1988.

June brought an impossibly brutal sun, a gentle yet dangerous sea, and best of all, the end of the school year. Ryosuke sprinted out of the building as fast as his short little legs could carry him, leaving Howon behind in the dust, laughing and picking up all the papers his friend had dropped. "Slow down," he called. "The summer's not going anywhere."

"But it is!" Ryosuke insisted, though he did stop to let Howon catch up. "Time is ticking and we need to enjoy the summer before we become seniors and go off to university! I don't want this to be our last summer together and all we've done is mope around."

The last part was in Japanese, and Howon blinked, surprised that he'd understood everything. "Well," he said, and stopped, unable to summon any words. "Well, where's Myung and Eun?"

Ryosuke made a noise of impatience and grabbed his hand, tugging him towards the beach. "They're probably busy cleaning up the school or something," he said, not waiting for Howon's answer. "Let's go and they can catch up later."

The summer sea sparkled a deep sapphire blue, and the screaming laughter of young children splashing in the shallows made the afternoon seem like a surrealist painting from far away. Howon barely had time to enjoy the view before Ryosuke’s stripped off his shirt, carelessly tossing his pressed uniform jacket onto the sand.

"Ryo!" He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the soft lines of his abdominal muscles, and Ryosuke laughed in embarrassment, sitting down to take off his shoes. "Ryosuke, what are you doing?"

"It's just some water, it won't hurt us." He rolled up his pant legs and turned to Howon, holding out a hand. "Well?"

Of course Howon went with him, discarding his own shoes and socks. The ocean was still breathtakingly cold, but a little water never hurt anybody. Ryosuke giggled, actually giggled, and gleefully scooped up a handful of water to throw at Howon. He yelled, splashing Ryosuke back, and the boy fell backwards, landing in the sea with a curse and a laugh, wiping water off his face, hair drenched and plastered to his forehead and looking ethereal, beautiful, more so than ever before.

It was then and there that Howon finally admitted his feelings for Yamada Ryosuke, playing in the water like a couple of five-year-old children, laughing until their stomachs hurt, sprawling onto the soft white sand and just lying there watching the colors of the sky shift from blue to orange to purple. And it was then and there that Howon made the best and worst decision of his life, sitting up and grabbing Ryosuke's hand and kissing him when he turned to ask what was wrong, and the softness of Yamada Ryosuke's lips against his, salty from the sea, was the best thing that could have ever happened to him.

Well, maybe the second best, because the first was Ryosuke kissing him back, and the smile on his lips as he did so, and they rolled around in the sand, fighting for dominance, until Howon finally managed to pin Ryosuke down by the wrists. Even then, lips swollen, cheeks red, sand in his hair and on his skin, Ryosuke looked like a god, a Greek statue that some poor archaeologist had dug up and painstakingly cleaned, pristine and glowing and in the end simply his, and Howon couldn't resist pressing their lips together again.

But they needed to go home, and while Ryosuke cleaned up and dusted all the sand off his chest, Howon washed his face in the salty ocean water. Then, with a small, embarrassed smile, Ryosuke held his hand out, and Howon took it, and they walked down the small dirt road leading back home, the sun setting slowly behind them.

They dropped their hands before they reached town, and thus began a summer of secrets, of hiding from parents and classmates, of stolen kisses behind trees while Myungsoo and Naeun called impatiently for them to come back from relieving their bladders. It became a summer of extraordinary happiness, but also one of unbelievable frustration. Howon wanted to scream, wanted to tell the whole world that he was in love, but Ryosuke held his head down and seemed content with hiding away.

Howon would have done anything for Ryosuke, and so they hid. They hid when the trees turned to fire under the late autumn sun, when the snow fell softly outside Ryosuke's window, when the cherry blossoms burst to life in the school courtyard. But they couldn’t hide forever, and it was the fifteenth of March when Howon decided to stop hiding.

---

2009.

"It really should have been obvious." Myungsoo stirs his coffee with a stick, absentmindedly looking out the window at the pedestrians passing by. The sky is dull gray, without rain but still dreary. "I always wondered why you took so long peeing in the woods."

Naeun gasps. "That's such a disgusting thing to say!" But she's laughing too, and Howon can't help but chuckle. "I think some part of me suspected, but I was afraid of what would happen if it was true."

Howon nods. An opened sugar packet lies next to his mug, and he picks it up, tearing it into shreds. "I was just tired of hiding. I thought you would understand."

Something flickers in Myungsoo's eyes, and he lets out a breath. "I wish I had, Howon. I wish I had."

---

1989.

Howon never liked literature, but if he had paid attention in class, he would have known that it was the ides of March. It was a bad day anyway, cold and rainy, and Ryosuke was home with a fever. What compelled him to hold Myungsoo and Naeun after class, Howon will never know, but he remembers the pounding anxiety in his chest as he told them that he and Ryosuke were together.

There'd been no expression on Myungsoo's face, but Naeun, after a nervous glance at her boyfriend, had said, "Oh, that's great! Congratulations! How long has it been?"

"Months." Howon remembers feeling relieved that Naeun, at least, had taken it well. "It started in June."

"The entire summer?" Myungsoo's voice was low and cold, and his arms were crossed. It was the first time Howon had seen him so mad. "And you didn't think to tell us?"

At a loss for words, Howon could only stammer, but Naeun jumped to his defense. "Myung, they were scared. You know how some people would take it..." She trailed off, leaving the implied message clear in the air. It's not like there are many homouals here.

"You're a disgrace." How had those harsh words come out of Myungsoo's mouth? Why did they cut through Howon's heart and leave it bleeding with pain? Why did Naeun not shush him like she did before? And why had they left him alone there, sitting in the darkened classroom as the rain poured down outside, as if the entire sky was crying for him?

He stopped by Ryosuke's house to check on him, finding his host family to be out. He'd been glad to see him, Howon remembers, struggling to sit up amidst a jumble of vertigo and nausea, but Howon pressed him down, gently, and kissed his forehead. Was he a disgrace? Whom had he disgraced by loving Ryosuke? Why was loving a boy considered a disgrace? The thoughts flitted through his head as he sat by Ryosuke's bed, watching him sleep, the steady rise and fall of his chest as the fever finally broke during the night.

No, he decided, he wasn't a disgrace. Not for loving Yamada Ryosuke.