? Really?" Jaehyun was taken aback how easily he was at forgiving others. But this was Mark they were talking about.
"Yeah."
"Hmmm... I was expecting more teenage angst."
"I'm not dad," Mark said lamely.
"I hope I'm not dad."
"You won't be. You're better."
"You mean it?" Jaehyun's face lit up with a shy smile whilst shoving Mark to the side again.
"well yeah."
"Thanks, kid. I appreciate it. Come here you little-" Jaehyun grinned before pulling the other back sharply into a bone crushing hug. Mark yelped but grew flustered in the elder's embrace. Well, this was weird.
"Hyung..."
"Hmmm?"
"This is awkward."
"I know. Let's pretend this never happened." Jaehyun let him go and rubbed his neck nervously.

"Where's Mark?" Taeyong asked as he slid next to Jaehyun on the bench facing the river, just in front of a grove of Cypress trees.
"I paid him to go home."
"What?"
"I'm kidding, he volunteered to do it himself."
"You let him go. That poor child! My baby!"
"I'm your baby."
"No..."
"Then I admit. I paid him to go away."

"Jaehyun!"
"We made up... I'm kidding. But he was tired so I called a cab for him."
"What about us?"
"There's another reason I wanted to come to Hangang so early."
"Why is that?"
"I wanted to see the sunrise with you."
"That's so cheesy my toes are actually curling in my shoes."
"I know."

They lean against the railing, letting the breeze brush past and play with their hair, grazing their cold cheeks till they turned pink. Jaehyun fiddled with a piece of paper in his pocket, wondering if he should pull it out or not.
"Taeyong there's something you should know. Your mother..." He stiffened and glanced at Jaehyun unsurely. "She came by my office and she gave me this for you. I said you probably wouldn't want it. And you probably don't. But that's not for me to decide. So here." He pressed the crumpled cheque into Taeyong's hands and he looked down at the paper.

"That's a lot of zeroes."
"It is."
"What did she say?"
"A lot of things. How sorry she is. How smart and beautiful you are. She told me to take care of you. I don't need to be told but perhaps I do need to be reminded how lucky I am."
"You were right. I don't hate her."
"Then what?"
"I don't hate her. But... I don't need her. I don't need her money either."
"Taeyong."
"All I ever wanted was for someone to care. And I have that. I have you."
"Oh, Taeyong." There is a softness Taeyong cannot fathom in his eyes. It's so inexplicable, unexplainable and downright irrational how much Taeyong loved him, how stupid this all was. He felt the waves. The burn of fire his wound's. The wind. The light blinding the back of his eyes. Taeyong was a shipwrecked sailor, who was lulled to sleep by the rocking of the water. Perhaps that was his destiny, to be forever lost in Jaehyun's eyes.

He could live with that.

"You're missing the sunrise."
"No. I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're staring at me instead. Look at the sunrise." His eyes do not retract from Taeyong's and his smile curved upward, more dazzling than solar rays and cosmic beams would ever be.
"I am." He insisted, words firm as Taeyong dropped the cheque full of meaningless zeros into the Han River.

"I've forgotten what it's like to stare at the sun and have its warmth envelop you." Jaehyun sighed in relief as he s a hand around Taeyong's waist. The younger lets himself be pulled close, hands settling at the back of Jaehyun's neck, the soft skin there languidly. It's almost strange how organic this feels; to be wrapped in Jaehyun's arms anywhere. How much he could get used to it.
"Most people don't appreciate the sunrise and sunsets in our lives."

"Thank you."
"For what?" Taeyong chuckled, brushing the side of his jaw lightly, sending a frisson of delight down Jaehyun's spine.
"For everything, for making me realise... That in the night I should look at the moon, and in the day I should look at the sun. And that in my short lifespan I should stop saving people and start loving them instead."
"You're welcome." Taeyong smiled and the circle felt complete, the cycle done.
They do not need vocalisations anymore, just the silent ‘I love you's' conveyed by the meeting of two lips in an eloquent kiss. It was past the time for words or broken promises. This? This was a vow- that they would need nothing more than each other.

"Jaehyun?" Taeyong whispered as they parted, the golden rays bathing them in a heavenly glow, lighting the planes of their faces.
"Hmmm?" Jaehyun hummed absentmindedly, eyes still trained on the other lips like he could not hold himself back for one more bloody minute.
"Never wake me up at 4 am ever again though."

Jaehyun blinked and laughed. It is bright and sparkly like champagne and the other cannot help but pull him back in. Maybe Taeyong will forgive him this one time for the small discretion.

"When you're like this... I can't say I'll promise that..."