Prologue

Daehwi wakes up on a Friday morning with a pounding headache and his mouth dry from dehydration, the black-haired boy gasps as he opens his eyes, and clenches his fists around the sheets beneath him; as if he has just woken up from a nightmare, Daehwi is sweating and panting, listening to his own heart beating loudly against his chest as he tries his best to calm down.

1… 2… 3… Daehwi counts until 10 and lets out a sigh, he feels the soft material of the sheets against the palms of his hands, and lets his eyes wonder lazily around his bedroom. The digital clock next to him tells him it’s already past 10 in the morning, and although Daehwi is surprised about the fact he’s woken up so late, he doesn’t move from the bed, doesn’t even flinch when an unknown alarm goes off from a phone lying in the nightstand next to him, and only mutters the wrong lyrics to the a song he doesn’t know the name of under his breath, but he shuts up almost immediately – his eyelids are still so heavy from the lack of sleep last night, that he doesn’t notice when his mind starts drifting away to another place… until it finally hits him.

The smell of burnt somethings in what Daehwi supposes (and hopes) it’s the kitchen is what sets him off first, he then frowns as he thinks of the fact that it is Friday and his father hasn’t dragged his all the way to school yet, and it confuses him. The black-haired boy blinks twice, he shifts under the sheets so that he’s staring up into the ceiling and furrows his eyebrows as he thinks deeply.

The sheets… the digital clock… the alarm… the phone… the ceiling he’s staring at right now for God’s sake! None of those things belonged to Daehwi, and unless his father had decided to redecorate his bedroom while he was asleep, this meant this wasn’t his room either.

Daehwi springs from the bed and gasps loudly, the boy looks around, in the hopes of finding something familiar… something that reminds him of someone he knows or something he did last night, but nothing comes to mind and, instead, wild thoughts start appearing on his head. What if he had been kidnapped by someone last night and his father had given up on finding him already? What if he…?

‘’Oh, you’re finally awake!’’

A deep voice manages to startle Daehwi, who lets out a small whimper and squeezes his eyes shut to avoid seeing the owner of the unknown voice. The black-haired boy hears a low chuckle, and then the sound of glass against something (the nightstand next to him, Daehwi guesses, and flinches just thinking about the stranger being so close to him right now).

‘’I figured you’d be hungover, so I brought you some pills,’’ The stranger mumbles, and Daehwi can sense a hint of confusion on his voice, but he decides not to care about it; he could be trying to fool him into thinking that he’s a nice guy and he’s concerned about him! So the black-haired boy ignores him, and pretends he’s not even in the same room as him.

… Maybe… if he didn’t move the stranger would leave him alone…? Daehwi furrows his eyebrows, and only closes his eyes tighter.

‘’I can tell you’re not asleep,’’ The voice says mockingly, which causes Daehwi to flush bright red – the boy knows he looks ridiculous at the moment, and by the voice of the stranger he acknowledges that there’s a huge probability that the owner of the voice isn’t a lot older than Daehwi: his voice is deep, yes – at least deeper than Daehwi’s, but it definitely doesn’t sound like one of an adult…

Daehwi frowns, eyes still closed as he imagines how the other person looked like in his head. He’d be lying to himself if he said that he isn’t intrigued to know what the stranger’s appearance was like: he could imagine a 20-something year old dude with thick glasses and chubby cheeks, maybe with some stubble; and he had been nice enough to let him and Seonho stay the night at his place, or maybe it is that guy who had given them 2 shots of tequila before running into the dance floor when Born This Way started playing on the speakers, though it had been dark in the living room, Daehwi had been able to appreciate the elder’s features: an incredibly good-looking face, short of height and as skinny as Seonho.

Seonho… Yoo Seonho!

And why had Daehwi remembered his friend just now? They had gone out together last night (more like Seonho had dragged the older boy to another party) so there’s a huge probability that Seonho is somewhere near him, maybe he was in the kitchen, or in another room with Hwang Minhyun.

Maybe the guy in front of him was Hwang Minhyun?

Hwang Minhyun was kind, maybe way too kind for Daehwi’s liking, but he was really nice to Seonho and him and Daehwi appreciated that – the older guy hadn’t yelled at Seonho when he arrived at Yoon Jisung’s birthday party uninvited, and hadn’t complained that much through the night, even though Seonho had stuck to him like glue. Actually, Minhyun kept them company all night and worried about them constantly, so he was definitely nice, nicer than most people when they met Seonho, anyways.

And if Hwang Minhyun had been nice enough to drink all the cups Seonho had to drink because he lost at beer pong, it meant he was nice enough to let them stay at his place… right?

Or maybe it really is a random, 20-something year old dude with glasses and stubble, who had felt sorry for the 2 drunken underage boys and let them stay the night.

Daehwi decides to open one of his eyes once he’s a little more confident that he’s not going to get murdered today, but he’s still hesitant; eyebrows raised as he opens the other one slowly, lips set into a thin line when he decides to stare at the stranger in front of him; and hell, Daehwi isn’t really sure about what he was expecting (he was hoping for Hwang Minhyun, if he was being honest, and now he’s just disappointed) but he was definitely not expecting… well… this.  

The black-haired boy gulps down; he blinks twice as he looks into the stranger’s dark eyes, he observes his tilted head and his furrowed, thick eyebrows – the grimace on his mouth and the veins on his arms, which are crossed against his chest as he seems to start to lose his patience.  On the contrary of his slightly more up-beat voice, the stranger’s face revealed nothing but annoyance and frustration; Daehwi figures he’s pissed off because of him and it manages to scare the hell out of the younger boy.

The fact that he’s never seen the stranger’s face before also makes it nerve-wracking, because if he, at least, remembered his face from the party last night it would be different – maybe he’d laugh about what happened and awkwardly leave the room without saying anything else, but as to now, Daehwi is clueless as to what to do. Should he say something? Maybe introduce himself? Say thank you? Should he run away?

‘’I… tried to make breakfast but Aron wasn’t home and… I ended up burning the whole thing but…’’ The stranger interrupts Daehwi’s thoughts, and it’s the first time the boy notices the hesitance on his voice; he’s probably aware of Daehwi’s confusion at the moment, but his words only manage to confuse him further more because, who the hell was Aron?! The stranger takes a glass of water from the nightstand next to them and hands it to Daehwi, who’s shaking, ‘’Here, I bet you’re thirsty.’’

Daehwi raises an eyebrow when he notices a tattoo peeking through one of his sleeves, and while he can’t figure out what the tattoo is, the mere fact of him having one concerns Daehwi; normally he wouldn’t care, but if he’s not wrong, having a tattoo in Korea is not that well seen, people immediately think of people with tattoos as thugs, and… that’s exactly what Daehwi thinks right now of the stranger – with his slicked back hair and twisted smirk and…

The black-haired boy remembers the stranger still has his arm stretched towards him, so he nods awkwardly, he tries giving him a small smile but he fails in the process, and with his hands still trembling Daehwi takes the glass of water to his mouth.

‘’It was really your first time, huh.’’

Daehwi not only chokes on the water when he hears the stranger’s words, but he also drops the drink into the bed, his jeans are now extremely wet and  he’s coughing violently; eyes tearing up as he repeats those words over and over again in his head.

His first time.

Daehwi’s first time.

‘’Are you okay?’’ The stranger asks, ‘’Ah, I knew you were too young to be doing these things,’’ He mutters under his breath, head shaking disapprovingly as he picks the glass of water from the bed, only to put it back on the nightstand.

Daehwi frowns, if he was too young why had the stranger done it anyway?

‘’God, you were really loud last night, what happened to you?’’

The younger boy chokes on the air this time, he coughs loudly, and it seems like the stranger finally has caught on what’s going on, because he frowns almost immediately; he looks concerned but it only manages to make Daehwi feel more awkward than he already was.

‘’Are you really okay?’’  The stranger asks again, eyebrows furrowed in apparent concern, ‘’Do you want me to call someone to pick you up or…?’’

‘’No!’’ Daehwi exclaims; eyes widened in surprise. Was the boy crazy?! He knows he must’ve talked way too quickly, because the stranger seems taken aback – amused, too, and then he chuckles.

Daehwi only blushes once again.

‘’Alright…’’ The stranger mumbles, ‘’Oh, by the way… your shirt is still on the washing machine, so I brought this for now.’’

A shirt. The stranger was handing Daehwi a shirt. The boy blinks twice in confusion, and then he stares down to his chest… and of course he is shirtless! Daehwi hides his face from the older boy, eyes glued on the sheets as he takes with his hands the shirt the stranger was offering to him; it takes him less than one second to put it on, and he breathes out in relief as he feels the cotton shirt against his shoulders. Daehwi is able to smell the cologne the older used, and when a sense of déjá-vu hits him, he flushes in embarrassment. Why did the smell result so familiar to him just now?

The stranger laughs softly, and Daehwi turns his head almost immediately to look at him. The man’s smiling face wasn’t half as bad as his angry face, but still, it creeps Daehwi out, it makes him wonder how the hell they even met and how… Daehwi had ended up there, in his bed. Daehwi wonders if he had been too drunk to realize the stranger wasn’t his type, at least not enough to do what he had done with him last night. It takes a couple of minutes for Daehwi to realize that the stranger had been actually laughing at him, so he frowns, touches his face self-consciously and looks down at himself to see if there was anything wrong with him, but it’s only when the neck of the shirt he was given by the older slips off from his shoulder that he realizes what the man was actually laughing about; the shirt most likely looked huge on Daehwi, while he was pretty sure it fit perfectly on the stranger, he thinks – guesses, staring at the man’s shoulders with not a lot of subtlety.

Daehwi fixes the stranger’s shirt awkwardly, eyeing the older boy in front of him as if trying to get his approval, but his arms are once again crossed against his chest, and a frown sits in his face unchangingly.

‘’Look, man, I’m not trying to throw you out or anything, but a friend is coming over soon and… you know…’’

‘’Oh.’’

The stranger looks at Daehwi with his eyebrows raised, probably because it’s the first time the younger has (kind of) said anything to him in the whole day; he stares at him expectantly, as if Daehwi were to say anything else, when in fact, the younger had let out the word without even noticing.

‘’I mean… but your shirt…’’

Daehwi couldn’t care less about the stranger’s shirt, if he was being honest – but he wanted to know more about the older; hell, he didn’t even know his name, let alone how he was. He, oddly wanted to know a little bit about him before leaving, and most importantly: about last night. Daehwi wanted to ask him about yesterday and how they’d ended up there and, where was Seonho?

The chances of getting to know the answers of these questions seem to go out of the window when the stranger shakes his head, small smile on his face as he brushes him off.

‘’Don’t worry about that, kid,’’ He says, ‘’You can keep it. But if you want to come back for yours, it’s okay, I’m pretty sure Aron won’t mind having you here again.’’

Kid? Daehwi barely focuses on him after hearing that word; the younger almost feels offended – and, who the hell was this Aron person the stranger had been talking so much about?! Daehwi huffs, and nods with his head nonchalantly – hell, how was he supposed to pretend he didn’t care about the whole ordeal and the walk of shame he had to do right now?

Daehwi decides to take another glance at the stranger, who seems to get more impatient as the seconds went by, and frowns.

‘’Do you want some pants too?’’

Was he being kind or sarcastic? The younger boy rolls his eyes; he stands up from the warm and comfortable bed he was lying in and breathes out, perfectly aware of the stranger’s eyes on him.

Rude, he thinks.

Daehwi bows at him, before exiting the room without saying anything else and walking away.

And God, Daehwi never imagined he’d had to do the walk of shame, let alone for half an hour and his jeans uncomfortably wet around his thighs.

(♡˙︶˙♡)

Daehwi comes home to the surprise of dozens of boxes and bags scattered around the living room. Unknown people surround his apartment; they’re taking down family pictures and packing up sofas and though it confuses the boy for a moment, it doesn’t take him a lot of time to realize why his father hadn’t dragged his all the way to school today; realizes what he should’ve been doing a few hours ago instead of sharing awkward looks with a stranger.

The boy curses under his breath, but he’s able to put a strain smile on his face when he sees his father approaching him, the old man messes up his hair jokingly, and shakes his head in disapproval.

‘’Where’ve you been, kid?’’ His father asks, he doesn’t sound genuinely angry at him, but of course he’s worried, ‘’We’re supposed to finish packing in a few hours, Daehwi, so hurry up with your things.’’

Daehwi ignores his words, he frowns and he huffs – throwing a tantrum, ‘’Dad, I’m not a little kid anymore!’’

His father grins, ‘’Your face right now isn’t helping you a lot, son.’’ He says in a joking manner, but it only manages to disappoint Daehwi further more.

‘’Is everything okay?’’ The old man asks, the smile on his face has faded completely from his face, and it makes Daehwi feel guilty to notice this – how his humor could affect someone else so easily, ‘’You’ve been so excited to move to Eunkyung’s house all week but right now you look… like you don’t want to do it anymore.’’

‘’You can still change your mind, Daehwi. Do you really want us to move in with her?’’

Daehwi frowns, his father sounds extremely concerned, but Eunkyung – his father’s girlfriend and packing are the least things Daehwi is worried about right now. He doesn’t even know what bothered him in the first place, he’s just being overdramatic, like always – he wishes his father realized he was part of the drama club for a reason.

‘’Yes, dad,’’ He mutters under his breath, ‘’I’m sorry, it’s just – I have a huge headache right now.’’ He knows, although he’s perfectly fine and nothing hurts in his body.

His father hums knowingly, eyes roaming around the living room to make sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do, and then he smiles.

‘’I’m guessing you were with Seonho last night,’’ He laughs, raising his eyebrows accusingly and Daehwi laughs as well, thankful his father had grown up in America instead of Korea, and how he was more open-minded than most of his friends’ parents, ‘’I’m pretty sure we have Advil somewhere around the kitchen, you drunkard.’’

Daehwi grins; he nods at his father and decides to change into more comfortable clothes before heading to the kitchen. The black-haired boy is glad to know that nothing other than his mattress is missing from his bedroom when he arrives, and freezes as he stares at his own reflection in the mirror in front of him. Daehwi thinks of closing his eyes for a second, but he decides against it, and instead, looks intently at himself; he looks at the stranger’s shirt: it was a simple cotton shirt, but it amazed the younger nonetheless. The black shirt was actually really big on him, he could see his collarbones and how it ended below his thighs, which, now that he thinks of it, are still wet and uncomfortable thanks to his own stupidity.

Daehwi scrunches his nose up, and kneels down to one of the bags he had done already a week prior. He decides not being presentable today, Eunkyung has met him plenty of times before, anyways, so it doesn’t matter anymore; the boy picks some grey sweatpants, which he knows are warm and definitely not wet, and immediately gets rid of his skinny jeans to change into more comfortable clothes. Daehwi looks at himself in the mirror once again, and shrugs with his shoulders as he decides not to change his shirt, for no reason – making up excuses on his head about how he doesn’t have a lot of time to both pack the rest of his things and change.

The black-haired sighs, he sits down on the floor of his now-empty-room and looks around. The pictures and paintings hanging on his walls had been removed by him a few days before, the closet had been emptied a week ago and his CDs were on his dad’s car already, but the stars on the ceiling stayed there, moving slightly as they ever did. The motion makes Daehwi feel almost nostalgic, he remembers the past 3 years he spent in this apartment and how it made him meet Yoo Seonho (it’s a long story – Seonho doesn’t even live close to him anymore) and he knows it’d be impossible not to miss it, like he misses his apartment back in Osaka and his house back in Los Angeles, but it’s not like it matters anymore, at least that’s what he likes to tell to himself; because sometimes he finds himself reminiscing about old times in Japan and his old friends, and his family reunions in America, and though it hurts – because it still hurts him – he hates the mere thought of going to America once again, or to a new country – he only hopes for better things from now on, hopeful that it will be the last time he’ll move to another place, another house, and that he’ll maybe finally have a place to call home.

(♡˙︶˙♡)

His father tells him to leave the apartment earlier. Daehwi had been complaining about being hungry and how slow his dad was at packing up his stuff, so his father tells him to leave the apartment earlier – he almost throws him out of their old apartment, mumbles something about Eunkyung being at work right now, but that her son was there to welcome him and maybe make him some sandwiches (this scares Daehwi, because Eunkyung’s son – Daehwi’s new stepbrother, is young, younger than him, so he can’t imagine him being by himself, scared as he waits for his mom to arrive while he watches a Disney channel movie, and he decides he will be the one making him sandwiches). Daehwi is glad his father had given him a spare key to their new apartment a few days before, because if not, he’d be locked out of his own apartment, and he was sure his young stepbrother wouldn’t open the door to a creepy dude claiming he was going to live with him from now on.

Daehwi sighs as he takes the stairs to get to the 5^th floor of the building, where the apartment number 520 and his new stepbrother waited for him. The black-haired looks around in interest, from the tiled floors and the velvet carpets, to the beige-colored walls and the golden numbers on the doors; the building is on the more expensive side of Seoul, and Daehwi can now tell why. The black-haired boy turns at the end of the hall, still not having found his new apartment, and he counts the numbers in front of him.

516… 518… Daehwi blinks twice, in front of him the number 520 is displayed in big, fancy letters, but he can hear music from the inside of the apartment – he could guess it is because of his stepbrother, but he doubts Eunkyung would let such a young boy listen to Lil Uzi Vert. Daehwi shrugs off, thinking that maybe, because Eunkyung wasn’t home his stepbrother had decided to go on YouTube and do all the things his mother always told him not to, but then Daehwi hears laughter, the loud sound of something falling and a gasp; the boy hurries to open the door almost immediately, hands trembling against the key as he thinks of the worst scenario possible involving his new stepbrother.

Daehwi rushes through the door, but frowns as soon as his eyes meet the interior of what would be his new home.

Because in all honesty, the boy didn’t know what he was expecting – maybe burglary or just broken glass on Kang Eunkyung’s perfect carpet, but the last thing Daehwi expected to see in her apartment was a genuine mess: beer bottles displayed on the kitchen table like high school trophies, half-eaten pizza slices on the floor and teenagers smoking pot in the living room. Daehwi is about to have a heart attack call the police when he sees him.

And those eyes…

Daehwi shivers.

He could never forget those eyes.

Screaming seems like a good idea for the stranger’s question.

‘’What are you doing in my house?!’’

Suddenly, moving to America doesn’t seem like a bad idea anymore.