When they say weird things get sold in Japan, you’ve got to listen to them because it’s true. And if they told you to choose another destination for your trip, listen to them too. Or, just don’t travel at all.

Because you see, they would not be in this trouble if they stayed in South Korea—their country, the place where they belong. That, and Junhoe actually still thinks Chanwoo has jinxed it when he said he was not coming as he had a bad feeling about going to Tokyo with them this summer.

Oh, this is happening because of Chanwoo and his bad mouth bringing bad luck. He’s so going to hear from Junhoe when he gets back home.

If they can get back home.

“Come again?” Jinhwan asks for the umpteenth time.

Junhoe huffs. One of his hands is already in his hair, pulling some strands because of the absurdity that their lives have just become. The least he wants to do is to repeat his words to Jinhwan when he knows the other has heard him before.

He doesn’t have any other choices, though. The guy’s not here since he was not given the green light to come with them. How lucky. Junhoe’s ing jealous.

“Hyung got his finger—” What was the right word? Ah. “—pricked. And now he won’t wake up.”

There’s silence and then Jinhwan says, “hold on.”

Junhoe has to hold the phone away for a second after that as he hears the deafening screech of a chair against the floor.

Jinhwan is already talking when Junhoe’s bringing his phone back to his ear. “How the hell did that happen?” That has been answered. Dammit. “Is Hanbin breathing? Where are you? Have you tried looking for this person?” Oh, so he did understand. Why would he ask again then? Junhoe doesn’t get it.

“We’re trying, but we cannot find her!” Junhoe says, choosing to reply to only one of the list of queries the other has bombarded him with. It’s the most important question after all.

It seems like he has shouted the words too loud because he’s attracted the attention of several people who’re taking a nocturnal walk on him. Who cares, though?

A minute or so later he sees Donghyuk and Jiwon run towards him.

Junhoe looks at them expectantly, every part of him igniting with fierce hope while his hearing is getting damaged by Jinhwan’s voice that’s increasing exponentially the more Junhoe spends time not acknowledging his inquiries.

His eyes automatically close in desperation when the two shake their heads at him.

“We couldn’t find her,” Donghyuk puts into words and Jiwon quickly adds, “we tried to ask, but nobody could understand us.”

Ah. Right. Junhoe inhales. He’s the only one who can speak Japanese.

But they got so panicked when Hanbin suddenly collapsed that the problem of the language didn’t cross their minds. Like, the first thought that came to him was to call Jinhwan to inform him about the incident and to ask for some kind of guidance/reassurance—that he didn’t get—and, after some trying to get Hanbin to wake up, the others started frantically saying that they were going to look for the woman and then scattered around.

“What are we going to do now?” Donghyuk’s voice is trembling, his eyes big and frightened.

Junhoe has no ing idea himself, but seeing the reaction before him he feels his breathing quickening, heartbeat going miles per millisecond at every breath he takes.

He and Jiwon have the kind of friendship where they are comfortable with each other’s presence only when other people are around and when left alone they get ing awkward. Like, God help them, never leave them by themselves. They do not even talk often with each other for ’s sake. Is this friendship?

Junhoe knows the response to that, but quickly erases it and due to his rising anxiety looks at Jiwon, wishing with all his might for the guy to be calm, or calmer than he and Donghyuk are anyways.

To be smiling like he always does even when he’s angry.

He finds Jiwon looking behind him and Junhoe knows what’s in there.

He slowly turns to look too.

Hanbin is still sitting on the ground, in the spot where they have deposited him, slumped against the wall. His head is almost touching his left shoulder where his damped shirt is clinging to his skin because of the bottle of water they threw at him, thinking that they could get him to open his eyes.

Junhoe tries to trick himself by thinking that Hanbin had moved since the time the others were gone and Junhoe was not checking on him.

Maybe they’re being fooled by Hanbin. This is nothing but a stupid joke.

Too bad he knows Hanbin is not capable of pulling something like this off without bursting our laughing in less than a second.

“Have you tried waking him up again?” Junhoe cannot say from whom it came out. Maybe Jiwon.

“No, no, I haven’t.” He doesn’t tell them that he’s been rambling to Jinhwan up until now. They probably already now anyways.

“Maybe,” Donghyuk starts, but finished only after some time passes, “we should try again?”

No one steps to do it, though.

Junhoe just watches carefully Hanbin’s chest and takes comfort in the fact that he is still breathing. Such a small consolation, but for now that’s more than enough.

Yunhyeong reaches them too using the GPS in his phone to locate them. In the meantime nobody has attempted to shake Hanbin yet, not even to touch him a little bit. They have remained observing him sleep.

“I couldn’t find her. I’m sorry.” Those are not good news either.

Junhoe feels like his throat is closing up.

It’s only when Donghyuk points out to him that his phone has been ringing that he can take his gaze away from Hanbin and bring it to his hand where, indeed, he finds the screen flaring angrily at him with Jinhwan’s name displayed as the caller.

He doesn’t pick the call up.

It is not done deliberately. His mind is numb, feet light like he’s on clouds, unable to comprehend what’s happening around him.

When his ringing tone ends, he finds himself staring. He’s got new messages. From Jinhwan. His thumb swipes on his phone to unlock it.

He reads.

There is an innumerable amount of “pick the ing call”, his name accompanied with some curses, and “have you called an ambulance?” and “have you brought Hanbin to a hospital?”

Ah.

Hospital.

Junhoe stares at the screen of his phone then to Hanbin. The latter is still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the turmoil that he’s causing.

As if it’s his fault, a voice in Junhoe’s head scoffs at him.

Anyways, hospital.

They should bring Hanbin to a hospital.

————

Here’s what happened in details:

their Tokyo conquest began this very morning. They went to the hotel to check in, left their luggage there and then went out.

Everything was going to fly. It was damn fine. They were having the time of their life, really.

Junhoe was having fun at the guys’ expense. He would translate things incorrectly and misunderstandings would ensue and he would have tears of joy gathering at the corners of his eyes from how much he was laughing.

He brought them to this famous street where he knew a huge market was being held. Yunhyeong wanted to go shopping and Junhoe will bring him to shop.

It is in the middle of Donghyuk scaring the locals with his heavy accent, nonsense talking and a huge One piece hat that he had brought from home and Jiwon and Hanbin clinging to each other, laughing themselves sick at the sight, that Junhoe had to scan the items around him and found his eyes settle on these necklaces.

He immediately walked over there to take a look at them because they’re pieces of beauty. There’s this golden one with a wooden saber pendant that seemed hand-carved that’s so cool he found himself thinking that he had to have it.

The tip of the saber’s so sharp he could seriously hurt someone with it.

He needed it.

“Can I see that?” Junhoe asked the vendor, a middle aged woman who answered him with a huge smile. Taking that as an affirmative to his question, he took the said necklace to examine it.

She spoke when Junhoe was about to take his wallet out. “At the first prick of her finger, she fell into a deep, deep sleep.”

Bewildered, because a) he heard, but he did not get the meaning of her words and mostly b) her smile just impossibly got wider, edging to uncomfortable, like could snap if she didn’t stop, Junhoe scowled a bit.

“Excuse me?”

She repeated the sentence and then explained further, but Junhoe was not really listening by that point because he already came to the conclusion that she must have a few screws loose.

He was able to took the short sentence, “you’ll fall in a deep sleep if you get pricked.”

At that Junhoe had to snort

Sure, the saber’s sharp, but so much it could make you fall asleep? Come the on.

He payed for the item—which cost almost nothing and that made him wonder, but he already handed the money and it would be rude to take them back—and left. But not before having the woman bow to him and wish him,

“good luck”.

Still with that smile.

Junhoe quickened his pace to leave as fast as he could.

The group was waiting for him near occupied benches. They walked some more and then stopped to a much less populated area, a small park.

Donghyuk and Jiwon were pushing each other back and forth, Yunhyeong’s beaming down at his own purchases, meaning that Hanbin was alone now and so Junhoe chose the opportunity to put his necklace on to parade it in front of him.

“What would you buy?” Junhoe asked with the full knowledge, after looking at the guy, that the other didn’t get anything.

In fact, Hanbin shrugged at him, empty-handed. “What about—oh.” He extended one arm to cup a hand around the pendant, inspecting it.

“Cool, huh?”

Hanbin looked at it some more before agreeing. “Where did you buy it? From that lady?” When he released the hold on the chain, he stepped back.

Junhoe actually wouldn’t have minded at all if Hanbin wanted to look more closely to the wooden saber. Having Hanbin about under his nose was not something that ever bothered him.

The other three chose this very moment to join them. Donghyuk marveled at what Junhoe had bought. Yunhyeong too. Jiwon looked interested, smiled, but said nothing.

“Yeah. That woman who sold it to me told me a crazy story about it,” Junhoe narrated as he pulled the necklace off. It had accomplished its purpose, it’s beautiful, but it really didn’t match with his whole outfit. Maybe tonight when they’ll go clubbing. He’ll put on a shirt that will make it pop.

“What story?”

Junhoe had the saber in his palm. “Said if I got pricked by it I would, I dunno, fall asleep or something.” He would have expected everyone to laugh at that and Donghyuk and Jiwon were, but Hanbin and Yunhyeong—especially him—were frowning at the necklace.

Yunhyeong scowled. “Why?”

“Who knows?” Junhoe said with nonchalance. “Didn’t hear it.” He’s about to poke the sharp tip to feel if it could really got through his skin when Hanbin swatted his finger away.

He knew this would happen.

He suppressed a smile.

“You idiot, don’t touch it. What if she put something on it.” Hanbin reprimanded him, now looking disdained at Junhoe’s chain even though he was admiring it just a couple of minutes ago. “What if it’s poisoned?” When Jinhwan’s not around, this guy always takes it upon himself to fill the hyung role even if he’s not the oldest between them.

Junhoe exploded in a laugh. “Why would she poison it?”

Hanbin didn’t reply. Just went to grab the thing from him and Junhoe grinned this time.

He’s not about to get babied by Hanbin.

Couldn’t lose. Not when the others started chanting his name, clearly on his side.

And obviously not when Hanbin was almost leaning flat against him as Junhoe put his arm with the hand holding the saber pendant up so the other wouldn’t be able to get it from him.

Junhoe’s surprised in a really good way when Hanbin decided to put a hand on his shoulder to support his weight as he tip-toed to reach Junhoe’s hand. He’s also curling a leg behind Junhoe’s and kind of grinding up on Junhoe each time he jumped a little more.

Not that Junhoe’s complaining. Hanbin wants to climb him like a tree? Hanbin is more than welcome to climb him like a tree.

It’s just that he did not take into consideration how stubborn Hanbin was and how he almost always obtained what he wanted, and also that Junhoe’s maybe enjoying this a tiny bit too much, that he put his guard down and lost his balance.

That he re-gained immediately, but the shortest moment was enough for Hanbin and he could touch Junhoe’s palm now.

So because Junhoe was not about to give up, he leaned back while Hanbin leaned in and the others cackled and it went like that until Hanbin went,

“ow!”

Hanbin recoiled. He stuck his finger in his mouth.

Junhoe widened his eyes. “, sorry.”

Hanbin took his index out and there’s nothing for half a second before a small dot of blood that soon turned bigger and bigger appeared. It’s not a serious injury, but damn, the saber could cut for real.

“So now what?” Jiwon said to Hanbin, eyes curving as his lips did. “You feeling sleepy?”

Hanbin glared and they all laughed.

Junhoe was about to crack a joke too when the unexpected started to happen: Hanbin’s trying to talk back to Jiwon, walking towards him, but after some steps, he’d started swaying and before they knew he’s falling.

Luckily, Jiwon’s reflexes were quick enough and he caught Hanbin before he could smash his face on the ground.

They didn’t take it seriously at first. Donghyuk and Yunhyeong continued to find the scene funny while Junhoe suddenly did not.

He did not purse his lips. “Yeah, good acting,” he called, folding his arms on his chest and rolling his eyes. He dug out a smirk as he urged, “yeah, well, if you don’t wake up, we’ll be forced to leave you here. I’m not going to be carrying you around the streets. That’s embarrassing.”

Junhoe’s trying his best not to let his expression be conditioned by it, but Jiwon just had to pull Hanbin up so that now Hanbin had his head resting on the crook of Jiwon’s shoulder and Jiwon’s hands were around Hanbin’s waist for some unfathomable reason.

Ah, the bitter aftertaste on his palate arrived.

He’s not frowning. He won’t frown. He—

“Guys?” Jiwon called. Why the hell’s he cradling Hanbin’s neck with one hand now and why did it look like he’s whispering things to Hanbin now? That’s so not necessary.

Junhoe didn’t grimace. He looked elsewhere.

“Hanbin? Hanbin!” Jiwon said and it’s only because his tone of voice sounded genuinely scared that Junhoe looked back at the two. He found Jiwon staring at them with incredibly open eyes for him. “Guys, I don’t think Hanbin’s acting.”

————

The ambulance comes within 4 minutes.

Junhoe explains to the paramedics what happened as best as he can. They do not believe him—not to the first part of the story, anyways, but they list Hanbin’s case as fainting in the middle of the street while shopping as an emergency.

There are three patients in more critical states when they arrive.

A nurse approaches them while they’re waiting, asks again about the incident and again Junhoe does not get believed.

Why is he even trying to tell them about that middle-aged lady and the necklace anyways?

But if she was not involved why where she nowhere to be found? Donghyuk and the others said that all the street vendors where still there, minus her.

And if Japanese people give him these weird looks, what’s Junhoe supposed to think?

Like, Japan’s the place where they’ve got all these creatures. These ghosts. These monsters in elevators and woods and beds and invisible beings riding your back. If they do not believe him, who will?

The nurse fills the papers needed for when Hanbin will get examined.

They’ve got long hours of waiting in which Jinhwan and Chanwoo text them, asking every minute if there are any news regarding Hanbin’s condition.

None. There’s none. Because while they’re waiting, Hanbin continues to sleep on the bed he’s been put on. He’s not moving an inch. Not when people come rushing inside the building. Not when doors are slammed and phones ring too loudly. Not when Junhoe comes to shake the mattress up or to poke him with too much strength and considers even pinching him before Jiwon pulls a face at him, silently telling him to stop.

Not when he’s getting taken away.

Only his chest is rising up and down.

That would have been a nice prank, you know. If Hanbin suddenly woke up as he’s being brought to examinations.

Hanbin doesn’t wake up, though.

Junhoe’s guilt starts eating him.

They finish all the exams on Hanbin in some hours—he cannot tell how many, but the important part is that they’re done checking him up.

Vitals are fine. Hanbin is actually said to be very healthy, which is not that surprising given that the guy eats greens and does not have bad habits. He drinks only on rare occasions and when he does, he cannot but take just a few sips of alcohol.

It’s an abnormal situation. Hanbin doesn’t have his brain damaged in any way. His heart is perfectly beating, blood is circulating regularly in his system and lungs are pumping oxygen in him. His liver is fine. Electrolytes. Glucose. Those are all fine.

What’s weird is that the doctor sounds pissed when she’s talking to Junhoe and what’s weirder is that she’s making them leave at this very moment and when Junhoe demands to know the reason as of why she’s forcing them out when their friend is unconscious, she tells him, rather sternly, something along the lines of,

“not wanting to get involved in these type of jokes because people really get hurt. This Youtube is going to get you in serious troubles one of these days. Find a better hobby, kids.”

Junhoe is too dumbfounded that when Yunhyeong asks for a translation he just says to book a taxi ride on the application he downloaded because they need to go back to their hotel.

This is ing nuts. They think he is joking. What the actual .

“Okay,” Donghyuk says slowly once they’ve entered Hanbin’s room and they’ve put the guy in what looks like a comfortable position. Yunhyeong has adjusted Hanbin’s hands too on Hanbin’s stomach. “Now, what?”

Jiwon sits next to the bed, tipping his head back to where Hanbin’s arm is. He starts massaging his temples.

A reply never comes because the next thing they’re doing is staring at Hanbin’s sleeping form.

Just staring at Hanbin’s still sleeping form.

————

After all the guarding on Hanbin and having the events repeated to them again and again, Donghyuk and Yunhyeong slowly allow themselves to succumb to tiredness. They are now snoring, the first on the sprawled on the carpet while the second has curled in on himself to be able to fit in the small sofa in the room.

It’s around 3 am when Jiwon speaks up.

“Where’s the necklace?”

Junhoe gives him a long look. He does feel heavy. Maybe drowsy. He’ll be damned if he closes his eyes and surrenders to exhaustion, though.

“I—”

He starts roaming himself with his hands from his chest to his pants, checking each of his pockets, but coming out with nothing.

ing damn it.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but he has to.

With a frown directed at himself and his own idiocy, he mutters, “lost it.”

Jiwon shifts on his spot. He doesn’t need words to convey his emotions. Just makes a face that’s a clear response to Junhoe’s confession.

. On one hand he would like to mock Jiwon, ask him if he really thinks the chain has got to do with this. That it’s stupid. It’s just a pendant made of wood. How can it put people into that deep slumber? That’s insane.

On the other hand, though, Junhoe still feels entirely responsible and it’s way easier to think that the thing is actually connected to Hanbin’s current condition because that means they’d have a starting point at least.

Jiwon seems to share his same thought. He gets up.

Junhoe doesn’t need to ask, but still, he does. “Where are you going?”

“To look for the necklace and that woman where you bought it from.” Jiwon says without sparing him a glance. He arcs his back and then bends down to tie the shoelaces of his sneakers better.

After a while, Junhoe hears, “would you like to come with me.”

Despite the formulation of the sentence it doesn’t sound like an invitation. Junhoe was already planning to tag along without being told to, and in other occasions he might have pointed it out.

He doesn’t like the tone that’s been used to talk to him, but he figures pretty quickly that the other must be mad at him and, for now, Junhoe cannot say he doesn’t deserve it.

————

This is definitely not one of the best plans.

It’s still too early and while some small convenience stores are open, the street vendors are not.

Junhoe knew it already. They’ll start coming around 9 am which is still too far.

The sun’s not even out completely and he and Jiwon are using the lights from their phones to look at every angle of the street. This won’t be a fruitless searching, Junhoe can already tell.

Jiwon’s a sunny, upbeat person. Junhoe could count on a hand the number of times he had seen him actually furious and not trying to hide his feeling behind a smiling grimace. And that’s not because the two of them do not have the bestest of relationships.

That’s just Jiwon’s nature. Junhoe bets the others have not seen him angry that many times either throughout the years.

(It was not a pretty sight. An angry Jiwon is not something you want to deal with).

Which makes it a lot more surprising when Jiwon suddenly snaps at him. “You have to ing grow up, Junhoe.”

Junhoe looks at him sharply. Blood is pumping in his head, rushed. It hurts like a . He cannot feel anything other than remorse.

Oh, wrong, he can: he’s super ing tired now.

And there’s always been some kind of tension between them that has never dissipated.

Not a good combination.

He narrows his eyes. “What did you say?”

Jiwon turns to him. He’s fuming. “You gotta grow up.” He slaps his hands together, the sound echoing in the deserted place.

When an arm is raised, Junhoe thinks about retreating or covering his face, but he doesn’t since he’s no coward and—and he knows this moment would have come sooner or later.

Luckily or not, Jiwon is only jabbing his forefinger on Junhoe’s chest at each word that he spits out of his mouth. “You have to stop behaving like a ing kid. It’s always you, man. You always do these things and it makes—”

“I didn’t think it was really going to hurt hyung!” Junhoe counters back.

Jiwon stops his action, but throws his hands in the air. “You never think!” He explodes. “When the hell do you think about consequences, huh? You ever sit down and think before you do something?” He snarls in a mocking tone. “Do it for ing once!”

Guilty, lacking of strength and having Jiwon yell at him, Junhoe feels the churning of his own anger in his chest. He gets closer too, face to face to Jiwon. Because, , the world will end first before he runs away from a fight. And never he will from one against Jiwon.

Not him.

“You’re telling me you would have believed her?” It sounds like a weak argumentation, but he cannot find anything better. He knows how to raise his voice too, though, and he can use his height to overpower Jiwon even just a little.

So, Junhoe does. He looks down—from how much he can—to Jiwon. He finds the same glare mirrored in the other’s eyebrows and the same fury in the other’s eyes.

“Nobody does! Ask ing anyone. And don’t tell me what to do, you ing piece of .” He’s so damn tired. So ing tired.

When Jiwon speaks to him, it’s dangerous and low. He fakes calmness, but his clenching fists are promising another story altogether.

“Get the hell out of my face.”

Junhoe doesn’t let half a second pass. “You wanna beat me up?” He whisper-mocks. His self-preservation has never been high to begin with. He tilts his head a little and provokes, “I know you do.”

He had anticipated this happening, but still, he lets out a gasp that he tries with all his might to bite back as soon as it escapes from his lips when Jiwon pushes him hard first and then immediately catches him by the collar of his shirt.

Junhoe looks at Jiwon who’s trying to contain himself. Others would have shut up if they had been in his position, but again, he’s got history of never taking the best decisions.

“You’re a ing .” He says.

The grip on the fabric around his neck tightens.

Jiwon’s eyebrows are so drawn together they might connect. “Man,” he threatens.

Junhoe just sneers.

He would have never anticipated Jiwon’s next words, though. A confrontation, yes. Some punches, definitely. But actual words that Junhoe finds hard to digest and feels like they hit him straight at his core?

Not that.

“You should stop being so ing jealous that Hanbin agreed to go out with me and not with you.”

Junhoe has to push the other back from him at that and Jiwon, from his part, doesn’t put any resistance and lets him go.

Just the shirt, though. Not the topic. “I know you don’t like me because of that,” Jiwon continues, “but it was in the past and Hanbin and I didn’t even work.”

Junhoe says nothing. He rubs the skin around his neck in lack of anything to mask his uneasiness. Jiwon, really.

“We literally went out three times.” Jiwon exhales through pursed lips. He looks around wildly for some reason, finds nothing obviously and then takes his gaze back to Junhoe. He’s still mad, it’s written all over his face, but he says after a while, “want to keep looking for the ing necklace or go back to the hotel?”

Junhoe is having fragments of memories play in his mind of Donghyuk telling him Hanbin went to a date with Jiwon and of Hanbin having this hickey on his shoulder and—and he’s tried for so long not to recall those moments.

All he wants to do is ing tear something apart.

Jiwon waits for him.

Junhoe doesn’t want to but in the end he says, “hotel.” He checks his phone. 6.05 am. “The hotel.”

————

“I’ve got the solution!” Donghyuk roars in the hallway as he spots them.

Junhoe mutters, only audible to himself, “shut the up.” Anger has left place for bitterness to come back.

“He woke up?” Jiwon asks.

“Huh, no.” Donghyuk answers, deflating a little, but his cheerfulness comes back. “But I know how to wake him up.”

Junhoe and Jiwon look expectantly. “Care to elaborate?” One of them prompts when a second passes and the other still hasn’t spilled the beans out.

“Ever heard of the Sleeping beauty?” Donghyuk finally tells them.

Junhoe opens the box of his childhood in his brain and associates the mentioned name to the title of a story he had watched with his sister. If he’s not mistaken, it’s about this princess who fell asleep when she got her finger—

“—pricked on the spindle of a spinning wheel,” Yunghyeong finishes Junhoe’s thought out loud. He has only half his body out of Hanbin’s room. He sounds very excited too.

Their emotion does not resonate with Junhoe’s, though. He does not see what point are the two trying to make.

“Hanbin was not pricked by the spindle of a spinning wheel.” Jiwon remarks, confused rather than frustrated which is what Junhoe’s feeling at the very moment.

Or, he thinks he’s feeling, he cannot tell anymore. If he’s still capable of feelings. He has to lay down or he’ll fall and get himself a concussion.

“Yes, fair,” Donghyuk concedes, “but the woman said that at the first prick of the finger—” He waves his hand around, not finishing the quotation.

Junhoe gathers all the strength left in his body to frown and starts to say, “it doesn’t make any—”

“We wake Hanbin up with a kiss then?” Jiwon inquires.

“It was a pendant!” Junhoe sighs in ing exasperation now. God ing damn it. “A saber. Where’s the ing spinning wheel, huh?”

They all ignore him.

“Basically, yes.” Yunhyeong answers.

And Donghyuk then adds with trepidation, pointing at his beeping phone that he takes out of his jacket, “Jinhwan hyung has finally found someone who could translate this site where these girls talk about their experiences with magic necklaces they bought in some markets in Tokyo.”

Oh. They could have said that earlier instead of making him shout. Junhoe internally takes a seat and lets them talk.

He mentally crosses his fingers as he leans to take a look too.

There are some pictures in there. They are all jewelries and, although nothing resembles the item he had bought, hope starts blossoming within Junhoe as Donghyuk scrolls down and they see that all these things are categorized under labels like familial love, courage, ual luck—what the hell does that mean?—money, work, et cetera.

“That!” Yunhyeong says all of a sudden, still half of him in the room, and Donghyuk stops, screen coming to a halt too.

Junhoe’s eyes widen. “That looks like my pendant!” He exclaims, making more space for himself and nudging Yunhyeong away as he does.

This saber has designs on the handle while his didn’t have any, and it’s attached to a bracelet, but aside from those two details the similarities are unmistakable.

Jiwon reads for all of them. “Don’t buy this! The old man I got it from told me that if pricked by it you’d fall asleep and wake up only if kissed by your true love. My sister pricked herself with it. It took my family and I five months to find the boy for her.”

Five—months?

Junhoe pulls a face. The .

————

Their discovery brings some light to the whole incident, but also more problems. That’s a huge long period of time and they’re only staying here in Japan for four days and half. Two weeks tops if they’re allowed to extend their trip.

Junhoe swallows at the thought.

“Don’t you think Hanbin looks, huh, princess-y?” Junhoe asks before he sits at Hanbin’s feet. He brings up his hands and makes fluttery motions with them, all the fury he had in him seems like it had vanished. “Like his eyelashes got longer and he’s got this look around him. He looks—” His eyebrows go up a little. “Well, pretty.”

Junhoe stares at Jiwon. “What?”

“Prettier.” Jiwon corrects himself.

Here’s the thing: Junhoe likes Hanbin. That was ing obvious from the very beginning. That’s the reason behind the awkwardness he’s got going on with Jiwon.

Why did he accept to be left in the same room with the guy he likes and the guy who went out and ed the guy he likes again? Because, even if he cannot feel his limbs and his brain hangs every other second, he should have gone out looking for the vendor with Yunhyeong and Donghyuk too.

But speaking of current matters, Junhoe might have been harboring this feeling for Hanbin for quite some time, but he’s never actually looked at the length of Hanbin’s ing eyelashes.

Body, yes. Especially Hanbin’s . He has words to say about that. Or, maybe Hanbin’s smile, yeah, he can say something about it too. If we want to push it, he could start on Hanbin’s actual eyes, but he’d rather not because that’s way too much.

Hanbin’s ing eyelashes, though?

For a brief moment he asks himself if this is the reason why Jiwon got to go out with Hanbin and he did not. If this is why Hanbin asked Jiwon while he knows or at least he has some suspicions that Junhoe’s interested in him too.

If he were sweet too. If we called Hanbin adjectives like pretty too. If he were like that—Junhoe wonders.

“Do you think it’s magic that’s making him look like that?” Jiwon strikes again.

Junhoe shrugs this time. It really isn’t helping that in this case he’s rewinding this person’s jabs at him.

That “you’ve got to stop being jealous because he chose me and not you” stings. A lot.

He goes to the sofa.

“I need to rest,” he mumbles without throwing one last look at Hanbin and Jiwon who’s hopefully still at Hanbin’s feet and not next to him.

Not like he’s thinking that he wants to be there too.

Junhoe cannot.

You would think that after they’re little altercation and Junhoe’s dismissal, Jiwon would have gotten on with the program and understood that he needed to zip his mouth, that Junhoe is ing done for the time being, he needs at least half an hour of time out.

But no.

Of course not.

Jiwon talks again. “It was only .”

Junhoe wants to either smother Jiwon with something so he will finally stop, or ripping his own ears off. He makes himself small in the sofa instead. Tries to lull himself into sleep as fast as he can. Maybe he can do that. He’s exhausted, after all.

“I kissed him that third night. Before he would go up to his apartment. I woke up with him telling me over the phone that he did not want to keep seeing me.” A low chuckle. “We’ve known each other for years and he doesn’t even say it to my face.”

Junhoe was not aware of that. He does not know what to do with the information. For now, it does not alleviate his preoccupation nor the antagonistic feeling he has towards Jiwon.

He stays silent.

“I like Hanbin.” Jiwon says, and it makes Junhoe grind his teeth together. He doesn’t need to hear that. “But he doesn’t like me.”

Junhoe’s jaw relaxes all of a sudden. Still, he doesn’t utter a word.

“I asked him.” A pause. “And he said that.”

Damn. Junhoe silently and ever so slowly gulps, afraid he might be heard even though Jiwon knows for sure he’s awake and listening.

That—. How can you still hang out with us then? He doesn’t voice that out, though.

Jiwon takes a breath. “I asked him twice and twice he said he didn’t like me.”

Well, . Junhoe has to gulp down saliva again to hydrate his throat.

.

————

Junhoe has never actually confessed to anyone about Hanbin.

First, because he thinks everyone kind of knows, anyways. Second, because once it’s officially out, Donghyuk and Yunhyeong and Chanwoo will put him in mortifying situations for sure. These guys cannot be subtle if their lives depended on it. They would start making very obvious innuendos and worse stuff that will result in Hanbin starting to avoid Junhoe like the plague and Junhoe hunting Chanwoo to shoot him in the . At the end of the day, it’s always Chanwoo’s fault.

And if he were to be honest, it’s not when they met he fell in love with Hanbin at first sight. Hell, no.

Hanbin had a buzz cut that really did not go well with his face since he’s got this important nose that’s as big as an Egyptian pyramid. He was nice to talk to in a “damn, he knows a lot of complicated words, but he doesn’t treat me like a ” sort of way, and when they went out to have actual fun—well, Hanbin was ing fun to have around so Junhoe and the others welcomed him with open arms in their group. He got along with them, especially with Jiwon. Heh.

Then Hanbin had to leave for a year.

It’s not like they lost communication with each other during that time. They kept talking.

Junhoe would reply on Messenger, but when he was bored and got a bit of free time. It was a period when his puberty finally decided that its time to make him look like an awkward dude was done, and he would get attention from others and since he’d never experienced that before, he dived in this new phase of his life where he’s attractive enough to actually receive texts from unknown numbers and some love letters in his locker.

Junhoe has always been a bit superficial. And that’s fine. Like, it’s okay to think one has got to be physically attractive to be date-able. Where’s the harm in that? Jinhwan has tried to make him feel bad about himself for it, but there’s nothing ethically wrong with it, and it’s not like he thinks badly of those who don’t meet his parameters of beauty. They could be nice, he just wouldn’t go out with them or stick his anywhere near them. That’s all.

So when—on his 17^th birthday of all days—Hanbin came back and went to his party to celebrate and Hanbin looked better, miles better than he was before, with hair dyed and a nice cut, Junhoe went to hug Hanbin and asked him how he had been. What kind of food they had fed him with because, damn, man.

It was like they picked up their relationship where they left it. Hanbin’s still Hanbin. Just now Junhoe felt a spark of attraction to him and he cannot really say for sure how it developed from there.

If asked Junhoe would say it’s maybe because he spent too much time looking at Hanbin and thinking about how much Hanbin had changed physically, but they still get each other. Attraction is like a muscle, anyways, if you keep cultivating it, exercising it, it will get stronger over time.

Too bad there have always been some factors that have stopped Junhoe from making a move.

Hanbin was single back then and once Junhoe casually asked him what kind of person he was looking for, Hanbin had said that he wanted to focus on finals and on entering his chosen college.

Then, after some time, Jinhwan asked Hanbin again and Hanbin had actually answered, but he was firm on loyalty and trust and other crap, and Junhoe had started being a) considered a guy who would anything that would him back which was not true because he was choosing carefully, but he did have his fair share of encounters so he could not say anything to clear up his name, and b) while not someone who would anything that would him back, he wanted to mingle with other people. He was not ready for commitment.

It is embarrassing to admit, but Junhoe started changing his mind about getting in a relationship with Hanbin when Chanwoo pointed out that Jiwon and Hanbin had been spending a lot of time together and that he had actually heard Jiwon say that Hanbin had gotten “hot”.

For some reason the idea of Hanbin with Jiwon set alarms in his head. Like, he had this thought that if the two tried, they would be inseparable forever and that meant that Junhoe would have lost his chance.

The fact that Jiwon always anticipated him in asking Hanbin to hang out somewhere only solidified it.

Junhoe cannot really say he tried his best best. He would flirt with Hanbin and Hanbin would some times look at him weirdly, but some times flirt back.

For a guy who thought he had turned out so good looking, he could not make the words “7 pm. Restaurant, movie? It’s a date” come out of his mouth.

After all, this was not a stranger he met at a bar, or college.

Hanbin knows Junhoe had cried during chick flick movies, and is not really charming and sophisticated, but likes wearing the same unwashed clothes for days and takes showers only when necessary. Sometimes he skips them when he thinks some cologne can do the job. Knows Junhoe’s talents include: being able to pretend he does not care, when 98% of the time he does. Hanbin knows his insecurities and while that makes Junhoe like him more, it makes the whole asking out terrifying.

Hanbin and Jiwon were already close after day one, but he and Hanbin started getting closer too. Junhoe would go over everyday to study, watch stupid dramas, wait for Jiwon to get the hell out of Hanbin’s shared apartment by faking to have fallen asleep and then “waking up” after half an hour. He thought they were building something.

Like, Hanbin would play with his hair and he would touch Junhoe.

With a bit of help from wine, Junhoe had once put his arm around Hanbin’s shoulder while they had Lilo & Stitch on (don’t ask why) and had started slowly bringing his fingers to graze Hanbin’s shoulder first, then tentatively touching Hanbin’s neck until he thought, “ it” and cupped Hanbin’s neck to slowly bring him closer for Junhoe to plant his lips on Hanbin’s skin, on other side of his neck.

He swears he had heard Hanbin’s breath catch at that.

Junhoe was about this close to consider kissing Hanbin for real, but the roommate got back home—super wrong timing—and the moment was gone.

And then they had exams and it was Junhoe’s first year in college so he had to give all himself.

And then when exams were done, he heard that Hanbin had asked Jiwon out.

And then Hanbin and Jiwon went to grab a coffee with all of them and Hanbin had this hickey and Jiwon had his arm resting on Hanbin’s chair and that wasn’t unusual, they did that, but it had a different meaning now.

And then Hanbin and Jiwon stopped seeing each other. After just three times, it seems.

And Hanbin and Jiwon looked like nothing happened, but Donghyuk had mentioned Jiwon calling him, sounding sad and miserable and Junhoe—Junhoe couldn’t say a word.

————

Junhoe would have traded two years of his life in exchange of opening his eyes and finding out that it was all a dream.

Reality, though, wants him to have Jiwon kicking the furniture he was on hard. He jolts, waking up abruptly and feeling his joints hurt.

“They found the woman, you’ve got to talk to her.” Jiwon ushers him and shoves his cellphone in Junhoe’s face.

With a still blurred vision and feeling like someone hammered him in the head, Junhoe can only make out the shape of a female figure in all that brightness. Damn. His eyes don’t take much to adjust to the screen, but it’s still too slow for Jiwon who keeps shouting his name.

“My friend pricked his finger. Now he’s asleep and he won’t wake up,” he says in the end, his voice hoarse, but his Japanese’s fluent as usual.

He tries to tell Jiwon by making semi-circles in the air with his index to turn the camera to show Hanbin. When the other does not understand, he takes the device and does it himself. Once done, he puts it back on himself.

“He needs to find his true love.” The woman says coolly. At least she’s going straight to the point and not being cryptic like she was yesterday. Or, maybe it seemed like that because Junhoe was not giving her enough attention?

That response is what Junhoe’s dreading for. True love? What kind of bull is that? And if this is true how the hell are they supposed to find Hanbin’s?

It’s exactly what he asks her.

“Everything happens for a reason, young man.” She tells him, starting to become glitch-y because of the slow internet connection. He has spoken too fast. There she goes again with her nonsense.

“What do you mean?”

She only smiles at him.

Junhoe feels his temper rise. “We need to—” In the background he hears Yunhyeong say to ask for a cure, an antidote, if there is any. He inhales, tells himself to not lose his chill, and reports what his friend had suggested.

The woman shakes her head. “Only his true love’s kiss will break the curse.”

What. Did he hear that right? “The curse?!” Junhoe shrieks, choking on the word.

Jiwon, seeing his reaction, gets next to him. “What is she saying?”

Junhoe darts a look at him, but gets his focus back on the phone. “No, please, you must have something that will wake hyung up—” This is when he should probably offer a huge amount of money to convince her. “—I’m sure we can collect enough money to—”

He sees her raise her palm at him in an attempt to make him stop. Her image is not clear, but from what he can tell, she’s giving him a sympathetic look. “There are no other ways, I’m sorry.”

“But what if we don’t find it?” Junhoe’s heart starts to palpitate faster. He wants to rush to the bathroom and throw up even though he hadn’t eaten for more than half a day when he goes on, “a girl on a site said that they had something similar. Her sister didn’t wake up for months. What if we cannot find hyung’s true love? What then?”

The woman is shaking her head again. “You will.”

Junhoe cannot possibly keep calm now. He yells, “how can you be so sure? How much it will take us?”

“Our meeting was not accidental. As I said, it happened for a reason. Don’t despair.”

Junhoe is about to lose his mind. What did she just say? Don’t despair? “My friend has been laying on that bed for two days and we’ve tried to wake him up and he just won’t no matter what we do and you’re telling me to not despair?” He spits out mockingly. “You’re crazy.”

He should have probably not insulted her, but it felt right to.

She does not falter, though. Her expression only shifts to yet another smile. “It will be fine.”

“I bought it.” Junhoe argues with her. He knows a lost case when he meets one, but he cannot just let her go and accept the situation as it is. Hanbin’s there on the bed because of him.

His agitation is visible and it’s making Jiwon demand for him to translate and he can hear the other two, Donghyuk and Yunhyeong, ask what’s going on.

“I should be the one there. Please, you’ve got to help me.” He does not know how his voice turned at the end of the sentence since all he’s aware of doing is watching the middle-aged lady.

It’s probably not good, though. Because Jiwon has a grip on his forearm. “Junhoe, what the hell is happening?”

Junhoe eyeballs him. “There are no other solutions,” he finally says, switching to Korean.

At the same time the woman speaks again, stating once more that all they need to do is to find Hanbin’s true love. Like, that is not a hard task at all. How many people are there in the world? Almost seven billion and half and counting. And they’re supposed to what? Find Hanbin’s destined person out of all of those without any hint?

Speaking of which. Junhoe hurries. “Do you know who’s this guy? Give me a clue?” But next thing that occurs is him seeing a big thumb on the screen and then the Facetime’s cut.

This damn .

He bellows. “!”

Jiwon’s turns him around to face him. “What? What is happening? Tell me too, maybe?!”

“I told you!” Junhoe says, irritation at maximum. “There’s no other solution, it seems. We’ve got to find his true love to wake him up. And she ended the call!”

Jiwon doesn’t let him breathe. He waves at the device in Junhoe’s hand. “Well, call her the back.”

That—that’s right. Why the isn’t he? Junhoe touches the green circle with Donghyuk’s dumb face above asking him if he wants to call “Dongie” back.

Unfortunately, when it connects it’s their friend’s face they see, not the woman’s. “She vanished!” Donghyuk and Yunhyeong are saying in unison.

Jiwon and Junhoe look at each other. “Huh?”

“She was talking to you and we were looking at her. She gave me my phone back, and then she was just gone.” Donghyuk is perturbed and his hold is not steady, making his image tremble and Junhoe’s already not feeling well so it’s even more disturbing for him.

Yunhyeong comes in the view. “We didn’t blink. We were staring at her. One second she’s there in front of us, the next she’s not. Gone. And with her, her whole stand with her accessories.”

“She’s magic too.” In the corner they catch Donghyuk’s hand flail, his voice colored with fear. “She’s a ing witch.”

“People don’t just disappear.” Junhoe frowns. He wouldn’t say he’s incredulous about the whole thing given that they’ve got a sleeping proof in the room, and now the others are horrified because this woman just vanished before their very eyes, but—but it is difficult. Everything was so normal no more than 48 hours ago.

They just wanted to go on vacation. He just wanted to play with Hanbin a little.

“She’s a witch!” Donghyuk screeches. He clears his throat then, angles the cellphone so both him and Yunhyeong can be seen. With a panicked, but control tone, he says, “she’s a witch, man. We asked the vendors who had their stands next to hers and then just went this.” He shrugs to demonstrate. “Like they do not know either—”

Yunhyeong intervenes then. “Do you want to talk to one of the vendors?” It’s directed at Junhoe.

Before Junhoe could answer, Jiwon tells them, “no, just come back to the hotel.”

“But—”

“Witch or not,” Jiwon starts slowly, punctuating every word, “she can’t help, right?” Junhoe finds himself agreeing to his reasoning. “She already told us what needs to be done. Come back so we can come up with something, okay?”

————

The princess is cursed to sleep for a hundred years because her parents didn’t invite the evil fairy. After she pricks her finger, the kingdom falls into the same spell that is broken when a king’s son comes to the castle to awaken the princess with his prince charming magical kiss. At the end they get married and live happily ever after. True love conquers all.

Junhoe can only make this super short summary of Sleeping Beauty. While he knows he could do a quick research, he doesn’t because he’s pretty sure he had touched the most significant parts of the story.

Fairy tales, he thinks as he leans against the wall near the bed and watches the rise and fall of Hanbin’s chest, are so full of crap.

Japan is full of crap. Who the hell sells magical artifacts to tourists in the streets?

Junhoe slightly bangs his head against the surface behind him. Maintaining his position, he crosses his arms and then a second after does the same with his legs.

He tries to clear his mind until the two’s arrival, but he’s not surprised when he finds out that it’s an impossible task to accomplish.

If he were alone he would probably let out a delirious laugh at the irony of this all

The goal right now is to find Hanbin’s true love. How cruel. Though, this is probably his karma for causing this trouble.

Junhoe ponders about the possible doors that this—opportunity will bring him. If they find this guy, he’ll finally have to move on. He will have to give up. In the future he might consider bonding with Jiwon who’s maybe not even that bad, Junhoe just had to hate him on principle.

He wouldn’t be able to compete with this fated person, so he could stop trying. Hoping.

If he could be more honest with himself, maybe he would have analyzed the situation better and he would have been able to tell himself, that “Junhoe, can’t you see? You’ve been deluding yourself. You and Hanbin? You’re the one who should wake up”.

There was nothing before, there’s nothing now, there won’t be nothing.

Damn. Junhoe doesn’t want to deal with feelings at the moment. He wipes all those thoughts away, but the pain remains. His stomach sinks straight to the floor and then through it into the center of the Earth.

He tells himself to look.

Just look.

His eyes are still on Hanbin. He notices that the latter’s features are relaxed, his hair don’t have a strand out of place. His ing eyelashes are grazing his cheeks—that’s absurd. His lips are plump. Junhoe diverts his look at the mattress and, how from this angle, it seems incredibly big even though it’s just a Queen size.

Jiwon’s right: Hanbin’s got a certain aura surrounding him. Princess-y. Noble.

Magic is ing freaky.

And then he hears someone whisper to him. “You don’t know why, but you’re dying to try—”

What. The. . Junhoe slaps a hand on his right ear and immediately looks to where the voice has come from only to find another wall. He stares at it.

Is this his limit? Has he started going crazy? But he hadn’t imagined that. He really heard that voice. Is the curse being extended to him too?

He jumps three meters far and lands directly against Jiwon coming out of the bathroom when it happens again. “Yes, you want he—”

“What the hell, June!”

Junhoe puts his hands on either sides of Jiwon’s body. “I’m getting cursed too, man! I’m hearing voices!”

Jiwon’s annoyed face at him at being almost knocked over gets replaced by a pair of widening eyes. “Oh, .”

“Have you heard anything?” Junhoe inquires, very distressed.

Jiwon gives him a negative answer.

“Everyone fell asleep when Aurora—” Why the hell can he recall the princess’ name now? How his own brain works will always be a mystery for him “—did. I think I’ll fall asleep too.”

Jiwon eyes him. Then, he cranes his neck to stare at Hanbin and then back to Junhoe. “Maybe we shouldn’t stay too close to him?” He offers, unsure. “Where’s the card? Let’s wait in the hallway.”

Although that’s not really a better alternative as in the story the spell engulfed a larger territory and they’re just getting out of the room thus not really putting much distance, Junhoe hastily tails after Jiwon.

They sit on the opposite side of the door to Hanbin’s. “The girl on that site did not mention someone from her family falling asleep too,” Jiwon says after a while. There’s no accusation in it, just an observation.

Junhoe insists, “I heard it.” He adds, “in my right ear. It was a creepy voice telling me stuff like dying.”

He’s glad when Jiwon nods at him. “Okay. We stay here for now then.”

That’s how Donghyuk and Yunhyeong find them. With their knees up, eyes glued in front of them and ears straining at the minimum noise. When they’re asked why they’re outside, he and Jiwon fill them in what happened.

“So we’re going to fall asleep too if we don’t find Hanbin’s true love?” Yunhyeong extrapolates from the information.

“We could?” Jiwon answers, pulling a face. Junhoe does not say anything anymore as he finds more important to stay on alert. “We should start looking for this dude. This true love.”

“Oh I think we have the solution.” Donghyuk says in his I-have-got-a-revelation-voice. It’s been a very productive day—days—for him. Fear leaves place for joy. “His true love has to be Japanese. You told us over text that the lady said things aren’t casual, yes? This happened for a reason? The reason is that his true love is Japanese.”

Junhoe scowls a little. That’s—bull, he wants to say, but does not. With how things are going, that might be true.

“How do we find him?” Jiwon asks, way more receptive.

“Ah, well.” Yunhyeong pulls out his phone to them. He opens an application.

Junhoe reels back when he sees the logo. “Tinder?!”

“We can’t just go out and ask people to kiss Hanbin!” Yunyeong says in defense. He hits his thumb on the screen repeatedly in a useless attempt to quicken the connection.

“What the hell are you going to write there?” Junhoe explodes. Fortunately, the rooms adjacent to Hanbin’s are theirs otherwise he thinks they’d have a public or someone complaining about the shouting.

It’s Donghyuk who replies to him with a big frown. “Do you have any better ideas?” He challenges.

Yunhyeong and Jiwon both cut in. “Stop.” It’s the latter who goes on, “let’s give it a try, okay? I don’t have anything to suggest.” The last question is addressed to Junhoe who receives the silent implied do you?

Junhoe doesn’t. He lets out a frustrated sigh.

It’s even more infuriating when the phone is passed to him. Suddenly, he wishes he could unlearn the ing language.

“I was thinking—” Donghyuk begins while Yunhyeong groans. “Shut up. Let me talk.”

Yunhyeong is shaking his head. “It’s a bad idea.”

Jiwon plays the role of the mediator once again. “Let’s hear it first.”

Donghyuk’s lips don’t stretch out in a smile, but they twitch at that. “We—” Please. Junhoe almost rolls his eyes. He means him. Junhoe will have to do it “—can write to everyone the room number and just, like, ask them to come in because the room is open and give hyung a peck on the lips.”

“You’re ing kidding me.” Junhoe blurts out without letting all the words sink in. He thinks he just heard until when this suggested they let strangers inside and he already drew a line there.

“No.” Jiwon states too.

Yunhyeong makes a face at Donghyuk as if saying, see? I told you.

“But how do we make the kissing happen then?” Donghyuk fights back. “It’s just for the kiss. They come, they kiss hyung, then leave.”

“They won’t leave!” Junhoe wants to punch some senses into his friend.

Donghyuk looks at him, confused. “Why not?”

Junhoe can feel his pressure reach high levels. “When do people leave after a kiss, you ing idiot?”

Donghyuk still does not get it. “What do you mean?”

“If you write that he wants these people to come in his room to kiss him, they will think it means something else too.” Junhoe explains just so he can stop looking at the clueless expression before him.

Yunhyeong nods. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

Donghyuk looks around him. He pauses. Then, he mutters. “But I didn’t get it. I still don’t get it.”

Oh, for ’s sake.

“In Sleeping beauty the king sneaks into the room and— her?” Jiwon says patiently, proving that he’s not an entirely unlikable person.

Donghyuk deduces the not-very hidden message in that. “Ah.” He intones. After his bottom lip, though, he goes on, “we can hide in the room while they come in and—”

“Please, just shut up.” Junhoe cuts him off before he can make him. If he knew he was going to be subjected to hearing such horror, he would have rather let himself be cursed too.

He should learn to wait until changing his mind about someone because after a couple of minutes of silence Jiwon says,

“that could work? We could hide before something happens.”

Junhoe will ing hit him this time.

Jiwon glances at him as if sensing the animosity. He grimaces. “You think if I had a better plan I wouldn’t choose that instead?” He twists his mouth. “I like this as much as you do, Junhoe, so ing spare me.”

Yunhyeong is already in the middle of them, ready with his hands to avert the conflict if it degenerates. If he knew they almost came to using their fists, he would be extremely upset.

Donghyuk puts himself in between them too.

Jiwon is still looking at Junhoe. He’s got this unreadable facial expression, but when he opens his mouth nothing comes out at first despite Junhoe seeing that he’s moving his lips. A trembling exhale precedes his hushed words.

“I just want for him to wake up.”

A shudder goes through Junhoe. He feels his eyes blink repeatedly. Unconsciously.

Don’t think about it, he tells himself.

Too late.

This is another reason why Hanbin had chosen Jiwon. And he made a good decision, now Junhoe can admit that.

Jiwon is nice.

“Fine,” Junhoe finally allows. Jiwon isn’t selfish.

What were those big words he was using before? Letting go? Giving up? Moving on? Growing up? He feels like the worst jerk in the world, but he equally tells the three, “you take care of shooing those people away. I don’t want to be in the room.”

Even in these circumstances, Junhoe cannot, but think about saving his own heart.

He’ll die miserable and an , it seems. Well, ing sue him.

————

Online dating is for losers.

For unattractive people who feel lonely and and hope they will find someone slightly better looking or equally gross looking like them to connect with.

Junhoe is not usually this much of a jerk, but he’s practically being forced to set up a profile for a hookup app for Hanbin, so he’s excused for using harsh words. Just like everyone else, the worst of him comes out when he’s furious.

They’re still in the hallway.

A girl who worked there came before and asked if there was anything wrong with their rooms and Junhoe said no. If there’s a problem if they want to hang out in here. She said there weren’t any.

That was the correct answer because he would have brought the manager, the owner of this place and the ratings on ing Trivago to tears if he heard anything close to a “yes”.

“No, delete that,” Yunhyeong orders him for the third time.

Junhoe halts.

He’ll snap.

“We have to make his profile stand out,” the other justifies himself.

Junhoe squints his eyes, but relents. The single sentence he’s just typed gets erased and he’s back to having a blank page stare at him. All they’ve done so far is come up with a false name, false age, put Hanbin as a male interested in other men.

In short, they haven’t done anything.

They haven’t even found a good picture of Hanbin. Which would sound impossible given that Yunhyeong’s memory storage is full of their faces, if not that this guy only seems to capture their most shameful moments. While this is Tinder and they’re about to chat with guys and make a weird request—although not the weirdest since people always find and always will find ways to be worse than nuts—they’ve still come to the unanimous decision that they will put on something decent.

“Single and ready to mingle,” Donghyuk throws at them. He’s been segregated to looking for a potential pro pic, but he still stubbornly tries to give his unwanted help for the bio.

Junhoe throws him a look.

Donghyuk pouts. He resumes his searching.

“A good smile will make me swipe right.” Yunhyeong recites afterwards.

Junhoe thinks it’s a failure of a one liner, but starts writing.

“I worked at Subway—6 inches,” Donghyuk starts, eyes down on the phone. this. His voice gets lower and lower as he keeps reading. His eyes get bigger when he finishes, face traumatized. “No, not this one.”

Yunhyeong does not comment, immersed in his thinking. “What about we just write the type of guy Hanbin would like to date?” He says then, turning to Donghyuk and then Junhoe. He’s finally his brain.“A random guy wouldn’t do, right? So we make a list of all the characteristics Hanbin likes and wait for someone to see himself in the description.”

Donghyuk snaps his fingers. He points approvingly. “Bingo.” He abandons his job to scoot closer to them.

Something inside Junhoe is twisting, definitely disapproving of the proposal. He does not let the uncomfortable feeling talk for him, though.

Swallowing all the hostile words, he eyeballs Yunhyeong, waiting for him to start. He just wants to get over this.

“Let’s start with ‘Looking for’.” Junhoe’s thumbs start moving. “Ah, what does he like? Ah! A tall guy—”

“—who’s sorta classy,” Donghyuk chirps, “huh, sometimes.”

Yunhyeong nods. “Yes, and got a nice sense of humor?”

“Nice sense of humor?” Donghyuk parrots with a strange tone of voice. He turns to Junhoe and eyes him, maybe asking for confirmation. “I really do not think so.”

“Not like classy is there, Hyuk.” Yunhyeong says in his not-at-all vague way and gives Donghyuk a pointed look.

At that Junhoe understands the conversation pretty quickly.

Getting self-conscious, he does not let himself glance at his black pants, opting to muster what he hopes is a very impressive glare.

These s, really.

This is what he’s talking about. He’s glad Chanwoo’s not around. These guys always try to get on his nerves at the most inconvenient moments.

Junhoe considers leaving them to Google translate. However, unluckily, he can’t. So he starts counting from one to an indefinite number until his only wish is to throw the phone to the guys. It’s a method he hasn’t adopted in years. His patience is really being tested.

Donghyuk, sensing that he’s in danger, scoots backwards.

This is when Jiwon comes back. “I could only buy these from vending machines,” he tells them as soon as he arrives. He drops the sandwiches, bottles, and all in the middle of them. Since Donghyuk and Yunhyeong just got to the hotel and Junhoe was needed for the Tinder profile, he’d volunteered to go out to fetch food.

“Ah, thanks, hyung!” Donghyuk says, his face lights up as he grabs himself a hot dog.

Junhoe’s wrath doesn’t disappear, but takes a step back at the sight of bread with chicken. He’s famished so he takes two different kind for himself, unwraps a sandwich and starts eating like a savage.

“Are you done?” Jiwon asks around a can of a grape drink.

“Almost.” Donghyuk tells him, the liar. He almost chokes on a bite because karma’s a fast and has to help himself with water.

“Yeah?” Jiwon says. Junhoe is almost envious of how he is always easily convinced—sometimes he should try that. “Can I see?”

It’s so unusual seeing the smile—Jiwon’s smile—directed at him. Junhoe pushes the cellphone to the guy to make him stop and goes on with his eating.

“I can’t understand anything,” Jiwon whines. Duh. Your Korean sometimes leave a lot to be desired and you do not know a of Japanese except for how to say “thank you”—Junhoe’s got to stop with these mean thoughts. “What is it written?”

Junhoe so doesn’t want to talk. He does, anyways. “Looking for: a tall guy, with a good sense of humor.” He has taken out the last bullet point because it was bull.

Maybe he should have removed everything.

Jiwon simply nods, returning the device.

“You got anything we could add?” Donghyuk questions. “What kind of guy does Hanbin like? Do you know? Like, you should, yes? Or not?”

“Huh.” Jiwon starts, scratching the back of his hand and then the side of his jaw in clear discomfort.

This is rich coming from Junhoe who’s the defending champion of the biggest dickhead title, but that was ing insensitive. He’s not even friends with Jiwon—heck, he still does not like him, and he knows Donghyuk just opens his mouth to let it breathe, doesn’t have a brain cell working, but he snatches the biggest panini from the floor and breaks it by hitting Donghyuk repeatedly with it with too much force.

Yunhyeong retrieves the improvised bat from him. “The , June?!” He yells at him as he throws the now uneatable crumbs of bread and whatever was inside it.

If Jiwon is looking at him with some sort of expression resembling gratitude after that, Junhoe does not know. The mere thought of it sends shivers down his spine.

He just finishes his chicken sandwich, takes his rubbish, collects a can of soda and walks away.

When he hears the guys ask where he’s going, he waves the empty plastic at them. “The bin’s right here, man!” One of them points out.

As if Junhoe hadn’t noticed.

His legs don’t stop.

He needs a break.

His sanity is wavering.

He feels like he will need a week off from this vacation when Hanbin gets up. If Hanbin gets up.

It’s been less than two days. Junhoe finally turns a corner and that’s when he scrunches his eyes shut and presses the heels of his hands on them. Man, is this when he starts crying like a baby?

Like the baby that he is, apparently.

Can’t do anything good in his life. He bought a pendant that put the guy he likes to sleep. They only know that a kiss from Hanbin’s true love will break the curse. No matter how optimistic Donghyuk and Yunhyeong and how much he’s hoping (and also not hoping because at the end of the day he’s really just a selfish ) that Tinder will work out, inside him he knows it won’t.

Hanbin is going to not wake up. For—ever.

And it’s Junhoe’s fault. It’s his fault.

A tentative, “man?”, from behind him comes. . That’s Jiwon.

Junhoe does not trust himself not to start sobbing, so he just stays like this. With his hands on digging on his eyelids. He can feel his skin get hotter as he tries to prevent himself from breaking down. In front of Jiwon—why the hell is he here? What’s he doing.

This is why Junhoe should not do good actions. Because they end with him getting bitten in the , anyways. Might as well be his snark-ish self.

This trip to Japan is really the worst experience of his ing life. He’s not even ing twenty, but he can already tell that nothing will beat it. In fact, Junhoe feels Jiwon make soothing circles on his back and while that’s totally unwanted, he does not nudge the hand away because last thing he knows ing tears, furious and hot, are coming out of the corners of his eyes despite his trying to block them.

Actually, the heels are probably making it worse. He can feel the tears dripping from them. He starts gritting his teeth together and—he’s sobbing. Oh, . He’s sobbing. Loud and miserable.

His breath starts stuttering. . . .

Jiwon does not utter a single word. Just stays there, consoling Junhoe. Bless him for actually not trying once to hug Junhoe, or Junhoe in his current state would have not be able to not return it and then he will feel super ing embarrassed—not that he won’t now, but this will at least make him feel less awkward. Maybe. Probably not.

He does not know how much time passes.

It’s only when Junhoe, done with his own drama, takes his hands away and uses a forearm and then the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, that Jiwon takes a step back.

Junhoe’s eyes feel ing puffed. Like, they’ve inflated like airbags. They’re red and he bets he looks like . He looks down at his own shoes.

“You okay?” Jiwon asks him.

No. But Junhoe nods.

He can see Jiwon’s sneakers too. “It will be fine.”

No, no, chance’s high, it won’t. Junhoe nods again.

————

“Sir, please, fasten your seat belt,” the hostess was smiling, but Junhoe noticed that her eyes were sending a totally different message.

“Shi—sorry,” Junhoe said. He put his knees down and sat properly, quickly wearing the protection. Donghyuk next to him laughed straight to his face and he could hear the guys behind snickering too. He looked at them from the space left between his and Donghyuk’s seats.

“Got yourself scolded, huh?” Hanbin .

Junhoe grinned. He threw a look over to said hostess and saw her checking everyone. “She looked like she would have killed me if I did not—,” he raised his voice in a high pitch, “—fasten my seat belt.”

“Careful,” Yunhyeong told him disapprovingly, “she could hear you.”

“Yeah, his sister begged me to look after our naughty June.” Hanbin was smirking. That’s a good look on him.

That’s too easy. Junhoe knew perfectly the appropriate come back to that. “What about your sister? She did not say, mention, anything about me?”

Hanbin’s expression changed immediately at that. He threw a hard kick on Junhoe’s seat and continued until Yunhyeong made him stop.

“Sorry, sorry,” Junhoe said around laughs. “You mad?” He sneaked his hand in the space even though he’s aware he wouldn’t be able to reach Hanbin. “Aw, don’t be mad. It’s you—you shouldn’t phrase your sentences like that.”

Hanbin began flicking each of Junhoe’s outstretched fingers. “I’ll shut you up for good one of these days, June.”

Junhoe batted his eyelashes at him. “Yeah?” He had a reply that’s something along the lines of I know how I could shut you up. He chose to say instead, “I’d like to see you try.”

————

If this is really a fairy tale and Hanbin is the princess waiting for his true love’s kiss, then Jinhwan must be the fairy godmother.

They’re walking their way back with Jiwon telling him that they obviously haven’t proceeded with the making of the profile, but that they at least managed to find a good picture of Hanbin.

Only the junk is there in the hallway.

Donghyuk and Yunhyeong are not, but they do not have to look for them as they hear their voices coming from Hanbin’s room. The door is open so Jiwon just has to push it.

Junhoe hears Jinhwan first before his gaze falls on Donghyuk Facetiming the guy.

“You know you could be right.” Yunhyeong muses.

They hear Jinhwan huff from the phone positioned strategically on a tower of the remained sandwiches on the arm of the sofa. “Then try—oh. Junhoe, Jiwon.” At their names called, both say their own version of a greeting.

“What are we trying?” Jiwon asks while at the same time Donghyuk says, “hyung thinks we should try kissing Hanbin.”

Junhoe’s mind whirs at that. Come again? He chokes out. “Huh?”

“He contacted the girl from the website—” Donghyuk begins the explanation, but is overpowered by Jinhwan and so just lets the older talk, “—I contacted the girl and she said that the boy who turned out to be her sister’s true love was none other than a childhood friend of theirs. She was told later from another girl who had tried a similar magical bracelet that these objects are effective only when the person who fell victim—” Junhoe scowls at the used term “—to the spell has already met their true love. And in most cases than not, it’s actually someone very close to the person.”

The four in the room throw looks at each other.

Jiwon waves around them. “It could be—one of us?”

“A close friend.” Jinhwan says. “Could be me or Chanwoo too.” Huh. Absolutely no? “Or someone from his college group.”

Junhoe accidentally summons images of Jaewon and Mino in his head. His emotional outburst of before, albeit the humiliating fact that he was caught by Jiwon, has helped him feel better, slightly at ease.

Now, after the lastest remarks, he’s again nervous and glowering.

They realize that they’ve all stayed petrified on their feet only when Jinhwan snaps them out of their reveries. “So, kids, less standing around and more kissing.”

Junhoe is speechless.

“What if it’s none of us present?” Yunhyeong asks.

“Then you hop on that plane with Hanbin and bring him to me.” Jinhwan quickly replies, sounding entirely exasperated. His expression darkens. “I swear to God if Hanbin’s my true love, he’s going to ing regret it.”

Junhoe does not know what the other means by that, but he does not dare be curious.

Yunhyeong gazes at them. “Who wants to start?”

“Not it!” Donghyuk says way too fast, bringing his index to the tip of his nose.

They hear Jinhwan groan from the cellphone. “I swear to—”

“But why couldn’t we think about this before?” Yunhyeong blurts out. Junhoe is not sure if it’s genuine wondering or if he’s just trying to buy more time for them.

“Cause you guys are lost without me.” Jinhwan answers. “You can’t form a single neuron in five and Hanbin has taken the largest piece with him when he fell asleep.” That’s offensive. “Now, kiss.” Why is the internet connection not pulling jokes now? Dammit.

Junhoe does not move an inch. If they’re really doing it he’s not going to be the first. He’s so not going to feel mortified and sorry for his sorry when Hanbin doesn’t open his eyes after he kisses him. , that would be the last straw.

Jiwon is frozen as well, probably thinking the same.

Yunhyeong is weirded out and Donghyuk is still pressing on his ing nose.

“You go first, Donghyuk.” Junhoe mumbles without thinking.

Jiwon chimes in right after, “yeah.”

“Yeah, yeah, you go.” Yunhyeong agrees then.

“But I said not it!” Donghyuk protests. When they all just come together to go against him, he huffs. He stomps his feet towards the bed where Hanbin is lying peacefully. “You guys are ing unfair.” He roars at them, but then his demeanor changes when he looks at Hanbin.

They watch his features crumple in horror as he starts bending to kiss Hanbin. Junhoe can feel his heart in his throat.

Donghyuk’s face is almost there when he straightens all of a sudden. He cringes. “I don’t want to be Hanbin’s true love. I can’t do this.”

“It’s just a ing kiss—” Junhoe finds himself saying. He’s such a hypocrite. “Just do it!”

Donghyuk opens his mouth. He looks like he’s going to say something and Junhoe is already bracing himself, already mentally berating himself for not just shutting up, but then a collective pressure is put on Donghyuk who helplessly and alone then closes his eyes firmly before giving Hanbin a quick peck.

A surge of jealousy invades Junhoe, soon exchanging its place for tension as he watches carefully Hanbin. He can’t wake up to Donghyuk. He can’t. If he does then Junhoe does not know what he will do.

Relief washes over him when Hanbin does not give any sign.

“Okay, next.” Jinhwan, unperturbed, intones in the quietness of the room. He utters, “someone, c’mon. Yunhyeong? June?”

Junhoe’s eyes turn big as plates.

Thank God Yunhyeong strides in the direction of the bed. This time when the kiss happens, Junhoe cannot quite tell why, but he feels fine. Or, less anxious at least.

Maybe it’s because Yunhyeong has a sort of girlfriend and that he looks very much in love with her.

It’s with no surprise, but with more reassurance for Junhoe, that Hanbin remains still on the bed.

Which means that there are only two of them left to try.

Junhoe drags his eyes on Jiwon who slowly does the same to him. They do not blink as they look fixedly at one another. All the things and their friends seem to fade in the background.

Then, he snaps back to reality all of a sudden and turns to the mattress.

To Hanbin.

Everyone looks to have understood their hesitation. Even Jinhwan has stopped pushing, letting them decided on their own who will try first. How stupid will it be if it turned out neither of them is the fated partner?

On the other hand, though.

“I’ll go.” Jiwon stammers out in the end and starts shuffling towards Hanbin.

Heart speeding up, Junhoe takes a big step too.

They both halt, rotating their heads to look once again at each other.

Jiwon shifts from one foot to another. “You wanna go?”

“I—” Junhoe considers all the scenarios. He does not dwell much on them, though. Does not have to. He winces internally for some reason when he puts himself aside. “No. Go. You go.”

Jiwon’s feet are barely leaving the floor. His stance is hunched. It would be so easy to tackle him, to yank him back.

He steels next to Hanbin’s laid body. It would be so easy to stop him since he does not look like he wants to be there either. His face is so painfully blank, but when Junhoe’s thinking that he dislikes Jiwon, he dislikes him so ing much—then Jiwon deflates as he starts bending down. He manages to make softest, yet more pained look.

He’s closing his eyes, and that’s when it hits Junhoe like a punch in his ing gut.

Jiwon’s lips are on Hanbin’s. He pulls away not long after, opening his eyes. He’s hopeful. He looks so hopeful.

Oh.

.

Jiwon likes Hanbin.

Jiwon just wants for Hanbin to wake up. It does not matter for Jiwon who it is, he just wants Hanbin to wake up. Jiwon is a good person—this much Junhoe knows—but he must draws limitations too. He would have given his all even if this had happened to someone else. Heck, even for Junhoe.

But this is another story.

Jiwon didn’t like those ideas either, but he’d always said it’s okay, everything’s always okay. As long as it is for Hanbin.

And Jiwon still hangs out with them and it hurts him, but he talks, laughs, jokes with Hanbin and he looks so happy. When Hanbin is happy.

What the hell.

Jiwon is ing in love with Hanbin.

The revelation does not stop the sense of victory from growing as moments tick by and the situation does not change. Junhoe’s such a bad person.

If he’s disappointed, then Jiwon’s good at masking it because his face is impassible when he retreats. He stands next to Donghyuk, putting his hands in his pockets, eyes ahead of him.

Well, he’s a really tough one.

Junhoe does not miss the secretive small pat on the back that Donghyuk gives Jiwon, though, nor Yunhyeong throwing worried glances at Jiwon’s direction.

It’s always Jinhwan who interrupts them. “Well, let’s get this over.” He says, but there’s something in his voice. Sadness, maybe.

With a bit of courage that he’s found in whom he’s always seen as his biggest rival’s failure, Junhoe gives a short nod, more to himself than as a response to the other. It’s ing stupid and cruel—he should sympathize with Jiwon, but he can’t. He has always deemed himself inferior because of previous events and now, at least before he’s doomed as well, he wants to bask in this feeling.

Only insecure people find happiness when others are hurting, Junhoe, he tells himself unconsciously.

And to think that Jiwon had been comforting him before.

He would say that all is fair in love and war, but truth is Junhoe’s just a . He does not think his feelings can compete with Jiwon’s.
And yet.

Junhoe does not remember moving to the bed. He can feel the shivers invading his body again when he looks at Hanbin.

Before reluctance could prevent him, he lowers his head.

It’s really incredible how not a single thought is running in his mind right now. In movies you get these flashbacks of the couple doing sweet things together when moments like this are on, but Junhoe doesn’t.

He feels empty. Maybe light. Like, he’s still lacking of strength and he’ll collapse in a second or another. That could be.

Hanbin as a ing princess pricked by a wooden saber that was the pendant of a gold chain Junhoe had bought to impress him—ridiculous.

The kiss is far from how he had envisioned it happening. Junhoe brushes his lips on Hanbin’s, has to swallow in the middle of it and he has to clench his trembling hands. It’s not a hot, steamy moment. It’s not sweet, not cheesy nor romantic. Not a kiss that just, you know, happens because it feels natural for them to.

He can’t help, but think that this is probably how it feels like kissing a dead person. Junhoe wonders if this is why Jiwon had just given what’s the equivalent of a peck too.

“And they live happily ever after.”

Junhoe almost curses a second later. There it is. That voice.

He’s jerking back, about to bolt when he hears the guys shout Hanbin’s name and then his gaze returns on Hanbin—to find that Hanbin’s eyebrows are twitching, his mouth contorting and then Hanbin’s eyes ing flutter open to look back at all of them with an inquisitive expression before he’s banging against his chest with his hand as he suddenly starts coughing.

Yunhyeong is rushing to him. He kneels. “Here, drink some water, Binnie.”

Donghyuk is staring, stunned.

Hanbin turns to the offered bottle and brings it to his mouth. When he’s done, he says, “thanks”. Then, he’s eyeballing all of them. “Why are you all in my room?”

Oh.

Oh.

It’s like Junhoe has lost control over himself completely. he sidesteps Yunhyeong and then, because he has missed this ing idiot and because he has the right, he wraps his arms around Hanbin—an awoken Hanbin—squeezing him in a tight hug.

“Junhoe?” Hanbin’s tone is questioning.

There’s a ruckus around them. Donghyuk has finally recovered. Jinhwan is screeching against them. Yunhyeong tries to hold Hanbin too, but Junhoe isn’t letting him.

It’s him. Junhoe cannot ing believe this.

————

Jinhwan hangs up after giving Hanbin a hard time for around ten minutes straight. He literally ends with, “I thought you were the smart child. I might have to re-consider. Just stay in the ing hotel until you come back to Korea.” Yes, he’s pissed.

Hanbin has this cute ing lost look on his face when the video-call disconnects. Yunhyeong and Donghyuk have both joined him on the bed with the first guy force-feeding him, and despite Hanbin imploring that he does not feel hungry and desperately trying to make him stop and ask for help, they all just told him to ing eat. Magic or no magic, it’s been two days and he’s got to, if only to please them.

“It was really the necklace?” Hanbin asks once they’re satisfied that he’s at least managed to finish half a cheese bread and Donghyuk is insisting he drinks more water.

“Yeah, the one Junhoe had bought from that woman, remember?” Yunhyeong tells him. He lays his fingers on Hanbin’s hair and start combing them even though they’re still perfect.

Hanbin seems to absorb this information. He looks down at himself, then up to the two. “I’ve been asleep since Friday?”

“Yup.” Both Donghyuk and Yunhyeong say simultaneously.

Hanbin looks having a hard time accepting that. Nobody can blame him. They’ve shown him the current date on their phones and Jinhwan before had brought up his digital clock that they’ve never found out how to adjust so they couldn’t have manipulated it, to prove their words. He skids his eyes on each of them.

Junhoe feels his face start heating up when the gaze lands on him even if it’s just for a brief second. He’s acting like a ing . What the hell is wrong with him?

When Hanbin’s pupils shift to Jiwon, the latter offers him a small smile.

So far neither he nor Junhoe have said anything. They’ve sort of been hanging on the back. Jiwon’s on the sofa while Junhoe’s leaning with his side against the wall after Yunhyeong had succeeded in pushing him away from Hanbin. They have not moved ever since.

“Where’s the necklace?” Hanbin asks.

“Ah, you know.” Donghyuk shrugs. He smirks at Junhoe. “Lost.”

Hanbin nods. He says, “and the lady?”

“Gone too.” Donghyuk provides. He starts kneading his hands on the pillow like a cat as he starts blabbering, “that was scary. We looked for her, found her the day after you fell asleep. She started talking to June—” Hanbin darts his eyes at Junhoe again and Junhoe’s heart ing skips a beat “—she handed me my phone and then she just disappeared. Like, disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Hanbin repeats dumbly. Then, he nods without really showing like he feels it. He pushes his lips in contemplation and then he finally asks, “so, who’s this true love?”

Junhoe feels his veins malfunctioning. He thinks he’s getting pale all of a sudden. Should he not feel—huh, happiness? He’s supposed to be the destined match for Hanbin. The soulmate. Or as if the middle-aged woman had cheesily called it, “the true love.” The one and only. .

He is not looking forward to Hanbin’s reaction when he finds that out, though.

“Who do you think it is?” Donghyuk is starting to smile. To look absolutely gleeful. Like, he starts sparkling from all over his pores. “Wanna try guessing?”

Junhoe was grateful when Jinhwan omitted giving out that detail earlier, now he does not know anymore if it would have been better if the other had dropped the name. His palms start to itch and he focuses on them as his fingers start curling in on to scratch.

He hears Yunhyeong—angel Yunhyeong—reprimand Donghyuk first before—being the traitor that he actually ing is—say, “it’s not him or me,” while moving his forefinger from himself to Donghyuk.

Junhoe is gritting his teeth so much his jaw hurts. However, it is not because he is mad, but, well, he’s—frightened. Which sounds like bull.

If his younger self saw him now, he would make fun of his . Like, look at you. Trembling like a leaf. That’s so lame.

Still, stupid voice aside whispering in his ear and Hanbin waking up thanks to his magical kiss, Junhoe cannot help, but think that they do not mean much. The possibility of him being rejected is there. The fairy tale setting had crumbled as soon as Hanbin’s eyes opened, after all.

They’re back to reality now and if there’s something Junhoe knows that’s been the only secure thing all over the years is that there’s always something crawling towards him to bite him and ruin his life.

Jiwon chooses this exact span of time to turn his head towards him to look at him.

Junhoe stares back.

He’s a bit turned aback when Jiwon’s expression starts to change. He sees Jiwon gnaw on his lips, then the inside of his left cheek before his throat works up and down as he gulps down.

Jiwon blinks a lot of ing times. He brings a hand back around his neck when he hangs his head.

“It’s you?” Hanbin is asking.

Junhoe does not close his eyes and leaves, but he wishes he could do that. With arms still folded on his chest, he slowly meets Hanbin’s look. Maybe he’s still too head up his own crap, but he does not recognize what kind of face the other is pulling. It’s not disgusted, that much he can at least say.

He doesn’t know why, but Hanbin's searching the answer in him and what he does instead of confirming with a simple “yes” is raise his ing hand.

“Gn.” It’s what he says because Junhoe’s a ing idiot.

Junhoe loses his not-composure when Jiwon slaps him on the thigh and then gets up to leave. Soon after Donghyuk and Yunhyeong are getting off the bed too. Yes, trust them to abandon him in times of needs. ing awful friends.

“It’s you.” Hanbin is telling him.

Junhoe does not know what to say. He lowers his arm. “Yeah,” he finally lets out, clearing his throat. Then, without thinking about it, “are you disappointed?”

Hanbin’s eyes are huge. “Huh, no,” he denies, but he’s not jumping in utter joy, either. Which is the thing that would put Junhoe slightly at ease.

Junhoe starts tapping his foot on the floor. “Yeah?” He’s not going to bite his fingernails, though. He’s not.

Hanbin does not reply right away. He stares. A minute after he’s moving his legs to put his feet on the ground.

He knows he should not get alarmed, but Junhoe does, anyways, and he’s running to the guy’s side. “Hey, no, you should rest.” He does not know why he phrased it like that and he actually has to scrunch up his nose in a grimace. An imbecile.

Hanbin gives him a pointed look.

“I know.” Junhoe sighs. “It just—came out.”

“To compensate I should probably stay awake for these remaining days in Japan, huh?”

Junhoe does not like the idea of Hanbin still being in this country, even though he knows it was him who had put Hanbin in danger. That’s the reason why he utters, “maybe we should come back to Korea, yeah?”

Hanbin is quiet. He’s studying Junhoe’s features. When he speaks, his voice is barely audible, “hey, June, you’re not going to cheat on me, are you?”

That’s—nonsense. There are a lot of things Junhoe could start with. They are not together for once. If they are going to try, he would like for it be clear. He needs to hear words. Reassurance. He’s a ing coward when it comes to Hanbin, after all. That’s the ing truth.

Plus, Junhoe does not know how Hanbin can say that when he had stopped getting involved with other people for a while now and had only been putting his attention on him.

Is that why he did that? Is this why he chose Jiwon?

The most important question is this, though, “will you trust my answer?”

Hanbin takes his time.

Junhoe would like for him to hurry up, but for once does not follow his instincts. He waits.

Good choice.

“Yes,” Hanbin says with a firm nod. “I will.”

Junhoe finds himself quickly saying, “if you give me a chance—well, you’ll never regret it.” So ing eloquent. Damn.

Hanbin looks. He his head to the side. When he reaches out to cup Junhoe’s face, the latter looks like he stopped breathing for a second before he’s leaning in on the touch. He smiles, then his features are screwing up in confusion.

“True love, really?” His tone of voice makes Junhoe grin.

“Bull, right?”

The sudden found joyfulness gets pleasantly substituted with surprise the moment he sees Hanbin’s face getting closer and understands what’s coming next. A slow, sweet and warm kiss. Just like how their first kiss should have been.

Junhoe has to bring their lips together again when Hanbin seems to be pulling away.

Eventually they have to stop as they hear Donghyuk pound on the door to ask them if everything is okay.

Junhoe makes a face at that, but when Hanbin snorts a laugh, he starts smiling too. “He’s a pain in the .”

“Yeah, like you.” Hanbin teases him, a smirk playing on his lips.

Junhoe’s lips twitch. He stares. “You used to have princess eyelashes, you know?” He bursts out laughing when Hanbin shoves his face away. He starts giggling like crazy after he says, “is that how you treat your ing Prince Charming?”

Hanbin’s face. Oh, my God.

 

 

* + *

Donghyuk did not mean to follow him. Okay, fine, he did. Now that he’s here he might as well let his presence known. It would be super creepy of him to just stand here watching Jiwon in front of him, right?

“Oi.” He calls. When the other does not turn around nor give him any reply, he says again, “Oi. Oi, Jiwon hyung. Jiwon.”

Finally, Jiwon looks back at him from him staying petrified in front of the vending machine. He’s got his cap on, the one with whoops in different sizes hooked on the visor, and he’s also wearing his black sweater with a hoodie. It’s a bit hard seeing his face like this.

“Oh, Dongie.” Jiwon tells him. He does not sound strange, but then he never does. A smile can be made out under his clothing. “What the hell are you doing up at this hour?”

Donghyuk easily retorts, “could ask you the same question,” although he says it while muttering. He’s never known how to do this. If we could go back in time, he would have maybe thrown Yunhyeong into this whole thing because Yunhyeong would be better at it.

But then again, it was not Yunhyeong who Jiwon turned to when he needed someone to talk to.

Donghyuk fidgets when Jiwon turns his back on him again.

“Japan’s ing crazy, huh.” Jiwon says. “I liked the koi, though. They were pretty cute.”

Donghyuk ponders about the situation a bit. He hasn’t found the words he wants to use yet, but he takes a step forward. “Hyung—” He tries to look for a better way to phrase it, but in the end he decides the classic will do “—are you okay?”

Silence.

He can see Jiwon’s image reflected on the vending machine’s glass, but it’s not clear enough to make out Jiwon’s expression.

Donghyuk watches Jiwon raise a finger towards it only to drop it immediately.

“Hyung—”

The voice he hears is broken. “No, not really.”

And now Donghyuk does not know what to say to make the situation better. What exactly do you tell someone who has just his heart absolutely broken in thousands and thousands of pieces?

He bites on his lower lip.

Jiwon’s head move up, like he’s looking at the ceiling.

“You could do way better than Hanbin,” Donghyuk begins softly. He feels bad right after that because it’s not like he means it. He has just blurted out the first thing that has crossed his mind to fill the quietness between them. In the end, he decides to just ask. “How can I help?”

So he can just get told what he needs to do without him trying to guess and fail.

Jiwon does not reply for a long time. Then, he brings his hand up for a second. He repeats that action twice then at the third it sinks to Donghyuk what’s going on.

He puts a hand on Jiwon’s shoulder and squeezes hard. Without a single word.

Jiwon’s trying his best to cry as silently as possible.

Donghyuk would like to say that it’s okay to let it all out. That he’s been hurting for so much, he’s been in so much pain. That he’s been so ing strong all tris time, that he’s so so ing strong, but he just has this lump in his throat as Jiwon finally lowers his head and yanks his hood down.

He feels worse when he catches a glimpse of Jiwon’s face, red, he’s and biting his lips as tears pass on them.

“It will get better.” Donghyuk promises. He does not know if Jiwon has heard him, but time will fix it. If there’s something true is that after a while all wounds get healed.

He puts his other hand on Jiwon’s right shoulder, holding both of them tight.

Jiwon tries to talk. “It hurts,” he manages to say.

Donghyuk blinks. Oh, gosh. He falters. “I—I’m sorry.”

Jiwon pulls his hoodie lower.

They end up sitting with their backs against the vending machine with no coins to get anything from it. When Yunhyeong finds them, Donghyuk puts a finger in front of his lips to tell him to be silent.

“How is he?” Yunhyeong asks, eyebrows drawn in worry.

Donghyuk shakes his head a little.

---

Comments are, as usual, highly appreciated. Also, you can find this fanfic on AO3. A short Epilogue will come this week.