“This sure is a good glass of wine,” Hyukjae comments as he places the glass gently against the coffee table, his lips tilted at the corners.

Donghae smiles. He picks up his own glass, and watches as the liquid swirls in the glass. He thinks of vortexes and tornadoes, whirlwind of dreams that he no longer has the time to chase nor the courage to rethink.

He downs the glass in a fit of childish stubbornness, and Hyukjae’s eyes widen in surprise. “Since when were you-” He stops himself mid-sentence.

Maybe Donghae has trained and upped his alcohol tolerance since the last time they’ve seen each other. Which is a long time ago, anyway, because it’s difficult to find time for people living in South Korea when you live in the United States and time is basically flipped there. Hyukjae tries to swallow down the bitterness surging in his throat, God knows how many things about Donghae has changed since the last time they met. Maybe Donghae can down more drinks than he can now, maybe Donghae has finally fallen in love with the woman (or man) he has always dreamed of, Hell, maybe Donghae even has kids waiting for their beloved daddy to return and kiss them good night. Hyukjae thinks, and thinks, and thinks, but he keeps his mouth shut for the questions that never tumble out of his mouth.

They don’t talk about things that can reopen old wounds nowadays. They are barely in each other’s lives now, and when they are, they only want to keep the happy memories alive. What’s the point of breaking each other’s hearts again, when they can always pick the easier way out and talk about things that don’t matter?

At the very least, they have gotten better at lying to themselves.

Donghae meets his eyes and he knows that he knows what he’s thinking. Because maybe they are physically apart in more ways than one, but they are still Donghae and Hyukjae and Donghae and Hyukjae always know each other inside out the way no one else ever will.

But he doesn’t say what Hyukjae doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t say “you would have known if you had stayed”, he doesn’t say “many things have changed since the last time we met”, and he doesn’t say “you’re the world’s biggest ing yet I still can’t help but wonder how differently things would have been if we fought for us till the very end”.

Instead, Donghae chuckles as he says, “There are many things we don’t know about each other now, Hyukjae. But I think we have the time to rediscover and relearn these things for ourselves, don’t we?”

Hyukjae nods his head in agreement and leans across the table to pick up the bottle of wine to refill his glass. Donghae angles his cup for Hyukjae to fill it up too, and Hyukjae does so. It’s unspoken, but they know now that they only ever have courage for some conversations when they aren’t sober.

--

They had been happy once, you know.

There were gentle smiles they saved for each other, there was adoration they could never hide even behind sunglasses, and there were lingering touches they left on places that didn’t matter and places that did. There were early morning jogs in the city, there were regular orders at the nearby cafeteria for ‘a cup of iced coffee and a cup of warmed strawberry milk, please’, and there were hidden hand-holdings when they walked home discreetly, a cup in one hand and their lover in the other. There were Saturday brunches and walking their neighbour’s dog, there were lazy evenings cuddled up on the sofa watching old reruns of some random show playing on the TV, and there were late nights spent mapping out each other’s bodies.

There were many, many things in their relationship. It’s hard not to, when you fall in love at age 16 and stay that way all the way till you turn 30. Of course there too were the promises of forever, but nearing his 40s now, Donghae knows better than to believe in them.

He was young, he was naïve, and most importantly, he was in love. Looking back, it’s crazy how blind people can be when they’re in love.

“Do you remember the look on my brother’s face when I told him I was biual?” Donghae asks and watches the sign of recognition flash past Hyukjae’s eyes.

“I do, and I still remember the way your fingers trembled underneath the table before you came out. Your mum asked if you were okay, and you tried to brush it off by saying you had too much coffee,” Hyukjae quips.

Donghae rolls his eyes. “Of course you remember that bit of me trying to lie and setting my own on fire. You always remember the dumbest things, Hyukjae.”

“When it comes to you, I do.”

And that’s how Hyukjae finds himself thinking of the way Donghae had dropped the ring immediately after Hyukjae put it on his ring finger some years ago, of how his eyes widened by a fraction as he tried to mumble an apology for being clumsy, of the way Donghae’s watch on his wrist reflected light as Hyukjae held it up to kiss. Hell, he even remembers the gentle ‘clink’ the ring had made in that tiny restaurant in Mokpo.

Donghae raises the glass to his lips and throws his head back, and Hyukjae watches the bob of his Adam’s apple with mock curiosity. As if he hadn’t spent nights after nights nosing down his gentle neckline.

“Sometimes I still think we should have had that wedding in Seoul than in Hawaii, you know. Maybe even in our old dorm room, just for memory’s sake,” Hyukjae mutters, and if Donghae hears a hint of regret in his tone, he does not bring it up.

He shakes his head. “That way, we would have had to break up before we got to do anything else. The fans wouldn’t even let us date, you think they’d be okay with us getting married?”

Hyukjae casts his eyes downwards, staring at his glass with great interest. He never noticed how the colour red had so much depth to it, kind of like someone’s ocean eyes.

“Then again, you really liked the fireworks in Hawaii, Hyukjae. We never would have been able to light up anything back here,” Donghae adds, softer this time.

“I just wanted to get away from this, Donghae.” And suddenly Donghae isn’t sure if Hyukjae’s talking about his past self or his present self.

“All I really wanted was to marry you,” he adds, and Donghae mentally strikes out the latter part of his former thought bubble.

There are things that have changed, after all. Hearts included.

--

If he looks back now, Donghae thinks he can count on one hand the number of times they’d really, really gotten into a serious argument. Bickering doesn’t count, because they used to do that every day – over unwashed dishes, undried clothes and unmade bed, and it was nothing a peck on the lips wouldn’t dissolve.

The first time it happened they had been 15, and Donghae was upset because Hyukjae was his best friend and even though he had all the good company he could ask for Hyukjae was still different and he liked him the best. Hyukjae about Donghae, not so much, and he had said exactly that to him only for a tearful confrontation to ensue between them. That was a long time ago, anyway, before Hyukjae was brave enough to