When Sanghyuk came into the room, what he noticed first was the way the curtains flowed, like flowering petals blooming out against the summering winds. Heat thickened the room; it was almost stifling even with all the windows open and the air blowing light against his skin the way whispers sound.

 

The room was blanched in bright light, illuminated by the white of the curtains, streams of light like a river flows, glowing all around him. In the center of the room was a glass coffee table that reached just beneath his knee, surrounded by two chesterfield sofas, bright as the curtains; and all of it, so clean and clear like the bleached skies in mid-summer, when all the heat rose from the streets in fevered waves. To stand in this room gave one the imagining of what it must feel like to walk among dreams.

 

“Sanghyuk!”

 

Turning abruptly, for he had forgotten completely that he was not the only one within this dreamworld, Sanghyuk spotted Hongbin by one of the many windows. Stowed away in the far corner of that lustrous room, with a cigarette in his mouth, just as white as everything else. He blew smoke out the window before crushing the cigarette in a rose colored ashtray.

 

“The doorman let me in,” Sanghyuk explained. “And, well, I just. . . I didn't think you'd mind if I. . .”

 

“No, of course I don't mind.” Hongbin smiled as he spoke. It was the same smile Sanghyuk had remembered all this time: teeth like lightning, flashing across Hongbin's sculpted face. There, very suddenly, and suppressed at once as if he was afraid of showing all his brightness.

 

He wore a cotton blue dress-shirt that was a tad bit too big. Perhaps it wasn't really his shirt, Sanghyuk thought, remembering all the times Hongbin had scoured his own belongings, taking what he wanted or what he found the most tasteful, never to return them again, even after Sanghyuk had begged him to.

 

When Hongbin came to him, he placed his hands flat against the front of Sanghyuk's chest. His hands small and ever trembling, even as the heat rose around them.

 

He said, “You look exactly the same. But a little different, too. A little older.”

 

“I look old?” Sanghyuk mocked with a grin.

 

“Just a little. And what about me?” Hongbin motioned to his own face, tilting his chin and peering up at Sanghyuk with doe-like eyes that grew by the minute, anticipating what would be said.

 

“Where's hyung?” Sanghyuk asked instead. “You're in here all alone, smoking by yourself? Doesn't sound like you.”

 

“Oh, you know—” Hongbin sat on the chesterfield sofa, lounged back with a dramatic sweep of his hand. “He's hidden away somewhere, in one of these rooms. Working on his play.”

 

Sat on the arm of the sofa, Sanghyuk looked down at Hongbin with a smile. He had read about Taekwoon's recent work in the papers. He was to begin work on his newest production. Another romance. Always a romance. It was why he had made the trip into the city, far from the western fields he had stolen away to, years before.

 

“Well, I'm here to congratulate him. So we better go find him.”

 

“Give him time.”

 

“Is he still finicky?”

 

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you, would you? If I told you he's even worse than he ever was before.”

 

Sanghyuk laughed at that. No, he said. He could not believe Hongbin at all. He remembered too fondly, too clearly, all the times before when one of them would walk in on Taekwoon as he typed up his newest manuscript, at once despaired by the intrusion. How he would shoo them away like children bursting in at the worst of times.

 

“He keeps the doors locked now,” Hongbin said. “I have to knock. Like a stranger.”

 

It was comforting to see the dramatic scrunch of Hongbin's nose as he complained to the ceiling with his head tipped back. It meant not much, if anything at all, had changed in the years Sanghyuk had been away.

 

They passed through the white room with its blowing curtains into the foyer where the ceiling was tall and the deep browns of the floorboards were an astonishing shock from the brilliant lightness they left behind. It was like passing through shadows as Sanghyuk followed Hongbin up the gilded staircase to the floors beyond, where the library stood open with its dust covered books left disarrayed; where the bedrooms were all shut up and untouched. Such a large house for two reclusive people. But in all the time Sanghyuk had known Hongbin and Taekwoon both, he had known of their taste for decadent things. Useless things in the end, but beautiful to look at nonetheless.

 

“How long are you staying?” Hongbin asked. “And did you want something to drink?”

 

“No.” Sanghyuk pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Nothing for me, thanks. But. . .” He stopped, feeling the guilt he had been so certain would come. “I'm only staying for the evening. Just for dinner.”

 

“Then back to your—” Hongbin waved a hand, feigning carelessness that tricked neither of them “—cabin in the woods?”

 

“I don't live in the woods.”

 

“You may as well with how often you come to visit. How long has it been anyway?”

 

“Too long.”

 

Hongbin hummed his agreement.

 

They had been standing apart at the top of the stairs as they spoke, but now Hongbin moved down the hall to a closed room at the very end of the hall. He said, “Here I thought you might actually miss us. But you're only staying a couple hours. Where's the fun in that?”

 

He hadn't said it to be mean and Sanghyuk understood this. But it hurt to hear all the same. With a quick lunging motion, Sanghyuk grabbed Hongbin's delicate wrist, wary as he pulled him against his chest.

 

“Idiot. I miss you all the time.”

 

“You don't even write anymore,” Hongbin pouted. “Too busy working on that novel of yours.”

 

“Yes, but it's almost done. Just you wait and see, I'll be famous one day.”

 

“Won't we all,” Hongbin smiled. And as he smiled that burning bright smile that Sanghyuk was sure he would think of for all his life, he leaned down and placed a kiss—slow and tender—against the curve of Hongbin's mouth.

 

“Go see your hyung,” Hongbin whispered. “He's probably thinking of you right this minute.”

 

“Do you think so?” Sanghyuk said indifferently. Then, unable to hide the swelling of his pride, “Do you really think so?”

 

A whispering laugh was his only answer. “The room, right there, at the end of the hall. Go see for yourself.”

 

It wasn't until Sanghyuk began his descent down the hall that he felt the fluttering of butterflies deep inside him. He turned to see if Hongbin was following and caught sight of a flash of powder blue as Hongbin stole away downstairs, surely to throw the kettle on, or perhaps to find a bottle of Scotch put away somewhere. Alone, feeling sudden excitement burrow deeply into him, Sanghyuk brushed the tips of his fingers against the dark wood of the closed door. He tapped them on the frame very lightly. And when no response came, he pushed the door open, surprised to find it unlocked.

 

Inside was dark. Such a striking contrast to the white of Hongbin's smoking room; the billowing brightness of it all. Here, it was intimate as nightfall. The room smelled of old wood, like the burning of a fireplace in mid-winter. If not for the stream of light coming from a round window high up towards the ceiling, certainly the room would be nothing but pitch black.

 

With his back to the door, hunched over the large frame of a typewriter, Taekwoon called kindly, though tiredly: “I'll be out in a bit, I promise, Binnie.”

 

“He said you usually keep the door locked. Was today just my lucky day, or were you hoping I'd come in like this?”

 

Taekwoon turned with all the sharp anticipation of a small animal having heard the approach of something fearsome, his face contorted into a mask of confusion. Then all the lines across his forehead smoothed out as he removed his reading glasses.

 

“You're here already?” Taekwoon whispered, his voice loud in the quiet. “I thought you'd be later.”

 

“I can leave and come back,” Sanghyuk teased. “If that would make you feel better.”

 

Taekwoon laughed quietly, turning away as if not wanting Sanghyuk to see how fond he was of this petty jab. Then he was on his feet, rising slender and tall and much more delicate than Sanghyuk remembered him being. But he was just as handsome as before. And all those feelings, the love that had so enamored him the first time Sanghyuk watched Taekwoon on the university stage, came back with striking clarity. Air pushed from his lungs in a breathless laugh at his own starstruck behavior; he allowed himself to be embraced, falling easily into Taekwoon's hold.

 

“I read the article in the paper,” Sanghyuk said. “Another play already! So quickly after the last one.”

 

“Are you proud?”

 

“Don't ask stupid things.”

 

“Maybe I just want to hear it."

 

“You can't make me say it.”

 

“But you are saying it, aren't you? In your own way.”

 

Sanghyuk smiled, breathing a trembling sigh.

 

“Don't tell me you missed me,” Taekwoon whispered. He pressed his nose against Sanghyuk's cheek, his breath warm and smoky.

 

“You couldn't pay me enough to say such a thing.” But it was impossible to ignore the way his heart swelled into his throat. For this singular moment, Sanghyuk could not remember why he had left the two of them for the quietude of a life on his own. It was too much like a homecoming to be wrapped within Taekwoon's arms, knowing Hongbin was nearby, so much like it had been back when they were younger—much younger than they were now, when they had been of a different variety than they could ever be again.

 

From downstairs, the kettle whistled like the striking of a clock at midnight, not quite shattering what veil had fallen over them but bringing them back to the reality of now. Sanghyuk pulled away.

 

“I'm only here for dinner,” he said. “But I'll come back sooner next time. When your play opens. Right on opening night, I'll be here.”

 

There came the sound of Hongbin's bare feet padding down the hall; and then his silhouette was in the doorway. He reached for Sanghyuk who took his hand without thought. “We don't have time to stand around all day,” Hongbin said lightly. Then with a child-like flourish, he pulled Sanghyuk quickly down the hall, as if he could not bear to wait a moment longer to have him near. And close behind them, Taekwoon followed with his hands bunched into his pockets and a tenderness all too apparent in the sparkling dark of his eyes.