“Seungri is out to make a call,” Jiyong rolls his eyes. His fingers fumble with a cigarette. “Youngbae had to leave to pick up his mother.”

“Hmm,” I reach for my water bottle. Jiyong’s eyes twitch in anticipation and I sneer. “And Seunghyun–hyung?”

He grinned with pride. “Out to smoke.”

“He can do it just here,” I frown. “You guys always do that just here.”

“Did,” Jiyong corrects. “We just start a new us.”

I swallow, the lump in my throat gets bigger by every word I don’t want to say. “Right.”

“Our Daesung-ie seems like he’s not adapting very well.”

I know that tease very well and I wish I could just grow out of it but I can’t escape Jiyong, never. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come here,” he pats the seat beside him, the one usually reserved for you. “Let’s talk.”

Talking, in Jiyong’s dictionary, often means gossiping. Not that I’m not used to it, but being the topic of discussion is definitely not what I would enjoy to be. Still, I drag myself to his side, carefully not making weird gestures that would make Jiyong’s smirk grow any wider.

“What is it, hyung?”

“What is it, Daesung? You’re not happy?” he pats my head softly, putting his dead cigarette on the ashtray. “Is it not what you want?”

“It could be,” my voice trails down the wind, unsure and grounded. “Maybe this is not what I want.”

“Then do you know what you want?”

Jiyong’s fingers are thin, his nails are bitten to the quick. I lean to his touch as he throws an arm around my shoulder. He’s slightly shorter than me, which makes it harder to focus on him because it’s different than you. He can speak about paintings just like you, in words and appreciation I don’t fully understand, but his eyes don’t have the glint like yours, one with green and sometimes fluorescent anxiety.

“Maybe,” I shrug. “Maybe I don’t want anything, hyung.”

“Maybe this is what you want, Daesung,” Jiyong squeezes my shoulder. “Nobody knows what they really want.”

“Do you?” I take a deep breath, my chest tightened with regret. “Do you know what you really want, hyung?”

“Most of times,” Jiyong’s voice slows down with the sound of door opening. I don’t have to see to know, I remember your steps the way I remember my name. “But not always.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Daesung,” Jiyong laughs, you walk closer. “You’ll know.”

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter