Dust floats on the highlighted rays of the Sun high beyond the skies, the yellow-white beam of light resting glass-like reflection on the delicate skin of Soonyoung’s face.

Kwon Soonyoung: he was lying on healthy grass, flowers standing tall amongst his body, the colors of his features blending smoothly and one with nature. And beside him sat a familiar friend, Jeon Wonwoo: taking the view in deep fond sighs and studying all its loveliness — like it wasn’t beautiful enough, grass shadowed over the parts of Soonyoung’s cheek down to his neck, making perfect contours that tickle Wonwoo’s visual fancy.

He never saw him like this before; no.

Not three years ago; not when they were younger and it was Soonyoung who was admiring him the way he’s admiring Soonyoung now.

And maybe he regrets it a little, and only a little (because, perhaps, just tucked behind the tenuous heart of Kwon Soonyoung, there he sings, still sings, the name of Jeon Wonwoo masked behind its beats).

“Soonyoung-ah,” Wonwoo calls almost like a whisper, letting the name slip softly between his lips.

He’s answered by a quiet Hmm?, Soonyoung’s eyes and mouth remain closed.

Wonwoo doesn’t really answer. Instead, he lets out a chuckle, light and barely there, his shoulders jumping up just once. He faces the skies this time, allowing himself to pry deeper into his thoughts. “Nothing.”

Also, it’s nothing new.

 

Soonyoung and Wonwoo always hung out like this: they sit until the Sun has set, allowing their muscles to rejuvenate just enough to bike all the way back to their respective homes.

It’s been three years.

Almost everyday for the past three years — an after school ritual, a practice they involuntarily submit themselves to. (It’s neither one’s fault they were practically neighbors in this small, far out town.)

And Wonwoo remembers all those years like a faint memory; one he can’t write down in details, but which he can see so vividly — orange, yellow, white, and pink; bicycles on top of tiny hills and down short valleys; laughter from two same-aged boys: one in perfectly clean uniform, the other sweat-drenched from dance practice. Or maybe he could remember in words if someone asked him to recall that one time Soonyoung missed a brake and tumbled down a mini pond done by the rain; or that time when Wonwoo failed an important test and Soonyoung let him shout all throughout the ride (and maybe shouted with him, too).

But if anything, there’s this one day Wonwoo will never forget: it was when Soonyoung had only recovered from a fever and he had spent unnecessarily longer hours over at the Kwon household, the last one being its yesterday.

It was that day, when Soonyoung declared himself free from acetaminophen and antihistamine-induced pills, feeling fresh and brave — too fresh and too brave — and decided he was in the perfect condition to try on the abstract possibilities of him and Wonwoo dating.

And of course, how could Wonwoo forget? It was all too concrete and very much just like today.

Except, that time, they were both sitting up, sharing a sandwich Soonyoung forgot to eat during practice and Wonwoo wouldn’t stop scolding him for taking his health for granted.

 

“Yah, Wonwoo,” Soonyoung laughs, his cheeks rising in rose-shaded pinks. “If you continue taking care of me like that, why don’t you just date me?”

(Wonwoo remembers how his heart failed him that moment, a quick second, like how they say a heart skips a beat.)

“Yah, Soonyoung,” he mocks. “What are you saying?”

Soonyoung’s face glooms not too obviously; he was more relaxed than he was nervous, his eyes shifting quick from Wonwoo’s (rather unreadable, rather blank) face to the tiny stalk he was fidgeting between his fingers.

Wonwoo calls out another Yah; this time, a gentle tone.

“I’m saying,” Soonyoung stutters, his smile shaking in a breakdown. “I’m saying, Wonwoo, I like you.”

(Wonwoo’s heart aches with what regret he has stored deep inside his arteries.)

It was silent for two minutes long enough for Soonyoung to learn what heartbreak feels like.

“It’s okay, Wonwoo-yah. It’s not your fault.”

 

Wonwoo looks back to the very still and very comfortable Soonyoung beside him, there come flushes of relief and grateful praises to the Mighty One for letting him keep his cherished friend, for blessing Soonyoung with a heart that forgives and a heart that recovers (or at least he thinks it does).

Hundreds of days ago, if Soonyoung was beside him like how he is right now, Wonwoo wouldn’t have romanticized the flowers in his hair and his smile that danced with the afternoon breeze.

Hundreds of days ago, Wonwoo was too little and also a little under self-assured.

But hundreds of days ago, while Wonwoo’s wisdom lacked at some points, his heart remained the same.

If he had only known that the nights he cried with an aching heart was what the world called “regret”, and the days he smiled with a racing pulse was what the world called “admiration”, and that all these years, the world has been telling him that all he didn’t know was that all along, it was called “love”.

And Wonwoo wants to tell him all that he’s learned in those hundreds of days.

 

“Actually,” Wonwoo turns, hunching lower to level himself slightly to Soonyoung just to see him better. “Soonyoung.”

Wonwoo waits for him to respond, afraid to spill his words on someone actually asleep — thank God he wasn’t.

“I’m listening.”

Wonwoo then lies on his chest, his arms brushing close to Soonyoung’s, his face inches above the latter’s. “Be in my eyes, Soonyoung,” his breath tickles down the other’s face, allowing him to breathe in the sweet flavor of Wonwoo’s breath (and if Soonyoung had to guess any other part of Wonwoo, he’d score even more than a million).

And like a command, Soonyoung’s eyes promptly blink open (panic-driven, blood-rushed).

“Let me look at you longer.”

“Yah… Wonwoo…”

“Soonyoung-ah.”

“Yah! Won—“

“Can I come closer?”

 

Soonyoung’s world becomes a cinematic slow-motion of Wonwoo pulling a trigger and a bullet landing too slowly, too deep beyond the thin fabric of his school uniform and down unto his shattering chest — that is, along the most beautiful sing-song of love sung by the confessing tones of Wonwoo’s deep and gentle voice.

Soonyoung responds with a hand behind Wonwoo’s head, pulling him down to one hundred days ago when Soonyoung first liked Wonwoo; and their kiss travels a hundred days forward, maturing at every breath they take in between and every move their top and bottom lips brush alternatively — when Wonwoo skips his I like you’s because it takes a boy to live it through and a man to understand it soon.

“I love you.”

With water in his eyes and a mouth shaking (albeit determined), Soonyoung kisses him one last time.

“And I love you.”